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Science Fiction Books - Daily
Short Science Fiction Collection 097 - Various
09:41:47
"Short Science Fiction Collection 097" invites listeners into a realm where the boundaries of reality are stretched by the imaginative prowess of various authors. This anthology showcases the speculative nature of science fiction, encouraging thought...
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fast and all in one place so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER, click grainger.com or just stop by Granger for the ones who get it done. The Creature Inside by Jack Sharkey this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Read by Ben Tucker the Creature Inside by Jack Sharkey 1 How Much do they tell you about the fix we're in? Said Dr. Alan Burgess to his visitor. Lieutenant Jerry Norcris shook his head. They said you'd fill me in. They said it was urgent. Burgess paused, lighted a cigarette, then belatedly offered one to Jerry, who declined. Well, he said, interspersing his words with short, nervous puffs of smoke, about a year ago I stumbled on a way to reverse the process of an electroencephalograph to play pre recorded thoughts and experiences to a man's mind. You zoologists with your contact process for penetrating newly discovered fauna's minds will be familiar with the process. Luckily for us. Jerry eyed him. Go on. My development involves an infinitely selective feedback. We give the subject a saturating dose of inflowing concepts. His mind is free to choose among them and to link them. Take bigness, affluence, and danger, for instance. The subject puts them together and fleshes them out. He could experience a large, expensive fission bomb falling onto him, or he could be sacrificed to an immense golden idol or. Or anything that his inner mind chose. I begin to understand, said Jerry. The overlay influences all the senses. The subject thinks he's really undergoing whatever he conjures up, and you use it for therapy, letting him work off his aggressions and frustrations in what seems to him an actual universe. Correct, except for the tense, said Alan Burgess. I was doing that until Monday of this Week. He leaned forward across the desk. We screened the subjects carefully because certain psychoses could be disastrous to the subject. In my device paranoia, for instance, the man would be amid unutterable horrors with danger on every side. He'd emerge a gibbering idiot if he didn't die of heart failure first. Emerge? Asked Jerry, frowning. I'd assume you used a helmet, such as we do in Contact. Burgess sighed. Unfortunately, I am paying the penalty of lone wolf experimentation. I wish I'd had the sense to route the input to the brain through a helmet, but I didn't. Instead, I installed the person in an observation room. The influencing factor was nutrition. Intravenous feedings wouldn't have served the purpose of the observer. Sometimes the subject's choice of foodstuffs is significant. He had to be let move about his mind in a make believe world, his body actually moving about a room we could see into. So I had an atomic duplicator installed. The hospital got one last year for making radium, turning cancerous growths into normal flesh, regrowing bone and the like. Should the subject then grow hungry, the duplicator would be triggered by his conviction of eating. In his mind, he might be hanging from a branch by his tail, for instance. The duplicator's production of bananas, coconuts, or whatever would give us a further clue to his state of mind. You see, so far, sound enough, Dr. Burgess, said Jerry. So what went wrong? I assume something did or I wouldn't be here. We made a terrible error. We tried observing a man named Anthony Mawson in our gadget. I diagnosed his case as simple inferiority complex. My fault. Wrong diagnosis. Mawson has megalomania. A gorgeous case of it. Of course, he's not the first such case to fool psychiatrists. You see, his outward shyness, soft spoken voice, and general gawkishness is due to feeling superior to others, not the reverse. He feels Smarter, Stronger, Braver, etc. Than everybody else in creation. But he also feels that nobody knows it but himself. Hence his indrawing, his brooding, taciturn gentility. Jerry Norkris prodded, what happened with Mawson when you put him in your machine? I don't know, said Burgess. No one's been able to see into the machine since he entered it on Monday. He couldn't have escaped.
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Narrator/Announcer
No.
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I wish he had. Anthony Mawson is still in that room, in his own private universe, and we can't get him out of it. We've tried cutting the power to the machine. The opacity Inside the room remains. We sent two men in after him. They never came out. How could he possibly asked Jerry. Burgess shook his head. We can only guess. Our theory is that he he's used the duplicator to make the entire room self sustaining. Normally we could wait till he runs out of material to feed the duplicator, but we can't wait on the lives of those two men. Nor can we chance his expanding his universe. Norcris frowned. Expanding it? Burgess nodded. By perhaps feeding the duplicator with the room itself. With a pickaxe, he can start hewing down the very walls, or even have the duplicator build a robot that will take care of its need for material to build with. Against this development, we have surrounded the room completely with a force shield, limiting his outward progress to 2ft of concrete in any direction. But the room is approximately 30ft square and 20ft high. With all that mass, he could exist in there for years. And my job is to get him out, said Jerry. Yes. The government feels that a contact specialist's the only kind of man to sin into this madman's world. You men are used to extrasomatic experiences, and you've learned to live with danger without losing your heads. Well, said Jerry, getting up, I guess that sums up the situation sufficiently. Burgess nodded sadly. Any further briefing is useless. Impossible, really. I've told you the situation, and you can certainly imagine the danger. But as for the solution, well, you'll just have to feel your way and do whatever you think best. Jerry paused beside Burgess at the door to the hall. One thing, Doctor. When I get into the influence of the machine, what kind of universe will I be in? Mine or Mawson's? I can only theorize on that, said Burgess. My guess would be that you'll find both in there, one vying for supremacy over the other. This fight won't be man to man. It will be universe against universe. 2. There had been no sensation at all as Jerry stepped through the flat sheet of grayness in the doorway. No more physical awareness than a blind man might feel when passing through the beam of a powerful light. Perhaps there was a slight sensation of the mere presence of the energies that kept the opacity in existence. But that sensation, Jerry knew, was psychological, not actual. Although, he realized as his world became an infinity of opalescent gray. In this place a psychological awareness will be no different from a genuine physical sensation. Better be careful of what I think about in this psychokinetic fog. The thought was barely formulated when the grayness changed it became moist against his flesh and started swirling in tendrils about him. Damn it, be careful, he belatedly cautioned his mind. Now the stuff is fog. Ahead of him in the swirling mist, a brighter than gray glow led his footsteps forward. He found himself standing beneath an overhanging marquee. Its black under surface was runneled with condensed moisture amid the garish naked bulbs that haloed the wet cement sidewalk. A red coated doorman, resplendent behind rows of bright brassy buttons, gave him a smile as he pulled open the door that led to the club. Jerry nodded and went inside. Thick crimson carpet cushioned his footfalls as he moved cautiously through an empty lobby, then down a white marble staircase toward the ballroom. Dimly, he was aware that the band at the far end of the mammoth room was playing music. What song? He didn't know, until a chance courting reminded him of a popular song of the day. At which point that, suddenly, was the tune. The tables ringing the dance floor were covered with bright linen and shining silver. The tables were empty of patrons, however, until Jerry casually thought, I should think business would be better. Suddenly a horde of laughing couples appeared in the chairs with hurrying waiters bringing champagne trays and menus to their guests. The men wore tuxedos. The women were in evening dress. He looked suddenly at himself and saw that his uniform was now the official dress uniform of the Space Corps. Before he could conquer it, his mind voiced a quick wish that he shouldn't be dining alone. And then a girl was rising from her place at the table beside the dance floor, hurrying to greet him, hands outstretched. Her fingers were small and strong and warm. She smiled up at him. Jerry, darling. Despite her being only arm's length from him, he could not see her well at all. His impression was merely one of youth, loveliness, and girlness. But then, as he tried to ascertain precisely what she looked like, hidden corners of his mind began to supply each detail an instant before his conscious quest for it, and Jerry, in a few moments, was suddenly staggered with delighted shock. Very few men are privileged to find a girl who lives up to all their dreams of perfection in a woman. Hair as soft as cobweb, as fluffy as dancing clouds as golden as flowing honey, cascaded down about a slender alabaster throat and dyed in golden ripples on smooth white shoulders. Eyes the rich brown of raw chocolate gazed serenely at him from under red gold brows and jet lashes, their patrician serenity permeated with a touch of twinkling impishness. Her lips were soft and not unlike berry stained velvet, sweet and warm and tempting, her mouth generous and tilted at the corners unto a smile of greeting, obviously the result of her subduing a frank laugh of joy at seeing him. Geometrically perfect teeth flashed white as porcelain between her lips. Her gown was a shimmering midnight blue, highlighted with random sprinkles of brightly coruscating gems. Even as his lips parted to ask her name, Jerry knew it and spoke it softly. Carol, listen, she said softly, tilting her head toward where the band had begun a new song. Swift, urgent and rapturous. It floated through the room, surrounded the two of them, took possession of them. Then Carol was in his arms and Jerry was dancing out onto the floor with her. The other couples were a blur of forgotten figures that swayed. Jerry knew the melody. It was their song, their own private love song, the one that had been playing on the night when they both knew suddenly that there could be no one else for either of them but the other. As they returned to their table, Jerry realized that Carol was now garbed in a white peasant blouse and bright flowered flaring skirt, and that her hair was drawn back at the temples to expose her ears, now adorned with golden hoops. The table was in a lattice backed booth covered with a red and white checkered cloth. The inner surface of the table held salt, pepper, grated cheese and breadsticks, matching cruets of pale olive oil and dark vinegar. The band was now a five man gypsy ensemble. Remember the first time we came here? Jerry asked Carol, her eyes at once upon his face and distant, dreamy. As she smiled, Jerry noticed with dull horror that one of her eyes was perceptibly lower than the other. The teeth she flashed his way were mottled with brown stains. She took hold of his fingers with her own. Carol, he said shakily, staring at the knuckly red rod hands that clutched at his. What's happening? Happening? She said, her voice a raucous croak of amusement. Nothing's happening. In fact, you're probably one of the dullest guys I ever got stuck with. She tossed her head petulantly. Coarse straw colored hair flipped away from her thick neck. Her breath was sour with wine and miasmic with garlic.
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Event Host/Local Personality
Carol.
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Commercial Announcer
He cried. Don't whine. She snapped viciously. I hate a guy who whines. With that she shoved out of the booth and waddled toward the rear of the coffee house, one hand scratching at a bulge of flesh that overhung the too tight girdle. Her black leotards were twisted and dull as she passed the flashing rainbow lights of the brassy jukebox Jerry shoved away from the table, overturning his coffee and its cracked china cup. Then he wove his way through the reek and smoke toward the door through which she had vanished. When he got there, the door was a peeling poster on a bare brick wall advertising some long forgotten show. His fingers scrabbled on rough mortar for a moment, then he turned and paced back to his cot, where he flopped on his back in the long shadows of the bars. Norcris, said the guard coming into the cell. This is it. The brass uniform buttons flashed brightly. Strong hands were lifting him from the cot, dragging him down a long corridor toward a steel door. As they got there, the door opened wide and Jerry saw the gaping maw of hungry steel gears, while behind him a man's voice droned prayers. Then, before the guard could shove Jerry forward into that waiting mechanical mouth, Jerry noticed the odd shimmer of grayness that lay between himself and the waiting teeth, and he remembered that he was in a world of illusion. At precisely that moment he knew beyond a doubt that those waiting jaws were illusion and form only an atomic duplicator does not have to chew its intake it merely dissolves the atomic bonds with the rays that flash between its power plates on either side of the Disruption platform. The waiting mouth and teeth were mere symbols in Jerry's mind of what was about to occur. They were unreal, but they could be fatal. He shut his eyes, shoved backwards with his feet, and thought of Carol as he had first glimpsed her. When he opened his eyes once more, she was standing before him in her ballroom gown again, and the band was just beginning to play their song once more. Jerry, she said, taking his arm, dance with me. No, we're in danger here. Come on, I'll get your coat. We've got to get away quickly. A spark of alarm showed briefly in her eyes, then she nodded wordlessly and hurried up the marble staircase with him to the lobby. Jerry got her coat from the check room, a marvelous silvery fur that covered her from neck to waist, and then they were headed out into the fog together. Good evening to you, sir, said the doorman, eyes and buttons bright. Jerry grunted and led Carol off down the street into the fog. Where are we going? She asked breathlessly, trying to keep pace away. I hope, he said. Even their movement from the ballroom could be sheer illusion. Just Jerry tried moving from the club entrance in the exact reverse of the motion in which he'd first approached it, trying to achieve the real doorway that led from the experimental room into the antiseptic hospital corridor where Burgess waited. But the fog continued to be fog. It would not take on the form of that intangible gray shimmering that guarded the entrance to Anthony Mawson's megalomaniac universe. If I could only see where he began. Then every tendril of fog was gone. Before him lay the cold blackness of outer space, pinpointed with hard, unwinking stars. Jerry recoiled from the viewplate, shaken, and turned around to see Carol. Her eyes were wide and startled as she glanced about at the metal confines of the control cabin. Jerry had just time enough to think how incongruous she looked in her fur jacket and long blue black gown. And then she was clothed in the neat gray uniform of the wasp trim, short sleeved shirt and sharply creased shorts. Jerry, said Carol. She slipped her arm through his, staring at the infinite stars in the viewplate. What are we running from? He tried to think but could not remember. There's some danger behind us. We have to get away from it. Carol. It means complete destruction if we're caught. Carol stared helplessly at the stars in the viewplate. But where are we running to? Jerry shook his head. Impossible to tell. Not without the help of a good astrogator. Out in space, stars shift and magnitudes change. I'm not even qualified to guess, sire, said the astrogator, handing a clipboard to Jerry. We can reach any of these seven stars in a few hours. Just tell me where you'd prefer to go. Jerry turned to the man, resplendent in his neat Space Corps uniform jacket bright with brass buttons. When he tried to focus upon the man's features, he could detect nothing. We'd better choose the quickest trip, jerry said after a moment's indecision. No telling how much fuel we have left. The astrogator nodded. I'm afraid that's out of my department. All right, sir, but if you'd care to check the tanks. Without waiting for a reply, the man turned and began to pick his way carefully toward the rear of the spaceship, stepping from girder to girder. The floor, Jerry noticed idly as he followed, was exposed to open space between the curving ribs of steel that formed the framework of the ship. Careful now, he said, helping Carol along from one to the other. That's vacuum out there. We don't want to fall through. Ahead of Jerry, the implacable man with the brass buttons was nearly to the steel door masking the blast chamber, where the components of fuel were mingled and ignited. Jerry giddily aware of every hazardous step over the squares of star speckled blackness, kept one hand on Carol's arm, the other on her chessboard. Don't spill any of the men, she cautioned as the diminutive plastic figures danced and rattled on the board. I don't intend to search the whole cosmos for a pawn. Here you go, sir, said the politely insistent astrogator, opening the steel door before Jerry yawned an oval of intense white flame, the radiating heat crisping against his skin and hair. The fission rate, jerry mumbled, consulting his wristwatch. I've got to time it, or I won't be able to calculate the amount of fuel still left in the bulkheads. Count it by step, sir, suggested the astrogator. One, said Jerry, stepping out toward the blind coruscation of heat. Two, he said, feeling carefully for the next girder. Then the toe of his boot slipped from the metal, and he realized with a horrible lancing of adrenaline through his abdomen, that he was falling out the opening between the girders. The only salvation would be a shove with his still braced rear foot, but that would carry him directly into the inferno of burning fuel, an eternity of falling through icy vacuum against an instant of intolerable, searing pain. The fire. Gasped Jerry, toppling in a inexorable slow motion toward starry darkness, a cloud of twirling chess pieces orbiting about his head. I've got to make it into the fire. He tensed the muscles of the laggard leg for the spring that would carry him to destruction, and then he saw that the chess pieces were shimmering gray, and the oval frame of the doorway to the flaming fuel was shimmering gray, and even what had seemed hot, white burning was cold, gray waiting mist. And with a yell of remembrance, Jerry clamped shut his eyes and let himself plunge downward into nothingness. 3. Are you all right, Norcris? Jerry blinked slowly, then focused on the face of Dr. Alan Burgess. He found himself lying on a narrow white sheeted cart in the corridor outside the room where all the trouble had begun. Mawson, he said groggily. Is he? Burgess nodded warily, still in there, in full control of his one man universe. What happened, Norkis? You came tumbling out that door like a wild man, clawing the air and yelling. Then you went into shock. You'd been unconscious for two hours. I thought I was falling, jerry admitted. The last thing I remember is stepping through the open space between a spaceship's supporting girders. What open space? Said Burgess, frowning curiously. Jerry shook his head. There isn't any such thing. But something happens to the logic in that room. It's like having a dream, Doctor. Things that would startle you in everyday life seem correct, even familiar. But there's a kind of pattern to events. At first I'm in my universe and mostly in control than little fragments of my pseudo reality starts slipping, changing into other things. The changes seem perfectly normal to me. Then all at once the guy with the brass buttons turns up, and I've managed in the nick of time twice to realize that I was about to be sent or led between the disrupting plates of your atomic duplicator. The man with the brass buttons, burgess said slowly. Do you think it's Mawson? Either him or a robot. He's made to keep his machine fed. When Burgess scowled, Jerry shrugged and appended it's his machine. For all practical purposes. He's the boss of that hungry electronic monster doctor, however the hospital feels about it. This Carol, is she a real woman or a figment of your imagination? Wishful thinking? She's real enough. Jerry sighed. She's the personal secretary of the entire space zoology program. I take her out sometimes. There's nothing special between us. But you wish there were, said Burgess. Jerry stared at him. What makes you think that? Burgess tilted his head toward the room where Mawson still maintained control. Your vision's in there. You must think a lot of her.
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Senator/Official
You must.
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Commercial Announcer
You can kid yourself consciously, but nearly all you underwent in there came straight from your subconscious. And subconscious just doesn't know how to lie. Jerry changed the subject. What's our next move? How soon can I go back after Mawson? You can't. Mawson's knowledge of this Caryll can easily be turned to your disadvantage. He can use her to lead you to dissolution in there. No, it's much too risky. You're lucky you got out when you did. But what about Mawson, then? Burgess tried to look confident. He failed. We can ring up your headquarters and ask for another man. Or, if worse comes to worse, we can partition off this part of the hospital and just sit it out until Mawson runs out of atomic building blocks. Which may take years, jerry reminded him. Burgess turned his palms upward. What else can we do? Send me again, said Jerry. I know the score pretty well now. I know what to watch out for. I'm sure that with one more try, I can get Mawson out of there. Sorry, burgess said, shaking his head. As a medical man, I cannot permit it. You've had a bad shock. We'll try someone else. If your outfit will send someone else and see what happens. If he fails, or if they won't supply us with any more men, then, well, you can try again in a few weeks, if you're still game. But not now, Doctor. In a few weeks Mawson will be so well in control of that universe that he may find a way to block the entrance. Have you thought of that? His universe is not a real one, burgess began. But that duplicator is real enough. It can make anything he decides he needs, and at any time he may get the bright idea of simply mounting his machine right at the entrance. So anyone stepping into that gray field will be powdered into atoms instantly. That's true enough, admitted Burgess, but my diagnosis still stands. For now, you are off this assignment when I feel you're ready, assuming nothing else has succeeded. Meantime, I'll contact you at the base. How do you know I won't be off on some other planet by then? Asked Jerry bitterly. I don't, said Burgess. I hope you are not. But there isn't anything further I can do about it. I'm sorry. What do I do in the meantime? Burgess grinned. Call up this carol and go out on the town? Jerry shook his head at the last part.
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No, thanks.
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I prefer Carol to know nothing about it. Burgess shrugged and gave it up. All right, Norcris. Rest here till you feel stronger. Then you're free to go. Then he was striding off down the corridor. After a bit, Jerry sat up cautiously, let the slight giddiness subside, then swung his legs off the side of the cart and got down. Behind him, the door to Mawson's universe stood open on its wall of grayness. Jerry stared thoughtfully at it, then saw that the two interns who were guarding the opposite ends of this section of the hospital corridor were hesitantly half starting toward him. Jerry knew he could be through that doorway and into the grayness before they got within 10ft of him. 4. Then his shoulders slumped and he turned and walked toward the elevators. Burgess was right. He felt worn out and uninclined to make grandstand plays. Besides, he thought, thumbing the elevator button, it would be nice to see the real Carol again after her nebulous pseudo self. He wanted very much to put his arms around a girl who wouldn't suddenly turn into something horrible in his embrace. The steel door slid open before him, and the elevator boy leaned out to check the corridor for other passengers. Down, he said. Jerry nodded and started into the elevator. Then he hesitated and looked back toward the room where Mawson reigned supreme, then back at the elevator boy. Say, he said uncertainly, that's a strange outfit for an elevator attendant in a hospital. I'd have expected an orderly in an all white getup. The boy glanced down at his uniform, the bright blue pants, shined black shoes, and scarlet jacket, bright with twin rows of brass buttons. I suppose it is, he said. But I don't usually run this elevator. I'm from the hotel next door. I'm just doing this while the regular guy takes his coffee break. Jerry hesitated, then stepped toward the waiting elevator with its pale gray walls and stopped again. His hand went to his forehead bewilderingly. There's something, he said. Then Carol was beside him, slipping her arm through his. Come on, Jerry, she said urgently. We'll be late for our date. Jerry looked at her, then at the hotel corridor behind her, then again at the waiting elevator. I have the oddest feeling something's wrong, he said. I. I don't remember coming over here for you. You didn't, she said promptly. I came for you, Jerry. This is your hotel, remember? Dr. Burgess said you'd had a bad shock, but I didn't know how bad till now. Shock? Said Jerry. What shock? What was bothering me? Carol smiled tightly.
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Senator/Official
Nothing.
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Commercial Announcer
Nothing at all. Come on, Jerry, darling. Again she drew him toward the elevator. If I could only remember, he said uneasily, on the brink of that open cube of bright grayness. Then his eyes focused upon the brass buttons fronting the boy's jacket and at his own shadow as it passed across those glowing hemispheres. As the shadow crossed a button, the color would die and the button would be dull crystal and then glow bright and brassy again when the shadow had passed. Photoelectric cells, said Jerry. Light sensitive cells. Those aren't buttons. They're eyes. Multiple robot eyes. He staggered away from the boy. Carol stopped him. The elevator boy, suddenly half again Jerry's height, was towering over him, long steel arms extending like hooked telescopes toward him. Get in, Jerry.
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Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Get in.
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Cried Carol, struggling to push him forward toward those invincible metal clamps. In a fury of fear, Jerry fought her, grappled with her, twisted to avoid those extending robot hands that would drag him to destruction. And suddenly Carol was screaming his name, and her eyes were pools of terror and betrayal, and the leaping metal fingers had buried themselves in the soft flesh of her shoulders and dragged her back into grayness. Incredible energies came alive about her, and then there was only a shimmer of dusty crystalline winds and she was gone. Jerry found himself standing before the still warm plates of the atomic duplicator in the room where Mawson had had his short lived universe. Beside the machine, a squat cubic box dangled limp steel arms, its rows of photoelectric cells losing their golden glow. And then, as Burgess came hurrying in through the door, he toppled over in a dead faint. So there is no such person as Carol, said Burgess, standing at the foot of the hospital bed. She was only the figment of your imagination. Yes, said Jerry dully. And all along it was Mawson I was really with. He was clever, all right. She was certainly the last occupant of that crazy place I was likely to attack. If he had not tried attacking me himself, I might be atom dust by now. A little longer. And she, he, I mean, might have talked me into that elevator. Well, said Burgess, I'm sorry this thing ended with Mawson's dissolution, but that can't be helped. You did your job well, Lieutenant. Thanks, said Jerry expressionlessly. To come so near death so many times. Burgess shuddered. You have a remarkable constitution not to have cracked under such a strain, Lieutenant. You're a lucky man. And Jerry, his mind still filled with a vision of golden hair, soft brown eyes, and warm, eager lips, could only echo warily. Very lucky. End of the creature Inside. By Jack Sharkey.
- [31:45]
Reporter/Interviewer
The Deep Space Scrolls by Robert F. Young this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org the deep space Scrolls by Robert F. Young following is a transcript of the closed hearing conducted June 18, 1969 by the Special Senate Committee to Survey Space Progress. Committee Chairman, Senator Larch Committee members in attendance, Senators Kewl, Nicholson and Hewlett Lt. Col. Willard S. Greaves, Companion Pilot of the Camaraderie 17 transcripts Senator Larch before getting down to the business on hand, Colonel Greaves, I would like to congratulate you on behalf of my colleagues and myself on your participation in last week's successful orbital flight of the camaraderie 17 yours and Commander Perkins achievement stands out as a glowing landmark on the perilous path which this country is blazing into space. Also, I would like to point out to you that that the governing principle behind this committee, since its inception one year and three months ago, has not been to bury astronauts, but to praise them and that the present investigation is not intended to cast umbrage upon your integrity, but to clarify certain aspects of your experience that both we and the public at large have found confusing. Now, to proceed. You and Commander Perkins, lifted out of the new Canaveral in the supercapsule camaraderie. 17 at 0659 hours on 10 June 1969, and began a three orbit flight, the apogee of which was approximately 1400 miles, the perigee of which was approximately 1290 miles, and the purpose of which was to test your reactions to deep space, that is space beyond the perimeter of the orbital flights thus far undertaken preparatory to the launching of the first manned moon vehicle. Is that correct, Colonel Greaves? Lieutenant Colonel Greaves. That is correct. Senator Larch, exactly when and where during this three orbit flight did you and Commander Perkins first sight the ghost ship? Colonel? Senator Hewlett, may I interpose a word at this point? Senator Larch. Senator Larch, Please do so. Senator Hewlett. Senator Hewlett. Thank you. It is my opinion, Senator, that in referring to the ship boarded by Colonel Greaves as a ghost ship, we are lending too large an ear to the somewhat sensational nomenclature with which the press has discolored the incident and are peradventure implying official sanction to irresponsible reporting. Therefore, I recommend that in the future, or until such time as evidence justifies a more specific appellation, we allude to the object in question by the designation first accorded it by the officials at New Canaveral Space Ship X, Senator Larch. Very well, Senator. I will repeat the question. Exactly when and where during this three orbit flight, Colonel Greaves, did you and Commander Perkins first sight Spaceship X? Lt. Col. Greaves? On the first pass just after we reported into central control via the Australian relay station. In accordance with instructions Perk, Commander Perkins, that is, had taken the capsule off automatic attitude control and begun an experimental series of rolls, pitches and yaws on manual control. We had no idea of the of Spaceship X's presence till it appeared suddenly upon the periscope screen. Instantly, Perk stabilized the capsule in its present attitude and and began making the minute additional adjustments necessary to keep the image on the screen. Senator Larch, what was the position of the ship with relation to the camaraderie? 17, Lieutenant Colonel Greaves.
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It was about half a mile above and behind us and slightly to the north of our trajectory. We saw at once that it was gradually overtaking us and that we were gradually rising to meet it. Senator Larch and the implications of these factors were. Lt. Col. Greaves that spaceship X was traveling at a greater velocity than the camaraderie 17 and that its orbit considerably exceeded our own. However, owing to the eccentricity of our orbit, the two trajectories were approaching and would parallel each other before, during, during and slightly after apogee. During which time the two spacecraft would be close enough to each other to permit a boarding attempt. Senator Larch, will you describe spaceship X for us? Colonel Greaves? Lieutenant Colonel Greaves yes, it was roughly cylindrical in shape and constructed of a dead black non reflective metal. Only one viewpoint was visible to us, a small one just aft of the lock. And this viewpoint proved to be the only one. The ship possessed perk and I estimated the vessel's length at about 500ft, its breadth at about 85ft, and its depth. As I said, it was only roughly cylindrical at about 50ft. In view of later developments, I think it safe to say that these estimates were close to being 100% correct. Senator Larch, Are you positive that they are your original estimates? Colonel? Are you certain that you did not revise them in order to substantiate the conclusion you arrived at after boarding the vessel? Lt. Col. Greaves, those are our original estimates. Senator. Senator, may I have a word? Senator Larch, Please proceed, Senator. Senator. Colonel Greaves. I'm sure you realize what a grave bearing yours and Commander Perkins discovery can have upon religious beliefs throughout the world, should the conclusion you arrived at prove to be correct. Therefore, I'm sure that you won't take it amiss if I press this matter of dimensions a bit further. Now, a cubit, as all of us present are well aware of, represents the length of the human arm from the end of the middle finger to the elbow a matter of from 18 to 22 inches. We have, in other words, a variation of 5 inches. Hence, 300 cubits bridge broken down into feet varies from 450ft to 550ft. 50 cubits broken down into feet varies from 75ft to 91 1/2ft. And 30 cubits broken down into feet varies From 45ft to 55ft. Now, if we calculate the average of each of these sets of figures, we we arrive at the following length, 500ft, 83⅓ feet and depth or 50ft. Does it not strike you as being highly significant, Colonel Greaves, that yours and Commander Perkins estimates should have thus fortuitously approximated and two cases actually have coincided with these figures? And isn't it reasonable to assume that you revised your true original estimates so that they would accord with your subsequent theory as to the nature of Spaceship X, and that the actual dimensions of Spaceship X may be altogether different from those which you ascribe to it? Lt. Col. Greaves, again, I can only say that the estimates I gave you were our original estimates. We had no need to revise them and we would not have revised them even if the need had arisen. Senator Kewell, Then why weren't they radioed back to Central Control, coincidentally, with your announcement that you had cited, and I use your own words, what appears to be a spaceship of stupendous proportions. Why were they withheld until after you had re boarded the camaraderie 17, Lt. Col. Greaves? They were not withheld in the sense that you imply. Perk and I simply decided that it would be better to wait until we approached Spaceship X more closely before radioing in a detailed description. But when the time came, we were so busy making preparations for boarding that we forgot the matter completely. Senator. Thank you, Colonel. Please proceed with your questioning. Senator Larch. Senator Larch. Tell me, Colonel Greaves, why were you and Commander Perkins so determined to board Spaceship X? Lt. Col. Greaves? Because we knew that this would be our only chance. The difference in the two orbits was such that the forthcoming juxtaposition of the two craft could not occur again for weeks and possibly months, and consequently could not occur again at all, since our flight was limited to three orbits. In addition, there was the strong possibility that Spaceship X, owing to the non reflective nature of the metal of which it was constructed, might never be relocated. It had, after all, gone undetected up till now. We felt that the situation had all of the earmarks of a heaven sent opportunity and that it would be a shame not to take advantage of it. Senator Larch, did it not occur to you that the vessel might be an advanced Vostok model of some kind and that it might be manned? Lt. Col. Greaves. We knew, without even having to discuss the matter, that while the Russians would have been capable of building such a ship, launching it with their present boosters would have been out of the question. Senator Larch. But it did occur to you that the vessel might be manned by, shall we say, extraterrestrial intelligences? Lieutenant colonel Greaves? Yes, it did, as a matter of fact. We were convinced that it must be manned by beings of some sort until we got close enough to see the meteor holes in the hull. We knew then that while it might once have been manned, it was manned no more, Save perhaps by dead men. We also knew that in order for it to have suffered that many meteor penetrations, it must have been in space for millennia. Senator, you assumed this latter contingency. Isn't that what you mean, colonel? You couldn't possibly have known it for a certainty, lieutenant colonel Greaves. Granted, but later developments bore us out. Senator Larch. Let's get down to those later developments, shall we? Suppose we start from the moment you radioed the news of your discovery back to central control. What did you do then? Lt. Col. Greaves? We estimated when juxtaposition would occur and how long it would endure, Then radioed the information back to central control, Together with the information that this was the only time during our flight that it could occur. Finally, we requested permission for one of us to board the other craft. Senator Larch, I understand that you stated that in view of the fact that the ship was unmanned and that its attitude was relatively stable, the. The danger involved would be negligible. Was this entirely true, colonel? Lieutenant colonel? Entirely. As you know, senator, orbital rendezvous have been achieved many times, Both by this country and by the Soviet Union, and in several instances, actual transference has taken place. The instance in question seems dangerous merely because the rendezvous was fortuitous rather than planned. Fortuitous or not, however, it posed no unusual problems, and there were two possible means of entry Virtually staring us in the face. Senator Larch, during your press interview, you referred to one of these entry points as a boat bay. Will you elaborate further? Lt. Col. Greaves? Yes. It was a large recessed area in the hull where the auxiliary craft used by the passengers and the crew when they disembarked had been moored. A lot gave on to this area, and I was reasonably certain that I could burn my way into the ship with the small acetylene torch. That was part of the Camaraderie 17's hardware. This seems a rather naive assumption on my part in the light of the analysis of the fragment of metal I brought back. But I had no way of knowing at the time that the hull, however susceptible it might be to meteors, was utterly impervious in a number of other respects. In any event, as matters turned out, I didn't have to use the torch, for the boat bay lock had been improperly sealed by the last person to disembark. Senator Nicholson. Senator Larch. I would like to have the floor for a few moments, Senator Larch. Very well, Senator Nicholson. Senator Nicholson. To return to this sample piece of metal you brought back with you, Colonel Greaves, during your press interview, you described it as a fragment of gopher wood. In all honesty, Colonel, don't you think that this was a rather flippant and ill considered remark and that by making it, you lent undue credence to what was and is at best an exceedingly tenuous theory? Lt. Col. Greaves, I do not consider the remark to have been either flippant or ill considered. I was asked what I thought the medal was, and I gave an honest answer. Furthermore, my immediate superiors agree with me. Gopher wood has never been identified, and the term could very well refer to the alloy that went into the construction of Spaceship X. Senator Nicholson, I shudder to think of the blow our international prestige will receive should the scrolls you brought back with you fail to validate your conclusions. Our space program will become the laughingstock of the entire world. I simply cannot understand why greater secrecy was not employed in this matter. Lt. Col. Greaves. Too much of the story had already been made public through radio and television coverage to make denying it practicable. In any event, I'm certain that the scrolls will provide the necessary proof. According to Dr. Noyes, they contain similarities to one of the early Mediterranean alphabets. And this certainly suggests that the descendants of whoever wrote them must have had something to do with the development of that Alphabet. Senator Larch. Do you have any further questions? Senator Nicholson? Senator Nicholson? Not for the moment, no. Senator Larch. I will proceed. Then you and Commander Perkins are of equal rank, Colonel Greaves. May I ask how you ascertained which of you would do the boarding after authorization to do so came through? Lt. Col. Greaves. Flipping a coin was out of the question, of course, and we had no straws or matches. Finally, we agreed that since our wives were of similar build and height, each of us would write down his wife's weight on a slip of paper. And that the one of us whose wife weighed the most would do the boarding. We promised to be completely honest about this. I won by a margin of three pounds, Senator. I see. And have you apprised your wife of this modus operandi, Lt. Col. Greaves? As a matter of fact, I have not, Senator Larch. A wise decision indeed. And now, Colonel, will you tell us what you did and what you found after boarding Spaceship X? Lt. Col. Greaves, as I mentioned earlier, the boat bay lock had been improperly sealed. Consequently, I had no trouble opening it. The inner boat bay lock proved to have been improperly sealed also, and I concluded from this that the action in both cases had been deliberate, that spaceship X had not only been abandoned, but that it had been abandoned in such a way as to make future use of it impossible. After entering the ship proper, I found myself in a short passageway. I floated along it, pulling myself forward by means of this protuberance and that, and propelling myself whenever possible by pushing against the bulkheads with my feet. There was no light, save for an occasional ray of starlight seeping through the meteor perforations. And my only effective means of illumination was the electric torch I had brought with me from the camaraderie. 17 it left much to be desired. Presently the passageway gave into a large chamber, which, judging from its rows of bolted down benches and its centrally located dais, was a meeting hall of some kind. I did not linger there, Perk, and I had estimated that at most I had only 15 minutes to carry out my explorations, but turned and. And proceeded aft, entering another passageway, this one much higher and longer than the first. On either side, compartments were arranged in tiers, and each of the tiers above deck level was fronted by a catwalk. I entered several of the compartments and looked around, but I saw nothing in each case but a bunk like bed and a small chest. The beds were bare and the chests were empty. Continuing on down the passageway, I came to another chamber. This one, judging from its bolted down tables and benches and the utensils drifting about a combination dining room and galley. Again, I did not linger. My primary interest was the power source that had once propelled, illuminated and heated the ship and had provided it with artificial gravity. And I reasoned that I would find this source in the stern. I was right. But before I located it, I came to still another chamber. This one was huge and it was filled with cages. All of them were empty, but they set me to thinking. For one thing, there were hundreds of them. For another, they ranged in size from tiny to titanic. For another, each of them struck me as having been built to accommodate not one animal, but two or more. I remembered the innumerable meteor penetrations and the great age they implied. I remembered that in the vacuum and in the absolute zero of space, corrosion and decay are unknown, and that under such conditions, objects can be preserved for millennia. I remembered the dimensions of the ship. It couldn't be. And yet. Senator Larch, please confine your account to what you saw and what you did. Colonel Greaves. Lieutenant Colonel Greaves. Very well. The chamber housing the power source, when I finally located it, proved to be quite small. The source itself was an ion motor. It had been thoroughly and deliberately smashed, and both its condition and its advanced design prevented me from being able to tell very much about it. But I could tell nevertheless, that while it had been capable of powering the ship in space, it could never have launched the ship from a planet, assuming that said planet's gravity approximated Earth's. Launching a ship the size of that one took some doing, and I take off my hat to the technicians who accomplished it, Senator. They just might have built the ship in space, you know, Lt. Col. Greaves, I have reason to believe otherwise. But if they had, I'd still take my hat off to them, Senator Larch. All of which indicates, does it not, that we are dealing with a race of people scientifically superior to our own? Lt. Col. Greaves it does, Senator Larch. Then, assuming for the moment that your theory is valid, doesn't it strike you as highly improbable that the sole survivors of so scientifically advanced a race would, immediately after landing on Earth, take up primitive husbandry? Lt. Col. Greaves. No, it does not. I think that in undertaking the voyage to Earth, the passengers and the crew of Spaceship X meant to leave far more behind them than the natural catastrophe, probably a tectonic revolution that had occasioned their exodus. I think that they meant to leave behind them a way of life which they had come to loathe because it had supplied them with false gods. And I think that once they landed on Earth and dispersed, they threw this way of life over their shoulders and deliberately reverted to the thought world and the religious cosmogony of their remote ancestors. In other words, I think that they used the natural disaster that forced them to migrate to another planet as an excuse to begin all over again, and that they burned their bridges behind them so that they would have to begin all over again. Probably they blew up the auxiliary craft or lifeboat and every technological gadget it contained the very same day they landed Earth. In those days Must have seemed like a promised land indeed. Green, fertile, relatively unpeopled. They had no way of knowing, probably, that intermarriage with the natives would soon decimate their average life expectancy. Senator Larch, wouldn't you say that you're indulging in some rather wild surmises? Colonel Greaves. Lieutenant Colonel Greaves. Not at all. I think that the find I made shortly after returning to the forward part of the ship justifies everything I've said.
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Senator Larch, you're referring, no doubt, to the dove. Very well. Go on. Colonel Greaves. Lieutenant Colonel Greaves. I had some five minutes remaining when I got back to the large hall from which I had begun my explorations. And I knew that I would have to hurry if I expected to see the rest of the ship. Crossing the hall, I passed through a wide entrance and found myself at the base of a spiral companionway. I propelled myself up the metal stairs and a few minutes later found myself on the bridge. The first object my torch beam picked up was a huge viewscreen. When activated, it must have provided a splendid view of space. But now, of course, the screen was blank. Next to the screen stood a long desk, and on this desk lay the ship's log, the metallic scrolls, which had been left behind deliberately, I believe, and which are now being deciphered by Dr. Noyes and his staff. In addition to the viewscreen and the desk, the bridge contained a complex sextant and an instrument panel so intricate that compared to it, our panel on the camaraderie 17 seemed like a primitive abacus. To the right of the panel, a doorway opened into another sequence of compartments. As there were only four of them, and as they were obviously much more spacious than the previous compartments I had found, I concluded that I had blundered into officers country. One of the compartments appeared to be considerably larger than the other three, and believing it to be the captain's, I looked into it first. I learned nothing beyond the fact that two people, not one, had occupied it. I found this to be the case with the three remaining compartments and concluded that the four officers had had their wives with them. Finally, I returned to the bridge. I had only two minutes to go now, and I probably would have propelled myself straight back down the companionway. I had already taken possession of the scrolls if the dove hadn't caught my eye. That's exactly what I thought of when my torch beam picked up the object bracketed to the bulkhead. A dove. A dove in flight. Investigating, I learned that it was a streamlined telescope camera, the lens of which were probably located somewhere in the ventral region of the hull. The wings were merely a device for centering the image and focusing the lens, while the body provided the housing for the automatic developing unit and served as a receptacle for the finished photograph. The final photograph to have been taken had never been removed, and it stood out vividly in the beam of my torch. It was a photograph of an olive grove. By now my time had just about run out, and I removed the photograph from the dove, returned to the boat bay area, picking up a fragment of meteor dislodged metal on my way, and regained the camaraderie 17. Senator, it is imperative that I interpose a few words at this point. Senator Larch. Senator Larch. Please go ahead. Senator Kewell. Senator Kuehl. Colonel Greaves. I am of course familiar with this photograph you brought back. But while the general trend of your reasoning is apparent to me, I cannot comprehend how so insignificant a discovery could have set so unorthodox a train of thought in motion. The fact that the photograph depicts an olive grove means absolutely nothing, even when brought into juxtaposition with the concomitant fact that the camera used in taking and developing it was shaped like a dove. How could you possibly have arrived at the conclusion you did, Lt. Col. Greaves? Because my train of thought, as you call it, was already in motion and had been in motion for some time. The camera and the photograph were merely the final clues in a whole series of clues. The ship's dimensions, its obvious age, the cages, the large compartment in the officers section and the three smaller ones. With the discovery of the camera and the photograph, everything fell into place. Senator. Everything. Colonel, I can think of any number of details that your theory does not explain. What of Xithros Prithu and Ut Napishtim? What of Deucalion and Pira? Would you have me believe that they were aboard this streamlined space cow of yours, Lt. Col. Greaves? In a sense, they were. All versions of the legend are based on handed down memories of the voyage of spaceship X from planet X to Earth. But the concept of space being beyond the scope of primitive minds. The two planets were made into one, and the survivors of the disaster were pictured not as fleeing from one planet to another, but as sweating out the debacle in a craft that never left Earth. The religious cosmogony, which the survivors reverted to after spreading out among the early civilized sectors of the world was adapted in various ways. But the most authentic version, I believe, comes down to us through Genesis. Since it was in the region that later became known as Judea that the captain of spaceship X and his three officers settled down. Senator, all of this is pure conjecture. Colonel, you haven't so much as a single fact to go on. Lieutenant Colonel Greaves, you're forgetting, are you not, Senator, that a blow up of the photograph of the olive grove revealed several pieces of pottery in good condition that the experts agree dated from the late Neolithic period. Senator, you're forgetting, are you not, Colonel, that a vast difference exists between an olive grove and an olive leaf. And how do you explain why these ancient voyagers of yours brought animals with them? More important, how do you explain what became of these animals? Surely, if they had been landed, some evidence of them would remain. And just as surely, that evidence would have come to light by now. Lieutenant Colonel Greaves. Maybe they were brought along out of compassion. More probably they were brought along because the survivors were flesh eaters. In either case, you can be certain that they were transported from the mothership to Earth. As to why no evidence of their existence has ever been found, isn't it reasonable to assume that Planet X paralleled Earth in lower as well as higher forms of life, Senator? Only if you're trying to shore up a theory that is about to collapse. But it will do you no good, Colonel Greaves. The text of Genesis confutes your entire contention. Lt. Col. Greaves. On the contrary, the text of Genesis substantiates my contention. Let me quote1 or 2 passages. By way of the same day were all the fountains of the great ship broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened. This is race memory coming to the fore in the form of an imagery so strong that it survives translation. And with the aid of a little imagination, the passage can be interpreted to mean that all is in readiness for the launching, and the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth, and all the high hills that were under the whole heaven were covered. If you will substitute distances for waters and over for a pawn, you will obtain a fairly clear mental picture of a planet fading from sight in the viewscreen of a departing spaceship. And how about the stories referred to in the building specification? With lower, second and third stories Shalt thou make it? Those weren't stories, Senator. They were stages. Rocket stages. The number of rocket stages that would be required to launch a ship the size of spaceship X into space. Senator. I submit, Colonel, that your reasoning is defective. I submit, furthermore, that it is not the sort of reasoning which normal, well adjusted Americans indulge in. And I hereby recommend to this committee that both yours and Commander Perkins qualifications be re examined at the earliest possible opportunity. And that both of you be relieved from duty until such time as it can satisfactorily be proven that both of you have recovered from your hallucinatory experience. Lt. Col. Greaves. But the scrolls I brought back aren't hallucinatory, Senator. Neither is the fragment ofofyes of gopher wood. And certainly the photograph is real enough, Senator. Granted. But I have grave doubts about some of the other items you have called to our attention. I'm afraid you're going to be in for a rather rude awakening, Colonel Greaves, when Dr. Noyes and his staff finish deciphering the scrolls. Gopher wood. Indeed, Senator. Excuse me, Senator. I have just been handed a telegram from Dr. Noyes. ItIt would appear that they have deciphered the scrolls already. I will read the telegram aloud. Deep Space Scrolls proves Spaceship X to be Noah's Ark beyond vestige of a doubt. Noise, an extended silence. Senator Nicholson, I hereby resolve that this hearing be adjourned and that a transcript of the proceedings be made public immediately. Senator. Gentlemen, I implore you not to act hastily in this matter. Don't you see that if we accept Dr. Noyes word as final, we will be obligated to accept as fact that the concept of one God did not originate on Earth, but somewhere out there in the wastes of space. We will be obligated to admit that Earth was not the purpose of all creation, but only a sort of afterthought. Senator Hewlett, Gentlemen, I emphatically disagree. We are now obligated to do what we should have done before, to really accept God as the creator of the universe as we have come to know it. I hereby move that we shed our geocentric cloaks once and for all and start looking upon space not as a bete noire which circumstance and the Soviet Union have forced us to come to grips with, but as a great star flowered sea upon which we should have ventured long ago. That God is far beyond the pale of our picayune conception of him is a fact that we have known all along, but which we have refused to live with because we would have had him be as small and as petty as we are. Let us resolve from this moment on that when we say Almighty, we mean Almighty beyond peradventure of a doubt. Gentlemen, we have roots among the stars. Let us lift off from this dust mote on the doorstep of reality and wing our way into the majestic hall of universe and go a searching for the planet of our birth. Senator Larch. Amen. End of transcript End of the Deep Space Scrolls by Robert F. Young Recording by Roger Moline.
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The Head by Joe Clier this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Read by Dale Grothman the Head by Joe Clyer so you have come here to ask me to help you, Jim? Queried Professor Beardsley in a weak voice as he looked inquiringly at his friend, Dr. James Leeson. What assistance can you expect from a man who's only a month to live at most? Dr. Leeson glanced about the room and shifted uneasily in his chair. For some reason, he seemed unwilling to state the nature of the help required. A faint smile flitted over Professor Beardsley's narrow shaven face as he observed Dr. Leeson's scrutiny of the room. Now, don't try to foist a little inconsequential research work or something like that on me so you can have an excuse to pay me a good price and camouflage your charity, bantered the professor. I'm devilish poor, I know, but doctors are useless to me now, so I dispense with them. As for food, he added grimly, in my condition I can hardly eat anything, so that expense is also avoided. I may as well tell you straight out what I came for, blurted Dr. Leeson. I want your head. What? Gasped the professor. Listen, went on Dr. Leeson hurriedly. We haven't seen each other for some years, but you must have heard that I gave up my practice. Professor Beardsley nodded assent. The acquaintances and friends of Dr. Leeson had been astonished when he had abruptly retired some years before without any explanation. You may remember how deeply interested I was in biology and plastic surgery when we were students at the university, continued Dr. Leeson. I became a surgeon. You became a professor of chemistry. I was a success as a surgeon, but I wanted to be independently rich so that I could devote my whole time to what I consider my life's work. Having saved some thousands of dollars, I began to speculate in stocks. I was more than lucky. In a short time I was very rich. I bought a place in the country not far from here, fitted it up with a laboratory, and withdrew from the world, as you might say. I tried for a long time to find a substitute for blood. At last I succeeded in making artificial ape blood, and with a pump that I have devised to act as a heart. I have kept a chimpanzee's head alive for over six months. And now you want a human head? Breathed the professor, wonder and horror in his voice. Yes, replied Dr. Leeson, I am certain that I can do the same. With a human head and my substitute for human blood, a man might lose arms and legs and still live. I intend to prove that the entire trunk can be done away with, and the head and the brain can be kept alive and active as long as there's blood and something to act as a heart. Some time ago I put an advertisement in the paper for persons who were contemplating self destruction. Of course, I did not mention what they were wanted for. Hoping in this manner to get a subject for my experiment, I received dozens of answers Quite a few were women, but I didn't want a woman for this. Some came out as merely curious. Some were reporters hunting for a sensational news item. Others were adventurers looking for excitement. One or two of the would be suicides were really tired of life, but they lacked the intelligence I desire. So you came to me, remarked the professor with a slight sneer. I must say that I'm flattered. Wait until I've finished, protested Dr. Leeson. Then think it over. You are as much interested in the progress of science, I think, as I am. I need a keen mind in the head I use by a system of signals we could arrange for. You won't be able to speak. You, or rather your head, could communicate with me. To be brutally frank, I heard you were dying of cancer and that you were in bad shape financially. You have a six year old motherless daughter to think of. And whether you accept my offer or not, I shall see to it that your daughter never wants for anything as long as I live, because you are my boyhood friend. But if you want to rest assured of her future, I will give you $50,000 cash for your live body, which money you can place in trust for her. What about yourself, in case I should accept? Asked Professor Beardsley. If the authorities or some of these pious keepers of their brothers find out what you have done to me, they'll certainly have you brought up to trial for murder. Perhaps if the experiment fails, smiled Dr. Leeson, should your head live? I don't know what they could bring me to trial for. If I can prove that you were a willing collaborator. You have no doubt read of scientists losing arms and legs, fooling with radium and other things. They are never arrested for committing suicide piecemeal, so why should I be accused of murdering piecemeal? However, you can let yourself be examined by three specialists in case of trouble. I can have these three specialists testify as to your condition after you have been examined, let it be known that I shall operate on you as a last hope should you die. I have a friend who is an undertaker and he will see to it that you are buried without any questions. Should your head live, I shall preserve the body. Do you think I care to have my head live on for I don't know how long? Demanded Professor Beardsley. I have thought of that. You must agree to let me keep your head alive for at least two months after the operation, if it is possible.
