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<s> THE FIVE HELLS OF ORION BY FREDERICK POHL Out in the great gas cloud of the Orion Nebula McCray found an ally—and a foe! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] His name was Herrell McCray and he was scared. As best he could tell, he was in a sort of room no bigger than a prisoncell. Perhaps it was a prison cell. Whatever it was, he had no businessin it; for five minutes before he had been spaceborne, on the Long Jumpfrom Earth to the thriving colonies circling Betelgeuse Nine. McCraywas ship's navigator, plotting course corrections—not that there wereany, ever; but the reason there were none was that the check-sightingswere made every hour of the long flight. He had read off the azimuthangles from the computer sights, automatically locked on their beaconstars, and found them correct; then out of long habit confirmed thelocking mechanism visually. It was only a personal quaintness; he haddone it a thousand times. And while he was looking at Betelgeuse, Rigeland Saiph ... it happened. The room was totally dark, and it seemed to be furnished with acollection of hard, sharp, sticky and knobby objects of various shapesand a number of inconvenient sizes. McCray tripped over somethingthat rocked under his feet and fell against something that clatteredhollowly. He picked himself up, braced against something that smelleddangerously of halogen compounds, and scratched his shoulder, rightthrough his space-tunic, against something that vibrated as he touchedit. McCray had no idea where he was, and no way to find out. Not only was he in darkness, but in utter silence as well. No. Notquite utter silence. Somewhere, just at the threshold of his senses, there was somethinglike a voice. He could not quite hear it, but it was there. He sat asstill as he could, listening; it remained elusive. Probably it was only an illusion. But the room itself was hard fact. McCray swore violently and out loud. It was crazy and impossible. There simply was no way for him to getfrom a warm, bright navigator's cubicle on Starship Jodrell Bank tothis damned, dark, dismal hole of a place where everything was out tohurt him and nothing explained what was going on. He cried aloud inexasperation: If I could only see ! He tripped and fell against something that was soft, slimy and, likebaker's dough, not at all resilient. A flickering halo of pinkish light appeared. He sat up, startled. Hewas looking at something that resembled a suit of medieval armor. <doc-sep>It was, he saw in a moment, not armor but a spacesuit. But what was thelight? And what were these other things in the room? Wherever he looked, the light danced along with his eyes. It was likehaving tunnel vision or wearing blinders. He could see what he waslooking at, but he could see nothing else. And the things he couldsee made no sense. A spacesuit, yes; he knew that he could constructa logical explanation for that with no trouble—maybe a subspacemeteorite striking the Jodrell Bank , an explosion, himself knockedout, brought here in a suit ... well, it was an explanation with moreholes than fabric, like a fisherman's net, but at least it was rational. How to explain a set of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire? A space-ax? Or the old-fashioned child's rocking-chair, thechemistry set—or, most of all, the scrap of gaily printed fabricthat, when he picked it up, turned out to be a girl's scanty bathingsuit? It was slightly reassuring, McCray thought, to find that most ofthe objects were more or less familiar. Even the child's chair—why,he'd had one more or less like that himself, long before he was oldenough to go to school. But what were they doing here? Not everything he saw was familiar. The walls of the room itself werestrange. They were not metal or plaster or knotty pine; they werenot papered, painted or overlaid with stucco. They seemed to be madeof some sort of hard organic compound, perhaps a sort of plastic orprocessed cellulose. It was hard to tell colors in the pinkish light.But they seemed to have none. They were neutral—the color of ageddriftwood or unbleached cloth. Three of the walls were that way, and the floor and ceiling. The fourthwall was something else. Areas in it had the appearance of gratings;from them issued the pungent, distasteful halogen odor. They might beventilators, he thought; but if so the air they brought in was worsethan what he already had. McCray was beginning to feel more confident. It was astonishing how alittle light made an impossible situation bearable, how quickly hiscourage flowed back when he could see again. He stood still, thinking. Item, a short time ago—subjectively itseemed to be minutes—he had been aboard the Jodrell Bank withnothing more on his mind than completing his check-sighting and meetingone of the female passengers for coffee. Item, apart from beingshaken up and—he admitted it—scared damn near witless, he did notseem to be hurt. Item, wherever he was now, it became, not so much whathad happened to him, but what had happened to the ship? He allowed that thought to seep into his mind. Suppose there had beenan accident to the Jodrell Bank . He could, of course, be dead. All this could be the fantasies of acooling brain. McCray grinned into the pink-lit darkness. The thought had somehowrefreshed him, like icewater between rounds, and with a clearing headhe remembered what a spacesuit was good for. It held a radio. He pressed the unsealing tabs, slipped his hand into the vacant chestof the suit and pulled out the hand mike. This is Herrell McCray, hesaid, calling the Jodrell Bank . No response. He frowned. This is Herrell McCray, calling JodrellBank . Herrell McCray, calling anybody, come in, please. But there was no answer. Thoughtfully he replaced the microphone. This was ultrawave radio,something more than a million times faster than light, with a rangemeasured, at least, in hundreds of light-years. If there was no answer,he was a good long way from anywhere. Of course, the thing might not be operating. He reached for the microphone again— He cried aloud. The pinkish lights went out. He was in the dark again, worse dark thanbefore. For before the light had gone, McCray had seen what had escapedhis eyes before. The suit and the microphone were clear enough inthe pinkish glimmer; but the hand—his own hand, cupped to hold themicrophone—he had not seen at all. Nor his arm. Nor, in one fleetingmoment of study, his chest. McCray could not see any part of his own body at all. II Someone else could. Someone was watching Herrell McCray, with the clinical fascinationof a biochemist observing the wigglings of paramecia in a newantibiotic—and with the prayerful emotions of a starving, shipwrecked,sailor, watching the inward bobbing drift of a wave-born cask that may contain food. Suppose you call him Hatcher (and suppose you call it a him.)Hatcher was not exactly male, because his race had no true males; butit did have females and he was certainly not that. Hatcher did not inany way look like a human being, but they had features in common. If Hatcher and McCray had somehow managed to strike up an acquaintance,they might have got along very well. Hatcher, like McCray, was anadventurous soul, young, able, well-learned in the technical sciencesof his culture. Both enjoyed games—McCray baseball, poker andthree-dimensional chess; Hatcher a number of sports which defy humandescription. Both held positions of some importance—considering theirages—in the affairs of their respective worlds. Physically they were nothing alike. Hatcher was a three-foot,hard-shelled sphere of jelly. He had arms and legs, but they werenot organically attached to himself. They were snakelike things whichobeyed the orders of his brain as well as your mind can make your toescurl; but they did not touch him directly. Indeed, they worked as wella yard or a quarter-mile away as they did when, rarely, they restedin the crevices they had been formed from in his skin. At greaterdistances they worked less well, for reasons irrelevant to the Law ofInverse Squares. Hatcher's principal task at this moment was to run the probe teamwhich had McCray under observation, and he was more than a littleexcited. His members, disposed about the room where he had sent them onvarious errands, quivered and shook a little; yet they were the calmestlimbs in the room; the members of the other team workers were in astate of violent commotion. The probe team had had a shock. Paranormal powers, muttered Hatcher's second in command, and theothers mumbled agreement. Hatcher ordered silence, studying thespecimen from Earth. After a long moment he turned his senses from the Earthman.Incredible—but it's true enough, he said. I'd better report. Watchhim, he added, but that was surely unnecessary. Their job was towatch McCray, and they would do their job; and even more, not one ofthem could have looked away to save his life from the spectacle ofa creature as odd and, from their point of view, hideously alien asHerrell McCray. <doc-sep>Hatcher hurried through the halls of the great buried structure inwhich he worked, toward the place where the supervising council of allprobes would be in permanent session. They admitted him at once. Hatcher identified himself and gave a quick, concise report: The subject recovered consciousness a short time ago and began toinspect his enclosure. His method of doing so was to put his ownmembers in physical contact with the various objects in the enclosure.After observing him do this for a time we concluded he might be unableto see and so we illuminated his field of vision for him. This appeared to work well for a time. He seemed relativelyundisturbed. However, he then reverted to physical-contact,manipulating certain appurtenances of an artificial skin we hadprovided for him. He then began to vibrate the atmosphere by means of resonating organsin his breathing passage. Simultaneously, the object he was holding, attached to the artificialskin, was discovered to be generating paranormal forces. The supervising council rocked with excitement. You're sure? demandedone of the councilmen. Yes, sir. The staff is preparing a technical description of the forcesnow, but I can say that they are electromagnetic vibrations modulatinga carrier wave of very high speed, and in turn modulated by thevibrations of the atmosphere caused by the subject's own breathing. Fantastic, breathed the councillor, in a tone of dawning hope. Howabout communicating with him, Hatcher? Any progress? Well ... not much, sir. He suddenly panicked. We don't know why; butwe thought we'd better pull back and let him recover for a while. The council conferred among itself for a moment, Hatcher waiting. Itwas not really a waste of time for him; with the organs he had left inthe probe-team room, he was in fairly close touch with what was goingon—knew that McCray was once again fumbling among the objects in thedark, knew that the team-members had tried illuminating the room forhim briefly and again produced the rising panic. Still, Hatcher fretted. He wanted to get back. Stop fidgeting, commanded the council leader abruptly. Hatcher, youare to establish communication at once. But, sir.... Hatcher swung closer, his thick skin quivering slightly;he would have gestured if he had brought members with him to gesturewith. We've done everything we dare. We've made the place homeyfor him— actually, what he said was more like, we've warmed thebiophysical nuances of his enclosure —and tried to guess his needs;and we're frightening him half to death. We can't go faster. Thiscreature is in no way similar to us, you know. He relies on paranormalforces—heat, light, kinetic energy—for his life. His chemistry is notours, his processes of thought are not ours, his entire organism iscloser to the inanimate rocks of a sea-bottom than to ourselves. Understood, Hatcher. In your first report you stated these creatureswere intelligent. Yes, sir. But not in our way. But in a way, and you must learn that way. I know. One lobster-clawshaped member drifted close to the councillor's body and raised itselfin an admonitory gesture. You want time. But we don't have time,Hatcher. Yours is not the only probe team working. The Central Massesteam has just turned in a most alarming report. Have they secured a subject? Hatcher demanded jealously. The councillor paused. Worse than that, Hatcher. I am afraid theirsubjects have secured one of them. One of them is missing. There was a moment's silence. Frozen, Hatcher could only wait. Thecouncil room was like a tableau in a museum until the councillor spokeagain, each council member poised over his locus-point, his membersdrifting about him. Finally the councillor said, I speak for all of us, I think. If theOld Ones have seized one of our probers our time margin is considerablynarrowed. Indeed, we may not have any time at all. You must doeverything you can to establish communication with your subject. But the danger to the specimen— Hatcher protested automatically. —is no greater, said the councillor, than the danger to every oneof us if we do not find allies now . <doc-sep>Hatcher returned to his laboratory gloomily. It was just like the council to put the screws on; they had areputation for demanding results at any cost—even at the cost ofdestroying the only thing you had that would make results possible. Hatcher did not like the idea of endangering the Earthman. It cannotbe said that he was emotionally involved; it was not pity or sympathythat caused him to regret the dangers in moving too fast towardcommunication. Not even Hatcher had quite got over the revoltingphysical differences between the Earthman and his own people. ButHatcher did not want him destroyed. It had been difficult enoughgetting him here. Hatcher checked through the members that he had left with the rest ofhis team and discovered that there were no immediate emergencies, so hetook time to eat. In Hatcher's race this was accomplished in ways notentirely pleasant to Earthmen. A slit in the lower hemisphere of hisbody opened, like a purse, emitting a thin, pussy, fetid fluid whichHatcher caught and poured into a disposal trough at the side of theeating room. He then stuffed the slit with pulpy vegetation the textureof kelp; it closed, and his body was supplied with nourishment foranother day. He returned quickly to the room. His second in command was busy, but one of the other team workersreported—nothing new—and asked about Hatcher's appearance before thecouncil. Hatcher passed the question off. He considered telling hisstaff about the disappearance of the Central Masses team member, butdecided against it. He had not been told it was secret. On the otherhand, he had not been told it was not. Something of this importance wasnot lightly to be gossiped about. For endless generations the threatof the Old Ones had hung over his race, those queer, almost mythicalbeings from the Central Masses of the galaxy. One brush with them, inages past, had almost destroyed Hatcher's people. Only by running andhiding, bearing one of their planets with them and abandoning it—withits population—as a decoy, had they arrived at all. Now they had detected mapping parties of the Old Ones dangerously nearthe spiral arm of the galaxy in which their planet was located, theyhad begun the Probe Teams to find some way of combating them, or offleeing again. But it seemed that the Probe Teams themselves might be betraying theirexistence to their enemies— Hatcher! The call was urgent; he hurried to see what it was about. It was hissecond in command, very excited. What is it? Hatcher demanded. Wait.... Hatcher was patient; he knew his assistant well. Obviously somethingwas about to happen. He took the moment to call his members back tohim for feeding; they dodged back to their niches on his skin, fittedthemselves into their vestigial slots, poured back their wastes intohis own circulation and ingested what they needed from the meal he hadjust taken.... Now! cried the assistant. Look! At what passed among Hatcher's people for a viewing console an imagewas forming. Actually it was the assistant himself who formed it, not acathode trace or projected shadow; but it showed what it was meant toshow. Hatcher was startled. Another one! And—is it a different species? Ormerely a different sex? Study the probe for yourself, the assistant invited. Hatcher studied him frostily; his patience was not, after all, endless.No matter, he said at last. Bring the other one in. And then, in a completely different mood, We may need him badly. Wemay be in the process of killing our first one now. Killing him, Hatcher? Hatcher rose and shook himself, his mindless members floating away likepuppies dislodged from suck. Council's orders, he said. We've got togo into Stage Two of the project at once. III Before Stage Two began, or before Herrell McCray realized it had begun,he had an inspiration. The dark was absolute, but he remembered where the spacesuit had beenand groped his way to it and, yes, it had what all spacesuits had tohave. It had a light. He found the toggle that turned it on and pressedit. Light. White, flaring, Earthly light, that showed everything—evenhimself. God bless, he said, almost beside himself with joy. Whatever thatpinkish, dancing halo had been, it had thrown him into a panic; nowthat he could see his own hand again, he could blame the weird effectson some strange property of the light. At the moment he heard the click that was the beginning of Stage Two. He switched off the light and stood for a moment, listening. For a second he thought he heard the far-off voice, quiet, calm andalmost hopeless, that he had sensed hours before; but then that wasgone. Something else was gone. Some faint mechanical sound that hadhardly registered at the time, but was not missing. And there was,perhaps, a nice new sound that had not been there before; a veryfaint, an almost inaudible elfin hiss. McCray switched the light on and looked around. There seemed to be nochange. And yet, surely, it was warmer in here. He could see no difference; but perhaps, he thought, he could smellone. The unpleasant halogen odor from the grating was surely strongernow. He stood there, perplexed. A tinny little voice from the helmet of the space suit said sharply,amazement in its tone, McCray, is that you? Where the devil are youcalling from? He forgot smell, sound and temperature and leaped for the suit. Thisis Herrell McCray, he cried. I'm in a room of some sort, apparentlyon a planet of approximate Earth mass. I don't know— McCray! cried the tiny voice in his ear. Where are you? This is Jodrell Bank calling. Answer, please! I am answering, damn it, he roared. What took you so long? Herrell McCray, droned the tiny voice in his ear, Herrell McCray,Herrell McCray, this is Jodrell Bank responding to your message,acknowledge please. Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray.... It kept on, and on. McCray took a deep breath and thought. Something was wrong. Either theydidn't hear him, which meant the radio wasn't transmitting, or—no.That was not it; they had heard him, because they were responding.But it seemed to take them so long.... Abruptly his face went white. Took them so long! He cast back in hismind, questing for a fact, unable to face its implications. When wasit he called them? Two hours ago? Three? Did that mean—did it possibly mean—that there was a lag of an houror two each way? Did it, for example, mean that at the speed of hissuit's pararadio, millions of times faster than light, it took hours to get a message to the ship and back? And if so ... where in the name of heaven was he? <doc-sep>Herrell McCray was a navigator, which is to say, a man who has learnedto trust the evidence of mathematics and instrument readings beyond theguesses of his common sense. When Jodrell Bank , hurtling fasterthan light in its voyage between stars, made its regular positioncheck, common sense was a liar. Light bore false witness. The line ofsight was trustworthy directly forward and directly after—sometimesnot even then—and it took computers, sensing their data throughinstruments, to comprehend a star bearing and convert three fixes intoa position. If the evidence of his radio contradicted common sense, common sensewas wrong. Perhaps it was impossible to believe what the radio'smessage implied; but it was not necessary to believe, only to act. McCray thumbed down the transmitter button and gave a concise reportof his situation and his guesses. I don't know how I got here. Idon't know how long I've been gone, since I was unconscious for atime. However, if the transmission lag is a reliable indication— heswallowed and went on—I'd estimate I am something more than fivehundred light-years away from you at this moment. That's all I have tosay, except for one more word: Help. He grinned sourly and released the button. The message was on its way,and it would be hours before he could have a reply. Therefore he had toconsider what to do next. He mopped his brow. With the droning, repetitious call from the shipfinally quiet, the room was quiet again. And warm. Very warm, he thought tardily; and more than that. The halogen stenchwas strong in his nostrils again. Hurriedly McCray scrambled into the suit. By the time he was sealeddown he was coughing from the bottom of his lungs, deep, tearing raspsthat pained him, uncontrollable. Chlorine or fluorine, one of them wasin the air he had been breathing. He could not guess where it had comefrom; but it was ripping his lungs out. He flushed the interior of the suit out with a reckless disregard forthe wastage of his air reserve, holding his breath as much as he could,daring only shallow gasps that made him retch and gag. After a longtime he could breathe, though his eyes were spilling tears. He could see the fumes in the room now. The heat was building up. Automatically—now that he had put it on and so started itsservo-circuits operating—the suit was cooling him. This was adeep-space suit, regulation garb when going outside the pressure hullof an FTL ship. It was good up to at least five hundred degrees in thinair, perhaps three or four hundred in dense. In thin air or in space itwas the elastic joints and couplings that depolymerized when the heatgrew too great; in dense air, with conduction pouring energy in fasterthan the cooling coils could suck it out and hurl it away, it was therefrigerating equipment that broke down. McCray had no way of knowing just how hot it was going to get. Nor,for that matter, had the suit been designed to operate in a corrosivemedium. All in all it was time for him to do something. <doc-sep>Among the debris on the floor, he remembered, was a five-foot space-ax,tungsten-steel blade and springy aluminum shaft. McCray caught it up and headed for the door. It felt good in hisgauntlets, a rewarding weight; any weapon straightens the back of theman who holds it, and McCray was grateful for this one. With somethingconcrete to do he could postpone questioning. Never mind why he hadbeen brought here; never mind how. Never mind what he would, or could,do next; all those questions could recede into the background of hismind while he swung the ax and battered his way out of this poisonedoven. Crash-clang! The double jolt ran up the shaft of the ax, through hisgauntlets and into his arm; but he was making progress, he could seethe plastic—or whatever it was—of the door. It was chipping out. Noteasily, very reluctantly; but flaking out in chips that left a whitepowdery residue. At this rate, he thought grimly, he would be an hour getting throughit. Did he have an hour? But it did not take an hour. One blow was luckier than the rest; itmust have snapped the lock mechanism. The door shook and slid ajar.McCray got the thin of the blade into the crack and pried it wide. He was in another room, maybe a hall, large and bare. McCray put the broad of his back against the broken door and pressed itas nearly closed as he could; it might not keep the gas and heat out,but it would retard them. The room was again unlighted—at least to McCray's eyes. There was noteven that pink pseudo-light that had baffled him; here was nothingbut the beam of his suit lamp. What it showed was cryptic. There wereevidences of use: shelves, boxy contraptions that might have beencupboards, crude level surfaces attached to the walls that might havebeen workbenches. Yet they were queerly contrived, for it was notpossible to guess from them much about the creatures who used them.Some were near the floor, some at waist height, some even suspendedfrom the ceiling itself. A man would need a ladder to work at thesebenches and McCray, staring, thought briefly of many-armed blind giantsor shapeless huge intelligent amoebae, and felt the skin prickle at theback of his neck. He tapped half-heartedly at one of the closed cupboards, and was notsurprised when it proved as refractory as the door. Undoubtedly hecould batter it open, but it was not likely that much would be left ofits contents when he was through; and there was the question of time. But his attention was diverted by a gleam from one of the benches.Metallic parts lay heaped in a pile. He poked at them with astiff-fingered gauntlet; they were oddly familiar. They were, hethought, very much like the parts of a bullet-gun. In fact, they were. He could recognize barrel, chamber, trigger, evena couple of cartridges, neatly opened and the grains of powder stackedbeside them. It was an older, clumsier model than the kind he had seenin survival locker, on the Jodrell Bank —and abruptly wished he werecarrying now—but it was a pistol. Another trophy, like the strangeassortment in the other room? He could not guess. But the others hadbeen more familiar; they all have come from his own ship. He wasprepared to swear that nothing like this antique had been aboard. The drone began again in his ear, as it had at five-minute intervalsall along: Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, this is Jodrell Bank calling Herrell McCray.... And louder, blaring, then fading to normal volume as the AVC circuitstoned the signal down, another voice. A woman's voice, crying out inpanic and fear: Jodrell Bank! Where are you? Help! IV Hatcher's second in command said: He has got through the firstsurvival test. In fact, he broke his way out! What next? Wait! Hatcher ordered sharply. He was watching the new specimen anda troublesome thought had occurred to him. The new one was female andseemed to be in pain; but it was not the pain that disturbed Hatcher,it was something far more immediate to his interests. I think, he said slowly, that they are in contact. His assistant vibrated startlement. I know, Hatcher said, but watch. Do you see? He is going straighttoward her. Hatcher, who was not human, did not possess truly human emotions; buthe did feel amazement when he was amazed, and fear when there wascause to be afraid. These specimens, obtained with so much difficulty,needed so badly, were his responsibility. He knew the issues involvedmuch better than any of his helpers. They could only be surprised atthe queer antics of the aliens with attached limbs and strange powers.Hatcher knew that this was not a freak show, but a matter of life anddeath. He said, musing: This new one, I cannot communicate with her, but I get—almost—awhisper, now and then. The first one, the male, nothing. But thisfemale is perhaps not quite mute. Then shall we abandon him and work with her, forgetting the first one? Hatcher hesitated. No, he said at last. The male is responding well.Remember that when last this experiment was done every subject died; heis alive at least. But I am wondering. We can't quite communicate withthe female— But? But I'm not sure that others can't. <doc-sep>The woman's voice was at such close range that McCray's suit radio madea useful RDF set. He located her direction easily enough, shielding thetiny built-in antenna with the tungsten-steel blade of the ax, whileshe begged him to hurry. Her voice was heavily accented, with somewords in a language he did not recognize. She seemed to be in shock. McCray was hardly surprised at that; he had been close enough to shockhimself. He tried to reassure her as he searched for a way out of thehall, but in the middle of a word her voice stopped. He hesitated, hefting the ax, glancing back at the way he had come.There had to be a way out, even if it meant chopping through a wall. When he turned around again there was a door. It was oddly shaped andunlike the door he had hewn through, but clearly a door all the same,and it was open. McCray regarded it grimly. He went back in his memory with meticulouscare. Had he not looked at, this very spot a matter of moments before?He had. And had there been an open door then? There had not. Therehadn't been even a shadowy outline of the three-sided, uneven openingthat stood there now. Still, it led in the proper direction. McCray added one moreinexplicable fact to his file and walked through. He was in anotherhall—or tunnel—rising quite steeply to the right. By his reckoning itwas the proper direction. He labored up it, sweating under the weightof the suit, and found another open door, this one round, and behindit— Yes, there was the woman whose voice he had heard. It was a woman, all right. The voice had been so strained that hehadn't been positive. Even now, short black hair might not have provedit, and she was lying face down but the waist and hips were a woman's,even though she wore a bulky, quilted suit of coveralls. He knelt beside her and gently turned her face. She was unconscious. Broad, dark face, with no make-up; she wasapparently in her late thirties. She appeared to be Chinese. She breathed, a little raggedly but without visible discomfort; herface was relaxed as though she were sleeping. She did not rouse as hemoved her. He realized she was breathing the air of the room they were in. His instant first thought was that she was in danger of asphyxiation;<doc-sep></s>

Herrell McCray is a navigator on the Starship Jodrell Bank heading for the colonies circling Betelgeuse Nine when he is inexplicably abducted from his ship. He finds himself staring around a dark, silent room full of indeterminate objects. He believes he hears a faint voice in the distance, and suddenly a pinkish light illuminates his path of vision. He sees many familiar objects including a spacesuit, a child's rocking chair, a girl's bathing suit, and more; he wonders how he got there and why such objects are there with him. Three of the room's walls are made of a hard, organic compound, and from grates comprising the fourth wall pours a pungent air. As McCray's confidence returns, he wonders what happened to the Starship Jodrell Bank and begins to wonder if he is dead. When he remembers spacesuits come with radios, he tries contacting the ship to no avail and realizes he must be many lightyears away. Then, with sudden horror, he realizes that he cannot see his own body, and the room goes dark again. Outside the room, an alien named "Hatcher" runs a probe team tasked with observing McCray and running experiments on him in order to develop an understanding of the human species. Their "probes" are mandibles that can attach and detach from their round, jelly-like bodies and run errands and conduct scientific research. Hatcher makes his way to the supervising council of all probes to report the team's findings that McCray displayed "paranormal powers" when using his radio to establish contact with his ship. The council urges Hatcher to continue his studies with haste because a member of The Central Masses probe team has been captured by the Old Ones, an ancient species hostile to Hatcher's people. His team must put McCray through a series of tests in order to help them potentially discover a way to defend themselves against the Old Ones. As Hatcher considers the best way to establish communication with McCray without causing him harm, his assistant alerts him to the presence of a female human on the viewing console. Hatcher orders the assistant to bring her in as they may need another human in case McCray dies. Hours after his initial transmission was sent to the ship, McCray receives a response from the ship. He dispatches another transmission and begins to notice the room getting hotter as the air grows more toxic. Hatcher has started the survival portion of the test. McCray uses an ax to break his way out of the room and enters another dark room full of desks he assumes are some kind of workspaces for his captors. Suddenly, he hears a woman's voice crying out for the Jodrell Bank and makes his way toward her. Hatcher and his assistant discuss whether to abandon McCray and focus on the female since she appears to be more susceptible to communication, but they ultimately decide against it. McCray eventually finds the woman through a series of doors and hallways.

<s> THE FIVE HELLS OF ORION BY FREDERICK POHL Out in the great gas cloud of the Orion Nebula McCray found an ally—and a foe! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] His name was Herrell McCray and he was scared. As best he could tell, he was in a sort of room no bigger than a prisoncell. Perhaps it was a prison cell. Whatever it was, he had no businessin it; for five minutes before he had been spaceborne, on the Long Jumpfrom Earth to the thriving colonies circling Betelgeuse Nine. McCraywas ship's navigator, plotting course corrections—not that there wereany, ever; but the reason there were none was that the check-sightingswere made every hour of the long flight. He had read off the azimuthangles from the computer sights, automatically locked on their beaconstars, and found them correct; then out of long habit confirmed thelocking mechanism visually. It was only a personal quaintness; he haddone it a thousand times. And while he was looking at Betelgeuse, Rigeland Saiph ... it happened. The room was totally dark, and it seemed to be furnished with acollection of hard, sharp, sticky and knobby objects of various shapesand a number of inconvenient sizes. McCray tripped over somethingthat rocked under his feet and fell against something that clatteredhollowly. He picked himself up, braced against something that smelleddangerously of halogen compounds, and scratched his shoulder, rightthrough his space-tunic, against something that vibrated as he touchedit. McCray had no idea where he was, and no way to find out. Not only was he in darkness, but in utter silence as well. No. Notquite utter silence. Somewhere, just at the threshold of his senses, there was somethinglike a voice. He could not quite hear it, but it was there. He sat asstill as he could, listening; it remained elusive. Probably it was only an illusion. But the room itself was hard fact. McCray swore violently and out loud. It was crazy and impossible. There simply was no way for him to getfrom a warm, bright navigator's cubicle on Starship Jodrell Bank tothis damned, dark, dismal hole of a place where everything was out tohurt him and nothing explained what was going on. He cried aloud inexasperation: If I could only see ! He tripped and fell against something that was soft, slimy and, likebaker's dough, not at all resilient. A flickering halo of pinkish light appeared. He sat up, startled. Hewas looking at something that resembled a suit of medieval armor. <doc-sep>It was, he saw in a moment, not armor but a spacesuit. But what was thelight? And what were these other things in the room? Wherever he looked, the light danced along with his eyes. It was likehaving tunnel vision or wearing blinders. He could see what he waslooking at, but he could see nothing else. And the things he couldsee made no sense. A spacesuit, yes; he knew that he could constructa logical explanation for that with no trouble—maybe a subspacemeteorite striking the Jodrell Bank , an explosion, himself knockedout, brought here in a suit ... well, it was an explanation with moreholes than fabric, like a fisherman's net, but at least it was rational. How to explain a set of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire? A space-ax? Or the old-fashioned child's rocking-chair, thechemistry set—or, most of all, the scrap of gaily printed fabricthat, when he picked it up, turned out to be a girl's scanty bathingsuit? It was slightly reassuring, McCray thought, to find that most ofthe objects were more or less familiar. Even the child's chair—why,he'd had one more or less like that himself, long before he was oldenough to go to school. But what were they doing here? Not everything he saw was familiar. The walls of the room itself werestrange. They were not metal or plaster or knotty pine; they werenot papered, painted or overlaid with stucco. They seemed to be madeof some sort of hard organic compound, perhaps a sort of plastic orprocessed cellulose. It was hard to tell colors in the pinkish light.But they seemed to have none. They were neutral—the color of ageddriftwood or unbleached cloth. Three of the walls were that way, and the floor and ceiling. The fourthwall was something else. Areas in it had the appearance of gratings;from them issued the pungent, distasteful halogen odor. They might beventilators, he thought; but if so the air they brought in was worsethan what he already had. McCray was beginning to feel more confident. It was astonishing how alittle light made an impossible situation bearable, how quickly hiscourage flowed back when he could see again. He stood still, thinking. Item, a short time ago—subjectively itseemed to be minutes—he had been aboard the Jodrell Bank withnothing more on his mind than completing his check-sighting and meetingone of the female passengers for coffee. Item, apart from beingshaken up and—he admitted it—scared damn near witless, he did notseem to be hurt. Item, wherever he was now, it became, not so much whathad happened to him, but what had happened to the ship? He allowed that thought to seep into his mind. Suppose there had beenan accident to the Jodrell Bank . He could, of course, be dead. All this could be the fantasies of acooling brain. McCray grinned into the pink-lit darkness. The thought had somehowrefreshed him, like icewater between rounds, and with a clearing headhe remembered what a spacesuit was good for. It held a radio. He pressed the unsealing tabs, slipped his hand into the vacant chestof the suit and pulled out the hand mike. This is Herrell McCray, hesaid, calling the Jodrell Bank . No response. He frowned. This is Herrell McCray, calling JodrellBank . Herrell McCray, calling anybody, come in, please. But there was no answer. Thoughtfully he replaced the microphone. This was ultrawave radio,something more than a million times faster than light, with a rangemeasured, at least, in hundreds of light-years. If there was no answer,he was a good long way from anywhere. Of course, the thing might not be operating. He reached for the microphone again— He cried aloud. The pinkish lights went out. He was in the dark again, worse dark thanbefore. For before the light had gone, McCray had seen what had escapedhis eyes before. The suit and the microphone were clear enough inthe pinkish glimmer; but the hand—his own hand, cupped to hold themicrophone—he had not seen at all. Nor his arm. Nor, in one fleetingmoment of study, his chest. McCray could not see any part of his own body at all. II Someone else could. Someone was watching Herrell McCray, with the clinical fascinationof a biochemist observing the wigglings of paramecia in a newantibiotic—and with the prayerful emotions of a starving, shipwrecked,sailor, watching the inward bobbing drift of a wave-born cask that may contain food. Suppose you call him Hatcher (and suppose you call it a him.)Hatcher was not exactly male, because his race had no true males; butit did have females and he was certainly not that. Hatcher did not inany way look like a human being, but they had features in common. If Hatcher and McCray had somehow managed to strike up an acquaintance,they might have got along very well. Hatcher, like McCray, was anadventurous soul, young, able, well-learned in the technical sciencesof his culture. Both enjoyed games—McCray baseball, poker andthree-dimensional chess; Hatcher a number of sports which defy humandescription. Both held positions of some importance—considering theirages—in the affairs of their respective worlds. Physically they were nothing alike. Hatcher was a three-foot,hard-shelled sphere of jelly. He had arms and legs, but they werenot organically attached to himself. They were snakelike things whichobeyed the orders of his brain as well as your mind can make your toescurl; but they did not touch him directly. Indeed, they worked as wella yard or a quarter-mile away as they did when, rarely, they restedin the crevices they had been formed from in his skin. At greaterdistances they worked less well, for reasons irrelevant to the Law ofInverse Squares. Hatcher's principal task at this moment was to run the probe teamwhich had McCray under observation, and he was more than a littleexcited. His members, disposed about the room where he had sent them onvarious errands, quivered and shook a little; yet they were the calmestlimbs in the room; the members of the other team workers were in astate of violent commotion. The probe team had had a shock. Paranormal powers, muttered Hatcher's second in command, and theothers mumbled agreement. Hatcher ordered silence, studying thespecimen from Earth. After a long moment he turned his senses from the Earthman.Incredible—but it's true enough, he said. I'd better report. Watchhim, he added, but that was surely unnecessary. Their job was towatch McCray, and they would do their job; and even more, not one ofthem could have looked away to save his life from the spectacle ofa creature as odd and, from their point of view, hideously alien asHerrell McCray. <doc-sep>Hatcher hurried through the halls of the great buried structure inwhich he worked, toward the place where the supervising council of allprobes would be in permanent session. They admitted him at once. Hatcher identified himself and gave a quick, concise report: The subject recovered consciousness a short time ago and began toinspect his enclosure. His method of doing so was to put his ownmembers in physical contact with the various objects in the enclosure.After observing him do this for a time we concluded he might be unableto see and so we illuminated his field of vision for him. This appeared to work well for a time. He seemed relativelyundisturbed. However, he then reverted to physical-contact,manipulating certain appurtenances of an artificial skin we hadprovided for him. He then began to vibrate the atmosphere by means of resonating organsin his breathing passage. Simultaneously, the object he was holding, attached to the artificialskin, was discovered to be generating paranormal forces. The supervising council rocked with excitement. You're sure? demandedone of the councilmen. Yes, sir. The staff is preparing a technical description of the forcesnow, but I can say that they are electromagnetic vibrations modulatinga carrier wave of very high speed, and in turn modulated by thevibrations of the atmosphere caused by the subject's own breathing. Fantastic, breathed the councillor, in a tone of dawning hope. Howabout communicating with him, Hatcher? Any progress? Well ... not much, sir. He suddenly panicked. We don't know why; butwe thought we'd better pull back and let him recover for a while. The council conferred among itself for a moment, Hatcher waiting. Itwas not really a waste of time for him; with the organs he had left inthe probe-team room, he was in fairly close touch with what was goingon—knew that McCray was once again fumbling among the objects in thedark, knew that the team-members had tried illuminating the room forhim briefly and again produced the rising panic. Still, Hatcher fretted. He wanted to get back. Stop fidgeting, commanded the council leader abruptly. Hatcher, youare to establish communication at once. But, sir.... Hatcher swung closer, his thick skin quivering slightly;he would have gestured if he had brought members with him to gesturewith. We've done everything we dare. We've made the place homeyfor him— actually, what he said was more like, we've warmed thebiophysical nuances of his enclosure —and tried to guess his needs;and we're frightening him half to death. We can't go faster. Thiscreature is in no way similar to us, you know. He relies on paranormalforces—heat, light, kinetic energy—for his life. His chemistry is notours, his processes of thought are not ours, his entire organism iscloser to the inanimate rocks of a sea-bottom than to ourselves. Understood, Hatcher. In your first report you stated these creatureswere intelligent. Yes, sir. But not in our way. But in a way, and you must learn that way. I know. One lobster-clawshaped member drifted close to the councillor's body and raised itselfin an admonitory gesture. You want time. But we don't have time,Hatcher. Yours is not the only probe team working. The Central Massesteam has just turned in a most alarming report. Have they secured a subject? Hatcher demanded jealously. The councillor paused. Worse than that, Hatcher. I am afraid theirsubjects have secured one of them. One of them is missing. There was a moment's silence. Frozen, Hatcher could only wait. Thecouncil room was like a tableau in a museum until the councillor spokeagain, each council member poised over his locus-point, his membersdrifting about him. Finally the councillor said, I speak for all of us, I think. If theOld Ones have seized one of our probers our time margin is considerablynarrowed. Indeed, we may not have any time at all. You must doeverything you can to establish communication with your subject. But the danger to the specimen— Hatcher protested automatically. —is no greater, said the councillor, than the danger to every oneof us if we do not find allies now . <doc-sep>Hatcher returned to his laboratory gloomily. It was just like the council to put the screws on; they had areputation for demanding results at any cost—even at the cost ofdestroying the only thing you had that would make results possible. Hatcher did not like the idea of endangering the Earthman. It cannotbe said that he was emotionally involved; it was not pity or sympathythat caused him to regret the dangers in moving too fast towardcommunication. Not even Hatcher had quite got over the revoltingphysical differences between the Earthman and his own people. ButHatcher did not want him destroyed. It had been difficult enoughgetting him here. Hatcher checked through the members that he had left with the rest ofhis team and discovered that there were no immediate emergencies, so hetook time to eat. In Hatcher's race this was accomplished in ways notentirely pleasant to Earthmen. A slit in the lower hemisphere of hisbody opened, like a purse, emitting a thin, pussy, fetid fluid whichHatcher caught and poured into a disposal trough at the side of theeating room. He then stuffed the slit with pulpy vegetation the textureof kelp; it closed, and his body was supplied with nourishment foranother day. He returned quickly to the room. His second in command was busy, but one of the other team workersreported—nothing new—and asked about Hatcher's appearance before thecouncil. Hatcher passed the question off. He considered telling hisstaff about the disappearance of the Central Masses team member, butdecided against it. He had not been told it was secret. On the otherhand, he had not been told it was not. Something of this importance wasnot lightly to be gossiped about. For endless generations the threatof the Old Ones had hung over his race, those queer, almost mythicalbeings from the Central Masses of the galaxy. One brush with them, inages past, had almost destroyed Hatcher's people. Only by running andhiding, bearing one of their planets with them and abandoning it—withits population—as a decoy, had they arrived at all. Now they had detected mapping parties of the Old Ones dangerously nearthe spiral arm of the galaxy in which their planet was located, theyhad begun the Probe Teams to find some way of combating them, or offleeing again. But it seemed that the Probe Teams themselves might be betraying theirexistence to their enemies— Hatcher! The call was urgent; he hurried to see what it was about. It was hissecond in command, very excited. What is it? Hatcher demanded. Wait.... Hatcher was patient; he knew his assistant well. Obviously somethingwas about to happen. He took the moment to call his members back tohim for feeding; they dodged back to their niches on his skin, fittedthemselves into their vestigial slots, poured back their wastes intohis own circulation and ingested what they needed from the meal he hadjust taken.... Now! cried the assistant. Look! At what passed among Hatcher's people for a viewing console an imagewas forming. Actually it was the assistant himself who formed it, not acathode trace or projected shadow; but it showed what it was meant toshow. Hatcher was startled. Another one! And—is it a different species? Ormerely a different sex? Study the probe for yourself, the assistant invited. Hatcher studied him frostily; his patience was not, after all, endless.No matter, he said at last. Bring the other one in. And then, in a completely different mood, We may need him badly. Wemay be in the process of killing our first one now. Killing him, Hatcher? Hatcher rose and shook himself, his mindless members floating away likepuppies dislodged from suck. Council's orders, he said. We've got togo into Stage Two of the project at once. III Before Stage Two began, or before Herrell McCray realized it had begun,he had an inspiration. The dark was absolute, but he remembered where the spacesuit had beenand groped his way to it and, yes, it had what all spacesuits had tohave. It had a light. He found the toggle that turned it on and pressedit. Light. White, flaring, Earthly light, that showed everything—evenhimself. God bless, he said, almost beside himself with joy. Whatever thatpinkish, dancing halo had been, it had thrown him into a panic; nowthat he could see his own hand again, he could blame the weird effectson some strange property of the light. At the moment he heard the click that was the beginning of Stage Two. He switched off the light and stood for a moment, listening. For a second he thought he heard the far-off voice, quiet, calm andalmost hopeless, that he had sensed hours before; but then that wasgone. Something else was gone. Some faint mechanical sound that hadhardly registered at the time, but was not missing. And there was,perhaps, a nice new sound that had not been there before; a veryfaint, an almost inaudible elfin hiss. McCray switched the light on and looked around. There seemed to be nochange. And yet, surely, it was warmer in here. He could see no difference; but perhaps, he thought, he could smellone. The unpleasant halogen odor from the grating was surely strongernow. He stood there, perplexed. A tinny little voice from the helmet of the space suit said sharply,amazement in its tone, McCray, is that you? Where the devil are youcalling from? He forgot smell, sound and temperature and leaped for the suit. Thisis Herrell McCray, he cried. I'm in a room of some sort, apparentlyon a planet of approximate Earth mass. I don't know— McCray! cried the tiny voice in his ear. Where are you? This is Jodrell Bank calling. Answer, please! I am answering, damn it, he roared. What took you so long? Herrell McCray, droned the tiny voice in his ear, Herrell McCray,Herrell McCray, this is Jodrell Bank responding to your message,acknowledge please. Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray.... It kept on, and on. McCray took a deep breath and thought. Something was wrong. Either theydidn't hear him, which meant the radio wasn't transmitting, or—no.That was not it; they had heard him, because they were responding.But it seemed to take them so long.... Abruptly his face went white. Took them so long! He cast back in hismind, questing for a fact, unable to face its implications. When wasit he called them? Two hours ago? Three? Did that mean—did it possibly mean—that there was a lag of an houror two each way? Did it, for example, mean that at the speed of hissuit's pararadio, millions of times faster than light, it took hours to get a message to the ship and back? And if so ... where in the name of heaven was he? <doc-sep>Herrell McCray was a navigator, which is to say, a man who has learnedto trust the evidence of mathematics and instrument readings beyond theguesses of his common sense. When Jodrell Bank , hurtling fasterthan light in its voyage between stars, made its regular positioncheck, common sense was a liar. Light bore false witness. The line ofsight was trustworthy directly forward and directly after—sometimesnot even then—and it took computers, sensing their data throughinstruments, to comprehend a star bearing and convert three fixes intoa position. If the evidence of his radio contradicted common sense, common sensewas wrong. Perhaps it was impossible to believe what the radio'smessage implied; but it was not necessary to believe, only to act. McCray thumbed down the transmitter button and gave a concise reportof his situation and his guesses. I don't know how I got here. Idon't know how long I've been gone, since I was unconscious for atime. However, if the transmission lag is a reliable indication— heswallowed and went on—I'd estimate I am something more than fivehundred light-years away from you at this moment. That's all I have tosay, except for one more word: Help. He grinned sourly and released the button. The message was on its way,and it would be hours before he could have a reply. Therefore he had toconsider what to do next. He mopped his brow. With the droning, repetitious call from the shipfinally quiet, the room was quiet again. And warm. Very warm, he thought tardily; and more than that. The halogen stenchwas strong in his nostrils again. Hurriedly McCray scrambled into the suit. By the time he was sealeddown he was coughing from the bottom of his lungs, deep, tearing raspsthat pained him, uncontrollable. Chlorine or fluorine, one of them wasin the air he had been breathing. He could not guess where it had comefrom; but it was ripping his lungs out. He flushed the interior of the suit out with a reckless disregard forthe wastage of his air reserve, holding his breath as much as he could,daring only shallow gasps that made him retch and gag. After a longtime he could breathe, though his eyes were spilling tears. He could see the fumes in the room now. The heat was building up. Automatically—now that he had put it on and so started itsservo-circuits operating—the suit was cooling him. This was adeep-space suit, regulation garb when going outside the pressure hullof an FTL ship. It was good up to at least five hundred degrees in thinair, perhaps three or four hundred in dense. In thin air or in space itwas the elastic joints and couplings that depolymerized when the heatgrew too great; in dense air, with conduction pouring energy in fasterthan the cooling coils could suck it out and hurl it away, it was therefrigerating equipment that broke down. McCray had no way of knowing just how hot it was going to get. Nor,for that matter, had the suit been designed to operate in a corrosivemedium. All in all it was time for him to do something. <doc-sep>Among the debris on the floor, he remembered, was a five-foot space-ax,tungsten-steel blade and springy aluminum shaft. McCray caught it up and headed for the door. It felt good in hisgauntlets, a rewarding weight; any weapon straightens the back of theman who holds it, and McCray was grateful for this one. With somethingconcrete to do he could postpone questioning. Never mind why he hadbeen brought here; never mind how. Never mind what he would, or could,do next; all those questions could recede into the background of hismind while he swung the ax and battered his way out of this poisonedoven. Crash-clang! The double jolt ran up the shaft of the ax, through hisgauntlets and into his arm; but he was making progress, he could seethe plastic—or whatever it was—of the door. It was chipping out. Noteasily, very reluctantly; but flaking out in chips that left a whitepowdery residue. At this rate, he thought grimly, he would be an hour getting throughit. Did he have an hour? But it did not take an hour. One blow was luckier than the rest; itmust have snapped the lock mechanism. The door shook and slid ajar.McCray got the thin of the blade into the crack and pried it wide. He was in another room, maybe a hall, large and bare. McCray put the broad of his back against the broken door and pressed itas nearly closed as he could; it might not keep the gas and heat out,but it would retard them. The room was again unlighted—at least to McCray's eyes. There was noteven that pink pseudo-light that had baffled him; here was nothingbut the beam of his suit lamp. What it showed was cryptic. There wereevidences of use: shelves, boxy contraptions that might have beencupboards, crude level surfaces attached to the walls that might havebeen workbenches. Yet they were queerly contrived, for it was notpossible to guess from them much about the creatures who used them.Some were near the floor, some at waist height, some even suspendedfrom the ceiling itself. A man would need a ladder to work at thesebenches and McCray, staring, thought briefly of many-armed blind giantsor shapeless huge intelligent amoebae, and felt the skin prickle at theback of his neck. He tapped half-heartedly at one of the closed cupboards, and was notsurprised when it proved as refractory as the door. Undoubtedly hecould batter it open, but it was not likely that much would be left ofits contents when he was through; and there was the question of time. But his attention was diverted by a gleam from one of the benches.Metallic parts lay heaped in a pile. He poked at them with astiff-fingered gauntlet; they were oddly familiar. They were, hethought, very much like the parts of a bullet-gun. In fact, they were. He could recognize barrel, chamber, trigger, evena couple of cartridges, neatly opened and the grains of powder stackedbeside them. It was an older, clumsier model than the kind he had seenin survival locker, on the Jodrell Bank —and abruptly wished he werecarrying now—but it was a pistol. Another trophy, like the strangeassortment in the other room? He could not guess. But the others hadbeen more familiar; they all have come from his own ship. He wasprepared to swear that nothing like this antique had been aboard. The drone began again in his ear, as it had at five-minute intervalsall along: Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, this is Jodrell Bank calling Herrell McCray.... And louder, blaring, then fading to normal volume as the AVC circuitstoned the signal down, another voice. A woman's voice, crying out inpanic and fear: Jodrell Bank! Where are you? Help! IV Hatcher's second in command said: He has got through the firstsurvival test. In fact, he broke his way out! What next? Wait! Hatcher ordered sharply. He was watching the new specimen anda troublesome thought had occurred to him. The new one was female andseemed to be in pain; but it was not the pain that disturbed Hatcher,it was something far more immediate to his interests. I think, he said slowly, that they are in contact. His assistant vibrated startlement. I know, Hatcher said, but watch. Do you see? He is going straighttoward her. Hatcher, who was not human, did not possess truly human emotions; buthe did feel amazement when he was amazed, and fear when there wascause to be afraid. These specimens, obtained with so much difficulty,needed so badly, were his responsibility. He knew the issues involvedmuch better than any of his helpers. They could only be surprised atthe queer antics of the aliens with attached limbs and strange powers.Hatcher knew that this was not a freak show, but a matter of life anddeath. He said, musing: This new one, I cannot communicate with her, but I get—almost—awhisper, now and then. The first one, the male, nothing. But thisfemale is perhaps not quite mute. Then shall we abandon him and work with her, forgetting the first one? Hatcher hesitated. No, he said at last. The male is responding well.Remember that when last this experiment was done every subject died; heis alive at least. But I am wondering. We can't quite communicate withthe female— But? But I'm not sure that others can't. <doc-sep>The woman's voice was at such close range that McCray's suit radio madea useful RDF set. He located her direction easily enough, shielding thetiny built-in antenna with the tungsten-steel blade of the ax, whileshe begged him to hurry. Her voice was heavily accented, with somewords in a language he did not recognize. She seemed to be in shock. McCray was hardly surprised at that; he had been close enough to shockhimself. He tried to reassure her as he searched for a way out of thehall, but in the middle of a word her voice stopped. He hesitated, hefting the ax, glancing back at the way he had come.There had to be a way out, even if it meant chopping through a wall. When he turned around again there was a door. It was oddly shaped andunlike the door he had hewn through, but clearly a door all the same,and it was open. McCray regarded it grimly. He went back in his memory with meticulouscare. Had he not looked at, this very spot a matter of moments before?He had. And had there been an open door then? There had not. Therehadn't been even a shadowy outline of the three-sided, uneven openingthat stood there now. Still, it led in the proper direction. McCray added one moreinexplicable fact to his file and walked through. He was in anotherhall—or tunnel—rising quite steeply to the right. By his reckoning itwas the proper direction. He labored up it, sweating under the weightof the suit, and found another open door, this one round, and behindit— Yes, there was the woman whose voice he had heard. It was a woman, all right. The voice had been so strained that hehadn't been positive. Even now, short black hair might not have provedit, and she was lying face down but the waist and hips were a woman's,even though she wore a bulky, quilted suit of coveralls. He knelt beside her and gently turned her face. She was unconscious. Broad, dark face, with no make-up; she wasapparently in her late thirties. She appeared to be Chinese. She breathed, a little raggedly but without visible discomfort; herface was relaxed as though she were sleeping. She did not rouse as hemoved her. He realized she was breathing the air of the room they were in. His instant first thought was that she was in danger of asphyxiation;<doc-sep></s>

The story begins sometime during the Starship Jodrell Bank's Long Jump from Earth to the colonies surrounding Betegeuses Nine as it passes by Betelgeuse, Rigel, and Saiph. The rest of the action takes place in an unknown area of space within a "great buried structure" that is a massive labyrinth of dark rooms and hallways with unusual doors that seem to shift and change after passing through them. This is where Hatcher and his probe team observe McCray in his enclosure, which is no bigger than a prison cell, dark, and full of vaguely familiar objects: a spacesuit, a child's rocking chair, a chemistry set, a girl's bathing suit, an ax. Three of the walls are made of a hard, organic compound and the fourth is covered in grates from which a halogen-smelling air pours out into the room. Although everything is dark, Hatcher occasionally triggers a pinkish, halo-like light that allows McCray to examine his surroundings. Elsewhere in the structure is a place where the supervising council of all probes stays in permanent session, monitoring the work of all probe teams including the team at The Central Masses. When McCray breaks out of his initial enclosure, he finds himself in another dark room, large and bare. Using the beam from his suit lamp, he sees shelves, cupboard-like contraptions, and level surfaces that appeared to be waist-high workbenches attached to the walls and ceiling. He finds a gun on one of the benches. After finding the gun, he realizes the door he came through is gone; instead, there is an uneven, three-sided door he enters to find the unconscious woman on the other side.

<s> THE FIVE HELLS OF ORION BY FREDERICK POHL Out in the great gas cloud of the Orion Nebula McCray found an ally—and a foe! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] His name was Herrell McCray and he was scared. As best he could tell, he was in a sort of room no bigger than a prisoncell. Perhaps it was a prison cell. Whatever it was, he had no businessin it; for five minutes before he had been spaceborne, on the Long Jumpfrom Earth to the thriving colonies circling Betelgeuse Nine. McCraywas ship's navigator, plotting course corrections—not that there wereany, ever; but the reason there were none was that the check-sightingswere made every hour of the long flight. He had read off the azimuthangles from the computer sights, automatically locked on their beaconstars, and found them correct; then out of long habit confirmed thelocking mechanism visually. It was only a personal quaintness; he haddone it a thousand times. And while he was looking at Betelgeuse, Rigeland Saiph ... it happened. The room was totally dark, and it seemed to be furnished with acollection of hard, sharp, sticky and knobby objects of various shapesand a number of inconvenient sizes. McCray tripped over somethingthat rocked under his feet and fell against something that clatteredhollowly. He picked himself up, braced against something that smelleddangerously of halogen compounds, and scratched his shoulder, rightthrough his space-tunic, against something that vibrated as he touchedit. McCray had no idea where he was, and no way to find out. Not only was he in darkness, but in utter silence as well. No. Notquite utter silence. Somewhere, just at the threshold of his senses, there was somethinglike a voice. He could not quite hear it, but it was there. He sat asstill as he could, listening; it remained elusive. Probably it was only an illusion. But the room itself was hard fact. McCray swore violently and out loud. It was crazy and impossible. There simply was no way for him to getfrom a warm, bright navigator's cubicle on Starship Jodrell Bank tothis damned, dark, dismal hole of a place where everything was out tohurt him and nothing explained what was going on. He cried aloud inexasperation: If I could only see ! He tripped and fell against something that was soft, slimy and, likebaker's dough, not at all resilient. A flickering halo of pinkish light appeared. He sat up, startled. Hewas looking at something that resembled a suit of medieval armor. <doc-sep>It was, he saw in a moment, not armor but a spacesuit. But what was thelight? And what were these other things in the room? Wherever he looked, the light danced along with his eyes. It was likehaving tunnel vision or wearing blinders. He could see what he waslooking at, but he could see nothing else. And the things he couldsee made no sense. A spacesuit, yes; he knew that he could constructa logical explanation for that with no trouble—maybe a subspacemeteorite striking the Jodrell Bank , an explosion, himself knockedout, brought here in a suit ... well, it was an explanation with moreholes than fabric, like a fisherman's net, but at least it was rational. How to explain a set of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire? A space-ax? Or the old-fashioned child's rocking-chair, thechemistry set—or, most of all, the scrap of gaily printed fabricthat, when he picked it up, turned out to be a girl's scanty bathingsuit? It was slightly reassuring, McCray thought, to find that most ofthe objects were more or less familiar. Even the child's chair—why,he'd had one more or less like that himself, long before he was oldenough to go to school. But what were they doing here? Not everything he saw was familiar. The walls of the room itself werestrange. They were not metal or plaster or knotty pine; they werenot papered, painted or overlaid with stucco. They seemed to be madeof some sort of hard organic compound, perhaps a sort of plastic orprocessed cellulose. It was hard to tell colors in the pinkish light.But they seemed to have none. They were neutral—the color of ageddriftwood or unbleached cloth. Three of the walls were that way, and the floor and ceiling. The fourthwall was something else. Areas in it had the appearance of gratings;from them issued the pungent, distasteful halogen odor. They might beventilators, he thought; but if so the air they brought in was worsethan what he already had. McCray was beginning to feel more confident. It was astonishing how alittle light made an impossible situation bearable, how quickly hiscourage flowed back when he could see again. He stood still, thinking. Item, a short time ago—subjectively itseemed to be minutes—he had been aboard the Jodrell Bank withnothing more on his mind than completing his check-sighting and meetingone of the female passengers for coffee. Item, apart from beingshaken up and—he admitted it—scared damn near witless, he did notseem to be hurt. Item, wherever he was now, it became, not so much whathad happened to him, but what had happened to the ship? He allowed that thought to seep into his mind. Suppose there had beenan accident to the Jodrell Bank . He could, of course, be dead. All this could be the fantasies of acooling brain. McCray grinned into the pink-lit darkness. The thought had somehowrefreshed him, like icewater between rounds, and with a clearing headhe remembered what a spacesuit was good for. It held a radio. He pressed the unsealing tabs, slipped his hand into the vacant chestof the suit and pulled out the hand mike. This is Herrell McCray, hesaid, calling the Jodrell Bank . No response. He frowned. This is Herrell McCray, calling JodrellBank . Herrell McCray, calling anybody, come in, please. But there was no answer. Thoughtfully he replaced the microphone. This was ultrawave radio,something more than a million times faster than light, with a rangemeasured, at least, in hundreds of light-years. If there was no answer,he was a good long way from anywhere. Of course, the thing might not be operating. He reached for the microphone again— He cried aloud. The pinkish lights went out. He was in the dark again, worse dark thanbefore. For before the light had gone, McCray had seen what had escapedhis eyes before. The suit and the microphone were clear enough inthe pinkish glimmer; but the hand—his own hand, cupped to hold themicrophone—he had not seen at all. Nor his arm. Nor, in one fleetingmoment of study, his chest. McCray could not see any part of his own body at all. II Someone else could. Someone was watching Herrell McCray, with the clinical fascinationof a biochemist observing the wigglings of paramecia in a newantibiotic—and with the prayerful emotions of a starving, shipwrecked,sailor, watching the inward bobbing drift of a wave-born cask that may contain food. Suppose you call him Hatcher (and suppose you call it a him.)Hatcher was not exactly male, because his race had no true males; butit did have females and he was certainly not that. Hatcher did not inany way look like a human being, but they had features in common. If Hatcher and McCray had somehow managed to strike up an acquaintance,they might have got along very well. Hatcher, like McCray, was anadventurous soul, young, able, well-learned in the technical sciencesof his culture. Both enjoyed games—McCray baseball, poker andthree-dimensional chess; Hatcher a number of sports which defy humandescription. Both held positions of some importance—considering theirages—in the affairs of their respective worlds. Physically they were nothing alike. Hatcher was a three-foot,hard-shelled sphere of jelly. He had arms and legs, but they werenot organically attached to himself. They were snakelike things whichobeyed the orders of his brain as well as your mind can make your toescurl; but they did not touch him directly. Indeed, they worked as wella yard or a quarter-mile away as they did when, rarely, they restedin the crevices they had been formed from in his skin. At greaterdistances they worked less well, for reasons irrelevant to the Law ofInverse Squares. Hatcher's principal task at this moment was to run the probe teamwhich had McCray under observation, and he was more than a littleexcited. His members, disposed about the room where he had sent them onvarious errands, quivered and shook a little; yet they were the calmestlimbs in the room; the members of the other team workers were in astate of violent commotion. The probe team had had a shock. Paranormal powers, muttered Hatcher's second in command, and theothers mumbled agreement. Hatcher ordered silence, studying thespecimen from Earth. After a long moment he turned his senses from the Earthman.Incredible—but it's true enough, he said. I'd better report. Watchhim, he added, but that was surely unnecessary. Their job was towatch McCray, and they would do their job; and even more, not one ofthem could have looked away to save his life from the spectacle ofa creature as odd and, from their point of view, hideously alien asHerrell McCray. <doc-sep>Hatcher hurried through the halls of the great buried structure inwhich he worked, toward the place where the supervising council of allprobes would be in permanent session. They admitted him at once. Hatcher identified himself and gave a quick, concise report: The subject recovered consciousness a short time ago and began toinspect his enclosure. His method of doing so was to put his ownmembers in physical contact with the various objects in the enclosure.After observing him do this for a time we concluded he might be unableto see and so we illuminated his field of vision for him. This appeared to work well for a time. He seemed relativelyundisturbed. However, he then reverted to physical-contact,manipulating certain appurtenances of an artificial skin we hadprovided for him. He then began to vibrate the atmosphere by means of resonating organsin his breathing passage. Simultaneously, the object he was holding, attached to the artificialskin, was discovered to be generating paranormal forces. The supervising council rocked with excitement. You're sure? demandedone of the councilmen. Yes, sir. The staff is preparing a technical description of the forcesnow, but I can say that they are electromagnetic vibrations modulatinga carrier wave of very high speed, and in turn modulated by thevibrations of the atmosphere caused by the subject's own breathing. Fantastic, breathed the councillor, in a tone of dawning hope. Howabout communicating with him, Hatcher? Any progress? Well ... not much, sir. He suddenly panicked. We don't know why; butwe thought we'd better pull back and let him recover for a while. The council conferred among itself for a moment, Hatcher waiting. Itwas not really a waste of time for him; with the organs he had left inthe probe-team room, he was in fairly close touch with what was goingon—knew that McCray was once again fumbling among the objects in thedark, knew that the team-members had tried illuminating the room forhim briefly and again produced the rising panic. Still, Hatcher fretted. He wanted to get back. Stop fidgeting, commanded the council leader abruptly. Hatcher, youare to establish communication at once. But, sir.... Hatcher swung closer, his thick skin quivering slightly;he would have gestured if he had brought members with him to gesturewith. We've done everything we dare. We've made the place homeyfor him— actually, what he said was more like, we've warmed thebiophysical nuances of his enclosure —and tried to guess his needs;and we're frightening him half to death. We can't go faster. Thiscreature is in no way similar to us, you know. He relies on paranormalforces—heat, light, kinetic energy—for his life. His chemistry is notours, his processes of thought are not ours, his entire organism iscloser to the inanimate rocks of a sea-bottom than to ourselves. Understood, Hatcher. In your first report you stated these creatureswere intelligent. Yes, sir. But not in our way. But in a way, and you must learn that way. I know. One lobster-clawshaped member drifted close to the councillor's body and raised itselfin an admonitory gesture. You want time. But we don't have time,Hatcher. Yours is not the only probe team working. The Central Massesteam has just turned in a most alarming report. Have they secured a subject? Hatcher demanded jealously. The councillor paused. Worse than that, Hatcher. I am afraid theirsubjects have secured one of them. One of them is missing. There was a moment's silence. Frozen, Hatcher could only wait. Thecouncil room was like a tableau in a museum until the councillor spokeagain, each council member poised over his locus-point, his membersdrifting about him. Finally the councillor said, I speak for all of us, I think. If theOld Ones have seized one of our probers our time margin is considerablynarrowed. Indeed, we may not have any time at all. You must doeverything you can to establish communication with your subject. But the danger to the specimen— Hatcher protested automatically. —is no greater, said the councillor, than the danger to every oneof us if we do not find allies now . <doc-sep>Hatcher returned to his laboratory gloomily. It was just like the council to put the screws on; they had areputation for demanding results at any cost—even at the cost ofdestroying the only thing you had that would make results possible. Hatcher did not like the idea of endangering the Earthman. It cannotbe said that he was emotionally involved; it was not pity or sympathythat caused him to regret the dangers in moving too fast towardcommunication. Not even Hatcher had quite got over the revoltingphysical differences between the Earthman and his own people. ButHatcher did not want him destroyed. It had been difficult enoughgetting him here. Hatcher checked through the members that he had left with the rest ofhis team and discovered that there were no immediate emergencies, so hetook time to eat. In Hatcher's race this was accomplished in ways notentirely pleasant to Earthmen. A slit in the lower hemisphere of hisbody opened, like a purse, emitting a thin, pussy, fetid fluid whichHatcher caught and poured into a disposal trough at the side of theeating room. He then stuffed the slit with pulpy vegetation the textureof kelp; it closed, and his body was supplied with nourishment foranother day. He returned quickly to the room. His second in command was busy, but one of the other team workersreported—nothing new—and asked about Hatcher's appearance before thecouncil. Hatcher passed the question off. He considered telling hisstaff about the disappearance of the Central Masses team member, butdecided against it. He had not been told it was secret. On the otherhand, he had not been told it was not. Something of this importance wasnot lightly to be gossiped about. For endless generations the threatof the Old Ones had hung over his race, those queer, almost mythicalbeings from the Central Masses of the galaxy. One brush with them, inages past, had almost destroyed Hatcher's people. Only by running andhiding, bearing one of their planets with them and abandoning it—withits population—as a decoy, had they arrived at all. Now they had detected mapping parties of the Old Ones dangerously nearthe spiral arm of the galaxy in which their planet was located, theyhad begun the Probe Teams to find some way of combating them, or offleeing again. But it seemed that the Probe Teams themselves might be betraying theirexistence to their enemies— Hatcher! The call was urgent; he hurried to see what it was about. It was hissecond in command, very excited. What is it? Hatcher demanded. Wait.... Hatcher was patient; he knew his assistant well. Obviously somethingwas about to happen. He took the moment to call his members back tohim for feeding; they dodged back to their niches on his skin, fittedthemselves into their vestigial slots, poured back their wastes intohis own circulation and ingested what they needed from the meal he hadjust taken.... Now! cried the assistant. Look! At what passed among Hatcher's people for a viewing console an imagewas forming. Actually it was the assistant himself who formed it, not acathode trace or projected shadow; but it showed what it was meant toshow. Hatcher was startled. Another one! And—is it a different species? Ormerely a different sex? Study the probe for yourself, the assistant invited. Hatcher studied him frostily; his patience was not, after all, endless.No matter, he said at last. Bring the other one in. And then, in a completely different mood, We may need him badly. Wemay be in the process of killing our first one now. Killing him, Hatcher? Hatcher rose and shook himself, his mindless members floating away likepuppies dislodged from suck. Council's orders, he said. We've got togo into Stage Two of the project at once. III Before Stage Two began, or before Herrell McCray realized it had begun,he had an inspiration. The dark was absolute, but he remembered where the spacesuit had beenand groped his way to it and, yes, it had what all spacesuits had tohave. It had a light. He found the toggle that turned it on and pressedit. Light. White, flaring, Earthly light, that showed everything—evenhimself. God bless, he said, almost beside himself with joy. Whatever thatpinkish, dancing halo had been, it had thrown him into a panic; nowthat he could see his own hand again, he could blame the weird effectson some strange property of the light. At the moment he heard the click that was the beginning of Stage Two. He switched off the light and stood for a moment, listening. For a second he thought he heard the far-off voice, quiet, calm andalmost hopeless, that he had sensed hours before; but then that wasgone. Something else was gone. Some faint mechanical sound that hadhardly registered at the time, but was not missing. And there was,perhaps, a nice new sound that had not been there before; a veryfaint, an almost inaudible elfin hiss. McCray switched the light on and looked around. There seemed to be nochange. And yet, surely, it was warmer in here. He could see no difference; but perhaps, he thought, he could smellone. The unpleasant halogen odor from the grating was surely strongernow. He stood there, perplexed. A tinny little voice from the helmet of the space suit said sharply,amazement in its tone, McCray, is that you? Where the devil are youcalling from? He forgot smell, sound and temperature and leaped for the suit. Thisis Herrell McCray, he cried. I'm in a room of some sort, apparentlyon a planet of approximate Earth mass. I don't know— McCray! cried the tiny voice in his ear. Where are you? This is Jodrell Bank calling. Answer, please! I am answering, damn it, he roared. What took you so long? Herrell McCray, droned the tiny voice in his ear, Herrell McCray,Herrell McCray, this is Jodrell Bank responding to your message,acknowledge please. Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray.... It kept on, and on. McCray took a deep breath and thought. Something was wrong. Either theydidn't hear him, which meant the radio wasn't transmitting, or—no.That was not it; they had heard him, because they were responding.But it seemed to take them so long.... Abruptly his face went white. Took them so long! He cast back in hismind, questing for a fact, unable to face its implications. When wasit he called them? Two hours ago? Three? Did that mean—did it possibly mean—that there was a lag of an houror two each way? Did it, for example, mean that at the speed of hissuit's pararadio, millions of times faster than light, it took hours to get a message to the ship and back? And if so ... where in the name of heaven was he? <doc-sep>Herrell McCray was a navigator, which is to say, a man who has learnedto trust the evidence of mathematics and instrument readings beyond theguesses of his common sense. When Jodrell Bank , hurtling fasterthan light in its voyage between stars, made its regular positioncheck, common sense was a liar. Light bore false witness. The line ofsight was trustworthy directly forward and directly after—sometimesnot even then—and it took computers, sensing their data throughinstruments, to comprehend a star bearing and convert three fixes intoa position. If the evidence of his radio contradicted common sense, common sensewas wrong. Perhaps it was impossible to believe what the radio'smessage implied; but it was not necessary to believe, only to act. McCray thumbed down the transmitter button and gave a concise reportof his situation and his guesses. I don't know how I got here. Idon't know how long I've been gone, since I was unconscious for atime. However, if the transmission lag is a reliable indication— heswallowed and went on—I'd estimate I am something more than fivehundred light-years away from you at this moment. That's all I have tosay, except for one more word: Help. He grinned sourly and released the button. The message was on its way,and it would be hours before he could have a reply. Therefore he had toconsider what to do next. He mopped his brow. With the droning, repetitious call from the shipfinally quiet, the room was quiet again. And warm. Very warm, he thought tardily; and more than that. The halogen stenchwas strong in his nostrils again. Hurriedly McCray scrambled into the suit. By the time he was sealeddown he was coughing from the bottom of his lungs, deep, tearing raspsthat pained him, uncontrollable. Chlorine or fluorine, one of them wasin the air he had been breathing. He could not guess where it had comefrom; but it was ripping his lungs out. He flushed the interior of the suit out with a reckless disregard forthe wastage of his air reserve, holding his breath as much as he could,daring only shallow gasps that made him retch and gag. After a longtime he could breathe, though his eyes were spilling tears. He could see the fumes in the room now. The heat was building up. Automatically—now that he had put it on and so started itsservo-circuits operating—the suit was cooling him. This was adeep-space suit, regulation garb when going outside the pressure hullof an FTL ship. It was good up to at least five hundred degrees in thinair, perhaps three or four hundred in dense. In thin air or in space itwas the elastic joints and couplings that depolymerized when the heatgrew too great; in dense air, with conduction pouring energy in fasterthan the cooling coils could suck it out and hurl it away, it was therefrigerating equipment that broke down. McCray had no way of knowing just how hot it was going to get. Nor,for that matter, had the suit been designed to operate in a corrosivemedium. All in all it was time for him to do something. <doc-sep>Among the debris on the floor, he remembered, was a five-foot space-ax,tungsten-steel blade and springy aluminum shaft. McCray caught it up and headed for the door. It felt good in hisgauntlets, a rewarding weight; any weapon straightens the back of theman who holds it, and McCray was grateful for this one. With somethingconcrete to do he could postpone questioning. Never mind why he hadbeen brought here; never mind how. Never mind what he would, or could,do next; all those questions could recede into the background of hismind while he swung the ax and battered his way out of this poisonedoven. Crash-clang! The double jolt ran up the shaft of the ax, through hisgauntlets and into his arm; but he was making progress, he could seethe plastic—or whatever it was—of the door. It was chipping out. Noteasily, very reluctantly; but flaking out in chips that left a whitepowdery residue. At this rate, he thought grimly, he would be an hour getting throughit. Did he have an hour? But it did not take an hour. One blow was luckier than the rest; itmust have snapped the lock mechanism. The door shook and slid ajar.McCray got the thin of the blade into the crack and pried it wide. He was in another room, maybe a hall, large and bare. McCray put the broad of his back against the broken door and pressed itas nearly closed as he could; it might not keep the gas and heat out,but it would retard them. The room was again unlighted—at least to McCray's eyes. There was noteven that pink pseudo-light that had baffled him; here was nothingbut the beam of his suit lamp. What it showed was cryptic. There wereevidences of use: shelves, boxy contraptions that might have beencupboards, crude level surfaces attached to the walls that might havebeen workbenches. Yet they were queerly contrived, for it was notpossible to guess from them much about the creatures who used them.Some were near the floor, some at waist height, some even suspendedfrom the ceiling itself. A man would need a ladder to work at thesebenches and McCray, staring, thought briefly of many-armed blind giantsor shapeless huge intelligent amoebae, and felt the skin prickle at theback of his neck. He tapped half-heartedly at one of the closed cupboards, and was notsurprised when it proved as refractory as the door. Undoubtedly hecould batter it open, but it was not likely that much would be left ofits contents when he was through; and there was the question of time. But his attention was diverted by a gleam from one of the benches.Metallic parts lay heaped in a pile. He poked at them with astiff-fingered gauntlet; they were oddly familiar. They were, hethought, very much like the parts of a bullet-gun. In fact, they were. He could recognize barrel, chamber, trigger, evena couple of cartridges, neatly opened and the grains of powder stackedbeside them. It was an older, clumsier model than the kind he had seenin survival locker, on the Jodrell Bank —and abruptly wished he werecarrying now—but it was a pistol. Another trophy, like the strangeassortment in the other room? He could not guess. But the others hadbeen more familiar; they all have come from his own ship. He wasprepared to swear that nothing like this antique had been aboard. The drone began again in his ear, as it had at five-minute intervalsall along: Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, this is Jodrell Bank calling Herrell McCray.... And louder, blaring, then fading to normal volume as the AVC circuitstoned the signal down, another voice. A woman's voice, crying out inpanic and fear: Jodrell Bank! Where are you? Help! IV Hatcher's second in command said: He has got through the firstsurvival test. In fact, he broke his way out! What next? Wait! Hatcher ordered sharply. He was watching the new specimen anda troublesome thought had occurred to him. The new one was female andseemed to be in pain; but it was not the pain that disturbed Hatcher,it was something far more immediate to his interests. I think, he said slowly, that they are in contact. His assistant vibrated startlement. I know, Hatcher said, but watch. Do you see? He is going straighttoward her. Hatcher, who was not human, did not possess truly human emotions; buthe did feel amazement when he was amazed, and fear when there wascause to be afraid. These specimens, obtained with so much difficulty,needed so badly, were his responsibility. He knew the issues involvedmuch better than any of his helpers. They could only be surprised atthe queer antics of the aliens with attached limbs and strange powers.Hatcher knew that this was not a freak show, but a matter of life anddeath. He said, musing: This new one, I cannot communicate with her, but I get—almost—awhisper, now and then. The first one, the male, nothing. But thisfemale is perhaps not quite mute. Then shall we abandon him and work with her, forgetting the first one? Hatcher hesitated. No, he said at last. The male is responding well.Remember that when last this experiment was done every subject died; heis alive at least. But I am wondering. We can't quite communicate withthe female— But? But I'm not sure that others can't. <doc-sep>The woman's voice was at such close range that McCray's suit radio madea useful RDF set. He located her direction easily enough, shielding thetiny built-in antenna with the tungsten-steel blade of the ax, whileshe begged him to hurry. Her voice was heavily accented, with somewords in a language he did not recognize. She seemed to be in shock. McCray was hardly surprised at that; he had been close enough to shockhimself. He tried to reassure her as he searched for a way out of thehall, but in the middle of a word her voice stopped. He hesitated, hefting the ax, glancing back at the way he had come.There had to be a way out, even if it meant chopping through a wall. When he turned around again there was a door. It was oddly shaped andunlike the door he had hewn through, but clearly a door all the same,and it was open. McCray regarded it grimly. He went back in his memory with meticulouscare. Had he not looked at, this very spot a matter of moments before?He had. And had there been an open door then? There had not. Therehadn't been even a shadowy outline of the three-sided, uneven openingthat stood there now. Still, it led in the proper direction. McCray added one moreinexplicable fact to his file and walked through. He was in anotherhall—or tunnel—rising quite steeply to the right. By his reckoning itwas the proper direction. He labored up it, sweating under the weightof the suit, and found another open door, this one round, and behindit— Yes, there was the woman whose voice he had heard. It was a woman, all right. The voice had been so strained that hehadn't been positive. Even now, short black hair might not have provedit, and she was lying face down but the waist and hips were a woman's,even though she wore a bulky, quilted suit of coveralls. He knelt beside her and gently turned her face. She was unconscious. Broad, dark face, with no make-up; she wasapparently in her late thirties. She appeared to be Chinese. She breathed, a little raggedly but without visible discomfort; herface was relaxed as though she were sleeping. She did not rouse as hemoved her. He realized she was breathing the air of the room they were in. His instant first thought was that she was in danger of asphyxiation;<doc-sep></s>

Hatcher is an alien of an unnamed race. He cannot be described as male because his race "had no true males." He is three feet tall with a hard-shelled, circular body of jelly. His arms and legs are snakelike mandibles that can detach from his body, and he can control them with his brain from vast distances, although their effectiveness diminishes the further they travel from Hatcher's body. When they return to Hatcher's body, they rest in crevices in his skin. When he feeds, a slit appears at the bottom of his body and emits a thin, fetid fluid Hatcher throws away; he then places a nutrient-filled, kelp-like vegetable in the slit for sustenance. Hatcher is young, adventurous, scientifically gifted, knowledgeable, and enjoys playing sports. Although he does not feel the equivalent of human empathy, he also doesn't want harm to befall McCray and feels responsible for his proper care. Hatcher manages the probe team that observes McCray throughout the story, and he reports on McCray's behavior and his use of "paranormal powers" to the supervising council. Hatcher worries about hurrying to establish communication with McCray because he believes it will harm and perhaps even kill him, and later he wonders if communication is even possible at all with humans (later, he notes he is able to establish a minor level of communication with the female but wonders if others might be able to communicate with her). When Hatcher makes his report to the supervising council, they inform him of the return of the Old Ones, who have captured a member of The Central Masses Probe Team. He questions whether or not to tell his crew considering he was never explicitly told not to by the council. In many ways, Hatcher and McCray are similar although Hatcher is generally disgusted by the human body.

<s> THE FIVE HELLS OF ORION BY FREDERICK POHL Out in the great gas cloud of the Orion Nebula McCray found an ally—and a foe! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] His name was Herrell McCray and he was scared. As best he could tell, he was in a sort of room no bigger than a prisoncell. Perhaps it was a prison cell. Whatever it was, he had no businessin it; for five minutes before he had been spaceborne, on the Long Jumpfrom Earth to the thriving colonies circling Betelgeuse Nine. McCraywas ship's navigator, plotting course corrections—not that there wereany, ever; but the reason there were none was that the check-sightingswere made every hour of the long flight. He had read off the azimuthangles from the computer sights, automatically locked on their beaconstars, and found them correct; then out of long habit confirmed thelocking mechanism visually. It was only a personal quaintness; he haddone it a thousand times. And while he was looking at Betelgeuse, Rigeland Saiph ... it happened. The room was totally dark, and it seemed to be furnished with acollection of hard, sharp, sticky and knobby objects of various shapesand a number of inconvenient sizes. McCray tripped over somethingthat rocked under his feet and fell against something that clatteredhollowly. He picked himself up, braced against something that smelleddangerously of halogen compounds, and scratched his shoulder, rightthrough his space-tunic, against something that vibrated as he touchedit. McCray had no idea where he was, and no way to find out. Not only was he in darkness, but in utter silence as well. No. Notquite utter silence. Somewhere, just at the threshold of his senses, there was somethinglike a voice. He could not quite hear it, but it was there. He sat asstill as he could, listening; it remained elusive. Probably it was only an illusion. But the room itself was hard fact. McCray swore violently and out loud. It was crazy and impossible. There simply was no way for him to getfrom a warm, bright navigator's cubicle on Starship Jodrell Bank tothis damned, dark, dismal hole of a place where everything was out tohurt him and nothing explained what was going on. He cried aloud inexasperation: If I could only see ! He tripped and fell against something that was soft, slimy and, likebaker's dough, not at all resilient. A flickering halo of pinkish light appeared. He sat up, startled. Hewas looking at something that resembled a suit of medieval armor. <doc-sep>It was, he saw in a moment, not armor but a spacesuit. But what was thelight? And what were these other things in the room? Wherever he looked, the light danced along with his eyes. It was likehaving tunnel vision or wearing blinders. He could see what he waslooking at, but he could see nothing else. And the things he couldsee made no sense. A spacesuit, yes; he knew that he could constructa logical explanation for that with no trouble—maybe a subspacemeteorite striking the Jodrell Bank , an explosion, himself knockedout, brought here in a suit ... well, it was an explanation with moreholes than fabric, like a fisherman's net, but at least it was rational. How to explain a set of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire? A space-ax? Or the old-fashioned child's rocking-chair, thechemistry set—or, most of all, the scrap of gaily printed fabricthat, when he picked it up, turned out to be a girl's scanty bathingsuit? It was slightly reassuring, McCray thought, to find that most ofthe objects were more or less familiar. Even the child's chair—why,he'd had one more or less like that himself, long before he was oldenough to go to school. But what were they doing here? Not everything he saw was familiar. The walls of the room itself werestrange. They were not metal or plaster or knotty pine; they werenot papered, painted or overlaid with stucco. They seemed to be madeof some sort of hard organic compound, perhaps a sort of plastic orprocessed cellulose. It was hard to tell colors in the pinkish light.But they seemed to have none. They were neutral—the color of ageddriftwood or unbleached cloth. Three of the walls were that way, and the floor and ceiling. The fourthwall was something else. Areas in it had the appearance of gratings;from them issued the pungent, distasteful halogen odor. They might beventilators, he thought; but if so the air they brought in was worsethan what he already had. McCray was beginning to feel more confident. It was astonishing how alittle light made an impossible situation bearable, how quickly hiscourage flowed back when he could see again. He stood still, thinking. Item, a short time ago—subjectively itseemed to be minutes—he had been aboard the Jodrell Bank withnothing more on his mind than completing his check-sighting and meetingone of the female passengers for coffee. Item, apart from beingshaken up and—he admitted it—scared damn near witless, he did notseem to be hurt. Item, wherever he was now, it became, not so much whathad happened to him, but what had happened to the ship? He allowed that thought to seep into his mind. Suppose there had beenan accident to the Jodrell Bank . He could, of course, be dead. All this could be the fantasies of acooling brain. McCray grinned into the pink-lit darkness. The thought had somehowrefreshed him, like icewater between rounds, and with a clearing headhe remembered what a spacesuit was good for. It held a radio. He pressed the unsealing tabs, slipped his hand into the vacant chestof the suit and pulled out the hand mike. This is Herrell McCray, hesaid, calling the Jodrell Bank . No response. He frowned. This is Herrell McCray, calling JodrellBank . Herrell McCray, calling anybody, come in, please. But there was no answer. Thoughtfully he replaced the microphone. This was ultrawave radio,something more than a million times faster than light, with a rangemeasured, at least, in hundreds of light-years. If there was no answer,he was a good long way from anywhere. Of course, the thing might not be operating. He reached for the microphone again— He cried aloud. The pinkish lights went out. He was in the dark again, worse dark thanbefore. For before the light had gone, McCray had seen what had escapedhis eyes before. The suit and the microphone were clear enough inthe pinkish glimmer; but the hand—his own hand, cupped to hold themicrophone—he had not seen at all. Nor his arm. Nor, in one fleetingmoment of study, his chest. McCray could not see any part of his own body at all. II Someone else could. Someone was watching Herrell McCray, with the clinical fascinationof a biochemist observing the wigglings of paramecia in a newantibiotic—and with the prayerful emotions of a starving, shipwrecked,sailor, watching the inward bobbing drift of a wave-born cask that may contain food. Suppose you call him Hatcher (and suppose you call it a him.)Hatcher was not exactly male, because his race had no true males; butit did have females and he was certainly not that. Hatcher did not inany way look like a human being, but they had features in common. If Hatcher and McCray had somehow managed to strike up an acquaintance,they might have got along very well. Hatcher, like McCray, was anadventurous soul, young, able, well-learned in the technical sciencesof his culture. Both enjoyed games—McCray baseball, poker andthree-dimensional chess; Hatcher a number of sports which defy humandescription. Both held positions of some importance—considering theirages—in the affairs of their respective worlds. Physically they were nothing alike. Hatcher was a three-foot,hard-shelled sphere of jelly. He had arms and legs, but they werenot organically attached to himself. They were snakelike things whichobeyed the orders of his brain as well as your mind can make your toescurl; but they did not touch him directly. Indeed, they worked as wella yard or a quarter-mile away as they did when, rarely, they restedin the crevices they had been formed from in his skin. At greaterdistances they worked less well, for reasons irrelevant to the Law ofInverse Squares. Hatcher's principal task at this moment was to run the probe teamwhich had McCray under observation, and he was more than a littleexcited. His members, disposed about the room where he had sent them onvarious errands, quivered and shook a little; yet they were the calmestlimbs in the room; the members of the other team workers were in astate of violent commotion. The probe team had had a shock. Paranormal powers, muttered Hatcher's second in command, and theothers mumbled agreement. Hatcher ordered silence, studying thespecimen from Earth. After a long moment he turned his senses from the Earthman.Incredible—but it's true enough, he said. I'd better report. Watchhim, he added, but that was surely unnecessary. Their job was towatch McCray, and they would do their job; and even more, not one ofthem could have looked away to save his life from the spectacle ofa creature as odd and, from their point of view, hideously alien asHerrell McCray. <doc-sep>Hatcher hurried through the halls of the great buried structure inwhich he worked, toward the place where the supervising council of allprobes would be in permanent session. They admitted him at once. Hatcher identified himself and gave a quick, concise report: The subject recovered consciousness a short time ago and began toinspect his enclosure. His method of doing so was to put his ownmembers in physical contact with the various objects in the enclosure.After observing him do this for a time we concluded he might be unableto see and so we illuminated his field of vision for him. This appeared to work well for a time. He seemed relativelyundisturbed. However, he then reverted to physical-contact,manipulating certain appurtenances of an artificial skin we hadprovided for him. He then began to vibrate the atmosphere by means of resonating organsin his breathing passage. Simultaneously, the object he was holding, attached to the artificialskin, was discovered to be generating paranormal forces. The supervising council rocked with excitement. You're sure? demandedone of the councilmen. Yes, sir. The staff is preparing a technical description of the forcesnow, but I can say that they are electromagnetic vibrations modulatinga carrier wave of very high speed, and in turn modulated by thevibrations of the atmosphere caused by the subject's own breathing. Fantastic, breathed the councillor, in a tone of dawning hope. Howabout communicating with him, Hatcher? Any progress? Well ... not much, sir. He suddenly panicked. We don't know why; butwe thought we'd better pull back and let him recover for a while. The council conferred among itself for a moment, Hatcher waiting. Itwas not really a waste of time for him; with the organs he had left inthe probe-team room, he was in fairly close touch with what was goingon—knew that McCray was once again fumbling among the objects in thedark, knew that the team-members had tried illuminating the room forhim briefly and again produced the rising panic. Still, Hatcher fretted. He wanted to get back. Stop fidgeting, commanded the council leader abruptly. Hatcher, youare to establish communication at once. But, sir.... Hatcher swung closer, his thick skin quivering slightly;he would have gestured if he had brought members with him to gesturewith. We've done everything we dare. We've made the place homeyfor him— actually, what he said was more like, we've warmed thebiophysical nuances of his enclosure —and tried to guess his needs;and we're frightening him half to death. We can't go faster. Thiscreature is in no way similar to us, you know. He relies on paranormalforces—heat, light, kinetic energy—for his life. His chemistry is notours, his processes of thought are not ours, his entire organism iscloser to the inanimate rocks of a sea-bottom than to ourselves. Understood, Hatcher. In your first report you stated these creatureswere intelligent. Yes, sir. But not in our way. But in a way, and you must learn that way. I know. One lobster-clawshaped member drifted close to the councillor's body and raised itselfin an admonitory gesture. You want time. But we don't have time,Hatcher. Yours is not the only probe team working. The Central Massesteam has just turned in a most alarming report. Have they secured a subject? Hatcher demanded jealously. The councillor paused. Worse than that, Hatcher. I am afraid theirsubjects have secured one of them. One of them is missing. There was a moment's silence. Frozen, Hatcher could only wait. Thecouncil room was like a tableau in a museum until the councillor spokeagain, each council member poised over his locus-point, his membersdrifting about him. Finally the councillor said, I speak for all of us, I think. If theOld Ones have seized one of our probers our time margin is considerablynarrowed. Indeed, we may not have any time at all. You must doeverything you can to establish communication with your subject. But the danger to the specimen— Hatcher protested automatically. —is no greater, said the councillor, than the danger to every oneof us if we do not find allies now . <doc-sep>Hatcher returned to his laboratory gloomily. It was just like the council to put the screws on; they had areputation for demanding results at any cost—even at the cost ofdestroying the only thing you had that would make results possible. Hatcher did not like the idea of endangering the Earthman. It cannotbe said that he was emotionally involved; it was not pity or sympathythat caused him to regret the dangers in moving too fast towardcommunication. Not even Hatcher had quite got over the revoltingphysical differences between the Earthman and his own people. ButHatcher did not want him destroyed. It had been difficult enoughgetting him here. Hatcher checked through the members that he had left with the rest ofhis team and discovered that there were no immediate emergencies, so hetook time to eat. In Hatcher's race this was accomplished in ways notentirely pleasant to Earthmen. A slit in the lower hemisphere of hisbody opened, like a purse, emitting a thin, pussy, fetid fluid whichHatcher caught and poured into a disposal trough at the side of theeating room. He then stuffed the slit with pulpy vegetation the textureof kelp; it closed, and his body was supplied with nourishment foranother day. He returned quickly to the room. His second in command was busy, but one of the other team workersreported—nothing new—and asked about Hatcher's appearance before thecouncil. Hatcher passed the question off. He considered telling hisstaff about the disappearance of the Central Masses team member, butdecided against it. He had not been told it was secret. On the otherhand, he had not been told it was not. Something of this importance wasnot lightly to be gossiped about. For endless generations the threatof the Old Ones had hung over his race, those queer, almost mythicalbeings from the Central Masses of the galaxy. One brush with them, inages past, had almost destroyed Hatcher's people. Only by running andhiding, bearing one of their planets with them and abandoning it—withits population—as a decoy, had they arrived at all. Now they had detected mapping parties of the Old Ones dangerously nearthe spiral arm of the galaxy in which their planet was located, theyhad begun the Probe Teams to find some way of combating them, or offleeing again. But it seemed that the Probe Teams themselves might be betraying theirexistence to their enemies— Hatcher! The call was urgent; he hurried to see what it was about. It was hissecond in command, very excited. What is it? Hatcher demanded. Wait.... Hatcher was patient; he knew his assistant well. Obviously somethingwas about to happen. He took the moment to call his members back tohim for feeding; they dodged back to their niches on his skin, fittedthemselves into their vestigial slots, poured back their wastes intohis own circulation and ingested what they needed from the meal he hadjust taken.... Now! cried the assistant. Look! At what passed among Hatcher's people for a viewing console an imagewas forming. Actually it was the assistant himself who formed it, not acathode trace or projected shadow; but it showed what it was meant toshow. Hatcher was startled. Another one! And—is it a different species? Ormerely a different sex? Study the probe for yourself, the assistant invited. Hatcher studied him frostily; his patience was not, after all, endless.No matter, he said at last. Bring the other one in. And then, in a completely different mood, We may need him badly. Wemay be in the process of killing our first one now. Killing him, Hatcher? Hatcher rose and shook himself, his mindless members floating away likepuppies dislodged from suck. Council's orders, he said. We've got togo into Stage Two of the project at once. III Before Stage Two began, or before Herrell McCray realized it had begun,he had an inspiration. The dark was absolute, but he remembered where the spacesuit had beenand groped his way to it and, yes, it had what all spacesuits had tohave. It had a light. He found the toggle that turned it on and pressedit. Light. White, flaring, Earthly light, that showed everything—evenhimself. God bless, he said, almost beside himself with joy. Whatever thatpinkish, dancing halo had been, it had thrown him into a panic; nowthat he could see his own hand again, he could blame the weird effectson some strange property of the light. At the moment he heard the click that was the beginning of Stage Two. He switched off the light and stood for a moment, listening. For a second he thought he heard the far-off voice, quiet, calm andalmost hopeless, that he had sensed hours before; but then that wasgone. Something else was gone. Some faint mechanical sound that hadhardly registered at the time, but was not missing. And there was,perhaps, a nice new sound that had not been there before; a veryfaint, an almost inaudible elfin hiss. McCray switched the light on and looked around. There seemed to be nochange. And yet, surely, it was warmer in here. He could see no difference; but perhaps, he thought, he could smellone. The unpleasant halogen odor from the grating was surely strongernow. He stood there, perplexed. A tinny little voice from the helmet of the space suit said sharply,amazement in its tone, McCray, is that you? Where the devil are youcalling from? He forgot smell, sound and temperature and leaped for the suit. Thisis Herrell McCray, he cried. I'm in a room of some sort, apparentlyon a planet of approximate Earth mass. I don't know— McCray! cried the tiny voice in his ear. Where are you? This is Jodrell Bank calling. Answer, please! I am answering, damn it, he roared. What took you so long? Herrell McCray, droned the tiny voice in his ear, Herrell McCray,Herrell McCray, this is Jodrell Bank responding to your message,acknowledge please. Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray.... It kept on, and on. McCray took a deep breath and thought. Something was wrong. Either theydidn't hear him, which meant the radio wasn't transmitting, or—no.That was not it; they had heard him, because they were responding.But it seemed to take them so long.... Abruptly his face went white. Took them so long! He cast back in hismind, questing for a fact, unable to face its implications. When wasit he called them? Two hours ago? Three? Did that mean—did it possibly mean—that there was a lag of an houror two each way? Did it, for example, mean that at the speed of hissuit's pararadio, millions of times faster than light, it took hours to get a message to the ship and back? And if so ... where in the name of heaven was he? <doc-sep>Herrell McCray was a navigator, which is to say, a man who has learnedto trust the evidence of mathematics and instrument readings beyond theguesses of his common sense. When Jodrell Bank , hurtling fasterthan light in its voyage between stars, made its regular positioncheck, common sense was a liar. Light bore false witness. The line ofsight was trustworthy directly forward and directly after—sometimesnot even then—and it took computers, sensing their data throughinstruments, to comprehend a star bearing and convert three fixes intoa position. If the evidence of his radio contradicted common sense, common sensewas wrong. Perhaps it was impossible to believe what the radio'smessage implied; but it was not necessary to believe, only to act. McCray thumbed down the transmitter button and gave a concise reportof his situation and his guesses. I don't know how I got here. Idon't know how long I've been gone, since I was unconscious for atime. However, if the transmission lag is a reliable indication— heswallowed and went on—I'd estimate I am something more than fivehundred light-years away from you at this moment. That's all I have tosay, except for one more word: Help. He grinned sourly and released the button. The message was on its way,and it would be hours before he could have a reply. Therefore he had toconsider what to do next. He mopped his brow. With the droning, repetitious call from the shipfinally quiet, the room was quiet again. And warm. Very warm, he thought tardily; and more than that. The halogen stenchwas strong in his nostrils again. Hurriedly McCray scrambled into the suit. By the time he was sealeddown he was coughing from the bottom of his lungs, deep, tearing raspsthat pained him, uncontrollable. Chlorine or fluorine, one of them wasin the air he had been breathing. He could not guess where it had comefrom; but it was ripping his lungs out. He flushed the interior of the suit out with a reckless disregard forthe wastage of his air reserve, holding his breath as much as he could,daring only shallow gasps that made him retch and gag. After a longtime he could breathe, though his eyes were spilling tears. He could see the fumes in the room now. The heat was building up. Automatically—now that he had put it on and so started itsservo-circuits operating—the suit was cooling him. This was adeep-space suit, regulation garb when going outside the pressure hullof an FTL ship. It was good up to at least five hundred degrees in thinair, perhaps three or four hundred in dense. In thin air or in space itwas the elastic joints and couplings that depolymerized when the heatgrew too great; in dense air, with conduction pouring energy in fasterthan the cooling coils could suck it out and hurl it away, it was therefrigerating equipment that broke down. McCray had no way of knowing just how hot it was going to get. Nor,for that matter, had the suit been designed to operate in a corrosivemedium. All in all it was time for him to do something. <doc-sep>Among the debris on the floor, he remembered, was a five-foot space-ax,tungsten-steel blade and springy aluminum shaft. McCray caught it up and headed for the door. It felt good in hisgauntlets, a rewarding weight; any weapon straightens the back of theman who holds it, and McCray was grateful for this one. With somethingconcrete to do he could postpone questioning. Never mind why he hadbeen brought here; never mind how. Never mind what he would, or could,do next; all those questions could recede into the background of hismind while he swung the ax and battered his way out of this poisonedoven. Crash-clang! The double jolt ran up the shaft of the ax, through hisgauntlets and into his arm; but he was making progress, he could seethe plastic—or whatever it was—of the door. It was chipping out. Noteasily, very reluctantly; but flaking out in chips that left a whitepowdery residue. At this rate, he thought grimly, he would be an hour getting throughit. Did he have an hour? But it did not take an hour. One blow was luckier than the rest; itmust have snapped the lock mechanism. The door shook and slid ajar.McCray got the thin of the blade into the crack and pried it wide. He was in another room, maybe a hall, large and bare. McCray put the broad of his back against the broken door and pressed itas nearly closed as he could; it might not keep the gas and heat out,but it would retard them. The room was again unlighted—at least to McCray's eyes. There was noteven that pink pseudo-light that had baffled him; here was nothingbut the beam of his suit lamp. What it showed was cryptic. There wereevidences of use: shelves, boxy contraptions that might have beencupboards, crude level surfaces attached to the walls that might havebeen workbenches. Yet they were queerly contrived, for it was notpossible to guess from them much about the creatures who used them.Some were near the floor, some at waist height, some even suspendedfrom the ceiling itself. A man would need a ladder to work at thesebenches and McCray, staring, thought briefly of many-armed blind giantsor shapeless huge intelligent amoebae, and felt the skin prickle at theback of his neck. He tapped half-heartedly at one of the closed cupboards, and was notsurprised when it proved as refractory as the door. Undoubtedly hecould batter it open, but it was not likely that much would be left ofits contents when he was through; and there was the question of time. But his attention was diverted by a gleam from one of the benches.Metallic parts lay heaped in a pile. He poked at them with astiff-fingered gauntlet; they were oddly familiar. They were, hethought, very much like the parts of a bullet-gun. In fact, they were. He could recognize barrel, chamber, trigger, evena couple of cartridges, neatly opened and the grains of powder stackedbeside them. It was an older, clumsier model than the kind he had seenin survival locker, on the Jodrell Bank —and abruptly wished he werecarrying now—but it was a pistol. Another trophy, like the strangeassortment in the other room? He could not guess. But the others hadbeen more familiar; they all have come from his own ship. He wasprepared to swear that nothing like this antique had been aboard. The drone began again in his ear, as it had at five-minute intervalsall along: Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, this is Jodrell Bank calling Herrell McCray.... And louder, blaring, then fading to normal volume as the AVC circuitstoned the signal down, another voice. A woman's voice, crying out inpanic and fear: Jodrell Bank! Where are you? Help! IV Hatcher's second in command said: He has got through the firstsurvival test. In fact, he broke his way out! What next? Wait! Hatcher ordered sharply. He was watching the new specimen anda troublesome thought had occurred to him. The new one was female andseemed to be in pain; but it was not the pain that disturbed Hatcher,it was something far more immediate to his interests. I think, he said slowly, that they are in contact. His assistant vibrated startlement. I know, Hatcher said, but watch. Do you see? He is going straighttoward her. Hatcher, who was not human, did not possess truly human emotions; buthe did feel amazement when he was amazed, and fear when there wascause to be afraid. These specimens, obtained with so much difficulty,needed so badly, were his responsibility. He knew the issues involvedmuch better than any of his helpers. They could only be surprised atthe queer antics of the aliens with attached limbs and strange powers.Hatcher knew that this was not a freak show, but a matter of life anddeath. He said, musing: This new one, I cannot communicate with her, but I get—almost—awhisper, now and then. The first one, the male, nothing. But thisfemale is perhaps not quite mute. Then shall we abandon him and work with her, forgetting the first one? Hatcher hesitated. No, he said at last. The male is responding well.Remember that when last this experiment was done every subject died; heis alive at least. But I am wondering. We can't quite communicate withthe female— But? But I'm not sure that others can't. <doc-sep>The woman's voice was at such close range that McCray's suit radio madea useful RDF set. He located her direction easily enough, shielding thetiny built-in antenna with the tungsten-steel blade of the ax, whileshe begged him to hurry. Her voice was heavily accented, with somewords in a language he did not recognize. She seemed to be in shock. McCray was hardly surprised at that; he had been close enough to shockhimself. He tried to reassure her as he searched for a way out of thehall, but in the middle of a word her voice stopped. He hesitated, hefting the ax, glancing back at the way he had come.There had to be a way out, even if it meant chopping through a wall. When he turned around again there was a door. It was oddly shaped andunlike the door he had hewn through, but clearly a door all the same,and it was open. McCray regarded it grimly. He went back in his memory with meticulouscare. Had he not looked at, this very spot a matter of moments before?He had. And had there been an open door then? There had not. Therehadn't been even a shadowy outline of the three-sided, uneven openingthat stood there now. Still, it led in the proper direction. McCray added one moreinexplicable fact to his file and walked through. He was in anotherhall—or tunnel—rising quite steeply to the right. By his reckoning itwas the proper direction. He labored up it, sweating under the weightof the suit, and found another open door, this one round, and behindit— Yes, there was the woman whose voice he had heard. It was a woman, all right. The voice had been so strained that hehadn't been positive. Even now, short black hair might not have provedit, and she was lying face down but the waist and hips were a woman's,even though she wore a bulky, quilted suit of coveralls. He knelt beside her and gently turned her face. She was unconscious. Broad, dark face, with no make-up; she wasapparently in her late thirties. She appeared to be Chinese. She breathed, a little raggedly but without visible discomfort; herface was relaxed as though she were sleeping. She did not rouse as hemoved her. He realized she was breathing the air of the room they were in. His instant first thought was that she was in danger of asphyxiation;<doc-sep></s>

Physically speaking, the probes refer to the snakelike mandibles that form the arms and legs of the alien race to which Hatcher belongs. These mandibles are able to detach themselves and travel vast distances away from the body, conducting experiments and running errands controlled remotely by the brain. When they return to the body, they settle into little grooves formed in the skin at the base of the globular host body. Hatcher manages the probe team responsible for observing McCray and running him through a series of tests. The supervising council oversees operations of all the various Probe Teams throughout the universe; the ultimate goal of all Probe Teams is to discover a way in which to defend their race against the hostile Old Ones who have recently resurfaced and captured a team member from The Central Masses Probe Team.

<s> THE FIVE HELLS OF ORION BY FREDERICK POHL Out in the great gas cloud of the Orion Nebula McCray found an ally—and a foe! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] His name was Herrell McCray and he was scared. As best he could tell, he was in a sort of room no bigger than a prisoncell. Perhaps it was a prison cell. Whatever it was, he had no businessin it; for five minutes before he had been spaceborne, on the Long Jumpfrom Earth to the thriving colonies circling Betelgeuse Nine. McCraywas ship's navigator, plotting course corrections—not that there wereany, ever; but the reason there were none was that the check-sightingswere made every hour of the long flight. He had read off the azimuthangles from the computer sights, automatically locked on their beaconstars, and found them correct; then out of long habit confirmed thelocking mechanism visually. It was only a personal quaintness; he haddone it a thousand times. And while he was looking at Betelgeuse, Rigeland Saiph ... it happened. The room was totally dark, and it seemed to be furnished with acollection of hard, sharp, sticky and knobby objects of various shapesand a number of inconvenient sizes. McCray tripped over somethingthat rocked under his feet and fell against something that clatteredhollowly. He picked himself up, braced against something that smelleddangerously of halogen compounds, and scratched his shoulder, rightthrough his space-tunic, against something that vibrated as he touchedit. McCray had no idea where he was, and no way to find out. Not only was he in darkness, but in utter silence as well. No. Notquite utter silence. Somewhere, just at the threshold of his senses, there was somethinglike a voice. He could not quite hear it, but it was there. He sat asstill as he could, listening; it remained elusive. Probably it was only an illusion. But the room itself was hard fact. McCray swore violently and out loud. It was crazy and impossible. There simply was no way for him to getfrom a warm, bright navigator's cubicle on Starship Jodrell Bank tothis damned, dark, dismal hole of a place where everything was out tohurt him and nothing explained what was going on. He cried aloud inexasperation: If I could only see ! He tripped and fell against something that was soft, slimy and, likebaker's dough, not at all resilient. A flickering halo of pinkish light appeared. He sat up, startled. Hewas looking at something that resembled a suit of medieval armor. <doc-sep>It was, he saw in a moment, not armor but a spacesuit. But what was thelight? And what were these other things in the room? Wherever he looked, the light danced along with his eyes. It was likehaving tunnel vision or wearing blinders. He could see what he waslooking at, but he could see nothing else. And the things he couldsee made no sense. A spacesuit, yes; he knew that he could constructa logical explanation for that with no trouble—maybe a subspacemeteorite striking the Jodrell Bank , an explosion, himself knockedout, brought here in a suit ... well, it was an explanation with moreholes than fabric, like a fisherman's net, but at least it was rational. How to explain a set of Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the RomanEmpire? A space-ax? Or the old-fashioned child's rocking-chair, thechemistry set—or, most of all, the scrap of gaily printed fabricthat, when he picked it up, turned out to be a girl's scanty bathingsuit? It was slightly reassuring, McCray thought, to find that most ofthe objects were more or less familiar. Even the child's chair—why,he'd had one more or less like that himself, long before he was oldenough to go to school. But what were they doing here? Not everything he saw was familiar. The walls of the room itself werestrange. They were not metal or plaster or knotty pine; they werenot papered, painted or overlaid with stucco. They seemed to be madeof some sort of hard organic compound, perhaps a sort of plastic orprocessed cellulose. It was hard to tell colors in the pinkish light.But they seemed to have none. They were neutral—the color of ageddriftwood or unbleached cloth. Three of the walls were that way, and the floor and ceiling. The fourthwall was something else. Areas in it had the appearance of gratings;from them issued the pungent, distasteful halogen odor. They might beventilators, he thought; but if so the air they brought in was worsethan what he already had. McCray was beginning to feel more confident. It was astonishing how alittle light made an impossible situation bearable, how quickly hiscourage flowed back when he could see again. He stood still, thinking. Item, a short time ago—subjectively itseemed to be minutes—he had been aboard the Jodrell Bank withnothing more on his mind than completing his check-sighting and meetingone of the female passengers for coffee. Item, apart from beingshaken up and—he admitted it—scared damn near witless, he did notseem to be hurt. Item, wherever he was now, it became, not so much whathad happened to him, but what had happened to the ship? He allowed that thought to seep into his mind. Suppose there had beenan accident to the Jodrell Bank . He could, of course, be dead. All this could be the fantasies of acooling brain. McCray grinned into the pink-lit darkness. The thought had somehowrefreshed him, like icewater between rounds, and with a clearing headhe remembered what a spacesuit was good for. It held a radio. He pressed the unsealing tabs, slipped his hand into the vacant chestof the suit and pulled out the hand mike. This is Herrell McCray, hesaid, calling the Jodrell Bank . No response. He frowned. This is Herrell McCray, calling JodrellBank . Herrell McCray, calling anybody, come in, please. But there was no answer. Thoughtfully he replaced the microphone. This was ultrawave radio,something more than a million times faster than light, with a rangemeasured, at least, in hundreds of light-years. If there was no answer,he was a good long way from anywhere. Of course, the thing might not be operating. He reached for the microphone again— He cried aloud. The pinkish lights went out. He was in the dark again, worse dark thanbefore. For before the light had gone, McCray had seen what had escapedhis eyes before. The suit and the microphone were clear enough inthe pinkish glimmer; but the hand—his own hand, cupped to hold themicrophone—he had not seen at all. Nor his arm. Nor, in one fleetingmoment of study, his chest. McCray could not see any part of his own body at all. II Someone else could. Someone was watching Herrell McCray, with the clinical fascinationof a biochemist observing the wigglings of paramecia in a newantibiotic—and with the prayerful emotions of a starving, shipwrecked,sailor, watching the inward bobbing drift of a wave-born cask that may contain food. Suppose you call him Hatcher (and suppose you call it a him.)Hatcher was not exactly male, because his race had no true males; butit did have females and he was certainly not that. Hatcher did not inany way look like a human being, but they had features in common. If Hatcher and McCray had somehow managed to strike up an acquaintance,they might have got along very well. Hatcher, like McCray, was anadventurous soul, young, able, well-learned in the technical sciencesof his culture. Both enjoyed games—McCray baseball, poker andthree-dimensional chess; Hatcher a number of sports which defy humandescription. Both held positions of some importance—considering theirages—in the affairs of their respective worlds. Physically they were nothing alike. Hatcher was a three-foot,hard-shelled sphere of jelly. He had arms and legs, but they werenot organically attached to himself. They were snakelike things whichobeyed the orders of his brain as well as your mind can make your toescurl; but they did not touch him directly. Indeed, they worked as wella yard or a quarter-mile away as they did when, rarely, they restedin the crevices they had been formed from in his skin. At greaterdistances they worked less well, for reasons irrelevant to the Law ofInverse Squares. Hatcher's principal task at this moment was to run the probe teamwhich had McCray under observation, and he was more than a littleexcited. His members, disposed about the room where he had sent them onvarious errands, quivered and shook a little; yet they were the calmestlimbs in the room; the members of the other team workers were in astate of violent commotion. The probe team had had a shock. Paranormal powers, muttered Hatcher's second in command, and theothers mumbled agreement. Hatcher ordered silence, studying thespecimen from Earth. After a long moment he turned his senses from the Earthman.Incredible—but it's true enough, he said. I'd better report. Watchhim, he added, but that was surely unnecessary. Their job was towatch McCray, and they would do their job; and even more, not one ofthem could have looked away to save his life from the spectacle ofa creature as odd and, from their point of view, hideously alien asHerrell McCray. <doc-sep>Hatcher hurried through the halls of the great buried structure inwhich he worked, toward the place where the supervising council of allprobes would be in permanent session. They admitted him at once. Hatcher identified himself and gave a quick, concise report: The subject recovered consciousness a short time ago and began toinspect his enclosure. His method of doing so was to put his ownmembers in physical contact with the various objects in the enclosure.After observing him do this for a time we concluded he might be unableto see and so we illuminated his field of vision for him. This appeared to work well for a time. He seemed relativelyundisturbed. However, he then reverted to physical-contact,manipulating certain appurtenances of an artificial skin we hadprovided for him. He then began to vibrate the atmosphere by means of resonating organsin his breathing passage. Simultaneously, the object he was holding, attached to the artificialskin, was discovered to be generating paranormal forces. The supervising council rocked with excitement. You're sure? demandedone of the councilmen. Yes, sir. The staff is preparing a technical description of the forcesnow, but I can say that they are electromagnetic vibrations modulatinga carrier wave of very high speed, and in turn modulated by thevibrations of the atmosphere caused by the subject's own breathing. Fantastic, breathed the councillor, in a tone of dawning hope. Howabout communicating with him, Hatcher? Any progress? Well ... not much, sir. He suddenly panicked. We don't know why; butwe thought we'd better pull back and let him recover for a while. The council conferred among itself for a moment, Hatcher waiting. Itwas not really a waste of time for him; with the organs he had left inthe probe-team room, he was in fairly close touch with what was goingon—knew that McCray was once again fumbling among the objects in thedark, knew that the team-members had tried illuminating the room forhim briefly and again produced the rising panic. Still, Hatcher fretted. He wanted to get back. Stop fidgeting, commanded the council leader abruptly. Hatcher, youare to establish communication at once. But, sir.... Hatcher swung closer, his thick skin quivering slightly;he would have gestured if he had brought members with him to gesturewith. We've done everything we dare. We've made the place homeyfor him— actually, what he said was more like, we've warmed thebiophysical nuances of his enclosure —and tried to guess his needs;and we're frightening him half to death. We can't go faster. Thiscreature is in no way similar to us, you know. He relies on paranormalforces—heat, light, kinetic energy—for his life. His chemistry is notours, his processes of thought are not ours, his entire organism iscloser to the inanimate rocks of a sea-bottom than to ourselves. Understood, Hatcher. In your first report you stated these creatureswere intelligent. Yes, sir. But not in our way. But in a way, and you must learn that way. I know. One lobster-clawshaped member drifted close to the councillor's body and raised itselfin an admonitory gesture. You want time. But we don't have time,Hatcher. Yours is not the only probe team working. The Central Massesteam has just turned in a most alarming report. Have they secured a subject? Hatcher demanded jealously. The councillor paused. Worse than that, Hatcher. I am afraid theirsubjects have secured one of them. One of them is missing. There was a moment's silence. Frozen, Hatcher could only wait. Thecouncil room was like a tableau in a museum until the councillor spokeagain, each council member poised over his locus-point, his membersdrifting about him. Finally the councillor said, I speak for all of us, I think. If theOld Ones have seized one of our probers our time margin is considerablynarrowed. Indeed, we may not have any time at all. You must doeverything you can to establish communication with your subject. But the danger to the specimen— Hatcher protested automatically. —is no greater, said the councillor, than the danger to every oneof us if we do not find allies now . <doc-sep>Hatcher returned to his laboratory gloomily. It was just like the council to put the screws on; they had areputation for demanding results at any cost—even at the cost ofdestroying the only thing you had that would make results possible. Hatcher did not like the idea of endangering the Earthman. It cannotbe said that he was emotionally involved; it was not pity or sympathythat caused him to regret the dangers in moving too fast towardcommunication. Not even Hatcher had quite got over the revoltingphysical differences between the Earthman and his own people. ButHatcher did not want him destroyed. It had been difficult enoughgetting him here. Hatcher checked through the members that he had left with the rest ofhis team and discovered that there were no immediate emergencies, so hetook time to eat. In Hatcher's race this was accomplished in ways notentirely pleasant to Earthmen. A slit in the lower hemisphere of hisbody opened, like a purse, emitting a thin, pussy, fetid fluid whichHatcher caught and poured into a disposal trough at the side of theeating room. He then stuffed the slit with pulpy vegetation the textureof kelp; it closed, and his body was supplied with nourishment foranother day. He returned quickly to the room. His second in command was busy, but one of the other team workersreported—nothing new—and asked about Hatcher's appearance before thecouncil. Hatcher passed the question off. He considered telling hisstaff about the disappearance of the Central Masses team member, butdecided against it. He had not been told it was secret. On the otherhand, he had not been told it was not. Something of this importance wasnot lightly to be gossiped about. For endless generations the threatof the Old Ones had hung over his race, those queer, almost mythicalbeings from the Central Masses of the galaxy. One brush with them, inages past, had almost destroyed Hatcher's people. Only by running andhiding, bearing one of their planets with them and abandoning it—withits population—as a decoy, had they arrived at all. Now they had detected mapping parties of the Old Ones dangerously nearthe spiral arm of the galaxy in which their planet was located, theyhad begun the Probe Teams to find some way of combating them, or offleeing again. But it seemed that the Probe Teams themselves might be betraying theirexistence to their enemies— Hatcher! The call was urgent; he hurried to see what it was about. It was hissecond in command, very excited. What is it? Hatcher demanded. Wait.... Hatcher was patient; he knew his assistant well. Obviously somethingwas about to happen. He took the moment to call his members back tohim for feeding; they dodged back to their niches on his skin, fittedthemselves into their vestigial slots, poured back their wastes intohis own circulation and ingested what they needed from the meal he hadjust taken.... Now! cried the assistant. Look! At what passed among Hatcher's people for a viewing console an imagewas forming. Actually it was the assistant himself who formed it, not acathode trace or projected shadow; but it showed what it was meant toshow. Hatcher was startled. Another one! And—is it a different species? Ormerely a different sex? Study the probe for yourself, the assistant invited. Hatcher studied him frostily; his patience was not, after all, endless.No matter, he said at last. Bring the other one in. And then, in a completely different mood, We may need him badly. Wemay be in the process of killing our first one now. Killing him, Hatcher? Hatcher rose and shook himself, his mindless members floating away likepuppies dislodged from suck. Council's orders, he said. We've got togo into Stage Two of the project at once. III Before Stage Two began, or before Herrell McCray realized it had begun,he had an inspiration. The dark was absolute, but he remembered where the spacesuit had beenand groped his way to it and, yes, it had what all spacesuits had tohave. It had a light. He found the toggle that turned it on and pressedit. Light. White, flaring, Earthly light, that showed everything—evenhimself. God bless, he said, almost beside himself with joy. Whatever thatpinkish, dancing halo had been, it had thrown him into a panic; nowthat he could see his own hand again, he could blame the weird effectson some strange property of the light. At the moment he heard the click that was the beginning of Stage Two. He switched off the light and stood for a moment, listening. For a second he thought he heard the far-off voice, quiet, calm andalmost hopeless, that he had sensed hours before; but then that wasgone. Something else was gone. Some faint mechanical sound that hadhardly registered at the time, but was not missing. And there was,perhaps, a nice new sound that had not been there before; a veryfaint, an almost inaudible elfin hiss. McCray switched the light on and looked around. There seemed to be nochange. And yet, surely, it was warmer in here. He could see no difference; but perhaps, he thought, he could smellone. The unpleasant halogen odor from the grating was surely strongernow. He stood there, perplexed. A tinny little voice from the helmet of the space suit said sharply,amazement in its tone, McCray, is that you? Where the devil are youcalling from? He forgot smell, sound and temperature and leaped for the suit. Thisis Herrell McCray, he cried. I'm in a room of some sort, apparentlyon a planet of approximate Earth mass. I don't know— McCray! cried the tiny voice in his ear. Where are you? This is Jodrell Bank calling. Answer, please! I am answering, damn it, he roared. What took you so long? Herrell McCray, droned the tiny voice in his ear, Herrell McCray,Herrell McCray, this is Jodrell Bank responding to your message,acknowledge please. Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray.... It kept on, and on. McCray took a deep breath and thought. Something was wrong. Either theydidn't hear him, which meant the radio wasn't transmitting, or—no.That was not it; they had heard him, because they were responding.But it seemed to take them so long.... Abruptly his face went white. Took them so long! He cast back in hismind, questing for a fact, unable to face its implications. When wasit he called them? Two hours ago? Three? Did that mean—did it possibly mean—that there was a lag of an houror two each way? Did it, for example, mean that at the speed of hissuit's pararadio, millions of times faster than light, it took hours to get a message to the ship and back? And if so ... where in the name of heaven was he? <doc-sep>Herrell McCray was a navigator, which is to say, a man who has learnedto trust the evidence of mathematics and instrument readings beyond theguesses of his common sense. When Jodrell Bank , hurtling fasterthan light in its voyage between stars, made its regular positioncheck, common sense was a liar. Light bore false witness. The line ofsight was trustworthy directly forward and directly after—sometimesnot even then—and it took computers, sensing their data throughinstruments, to comprehend a star bearing and convert three fixes intoa position. If the evidence of his radio contradicted common sense, common sensewas wrong. Perhaps it was impossible to believe what the radio'smessage implied; but it was not necessary to believe, only to act. McCray thumbed down the transmitter button and gave a concise reportof his situation and his guesses. I don't know how I got here. Idon't know how long I've been gone, since I was unconscious for atime. However, if the transmission lag is a reliable indication— heswallowed and went on—I'd estimate I am something more than fivehundred light-years away from you at this moment. That's all I have tosay, except for one more word: Help. He grinned sourly and released the button. The message was on its way,and it would be hours before he could have a reply. Therefore he had toconsider what to do next. He mopped his brow. With the droning, repetitious call from the shipfinally quiet, the room was quiet again. And warm. Very warm, he thought tardily; and more than that. The halogen stenchwas strong in his nostrils again. Hurriedly McCray scrambled into the suit. By the time he was sealeddown he was coughing from the bottom of his lungs, deep, tearing raspsthat pained him, uncontrollable. Chlorine or fluorine, one of them wasin the air he had been breathing. He could not guess where it had comefrom; but it was ripping his lungs out. He flushed the interior of the suit out with a reckless disregard forthe wastage of his air reserve, holding his breath as much as he could,daring only shallow gasps that made him retch and gag. After a longtime he could breathe, though his eyes were spilling tears. He could see the fumes in the room now. The heat was building up. Automatically—now that he had put it on and so started itsservo-circuits operating—the suit was cooling him. This was adeep-space suit, regulation garb when going outside the pressure hullof an FTL ship. It was good up to at least five hundred degrees in thinair, perhaps three or four hundred in dense. In thin air or in space itwas the elastic joints and couplings that depolymerized when the heatgrew too great; in dense air, with conduction pouring energy in fasterthan the cooling coils could suck it out and hurl it away, it was therefrigerating equipment that broke down. McCray had no way of knowing just how hot it was going to get. Nor,for that matter, had the suit been designed to operate in a corrosivemedium. All in all it was time for him to do something. <doc-sep>Among the debris on the floor, he remembered, was a five-foot space-ax,tungsten-steel blade and springy aluminum shaft. McCray caught it up and headed for the door. It felt good in hisgauntlets, a rewarding weight; any weapon straightens the back of theman who holds it, and McCray was grateful for this one. With somethingconcrete to do he could postpone questioning. Never mind why he hadbeen brought here; never mind how. Never mind what he would, or could,do next; all those questions could recede into the background of hismind while he swung the ax and battered his way out of this poisonedoven. Crash-clang! The double jolt ran up the shaft of the ax, through hisgauntlets and into his arm; but he was making progress, he could seethe plastic—or whatever it was—of the door. It was chipping out. Noteasily, very reluctantly; but flaking out in chips that left a whitepowdery residue. At this rate, he thought grimly, he would be an hour getting throughit. Did he have an hour? But it did not take an hour. One blow was luckier than the rest; itmust have snapped the lock mechanism. The door shook and slid ajar.McCray got the thin of the blade into the crack and pried it wide. He was in another room, maybe a hall, large and bare. McCray put the broad of his back against the broken door and pressed itas nearly closed as he could; it might not keep the gas and heat out,but it would retard them. The room was again unlighted—at least to McCray's eyes. There was noteven that pink pseudo-light that had baffled him; here was nothingbut the beam of his suit lamp. What it showed was cryptic. There wereevidences of use: shelves, boxy contraptions that might have beencupboards, crude level surfaces attached to the walls that might havebeen workbenches. Yet they were queerly contrived, for it was notpossible to guess from them much about the creatures who used them.Some were near the floor, some at waist height, some even suspendedfrom the ceiling itself. A man would need a ladder to work at thesebenches and McCray, staring, thought briefly of many-armed blind giantsor shapeless huge intelligent amoebae, and felt the skin prickle at theback of his neck. He tapped half-heartedly at one of the closed cupboards, and was notsurprised when it proved as refractory as the door. Undoubtedly hecould batter it open, but it was not likely that much would be left ofits contents when he was through; and there was the question of time. But his attention was diverted by a gleam from one of the benches.Metallic parts lay heaped in a pile. He poked at them with astiff-fingered gauntlet; they were oddly familiar. They were, hethought, very much like the parts of a bullet-gun. In fact, they were. He could recognize barrel, chamber, trigger, evena couple of cartridges, neatly opened and the grains of powder stackedbeside them. It was an older, clumsier model than the kind he had seenin survival locker, on the Jodrell Bank —and abruptly wished he werecarrying now—but it was a pistol. Another trophy, like the strangeassortment in the other room? He could not guess. But the others hadbeen more familiar; they all have come from his own ship. He wasprepared to swear that nothing like this antique had been aboard. The drone began again in his ear, as it had at five-minute intervalsall along: Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, this is Jodrell Bank calling Herrell McCray.... And louder, blaring, then fading to normal volume as the AVC circuitstoned the signal down, another voice. A woman's voice, crying out inpanic and fear: Jodrell Bank! Where are you? Help! IV Hatcher's second in command said: He has got through the firstsurvival test. In fact, he broke his way out! What next? Wait! Hatcher ordered sharply. He was watching the new specimen anda troublesome thought had occurred to him. The new one was female andseemed to be in pain; but it was not the pain that disturbed Hatcher,it was something far more immediate to his interests. I think, he said slowly, that they are in contact. His assistant vibrated startlement. I know, Hatcher said, but watch. Do you see? He is going straighttoward her. Hatcher, who was not human, did not possess truly human emotions; buthe did feel amazement when he was amazed, and fear when there wascause to be afraid. These specimens, obtained with so much difficulty,needed so badly, were his responsibility. He knew the issues involvedmuch better than any of his helpers. They could only be surprised atthe queer antics of the aliens with attached limbs and strange powers.Hatcher knew that this was not a freak show, but a matter of life anddeath. He said, musing: This new one, I cannot communicate with her, but I get—almost—awhisper, now and then. The first one, the male, nothing. But thisfemale is perhaps not quite mute. Then shall we abandon him and work with her, forgetting the first one? Hatcher hesitated. No, he said at last. The male is responding well.Remember that when last this experiment was done every subject died; heis alive at least. But I am wondering. We can't quite communicate withthe female— But? But I'm not sure that others can't. <doc-sep>The woman's voice was at such close range that McCray's suit radio madea useful RDF set. He located her direction easily enough, shielding thetiny built-in antenna with the tungsten-steel blade of the ax, whileshe begged him to hurry. Her voice was heavily accented, with somewords in a language he did not recognize. She seemed to be in shock. McCray was hardly surprised at that; he had been close enough to shockhimself. He tried to reassure her as he searched for a way out of thehall, but in the middle of a word her voice stopped. He hesitated, hefting the ax, glancing back at the way he had come.There had to be a way out, even if it meant chopping through a wall. When he turned around again there was a door. It was oddly shaped andunlike the door he had hewn through, but clearly a door all the same,and it was open. McCray regarded it grimly. He went back in his memory with meticulouscare. Had he not looked at, this very spot a matter of moments before?He had. And had there been an open door then? There had not. Therehadn't been even a shadowy outline of the three-sided, uneven openingthat stood there now. Still, it led in the proper direction. McCray added one moreinexplicable fact to his file and walked through. He was in anotherhall—or tunnel—rising quite steeply to the right. By his reckoning itwas the proper direction. He labored up it, sweating under the weightof the suit, and found another open door, this one round, and behindit— Yes, there was the woman whose voice he had heard. It was a woman, all right. The voice had been so strained that hehadn't been positive. Even now, short black hair might not have provedit, and she was lying face down but the waist and hips were a woman's,even though she wore a bulky, quilted suit of coveralls. He knelt beside her and gently turned her face. She was unconscious. Broad, dark face, with no make-up; she wasapparently in her late thirties. She appeared to be Chinese. She breathed, a little raggedly but without visible discomfort; herface was relaxed as though she were sleeping. She did not rouse as hemoved her. He realized she was breathing the air of the room they were in. His instant first thought was that she was in danger of asphyxiation;<doc-sep></s>

Herrell McCray is the navigator for the Starship Jodrell Bank whose mission is to reach the colonies circling Betelgeuse Nine. He is young, adventurous, gifted in science and technology, and enjoys playing baseball, poker, and 3D chess. When McCray finds himself inexplicably abducted and transported to a dark room in an unknown location, he is confused about how he ended up in that location and why he is surrounded by items that vaguely remind him of his childhood. He is grateful when a pinkish light offers some illumination, and he attempts to contact his ship using the radio on a spacesuit he finds in the room. Before the light goes out, he panics when he is not able to see any part of his body; he later realizes this was a trick of the light. McCray continues to attempt to make contact with the ship and hours go by before he receives a reply, which makes him realize he is possibly millions of lightyears away from it. As McCray realizes his room is slowly filling with toxic fumes, he uses an ax he finds to break free and tries to find a way to escape his unknown prison. As he navigates the unusual building, he finds a gun and eventually hears a transmission from an unknown woman who is also calling out for the ship. He makes his way through bizarre doors until he finds her face down on the ground.