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Granger knows. When you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building. You're managing all of them and to
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stay ahead, you need to see through
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walls and around corners.
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Lights about to fail.
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Filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg.
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If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind.
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by Grainger for the ones who get it done. When you're a maintenance engineer in a beverage manufacturing plant, you keep production lines moving and quality on track because there
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Commercial Voice
is no room for slowdowns.
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With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts and hard to find
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parts, you can get what you need
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fast and all in one place so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER clickranger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. Grainger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them.
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And to stay ahead, you need to
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see through walls and around corners.
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Lights about to fail.
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Filters ready to clog H Vac on its last leg.
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If you wait until something breaks, you're already behind.
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Count on Grainger for quality products, easy reordering and 24.
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7 support.
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Call 1-800-GRAINGER click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.
- [81:33]
Narrator/Announcer
After that, you can signal me to let your head die and it shall be done. Should it be impossible for you to make signals, I promise to let it die within that time. This sounds ghoulish, but what about the pain? I have perfected a local anesthetic that heals while it deadens pain. You won't know a knife has touched you you during the operation or after. Dr. Leeson paused and waited for an answer. Give me until this time to morrow to think it over, said Professor Beardsley thoughtfully. Good. Exclaimed Dr. Leeson, looking at his watch. To morrow morning at 11 o' clock. I'll be here. I'm sure if you think this matter over, you will see that it is feasible. With a brisk handshake, Dr. Leeson left the room. Professor Beardsley sat in his chair hour after hour, debating this strange offer with himself. Suffering with cancer of the stomach, he had more than once decided that suicide was the only way to end his agony. But the thought of his daughter had always made him reconsider, for he had clung to the forlorn hope that in some way he could provide for her before he died. And now Dr. Leeson, who had buried himself in a laboratory for a number of years, popped up like some uncanny genie at this time and made a fantastic proposition. Dawn found Professor Beardsley still in his chair, but his decision was made. His daughter's future could not be left to the vagaries of friendly help or the mercies of a public orphanage. Then again, he was curious as to the outcome of such an attempt to baffle nature. Almost eagerly, he awaited Dr. Leeson's arrival. Promptly at 11 o', clock, Dr. Leeson knocked and entered the room. Brought my car with me so I can drive you around to see those specialists and wind up your business, he remarked. You're taking me for granted, Wanley, replied the professor, but I'll go through with this thing. With feeble steps, Professor Beardsley walked to the car, turning as he entered it to take a last look at the shabby exterior of the cheap rooming house that had been his home for several years. After the specialists had been called upon, they proceeded to a bank where Professor Beardsley received $50,000 and wrote his will. I think it is best not to see my daughter, said Professor Beardsley in reply to a question from Dr. Leeson. I might get squeamish and not fulfil my end of the bargain. She is well taken care of by a kind hearted woman whom I paid whenever I could for this service. Late in the afternoon of that day, they drove out to Dr. Leeson's place, which was situated in a quiet, secluded spot far back from the main highway. You're too fagged to be shown around today, declared Dr. Leeson. I'll take you to your room and give you something so that you can get a little rest. Professor Beardsley drank the draught prepared for him and sank into a stupor like sleep. The morning sun was shining through his bedroom window when he awoke. Dressing slowly, he then stepped out of the room and found Dr. Leeson pacing up and down the corridor. I'll show you about the building, said Dr. Leeson, taking the professor's arm. And explain anything you wish to know. On their way, they met several serious and studious looking men. My assistants, Dr. Leeson informed the Professor. Every one of them heart and soul with me in this work. Finally they stopped in front of a solid looking door. The inner shrine. Softly laughed Dr. Leeson, opening the door and pointing to the center of the room. Professor Beardsley walked to where Dr. Leeson pointed and then stood rigid. The live head of an ape lay strapped on a board with no sign of a body. On closer examination, the professor saw that the head ended in the stump of a neck over which skin had been grafted. Several short tubes extended from the neck to an apparatus that supplied the head with life sustaining fluid. This explained Dr. Leeson, lightly touching with a finger a small pump which was working with regular, exact strokes, is the heart. That, indicating a box like affair, is the filter or lungs and also the stomach of my artificial blood circulating system. The used blood leaves the head, passes through the filter where it is purified, nutrition added, the right temperature given, and then is ready to be pumped to the head again. The whole thing is run by electricity generated by my own power plant. As you may have noticed, there is an auxiliary circulating system here. Two of my assistants are watching continually. In case of a breakdown, it would hardly take more than a second to start the blood flowing back to the head. Isn't there the danger of a bursting blood vessel? Ventured Professor Beardsley. Hardly. The volume of blood needed by a head at each stroke and the number of strokes to the minute are determined beforehand. Won't the blood corrode the inside of the pump filter or tubes and in this manner carry foreign substances to the head which might prove harmful? Pump, filter and tubes have a special lining which won't corrode and is so tough that it takes a great amount of friction to wear it off. What does wear off is a tonic to the blood instead of a poison. Professor Beardsley suddenly felt nauseated. The head of the ape, that thing strapped to the board, was a sample of what was to become of him. And Leeson jokingly called this chamber of horrors the inner shrine. The man was mad, inhuman. He was a man or a friend, no longer simply a tool of science to whom a human being or an animal was valuable only as an object for his probing knife. With tottering steps, the professor began to walk away. What do you think of my work? Asked Dr. Leeson as he followed the professor. Diabolical. Dr. Leeson glanced at him covertly. I'm going to keep my word. Professor Beardsley whispered hoarsely as he caught the glance and stiffened. You shall have your pound of flesh. What I saw in there kind of upset me. When did you want to begin on me? I'm ready now. Well, replied Dr. Leeson after a pause, the sooner the better. Your body doesn't have to be built up for this operation. And you're liable to die unexpectedly. Shall we say this evening at 6 o'? Clock? Satisfactory with me. It means money for my daughter. And besides, I always Wanted to achieve fame, wanted to be first at something. But I have failed. As fate has left me only this choice, I shall take it. If my head lives, my name will gain some notoriety at last. At the request of Dr. Leeson, the professor prepared a written statement, witnessed by several of the assistants, to the effect that he was willingly placing his living body at the disposal of Dr. Leeson. With the resignation of a condemned man, Professor Beardsley waited for an hour without fear or apprehension. At six o' clock he was taken to the operating room, where he shook hands with Dr. Leeson and calmly watched the paraphernalia being arranged. Begin, Said Professor Beardsley quietly. After he had been secured to the operating table, Dr. Leeson and his assistants worked as rapidly as possible. At last the grisly task was accomplished. Artificial human blood was being pumped to the living head of Professor Beardsley while the dead headless body was removed. After a number of days, the head was in a stupor, seemingly from shock, but the wound healed rapidly and the brain apparently began to function. The head appeared to notice the anxious faces hovering about it, and when some words were spoken to the head, it signaled with its eyelids as agreed upon. The head hears, understands vibrantly, declared Dr. Leeson. But on the following day, Dr. Leeson did not come to see the head as usual. Another day passed, and then the head was apprised of the fact that Dr. Leeson had been struck by an automobile and killed while on a trip to the city. In the days that followed, strange faces came into the room where the head was placed. It was stared at and questioned. The police, so the head was informed, had found a memorandum upon Dr. Leeson's body after he was killed, giving a full account of the case. The police had promptly investigated. The assistants were arrested one at a time and released on bonds, for the authorities realized that no one else could take care of the head if the assistants were thrown into jail. Newspapers avidly printed every item that could be scraped up about the bizarre affair. The prosecuting attorney was plainly perplexed as to the charge on which the assistants should be tried. Murder was out of the question, for it was a fact that the head was alive and its mind was normal. The assistants were finally brought to trial on a charge of mayhem. But the assistants secured the best legal talent in the country. The three specialists testified as to Professor Beardsley's health. The signed statement of Professor Beardsley, the cancelled check for $50,000 and the headless body, preserved no doubt by Dr. Leeson for just such an emergency, were offered as evidence the result was that the jury disagreed and the two trials that followed ended in the same manner. Not only in the court room, but all over the country the battle raged. Lawyers, doctors, ministers and scientists talked and wrote learnedly from one standpoint or the other. One side demanded that the head's life should be put to an end for humane reasons. The other side argued that this would be the same as murder because the brain really made the man. The head heard of all the different aspects of the wrangle. Its eyes held a mute appeal for death, an appeal that no one, now that Dr. Leeson was dead, dared to grant. The head kept on living and the authorities were satisfied to let the case lie dormant. Dr. Leeson had willed his entire fortune to his assistance. His formula for artificial blood, which he had entrusted to his assistance, they guarded with jealous care. The years came and went. The assistants grew bald headed and gray and died. New picked men took their place and guarded the head from death. It was carefully massaged and washed every day. The hair and beard cut when grown too long. Centuries passed. Great wars were fought and the country beaten in them. The head noticed that the progress of science was stopped. The demeanor and character of those taking care of the head changed. They formed themselves into a secret clique and were called priests. The government became a hierarchy and only these priests had any knowledge of electricity or kindred subjects. The laboratory became a shrine to which people made pilgrimages. The common people, they had learned, were gulled into the belief that it was a godhead sent from on high to instruct and rule through the medium of the self proclaimed priests. So low was the intelligence of the masses fallen that they paid fabulous sums for the privilege of gazing on the miraculous head. On state occasions the head was ostensibly interviewed by an oracle as to what ought to be done. The heads lips having writhed into a sneer of disgust, the priests interpreted the expression to their advantage and profit. Involved in another war, the country was invaded. Great crowds implored the leering head for deliverance from the foe. But the enemy swept up to the temple gates and entered. The priests fought bravely. The last to die was the high priest, whose blood, as he fell, spattered over the head. A dark skinned invader strode up to the head and addressing it with a jeering epithet, raised the club to strike. A look of utter content came over the head's features as the blow that meant oblivion descended. The END of the Head by Joe Clier.
- [96:42]
Senator/Official
And it was good by a early. This is a librivox recording all librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org read by Yoganand and it was good by a early when she came back, he looked at her and put down the piece of wood which he had been carving. He had always carved in anxious moments. Many years before he had been apprenticed to a carpenter. He still loved the smooth, creamy feel and the warm tang of a good piece of wood. Usually he whittled away at it until it suggested a design to work on. More often than not, it turned out to be a face rugged peasant features with the simple wisdom of age engraved on them, or the chubby worlds of a child dimpled with delight. Today he thought it might make a tree heavy with fruit and the crown of leaves. He has decided to do it, then? He asked, and she nodded without looking at him. She did not want to see the pain in her son's eyes. He got up and stood beside her and put his arm round her shoulders. When he asked her softly, patiently, right away, did you ask him if he would let me go again instead? I couldn't, she said, and pulled him to her. I couldn't bear it again. After what they did to you last time. Am I any the worse for it? He smiled at her. Besides, it was a long time ago and people have changed. You'd suffer and you'd be away for years, she said. I couldn't go through that. Not again. Is he very sad about it? He asked. You know how he is when he has to do a thing like that, she said. He said you weren't to worry too much. I was to tell you he'd like to talk to you about it later. He might want you to go there for a short visit while it is on. He went back to his whittling, but his mind was busy with other things and the tree would not take shape. Spring had been late before, as the Times pointed out. There had been snow as late as mid May in 1569 and at the end of April in 1782. Yet the chronicles recorded bumper crops for both years. Agricultural experts advised closer pruning of fruit trees to speed budding, and an American firm of artificial fertilizer manufacturers brought out a new product called ShootBoost. But the correspondence columns of the newspapers carried letters pointing out that while spring might have been late before this time the weather was entirely spring like. Yet still there was no sign of Shoot, Blossom, or Bud. Excessive radiation resulting from nuclear tests was plaint. It was mid May before the people and their governments became seriously alarmed. Trees still stood bare as in the depth of winter. Lawns bore the bruising of last season's mowing, but no new growth. Flower beds showed the unbroken rills of after seed raking. Farmers walked their fields day after day and crouched down to silhouette the furrows against the sky, the better to see the green whiskers when they sprouted. They prodded their heifers and ewes and went down to the villages to consult the witness. Their wives searched the henhouses and put on extra grain and bricks of chalk. The Pope's call to worldwide prayer and the British government's announcement of the introduction of rationing fell on the same day. In most countries, the Pope's call found little response because the people were too busy lining up at footsteps, trying to lay in stocks. There were bread riots in Teheran. Rumors of a cattle disease began to circulate Several days before official news of the fall full extent of the additional catastrophe was released. That night the British Prime Minister spoke on the BBC. With Her Majesty's consent, he said, after reviewing the grave and disquieting situation, I have given instructions for all available ships of the Royal Navy to put to seas immediately as an emergency fishing fleet. Meanwhile, he continued, divers and frogmen were asked to place their services at the disposal of the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. They would be required to glean nourishment for the nation from the laden larders of the deep. Human ingenuity, skill and tenacity will conquer yet, he concluded. The Prime Minister's broadcast was followed by the announcement of emergency regulations for the disposal of dead cattle. On the 16th, the president of the United States informed an emergency meeting of the General assembly of the United nations that Professor Braunweiler of Columbia University has perfected a method of extracting carbon sugar from wood. All suitable industrial plants throughout America were to be geared to the mass production of the necessary equipment. The United States was prepared to supply the whole world with this equipment and with the power operated tree felling implements on a lend lease basis. Teams of instructors in the use of the equipment would be available to proceed to all parts of the world by the end of the month. The offer, which became known as USA saw USA Sugar aid to the world was accepted with gratitude by all but the Soviet delegation. Shortly after sugar aid started, a Frenchman named Dr. Muller discovered in desperation, vineyards stood barren that tree sugar caused a fermentation the still plentiful needles of coniferous trees, which when distilled resulted in a drink rich in alcohol and vitamins. He gave the drink the name Boynach in melancholy memory of happier days. Within six days, France had a surplus in the World bank and a French admiral was appointed to command the NATO Mediterranean fleet. Undoubtedly Boynack helped. Yet by the end of August even that could not arrest the death rate. On 3 September, a Soviet task force landed troops and armor at 16 places along the East African coast coast. Moscow radio informed the world that the glorious forces of the USSR have taken this step under the personal command of Mr. Khrushchev to safeguard Africa's rich resources in animal life against the depredations of the capitalist warmongers. Yes. Thus the world was told all peace loving peoples would be assured an equitable and adequate supply of meat in the hard months to come. At an emergency meeting of the NATO council, immediate countermeasures were agreed upon. But it was decided to confine retaliation to Africa and not to use nuclear weapons unless Russia did so first. The British left, which had come into being after the Labour Party had split, withdrew from the House of Commons in protest. And the workers of the largest motor works in Italy assembled outside their long closed factory to call for strike action. By mid December, the war in Africa had settled down to a stalemate. There was a good deal of patrolling. The opposing armies lived off the land. In other words, on what game they could back before the other side got it. Foot finding became more important than fighting and hunger closed the eyes of higher command to the proximity of the enemy. Except, of course, when the enemy was engaged in tracking the same game. Reports from the front recorded these patrol skirmishes and gave account of the really violent ar artillery duels. Loading and firing guns required less waning energy than infantry slogging in the heavy country. The fact that the wide no man's land between the opposing armies formed the main hunting ground exposed friend and foe to the same gunfire. Casualties were consequently high. The neutral investigating commission, appointed after much vetoing by the United nations, it consisted of delegates from Costa Rica, Kashmir and Monaco, found the situation rather confusing and vitreous to can to consider its findings. Early in January, a British scientist invented a very high frequency lamp, regular exposure to which substituted a certain amount of the energy normally absorbed in food. The equipment was fantastically expensive to produce and was therefore available to very few people. A portable, cheaper and far less efficient model was mass produced for the armed forces forces and essential workers. The dashing victories of Africa, forecast by the enthusiastic politicians as a certain result of the new machine did not, however, materialize. The new energy induced in picked Units was expended in a redoubled quest for food. The papers reported increased petrol activity. An agent planted by the communist and the Ministry of Defence in London succeeded in photographing the plans of the rail lamp. Within six weeks, a Russian version of the equipment reached the Red forces in Africa. As a result, the stalemate became staler still. Both sides began to lose control of their troops, which scattered over wide areas of Africa well outside the zone of battle. Game had become scarce and pursuit led both sides further and further afield. On a swampy peninsula formed by hap and bend of a crocodile infested river, a British and a French soldier had established their laager. They had joined forces to hunt for edible snakes, and a few hundred yards upriver, one of them had trodden on a carelessly buried antipersonnel mine. The soggy ground had prevented the contraption from jumping as high as the designer had intended, and the dense, though leafless undergrowth had screened them from the worst of the blast. They took it in turns to fetch water in their hats from the river and to bathe each other's wounds. Starving and feverish, neither of them knew for certain when the stranger joined them. He was not in uniform. He spoke English and French so well that they both claimed him for a fellow countryman. He did not enlighten them and they did not persist in their questions. He insisted on nursing them and waiting on them. He fetched water for them from the river and he put clay from the river bank on their septic wounds. He said it would heal them. The Englishman was embarrassed to see that the stranger had tears in his eyes while he did it, to pretend that he had not noticed. The tommy talked about the flipping bastards who strew flipping mines all over the flipping place. The stranger smiled at that and said he would try to get them some fish from the river. He was away a long time, and when the Englishman crawled down to the river to see what had happened, he saw the stranger on his knees on the riverbank. He wanted to shout that one could not catch flipping fish that flipping way, but then he changed his mind and crawled back to the Frenchman. The stranger turned up a little later with his hat full of fine fish. He wanted to light a fire to cook them, but the Frenchman pointed up to where the shells from both sides were hissing over them and they ate the raw fish. It tasted wonderful. The stranger settled down to stay with them and brought fish and water as often as they felt hungry or thirsty. When he was not otherwise engaged, he used one of their bayonets to whittle away at pieces of wood. Their wounds were clearing up fast and did not hurt anymore. The Frenchman insisted on giving the stranger his gas cape to sleep in because he had nothing else, and the Tommy pulled out his only spare pair of socks because the strangers were walked to shreds. Sometimes the stranger left them for a few days, but he always made sure that they had enough water and fish before he left. He came back dusty and dirty and tired out, but he did not seem to need much sleep. Once, when the Tommy woke in the middle of the night and wanted a drink, he saw the stranger kneeling under a nearby tree, flipping shell shock, probably, poor bastard. The Russian soldiers tumbled into their laager one evening just as they were getting ready for sleep. He dropped his rifle in a surprise and then held his hands up high because the Frenchman was groping for his bayonet. They stood for a while looking at each other, until the Frenchman put his weapon down and the Russian's arms fell slowly to his sides. He watched them for a few minutes. Then he saw a fish tail lying on the ground and picked it up and began to gnaw it. The Tommy glanced at his companions and crawled to the hole in the rocks behind them where they kept their supplies and gave the Russian a whole fish. The Russian grinned and took it, and while he was eating it, he sat down and gradually wriggled his way closer to them. They showed him another fish and he said, ta, and they gave it to him. First time I knew a flipping Ivan who could say yes too, the Tommy said. To their amazement, the stranger spoke to the Russian with the same ease with which he spoke English and French. The Russian spent the night with him, and in the morning, after more fish, he wandered off. He came back dragging mounds of branches with which he built a shelter for the wounded men under one tree and another one for the stranger. He grinned all over his broad face pointed to the fish, to them, to himself, and to the shelters. Then he shook hands all round. That afternoon a Russian fighting patrol passed close by. The officer heard their voices, crept up behind them, and threw a hand grenade among them. The stranger threw himself on top of it just as it went off. The Englishman shot the officer through the head before the dust and smoke had cleared, and the remainder of the patrol withdrew. When they turned the stranger over, the ants were already swarming in his blood. At first they tried to brush them off with twigs, but more and more ants came. The Russian pointed to the river and gestured that it would be the kindest to throw the body in. The Frenchman shook his head, and the Englishman started to drag the body to the hole in the rocks. They laid the stranger inside and rolled a rock against the entrance and sealed the gaps with clay. They missed him a great deal, not only because of the fish and water. Next day the Russian left them before going. He banged them on the back and shook hands with them several times, and tears left streaks on his dirty face. She was overjoyed to have her son back with her. She could not stop looking at him for the sheer joy of it. Was it very terrible? She asked. No. He smiled at her. In a way it was wonderful. But the suffering and the killing, she said. I saw more than that, he said. Did you tell him all of it? She asked. All of it. He picked up his knife and whittled away at the wood, and she insisted. He's angry and sad and at the same time he's pleased, he said, and that was all he would tell her. But she felt comforted and she knew it was going to be all right. He shaved the last of the bark of the wood and looked at the grain and set to work. This time it would be a child with fat round cheeks and the dimples of laughter in them. The end of and it was good By a early.
- [111:54]
Narrator/Announcer
The Metal man by Jack Williamson From Amazing Stories, December 1928 this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Read by Dale Grothman the Metal man by Jack Williamson the Metal man stands in a dark, dusty corner of the Tyburn College Museum. Just who is responsible for the figure being moved there, or why it was done, I do not know. To the casual eye it looks to be merely an ordinary life size statue. The visitor who gives it a closer view marvels at the minute perfection of the detail of hair and skin, at the silent tragedy in the set determined expression and poise, and at the remarkable greenish cast of the metal of which it is composed, but most of all at the peculiar mark upon the chest. It is a six sided blot of a deep crimson hue, with the surface oddly granulated and strange wavering lines radiating from it. Lines of a lighter shade of red. Of course. It is generally known that the Metal man was once Professor Thomas Clark, Decline of the Geology Department. There are currently many garbled and inaccurate accounts of the weird disaster that befell him. I believe I am the only one to whom he entrusted his story. It is to put these fantastic tales to Rest that I have decided to publish the narrative that Kelvin sent me. For some years he had been spending his summer vacations along the Pacific coast of Mexico, prospecting for radium. It was three months since he had returned from his last expedition. Evidently he had been successful beyond his wildest dreams. He did not come to Tyburn, but we heard stories of his selling millions of dollars worth of salts of radium and giving as much more to institutions employing radium treatment. And it was said that he was sick of a strange disorder that defied the world's best specialists, and that he was pouring out his millions in the establishment of scholarships and endowments, as if he expected to die soon. One cold, stormy day when the sea was running high on the unprotected coast which the cottage overlooks, I saw a sail out to the north. It rapidly drew nearer until I could tell that it was a small sailing schooner with auxiliary power. She was running with the wind, but half a mile off shore she came up into it and the sails were lowered. Soon a boat had put off in the direction of shore. The sea was not so rough as to make the landing hazardous, but the proceeding was rather unusual, and as I had nothing better to do, I went out in the yard before my modest house, which stands perhaps 200 yards above the beach, in order to have a better view. When the boat touched, four men sprang out and rushed it up higher on the sand. As a fifth tall man arose in the stern, the four picked up a great chest and started up in my direction. The fifth person followed leisurely, silently and without invitation. The men brought the chest up the beach and into my yard and set it down in front of the door. The fifth man, whom I now knew to be a hard faced Yankee skipper, walked up to me and said, I am Captain MacAndrews. I'm glad to meet you, Captain, I said, wondering. There must be some mistake I was not expecting. Not at all, he said abruptly. The man in that chest was transferred to my ship from the liner Plutonia three days ago. He has paid me for my services and I believe his instructions have been carried out. Good day, sir. He turned on his heel and started away. Man in the chest. I exclaimed. He walked on, unheeding, and the seamen followed. I stood and watched them as they walked down to the boat and rowed back to the schooner. I gazed at its sails until they were lost against the dull blue of the clouds.
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- [118:37]
Narrator/Announcer
Frankly, I feared to open the chest at last. I nerved myself to do was unlocked. I threw back the lid with a shock of uncontrollable horror that left me half sick for hours. I saw in it, stark naked with the strange crimson mark standing visibly out on the pale green of the breast, the metal man, just as you may have seen him in the museum. Of course I knew at once that it was Kelvin. For a long time I bent, trembling and struck staring at him. Then I saw an old canteen, purple stained, lying by the head of the figure and under it a sheaf of manuscript. I got the ladder out, walked with shaken steps to the easy chair in the house and read the story that Dear Russell, you are my best, my only intimate friend. I have arranged to have my body and this story brought to you. I just drank the last of the wonderful purple liquid that has kept me alive since I came back, and I have scant time to finish this necessary brief account of my adventure. But my affairs are in order and I die in peace. I had myself tried transferred to the schooner today in order to reach you as soon as could be, and to avoid possible complications, I trust, Captain MacAndrews. When I left France, I hoped to see you before the end. But fate ruled otherwise. You know that the goal of my expedition was the headwaters of the El Rio del Sangre, the river of Blood. It is a small stream whose strangely red waters flow into the Pacific. On my trip last year, I had discovered that its waters were powerfully radioactive. Water has the power of absorbing radium emanations and emitting them in turn. And I hope to find radium bearing minerals in the bed of the Upper River. 25 miles above the mouth, the river emerges from the Cordilleras. There are a few miles of rapids, and back of them the river plunges down a magnificent waterfall. No exploring party had ever been back of the falls. I had hired an Indian guide and made a mule pack journey to their foot. At once I saw the futility of attempting to climb the precipitous escarpment. But the water there was even more powerfully radioactive than at the mouth. There was nothing to do but return. This summer I bought a small monoplane. Though it is comparatively slow in speed and able to spend only six hours aloft, its light weight and the small area needed for landing make it the only machine suitable for use in so rough a country. The steamer left me again on the dock at the little town of Vaca Morenas with my stack of crates and gasoline tins. After a visit to the alcalde, I secured the use of an abandoned shed for a hangar. I set about assembling the plane, and in a fortnight I had completed the task. It was a beautiful little machine with a wing spread of only 25ft. Then one morning I started the engine and made a trial flight. It flew smoothly, and in the afternoon I refilled the tanks and set off for the Rio de la Sangre. The stream looked like a red snake crawling out of the sea. There was something serpentine in its aspect. Flying high, I followed it above the falls and into the region of towering mountain peaks. The river disappeared beneath the mountain. For a moment I thought of landing, and then it occurred to me that it flowed subterraneously for only a few miles and would reappear further inland. I soared over the cliffs and came over the crater. A great pool of green fire. It was fully 10 miles across to the black ramparts at the further side. The surface of the green was so smooth that at first I thought it was a lake, and then I knew that it must be a pool of heavy gases in the glory of the evening sun. The snow capped summits about were brilliant Argentina crowns, dyed with crimson, tinged with purple and gold, tinted with strange and incredibly beautiful hues. Amid the wild scenery, nature had placed her greatest treasure. I knew that in the crater I would find the radium I sought. I circled about the place, wrapped in wonder. As the sun sank lower, a light silver mist gathered on the peaks, half veiling their wonders, and flowed toward the crater. It seemed drawn with a strange attraction. And then the center of the green lake rose up in a shining peak. It flowed up into a great hill of emerald fire. Something was rising in the green, carrying it up. Then the vapor flowed back, revealing a strange object still veiled faintly by the green and silver clouds. It was a gigantic sphere of deep red, marked with four huge oval spots of dull black. Its surface was smooth, metallic and thickly studded with great spikes that seemed of yellow fire. It was a machine inconceivably great in size. It spun slowly as it rose on a vertical axis, moving with a deliberate, purposeful motion. It came up to my own level, paused, and seemed to spin faster. And the silver mist was drawn to the yellow points, condensing, curdling, until the whole globe was a ball of lambent argent. For a moment it hung unbelievably glorious in the light of the setting sun. Then it sank ever faster until it dropped like a plume into the sea of green. And with its fall, a sinister darkness descended upon the desolate wilderness of the peaks. And I was seized by a fear that had been deadened by amazement and realized that I had scant time to reach Vaca Morena before complete darkness fell. Immediately I put the plane about in the direction of the town. According to my recollections, I had at the time no definite idea of what it was I had seen or whether the weird exhibition had been caused by human or natural agencies. I remember thinking that in such enormous quantities as undoubtedly the crater contained radium might possess qualities unnoticed in small amounts, or again, that there might be present radioactive minerals at present unknown. It occurred to me also that perhaps some other scientist had already discovered the deposits, and that what I had witnessed had been the trial of an air ship in which radium was utilized as a propellant. I was considerably shaken, but not much alarmed. What happened later would have seemed incredible to me. Then. And then I noticed that a pale, bluish luminescence was gathering about the cowl of the cockpit. And in a moment I saw the whole machine and even my own person was covered with was somewhat like St. Elmo's fire, except that it Covered all surfaces indiscriminately instead of being restricted to sharp points. All at once I connected the phenomenon with the thing I had seen. I felt no physical discomfort and the motor continued to run. But as the blue radiance continued to increase, I observed that my body felt heavier and that the machine was being drawn downward. My mind was flooded with wonder and terror. I fought to retain sufficient self possession to fly the ship. My arms were soon so heavy that I could hold them upon the controls only with difficulty, and I felt a slight dizziness, due, no doubt to the blood's being drawn from my head. When I recovered, I was already almost on the green. Somehow my gravitation had been increased and I was being drawn into the pit. It is possible to keep a plane under control only by diving and keeping it at high speed. I plunged into the green pool. The gas was not suffocating as I had anticipated. In fact, I noticed no change in the atmosphere, save that my vision was limited to a few yards around. The wings of the plane were still distinctly discernible. Suddenly a smooth sandy plain was murkily revealed below and I was able to level the ship off enough for a safe landing. As I came to a stop, I saw that the sand was slightly luminous as the green mist seemed to be, and red. For a time I was confined to the ship by my own weight, but I noticed that the blue was slowly dissipating and with it its effect. As soon as I was able, I clambered over the side of the cockpit pit, carrying my canteen and automatic, which were themselves immensely heavy. I was unable to stand erect, but I crawled off over the coarse shining red sand, stopping at frequent intervals to lie flat and rest. I was in deathly fear of the force that had brought me down. I was sure it had been directed by intelligence. The floor was so smooth and level that I supposed it to be the bottom of an ancient lake. Sometimes I looked fearfully back, and when I was a hundred yards away, I saw a score of lights floating through the green toward the airplane. In the luminous murk, each bright point was surrounded by a disk of paler blue. I made no movement, but lay and watched them. They floated to the plain and wheeled about it with a slow, heavy motion. Closer and closer they came until they reached the ground about it. The mist was so thick as to obscure the details of the scene. When I went to resume my flight, I found my excess of gravity almost entirely gone, Though I went on hands and knees for another hundred yards to escape possible observation. When I got to my feet, the plain was lost to view. I walked on for perhaps a quarter of a mile and suddenly realized that my sense of direction was altogether gone. I was completely lost in a strange world inhabited by beings whose nature and disposition I could not even guess. And then I realized that it was the height of folly to walk about when any step might precipitate me into a danger of which I could know nothing. I had a peculiar, unpleasant feeling of helpless fear. The luminous red sand and the shining green of the air lay about in all directions, unbroken by a single solid object. There was no life, no sound, no motion. The air hung heavy and stagnant. The flat sand was like the surface of a dead and desolate sea. I felt the panic of utter isolation from humanity. The mist seemed to come closer. The strange evil in it seemed to grow more alert. Suddenly a darting light passed, meteor like, through the green above, and in my alarm, I ran a few blundering steps. My foot struck a light object that rang like metal. The sharpness of the concussion filled me with fear. But in an instant the light was gone. I bent down to see what I had kicked. It was a metal bird, an eagle, formed of metal, with the wings outspread, talons gripping, the fierce beak set open. The color was white, tinged with green. It weighed no more than the living bird. At first I thought it was a cast model, and then I saw that each feather was complete and flexible. Somehow a real eagle had been turned into metal. It seemed incredible, yet here was the concrete proof. I wondered if the radium deposits, which I had already used to explain so much, might account for this, too. I knew that science held transmutation of elements to be possible, had even accomplished it in a limited way, and that radium itself was the product of the disintegration of ionium and ionium, that of uranium. I was struck with fright. For my own safety might I be changed to metal. I looked to see if there were other metal things about, and I found them in abundance. Half buried in the glowing sands were metal birds of every kind, birds that had flown over the surrounding cliffs. And at the climax of my search, I found a parasant, a flying reptile that had invaded the pit ages past, changed to ageless metal. Its wingspan was fully 15ft. It would be a treasure in any museum. I made a fearful examination of myself, and to my utter horror, I perceived that the tips of my finger nails and the fine hairs upon my hands were already changed to a light green metal. The shock unnerved me completely. You cannot conceive my horror. I screamed aloud in agony of the soul. Careless of the terrible foes that the sound might attract. I ran off wildly. I was blind, unreasoning. I felt no fatigue as I ran, only stark terror. Bright, swift, moving lights passed above in the green, but I heeded them not. Suddenly I came upon the great sphere that I had seen above. It rested motionless in a cradle of black metal. The yellow fire was gone from the spikes, but the red surface shone with a metallic lustre. Lights floated about it. They made little bright spots in the green, like lanterns swinging in a fog. I turned and ran again, desperately. I took no note of the direction, nor of the passage of time. Then I came upon a bank of violet vegetation, waist deep. It was grass like, with thick, narrow leaves dotted with clusters of small pink blooms and little purple berries. And a score of yards beyond, I saw a sluggish red stream. El Rio de la Sangre. Here was cover at last. I threw myself down in the violet growth and lay sobbing with fatigue and terror. For a long time I was unable to stir or think. When I looked again at my finger nails, the tips of metal had doubled in width. I tried to control my agitation and to think. Possibly the lights, whatever they were, would sleep by day. If I could find the plane or scale the walls, I might escape the fearful action of the radioactive minerals before it was too late. I realized that I was hungry. I plucked off a few of the purple berries and tasted them. They had a salty, metallic taste, and I thought they would be valueless for food. But in pulling them, I had inadvertently squeezed the juice from one upon my fingers, and when I wiped it off, I saw, to my amazement and my inexpressible joy, that the rim of metal was gone from the finger nails it had touched. I had discovered a means of safety. I suppose that the plants were able to exist there only because they had been so developed that they produced compounds counteracting the metal, forming emanations. Probably their evolution began when the action was far weaker than now, and only those able to withstand the more intense radiations had survived. I lost no time in eating a cluster of the berries, and then I poured the water from my canteen and filled it with their juice. I have analyzed the fluid, and it corresponds in some ways with the standard formulas for the neutralization of radium burns. And doubtless it saved me from the terrible burns caused by the action of ordinary radium. I lay there until dawn, dozing a little at times, only to start into wakefulness without cause. It seemed that some daylight Filtered through the green, for at dawn it grew paler and even the red sand appeared less luminous. After eating a few more of the berries, I ascertained the direction in which the stagnant red water was moving and set off down stream toward the west. In order to get an idea of where I was going, I counted my paces. I had walked about two and a half miles along by the violet plants when I came to an abrupt cliff. It towered up until it was lost in the green gloom. It seemed to be mostly a black pitchblende. The barrier seemed absolutely unscalable. The Red river plunged out of sight by the cliff in a racing whirlpool. I walked off north around the rim. I had no very definite plan, except to try and find a way out over the cliffs. If I failed in that, it would be time to hunt the plane. I had a mortal fear of going near it or of encountering the strange lights I had seen floating about it as I went. I saw none of them. I suppose they slept. When it was day, I went on until it must have been noon, though my watch had stopped. Occasionally I passed metal trees that had fallen from above, and once the metallic body of a bear that had slipped off a path above sometime in past ages. And there were metal birds without number. They must have been accumulating through the geologic ages all along. Up to this, the cliff had risen perpendicularly to the limit of my vision. But now I saw a wide ledge with a sloping wall beyond it, dimly visible above. But the sheer wall rose a full hundred feet to the shelf, and I cursed at my inability to surmount it. For a time I stood there, devising impractical means for climbing it, driven almost to tears by my impotence. I was ravenously hungry and thirsty as well. At last I went on. In an hour I came upon it. A slender cylinder of black metal that towered a hundred feet into the greenish mist and carried at the top a great mushroom shaped yellow flame. It was a strange thing. The fire was as big as a balloon, Bright and steady. It looked much like a great jet of combustible gas burning as it streamed through the cylinder. I stood petrified in amazement, wondering vaguely at the what and why of the thing. And then I saw more of them, back of it dimly, scores of them. A whole forest of flames. I crouched back against the cliff while I considered. Here, I supposed, was the City of Lights. They were sleeping now, but still I had not the courage to enter. According to my calculations, I had gone about 15 miles. Then I must be I thought almost diametrically opposed to. To the place where the crimson river flowed under the wall, with half of the rim unexplored. If I wished to continue my journey, I must go around the city, if I may call it that. So I left the wall. Soon it was lost to view. I tried to keep in view the orange flames, but abruptly they were gone in the mist. I walked more to the left, but I came upon nothing but the wastes of red sand with the green murk above. On and on I wandered. Then the sand and the air grew slowly brighter, and I knew that night had fallen. The lights were soon passing to and fro. I had seen the lights the night before, but they travelled high and fast. These, on the other hand, sailed low, and I felt that they were searching. I knew that they were hunting for me. I laid down in a little hollow in the sand. Vague mist, veiled points of light came near and passed. And then one stopped directly overhead. It descended, and the circle of radiance grew about it. I knew that it was useless to run, and I could not have done so for my terror. Down and down it came. And then I saw its form. The thing was of a glittering blazing crystal. A great six sided upright prism of red. A dozen feet in length it was, with a six pointed structure, like a snowflake, about the center, deep blue, with pointed blue flanges running from the points of the star to the angles of the prism. Soft scarlet fire flowed from the points. And on each face of the prism, above and below the star, was a purple cone that must have been an eye. Strange pulsating lights flickered from the crystal. It was alive with light. It fell straight toward me. It was a terrible, utterly alien form of life. It was not human, not animal, not even life as we know it at all. And yet it had intelligence. But it was strange and foreign and devoid of feeling. It is curious to say that even then, as I lay beneath it, the thought came to me that the thing and its fellows must have crystallized when the waters of the ancient seas dried out of the crater. Crystallizing salts take intricate forms. I drew my automatic and fired three times, but the bullets ricochetted harmlessly off the polished facets. It dropped until the gleaming lower point of the prism was not a yard above me. Then the scarlet fire reached out caressingly, flowed over my body. My weight grew less. I was lifted, held against the point. You may see its mark upon my chest. The thing floated into the air, carrying me. Soon others were drifting about. I was overcome with nausea. The scene grew black, and I knew no more. I awoke floating free in a brilliant orange light. I touched no solid object. I writhed, kicked about at nothingness. I could not move or turn over because I could get a hold on nothing. My memory of the last two days seemed a nightmare. My clothing was still upon me, my canteen still hung, or rather floated by my shoulder, and my automatic was in my pocket. I had the sensation that a great space of time had passed. There was a curious stiffness in my side. I examined it and found a red scar. I believed those crystal things had cut into me, and I found, with a horror, you cannot understand, the mark upon my chest. Presently it dawned upon me that I was floating, devoid of gravity and free as an object in space. In the orange flame at the top of one of the black cylinders, the crystals knew the secret of gravity. It was vital to them. And peering about, I discerned with infinite repulsion a great flashing body a few yards away. But its inner lights were dead. So I knew that it was day and that the strange beings were sleeping. If I was ever to escape, this was the opportunity. I kicked, clawed desperately at the air, all in vain. I did not move an inch. If they had chained me, I could not have been more secure. I drew my automatic, resolving on a desperate measure. They could not find me again alive. And as I had it in my hand, the idea came into my mind. I pointed the gun to the side and fired six rapid shots. And the recoil of each explosion sent me drifting forward, faster, rocket wise, toward the edge. I shot out into the green. Had my gravity been suddenly restored, I might have been killed by the fall. But I descended slowly and felt a curious lightness for several minutes. And to my surprise, when I struck the ground, the airplane was right before me. They had drawn it up by the base of the tower. It seemed to be intact. I started the engine with nervous haste and sprang into the cockpit. As I started, another black tower loomed up abruptly before me. But I veered around it and took off in safety. In a few moments, I was above the green. I half expected the gravitational waves to be turned on me again. But higher and higher I rose, unhindered until the accusing black walls were about me no longer. The sun blazed high in the heavens. Soon I was landing at Vaca Moreno. I had had enough of radium hunting on the beach where I landed. I sold the plane to a rancher at his own price and told him to reserve a place for me on the next steamer, which was due in three days. Then I went to the town's single inn, ate, and went to bed at noon the next day. When I got up, I found that my shoes and the pockets of my clothing contained a good bit of the red sand from the crater that had been collected as I crawled about in flight from the crystal lights. I saved some of it for curiosity alone, but when I analyzed it, I found it a radium compound so rich that the little handful was worth millions of dollars. But the fortune was of little value, for despite frequent doses of the fluid from my canteen and the best medical aid, I have suffered continually, and now that my canteen is empty, I am doomed. Your first friend, Thomas Kelvin Thus the manuscript ends. If the reader doubts the truth of the letter, he may see the Metal man in the Tyburn Museum. The End of the Metal man by Jack Williamson.
- [149:59]
Narrator/Storyteller
Sign of Life by Dave Dreyfus this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.orgSign of Life by Dave Dreyfus George Mayne lay dying in the wreckage of the spaceship, dying and cursing the deadly wind of Venus. It had killed his mates. It would soon have him. The wind was trying to finish him off right now. It shrieked, moaned, whispered, and shouted through the smashed hull where he sprawled in his spacesuit. Laughed too. The wind was a murderer and was glad all but he were dead. Soon the grit laden wind would bury them and their ship. Then all the effort, the skill, the faith, all the ingenuity and labor expended on the expedition would be wiped away, as invisible as the wind that buried them. Thinking of that, thinking back over each agonizing hour since his landing on Venus, George Mayne wondered what he should have done, what he could do now to prevent the utter waste of their efforts and their lives. The wind was his enemy, and the wind couldn't even be seen. Only the dust it carried was visible, too visible. Dust was so thick in the upper atmosphere that the Scope readers had mistaken dust clouds for solid ground with ports blinded by dust. The possibility of that error had been obvious enough. The navigator knew the risk. He chanced it and lost the toss. George knew he was still alive only because he'd acted like a childish eager beaver and had been tolerated by the others because he was the crew's youngest member. Ever since he could read and dream, he had wanted to be the first man ever to touch the soil of Venus. So, having no duties connected with setting down the ship, he'd gotten into his spacesuit and had waited by a hatch. He was standing there when the ship went into the 20 minute free fall that smashed it. George didn't know who opened the escape hatch and shoved him out. That man was dead, along with the rest of the crew. Unlike George's suit, the spaceship had no parachute. He'd landed blind in dust so thick he didn't know he was down till he got there. For 48 hours he'd lain where he fell, waiting for a lull in the storm so he could see the ship. When the wind finally quit, the ship was already half buried. Thirsty, hungry, stinking in the hot suit, George had staggered over windrow after windrow of dust to reach it. He'd broken out an emergency jug of water, found some uncontaminated food erected within the hull, a small gas proof tent, and then passed out. Before he could crawl in the tent to eat and drink. Later, he'd gone out while the lull continued to search for bodies. Like the hull itself, they were scattered over a wide area. Some were already buried in dust. The wind had buried them. The wind. The murdering wind. The wind of formaldehyde that poisoned every drop of water it touched every bit of food. The wind that limited George's supplies to unbroken containers of which there were tragically few. The wind mocked him then and thereafter. It mocked his efforts to find the ship's log and continue it. It mocked his efforts to live. He tried to fight back. He lay prone and relaxed because that took less oxygen. He lay in the suit and not in the tent because that took less oxygen. He ate and drank but once a day because that took less oxygen. So he had run out of water while there were still some potassium oxides left to refresh. His thrice breathed air. Some oxygen for the tent.
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Narrator/Storyteller
George Main wanted to live, knew he would die, and was enraged at the thought that he would die without having accomplished anything. He and his friends and the pioneering scientists back of them had put too much effort into trans system travel to have it all come to nothing like this. Stubbornly he noted in the log that he was now dehydrated to the point of occasional delirium and that he hated the wind. As if that wind had not already done enough, it now sought to destroy his last remaining moments of sanity. It brought a horde of odd shapes to haunt him. The shapes literally rolled into the dust filled metal cavity where he lay writing. The wind rolled them, but when they got into shelter, had rolled to one side or the other of the holes through which they'd come, the shapes began to move slowly under their own power. They all looked alike. There were a couple of dozen, maybe. George counted 10 and gave up because counting was too much like work. They were teardrops, 8 inch yellow teardrops with the point down and each point rested on an extensible foot that looked like a blue starfish about 4 inches across, its 7 points. They came in rolling along the ground as the wind took them, and they extended their stars from some hidden place and moved on them when out of the wind, that is, they seemed to. But whether they were in the hole or in his mind, George was by no means sure. Nothing could live in this wind. Nothing could live on a planet with no water, where the air was full of formaldehyde, ready to react with proteins, the basis of life. He lay motionless, watching idly. There was no sound but the wind. The yellow teardrops scattered out. They could have been exploring or seeking shelter, or non existent. When he got tired of watching them, George put the log aside and slept. He awoke to find a small Congregation of teardrops surrounding the watch, strapped outside the suit on his left wrist. The watch was going, wound through habit every 24 hours, though that was but a third of a day here on Venus. The teardrops were curious about it. How he got the idea they were curious, George didn't quite know. They seemed attracted to it, was all there were. No eyes, so far as he could tell. No ears. If these things had senses, they were not like terrestrial senses. But the teardrops did have an attitude of attention. George moved his watch, laid it before them. Two teardrops detached themselves from the group to examine his right hand, with which he'd slipped off the wristband. Three others perched on the dust covered deck, the watch between them and him. George flexed his right hand, twiddled his fingers. The teardrops seemed unafraid. He chose one and lifted it. It seemed light in weight. Its starfoot was slightly prehensile, and grasped his glove with tiny claws arranged in rows on its bottom surface. The claws seemed for clinging, not for seizing. George put down the teardrop, turned it over, and found no opening anywhere on the surface. If these things lived, he decided, they must be plants synthesizing their food. They had no way to eat, as animals do. Vaguely, George made up his wavering mind that the things existed outside his imagination. They were alive. They felt curiosity about him. Leathery, he found them hard and smooth, except for the foot. When he set down, the teardrop he'd been examining, the three by his watch took up a rhythmic motion. The center one stood in place, swaying slowly above the watch like a bit of seaweed in a quiet lagoon. Each of the other two had somehow obtained a pebble. They set their pebbles down near the watch. Each then tapped with a star point, first at the pebble, then at the watch. Back and forth they swayed, their motions synchronized, perhaps directed by the center one. Interesting, but meaningless. It was equally meaningless when the two teardrops at his right began to dance. They found an empty food can lid, pushed it near his hand, and began a concerted swaying and pointing that took them between hand and can. Idly, George led the dance with a waggled forefinger. The teardrops promptly changed their motion. They stood in place, no longer pointing alternately at lid and finger, but swaying between them in time. With George, they were slow, though he could easily have left them behind. But if he moved his fingers slowly enough, they kept perfect time. The dance at the watch had stopped. Many teardrops gathered around the pair that followed the beat of his right index finger. It must have amused them, but it soon tired George. He stopped. He needed all his remaining energy to think with. He knew these teardrops were sentient. They were curious. They communicated with each other, and they danced. They had minds, therefore, George remembered hearing that man had danced even before he learned to speak, in a primitive effort to express his feelings. He knew some birds dance too, as a courtship procedure, insects even. But why did the teardrops dance? What was the significance of rhythmic motion between a pebble and a watch, A tin lid in a man's hand? What did the pebbles mean? The pebble was a native object known to be lifeless, inanimate. The watch was a strange something that moved. The can lid did not move. The hand, gloved, though they could not know that was an object that moved. The dance was a question. Therefore, Alive or dead? The teardrops wanted to know. Is the watch that moves by itself alive? The strangely symmetrical lid of a can, Is it alive? The odd shaped hand these teardrops had. Good minds, could grasp abstractions. In a sense, George felt, the difference between animate and inanimate objects is an abstraction. In his dying state, the notion amused him. Smiling, he placed a pebble on the watch, another on the lid. He sat up, moved his weakened body so they could perhaps tell it was a unit. He picked up a teardrop in each hand, held them in his visor, rolled his eyes and opened and shut his mouth. He spoke to them, he sang to them. He swayed with them to show he too could dance. They made no sign of reply. None that he could recognize, at any rate. Carefully, he felt and looked at the entire surface of a teardrop, putting one down to devote both hands to the other. He thought perhaps the lack of organs and openings might simply mean they were clothed or armored in some way. But the thing was apparently naked. The surfaces he touched were probably skin he didn't know. And they would they know what a man was? Were they even certain he was alive? One of them was behind him, dancing before the tent. Seeing that, he was certain the teardrops hadn't yet distinguished the animate from the inanimate in the objects around them here, and George had little time to teach them. Already he was dull and listless. His vision was playing tricks on him, like as he'd not. He'd be dead before they knew for certain he'd been alive. Dead. In the grotesque spacesuit preserved in an atmosphere of formaldehyde, his body would seem like a machine that had run down. There would be no discernible difference between himself and his watch. But if they knew he'd been alive, they might remember. Then they were intelligent, could communicate with one another. By rights they should have some kind of legends or traditions or history. If they did, if they knew they'd seen alien life, they'd keep the memory alive. They'd recognize the next man to land on Venus. Might find means to tell of this first expedition might lead a man to the buried spaceship, the bodies, the ship's log. At least they could defeat the wind. The teardrops could keep his life and the lives of his mates from going utterly to waste. Whether men ever found out or not, the teardrops themselves would know that the expedition had reached Venus. But first George had to prove he was alive like them. Not some strangely mobile meteorite nor oddly contrived machine. His very lack of strength, his real nearness to death, provided George with the means he sought. Already he was half anesthetized by weakness and shock. He didn't have to worry about pain. Holding his breath, he took off his helmet. He picked up a teardrop with each hand, held them to his hot cheeks. Then he let himself breathe. He knew the physical changes to follow would be obvious to the intelligent little dancers he held in his hands. He hoped they wouldn't get hurt when they fell. Hurt or not, they'd soon figure out he'd been alive once he was dead. End of Sign of Life by Dave Dreyfus Recording by John Riley Hoover Alabama.