<s> A Gleeb for Earth By CHARLES SHAFHAUSER Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Not to be or not to not be ... that was the not-question for the invader of the not-world. Dear Editor: My 14 year old boy, Ronnie, is typing this letter for me because hecan do it neater and use better grammar. I had to get in touch withsomebody about this because if there is something to it, then somebody,everybody, is going to point finger at me, Ivan Smernda, and say, Whydidn't you warn us? I could not go to the police because they are not too friendly tome because of some of my guests who frankly are stew bums. Also theymight think I was on booze, too, or maybe the hops, and get my licenserevoked. I run a strictly legit hotel even though some of my guestsmight be down on their luck now and then. What really got me mixed up in this was the mysterious disappearance oftwo of my guests. They both took a powder last Wednesday morning. Now get this. In one room, that of Joe Binkle, which maybe is an alias,I find nothing but a suit of clothes, some butts and the letters Iinclude here in same package. Binkle had only one suit. That I know.And this was it laying right in the middle of the room. Inside thecoat was the vest, inside the vest the shirt, inside the shirt theunderwear. The pants were up in the coat and inside of them was alsothe underwear. All this was buttoned up like Binkle had melted out ofit and dripped through a crack in the floor. In a bureau drawer werethe letters I told you about. Now. In the room right under Binkle's lived another stew bum thatchecked in Thursday ... name Ed Smith, alias maybe, too. This guy was areal case. He brought with him a big mirror with a heavy bronze frame.Airloom, he says. He pays a week in advance, staggers up the stairs tohis room with the mirror and that's the last I see of him. In Smith's room on Wednesday I find only a suit of clothes, the samesuit he wore when he came in. In the coat the vest, in the vest theshirt, in the shirt the underwear. Also in the pants. Also all in themiddle of the floor. Against the far wall stands the frame of themirror. Only the frame! What a spot to be in! Now it might have been a gag. Sometimes theseguys get funny ideas when they are on the stuff. But then I readthe letters. This knocks me for a loop. They are all in differenthandwritings. All from different places. Stamps all legit, my kid says.India, China, England, everywhere. My kid, he reads. He says it's no joke. He wants to call the cops ormaybe some doctor. But I say no. He reads your magazine so he sayswrite to you, send you the letters. You know what to do. Now you havethem. Maybe you print. Whatever you do, Mr. Editor, remember my place,the Plaza Ritz Arms, is straight establishment. I don't drink. I nevertouch junk, not even aspirin. Yours very truly, Ivan Smernda <doc-sep>Bombay, India June 8 Mr. Joe Binkle Plaza Ritz Arms New York City Dear Joe: Greetings, greetings, greetings. Hold firm in your wretched projection,for tomorrow you will not be alone in the not-world. In two days I,Glmpauszn, will be born. Today I hang in our newly developed not-pod just within the mirrorgateway, torn with the agony that we calculated must go with suchtremendous wavelength fluctuations. I have attuned myself to a fetuswithin the body of a not-woman in the not-world. Already I am staticand for hours have looked into this weird extension of the Universewith fear and trepidation. As soon as my stasis was achieved, I tried to contact you, but gotno response. What could have diminished your powers of articulatewave interaction to make you incapable of receiving my messages andreturning them? My wave went out to yours and found it, barely pulsingand surrounded with an impregnable chimera. Quickly, from the not-world vibrations about you, I learned thenot-knowledge of your location. So I must communicate with you by whatthe not-world calls mail till we meet. For this purpose I mustutilize the feeble vibrations of various not-people through whoseinadequate articulation I will attempt to make my moves known to you.Each time I will pick a city other than the one I am in at the time. I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentaryreports before you ceased to vibrate to us and with a vast treasuryof facts from indirect sources. Soon our tortured people will be freeof the fearsome not-folk and I will be their liberator. You failed inyour task, but I will try to get you off with light punishment when wereturn again. The hand that writes this letter is that of a boy in the not-city ofBombay in the not-country of India. He does not know he writes it.Tomorrow it will be someone else. You must never know of my exactlocation, for the not-people might have access to the information. I must leave off now because the not-child is about to be born. When itis alone in the room, it will be spirited away and I will spring fromthe pod on the gateway into its crib and will be its exact vibrationallikeness. I have tremendous powers. But the not-people must never know I am amongthem. This is the only way I could arrive in the room where the gatewaylies without arousing suspicion. I will grow up as the not-child inorder that I might destroy the not-people completely. All is well, only they shot this information file into my matrix toofast. I'm having a hard time sorting facts and make the right decision.Gezsltrysk, what a task! Farewell till later. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Wichita, Kansas June 13 Dear Joe: Mnghjkl, fhfjgfhjklop phelnoprausynks. No. When I communicate with you,I see I must avoid those complexities of procedure for which there areno terms in this language. There is no way of describing to you innot-language what I had to go through during the first moments of mybirth. Now I know what difficulties you must have had with your limitedequipment. These not-people are unpredictable and strange. Their doctorcame in and weighed me again the day after my birth. Consternationreigned when it was discovered I was ten pounds heavier. Whatdifference could it possibly make? Many doctors then came in to see me.As they arrived hourly, they found me heavier and heavier. Naturally,since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother(Gezsltrysk!) then burst into tears. The doctors conferred, threw uptheir hands and left. I learned the following day that the opposite component of mynot-mother, my not-father, had been away riding on some conveyanceduring my birth. He was out on ... what did they call it? Oh, yes, abender. He did not arrive till three days after I was born. When I heard them say that he was straightening up to come see me, Imade a special effort and grew marvelously in one afternoon. I was 36not-world inches tall by evening. My not-father entered while I wasstanding by the crib examining a syringe the doctor had left behind.He stopped in his tracks on entering the room and seemed incapable ofspeech. Dredging into the treasury of knowledge I had come equipped with, Iproduced the proper phrase for occasions of this kind in the not-world. Poppa, I said. This was the first use I had made of the so-called vocal cords thatare now part of my extended matrix. The sound I emitted soundedlow-pitched, guttural and penetrating even to myself. It must havejarred on my not-father's ears, for he turned and ran shouting from theroom. They apprehended him on the stairs and I heard him babble somethingabout my being a monster and no child of his. My not-mother appeared atthe doorway and instead of being pleased at the progress of my growth,she fell down heavily. She made a distinct thump on the floor. This brought the rest of them on the run, so I climbed out the windowand retreated across a nearby field. A prolonged search was launched,but I eluded them. What unpredictable beings! I reported my tremendous progress back to our world, including thecleverness by which I managed to escape my pursuers. I received a replyfrom Blgftury which, on careful analysis, seems to be small praiseindeed. In fact, some of his phrases apparently contain veiled threats.But you know old Blgftury. He wanted to go on this expedition himselfand it's his nature never to flatter anyone. From now on I will refer to not-people simply as people, dropping thequalifying preface except where comparisons must be made between thisalleged world and our own. It is merely an offshoot of our primitivemythology when this was considered a spirit world, just as these peoplerefer to our world as never-never land and other anomalies. But welearned otherwise, while they never have. New sensations crowd into my consciousness and I am having a hardtime classifying them. Anyway, I shall carry on swiftly now to theinevitable climax in which I singlehanded will obliterate the terror ofthe not-world and return to our world a hero. I cannot understand yournot replying to my letters. I have given you a box number. What couldhave happened to your vibrations? Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Albuquerque, New Mexico June 15 Dear Joe: I had tremendous difficulty getting a letter off to you this time.My process—original with myself, by the way—is to send out feelervibrations for what these people call the psychic individual. Then Iestablish contact with him while he sleeps and compel him without hisknowledge to translate my ideas into written language. He writes myletter and mails it to you. Of course, he has no awareness of what hehas done. My first five tries were unfortunate. Each time I took control of anindividual who could not read or write! Finally I found my man, butI fear his words are limited. Ah, well. I had great things to tellyou about my progress, but I cannot convey even a hint of how I haveaccomplished these miracles through the thick skull of this incompetent. In simple terms then: I crept into a cave and slipped into a kind ofsleep, directing my squhjkl ulytz & uhrytzg ... no, it won't come out.Anyway, I grew overnight to the size of an average person here. As I said before, floods of impressions are driving into my xzbyl ...my brain ... from various nerve and sense areas and I am having a hardtime classifying them. My one idea was to get to a chemist and acquirethe stuff needed for the destruction of these people. Sunrise came as I expected. According to my catalog of information, theimpressions aroused by it are of beauty. It took little conditioningfor me finally to react in this manner. This is truly an efficientmechanism I inhabit. I gazed about me at the mixture of lights, forms and impressions.It was strange and ... now I know ... beautiful. However, I hurriedimmediately toward the nearest chemist. At the same time I looked upand all about me at the beauty. Soon an individual approached. I knew what to do from my information. Isimply acted natural. You know, one of your earliest instructions wasto realize that these people see nothing unusual in you if you do notlet yourself believe they do. This individual I classified as a female of a singular variety here.Her hair was short, her upper torso clad in a woolen garment. Shewore ... what are they? ... oh, yes, sneakers. My attention wasdiverted by a scream as I passed her. I stopped. The woman gesticulated and continued to scream. People hurried fromnearby houses. I linked my hands behind me and watched the scene withan attitude of mild interest. They weren't interested in me, I toldmyself. But they were. I became alarmed, dived into a bush and used a mechanism that youunfortunately do not have—invisibility. I lay there and listened. He was stark naked, the girl with the sneakers said. A figure I recognized as a police officer spoke to her. Lizzy, you'll just have to keep these crackpot friends of yours out ofthis area. But— No more buck-bathing, Lizzy, the officer ordered. No more speechesin the Square. Not when it results in riots at five in the morning. Nowwhere is your naked friend? I'm going to make an example of him. That was it—I had forgotten clothes. There is only one answer to thisoversight on my part. My mind is confused by the barrage of impressionsthat assault it. I must retire now and get them all classified. Beauty,pain, fear, hate, love, laughter. I don't know one from the other. Imust feel each, become accustomed to it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the information Ihave been given is very unrealistic. You have been inefficient, Joe.What will Blgftury and the others say of this? My great mission isimpaired. Farewell, till I find a more intelligent mind so I can writeyou with more enlightenment. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Moscow, Idaho June 17 Dear Joe: I received your first communication today. It baffles me. Do you greetme in the proper fringe-zone manner? No. Do you express joy, hope,pride, helpfulness at my arrival? No. You ask me for a loan of fivebucks! It took me some time, culling my information catalog to come up withthe correct variant of the slang term buck. Is it possible that youare powerless even to provide yourself with the wherewithal to live inthis inferior world? A reminder, please. You and I—I in particular—are now engaged ina struggle to free our world from the terrible, maiming intrusionsof this not-world. Through many long gleebs, our people have liveda semi-terrorized existence while errant vibrations from this worldripped across the closely joined vibration flux, whose individualfluctuations make up our sentient population. Even our eminent, all-high Frequency himself has often been jeopardizedby these people. The not-world and our world are like two basketsas you and I see them in our present forms. Baskets woven with thegreatest intricacy, design and color; but baskets whose convex sidesare joined by a thin fringe of filaments. Our world, on the vibrationalplane, extends just a bit into this, the not-world. But being a worldof higher vibration, it is ultimately tenuous to these gross peoples.While we vibrate only within a restricted plane because of our purer,more stable existence, these people radiate widely into our world. They even send what they call psychic reproductions of their own selvesinto ours. And most infamous of all, they sometimes are able to forcesome of our individuals over the fringe into their world temporarily,causing them much agony and fright. The latter atrocity is perpetrated through what these people callmediums, spiritualists and other fatuous names. I intend to visit oneof them at the first opportunity to see for myself. Meanwhile, as to you, I would offer a few words of advice. I pickedthem up while examining the slang portion of my information catalogwhich you unfortunately caused me to use. So, for the ultimatecause—in this, the penultimate adventure, and for the glory and peaceof our world—shake a leg, bub. Straighten up and fly right. In short,get hep. As far as the five bucks is concerned, no dice. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Des Moines, Iowa June 19 Dear Joe: Your letter was imponderable till I had thrashed through long passagesin my information catalog that I had never imagined I would need.Biological functions and bodily processes which are labeled hererevolting are used freely in your missive. You can be sure they areall being forwarded to Blgftury. If I were not involved in the mostimportant part of my journey—completion of the weapon against thenot-worlders—I would come to New York immediately. You would rue thatday, I assure you. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Boise, Idaho July 15 Dear Joe: A great deal has happened to me since I wrote to you last.Systematically, I have tested each emotion and sensation listed inour catalog. I have been, as has been said in this world, like a reedbending before the winds of passion. In fact, I'm rather badly bentindeed. Ah! You'll pardon me, but I just took time for what is knownquaintly in this tongue as a hooker of red-eye. Ha! I've masteredeven the vagaries of slang in the not-language.... Ahhh! Pardon meagain. I feel much better now. You see, Joe, as I attuned myself to the various impressions thatconstantly assaulted my mind through this body, I conditioned myself toreact exactly as our information catalog instructed me to. Now it is all automatic, pure reflex. A sensation comes to me when I amburned; then I experience a burning pain. If the sensation is a tickle,I experience a tickle. This morning I have what is known medically as a syndrome ... a groupof symptoms popularly referred to as a hangover ... Ahhh! Pardon meagain. Strangely ... now what was I saying? Oh, yes. Ha, ha. Strangelyenough, the reactions that come easiest to the people in this worldcame most difficult to me. Money-love, for example. It is a great thinghere, both among those who haven't got it and those who have. I went out and got plenty of money. I walked invisible into a bank andcarried away piles of it. Then I sat and looked at it. I took the moneyto a remote room of the twenty room suite I have rented in the besthotel here in—no, sorry—and stared at it for hours. Nothing happened. I didn't love the stuff or feel one way or the otherabout it. Yet all around me people are actually killing one another forthe love of it. Anyway.... Ahhh. Pardon me. I got myself enough money to fill ten orfifteen rooms. By the end of the week I should have all eighteen sparerooms filled with money. If I don't love it then, I'll feel I havefailed. This alcohol is taking effect now. Blgftury has been goading me for reports. To hell with his reports!I've got a lot more emotions to try, such as romantic love. I've beenstudying this phenomenon, along with other racial characteristics ofthese people, in the movies. This is the best place to see thesepeople as they really are. They all go into the movie houses and theredo homage to their own images. Very quaint type of idolatry. Love. Ha! What an adventure this is becoming. By the way, Joe, I'm forwarding that five dollars. You see, it won'tcost me anything. It'll come out of the pocket of the idiot who'swriting this letter. Pretty shrewd of me, eh? I'm going out and look at that money again. I think I'm at lastlearning to love it, though not as much as I admire liquor. Well, onesimply must persevere, I always say. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Penobscot, Maine July 20 Dear Joe: Now you tell me not to drink alcohol. Why not? You never mentioned itin any of your vibrations to us, gleebs ago, when you first came acrossto this world. It will stint my powers? Nonsense! Already I have had aquart of the liquid today. I feel wonderful. Get that? I actually feelwonderful, in spite of this miserable imitation of a body. There are long hours during which I am so well-integrated into thisbody and this world that I almost consider myself a member of it. NowI can function efficiently. I sent Blgftury some long reports todayoutlining my experiments in the realm of chemistry where we mustfinally defeat these people. Of course, I haven't made the experimentsyet, but I will. This is not deceit, merely realistic anticipation ofthe inevitable. Anyway, what the old xbyzrt doesn't know won't muss hisvibrations. I went to what they call a nightclub here and picked out ablonde-haired woman, the kind that the books say men prefer. She wasattracted to me instantly. After all, the body I have devised isperfect in every detail ... actually a not-world ideal. I didn't lose any time overwhelming her susceptibilities. I rememberdistinctly that just as I stooped to pick up a large roll of money Ihad dropped, her eyes met mine and in them I could see her admiration.We went to my suite and I showed her one of the money rooms. Would youbelieve it? She actually took off her shoes and ran around through themoney in her bare feet! Then we kissed. Concealed in the dermis of the lips are tiny, highly sensitized nerveends which send sensations to the brain. The brain interprets theseimpulses in a certain manner. As a result, the fate of secretion in theadrenals on the ends of the kidneys increases and an enlivening of theentire endocrine system follows. Thus I felt the beginnings of love. I sat her down on a pile of money and kissed her again. Again thetingling, again the secretion and activation. I integrated myselfquickly. Now in all the motion pictures—true representations of life and lovein this world—the man with a lot of money or virtue kisses the girland tries to induce her to do something biological. She then refuses.This pleases both of them, for he wanted her to refuse. She, in turn,wanted him to want her, but also wanted to prevent him so that he wouldhave a high opinion of her. Do I make myself clear? I kissed the blonde girl and gave her to understand what I then wanted.Well, you can imagine my surprise when she said yes! So I had failed. Ihad not found love. I became so abstracted by this problem that the blonde girl fellasleep. I thoughtfully drank quantities of excellent alcohol called ginand didn't even notice when the blonde girl left. I am now beginning to feel the effects of this alcohol again. Ha. Don'tI wish old Blgftury were here in the vibrational pattern of an olive?I'd get the blonde in and have her eat him out of a Martini. That is agin mixture. I think I'll get a hot report off to the old so-and-so right now. It'lltake him a gleeb to figure this one out. I'll tell him I'm setting upan atomic reactor in the sewage systems here and that all we have to dois activate it and all the not-people will die of chain asphyxiation. Boy, what an easy job this turned out to be. It's just a vacation. Joe,you old gold-bricker, imagine you here all these gleebs living off thefat of the land. Yak, yak. Affectionately. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Sacramento, Calif. July 25 Dear Joe: All is lost unless we work swiftly. I received your revealing letterthe morning after having a terrible experience of my own. I drank alot of gin for two days and then decided to go to one of these seancethings. Somewhere along the way I picked up a red-headed girl. When we gotto the darkened seance room, I took the redhead into a corner andcontinued my investigations into the realm of love. I failed againbecause she said yes immediately. The nerves of my dermis were working overtime when suddenly I had themost frightening experience of my life. Now I know what a horror thesepeople really are to our world. The medium had turned out all the lights. He said there was a strongpsychic influence in the room somewhere. That was me, of course, but Iwas too busy with the redhead to notice. Anyway, Mrs. Somebody wanted to make contact with her paternalgrandmother, Lucy, from the beyond. The medium went into his act. Heconcentrated and sweated and suddenly something began to take form inthe room. The best way to describe it in not-world language is a white,shapeless cascade of light. Mrs. Somebody reared to her feet and screeched, Grandma Lucy! Then Ireally took notice. Grandma Lucy, nothing! This medium had actually brought Blgfturypartially across the vibration barrier. He must have been vibrating inthe fringe area and got caught in the works. Did he look mad! His zyhkuwas open and his btgrimms were down. Worst of all, he saw me. Looked right at me with an unbelievablepattern of pain, anger, fear and amazement in his matrix. Me and theredhead. Then comes your letter today telling of the fate that befell you as aresult of drinking alcohol. Our wrenchingly attuned faculties in thesenot-world bodies need the loathsome drug to escape from the realityof not-reality. It's true. I cannot do without it now. The day is onlyhalf over and I have consumed a quart and a half. And it is dulling allmy powers as it has practically obliterated yours. I can't even becomeinvisible any more. I must find the formula that will wipe out the not-world men quickly. Quickly! Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Florence, Italy September 10 Dear Joe: This telepathic control becomes more difficult every time. I must pickcloser points of communication soon. I have nothing to report butfailure. I bought a ton of equipment and went to work on the formulathat is half complete in my instructions. Six of my hotel rooms werefilled with tubes, pipes and apparatus of all kinds. I had got my mechanism as close to perfect as possible when Irealized that, in my befuddled condition, I had set off a reactionthat inevitably would result in an explosion. I had to leave thereimmediately, but I could not create suspicion. The management was notaware of the nature of my activities. I moved swiftly. I could not afford time to bring my baggage. Istuffed as much money into my pockets as I could and then saunteredinto the hotel lobby. Assuming my most casual air, I told the managerI was checking out. Naturally he was stunned since I was his bestcustomer. But why, sir? he asked plaintively. I was baffled. What could I tell him? Don't you like the rooms? he persisted. Isn't the service good? It's the rooms, I told him. They're—they're— They're what? he wanted to know. They're not safe. Not safe? But that is ridiculous. This hotel is.... At this point the blast came. My nerves were a wreck from the alcohol. See? I screamed. Not safe. I knew they were going to blow up! He stood paralyzed as I ran from the lobby. Oh, well, never say die.Another day, another hotel. I swear I'm even beginning to think likethe not-men, curse them. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Rochester, New York September 25 Dear Joe: I have it! It is done! In spite of the alcohol, in spite of Blgftury'sniggling criticism, I have succeeded. I now have developed a formof mold, somewhat similar to the antibiotics of this world, that,transmitted to the human organism, will cause a disease whose end willbe swift and fatal. First the brain will dissolve and then the body will fall apart.Nothing in this world can stop the spread of it once it is loose.Absolutely nothing. We must use care. Stock in as much gin as you are able. I will bringwith me all that I can. Meanwhile I must return to my original place ofbirth into this world of horrors. There I will secure the gateway, alarge mirror, the vibrational point at which we shall meet and slowlyclimb the frequency scale to emerge into our own beautiful, now secureworld. You and I together, Joe, conquerors, liberators. You say you eat little and drink as much as you can. The same withme. Even in this revolting world I am a sad sight. My not-world sensesfalter. This is the last letter. Tomorrow I come with the gateway. Whenthe gin is gone, we will plant the mold in the hotel where you live. In only a single gleeb it will begin to work. The men of this queerworld will be no more. But we can't say we didn't have some fun, canwe, Joe? And just let Blgftury make one crack. Just one xyzprlt. I'll havehgutry before the ghjdksla! Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Dear Editor: These guys might be queer drunk hopheads. But if not? If soon braindissolve, body fall apart, how long have we got? Please, anybody whoknows answer, write to me—Ivan Smernda, Plaza Ritz Arms—how long is agleeb? <doc-sep></s>

A Gleeb for Earth is a collection of letters, signed by two characters - Ivan Smernda (a human on Earth who owns the Plaza Ritz Arms hotel in New York City) and Glmpauszn (an alien from a world that is entwined with Earth through a spiritual fringe). Ivan dictates the first letter through his son Ronnie (14 years old) and sends it to the Editor of a print publication, feeling responsible for publicizing what he witnessed to save humanity. Ivan recounts an occurrence in the Plaza Ritz Arms where two alcoholic guests that he calls “stew bums”, Joe Binkle and Ed Smith (an alias for Glmpauszn), mysteriously disappeared, leaving their suits behind as if they had melted out of them. Ed had checked in with a mirror with a heavy bronze frame. After their disappearance, Ivan found only their clothes, the frame of the mirror in Ed’s room, and a stack of letters in the bureau in Joe’s room, which are the letters that tell the remaining story.The vibrational plane of an alien world extends into Earth’s (which they call the not-world), allowing intrusive vibrations from Earth to semi-terrorize sentient alien vibrations. Human spiritual mediums can force psychic reproductions of themselves into the alien world, and conversely pull alien vibrations over the “fringe”. The aliens can’t tolerate it, and send Glmpauszn and Joe to take on human form and develop a chemical weapon to kill all humans.Glmpauszn crosses the fringe through a vibrational gateway that allows his consciousness to move into a newborn baby. Joe has already arrived in human form. Glmpauszn quickly grows the baby into an adult man. At three days old, he is 36 inches tall and talking, and a couple of days later is an adult man. Glmpauszn writes to Joe by controlling the minds of sleeping people around the world to pen the letters and then mail them to Joe at the Plaza Ritz Arms in New York City. He wonders why Joe won’t write to him, and can’t contact him spiritually, like normal, since Joe has fallen into alcoholism. Glmpauszn forgets to wear clothes and is nearly arrested, but escapes by becoming invisible. When Joe finally writes, it is to ask for money, enraging Glmpauszn who reports Joe’s actions to their boss, Blgftury. Glmpauszn becomes distracted by exploring human emotions like intimacy with women and love of money, which causes him to rob a bank and fill 18 rooms of a hotel with money. He also falls into alcoholism. Blgftury is accidentally summoned into a seance by a human medium who pulls Blgftury’s vibrations through the fringe (the very thing they are trying to stop from happening), and Glmpauszn is caught with a red-haired woman by his boss not doing his job. Glmpauszn finally develops a mold that can kill humans, and meets with Joe at the Plaza Ritz Arms with lots of gin that they consume before successfully returning to the vibrational frequency of their world, releasing the mold in the room.

<s> A Gleeb for Earth By CHARLES SHAFHAUSER Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Not to be or not to not be ... that was the not-question for the invader of the not-world. Dear Editor: My 14 year old boy, Ronnie, is typing this letter for me because hecan do it neater and use better grammar. I had to get in touch withsomebody about this because if there is something to it, then somebody,everybody, is going to point finger at me, Ivan Smernda, and say, Whydidn't you warn us? I could not go to the police because they are not too friendly tome because of some of my guests who frankly are stew bums. Also theymight think I was on booze, too, or maybe the hops, and get my licenserevoked. I run a strictly legit hotel even though some of my guestsmight be down on their luck now and then. What really got me mixed up in this was the mysterious disappearance oftwo of my guests. They both took a powder last Wednesday morning. Now get this. In one room, that of Joe Binkle, which maybe is an alias,I find nothing but a suit of clothes, some butts and the letters Iinclude here in same package. Binkle had only one suit. That I know.And this was it laying right in the middle of the room. Inside thecoat was the vest, inside the vest the shirt, inside the shirt theunderwear. The pants were up in the coat and inside of them was alsothe underwear. All this was buttoned up like Binkle had melted out ofit and dripped through a crack in the floor. In a bureau drawer werethe letters I told you about. Now. In the room right under Binkle's lived another stew bum thatchecked in Thursday ... name Ed Smith, alias maybe, too. This guy was areal case. He brought with him a big mirror with a heavy bronze frame.Airloom, he says. He pays a week in advance, staggers up the stairs tohis room with the mirror and that's the last I see of him. In Smith's room on Wednesday I find only a suit of clothes, the samesuit he wore when he came in. In the coat the vest, in the vest theshirt, in the shirt the underwear. Also in the pants. Also all in themiddle of the floor. Against the far wall stands the frame of themirror. Only the frame! What a spot to be in! Now it might have been a gag. Sometimes theseguys get funny ideas when they are on the stuff. But then I readthe letters. This knocks me for a loop. They are all in differenthandwritings. All from different places. Stamps all legit, my kid says.India, China, England, everywhere. My kid, he reads. He says it's no joke. He wants to call the cops ormaybe some doctor. But I say no. He reads your magazine so he sayswrite to you, send you the letters. You know what to do. Now you havethem. Maybe you print. Whatever you do, Mr. Editor, remember my place,the Plaza Ritz Arms, is straight establishment. I don't drink. I nevertouch junk, not even aspirin. Yours very truly, Ivan Smernda <doc-sep>Bombay, India June 8 Mr. Joe Binkle Plaza Ritz Arms New York City Dear Joe: Greetings, greetings, greetings. Hold firm in your wretched projection,for tomorrow you will not be alone in the not-world. In two days I,Glmpauszn, will be born. Today I hang in our newly developed not-pod just within the mirrorgateway, torn with the agony that we calculated must go with suchtremendous wavelength fluctuations. I have attuned myself to a fetuswithin the body of a not-woman in the not-world. Already I am staticand for hours have looked into this weird extension of the Universewith fear and trepidation. As soon as my stasis was achieved, I tried to contact you, but gotno response. What could have diminished your powers of articulatewave interaction to make you incapable of receiving my messages andreturning them? My wave went out to yours and found it, barely pulsingand surrounded with an impregnable chimera. Quickly, from the not-world vibrations about you, I learned thenot-knowledge of your location. So I must communicate with you by whatthe not-world calls mail till we meet. For this purpose I mustutilize the feeble vibrations of various not-people through whoseinadequate articulation I will attempt to make my moves known to you.Each time I will pick a city other than the one I am in at the time. I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentaryreports before you ceased to vibrate to us and with a vast treasuryof facts from indirect sources. Soon our tortured people will be freeof the fearsome not-folk and I will be their liberator. You failed inyour task, but I will try to get you off with light punishment when wereturn again. The hand that writes this letter is that of a boy in the not-city ofBombay in the not-country of India. He does not know he writes it.Tomorrow it will be someone else. You must never know of my exactlocation, for the not-people might have access to the information. I must leave off now because the not-child is about to be born. When itis alone in the room, it will be spirited away and I will spring fromthe pod on the gateway into its crib and will be its exact vibrationallikeness. I have tremendous powers. But the not-people must never know I am amongthem. This is the only way I could arrive in the room where the gatewaylies without arousing suspicion. I will grow up as the not-child inorder that I might destroy the not-people completely. All is well, only they shot this information file into my matrix toofast. I'm having a hard time sorting facts and make the right decision.Gezsltrysk, what a task! Farewell till later. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Wichita, Kansas June 13 Dear Joe: Mnghjkl, fhfjgfhjklop phelnoprausynks. No. When I communicate with you,I see I must avoid those complexities of procedure for which there areno terms in this language. There is no way of describing to you innot-language what I had to go through during the first moments of mybirth. Now I know what difficulties you must have had with your limitedequipment. These not-people are unpredictable and strange. Their doctorcame in and weighed me again the day after my birth. Consternationreigned when it was discovered I was ten pounds heavier. Whatdifference could it possibly make? Many doctors then came in to see me.As they arrived hourly, they found me heavier and heavier. Naturally,since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother(Gezsltrysk!) then burst into tears. The doctors conferred, threw uptheir hands and left. I learned the following day that the opposite component of mynot-mother, my not-father, had been away riding on some conveyanceduring my birth. He was out on ... what did they call it? Oh, yes, abender. He did not arrive till three days after I was born. When I heard them say that he was straightening up to come see me, Imade a special effort and grew marvelously in one afternoon. I was 36not-world inches tall by evening. My not-father entered while I wasstanding by the crib examining a syringe the doctor had left behind.He stopped in his tracks on entering the room and seemed incapable ofspeech. Dredging into the treasury of knowledge I had come equipped with, Iproduced the proper phrase for occasions of this kind in the not-world. Poppa, I said. This was the first use I had made of the so-called vocal cords thatare now part of my extended matrix. The sound I emitted soundedlow-pitched, guttural and penetrating even to myself. It must havejarred on my not-father's ears, for he turned and ran shouting from theroom. They apprehended him on the stairs and I heard him babble somethingabout my being a monster and no child of his. My not-mother appeared atthe doorway and instead of being pleased at the progress of my growth,she fell down heavily. She made a distinct thump on the floor. This brought the rest of them on the run, so I climbed out the windowand retreated across a nearby field. A prolonged search was launched,but I eluded them. What unpredictable beings! I reported my tremendous progress back to our world, including thecleverness by which I managed to escape my pursuers. I received a replyfrom Blgftury which, on careful analysis, seems to be small praiseindeed. In fact, some of his phrases apparently contain veiled threats.But you know old Blgftury. He wanted to go on this expedition himselfand it's his nature never to flatter anyone. From now on I will refer to not-people simply as people, dropping thequalifying preface except where comparisons must be made between thisalleged world and our own. It is merely an offshoot of our primitivemythology when this was considered a spirit world, just as these peoplerefer to our world as never-never land and other anomalies. But welearned otherwise, while they never have. New sensations crowd into my consciousness and I am having a hardtime classifying them. Anyway, I shall carry on swiftly now to theinevitable climax in which I singlehanded will obliterate the terror ofthe not-world and return to our world a hero. I cannot understand yournot replying to my letters. I have given you a box number. What couldhave happened to your vibrations? Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Albuquerque, New Mexico June 15 Dear Joe: I had tremendous difficulty getting a letter off to you this time.My process—original with myself, by the way—is to send out feelervibrations for what these people call the psychic individual. Then Iestablish contact with him while he sleeps and compel him without hisknowledge to translate my ideas into written language. He writes myletter and mails it to you. Of course, he has no awareness of what hehas done. My first five tries were unfortunate. Each time I took control of anindividual who could not read or write! Finally I found my man, butI fear his words are limited. Ah, well. I had great things to tellyou about my progress, but I cannot convey even a hint of how I haveaccomplished these miracles through the thick skull of this incompetent. In simple terms then: I crept into a cave and slipped into a kind ofsleep, directing my squhjkl ulytz & uhrytzg ... no, it won't come out.Anyway, I grew overnight to the size of an average person here. As I said before, floods of impressions are driving into my xzbyl ...my brain ... from various nerve and sense areas and I am having a hardtime classifying them. My one idea was to get to a chemist and acquirethe stuff needed for the destruction of these people. Sunrise came as I expected. According to my catalog of information, theimpressions aroused by it are of beauty. It took little conditioningfor me finally to react in this manner. This is truly an efficientmechanism I inhabit. I gazed about me at the mixture of lights, forms and impressions.It was strange and ... now I know ... beautiful. However, I hurriedimmediately toward the nearest chemist. At the same time I looked upand all about me at the beauty. Soon an individual approached. I knew what to do from my information. Isimply acted natural. You know, one of your earliest instructions wasto realize that these people see nothing unusual in you if you do notlet yourself believe they do. This individual I classified as a female of a singular variety here.Her hair was short, her upper torso clad in a woolen garment. Shewore ... what are they? ... oh, yes, sneakers. My attention wasdiverted by a scream as I passed her. I stopped. The woman gesticulated and continued to scream. People hurried fromnearby houses. I linked my hands behind me and watched the scene withan attitude of mild interest. They weren't interested in me, I toldmyself. But they were. I became alarmed, dived into a bush and used a mechanism that youunfortunately do not have—invisibility. I lay there and listened. He was stark naked, the girl with the sneakers said. A figure I recognized as a police officer spoke to her. Lizzy, you'll just have to keep these crackpot friends of yours out ofthis area. But— No more buck-bathing, Lizzy, the officer ordered. No more speechesin the Square. Not when it results in riots at five in the morning. Nowwhere is your naked friend? I'm going to make an example of him. That was it—I had forgotten clothes. There is only one answer to thisoversight on my part. My mind is confused by the barrage of impressionsthat assault it. I must retire now and get them all classified. Beauty,pain, fear, hate, love, laughter. I don't know one from the other. Imust feel each, become accustomed to it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the information Ihave been given is very unrealistic. You have been inefficient, Joe.What will Blgftury and the others say of this? My great mission isimpaired. Farewell, till I find a more intelligent mind so I can writeyou with more enlightenment. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Moscow, Idaho June 17 Dear Joe: I received your first communication today. It baffles me. Do you greetme in the proper fringe-zone manner? No. Do you express joy, hope,pride, helpfulness at my arrival? No. You ask me for a loan of fivebucks! It took me some time, culling my information catalog to come up withthe correct variant of the slang term buck. Is it possible that youare powerless even to provide yourself with the wherewithal to live inthis inferior world? A reminder, please. You and I—I in particular—are now engaged ina struggle to free our world from the terrible, maiming intrusionsof this not-world. Through many long gleebs, our people have liveda semi-terrorized existence while errant vibrations from this worldripped across the closely joined vibration flux, whose individualfluctuations make up our sentient population. Even our eminent, all-high Frequency himself has often been jeopardizedby these people. The not-world and our world are like two basketsas you and I see them in our present forms. Baskets woven with thegreatest intricacy, design and color; but baskets whose convex sidesare joined by a thin fringe of filaments. Our world, on the vibrationalplane, extends just a bit into this, the not-world. But being a worldof higher vibration, it is ultimately tenuous to these gross peoples.While we vibrate only within a restricted plane because of our purer,more stable existence, these people radiate widely into our world. They even send what they call psychic reproductions of their own selvesinto ours. And most infamous of all, they sometimes are able to forcesome of our individuals over the fringe into their world temporarily,causing them much agony and fright. The latter atrocity is perpetrated through what these people callmediums, spiritualists and other fatuous names. I intend to visit oneof them at the first opportunity to see for myself. Meanwhile, as to you, I would offer a few words of advice. I pickedthem up while examining the slang portion of my information catalogwhich you unfortunately caused me to use. So, for the ultimatecause—in this, the penultimate adventure, and for the glory and peaceof our world—shake a leg, bub. Straighten up and fly right. In short,get hep. As far as the five bucks is concerned, no dice. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Des Moines, Iowa June 19 Dear Joe: Your letter was imponderable till I had thrashed through long passagesin my information catalog that I had never imagined I would need.Biological functions and bodily processes which are labeled hererevolting are used freely in your missive. You can be sure they areall being forwarded to Blgftury. If I were not involved in the mostimportant part of my journey—completion of the weapon against thenot-worlders—I would come to New York immediately. You would rue thatday, I assure you. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Boise, Idaho July 15 Dear Joe: A great deal has happened to me since I wrote to you last.Systematically, I have tested each emotion and sensation listed inour catalog. I have been, as has been said in this world, like a reedbending before the winds of passion. In fact, I'm rather badly bentindeed. Ah! You'll pardon me, but I just took time for what is knownquaintly in this tongue as a hooker of red-eye. Ha! I've masteredeven the vagaries of slang in the not-language.... Ahhh! Pardon meagain. I feel much better now. You see, Joe, as I attuned myself to the various impressions thatconstantly assaulted my mind through this body, I conditioned myself toreact exactly as our information catalog instructed me to. Now it is all automatic, pure reflex. A sensation comes to me when I amburned; then I experience a burning pain. If the sensation is a tickle,I experience a tickle. This morning I have what is known medically as a syndrome ... a groupof symptoms popularly referred to as a hangover ... Ahhh! Pardon meagain. Strangely ... now what was I saying? Oh, yes. Ha, ha. Strangelyenough, the reactions that come easiest to the people in this worldcame most difficult to me. Money-love, for example. It is a great thinghere, both among those who haven't got it and those who have. I went out and got plenty of money. I walked invisible into a bank andcarried away piles of it. Then I sat and looked at it. I took the moneyto a remote room of the twenty room suite I have rented in the besthotel here in—no, sorry—and stared at it for hours. Nothing happened. I didn't love the stuff or feel one way or the otherabout it. Yet all around me people are actually killing one another forthe love of it. Anyway.... Ahhh. Pardon me. I got myself enough money to fill ten orfifteen rooms. By the end of the week I should have all eighteen sparerooms filled with money. If I don't love it then, I'll feel I havefailed. This alcohol is taking effect now. Blgftury has been goading me for reports. To hell with his reports!I've got a lot more emotions to try, such as romantic love. I've beenstudying this phenomenon, along with other racial characteristics ofthese people, in the movies. This is the best place to see thesepeople as they really are. They all go into the movie houses and theredo homage to their own images. Very quaint type of idolatry. Love. Ha! What an adventure this is becoming. By the way, Joe, I'm forwarding that five dollars. You see, it won'tcost me anything. It'll come out of the pocket of the idiot who'swriting this letter. Pretty shrewd of me, eh? I'm going out and look at that money again. I think I'm at lastlearning to love it, though not as much as I admire liquor. Well, onesimply must persevere, I always say. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Penobscot, Maine July 20 Dear Joe: Now you tell me not to drink alcohol. Why not? You never mentioned itin any of your vibrations to us, gleebs ago, when you first came acrossto this world. It will stint my powers? Nonsense! Already I have had aquart of the liquid today. I feel wonderful. Get that? I actually feelwonderful, in spite of this miserable imitation of a body. There are long hours during which I am so well-integrated into thisbody and this world that I almost consider myself a member of it. NowI can function efficiently. I sent Blgftury some long reports todayoutlining my experiments in the realm of chemistry where we mustfinally defeat these people. Of course, I haven't made the experimentsyet, but I will. This is not deceit, merely realistic anticipation ofthe inevitable. Anyway, what the old xbyzrt doesn't know won't muss hisvibrations. I went to what they call a nightclub here and picked out ablonde-haired woman, the kind that the books say men prefer. She wasattracted to me instantly. After all, the body I have devised isperfect in every detail ... actually a not-world ideal. I didn't lose any time overwhelming her susceptibilities. I rememberdistinctly that just as I stooped to pick up a large roll of money Ihad dropped, her eyes met mine and in them I could see her admiration.We went to my suite and I showed her one of the money rooms. Would youbelieve it? She actually took off her shoes and ran around through themoney in her bare feet! Then we kissed. Concealed in the dermis of the lips are tiny, highly sensitized nerveends which send sensations to the brain. The brain interprets theseimpulses in a certain manner. As a result, the fate of secretion in theadrenals on the ends of the kidneys increases and an enlivening of theentire endocrine system follows. Thus I felt the beginnings of love. I sat her down on a pile of money and kissed her again. Again thetingling, again the secretion and activation. I integrated myselfquickly. Now in all the motion pictures—true representations of life and lovein this world—the man with a lot of money or virtue kisses the girland tries to induce her to do something biological. She then refuses.This pleases both of them, for he wanted her to refuse. She, in turn,wanted him to want her, but also wanted to prevent him so that he wouldhave a high opinion of her. Do I make myself clear? I kissed the blonde girl and gave her to understand what I then wanted.Well, you can imagine my surprise when she said yes! So I had failed. Ihad not found love. I became so abstracted by this problem that the blonde girl fellasleep. I thoughtfully drank quantities of excellent alcohol called ginand didn't even notice when the blonde girl left. I am now beginning to feel the effects of this alcohol again. Ha. Don'tI wish old Blgftury were here in the vibrational pattern of an olive?I'd get the blonde in and have her eat him out of a Martini. That is agin mixture. I think I'll get a hot report off to the old so-and-so right now. It'lltake him a gleeb to figure this one out. I'll tell him I'm setting upan atomic reactor in the sewage systems here and that all we have to dois activate it and all the not-people will die of chain asphyxiation. Boy, what an easy job this turned out to be. It's just a vacation. Joe,you old gold-bricker, imagine you here all these gleebs living off thefat of the land. Yak, yak. Affectionately. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Sacramento, Calif. July 25 Dear Joe: All is lost unless we work swiftly. I received your revealing letterthe morning after having a terrible experience of my own. I drank alot of gin for two days and then decided to go to one of these seancethings. Somewhere along the way I picked up a red-headed girl. When we gotto the darkened seance room, I took the redhead into a corner andcontinued my investigations into the realm of love. I failed againbecause she said yes immediately. The nerves of my dermis were working overtime when suddenly I had themost frightening experience of my life. Now I know what a horror thesepeople really are to our world. The medium had turned out all the lights. He said there was a strongpsychic influence in the room somewhere. That was me, of course, but Iwas too busy with the redhead to notice. Anyway, Mrs. Somebody wanted to make contact with her paternalgrandmother, Lucy, from the beyond. The medium went into his act. Heconcentrated and sweated and suddenly something began to take form inthe room. The best way to describe it in not-world language is a white,shapeless cascade of light. Mrs. Somebody reared to her feet and screeched, Grandma Lucy! Then Ireally took notice. Grandma Lucy, nothing! This medium had actually brought Blgfturypartially across the vibration barrier. He must have been vibrating inthe fringe area and got caught in the works. Did he look mad! His zyhkuwas open and his btgrimms were down. Worst of all, he saw me. Looked right at me with an unbelievablepattern of pain, anger, fear and amazement in his matrix. Me and theredhead. Then comes your letter today telling of the fate that befell you as aresult of drinking alcohol. Our wrenchingly attuned faculties in thesenot-world bodies need the loathsome drug to escape from the realityof not-reality. It's true. I cannot do without it now. The day is onlyhalf over and I have consumed a quart and a half. And it is dulling allmy powers as it has practically obliterated yours. I can't even becomeinvisible any more. I must find the formula that will wipe out the not-world men quickly. Quickly! Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Florence, Italy September 10 Dear Joe: This telepathic control becomes more difficult every time. I must pickcloser points of communication soon. I have nothing to report butfailure. I bought a ton of equipment and went to work on the formulathat is half complete in my instructions. Six of my hotel rooms werefilled with tubes, pipes and apparatus of all kinds. I had got my mechanism as close to perfect as possible when Irealized that, in my befuddled condition, I had set off a reactionthat inevitably would result in an explosion. I had to leave thereimmediately, but I could not create suspicion. The management was notaware of the nature of my activities. I moved swiftly. I could not afford time to bring my baggage. Istuffed as much money into my pockets as I could and then saunteredinto the hotel lobby. Assuming my most casual air, I told the managerI was checking out. Naturally he was stunned since I was his bestcustomer. But why, sir? he asked plaintively. I was baffled. What could I tell him? Don't you like the rooms? he persisted. Isn't the service good? It's the rooms, I told him. They're—they're— They're what? he wanted to know. They're not safe. Not safe? But that is ridiculous. This hotel is.... At this point the blast came. My nerves were a wreck from the alcohol. See? I screamed. Not safe. I knew they were going to blow up! He stood paralyzed as I ran from the lobby. Oh, well, never say die.Another day, another hotel. I swear I'm even beginning to think likethe not-men, curse them. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Rochester, New York September 25 Dear Joe: I have it! It is done! In spite of the alcohol, in spite of Blgftury'sniggling criticism, I have succeeded. I now have developed a formof mold, somewhat similar to the antibiotics of this world, that,transmitted to the human organism, will cause a disease whose end willbe swift and fatal. First the brain will dissolve and then the body will fall apart.Nothing in this world can stop the spread of it once it is loose.Absolutely nothing. We must use care. Stock in as much gin as you are able. I will bringwith me all that I can. Meanwhile I must return to my original place ofbirth into this world of horrors. There I will secure the gateway, alarge mirror, the vibrational point at which we shall meet and slowlyclimb the frequency scale to emerge into our own beautiful, now secureworld. You and I together, Joe, conquerors, liberators. You say you eat little and drink as much as you can. The same withme. Even in this revolting world I am a sad sight. My not-world sensesfalter. This is the last letter. Tomorrow I come with the gateway. Whenthe gin is gone, we will plant the mold in the hotel where you live. In only a single gleeb it will begin to work. The men of this queerworld will be no more. But we can't say we didn't have some fun, canwe, Joe? And just let Blgftury make one crack. Just one xyzprlt. I'll havehgutry before the ghjdksla! Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Dear Editor: These guys might be queer drunk hopheads. But if not? If soon braindissolve, body fall apart, how long have we got? Please, anybody whoknows answer, write to me—Ivan Smernda, Plaza Ritz Arms—how long is agleeb? <doc-sep></s>

A Gleeb for Earth takes place on Earth, where the spiritual vibrations of human mediums and psychics are intruding upon and semi-terrorizing another world populated by sentient vibrational beings. The vibrational plane of the alien world extends just a tiny bit into Earth (referred to as the not-world by the aliens), and the fringe between the two allows for human psychics to intrude into the alien’s realm, or for human seance practises to summon alien vibrations on Earth in ways that are terrifying for the aliens. The aliens can’t tolerate these vibrational intrusions any longer and have embarked on a mission to destroy all life on Earth by having two of their own take the form of humans and develop a chemical weapon (a mold) to wipe them out.The mission of Glmpauszn and Joe takes place on Earth between June 8th and September 25th of an unknown year. Glmpauszn mails letters from various international locations to Joe at the Plaza Ritz Arms in New York City by controlling the minds of unknown sleeping humans to pen what he spiritually dictates, and mail the letters without ever knowing they have done it. Glmpauszn’s physical location is not explicitly discussed, but it is possibly nearby to New York City since he does not mention the need for any long-distance or international travel in his letters. Both Glmpauszn and Joe become distracted from their mission at times by drugs, alcohol, stealing money using their invisibility, and the sensations of experiencing human emotions like love.The Plaza Ritz Arms hotel in New York City is an especially important location in the story, because it is the final meeting place where Glmpauszn and Joe return to their vibrational realm through a mirror with a heavy bronze frame, leaving their clothes in heaps as if they had melted out of them, only the frame of the mirror, and the pile of letters from Glmpauszn to Joe that detail their entire mission on Earth.

<s> A Gleeb for Earth By CHARLES SHAFHAUSER Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Not to be or not to not be ... that was the not-question for the invader of the not-world. Dear Editor: My 14 year old boy, Ronnie, is typing this letter for me because hecan do it neater and use better grammar. I had to get in touch withsomebody about this because if there is something to it, then somebody,everybody, is going to point finger at me, Ivan Smernda, and say, Whydidn't you warn us? I could not go to the police because they are not too friendly tome because of some of my guests who frankly are stew bums. Also theymight think I was on booze, too, or maybe the hops, and get my licenserevoked. I run a strictly legit hotel even though some of my guestsmight be down on their luck now and then. What really got me mixed up in this was the mysterious disappearance oftwo of my guests. They both took a powder last Wednesday morning. Now get this. In one room, that of Joe Binkle, which maybe is an alias,I find nothing but a suit of clothes, some butts and the letters Iinclude here in same package. Binkle had only one suit. That I know.And this was it laying right in the middle of the room. Inside thecoat was the vest, inside the vest the shirt, inside the shirt theunderwear. The pants were up in the coat and inside of them was alsothe underwear. All this was buttoned up like Binkle had melted out ofit and dripped through a crack in the floor. In a bureau drawer werethe letters I told you about. Now. In the room right under Binkle's lived another stew bum thatchecked in Thursday ... name Ed Smith, alias maybe, too. This guy was areal case. He brought with him a big mirror with a heavy bronze frame.Airloom, he says. He pays a week in advance, staggers up the stairs tohis room with the mirror and that's the last I see of him. In Smith's room on Wednesday I find only a suit of clothes, the samesuit he wore when he came in. In the coat the vest, in the vest theshirt, in the shirt the underwear. Also in the pants. Also all in themiddle of the floor. Against the far wall stands the frame of themirror. Only the frame! What a spot to be in! Now it might have been a gag. Sometimes theseguys get funny ideas when they are on the stuff. But then I readthe letters. This knocks me for a loop. They are all in differenthandwritings. All from different places. Stamps all legit, my kid says.India, China, England, everywhere. My kid, he reads. He says it's no joke. He wants to call the cops ormaybe some doctor. But I say no. He reads your magazine so he sayswrite to you, send you the letters. You know what to do. Now you havethem. Maybe you print. Whatever you do, Mr. Editor, remember my place,the Plaza Ritz Arms, is straight establishment. I don't drink. I nevertouch junk, not even aspirin. Yours very truly, Ivan Smernda <doc-sep>Bombay, India June 8 Mr. Joe Binkle Plaza Ritz Arms New York City Dear Joe: Greetings, greetings, greetings. Hold firm in your wretched projection,for tomorrow you will not be alone in the not-world. In two days I,Glmpauszn, will be born. Today I hang in our newly developed not-pod just within the mirrorgateway, torn with the agony that we calculated must go with suchtremendous wavelength fluctuations. I have attuned myself to a fetuswithin the body of a not-woman in the not-world. Already I am staticand for hours have looked into this weird extension of the Universewith fear and trepidation. As soon as my stasis was achieved, I tried to contact you, but gotno response. What could have diminished your powers of articulatewave interaction to make you incapable of receiving my messages andreturning them? My wave went out to yours and found it, barely pulsingand surrounded with an impregnable chimera. Quickly, from the not-world vibrations about you, I learned thenot-knowledge of your location. So I must communicate with you by whatthe not-world calls mail till we meet. For this purpose I mustutilize the feeble vibrations of various not-people through whoseinadequate articulation I will attempt to make my moves known to you.Each time I will pick a city other than the one I am in at the time. I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentaryreports before you ceased to vibrate to us and with a vast treasuryof facts from indirect sources. Soon our tortured people will be freeof the fearsome not-folk and I will be their liberator. You failed inyour task, but I will try to get you off with light punishment when wereturn again. The hand that writes this letter is that of a boy in the not-city ofBombay in the not-country of India. He does not know he writes it.Tomorrow it will be someone else. You must never know of my exactlocation, for the not-people might have access to the information. I must leave off now because the not-child is about to be born. When itis alone in the room, it will be spirited away and I will spring fromthe pod on the gateway into its crib and will be its exact vibrationallikeness. I have tremendous powers. But the not-people must never know I am amongthem. This is the only way I could arrive in the room where the gatewaylies without arousing suspicion. I will grow up as the not-child inorder that I might destroy the not-people completely. All is well, only they shot this information file into my matrix toofast. I'm having a hard time sorting facts and make the right decision.Gezsltrysk, what a task! Farewell till later. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Wichita, Kansas June 13 Dear Joe: Mnghjkl, fhfjgfhjklop phelnoprausynks. No. When I communicate with you,I see I must avoid those complexities of procedure for which there areno terms in this language. There is no way of describing to you innot-language what I had to go through during the first moments of mybirth. Now I know what difficulties you must have had with your limitedequipment. These not-people are unpredictable and strange. Their doctorcame in and weighed me again the day after my birth. Consternationreigned when it was discovered I was ten pounds heavier. Whatdifference could it possibly make? Many doctors then came in to see me.As they arrived hourly, they found me heavier and heavier. Naturally,since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother(Gezsltrysk!) then burst into tears. The doctors conferred, threw uptheir hands and left. I learned the following day that the opposite component of mynot-mother, my not-father, had been away riding on some conveyanceduring my birth. He was out on ... what did they call it? Oh, yes, abender. He did not arrive till three days after I was born. When I heard them say that he was straightening up to come see me, Imade a special effort and grew marvelously in one afternoon. I was 36not-world inches tall by evening. My not-father entered while I wasstanding by the crib examining a syringe the doctor had left behind.He stopped in his tracks on entering the room and seemed incapable ofspeech. Dredging into the treasury of knowledge I had come equipped with, Iproduced the proper phrase for occasions of this kind in the not-world. Poppa, I said. This was the first use I had made of the so-called vocal cords thatare now part of my extended matrix. The sound I emitted soundedlow-pitched, guttural and penetrating even to myself. It must havejarred on my not-father's ears, for he turned and ran shouting from theroom. They apprehended him on the stairs and I heard him babble somethingabout my being a monster and no child of his. My not-mother appeared atthe doorway and instead of being pleased at the progress of my growth,she fell down heavily. She made a distinct thump on the floor. This brought the rest of them on the run, so I climbed out the windowand retreated across a nearby field. A prolonged search was launched,but I eluded them. What unpredictable beings! I reported my tremendous progress back to our world, including thecleverness by which I managed to escape my pursuers. I received a replyfrom Blgftury which, on careful analysis, seems to be small praiseindeed. In fact, some of his phrases apparently contain veiled threats.But you know old Blgftury. He wanted to go on this expedition himselfand it's his nature never to flatter anyone. From now on I will refer to not-people simply as people, dropping thequalifying preface except where comparisons must be made between thisalleged world and our own. It is merely an offshoot of our primitivemythology when this was considered a spirit world, just as these peoplerefer to our world as never-never land and other anomalies. But welearned otherwise, while they never have. New sensations crowd into my consciousness and I am having a hardtime classifying them. Anyway, I shall carry on swiftly now to theinevitable climax in which I singlehanded will obliterate the terror ofthe not-world and return to our world a hero. I cannot understand yournot replying to my letters. I have given you a box number. What couldhave happened to your vibrations? Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Albuquerque, New Mexico June 15 Dear Joe: I had tremendous difficulty getting a letter off to you this time.My process—original with myself, by the way—is to send out feelervibrations for what these people call the psychic individual. Then Iestablish contact with him while he sleeps and compel him without hisknowledge to translate my ideas into written language. He writes myletter and mails it to you. Of course, he has no awareness of what hehas done. My first five tries were unfortunate. Each time I took control of anindividual who could not read or write! Finally I found my man, butI fear his words are limited. Ah, well. I had great things to tellyou about my progress, but I cannot convey even a hint of how I haveaccomplished these miracles through the thick skull of this incompetent. In simple terms then: I crept into a cave and slipped into a kind ofsleep, directing my squhjkl ulytz & uhrytzg ... no, it won't come out.Anyway, I grew overnight to the size of an average person here. As I said before, floods of impressions are driving into my xzbyl ...my brain ... from various nerve and sense areas and I am having a hardtime classifying them. My one idea was to get to a chemist and acquirethe stuff needed for the destruction of these people. Sunrise came as I expected. According to my catalog of information, theimpressions aroused by it are of beauty. It took little conditioningfor me finally to react in this manner. This is truly an efficientmechanism I inhabit. I gazed about me at the mixture of lights, forms and impressions.It was strange and ... now I know ... beautiful. However, I hurriedimmediately toward the nearest chemist. At the same time I looked upand all about me at the beauty. Soon an individual approached. I knew what to do from my information. Isimply acted natural. You know, one of your earliest instructions wasto realize that these people see nothing unusual in you if you do notlet yourself believe they do. This individual I classified as a female of a singular variety here.Her hair was short, her upper torso clad in a woolen garment. Shewore ... what are they? ... oh, yes, sneakers. My attention wasdiverted by a scream as I passed her. I stopped. The woman gesticulated and continued to scream. People hurried fromnearby houses. I linked my hands behind me and watched the scene withan attitude of mild interest. They weren't interested in me, I toldmyself. But they were. I became alarmed, dived into a bush and used a mechanism that youunfortunately do not have—invisibility. I lay there and listened. He was stark naked, the girl with the sneakers said. A figure I recognized as a police officer spoke to her. Lizzy, you'll just have to keep these crackpot friends of yours out ofthis area. But— No more buck-bathing, Lizzy, the officer ordered. No more speechesin the Square. Not when it results in riots at five in the morning. Nowwhere is your naked friend? I'm going to make an example of him. That was it—I had forgotten clothes. There is only one answer to thisoversight on my part. My mind is confused by the barrage of impressionsthat assault it. I must retire now and get them all classified. Beauty,pain, fear, hate, love, laughter. I don't know one from the other. Imust feel each, become accustomed to it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the information Ihave been given is very unrealistic. You have been inefficient, Joe.What will Blgftury and the others say of this? My great mission isimpaired. Farewell, till I find a more intelligent mind so I can writeyou with more enlightenment. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Moscow, Idaho June 17 Dear Joe: I received your first communication today. It baffles me. Do you greetme in the proper fringe-zone manner? No. Do you express joy, hope,pride, helpfulness at my arrival? No. You ask me for a loan of fivebucks! It took me some time, culling my information catalog to come up withthe correct variant of the slang term buck. Is it possible that youare powerless even to provide yourself with the wherewithal to live inthis inferior world? A reminder, please. You and I—I in particular—are now engaged ina struggle to free our world from the terrible, maiming intrusionsof this not-world. Through many long gleebs, our people have liveda semi-terrorized existence while errant vibrations from this worldripped across the closely joined vibration flux, whose individualfluctuations make up our sentient population. Even our eminent, all-high Frequency himself has often been jeopardizedby these people. The not-world and our world are like two basketsas you and I see them in our present forms. Baskets woven with thegreatest intricacy, design and color; but baskets whose convex sidesare joined by a thin fringe of filaments. Our world, on the vibrationalplane, extends just a bit into this, the not-world. But being a worldof higher vibration, it is ultimately tenuous to these gross peoples.While we vibrate only within a restricted plane because of our purer,more stable existence, these people radiate widely into our world. They even send what they call psychic reproductions of their own selvesinto ours. And most infamous of all, they sometimes are able to forcesome of our individuals over the fringe into their world temporarily,causing them much agony and fright. The latter atrocity is perpetrated through what these people callmediums, spiritualists and other fatuous names. I intend to visit oneof them at the first opportunity to see for myself. Meanwhile, as to you, I would offer a few words of advice. I pickedthem up while examining the slang portion of my information catalogwhich you unfortunately caused me to use. So, for the ultimatecause—in this, the penultimate adventure, and for the glory and peaceof our world—shake a leg, bub. Straighten up and fly right. In short,get hep. As far as the five bucks is concerned, no dice. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Des Moines, Iowa June 19 Dear Joe: Your letter was imponderable till I had thrashed through long passagesin my information catalog that I had never imagined I would need.Biological functions and bodily processes which are labeled hererevolting are used freely in your missive. You can be sure they areall being forwarded to Blgftury. If I were not involved in the mostimportant part of my journey—completion of the weapon against thenot-worlders—I would come to New York immediately. You would rue thatday, I assure you. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Boise, Idaho July 15 Dear Joe: A great deal has happened to me since I wrote to you last.Systematically, I have tested each emotion and sensation listed inour catalog. I have been, as has been said in this world, like a reedbending before the winds of passion. In fact, I'm rather badly bentindeed. Ah! You'll pardon me, but I just took time for what is knownquaintly in this tongue as a hooker of red-eye. Ha! I've masteredeven the vagaries of slang in the not-language.... Ahhh! Pardon meagain. I feel much better now. You see, Joe, as I attuned myself to the various impressions thatconstantly assaulted my mind through this body, I conditioned myself toreact exactly as our information catalog instructed me to. Now it is all automatic, pure reflex. A sensation comes to me when I amburned; then I experience a burning pain. If the sensation is a tickle,I experience a tickle. This morning I have what is known medically as a syndrome ... a groupof symptoms popularly referred to as a hangover ... Ahhh! Pardon meagain. Strangely ... now what was I saying? Oh, yes. Ha, ha. Strangelyenough, the reactions that come easiest to the people in this worldcame most difficult to me. Money-love, for example. It is a great thinghere, both among those who haven't got it and those who have. I went out and got plenty of money. I walked invisible into a bank andcarried away piles of it. Then I sat and looked at it. I took the moneyto a remote room of the twenty room suite I have rented in the besthotel here in—no, sorry—and stared at it for hours. Nothing happened. I didn't love the stuff or feel one way or the otherabout it. Yet all around me people are actually killing one another forthe love of it. Anyway.... Ahhh. Pardon me. I got myself enough money to fill ten orfifteen rooms. By the end of the week I should have all eighteen sparerooms filled with money. If I don't love it then, I'll feel I havefailed. This alcohol is taking effect now. Blgftury has been goading me for reports. To hell with his reports!I've got a lot more emotions to try, such as romantic love. I've beenstudying this phenomenon, along with other racial characteristics ofthese people, in the movies. This is the best place to see thesepeople as they really are. They all go into the movie houses and theredo homage to their own images. Very quaint type of idolatry. Love. Ha! What an adventure this is becoming. By the way, Joe, I'm forwarding that five dollars. You see, it won'tcost me anything. It'll come out of the pocket of the idiot who'swriting this letter. Pretty shrewd of me, eh? I'm going out and look at that money again. I think I'm at lastlearning to love it, though not as much as I admire liquor. Well, onesimply must persevere, I always say. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Penobscot, Maine July 20 Dear Joe: Now you tell me not to drink alcohol. Why not? You never mentioned itin any of your vibrations to us, gleebs ago, when you first came acrossto this world. It will stint my powers? Nonsense! Already I have had aquart of the liquid today. I feel wonderful. Get that? I actually feelwonderful, in spite of this miserable imitation of a body. There are long hours during which I am so well-integrated into thisbody and this world that I almost consider myself a member of it. NowI can function efficiently. I sent Blgftury some long reports todayoutlining my experiments in the realm of chemistry where we mustfinally defeat these people. Of course, I haven't made the experimentsyet, but I will. This is not deceit, merely realistic anticipation ofthe inevitable. Anyway, what the old xbyzrt doesn't know won't muss hisvibrations. I went to what they call a nightclub here and picked out ablonde-haired woman, the kind that the books say men prefer. She wasattracted to me instantly. After all, the body I have devised isperfect in every detail ... actually a not-world ideal. I didn't lose any time overwhelming her susceptibilities. I rememberdistinctly that just as I stooped to pick up a large roll of money Ihad dropped, her eyes met mine and in them I could see her admiration.We went to my suite and I showed her one of the money rooms. Would youbelieve it? She actually took off her shoes and ran around through themoney in her bare feet! Then we kissed. Concealed in the dermis of the lips are tiny, highly sensitized nerveends which send sensations to the brain. The brain interprets theseimpulses in a certain manner. As a result, the fate of secretion in theadrenals on the ends of the kidneys increases and an enlivening of theentire endocrine system follows. Thus I felt the beginnings of love. I sat her down on a pile of money and kissed her again. Again thetingling, again the secretion and activation. I integrated myselfquickly. Now in all the motion pictures—true representations of life and lovein this world—the man with a lot of money or virtue kisses the girland tries to induce her to do something biological. She then refuses.This pleases both of them, for he wanted her to refuse. She, in turn,wanted him to want her, but also wanted to prevent him so that he wouldhave a high opinion of her. Do I make myself clear? I kissed the blonde girl and gave her to understand what I then wanted.Well, you can imagine my surprise when she said yes! So I had failed. Ihad not found love. I became so abstracted by this problem that the blonde girl fellasleep. I thoughtfully drank quantities of excellent alcohol called ginand didn't even notice when the blonde girl left. I am now beginning to feel the effects of this alcohol again. Ha. Don'tI wish old Blgftury were here in the vibrational pattern of an olive?I'd get the blonde in and have her eat him out of a Martini. That is agin mixture. I think I'll get a hot report off to the old so-and-so right now. It'lltake him a gleeb to figure this one out. I'll tell him I'm setting upan atomic reactor in the sewage systems here and that all we have to dois activate it and all the not-people will die of chain asphyxiation. Boy, what an easy job this turned out to be. It's just a vacation. Joe,you old gold-bricker, imagine you here all these gleebs living off thefat of the land. Yak, yak. Affectionately. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Sacramento, Calif. July 25 Dear Joe: All is lost unless we work swiftly. I received your revealing letterthe morning after having a terrible experience of my own. I drank alot of gin for two days and then decided to go to one of these seancethings. Somewhere along the way I picked up a red-headed girl. When we gotto the darkened seance room, I took the redhead into a corner andcontinued my investigations into the realm of love. I failed againbecause she said yes immediately. The nerves of my dermis were working overtime when suddenly I had themost frightening experience of my life. Now I know what a horror thesepeople really are to our world. The medium had turned out all the lights. He said there was a strongpsychic influence in the room somewhere. That was me, of course, but Iwas too busy with the redhead to notice. Anyway, Mrs. Somebody wanted to make contact with her paternalgrandmother, Lucy, from the beyond. The medium went into his act. Heconcentrated and sweated and suddenly something began to take form inthe room. The best way to describe it in not-world language is a white,shapeless cascade of light. Mrs. Somebody reared to her feet and screeched, Grandma Lucy! Then Ireally took notice. Grandma Lucy, nothing! This medium had actually brought Blgfturypartially across the vibration barrier. He must have been vibrating inthe fringe area and got caught in the works. Did he look mad! His zyhkuwas open and his btgrimms were down. Worst of all, he saw me. Looked right at me with an unbelievablepattern of pain, anger, fear and amazement in his matrix. Me and theredhead. Then comes your letter today telling of the fate that befell you as aresult of drinking alcohol. Our wrenchingly attuned faculties in thesenot-world bodies need the loathsome drug to escape from the realityof not-reality. It's true. I cannot do without it now. The day is onlyhalf over and I have consumed a quart and a half. And it is dulling allmy powers as it has practically obliterated yours. I can't even becomeinvisible any more. I must find the formula that will wipe out the not-world men quickly. Quickly! Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Florence, Italy September 10 Dear Joe: This telepathic control becomes more difficult every time. I must pickcloser points of communication soon. I have nothing to report butfailure. I bought a ton of equipment and went to work on the formulathat is half complete in my instructions. Six of my hotel rooms werefilled with tubes, pipes and apparatus of all kinds. I had got my mechanism as close to perfect as possible when Irealized that, in my befuddled condition, I had set off a reactionthat inevitably would result in an explosion. I had to leave thereimmediately, but I could not create suspicion. The management was notaware of the nature of my activities. I moved swiftly. I could not afford time to bring my baggage. Istuffed as much money into my pockets as I could and then saunteredinto the hotel lobby. Assuming my most casual air, I told the managerI was checking out. Naturally he was stunned since I was his bestcustomer. But why, sir? he asked plaintively. I was baffled. What could I tell him? Don't you like the rooms? he persisted. Isn't the service good? It's the rooms, I told him. They're—they're— They're what? he wanted to know. They're not safe. Not safe? But that is ridiculous. This hotel is.... At this point the blast came. My nerves were a wreck from the alcohol. See? I screamed. Not safe. I knew they were going to blow up! He stood paralyzed as I ran from the lobby. Oh, well, never say die.Another day, another hotel. I swear I'm even beginning to think likethe not-men, curse them. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Rochester, New York September 25 Dear Joe: I have it! It is done! In spite of the alcohol, in spite of Blgftury'sniggling criticism, I have succeeded. I now have developed a formof mold, somewhat similar to the antibiotics of this world, that,transmitted to the human organism, will cause a disease whose end willbe swift and fatal. First the brain will dissolve and then the body will fall apart.Nothing in this world can stop the spread of it once it is loose.Absolutely nothing. We must use care. Stock in as much gin as you are able. I will bringwith me all that I can. Meanwhile I must return to my original place ofbirth into this world of horrors. There I will secure the gateway, alarge mirror, the vibrational point at which we shall meet and slowlyclimb the frequency scale to emerge into our own beautiful, now secureworld. You and I together, Joe, conquerors, liberators. You say you eat little and drink as much as you can. The same withme. Even in this revolting world I am a sad sight. My not-world sensesfalter. This is the last letter. Tomorrow I come with the gateway. Whenthe gin is gone, we will plant the mold in the hotel where you live. In only a single gleeb it will begin to work. The men of this queerworld will be no more. But we can't say we didn't have some fun, canwe, Joe? And just let Blgftury make one crack. Just one xyzprlt. I'll havehgutry before the ghjdksla! Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Dear Editor: These guys might be queer drunk hopheads. But if not? If soon braindissolve, body fall apart, how long have we got? Please, anybody whoknows answer, write to me—Ivan Smernda, Plaza Ritz Arms—how long is agleeb? <doc-sep></s>

Glmpauszn’s consciousness takes the form of spiritual vibrations that can cross from his world into Earth’s, allowing him to take control of humans on Earth and even insert his consciousness into a human fetus. He describes Earth as a “weird extension of the Universe”, because from his perspective the vibrational plane of his world extends just a tiny bit into Earth (which he calls the not-world). This is unacceptable to his people since human spiritual mediums on Earth have been able to force psychic reproductions of themselves into his world, and conversely temporarily kidnap some individuals from his planet over the “fringe” between the two worlds, frightening them. The intrusive vibrations from Earth have semi-terrorized the sentient vibrations that make up the population of Glmpauszn’s world. Thus, Glmpauszn will now take on the form of a human on Earth and destroy the entirety of human existence to stop their intrusions.

<s> A Gleeb for Earth By CHARLES SHAFHAUSER Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Not to be or not to not be ... that was the not-question for the invader of the not-world. Dear Editor: My 14 year old boy, Ronnie, is typing this letter for me because hecan do it neater and use better grammar. I had to get in touch withsomebody about this because if there is something to it, then somebody,everybody, is going to point finger at me, Ivan Smernda, and say, Whydidn't you warn us? I could not go to the police because they are not too friendly tome because of some of my guests who frankly are stew bums. Also theymight think I was on booze, too, or maybe the hops, and get my licenserevoked. I run a strictly legit hotel even though some of my guestsmight be down on their luck now and then. What really got me mixed up in this was the mysterious disappearance oftwo of my guests. They both took a powder last Wednesday morning. Now get this. In one room, that of Joe Binkle, which maybe is an alias,I find nothing but a suit of clothes, some butts and the letters Iinclude here in same package. Binkle had only one suit. That I know.And this was it laying right in the middle of the room. Inside thecoat was the vest, inside the vest the shirt, inside the shirt theunderwear. The pants were up in the coat and inside of them was alsothe underwear. All this was buttoned up like Binkle had melted out ofit and dripped through a crack in the floor. In a bureau drawer werethe letters I told you about. Now. In the room right under Binkle's lived another stew bum thatchecked in Thursday ... name Ed Smith, alias maybe, too. This guy was areal case. He brought with him a big mirror with a heavy bronze frame.Airloom, he says. He pays a week in advance, staggers up the stairs tohis room with the mirror and that's the last I see of him. In Smith's room on Wednesday I find only a suit of clothes, the samesuit he wore when he came in. In the coat the vest, in the vest theshirt, in the shirt the underwear. Also in the pants. Also all in themiddle of the floor. Against the far wall stands the frame of themirror. Only the frame! What a spot to be in! Now it might have been a gag. Sometimes theseguys get funny ideas when they are on the stuff. But then I readthe letters. This knocks me for a loop. They are all in differenthandwritings. All from different places. Stamps all legit, my kid says.India, China, England, everywhere. My kid, he reads. He says it's no joke. He wants to call the cops ormaybe some doctor. But I say no. He reads your magazine so he sayswrite to you, send you the letters. You know what to do. Now you havethem. Maybe you print. Whatever you do, Mr. Editor, remember my place,the Plaza Ritz Arms, is straight establishment. I don't drink. I nevertouch junk, not even aspirin. Yours very truly, Ivan Smernda <doc-sep>Bombay, India June 8 Mr. Joe Binkle Plaza Ritz Arms New York City Dear Joe: Greetings, greetings, greetings. Hold firm in your wretched projection,for tomorrow you will not be alone in the not-world. In two days I,Glmpauszn, will be born. Today I hang in our newly developed not-pod just within the mirrorgateway, torn with the agony that we calculated must go with suchtremendous wavelength fluctuations. I have attuned myself to a fetuswithin the body of a not-woman in the not-world. Already I am staticand for hours have looked into this weird extension of the Universewith fear and trepidation. As soon as my stasis was achieved, I tried to contact you, but gotno response. What could have diminished your powers of articulatewave interaction to make you incapable of receiving my messages andreturning them? My wave went out to yours and found it, barely pulsingand surrounded with an impregnable chimera. Quickly, from the not-world vibrations about you, I learned thenot-knowledge of your location. So I must communicate with you by whatthe not-world calls mail till we meet. For this purpose I mustutilize the feeble vibrations of various not-people through whoseinadequate articulation I will attempt to make my moves known to you.Each time I will pick a city other than the one I am in at the time. I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentaryreports before you ceased to vibrate to us and with a vast treasuryof facts from indirect sources. Soon our tortured people will be freeof the fearsome not-folk and I will be their liberator. You failed inyour task, but I will try to get you off with light punishment when wereturn again. The hand that writes this letter is that of a boy in the not-city ofBombay in the not-country of India. He does not know he writes it.Tomorrow it will be someone else. You must never know of my exactlocation, for the not-people might have access to the information. I must leave off now because the not-child is about to be born. When itis alone in the room, it will be spirited away and I will spring fromthe pod on the gateway into its crib and will be its exact vibrationallikeness. I have tremendous powers. But the not-people must never know I am amongthem. This is the only way I could arrive in the room where the gatewaylies without arousing suspicion. I will grow up as the not-child inorder that I might destroy the not-people completely. All is well, only they shot this information file into my matrix toofast. I'm having a hard time sorting facts and make the right decision.Gezsltrysk, what a task! Farewell till later. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Wichita, Kansas June 13 Dear Joe: Mnghjkl, fhfjgfhjklop phelnoprausynks. No. When I communicate with you,I see I must avoid those complexities of procedure for which there areno terms in this language. There is no way of describing to you innot-language what I had to go through during the first moments of mybirth. Now I know what difficulties you must have had with your limitedequipment. These not-people are unpredictable and strange. Their doctorcame in and weighed me again the day after my birth. Consternationreigned when it was discovered I was ten pounds heavier. Whatdifference could it possibly make? Many doctors then came in to see me.As they arrived hourly, they found me heavier and heavier. Naturally,since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother(Gezsltrysk!) then burst into tears. The doctors conferred, threw uptheir hands and left. I learned the following day that the opposite component of mynot-mother, my not-father, had been away riding on some conveyanceduring my birth. He was out on ... what did they call it? Oh, yes, abender. He did not arrive till three days after I was born. When I heard them say that he was straightening up to come see me, Imade a special effort and grew marvelously in one afternoon. I was 36not-world inches tall by evening. My not-father entered while I wasstanding by the crib examining a syringe the doctor had left behind.He stopped in his tracks on entering the room and seemed incapable ofspeech. Dredging into the treasury of knowledge I had come equipped with, Iproduced the proper phrase for occasions of this kind in the not-world. Poppa, I said. This was the first use I had made of the so-called vocal cords thatare now part of my extended matrix. The sound I emitted soundedlow-pitched, guttural and penetrating even to myself. It must havejarred on my not-father's ears, for he turned and ran shouting from theroom. They apprehended him on the stairs and I heard him babble somethingabout my being a monster and no child of his. My not-mother appeared atthe doorway and instead of being pleased at the progress of my growth,she fell down heavily. She made a distinct thump on the floor. This brought the rest of them on the run, so I climbed out the windowand retreated across a nearby field. A prolonged search was launched,but I eluded them. What unpredictable beings! I reported my tremendous progress back to our world, including thecleverness by which I managed to escape my pursuers. I received a replyfrom Blgftury which, on careful analysis, seems to be small praiseindeed. In fact, some of his phrases apparently contain veiled threats.But you know old Blgftury. He wanted to go on this expedition himselfand it's his nature never to flatter anyone. From now on I will refer to not-people simply as people, dropping thequalifying preface except where comparisons must be made between thisalleged world and our own. It is merely an offshoot of our primitivemythology when this was considered a spirit world, just as these peoplerefer to our world as never-never land and other anomalies. But welearned otherwise, while they never have. New sensations crowd into my consciousness and I am having a hardtime classifying them. Anyway, I shall carry on swiftly now to theinevitable climax in which I singlehanded will obliterate the terror ofthe not-world and return to our world a hero. I cannot understand yournot replying to my letters. I have given you a box number. What couldhave happened to your vibrations? Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Albuquerque, New Mexico June 15 Dear Joe: I had tremendous difficulty getting a letter off to you this time.My process—original with myself, by the way—is to send out feelervibrations for what these people call the psychic individual. Then Iestablish contact with him while he sleeps and compel him without hisknowledge to translate my ideas into written language. He writes myletter and mails it to you. Of course, he has no awareness of what hehas done. My first five tries were unfortunate. Each time I took control of anindividual who could not read or write! Finally I found my man, butI fear his words are limited. Ah, well. I had great things to tellyou about my progress, but I cannot convey even a hint of how I haveaccomplished these miracles through the thick skull of this incompetent. In simple terms then: I crept into a cave and slipped into a kind ofsleep, directing my squhjkl ulytz & uhrytzg ... no, it won't come out.Anyway, I grew overnight to the size of an average person here. As I said before, floods of impressions are driving into my xzbyl ...my brain ... from various nerve and sense areas and I am having a hardtime classifying them. My one idea was to get to a chemist and acquirethe stuff needed for the destruction of these people. Sunrise came as I expected. According to my catalog of information, theimpressions aroused by it are of beauty. It took little conditioningfor me finally to react in this manner. This is truly an efficientmechanism I inhabit. I gazed about me at the mixture of lights, forms and impressions.It was strange and ... now I know ... beautiful. However, I hurriedimmediately toward the nearest chemist. At the same time I looked upand all about me at the beauty. Soon an individual approached. I knew what to do from my information. Isimply acted natural. You know, one of your earliest instructions wasto realize that these people see nothing unusual in you if you do notlet yourself believe they do. This individual I classified as a female of a singular variety here.Her hair was short, her upper torso clad in a woolen garment. Shewore ... what are they? ... oh, yes, sneakers. My attention wasdiverted by a scream as I passed her. I stopped. The woman gesticulated and continued to scream. People hurried fromnearby houses. I linked my hands behind me and watched the scene withan attitude of mild interest. They weren't interested in me, I toldmyself. But they were. I became alarmed, dived into a bush and used a mechanism that youunfortunately do not have—invisibility. I lay there and listened. He was stark naked, the girl with the sneakers said. A figure I recognized as a police officer spoke to her. Lizzy, you'll just have to keep these crackpot friends of yours out ofthis area. But— No more buck-bathing, Lizzy, the officer ordered. No more speechesin the Square. Not when it results in riots at five in the morning. Nowwhere is your naked friend? I'm going to make an example of him. That was it—I had forgotten clothes. There is only one answer to thisoversight on my part. My mind is confused by the barrage of impressionsthat assault it. I must retire now and get them all classified. Beauty,pain, fear, hate, love, laughter. I don't know one from the other. Imust feel each, become accustomed to it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the information Ihave been given is very unrealistic. You have been inefficient, Joe.What will Blgftury and the others say of this? My great mission isimpaired. Farewell, till I find a more intelligent mind so I can writeyou with more enlightenment. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Moscow, Idaho June 17 Dear Joe: I received your first communication today. It baffles me. Do you greetme in the proper fringe-zone manner? No. Do you express joy, hope,pride, helpfulness at my arrival? No. You ask me for a loan of fivebucks! It took me some time, culling my information catalog to come up withthe correct variant of the slang term buck. Is it possible that youare powerless even to provide yourself with the wherewithal to live inthis inferior world? A reminder, please. You and I—I in particular—are now engaged ina struggle to free our world from the terrible, maiming intrusionsof this not-world. Through many long gleebs, our people have liveda semi-terrorized existence while errant vibrations from this worldripped across the closely joined vibration flux, whose individualfluctuations make up our sentient population. Even our eminent, all-high Frequency himself has often been jeopardizedby these people. The not-world and our world are like two basketsas you and I see them in our present forms. Baskets woven with thegreatest intricacy, design and color; but baskets whose convex sidesare joined by a thin fringe of filaments. Our world, on the vibrationalplane, extends just a bit into this, the not-world. But being a worldof higher vibration, it is ultimately tenuous to these gross peoples.While we vibrate only within a restricted plane because of our purer,more stable existence, these people radiate widely into our world. They even send what they call psychic reproductions of their own selvesinto ours. And most infamous of all, they sometimes are able to forcesome of our individuals over the fringe into their world temporarily,causing them much agony and fright. The latter atrocity is perpetrated through what these people callmediums, spiritualists and other fatuous names. I intend to visit oneof them at the first opportunity to see for myself. Meanwhile, as to you, I would offer a few words of advice. I pickedthem up while examining the slang portion of my information catalogwhich you unfortunately caused me to use. So, for the ultimatecause—in this, the penultimate adventure, and for the glory and peaceof our world—shake a leg, bub. Straighten up and fly right. In short,get hep. As far as the five bucks is concerned, no dice. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Des Moines, Iowa June 19 Dear Joe: Your letter was imponderable till I had thrashed through long passagesin my information catalog that I had never imagined I would need.Biological functions and bodily processes which are labeled hererevolting are used freely in your missive. You can be sure they areall being forwarded to Blgftury. If I were not involved in the mostimportant part of my journey—completion of the weapon against thenot-worlders—I would come to New York immediately. You would rue thatday, I assure you. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Boise, Idaho July 15 Dear Joe: A great deal has happened to me since I wrote to you last.Systematically, I have tested each emotion and sensation listed inour catalog. I have been, as has been said in this world, like a reedbending before the winds of passion. In fact, I'm rather badly bentindeed. Ah! You'll pardon me, but I just took time for what is knownquaintly in this tongue as a hooker of red-eye. Ha! I've masteredeven the vagaries of slang in the not-language.... Ahhh! Pardon meagain. I feel much better now. You see, Joe, as I attuned myself to the various impressions thatconstantly assaulted my mind through this body, I conditioned myself toreact exactly as our information catalog instructed me to. Now it is all automatic, pure reflex. A sensation comes to me when I amburned; then I experience a burning pain. If the sensation is a tickle,I experience a tickle. This morning I have what is known medically as a syndrome ... a groupof symptoms popularly referred to as a hangover ... Ahhh! Pardon meagain. Strangely ... now what was I saying? Oh, yes. Ha, ha. Strangelyenough, the reactions that come easiest to the people in this worldcame most difficult to me. Money-love, for example. It is a great thinghere, both among those who haven't got it and those who have. I went out and got plenty of money. I walked invisible into a bank andcarried away piles of it. Then I sat and looked at it. I took the moneyto a remote room of the twenty room suite I have rented in the besthotel here in—no, sorry—and stared at it for hours. Nothing happened. I didn't love the stuff or feel one way or the otherabout it. Yet all around me people are actually killing one another forthe love of it. Anyway.... Ahhh. Pardon me. I got myself enough money to fill ten orfifteen rooms. By the end of the week I should have all eighteen sparerooms filled with money. If I don't love it then, I'll feel I havefailed. This alcohol is taking effect now. Blgftury has been goading me for reports. To hell with his reports!I've got a lot more emotions to try, such as romantic love. I've beenstudying this phenomenon, along with other racial characteristics ofthese people, in the movies. This is the best place to see thesepeople as they really are. They all go into the movie houses and theredo homage to their own images. Very quaint type of idolatry. Love. Ha! What an adventure this is becoming. By the way, Joe, I'm forwarding that five dollars. You see, it won'tcost me anything. It'll come out of the pocket of the idiot who'swriting this letter. Pretty shrewd of me, eh? I'm going out and look at that money again. I think I'm at lastlearning to love it, though not as much as I admire liquor. Well, onesimply must persevere, I always say. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Penobscot, Maine July 20 Dear Joe: Now you tell me not to drink alcohol. Why not? You never mentioned itin any of your vibrations to us, gleebs ago, when you first came acrossto this world. It will stint my powers? Nonsense! Already I have had aquart of the liquid today. I feel wonderful. Get that? I actually feelwonderful, in spite of this miserable imitation of a body. There are long hours during which I am so well-integrated into thisbody and this world that I almost consider myself a member of it. NowI can function efficiently. I sent Blgftury some long reports todayoutlining my experiments in the realm of chemistry where we mustfinally defeat these people. Of course, I haven't made the experimentsyet, but I will. This is not deceit, merely realistic anticipation ofthe inevitable. Anyway, what the old xbyzrt doesn't know won't muss hisvibrations. I went to what they call a nightclub here and picked out ablonde-haired woman, the kind that the books say men prefer. She wasattracted to me instantly. After all, the body I have devised isperfect in every detail ... actually a not-world ideal. I didn't lose any time overwhelming her susceptibilities. I rememberdistinctly that just as I stooped to pick up a large roll of money Ihad dropped, her eyes met mine and in them I could see her admiration.We went to my suite and I showed her one of the money rooms. Would youbelieve it? She actually took off her shoes and ran around through themoney in her bare feet! Then we kissed. Concealed in the dermis of the lips are tiny, highly sensitized nerveends which send sensations to the brain. The brain interprets theseimpulses in a certain manner. As a result, the fate of secretion in theadrenals on the ends of the kidneys increases and an enlivening of theentire endocrine system follows. Thus I felt the beginnings of love. I sat her down on a pile of money and kissed her again. Again thetingling, again the secretion and activation. I integrated myselfquickly. Now in all the motion pictures—true representations of life and lovein this world—the man with a lot of money or virtue kisses the girland tries to induce her to do something biological. She then refuses.This pleases both of them, for he wanted her to refuse. She, in turn,wanted him to want her, but also wanted to prevent him so that he wouldhave a high opinion of her. Do I make myself clear? I kissed the blonde girl and gave her to understand what I then wanted.Well, you can imagine my surprise when she said yes! So I had failed. Ihad not found love. I became so abstracted by this problem that the blonde girl fellasleep. I thoughtfully drank quantities of excellent alcohol called ginand didn't even notice when the blonde girl left. I am now beginning to feel the effects of this alcohol again. Ha. Don'tI wish old Blgftury were here in the vibrational pattern of an olive?I'd get the blonde in and have her eat him out of a Martini. That is agin mixture. I think I'll get a hot report off to the old so-and-so right now. It'lltake him a gleeb to figure this one out. I'll tell him I'm setting upan atomic reactor in the sewage systems here and that all we have to dois activate it and all the not-people will die of chain asphyxiation. Boy, what an easy job this turned out to be. It's just a vacation. Joe,you old gold-bricker, imagine you here all these gleebs living off thefat of the land. Yak, yak. Affectionately. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Sacramento, Calif. July 25 Dear Joe: All is lost unless we work swiftly. I received your revealing letterthe morning after having a terrible experience of my own. I drank alot of gin for two days and then decided to go to one of these seancethings. Somewhere along the way I picked up a red-headed girl. When we gotto the darkened seance room, I took the redhead into a corner andcontinued my investigations into the realm of love. I failed againbecause she said yes immediately. The nerves of my dermis were working overtime when suddenly I had themost frightening experience of my life. Now I know what a horror thesepeople really are to our world. The medium had turned out all the lights. He said there was a strongpsychic influence in the room somewhere. That was me, of course, but Iwas too busy with the redhead to notice. Anyway, Mrs. Somebody wanted to make contact with her paternalgrandmother, Lucy, from the beyond. The medium went into his act. Heconcentrated and sweated and suddenly something began to take form inthe room. The best way to describe it in not-world language is a white,shapeless cascade of light. Mrs. Somebody reared to her feet and screeched, Grandma Lucy! Then Ireally took notice. Grandma Lucy, nothing! This medium had actually brought Blgfturypartially across the vibration barrier. He must have been vibrating inthe fringe area and got caught in the works. Did he look mad! His zyhkuwas open and his btgrimms were down. Worst of all, he saw me. Looked right at me with an unbelievablepattern of pain, anger, fear and amazement in his matrix. Me and theredhead. Then comes your letter today telling of the fate that befell you as aresult of drinking alcohol. Our wrenchingly attuned faculties in thesenot-world bodies need the loathsome drug to escape from the realityof not-reality. It's true. I cannot do without it now. The day is onlyhalf over and I have consumed a quart and a half. And it is dulling allmy powers as it has practically obliterated yours. I can't even becomeinvisible any more. I must find the formula that will wipe out the not-world men quickly. Quickly! Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Florence, Italy September 10 Dear Joe: This telepathic control becomes more difficult every time. I must pickcloser points of communication soon. I have nothing to report butfailure. I bought a ton of equipment and went to work on the formulathat is half complete in my instructions. Six of my hotel rooms werefilled with tubes, pipes and apparatus of all kinds. I had got my mechanism as close to perfect as possible when Irealized that, in my befuddled condition, I had set off a reactionthat inevitably would result in an explosion. I had to leave thereimmediately, but I could not create suspicion. The management was notaware of the nature of my activities. I moved swiftly. I could not afford time to bring my baggage. Istuffed as much money into my pockets as I could and then saunteredinto the hotel lobby. Assuming my most casual air, I told the managerI was checking out. Naturally he was stunned since I was his bestcustomer. But why, sir? he asked plaintively. I was baffled. What could I tell him? Don't you like the rooms? he persisted. Isn't the service good? It's the rooms, I told him. They're—they're— They're what? he wanted to know. They're not safe. Not safe? But that is ridiculous. This hotel is.... At this point the blast came. My nerves were a wreck from the alcohol. See? I screamed. Not safe. I knew they were going to blow up! He stood paralyzed as I ran from the lobby. Oh, well, never say die.Another day, another hotel. I swear I'm even beginning to think likethe not-men, curse them. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Rochester, New York September 25 Dear Joe: I have it! It is done! In spite of the alcohol, in spite of Blgftury'sniggling criticism, I have succeeded. I now have developed a formof mold, somewhat similar to the antibiotics of this world, that,transmitted to the human organism, will cause a disease whose end willbe swift and fatal. First the brain will dissolve and then the body will fall apart.Nothing in this world can stop the spread of it once it is loose.Absolutely nothing. We must use care. Stock in as much gin as you are able. I will bringwith me all that I can. Meanwhile I must return to my original place ofbirth into this world of horrors. There I will secure the gateway, alarge mirror, the vibrational point at which we shall meet and slowlyclimb the frequency scale to emerge into our own beautiful, now secureworld. You and I together, Joe, conquerors, liberators. You say you eat little and drink as much as you can. The same withme. Even in this revolting world I am a sad sight. My not-world sensesfalter. This is the last letter. Tomorrow I come with the gateway. Whenthe gin is gone, we will plant the mold in the hotel where you live. In only a single gleeb it will begin to work. The men of this queerworld will be no more. But we can't say we didn't have some fun, canwe, Joe? And just let Blgftury make one crack. Just one xyzprlt. I'll havehgutry before the ghjdksla! Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Dear Editor: These guys might be queer drunk hopheads. But if not? If soon braindissolve, body fall apart, how long have we got? Please, anybody whoknows answer, write to me—Ivan Smernda, Plaza Ritz Arms—how long is agleeb? <doc-sep></s>

Glmpauszn is a sentient being from an alien world that takes the form of spiritual vibrations that are capable of controlling humans on Earth (which he refers to as the non-world), or entering the body of a human to take their form. He travels through a gateway (a vibrational point that alters the frequency of those who enter in the form of a mirror with a heavy bronze frame), allowing Glmpauszn to take on the frequency of a human and move his consciousness into a newborn baby. Once on Earth in newborn form, Glmpauszn quickly grows the body of the newborn baby into that of an adult man over a matter of days, and begins using the alias Ed Smith. He writes to Joe by vibrationaly controlling the minds of a variety of literate people around the world to pen the letters and then mail them to Joe at the Plaza Ritz Arms in New York City. The people he uses the mind of never become aware that they have written or mailed the letters.Joe (an alias name) is of the same world as Glmpauszn, and they are on a mission together to destroy all human life on Earth in order to stop the intrusive vibrations of Earth polluting their spiritually sentient world. There is a rocky start to their mission as Glmpauszn is not receiving any contact back from Joe who has become distracted by drugs and alcohol in his human form on Earth. Normally, Glmpauszn would be able to reach Joe through spiritual vibrations instead of letters, but Joe’s vibrations are very weak due to the substances he takes. Joe eventually does write to Glmpauszn, but only to ask for money, which greatly offends Glmpauszn who becomes furious with him for abandoning their mission. However, their relationship changes as Glmpauszn begins to experiment with the feelings of being human, and tries to feel love and consume alcohol. Glmpauszn starts to relate to Joe’s experience with alcohol, and they even decide to bring lots of gin to consume when they finally meet at the Plaza Ritz Arms to re-enter the gateway to their own world together after releasing the deadly mold that will kill all humans on Earth and complete their mission. They finish the mission triumphantly together, with Glmpauszn referring to them together in one of his final letters as conquerors and liberators for their world.

<s> A Gleeb for Earth By CHARLES SHAFHAUSER Illustrated by EMSH [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Not to be or not to not be ... that was the not-question for the invader of the not-world. Dear Editor: My 14 year old boy, Ronnie, is typing this letter for me because hecan do it neater and use better grammar. I had to get in touch withsomebody about this because if there is something to it, then somebody,everybody, is going to point finger at me, Ivan Smernda, and say, Whydidn't you warn us? I could not go to the police because they are not too friendly tome because of some of my guests who frankly are stew bums. Also theymight think I was on booze, too, or maybe the hops, and get my licenserevoked. I run a strictly legit hotel even though some of my guestsmight be down on their luck now and then. What really got me mixed up in this was the mysterious disappearance oftwo of my guests. They both took a powder last Wednesday morning. Now get this. In one room, that of Joe Binkle, which maybe is an alias,I find nothing but a suit of clothes, some butts and the letters Iinclude here in same package. Binkle had only one suit. That I know.And this was it laying right in the middle of the room. Inside thecoat was the vest, inside the vest the shirt, inside the shirt theunderwear. The pants were up in the coat and inside of them was alsothe underwear. All this was buttoned up like Binkle had melted out ofit and dripped through a crack in the floor. In a bureau drawer werethe letters I told you about. Now. In the room right under Binkle's lived another stew bum thatchecked in Thursday ... name Ed Smith, alias maybe, too. This guy was areal case. He brought with him a big mirror with a heavy bronze frame.Airloom, he says. He pays a week in advance, staggers up the stairs tohis room with the mirror and that's the last I see of him. In Smith's room on Wednesday I find only a suit of clothes, the samesuit he wore when he came in. In the coat the vest, in the vest theshirt, in the shirt the underwear. Also in the pants. Also all in themiddle of the floor. Against the far wall stands the frame of themirror. Only the frame! What a spot to be in! Now it might have been a gag. Sometimes theseguys get funny ideas when they are on the stuff. But then I readthe letters. This knocks me for a loop. They are all in differenthandwritings. All from different places. Stamps all legit, my kid says.India, China, England, everywhere. My kid, he reads. He says it's no joke. He wants to call the cops ormaybe some doctor. But I say no. He reads your magazine so he sayswrite to you, send you the letters. You know what to do. Now you havethem. Maybe you print. Whatever you do, Mr. Editor, remember my place,the Plaza Ritz Arms, is straight establishment. I don't drink. I nevertouch junk, not even aspirin. Yours very truly, Ivan Smernda <doc-sep>Bombay, India June 8 Mr. Joe Binkle Plaza Ritz Arms New York City Dear Joe: Greetings, greetings, greetings. Hold firm in your wretched projection,for tomorrow you will not be alone in the not-world. In two days I,Glmpauszn, will be born. Today I hang in our newly developed not-pod just within the mirrorgateway, torn with the agony that we calculated must go with suchtremendous wavelength fluctuations. I have attuned myself to a fetuswithin the body of a not-woman in the not-world. Already I am staticand for hours have looked into this weird extension of the Universewith fear and trepidation. As soon as my stasis was achieved, I tried to contact you, but gotno response. What could have diminished your powers of articulatewave interaction to make you incapable of receiving my messages andreturning them? My wave went out to yours and found it, barely pulsingand surrounded with an impregnable chimera. Quickly, from the not-world vibrations about you, I learned thenot-knowledge of your location. So I must communicate with you by whatthe not-world calls mail till we meet. For this purpose I mustutilize the feeble vibrations of various not-people through whoseinadequate articulation I will attempt to make my moves known to you.Each time I will pick a city other than the one I am in at the time. I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentaryreports before you ceased to vibrate to us and with a vast treasuryof facts from indirect sources. Soon our tortured people will be freeof the fearsome not-folk and I will be their liberator. You failed inyour task, but I will try to get you off with light punishment when wereturn again. The hand that writes this letter is that of a boy in the not-city ofBombay in the not-country of India. He does not know he writes it.Tomorrow it will be someone else. You must never know of my exactlocation, for the not-people might have access to the information. I must leave off now because the not-child is about to be born. When itis alone in the room, it will be spirited away and I will spring fromthe pod on the gateway into its crib and will be its exact vibrationallikeness. I have tremendous powers. But the not-people must never know I am amongthem. This is the only way I could arrive in the room where the gatewaylies without arousing suspicion. I will grow up as the not-child inorder that I might destroy the not-people completely. All is well, only they shot this information file into my matrix toofast. I'm having a hard time sorting facts and make the right decision.Gezsltrysk, what a task! Farewell till later. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Wichita, Kansas June 13 Dear Joe: Mnghjkl, fhfjgfhjklop phelnoprausynks. No. When I communicate with you,I see I must avoid those complexities of procedure for which there areno terms in this language. There is no way of describing to you innot-language what I had to go through during the first moments of mybirth. Now I know what difficulties you must have had with your limitedequipment. These not-people are unpredictable and strange. Their doctorcame in and weighed me again the day after my birth. Consternationreigned when it was discovered I was ten pounds heavier. Whatdifference could it possibly make? Many doctors then came in to see me.As they arrived hourly, they found me heavier and heavier. Naturally,since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother(Gezsltrysk!) then burst into tears. The doctors conferred, threw uptheir hands and left. I learned the following day that the opposite component of mynot-mother, my not-father, had been away riding on some conveyanceduring my birth. He was out on ... what did they call it? Oh, yes, abender. He did not arrive till three days after I was born. When I heard them say that he was straightening up to come see me, Imade a special effort and grew marvelously in one afternoon. I was 36not-world inches tall by evening. My not-father entered while I wasstanding by the crib examining a syringe the doctor had left behind.He stopped in his tracks on entering the room and seemed incapable ofspeech. Dredging into the treasury of knowledge I had come equipped with, Iproduced the proper phrase for occasions of this kind in the not-world. Poppa, I said. This was the first use I had made of the so-called vocal cords thatare now part of my extended matrix. The sound I emitted soundedlow-pitched, guttural and penetrating even to myself. It must havejarred on my not-father's ears, for he turned and ran shouting from theroom. They apprehended him on the stairs and I heard him babble somethingabout my being a monster and no child of his. My not-mother appeared atthe doorway and instead of being pleased at the progress of my growth,she fell down heavily. She made a distinct thump on the floor. This brought the rest of them on the run, so I climbed out the windowand retreated across a nearby field. A prolonged search was launched,but I eluded them. What unpredictable beings! I reported my tremendous progress back to our world, including thecleverness by which I managed to escape my pursuers. I received a replyfrom Blgftury which, on careful analysis, seems to be small praiseindeed. In fact, some of his phrases apparently contain veiled threats.But you know old Blgftury. He wanted to go on this expedition himselfand it's his nature never to flatter anyone. From now on I will refer to not-people simply as people, dropping thequalifying preface except where comparisons must be made between thisalleged world and our own. It is merely an offshoot of our primitivemythology when this was considered a spirit world, just as these peoplerefer to our world as never-never land and other anomalies. But welearned otherwise, while they never have. New sensations crowd into my consciousness and I am having a hardtime classifying them. Anyway, I shall carry on swiftly now to theinevitable climax in which I singlehanded will obliterate the terror ofthe not-world and return to our world a hero. I cannot understand yournot replying to my letters. I have given you a box number. What couldhave happened to your vibrations? Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Albuquerque, New Mexico June 15 Dear Joe: I had tremendous difficulty getting a letter off to you this time.My process—original with myself, by the way—is to send out feelervibrations for what these people call the psychic individual. Then Iestablish contact with him while he sleeps and compel him without hisknowledge to translate my ideas into written language. He writes myletter and mails it to you. Of course, he has no awareness of what hehas done. My first five tries were unfortunate. Each time I took control of anindividual who could not read or write! Finally I found my man, butI fear his words are limited. Ah, well. I had great things to tellyou about my progress, but I cannot convey even a hint of how I haveaccomplished these miracles through the thick skull of this incompetent. In simple terms then: I crept into a cave and slipped into a kind ofsleep, directing my squhjkl ulytz & uhrytzg ... no, it won't come out.Anyway, I grew overnight to the size of an average person here. As I said before, floods of impressions are driving into my xzbyl ...my brain ... from various nerve and sense areas and I am having a hardtime classifying them. My one idea was to get to a chemist and acquirethe stuff needed for the destruction of these people. Sunrise came as I expected. According to my catalog of information, theimpressions aroused by it are of beauty. It took little conditioningfor me finally to react in this manner. This is truly an efficientmechanism I inhabit. I gazed about me at the mixture of lights, forms and impressions.It was strange and ... now I know ... beautiful. However, I hurriedimmediately toward the nearest chemist. At the same time I looked upand all about me at the beauty. Soon an individual approached. I knew what to do from my information. Isimply acted natural. You know, one of your earliest instructions wasto realize that these people see nothing unusual in you if you do notlet yourself believe they do. This individual I classified as a female of a singular variety here.Her hair was short, her upper torso clad in a woolen garment. Shewore ... what are they? ... oh, yes, sneakers. My attention wasdiverted by a scream as I passed her. I stopped. The woman gesticulated and continued to scream. People hurried fromnearby houses. I linked my hands behind me and watched the scene withan attitude of mild interest. They weren't interested in me, I toldmyself. But they were. I became alarmed, dived into a bush and used a mechanism that youunfortunately do not have—invisibility. I lay there and listened. He was stark naked, the girl with the sneakers said. A figure I recognized as a police officer spoke to her. Lizzy, you'll just have to keep these crackpot friends of yours out ofthis area. But— No more buck-bathing, Lizzy, the officer ordered. No more speechesin the Square. Not when it results in riots at five in the morning. Nowwhere is your naked friend? I'm going to make an example of him. That was it—I had forgotten clothes. There is only one answer to thisoversight on my part. My mind is confused by the barrage of impressionsthat assault it. I must retire now and get them all classified. Beauty,pain, fear, hate, love, laughter. I don't know one from the other. Imust feel each, become accustomed to it. The more I think about it, the more I realize that the information Ihave been given is very unrealistic. You have been inefficient, Joe.What will Blgftury and the others say of this? My great mission isimpaired. Farewell, till I find a more intelligent mind so I can writeyou with more enlightenment. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Moscow, Idaho June 17 Dear Joe: I received your first communication today. It baffles me. Do you greetme in the proper fringe-zone manner? No. Do you express joy, hope,pride, helpfulness at my arrival? No. You ask me for a loan of fivebucks! It took me some time, culling my information catalog to come up withthe correct variant of the slang term buck. Is it possible that youare powerless even to provide yourself with the wherewithal to live inthis inferior world? A reminder, please. You and I—I in particular—are now engaged ina struggle to free our world from the terrible, maiming intrusionsof this not-world. Through many long gleebs, our people have liveda semi-terrorized existence while errant vibrations from this worldripped across the closely joined vibration flux, whose individualfluctuations make up our sentient population. Even our eminent, all-high Frequency himself has often been jeopardizedby these people. The not-world and our world are like two basketsas you and I see them in our present forms. Baskets woven with thegreatest intricacy, design and color; but baskets whose convex sidesare joined by a thin fringe of filaments. Our world, on the vibrationalplane, extends just a bit into this, the not-world. But being a worldof higher vibration, it is ultimately tenuous to these gross peoples.While we vibrate only within a restricted plane because of our purer,more stable existence, these people radiate widely into our world. They even send what they call psychic reproductions of their own selvesinto ours. And most infamous of all, they sometimes are able to forcesome of our individuals over the fringe into their world temporarily,causing them much agony and fright. The latter atrocity is perpetrated through what these people callmediums, spiritualists and other fatuous names. I intend to visit oneof them at the first opportunity to see for myself. Meanwhile, as to you, I would offer a few words of advice. I pickedthem up while examining the slang portion of my information catalogwhich you unfortunately caused me to use. So, for the ultimatecause—in this, the penultimate adventure, and for the glory and peaceof our world—shake a leg, bub. Straighten up and fly right. In short,get hep. As far as the five bucks is concerned, no dice. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Des Moines, Iowa June 19 Dear Joe: Your letter was imponderable till I had thrashed through long passagesin my information catalog that I had never imagined I would need.Biological functions and bodily processes which are labeled hererevolting are used freely in your missive. You can be sure they areall being forwarded to Blgftury. If I were not involved in the mostimportant part of my journey—completion of the weapon against thenot-worlders—I would come to New York immediately. You would rue thatday, I assure you. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Boise, Idaho July 15 Dear Joe: A great deal has happened to me since I wrote to you last.Systematically, I have tested each emotion and sensation listed inour catalog. I have been, as has been said in this world, like a reedbending before the winds of passion. In fact, I'm rather badly bentindeed. Ah! You'll pardon me, but I just took time for what is knownquaintly in this tongue as a hooker of red-eye. Ha! I've masteredeven the vagaries of slang in the not-language.... Ahhh! Pardon meagain. I feel much better now. You see, Joe, as I attuned myself to the various impressions thatconstantly assaulted my mind through this body, I conditioned myself toreact exactly as our information catalog instructed me to. Now it is all automatic, pure reflex. A sensation comes to me when I amburned; then I experience a burning pain. If the sensation is a tickle,I experience a tickle. This morning I have what is known medically as a syndrome ... a groupof symptoms popularly referred to as a hangover ... Ahhh! Pardon meagain. Strangely ... now what was I saying? Oh, yes. Ha, ha. Strangelyenough, the reactions that come easiest to the people in this worldcame most difficult to me. Money-love, for example. It is a great thinghere, both among those who haven't got it and those who have. I went out and got plenty of money. I walked invisible into a bank andcarried away piles of it. Then I sat and looked at it. I took the moneyto a remote room of the twenty room suite I have rented in the besthotel here in—no, sorry—and stared at it for hours. Nothing happened. I didn't love the stuff or feel one way or the otherabout it. Yet all around me people are actually killing one another forthe love of it. Anyway.... Ahhh. Pardon me. I got myself enough money to fill ten orfifteen rooms. By the end of the week I should have all eighteen sparerooms filled with money. If I don't love it then, I'll feel I havefailed. This alcohol is taking effect now. Blgftury has been goading me for reports. To hell with his reports!I've got a lot more emotions to try, such as romantic love. I've beenstudying this phenomenon, along with other racial characteristics ofthese people, in the movies. This is the best place to see thesepeople as they really are. They all go into the movie houses and theredo homage to their own images. Very quaint type of idolatry. Love. Ha! What an adventure this is becoming. By the way, Joe, I'm forwarding that five dollars. You see, it won'tcost me anything. It'll come out of the pocket of the idiot who'swriting this letter. Pretty shrewd of me, eh? I'm going out and look at that money again. I think I'm at lastlearning to love it, though not as much as I admire liquor. Well, onesimply must persevere, I always say. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Penobscot, Maine July 20 Dear Joe: Now you tell me not to drink alcohol. Why not? You never mentioned itin any of your vibrations to us, gleebs ago, when you first came acrossto this world. It will stint my powers? Nonsense! Already I have had aquart of the liquid today. I feel wonderful. Get that? I actually feelwonderful, in spite of this miserable imitation of a body. There are long hours during which I am so well-integrated into thisbody and this world that I almost consider myself a member of it. NowI can function efficiently. I sent Blgftury some long reports todayoutlining my experiments in the realm of chemistry where we mustfinally defeat these people. Of course, I haven't made the experimentsyet, but I will. This is not deceit, merely realistic anticipation ofthe inevitable. Anyway, what the old xbyzrt doesn't know won't muss hisvibrations. I went to what they call a nightclub here and picked out ablonde-haired woman, the kind that the books say men prefer. She wasattracted to me instantly. After all, the body I have devised isperfect in every detail ... actually a not-world ideal. I didn't lose any time overwhelming her susceptibilities. I rememberdistinctly that just as I stooped to pick up a large roll of money Ihad dropped, her eyes met mine and in them I could see her admiration.We went to my suite and I showed her one of the money rooms. Would youbelieve it? She actually took off her shoes and ran around through themoney in her bare feet! Then we kissed. Concealed in the dermis of the lips are tiny, highly sensitized nerveends which send sensations to the brain. The brain interprets theseimpulses in a certain manner. As a result, the fate of secretion in theadrenals on the ends of the kidneys increases and an enlivening of theentire endocrine system follows. Thus I felt the beginnings of love. I sat her down on a pile of money and kissed her again. Again thetingling, again the secretion and activation. I integrated myselfquickly. Now in all the motion pictures—true representations of life and lovein this world—the man with a lot of money or virtue kisses the girland tries to induce her to do something biological. She then refuses.This pleases both of them, for he wanted her to refuse. She, in turn,wanted him to want her, but also wanted to prevent him so that he wouldhave a high opinion of her. Do I make myself clear? I kissed the blonde girl and gave her to understand what I then wanted.Well, you can imagine my surprise when she said yes! So I had failed. Ihad not found love. I became so abstracted by this problem that the blonde girl fellasleep. I thoughtfully drank quantities of excellent alcohol called ginand didn't even notice when the blonde girl left. I am now beginning to feel the effects of this alcohol again. Ha. Don'tI wish old Blgftury were here in the vibrational pattern of an olive?I'd get the blonde in and have her eat him out of a Martini. That is agin mixture. I think I'll get a hot report off to the old so-and-so right now. It'lltake him a gleeb to figure this one out. I'll tell him I'm setting upan atomic reactor in the sewage systems here and that all we have to dois activate it and all the not-people will die of chain asphyxiation. Boy, what an easy job this turned out to be. It's just a vacation. Joe,you old gold-bricker, imagine you here all these gleebs living off thefat of the land. Yak, yak. Affectionately. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Sacramento, Calif. July 25 Dear Joe: All is lost unless we work swiftly. I received your revealing letterthe morning after having a terrible experience of my own. I drank alot of gin for two days and then decided to go to one of these seancethings. Somewhere along the way I picked up a red-headed girl. When we gotto the darkened seance room, I took the redhead into a corner andcontinued my investigations into the realm of love. I failed againbecause she said yes immediately. The nerves of my dermis were working overtime when suddenly I had themost frightening experience of my life. Now I know what a horror thesepeople really are to our world. The medium had turned out all the lights. He said there was a strongpsychic influence in the room somewhere. That was me, of course, but Iwas too busy with the redhead to notice. Anyway, Mrs. Somebody wanted to make contact with her paternalgrandmother, Lucy, from the beyond. The medium went into his act. Heconcentrated and sweated and suddenly something began to take form inthe room. The best way to describe it in not-world language is a white,shapeless cascade of light. Mrs. Somebody reared to her feet and screeched, Grandma Lucy! Then Ireally took notice. Grandma Lucy, nothing! This medium had actually brought Blgfturypartially across the vibration barrier. He must have been vibrating inthe fringe area and got caught in the works. Did he look mad! His zyhkuwas open and his btgrimms were down. Worst of all, he saw me. Looked right at me with an unbelievablepattern of pain, anger, fear and amazement in his matrix. Me and theredhead. Then comes your letter today telling of the fate that befell you as aresult of drinking alcohol. Our wrenchingly attuned faculties in thesenot-world bodies need the loathsome drug to escape from the realityof not-reality. It's true. I cannot do without it now. The day is onlyhalf over and I have consumed a quart and a half. And it is dulling allmy powers as it has practically obliterated yours. I can't even becomeinvisible any more. I must find the formula that will wipe out the not-world men quickly. Quickly! Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Florence, Italy September 10 Dear Joe: This telepathic control becomes more difficult every time. I must pickcloser points of communication soon. I have nothing to report butfailure. I bought a ton of equipment and went to work on the formulathat is half complete in my instructions. Six of my hotel rooms werefilled with tubes, pipes and apparatus of all kinds. I had got my mechanism as close to perfect as possible when Irealized that, in my befuddled condition, I had set off a reactionthat inevitably would result in an explosion. I had to leave thereimmediately, but I could not create suspicion. The management was notaware of the nature of my activities. I moved swiftly. I could not afford time to bring my baggage. Istuffed as much money into my pockets as I could and then saunteredinto the hotel lobby. Assuming my most casual air, I told the managerI was checking out. Naturally he was stunned since I was his bestcustomer. But why, sir? he asked plaintively. I was baffled. What could I tell him? Don't you like the rooms? he persisted. Isn't the service good? It's the rooms, I told him. They're—they're— They're what? he wanted to know. They're not safe. Not safe? But that is ridiculous. This hotel is.... At this point the blast came. My nerves were a wreck from the alcohol. See? I screamed. Not safe. I knew they were going to blow up! He stood paralyzed as I ran from the lobby. Oh, well, never say die.Another day, another hotel. I swear I'm even beginning to think likethe not-men, curse them. Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Rochester, New York September 25 Dear Joe: I have it! It is done! In spite of the alcohol, in spite of Blgftury'sniggling criticism, I have succeeded. I now have developed a formof mold, somewhat similar to the antibiotics of this world, that,transmitted to the human organism, will cause a disease whose end willbe swift and fatal. First the brain will dissolve and then the body will fall apart.Nothing in this world can stop the spread of it once it is loose.Absolutely nothing. We must use care. Stock in as much gin as you are able. I will bringwith me all that I can. Meanwhile I must return to my original place ofbirth into this world of horrors. There I will secure the gateway, alarge mirror, the vibrational point at which we shall meet and slowlyclimb the frequency scale to emerge into our own beautiful, now secureworld. You and I together, Joe, conquerors, liberators. You say you eat little and drink as much as you can. The same withme. Even in this revolting world I am a sad sight. My not-world sensesfalter. This is the last letter. Tomorrow I come with the gateway. Whenthe gin is gone, we will plant the mold in the hotel where you live. In only a single gleeb it will begin to work. The men of this queerworld will be no more. But we can't say we didn't have some fun, canwe, Joe? And just let Blgftury make one crack. Just one xyzprlt. I'll havehgutry before the ghjdksla! Glmpauszn <doc-sep>Dear Editor: These guys might be queer drunk hopheads. But if not? If soon braindissolve, body fall apart, how long have we got? Please, anybody whoknows answer, write to me—Ivan Smernda, Plaza Ritz Arms—how long is agleeb? <doc-sep></s>

Blgftury is an alien of the same world as Glmpauszn and Joe, which is being semi-terrorized by intrusive vibrations from Earth (which they refer to as non-world) that pollute their world’s sentient frequency. Their world wishes to destroy all human life on Earth to become free from these intrusions. Blgftury is the boss of the other two, and Glmpauszn often refers to having to write reports for him begrudgingly to update on the status of the mission.Blgftury is not a supportive boss, because he wished to go on this mission himself. Glmpauszn describes that Blgftury gave him little praise, and even wrote thinly-veiled threats, in his response to Glmpauszn’s report on how he escaped the pursuit of the police when he was caught naked in public after forgetting humans need to put on clothes. Blgftury has the authority to take corrective action related to the mission, evidenced by how Glmpauszn doesn’t hesitate to forward him the letters from Joe that he finds offensive about asking for money and discussing “revolting bodily processes.” Blgftury has to pester Glmpauszn for reports when he begins to go off the plan and experiment with human feelings like falling in love and alcohol. Glmpauszn does finally successfully develop a mold that will kill all humans on Earth and sends detailed chemistry reports back to Blgftury on the subject. Blgftury spends a lot of time sending vibrations in the fringe area between Earth and their world, and by accident his vibrations are summoned by a spiritual medium into a white, shapeless cascade of light at a human seance gathering that Glmpauszn happens to be attending on Earth where he is fooling around with a red-headed woman in the corner of the room (flagrantly not doing the work of the mission) in full visibility to Blgftury. Blgftury responded with a pattern in his matrix that showed pain, anger, fear and amazement. Glmpauszn goes on to complete the mission and return with Joe to their home world without further interaction with Blgftury.