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At War with the Invisible by R. And G. Winthrop this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Read by Ben Tucker At War with the Invisible by RNC Winthrop to you of the present generation, secure and prosperous in these happy days of universal brotherhood and peace. The world destroying war of the planets that engulfed every shred of our vast planetarian system at the opening of this century. And pitted with frightful force, planet against planet is already becoming a mere tradition, a gruesome historical record of the unwise past. As you glide along the turbid canals on your summer trip to Mars, with the peculiar reddish water lapping at the sides of the blunt shaped gondolas, you pause for a few moments to contemplate the enormous magnetic pillars from which were launched the world crushing electrites. Or you climb the grass covered battle hill on Venus to gather souvenir fragments of the crumbling flame tower whose battered sides now seem to be sinking into the crest of the hill. But strive as you May to revive the images of that bygone age. Your interest is only historical and you cannot sense the feeling of horror that comes over us older people when we revisit these time scarred, battle seared scenes of a past in which we struggled against complete extinction. I do not expect therefore, to reproduce in your souls the emotions that moved me in that time of strain and stress. I cannot hope to picture in your minds my own mental conflicts of dread and triumph, of life and love and hope. When a fear maddened the universe, fought desperately against a new force more bitter and relentless than any that warring mankind had ever before faced, the invisible armada of the air. But I want to bring vividly to your minds the knowledge of that event, one among a thousand of the great war, so that you may see how the supreme intelligence working through the mind and hand of man, rewards fiendishness and malevolent ambition. It was in the year 2011 that Mars thrust this new engine of frightfulness into the strife. The terrific struggle was ending itself. Third bitter year. And the contest between righteousness and unholy greed seemed to be ending with victory on our side, as the real character of the war had become apparent. One after another, the planets had joined the forces pledged to destroy the menace of martianism. The huge V planes of the allies now surrounded Mars in a flashing ring, gradually crushing down her stubborn resistance. And we looked forward with eager hope to the approaching end. Then came the stupefying shock of Philadelphia's destruction. I was in Paris at the time, representing the New York century at the reception to the commission from Venus. Around the table of honor were gathered the keenest minds of the allied planets. The president of the visiting commission, the honorable Perros Venicerol, had hardly begun the opening of his address when the vibrator on my pocket phone signaled. At the moment, my president's daughter Eva sat at my side. In these days, when a journey to another planet is as common as a weekend trip to Japan was in my time, the presence of Venusian women in our social life is accepted as a matter of course. But in 2011, their ethereal glory still held us enthralled. And ava. Ava was the quintessence of them all. I was one of the committee appointed to interpret the earth to the visiting commissioners, But I interpreted it only to Ava. Her presence had called forth in a flash, my very soul, and I laid it at her feet with such generous intensity that she accepted it as graciously and as sweetly as a child takes a flower. Ah, that lilt in her voice. The mysterious fascinating chime of the bells on her wrist, the bells that no one could see, the bells that were to save us from the Martian horror. But I am forgetting the reception and the summons of the pocket phone. With an impatient jerk I drew out the phone, set the silencer so as not to disturb those near me, and adjusted the receiver to my head. Immediately I could hear Ingalls, my managing editor. His voice was tremulous with excitement. For God's sake, Elvin, hurry back. He gasped. What's up? I asked. I can't tell you. Hell's broke loose on Earth. Won't tomorrow do? I suggested. The honorable Perros. Oh, damn, the Honorable Perros. Shouted Ingalls. Start now, I tell you. And he shut off with a jerk. I glanced around at the assemblage, at the venerable High Commissioner, now fully launched forth on his impressive message, and finally, at ava, an inexplicable fear, vague and uneasy, wound like a cold, thin wisp of steel around my heart. With quick resolve I drew out my notebook to find the index sign of the American Air Service. In another moment I was talking to the manager. There was a night express leaving London, he informed me, whispering a hasty explanation to Eva. I made my way from the hall up to the roof of the building. About a dozen planes were lined up on the starting platform, and I selected the swiftest looking one of the left lot. It was a long gray bullet racer. The heiress, a light hearted boy still in his teens, assured me he could make the station on time with half his cylinders dead. Watch in hand, I crept into the asbestos covered compartment, seated myself by his side, and we slid into the night. In a few moments we had cleared the city and were heading straight for London. Instead of following the well marked route over Calais, we took the direct Dieppe path, hoping to gain a few precious seconds by the lessened mileage and the lighter traffic. For five minutes we breasted the darkness with no sound but the purr of the motor and an occasional click of the altitude lever as the plane rose or dropped to escape the suction holes that our indicator showed us in advance. Then a light flashed out of the back, winking red and white. It was the signal station at Dieppe, floating 10,000ft above the city. Half the distance was behind us and I had 10 minutes left. I turned to my companion with a murmur of satisfaction. You'll do it, I said with satisfaction. It's easy, grinned the boy. Last year I pushed a V to Mars. There's where the lads move a hundred a minute with the deflectors off and 500 when they're on. I'll be back there. Now if they hadn't smashed my back. I turned with a look of inquiry toward his arched spine. Chunk of electrite, he explained. A grain of it humps you up. As we sped over the channel, the cloud that covered the sky opened toward the west, and I could see Mars glowing dull red, like a baleful eye on the horizon. Whatever has happened in America, I thought, at least it can't be due to the Martians. Thank heaven they are bottled up securely. My ruminations were suddenly checked as the aorist snapped off his motor and pushed the snub nose of the bullet at a steep angle toward the Earth. We had reached London. The immense dock of the American Air Service was thronged with excited groups of people. Rumors of an awful cataclysm in America were being stridently discussed, and many passengers hesitated to board the Eagle, which stood ready on the inclined platform, her black carbonoid body spotted with even rows of lights from the observation portholes. One Mercurian had made himself the spokesman for the timorous and loudly expressed the fears that that animated them all. Don't tell me it's an earthquake. He was shouting with the volubility and exaggerated gestures that marked the speech of his people. Who ever heard of earthquakes around Philadelphia? It's the Martians. They've broken loose again. Impossible. Objected one of his auditors. The V planes are hedging Mars so close a fly couldn't get through. That's what they said in 2010, sneered the Mercurian. Then the electrites began slamming us. I tell you, the Martians have outguessed us again. You listen to me. The Eagle won't get halfway across. Take my advice and stay here. If it's the Martians, observed a placid voice in back of me, they'll hit us here just as quick as over there. I can't see the sense in getting scared off. The Eagle I turned with a smile of approval to face the speaker. As I suggested from the accent, he was a Jupiterian, huge in bulk and glittering with gold leaf and jewels. What has happened? I asked. I received a message calling me back to New York, but there were no details. There are all kinds of rumors. One says Philadelphia is gone. Another tells us all America has wiped off the Earth. Whatever it is, this is no time to stand back in fear.
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I'm going over.
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I fell in with his stride as he turned and we walked aboard the Eagle, whose powerful blades were already slicing the air. At sunrise the next morning, as the eagle soared across Staten Island, I stood on her dew wet forward deck and gazed ahead with a peculiar sense of vague fear as to what sight might greet me. I gave a gulp of relief as the outlines of the great city flew rapidly into vision. Before I could dwell any further on the meaning of Engel's message, the great airship began settling toward her dock. Without a moment's delay, I hurried to the Century Building and soon was winding through the long lane of writers desks to the editor's office again. A feeling of undefined apprehension chilled me as I opened the door and Engel's tired eyes met mine. No sleep had closed his. The pupils were pinpoints in two sunken blue gray pools.
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Elven Good.
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A look of relief lit up his drawn features and he leaned back in his chair. For the love of glory, Elvin, get over there quick and give us a straight story of this convulsion, he implored. You're the only one can do it. All the tykes around here have gone insane, I believe. Look what this putty brained ass says. He held up one of the scribbled sheets and read from it in a voice ragged with exhaustion. No such scene has ever been seen before. The scene beggars description. Is it as bad as all that? I asked soberly. It's worse, inglis assured me, becoming grave. Philadelphia's buried a mile deep, and Lord knows who's next. Surely you don't expect I certainly do. Those vampires of Mars. Mars? I started in surprise. For the temperamental Mercurian to be seeing Martians behind every catastrophe was quite natural. But Ingles, how could they? I protested. I don't know. That's what I expect you to find out. His voice rose in grotesque wrathfulness. Don't stand there theorizing, you blue headed son of an ink bottle. Get on the job. If I don't soon have something sensible to work on, I'll go toppy. Some 10 minutes later I stood on a little height in what had once been Fairmount park, gazing down on the starkest desolation that the earth had witnessed since Sodom and Gomorrah. Where once 5 million human beings had lived and loved, enjoyed and sorrowed, a vast body of sluggish, oily water stretched before the eye. The entire southern part of the city had either sunk or vanished into the air, and the Schuykill and Delaware rivers rushing together had converted the site into an inland sea. Up towards Germantown and Ogance, where the land was hilly, the water had not entirely covered the ground and a few heights projected above the surface, barren of any habitation or other sign of life, and showing by their tortured appearance the agony of destruction through which they had passed. I had the eerie feeling of one who beholds an awesome vision in a dream, aware that he is dreaming and unable to rouse himself. All sense of reality vanished before the appalling devastation. The tide was setting in from the bay and the sullen waters brought a small wave lapping at my feet. There was a splotch of rusty sediment on the wavelet, which to my disordered imagination had the appearance of blood. It might be from some of the innocents beneath the sea, I thought, and drew back shudderingly. The worst feature was that no one had survived to tell of the disaster. Camden, directly across the river, could give no coherent account of what it had seen. In fact, it had seen nothing that could explain the mystery. At 10 o' clock in the morning it was Sunday and the neighboring cities were smiling peacefully up at the sky. A sudden explosion shook the earth to its very heart. Stunned by the shock, the residents of Camden were further bewildered by the shattering glass and the rush of wind that sent chimneys and roofs crashing to the streets. Those who were first able to look about saw a black cloud rising to a great height above Philadelphia. It hung there for an hour or more, and meanwhile the surge of angry waters could be heard rushing in to fill the void. When the air finally cleared, the terror stricken people rushed to the river front and their hearts sickened within them as they beheld a troubled ocean rolling over the region where once their sister city had been. Ingalls and I discussed the problem for hours, but could come to no agreement. The National Geological Society had already declared the cause to be a volcanic crevasse of prehistoric origina layer above which had given way beneath the city and dropped it to a great depth. I accepted the Society's solution as the only reasonable one, but Ingalls scoffed at it. The Mars fever has gone to your brain, I told him in one of our disputes. Supposing they could have slipped through the V plane blockade, an obviously absurd proposition. Why didn't someone see them coming or going? And why didn't the solenoid towers indicate their approach? I suppose you know that the plates in those towers will record anything coming towards the earth as soon as the Sol ray interference begins, and that's 2,000 miles up. Professor Bergeroff explained that very clearly in this morning's Times. Surely you're not going to maintain that they've learned to reach us without disturbing the sol rays, I'm maintaining only one thing, declared Inglis, and that's the utter asininity of relying on the security of the past. What do I care for your damned soul race? The same minds that discovered them can find a way to circumvent them. Instead of wasting time trying to prove why the Martians couldn't have done it. Those scientists better be devising something to prevent their doing it again. And they'd better be preparing urgently quick too, for it's my solemn belief those world murdering devils are making ready for another descent. Ingalls was right. Barely eight days after the complete obliteration of America's third largest city, there came hurtling through the air the gripping news of the destruction of Ramelon, the proud capital city of Mercury. The need for theorizing was gone. The Martians had plainly broken through the apparently impenetrable blockade and were again wantonly on the rampage. But how, we asked ourselves desperately, what unknown force had blood reddened Mars unleashed that could reach across the incalculable space, unseen and unheard and more omniscient than lightning, select its victims at will? The days that followed Ramelan's destruction were like a gruesome nightmare. Every city on the allied planets lived on the edge of an unseen abyss, cringingly awaiting the next bolt to fall upon it. On Friday morning, November 10, as London was emerging from the fitful sleep of a terrorized city in into the broad full sunshine of a new day, a series of short, sharp, ominous explosions were heard in the air above the National Gallery. In sudden alarm, those in the vicinity gazed upward. From out of a clear sky, a shower of thin red metal disks zigzagged fantastically to the ground. The entire district, from Oxford street to the Victoria Station, became at once a frantic bedlam. Stampeded humanity rushed for shelter and with palpitating expectancy awaited the direful catastrophe. With fascinated horror they watched the bewildering missiles bound and rebound from street to sidewalk and roll clinkingly to and fro. Five, ten minutes passed. The scarlet messengers had ceased falling and lay gleaming in the bright autumn sun like splotches of blood. Here and there, some more bold than others, stepped out of their hiding places, compelled by curiosity to examine these strange visitants from out of the nowhere. Gradually, London drew a sigh of relief. Traffic and life swung again into motion. Nothing fearful had happened. The metal hail phenomena would soon be explained, perhaps by those whose business it was to solve such freakish events. Hardly an hour had passed when London's feeling of reassurance was cruelly shattered. The disks, interpreted by university experts, were found to be messages from Mars. In one brief statement, the imprint on the red circle announced the complete destruction of the city. By 3 o' clock that afternoon, a wail of deepest anguish rose from London's masses and spread like the blackened wings of doom over the whole city as the demoniac portent of the evil messengers penetrated the minds of the people. In vain had the watchers in the solenoid towers sprung to their sensitive recording plates to seek for some indication of the enemy's presence. The plates were blank. A message imploring help was flashed over the earth, and at once our strongest forces were hurled to the spot. Huge V planes bearing tremendous batteries, grim little heliolites, in one of which I was stationed with their atomic detonators, and thousands of other craft thronged the air for a distance of 500 miles around and above land.
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London.
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But of what avail our formidable armament when there was no visible enemy against whom to direct it? We circled about in close formation so that not even a sparrow could have escaped our reflectors. But the air was apparently innocent of any hostile ship. Meanwhile, the city below was in the grip of a hellish panic. Those who could take to the air did so immediately, with never a thought for their treasures left behind. Others pushed and struggled like maddened beasts along the streets to escape from the doomed city. Bruised and crushed bodies lay thick along the highway like worms after a spring rain, and their fellow beings trampled on them unheedingly in those awful moments. Unfortunately, the greater part of those who cleared the city streamed out in Essex and Kent, overflowing such places as Welling, Greyford, Degenhaugh, Gray's, Thurrock and Gravesend, where the Martians had evidently placed contact points for their detonators in order to tear up the entire Thames bed and hasten the deluge from the North Sea. A few minutes before the appointed hour, we withdrew our army of planes with as many people as we could load on. I bent over the glass in the floor of my heliolite for a last glimpse of London. An immense throng had gathered on the embankment, evidently resigned to the dreadful fate, and were listening to the soothing words of an old man who had assumed leadership of the mass and like some inspired prophet, was evidently directing their thoughts away from the approaching terror. Down Cheapside way, other groups, crazed by fear, were tearing and rending each other in insane fury. My last impression, one that I still see vividly whenever I close my eyes is of a large number of women and children. Children kneeling on the ground in Regent's park, their arms outstretched piteously to us as we flew by. So long had we stayed loath to depart, while there remained the faintest hope of discovering the Martians. That we had only reached Oxford when the explosion came. Again the dark cloud of destruction spread above the earth. Again the swirling waters rushed into the chasm and London, with its 10 million lives, was gone. This was the culminating tragedy. Secure in her untrammeled power, Mars now issued an insolent manifesto. Peace was offered us on terms that would make the allied planets mere vassals to her will. If we accepted, the destruction of our cities would cease. Otherwise, five days grace were allotted us to make our decision unless we agreed to her demands by noon on Thursday. That hour would mark the doom of New York, and our other cities were to be similarly damned to extinction. On the Saturday evening following London's destruction, I sat in the study of my apartment overlooking Van Cortlandt Park. My mind was spent from a whole day's heart wearying discussion and argument in the council. Many of the older men had advised submission, but several members of the Board of Strategy, including myself, pleaded for delay. At any moment, the keen minds working tirelessly on the problem might discover the means used by the Martians to reach our Earth undetected. Without such knowledge, we all admitted our cause was hopeless. Alone in my room, the mystery tugged at my mind again and again. It was baffling. In despair, I looked about for something to relieve the unbearable strain. The reflecto screen on the east wall caught my eye. It was connected with the leading theaters, and I remember thinking cynically how the people could go on playing even though the end of the world was in sight. Teresa Carmine was singing at the Metropolitan, I noticed by the auto indicator. Switching off the lights, I connected the screen transmitter with the opera house, opened the autophone and stretched myself comfortably in an armchair before the screen. The second act of Madame Butterfly, that imperishable story of hopeless love, was nearing its end, and Carmine stood looking towards the bay, waiting patiently for the lover who would never return. The wonderful colors of the screen brought out vividly the pathetic droop of the slim figure, and the room echoed softly to the sobbing violins and cellos of the orchestra. Unstrung as I was by the events of these anguished two weeks, the pitiful little tragedy touched me deeply. Tears came to my eyes and I thought of Eva. I had been unable to see her since the night of the reception in Paris. Probably the next cataclysm would destroy one of us, I thought, and the other would be left alone like the little butterfly. Waiting, waiting. The curtain dropped and the sound of ringing applause came over the autophone. The operator at the Metropolitan now turned his visuflector upon the audience. Row upon row of exquisitely dressed women and men flashed on the screen. The sight of the smiling, chattering, thoughtless throng jarred on my mood, and I was half rising to disconnect the transmitter when the view of a box directly in the center of the horseshoe brought me to my feet with a cry of surprise. There sat Eva beside her father, a pensive smile on her beautiful face, her eyes shining straight into mine. The view passed in a second, and I was left gaping at the screen. I had been so engrossed in the Martian atrocities that I had entirely lost track of the Venusian Commission's program. Undoubtedly this was the day of their arrival in New York. And of course the committee had taken the members to the opera. In another minute I was up on the plane roof and had pushed my little electric from the garage. The despondency of my mood had changed to joyous exhilaration, and I rose high in the air before turning towards the Metropolitan. A young moon was high in the heavens, and New York lay beneath me, bathed in the enchanting glow. Never had the city looked so beautiful, so entrancing. Never had it seemed so dear to me. I was conscious of a sudden strong faith that it would be saved from the despoilers. The last act had already begun when I entered the box. Quietly, I drew a chair from the rear of the box and seated myself near Ava, under cover of the darkness. I pressed my lips to her hand. I felt a thrill go through her as she recognized me, and my heart welled up in contentment. Again I raised her hand to my lips. The mystic bells chimed faintly, and Ava pressed my hand warningly. I leaned back silently, drinking in the radiance of her presence. Idly, my mind played with the thought of the bells on her wrist. Mysterious bells, I thought dreamily, ringing like our love from heart to heart, invisible to the world. With a sudden jerk I sat upright. Eva, I whispered, come outside with me. She turned in surprise. At once I urged breathlessly, obediently, she took my hand and followed me to the foyer. It was deserted, and I led her to one of the gilded settees. My mind tingled with the idea that had entered it. The bells. I spoke in a choked voice, unable to control the eagerness that was thrilling me. Let me have them. I must see. I cannot take them off. No one knows how the bracelet is fastened. My excitement had communicated itself to her, and she breathed rapidly. What is it? She asked eagerly. What have you discovered? I'm not sure yet, but I think I believe A surge of exultation overwhelmed me, and I clasped her to me so tightly that it seemed as if our hearts must move. Meat, Ava. I cried. You and I have found the secret of the Martian raids. Where? She gasped. On your wrist, I replied triumphantly. In the excitement of the moment, wrought up by the discovery, in the closeness of her own dear self, I kissed her. Can the bracelet be touched? I asked when we had sobered down. Of course. Here, give me your hand. With her left hand, she directed my fingers to a place on her arm. To all appearances, the soft white skin was absolutely bare, and there was nothing to prevent my touching it. Granger knows when you're a procurement manager for an office park, you're not managing one building, you're managing all of them.
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And to stay ahead, you need to
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see through walls and around corners.
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Community Organizer/Spokesperson
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by Grainger for the ones who get it done. But with my fingers barely a half inch away, a hard object interposed itself. I could feel it encircling her wrist. It was evidently of glass or some other crystalline substance, and to my cautious, exploring fingers, the surface appeared broken into innumerable tiny facets. The bells are inside, ava explained blindly, as it were. I continued my investigations with fingertips alert. Where and how did you get the bell bracelet? I asked. A friend of my father gave it to me years ago. He was always experimenting with mirrors and stones. I remember his saying that someday he would be able to wear a coat that would make him invisible. A swift light of understanding illuminated her deep opal eyes. That is just what the Martians are doing. She exclaimed. I nodded. Is that man still alive? No, he was killed in an accident shortly after he placed the bracelet on my arm. That is why I have never been able to remove it. No one but he knew how. We must get hold of Professor Fuhrman right away, I declared finally. He should understand this. Go tell your father, Eva, while I locate the professor with the pocket phone. I reached Fuhrman in a few moments. Late as it was, his laboratory at Columbia University still claimed him, his energetic brain busy with the problem that held the universe. To my demand that he come at once, he turned a deaf ear. Nothing could take him from his work. Fervently, I cursed his stubbornness, but the difficulty was a minor one. If the mountain would not come to us, we could readily go to the mountain. Telling him to expect me in a few minutes, I hastily replaced my phone and turned to greet President Vanesseral, who was approaching, his mouth open in bewilderment at the excited account his daughter was giving him of my discovery. I added a few words, grasped Eva's arm, and hastened off with her, leaving the honorable Perros still dazed and only half comprehending the tremendous importance of what had occurred. Another obstacle presented itself when we reached Firmin's laboratory. To secure the privacy he needed for his work, he had double barred all doors leading to his rooms, and of course had forgotten my promised visit as soon as the phone was out of his hand. But such trifles were not to stop me on this night. Leaving Eva to await my return on the roof, I sank slowly to the upper story of Schermerhorn hall, where several lighted windows showed the presence of workers. I selected the largest window on the supposition that it must be Firman's, and brought the nose of the plane against it with just enough force to send the glass crashing to the floor. Inside the room, a high pitched voice lifted in bitterly complaining profanity, satisfied me that I had struck the right one no one could swear like Fuhrman. In another moment he appeared at the opening, peering out angrily and inquiring in picturesque phrases, how much longer the inefficient police were going to allow drunken heiress to go around smashing busy people's windows? It's all right, Furman, I assured him. This isn't an accident. It's Elven. I was brimming over with suppressed excitement, hope, and happiness. The sight of his strong face, its massive features outlined clearly in the moonlight, heightened the feeling of confidence that had possessed me from the moment I saw Eva. Fuhrman was the mental giant of this scientific age. With the help I could give him, I knew we would solve the deadly riddle of invisible attack on our world and save it from destruction.
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Elven.
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His shrill voice, which always startled those who met him for the first time by its incongruity with his great bulk, rose still higher in surprise.
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You.
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Well, what in hell do you want to smash my window for? What in hell do you want to bar all your doors for? I retorted. I had to get in somewhere. Don't waste time arguing, but hurry around and open the doors. I have something tremendously important to show you. I could hear him muttering unfavorable comments on importunate friends in general and me in particular as he left the window, while I hurried back to Ava. A few moments later, the three of us were seated around a table piled high with instruments and jars of substances. Furman pushed them aside with an impatient gesture. All worthless, he replied briefly in answer to my inquiring glance. Not a single clue. I smiled at him with an encouragement hardly yet justified. The clue is here, I said, and pointed to Eva's wrist. As quickly as I could, I gave him all the facts that we knew. Before I had finished, he was already bending over Eva's arm, his black eyes sparkling with eagerness, his lips pursed beneath the large aquiline nose that marked his ancestry. Deftly, his fingers passed over and around the invisible bracelet. Murmurs of surprise, commendation, and pleasure came from him as his penetrating mind grasped the properties of the strange ornament. Finally he sat back, a peculiar smile of satisfaction lighting up his expressive face. Extraordinarily clever, he declared approvingly. But simple. He paused. Yes, very simple. Quite simple. I bent over the invisible wonder with him. What is it? I asked. Nothing more than a system of mirrors. His hand toyed with a circlet on Eva's arm. The inventor has merely made use of the principles of reflection and refraction of light. Each of these facets is a tiny mirror of some substances I don't know yet. But it must be something that reflects the light corpuscles with absolutely no diffused rays, that makes the mirror invisible in itself. Furthermore, he has joined these miniature reflectors to each other at such angles that a ray of light striking upon any one is bent from mirror to mirror until it emerges on the reverse side at a point directly perpendicular to its point of entrance. Here is the idea, roughly. He drew a sheet of paper to him and rapidly sketched a circle with a series of points which he labeled A, B, C, D, E, F, M, N, O, P, R, S. You understand, of course, that I have indicated here merely the surface mirrors. Between each two of these is probably a series of double refraction surfaces to receive any rays that might otherwise be deflected to the observer's eye. But generally speaking, this is what happens. The light from any object, as for instance, the young lady's arm, strikes upon M and is reflected through FedCB or NOPRS, depending upon the angle at which it enters, emerging at A exactly opposite to our eyes, unable to perceive the intermediating surfaces, the light seems to come directly from the arm. He paused, glanced swiftly from one to the other as though keen to see whether we were following his exposition, and then went on with increased emphasis. You see the result? The bells, under their remarkable covering, are entirely invisible. The same thing happens from any other point. Looking at B, the light from the object at N would seem to be coming in a straight line. From S we would see the object at F, and so on. It is all very simple. He ended with one of his queer, dry smiles, after someone else has worked it out for us. I drew a deep breath in admiration of the startling ingenuity that had conceived this strange object in the acumen that had penetrated the mystery. Then this is the method by which the Martians have made themselves invisible to us? I exclaimed. There is no doubt about it. They had only to enclose their planes in cylindrical or spherical coverings built on principle of this bracelet, but of course on a tremendously larger scale. Then, by applying the silencer to their motors, they could approach us unseen and unheard, to plant the contact points for the atomic detonators wherever they chose, and send them off with a current from their selenium cells as soon as they were at a safe distance. Why didn't the solenoid towers record their presence? For the same reason that our eyes didn't. The sol rays pass around their mirrored surfaces, so no image was recorded on the plates. Does this mean you can now Prevent further attacks? Asked Eva. She had risen and stood like a goddess from her own planet, her whole figure tense with the sudden animation of hope and victory. Firmin and I started almost guiltily in the satisfaction of having solved the mystery. We had forgotten the danger still ahead of us. Firmin smiled up at her admiringly. Something of her unearthly beauty had arrested even his usual cold indifference to the charm of femininity. You are right, he admitted. Our work has only begun. But I have an idea that may work out successfully. Bring your precious bracelet in here. He lifted his immense frame from the chair and led us to the projecting room adjoining his laboratory. Arranging his apparatus, he placed Eva's arm before a helium planoscope screen and with a few swift adjustments directed a powerful helium ray upon it. Eagerly we crowded around it. An outline of the flesh and bones, greatly enlarged, was visible, as in an ordinary X ray photograph, and around the wrist was a circlet of tiny bells. I found myself clearing my throat hoarsely, as though choking. Before I could utter a word of explanation, Firmin was saying with deep satisfaction, just as I expected, the substance of these mirrors is transparent to the helium ray. Now then, you two leave me alone to work out my plans and Elven. He caught me by the shoulder as we were passing out. The deep lines in his swarthy face wrinkled with sudden relief into a grim smile. Sheer mental power had seen, grasped, and already was at work on the problem the acquisitive, searching brain had selected classified, and was inwardly ordering about the principles of science that would cope with a menacing disaster. He dropped into an almost whimsical mood, the great commonplaceness of him returning to ordinary banter. When the Council meet again, Elvin, he went on, let them get ready for a final answer to the Martian demands. Let them tell those damned devils that they can go right straight to oh, I beg your pardon, I forgot the girl. Well, anyway, good night. I'll call you as soon as I have things shaped up. In another moment he was gently but firmly thrusting us into the outer corridor, his door shut with a decisive snap that found an answering echo of confidence in my heart. The Master was at work. Sunday passed quietly. The outside world knew little or nothing of the mighty project at work within that fateful laboratory. That same evening, the Interplanetary Council, in solemn conclave assembled, listened with deep breathing silence while I partly read, partly related, certain phrases of my chance discovery and Firmin's part in the great secret. Ingalls, whose power is the keenest editorial mind in that great city, was so well recognized that he had been selected as chairman of the Advisory Board, sat at the far end of the long ebony table, his features twitching with a strong inner excitement held in abeyance, his head nodded in tigerish acquiescence as I dramatically wound up with Firmin's final words of advice to the Council. I sat down quickly, my own heart beating discordantly as the vast import of the whole situation came back to me in an overwhelming surge. There was a deep silence for one brief moment, then a murmur of voices arose. The next instant I saw Ingalls rising from his seat without the formality of a request to the Council chair. I move this body accept in its entirety the report of Mr. Elvin, he shot out in sharp, decisive voice, and that we adopt unqualifiedly Professor Fuhrman's suggestion abiding decidedly in that scientist's ability to direct our next move. The positive ring of his tone imposed itself upon the overwrought nerves of us all. There was no time to reflect and deliberate. The surcharged air of the meeting seemed to have exploded with the lightning decision of Ingle's action. In sheer relief, it seemed to me, a sonorous voice somewhere in that august body rumbled. I second the motion. And the next instant the Council had accepted the die and cast it like a challenge in the face of the demon forces. By Monday morning a startled universe heard aghast and with mingled feelings of fear and hope that the Martian insolence was to be defied and that secret preparations were being perfected with all haste under the direction of a leading scientist. Thursday noon was the time when the Martian ultimatum was to expire. Since 1 o' clock in the morning of that fateful day, the laboratory in the university on Morningside Heights, now converted into a pulsating workshop, had been the scene of tremendous activities. Two by two a thousand planes had stopped at Furman's Windows, around which a screened landing platform had been erected and received aboard sealed cases of materials and trained operators. As rapidly as they were equipped, they departed to their assigned stations. By 10 o' clock the last pair of planes was at the platform. We piled the remaining cases aboard and climbed into one of the machines. Eva was with me. She had insisted on coming, and I had no desire to refuse her. Either we were to be successful, and my joy in the triumph would be heightened by sharing it with her, or. Or we would fail, and then we could perish together in the midst of the cataclysm. It was an hour pregnant with fatal possibilities, and our faces showed the strain Even Furman, with his nerves of steel, reflected the general feeling. His eyes were sunk deep in their sockets, and his prominent nose was still further accentuated by the hollows in his cheeks. The scheme he had perfected was gigantic in its simplicity. The planes were stationed in pairs at equal distances above New York. On each plane was ascending and receiving station tuned to the same wavelength as that of its mate for a powerful helium ray. The two rays crossing in the electrical field generated between the planes reflected the images in their paths on sensitive solenoid plates within the planes. Thus, by covering the entire territory, we would discover the Martians when they landed to plant their contact points if Furman's plan did not miscarry. 11 o' clock was the hour when Furman expected the invaders would begin their work in order to fulfill the threat of their ultimatum. Precisely on the second, he flashed the order to the sentinel planes to open their batteries. Our machine was stationed with its mate over Battery Park. As the order was given and the powerful rays shot out of the crackling batteries, we bent over the solenoid plate with passionate eagerness. Eva's hand was in mine. Our fingers intermingled in a clasp that drove every atom of blood from them. Our breaths came and went in short, agitated gasps. I stole a glance at Furman. His eyes were gleaming with deep intensity as he watched every tremor on the sensitive surface. The area of our electric field included all of Battery park in the greater part of the bay. The helium rays swept back and forth in ghostly outlines of ships passing through the harbor, and people walking in the park appeared on our plate. For 10 minutes we kept our silent vigil. Then suddenly our hearts leaped in a rush of blood to my head, almost obscured my vision. Two long elliptical objects had dropped from the sky and were landing on the grass a short distance from the waterfront. We would see distinctly every movement of the Martians inside their marvelous planes. The faithful ray penetrated every corner of the craft and pictured the details in spectral outline on the solenoid plate. Plate. We even saw the skeletons of the men through their coverings of flesh. And it seemed as if some hideous creatures from the netherworld had come to wreak unholy devastation upon us. Firmin stiffened, a haggard smile of triumph on his sharpened features. An instant longer, he watched those phantom figures moving about boldly, confidence in their shield of invisibility making them utterly devoid of caution. Then I saw Furman's eyes crinkle with deliberate grimness, saw him motion to the gunner at his side and saw the latter adjust his weapon to the range indicated by the finder on the solenoid. His fingers worked deftly, coolly. He nodded to the scientist. With an audible sigh of satisfaction, Furman uttered the word fire. A deafening crash shook our plane. From somewhere below came the sound of splintering glass and metal, coupled with shrieks of agony. The crawling image on my plate broke, rose into a thousand fragments, and fell in deathly silence as in a nightmare. I heard the next command, now the other again. The long, slim gun whipped out its tongue of shooting flame, and from the ground the din of destruction rose in clamoring echo. The invisible fleet lay a futile ruin on the soil of the city it had come to destroy. As those rising from the tortured dreams of a black night, we stared at each other, unable to speak in the first few moments of indescribable relief. Then Eva burst into tears and I took her in my arms. The universe is saved, I cried in an ecstasy of joy. Yes, agreed Firmin, then added thoughtfully, and the Martians take their place in that long blacklist of fools who would conquer the world by force. End of At War with the Invisible by R. And G. Winthrop.
- [209:40]
Narrator/Storyteller
Assassin by Bascom Jones, Jr. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Assassin by Bascom Jones, Jr. I deliberately dug my heels into the concrete floor of the corridor of the Pentagon. The steel plates on the heels of my black uniform boots heralded my approach with sharp anvil sounds as I marched confidently toward the unmarked door 500ft ahead. What was that expression used by Earth people of the 20th century? I shifted back through my training, shuffled through the facts about Earth's past history with which I had been indoctrinated, searching for the word assassin. That was it. But the term fell short. It lacked in magnitude. There was a difference in the murder of one person and the assassination of the occupants of an entire planet. One foot in front of the other, I paced off the distance toward the end of the hallway, carefully duplicating the strut, which was a trademark of the Earth Council's Security Police. I'd practiced the peculiar, jolting method of walking a thousand times, but I began to feel the effects of Earth's heavier gravity. Before, I had covered half the distance. It had been impossible to simulate the difference in gravity in my training. The two guards standing outside the door alertly watched my approach. When I was still four paces away, one of them ordered me to stop. They ignored, as though they were not there, the gold stars prominently displayed on the shoulders of my tunic. The guard on the left said, your ID card, sir. The guards were well trained. They would not hesitate to shoot if I made the slightest slip. I handed the card to him and watched as he held it up to a visascanner in the wall. The scanner glowed into life and purred softly, rapidly checking the invisible identification coatings on the card against the ID component of Earth's master machine. Then it dulled and was silent. The strident alarm siren over the scanner remained inactive. The ID card was returned to me, and the guard snapped smartly to attention as I went on into the room beyond the door. I had passed the first test. The reception room was small. Thick carpeting deadened the clump of my heels as I marched toward the chromed desk guarding a second unmarked door. A flawlessly proportioned redhead sat behind the desk. Her eyes and face showed no expression when I stopped in front of her. Her tight fitting uniform was black and bore the gold trim of the Security Police constricting my throat. I let the words snap out crisply as I had been trained. General Spicer, I said, commanding general of the Security Police, reporting to the Secretary of Defense as requested.
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I waited. Her eyes, still showing no outward expression, ran over me rapidly. Then she thumbed a button on the desk and a screen recessed into the chrome surface glowed into life. Almost immediately, a full face reproduction of the features of General Spicer appeared on the screen in color. She checked the image against my face, her eyes flickering to the tiny scar under my left eye into the old blaster burn across my right ear. When the image changed to a profile view, I turned my head to give her the same angle. She nodded. Pressing the button on her desk, which darkened the screen, she said, you're early. Your appointment with Secretary bartlett is for 1300 hours. I filled in automatically when she hesitated in one last routine test. I was in the building on another matter, however, and came here after I finished my other business. Yes, of course, she said. Please take a seat. Senator Chambers is ahead of you, but his business will not take long. I fought back with sudden impulse to pivot and stare in the direction her eyes were indicating. Senator Carl Chambers. My briefing on him had been lengthy. For 60 Earth years he had headed the Unearth Activities Committee as General Spicer, I was supposed to have a nodding acquaintance with him, but no more than that. During the years our rivalry had become legend, his unanticipated presence in the waiting room could prove disastrous. Chambers would not be fooled easily. Turning slowly, I nodded stiffly and curtly in Chambers direction and then selected a chair across the room from him. The senator's head merged directly into the shoulders of his grossly rotund body. Small, round eyes stared unblinkingly at me from the red pudginess of his face. They hesitated on the black swagger stick, which I held loosely in my right hand, moved on, and then returned to it the invisible scars made by the electro surgical knives in redesigning. My body began to tense. Slowly I shifted the swagger stick in my hand. Then the red headed secretary stood up. She said, secretary Bartlett will see you now, Senator. For a fraction of a time, I thought Senator Chambers had not heard her. His expressionless eyes were still on me. Then, with a grunt, he lifted himself to his feet and disappeared through the door behind her. A tiny clicking noise indicated that it locked automatically. I shifted my gaze and saw that the secretary was looking at me intently. It was Impossible to guess at what might be going on behind those eyes. The tension began to build inside me again, but I kept my own eyes as expressionless as hers. The girl picked up a folded piece of paper out of a receptacle on her desk and brought it over to me. She said, while you're waiting, General, you might like to read the latest facsimile. Or have you already seen it? I saw the 1100 FAC report, but I missed this one. She handed it to me and returned to her desk. There was just the slightest suggestion of a rolling movement in her walk, not at all unpleasant. When I looked down at the facsimile sheet, the headline screamed silently up at me. I swiveled my eyes over at the secretary, but she was working her recordo writer, her fingers moving rapidly, mechanically. The headline read alien Invader discovered. The story that followed reported that two security police guards had intercepted someone who looked like and was dressed like an Earthman trying to enter the Senate at 11:09 hours that morning. A discrepancy had been discovered during the routine ID card check and the imposter had tried to escape. The guards had opened fire at close range, scoring two direct hits. While the account was obviously censored, it intimated that a full report to be released later by Security Police headquarters would be almost unbelievable. It hinted that the hideous mess revealed when the guards weapons had ripped through the surprisingly soft body armor of the imposter positively confirmed the fact that the individual was an enemy alien. Before I could read any further, there was a muted tone from the direction of the desk. The secretary acknowledged the signal, spoke several words which I couldn't hear, then looked at me. She said, you may go in now, General Spicer. I placed the facsimile sheet on her desk and waited while she activated the circuit which would release the catch on her side of the door. Who had it been? There had been four of us, volunteers. We had been selected, briefed, and trained separately. We had been housed separately during the mental and physical tortures of the surgical and the psych labs. The ship which had brought us to Earth had released us at separate points above the Earth capital. Only our ultimate goal was the same. But now there was one less of us to accomplish that goal, and we had lost the element of surprise. The door clicked twice and swung open. I stepped through just in time to see the rotund shape of Senator Chambers go out a private exit on the far side of the room. Both doors closed at almost the same moment, and I stood alone before the Secretary of Defense. For the planet Earth. The secretary sat behind a desk on the far side of the room. He was a powerful man in keeping with the importance of the job he filled, but the huge memory bank which he relied upon and which filled the entire wall behind his desk seemed to dwarf him. Without looking up immediately, Secretary Bartlett carefully rewound a tape he had been referring to and fed it back into the open mouth of the memory unit. He said, spicer, we've been talking about you. Do you have anything new on this alien incident? Chambers said. An impulse cleared the master machine last night, indicating there may have been some sort of ship overhead. No, sir, I lied. My people are working on it, but we don't have much more to go on than appeared in the latest FAC report. If there was a ship overhead, it was protected by a new type of anti identification device. The master machine probed for more than six minutes and registered only a void. Chambers, of course, is always Bartlett didn't finish the sentence. His words trailed off into a moment of puzzled silence as he turned and looked squarely at me for the first time. Something had gone wrong. Something that I had done or hadn't done had revealed to him that I wasn't General Spicer. Secretary Bartlett started to rise. Why, you're not Spicer. You're an impostor. His eyes displayed neither fear nor surprise, but his hand was less than a time point from the alarm buzzer on the top of his desk when I touched the tiny stud on the hilt of my useless looking swagger stick. For the tick of a pulse he sat there with his body bathed in the colored ray, his finger poised above the warning buzzer. Then his body began to glow. I closed my eyes when the heat and brightness reached my face. When I opened them, there was nothing left of Bartlett but a swirl of dust motes. Stepping behind the desk, I stripped off the thin plasti mask which had disguised my features to look like those of General Spicer. My hands moved almost automatically. Each motion had been rehearsed, timed, analyzed, and timed again. I reversed my coat, hiding the gold markings of the security police and revealing the precious metal insignia which had been worn by the sacred Secretary of Defense. The now useless ID card which I had obtained earlier when I destroyed the real General Spicer was dropped into the office incendiary tube along with the mask and the removable steel cappings of my boots. By the time I had finished, only the swagger stick remained to connect me with General Spicer. I carefully telescoped its length, twisting and turning the artfully designed tubing until it was identical to Bartlett's cane of stone state leaning against the desk. The real cane I disposed of by dropping it into the incendiary tube after the other articles. I turned the stiff black collar of my coat up in the same manner that Bartlett had worn his. The upturned collar hid the tiny metal electrodes protruding from the base of my neck under each ear. When I sat down behind the desk, the image reflected up at me from the chromed top was feature for feature, that of Defense Secretary Bartlett. The electrosurgical knives wielded by experts had done a good job. I grimaced. I puffed out my cheeks. I rolled my eyes and in turn the reflected image grimaced, puffed out its cheeks and rolled its eyes. The texture of my skin was that of Bartletseven the pore structure. This had been the final big hurdle. The rest was now up to me. No, more accurately, the rest depended upon routine. A routine established more than 70 Earth years ago. A routine so inflexible that it had not been broken for a single day. My mission was to break that routine. Destruction of Spicer and Bartlett was important only as a means to an end. As soon as they were missed, others would fill their places. I had to destroy all. All Spicers and all Bartletts. I had to destroy the residents of Washington, of London, of New York, of Earth. My mission was to destroy so that we could live. That was what the technicians in the psych labs had told me. That was what the physicians behind the electrosurgical knives had told me. It had been drummed into me over and over through every phase of the mental and physical preparation that. That I had been put through. So I sat in Bartlett's office, looking like Bartlett, waiting. I knew almost to the exact time point when the buzzer on the desk in front of me would sound. I expected it, but when the strident tone filled the room, I jumped. I thumbed the switch on the desk. Video comm and the features of the red headed secretary looked out at me from the recessed screen. I deepened my voice to mimic Bartlett's. Yes, Meta. The video comm was a two way security system and I knew that she could see me too. She continued to stare and I felt the scar tissue tighten around the electrodes in my neck through some flaw in transmission. For a brief moment I thought I saw the twinkle of an expression deep in her eyes, but that was impossible. Her lips twitched and the transmission flaw, or whatever it might have been, was corrected. Her eyes were as inscrutable as ever. She said, It's 13:24, sir. The inspection group will be here in two minutes. Shall I bring them in? I nodded my head to one side slightly in a manner peculiar to Bartlett. Thank you, Meta. Yes, of course. Bring them in as soon as they arrive. I switched the video comm off and let my fingers lightly play with the button on the desk. That activated the lock on Bartlett's private door and into the inner corridor. It was a temptation to open the door and attempt to go the rest of the way on my own. But I wouldn't make it, not even disguised. As Defense Secretary Bartlet, I had been warned not to try. My only hope lay in the routine set up by Earth scientists more than 70 years ago, the daily inspection of the unit. As a member of the inspection party, I could pass through the security guards. More important, as a member of the group, I would arrive at the protective force sphere at the hub of the Pentagon at the only time and at the only place the force sphere could be breached. I waited precisely. At the end of Meta's two minutes, the lock buzzed on the door to the reception room. I touched the control which opened the door and stood as the group filed into the room. My briefings on each of them have been exhaustive, but I examined their faces for some sign that one or more might penetrate my disguise. As Bartlett, the red headed Metta nodded. She had been with Bartlett as his security secretary for 70 years. Senator Chambers, as a representative of the electorate, darted rapid glances around the room as soon as the door had closed, counting noses. General Whit Marshall, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the police systems, nodded with the cold reserve of the high ranking military to the higher ranking civilian. The fourth member of the group, Chet Meyers, chief master machine Technician, was the only one to speak. The lanky Myers looked around the room. Where's General Spicer, sir? Senator Chambers was telling us you were going to invite him because of this scare today. The invisible scars which cobwebbed across my body from the electrosurgical knives tensed so suddenly that I almost screamed. I made myself reach for my cane casually. I had come so close. No, wait. There was the bitter rivalry between Chambers and Spicer. Chambers was too complete a politician to pass up an opportunity to discredit General Spicer. His black pinprick eyes darted up toward the time unit on the wall. There's no time to wait, Myers, he said eagerly. Spicer knows the schedule. We must go on without him. Conscious of the stares of Meta and Meyers, I pushed the button which opened the door into the inner corridor. I looked directly at the master machine technician. I asked Spicer to get a late report on the incident for us. But you know that Chambers is right. We cannot afford to wait any longer. Perhaps he'll catch up. We followed the corridor toward the hub of the Pentagon. Senator Chambers led the way, almost at a trot, as though he were afraid that Spicer would catch up. General Marshall and Meyers, hard put to keep up, were strung out behind him, with Meta and me bringing up the rear. That was the way we went through the checkpoints manned by the security guards. Twice I caught Meta looking at me at one of the checkpoints. I thought she was going to say something. I lifted the tip of my cane and put my finger near the stud, but she remained silent. The tension began to mount inside me as we approached the door opening on the invisible force wall. Through the wall, I could see the squat, ugly building in the center of the hub of the Pentagon, which was our destination. I held my cane ready, but even a CT bomb wouldn't break through the force field. As we drew near the final guard point, a scrub woman who had been working on the floor of the corridor picked up her bucket and fell in with with our party. Chambers was already gesturing at the guard to set the combination which would open the force wall at precisely 13:30. I looked at the time unit on my wrist and saw that we had 20 seconds to wait. I resisted the betraying impulse to rub the irritated area around the electrodes set in my neck. When I looked up from the time unit, everything was too quiet. Senator Chambers was no longer dancing around impatiently. He was staring at the bucket carried by the scrub woman. The inside of the bucket was not even damp, and the mop she had been using was dry. The implication must have hit both Chambers and me at the same moment. I wanted to shout a warning. Chambers jumped back against the wall, yelling at the guard, shoot her.
- [229:12]
Narrator/Announcer
Shoot.
- [229:12]
Narrator/Storyteller
She is an alien. The scrub woman did the wrong thing. She turned and tried to run, her legs lifting awkwardly against the pull of the unaccustomed gravity. But the guard's weapon was already at his shoulder. The low velocity missile thudded into the body of the scrub woman, flipping her up into the air in a graceless somersault. She landed on the concrete floor with a second thud, which echoed softly down the long hull. A pool slowly widened around her body, and she lay still. I looked at my wrist time unit again. It was 1330. The door through the force wall was open. I went past the huddled heap lying on the floor, careful not to step in the pool of moisture too hideous to put into words in a public fact report. That's what the facsimile sheet had hinted about the broken body of the other alien. Two from four left. Only two. But the door through the force wall was open. I had to get through the door and into the building. Senator Chambers stepped out from behind the guard and blocked the doorway. His little eyes flashed from one expressionless face to another as he tried to come to some inner decision. His shoulders slumped. I don't like it, he said. The door is open now. I think perhaps we'd better wait for General Spicer after all. But Meta shook her head and pushed past Chambers. She said, no. You know the routine as well as we, Senator. We are required to inspect the unit. Leave the guard on duty here. I took advantage of the indecision of the others and pushed through the door after her, toward the squat, ugly little building that was my goal. Meta was almost to the door of the building when I heard Chambers yell, stop her, Secretary Bartlett. She's malfunctioning. We've all been ordered to wait outside for an ID check. I ignored him and he yelled again, guard, open fire on the girl. Don't let her get inside that door. But he was too late. Meta disappeared through the door into the black building. I stepped inside just as it slammed shut and the first missile smashed against the door from the guard's weapon. The building was not large. The master machine squatted like a huge, thick bodied black spider in the center of the building. A cobweb of power lines and control cables crisscrossed the floor and fed into the base of the unit. A myriad of tiny moving parts, levers and cams and elbowed arms and gears pulsed and shifted and moved to give the impression that the master machine was breathing, that it was alive. Tiny multicolored lights twinkled on and off, giant vacuum tubes hummed and glowed, and all the while it munched on endless tapes. The black monster was the heart of Earth, Earth's civilization, and it was the means of it. As I started toward the machine, a grid at the top turned slowly and ogled me. Almost immediately a red tube blinked on, and the moving parts on one section of the machine plunged into a frenzied rhythm of action. I ran forward, breathing heavily under the strain of the unaccustomed gravity. I had only seconds in which to act. At any moment so Senator Chambers and the guards would be coming through the door behind me. I raised the cane and touched the stud. The finger of lavender light knifed toward the machine, searching for its heart and memory unit. The ray fused and melted and burned, cutting deeper and deeper into the maze of wires and tubes and relays. There was a blinding flash and one section of the machine ground to a stop. Other sections immediately increased their tempo of movement. Behind me, the door slammed open and Senator Chambers and two guards stumbled into the building. Chambers yelled, he's over there in front of the master machine. Hurry up and shoot before it's too late.
- [233:07]
Narrator/Announcer
Shoot.
- [233:08]
Narrator/Storyteller
His face almost a cherry red, Chambers danced out of the way. The guards raised their weapons and sighted. Then the ray from my cane cut deep, deeply into the very innermost section of the master unit, and the machine died. A dial on the front of the blackened, twisted mess spun slowly to a stop. There was no more noise and no more movement. It was done. As I released the stud on the cane, the weapons of the guards were pointed directly at my back. Chambers eyes were like two black marbles staring at me. His head straight, strained forward to watch the results of the missiles. I took a careful step to the left, and another, and then another. They didn't move. The guards weapons remained trained on the spot where I had been standing. Senator Chambers continued staring at the place where I had been. None of them moved. They remained there, pointing at nothing. The electrodes at the bases of their necks reflected the molten glow from the wrecked master machine.
- [234:13]
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home should feel easy.
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- [234:56]
Listener/Observer
Restrictions apply.
- [234:56]
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C STORE FOR details I relaxed.
- [234:59]
Narrator/Storyteller
I rubbed the tender skin around the dummy electrodes set in my neck. It was finally over. Then a shadow moved against the wall. Where there should have been no movement. It lengthened and took on the shapely form of the red headed meta. Only now her eyes were no longer dead and expressionless. They were alive with feeling. I said, so you are the other one. I should have guessed when you ran into the building ahead of me, but I was too busy thinking of those guards and of chambers. She nodded, her lips relax into a smile. Two from four leaves two. But we had accomplished our mission, and outside the building, in Washington, London, New York, in every Earth city, figures on the streets, in office buildings, and at home had become motionless, poised like mechanical toys with their springs run down. Housewives, cab drivers, copter pilots, passengers, shoppers, policemen, government workers had ceased to move, had stopped functioning with the destruction of the Master Machine. The redhead said, it's really over, isn't it? They've stopped. She looked at the still figures, the dummy electrodes in her neck quivering in a shiver. They can't kill anymore, I said. It's over. They can't destroy or move without the Master Machine. They have no power supply, nothing. And they can't kill or destroy. She walked over to look at the figures. What went wrong? What happened to them? I shrugged. You can't blame them any more than you can blame a boiler that explodes or a dam that breaks. It was the human race itself that was responsible for what happened. We became lazy, careless. We built too many time saving gimmicks to do too many jobs for us.
- [236:58]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
But the machines were designed to help
- [237:00]
Narrator/Storyteller
us, she said, to make life better and more pleasant. At the beginning I agreed, but we didn't know where to stop. We started with labor saving devices. We replaced ourselves in factories, offices, restaurants, stores. Still, it wasn't enough. We designed robots to serve as traffic policemen, to drive cars, and to handle thinking tasks. Then we designed humanoid robots, mechanical replicas of man and woman, controlled by the computing sections of the Master Machine, activated by its power supply, able to move and talk and think. We used them as servants. We had the means to replace ourselves completely, everywhere. Why did they turn on the human race? She asked. I pointed to the smoldering wreck of the Master machine in the center of the room. Perhaps there was a weak circuit, or a tape was garbled, or a relay didn't close properly. The scientific colony on the moon helped some of us to escape. The rest of mankind was destroyed by the robots, systematically and ruthlessly. The redhead shivered again and walked over to the door leading from the building. She stood there, looking up at the thin curve of the moon showing in the blue of the afternoon sky. Finally she said, up there.
- [238:22]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
By now they will know that we
- [238:24]
Narrator/Storyteller
have accomplished our mission. In a few hours they'll be filing out of the underground caverns and loading onto the giant rockets. They'll be coming back, but only the very oldest will have been on Earth before. Like us, thousands of them will be coming to a new world for the first time. A world of beauty and opportunity. If they want it that way, what will they decide? What would they decide? I looked down at the redhead. Deep in her eyes, I saw the emotions which no humanoid robot could ever know. I saw them, and suddenly the tension eased out of my muscles. The answer to her question was in her own eyes. End of Assassin by Bascom Jones Jr Recorded by John Riley Birmingham, Alabama.
- [239:26]
Listener/Observer
The Fastest Gun Dead By Julian F. Gro this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox. Com. Recording by Chris Pyle the Fastest Gun Dead By Julian F. Gro he was a big man, broad of shoulder, slim of hip. His Stetson was crimped Texas style over slate gray eyes that impassively had seen much good and more evil in their 26 years. He stood in the saloon door with the dust of the streets of Dos Cervasus pequenas still swirling about, scuffled range riders chaps. His left hand held open the weather beaten swinging door, the right hovered over the warm peachwood butt of the Colt holstered on his right thigh. The sleek gray eyes, emotionless, swept the crowd, bellied up to the bar, and stopped at one man. When he spoke it was flat but with the ring of tempered steel, and every man but that one drew back out of range. I want you, Dirty Jake, the big man said now. Dirty Jake shot him into doll rags. Naturally, Dirty Jake Needelmeier was, you might say, the most feared ribbon clerk in the territory. Easily the most. I remember him from the early days, from the first day he came to town. In fact, I remember because he got off the stage just as I was leaning out the window nailing my brand new shingle. And my office was and still is upstairs next to the stage depot. I was down on the boardwalk, admiring it all shiny gold leaf on black like the correspondent school promised. Hiram Pertwee MD his voice broke in on me all squeaky. Beg your pardon? He said. Where's the Y M C A? Well, that isn't the usual sort of question for here. I turned around. There he was, a scrawny little runt about knee high to short, wearing a ponnamaw hat, a wrinkled linen duster, and Congress gaiters. He wasn't especially dirty then, of course only about average for a stage passenger. He kind of begrudged his face with little squint eyes and a long thin nose, a mustache like a hank of Spanish moss and just about chin enough to bother shaving. Under his duster he wore a claw hammer coat, the only alpaca one I ever saw and I never from that day out saw him wear any other. He stood there looking like he'd never been any place he really cotton to, but this might just be the worst. I was just a young squirt then and not above funning a dude. I told him YMCA was around the corner, two doors down and up the back stairs at the Owl Hoot Palace. He nodded and went the way I told him. That was, and still is, Kate's four bit crib. The girls there wear candy striped stockings and skirts halfway to the knee and their shirtwaists are open at the neck. Dirty Jake didn't speak to me for three years. He wasn't Dirty Jake then, though. Just Jacob Needlemeier, fresh from selling ribbons and yard goods in Perth Amboy, New Jersey, and hot to find a fortune in the hills. He'd been a failure all his natural life. This was a new beginning for a man 34 who was already at the bitter end and looking for the path back. Gold was the way he figured he was going to get it, but he didn't. He was back flat broke and starving in four months. He spent the next 17 years behind the notions counter at Martin's Mercantile, selling ribbon and yard goods and growing old. Two years at a time. I think it tainted his mind, leastways from the time I got to know him. Some 14 years gone, he's been what you might say, a queer actor. At first when the store closed at sundown, he'd take off for the near hills with a pick and a sack, still seeking for color somebody might have missed. After a while he didn't bother with the gear. He just moseyed around all that rock. Mostly, I suppose, to be away from people. Truth to tell, people were beginning to avoid him anyway. He was getting kind of gamey over the years and cantankerous generally. Maybe it's kind of funny we got more or less friendly, but doctors and ribbon clerks aren't so all fired far apart. They both have to do with people and their ways and like to get shut up both now and then. Every couple of months I go along with them up in the hills to get the sick smell out of my nose. Night air and a night sky can be pretty fine if you've been looking at tongues and such long enough. Going out like that. We didn't say much. I preferred it that way, since Jake Needlemeyer was a boob. A smart man can go on tolerably well with an idiot if both have sense enough to keep their mouths shut. One time he didn't was when he brought along a bottle of rye. He got started and was going on to beat the band, yapping about how life was a cheat and someday everybody'd respect Jacob Needlemeyer, until finally I lost patience and told him that while I treasured our association beyond pearls, I'd chuck him off a cliff if he didn't shut the hell up. I was nice about it, and after that it was, like I said, tolerable. Well, sir, about two years ago he came into my office while I was darning up some fool borax miner that got himself kicked square in the bottle on his hip. Jake stood in the corner picking his teeth while I finished. After the borax miner limped out, he spoke up, coming. That was all the invitation he ever gave. I guess, I said. I sloshed the suture needle in a basin, gave it a couple of swipes on the hone stone, and threw it in my satchel. That miner had a tough rind. Jake went out first. I closed the door behind us, not locking it, of course, because our night marshal was kind of my relief surgeon whenever I was on calls. He was a secesh hospital orderly during the rebellion. He was better with a saw than with sewing, but he could tie up most wounds well enough to do till I got back. Jake and I set out south up the mountain trail. Pretty soon it hit me. He was heading some place considerable more directly than we usually did. Sure enough, he took off at an angle from the trail. After a bit we struck up into some fairly woolly country. He wasn't following any sign I could see, at least not by moonlight, but he kept going faster until I was plumb out of wind. We were in the hills overlooking Crater Lake when we came to kind of an amphitheater in the rocks, some 20ft across. He stopped at the edge of it and stood staring in, silent and breathing catchy. Me, I just chased my own breath for a while, then looked to and saw what he was aiming at. Right in the middle, shining pale in the moonshine like nothing else does, was a pile of old, old bones. Jake, I saw, had seen it before. It was scaring him yet. Old bones, sir, are still bones I've seen and set by Phil. But after I Got a good look at these. They scared me too. There were four skeletons altogether, all nicely preserved. And only three of them were men. Indians. I mean, you could tell that from the shreds of buckskin. Two of them still had weapons near their right hands. One a stone knife, the other a lance. And the top of each of the three skulls had been shot clean away. At least half of the top had, and the same half on all three. Almost the entire os frontale and os apparetalia on the left side was gone on each one. I hunkered down to see closer while Jake stood back and shook. I struck a sulphur match and saw something about those three red skinned skulls. The edges where the bone was gone wasn't fractured clean like a bullet or a club would do. They were charred. The three were sprawled around the fourth skeleton and that was the one gave me the vapors. It was more or less man shaped, but it wasn't a man that I know. I don't believe I care to find out what it was. Instead of the ribs, there was a cylinder of thin bone. And it had only one bone in the lower leg. What there was for a pelvis, I have never seen the like. And the skull was straight out of a Dorey Bible. There was a hatchet buried in that skull. The bones of the right arm were good and hefty, and it had two elbows. The left arm was about half the size, not crippled, but smaller scale, like it was good for delicate work and not much else. About 10 inches from the widespread six fingers of its right hand. So what you knew right off was a weapon, even if it did look like an umbrella handle. I was just reaching down to touch it when that fool Jake made his move. He'd been standing behind me, closer, I bet, than he'd ever got before, staring down at that fourth skeleton and making odd noises. I tell you, it was something for a medical man to see. Suddenly he grunted like he was going to be sick. He snatched up a femur from one of the Indians and swung it up to smash that fourth skeleton to smithereens. Well, sir, quicker than the eye could see, the umbrella handle smacked itself into the palm of that bony hand, sending fingers flying in six directions. It hung there in the air against what was left trained dead on Jake's head. And it hummed. The femur dropped from from Jake's right hand like he had been shot. He hadn't though, because he was still wearing his skull and by that time running. Soon as he did, the umbrella handle flopped over and just lay there, the hum dying away. When it stopped, the place was pretty quiet because Jake was off on the rocks and I was going over some things I wanted to say to him. Immediately I was able to talk again. That fourth skeleton had the fastest draw I'd ever seen. Jake stuck his head up from behind a boulder. Doc, he said, why didn't he shoot? The question wasn't as all fire pip witted as Jake was capable of. It took me upwards of three weeks to work out why a weapon that could draw and aim itself didn't shoot too. I'd heard a little clink when the weapon flew into the skeleton's hand. It came from a metal disk that lay in its palm toward the heel of the hand. The disk was thin and only about as big as a 2 cent piece, a MeToo. It was set in the butt of the umbrella handle, convex where the other was concave. Going at it kind of gingerly, I slid the disk into my vest behind my watch and put the umbrella handle in my right coat pocket. It was a key wind repeater with a gold hunting case, that watch, and I worried about it every step down the mountain. I walked a good 400 yards behind Jake all the way back into town just to be on the safe side. We didn't linger either. We wanted lights. By the time I got the two objects locked into my roll top, my heartbeat and anybody else would have had me telling the sexton to start his hole. I prescribed bed for me, told Jake, who hadn't hardly even drawn breath the whole time, to go to hell and retired. Next day a squabble came up over some borax rights up country. I didn't get to open that roll top for a time. Then one early morning, coming back in the buggy from a house call in Pockmark, 40 odd miles north, I got to worrying again at the umbrella handle and those dead Indians. Seems like four or five times a week some chunkhead hunkers down hard with his spurs on. When I got to the office that night there was one waiting, a bad one, Spanish rowels, and Jake was sprawled in my chair picking his teeth with my spare scalpel. I patched up the chunk head, took the scalpel from Jake and rinsed it off and watched him suck his teeth. For a while it began to look like he was going to be stubborn, so finally I said, say, Jake, he grunted. Jake, I said, I think I've got that dingus figured. He snuck a glance over at the desk so I knew he knew what I meant, but he was busy pretending that wasn't what he came to talk about. I think it's a gun that can read minds like a gypsy, I said. Jake still looked bored, so I took the umbrella handle out of the roll top and waved it at him. He dove off the chair and started rolling for the door. You damn fool, I said. It won't go off. I was reasonably certain it wouldn't, but I laid it back down by the disk gently anyhow, and sat in the chair. I've only got the one chair on the theory that anybody who isn't bad enough to lie on the table is well enough to stand. Jake edged over and stood like a short legged bird on a barbed wire fence. It can what? He said. It can read minds, I said. You are going to bash those bones. The gun knew it and trained square on your head. You remember, he remembered. And those Indians, I went on. You remember them. The left side of the head on each of them was blown off. I hauled down a roller chart of the human skeleton. First time I'd done that since I don't know when. This up here is the brain, I said. We don't know a hell of a lot about it, but we do know it's like a whole roomful of telegraphers sending messages to different parts of the body along the nerves. They're like the wires this left hemisphere right here sends to the right side of the body. Don't fret about why the nerves twist going into the spinal cord. Ok. We know, too, that the part of the brain that sends to the arm is right here in the parietal lobe, right under the chunk of skull that was shot off on those three Indians. Pshaw, jake said, perching on the table. The old billy goat was beginning to get impressed, even if he didn't have any notion of what I was talking about. I didn't have exactly much notion either, but I kept on. The brain works by a kind of electricity, same kind as in the telegraph batteries at the depot. This gun. I tapped at the umbrella handle and Jake started off again but caught himself. Has some sort of detector, a galvanic thermometer that senses electrical messages to the nerves. From here on it was pure dark and wild hazard. Obviously, I said. Whenever one of those signals goes from the cerebral motor area here in the left hemisphere down to make the weapon hand move, it must be a special signal this gun was built to catch, just like a lock is made for one particular key. As near as I can figure, this gun has to be able to tell when that move coming up is going to be dangerous to the man holding it. Stands to reason if it can tell when a brain signaling a hand, it can tell, too, if that brain is killing mad. Some people can do that, and most dogs. So if it senses murderous intent and a message to the weapon hand to move, it moves too, and faster. It homes on this disk like a magnet right into the hand of the gent that owns it and aims itself plumb at the place the signal is coming from. I tapped the chart right here. I poked the gunk out of a corn cob, packed it, and lit up before going on. Jake stared at the umbrella handle like a stuffed owl. Now, that fourth skeleton we saw sure as hell isn't human. It isn't from anywhere on this green earth, or I miss my guess, might even have something to do with Crater Lake there years ago, but we aren't likely to find out. But we do know that he fought three Indians that probably jumped him all at once, and he killed every one of them with this gun before he fell. That brought Jake up short. The territory is kind of violent generally, and anybody or anything good along that line will be bound to have the sober respect of a ninny like Jake. I dug up an old glove and used spiricum to stick in its palm the little disk from the skeleton's hand. I pulled the glove on my right hand and stood up with my hand about a foot over the umbrella handle. Okay, I said. Kill me. He was so ory eyed by then he damned near did it, just to be obliging. But then the recollection of the night on the mountain and the three Indians with their heads shot off sifted through and he shied off. Hell no. He hollered. I've seen that thing go before. I ain't about to get my head blowed to bits. And he went on. Well, it took me the best of two hours. I showed him the two studs on the underside that most likely were a safety device. I explained how probably the gun wouldn't go off unless somebody was holding it with a finger between those studs, which was why it didn't shoot when it went into the skeleton's hand. That night. I finally got him by telling him if I was right, we'd wire the fourth skeleton together, take it back east, and earn a mint of money on the vaudeville stage showing the fastest cadaver in the West, Mr. Bones, faster than Billy the Kid and twice as dead. I said we'd bill it, Jake. He thought that was a lovely idea and decided to go along. Fourteen times that eternal jackass raised his right arm at me while I held my own gloved hand over the weapon. But he didn't have any real heart for it, and 14 times the gun just lay there. Then I got a mite impatient and kicked him in the kneecap. That 15th time he was truly trying. Skinny as he was, he'd have driven me clear through the floor except that umbrella handle jumped into my glove and aimed dead at his forehead, snarling like a cougar, more correctly, the left side of his forehead. If I hadn't braced my index figure out stiff, that 15th time would have had him a dead man. Jake froze like a statue and hung in the air, staring at the gun snarling away in my hand. Finally I pulled the glove off with the gun still stuck to it and flung it on the desk. Then Jake gave me the 16th and by the time I got up again he was gone and the gun and the glove with him. Next morning the borax squabble blew up again. While with miners getting stomped, I didn't get to bed for a week, much less have a chance to find out where Jake and that damned weapon had lit out. For by the time I did, it was too late. Jacob Needlemeyer, the ribbon clerk after 17 years, was on his way to glory as the legendary Dirty Jake. I got the start of the story from a drifter named Hubert Comus. He got into kind of a heated discussion in a saloon, Southaways, that ended with him and this other man going, going for the hardware. Hubert got his Merwin and Brae 42 out and being a fool, tried fanning it. Of course it jammed and he laid the heel of his hand open clear to the bone. Twasn't the hand bothering Hubert, though like most, the other man missed him clean. But when the barkeep threw them both out, Hubert lit sitting on the boardwalk and took a 6 inch splinter clear through his corduroys. While I was working on him, he told me about Jake, a man it seems had turned up in a little settlement called Blister about two days down the line. Nobody noticed him come in except he was wearing one glove, a shiny claw hammer coat and Congress gaiters. The general run in the mining camps doesn't wear Congress gaiters. He got noticed, though, when he showed up in a bar room wearing a pearl gray derby with an ostrich plume in the band and carrying a rolled up umbrella under his arm. The little devil had stuck the shaft of a regular umbrella into the muzzle of the skeleton's weapon, it turned out. He'd bought the derby that the storekeeper there had planned to be buried in. Where the ostrich plume came from I never did find out. He came right into the swinging door and stood there, Hubert said over his shoulder, looking at the crowd pretty quick. They was all looking right back, I can tell you. That feather fetched em up sharp. Take it easy back there, will you, Doc? Then Homer Cavanagh, the one they called Ham Head, he bust out laughing. He laughed so hard he bent over double. And the rest of the boys was just beginning to laugh too when the little feller picked up a spittoon and dumped it down Hamhead's neck. The boys got mighty quiet then. Hey, easy Doc, will you? Hamhead straightened up and his face went from red as flannels to white just like that. He stood glaring at the little feller for a couple of ticks, opening and closing his fists. And then that big right hand went for the Smith and Wesson in his belt. Well, it was a double action pistol and had a couple of notches in the grip, but Hamhead never cleared it. I never seen the little feller draw, but there was Hamhead Fallin with half his noggin shot away. Gently, will you, Doc? Gently. The little feller stood leaning on his umbrella looking down at him. What was that man's name? He says, Hamhead Cavanagh. Somebody says back Hamhead Cavanagh. The little feller says he's the first. Then he shoves the umbrella back under his arm and goes out. We never saw him again. Some say it was a bootleg pistol he used or a derringer in his sleeve. And some say he had a partner with a rifle in the street. But there wasn't nobody there. I was standing as close to him as I am to you, Doc, and I swear it was that umbreller. OW Hammad Cavanagh was the first. I had kind of a personal interest in Jake and his weapons, so I kept trying track. There was Curly, Sam Thompson, Big John Ballantyne, Red Meat Carson, uriah, singletree and 12 others known of. All dead within 18 months. Any man Jake could hurrah into a fight with never a chance to get his right hand on iron before his head gave the signal and got blown off. He took them all on and he never lost because he couldn't. Jake was king of the hill now, all right. He had the success he yearned for. Yet when he came back to see me last April, it wasn't to brag he was in trouble. I looked up from a customer, a damn fool that had sat on a Gila monster, and there he was, sneaking in the door, bareheaded like a whipped hound. Not the cock of the walk in the whole territory. He slid into the back room like a shadow, and the man I was working on never even knew he'd come. When I went in afterward, the lamp was out, the shade was down, and he was in a corner, nervous as a jackrabbit and eagle just dropped in a wolf dinner in. Buried my derby under a pile of rock up in the mountains. He whispered, look. And he held out his glove. It was plumb worn out. The little metal disk was hanging on by a strand of spirit gum and the fabric of the palm was in shreds. I looked at him for a minute without saying anything. He was still wearing the claw hammer coat over BVD tops, but it seemed like he'd been buried weeks in it and dug up. Clumsy. He had on greasy rawhide breeches and battered cowhand boots for shoes. He had a month's beard on his lip and he stunk. This here was the legendary Dirty Jake. No question about it. Get a new glove, I said. Nope, he answered. No good. Last week in Ojorohiso I took the glove off to scratch and right then a man braced me. He threw me in a horse trough when I wouldn't fight. I want you to fix me up good. I want you to open my hand up and set the dingus just under the skin and sew it up again. Knew a feller did that with five dollar gold pieces cause he didn't like banks. Worked fine till he got a counterfeit and it killed him. I'll lay low in the hills till the hand heals. No problems after that? No problems. Maybe so, but I'd be doing some thinking still. I kept my mouth shut and did what he wanted and he slunk off with no thanks. Don't guess I really had any coming. After he left I took out my tally book and ticked off the men Dirty Jake had killed. One Eyed Jack, Sundstrom, Fat Charlie, Ticknor, Pilander, Quantrell, Lobo, Stevens, Aleck the Frenchman, Dubois. Some jackass Texan nobody even knew. And the rest. All men whose brains had telegraphed a special signal to Jake's gun before it reached their own right hand. Well, there was a new pistolero in town. A month and a half later I was craned around trying to lance a boil of my own when out of the corner of my eye I saw Dirty Jake go by under my window. He dug that hat with the ostrich plume out from under the rocks. His hand was healed, he was swinging his umbrella, and he didn't so much as look up. He was headed for the Owl Hoot Palace, I decided the boiled weight. Less than five minutes later I heard the shots. Two of them. A second later, Jubal Beans Swamper at the Owl Hoot came pounding up the boardwalk and hollered in the door, doc better come quick. Dirty Jake just took a couple slugs in the chest and he never even got to draw. I took my time. It was just a matter of odds. I said, who got him? The new one, Jubal said. The man they call Lefty. Well, a couple more weeks to bleach a little wiring and I'll be heading east. Look for the billboards, Mr. Bones. The fastest draw in the West. Faster than Billy the Kid and twice as dead. Presented by Hiram Pertwee, M.D. all I've got to do is figure out how to keep getting mad at Jake. End of the Fastest Gun Dead By Julian F. Gro.
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Monument by RW Major this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org monument by RW Major.
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You've heard of it now here it is at last.
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It's the tale that wagged the Dog Star. With his explanations to the reporters completed, Dr. King felt that when he pulled the switch, he would automatically respond, restore
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his good name, and bring to a close a career of solid scientific achievement. Most of all, he would bring to an end the practice of referring to him as side effect Charlie.
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Dr. Charles King was willing to admit
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that there were excellent reasons for his acquiring this hated nickname.
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The facts were that the bulk of
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his scientific achievements were made inadvertently. That is to say, his discoveries were
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all made through investigations of unexpected side
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effects of his experiments.
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In a career conspicuous for unusual, unanticipated side effects, two in particular stand out.
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The first discovery resulted in rendering the
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entire heat oriented metallurgical industry obsolete and
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founding upon its corpse a new industry.
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This was based on the extracting of
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metal from ore and its subsequent shaping
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by first eliminating the bonds that hold the molecules of metal together and then
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reversing the process when the desired shape was attained.
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Dr. King did not discover this process directly.
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He thought he had discovered a method
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of making metal surfaces self lubricating and 100% friction free. It was not until several installations utilizing his lubrication method became Pools of liquid metal.
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That Dr. King bothered to discover how
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his method worked and of course, the means to reverse his process. The resulting revolution in metal processing methods endeared him to everyone except a few
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vested interest, like shareholders in existing metal
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companies who were uniformly glum.
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The second discovery, although monumental in itself,
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is important because it indirectly led to
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the special project which Dr. King was just completing.
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Dr. King succeeded in growing some crystals in a nutrient solution. What actually happened was that while eating lunch at a lab table, he managed to not knock something into something else and a crystal developed. Dr. King became fascinated with the odd structure of these crystals as revealed to him under an electron microscope. He'd incidentally placed the crystal under the microscope in air. As a result, he took to investigating
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the properties of the crystals whenever he could find time. Despite his well earned reputation as an accidental discoverer, it should be pointed out that Dr. King is a very methodical man.
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This means he is capable of of
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repeating the same mistake twice, or for
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that matter, any number of times. Therefore, Dr. King produced all the crystals he needed. It was during a vacation in the
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adironax that Dr. King discovered the propulsive
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qualities of the crystals. This discovery, of course, is what led to the perfection of the King propulsor unit, the heart of our starship drive systems. Dr. King was investigating the piezoelectric properties of the crystals in a makeshift device of his own design when he was
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disturbed by a sudden draft in the room.
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He looked up to discover that one wall of his workshop and the top
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1,000ft of a mile thick mountain, the same mountain that his cabin was located
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upon, were no longer in the immediate vicinity.
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As it turned out, his crude device did not impart to the mountain all of the thrust inherent in the crystal.
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The mountaintop reached only to the orbit of Jupiter, where it settled down to
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become its newest satellite. Coincidental with Dr. King's experiment, intensive astronomical work was going on with Jupiter as its prime object.
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The capturing of the satellite was observed and recorded independently by at least six observatories, including the one on Tycho.
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Subsequent investigation of the time involved to
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project this mass disclosed that Dr. King
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had invented a faster than light drive.
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It should be pointed out that while
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the discovery of the faster than light
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drive made the name of Dr. King world renowned, it did not in any way endear him to the relatives of those thousand odd persons who lived in the hamlet located on the mountaintop that ended up a satellite of Jupiter. They also were quite glum. Further work, all of a mathematical nature,
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disclosed to Dr. King the proper method
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of enclosing these crystals in a unit
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to drive spaceships to the stars.
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Coincidental, with his work on the propulsor units, he made a startling discovery which
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led to his special project.
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Dr. King invented perpetual motion. A series of complicated equations indicated to
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Dr. King that if he enclosed six
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of the crystals in the business end of a pendulum and started the pendulum oscillating, it would tick tock for all eternity.
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This discovery began a five year program
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that ended with a full scale press conference. The purpose was to unveil the building
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designed to protect this pendulum for all eternity. And of course, to unveil the discovery of perpetual motion at the same time.
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This building was designed to be Dr. King's monument to his own genius. It was a large rambling structure in
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which the pendulum was displayed by viewing
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it through a large hole in a brick wall. All of Dr. King's considerable savings had gone into designing a computer, the heart
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of his protective system. The computer was programmed to protect the
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ticking of the pendulum under every conceivable circumstance.
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So thorough was this programming that special
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devices were installed to keep the building and its precious cargo moving in Earth's projected orbit.
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If through some gigantic mishap, the Earth
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was reduced to cosmic dust, the switch that would impart the initial pulse to
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the pendulum would also start the computer
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operating, rendering the entire structure totally inviolable. With a flourish, Dr. King pulled the switch. Nothing happened. There was an embarrassed shuffling of feet by the reporters.
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Then, as Dr. King became more exasperated, the reporters became amused.
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The amusement turned to open laughter when Dr. King, frantic with fear, rushed to the door to check the wiring of
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the inside of the building.
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The door would not open. The computer was at work guarding a non functioning machine. He rushed to the open hole in the wall, intending to provide the initial pulse necessary to distort the pendulum swinging. By pushing, he found that the computer had designed a force field to keep him from entering. Frustrated and at his wits end, he flew into a rage which ended in a fatal heart attack when he heard one reporter laughingly say to him. Don't let it get you down, Doctor.
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You've beat the jinx in one step. You've gone from side effect Charlie, to no effect Charlie.
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It would be comforting to be able to assure everyone that the reporter in question was correct. Unfortunately, Dr. King's monument did work, and probably will work for all eternity. The day after Dr. Charles King had his unfortunate heart attack, a homesick astronomer on Sirius reported to his superior, and
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subsequently to the entire populated universe, that when he turned his telescope on the
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solar system, he discovered that it had acquired a new motion. The entire system swung back and forth like a pendulum.
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Monument by RW Major. Everybody Knows Joe by CM Kornbluth 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 Vertigle everybody knows joe by CM Kornbluth Joe had quite a day for himself Thursday and as usual I had to tag along. If I had a right arm to give, I'd give it for a day off now and then. Like on Thursday. On Thursday he really outdid himself. He woke up in the hotel room and had a shower. He wasn't going to shave until I told him he looked like a bum. So he shaved. And then he stood for a whole minute admiring his beauty in the mirror, forgetting whose idea it was in the first place. So down to the coffee shop for breakfast. A hard working man needs a good breakfast. So getting ready for a back breaking day of copying references at the library, he had tomato juice, two fried eggs, three sausages, a sugared donut, and coffee with cream and sugar. He couldn't work that off his pot in a week of ditch digging under July sun. But a hardworking man needs a good breakfast. I was too disgusted to argue with him. He's hopeless when he smells that short order smell of smoking, grease, frying bacon and coffee. He wanted to take a taxi to the library eight blocks. Walk, you jerk, I told him. He started to mumble about pulling down 600 bucks for this week's work, and then he must have thought I was going to mention the high calorie breakfast to him. That's hitting below the belt. He thinks he's an unfortunate man with an affliction. About 20 pounds of it. He walked and arrived at the library glowing with virtue. Making out his slip at the newspaper room he blandly put down next to Firm the Gryphon Press Inc. When he knew as well as I did that he was a freelance and hadn't even got a definite assignment from Griffin. There's a line on the slip where you put down reason for consulting files. Please be specific. It's a shame to cramp Joe's style to just one line after you pitch him an essay type question like that. He squeezed in preparation of article on year in biochemistry for Griffin pr.in psych 1952 yearbook and handed it with a flourish to the librarian. The librarian, a nice old man, was polite to him, which is usually a mistake with Jo. After he finished telling the librarian how his microfilm files ought to be organized and how they ought to switch from microfilm to microcard, and how, in spite of everything, the New York Public Library wasn't such a bad place to research, he got down to work. He's pretty harmless when he's working. It's one of the things that keeps me from cutting his throat. With a noon break for apple pie and coffee, he transcribed about a hundred entries onto his cards, mopping up the year in biochemistry nicely. He swaggered down the library steps feeling like Herman Melville after finishing Moby Dick. Don't be so smug, I told him. You still have to write the piece and they still have to buy it. A detail, he said. He said grandly, just journalism. I can do it with my eyes shut. Just journalism. Somehow his three months of running copy for the AP before the war has made him Ed Leahy. When are you going to do it with your eyes? I began, but it wasn't any use. He began telling me about how Gautama Buddha didn't break with the world until he was 29 and Muhammad did announce that he was a prophet until he was 30. So why couldn't he, one of these days suddenly bust loose with a new revelation or something and set the world on its ear? What it boiled down to was he didn't think he'd write the article tonight. He postponed his break with the world long enough to have a ham and cheese on rye and more coffee at an Automat and then phoned Maggie. She was available, as usual, she said, as usual. Well then why don't you just drop by and we'll spend a quiet evening with some records. As usual. He thought that would be fine since he was so beat after a hard day. As usual, I told him, you're a louse, Jo. You know all she wants is a husband and you know it isn't going to be you. So why don't you let go of the girl so she can find somebody who means business? The usual answers rolled out automatically and we got that out of the way. Maybe Maggie isn't very bright, but she seemed glad to see him. She's shooting for her doctorate in sociology at nyu. She does part time casework for the City. She has one of those three room Greenwich Village apartments with dyed burlap drapes and studio couches and homemade mobiles. She thinks writing is something holy, and Jo's careful not to tell her different. They drank some Rhine wine and seltzer while Jo talked about the day's work as though he'd won the Nobel Prize for biochemistry, he got downright brutal about Maggie being mixed up in such an approximate unquantitative excuse for a science as sociology, and she apologized humbly and eventually he forgave her. Big hearted Joe, but he wasn't so fried that he had to start talking about a man wanting to settle down. Not this year, but maybe next. 30's a dividing point that makes you stop and wonder what you really want and what you've really got out of life. Maggie, darlin'. It was as good as telling her that she should be a good girl and continue to keep open house for him. And maybe someday, maybe, as I said, maybe Maggie isn't very bright. But as I also said, Thursday was the day Church Joe picked to outdo himself. Joe, she said with this look on her face, I've got a new LP of the Brahms Serenade no. 1. It's on top of the stack. Would you tell me what you think of it? So he put it on and they sat sipping Rhine wine and seltzer, and he turned it over and they sat sipping Rhine wine and seltzer until both sides were played, and she kept watching him, not adoringly.
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Listener/Observer
Well?
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She asked with his new look, what did you think of it? He told her. Of course there was some comment on Brahms architectonics and his resurrection of the contrapuntal style. Because he'd sneaked a look at the record's envelope, he was able to spend a couple of minutes on Brahms dead to Haydn and the young Beethoven in the fifth movement, Allegro D major, and the gay Rondo of the Joe, she said, not looking at him. Joe, she said, I got that record at one hell of a discount down the street. It's a wrong pressing. Somehow the first side is the first half of the serenade, but the second half is Schumann's symphonic studies, opus 13. Somebody noticed it when they played it in a booth, but I guess you didn't notice it. Get out of this one, Braino, I told him. He got up and said in a strangled voice, and I thought you were my friend. I suppose I'll never learn. He walked out. I suppose he never will. God help me, I ought to know. End of Everybody Knows Joe by CM Kornbluth Recording by Verdi Gull.
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Alien by George O. Smith this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Read by Ben Tucker Alien by George O. Smith the telephone rang and the lieutenant of police, Timothy McDowell, grunted. He put down his magazine and hastily covered the partially clad damsel on the front cover before he answered the ringing phone. McDowell. He grunted. McDowell, came the voice in his ear. I think you'd better come over here. What's up? Been a riot at McCarthy's on Boylston Street. That's nothing new, growled McDowell. Except sometimes it's Hennessey's on Dartmouth or Kelly's on Massachusetts. Yeah, but this is different. What's so different about a riot in A Gert like McCarthy's on a street like Boylston? Well, the witnesses say it was started by a guy wearing feathers instead of hair. A bird, you mean? No. Towards a Big Fella Corporation. According to the tales, a huge guy that refused to take off his hat. And they made a fuss. They offered to toss him out until he uncovered. And when he did, here was this
- [278:36]
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full head of feathers.
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There was a general titter that roared up into a full laugh. The guy got mad. Yeah, yeah, he got mad and made a few swings. Twas a riot. What did McCarthy expect, a dance when a guy gets laughed at for having feathers instead of hair? Holy St Patrick. Feathers, did you say? Yep. Look, O', Leary, growled McDowell angrily. You've not been drinking yourself, have you? Nary a drop, Lieutenant. So this bird takes off his hat and shows feathers. The crowd laughs and he gets mad. Then what? Well, he tossed the bartender through the plate glass window, clipped McCarthy on the button and tossed him across the bar and wrecked about fifteen hundred dollars worth of fine Irish whiskey. Then he sort of picked up Eddie the bouncer and hit Pete the waiter with him. Then, having started and finished his own riot, the guy takes his drink, downs it, and stamps out, slamming the door hard enough to break the glass. Some character glowed McDowell admiringly. But what am I supposed to do? McCarthy wants to swear out a warrant for the guy. But before we do, I want to know more about this whole thing. First off, what's a man doing wearing feathers instead of honest hair? Ask him, grunted McDowell. Shall I issue the warrant? Yeah. Disturbing the peace. He did that anyway. And if it's some advertising stunt, this feathers business, I'll have some wiseacre in jail in the morning. Look, O', Leary, I'll meet you at McCarthy's in 10 minutes. He hung up the phone and snapped a button on his communicator. Doc, he barked, come along if you want to. We got us a guy wearing feathers instead of hair. Trick, growled the doctor Go away. No one can grow feathers instead of hair. That's why I want you along. Come on, Doc. This is an order. Confound you and your orders. He hung up angrily, and the lieutenant heard him breaking up the poker game as he snapped his own switch closed. It was 10 minutes to the second when the car pulled up before McCarthy's. O' Leary was already inside, talking to a man holding a chunk of raw beef to his eye. Now, said McDowell, entering with the doctor on his heels, what's this about feathers? Swear it, Lieutenant. And I want the devil clapped in jail where he belongs. Sure now, said McDowell in a mollifying tone. And you can prove them feathers were really growing? Sure, snapped McCarthy.
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Here.
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And he handed Lieutenant McDowell something slightly bloody. It was a bit of skin, to which was attached three tiny feathers. Just before he bought me, I got his hands and his scalp to see if they was real. They was, because they came hard and he howled and went madman. McDowell handed the specimen to Doc. Examine it, Doc. One, are they real feathers? Two, is that real human skin? And three, is that human blood? That'll take time, said the doctor, looking at the bloody bit. Bet that hurts, though. Hurts? Grunted McDowell. So what? By which I mean that he'll be visiting a doctor or a hospital for treatment. That's no home remedy job. Okay, smiled McDowell cheerfully. Now look, McCarthy, we'll get right on it. You've got your warrant and can prefer charges. Meanwhile, there's nothing I can do here. We'll go back to the station and go to work. How about the damages? Growled the owner. I'm a policeman, not a civil lawyer, returned McDowell. Take it to the court when we catch our bird. A fine force we got, grumbled McCarthy belligerently. McDowell grunted angrily and turned to O'. Leary. He don't like us, he said. McCarthy, have you been closing promptly at midnight on Saturday night? Demanded o'. Leary. That's a bad law to break, you know. I've been lawful, returned the barkeeper. And I'll watch misstep in the future. McDowell laughed, and he and the doc left the place.
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Place.
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Back at the station, reporters met them with questions. McDowell held up a hand. Look, boys, he said with a grin, this may be something you can print. It may also be an attempt to ridicule the force. I'll tell you this much. There was a guy apparently wearing feathers instead of hair that started a riot in McCarthy's on Boylston a little while ago. Now, if you'll hold off phoning that in until we check, we'll Take tell you whether the guy was wearing feathers or growing them. Also whether he was human. Mind waiting? We'll wait, came the chorused reply. Whatcha gonna use for lead? Asked one reporter of another. I don't know yet. Depends on whether he was having a frat initiation or was really one of our fine feathered friends. McDowell followed the doctor in, and the reporters followed the lieutenant in. Gag or not, thought McDowell, these guys will be as good to me as I am to them. And if it is a gag, we'll show them that we know how to find out about such anyway. Doc ignored the room teeming with people and went to work. He made test after test and then pored through a couple of volumes from his bookcase. Finally he gave that up and faced the group, casting a glance at McDowell. McDowell said, this is off the record until I find out what he's got to say. If it's okay, you can get it firsthand.
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Okay.
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The reporters nodded. Doc cleared his throat. The skin is human. So is the blood. Indications are the feathers were growing out of the skin, not merely inserted. You're certain? Gasped one reporter. I'm reasonably sure, qualified the doctor. Skin? Well, skin has certain tests to prove it. This stuff is human skin. I'm certain. It couldn't be anything else. The feathers. I tried to classify them, but it will take a professional ornithologist to do that. But not, Queried the reporter. If that's human skin, how can feathers be growing out of it? Ask me. Another, said the doctor, puzzled. Ha, grunted the reporter man from he shot his trap, but quick, but the words carried enough connotation. Look, said McDowell, you can use that man from Mars gag if you want. Want to. But don't say we said so. It's your own idea, see? Right, Lieutenant, they said. Happy to get this much. It would make a bit of reading this item. Now, said McDowell, Doc and I are going to go over to Professor Meredith's place and ask him if he knows what kind of feathers these are. One reporter spoke up quickly. I'm holding mine until we get Meredith's report, he said. And I've got a station wagon outside. Come on, Lieutenant, and document. And any you mugs that want to ride along. There was a grand rush for the door. Professor Meredith looked the feather over carefully, classifying it as best he could. He sorted through several books, consulted many notes of his own, and made careful counts of the spines per inch along the shaft of the feather. He noted its coloring carefully, and called for a general statement as to the color, size, and general shape of the feather. This is done somewhat like your viral fingerprint prints, he told the lieutenant. But here at home I'm stopped. I've never seen that kind before. However, over at the university we have a punch card sorter. We can run through all known birds and see if any of the feathers agree with this specimen. This time they took Professor Meredith along with them. Using official sanction, the professor opened the laboratory and entered the building. It was three hours later that the professor made his official statement to the police and to the press. This feather is not known to the scientific world, he said. However, it does exist. And that proves that the scientific world does not know everything there is. I would say, however, that the animal from which this came is not known in any regular part of the civilized world. Explain that, Professor Meredith requested McDowell. It is a small feather, fully grown. It is an advanced stage of evolution.
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Evolution.
- [286:14]
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Feathers, you know, evolve from scales, and we can tell how far they have come. It must have come from a small bird, which is also evidenced by the fact that it is not known to men. There are places in the backwaters of the Amazon where man has not been, and certain spots in Africa and the part of the world near Malaya, Oceania and others. Maybe quote you on this, professor? Asked the press. Why, yes, but tell me now, where did you get that feather? McDowell explained, and Professor Meredith gasped. I'll revise my statements, he said with a smile. This feather is not known to exist in the scientific world. If the story is true that this feather emerged from the scalp of a man, it is a scientific curiosity that would startle the world and make a mint for the owner in any freak show. The reporter from the press said. Professor, you stated that this feather is not known to the scientific world. Is there any chance that this creature is utterly alien? Since the disclosure of the affair at Hiroshima, Nagasaki, smiled the professor. A lot of people have been thinking in terms of attaining the stars. Interplanetary travel. As a member of a certain society known as the Fortians, one of our big questions has been this. If interplanetary travel is possible, why hasn't someone visited us? Gentlemen, I'd not like like to hear myself quoted as giving the idea too much credulence. But it is something to ponder. That did it. There was another general rush for the car. There was a wild ride following in which the man from the press displayed that he had two things. A careful disregard for traffic laws, plus illegal ownership of a siren. But they delivered Professor Meredith to his home, the policemen to their station, and then the party broke up, heading for their respective telephones. Three hours later, Lt. McDowell was reported reading a headline stating Hub of World to be hub of universe. McDowell groaned. Everything happens to Boston, and everything in Boston happens on Boylston street, and everything that happens on Boylston street happens to me. Doc smiled sourly. Now what? We've canvassed the medical profession from Brookline to every, including the boys on Scollay Square and a bouquet of fellows who aren't too squeamish about their income. Not a sign. Furthermore, that feather specimen was telephotoed to the more complete libraries at New York, Chicago, Washington, and Berkeley. The Audubon Society has been consulted as well as have most of the big ornithologists in the world. The sum total is that feather is strictly unlike anything known. The skin is human, or, as one dermatologist put it, is as human as possible, considering that it's growing feathers instead of hair. The blood is the same story. Doc nodded.
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Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Now what?
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He repeated, though the sense of his words was different. We wait. Boy, there's a big scare line in all the papers. The press is hinting that the guys from outer space haven't been told that there were intelligent humans here by that series of atom bomb explosions. If we were really intelligent, we could get along with one another without atom bombs, grunted the doc. Well, the sphere claims that the character is a mutant resulting from atomic bomb radiation byproducts or something. He quotes the trouble that the photographic manufacturers are having with radioactive specs in their plants. The Tribune goes even further. He thinks the guy is an advanced spy for an invasion from outer space because his gang of feather bearing humans are afraid to leave any world run loose with atom bombs. The ultra conservative events even go so far as to question the possibility of a feather bearing man growing to full manhood without having some record of it. Based on that premise, they build an outer space yarn about it too. Doc grunted. Used to be invasions from Mars, he said. They're smarter now. Exclaimed McDowell. Seems as how the bright boys claimed that life of humanoid varieties couldn't evolve on any planet of this system but Earth. Therefore, if it is alien, it must come from one of the stars. If it came from Mars, it would be green worms or seven legged octopuses. Venus, they claimed, would probably sprout dinosaurs. Or a gang of talking walleyed pike. Spinach, I calls it. Doc smiled. Notice that none of them is claiming that they have the truth. It's all conjecture so far. Trouble is, I'm the fall guy, complained McDowell. It landed in my lap and now I'm it. Expected to unravel it myself or be the laughingstock of the country, Canada and the affiliations of the Associated Press. The phone rang and McDowell groaned. Some other guy wanting to climb on the wagon with us. Been ringing all morning from one screw bell or another with theories, ideas, unhelpful suggestions as to how to trap the alien and so forth. My own opinion is to treat him nice, apologize for our rather fool behavior, and see that he don't take a bad statement home with him if he tells them about us from what he's seen. Hello? He bawled into the phone. I am Mrs. Donovan on Tremont Street. I wanted to report that the fellow with the feathers on his head used to pass my window every morning on his way to work. Fine, said McDowell, unconvinced. Will you answer me three questions?
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Senator/Official
Certainly.
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Commercial Announcer
First, how do you know? Seems he never took his hat off. Well, he was large and he acted suspicious. Sure, growled McDowell, hanging up the phone. He turned again to Doc. It's been like this. People who think they've seen him, people who are sure they've had him in for lunch almost, yet they missed calling about a carrot to grow in feathers instead of hair until there's a big fuss. Just as though a guy with a head covered with feathers was quite the ordinary thing until he takes a swing at a guy in a saloon. Doc said, you've canvassed all the medics in Boston and environs? In another hour we'll have all the medics in Massachusetts. Give us six hours and we'll have them all over New England and part of Canada and New York, York and the fish along the Atlantic Ocean. Have you tried the non medics, meaning chiropodists and the like? They aren't listed in the medical register, but they will often take care of a cut or scrape. McDowell laughed just like a stranger. To go to a foot specialist to get a ripped scalp taken care of. Well, it is far fetched, but might be. I'm going to have the boys chalk all sorts and we'll follow up with the pharmacist. Does that feather headed bird know how much money he's cost in the city? I wonder. McDowell gritted his teeth a bit as the phone rang again. I wonder what this one has to say, he snarled and then barked McDowell into the instrument. I've just seen the feather headed man on Huntington Avenue, replied a gruff voice. This is Dr. Muldoon and I'm in a drug store on the corner of Huntington and Massachusetts. You've seen him how did you know? His hat blew off as it came out of the subway entrance here. Subway? The doctor chuckled. The Boston Elevated, they call it. He headed toward Symphony hall just a moment ago, after collecting his hat. How many people were there? Maybe a dozen. They all faded out of sight because they're a bit scared of that alien star rumor. He grabbed his hat rather quickly, though, and hurried out of the way as I came here to telephone. Stay there, snapped McDowell, and I'll be right over. McDowell and Doc jumped in the car and went off with the sirens screaming. McDowell cursed a traffic jam at Copley Square and took the corner on one and a half wheels into Huntington. They ignored the red light halfway up Huntington and they skidded to a stop at Massachusetts Avenue to see a portly gentleman standing on the corner. He wasted no time but jumped in the car and introduced himself as Dr. Muldoon. He went this way, pointed the doctor. The car turned roughly and started down the street. They combed the rabbit warren of streets there with no sign of the feather headed man at all. McDowell finally gave up. There are a million rooming houses in this neighborhood, he said sorrowfully. He could lose himself in any one of them. I'm sorry, said the doctor. It's funny that this cut scalp hasn't caused him to turn up somewhere. That's what we hoped for, said McDowell. But either the guy's treating himself or he's got an illegal medic to do the job. From what you say, a piece of scalp ripped loose, it is nothing to fool around with. How big was the piece? About as big as a fingernail, grinned McDowell. Most dangerous, he might die of infection. I wonder if he knows that. I wouldn't know, said Dr. Muldoon. Well, I've combed the doctors now I'm going after the dermatologists, chiropodists, osteopaths and pharmacists. I might as well take a swing at the chiropractors, too, and maybe hit that institution down on Huntington near Massachusetts. They might know about him. McDowell looked up at the second story offices that bordered Massachusetts Avenue between Huntington and Boylston and shook his head. A million doctors, dentists and whatnots. And what is a follicologist? A hair specialist?
- [294:47]
Narrator/Announcer
A what?
- [294:48]
Commercial Announcer
Exploded McDowell. He jammed on the brakes with 170 pounds of man aided with some muscle effort against the back of the seat. The police car put its nose down and stopped, but quick. Traffic piled up and horns blasted notice of impatience until McDowell jumped out, signal to a traffic cop to unsnarl the mess then McDowell raced into the office. He paused at the door marked Clarence O', Toole, follicologist. McDowell paused, listening for two voices were coming through the door. One was rumbling low, the other was in a familiar, familiar brogue. But this hurts, complained the rumble. Naturally, any scalping hurts. But money will ease. Any hurt. But where's this money? You're here to get 10% of my
- [295:31]
Narrator/Announcer
profit for a year.
- [295:32]
Commercial Announcer
That plus a good head of hair. Isn't that enough? Ordinarily, yes, but I'm in a jam now. The police are looking for me with blood in their eyes. Now surrender yourself, said the brogue. Go to this Lieutenant McDonald's, McDowell, explain the error. Tell them that you were afraid that you'd been hiding because of the ridicule attendant to the feathers on your scalp. Then go to the press and demand satisfaction for their ridicule. Light Bull. Throw the book at him. That will get us the publicity we want. And as soon as the thing is explained, people will come in droves. But first you can explain to McDowell and start.
- [296:03]
Narrator/Announcer
Now.