<s> The Haunted Fountain <doc-sep> id=chap01> CHAPTER I An Unsolved Mystery “Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’tanything that Judy can’t solve.” Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sistersnow. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should beloyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’spart. She was the one who nearly spoiled our doublewedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believeshe’d understand—understand any better than I do.Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is noexception.” “You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, comingin to serve dessert to the two friends she had invitedfor lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do haveproblems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’tsolve.” “Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention onesingle spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’llbelieve you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—” “Judy Dobbs, remember?” “Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solvedall those mysteries. I met you when the wholevalley below the big Roulsville dam was threatenedby flood and you solved that—” “That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,not me. He was the hero without even meaning tobe. He was the one who rode through town andwarned people that the flood was coming. I was offchasing a shadow.” “A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.” “It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.“I know now that keeping that promise notto talk about the dam was a great big mistake andcould have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.” “Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression cloudingher pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.” “Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talkabout?” “You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’vesolved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing ortwo before the flood, but what about the haunted house you moved into? You were the one whotracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellarand goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasingghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them didyou fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.” “Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. Therewas one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, butwhat she was or how she spoke to me is more thanI know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along withthis house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some ofthem when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’restored in one end of the attic.” “Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimedLois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party andshow up the spooks?” “I didn’t say the attic was haunted.” Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. Shewasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finallytold them, the summer before they met. Horacehad just started working on the paper. Judy rememberedthat it was Lorraine’s father, Richard ThorntonLee, who gave him his job with the FarringdonDaily Herald . He had turned in some interestingchurch news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him the makings of a good reporter. And so it was thathe spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdonwhere the Farringdon-Petts had their turretedmansion, while she had to suffer the heat andloneliness of Dry Brook Hollow. Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, sheconfessed now as she reviewed everything that hadhappened. She just couldn’t help resenting the factthat her parents left her every summer while theywent off on a vacation by themselves. What did theythink she would do? “You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had toldher. “I bought you six new books in that mysteryseries you like. When they’re finished there areplenty of short stories around. Your grandmothernever throws anything away. She has magazines she’ssaved since your mother was a girl. If you ask forthem she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know howyou love to read.” “I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—” Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tiredeyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed avacation much more than a schoolgirl who had toolittle to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went tothe beach hotel where they had honeymooned. Itwas a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Boltonand his wife relived it. And every summer Judywent to stay with her grandmother Smeed, whoscolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’tglad to have her. “You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinklingbehind her glasses. “What do you propose to do withyourself this time?” “Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad sayyou have a whole stack of old magazines—” “In the attic. Go up and look them over if youcan stand the heat.” Judy went, not to look over the old magazines somuch as to escape to a place where she could have agood cry. It was the summer before her fifteenthbirthday. In another year she would have outgrownher childish resentment of her parents’ vacation orbe grown up enough to ask them to let her have avacation of her own. In another year she wouldbe summering among the beautiful Thousand Islandsand solving a mystery to be known as the GhostParade . “A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be tellingher, “and you solved everything.” But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had noidea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. Thereseemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tearscame and spilled over on one of the magazines. AsJudy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallenon a picture of a fountain. “A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”she remembered saying aloud. Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill ofwalking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pettmansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn afountain still caught and held rainbows like thoseshe was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.But all that was in the future. If anyone had toldthe freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would oneday marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed intheir faces. “That tease!” For then she knew Peter only as an older boy whoused to tease her and call her carrot-top until one dayshe yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and soare you!” Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her akitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But thesummer Judy found the picture of a fountain andspilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped topretend the fountain in the picture was filled withall the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried. “But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenlyexclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—” A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy rememberedit distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let peopleknow your wishes instead of muttering them toyourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Were they?” asked Lois. She and Lorraine had listened to this much of whatJudy was telling them without interruption. “That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.“There weren’t any of them impossible.” And she went on to tell them how, the very nextday, her grandparents had taken her to a fountainexactly like the one in the picture. It was in the centerof a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.Beside the steps were smaller fountains with thewater spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judyhad stared at them a moment and then climbed thesteps to the pool. “Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.“Is this beautiful fountain real?” A voice had answered, although she could see noone. “Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If youshed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surelycome true.” “A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed atear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.” “Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes willsurely come true,” the voice had repeated. “But what is there to cry about?” “You found plenty to cry about back at yourgrandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had remindedher. “Weren’t you crying on my picture upthere in the attic?” “Then you—you are the fountain!” Judy rememberedexclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. Itdoesn’t have a voice.” “Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain hadsaid in a mysterious whisper. <doc-sep> id=chap02> CHAPTER II If Wishes Came True “Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense anylonger. What did you wish?” “Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m comingto that.” First, she told her friends, she had to think of awise wish. There had been so much she wanted inthose early days before the flood. Dora Scott hadbeen her best friend in Roulsville, but she had movedaway. “You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake ofhaving just one best friend. There wasn’t anybodyin Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of howlonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister, and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It madelittle ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly beforethey vanished, and so I began naming the things Iwanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they werewise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. Iwasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began tothink of others that my wishes started to come true.” “But what were they?” Lois insisted. Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she repliedairily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lotsof friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry aG-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as faras I got when the ripples vanished. I thought thespell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anythingmore.” “Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Loisasked. “Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots morethings. I wanted to go places, of course, and keeppets, and have a nice home, and—” “And your wishes all came true!” “Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the oneabout the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister Iwanted. It was a sister near my own age. Thatseemed impossible at the time, but the future didhold a sister for me.” “It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezingLorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you thinksisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?” “Honey and I always do,” she replied “but thenit was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peteror that he would become a G-man, and he didn’tknow he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But thestrangest thing of all was the fountain itself.” “Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it wasenchanted?” Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as sheanswered, “I was still little girl enough to think soat the time. I wandered around, growing verydrowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed intoit. I must have gone to sleep, because I rememberwaking up and wondering if the voice in the fountainhad been a dream.” “A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure itwasn’t a flying carpet?” “No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assuredher, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in abeautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thickwith roses. Did I tell you it was June?” “All the year around?” Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a longway from June to December.” “Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judysaid, “but I think this one would be beautiful at anytime of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.I explored the garden all around the fountain.” “And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her. “Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dreamyou’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’tyou try to solve the mystery?” “I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “ifI had been older or more experienced. I really shouldhave investigated it more thoroughly and learned thesecret of the fountain. But after the ripples wentaway it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’treally think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishingfor a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seemimpossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorrainewas your friend.” “I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.” “It was nothing compared to the trouble caused bythe Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After thatthings started happening so fast that I completelyforgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’tbelieve I thought about it again until after we movedto Farringdon and I walked up to your door andsaw the fountain on your lawn.” “The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.” “You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’veseen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think thepicture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’llshow you.” Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert whileJudy was telling them the story of the fountain.Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She hadtasted it too often while she was making it. “I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided. Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped upthe chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generouslywith cream. “Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinkshe’s a person. He eats everything we eat, includinglettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?He wants to explore the attic, too.” “He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if thereare any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle. Leaving the table, they all started upstairs withthe cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing hergrandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’stastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door wasremoved. But there was still a door closing off thenarrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberryreached it first and yowled for Judy to open it. “He can read my mind. He always knows whereI’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open andthe cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rollingnoise came from the floor above. “Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraidof,” Judy urged her friends. “Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewingroom at the top of the last flight of stairs. “So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitiousabout black cats, but they are creepy. DoesBlackberry have to roll spools across the floor?” “Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.Pausing at still another door that led to the darkerpart of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybodycare to explore the past?” The exploration began enthusiastically with Judyrelating still more of what she remembered aboutthe fountain. “When I told Grandma about it she laughed andsaid I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes cametrue that easily she’d be living in a castle. But wouldshe?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember thishouse she was still burning kerosene lamps like thoseyou see on that high shelf by the window. I thinkshe and Grandpa like the way they lived withoutany modern conveniences or anything.” “I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around theold attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both diedthe same winter, isn’t it?” “Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe theywished neither of them would outlive the other. Ifthey did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on morethoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.Another could have been to keep the good old days,as Grandma used to call them. That one came truein a way. They did manage to keep a little of thepast when they kept all these old things. That’s whatI meant about turning back the clock.” “If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a littlemyself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if thingswere the way they used to be when I trustedArthur—” “Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked. Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Loisand Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was allshe would say. Judy wondered, as they searchedthrough the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorrainewas of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyedmonster coming between her and her handsome husband,Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they hadseemed blissfully happy. But there was no happinessin Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one ofthe fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “Itis. It’s the very same one.” “But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?” “I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’msure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenlyto Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.If she did, she pretended not to. “Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d loveto, wouldn’t you, Judy?” “I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.“Do you recognize it, too?” “I think so,” Lois answered after studying a littlemore closely the picture they had found. “It lookslike the fountain on the Brandt estate.” “The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fannyall the way to Farringdon.” “Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “TheBrandts own that stretch of woods just before youcome into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.” “Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazineback in its place under the eaves and turned eagerlyto her friends. “I do remember a road turning offinto the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.“I never thought it led to a house, though. Thereisn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparentstook?” “Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”Lois suggested. <doc-sep> id=chap03> CHAPTER III A Strange Encounter Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposedtrip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed toit under one condition. They were not to drive allthe way to the house which, she said, was just overthe hilltop. They were to park the car where noone would see it and follow the path to the fountain. “But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy. “You’ll remember it, won’t you?” Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.She and Lois both argued that it would be better toinquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly. “She’d be glad to show us around. This way itlooks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as theystarted off in the blue car she was driving. It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, andeasy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughedand said if they did find the fountain she thoughtshe’d wish for one exactly like it. “Well, you know what your grandmother saidabout wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If youlet people know about them instead of mutteringthem to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter knowabout this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soonbe Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the furcoat he gave me last year.” “Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s toowarm for snow. We picked a perfect day for thistrip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curvesas it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow. The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes theyhad covered the distance that had seemed such along way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’swagon. “I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’vejust about figured out how it happened. I didn’tthink my grandparents knew the Brandts well enoughto pay them a visit, though. We must have lookedqueer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’sold farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’texplain what happened afterwards. When I wokeup in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.” “How could they?” asked Lois. “Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance tosee how beautiful everything was before—” Again she broke off as if there were somethingshe wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare. “Before what?” questioned Judy. “Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. Youwere telling us how you woke up in the hammock,but you never did explain how you got back home,”Lorraine reminded her. “Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,but it’s beginning to come back now. I do rememberdriving home along this road. You see, I thought mygrandparents had left me in the garden for a surpriseand would return for me. I told you I was all alone.There wasn’t a house in sight.” “The Brandt house is just over the top of this nexthill,” Lois put in. “I know. You told me that. Now I know why Icouldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless oldtower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,I followed it. There’s something about a path inthe woods that always tempts me.” “We know that, Judy. Honey told us all aboutyour latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.” “Well, this trail led out of the rose garden wherethe hammock was and then through an archway,”Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomespeered out at me from unexpected places. I wasactually scared by the time I reached the old tower.There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heardthe rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew hewas driving off without me.” “He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing likethat?” “I think now it was just to tease me. He did stopand wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have deliveredthem, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them forMrs. Brandt they may still be there.” “I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as theyturned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate. “Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’sanother car coming.” As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraineducked her head. She kept herself hidden behindJudy until the car had passed. The man drivingit was a stranger to Judy, but she would rememberhis hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for along time. The soft brown hat he was wearing coveredmost of his hair. “What’s the matter with you two?” asked Loiswhen the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old forplaying hide and seek?” “I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorrainebegged. “I don’t think the Brandts live thereany more.” “Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly. She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knewmore about the Brandt estate than she was telling. Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravellyroad. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedgeof rhododendrons to be seen. They looked verygreen next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.The sky was gray with white clouds being drivenacross it by the wind. “There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I cansee it over to the left. It looks like something out ofGrimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?” “It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonderwhat it is.” “I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. Itwould be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “Butif there are new people living here they’ll never giveus permission.” “We might explore it without permission,” Judysuggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friendsas Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside theroad. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants toexplore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look forthe fountain.” “Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “Itwon’t be enchanted. I told you—” “You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “Ifyou know anything about the people who live herenow, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.” “I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I doknow who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You rememberRoger Banning from school, don’t you?I’ve seen him around here. His family must haveacquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working onthe estate.” “Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t youtell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go placestogether.” “It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.“I was just out for a drive.” “You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with acar of your own. You’re not interested in RogerBanning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do betterthan that. I did know him slightly, but not fromschool. The boys and girls were separated and wentto different high schools by the time we moved to Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, alot better. He was in our young people’s group atchurch.” “Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longermention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.” “For what?” asked Judy. Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred factsto gossip. “Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks fromhis father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of importantbusiness people. I think he forged some legaldocuments, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her. Now Judy did remember. It was something shewould have preferred to forget. She liked to thinkshe was a good judge of character, and she had takenDick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who wouldnever stoop to crime. “I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to lookfor it, or aren’t we?” “Of course we are. That’s what we came for. Ijust like to know what a tiger looks like before hesprings at me,” Judy explained. “You seem to think there’s danger in this expeditionof ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine. “I don’t know what to think. You’re the one whoseems to know the answers, but you’re not telling. Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’veseen that character who drove down this road and,for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?” Lorraine hesitated a moment and then repliedevasively, “People don’t generally enter privateestates without an invitation. That’s all.” “I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expectwe’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accusedof trespassing.” “I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as twodark-coated figures strode down the road towardthem. “You drove right by a NO TRESPASSING sign,and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming tomeet us!” <doc-sep></s>

Lois and Lorraine are having lunch at Judy’s house, speaking about how Judy nearly spoiled their double-wedding where they both became sisters under the name Farringdon-Petts by solving a mystery. Judy starts telling the story of the haunted fountain. She discovered a photo of a spectacular fountain in her grandmother’s hot attic one summer as she was stuck there for two weeks while her parents went on vacation. She shed a tear onto the photo while recalling her sadness about not having friends or a sister, and imagined the fountain was a place for lonely girls to fill with their tears. Her grandmother overhears her speaking aloud her wishes and calls that she shouldn’t keep her wishes to herself, because “most of them aren’t so impossible.”Judy’s grandparents take her to the fountain in the photo and it speaks to Judy, directing her to shed a tear into it and make wishes. Judy sheds a tear thinking about how her only friend just moved out of town and then hurries through her wishes before the ripples disappear - to have lots of friends, a sister, to marry a G-man and to solve a lot of mysteries. All things that have come true in her life.Abruptly returning to Judy’s modern timeline, she takes Lois and Lorraine to the attic. They are spooked by Judy’s black cat, Blackberry, who makes sudden noises. Judy finds the photo and Lorraine recognizes the fountain is identical to one on her estate - yet it is in a different location. They surmise that it is in the woods on the edge of town that are part of the Brandt estate, and drive to it immediately.During their adventure, Judy recalls more of her fountain memory. Her grandparents didn’t know the Brandt’s well enough to pay them a visit, but instead stopped by the fountain on their way to drop off her grandmother’s hooked rugs at the estate further up the path. Judy was left behind napping in a hammock - told by her grandparents they were getting her a surprise, but they didn’t return. She followed a path to an old windowless tower, but got distracted by the sound of her grandfather's cart leaving. This is all she recalls, but there is evidently more to discover that will solve the mystery.The trip to the fountain shakes the confidence of Lorraine in the back seat, who knows information about the new owners of the estate - Roger Banning - that she is withholding. Lois and Judy probe her about what she knows and why she ducked down to hide her face from a stranger passing in a car. Although Lorraine tells them about Roger, she does not reveal why she is afraid. Judy mentions knowing Roger’s pal Dick Hartwell, who is apparently in the Federal Penitentiary for forgery now. As they park and exit the car to walk to the fountain, two dark-coated strangers approach them. This is where the story ends.

<s> The Haunted Fountain <doc-sep> id=chap01> CHAPTER I An Unsolved Mystery “Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’tanything that Judy can’t solve.” Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sistersnow. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should beloyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’spart. She was the one who nearly spoiled our doublewedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believeshe’d understand—understand any better than I do.Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is noexception.” “You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, comingin to serve dessert to the two friends she had invitedfor lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do haveproblems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’tsolve.” “Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention onesingle spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’llbelieve you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—” “Judy Dobbs, remember?” “Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solvedall those mysteries. I met you when the wholevalley below the big Roulsville dam was threatenedby flood and you solved that—” “That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,not me. He was the hero without even meaning tobe. He was the one who rode through town andwarned people that the flood was coming. I was offchasing a shadow.” “A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.” “It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.“I know now that keeping that promise notto talk about the dam was a great big mistake andcould have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.” “Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression cloudingher pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.” “Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talkabout?” “You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’vesolved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing ortwo before the flood, but what about the haunted house you moved into? You were the one whotracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellarand goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasingghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them didyou fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.” “Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. Therewas one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, butwhat she was or how she spoke to me is more thanI know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along withthis house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some ofthem when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’restored in one end of the attic.” “Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimedLois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party andshow up the spooks?” “I didn’t say the attic was haunted.” Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. Shewasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finallytold them, the summer before they met. Horacehad just started working on the paper. Judy rememberedthat it was Lorraine’s father, Richard ThorntonLee, who gave him his job with the FarringdonDaily Herald . He had turned in some interestingchurch news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him the makings of a good reporter. And so it was thathe spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdonwhere the Farringdon-Petts had their turretedmansion, while she had to suffer the heat andloneliness of Dry Brook Hollow. Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, sheconfessed now as she reviewed everything that hadhappened. She just couldn’t help resenting the factthat her parents left her every summer while theywent off on a vacation by themselves. What did theythink she would do? “You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had toldher. “I bought you six new books in that mysteryseries you like. When they’re finished there areplenty of short stories around. Your grandmothernever throws anything away. She has magazines she’ssaved since your mother was a girl. If you ask forthem she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know howyou love to read.” “I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—” Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tiredeyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed avacation much more than a schoolgirl who had toolittle to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went tothe beach hotel where they had honeymooned. Itwas a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Boltonand his wife relived it. And every summer Judywent to stay with her grandmother Smeed, whoscolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’tglad to have her. “You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinklingbehind her glasses. “What do you propose to do withyourself this time?” “Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad sayyou have a whole stack of old magazines—” “In the attic. Go up and look them over if youcan stand the heat.” Judy went, not to look over the old magazines somuch as to escape to a place where she could have agood cry. It was the summer before her fifteenthbirthday. In another year she would have outgrownher childish resentment of her parents’ vacation orbe grown up enough to ask them to let her have avacation of her own. In another year she wouldbe summering among the beautiful Thousand Islandsand solving a mystery to be known as the GhostParade . “A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be tellingher, “and you solved everything.” But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had noidea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. Thereseemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tearscame and spilled over on one of the magazines. AsJudy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallenon a picture of a fountain. “A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”she remembered saying aloud. Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill ofwalking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pettmansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn afountain still caught and held rainbows like thoseshe was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.But all that was in the future. If anyone had toldthe freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would oneday marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed intheir faces. “That tease!” For then she knew Peter only as an older boy whoused to tease her and call her carrot-top until one dayshe yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and soare you!” Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her akitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But thesummer Judy found the picture of a fountain andspilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped topretend the fountain in the picture was filled withall the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried. “But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenlyexclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—” A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy rememberedit distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let peopleknow your wishes instead of muttering them toyourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Were they?” asked Lois. She and Lorraine had listened to this much of whatJudy was telling them without interruption. “That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.“There weren’t any of them impossible.” And she went on to tell them how, the very nextday, her grandparents had taken her to a fountainexactly like the one in the picture. It was in the centerof a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.Beside the steps were smaller fountains with thewater spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judyhad stared at them a moment and then climbed thesteps to the pool. “Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.“Is this beautiful fountain real?” A voice had answered, although she could see noone. “Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If youshed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surelycome true.” “A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed atear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.” “Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes willsurely come true,” the voice had repeated. “But what is there to cry about?” “You found plenty to cry about back at yourgrandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had remindedher. “Weren’t you crying on my picture upthere in the attic?” “Then you—you are the fountain!” Judy rememberedexclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. Itdoesn’t have a voice.” “Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain hadsaid in a mysterious whisper. <doc-sep> id=chap02> CHAPTER II If Wishes Came True “Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense anylonger. What did you wish?” “Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m comingto that.” First, she told her friends, she had to think of awise wish. There had been so much she wanted inthose early days before the flood. Dora Scott hadbeen her best friend in Roulsville, but she had movedaway. “You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake ofhaving just one best friend. There wasn’t anybodyin Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of howlonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister, and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It madelittle ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly beforethey vanished, and so I began naming the things Iwanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they werewise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. Iwasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began tothink of others that my wishes started to come true.” “But what were they?” Lois insisted. Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she repliedairily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lotsof friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry aG-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as faras I got when the ripples vanished. I thought thespell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anythingmore.” “Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Loisasked. “Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots morethings. I wanted to go places, of course, and keeppets, and have a nice home, and—” “And your wishes all came true!” “Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the oneabout the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister Iwanted. It was a sister near my own age. Thatseemed impossible at the time, but the future didhold a sister for me.” “It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezingLorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you thinksisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?” “Honey and I always do,” she replied “but thenit was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peteror that he would become a G-man, and he didn’tknow he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But thestrangest thing of all was the fountain itself.” “Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it wasenchanted?” Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as sheanswered, “I was still little girl enough to think soat the time. I wandered around, growing verydrowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed intoit. I must have gone to sleep, because I rememberwaking up and wondering if the voice in the fountainhad been a dream.” “A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure itwasn’t a flying carpet?” “No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assuredher, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in abeautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thickwith roses. Did I tell you it was June?” “All the year around?” Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a longway from June to December.” “Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judysaid, “but I think this one would be beautiful at anytime of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.I explored the garden all around the fountain.” “And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her. “Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dreamyou’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’tyou try to solve the mystery?” “I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “ifI had been older or more experienced. I really shouldhave investigated it more thoroughly and learned thesecret of the fountain. But after the ripples wentaway it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’treally think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishingfor a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seemimpossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorrainewas your friend.” “I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.” “It was nothing compared to the trouble caused bythe Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After thatthings started happening so fast that I completelyforgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’tbelieve I thought about it again until after we movedto Farringdon and I walked up to your door andsaw the fountain on your lawn.” “The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.” “You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’veseen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think thepicture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’llshow you.” Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert whileJudy was telling them the story of the fountain.Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She hadtasted it too often while she was making it. “I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided. Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped upthe chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generouslywith cream. “Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinkshe’s a person. He eats everything we eat, includinglettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?He wants to explore the attic, too.” “He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if thereare any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle. Leaving the table, they all started upstairs withthe cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing hergrandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’stastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door wasremoved. But there was still a door closing off thenarrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberryreached it first and yowled for Judy to open it. “He can read my mind. He always knows whereI’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open andthe cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rollingnoise came from the floor above. “Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraidof,” Judy urged her friends. “Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewingroom at the top of the last flight of stairs. “So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitiousabout black cats, but they are creepy. DoesBlackberry have to roll spools across the floor?” “Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.Pausing at still another door that led to the darkerpart of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybodycare to explore the past?” The exploration began enthusiastically with Judyrelating still more of what she remembered aboutthe fountain. “When I told Grandma about it she laughed andsaid I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes cametrue that easily she’d be living in a castle. But wouldshe?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember thishouse she was still burning kerosene lamps like thoseyou see on that high shelf by the window. I thinkshe and Grandpa like the way they lived withoutany modern conveniences or anything.” “I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around theold attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both diedthe same winter, isn’t it?” “Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe theywished neither of them would outlive the other. Ifthey did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on morethoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.Another could have been to keep the good old days,as Grandma used to call them. That one came truein a way. They did manage to keep a little of thepast when they kept all these old things. That’s whatI meant about turning back the clock.” “If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a littlemyself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if thingswere the way they used to be when I trustedArthur—” “Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked. Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Loisand Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was allshe would say. Judy wondered, as they searchedthrough the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorrainewas of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyedmonster coming between her and her handsome husband,Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they hadseemed blissfully happy. But there was no happinessin Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one ofthe fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “Itis. It’s the very same one.” “But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?” “I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’msure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenlyto Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.If she did, she pretended not to. “Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d loveto, wouldn’t you, Judy?” “I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.“Do you recognize it, too?” “I think so,” Lois answered after studying a littlemore closely the picture they had found. “It lookslike the fountain on the Brandt estate.” “The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fannyall the way to Farringdon.” “Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “TheBrandts own that stretch of woods just before youcome into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.” “Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazineback in its place under the eaves and turned eagerlyto her friends. “I do remember a road turning offinto the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.“I never thought it led to a house, though. Thereisn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparentstook?” “Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”Lois suggested. <doc-sep> id=chap03> CHAPTER III A Strange Encounter Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposedtrip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed toit under one condition. They were not to drive allthe way to the house which, she said, was just overthe hilltop. They were to park the car where noone would see it and follow the path to the fountain. “But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy. “You’ll remember it, won’t you?” Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.She and Lois both argued that it would be better toinquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly. “She’d be glad to show us around. This way itlooks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as theystarted off in the blue car she was driving. It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, andeasy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughedand said if they did find the fountain she thoughtshe’d wish for one exactly like it. “Well, you know what your grandmother saidabout wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If youlet people know about them instead of mutteringthem to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter knowabout this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soonbe Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the furcoat he gave me last year.” “Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s toowarm for snow. We picked a perfect day for thistrip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curvesas it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow. The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes theyhad covered the distance that had seemed such along way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’swagon. “I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’vejust about figured out how it happened. I didn’tthink my grandparents knew the Brandts well enoughto pay them a visit, though. We must have lookedqueer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’sold farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’texplain what happened afterwards. When I wokeup in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.” “How could they?” asked Lois. “Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance tosee how beautiful everything was before—” Again she broke off as if there were somethingshe wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare. “Before what?” questioned Judy. “Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. Youwere telling us how you woke up in the hammock,but you never did explain how you got back home,”Lorraine reminded her. “Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,but it’s beginning to come back now. I do rememberdriving home along this road. You see, I thought mygrandparents had left me in the garden for a surpriseand would return for me. I told you I was all alone.There wasn’t a house in sight.” “The Brandt house is just over the top of this nexthill,” Lois put in. “I know. You told me that. Now I know why Icouldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless oldtower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,I followed it. There’s something about a path inthe woods that always tempts me.” “We know that, Judy. Honey told us all aboutyour latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.” “Well, this trail led out of the rose garden wherethe hammock was and then through an archway,”Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomespeered out at me from unexpected places. I wasactually scared by the time I reached the old tower.There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heardthe rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew hewas driving off without me.” “He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing likethat?” “I think now it was just to tease me. He did stopand wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have deliveredthem, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them forMrs. Brandt they may still be there.” “I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as theyturned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate. “Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’sanother car coming.” As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraineducked her head. She kept herself hidden behindJudy until the car had passed. The man drivingit was a stranger to Judy, but she would rememberhis hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for along time. The soft brown hat he was wearing coveredmost of his hair. “What’s the matter with you two?” asked Loiswhen the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old forplaying hide and seek?” “I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorrainebegged. “I don’t think the Brandts live thereany more.” “Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly. She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knewmore about the Brandt estate than she was telling. Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravellyroad. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedgeof rhododendrons to be seen. They looked verygreen next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.The sky was gray with white clouds being drivenacross it by the wind. “There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I cansee it over to the left. It looks like something out ofGrimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?” “It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonderwhat it is.” “I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. Itwould be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “Butif there are new people living here they’ll never giveus permission.” “We might explore it without permission,” Judysuggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friendsas Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside theroad. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants toexplore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look forthe fountain.” “Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “Itwon’t be enchanted. I told you—” “You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “Ifyou know anything about the people who live herenow, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.” “I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I doknow who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You rememberRoger Banning from school, don’t you?I’ve seen him around here. His family must haveacquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working onthe estate.” “Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t youtell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go placestogether.” “It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.“I was just out for a drive.” “You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with acar of your own. You’re not interested in RogerBanning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do betterthan that. I did know him slightly, but not fromschool. The boys and girls were separated and wentto different high schools by the time we moved to Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, alot better. He was in our young people’s group atchurch.” “Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longermention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.” “For what?” asked Judy. Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred factsto gossip. “Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks fromhis father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of importantbusiness people. I think he forged some legaldocuments, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her. Now Judy did remember. It was something shewould have preferred to forget. She liked to thinkshe was a good judge of character, and she had takenDick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who wouldnever stoop to crime. “I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to lookfor it, or aren’t we?” “Of course we are. That’s what we came for. Ijust like to know what a tiger looks like before hesprings at me,” Judy explained. “You seem to think there’s danger in this expeditionof ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine. “I don’t know what to think. You’re the one whoseems to know the answers, but you’re not telling. Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’veseen that character who drove down this road and,for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?” Lorraine hesitated a moment and then repliedevasively, “People don’t generally enter privateestates without an invitation. That’s all.” “I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expectwe’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accusedof trespassing.” “I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as twodark-coated figures strode down the road towardthem. “You drove right by a NO TRESPASSING sign,and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming tomeet us!” <doc-sep></s>

The story opens at Judy’s house as she has Lois and Lorraine over for lunch. Judy’s lives in her grandparents' old house that she modernized with her husband, Peter. The house has an attic that is up a narrow set of stairs with a door at the top. They have a black cat named Blackberry that spooks her friends because it is creepy when it makes unexpected noises in the attic.When Judy is recalling the story of the fountain, the narrative bounces back and forth into their present reality as Lois and Lorraine ask questions.In Judy’s recalled story, she is a young red-haired girl with no friends who spends two weeks in the summer with her grandparents at their home. They have a hot attic filled with keepsakes and old reading materials, most notably a picture of a fountain that Judy’s grandmother later brings her to. The fountain was centered in a deep, circular pool, and had steps leading up to it that were bordered with smaller fountains of lions with water spurting out of the mouths. Judy thinks it could be a beautiful location at any time of the year, surrounded by lush vegetation like rhododendrons and evergreens. From the fountain there was a path leading to a windowless old tower that was populated by cupids and gnomes that peered out at Judy.Back in modern day, when Judy, Lois and Lorraine go looking for the fountain, the tower is still visible, and Lorraine describes it as something out of “Grimm’s Fairy Tales.” The friends visit it on a day where the trees are leafless in the woods, making the rhododendrons appear vibrantly green, under a gray sky. They do not actually reach the fountain in the story, but they do pass several posted signs for “NO TRESPASSING” along the wooded road.

<s> The Haunted Fountain <doc-sep> id=chap01> CHAPTER I An Unsolved Mystery “Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’tanything that Judy can’t solve.” Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sistersnow. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should beloyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’spart. She was the one who nearly spoiled our doublewedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believeshe’d understand—understand any better than I do.Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is noexception.” “You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, comingin to serve dessert to the two friends she had invitedfor lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do haveproblems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’tsolve.” “Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention onesingle spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’llbelieve you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—” “Judy Dobbs, remember?” “Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solvedall those mysteries. I met you when the wholevalley below the big Roulsville dam was threatenedby flood and you solved that—” “That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,not me. He was the hero without even meaning tobe. He was the one who rode through town andwarned people that the flood was coming. I was offchasing a shadow.” “A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.” “It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.“I know now that keeping that promise notto talk about the dam was a great big mistake andcould have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.” “Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression cloudingher pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.” “Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talkabout?” “You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’vesolved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing ortwo before the flood, but what about the haunted house you moved into? You were the one whotracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellarand goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasingghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them didyou fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.” “Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. Therewas one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, butwhat she was or how she spoke to me is more thanI know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along withthis house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some ofthem when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’restored in one end of the attic.” “Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimedLois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party andshow up the spooks?” “I didn’t say the attic was haunted.” Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. Shewasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finallytold them, the summer before they met. Horacehad just started working on the paper. Judy rememberedthat it was Lorraine’s father, Richard ThorntonLee, who gave him his job with the FarringdonDaily Herald . He had turned in some interestingchurch news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him the makings of a good reporter. And so it was thathe spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdonwhere the Farringdon-Petts had their turretedmansion, while she had to suffer the heat andloneliness of Dry Brook Hollow. Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, sheconfessed now as she reviewed everything that hadhappened. She just couldn’t help resenting the factthat her parents left her every summer while theywent off on a vacation by themselves. What did theythink she would do? “You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had toldher. “I bought you six new books in that mysteryseries you like. When they’re finished there areplenty of short stories around. Your grandmothernever throws anything away. She has magazines she’ssaved since your mother was a girl. If you ask forthem she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know howyou love to read.” “I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—” Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tiredeyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed avacation much more than a schoolgirl who had toolittle to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went tothe beach hotel where they had honeymooned. Itwas a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Boltonand his wife relived it. And every summer Judywent to stay with her grandmother Smeed, whoscolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’tglad to have her. “You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinklingbehind her glasses. “What do you propose to do withyourself this time?” “Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad sayyou have a whole stack of old magazines—” “In the attic. Go up and look them over if youcan stand the heat.” Judy went, not to look over the old magazines somuch as to escape to a place where she could have agood cry. It was the summer before her fifteenthbirthday. In another year she would have outgrownher childish resentment of her parents’ vacation orbe grown up enough to ask them to let her have avacation of her own. In another year she wouldbe summering among the beautiful Thousand Islandsand solving a mystery to be known as the GhostParade . “A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be tellingher, “and you solved everything.” But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had noidea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. Thereseemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tearscame and spilled over on one of the magazines. AsJudy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallenon a picture of a fountain. “A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”she remembered saying aloud. Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill ofwalking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pettmansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn afountain still caught and held rainbows like thoseshe was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.But all that was in the future. If anyone had toldthe freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would oneday marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed intheir faces. “That tease!” For then she knew Peter only as an older boy whoused to tease her and call her carrot-top until one dayshe yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and soare you!” Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her akitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But thesummer Judy found the picture of a fountain andspilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped topretend the fountain in the picture was filled withall the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried. “But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenlyexclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—” A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy rememberedit distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let peopleknow your wishes instead of muttering them toyourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Were they?” asked Lois. She and Lorraine had listened to this much of whatJudy was telling them without interruption. “That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.“There weren’t any of them impossible.” And she went on to tell them how, the very nextday, her grandparents had taken her to a fountainexactly like the one in the picture. It was in the centerof a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.Beside the steps were smaller fountains with thewater spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judyhad stared at them a moment and then climbed thesteps to the pool. “Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.“Is this beautiful fountain real?” A voice had answered, although she could see noone. “Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If youshed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surelycome true.” “A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed atear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.” “Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes willsurely come true,” the voice had repeated. “But what is there to cry about?” “You found plenty to cry about back at yourgrandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had remindedher. “Weren’t you crying on my picture upthere in the attic?” “Then you—you are the fountain!” Judy rememberedexclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. Itdoesn’t have a voice.” “Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain hadsaid in a mysterious whisper. <doc-sep> id=chap02> CHAPTER II If Wishes Came True “Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense anylonger. What did you wish?” “Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m comingto that.” First, she told her friends, she had to think of awise wish. There had been so much she wanted inthose early days before the flood. Dora Scott hadbeen her best friend in Roulsville, but she had movedaway. “You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake ofhaving just one best friend. There wasn’t anybodyin Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of howlonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister, and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It madelittle ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly beforethey vanished, and so I began naming the things Iwanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they werewise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. Iwasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began tothink of others that my wishes started to come true.” “But what were they?” Lois insisted. Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she repliedairily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lotsof friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry aG-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as faras I got when the ripples vanished. I thought thespell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anythingmore.” “Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Loisasked. “Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots morethings. I wanted to go places, of course, and keeppets, and have a nice home, and—” “And your wishes all came true!” “Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the oneabout the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister Iwanted. It was a sister near my own age. Thatseemed impossible at the time, but the future didhold a sister for me.” “It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezingLorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you thinksisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?” “Honey and I always do,” she replied “but thenit was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peteror that he would become a G-man, and he didn’tknow he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But thestrangest thing of all was the fountain itself.” “Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it wasenchanted?” Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as sheanswered, “I was still little girl enough to think soat the time. I wandered around, growing verydrowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed intoit. I must have gone to sleep, because I rememberwaking up and wondering if the voice in the fountainhad been a dream.” “A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure itwasn’t a flying carpet?” “No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assuredher, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in abeautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thickwith roses. Did I tell you it was June?” “All the year around?” Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a longway from June to December.” “Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judysaid, “but I think this one would be beautiful at anytime of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.I explored the garden all around the fountain.” “And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her. “Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dreamyou’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’tyou try to solve the mystery?” “I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “ifI had been older or more experienced. I really shouldhave investigated it more thoroughly and learned thesecret of the fountain. But after the ripples wentaway it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’treally think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishingfor a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seemimpossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorrainewas your friend.” “I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.” “It was nothing compared to the trouble caused bythe Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After thatthings started happening so fast that I completelyforgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’tbelieve I thought about it again until after we movedto Farringdon and I walked up to your door andsaw the fountain on your lawn.” “The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.” “You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’veseen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think thepicture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’llshow you.” Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert whileJudy was telling them the story of the fountain.Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She hadtasted it too often while she was making it. “I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided. Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped upthe chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generouslywith cream. “Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinkshe’s a person. He eats everything we eat, includinglettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?He wants to explore the attic, too.” “He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if thereare any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle. Leaving the table, they all started upstairs withthe cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing hergrandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’stastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door wasremoved. But there was still a door closing off thenarrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberryreached it first and yowled for Judy to open it. “He can read my mind. He always knows whereI’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open andthe cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rollingnoise came from the floor above. “Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraidof,” Judy urged her friends. “Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewingroom at the top of the last flight of stairs. “So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitiousabout black cats, but they are creepy. DoesBlackberry have to roll spools across the floor?” “Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.Pausing at still another door that led to the darkerpart of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybodycare to explore the past?” The exploration began enthusiastically with Judyrelating still more of what she remembered aboutthe fountain. “When I told Grandma about it she laughed andsaid I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes cametrue that easily she’d be living in a castle. But wouldshe?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember thishouse she was still burning kerosene lamps like thoseyou see on that high shelf by the window. I thinkshe and Grandpa like the way they lived withoutany modern conveniences or anything.” “I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around theold attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both diedthe same winter, isn’t it?” “Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe theywished neither of them would outlive the other. Ifthey did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on morethoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.Another could have been to keep the good old days,as Grandma used to call them. That one came truein a way. They did manage to keep a little of thepast when they kept all these old things. That’s whatI meant about turning back the clock.” “If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a littlemyself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if thingswere the way they used to be when I trustedArthur—” “Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked. Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Loisand Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was allshe would say. Judy wondered, as they searchedthrough the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorrainewas of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyedmonster coming between her and her handsome husband,Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they hadseemed blissfully happy. But there was no happinessin Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one ofthe fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “Itis. It’s the very same one.” “But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?” “I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’msure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenlyto Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.If she did, she pretended not to. “Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d loveto, wouldn’t you, Judy?” “I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.“Do you recognize it, too?” “I think so,” Lois answered after studying a littlemore closely the picture they had found. “It lookslike the fountain on the Brandt estate.” “The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fannyall the way to Farringdon.” “Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “TheBrandts own that stretch of woods just before youcome into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.” “Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazineback in its place under the eaves and turned eagerlyto her friends. “I do remember a road turning offinto the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.“I never thought it led to a house, though. Thereisn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparentstook?” “Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”Lois suggested. <doc-sep> id=chap03> CHAPTER III A Strange Encounter Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposedtrip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed toit under one condition. They were not to drive allthe way to the house which, she said, was just overthe hilltop. They were to park the car where noone would see it and follow the path to the fountain. “But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy. “You’ll remember it, won’t you?” Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.She and Lois both argued that it would be better toinquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly. “She’d be glad to show us around. This way itlooks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as theystarted off in the blue car she was driving. It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, andeasy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughedand said if they did find the fountain she thoughtshe’d wish for one exactly like it. “Well, you know what your grandmother saidabout wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If youlet people know about them instead of mutteringthem to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter knowabout this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soonbe Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the furcoat he gave me last year.” “Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s toowarm for snow. We picked a perfect day for thistrip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curvesas it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow. The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes theyhad covered the distance that had seemed such along way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’swagon. “I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’vejust about figured out how it happened. I didn’tthink my grandparents knew the Brandts well enoughto pay them a visit, though. We must have lookedqueer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’sold farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’texplain what happened afterwards. When I wokeup in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.” “How could they?” asked Lois. “Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance tosee how beautiful everything was before—” Again she broke off as if there were somethingshe wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare. “Before what?” questioned Judy. “Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. Youwere telling us how you woke up in the hammock,but you never did explain how you got back home,”Lorraine reminded her. “Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,but it’s beginning to come back now. I do rememberdriving home along this road. You see, I thought mygrandparents had left me in the garden for a surpriseand would return for me. I told you I was all alone.There wasn’t a house in sight.” “The Brandt house is just over the top of this nexthill,” Lois put in. “I know. You told me that. Now I know why Icouldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless oldtower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,I followed it. There’s something about a path inthe woods that always tempts me.” “We know that, Judy. Honey told us all aboutyour latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.” “Well, this trail led out of the rose garden wherethe hammock was and then through an archway,”Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomespeered out at me from unexpected places. I wasactually scared by the time I reached the old tower.There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heardthe rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew hewas driving off without me.” “He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing likethat?” “I think now it was just to tease me. He did stopand wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have deliveredthem, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them forMrs. Brandt they may still be there.” “I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as theyturned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate. “Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’sanother car coming.” As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraineducked her head. She kept herself hidden behindJudy until the car had passed. The man drivingit was a stranger to Judy, but she would rememberhis hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for along time. The soft brown hat he was wearing coveredmost of his hair. “What’s the matter with you two?” asked Loiswhen the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old forplaying hide and seek?” “I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorrainebegged. “I don’t think the Brandts live thereany more.” “Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly. She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knewmore about the Brandt estate than she was telling. Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravellyroad. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedgeof rhododendrons to be seen. They looked verygreen next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.The sky was gray with white clouds being drivenacross it by the wind. “There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I cansee it over to the left. It looks like something out ofGrimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?” “It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonderwhat it is.” “I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. Itwould be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “Butif there are new people living here they’ll never giveus permission.” “We might explore it without permission,” Judysuggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friendsas Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside theroad. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants toexplore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look forthe fountain.” “Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “Itwon’t be enchanted. I told you—” “You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “Ifyou know anything about the people who live herenow, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.” “I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I doknow who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You rememberRoger Banning from school, don’t you?I’ve seen him around here. His family must haveacquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working onthe estate.” “Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t youtell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go placestogether.” “It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.“I was just out for a drive.” “You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with acar of your own. You’re not interested in RogerBanning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do betterthan that. I did know him slightly, but not fromschool. The boys and girls were separated and wentto different high schools by the time we moved to Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, alot better. He was in our young people’s group atchurch.” “Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longermention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.” “For what?” asked Judy. Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred factsto gossip. “Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks fromhis father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of importantbusiness people. I think he forged some legaldocuments, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her. Now Judy did remember. It was something shewould have preferred to forget. She liked to thinkshe was a good judge of character, and she had takenDick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who wouldnever stoop to crime. “I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to lookfor it, or aren’t we?” “Of course we are. That’s what we came for. Ijust like to know what a tiger looks like before hesprings at me,” Judy explained. “You seem to think there’s danger in this expeditionof ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine. “I don’t know what to think. You’re the one whoseems to know the answers, but you’re not telling. Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’veseen that character who drove down this road and,for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?” Lorraine hesitated a moment and then repliedevasively, “People don’t generally enter privateestates without an invitation. That’s all.” “I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expectwe’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accusedof trespassing.” “I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as twodark-coated figures strode down the road towardthem. “You drove right by a NO TRESPASSING sign,and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming tomeet us!” <doc-sep></s>

Judy was a freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that spent two weeks every summer with her grandmother, Smeed, and grandfather while her parents went on vacation to a beach hotel they honeymooned at many years ago. Judy resented being left behind by her parents. However, during one summer with her grandparents, they took her to an enchanted fountain that Judy found a photo of in their attic. The fountain spoke to Judy and asked her to shed a tear into the fountain and make wishes. All of the things that Judy wished for in her life came true - to have a lot of friends, a sister, to marry a G-man and to solve a lot of mysteries. In the telling of the story, Judy is older, married, and has a sister Lois (by way of Judy’s marriage to her brother), and another close friend like a sister, Lorraine (by way of her marrying into the same family as Lois - the Farringdon-Petts). Judy shows modesty by bringing up the mysteries she never solved when Lois and Lorraine shower her with compliments. Judy’s grandparents have since passed, but she lives in their home and keeps their belongings in the attic, showing her connection with family. Judy (maiden name Bolten) is married to Peter Dobbs, an FBI agent, and she prefers to discuss facts instead of gossiping about hear-say with Lois and Lorraine. Judy is diligent in asking questions about Lorraine’s behavior when she ducks down in the car to hide her face from a passing stranger, and probes her to tell the truth about knowing who the new owner of the Brandt estate is - Roger Banning. Her wit is sharp, and she comes across as determined and willing to take risks to solve her mysteries (like passing no trespassing signs in broad daylight after they have already been spotted by a stranger).

<s> The Haunted Fountain <doc-sep> id=chap01> CHAPTER I An Unsolved Mystery “Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’tanything that Judy can’t solve.” Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sistersnow. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should beloyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’spart. She was the one who nearly spoiled our doublewedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believeshe’d understand—understand any better than I do.Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is noexception.” “You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, comingin to serve dessert to the two friends she had invitedfor lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do haveproblems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’tsolve.” “Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention onesingle spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’llbelieve you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—” “Judy Dobbs, remember?” “Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solvedall those mysteries. I met you when the wholevalley below the big Roulsville dam was threatenedby flood and you solved that—” “That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,not me. He was the hero without even meaning tobe. He was the one who rode through town andwarned people that the flood was coming. I was offchasing a shadow.” “A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.” “It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.“I know now that keeping that promise notto talk about the dam was a great big mistake andcould have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.” “Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression cloudingher pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.” “Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talkabout?” “You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’vesolved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing ortwo before the flood, but what about the haunted house you moved into? You were the one whotracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellarand goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasingghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them didyou fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.” “Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. Therewas one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, butwhat she was or how she spoke to me is more thanI know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along withthis house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some ofthem when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’restored in one end of the attic.” “Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimedLois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party andshow up the spooks?” “I didn’t say the attic was haunted.” Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. Shewasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finallytold them, the summer before they met. Horacehad just started working on the paper. Judy rememberedthat it was Lorraine’s father, Richard ThorntonLee, who gave him his job with the FarringdonDaily Herald . He had turned in some interestingchurch news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him the makings of a good reporter. And so it was thathe spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdonwhere the Farringdon-Petts had their turretedmansion, while she had to suffer the heat andloneliness of Dry Brook Hollow. Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, sheconfessed now as she reviewed everything that hadhappened. She just couldn’t help resenting the factthat her parents left her every summer while theywent off on a vacation by themselves. What did theythink she would do? “You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had toldher. “I bought you six new books in that mysteryseries you like. When they’re finished there areplenty of short stories around. Your grandmothernever throws anything away. She has magazines she’ssaved since your mother was a girl. If you ask forthem she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know howyou love to read.” “I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—” Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tiredeyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed avacation much more than a schoolgirl who had toolittle to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went tothe beach hotel where they had honeymooned. Itwas a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Boltonand his wife relived it. And every summer Judywent to stay with her grandmother Smeed, whoscolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’tglad to have her. “You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinklingbehind her glasses. “What do you propose to do withyourself this time?” “Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad sayyou have a whole stack of old magazines—” “In the attic. Go up and look them over if youcan stand the heat.” Judy went, not to look over the old magazines somuch as to escape to a place where she could have agood cry. It was the summer before her fifteenthbirthday. In another year she would have outgrownher childish resentment of her parents’ vacation orbe grown up enough to ask them to let her have avacation of her own. In another year she wouldbe summering among the beautiful Thousand Islandsand solving a mystery to be known as the GhostParade . “A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be tellingher, “and you solved everything.” But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had noidea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. Thereseemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tearscame and spilled over on one of the magazines. AsJudy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallenon a picture of a fountain. “A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”she remembered saying aloud. Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill ofwalking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pettmansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn afountain still caught and held rainbows like thoseshe was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.But all that was in the future. If anyone had toldthe freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would oneday marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed intheir faces. “That tease!” For then she knew Peter only as an older boy whoused to tease her and call her carrot-top until one dayshe yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and soare you!” Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her akitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But thesummer Judy found the picture of a fountain andspilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped topretend the fountain in the picture was filled withall the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried. “But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenlyexclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—” A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy rememberedit distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let peopleknow your wishes instead of muttering them toyourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Were they?” asked Lois. She and Lorraine had listened to this much of whatJudy was telling them without interruption. “That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.“There weren’t any of them impossible.” And she went on to tell them how, the very nextday, her grandparents had taken her to a fountainexactly like the one in the picture. It was in the centerof a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.Beside the steps were smaller fountains with thewater spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judyhad stared at them a moment and then climbed thesteps to the pool. “Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.“Is this beautiful fountain real?” A voice had answered, although she could see noone. “Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If youshed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surelycome true.” “A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed atear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.” “Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes willsurely come true,” the voice had repeated. “But what is there to cry about?” “You found plenty to cry about back at yourgrandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had remindedher. “Weren’t you crying on my picture upthere in the attic?” “Then you—you are the fountain!” Judy rememberedexclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. Itdoesn’t have a voice.” “Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain hadsaid in a mysterious whisper. <doc-sep> id=chap02> CHAPTER II If Wishes Came True “Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense anylonger. What did you wish?” “Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m comingto that.” First, she told her friends, she had to think of awise wish. There had been so much she wanted inthose early days before the flood. Dora Scott hadbeen her best friend in Roulsville, but she had movedaway. “You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake ofhaving just one best friend. There wasn’t anybodyin Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of howlonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister, and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It madelittle ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly beforethey vanished, and so I began naming the things Iwanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they werewise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. Iwasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began tothink of others that my wishes started to come true.” “But what were they?” Lois insisted. Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she repliedairily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lotsof friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry aG-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as faras I got when the ripples vanished. I thought thespell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anythingmore.” “Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Loisasked. “Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots morethings. I wanted to go places, of course, and keeppets, and have a nice home, and—” “And your wishes all came true!” “Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the oneabout the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister Iwanted. It was a sister near my own age. Thatseemed impossible at the time, but the future didhold a sister for me.” “It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezingLorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you thinksisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?” “Honey and I always do,” she replied “but thenit was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peteror that he would become a G-man, and he didn’tknow he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But thestrangest thing of all was the fountain itself.” “Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it wasenchanted?” Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as sheanswered, “I was still little girl enough to think soat the time. I wandered around, growing verydrowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed intoit. I must have gone to sleep, because I rememberwaking up and wondering if the voice in the fountainhad been a dream.” “A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure itwasn’t a flying carpet?” “No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assuredher, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in abeautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thickwith roses. Did I tell you it was June?” “All the year around?” Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a longway from June to December.” “Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judysaid, “but I think this one would be beautiful at anytime of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.I explored the garden all around the fountain.” “And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her. “Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dreamyou’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’tyou try to solve the mystery?” “I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “ifI had been older or more experienced. I really shouldhave investigated it more thoroughly and learned thesecret of the fountain. But after the ripples wentaway it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’treally think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishingfor a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seemimpossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorrainewas your friend.” “I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.” “It was nothing compared to the trouble caused bythe Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After thatthings started happening so fast that I completelyforgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’tbelieve I thought about it again until after we movedto Farringdon and I walked up to your door andsaw the fountain on your lawn.” “The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.” “You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’veseen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think thepicture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’llshow you.” Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert whileJudy was telling them the story of the fountain.Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She hadtasted it too often while she was making it. “I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided. Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped upthe chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generouslywith cream. “Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinkshe’s a person. He eats everything we eat, includinglettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?He wants to explore the attic, too.” “He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if thereare any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle. Leaving the table, they all started upstairs withthe cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing hergrandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’stastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door wasremoved. But there was still a door closing off thenarrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberryreached it first and yowled for Judy to open it. “He can read my mind. He always knows whereI’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open andthe cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rollingnoise came from the floor above. “Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraidof,” Judy urged her friends. “Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewingroom at the top of the last flight of stairs. “So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitiousabout black cats, but they are creepy. DoesBlackberry have to roll spools across the floor?” “Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.Pausing at still another door that led to the darkerpart of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybodycare to explore the past?” The exploration began enthusiastically with Judyrelating still more of what she remembered aboutthe fountain. “When I told Grandma about it she laughed andsaid I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes cametrue that easily she’d be living in a castle. But wouldshe?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember thishouse she was still burning kerosene lamps like thoseyou see on that high shelf by the window. I thinkshe and Grandpa like the way they lived withoutany modern conveniences or anything.” “I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around theold attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both diedthe same winter, isn’t it?” “Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe theywished neither of them would outlive the other. Ifthey did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on morethoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.Another could have been to keep the good old days,as Grandma used to call them. That one came truein a way. They did manage to keep a little of thepast when they kept all these old things. That’s whatI meant about turning back the clock.” “If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a littlemyself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if thingswere the way they used to be when I trustedArthur—” “Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked. Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Loisand Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was allshe would say. Judy wondered, as they searchedthrough the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorrainewas of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyedmonster coming between her and her handsome husband,Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they hadseemed blissfully happy. But there was no happinessin Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one ofthe fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “Itis. It’s the very same one.” “But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?” “I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’msure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenlyto Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.If she did, she pretended not to. “Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d loveto, wouldn’t you, Judy?” “I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.“Do you recognize it, too?” “I think so,” Lois answered after studying a littlemore closely the picture they had found. “It lookslike the fountain on the Brandt estate.” “The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fannyall the way to Farringdon.” “Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “TheBrandts own that stretch of woods just before youcome into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.” “Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazineback in its place under the eaves and turned eagerlyto her friends. “I do remember a road turning offinto the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.“I never thought it led to a house, though. Thereisn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparentstook?” “Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”Lois suggested. <doc-sep> id=chap03> CHAPTER III A Strange Encounter Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposedtrip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed toit under one condition. They were not to drive allthe way to the house which, she said, was just overthe hilltop. They were to park the car where noone would see it and follow the path to the fountain. “But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy. “You’ll remember it, won’t you?” Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.She and Lois both argued that it would be better toinquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly. “She’d be glad to show us around. This way itlooks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as theystarted off in the blue car she was driving. It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, andeasy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughedand said if they did find the fountain she thoughtshe’d wish for one exactly like it. “Well, you know what your grandmother saidabout wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If youlet people know about them instead of mutteringthem to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter knowabout this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soonbe Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the furcoat he gave me last year.” “Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s toowarm for snow. We picked a perfect day for thistrip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curvesas it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow. The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes theyhad covered the distance that had seemed such along way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’swagon. “I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’vejust about figured out how it happened. I didn’tthink my grandparents knew the Brandts well enoughto pay them a visit, though. We must have lookedqueer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’sold farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’texplain what happened afterwards. When I wokeup in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.” “How could they?” asked Lois. “Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance tosee how beautiful everything was before—” Again she broke off as if there were somethingshe wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare. “Before what?” questioned Judy. “Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. Youwere telling us how you woke up in the hammock,but you never did explain how you got back home,”Lorraine reminded her. “Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,but it’s beginning to come back now. I do rememberdriving home along this road. You see, I thought mygrandparents had left me in the garden for a surpriseand would return for me. I told you I was all alone.There wasn’t a house in sight.” “The Brandt house is just over the top of this nexthill,” Lois put in. “I know. You told me that. Now I know why Icouldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless oldtower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,I followed it. There’s something about a path inthe woods that always tempts me.” “We know that, Judy. Honey told us all aboutyour latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.” “Well, this trail led out of the rose garden wherethe hammock was and then through an archway,”Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomespeered out at me from unexpected places. I wasactually scared by the time I reached the old tower.There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heardthe rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew hewas driving off without me.” “He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing likethat?” “I think now it was just to tease me. He did stopand wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have deliveredthem, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them forMrs. Brandt they may still be there.” “I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as theyturned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate. “Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’sanother car coming.” As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraineducked her head. She kept herself hidden behindJudy until the car had passed. The man drivingit was a stranger to Judy, but she would rememberhis hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for along time. The soft brown hat he was wearing coveredmost of his hair. “What’s the matter with you two?” asked Loiswhen the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old forplaying hide and seek?” “I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorrainebegged. “I don’t think the Brandts live thereany more.” “Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly. She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knewmore about the Brandt estate than she was telling. Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravellyroad. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedgeof rhododendrons to be seen. They looked verygreen next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.The sky was gray with white clouds being drivenacross it by the wind. “There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I cansee it over to the left. It looks like something out ofGrimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?” “It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonderwhat it is.” “I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. Itwould be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “Butif there are new people living here they’ll never giveus permission.” “We might explore it without permission,” Judysuggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friendsas Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside theroad. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants toexplore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look forthe fountain.” “Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “Itwon’t be enchanted. I told you—” “You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “Ifyou know anything about the people who live herenow, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.” “I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I doknow who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You rememberRoger Banning from school, don’t you?I’ve seen him around here. His family must haveacquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working onthe estate.” “Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t youtell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go placestogether.” “It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.“I was just out for a drive.” “You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with acar of your own. You’re not interested in RogerBanning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do betterthan that. I did know him slightly, but not fromschool. The boys and girls were separated and wentto different high schools by the time we moved to Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, alot better. He was in our young people’s group atchurch.” “Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longermention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.” “For what?” asked Judy. Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred factsto gossip. “Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks fromhis father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of importantbusiness people. I think he forged some legaldocuments, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her. Now Judy did remember. It was something shewould have preferred to forget. She liked to thinkshe was a good judge of character, and she had takenDick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who wouldnever stoop to crime. “I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to lookfor it, or aren’t we?” “Of course we are. That’s what we came for. Ijust like to know what a tiger looks like before hesprings at me,” Judy explained. “You seem to think there’s danger in this expeditionof ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine. “I don’t know what to think. You’re the one whoseems to know the answers, but you’re not telling. Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’veseen that character who drove down this road and,for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?” Lorraine hesitated a moment and then repliedevasively, “People don’t generally enter privateestates without an invitation. That’s all.” “I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expectwe’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accusedof trespassing.” “I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as twodark-coated figures strode down the road towardthem. “You drove right by a NO TRESPASSING sign,and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming tomeet us!” <doc-sep></s>

Tears are the inciting event that connect Judy with the photo of the fountain as a tear rolls off her cheek and onto the photo as she thinks of her loneliness in her grandparents attic. Expressing her longing for friendship and a sister aloud sparks her grandmother to take her along to the fountain itself. When visiting the fountain, tears again become important because the fountain asks for a tear to be shed into it before wishes can be made.The physical description of tears rolling onto a photograph or causing small ripples in the fountain that travel and dissipate are important visualizations that draw the reader into Judy’s story, and make her character feel real.

<s> The Haunted Fountain <doc-sep> id=chap01> CHAPTER I An Unsolved Mystery “Tell Judy about it,” begged Lois. “Please, Lorraine,it can’t be as bad as it appears. There isn’tanything that Judy can’t solve.” Lorraine tilted her head disdainfully. “We’re sistersnow. We’re both Farringdon-Petts and should beloyal to each other. But you always did take Judy’spart. She was the one who nearly spoiled our doublewedding trying to solve a mystery. I don’t believeshe’d understand—understand any better than I do.Everyone has problems, and I’m sure Judy is noexception.” “You’re right, Lorraine,” announced Judy, comingin to serve dessert to the two friends she had invitedfor lunch at Peter’s suggestion. “I do haveproblems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can’tsolve.” “Name one,” charged Lois. “Just mention onesingle spooky thing you couldn’t explain, and I’llbelieve you. I’ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton—” “Judy Dobbs, remember?” “Well, you were Judy Bolton when you solvedall those mysteries. I met you when the wholevalley below the big Roulsville dam was threatenedby flood and you solved that—” “That,” declared Judy, “was my brother Horace,not me. He was the hero without even meaning tobe. He was the one who rode through town andwarned people that the flood was coming. I was offchasing a shadow.” “A vanishing shadow,” Lois said with a sigh.“What you did wasn’t easy, Judy.” “It didn’t need to be as hard as it was,” Judy confessed.“I know now that keeping that promise notto talk about the dam was a great big mistake andcould have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.” “Please,” Lorraine said, a pained expression cloudingher pretty face, “let’s not talk about him now.” “Very well,” Judy agreed. “What shall we talkabout?” “You,” Lois said, “and all the mysteries you’vesolved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing ortwo before the flood, but what about the haunted house you moved into? You were the one whotracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellarand goodness knows where all. You’ve been chasingghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them didyou fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.” “Before I met you,” Judy said, thinking back,“there were plenty of them I couldn’t explain. Therewas one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, butwhat she was or how she spoke to me is more thanI know. If my grandparents knew, they weren’t telling.And now they’re both dead and I can’t ask them.They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along withthis house. Maybe I’ll find the answers to some ofthem when I finish sorting Grandma’s things. They’restored in one end of the attic.” “Another haunted attic? How thrilling!” exclaimedLois. “Why don’t you have another ghost party andshow up the spooks?” “I didn’t say the attic was haunted.” Judy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. Shewasn’t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finallytold them, the summer before they met. Horacehad just started working on the paper. Judy rememberedthat it was Lorraine’s father, Richard ThorntonLee, who gave him his job with the FarringdonDaily Herald . He had turned in some interestingchurch news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him the makings of a good reporter. And so it was thathe spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdonwhere the Farringdon-Petts had their turretedmansion, while she had to suffer the heat andloneliness of Dry Brook Hollow. Her thoughts were what had made it so hard, sheconfessed now as she reviewed everything that hadhappened. She just couldn’t help resenting the factthat her parents left her every summer while theywent off on a vacation by themselves. What did theythink she would do? “You’ll have plenty to read,” her father had toldher. “I bought you six new books in that mysteryseries you like. When they’re finished there areplenty of short stories around. Your grandmothernever throws anything away. She has magazines she’ssaved since your mother was a girl. If you ask forthem she’ll let you have the whole stack. I know howyou love to read.” “I do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old—” Judy had stopped. She had seen her father’s tiredeyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed avacation much more than a schoolgirl who had toolittle to do. He and Judy’s mother usually went tothe beach hotel where they had honeymooned. Itwas a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Boltonand his wife relived it. And every summer Judywent to stay with her grandmother Smeed, whoscolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn’tglad to have her. “You here again?” she had greeted her that summer,and Judy hadn’t noticed her old eyes twinklingbehind her glasses. “What do you propose to do withyourself this time?” “Read,” Judy had told her. “Mom and Dad sayyou have a whole stack of old magazines—” “In the attic. Go up and look them over if youcan stand the heat.” Judy went, not to look over the old magazines somuch as to escape to a place where she could have agood cry. It was the summer before her fifteenthbirthday. In another year she would have outgrownher childish resentment of her parents’ vacation orbe grown up enough to ask them to let her have avacation of her own. In another year she wouldbe summering among the beautiful Thousand Islandsand solving a mystery to be known as the GhostParade . “A whole parade of ghosts,” Lois would be tellingher, “and you solved everything.” But then she didn’t even know Lois. She had noidea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. Thereseemed to be nothing—nothing—and so the tearscame and spilled over on one of the magazines. AsJudy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallenon a picture of a fountain. “A fountain with tears for water. How strange!”she remembered saying aloud. Judy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill ofwalking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pettmansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn afountain still caught and held rainbows like thoseshe was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.But all that was in the future. If anyone had toldthe freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would oneday marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed intheir faces. “That tease!” For then she knew Peter only as an older boy whoused to tease her and call her carrot-top until one dayshe yelled back at him, “Carrot-tops are green and soare you!” Peter was to win Judy’s heart when he gave her akitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But thesummer Judy found the picture of a fountain andspilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped topretend the fountain in the picture was filled withall the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried. “But that would make it enchanted!” she had suddenlyexclaimed. “If I could find it I’d wish—” A step had sounded on the stairs. Judy rememberedit distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,“Enchanted fountain, indeed! If you let peopleknow your wishes instead of muttering them toyourself, most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Were they?” asked Lois. She and Lorraine had listened to this much of whatJudy was telling them without interruption. “That’s the unsolved mystery,” Judy replied.“There weren’t any of them impossible.” And she went on to tell them how, the very nextday, her grandparents had taken her to a fountainexactly like the one in the picture. It was in the centerof a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.Beside the steps were smaller fountains with thewater spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judyhad stared at them a moment and then climbed thesteps to the pool. “Am I dreaming?” she remembered saying aloud.“Is this beautiful fountain real?” A voice had answered, although she could see noone. “Make your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If youshed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surelycome true.” “A tear?” Judy had asked. “How can I shed atear when I’m happy? This is a wonderful place.” “Shed a tear in the fountain and your wishes willsurely come true,” the voice had repeated. “But what is there to cry about?” “You found plenty to cry about back at yourgrandmother’s house,” the mysterious voice had remindedher. “Weren’t you crying on my picture upthere in the attic?” “Then you—you are the fountain!” Judy rememberedexclaiming. “But a fountain doesn’t speak. Itdoesn’t have a voice.” “Wish wisely,” the voice from the fountain hadsaid in a mysterious whisper. <doc-sep> id=chap02> CHAPTER II If Wishes Came True “Did you?” Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.“Oh, Judy! Don’t keep us in suspense anylonger. What did you wish?” “Patience,” Judy said with a smile. “I’m comingto that.” First, she told her friends, she had to think of awise wish. There had been so much she wanted inthose early days before the flood. Dora Scott hadbeen her best friend in Roulsville, but she had movedaway. “You see,” she explained, “I made the mistake ofhaving just one best friend. There wasn’t anybodyin Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of howlonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister, and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It madelittle ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly beforethey vanished, and so I began naming the things Iwanted as fast as I could. I’m not sure they werewise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. Iwasn’t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,and what I wanted. It wasn’t until after I began tothink of others that my wishes started to come true.” “But what were they?” Lois insisted. Lorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she repliedairily, “Oh, didn’t I tell you? I wished for lotsof friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry aG-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that’s as faras I got when the ripples vanished. I thought thespell was broken and so I didn’t wish for anythingmore.” “Wasn’t there anything more you wanted?” Loisasked. “Of course,” replied Judy. “There were lots morethings. I wanted to go places, of course, and keeppets, and have a nice home, and—” “And your wishes all came true!” “Every one of them,” Judy agreed, “even the oneabout the sister. You see, it wasn’t a baby sister Iwanted. It was a sister near my own age. Thatseemed impossible at the time, but the future didhold a sister for me.” “It held one for me, too,” Lois said, squeezingLorraine’s hand under the table. “Don’t you thinksisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?” “Honey and I always do,” she replied “but thenit was different. I didn’t know I would marry Peteror that he would become a G-man, and he didn’tknow he had a sister. It is strange, isn’t it? But thestrangest thing of all was the fountain itself.” “Why?” asked Lorraine. “Do you still think it wasenchanted?” Lois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as sheanswered, “I was still little girl enough to think soat the time. I wandered around, growing verydrowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed intoit. I must have gone to sleep, because I rememberwaking up and wondering if the voice in the fountainhad been a dream.” “A hammock?” Lois questioned. “Are you sure itwasn’t a flying carpet?” “No, it was a hammock all right,” Judy assuredher, laughing. “It was hung between two trees in abeautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thickwith roses. Did I tell you it was June?” “All the year around?” Again Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,“Let’s not talk about rose gardens in June. It’s a longway from June to December.” “Do you mean a garden changes? I know,” Judysaid, “but I think this one would be beautiful at anytime of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,and I don’t know how many different kinds of evergreens.I explored the garden all around the fountain.” “And then what happened?” Lorraine urged her. “Yes, yes. Go on,” entreated Lois. “I didn’t dreamyou’d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn’tyou try to solve the mystery?” “I think I would have tried,” Judy admitted, “ifI had been older or more experienced. I really shouldhave investigated it more thoroughly and learned thesecret of the fountain. But after the ripples wentaway it didn’t speak to me any more, and I didn’treally think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishingfor a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seemimpossible for us to be friends at first, didn’t it? Lorrainewas your friend.” “I did make trouble for you,” Lorraine remembered.“It was all because of my foolish jealousy.” “It was nothing compared to the trouble caused bythe Roulsville flood,” declared Judy. “After thatthings started happening so fast that I completelyforgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don’tbelieve I thought about it again until after we movedto Farringdon and I walked up to your door andsaw the fountain on your lawn.” “The Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,”Lois said with a giggle. “I’ve seen lots nicer fountains.” “You have?” asked Judy. “Then maybe you’veseen the one I’ve been telling you about. I think thepicture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I’llshow you.” Lois and Lorraine had finished their dessert whileJudy was telling them the story of the fountain.Somehow, she wasn’t hungry for hers. She hadtasted it too often while she was making it. “I’ll leave it for Blackberry,” she decided. Lois watched in amusement as the cat lapped upthe chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generouslywith cream. “Sometimes,” Judy said fondly, “Blackberry thinkshe’s a person. He eats everything we eat, includinglettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?He wants to explore the attic, too.” “He’ll remember he’s a cat fast enough if thereare any mice up there,” Lois said with a giggle. Leaving the table, they all started upstairs withthe cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing hergrandparents’ house to suit her own and Peter’stastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door wasremoved. But there was still a door closing off thenarrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberryreached it first and yowled for Judy to open it. “He can read my mind. He always knows whereI’m going,” Judy said as the door creaked open andthe cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rollingnoise came from the floor above. “Come on. There’s nothing up here to be afraidof,” Judy urged her friends. “Maybe not, but I’m beginning to get the shivers,”confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewingroom at the top of the last flight of stairs. “So am I,” Lorraine admitted. “I’m not superstitiousabout black cats, but they are creepy. DoesBlackberry have to roll spools across the floor?” “Now he thinks he’s a kitten,” laughed Judy.Pausing at still another door that led to the darkerpart of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,“Up here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybodycare to explore the past?” The exploration began enthusiastically with Judyrelating still more of what she remembered aboutthe fountain. “When I told Grandma about it she laughed andsaid I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes cametrue that easily she’d be living in a castle. But wouldshe?” Judy wondered. “When I first remember thishouse she was still burning kerosene lamps like thoseyou see on that high shelf by the window. I thinkshe and Grandpa like the way they lived withoutany modern conveniences or anything.” “I think so, too,” Lois agreed, looking around theold attic with a shiver. “It is strange they both diedthe same winter, isn’t it?” “Maybe they wanted it that way. Maybe theywished neither of them would outlive the other. Ifthey did wish in the fountain,” Judy went on morethoughtfully, “I’m sure that was one of their wishes.Another could have been to keep the good old days,as Grandma used to call them. That one came truein a way. They did manage to keep a little of thepast when they kept all these old things. That’s whatI meant about turning back the clock.” “If wishes came true I’d like to turn it back a littlemyself,” Lorraine began. “It would be nice if thingswere the way they used to be when I trustedArthur—” “Don’t you trust him now?” Judy asked. Afterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Loisand Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was allshe would say. Judy wondered, as they searchedthrough the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorrainewas of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyedmonster coming between her and her handsome husband,Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they hadseemed blissfully happy. But there was no happinessin Lorraine’s face as she gazed at a picture of one ofthe fountains and then said in a tight little voice, “Itis. It’s the very same one.” “But that’s the picture I’ve been searching for!”Judy said eagerly. “Do you know where it is?” “I can’t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I’msure it isn’t now. Let’s go,” Lorraine said suddenlyto Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.If she did, she pretended not to. “Where?” she asked. “To the fountain? I’d loveto, wouldn’t you, Judy?” “I certainly would,” Judy replied enthusiastically.“Do you recognize it, too?” “I think so,” Lois answered after studying a littlemore closely the picture they had found. “It lookslike the fountain on the Brandt estate.” “The department store Brandts?” Judy questioned.“Then my grandparents must have driven old Fannyall the way to Farringdon.” “Not quite all the way,” Lorraine objected. “TheBrandts own that stretch of woods just before youcome into the city. You’ve passed it lots of times.” “Of course,” agreed Judy. She put the magazineback in its place under the eaves and turned eagerlyto her friends. “I do remember a road turning offinto the woods and going on uphill,” she told them.“I never thought it led to a house, though. Thereisn’t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparentstook?” “Why don’t we take it ourselves and find out?”Lois suggested. <doc-sep> id=chap03> CHAPTER III A Strange Encounter Lorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposedtrip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed toit under one condition. They were not to drive allthe way to the house which, she said, was just overthe hilltop. They were to park the car where noone would see it and follow the path to the fountain. “But suppose we can’t find the path?” asked Judy. “You’ll remember it, won’t you?” Judy thought she would, but she wasn’t too sure.She and Lois both argued that it would be better toinquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly. “She’d be glad to show us around. This way itlooks as if we’re planning a crime,” Lois said as theystarted off in the blue car she was driving. It was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, andeasy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughedand said if they did find the fountain she thoughtshe’d wish for one exactly like it. “Well, you know what your grandmother saidabout wishes, don’t you?” Lorraine asked. “If youlet people know about them instead of mutteringthem to yourself most of them aren’t so impossible.” “Quite true,” Judy agreed. “I’ll let Peter knowabout this one. He’s my Santa Claus, and it will soonbe Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the furcoat he gave me last year.” “Your reversible’s better in case it rains. It’s toowarm for snow. We picked a perfect day for thistrip,” Lois continued, guiding the car around curvesas it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow. The trip was a short one. In twenty minutes theyhad covered the distance that had seemed such along way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather’swagon. “I’ve been thinking about it,” she said, “and I’vejust about figured out how it happened. I didn’tthink my grandparents knew the Brandts well enoughto pay them a visit, though. We must have lookedqueer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa’sold farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn’texplain what happened afterwards. When I wokeup in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,wagon, grandparents—all had disappeared.” “How could they?” asked Lois. “Anyway,” Lorraine began, “you had a chance tosee how beautiful everything was before—” Again she broke off as if there were somethingshe wanted to tell but didn’t quite dare. “Before what?” questioned Judy. “Oh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. Youwere telling us how you woke up in the hammock,but you never did explain how you got back home,”Lorraine reminded her. “Didn’t I?” asked Judy. “I’d forgotten a lot of it,but it’s beginning to come back now. I do rememberdriving home along this road. You see, I thought mygrandparents had left me in the garden for a surpriseand would return for me. I told you I was all alone.There wasn’t a house in sight.” “The Brandt house is just over the top of this nexthill,” Lois put in. “I know. You told me that. Now I know why Icouldn’t see it. All I could see was a windowless oldtower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,I followed it. There’s something about a path inthe woods that always tempts me.” “We know that, Judy. Honey told us all aboutyour latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.” “Well, this trail led out of the rose garden wherethe hammock was and then through an archway,”Judy continued. “All sorts of little cupids and gnomespeered out at me from unexpected places. I wasactually scared by the time I reached the old tower.There wasn’t time to explore it. Just then I heardthe rumble of my grandfather’s wagon and knew hewas driving off without me.” “He was!” Judy’s friends both chorused in surprise,and Lois asked, “Why would he do a thing likethat?” “I think now it was just to tease me. He did stopand wait for me after a while,” Judy remembered.“The rugs were gone. Grandma must have deliveredthem, but I didn’t ask where. If she made them forMrs. Brandt they may still be there.” “I wouldn’t depend on it,” Lorraine said as theyturned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate. “Watch out!” Judy suddenly exclaimed. “There’sanother car coming.” As Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraineducked her head. She kept herself hidden behindJudy until the car had passed. The man drivingit was a stranger to Judy, but she would rememberhis hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for along time. The soft brown hat he was wearing coveredmost of his hair. “What’s the matter with you two?” asked Loiswhen the car had passed. “Aren’t you a little old forplaying hide and seek?” “I wasn’t—playing. Let’s not go up there,” Lorrainebegged. “I don’t think the Brandts live thereany more.” “Maybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,can’t we?” Judy replied a little uncertainly. She was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knewmore about the Brandt estate than she was telling. Lois kept on driving along the narrow, gravellyroad. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedgeof rhododendrons to be seen. They looked verygreen next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.The sky was gray with white clouds being drivenacross it by the wind. “There’s the tower!” Lorraine exclaimed. “I cansee it over to the left. It looks like something out ofGrimm’s Fairy Tales, doesn’t it?” “It looks grim all right,” agreed Judy. “I wonderwhat it is.” “I suppose it’s nothing but an old water tower. Itwould be fun to explore it, though,” Lois said. “Butif there are new people living here they’ll never giveus permission.” “We might explore it without permission,” Judysuggested daringly. “Come on!” she urged her friendsas Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside theroad. “Who’s going to stop us? And who wants toexplore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let’s look forthe fountain.” “Do you think we should?” Lorraine asked. “Itwon’t be enchanted. I told you—” “You told us very little,” Lois reminded her. “Ifyou know anything about the people who live herenow, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,I’m afraid we won’t be very welcome.” “I don’t think they’ll welcome us, anyway. I doknow who they are,” Lorraine admitted. “You rememberRoger Banning from school, don’t you?I’ve seen him around here. His family must haveacquired sudden wealth, or else he’s just working onthe estate.” “Then you’ve been here lately? Why didn’t youtell me?” asked Lois. “We always used to go placestogether.” “It wasn’t important,” Lorraine replied evasively.“I was just out for a drive.” “You plutocrats!” laughed Judy. “Each with acar of your own. You’re not interested in RogerBanning, are you, Lois? I’m sure you can do betterthan that. I did know him slightly, but not fromschool. The boys and girls were separated and wentto different high schools by the time we moved to Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, alot better. He was in our young people’s group atchurch.” “Sh!” Lois cautioned her. “Nice people no longermention Dick Hartwell’s name. He’s doing time.” “For what?” asked Judy. Like Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred factsto gossip. “Forgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks fromhis father’s desk and forged the names of a lot of importantbusiness people. I think he forged some legaldocuments, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.It was all in the papers,” Lorraine told her. Now Judy did remember. It was something shewould have preferred to forget. She liked to thinkshe was a good judge of character, and she had takenDick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who wouldnever stoop to crime. “I don’t see what all this has to do with the fountain,”Lois said impatiently. “Are we going to lookfor it, or aren’t we?” “Of course we are. That’s what we came for. Ijust like to know what a tiger looks like before hesprings at me,” Judy explained. “You seem to think there’s danger in this expeditionof ours, don’t you?” asked Lorraine. “I don’t know what to think. You’re the one whoseems to know the answers, but you’re not telling. Hiding your face back there gave you away. You’veseen that character who drove down this road and,for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.Why, Lorraine? Why didn’t you want to be recognized?” Lorraine hesitated a moment and then repliedevasively, “People don’t generally enter privateestates without an invitation. That’s all.” “I’d better turn the car around,” Lois decided,“in case we have to leave in a hurry. I don’t expectwe’ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accusedof trespassing.” “I’m sure we will be,” announced Judy as twodark-coated figures strode down the road towardthem. “You drove right by a NO TRESPASSING sign,and this isn’t a welcoming committee coming tomeet us!” <doc-sep></s>

Lois and Lorraine became sisters by marriage as they both married into the Farringdon-Petts family in a double-wedding event. Judy (a sister to Lois by way of her marrying Lois’ brother, Peter Dobbs), nearly ruined the double-wedding trying to solve a mystery.Lois is perhaps more forgiving to Judy, and Lorraine goes as far as to describe that Lois has always taken Judy’s side. Both Lois and Lorraine acknowledge that Judy is great at solving mysteries and try to lift her up when she is down on herself about the few that she couldn’t solve when they come over for lunch. Lorraine becomes evasive and hides from view when the three of them go to the fountain together, concealing information about the new owners of the Brandt estate that Lois and Judy eventually get out of her by probing questions. This event shows Lois’ willingness to challenge Lorraine, and perhaps also supporting “Judy’s side” as Lois calls her out on earlier in the story.

<s> I am a Nucleus By STEPHEN BARR Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No doubt whatever about it, I had the Indian sign on me ... my comfortably untidy world had suddenly turned into a monstrosity of order! When I got home from the office, I was not so much tired as beatendown, but the effect is similar. I let myself into the apartment, whichhad an absentee-wife look, and took a cold shower. The present downtowntemperature, according to the radio, was eighty-seven degrees, butaccording to my Greenwich Village thermometer, it was ninety-six. I gotdressed and went into the living room, and wished ardently that mywife Molly were here to tell me why the whole place looked so woebegone. What do they do, I asked myself, that I have left undone? I've vacuumedthe carpet, I've dusted and I've straightened the cushions.... Ah! Theashtrays. I emptied them, washed them and put them back, but still theplace looked wife-deserted. It had been a bad day; I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'dhad to hurry to make a story conference at one of the TV studios Iwrite for. I didn't notice the impending rain storm and had no umbrellawhen I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almosttropical downpour. I would have turned back, but a taxi came up and awoman got out, so I dashed through the rain and got in. Madison and Fifty-fourth, I said. Right, said the driver, and I heard the starter grind, and then goon grinding. After some futile efforts, he turned to me. Sorry, Mac.You'll have to find another cab. Good hunting. If possible, it was raining still harder. I opened my newspaper overmy hat and ran for the subway: three blocks. Whizzing traffic heldme up at each crossing and I was soaked when I reached the platform,just in time to miss the local. After an abnormal delay, I got onewhich exactly missed the express at Fourteenth Street. The same thinghappened at both ends of the crosstown shuttle, but I found the rainhad stopped when I got out at Fifty-first and Lexington. <doc-sep>As I walked across to Madison Avenue, I passed a big excavation wherethey were getting ready to put up a new office building. There was theusual crowd of buffs watching the digging machines and, in particular,a man with a pneumatic drill who was breaking up some hard-packed clay.While I looked, a big lump of it fell away, and for an instant I wasable to see something that looked like a chunk of dirty glass, the sizeof an old-fashioned hatbox. It glittered brilliantly in the sunlight,and then his chattering drill hit it. There was a faint bang and the thing disintegrated. It knocked him onhis back, but he got right up and I realized he was not hurt. At themoment of the explosion—if so feeble a thing can be called one—Ifelt something sting my face and, on touching it, found blood on myhand. I mopped at it with my handkerchief but, though slight, thebleeding would not stop, so I went into a drugstore and bought somepink adhesive which I put on the tiny cut. When I got to the studio, Ifound that I had missed the story conference. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase I'm justspitballing eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite,The whole ball of wax, twelve times. However, my story had beenaccepted without change because nobody had noticed my absence from theconference room. There you have what is known as the Advertising World,the Advertising game or the advertising racket, depending upon whichrung of the ladder you have achieved. The subway gave a repeat performance going home, and as I got to theapartment house we live in, the cop on the afternoon beat was standingthere talking to the doorman. He said, Hello, Mr. Graham. I guess you must have just have missed itat your office building. I looked blank and he explained, We justheard it a little while ago: all six elevators in your building jammedat the same time. Sounds crazy. I guess you just missed it. Anything can happen in advertising, I thought. That's right, Danny, Ijust missed it, I said, and went on in. Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone; I, on theother hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, andexcept for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been goingon. I went into our little kitchen to make a drink and reread thedirections Molly had left, telling me how to get along by myself untilshe got back from her mother's in Oyster Bay, a matter of ten days.How to make coffee, how to open a can, whom to call if I took sick andsuch. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convincedthat I cannot take a breath without her. She is right, but not for thereasons she supposes. I opened the refrigerator to get some ice and saw another notice: Whenyou take out the Milk or Butter, Put it Right Back. And Close the Door,too. Intimidated, I took my drink into the living room and sat down infront of the typewriter. As I stared at the novel that was to liberateme from Madison Avenue, I noticed a mistake and picked up a pencil.When I put it down, it rolled off the desk, and with my eyes on themanuscript, I groped under the chair for it. Then I looked down. Thepencil was standing on its end. <doc-sep>There, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hearabout, and picked up the pencil. I turned back to my novel and dranksome of the highball in hopes of inspiration and surcease from themuggy heat, but nothing came. I went back and read the whole chapterto try to get a forward momentum, but came to a dead stop at the lastsentence. Damn the heat, damn the pencil, damn Madison Avenue and advertising.My drink was gone and I went back to the kitchen and read Molly'snotes again to see if they would be like a letter from her. I noticedone that I had missed, pinned to the door of the dumbwaiter: Garbagepicked up at 6:30 AM so the idea is to Put it Here the Night Before. Ilove you. What can you do when the girl loves you? I made another drink and went and stared out of the living room windowat the roof opposite. The Sun was out again and a man with a stick wasexercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to beallowed to perch, but were not allowed to. Pigeons fly as a rule in formation and turn simultaneously, so thattheir wings all catch the sunlight at the same time. I was thinkingabout this decorative fact when I saw that as they were making a turn,they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they allwanted the same place in the sky to turn in, and several collided andfell. The man was as surprised as I and went to one of the dazed birds andpicked it up. He stood there shaking his head from side to side,stroking its feathers. My speculations about this peculiar aerial traffic accident wereinterrupted by loud voices in the hallway. Since our building isusually very well behaved, I was astonished to hear what sounded likean incipient free-for-all, and among the angry voices I recognized thatof my neighbor, Nat, a very quiet guy who works on a newspaper and hasnever, to my knowledge, given wild parties, particularly in the lateafternoon. You can't say a thing like that to me! I heard him shout. I tell youI got that deck this afternoon and they weren't opened till we startedto play! Several other loud voices started at the same time. Nobody gets five straight-flushes in a row! Yeah, and only when you were dealer! The tone of the argument was beginning to get ugly, and I opened thedoor to offer Nat help if he needed it. There were four men confrontinghim, evidently torn between the desire to make an angry exit and theimpulse to stay and beat him up. His face was furiously red and helooked stunned. Here! he said, holding out a deck of cards, For Pete's sake, look at'em yourselves if you think they're marked! The nearest man struck them up from his hand. Okay, Houdini! Sothey're not marked! All I know is five straight.... His voice trailed away. He and the others stared at the scattered cardson the floor. About half were face down, as might be expected, and therest face up—all red. <doc-sep>Someone must have rung, because at that moment the elevator arrived andthe four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence,got in and were taken down. My friend stood looking at the neatlyarranged cards. Judas! he said, and started to pick them up. Will you look at that!My God, what a session.... I helped him and said to come in for a drink and tell me all about it,but I had an idea what I would hear. After a while, he calmed down, but he still seemed dazed. Never seen anything to equal it, he said. Wouldn't have believedit. Those guys didn't believe it. Every round normal, nothingunusual about the hands—three of a kind, a low straight, that sortof thing and one guy got queens over tens, until it gets to be my deal. Brother! Straight flush to the king—every time! And each time,somebody else has four aces.... He started to sweat again, so I got up to fix him another drink. Therewas one quart of club soda left, but when I tried to open it, the topbroke and glass chips got into the bottle. I'll have to go down for more soda, I said. I'll come, too. I need air. At the delicatessen on the corner, the man gave me three bottles inwhat must have been a wet bag, because as he handed them to me over thetop of the cold-meat display, the bottom gave and they fell onto thetile floor. None of them broke, although the fall must have been fromat least five feet. Nat was too wound up in his thoughts to notice andI was getting used to miracles. We left the proprietor with his mouthopen and met Danny, the cop, looking in at the door, also with hismouth open. On the sidewalk, a man walking in front of Nat stooped suddenly to tiehis shoe and Nat, to avoid bumping him, stepped off the curb and a taxiswerved to avoid Nat. The street was still wet and the taxi skidded,its rear end lightly flipping the front of one of those small foreigncars, which was going rather fast. It turned sideways and, without anyside-slip, went right up the stoop of a brownstone opposite, coming torest with its nose inside the front door, which a man opened at thatmoment. The sight of this threw another driver into a skid, and when he andthe taxi had stopped sliding around, they were face to face, arrangedcrosswise to the street. This gave them exactly no room to move eitherforward or backward, for the car had its back to a hydrant and the taxito a lamp. Although rather narrow, this is a two-way street, and in no time atall, traffic was stacked up from both directions as far as the avenues.Everyone was honking his horn. Danny was furious—more so when he tried to put through a call to hisstation house from the box opposite. It was out of order. <doc-sep>Upstairs, the wind was blowing into the apartment and I closed thewindows, mainly to shut out the tumult and the shouting. Nat hadbrightened up considerably. I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office, he said.You know, I think this would make an item for the paper. He grinnedand nodded toward the pandemonium. When he was gone, I noticed it was getting dark and turned on the desklamp. Then I saw the curtains. They were all tied in knots, exceptone. That was tied in three knots. All right , I told myself, it was the wind. But I felt the time hadcome for me to get expert advice, so I went to the phone to callMcGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a universityuptown and lives near us. He is highly imaginative, but we believe heknows everything. When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought, more trouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill'svoice said, Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we wereconnected. That's a damn funny coincidence. Not in the least, I said. Come on over here. I've got something foryou to work on. Well, as a matter of fact, I was calling up to ask you and Molly— Molly's away for the week. Can you get over here quick? It's urgent. At once, he said, and hung up. While I waited, I thought I might try getting down a few paragraphs ofmy novel—perhaps something would come now. It did, but as I came to apoint where I was about to put down the word agurgling, I decided itwas too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letterR. Then I saw that I had unaccountably hit all four keys one step tothe side of the correct ones, and tore out the page, with my face red. This was absolutely not my day. <doc-sep>Well, McGill said, nothing you've told me is impossible orsupernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds againstthat poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him.It's all those other things.... He got up and walked over to the window and looked at the hot twilightwhile I waited. Then he turned around; he had a look of concern. Alec, you're a reasonable guy, so I don't think you'll take offense atwhat I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely,and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view thatyou're either stringing me or you're subject to a delusion. I startedto get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. I know, but don'tyou see that that is far more likely than.... He stopped and shookhis head. Then he brightened. I have an idea. Maybe we can have ademonstration. He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. Have you anychange on you? Why, yes, I said. Quite a bit. I reached into my pocket. Theremust have been nearly two dollars in silver and pennies. Do you thinkthey'll each have the same date, perhaps? Did you accumulate all that change today? No. During the week. He shook his head. In that case, no. Discounting the fact that youcould have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, thatwould be actually impossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'lltell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see ifthey all come up heads. I moved away from the carpet and tossed the handful of coins onto thefloor. They clattered and bounced—and bounced together—and stackedthemselves into a neat pile. I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took ahandful of coins from his own pocket and threw them. These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line,the adjacent ones touching. Well, I said, what more do you want? Great Scott, he said, and sat down. I suppose you know thatthere are two great apparently opposite principles governing theUniverse—random and design. The sands on the beach are an exampleof random distribution and life is an example of design. The motionsof the particles of a gas are what we call random, but there are somany of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law ofThermodynamics—quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast;it's just a matter of extreme probability. Now life, on the otherhand, seems not to depend on probability at all; actually, it goesagainst it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidentalmanifestation. Do you mean, I asked in some confusion, that some form of life iscontrolling the coins and—the other things? <doc-sep>He shook his head. No. All I mean is that improbable things usuallyhave improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken,I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of thebook of rules. Something—I don't know what—is going on, and it seemsto involve probability, and it seems to center around you. Were youstill in that building when the elevators stuck? Or near it? I guess I must have been. It happened just after I left. Hm. You're the center, all right. But why? Center of what? I asked. I feel as though I were the center of anelectrical storm. Something has it in for me! McGill grinned. Don't be superstitious. And especially don't beanthropomorphic. Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life. On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions arebeing rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's anon-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder. He had a faraway,frowning look. I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off. Let's go out and eat, I said, There's not a damn thing in thekitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee. We put on our hats and went down to the street. From either end, wecould hear wrecking trucks towing away the stalled cars. There were,by this time, a number of harassed cops directing the maneuver and weheard one of them say to Danny, I don't know what the hell's goingon around here. Every goddam car's got something the matter with it.They can't none of them back out for one reason or another. Never seenanything like it. Near us, two pedestrians were doing a curious little two-step as theytried to pass one another; as soon as one of them moved aside to letthe other pass, the other would move to the same side. They both hadembarrassed grins on their faces, but before long their grins werereplaced by looks of suspicion and then determination. All right, smart guy! they shouted in unison, and barged ahead,only to collide. They backed off and threw simultaneous puncheswhich met in mid-air. Then began one of the most remarkable boutsever witnessed—a fight in which fist hit fist but never anythingelse, until both champions backed away undefeated, muttering identicalexcuses and threats. <doc-sep>Danny appeared at that moment. His face was dripping. You all right,Mr. Graham? he asked. I don't know what's going on around here, butever since I came on this afternoon, things are going crazy. Bartley!he shouted—he could succeed as a hog-caller. Bring those dames overhere! Three women in a confused wrangle, with their half-open umbrellasintertwined, were brought across the street, which meant climbing overfenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious; theladies seemed not to be. All right, now, Mrs. Mac-Philip! one of them said. Leave go of myumbrella and we'll say no more about it! And so now it's Missus Mac-Philip, is it? said her adversary. The third, a younger one with her back turned to us, her umbrella alsocaught in the tangle, pulled at it in a tentative way, at which theother two glared at her. She turned her head away and tried to let go,but the handle was caught in her glove. She looked up and I saw it wasMolly. My nurse-wife. Oh, Alec! she said, and managed to detach herself. Are you allright? Was I all right! Molly! What are you doing here? I was so worried, and when I saw all this, I didn't know what tothink. She pointed to the stalled cars. Are you really all right? Of course I'm all right. But why.... The Oyster Bay operator said someone kept dialing and dialing Mother'snumber and there wasn't anyone on the line, so then she had it tracedand it came from our phone here. I kept calling up, but I only got abusy signal. Oh, dear, are you sure you're all right? I put my arm around her and glanced at McGill. He had an inward look.Then I caught Danny's eye. It had a thoughtful, almost suspicious castto it. Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham, was all he said. When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. Explain to Molly, I said.And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet. He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she wasa jump ahead of him. In other words, you think it's something organic? Well, McGill said, I'm trying to think of anything else it might be.I'm not doing so well, he confessed. But so far as I can see, Molly answered, it's mere probability, andwithout any over-all pattern. Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center. <doc-sep>Molly looked at me with a curious expression for a moment. Do you feel all right, darling? she asked me. I nodded brightly. You'llthink this silly of me, she went on to McGill, but why isn't itsomething like an overactive poltergeist? Pure concept, he said. No genuine evidence. Magnetism? Absolutely not. For one thing, most of the objects affected weren'tmagnetic—and don't forget magnetism is a force, not a form of energy,and a great deal of energy has been involved. I admit the energy hasmainly been supplied by the things themselves, but in a magnetic field,all you'd get would be stored kinetic energy, such as when a piece ofiron moves to a magnet or a line of force. Then it would just staythere, like a rundown clock weight. These things do a lot more thanthat—they go on moving. Why did you mention a crystal before? Why not a life-form? Only an analogy, said McGill. A crystal resembles life in that ithas a definite shape and exhibits growth, but that's all. I'll agreethis—thing—has no discernible shape and motion is involved, butplants don't move and amebas have no shape. Then a crystal feeds, butit does not convert what it feeds on; it merely rearranges it into anon-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions andit has a nucleus and it seems to be growing—at least in what you mightcall improbability. Molly frowned. Then what is it? What's it made of? I should say it was made of the motions. There's a similar idea aboutthe atom. Another thing that's like a crystal is that it appears tobe forming around a nucleus not of its own material—the way a speckof sand thrown into a supersaturated solution becomes the nucleus ofcrystallization. Sounds like the pearl in an oyster, Molly said, and gave me animpertinent look. Why, I asked McGill, did you say the coins couldn't have the samedate? I mean apart from the off chance I got them that way. Because I don't think this thing got going before today andeverything that's happened can all be described as improbable motionshere and now. The dates were already there, and to change them wouldrequire retroactive action, reversing time. That's out, in my book.That telephone now— The doorbell rang. We were not surprised to find it was the telephonerepairman. He took the set apart and clucked like a hen. I guess you dropped it on the floor, mister, he said with strongdisapproval. Certainly not, I said. Is it broken? Not exactly broken , but— He shook his head and took it apart somemore. <doc-sep>McGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finallythe man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill triedto explain to me what had happened with the phone. You must have joggled something loose. And then you replaced thereceiver in such a way that the contact wasn't quite open. But for Pete's sake, Molly says the calls were going on for a longtime! I phoned you only a short time ago and it must have taken hernearly two hours to get here from Oyster Bay. Then you must have done it twice and the vibrations in thefloor—something like that—just happened to cause the right inductionimpulses. Yes, I know how you feel, he said, seeing my expression.It's beginning to bear down. Molly was through telephoning and suggested going out for dinner. I wasso pleased to see her that I'd forgotten all about being hungry. I'm in no mood to cook, she said. Let's get away from all this. McGill raised an eyebrow. If all this, as you call it, will let us. In the lobby, we ran into Nat, looking smug in a journalistic way. I've been put on the story—who could be better?—I live here. So far,I don't quite get what's been happening. I've been talking to Danny,but he didn't say much. I got the feeling he thinks you're involved insome mystical, Hibernian way. Hello, McGill, what's with you? He's got a theory, said Molly. Come and eat with us and he'll tellyou all about it. Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on SixthAvenue, we walked. The jam of cars didn't seem to be any less thanbefore and we saw Danny again. He was talking to a police lieutenant,and when he caught sight of us, he said something that made thelieutenant look at us with interest. Particularly at me. If you want your umbrella, Mrs. Graham, Danny said, it's at thestation house. What there's left of it, that is. Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I feltthe speculative regard of the lieutenant. I pulled out a packet ofcigarettes, which I had opened, as always, by tearing off the top. Ihappened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. BeforeI could move my foot to obliterate what they had spelled out on thesidewalk, the two cops saw it. The lieutenant gave me a hard look, butsaid nothing. I quickly kicked the insulting cigarettes into the gutter. When we got to the restaurant, it was crowded but cool—although itdidn't stay cool for long. We sat down at a side table near the doorand ordered Tom Collinses as we looked at the menu. Sitting at thenext table were a fat lady, wearing a very long, brilliant greenevening gown, and a dried-up sour-looking man in a tux. When the waiterreturned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: coldcuts for the man, and vichyssoise, lobster salad and strawberry parfaitfor the fat lady. I tasted my drink. It was most peculiar; salt seemed to have been usedinstead of sugar. I mentioned this and my companions tried theirs, andmade faces. <doc-sep>The waiter was concerned and apologetic, and took the drinks back tothe bar across the room. The bartender looked over at us and tastedone of the drinks. Then he dumped them in his sink with a puzzledexpression and made a new batch. After shaking this up, he set out arow of glasses, put ice in them and began to pour. That is to say he tilted the shaker over the first one, but nothingcame out. He bumped it against the side of the bar and tried again.Still nothing. Then he took off the top and pried into it with hispick, his face pink with exasperation. I had the impression that the shaker had frozen solid. Well, ice is acrystal, I thought to myself. The other bartender gave him a fresh shaker, but the same thinghappened, and I saw no more because the customers sitting at the barcrowded around in front of him, offering advice. Our waiter came back,baffled, saying he'd have the drinks in a moment, and went to thekitchen. When he returned, he had madame's vichyssoise and some rolls,which he put down, and then went to the bar, where the audience hadgrown larger. Molly lit a cigarette and said, I suppose this is all part of it,Alec. Incidentally, it seems to be getting warmer in here. It was, and I had the feeling the place was quieter—a background noisehad stopped. It dawned on me that I no longer heard the faint hum ofthe air-conditioner over the door, and as I started to say so, I madea gesture toward it. My hand collided with Molly's when she tapped hercigarette over the ashtray, and the cigarette landed in the neighboringvichyssoise. Hey! What's the idea? snarled the sour-looking man. I'm terribly sorry, I said. It was an accident. I— Throwing cigarettes at people! the fat lady said. I really didn't mean to, I began again, getting up. There must havebeen a hole in the edge of their tablecloth which one of my cuffbuttons caught in, because as I stepped out from between the closelyset tables, I pulled everything—tablecloth, silver, water glasses,ashtrays and the vichyssoise-à-la-nicotine—onto the floor. The fat lady surged from the banquette and slapped me meatily. The manlicked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. Theowner of the place, a man with thick black eyebrows, hustled toward uswith a determined manner. I tried to explain what had happened, but Iwas outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly. <doc-sep><doc-sep></s>

Alec Graham returns to his home from the office after a long day. His wife Molly has left, and he still feels that it looks wife-deserted even after doing many chores to clean it up. He recounts his bad day, having forgotten to set his alarm and rushing to the TV Studio that he writes for. The taxi driver refuses to take him to Madison and Fifty-fourth, and the rain has gotten worse. His hand continuously bleeds after passing by a big excavation site, and he misses his story conference. After hearing the same phrases numerous times and all six elevators being jammed, he is convinced that he is coincidence prone. Molly leaves him instructions on how to take care of himself, and he works on his novel. More of these events happen with pigeons colliding and somebody getting five straight-flushes in a row. Nat tells Alec about the strange occurrence as they get soda. The three bottles do not break after falling at least five feet, and Danny, the cop, is shocked. Outside, more strange events occur when Nat almost gets caught up with a swerving taxi. Once they return home, he immediately calls McGill, an assistant mathematics professor for some expert advice. Once McGill arrives, he says that all of the events are very improbable, which makes him inclined to believe that Alec is stringing him on or subject to delusion. They do an experiment involving coin-throwing, and all of the coins are arranged in a neat pile when Alec throws them. McGill asks him some more questions about any recent occurrences, but Alec suggests that they go outside to eat. Outside, the cars are being towed away, while two pedestrians are having trouble letting each other pass. Danny is confused by all that is happening. Alec also runs into Molly, stuck in a confused wrangle of umbrellas with two other women. She explains that somebody from their home had kept calling her mother’s number, so she came back to investigate. Back at the apartment, all of this is traced back to Alec as the center. McGill tries to explain what is possibly happening to Alec, but they are interrupted by the telephone repairman. Molly suggests they go out to a restaurant to eat, and Nat comes along. They pass by the car jam again, and the police lieutenant looks at Alec with interest. Even at the restaurant, Alec realizes that his Tom Collins drink is made with salt instead of sugar. When the bartender tries to remake the drink for them, the shaker has frozen solid. It happens again with a new shaker, and the waiter is extremely confused. When Alec’s hand collides with Molly’s cigarette, it goes into the neighboring lady’s vichyssoise. The two of them are displeased, and when Alec stands up, he ends up pulling all of the contents on their entire table onto the floor. The lady and the man are furious at Alec; even the owner has come to fix the situation.

<s> I am a Nucleus By STEPHEN BARR Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No doubt whatever about it, I had the Indian sign on me ... my comfortably untidy world had suddenly turned into a monstrosity of order! When I got home from the office, I was not so much tired as beatendown, but the effect is similar. I let myself into the apartment, whichhad an absentee-wife look, and took a cold shower. The present downtowntemperature, according to the radio, was eighty-seven degrees, butaccording to my Greenwich Village thermometer, it was ninety-six. I gotdressed and went into the living room, and wished ardently that mywife Molly were here to tell me why the whole place looked so woebegone. What do they do, I asked myself, that I have left undone? I've vacuumedthe carpet, I've dusted and I've straightened the cushions.... Ah! Theashtrays. I emptied them, washed them and put them back, but still theplace looked wife-deserted. It had been a bad day; I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'dhad to hurry to make a story conference at one of the TV studios Iwrite for. I didn't notice the impending rain storm and had no umbrellawhen I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almosttropical downpour. I would have turned back, but a taxi came up and awoman got out, so I dashed through the rain and got in. Madison and Fifty-fourth, I said. Right, said the driver, and I heard the starter grind, and then goon grinding. After some futile efforts, he turned to me. Sorry, Mac.You'll have to find another cab. Good hunting. If possible, it was raining still harder. I opened my newspaper overmy hat and ran for the subway: three blocks. Whizzing traffic heldme up at each crossing and I was soaked when I reached the platform,just in time to miss the local. After an abnormal delay, I got onewhich exactly missed the express at Fourteenth Street. The same thinghappened at both ends of the crosstown shuttle, but I found the rainhad stopped when I got out at Fifty-first and Lexington. <doc-sep>As I walked across to Madison Avenue, I passed a big excavation wherethey were getting ready to put up a new office building. There was theusual crowd of buffs watching the digging machines and, in particular,a man with a pneumatic drill who was breaking up some hard-packed clay.While I looked, a big lump of it fell away, and for an instant I wasable to see something that looked like a chunk of dirty glass, the sizeof an old-fashioned hatbox. It glittered brilliantly in the sunlight,and then his chattering drill hit it. There was a faint bang and the thing disintegrated. It knocked him onhis back, but he got right up and I realized he was not hurt. At themoment of the explosion—if so feeble a thing can be called one—Ifelt something sting my face and, on touching it, found blood on myhand. I mopped at it with my handkerchief but, though slight, thebleeding would not stop, so I went into a drugstore and bought somepink adhesive which I put on the tiny cut. When I got to the studio, Ifound that I had missed the story conference. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase I'm justspitballing eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite,The whole ball of wax, twelve times. However, my story had beenaccepted without change because nobody had noticed my absence from theconference room. There you have what is known as the Advertising World,the Advertising game or the advertising racket, depending upon whichrung of the ladder you have achieved. The subway gave a repeat performance going home, and as I got to theapartment house we live in, the cop on the afternoon beat was standingthere talking to the doorman. He said, Hello, Mr. Graham. I guess you must have just have missed itat your office building. I looked blank and he explained, We justheard it a little while ago: all six elevators in your building jammedat the same time. Sounds crazy. I guess you just missed it. Anything can happen in advertising, I thought. That's right, Danny, Ijust missed it, I said, and went on in. Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone; I, on theother hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, andexcept for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been goingon. I went into our little kitchen to make a drink and reread thedirections Molly had left, telling me how to get along by myself untilshe got back from her mother's in Oyster Bay, a matter of ten days.How to make coffee, how to open a can, whom to call if I took sick andsuch. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convincedthat I cannot take a breath without her. She is right, but not for thereasons she supposes. I opened the refrigerator to get some ice and saw another notice: Whenyou take out the Milk or Butter, Put it Right Back. And Close the Door,too. Intimidated, I took my drink into the living room and sat down infront of the typewriter. As I stared at the novel that was to liberateme from Madison Avenue, I noticed a mistake and picked up a pencil.When I put it down, it rolled off the desk, and with my eyes on themanuscript, I groped under the chair for it. Then I looked down. Thepencil was standing on its end. <doc-sep>There, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hearabout, and picked up the pencil. I turned back to my novel and dranksome of the highball in hopes of inspiration and surcease from themuggy heat, but nothing came. I went back and read the whole chapterto try to get a forward momentum, but came to a dead stop at the lastsentence. Damn the heat, damn the pencil, damn Madison Avenue and advertising.My drink was gone and I went back to the kitchen and read Molly'snotes again to see if they would be like a letter from her. I noticedone that I had missed, pinned to the door of the dumbwaiter: Garbagepicked up at 6:30 AM so the idea is to Put it Here the Night Before. Ilove you. What can you do when the girl loves you? I made another drink and went and stared out of the living room windowat the roof opposite. The Sun was out again and a man with a stick wasexercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to beallowed to perch, but were not allowed to. Pigeons fly as a rule in formation and turn simultaneously, so thattheir wings all catch the sunlight at the same time. I was thinkingabout this decorative fact when I saw that as they were making a turn,they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they allwanted the same place in the sky to turn in, and several collided andfell. The man was as surprised as I and went to one of the dazed birds andpicked it up. He stood there shaking his head from side to side,stroking its feathers. My speculations about this peculiar aerial traffic accident wereinterrupted by loud voices in the hallway. Since our building isusually very well behaved, I was astonished to hear what sounded likean incipient free-for-all, and among the angry voices I recognized thatof my neighbor, Nat, a very quiet guy who works on a newspaper and hasnever, to my knowledge, given wild parties, particularly in the lateafternoon. You can't say a thing like that to me! I heard him shout. I tell youI got that deck this afternoon and they weren't opened till we startedto play! Several other loud voices started at the same time. Nobody gets five straight-flushes in a row! Yeah, and only when you were dealer! The tone of the argument was beginning to get ugly, and I opened thedoor to offer Nat help if he needed it. There were four men confrontinghim, evidently torn between the desire to make an angry exit and theimpulse to stay and beat him up. His face was furiously red and helooked stunned. Here! he said, holding out a deck of cards, For Pete's sake, look at'em yourselves if you think they're marked! The nearest man struck them up from his hand. Okay, Houdini! Sothey're not marked! All I know is five straight.... His voice trailed away. He and the others stared at the scattered cardson the floor. About half were face down, as might be expected, and therest face up—all red. <doc-sep>Someone must have rung, because at that moment the elevator arrived andthe four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence,got in and were taken down. My friend stood looking at the neatlyarranged cards. Judas! he said, and started to pick them up. Will you look at that!My God, what a session.... I helped him and said to come in for a drink and tell me all about it,but I had an idea what I would hear. After a while, he calmed down, but he still seemed dazed. Never seen anything to equal it, he said. Wouldn't have believedit. Those guys didn't believe it. Every round normal, nothingunusual about the hands—three of a kind, a low straight, that sortof thing and one guy got queens over tens, until it gets to be my deal. Brother! Straight flush to the king—every time! And each time,somebody else has four aces.... He started to sweat again, so I got up to fix him another drink. Therewas one quart of club soda left, but when I tried to open it, the topbroke and glass chips got into the bottle. I'll have to go down for more soda, I said. I'll come, too. I need air. At the delicatessen on the corner, the man gave me three bottles inwhat must have been a wet bag, because as he handed them to me over thetop of the cold-meat display, the bottom gave and they fell onto thetile floor. None of them broke, although the fall must have been fromat least five feet. Nat was too wound up in his thoughts to notice andI was getting used to miracles. We left the proprietor with his mouthopen and met Danny, the cop, looking in at the door, also with hismouth open. On the sidewalk, a man walking in front of Nat stooped suddenly to tiehis shoe and Nat, to avoid bumping him, stepped off the curb and a taxiswerved to avoid Nat. The street was still wet and the taxi skidded,its rear end lightly flipping the front of one of those small foreigncars, which was going rather fast. It turned sideways and, without anyside-slip, went right up the stoop of a brownstone opposite, coming torest with its nose inside the front door, which a man opened at thatmoment. The sight of this threw another driver into a skid, and when he andthe taxi had stopped sliding around, they were face to face, arrangedcrosswise to the street. This gave them exactly no room to move eitherforward or backward, for the car had its back to a hydrant and the taxito a lamp. Although rather narrow, this is a two-way street, and in no time atall, traffic was stacked up from both directions as far as the avenues.Everyone was honking his horn. Danny was furious—more so when he tried to put through a call to hisstation house from the box opposite. It was out of order. <doc-sep>Upstairs, the wind was blowing into the apartment and I closed thewindows, mainly to shut out the tumult and the shouting. Nat hadbrightened up considerably. I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office, he said.You know, I think this would make an item for the paper. He grinnedand nodded toward the pandemonium. When he was gone, I noticed it was getting dark and turned on the desklamp. Then I saw the curtains. They were all tied in knots, exceptone. That was tied in three knots. All right , I told myself, it was the wind. But I felt the time hadcome for me to get expert advice, so I went to the phone to callMcGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a universityuptown and lives near us. He is highly imaginative, but we believe heknows everything. When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought, more trouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill'svoice said, Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we wereconnected. That's a damn funny coincidence. Not in the least, I said. Come on over here. I've got something foryou to work on. Well, as a matter of fact, I was calling up to ask you and Molly— Molly's away for the week. Can you get over here quick? It's urgent. At once, he said, and hung up. While I waited, I thought I might try getting down a few paragraphs ofmy novel—perhaps something would come now. It did, but as I came to apoint where I was about to put down the word agurgling, I decided itwas too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letterR. Then I saw that I had unaccountably hit all four keys one step tothe side of the correct ones, and tore out the page, with my face red. This was absolutely not my day. <doc-sep>Well, McGill said, nothing you've told me is impossible orsupernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds againstthat poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him.It's all those other things.... He got up and walked over to the window and looked at the hot twilightwhile I waited. Then he turned around; he had a look of concern. Alec, you're a reasonable guy, so I don't think you'll take offense atwhat I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely,and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view thatyou're either stringing me or you're subject to a delusion. I startedto get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. I know, but don'tyou see that that is far more likely than.... He stopped and shookhis head. Then he brightened. I have an idea. Maybe we can have ademonstration. He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. Have you anychange on you? Why, yes, I said. Quite a bit. I reached into my pocket. Theremust have been nearly two dollars in silver and pennies. Do you thinkthey'll each have the same date, perhaps? Did you accumulate all that change today? No. During the week. He shook his head. In that case, no. Discounting the fact that youcould have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, thatwould be actually impossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'lltell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see ifthey all come up heads. I moved away from the carpet and tossed the handful of coins onto thefloor. They clattered and bounced—and bounced together—and stackedthemselves into a neat pile. I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took ahandful of coins from his own pocket and threw them. These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line,the adjacent ones touching. Well, I said, what more do you want? Great Scott, he said, and sat down. I suppose you know thatthere are two great apparently opposite principles governing theUniverse—random and design. The sands on the beach are an exampleof random distribution and life is an example of design. The motionsof the particles of a gas are what we call random, but there are somany of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law ofThermodynamics—quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast;it's just a matter of extreme probability. Now life, on the otherhand, seems not to depend on probability at all; actually, it goesagainst it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidentalmanifestation. Do you mean, I asked in some confusion, that some form of life iscontrolling the coins and—the other things? <doc-sep>He shook his head. No. All I mean is that improbable things usuallyhave improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken,I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of thebook of rules. Something—I don't know what—is going on, and it seemsto involve probability, and it seems to center around you. Were youstill in that building when the elevators stuck? Or near it? I guess I must have been. It happened just after I left. Hm. You're the center, all right. But why? Center of what? I asked. I feel as though I were the center of anelectrical storm. Something has it in for me! McGill grinned. Don't be superstitious. And especially don't beanthropomorphic. Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life. On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions arebeing rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's anon-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder. He had a faraway,frowning look. I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off. Let's go out and eat, I said, There's not a damn thing in thekitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee. We put on our hats and went down to the street. From either end, wecould hear wrecking trucks towing away the stalled cars. There were,by this time, a number of harassed cops directing the maneuver and weheard one of them say to Danny, I don't know what the hell's goingon around here. Every goddam car's got something the matter with it.They can't none of them back out for one reason or another. Never seenanything like it. Near us, two pedestrians were doing a curious little two-step as theytried to pass one another; as soon as one of them moved aside to letthe other pass, the other would move to the same side. They both hadembarrassed grins on their faces, but before long their grins werereplaced by looks of suspicion and then determination. All right, smart guy! they shouted in unison, and barged ahead,only to collide. They backed off and threw simultaneous puncheswhich met in mid-air. Then began one of the most remarkable boutsever witnessed—a fight in which fist hit fist but never anythingelse, until both champions backed away undefeated, muttering identicalexcuses and threats. <doc-sep>Danny appeared at that moment. His face was dripping. You all right,Mr. Graham? he asked. I don't know what's going on around here, butever since I came on this afternoon, things are going crazy. Bartley!he shouted—he could succeed as a hog-caller. Bring those dames overhere! Three women in a confused wrangle, with their half-open umbrellasintertwined, were brought across the street, which meant climbing overfenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious; theladies seemed not to be. All right, now, Mrs. Mac-Philip! one of them said. Leave go of myumbrella and we'll say no more about it! And so now it's Missus Mac-Philip, is it? said her adversary. The third, a younger one with her back turned to us, her umbrella alsocaught in the tangle, pulled at it in a tentative way, at which theother two glared at her. She turned her head away and tried to let go,but the handle was caught in her glove. She looked up and I saw it wasMolly. My nurse-wife. Oh, Alec! she said, and managed to detach herself. Are you allright? Was I all right! Molly! What are you doing here? I was so worried, and when I saw all this, I didn't know what tothink. She pointed to the stalled cars. Are you really all right? Of course I'm all right. But why.... The Oyster Bay operator said someone kept dialing and dialing Mother'snumber and there wasn't anyone on the line, so then she had it tracedand it came from our phone here. I kept calling up, but I only got abusy signal. Oh, dear, are you sure you're all right? I put my arm around her and glanced at McGill. He had an inward look.Then I caught Danny's eye. It had a thoughtful, almost suspicious castto it. Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham, was all he said. When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. Explain to Molly, I said.And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet. He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she wasa jump ahead of him. In other words, you think it's something organic? Well, McGill said, I'm trying to think of anything else it might be.I'm not doing so well, he confessed. But so far as I can see, Molly answered, it's mere probability, andwithout any over-all pattern. Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center. <doc-sep>Molly looked at me with a curious expression for a moment. Do you feel all right, darling? she asked me. I nodded brightly. You'llthink this silly of me, she went on to McGill, but why isn't itsomething like an overactive poltergeist? Pure concept, he said. No genuine evidence. Magnetism? Absolutely not. For one thing, most of the objects affected weren'tmagnetic—and don't forget magnetism is a force, not a form of energy,and a great deal of energy has been involved. I admit the energy hasmainly been supplied by the things themselves, but in a magnetic field,all you'd get would be stored kinetic energy, such as when a piece ofiron moves to a magnet or a line of force. Then it would just staythere, like a rundown clock weight. These things do a lot more thanthat—they go on moving. Why did you mention a crystal before? Why not a life-form? Only an analogy, said McGill. A crystal resembles life in that ithas a definite shape and exhibits growth, but that's all. I'll agreethis—thing—has no discernible shape and motion is involved, butplants don't move and amebas have no shape. Then a crystal feeds, butit does not convert what it feeds on; it merely rearranges it into anon-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions andit has a nucleus and it seems to be growing—at least in what you mightcall improbability. Molly frowned. Then what is it? What's it made of? I should say it was made of the motions. There's a similar idea aboutthe atom. Another thing that's like a crystal is that it appears tobe forming around a nucleus not of its own material—the way a speckof sand thrown into a supersaturated solution becomes the nucleus ofcrystallization. Sounds like the pearl in an oyster, Molly said, and gave me animpertinent look. Why, I asked McGill, did you say the coins couldn't have the samedate? I mean apart from the off chance I got them that way. Because I don't think this thing got going before today andeverything that's happened can all be described as improbable motionshere and now. The dates were already there, and to change them wouldrequire retroactive action, reversing time. That's out, in my book.That telephone now— The doorbell rang. We were not surprised to find it was the telephonerepairman. He took the set apart and clucked like a hen. I guess you dropped it on the floor, mister, he said with strongdisapproval. Certainly not, I said. Is it broken? Not exactly broken , but— He shook his head and took it apart somemore. <doc-sep>McGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finallythe man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill triedto explain to me what had happened with the phone. You must have joggled something loose. And then you replaced thereceiver in such a way that the contact wasn't quite open. But for Pete's sake, Molly says the calls were going on for a longtime! I phoned you only a short time ago and it must have taken hernearly two hours to get here from Oyster Bay. Then you must have done it twice and the vibrations in thefloor—something like that—just happened to cause the right inductionimpulses. Yes, I know how you feel, he said, seeing my expression.It's beginning to bear down. Molly was through telephoning and suggested going out for dinner. I wasso pleased to see her that I'd forgotten all about being hungry. I'm in no mood to cook, she said. Let's get away from all this. McGill raised an eyebrow. If all this, as you call it, will let us. In the lobby, we ran into Nat, looking smug in a journalistic way. I've been put on the story—who could be better?—I live here. So far,I don't quite get what's been happening. I've been talking to Danny,but he didn't say much. I got the feeling he thinks you're involved insome mystical, Hibernian way. Hello, McGill, what's with you? He's got a theory, said Molly. Come and eat with us and he'll tellyou all about it. Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on SixthAvenue, we walked. The jam of cars didn't seem to be any less thanbefore and we saw Danny again. He was talking to a police lieutenant,and when he caught sight of us, he said something that made thelieutenant look at us with interest. Particularly at me. If you want your umbrella, Mrs. Graham, Danny said, it's at thestation house. What there's left of it, that is. Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I feltthe speculative regard of the lieutenant. I pulled out a packet ofcigarettes, which I had opened, as always, by tearing off the top. Ihappened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. BeforeI could move my foot to obliterate what they had spelled out on thesidewalk, the two cops saw it. The lieutenant gave me a hard look, butsaid nothing. I quickly kicked the insulting cigarettes into the gutter. When we got to the restaurant, it was crowded but cool—although itdidn't stay cool for long. We sat down at a side table near the doorand ordered Tom Collinses as we looked at the menu. Sitting at thenext table were a fat lady, wearing a very long, brilliant greenevening gown, and a dried-up sour-looking man in a tux. When the waiterreturned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: coldcuts for the man, and vichyssoise, lobster salad and strawberry parfaitfor the fat lady. I tasted my drink. It was most peculiar; salt seemed to have been usedinstead of sugar. I mentioned this and my companions tried theirs, andmade faces. <doc-sep>The waiter was concerned and apologetic, and took the drinks back tothe bar across the room. The bartender looked over at us and tastedone of the drinks. Then he dumped them in his sink with a puzzledexpression and made a new batch. After shaking this up, he set out arow of glasses, put ice in them and began to pour. That is to say he tilted the shaker over the first one, but nothingcame out. He bumped it against the side of the bar and tried again.Still nothing. Then he took off the top and pried into it with hispick, his face pink with exasperation. I had the impression that the shaker had frozen solid. Well, ice is acrystal, I thought to myself. The other bartender gave him a fresh shaker, but the same thinghappened, and I saw no more because the customers sitting at the barcrowded around in front of him, offering advice. Our waiter came back,baffled, saying he'd have the drinks in a moment, and went to thekitchen. When he returned, he had madame's vichyssoise and some rolls,which he put down, and then went to the bar, where the audience hadgrown larger. Molly lit a cigarette and said, I suppose this is all part of it,Alec. Incidentally, it seems to be getting warmer in here. It was, and I had the feeling the place was quieter—a background noisehad stopped. It dawned on me that I no longer heard the faint hum ofthe air-conditioner over the door, and as I started to say so, I madea gesture toward it. My hand collided with Molly's when she tapped hercigarette over the ashtray, and the cigarette landed in the neighboringvichyssoise. Hey! What's the idea? snarled the sour-looking man. I'm terribly sorry, I said. It was an accident. I— Throwing cigarettes at people! the fat lady said. I really didn't mean to, I began again, getting up. There must havebeen a hole in the edge of their tablecloth which one of my cuffbuttons caught in, because as I stepped out from between the closelyset tables, I pulled everything—tablecloth, silver, water glasses,ashtrays and the vichyssoise-à-la-nicotine—onto the floor. The fat lady surged from the banquette and slapped me meatily. The manlicked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. Theowner of the place, a man with thick black eyebrows, hustled toward uswith a determined manner. I tried to explain what had happened, but Iwas outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly. <doc-sep><doc-sep></s>

The story is initially set in Alec’s home. There is a radio, Greenwich Village thermometer, and a living room. In the home, there is also carpet, cushions, and ashtrays for cigarettes. Alec also owns an alarm clock to help him wake up. In the living room, there is also a typewriter and a telephone. Alec tries to go to his conference in New York, but it is raining heavily, and the cab refuses to take him to his destination. However, the story also mentions the subway, which he takes. Alec’s stop is Fifty-first and Lexington. There is also mention of a big excavation site for a new building. On his way to the studio, he also stops at the drugstore. There are also at least six elevators in his building. Around the corner of the apartment, there is a delicatessen that sells soda. On the streets outside, cars are jamming into each other and have to be towed away. Later, the story is set in a restaurant near Sixth Avenue. The restaurant is crowded but cool, and there is a bar too. There is also background music and the faint hum of the air-conditioner, both that stop shortly after.