- [296:04]
Commercial Announcer
Exploded McDowell, bursting in angrily. He pointed the business end of his revolver at them and waved them back. Sit down. He barked and talk. It was him, accused the feather headed one. He wanted me to do this to get into an argument, to get publicity. He can grow hair. I've been as bald as an onion. Sure, drawled McDowell. The jury will decide. He turned over to O'. Toole. Are you a doctor? I am not a licensed doctor of medicine. We'll see if what you're doing can be turned into a charge of practicing with no license. I'm not practicing medicine. I'm a follicologist. Yeah? Then what's this feather business all about? Simple evolution has caused every genus, every specimen of life to pass upward from the sea. Hair has evolved from scales and feathers evolved also from scales. Now, continued o', Toole, baldness is attributed to lack of nourishment for the hair on the scalp. It dies. The same thing often occurs in agriculture. What has farming to do with hair growing? Demanded McDowell. I was coming to that. When wheat will grow no longer in a field, I plant it with corn. It's called rotation of crops. Similarly, I cause a change in the growth output of the scalp. It starts off with the light covering the scales, evolves into feathers in a few days, and the feathers evolve to completion. This takes seven weeks. After this time, the feathers die because of the differences in evolutionary ending of the host. Then, with the scalp renewed by the so called rotation of crops. Aha. Well, we'll let the jury decide. Two months elapsed before o' Toole came to trial, but meantime the judge took a vacation and returned with a luxuriant growth of hair on his head. The jury was not cited for contempt of court, even though most of them insisted on keeping their hats on during the proceedings. O' Toole had a good lawyer and Judge Murphy beamed down over the bench and said, o', Toole, you're guilty, but sentence is suspended. Indefinite. Just don't get into trouble again. That's all. And gentlemen, Lieutenant McDowell, Dr. Muldoon, and Sergeant O', Leary, I commend all of your work and will direct that you, Mr. McCarthy, be recompensed. As for you, he said to the ex featherhead Mr. William B. Windsor, we have no use for foreigners. Mr. Windsor never got a chance to state that he was no foreigner. His mother was a Clancy. End of Alien by George O. Smith.
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Commercial Voice
Answer please. Answer by Ben Bova this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recorded by Shannon Sullivan Answer please. Answer by Ben Bova we had been at the South Pole a week. The outside thermometer read 50 degrees below zero Fahrenheit. The winter was just beginning. What do you think we should transmit to McMurdo? I asked Rizzo. He put down his magazine and half sat up in his bunk. For a moment there was silence except for the nearly inaudible hum of the machinery that jammed our tiny dome and the muffled shrieking creaking of the ever present wind above us. Rizzo looked at the semicircle of control consoles, computers and meteorological sensors with an expression of disgust that could only be produced by a drafted soldier. Tell him it's cold, it's gonna get colder and we've both got appendicitis and need replacements immediately. Very clever, I said and started touching the buttons that would automatically transmit the sensor's memory tapes. Rizzo sagged back into his body bunk. Why? He asked the curved ceiling of our cramped quarters. Why me? Why here? What did I ever do to deserve spending the whole goddamned winter at the goddamned South Pole? It's strictly impersonal, I assured him. Some bright young meteorologist back in Washington has convinced the Pentagon that the South Pole is the key to the world's weather patterns. So here we are. It doesn't make sense, rizzo continued unhearing. His dark, broad boned face was a picture of wronged humanity. Everybody knows that when the missiles start flying, they'll be coming over the North Pole. The goddamned army is 180 degrees off base. That's about normal for the army, isn't it? I was a drafted soldier, too. Rizzo swung out of the bunk and paced across the dimly lit room. It only took a half dozen paces. The dome was small and most of it was devoted to machinery. Don't start acting like a caged lion, I warned. It's going to be a long winter. Yeah, I guess so. He sat down next to me at the radio console and pulled a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket. He offered one to me and we both smoked in silence for a minute or two. Got anything to read? I grinned. Some microspool catalogs of stars. Stars? I'm an astronomer. At least I was an astronomer before the national emergency was proclaimed. Rizzo looked puzzled. But I never heard of you. Why should you? I'm an astronomer, too. I thought you were an electronicist. He pumped his head up and down. Yeah, at the Radio Astronomy Observatory at Greenbelt. Project Ozma. Where do you work? Lick observatory with the 120 inch reflector. Oh, an optical astronomer. Certainly. You're the first optical man I've met. He looked at me a trifle queerly. I shrugged. Well, we've been around a few millennia longer than you. Static scanners. Yeah, I guess so. I didn't realize that Project Ozma was still going on. Have you had any results yet? It was Rizzo's turn to shrug. Nothing yet. The project has been shelved for the duration of the emergency. Of course, if there's no war and the dish doesn't get bombed out, we'll try again. Still listening to the same two stars? Yeah. Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani. They're the only two sun type stars within reasonable range that might have planets like Earth. And you expect to pick up radio signals from an intelligent race? Hope to. I flicked the ash off my cigarette. You know, it always struck me as rather hopeless trying to find radio signals for from intelligent creatures. What do you mean, hopeless? Why should an intelligent race send radio signals out into interstellar space?
- [302:25]
Senator/Official
I ask.
- [302:26]
Commercial Voice
Think of the power it requires and the likelihood that it's all wasted effort because there's no one within range to talk to. Well, it's worth a try, isn't it? If you think there could be intelligent creatures somewhere else on a planet of another star.
- [302:40]
Senator/Official
Hmph.
- [302:41]
Commercial Voice
We're trying to find another intelligent race. Are we transmitting radio signals? No, he admitted. Congress wouldn't vote the Money for a transmitter that big? Exactly, I said. We're listening but not transmitting. Rizzo wasn't discouraged. Listen, the chances just on statistical figuring alone. The chances are that there are millions of other solar systems with intelligent life. We've got to try contacting them. They might have knowledge that we don't have, have answers to questions that we can't solve yet. I completely agree, I said. But listening for radio signals is the wrong way to do it.
- [303:17]
Narrator/Announcer
Huh?
- [303:19]
Commercial Voice
Radio broadcasting requires too much power to cover interstellar distances efficiently. We should be looking for signals, not listening for them. Looking. Lasers, I said, pointing to the low key lights over the consoles. Optical lasers. Super lamps shining out in the darkness of the void. Pump in a modest amount of electrical power, excite a few trillion atoms, and out comes a coherent pencil thin beam of light that can be seen for millions of miles. Millions of miles aren't light years, rizzo muttered. We're rapidly approaching the point where we'll have lasers capable of light year ranges. I'm sure that some intelligent rays somewhere in this galaxy has achieved the necessary technology to signal from star to star. Star by light beams. Then how come we haven't seen any? Rizzo demanded. Perhaps we already have.
- [304:07]
Listener/Observer
What?
- [304:08]
Commercial Voice
We've observed all sorts of variable stars, Cepheids, R.R. lyras, T. Tauris. We assume that what we see are stars pulsating and changing brightness for reasons that are natural but unexplainable to us. Now suppose what we are really viewing are laser beams signaling from planets that that circle stars too faint to be seen from Earth. In spite of himself, Rizzo looked intrigued. It would be fairly simple to examine the spectra of such light sources and determine whether they're natural stars or artificial laser beams. Have you tried it? I nodded, and I hesitated long enough to make him hold his breath, waiting for my answer. No, soap. Every variable star I've examined is a real star. He let out his breath in a long, disgusted puff. Ah, you were kidding all along. I thought so, yes, I said. I suppose I was time dragged along in the weather dome. I had managed to smuggle a small portable telescope along with me and tried to make observations whenever possible, but the weather was usually too poor. Rizzo, almost in desperation for something to do, started to build an electronic image amplifier for me. Our one link with the rest of the world was our weekly radio message from McMurdo. The Times for the messages were randomly scrambled so that the chances of their being intercepted or jammed were lessened, and we were ordered to maintain strict radio silence as the weeks sloughed on. We learned that one of our manned satellites had been boarded by the Reds at gunpoint. Our space crews had put two Red automated spy satellites out of commission, shots had been exchanged on an ice island in the Arkansas Arctic, and six different nations were testing nuclear bombs. We didn't get any mail, of course. Our letters would be waiting for us at McMurdo when we were relieved. I thought about Gloria and our two children quite a bit and tried not to think about the blast and fallout patterns in the San Francisco area where they were. My wife hounded me until I spent pretty nearly every damned cent I had on a shelter under the house, rizzo told me. Damned shelter is fancier than the house. She's the social leader of the disaster set. If we don't have a war, she's going to feel damned silly. I said nothing. The weather cleared and steadied for a while. Days and nights were indistinguishable during the long Antarctic winter, and I split my time evenly between monitoring the meteorological sensors and observing the stars. The snow had covered the dome completely, of course, but our snorkel burrowed through it and out into the air. This dome's just like a submarine, only we're submerged in snow instead of water, rizzo observed. I just hope we don't sink to the bottom. The calculations show that we'll be all right. He made a sour face. Calculations proved that airplanes would never get off the ground. The storms closed in again, but by the time they cleared once more, Rizzo had completed the image amplifier for me. Now, with the tiny, tiny telescope I had, I could see almost as far as a professional instrument would allow. I could even lie comfortably in my bunk, watch the amplifier's view screen, and control the entire setup remotely. Then it happened. At first it was simply a curiosity, an oddity. I happened to be studying a Cepheid variable star, one of the huge, very bright stars that pulsate so regularly that you can set your watch by them. It had attracted my attention, but because it seemed to be unusually close for a Cepheid only 700 light years away, the distance could be easily gauged by timing the STAR's pulsations. Footnote 1 Astronomers have been able since about 1910 to estimate the distances of Cepheid variable stars by timing their pulsations. The length of this type of star's pulsation is a true measure of its intrinsic brightness. Comparing the star's actual brightness to its apparent brightness as seen from Earth gives a good value for the star's distance. I talked Rizzo into helping me set up a spectrometer. We scavenged shamelessly from the dome's spare parts bin and finally produced an instrument that would break up the light of the star into its component wavelengths and thereby tell us much about the star's chemical composition and surface temperature. At first I didn't believe what I saw. The star's spectrum, a broad rainbow of colors, was crisscrossed with narrow dark lines. That was all right. They're called absorption lines. The sun has thousands of them in its spectrum. But one line one was an insolently bright emission line. All the laws of physics and chemistry said it couldn't be there, but it was. We photographed the star dozens of times. We checked our instruments ceaselessly. I spent hours scanning the star's official spectrum in the microspool reader. The bright emission line was not on the catalog spectrum. There was nothing wrong with our instruments. Yet the bright line showed up. It was real. I don't understand it, I admitted. I've seen stars with bright emission spectra before. But a single bright line in an absorption spectrum? It's unheard of. One single wavelength, one particular type of atom at one precise energy level. Why? Why is it emitting energy when the other wavelengths aren't? Rizzo was sitting on his bunk, puffing a cigarette. He blew a cloud of smoke at the low ceiling. Maybe it's one of those laser signals you were telling me about a couple weeks ago. I scowled at him. Come on now, I'm serious. This thing has me puzzled. Now wait a minute. You're the one who said radio astronomers were straight straining their ears for nothing. You're the one who said we ought to be looking. So look. He was enjoying his revenge. I shook my head and turned back to the meteorological equipment, but Rizzo wouldn't let up. Suppose there's an intelligent race living on a planet near a cepheid variable star. They figure out that any other intelligent creatures would have astronomers who'd be curious about their star, right? So they send out a laser signal that matches the star's pulse sensations. When you look at this star, you see their signal. What's more logical? All right, I groused. You've had your joke. Tell you what, he insisted. Let's put that one wavelength into an oscilloscope and see if a definite signal comes out. Maybe it'll spell out Take me to your leader or something. I ignored him and turned my attention to army business. The meteorological equipment was functioning perfectly, but our orders read that Once of us had to check it every 12 hours, so I checked and tried to keep my eyes from wandering as Rizzo tinkered with a photocell and oscilloscope. There we are, he said at length. Now let's see what they're telling us. In spite of myself, I looked up at the face of the oscilloscope. A steady, gradually sloping greenish line was traced across the screen. No message, I said. Rizzo shrugged elaborately. If you leave the scope on for two days, you'll find that the line makes a full swing from peak to null, I informed him. The star pulsates every two days, bright to dim. Let's turn up the gain, he said, and he flicked a few knobs on the front of the scope. The line didn't change at all. What's the sweep speed? I asked. One nanosecond per centimeter. That meant that each centimeter wide square on the screen's face represented one billionth of a second. There are as many nanoseconds in one second as there are seconds in 32 years. Well, if you don't get a signal at that sensitivity, there just isn't any signal there, I said. Rizzo nodded. He seemed slightly disappointed that his joke was at an end. I turned back to the meteorological instruments, but I couldn't concentrate on them. Somehow I felt disappointed, too. Subconsciously, I spoke. Suppose I had been hoping that Rizzo actually would detect a signal from the star. Fool, I told myself. But what could explain that bright emission line? I glanced up at the oscilloscope again, and suddenly the smooth, steady line broke into a jagged series of millions of peaks and nulls. I stared at it. Rizzo was back on his bunk again, reading one of his magazines. I tried to call him, but the words froze in my throat. Without taking my eyes from the the flickering scope, I reached out and touched his arm. He looked up. Holy Mother of God, rizzo whispered. For a long time we stared silently at the fluttering line dancing across the oscilloscope screen, bathing our tiny dome in its weird greenish light. It was eerily fascinating, hypnotic. The line never stood still. It jabbered and stuttered. A series of men, millions of little peaks and nulls, changing almost too fast for the eye to follow. Up and down, calling to us, speaking to us. Up, down, never still, never quiet, constantly flickering its unknown message to us. Can it be people? Rizeau wondered. His face, bathed in the greenish light, was suddenly furrowed, withered, ancient, a mixture of disbelief and fear. What else could it be? I heard my own Voice. Answer. There's no other explanation possible. We sat mutely for God knows how long. Finally, Rizzo asked, what do we do now? The question broke our entranced mood. What do we do? What action do we take? We're thinking men, and we've been contacted by other creatures that can think reason. Send a signal across 700 light years of space. So don't just sit there in stupefied awe. Use your brain. Prove that you're worthy of the tag sapiens. We decode the message, I announced then as an afterthought, but don't ask me how. We should have called McMurdo or Washington. Or perhaps we should have attempted to get a message through to the United nations, but we never even thought of it. This was our problem. Problem? Perhaps it was the sheer isolation of our dome that kept us from thinking about the rest of the world. Perhaps it was sheer luck. If they're using lasers, Rizzo reasoned, they must have a technology something like ours must have had. I corrected, that message is 700 years old. Remember, they were playing with lasers when King John was signing the Magna Carta and Genghis Khan owned most of Asia. Lord knows what they have now. Rizau blanched and reached for another cigarette. I turned back to the oscilloscope. The signal was still flashing across its face. They're sending out a signal, I mused. Probably at random. Just beaming it out into space, hoping that someone, somewhere will pick it up. It must be in some form of code. But a code that they feel can be easily cracked by anyone with enough intelligence to realize that there's a message there. Sort of an interstellar Morse code. I shook my head. Morse code depends on both sides knowing the code. There's no key. Cryptographers crack codes, sure, if they know what language is being used. We don't know the language. We don't know the Alphabet, the thought processes. Nothing. But it's a code that can be cracked easily, rizzo muttered. Yes, I agreed. Now what the hell kind of a code can they assume will be known to another race that they've never seen? Rizzo leaned back on his bunk and his face was lost in shadows. An interstellar code? I rambled on. Some form of presenting information that would be known to almost any race intelligent enough to understand lasers. Binary. Rizzo snapped, sitting up on the bunk. What? What? Binary code. To send a signal like this, they've got to be able to write a message in units that are only a billionth of a second long. That takes computers, right? Well, if they have Computers. They must figure that we have computers. Digital computers run on binary code, off or on, go or no go. It's simple. I bet we can slap that signal on a tape and run it through our computer here to assume that they use computers exactly like ours. Maybe the computers are completely different, Rizzo said excitedly. But the binary code is basic to them all. I'll bet on that. And this computer we've got here, this transistorized baby, she can handle more information than the whole army could feed into her. I'll bet nothing has been developed anywhere that's better for handling simple one plus one types of operations. I shrugged. Alright, it's worth a trial. It took Rizzo a few hours to get everything properly set up. I did some arithmetic while I worked. If the message was in binary code, that meant that every cycle of the signal, every flick of the dancing line on our screen carried a bit of information. The Signal's wavelength was 5,000 Angstroms. There are 100 million Angstrom units to the centimeter. Figuring the speed of light the signal could carry, in theory at least something like 620,000,000,000 bits of information per second, I told Rizzo. Yeah, I know. I've been going over the same numbers in my head. He set a few switches on the computer control board. Now let's see how many of the 600 trillion we can pick up. He sat down before the board and pressed a series of buttons. We watched, hardly breathing, as the computer's spools began spinning and the indicator lights flashed across the control board. Within a few minutes the printer chugged to life. Rizzo swiveled his chair over to the printer and held up the unrolling sheet in a trembling hand. Numbers. Six digit numbers. Completely meaningless gibberish. Rizzo snapped. It was peculiar. I felt relieved and disappointed at the same time. Something screwy, Rizzo said. Maybe I fouled up the circuits. I don't think so, I answered. After all, what did you expect out of the computer? Shakespearean poetry? No, but I expected numbers. That would make some sense. One and one. Maybe something that means something. This stuff is nowhere. Our nerves must have been really wound tight, because before we knew it we were in the middle of a nasty argument and it was over nothing, really. But in the middle of it. Hey, look. Rizzo shouted, pointing to the oscilloscope. The message had stopped. The scope showed only the calm, steady line of the star's basic two day long pulsation. It suddenly occurred to us that we hadn't slept for more than 36 hours and we were both exhausted. We forgot the senseless argument. The message was ended. Perhaps there would be another, perhaps not. We had the telescope, spectrometer, photocell, oscilloscope and computer set to record automatically. We collapsed into our bunks. I suppose I should have had monumental dreams. I didn't. I slept like a dead man. When we woke up, the oscilloscope trace was still quiet. You know, rizzo muttered, it might just be a fluke. I mean, maybe the signals don't mean a damned thing. The computer is probably translating nonsense into numbers just because it's built to print out numbers and nothing else. Not likely, I said. There are too many coincidences to be explained. We're receiving a message. I'm certain of it now. We've got to crack the code. As if to reinforce my words, the oscilloscope trace suddenly erupted into the same flickering pattern. The message was being sent again. We went through two weeks of it. The message would run through for seven hours, then stop, for we transcribed it on tape 48 times and ran it through the computer constantly. Always the same result. Six digit numbers, millions of them. There were six different seven hour long messages being repeated one after the other, constantly. We forgot the meteorological equipment. We ignored the weekly messages from McMurdo. The rest of the world became a meaningless fiction to us. There was nothing but the conflict confounded, tantalizing, infuriating, enthralling message. The national emergency, the bomb tests, families, duties, all transcended, all forgotten. We ate when we thought of it and slept when we couldn't keep our eyes open any longer. The message. What was it? What was the key to unlock its meaning? It's got to be something universal, I told Rizzo. Something universal in the widest sense of the term. He looked up from his desk, which was wedged in between the end of his bunk and the curving dome wall. The desk was littered with printout sheets from the computer, each one of them part of the message. You've only said that a half million times in the past couple weeks. What the hell is universal? If you can figure that out, you're damned good. What is universal? I wondered. You're an astronomer. You look out at the universe. What do you see? I thought about it. What do I see? Stars, Gas, Dust clouds, Planets. What's universal about them? What do they all have that? Atoms, I blurted. Rizzo cocked a weary eye at me. Atoms, Atoms. Elements. Look. I grabbed up a fistful of the sheets and thumbed through them.
- [321:13]
Listener/Observer
Look.
- [321:14]
Commercial Voice
Each message starts with a list of numbers. Then there's a long blank to separate the opening list from the rest of the message. See? Every time the same length list. So the periodic table of the elements. I shouted into his ear. That's the key. Rizzo shook his head. I thought of that two days ago. No soap in the first place, the list that starts each message isn't always the same same. It's the same length, all right, but the numbers change. In the second place, it always begins with a hundred thousand. I looked up the atomic weight of hydrogen. It's 1.008 something. That stopped me for a moment, but then something clicked into place in my mind. Why is the hydrogen weight 1.008? Before Rizzo could answer, I went on, for two reasons. The system we use Hughes arbitrarily rates oxygen as 16 even, right? All the other weights are calculated from oxygens, and we also give the average weight of an element counting all its isotopes. Our weight for hydrogen also includes an adjustment for tiny amounts of deuterium and tritium, right? Well, suppose they have a system that rates hydrogen as a flat one. 1.00000. And doesn't that make sense? You're getting punchy, rizzo grumbled. What about the isotopes? How can they expect us to handle decimal points if they don't tell us about them? Mental telepathy. What about Stop arguing and start calculating? I snapped. Change that list of numbers to agree with our periodic table. Change 1.00000 to 1.008, whatever it is, and tackle the next few elements. The decimal shouldn't be so hard to figure out. Rizzo grumbled to himself, but started working on the calculations. I stepped over to the dome's microspool library and found an elementary physics test. Within a few minutes, Rizzo had some numbers and I had the periodic table focused on the microspool reading machine. Nothing, rizzo said, leaning over my shoulder and looking at the screen. They don't match at all. Try another list. They're not all the same. He shrugged and returned to his desk. After a while he called out, their second number is 3.97123. It works out to 4.003 something. It checked good. That's helium. What about the next one? Lithium. That's 6.940.
- [323:44]
Narrator/Announcer
Right?
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Commercial Voice
Rizzo went to work furiously. After that. I pushed a chair to the desk and began working up from the end of the list. It all checked out, from hydrogen to a few elements beyond the artificial ones that had been created in the laboratories here on Earth. That's it, I said. That's the key. That's our Rosetta stone. The periodic table. Rizzo stared at the scribbled numbers and jumble of papers. I bet I know what the other lists are. The ones that don't make sense. Oh, there are other ways to identify the elements. Vibration, resonances, quantum wavelengths. Somebody named Lewis came out a couple years ago with a quantum periodic table. They're covering all the possibilities. There are messages for many different levels of understanding. We just decoded the simplest one. Yeah, I noticed that as he spoke, Rizzo's hand, still tightly clutching the pencil, was trembling and white with tension. Well, Rizzo licked his lips. Let's get to work. We were like two men possessed. Eating, sleeping, even talking was ignored completely as we waded through the hundreds of sheets of paper. We could decode only a small percentage of them, but they still represented many hours of communication. The sheets that we couldn't decode, we suspected, were repetitions of the same message that we were working on. We lost all concept of time. We must have slept more than once, but I simply don't remember. All I can recall is thousands of numbers, row upon row, sheet after sheet of numbers, and my pencil scratching symbols of the various chemical elements over them until my hand was so cramped I could no longer open the fingers. The message consisted of a long series of formulas, that much was certain, but without punctuation, with no knowledge of the symbols that denote even such simple things as plus or equals or yields. It took us more weeks of hard work to unravel the sense of each equation, and even then there was more to the message than met the eye. Just what the hell are they driving at? Rizzo wondered aloud. His face had changed. It was thinner, hollow eyed, weary, covered with a scraggly beard. Then you think there's a meaning behind all these equations, too? He nodded. It's a message, not just a contact. They're going to an awful lot of trouble to beam out this message, and they're repeating it every seven hours. They haven't added anything new in the weeks we've been watching. I wondered how many years or centuries they've been sending out this message, waiting for someone to pick it up, looking for someone to answer them. Maybe we should call Washington. No. Rizzo grinned, afraid of breaking radio silence. Hell, no. I just want to wait until we're relieved so we can make this announcement in person. I'm not going to let some old Weezer in Washington get credit for this. Besides, I want to know just what they're Trying to tell us it was agonizing, painstaking work. Most of the formulas meant nothing to either one of us. We had to ransack the dome's meager library of microspools to be piece them together. They started simply enough. Basic chemical combinations. Carbon and two oxygens yield CO2. Two hydrogens and oxygens give water. A primer not of words, but of equations. The equations became steadily longer and more complex. Then abruptly, they simplified, only to begin a new, deepening, simplify again, and finally become very complicated. Just at the end. The last few lines were obviously repetitious. Gradually their meaning became clear to us. The first set of equations started off with simple naturally occurring energy, yielding the oxidation of cellulose. We found the formula for that in an organic chemistry text left behind by one of the dome's previous occupants, which probably referred to the burning of plants and vegetation. A string of formulas that had groupings in them that I dimly recognized as an amino acids, no doubt something to do with digesting food. There were many others, including a few that Rizzo claimed had the expression for chlorophyll in them. Naturally occurring energy yielding reactions. Rizzo summarized. They're probably trying to describe the biological setup on their planet. It seemed an inspired guess. The second set of equations again began with simple formulas. The cellulose burning reaction appeared again, but this time it was followed by equations dealing with the oxidation of hydrocarbons, coal and oil burning. A long series of equations that bore repeatedly. The symbols for many different metals came up next, followed by more on hydrocarbons and then a string of formulas that we couldn't decipher at all. This time it was my guess these look like energy yielding reactions too, at least in the beginning. But they don't seem to be naturally occurring types. Then comes a long story about metals. They're trying to tell us the history of their technological development. Burning wood, coal, and eventually oil smelting metals. They're showing us how they developed their technology. The final set of equations began with an ominous a short series of very brief symbols that had the net result of four hydrogen atoms building into a helium atom. Nuclear fusion. Fusion. That's the proton. Proton reaction. I explained to Rizzo, the type of fusion that goes on in the sun. The next series of equations spelled out the more complex carbon nitrogen cycle of nuclear fusion, which was probably the primary energy source of their own cepheid variable star. Then came a long series of equations that we couldn't decode in detail. But the symbols for uranium and plutonium and some of the heavier elements kept cropping up. Then came one line that told us the whole story. The lithium hydride equation. Nuclear fusion bombs. The equations went on to more complex reactions, formulas that no man on Earth had ever seen before. They were showing us the summation of their knowledge, and they had obviously been dealing with nuclear energies for much longer than we have on Earth. But interspersed among the new equations, they repeated a set of four formulas that always began with the lithium hydride fusion reaction. The message ended in a way that wrenched my stomach. The fusion bomb reaction and its cohorts were repeated 10 straight times. I'm not sure of what day it was on the calendar, but the clock on the master control console said it was well past 11. Rizzo rubbed a weary hand across his eyes. Well, what do you think? It's pretty obvious, I said. They have the bombs. They've had them for quite some time. They must have a lot of other weapons, too. More advanced. They're trying to tell us their history with the equations. First they depended on natural sources of energy, plants and animals. Then they developed artificial energy sources and built up a technology. Finally, they discovered nuclear energy. How long do you think they've had the bombs? Hard to tell. A generation, A century. What difference does it make? They have them. They probably thought at first that they could learn to live with them. But imagine what it must be like to have those weapons at your fingertips for a century, forever. Now they're so scared of them that they're beaming their whole history out into space, looking for someone to tell them how to live with the bombs, how to avoid using them. You could be wrong, rizzo said. They could be boasting about their arsenal. Why? For what reason? No, the way they keep repeating those last equations. They're pleading for help. Rizzo turned to the oscilloscope. It was flickering again. Think it's the same thing? No doubt. You're taping it anyway, aren't you? Yeah, sure. Automatically, suddenly, in mid flight, the signal winked off. The pulsations didn't simply smell smooth out into a steady line as they had before. The screen simply went dead. That's funny, rizzo said, puzzled. He checked the oscilloscope. Nothing wrong here. Something must have happened to the telescope. Suddenly I knew what had happened. Take the spectrometer off and turn on the image amplifier, I told him. I knew what we would see. I knew why the oscilloscope beam had suddenly gone off scale, and the knowledge was making me sick. Rza removed the spectrometer setup and flicked the switch that energized the image amplifier's viewscreen. Holy God. The dome was flooded with light. The star had exploded. They had the bombs, all right, I heard myself saying, and they couldn't prevent themselves from using them. And they had a lot more, too. Enough to push their star past its natural limits. Rizzo's face was etched in the harsh light. I've gotta get out of here, he muttered, looking all around the cramped dome. I've gotta get back to my wife and find someplace where it's safe. Someplace? I asked, staring at the screen. Where? End of Answer Please answer. By Ben Bova.
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The Invading Asteroid By Manley Wade Wellman this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Read by Ben Tucker Higher and higher through the night mounted the small trim space launch. Far below, the lights of St. Louis, capital of the Terrestrial League, shone as myriad stars and reflected gleams on the flat surfaces and soaring spires of the uppermost levels. From a great height, the city resembled a rambling building of tremendous size, wherein little specks of surface cars scampered over miniature traffic ways and clouds of airspace vehicles danced around and over the town like midges. It was a fighting ship that was mounting upward, one of the many that sped through space in the days of 2675, when Earth and Mars were in the throes of that gigantic and regrettable conflict. The Interplanetary War, however, the disintegrating ray apparatus, a deadly weapon that enabled terrestrial forces to compete on something like equal terms with the overwhelming numbers of the space navies of Mars, had been removed from bow and stern. Most of the space inside the cigar shaped hull was occupied by engines to ensure highest maneuverability and speed, but in the center was a cushioned chamber large enough to allow its three occupants to ride in comfort. They were in terrestrial uniform but did not look like the sternest of warriors. A year ago they had been students together at the International University in St. Louis, looking forward to graduate in 2675. But 2675 was here, and already they had participated in the bitter conflicts that marked the beginnings of the war. Even now, when the two worlds had drawn far apart in their orbits and the interplanetary passage was too far for war parties to travel, they were kept in intensive training, and their school days seemed memories of a thousand years ago. This is a squadron commander's gig at the very least, chuckled Bull Mike Tishinev, former star athlete of his university as he squared his colossal shoulders. We'll never have a softer trip, nor a freer one, so long as we're in the service. And inasmuch as we are in the service, we're apt to catch it for absent without leave and also for using property of the terrestrial government for private purposes, suggested Neil Anderson, slim and handsome. I wouldn't have suggested it if I had thought there would be danger, assured Tsukune, the little Japanese, his young Oriental face shining with a smile. However, I had free run of the rocket port for my experimentation, and nobody thought anything of it when I checked the ship out. And we have all had two days liberty and won't be missed. They won't check the range rocket port until the day after tomorrow, so we'll have full 48 hours in space first chance we've had to do such a thing without some officer on our necks directing every move of our fingers into the stratosphere. With the speed steadily and carefully increasing, the ship made its way. The broad Mississippi lay across the terrain beneath them, shrunk to the apparent dimensions of a silver thread. St. Louis was now only a varicolored light flecked blotch lying across the river's course, with the smaller dark areas of suburbs close at hand. What a lot of Martian culture could be spread by dropping two or three roving bombs down there, observed Sukune. Where is Mars from here? Asked Neel. The Japanese spun the dial at the television, showing an orange disk blotched with gray green. There you are, seat of Earth's troubles, he said. What's that lump traveling along between us and Mars? Was Bull Mike's question. That appears to be the asteroid that strayed from its path, the astronomers say, replied Sukune. It's not more than a mile or so in diameter, and its distance has been computed to be about 112 million miles from the sun. That puts it nearly 20 million miles beyond the Earth's orbit, or halfway between us and Mars. However, science doesn't know much more about the thing. It's a bit too far away for exploration just now, especially since all ships are now built for war service. It ought to come into opposition with us in the spring of 2676. He delivered this little lecture with the utmost fluency, and his companions, less versed in sky lore than he, listened admiringly. Bullmie grinned and patted the Japanese on the back. Never knew you to be stumped by anything yet, he cried. No wonder the ancients used to be afraid that your people would conquer the world. Returning to the television, the three young men looked curiously at the new phenomenon and the the heavens. They knew of course, about the asteroids, fragments of exploded planets revolving just inside the path of mighty Jupiter. But this one, so far from its fellows, presented a different problem. Leaving the atmospheric envelope, the ship sailed beyond danger of overheating from friction. Like a comet, it rose through empty space. A glance from one port showed Earth at quarter full, a warm gleaming crescent that clasped a round globe of shadowy blue. Blue beside and beyond glowed the white incandescence of the sun, its light intensified by the soft blackness of space. Jewel like stars were scattered in all directions. If Commander Rals could only see us now, said Bull Mike, boyishly delighted by a sense of freedom. If he could, he'd order us all into confinement, Sukune reminded him. Ain't ill. Before them hung the full moon. Toward this they laid their course and after 12 hours flight they slowed down to drift, and like a vagrant bit of thistledown above the silent dead valleys and mountain ranges. Once they dropped down and rested on the ashy surface of the satellite. In a few moments they were able to appreciate the depressed spirits that afflicted the occasional explorers of the lunar wilderness. For despite the heavenly aspiring peaks, the abysmal depths, the far reaching plains, there was a certain sameness about the moon's scenery. They could see no moon movement save the shadow of their own craft sliding along beneath them. No green of grass, no brilliant color flowers showed, no creatures scampered, crept or flew. There was not so much as a heat flurry in the atmosphere, for there was no atmosphere, nothing but the glaring white of sun drenched rock, the inky black of airless shade. I wouldn't live here for all the money in St. Louis, said Bull Mike. As far as that goes, I couldn't. I don't see why not, argued Sukune. Mars, two moons are smaller and rockier than this and haven't any more air, water or natural comfort yet. The Martians have built cities under glass domes, pumped in artificial air and settled right down to keep house. That's because they're crowded at home, was Bullmuck's rebuttal. Well, there's room enough on Earth for me just now. Plenty of girls to keep me company and wine to keep me healthy and excitement to keep me occupied. They gladly left the moon behind and continued their journey. They passed the time by eating part of the provisions they had brought along, by observing the heavens, and by working practice problems and astronautics and space maneuvers. At last they idled a little more than half a million miles from Earth. 20 hours by direct space flight at top speed. Neil was at the television. Suddenly he started violently and gestured to his comrades. Look here. He cried. A ship. A patrol scout from the army, groaned Bull Mike. Now we're in for it. That's no army craft, declared Tsukune when he saw the image. Look at the lines of its hull. See that emblem on the side? It's an armed Martian scout. You're right, said Neel. It's just about on top of us, too. Let's shake on out of here. Sukune jumped to the control board and began to strike a combination of keys. As quickly as possible, he turned, turned the nose of their ship back toward Earth. A glance through a port showed the Martian already within sight of the naked eye. From the enemy ship came a sudden streak of flame. Desperately, Sukune rattled the keys on the board. The terrestrial craft writhed to one side, barely escaping the explosion of a roving bomb. The ratty lizard yelled Bullmite, clenching a mammoth fist. He sees that we're not armed for space fighting. What's he doing here with Mars so far out of travel? Shot, anyway? Demanded Neel. Nobody answered, for another bomb exploded. At that moment, seemingly just outside, it was soundless in the vacuum of space, but the force of the detonation shook the ship like a leaf in a gust of wind. No chance for escape, said Tsukune. He tapped the combination for a halt and rose from his seat. Now he'll think he hit us, he told the others. Let's play dead. Why? Asked Bull Mike. It's our only hope. Another bomb will do the business if we try to run. But he'll want to capture our ship if he sees it idling. He'll figure that we're washed out. He'll come on board and then. And then, repeated the giant, grinning. Then we'll have a fair shake with him. Quickly the three threw themselves down in attitudes of unconsciousness. Neel flung himself on the sill of the port nearest the Martian, in such a position that he could keep a climb. Cautious lookout. Closer and closer came the enemy. Slowing down, he almost scraped against their side. Peeping out, Neel could see a port directly opposite a Martian face, swarthy and skeleton lean, was looking into the interior. What the fellow discovered evidently reassured him. He could be seen pulling on a heavy spacesuit over his scrawny limbs and clasping a helmet into place. Then a long jointed arm of metal extended from his ship to grapple and hold the supposedly disabled terrestrial. A moment later a lock panel opened and the Martian emerged to jump lightly across the few feet of intervening space. They heard him working at their own entrance panel, evidently with some sort of ray apparatus. Soon he had negotiated the lock and entered. Fastening the panel behind him, he stepped over to where Bull Mike lay. He did not even trouble to draw his automatic pistol from its holster as he bent down to examine the silent form. Easily, effortlessly, Bull Mike shot out his big hand and yanked the Martian's feet out from under him. Down crashed the Martian. His gloved hand fumbled with the butt of his pistol, but Tsukune was there first and snatched the weapon away. Bull Mike sat up quickly, cradling the struggling enemy in his arms as though he were a baby. Got him, snorted the big fellow. Let's appoint me as a committee of one to break him in two across my knee. Wait a minute, said Tsukune, flinging out a restraining hand. I want to question him first. What about? Asked Bull Mike. Lots of things about where he came from, for instance. That's an easy one. He came from Mars, said Bull Mike.
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Hi, you.
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Lie still or I'll do your legs in a braid. This last to the prisoner. Not directly. He didn't come from Mars, said Neel. He couldn't travel that far. He must have a base somewhere near. Perhaps he's a survivor from that bunch that was rubbed out on the moon after they landed their big spaceship there last spring. Thunder. That's so, admitted Bull Mike, as with no gentle hand, he unfastened and plucked away the space helmet. The prisoner grimaced in impotent rage. You're a heroic customer attacking a defenseless ship, scolded Bull Mike in very bad Martian. What brought you here? Where's your headquarters? They rose to their feet and allowed the prisoner to do likewise. He looked at each in turn, undaunted by the reversal of fortunes. I'll tell you nothing, he said shortly, in their own language. Kill me if you want to. Chapter 2 An incredible story Bull Mike's open hand drove at him, its hard heel striking his chin. With a gasp. The Martian collapsed and would have fallen had not Neel caught and supported him.
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Here.
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None of that Bull might barked Sukune. You don't know your own strength. And very little else either. Pour water on the fellow, Neil. The Martian revived. He fingered his bruised face and glared up at the three terrestrials. He still refused to answer questions, but he couldn't have come all the way from home. How far is it to Mars? Queried Bull Mike. Well, see said Neel, turning to the television and checking the distance finding device on it. Hmm. Mars is nearly on the other side of the sun, way out of flight shot that little asteroid shows at about 150 million miles. That asteroid? Repeated the Martian in a frightened voice. All three stared at him in surprise. He recovered himself. What asteroid? He queried more calmly, asking, are you? Said Neel. Well, I think you'd know. Where does that asteroid come in? I'm not talking, said the Martian doggedly. We'll remedy that, announced Sukune grimly. Get that space suit off of him, you two. The prisoner struggled fiercely, but his puny strength was futile against their muscles attuned to Earth's greater gravity. Quickly they overpowered him and stripped away his armor of metal and insulated fabric. Make him lie down on his face so the Japanese had a hard gleam in his his eye. Hold him by the wrists, Neel. And you, bull Mike, hold his ankles. They did so. Will you talk now, Sakune? Asked the Martian. I'll not. Well, sighed Sukune. This may seem a little crude, my friend, but it's necessary. Earth needs the information. And if you'll remember, you did attack an unarmed ship. Kneeling, he laid the tips of his fingers on the prisoner's flanks. It seemed no more than the lightest touch yet. The Martian shrieked out as if in an ecstasy of pain. You'll talk, prompted the torturer. I'll talk, I'll talk. A little spot of jiu jitsu, Tsukune said to his friends, rising. It is strange how much the Martian nerve centers resemble the terrestrial in position in response to stimuli. Let him up again. The Martian dropped weakly on a seat, the defiance gone out of him. Tsukune produced a metal flask and unscrewed the stopper. Here, drink this, he told the captive. It's terrestrial wine. It'll strengthen you.
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There.
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Feel better? All right. Tell us where you came from. The Martian licked his lips with his dark, pointed tongue. You guessed it at once, he said. I'm from the asteroid I was on. A lone scout like you. Got too far away from home and ran out of fuel. I thought I'd capture you and fill my tanks. Nonsense, said Tsukune. That asteroid isn't as large as lots of mountains on Earth. If a body of Martians had dwellings and fortifications on it, our astronomers would have made them out. You don't mean to tell us that you've been living on it? The captive frowned and hesitated until he saw Sukune's wiry fingers crook suggestively. Then he made haste to reply, not on it. Inside it. It's an artificial asteroid. They looked at him in astonishment, only half comprehending already you know about the giant ship on the moon that housed so many men? You mean, said Neel, that the asteroid is a giant ship? Also, it's more than one. On Mars we built four tremendous craft, each about one of your Earth miles in length and shaped like a quarter sized, from around four fruit. Then we took the four into space one at a time, to the point where we wanted the asteroid's orbit to be. Then we joined them together, like the quarters of the fruit fitted into shape again. The outer surfaces of them are rough cast to represent the natural rocky landscape of a little planet. And there we have a little world of our own, midway between Mars and your Earth. The three terrestrials were still mute with amazement. The Martian had recovered enough of his courage to laugh at them. I know that it sounds impossible, and so it must be to such as you. Only on Mars, where we have the greatest metal resources, the most skillful mechanics, the wisest scientists in all the great universe, could such a thing be possible? Well, said Sukune, what about it? The Earth revolves around the sun every 365 days. Mars and twice that. They will not come into opposition again for fully an Earth year from now. Naturally, Earth feels secure. Her mighty ships of war are idle, her millions of manpower loll in peaceful repose. They do not dream that this little artificial world may be dangerous, but it makes its journey around the sun in approximately 480 days, and that can be speeded or slowed somewhat by. By means of tremendous rocket engines. It will come into opposition with unthinking Earth in 150 days, as I approximate it. Next April, figured Neel quickly. And then? And then the little world will empty itself. It can bring forth 2,000 heavily armed ships manned by 600,000 picked men. The space armies of Earth, with their ships and weapons, will be mighty and many but unwary. Those 2000 Martian Raiders will sell themselves at the highest cost, crippling and destroying Earth's defenses and cities to the utmost of their power. If they are lucky, you and your comrades will be prostrated so that months later the expeditionary force from Mars can capture the planet without serious opposition. The Martian bowed slightly, as if he were concluding a public address. I wonder if he's lying, said Bull Mike. Not at all, gentlemen, said the Martian. Do you give me credit for inventing such a wonderful tale? Let's get back to Earth, suggested Neel. Right seconded Tsukune back there, we'll turn ourselves in for being absent without leave, but they'll forget about us when they check this lad's veracity. Under the truth ray, the three agreed. First they bound their prisoner hand and foot. Bullmike was told off to mount guard over him, and Tsukune returned to the controls. Putting on the Martian space suit, Neel hopped out and across the abyss to the other ship, where it still clung by its automatic grapple. Transferring some new fuel to its tanks, he sent it speeding along in the wake of Sukune's craft. In the stratosphere above St. Louis, a patrol sighted and hailed them. The marching craft was instantly boarded and seized, and the commander of the patrol bombarded the occupants of the two vessels with sharp, suspicious questions. At last he listened to the pleadings of the young terrestrials and took them and their prisoner direct to their home rocket port, where Commander Sholem Ross, the officer of the Space Scout squadron to which they belonged, was called to hear their story. His first sharp accusation of truancy was stilled as they poured out their strange tale. When they had finished, he ordered them to form a guard for the Martian and led the way at once to staff headquarters of the Intelligence Department, many levels below. The group of intelligence officers who heard the report was deadly serious. First it held a whispered conference behind closed doors. Then the officers emerged again to question Neil, Bull, Mike, and Sukune. One at a time. The three were sworn out not to discuss their adventure even among themselves, and directed to return to their quarters. The Martian prisoner also repeated his story. Subjected to the truth rays which, properly administered, eliminate the power of lying, he answered all questions in substantially the same manner as before. He was prevailed upon to draw diagrams of the artificial planetoid in which his fellows were whirling ever nearer to their opposition with Earth. Finally he was imprisoned and a trusted guard set over him, with every precaution taken to ensure absolute secrecy. Should Martian spies still thick in every terrestrial community, despite the ceaseless war waged upon them, find out the facts of the man's capture, the plans of the terrestrial High Command might go for naught. Commander Raws mentioned the affair once only. That was when he called Neil and his two friends into his quarters and first, making sure that nobody could hear them, spoke as I do not condone your absence without leave, although it may have chanced to bring fortune to our cause, yet the High Command feels that there is some reward due you. He paused and studied the three young faces. That reward will be the knowledge of what your part will be in further action against this Martian force. He continued, well, I have asked for and received permission for my squadron to be included in the raiding group that is going to tackle them. No ask no questions. Dismiss. Thereafter, nothing more was said and no further hint of the nature of the plan of campaign was forthcoming. Only here and there, all over Earth's surface, isolated flights and squadrons of warcraft were were given extra duty training, were led in longer and more intricate maneuvers than their fellows were ordered to install fighting equipment on their ships and to practice its use. The number of Martians inside the round hull of the asteroid, according to the prisoner, was about 600,000. The asteroid would have several thousand swift light raiding ships, all fully armed. And in addition, the Sham world would assuredly be defended and fortified to a high degree. Undoubtedly it was well guarded and observers with television and astronomical equipment would keep close watch on Earth as they approached. A fleet of spaceships could hardly steal upon that mile sized ball through coverless space. Surprise would be out of the question and chances seemed hardly better that the battle could be won by sheer force of arms. However, a group of 6,000 spaceships was organized for the attempt, ranging in size and model from small scouts such as were included in Commander Raw's squadron, to huge and powerful dreadnoughts of space. Since these larger, heavier craft were less fitted for long journeys, the start of the expedition was delayed until the middle of January 2676. Should the group start from Earth at that time, computation showed the Martian asteroid would be met at a point some 70 million miles away shortly after the 1st of March. Even for that comparatively short journey, the big ships would have to be refitted with special tanks for reserve fuel and the crews would have to be cut down accordingly. In the end, barely 300,000 men were included in the plans. Chapter 3 the Deserter Yakza the prisoner was of course ignorant of all these things as he sat alone in his secret prison. Food came to him by dumbwaiter and he did not see a human face. It was not until the middle of January that the door of his cell opened and admitted a terrestrial. A terrestrial whom he recognized as one of the three who had captured him. Courage, said Neil Andreson. We're getting out of here. Yaxa looked at him levelly. They made a striking contrast. The saddle colored Martian with his puffy body, his spidery legs and his head that except for the brilliant eyes, seemed to be a high craniumed skull, covered only with skin, looked like a weird cartoon of the terrestrial with his fine muscular proportions. His smooth cheeks and his smiling countenance. Are you going to torture me further? Demanded Yaksa. Not I, said Neel. If you'll remember, I never offered you violence at any time. I was not in sympathy with the measures taken to wring information from you, though I was in the minority and had to countenance them. For that matter, I'm not in sympathy with the terrestrial cause at all. Then what are you doing here? Asked the Martian. I succeeded in being detailed to guard you. I'm going to set you free. Yakza made a helpless gesture. What can I do? If I am freed, I'll be a stranger in a hostile world. Terrestrials will recognize me for an enemy as far as they can see me. I'll be hunted down and killed or injured, or at the very least brought back to prison. I provided for that, else I would not have made the suggestion, said Neil. Here, take this pistol and see the cloak I am wearing. Take it. Drape it about you. At first glance, you might pass for a terrestrial. Come. I know where your ship is kept. We'll escape in it. We repeated the captive. Yes. I'm going with you back to your asteroid. It's within space. Shot now. I cannot remain here. I would be punished as a traitor. His eyes shining with new hope, Yaxa donned Neil's cape and followed him into a deserted house hallway, then out into a street where a closed surface car awaited them. They entered this and traveled by traffic way and by lift to the very top level of the city. When Neel opened the door, Yakza peeped out and saw that they had reached a rocket port. Hangars stood at every hand, with rows of spacecraft large and small on all sides. But nearest to them, and isolated from the others, was the fast Martian scout which had been his when he had flown to his capture. Quick, we have no time to lose. Neel urged him, and they left the car. A dozen steps took them to the side of the spaceship. A lock panel was open and the two of them entered the inner compartment. Sukune and Bullmike looked up curiously from their seats inside. The leveled pistols of the two intruders prompted the young guards to raise their hands. What's the meaning of this? Asked Tsukune. It's what you terrestrials call poetic justice, smiled Yakza. You captured me. Now I have captured you. Kneel, you traitor, fumed Bull Mike. I wouldn't call names if I were in your shoes, rejoined Neel, crossing to the panel which led into the storeroom and opening it. Yakza this ship is well supplied with everything we need on the voyage. Shall we leave? Yes, of course. What shall we do with these friends of yours? Don't call me a friend of his, growled Bullmyke. Well, take them along, replied Neel, taking no notice of his former chum's remark. If we let them go now, they'll rouse the whole planet on us. As it is, the force that is tackling your asteroid doesn't leave for two days yet. That ought to be head start enough for us. It seemed that nobody at the rocket port noticed the departure of the Martian ship, if notice was taken. Perhaps it was reflected that there were terrestrial guards on board, and that all must be well. Unhindered, the craft went up and out, cleared the atmospheric envelope, and headed for the bright speck in the sky that marked the Sham world which was its goal. For a few hours there was silence aboard between the captives and the captors, but at length Sukune spoke up with a smile. Why be unreasonable about this thing? He said. If we're to be together for two months or so in space, we might as well be pleasant about it. I for one will accept defeat cross gracefully, if you'll let me. Gladly, said Yakza. Me too, said Bull Mike. That settles it, said Yakza. We'll get along together, I'm sure. Senator W.L. marcy of our United States once said, to the victors belong the spoils, continued Sukune. We'll admit for the time being that you are victors and we're the spoils. Until the situation reverses itself, we'll be model prisoners. They gathered in friendly fashion around the television screen and dialed in the image of the asteroid. It appeared half light, half dark, like a moon. At the half they could pick out the roughness of mountains, ravines, and plains, all made in miniature by clever Martian artisans. They discussed what they saw like real comrades, all enmity apparently forgotten. When two days had passed, they watched the diminishing Earth by television and sure enough sighted great clothes, clouds of shining specks, the hundreds of flights of spaceships that were taking the ether. They saw how some flew slowly, others swiftly, so that in a short time they had formed into the conventional curtain front, an open order formation of three dimensions, roughly disk like in shape and perpendicular to the line of advance. It was about a thousand miles in diameter and about as thick through as the distance in which three or four ships could fly in single column against the black sky. It looked like a moving galaxy of runaway stars. In front of this formation danced Several flights of speedy scouts. Ras and the boys are among those, said Sukune. Don't the Martians inside the asteroid see that attacking force? Asked Bull Mike. They can fly away, can't they? Well, why don't they? A body of that size could hardly carry enough fuel for a long sustained trip, Yakza explained. It just boosts itself along occasionally as it follows the orbit to which it is held by the sun's gravitational pull. That being the case, it could hardly hope to escape from those lighter, further traveling ships. My companions inside doubtless figure that they might as well face the attack first as last. There was something uncanny in the thought of what was being done and decided inside that floating globe, so like a lifeless planetoid, and yet the work of mortal hands, brimful of men and weapons, it was destined to destroy whatever of Earth it might. A month passed, and then another week. Larger and ever larger grew the mock asteroid until it filled a sizable portion of the television screen that reflected it. At last they swooped down toward it, a great uneven globe the color of clay that spun slowly upon its tilted axis, lightly as a falling leaf. The ship descended. Neel was at the controls inside, while Yakza sent code messages by radio. A great black opening suddenly appeared. Into this the craft slipped. It fitted into the end of a long tube like a nut dropped into a mouse hole. As it came to a stop, Yakza opened the lock panel to the outside. At once several Martians, all heavily armed, looked in. At the sight of the terrestrials, they leveled automatic rifles and pistols. It's all right, said Yakza. One of these is a friend. The other two are prisoners. Still suspicious, a guard took the four to an officer. There Yakza made a long report in an undertone. The three terrestrials were questioned next, one at a time. In the end, Sukune and Bull Mike were sent away to be confined. As for you, the officer said to Neil, I find that you have done a great service to us, and that at a great personal sack sacrifice, consider yourself one of us. We are prepared to offer you whatever reward you ask. Within reason. Thank you, replied Neel. I know nothing that I would like at present, except a chance to inspect your wonderful asteroid. We will gladly grant you such a chance. He was assured. Some conversation about the oncoming terrestrial force then followed. But Neel, a simple scout in rank, was unable to get give much information. At last he was allowed to go away with Yakza, who by this time looked upon him as a close friend. They walked through long high Corridors walled with gray metal and flanked by doors opening into compartments of various styles and equipment. Aided by Yox's explanations, Neil was not long in visualizing the whole structure as a series of spherical surfaces, one within another, each surface utilized as the floor of a level. Artificial gravity was set up at the core, and elevators and sloping runways permitted the garrison to progress from one level to another. Most of all, said Neel, I want to view this wonderful mechanism which hold the four parts of your asteroid together. A trifle, nothing but a trifle, yakza replied with a deprecatory gesture. The principle is a simple magnetic one. The four sections, the fruit slices I once described to them, bring their inner angles together along a common line. That common line is a long, thin cable made of six different kinds of metal, each of the six connected with a special motor at either end. They set up the current among themselves, and the cable acts as the pole of our world. And if the current was cut off? Then the four sections would float apart. But this current will in endure as long as the cable is not cut clean in two. Then where is the center of gravity? At the very midpoint of the cable, which is also the center of the asteroid and of each concentric sphere within it. I would greatly like to see this cable, said Neel. Again, that is the only request I cannot grant you, the Martian replied. It is the most sacred, the most jealously fenced object of all. Every foot is guarded by trusted men, each one sworn to defend it with his last drop of blood. Only the commander of this garrison can be admitted to the tubular compartment which surrounds its central emanator of gravity, or to the shops where the motors run. But don't feel disappointed over such a prohibition. Come, we'll go to a theater, and on the way we'll pass as close to the cable as we're likely to get. Sure enough, as they walked down the corridor, they came to a juncture of four wide passages. Here was a small concourse thronged with pedestrians, and in its very center, a stout metal pillar rose from the flooring to the roof. Two sentries stood vigilantly on opposite sides of it. We are now at the point where the four sections meet on this level, Yakza pointed out. As you see, the walls are cut well away to allow the passages to cross. That pillar is made of four pieces, the edges of the sections enclosed by them is the cable I told you about. The pillar and the cable extend above and below here, from one pole of the asteroid to the other. Knill looked at the arrangement as if fascinated, but Yakza urged him on. They came to the spot where opposite partitions of two adjoining sections came together. There was not enough space to insert a knife blade so accurately had the structure been made not very thick for outer walls, observed Neel, measuring the partitions with his eye. A terrestrial disintegrator ray could easily pierce them, of course, but these are only inner walls, after all. The real strong, thick partition is the outside, the tough rind of the fruit that is too much for the strongest ray or bomb ever made. There aren't any bolts to hold the sections together. Have you forgotten what I told you about the artificial gravity that holds everything in place? But here's the theater. Let's get inside or we'll be late. Chapter 4 the Great Battle the television drama broadcast from the Martian pleasure city of Polambar, was one of the most cynical tragi comedies that the men of Mars love so well. As it unfolded, certain gases were released in the auditorium. They seemed pungent, even acrid to Neil, who was not used to Martian luxuries, but those around him sniffed the fumes with every evidence of pleasure. He watched the drama progress and was careful to applaud and laugh whenever Yakza did. From there they went to an eating compartment, where a group of young officers first looked askance at the terrestrial stranger, but crowded around with exclamations of welcome. When Yakza explained his presence in the asteroid, Neil made the best of his limited command of the Martian language. The party seemed to be having a fine time. Time not the slightest bit worried by the fact that a strong force from Earth was due to attack within a few hours. We have only to remain inside our defenses, said one. They can hammer away on our surface forever without effect, while we can bomb them out of existence one by one. It'll be a way to break the tedium of existence, offered another. An excellent practice for our coming raid on Earth, added a third. Will you fight on our side? The first speaker asked Neil. No, I'll be a non combatant, grinned the terrestrial. After all, I've some old comrades in those ships. However, he continued, I'll drink in the fashion of my planet to your success and that of your friends. He was loudly applauded, and several raised their glasses in imitation of his courtesy. The gathering broke up late, and Neel, cannot, confessing himself tired, was allowed to go to bed in quarters near those of Yaksa. Yet he did not sleep for hours, and when he dozed off at last, it seemed but a moment Before Yaksa knocked at his door to awaken him, he dressed and went out into the wide passage that served as a street. The carefree attitude of the Martians was gone now. Everywhere he saw bodies of troops drawn up into formation, while here and there sped vehicles laden with munitions, munitions and supplies. The enemy is almost here and we are getting ready, explained Yakza. The commander has told me to bring you to him, that he may ask you what part you want to take in the action. I've already said that I don't want to fight, said Neel. As a matter of fact, I think that I'd do best as a guard over the terrestrial prisoners who came with us. I'm built along the same mental and physical lines that they are, and so I ought to be ideal for the job. When he faced the Martian chief, he made the same suggestion, and it was accepted on the spot. Yakza conducted him to an elevator, and they descended, it seemed, for miles. At last they stepped out into a narrow corridor, the floor of which was sharply curved. In front of a nearby panel a Martian soldier stood, armed with automatic rifle, pistol, and bomb thrower. Yakza explained their errand and showed a stamped bit of metal as badge of authority. The fellow saluted and opened the door. Inside, Tsukune and Bull Mike rose from the pallets on which they sat. They were courteous, even cheerful, in their greeting to the newcomers. We've been getting ourselves an eyeful of the show that's coming, said the Japanese, pointing to the television screen that was part of the chamber's furnishings. Sure enough, he had dialed in a viewpoint in space from which the artificial asteroid appeared as a sphere about 2ft in diameter, while in the distance the the curtain front of the terrestrial ship's advance could be seen like a puff of luminous dust. There's a lot of friends of ours in that mob, added Bull Mike. They'll take this little pill of yours without so much as a swallow of water. Then we'll be free. Speaking a good word for you, Yakza. That's kind of you, smiled the Martian. However, I don't think that there will be much of a reverse. We'll soon know, said Neel. Look, the terrestrials are about to close in. The attacking fleet had indeed drawn near its objective. They could see the face of the curtain changing, the edges coming forward and the center receding. This was the first move towards the gradual formation of a great net or basket in which to snare the apparently lifeless ball that accomplished the open face of the net would close, and the ships of Earth would settle like a cloud around their quarry. An hour more, at least, and the thing would be done. But as the terrestrials drew near, a hundred hidden panels flew wide all over the asteroid, exposing dark recesses. From each of these shot ship after ship, like angry hornets disturbed in their nests, hurtling silently and fiercely to battle. What followed might seem but a small engagement compared to the later and final conflict between Earth and Mars, wherein fully 2 million ships took part. Yet for display of grim coast, courage, desperate endeavor, and in proportion to the casualties, the fight that ensued around and within the asteroid has no parallel in the history of either planet. Records show that the Martian commander of the garrison in the huge hull foresaw and planned his part of the battle. From the moment the enemy group left Earth, he hoped to launch a surprise attack that it would have been impossible for the terrestrials to forestall. And to that end he awaited the very instant when the attacking party bunched to close in. Then he sent his entire space force, something more than 2,000 fighting craft, out and at them. Only the smallest possible crews were at the battle stations of these ships, and the bulk of the asteroid Garrison, more than 500,000 strong, remained inside. The four at the television watched eagerly the miniature reflection of the engagement. The Martians, less in number and lighter in craft, did their best to take advantage, advantage of every opportunity. Bunching close together in fours and fives, they hurled into action. They were all raiding models, more maneuverable than most of the battleships and heavy cruisers among the terrestrials. A quick dash through the ranks of the oncoming enemy and they might be able to effect an equally quick turn and an attack from the rear. From every Martian ship streaked forth a volley of roving bombs. These. These projectiles, propelled by ultra swift rocket engines, were aimed and guided by radio controls so that they could be turned to seek a target missed at first attempt. Some of the foremost terrestrial ships were silently exploded into nothingness. Before they could fight or avoid the enemy, the others frantically plied their disintegrator rays, swinging the lean, glowing fingers of flame back and forth in an attempt to blot out the whizzing bombs and the ships that were launching them. Say, I'm missing some wonderful fighting, said Yakza suddenly. You three will excuse me. We three will do nothing of the sort, replied Neel with the utmost calm. You're staying here with us. The young Martian looked up with wondering eyes, first at Neel, who stood with drawn pistol, then at Bull Mike and Sukune, who had risen to bar the door. His hand dropped to his belt in search of a weapon. Stand still, Yakza, or I'll kill you, called Neel warningly. Yakza's hand ceased its motion. Bullmike reached out and possessed himself of the Martian's weapon. Then, holding the prisoner by the shoulder, he walked toward the door which Sukune was opening outside. The startled sentry brought up his rifle, but paused when he saw Bull Mike interpose the body of Yahza as a shield. Shoot, fool. Screamed the latter. Don't mind me. Destroy these men before they escape. The sentry still hesitated for a moment, and in that moment Neel shot him down. Sukune sprang out and possessed himself of the fallen man's rifle, pistol, and bomb thrower. Neel still remained at the television screen for a moment before following the men he had liberated. Our battleships are already raying the outside, he said as he came away at last. We haven't a minute to lose. What are you going to do? Demanded Yakza in a voice that still reflected overwhelming astonishment. I don't understand. It's perfectly simple, said Sukune. We were deathly afraid that you'd guess before this, but now you may as well know the whole business of your rescue. Our capture, the flight from Earth, was arranged by our intelligence staff. They wanted to get three determined men inside this shell, where we could in some way lay the innards open to terrestrial disintegrators. That's why you were so curious about the cable, Yakza, accused Neel. Right, admitted the other. Well, we have little time to lose. Follow me. Suddenly Yakza began to struggle.
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Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Help.
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He yelled at the top of his lungs, and at his cry, a little group of Martians came running to view from a side passage. Bull might clouted Yahza with his fist, and the prisoner fell insensible while the three terrestrials ran swiftly up the corridor. Behind them came a summons to stop, followed by a scatter of shots. A few leaps, however, left the pursuit well behind. There's the cable pillar ahead of us, said Neel, pointing ahead. Sure enough, they were approaching a pole on their level. The two guards on duty by the device looked up at the sound of hurriedly approaching feet. Before they could challenge, however, they fell beneath a volley from the terrestrials. Ignoring the still quivering bodies, the three comrades gathered around the pillar. How can we cut it? Panted Tsukune. I smuggled this along, said Neel, producing a hand disintegrator appliance about the size of a pistol. With it, he began to fuse the metal facings of the pillar. The Martians who had come at Yakza's call were approaching now. Bull Mike sent a stream of bullets at them from the rifle of one of the cable guards. Sukune did likewise. Several of the pursuers fell, while the others ducked into sheltering doorways without returning the fire. They're afraid they'll hit and damage this pillar, said Neil. Hang close to it, you two. He had cut well into one facing of the great upright. Still he had not pierced the layer of metal that protected the cable. On he worked while his comrades faced in opposite directions, rifles at the ready. The shots had attracted groups in other corridors, and from all four directions, bodies of Martian soldiery could be seen stealthily approaching. As they came close enough to be good targets, Sukune and Bullmike sprayed bullets on them. The survivors all sought shelter for a moment, then resumed steady advance from doorway to doorway along the passages. A rush from all quarters seemed imminent. At last a great oxidized chip fell away from the pillar, and Neel gave a triumphant exclamation. He had pierced the metal, and inside he could plainly see the cable, a taut, gleaming cord of varicolored strands barely 6 inches in diameter. It was hard to realize that this slender line was the source of the power, gravity that that controlled this synthetic world. He aimed his disintegrator at it anew. But no Ray answered his touch on the button. The charge had been exhausted in forcing a way through the pillar. He sent a pistol bullet in at the cable. It struck at an angle and glanced away. His action was seen by the Martians in all directions, who gave vent to a loud chorus of desperate shouts and charged forward as if driven by one single impulse. The rattle of Sukune's and Bull Mike's rifles sounded, but this burst of fire could not stem the rush. In a second, the Martians were upon them, dozens of them. Bullmite clubbed his weapon, swung it like a flail, and cleared a space. Half a dozen pistols were fired at him, their muzzles almost against him. As they were discharged, he reeled but did not collapse, fighting on with undiminished strength. Sakune did not fare so well, and out of the tail of his eye Neel saw the Japanese go down and lie still as Venture. Vengeful Martians showered blows upon him. In desperation, he reached a hand through the hole in the cable, grasped the cable and gave it a powerful jerk. At the same moment, a moment later, he fell sprawling, his body convulsed by a current that gripped and tore at him as though it would rend his every muscle to shreds. He tried to rise again, but the shock had paralyzed him. His ears were dull to the den around him, and his eyes were blurred as if with weariness. But I could see that a loose of the cable had been pulled out by his attempt. Bull Mike, Last of the 3 terrestrials, still on his feet, saw it too. Hurling his weapon into the midst of the Martians, he sprang to the side of the pillar and thrust his arm through the exposed loop. Clasping his great hands, he hurled his giant body outward with all his strength. For a moment he seemed to glow, as if illuminated from within by a powerful white flame. Then he flew through the air and crashed to the floor. The Martians fairly ran, riddled his fallen form with their bullets. Neel slipped into insensibility, and the last thing he was conscious of was that the cable's loop had been parted, its two frayed ends protruding from the hole in the pillar, fully six inches of space between them. The mission of the trio had been accomplished when he regained his senses at last, he could not open his eyes. He moved his hands, and it was as if they were sheathed in massy lead. His very breathing was was a distinct effort. Bull Mike. He called Sukune. But then he remembered that Bull Mike and Sukune had been killed. Lie still, said a female voice. You're all right. Where am I? He asked. In a hospital, answered the voice. A hospital? Where? On Earth, of course. The voice laughed. You're in base hospital number 61X at Delhi. I'm your nurse. I see the battle's over, then. Months ago, after our ships fired blasts between the sections of the asteroid and then destroyed them, you were one of the few survivors found floating in space among the wreckage. It's been a fight to keep you alive. He lay still and thought silently. Am I blind? He asked at length. No, but leave that bandage on her eyes alone. Plenty of time to see everything when the doctor takes it off. I understand, he said. And am I badly hurt?
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Senator/Official
You were.
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But we've put you together as good as new. It will take many days more, but you'll walk and talk and see and fly again. And you'll still have your good looks, too. Again he was quiet. The nurse broke the silence. Something was left here for you. He heard the rattle of a paper wrapping. Then a small object was placed in his palm. It seemed to be a bit of metal cut into the shape of a many pointed star and depending from a strip of ribbon. The present of the Terrestrial League brought you that with his own hands, the nurse told him. Shall I read this citation? Do Very well. Listen. In recognition of the intelligent and loyal service rendered in capturing an enemy scout and securing from him information of paramount importance to the Terrestrial arms on or about the first day of October, 2675, and for courageous and successful attempts and actions against and in the presence of a superior armed force of the enemy on or about the third day of March, 2676, I, Silas Parish, President of the Terrestrial League, by authority vested in me by the government of the planet Earth, do confer upon Captain Neil Anderson unattached the highest award for valor and service that is within the gift of the body. I represent, to wit, the Medal of Honor of the Terrestrial League. She stopped reading. But it calls me a captain. Exclaimed Neil. I'm only a scout. You have the rank of captain now. It's honorary. Of course. You'll be out of the hospital before the beginning of the year, but you won't be able to go into action again before the whole mess is settled. He heard her lay the metal and document down. Then her footsteps went echoing away. Hello, Neil, said a voice he knew. Yakza. He cried. You here? In the cot? Next to you. They picked us up together, I'm told. Badly wounded. Worse than you. Both my legs have been taken off. Neel said nothing for a moment. It could be worse, he ventured at last. Oh, yes, life is worth living, even with artificial limbs. Can you see Yakza? Perfectly here. Then the war's over. At least so far as we're concerned. Let's call it quits. He painfully stretched out his hand toward the place from which Yahza's voice came. After a moment, he felt the Martian's spidery fingers on it. Gwits it is, then, agreed Yakza. We'll get well together. Both of them relaxed. The fierce conflict they had both gone through now seemed far away and vague, as if it had been the experience of other men. They felt peaceful and in some measure, content, for they had both fought a good fight. Both had done their best, both would be honored for their efforts, and best of all, neither of them would ever need to fight again. End of the Invading Asteroid by Manley Wade Wellman.
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Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Out of the Sea by Lee Brackett this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Chapter 1 the hoards below Anyone but Webb Fallon would have been worried sick. He was down to his last $5 and quart of Scotch. His girl Madge had sketched him categorically in vitriol and married somebody else. His job on the Los Angeles observer was like all the jobs he'd ever had finally, definitely, and for all time cancelled. Being Webb Fallon, he was playing a fast game of doubles on the volleyball court at Santa Monica beach, letting the sun and the salt air clear off a hangar. When he came off the court feeling fine and heading for the water, Big Chuck Weigel called to him. So the observer finally got wise to you, huh? How come? Fallon grinned, his teeth white against the mahogany burn of his hard, lean oval face. His corded body gleamed in the hot sun, and his slanting gray green eyes were mocking bright. If you must know, he said, I was busy drowning my sorrows on the night of the big quake two weeks ago. I didn't know anything about it until I read the papers the next morning. The boss seemed to think I was a little negligent. Weigel grunted. I don't wonder. A quake as bad as the Frisco one and you sleep through it. Phew. Fallon grinned and went on. About halfway down the beach, a bright yellow bathing suit caught his eye. He whistled softly and followed it into the water. After all, now that Madge was gone, he knew the girl by sight. Fallon had an eye for blond hair and Diana esque figures. That was one thing Madge and he had fought about. The girl swam like a mermaid. Fallon lengthened his stroke, came up beside her and said, hello. She blinked salt water out of sapphire blue eyes and stared. I know you, she said. You're Webb Fallon. I'm flattered. You needn't be. I know a girl named Madge, too.
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Event Host/Local Personality
Oh.
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Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Fallon's gray green eyes narrowed. His lean face looked suddenly ugly, like a mean dog. Or more like a wolf, perhaps, with his thin, straight lips and slanting eyes. What did Madge tell you about me? He asked softly. She said you were no good. The blue eyes studied his face and added the girl deliberately. I think she was right. Yeah, said Fallon very gently. He hadn't yet got over his cold rage at being jilted for a dull, prosperous prig. The girl's face was like a mask, cut out of brown wood and set with hard sapphires. He made a tigerish, instinctive movement toward it. A wave took them unawares, knocked them together and down in a struggling tangle. They broke water, gasping in the after swirl. Then, quite suddenly, the girl screamed. It was a short Scream strangled with seawater. But it set the hairs prickling on Fallon's neck. He looked past the girl. Outward. Something was rising out of the sea. Webb Fallon, standing shoulder deep in the cold water, stared in a temporary paralysis of shock. The thing simply couldn't be. There was a snout armed with a wicked sword. That and the head behind it were recognizable as those of a swordfish. But the neck behind them was long and powerful and set on sloping shoulders. Members like elongated fins just becoming legs, churned the surface. A holy piscine tail whipped up gouts of spray behind the malformed silver body. Fallon moved. Suddenly he grabbed the girl and started toward shore. The thing emitted a whistling grunt and surged after them. Waves struck them. The after suck pulled at their legs. They floundered like dreamers caught in nightmare swamps. And Fallon, through the thrashing and the surf and the seawater in his ears, began to hear other sounds. There was a vast stirring whisper, a waking and surging of things driven up and out. There were overtones of cries from unearthly throats. Presently, then, there were human screams. Fallon's toes found firm sand. Still clutching the girl, he splashed through the shallows. He could hear the wallowing thunder of creatures behind them and knew that they had to run. But he faltered, staring, and the girl made a little choke sound. Beside him, the shallow margin of the sea was churned to froth by a nightmare horde. The whole broad sweep of the beach was invaded by things that in that stunned moment, Fallon saw only as confused shadows. He started to run toward the hilly streets beyond the beach. The creature with the swordfish snout was almost on them. A fish out of the sea. It reared its snaky head and struck down. Fallon dodged convulsively. The sword flashed down and buried itself in the sand not five inches from his foot. It never came out of the sand. A tailless, stub legged thing with three rows of teeth in its shark like jaws fastened onto the creature's neck and there was hot mammalian blood spilling out. They ran together, Fallon and the girl. The summer crowds filling the beaches, the promenade, the hot dog stands and bathhouses were fighting in blind panic. Up the narrow streets to the top of the bluff. It was useless to try to get through. Fallon made for an apartment house. Briefly, in clear bright colors, he saw isolated scenes. A starfish 20ft across, wrapping itself around a woman in her stooped up child. A vast red crab pulling a man to bits with its claws. Something that might once have been an octopus walking on four spidery legs, its remaining tentacles plucking curiously at the volleyball net that barred its way. The din of screaming and alien cries, the roar of the crowds, and the slippery, thrashing bodies melted into into dull confusion. Fallon and the girl got through somehow to the comparative safety of the apartment house lobby. They found an empty place by a bay window and stopped. Fallon's legs were sagging and his heart was a leaping pain. The girl crumpled up against him. They stared out of the window, dazed, detached, like spectators watching an imaginative moment, motion picture and not believing it. There was carnage outside on the broad sunlit beach. Men and women and children died, some caught directly, others trampled down and unable to escape. But more than men were dying. Things fought and ate each other, things of mad distortion, of familiar shapes, things unlike any living creature, normal creatures grown out of all sanity, but all coming, coming, coming like a living tidal wave. The window went in with a crash. A woman's painted, shrieking face showed briefly and was gone, pulled away by a simple marine worm grown long as a man. The breeze brought Fallon the stench of blood and fish, drowning the clean salt smell. We've got to get out of here, he said. Come on. The girl came numbly. Neither spoke. There was somehow nothing to say. Fallen, took down a heavy metal curtain rod, holding it like a club. The front doors had broken in. People trampled through in the blind strength of terror. Fallon shrugged. No way to get past them, he said. Stay close to me, and for God's sake don't fall down. The girl's wet blond head nodded. She took hold of the waistband of his trunks and her hand was like ice against his spine. Out through broken doors into a narrow street, and then the crowd spread out a little, surging up a hillside. Police sirens were beginning to wail up in the town. Down below the beaches were cleared of people, and still the things came in from the sea. Fallon could see over the Santa Monica pier now, and the broad sweep of sand back of the yacht harbor was black with surging bodies. Most of the yachts were sunk. The bellboy had stopped ringing. The sunlight was suddenly dim. Fallon looked up. His gray green eyes widened and his teeth showed white in a snarl of fear, thundering in on queer heavy wings, their bodies hiding the sun, were beasts that stopped his heart in cold terror. They had changed, of course. The bat like wings had been broadened and strengthened. They must, like the other seaborne monsters, have developed lungs. But the size was still there, 5 to 10ft in wingspread and behind the thin deadly whip like tails, rays, the queer creatures that fly bat like Underwater now, thundering like giant bats through the air. There were flying fish wheeling around them like queer, rigid birds. They had grown legs like little dragons and long tails. A pair of huge eels slid over the rough earth, pulled down a man and fought over the body. Policemen began to appear. There was a popping of guns. The sirens made a mad skirling above the din. Some of the rays swooped to the crowded beach. Others came on scenting human food. Guns began to crack from the cliff tops, from the windows of apartment houses, Fallon caught the chatter of submachine guns. One of the rays was struck almost overhead. It went out of control like a fantastic plane and crashed into the hillside just behind Fallon and the girl. Men died shrieking under its 20 foot triangular bulk. It made a convulsive leap. The girl slipped in the loose rubble and lost her hold on Fallon. The broad tentacles on the raised head closed in like the horns of a half moon, folding the girl in a narrowing circle of death. Fallon raised his iron curtain rod. He was irrationally conscious, with a detached fragment of his brain, of the girl's sapphire eyes and the lovely strength of her body. Her face was set with terror, but she didn't scream. She fought. Something turned over in Fallon's heart, something buried and unfamiliar, something that had never stirred up from Madge. He stepped in the bar, swung up, slashed down. The leathery skin split, but still the feelers hugged the girl closer. The great ray heaved convulsively and something whistled past, past Fallon's head. It struck him across the shoulders and laid him in dazed agony in the dirt, the creature's tail lashing like a thin, long whip. Webb. Fallon got up slowly. His back was numb. There was hot blood flooding across his skin. The girl's eyes were blue and wide, fixed on him, terribly fixed. She had stopped fighting. Fallon found an eye set back on one of the tentacles. He set the end of the iron rod against it and thrust downward. Whether it was the rod or the initial bullet, Fallon never knew, but the tentacles relaxed, the girl rose and came toward him, and together they went up the hill. They were still together when sweating volunteers picked them up and carried them back into the town. Vallon came too, before they finished sewing up his back. The emergency hospital was jammed. The staff worked in a kind of quiet frenzy, with a devil's symphony of hysteria beating up against the windows of the ward. They hadn't any place to keep Fallon. They taped his shoulders into a kind of harness to keep the wound closed and sent him out. The girl was waiting for him in the areaway huddled in a blanket. They had given Fallon one, too, but his cotton trunks were still clammy, cold against him. He stood looking down at the girl, his short brown hair unkempt, the hard lines of his face shape showing sharp and haggard. Well, he said. What are you waiting for? To thank you. You saved my life. You're welcome, said Fallon. Now you'd better go before I contaminate you. That's not fair. I am grateful, Webb. Truly grateful. Fallon would have shrugged, but it hurt. All right, he said wearily. You can tell Madge what a little hero I was. Please don't leave me, she whispered. I haven't any place to go. All my clothes and money were in the apartment. He looked at her, his eyes cold and probing. Brief disappointment touched him, and he was surprised at himself. Then he went deeper into the clear sapphire eyes and was ashamed, which surprised surprised him even more. What's your name? He asked. And why haven't you fainted? Joan Daniels, she said. And I haven't had time. Fallon smiled. Give me your shoulder, Joan, he said, and they went out. Chapter 2 Catastrophe or Weapon? Santa Monica was a city under attack. Sweating policemen struggled with solid jams of cars driven by wild eyed madmen. Horns hooted and blared, and through it all like banshees screaming with eldritch mirth, the sirens wailed. They'll declare martial law, said Fallon. I wonder how long they can hold those things back. Webb, whispered Joan, what are those things? Strangely, they hadn't asked that before. They'd hardly had time even to think it. Fallon shook his head. God knows, but it's going to get worse. Hear that gunfire? My apartment isn't far from here. We'll get some clothes and a drink. And then it was growing dark when they came out again. Fallon felt better with a lot of brandy inside him and some warm clothes. Joan had a pair of his slacks and a heavy sweater. He grinned and said, those never looked as nice on me. Soldiers were throwing up barricades in the streets. The windows of Corbin's big department store were shattered, the bodies of dead rays lying in the debris. The rattle of gunfire was hotter and much closer. They're being driven back, murmured Fallon. A squadron of bombers droned over, and presently there was a crump and roar of high explosives along the beach. The streets were fairly clear now, except for stragglers and laden ambulances and the thinning groups of dead. Fallon thought what must be happening in the towns farther south, with their flat, low beaches and flat, flimsy houses. How far did this invasion extend? What was it, and how long would it last? He got his car out of the garage behind the apartment house. Joan took the wheel, and he lay down on his stomach on the back seat. His back hurt like hell. One good thing, he remarked wryly. The finance company won't be chasing me through this. Just go where the traffic looks lightest and shout if you need me. He went to sleep. It was morning when he woke. Joan was asleep on the front seat, curled up under a blanket. She had spread one over him too. Fallon smiled and looked out. The first thing he noticed was the unfamiliar roar of motors overhead and the faint crackling undertone of gunfire. They were still under siege then, and the defenders were still giving ground. They were parked on Hollywood Boulevard near Vine. Crowds of white faced, nervous people huddled along the streets. The only activity was around the newsboys. Fallon got out, stiff and cursing, and went to buy a paper. An extra arrived before he got there. The boy ripped open the bundle, let out a startled squawk, and began to yell at the top of his lungs. A low, angry roar spread down the boulevard. Fallon got a paper and smiled a white toothed, ugly smile. He shook Joan awake and gave her the paper. There's your answer. Read it. She read aloud. Japs Claim Sea Invasion THEIR Secret Weapon Only a few minutes ago the Amalgamated Press recorded an official broadcast from Tokyo declaring that the fantastic wave of monsters which have sprung from the ocean at many points along the western coast was a new war weapon of the Axis which would cause the annihilation of American and worldwide democratic civilizations. The broadcast, an official high command, said in part, the Pacific is wholly in our hands. American naval bases throughout the oceans are useless, and the fleet where it still exists, is isolated. In all cases, our new weapon has succeeded. The Pacific States with the islands come within our natural sphere of influence. We advise them to submit peacefully. Joan Daniels looked up at Fallon. At first there was only stunned pallor in her face. Then the color came dark and slow. Submit peacefully, she whispered. So that's it. A cowardly, fiendish, utterly terrible perversion of warfare. Something so horrible that it yeah, said Fallon. Save it. He was leafing through the paper. There was a lot more hurried opinions by experts, guesses, conjectures, and a few facts. Fallon said flatly, they seem to be telling the truth. Fragmentary radio messages have come in from the Pacific. Monsters attack just as suddenly as they did here, and at about the same time they simply clogged the guns, smothered the men, and wrecked ground equipment by sheer weight of numbers. Joan shuddered. You wouldn't think. No, grunted Fallon, you wouldn't. He flung the paper down. Yuh. Not an eyewitness account in the whole rag. Joan looked at him thoughtfully. She said, well, they fired me once, he snarled. Why should I crawl back? It was your own fault, Webb. You know it. He turned on her, and again his face had the look of a mean dog. That, he said, is none of your damn business. She faced him stubbornly, her sapphire eyes meeting his slitted gray green ones with just a hint of anger. You wouldn't be a bad sort, Web, she said steadily, if you weren't so lazy and so hell fired selfish. Cold rage rose in him, the rage that had shaken him when Madge told him she was through his hands closed into brown ugly fists. Joan met him look for look, her bright hair tangled over the collar of his sweater, the strong brown curl of cheek and throat catching the early sunlight. And again, as it had in that moment on the cliff, something turned over in Fallon's heart. What do you care, he whispered, whether I am or not? For the first time her gaze flickered and something warmer than the sunlight touched her skin. You saved my life, she said. I feel responsible for you. Fallon stared. Then, quite suddenly, he laughed. You fool, he whispered. You damn little fool. He kissed her, and he kissed her gently, as he had never kissed Madge. They got breakfast after that. Fallon knew they should have gone east with the tense, crawling hordes of refugees, but. But somehow he couldn't go. The distant gunfire drew him, the stubborn, desperate planes. They went back toward the hills of Bel Air. After all, there was plenty of time to run. Things progressed as he thought they would. Martial law was declared. An orderly evacuation of outlying towns was going forward. Fallon got through the police lines with a glib lie about an invalid br brother. It wasn't hard. There was no danger yet the way he was going, and the police were badly overburdened. Fallon kept the radio on as he drove. There was a lot of wild talk. It was too early yet for censorship. A big naval battle east of Wake island, another near the Aleutians. The defense, for the present, was getting nowhere. Up on the crest of a sun seared hill, using powerful glasses from his car, Fallon shook his head with a slow finality. The morning mists were clearing. He had an unobstructed view of Hollywood, Beverly Hills, the vast bowl of land sloping away to the sea. The broad boulevards to the east were clogged with solid black streams, and to the west, to the west there were barricades. There were clouds of powder smoke and fleets of low flying planes. And there was something else. Something like a sluggish, devouring tide, lapping of the walls of the huge MGM studios in Culver City, swamping the tarmac at Clover Field, flowing resistlessly on and on. Bombs tore great holes in the restless sea, but they flowed in upon themselves and were filled. Big guns ripped and slashed at the swarming creatures. Many died, but there were always more. Many, many more. The shallow margin of the distant ocean was still churned to froth. Still the things came out of it, surging up and on, fighting, spawning, dying and advancing. Joan Daniels pressed close against him, shuddering. It just isn't possible, Webb. Bombers, artillery, tanks, trained soldiers. And we can't stop them. She stiffened suddenly. Webb. She cried. Look there. Where the bombers swooped through the smoke, another fleet was coming. A fleet of flat triangular bodies with bat like wings in numbers that clouded the sun rays, blind and savage and utterly uncaring. Machine guns brought them down by the hundred, but more of them came. They crashed into heavy ships, fouled propellers, broke controls. Joan looked away. And there are so few planes, she whispered. Fallon nodded. The whole coast is under attack, remember? From Vancouver to Mexico. There just aren't enough men, guns, or planes to go round. More are coming from the east. But. He shrugged and was silent. Then. Then you'll think we'll have to surrender. Doesn't look hopeful, does it? Japan in control of the Pacific, and this here will hold out for a while, of course. But suppose these things come out of the sea indefinitely? We've got to assume they can. Joan's eyes were dark and very tired. What's to prevent Japan from loaning her weapon to her friends? And think of these things swarming in over England? War, said Fallon somberly. A hell of a long, rotten war. He leaned against the car, his gray green eyes half closed. The breeze came in from the sea, heavy with the stench of amphibian bodies. The radio droned on. The single deep line between Fallon's straight brows grew deeper. He began to talk slowly to Joan. The experts say that the little brown brothers must have some kind of a movable projector capable of producing rays which upset the evolutionary balance and cause abnormal growth rays like hard X rays or the cosmic rays that govern reproduction. California Tech has dissected several types of monsters. They say that individual cell groups are affected, causing spontaneous growth in living individuals, and that metabolism has been enormously speeded so that life cycles, which normally took years, now only take a few weeks. They also say that huge numbers, the bulk of these creatures are mutants, new individuals changed in the egg or the reproductive cell. All these monsters are growing and spawning at a terrific tempo. Billions of eggs laid and hatched. Even with the high mortality rate, they're evolving at a fantastic rate of speed. They're growing legs and lungs and becoming mammals. They're coming out of the sea just as our ancestors did millions of years ago. They're coming fast, and they're hungry. He fixed the girl suddenly with a bright, sharp stare. Do you think a thing as big as that is man made? There was a grim, stony weariness in her face. The Japanese say so. What other explanation is there? But, said Fallon, why not South America, too? They were probably afraid the monsters might get out of hand and tackle their own people, said Joan bitterly. Maybe. Again Fallon's eyes were distant. Then he clapped his hands sharply and sprang up. Yes, got it, Joan. The quick motion ripped at the wound across his back. He swayed and caught her shoulder, but he didn't stop talking. Einar Bjarnsson. He was my last job. I interviewed him the day before the quake. I want to see him, Joan.
- [412:41]
Narrator/Announcer
Now.
- [412:43]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
She took his wrists, half frightened. What is it, Webb? Listen, he said softly. Remember the radio calls from the islands? The monsters came out of the west here, didn't they? Well, out there they came out of the east, fallon explained as he sent the car screaming perilously along winding mountain rang roads. Einar Bjarnsson was an expert on undersea life. He had charted tide paths and subsea rivers, mapped the continental shelves and the great deeps. Bjarnson's recent exploration had been in the Pacific using a specially constructed small submarine. His findings on deep sea phenomena had occupied space in scientific journals and the Sunday supplement of newspapers throughout the world. Two days before the big quake, Einar Bjarnsson returned to the place he called home, a small bachelor cabin on a hilltop crammed with scientific traps and trophies of his exploring. Webb Fallon drew the assignment of interviewing him. I was pretty sore at Madge then, fallon confessed. And I had a ferocious hangover over the interview. Didn't go so well. But I remember Bjarnson mentioning something about a volcanic formation quite close to the Pacific coast, something nobody had noticed before. It was apparently extinct, and the only thing that made it notable was its rather unusual confirmation. Jones stared at him. What has that got to do with anything? Fallon shrugged. Maybe nothing. Only I recall that the epicenter of the recent quake was somewhere in the vicinity of Bjarnson's volcano. I remember that damn quake quite well because it cost me my job. Joan opened her mouth and closed it again hard. Fallon grinned. You were going to tell me it wasn't the quake, but my own bad character, he said mockingly. There was something grim in the upthrust lines of her jaw. I can't make you out, Webb, she said quietly. Sometimes I think there's good stuff in you. And then I think Madge was right. Fallon's dark, oval face went ugly, and he didn't speak again until Bjarnson's house came in sight. Chapter 3 Bjarnson Submarine Fallon stopped the car and got out stiffly, feeling suddenly tired and disinterested. He hesitated. Why bother? With a crazy hunch, the rolling crash of gunfire was getting closer. Why not forget the whole thing and go while the going was good? He realized that Joan was watching him with sapphire eyes grown puzzled and hard. Damn it, he snarled. Stop looking at me as though I were a bug under glass, joan said. Is that Bjarnson in the doorway? For the third time, Fallon's hands clenched in anger. Then he turned sharply white about the lips with all the pain it cost him, and strode up to the small, rustic cabin. Einar Bjarnson remembered him. He stood aside a tall, stoop man with massive shoulders and a gaunt, cragged face. Face coarse fair hair shot with gray hung in his eyes, which were small in the color of frozen seawater. He said in a deep, slow voice, come in. I've been watching through my telescope. Most interesting. But it gets too close now. I am surprised you are here. Duty to your paper, eh? Balin let it pass. He might get more out of Bjarnson if the explorer thought he was still with the observer. And the thought struck him. What was he going to do? If his hunch was right, Nothing. He had no influence. The statesmen were handling things. Suppose Japan did take the Pacific States. Suppose there was a war. He couldn't do anything about it. Let the big boys work, worry there'd be a beach somewhere that he could comb in peace. He made a half turn to go out again. Then he caught sight of a map on the far wall. A map of the Pacific. Something took him to it. He put his finger on a spot north and east of the Hawaiian Islands, and even then he couldn't have said why. He asked his question. Your volcanic formation was about here, wasn't it? Bjarnson? The tall Norseman stared at him with cold, shrewd eyes.
- [417:35]
Narrator/Storyteller
Yes.
- [417:36]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Why, look here. Fallon drew a rough circle with his fingertip, touching the Pacific coast, swinging across the ocean through the Gilberts and the Marshalls touching wake and curving up again to Vancouver. The volcanic formation is the center of that circle, fallon said. It was also the epicenter of the recent quake, according to Caltech seismologists. That's what gave me the hunch. The monster seemed to be fanning out in a circle from some central point located about there. That is already explained, said Bjarnson. The Japanese may have their projector located there. And why not? No reason at all. Fallon admitted it. You mentioned in your interview something about a Japanese ocean survey ship coming up just as you left. That ship might still have been near there at the time of the quake. Mightn't is possible.
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Event Host/Local Personality
Go on.
- [418:35]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
There was a sharp little flame flickering in Bjarnson's eyes. Fallon said, could those super evolutionary rays be caused by volcanic action? Bjarnson's gray blond, shaggy brows met, and the flame was sharper in his eyes. Fantastic. But so is this whole affair. Yes, if an area of intense radioactivity were uncovered by an earth shift, the sea and all that swims in it might be affected.
- [419:07]
Event Host/Local Personality
Ah.
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Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Fallon's lips were drawn in a tight gray rin. Suppose the officers of the Japanese ship saw the beginnings of the effect. Suppose they radioed home and someone did some quick thinking. Suppose, in short, that they're lying. Ja, whispered Bjarnson. Let us think. I've already thought, said Fallon. Two weeks would give them time to arrange everything. The important thing is, if the force is man made, even destroying the projector won't do any good. They'll have others. But if it were a natural force, the psychological aspect of the thing alone would be tremendous. There'd be a chance of doing something. The explorer's deep light eyes glinted. Our people would fight better if it was something they could fight. He swung to the big telescope mounted in the west window. Bah. It gets worse. Those creatures, they don't know when they are dead. And the way they come. We must go soon. He swung back to Fallon. But how to find out if you are right? You have a submarine, said Fallon. So has the Navy. But they're all needed. Yours can go where the big ones can't and go deeper. These monsters are all heading for land, which means they gravitate to the surface. You might get through below.
- [420:42]
Narrator/Announcer
Yes.
- [420:43]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Bjarnson strode up and down the cluttered room. We could take a depth charge. If we found the volcano to be the cause, we might close the fissure. Time, Fallon. That is the thing. A few days, a few weeks, and the sheer pressure of these hordes will have forced the defenders back to the mountains and the deserts. Civilian morale will break. He stopped, making a sharp gesture of futility. I am forgetting the radiation's, Fallon. Without proper insulation, we would evolve like the sea things, and it would take many days to make lead armor for us, even if we could get anyone to do the work. Radiations, said Fallon slowly. Yeah, I'd forgotten that. Well, that stops that. Projector or volcano, you'll never reach it. He brushed a hand across his eyes. All his brief enthusiasm burned away. He was getting like that. He wished he had a drink. Probably all moonshine anyway, he said. Anyhow, there's nothing we can do about it. Nothing. Joan Daniels spoke so sharply that both men started. You mean you're not even going to try? Bjarnson can pass the idea along, for what it's worth. You know what that means, Webb. The idea would either be laughed at or pigeonholed, especially with the Jap propagandists doing such a good job. The government's got a war on its hands. Even if someone did pay attention, nothing would be done until too late. It never is. She gripped his arms, looking up at him with eyes like sea blue swords. If there's a bare chance of saving them, Webb, you've got to take it. Fallon looked down at her. His wolf's eyes narrowed. Listen, he said. I'm not a fiction hero. We've got an army, a navy, an air force, and a secret service. They're getting paid for risking their necks. Let them worry. I had a hunch which may not be worth a dime. I passed it along. Now I'm going to clear out before anything more happens to me. Joan's face was cut sharp and bitter from brown wood. Her eyes had fire in them way back. Your logic, she whispered, is flawless. I saved your life, said Fallon brutally. What more do you want? The color drained from the brown wood, leaving it marble. Only the angry fires in her eyes lived in the pale, hard stone. You're remembering how I kissed you, said Fallon, so softly that he hardly spoke at all. I don't know why I did. I don't know why I came here. I don't know. He stopped and turned to the door. Bjarnson, very quietly, was picking up the phone. Balin took the knob and turned it. I am sorry, said a quiet, sibilant voice. You cannot leave. And you, sir, put down that phone. A small, neat man with a yellow face stood on the threshold. He was holding a small, neat, efficient looking automatic. Fallon backed into the room, hearing the click of the cradle as the phone went down. You are Einar Bjarnson? The question was toneless and purely rhetorical. The black eyes had seen the whole room in one swift flick. I am Kashimo, said the man, and waited. Fallon, Webb said easily. This is Ms. Daniels. We just dropped in for a chat. Mind if we go now? I'm afraid, said Kashimo, and spread his hands. I have been discourteous enough to eavesdrop. You have an inventive mind, Mr. Fallon. An inaccurate mind, but one that might prove disturbing to our plans. Don't worry, grunted Fallon. I have no business whatsoever, and I attend to it closely. Your plans don't matter to me at all. Indeed. Cashimo studied him with black, bright eyes. You are either a liar or disgrace to your country, Mr. Fallon. But I may not take chances. You and the young lady I must sadly cancel out. And I, Bjarnson asked. You come with us, said Kashimo. Fallon saw four other small, neat men outside, close behind their leader. In the doorway. He said, what do you mean, cancel out? He knew before Kashimo moved his automatic. Gashimo, said Mr. Bjarnson, please to move out of the line of fire. No one moved. The room was still except for Joan's quick caught breath, and then motion beyond the west windows caught Fallon's eye. A colder fear crawled in his heart, but his voice surprised him. It was so steady. Kashimo, look out there. The bright eyes flicked warily aside. They widened sharply and the cords went slack about the jaw. Fallon sprang. He had forgotten the wound across his back. The shock of his body striking Kashimo turned him sick and faint. He knew that the little man fell, staggering, the others so close behind him. He knew that Joan Daniels was shouting and that Bjarnson had caught up an ebony war club and was using it. Shots boomed in his ears, but one sound kept him from fainting, the thunder of slow, relentless giant wings. He got up in unsteady darkness. A round, sallow face appeared. He struck at it. Bone cracked under his knuckles and the face vanished. Fallon found a wall and clung to it. Hands gripped his ankle. Kashimo's hands. Bjarnson was outside, mopping up. Fallon braced himself and drew his foot back. His toe caught Kashimo solidly under the angle of the jaw. Joan, said Fallon. The wings were thundering closer. Joan didn't answer. A sort of quote. Queer panic filled Fallon. Joan. He cried. Joan. Here I am, Webb. She came from behind the door with a heavy little idol in her hand. It had blood on it. Her golden hair was tumbled, and her neck was bleeding where a bullet had creased it. Fallon caught her. He felt her wince under his hands. He didn't know quite what he wanted, except that she must be safe. He only said, hurry, before those things get here. The throb of wings was deafening. Bjarnson came in swinging his club. His cragged face was bloody, but his pale eyes blazed. Good man, Fallon, he grunted. All right, let's go. There's a cave below. Here, take their guns, young lady. We'll need them. The sky beyond the west windows was clogged with huge black shapes. Fallon remembered the smashed windows of the department store in Santa Monica. Joan, he said, come here. He put his arm around her shoulders. He might have walked all right without her, but somehow he wanted her there. They dropped down the other side of the hill into a little brush choked cleft. There was a shallow cave at one end. There go my windows, said Bjarnson, and cursed in Swedish, in with you before those flying devils find us. They were well hidden. Chances were the rays would go right over them. After they'd finished off Kashimo and his men, Bjornson said softly. What did they want with me, Fallon? There's only one thing they couldn't get from somebody else, returned Fallon. Your submarine.
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Event Host/Local Personality
Yes.