<s> I am a Nucleus By STEPHEN BARR Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No doubt whatever about it, I had the Indian sign on me ... my comfortably untidy world had suddenly turned into a monstrosity of order! When I got home from the office, I was not so much tired as beatendown, but the effect is similar. I let myself into the apartment, whichhad an absentee-wife look, and took a cold shower. The present downtowntemperature, according to the radio, was eighty-seven degrees, butaccording to my Greenwich Village thermometer, it was ninety-six. I gotdressed and went into the living room, and wished ardently that mywife Molly were here to tell me why the whole place looked so woebegone. What do they do, I asked myself, that I have left undone? I've vacuumedthe carpet, I've dusted and I've straightened the cushions.... Ah! Theashtrays. I emptied them, washed them and put them back, but still theplace looked wife-deserted. It had been a bad day; I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'dhad to hurry to make a story conference at one of the TV studios Iwrite for. I didn't notice the impending rain storm and had no umbrellawhen I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almosttropical downpour. I would have turned back, but a taxi came up and awoman got out, so I dashed through the rain and got in. Madison and Fifty-fourth, I said. Right, said the driver, and I heard the starter grind, and then goon grinding. After some futile efforts, he turned to me. Sorry, Mac.You'll have to find another cab. Good hunting. If possible, it was raining still harder. I opened my newspaper overmy hat and ran for the subway: three blocks. Whizzing traffic heldme up at each crossing and I was soaked when I reached the platform,just in time to miss the local. After an abnormal delay, I got onewhich exactly missed the express at Fourteenth Street. The same thinghappened at both ends of the crosstown shuttle, but I found the rainhad stopped when I got out at Fifty-first and Lexington. <doc-sep>As I walked across to Madison Avenue, I passed a big excavation wherethey were getting ready to put up a new office building. There was theusual crowd of buffs watching the digging machines and, in particular,a man with a pneumatic drill who was breaking up some hard-packed clay.While I looked, a big lump of it fell away, and for an instant I wasable to see something that looked like a chunk of dirty glass, the sizeof an old-fashioned hatbox. It glittered brilliantly in the sunlight,and then his chattering drill hit it. There was a faint bang and the thing disintegrated. It knocked him onhis back, but he got right up and I realized he was not hurt. At themoment of the explosion—if so feeble a thing can be called one—Ifelt something sting my face and, on touching it, found blood on myhand. I mopped at it with my handkerchief but, though slight, thebleeding would not stop, so I went into a drugstore and bought somepink adhesive which I put on the tiny cut. When I got to the studio, Ifound that I had missed the story conference. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase I'm justspitballing eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite,The whole ball of wax, twelve times. However, my story had beenaccepted without change because nobody had noticed my absence from theconference room. There you have what is known as the Advertising World,the Advertising game or the advertising racket, depending upon whichrung of the ladder you have achieved. The subway gave a repeat performance going home, and as I got to theapartment house we live in, the cop on the afternoon beat was standingthere talking to the doorman. He said, Hello, Mr. Graham. I guess you must have just have missed itat your office building. I looked blank and he explained, We justheard it a little while ago: all six elevators in your building jammedat the same time. Sounds crazy. I guess you just missed it. Anything can happen in advertising, I thought. That's right, Danny, Ijust missed it, I said, and went on in. Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone; I, on theother hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, andexcept for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been goingon. I went into our little kitchen to make a drink and reread thedirections Molly had left, telling me how to get along by myself untilshe got back from her mother's in Oyster Bay, a matter of ten days.How to make coffee, how to open a can, whom to call if I took sick andsuch. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convincedthat I cannot take a breath without her. She is right, but not for thereasons she supposes. I opened the refrigerator to get some ice and saw another notice: Whenyou take out the Milk or Butter, Put it Right Back. And Close the Door,too. Intimidated, I took my drink into the living room and sat down infront of the typewriter. As I stared at the novel that was to liberateme from Madison Avenue, I noticed a mistake and picked up a pencil.When I put it down, it rolled off the desk, and with my eyes on themanuscript, I groped under the chair for it. Then I looked down. Thepencil was standing on its end. <doc-sep>There, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hearabout, and picked up the pencil. I turned back to my novel and dranksome of the highball in hopes of inspiration and surcease from themuggy heat, but nothing came. I went back and read the whole chapterto try to get a forward momentum, but came to a dead stop at the lastsentence. Damn the heat, damn the pencil, damn Madison Avenue and advertising.My drink was gone and I went back to the kitchen and read Molly'snotes again to see if they would be like a letter from her. I noticedone that I had missed, pinned to the door of the dumbwaiter: Garbagepicked up at 6:30 AM so the idea is to Put it Here the Night Before. Ilove you. What can you do when the girl loves you? I made another drink and went and stared out of the living room windowat the roof opposite. The Sun was out again and a man with a stick wasexercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to beallowed to perch, but were not allowed to. Pigeons fly as a rule in formation and turn simultaneously, so thattheir wings all catch the sunlight at the same time. I was thinkingabout this decorative fact when I saw that as they were making a turn,they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they allwanted the same place in the sky to turn in, and several collided andfell. The man was as surprised as I and went to one of the dazed birds andpicked it up. He stood there shaking his head from side to side,stroking its feathers. My speculations about this peculiar aerial traffic accident wereinterrupted by loud voices in the hallway. Since our building isusually very well behaved, I was astonished to hear what sounded likean incipient free-for-all, and among the angry voices I recognized thatof my neighbor, Nat, a very quiet guy who works on a newspaper and hasnever, to my knowledge, given wild parties, particularly in the lateafternoon. You can't say a thing like that to me! I heard him shout. I tell youI got that deck this afternoon and they weren't opened till we startedto play! Several other loud voices started at the same time. Nobody gets five straight-flushes in a row! Yeah, and only when you were dealer! The tone of the argument was beginning to get ugly, and I opened thedoor to offer Nat help if he needed it. There were four men confrontinghim, evidently torn between the desire to make an angry exit and theimpulse to stay and beat him up. His face was furiously red and helooked stunned. Here! he said, holding out a deck of cards, For Pete's sake, look at'em yourselves if you think they're marked! The nearest man struck them up from his hand. Okay, Houdini! Sothey're not marked! All I know is five straight.... His voice trailed away. He and the others stared at the scattered cardson the floor. About half were face down, as might be expected, and therest face up—all red. <doc-sep>Someone must have rung, because at that moment the elevator arrived andthe four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence,got in and were taken down. My friend stood looking at the neatlyarranged cards. Judas! he said, and started to pick them up. Will you look at that!My God, what a session.... I helped him and said to come in for a drink and tell me all about it,but I had an idea what I would hear. After a while, he calmed down, but he still seemed dazed. Never seen anything to equal it, he said. Wouldn't have believedit. Those guys didn't believe it. Every round normal, nothingunusual about the hands—three of a kind, a low straight, that sortof thing and one guy got queens over tens, until it gets to be my deal. Brother! Straight flush to the king—every time! And each time,somebody else has four aces.... He started to sweat again, so I got up to fix him another drink. Therewas one quart of club soda left, but when I tried to open it, the topbroke and glass chips got into the bottle. I'll have to go down for more soda, I said. I'll come, too. I need air. At the delicatessen on the corner, the man gave me three bottles inwhat must have been a wet bag, because as he handed them to me over thetop of the cold-meat display, the bottom gave and they fell onto thetile floor. None of them broke, although the fall must have been fromat least five feet. Nat was too wound up in his thoughts to notice andI was getting used to miracles. We left the proprietor with his mouthopen and met Danny, the cop, looking in at the door, also with hismouth open. On the sidewalk, a man walking in front of Nat stooped suddenly to tiehis shoe and Nat, to avoid bumping him, stepped off the curb and a taxiswerved to avoid Nat. The street was still wet and the taxi skidded,its rear end lightly flipping the front of one of those small foreigncars, which was going rather fast. It turned sideways and, without anyside-slip, went right up the stoop of a brownstone opposite, coming torest with its nose inside the front door, which a man opened at thatmoment. The sight of this threw another driver into a skid, and when he andthe taxi had stopped sliding around, they were face to face, arrangedcrosswise to the street. This gave them exactly no room to move eitherforward or backward, for the car had its back to a hydrant and the taxito a lamp. Although rather narrow, this is a two-way street, and in no time atall, traffic was stacked up from both directions as far as the avenues.Everyone was honking his horn. Danny was furious—more so when he tried to put through a call to hisstation house from the box opposite. It was out of order. <doc-sep>Upstairs, the wind was blowing into the apartment and I closed thewindows, mainly to shut out the tumult and the shouting. Nat hadbrightened up considerably. I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office, he said.You know, I think this would make an item for the paper. He grinnedand nodded toward the pandemonium. When he was gone, I noticed it was getting dark and turned on the desklamp. Then I saw the curtains. They were all tied in knots, exceptone. That was tied in three knots. All right , I told myself, it was the wind. But I felt the time hadcome for me to get expert advice, so I went to the phone to callMcGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a universityuptown and lives near us. He is highly imaginative, but we believe heknows everything. When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought, more trouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill'svoice said, Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we wereconnected. That's a damn funny coincidence. Not in the least, I said. Come on over here. I've got something foryou to work on. Well, as a matter of fact, I was calling up to ask you and Molly— Molly's away for the week. Can you get over here quick? It's urgent. At once, he said, and hung up. While I waited, I thought I might try getting down a few paragraphs ofmy novel—perhaps something would come now. It did, but as I came to apoint where I was about to put down the word agurgling, I decided itwas too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letterR. Then I saw that I had unaccountably hit all four keys one step tothe side of the correct ones, and tore out the page, with my face red. This was absolutely not my day. <doc-sep>Well, McGill said, nothing you've told me is impossible orsupernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds againstthat poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him.It's all those other things.... He got up and walked over to the window and looked at the hot twilightwhile I waited. Then he turned around; he had a look of concern. Alec, you're a reasonable guy, so I don't think you'll take offense atwhat I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely,and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view thatyou're either stringing me or you're subject to a delusion. I startedto get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. I know, but don'tyou see that that is far more likely than.... He stopped and shookhis head. Then he brightened. I have an idea. Maybe we can have ademonstration. He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. Have you anychange on you? Why, yes, I said. Quite a bit. I reached into my pocket. Theremust have been nearly two dollars in silver and pennies. Do you thinkthey'll each have the same date, perhaps? Did you accumulate all that change today? No. During the week. He shook his head. In that case, no. Discounting the fact that youcould have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, thatwould be actually impossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'lltell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see ifthey all come up heads. I moved away from the carpet and tossed the handful of coins onto thefloor. They clattered and bounced—and bounced together—and stackedthemselves into a neat pile. I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took ahandful of coins from his own pocket and threw them. These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line,the adjacent ones touching. Well, I said, what more do you want? Great Scott, he said, and sat down. I suppose you know thatthere are two great apparently opposite principles governing theUniverse—random and design. The sands on the beach are an exampleof random distribution and life is an example of design. The motionsof the particles of a gas are what we call random, but there are somany of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law ofThermodynamics—quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast;it's just a matter of extreme probability. Now life, on the otherhand, seems not to depend on probability at all; actually, it goesagainst it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidentalmanifestation. Do you mean, I asked in some confusion, that some form of life iscontrolling the coins and—the other things? <doc-sep>He shook his head. No. All I mean is that improbable things usuallyhave improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken,I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of thebook of rules. Something—I don't know what—is going on, and it seemsto involve probability, and it seems to center around you. Were youstill in that building when the elevators stuck? Or near it? I guess I must have been. It happened just after I left. Hm. You're the center, all right. But why? Center of what? I asked. I feel as though I were the center of anelectrical storm. Something has it in for me! McGill grinned. Don't be superstitious. And especially don't beanthropomorphic. Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life. On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions arebeing rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's anon-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder. He had a faraway,frowning look. I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off. Let's go out and eat, I said, There's not a damn thing in thekitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee. We put on our hats and went down to the street. From either end, wecould hear wrecking trucks towing away the stalled cars. There were,by this time, a number of harassed cops directing the maneuver and weheard one of them say to Danny, I don't know what the hell's goingon around here. Every goddam car's got something the matter with it.They can't none of them back out for one reason or another. Never seenanything like it. Near us, two pedestrians were doing a curious little two-step as theytried to pass one another; as soon as one of them moved aside to letthe other pass, the other would move to the same side. They both hadembarrassed grins on their faces, but before long their grins werereplaced by looks of suspicion and then determination. All right, smart guy! they shouted in unison, and barged ahead,only to collide. They backed off and threw simultaneous puncheswhich met in mid-air. Then began one of the most remarkable boutsever witnessed—a fight in which fist hit fist but never anythingelse, until both champions backed away undefeated, muttering identicalexcuses and threats. <doc-sep>Danny appeared at that moment. His face was dripping. You all right,Mr. Graham? he asked. I don't know what's going on around here, butever since I came on this afternoon, things are going crazy. Bartley!he shouted—he could succeed as a hog-caller. Bring those dames overhere! Three women in a confused wrangle, with their half-open umbrellasintertwined, were brought across the street, which meant climbing overfenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious; theladies seemed not to be. All right, now, Mrs. Mac-Philip! one of them said. Leave go of myumbrella and we'll say no more about it! And so now it's Missus Mac-Philip, is it? said her adversary. The third, a younger one with her back turned to us, her umbrella alsocaught in the tangle, pulled at it in a tentative way, at which theother two glared at her. She turned her head away and tried to let go,but the handle was caught in her glove. She looked up and I saw it wasMolly. My nurse-wife. Oh, Alec! she said, and managed to detach herself. Are you allright? Was I all right! Molly! What are you doing here? I was so worried, and when I saw all this, I didn't know what tothink. She pointed to the stalled cars. Are you really all right? Of course I'm all right. But why.... The Oyster Bay operator said someone kept dialing and dialing Mother'snumber and there wasn't anyone on the line, so then she had it tracedand it came from our phone here. I kept calling up, but I only got abusy signal. Oh, dear, are you sure you're all right? I put my arm around her and glanced at McGill. He had an inward look.Then I caught Danny's eye. It had a thoughtful, almost suspicious castto it. Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham, was all he said. When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. Explain to Molly, I said.And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet. He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she wasa jump ahead of him. In other words, you think it's something organic? Well, McGill said, I'm trying to think of anything else it might be.I'm not doing so well, he confessed. But so far as I can see, Molly answered, it's mere probability, andwithout any over-all pattern. Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center. <doc-sep>Molly looked at me with a curious expression for a moment. Do you feel all right, darling? she asked me. I nodded brightly. You'llthink this silly of me, she went on to McGill, but why isn't itsomething like an overactive poltergeist? Pure concept, he said. No genuine evidence. Magnetism? Absolutely not. For one thing, most of the objects affected weren'tmagnetic—and don't forget magnetism is a force, not a form of energy,and a great deal of energy has been involved. I admit the energy hasmainly been supplied by the things themselves, but in a magnetic field,all you'd get would be stored kinetic energy, such as when a piece ofiron moves to a magnet or a line of force. Then it would just staythere, like a rundown clock weight. These things do a lot more thanthat—they go on moving. Why did you mention a crystal before? Why not a life-form? Only an analogy, said McGill. A crystal resembles life in that ithas a definite shape and exhibits growth, but that's all. I'll agreethis—thing—has no discernible shape and motion is involved, butplants don't move and amebas have no shape. Then a crystal feeds, butit does not convert what it feeds on; it merely rearranges it into anon-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions andit has a nucleus and it seems to be growing—at least in what you mightcall improbability. Molly frowned. Then what is it? What's it made of? I should say it was made of the motions. There's a similar idea aboutthe atom. Another thing that's like a crystal is that it appears tobe forming around a nucleus not of its own material—the way a speckof sand thrown into a supersaturated solution becomes the nucleus ofcrystallization. Sounds like the pearl in an oyster, Molly said, and gave me animpertinent look. Why, I asked McGill, did you say the coins couldn't have the samedate? I mean apart from the off chance I got them that way. Because I don't think this thing got going before today andeverything that's happened can all be described as improbable motionshere and now. The dates were already there, and to change them wouldrequire retroactive action, reversing time. That's out, in my book.That telephone now— The doorbell rang. We were not surprised to find it was the telephonerepairman. He took the set apart and clucked like a hen. I guess you dropped it on the floor, mister, he said with strongdisapproval. Certainly not, I said. Is it broken? Not exactly broken , but— He shook his head and took it apart somemore. <doc-sep>McGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finallythe man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill triedto explain to me what had happened with the phone. You must have joggled something loose. And then you replaced thereceiver in such a way that the contact wasn't quite open. But for Pete's sake, Molly says the calls were going on for a longtime! I phoned you only a short time ago and it must have taken hernearly two hours to get here from Oyster Bay. Then you must have done it twice and the vibrations in thefloor—something like that—just happened to cause the right inductionimpulses. Yes, I know how you feel, he said, seeing my expression.It's beginning to bear down. Molly was through telephoning and suggested going out for dinner. I wasso pleased to see her that I'd forgotten all about being hungry. I'm in no mood to cook, she said. Let's get away from all this. McGill raised an eyebrow. If all this, as you call it, will let us. In the lobby, we ran into Nat, looking smug in a journalistic way. I've been put on the story—who could be better?—I live here. So far,I don't quite get what's been happening. I've been talking to Danny,but he didn't say much. I got the feeling he thinks you're involved insome mystical, Hibernian way. Hello, McGill, what's with you? He's got a theory, said Molly. Come and eat with us and he'll tellyou all about it. Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on SixthAvenue, we walked. The jam of cars didn't seem to be any less thanbefore and we saw Danny again. He was talking to a police lieutenant,and when he caught sight of us, he said something that made thelieutenant look at us with interest. Particularly at me. If you want your umbrella, Mrs. Graham, Danny said, it's at thestation house. What there's left of it, that is. Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I feltthe speculative regard of the lieutenant. I pulled out a packet ofcigarettes, which I had opened, as always, by tearing off the top. Ihappened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. BeforeI could move my foot to obliterate what they had spelled out on thesidewalk, the two cops saw it. The lieutenant gave me a hard look, butsaid nothing. I quickly kicked the insulting cigarettes into the gutter. When we got to the restaurant, it was crowded but cool—although itdidn't stay cool for long. We sat down at a side table near the doorand ordered Tom Collinses as we looked at the menu. Sitting at thenext table were a fat lady, wearing a very long, brilliant greenevening gown, and a dried-up sour-looking man in a tux. When the waiterreturned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: coldcuts for the man, and vichyssoise, lobster salad and strawberry parfaitfor the fat lady. I tasted my drink. It was most peculiar; salt seemed to have been usedinstead of sugar. I mentioned this and my companions tried theirs, andmade faces. <doc-sep>The waiter was concerned and apologetic, and took the drinks back tothe bar across the room. The bartender looked over at us and tastedone of the drinks. Then he dumped them in his sink with a puzzledexpression and made a new batch. After shaking this up, he set out arow of glasses, put ice in them and began to pour. That is to say he tilted the shaker over the first one, but nothingcame out. He bumped it against the side of the bar and tried again.Still nothing. Then he took off the top and pried into it with hispick, his face pink with exasperation. I had the impression that the shaker had frozen solid. Well, ice is acrystal, I thought to myself. The other bartender gave him a fresh shaker, but the same thinghappened, and I saw no more because the customers sitting at the barcrowded around in front of him, offering advice. Our waiter came back,baffled, saying he'd have the drinks in a moment, and went to thekitchen. When he returned, he had madame's vichyssoise and some rolls,which he put down, and then went to the bar, where the audience hadgrown larger. Molly lit a cigarette and said, I suppose this is all part of it,Alec. Incidentally, it seems to be getting warmer in here. It was, and I had the feeling the place was quieter—a background noisehad stopped. It dawned on me that I no longer heard the faint hum ofthe air-conditioner over the door, and as I started to say so, I madea gesture toward it. My hand collided with Molly's when she tapped hercigarette over the ashtray, and the cigarette landed in the neighboringvichyssoise. Hey! What's the idea? snarled the sour-looking man. I'm terribly sorry, I said. It was an accident. I— Throwing cigarettes at people! the fat lady said. I really didn't mean to, I began again, getting up. There must havebeen a hole in the edge of their tablecloth which one of my cuffbuttons caught in, because as I stepped out from between the closelyset tables, I pulled everything—tablecloth, silver, water glasses,ashtrays and the vichyssoise-à-la-nicotine—onto the floor. The fat lady surged from the banquette and slapped me meatily. The manlicked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. Theowner of the place, a man with thick black eyebrows, hustled toward uswith a determined manner. I tried to explain what had happened, but Iwas outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly. <doc-sep><doc-sep></s>

McGill is an assistant mathematics professor at a nearby university. He is friends with both Alec and Molly, even calling to ask about the both of them. He is considered to be highly imaginative, but they believe that he knows everything. Personality-wise, McGill is a very logical person. He believes that what Alec has told him is normally impossible, and the odds against it are very astronomical as well. Even when Alec shows him what has happened to him, he continues to pursue a logical explanation. However, despite these theories, he tries to approach these findings logically and tells Alec not to be superstitious when they initially discuss why this is happening to him.

<s> I am a Nucleus By STEPHEN BARR Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No doubt whatever about it, I had the Indian sign on me ... my comfortably untidy world had suddenly turned into a monstrosity of order! When I got home from the office, I was not so much tired as beatendown, but the effect is similar. I let myself into the apartment, whichhad an absentee-wife look, and took a cold shower. The present downtowntemperature, according to the radio, was eighty-seven degrees, butaccording to my Greenwich Village thermometer, it was ninety-six. I gotdressed and went into the living room, and wished ardently that mywife Molly were here to tell me why the whole place looked so woebegone. What do they do, I asked myself, that I have left undone? I've vacuumedthe carpet, I've dusted and I've straightened the cushions.... Ah! Theashtrays. I emptied them, washed them and put them back, but still theplace looked wife-deserted. It had been a bad day; I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'dhad to hurry to make a story conference at one of the TV studios Iwrite for. I didn't notice the impending rain storm and had no umbrellawhen I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almosttropical downpour. I would have turned back, but a taxi came up and awoman got out, so I dashed through the rain and got in. Madison and Fifty-fourth, I said. Right, said the driver, and I heard the starter grind, and then goon grinding. After some futile efforts, he turned to me. Sorry, Mac.You'll have to find another cab. Good hunting. If possible, it was raining still harder. I opened my newspaper overmy hat and ran for the subway: three blocks. Whizzing traffic heldme up at each crossing and I was soaked when I reached the platform,just in time to miss the local. After an abnormal delay, I got onewhich exactly missed the express at Fourteenth Street. The same thinghappened at both ends of the crosstown shuttle, but I found the rainhad stopped when I got out at Fifty-first and Lexington. <doc-sep>As I walked across to Madison Avenue, I passed a big excavation wherethey were getting ready to put up a new office building. There was theusual crowd of buffs watching the digging machines and, in particular,a man with a pneumatic drill who was breaking up some hard-packed clay.While I looked, a big lump of it fell away, and for an instant I wasable to see something that looked like a chunk of dirty glass, the sizeof an old-fashioned hatbox. It glittered brilliantly in the sunlight,and then his chattering drill hit it. There was a faint bang and the thing disintegrated. It knocked him onhis back, but he got right up and I realized he was not hurt. At themoment of the explosion—if so feeble a thing can be called one—Ifelt something sting my face and, on touching it, found blood on myhand. I mopped at it with my handkerchief but, though slight, thebleeding would not stop, so I went into a drugstore and bought somepink adhesive which I put on the tiny cut. When I got to the studio, Ifound that I had missed the story conference. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase I'm justspitballing eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite,The whole ball of wax, twelve times. However, my story had beenaccepted without change because nobody had noticed my absence from theconference room. There you have what is known as the Advertising World,the Advertising game or the advertising racket, depending upon whichrung of the ladder you have achieved. The subway gave a repeat performance going home, and as I got to theapartment house we live in, the cop on the afternoon beat was standingthere talking to the doorman. He said, Hello, Mr. Graham. I guess you must have just have missed itat your office building. I looked blank and he explained, We justheard it a little while ago: all six elevators in your building jammedat the same time. Sounds crazy. I guess you just missed it. Anything can happen in advertising, I thought. That's right, Danny, Ijust missed it, I said, and went on in. Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone; I, on theother hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, andexcept for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been goingon. I went into our little kitchen to make a drink and reread thedirections Molly had left, telling me how to get along by myself untilshe got back from her mother's in Oyster Bay, a matter of ten days.How to make coffee, how to open a can, whom to call if I took sick andsuch. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convincedthat I cannot take a breath without her. She is right, but not for thereasons she supposes. I opened the refrigerator to get some ice and saw another notice: Whenyou take out the Milk or Butter, Put it Right Back. And Close the Door,too. Intimidated, I took my drink into the living room and sat down infront of the typewriter. As I stared at the novel that was to liberateme from Madison Avenue, I noticed a mistake and picked up a pencil.When I put it down, it rolled off the desk, and with my eyes on themanuscript, I groped under the chair for it. Then I looked down. Thepencil was standing on its end. <doc-sep>There, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hearabout, and picked up the pencil. I turned back to my novel and dranksome of the highball in hopes of inspiration and surcease from themuggy heat, but nothing came. I went back and read the whole chapterto try to get a forward momentum, but came to a dead stop at the lastsentence. Damn the heat, damn the pencil, damn Madison Avenue and advertising.My drink was gone and I went back to the kitchen and read Molly'snotes again to see if they would be like a letter from her. I noticedone that I had missed, pinned to the door of the dumbwaiter: Garbagepicked up at 6:30 AM so the idea is to Put it Here the Night Before. Ilove you. What can you do when the girl loves you? I made another drink and went and stared out of the living room windowat the roof opposite. The Sun was out again and a man with a stick wasexercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to beallowed to perch, but were not allowed to. Pigeons fly as a rule in formation and turn simultaneously, so thattheir wings all catch the sunlight at the same time. I was thinkingabout this decorative fact when I saw that as they were making a turn,they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they allwanted the same place in the sky to turn in, and several collided andfell. The man was as surprised as I and went to one of the dazed birds andpicked it up. He stood there shaking his head from side to side,stroking its feathers. My speculations about this peculiar aerial traffic accident wereinterrupted by loud voices in the hallway. Since our building isusually very well behaved, I was astonished to hear what sounded likean incipient free-for-all, and among the angry voices I recognized thatof my neighbor, Nat, a very quiet guy who works on a newspaper and hasnever, to my knowledge, given wild parties, particularly in the lateafternoon. You can't say a thing like that to me! I heard him shout. I tell youI got that deck this afternoon and they weren't opened till we startedto play! Several other loud voices started at the same time. Nobody gets five straight-flushes in a row! Yeah, and only when you were dealer! The tone of the argument was beginning to get ugly, and I opened thedoor to offer Nat help if he needed it. There were four men confrontinghim, evidently torn between the desire to make an angry exit and theimpulse to stay and beat him up. His face was furiously red and helooked stunned. Here! he said, holding out a deck of cards, For Pete's sake, look at'em yourselves if you think they're marked! The nearest man struck them up from his hand. Okay, Houdini! Sothey're not marked! All I know is five straight.... His voice trailed away. He and the others stared at the scattered cardson the floor. About half were face down, as might be expected, and therest face up—all red. <doc-sep>Someone must have rung, because at that moment the elevator arrived andthe four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence,got in and were taken down. My friend stood looking at the neatlyarranged cards. Judas! he said, and started to pick them up. Will you look at that!My God, what a session.... I helped him and said to come in for a drink and tell me all about it,but I had an idea what I would hear. After a while, he calmed down, but he still seemed dazed. Never seen anything to equal it, he said. Wouldn't have believedit. Those guys didn't believe it. Every round normal, nothingunusual about the hands—three of a kind, a low straight, that sortof thing and one guy got queens over tens, until it gets to be my deal. Brother! Straight flush to the king—every time! And each time,somebody else has four aces.... He started to sweat again, so I got up to fix him another drink. Therewas one quart of club soda left, but when I tried to open it, the topbroke and glass chips got into the bottle. I'll have to go down for more soda, I said. I'll come, too. I need air. At the delicatessen on the corner, the man gave me three bottles inwhat must have been a wet bag, because as he handed them to me over thetop of the cold-meat display, the bottom gave and they fell onto thetile floor. None of them broke, although the fall must have been fromat least five feet. Nat was too wound up in his thoughts to notice andI was getting used to miracles. We left the proprietor with his mouthopen and met Danny, the cop, looking in at the door, also with hismouth open. On the sidewalk, a man walking in front of Nat stooped suddenly to tiehis shoe and Nat, to avoid bumping him, stepped off the curb and a taxiswerved to avoid Nat. The street was still wet and the taxi skidded,its rear end lightly flipping the front of one of those small foreigncars, which was going rather fast. It turned sideways and, without anyside-slip, went right up the stoop of a brownstone opposite, coming torest with its nose inside the front door, which a man opened at thatmoment. The sight of this threw another driver into a skid, and when he andthe taxi had stopped sliding around, they were face to face, arrangedcrosswise to the street. This gave them exactly no room to move eitherforward or backward, for the car had its back to a hydrant and the taxito a lamp. Although rather narrow, this is a two-way street, and in no time atall, traffic was stacked up from both directions as far as the avenues.Everyone was honking his horn. Danny was furious—more so when he tried to put through a call to hisstation house from the box opposite. It was out of order. <doc-sep>Upstairs, the wind was blowing into the apartment and I closed thewindows, mainly to shut out the tumult and the shouting. Nat hadbrightened up considerably. I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office, he said.You know, I think this would make an item for the paper. He grinnedand nodded toward the pandemonium. When he was gone, I noticed it was getting dark and turned on the desklamp. Then I saw the curtains. They were all tied in knots, exceptone. That was tied in three knots. All right , I told myself, it was the wind. But I felt the time hadcome for me to get expert advice, so I went to the phone to callMcGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a universityuptown and lives near us. He is highly imaginative, but we believe heknows everything. When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought, more trouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill'svoice said, Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we wereconnected. That's a damn funny coincidence. Not in the least, I said. Come on over here. I've got something foryou to work on. Well, as a matter of fact, I was calling up to ask you and Molly— Molly's away for the week. Can you get over here quick? It's urgent. At once, he said, and hung up. While I waited, I thought I might try getting down a few paragraphs ofmy novel—perhaps something would come now. It did, but as I came to apoint where I was about to put down the word agurgling, I decided itwas too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letterR. Then I saw that I had unaccountably hit all four keys one step tothe side of the correct ones, and tore out the page, with my face red. This was absolutely not my day. <doc-sep>Well, McGill said, nothing you've told me is impossible orsupernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds againstthat poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him.It's all those other things.... He got up and walked over to the window and looked at the hot twilightwhile I waited. Then he turned around; he had a look of concern. Alec, you're a reasonable guy, so I don't think you'll take offense atwhat I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely,and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view thatyou're either stringing me or you're subject to a delusion. I startedto get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. I know, but don'tyou see that that is far more likely than.... He stopped and shookhis head. Then he brightened. I have an idea. Maybe we can have ademonstration. He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. Have you anychange on you? Why, yes, I said. Quite a bit. I reached into my pocket. Theremust have been nearly two dollars in silver and pennies. Do you thinkthey'll each have the same date, perhaps? Did you accumulate all that change today? No. During the week. He shook his head. In that case, no. Discounting the fact that youcould have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, thatwould be actually impossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'lltell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see ifthey all come up heads. I moved away from the carpet and tossed the handful of coins onto thefloor. They clattered and bounced—and bounced together—and stackedthemselves into a neat pile. I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took ahandful of coins from his own pocket and threw them. These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line,the adjacent ones touching. Well, I said, what more do you want? Great Scott, he said, and sat down. I suppose you know thatthere are two great apparently opposite principles governing theUniverse—random and design. The sands on the beach are an exampleof random distribution and life is an example of design. The motionsof the particles of a gas are what we call random, but there are somany of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law ofThermodynamics—quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast;it's just a matter of extreme probability. Now life, on the otherhand, seems not to depend on probability at all; actually, it goesagainst it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidentalmanifestation. Do you mean, I asked in some confusion, that some form of life iscontrolling the coins and—the other things? <doc-sep>He shook his head. No. All I mean is that improbable things usuallyhave improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken,I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of thebook of rules. Something—I don't know what—is going on, and it seemsto involve probability, and it seems to center around you. Were youstill in that building when the elevators stuck? Or near it? I guess I must have been. It happened just after I left. Hm. You're the center, all right. But why? Center of what? I asked. I feel as though I were the center of anelectrical storm. Something has it in for me! McGill grinned. Don't be superstitious. And especially don't beanthropomorphic. Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life. On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions arebeing rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's anon-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder. He had a faraway,frowning look. I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off. Let's go out and eat, I said, There's not a damn thing in thekitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee. We put on our hats and went down to the street. From either end, wecould hear wrecking trucks towing away the stalled cars. There were,by this time, a number of harassed cops directing the maneuver and weheard one of them say to Danny, I don't know what the hell's goingon around here. Every goddam car's got something the matter with it.They can't none of them back out for one reason or another. Never seenanything like it. Near us, two pedestrians were doing a curious little two-step as theytried to pass one another; as soon as one of them moved aside to letthe other pass, the other would move to the same side. They both hadembarrassed grins on their faces, but before long their grins werereplaced by looks of suspicion and then determination. All right, smart guy! they shouted in unison, and barged ahead,only to collide. They backed off and threw simultaneous puncheswhich met in mid-air. Then began one of the most remarkable boutsever witnessed—a fight in which fist hit fist but never anythingelse, until both champions backed away undefeated, muttering identicalexcuses and threats. <doc-sep>Danny appeared at that moment. His face was dripping. You all right,Mr. Graham? he asked. I don't know what's going on around here, butever since I came on this afternoon, things are going crazy. Bartley!he shouted—he could succeed as a hog-caller. Bring those dames overhere! Three women in a confused wrangle, with their half-open umbrellasintertwined, were brought across the street, which meant climbing overfenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious; theladies seemed not to be. All right, now, Mrs. Mac-Philip! one of them said. Leave go of myumbrella and we'll say no more about it! And so now it's Missus Mac-Philip, is it? said her adversary. The third, a younger one with her back turned to us, her umbrella alsocaught in the tangle, pulled at it in a tentative way, at which theother two glared at her. She turned her head away and tried to let go,but the handle was caught in her glove. She looked up and I saw it wasMolly. My nurse-wife. Oh, Alec! she said, and managed to detach herself. Are you allright? Was I all right! Molly! What are you doing here? I was so worried, and when I saw all this, I didn't know what tothink. She pointed to the stalled cars. Are you really all right? Of course I'm all right. But why.... The Oyster Bay operator said someone kept dialing and dialing Mother'snumber and there wasn't anyone on the line, so then she had it tracedand it came from our phone here. I kept calling up, but I only got abusy signal. Oh, dear, are you sure you're all right? I put my arm around her and glanced at McGill. He had an inward look.Then I caught Danny's eye. It had a thoughtful, almost suspicious castto it. Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham, was all he said. When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. Explain to Molly, I said.And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet. He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she wasa jump ahead of him. In other words, you think it's something organic? Well, McGill said, I'm trying to think of anything else it might be.I'm not doing so well, he confessed. But so far as I can see, Molly answered, it's mere probability, andwithout any over-all pattern. Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center. <doc-sep>Molly looked at me with a curious expression for a moment. Do you feel all right, darling? she asked me. I nodded brightly. You'llthink this silly of me, she went on to McGill, but why isn't itsomething like an overactive poltergeist? Pure concept, he said. No genuine evidence. Magnetism? Absolutely not. For one thing, most of the objects affected weren'tmagnetic—and don't forget magnetism is a force, not a form of energy,and a great deal of energy has been involved. I admit the energy hasmainly been supplied by the things themselves, but in a magnetic field,all you'd get would be stored kinetic energy, such as when a piece ofiron moves to a magnet or a line of force. Then it would just staythere, like a rundown clock weight. These things do a lot more thanthat—they go on moving. Why did you mention a crystal before? Why not a life-form? Only an analogy, said McGill. A crystal resembles life in that ithas a definite shape and exhibits growth, but that's all. I'll agreethis—thing—has no discernible shape and motion is involved, butplants don't move and amebas have no shape. Then a crystal feeds, butit does not convert what it feeds on; it merely rearranges it into anon-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions andit has a nucleus and it seems to be growing—at least in what you mightcall improbability. Molly frowned. Then what is it? What's it made of? I should say it was made of the motions. There's a similar idea aboutthe atom. Another thing that's like a crystal is that it appears tobe forming around a nucleus not of its own material—the way a speckof sand thrown into a supersaturated solution becomes the nucleus ofcrystallization. Sounds like the pearl in an oyster, Molly said, and gave me animpertinent look. Why, I asked McGill, did you say the coins couldn't have the samedate? I mean apart from the off chance I got them that way. Because I don't think this thing got going before today andeverything that's happened can all be described as improbable motionshere and now. The dates were already there, and to change them wouldrequire retroactive action, reversing time. That's out, in my book.That telephone now— The doorbell rang. We were not surprised to find it was the telephonerepairman. He took the set apart and clucked like a hen. I guess you dropped it on the floor, mister, he said with strongdisapproval. Certainly not, I said. Is it broken? Not exactly broken , but— He shook his head and took it apart somemore. <doc-sep>McGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finallythe man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill triedto explain to me what had happened with the phone. You must have joggled something loose. And then you replaced thereceiver in such a way that the contact wasn't quite open. But for Pete's sake, Molly says the calls were going on for a longtime! I phoned you only a short time ago and it must have taken hernearly two hours to get here from Oyster Bay. Then you must have done it twice and the vibrations in thefloor—something like that—just happened to cause the right inductionimpulses. Yes, I know how you feel, he said, seeing my expression.It's beginning to bear down. Molly was through telephoning and suggested going out for dinner. I wasso pleased to see her that I'd forgotten all about being hungry. I'm in no mood to cook, she said. Let's get away from all this. McGill raised an eyebrow. If all this, as you call it, will let us. In the lobby, we ran into Nat, looking smug in a journalistic way. I've been put on the story—who could be better?—I live here. So far,I don't quite get what's been happening. I've been talking to Danny,but he didn't say much. I got the feeling he thinks you're involved insome mystical, Hibernian way. Hello, McGill, what's with you? He's got a theory, said Molly. Come and eat with us and he'll tellyou all about it. Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on SixthAvenue, we walked. The jam of cars didn't seem to be any less thanbefore and we saw Danny again. He was talking to a police lieutenant,and when he caught sight of us, he said something that made thelieutenant look at us with interest. Particularly at me. If you want your umbrella, Mrs. Graham, Danny said, it's at thestation house. What there's left of it, that is. Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I feltthe speculative regard of the lieutenant. I pulled out a packet ofcigarettes, which I had opened, as always, by tearing off the top. Ihappened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. BeforeI could move my foot to obliterate what they had spelled out on thesidewalk, the two cops saw it. The lieutenant gave me a hard look, butsaid nothing. I quickly kicked the insulting cigarettes into the gutter. When we got to the restaurant, it was crowded but cool—although itdidn't stay cool for long. We sat down at a side table near the doorand ordered Tom Collinses as we looked at the menu. Sitting at thenext table were a fat lady, wearing a very long, brilliant greenevening gown, and a dried-up sour-looking man in a tux. When the waiterreturned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: coldcuts for the man, and vichyssoise, lobster salad and strawberry parfaitfor the fat lady. I tasted my drink. It was most peculiar; salt seemed to have been usedinstead of sugar. I mentioned this and my companions tried theirs, andmade faces. <doc-sep>The waiter was concerned and apologetic, and took the drinks back tothe bar across the room. The bartender looked over at us and tastedone of the drinks. Then he dumped them in his sink with a puzzledexpression and made a new batch. After shaking this up, he set out arow of glasses, put ice in them and began to pour. That is to say he tilted the shaker over the first one, but nothingcame out. He bumped it against the side of the bar and tried again.Still nothing. Then he took off the top and pried into it with hispick, his face pink with exasperation. I had the impression that the shaker had frozen solid. Well, ice is acrystal, I thought to myself. The other bartender gave him a fresh shaker, but the same thinghappened, and I saw no more because the customers sitting at the barcrowded around in front of him, offering advice. Our waiter came back,baffled, saying he'd have the drinks in a moment, and went to thekitchen. When he returned, he had madame's vichyssoise and some rolls,which he put down, and then went to the bar, where the audience hadgrown larger. Molly lit a cigarette and said, I suppose this is all part of it,Alec. Incidentally, it seems to be getting warmer in here. It was, and I had the feeling the place was quieter—a background noisehad stopped. It dawned on me that I no longer heard the faint hum ofthe air-conditioner over the door, and as I started to say so, I madea gesture toward it. My hand collided with Molly's when she tapped hercigarette over the ashtray, and the cigarette landed in the neighboringvichyssoise. Hey! What's the idea? snarled the sour-looking man. I'm terribly sorry, I said. It was an accident. I— Throwing cigarettes at people! the fat lady said. I really didn't mean to, I began again, getting up. There must havebeen a hole in the edge of their tablecloth which one of my cuffbuttons caught in, because as I stepped out from between the closelyset tables, I pulled everything—tablecloth, silver, water glasses,ashtrays and the vichyssoise-à-la-nicotine—onto the floor. The fat lady surged from the banquette and slapped me meatily. The manlicked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. Theowner of the place, a man with thick black eyebrows, hustled toward uswith a determined manner. I tried to explain what had happened, but Iwas outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly. <doc-sep><doc-sep></s>

Molly Graham is Alec’s wife. She cares a lot about her husband, leaving him notes with instructions on what to do when she is gone. She is also a former nurse and loves Alec greatly to do all of this for him. Molly also has a habit of smoking, which she began doing when they went to the restaurant. When she notices something is wrong at home, she comes back immediately even though her previous plan was to visit her mother at Oyster Bay. Personality-wise, Molly is also a logical thinker. When Alec explains the situation to her, she also tries to find reasoning for it and catches on pretty quickly. Molly is very observant as well, watching the events that involve Alec play out.

<s> I am a Nucleus By STEPHEN BARR Illustrated by GAUGHAN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction February 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No doubt whatever about it, I had the Indian sign on me ... my comfortably untidy world had suddenly turned into a monstrosity of order! When I got home from the office, I was not so much tired as beatendown, but the effect is similar. I let myself into the apartment, whichhad an absentee-wife look, and took a cold shower. The present downtowntemperature, according to the radio, was eighty-seven degrees, butaccording to my Greenwich Village thermometer, it was ninety-six. I gotdressed and went into the living room, and wished ardently that mywife Molly were here to tell me why the whole place looked so woebegone. What do they do, I asked myself, that I have left undone? I've vacuumedthe carpet, I've dusted and I've straightened the cushions.... Ah! Theashtrays. I emptied them, washed them and put them back, but still theplace looked wife-deserted. It had been a bad day; I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'dhad to hurry to make a story conference at one of the TV studios Iwrite for. I didn't notice the impending rain storm and had no umbrellawhen I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almosttropical downpour. I would have turned back, but a taxi came up and awoman got out, so I dashed through the rain and got in. Madison and Fifty-fourth, I said. Right, said the driver, and I heard the starter grind, and then goon grinding. After some futile efforts, he turned to me. Sorry, Mac.You'll have to find another cab. Good hunting. If possible, it was raining still harder. I opened my newspaper overmy hat and ran for the subway: three blocks. Whizzing traffic heldme up at each crossing and I was soaked when I reached the platform,just in time to miss the local. After an abnormal delay, I got onewhich exactly missed the express at Fourteenth Street. The same thinghappened at both ends of the crosstown shuttle, but I found the rainhad stopped when I got out at Fifty-first and Lexington. <doc-sep>As I walked across to Madison Avenue, I passed a big excavation wherethey were getting ready to put up a new office building. There was theusual crowd of buffs watching the digging machines and, in particular,a man with a pneumatic drill who was breaking up some hard-packed clay.While I looked, a big lump of it fell away, and for an instant I wasable to see something that looked like a chunk of dirty glass, the sizeof an old-fashioned hatbox. It glittered brilliantly in the sunlight,and then his chattering drill hit it. There was a faint bang and the thing disintegrated. It knocked him onhis back, but he got right up and I realized he was not hurt. At themoment of the explosion—if so feeble a thing can be called one—Ifelt something sting my face and, on touching it, found blood on myhand. I mopped at it with my handkerchief but, though slight, thebleeding would not stop, so I went into a drugstore and bought somepink adhesive which I put on the tiny cut. When I got to the studio, Ifound that I had missed the story conference. During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase I'm justspitballing eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite,The whole ball of wax, twelve times. However, my story had beenaccepted without change because nobody had noticed my absence from theconference room. There you have what is known as the Advertising World,the Advertising game or the advertising racket, depending upon whichrung of the ladder you have achieved. The subway gave a repeat performance going home, and as I got to theapartment house we live in, the cop on the afternoon beat was standingthere talking to the doorman. He said, Hello, Mr. Graham. I guess you must have just have missed itat your office building. I looked blank and he explained, We justheard it a little while ago: all six elevators in your building jammedat the same time. Sounds crazy. I guess you just missed it. Anything can happen in advertising, I thought. That's right, Danny, Ijust missed it, I said, and went on in. Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone; I, on theother hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, andexcept for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been goingon. I went into our little kitchen to make a drink and reread thedirections Molly had left, telling me how to get along by myself untilshe got back from her mother's in Oyster Bay, a matter of ten days.How to make coffee, how to open a can, whom to call if I took sick andsuch. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convincedthat I cannot take a breath without her. She is right, but not for thereasons she supposes. I opened the refrigerator to get some ice and saw another notice: Whenyou take out the Milk or Butter, Put it Right Back. And Close the Door,too. Intimidated, I took my drink into the living room and sat down infront of the typewriter. As I stared at the novel that was to liberateme from Madison Avenue, I noticed a mistake and picked up a pencil.When I put it down, it rolled off the desk, and with my eyes on themanuscript, I groped under the chair for it. Then I looked down. Thepencil was standing on its end. <doc-sep>There, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hearabout, and picked up the pencil. I turned back to my novel and dranksome of the highball in hopes of inspiration and surcease from themuggy heat, but nothing came. I went back and read the whole chapterto try to get a forward momentum, but came to a dead stop at the lastsentence. Damn the heat, damn the pencil, damn Madison Avenue and advertising.My drink was gone and I went back to the kitchen and read Molly'snotes again to see if they would be like a letter from her. I noticedone that I had missed, pinned to the door of the dumbwaiter: Garbagepicked up at 6:30 AM so the idea is to Put it Here the Night Before. Ilove you. What can you do when the girl loves you? I made another drink and went and stared out of the living room windowat the roof opposite. The Sun was out again and a man with a stick wasexercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to beallowed to perch, but were not allowed to. Pigeons fly as a rule in formation and turn simultaneously, so thattheir wings all catch the sunlight at the same time. I was thinkingabout this decorative fact when I saw that as they were making a turn,they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they allwanted the same place in the sky to turn in, and several collided andfell. The man was as surprised as I and went to one of the dazed birds andpicked it up. He stood there shaking his head from side to side,stroking its feathers. My speculations about this peculiar aerial traffic accident wereinterrupted by loud voices in the hallway. Since our building isusually very well behaved, I was astonished to hear what sounded likean incipient free-for-all, and among the angry voices I recognized thatof my neighbor, Nat, a very quiet guy who works on a newspaper and hasnever, to my knowledge, given wild parties, particularly in the lateafternoon. You can't say a thing like that to me! I heard him shout. I tell youI got that deck this afternoon and they weren't opened till we startedto play! Several other loud voices started at the same time. Nobody gets five straight-flushes in a row! Yeah, and only when you were dealer! The tone of the argument was beginning to get ugly, and I opened thedoor to offer Nat help if he needed it. There were four men confrontinghim, evidently torn between the desire to make an angry exit and theimpulse to stay and beat him up. His face was furiously red and helooked stunned. Here! he said, holding out a deck of cards, For Pete's sake, look at'em yourselves if you think they're marked! The nearest man struck them up from his hand. Okay, Houdini! Sothey're not marked! All I know is five straight.... His voice trailed away. He and the others stared at the scattered cardson the floor. About half were face down, as might be expected, and therest face up—all red. <doc-sep>Someone must have rung, because at that moment the elevator arrived andthe four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence,got in and were taken down. My friend stood looking at the neatlyarranged cards. Judas! he said, and started to pick them up. Will you look at that!My God, what a session.... I helped him and said to come in for a drink and tell me all about it,but I had an idea what I would hear. After a while, he calmed down, but he still seemed dazed. Never seen anything to equal it, he said. Wouldn't have believedit. Those guys didn't believe it. Every round normal, nothingunusual about the hands—three of a kind, a low straight, that sortof thing and one guy got queens over tens, until it gets to be my deal. Brother! Straight flush to the king—every time! And each time,somebody else has four aces.... He started to sweat again, so I got up to fix him another drink. Therewas one quart of club soda left, but when I tried to open it, the topbroke and glass chips got into the bottle. I'll have to go down for more soda, I said. I'll come, too. I need air. At the delicatessen on the corner, the man gave me three bottles inwhat must have been a wet bag, because as he handed them to me over thetop of the cold-meat display, the bottom gave and they fell onto thetile floor. None of them broke, although the fall must have been fromat least five feet. Nat was too wound up in his thoughts to notice andI was getting used to miracles. We left the proprietor with his mouthopen and met Danny, the cop, looking in at the door, also with hismouth open. On the sidewalk, a man walking in front of Nat stooped suddenly to tiehis shoe and Nat, to avoid bumping him, stepped off the curb and a taxiswerved to avoid Nat. The street was still wet and the taxi skidded,its rear end lightly flipping the front of one of those small foreigncars, which was going rather fast. It turned sideways and, without anyside-slip, went right up the stoop of a brownstone opposite, coming torest with its nose inside the front door, which a man opened at thatmoment. The sight of this threw another driver into a skid, and when he andthe taxi had stopped sliding around, they were face to face, arrangedcrosswise to the street. This gave them exactly no room to move eitherforward or backward, for the car had its back to a hydrant and the taxito a lamp. Although rather narrow, this is a two-way street, and in no time atall, traffic was stacked up from both directions as far as the avenues.Everyone was honking his horn. Danny was furious—more so when he tried to put through a call to hisstation house from the box opposite. It was out of order. <doc-sep>Upstairs, the wind was blowing into the apartment and I closed thewindows, mainly to shut out the tumult and the shouting. Nat hadbrightened up considerably. I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office, he said.You know, I think this would make an item for the paper. He grinnedand nodded toward the pandemonium. When he was gone, I noticed it was getting dark and turned on the desklamp. Then I saw the curtains. They were all tied in knots, exceptone. That was tied in three knots. All right , I told myself, it was the wind. But I felt the time hadcome for me to get expert advice, so I went to the phone to callMcGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a universityuptown and lives near us. He is highly imaginative, but we believe heknows everything. When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought, more trouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill'svoice said, Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we wereconnected. That's a damn funny coincidence. Not in the least, I said. Come on over here. I've got something foryou to work on. Well, as a matter of fact, I was calling up to ask you and Molly— Molly's away for the week. Can you get over here quick? It's urgent. At once, he said, and hung up. While I waited, I thought I might try getting down a few paragraphs ofmy novel—perhaps something would come now. It did, but as I came to apoint where I was about to put down the word agurgling, I decided itwas too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letterR. Then I saw that I had unaccountably hit all four keys one step tothe side of the correct ones, and tore out the page, with my face red. This was absolutely not my day. <doc-sep>Well, McGill said, nothing you've told me is impossible orsupernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds againstthat poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him.It's all those other things.... He got up and walked over to the window and looked at the hot twilightwhile I waited. Then he turned around; he had a look of concern. Alec, you're a reasonable guy, so I don't think you'll take offense atwhat I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely,and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view thatyou're either stringing me or you're subject to a delusion. I startedto get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. I know, but don'tyou see that that is far more likely than.... He stopped and shookhis head. Then he brightened. I have an idea. Maybe we can have ademonstration. He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. Have you anychange on you? Why, yes, I said. Quite a bit. I reached into my pocket. Theremust have been nearly two dollars in silver and pennies. Do you thinkthey'll each have the same date, perhaps? Did you accumulate all that change today? No. During the week. He shook his head. In that case, no. Discounting the fact that youcould have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, thatwould be actually impossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'lltell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see ifthey all come up heads. I moved away from the carpet and tossed the handful of coins onto thefloor. They clattered and bounced—and bounced together—and stackedthemselves into a neat pile. I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took ahandful of coins from his own pocket and threw them. These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line,the adjacent ones touching. Well, I said, what more do you want? Great Scott, he said, and sat down. I suppose you know thatthere are two great apparently opposite principles governing theUniverse—random and design. The sands on the beach are an exampleof random distribution and life is an example of design. The motionsof the particles of a gas are what we call random, but there are somany of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law ofThermodynamics—quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast;it's just a matter of extreme probability. Now life, on the otherhand, seems not to depend on probability at all; actually, it goesagainst it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidentalmanifestation. Do you mean, I asked in some confusion, that some form of life iscontrolling the coins and—the other things? <doc-sep>He shook his head. No. All I mean is that improbable things usuallyhave improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken,I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of thebook of rules. Something—I don't know what—is going on, and it seemsto involve probability, and it seems to center around you. Were youstill in that building when the elevators stuck? Or near it? I guess I must have been. It happened just after I left. Hm. You're the center, all right. But why? Center of what? I asked. I feel as though I were the center of anelectrical storm. Something has it in for me! McGill grinned. Don't be superstitious. And especially don't beanthropomorphic. Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life. On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions arebeing rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's anon-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder. He had a faraway,frowning look. I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off. Let's go out and eat, I said, There's not a damn thing in thekitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee. We put on our hats and went down to the street. From either end, wecould hear wrecking trucks towing away the stalled cars. There were,by this time, a number of harassed cops directing the maneuver and weheard one of them say to Danny, I don't know what the hell's goingon around here. Every goddam car's got something the matter with it.They can't none of them back out for one reason or another. Never seenanything like it. Near us, two pedestrians were doing a curious little two-step as theytried to pass one another; as soon as one of them moved aside to letthe other pass, the other would move to the same side. They both hadembarrassed grins on their faces, but before long their grins werereplaced by looks of suspicion and then determination. All right, smart guy! they shouted in unison, and barged ahead,only to collide. They backed off and threw simultaneous puncheswhich met in mid-air. Then began one of the most remarkable boutsever witnessed—a fight in which fist hit fist but never anythingelse, until both champions backed away undefeated, muttering identicalexcuses and threats. <doc-sep>Danny appeared at that moment. His face was dripping. You all right,Mr. Graham? he asked. I don't know what's going on around here, butever since I came on this afternoon, things are going crazy. Bartley!he shouted—he could succeed as a hog-caller. Bring those dames overhere! Three women in a confused wrangle, with their half-open umbrellasintertwined, were brought across the street, which meant climbing overfenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious; theladies seemed not to be. All right, now, Mrs. Mac-Philip! one of them said. Leave go of myumbrella and we'll say no more about it! And so now it's Missus Mac-Philip, is it? said her adversary. The third, a younger one with her back turned to us, her umbrella alsocaught in the tangle, pulled at it in a tentative way, at which theother two glared at her. She turned her head away and tried to let go,but the handle was caught in her glove. She looked up and I saw it wasMolly. My nurse-wife. Oh, Alec! she said, and managed to detach herself. Are you allright? Was I all right! Molly! What are you doing here? I was so worried, and when I saw all this, I didn't know what tothink. She pointed to the stalled cars. Are you really all right? Of course I'm all right. But why.... The Oyster Bay operator said someone kept dialing and dialing Mother'snumber and there wasn't anyone on the line, so then she had it tracedand it came from our phone here. I kept calling up, but I only got abusy signal. Oh, dear, are you sure you're all right? I put my arm around her and glanced at McGill. He had an inward look.Then I caught Danny's eye. It had a thoughtful, almost suspicious castto it. Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham, was all he said. When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. Explain to Molly, I said.And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet. He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she wasa jump ahead of him. In other words, you think it's something organic? Well, McGill said, I'm trying to think of anything else it might be.I'm not doing so well, he confessed. But so far as I can see, Molly answered, it's mere probability, andwithout any over-all pattern. Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center. <doc-sep>Molly looked at me with a curious expression for a moment. Do you feel all right, darling? she asked me. I nodded brightly. You'llthink this silly of me, she went on to McGill, but why isn't itsomething like an overactive poltergeist? Pure concept, he said. No genuine evidence. Magnetism? Absolutely not. For one thing, most of the objects affected weren'tmagnetic—and don't forget magnetism is a force, not a form of energy,and a great deal of energy has been involved. I admit the energy hasmainly been supplied by the things themselves, but in a magnetic field,all you'd get would be stored kinetic energy, such as when a piece ofiron moves to a magnet or a line of force. Then it would just staythere, like a rundown clock weight. These things do a lot more thanthat—they go on moving. Why did you mention a crystal before? Why not a life-form? Only an analogy, said McGill. A crystal resembles life in that ithas a definite shape and exhibits growth, but that's all. I'll agreethis—thing—has no discernible shape and motion is involved, butplants don't move and amebas have no shape. Then a crystal feeds, butit does not convert what it feeds on; it merely rearranges it into anon-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions andit has a nucleus and it seems to be growing—at least in what you mightcall improbability. Molly frowned. Then what is it? What's it made of? I should say it was made of the motions. There's a similar idea aboutthe atom. Another thing that's like a crystal is that it appears tobe forming around a nucleus not of its own material—the way a speckof sand thrown into a supersaturated solution becomes the nucleus ofcrystallization. Sounds like the pearl in an oyster, Molly said, and gave me animpertinent look. Why, I asked McGill, did you say the coins couldn't have the samedate? I mean apart from the off chance I got them that way. Because I don't think this thing got going before today andeverything that's happened can all be described as improbable motionshere and now. The dates were already there, and to change them wouldrequire retroactive action, reversing time. That's out, in my book.That telephone now— The doorbell rang. We were not surprised to find it was the telephonerepairman. He took the set apart and clucked like a hen. I guess you dropped it on the floor, mister, he said with strongdisapproval. Certainly not, I said. Is it broken? Not exactly broken , but— He shook his head and took it apart somemore. <doc-sep>McGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finallythe man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill triedto explain to me what had happened with the phone. You must have joggled something loose. And then you replaced thereceiver in such a way that the contact wasn't quite open. But for Pete's sake, Molly says the calls were going on for a longtime! I phoned you only a short time ago and it must have taken hernearly two hours to get here from Oyster Bay. Then you must have done it twice and the vibrations in thefloor—something like that—just happened to cause the right inductionimpulses. Yes, I know how you feel, he said, seeing my expression.It's beginning to bear down. Molly was through telephoning and suggested going out for dinner. I wasso pleased to see her that I'd forgotten all about being hungry. I'm in no mood to cook, she said. Let's get away from all this. McGill raised an eyebrow. If all this, as you call it, will let us. In the lobby, we ran into Nat, looking smug in a journalistic way. I've been put on the story—who could be better?—I live here. So far,I don't quite get what's been happening. I've been talking to Danny,but he didn't say much. I got the feeling he thinks you're involved insome mystical, Hibernian way. Hello, McGill, what's with you? He's got a theory, said Molly. Come and eat with us and he'll tellyou all about it. Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on SixthAvenue, we walked. The jam of cars didn't seem to be any less thanbefore and we saw Danny again. He was talking to a police lieutenant,and when he caught sight of us, he said something that made thelieutenant look at us with interest. Particularly at me. If you want your umbrella, Mrs. Graham, Danny said, it's at thestation house. What there's left of it, that is. Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I feltthe speculative regard of the lieutenant. I pulled out a packet ofcigarettes, which I had opened, as always, by tearing off the top. Ihappened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. BeforeI could move my foot to obliterate what they had spelled out on thesidewalk, the two cops saw it. The lieutenant gave me a hard look, butsaid nothing. I quickly kicked the insulting cigarettes into the gutter. When we got to the restaurant, it was crowded but cool—although itdidn't stay cool for long. We sat down at a side table near the doorand ordered Tom Collinses as we looked at the menu. Sitting at thenext table were a fat lady, wearing a very long, brilliant greenevening gown, and a dried-up sour-looking man in a tux. When the waiterreturned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: coldcuts for the man, and vichyssoise, lobster salad and strawberry parfaitfor the fat lady. I tasted my drink. It was most peculiar; salt seemed to have been usedinstead of sugar. I mentioned this and my companions tried theirs, andmade faces. <doc-sep>The waiter was concerned and apologetic, and took the drinks back tothe bar across the room. The bartender looked over at us and tastedone of the drinks. Then he dumped them in his sink with a puzzledexpression and made a new batch. After shaking this up, he set out arow of glasses, put ice in them and began to pour. That is to say he tilted the shaker over the first one, but nothingcame out. He bumped it against the side of the bar and tried again.Still nothing. Then he took off the top and pried into it with hispick, his face pink with exasperation. I had the impression that the shaker had frozen solid. Well, ice is acrystal, I thought to myself. The other bartender gave him a fresh shaker, but the same thinghappened, and I saw no more because the customers sitting at the barcrowded around in front of him, offering advice. Our waiter came back,baffled, saying he'd have the drinks in a moment, and went to thekitchen. When he returned, he had madame's vichyssoise and some rolls,which he put down, and then went to the bar, where the audience hadgrown larger. Molly lit a cigarette and said, I suppose this is all part of it,Alec. Incidentally, it seems to be getting warmer in here. It was, and I had the feeling the place was quieter—a background noisehad stopped. It dawned on me that I no longer heard the faint hum ofthe air-conditioner over the door, and as I started to say so, I madea gesture toward it. My hand collided with Molly's when she tapped hercigarette over the ashtray, and the cigarette landed in the neighboringvichyssoise. Hey! What's the idea? snarled the sour-looking man. I'm terribly sorry, I said. It was an accident. I— Throwing cigarettes at people! the fat lady said. I really didn't mean to, I began again, getting up. There must havebeen a hole in the edge of their tablecloth which one of my cuffbuttons caught in, because as I stepped out from between the closelyset tables, I pulled everything—tablecloth, silver, water glasses,ashtrays and the vichyssoise-à-la-nicotine—onto the floor. The fat lady surged from the banquette and slapped me meatily. The manlicked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. Theowner of the place, a man with thick black eyebrows, hustled toward uswith a determined manner. I tried to explain what had happened, but Iwas outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly. <doc-sep><doc-sep></s>

Alec is tired, upset, and confused about the strange coincidences relating to him. When he first goes home, he is extremely tired and compares his day to be the same as being beaten down. Judging from the events throughout his workday, he does not understand how they all relate to him and thinks of them as extremely weird coincidences. He even thinks of himself as being coincidence-prone. After the soda incident, however, he no longer finds it surprising after all that has happened to him. As the events build up, Alec slowly realizes that he is the center of it all, and he knows that he cannot get out of it. No matter how hard he tries, he directly interacts with or is nearby becomes strange coincidences.

<s> THE AVENGER By STUART FLEMING Karson was creating a superman to fight the weird super-monsters who had invaded Earth. But he was forgetting one tiny thing—like calls to like. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Peter Karson was dead. He had been dead for some time now, butthe dark blood was still oozing from the crushed ruin of his face,trickling down into his sodden sleeve, and falling, drop by slow drop,from his fingertips. His head was tilted over the back of the chair ata queer, unnatural angle, so that the light made deep pools of shadowwhere his eyes had been. There was no sound in the room except for the small splashing theblood made as it dropped into the sticky pool on the floor. The greatbanks of machinery around the walls were silent. I knew that they wouldnever come to life again. I rose and walked over to the window. Outside, the stars were asbefore: tiny, myriad points of light, infinitely far away. They had notchanged, and yet they were suddenly no longer friendly. They were coldand alien. It was I who had changed: something inside me was dead, likethe machinery, and like Peter. It was a kind of indefinable emptiness. I do not think it was whatPeter called an emotion; and yet it had nothing to do with logic,either. It was just an emptiness—a void that could not be filled byeating or drinking. It was not a longing. I had no desire that things should be otherwisethan they were. I did not even wish that Peter were not dead, forreason had told me that he had to die. That was the end of it. But the void was still there, unexplainable and impossible to ignore.For the first time in all my life I had found a problem that I couldnot solve. Strange, disturbing sensations stirred and whispered withinme, nagging, gnawing. And suddenly—something moved on the skin of mycheek. I raised a hand to it, slowly. A tear was trickling down my cheek. <doc-sep>Young Peter Karson put the last black-print down and sighed withsatisfaction. His dream was perfect; the Citadel was complete, everyminutest detail provided for—on paper. In two weeks they would belaying the core, and then the metal giant itself would begin to grow,glittering, pulsing with each increment of power, until at last it layfinished, a living thing. Then there would remain only the task of blasting the great, shiningship out into the carefully-calculated orbit that would be its home.In his mind's eye he could see it, slowly wheeling, like a secondsatellite, about the Earth; endlessly gathering knowledge into itsinsatiable mechanisms. He could see, too, the level on level oflaboratories and storerooms that filled its interlocking segments; themeteor deflectors, the air renewal system, the mighty engines at thestern—all the children of his brain. Out there, away from the muffling, distorting, damnable blanket ofatmosphere, away from Earth's inexorable gravitational pull, would bea laboratory such as man had never seen. The ship would be filled withthe sounds of busy men and women, wresting secrets from the reluctantether. A new chemistry, a new physics; perhaps even a new biochemistry. A discordant note suddenly entered his fantasy. He looked up, consciousof the walls of his office again, but could see nothing unusual. Still,that thin, dark whisper of dread was at the back of his mind. Slowly,as if reluctantly compelled, he turned around to face the window at hisback. There, outside the window, fifty stories up, a face was staringimpassively in at him. That was the first impression he got; just aface, staring. Then he saw, with a queer, icy chill, that the face wasblood-red and subtly inhuman. It tapered off into a formless, shriveledbody. For a moment or an eternity it hung there, unsupported, the bulgingeyes staring at him. Then it grew misty at the edges. It dissolvedslowly away and was gone. Lord! he said. He stared after it, stunned into immobility. Down in the streetsomewhere, a portable video was shrilling a popular song; after amoment he heard the faint swish of a tube car going past. Everythingwas normal. Nothing, on examination, seemed to have changed. But theworld had grown suddenly unreal. One part of his brain had been shocked into its shell. It was hidingfrom the thing that had hurt it, and it refused to respond. But theother part was going calmly, lucidly on, quite without his volition.It considered the possibility that he had gone temporarily insane, anddecided that this was probable. Hardly knowing what he did, he found a cigarette and lit it. His handswere shaking. He stared at them dully, and then he reached over to thenewsbox on his desk, and switched it on. There were flaring red headlines. Relief washed over him, leaving him breathless. He was horrified,of course, but only abstractedly. For the moment he could only beglad that what he had seen was terrible reality rather than even moreterrible illusion. INVADERS APPEAR IN BOSTON. 200 DEAD Then lines of type, and farther down: 50 CHILDREN DISAPPEAR FROM PARIS MATERNITY CENTER He pressed the stud. The roll was full of them. MOON SHIP DESTROYED IN TRANSIT NO COMMUNICATION FROM ANTARCTICA IN 6 HOURS STRANGE FORCE DEFLECTS PLANES FROM SAHARA AREA WORLD POLICE MOBILIZING The item below the last one said: Pacifica, June 7—The World Police are mobilizing, for the first timein fifty years. The order was made public early this morning byR. Stein, Secretary of the Council, who said in part: The reason for this ... order must be apparent to all civilizedpeoples. For the Invaders have spared no part of this planet in theirdepredations: they have laid Hong Kong waste; they have terrorizedLondon; they have destroyed the lives of citizens in every member stateand in every inhabited area. There can be few within reach of printedreports or my words who have not seen the Invaders, or whose friendshave not seen them. The peoples of the world, then, know what they are, and know thatwe face the most momentous struggle in our history. We face an enemy superior to ourselves in every way . Since the Invaders first appeared in Wood River, Oregon, 24 hoursago, they have not once acknowledged our attempts to communicate, orin any way taken notice of our existence as reasoning beings. Theyhave treated us precisely as we, in less enlightened days, mighthave treated a newly-discovered race of lower animals. They have notattacked our centers of government, nor immobilized our communications,nor laid siege to our defenses. But in instance after instance, theyhave done as they would with us. They have examined us, dissected us,driven us mad, killed us with no discernable provocation; and this ismore intolerable than any normal invasion. I have no fear that the people of Earth will fail to meet thischallenge, for there is no alternative. Not only our individual livesare threatened, but our existence as a race. We must, and will, destroythe Invaders! Peter sank back in his chair, the full shock of it striking him for thefirst time. Will we? he asked himself softly. <doc-sep>It was only two stories down the moving ramp to Lorelei Cooper'slaboratory. Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled toa halt in front of the door marked Radiation. She had set her doormechanism to Etaoin Shrdlu, principally because he hated double-talk.He mouthed the syllables, had to repeat them because he put an accentin the wrong place, and squeezed through the door as soon as it openedfar enough to admit him. Lorelei, beautiful in spite of dark-circled eyes and a smear of greaseon her chin, looked up from a huge ledger at the end of the room. Oneblonde eyebrow arched in the quizzical expression he knew so well. What makes, Peter my love? she asked, and bent back to the ledger.Then she did a double-take, looked at his face intently, and said,Darling, what's wrong? He said, Have you seen the news recently? She frowned. Why, no—Harry and I have been working for thirty-sixhours straight. Haven't seen anybody, haven't heard anything. Why? You wouldn't believe me. Where's your newsbox? She came around the desk and put her hands on his shoulders. Pete,you know I haven't one—it bores me or upsets me, depending on whetherthere's trouble or not. What— I'm sorry, I forgot, he said. But you have a scanner? Yes, of course. But really, Pete— You'll understand in a minute. Turn it on, Lorelei. She gazed at him levelly for a moment, kissed him impulsively, and thenwalked over to the video panel on the wall and swept a mountain ofpapers away from in front of it. She turned the selector dial to Newsand pressed the stud. A faint wash of color appeared on the panel, strengthened slowly, andsuddenly leapt into full brilliance. Lorelei caught her breath. It was a street scene in the Science City of Manhattan, flooded bythe warm spring sunshine. Down on the lowest level, visible past thetransport and passenger tubes, the parks and moving ways should havebeen dotted with colorful, holiday crowds. The people were there,yes but they were flowing away in a swiftly-widening circle. Theydisappeared into buildings, and the ways snatched them up, and in aheartbeat they were gone. There were left only two blood-red, malignant monstrosities somehowdefiling the air they floated in; and below them, a pitiful huddle offlesh no longer recognizable as human beings. They were not dead, thosemen and women, but they wanted to be. Their bodies had been impossiblyjoined, fused together into a single obscene, floundering mass ofhelpless protoplasm. The thin moaning that went up from them was morehorrible than any cry of agony. The Invaders are here, citizens, the commentator was saying in astrangled voice. Stay off the streets. Hide yourselves. Stay off thestreets.... His voice droned on, but neither of them heard it. <doc-sep>Lorelei buried her head on his chest, clutching at him desperately.Peter! she said faintly. Why do they broadcast such things? They have to, he told her grimly. There will be panics and suicides,and they know it; but they have to do it. This isn't like a war, wherethe noncombatants' morale has to be kept up. There aren't going to beany noncombatants, this time. Everybody in the world has to know aboutthem, so that he can fight them—and then it may not be enough. The viewpoint of the teleo sender changed as the two red beings soaredaway from their victims and angled slowly up the street. Peter reachedout to switch off the scanner, and froze. The girl felt his musclestense abruptly, looked back at the scene. The Invaders were floatingup the sloping side of a tall, pure white structure that dominated therest. That's the Atlas building, she said unbelievingly. Us! Yes. Silently, they counted stories as the two beings rose. Forty-five ...forty-six ... forty-seven ... forty-eight. Inevitably, they halted.Then they faded slowly. It was impossible to say whether they had gonethrough the solid wall, or simply melted away. The man and woman clung together, waiting. There was a thick, oppressive silence, full of small rustlings andother faint sounds that were no longer normal. Then, very near, a manscreamed in a high, inhuman voice. The screamed dwindled into a throatygurgle and died, leaving silence again. Peter's lips were cold with sweat. Tiny nerves in his face and armswere jumping convulsively. His stomach crawled. He thrust the girl awayfrom him and started toward the inner room. Wait here, he mouthed. She was after him, clinging to his arms. No, Peter! Don't go in there! Peter! But he pushed her away again, woodenly, and stalked forward. There was a space in the middle of the room where machinery had beencleared away to make room for an incompleted setup. Peter walked downthe narrow aisle, past bakelite-sheathed mechanisms and rows of animalcages, and paused just short of it. The two red beings were there, formless bodies hazy in midair, thedistorted, hairless skulls in profile, staring at something outside hisrange of vision. <doc-sep>Peter forced himself forward another step. Little Harry Kanin,Lorelei's assistant, was crumpled in a corner, half supported by thebroad base of an X-ray chamber. His face was flaccid and bloated. Hisglazed eyes, impassive yet somehow pleading, stared at nothingnessstraight ahead of him. The Invaders ignored Peter, staring expressionlessly down at Kanin.In a moment Peter realized what they were doing to him. He stood,paralyzed with horror, and watched it happen. The little man's body was sagging, ever so slowly, as if he wererelaxing tiredly. His torso was telescoping, bit by bit; his spreadlegs grew wider and more shapeless, his cheeks caved in and his skullgrew gradually flatter. When it was over, the thing that had been Kanin was a limp, bonelesspuddle of flesh. Peter could not look at it. There was a scream in his throat that would not come out. He was beyondfear, beyond agony. He turned to the still-hovering monsters and saidin a terrible voice, Why? Why? The nearest being turned slowly to regard him. Its lips did not move,but there was a tiny sound in Peter's brain, a thin, dry whispering. The scream was welling up. He fought it down and listened. Wurnkomellilonasendiktolsasangkanmiamiamimami.... The face was staring directly into his, the bulging eyes hypnotic. Theears were small, no more than excresences of skin. The narrow lipsseemed sealed together; a thin, slimy ichor drooled from them. Therewere lines in the face, but they were lines of age, not emotion. Onlythe eyes were alive. ... raswilopreatadvuonistuwurncchtusanlgkelglawwalinom.... I can't understand, he cried wildly. What do you want? ... morofelcovisyanmamiwurlectaunntous. He heard a faint sound behind him, and whirled. It was the firsttime he had realized that Lorelei had followed him. She stood there,swaying, very pale, looking at the red Invaders. Her eyes swiveledslowly.... Opreniktoulestritifenrelngetnaktwiltoctpre. His voice was hoarse. Don't look! Don't—Go back! The horrible,mindless noise in his throat was almost beyond his power to repress.His insides writhed to thrust it out. She didn't see him. Her eyes glazed, and she dropped limply to thefloor. The scream came out then. Before he knew, even, that he could holdit back no longer, his mouth was wide open, his muscles tensed, hisfingernails slicing his palms. It echoed with unbelievable volume inthe room. It was a scream to split eardrums; a scream to wake the dead. <doc-sep>Somebody said, Doctor! He wanted to say, Yes, get a doctor. Lorelei— but his mouth onlytwitched feebly. He couldn't seem to get it to work properly. He tried again. Doctor. Yes? A gentle, masculine voice. He opened his eyes with an effort. There was a blurred face before him;in a moment it grew clearer. The strong, clean-shaven chin contrastedoddly with the haggard circles under the eyes. There was a clean,starched odor. Where am I? he said. He tried to turn his head, but a firm handpressed him back into the sheets. You're in a hospital. Just lie quietly, please. He tried to get up again. Where's Lorelei? She's well, and you'll see her soon. Now lie quietly. You've been avery sick man. Peter sank back in the bed. The room was coming into focus. He lookedaround him slowly. He felt very weak, but perfectly lucid. Yes.... he said. How long have I been here, Doctor? The man hesitated, looked at him intently. Three months, he said. Heturned and gave low-voiced instructions to a nurse, and then went away. Peter's head began spinning just a little. Glass clinked from a metalstand near his head; the nurse bent over him with a glass half full ofmilky fluid. It tasted awful, but she made him drink it all. In a moment he began to relax, and the room got fuzzy again. Justbefore he drifted off, he said sleepily, You can't—fool me. It's been more —than three—months. He was right. All the nurses, and even Dr. Arnold, were evasive, but hekept asking them why he couldn't see Lorelei, and finally he wormed itout of them. It had been nine and a half months, not three, and he'dbeen in a coma all that time. Lorelei, it seemed, had recovered muchsooner. She was only suffering from ordinary shock, Arnold explained.Seeing that assistant of hers—it was enough to knock anybody out,especially a woman. But you stood actual mental contact with them for approximately five minutes. Yes, we know—you talked a lot. It's amiracle you're alive, and rational. But where is she? Peter complained. You still haven't explained whyI haven't been able to see her. Arnold frowned. All right, he said. I guess you're strong enough totake it. She's underground, with the rest of the women and children,and a good two-thirds of the male population. That's where you'll go,as soon as you're well enough to be moved. We started digging in sixmonths ago. But why? Peter whispered. Arnold's strong jaw knotted. We're hiding, he said. Everything elsehas failed. Peter couldn't think of anything to say. Dr. Arnold's voice went onafter a moment, musingly. We're burrowing into the earth, like worms.It didn't take us long to find out we couldn't kill them. They didn'teven take any notice of our attempts to do so, except once. That waswhen a squadron of the Police caught about fifty of them together atone time, and attacked with flame guns and a new secret weapon. Itdidn't hurt them, but it annoyed them. It was the first time they'dbeen annoyed, I think. They blew up half a state, and it's stillsmoldering. And since then? Peter asked huskily. Since then, we've been burrowing. All the big cities.... It would bean impossible task if we tried to include all the thinly-populatedareas, of course, but it doesn't matter. By the time we excavateenough to take care of a quarter of the earth's population, the otherthree-quarters will be dead, or worse. I wonder, Peter said shakily, if I am strong enough to take it. Arnold laughed harshly. You are. You've got to be. You're part of ourlast hope, you see. Our last hope? Yes. You're a scientist. I see, said Peter. And for the first time, he thought of the Citadel . No plan leaped full-born into his mind, but, maybe , hethought, there's a chance .... <doc-sep>It wasn't very big, the thing that had been his shining dream. It laythere in its rough cradle, a globe of raw dura-steel not more thanfive hundred meters in diameter, where the Citadel was to have been athousand. It wouldn't house a hundred scientists, eagerly delving intothe hinterland of research. The huge compartments weren't filled withthe latest equipment for chemical and physical experiment; instead,there was compressed oxygen there, and concentrated food, enough tolast a lifetime. It was a new world, all by itself; or else it was a tomb. And there wasone other change, one that you couldn't see from the outside. The solidmeters of lead in its outer skin, the shielding to keep out cosmicrays, were gone. A man had just finished engraving the final stroke on its nameplate, tothe left of the airlock— The Avenger . He stepped away now, and joinedthe group a little distance away, silently waiting. Lorelei said, You can't do it. I won't let you! Peter— Darling, he began wearily. Don't throw your life away! Give us time—there must be another way. There's no other way, Peter said. He gripped her arms tightly, as ifhe could compel her to understand by the sheer pressure of his fingers.Darling, listen to me. We've tried everything. We've gone underground,but that's only delaying the end. They still come down here, only notas many. The mortality rate is up, the suicide rate is up, the birthrate is down, in spite of anything we can do. You've seen the figures:we're riding a curve that ends in extinction fifty years from now. They'll live, and we'll die, because they're a superior race. We're amillion years too far back even to understand what they are or wherethey came from. Besides them, we're apes. There's only one answer. She was crying now, silently, with great racking sobs that shook herslender body. But he went remorselessly on. Out there, in space, the cosmics change unshielded life. Theymake tentacles out of arms; or scales out of hair; or twelve toes,or a dozen ears—or a better brain. Out of those millions ofpossible mutations, there's one that will save the human race. Wecan't fight them , but a superman could. That's our only chance.Lorelei—darling—don't you see that? She choked, But why can't you take me along? He stared unseeingly past her wet, upturned face. You know why, hesaid bitterly. Those rays are strong. They don't only work on embryos;they change adult life forms, too. I have one chance in seven ofstaying alive. You'd have one chance in a million of staying beautiful.I couldn't stand that. I'd kill myself, and then humanity would die,too. You'd be their murderer. Her sobs gradually died away. She straightened slowly until he nolonger had to support her, but all the vitality and resilience was goneout of her body. All right, she said in a lifeless voice. You'llcome back, Peter. He turned away suddenly, not trusting himself to kiss her goodbye. Aline from an old film kept echoing through his head. They'll comeback—but not as boys ! We'll come back, but not as men. We'll come back, but not as elephants. We'll come back, but not as octopi. <doc-sep>He was trembling violently. He ran the last few steps, stumbled intothe airlock, and pressed the stud that would seal the door behind him. We'll come back.... He heard the massive disk sink home, closing himoff. Then he sank down on the floor of the airlock and put his head inshaking hands. After a while he roused himself, closed the inner door of the lockbehind him, and walked down the long corridor into the control chamber.The shining banks of keys were there, waiting for his touch; he slumpeddown before them and listlessly closed the contact of the visiplate. He swung its field slowly, scanning for the last time the bare wallsof the underground chamber, making sure that all the spectators hadretired out of the way of the blast. Then his clawed fingers poisedover the keys, hovered a moment, and thrust down. Acceleration pressed him deep into his chair. In the visiplate, theheavy doors that closed the tunnel above him flashed back, one by one.The energy-charged screen flickered off to let him pass, and closedsmoothly behind him. The last doors, cleverly camouflaged, slipped backinto place and then dwindled in the distance. It was done. He flashed on out, past the moon, past Mars, over the asteroid belt.The days merged into weeks, then months, and finally, far out, TheAvenger curved into an orbit and held it. The great motors died, andthe silence pressed in about him. Already he could feel the invisible rays burning resistlessly throughhis flesh as if it were water, shifting the cells of his body, workingits slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changeswere unmistakably evident in his skin and hair, and then he smashed allthe mirrors in the ship. The embryos were pulsing with unnatural life, even in the suspendedanimation of their crystal cells. One by one he allowed them tomature, and after weeks or years destroyed the monstrosities that camefrom the incubators. Time went by, meaninglessly. He ate when he washungry, slept when his driving purpose let him, and worked unceasingly,searching for the million-to-one chance. He stared sometimes through changed eyes at the tiny blue star that wasEarth, wondering if the race he had left behind still burrowed in itsworm-tunnels, digging deeper and deeper away from the sunlight. Butafter a time he ceased even to wonder. And one changeling-child he did not destroy. He fed knowledge to itseager brain, and watched it through the swift years, with a dawninghope.... <doc-sep>Peter closed the diary. The rest you know, Robert, he said. Yes, I told him. I was that child. I am the millionth mutation youwere searching for. His eyes glowed suddenly in their misshapen sockets. You are. Yourbrain is as superior to mine as mine is to an anthropoid's. You solveinstinctively problems that would take our mechanical computers hoursof work. You are a superman. I am without your imperfections, I said, flexing my arms. He rose and strode nervously over to the window. I watched him as hestood there, outlined against the blazing galaxies. He had changed butlittle in the years that I had known him. His lank gray hair straggledover his sunken eyes; his cheeks were blobbed with excresences offlesh; one corner of his mouth was drawn up in a perpetual grin. He hada tiny sixth finger on his left hand. He turned again, and I saw the old scar on his cheek where I had onceaccidentally drawn one of my talons across his face. And now, he said softly, we will go home. I've waited solong—keeping the control chamber and the engine room locked away fromyou, not telling you, even, about Earth until now—because I had to besure. But now, the waiting is over. They're still there, I'm sure of it—the people, and the Invaders. Youcan kill the Invaders, Robert. He looked at me, a little oddly, almost as if he had some instinctiveknowledge of what was to come. But he went on swiftly, On Earth wehad a saying: 'Fight fire with fire.' That is the way it will be withyou. You are completely, coldly logical, just as they are. You canunderstand them, and so you can conquer them. I said, That is the reason why we will not go back to Earth. He stared at me, his jaw slack, his hands trembling. What—what didyou say? I repeated it patiently. But why? he cried, sinking down into the chair before me. In aninstant all the joy had gone out of him. I could not understand hissuffering, but I could recognize it. You yourself have said it, I told him. I am a being of logic, justas the beings who have invaded your planet are. I do not comprehend thethings which you call hate, fear, joy and love, as they do not. If Iwent to Earth, I would use your people to further my knowledge, just asthe invaders do. I would have no reason to kill the invaders. They aremore nearly kin to me than your people. <doc-sep>Peter's eyes were dull, his limbs slumped. For a moment I thought thatthe shock had deranged his mind. His voice trembled when he said, But if I ask you to kill them, andnot my people? To do so would be illogical. He waved his hands helplessly. Gratitude? he muttered. No, you don't understand that, either. Then he cried suddenly, But I am your friend, Robert! I do not understand 'friend,' I said. I did understand gratitude, a little. It was a reciprocalarrangement: I did what Peter wished, so long as I did not activelywant to do otherwise, because he had done things for me. Very well,then we must not go back. It was very simple, but I knew that he couldnot comprehend it. I tried to explain it to him, however. But he only stared at me, withan expression on his face that I had never seen there before, and that,somehow, I did not like to see. It was disquieting, and so I hastenedto the end that I knew was inevitable. <doc-sep></s>

Peter Karson has finished planning out the blueprint for the Citadel. He is excited to see it be built and go off into space to collect new information. Something suddenly snaps him out of his fantasy. Fifty stories above the window, there is a blood-red and subtly inhuman face staring back at him. The face slowly disappears, but he is stunned by the image. He then shakingly lights a cigarette and turns on the newsbox to see that an invader has appeared in Boston. More disasters are listed below, and the World Police announces that the Invaders have already begun terrorizing the world since they appeared twenty-four hours ago. Peter is doubtful that they can take down the Invaders and goes to Lorelei Cooper’s laboratory. Lorelei does not know what is happening because Harry and she have been working for thirty-six hours straight. She does not have a newsbox, but he tells her to turn on her scanner to see the news. The panel shows the Science City of Manhattan, but the Invaders have come and snatched up men and women. Slowly, two Invaders make their way to the Atlas building, where Peter and Lorelei are. He goes into the inner room, even though she yells at him not to go. The Invaders have reduced Harry to nothing but a puddle of flesh, and Peter begins to ask why they are doing this desperately. They whisper to him in a strange language; he suddenly realizes that Lorelei has followed him. She drops to the floor after looking at the Invaders, which makes Peter scream. When he awakes again, a doctor named Arnold tells him to lie back down and that he is in a hospital. Although Dr. Arnold initially tells him that he has been in the hospital for three months, he eventually finds out that it has already been nine and a half months since he went into his coma. All of the survivors are underground because nobody knew how to kill the Invaders. Peter is considered their last hope because he is a scientist, and he thinks back to his plan of the Citadel. The ship is built, and it is called The Avenger instead. Lorelei tries to plead with Peter, but he refuses and says that it must be him who finds a superman that can destroy the Invaders. He goes into space until the ship curves into orbit. Peter kills many of the changeling children, but he allows one to live. The child is named Robert and is considered to be a super-intelligent being. Peter is hopeful that the changeling can kill the Invaders, but Robert says he will not return to Earth. He explains that they are like kin to him, and he logically has no reason to kill him. Peter is shocked and tries to plead with Robert, but the superman does not understand emotions. Robert does not feel good about the expression on Peter’s face, and he hastens to an inevitable end.

<s> THE AVENGER By STUART FLEMING Karson was creating a superman to fight the weird super-monsters who had invaded Earth. But he was forgetting one tiny thing—like calls to like. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Peter Karson was dead. He had been dead for some time now, butthe dark blood was still oozing from the crushed ruin of his face,trickling down into his sodden sleeve, and falling, drop by slow drop,from his fingertips. His head was tilted over the back of the chair ata queer, unnatural angle, so that the light made deep pools of shadowwhere his eyes had been. There was no sound in the room except for the small splashing theblood made as it dropped into the sticky pool on the floor. The greatbanks of machinery around the walls were silent. I knew that they wouldnever come to life again. I rose and walked over to the window. Outside, the stars were asbefore: tiny, myriad points of light, infinitely far away. They had notchanged, and yet they were suddenly no longer friendly. They were coldand alien. It was I who had changed: something inside me was dead, likethe machinery, and like Peter. It was a kind of indefinable emptiness. I do not think it was whatPeter called an emotion; and yet it had nothing to do with logic,either. It was just an emptiness—a void that could not be filled byeating or drinking. It was not a longing. I had no desire that things should be otherwisethan they were. I did not even wish that Peter were not dead, forreason had told me that he had to die. That was the end of it. But the void was still there, unexplainable and impossible to ignore.For the first time in all my life I had found a problem that I couldnot solve. Strange, disturbing sensations stirred and whispered withinme, nagging, gnawing. And suddenly—something moved on the skin of mycheek. I raised a hand to it, slowly. A tear was trickling down my cheek. <doc-sep>Young Peter Karson put the last black-print down and sighed withsatisfaction. His dream was perfect; the Citadel was complete, everyminutest detail provided for—on paper. In two weeks they would belaying the core, and then the metal giant itself would begin to grow,glittering, pulsing with each increment of power, until at last it layfinished, a living thing. Then there would remain only the task of blasting the great, shiningship out into the carefully-calculated orbit that would be its home.In his mind's eye he could see it, slowly wheeling, like a secondsatellite, about the Earth; endlessly gathering knowledge into itsinsatiable mechanisms. He could see, too, the level on level oflaboratories and storerooms that filled its interlocking segments; themeteor deflectors, the air renewal system, the mighty engines at thestern—all the children of his brain. Out there, away from the muffling, distorting, damnable blanket ofatmosphere, away from Earth's inexorable gravitational pull, would bea laboratory such as man had never seen. The ship would be filled withthe sounds of busy men and women, wresting secrets from the reluctantether. A new chemistry, a new physics; perhaps even a new biochemistry. A discordant note suddenly entered his fantasy. He looked up, consciousof the walls of his office again, but could see nothing unusual. Still,that thin, dark whisper of dread was at the back of his mind. Slowly,as if reluctantly compelled, he turned around to face the window at hisback. There, outside the window, fifty stories up, a face was staringimpassively in at him. That was the first impression he got; just aface, staring. Then he saw, with a queer, icy chill, that the face wasblood-red and subtly inhuman. It tapered off into a formless, shriveledbody. For a moment or an eternity it hung there, unsupported, the bulgingeyes staring at him. Then it grew misty at the edges. It dissolvedslowly away and was gone. Lord! he said. He stared after it, stunned into immobility. Down in the streetsomewhere, a portable video was shrilling a popular song; after amoment he heard the faint swish of a tube car going past. Everythingwas normal. Nothing, on examination, seemed to have changed. But theworld had grown suddenly unreal. One part of his brain had been shocked into its shell. It was hidingfrom the thing that had hurt it, and it refused to respond. But theother part was going calmly, lucidly on, quite without his volition.It considered the possibility that he had gone temporarily insane, anddecided that this was probable. Hardly knowing what he did, he found a cigarette and lit it. His handswere shaking. He stared at them dully, and then he reached over to thenewsbox on his desk, and switched it on. There were flaring red headlines. Relief washed over him, leaving him breathless. He was horrified,of course, but only abstractedly. For the moment he could only beglad that what he had seen was terrible reality rather than even moreterrible illusion. INVADERS APPEAR IN BOSTON. 200 DEAD Then lines of type, and farther down: 50 CHILDREN DISAPPEAR FROM PARIS MATERNITY CENTER He pressed the stud. The roll was full of them. MOON SHIP DESTROYED IN TRANSIT NO COMMUNICATION FROM ANTARCTICA IN 6 HOURS STRANGE FORCE DEFLECTS PLANES FROM SAHARA AREA WORLD POLICE MOBILIZING The item below the last one said: Pacifica, June 7—The World Police are mobilizing, for the first timein fifty years. The order was made public early this morning byR. Stein, Secretary of the Council, who said in part: The reason for this ... order must be apparent to all civilizedpeoples. For the Invaders have spared no part of this planet in theirdepredations: they have laid Hong Kong waste; they have terrorizedLondon; they have destroyed the lives of citizens in every member stateand in every inhabited area. There can be few within reach of printedreports or my words who have not seen the Invaders, or whose friendshave not seen them. The peoples of the world, then, know what they are, and know thatwe face the most momentous struggle in our history. We face an enemy superior to ourselves in every way . Since the Invaders first appeared in Wood River, Oregon, 24 hoursago, they have not once acknowledged our attempts to communicate, orin any way taken notice of our existence as reasoning beings. Theyhave treated us precisely as we, in less enlightened days, mighthave treated a newly-discovered race of lower animals. They have notattacked our centers of government, nor immobilized our communications,nor laid siege to our defenses. But in instance after instance, theyhave done as they would with us. They have examined us, dissected us,driven us mad, killed us with no discernable provocation; and this ismore intolerable than any normal invasion. I have no fear that the people of Earth will fail to meet thischallenge, for there is no alternative. Not only our individual livesare threatened, but our existence as a race. We must, and will, destroythe Invaders! Peter sank back in his chair, the full shock of it striking him for thefirst time. Will we? he asked himself softly. <doc-sep>It was only two stories down the moving ramp to Lorelei Cooper'slaboratory. Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled toa halt in front of the door marked Radiation. She had set her doormechanism to Etaoin Shrdlu, principally because he hated double-talk.He mouthed the syllables, had to repeat them because he put an accentin the wrong place, and squeezed through the door as soon as it openedfar enough to admit him. Lorelei, beautiful in spite of dark-circled eyes and a smear of greaseon her chin, looked up from a huge ledger at the end of the room. Oneblonde eyebrow arched in the quizzical expression he knew so well. What makes, Peter my love? she asked, and bent back to the ledger.Then she did a double-take, looked at his face intently, and said,Darling, what's wrong? He said, Have you seen the news recently? She frowned. Why, no—Harry and I have been working for thirty-sixhours straight. Haven't seen anybody, haven't heard anything. Why? You wouldn't believe me. Where's your newsbox? She came around the desk and put her hands on his shoulders. Pete,you know I haven't one—it bores me or upsets me, depending on whetherthere's trouble or not. What— I'm sorry, I forgot, he said. But you have a scanner? Yes, of course. But really, Pete— You'll understand in a minute. Turn it on, Lorelei. She gazed at him levelly for a moment, kissed him impulsively, and thenwalked over to the video panel on the wall and swept a mountain ofpapers away from in front of it. She turned the selector dial to Newsand pressed the stud. A faint wash of color appeared on the panel, strengthened slowly, andsuddenly leapt into full brilliance. Lorelei caught her breath. It was a street scene in the Science City of Manhattan, flooded bythe warm spring sunshine. Down on the lowest level, visible past thetransport and passenger tubes, the parks and moving ways should havebeen dotted with colorful, holiday crowds. The people were there,yes but they were flowing away in a swiftly-widening circle. Theydisappeared into buildings, and the ways snatched them up, and in aheartbeat they were gone. There were left only two blood-red, malignant monstrosities somehowdefiling the air they floated in; and below them, a pitiful huddle offlesh no longer recognizable as human beings. They were not dead, thosemen and women, but they wanted to be. Their bodies had been impossiblyjoined, fused together into a single obscene, floundering mass ofhelpless protoplasm. The thin moaning that went up from them was morehorrible than any cry of agony. The Invaders are here, citizens, the commentator was saying in astrangled voice. Stay off the streets. Hide yourselves. Stay off thestreets.... His voice droned on, but neither of them heard it. <doc-sep>Lorelei buried her head on his chest, clutching at him desperately.Peter! she said faintly. Why do they broadcast such things? They have to, he told her grimly. There will be panics and suicides,and they know it; but they have to do it. This isn't like a war, wherethe noncombatants' morale has to be kept up. There aren't going to beany noncombatants, this time. Everybody in the world has to know aboutthem, so that he can fight them—and then it may not be enough. The viewpoint of the teleo sender changed as the two red beings soaredaway from their victims and angled slowly up the street. Peter reachedout to switch off the scanner, and froze. The girl felt his musclestense abruptly, looked back at the scene. The Invaders were floatingup the sloping side of a tall, pure white structure that dominated therest. That's the Atlas building, she said unbelievingly. Us! Yes. Silently, they counted stories as the two beings rose. Forty-five ...forty-six ... forty-seven ... forty-eight. Inevitably, they halted.Then they faded slowly. It was impossible to say whether they had gonethrough the solid wall, or simply melted away. The man and woman clung together, waiting. There was a thick, oppressive silence, full of small rustlings andother faint sounds that were no longer normal. Then, very near, a manscreamed in a high, inhuman voice. The screamed dwindled into a throatygurgle and died, leaving silence again. Peter's lips were cold with sweat. Tiny nerves in his face and armswere jumping convulsively. His stomach crawled. He thrust the girl awayfrom him and started toward the inner room. Wait here, he mouthed. She was after him, clinging to his arms. No, Peter! Don't go in there! Peter! But he pushed her away again, woodenly, and stalked forward. There was a space in the middle of the room where machinery had beencleared away to make room for an incompleted setup. Peter walked downthe narrow aisle, past bakelite-sheathed mechanisms and rows of animalcages, and paused just short of it. The two red beings were there, formless bodies hazy in midair, thedistorted, hairless skulls in profile, staring at something outside hisrange of vision. <doc-sep>Peter forced himself forward another step. Little Harry Kanin,Lorelei's assistant, was crumpled in a corner, half supported by thebroad base of an X-ray chamber. His face was flaccid and bloated. Hisglazed eyes, impassive yet somehow pleading, stared at nothingnessstraight ahead of him. The Invaders ignored Peter, staring expressionlessly down at Kanin.In a moment Peter realized what they were doing to him. He stood,paralyzed with horror, and watched it happen. The little man's body was sagging, ever so slowly, as if he wererelaxing tiredly. His torso was telescoping, bit by bit; his spreadlegs grew wider and more shapeless, his cheeks caved in and his skullgrew gradually flatter. When it was over, the thing that had been Kanin was a limp, bonelesspuddle of flesh. Peter could not look at it. There was a scream in his throat that would not come out. He was beyondfear, beyond agony. He turned to the still-hovering monsters and saidin a terrible voice, Why? Why? The nearest being turned slowly to regard him. Its lips did not move,but there was a tiny sound in Peter's brain, a thin, dry whispering. The scream was welling up. He fought it down and listened. Wurnkomellilonasendiktolsasangkanmiamiamimami.... The face was staring directly into his, the bulging eyes hypnotic. Theears were small, no more than excresences of skin. The narrow lipsseemed sealed together; a thin, slimy ichor drooled from them. Therewere lines in the face, but they were lines of age, not emotion. Onlythe eyes were alive. ... raswilopreatadvuonistuwurncchtusanlgkelglawwalinom.... I can't understand, he cried wildly. What do you want? ... morofelcovisyanmamiwurlectaunntous. He heard a faint sound behind him, and whirled. It was the firsttime he had realized that Lorelei had followed him. She stood there,swaying, very pale, looking at the red Invaders. Her eyes swiveledslowly.... Opreniktoulestritifenrelngetnaktwiltoctpre. His voice was hoarse. Don't look! Don't—Go back! The horrible,mindless noise in his throat was almost beyond his power to repress.His insides writhed to thrust it out. She didn't see him. Her eyes glazed, and she dropped limply to thefloor. The scream came out then. Before he knew, even, that he could holdit back no longer, his mouth was wide open, his muscles tensed, hisfingernails slicing his palms. It echoed with unbelievable volume inthe room. It was a scream to split eardrums; a scream to wake the dead. <doc-sep>Somebody said, Doctor! He wanted to say, Yes, get a doctor. Lorelei— but his mouth onlytwitched feebly. He couldn't seem to get it to work properly. He tried again. Doctor. Yes? A gentle, masculine voice. He opened his eyes with an effort. There was a blurred face before him;in a moment it grew clearer. The strong, clean-shaven chin contrastedoddly with the haggard circles under the eyes. There was a clean,starched odor. Where am I? he said. He tried to turn his head, but a firm handpressed him back into the sheets. You're in a hospital. Just lie quietly, please. He tried to get up again. Where's Lorelei? She's well, and you'll see her soon. Now lie quietly. You've been avery sick man. Peter sank back in the bed. The room was coming into focus. He lookedaround him slowly. He felt very weak, but perfectly lucid. Yes.... he said. How long have I been here, Doctor? The man hesitated, looked at him intently. Three months, he said. Heturned and gave low-voiced instructions to a nurse, and then went away. Peter's head began spinning just a little. Glass clinked from a metalstand near his head; the nurse bent over him with a glass half full ofmilky fluid. It tasted awful, but she made him drink it all. In a moment he began to relax, and the room got fuzzy again. Justbefore he drifted off, he said sleepily, You can't—fool me. It's been more —than three—months. He was right. All the nurses, and even Dr. Arnold, were evasive, but hekept asking them why he couldn't see Lorelei, and finally he wormed itout of them. It had been nine and a half months, not three, and he'dbeen in a coma all that time. Lorelei, it seemed, had recovered muchsooner. She was only suffering from ordinary shock, Arnold explained.Seeing that assistant of hers—it was enough to knock anybody out,especially a woman. But you stood actual mental contact with them for approximately five minutes. Yes, we know—you talked a lot. It's amiracle you're alive, and rational. But where is she? Peter complained. You still haven't explained whyI haven't been able to see her. Arnold frowned. All right, he said. I guess you're strong enough totake it. She's underground, with the rest of the women and children,and a good two-thirds of the male population. That's where you'll go,as soon as you're well enough to be moved. We started digging in sixmonths ago. But why? Peter whispered. Arnold's strong jaw knotted. We're hiding, he said. Everything elsehas failed. Peter couldn't think of anything to say. Dr. Arnold's voice went onafter a moment, musingly. We're burrowing into the earth, like worms.It didn't take us long to find out we couldn't kill them. They didn'teven take any notice of our attempts to do so, except once. That waswhen a squadron of the Police caught about fifty of them together atone time, and attacked with flame guns and a new secret weapon. Itdidn't hurt them, but it annoyed them. It was the first time they'dbeen annoyed, I think. They blew up half a state, and it's stillsmoldering. And since then? Peter asked huskily. Since then, we've been burrowing. All the big cities.... It would bean impossible task if we tried to include all the thinly-populatedareas, of course, but it doesn't matter. By the time we excavateenough to take care of a quarter of the earth's population, the otherthree-quarters will be dead, or worse. I wonder, Peter said shakily, if I am strong enough to take it. Arnold laughed harshly. You are. You've got to be. You're part of ourlast hope, you see. Our last hope? Yes. You're a scientist. I see, said Peter. And for the first time, he thought of the Citadel . No plan leaped full-born into his mind, but, maybe , hethought, there's a chance .... <doc-sep>It wasn't very big, the thing that had been his shining dream. It laythere in its rough cradle, a globe of raw dura-steel not more thanfive hundred meters in diameter, where the Citadel was to have been athousand. It wouldn't house a hundred scientists, eagerly delving intothe hinterland of research. The huge compartments weren't filled withthe latest equipment for chemical and physical experiment; instead,there was compressed oxygen there, and concentrated food, enough tolast a lifetime. It was a new world, all by itself; or else it was a tomb. And there wasone other change, one that you couldn't see from the outside. The solidmeters of lead in its outer skin, the shielding to keep out cosmicrays, were gone. A man had just finished engraving the final stroke on its nameplate, tothe left of the airlock— The Avenger . He stepped away now, and joinedthe group a little distance away, silently waiting. Lorelei said, You can't do it. I won't let you! Peter— Darling, he began wearily. Don't throw your life away! Give us time—there must be another way. There's no other way, Peter said. He gripped her arms tightly, as ifhe could compel her to understand by the sheer pressure of his fingers.Darling, listen to me. We've tried everything. We've gone underground,but that's only delaying the end. They still come down here, only notas many. The mortality rate is up, the suicide rate is up, the birthrate is down, in spite of anything we can do. You've seen the figures:we're riding a curve that ends in extinction fifty years from now. They'll live, and we'll die, because they're a superior race. We're amillion years too far back even to understand what they are or wherethey came from. Besides them, we're apes. There's only one answer. She was crying now, silently, with great racking sobs that shook herslender body. But he went remorselessly on. Out there, in space, the cosmics change unshielded life. Theymake tentacles out of arms; or scales out of hair; or twelve toes,or a dozen ears—or a better brain. Out of those millions ofpossible mutations, there's one that will save the human race. Wecan't fight them , but a superman could. That's our only chance.Lorelei—darling—don't you see that? She choked, But why can't you take me along? He stared unseeingly past her wet, upturned face. You know why, hesaid bitterly. Those rays are strong. They don't only work on embryos;they change adult life forms, too. I have one chance in seven ofstaying alive. You'd have one chance in a million of staying beautiful.I couldn't stand that. I'd kill myself, and then humanity would die,too. You'd be their murderer. Her sobs gradually died away. She straightened slowly until he nolonger had to support her, but all the vitality and resilience was goneout of her body. All right, she said in a lifeless voice. You'llcome back, Peter. He turned away suddenly, not trusting himself to kiss her goodbye. Aline from an old film kept echoing through his head. They'll comeback—but not as boys ! We'll come back, but not as men. We'll come back, but not as elephants. We'll come back, but not as octopi. <doc-sep>He was trembling violently. He ran the last few steps, stumbled intothe airlock, and pressed the stud that would seal the door behind him. We'll come back.... He heard the massive disk sink home, closing himoff. Then he sank down on the floor of the airlock and put his head inshaking hands. After a while he roused himself, closed the inner door of the lockbehind him, and walked down the long corridor into the control chamber.The shining banks of keys were there, waiting for his touch; he slumpeddown before them and listlessly closed the contact of the visiplate. He swung its field slowly, scanning for the last time the bare wallsof the underground chamber, making sure that all the spectators hadretired out of the way of the blast. Then his clawed fingers poisedover the keys, hovered a moment, and thrust down. Acceleration pressed him deep into his chair. In the visiplate, theheavy doors that closed the tunnel above him flashed back, one by one.The energy-charged screen flickered off to let him pass, and closedsmoothly behind him. The last doors, cleverly camouflaged, slipped backinto place and then dwindled in the distance. It was done. He flashed on out, past the moon, past Mars, over the asteroid belt.The days merged into weeks, then months, and finally, far out, TheAvenger curved into an orbit and held it. The great motors died, andthe silence pressed in about him. Already he could feel the invisible rays burning resistlessly throughhis flesh as if it were water, shifting the cells of his body, workingits slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changeswere unmistakably evident in his skin and hair, and then he smashed allthe mirrors in the ship. The embryos were pulsing with unnatural life, even in the suspendedanimation of their crystal cells. One by one he allowed them tomature, and after weeks or years destroyed the monstrosities that camefrom the incubators. Time went by, meaninglessly. He ate when he washungry, slept when his driving purpose let him, and worked unceasingly,searching for the million-to-one chance. He stared sometimes through changed eyes at the tiny blue star that wasEarth, wondering if the race he had left behind still burrowed in itsworm-tunnels, digging deeper and deeper away from the sunlight. Butafter a time he ceased even to wonder. And one changeling-child he did not destroy. He fed knowledge to itseager brain, and watched it through the swift years, with a dawninghope.... <doc-sep>Peter closed the diary. The rest you know, Robert, he said. Yes, I told him. I was that child. I am the millionth mutation youwere searching for. His eyes glowed suddenly in their misshapen sockets. You are. Yourbrain is as superior to mine as mine is to an anthropoid's. You solveinstinctively problems that would take our mechanical computers hoursof work. You are a superman. I am without your imperfections, I said, flexing my arms. He rose and strode nervously over to the window. I watched him as hestood there, outlined against the blazing galaxies. He had changed butlittle in the years that I had known him. His lank gray hair straggledover his sunken eyes; his cheeks were blobbed with excresences offlesh; one corner of his mouth was drawn up in a perpetual grin. He hada tiny sixth finger on his left hand. He turned again, and I saw the old scar on his cheek where I had onceaccidentally drawn one of my talons across his face. And now, he said softly, we will go home. I've waited solong—keeping the control chamber and the engine room locked away fromyou, not telling you, even, about Earth until now—because I had to besure. But now, the waiting is over. They're still there, I'm sure of it—the people, and the Invaders. Youcan kill the Invaders, Robert. He looked at me, a little oddly, almost as if he had some instinctiveknowledge of what was to come. But he went on swiftly, On Earth wehad a saying: 'Fight fire with fire.' That is the way it will be withyou. You are completely, coldly logical, just as they are. You canunderstand them, and so you can conquer them. I said, That is the reason why we will not go back to Earth. He stared at me, his jaw slack, his hands trembling. What—what didyou say? I repeated it patiently. But why? he cried, sinking down into the chair before me. In aninstant all the joy had gone out of him. I could not understand hissuffering, but I could recognize it. You yourself have said it, I told him. I am a being of logic, justas the beings who have invaded your planet are. I do not comprehend thethings which you call hate, fear, joy and love, as they do not. If Iwent to Earth, I would use your people to further my knowledge, just asthe invaders do. I would have no reason to kill the invaders. They aremore nearly kin to me than your people. <doc-sep>Peter's eyes were dull, his limbs slumped. For a moment I thought thatthe shock had deranged his mind. His voice trembled when he said, But if I ask you to kill them, andnot my people? To do so would be illogical. He waved his hands helplessly. Gratitude? he muttered. No, you don't understand that, either. Then he cried suddenly, But I am your friend, Robert! I do not understand 'friend,' I said. I did understand gratitude, a little. It was a reciprocalarrangement: I did what Peter wished, so long as I did not activelywant to do otherwise, because he had done things for me. Very well,then we must not go back. It was very simple, but I knew that he couldnot comprehend it. I tried to explain it to him, however. But he only stared at me, withan expression on his face that I had never seen there before, and that,somehow, I did not like to see. It was disquieting, and so I hastenedto the end that I knew was inevitable. <doc-sep></s>

The story is first set inside Peter’s office. There is a window that he initially sees the Invader through. The window can see up to fifty stories high. There is also a desk with a newsbox on it, where he lights his cigarette. His office also has a chair. Many places worldwide are mentioned too, such as London, Hong Kong, Paris, and Boston. Lorelei’s laboratory is two stories down the moving ramp. It is behind a door marked “Radiation”, and there is also a door mechanism with a password set to “Etaoin Shrdlu”. Lorelei owns a scanner, a video panel on the wall that is initially covered in papers. There is also an inner room with an X-ray chamber. The building they are in is called the Atlas building. After Peter wakes from his coma, the story is set in a hospital underground. There is a metal stand and a bed for Peter to lie on. When he goes off with the mission to bring back a superman, the ship exits from the underground launch chamber and goes into space. Peter goes past the Moon, past Mars, and over the asteroid belt. From his distance, Earth is a tiny blue star.

<s> THE AVENGER By STUART FLEMING Karson was creating a superman to fight the weird super-monsters who had invaded Earth. But he was forgetting one tiny thing—like calls to like. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Peter Karson was dead. He had been dead for some time now, butthe dark blood was still oozing from the crushed ruin of his face,trickling down into his sodden sleeve, and falling, drop by slow drop,from his fingertips. His head was tilted over the back of the chair ata queer, unnatural angle, so that the light made deep pools of shadowwhere his eyes had been. There was no sound in the room except for the small splashing theblood made as it dropped into the sticky pool on the floor. The greatbanks of machinery around the walls were silent. I knew that they wouldnever come to life again. I rose and walked over to the window. Outside, the stars were asbefore: tiny, myriad points of light, infinitely far away. They had notchanged, and yet they were suddenly no longer friendly. They were coldand alien. It was I who had changed: something inside me was dead, likethe machinery, and like Peter. It was a kind of indefinable emptiness. I do not think it was whatPeter called an emotion; and yet it had nothing to do with logic,either. It was just an emptiness—a void that could not be filled byeating or drinking. It was not a longing. I had no desire that things should be otherwisethan they were. I did not even wish that Peter were not dead, forreason had told me that he had to die. That was the end of it. But the void was still there, unexplainable and impossible to ignore.For the first time in all my life I had found a problem that I couldnot solve. Strange, disturbing sensations stirred and whispered withinme, nagging, gnawing. And suddenly—something moved on the skin of mycheek. I raised a hand to it, slowly. A tear was trickling down my cheek. <doc-sep>Young Peter Karson put the last black-print down and sighed withsatisfaction. His dream was perfect; the Citadel was complete, everyminutest detail provided for—on paper. In two weeks they would belaying the core, and then the metal giant itself would begin to grow,glittering, pulsing with each increment of power, until at last it layfinished, a living thing. Then there would remain only the task of blasting the great, shiningship out into the carefully-calculated orbit that would be its home.In his mind's eye he could see it, slowly wheeling, like a secondsatellite, about the Earth; endlessly gathering knowledge into itsinsatiable mechanisms. He could see, too, the level on level oflaboratories and storerooms that filled its interlocking segments; themeteor deflectors, the air renewal system, the mighty engines at thestern—all the children of his brain. Out there, away from the muffling, distorting, damnable blanket ofatmosphere, away from Earth's inexorable gravitational pull, would bea laboratory such as man had never seen. The ship would be filled withthe sounds of busy men and women, wresting secrets from the reluctantether. A new chemistry, a new physics; perhaps even a new biochemistry. A discordant note suddenly entered his fantasy. He looked up, consciousof the walls of his office again, but could see nothing unusual. Still,that thin, dark whisper of dread was at the back of his mind. Slowly,as if reluctantly compelled, he turned around to face the window at hisback. There, outside the window, fifty stories up, a face was staringimpassively in at him. That was the first impression he got; just aface, staring. Then he saw, with a queer, icy chill, that the face wasblood-red and subtly inhuman. It tapered off into a formless, shriveledbody. For a moment or an eternity it hung there, unsupported, the bulgingeyes staring at him. Then it grew misty at the edges. It dissolvedslowly away and was gone. Lord! he said. He stared after it, stunned into immobility. Down in the streetsomewhere, a portable video was shrilling a popular song; after amoment he heard the faint swish of a tube car going past. Everythingwas normal. Nothing, on examination, seemed to have changed. But theworld had grown suddenly unreal. One part of his brain had been shocked into its shell. It was hidingfrom the thing that had hurt it, and it refused to respond. But theother part was going calmly, lucidly on, quite without his volition.It considered the possibility that he had gone temporarily insane, anddecided that this was probable. Hardly knowing what he did, he found a cigarette and lit it. His handswere shaking. He stared at them dully, and then he reached over to thenewsbox on his desk, and switched it on. There were flaring red headlines. Relief washed over him, leaving him breathless. He was horrified,of course, but only abstractedly. For the moment he could only beglad that what he had seen was terrible reality rather than even moreterrible illusion. INVADERS APPEAR IN BOSTON. 200 DEAD Then lines of type, and farther down: 50 CHILDREN DISAPPEAR FROM PARIS MATERNITY CENTER He pressed the stud. The roll was full of them. MOON SHIP DESTROYED IN TRANSIT NO COMMUNICATION FROM ANTARCTICA IN 6 HOURS STRANGE FORCE DEFLECTS PLANES FROM SAHARA AREA WORLD POLICE MOBILIZING The item below the last one said: Pacifica, June 7—The World Police are mobilizing, for the first timein fifty years. The order was made public early this morning byR. Stein, Secretary of the Council, who said in part: The reason for this ... order must be apparent to all civilizedpeoples. For the Invaders have spared no part of this planet in theirdepredations: they have laid Hong Kong waste; they have terrorizedLondon; they have destroyed the lives of citizens in every member stateand in every inhabited area. There can be few within reach of printedreports or my words who have not seen the Invaders, or whose friendshave not seen them. The peoples of the world, then, know what they are, and know thatwe face the most momentous struggle in our history. We face an enemy superior to ourselves in every way . Since the Invaders first appeared in Wood River, Oregon, 24 hoursago, they have not once acknowledged our attempts to communicate, orin any way taken notice of our existence as reasoning beings. Theyhave treated us precisely as we, in less enlightened days, mighthave treated a newly-discovered race of lower animals. They have notattacked our centers of government, nor immobilized our communications,nor laid siege to our defenses. But in instance after instance, theyhave done as they would with us. They have examined us, dissected us,driven us mad, killed us with no discernable provocation; and this ismore intolerable than any normal invasion. I have no fear that the people of Earth will fail to meet thischallenge, for there is no alternative. Not only our individual livesare threatened, but our existence as a race. We must, and will, destroythe Invaders! Peter sank back in his chair, the full shock of it striking him for thefirst time. Will we? he asked himself softly. <doc-sep>It was only two stories down the moving ramp to Lorelei Cooper'slaboratory. Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled toa halt in front of the door marked Radiation. She had set her doormechanism to Etaoin Shrdlu, principally because he hated double-talk.He mouthed the syllables, had to repeat them because he put an accentin the wrong place, and squeezed through the door as soon as it openedfar enough to admit him. Lorelei, beautiful in spite of dark-circled eyes and a smear of greaseon her chin, looked up from a huge ledger at the end of the room. Oneblonde eyebrow arched in the quizzical expression he knew so well. What makes, Peter my love? she asked, and bent back to the ledger.Then she did a double-take, looked at his face intently, and said,Darling, what's wrong? He said, Have you seen the news recently? She frowned. Why, no—Harry and I have been working for thirty-sixhours straight. Haven't seen anybody, haven't heard anything. Why? You wouldn't believe me. Where's your newsbox? She came around the desk and put her hands on his shoulders. Pete,you know I haven't one—it bores me or upsets me, depending on whetherthere's trouble or not. What— I'm sorry, I forgot, he said. But you have a scanner? Yes, of course. But really, Pete— You'll understand in a minute. Turn it on, Lorelei. She gazed at him levelly for a moment, kissed him impulsively, and thenwalked over to the video panel on the wall and swept a mountain ofpapers away from in front of it. She turned the selector dial to Newsand pressed the stud. A faint wash of color appeared on the panel, strengthened slowly, andsuddenly leapt into full brilliance. Lorelei caught her breath. It was a street scene in the Science City of Manhattan, flooded bythe warm spring sunshine. Down on the lowest level, visible past thetransport and passenger tubes, the parks and moving ways should havebeen dotted with colorful, holiday crowds. The people were there,yes but they were flowing away in a swiftly-widening circle. Theydisappeared into buildings, and the ways snatched them up, and in aheartbeat they were gone. There were left only two blood-red, malignant monstrosities somehowdefiling the air they floated in; and below them, a pitiful huddle offlesh no longer recognizable as human beings. They were not dead, thosemen and women, but they wanted to be. Their bodies had been impossiblyjoined, fused together into a single obscene, floundering mass ofhelpless protoplasm. The thin moaning that went up from them was morehorrible than any cry of agony. The Invaders are here, citizens, the commentator was saying in astrangled voice. Stay off the streets. Hide yourselves. Stay off thestreets.... His voice droned on, but neither of them heard it. <doc-sep>Lorelei buried her head on his chest, clutching at him desperately.Peter! she said faintly. Why do they broadcast such things? They have to, he told her grimly. There will be panics and suicides,and they know it; but they have to do it. This isn't like a war, wherethe noncombatants' morale has to be kept up. There aren't going to beany noncombatants, this time. Everybody in the world has to know aboutthem, so that he can fight them—and then it may not be enough. The viewpoint of the teleo sender changed as the two red beings soaredaway from their victims and angled slowly up the street. Peter reachedout to switch off the scanner, and froze. The girl felt his musclestense abruptly, looked back at the scene. The Invaders were floatingup the sloping side of a tall, pure white structure that dominated therest. That's the Atlas building, she said unbelievingly. Us! Yes. Silently, they counted stories as the two beings rose. Forty-five ...forty-six ... forty-seven ... forty-eight. Inevitably, they halted.Then they faded slowly. It was impossible to say whether they had gonethrough the solid wall, or simply melted away. The man and woman clung together, waiting. There was a thick, oppressive silence, full of small rustlings andother faint sounds that were no longer normal. Then, very near, a manscreamed in a high, inhuman voice. The screamed dwindled into a throatygurgle and died, leaving silence again. Peter's lips were cold with sweat. Tiny nerves in his face and armswere jumping convulsively. His stomach crawled. He thrust the girl awayfrom him and started toward the inner room. Wait here, he mouthed. She was after him, clinging to his arms. No, Peter! Don't go in there! Peter! But he pushed her away again, woodenly, and stalked forward. There was a space in the middle of the room where machinery had beencleared away to make room for an incompleted setup. Peter walked downthe narrow aisle, past bakelite-sheathed mechanisms and rows of animalcages, and paused just short of it. The two red beings were there, formless bodies hazy in midair, thedistorted, hairless skulls in profile, staring at something outside hisrange of vision. <doc-sep>Peter forced himself forward another step. Little Harry Kanin,Lorelei's assistant, was crumpled in a corner, half supported by thebroad base of an X-ray chamber. His face was flaccid and bloated. Hisglazed eyes, impassive yet somehow pleading, stared at nothingnessstraight ahead of him. The Invaders ignored Peter, staring expressionlessly down at Kanin.In a moment Peter realized what they were doing to him. He stood,paralyzed with horror, and watched it happen. The little man's body was sagging, ever so slowly, as if he wererelaxing tiredly. His torso was telescoping, bit by bit; his spreadlegs grew wider and more shapeless, his cheeks caved in and his skullgrew gradually flatter. When it was over, the thing that had been Kanin was a limp, bonelesspuddle of flesh. Peter could not look at it. There was a scream in his throat that would not come out. He was beyondfear, beyond agony. He turned to the still-hovering monsters and saidin a terrible voice, Why? Why? The nearest being turned slowly to regard him. Its lips did not move,but there was a tiny sound in Peter's brain, a thin, dry whispering. The scream was welling up. He fought it down and listened. Wurnkomellilonasendiktolsasangkanmiamiamimami.... The face was staring directly into his, the bulging eyes hypnotic. Theears were small, no more than excresences of skin. The narrow lipsseemed sealed together; a thin, slimy ichor drooled from them. Therewere lines in the face, but they were lines of age, not emotion. Onlythe eyes were alive. ... raswilopreatadvuonistuwurncchtusanlgkelglawwalinom.... I can't understand, he cried wildly. What do you want? ... morofelcovisyanmamiwurlectaunntous. He heard a faint sound behind him, and whirled. It was the firsttime he had realized that Lorelei had followed him. She stood there,swaying, very pale, looking at the red Invaders. Her eyes swiveledslowly.... Opreniktoulestritifenrelngetnaktwiltoctpre. His voice was hoarse. Don't look! Don't—Go back! The horrible,mindless noise in his throat was almost beyond his power to repress.His insides writhed to thrust it out. She didn't see him. Her eyes glazed, and she dropped limply to thefloor. The scream came out then. Before he knew, even, that he could holdit back no longer, his mouth was wide open, his muscles tensed, hisfingernails slicing his palms. It echoed with unbelievable volume inthe room. It was a scream to split eardrums; a scream to wake the dead. <doc-sep>Somebody said, Doctor! He wanted to say, Yes, get a doctor. Lorelei— but his mouth onlytwitched feebly. He couldn't seem to get it to work properly. He tried again. Doctor. Yes? A gentle, masculine voice. He opened his eyes with an effort. There was a blurred face before him;in a moment it grew clearer. The strong, clean-shaven chin contrastedoddly with the haggard circles under the eyes. There was a clean,starched odor. Where am I? he said. He tried to turn his head, but a firm handpressed him back into the sheets. You're in a hospital. Just lie quietly, please. He tried to get up again. Where's Lorelei? She's well, and you'll see her soon. Now lie quietly. You've been avery sick man. Peter sank back in the bed. The room was coming into focus. He lookedaround him slowly. He felt very weak, but perfectly lucid. Yes.... he said. How long have I been here, Doctor? The man hesitated, looked at him intently. Three months, he said. Heturned and gave low-voiced instructions to a nurse, and then went away. Peter's head began spinning just a little. Glass clinked from a metalstand near his head; the nurse bent over him with a glass half full ofmilky fluid. It tasted awful, but she made him drink it all. In a moment he began to relax, and the room got fuzzy again. Justbefore he drifted off, he said sleepily, You can't—fool me. It's been more —than three—months. He was right. All the nurses, and even Dr. Arnold, were evasive, but hekept asking them why he couldn't see Lorelei, and finally he wormed itout of them. It had been nine and a half months, not three, and he'dbeen in a coma all that time. Lorelei, it seemed, had recovered muchsooner. She was only suffering from ordinary shock, Arnold explained.Seeing that assistant of hers—it was enough to knock anybody out,especially a woman. But you stood actual mental contact with them for approximately five minutes. Yes, we know—you talked a lot. It's amiracle you're alive, and rational. But where is she? Peter complained. You still haven't explained whyI haven't been able to see her. Arnold frowned. All right, he said. I guess you're strong enough totake it. She's underground, with the rest of the women and children,and a good two-thirds of the male population. That's where you'll go,as soon as you're well enough to be moved. We started digging in sixmonths ago. But why? Peter whispered. Arnold's strong jaw knotted. We're hiding, he said. Everything elsehas failed. Peter couldn't think of anything to say. Dr. Arnold's voice went onafter a moment, musingly. We're burrowing into the earth, like worms.It didn't take us long to find out we couldn't kill them. They didn'teven take any notice of our attempts to do so, except once. That waswhen a squadron of the Police caught about fifty of them together atone time, and attacked with flame guns and a new secret weapon. Itdidn't hurt them, but it annoyed them. It was the first time they'dbeen annoyed, I think. They blew up half a state, and it's stillsmoldering. And since then? Peter asked huskily. Since then, we've been burrowing. All the big cities.... It would bean impossible task if we tried to include all the thinly-populatedareas, of course, but it doesn't matter. By the time we excavateenough to take care of a quarter of the earth's population, the otherthree-quarters will be dead, or worse. I wonder, Peter said shakily, if I am strong enough to take it. Arnold laughed harshly. You are. You've got to be. You're part of ourlast hope, you see. Our last hope? Yes. You're a scientist. I see, said Peter. And for the first time, he thought of the Citadel . No plan leaped full-born into his mind, but, maybe , hethought, there's a chance .... <doc-sep>It wasn't very big, the thing that had been his shining dream. It laythere in its rough cradle, a globe of raw dura-steel not more thanfive hundred meters in diameter, where the Citadel was to have been athousand. It wouldn't house a hundred scientists, eagerly delving intothe hinterland of research. The huge compartments weren't filled withthe latest equipment for chemical and physical experiment; instead,there was compressed oxygen there, and concentrated food, enough tolast a lifetime. It was a new world, all by itself; or else it was a tomb. And there wasone other change, one that you couldn't see from the outside. The solidmeters of lead in its outer skin, the shielding to keep out cosmicrays, were gone. A man had just finished engraving the final stroke on its nameplate, tothe left of the airlock— The Avenger . He stepped away now, and joinedthe group a little distance away, silently waiting. Lorelei said, You can't do it. I won't let you! Peter— Darling, he began wearily. Don't throw your life away! Give us time—there must be another way. There's no other way, Peter said. He gripped her arms tightly, as ifhe could compel her to understand by the sheer pressure of his fingers.Darling, listen to me. We've tried everything. We've gone underground,but that's only delaying the end. They still come down here, only notas many. The mortality rate is up, the suicide rate is up, the birthrate is down, in spite of anything we can do. You've seen the figures:we're riding a curve that ends in extinction fifty years from now. They'll live, and we'll die, because they're a superior race. We're amillion years too far back even to understand what they are or wherethey came from. Besides them, we're apes. There's only one answer. She was crying now, silently, with great racking sobs that shook herslender body. But he went remorselessly on. Out there, in space, the cosmics change unshielded life. Theymake tentacles out of arms; or scales out of hair; or twelve toes,or a dozen ears—or a better brain. Out of those millions ofpossible mutations, there's one that will save the human race. Wecan't fight them , but a superman could. That's our only chance.Lorelei—darling—don't you see that? She choked, But why can't you take me along? He stared unseeingly past her wet, upturned face. You know why, hesaid bitterly. Those rays are strong. They don't only work on embryos;they change adult life forms, too. I have one chance in seven ofstaying alive. You'd have one chance in a million of staying beautiful.I couldn't stand that. I'd kill myself, and then humanity would die,too. You'd be their murderer. Her sobs gradually died away. She straightened slowly until he nolonger had to support her, but all the vitality and resilience was goneout of her body. All right, she said in a lifeless voice. You'llcome back, Peter. He turned away suddenly, not trusting himself to kiss her goodbye. Aline from an old film kept echoing through his head. They'll comeback—but not as boys ! We'll come back, but not as men. We'll come back, but not as elephants. We'll come back, but not as octopi. <doc-sep>He was trembling violently. He ran the last few steps, stumbled intothe airlock, and pressed the stud that would seal the door behind him. We'll come back.... He heard the massive disk sink home, closing himoff. Then he sank down on the floor of the airlock and put his head inshaking hands. After a while he roused himself, closed the inner door of the lockbehind him, and walked down the long corridor into the control chamber.The shining banks of keys were there, waiting for his touch; he slumpeddown before them and listlessly closed the contact of the visiplate. He swung its field slowly, scanning for the last time the bare wallsof the underground chamber, making sure that all the spectators hadretired out of the way of the blast. Then his clawed fingers poisedover the keys, hovered a moment, and thrust down. Acceleration pressed him deep into his chair. In the visiplate, theheavy doors that closed the tunnel above him flashed back, one by one.The energy-charged screen flickered off to let him pass, and closedsmoothly behind him. The last doors, cleverly camouflaged, slipped backinto place and then dwindled in the distance. It was done. He flashed on out, past the moon, past Mars, over the asteroid belt.The days merged into weeks, then months, and finally, far out, TheAvenger curved into an orbit and held it. The great motors died, andthe silence pressed in about him. Already he could feel the invisible rays burning resistlessly throughhis flesh as if it were water, shifting the cells of his body, workingits slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changeswere unmistakably evident in his skin and hair, and then he smashed allthe mirrors in the ship. The embryos were pulsing with unnatural life, even in the suspendedanimation of their crystal cells. One by one he allowed them tomature, and after weeks or years destroyed the monstrosities that camefrom the incubators. Time went by, meaninglessly. He ate when he washungry, slept when his driving purpose let him, and worked unceasingly,searching for the million-to-one chance. He stared sometimes through changed eyes at the tiny blue star that wasEarth, wondering if the race he had left behind still burrowed in itsworm-tunnels, digging deeper and deeper away from the sunlight. Butafter a time he ceased even to wonder. And one changeling-child he did not destroy. He fed knowledge to itseager brain, and watched it through the swift years, with a dawninghope.... <doc-sep>Peter closed the diary. The rest you know, Robert, he said. Yes, I told him. I was that child. I am the millionth mutation youwere searching for. His eyes glowed suddenly in their misshapen sockets. You are. Yourbrain is as superior to mine as mine is to an anthropoid's. You solveinstinctively problems that would take our mechanical computers hoursof work. You are a superman. I am without your imperfections, I said, flexing my arms. He rose and strode nervously over to the window. I watched him as hestood there, outlined against the blazing galaxies. He had changed butlittle in the years that I had known him. His lank gray hair straggledover his sunken eyes; his cheeks were blobbed with excresences offlesh; one corner of his mouth was drawn up in a perpetual grin. He hada tiny sixth finger on his left hand. He turned again, and I saw the old scar on his cheek where I had onceaccidentally drawn one of my talons across his face. And now, he said softly, we will go home. I've waited solong—keeping the control chamber and the engine room locked away fromyou, not telling you, even, about Earth until now—because I had to besure. But now, the waiting is over. They're still there, I'm sure of it—the people, and the Invaders. Youcan kill the Invaders, Robert. He looked at me, a little oddly, almost as if he had some instinctiveknowledge of what was to come. But he went on swiftly, On Earth wehad a saying: 'Fight fire with fire.' That is the way it will be withyou. You are completely, coldly logical, just as they are. You canunderstand them, and so you can conquer them. I said, That is the reason why we will not go back to Earth. He stared at me, his jaw slack, his hands trembling. What—what didyou say? I repeated it patiently. But why? he cried, sinking down into the chair before me. In aninstant all the joy had gone out of him. I could not understand hissuffering, but I could recognize it. You yourself have said it, I told him. I am a being of logic, justas the beings who have invaded your planet are. I do not comprehend thethings which you call hate, fear, joy and love, as they do not. If Iwent to Earth, I would use your people to further my knowledge, just asthe invaders do. I would have no reason to kill the invaders. They aremore nearly kin to me than your people. <doc-sep>Peter's eyes were dull, his limbs slumped. For a moment I thought thatthe shock had deranged his mind. His voice trembled when he said, But if I ask you to kill them, andnot my people? To do so would be illogical. He waved his hands helplessly. Gratitude? he muttered. No, you don't understand that, either. Then he cried suddenly, But I am your friend, Robert! I do not understand 'friend,' I said. I did understand gratitude, a little. It was a reciprocalarrangement: I did what Peter wished, so long as I did not activelywant to do otherwise, because he had done things for me. Very well,then we must not go back. It was very simple, but I knew that he couldnot comprehend it. I tried to explain it to him, however. But he only stared at me, withan expression on his face that I had never seen there before, and that,somehow, I did not like to see. It was disquieting, and so I hastenedto the end that I knew was inevitable. <doc-sep></s>

Peter and Lorelei are romantically involved with each other. When Lorelei sees Peter, she calls him “my love” and “darling.” She puts her hands on his shoulders too and kisses him impulsively as a sign of affection. Peter cares greatly about Lorelei, too, as she was the first person he went to find after seeing the news about the Invaders. When he tries to investigate, she clings to him and pleads for him not to go. However, she follows along too, and he is horrified at what might happen to her. After Lorelei passes out, Peter cannot help but let out a scream. Even when he wakes up from his coma, the first thing he thinks about is Lorelei and repeatedly asks where she is. Lorelei continues to beg Peter not to leave on The Avenger and asks him to reconsider. He does not want to go, but he tells her that it is the only solution. She cries, and he goes on remorselessly even though it hurts him. Lorelei wants to come along too; Peter cares too much and tells her that he could not stand seeing her change from somebody beautiful because of the rays. Although they say farewell to each other and Lorelei affirms that he will come back, Peter does not trust himself to kiss her goodbye.

<s> THE AVENGER By STUART FLEMING Karson was creating a superman to fight the weird super-monsters who had invaded Earth. But he was forgetting one tiny thing—like calls to like. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Peter Karson was dead. He had been dead for some time now, butthe dark blood was still oozing from the crushed ruin of his face,trickling down into his sodden sleeve, and falling, drop by slow drop,from his fingertips. His head was tilted over the back of the chair ata queer, unnatural angle, so that the light made deep pools of shadowwhere his eyes had been. There was no sound in the room except for the small splashing theblood made as it dropped into the sticky pool on the floor. The greatbanks of machinery around the walls were silent. I knew that they wouldnever come to life again. I rose and walked over to the window. Outside, the stars were asbefore: tiny, myriad points of light, infinitely far away. They had notchanged, and yet they were suddenly no longer friendly. They were coldand alien. It was I who had changed: something inside me was dead, likethe machinery, and like Peter. It was a kind of indefinable emptiness. I do not think it was whatPeter called an emotion; and yet it had nothing to do with logic,either. It was just an emptiness—a void that could not be filled byeating or drinking. It was not a longing. I had no desire that things should be otherwisethan they were. I did not even wish that Peter were not dead, forreason had told me that he had to die. That was the end of it. But the void was still there, unexplainable and impossible to ignore.For the first time in all my life I had found a problem that I couldnot solve. Strange, disturbing sensations stirred and whispered withinme, nagging, gnawing. And suddenly—something moved on the skin of mycheek. I raised a hand to it, slowly. A tear was trickling down my cheek. <doc-sep>Young Peter Karson put the last black-print down and sighed withsatisfaction. His dream was perfect; the Citadel was complete, everyminutest detail provided for—on paper. In two weeks they would belaying the core, and then the metal giant itself would begin to grow,glittering, pulsing with each increment of power, until at last it layfinished, a living thing. Then there would remain only the task of blasting the great, shiningship out into the carefully-calculated orbit that would be its home.In his mind's eye he could see it, slowly wheeling, like a secondsatellite, about the Earth; endlessly gathering knowledge into itsinsatiable mechanisms. He could see, too, the level on level oflaboratories and storerooms that filled its interlocking segments; themeteor deflectors, the air renewal system, the mighty engines at thestern—all the children of his brain. Out there, away from the muffling, distorting, damnable blanket ofatmosphere, away from Earth's inexorable gravitational pull, would bea laboratory such as man had never seen. The ship would be filled withthe sounds of busy men and women, wresting secrets from the reluctantether. A new chemistry, a new physics; perhaps even a new biochemistry. A discordant note suddenly entered his fantasy. He looked up, consciousof the walls of his office again, but could see nothing unusual. Still,that thin, dark whisper of dread was at the back of his mind. Slowly,as if reluctantly compelled, he turned around to face the window at hisback. There, outside the window, fifty stories up, a face was staringimpassively in at him. That was the first impression he got; just aface, staring. Then he saw, with a queer, icy chill, that the face wasblood-red and subtly inhuman. It tapered off into a formless, shriveledbody. For a moment or an eternity it hung there, unsupported, the bulgingeyes staring at him. Then it grew misty at the edges. It dissolvedslowly away and was gone. Lord! he said. He stared after it, stunned into immobility. Down in the streetsomewhere, a portable video was shrilling a popular song; after amoment he heard the faint swish of a tube car going past. Everythingwas normal. Nothing, on examination, seemed to have changed. But theworld had grown suddenly unreal. One part of his brain had been shocked into its shell. It was hidingfrom the thing that had hurt it, and it refused to respond. But theother part was going calmly, lucidly on, quite without his volition.It considered the possibility that he had gone temporarily insane, anddecided that this was probable. Hardly knowing what he did, he found a cigarette and lit it. His handswere shaking. He stared at them dully, and then he reached over to thenewsbox on his desk, and switched it on. There were flaring red headlines. Relief washed over him, leaving him breathless. He was horrified,of course, but only abstractedly. For the moment he could only beglad that what he had seen was terrible reality rather than even moreterrible illusion. INVADERS APPEAR IN BOSTON. 200 DEAD Then lines of type, and farther down: 50 CHILDREN DISAPPEAR FROM PARIS MATERNITY CENTER He pressed the stud. The roll was full of them. MOON SHIP DESTROYED IN TRANSIT NO COMMUNICATION FROM ANTARCTICA IN 6 HOURS STRANGE FORCE DEFLECTS PLANES FROM SAHARA AREA WORLD POLICE MOBILIZING The item below the last one said: Pacifica, June 7—The World Police are mobilizing, for the first timein fifty years. The order was made public early this morning byR. Stein, Secretary of the Council, who said in part: The reason for this ... order must be apparent to all civilizedpeoples. For the Invaders have spared no part of this planet in theirdepredations: they have laid Hong Kong waste; they have terrorizedLondon; they have destroyed the lives of citizens in every member stateand in every inhabited area. There can be few within reach of printedreports or my words who have not seen the Invaders, or whose friendshave not seen them. The peoples of the world, then, know what they are, and know thatwe face the most momentous struggle in our history. We face an enemy superior to ourselves in every way . Since the Invaders first appeared in Wood River, Oregon, 24 hoursago, they have not once acknowledged our attempts to communicate, orin any way taken notice of our existence as reasoning beings. Theyhave treated us precisely as we, in less enlightened days, mighthave treated a newly-discovered race of lower animals. They have notattacked our centers of government, nor immobilized our communications,nor laid siege to our defenses. But in instance after instance, theyhave done as they would with us. They have examined us, dissected us,driven us mad, killed us with no discernable provocation; and this ismore intolerable than any normal invasion. I have no fear that the people of Earth will fail to meet thischallenge, for there is no alternative. Not only our individual livesare threatened, but our existence as a race. We must, and will, destroythe Invaders! Peter sank back in his chair, the full shock of it striking him for thefirst time. Will we? he asked himself softly. <doc-sep>It was only two stories down the moving ramp to Lorelei Cooper'slaboratory. Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled toa halt in front of the door marked Radiation. She had set her doormechanism to Etaoin Shrdlu, principally because he hated double-talk.He mouthed the syllables, had to repeat them because he put an accentin the wrong place, and squeezed through the door as soon as it openedfar enough to admit him. Lorelei, beautiful in spite of dark-circled eyes and a smear of greaseon her chin, looked up from a huge ledger at the end of the room. Oneblonde eyebrow arched in the quizzical expression he knew so well. What makes, Peter my love? she asked, and bent back to the ledger.Then she did a double-take, looked at his face intently, and said,Darling, what's wrong? He said, Have you seen the news recently? She frowned. Why, no—Harry and I have been working for thirty-sixhours straight. Haven't seen anybody, haven't heard anything. Why? You wouldn't believe me. Where's your newsbox? She came around the desk and put her hands on his shoulders. Pete,you know I haven't one—it bores me or upsets me, depending on whetherthere's trouble or not. What— I'm sorry, I forgot, he said. But you have a scanner? Yes, of course. But really, Pete— You'll understand in a minute. Turn it on, Lorelei. She gazed at him levelly for a moment, kissed him impulsively, and thenwalked over to the video panel on the wall and swept a mountain ofpapers away from in front of it. She turned the selector dial to Newsand pressed the stud. A faint wash of color appeared on the panel, strengthened slowly, andsuddenly leapt into full brilliance. Lorelei caught her breath. It was a street scene in the Science City of Manhattan, flooded bythe warm spring sunshine. Down on the lowest level, visible past thetransport and passenger tubes, the parks and moving ways should havebeen dotted with colorful, holiday crowds. The people were there,yes but they were flowing away in a swiftly-widening circle. Theydisappeared into buildings, and the ways snatched them up, and in aheartbeat they were gone. There were left only two blood-red, malignant monstrosities somehowdefiling the air they floated in; and below them, a pitiful huddle offlesh no longer recognizable as human beings. They were not dead, thosemen and women, but they wanted to be. Their bodies had been impossiblyjoined, fused together into a single obscene, floundering mass ofhelpless protoplasm. The thin moaning that went up from them was morehorrible than any cry of agony. The Invaders are here, citizens, the commentator was saying in astrangled voice. Stay off the streets. Hide yourselves. Stay off thestreets.... His voice droned on, but neither of them heard it. <doc-sep>Lorelei buried her head on his chest, clutching at him desperately.Peter! she said faintly. Why do they broadcast such things? They have to, he told her grimly. There will be panics and suicides,and they know it; but they have to do it. This isn't like a war, wherethe noncombatants' morale has to be kept up. There aren't going to beany noncombatants, this time. Everybody in the world has to know aboutthem, so that he can fight them—and then it may not be enough. The viewpoint of the teleo sender changed as the two red beings soaredaway from their victims and angled slowly up the street. Peter reachedout to switch off the scanner, and froze. The girl felt his musclestense abruptly, looked back at the scene. The Invaders were floatingup the sloping side of a tall, pure white structure that dominated therest. That's the Atlas building, she said unbelievingly. Us! Yes. Silently, they counted stories as the two beings rose. Forty-five ...forty-six ... forty-seven ... forty-eight. Inevitably, they halted.Then they faded slowly. It was impossible to say whether they had gonethrough the solid wall, or simply melted away. The man and woman clung together, waiting. There was a thick, oppressive silence, full of small rustlings andother faint sounds that were no longer normal. Then, very near, a manscreamed in a high, inhuman voice. The screamed dwindled into a throatygurgle and died, leaving silence again. Peter's lips were cold with sweat. Tiny nerves in his face and armswere jumping convulsively. His stomach crawled. He thrust the girl awayfrom him and started toward the inner room. Wait here, he mouthed. She was after him, clinging to his arms. No, Peter! Don't go in there! Peter! But he pushed her away again, woodenly, and stalked forward. There was a space in the middle of the room where machinery had beencleared away to make room for an incompleted setup. Peter walked downthe narrow aisle, past bakelite-sheathed mechanisms and rows of animalcages, and paused just short of it. The two red beings were there, formless bodies hazy in midair, thedistorted, hairless skulls in profile, staring at something outside hisrange of vision. <doc-sep>Peter forced himself forward another step. Little Harry Kanin,Lorelei's assistant, was crumpled in a corner, half supported by thebroad base of an X-ray chamber. His face was flaccid and bloated. Hisglazed eyes, impassive yet somehow pleading, stared at nothingnessstraight ahead of him. The Invaders ignored Peter, staring expressionlessly down at Kanin.In a moment Peter realized what they were doing to him. He stood,paralyzed with horror, and watched it happen. The little man's body was sagging, ever so slowly, as if he wererelaxing tiredly. His torso was telescoping, bit by bit; his spreadlegs grew wider and more shapeless, his cheeks caved in and his skullgrew gradually flatter. When it was over, the thing that had been Kanin was a limp, bonelesspuddle of flesh. Peter could not look at it. There was a scream in his throat that would not come out. He was beyondfear, beyond agony. He turned to the still-hovering monsters and saidin a terrible voice, Why? Why? The nearest being turned slowly to regard him. Its lips did not move,but there was a tiny sound in Peter's brain, a thin, dry whispering. The scream was welling up. He fought it down and listened. Wurnkomellilonasendiktolsasangkanmiamiamimami.... The face was staring directly into his, the bulging eyes hypnotic. Theears were small, no more than excresences of skin. The narrow lipsseemed sealed together; a thin, slimy ichor drooled from them. Therewere lines in the face, but they were lines of age, not emotion. Onlythe eyes were alive. ... raswilopreatadvuonistuwurncchtusanlgkelglawwalinom.... I can't understand, he cried wildly. What do you want? ... morofelcovisyanmamiwurlectaunntous. He heard a faint sound behind him, and whirled. It was the firsttime he had realized that Lorelei had followed him. She stood there,swaying, very pale, looking at the red Invaders. Her eyes swiveledslowly.... Opreniktoulestritifenrelngetnaktwiltoctpre. His voice was hoarse. Don't look! Don't—Go back! The horrible,mindless noise in his throat was almost beyond his power to repress.His insides writhed to thrust it out. She didn't see him. Her eyes glazed, and she dropped limply to thefloor. The scream came out then. Before he knew, even, that he could holdit back no longer, his mouth was wide open, his muscles tensed, hisfingernails slicing his palms. It echoed with unbelievable volume inthe room. It was a scream to split eardrums; a scream to wake the dead. <doc-sep>Somebody said, Doctor! He wanted to say, Yes, get a doctor. Lorelei— but his mouth onlytwitched feebly. He couldn't seem to get it to work properly. He tried again. Doctor. Yes? A gentle, masculine voice. He opened his eyes with an effort. There was a blurred face before him;in a moment it grew clearer. The strong, clean-shaven chin contrastedoddly with the haggard circles under the eyes. There was a clean,starched odor. Where am I? he said. He tried to turn his head, but a firm handpressed him back into the sheets. You're in a hospital. Just lie quietly, please. He tried to get up again. Where's Lorelei? She's well, and you'll see her soon. Now lie quietly. You've been avery sick man. Peter sank back in the bed. The room was coming into focus. He lookedaround him slowly. He felt very weak, but perfectly lucid. Yes.... he said. How long have I been here, Doctor? The man hesitated, looked at him intently. Three months, he said. Heturned and gave low-voiced instructions to a nurse, and then went away. Peter's head began spinning just a little. Glass clinked from a metalstand near his head; the nurse bent over him with a glass half full ofmilky fluid. It tasted awful, but she made him drink it all. In a moment he began to relax, and the room got fuzzy again. Justbefore he drifted off, he said sleepily, You can't—fool me. It's been more —than three—months. He was right. All the nurses, and even Dr. Arnold, were evasive, but hekept asking them why he couldn't see Lorelei, and finally he wormed itout of them. It had been nine and a half months, not three, and he'dbeen in a coma all that time. Lorelei, it seemed, had recovered muchsooner. She was only suffering from ordinary shock, Arnold explained.Seeing that assistant of hers—it was enough to knock anybody out,especially a woman. But you stood actual mental contact with them for approximately five minutes. Yes, we know—you talked a lot. It's amiracle you're alive, and rational. But where is she? Peter complained. You still haven't explained whyI haven't been able to see her. Arnold frowned. All right, he said. I guess you're strong enough totake it. She's underground, with the rest of the women and children,and a good two-thirds of the male population. That's where you'll go,as soon as you're well enough to be moved. We started digging in sixmonths ago. But why? Peter whispered. Arnold's strong jaw knotted. We're hiding, he said. Everything elsehas failed. Peter couldn't think of anything to say. Dr. Arnold's voice went onafter a moment, musingly. We're burrowing into the earth, like worms.It didn't take us long to find out we couldn't kill them. They didn'teven take any notice of our attempts to do so, except once. That waswhen a squadron of the Police caught about fifty of them together atone time, and attacked with flame guns and a new secret weapon. Itdidn't hurt them, but it annoyed them. It was the first time they'dbeen annoyed, I think. They blew up half a state, and it's stillsmoldering. And since then? Peter asked huskily. Since then, we've been burrowing. All the big cities.... It would bean impossible task if we tried to include all the thinly-populatedareas, of course, but it doesn't matter. By the time we excavateenough to take care of a quarter of the earth's population, the otherthree-quarters will be dead, or worse. I wonder, Peter said shakily, if I am strong enough to take it. Arnold laughed harshly. You are. You've got to be. You're part of ourlast hope, you see. Our last hope? Yes. You're a scientist. I see, said Peter. And for the first time, he thought of the Citadel . No plan leaped full-born into his mind, but, maybe , hethought, there's a chance .... <doc-sep>It wasn't very big, the thing that had been his shining dream. It laythere in its rough cradle, a globe of raw dura-steel not more thanfive hundred meters in diameter, where the Citadel was to have been athousand. It wouldn't house a hundred scientists, eagerly delving intothe hinterland of research. The huge compartments weren't filled withthe latest equipment for chemical and physical experiment; instead,there was compressed oxygen there, and concentrated food, enough tolast a lifetime. It was a new world, all by itself; or else it was a tomb. And there wasone other change, one that you couldn't see from the outside. The solidmeters of lead in its outer skin, the shielding to keep out cosmicrays, were gone. A man had just finished engraving the final stroke on its nameplate, tothe left of the airlock— The Avenger . He stepped away now, and joinedthe group a little distance away, silently waiting. Lorelei said, You can't do it. I won't let you! Peter— Darling, he began wearily. Don't throw your life away! Give us time—there must be another way. There's no other way, Peter said. He gripped her arms tightly, as ifhe could compel her to understand by the sheer pressure of his fingers.Darling, listen to me. We've tried everything. We've gone underground,but that's only delaying the end. They still come down here, only notas many. The mortality rate is up, the suicide rate is up, the birthrate is down, in spite of anything we can do. You've seen the figures:we're riding a curve that ends in extinction fifty years from now. They'll live, and we'll die, because they're a superior race. We're amillion years too far back even to understand what they are or wherethey came from. Besides them, we're apes. There's only one answer. She was crying now, silently, with great racking sobs that shook herslender body. But he went remorselessly on. Out there, in space, the cosmics change unshielded life. Theymake tentacles out of arms; or scales out of hair; or twelve toes,or a dozen ears—or a better brain. Out of those millions ofpossible mutations, there's one that will save the human race. Wecan't fight them , but a superman could. That's our only chance.Lorelei—darling—don't you see that? She choked, But why can't you take me along? He stared unseeingly past her wet, upturned face. You know why, hesaid bitterly. Those rays are strong. They don't only work on embryos;they change adult life forms, too. I have one chance in seven ofstaying alive. You'd have one chance in a million of staying beautiful.I couldn't stand that. I'd kill myself, and then humanity would die,too. You'd be their murderer. Her sobs gradually died away. She straightened slowly until he nolonger had to support her, but all the vitality and resilience was goneout of her body. All right, she said in a lifeless voice. You'llcome back, Peter. He turned away suddenly, not trusting himself to kiss her goodbye. Aline from an old film kept echoing through his head. They'll comeback—but not as boys ! We'll come back, but not as men. We'll come back, but not as elephants. We'll come back, but not as octopi. <doc-sep>He was trembling violently. He ran the last few steps, stumbled intothe airlock, and pressed the stud that would seal the door behind him. We'll come back.... He heard the massive disk sink home, closing himoff. Then he sank down on the floor of the airlock and put his head inshaking hands. After a while he roused himself, closed the inner door of the lockbehind him, and walked down the long corridor into the control chamber.The shining banks of keys were there, waiting for his touch; he slumpeddown before them and listlessly closed the contact of the visiplate. He swung its field slowly, scanning for the last time the bare wallsof the underground chamber, making sure that all the spectators hadretired out of the way of the blast. Then his clawed fingers poisedover the keys, hovered a moment, and thrust down. Acceleration pressed him deep into his chair. In the visiplate, theheavy doors that closed the tunnel above him flashed back, one by one.The energy-charged screen flickered off to let him pass, and closedsmoothly behind him. The last doors, cleverly camouflaged, slipped backinto place and then dwindled in the distance. It was done. He flashed on out, past the moon, past Mars, over the asteroid belt.The days merged into weeks, then months, and finally, far out, TheAvenger curved into an orbit and held it. The great motors died, andthe silence pressed in about him. Already he could feel the invisible rays burning resistlessly throughhis flesh as if it were water, shifting the cells of his body, workingits slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changeswere unmistakably evident in his skin and hair, and then he smashed allthe mirrors in the ship. The embryos were pulsing with unnatural life, even in the suspendedanimation of their crystal cells. One by one he allowed them tomature, and after weeks or years destroyed the monstrosities that camefrom the incubators. Time went by, meaninglessly. He ate when he washungry, slept when his driving purpose let him, and worked unceasingly,searching for the million-to-one chance. He stared sometimes through changed eyes at the tiny blue star that wasEarth, wondering if the race he had left behind still burrowed in itsworm-tunnels, digging deeper and deeper away from the sunlight. Butafter a time he ceased even to wonder. And one changeling-child he did not destroy. He fed knowledge to itseager brain, and watched it through the swift years, with a dawninghope.... <doc-sep>Peter closed the diary. The rest you know, Robert, he said. Yes, I told him. I was that child. I am the millionth mutation youwere searching for. His eyes glowed suddenly in their misshapen sockets. You are. Yourbrain is as superior to mine as mine is to an anthropoid's. You solveinstinctively problems that would take our mechanical computers hoursof work. You are a superman. I am without your imperfections, I said, flexing my arms. He rose and strode nervously over to the window. I watched him as hestood there, outlined against the blazing galaxies. He had changed butlittle in the years that I had known him. His lank gray hair straggledover his sunken eyes; his cheeks were blobbed with excresences offlesh; one corner of his mouth was drawn up in a perpetual grin. He hada tiny sixth finger on his left hand. He turned again, and I saw the old scar on his cheek where I had onceaccidentally drawn one of my talons across his face. And now, he said softly, we will go home. I've waited solong—keeping the control chamber and the engine room locked away fromyou, not telling you, even, about Earth until now—because I had to besure. But now, the waiting is over. They're still there, I'm sure of it—the people, and the Invaders. Youcan kill the Invaders, Robert. He looked at me, a little oddly, almost as if he had some instinctiveknowledge of what was to come. But he went on swiftly, On Earth wehad a saying: 'Fight fire with fire.' That is the way it will be withyou. You are completely, coldly logical, just as they are. You canunderstand them, and so you can conquer them. I said, That is the reason why we will not go back to Earth. He stared at me, his jaw slack, his hands trembling. What—what didyou say? I repeated it patiently. But why? he cried, sinking down into the chair before me. In aninstant all the joy had gone out of him. I could not understand hissuffering, but I could recognize it. You yourself have said it, I told him. I am a being of logic, justas the beings who have invaded your planet are. I do not comprehend thethings which you call hate, fear, joy and love, as they do not. If Iwent to Earth, I would use your people to further my knowledge, just asthe invaders do. I would have no reason to kill the invaders. They aremore nearly kin to me than your people. <doc-sep>Peter's eyes were dull, his limbs slumped. For a moment I thought thatthe shock had deranged his mind. His voice trembled when he said, But if I ask you to kill them, andnot my people? To do so would be illogical. He waved his hands helplessly. Gratitude? he muttered. No, you don't understand that, either. Then he cried suddenly, But I am your friend, Robert! I do not understand 'friend,' I said. I did understand gratitude, a little. It was a reciprocalarrangement: I did what Peter wished, so long as I did not activelywant to do otherwise, because he had done things for me. Very well,then we must not go back. It was very simple, but I knew that he couldnot comprehend it. I tried to explain it to him, however. But he only stared at me, withan expression on his face that I had never seen there before, and that,somehow, I did not like to see. It was disquieting, and so I hastenedto the end that I knew was inevitable. <doc-sep></s>

The Avenger ship is what is built from Peter’s shining dream. It is much smaller than his initial blueprint, a globe of raw-dura steel no more than five hundred meters in diameter. It cannot house a thousand scientists, and the huge compartments are not filled with the latest equipment for experiments. Instead, it is filled with compressed oxygen and concentrated food to last a lifetime. There is also a control room, engine room, airlock, and inner lock. The Avenger ship is essential because it is the key to finding a superman who can save human civilization. Since the Invaders have caused the remaining population to burrow underground, this ship carries all hopes for the future. Peter believes that there is a chance that one embryo will be genetically modified enough to become a changeling who can save humanity. That is why he is willing to take the chance on the ship and realize his dream, even if it is not the dream he initially had in mind.

<s> THE AVENGER By STUART FLEMING Karson was creating a superman to fight the weird super-monsters who had invaded Earth. But he was forgetting one tiny thing—like calls to like. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Peter Karson was dead. He had been dead for some time now, butthe dark blood was still oozing from the crushed ruin of his face,trickling down into his sodden sleeve, and falling, drop by slow drop,from his fingertips. His head was tilted over the back of the chair ata queer, unnatural angle, so that the light made deep pools of shadowwhere his eyes had been. There was no sound in the room except for the small splashing theblood made as it dropped into the sticky pool on the floor. The greatbanks of machinery around the walls were silent. I knew that they wouldnever come to life again. I rose and walked over to the window. Outside, the stars were asbefore: tiny, myriad points of light, infinitely far away. They had notchanged, and yet they were suddenly no longer friendly. They were coldand alien. It was I who had changed: something inside me was dead, likethe machinery, and like Peter. It was a kind of indefinable emptiness. I do not think it was whatPeter called an emotion; and yet it had nothing to do with logic,either. It was just an emptiness—a void that could not be filled byeating or drinking. It was not a longing. I had no desire that things should be otherwisethan they were. I did not even wish that Peter were not dead, forreason had told me that he had to die. That was the end of it. But the void was still there, unexplainable and impossible to ignore.For the first time in all my life I had found a problem that I couldnot solve. Strange, disturbing sensations stirred and whispered withinme, nagging, gnawing. And suddenly—something moved on the skin of mycheek. I raised a hand to it, slowly. A tear was trickling down my cheek. <doc-sep>Young Peter Karson put the last black-print down and sighed withsatisfaction. His dream was perfect; the Citadel was complete, everyminutest detail provided for—on paper. In two weeks they would belaying the core, and then the metal giant itself would begin to grow,glittering, pulsing with each increment of power, until at last it layfinished, a living thing. Then there would remain only the task of blasting the great, shiningship out into the carefully-calculated orbit that would be its home.In his mind's eye he could see it, slowly wheeling, like a secondsatellite, about the Earth; endlessly gathering knowledge into itsinsatiable mechanisms. He could see, too, the level on level oflaboratories and storerooms that filled its interlocking segments; themeteor deflectors, the air renewal system, the mighty engines at thestern—all the children of his brain. Out there, away from the muffling, distorting, damnable blanket ofatmosphere, away from Earth's inexorable gravitational pull, would bea laboratory such as man had never seen. The ship would be filled withthe sounds of busy men and women, wresting secrets from the reluctantether. A new chemistry, a new physics; perhaps even a new biochemistry. A discordant note suddenly entered his fantasy. He looked up, consciousof the walls of his office again, but could see nothing unusual. Still,that thin, dark whisper of dread was at the back of his mind. Slowly,as if reluctantly compelled, he turned around to face the window at hisback. There, outside the window, fifty stories up, a face was staringimpassively in at him. That was the first impression he got; just aface, staring. Then he saw, with a queer, icy chill, that the face wasblood-red and subtly inhuman. It tapered off into a formless, shriveledbody. For a moment or an eternity it hung there, unsupported, the bulgingeyes staring at him. Then it grew misty at the edges. It dissolvedslowly away and was gone. Lord! he said. He stared after it, stunned into immobility. Down in the streetsomewhere, a portable video was shrilling a popular song; after amoment he heard the faint swish of a tube car going past. Everythingwas normal. Nothing, on examination, seemed to have changed. But theworld had grown suddenly unreal. One part of his brain had been shocked into its shell. It was hidingfrom the thing that had hurt it, and it refused to respond. But theother part was going calmly, lucidly on, quite without his volition.It considered the possibility that he had gone temporarily insane, anddecided that this was probable. Hardly knowing what he did, he found a cigarette and lit it. His handswere shaking. He stared at them dully, and then he reached over to thenewsbox on his desk, and switched it on. There were flaring red headlines. Relief washed over him, leaving him breathless. He was horrified,of course, but only abstractedly. For the moment he could only beglad that what he had seen was terrible reality rather than even moreterrible illusion. INVADERS APPEAR IN BOSTON. 200 DEAD Then lines of type, and farther down: 50 CHILDREN DISAPPEAR FROM PARIS MATERNITY CENTER He pressed the stud. The roll was full of them. MOON SHIP DESTROYED IN TRANSIT NO COMMUNICATION FROM ANTARCTICA IN 6 HOURS STRANGE FORCE DEFLECTS PLANES FROM SAHARA AREA WORLD POLICE MOBILIZING The item below the last one said: Pacifica, June 7—The World Police are mobilizing, for the first timein fifty years. The order was made public early this morning byR. Stein, Secretary of the Council, who said in part: The reason for this ... order must be apparent to all civilizedpeoples. For the Invaders have spared no part of this planet in theirdepredations: they have laid Hong Kong waste; they have terrorizedLondon; they have destroyed the lives of citizens in every member stateand in every inhabited area. There can be few within reach of printedreports or my words who have not seen the Invaders, or whose friendshave not seen them. The peoples of the world, then, know what they are, and know thatwe face the most momentous struggle in our history. We face an enemy superior to ourselves in every way . Since the Invaders first appeared in Wood River, Oregon, 24 hoursago, they have not once acknowledged our attempts to communicate, orin any way taken notice of our existence as reasoning beings. Theyhave treated us precisely as we, in less enlightened days, mighthave treated a newly-discovered race of lower animals. They have notattacked our centers of government, nor immobilized our communications,nor laid siege to our defenses. But in instance after instance, theyhave done as they would with us. They have examined us, dissected us,driven us mad, killed us with no discernable provocation; and this ismore intolerable than any normal invasion. I have no fear that the people of Earth will fail to meet thischallenge, for there is no alternative. Not only our individual livesare threatened, but our existence as a race. We must, and will, destroythe Invaders! Peter sank back in his chair, the full shock of it striking him for thefirst time. Will we? he asked himself softly. <doc-sep>It was only two stories down the moving ramp to Lorelei Cooper'slaboratory. Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled toa halt in front of the door marked Radiation. She had set her doormechanism to Etaoin Shrdlu, principally because he hated double-talk.He mouthed the syllables, had to repeat them because he put an accentin the wrong place, and squeezed through the door as soon as it openedfar enough to admit him. Lorelei, beautiful in spite of dark-circled eyes and a smear of greaseon her chin, looked up from a huge ledger at the end of the room. Oneblonde eyebrow arched in the quizzical expression he knew so well. What makes, Peter my love? she asked, and bent back to the ledger.Then she did a double-take, looked at his face intently, and said,Darling, what's wrong? He said, Have you seen the news recently? She frowned. Why, no—Harry and I have been working for thirty-sixhours straight. Haven't seen anybody, haven't heard anything. Why? You wouldn't believe me. Where's your newsbox? She came around the desk and put her hands on his shoulders. Pete,you know I haven't one—it bores me or upsets me, depending on whetherthere's trouble or not. What— I'm sorry, I forgot, he said. But you have a scanner? Yes, of course. But really, Pete— You'll understand in a minute. Turn it on, Lorelei. She gazed at him levelly for a moment, kissed him impulsively, and thenwalked over to the video panel on the wall and swept a mountain ofpapers away from in front of it. She turned the selector dial to Newsand pressed the stud. A faint wash of color appeared on the panel, strengthened slowly, andsuddenly leapt into full brilliance. Lorelei caught her breath. It was a street scene in the Science City of Manhattan, flooded bythe warm spring sunshine. Down on the lowest level, visible past thetransport and passenger tubes, the parks and moving ways should havebeen dotted with colorful, holiday crowds. The people were there,yes but they were flowing away in a swiftly-widening circle. Theydisappeared into buildings, and the ways snatched them up, and in aheartbeat they were gone. There were left only two blood-red, malignant monstrosities somehowdefiling the air they floated in; and below them, a pitiful huddle offlesh no longer recognizable as human beings. They were not dead, thosemen and women, but they wanted to be. Their bodies had been impossiblyjoined, fused together into a single obscene, floundering mass ofhelpless protoplasm. The thin moaning that went up from them was morehorrible than any cry of agony. The Invaders are here, citizens, the commentator was saying in astrangled voice. Stay off the streets. Hide yourselves. Stay off thestreets.... His voice droned on, but neither of them heard it. <doc-sep>Lorelei buried her head on his chest, clutching at him desperately.Peter! she said faintly. Why do they broadcast such things? They have to, he told her grimly. There will be panics and suicides,and they know it; but they have to do it. This isn't like a war, wherethe noncombatants' morale has to be kept up. There aren't going to beany noncombatants, this time. Everybody in the world has to know aboutthem, so that he can fight them—and then it may not be enough. The viewpoint of the teleo sender changed as the two red beings soaredaway from their victims and angled slowly up the street. Peter reachedout to switch off the scanner, and froze. The girl felt his musclestense abruptly, looked back at the scene. The Invaders were floatingup the sloping side of a tall, pure white structure that dominated therest. That's the Atlas building, she said unbelievingly. Us! Yes. Silently, they counted stories as the two beings rose. Forty-five ...forty-six ... forty-seven ... forty-eight. Inevitably, they halted.Then they faded slowly. It was impossible to say whether they had gonethrough the solid wall, or simply melted away. The man and woman clung together, waiting. There was a thick, oppressive silence, full of small rustlings andother faint sounds that were no longer normal. Then, very near, a manscreamed in a high, inhuman voice. The screamed dwindled into a throatygurgle and died, leaving silence again. Peter's lips were cold with sweat. Tiny nerves in his face and armswere jumping convulsively. His stomach crawled. He thrust the girl awayfrom him and started toward the inner room. Wait here, he mouthed. She was after him, clinging to his arms. No, Peter! Don't go in there! Peter! But he pushed her away again, woodenly, and stalked forward. There was a space in the middle of the room where machinery had beencleared away to make room for an incompleted setup. Peter walked downthe narrow aisle, past bakelite-sheathed mechanisms and rows of animalcages, and paused just short of it. The two red beings were there, formless bodies hazy in midair, thedistorted, hairless skulls in profile, staring at something outside hisrange of vision. <doc-sep>Peter forced himself forward another step. Little Harry Kanin,Lorelei's assistant, was crumpled in a corner, half supported by thebroad base of an X-ray chamber. His face was flaccid and bloated. Hisglazed eyes, impassive yet somehow pleading, stared at nothingnessstraight ahead of him. The Invaders ignored Peter, staring expressionlessly down at Kanin.In a moment Peter realized what they were doing to him. He stood,paralyzed with horror, and watched it happen. The little man's body was sagging, ever so slowly, as if he wererelaxing tiredly. His torso was telescoping, bit by bit; his spreadlegs grew wider and more shapeless, his cheeks caved in and his skullgrew gradually flatter. When it was over, the thing that had been Kanin was a limp, bonelesspuddle of flesh. Peter could not look at it. There was a scream in his throat that would not come out. He was beyondfear, beyond agony. He turned to the still-hovering monsters and saidin a terrible voice, Why? Why? The nearest being turned slowly to regard him. Its lips did not move,but there was a tiny sound in Peter's brain, a thin, dry whispering. The scream was welling up. He fought it down and listened. Wurnkomellilonasendiktolsasangkanmiamiamimami.... The face was staring directly into his, the bulging eyes hypnotic. Theears were small, no more than excresences of skin. The narrow lipsseemed sealed together; a thin, slimy ichor drooled from them. Therewere lines in the face, but they were lines of age, not emotion. Onlythe eyes were alive. ... raswilopreatadvuonistuwurncchtusanlgkelglawwalinom.... I can't understand, he cried wildly. What do you want? ... morofelcovisyanmamiwurlectaunntous. He heard a faint sound behind him, and whirled. It was the firsttime he had realized that Lorelei had followed him. She stood there,swaying, very pale, looking at the red Invaders. Her eyes swiveledslowly.... Opreniktoulestritifenrelngetnaktwiltoctpre. His voice was hoarse. Don't look! Don't—Go back! The horrible,mindless noise in his throat was almost beyond his power to repress.His insides writhed to thrust it out. She didn't see him. Her eyes glazed, and she dropped limply to thefloor. The scream came out then. Before he knew, even, that he could holdit back no longer, his mouth was wide open, his muscles tensed, hisfingernails slicing his palms. It echoed with unbelievable volume inthe room. It was a scream to split eardrums; a scream to wake the dead. <doc-sep>Somebody said, Doctor! He wanted to say, Yes, get a doctor. Lorelei— but his mouth onlytwitched feebly. He couldn't seem to get it to work properly. He tried again. Doctor. Yes? A gentle, masculine voice. He opened his eyes with an effort. There was a blurred face before him;in a moment it grew clearer. The strong, clean-shaven chin contrastedoddly with the haggard circles under the eyes. There was a clean,starched odor. Where am I? he said. He tried to turn his head, but a firm handpressed him back into the sheets. You're in a hospital. Just lie quietly, please. He tried to get up again. Where's Lorelei? She's well, and you'll see her soon. Now lie quietly. You've been avery sick man. Peter sank back in the bed. The room was coming into focus. He lookedaround him slowly. He felt very weak, but perfectly lucid. Yes.... he said. How long have I been here, Doctor? The man hesitated, looked at him intently. Three months, he said. Heturned and gave low-voiced instructions to a nurse, and then went away. Peter's head began spinning just a little. Glass clinked from a metalstand near his head; the nurse bent over him with a glass half full ofmilky fluid. It tasted awful, but she made him drink it all. In a moment he began to relax, and the room got fuzzy again. Justbefore he drifted off, he said sleepily, You can't—fool me. It's been more —than three—months. He was right. All the nurses, and even Dr. Arnold, were evasive, but hekept asking them why he couldn't see Lorelei, and finally he wormed itout of them. It had been nine and a half months, not three, and he'dbeen in a coma all that time. Lorelei, it seemed, had recovered muchsooner. She was only suffering from ordinary shock, Arnold explained.Seeing that assistant of hers—it was enough to knock anybody out,especially a woman. But you stood actual mental contact with them for approximately five minutes. Yes, we know—you talked a lot. It's amiracle you're alive, and rational. But where is she? Peter complained. You still haven't explained whyI haven't been able to see her. Arnold frowned. All right, he said. I guess you're strong enough totake it. She's underground, with the rest of the women and children,and a good two-thirds of the male population. That's where you'll go,as soon as you're well enough to be moved. We started digging in sixmonths ago. But why? Peter whispered. Arnold's strong jaw knotted. We're hiding, he said. Everything elsehas failed. Peter couldn't think of anything to say. Dr. Arnold's voice went onafter a moment, musingly. We're burrowing into the earth, like worms.It didn't take us long to find out we couldn't kill them. They didn'teven take any notice of our attempts to do so, except once. That waswhen a squadron of the Police caught about fifty of them together atone time, and attacked with flame guns and a new secret weapon. Itdidn't hurt them, but it annoyed them. It was the first time they'dbeen annoyed, I think. They blew up half a state, and it's stillsmoldering. And since then? Peter asked huskily. Since then, we've been burrowing. All the big cities.... It would bean impossible task if we tried to include all the thinly-populatedareas, of course, but it doesn't matter. By the time we excavateenough to take care of a quarter of the earth's population, the otherthree-quarters will be dead, or worse. I wonder, Peter said shakily, if I am strong enough to take it. Arnold laughed harshly. You are. You've got to be. You're part of ourlast hope, you see. Our last hope? Yes. You're a scientist. I see, said Peter. And for the first time, he thought of the Citadel . No plan leaped full-born into his mind, but, maybe , hethought, there's a chance .... <doc-sep>It wasn't very big, the thing that had been his shining dream. It laythere in its rough cradle, a globe of raw dura-steel not more thanfive hundred meters in diameter, where the Citadel was to have been athousand. It wouldn't house a hundred scientists, eagerly delving intothe hinterland of research. The huge compartments weren't filled withthe latest equipment for chemical and physical experiment; instead,there was compressed oxygen there, and concentrated food, enough tolast a lifetime. It was a new world, all by itself; or else it was a tomb. And there wasone other change, one that you couldn't see from the outside. The solidmeters of lead in its outer skin, the shielding to keep out cosmicrays, were gone. A man had just finished engraving the final stroke on its nameplate, tothe left of the airlock— The Avenger . He stepped away now, and joinedthe group a little distance away, silently waiting. Lorelei said, You can't do it. I won't let you! Peter— Darling, he began wearily. Don't throw your life away! Give us time—there must be another way. There's no other way, Peter said. He gripped her arms tightly, as ifhe could compel her to understand by the sheer pressure of his fingers.Darling, listen to me. We've tried everything. We've gone underground,but that's only delaying the end. They still come down here, only notas many. The mortality rate is up, the suicide rate is up, the birthrate is down, in spite of anything we can do. You've seen the figures:we're riding a curve that ends in extinction fifty years from now. They'll live, and we'll die, because they're a superior race. We're amillion years too far back even to understand what they are or wherethey came from. Besides them, we're apes. There's only one answer. She was crying now, silently, with great racking sobs that shook herslender body. But he went remorselessly on. Out there, in space, the cosmics change unshielded life. Theymake tentacles out of arms; or scales out of hair; or twelve toes,or a dozen ears—or a better brain. Out of those millions ofpossible mutations, there's one that will save the human race. Wecan't fight them , but a superman could. That's our only chance.Lorelei—darling—don't you see that? She choked, But why can't you take me along? He stared unseeingly past her wet, upturned face. You know why, hesaid bitterly. Those rays are strong. They don't only work on embryos;they change adult life forms, too. I have one chance in seven ofstaying alive. You'd have one chance in a million of staying beautiful.I couldn't stand that. I'd kill myself, and then humanity would die,too. You'd be their murderer. Her sobs gradually died away. She straightened slowly until he nolonger had to support her, but all the vitality and resilience was goneout of her body. All right, she said in a lifeless voice. You'llcome back, Peter. He turned away suddenly, not trusting himself to kiss her goodbye. Aline from an old film kept echoing through his head. They'll comeback—but not as boys ! We'll come back, but not as men. We'll come back, but not as elephants. We'll come back, but not as octopi. <doc-sep>He was trembling violently. He ran the last few steps, stumbled intothe airlock, and pressed the stud that would seal the door behind him. We'll come back.... He heard the massive disk sink home, closing himoff. Then he sank down on the floor of the airlock and put his head inshaking hands. After a while he roused himself, closed the inner door of the lockbehind him, and walked down the long corridor into the control chamber.The shining banks of keys were there, waiting for his touch; he slumpeddown before them and listlessly closed the contact of the visiplate. He swung its field slowly, scanning for the last time the bare wallsof the underground chamber, making sure that all the spectators hadretired out of the way of the blast. Then his clawed fingers poisedover the keys, hovered a moment, and thrust down. Acceleration pressed him deep into his chair. In the visiplate, theheavy doors that closed the tunnel above him flashed back, one by one.The energy-charged screen flickered off to let him pass, and closedsmoothly behind him. The last doors, cleverly camouflaged, slipped backinto place and then dwindled in the distance. It was done. He flashed on out, past the moon, past Mars, over the asteroid belt.The days merged into weeks, then months, and finally, far out, TheAvenger curved into an orbit and held it. The great motors died, andthe silence pressed in about him. Already he could feel the invisible rays burning resistlessly throughhis flesh as if it were water, shifting the cells of his body, workingits slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changeswere unmistakably evident in his skin and hair, and then he smashed allthe mirrors in the ship. The embryos were pulsing with unnatural life, even in the suspendedanimation of their crystal cells. One by one he allowed them tomature, and after weeks or years destroyed the monstrosities that camefrom the incubators. Time went by, meaninglessly. He ate when he washungry, slept when his driving purpose let him, and worked unceasingly,searching for the million-to-one chance. He stared sometimes through changed eyes at the tiny blue star that wasEarth, wondering if the race he had left behind still burrowed in itsworm-tunnels, digging deeper and deeper away from the sunlight. Butafter a time he ceased even to wonder. And one changeling-child he did not destroy. He fed knowledge to itseager brain, and watched it through the swift years, with a dawninghope.... <doc-sep>Peter closed the diary. The rest you know, Robert, he said. Yes, I told him. I was that child. I am the millionth mutation youwere searching for. His eyes glowed suddenly in their misshapen sockets. You are. Yourbrain is as superior to mine as mine is to an anthropoid's. You solveinstinctively problems that would take our mechanical computers hoursof work. You are a superman. I am without your imperfections, I said, flexing my arms. He rose and strode nervously over to the window. I watched him as hestood there, outlined against the blazing galaxies. He had changed butlittle in the years that I had known him. His lank gray hair straggledover his sunken eyes; his cheeks were blobbed with excresences offlesh; one corner of his mouth was drawn up in a perpetual grin. He hada tiny sixth finger on his left hand. He turned again, and I saw the old scar on his cheek where I had onceaccidentally drawn one of my talons across his face. And now, he said softly, we will go home. I've waited solong—keeping the control chamber and the engine room locked away fromyou, not telling you, even, about Earth until now—because I had to besure. But now, the waiting is over. They're still there, I'm sure of it—the people, and the Invaders. Youcan kill the Invaders, Robert. He looked at me, a little oddly, almost as if he had some instinctiveknowledge of what was to come. But he went on swiftly, On Earth wehad a saying: 'Fight fire with fire.' That is the way it will be withyou. You are completely, coldly logical, just as they are. You canunderstand them, and so you can conquer them. I said, That is the reason why we will not go back to Earth. He stared at me, his jaw slack, his hands trembling. What—what didyou say? I repeated it patiently. But why? he cried, sinking down into the chair before me. In aninstant all the joy had gone out of him. I could not understand hissuffering, but I could recognize it. You yourself have said it, I told him. I am a being of logic, justas the beings who have invaded your planet are. I do not comprehend thethings which you call hate, fear, joy and love, as they do not. If Iwent to Earth, I would use your people to further my knowledge, just asthe invaders do. I would have no reason to kill the invaders. They aremore nearly kin to me than your people. <doc-sep>Peter's eyes were dull, his limbs slumped. For a moment I thought thatthe shock had deranged his mind. His voice trembled when he said, But if I ask you to kill them, andnot my people? To do so would be illogical. He waved his hands helplessly. Gratitude? he muttered. No, you don't understand that, either. Then he cried suddenly, But I am your friend, Robert! I do not understand 'friend,' I said. I did understand gratitude, a little. It was a reciprocalarrangement: I did what Peter wished, so long as I did not activelywant to do otherwise, because he had done things for me. Very well,then we must not go back. It was very simple, but I knew that he couldnot comprehend it. I tried to explain it to him, however. But he only stared at me, withan expression on his face that I had never seen there before, and that,somehow, I did not like to see. It was disquieting, and so I hastenedto the end that I knew was inevitable. <doc-sep></s>

Robert is the one changeling child that Peter did not destroy. He is described to have an eager brain, and Peter keeps feeding knowledge to it. Robert also has a superior brain, capable of instinctively solving problems that would take mechanical computers hours of work. Physically, Robert also has talons. However, despite being a successful superman, Robert does not understand anything emotional. He refuses to go back to Earth to destroy the Invaders, citing that he is a being of logic. Robert says that he will use the people on Earth for his own gain, which the Invaders are already doing. Therefore, he finds it illogical when Peter asks him to kill the Invaders and not his people. Even when Peter says that he is his friend, Robert says he does not understand and believes that gratitude is a reciprocal arrangement.

<s> A Gift From Earth By MANLY BANISTER Illustrated by KOSSIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Except for transportation, it was absolutely free ... but how much would the freight cost? It is an outrage, said Koltan of the House of Masur, that theEarthmen land among the Thorabians! Zotul, youngest of the Masur brothers, stirred uneasily. Personally, hewas in favor of the coming of the Earthmen to the world of Zur. At the head of the long, shining table sat old Kalrab Masur, in hisdotage, but still giving what he could of aid and comfort to thePottery of Masur, even though nobody listened to him any more andhe knew it. Around the table sat the six brothers—Koltan, eldestand Director of the Pottery; Morvan, his vice-chief; Singula, theirtreasurer; Thendro, sales manager; Lubiosa, export chief; and last inthe rank of age, Zotul, who was responsible for affairs of design. Behold, my sons, said Kalrab, stroking his scanty beard. What arethese Earthmen to worry about? Remember the clay. It is our strengthand our fortune. It is the muscle and bone of our trade. Earthmen maycome and Earthmen may go, but clay goes on forever ... and with it, thefame and fortune of the House of Masur. It is a damned imposition, agreed Morvan, ignoring his father'sphilosophical attitude. They could have landed just as easily here inLor. The Thorabians will lick up the gravy, said Singula, whose mind ranrather to matters of financial aspect, and leave us the grease. By this, he seemed to imply that the Thorabians would rob the Earthmen,which the Lorians would not. The truth was that all on Zur were pantingto get their hands on that marvelous ship, which was all of metal, avery scarce commodity on Zur, worth billions of ken. <doc-sep>Lubiosa, who had interests in Thorabia, and many agents there, kept hisown counsel. His people were active in the matter and that was enoughfor him. He would report when the time was ripe. Doubtless, said Zotul unexpectedly, for the youngest at a conferencewas expected to keep his mouth shut and applaud the decisions of hiselders, the Earthmen used all the metal on their planet in buildingthat ship. We cannot possibly bilk them of it; it is their only meansof transport. Such frank expression of motive was unheard of, even in the secretconclave of conference. Only the speaker's youth could account for it.The speech drew scowls from the brothers and stern rebuke from Koltan. When your opinion is wanted, we will ask you for it. Meantime,remember your position in the family. Zotul bowed his head meekly, but he burned with resentment. Listen to the boy, said the aged father. There is more wisdom in hishead than in all the rest of you. Forget the Earthmen and think only ofthe clay. Zotul did not appreciate his father's approval, for it only earned hima beating as soon as the old man went to bed. It was a common enoughthing among the brothers Masur, as among everybody, to be frustrated intheir desires. However, they had Zotul to take it out upon, and theydid. Still smarting, Zotul went back to his designing quarters and thoughtabout the Earthmen. If it was impossible to hope for much in the wayof metal from the Earthmen, what could one get from them? If he couldfigure this problem out, he might rise somewhat in the estimation ofhis brothers. That wouldn't take him out of the rank of scapegoat, ofcourse, but the beatings might become fewer and less severe. <doc-sep>By and by, the Earthmen came to Lor, flying through the air in strangemetal contraptions. They paraded through the tile-paved streets of thecity, marveled here, as they had in Thorabia, at the buildings all oftile inside and out, and made a great show of themselves for all thepeople to see. Speeches were made through interpreters, who had muchtoo quickly learned the tongue of the aliens; hence these left much tobe desired in the way of clarity, though their sincerity was evident. The Earthmen were going to do great things for the whole world ofZur. It required but the cooperation—an excellent word, that—of allZurians, and many blessings would rain down from the skies. This, ineffect, was what the Earthmen had to say. Zotul felt greatly cheered,for it refuted the attitude of his brothers without earning him awhaling for it. There was also some talk going around about agreements made betweenthe Earthmen and officials of the Lorian government, but you heard onething one day and another the next. Accurate reporting, much less anewspaper, was unknown on Zur. Finally, the Earthmen took off in their great, shining ship. Obviously,none had succeeded in chiseling them out of it, if, indeed, any hadtried. The anti-Earthmen Faction—in any culture complex, there isalways an anti faction to protest any movement of endeavor—crowedhappily that the Earthmen were gone for good, and a good thing, too. Such jubilation proved premature, however. One day, a fleet of shipsarrived and after they had landed all over the planet, Zur waspractically acrawl with Earthmen. Immediately, the Earthmen established what they calledcorporations—Zurian trading companies under terrestrial control. Theobject of the visit was trade. In spite of the fact that a terrestrial ship had landed at every Zuriancity of major and minor importance, and all in a single day, it tooksome time for the news to spread. The first awareness Zotul had was that, upon coming home from thepottery one evening, he found his wife Lania proudly brandishing analuminum pot at him. What is that thing? he asked curiously. A pot. I bought it at the market. Did you now? Well, take it back. Am I made of money that you spend mysubstance for some fool's product of precious metal? Take it back, Isay! <doc-sep>The pretty young wife laughed at him. Up to your ears in clay, nowonder you hear nothing of news! The pot is very cheap. The Earthmenare selling them everywhere. They're much better than our old claypots; they're light and easy to handle and they don't break whendropped. What good is it? asked Zotul, interested. How will it hold heat,being so light? The Earthmen don't cook as we do, she explained patiently. There isa paper with each pot that explains how it is used. And you will haveto design a new ceramic stove for me to use the pots on. Don't be idiotic! Do you suppose Koltan would agree to produce a newtype of stove when the old has sold well for centuries? Besides, why doyou need a whole new stove for one little pot? A dozen pots. They come in sets and are cheaper that way. And Koltanwill have to produce the new stove because all the housewives arebuying these pots and there will be a big demand for it. The Earthmansaid so. He did, did he? These pots are only a fad. You will soon enough goback to cooking with your old ones. The Earthman took them in trade—one reason why the new ones are socheap. There isn't a pot in the house but these metal ones, and youwill have to design and produce a new stove if you expect me to usethem. After he had beaten his wife thoroughly for her foolishness, Zotulstamped off in a rage and designed a new ceramic stove, one that wouldaccommodate the terrestrial pots very well. And Koltan put the model into production. Orders already are pouring in like mad, he said the next day. Itwas wise of you to foresee it and have the design ready. Already, I amsorry for thinking as I did about the Earthmen. They really intend todo well by us. The kilns of the Pottery of Masur fired day and night to keep up withthe demand for the new porcelain stoves. In three years, more than amillion had been made and sold by the Masurs alone, not counting thehundreds of thousands of copies turned out by competitors in everyland. <doc-sep>In the meantime, however, more things than pots came from Earth.One was a printing press, the like of which none on Zur had everdreamed. This, for some unknown reason and much to the disgust ofthe Lorians, was set up in Thorabia. Books and magazines poured fromit in a fantastic stream. The populace fervidly brushed up on itsscanty reading ability and bought everything available, overcome bythe novelty of it. Even Zotul bought a book—a primer in the Lorianlanguage—and learned how to read and write. The remainder of thebrothers Masur, on the other hand, preferred to remain in ignorance. Moreover, the Earthmen brought miles of copper wire—more than enoughin value to buy out the governorship of any country on Zur—and set uptelegraph lines from country to country and continent to continent.Within five years of the first landing of the Earthmen, every majorcity on the globe had a printing press, a daily newspaper, and enjoyedthe instantaneous transmission of news via telegraph. And the businessof the House of Masur continued to look up. As I have always said from the beginning, chortled Director Koltan,this coming of the Earthmen had been a great thing for us, andespecially for the House of Masur. You didn't think so at first, Zotul pointed out, and was immediatelysorry, for Koltan turned and gave him a hiding, single-handed, for hisunthinkable impertinence. It would do no good, Zotul realized, to bring up the fact that theirproduction of ceramic cooking pots had dropped off to about two percent of its former volume. Of course, profits on the line of new stovesgreatly overbalanced the loss, so that actually they were ahead; buttheir business was now dependent upon the supply of the metal pots fromEarth. About this time, plastic utensils—dishes, cups, knives, forks—madetheir appearance on Zur. It became very stylish to eat with thenewfangled paraphernalia ... and very cheap, too, because foreverything they sold, the Earthmen always took the old ware in trade.What they did with the stuff had been hard to believe at first. Theydestroyed it, which proved how valueless it really was. The result of the new flood was that in the following year, the sale ofMasur ceramic table service dropped to less than a tenth. <doc-sep>Trembling with excitement at this news from their book-keeper, Koltancalled an emergency meeting. He even routed old Kalrab out of hissenile stupor for the occasion, on the off chance that the old manmight still have a little wit left that could be helpful. Note, Koltan announced in a shaky voice, that the Earthmen undermineour business, and he read off the figures. Perhaps, said Zotul, it is a good thing also, as you said before,and will result in something even better for us. Koltan frowned, and Zotul, in fear of another beating, instantlysubsided. They are replacing our high-quality ceramic ware with inferiorterrestrial junk, Koltan went on bitterly. It is only the glamor thatsells it, of course, but before the people get the shine out of theireyes, we can be ruined. The brothers discussed the situation for an hour, and all the whileFather Kalrab sat and pulled his scanty whiskers. Seeing that they gotnowhere with their wrangle, he cleared his throat and spoke up. My sons, you forget it is not the Earthmen themselves at the bottomof your trouble, but the things of Earth. Think of the telegraph andthe newspaper, how these spread news of every shipment from Earth.The merchandise of the Earthmen is put up for sale by means of thesenewspapers, which also are the property of the Earthmen. The people areintrigued by these advertisements, as they are called, and flock tobuy. Now, if you would pull a tooth from the kwi that bites you, youmight also have advertisements of your own. Alas for that suggestion, no newspaper would accept advertisingfrom the House of Masur; all available space was occupied by theadvertisements of the Earthmen. In their dozenth conference since that first and fateful one, thebrothers Masur decided upon drastic steps. In the meantime, severalthings had happened. For one, old Kalrab had passed on to his immortalrest, but this made no real difference. For another, the Earthmen hadprocured legal authority to prospect the planet for metals, of whichthey found a good deal, but they told no one on Zur of this. Whatthey did mention was the crude oil and natural gas they discoveredin the underlayers of the planet's crust. Crews of Zurians, workingunder supervision of the Earthmen, laid pipelines from the gas and oilregions to every major and minor city on Zur. <doc-sep>By the time ten years had passed since the landing of the firstterrestrial ship, the Earthmen were conducting a brisk business ingas-fired ranges, furnaces and heaters ... and the Masur stove businesswas gone. Moreover, the Earthmen sold the Zurians their own natural gasat a nice profit and everybody was happy with the situation except thebrothers Masur. The drastic steps of the brothers applied, therefore, to making anenergetic protest to the governor of Lor. At one edge of the city, an area had been turned over to the Earthmenfor a spaceport, and the great terrestrial spaceships came to it anddeparted from it at regular intervals. As the heirs of the House ofMasur walked by on their way to see the governor, Zotul observed thatmuch new building was taking place and wondered what it was. Some new devilment of the Earthmen, you can be sure, said Koltanblackly. In fact, the Earthmen were building an assembly plant for radioreceiving sets. The ship now standing on its fins upon the apron wasloaded with printed circuits, resistors, variable condensers and otherradio parts. This was Earth's first step toward flooding Zur with thenatural follow-up in its campaign of advertising—radio programs—withcommercials. Happily for the brothers, they did not understand this at the time orthey would surely have gone back to be buried in their own clay. I think, the governor told them, that you gentlemen have notpaused to consider the affair from all angles. You must learn to bemodern—keep up with the times! We heads of government on Zur are doingall in our power to aid the Earthmen and facilitate their bringing agreat, new culture that can only benefit us. See how Zur has changed inten short years! Imagine the world of tomorrow! Why, do you know theyare even bringing autos to Zur! The brothers were fascinated with the governor's description of thesehitherto unheard-of vehicles. It only remains, concluded the governor, to build highways, and theEarthmen are taking care of that. At any rate, the brothers Masur were still able to console themselvesthat they had their tile business. Tile served well enough for housesand street surfacing; what better material could be devised for the newhighways the governor spoke of? There was a lot of money to be madeyet. <doc-sep>Radio stations went up all over Zur and began broadcasting. The peoplebought receiving sets like mad. The automobiles arrived and highwayswere constructed. The last hope of the brothers was dashed. The Earthmen set up plantsand began to manufacture Portland cement. You could build a house of concrete much cheaper than with tile. Ofcourse, since wood was scarce on Zur, it was no competition for eithertile or concrete. Concrete floors were smoother, too, and the stuffmade far better road surfacing. The demand for Masur tile hit rock bottom. The next time the brothers went to see the governor, he said, I cannothandle such complaints as yours. I must refer you to the MerchandisingCouncil. What is that? asked Koltan. It is an Earthman association that deals with complaints such asyours. In the matter of material progress, we must expect some strainin the fabric of our culture. Machinery has been set up to deal withit. Here is their address; go air your troubles to them. The business of a formal complaint was turned over by the brothers toZotul. It took three weeks for the Earthmen to get around to callinghim in, as a representative of the Pottery of Masur, for an interview. All the brothers could no longer be spared from the plant, even for thepurpose of pressing a complaint. Their days of idle wealth over, theyhad to get in and work with the clay with the rest of the help. Zotul found the headquarters of the Merchandising Council as indicatedon their message. He had not been this way in some time, but was notsurprised to find that a number of old buildings had been torn down tomake room for the concrete Council House and a roomy parking lot, pavedwith something called blacktop and jammed with an array of glitteringnew automobiles. An automobile was an expense none of the brothers could afford, nowthat they barely eked a living from the pottery. Still, Zotul achedwith desire at sight of so many shiny cars. Only a few had them andthey were the envied ones of Zur. Kent Broderick, the Earthman in charge of the Council, shook handsjovially with Zotul. That alien custom conformed with, Zotul took abetter look at his host. Broderick was an affable, smiling individualwith genial laugh wrinkles at his eyes. A man of middle age, dressed inthe baggy costume of Zur, he looked almost like a Zurian, except foran indefinite sense of alienness about him. Glad to have you call on us, Mr. Masur, boomed the Earthman, clappingZotul on the back. Just tell us your troubles and we'll have youstraightened out in no time. <doc-sep>All the chill recriminations and arguments Zotul had stored for thisoccasion were dissipated in the warmth of the Earthman's manner. Almost apologetically, Zotul told of the encroachment that had beenmade upon the business of the Pottery of Masur. Once, he said formally, the Masur fortune was the greatest inthe world of Zur. That was before my father, the famous KalrabMasur—Divinity protect him—departed this life to collect his greaterreward. He often told us, my father did, that the clay is the flesh andbones of our culture and our fortune. Now it has been shown how proneis the flesh to corruption and how feeble the bones. We are ruined, andall because of new things coming from Earth. Broderick stroked his shaven chin and looked sad. Why didn't you cometo me sooner? This would never have happened. But now that it has,we're going to do right by you. That is the policy of Earth—always todo right by the customer. Divinity witness, Zorin said, that we ask only compensation fordamages. Broderick shook his head. It is not possible to replace an immensefortune at this late date. As I said, you should have reported yourtrouble sooner. However, we can give you an opportunity to rebuild. Doyou own an automobile? No. A gas range? A gas-fired furnace? A radio? Zotul had to answer no to all except the radio. My wife Lania likesthe music, he explained. I cannot afford the other things. Broderick clucked sympathetically. One who could not afford thebargain-priced merchandise of Earth must be poor indeed. To begin with, he said, I am going to make you a gift of all theseluxuries you do not have. As Zotul made to protest, he cut him offwith a wave of his hand. It is the least we can do for you. Pick a carfrom the lot outside. I will arrange to have the other things deliveredand installed in your home. To receive gifts, said Zotul, incurs an obligation. None at all, beamed the Earthman cheerily. Every item is given toyou absolutely free—a gift from the people of Earth. All we ask isthat you pay the freight charges on the items. Our purpose is not tomake profit, but to spread technology and prosperity throughout theGalaxy. We have already done well on numerous worlds, but working outthe full program takes time. He chuckled deeply. We of Earth have a saying about one of ourextremely slow-moving native animals. We say, 'Slow is the tortoise,but sure.' And so with us. Our goal is a long-range one, with themotto, 'Better times with better merchandise.' <doc-sep>The engaging manner of the man won Zotul's confidence. After all, itwas no more than fair to pay transportation. He said, How much does the freight cost? Broderick told him. It may seem high, said the Earthman, but remember that Earth issixty-odd light-years away. After all, we are absorbing the cost of themerchandise. All you pay is the freight, which is cheap, consideringthe cost of operating an interstellar spaceship. Impossible, said Zotul drably. Not I and all my brothers togetherhave so much money any more. You don't know us of Earth very well yet, but you will. I offer youcredit! What is that? asked Zotul skeptically. It is how the poor are enabled to enjoy all the luxuries of therich, said Broderick, and went on to give a thumbnail sketch of theinvolutions and devolutions of credit, leaving out some angles thatmight have had a discouraging effect. On a world where credit was a totally new concept, it was enchanting.Zotul grasped at the glittering promise with avidity. What must I doto get credit? Just sign this paper, said Broderick, and you become part of ourEasy Payment Plan. Zotul drew back. I have five brothers. If I took all these things formyself and nothing for them, they would beat me black and blue. Here. Broderick handed him a sheaf of chattel mortgages. Have eachof your brothers sign one of these, then bring them back to me. That isall there is to it. It sounded wonderful. But how would the brothers take it? Zotulwrestled with his misgivings and the misgivings won. I will talk it over with them, he said. Give me the total so I willhave the figures. The total was more than it ought to be by simple addition. Zotulpointed this out politely. Interest, Broderick explained. A mere fifteen per cent. After all,you get the merchandise free. The transportation company has to bepaid, so another company loans you the money to pay for the freight.This small extra sum pays the lending company for its trouble. I see. Zotul puzzled over it sadly. It is too much, he said. Ourplant doesn't make enough money for us to meet the payments. I have a surprise for you, smiled Broderick. Here is a contract. Youwill start making ceramic parts for automobile spark plugs and certainparts for radios and gas ranges. It is our policy to encourage localmanufacture to help bring prices down. We haven't the equipment. We will equip your plant, beamed Broderick. It will require onlya quarter interest in your plant itself, assigned to our terrestrialcompany. <doc-sep>Zotul, anxious to possess the treasures promised by the Earthman,won over his brothers. They signed with marks and gave up a quarterinterest in the Pottery of Masur. They rolled in the luxuries of Earth.These, who had never known debt before, were in it up to their ears. The retooled plant forged ahead and profits began to look up, but theEarthmen took a fourth of them as their share in the industry. For a year, the brothers drove their shiny new cars about on thenew concrete highways the Earthmen had built. From pumps owned by aterrestrial company, they bought gas and oil that had been drawn fromthe crust of Zur and was sold to the Zurians at a magnificent profit.The food they ate was cooked in Earthly pots on Earth-type gas ranges,served up on metal plates that had been stamped out on Earth. In thewinter, they toasted their shins before handsome gas grates, thoughthey had gas-fired central heating. About this time, the ships from Earth brought steam-powered electricgenerators. Lines went up, power was generated, and a flood ofelectrical gadgets and appliances hit the market. For some reason,batteries for the radios were no longer available and everybody had tobuy the new radios. And who could do without a radio in this modern age? The homes of the brothers Masur blossomed on the Easy Payment Plan.They had refrigerators, washers, driers, toasters, grills, electricfans, air-conditioning equipment and everything else Earth couldpossibly sell them. We will be forty years paying it all off, exulted Zotul, butmeantime we have the things and aren't they worth it? But at the end of three years, the Earthmen dropped their option.The Pottery of Masur had no more contracts. Business languished. TheEarthmen, explained Broderick, had built a plant of their own becauseit was so much more efficient—and to lower prices, which was Earth'sunswerving policy, greater and greater efficiency was demanded.Broderick was very sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do. The introduction of television provided a further calamity. The setswere delicate and needed frequent repairs, hence were costly to own andmaintain. But all Zurians who had to keep up with the latest from Earthhad them. Now it was possible not only to hear about things of Earth,but to see them as they were broadcast from the video tapes. The printing plants that turned out mortgage contracts did a lushbusiness. <doc-sep>For the common people of Zur, times were good everywhere. In a decadeand a half, the Earthmen had wrought magnificent changes on thisbackward world. As Broderick had said, the progress of the tortoise wasslow, but it was extremely sure. The brothers Masur got along in spite of dropped options. They had lessmoney and felt the pinch of their debts more keenly, but televisionkept their wives and children amused and furnished an anodyne for thepangs of impoverishment. The pottery income dropped to an impossible low, no matter how Zotuldesigned and the brothers produced. Their figurines and religious ikonswere a drug on the market. The Earthmen made them of plastic and soldthem for less. The brothers, unable to meet the Payments that were not so Easy anymore, looked up Zotul and cuffed him around reproachfully. You got us into this, they said, emphasizing their bitterness withfists. Go see Broderick. Tell him we are undone and must have somecontracts to continue operating. Nursing bruises, Zotul unhappily went to the Council House again. Mr.Broderick was no longer with them, a suave assistant informed him.Would he like to see Mr. Siwicki instead? Zotul would. Siwicki was tall, thin, dark and somber-looking. There was even a hintof toughness about the set of his jaw and the hardness of his glance. So you can't pay, he said, tapping his teeth with a pencil. Helooked at Zotul coldly. It is well you have come to us instead ofmaking it necessary for us to approach you through the courts. I don't know what you mean, said Zotul. If we have to sue, we take back the merchandise and everythingattached to them. That means you would lose your houses, for they areattached to the furnaces. However, it is not as bad as that—yet. Wewill only require you to assign the remaining three-quarters of yourpottery to us. The brothers, when they heard of this, were too stunned to think ofbeating Zotul, by which he assumed he had progressed a little and wassomewhat comforted. To fail, said Koltan soberly, is not a Masur attribute. Go to thegovernor and tell him what we think of this business. The House ofMasur has long supported the government with heavy taxes. Now it istime for the government to do something for us. <doc-sep>The governor's palace was jammed with hurrying people, a scene ofconfusion that upset Zotul. The clerk who took his application foran interview was, he noticed only vaguely, a young Earthwoman. Itwas remarkable that he paid so little attention, for the femaleterrestrials were picked for physical assets that made Zurian mencovetous and Zurian women envious. The governor will see you, she said sweetly. He has been expectingyou. Me? marveled Zotul. She ushered him into the magnificent private office of the governorof Lor. The man behind the desk stood up, extended his hand with afriendly smile. Come in, come in! I'm glad to see you again. Zotul stared blankly. This was not the governor. This was Broderick,the Earthman. I—I came to see the governor, he said in confusion. Broderick nodded agreeably. I am the governor and I am well acquaintedwith your case, Mr. Masur. Shall we talk it over? Please sit down. I don't understand. The Earthmen.... Zotul paused, coloring. We areabout to lose our plant. You were about to say that the Earthmen are taking your plant awayfrom you. That is true. Since the House of Masur was the largest andrichest on Zur, it has taken a long time—the longest of all, in fact. What do you mean? Yours is the last business on Zur to be taken over by us. We havebought you out. Our government.... Your governments belong to us, too, said Broderick. When they couldnot pay for the roads, the telegraphs, the civic improvements, we tookthem over, just as we are taking you over. You mean, exclaimed Zotul, aghast, that you Earthmen own everythingon Zur? Even your armies. But why ? <doc-sep>Broderick clasped his hands behind back, went to the window and stareddown moodily into the street. You don't know what an overcrowded world is like, he said. A streetlike this, with so few people and vehicles on it, would be impossibleon Earth. But it's mobbed, protested Zotul. It gave me a headache. And to us it's almost empty. The pressure of population on Earth hasmade us range the Galaxy for places to put our extra people. The onlyhabitable planets, unfortunately, are populated ones. We take the leastpopulous worlds and—well, buy them out and move in. And after that? Broderick smiled gently. Zur will grow. Our people will intermarrywith yours. The future population of Zur will be neither true Zuriansnor true Earthmen, but a mixture of both. Zotul sat in silent thought. But you did not have to buy us out. Youhad the power to conquer us, even to destroy us. The whole planet couldhave been yours alone. He stopped in alarm. Or am I suggesting anidea that didn't occur to you? No, said Broderick, his usually smiling face almost pained withmemory. We know the history of conquest all too well. Our methodcauses more distress than we like to inflict, but it's better—and moresure—than war and invasion by force. Now that the unpleasant job isfinished, we can repair the dislocations. At last I understand what you said about the tortoise. Slow but sure. Broderick beamed again and clapped Zotul on theshoulder. Don't worry. You'll have your job back, the same as always,but you'll be working for us ... until the children of Earth and Zurare equal in knowledge and therefore equal partners. That's why we hadto break down your caste system. Zotul's eyes widened. And that is why my brothers did not beat me whenI failed! Of course. Are you ready now to take the assignment papers for you andyour brothers to sign? Yes, said Zotul. I am ready. <doc-sep></s>

The House of Masur is a family business in Zur, run by Koltan and his six sons. The business specializes in pottery and clay manufacturing for Zur. The family gathers as they deliberate the upcoming arrival of Earthmen. Some of the brothers express frustration that the Earthmen will be landing among the Thorabians rather than in Zur, disrupting their plan to steal the precious, scarce metals off their ship. Zotul, the youngest of the brothers, discourages the plan, saying that the Earthmen's ship is their only way of transport. After the meeting, Zotul ponders what other benefits the Earthmen could serve. The Earthmen eventually arrive at Zur, parading the streets and making speeches, and leaving shortly after. They return with multiple ships and establish corporations all over Zur. One day, Zotul's wife brings home a metal pot, which she had bought from Earthmen; she tells him that they are high in demand and that a new type of stove is essential to use them. Zotul protests, but later designs a ceramic stove, which becomes a successful development in their business. Earthmen continue introducing more technology to Zur, including a printing press and telegraphs. Zotul notes internally that though the business has made profit, it is dependent upon the pots from Earth. The business quickly begins declining, with sales dropping. They attempt to advertise their business, but advertisement has become fully occupied by Earth. After ten years, during which Koltan has passed on, the Masur business has dwindled. The brothers decide to go to the governor of Lor, who tells them that the developments are all beneficial, informing them of a new production of highways. The brothers are optimistic that they would be able to use their clay for the roads, but Earthmen begin using cement. The governor then refers the brothers to Earth's Merchandising Council, where Zotul meets Kent Broderick, where he expresses sympathy about the status of the Masur business and offers them the luxuries brought by Earthmen, completely free except for the cost of freight. The cost, however, is more than the brothers could ever afford, and so Broderick sets them up with a credit system, as well as a contract for the family to supply Earthmen with ceramic parts. The brothers enjoy their luxury, but it is short lived, as their contract expires and they find themselves in debt. Zotul then revisits the governor, who ends up being Broderick. Broderick informs Zotul that Earth has bought them, and every business in Zur, out, and that they own everything. Broderick tells Zotul that the family will work for Earth now, and that Earth will fully conquer Zur.

<s> A Gift From Earth By MANLY BANISTER Illustrated by KOSSIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Except for transportation, it was absolutely free ... but how much would the freight cost? It is an outrage, said Koltan of the House of Masur, that theEarthmen land among the Thorabians! Zotul, youngest of the Masur brothers, stirred uneasily. Personally, hewas in favor of the coming of the Earthmen to the world of Zur. At the head of the long, shining table sat old Kalrab Masur, in hisdotage, but still giving what he could of aid and comfort to thePottery of Masur, even though nobody listened to him any more andhe knew it. Around the table sat the six brothers—Koltan, eldestand Director of the Pottery; Morvan, his vice-chief; Singula, theirtreasurer; Thendro, sales manager; Lubiosa, export chief; and last inthe rank of age, Zotul, who was responsible for affairs of design. Behold, my sons, said Kalrab, stroking his scanty beard. What arethese Earthmen to worry about? Remember the clay. It is our strengthand our fortune. It is the muscle and bone of our trade. Earthmen maycome and Earthmen may go, but clay goes on forever ... and with it, thefame and fortune of the House of Masur. It is a damned imposition, agreed Morvan, ignoring his father'sphilosophical attitude. They could have landed just as easily here inLor. The Thorabians will lick up the gravy, said Singula, whose mind ranrather to matters of financial aspect, and leave us the grease. By this, he seemed to imply that the Thorabians would rob the Earthmen,which the Lorians would not. The truth was that all on Zur were pantingto get their hands on that marvelous ship, which was all of metal, avery scarce commodity on Zur, worth billions of ken. <doc-sep>Lubiosa, who had interests in Thorabia, and many agents there, kept hisown counsel. His people were active in the matter and that was enoughfor him. He would report when the time was ripe. Doubtless, said Zotul unexpectedly, for the youngest at a conferencewas expected to keep his mouth shut and applaud the decisions of hiselders, the Earthmen used all the metal on their planet in buildingthat ship. We cannot possibly bilk them of it; it is their only meansof transport. Such frank expression of motive was unheard of, even in the secretconclave of conference. Only the speaker's youth could account for it.The speech drew scowls from the brothers and stern rebuke from Koltan. When your opinion is wanted, we will ask you for it. Meantime,remember your position in the family. Zotul bowed his head meekly, but he burned with resentment. Listen to the boy, said the aged father. There is more wisdom in hishead than in all the rest of you. Forget the Earthmen and think only ofthe clay. Zotul did not appreciate his father's approval, for it only earned hima beating as soon as the old man went to bed. It was a common enoughthing among the brothers Masur, as among everybody, to be frustrated intheir desires. However, they had Zotul to take it out upon, and theydid. Still smarting, Zotul went back to his designing quarters and thoughtabout the Earthmen. If it was impossible to hope for much in the wayof metal from the Earthmen, what could one get from them? If he couldfigure this problem out, he might rise somewhat in the estimation ofhis brothers. That wouldn't take him out of the rank of scapegoat, ofcourse, but the beatings might become fewer and less severe. <doc-sep>By and by, the Earthmen came to Lor, flying through the air in strangemetal contraptions. They paraded through the tile-paved streets of thecity, marveled here, as they had in Thorabia, at the buildings all oftile inside and out, and made a great show of themselves for all thepeople to see. Speeches were made through interpreters, who had muchtoo quickly learned the tongue of the aliens; hence these left much tobe desired in the way of clarity, though their sincerity was evident. The Earthmen were going to do great things for the whole world ofZur. It required but the cooperation—an excellent word, that—of allZurians, and many blessings would rain down from the skies. This, ineffect, was what the Earthmen had to say. Zotul felt greatly cheered,for it refuted the attitude of his brothers without earning him awhaling for it. There was also some talk going around about agreements made betweenthe Earthmen and officials of the Lorian government, but you heard onething one day and another the next. Accurate reporting, much less anewspaper, was unknown on Zur. Finally, the Earthmen took off in their great, shining ship. Obviously,none had succeeded in chiseling them out of it, if, indeed, any hadtried. The anti-Earthmen Faction—in any culture complex, there isalways an anti faction to protest any movement of endeavor—crowedhappily that the Earthmen were gone for good, and a good thing, too. Such jubilation proved premature, however. One day, a fleet of shipsarrived and after they had landed all over the planet, Zur waspractically acrawl with Earthmen. Immediately, the Earthmen established what they calledcorporations—Zurian trading companies under terrestrial control. Theobject of the visit was trade. In spite of the fact that a terrestrial ship had landed at every Zuriancity of major and minor importance, and all in a single day, it tooksome time for the news to spread. The first awareness Zotul had was that, upon coming home from thepottery one evening, he found his wife Lania proudly brandishing analuminum pot at him. What is that thing? he asked curiously. A pot. I bought it at the market. Did you now? Well, take it back. Am I made of money that you spend mysubstance for some fool's product of precious metal? Take it back, Isay! <doc-sep>The pretty young wife laughed at him. Up to your ears in clay, nowonder you hear nothing of news! The pot is very cheap. The Earthmenare selling them everywhere. They're much better than our old claypots; they're light and easy to handle and they don't break whendropped. What good is it? asked Zotul, interested. How will it hold heat,being so light? The Earthmen don't cook as we do, she explained patiently. There isa paper with each pot that explains how it is used. And you will haveto design a new ceramic stove for me to use the pots on. Don't be idiotic! Do you suppose Koltan would agree to produce a newtype of stove when the old has sold well for centuries? Besides, why doyou need a whole new stove for one little pot? A dozen pots. They come in sets and are cheaper that way. And Koltanwill have to produce the new stove because all the housewives arebuying these pots and there will be a big demand for it. The Earthmansaid so. He did, did he? These pots are only a fad. You will soon enough goback to cooking with your old ones. The Earthman took them in trade—one reason why the new ones are socheap. There isn't a pot in the house but these metal ones, and youwill have to design and produce a new stove if you expect me to usethem. After he had beaten his wife thoroughly for her foolishness, Zotulstamped off in a rage and designed a new ceramic stove, one that wouldaccommodate the terrestrial pots very well. And Koltan put the model into production. Orders already are pouring in like mad, he said the next day. Itwas wise of you to foresee it and have the design ready. Already, I amsorry for thinking as I did about the Earthmen. They really intend todo well by us. The kilns of the Pottery of Masur fired day and night to keep up withthe demand for the new porcelain stoves. In three years, more than amillion had been made and sold by the Masurs alone, not counting thehundreds of thousands of copies turned out by competitors in everyland. <doc-sep>In the meantime, however, more things than pots came from Earth.One was a printing press, the like of which none on Zur had everdreamed. This, for some unknown reason and much to the disgust ofthe Lorians, was set up in Thorabia. Books and magazines poured fromit in a fantastic stream. The populace fervidly brushed up on itsscanty reading ability and bought everything available, overcome bythe novelty of it. Even Zotul bought a book—a primer in the Lorianlanguage—and learned how to read and write. The remainder of thebrothers Masur, on the other hand, preferred to remain in ignorance. Moreover, the Earthmen brought miles of copper wire—more than enoughin value to buy out the governorship of any country on Zur—and set uptelegraph lines from country to country and continent to continent.Within five years of the first landing of the Earthmen, every majorcity on the globe had a printing press, a daily newspaper, and enjoyedthe instantaneous transmission of news via telegraph. And the businessof the House of Masur continued to look up. As I have always said from the beginning, chortled Director Koltan,this coming of the Earthmen had been a great thing for us, andespecially for the House of Masur. You didn't think so at first, Zotul pointed out, and was immediatelysorry, for Koltan turned and gave him a hiding, single-handed, for hisunthinkable impertinence. It would do no good, Zotul realized, to bring up the fact that theirproduction of ceramic cooking pots had dropped off to about two percent of its former volume. Of course, profits on the line of new stovesgreatly overbalanced the loss, so that actually they were ahead; buttheir business was now dependent upon the supply of the metal pots fromEarth. About this time, plastic utensils—dishes, cups, knives, forks—madetheir appearance on Zur. It became very stylish to eat with thenewfangled paraphernalia ... and very cheap, too, because foreverything they sold, the Earthmen always took the old ware in trade.What they did with the stuff had been hard to believe at first. Theydestroyed it, which proved how valueless it really was. The result of the new flood was that in the following year, the sale ofMasur ceramic table service dropped to less than a tenth. <doc-sep>Trembling with excitement at this news from their book-keeper, Koltancalled an emergency meeting. He even routed old Kalrab out of hissenile stupor for the occasion, on the off chance that the old manmight still have a little wit left that could be helpful. Note, Koltan announced in a shaky voice, that the Earthmen undermineour business, and he read off the figures. Perhaps, said Zotul, it is a good thing also, as you said before,and will result in something even better for us. Koltan frowned, and Zotul, in fear of another beating, instantlysubsided. They are replacing our high-quality ceramic ware with inferiorterrestrial junk, Koltan went on bitterly. It is only the glamor thatsells it, of course, but before the people get the shine out of theireyes, we can be ruined. The brothers discussed the situation for an hour, and all the whileFather Kalrab sat and pulled his scanty whiskers. Seeing that they gotnowhere with their wrangle, he cleared his throat and spoke up. My sons, you forget it is not the Earthmen themselves at the bottomof your trouble, but the things of Earth. Think of the telegraph andthe newspaper, how these spread news of every shipment from Earth.The merchandise of the Earthmen is put up for sale by means of thesenewspapers, which also are the property of the Earthmen. The people areintrigued by these advertisements, as they are called, and flock tobuy. Now, if you would pull a tooth from the kwi that bites you, youmight also have advertisements of your own. Alas for that suggestion, no newspaper would accept advertisingfrom the House of Masur; all available space was occupied by theadvertisements of the Earthmen. In their dozenth conference since that first and fateful one, thebrothers Masur decided upon drastic steps. In the meantime, severalthings had happened. For one, old Kalrab had passed on to his immortalrest, but this made no real difference. For another, the Earthmen hadprocured legal authority to prospect the planet for metals, of whichthey found a good deal, but they told no one on Zur of this. Whatthey did mention was the crude oil and natural gas they discoveredin the underlayers of the planet's crust. Crews of Zurians, workingunder supervision of the Earthmen, laid pipelines from the gas and oilregions to every major and minor city on Zur. <doc-sep>By the time ten years had passed since the landing of the firstterrestrial ship, the Earthmen were conducting a brisk business ingas-fired ranges, furnaces and heaters ... and the Masur stove businesswas gone. Moreover, the Earthmen sold the Zurians their own natural gasat a nice profit and everybody was happy with the situation except thebrothers Masur. The drastic steps of the brothers applied, therefore, to making anenergetic protest to the governor of Lor. At one edge of the city, an area had been turned over to the Earthmenfor a spaceport, and the great terrestrial spaceships came to it anddeparted from it at regular intervals. As the heirs of the House ofMasur walked by on their way to see the governor, Zotul observed thatmuch new building was taking place and wondered what it was. Some new devilment of the Earthmen, you can be sure, said Koltanblackly. In fact, the Earthmen were building an assembly plant for radioreceiving sets. The ship now standing on its fins upon the apron wasloaded with printed circuits, resistors, variable condensers and otherradio parts. This was Earth's first step toward flooding Zur with thenatural follow-up in its campaign of advertising—radio programs—withcommercials. Happily for the brothers, they did not understand this at the time orthey would surely have gone back to be buried in their own clay. I think, the governor told them, that you gentlemen have notpaused to consider the affair from all angles. You must learn to bemodern—keep up with the times! We heads of government on Zur are doingall in our power to aid the Earthmen and facilitate their bringing agreat, new culture that can only benefit us. See how Zur has changed inten short years! Imagine the world of tomorrow! Why, do you know theyare even bringing autos to Zur! The brothers were fascinated with the governor's description of thesehitherto unheard-of vehicles. It only remains, concluded the governor, to build highways, and theEarthmen are taking care of that. At any rate, the brothers Masur were still able to console themselvesthat they had their tile business. Tile served well enough for housesand street surfacing; what better material could be devised for the newhighways the governor spoke of? There was a lot of money to be madeyet. <doc-sep>Radio stations went up all over Zur and began broadcasting. The peoplebought receiving sets like mad. The automobiles arrived and highwayswere constructed. The last hope of the brothers was dashed. The Earthmen set up plantsand began to manufacture Portland cement. You could build a house of concrete much cheaper than with tile. Ofcourse, since wood was scarce on Zur, it was no competition for eithertile or concrete. Concrete floors were smoother, too, and the stuffmade far better road surfacing. The demand for Masur tile hit rock bottom. The next time the brothers went to see the governor, he said, I cannothandle such complaints as yours. I must refer you to the MerchandisingCouncil. What is that? asked Koltan. It is an Earthman association that deals with complaints such asyours. In the matter of material progress, we must expect some strainin the fabric of our culture. Machinery has been set up to deal withit. Here is their address; go air your troubles to them. The business of a formal complaint was turned over by the brothers toZotul. It took three weeks for the Earthmen to get around to callinghim in, as a representative of the Pottery of Masur, for an interview. All the brothers could no longer be spared from the plant, even for thepurpose of pressing a complaint. Their days of idle wealth over, theyhad to get in and work with the clay with the rest of the help. Zotul found the headquarters of the Merchandising Council as indicatedon their message. He had not been this way in some time, but was notsurprised to find that a number of old buildings had been torn down tomake room for the concrete Council House and a roomy parking lot, pavedwith something called blacktop and jammed with an array of glitteringnew automobiles. An automobile was an expense none of the brothers could afford, nowthat they barely eked a living from the pottery. Still, Zotul achedwith desire at sight of so many shiny cars. Only a few had them andthey were the envied ones of Zur. Kent Broderick, the Earthman in charge of the Council, shook handsjovially with Zotul. That alien custom conformed with, Zotul took abetter look at his host. Broderick was an affable, smiling individualwith genial laugh wrinkles at his eyes. A man of middle age, dressed inthe baggy costume of Zur, he looked almost like a Zurian, except foran indefinite sense of alienness about him. Glad to have you call on us, Mr. Masur, boomed the Earthman, clappingZotul on the back. Just tell us your troubles and we'll have youstraightened out in no time. <doc-sep>All the chill recriminations and arguments Zotul had stored for thisoccasion were dissipated in the warmth of the Earthman's manner. Almost apologetically, Zotul told of the encroachment that had beenmade upon the business of the Pottery of Masur. Once, he said formally, the Masur fortune was the greatest inthe world of Zur. That was before my father, the famous KalrabMasur—Divinity protect him—departed this life to collect his greaterreward. He often told us, my father did, that the clay is the flesh andbones of our culture and our fortune. Now it has been shown how proneis the flesh to corruption and how feeble the bones. We are ruined, andall because of new things coming from Earth. Broderick stroked his shaven chin and looked sad. Why didn't you cometo me sooner? This would never have happened. But now that it has,we're going to do right by you. That is the policy of Earth—always todo right by the customer. Divinity witness, Zorin said, that we ask only compensation fordamages. Broderick shook his head. It is not possible to replace an immensefortune at this late date. As I said, you should have reported yourtrouble sooner. However, we can give you an opportunity to rebuild. Doyou own an automobile? No. A gas range? A gas-fired furnace? A radio? Zotul had to answer no to all except the radio. My wife Lania likesthe music, he explained. I cannot afford the other things. Broderick clucked sympathetically. One who could not afford thebargain-priced merchandise of Earth must be poor indeed. To begin with, he said, I am going to make you a gift of all theseluxuries you do not have. As Zotul made to protest, he cut him offwith a wave of his hand. It is the least we can do for you. Pick a carfrom the lot outside. I will arrange to have the other things deliveredand installed in your home. To receive gifts, said Zotul, incurs an obligation. None at all, beamed the Earthman cheerily. Every item is given toyou absolutely free—a gift from the people of Earth. All we ask isthat you pay the freight charges on the items. Our purpose is not tomake profit, but to spread technology and prosperity throughout theGalaxy. We have already done well on numerous worlds, but working outthe full program takes time. He chuckled deeply. We of Earth have a saying about one of ourextremely slow-moving native animals. We say, 'Slow is the tortoise,but sure.' And so with us. Our goal is a long-range one, with themotto, 'Better times with better merchandise.' <doc-sep>The engaging manner of the man won Zotul's confidence. After all, itwas no more than fair to pay transportation. He said, How much does the freight cost? Broderick told him. It may seem high, said the Earthman, but remember that Earth issixty-odd light-years away. After all, we are absorbing the cost of themerchandise. All you pay is the freight, which is cheap, consideringthe cost of operating an interstellar spaceship. Impossible, said Zotul drably. Not I and all my brothers togetherhave so much money any more. You don't know us of Earth very well yet, but you will. I offer youcredit! What is that? asked Zotul skeptically. It is how the poor are enabled to enjoy all the luxuries of therich, said Broderick, and went on to give a thumbnail sketch of theinvolutions and devolutions of credit, leaving out some angles thatmight have had a discouraging effect. On a world where credit was a totally new concept, it was enchanting.Zotul grasped at the glittering promise with avidity. What must I doto get credit? Just sign this paper, said Broderick, and you become part of ourEasy Payment Plan. Zotul drew back. I have five brothers. If I took all these things formyself and nothing for them, they would beat me black and blue. Here. Broderick handed him a sheaf of chattel mortgages. Have eachof your brothers sign one of these, then bring them back to me. That isall there is to it. It sounded wonderful. But how would the brothers take it? Zotulwrestled with his misgivings and the misgivings won. I will talk it over with them, he said. Give me the total so I willhave the figures. The total was more than it ought to be by simple addition. Zotulpointed this out politely. Interest, Broderick explained. A mere fifteen per cent. After all,you get the merchandise free. The transportation company has to bepaid, so another company loans you the money to pay for the freight.This small extra sum pays the lending company for its trouble. I see. Zotul puzzled over it sadly. It is too much, he said. Ourplant doesn't make enough money for us to meet the payments. I have a surprise for you, smiled Broderick. Here is a contract. Youwill start making ceramic parts for automobile spark plugs and certainparts for radios and gas ranges. It is our policy to encourage localmanufacture to help bring prices down. We haven't the equipment. We will equip your plant, beamed Broderick. It will require onlya quarter interest in your plant itself, assigned to our terrestrialcompany. <doc-sep>Zotul, anxious to possess the treasures promised by the Earthman,won over his brothers. They signed with marks and gave up a quarterinterest in the Pottery of Masur. They rolled in the luxuries of Earth.These, who had never known debt before, were in it up to their ears. The retooled plant forged ahead and profits began to look up, but theEarthmen took a fourth of them as their share in the industry. For a year, the brothers drove their shiny new cars about on thenew concrete highways the Earthmen had built. From pumps owned by aterrestrial company, they bought gas and oil that had been drawn fromthe crust of Zur and was sold to the Zurians at a magnificent profit.The food they ate was cooked in Earthly pots on Earth-type gas ranges,served up on metal plates that had been stamped out on Earth. In thewinter, they toasted their shins before handsome gas grates, thoughthey had gas-fired central heating. About this time, the ships from Earth brought steam-powered electricgenerators. Lines went up, power was generated, and a flood ofelectrical gadgets and appliances hit the market. For some reason,batteries for the radios were no longer available and everybody had tobuy the new radios. And who could do without a radio in this modern age? The homes of the brothers Masur blossomed on the Easy Payment Plan.They had refrigerators, washers, driers, toasters, grills, electricfans, air-conditioning equipment and everything else Earth couldpossibly sell them. We will be forty years paying it all off, exulted Zotul, butmeantime we have the things and aren't they worth it? But at the end of three years, the Earthmen dropped their option.The Pottery of Masur had no more contracts. Business languished. TheEarthmen, explained Broderick, had built a plant of their own becauseit was so much more efficient—and to lower prices, which was Earth'sunswerving policy, greater and greater efficiency was demanded.Broderick was very sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do. The introduction of television provided a further calamity. The setswere delicate and needed frequent repairs, hence were costly to own andmaintain. But all Zurians who had to keep up with the latest from Earthhad them. Now it was possible not only to hear about things of Earth,but to see them as they were broadcast from the video tapes. The printing plants that turned out mortgage contracts did a lushbusiness. <doc-sep>For the common people of Zur, times were good everywhere. In a decadeand a half, the Earthmen had wrought magnificent changes on thisbackward world. As Broderick had said, the progress of the tortoise wasslow, but it was extremely sure. The brothers Masur got along in spite of dropped options. They had lessmoney and felt the pinch of their debts more keenly, but televisionkept their wives and children amused and furnished an anodyne for thepangs of impoverishment. The pottery income dropped to an impossible low, no matter how Zotuldesigned and the brothers produced. Their figurines and religious ikonswere a drug on the market. The Earthmen made them of plastic and soldthem for less. The brothers, unable to meet the Payments that were not so Easy anymore, looked up Zotul and cuffed him around reproachfully. You got us into this, they said, emphasizing their bitterness withfists. Go see Broderick. Tell him we are undone and must have somecontracts to continue operating. Nursing bruises, Zotul unhappily went to the Council House again. Mr.Broderick was no longer with them, a suave assistant informed him.Would he like to see Mr. Siwicki instead? Zotul would. Siwicki was tall, thin, dark and somber-looking. There was even a hintof toughness about the set of his jaw and the hardness of his glance. So you can't pay, he said, tapping his teeth with a pencil. Helooked at Zotul coldly. It is well you have come to us instead ofmaking it necessary for us to approach you through the courts. I don't know what you mean, said Zotul. If we have to sue, we take back the merchandise and everythingattached to them. That means you would lose your houses, for they areattached to the furnaces. However, it is not as bad as that—yet. Wewill only require you to assign the remaining three-quarters of yourpottery to us. The brothers, when they heard of this, were too stunned to think ofbeating Zotul, by which he assumed he had progressed a little and wassomewhat comforted. To fail, said Koltan soberly, is not a Masur attribute. Go to thegovernor and tell him what we think of this business. The House ofMasur has long supported the government with heavy taxes. Now it istime for the government to do something for us. <doc-sep>The governor's palace was jammed with hurrying people, a scene ofconfusion that upset Zotul. The clerk who took his application foran interview was, he noticed only vaguely, a young Earthwoman. Itwas remarkable that he paid so little attention, for the femaleterrestrials were picked for physical assets that made Zurian mencovetous and Zurian women envious. The governor will see you, she said sweetly. He has been expectingyou. Me? marveled Zotul. She ushered him into the magnificent private office of the governorof Lor. The man behind the desk stood up, extended his hand with afriendly smile. Come in, come in! I'm glad to see you again. Zotul stared blankly. This was not the governor. This was Broderick,the Earthman. I—I came to see the governor, he said in confusion. Broderick nodded agreeably. I am the governor and I am well acquaintedwith your case, Mr. Masur. Shall we talk it over? Please sit down. I don't understand. The Earthmen.... Zotul paused, coloring. We areabout to lose our plant. You were about to say that the Earthmen are taking your plant awayfrom you. That is true. Since the House of Masur was the largest andrichest on Zur, it has taken a long time—the longest of all, in fact. What do you mean? Yours is the last business on Zur to be taken over by us. We havebought you out. Our government.... Your governments belong to us, too, said Broderick. When they couldnot pay for the roads, the telegraphs, the civic improvements, we tookthem over, just as we are taking you over. You mean, exclaimed Zotul, aghast, that you Earthmen own everythingon Zur? Even your armies. But why ? <doc-sep>Broderick clasped his hands behind back, went to the window and stareddown moodily into the street. You don't know what an overcrowded world is like, he said. A streetlike this, with so few people and vehicles on it, would be impossibleon Earth. But it's mobbed, protested Zotul. It gave me a headache. And to us it's almost empty. The pressure of population on Earth hasmade us range the Galaxy for places to put our extra people. The onlyhabitable planets, unfortunately, are populated ones. We take the leastpopulous worlds and—well, buy them out and move in. And after that? Broderick smiled gently. Zur will grow. Our people will intermarrywith yours. The future population of Zur will be neither true Zuriansnor true Earthmen, but a mixture of both. Zotul sat in silent thought. But you did not have to buy us out. Youhad the power to conquer us, even to destroy us. The whole planet couldhave been yours alone. He stopped in alarm. Or am I suggesting anidea that didn't occur to you? No, said Broderick, his usually smiling face almost pained withmemory. We know the history of conquest all too well. Our methodcauses more distress than we like to inflict, but it's better—and moresure—than war and invasion by force. Now that the unpleasant job isfinished, we can repair the dislocations. At last I understand what you said about the tortoise. Slow but sure. Broderick beamed again and clapped Zotul on theshoulder. Don't worry. You'll have your job back, the same as always,but you'll be working for us ... until the children of Earth and Zurare equal in knowledge and therefore equal partners. That's why we hadto break down your caste system. Zotul's eyes widened. And that is why my brothers did not beat me whenI failed! Of course. Are you ready now to take the assignment papers for you andyour brothers to sign? Yes, said Zotul. I am ready. <doc-sep></s>

Each of the six brothers of the Masur business has their own specialty; a director, treasurer, vice-chief, sales manager, export chief, and Zotul, their designer. Despite their equal roles in the business, Zotul is the youngest brother, and for this reason is mistreated. In meetings and conferences, he is rarely allowed to speak without being scolded, and his input is never taken seriously. Zotul also experiences beatings by his brothers regularly. Even though Zotul experiences this treatment, the brothers still expect him to carry the weight of responsibilities for them, such as meeting with Broderick.