- [429:12]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
The mechanisms are of my own design. They would need me to operate it. Does that mean we are right about the volcano? Maybe. They'd have made plans to control it, of course. Or they may want your ship merely as a model. There was silence for a while. Outside, heavy wings began to beat again. They came perilously low, went over, and were gone. Einar Bjornsson said quietly, I'm going to take the chance, Fallon. I'm going to try to get my ship through. What about the radiations? If Kashima was planning to use the ship, he'd have arranged for that. Anyway, I'm going to see. His ice blue eyes stabbed at Fallon. I can't do it alone, Joan Daniels said. I'll go. Bjarnson's eyes flicked from one to the other. Fallon's face was dark and almost dangerous. Wait a minute, he said gently. Joan faced him. I thought you were going away. I've changed my mind. Looking at her, at her blue, unsympathetic eyes, Fallon wondered if he really had. Perhaps the stunning shock of all that had happened had unsettled him. Joan put both hands on his shoulders and looked straight into his eyes. What kind of a man are you, Webb, Fallon? God knows, he said. Where do you keep your boat, Bjornson? In a private steel and concrete building at Wilmington. Some of the improvements are of interest to certain people. I keep them locked safely away. Or so I thought. Fallon rose stiffly. Cashimo didn't come in a car, that's certain. He'd have been arrested on sight. Any place for a plane to land near here? The explorer shook his head. Unless it could come straight down. Fallon snapped his finger. A helicopter. That's it. He led the way out. They found the copter on a small level space beyond the shoulder of the hill. Fallon nodded. Ingenious little chaps. The ship's painted like an army plane. Any pilot would think it was a special job and let it severely alone. He turned abruptly to Joan. Take my car, he told her. Get away from here fast. Find someone in authority and make him listen, just in case. She nodded. Webb, why are you going? Because there isn't time to get anyone else, he told her roughly. Because there's a story there. He stopped, startled at what he had said. Yes, he said slowly. A story. My story. Oh, hell. Why did you have to come along? He put his hand suddenly back of her head and tilted her face face up, his fingers buried in the warm curls at the base of her neck. I was all set, he whispered savagely. I knew all the answers. And then you showed up. If you hadn't, I'd be halfway to Miami by now. I'd still be sure of myself. I wouldn't be so damn confused. Thinking one way, feeling another. She kissed him suddenly, warmly. I'll make somebody listen, she said. And then I'll wait and pray. Then she was gone. In a minute he heard the car start. Come on, he snarled at Bjarnson. I remember you said you could fly. Chapter 4 A Dead Man Comes Back it was a nightmare trip. The battle below was terribly clear. Twice they dodged flights of the giant rays, saved only because the scent of food kept the attention of the brutes on the ground. The harbor basin at Wilmington was choked with slippery, struggling beasts. There was hardly a sign of shipping. Bjarnson made for the flat top of a square building, completely surrounded. A flight of rays went over just as they landed. A trapdoor in the roof raised and was slammed shut again. Now, said Fallon grimly, and jumped out. They were almost to the trap when a ray sighted them. Fallon shot it through the eye, but others followed. Bjarnson wrenched up the trap. A surprised yellow face peered up, vanished in a crimson smear. Bjarnson hauled the body out and threw it as far as he could. The rays fought over it like monstrous gulls over a fish head. Fallon retched and followed Bjornson down. There were three other men in the building. One tried to shoot it out and was killed. The others were mechanics with no stomach for the guns. They looked over the subject, a small, stubby thing of unusual design, and Bjarnson nodded his gaunt, shaggy head. These suits of leaded fabric, he said. One big for me, the other smaller for Kashimo, perhaps. Can you get in it? Fallon grunted. I guess so. Hey, look there. Ha. A depth charge held in the claws I use for picking specimens from the the ocean floor. They have prepared well, Fallon. You know what that means. Fallon was aware of a forgotten, surging excitement. His palms came together with a ringing crack. I was right. Kashima was going to hold you here until the government capitulated. Then he was going out to shut off the power. There's no projector, Bjornson. It was the volcano. If we can close that fissure while there's still resistance, we'll have him licked. Bjarnson's ice blue eyes fixed Fallon with a sharp, unwavering stare, and he spoke slowly, calmly, almost without expression. It will take about three days to get there. Working together, one fit of cowardice or indecision, one display of nerves or temper may destroy what slight chance we have. You mean, said Fallon, you wish you had someone you could depend on. He smiled crookedly. I'll do my best, Bjornsson. They struggled into the clumsy lead armor and shuffled into the small control room of the submarine. Everything had been prepared in advance. In a few seconds automatic machinery was lowering the sub into it. Slip water slapped the hull. Bjarnson started the motors. They went forward slowly through doors that opened electrically. Ballas hissed and snarled. Into the tanks, Bjarnson said. If we can get through this first pack into deep water, we may make it. He pointed to a knife switch. Bullet. Fallon did. Nothing seemed to happen. Bjaronson sat hunched over the controls, cold blue eyes fixed on the periscope screen. Fallon had a swift, horrible sense of suffocation. The steel wall of the sub curving low over his helmeted head, the surge of huge floundering bodies in the water outside. Something struck the hull. The little ship canted. Fallon gripped his seat with rigid, painful hands. Bjarnson's armored, unhuman shoulders moved convulsively with effort. Fallon felt a raw panic scream rising in his throat. He choked it back. Heavy, muffled blows shook the submarine. The motors churned and shook. Fallon was afraid they were going to stop. Sweat dripped in his eyes, misted his helmet pane. The screws labored on. Fallon heard the tanks filling and knew that they were going deeper. The blows on the hull grew fewer, farther between. Fallon began to breathe again. Einar Bjarnson relaxed just a little. His voice came muffled by his helmet. The worst. Fallon, we're through it. Fallon's throat was as dry as his face was wet. But how? Sometimes in the deeps one meets creatures, hungry creatures as large even as the ship. So I prepared the hull. That switch transforms us into a traveling electric shock strong enough to discourage almost anything. I hoped it would get us through. Thinking of what might have happened, Fallon shut his jaw hard. His voice was unnaturally steady as he asked, what now? Now you learn to operate the ship in case something should happen to me. Bjarnson's small blue eyes glinted through his helmet pane. Too bad there is not a radio here, Fallon, so that you might broadcast as we go. As it is, I fear the world may miss a very exciting story. For God's sake, said Fallon wearily, and he wasn't swearing. Let's not make this any tougher, okay? This is the master switch. In the next 24 hours Fallon learned how to handle the submarine. Passably well built for a crew of two, the controls were fairly simple, once explained. Nothing else was touched. The only extra switch that mattered was the one that released the depth charge for an endless monotonous hell. Fallon stood watch and watch about with Bjarnson, one at the controls, one operating the battery of observation scopes. Never sleeping, they saved on oxygen as a precaution, which added to the suffocating discomfort of the helmet filters. Black, close nerve rasping. Hours crawled by, became days. At last Fallon bent over the scope screen, licked the sweat from his thin lips, and looked at Bjarnson, a blurred dark bulk against the dim glow of the half seen instrument panel. Fallon's head ached. The hot stale air stank of oil. His body was tired and cramped and sweat drenched, and the wound across his shoulders throbbed. He looked the single narrow bunk. There was nothing out there in the water but darkness. Even the deep sea fish had felt the impulse and avoided the sub. Fallon got up. Bjarnson, he said. I'm going to sleep. The explorer half turned in his seat. Ya, he said quietly. There's nothing out there, growled Fallon. Why should I sit and glare at that periscope? Because Bjornson returned with ominous gentleness. There might be something. We will not reach the volcano for perhaps 10 hours. You had better watch Balin's hard jaw set. I can't go any longer without sleep. Bjarnson's cragged face was flushed and greasy behind his helmet, but his eyes were like glittering frost. All the whiskey and the women, he whispered. They make you soft, Fallon. The girl would have been better. A flashing glimpse of Joan as she had looked in the car that morning crossed the eye of Fallon's mind. The tumbled fair hair and the sunlight warm on throat and cheek, and her voice saying, you wouldn't be so bad, Webb. So lazy and and so hell fired selfish. He cursed and started forward. The dark blur of Bjornson rose, blotting out the green glow, and then the panel light rose in a shuddering arc. Balin thought for a moment that he was fainting. The low curve of the hull spun about. He knew that he fell and that he struck something, or that something struck him. All orientation was lost. His helmet rang against metal like a great gong, and then he was sliding down a cluttered slope. A blunt projection ripped across his back. Even through the leaded suit. The pain of it made him scream. He heard the sound as a distant throttled echo. Then even the dim light was gone. The screen flickered abominably. It showed mostly a blurred mob of people trampling back and forth. Then it steadied and there was a picture in bright gay colors, a starfish 20ft across, wrapping itself around a woman and her stoop defied child. We saw that, said Fallon. On the beach. Remember? He thought. Joan answered. But there was another picture, a vast red crab pulling a man to bits with its claws, and after that the shrieking woman outside the broken window, dragged down by a worm. Wonder who got those shots, said Fallon. Again Joan answered, but he didn't hear her. The pictures moved more rapidly, rays black against the blue sky, planes falling, guns firing and firing and choking into silence. People. Black, endless streams of them, running, running, running. Joan pulled at him. Her face was strangely huge. Her eyes were as he had first seen them, hard, chipped of sapphire, and at last he heard what she was saying. Your fault, Webb. Fallon. This might have been stopped, but you had to sleep. You couldn't take it. You're no good, Webb. No good. No good. Her voice faded, mixed somehow with a deep, throbbing noise. Joan. He shouted. Joan. But her face faded too. The last he could see was her eyes, hard and steady and deeply blue. Joan. He whispered. There was a sound in his head like the tearing of silk, a sensation of rushing upward. Then he was quite conscious, his face pressed forward against his helmet and his body twisted, bruised and painful. The first thing he saw was Einar Bjrnson sprawled on the floor plates, a sharp point of metal had ripped his suit from neck to waist, laying his chest bare. For a moment of panic, horror, Fallon sought for tears. In his own suit there were none. He relaxed with a sob of relief and looked up at the low curve of the hull. It was still whole. Fallon shuddered. What product of abnormal evolution had attacked them in the moment that he had looked away? Strange. He hadn't seen it coming before. The dim, still bulk of Einar Bjarnsson drew his gaze, crouched there on his knees. It seemed to Fallon that the whole universe drew in and centered on that motionless body. I killed him, fallon whispered. I looked away. I might have seen the thing in time, but I looked away. I killed him. For a long time he couldn't move. Then, like the swift stroke of a knife, terror struck him. He was alone under the sea. He got up. The chronometer showed an elapsed time of nearly two hours. The course held by an iron mike was steady. The beast that had attacked them must have lost interest. Fallon clung to a stanchion and thought harder than he'd ever thought in his life. He couldn't go on by himself. There had to be two men to gauge distances, spot the best target, control the sub and the resultant blast. Why couldn't he forget the volcano? There were lots of islands in the Pacific beyond the affected sphere. He could stay drunk on palm wine as well as Scotch. He'd never see Joan again, of course. Joan accusing, hard eyed, contemptuous. Joan condemning him for murder. Fallon laughed a sharp, harsh bark. Joan, Hell, that was my own mind condemning me. His gaze went back to Bjarnson's body, rolling slightly with the motion of the ship. It boiled down to that murder. His careless, selfish murder of Bjarnson. The murder of countless civilians.
- [447:16]
Narrator/Announcer
War.
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Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Bitter, brutal, desperate. Fallon drew a long, shuddering breath. His head dropped forward in his helmet and his slanting wolf eyes were closed. Then he turned and sat down at the controls. The single forward scope field gave him vision enough to steer. Anything might attack. From the sides of the stern another beast grown incredibly huge, but not yet a lung, brain, breather. Alone, he probably wouldn't succeed. He wouldn't live to know whether he had or not. His gloved hands clenched over the levers that would change the course, send him away to safety. Savagely, he forced his hands away. He gripped the wheel. Time slid by him, black and silent as the water outside. And. And then something moved in the dark behind him. Slowly, slowly, Fallon rose and turned. The veins of his lean face were like knotted cords. The Hard steel of the hull held him tight and close. Smothering, blurred, faint movement, the soft scrape of metal against metal. He had been so sure Bjarnson was dead. He had been dazed and sick. He hadn't looked closely, but he had been sure. Bjarnson, lying so still with a suit ripped open, his suit ripped open. Volcanic rays would be seeping into his flesh. Rays of change. Perhaps they even brought the dead to life. There was a grating clang, and suddenly Fallon screamed, a short, choked sound that hurt his throat. Bjarnson's face looked at him. Bjarnson's face with every gaunt bone, every vein and muscle and convolution of the brain traced in lines of cold white fire. The shrouding leaden suit slipped from wide, stooped shoulders. The heart beat in pulses, aflame within the glowing cage of the ribs. The coil and flow of muscles in arm and thigh was a living, beautiful rhythm of light. Balin, said Einar Bjornson, Turn back. The remembered voice coming from that glowing, pulsing throat was the most horrible thing of all. Fallon licked the cold sweat from his lips. No, he said. Turn back or you will be killed. It doesn't matter, whispered Fallon. I've got to try. Bjornson laughed. Fallon could see his diaphragm contract in a surge of flame, see the ripple of the laughter. A wave of anger cut across Fallon's terror, cold and sane. I did this to you, Bjarnson, he said. I'm trying to make up for it. I thought you were dead. Perhaps if you put your armor back on, we can patch it up somehow and it may not be too late. But it is too late. So you blame yourself, eh? I left my post. Otherwise you might have dodged that thing. Dodged it? Tiny sparkles of light shot through Bjarnson's brain. Oh, ja, perhaps. And he laughed again. So you will not turn back? Not even for the beautiful Joan? Fallon's eyes closed, but the lines of his jaw were stern with anger. Do you have to torture me? Wait, said Bjornson. Wait a little. Then I will know. His voice was suddenly strange. Fallon opened his eyes. The glowing fire in the explorer's body was growing brighter so that it blurred the lines of vein and bone and sinew. No, said Bjarnson. No need for torture. Turn back, Fallon. God, how he wanted to. No, he whispered. I've got to try. Bjornson's voice came to him almost as an echo. We were fools, Fallon. Fools to think that we could stop this thing with a single puny bomb. Kashima was a fool too, but he was a gambler. But we, Fallon, you and I, we were the bigger fools. The kind of fools, said Fallon doggedly, that men have always been. And damn it, I think I'd rather be the fool I am than the smart guy I was. Bjarnson's laughter echoed in his helmet. Fallon had had a moment's eerie feeling that he had heard with his brain instead of his ear. Wonderful, Fallon, wonderful. You see how circumstances make us traitors to ourselves. But there is no need for heroics. You can turn back, Fallon. The lines of Bjarnson's body were quite gone. He loomed against the darkness as a pillar of shining mist. Fallon's weary eyes were dazzled with it. No, he muttered stubbornly.
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Reporter/Interviewer
No.
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Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Bjarnson's voice rolled in on him suddenly, soul shaking as an organ voice or mind, a magnificent thundering strength. This is evolution, Fallon. So shall we be a million, million years from now. Now this is living, Fallon. It is godhood. Take off your suit, Fallon. Grow with me, Joan, said Fallon wearily. Joan, dearest. Cosmic laughter shuddering in his mind. And then Turn back, Fallon. In an hour it will be too late. The shining mist was dimming, drawing in upon itself, and at the core a tiny light was growing, a frosty white flame that seared Fallon's brain. Turn back. Turn back. He fought silently, but the light and the voice poured into him. Abruptly, something in him relaxed. He had been so long without rest. He knew very dimly that he turned and changed the course back toward the coast of California. From somewhere out of the gulfs between the stars, a voice spoke to him as he lay sprawled across the control panel. There was no need for you to die, Fallon. Now I can see much. It was no monster that struck us, but the first shock of a series of quakes which will close the fissure far better than any human agency. Therefore, what happened to me was not your fault, and I am glad it happened. I. Bjarnson was growing old. I had nothing but science to hold me to earth. Now my knowledge is boundless, and I am not confined by the fetters of the flesh. I am mind, as someday we will all be. You will be safe, Alan. The invasion will fail as the powers shut off, and America can deal with any further danger. Marry Joan and be happy. I don't know about myself yet. The possibilities are too vast to be explored in a minute. I am not dead, Fallon. Remember that. But. And here Fallon heard an echo of Bjarnson's harsh, mocking laughter. If you should ever cease to be a fool and become again a smart guy, I shall find a way to send you back along. Evolution to a stupid ape. I go now, Fallon. Skoal. And will you name your firstborn Einar? I can see that it will be a sun. End of out of the Sea by Leigh Brackett Read by Paul Hampton. The Princess and the Physicist by Evelyn E. Smith this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Elected a God, Zen the Omnipotent longed for supernatural powers, for he was also Zen the All put upon the galactic sucker. Zen the Terrible lay quiescent in the secret retreat which housed his corporeal being all the aspects of his personality wallowing in the luxury of a day off. How glad he was that he had had the forethought to stipulate a weekly holiday for himself when first this godhead had been thrust upon him hundreds of centuries before, he'd accepted the perquisites of divinity with pleasure. Then it was some little time before he discovered its drawbacks, and by then it was too late. He had become the established church. All the aspects of his personality rested save one, that is, and that one stretching out. An impalpable tendril of curiosity brought back to his total consciousness the news that a spaceship from Earth had arrived when no ship from Earth was due. So what? The total consciousness asked lazily of itself. Probably they have a large out of season order for Hajansh. My hjench going to provide salad bowls for barbarians when 20 years previously the Earthmen had come back to their colony on Uxen after a lapse of thousands of years, Zen had been hopeful that they would take some of the divine work off his hands. After all, since it was they who had originally established the colony, it should be their responsibility. But it seemed that all humans, not merely the Oxanak, were irresponsible. The Earthmen were interested only in trade and tribute. They even refused to believe in the existence of Zen, an attitude which he found extremely irritating to his ego. True oxen prospered commercially to a mild extent after their return, for the local ceramics that had been developed in the long interval found wide acceptance throughout the galaxy, particularly the Lowell bowls, which had hitherto been used only for burning incense before Zen the Formidable. Now every two bit planet offered had gensh in its gift shops. Culturally, though, Uxen had degenerated under the New Earth Administration. No more criminals were thrown to the squitch. Zwoosh lost its interest when new laws prohibited the ancient custom of executing the losing side after each game. There was no tourist trade, for the planet was too far from the rest of the galaxy. The commercial spaceships came only once every three months and left the same day. The two destroyers that guarded the planet arrived at rare intervals for fueling or repairs, but the crew never had anything to do with the Oxena. Local ordnance forbade the maidens of oxen to speak to the outlanders, and the outlanders were not interested in any of the other native products. But the last commercial spaceship had departed less than three weeks before on its regular run, and this was not one of the guard ships. Zen reluctantly conceded to himself that he would have to investigate this situation further if he wanted to retain his reputation for omniscience. Sometimes, in an occasional moment of self doubt, he wondered if he weren't too much of a perfectionist, but then he rejected the thought as self sacrilege. Zen dutifully intensified the beam of awareness and returned it to the audience chamber, where the two strange earthmen who had come on the ship were being ushered into the presence of the king by none other than Gush, the venerable prime minister himself. Gentlemen. Gush beamed, his long white beard vibrating in an excess of hospitality. His gracious Majesty will be delighted to receive you at once. And crossing his wrists in the secular Za, he led the way to where Uxleu XV was seated in full regalia upon his imposing golden gem encrusted throne. Uxleu himself, Zen admitted grudgingly, was an imposing sight to anyone who didn't know the old IO the years, for he was a scant decade younger than Gush, had merely lent dignity to his handsome features, and he was still tall and upright. Welcome, Earthlings, to Uxen, king Uxlu said in the sonorous tones of the practiced public speaker. If there's aught we can do to advance your comfort whilst you sojourn on our little planet, you have but to speak. He did not, Zen noted with approval, rashly promise that requests would necessarily be granted. Which was fine, because the God well knew who the carrier out of requests would be. Zen the Almighty, the All Powerful, the all put upon. Thank you, your majesty, the older of the two scientists said. We merely seek a retired spot in which to conduct our researches. Researches, eh? The king repeated with warm interest. Are you perhaps scientists? Yes, your Majesty. Every one of Zen's perceptors quivered expectantly. Earth science was banned on oxen, with the result that its acquisition was had become the golden dream of every Xena. Including, of course, their God. The older scientist gave a stiff bow. I am an anthropologist. My name is Kendrick. Professor Alpheus Kendrick. My assistant, Dr. Peter Hammond. He indicated the tall young man with him is a physicist. The king and the prime minister conferred together in whispers. Zen wished he could join them, but he couldn't materialize on that plane without incense, and he preferred his subjects not to know that he could be invisibly present, especially on his day off. Of course, his immaterial omnipresence was a part of the accepted dogma, but there is a big difference between accepting a a concept on the basis of faith or of proven fact. Curious researches, the king said, emerging from the conference, that require both physics and anthropology. Yes, said Kendrick. They are rather involved. At that. Peter Hammond shuffled his feet. Perhaps some of our technicians might be of assistance to you, the king suggested. They may not have your science, but they are very adept with their hands. Our researches are rather limited in scope, Kendrick assured him. We can do everything needful quite adequately ourselves. All we need is a place in which to do it. You shall have our own second best palace, the king said graciously. It has both hot and cold water lakes laid on, as well as central heating. We've brought along our own collapsible laboratory dwelling, kendrick explained. We just want a spot to set it up. Oxloo sighed. The royal parks are at your disposal. You will undoubtedly require servants. We have a robot, thanks. A robot is a mechanical man who does all our housework. Hammond, more courteous than his superior, explained. Zen wondered how he could ever have felt a moment's uneasiness concerning these wonderful strangers. Zen will be interested to hear of this, the prime minister said cannily. He and the king nodded at one another. Who did you say? Kendrick asked eagerly. Zen the Terrible, the king repeated. Zen the All Powerful. Zen the Encyclopedic.
- [465:45]
Event Host/Local Personality
Surely you've heard of him?
- [465:47]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
He asked in some surprise. He's Uxen's own particular personal and private God, exclusive to our planet. Yes, yes, of course I've heard about him, kendrick said, trembling with hardly repressed excitement. What a correct attitude, Zen thought. One rarely finds such religious respect among foreigners. In fact, I've heard a great deal about him, and I should like to know even more. Kendrick spoke almost reverently. He is an extremely interesting divinity, the king replied complacently. And if your robot cannot teleport or requires a hand with the heavy work, do not hesitate to call on Zen the Accommodating. We'll detail a priest to summon the robot manages very well all by itself, thank you, kendrick said quickly. In his hideaway, the material body of Zen breathed a vast multiple sigh of relief. He was getting to like these Earthmen more and more by the minute. Might I inquire, the King asked, into the nature of your researches? An investigation of the prevalent nuclear ritual beliefs on oxen in relation to the overall matrix of social culture. And we really must get along and see to the unloading of the ship. Goodbye, your Majesty. Your Excellency. And Kendrick dragged his protesting aide off. If only, said the King, I were still an absolute monarch, I would teach these Earthlings some manners. His face grew wistful. Well, I remember how my father would have had those who crossed him torn apart by wild squitch. If you did have the Earthlings torn apart by wild squitch, Sire, Gush pointed out, then you would certainly never be able to obtain any information from them. Uxloo sighed. I would merely have them torn apart a little. Just enough so that they would answer a few civil questions. He sighed again. And supposing they did happen to pass on in the process, think of the tremendous lift to my ego. But nobody thinks of the King's ego any more these days. No, things were not what they had been since the time the planet had been retrieved by the Earthlings. They had not communicated with Uxen for so many hundreds of years. They had explained because after a more than ordinarily disastrous war, they had lost the secret of space travel for centuries. Now, wanting to make amends for those long years of neglect, they immediately provided that the Earth language and the Earth income tax become mandatory upon Uxin. The language was taught by recordings. Since the Uxinak were highly intelligent people, they had all learned it quickly and forgotten most of their native tongue, except for a few untranslatable concepts. Must be a new secret atomic weapon they're working on, Ux Lu decided. Why else would they come to such a remote corner of the galaxy? And you will recall that the older one, Kendrick, said something about nuclear if only we could discover what it is, secure it for ourselves, perhaps we could defeat the Earthmen, drive them away way he sighed for the third time that morning. And rule the planet ourselves. Just then the Crown Princess Azimi entered the throne room. Azimi really lived up to her title of Most Fair and Exalted for centuries of selective breeding under which the kings of oxen had seized the loveliest women of the planet for their wives, had resulted in an outstanding pulchritude. Her hair was as golden as the ripe fruit that bent the boughs of the Iolo tree, and her eyes were bluer than the orez stones on the belt girdling her slender waist. Reproductions of the famous portrait of her, which hung in the great hall of the palace, were very popular on calendars. My father grieves, she observed, making the secular tza. Pray tell, your unworthy daughter, what sorrow racks your noble bosom. Uxen is a backwash, her father mourned. A planet forgotten while the rest of the galaxy goes by. Our ego has reached its nadir. Why did you let yourself be conquered? The princess retorted scornfully. Ah, had I been old enough to speak then, matters would be very different today. Although she seemed too beautiful to be endowed with brains, Azimi had been graduated from the Royal University with high honors. Zen the Erudite was particularly fond of her, for she had been his best student in advanced theology. She was, moreover, an ardent patriot and leader of the underground Mulai Free Oxen movement, with which Zen was more or less in sympathy, since he felt Uxen belonged to him and not to the earthlings. After all, he had been there first. Let ourselves be conquered. Her father's voice rose to a squeak. Let ourselves? Nobody ask us. We were conquered, true, but we could have at least essayed our strength against the conquerors. Instead of capitulating like Yach, we could have fought to the last man. A woman is always ready to fight to the last man, gus commented. Did you hear that, ancient and revered parent? He called me a princess of the blood, a A woman. We are all equal before Zen, guj said sententiously, making the high Za pray. Zen, Axlu and Azimi chanted perfunctorily, bowing low. Azimi, still angry, ordered Guj, who was also high priest, to start services. Kindling the incense in the hajjan. He began the chant. Of course, it was his holiday, but Zen couldn't resist the appeal of the incense. Besides, he was there anyway, so it was really no trouble. No trouble, he thought greedily sniffing the delicious aroma at all. He materialized ahead with seven nostrils so that he was able to inhale the incense in one delectable gulp. Then no prayers answered on Thursday, he said, and disappeared. That would show them. Drat Zen. In his days off, the princess was in a fury. Very well, we'll manage without Zen the Spiteful. Now precisely what is troubling you, worthy and undeservedly honored parent? Those two scientists who arrived from Earth, didn't you meet them when you came in. No, respected father, she said, sitting on the arm of the throne. I must have just missed them. What are they like? He told her what they were like in terms not even a monarch should use before his daughter. And those Squatch, he concluded, are undoubtedly working on a secret weapon. If we had it, we could free oxen. Moolah oxen. The princess shouted, standing up. My friends, must we continue to submit to the yoke of the tyrant? Arise, smite the anyone, said Gudge, can make a speech. The princess sat on the steps of the throne and pondered. Obviously we must introduce a spy into their household to learn their science and turn it to our advantage. They are very careful, those earthlings, gush informed her superciliously. It is obvious they do not intend to let any of us come near them. The princess gave a knowing smile. But they undoubtedly will need at least one menial to care for their dwelling. I shall be that menial. I, Azimi, will so demean myself for the sake of my planet. Mulayaksin. You cannot do it, Azimi, her father said, distressed. You must not defile yourself so. I will not hear of it. And besides, Gudge interposed, they will need no servants. All their housework is to be done by their robot, a mechanical man that performs all menial duties. And you, your royal Highness, could not plausibly disguise yourself as a machine. No, I expect not. The princess hugged the rosy knees revealed by her brief tunic and thought aloud, but just supposing something went wrong with the robot. They do not possess another. They referred only to one highness, gus replied reluctantly, but they may have the parts with which to construct another. Nonetheless, it is well worth the attempt, the princess declared. You will cast a spell on the robot, Gush, so that it stops. He sighed. Very well, your highness. I suppose I could manage that. Making the secular Za, he left the royal pair outside. His voice could be heard bellowing in the anteroom. Has any of you scutch seen my pliers? There's no need for worry, venerated ancestor, the princess assured the monarch. All helpful. Zen will aid me with my tasks. Far away in his arcane retreat, the divinity groaned to himself. Another aspect of Zen's personality followed the two earthmen as they left the palace to supervise the erection of their prefab by the crew of the spaceship. In one of the royal parks, a vast crowd of oxanak gathered to watch the novelty, and among them there presently appeared a sinister looking old man with a red beard who Zen the Pansophic had no difficulty in recognizing as the prime minister, heavily disguised, of course. It would have been no trouble for Zen to carry out Gudge's mission for him, but he believed in self help, especially on Thursdays. You certainly fixed us up fine, hammond muttered disrespectfully to the professor. You should have told the king we were inventing a vacuum cleaner or something. Now they'll just be more curious than ever. And I still don't see why you refused the priest. Seems to me he'd be just what you needed. Yes, and the first to catch on to why we're here. We mustn't antagonize the natives. These closed groups are so apt to resent any investigation into their mythos. If it's also mythical, why do you need a scientist, then? A physical scientist, you mean, Kendrick said austerely. For anthropology is a science too, you know. Peter snorted. Some Earthmen claim actually to have seen these alleged manifestations, kendrick went on to explain. In which case there must be some kind of mechanical trickery involved. Which is where you come in. Of course. I would have preferred an engineer to help me, but you were all I could get from the government. And you wouldn't have gotten me either if the Minister of Science didn't have it in for me, peter said irately. I'm far too good for this piddling little job, and you know it. If it weren't for envy in high places. Better watch out, the professor warned, or the minister might decide you're too good for science altogether, and you'll be switched to a position more in keeping with your talents, say, as a refuse removal agent. And what is wrong with the honored art of refuse removal? Zen wondered. There were a lot of mystifying things about these Earthmen. The scientist's quaint little edifice was finally set up, and the spaceship took its departure. It was only then that the Earthmen discovered that something they called cigarettes couldn't be found in the welter of packages, and that the robot wouldn't cook dinner or in fact, do anything. Good old Gush Zen thought. I can't figure out what's gone wrong, peter complained as he finished putting the mechanical man together again. Everything seems to be all right, yet the damn thing won't function. Looks as if we'll have to do the housework ourselves. Confound it. Uh, peter said. You can, but not me. The Earth government put me under your orders so far as this project is concerned, sir. But I'm not supposed to do anything degrading, sir. And menial work is classified as Just that, sir. So all right, all right, kendrick said. Though it seems to me if I'm willing to do it, you should have no objection. It's your project, sir. I gathered from the king, though Peter added more helpfully, that some of the natives still do menial labor themselves. How disgusting that there should still be a planet so backward that human beings should be forced to do humiliating tasks, kendrick said. You don't know the half of it either, Zen thought, shocked all the way back to his physical being. It had never occurred to him that the function of gods on other planets might be different than on Uxen, unless the earthlings failed to pay reverence to their own gods, which seemed unlikely in view of the respectful way with which Professor Kendrick had greeted the mention of Xen's awe inspiring name, then refuse removal was not necessary, necessarily a divine prerogative. Those first colonists were very clever, Zen thought bitterly. Sweet talking me into becoming a God and doing all their dirty work. I was happy here as the only inhabitant. Why did I ever let those interlopers involve me in theology? But I can't quit now. The Oxonak need me. And I need incense. I'm fettered by my own weakness. Still, I have the glimmerings of an idea. Oh, how much could a half witted menial find out? Peter demanded. Remember, it's either a native servant, sir, or you do the housework yourself. All right, kendrick agreed gloomily. We'll try one of the natives. So the next day, still attended by the unseen presence of Zen, they sought audience with the prime minister. Welcome, earthen, to the humble apartments of His Majesty's most unimportant subject. Gush greeted them, making a very small za. As he led them into the largest reception room, Kendrick absently ran his finger over the undercarving of a small, small gold table. Look, no dust, he whispered. Must have excellent help here. Zen couldn't help preening just a bit. At least he did his work well. No one could gainsay that. Your desire, gaje went on, apparently anxious to get to the point, is my command. Would you like a roche of dancing girls to perform before you or the king? Said something yesterday about servants being available, kendrick interrupted. And our robot seems to have broken down. Could you tell us where we could get someone to do our housework? An expression of vivid pleasure illuminated the prime minister's venerable countenance. By fortunate chance, gentlemen, a small lot of maids is to be auctioned off at a village very near the Imperial cities tomorrow. I should be delighted to escort you there Personally auctioned, Kendrick repeated. You mean they sell servants here? Gusj raised his snowy eyebrows. Sold? Certainly not. They are leased for two years apiece. After all, if you have no lease, what guarantee do you have that your servants will stay after you have trained them? None whatsoever. When the two scientists had gone, Azimi emerged from behind a bright colored tapestry depicting Zen in 753 of his attributes. The younger one is not at all bad looking, she commented, patting her hair into place. I do like big blond men. Perhaps my task will not be as unpleasant as I fancied. Gus stroked his beard. How do you know the earthlings will select you, your Highness? Many other maids will be auctioned off at the same time. The princess stiffened angrily. They'll pick me or they'll never leave oxen alive. And you, your Excellency, would not outlive them. Although it meant he had to overwork the other aspects of his multiple simple personality, Zen kept one free so that the next day he could join the Earthmen in spirit. That was on their excursion in search of a menial if, as an anthropologist you are interested in local folkways, Professor, Gus remarked graciously as he and the scientist piled into a scarlet boat shaped vehicle, you will find much to attract your attention in this quaint little planet of ours. Are the eyes painted in front of the car to ward off demons? Kendrick asked.
- [484:51]
Narrator/Storyteller
Car?
- [484:53]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Oh, you mean the yeo. Gus patted the forepart of the vehicle. It purred and fluttered long eyelashes. We breed an especially bouncy strain with seats. They're so much more comfortable, you know. You mean this is a live animal? Gush nodded apologetically. Of course, it doesn't go very fast. Now, if we had the atomic power drive such as your spaceships have, you'd shoot right off into space, Hammond assured him. Speed, said Kendrick, is the curse of modern civilization. Be glad you still retain some of the old fashioned graces here in Uxen. You see, he whispered to his assistant, a clear case of magical religious culture. Freezing, resulting in a static society unable to advance itself, comes of its implicit reliance upon the powers of an omnipotent deity. Zen took some time to figure this out. But that's right, he concluded in surprise. I thought your God teleported things. Peter asked Gush. How come he doesn't teleport you around if you're in such a hurry to go places? Hendrick glared at him. Please remember that I'm the anthropologist, he hissed. You have got to know how to describe the transcendental personality with the proper respect we don't have Zen teleport animate objects, the prime minister explained affably. Or even if inanimate ones, if they are fragile, for he tends to lose his temper sometimes when he feels that he is overworked. Feels indeed, zen said to himself, and throws things about. We cannot reprove him for his misbehavior. After all, a God is a God. The apparent irreverence, Kendrick explained in an undertone, undoubtedly signifies that he is dealing with ancillary or perhaps peripheral religious beliefs. I must make a note of them. He did so. By the time the royal Yeo had arrived at the village where the planetary auctions for domestics were held, the maids were already arranged in a row on the platform. Most were depressingly plain creatures and dressed in thick sack like tunics. Among them, the graceful form of Azimi was conspicuous, clad in a garment similar in cut but fashioned of translucent gauze, almost as blue as her eyes. Peter straightened his tie and assumed a much more cheerful expression. Let's run that one. He exclaimed, pointing to the princess. Nonsense, kendrick told him. In the first place, she's obviously the most expensive model. Secondly, she would be too distracting for you. And finally, a pretty girl is never as good a worker as a plain. We'll take that one. The professor pointed to the dumpiest and oldest of the women. How much did I offer to start, your Excellency? No sense beginning the bidding too high. We Earthmen aren't made of money, in spite of what the rest of the galaxy seems to think. A hundred credits is standard, gush murmured. However, sir, there is one problem. Have you considered how you are going to communicate with your maid? Communicate? Are they mutes? No, but very few of these women speak Earth. A look of surprise flitted over the faces of the servants, vanishing as Her Royal Highness glared at them. Kendrick pursed thin lips. I was under the impression that the Earth language was mandatory on Uxine. Oh, it is. It is indeed, gudge said hastily. However, it is so hard to teach these backward peasants new ways. One of the backward peasants gave a loud sniff, which changed to a squeal as she was honored with a a pinch from the hand of royalty. But you will not betray us. We are making rapid advances, and before long we hope to make Earth universal. Of course we won't, peter put in before Kendrick had a chance to reply. What's more, I don't see why the Oxnians shouldn't be allowed to speak their own language. The princess gave him a dazzling smile. Mula hay, Oxen we must not allow the beautiful ugzhalk tongue to fall into desuetude. Bring back our lovely language. Gush gestured desperately. She tossed her head but stopped. Please, Kendrick, peter begged. We've got to buy that one. Certainly not. You can see she's a troublemaker. Do you speak Earth? The professor demanded of the maid he had chosen. No, speak, she replied. Peter tugged at his superior sleeve. That one speaks Earth. Kendrick shook him off. Do you speak Earth? He demanded of the second oldest and ugliest. She shook her head. The others went through the same procedure. It looks, peter said, grinning, as if we'll have to take mine. I suppose so, kendrick agreed gloomily. But somehow I feel no good will come of this. Zen wondered whether earthmen had powers of precognition. No one bid against them, so they took a two year lease on the crown princess for their very reasonable price of 100 credits and drove her home with them. Azimi gazed at the little prefab with disfavor. But why are we halting outside this glue hut, masters? Gusj cleared his throat. Sirs, I wish you joy. He made the secular za. Should you ever be in need again, do not hesitate to get in touch with me at the palace. And climbing into the he oh. He was off. The others entered the small dwelling. That little trip certainly gave me an appetite, kendrick said, rubbing his hands together. Azimi, you had better start lunch right away. This is the kitchen. Azimi gazed around the cubicle with disfavor. Truly it is not much, she observed. However, masters, and if you will leave me, I will endeavor to do my poor best. Let me show you, peter began, but Kendrick interrupted. Leave the girl alone, Hammond. She must be able to cook if she's a professional servant. We've wasted the whole morning as it is. Perhaps we can get something done before lunch. Azimi closed the door, got out her portable altar. All members of the royal family were qualified members of the prison priesthood, though they seldom practiced, and in a low voice, for the door and walls were thin, summoned Zen the All Capable. The God sighed as he materialized his head. I might have known you would require me. What is your will, O most fair? I have been ordered to prepare the stranger's midday repast, O puissant one, and I know not what to do with all this och. Which they assure me is their food. And she pointed scornfully to the cans and jars and packages. How should I know, then? Zen asked unguardedly. The princess looked at him. Surely Zen the All knowing Chess, Yes. Merely having my Bit of fun, you know. He hastily inspected the exterior of the alleged foods. There appear to be legends inscribed upon the containers. Perchance were we to read them, they might give a clue as to their contents. O Omniscient one, the princess exclaimed. Truly you are wise and sapient indeed, and it is I who is the fool to have doubted for so much as an instant. Oh, you doubted, did you? Terrible, Zen. Frank frowned terribly. Well, see that it doesn't happen again. He had no intention of losing his divine authority at this stage of the game. Your will is mine, all wise one, and I think you had best materialize a few pair of arms as well as your august and awe inspiring countenance, for there is much work to be done. Since the partitions were thin, Zen and the princess could hear most of the conversation in the main room.
- [493:47]
Event Host/Local Personality
Room.
- [493:48]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
First thing to do, kendrick's voice remarked, is to find out whether we're permitted to attend one of their religious ceremonies where Zen is said to manifest himself actually and not is contended just symbolically. The stove is right here, Almighty, the princess suggested. Not against the door where you are pressing your divine ear.
- [494:08]
Senator/Official
Shh.
- [494:09]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
What I hear is fraught with import for the future of the planet Mulaiaksan. Mulaiksen, the princess replied automatically. I wonder how hard it'll be to crash the services, kendrick went on. Most primitives don't like outsiders present at their ritual activities, especially if there are actual manifestations of their God, hammond contributed. That would mean the priests are up to some sort of trickery, and they wouldn't care to run the risk of having us see through. He was interrupted by a loud crash from the kitchen. Are you all right, Azimi? He yelled. Need any help? All is well, she called back. But I pray you do not enter Masters. The reverberation was part of a rite designed to deflect evil spirits from the food. Were a heretic to be present or interrupt the ceremonies, the spell would be voided and the food contaminated. Okay, peter returned, and in a lower tone, which he probably thought she could not overhear. Seems you were right. Naturally, there was complacency in the professor's voice. And now let us consider the validating features of the social structure as related to the mythos and of course the ethos where the two are, not coincidentally, of the Oxnians. Imagine, Zen complained in the kitchen, accusing me of being a mere trick of the priesthood. Supreme. Me Supreme Butterfingers, the princess snapped, irritation driving her to the point of sacrilege. You spilled that red stuff the she bent over to read the legend on the container, the ketchup all over the floor. The floor is relatively clean, zen murmured abstractedly. We can scoop up the substance and incorporate it in whatever dainty dish we prepare for the earthlings repast. Now they'll think that I, Zen the Accessible, am difficult to have audience with, he mourned. Whereas I was particularly anxious to hold converse with them and discover what quite quest brings them to oxen. That is, he added hastily, remembering he was omniscient, just how they would justify its rationale. Shall we get on with our culinary activities, Almighty One? Azimi asked coldly. If the most fair and exalted had a flaw, Zen thought it was a one track mind. What in hell did you put in this, Azimi? Kendrick demanded after one taste of the steaming casserole of food which she had set proudly before the two Earthmen. Ketchup, that's for sure, peter murmured, rolling a mouthful around his tongue as he sought to separate its component flavors. And rhubarb, I should say dried fish and garlic. Kendrick made further identifications and a comestible called marshmallow. Azimi beamed. You like it? I am so glad I do not. Kendrick began, but Peter intervened. It's very nice, Azimi, he said tactfully, but I guess we're just used to old run of the mill earth cooking. It's all our fault. We should have given you a recipe. I had a recipe, azimi returned. It came to me by divine inspiration. Kendrick compressed his lips. Useful sort of divinity they have around here, peter said. Everything that goes wrong seems to take place in the name of religion. Are you sure you didn't happen to overhear us talking before, Assimi? Don't be silly, Hammond, Kendrick snapped. These simple primitives do not have the sophistication to use their religious beliefs consciously as rationalization for their incompetence. Even had I wished to eavesdrop, azimi said haughtily, I would hardly have had the opportunity. I was too busy trying to prepare a palatable repast for you. And her voice broke. You didn't like it? Oh, I did like it, Azimi, peter protested. It's just that I'm allergic to rhubarb. Wait. She exclaimed, smiling again. For dessert, I have an especial surprise for you. She brought in a dish triumphantly. Is this not just how you have it on Earth? Stewed cigarettes with whipped cream, kendrick muttered. Stewed cigarettes? Where on ear on Uxen did you find them? In a large box with the other puddings, she beamed. Is it not highly succulent and flavorful? The two scientists sprang from their chairs and dashed into the kitchen. Azimi stared after them. When they returned, they looked much more cheerful. They seated themselves, and soon fragrant clouds of smoke began to curl toward the ceiling. They are calling me at last, Zen thought happily. And with such delightful incense. Who wants chance anyway? But what are you doing? The princess shrieked. Zen hastened to manifest himself, complete with 14 nostrils before she could spoil everything. The procedure is most unorthodox, he murmured aloud. But truly, this new incense has a most delicious aroma, extremely pleasing to my ego. What is your will, O strangers? O merciful Zen, the princess pleaded. Forgive them, for they knew not what they did. They did not mean to summon you. Then who? Asked Zen in a terrible voice. Is this wonderful smoke for some foreign God who they worship on my territory? And he wouldn't put it past them either. Peter looked at the anthropologist, but Kendrick was obviously too paralyzed with fright to speak. As a matter of fact, your omnipotence, the physicist said haltingly, this is not part of our religious ritual. We burn this particular kind of incense, which we call tobacco, for our own pleasure. In other words, zen said coldly, you worship yourselves. I work, enslave my godhood to the bone, only to have egotists running all over my planet. No, it's nothing like that at all, kendrick quavered. We smoke the tobacco to, well, gratify our appetites. Like. Like eating, you know. Well, you'll have to forego that pleasure, zen said, frowning terribly. Even the tall one cowered, he noted with appreciation. It had been a long time since people had really cringed. Before his frown, the Uxenakh had come to take him too much for granted. They would learn their mistake. From now on, he said portentously, the tobacco must be reserved for my use alone. Smoke it only for purposes of worship. Once a day will be sufficient, he added graciously, and perhaps twice on holy days. But we do not worship alien gods, Kendrick persisted in a shaky voice. Even if you were a God. Zen frowned. Would you care to step outside and test my divinity? Well, no, but then as far as you're concerned, I am divine. And let's have no more quibbling. Don't forget the tobacco once a day. About time I had a change from that law. Low grade incense. He vanished too late. He remembered that he had planned to ask the Earthlings why they had come to Uxen and to discuss a little business proposition with them. Oh, well. Time for that and his next materialization for them. And now that he had considered the matter, the direct approach might very well be a mistake. He hoped Azimi would make sure they burned him tobacco regularly. Really good stuff. Almost made godhood worthwhile. But then he felt that way about incense at first. No, he had other ideas for making divinity worthwhile, and Azimi was going to help him, even if she didn't know it. People had used him long enough. It was his turn to use them. In the kitchen, Azimi recalled Zen, and together they washed the dishes and listened to the scientists quarreling in the next room. You will note the use of incense as standard socio religious parallelism, Hammond. Men have appetites and must be gratified, and so they feel their supreme being must also eat. Only being a deity, he consumes aromas. Yes, peter said. You explained all that to him much more succinctly, though.
- [503:45]
Narrator/Announcer
Ha.
- [503:46]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
Well, have you any idea yet as to how the trick was worked? Worked? What do you mean? How they made that talking image appear. Clever device, I must say. Although the scomps of Aldeburn 3 didn't look like a trick to me. That's a fine young man, zen said, approach approvingly to Azimi. I like him. You really do? Most High, I am so glad. You don't mean you really believe the Zen is an actual living God? Kendrick spluttered. There was a silence. No, not a God, peter said finally. But not a human either. Perhaps another life form with attributes different from ours. After all, do we know who or what was on Oxen before it was colonized by Earth? T', Cha, Kendrick said. Azimi looked at Zen. Zen looked at Azimi. The concept of godhood varies from society to society, the divinity told the princess. Peter is not being sacrilegious, just manifesting a healthy skepticism. You're a credulous fool, kendrick said hotly to his assistant. I don't blame the secretary for demoting you. When we return to Earth, I shall recommend your transfer to refuse removal. You have no business at all in science. There was a sound of footsteps. Leaving my noxious company, Peter's voice asked tightly. I am going out to the nearest temple to have a chat with one of the priests. I can expect much more sensible answers from him than from you. The outside door slammed. Speaking of refuse removal, Almighty, Azimi said to Zen, would you teleport the remains of this miserable repass to the sacred garbage dump? And you need not return. I'll be able to handle the rest myself. Mulai Uxen, zen reminded her, and vanished with the garbage. But although the refuse was duly teleported. The unseen, impalpable presence of the God remained. The door to the kitchen opened and Hammond walked in, his face grim. Need any help, Azimi? He asked, not very graciously. Or should I say, your Royal Highness? Azimi dropped a plate, which fortunately was plastic. How did you know who I was? He sat down on a stool. Didn't you remember that your portrait hung in the great hall of the palace? Of course, she said, chagrined. A portrait of a servant would hardly be hung there. Not only that, but I asked whom it depicted. Do you think I wouldn't notice the picture of such a beautiful girl?
- [506:43]
Narrator/Announcer
Girl?
- [506:44]
Community Organizer/Spokesperson
But if you knew, then why did you? He grinned. I realized you were up to no good, and I have no especial interest in the success of Kendrick's project. Azimi carefully dried a dish. And what is his project? To investigate the mythos of the allegedly corporeal divinity and static primitive societies with a special reference to the God concept of Zen on Uxen. Is that all? All Zen thought Sounds like an excellent subject for research to me. Unfortunate that I cannot possibly let the study be completed as I am going to invalidate the available data very shortly. That's all, Azimi. And how is it Professor Kendrick did not recognize me from the picture? Oh, he never notices girls pictures. He's a complete idiot. You overheard us just now. When we get back to Earth, I'm going to be a garbage collector here on Uxen. Refuse removal is a divine prerogative, Azimi remarked. Or Zen, whatever he is, Peter said to himself. But a God being a God, he went on in a louder voice, can raise himself above the mortal sordid aspects of the job. As a mere human, I cannot. Azimi, I wonder if. He looked nervously at his watch. I hope Kendrick takes his time. He will not return soon, Azimi told him, putting away the dish towel. Not if he is determined to find a temple. Because there are no temples. Zen is a God of the hearth and home. Azimi, peter said, getting up and coming closer to her. Isn't there some way I can stay here on Uxen? Some job I can fill? You're the crown princess. You must have a drag with the civil service. He looked at her longingly. Oh, if only you weren't so far above me in rank. Listen, Peter. She caught his hands. If you were the royal physicist, our ranks would not be so far disparate. My distinguished father would make you a duke and princesses of often. She blushed. That is to say, dukes are considered quite eligible. Do you think I have a chance of becoming royal physicist? I am certain of it. She came very close to him. You could give us the atomic drive, design spaceships, weapons for us, couldn't you, darling? I could. He looked troubled. But it's one thing to become an extraterrestrial, another to betray my own world. Azimi put her arms around him. But oxen will be your world, Peter. As prince consort, you would no longer be concerned with the welfare of the Earthling. Yes, but. And where is their betrayal? We do not seek to conquer Earth or its colonies. All we want is to regain our own freedom. We are entitled to freedom, aren't we, Peter? He nodded slowly. I suppose so. Moolah Yaksin. She thrust a package of cigarettes into his hand. Let us summon the Almighty One to bless our betrothal. Peter obediently lit two cigarettes and gave one to her. Zen materialized his head. Blessings on you, my children, he said, sniffing ecstatically. And welcome, Holy Chief Physicist, to my service. Royal Chief Physicist, Azimi corrected. No, that is insufficient for his merits. Holy and sacrosanct Chief Physicist is what he will be, with the rank of prince. You will have the honour of serving Terrible Zen myself, Peter Hammond. Delighted, said the young man dubiously. You will construct robots that do housework, vehicles that carry refuse to the sacred garbage dump, vans that transport household goods, machines that lave dishes. Will do, peter said with obvious relief. And may I say your benignness that it will be a pleasure to serve you. But the atomic drive? Freedom, Azimi stammered. These will point the sure shorter way to the true freedom. My omni dynamism has stood in the way of your cultural advancement, as Professor Kendrick will undoubtedly be delighted to explain to you. But your omnipotence. Let us have no more discussion. I am your God and I know best. Yes, Supreme One, azimi said sullenly. You, Axanak, have kept me so busy for thousands of years. I've had no time for my divine meditations. I shall now withdraw myself from mundane affairs. The princess forgot disappointment in anxiety. You will not leave us, then? No, my child. I shall always be present, watching over my people, guiding them, ready to help them in case of emergency. But make sure I am not summoned, save in case of dire need. No more babysitting, mind you. Yes, Almighty One. The incense will continue to be offered to me daily by everyone who seeks my sacred ear. And make sure to import a large quantity of this tobacco from Earth for holy days and other occasions, he added casually. When you wish to be especially sure of incurring my divine favour. And I wish to be war worshipped in temples like other gods. Less chance of my being stuck with some unexpected household task. I shall manifest myself on Thursdays only, he concluded, gleefully struck by the consummate idea. Thursday will be my day to work and your holy day. All other days you will work, and I will indulge in divine meditation. I have spoken. And he withdrew all aspects of his personality to his retreat, to wallow in the luxury of six days off per week. Naturally, to make sure the Axanach kept the incense up to scratch, he would perform a small miracle now and then to show he was still omnipresent. Being a God, he thought as he made himself more comfortable, was not a bad thing at all. One merely needed to learn how to go about it in the right way. End of Princess and the Physicist by Evelyn E. Smith Read by Paul Hampton.
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Commercial Announcer
In the Jag Whiffing Service by David R. Bunch this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Read by Christine Rutger in the Jag Whiffing Service by David R. Bunch I had always said there was an easier way, and I think when we invade I'll be proved right. But you know how things get started and how powerful tradition can be and how old line thinking can keep people even a whole planet in a rut. The big cargo saucers were getting bigger and bigger each year, what with the growing popularity of the Jag width places, and the Jag width places themselves were growing in number with more and more people going on the Jag because, well, partly because of troubles in the sky, like strange balls whirling around and unexplainable objects going beep and woof and woof woof. We of the saucers had slipped past these first baby objects, okay, and knew they were just like little old harmless ping pongs that chattered a little now and then like a greeting going past. But tell the people that they'd throw a big glass on one of the whirlers and see spikes sticking out and maybe a big pair of eyes inside and a nose and a long red tongue hanging down the earth. Tits. They'd scream like they'd just fallen into one of the hot canals and they'd race off to a Jag whiff Jag like Judgment Day of Sins itself was after them. And the funny part of it is, I guess the people were right. Being scared like that, the way things turned out. But is it any wonder we were having to increase the size of the saucers to space haul all that Jag wff up through the rattle balls. And a big rattle reason makes me think it could have been done more efficiently. We were having to take so much junk stuff, extra accessories I guess you'd call it, to get the Jag whiff. Our Earth IT contacts were always giving us the old breeze about cost of labor, cost of materials, improvement in design and next year's inventories. Apparently the dealers didn't understand at all what the play was with us, because they'd give us so much blab blab that didn't apply, all about futuristic design and about how one Jag wifer machine had it all over another Jag wifer machine, which to us didn't mean a thing. And we didn't talk because we'd heard already how some Earthits feared the saucers and how some other Earth it said they didn't exist at all, and how some other Earthits were on the fence saying maybe they did and maybe they didn't.