<s> A Gift From Earth By MANLY BANISTER Illustrated by KOSSIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Except for transportation, it was absolutely free ... but how much would the freight cost? It is an outrage, said Koltan of the House of Masur, that theEarthmen land among the Thorabians! Zotul, youngest of the Masur brothers, stirred uneasily. Personally, hewas in favor of the coming of the Earthmen to the world of Zur. At the head of the long, shining table sat old Kalrab Masur, in hisdotage, but still giving what he could of aid and comfort to thePottery of Masur, even though nobody listened to him any more andhe knew it. Around the table sat the six brothers—Koltan, eldestand Director of the Pottery; Morvan, his vice-chief; Singula, theirtreasurer; Thendro, sales manager; Lubiosa, export chief; and last inthe rank of age, Zotul, who was responsible for affairs of design. Behold, my sons, said Kalrab, stroking his scanty beard. What arethese Earthmen to worry about? Remember the clay. It is our strengthand our fortune. It is the muscle and bone of our trade. Earthmen maycome and Earthmen may go, but clay goes on forever ... and with it, thefame and fortune of the House of Masur. It is a damned imposition, agreed Morvan, ignoring his father'sphilosophical attitude. They could have landed just as easily here inLor. The Thorabians will lick up the gravy, said Singula, whose mind ranrather to matters of financial aspect, and leave us the grease. By this, he seemed to imply that the Thorabians would rob the Earthmen,which the Lorians would not. The truth was that all on Zur were pantingto get their hands on that marvelous ship, which was all of metal, avery scarce commodity on Zur, worth billions of ken. <doc-sep>Lubiosa, who had interests in Thorabia, and many agents there, kept hisown counsel. His people were active in the matter and that was enoughfor him. He would report when the time was ripe. Doubtless, said Zotul unexpectedly, for the youngest at a conferencewas expected to keep his mouth shut and applaud the decisions of hiselders, the Earthmen used all the metal on their planet in buildingthat ship. We cannot possibly bilk them of it; it is their only meansof transport. Such frank expression of motive was unheard of, even in the secretconclave of conference. Only the speaker's youth could account for it.The speech drew scowls from the brothers and stern rebuke from Koltan. When your opinion is wanted, we will ask you for it. Meantime,remember your position in the family. Zotul bowed his head meekly, but he burned with resentment. Listen to the boy, said the aged father. There is more wisdom in hishead than in all the rest of you. Forget the Earthmen and think only ofthe clay. Zotul did not appreciate his father's approval, for it only earned hima beating as soon as the old man went to bed. It was a common enoughthing among the brothers Masur, as among everybody, to be frustrated intheir desires. However, they had Zotul to take it out upon, and theydid. Still smarting, Zotul went back to his designing quarters and thoughtabout the Earthmen. If it was impossible to hope for much in the wayof metal from the Earthmen, what could one get from them? If he couldfigure this problem out, he might rise somewhat in the estimation ofhis brothers. That wouldn't take him out of the rank of scapegoat, ofcourse, but the beatings might become fewer and less severe. <doc-sep>By and by, the Earthmen came to Lor, flying through the air in strangemetal contraptions. They paraded through the tile-paved streets of thecity, marveled here, as they had in Thorabia, at the buildings all oftile inside and out, and made a great show of themselves for all thepeople to see. Speeches were made through interpreters, who had muchtoo quickly learned the tongue of the aliens; hence these left much tobe desired in the way of clarity, though their sincerity was evident. The Earthmen were going to do great things for the whole world ofZur. It required but the cooperation—an excellent word, that—of allZurians, and many blessings would rain down from the skies. This, ineffect, was what the Earthmen had to say. Zotul felt greatly cheered,for it refuted the attitude of his brothers without earning him awhaling for it. There was also some talk going around about agreements made betweenthe Earthmen and officials of the Lorian government, but you heard onething one day and another the next. Accurate reporting, much less anewspaper, was unknown on Zur. Finally, the Earthmen took off in their great, shining ship. Obviously,none had succeeded in chiseling them out of it, if, indeed, any hadtried. The anti-Earthmen Faction—in any culture complex, there isalways an anti faction to protest any movement of endeavor—crowedhappily that the Earthmen were gone for good, and a good thing, too. Such jubilation proved premature, however. One day, a fleet of shipsarrived and after they had landed all over the planet, Zur waspractically acrawl with Earthmen. Immediately, the Earthmen established what they calledcorporations—Zurian trading companies under terrestrial control. Theobject of the visit was trade. In spite of the fact that a terrestrial ship had landed at every Zuriancity of major and minor importance, and all in a single day, it tooksome time for the news to spread. The first awareness Zotul had was that, upon coming home from thepottery one evening, he found his wife Lania proudly brandishing analuminum pot at him. What is that thing? he asked curiously. A pot. I bought it at the market. Did you now? Well, take it back. Am I made of money that you spend mysubstance for some fool's product of precious metal? Take it back, Isay! <doc-sep>The pretty young wife laughed at him. Up to your ears in clay, nowonder you hear nothing of news! The pot is very cheap. The Earthmenare selling them everywhere. They're much better than our old claypots; they're light and easy to handle and they don't break whendropped. What good is it? asked Zotul, interested. How will it hold heat,being so light? The Earthmen don't cook as we do, she explained patiently. There isa paper with each pot that explains how it is used. And you will haveto design a new ceramic stove for me to use the pots on. Don't be idiotic! Do you suppose Koltan would agree to produce a newtype of stove when the old has sold well for centuries? Besides, why doyou need a whole new stove for one little pot? A dozen pots. They come in sets and are cheaper that way. And Koltanwill have to produce the new stove because all the housewives arebuying these pots and there will be a big demand for it. The Earthmansaid so. He did, did he? These pots are only a fad. You will soon enough goback to cooking with your old ones. The Earthman took them in trade—one reason why the new ones are socheap. There isn't a pot in the house but these metal ones, and youwill have to design and produce a new stove if you expect me to usethem. After he had beaten his wife thoroughly for her foolishness, Zotulstamped off in a rage and designed a new ceramic stove, one that wouldaccommodate the terrestrial pots very well. And Koltan put the model into production. Orders already are pouring in like mad, he said the next day. Itwas wise of you to foresee it and have the design ready. Already, I amsorry for thinking as I did about the Earthmen. They really intend todo well by us. The kilns of the Pottery of Masur fired day and night to keep up withthe demand for the new porcelain stoves. In three years, more than amillion had been made and sold by the Masurs alone, not counting thehundreds of thousands of copies turned out by competitors in everyland. <doc-sep>In the meantime, however, more things than pots came from Earth.One was a printing press, the like of which none on Zur had everdreamed. This, for some unknown reason and much to the disgust ofthe Lorians, was set up in Thorabia. Books and magazines poured fromit in a fantastic stream. The populace fervidly brushed up on itsscanty reading ability and bought everything available, overcome bythe novelty of it. Even Zotul bought a book—a primer in the Lorianlanguage—and learned how to read and write. The remainder of thebrothers Masur, on the other hand, preferred to remain in ignorance. Moreover, the Earthmen brought miles of copper wire—more than enoughin value to buy out the governorship of any country on Zur—and set uptelegraph lines from country to country and continent to continent.Within five years of the first landing of the Earthmen, every majorcity on the globe had a printing press, a daily newspaper, and enjoyedthe instantaneous transmission of news via telegraph. And the businessof the House of Masur continued to look up. As I have always said from the beginning, chortled Director Koltan,this coming of the Earthmen had been a great thing for us, andespecially for the House of Masur. You didn't think so at first, Zotul pointed out, and was immediatelysorry, for Koltan turned and gave him a hiding, single-handed, for hisunthinkable impertinence. It would do no good, Zotul realized, to bring up the fact that theirproduction of ceramic cooking pots had dropped off to about two percent of its former volume. Of course, profits on the line of new stovesgreatly overbalanced the loss, so that actually they were ahead; buttheir business was now dependent upon the supply of the metal pots fromEarth. About this time, plastic utensils—dishes, cups, knives, forks—madetheir appearance on Zur. It became very stylish to eat with thenewfangled paraphernalia ... and very cheap, too, because foreverything they sold, the Earthmen always took the old ware in trade.What they did with the stuff had been hard to believe at first. Theydestroyed it, which proved how valueless it really was. The result of the new flood was that in the following year, the sale ofMasur ceramic table service dropped to less than a tenth. <doc-sep>Trembling with excitement at this news from their book-keeper, Koltancalled an emergency meeting. He even routed old Kalrab out of hissenile stupor for the occasion, on the off chance that the old manmight still have a little wit left that could be helpful. Note, Koltan announced in a shaky voice, that the Earthmen undermineour business, and he read off the figures. Perhaps, said Zotul, it is a good thing also, as you said before,and will result in something even better for us. Koltan frowned, and Zotul, in fear of another beating, instantlysubsided. They are replacing our high-quality ceramic ware with inferiorterrestrial junk, Koltan went on bitterly. It is only the glamor thatsells it, of course, but before the people get the shine out of theireyes, we can be ruined. The brothers discussed the situation for an hour, and all the whileFather Kalrab sat and pulled his scanty whiskers. Seeing that they gotnowhere with their wrangle, he cleared his throat and spoke up. My sons, you forget it is not the Earthmen themselves at the bottomof your trouble, but the things of Earth. Think of the telegraph andthe newspaper, how these spread news of every shipment from Earth.The merchandise of the Earthmen is put up for sale by means of thesenewspapers, which also are the property of the Earthmen. The people areintrigued by these advertisements, as they are called, and flock tobuy. Now, if you would pull a tooth from the kwi that bites you, youmight also have advertisements of your own. Alas for that suggestion, no newspaper would accept advertisingfrom the House of Masur; all available space was occupied by theadvertisements of the Earthmen. In their dozenth conference since that first and fateful one, thebrothers Masur decided upon drastic steps. In the meantime, severalthings had happened. For one, old Kalrab had passed on to his immortalrest, but this made no real difference. For another, the Earthmen hadprocured legal authority to prospect the planet for metals, of whichthey found a good deal, but they told no one on Zur of this. Whatthey did mention was the crude oil and natural gas they discoveredin the underlayers of the planet's crust. Crews of Zurians, workingunder supervision of the Earthmen, laid pipelines from the gas and oilregions to every major and minor city on Zur. <doc-sep>By the time ten years had passed since the landing of the firstterrestrial ship, the Earthmen were conducting a brisk business ingas-fired ranges, furnaces and heaters ... and the Masur stove businesswas gone. Moreover, the Earthmen sold the Zurians their own natural gasat a nice profit and everybody was happy with the situation except thebrothers Masur. The drastic steps of the brothers applied, therefore, to making anenergetic protest to the governor of Lor. At one edge of the city, an area had been turned over to the Earthmenfor a spaceport, and the great terrestrial spaceships came to it anddeparted from it at regular intervals. As the heirs of the House ofMasur walked by on their way to see the governor, Zotul observed thatmuch new building was taking place and wondered what it was. Some new devilment of the Earthmen, you can be sure, said Koltanblackly. In fact, the Earthmen were building an assembly plant for radioreceiving sets. The ship now standing on its fins upon the apron wasloaded with printed circuits, resistors, variable condensers and otherradio parts. This was Earth's first step toward flooding Zur with thenatural follow-up in its campaign of advertising—radio programs—withcommercials. Happily for the brothers, they did not understand this at the time orthey would surely have gone back to be buried in their own clay. I think, the governor told them, that you gentlemen have notpaused to consider the affair from all angles. You must learn to bemodern—keep up with the times! We heads of government on Zur are doingall in our power to aid the Earthmen and facilitate their bringing agreat, new culture that can only benefit us. See how Zur has changed inten short years! Imagine the world of tomorrow! Why, do you know theyare even bringing autos to Zur! The brothers were fascinated with the governor's description of thesehitherto unheard-of vehicles. It only remains, concluded the governor, to build highways, and theEarthmen are taking care of that. At any rate, the brothers Masur were still able to console themselvesthat they had their tile business. Tile served well enough for housesand street surfacing; what better material could be devised for the newhighways the governor spoke of? There was a lot of money to be madeyet. <doc-sep>Radio stations went up all over Zur and began broadcasting. The peoplebought receiving sets like mad. The automobiles arrived and highwayswere constructed. The last hope of the brothers was dashed. The Earthmen set up plantsand began to manufacture Portland cement. You could build a house of concrete much cheaper than with tile. Ofcourse, since wood was scarce on Zur, it was no competition for eithertile or concrete. Concrete floors were smoother, too, and the stuffmade far better road surfacing. The demand for Masur tile hit rock bottom. The next time the brothers went to see the governor, he said, I cannothandle such complaints as yours. I must refer you to the MerchandisingCouncil. What is that? asked Koltan. It is an Earthman association that deals with complaints such asyours. In the matter of material progress, we must expect some strainin the fabric of our culture. Machinery has been set up to deal withit. Here is their address; go air your troubles to them. The business of a formal complaint was turned over by the brothers toZotul. It took three weeks for the Earthmen to get around to callinghim in, as a representative of the Pottery of Masur, for an interview. All the brothers could no longer be spared from the plant, even for thepurpose of pressing a complaint. Their days of idle wealth over, theyhad to get in and work with the clay with the rest of the help. Zotul found the headquarters of the Merchandising Council as indicatedon their message. He had not been this way in some time, but was notsurprised to find that a number of old buildings had been torn down tomake room for the concrete Council House and a roomy parking lot, pavedwith something called blacktop and jammed with an array of glitteringnew automobiles. An automobile was an expense none of the brothers could afford, nowthat they barely eked a living from the pottery. Still, Zotul achedwith desire at sight of so many shiny cars. Only a few had them andthey were the envied ones of Zur. Kent Broderick, the Earthman in charge of the Council, shook handsjovially with Zotul. That alien custom conformed with, Zotul took abetter look at his host. Broderick was an affable, smiling individualwith genial laugh wrinkles at his eyes. A man of middle age, dressed inthe baggy costume of Zur, he looked almost like a Zurian, except foran indefinite sense of alienness about him. Glad to have you call on us, Mr. Masur, boomed the Earthman, clappingZotul on the back. Just tell us your troubles and we'll have youstraightened out in no time. <doc-sep>All the chill recriminations and arguments Zotul had stored for thisoccasion were dissipated in the warmth of the Earthman's manner. Almost apologetically, Zotul told of the encroachment that had beenmade upon the business of the Pottery of Masur. Once, he said formally, the Masur fortune was the greatest inthe world of Zur. That was before my father, the famous KalrabMasur—Divinity protect him—departed this life to collect his greaterreward. He often told us, my father did, that the clay is the flesh andbones of our culture and our fortune. Now it has been shown how proneis the flesh to corruption and how feeble the bones. We are ruined, andall because of new things coming from Earth. Broderick stroked his shaven chin and looked sad. Why didn't you cometo me sooner? This would never have happened. But now that it has,we're going to do right by you. That is the policy of Earth—always todo right by the customer. Divinity witness, Zorin said, that we ask only compensation fordamages. Broderick shook his head. It is not possible to replace an immensefortune at this late date. As I said, you should have reported yourtrouble sooner. However, we can give you an opportunity to rebuild. Doyou own an automobile? No. A gas range? A gas-fired furnace? A radio? Zotul had to answer no to all except the radio. My wife Lania likesthe music, he explained. I cannot afford the other things. Broderick clucked sympathetically. One who could not afford thebargain-priced merchandise of Earth must be poor indeed. To begin with, he said, I am going to make you a gift of all theseluxuries you do not have. As Zotul made to protest, he cut him offwith a wave of his hand. It is the least we can do for you. Pick a carfrom the lot outside. I will arrange to have the other things deliveredand installed in your home. To receive gifts, said Zotul, incurs an obligation. None at all, beamed the Earthman cheerily. Every item is given toyou absolutely free—a gift from the people of Earth. All we ask isthat you pay the freight charges on the items. Our purpose is not tomake profit, but to spread technology and prosperity throughout theGalaxy. We have already done well on numerous worlds, but working outthe full program takes time. He chuckled deeply. We of Earth have a saying about one of ourextremely slow-moving native animals. We say, 'Slow is the tortoise,but sure.' And so with us. Our goal is a long-range one, with themotto, 'Better times with better merchandise.' <doc-sep>The engaging manner of the man won Zotul's confidence. After all, itwas no more than fair to pay transportation. He said, How much does the freight cost? Broderick told him. It may seem high, said the Earthman, but remember that Earth issixty-odd light-years away. After all, we are absorbing the cost of themerchandise. All you pay is the freight, which is cheap, consideringthe cost of operating an interstellar spaceship. Impossible, said Zotul drably. Not I and all my brothers togetherhave so much money any more. You don't know us of Earth very well yet, but you will. I offer youcredit! What is that? asked Zotul skeptically. It is how the poor are enabled to enjoy all the luxuries of therich, said Broderick, and went on to give a thumbnail sketch of theinvolutions and devolutions of credit, leaving out some angles thatmight have had a discouraging effect. On a world where credit was a totally new concept, it was enchanting.Zotul grasped at the glittering promise with avidity. What must I doto get credit? Just sign this paper, said Broderick, and you become part of ourEasy Payment Plan. Zotul drew back. I have five brothers. If I took all these things formyself and nothing for them, they would beat me black and blue. Here. Broderick handed him a sheaf of chattel mortgages. Have eachof your brothers sign one of these, then bring them back to me. That isall there is to it. It sounded wonderful. But how would the brothers take it? Zotulwrestled with his misgivings and the misgivings won. I will talk it over with them, he said. Give me the total so I willhave the figures. The total was more than it ought to be by simple addition. Zotulpointed this out politely. Interest, Broderick explained. A mere fifteen per cent. After all,you get the merchandise free. The transportation company has to bepaid, so another company loans you the money to pay for the freight.This small extra sum pays the lending company for its trouble. I see. Zotul puzzled over it sadly. It is too much, he said. Ourplant doesn't make enough money for us to meet the payments. I have a surprise for you, smiled Broderick. Here is a contract. Youwill start making ceramic parts for automobile spark plugs and certainparts for radios and gas ranges. It is our policy to encourage localmanufacture to help bring prices down. We haven't the equipment. We will equip your plant, beamed Broderick. It will require onlya quarter interest in your plant itself, assigned to our terrestrialcompany. <doc-sep>Zotul, anxious to possess the treasures promised by the Earthman,won over his brothers. They signed with marks and gave up a quarterinterest in the Pottery of Masur. They rolled in the luxuries of Earth.These, who had never known debt before, were in it up to their ears. The retooled plant forged ahead and profits began to look up, but theEarthmen took a fourth of them as their share in the industry. For a year, the brothers drove their shiny new cars about on thenew concrete highways the Earthmen had built. From pumps owned by aterrestrial company, they bought gas and oil that had been drawn fromthe crust of Zur and was sold to the Zurians at a magnificent profit.The food they ate was cooked in Earthly pots on Earth-type gas ranges,served up on metal plates that had been stamped out on Earth. In thewinter, they toasted their shins before handsome gas grates, thoughthey had gas-fired central heating. About this time, the ships from Earth brought steam-powered electricgenerators. Lines went up, power was generated, and a flood ofelectrical gadgets and appliances hit the market. For some reason,batteries for the radios were no longer available and everybody had tobuy the new radios. And who could do without a radio in this modern age? The homes of the brothers Masur blossomed on the Easy Payment Plan.They had refrigerators, washers, driers, toasters, grills, electricfans, air-conditioning equipment and everything else Earth couldpossibly sell them. We will be forty years paying it all off, exulted Zotul, butmeantime we have the things and aren't they worth it? But at the end of three years, the Earthmen dropped their option.The Pottery of Masur had no more contracts. Business languished. TheEarthmen, explained Broderick, had built a plant of their own becauseit was so much more efficient—and to lower prices, which was Earth'sunswerving policy, greater and greater efficiency was demanded.Broderick was very sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do. The introduction of television provided a further calamity. The setswere delicate and needed frequent repairs, hence were costly to own andmaintain. But all Zurians who had to keep up with the latest from Earthhad them. Now it was possible not only to hear about things of Earth,but to see them as they were broadcast from the video tapes. The printing plants that turned out mortgage contracts did a lushbusiness. <doc-sep>For the common people of Zur, times were good everywhere. In a decadeand a half, the Earthmen had wrought magnificent changes on thisbackward world. As Broderick had said, the progress of the tortoise wasslow, but it was extremely sure. The brothers Masur got along in spite of dropped options. They had lessmoney and felt the pinch of their debts more keenly, but televisionkept their wives and children amused and furnished an anodyne for thepangs of impoverishment. The pottery income dropped to an impossible low, no matter how Zotuldesigned and the brothers produced. Their figurines and religious ikonswere a drug on the market. The Earthmen made them of plastic and soldthem for less. The brothers, unable to meet the Payments that were not so Easy anymore, looked up Zotul and cuffed him around reproachfully. You got us into this, they said, emphasizing their bitterness withfists. Go see Broderick. Tell him we are undone and must have somecontracts to continue operating. Nursing bruises, Zotul unhappily went to the Council House again. Mr.Broderick was no longer with them, a suave assistant informed him.Would he like to see Mr. Siwicki instead? Zotul would. Siwicki was tall, thin, dark and somber-looking. There was even a hintof toughness about the set of his jaw and the hardness of his glance. So you can't pay, he said, tapping his teeth with a pencil. Helooked at Zotul coldly. It is well you have come to us instead ofmaking it necessary for us to approach you through the courts. I don't know what you mean, said Zotul. If we have to sue, we take back the merchandise and everythingattached to them. That means you would lose your houses, for they areattached to the furnaces. However, it is not as bad as that—yet. Wewill only require you to assign the remaining three-quarters of yourpottery to us. The brothers, when they heard of this, were too stunned to think ofbeating Zotul, by which he assumed he had progressed a little and wassomewhat comforted. To fail, said Koltan soberly, is not a Masur attribute. Go to thegovernor and tell him what we think of this business. The House ofMasur has long supported the government with heavy taxes. Now it istime for the government to do something for us. <doc-sep>The governor's palace was jammed with hurrying people, a scene ofconfusion that upset Zotul. The clerk who took his application foran interview was, he noticed only vaguely, a young Earthwoman. Itwas remarkable that he paid so little attention, for the femaleterrestrials were picked for physical assets that made Zurian mencovetous and Zurian women envious. The governor will see you, she said sweetly. He has been expectingyou. Me? marveled Zotul. She ushered him into the magnificent private office of the governorof Lor. The man behind the desk stood up, extended his hand with afriendly smile. Come in, come in! I'm glad to see you again. Zotul stared blankly. This was not the governor. This was Broderick,the Earthman. I—I came to see the governor, he said in confusion. Broderick nodded agreeably. I am the governor and I am well acquaintedwith your case, Mr. Masur. Shall we talk it over? Please sit down. I don't understand. The Earthmen.... Zotul paused, coloring. We areabout to lose our plant. You were about to say that the Earthmen are taking your plant awayfrom you. That is true. Since the House of Masur was the largest andrichest on Zur, it has taken a long time—the longest of all, in fact. What do you mean? Yours is the last business on Zur to be taken over by us. We havebought you out. Our government.... Your governments belong to us, too, said Broderick. When they couldnot pay for the roads, the telegraphs, the civic improvements, we tookthem over, just as we are taking you over. You mean, exclaimed Zotul, aghast, that you Earthmen own everythingon Zur? Even your armies. But why ? <doc-sep>Broderick clasped his hands behind back, went to the window and stareddown moodily into the street. You don't know what an overcrowded world is like, he said. A streetlike this, with so few people and vehicles on it, would be impossibleon Earth. But it's mobbed, protested Zotul. It gave me a headache. And to us it's almost empty. The pressure of population on Earth hasmade us range the Galaxy for places to put our extra people. The onlyhabitable planets, unfortunately, are populated ones. We take the leastpopulous worlds and—well, buy them out and move in. And after that? Broderick smiled gently. Zur will grow. Our people will intermarrywith yours. The future population of Zur will be neither true Zuriansnor true Earthmen, but a mixture of both. Zotul sat in silent thought. But you did not have to buy us out. Youhad the power to conquer us, even to destroy us. The whole planet couldhave been yours alone. He stopped in alarm. Or am I suggesting anidea that didn't occur to you? No, said Broderick, his usually smiling face almost pained withmemory. We know the history of conquest all too well. Our methodcauses more distress than we like to inflict, but it's better—and moresure—than war and invasion by force. Now that the unpleasant job isfinished, we can repair the dislocations. At last I understand what you said about the tortoise. Slow but sure. Broderick beamed again and clapped Zotul on theshoulder. Don't worry. You'll have your job back, the same as always,but you'll be working for us ... until the children of Earth and Zurare equal in knowledge and therefore equal partners. That's why we hadto break down your caste system. Zotul's eyes widened. And that is why my brothers did not beat me whenI failed! Of course. Are you ready now to take the assignment papers for you andyour brothers to sign? Yes, said Zotul. I am ready. <doc-sep></s>

The story takes place in Zur, a region within Lor, on a foreign planet. There is a neighboring region, Thorabia, often seen as a rival. Zur is initially a mellow city, made of clay and tile. However, once Earth begins overtaking Zur, the city becomes more crowded and filled with large, corporate buildings, made of cement and metal. Much of the story occurs within the office of the Masur family business, as well as the governor's building, and the office of the Merchandising Council.

<s> A Gift From Earth By MANLY BANISTER Illustrated by KOSSIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Except for transportation, it was absolutely free ... but how much would the freight cost? It is an outrage, said Koltan of the House of Masur, that theEarthmen land among the Thorabians! Zotul, youngest of the Masur brothers, stirred uneasily. Personally, hewas in favor of the coming of the Earthmen to the world of Zur. At the head of the long, shining table sat old Kalrab Masur, in hisdotage, but still giving what he could of aid and comfort to thePottery of Masur, even though nobody listened to him any more andhe knew it. Around the table sat the six brothers—Koltan, eldestand Director of the Pottery; Morvan, his vice-chief; Singula, theirtreasurer; Thendro, sales manager; Lubiosa, export chief; and last inthe rank of age, Zotul, who was responsible for affairs of design. Behold, my sons, said Kalrab, stroking his scanty beard. What arethese Earthmen to worry about? Remember the clay. It is our strengthand our fortune. It is the muscle and bone of our trade. Earthmen maycome and Earthmen may go, but clay goes on forever ... and with it, thefame and fortune of the House of Masur. It is a damned imposition, agreed Morvan, ignoring his father'sphilosophical attitude. They could have landed just as easily here inLor. The Thorabians will lick up the gravy, said Singula, whose mind ranrather to matters of financial aspect, and leave us the grease. By this, he seemed to imply that the Thorabians would rob the Earthmen,which the Lorians would not. The truth was that all on Zur were pantingto get their hands on that marvelous ship, which was all of metal, avery scarce commodity on Zur, worth billions of ken. <doc-sep>Lubiosa, who had interests in Thorabia, and many agents there, kept hisown counsel. His people were active in the matter and that was enoughfor him. He would report when the time was ripe. Doubtless, said Zotul unexpectedly, for the youngest at a conferencewas expected to keep his mouth shut and applaud the decisions of hiselders, the Earthmen used all the metal on their planet in buildingthat ship. We cannot possibly bilk them of it; it is their only meansof transport. Such frank expression of motive was unheard of, even in the secretconclave of conference. Only the speaker's youth could account for it.The speech drew scowls from the brothers and stern rebuke from Koltan. When your opinion is wanted, we will ask you for it. Meantime,remember your position in the family. Zotul bowed his head meekly, but he burned with resentment. Listen to the boy, said the aged father. There is more wisdom in hishead than in all the rest of you. Forget the Earthmen and think only ofthe clay. Zotul did not appreciate his father's approval, for it only earned hima beating as soon as the old man went to bed. It was a common enoughthing among the brothers Masur, as among everybody, to be frustrated intheir desires. However, they had Zotul to take it out upon, and theydid. Still smarting, Zotul went back to his designing quarters and thoughtabout the Earthmen. If it was impossible to hope for much in the wayof metal from the Earthmen, what could one get from them? If he couldfigure this problem out, he might rise somewhat in the estimation ofhis brothers. That wouldn't take him out of the rank of scapegoat, ofcourse, but the beatings might become fewer and less severe. <doc-sep>By and by, the Earthmen came to Lor, flying through the air in strangemetal contraptions. They paraded through the tile-paved streets of thecity, marveled here, as they had in Thorabia, at the buildings all oftile inside and out, and made a great show of themselves for all thepeople to see. Speeches were made through interpreters, who had muchtoo quickly learned the tongue of the aliens; hence these left much tobe desired in the way of clarity, though their sincerity was evident. The Earthmen were going to do great things for the whole world ofZur. It required but the cooperation—an excellent word, that—of allZurians, and many blessings would rain down from the skies. This, ineffect, was what the Earthmen had to say. Zotul felt greatly cheered,for it refuted the attitude of his brothers without earning him awhaling for it. There was also some talk going around about agreements made betweenthe Earthmen and officials of the Lorian government, but you heard onething one day and another the next. Accurate reporting, much less anewspaper, was unknown on Zur. Finally, the Earthmen took off in their great, shining ship. Obviously,none had succeeded in chiseling them out of it, if, indeed, any hadtried. The anti-Earthmen Faction—in any culture complex, there isalways an anti faction to protest any movement of endeavor—crowedhappily that the Earthmen were gone for good, and a good thing, too. Such jubilation proved premature, however. One day, a fleet of shipsarrived and after they had landed all over the planet, Zur waspractically acrawl with Earthmen. Immediately, the Earthmen established what they calledcorporations—Zurian trading companies under terrestrial control. Theobject of the visit was trade. In spite of the fact that a terrestrial ship had landed at every Zuriancity of major and minor importance, and all in a single day, it tooksome time for the news to spread. The first awareness Zotul had was that, upon coming home from thepottery one evening, he found his wife Lania proudly brandishing analuminum pot at him. What is that thing? he asked curiously. A pot. I bought it at the market. Did you now? Well, take it back. Am I made of money that you spend mysubstance for some fool's product of precious metal? Take it back, Isay! <doc-sep>The pretty young wife laughed at him. Up to your ears in clay, nowonder you hear nothing of news! The pot is very cheap. The Earthmenare selling them everywhere. They're much better than our old claypots; they're light and easy to handle and they don't break whendropped. What good is it? asked Zotul, interested. How will it hold heat,being so light? The Earthmen don't cook as we do, she explained patiently. There isa paper with each pot that explains how it is used. And you will haveto design a new ceramic stove for me to use the pots on. Don't be idiotic! Do you suppose Koltan would agree to produce a newtype of stove when the old has sold well for centuries? Besides, why doyou need a whole new stove for one little pot? A dozen pots. They come in sets and are cheaper that way. And Koltanwill have to produce the new stove because all the housewives arebuying these pots and there will be a big demand for it. The Earthmansaid so. He did, did he? These pots are only a fad. You will soon enough goback to cooking with your old ones. The Earthman took them in trade—one reason why the new ones are socheap. There isn't a pot in the house but these metal ones, and youwill have to design and produce a new stove if you expect me to usethem. After he had beaten his wife thoroughly for her foolishness, Zotulstamped off in a rage and designed a new ceramic stove, one that wouldaccommodate the terrestrial pots very well. And Koltan put the model into production. Orders already are pouring in like mad, he said the next day. Itwas wise of you to foresee it and have the design ready. Already, I amsorry for thinking as I did about the Earthmen. They really intend todo well by us. The kilns of the Pottery of Masur fired day and night to keep up withthe demand for the new porcelain stoves. In three years, more than amillion had been made and sold by the Masurs alone, not counting thehundreds of thousands of copies turned out by competitors in everyland. <doc-sep>In the meantime, however, more things than pots came from Earth.One was a printing press, the like of which none on Zur had everdreamed. This, for some unknown reason and much to the disgust ofthe Lorians, was set up in Thorabia. Books and magazines poured fromit in a fantastic stream. The populace fervidly brushed up on itsscanty reading ability and bought everything available, overcome bythe novelty of it. Even Zotul bought a book—a primer in the Lorianlanguage—and learned how to read and write. The remainder of thebrothers Masur, on the other hand, preferred to remain in ignorance. Moreover, the Earthmen brought miles of copper wire—more than enoughin value to buy out the governorship of any country on Zur—and set uptelegraph lines from country to country and continent to continent.Within five years of the first landing of the Earthmen, every majorcity on the globe had a printing press, a daily newspaper, and enjoyedthe instantaneous transmission of news via telegraph. And the businessof the House of Masur continued to look up. As I have always said from the beginning, chortled Director Koltan,this coming of the Earthmen had been a great thing for us, andespecially for the House of Masur. You didn't think so at first, Zotul pointed out, and was immediatelysorry, for Koltan turned and gave him a hiding, single-handed, for hisunthinkable impertinence. It would do no good, Zotul realized, to bring up the fact that theirproduction of ceramic cooking pots had dropped off to about two percent of its former volume. Of course, profits on the line of new stovesgreatly overbalanced the loss, so that actually they were ahead; buttheir business was now dependent upon the supply of the metal pots fromEarth. About this time, plastic utensils—dishes, cups, knives, forks—madetheir appearance on Zur. It became very stylish to eat with thenewfangled paraphernalia ... and very cheap, too, because foreverything they sold, the Earthmen always took the old ware in trade.What they did with the stuff had been hard to believe at first. Theydestroyed it, which proved how valueless it really was. The result of the new flood was that in the following year, the sale ofMasur ceramic table service dropped to less than a tenth. <doc-sep>Trembling with excitement at this news from their book-keeper, Koltancalled an emergency meeting. He even routed old Kalrab out of hissenile stupor for the occasion, on the off chance that the old manmight still have a little wit left that could be helpful. Note, Koltan announced in a shaky voice, that the Earthmen undermineour business, and he read off the figures. Perhaps, said Zotul, it is a good thing also, as you said before,and will result in something even better for us. Koltan frowned, and Zotul, in fear of another beating, instantlysubsided. They are replacing our high-quality ceramic ware with inferiorterrestrial junk, Koltan went on bitterly. It is only the glamor thatsells it, of course, but before the people get the shine out of theireyes, we can be ruined. The brothers discussed the situation for an hour, and all the whileFather Kalrab sat and pulled his scanty whiskers. Seeing that they gotnowhere with their wrangle, he cleared his throat and spoke up. My sons, you forget it is not the Earthmen themselves at the bottomof your trouble, but the things of Earth. Think of the telegraph andthe newspaper, how these spread news of every shipment from Earth.The merchandise of the Earthmen is put up for sale by means of thesenewspapers, which also are the property of the Earthmen. The people areintrigued by these advertisements, as they are called, and flock tobuy. Now, if you would pull a tooth from the kwi that bites you, youmight also have advertisements of your own. Alas for that suggestion, no newspaper would accept advertisingfrom the House of Masur; all available space was occupied by theadvertisements of the Earthmen. In their dozenth conference since that first and fateful one, thebrothers Masur decided upon drastic steps. In the meantime, severalthings had happened. For one, old Kalrab had passed on to his immortalrest, but this made no real difference. For another, the Earthmen hadprocured legal authority to prospect the planet for metals, of whichthey found a good deal, but they told no one on Zur of this. Whatthey did mention was the crude oil and natural gas they discoveredin the underlayers of the planet's crust. Crews of Zurians, workingunder supervision of the Earthmen, laid pipelines from the gas and oilregions to every major and minor city on Zur. <doc-sep>By the time ten years had passed since the landing of the firstterrestrial ship, the Earthmen were conducting a brisk business ingas-fired ranges, furnaces and heaters ... and the Masur stove businesswas gone. Moreover, the Earthmen sold the Zurians their own natural gasat a nice profit and everybody was happy with the situation except thebrothers Masur. The drastic steps of the brothers applied, therefore, to making anenergetic protest to the governor of Lor. At one edge of the city, an area had been turned over to the Earthmenfor a spaceport, and the great terrestrial spaceships came to it anddeparted from it at regular intervals. As the heirs of the House ofMasur walked by on their way to see the governor, Zotul observed thatmuch new building was taking place and wondered what it was. Some new devilment of the Earthmen, you can be sure, said Koltanblackly. In fact, the Earthmen were building an assembly plant for radioreceiving sets. The ship now standing on its fins upon the apron wasloaded with printed circuits, resistors, variable condensers and otherradio parts. This was Earth's first step toward flooding Zur with thenatural follow-up in its campaign of advertising—radio programs—withcommercials. Happily for the brothers, they did not understand this at the time orthey would surely have gone back to be buried in their own clay. I think, the governor told them, that you gentlemen have notpaused to consider the affair from all angles. You must learn to bemodern—keep up with the times! We heads of government on Zur are doingall in our power to aid the Earthmen and facilitate their bringing agreat, new culture that can only benefit us. See how Zur has changed inten short years! Imagine the world of tomorrow! Why, do you know theyare even bringing autos to Zur! The brothers were fascinated with the governor's description of thesehitherto unheard-of vehicles. It only remains, concluded the governor, to build highways, and theEarthmen are taking care of that. At any rate, the brothers Masur were still able to console themselvesthat they had their tile business. Tile served well enough for housesand street surfacing; what better material could be devised for the newhighways the governor spoke of? There was a lot of money to be madeyet. <doc-sep>Radio stations went up all over Zur and began broadcasting. The peoplebought receiving sets like mad. The automobiles arrived and highwayswere constructed. The last hope of the brothers was dashed. The Earthmen set up plantsand began to manufacture Portland cement. You could build a house of concrete much cheaper than with tile. Ofcourse, since wood was scarce on Zur, it was no competition for eithertile or concrete. Concrete floors were smoother, too, and the stuffmade far better road surfacing. The demand for Masur tile hit rock bottom. The next time the brothers went to see the governor, he said, I cannothandle such complaints as yours. I must refer you to the MerchandisingCouncil. What is that? asked Koltan. It is an Earthman association that deals with complaints such asyours. In the matter of material progress, we must expect some strainin the fabric of our culture. Machinery has been set up to deal withit. Here is their address; go air your troubles to them. The business of a formal complaint was turned over by the brothers toZotul. It took three weeks for the Earthmen to get around to callinghim in, as a representative of the Pottery of Masur, for an interview. All the brothers could no longer be spared from the plant, even for thepurpose of pressing a complaint. Their days of idle wealth over, theyhad to get in and work with the clay with the rest of the help. Zotul found the headquarters of the Merchandising Council as indicatedon their message. He had not been this way in some time, but was notsurprised to find that a number of old buildings had been torn down tomake room for the concrete Council House and a roomy parking lot, pavedwith something called blacktop and jammed with an array of glitteringnew automobiles. An automobile was an expense none of the brothers could afford, nowthat they barely eked a living from the pottery. Still, Zotul achedwith desire at sight of so many shiny cars. Only a few had them andthey were the envied ones of Zur. Kent Broderick, the Earthman in charge of the Council, shook handsjovially with Zotul. That alien custom conformed with, Zotul took abetter look at his host. Broderick was an affable, smiling individualwith genial laugh wrinkles at his eyes. A man of middle age, dressed inthe baggy costume of Zur, he looked almost like a Zurian, except foran indefinite sense of alienness about him. Glad to have you call on us, Mr. Masur, boomed the Earthman, clappingZotul on the back. Just tell us your troubles and we'll have youstraightened out in no time. <doc-sep>All the chill recriminations and arguments Zotul had stored for thisoccasion were dissipated in the warmth of the Earthman's manner. Almost apologetically, Zotul told of the encroachment that had beenmade upon the business of the Pottery of Masur. Once, he said formally, the Masur fortune was the greatest inthe world of Zur. That was before my father, the famous KalrabMasur—Divinity protect him—departed this life to collect his greaterreward. He often told us, my father did, that the clay is the flesh andbones of our culture and our fortune. Now it has been shown how proneis the flesh to corruption and how feeble the bones. We are ruined, andall because of new things coming from Earth. Broderick stroked his shaven chin and looked sad. Why didn't you cometo me sooner? This would never have happened. But now that it has,we're going to do right by you. That is the policy of Earth—always todo right by the customer. Divinity witness, Zorin said, that we ask only compensation fordamages. Broderick shook his head. It is not possible to replace an immensefortune at this late date. As I said, you should have reported yourtrouble sooner. However, we can give you an opportunity to rebuild. Doyou own an automobile? No. A gas range? A gas-fired furnace? A radio? Zotul had to answer no to all except the radio. My wife Lania likesthe music, he explained. I cannot afford the other things. Broderick clucked sympathetically. One who could not afford thebargain-priced merchandise of Earth must be poor indeed. To begin with, he said, I am going to make you a gift of all theseluxuries you do not have. As Zotul made to protest, he cut him offwith a wave of his hand. It is the least we can do for you. Pick a carfrom the lot outside. I will arrange to have the other things deliveredand installed in your home. To receive gifts, said Zotul, incurs an obligation. None at all, beamed the Earthman cheerily. Every item is given toyou absolutely free—a gift from the people of Earth. All we ask isthat you pay the freight charges on the items. Our purpose is not tomake profit, but to spread technology and prosperity throughout theGalaxy. We have already done well on numerous worlds, but working outthe full program takes time. He chuckled deeply. We of Earth have a saying about one of ourextremely slow-moving native animals. We say, 'Slow is the tortoise,but sure.' And so with us. Our goal is a long-range one, with themotto, 'Better times with better merchandise.' <doc-sep>The engaging manner of the man won Zotul's confidence. After all, itwas no more than fair to pay transportation. He said, How much does the freight cost? Broderick told him. It may seem high, said the Earthman, but remember that Earth issixty-odd light-years away. After all, we are absorbing the cost of themerchandise. All you pay is the freight, which is cheap, consideringthe cost of operating an interstellar spaceship. Impossible, said Zotul drably. Not I and all my brothers togetherhave so much money any more. You don't know us of Earth very well yet, but you will. I offer youcredit! What is that? asked Zotul skeptically. It is how the poor are enabled to enjoy all the luxuries of therich, said Broderick, and went on to give a thumbnail sketch of theinvolutions and devolutions of credit, leaving out some angles thatmight have had a discouraging effect. On a world where credit was a totally new concept, it was enchanting.Zotul grasped at the glittering promise with avidity. What must I doto get credit? Just sign this paper, said Broderick, and you become part of ourEasy Payment Plan. Zotul drew back. I have five brothers. If I took all these things formyself and nothing for them, they would beat me black and blue. Here. Broderick handed him a sheaf of chattel mortgages. Have eachof your brothers sign one of these, then bring them back to me. That isall there is to it. It sounded wonderful. But how would the brothers take it? Zotulwrestled with his misgivings and the misgivings won. I will talk it over with them, he said. Give me the total so I willhave the figures. The total was more than it ought to be by simple addition. Zotulpointed this out politely. Interest, Broderick explained. A mere fifteen per cent. After all,you get the merchandise free. The transportation company has to bepaid, so another company loans you the money to pay for the freight.This small extra sum pays the lending company for its trouble. I see. Zotul puzzled over it sadly. It is too much, he said. Ourplant doesn't make enough money for us to meet the payments. I have a surprise for you, smiled Broderick. Here is a contract. Youwill start making ceramic parts for automobile spark plugs and certainparts for radios and gas ranges. It is our policy to encourage localmanufacture to help bring prices down. We haven't the equipment. We will equip your plant, beamed Broderick. It will require onlya quarter interest in your plant itself, assigned to our terrestrialcompany. <doc-sep>Zotul, anxious to possess the treasures promised by the Earthman,won over his brothers. They signed with marks and gave up a quarterinterest in the Pottery of Masur. They rolled in the luxuries of Earth.These, who had never known debt before, were in it up to their ears. The retooled plant forged ahead and profits began to look up, but theEarthmen took a fourth of them as their share in the industry. For a year, the brothers drove their shiny new cars about on thenew concrete highways the Earthmen had built. From pumps owned by aterrestrial company, they bought gas and oil that had been drawn fromthe crust of Zur and was sold to the Zurians at a magnificent profit.The food they ate was cooked in Earthly pots on Earth-type gas ranges,served up on metal plates that had been stamped out on Earth. In thewinter, they toasted their shins before handsome gas grates, thoughthey had gas-fired central heating. About this time, the ships from Earth brought steam-powered electricgenerators. Lines went up, power was generated, and a flood ofelectrical gadgets and appliances hit the market. For some reason,batteries for the radios were no longer available and everybody had tobuy the new radios. And who could do without a radio in this modern age? The homes of the brothers Masur blossomed on the Easy Payment Plan.They had refrigerators, washers, driers, toasters, grills, electricfans, air-conditioning equipment and everything else Earth couldpossibly sell them. We will be forty years paying it all off, exulted Zotul, butmeantime we have the things and aren't they worth it? But at the end of three years, the Earthmen dropped their option.The Pottery of Masur had no more contracts. Business languished. TheEarthmen, explained Broderick, had built a plant of their own becauseit was so much more efficient—and to lower prices, which was Earth'sunswerving policy, greater and greater efficiency was demanded.Broderick was very sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do. The introduction of television provided a further calamity. The setswere delicate and needed frequent repairs, hence were costly to own andmaintain. But all Zurians who had to keep up with the latest from Earthhad them. Now it was possible not only to hear about things of Earth,but to see them as they were broadcast from the video tapes. The printing plants that turned out mortgage contracts did a lushbusiness. <doc-sep>For the common people of Zur, times were good everywhere. In a decadeand a half, the Earthmen had wrought magnificent changes on thisbackward world. As Broderick had said, the progress of the tortoise wasslow, but it was extremely sure. The brothers Masur got along in spite of dropped options. They had lessmoney and felt the pinch of their debts more keenly, but televisionkept their wives and children amused and furnished an anodyne for thepangs of impoverishment. The pottery income dropped to an impossible low, no matter how Zotuldesigned and the brothers produced. Their figurines and religious ikonswere a drug on the market. The Earthmen made them of plastic and soldthem for less. The brothers, unable to meet the Payments that were not so Easy anymore, looked up Zotul and cuffed him around reproachfully. You got us into this, they said, emphasizing their bitterness withfists. Go see Broderick. Tell him we are undone and must have somecontracts to continue operating. Nursing bruises, Zotul unhappily went to the Council House again. Mr.Broderick was no longer with them, a suave assistant informed him.Would he like to see Mr. Siwicki instead? Zotul would. Siwicki was tall, thin, dark and somber-looking. There was even a hintof toughness about the set of his jaw and the hardness of his glance. So you can't pay, he said, tapping his teeth with a pencil. Helooked at Zotul coldly. It is well you have come to us instead ofmaking it necessary for us to approach you through the courts. I don't know what you mean, said Zotul. If we have to sue, we take back the merchandise and everythingattached to them. That means you would lose your houses, for they areattached to the furnaces. However, it is not as bad as that—yet. Wewill only require you to assign the remaining three-quarters of yourpottery to us. The brothers, when they heard of this, were too stunned to think ofbeating Zotul, by which he assumed he had progressed a little and wassomewhat comforted. To fail, said Koltan soberly, is not a Masur attribute. Go to thegovernor and tell him what we think of this business. The House ofMasur has long supported the government with heavy taxes. Now it istime for the government to do something for us. <doc-sep>The governor's palace was jammed with hurrying people, a scene ofconfusion that upset Zotul. The clerk who took his application foran interview was, he noticed only vaguely, a young Earthwoman. Itwas remarkable that he paid so little attention, for the femaleterrestrials were picked for physical assets that made Zurian mencovetous and Zurian women envious. The governor will see you, she said sweetly. He has been expectingyou. Me? marveled Zotul. She ushered him into the magnificent private office of the governorof Lor. The man behind the desk stood up, extended his hand with afriendly smile. Come in, come in! I'm glad to see you again. Zotul stared blankly. This was not the governor. This was Broderick,the Earthman. I—I came to see the governor, he said in confusion. Broderick nodded agreeably. I am the governor and I am well acquaintedwith your case, Mr. Masur. Shall we talk it over? Please sit down. I don't understand. The Earthmen.... Zotul paused, coloring. We areabout to lose our plant. You were about to say that the Earthmen are taking your plant awayfrom you. That is true. Since the House of Masur was the largest andrichest on Zur, it has taken a long time—the longest of all, in fact. What do you mean? Yours is the last business on Zur to be taken over by us. We havebought you out. Our government.... Your governments belong to us, too, said Broderick. When they couldnot pay for the roads, the telegraphs, the civic improvements, we tookthem over, just as we are taking you over. You mean, exclaimed Zotul, aghast, that you Earthmen own everythingon Zur? Even your armies. But why ? <doc-sep>Broderick clasped his hands behind back, went to the window and stareddown moodily into the street. You don't know what an overcrowded world is like, he said. A streetlike this, with so few people and vehicles on it, would be impossibleon Earth. But it's mobbed, protested Zotul. It gave me a headache. And to us it's almost empty. The pressure of population on Earth hasmade us range the Galaxy for places to put our extra people. The onlyhabitable planets, unfortunately, are populated ones. We take the leastpopulous worlds and—well, buy them out and move in. And after that? Broderick smiled gently. Zur will grow. Our people will intermarrywith yours. The future population of Zur will be neither true Zuriansnor true Earthmen, but a mixture of both. Zotul sat in silent thought. But you did not have to buy us out. Youhad the power to conquer us, even to destroy us. The whole planet couldhave been yours alone. He stopped in alarm. Or am I suggesting anidea that didn't occur to you? No, said Broderick, his usually smiling face almost pained withmemory. We know the history of conquest all too well. Our methodcauses more distress than we like to inflict, but it's better—and moresure—than war and invasion by force. Now that the unpleasant job isfinished, we can repair the dislocations. At last I understand what you said about the tortoise. Slow but sure. Broderick beamed again and clapped Zotul on theshoulder. Don't worry. You'll have your job back, the same as always,but you'll be working for us ... until the children of Earth and Zurare equal in knowledge and therefore equal partners. That's why we hadto break down your caste system. Zotul's eyes widened. And that is why my brothers did not beat me whenI failed! Of course. Are you ready now to take the assignment papers for you andyour brothers to sign? Yes, said Zotul. I am ready. <doc-sep></s>

The Earthmen first visit Zur as a small group, exploring the city and giving speeches declaring future prosperity for Zur. They return shortly after with more people, and establish corporations and a trade business. The Earthmen begin with small products, metal pots, but other businesses soon have to accommodate to Earth's goods. Earth quickly earns profit, with many Zurian businesses dependent on their production. They begin establishing more advanced forms of technology, such as printing, radio, and automobiles. The people of Zur are fascinated, and business booms even more. Eventually, Zur is completely remodeled with Earth products and services, driving other businesses to failure and resulting in the overtaking of the city.

<s> A Gift From Earth By MANLY BANISTER Illustrated by KOSSIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Except for transportation, it was absolutely free ... but how much would the freight cost? It is an outrage, said Koltan of the House of Masur, that theEarthmen land among the Thorabians! Zotul, youngest of the Masur brothers, stirred uneasily. Personally, hewas in favor of the coming of the Earthmen to the world of Zur. At the head of the long, shining table sat old Kalrab Masur, in hisdotage, but still giving what he could of aid and comfort to thePottery of Masur, even though nobody listened to him any more andhe knew it. Around the table sat the six brothers—Koltan, eldestand Director of the Pottery; Morvan, his vice-chief; Singula, theirtreasurer; Thendro, sales manager; Lubiosa, export chief; and last inthe rank of age, Zotul, who was responsible for affairs of design. Behold, my sons, said Kalrab, stroking his scanty beard. What arethese Earthmen to worry about? Remember the clay. It is our strengthand our fortune. It is the muscle and bone of our trade. Earthmen maycome and Earthmen may go, but clay goes on forever ... and with it, thefame and fortune of the House of Masur. It is a damned imposition, agreed Morvan, ignoring his father'sphilosophical attitude. They could have landed just as easily here inLor. The Thorabians will lick up the gravy, said Singula, whose mind ranrather to matters of financial aspect, and leave us the grease. By this, he seemed to imply that the Thorabians would rob the Earthmen,which the Lorians would not. The truth was that all on Zur were pantingto get their hands on that marvelous ship, which was all of metal, avery scarce commodity on Zur, worth billions of ken. <doc-sep>Lubiosa, who had interests in Thorabia, and many agents there, kept hisown counsel. His people were active in the matter and that was enoughfor him. He would report when the time was ripe. Doubtless, said Zotul unexpectedly, for the youngest at a conferencewas expected to keep his mouth shut and applaud the decisions of hiselders, the Earthmen used all the metal on their planet in buildingthat ship. We cannot possibly bilk them of it; it is their only meansof transport. Such frank expression of motive was unheard of, even in the secretconclave of conference. Only the speaker's youth could account for it.The speech drew scowls from the brothers and stern rebuke from Koltan. When your opinion is wanted, we will ask you for it. Meantime,remember your position in the family. Zotul bowed his head meekly, but he burned with resentment. Listen to the boy, said the aged father. There is more wisdom in hishead than in all the rest of you. Forget the Earthmen and think only ofthe clay. Zotul did not appreciate his father's approval, for it only earned hima beating as soon as the old man went to bed. It was a common enoughthing among the brothers Masur, as among everybody, to be frustrated intheir desires. However, they had Zotul to take it out upon, and theydid. Still smarting, Zotul went back to his designing quarters and thoughtabout the Earthmen. If it was impossible to hope for much in the wayof metal from the Earthmen, what could one get from them? If he couldfigure this problem out, he might rise somewhat in the estimation ofhis brothers. That wouldn't take him out of the rank of scapegoat, ofcourse, but the beatings might become fewer and less severe. <doc-sep>By and by, the Earthmen came to Lor, flying through the air in strangemetal contraptions. They paraded through the tile-paved streets of thecity, marveled here, as they had in Thorabia, at the buildings all oftile inside and out, and made a great show of themselves for all thepeople to see. Speeches were made through interpreters, who had muchtoo quickly learned the tongue of the aliens; hence these left much tobe desired in the way of clarity, though their sincerity was evident. The Earthmen were going to do great things for the whole world ofZur. It required but the cooperation—an excellent word, that—of allZurians, and many blessings would rain down from the skies. This, ineffect, was what the Earthmen had to say. Zotul felt greatly cheered,for it refuted the attitude of his brothers without earning him awhaling for it. There was also some talk going around about agreements made betweenthe Earthmen and officials of the Lorian government, but you heard onething one day and another the next. Accurate reporting, much less anewspaper, was unknown on Zur. Finally, the Earthmen took off in their great, shining ship. Obviously,none had succeeded in chiseling them out of it, if, indeed, any hadtried. The anti-Earthmen Faction—in any culture complex, there isalways an anti faction to protest any movement of endeavor—crowedhappily that the Earthmen were gone for good, and a good thing, too. Such jubilation proved premature, however. One day, a fleet of shipsarrived and after they had landed all over the planet, Zur waspractically acrawl with Earthmen. Immediately, the Earthmen established what they calledcorporations—Zurian trading companies under terrestrial control. Theobject of the visit was trade. In spite of the fact that a terrestrial ship had landed at every Zuriancity of major and minor importance, and all in a single day, it tooksome time for the news to spread. The first awareness Zotul had was that, upon coming home from thepottery one evening, he found his wife Lania proudly brandishing analuminum pot at him. What is that thing? he asked curiously. A pot. I bought it at the market. Did you now? Well, take it back. Am I made of money that you spend mysubstance for some fool's product of precious metal? Take it back, Isay! <doc-sep>The pretty young wife laughed at him. Up to your ears in clay, nowonder you hear nothing of news! The pot is very cheap. The Earthmenare selling them everywhere. They're much better than our old claypots; they're light and easy to handle and they don't break whendropped. What good is it? asked Zotul, interested. How will it hold heat,being so light? The Earthmen don't cook as we do, she explained patiently. There isa paper with each pot that explains how it is used. And you will haveto design a new ceramic stove for me to use the pots on. Don't be idiotic! Do you suppose Koltan would agree to produce a newtype of stove when the old has sold well for centuries? Besides, why doyou need a whole new stove for one little pot? A dozen pots. They come in sets and are cheaper that way. And Koltanwill have to produce the new stove because all the housewives arebuying these pots and there will be a big demand for it. The Earthmansaid so. He did, did he? These pots are only a fad. You will soon enough goback to cooking with your old ones. The Earthman took them in trade—one reason why the new ones are socheap. There isn't a pot in the house but these metal ones, and youwill have to design and produce a new stove if you expect me to usethem. After he had beaten his wife thoroughly for her foolishness, Zotulstamped off in a rage and designed a new ceramic stove, one that wouldaccommodate the terrestrial pots very well. And Koltan put the model into production. Orders already are pouring in like mad, he said the next day. Itwas wise of you to foresee it and have the design ready. Already, I amsorry for thinking as I did about the Earthmen. They really intend todo well by us. The kilns of the Pottery of Masur fired day and night to keep up withthe demand for the new porcelain stoves. In three years, more than amillion had been made and sold by the Masurs alone, not counting thehundreds of thousands of copies turned out by competitors in everyland. <doc-sep>In the meantime, however, more things than pots came from Earth.One was a printing press, the like of which none on Zur had everdreamed. This, for some unknown reason and much to the disgust ofthe Lorians, was set up in Thorabia. Books and magazines poured fromit in a fantastic stream. The populace fervidly brushed up on itsscanty reading ability and bought everything available, overcome bythe novelty of it. Even Zotul bought a book—a primer in the Lorianlanguage—and learned how to read and write. The remainder of thebrothers Masur, on the other hand, preferred to remain in ignorance. Moreover, the Earthmen brought miles of copper wire—more than enoughin value to buy out the governorship of any country on Zur—and set uptelegraph lines from country to country and continent to continent.Within five years of the first landing of the Earthmen, every majorcity on the globe had a printing press, a daily newspaper, and enjoyedthe instantaneous transmission of news via telegraph. And the businessof the House of Masur continued to look up. As I have always said from the beginning, chortled Director Koltan,this coming of the Earthmen had been a great thing for us, andespecially for the House of Masur. You didn't think so at first, Zotul pointed out, and was immediatelysorry, for Koltan turned and gave him a hiding, single-handed, for hisunthinkable impertinence. It would do no good, Zotul realized, to bring up the fact that theirproduction of ceramic cooking pots had dropped off to about two percent of its former volume. Of course, profits on the line of new stovesgreatly overbalanced the loss, so that actually they were ahead; buttheir business was now dependent upon the supply of the metal pots fromEarth. About this time, plastic utensils—dishes, cups, knives, forks—madetheir appearance on Zur. It became very stylish to eat with thenewfangled paraphernalia ... and very cheap, too, because foreverything they sold, the Earthmen always took the old ware in trade.What they did with the stuff had been hard to believe at first. Theydestroyed it, which proved how valueless it really was. The result of the new flood was that in the following year, the sale ofMasur ceramic table service dropped to less than a tenth. <doc-sep>Trembling with excitement at this news from their book-keeper, Koltancalled an emergency meeting. He even routed old Kalrab out of hissenile stupor for the occasion, on the off chance that the old manmight still have a little wit left that could be helpful. Note, Koltan announced in a shaky voice, that the Earthmen undermineour business, and he read off the figures. Perhaps, said Zotul, it is a good thing also, as you said before,and will result in something even better for us. Koltan frowned, and Zotul, in fear of another beating, instantlysubsided. They are replacing our high-quality ceramic ware with inferiorterrestrial junk, Koltan went on bitterly. It is only the glamor thatsells it, of course, but before the people get the shine out of theireyes, we can be ruined. The brothers discussed the situation for an hour, and all the whileFather Kalrab sat and pulled his scanty whiskers. Seeing that they gotnowhere with their wrangle, he cleared his throat and spoke up. My sons, you forget it is not the Earthmen themselves at the bottomof your trouble, but the things of Earth. Think of the telegraph andthe newspaper, how these spread news of every shipment from Earth.The merchandise of the Earthmen is put up for sale by means of thesenewspapers, which also are the property of the Earthmen. The people areintrigued by these advertisements, as they are called, and flock tobuy. Now, if you would pull a tooth from the kwi that bites you, youmight also have advertisements of your own. Alas for that suggestion, no newspaper would accept advertisingfrom the House of Masur; all available space was occupied by theadvertisements of the Earthmen. In their dozenth conference since that first and fateful one, thebrothers Masur decided upon drastic steps. In the meantime, severalthings had happened. For one, old Kalrab had passed on to his immortalrest, but this made no real difference. For another, the Earthmen hadprocured legal authority to prospect the planet for metals, of whichthey found a good deal, but they told no one on Zur of this. Whatthey did mention was the crude oil and natural gas they discoveredin the underlayers of the planet's crust. Crews of Zurians, workingunder supervision of the Earthmen, laid pipelines from the gas and oilregions to every major and minor city on Zur. <doc-sep>By the time ten years had passed since the landing of the firstterrestrial ship, the Earthmen were conducting a brisk business ingas-fired ranges, furnaces and heaters ... and the Masur stove businesswas gone. Moreover, the Earthmen sold the Zurians their own natural gasat a nice profit and everybody was happy with the situation except thebrothers Masur. The drastic steps of the brothers applied, therefore, to making anenergetic protest to the governor of Lor. At one edge of the city, an area had been turned over to the Earthmenfor a spaceport, and the great terrestrial spaceships came to it anddeparted from it at regular intervals. As the heirs of the House ofMasur walked by on their way to see the governor, Zotul observed thatmuch new building was taking place and wondered what it was. Some new devilment of the Earthmen, you can be sure, said Koltanblackly. In fact, the Earthmen were building an assembly plant for radioreceiving sets. The ship now standing on its fins upon the apron wasloaded with printed circuits, resistors, variable condensers and otherradio parts. This was Earth's first step toward flooding Zur with thenatural follow-up in its campaign of advertising—radio programs—withcommercials. Happily for the brothers, they did not understand this at the time orthey would surely have gone back to be buried in their own clay. I think, the governor told them, that you gentlemen have notpaused to consider the affair from all angles. You must learn to bemodern—keep up with the times! We heads of government on Zur are doingall in our power to aid the Earthmen and facilitate their bringing agreat, new culture that can only benefit us. See how Zur has changed inten short years! Imagine the world of tomorrow! Why, do you know theyare even bringing autos to Zur! The brothers were fascinated with the governor's description of thesehitherto unheard-of vehicles. It only remains, concluded the governor, to build highways, and theEarthmen are taking care of that. At any rate, the brothers Masur were still able to console themselvesthat they had their tile business. Tile served well enough for housesand street surfacing; what better material could be devised for the newhighways the governor spoke of? There was a lot of money to be madeyet. <doc-sep>Radio stations went up all over Zur and began broadcasting. The peoplebought receiving sets like mad. The automobiles arrived and highwayswere constructed. The last hope of the brothers was dashed. The Earthmen set up plantsand began to manufacture Portland cement. You could build a house of concrete much cheaper than with tile. Ofcourse, since wood was scarce on Zur, it was no competition for eithertile or concrete. Concrete floors were smoother, too, and the stuffmade far better road surfacing. The demand for Masur tile hit rock bottom. The next time the brothers went to see the governor, he said, I cannothandle such complaints as yours. I must refer you to the MerchandisingCouncil. What is that? asked Koltan. It is an Earthman association that deals with complaints such asyours. In the matter of material progress, we must expect some strainin the fabric of our culture. Machinery has been set up to deal withit. Here is their address; go air your troubles to them. The business of a formal complaint was turned over by the brothers toZotul. It took three weeks for the Earthmen to get around to callinghim in, as a representative of the Pottery of Masur, for an interview. All the brothers could no longer be spared from the plant, even for thepurpose of pressing a complaint. Their days of idle wealth over, theyhad to get in and work with the clay with the rest of the help. Zotul found the headquarters of the Merchandising Council as indicatedon their message. He had not been this way in some time, but was notsurprised to find that a number of old buildings had been torn down tomake room for the concrete Council House and a roomy parking lot, pavedwith something called blacktop and jammed with an array of glitteringnew automobiles. An automobile was an expense none of the brothers could afford, nowthat they barely eked a living from the pottery. Still, Zotul achedwith desire at sight of so many shiny cars. Only a few had them andthey were the envied ones of Zur. Kent Broderick, the Earthman in charge of the Council, shook handsjovially with Zotul. That alien custom conformed with, Zotul took abetter look at his host. Broderick was an affable, smiling individualwith genial laugh wrinkles at his eyes. A man of middle age, dressed inthe baggy costume of Zur, he looked almost like a Zurian, except foran indefinite sense of alienness about him. Glad to have you call on us, Mr. Masur, boomed the Earthman, clappingZotul on the back. Just tell us your troubles and we'll have youstraightened out in no time. <doc-sep>All the chill recriminations and arguments Zotul had stored for thisoccasion were dissipated in the warmth of the Earthman's manner. Almost apologetically, Zotul told of the encroachment that had beenmade upon the business of the Pottery of Masur. Once, he said formally, the Masur fortune was the greatest inthe world of Zur. That was before my father, the famous KalrabMasur—Divinity protect him—departed this life to collect his greaterreward. He often told us, my father did, that the clay is the flesh andbones of our culture and our fortune. Now it has been shown how proneis the flesh to corruption and how feeble the bones. We are ruined, andall because of new things coming from Earth. Broderick stroked his shaven chin and looked sad. Why didn't you cometo me sooner? This would never have happened. But now that it has,we're going to do right by you. That is the policy of Earth—always todo right by the customer. Divinity witness, Zorin said, that we ask only compensation fordamages. Broderick shook his head. It is not possible to replace an immensefortune at this late date. As I said, you should have reported yourtrouble sooner. However, we can give you an opportunity to rebuild. Doyou own an automobile? No. A gas range? A gas-fired furnace? A radio? Zotul had to answer no to all except the radio. My wife Lania likesthe music, he explained. I cannot afford the other things. Broderick clucked sympathetically. One who could not afford thebargain-priced merchandise of Earth must be poor indeed. To begin with, he said, I am going to make you a gift of all theseluxuries you do not have. As Zotul made to protest, he cut him offwith a wave of his hand. It is the least we can do for you. Pick a carfrom the lot outside. I will arrange to have the other things deliveredand installed in your home. To receive gifts, said Zotul, incurs an obligation. None at all, beamed the Earthman cheerily. Every item is given toyou absolutely free—a gift from the people of Earth. All we ask isthat you pay the freight charges on the items. Our purpose is not tomake profit, but to spread technology and prosperity throughout theGalaxy. We have already done well on numerous worlds, but working outthe full program takes time. He chuckled deeply. We of Earth have a saying about one of ourextremely slow-moving native animals. We say, 'Slow is the tortoise,but sure.' And so with us. Our goal is a long-range one, with themotto, 'Better times with better merchandise.' <doc-sep>The engaging manner of the man won Zotul's confidence. After all, itwas no more than fair to pay transportation. He said, How much does the freight cost? Broderick told him. It may seem high, said the Earthman, but remember that Earth issixty-odd light-years away. After all, we are absorbing the cost of themerchandise. All you pay is the freight, which is cheap, consideringthe cost of operating an interstellar spaceship. Impossible, said Zotul drably. Not I and all my brothers togetherhave so much money any more. You don't know us of Earth very well yet, but you will. I offer youcredit! What is that? asked Zotul skeptically. It is how the poor are enabled to enjoy all the luxuries of therich, said Broderick, and went on to give a thumbnail sketch of theinvolutions and devolutions of credit, leaving out some angles thatmight have had a discouraging effect. On a world where credit was a totally new concept, it was enchanting.Zotul grasped at the glittering promise with avidity. What must I doto get credit? Just sign this paper, said Broderick, and you become part of ourEasy Payment Plan. Zotul drew back. I have five brothers. If I took all these things formyself and nothing for them, they would beat me black and blue. Here. Broderick handed him a sheaf of chattel mortgages. Have eachof your brothers sign one of these, then bring them back to me. That isall there is to it. It sounded wonderful. But how would the brothers take it? Zotulwrestled with his misgivings and the misgivings won. I will talk it over with them, he said. Give me the total so I willhave the figures. The total was more than it ought to be by simple addition. Zotulpointed this out politely. Interest, Broderick explained. A mere fifteen per cent. After all,you get the merchandise free. The transportation company has to bepaid, so another company loans you the money to pay for the freight.This small extra sum pays the lending company for its trouble. I see. Zotul puzzled over it sadly. It is too much, he said. Ourplant doesn't make enough money for us to meet the payments. I have a surprise for you, smiled Broderick. Here is a contract. Youwill start making ceramic parts for automobile spark plugs and certainparts for radios and gas ranges. It is our policy to encourage localmanufacture to help bring prices down. We haven't the equipment. We will equip your plant, beamed Broderick. It will require onlya quarter interest in your plant itself, assigned to our terrestrialcompany. <doc-sep>Zotul, anxious to possess the treasures promised by the Earthman,won over his brothers. They signed with marks and gave up a quarterinterest in the Pottery of Masur. They rolled in the luxuries of Earth.These, who had never known debt before, were in it up to their ears. The retooled plant forged ahead and profits began to look up, but theEarthmen took a fourth of them as their share in the industry. For a year, the brothers drove their shiny new cars about on thenew concrete highways the Earthmen had built. From pumps owned by aterrestrial company, they bought gas and oil that had been drawn fromthe crust of Zur and was sold to the Zurians at a magnificent profit.The food they ate was cooked in Earthly pots on Earth-type gas ranges,served up on metal plates that had been stamped out on Earth. In thewinter, they toasted their shins before handsome gas grates, thoughthey had gas-fired central heating. About this time, the ships from Earth brought steam-powered electricgenerators. Lines went up, power was generated, and a flood ofelectrical gadgets and appliances hit the market. For some reason,batteries for the radios were no longer available and everybody had tobuy the new radios. And who could do without a radio in this modern age? The homes of the brothers Masur blossomed on the Easy Payment Plan.They had refrigerators, washers, driers, toasters, grills, electricfans, air-conditioning equipment and everything else Earth couldpossibly sell them. We will be forty years paying it all off, exulted Zotul, butmeantime we have the things and aren't they worth it? But at the end of three years, the Earthmen dropped their option.The Pottery of Masur had no more contracts. Business languished. TheEarthmen, explained Broderick, had built a plant of their own becauseit was so much more efficient—and to lower prices, which was Earth'sunswerving policy, greater and greater efficiency was demanded.Broderick was very sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do. The introduction of television provided a further calamity. The setswere delicate and needed frequent repairs, hence were costly to own andmaintain. But all Zurians who had to keep up with the latest from Earthhad them. Now it was possible not only to hear about things of Earth,but to see them as they were broadcast from the video tapes. The printing plants that turned out mortgage contracts did a lushbusiness. <doc-sep>For the common people of Zur, times were good everywhere. In a decadeand a half, the Earthmen had wrought magnificent changes on thisbackward world. As Broderick had said, the progress of the tortoise wasslow, but it was extremely sure. The brothers Masur got along in spite of dropped options. They had lessmoney and felt the pinch of their debts more keenly, but televisionkept their wives and children amused and furnished an anodyne for thepangs of impoverishment. The pottery income dropped to an impossible low, no matter how Zotuldesigned and the brothers produced. Their figurines and religious ikonswere a drug on the market. The Earthmen made them of plastic and soldthem for less. The brothers, unable to meet the Payments that were not so Easy anymore, looked up Zotul and cuffed him around reproachfully. You got us into this, they said, emphasizing their bitterness withfists. Go see Broderick. Tell him we are undone and must have somecontracts to continue operating. Nursing bruises, Zotul unhappily went to the Council House again. Mr.Broderick was no longer with them, a suave assistant informed him.Would he like to see Mr. Siwicki instead? Zotul would. Siwicki was tall, thin, dark and somber-looking. There was even a hintof toughness about the set of his jaw and the hardness of his glance. So you can't pay, he said, tapping his teeth with a pencil. Helooked at Zotul coldly. It is well you have come to us instead ofmaking it necessary for us to approach you through the courts. I don't know what you mean, said Zotul. If we have to sue, we take back the merchandise and everythingattached to them. That means you would lose your houses, for they areattached to the furnaces. However, it is not as bad as that—yet. Wewill only require you to assign the remaining three-quarters of yourpottery to us. The brothers, when they heard of this, were too stunned to think ofbeating Zotul, by which he assumed he had progressed a little and wassomewhat comforted. To fail, said Koltan soberly, is not a Masur attribute. Go to thegovernor and tell him what we think of this business. The House ofMasur has long supported the government with heavy taxes. Now it istime for the government to do something for us. <doc-sep>The governor's palace was jammed with hurrying people, a scene ofconfusion that upset Zotul. The clerk who took his application foran interview was, he noticed only vaguely, a young Earthwoman. Itwas remarkable that he paid so little attention, for the femaleterrestrials were picked for physical assets that made Zurian mencovetous and Zurian women envious. The governor will see you, she said sweetly. He has been expectingyou. Me? marveled Zotul. She ushered him into the magnificent private office of the governorof Lor. The man behind the desk stood up, extended his hand with afriendly smile. Come in, come in! I'm glad to see you again. Zotul stared blankly. This was not the governor. This was Broderick,the Earthman. I—I came to see the governor, he said in confusion. Broderick nodded agreeably. I am the governor and I am well acquaintedwith your case, Mr. Masur. Shall we talk it over? Please sit down. I don't understand. The Earthmen.... Zotul paused, coloring. We areabout to lose our plant. You were about to say that the Earthmen are taking your plant awayfrom you. That is true. Since the House of Masur was the largest andrichest on Zur, it has taken a long time—the longest of all, in fact. What do you mean? Yours is the last business on Zur to be taken over by us. We havebought you out. Our government.... Your governments belong to us, too, said Broderick. When they couldnot pay for the roads, the telegraphs, the civic improvements, we tookthem over, just as we are taking you over. You mean, exclaimed Zotul, aghast, that you Earthmen own everythingon Zur? Even your armies. But why ? <doc-sep>Broderick clasped his hands behind back, went to the window and stareddown moodily into the street. You don't know what an overcrowded world is like, he said. A streetlike this, with so few people and vehicles on it, would be impossibleon Earth. But it's mobbed, protested Zotul. It gave me a headache. And to us it's almost empty. The pressure of population on Earth hasmade us range the Galaxy for places to put our extra people. The onlyhabitable planets, unfortunately, are populated ones. We take the leastpopulous worlds and—well, buy them out and move in. And after that? Broderick smiled gently. Zur will grow. Our people will intermarrywith yours. The future population of Zur will be neither true Zuriansnor true Earthmen, but a mixture of both. Zotul sat in silent thought. But you did not have to buy us out. Youhad the power to conquer us, even to destroy us. The whole planet couldhave been yours alone. He stopped in alarm. Or am I suggesting anidea that didn't occur to you? No, said Broderick, his usually smiling face almost pained withmemory. We know the history of conquest all too well. Our methodcauses more distress than we like to inflict, but it's better—and moresure—than war and invasion by force. Now that the unpleasant job isfinished, we can repair the dislocations. At last I understand what you said about the tortoise. Slow but sure. Broderick beamed again and clapped Zotul on theshoulder. Don't worry. You'll have your job back, the same as always,but you'll be working for us ... until the children of Earth and Zurare equal in knowledge and therefore equal partners. That's why we hadto break down your caste system. Zotul's eyes widened. And that is why my brothers did not beat me whenI failed! Of course. Are you ready now to take the assignment papers for you andyour brothers to sign? Yes, said Zotul. I am ready. <doc-sep></s>

Broderick is an Earthman in charge of the Merchandising Council. He first meets with Zotul and hears his complaints about the failure of the Masur business due to Earth's expansion. Broderick, putting on a guise of sympathy, offers Zotul luxuries to enjoy with his family, in return for credit and their production of ceramics for automobiles. Broderick later moves up in hierarchy and becomes the governor of Zur, achieving power over all affairs. He meets Zotul again and gets the Masur family to work completely for him.

<s> Confidence Game By JIM HARMON Illustrated by EPSTEIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or going—but I know that if I stuck to the old man, I was a comer ... even if he was a goner! Doc had this solemn human by the throat when I caught up with him. Tonight, Doc was saying in his old voice that was as crackled andimportant as parchment, tonight Man will reach the Moon. The goldenMoon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. Tonight is the night whenthis is to happen. Sure, the man agreed severely, prying a little worriedly at Doc'sarthritic fingers that were clamped on his collar. No argument. Sure,up we go. But leave me go or, so help me, I'll fetch you one in theteeth! I came alongside and carefully started to lever the old man loose,one finger at a time. It had to be done this way. I had learned thatduring all these weeks and months. His hands looked old and crippled,but I felt they were the strongest in the world. If a half dozen winosin Seattle hadn't helped me get them loose, Doc and I would have beenwanted for the murder of a North American Mountie. It was easier this night and that made me afraid. Doc's thin frame,layered with lumpy fat, was beginning to muscle-dance against my side.One of his times was coming on him. Then at last he was free of thegreasy collar of the human. I hope you'll forgive him, sir, I said, not meeting the man's eyes.He's my father and very old, as you can see. I laughed inside at theabsurd, easy lie. Old events seem recent to him. The human nodded, Adam's apple jerking in the angry neon twilight.'Memory Jump,' you mean. All my great-grandfathers have it. ButGreat-great-grandmother Lupos, funny thing, is like a schoolgirl.Sharp, you know. I.... Say, the poor old guy looks sick. Want any help? I told the human no, thanks, and walked Doc toward the flophouse threedoors down. I hoped we would make it. I didn't know what would happenif we didn't. Doc was liable to say something that might nova Sol, forall I knew. <doc-sep>Martians approaching the corner were sensing at Doc and me. Theywere just cheap tourists slumming down on Skid Row. I hated touristsand especially I hated Martian tourists because I especially hatedMartians. They were aliens . They weren't men like Doc and me. Then I realized what was about to happen. It was foolish and awful andtrue. I was going to have one of mine at the same time Doc was havinghis. That was bad. It had happened a few times right after I firstfound him, but now it was worse. For some undefinable reason, I felt wekept getting closer each of the times. I tried not to think about it and helped Doc through the fly-speckedflophouse doors. The tubercular clerk looked up from the gaudy comics sections of one ofthose little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance. Fifteen cents a bed, he said mechanically. We'll use one bed, I told him. I'll give you twenty cents. I feltthe round hard quarter in my pocket, sweaty hand against sticky lining. Fifteen cents a bed, he played it back for me. Doc was quivering against me, his legs boneless. We can always make it over to the mission, I lied. The clerk turned his upper lip as if he were going to spit. Awright,since we ain't full up. In ad vance. I placed the quarter on the desk. Give me a nickel. The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknownbefore I could move, what with holding up Doc. You've got your nerve, he said at me with a fine mist of dew. Had aquarter all along and yet you Martian me down to twenty cents. He sawthe look on my face. I'll give you a room for the two bits. That'sbetter'n a bed for twenty. I knew I was going to need that nickel. Desperately. I reached acrossthe desk with my free hand and hauled the scrawny human up against theregister hard. I'm not as strong in my hands as Doc, but I managed. Give me a nickel, I said. What nickel? His eyes were big, but they kept looking right at me.You don't have any nickel. You don't have any quarter, not if I sayso. Want I should call a cop and tell him you were flexing a muscle? I let go of him. He didn't scare me, but Doc was beginning to mumbleand that did scare me. I had to get him alone. Where's the room? I asked. <doc-sep>The room was six feet in all directions and the walls were five feethigh. The other foot was finished in chicken wire. There was a winosinging on the left, a wino praying on the right, and the door didn'thave any lock on it. At last, Doc and I were alone. I laid Doc out on the gray-brown cot and put his forearm over his faceto shield it some from the glare of the light bulb. I swept off all thebedbugs in sight and stepped on them heavily. Then I dropped down into the painted stool chair and let my burningeyes rest on the obscene wall drawings just to focus them. I was sodirty, I could feel the grime grinding together all over me. My shaggyscalp still smarted from the alcohol I had stolen from a convertible'sgas tank to get rid of Doc's and my cooties. Lucky that I never neededto shave and that my face was so dirty, no one would even notice that Ididn't need to. The cramp hit me and I folded out of the chair onto the littered,uncovered floor. It stopped hurting, but I knew it would begin if I moved. I stared at ajagged cut-out nude curled against a lump of dust and lint, giving itan unreal distortion. Doc began to mumble louder. I knew I had to move. I waited just a moment, savoring the painless peace. Then, finally, Imoved. I was bent double, but I got from the floor to the chair and foundmy notebook and orb-point in my hands. I found I couldn't focus bothmy mind and my eyes through the electric flashes of agony, so Iconcentrated on Doc's voice and trusted my hands would follow theirhabit pattern and construct the symbols for his words. They weresuddenly distinguishable. Outsider ... Thoth ... Dyzan ... Seven ... Hsan ... Beyond Six, Seven, Eight ... Two boxes ... Ralston ... RichardWentworth ... Jimmy Christopher ... Kent Allard ... Ayem ... Oh, are ... see .... <doc-sep>His voice rose to a meaningless wail that stretched into non-existence.The pen slid across the scribbled face of the notebook and both droppedfrom my numb hands. But I knew. Somehow, inside me, I knew that thesewords were what I had been waiting for. They told everything I neededto know to become the most powerful man in the Solar Federation. That wasn't just an addict's dream. I knew who Doc was. When I gotto thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old manaround North America for nothing, I remembered who he was. I remembered that he was somebody very important whose name and work Ihad once known, even if now I knew him only as Doc. Pain was a pendulum within me, swinging from low throbbing bass to highscreaming tenor. I had to get out and get some. But I didn't have anickel. Still, I had to get some. I crawled to the door and raised myself by the knob, slick with greasydirt. The door opened and shut—there was no lock. I shouldn't leaveDoc alone, but I had to. He was starting to cry. He didn't always do that. I listened to him for a moment, then tested and tasted the craving thatcrawled through my veins. I got back inside somehow. Doc was twisting on the cot, tears washing white streaks across hisface. I shoved Doc's face up against my chest. I held onto him and lethim bellow. I soothed the lanks of soiled white hair back over hislumpy skull. He shut up at last and I laid him down again and put his arm backacross his face. (You can't turn the light off and on in places likethat. The old wiring will blow the bulb half the time.) I don't remember how I got out onto the street. <doc-sep>She was pink and clean and her platinum hair was pulled straight back,drawing her cheek-bones tighter, straightening her wide, appealingmouth, drawing her lean, athletic, feminine body erect. She was wearinga powder-blue dress that covered all of her breasts and hips and theupper half of her legs. The most wonderful thing about her was her perfume. Then I realized itwasn't perfume, only the scent of soap. Finally, I knew it wasn't that.It was just healthy, fresh-scrubbed skin. I went to her at the bus stop, forcing my legs not to stagger. Nobodywould help a drunk. I don't know why, but nobody will help you if theythink you are blotto. Ma'am, could you help a man who's not had work? I kept my eyes down.I couldn't look a human in the eye and ask for help. Just a dime for acup of coffee. I knew where I could get it for three cents, maybe twoand a half. I felt her looking at me. She spoke in an educated voice, one she used,perhaps, as a teacher or supervising telephone operator. Do you wantit for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else? I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realizedthat anybody as clean as she was had to be a tourist here. I hatetourists. Just coffee, ma'am. She was younger than I was, so I didn't have tocall her that. A little more for food, if you could spare it. I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, but I didn't care much. I'll buy you a dinner, she said carefully, provided I can go withyou and see for myself that you actually eat it. I felt my face flushing red. You wouldn't want to be seen with a bumlike me, ma'am. I'll be seen with you if you really want to eat. It was certainly unfair and probably immoral. But I had no choicewhatever. Okay, I said, tasting bitterness over the craving. <doc-sep>The coffee was in a thick white cup before me on the counter. It waspale, grayish brown and steaming faintly. I picked it up in both handsto feel its warmth. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman sitting on the stoolbeside me. She had no right to intrude. This moment should be mine, butthere she sat, marring it for me, a contemptible tourist . I gulped down the thick, dark liquid brutally. It was all I coulddo. The cramp flowed out of my diaphragm. I took another swallow andwas able to think straight again. A third swallow and I felt—good.Not abnormally stimulated, but strong, alert, poised on the brink ofexhilaration. That was what coffee did for me. I was a caffeine addict. Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, butI knew that as a Centurian I had it infinitely worse. Caffeine affectedmy metabolism like a pure alkaloid. The immediate effects weren't thesame, but the need ran as deep. I finished the cup. I didn't order another because I wasn't a puresensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have theprice of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottleswith a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine inthem—not enough, never enough, but better than nothing. Now what do you want to eat? the woman asked. I didn't look at her. She didn't know. She thought I was a human—an Earth human. I was a man , of course, not an alien like a Martian.Earthmen ran the whole Solar Federation, but I was just as good as anEarthman. With my suntan and short mane, I could pass, couldn't I? Thatproved it, didn't it? Hamburger, I said. Well done. I knew that would probably be allthey had fit to eat at a place like this. It might be horse meat, butthen I didn't have the local prejudices. I didn't look at the woman. I couldn't. But I kept remembering howclean she looked and I was aware of how clean she smelled. I was sodirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed everyhour for the rest of my life. The hamburger was engulfed by five black-crowned, broken fingernailsand raised to two rows of yellow ivory. I surrounded it like an ameba,almost in a single movement of my jaws. Several other hamburgers followed the first. I lost count. I drank aglass of milk. I didn't want to black out on coffee with Doc waitingfor me. Could I have a few to take with me, miss? I pleaded. She smiled. I caught that out of the edge of my vision, but mostly Ijust felt it. That's the first time you've called me anything but 'ma'am', shesaid. I'm not an old-maid schoolteacher, you know. That probably meant she was a schoolteacher, though. No, miss, I said. It's Miss Casey—Vivian Casey, she corrected. She was aschoolteacher, all right. No other girl would introduce herself as MissLast Name. Then there was something in her voice.... What's your name? she said to me. I choked a little on a bite of stale bun. I had a name, of course . <doc-sep>Everybody has a name, and I knew if I went off somewhere quiet andthought about it, mine would come to me. Meanwhile, I would tell thegirl that my name was ... Kevin O'Malley. Abruptly I realized that that was my name. Kevin, I told her. John Kevin. Mister Kevin, she said, her words dancing with bright absurdity likewaterhose mist on a summer afternoon, I wonder if you could help me . Happy to, miss, I mumbled. She pushed a white rectangle in front of me on the painted maroon bar.What do you think of this? I looked at the piece of paper. It was a coupon from a magazine. Dear Acolyte R. I. S. : Please send me FREE of obligation, in sealed wrapper, The ScarletBook revealing to me how I may gain Secret Mastery of the Universe. Name : ........................ Address : ..................... The world disoriented itself and I was on the floor of the somber dinerand Miss Vivian Casey was out of sight and scent. There was a five dollar bill tight in my fist. The counterman wastrying to pull it out. I looked up at his stubbled face. I had half a dozen hamburgers, acup of coffee and a glass of milk. I want four more 'burgers to go anda pint of coffee. By your prices, that will be one sixty-five—if thelady didn't pay you. She didn't, he stammered. Why do you think I was trying to get thatbill out of your hand? I didn't say anything, just got up off the floor. After the countermanput down my change, I spread out the five dollar bill on the vacantbar, smoothing it. I scooped up my change and walked out the door. There was no one on thesidewalk, only in the doorways. <doc-sep>First I opened the door on an amber world, then an azure one. Neonlight was coming from the chickenwire border of the room, from a windowsomewhere beyond. The wino on one side of the room was singing andthe one on the other side was praying, same as before. Only they hadchanged around—prayer came from the left, song from the right. Doc sat on the floor in the half-darkness and he had made a thing . My heart hammered at my lungs. I knew this last time had beendifferent. Whatever it was was getting closer. This was the first timeDoc had ever made anything. It didn't look like much, but it was astart. He had broken the light bulb and used the filament and screw bottom.His strong hands had unraveled some of the bed springs—metalwebbing—and fashioned them to his needs. My orb-point pen haddissolved under his touch. All of them, useless parts, were made into ameaningful whole. I knew the thing had meaning, but when I tried to follow its design, Ibecame lost. I put the paper container of warm coffee and the greasy bag ofhamburgers on the wooden chair, hoping the odor wouldn't bring anyhungry rats out of the walls. I knelt beside Doc. An order, my boy, an order, he whispered. I didn't know what he meant. Was he suddenly trying to give me orders? He held something out to me. It was my notebook. He had used my pen,before dismantling it, to write something. I tilted the notebookagainst the neon light, now red wine, now fresh grape. I read it. Concentrate, Doc said hoarsely. Concentrate.... I wondered what the words meant. Wondering takes a kind ofconcentration. The words First Edition were what I was thinking about most. <doc-sep>The heavy-set man in the ornate armchair was saying, The bullet struckme as I was pulling on my boot.... I was kneeling on the floor of a Victorian living room. I'm quitefamiliar with Earth history and I recognized the period immediately. Then I realized what I had been trying to get from Doc all thesemonths—time travel. A thin, sickly man was sprawled in the other chair in a rumpleddressing gown. My eyes held to his face, his pinpoint pupils andwhitened nose. He was a condemned snowbird! If there was anything Ihated or held in more contempt than tourists or Martians, it was asnowbird. My clients have occasioned singular methods of entry into theserooms, the thin man remarked, but never before have they usedinstantaneous materialization. The heavier man was half choking, half laughing. I say—I say, I wouldlike to see you explain this, my dear fellow. I have no data, the thin man answered coolly. In such instance, onebegins to twist theories into fact, or facts into theories. I must askthis unemployed, former professional man who has gone through a seriousillness and is suffering a more serious addiction to tell me the placeand time from which he comes. The surprise stung. How did you know? I asked. He gestured with a pale hand. To maintain a logical approach, I mustreject the supernatural. Your arrival, unless hallucinatory—anddespite my voluntary use of one drug and my involuntary experiencesrecently with another, I must accept the evidence of my senses orretire from my profession—your arrival was then super-normal. I mightsay super-scientific, of a science not of my or the good doctor's time,clearly. Time travel is a familiar folk legend and I have been readingan article by the entertaining Mr. Wells. Perhaps he will expand itinto one of his novels of scientific romance. I knew who these two men were, with a tormenting doubt. But theother— Your hands, though unclean, have never seen physical labor. Yourcranial construction is of a superior type, or even if you reject mytheories, concentration does set the facial features. I judge you havesuffered an illness because of the inhibition of your beard growth.Your over-fondness for rum or opium, perhaps, is self-evident. Youare at too resilient an age to be so sunk by even an amour. Why elsethen would you let yourself fall into such an underfed and unsanitarystate? <doc-sep>He was so smug and so sure, this snowbird. I hated him. Because Icouldn't trust to my own senses as he did. You don't exist, I said slowly, painfully. You are fictionalcreations. The doctor flushed darkly. You give my literary agent too much creditfor the addition of professional polish to my works. The other man was filling a large, curved pipe from something thatlooked vaguely like an ice-skate. Interesting. Perhaps if our visitorwould tell us something of his age with special reference to the theoryand practice of temporal transference, Doctor, we would be betterequipped to judge whether we exist. There was no theory or practice of time travel. I told them all I hadever heard theorized from Hindu yoga through Extra-sensory Perceptionto Relativity and the positron and negatron. Interesting. He breathed out suffocating black clouds of smoke.Presume that the people of your time by their 'Extra-sensoryPerception' have altered the past to make it as they suppose it to be.The great historical figures are made the larger than life-size that weknow them. The great literary creations assume reality. I thought of Cleopatra and Helen of Troy and wondered if they would bethe goddesses of love that people imagined or the scrawny, big-nosedredhead and fading old woman of scholarship. Then I noticed thedetective's hand that had been resting idly on a round brass weight ofunknown sort to me. His tapered fingertips had indented the metal. His bright eyes followed mine and he smiled faintly. Withdrawalsymptoms. The admiration and affection for this man that had been slowly buildingup behind my hatred unbrinked. I remembered now that he had stopped. Hewas not really a snowbird. After a time, I asked the doctor a question. Why, yes. I'm flattered. This is the first manuscript. Considering myprofessional handwriting, I recopied it more laboriously. Accepting the sheaf of papers and not looking back at these two greatand good men, I concentrated on my own time and Doc. Nothing happened.My heart raced, but I saw something dancing before me like a dust motein sunlight and stepped toward it.... ... into the effective range of Miss Casey's tiny gun. <doc-sep>She inclined the lethal silver toy. Let me see those papers, Kevin. I handed her the doctor's manuscript. Her breath escaped slowly and loudly. It's all right. It's all right.It exists. It's real. Not even one of the unwritten ones. I've readthis myself. Doc was lying on the cot, half his face twisted into horror. Don't move, Kevin, she said. I'll have to shoot you—maybe not tokill, but painfully. I watched her face flash blue, red, blue and knew she meant it. But Ihad known too much in too short a time. I had to help Doc, but therewas something else. I just want a drink of coffee from that container on the chair, Itold her. She shook her head. I don't know what you think it does to you. It was getting hard for me to think. Who are you? She showed me a card from her wrist purse. Vivian Casey, Constable,North American Mounted Police. I had to help Doc. I had to have some coffee. What do you want? Listen, Kevin. Listen carefully to what I am saying. Doc founda method of time travel. It was almost a purely mathematical,topographical way divorced from modern physical sciences. He kept itsecret and he wanted to make money with it. He was an idealist—he hadhis crusades. How can you make money with time travel? I didn't know whether she was asking me, but I didn't know. All I knewwas that I had to help Doc and get some coffee. It takes money—money Doc didn't have—to make money, Miss Caseysaid, even if you know what horse will come in and what stock willprosper. Besides, horse-racing and the stock market weren't a part ofDoc's character. He was a scholar. Why did she keep using the past tense in reference to Doc? It scaredme. He was lying so still with the left side of his face so twisted. Ineeded some coffee. He became a book finder. He got rare editions of books and magazinesfor his clients in absolutely mint condition. That was all right—untilhe started obtaining books that did not exist . <doc-sep>I didn't know what all that was supposed to mean. I got to the chair,snatched up the coffee container, tore it open and gulped down thesoothing liquid. I turned toward her and threw the rest of the coffee into her face. The coffee splashed out over her platinum hair and powder-blue dressthat looked white when the neon was azure, purple when it was amber.The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad,unreasonably happy. I tore the gun away from her by the short barrel, not letting my filthyhands touch her scrubbed pink ones. I pointed the gun generally at her and backed around the thing on thefloor to the cot. Doc had a pulse, but it was irregular. I checked fora fever and there wasn't one. After that, I didn't know what to do. I looked up finally and saw a Martian in or about the doorway. Call me Andre, the Martian said. A common name but foreign. Itshould serve as a point of reference. I had always wondered how a thing like a Martian could talk. SometimesI wondered if they really could. You won't need the gun, Andre said conversationally. I'll keep it, thanks. What do you want? I'll begin as Miss Casey did—by telling you things. Hundreds ofpeople disappeared from North America a few months ago. They always do, I told him. They ceased to exist—as human beings—shortly after they received abook from Doc, the Martian said. Something seemed to strike me in the back of the neck. I staggered, butmanaged to hold onto the gun and stand up. Use one of those sneaky Martian weapons again, I warned him,and I'll kill the girl. Martians were supposed to be against thedestruction of any life-form, I had read someplace. I doubted it, butit was worth a try. Kevin, Andre said, why don't you take a bath? The Martian weapon staggered me again. I tried to say something. Itried to explain that I was so dirty that I could never get clean nomatter how often I bathed. No words formed. But, Kevin, Andre said, you aren't that dirty. <doc-sep>The blow shook the gun from my fingers. It almost fell into the thing on the floor, but at the last moment seemed to change direction andmiss it. I knew something. I don't wash because I drink coffee. It's all right to drink coffee, isn't it? he asked. Of course, I said, and added absurdly, That's why I don't wash. You mean, Andre said slowly, ploddingly, that if you bathed, youwould be admitting that drinking coffee was in the same class as anyother solitary vice that makes people wash frequently. I was knocked to my knees. Kevin, the Martian said, drinking coffee represents a major viceonly in Centurian humanoids, not Earth-norm human beings. Which areyou? Nothing came out of my gabbling mouth. What is Doc's full name? I almost fell in, but at the last instant I caught myself and said,Doctor Kevin O'Malley, Senior. From the bed, Doc said a word. Son. Then he disappeared. I looked at that which he had made. I wondered where he had gone, insearch of what. He didn't use that, Andre said. So I was an Earthman, Doc's son. So my addiction to coffee was all inmy mind. That didn't change anything. They say sex is all in your mind.I didn't want to be cured. I wouldn't be. Doc was gone. That was all Ihad now. That and the thing he left. The rest is simple, Andre said. Doc O'Malley bought up all the stockin a certain ancient metaphysical order and started supplying memberswith certain books. Can you imagine the effect of the Book of Dyzan or the Book of Thoth or the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan or the Necronomican itself on human beings? But they don't exist, I said wearily. Exactly, Kevin, exactly. They have never existed any more than yourVictorian detective friend. But the unconscious racial mind has reachedback into time and created them. And that unconscious mind, deeper thanpsychology terms the subconscious, has always known about the powersof ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition. Through these books,the human race can tell itself how to achieve a state of pure logic,without food, without sex, without conflict—just as Doc has achievedsuch a state—a little late, true. He had a powerful guilt complex,even stronger than your withdrawal, over releasing this blessing onthe inhabited universe, but reason finally prevailed. He had reached astate of pure thought. The North American government has to have this secret, Kevin, thegirl said. You can't let it fall into the hands of the Martians. <doc-sep>Andre did not deny that he wanted it to fall into his hands. I knew I could not let Doc's—Dad's—time travel thing fall intoanyone's hands. I remembered that all the copies of the books haddisappeared with their readers now. There must not be any more, I knew. Miss Casey did her duty and tried to stop me with a judo hold, but Idon't think her heart was in it, because I reversed and broke it. I kicked the thing to pieces and stomped on the pieces. Maybe youcan't stop the progress of science, but I knew it might be millenniumsbefore Doc's genes and creative environment were recreated and timetravel was rediscovered. Maybe we would be ready for it then. I knew weweren't now. Miss Casey leaned against my dirty chest and cried into it. I didn'tmind her touching me. I'm glad, she said. Andre flowed out of the doorway with a sigh. Of relief? I would never know. I supposed I had destroyed it because I didn'twant the human race to become a thing of pure reason without purpose,direction or love, but I would never know for sure. I thought I couldkick the habit—perhaps with Miss Casey's help—but I wasn't reallyconfident. Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without materialneeds would not grow and roast coffee. <doc-sep></s>

John Kevin catches up with Doc, who has grabbed a human by the throat. He tells the human that man will reach the moon tonight, and the man agrees, so Doc will let him go. Kevin apologizes to the human and says that his father has trouble differentiating old events. They see Martian tourists approaching the corner, and Kevin recalls how he hates Martian tourists because they are aliens. The two go to a flophouse, where Kevin bargains with the clerk over the price of a room. He threatens the human but stops when he hears Doc mumbling. They go to the room, and he lays Doc out on the cot. Doc begins to mumble more, while Kevin begins to copy down the words in his notebook again. Kevin knows that what Doc is mumbling will make him the most powerful man in the Solar Federation, especially because Doc was once somebody extremely important. Doc then begins to cry, and Kevin decides to comfort him slightly. Kevin then meets a woman by the bus stop and asks her for a dime for coffee. He realizes that she is a human tourist and recalls how he hates tourists. She offers to buy him dinner too, and they go to get a coffee. Kevin is revealed to be a caffeine addict, and he tells the woman that he wants a hamburger. One hamburger becomes several, and he drinks a glass of milk. Kevin asks the woman for a few to take home, and she introduces herself as Miss Vivian Casey. Kevin tells her his name too, and she hands him a coupon from a magazine. When he comes back to his senses, the counterman is pulling a five-dollar bill from under his hand. When he goes back, Doc has made something. It is revealed that Kevin has been trying to get time travel from Doc for the past few months and sees a condemned snowbird. The two thin and heavy men talk to him, asking him to tell them where he came from. The doctor explains his condition and hands him a manuscript, and Kevin steps into the range of Miss Casey’s gun in real life. He asks her for coffee again, and she re-introduces herself as a North American Mounted Police member. She explains that Doc wanted to profit off of his time travel, but he did not have money. He wrestles the gun from her; suddenly, a Martian by the name of Andre appears. Andre makes Kevin realize that he is not a Centurian humanoid because he is the son of Doc. Kevin destroys the thing that Doc creates because he knows nobody is ready for time travel to be rediscovered. Miss Casey and Andre are relieved, while Kevin ponders why he destroyed the machine. He thinks it may be because of emotions or roast coffee.

<s> Confidence Game By JIM HARMON Illustrated by EPSTEIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or going—but I know that if I stuck to the old man, I was a comer ... even if he was a goner! Doc had this solemn human by the throat when I caught up with him. Tonight, Doc was saying in his old voice that was as crackled andimportant as parchment, tonight Man will reach the Moon. The goldenMoon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. Tonight is the night whenthis is to happen. Sure, the man agreed severely, prying a little worriedly at Doc'sarthritic fingers that were clamped on his collar. No argument. Sure,up we go. But leave me go or, so help me, I'll fetch you one in theteeth! I came alongside and carefully started to lever the old man loose,one finger at a time. It had to be done this way. I had learned thatduring all these weeks and months. His hands looked old and crippled,but I felt they were the strongest in the world. If a half dozen winosin Seattle hadn't helped me get them loose, Doc and I would have beenwanted for the murder of a North American Mountie. It was easier this night and that made me afraid. Doc's thin frame,layered with lumpy fat, was beginning to muscle-dance against my side.One of his times was coming on him. Then at last he was free of thegreasy collar of the human. I hope you'll forgive him, sir, I said, not meeting the man's eyes.He's my father and very old, as you can see. I laughed inside at theabsurd, easy lie. Old events seem recent to him. The human nodded, Adam's apple jerking in the angry neon twilight.'Memory Jump,' you mean. All my great-grandfathers have it. ButGreat-great-grandmother Lupos, funny thing, is like a schoolgirl.Sharp, you know. I.... Say, the poor old guy looks sick. Want any help? I told the human no, thanks, and walked Doc toward the flophouse threedoors down. I hoped we would make it. I didn't know what would happenif we didn't. Doc was liable to say something that might nova Sol, forall I knew. <doc-sep>Martians approaching the corner were sensing at Doc and me. Theywere just cheap tourists slumming down on Skid Row. I hated touristsand especially I hated Martian tourists because I especially hatedMartians. They were aliens . They weren't men like Doc and me. Then I realized what was about to happen. It was foolish and awful andtrue. I was going to have one of mine at the same time Doc was havinghis. That was bad. It had happened a few times right after I firstfound him, but now it was worse. For some undefinable reason, I felt wekept getting closer each of the times. I tried not to think about it and helped Doc through the fly-speckedflophouse doors. The tubercular clerk looked up from the gaudy comics sections of one ofthose little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance. Fifteen cents a bed, he said mechanically. We'll use one bed, I told him. I'll give you twenty cents. I feltthe round hard quarter in my pocket, sweaty hand against sticky lining. Fifteen cents a bed, he played it back for me. Doc was quivering against me, his legs boneless. We can always make it over to the mission, I lied. The clerk turned his upper lip as if he were going to spit. Awright,since we ain't full up. In ad vance. I placed the quarter on the desk. Give me a nickel. The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknownbefore I could move, what with holding up Doc. You've got your nerve, he said at me with a fine mist of dew. Had aquarter all along and yet you Martian me down to twenty cents. He sawthe look on my face. I'll give you a room for the two bits. That'sbetter'n a bed for twenty. I knew I was going to need that nickel. Desperately. I reached acrossthe desk with my free hand and hauled the scrawny human up against theregister hard. I'm not as strong in my hands as Doc, but I managed. Give me a nickel, I said. What nickel? His eyes were big, but they kept looking right at me.You don't have any nickel. You don't have any quarter, not if I sayso. Want I should call a cop and tell him you were flexing a muscle? I let go of him. He didn't scare me, but Doc was beginning to mumbleand that did scare me. I had to get him alone. Where's the room? I asked. <doc-sep>The room was six feet in all directions and the walls were five feethigh. The other foot was finished in chicken wire. There was a winosinging on the left, a wino praying on the right, and the door didn'thave any lock on it. At last, Doc and I were alone. I laid Doc out on the gray-brown cot and put his forearm over his faceto shield it some from the glare of the light bulb. I swept off all thebedbugs in sight and stepped on them heavily. Then I dropped down into the painted stool chair and let my burningeyes rest on the obscene wall drawings just to focus them. I was sodirty, I could feel the grime grinding together all over me. My shaggyscalp still smarted from the alcohol I had stolen from a convertible'sgas tank to get rid of Doc's and my cooties. Lucky that I never neededto shave and that my face was so dirty, no one would even notice that Ididn't need to. The cramp hit me and I folded out of the chair onto the littered,uncovered floor. It stopped hurting, but I knew it would begin if I moved. I stared at ajagged cut-out nude curled against a lump of dust and lint, giving itan unreal distortion. Doc began to mumble louder. I knew I had to move. I waited just a moment, savoring the painless peace. Then, finally, Imoved. I was bent double, but I got from the floor to the chair and foundmy notebook and orb-point in my hands. I found I couldn't focus bothmy mind and my eyes through the electric flashes of agony, so Iconcentrated on Doc's voice and trusted my hands would follow theirhabit pattern and construct the symbols for his words. They weresuddenly distinguishable. Outsider ... Thoth ... Dyzan ... Seven ... Hsan ... Beyond Six, Seven, Eight ... Two boxes ... Ralston ... RichardWentworth ... Jimmy Christopher ... Kent Allard ... Ayem ... Oh, are ... see .... <doc-sep>His voice rose to a meaningless wail that stretched into non-existence.The pen slid across the scribbled face of the notebook and both droppedfrom my numb hands. But I knew. Somehow, inside me, I knew that thesewords were what I had been waiting for. They told everything I neededto know to become the most powerful man in the Solar Federation. That wasn't just an addict's dream. I knew who Doc was. When I gotto thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old manaround North America for nothing, I remembered who he was. I remembered that he was somebody very important whose name and work Ihad once known, even if now I knew him only as Doc. Pain was a pendulum within me, swinging from low throbbing bass to highscreaming tenor. I had to get out and get some. But I didn't have anickel. Still, I had to get some. I crawled to the door and raised myself by the knob, slick with greasydirt. The door opened and shut—there was no lock. I shouldn't leaveDoc alone, but I had to. He was starting to cry. He didn't always do that. I listened to him for a moment, then tested and tasted the craving thatcrawled through my veins. I got back inside somehow. Doc was twisting on the cot, tears washing white streaks across hisface. I shoved Doc's face up against my chest. I held onto him and lethim bellow. I soothed the lanks of soiled white hair back over hislumpy skull. He shut up at last and I laid him down again and put his arm backacross his face. (You can't turn the light off and on in places likethat. The old wiring will blow the bulb half the time.) I don't remember how I got out onto the street. <doc-sep>She was pink and clean and her platinum hair was pulled straight back,drawing her cheek-bones tighter, straightening her wide, appealingmouth, drawing her lean, athletic, feminine body erect. She was wearinga powder-blue dress that covered all of her breasts and hips and theupper half of her legs. The most wonderful thing about her was her perfume. Then I realized itwasn't perfume, only the scent of soap. Finally, I knew it wasn't that.It was just healthy, fresh-scrubbed skin. I went to her at the bus stop, forcing my legs not to stagger. Nobodywould help a drunk. I don't know why, but nobody will help you if theythink you are blotto. Ma'am, could you help a man who's not had work? I kept my eyes down.I couldn't look a human in the eye and ask for help. Just a dime for acup of coffee. I knew where I could get it for three cents, maybe twoand a half. I felt her looking at me. She spoke in an educated voice, one she used,perhaps, as a teacher or supervising telephone operator. Do you wantit for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else? I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realizedthat anybody as clean as she was had to be a tourist here. I hatetourists. Just coffee, ma'am. She was younger than I was, so I didn't have tocall her that. A little more for food, if you could spare it. I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, but I didn't care much. I'll buy you a dinner, she said carefully, provided I can go withyou and see for myself that you actually eat it. I felt my face flushing red. You wouldn't want to be seen with a bumlike me, ma'am. I'll be seen with you if you really want to eat. It was certainly unfair and probably immoral. But I had no choicewhatever. Okay, I said, tasting bitterness over the craving. <doc-sep>The coffee was in a thick white cup before me on the counter. It waspale, grayish brown and steaming faintly. I picked it up in both handsto feel its warmth. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman sitting on the stoolbeside me. She had no right to intrude. This moment should be mine, butthere she sat, marring it for me, a contemptible tourist . I gulped down the thick, dark liquid brutally. It was all I coulddo. The cramp flowed out of my diaphragm. I took another swallow andwas able to think straight again. A third swallow and I felt—good.Not abnormally stimulated, but strong, alert, poised on the brink ofexhilaration. That was what coffee did for me. I was a caffeine addict. Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, butI knew that as a Centurian I had it infinitely worse. Caffeine affectedmy metabolism like a pure alkaloid. The immediate effects weren't thesame, but the need ran as deep. I finished the cup. I didn't order another because I wasn't a puresensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have theprice of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottleswith a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine inthem—not enough, never enough, but better than nothing. Now what do you want to eat? the woman asked. I didn't look at her. She didn't know. She thought I was a human—an Earth human. I was a man , of course, not an alien like a Martian.Earthmen ran the whole Solar Federation, but I was just as good as anEarthman. With my suntan and short mane, I could pass, couldn't I? Thatproved it, didn't it? Hamburger, I said. Well done. I knew that would probably be allthey had fit to eat at a place like this. It might be horse meat, butthen I didn't have the local prejudices. I didn't look at the woman. I couldn't. But I kept remembering howclean she looked and I was aware of how clean she smelled. I was sodirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed everyhour for the rest of my life. The hamburger was engulfed by five black-crowned, broken fingernailsand raised to two rows of yellow ivory. I surrounded it like an ameba,almost in a single movement of my jaws. Several other hamburgers followed the first. I lost count. I drank aglass of milk. I didn't want to black out on coffee with Doc waitingfor me. Could I have a few to take with me, miss? I pleaded. She smiled. I caught that out of the edge of my vision, but mostly Ijust felt it. That's the first time you've called me anything but 'ma'am', shesaid. I'm not an old-maid schoolteacher, you know. That probably meant she was a schoolteacher, though. No, miss, I said. It's Miss Casey—Vivian Casey, she corrected. She was aschoolteacher, all right. No other girl would introduce herself as MissLast Name. Then there was something in her voice.... What's your name? she said to me. I choked a little on a bite of stale bun. I had a name, of course . <doc-sep>Everybody has a name, and I knew if I went off somewhere quiet andthought about it, mine would come to me. Meanwhile, I would tell thegirl that my name was ... Kevin O'Malley. Abruptly I realized that that was my name. Kevin, I told her. John Kevin. Mister Kevin, she said, her words dancing with bright absurdity likewaterhose mist on a summer afternoon, I wonder if you could help me . Happy to, miss, I mumbled. She pushed a white rectangle in front of me on the painted maroon bar.What do you think of this? I looked at the piece of paper. It was a coupon from a magazine. Dear Acolyte R. I. S. : Please send me FREE of obligation, in sealed wrapper, The ScarletBook revealing to me how I may gain Secret Mastery of the Universe. Name : ........................ Address : ..................... The world disoriented itself and I was on the floor of the somber dinerand Miss Vivian Casey was out of sight and scent. There was a five dollar bill tight in my fist. The counterman wastrying to pull it out. I looked up at his stubbled face. I had half a dozen hamburgers, acup of coffee and a glass of milk. I want four more 'burgers to go anda pint of coffee. By your prices, that will be one sixty-five—if thelady didn't pay you. She didn't, he stammered. Why do you think I was trying to get thatbill out of your hand? I didn't say anything, just got up off the floor. After the countermanput down my change, I spread out the five dollar bill on the vacantbar, smoothing it. I scooped up my change and walked out the door. There was no one on thesidewalk, only in the doorways. <doc-sep>First I opened the door on an amber world, then an azure one. Neonlight was coming from the chickenwire border of the room, from a windowsomewhere beyond. The wino on one side of the room was singing andthe one on the other side was praying, same as before. Only they hadchanged around—prayer came from the left, song from the right. Doc sat on the floor in the half-darkness and he had made a thing . My heart hammered at my lungs. I knew this last time had beendifferent. Whatever it was was getting closer. This was the first timeDoc had ever made anything. It didn't look like much, but it was astart. He had broken the light bulb and used the filament and screw bottom.His strong hands had unraveled some of the bed springs—metalwebbing—and fashioned them to his needs. My orb-point pen haddissolved under his touch. All of them, useless parts, were made into ameaningful whole. I knew the thing had meaning, but when I tried to follow its design, Ibecame lost. I put the paper container of warm coffee and the greasy bag ofhamburgers on the wooden chair, hoping the odor wouldn't bring anyhungry rats out of the walls. I knelt beside Doc. An order, my boy, an order, he whispered. I didn't know what he meant. Was he suddenly trying to give me orders? He held something out to me. It was my notebook. He had used my pen,before dismantling it, to write something. I tilted the notebookagainst the neon light, now red wine, now fresh grape. I read it. Concentrate, Doc said hoarsely. Concentrate.... I wondered what the words meant. Wondering takes a kind ofconcentration. The words First Edition were what I was thinking about most. <doc-sep>The heavy-set man in the ornate armchair was saying, The bullet struckme as I was pulling on my boot.... I was kneeling on the floor of a Victorian living room. I'm quitefamiliar with Earth history and I recognized the period immediately. Then I realized what I had been trying to get from Doc all thesemonths—time travel. A thin, sickly man was sprawled in the other chair in a rumpleddressing gown. My eyes held to his face, his pinpoint pupils andwhitened nose. He was a condemned snowbird! If there was anything Ihated or held in more contempt than tourists or Martians, it was asnowbird. My clients have occasioned singular methods of entry into theserooms, the thin man remarked, but never before have they usedinstantaneous materialization. The heavier man was half choking, half laughing. I say—I say, I wouldlike to see you explain this, my dear fellow. I have no data, the thin man answered coolly. In such instance, onebegins to twist theories into fact, or facts into theories. I must askthis unemployed, former professional man who has gone through a seriousillness and is suffering a more serious addiction to tell me the placeand time from which he comes. The surprise stung. How did you know? I asked. He gestured with a pale hand. To maintain a logical approach, I mustreject the supernatural. Your arrival, unless hallucinatory—anddespite my voluntary use of one drug and my involuntary experiencesrecently with another, I must accept the evidence of my senses orretire from my profession—your arrival was then super-normal. I mightsay super-scientific, of a science not of my or the good doctor's time,clearly. Time travel is a familiar folk legend and I have been readingan article by the entertaining Mr. Wells. Perhaps he will expand itinto one of his novels of scientific romance. I knew who these two men were, with a tormenting doubt. But theother— Your hands, though unclean, have never seen physical labor. Yourcranial construction is of a superior type, or even if you reject mytheories, concentration does set the facial features. I judge you havesuffered an illness because of the inhibition of your beard growth.Your over-fondness for rum or opium, perhaps, is self-evident. Youare at too resilient an age to be so sunk by even an amour. Why elsethen would you let yourself fall into such an underfed and unsanitarystate? <doc-sep>He was so smug and so sure, this snowbird. I hated him. Because Icouldn't trust to my own senses as he did. You don't exist, I said slowly, painfully. You are fictionalcreations. The doctor flushed darkly. You give my literary agent too much creditfor the addition of professional polish to my works. The other man was filling a large, curved pipe from something thatlooked vaguely like an ice-skate. Interesting. Perhaps if our visitorwould tell us something of his age with special reference to the theoryand practice of temporal transference, Doctor, we would be betterequipped to judge whether we exist. There was no theory or practice of time travel. I told them all I hadever heard theorized from Hindu yoga through Extra-sensory Perceptionto Relativity and the positron and negatron. Interesting. He breathed out suffocating black clouds of smoke.Presume that the people of your time by their 'Extra-sensoryPerception' have altered the past to make it as they suppose it to be.The great historical figures are made the larger than life-size that weknow them. The great literary creations assume reality. I thought of Cleopatra and Helen of Troy and wondered if they would bethe goddesses of love that people imagined or the scrawny, big-nosedredhead and fading old woman of scholarship. Then I noticed thedetective's hand that had been resting idly on a round brass weight ofunknown sort to me. His tapered fingertips had indented the metal. His bright eyes followed mine and he smiled faintly. Withdrawalsymptoms. The admiration and affection for this man that had been slowly buildingup behind my hatred unbrinked. I remembered now that he had stopped. Hewas not really a snowbird. After a time, I asked the doctor a question. Why, yes. I'm flattered. This is the first manuscript. Considering myprofessional handwriting, I recopied it more laboriously. Accepting the sheaf of papers and not looking back at these two greatand good men, I concentrated on my own time and Doc. Nothing happened.My heart raced, but I saw something dancing before me like a dust motein sunlight and stepped toward it.... ... into the effective range of Miss Casey's tiny gun. <doc-sep>She inclined the lethal silver toy. Let me see those papers, Kevin. I handed her the doctor's manuscript. Her breath escaped slowly and loudly. It's all right. It's all right.It exists. It's real. Not even one of the unwritten ones. I've readthis myself. Doc was lying on the cot, half his face twisted into horror. Don't move, Kevin, she said. I'll have to shoot you—maybe not tokill, but painfully. I watched her face flash blue, red, blue and knew she meant it. But Ihad known too much in too short a time. I had to help Doc, but therewas something else. I just want a drink of coffee from that container on the chair, Itold her. She shook her head. I don't know what you think it does to you. It was getting hard for me to think. Who are you? She showed me a card from her wrist purse. Vivian Casey, Constable,North American Mounted Police. I had to help Doc. I had to have some coffee. What do you want? Listen, Kevin. Listen carefully to what I am saying. Doc founda method of time travel. It was almost a purely mathematical,topographical way divorced from modern physical sciences. He kept itsecret and he wanted to make money with it. He was an idealist—he hadhis crusades. How can you make money with time travel? I didn't know whether she was asking me, but I didn't know. All I knewwas that I had to help Doc and get some coffee. It takes money—money Doc didn't have—to make money, Miss Caseysaid, even if you know what horse will come in and what stock willprosper. Besides, horse-racing and the stock market weren't a part ofDoc's character. He was a scholar. Why did she keep using the past tense in reference to Doc? It scaredme. He was lying so still with the left side of his face so twisted. Ineeded some coffee. He became a book finder. He got rare editions of books and magazinesfor his clients in absolutely mint condition. That was all right—untilhe started obtaining books that did not exist . <doc-sep>I didn't know what all that was supposed to mean. I got to the chair,snatched up the coffee container, tore it open and gulped down thesoothing liquid. I turned toward her and threw the rest of the coffee into her face. The coffee splashed out over her platinum hair and powder-blue dressthat looked white when the neon was azure, purple when it was amber.The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad,unreasonably happy. I tore the gun away from her by the short barrel, not letting my filthyhands touch her scrubbed pink ones. I pointed the gun generally at her and backed around the thing on thefloor to the cot. Doc had a pulse, but it was irregular. I checked fora fever and there wasn't one. After that, I didn't know what to do. I looked up finally and saw a Martian in or about the doorway. Call me Andre, the Martian said. A common name but foreign. Itshould serve as a point of reference. I had always wondered how a thing like a Martian could talk. SometimesI wondered if they really could. You won't need the gun, Andre said conversationally. I'll keep it, thanks. What do you want? I'll begin as Miss Casey did—by telling you things. Hundreds ofpeople disappeared from North America a few months ago. They always do, I told him. They ceased to exist—as human beings—shortly after they received abook from Doc, the Martian said. Something seemed to strike me in the back of the neck. I staggered, butmanaged to hold onto the gun and stand up. Use one of those sneaky Martian weapons again, I warned him,and I'll kill the girl. Martians were supposed to be against thedestruction of any life-form, I had read someplace. I doubted it, butit was worth a try. Kevin, Andre said, why don't you take a bath? The Martian weapon staggered me again. I tried to say something. Itried to explain that I was so dirty that I could never get clean nomatter how often I bathed. No words formed. But, Kevin, Andre said, you aren't that dirty. <doc-sep>The blow shook the gun from my fingers. It almost fell into the thing on the floor, but at the last moment seemed to change direction andmiss it. I knew something. I don't wash because I drink coffee. It's all right to drink coffee, isn't it? he asked. Of course, I said, and added absurdly, That's why I don't wash. You mean, Andre said slowly, ploddingly, that if you bathed, youwould be admitting that drinking coffee was in the same class as anyother solitary vice that makes people wash frequently. I was knocked to my knees. Kevin, the Martian said, drinking coffee represents a major viceonly in Centurian humanoids, not Earth-norm human beings. Which areyou? Nothing came out of my gabbling mouth. What is Doc's full name? I almost fell in, but at the last instant I caught myself and said,Doctor Kevin O'Malley, Senior. From the bed, Doc said a word. Son. Then he disappeared. I looked at that which he had made. I wondered where he had gone, insearch of what. He didn't use that, Andre said. So I was an Earthman, Doc's son. So my addiction to coffee was all inmy mind. That didn't change anything. They say sex is all in your mind.I didn't want to be cured. I wouldn't be. Doc was gone. That was all Ihad now. That and the thing he left. The rest is simple, Andre said. Doc O'Malley bought up all the stockin a certain ancient metaphysical order and started supplying memberswith certain books. Can you imagine the effect of the Book of Dyzan or the Book of Thoth or the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan or the Necronomican itself on human beings? But they don't exist, I said wearily. Exactly, Kevin, exactly. They have never existed any more than yourVictorian detective friend. But the unconscious racial mind has reachedback into time and created them. And that unconscious mind, deeper thanpsychology terms the subconscious, has always known about the powersof ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition. Through these books,the human race can tell itself how to achieve a state of pure logic,without food, without sex, without conflict—just as Doc has achievedsuch a state—a little late, true. He had a powerful guilt complex,even stronger than your withdrawal, over releasing this blessing onthe inhabited universe, but reason finally prevailed. He had reached astate of pure thought. The North American government has to have this secret, Kevin, thegirl said. You can't let it fall into the hands of the Martians. <doc-sep>Andre did not deny that he wanted it to fall into his hands. I knew I could not let Doc's—Dad's—time travel thing fall intoanyone's hands. I remembered that all the copies of the books haddisappeared with their readers now. There must not be any more, I knew. Miss Casey did her duty and tried to stop me with a judo hold, but Idon't think her heart was in it, because I reversed and broke it. I kicked the thing to pieces and stomped on the pieces. Maybe youcan't stop the progress of science, but I knew it might be millenniumsbefore Doc's genes and creative environment were recreated and timetravel was rediscovered. Maybe we would be ready for it then. I knew weweren't now. Miss Casey leaned against my dirty chest and cried into it. I didn'tmind her touching me. I'm glad, she said. Andre flowed out of the doorway with a sigh. Of relief? I would never know. I supposed I had destroyed it because I didn'twant the human race to become a thing of pure reason without purpose,direction or love, but I would never know for sure. I thought I couldkick the habit—perhaps with Miss Casey's help—but I wasn't reallyconfident. Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without materialneeds would not grow and roast coffee. <doc-sep></s>

Vivian Casey is described as a pink and clean woman who smells of clean soap. Her hair is platinum, pulled straight back to draw her cheek-bones tighter. She has an appealing mouth; Kevin also notes that her body is lean, athletic, and feminine. She also wears a powder-blue dress that goes down to the lower-half of her legs. She speaks in an educated voice and is kind enough to take Kevin to get some food. Although he is annoyed she decided to tag along, she lets him order multiple hamburgers to satisfy his hunger. When she introduces herself, he assumes that she is a schoolteacher. Kevin later realizes that she did not pay for his dinner at all. Miss Casey then comes back with a tiny gun. She is shown to be proficient with the firearm, introducing her true identity as a Constable of the North American Mounted Police. She is also very intelligent, being fully aware of what Doc has tried to do in the past. Although she uses force to judo hold Kevin, she doesn’t put her heart into it. Finally, she is shown to be proud of Kevin when he does the right thing and destroys the time machine.

<s> Confidence Game By JIM HARMON Illustrated by EPSTEIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or going—but I know that if I stuck to the old man, I was a comer ... even if he was a goner! Doc had this solemn human by the throat when I caught up with him. Tonight, Doc was saying in his old voice that was as crackled andimportant as parchment, tonight Man will reach the Moon. The goldenMoon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. Tonight is the night whenthis is to happen. Sure, the man agreed severely, prying a little worriedly at Doc'sarthritic fingers that were clamped on his collar. No argument. Sure,up we go. But leave me go or, so help me, I'll fetch you one in theteeth! I came alongside and carefully started to lever the old man loose,one finger at a time. It had to be done this way. I had learned thatduring all these weeks and months. His hands looked old and crippled,but I felt they were the strongest in the world. If a half dozen winosin Seattle hadn't helped me get them loose, Doc and I would have beenwanted for the murder of a North American Mountie. It was easier this night and that made me afraid. Doc's thin frame,layered with lumpy fat, was beginning to muscle-dance against my side.One of his times was coming on him. Then at last he was free of thegreasy collar of the human. I hope you'll forgive him, sir, I said, not meeting the man's eyes.He's my father and very old, as you can see. I laughed inside at theabsurd, easy lie. Old events seem recent to him. The human nodded, Adam's apple jerking in the angry neon twilight.'Memory Jump,' you mean. All my great-grandfathers have it. ButGreat-great-grandmother Lupos, funny thing, is like a schoolgirl.Sharp, you know. I.... Say, the poor old guy looks sick. Want any help? I told the human no, thanks, and walked Doc toward the flophouse threedoors down. I hoped we would make it. I didn't know what would happenif we didn't. Doc was liable to say something that might nova Sol, forall I knew. <doc-sep>Martians approaching the corner were sensing at Doc and me. Theywere just cheap tourists slumming down on Skid Row. I hated touristsand especially I hated Martian tourists because I especially hatedMartians. They were aliens . They weren't men like Doc and me. Then I realized what was about to happen. It was foolish and awful andtrue. I was going to have one of mine at the same time Doc was havinghis. That was bad. It had happened a few times right after I firstfound him, but now it was worse. For some undefinable reason, I felt wekept getting closer each of the times. I tried not to think about it and helped Doc through the fly-speckedflophouse doors. The tubercular clerk looked up from the gaudy comics sections of one ofthose little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance. Fifteen cents a bed, he said mechanically. We'll use one bed, I told him. I'll give you twenty cents. I feltthe round hard quarter in my pocket, sweaty hand against sticky lining. Fifteen cents a bed, he played it back for me. Doc was quivering against me, his legs boneless. We can always make it over to the mission, I lied. The clerk turned his upper lip as if he were going to spit. Awright,since we ain't full up. In ad vance. I placed the quarter on the desk. Give me a nickel. The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknownbefore I could move, what with holding up Doc. You've got your nerve, he said at me with a fine mist of dew. Had aquarter all along and yet you Martian me down to twenty cents. He sawthe look on my face. I'll give you a room for the two bits. That'sbetter'n a bed for twenty. I knew I was going to need that nickel. Desperately. I reached acrossthe desk with my free hand and hauled the scrawny human up against theregister hard. I'm not as strong in my hands as Doc, but I managed. Give me a nickel, I said. What nickel? His eyes were big, but they kept looking right at me.You don't have any nickel. You don't have any quarter, not if I sayso. Want I should call a cop and tell him you were flexing a muscle? I let go of him. He didn't scare me, but Doc was beginning to mumbleand that did scare me. I had to get him alone. Where's the room? I asked. <doc-sep>The room was six feet in all directions and the walls were five feethigh. The other foot was finished in chicken wire. There was a winosinging on the left, a wino praying on the right, and the door didn'thave any lock on it. At last, Doc and I were alone. I laid Doc out on the gray-brown cot and put his forearm over his faceto shield it some from the glare of the light bulb. I swept off all thebedbugs in sight and stepped on them heavily. Then I dropped down into the painted stool chair and let my burningeyes rest on the obscene wall drawings just to focus them. I was sodirty, I could feel the grime grinding together all over me. My shaggyscalp still smarted from the alcohol I had stolen from a convertible'sgas tank to get rid of Doc's and my cooties. Lucky that I never neededto shave and that my face was so dirty, no one would even notice that Ididn't need to. The cramp hit me and I folded out of the chair onto the littered,uncovered floor. It stopped hurting, but I knew it would begin if I moved. I stared at ajagged cut-out nude curled against a lump of dust and lint, giving itan unreal distortion. Doc began to mumble louder. I knew I had to move. I waited just a moment, savoring the painless peace. Then, finally, Imoved. I was bent double, but I got from the floor to the chair and foundmy notebook and orb-point in my hands. I found I couldn't focus bothmy mind and my eyes through the electric flashes of agony, so Iconcentrated on Doc's voice and trusted my hands would follow theirhabit pattern and construct the symbols for his words. They weresuddenly distinguishable. Outsider ... Thoth ... Dyzan ... Seven ... Hsan ... Beyond Six, Seven, Eight ... Two boxes ... Ralston ... RichardWentworth ... Jimmy Christopher ... Kent Allard ... Ayem ... Oh, are ... see .... <doc-sep>His voice rose to a meaningless wail that stretched into non-existence.The pen slid across the scribbled face of the notebook and both droppedfrom my numb hands. But I knew. Somehow, inside me, I knew that thesewords were what I had been waiting for. They told everything I neededto know to become the most powerful man in the Solar Federation. That wasn't just an addict's dream. I knew who Doc was. When I gotto thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old manaround North America for nothing, I remembered who he was. I remembered that he was somebody very important whose name and work Ihad once known, even if now I knew him only as Doc. Pain was a pendulum within me, swinging from low throbbing bass to highscreaming tenor. I had to get out and get some. But I didn't have anickel. Still, I had to get some. I crawled to the door and raised myself by the knob, slick with greasydirt. The door opened and shut—there was no lock. I shouldn't leaveDoc alone, but I had to. He was starting to cry. He didn't always do that. I listened to him for a moment, then tested and tasted the craving thatcrawled through my veins. I got back inside somehow. Doc was twisting on the cot, tears washing white streaks across hisface. I shoved Doc's face up against my chest. I held onto him and lethim bellow. I soothed the lanks of soiled white hair back over hislumpy skull. He shut up at last and I laid him down again and put his arm backacross his face. (You can't turn the light off and on in places likethat. The old wiring will blow the bulb half the time.) I don't remember how I got out onto the street. <doc-sep>She was pink and clean and her platinum hair was pulled straight back,drawing her cheek-bones tighter, straightening her wide, appealingmouth, drawing her lean, athletic, feminine body erect. She was wearinga powder-blue dress that covered all of her breasts and hips and theupper half of her legs. The most wonderful thing about her was her perfume. Then I realized itwasn't perfume, only the scent of soap. Finally, I knew it wasn't that.It was just healthy, fresh-scrubbed skin. I went to her at the bus stop, forcing my legs not to stagger. Nobodywould help a drunk. I don't know why, but nobody will help you if theythink you are blotto. Ma'am, could you help a man who's not had work? I kept my eyes down.I couldn't look a human in the eye and ask for help. Just a dime for acup of coffee. I knew where I could get it for three cents, maybe twoand a half. I felt her looking at me. She spoke in an educated voice, one she used,perhaps, as a teacher or supervising telephone operator. Do you wantit for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else? I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realizedthat anybody as clean as she was had to be a tourist here. I hatetourists. Just coffee, ma'am. She was younger than I was, so I didn't have tocall her that. A little more for food, if you could spare it. I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, but I didn't care much. I'll buy you a dinner, she said carefully, provided I can go withyou and see for myself that you actually eat it. I felt my face flushing red. You wouldn't want to be seen with a bumlike me, ma'am. I'll be seen with you if you really want to eat. It was certainly unfair and probably immoral. But I had no choicewhatever. Okay, I said, tasting bitterness over the craving. <doc-sep>The coffee was in a thick white cup before me on the counter. It waspale, grayish brown and steaming faintly. I picked it up in both handsto feel its warmth. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman sitting on the stoolbeside me. She had no right to intrude. This moment should be mine, butthere she sat, marring it for me, a contemptible tourist . I gulped down the thick, dark liquid brutally. It was all I coulddo. The cramp flowed out of my diaphragm. I took another swallow andwas able to think straight again. A third swallow and I felt—good.Not abnormally stimulated, but strong, alert, poised on the brink ofexhilaration. That was what coffee did for me. I was a caffeine addict. Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, butI knew that as a Centurian I had it infinitely worse. Caffeine affectedmy metabolism like a pure alkaloid. The immediate effects weren't thesame, but the need ran as deep. I finished the cup. I didn't order another because I wasn't a puresensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have theprice of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottleswith a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine inthem—not enough, never enough, but better than nothing. Now what do you want to eat? the woman asked. I didn't look at her. She didn't know. She thought I was a human—an Earth human. I was a man , of course, not an alien like a Martian.Earthmen ran the whole Solar Federation, but I was just as good as anEarthman. With my suntan and short mane, I could pass, couldn't I? Thatproved it, didn't it? Hamburger, I said. Well done. I knew that would probably be allthey had fit to eat at a place like this. It might be horse meat, butthen I didn't have the local prejudices. I didn't look at the woman. I couldn't. But I kept remembering howclean she looked and I was aware of how clean she smelled. I was sodirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed everyhour for the rest of my life. The hamburger was engulfed by five black-crowned, broken fingernailsand raised to two rows of yellow ivory. I surrounded it like an ameba,almost in a single movement of my jaws. Several other hamburgers followed the first. I lost count. I drank aglass of milk. I didn't want to black out on coffee with Doc waitingfor me. Could I have a few to take with me, miss? I pleaded. She smiled. I caught that out of the edge of my vision, but mostly Ijust felt it. That's the first time you've called me anything but 'ma'am', shesaid. I'm not an old-maid schoolteacher, you know. That probably meant she was a schoolteacher, though. No, miss, I said. It's Miss Casey—Vivian Casey, she corrected. She was aschoolteacher, all right. No other girl would introduce herself as MissLast Name. Then there was something in her voice.... What's your name? she said to me. I choked a little on a bite of stale bun. I had a name, of course . <doc-sep>Everybody has a name, and I knew if I went off somewhere quiet andthought about it, mine would come to me. Meanwhile, I would tell thegirl that my name was ... Kevin O'Malley. Abruptly I realized that that was my name. Kevin, I told her. John Kevin. Mister Kevin, she said, her words dancing with bright absurdity likewaterhose mist on a summer afternoon, I wonder if you could help me . Happy to, miss, I mumbled. She pushed a white rectangle in front of me on the painted maroon bar.What do you think of this? I looked at the piece of paper. It was a coupon from a magazine. Dear Acolyte R. I. S. : Please send me FREE of obligation, in sealed wrapper, The ScarletBook revealing to me how I may gain Secret Mastery of the Universe. Name : ........................ Address : ..................... The world disoriented itself and I was on the floor of the somber dinerand Miss Vivian Casey was out of sight and scent. There was a five dollar bill tight in my fist. The counterman wastrying to pull it out. I looked up at his stubbled face. I had half a dozen hamburgers, acup of coffee and a glass of milk. I want four more 'burgers to go anda pint of coffee. By your prices, that will be one sixty-five—if thelady didn't pay you. She didn't, he stammered. Why do you think I was trying to get thatbill out of your hand? I didn't say anything, just got up off the floor. After the countermanput down my change, I spread out the five dollar bill on the vacantbar, smoothing it. I scooped up my change and walked out the door. There was no one on thesidewalk, only in the doorways. <doc-sep>First I opened the door on an amber world, then an azure one. Neonlight was coming from the chickenwire border of the room, from a windowsomewhere beyond. The wino on one side of the room was singing andthe one on the other side was praying, same as before. Only they hadchanged around—prayer came from the left, song from the right. Doc sat on the floor in the half-darkness and he had made a thing . My heart hammered at my lungs. I knew this last time had beendifferent. Whatever it was was getting closer. This was the first timeDoc had ever made anything. It didn't look like much, but it was astart. He had broken the light bulb and used the filament and screw bottom.His strong hands had unraveled some of the bed springs—metalwebbing—and fashioned them to his needs. My orb-point pen haddissolved under his touch. All of them, useless parts, were made into ameaningful whole. I knew the thing had meaning, but when I tried to follow its design, Ibecame lost. I put the paper container of warm coffee and the greasy bag ofhamburgers on the wooden chair, hoping the odor wouldn't bring anyhungry rats out of the walls. I knelt beside Doc. An order, my boy, an order, he whispered. I didn't know what he meant. Was he suddenly trying to give me orders? He held something out to me. It was my notebook. He had used my pen,before dismantling it, to write something. I tilted the notebookagainst the neon light, now red wine, now fresh grape. I read it. Concentrate, Doc said hoarsely. Concentrate.... I wondered what the words meant. Wondering takes a kind ofconcentration. The words First Edition were what I was thinking about most. <doc-sep>The heavy-set man in the ornate armchair was saying, The bullet struckme as I was pulling on my boot.... I was kneeling on the floor of a Victorian living room. I'm quitefamiliar with Earth history and I recognized the period immediately. Then I realized what I had been trying to get from Doc all thesemonths—time travel. A thin, sickly man was sprawled in the other chair in a rumpleddressing gown. My eyes held to his face, his pinpoint pupils andwhitened nose. He was a condemned snowbird! If there was anything Ihated or held in more contempt than tourists or Martians, it was asnowbird. My clients have occasioned singular methods of entry into theserooms, the thin man remarked, but never before have they usedinstantaneous materialization. The heavier man was half choking, half laughing. I say—I say, I wouldlike to see you explain this, my dear fellow. I have no data, the thin man answered coolly. In such instance, onebegins to twist theories into fact, or facts into theories. I must askthis unemployed, former professional man who has gone through a seriousillness and is suffering a more serious addiction to tell me the placeand time from which he comes. The surprise stung. How did you know? I asked. He gestured with a pale hand. To maintain a logical approach, I mustreject the supernatural. Your arrival, unless hallucinatory—anddespite my voluntary use of one drug and my involuntary experiencesrecently with another, I must accept the evidence of my senses orretire from my profession—your arrival was then super-normal. I mightsay super-scientific, of a science not of my or the good doctor's time,clearly. Time travel is a familiar folk legend and I have been readingan article by the entertaining Mr. Wells. Perhaps he will expand itinto one of his novels of scientific romance. I knew who these two men were, with a tormenting doubt. But theother— Your hands, though unclean, have never seen physical labor. Yourcranial construction is of a superior type, or even if you reject mytheories, concentration does set the facial features. I judge you havesuffered an illness because of the inhibition of your beard growth.Your over-fondness for rum or opium, perhaps, is self-evident. Youare at too resilient an age to be so sunk by even an amour. Why elsethen would you let yourself fall into such an underfed and unsanitarystate? <doc-sep>He was so smug and so sure, this snowbird. I hated him. Because Icouldn't trust to my own senses as he did. You don't exist, I said slowly, painfully. You are fictionalcreations. The doctor flushed darkly. You give my literary agent too much creditfor the addition of professional polish to my works. The other man was filling a large, curved pipe from something thatlooked vaguely like an ice-skate. Interesting. Perhaps if our visitorwould tell us something of his age with special reference to the theoryand practice of temporal transference, Doctor, we would be betterequipped to judge whether we exist. There was no theory or practice of time travel. I told them all I hadever heard theorized from Hindu yoga through Extra-sensory Perceptionto Relativity and the positron and negatron. Interesting. He breathed out suffocating black clouds of smoke.Presume that the people of your time by their 'Extra-sensoryPerception' have altered the past to make it as they suppose it to be.The great historical figures are made the larger than life-size that weknow them. The great literary creations assume reality. I thought of Cleopatra and Helen of Troy and wondered if they would bethe goddesses of love that people imagined or the scrawny, big-nosedredhead and fading old woman of scholarship. Then I noticed thedetective's hand that had been resting idly on a round brass weight ofunknown sort to me. His tapered fingertips had indented the metal. His bright eyes followed mine and he smiled faintly. Withdrawalsymptoms. The admiration and affection for this man that had been slowly buildingup behind my hatred unbrinked. I remembered now that he had stopped. Hewas not really a snowbird. After a time, I asked the doctor a question. Why, yes. I'm flattered. This is the first manuscript. Considering myprofessional handwriting, I recopied it more laboriously. Accepting the sheaf of papers and not looking back at these two greatand good men, I concentrated on my own time and Doc. Nothing happened.My heart raced, but I saw something dancing before me like a dust motein sunlight and stepped toward it.... ... into the effective range of Miss Casey's tiny gun. <doc-sep>She inclined the lethal silver toy. Let me see those papers, Kevin. I handed her the doctor's manuscript. Her breath escaped slowly and loudly. It's all right. It's all right.It exists. It's real. Not even one of the unwritten ones. I've readthis myself. Doc was lying on the cot, half his face twisted into horror. Don't move, Kevin, she said. I'll have to shoot you—maybe not tokill, but painfully. I watched her face flash blue, red, blue and knew she meant it. But Ihad known too much in too short a time. I had to help Doc, but therewas something else. I just want a drink of coffee from that container on the chair, Itold her. She shook her head. I don't know what you think it does to you. It was getting hard for me to think. Who are you? She showed me a card from her wrist purse. Vivian Casey, Constable,North American Mounted Police. I had to help Doc. I had to have some coffee. What do you want? Listen, Kevin. Listen carefully to what I am saying. Doc founda method of time travel. It was almost a purely mathematical,topographical way divorced from modern physical sciences. He kept itsecret and he wanted to make money with it. He was an idealist—he hadhis crusades. How can you make money with time travel? I didn't know whether she was asking me, but I didn't know. All I knewwas that I had to help Doc and get some coffee. It takes money—money Doc didn't have—to make money, Miss Caseysaid, even if you know what horse will come in and what stock willprosper. Besides, horse-racing and the stock market weren't a part ofDoc's character. He was a scholar. Why did she keep using the past tense in reference to Doc? It scaredme. He was lying so still with the left side of his face so twisted. Ineeded some coffee. He became a book finder. He got rare editions of books and magazinesfor his clients in absolutely mint condition. That was all right—untilhe started obtaining books that did not exist . <doc-sep>I didn't know what all that was supposed to mean. I got to the chair,snatched up the coffee container, tore it open and gulped down thesoothing liquid. I turned toward her and threw the rest of the coffee into her face. The coffee splashed out over her platinum hair and powder-blue dressthat looked white when the neon was azure, purple when it was amber.The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad,unreasonably happy. I tore the gun away from her by the short barrel, not letting my filthyhands touch her scrubbed pink ones. I pointed the gun generally at her and backed around the thing on thefloor to the cot. Doc had a pulse, but it was irregular. I checked fora fever and there wasn't one. After that, I didn't know what to do. I looked up finally and saw a Martian in or about the doorway. Call me Andre, the Martian said. A common name but foreign. Itshould serve as a point of reference. I had always wondered how a thing like a Martian could talk. SometimesI wondered if they really could. You won't need the gun, Andre said conversationally. I'll keep it, thanks. What do you want? I'll begin as Miss Casey did—by telling you things. Hundreds ofpeople disappeared from North America a few months ago. They always do, I told him. They ceased to exist—as human beings—shortly after they received abook from Doc, the Martian said. Something seemed to strike me in the back of the neck. I staggered, butmanaged to hold onto the gun and stand up. Use one of those sneaky Martian weapons again, I warned him,and I'll kill the girl. Martians were supposed to be against thedestruction of any life-form, I had read someplace. I doubted it, butit was worth a try. Kevin, Andre said, why don't you take a bath? The Martian weapon staggered me again. I tried to say something. Itried to explain that I was so dirty that I could never get clean nomatter how often I bathed. No words formed. But, Kevin, Andre said, you aren't that dirty. <doc-sep>The blow shook the gun from my fingers. It almost fell into the thing on the floor, but at the last moment seemed to change direction andmiss it. I knew something. I don't wash because I drink coffee. It's all right to drink coffee, isn't it? he asked. Of course, I said, and added absurdly, That's why I don't wash. You mean, Andre said slowly, ploddingly, that if you bathed, youwould be admitting that drinking coffee was in the same class as anyother solitary vice that makes people wash frequently. I was knocked to my knees. Kevin, the Martian said, drinking coffee represents a major viceonly in Centurian humanoids, not Earth-norm human beings. Which areyou? Nothing came out of my gabbling mouth. What is Doc's full name? I almost fell in, but at the last instant I caught myself and said,Doctor Kevin O'Malley, Senior. From the bed, Doc said a word. Son. Then he disappeared. I looked at that which he had made. I wondered where he had gone, insearch of what. He didn't use that, Andre said. So I was an Earthman, Doc's son. So my addiction to coffee was all inmy mind. That didn't change anything. They say sex is all in your mind.I didn't want to be cured. I wouldn't be. Doc was gone. That was all Ihad now. That and the thing he left. The rest is simple, Andre said. Doc O'Malley bought up all the stockin a certain ancient metaphysical order and started supplying memberswith certain books. Can you imagine the effect of the Book of Dyzan or the Book of Thoth or the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan or the Necronomican itself on human beings? But they don't exist, I said wearily. Exactly, Kevin, exactly. They have never existed any more than yourVictorian detective friend. But the unconscious racial mind has reachedback into time and created them. And that unconscious mind, deeper thanpsychology terms the subconscious, has always known about the powersof ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition. Through these books,the human race can tell itself how to achieve a state of pure logic,without food, without sex, without conflict—just as Doc has achievedsuch a state—a little late, true. He had a powerful guilt complex,even stronger than your withdrawal, over releasing this blessing onthe inhabited universe, but reason finally prevailed. He had reached astate of pure thought. The North American government has to have this secret, Kevin, thegirl said. You can't let it fall into the hands of the Martians. <doc-sep>Andre did not deny that he wanted it to fall into his hands. I knew I could not let Doc's—Dad's—time travel thing fall intoanyone's hands. I remembered that all the copies of the books haddisappeared with their readers now. There must not be any more, I knew. Miss Casey did her duty and tried to stop me with a judo hold, but Idon't think her heart was in it, because I reversed and broke it. I kicked the thing to pieces and stomped on the pieces. Maybe youcan't stop the progress of science, but I knew it might be millenniumsbefore Doc's genes and creative environment were recreated and timetravel was rediscovered. Maybe we would be ready for it then. I knew weweren't now. Miss Casey leaned against my dirty chest and cried into it. I didn'tmind her touching me. I'm glad, she said. Andre flowed out of the doorway with a sigh. Of relief? I would never know. I supposed I had destroyed it because I didn'twant the human race to become a thing of pure reason without purpose,direction or love, but I would never know for sure. I thought I couldkick the habit—perhaps with Miss Casey's help—but I wasn't reallyconfident. Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without materialneeds would not grow and roast coffee. <doc-sep></s>

Doc’s use of time travel has caused hundreds of people to disappear from North America a few months ago. He initially starts off using time travel to get rare editions of books and magazines in mint condition. However, he derails and starts getting books that do not exist. For many of his clients, they shortly ceased to exist after obtaining a book from Doc. Doc also had bought the entire stock of an ancient metaphysical order, which he then supplied to his clients. Books such as the Book of Dyzan, Book of Thoth, Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, and the Necromican were given away even if they do not exist in the present-day. These books are extremely harmful because they essentially instruct the human race on how to achieve a state of pure logic without requiring food, sex, or conflict.

<s> Confidence Game By JIM HARMON Illustrated by EPSTEIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or going—but I know that if I stuck to the old man, I was a comer ... even if he was a goner! Doc had this solemn human by the throat when I caught up with him. Tonight, Doc was saying in his old voice that was as crackled andimportant as parchment, tonight Man will reach the Moon. The goldenMoon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. Tonight is the night whenthis is to happen. Sure, the man agreed severely, prying a little worriedly at Doc'sarthritic fingers that were clamped on his collar. No argument. Sure,up we go. But leave me go or, so help me, I'll fetch you one in theteeth! I came alongside and carefully started to lever the old man loose,one finger at a time. It had to be done this way. I had learned thatduring all these weeks and months. His hands looked old and crippled,but I felt they were the strongest in the world. If a half dozen winosin Seattle hadn't helped me get them loose, Doc and I would have beenwanted for the murder of a North American Mountie. It was easier this night and that made me afraid. Doc's thin frame,layered with lumpy fat, was beginning to muscle-dance against my side.One of his times was coming on him. Then at last he was free of thegreasy collar of the human. I hope you'll forgive him, sir, I said, not meeting the man's eyes.He's my father and very old, as you can see. I laughed inside at theabsurd, easy lie. Old events seem recent to him. The human nodded, Adam's apple jerking in the angry neon twilight.'Memory Jump,' you mean. All my great-grandfathers have it. ButGreat-great-grandmother Lupos, funny thing, is like a schoolgirl.Sharp, you know. I.... Say, the poor old guy looks sick. Want any help? I told the human no, thanks, and walked Doc toward the flophouse threedoors down. I hoped we would make it. I didn't know what would happenif we didn't. Doc was liable to say something that might nova Sol, forall I knew. <doc-sep>Martians approaching the corner were sensing at Doc and me. Theywere just cheap tourists slumming down on Skid Row. I hated touristsand especially I hated Martian tourists because I especially hatedMartians. They were aliens . They weren't men like Doc and me. Then I realized what was about to happen. It was foolish and awful andtrue. I was going to have one of mine at the same time Doc was havinghis. That was bad. It had happened a few times right after I firstfound him, but now it was worse. For some undefinable reason, I felt wekept getting closer each of the times. I tried not to think about it and helped Doc through the fly-speckedflophouse doors. The tubercular clerk looked up from the gaudy comics sections of one ofthose little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance. Fifteen cents a bed, he said mechanically. We'll use one bed, I told him. I'll give you twenty cents. I feltthe round hard quarter in my pocket, sweaty hand against sticky lining. Fifteen cents a bed, he played it back for me. Doc was quivering against me, his legs boneless. We can always make it over to the mission, I lied. The clerk turned his upper lip as if he were going to spit. Awright,since we ain't full up. In ad vance. I placed the quarter on the desk. Give me a nickel. The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknownbefore I could move, what with holding up Doc. You've got your nerve, he said at me with a fine mist of dew. Had aquarter all along and yet you Martian me down to twenty cents. He sawthe look on my face. I'll give you a room for the two bits. That'sbetter'n a bed for twenty. I knew I was going to need that nickel. Desperately. I reached acrossthe desk with my free hand and hauled the scrawny human up against theregister hard. I'm not as strong in my hands as Doc, but I managed. Give me a nickel, I said. What nickel? His eyes were big, but they kept looking right at me.You don't have any nickel. You don't have any quarter, not if I sayso. Want I should call a cop and tell him you were flexing a muscle? I let go of him. He didn't scare me, but Doc was beginning to mumbleand that did scare me. I had to get him alone. Where's the room? I asked. <doc-sep>The room was six feet in all directions and the walls were five feethigh. The other foot was finished in chicken wire. There was a winosinging on the left, a wino praying on the right, and the door didn'thave any lock on it. At last, Doc and I were alone. I laid Doc out on the gray-brown cot and put his forearm over his faceto shield it some from the glare of the light bulb. I swept off all thebedbugs in sight and stepped on them heavily. Then I dropped down into the painted stool chair and let my burningeyes rest on the obscene wall drawings just to focus them. I was sodirty, I could feel the grime grinding together all over me. My shaggyscalp still smarted from the alcohol I had stolen from a convertible'sgas tank to get rid of Doc's and my cooties. Lucky that I never neededto shave and that my face was so dirty, no one would even notice that Ididn't need to. The cramp hit me and I folded out of the chair onto the littered,uncovered floor. It stopped hurting, but I knew it would begin if I moved. I stared at ajagged cut-out nude curled against a lump of dust and lint, giving itan unreal distortion. Doc began to mumble louder. I knew I had to move. I waited just a moment, savoring the painless peace. Then, finally, Imoved. I was bent double, but I got from the floor to the chair and foundmy notebook and orb-point in my hands. I found I couldn't focus bothmy mind and my eyes through the electric flashes of agony, so Iconcentrated on Doc's voice and trusted my hands would follow theirhabit pattern and construct the symbols for his words. They weresuddenly distinguishable. Outsider ... Thoth ... Dyzan ... Seven ... Hsan ... Beyond Six, Seven, Eight ... Two boxes ... Ralston ... RichardWentworth ... Jimmy Christopher ... Kent Allard ... Ayem ... Oh, are ... see .... <doc-sep>His voice rose to a meaningless wail that stretched into non-existence.The pen slid across the scribbled face of the notebook and both droppedfrom my numb hands. But I knew. Somehow, inside me, I knew that thesewords were what I had been waiting for. They told everything I neededto know to become the most powerful man in the Solar Federation. That wasn't just an addict's dream. I knew who Doc was. When I gotto thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old manaround North America for nothing, I remembered who he was. I remembered that he was somebody very important whose name and work Ihad once known, even if now I knew him only as Doc. Pain was a pendulum within me, swinging from low throbbing bass to highscreaming tenor. I had to get out and get some. But I didn't have anickel. Still, I had to get some. I crawled to the door and raised myself by the knob, slick with greasydirt. The door opened and shut—there was no lock. I shouldn't leaveDoc alone, but I had to. He was starting to cry. He didn't always do that. I listened to him for a moment, then tested and tasted the craving thatcrawled through my veins. I got back inside somehow. Doc was twisting on the cot, tears washing white streaks across hisface. I shoved Doc's face up against my chest. I held onto him and lethim bellow. I soothed the lanks of soiled white hair back over hislumpy skull. He shut up at last and I laid him down again and put his arm backacross his face. (You can't turn the light off and on in places likethat. The old wiring will blow the bulb half the time.) I don't remember how I got out onto the street. <doc-sep>She was pink and clean and her platinum hair was pulled straight back,drawing her cheek-bones tighter, straightening her wide, appealingmouth, drawing her lean, athletic, feminine body erect. She was wearinga powder-blue dress that covered all of her breasts and hips and theupper half of her legs. The most wonderful thing about her was her perfume. Then I realized itwasn't perfume, only the scent of soap. Finally, I knew it wasn't that.It was just healthy, fresh-scrubbed skin. I went to her at the bus stop, forcing my legs not to stagger. Nobodywould help a drunk. I don't know why, but nobody will help you if theythink you are blotto. Ma'am, could you help a man who's not had work? I kept my eyes down.I couldn't look a human in the eye and ask for help. Just a dime for acup of coffee. I knew where I could get it for three cents, maybe twoand a half. I felt her looking at me. She spoke in an educated voice, one she used,perhaps, as a teacher or supervising telephone operator. Do you wantit for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else? I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realizedthat anybody as clean as she was had to be a tourist here. I hatetourists. Just coffee, ma'am. She was younger than I was, so I didn't have tocall her that. A little more for food, if you could spare it. I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, but I didn't care much. I'll buy you a dinner, she said carefully, provided I can go withyou and see for myself that you actually eat it. I felt my face flushing red. You wouldn't want to be seen with a bumlike me, ma'am. I'll be seen with you if you really want to eat. It was certainly unfair and probably immoral. But I had no choicewhatever. Okay, I said, tasting bitterness over the craving. <doc-sep>The coffee was in a thick white cup before me on the counter. It waspale, grayish brown and steaming faintly. I picked it up in both handsto feel its warmth. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman sitting on the stoolbeside me. She had no right to intrude. This moment should be mine, butthere she sat, marring it for me, a contemptible tourist . I gulped down the thick, dark liquid brutally. It was all I coulddo. The cramp flowed out of my diaphragm. I took another swallow andwas able to think straight again. A third swallow and I felt—good.Not abnormally stimulated, but strong, alert, poised on the brink ofexhilaration. That was what coffee did for me. I was a caffeine addict. Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, butI knew that as a Centurian I had it infinitely worse. Caffeine affectedmy metabolism like a pure alkaloid. The immediate effects weren't thesame, but the need ran as deep. I finished the cup. I didn't order another because I wasn't a puresensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have theprice of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottleswith a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine inthem—not enough, never enough, but better than nothing. Now what do you want to eat? the woman asked. I didn't look at her. She didn't know. She thought I was a human—an Earth human. I was a man , of course, not an alien like a Martian.Earthmen ran the whole Solar Federation, but I was just as good as anEarthman. With my suntan and short mane, I could pass, couldn't I? Thatproved it, didn't it? Hamburger, I said. Well done. I knew that would probably be allthey had fit to eat at a place like this. It might be horse meat, butthen I didn't have the local prejudices. I didn't look at the woman. I couldn't. But I kept remembering howclean she looked and I was aware of how clean she smelled. I was sodirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed everyhour for the rest of my life. The hamburger was engulfed by five black-crowned, broken fingernailsand raised to two rows of yellow ivory. I surrounded it like an ameba,almost in a single movement of my jaws. Several other hamburgers followed the first. I lost count. I drank aglass of milk. I didn't want to black out on coffee with Doc waitingfor me. Could I have a few to take with me, miss? I pleaded. She smiled. I caught that out of the edge of my vision, but mostly Ijust felt it. That's the first time you've called me anything but 'ma'am', shesaid. I'm not an old-maid schoolteacher, you know. That probably meant she was a schoolteacher, though. No, miss, I said. It's Miss Casey—Vivian Casey, she corrected. She was aschoolteacher, all right. No other girl would introduce herself as MissLast Name. Then there was something in her voice.... What's your name? she said to me. I choked a little on a bite of stale bun. I had a name, of course . <doc-sep>Everybody has a name, and I knew if I went off somewhere quiet andthought about it, mine would come to me. Meanwhile, I would tell thegirl that my name was ... Kevin O'Malley. Abruptly I realized that that was my name. Kevin, I told her. John Kevin. Mister Kevin, she said, her words dancing with bright absurdity likewaterhose mist on a summer afternoon, I wonder if you could help me . Happy to, miss, I mumbled. She pushed a white rectangle in front of me on the painted maroon bar.What do you think of this? I looked at the piece of paper. It was a coupon from a magazine. Dear Acolyte R. I. S. : Please send me FREE of obligation, in sealed wrapper, The ScarletBook revealing to me how I may gain Secret Mastery of the Universe. Name : ........................ Address : ..................... The world disoriented itself and I was on the floor of the somber dinerand Miss Vivian Casey was out of sight and scent. There was a five dollar bill tight in my fist. The counterman wastrying to pull it out. I looked up at his stubbled face. I had half a dozen hamburgers, acup of coffee and a glass of milk. I want four more 'burgers to go anda pint of coffee. By your prices, that will be one sixty-five—if thelady didn't pay you. She didn't, he stammered. Why do you think I was trying to get thatbill out of your hand? I didn't say anything, just got up off the floor. After the countermanput down my change, I spread out the five dollar bill on the vacantbar, smoothing it. I scooped up my change and walked out the door. There was no one on thesidewalk, only in the doorways. <doc-sep>First I opened the door on an amber world, then an azure one. Neonlight was coming from the chickenwire border of the room, from a windowsomewhere beyond. The wino on one side of the room was singing andthe one on the other side was praying, same as before. Only they hadchanged around—prayer came from the left, song from the right. Doc sat on the floor in the half-darkness and he had made a thing . My heart hammered at my lungs. I knew this last time had beendifferent. Whatever it was was getting closer. This was the first timeDoc had ever made anything. It didn't look like much, but it was astart. He had broken the light bulb and used the filament and screw bottom.His strong hands had unraveled some of the bed springs—metalwebbing—and fashioned them to his needs. My orb-point pen haddissolved under his touch. All of them, useless parts, were made into ameaningful whole. I knew the thing had meaning, but when I tried to follow its design, Ibecame lost. I put the paper container of warm coffee and the greasy bag ofhamburgers on the wooden chair, hoping the odor wouldn't bring anyhungry rats out of the walls. I knelt beside Doc. An order, my boy, an order, he whispered. I didn't know what he meant. Was he suddenly trying to give me orders? He held something out to me. It was my notebook. He had used my pen,before dismantling it, to write something. I tilted the notebookagainst the neon light, now red wine, now fresh grape. I read it. Concentrate, Doc said hoarsely. Concentrate.... I wondered what the words meant. Wondering takes a kind ofconcentration. The words First Edition were what I was thinking about most. <doc-sep>The heavy-set man in the ornate armchair was saying, The bullet struckme as I was pulling on my boot.... I was kneeling on the floor of a Victorian living room. I'm quitefamiliar with Earth history and I recognized the period immediately. Then I realized what I had been trying to get from Doc all thesemonths—time travel. A thin, sickly man was sprawled in the other chair in a rumpleddressing gown. My eyes held to his face, his pinpoint pupils andwhitened nose. He was a condemned snowbird! If there was anything Ihated or held in more contempt than tourists or Martians, it was asnowbird. My clients have occasioned singular methods of entry into theserooms, the thin man remarked, but never before have they usedinstantaneous materialization. The heavier man was half choking, half laughing. I say—I say, I wouldlike to see you explain this, my dear fellow. I have no data, the thin man answered coolly. In such instance, onebegins to twist theories into fact, or facts into theories. I must askthis unemployed, former professional man who has gone through a seriousillness and is suffering a more serious addiction to tell me the placeand time from which he comes. The surprise stung. How did you know? I asked. He gestured with a pale hand. To maintain a logical approach, I mustreject the supernatural. Your arrival, unless hallucinatory—anddespite my voluntary use of one drug and my involuntary experiencesrecently with another, I must accept the evidence of my senses orretire from my profession—your arrival was then super-normal. I mightsay super-scientific, of a science not of my or the good doctor's time,clearly. Time travel is a familiar folk legend and I have been readingan article by the entertaining Mr. Wells. Perhaps he will expand itinto one of his novels of scientific romance. I knew who these two men were, with a tormenting doubt. But theother— Your hands, though unclean, have never seen physical labor. Yourcranial construction is of a superior type, or even if you reject mytheories, concentration does set the facial features. I judge you havesuffered an illness because of the inhibition of your beard growth.Your over-fondness for rum or opium, perhaps, is self-evident. Youare at too resilient an age to be so sunk by even an amour. Why elsethen would you let yourself fall into such an underfed and unsanitarystate? <doc-sep>He was so smug and so sure, this snowbird. I hated him. Because Icouldn't trust to my own senses as he did. You don't exist, I said slowly, painfully. You are fictionalcreations. The doctor flushed darkly. You give my literary agent too much creditfor the addition of professional polish to my works. The other man was filling a large, curved pipe from something thatlooked vaguely like an ice-skate. Interesting. Perhaps if our visitorwould tell us something of his age with special reference to the theoryand practice of temporal transference, Doctor, we would be betterequipped to judge whether we exist. There was no theory or practice of time travel. I told them all I hadever heard theorized from Hindu yoga through Extra-sensory Perceptionto Relativity and the positron and negatron. Interesting. He breathed out suffocating black clouds of smoke.Presume that the people of your time by their 'Extra-sensoryPerception' have altered the past to make it as they suppose it to be.The great historical figures are made the larger than life-size that weknow them. The great literary creations assume reality. I thought of Cleopatra and Helen of Troy and wondered if they would bethe goddesses of love that people imagined or the scrawny, big-nosedredhead and fading old woman of scholarship. Then I noticed thedetective's hand that had been resting idly on a round brass weight ofunknown sort to me. His tapered fingertips had indented the metal. His bright eyes followed mine and he smiled faintly. Withdrawalsymptoms. The admiration and affection for this man that had been slowly buildingup behind my hatred unbrinked. I remembered now that he had stopped. Hewas not really a snowbird. After a time, I asked the doctor a question. Why, yes. I'm flattered. This is the first manuscript. Considering myprofessional handwriting, I recopied it more laboriously. Accepting the sheaf of papers and not looking back at these two greatand good men, I concentrated on my own time and Doc. Nothing happened.My heart raced, but I saw something dancing before me like a dust motein sunlight and stepped toward it.... ... into the effective range of Miss Casey's tiny gun. <doc-sep>She inclined the lethal silver toy. Let me see those papers, Kevin. I handed her the doctor's manuscript. Her breath escaped slowly and loudly. It's all right. It's all right.It exists. It's real. Not even one of the unwritten ones. I've readthis myself. Doc was lying on the cot, half his face twisted into horror. Don't move, Kevin, she said. I'll have to shoot you—maybe not tokill, but painfully. I watched her face flash blue, red, blue and knew she meant it. But Ihad known too much in too short a time. I had to help Doc, but therewas something else. I just want a drink of coffee from that container on the chair, Itold her. She shook her head. I don't know what you think it does to you. It was getting hard for me to think. Who are you? She showed me a card from her wrist purse. Vivian Casey, Constable,North American Mounted Police. I had to help Doc. I had to have some coffee. What do you want? Listen, Kevin. Listen carefully to what I am saying. Doc founda method of time travel. It was almost a purely mathematical,topographical way divorced from modern physical sciences. He kept itsecret and he wanted to make money with it. He was an idealist—he hadhis crusades. How can you make money with time travel? I didn't know whether she was asking me, but I didn't know. All I knewwas that I had to help Doc and get some coffee. It takes money—money Doc didn't have—to make money, Miss Caseysaid, even if you know what horse will come in and what stock willprosper. Besides, horse-racing and the stock market weren't a part ofDoc's character. He was a scholar. Why did she keep using the past tense in reference to Doc? It scaredme. He was lying so still with the left side of his face so twisted. Ineeded some coffee. He became a book finder. He got rare editions of books and magazinesfor his clients in absolutely mint condition. That was all right—untilhe started obtaining books that did not exist . <doc-sep>I didn't know what all that was supposed to mean. I got to the chair,snatched up the coffee container, tore it open and gulped down thesoothing liquid. I turned toward her and threw the rest of the coffee into her face. The coffee splashed out over her platinum hair and powder-blue dressthat looked white when the neon was azure, purple when it was amber.The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad,unreasonably happy. I tore the gun away from her by the short barrel, not letting my filthyhands touch her scrubbed pink ones. I pointed the gun generally at her and backed around the thing on thefloor to the cot. Doc had a pulse, but it was irregular. I checked fora fever and there wasn't one. After that, I didn't know what to do. I looked up finally and saw a Martian in or about the doorway. Call me Andre, the Martian said. A common name but foreign. Itshould serve as a point of reference. I had always wondered how a thing like a Martian could talk. SometimesI wondered if they really could. You won't need the gun, Andre said conversationally. I'll keep it, thanks. What do you want? I'll begin as Miss Casey did—by telling you things. Hundreds ofpeople disappeared from North America a few months ago. They always do, I told him. They ceased to exist—as human beings—shortly after they received abook from Doc, the Martian said. Something seemed to strike me in the back of the neck. I staggered, butmanaged to hold onto the gun and stand up. Use one of those sneaky Martian weapons again, I warned him,and I'll kill the girl. Martians were supposed to be against thedestruction of any life-form, I had read someplace. I doubted it, butit was worth a try. Kevin, Andre said, why don't you take a bath? The Martian weapon staggered me again. I tried to say something. Itried to explain that I was so dirty that I could never get clean nomatter how often I bathed. No words formed. But, Kevin, Andre said, you aren't that dirty. <doc-sep>The blow shook the gun from my fingers. It almost fell into the thing on the floor, but at the last moment seemed to change direction andmiss it. I knew something. I don't wash because I drink coffee. It's all right to drink coffee, isn't it? he asked. Of course, I said, and added absurdly, That's why I don't wash. You mean, Andre said slowly, ploddingly, that if you bathed, youwould be admitting that drinking coffee was in the same class as anyother solitary vice that makes people wash frequently. I was knocked to my knees. Kevin, the Martian said, drinking coffee represents a major viceonly in Centurian humanoids, not Earth-norm human beings. Which areyou? Nothing came out of my gabbling mouth. What is Doc's full name? I almost fell in, but at the last instant I caught myself and said,Doctor Kevin O'Malley, Senior. From the bed, Doc said a word. Son. Then he disappeared. I looked at that which he had made. I wondered where he had gone, insearch of what. He didn't use that, Andre said. So I was an Earthman, Doc's son. So my addiction to coffee was all inmy mind. That didn't change anything. They say sex is all in your mind.I didn't want to be cured. I wouldn't be. Doc was gone. That was all Ihad now. That and the thing he left. The rest is simple, Andre said. Doc O'Malley bought up all the stockin a certain ancient metaphysical order and started supplying memberswith certain books. Can you imagine the effect of the Book of Dyzan or the Book of Thoth or the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan or the Necronomican itself on human beings? But they don't exist, I said wearily. Exactly, Kevin, exactly. They have never existed any more than yourVictorian detective friend. But the unconscious racial mind has reachedback into time and created them. And that unconscious mind, deeper thanpsychology terms the subconscious, has always known about the powersof ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition. Through these books,the human race can tell itself how to achieve a state of pure logic,without food, without sex, without conflict—just as Doc has achievedsuch a state—a little late, true. He had a powerful guilt complex,even stronger than your withdrawal, over releasing this blessing onthe inhabited universe, but reason finally prevailed. He had reached astate of pure thought. The North American government has to have this secret, Kevin, thegirl said. You can't let it fall into the hands of the Martians. <doc-sep>Andre did not deny that he wanted it to fall into his hands. I knew I could not let Doc's—Dad's—time travel thing fall intoanyone's hands. I remembered that all the copies of the books haddisappeared with their readers now. There must not be any more, I knew. Miss Casey did her duty and tried to stop me with a judo hold, but Idon't think her heart was in it, because I reversed and broke it. I kicked the thing to pieces and stomped on the pieces. Maybe youcan't stop the progress of science, but I knew it might be millenniumsbefore Doc's genes and creative environment were recreated and timetravel was rediscovered. Maybe we would be ready for it then. I knew weweren't now. Miss Casey leaned against my dirty chest and cried into it. I didn'tmind her touching me. I'm glad, she said. Andre flowed out of the doorway with a sigh. Of relief? I would never know. I supposed I had destroyed it because I didn'twant the human race to become a thing of pure reason without purpose,direction or love, but I would never know for sure. I thought I couldkick the habit—perhaps with Miss Casey's help—but I wasn't reallyconfident. Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without materialneeds would not grow and roast coffee. <doc-sep></s>

Kevin initially believes that he is a Centurian who must carry Doc around in order to achieve something powerful from the man. He firmly believes him and Doc to be superior to the Earthmen and Martian tourists. Kevin is filthy, but he refuses to take a bath. He also has an addiction to caffeine, mistakenly believing that it is the side effect of being a Centurian. Although he looks down on humans, he is desperate enough to ask one for help and for some food. His fingernails are black-crowned and broken, while his teeth are of yellow ivory. He is also suntan and sprouts a short mane. Although he lies to Miss Casey and says his name is John Kevin, he realizes that his name is actually Kevin O’Malley. While Kevin does admit that he wants something from Doc, he also is clearly shown to care for the old man. It is later revealed that Doc is his father, Kevin O’Malley Sr. Even after Miss Casey reveals she is a member of the police, Kevin is still brave enough to throw the rest of the coffee in her face. Later, he realizes that he is actually an Earth human and not a Centurian. His caffeine addiction comes from the mind. Even though he cares for his father, Kevin does choose to make the right decision to destroy the time machine because he does not want humanity to become purely logical.

<s> Confidence Game By JIM HARMON Illustrated by EPSTEIN [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction June 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or going—but I know that if I stuck to the old man, I was a comer ... even if he was a goner! Doc had this solemn human by the throat when I caught up with him. Tonight, Doc was saying in his old voice that was as crackled andimportant as parchment, tonight Man will reach the Moon. The goldenMoon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. Tonight is the night whenthis is to happen. Sure, the man agreed severely, prying a little worriedly at Doc'sarthritic fingers that were clamped on his collar. No argument. Sure,up we go. But leave me go or, so help me, I'll fetch you one in theteeth! I came alongside and carefully started to lever the old man loose,one finger at a time. It had to be done this way. I had learned thatduring all these weeks and months. His hands looked old and crippled,but I felt they were the strongest in the world. If a half dozen winosin Seattle hadn't helped me get them loose, Doc and I would have beenwanted for the murder of a North American Mountie. It was easier this night and that made me afraid. Doc's thin frame,layered with lumpy fat, was beginning to muscle-dance against my side.One of his times was coming on him. Then at last he was free of thegreasy collar of the human. I hope you'll forgive him, sir, I said, not meeting the man's eyes.He's my father and very old, as you can see. I laughed inside at theabsurd, easy lie. Old events seem recent to him. The human nodded, Adam's apple jerking in the angry neon twilight.'Memory Jump,' you mean. All my great-grandfathers have it. ButGreat-great-grandmother Lupos, funny thing, is like a schoolgirl.Sharp, you know. I.... Say, the poor old guy looks sick. Want any help? I told the human no, thanks, and walked Doc toward the flophouse threedoors down. I hoped we would make it. I didn't know what would happenif we didn't. Doc was liable to say something that might nova Sol, forall I knew. <doc-sep>Martians approaching the corner were sensing at Doc and me. Theywere just cheap tourists slumming down on Skid Row. I hated touristsand especially I hated Martian tourists because I especially hatedMartians. They were aliens . They weren't men like Doc and me. Then I realized what was about to happen. It was foolish and awful andtrue. I was going to have one of mine at the same time Doc was havinghis. That was bad. It had happened a few times right after I firstfound him, but now it was worse. For some undefinable reason, I felt wekept getting closer each of the times. I tried not to think about it and helped Doc through the fly-speckedflophouse doors. The tubercular clerk looked up from the gaudy comics sections of one ofthose little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance. Fifteen cents a bed, he said mechanically. We'll use one bed, I told him. I'll give you twenty cents. I feltthe round hard quarter in my pocket, sweaty hand against sticky lining. Fifteen cents a bed, he played it back for me. Doc was quivering against me, his legs boneless. We can always make it over to the mission, I lied. The clerk turned his upper lip as if he were going to spit. Awright,since we ain't full up. In ad vance. I placed the quarter on the desk. Give me a nickel. The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknownbefore I could move, what with holding up Doc. You've got your nerve, he said at me with a fine mist of dew. Had aquarter all along and yet you Martian me down to twenty cents. He sawthe look on my face. I'll give you a room for the two bits. That'sbetter'n a bed for twenty. I knew I was going to need that nickel. Desperately. I reached acrossthe desk with my free hand and hauled the scrawny human up against theregister hard. I'm not as strong in my hands as Doc, but I managed. Give me a nickel, I said. What nickel? His eyes were big, but they kept looking right at me.You don't have any nickel. You don't have any quarter, not if I sayso. Want I should call a cop and tell him you were flexing a muscle? I let go of him. He didn't scare me, but Doc was beginning to mumbleand that did scare me. I had to get him alone. Where's the room? I asked. <doc-sep>The room was six feet in all directions and the walls were five feethigh. The other foot was finished in chicken wire. There was a winosinging on the left, a wino praying on the right, and the door didn'thave any lock on it. At last, Doc and I were alone. I laid Doc out on the gray-brown cot and put his forearm over his faceto shield it some from the glare of the light bulb. I swept off all thebedbugs in sight and stepped on them heavily. Then I dropped down into the painted stool chair and let my burningeyes rest on the obscene wall drawings just to focus them. I was sodirty, I could feel the grime grinding together all over me. My shaggyscalp still smarted from the alcohol I had stolen from a convertible'sgas tank to get rid of Doc's and my cooties. Lucky that I never neededto shave and that my face was so dirty, no one would even notice that Ididn't need to. The cramp hit me and I folded out of the chair onto the littered,uncovered floor. It stopped hurting, but I knew it would begin if I moved. I stared at ajagged cut-out nude curled against a lump of dust and lint, giving itan unreal distortion. Doc began to mumble louder. I knew I had to move. I waited just a moment, savoring the painless peace. Then, finally, Imoved. I was bent double, but I got from the floor to the chair and foundmy notebook and orb-point in my hands. I found I couldn't focus bothmy mind and my eyes through the electric flashes of agony, so Iconcentrated on Doc's voice and trusted my hands would follow theirhabit pattern and construct the symbols for his words. They weresuddenly distinguishable. Outsider ... Thoth ... Dyzan ... Seven ... Hsan ... Beyond Six, Seven, Eight ... Two boxes ... Ralston ... RichardWentworth ... Jimmy Christopher ... Kent Allard ... Ayem ... Oh, are ... see .... <doc-sep>His voice rose to a meaningless wail that stretched into non-existence.The pen slid across the scribbled face of the notebook and both droppedfrom my numb hands. But I knew. Somehow, inside me, I knew that thesewords were what I had been waiting for. They told everything I neededto know to become the most powerful man in the Solar Federation. That wasn't just an addict's dream. I knew who Doc was. When I gotto thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old manaround North America for nothing, I remembered who he was. I remembered that he was somebody very important whose name and work Ihad once known, even if now I knew him only as Doc. Pain was a pendulum within me, swinging from low throbbing bass to highscreaming tenor. I had to get out and get some. But I didn't have anickel. Still, I had to get some. I crawled to the door and raised myself by the knob, slick with greasydirt. The door opened and shut—there was no lock. I shouldn't leaveDoc alone, but I had to. He was starting to cry. He didn't always do that. I listened to him for a moment, then tested and tasted the craving thatcrawled through my veins. I got back inside somehow. Doc was twisting on the cot, tears washing white streaks across hisface. I shoved Doc's face up against my chest. I held onto him and lethim bellow. I soothed the lanks of soiled white hair back over hislumpy skull. He shut up at last and I laid him down again and put his arm backacross his face. (You can't turn the light off and on in places likethat. The old wiring will blow the bulb half the time.) I don't remember how I got out onto the street. <doc-sep>She was pink and clean and her platinum hair was pulled straight back,drawing her cheek-bones tighter, straightening her wide, appealingmouth, drawing her lean, athletic, feminine body erect. She was wearinga powder-blue dress that covered all of her breasts and hips and theupper half of her legs. The most wonderful thing about her was her perfume. Then I realized itwasn't perfume, only the scent of soap. Finally, I knew it wasn't that.It was just healthy, fresh-scrubbed skin. I went to her at the bus stop, forcing my legs not to stagger. Nobodywould help a drunk. I don't know why, but nobody will help you if theythink you are blotto. Ma'am, could you help a man who's not had work? I kept my eyes down.I couldn't look a human in the eye and ask for help. Just a dime for acup of coffee. I knew where I could get it for three cents, maybe twoand a half. I felt her looking at me. She spoke in an educated voice, one she used,perhaps, as a teacher or supervising telephone operator. Do you wantit for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else? I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realizedthat anybody as clean as she was had to be a tourist here. I hatetourists. Just coffee, ma'am. She was younger than I was, so I didn't have tocall her that. A little more for food, if you could spare it. I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, but I didn't care much. I'll buy you a dinner, she said carefully, provided I can go withyou and see for myself that you actually eat it. I felt my face flushing red. You wouldn't want to be seen with a bumlike me, ma'am. I'll be seen with you if you really want to eat. It was certainly unfair and probably immoral. But I had no choicewhatever. Okay, I said, tasting bitterness over the craving. <doc-sep>The coffee was in a thick white cup before me on the counter. It waspale, grayish brown and steaming faintly. I picked it up in both handsto feel its warmth. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman sitting on the stoolbeside me. She had no right to intrude. This moment should be mine, butthere she sat, marring it for me, a contemptible tourist . I gulped down the thick, dark liquid brutally. It was all I coulddo. The cramp flowed out of my diaphragm. I took another swallow andwas able to think straight again. A third swallow and I felt—good.Not abnormally stimulated, but strong, alert, poised on the brink ofexhilaration. That was what coffee did for me. I was a caffeine addict. Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, butI knew that as a Centurian I had it infinitely worse. Caffeine affectedmy metabolism like a pure alkaloid. The immediate effects weren't thesame, but the need ran as deep. I finished the cup. I didn't order another because I wasn't a puresensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have theprice of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottleswith a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine inthem—not enough, never enough, but better than nothing. Now what do you want to eat? the woman asked. I didn't look at her. She didn't know. She thought I was a human—an Earth human. I was a man , of course, not an alien like a Martian.Earthmen ran the whole Solar Federation, but I was just as good as anEarthman. With my suntan and short mane, I could pass, couldn't I? Thatproved it, didn't it? Hamburger, I said. Well done. I knew that would probably be allthey had fit to eat at a place like this. It might be horse meat, butthen I didn't have the local prejudices. I didn't look at the woman. I couldn't. But I kept remembering howclean she looked and I was aware of how clean she smelled. I was sodirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed everyhour for the rest of my life. The hamburger was engulfed by five black-crowned, broken fingernailsand raised to two rows of yellow ivory. I surrounded it like an ameba,almost in a single movement of my jaws. Several other hamburgers followed the first. I lost count. I drank aglass of milk. I didn't want to black out on coffee with Doc waitingfor me. Could I have a few to take with me, miss? I pleaded. She smiled. I caught that out of the edge of my vision, but mostly Ijust felt it. That's the first time you've called me anything but 'ma'am', shesaid. I'm not an old-maid schoolteacher, you know. That probably meant she was a schoolteacher, though. No, miss, I said. It's Miss Casey—Vivian Casey, she corrected. She was aschoolteacher, all right. No other girl would introduce herself as MissLast Name. Then there was something in her voice.... What's your name? she said to me. I choked a little on a bite of stale bun. I had a name, of course . <doc-sep>Everybody has a name, and I knew if I went off somewhere quiet andthought about it, mine would come to me. Meanwhile, I would tell thegirl that my name was ... Kevin O'Malley. Abruptly I realized that that was my name. Kevin, I told her. John Kevin. Mister Kevin, she said, her words dancing with bright absurdity likewaterhose mist on a summer afternoon, I wonder if you could help me . Happy to, miss, I mumbled. She pushed a white rectangle in front of me on the painted maroon bar.What do you think of this? I looked at the piece of paper. It was a coupon from a magazine. Dear Acolyte R. I. S. : Please send me FREE of obligation, in sealed wrapper, The ScarletBook revealing to me how I may gain Secret Mastery of the Universe. Name : ........................ Address : ..................... The world disoriented itself and I was on the floor of the somber dinerand Miss Vivian Casey was out of sight and scent. There was a five dollar bill tight in my fist. The counterman wastrying to pull it out. I looked up at his stubbled face. I had half a dozen hamburgers, acup of coffee and a glass of milk. I want four more 'burgers to go anda pint of coffee. By your prices, that will be one sixty-five—if thelady didn't pay you. She didn't, he stammered. Why do you think I was trying to get thatbill out of your hand? I didn't say anything, just got up off the floor. After the countermanput down my change, I spread out the five dollar bill on the vacantbar, smoothing it. I scooped up my change and walked out the door. There was no one on thesidewalk, only in the doorways. <doc-sep>First I opened the door on an amber world, then an azure one. Neonlight was coming from the chickenwire border of the room, from a windowsomewhere beyond. The wino on one side of the room was singing andthe one on the other side was praying, same as before. Only they hadchanged around—prayer came from the left, song from the right. Doc sat on the floor in the half-darkness and he had made a thing . My heart hammered at my lungs. I knew this last time had beendifferent. Whatever it was was getting closer. This was the first timeDoc had ever made anything. It didn't look like much, but it was astart. He had broken the light bulb and used the filament and screw bottom.His strong hands had unraveled some of the bed springs—metalwebbing—and fashioned them to his needs. My orb-point pen haddissolved under his touch. All of them, useless parts, were made into ameaningful whole. I knew the thing had meaning, but when I tried to follow its design, Ibecame lost. I put the paper container of warm coffee and the greasy bag ofhamburgers on the wooden chair, hoping the odor wouldn't bring anyhungry rats out of the walls. I knelt beside Doc. An order, my boy, an order, he whispered. I didn't know what he meant. Was he suddenly trying to give me orders? He held something out to me. It was my notebook. He had used my pen,before dismantling it, to write something. I tilted the notebookagainst the neon light, now red wine, now fresh grape. I read it. Concentrate, Doc said hoarsely. Concentrate.... I wondered what the words meant. Wondering takes a kind ofconcentration. The words First Edition were what I was thinking about most. <doc-sep>The heavy-set man in the ornate armchair was saying, The bullet struckme as I was pulling on my boot.... I was kneeling on the floor of a Victorian living room. I'm quitefamiliar with Earth history and I recognized the period immediately. Then I realized what I had been trying to get from Doc all thesemonths—time travel. A thin, sickly man was sprawled in the other chair in a rumpleddressing gown. My eyes held to his face, his pinpoint pupils andwhitened nose. He was a condemned snowbird! If there was anything Ihated or held in more contempt than tourists or Martians, it was asnowbird. My clients have occasioned singular methods of entry into theserooms, the thin man remarked, but never before have they usedinstantaneous materialization. The heavier man was half choking, half laughing. I say—I say, I wouldlike to see you explain this, my dear fellow. I have no data, the thin man answered coolly. In such instance, onebegins to twist theories into fact, or facts into theories. I must askthis unemployed, former professional man who has gone through a seriousillness and is suffering a more serious addiction to tell me the placeand time from which he comes. The surprise stung. How did you know? I asked. He gestured with a pale hand. To maintain a logical approach, I mustreject the supernatural. Your arrival, unless hallucinatory—anddespite my voluntary use of one drug and my involuntary experiencesrecently with another, I must accept the evidence of my senses orretire from my profession—your arrival was then super-normal. I mightsay super-scientific, of a science not of my or the good doctor's time,clearly. Time travel is a familiar folk legend and I have been readingan article by the entertaining Mr. Wells. Perhaps he will expand itinto one of his novels of scientific romance. I knew who these two men were, with a tormenting doubt. But theother— Your hands, though unclean, have never seen physical labor. Yourcranial construction is of a superior type, or even if you reject mytheories, concentration does set the facial features. I judge you havesuffered an illness because of the inhibition of your beard growth.Your over-fondness for rum or opium, perhaps, is self-evident. Youare at too resilient an age to be so sunk by even an amour. Why elsethen would you let yourself fall into such an underfed and unsanitarystate? <doc-sep>He was so smug and so sure, this snowbird. I hated him. Because Icouldn't trust to my own senses as he did. You don't exist, I said slowly, painfully. You are fictionalcreations. The doctor flushed darkly. You give my literary agent too much creditfor the addition of professional polish to my works. The other man was filling a large, curved pipe from something thatlooked vaguely like an ice-skate. Interesting. Perhaps if our visitorwould tell us something of his age with special reference to the theoryand practice of temporal transference, Doctor, we would be betterequipped to judge whether we exist. There was no theory or practice of time travel. I told them all I hadever heard theorized from Hindu yoga through Extra-sensory Perceptionto Relativity and the positron and negatron. Interesting. He breathed out suffocating black clouds of smoke.Presume that the people of your time by their 'Extra-sensoryPerception' have altered the past to make it as they suppose it to be.The great historical figures are made the larger than life-size that weknow them. The great literary creations assume reality. I thought of Cleopatra and Helen of Troy and wondered if they would bethe goddesses of love that people imagined or the scrawny, big-nosedredhead and fading old woman of scholarship. Then I noticed thedetective's hand that had been resting idly on a round brass weight ofunknown sort to me. His tapered fingertips had indented the metal. His bright eyes followed mine and he smiled faintly. Withdrawalsymptoms. The admiration and affection for this man that had been slowly buildingup behind my hatred unbrinked. I remembered now that he had stopped. Hewas not really a snowbird. After a time, I asked the doctor a question. Why, yes. I'm flattered. This is the first manuscript. Considering myprofessional handwriting, I recopied it more laboriously. Accepting the sheaf of papers and not looking back at these two greatand good men, I concentrated on my own time and Doc. Nothing happened.My heart raced, but I saw something dancing before me like a dust motein sunlight and stepped toward it.... ... into the effective range of Miss Casey's tiny gun. <doc-sep>She inclined the lethal silver toy. Let me see those papers, Kevin. I handed her the doctor's manuscript. Her breath escaped slowly and loudly. It's all right. It's all right.It exists. It's real. Not even one of the unwritten ones. I've readthis myself. Doc was lying on the cot, half his face twisted into horror. Don't move, Kevin, she said. I'll have to shoot you—maybe not tokill, but painfully. I watched her face flash blue, red, blue and knew she meant it. But Ihad known too much in too short a time. I had to help Doc, but therewas something else. I just want a drink of coffee from that container on the chair, Itold her. She shook her head. I don't know what you think it does to you. It was getting hard for me to think. Who are you? She showed me a card from her wrist purse. Vivian Casey, Constable,North American Mounted Police. I had to help Doc. I had to have some coffee. What do you want? Listen, Kevin. Listen carefully to what I am saying. Doc founda method of time travel. It was almost a purely mathematical,topographical way divorced from modern physical sciences. He kept itsecret and he wanted to make money with it. He was an idealist—he hadhis crusades. How can you make money with time travel? I didn't know whether she was asking me, but I didn't know. All I knewwas that I had to help Doc and get some coffee. It takes money—money Doc didn't have—to make money, Miss Caseysaid, even if you know what horse will come in and what stock willprosper. Besides, horse-racing and the stock market weren't a part ofDoc's character. He was a scholar. Why did she keep using the past tense in reference to Doc? It scaredme. He was lying so still with the left side of his face so twisted. Ineeded some coffee. He became a book finder. He got rare editions of books and magazinesfor his clients in absolutely mint condition. That was all right—untilhe started obtaining books that did not exist . <doc-sep>I didn't know what all that was supposed to mean. I got to the chair,snatched up the coffee container, tore it open and gulped down thesoothing liquid. I turned toward her and threw the rest of the coffee into her face. The coffee splashed out over her platinum hair and powder-blue dressthat looked white when the neon was azure, purple when it was amber.The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad,unreasonably happy. I tore the gun away from her by the short barrel, not letting my filthyhands touch her scrubbed pink ones. I pointed the gun generally at her and backed around the thing on thefloor to the cot. Doc had a pulse, but it was irregular. I checked fora fever and there wasn't one. After that, I didn't know what to do. I looked up finally and saw a Martian in or about the doorway. Call me Andre, the Martian said. A common name but foreign. Itshould serve as a point of reference. I had always wondered how a thing like a Martian could talk. SometimesI wondered if they really could. You won't need the gun, Andre said conversationally. I'll keep it, thanks. What do you want? I'll begin as Miss Casey did—by telling you things. Hundreds ofpeople disappeared from North America a few months ago. They always do, I told him. They ceased to exist—as human beings—shortly after they received abook from Doc, the Martian said. Something seemed to strike me in the back of the neck. I staggered, butmanaged to hold onto the gun and stand up. Use one of those sneaky Martian weapons again, I warned him,and I'll kill the girl. Martians were supposed to be against thedestruction of any life-form, I had read someplace. I doubted it, butit was worth a try. Kevin, Andre said, why don't you take a bath? The Martian weapon staggered me again. I tried to say something. Itried to explain that I was so dirty that I could never get clean nomatter how often I bathed. No words formed. But, Kevin, Andre said, you aren't that dirty. <doc-sep>The blow shook the gun from my fingers. It almost fell into the thing on the floor, but at the last moment seemed to change direction andmiss it. I knew something. I don't wash because I drink coffee. It's all right to drink coffee, isn't it? he asked. Of course, I said, and added absurdly, That's why I don't wash. You mean, Andre said slowly, ploddingly, that if you bathed, youwould be admitting that drinking coffee was in the same class as anyother solitary vice that makes people wash frequently. I was knocked to my knees. Kevin, the Martian said, drinking coffee represents a major viceonly in Centurian humanoids, not Earth-norm human beings. Which areyou? Nothing came out of my gabbling mouth. What is Doc's full name? I almost fell in, but at the last instant I caught myself and said,Doctor Kevin O'Malley, Senior. From the bed, Doc said a word. Son. Then he disappeared. I looked at that which he had made. I wondered where he had gone, insearch of what. He didn't use that, Andre said. So I was an Earthman, Doc's son. So my addiction to coffee was all inmy mind. That didn't change anything. They say sex is all in your mind.I didn't want to be cured. I wouldn't be. Doc was gone. That was all Ihad now. That and the thing he left. The rest is simple, Andre said. Doc O'Malley bought up all the stockin a certain ancient metaphysical order and started supplying memberswith certain books. Can you imagine the effect of the Book of Dyzan or the Book of Thoth or the Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan or the Necronomican itself on human beings? But they don't exist, I said wearily. Exactly, Kevin, exactly. They have never existed any more than yourVictorian detective friend. But the unconscious racial mind has reachedback into time and created them. And that unconscious mind, deeper thanpsychology terms the subconscious, has always known about the powersof ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition. Through these books,the human race can tell itself how to achieve a state of pure logic,without food, without sex, without conflict—just as Doc has achievedsuch a state—a little late, true. He had a powerful guilt complex,even stronger than your withdrawal, over releasing this blessing onthe inhabited universe, but reason finally prevailed. He had reached astate of pure thought. The North American government has to have this secret, Kevin, thegirl said. You can't let it fall into the hands of the Martians. <doc-sep>Andre did not deny that he wanted it to fall into his hands. I knew I could not let Doc's—Dad's—time travel thing fall intoanyone's hands. I remembered that all the copies of the books haddisappeared with their readers now. There must not be any more, I knew. Miss Casey did her duty and tried to stop me with a judo hold, but Idon't think her heart was in it, because I reversed and broke it. I kicked the thing to pieces and stomped on the pieces. Maybe youcan't stop the progress of science, but I knew it might be millenniumsbefore Doc's genes and creative environment were recreated and timetravel was rediscovered. Maybe we would be ready for it then. I knew weweren't now. Miss Casey leaned against my dirty chest and cried into it. I didn'tmind her touching me. I'm glad, she said. Andre flowed out of the doorway with a sigh. Of relief? I would never know. I supposed I had destroyed it because I didn'twant the human race to become a thing of pure reason without purpose,direction or love, but I would never know for sure. I thought I couldkick the habit—perhaps with Miss Casey's help—but I wasn't reallyconfident. Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without materialneeds would not grow and roast coffee. <doc-sep></s>

The story first begins with Doc and Kevin going to a flophouse three doors down from where Doc has his confrontation. As they turn around the corner, many Martian tourists walk by. The flophouse door is fly-specked, and a tubercular clerk is sitting in a gaudy comics section. The room they later go to is six feet in all directions with five feet high walls. The other foot is finished in chickenwire; there is also a wino singing on the left, wino praying on the right, and a door with no lock. There is also a gray-brown cot that Kevin lays Doc on, and a light bulb for light. Kevin also sits in a chair; the floor is littered and uncovered. The knob of the door is slick with greasy dirt. Later, Kevin goes out to the streets. They go to a restaurant, where he sits at the counter with a cup of coffee. There is also a stool for Miss Casey to sit in next to his stool. As he leaves, he notices that there is nobody on the sidewalks. Kevin describes himself opening the door to an amber world and then an azure one. Neon light also comes from the chickenwire border of the room, from a window somewhere beyond. When Kevin brings back food to the flophouse, he mentions that there are rats in the walls. Inside his mind, one man sits on an ornate armchair. Another man is sprawled in the other chair. Later, as Kevin goes back to reality, the confrontation between Miss Casey, Andre, and him happens in the same room with Doc still on the cot.

<s> THE MAN OUTSIDE By EVELYN E. SMITH Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No one, least of all Martin, could dispute that a man's life should be guarded by his kin—but by those who hadn't been born yet? Nobody in the neighborhood was surprised when Martin's motherdisappeared and Ninian came to take care of him. Mothers had a wayof disappearing around those parts and the kids were often betteroff without them. Martin was no exception. He'd never had it thisgood while he was living with his old lady. As for his father, Martinhad never had one. He'd been a war baby, born of one of the tides ofsoldiers—enemies and allies, both—that had engulfed the country insuccessive waves and bought or taken the women. So there was no troublethat way. Sometimes he wondered who Ninian really was. Obviously that storyabout her coming from the future was just a gag. Besides, if she reallywas his great-great-grand-daughter, as she said, why would she tellhim to call her Aunt Ninian ? Maybe he was only eleven, but he'dbeen around and he knew just what the score was. At first he'd thoughtmaybe she was some new kind of social worker, but she acted a littletoo crazy for that. He loved to bait her, as he had loved to bait his mother. It was saferwith Ninian, though, because when he pushed her too far, she would cryinstead of mopping up the floor with him. But I can't understand, he would say, keeping his face straight. Whydo you have to come from the future to protect me against your cousinConrad? Because he's coming to kill you. Why should he kill me? I ain't done him nothing. Ninian sighed. He's dissatisfied with the current social order andkilling you is part of an elaborate plan he's formulated to change it.You wouldn't understand. You're damn right. I don't understand. What's it all about instraight gas? Oh, just don't ask any questions, Ninian said petulantly. When youget older, someone will explain the whole thing to you. <doc-sep>So Martin held his peace, because, on the whole, he liked things theway they were. Ninian really was the limit, though. All the people heknew lived in scabrous tenement apartments like his, but she seemed tothink it was disgusting. So if you don't like it, clean it up, he suggested. She looked at him as if he were out of his mind. Hire a maid, then! he jeered. And darned if that dope didn't go out and get a woman to come clean upthe place! He was so embarrassed, he didn't even dare show his face inthe streets—especially with the women buttonholing him and demandingto know what gave. They tried talking to Ninian, but she certainly knewhow to give them the cold shoulder. One day the truant officer came to ask why Martin hadn't been comingto school. Very few of the neighborhood kids attended classes veryregularly, so this was just routine. But Ninian didn't know that andshe went into a real tizzy, babbling that Martin had been sick andwould make up the work. Martin nearly did get sick from laughing sohard inside. But he laughed out of the other side of his mouth when she went out andhired a private tutor for him. A tutor—in that neighborhood! Martinhad to beat up every kid on the block before he could walk a stepwithout hearing Fancy Pants! yelled after him. Ninian worried all the time. It wasn't that she cared what these peoplethought of her, for she made no secret of regarding them as littlebetter than animals, but she was shy of attracting attention. Therewere an awful lot of people in that neighborhood who felt exactly thesame way, only she didn't know that, either. She was really prettydumb, Martin thought, for all her fancy lingo. It's so hard to think these things out without any prior practicalapplication to go by, she told him. He nodded, knowing what she meant was that everything was coming outwrong. But he didn't try to help her; he just watched to see whatshe'd do next. Already he had begun to assume the detached role of aspectator. When it became clear that his mother was never going to show up again,Ninian bought one of those smallish, almost identical houses thatmushroom on the fringes of a city after every war, particularly whereintensive bombing has created a number of desirable building sites. This is a much better neighborhood for a boy to grow up in, shedeclared. Besides, it's easier to keep an eye on you here. And keep an eye on him she did—she or a rather foppish young man whocame to stay with them occasionally. Martin was told to call him UncleRaymond. From time to time, there were other visitors—Uncles Ives andBartholomew and Olaf, Aunts Ottillie and Grania and Lalage, and manymore—all cousins to one another, he was told, all descendants of his. <doc-sep>Martin was never left alone for a minute. He wasn't allowed to playwith the other kids in the new neighborhood. Not that their parentswould have let them, anyway. The adults obviously figured that ifa one-car family hired private tutors for their kid, there must besomething pretty wrong with him. So Martin and Ninian were just asconspicuous as before. But he didn't tip her off. She was grown up; shewas supposed to know better than he did. He lived well. He had food to eat that he'd never dreamed of before,warm clothes that no one had ever worn before him. He was surrounded bymore luxury than he knew what to do with. The furniture was the latest New Grand Rapids African modern. Therewere tidy, colorful Picasso and Braque prints on the walls. And everyinch of the floor was modestly covered by carpeting, though the wallswere mostly unabashed glass. There were hot water and heat all the timeand a freezer well stocked with food—somewhat erratically chosen, forNinian didn't know much about meals. The non-glass part of the house was of neat, natural-toned wood, with aneat green lawn in front and a neat parti-colored garden in back. Martin missed the old neighborhood, though. He missed having otherkids to play with. He even missed his mother. Sure, she hadn't givenhim enough to eat and she'd beaten him up so hard sometimes that she'dnearly killed him—but then there had also been times when she'd huggedand kissed him and soaked his collar with her tears. She'd done allshe could for him, supporting him in the only way she knew how—and ifrespectable society didn't like it, the hell with respectable society. From Ninian and her cousins, there was only an impersonal kindness.They made no bones about the fact that they were there only to carryout a rather unpleasant duty. Though they were in the house with him,in their minds and in their talk they were living in another world—aworld of warmth and peace and plenty where nobody worked, except in thegovernment service or the essential professions. And they seemed tothink even that kind of job was pretty low-class, though better thanactually doing anything with the hands. In their world, Martin came to understand, nobody worked with hands;everything was done by machinery. All the people ever did was wearpretty clothes and have good times and eat all they wanted. There wasno devastation, no war, no unhappiness, none of the concomitants ofnormal living. It was then that Martin began to realize that either the whole lot ofthem were insane, or what Ninian had told him at first was the truth.They came from the future. <doc-sep>When Martin was sixteen, Raymond took him aside for the talk Ninian hadpromised five years before. The whole thing's all my brother Conrad's fault. You see, he's anidealist, Raymond explained, pronouncing the last word with distaste. Martin nodded gravely. He was a quiet boy now, his brief past a dim andrather ridiculous memory. Who could ever imagine him robbing a grocerystore or wielding a broken bottle now? He still was rather undersizedand he'd read so much that he'd weakened his eyes and had to wearglasses. His face was pallid, because he spent little time in the sun,and his speech rather overbred, his mentors from the future havingcarefully eradicated all current vulgarities. And Conrad really got upset over the way Earth has been exploitingthe not so intelligent life-forms on the other planets, Raymondcontinued. Which is distressing—though, of course, it's not asif they were people. Besides, the government has been talking aboutpassing laws to do away with the—well, abuses and things like that,and I'm sure someday everything will come out all right. However,Conrad is so impatient. I thought, in your world, machines did all the work, Martin suggested. I've told you—our world is precisely the same as this one! Raymondsnapped. We just come a couple of centuries or so later, that's all.But remember, our interests are identical. We're virtually the samepeople ... although it is amazing what a difference two hundred oddyears of progress and polish can make in a species, isn't it? He continued more mildly: However, even you ought to be able tounderstand that we can't make machinery without metal. We need food.All that sort of thing comes from the out-system planets. And, on thoseworlds, it's far cheaper to use native labor than to ship out all thatexpensive machinery. After all, if we didn't give the natives jobs, howwould they manage to live? How did they live before? Come to think of it, if you don't work, howdo you live now?... I don't mean in the now for me, but the now foryou, Martin explained laboriously. It was so difficult to live in thepast and think in the future. I'm trying to talk to you as if you were an adult, Raymond said, butif you will persist in these childish interruptions— I'm sorry, Martin said. But he wasn't, for by now he had little respect left for any ofhis descendants. They were all exceedingly handsome and cultivatedyoung people, with superior educations, smooth ways of speaking andconsiderable self-confidence, but they just weren't very bright. Andhe had discovered that Raymond was perhaps the most intelligent of thelot. Somewhere in that relatively short span of time, his line or—morefrightening—his race had lost something vital. Unaware of the near-contempt in which his young ancestor held him,Raymond went on blandly: Anyhow, Conrad took it upon himself tofeel particularly guilty, because, he decided, if it hadn't been forthe fact that our great-grandfather discovered the super-drive, wemight never have reached the stars. Which is ridiculous—his feelingguilty, I mean. Perhaps a great-grandfather is responsible for hisgreat-grandchildren, but a great-grandchild can hardly be heldaccountable for his great-grandfather. How about a great-great-grandchild? Martin couldn't help asking. <doc-sep>Raymond flushed a delicate pink. Do you want to hear the rest of thisor don't you? Oh, I do! Martin said. He had pieced the whole thing together forhimself long since, but he wanted to hear how Raymond would put it. Unfortunately, Professor Farkas has just perfected the timetransmitter. Those government scientists are so infernallyofficious—always inventing such senseless things. It's supposed tobe hush-hush, but you know how news will leak out when one is alwaysdesperate for a fresh topic of conversation. Anyhow, Raymond went on to explain, Conrad had bribed one of Farkas'assistants for a set of the plans. Conrad's idea had been to go backin time and eliminate! their common great-grandfather. In that way,there would be no space-drive, and, hence, the Terrestrials would neverget to the other planets and oppress the local aborigines. Sounds like a good way of dealing with the problem, Martin observed. Raymond looked annoyed. It's the adolescent way, he said, to doaway with it, rather than find a solution. Would you destroy a wholesociety in order to root out a single injustice? Not if it were a good one otherwise. Well, there's your answer. Conrad got the apparatus built, or perhapshe built it himself. One doesn't inquire too closely into suchmatters. But when it came to the point, Conrad couldn't bear the ideaof eliminating our great-grandfather—because our great-grandfatherwas such a good man, you know. Raymond's expressive upper lipcurled. So Conrad decided to go further back still and get rid ofhis great-grandfather's father—who'd been, by all accounts, a prettyworthless character. That would be me, I suppose, Martin said quietly. Raymond turned a deep rose. Well, doesn't that just go to prove youmustn't believe everything you hear? The next sentence tumbled out ina rush. I wormed the whole thing out of him and all of us—the othercousins and me—held a council of war, as it were, and we decided itwas our moral duty to go back in time ourselves and protect you. Hebeamed at Martin. The boy smiled slowly. Of course. You had to. If Conrad succeeded in eliminating me, then none of you would exist, would you? Raymond frowned. Then he shrugged cheerfully. Well, you didn't reallysuppose we were going to all this trouble and expense out of sheeraltruism, did you? he asked, turning on the charm which all thecousins possessed to a consternating degree. <doc-sep>Martin had, of course, no illusions on that score; he had learned longago that nobody did anything for nothing. But saying so was unwise. We bribed another set of plans out of another of the professor'sassistants, Raymond continued, as if Martin had answered,and—ah—induced a handicraft enthusiast to build the gadget for us. Induced , Martin knew, could have meant anything from blackmail to theuse of the iron maiden. Then we were all ready to forestall Conrad. If one of us guarded younight and day, he would never be able to carry out his plot. So we madeour counter-plan, set the machine as far back as it would go—and herewe are! I see, Martin said. Raymond didn't seem to think he really did. After all, he pointedout defensively, whatever our motives, it has turned into a goodthing for you. Nice home, cultured companions, all the contemporaryconveniences, plus some handy anachronisms—I don't see what more youcould ask for. You're getting the best of all possible worlds. Ofcourse Ninian was a ninny to locate in a mercantile suburb where anylittle thing out of the way will cause talk. How thankful I am that ourera has completely disposed of the mercantiles— What did you do with them? Martin asked. But Raymond rushed on: Soon as Ninian goes and I'm in full charge,we'll get a more isolated place and run it on a far grander scale.Ostentation—that's the way to live here and now; the richer you are,the more eccentricity you can get away with. And, he added, I mightas well be as comfortable as possible while I suffer through thiswretched historical stint. So Ninian's going, said Martin, wondering why the news made him feelcuriously desolate. Because, although he supposed he liked her in aremote kind of way, he had no fondness for her—or she, he knew, forhim. Well, five years is rather a long stretch for any girl to spend inexile, Raymond explained, even though our life spans are a bit longerthan yours. Besides, you're getting too old now to be under petticoatgovernment. He looked inquisitively at Martin. You're not going togo all weepy and make a scene when she leaves, are you? No.... Martin said hesitantly. Oh, I suppose I will miss her. But wearen't very close, so it won't make a real difference. That was thesad part: he already knew it wouldn't make a difference. Raymond clapped him on the shoulder. I knew you weren't a sloppysentimentalist like Conrad. Though you do have rather a look of him,you know. Suddenly that seemed to make Conrad real. Martin felt a vague stirringof alarm. He kept his voice composed, however. How do you plan toprotect me when he comes? Well, each one of us is armed to the teeth, of course, Raymond saidwith modest pride, displaying something that looked like a child'scombination spaceman's gun and death ray, but which, Martin had nodoubt, was a perfectly genuine—and lethal—weapon. And we've got arather elaborate burglar alarm system. Martin inspected the system and made one or two changes in the wiringwhich, he felt, would increase its efficiency. But still he wasdubious. Maybe it'll work on someone coming from outside this house ,but do you think it will work on someone coming from outside this time ? Never fear—it has a temporal radius, Raymond replied. Factoryguarantee and all that. Just to be on the safe side, Martin said, I think I'd better haveone of those guns, too. A splendid idea! enthused Raymond. I was just about to think of thatmyself! <doc-sep>When it came time for the parting, it was Ninian who cried—tears ather own inadequacy, Martin knew, not of sorrow. He was getting skillfulat understanding his descendants, far better than they at understandinghim. But then they never really tried. Ninian kissed him wetly on thecheek and said she was sure everything would work out all right andthat she'd come see him again. She never did, though, except at thevery last. Raymond and Martin moved into a luxurious mansion in a remote area. Thesite proved a well-chosen one; when the Second Atomic War came, half adozen years later, they weren't touched. Martin was never sure whetherthis had been sheer luck or expert planning. Probably luck, because hisdescendants were exceedingly inept planners. Few people in the world then could afford to live as stylishly asMartin and his guardian. The place not only contained every possibleconvenience and gadget but was crammed with bibelots and antiques,carefully chosen by Raymond and disputed by Martin, for, to the manfrom the future, all available artifacts were antiques. Otherwise,Martin accepted his new surroundings. His sense of wonder had becomedulled by now and the pink pseudo-Spanish castle—architecturallydreadful, of course, Raymond had said, but so hilariouslytypical—impressed him far less than had the suburban split-levelaquarium. How about a moat? Martin suggested when they first came. It seems togo with a castle. Do you think a moat could stop Conrad? Raymond asked, amused. No, Martin smiled, feeling rather silly, but it would make the placeseem safer somehow. The threat of Conrad was beginning to make him grow more and morenervous. He got Raymond's permission to take two suits of armor thatstood in the front hall and present them to a local museum, becauseseveral times he fancied he saw them move. He also became an adept withthe ray gun and changed the surrounding landscape quite a bit with it,until Raymond warned that this might lead Conrad to them. During those early years, Martin's tutors were exchanged for thehigher-degreed ones that were now needful. The question inevitablyarose of what the youth's vocation in that life was going to be. Atleast twenty of the cousins came back through time to hold one oftheir vigorous family councils. Martin was still young enough to enjoysuch occasions, finding them vastly superior to all other forms ofentertainment. <doc-sep>This sort of problem wouldn't arise in our day, Martin, Raymondcommented as he took his place at the head of the table, because,unless one specifically feels a call to some profession or other, onejust—well, drifts along happily. Ours is a wonderful world, Grania sighed at Martin. I only wish wecould take you there. I'm sure you would like it. Don't be a fool, Grania! Raymond snapped. Well, Martin, have youmade up your mind what you want to be? Martin affected to think. A physicist, he said, not without malice.Or perhaps an engineer. There was a loud, excited chorus of dissent. He chuckled inwardly. Can't do that, Ives said. Might pick up some concepts from us. Don'tknow how; none of us knows a thing about science. But it could happen.Subconscious osmosis, if there is such a thing. That way, you mightinvent something ahead of time. And the fellow we got the plans fromparticularly cautioned us against that. Changing history. Dangerous. Might mess up our time frightfully, Bartholomew contributed, though,to be perfectly frank, I can't quite understand how. I am not going to sit down and explain the whole thing to you all overagain, Bart! Raymond said impatiently. Well, Martin? What would you suggest? Martin asked. How about becoming a painter? Art is eternal. And quite gentlemanly.Besides, artists are always expected to be either behind or ahead oftheir times. Furthermore, Ottillie added, one more artist couldn't make muchdifference in history. There were so many of them all through the ages. Martin couldn't hold back his question. What was I, actually, in thatother time? There was a chilly silence. Let's not talk about it, dear, Lalage finally said. Let's just bethankful we've saved you from that ! So drawing teachers were engaged and Martin became a very competentsecond-rate artist. He knew he would never be able to achieve firstrank because, even though he was still so young, his work was almostpurely intellectual. The only emotion he seemed able to feel wasfear—the ever-present fear that someday he would turn a corridor andwalk into a man who looked like him—a man who wanted to kill him forthe sake of an ideal. But the fear did not show in Martin's pictures. They were prettypictures. <doc-sep>Cousin Ives—now that Martin was older, he was told to call thedescendants cousin —next assumed guardianship. Ives took hisresponsibilities more seriously than the others did. He even arrangedto have Martin's work shown at an art gallery. The paintings receivedcritical approval, but failed to evoke any enthusiasm. The modestsale they enjoyed was mostly to interior decorators. Museums were notinterested. Takes time, Ives tried to reassure him. One day they'll be buyingyour pictures, Martin. Wait and see. Ives was the only one of the descendants who seemed to think of Martinas an individual. When his efforts to make contact with the other youngman failed, he got worried and decided that what Martin needed was achange of air and scenery. 'Course you can't go on the Grand Tour. Your son hasn't inventedspace travel yet. But we can go see this world. What's left of it.Tourists always like ruins best, anyway. So he drew on the family's vast future resources and bought a yacht,which Martin christened The Interregnum . They traveled about from seato ocean and from ocean to sea, touching at various ports and makingtrips inland. Martin saw the civilized world—mostly in fragments; thenearly intact semi-civilized world and the uncivilized world, much thesame as it had been for centuries. It was like visiting an enormousmuseum; he couldn't seem to identify with his own time any more. The other cousins appeared to find the yacht a congenial head-quarters,largely because they could spend so much time far away from thecontemporary inhabitants of the planet and relax and be themselves. Sothey never moved back to land. Martin spent the rest of his life on The Interregnum . He felt curiously safer from Conrad there, althoughthere was no valid reason why an ocean should stop a traveler throughtime. More cousins were in residence at once than ever before, becausethey came for the ocean voyage. They spent most of their time aboardship, giving each other parties and playing an avant-garde form ofshuffleboard and gambling on future sporting events. That last usuallyended in a brawl, because one cousin was sure to accuse another ofhaving got advance information about the results. Martin didn't care much for their company and associated with them onlywhen not to have done so would have been palpably rude. And, thoughthey were gregarious young people for the most part, they didn't courthis society. He suspected that he made them feel uncomfortable. <doc-sep>He rather liked Ives, though. Sometimes the two of them would be alonetogether; then Ives would tell Martin of the future world he had comefrom. The picture drawn by Raymond and Ninian had not been entirelyaccurate, Ives admitted. True, there was no war or poverty on Earthproper, but that was because there were only a couple of million peopleleft on the planet. It was an enclave for the highly privileged, highlyinterbred aristocracy, to which Martin's descendants belonged by virtueof their distinguished ancestry. Rather feudal, isn't it? Martin asked. Ives agreed, adding that the system had, however, been deliberatelyplanned, rather than the result of haphazard natural development.Everything potentially unpleasant, like the mercantiles, had beendeported. Not only natives livin' on the other worlds, Ives said as the twoof them stood at the ship's rail, surrounded by the limitless expanseof some ocean or other. People, too. Mostly lower classes, exceptfor officials and things. With wars and want and suffering, he addedregretfully, same as in your day.... Like now, I mean, he correctedhimself. Maybe it is worse, the way Conrad thinks. More planetsfor us to make trouble on. Three that were habitable aren't any more.Bombed. Very thorough job. Oh, Martin murmured, trying to sound shocked, horrified—interested,even. Sometimes I'm not altogether sure Conrad was wrong, Ives said, aftera pause. Tried to keep us from getting to the stars, hurting thepeople—I expect you could call them people—there. Still— he smiledshamefacedly—couldn't stand by and see my own way of life destroyed,could I? I suppose not, Martin said. Would take moral courage. I don't have it. None of us does, exceptConrad, and even he— Ives looked out over the sea. Must be a betterway out than Conrad's, he said without conviction. And everythingwill work out all right in the end. Bound to. No sense to—to anything,if it doesn't. He glanced wistfully at Martin. I hope so, said Martin. But he couldn't hope; he couldn't feel; hecouldn't even seem to care. During all this time, Conrad still did not put in an appearance. Martinhad gotten to be such a crack shot with the ray pistol that he almostwished his descendant would show up, so there would be some excitement.But he didn't come. And Martin got to thinking.... He always felt that if any of the cousins could have come to realizethe basic flaw in the elaborate plan they had concocted, it would havebeen Ives. However, when the yacht touched at Tierra del Fuego onebitter winter, Ives took a severe chill. They sent for a doctor fromthe future—one of the descendants who had been eccentric enough totake a medical degree—but he wasn't able to save Ives. The body wasburied in the frozen ground at Ushuaia, on the southern tip of thecontinent, a hundred years or more before the date of his birth. A great many of the cousins turned up at the simple ceremony. All weredressed in overwhelming black and showed a great deal of grief. Raymondread the burial service, because they didn't dare summon a clericalcousin from the future; they were afraid he might prove rather stuffyabout the entire undertaking. He died for all of us, Raymond concluded his funeral eulogy overIves, so his death was not in vain. But Martin disagreed. <doc-sep>The ceaseless voyaging began again. The Interregnum voyaged to everyocean and every sea. Some were blue and some green and some dun. Aftera while, Martin couldn't tell one from another. Cousin after cousincame to watch over him and eventually they were as hard for him to tellapart as the different oceans. All the cousins were young, for, though they came at different times inhis life, they had all started out from the same time in theirs. Onlythe young ones had been included in the venture; they did not trusttheir elders. As the years went by, Martin began to lose even his detached interestin the land and its doings. Although the yacht frequently touched portfor fuel or supplies—it was more economical to purchase them in thatera than to have them shipped from the future—he seldom went ashore,and then only at the urging of a newly assigned cousin anxious to seethe sights. Most of the time Martin spent in watching the sea—andsometimes he painted it. There seemed to be a depth to his seascapesthat his other work lacked. When he was pressed by the current cousin to make a land visitsomewhere, he decided to exhibit a few of his sea paintings. That way,he could fool himself into thinking that there was some purpose to thisjourney. He'd come to believe that perhaps what his life lacked waspurpose, and for a while he kept looking for meaning everywhere, to thecousin's utter disgust. Eat, drink and be merry, or whatever you Romans say when you do as youdo, the cousin—who was rather woolly in history; the descendants werescraping bottom now—advised. Martin showed his work in Italy, so that the cousin could bedisillusioned by the current crop of Romans. He found that neitherpurpose nor malice was enough; he was still immeasurably bored.However, a museum bought two of the paintings. Martin thought of Ivesand felt an uncomfortable pang of a sensation he could no longerunderstand. Where do you suppose Conrad has been all this time? Martin idly askedthe current cousin—who was passing as his nephew by now. The young man jumped, then glanced around him uncomfortably. Conrad'sa very shrewd fellow, he whispered. He's biding his time—waitinguntil we're off guard. And then—pow!—he'll attack! Oh, I see, Martin said. He had often fancied that Conrad would prove to be the most stimulatingmember of the whole generation. But it seemed unlikely that he wouldever have a chance for a conversation with the young man. More than oneconversation, anyhow. When he does show up, I'll protect you, the cousin vowed, touchinghis ray gun. You haven't a thing to worry about. Martin smiled with all the charm he'd had nothing to do but acquire. Ihave every confidence in you, he told his descendant. He himself hadgiven up carrying a gun long ago. There was a war in the Northern Hemisphere and so The Interregnum voyaged to southern waters. There was a war in the south and they hidout in the Arctic. All the nations became too drained of power—fueland man and will—to fight, so there was a sterile peace for a longtime. The Interregnum roamed the seas restlessly, with her load ofpassengers from the future, plus one bored and aging contemporary. Shebore big guns now, because of the ever-present danger of pirates. <doc-sep>Perhaps it was the traditionally bracing effect of sea air—perhaps itwas the sheltered life—but Martin lived to be a very old man. He was ahundred and four when his last illness came. It was a great relief whenthe family doctor, called in again from the future, said there was nohope. Martin didn't think he could have borne another year of life. All the cousins gathered at the yacht to pay their last respects totheir progenitor. He saw Ninian again, after all these years, andRaymond—all the others, dozens of them, thronging around his bed,spilling out of the cabin and into the passageways and out onto thedeck, making their usual clamor, even though their voices were hushed. Only Ives was missing. He'd been the lucky one, Martin knew. He hadbeen spared the tragedy that was going to befall these blooming youngpeople—all the same age as when Martin had last seen them and doomednever to grow any older. Underneath their masks of woe, he could seerelief at the thought that at last they were going to be rid of theirresponsibility. And underneath Martin's death mask lay an impersonalpity for those poor, stupid descendants of his who had blundered soirretrievably. There was only one face which Martin had never seen before. It wasn'ta strange face, however, because Martin had seen one very like it inthe looking glass when he was a young man. You must be Conrad, Martin called across the cabin in a voice thatwas still clear. I've been looking forward to meeting you for sometime. The other cousins whirled to face the newcomer. You're too late, Con, Raymond gloated for the whole generation. He'slived out his life. But he hasn't lived out his life, Conrad contradicted. He's livedout the life you created for him. And for yourselves, too. For the first time, Martin saw compassion in the eyes of one of hislineage and found it vaguely disturbing. It didn't seem to belong there. Don't you realize even yet, Conrad went on, that as soon as he goes,you'll go, too—present, past, future, wherever you are, you'll go upin the air like puffs of smoke? What do you mean? Ninian quavered, her soft, pretty face alarmed. Martin answered Conrad's rueful smile, but left the explanations up tohim. It was his show, after all. Because you will never have existed, Conrad said. You have no rightto existence; it was you yourselves who watched him all the time,so he didn't have a chance to lead a normal life, get married, havechildren .... <doc-sep>Most of the cousins gasped as the truth began to percolate through. I knew from the very beginning, Conrad finished, that I didn'thave to do anything at all. I just had to wait and you would destroyyourselves. I don't understand, Bartholomew protested, searching the faces of thecousins closest to him. What does he mean, we have never existed?We're here, aren't we? What— Shut up! Raymond snapped. He turned on Martin. You don't seemsurprised. The old man grinned. I'm not. I figured it all out years ago. At first, he had wondered what he should do. Would it be better tothrow them into a futile panic by telling them or to do nothing? Hehad decided on the latter; that was the role they had assigned him—towatch and wait and keep out of things—and that was the role he wouldplay. You knew all the time and you didn't tell us! Raymond spluttered.After we'd been so good to you, making a gentleman out of you insteadof a criminal.... That's right, he snarled, a criminal! An alcoholic,a thief, a derelict! How do you like that? Sounds like a rich, full life, Martin said wistfully. What an exciting existence they must have done him out of! But then, hecouldn't help thinking, he—he and Conrad together, of course—had donethem out of any kind of existence. It wasn't his responsibility,though; he had done nothing but let matters take whatever course wasdestined for them. If only he could be sure that it was the bettercourse, perhaps he wouldn't feel that nagging sense of guilt insidehim. Strange—where, in his hermetic life, could he possibly havedeveloped such a queer thing as a conscience? Then we've wasted all this time, Ninian sobbed, all this energy, allthis money, for nothing! But you were nothing to begin with, Martin told them. And then,after a pause, he added, I only wish I could be sure there had beensome purpose to this. He didn't know whether it was approaching death that dimmed his sight,or whether the frightened crowd that pressed around him was growingshadowy. I wish I could feel that some good had been done in letting you bewiped out of existence, he went on voicing his thoughts. But I knowthat the same thing that happened to your worlds and my world willhappen all over again. To other people, in other times, but again. It'sbound to happen. There isn't any hope for humanity. One man couldn't really change the course of human history, he toldhimself. Two men, that was—one real, one a shadow. Conrad came close to the old man's bed. He was almost transparent. No, he said, there is hope. They didn't know the time transmitterworks two ways. I used it for going into the past only once—just thisonce. But I've gone into the future with it many times. And— hepressed Martin's hand—believe me, what I did—what we did, you andI—serves a purpose. It will change things for the better. Everythingis going to be all right. <doc-sep>Was Conrad telling him the truth, Martin wondered, or was he justgiving the conventional reassurance to the dying? More than that, washe trying to convince himself that what he had done was the rightthing? Every cousin had assured Martin that things were going to be allright. Was Conrad actually different from the rest? His plan had worked and the others' hadn't, but then all his plan hadconsisted of was doing nothing. That was all he and Martin had done ...nothing. Were they absolved of all responsibility merely because theyhad stood aside and taken advantage of the others' weaknesses? Why, Martin said to himself, in a sense, it could be said that Ihave fulfilled my original destiny—that I am a criminal. Well, it didn't matter; whatever happened, no one could hold him toblame. He held no stake in the future that was to come. It was othermen's future—other men's problem. He died very peacefully then, and,since he was the only one left on the ship, there was nobody to buryhim. The unmanned yacht drifted about the seas for years and gave rise tomany legends, none of them as unbelievable as the truth. <doc-sep></s>

This story follows the life of Martin from a young boy living in a rough neighborhood to an old man dying aboard an unmanned ship. We first see Martin following the disappearance of his mother - and lack of a father - which are commonplace in the neighborhood he grows up in where the kids rarely attend school and their living conditions are poor. Martin is taken in by a young woman, Ninian, who instructs him to call her Aunt Ninian despite being identified as his future descendant. Ninian has traveled back in time to her great-great-grandfather - Martin - in order to protect him from his future son Conrad. Conrad, described as an idealist, is dismayed by the future generations exploitation of Earth and destructive social order that casts out anyone and everything that doesn't encompass the privileged and elite. To correct the wrongdoings of the future, Conrad plans to kill Martin. The rest of Conrad’s cousins intercept this plan and instead, all decide to travel into the past to accompany Martin and protect him from an assassination attempt. Martin’s formative years are accompanied by Ninian, Raymond and Ives where he picks up art as a career, forms impersonal relationships with his descendants and learns more about the past and future quality of life. As years pass with no threat of Conrad in sight, Martin begins to explore his world alongside Ives on a yacht named The Interregnum. Soon though, the cousins that come and go begin to blur together and Martin picks up a detached view of the world as his interest wanes in his sheltered life. Martin lives to a very old age, and on his deathbed aboard the yacht, he is surrounded by all his descendants besides Ives, who passed of sickness earlier before. It is at this moment that Conrad appears, seemingly to finish his murder plot. However, it is revealed that no action was required to be taken by Conrad, as his fellow cousins have already achieved the mission of erasing their lineage. By containing Martin to a sheltered life, the cousins prevented Martin from living his normal life with a wife and kids, thus removing the possibility of their existence in the past, present and future. Furthermore, it is revealed that Martin had come to the same conclusion years ago, and chose instead to keep quiet out of his disdain for his descendants. With the cousins horrified at the knowledge, Conrad reassures Martin that their inaction resulted in hope, and Martin ponders to wonder if the assurance was genuine as he peacefully dies alone on the boat.