- [517:15]
Reporter/Interviewer
So what?
- [517:16]
Commercial Announcer
And how there was a wide fear and great unrest among the Earthits in general. And when it's like that and you're a possible source for the wide fear and unrest, the whole planet full of people can easily decide they don't want any part of control contributing to your pleasure. And that's what the Jag wiff was to us, actually pleasure. Back home, when our troubles had us down, or maybe we just felt like raising a little dust, we'd go to a Jag Wiff place. We'd plunk down our pay pictures and the whiff tender would wheel out one of those black rings which they have to keep under special pressures in our climate. Then he'd screw on the tube with the face piece and we'd take our whiff and something out of the black ring just seemed like real thick chest filler to me, would spread all through the farthest reaches of our breath bags and go into our blood. And suddenly all five of our eye sticks would start whirling and focusing and zeroing in for Danes. And our arms and legs, legs would start a kick and a slap dance enough to shake the planet down. And when our face spines and head tubes would go into that special sharp buzz of contentment, we'd know we were on our Jag, full and warm and happy with as much pleasure as any Martian is ever supposed to know. But we never revealed the play to our Earth. It Contacts. We just slipped in at night in our noiseless saucers with all lights dimmed, cleared our cargo tubes of the tons of pay picture. We brought green copy of the Earth its currency, and took on as many of the gleaming jagwifer machines as our cargo tubes would hold. But it is 10 years now since a Jaguar captain has steered his saucer through the whirling balls. And it got so the satellites would drum on the saucer from a long way out. Deafening, dreadful. We saw what was coming and we
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Commercial Voice
tried to beat it.
- [519:27]
Commercial Announcer
We saucered around the clock for a while, trying to stockpile enough jagwift to last us. But of course we couldn't. We are about out of it now, and our land is strewn with the glittery shells that were white once attached to the black tubes of the Jagwiff. And it could all have been done so different. I'm sure it could. That stuff wasn't just in the tubes of the Jag Wifer machines down there. I'm convinced of that. That stuff may have been all around us down there. I believe it was. But our government would insist we get into these suits about so far, far out, you see, about the time we'd start contacting the rattle balls. And they threatened us with removal of the contacts if we broke the rules about the suits. In addition to that, they said we'd die anyway. So you see how life can be grim and fuzzy and unsafe most of the time. And to make things even more uncertain, just because they couldn't duplicate the product with were hauling, our scientists got uppity and ignored the whole problem, except to run off to the Jag wff places, of course, to ease their frustrations, which they did plenty often when they thought they wouldn't be seen. But when we invade down through there, which we plan to do soon now with our special equipment to catch and explode the whirly balls, I think think we're going to find out plenty. Among other things, I think we're going to find out that the stuff we cargoed up here at such great cost that was so inefficiently packaged is all around us down there. I think when we take over down there with the right filtering equipment, Jag whiffing may become as common and economical as breathing. And another thing I think we're going to find out we were taken for quite a ride by the Earth. It's with their silly way of packaging Jagwiff. Imagine having to buy all that chrome and steel, guaranteed to go over 100 miles per hour just to get four little black rings of whiff. And for all the earth it's talked about it, the rings with the white sidewalls didn't work. Whiff one bit better than the others. End of in the Jag whiffing Service by David R. Bunch.
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Event Host/Local Personality
The Band Played on by C. Shook 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 Matt first the band played on by C. Shook I'm playing trombone in a little five piece combo at Benny's Bar and Grill when it happens. At the time we're slightly enlarged by the presence of four of Bill Gundry's boys who are working out of the park that have dropped by to sit in after they've finished. We also have President Eddie Smith and Mart Allen who are clarinet Trumpet from the Pines. Benny's is the local hangout for all musicians in town, which is the main reason I'm playing there one night. Whiteman himself shows when his band's working a theater job at the Palace. During the early part of the night we play our own arrangements off the paper, but after about one o' clock we're liable to be jamming with any of the boys who can find seats. Like this night I'm telling you about. When I first notice it, we're giving out on the Jasmine Blues, which is a fine ensemble number, and we're hitting it in a fast Dixieland. I'm ragging the beat, I can feel the old slush pump tremble, but I figure it's because I'm really solid at the moment and I keep on sending. Well, we clean up the Jazzmith and I'm still hot, so I hit right on the Be Natural for Stardust with the boys jumping in and we take it slow and mellow through one chorus together. Then I stand up for a solo on the second and that's when it happens. I don't know exactly what takes place, but I'm riding. As I reach out for a high one that's really out of the world, I feel the pump tremble again. Then what happens is that I am really out of the world. I mean I'm actually out of the world. The vibrations from the trombone shoot right up my arms and my whole body is shaking. I can't stop it. The lights fade away and I'm trembling so I can't even hear the music. Then I'm not shaking anymore, but Benny's is not there and I'm not there and it's daylight, which is really crazy because it's only 2am I'm still kind of weak as I look around, and then I'm weaker still. The least thing I figured was that I had a spasm or something and was in a hospital and it was the next day. But when I look around again, I know this is no hospital. I'm lying on a big flat rock and I'm dressed just as I was at Benny's. I even have my slip horn beside me. But the thing that gives me the jumps is the grass. It's all purple and the trees and everything around have purple leaves when they should be green. I look at my coat. It's a light blue. My pants are black. My skin is white. Then I look at the grass beside me and I reach out and pick a handful. It's plenty purple all right. And I'm thinking as I look at it there in my hand. There is no place in the world where the trees and plants are purple. No place in the world. I know I'm not asleep, but tell myself whenever you read about anything like this happening, the hero always thinks he's asleep at first. Then pinches himself to find out whether he is or not. So I reach over for my slush pump and give it a good blast. I hear it all right, just to make sure. I do pinch myself slightly, but it's no soap. I am here and the grass is still purple. I get up off the rock and walk about. When I stand up, I find that I'm in a large meadow with nothing more in sight than the rocks here and there, a few trees. The purple grass is nearly knee high. There's no sense in staying where I am. So I pick up my trombone and begin hiking. After I've walked a couple of miles maybe, I come to a river. I'm not surprised to find that the water is a deep yellow. Nothing will surprise me now. There must be some settlement along this river if there's anyone living around here, I figure. So I follow along the way. The water is flowing three or four hours. I tramp, and this is something I am not used to. My feet are getting plenty beat and I take up the old bleeder and try the Stars and Stripes Forever, the only march I can think of. This helps me stumble along in a 24 time for a while, but it uses up what wind I have left. Pretty soon I'm forced to sit down and rest. Well, I guess I doze off while I'm resting, but When I come out of it, I find myself tied up tighter than a drum, and there in front of me are four men or animals or something, examining my trombone. Hey, I say. At that they turn around and stare at me, and I stare even harder at them. Then I burst out laughing, for they look like four grown up Donald ducks. They have duck bills for mouths and their feet are webbed, but they have arms instead of wings. Their bodies are covered with feathers, except for their heads, which have a greenish skin and would be almost human if it weren't for those bills and the green color. They begin to gab among themselves, and I'm surprised because I'm expecting to hear them quack like ducks. Their voices are low pitched and they talk way down in their throats, something like German. Although I don't understand it, I know it isn't. They're talking about me, I can tell. And finally one of them comes over and unties my feet and legs, but he leaves my arms fastened. He motions for me to get up. I do, and we start down the river with one of them carrying my slip horn and walking beside me, the others floating on the water like their barnyard relatives. This is the way we come to their town. It's only a short distance before the river widens considerably and I can see that it's dotted with little islands. The three men who are swimming come closer to shore and they walk with the the one guarding me pointing out at one of the islands as they speak. I gather that they don't know how to take me out there. One of them gestures at the water and then at me, but I shake my head no. They gab some more. Finally one of them hops into the water and swims to the nearest island. He's back in a Flash with about 10 other Duckmen, who immediately begin gabbing excitedly. As soon as they see me, the one holding my trombone says something to them and they shut up and get back into the water. They push me to the edge of the bank. Then one of them takes hold of my legs and pulls me into the river on his back. He almost sinks before the others can grab me too, and help him out. And even at that they're as far down as low e on the doghouse when they start out for the large island almost in the center of the river. This must be their main village, I figure, and it turns out that I'm right. Once we get to the village, they untie my arms and hand me my horn. I guess they figure I can't get off the island now. Well, I don't know what I'm in for, but whatever it is, it's postponed for a while because they take me to a small hut and leave me. There's nothing in the hut except a pile of pale purple straw in one of the corners. But I don't need anything else. I'm plenty weary and I flop on the straw and I'm asleep in a minute. When I wake up again, it's morning. I get up and walk to the door and there are four or five of the duck men standing nearby. They see me come out and they smile, but when I start to move about they point back into the hut and so I go back in and sit down. I'm still sitting there when some others come in with some trays of food. These are a lot lighter green in the front faces, and I guess they must be the women of the race. They have a lot of stuff that looks like purple lettuce and different vegetable looking things on the trays, and they act as if I'm to eat them after I taste them, they're not so bad. I even drink a cup of the yellow water. It's not so bad either, only sweeter than I would want ordinarily. Once I finished, I go back outside. Right in front of the door is the duck man which carried my slush compost the walk yesterday, and when he sees me, he smiles. He comes over and hits me on the back with his hand. I do the same to him and he smiles wider. This means we're friends, I figure, like shaking hands, so I smile too. He motions for me to come with him. Some of the others come with us and we walk all around the village, which is not so large. My friend seems to be the head man. He walks with me and the rest stay a little behind. I'm being treated like I have the keys to the city. All around are the small huts like the one I slept in. There isn't much else to the town except for a couple of larger buildings which are made of the same purple wood the huts are made of. I figure that if three people occupy each hut, there are maybe 600 altogether in the town. There's some other villages on the islands I can see, but they're not so large. After we've toured for an hour or two, the chief takes me to one of the large buildings. We go inside City Hall, I think, and sure enough we go right to the mayor's office, which is a little room partitioned off from the rest. There are A couple of stools or something there, and the Mayor hops up on one with his thin legs underneath him. I sit on the other. He smiles and I smile and I think, this is getting pretty dull and maybe it would be better if they weren't so friendly because anyway, I would have some action. I think I'll get away and go over and try a few numbers on the horn. Finally, after we sit there smiling for some time, he points to himself. Oh, Gru. He says his name, so I hit myself on the chest and I tell him my name. Then he walks around the room and points to the stools and the table and the walls. He says words at each one. He's trying to teach me their language, so I repeat each one after him. We play this little game for a while, then we have food brought in. While we're eating, Augru is telling me the name of what I'm chewing and it doesn't taste nearly as good as it did when I knew it was plain food. Only when we finish eating, Ogrew gets up and takes me back to our hut. I'm supposed to stay there. I see. Anyway, I think I will get out a few riffs just to keep in practice, so I go inside for my slush pump. It isn't there. This is why so and so was keeping me away all the time he did. I say to myself, I'm plenty burned up, but there's nothing I can do. When Augur shows up the next morning, I try to tell him about it, but he pretends not to understand. Instead, we go through the same routine as the day before, only we eat in another room and he shows me some new words. Well, the horn doesn't show up, and I can tell my lip is slipping out of shape. It's now three weeks since I got into this place and I have nothing different. I'm able to talk to the Duckman, though, and I will say for Augru that he's a good teacher, since I am never more than a poor C in languages when I'm in school. Then one day, Augru says to me, Mac, I'm happy to tell you we have located the object which you call a trombone. One of the men took it and has had it hidden. He feared it was a thing of evil power. I assured him it was not, though I was not sure myself. I hope I was correct. A Gru, old boy, I tell him, the trombone is simply a thing of good power, as I will show you, if you'll produce it. It's a thing of music, my mag says. Agru, why did you not say this before? We have music too. It's our great pride. Now, during the time the mayor has been educating me, there's one of the large buildings which I've never been in. I've asked Andrew about this, but he's always said they were saving it as a surprise for me. But now he gets up and starts out the door. You will know of the surprise at last, he says, and he leads me to the big barn, which has always been closed. Well, you can hang me for a long here when we get inside, for there are about 200 of the duck people shuffling around like a flock of jitterbugs and 10 or 12 players giving out on some corny rhythm on a raised platform for a bandstand. They have about three fourths, percussion mainly Tom Tom like drums, but there are a few gut buckets of some kind which they do not appear to play for nothing. A Gru looks at me. Is it not magnificent? He says. Well, I say it's all right, but where I come from it's done in a slightly different manner. I shall be happy to show you if you'll kindly produce my horn. I can hardly wait to lay my lip into a solid beat the more I listen to these ickies peeling it off the cob. And when one of them finally brings in old Susie, I kiss her lovingly. She is in fine shape. Old Augur stops the noise. He makes an announcement, and everything is quiet as I step up with my slush pump. It's like Goodman at Carnegie Hall. Everybody crowds around as I give out with the Royal Garden Blues. I see I have them overcome and I begin to send softly as I hear one of the boys pick up the beat in the background. He's not so awful at that. After I've taken two choruses, one of the gut buckets has picked up the melody and I dub in the harmony for him. The crowd is beginning to sway slightly and when I slide into Rose Room, pretty soon they're on the jump and it's worse than a bunch of alligators at a Krupa concert. All in all, it is a very successful performance indeed. By the time I finish, I see I have first chair cinched and the crowd's eating out of my hand. This is by no means the last performance of I give. I soon have the Duckman in the band playing the best jive they can give out with, but it's rather sorry. Without any reeds and only one brass, they are entirely unable to play wind instruments, though, so I'm forced to make the best of it. We play for three or four hours, and when old Augur and I finally leave the hall, I'm cheered all down the line. I'm really terrific, Mac Bagru tells me when we're outside. You are wonderful. We appreciate music, and in fact it is the biggest thing in our lives here. But you are lucky that we are the ones that found you on your arrival, not the animal men from the woods. They are very ignorant, and your trombone would have meant nothing to them. Well, this is the first time I've heard about those animal men, and I figure maybe they're a little closer to see civilization than Auguru thinks. I ask him about them. They are our enemies, he says, and are much stronger than we are. They control all the land surrounding us, but on the water we have the best of them, and they never try to attack us here. However, we must venture into the forest sometimes, and then we're in constant danger. Many of us are killed or captured each other year. I think no more about this, however, and I spend my time playing for the concerts they have every day. I'm very popular with one and all, but a few weeks afterwards, Andrew asks me to join one of their expeditions into the forest. We have to gather our monthly food crop, he says, and everyone in the community has to do his share. And as you are now one of us, it's only fitting that you come along. Well, of course. I clap Augru on the back and I tell them I'll be very pleased to go, and in fact, I'm not worried much about their enemies, because I'm a good hundred pounds heavier than any of the Duckmen, and I figure I'll be plenty for those animal people to handle. As it turns out, I'm right in this respect. But I hit one bad note which almost costs me my life, and very possibly does so for my friends. There are about 20 of us that start out. Each one is carrying two large baskets made out of purple reeds, which grow in the swampy lowlands of the islands. Before we begin, I tell Agru that I'll swim over if he'll carry my baskets, but he does not understand what I mean until I dive into the river and demonstrate. This exhibition is a great surprise to everyone, as they've never seen anything like it before. When I've climbed out on the other bank, the rest of the party jumps in and floats over rapidly. Then we begin walking toward the deep purple forest. We hustle around all morning and there's no trouble. What we're gathering is some kind of mushroom that grows in front of the trees and we're looking for certain vegetables which have to have the shade to amount to anything. It's in the afternoon, shortly before we're ready to depart, that one of the men who's acting as a lookout gives the alarm. There's a group of animal men hunting in the woods and they've spotted us. I'm curious to see how these men appear and I hang back some while the others run as fast as they can on their webbed feet toward the river. They're luckily near the water for they can never out distance, these land people. Well, I know I can catch up, so as I say, I wait a couple of seconds. But when I have a gander at our enemies, I'm off faster than than a 64th beat and none too soon. As a matter of fact, it's a wonder that I'm able to run at all. For what I see charging at me is about 10 big two headed monsters running on four legs, sometimes, sometimes on two. They're not quite as large as a man when they stand up, but they are enough to send me heading for the river. I dive in just before they get there and I'm churning the water like the Queen Mary when I hit the island. Then I look around to see what's happened. The monsters are lined up at the edge of the river watching us, but they do not try to cross over. They're pointing at me and acting excited and Augru laughs. They've never seen anything like you, he says. But we are safe now, for they cannot, what do you call it, Swim. I say that is very lucky indeed as they are remarkably tough up here.
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Senator/Official
Babies.
- [539:59]
Event Host/Local Personality
But we do not bother any more with them and pretty soon they've disappeared into the forest. It's over a week later that I realize what a bad note I hit and what it's going to do to us. I'm sitting on a rock near the island's edge this morning, trying to work a little oil out of some plants that I've found. I wish to apply some of this to my slip horn as the action's getting somewhat gummy and I've neglected to bring any of those necessities with me when I ride out of Benny's. While I'm doing this, I see some of the animal men come out of the forest and start toward the river. This is odd since I'm told they never do this. They do not see me, so I Stay where I am. And I see two of them talking and arguing with the others. These two seem to have some idea, and the rest are telling them no, shaking all their heads to do it. It must be a real argument, I think, with two mouths to speak with at the same time. I wonder if one of these animals could get two part harmony with a pair of trumpets. But then I recall they are strictly icky. So old Augru has explained to me. So I watch them some more, and pretty soon the two who are talking most jump right into the river and begin to throw their legs up and down and flail their arms. And they are soon moving across the water just as if they could swim. In fact, they are swimming, and this excites me greatly, since Ogg Gru has said they could not do this. I get up quick and begin to hunt Ogg Gru, and luckily I find him right away. I tell him what's taking place, and he's also greatly excited. I'm afraid we've done it now, Mac, he says as we run back to where I saw the animal men. These creatures are highly imitative. It's the only way they seem to gain any new skill. And they must have been thinking over what they saw when they watched you swim away from them last week. By the time he's told me this, we're back where I've left my trombone and are just in time to see the last of the group jump into the river. They're able to make the nearest island, which has a small village of about maybe 50 people. Well, I do not like this part of my story much. Knockoff, cut it short. What happens is that the animal men wipe out that little village in 10 minutes, and right before our eyes. The animals are extremely happy. And we see them grinning with their ugly double faces as they return to shore. Quick, says Agru, we have only a little time. They'll bring the rest of their tribe immediately and attack all the rest of our islands. We must hide. I grab my horn. We hurry to notify our own village, but we are stopped. There's no place to go. Then we hear the menacing roar of the animal men. As we run, they can be seen jumping into the river one by one. There are hundreds of them. I turn resignedly to Augru. I start to tell him that we must get something to defend ourselves with. But the people are so paralyzed with fear that I know we can never do it. Then, before I can say anything, I see the villagers coming slowly toward Agru and me. They seem very angry Indeed. Agru speaks hurriedly. They're after you, Mac. You're the one that showed the animal men how to swim, and they're after you. In the state they're in, you will probably be killed. I'll try to reason with them, but it's almost certain to be useless, or they might even be after me. I've been your sponsor. He slaps me on the back and then starts toward his people. I do not know what to do. I can see a detachment of the animal people not more than a hundred yards offshore, and the duckmen are moving angrily toward me and not much further away I see them push Agru aside as he begins to say something to them. I move my trombone nervously and suddenly I see my only chance. I'm shaking before I start, but I fit the mouth piece to my lip and begin to blow. I take a fast scale and I hit the B natural for Stardust, at least an octave higher than it's ever been played before. I got to ride high and fast. Well, I close my eyes and I'm shaking so that I hardly notice the vibrations of the horn begin, but when I reach the E in the third measure, I know I'm feeling what I felt in Benny's, so I keep pushing it. The last I remember I'm trying to reach the high C, closing. That is when I pass out. When I come to this time I'm almost afraid to open my eyes. My ears are still buzzing and I'm just beginning to realize weakly what's happened when I hear voices around me which are not part of the score, that they are speaking in English. I open my eyes then and look around. I find that I'm surrounded by a crowd of people who are saying to one another to give him air, take it easy. And I perceive that I'm on a city sidewalk, and in fact, as I look up I see it somewhere on 52nd Street. A perfect landing for a tailgate artist, I think as I sit up. When the crowd sees me do this, they move in even closer, all the time telling one another to give me air. But finally one of them claims that he's a doctor and he helps me up and I go with him and another man in uniform, who's probably a policeman. They tell me they're taking me to a hospital. I don't remember much after that. When I wake up again, I am in a hospital. A doctor has hold of my wrist and when he sees me open my eyes he says, how are you feeling now? I tell him, okay. Well, he says, you seem to have had quite a shock. Perhaps you don't want to discuss it now, but your manner of dress and this instrument which you've brought with you have excited my curiosity no little. I see that my trombone is on the table near him. Why, no, I do not mind telling you, I say, though you might find it hard to believe what I've gone through. But first, where am I? What month is it? The doctor lets go of my wrist. You're in New York, he says, and it's September of the year 2506. Just a minute, I say. I must misunderstand you. I thought you said the year was 2507. That's what I did say, says the doc, but that cannot be true. I tell him. Why, I was born in 1914. It's not possible for me to be living at such a period in history. He picks up my wrist again. You are a little excited, he says, and I think you'd better get a bit more. More rest. Then we can talk this thing over. Later. I see him say something to the nurse who's standing in the doorway all this time, and she nods as he goes out. I start to call to him, but I figure it's of no use, so I go back to sleep. The second time I wake up, the doc's back and he has four other men with him. They're sitting in chairs around the room and watching me. As soon as they see I'm awake, they come over to my bed. These men are very much interested in your case, the doctor tells me. I've been telling them about your statement and the strange circumstances attending your appearance on 52nd street today. Now, I feel that you've had enough rest and I want you to tell them the entire story. Well, I know they will figure I'm off the beat, but I start at the beginning and I relate the whole story anyway. They do not say a word until I've finished. Then they look at each other and have a whispered session on the other side of the room. Finally, one of them speaks up. Mr. McCrae, he says. We want to question you a little further, if you don't mind. Will you please put on your clothes and come with us? I do like to say, since there's nothing else for me to do, and when I'm dressed they take me down the hall to a big light room which is practically all glass, and they ask me to sit down at a large table. Now, Mr. McRae, the first doc, says, I want you to do something for me. He hands me 10 little blocks of different sizes, and informs me that I'm to place them in the proper holes on the board which he has ready for just that purpose. I do as he asks. These seem to surprise him. But he's all set with yet another test, and I spend the rest of the afternoon playing these little games until I'm pretty weary of it, and I say so to him. Well, he says, as you likely know, we've been trying to determine your sanity, and I will say you have demonstrated yourself to be entirely normal. That's fine, I say, but now that we have decided that, will someone kindly tell me what is this business about 2507 and what's been happening to me anyhow? Another of the doctors answers me. There seems to be only one other explanation, he says, one which we're reluctant to accept, but which we must consider if your story is true. You have been in a fourth dimension. The passage of time. There is something that we know nothing of, and it's possible that the few months you spent in it were equivalent to the centuries which have passed in this dimension. You apparently have evolved a unique and purely personal method for entering and leaving the fourth dimension, and since it seems entirely dependent upon your own physical skill, together with a large element of chance, it's of little value for scientific exploitation. That is the pity. While he's giving out this statement, the rest of the doctors grow very excited, and as soon as he's finished, they begin throwing questions at him about curvature of space, Nielsen's theory, and a lot of other stuff which is very confusing to me. Indeed. Finally, I stopped them. If you will kindly return my trombone. I tell them I'll be on my way, as I do not know anything of all this and I'd like to get out and see what it's like in 2507 AD. Of course, of course, says the first doctor, who's the one who brought me to the hospital. It's very thoughtless of us. I shall get your instrument and you can come home with me until you're able to adjust yourself to our way of living. Living. It will be a great pleasure to show you what we have accomplished in the time since you can remember. Though I must say that none of us has done what you've done. He laughs a little at that, and I figure he's a nice guy, so I'll be happy to accept his offer. I go home with him. He introduces me to his wife, who's a very nice appearing female. He tells her all about me, and he keeps Saying how remarkable it is all the time. It's the next morning when I come down to breakfast that I meet the doctor's daughter, who is a very lovely little number of about 20. And I see that my stay is going to be a very pleasant one indeed. She says, dad has been telling me all about you, Mr. McCrea, and I'm going to see to it that you really see the New York of 2507. He wants to drag you to a lot of stuffy old lectures and scientific conventions and exhibit you like a freak. But I'm taking charge today. I remark, that'll be fine. Well, we start right out, and it's amazing what's been done in my absence. Ann, this is the little number's name, tells me about the change in one thing and another. And they're now taking vacations on Venus and Mars, and it's merely a matter of a couple of hours to get to San Francisco or London. Of course, this is all very interesting, but I'm interested in what they're doing in the musical line. I tell Anne this. We are in luck, she says, for there's a concert tonight up in Albany, and you'll be able to hear the finest music there. I do not wish to hear the long hairs play. I tell her, let's go down along 52nd street, listen to a little barrel house. That's my racket. There is no musical organization on 52nd Street, Ann says. We do all, all our listening and looking at concerts like this one in Albany, and it's the only sort of music we have by this time we're home. So I ask Ann if she would like to hear how we played it back in the 20th century. She replies that she would, but not to let her father, the doc, know about it because he's something of a bug on the modern music and considers the old style quite degenerate. I laugh at this. What he means by the old style is probably something I've never heard. You must remember that I'm almost 600 years old, so my style is practically antique. Why, your father did not even know that my horn was a musical instrument until I told him my story. And it's indeed a shame there are not a few old beiderback platters around so you can hear what you've been missing. Well, I've not played the old slush pump since I escaped from the fourth dimension, so I'm careful when I pick it up. But after I've tried a few runs, I say I'm all set. Ann is very curious, and she makes me tell her how it works, as it seems they use instruments altogether different in these concerts we're going to. I explain how the wind goes around and all, and then I move into I'm getting sentimental over you. I'm very mellow, and T. Dorsey couldn't have sounded any better. In the little concert that I give, Ann is very overcome. It is beautiful, she says when I finished. Are there words to it? I tell her there are, but that I don't know them. So she hums softly as I take another chorus. She has a lovely voice, and I say that tomorrow I'll write down the words to some other numbers and let her practice them with me. When the Doctor hears that we're going to the concert that evening, he says he wishes to come along. We get to Albany in about five minutes, so fast that I see nothing in the journey. Once we have left the New York airport where the Doc keeps his plane, and we enter the auditorium in perfect time. As we go in, I'm very surprised to see everyone staring at me since I've borrowed one of the Doctor's suits for the occasion and look just like anyone else. Then everyone stands and begins to cheering me until I'm very embarrassed indeed. I look at Anne and the Doctor. They're both smiling. You know now that you've become a celebrity, whispers Ann. We didn't want to let you know right away, but the papers have been full of your story. So I smile and bow to the crowd, which keeps on clapping. It's very pleasing. Finally, however, the noise stops and the curtain raises. There are on stage about 30 or 40 musicians. Behind them is a large screen, like in a moving picture house. Also, there are a lot of electric cords in sight, and I cannot figure what they're for until I notice that each instrument is wired like an electric guitar. When the conductor comes on, everybody claps a little more and then he turns to the orchestra. What I hear after that is something I never expect to hear in my life. All those electric instruments begin to vibrate, and on the screen behind them, all sorts of shapes and colors begin to flash and then disappear. This keeps up as long as the number lasts. You are now seeing music as well as hearing it, the Doctor tells me. I never saw any like that before, I say. All the music I've ever seen has been the regular dot variety. Do the men play from those flashes? Why, no. The Doc smiles. Those cymbals that you see are the result of the electric impulse as the musician strikes certain notes on their instruments they're never the same, and to me they're vastly intriguing. Strictly, it was lousy. Oh, I say. The following day Ann informs me they were going on a picnic and asks me will I please bring my trombone along and teach her a few songs. About 11 o' clock we get in Ann's plane and in no time we're down in Virginia in a nice little spot by a small stream. I often come down here, Ann says it's one of the best places I know. There's something that seems awfully strange to me, and I finally realized that it's the green grass of the meadow and the trees. After the icky purple that I've been used to for the past few months. I tell Ann about this and how beautiful the green looks, but I add that it's still not as lovely as she is. She says, that's very nice. Then as I stand up from spreading the picnic cloth, she is standing beside me, so I put my arms around her and then I'm kissing her and she's kissing me and it's very pleasant indeed. I see that this is much better than any fourth dimension. Finally we get around to eating the lunch Anna's brought, and I keep saying how lovely she is, which I also mean, and she's saying I'm pretty fine, too. And we pass some little time like this. But after a while Ann says, Mac, will you play for me now? I love to hear you. So I say I will if she will sing. And I give her the words to the St. Louis Blues, which I've written out. I hit it soft and easy for one chorus to give her the melody, and then she takes the beat. Well, I've not realized it before, but her voice is plenty schmaltz and it's a shame she's not living in my time, for she'd be a cinch to panic them anywhere. After that she does the Memphis Blues also, and she has me riding beautifully to keep her up there. She is wonderful. You're the one who's wonderful, she says. I've never heard music like you can get out of that trombone. Play something else, darling, won't you? I slip into if I could shimmy like my sister Kate, and as I play, Ann moves over beside me. Lovely, she whispers. With that I'm really carried away, and I hear her humming softly as I modulate into T for Two. I'm giving it a real ride and then I feel it coming over me again. I'm in a panic. I try to stop playing but I can't. My body is vibrating something terrible. I dimly hear Ann crying Mag.
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Reporter/Interviewer
Mag.
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Event Host/Local Personality
As I sink off. This is the last I can remember. When I come out of it this time someone's pounding me on the back, and I say hopefully, but I know inside it'll be useless. Beautiful going, Mac. Beautiful. Someone is saying. What? I asked blankly. That Stardust Boy, you were really out of the world on that one. Then I open my eyes and look up. It's Ernie Martin, our sax player, who has the chair next to me in Benny's. I look around. I'm back in Benny's. As I put down my slip form, there's a scattering of applause from the tables. Someone shouts at me. I close my eyes but the noise is still there. I keep my eyes closed. Then I hear music. Ernie is hitting me with his elbow. Get in, he says. I hear the boys beating out Rosetta. Take it up, says Ernie. Get hep, kid. Me, I says, sort of foggy like. Oh no, not me. Leastways not tonight. I pick up old Susie and walk out the door. I wonder if maybe there's such a thing as being too hep. End of the Band Played on by C. Shook.
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Narrator/Announcer
Riders in the sky by Mark R. Schorer and August W. Derleth From Weird Tales, May 1928 this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Read by Dale Grothpe A Tale of Pagan Riders in the sky by Mark R. Schorer and August W. Derleth the following manuscript was found in the temple of the moon God Sin in the ancient city of Ur on the Lower Euphrates by a searching party sent out to discover traces of the vanished expedition of Dr. James Marlow. It is obviously the diary of Dr. Fenton, Dr. Marlow's assistant on the expedition. August 17th we arrived here today, but without our native helpers. Curiously enough, they refused to accompany us to the site of Ur. We are rather at a loss without them, and our excavations must consequently be limited. We will, however, go ahead with the work. August 27th we have started excavation upon a mound beneath which we hope to find the ancient Temple of Sin, the moon God, whose chief shrine, Rawlingson says, was at Ur, the city being under the special protection of the moon God. September 11 Dr. Marlowe has been unable to get native aid from the surrounding region. For some reason they fear this place. October 7th we have at last uncovered the Temple of Sin and have cleared Quite a space before the temple. All indications point to the reign of Chedeleomer of the Elamitic dynasty, who reigned at Ur in 1976 BC during the greatest power of the ancient Chaldean kingdom of Ur. The temple is characteristic of those found in Borsip and Cala, but infinitely larger. The crescent symbol of Sin, and the eight ray disk symbol of AI, the moon goddess who presides over life, are present side by side on the high altar. There is a huge overturned table before the altar, which we have every reason to believe is a sacrificial table. Tomorrow we shall attempt to raise it. October 8th. Some of our expedition were playing a practical joke on us last night. This morning the sacrificial table was set up. So were a number of images of I and Sin. The table seemed particularly weighty to us, and it must have taken much effort to set it upright. Our men consistently deny any hand in the raising of the table, but it is ridiculous to do so. Dr. Marlow insists on an admission of participation in the affair, but I fear he is doomed to disappointment. It strikes me most peculiar that the men hold to their view. Surely the table did not lift itself as they would have us believe. October 9th. There is a strong current of unrest among the men. It must be the affair of the sacrificial table that is so, stirring them up. So far, no one has admitted a hand in the matter. Later, Dr. Marlow is furious. Someone has been at work in the temple and has uncovered a treasure beneath the altar. It consists mainly of sacrificial vessels of silver, copper, bronze and beaten gold, very similar to those discovered at Mycena by Dr. Schliemann. This discovery has spread among the men, and Dr. Marlow suspects the existence of a conspiracy to get hold of the treasure. I am prone to agree with him, for there is no telling what men will do in practical isolation such as this. It would be comparatively easy to escape with the treasure to the Euphrates, which lies not far from here. However, I do not believe that there is any imminent danger. October 10th. Our men threatened to leave us to day. No mention was made of the treasure of sin, but there is a strong complaint of the sacrificial table affair and of another matter which the men claim has bothered them since the excavating of the table was finished. It concerns strange noises in the night, of which the men show an almost superstitious fear. They insist that they have heard noises as of riders in the dark, a great army. They say. This is strange. Personally, I give it no credence. But Dr. Marlow is struck by it. There is no road within hearing distance, and when I told the men so, they said that the noises did not come from afar, but from nearby. This irritated Dr. Marlow still more, but it appears to me utterly ridiculous. I dismissed them curtly. October 11th. As I feared, the men have deserted with the treasure. Dr. Marlow says nothing. He is thinking of the advisability of deserting the excavation, but he will never do it. Later, Dr. Marlow asked me whether I had heard anything during the night, and when I said I had not, he dismissed the matter. October 12th. Dr. Marlowe seems to have forgotten the desertion of yesterday. He is troubled about something and has spent his time wandering absently about the excavations. Later, Dr. Marlow confided that he had heard writer strings the night a great beating of hooves. Fenton, he said, and if it does not sound too fantastic of wings. I told him that I had heard nothing. But as I am considerably removed from his tent, it is not unnatural. Dr. Marlow is situated on one side of the temple to night. I shall move to his tent. October 13th. There is no doubt of it. There is an army of riders somewhere near. And somewhere there is a great flapping of wings. It was perfectly clear to both Dr. Marlow and me last night. We left our tent and ventured into the darkness of Ur, but saw nothing. We will watch tonight. Dr. Marlow says there will be a moon in an unclouded sky. Last night, and for some days before, the sky has been overcast, though it is the period of the full moon. October 14th. We watched last night, but I concede nothing. We saw. The only explanation of what occurred is. Is that we must have fallen asleep. I remember suddenly hearing, with a great rush and swirl of air, the beating of hoofs of a vast army and the flapping of strange wings. Suddenly, there, swept into clear view in the moonlight, a great mass of purple things that came from nowhere, from space, from the outermost cosmos. They swept from the sky into the space before the temple, and from there into the interior of the Shrine of Sin and AI, where we followed them at a discreet distance. The crescent of sin on the high altar shone like fire, and before it were the purple things undulating in a great mass of fearful grotesques. Neither man nor beast, but a horrible mixture of both, with awful travesties of human faces. They had no arms, but great wings like bats, with long tendrils lashing to and fro like gigantic cilia, backward and forward. This formless mass undulated amid a LOW THROBBING MURMUR Worshipping the shining crescent of the moon God Sin. A number of grotesque creatures slithered over the sacrificial stone and sank down upon its surface in fleshless masses. This worship continued for long hours, until the red and gray of dawn shone in the east. Then, slowly gathering volume, began the sound of beating hoofs and flapping wings. And the foremost of the purple things began to rise slowly into the air toward the great square opening in the roof of the temple just above the sacrificial table. It was followed by the rest in a long purple line of formlessness. As suddenly as they had come, so they were gone, and Dr. Marlow and I were left alone. I am not willing to believe that this was other than an hallucination. Dr. Marlow, however, disagrees with me. He bases his opinion on the study of ancient fetishism that he has made. As tonight is the night of the full moon, we are to watch again later. Dr. Marlow has given up all attempts to identify the purple things. He is convinced that they are from another Earth and is satisfied to call them moon creatures. Beyond the fact that they worship Sin, he does not attempt to explain their presence in the city of Ur. Approaching midnight, we are seated in the temple somewhat left of the sacrificial table, in a small enclosed space shrouded in darkness. I have brought my diary along to record all that happens tonight. There is a huge patch of moonlight on the floor of the temple that comes from the opening in the roof. I can dimly hear the hoof beats in the sky and the flapping of wings. There is a formless shadow in the moonlight on the floor. Dr. Marlow, too, hears them coming. The crescent of sin is beginning to glow. And yes, the disk of AI is glowing also. The purple things are entering the temple. As before, some of them drop from the opening in the center of the roof. There is a certain systematic assemblage of their ranks. As they supplicate before the glowing emblems on the high altar. The same low murmuring sound rises from their midst. The tendrils of their bat wings lash the air in rhythmic motion. The mass of moon creatures undulates backward and forward, forward. A few of the creatures are slithering toward the sacrificial table. They climb to its flat surface, continuing to bow before the altar. It is almost as if these purple things led the mass of others. They are turning now, and the undulating movement is slowly ceasing. The murmuring, too, is gone. The three things on the table lash their tendrils in unison. Those of the mass are silent. It is from these tendrils that comes the low humming sound I hear. There is a lull in the tendrils of the three and a murmur as of assent from the mass. The moon creatures are slowly altering their position so that they are now facing us. I wonder if we are as perceptible to them as they are to us. The three on the table are extending their tendrils toward us, and the humming sound again becomes audible. The sound is increasing in intensity. It seems to be affecting Dr. Marlow. Dr. Marlow is rising and going toward the three on the sacrificial table. I called to him, but he did not answer. It was almost as if he were hypnotized. Perhaps he wishes to observe these peculiar purple creatures at close quarters. But no. He has mounted the table amid a humming sound from the mass which is now moving toward him. He is surrounded by these things, but he does not cry out. The purple things are building a pyramid of their bodies, a pyramid that reaches to the opening in the roof and beyond. Vivid flashes of fire come from the glowing emblems on the altar. A blinding flash of light, and the pyramid of bodies crumbles unhurt. The creatures are reorganizing, and all is as before. But no. Dr. Marlow is gone. The three on the table turn toward me. Their tendrils are extended, and I am beginning to feel drowsy. My God. Dr. Marlow and I have been sitting in the place reserved for sacrifices to the moon God. It was Dr. Marlow who graced the top of that sacrificial pyramid of purple things. The ghastly humming is beginning again. I could feel the power of those tendrils drawing me onward, onward, outward into the cosmos. The humming is very loud. I wonder where Dr. Marlow is and what I am doing here. Glory in the highest, to the great God Sin. I no longer want to write. I am the chosen of sins. The following is an excerpt from a letter written to Dr. Gillen, head of the British Archaeology Society, and dated earlier in May of the year succeeding that of Dr. Fenton's diary. It is signed by Dr. Robbins, head of the party searching for Dr. Marlow. In regard to the diary, I can say nothing, neither that I believe nor disbelieve all this preposterous writing. But there have appeared certain conflicting bits of evidence that are undoubtedly significant. The men referred to in the paragraph dated October 11 were never seen again. So far as we know, several of our parties out on a scouting expedition found on the banks of the Euphrates a plate of beaten gold upon which were engraved the symbolic crescent and disk of sin and eye. It is clearly identical with the sacrificial vessels mentioned by Dr. Fenton. You know that we have discovered no sign of bodies yet. We cannot bring ourselves to believe the last entry in the diary. But it is remarkable to write you and tell you that yesterday evening we discovered on the roof of the temple of sin, Dr. Marlow's watch. His name was engraved on the back. The watch was badly smashed, as if it had been dropped a long, long way. The End of Riders in the sky by Mark R. Schorer and August W. Derleth. Reprisal by Thomas Richard Jones From Amazing Stories, October 1928 this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Read by Dale Grothman Reprisal by Thomas Richard Jones on The morning of November 1, 1931, Londoners were mildly amused at the following advertisement appearing in all the newspapers. In exactly two weeks the Thames will freeze over and Great Britain will become a bleak and almost barren country. Henceforth it will be a land of snow and ice. While it is most unlikely that this statement will be given any credence at this time, November 15th will bring proof he who controls some kind of advertising stunt, said those who took the trouble to discuss it at all. Even Scotland Yard authorities, who missed nothing out of the ordinary, did not give the warning a second thought. The chief weather forecaster only smiled. Dispatches in the afternoon paper, however, brought this curious bit of publicity into greater progress prominence. They announced that the leading publications in Glasgow, Belfast, Dublin, Edinburgh and Oslo, and several other cities had carried notices of similar import, all predicting permanent climatic change in two weeks time, the copy of the advertisement said. The news stories was sent to each person publisher from London, with cash accompanying the orders. The instructions were signed by one Boric Hengston, who it is assumed, represented some business firm that would later follow up with the usual announcement of a new kind of ice cream, freezer, refrigerator or other commodity. The advertising managers were accustomed to trick advertising copies and believe the originator will have reason to be pleased over the comment created. Some have expressed the opinion that the warnings were inserted by an insane person. No attention is being paid to the affair beyond a little speculation at so bizarre an announcement, but no follow up matter went to the press. He who controls evidently felt he had done enough for the present, and the incident was forgotten by everybody. On the evening of November 14th. Late. Pedestrians drifting through Trafalgar Square, Regent Street, Oxford street and Piccadilly noted a remarkable rapid lifting of the blanket of fog which had enveloped the streets and drew their topcoats closer about them as an icy blast swept in from the sea. The next morning, they awoke to find their thermometers hovering down towards zero and falling fast. By noon it was 15 below, and when evening lights again twinkled, a solid sheet of glistening ice stretched out before the House of Parliament, and traffic had long since ceased. London's millions with chattering teeth had sought shelter from the terrible cutting cold. By the second morning, people remembered. Those who did not were reminded. For blazoned across the page of every newspaper was a message of four words, and it do you now believe? And it was signed, he who Controls Trolls. Here was a real newspaper story. It was carried in every journal in Britain, on the continent, in the Orient, in America. The details of the cold wave which had struck Britain, Ireland, Scotland, Norway and the other northern countries were harrowing. Ice floes filled the Irish and North Sea. The Clyde was a solid chunk of congealed water. Shipping was at a standstill. Industries were paralyzed. Whole herds of sheep had perished, and the coal and food supplies, though sufficient for the moment, would need replenishing if the cold kept up. The warning of the insane jester bore a king. Kegstein was on every lip. Not that he could possibly have had anything to do with conditions, but because it was uncanny that his prediction could have come true. A silk hatted, dignified representative of His Majesty's government summoned the power of Scotland Yard. It is absurd, he said. Yet this Hagstein must be found. He could not have sent this weather, for only God can do that. Yet there is a mystery somewhere, and therefore it will help the state of the public mind for us to find him and hear what he has to say. But Boric Hegstein did not wish to remain in obscurity. While the police net was being carefully spread. He walked coolly into headquarters. Headquarters gave his name, and I am he who controls. Then asked the officer, will you make an explanation of your strange prediction and the luck or prophetic vision which brought it to pass? I will speak only to the Premier, said Boric. No other man shall hear my story. Come, then, I will take you to him at once. Through the desolated street, still colder, they labored and finally arrived at the chambers of the Premier. The police officer withdrew. The Master of Men and the Master of Science faced each other. Well, began the Premier with a questioning Inflection. My name, said the visitor, is in reality Boric. I have not sailed under false colors. There is something I wanted. I was never able to get it. I have taken the only means left and used my scientific knowledge. What did you want? One million pounds sterling. A trifle, to be sure. The Premier smiled grimly. But you have still explained nothing. Your remarkable predictions, your professed control over the elements, your appearance here, and your request for money. The situation is simple, although at present distressing, began Boric. Call it revenge, call it simple justice. Whatever you will call it, it requires £1 million to right a wrong or once done to me by the government. When that is paid or assured me, I, who control your weather, will give back to you the genial climate of which you have always boasted. On the other hand, should you fail to meet my terms, the conditions you now experience will continue. And do you expect me, said the Premier, to believe for a second that you have such power? Are you insane? Think, man. What a ridiculous proposal you make. That is entirely for you to think over. I have spoken, and I am a man of few words. Tell me, said the official, in what way did the government do you wrong? When I was a mere lad, just out of an academy, I had ambitions of becoming a great engineer. By the way, I have become one in middle life. But at the time I mentioned, I was taking a special private course in hydraulic engineering, preparing to work my way through the technical course at the university. I was very poor, often in want. One day, while at work, in my bare sitting room, I kindled a fire with some coal I had brought in a paper bag. I was wrongfully accused of having stolen the coal from the neighboring roomer. For this I served two years in prison. Though obscure, my record was good. The evidence was purely circumstantial. The judge should have rejected it. After reaching prison, I made repeated attempts to secure clemency and submitted newly established evidence which, if heard, would properly have cleared my name. I got no change. I lost two years of study. My name was blackened. I decided that some day Britain should pay well. Impatiently. What was that to do with our climate? Curiously enough, almost humorously, I might say, replied Boric, it has everything to do with it. In later years I have overcome all obstacles. I have gone deep into many scientific subjects and I now control your temperatures. For a million pounds I will bring you no normal fall weather. Without the payment, I shall be indifferent. I will have you confined, said the Premier. We can at least put you where you will not be a disturbing influence, as you will only by so doing, you will prolong the suffering of your people and will cause untold economic waste. What about Scotland, Ireland, Norway and the others affected? Unfortunately, I could not confine my operations merely to England. But your position is entirely untenable, argued the Premier. The government would be the laughing stock of the world if it listened to you. So far as I am concerned, promised Bork, the world will not know I will be that generous. Although I might get some revenge from making you ridiculous. Would you give a million pounds to get your climate back? Yes. Every day of this is costing millions. This then is my proposal. Place confidentially to my credit in the bank of England the entire amount I asked, subject to withdrawal by me. If I keep faith with you in the meantime, keep me under guard. Let me first send a cablegram in private code to New York. In a few days your cold wave will begin a gradual diminution. When you're satisfied, release me and I shall depart with my money. I assure you most of it will be spent for further scientific investigation. For my personal wants are simple. I never believed I would live long enough to commit such folly, said the Premier. But it is agreed to night you go into a cell now within an hour, and the funds shall be deposited subject to your call. Then one day the frozen streams began began to empty their ice into the sea and the great industrial centres of the north country took on life. The breezes blowing over Ireland became softer and the shamrock and hawthorn began again to be green. The story of the crazy weather prophet had been forgotten. The biggest cold snap in history languished. Boris Hengston bade goodbye to the the mystified Premier. The bargain they had driven remained a secret among the two principals, the bank, the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the police. The affair has been satisfactorily terminated, said the Premier. Whether you had anything to do with it or not, the country is again safe. But in order to restore my own self respect if possible, will you now tell me the real story? I guarantee you immunity from arrest. You can depart in peace with your million pounds. God knows I'm in a hurry for you to be on your way. Yes, I will tell you, said Bork. The story is known only to myself and two others who will never divulge it. If you too can avoid mentioning any of the details to any of your associates, the world will perhaps be better off for what I know is fraught with danger, as you can see. Some years ago I became deeply interested in oceanography and particularly so with regard to equatorial latitudes, where I Had some important, important contacts. I got to studying the equatorial currents. And came to the conclusion that there must be some particular point in the neighborhood of the West Indies. Which would be the controlling locality in the Gulf Stream. Of course, you know that the southern and northern currents eddy around off the West Indies. One of the big currents goes south along. Along the South American coast. And the other kicks northward, following the Atlantic coast for a while. And then takes a north easterly course across the Atlantic. In what is called the Gulf Stream Drift. It is this drift that tempers your climate. And keeps it from being similar to that of Labrador. And do you mean to say. Let me finish. The boat train is nearly due to leave. I sounded those currents which are, of course, many miles in width. Measuring their velocity and depth in many places. I analyzed the winds and the bottom of the sea, the contours of the islands. And finally found a small island. One of the West Indies group. The name is immaterial to you. Which I decided was the pivotal point in the turning of these currents. I knew that by contriving to deflect that current at that point in another direction. I could influence the whole drift. And you were planning then your revenge on Britain? Not yet. At first it was merely the study of a subject that excited my interest. Then I got to thinking of the possible results. And saw that I could in this way make you pay for my injury. And, incidentally, aid me in my scientific development. To conclude, I added to a small cruiser which I owned, A boat of the submarine type. And began working out my investigation. I gave it out to the natives that I was studying tidal phenomenon. And doing a little fishing besides. But all the time I was laying a few cement foundations at the critical point in the ocean bed. These obstructions, aided by a dozen large pumps placed at just the right spot. Started a deflection of the northern equatorial current at its key point of strength. I found that by operating, generating my pumps and using my submerged breakwaters, the plan worked, and soon the whole drift was headed south. When my preparations were complete, I left my two confidential men in charge of the work. And proceeded to New York, thence to London. I had calculated the length of time for the warm water to cool. And the Gulf Stream to become inactive. That was easy, because I knew its velocity. I could tell almost to the exact day when your cold wave would begin. When I sent my cable some days ago, it was relayed and reached my men in the Caribbean waters. They stopped operations immediately, and, of course, nature did the rest. The Gulf Stream swung into its normal channel, and there you are. That's a terrible secret, gasped the Premier. You'll never mention this, I promise, said Boric. And he left. Warmer weather read. The next day's report, as published by the forecasters, is still in prospect. A gradual breaking up of the unusual cold wave originating off the Greenland coast and which for a time paralyzed businesses, continues. The extraordinary situation, which has been thoroughly analyzed by the department, will be completely mastered by T.O. morrow, and our climate will be restored to normalcy. The End of the Reprisal, by Thomas Richard Jones.