<s> THE MAN OUTSIDE By EVELYN E. SMITH Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No one, least of all Martin, could dispute that a man's life should be guarded by his kin—but by those who hadn't been born yet? Nobody in the neighborhood was surprised when Martin's motherdisappeared and Ninian came to take care of him. Mothers had a wayof disappearing around those parts and the kids were often betteroff without them. Martin was no exception. He'd never had it thisgood while he was living with his old lady. As for his father, Martinhad never had one. He'd been a war baby, born of one of the tides ofsoldiers—enemies and allies, both—that had engulfed the country insuccessive waves and bought or taken the women. So there was no troublethat way. Sometimes he wondered who Ninian really was. Obviously that storyabout her coming from the future was just a gag. Besides, if she reallywas his great-great-grand-daughter, as she said, why would she tellhim to call her Aunt Ninian ? Maybe he was only eleven, but he'dbeen around and he knew just what the score was. At first he'd thoughtmaybe she was some new kind of social worker, but she acted a littletoo crazy for that. He loved to bait her, as he had loved to bait his mother. It was saferwith Ninian, though, because when he pushed her too far, she would cryinstead of mopping up the floor with him. But I can't understand, he would say, keeping his face straight. Whydo you have to come from the future to protect me against your cousinConrad? Because he's coming to kill you. Why should he kill me? I ain't done him nothing. Ninian sighed. He's dissatisfied with the current social order andkilling you is part of an elaborate plan he's formulated to change it.You wouldn't understand. You're damn right. I don't understand. What's it all about instraight gas? Oh, just don't ask any questions, Ninian said petulantly. When youget older, someone will explain the whole thing to you. <doc-sep>So Martin held his peace, because, on the whole, he liked things theway they were. Ninian really was the limit, though. All the people heknew lived in scabrous tenement apartments like his, but she seemed tothink it was disgusting. So if you don't like it, clean it up, he suggested. She looked at him as if he were out of his mind. Hire a maid, then! he jeered. And darned if that dope didn't go out and get a woman to come clean upthe place! He was so embarrassed, he didn't even dare show his face inthe streets—especially with the women buttonholing him and demandingto know what gave. They tried talking to Ninian, but she certainly knewhow to give them the cold shoulder. One day the truant officer came to ask why Martin hadn't been comingto school. Very few of the neighborhood kids attended classes veryregularly, so this was just routine. But Ninian didn't know that andshe went into a real tizzy, babbling that Martin had been sick andwould make up the work. Martin nearly did get sick from laughing sohard inside. But he laughed out of the other side of his mouth when she went out andhired a private tutor for him. A tutor—in that neighborhood! Martinhad to beat up every kid on the block before he could walk a stepwithout hearing Fancy Pants! yelled after him. Ninian worried all the time. It wasn't that she cared what these peoplethought of her, for she made no secret of regarding them as littlebetter than animals, but she was shy of attracting attention. Therewere an awful lot of people in that neighborhood who felt exactly thesame way, only she didn't know that, either. She was really prettydumb, Martin thought, for all her fancy lingo. It's so hard to think these things out without any prior practicalapplication to go by, she told him. He nodded, knowing what she meant was that everything was coming outwrong. But he didn't try to help her; he just watched to see whatshe'd do next. Already he had begun to assume the detached role of aspectator. When it became clear that his mother was never going to show up again,Ninian bought one of those smallish, almost identical houses thatmushroom on the fringes of a city after every war, particularly whereintensive bombing has created a number of desirable building sites. This is a much better neighborhood for a boy to grow up in, shedeclared. Besides, it's easier to keep an eye on you here. And keep an eye on him she did—she or a rather foppish young man whocame to stay with them occasionally. Martin was told to call him UncleRaymond. From time to time, there were other visitors—Uncles Ives andBartholomew and Olaf, Aunts Ottillie and Grania and Lalage, and manymore—all cousins to one another, he was told, all descendants of his. <doc-sep>Martin was never left alone for a minute. He wasn't allowed to playwith the other kids in the new neighborhood. Not that their parentswould have let them, anyway. The adults obviously figured that ifa one-car family hired private tutors for their kid, there must besomething pretty wrong with him. So Martin and Ninian were just asconspicuous as before. But he didn't tip her off. She was grown up; shewas supposed to know better than he did. He lived well. He had food to eat that he'd never dreamed of before,warm clothes that no one had ever worn before him. He was surrounded bymore luxury than he knew what to do with. The furniture was the latest New Grand Rapids African modern. Therewere tidy, colorful Picasso and Braque prints on the walls. And everyinch of the floor was modestly covered by carpeting, though the wallswere mostly unabashed glass. There were hot water and heat all the timeand a freezer well stocked with food—somewhat erratically chosen, forNinian didn't know much about meals. The non-glass part of the house was of neat, natural-toned wood, with aneat green lawn in front and a neat parti-colored garden in back. Martin missed the old neighborhood, though. He missed having otherkids to play with. He even missed his mother. Sure, she hadn't givenhim enough to eat and she'd beaten him up so hard sometimes that she'dnearly killed him—but then there had also been times when she'd huggedand kissed him and soaked his collar with her tears. She'd done allshe could for him, supporting him in the only way she knew how—and ifrespectable society didn't like it, the hell with respectable society. From Ninian and her cousins, there was only an impersonal kindness.They made no bones about the fact that they were there only to carryout a rather unpleasant duty. Though they were in the house with him,in their minds and in their talk they were living in another world—aworld of warmth and peace and plenty where nobody worked, except in thegovernment service or the essential professions. And they seemed tothink even that kind of job was pretty low-class, though better thanactually doing anything with the hands. In their world, Martin came to understand, nobody worked with hands;everything was done by machinery. All the people ever did was wearpretty clothes and have good times and eat all they wanted. There wasno devastation, no war, no unhappiness, none of the concomitants ofnormal living. It was then that Martin began to realize that either the whole lot ofthem were insane, or what Ninian had told him at first was the truth.They came from the future. <doc-sep>When Martin was sixteen, Raymond took him aside for the talk Ninian hadpromised five years before. The whole thing's all my brother Conrad's fault. You see, he's anidealist, Raymond explained, pronouncing the last word with distaste. Martin nodded gravely. He was a quiet boy now, his brief past a dim andrather ridiculous memory. Who could ever imagine him robbing a grocerystore or wielding a broken bottle now? He still was rather undersizedand he'd read so much that he'd weakened his eyes and had to wearglasses. His face was pallid, because he spent little time in the sun,and his speech rather overbred, his mentors from the future havingcarefully eradicated all current vulgarities. And Conrad really got upset over the way Earth has been exploitingthe not so intelligent life-forms on the other planets, Raymondcontinued. Which is distressing—though, of course, it's not asif they were people. Besides, the government has been talking aboutpassing laws to do away with the—well, abuses and things like that,and I'm sure someday everything will come out all right. However,Conrad is so impatient. I thought, in your world, machines did all the work, Martin suggested. I've told you—our world is precisely the same as this one! Raymondsnapped. We just come a couple of centuries or so later, that's all.But remember, our interests are identical. We're virtually the samepeople ... although it is amazing what a difference two hundred oddyears of progress and polish can make in a species, isn't it? He continued more mildly: However, even you ought to be able tounderstand that we can't make machinery without metal. We need food.All that sort of thing comes from the out-system planets. And, on thoseworlds, it's far cheaper to use native labor than to ship out all thatexpensive machinery. After all, if we didn't give the natives jobs, howwould they manage to live? How did they live before? Come to think of it, if you don't work, howdo you live now?... I don't mean in the now for me, but the now foryou, Martin explained laboriously. It was so difficult to live in thepast and think in the future. I'm trying to talk to you as if you were an adult, Raymond said, butif you will persist in these childish interruptions— I'm sorry, Martin said. But he wasn't, for by now he had little respect left for any ofhis descendants. They were all exceedingly handsome and cultivatedyoung people, with superior educations, smooth ways of speaking andconsiderable self-confidence, but they just weren't very bright. Andhe had discovered that Raymond was perhaps the most intelligent of thelot. Somewhere in that relatively short span of time, his line or—morefrightening—his race had lost something vital. Unaware of the near-contempt in which his young ancestor held him,Raymond went on blandly: Anyhow, Conrad took it upon himself tofeel particularly guilty, because, he decided, if it hadn't been forthe fact that our great-grandfather discovered the super-drive, wemight never have reached the stars. Which is ridiculous—his feelingguilty, I mean. Perhaps a great-grandfather is responsible for hisgreat-grandchildren, but a great-grandchild can hardly be heldaccountable for his great-grandfather. How about a great-great-grandchild? Martin couldn't help asking. <doc-sep>Raymond flushed a delicate pink. Do you want to hear the rest of thisor don't you? Oh, I do! Martin said. He had pieced the whole thing together forhimself long since, but he wanted to hear how Raymond would put it. Unfortunately, Professor Farkas has just perfected the timetransmitter. Those government scientists are so infernallyofficious—always inventing such senseless things. It's supposed tobe hush-hush, but you know how news will leak out when one is alwaysdesperate for a fresh topic of conversation. Anyhow, Raymond went on to explain, Conrad had bribed one of Farkas'assistants for a set of the plans. Conrad's idea had been to go backin time and eliminate! their common great-grandfather. In that way,there would be no space-drive, and, hence, the Terrestrials would neverget to the other planets and oppress the local aborigines. Sounds like a good way of dealing with the problem, Martin observed. Raymond looked annoyed. It's the adolescent way, he said, to doaway with it, rather than find a solution. Would you destroy a wholesociety in order to root out a single injustice? Not if it were a good one otherwise. Well, there's your answer. Conrad got the apparatus built, or perhapshe built it himself. One doesn't inquire too closely into suchmatters. But when it came to the point, Conrad couldn't bear the ideaof eliminating our great-grandfather—because our great-grandfatherwas such a good man, you know. Raymond's expressive upper lipcurled. So Conrad decided to go further back still and get rid ofhis great-grandfather's father—who'd been, by all accounts, a prettyworthless character. That would be me, I suppose, Martin said quietly. Raymond turned a deep rose. Well, doesn't that just go to prove youmustn't believe everything you hear? The next sentence tumbled out ina rush. I wormed the whole thing out of him and all of us—the othercousins and me—held a council of war, as it were, and we decided itwas our moral duty to go back in time ourselves and protect you. Hebeamed at Martin. The boy smiled slowly. Of course. You had to. If Conrad succeeded in eliminating me, then none of you would exist, would you? Raymond frowned. Then he shrugged cheerfully. Well, you didn't reallysuppose we were going to all this trouble and expense out of sheeraltruism, did you? he asked, turning on the charm which all thecousins possessed to a consternating degree. <doc-sep>Martin had, of course, no illusions on that score; he had learned longago that nobody did anything for nothing. But saying so was unwise. We bribed another set of plans out of another of the professor'sassistants, Raymond continued, as if Martin had answered,and—ah—induced a handicraft enthusiast to build the gadget for us. Induced , Martin knew, could have meant anything from blackmail to theuse of the iron maiden. Then we were all ready to forestall Conrad. If one of us guarded younight and day, he would never be able to carry out his plot. So we madeour counter-plan, set the machine as far back as it would go—and herewe are! I see, Martin said. Raymond didn't seem to think he really did. After all, he pointedout defensively, whatever our motives, it has turned into a goodthing for you. Nice home, cultured companions, all the contemporaryconveniences, plus some handy anachronisms—I don't see what more youcould ask for. You're getting the best of all possible worlds. Ofcourse Ninian was a ninny to locate in a mercantile suburb where anylittle thing out of the way will cause talk. How thankful I am that ourera has completely disposed of the mercantiles— What did you do with them? Martin asked. But Raymond rushed on: Soon as Ninian goes and I'm in full charge,we'll get a more isolated place and run it on a far grander scale.Ostentation—that's the way to live here and now; the richer you are,the more eccentricity you can get away with. And, he added, I mightas well be as comfortable as possible while I suffer through thiswretched historical stint. So Ninian's going, said Martin, wondering why the news made him feelcuriously desolate. Because, although he supposed he liked her in aremote kind of way, he had no fondness for her—or she, he knew, forhim. Well, five years is rather a long stretch for any girl to spend inexile, Raymond explained, even though our life spans are a bit longerthan yours. Besides, you're getting too old now to be under petticoatgovernment. He looked inquisitively at Martin. You're not going togo all weepy and make a scene when she leaves, are you? No.... Martin said hesitantly. Oh, I suppose I will miss her. But wearen't very close, so it won't make a real difference. That was thesad part: he already knew it wouldn't make a difference. Raymond clapped him on the shoulder. I knew you weren't a sloppysentimentalist like Conrad. Though you do have rather a look of him,you know. Suddenly that seemed to make Conrad real. Martin felt a vague stirringof alarm. He kept his voice composed, however. How do you plan toprotect me when he comes? Well, each one of us is armed to the teeth, of course, Raymond saidwith modest pride, displaying something that looked like a child'scombination spaceman's gun and death ray, but which, Martin had nodoubt, was a perfectly genuine—and lethal—weapon. And we've got arather elaborate burglar alarm system. Martin inspected the system and made one or two changes in the wiringwhich, he felt, would increase its efficiency. But still he wasdubious. Maybe it'll work on someone coming from outside this house ,but do you think it will work on someone coming from outside this time ? Never fear—it has a temporal radius, Raymond replied. Factoryguarantee and all that. Just to be on the safe side, Martin said, I think I'd better haveone of those guns, too. A splendid idea! enthused Raymond. I was just about to think of thatmyself! <doc-sep>When it came time for the parting, it was Ninian who cried—tears ather own inadequacy, Martin knew, not of sorrow. He was getting skillfulat understanding his descendants, far better than they at understandinghim. But then they never really tried. Ninian kissed him wetly on thecheek and said she was sure everything would work out all right andthat she'd come see him again. She never did, though, except at thevery last. Raymond and Martin moved into a luxurious mansion in a remote area. Thesite proved a well-chosen one; when the Second Atomic War came, half adozen years later, they weren't touched. Martin was never sure whetherthis had been sheer luck or expert planning. Probably luck, because hisdescendants were exceedingly inept planners. Few people in the world then could afford to live as stylishly asMartin and his guardian. The place not only contained every possibleconvenience and gadget but was crammed with bibelots and antiques,carefully chosen by Raymond and disputed by Martin, for, to the manfrom the future, all available artifacts were antiques. Otherwise,Martin accepted his new surroundings. His sense of wonder had becomedulled by now and the pink pseudo-Spanish castle—architecturallydreadful, of course, Raymond had said, but so hilariouslytypical—impressed him far less than had the suburban split-levelaquarium. How about a moat? Martin suggested when they first came. It seems togo with a castle. Do you think a moat could stop Conrad? Raymond asked, amused. No, Martin smiled, feeling rather silly, but it would make the placeseem safer somehow. The threat of Conrad was beginning to make him grow more and morenervous. He got Raymond's permission to take two suits of armor thatstood in the front hall and present them to a local museum, becauseseveral times he fancied he saw them move. He also became an adept withthe ray gun and changed the surrounding landscape quite a bit with it,until Raymond warned that this might lead Conrad to them. During those early years, Martin's tutors were exchanged for thehigher-degreed ones that were now needful. The question inevitablyarose of what the youth's vocation in that life was going to be. Atleast twenty of the cousins came back through time to hold one oftheir vigorous family councils. Martin was still young enough to enjoysuch occasions, finding them vastly superior to all other forms ofentertainment. <doc-sep>This sort of problem wouldn't arise in our day, Martin, Raymondcommented as he took his place at the head of the table, because,unless one specifically feels a call to some profession or other, onejust—well, drifts along happily. Ours is a wonderful world, Grania sighed at Martin. I only wish wecould take you there. I'm sure you would like it. Don't be a fool, Grania! Raymond snapped. Well, Martin, have youmade up your mind what you want to be? Martin affected to think. A physicist, he said, not without malice.Or perhaps an engineer. There was a loud, excited chorus of dissent. He chuckled inwardly. Can't do that, Ives said. Might pick up some concepts from us. Don'tknow how; none of us knows a thing about science. But it could happen.Subconscious osmosis, if there is such a thing. That way, you mightinvent something ahead of time. And the fellow we got the plans fromparticularly cautioned us against that. Changing history. Dangerous. Might mess up our time frightfully, Bartholomew contributed, though,to be perfectly frank, I can't quite understand how. I am not going to sit down and explain the whole thing to you all overagain, Bart! Raymond said impatiently. Well, Martin? What would you suggest? Martin asked. How about becoming a painter? Art is eternal. And quite gentlemanly.Besides, artists are always expected to be either behind or ahead oftheir times. Furthermore, Ottillie added, one more artist couldn't make muchdifference in history. There were so many of them all through the ages. Martin couldn't hold back his question. What was I, actually, in thatother time? There was a chilly silence. Let's not talk about it, dear, Lalage finally said. Let's just bethankful we've saved you from that ! So drawing teachers were engaged and Martin became a very competentsecond-rate artist. He knew he would never be able to achieve firstrank because, even though he was still so young, his work was almostpurely intellectual. The only emotion he seemed able to feel wasfear—the ever-present fear that someday he would turn a corridor andwalk into a man who looked like him—a man who wanted to kill him forthe sake of an ideal. But the fear did not show in Martin's pictures. They were prettypictures. <doc-sep>Cousin Ives—now that Martin was older, he was told to call thedescendants cousin —next assumed guardianship. Ives took hisresponsibilities more seriously than the others did. He even arrangedto have Martin's work shown at an art gallery. The paintings receivedcritical approval, but failed to evoke any enthusiasm. The modestsale they enjoyed was mostly to interior decorators. Museums were notinterested. Takes time, Ives tried to reassure him. One day they'll be buyingyour pictures, Martin. Wait and see. Ives was the only one of the descendants who seemed to think of Martinas an individual. When his efforts to make contact with the other youngman failed, he got worried and decided that what Martin needed was achange of air and scenery. 'Course you can't go on the Grand Tour. Your son hasn't inventedspace travel yet. But we can go see this world. What's left of it.Tourists always like ruins best, anyway. So he drew on the family's vast future resources and bought a yacht,which Martin christened The Interregnum . They traveled about from seato ocean and from ocean to sea, touching at various ports and makingtrips inland. Martin saw the civilized world—mostly in fragments; thenearly intact semi-civilized world and the uncivilized world, much thesame as it had been for centuries. It was like visiting an enormousmuseum; he couldn't seem to identify with his own time any more. The other cousins appeared to find the yacht a congenial head-quarters,largely because they could spend so much time far away from thecontemporary inhabitants of the planet and relax and be themselves. Sothey never moved back to land. Martin spent the rest of his life on The Interregnum . He felt curiously safer from Conrad there, althoughthere was no valid reason why an ocean should stop a traveler throughtime. More cousins were in residence at once than ever before, becausethey came for the ocean voyage. They spent most of their time aboardship, giving each other parties and playing an avant-garde form ofshuffleboard and gambling on future sporting events. That last usuallyended in a brawl, because one cousin was sure to accuse another ofhaving got advance information about the results. Martin didn't care much for their company and associated with them onlywhen not to have done so would have been palpably rude. And, thoughthey were gregarious young people for the most part, they didn't courthis society. He suspected that he made them feel uncomfortable. <doc-sep>He rather liked Ives, though. Sometimes the two of them would be alonetogether; then Ives would tell Martin of the future world he had comefrom. The picture drawn by Raymond and Ninian had not been entirelyaccurate, Ives admitted. True, there was no war or poverty on Earthproper, but that was because there were only a couple of million peopleleft on the planet. It was an enclave for the highly privileged, highlyinterbred aristocracy, to which Martin's descendants belonged by virtueof their distinguished ancestry. Rather feudal, isn't it? Martin asked. Ives agreed, adding that the system had, however, been deliberatelyplanned, rather than the result of haphazard natural development.Everything potentially unpleasant, like the mercantiles, had beendeported. Not only natives livin' on the other worlds, Ives said as the twoof them stood at the ship's rail, surrounded by the limitless expanseof some ocean or other. People, too. Mostly lower classes, exceptfor officials and things. With wars and want and suffering, he addedregretfully, same as in your day.... Like now, I mean, he correctedhimself. Maybe it is worse, the way Conrad thinks. More planetsfor us to make trouble on. Three that were habitable aren't any more.Bombed. Very thorough job. Oh, Martin murmured, trying to sound shocked, horrified—interested,even. Sometimes I'm not altogether sure Conrad was wrong, Ives said, aftera pause. Tried to keep us from getting to the stars, hurting thepeople—I expect you could call them people—there. Still— he smiledshamefacedly—couldn't stand by and see my own way of life destroyed,could I? I suppose not, Martin said. Would take moral courage. I don't have it. None of us does, exceptConrad, and even he— Ives looked out over the sea. Must be a betterway out than Conrad's, he said without conviction. And everythingwill work out all right in the end. Bound to. No sense to—to anything,if it doesn't. He glanced wistfully at Martin. I hope so, said Martin. But he couldn't hope; he couldn't feel; hecouldn't even seem to care. During all this time, Conrad still did not put in an appearance. Martinhad gotten to be such a crack shot with the ray pistol that he almostwished his descendant would show up, so there would be some excitement.But he didn't come. And Martin got to thinking.... He always felt that if any of the cousins could have come to realizethe basic flaw in the elaborate plan they had concocted, it would havebeen Ives. However, when the yacht touched at Tierra del Fuego onebitter winter, Ives took a severe chill. They sent for a doctor fromthe future—one of the descendants who had been eccentric enough totake a medical degree—but he wasn't able to save Ives. The body wasburied in the frozen ground at Ushuaia, on the southern tip of thecontinent, a hundred years or more before the date of his birth. A great many of the cousins turned up at the simple ceremony. All weredressed in overwhelming black and showed a great deal of grief. Raymondread the burial service, because they didn't dare summon a clericalcousin from the future; they were afraid he might prove rather stuffyabout the entire undertaking. He died for all of us, Raymond concluded his funeral eulogy overIves, so his death was not in vain. But Martin disagreed. <doc-sep>The ceaseless voyaging began again. The Interregnum voyaged to everyocean and every sea. Some were blue and some green and some dun. Aftera while, Martin couldn't tell one from another. Cousin after cousincame to watch over him and eventually they were as hard for him to tellapart as the different oceans. All the cousins were young, for, though they came at different times inhis life, they had all started out from the same time in theirs. Onlythe young ones had been included in the venture; they did not trusttheir elders. As the years went by, Martin began to lose even his detached interestin the land and its doings. Although the yacht frequently touched portfor fuel or supplies—it was more economical to purchase them in thatera than to have them shipped from the future—he seldom went ashore,and then only at the urging of a newly assigned cousin anxious to seethe sights. Most of the time Martin spent in watching the sea—andsometimes he painted it. There seemed to be a depth to his seascapesthat his other work lacked. When he was pressed by the current cousin to make a land visitsomewhere, he decided to exhibit a few of his sea paintings. That way,he could fool himself into thinking that there was some purpose to thisjourney. He'd come to believe that perhaps what his life lacked waspurpose, and for a while he kept looking for meaning everywhere, to thecousin's utter disgust. Eat, drink and be merry, or whatever you Romans say when you do as youdo, the cousin—who was rather woolly in history; the descendants werescraping bottom now—advised. Martin showed his work in Italy, so that the cousin could bedisillusioned by the current crop of Romans. He found that neitherpurpose nor malice was enough; he was still immeasurably bored.However, a museum bought two of the paintings. Martin thought of Ivesand felt an uncomfortable pang of a sensation he could no longerunderstand. Where do you suppose Conrad has been all this time? Martin idly askedthe current cousin—who was passing as his nephew by now. The young man jumped, then glanced around him uncomfortably. Conrad'sa very shrewd fellow, he whispered. He's biding his time—waitinguntil we're off guard. And then—pow!—he'll attack! Oh, I see, Martin said. He had often fancied that Conrad would prove to be the most stimulatingmember of the whole generation. But it seemed unlikely that he wouldever have a chance for a conversation with the young man. More than oneconversation, anyhow. When he does show up, I'll protect you, the cousin vowed, touchinghis ray gun. You haven't a thing to worry about. Martin smiled with all the charm he'd had nothing to do but acquire. Ihave every confidence in you, he told his descendant. He himself hadgiven up carrying a gun long ago. There was a war in the Northern Hemisphere and so The Interregnum voyaged to southern waters. There was a war in the south and they hidout in the Arctic. All the nations became too drained of power—fueland man and will—to fight, so there was a sterile peace for a longtime. The Interregnum roamed the seas restlessly, with her load ofpassengers from the future, plus one bored and aging contemporary. Shebore big guns now, because of the ever-present danger of pirates. <doc-sep>Perhaps it was the traditionally bracing effect of sea air—perhaps itwas the sheltered life—but Martin lived to be a very old man. He was ahundred and four when his last illness came. It was a great relief whenthe family doctor, called in again from the future, said there was nohope. Martin didn't think he could have borne another year of life. All the cousins gathered at the yacht to pay their last respects totheir progenitor. He saw Ninian again, after all these years, andRaymond—all the others, dozens of them, thronging around his bed,spilling out of the cabin and into the passageways and out onto thedeck, making their usual clamor, even though their voices were hushed. Only Ives was missing. He'd been the lucky one, Martin knew. He hadbeen spared the tragedy that was going to befall these blooming youngpeople—all the same age as when Martin had last seen them and doomednever to grow any older. Underneath their masks of woe, he could seerelief at the thought that at last they were going to be rid of theirresponsibility. And underneath Martin's death mask lay an impersonalpity for those poor, stupid descendants of his who had blundered soirretrievably. There was only one face which Martin had never seen before. It wasn'ta strange face, however, because Martin had seen one very like it inthe looking glass when he was a young man. You must be Conrad, Martin called across the cabin in a voice thatwas still clear. I've been looking forward to meeting you for sometime. The other cousins whirled to face the newcomer. You're too late, Con, Raymond gloated for the whole generation. He'slived out his life. But he hasn't lived out his life, Conrad contradicted. He's livedout the life you created for him. And for yourselves, too. For the first time, Martin saw compassion in the eyes of one of hislineage and found it vaguely disturbing. It didn't seem to belong there. Don't you realize even yet, Conrad went on, that as soon as he goes,you'll go, too—present, past, future, wherever you are, you'll go upin the air like puffs of smoke? What do you mean? Ninian quavered, her soft, pretty face alarmed. Martin answered Conrad's rueful smile, but left the explanations up tohim. It was his show, after all. Because you will never have existed, Conrad said. You have no rightto existence; it was you yourselves who watched him all the time,so he didn't have a chance to lead a normal life, get married, havechildren .... <doc-sep>Most of the cousins gasped as the truth began to percolate through. I knew from the very beginning, Conrad finished, that I didn'thave to do anything at all. I just had to wait and you would destroyyourselves. I don't understand, Bartholomew protested, searching the faces of thecousins closest to him. What does he mean, we have never existed?We're here, aren't we? What— Shut up! Raymond snapped. He turned on Martin. You don't seemsurprised. The old man grinned. I'm not. I figured it all out years ago. At first, he had wondered what he should do. Would it be better tothrow them into a futile panic by telling them or to do nothing? Hehad decided on the latter; that was the role they had assigned him—towatch and wait and keep out of things—and that was the role he wouldplay. You knew all the time and you didn't tell us! Raymond spluttered.After we'd been so good to you, making a gentleman out of you insteadof a criminal.... That's right, he snarled, a criminal! An alcoholic,a thief, a derelict! How do you like that? Sounds like a rich, full life, Martin said wistfully. What an exciting existence they must have done him out of! But then, hecouldn't help thinking, he—he and Conrad together, of course—had donethem out of any kind of existence. It wasn't his responsibility,though; he had done nothing but let matters take whatever course wasdestined for them. If only he could be sure that it was the bettercourse, perhaps he wouldn't feel that nagging sense of guilt insidehim. Strange—where, in his hermetic life, could he possibly havedeveloped such a queer thing as a conscience? Then we've wasted all this time, Ninian sobbed, all this energy, allthis money, for nothing! But you were nothing to begin with, Martin told them. And then,after a pause, he added, I only wish I could be sure there had beensome purpose to this. He didn't know whether it was approaching death that dimmed his sight,or whether the frightened crowd that pressed around him was growingshadowy. I wish I could feel that some good had been done in letting you bewiped out of existence, he went on voicing his thoughts. But I knowthat the same thing that happened to your worlds and my world willhappen all over again. To other people, in other times, but again. It'sbound to happen. There isn't any hope for humanity. One man couldn't really change the course of human history, he toldhimself. Two men, that was—one real, one a shadow. Conrad came close to the old man's bed. He was almost transparent. No, he said, there is hope. They didn't know the time transmitterworks two ways. I used it for going into the past only once—just thisonce. But I've gone into the future with it many times. And— hepressed Martin's hand—believe me, what I did—what we did, you andI—serves a purpose. It will change things for the better. Everythingis going to be all right. <doc-sep>Was Conrad telling him the truth, Martin wondered, or was he justgiving the conventional reassurance to the dying? More than that, washe trying to convince himself that what he had done was the rightthing? Every cousin had assured Martin that things were going to be allright. Was Conrad actually different from the rest? His plan had worked and the others' hadn't, but then all his plan hadconsisted of was doing nothing. That was all he and Martin had done ...nothing. Were they absolved of all responsibility merely because theyhad stood aside and taken advantage of the others' weaknesses? Why, Martin said to himself, in a sense, it could be said that Ihave fulfilled my original destiny—that I am a criminal. Well, it didn't matter; whatever happened, no one could hold him toblame. He held no stake in the future that was to come. It was othermen's future—other men's problem. He died very peacefully then, and,since he was the only one left on the ship, there was nobody to buryhim. The unmanned yacht drifted about the seas for years and gave rise tomany legends, none of them as unbelievable as the truth. <doc-sep></s>

Cousin Ives enters Martin’s life when he is a little older, and is the third descendant to accompany him as his guardian. Out of all his descendants to assume guardianship, Martin forms the closest relationship with Ives. Rather than seeing Martin as a responsibility and duty, Ives sees Martin as an individual and seeks ways to connect and encourage his passions. For one, Ives buys a yacht named The Interregnum to which the pair take upon themselves to explore the current world in. They traveled across the waters and inland to see both the civilized and uncivilized world, with Martin taking it all in. When it was just the two of them, their relationship progressed further. Ives began to open up about the future world that he and his descendants come from and explain the nuances of the social order that rules. Ives is the first to explicitly and honestly describe the feudal and privileged social class that Martin’s descendants take part in, only due to their fortunate ancestry. Additionally, Ives is the only cousin to admit the potential truth in Conrad’s intentions, noting the dilemma between achieving moral good and selfishing maintaining their own good life. Martin even comments his confidence in Ives being able to see the obvious flaw in the cousins’ plans. However, during one winter, Ives fell ill to a severe chill and passed away before his own birth. After Ives’ death, Martin relently voyages across oceans and soon as they and the cousins blur, he begins to live detachedly.

<s> THE MAN OUTSIDE By EVELYN E. SMITH Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No one, least of all Martin, could dispute that a man's life should be guarded by his kin—but by those who hadn't been born yet? Nobody in the neighborhood was surprised when Martin's motherdisappeared and Ninian came to take care of him. Mothers had a wayof disappearing around those parts and the kids were often betteroff without them. Martin was no exception. He'd never had it thisgood while he was living with his old lady. As for his father, Martinhad never had one. He'd been a war baby, born of one of the tides ofsoldiers—enemies and allies, both—that had engulfed the country insuccessive waves and bought or taken the women. So there was no troublethat way. Sometimes he wondered who Ninian really was. Obviously that storyabout her coming from the future was just a gag. Besides, if she reallywas his great-great-grand-daughter, as she said, why would she tellhim to call her Aunt Ninian ? Maybe he was only eleven, but he'dbeen around and he knew just what the score was. At first he'd thoughtmaybe she was some new kind of social worker, but she acted a littletoo crazy for that. He loved to bait her, as he had loved to bait his mother. It was saferwith Ninian, though, because when he pushed her too far, she would cryinstead of mopping up the floor with him. But I can't understand, he would say, keeping his face straight. Whydo you have to come from the future to protect me against your cousinConrad? Because he's coming to kill you. Why should he kill me? I ain't done him nothing. Ninian sighed. He's dissatisfied with the current social order andkilling you is part of an elaborate plan he's formulated to change it.You wouldn't understand. You're damn right. I don't understand. What's it all about instraight gas? Oh, just don't ask any questions, Ninian said petulantly. When youget older, someone will explain the whole thing to you. <doc-sep>So Martin held his peace, because, on the whole, he liked things theway they were. Ninian really was the limit, though. All the people heknew lived in scabrous tenement apartments like his, but she seemed tothink it was disgusting. So if you don't like it, clean it up, he suggested. She looked at him as if he were out of his mind. Hire a maid, then! he jeered. And darned if that dope didn't go out and get a woman to come clean upthe place! He was so embarrassed, he didn't even dare show his face inthe streets—especially with the women buttonholing him and demandingto know what gave. They tried talking to Ninian, but she certainly knewhow to give them the cold shoulder. One day the truant officer came to ask why Martin hadn't been comingto school. Very few of the neighborhood kids attended classes veryregularly, so this was just routine. But Ninian didn't know that andshe went into a real tizzy, babbling that Martin had been sick andwould make up the work. Martin nearly did get sick from laughing sohard inside. But he laughed out of the other side of his mouth when she went out andhired a private tutor for him. A tutor—in that neighborhood! Martinhad to beat up every kid on the block before he could walk a stepwithout hearing Fancy Pants! yelled after him. Ninian worried all the time. It wasn't that she cared what these peoplethought of her, for she made no secret of regarding them as littlebetter than animals, but she was shy of attracting attention. Therewere an awful lot of people in that neighborhood who felt exactly thesame way, only she didn't know that, either. She was really prettydumb, Martin thought, for all her fancy lingo. It's so hard to think these things out without any prior practicalapplication to go by, she told him. He nodded, knowing what she meant was that everything was coming outwrong. But he didn't try to help her; he just watched to see whatshe'd do next. Already he had begun to assume the detached role of aspectator. When it became clear that his mother was never going to show up again,Ninian bought one of those smallish, almost identical houses thatmushroom on the fringes of a city after every war, particularly whereintensive bombing has created a number of desirable building sites. This is a much better neighborhood for a boy to grow up in, shedeclared. Besides, it's easier to keep an eye on you here. And keep an eye on him she did—she or a rather foppish young man whocame to stay with them occasionally. Martin was told to call him UncleRaymond. From time to time, there were other visitors—Uncles Ives andBartholomew and Olaf, Aunts Ottillie and Grania and Lalage, and manymore—all cousins to one another, he was told, all descendants of his. <doc-sep>Martin was never left alone for a minute. He wasn't allowed to playwith the other kids in the new neighborhood. Not that their parentswould have let them, anyway. The adults obviously figured that ifa one-car family hired private tutors for their kid, there must besomething pretty wrong with him. So Martin and Ninian were just asconspicuous as before. But he didn't tip her off. She was grown up; shewas supposed to know better than he did. He lived well. He had food to eat that he'd never dreamed of before,warm clothes that no one had ever worn before him. He was surrounded bymore luxury than he knew what to do with. The furniture was the latest New Grand Rapids African modern. Therewere tidy, colorful Picasso and Braque prints on the walls. And everyinch of the floor was modestly covered by carpeting, though the wallswere mostly unabashed glass. There were hot water and heat all the timeand a freezer well stocked with food—somewhat erratically chosen, forNinian didn't know much about meals. The non-glass part of the house was of neat, natural-toned wood, with aneat green lawn in front and a neat parti-colored garden in back. Martin missed the old neighborhood, though. He missed having otherkids to play with. He even missed his mother. Sure, she hadn't givenhim enough to eat and she'd beaten him up so hard sometimes that she'dnearly killed him—but then there had also been times when she'd huggedand kissed him and soaked his collar with her tears. She'd done allshe could for him, supporting him in the only way she knew how—and ifrespectable society didn't like it, the hell with respectable society. From Ninian and her cousins, there was only an impersonal kindness.They made no bones about the fact that they were there only to carryout a rather unpleasant duty. Though they were in the house with him,in their minds and in their talk they were living in another world—aworld of warmth and peace and plenty where nobody worked, except in thegovernment service or the essential professions. And they seemed tothink even that kind of job was pretty low-class, though better thanactually doing anything with the hands. In their world, Martin came to understand, nobody worked with hands;everything was done by machinery. All the people ever did was wearpretty clothes and have good times and eat all they wanted. There wasno devastation, no war, no unhappiness, none of the concomitants ofnormal living. It was then that Martin began to realize that either the whole lot ofthem were insane, or what Ninian had told him at first was the truth.They came from the future. <doc-sep>When Martin was sixteen, Raymond took him aside for the talk Ninian hadpromised five years before. The whole thing's all my brother Conrad's fault. You see, he's anidealist, Raymond explained, pronouncing the last word with distaste. Martin nodded gravely. He was a quiet boy now, his brief past a dim andrather ridiculous memory. Who could ever imagine him robbing a grocerystore or wielding a broken bottle now? He still was rather undersizedand he'd read so much that he'd weakened his eyes and had to wearglasses. His face was pallid, because he spent little time in the sun,and his speech rather overbred, his mentors from the future havingcarefully eradicated all current vulgarities. And Conrad really got upset over the way Earth has been exploitingthe not so intelligent life-forms on the other planets, Raymondcontinued. Which is distressing—though, of course, it's not asif they were people. Besides, the government has been talking aboutpassing laws to do away with the—well, abuses and things like that,and I'm sure someday everything will come out all right. However,Conrad is so impatient. I thought, in your world, machines did all the work, Martin suggested. I've told you—our world is precisely the same as this one! Raymondsnapped. We just come a couple of centuries or so later, that's all.But remember, our interests are identical. We're virtually the samepeople ... although it is amazing what a difference two hundred oddyears of progress and polish can make in a species, isn't it? He continued more mildly: However, even you ought to be able tounderstand that we can't make machinery without metal. We need food.All that sort of thing comes from the out-system planets. And, on thoseworlds, it's far cheaper to use native labor than to ship out all thatexpensive machinery. After all, if we didn't give the natives jobs, howwould they manage to live? How did they live before? Come to think of it, if you don't work, howdo you live now?... I don't mean in the now for me, but the now foryou, Martin explained laboriously. It was so difficult to live in thepast and think in the future. I'm trying to talk to you as if you were an adult, Raymond said, butif you will persist in these childish interruptions— I'm sorry, Martin said. But he wasn't, for by now he had little respect left for any ofhis descendants. They were all exceedingly handsome and cultivatedyoung people, with superior educations, smooth ways of speaking andconsiderable self-confidence, but they just weren't very bright. Andhe had discovered that Raymond was perhaps the most intelligent of thelot. Somewhere in that relatively short span of time, his line or—morefrightening—his race had lost something vital. Unaware of the near-contempt in which his young ancestor held him,Raymond went on blandly: Anyhow, Conrad took it upon himself tofeel particularly guilty, because, he decided, if it hadn't been forthe fact that our great-grandfather discovered the super-drive, wemight never have reached the stars. Which is ridiculous—his feelingguilty, I mean. Perhaps a great-grandfather is responsible for hisgreat-grandchildren, but a great-grandchild can hardly be heldaccountable for his great-grandfather. How about a great-great-grandchild? Martin couldn't help asking. <doc-sep>Raymond flushed a delicate pink. Do you want to hear the rest of thisor don't you? Oh, I do! Martin said. He had pieced the whole thing together forhimself long since, but he wanted to hear how Raymond would put it. Unfortunately, Professor Farkas has just perfected the timetransmitter. Those government scientists are so infernallyofficious—always inventing such senseless things. It's supposed tobe hush-hush, but you know how news will leak out when one is alwaysdesperate for a fresh topic of conversation. Anyhow, Raymond went on to explain, Conrad had bribed one of Farkas'assistants for a set of the plans. Conrad's idea had been to go backin time and eliminate! their common great-grandfather. In that way,there would be no space-drive, and, hence, the Terrestrials would neverget to the other planets and oppress the local aborigines. Sounds like a good way of dealing with the problem, Martin observed. Raymond looked annoyed. It's the adolescent way, he said, to doaway with it, rather than find a solution. Would you destroy a wholesociety in order to root out a single injustice? Not if it were a good one otherwise. Well, there's your answer. Conrad got the apparatus built, or perhapshe built it himself. One doesn't inquire too closely into suchmatters. But when it came to the point, Conrad couldn't bear the ideaof eliminating our great-grandfather—because our great-grandfatherwas such a good man, you know. Raymond's expressive upper lipcurled. So Conrad decided to go further back still and get rid ofhis great-grandfather's father—who'd been, by all accounts, a prettyworthless character. That would be me, I suppose, Martin said quietly. Raymond turned a deep rose. Well, doesn't that just go to prove youmustn't believe everything you hear? The next sentence tumbled out ina rush. I wormed the whole thing out of him and all of us—the othercousins and me—held a council of war, as it were, and we decided itwas our moral duty to go back in time ourselves and protect you. Hebeamed at Martin. The boy smiled slowly. Of course. You had to. If Conrad succeeded in eliminating me, then none of you would exist, would you? Raymond frowned. Then he shrugged cheerfully. Well, you didn't reallysuppose we were going to all this trouble and expense out of sheeraltruism, did you? he asked, turning on the charm which all thecousins possessed to a consternating degree. <doc-sep>Martin had, of course, no illusions on that score; he had learned longago that nobody did anything for nothing. But saying so was unwise. We bribed another set of plans out of another of the professor'sassistants, Raymond continued, as if Martin had answered,and—ah—induced a handicraft enthusiast to build the gadget for us. Induced , Martin knew, could have meant anything from blackmail to theuse of the iron maiden. Then we were all ready to forestall Conrad. If one of us guarded younight and day, he would never be able to carry out his plot. So we madeour counter-plan, set the machine as far back as it would go—and herewe are! I see, Martin said. Raymond didn't seem to think he really did. After all, he pointedout defensively, whatever our motives, it has turned into a goodthing for you. Nice home, cultured companions, all the contemporaryconveniences, plus some handy anachronisms—I don't see what more youcould ask for. You're getting the best of all possible worlds. Ofcourse Ninian was a ninny to locate in a mercantile suburb where anylittle thing out of the way will cause talk. How thankful I am that ourera has completely disposed of the mercantiles— What did you do with them? Martin asked. But Raymond rushed on: Soon as Ninian goes and I'm in full charge,we'll get a more isolated place and run it on a far grander scale.Ostentation—that's the way to live here and now; the richer you are,the more eccentricity you can get away with. And, he added, I mightas well be as comfortable as possible while I suffer through thiswretched historical stint. So Ninian's going, said Martin, wondering why the news made him feelcuriously desolate. Because, although he supposed he liked her in aremote kind of way, he had no fondness for her—or she, he knew, forhim. Well, five years is rather a long stretch for any girl to spend inexile, Raymond explained, even though our life spans are a bit longerthan yours. Besides, you're getting too old now to be under petticoatgovernment. He looked inquisitively at Martin. You're not going togo all weepy and make a scene when she leaves, are you? No.... Martin said hesitantly. Oh, I suppose I will miss her. But wearen't very close, so it won't make a real difference. That was thesad part: he already knew it wouldn't make a difference. Raymond clapped him on the shoulder. I knew you weren't a sloppysentimentalist like Conrad. Though you do have rather a look of him,you know. Suddenly that seemed to make Conrad real. Martin felt a vague stirringof alarm. He kept his voice composed, however. How do you plan toprotect me when he comes? Well, each one of us is armed to the teeth, of course, Raymond saidwith modest pride, displaying something that looked like a child'scombination spaceman's gun and death ray, but which, Martin had nodoubt, was a perfectly genuine—and lethal—weapon. And we've got arather elaborate burglar alarm system. Martin inspected the system and made one or two changes in the wiringwhich, he felt, would increase its efficiency. But still he wasdubious. Maybe it'll work on someone coming from outside this house ,but do you think it will work on someone coming from outside this time ? Never fear—it has a temporal radius, Raymond replied. Factoryguarantee and all that. Just to be on the safe side, Martin said, I think I'd better haveone of those guns, too. A splendid idea! enthused Raymond. I was just about to think of thatmyself! <doc-sep>When it came time for the parting, it was Ninian who cried—tears ather own inadequacy, Martin knew, not of sorrow. He was getting skillfulat understanding his descendants, far better than they at understandinghim. But then they never really tried. Ninian kissed him wetly on thecheek and said she was sure everything would work out all right andthat she'd come see him again. She never did, though, except at thevery last. Raymond and Martin moved into a luxurious mansion in a remote area. Thesite proved a well-chosen one; when the Second Atomic War came, half adozen years later, they weren't touched. Martin was never sure whetherthis had been sheer luck or expert planning. Probably luck, because hisdescendants were exceedingly inept planners. Few people in the world then could afford to live as stylishly asMartin and his guardian. The place not only contained every possibleconvenience and gadget but was crammed with bibelots and antiques,carefully chosen by Raymond and disputed by Martin, for, to the manfrom the future, all available artifacts were antiques. Otherwise,Martin accepted his new surroundings. His sense of wonder had becomedulled by now and the pink pseudo-Spanish castle—architecturallydreadful, of course, Raymond had said, but so hilariouslytypical—impressed him far less than had the suburban split-levelaquarium. How about a moat? Martin suggested when they first came. It seems togo with a castle. Do you think a moat could stop Conrad? Raymond asked, amused. No, Martin smiled, feeling rather silly, but it would make the placeseem safer somehow. The threat of Conrad was beginning to make him grow more and morenervous. He got Raymond's permission to take two suits of armor thatstood in the front hall and present them to a local museum, becauseseveral times he fancied he saw them move. He also became an adept withthe ray gun and changed the surrounding landscape quite a bit with it,until Raymond warned that this might lead Conrad to them. During those early years, Martin's tutors were exchanged for thehigher-degreed ones that were now needful. The question inevitablyarose of what the youth's vocation in that life was going to be. Atleast twenty of the cousins came back through time to hold one oftheir vigorous family councils. Martin was still young enough to enjoysuch occasions, finding them vastly superior to all other forms ofentertainment. <doc-sep>This sort of problem wouldn't arise in our day, Martin, Raymondcommented as he took his place at the head of the table, because,unless one specifically feels a call to some profession or other, onejust—well, drifts along happily. Ours is a wonderful world, Grania sighed at Martin. I only wish wecould take you there. I'm sure you would like it. Don't be a fool, Grania! Raymond snapped. Well, Martin, have youmade up your mind what you want to be? Martin affected to think. A physicist, he said, not without malice.Or perhaps an engineer. There was a loud, excited chorus of dissent. He chuckled inwardly. Can't do that, Ives said. Might pick up some concepts from us. Don'tknow how; none of us knows a thing about science. But it could happen.Subconscious osmosis, if there is such a thing. That way, you mightinvent something ahead of time. And the fellow we got the plans fromparticularly cautioned us against that. Changing history. Dangerous. Might mess up our time frightfully, Bartholomew contributed, though,to be perfectly frank, I can't quite understand how. I am not going to sit down and explain the whole thing to you all overagain, Bart! Raymond said impatiently. Well, Martin? What would you suggest? Martin asked. How about becoming a painter? Art is eternal. And quite gentlemanly.Besides, artists are always expected to be either behind or ahead oftheir times. Furthermore, Ottillie added, one more artist couldn't make muchdifference in history. There were so many of them all through the ages. Martin couldn't hold back his question. What was I, actually, in thatother time? There was a chilly silence. Let's not talk about it, dear, Lalage finally said. Let's just bethankful we've saved you from that ! So drawing teachers were engaged and Martin became a very competentsecond-rate artist. He knew he would never be able to achieve firstrank because, even though he was still so young, his work was almostpurely intellectual. The only emotion he seemed able to feel wasfear—the ever-present fear that someday he would turn a corridor andwalk into a man who looked like him—a man who wanted to kill him forthe sake of an ideal. But the fear did not show in Martin's pictures. They were prettypictures. <doc-sep>Cousin Ives—now that Martin was older, he was told to call thedescendants cousin —next assumed guardianship. Ives took hisresponsibilities more seriously than the others did. He even arrangedto have Martin's work shown at an art gallery. The paintings receivedcritical approval, but failed to evoke any enthusiasm. The modestsale they enjoyed was mostly to interior decorators. Museums were notinterested. Takes time, Ives tried to reassure him. One day they'll be buyingyour pictures, Martin. Wait and see. Ives was the only one of the descendants who seemed to think of Martinas an individual. When his efforts to make contact with the other youngman failed, he got worried and decided that what Martin needed was achange of air and scenery. 'Course you can't go on the Grand Tour. Your son hasn't inventedspace travel yet. But we can go see this world. What's left of it.Tourists always like ruins best, anyway. So he drew on the family's vast future resources and bought a yacht,which Martin christened The Interregnum . They traveled about from seato ocean and from ocean to sea, touching at various ports and makingtrips inland. Martin saw the civilized world—mostly in fragments; thenearly intact semi-civilized world and the uncivilized world, much thesame as it had been for centuries. It was like visiting an enormousmuseum; he couldn't seem to identify with his own time any more. The other cousins appeared to find the yacht a congenial head-quarters,largely because they could spend so much time far away from thecontemporary inhabitants of the planet and relax and be themselves. Sothey never moved back to land. Martin spent the rest of his life on The Interregnum . He felt curiously safer from Conrad there, althoughthere was no valid reason why an ocean should stop a traveler throughtime. More cousins were in residence at once than ever before, becausethey came for the ocean voyage. They spent most of their time aboardship, giving each other parties and playing an avant-garde form ofshuffleboard and gambling on future sporting events. That last usuallyended in a brawl, because one cousin was sure to accuse another ofhaving got advance information about the results. Martin didn't care much for their company and associated with them onlywhen not to have done so would have been palpably rude. And, thoughthey were gregarious young people for the most part, they didn't courthis society. He suspected that he made them feel uncomfortable. <doc-sep>He rather liked Ives, though. Sometimes the two of them would be alonetogether; then Ives would tell Martin of the future world he had comefrom. The picture drawn by Raymond and Ninian had not been entirelyaccurate, Ives admitted. True, there was no war or poverty on Earthproper, but that was because there were only a couple of million peopleleft on the planet. It was an enclave for the highly privileged, highlyinterbred aristocracy, to which Martin's descendants belonged by virtueof their distinguished ancestry. Rather feudal, isn't it? Martin asked. Ives agreed, adding that the system had, however, been deliberatelyplanned, rather than the result of haphazard natural development.Everything potentially unpleasant, like the mercantiles, had beendeported. Not only natives livin' on the other worlds, Ives said as the twoof them stood at the ship's rail, surrounded by the limitless expanseof some ocean or other. People, too. Mostly lower classes, exceptfor officials and things. With wars and want and suffering, he addedregretfully, same as in your day.... Like now, I mean, he correctedhimself. Maybe it is worse, the way Conrad thinks. More planetsfor us to make trouble on. Three that were habitable aren't any more.Bombed. Very thorough job. Oh, Martin murmured, trying to sound shocked, horrified—interested,even. Sometimes I'm not altogether sure Conrad was wrong, Ives said, aftera pause. Tried to keep us from getting to the stars, hurting thepeople—I expect you could call them people—there. Still— he smiledshamefacedly—couldn't stand by and see my own way of life destroyed,could I? I suppose not, Martin said. Would take moral courage. I don't have it. None of us does, exceptConrad, and even he— Ives looked out over the sea. Must be a betterway out than Conrad's, he said without conviction. And everythingwill work out all right in the end. Bound to. No sense to—to anything,if it doesn't. He glanced wistfully at Martin. I hope so, said Martin. But he couldn't hope; he couldn't feel; hecouldn't even seem to care. During all this time, Conrad still did not put in an appearance. Martinhad gotten to be such a crack shot with the ray pistol that he almostwished his descendant would show up, so there would be some excitement.But he didn't come. And Martin got to thinking.... He always felt that if any of the cousins could have come to realizethe basic flaw in the elaborate plan they had concocted, it would havebeen Ives. However, when the yacht touched at Tierra del Fuego onebitter winter, Ives took a severe chill. They sent for a doctor fromthe future—one of the descendants who had been eccentric enough totake a medical degree—but he wasn't able to save Ives. The body wasburied in the frozen ground at Ushuaia, on the southern tip of thecontinent, a hundred years or more before the date of his birth. A great many of the cousins turned up at the simple ceremony. All weredressed in overwhelming black and showed a great deal of grief. Raymondread the burial service, because they didn't dare summon a clericalcousin from the future; they were afraid he might prove rather stuffyabout the entire undertaking. He died for all of us, Raymond concluded his funeral eulogy overIves, so his death was not in vain. But Martin disagreed. <doc-sep>The ceaseless voyaging began again. The Interregnum voyaged to everyocean and every sea. Some were blue and some green and some dun. Aftera while, Martin couldn't tell one from another. Cousin after cousincame to watch over him and eventually they were as hard for him to tellapart as the different oceans. All the cousins were young, for, though they came at different times inhis life, they had all started out from the same time in theirs. Onlythe young ones had been included in the venture; they did not trusttheir elders. As the years went by, Martin began to lose even his detached interestin the land and its doings. Although the yacht frequently touched portfor fuel or supplies—it was more economical to purchase them in thatera than to have them shipped from the future—he seldom went ashore,and then only at the urging of a newly assigned cousin anxious to seethe sights. Most of the time Martin spent in watching the sea—andsometimes he painted it. There seemed to be a depth to his seascapesthat his other work lacked. When he was pressed by the current cousin to make a land visitsomewhere, he decided to exhibit a few of his sea paintings. That way,he could fool himself into thinking that there was some purpose to thisjourney. He'd come to believe that perhaps what his life lacked waspurpose, and for a while he kept looking for meaning everywhere, to thecousin's utter disgust. Eat, drink and be merry, or whatever you Romans say when you do as youdo, the cousin—who was rather woolly in history; the descendants werescraping bottom now—advised. Martin showed his work in Italy, so that the cousin could bedisillusioned by the current crop of Romans. He found that neitherpurpose nor malice was enough; he was still immeasurably bored.However, a museum bought two of the paintings. Martin thought of Ivesand felt an uncomfortable pang of a sensation he could no longerunderstand. Where do you suppose Conrad has been all this time? Martin idly askedthe current cousin—who was passing as his nephew by now. The young man jumped, then glanced around him uncomfortably. Conrad'sa very shrewd fellow, he whispered. He's biding his time—waitinguntil we're off guard. And then—pow!—he'll attack! Oh, I see, Martin said. He had often fancied that Conrad would prove to be the most stimulatingmember of the whole generation. But it seemed unlikely that he wouldever have a chance for a conversation with the young man. More than oneconversation, anyhow. When he does show up, I'll protect you, the cousin vowed, touchinghis ray gun. You haven't a thing to worry about. Martin smiled with all the charm he'd had nothing to do but acquire. Ihave every confidence in you, he told his descendant. He himself hadgiven up carrying a gun long ago. There was a war in the Northern Hemisphere and so The Interregnum voyaged to southern waters. There was a war in the south and they hidout in the Arctic. All the nations became too drained of power—fueland man and will—to fight, so there was a sterile peace for a longtime. The Interregnum roamed the seas restlessly, with her load ofpassengers from the future, plus one bored and aging contemporary. Shebore big guns now, because of the ever-present danger of pirates. <doc-sep>Perhaps it was the traditionally bracing effect of sea air—perhaps itwas the sheltered life—but Martin lived to be a very old man. He was ahundred and four when his last illness came. It was a great relief whenthe family doctor, called in again from the future, said there was nohope. Martin didn't think he could have borne another year of life. All the cousins gathered at the yacht to pay their last respects totheir progenitor. He saw Ninian again, after all these years, andRaymond—all the others, dozens of them, thronging around his bed,spilling out of the cabin and into the passageways and out onto thedeck, making their usual clamor, even though their voices were hushed. Only Ives was missing. He'd been the lucky one, Martin knew. He hadbeen spared the tragedy that was going to befall these blooming youngpeople—all the same age as when Martin had last seen them and doomednever to grow any older. Underneath their masks of woe, he could seerelief at the thought that at last they were going to be rid of theirresponsibility. And underneath Martin's death mask lay an impersonalpity for those poor, stupid descendants of his who had blundered soirretrievably. There was only one face which Martin had never seen before. It wasn'ta strange face, however, because Martin had seen one very like it inthe looking glass when he was a young man. You must be Conrad, Martin called across the cabin in a voice thatwas still clear. I've been looking forward to meeting you for sometime. The other cousins whirled to face the newcomer. You're too late, Con, Raymond gloated for the whole generation. He'slived out his life. But he hasn't lived out his life, Conrad contradicted. He's livedout the life you created for him. And for yourselves, too. For the first time, Martin saw compassion in the eyes of one of hislineage and found it vaguely disturbing. It didn't seem to belong there. Don't you realize even yet, Conrad went on, that as soon as he goes,you'll go, too—present, past, future, wherever you are, you'll go upin the air like puffs of smoke? What do you mean? Ninian quavered, her soft, pretty face alarmed. Martin answered Conrad's rueful smile, but left the explanations up tohim. It was his show, after all. Because you will never have existed, Conrad said. You have no rightto existence; it was you yourselves who watched him all the time,so he didn't have a chance to lead a normal life, get married, havechildren .... <doc-sep>Most of the cousins gasped as the truth began to percolate through. I knew from the very beginning, Conrad finished, that I didn'thave to do anything at all. I just had to wait and you would destroyyourselves. I don't understand, Bartholomew protested, searching the faces of thecousins closest to him. What does he mean, we have never existed?We're here, aren't we? What— Shut up! Raymond snapped. He turned on Martin. You don't seemsurprised. The old man grinned. I'm not. I figured it all out years ago. At first, he had wondered what he should do. Would it be better tothrow them into a futile panic by telling them or to do nothing? Hehad decided on the latter; that was the role they had assigned him—towatch and wait and keep out of things—and that was the role he wouldplay. You knew all the time and you didn't tell us! Raymond spluttered.After we'd been so good to you, making a gentleman out of you insteadof a criminal.... That's right, he snarled, a criminal! An alcoholic,a thief, a derelict! How do you like that? Sounds like a rich, full life, Martin said wistfully. What an exciting existence they must have done him out of! But then, hecouldn't help thinking, he—he and Conrad together, of course—had donethem out of any kind of existence. It wasn't his responsibility,though; he had done nothing but let matters take whatever course wasdestined for them. If only he could be sure that it was the bettercourse, perhaps he wouldn't feel that nagging sense of guilt insidehim. Strange—where, in his hermetic life, could he possibly havedeveloped such a queer thing as a conscience? Then we've wasted all this time, Ninian sobbed, all this energy, allthis money, for nothing! But you were nothing to begin with, Martin told them. And then,after a pause, he added, I only wish I could be sure there had beensome purpose to this. He didn't know whether it was approaching death that dimmed his sight,or whether the frightened crowd that pressed around him was growingshadowy. I wish I could feel that some good had been done in letting you bewiped out of existence, he went on voicing his thoughts. But I knowthat the same thing that happened to your worlds and my world willhappen all over again. To other people, in other times, but again. It'sbound to happen. There isn't any hope for humanity. One man couldn't really change the course of human history, he toldhimself. Two men, that was—one real, one a shadow. Conrad came close to the old man's bed. He was almost transparent. No, he said, there is hope. They didn't know the time transmitterworks two ways. I used it for going into the past only once—just thisonce. But I've gone into the future with it many times. And— hepressed Martin's hand—believe me, what I did—what we did, you andI—serves a purpose. It will change things for the better. Everythingis going to be all right. <doc-sep>Was Conrad telling him the truth, Martin wondered, or was he justgiving the conventional reassurance to the dying? More than that, washe trying to convince himself that what he had done was the rightthing? Every cousin had assured Martin that things were going to be allright. Was Conrad actually different from the rest? His plan had worked and the others' hadn't, but then all his plan hadconsisted of was doing nothing. That was all he and Martin had done ...nothing. Were they absolved of all responsibility merely because theyhad stood aside and taken advantage of the others' weaknesses? Why, Martin said to himself, in a sense, it could be said that Ihave fulfilled my original destiny—that I am a criminal. Well, it didn't matter; whatever happened, no one could hold him toblame. He held no stake in the future that was to come. It was othermen's future—other men's problem. He died very peacefully then, and,since he was the only one left on the ship, there was nobody to buryhim. The unmanned yacht drifted about the seas for years and gave rise tomany legends, none of them as unbelievable as the truth. <doc-sep></s>

The ‘cousins’ featured in this story are all direct descendants of Martin, identified to be great-great-granddaughters and -sons. Instructed to be called Aunts and Uncles by a young Martin and then later cousins by a mature Martin, they have rallied together to travel into the past in order to protect and guard Martin from an assassination attempt by Conrad. Conrad, a fellow cousin, is thought to be an idealist by his fellow cousins and adamantly wrong in his belief that the right thing to do is to erase their lineage in order to correct injustice in their future society. Despite the heroic protection of Martin, we find out that the cousins’ guardianship of Martin is selfish in nature. Aside from Ives, Martin holds largely impersonal relationships with his cousins, who appear to view Martin as a reluctant duty. Because of Conrad as a looming threat over Martin’s livelihood, a rotation of cousins traveling from the future assume guardianship over Martin and dictates his life in his hobbies or the information he knows - all to protect their own livelihood. At Martin’s deathbed, we find out that the cousins have had the wrong idea this entire time. In their insistence at protecting Martin and shaping his life to what they created for him, they signed their own death warrant. In all their planning and supposed intelligence and worthiness, the cousins have failed to observe the flaw in the plan: that if Martin had no wife and no children, then their very existence would be naught. Their forced presence in Martin’s life had rid Martin’s potential exciting existence - and in return - Martin’s lackluster existence had rid the cousins of any kind of existence.

<s> THE MAN OUTSIDE By EVELYN E. SMITH Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No one, least of all Martin, could dispute that a man's life should be guarded by his kin—but by those who hadn't been born yet? Nobody in the neighborhood was surprised when Martin's motherdisappeared and Ninian came to take care of him. Mothers had a wayof disappearing around those parts and the kids were often betteroff without them. Martin was no exception. He'd never had it thisgood while he was living with his old lady. As for his father, Martinhad never had one. He'd been a war baby, born of one of the tides ofsoldiers—enemies and allies, both—that had engulfed the country insuccessive waves and bought or taken the women. So there was no troublethat way. Sometimes he wondered who Ninian really was. Obviously that storyabout her coming from the future was just a gag. Besides, if she reallywas his great-great-grand-daughter, as she said, why would she tellhim to call her Aunt Ninian ? Maybe he was only eleven, but he'dbeen around and he knew just what the score was. At first he'd thoughtmaybe she was some new kind of social worker, but she acted a littletoo crazy for that. He loved to bait her, as he had loved to bait his mother. It was saferwith Ninian, though, because when he pushed her too far, she would cryinstead of mopping up the floor with him. But I can't understand, he would say, keeping his face straight. Whydo you have to come from the future to protect me against your cousinConrad? Because he's coming to kill you. Why should he kill me? I ain't done him nothing. Ninian sighed. He's dissatisfied with the current social order andkilling you is part of an elaborate plan he's formulated to change it.You wouldn't understand. You're damn right. I don't understand. What's it all about instraight gas? Oh, just don't ask any questions, Ninian said petulantly. When youget older, someone will explain the whole thing to you. <doc-sep>So Martin held his peace, because, on the whole, he liked things theway they were. Ninian really was the limit, though. All the people heknew lived in scabrous tenement apartments like his, but she seemed tothink it was disgusting. So if you don't like it, clean it up, he suggested. She looked at him as if he were out of his mind. Hire a maid, then! he jeered. And darned if that dope didn't go out and get a woman to come clean upthe place! He was so embarrassed, he didn't even dare show his face inthe streets—especially with the women buttonholing him and demandingto know what gave. They tried talking to Ninian, but she certainly knewhow to give them the cold shoulder. One day the truant officer came to ask why Martin hadn't been comingto school. Very few of the neighborhood kids attended classes veryregularly, so this was just routine. But Ninian didn't know that andshe went into a real tizzy, babbling that Martin had been sick andwould make up the work. Martin nearly did get sick from laughing sohard inside. But he laughed out of the other side of his mouth when she went out andhired a private tutor for him. A tutor—in that neighborhood! Martinhad to beat up every kid on the block before he could walk a stepwithout hearing Fancy Pants! yelled after him. Ninian worried all the time. It wasn't that she cared what these peoplethought of her, for she made no secret of regarding them as littlebetter than animals, but she was shy of attracting attention. Therewere an awful lot of people in that neighborhood who felt exactly thesame way, only she didn't know that, either. She was really prettydumb, Martin thought, for all her fancy lingo. It's so hard to think these things out without any prior practicalapplication to go by, she told him. He nodded, knowing what she meant was that everything was coming outwrong. But he didn't try to help her; he just watched to see whatshe'd do next. Already he had begun to assume the detached role of aspectator. When it became clear that his mother was never going to show up again,Ninian bought one of those smallish, almost identical houses thatmushroom on the fringes of a city after every war, particularly whereintensive bombing has created a number of desirable building sites. This is a much better neighborhood for a boy to grow up in, shedeclared. Besides, it's easier to keep an eye on you here. And keep an eye on him she did—she or a rather foppish young man whocame to stay with them occasionally. Martin was told to call him UncleRaymond. From time to time, there were other visitors—Uncles Ives andBartholomew and Olaf, Aunts Ottillie and Grania and Lalage, and manymore—all cousins to one another, he was told, all descendants of his. <doc-sep>Martin was never left alone for a minute. He wasn't allowed to playwith the other kids in the new neighborhood. Not that their parentswould have let them, anyway. The adults obviously figured that ifa one-car family hired private tutors for their kid, there must besomething pretty wrong with him. So Martin and Ninian were just asconspicuous as before. But he didn't tip her off. She was grown up; shewas supposed to know better than he did. He lived well. He had food to eat that he'd never dreamed of before,warm clothes that no one had ever worn before him. He was surrounded bymore luxury than he knew what to do with. The furniture was the latest New Grand Rapids African modern. Therewere tidy, colorful Picasso and Braque prints on the walls. And everyinch of the floor was modestly covered by carpeting, though the wallswere mostly unabashed glass. There were hot water and heat all the timeand a freezer well stocked with food—somewhat erratically chosen, forNinian didn't know much about meals. The non-glass part of the house was of neat, natural-toned wood, with aneat green lawn in front and a neat parti-colored garden in back. Martin missed the old neighborhood, though. He missed having otherkids to play with. He even missed his mother. Sure, she hadn't givenhim enough to eat and she'd beaten him up so hard sometimes that she'dnearly killed him—but then there had also been times when she'd huggedand kissed him and soaked his collar with her tears. She'd done allshe could for him, supporting him in the only way she knew how—and ifrespectable society didn't like it, the hell with respectable society. From Ninian and her cousins, there was only an impersonal kindness.They made no bones about the fact that they were there only to carryout a rather unpleasant duty. Though they were in the house with him,in their minds and in their talk they were living in another world—aworld of warmth and peace and plenty where nobody worked, except in thegovernment service or the essential professions. And they seemed tothink even that kind of job was pretty low-class, though better thanactually doing anything with the hands. In their world, Martin came to understand, nobody worked with hands;everything was done by machinery. All the people ever did was wearpretty clothes and have good times and eat all they wanted. There wasno devastation, no war, no unhappiness, none of the concomitants ofnormal living. It was then that Martin began to realize that either the whole lot ofthem were insane, or what Ninian had told him at first was the truth.They came from the future. <doc-sep>When Martin was sixteen, Raymond took him aside for the talk Ninian hadpromised five years before. The whole thing's all my brother Conrad's fault. You see, he's anidealist, Raymond explained, pronouncing the last word with distaste. Martin nodded gravely. He was a quiet boy now, his brief past a dim andrather ridiculous memory. Who could ever imagine him robbing a grocerystore or wielding a broken bottle now? He still was rather undersizedand he'd read so much that he'd weakened his eyes and had to wearglasses. His face was pallid, because he spent little time in the sun,and his speech rather overbred, his mentors from the future havingcarefully eradicated all current vulgarities. And Conrad really got upset over the way Earth has been exploitingthe not so intelligent life-forms on the other planets, Raymondcontinued. Which is distressing—though, of course, it's not asif they were people. Besides, the government has been talking aboutpassing laws to do away with the—well, abuses and things like that,and I'm sure someday everything will come out all right. However,Conrad is so impatient. I thought, in your world, machines did all the work, Martin suggested. I've told you—our world is precisely the same as this one! Raymondsnapped. We just come a couple of centuries or so later, that's all.But remember, our interests are identical. We're virtually the samepeople ... although it is amazing what a difference two hundred oddyears of progress and polish can make in a species, isn't it? He continued more mildly: However, even you ought to be able tounderstand that we can't make machinery without metal. We need food.All that sort of thing comes from the out-system planets. And, on thoseworlds, it's far cheaper to use native labor than to ship out all thatexpensive machinery. After all, if we didn't give the natives jobs, howwould they manage to live? How did they live before? Come to think of it, if you don't work, howdo you live now?... I don't mean in the now for me, but the now foryou, Martin explained laboriously. It was so difficult to live in thepast and think in the future. I'm trying to talk to you as if you were an adult, Raymond said, butif you will persist in these childish interruptions— I'm sorry, Martin said. But he wasn't, for by now he had little respect left for any ofhis descendants. They were all exceedingly handsome and cultivatedyoung people, with superior educations, smooth ways of speaking andconsiderable self-confidence, but they just weren't very bright. Andhe had discovered that Raymond was perhaps the most intelligent of thelot. Somewhere in that relatively short span of time, his line or—morefrightening—his race had lost something vital. Unaware of the near-contempt in which his young ancestor held him,Raymond went on blandly: Anyhow, Conrad took it upon himself tofeel particularly guilty, because, he decided, if it hadn't been forthe fact that our great-grandfather discovered the super-drive, wemight never have reached the stars. Which is ridiculous—his feelingguilty, I mean. Perhaps a great-grandfather is responsible for hisgreat-grandchildren, but a great-grandchild can hardly be heldaccountable for his great-grandfather. How about a great-great-grandchild? Martin couldn't help asking. <doc-sep>Raymond flushed a delicate pink. Do you want to hear the rest of thisor don't you? Oh, I do! Martin said. He had pieced the whole thing together forhimself long since, but he wanted to hear how Raymond would put it. Unfortunately, Professor Farkas has just perfected the timetransmitter. Those government scientists are so infernallyofficious—always inventing such senseless things. It's supposed tobe hush-hush, but you know how news will leak out when one is alwaysdesperate for a fresh topic of conversation. Anyhow, Raymond went on to explain, Conrad had bribed one of Farkas'assistants for a set of the plans. Conrad's idea had been to go backin time and eliminate! their common great-grandfather. In that way,there would be no space-drive, and, hence, the Terrestrials would neverget to the other planets and oppress the local aborigines. Sounds like a good way of dealing with the problem, Martin observed. Raymond looked annoyed. It's the adolescent way, he said, to doaway with it, rather than find a solution. Would you destroy a wholesociety in order to root out a single injustice? Not if it were a good one otherwise. Well, there's your answer. Conrad got the apparatus built, or perhapshe built it himself. One doesn't inquire too closely into suchmatters. But when it came to the point, Conrad couldn't bear the ideaof eliminating our great-grandfather—because our great-grandfatherwas such a good man, you know. Raymond's expressive upper lipcurled. So Conrad decided to go further back still and get rid ofhis great-grandfather's father—who'd been, by all accounts, a prettyworthless character. That would be me, I suppose, Martin said quietly. Raymond turned a deep rose. Well, doesn't that just go to prove youmustn't believe everything you hear? The next sentence tumbled out ina rush. I wormed the whole thing out of him and all of us—the othercousins and me—held a council of war, as it were, and we decided itwas our moral duty to go back in time ourselves and protect you. Hebeamed at Martin. The boy smiled slowly. Of course. You had to. If Conrad succeeded in eliminating me, then none of you would exist, would you? Raymond frowned. Then he shrugged cheerfully. Well, you didn't reallysuppose we were going to all this trouble and expense out of sheeraltruism, did you? he asked, turning on the charm which all thecousins possessed to a consternating degree. <doc-sep>Martin had, of course, no illusions on that score; he had learned longago that nobody did anything for nothing. But saying so was unwise. We bribed another set of plans out of another of the professor'sassistants, Raymond continued, as if Martin had answered,and—ah—induced a handicraft enthusiast to build the gadget for us. Induced , Martin knew, could have meant anything from blackmail to theuse of the iron maiden. Then we were all ready to forestall Conrad. If one of us guarded younight and day, he would never be able to carry out his plot. So we madeour counter-plan, set the machine as far back as it would go—and herewe are! I see, Martin said. Raymond didn't seem to think he really did. After all, he pointedout defensively, whatever our motives, it has turned into a goodthing for you. Nice home, cultured companions, all the contemporaryconveniences, plus some handy anachronisms—I don't see what more youcould ask for. You're getting the best of all possible worlds. Ofcourse Ninian was a ninny to locate in a mercantile suburb where anylittle thing out of the way will cause talk. How thankful I am that ourera has completely disposed of the mercantiles— What did you do with them? Martin asked. But Raymond rushed on: Soon as Ninian goes and I'm in full charge,we'll get a more isolated place and run it on a far grander scale.Ostentation—that's the way to live here and now; the richer you are,the more eccentricity you can get away with. And, he added, I mightas well be as comfortable as possible while I suffer through thiswretched historical stint. So Ninian's going, said Martin, wondering why the news made him feelcuriously desolate. Because, although he supposed he liked her in aremote kind of way, he had no fondness for her—or she, he knew, forhim. Well, five years is rather a long stretch for any girl to spend inexile, Raymond explained, even though our life spans are a bit longerthan yours. Besides, you're getting too old now to be under petticoatgovernment. He looked inquisitively at Martin. You're not going togo all weepy and make a scene when she leaves, are you? No.... Martin said hesitantly. Oh, I suppose I will miss her. But wearen't very close, so it won't make a real difference. That was thesad part: he already knew it wouldn't make a difference. Raymond clapped him on the shoulder. I knew you weren't a sloppysentimentalist like Conrad. Though you do have rather a look of him,you know. Suddenly that seemed to make Conrad real. Martin felt a vague stirringof alarm. He kept his voice composed, however. How do you plan toprotect me when he comes? Well, each one of us is armed to the teeth, of course, Raymond saidwith modest pride, displaying something that looked like a child'scombination spaceman's gun and death ray, but which, Martin had nodoubt, was a perfectly genuine—and lethal—weapon. And we've got arather elaborate burglar alarm system. Martin inspected the system and made one or two changes in the wiringwhich, he felt, would increase its efficiency. But still he wasdubious. Maybe it'll work on someone coming from outside this house ,but do you think it will work on someone coming from outside this time ? Never fear—it has a temporal radius, Raymond replied. Factoryguarantee and all that. Just to be on the safe side, Martin said, I think I'd better haveone of those guns, too. A splendid idea! enthused Raymond. I was just about to think of thatmyself! <doc-sep>When it came time for the parting, it was Ninian who cried—tears ather own inadequacy, Martin knew, not of sorrow. He was getting skillfulat understanding his descendants, far better than they at understandinghim. But then they never really tried. Ninian kissed him wetly on thecheek and said she was sure everything would work out all right andthat she'd come see him again. She never did, though, except at thevery last. Raymond and Martin moved into a luxurious mansion in a remote area. Thesite proved a well-chosen one; when the Second Atomic War came, half adozen years later, they weren't touched. Martin was never sure whetherthis had been sheer luck or expert planning. Probably luck, because hisdescendants were exceedingly inept planners. Few people in the world then could afford to live as stylishly asMartin and his guardian. The place not only contained every possibleconvenience and gadget but was crammed with bibelots and antiques,carefully chosen by Raymond and disputed by Martin, for, to the manfrom the future, all available artifacts were antiques. Otherwise,Martin accepted his new surroundings. His sense of wonder had becomedulled by now and the pink pseudo-Spanish castle—architecturallydreadful, of course, Raymond had said, but so hilariouslytypical—impressed him far less than had the suburban split-levelaquarium. How about a moat? Martin suggested when they first came. It seems togo with a castle. Do you think a moat could stop Conrad? Raymond asked, amused. No, Martin smiled, feeling rather silly, but it would make the placeseem safer somehow. The threat of Conrad was beginning to make him grow more and morenervous. He got Raymond's permission to take two suits of armor thatstood in the front hall and present them to a local museum, becauseseveral times he fancied he saw them move. He also became an adept withthe ray gun and changed the surrounding landscape quite a bit with it,until Raymond warned that this might lead Conrad to them. During those early years, Martin's tutors were exchanged for thehigher-degreed ones that were now needful. The question inevitablyarose of what the youth's vocation in that life was going to be. Atleast twenty of the cousins came back through time to hold one oftheir vigorous family councils. Martin was still young enough to enjoysuch occasions, finding them vastly superior to all other forms ofentertainment. <doc-sep>This sort of problem wouldn't arise in our day, Martin, Raymondcommented as he took his place at the head of the table, because,unless one specifically feels a call to some profession or other, onejust—well, drifts along happily. Ours is a wonderful world, Grania sighed at Martin. I only wish wecould take you there. I'm sure you would like it. Don't be a fool, Grania! Raymond snapped. Well, Martin, have youmade up your mind what you want to be? Martin affected to think. A physicist, he said, not without malice.Or perhaps an engineer. There was a loud, excited chorus of dissent. He chuckled inwardly. Can't do that, Ives said. Might pick up some concepts from us. Don'tknow how; none of us knows a thing about science. But it could happen.Subconscious osmosis, if there is such a thing. That way, you mightinvent something ahead of time. And the fellow we got the plans fromparticularly cautioned us against that. Changing history. Dangerous. Might mess up our time frightfully, Bartholomew contributed, though,to be perfectly frank, I can't quite understand how. I am not going to sit down and explain the whole thing to you all overagain, Bart! Raymond said impatiently. Well, Martin? What would you suggest? Martin asked. How about becoming a painter? Art is eternal. And quite gentlemanly.Besides, artists are always expected to be either behind or ahead oftheir times. Furthermore, Ottillie added, one more artist couldn't make muchdifference in history. There were so many of them all through the ages. Martin couldn't hold back his question. What was I, actually, in thatother time? There was a chilly silence. Let's not talk about it, dear, Lalage finally said. Let's just bethankful we've saved you from that ! So drawing teachers were engaged and Martin became a very competentsecond-rate artist. He knew he would never be able to achieve firstrank because, even though he was still so young, his work was almostpurely intellectual. The only emotion he seemed able to feel wasfear—the ever-present fear that someday he would turn a corridor andwalk into a man who looked like him—a man who wanted to kill him forthe sake of an ideal. But the fear did not show in Martin's pictures. They were prettypictures. <doc-sep>Cousin Ives—now that Martin was older, he was told to call thedescendants cousin —next assumed guardianship. Ives took hisresponsibilities more seriously than the others did. He even arrangedto have Martin's work shown at an art gallery. The paintings receivedcritical approval, but failed to evoke any enthusiasm. The modestsale they enjoyed was mostly to interior decorators. Museums were notinterested. Takes time, Ives tried to reassure him. One day they'll be buyingyour pictures, Martin. Wait and see. Ives was the only one of the descendants who seemed to think of Martinas an individual. When his efforts to make contact with the other youngman failed, he got worried and decided that what Martin needed was achange of air and scenery. 'Course you can't go on the Grand Tour. Your son hasn't inventedspace travel yet. But we can go see this world. What's left of it.Tourists always like ruins best, anyway. So he drew on the family's vast future resources and bought a yacht,which Martin christened The Interregnum . They traveled about from seato ocean and from ocean to sea, touching at various ports and makingtrips inland. Martin saw the civilized world—mostly in fragments; thenearly intact semi-civilized world and the uncivilized world, much thesame as it had been for centuries. It was like visiting an enormousmuseum; he couldn't seem to identify with his own time any more. The other cousins appeared to find the yacht a congenial head-quarters,largely because they could spend so much time far away from thecontemporary inhabitants of the planet and relax and be themselves. Sothey never moved back to land. Martin spent the rest of his life on The Interregnum . He felt curiously safer from Conrad there, althoughthere was no valid reason why an ocean should stop a traveler throughtime. More cousins were in residence at once than ever before, becausethey came for the ocean voyage. They spent most of their time aboardship, giving each other parties and playing an avant-garde form ofshuffleboard and gambling on future sporting events. That last usuallyended in a brawl, because one cousin was sure to accuse another ofhaving got advance information about the results. Martin didn't care much for their company and associated with them onlywhen not to have done so would have been palpably rude. And, thoughthey were gregarious young people for the most part, they didn't courthis society. He suspected that he made them feel uncomfortable. <doc-sep>He rather liked Ives, though. Sometimes the two of them would be alonetogether; then Ives would tell Martin of the future world he had comefrom. The picture drawn by Raymond and Ninian had not been entirelyaccurate, Ives admitted. True, there was no war or poverty on Earthproper, but that was because there were only a couple of million peopleleft on the planet. It was an enclave for the highly privileged, highlyinterbred aristocracy, to which Martin's descendants belonged by virtueof their distinguished ancestry. Rather feudal, isn't it? Martin asked. Ives agreed, adding that the system had, however, been deliberatelyplanned, rather than the result of haphazard natural development.Everything potentially unpleasant, like the mercantiles, had beendeported. Not only natives livin' on the other worlds, Ives said as the twoof them stood at the ship's rail, surrounded by the limitless expanseof some ocean or other. People, too. Mostly lower classes, exceptfor officials and things. With wars and want and suffering, he addedregretfully, same as in your day.... Like now, I mean, he correctedhimself. Maybe it is worse, the way Conrad thinks. More planetsfor us to make trouble on. Three that were habitable aren't any more.Bombed. Very thorough job. Oh, Martin murmured, trying to sound shocked, horrified—interested,even. Sometimes I'm not altogether sure Conrad was wrong, Ives said, aftera pause. Tried to keep us from getting to the stars, hurting thepeople—I expect you could call them people—there. Still— he smiledshamefacedly—couldn't stand by and see my own way of life destroyed,could I? I suppose not, Martin said. Would take moral courage. I don't have it. None of us does, exceptConrad, and even he— Ives looked out over the sea. Must be a betterway out than Conrad's, he said without conviction. And everythingwill work out all right in the end. Bound to. No sense to—to anything,if it doesn't. He glanced wistfully at Martin. I hope so, said Martin. But he couldn't hope; he couldn't feel; hecouldn't even seem to care. During all this time, Conrad still did not put in an appearance. Martinhad gotten to be such a crack shot with the ray pistol that he almostwished his descendant would show up, so there would be some excitement.But he didn't come. And Martin got to thinking.... He always felt that if any of the cousins could have come to realizethe basic flaw in the elaborate plan they had concocted, it would havebeen Ives. However, when the yacht touched at Tierra del Fuego onebitter winter, Ives took a severe chill. They sent for a doctor fromthe future—one of the descendants who had been eccentric enough totake a medical degree—but he wasn't able to save Ives. The body wasburied in the frozen ground at Ushuaia, on the southern tip of thecontinent, a hundred years or more before the date of his birth. A great many of the cousins turned up at the simple ceremony. All weredressed in overwhelming black and showed a great deal of grief. Raymondread the burial service, because they didn't dare summon a clericalcousin from the future; they were afraid he might prove rather stuffyabout the entire undertaking. He died for all of us, Raymond concluded his funeral eulogy overIves, so his death was not in vain. But Martin disagreed. <doc-sep>The ceaseless voyaging began again. The Interregnum voyaged to everyocean and every sea. Some were blue and some green and some dun. Aftera while, Martin couldn't tell one from another. Cousin after cousincame to watch over him and eventually they were as hard for him to tellapart as the different oceans. All the cousins were young, for, though they came at different times inhis life, they had all started out from the same time in theirs. Onlythe young ones had been included in the venture; they did not trusttheir elders. As the years went by, Martin began to lose even his detached interestin the land and its doings. Although the yacht frequently touched portfor fuel or supplies—it was more economical to purchase them in thatera than to have them shipped from the future—he seldom went ashore,and then only at the urging of a newly assigned cousin anxious to seethe sights. Most of the time Martin spent in watching the sea—andsometimes he painted it. There seemed to be a depth to his seascapesthat his other work lacked. When he was pressed by the current cousin to make a land visitsomewhere, he decided to exhibit a few of his sea paintings. That way,he could fool himself into thinking that there was some purpose to thisjourney. He'd come to believe that perhaps what his life lacked waspurpose, and for a while he kept looking for meaning everywhere, to thecousin's utter disgust. Eat, drink and be merry, or whatever you Romans say when you do as youdo, the cousin—who was rather woolly in history; the descendants werescraping bottom now—advised. Martin showed his work in Italy, so that the cousin could bedisillusioned by the current crop of Romans. He found that neitherpurpose nor malice was enough; he was still immeasurably bored.However, a museum bought two of the paintings. Martin thought of Ivesand felt an uncomfortable pang of a sensation he could no longerunderstand. Where do you suppose Conrad has been all this time? Martin idly askedthe current cousin—who was passing as his nephew by now. The young man jumped, then glanced around him uncomfortably. Conrad'sa very shrewd fellow, he whispered. He's biding his time—waitinguntil we're off guard. And then—pow!—he'll attack! Oh, I see, Martin said. He had often fancied that Conrad would prove to be the most stimulatingmember of the whole generation. But it seemed unlikely that he wouldever have a chance for a conversation with the young man. More than oneconversation, anyhow. When he does show up, I'll protect you, the cousin vowed, touchinghis ray gun. You haven't a thing to worry about. Martin smiled with all the charm he'd had nothing to do but acquire. Ihave every confidence in you, he told his descendant. He himself hadgiven up carrying a gun long ago. There was a war in the Northern Hemisphere and so The Interregnum voyaged to southern waters. There was a war in the south and they hidout in the Arctic. All the nations became too drained of power—fueland man and will—to fight, so there was a sterile peace for a longtime. The Interregnum roamed the seas restlessly, with her load ofpassengers from the future, plus one bored and aging contemporary. Shebore big guns now, because of the ever-present danger of pirates. <doc-sep>Perhaps it was the traditionally bracing effect of sea air—perhaps itwas the sheltered life—but Martin lived to be a very old man. He was ahundred and four when his last illness came. It was a great relief whenthe family doctor, called in again from the future, said there was nohope. Martin didn't think he could have borne another year of life. All the cousins gathered at the yacht to pay their last respects totheir progenitor. He saw Ninian again, after all these years, andRaymond—all the others, dozens of them, thronging around his bed,spilling out of the cabin and into the passageways and out onto thedeck, making their usual clamor, even though their voices were hushed. Only Ives was missing. He'd been the lucky one, Martin knew. He hadbeen spared the tragedy that was going to befall these blooming youngpeople—all the same age as when Martin had last seen them and doomednever to grow any older. Underneath their masks of woe, he could seerelief at the thought that at last they were going to be rid of theirresponsibility. And underneath Martin's death mask lay an impersonalpity for those poor, stupid descendants of his who had blundered soirretrievably. There was only one face which Martin had never seen before. It wasn'ta strange face, however, because Martin had seen one very like it inthe looking glass when he was a young man. You must be Conrad, Martin called across the cabin in a voice thatwas still clear. I've been looking forward to meeting you for sometime. The other cousins whirled to face the newcomer. You're too late, Con, Raymond gloated for the whole generation. He'slived out his life. But he hasn't lived out his life, Conrad contradicted. He's livedout the life you created for him. And for yourselves, too. For the first time, Martin saw compassion in the eyes of one of hislineage and found it vaguely disturbing. It didn't seem to belong there. Don't you realize even yet, Conrad went on, that as soon as he goes,you'll go, too—present, past, future, wherever you are, you'll go upin the air like puffs of smoke? What do you mean? Ninian quavered, her soft, pretty face alarmed. Martin answered Conrad's rueful smile, but left the explanations up tohim. It was his show, after all. Because you will never have existed, Conrad said. You have no rightto existence; it was you yourselves who watched him all the time,so he didn't have a chance to lead a normal life, get married, havechildren .... <doc-sep>Most of the cousins gasped as the truth began to percolate through. I knew from the very beginning, Conrad finished, that I didn'thave to do anything at all. I just had to wait and you would destroyyourselves. I don't understand, Bartholomew protested, searching the faces of thecousins closest to him. What does he mean, we have never existed?We're here, aren't we? What— Shut up! Raymond snapped. He turned on Martin. You don't seemsurprised. The old man grinned. I'm not. I figured it all out years ago. At first, he had wondered what he should do. Would it be better tothrow them into a futile panic by telling them or to do nothing? Hehad decided on the latter; that was the role they had assigned him—towatch and wait and keep out of things—and that was the role he wouldplay. You knew all the time and you didn't tell us! Raymond spluttered.After we'd been so good to you, making a gentleman out of you insteadof a criminal.... That's right, he snarled, a criminal! An alcoholic,a thief, a derelict! How do you like that? Sounds like a rich, full life, Martin said wistfully. What an exciting existence they must have done him out of! But then, hecouldn't help thinking, he—he and Conrad together, of course—had donethem out of any kind of existence. It wasn't his responsibility,though; he had done nothing but let matters take whatever course wasdestined for them. If only he could be sure that it was the bettercourse, perhaps he wouldn't feel that nagging sense of guilt insidehim. Strange—where, in his hermetic life, could he possibly havedeveloped such a queer thing as a conscience? Then we've wasted all this time, Ninian sobbed, all this energy, allthis money, for nothing! But you were nothing to begin with, Martin told them. And then,after a pause, he added, I only wish I could be sure there had beensome purpose to this. He didn't know whether it was approaching death that dimmed his sight,or whether the frightened crowd that pressed around him was growingshadowy. I wish I could feel that some good had been done in letting you bewiped out of existence, he went on voicing his thoughts. But I knowthat the same thing that happened to your worlds and my world willhappen all over again. To other people, in other times, but again. It'sbound to happen. There isn't any hope for humanity. One man couldn't really change the course of human history, he toldhimself. Two men, that was—one real, one a shadow. Conrad came close to the old man's bed. He was almost transparent. No, he said, there is hope. They didn't know the time transmitterworks two ways. I used it for going into the past only once—just thisonce. But I've gone into the future with it many times. And— hepressed Martin's hand—believe me, what I did—what we did, you andI—serves a purpose. It will change things for the better. Everythingis going to be all right. <doc-sep>Was Conrad telling him the truth, Martin wondered, or was he justgiving the conventional reassurance to the dying? More than that, washe trying to convince himself that what he had done was the rightthing? Every cousin had assured Martin that things were going to be allright. Was Conrad actually different from the rest? His plan had worked and the others' hadn't, but then all his plan hadconsisted of was doing nothing. That was all he and Martin had done ...nothing. Were they absolved of all responsibility merely because theyhad stood aside and taken advantage of the others' weaknesses? Why, Martin said to himself, in a sense, it could be said that Ihave fulfilled my original destiny—that I am a criminal. Well, it didn't matter; whatever happened, no one could hold him toblame. He held no stake in the future that was to come. It was othermen's future—other men's problem. He died very peacefully then, and,since he was the only one left on the ship, there was nobody to buryhim. The unmanned yacht drifted about the seas for years and gave rise tomany legends, none of them as unbelievable as the truth. <doc-sep></s>

First, time is significant in this story as the main plotline to the cousins' interactions with Martin. With the future having time travel as a reality, characters in this story like Ninian are able to jump back and forth between the past - to bring Martin out of poverty and vulgar background - and the future to her present time. Although the characters in this story utilize time as an unchangeable and linear concept, we find out through hints in the story and at the final moment that time here is fluid and flexible. Anything that occurs in the past will affect the reality of the future. This is a startling pocket of truth that the cousins fail to realize until Martin’s deathbed - where they are horrified to find out that their selfish desire to protect their comfortable reality in the future had actually led to their own demise and ridded their entire existence. Additionally, time is used to explore the ruling ideologies of the social class both in present and in future. Despite the cousins proclaiming the future world to be free of poverty and highly privileged, Ives reveals that the realities of both worlds are similar in having wars and want and suffering. Only, with the latter future world dealing with these unsavory characters in exiling them and maintaining a feudal class system.

<s> THE MAN OUTSIDE By EVELYN E. SMITH Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction August 1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] No one, least of all Martin, could dispute that a man's life should be guarded by his kin—but by those who hadn't been born yet? Nobody in the neighborhood was surprised when Martin's motherdisappeared and Ninian came to take care of him. Mothers had a wayof disappearing around those parts and the kids were often betteroff without them. Martin was no exception. He'd never had it thisgood while he was living with his old lady. As for his father, Martinhad never had one. He'd been a war baby, born of one of the tides ofsoldiers—enemies and allies, both—that had engulfed the country insuccessive waves and bought or taken the women. So there was no troublethat way. Sometimes he wondered who Ninian really was. Obviously that storyabout her coming from the future was just a gag. Besides, if she reallywas his great-great-grand-daughter, as she said, why would she tellhim to call her Aunt Ninian ? Maybe he was only eleven, but he'dbeen around and he knew just what the score was. At first he'd thoughtmaybe she was some new kind of social worker, but she acted a littletoo crazy for that. He loved to bait her, as he had loved to bait his mother. It was saferwith Ninian, though, because when he pushed her too far, she would cryinstead of mopping up the floor with him. But I can't understand, he would say, keeping his face straight. Whydo you have to come from the future to protect me against your cousinConrad? Because he's coming to kill you. Why should he kill me? I ain't done him nothing. Ninian sighed. He's dissatisfied with the current social order andkilling you is part of an elaborate plan he's formulated to change it.You wouldn't understand. You're damn right. I don't understand. What's it all about instraight gas? Oh, just don't ask any questions, Ninian said petulantly. When youget older, someone will explain the whole thing to you. <doc-sep>So Martin held his peace, because, on the whole, he liked things theway they were. Ninian really was the limit, though. All the people heknew lived in scabrous tenement apartments like his, but she seemed tothink it was disgusting. So if you don't like it, clean it up, he suggested. She looked at him as if he were out of his mind. Hire a maid, then! he jeered. And darned if that dope didn't go out and get a woman to come clean upthe place! He was so embarrassed, he didn't even dare show his face inthe streets—especially with the women buttonholing him and demandingto know what gave. They tried talking to Ninian, but she certainly knewhow to give them the cold shoulder. One day the truant officer came to ask why Martin hadn't been comingto school. Very few of the neighborhood kids attended classes veryregularly, so this was just routine. But Ninian didn't know that andshe went into a real tizzy, babbling that Martin had been sick andwould make up the work. Martin nearly did get sick from laughing sohard inside. But he laughed out of the other side of his mouth when she went out andhired a private tutor for him. A tutor—in that neighborhood! Martinhad to beat up every kid on the block before he could walk a stepwithout hearing Fancy Pants! yelled after him. Ninian worried all the time. It wasn't that she cared what these peoplethought of her, for she made no secret of regarding them as littlebetter than animals, but she was shy of attracting attention. Therewere an awful lot of people in that neighborhood who felt exactly thesame way, only she didn't know that, either. She was really prettydumb, Martin thought, for all her fancy lingo. It's so hard to think these things out without any prior practicalapplication to go by, she told him. He nodded, knowing what she meant was that everything was coming outwrong. But he didn't try to help her; he just watched to see whatshe'd do next. Already he had begun to assume the detached role of aspectator. When it became clear that his mother was never going to show up again,Ninian bought one of those smallish, almost identical houses thatmushroom on the fringes of a city after every war, particularly whereintensive bombing has created a number of desirable building sites. This is a much better neighborhood for a boy to grow up in, shedeclared. Besides, it's easier to keep an eye on you here. And keep an eye on him she did—she or a rather foppish young man whocame to stay with them occasionally. Martin was told to call him UncleRaymond. From time to time, there were other visitors—Uncles Ives andBartholomew and Olaf, Aunts Ottillie and Grania and Lalage, and manymore—all cousins to one another, he was told, all descendants of his. <doc-sep>Martin was never left alone for a minute. He wasn't allowed to playwith the other kids in the new neighborhood. Not that their parentswould have let them, anyway. The adults obviously figured that ifa one-car family hired private tutors for their kid, there must besomething pretty wrong with him. So Martin and Ninian were just asconspicuous as before. But he didn't tip her off. She was grown up; shewas supposed to know better than he did. He lived well. He had food to eat that he'd never dreamed of before,warm clothes that no one had ever worn before him. He was surrounded bymore luxury than he knew what to do with. The furniture was the latest New Grand Rapids African modern. Therewere tidy, colorful Picasso and Braque prints on the walls. And everyinch of the floor was modestly covered by carpeting, though the wallswere mostly unabashed glass. There were hot water and heat all the timeand a freezer well stocked with food—somewhat erratically chosen, forNinian didn't know much about meals. The non-glass part of the house was of neat, natural-toned wood, with aneat green lawn in front and a neat parti-colored garden in back. Martin missed the old neighborhood, though. He missed having otherkids to play with. He even missed his mother. Sure, she hadn't givenhim enough to eat and she'd beaten him up so hard sometimes that she'dnearly killed him—but then there had also been times when she'd huggedand kissed him and soaked his collar with her tears. She'd done allshe could for him, supporting him in the only way she knew how—and ifrespectable society didn't like it, the hell with respectable society. From Ninian and her cousins, there was only an impersonal kindness.They made no bones about the fact that they were there only to carryout a rather unpleasant duty. Though they were in the house with him,in their minds and in their talk they were living in another world—aworld of warmth and peace and plenty where nobody worked, except in thegovernment service or the essential professions. And they seemed tothink even that kind of job was pretty low-class, though better thanactually doing anything with the hands. In their world, Martin came to understand, nobody worked with hands;everything was done by machinery. All the people ever did was wearpretty clothes and have good times and eat all they wanted. There wasno devastation, no war, no unhappiness, none of the concomitants ofnormal living. It was then that Martin began to realize that either the whole lot ofthem were insane, or what Ninian had told him at first was the truth.They came from the future. <doc-sep>When Martin was sixteen, Raymond took him aside for the talk Ninian hadpromised five years before. The whole thing's all my brother Conrad's fault. You see, he's anidealist, Raymond explained, pronouncing the last word with distaste. Martin nodded gravely. He was a quiet boy now, his brief past a dim andrather ridiculous memory. Who could ever imagine him robbing a grocerystore or wielding a broken bottle now? He still was rather undersizedand he'd read so much that he'd weakened his eyes and had to wearglasses. His face was pallid, because he spent little time in the sun,and his speech rather overbred, his mentors from the future havingcarefully eradicated all current vulgarities. And Conrad really got upset over the way Earth has been exploitingthe not so intelligent life-forms on the other planets, Raymondcontinued. Which is distressing—though, of course, it's not asif they were people. Besides, the government has been talking aboutpassing laws to do away with the—well, abuses and things like that,and I'm sure someday everything will come out all right. However,Conrad is so impatient. I thought, in your world, machines did all the work, Martin suggested. I've told you—our world is precisely the same as this one! Raymondsnapped. We just come a couple of centuries or so later, that's all.But remember, our interests are identical. We're virtually the samepeople ... although it is amazing what a difference two hundred oddyears of progress and polish can make in a species, isn't it? He continued more mildly: However, even you ought to be able tounderstand that we can't make machinery without metal. We need food.All that sort of thing comes from the out-system planets. And, on thoseworlds, it's far cheaper to use native labor than to ship out all thatexpensive machinery. After all, if we didn't give the natives jobs, howwould they manage to live? How did they live before? Come to think of it, if you don't work, howdo you live now?... I don't mean in the now for me, but the now foryou, Martin explained laboriously. It was so difficult to live in thepast and think in the future. I'm trying to talk to you as if you were an adult, Raymond said, butif you will persist in these childish interruptions— I'm sorry, Martin said. But he wasn't, for by now he had little respect left for any ofhis descendants. They were all exceedingly handsome and cultivatedyoung people, with superior educations, smooth ways of speaking andconsiderable self-confidence, but they just weren't very bright. Andhe had discovered that Raymond was perhaps the most intelligent of thelot. Somewhere in that relatively short span of time, his line or—morefrightening—his race had lost something vital. Unaware of the near-contempt in which his young ancestor held him,Raymond went on blandly: Anyhow, Conrad took it upon himself tofeel particularly guilty, because, he decided, if it hadn't been forthe fact that our great-grandfather discovered the super-drive, wemight never have reached the stars. Which is ridiculous—his feelingguilty, I mean. Perhaps a great-grandfather is responsible for hisgreat-grandchildren, but a great-grandchild can hardly be heldaccountable for his great-grandfather. How about a great-great-grandchild? Martin couldn't help asking. <doc-sep>Raymond flushed a delicate pink. Do you want to hear the rest of thisor don't you? Oh, I do! Martin said. He had pieced the whole thing together forhimself long since, but he wanted to hear how Raymond would put it. Unfortunately, Professor Farkas has just perfected the timetransmitter. Those government scientists are so infernallyofficious—always inventing such senseless things. It's supposed tobe hush-hush, but you know how news will leak out when one is alwaysdesperate for a fresh topic of conversation. Anyhow, Raymond went on to explain, Conrad had bribed one of Farkas'assistants for a set of the plans. Conrad's idea had been to go backin time and eliminate! their common great-grandfather. In that way,there would be no space-drive, and, hence, the Terrestrials would neverget to the other planets and oppress the local aborigines. Sounds like a good way of dealing with the problem, Martin observed. Raymond looked annoyed. It's the adolescent way, he said, to doaway with it, rather than find a solution. Would you destroy a wholesociety in order to root out a single injustice? Not if it were a good one otherwise. Well, there's your answer. Conrad got the apparatus built, or perhapshe built it himself. One doesn't inquire too closely into suchmatters. But when it came to the point, Conrad couldn't bear the ideaof eliminating our great-grandfather—because our great-grandfatherwas such a good man, you know. Raymond's expressive upper lipcurled. So Conrad decided to go further back still and get rid ofhis great-grandfather's father—who'd been, by all accounts, a prettyworthless character. That would be me, I suppose, Martin said quietly. Raymond turned a deep rose. Well, doesn't that just go to prove youmustn't believe everything you hear? The next sentence tumbled out ina rush. I wormed the whole thing out of him and all of us—the othercousins and me—held a council of war, as it were, and we decided itwas our moral duty to go back in time ourselves and protect you. Hebeamed at Martin. The boy smiled slowly. Of course. You had to. If Conrad succeeded in eliminating me, then none of you would exist, would you? Raymond frowned. Then he shrugged cheerfully. Well, you didn't reallysuppose we were going to all this trouble and expense out of sheeraltruism, did you? he asked, turning on the charm which all thecousins possessed to a consternating degree. <doc-sep>Martin had, of course, no illusions on that score; he had learned longago that nobody did anything for nothing. But saying so was unwise. We bribed another set of plans out of another of the professor'sassistants, Raymond continued, as if Martin had answered,and—ah—induced a handicraft enthusiast to build the gadget for us. Induced , Martin knew, could have meant anything from blackmail to theuse of the iron maiden. Then we were all ready to forestall Conrad. If one of us guarded younight and day, he would never be able to carry out his plot. So we madeour counter-plan, set the machine as far back as it would go—and herewe are! I see, Martin said. Raymond didn't seem to think he really did. After all, he pointedout defensively, whatever our motives, it has turned into a goodthing for you. Nice home, cultured companions, all the contemporaryconveniences, plus some handy anachronisms—I don't see what more youcould ask for. You're getting the best of all possible worlds. Ofcourse Ninian was a ninny to locate in a mercantile suburb where anylittle thing out of the way will cause talk. How thankful I am that ourera has completely disposed of the mercantiles— What did you do with them? Martin asked. But Raymond rushed on: Soon as Ninian goes and I'm in full charge,we'll get a more isolated place and run it on a far grander scale.Ostentation—that's the way to live here and now; the richer you are,the more eccentricity you can get away with. And, he added, I mightas well be as comfortable as possible while I suffer through thiswretched historical stint. So Ninian's going, said Martin, wondering why the news made him feelcuriously desolate. Because, although he supposed he liked her in aremote kind of way, he had no fondness for her—or she, he knew, forhim. Well, five years is rather a long stretch for any girl to spend inexile, Raymond explained, even though our life spans are a bit longerthan yours. Besides, you're getting too old now to be under petticoatgovernment. He looked inquisitively at Martin. You're not going togo all weepy and make a scene when she leaves, are you? No.... Martin said hesitantly. Oh, I suppose I will miss her. But wearen't very close, so it won't make a real difference. That was thesad part: he already knew it wouldn't make a difference. Raymond clapped him on the shoulder. I knew you weren't a sloppysentimentalist like Conrad. Though you do have rather a look of him,you know. Suddenly that seemed to make Conrad real. Martin felt a vague stirringof alarm. He kept his voice composed, however. How do you plan toprotect me when he comes? Well, each one of us is armed to the teeth, of course, Raymond saidwith modest pride, displaying something that looked like a child'scombination spaceman's gun and death ray, but which, Martin had nodoubt, was a perfectly genuine—and lethal—weapon. And we've got arather elaborate burglar alarm system. Martin inspected the system and made one or two changes in the wiringwhich, he felt, would increase its efficiency. But still he wasdubious. Maybe it'll work on someone coming from outside this house ,but do you think it will work on someone coming from outside this time ? Never fear—it has a temporal radius, Raymond replied. Factoryguarantee and all that. Just to be on the safe side, Martin said, I think I'd better haveone of those guns, too. A splendid idea! enthused Raymond. I was just about to think of thatmyself! <doc-sep>When it came time for the parting, it was Ninian who cried—tears ather own inadequacy, Martin knew, not of sorrow. He was getting skillfulat understanding his descendants, far better than they at understandinghim. But then they never really tried. Ninian kissed him wetly on thecheek and said she was sure everything would work out all right andthat she'd come see him again. She never did, though, except at thevery last. Raymond and Martin moved into a luxurious mansion in a remote area. Thesite proved a well-chosen one; when the Second Atomic War came, half adozen years later, they weren't touched. Martin was never sure whetherthis had been sheer luck or expert planning. Probably luck, because hisdescendants were exceedingly inept planners. Few people in the world then could afford to live as stylishly asMartin and his guardian. The place not only contained every possibleconvenience and gadget but was crammed with bibelots and antiques,carefully chosen by Raymond and disputed by Martin, for, to the manfrom the future, all available artifacts were antiques. Otherwise,Martin accepted his new surroundings. His sense of wonder had becomedulled by now and the pink pseudo-Spanish castle—architecturallydreadful, of course, Raymond had said, but so hilariouslytypical—impressed him far less than had the suburban split-levelaquarium. How about a moat? Martin suggested when they first came. It seems togo with a castle. Do you think a moat could stop Conrad? Raymond asked, amused. No, Martin smiled, feeling rather silly, but it would make the placeseem safer somehow. The threat of Conrad was beginning to make him grow more and morenervous. He got Raymond's permission to take two suits of armor thatstood in the front hall and present them to a local museum, becauseseveral times he fancied he saw them move. He also became an adept withthe ray gun and changed the surrounding landscape quite a bit with it,until Raymond warned that this might lead Conrad to them. During those early years, Martin's tutors were exchanged for thehigher-degreed ones that were now needful. The question inevitablyarose of what the youth's vocation in that life was going to be. Atleast twenty of the cousins came back through time to hold one oftheir vigorous family councils. Martin was still young enough to enjoysuch occasions, finding them vastly superior to all other forms ofentertainment. <doc-sep>This sort of problem wouldn't arise in our day, Martin, Raymondcommented as he took his place at the head of the table, because,unless one specifically feels a call to some profession or other, onejust—well, drifts along happily. Ours is a wonderful world, Grania sighed at Martin. I only wish wecould take you there. I'm sure you would like it. Don't be a fool, Grania! Raymond snapped. Well, Martin, have youmade up your mind what you want to be? Martin affected to think. A physicist, he said, not without malice.Or perhaps an engineer. There was a loud, excited chorus of dissent. He chuckled inwardly. Can't do that, Ives said. Might pick up some concepts from us. Don'tknow how; none of us knows a thing about science. But it could happen.Subconscious osmosis, if there is such a thing. That way, you mightinvent something ahead of time. And the fellow we got the plans fromparticularly cautioned us against that. Changing history. Dangerous. Might mess up our time frightfully, Bartholomew contributed, though,to be perfectly frank, I can't quite understand how. I am not going to sit down and explain the whole thing to you all overagain, Bart! Raymond said impatiently. Well, Martin? What would you suggest? Martin asked. How about becoming a painter? Art is eternal. And quite gentlemanly.Besides, artists are always expected to be either behind or ahead oftheir times. Furthermore, Ottillie added, one more artist couldn't make muchdifference in history. There were so many of them all through the ages. Martin couldn't hold back his question. What was I, actually, in thatother time? There was a chilly silence. Let's not talk about it, dear, Lalage finally said. Let's just bethankful we've saved you from that ! So drawing teachers were engaged and Martin became a very competentsecond-rate artist. He knew he would never be able to achieve firstrank because, even though he was still so young, his work was almostpurely intellectual. The only emotion he seemed able to feel wasfear—the ever-present fear that someday he would turn a corridor andwalk into a man who looked like him—a man who wanted to kill him forthe sake of an ideal. But the fear did not show in Martin's pictures. They were prettypictures. <doc-sep>Cousin Ives—now that Martin was older, he was told to call thedescendants cousin —next assumed guardianship. Ives took hisresponsibilities more seriously than the others did. He even arrangedto have Martin's work shown at an art gallery. The paintings receivedcritical approval, but failed to evoke any enthusiasm. The modestsale they enjoyed was mostly to interior decorators. Museums were notinterested. Takes time, Ives tried to reassure him. One day they'll be buyingyour pictures, Martin. Wait and see. Ives was the only one of the descendants who seemed to think of Martinas an individual. When his efforts to make contact with the other youngman failed, he got worried and decided that what Martin needed was achange of air and scenery. 'Course you can't go on the Grand Tour. Your son hasn't inventedspace travel yet. But we can go see this world. What's left of it.Tourists always like ruins best, anyway. So he drew on the family's vast future resources and bought a yacht,which Martin christened The Interregnum . They traveled about from seato ocean and from ocean to sea, touching at various ports and makingtrips inland. Martin saw the civilized world—mostly in fragments; thenearly intact semi-civilized world and the uncivilized world, much thesame as it had been for centuries. It was like visiting an enormousmuseum; he couldn't seem to identify with his own time any more. The other cousins appeared to find the yacht a congenial head-quarters,largely because they could spend so much time far away from thecontemporary inhabitants of the planet and relax and be themselves. Sothey never moved back to land. Martin spent the rest of his life on The Interregnum . He felt curiously safer from Conrad there, althoughthere was no valid reason why an ocean should stop a traveler throughtime. More cousins were in residence at once than ever before, becausethey came for the ocean voyage. They spent most of their time aboardship, giving each other parties and playing an avant-garde form ofshuffleboard and gambling on future sporting events. That last usuallyended in a brawl, because one cousin was sure to accuse another ofhaving got advance information about the results. Martin didn't care much for their company and associated with them onlywhen not to have done so would have been palpably rude. And, thoughthey were gregarious young people for the most part, they didn't courthis society. He suspected that he made them feel uncomfortable. <doc-sep>He rather liked Ives, though. Sometimes the two of them would be alonetogether; then Ives would tell Martin of the future world he had comefrom. The picture drawn by Raymond and Ninian had not been entirelyaccurate, Ives admitted. True, there was no war or poverty on Earthproper, but that was because there were only a couple of million peopleleft on the planet. It was an enclave for the highly privileged, highlyinterbred aristocracy, to which Martin's descendants belonged by virtueof their distinguished ancestry. Rather feudal, isn't it? Martin asked. Ives agreed, adding that the system had, however, been deliberatelyplanned, rather than the result of haphazard natural development.Everything potentially unpleasant, like the mercantiles, had beendeported. Not only natives livin' on the other worlds, Ives said as the twoof them stood at the ship's rail, surrounded by the limitless expanseof some ocean or other. People, too. Mostly lower classes, exceptfor officials and things. With wars and want and suffering, he addedregretfully, same as in your day.... Like now, I mean, he correctedhimself. Maybe it is worse, the way Conrad thinks. More planetsfor us to make trouble on. Three that were habitable aren't any more.Bombed. Very thorough job. Oh, Martin murmured, trying to sound shocked, horrified—interested,even. Sometimes I'm not altogether sure Conrad was wrong, Ives said, aftera pause. Tried to keep us from getting to the stars, hurting thepeople—I expect you could call them people—there. Still— he smiledshamefacedly—couldn't stand by and see my own way of life destroyed,could I? I suppose not, Martin said. Would take moral courage. I don't have it. None of us does, exceptConrad, and even he— Ives looked out over the sea. Must be a betterway out than Conrad's, he said without conviction. And everythingwill work out all right in the end. Bound to. No sense to—to anything,if it doesn't. He glanced wistfully at Martin. I hope so, said Martin. But he couldn't hope; he couldn't feel; hecouldn't even seem to care. During all this time, Conrad still did not put in an appearance. Martinhad gotten to be such a crack shot with the ray pistol that he almostwished his descendant would show up, so there would be some excitement.But he didn't come. And Martin got to thinking.... He always felt that if any of the cousins could have come to realizethe basic flaw in the elaborate plan they had concocted, it would havebeen Ives. However, when the yacht touched at Tierra del Fuego onebitter winter, Ives took a severe chill. They sent for a doctor fromthe future—one of the descendants who had been eccentric enough totake a medical degree—but he wasn't able to save Ives. The body wasburied in the frozen ground at Ushuaia, on the southern tip of thecontinent, a hundred years or more before the date of his birth. A great many of the cousins turned up at the simple ceremony. All weredressed in overwhelming black and showed a great deal of grief. Raymondread the burial service, because they didn't dare summon a clericalcousin from the future; they were afraid he might prove rather stuffyabout the entire undertaking. He died for all of us, Raymond concluded his funeral eulogy overIves, so his death was not in vain. But Martin disagreed. <doc-sep>The ceaseless voyaging began again. The Interregnum voyaged to everyocean and every sea. Some were blue and some green and some dun. Aftera while, Martin couldn't tell one from another. Cousin after cousincame to watch over him and eventually they were as hard for him to tellapart as the different oceans. All the cousins were young, for, though they came at different times inhis life, they had all started out from the same time in theirs. Onlythe young ones had been included in the venture; they did not trusttheir elders. As the years went by, Martin began to lose even his detached interestin the land and its doings. Although the yacht frequently touched portfor fuel or supplies—it was more economical to purchase them in thatera than to have them shipped from the future—he seldom went ashore,and then only at the urging of a newly assigned cousin anxious to seethe sights. Most of the time Martin spent in watching the sea—andsometimes he painted it. There seemed to be a depth to his seascapesthat his other work lacked. When he was pressed by the current cousin to make a land visitsomewhere, he decided to exhibit a few of his sea paintings. That way,he could fool himself into thinking that there was some purpose to thisjourney. He'd come to believe that perhaps what his life lacked waspurpose, and for a while he kept looking for meaning everywhere, to thecousin's utter disgust. Eat, drink and be merry, or whatever you Romans say when you do as youdo, the cousin—who was rather woolly in history; the descendants werescraping bottom now—advised. Martin showed his work in Italy, so that the cousin could bedisillusioned by the current crop of Romans. He found that neitherpurpose nor malice was enough; he was still immeasurably bored.However, a museum bought two of the paintings. Martin thought of Ivesand felt an uncomfortable pang of a sensation he could no longerunderstand. Where do you suppose Conrad has been all this time? Martin idly askedthe current cousin—who was passing as his nephew by now. The young man jumped, then glanced around him uncomfortably. Conrad'sa very shrewd fellow, he whispered. He's biding his time—waitinguntil we're off guard. And then—pow!—he'll attack! Oh, I see, Martin said. He had often fancied that Conrad would prove to be the most stimulatingmember of the whole generation. But it seemed unlikely that he wouldever have a chance for a conversation with the young man. More than oneconversation, anyhow. When he does show up, I'll protect you, the cousin vowed, touchinghis ray gun. You haven't a thing to worry about. Martin smiled with all the charm he'd had nothing to do but acquire. Ihave every confidence in you, he told his descendant. He himself hadgiven up carrying a gun long ago. There was a war in the Northern Hemisphere and so The Interregnum voyaged to southern waters. There was a war in the south and they hidout in the Arctic. All the nations became too drained of power—fueland man and will—to fight, so there was a sterile peace for a longtime. The Interregnum roamed the seas restlessly, with her load ofpassengers from the future, plus one bored and aging contemporary. Shebore big guns now, because of the ever-present danger of pirates. <doc-sep>Perhaps it was the traditionally bracing effect of sea air—perhaps itwas the sheltered life—but Martin lived to be a very old man. He was ahundred and four when his last illness came. It was a great relief whenthe family doctor, called in again from the future, said there was nohope. Martin didn't think he could have borne another year of life. All the cousins gathered at the yacht to pay their last respects totheir progenitor. He saw Ninian again, after all these years, andRaymond—all the others, dozens of them, thronging around his bed,spilling out of the cabin and into the passageways and out onto thedeck, making their usual clamor, even though their voices were hushed. Only Ives was missing. He'd been the lucky one, Martin knew. He hadbeen spared the tragedy that was going to befall these blooming youngpeople—all the same age as when Martin had last seen them and doomednever to grow any older. Underneath their masks of woe, he could seerelief at the thought that at last they were going to be rid of theirresponsibility. And underneath Martin's death mask lay an impersonalpity for those poor, stupid descendants of his who had blundered soirretrievably. There was only one face which Martin had never seen before. It wasn'ta strange face, however, because Martin had seen one very like it inthe looking glass when he was a young man. You must be Conrad, Martin called across the cabin in a voice thatwas still clear. I've been looking forward to meeting you for sometime. The other cousins whirled to face the newcomer. You're too late, Con, Raymond gloated for the whole generation. He'slived out his life. But he hasn't lived out his life, Conrad contradicted. He's livedout the life you created for him. And for yourselves, too. For the first time, Martin saw compassion in the eyes of one of hislineage and found it vaguely disturbing. It didn't seem to belong there. Don't you realize even yet, Conrad went on, that as soon as he goes,you'll go, too—present, past, future, wherever you are, you'll go upin the air like puffs of smoke? What do you mean? Ninian quavered, her soft, pretty face alarmed. Martin answered Conrad's rueful smile, but left the explanations up tohim. It was his show, after all. Because you will never have existed, Conrad said. You have no rightto existence; it was you yourselves who watched him all the time,so he didn't have a chance to lead a normal life, get married, havechildren .... <doc-sep>Most of the cousins gasped as the truth began to percolate through. I knew from the very beginning, Conrad finished, that I didn'thave to do anything at all. I just had to wait and you would destroyyourselves. I don't understand, Bartholomew protested, searching the faces of thecousins closest to him. What does he mean, we have never existed?We're here, aren't we? What— Shut up! Raymond snapped. He turned on Martin. You don't seemsurprised. The old man grinned. I'm not. I figured it all out years ago. At first, he had wondered what he should do. Would it be better tothrow them into a futile panic by telling them or to do nothing? Hehad decided on the latter; that was the role they had assigned him—towatch and wait and keep out of things—and that was the role he wouldplay. You knew all the time and you didn't tell us! Raymond spluttered.After we'd been so good to you, making a gentleman out of you insteadof a criminal.... That's right, he snarled, a criminal! An alcoholic,a thief, a derelict! How do you like that? Sounds like a rich, full life, Martin said wistfully. What an exciting existence they must have done him out of! But then, hecouldn't help thinking, he—he and Conrad together, of course—had donethem out of any kind of existence. It wasn't his responsibility,though; he had done nothing but let matters take whatever course wasdestined for them. If only he could be sure that it was the bettercourse, perhaps he wouldn't feel that nagging sense of guilt insidehim. Strange—where, in his hermetic life, could he possibly havedeveloped such a queer thing as a conscience? Then we've wasted all this time, Ninian sobbed, all this energy, allthis money, for nothing! But you were nothing to begin with, Martin told them. And then,after a pause, he added, I only wish I could be sure there had beensome purpose to this. He didn't know whether it was approaching death that dimmed his sight,or whether the frightened crowd that pressed around him was growingshadowy. I wish I could feel that some good had been done in letting you bewiped out of existence, he went on voicing his thoughts. But I knowthat the same thing that happened to your worlds and my world willhappen all over again. To other people, in other times, but again. It'sbound to happen. There isn't any hope for humanity. One man couldn't really change the course of human history, he toldhimself. Two men, that was—one real, one a shadow. Conrad came close to the old man's bed. He was almost transparent. No, he said, there is hope. They didn't know the time transmitterworks two ways. I used it for going into the past only once—just thisonce. But I've gone into the future with it many times. And— hepressed Martin's hand—believe me, what I did—what we did, you andI—serves a purpose. It will change things for the better. Everythingis going to be all right. <doc-sep>Was Conrad telling him the truth, Martin wondered, or was he justgiving the conventional reassurance to the dying? More than that, washe trying to convince himself that what he had done was the rightthing? Every cousin had assured Martin that things were going to be allright. Was Conrad actually different from the rest? His plan had worked and the others' hadn't, but then all his plan hadconsisted of was doing nothing. That was all he and Martin had done ...nothing. Were they absolved of all responsibility merely because theyhad stood aside and taken advantage of the others' weaknesses? Why, Martin said to himself, in a sense, it could be said that Ihave fulfilled my original destiny—that I am a criminal. Well, it didn't matter; whatever happened, no one could hold him toblame. He held no stake in the future that was to come. It was othermen's future—other men's problem. He died very peacefully then, and,since he was the only one left on the ship, there was nobody to buryhim. The unmanned yacht drifted about the seas for years and gave rise tomany legends, none of them as unbelievable as the truth. <doc-sep></s>

When Ninian initially arrives, Martin blatantly considers her to be dumb. Dumb to hire a cleaning maid, dumb to freak out over Martin’s absence at school, and dumb to hire a private tutor. Even with them moving to a different and more privileged neighborhood, he considers her dumb to go through all this effort to still remain conspicuous. As the reasons behind the cousins’ presence in the past and guardianship over Martin is revealed, his sentiment towards them remains the same. It seems that Martin is able to catch onto the obvious flaw in the cousins’ plans quite early on, and yet with so many cousins slipping in and out, and despite their proclaimed intelligence, none of them are able to pick up on this flaw. The flaw being: with Martin having no children, their very existence becomes an impossibility. This is revealed at the end of the story where Martin is on his deathbed, noting that he had come to this conclusion many years before and had chosen not to say anything.

<s> Spawning Ground By LESTER DEL REY They weren't human. They were something more—and something less—they were, in short, humanity's hopes for survival! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Starship Pandora creaked and groaned as her landing pads settledunevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed tobe restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years fromthe waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoedthrough her hallways. Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He wasa big, rawboned man, barely forty; but ten years of responsibilityhad pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under hisreddened eyes. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonieswere rough on the men who traveled them now. He shuffled toward thecontrol room, grumbling at the heavy gravity. Lieutenant Jane Corey looked up, nodding a blonde head at him as hemoved toward the ever-waiting pot of murky coffee. Morning, Bob. Youneed a shave. Yeah. He swallowed the hot coffee without tasting it, then ran ahand across the dark stubble on his chin. It could wait. Anything newduring the night? About a dozen blobs held something like a convention a little waysnorth of us. They broke up about an hour ago and streaked off into theclouds. The blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobodyknew anything. They looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to havean almost sentient curiosity about anything moving on the ground. Andour two cadets sneaked out again. Barker followed them, but lost themin the murk. I've kept a signal going to guide them back. Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmenin the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for trainingas cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he'd drawn, Kaufman andPinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution. Of course there was no obvious need for caution here. The blobs hadn'tseemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorousand harmless. They were ugly enough, looking like insects in spite oftheir internal skeletons, with anywhere from four to twelve legs eachon their segmented bodies. None acted like dangerous beasts. But something had happened to the exploration party fifteen yearsback, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to checkup. <doc-sep>He turned to the port to stare out at the planet. The Sol-type sunmust be rising, since there was a dim light. But the thick clouds thatwrapped the entire world diffused its rays into a haze. For a change,it wasn't raining, though the ground was covered by thick swirls offog. In the distance, the tops of shrubs that made a scrub forestglowed yellow-green. Motions around them suggested a herd of feedinganimals. Details were impossible to see through the haze. Even thedeep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship wascompletely hidden by the fog. There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animalsnow, as they often seemed to do. Gwayne stared at them for a minute,trying to read sense into the things. If he had time to study them.... But there was no time. Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load ofdeep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any signof Hennessy. He'd been here a week longer than he should have stayedalready. If there was no sign in another day or so of what had happenedto the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have toreport back. He would have left before, if a recent landslip hadn't exposed enoughof the buried ship for his metal locators to spot from the air byluck. It had obviously been hidden deep enough to foil the detectorsoriginally. Bob! Jane Corey's voice cut through his pondering. Bob, there arethe kids! Before he could swing to follow her pointing finger, movement caughthis eye. The blobs had left the herd. Now the three were streaking at fantasticspeed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something thatmoved there. He saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, justbeyond the movement he'd seen through the mist. Whatever was making the fog swirl must have reached higher ground.Something began to heave upwards. It was too far to see clearly, butGwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets. They must have seen whatever it was just as the call reached them.Young Kaufman grabbed at Pinelli, and they swung around together. Then the mists cleared. Under the dancing blobs, a horde of things was heading for the cadets.Shaggy heads, brute bodies vaguely man-like! One seemed to be almosteight feet tall, leading the others directly toward the spacesuitedcadets. Some of the horde were carrying spears or sticks. There was amomentary halt, and then the leader lifted one arm, as if motioning theothers forward. <doc-sep>Get the jeeps out! Gwayne yelled at Jane. He yanked the door ofthe little officers' lift open and jabbed the down button. It wasagonizingly slow, but faster than climbing down. He ripped the doorback at the exit deck. Men were dashing in, stumbling around inconfusion. But someone was taking over now—one of the crew women. Thejeeps were lining up. One, at the front, was stuttering into life, andGwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back. There was no time for suits or helmets. The air on the planet wasirritating and vile smelling, but it could be breathed. He leaped tothe seat, to see that the driver was Doctor Barker. At a gesture, thejeep rolled down the ramp, grinding its gears into second as it pickedup speed. The other two followed. There was no sign of the cadets at first. Then Gwayne spotted them;surrounded by the menacing horde. Seen from here, the things lookedhorrible in a travesty of manhood. The huge leader suddenly waved and pointed toward the jeeps that wereracing toward him. He made a fantastic leap backwards. Others swungabout, two of them grabbing up the cadets. The jeep was doing twentymiles an hour now, but the horde began to increase the distance, inspite of the load of the two struggling boys! The creatures diveddownward into lower ground, beginning to disappear into the mists. Follow the blobs, Gwayne yelled. He realized now he'd been a fool toleave his suit; the radio would have let him keep in contact with thekids. But it was too late to go back. The blobs danced after the horde. Barker bounced the jeep downward intoa gorge. Somewhere the man had learned to drive superlatively; but hehad to slow as the fog thickened lower down. Then it cleared to show the mob of creatures doubling back on their owntrail to confuse the pursuers. There was no time to stop. The jeep plowed through them. Gwayne had aglimpse of five-foot bodies tumbling out of the way. Monstrously coarsefaces were half hidden by thick hair. A spear crunched against thewindshield from behind, and Gwayne caught it before it could foul thesteering wheel. It had a wickedly beautiful point of stone. The creatures vanished as Barker fought to turn to follow them. Theother jeeps were coming up, by the sound of their motors, but too lateto help. They'd have to get to the group with the cadets in a hurry orthe horde would all vanish in the uneven ground, hidden by the fog. A blob dropped down, almost touching Gwayne. He threw up an instinctive hand. There was a tingling as the creatureseemed to pass around it. It lifted a few inches and drifted off. Abruptly, Barker's foot ground at the brake. Gwayne jolted forwardagainst the windshield, just as he made out the form of the eight-footleader. The thing was standing directly ahead of him, a cadet on eachshoulder. The wheels locked and the jeep slid protestingly forward. The creatureleaped back. But Gwayne was out of the jeep before it stopped, divingfor the figure. It dropped the boys with a surprised grunt. <doc-sep>The arms were thin and grotesque below the massively distortedshoulders, but amazingly strong. Gwayne felt them wrench at him as hishands locked on the thick throat. A stench of alien flesh was in hisnose as the thing fell backwards. Doc Barker had hit it seconds afterthe captain's attack. Its head hit rocky ground with a dull, heavysound, and it collapsed. Gwayne eased back slowly, but it made nofurther move, though it was still breathing. Another jeep had drawn up, and men were examining the cadets. Pinelliwas either laughing or crying, and Kaufman was trying to break free tokick at the monster. But neither had been harmed. The two were loadedonto a jeep while men helped Barker and Gwayne stow the bound monsteron another before heading back. No sign of skull fracture. My God, what a tough brute! Barker shookhis own head, as if feeling the shock of the monster's landing. I hope so, Gwayne told him. I want that thing to live—and you'redetailed to save it and revive it. Find out if it can make signlanguage or draw pictures. I want to know what happened to Hennessyand why that ship was buried against detection. This thing may be theanswer. Barker nodded grimly. I'll try, though I can't risk drugs on an alienmetabolism. He sucked in on the cigarette he'd dug out, then spatsickly. Smoke and this air made a foul combination. Bob, it stillmakes no sense. We've scoured this planet by infra-red, and there wasno sign of native villages or culture. We should have found some. Troglodytes, maybe, Gwayne guessed. Anyhow, send for me when you getanything. I've got to get this ship back to Earth. We're overstayingour time here already. The reports from the cadets were satisfactory enough. They'd beenpicked up and carried, but no harm had been done them. Now they werebusy being little heroes. Gwayne sentenced them to quarters as soonas he could, knowing their stories would only get wilder and lessinformative with retelling. If they could get any story from the captured creature, they might savetime and be better off than trying to dig through Hennessy's ship. Thatwas almost certainly spoorless by now. The only possible answer seemedto be that the exploring expedition and Hennessy's rescue group hadbeen overcome by the aliens. It was an answer, but it left a lot of questions. How could theprimitives have gotten to the men inside Hennessy's ship? Why was itsfuel dumped? Only men would have known how to do that. And who toldthese creatures that a space ship's metal finders could be fooled by alittle more than a hundred feet of solid rock? They'd buried the shipcunningly, and only the accidental slippage had undone their work. Maybe there would never be a full answer, but he had to findsomething—and find it fast. Earth needed every world she could makeremotely habitable, or mankind was probably doomed to extinction. <doc-sep>The race had blundered safely through its discovery of atomic weaponsinto a peace that had lasted two hundred years. It had managed toprevent an interplanetary war with the Venus colonists. It had founda drive that led to the stars, and hadn't even found intelligent lifethere to be dangerous on the few worlds that had cultures of their own. But forty years ago, observations from beyond the Solar System hadfinally proved that the sun was going to go nova. It wouldn't be much of an explosion, as such things go—but it wouldrender the whole Solar System uninhabitable for millenia. To survive,man had to colonize. And there were no worlds perfect for him, as Earth had been. Theexplorers went out in desperation to find what they could; theterraforming teams did what they could. And then the big starshipsbegan filling worlds with colonists, carried in deep sleep to conservespace. Almost eighty worlds. The nearest a four month journey from Earth andfour more months back. In another ten years, the sun would explode, leaving man only on thefootholds he was trying to dig among other solar systems. Maybe someof the strange worlds would let men spread his seed again. Maybe nonewould be spawning grounds for mankind in spite of the efforts. Each wasprecious as a haven for the race. If this world could be used, it would be nearer than most. If not, asit now seemed, no more time could be wasted here. Primitives could be overcome, maybe. It would be ruthless and unfair tostrip them of their world, but the first law was survival. But how could primitives do what these must have done? He studied the spear he had salvaged. It was on a staff made ofcemented bits of smaller wood from the scrub growth, skillfullylaminated. The point was of delicately chipped flint, done as no humanhand had been able to do for centuries. Beautiful primitive work, he muttered. Jane pulled the coffee cup away from her lips and snorted. You cansee a lot more of it out there, she suggested. He went to the port and glanced out. About sixty of the things weresquatting in the clearing fog, holding lances and staring at the ship.They were perhaps a thousand yards away, waiting patiently. For what?For the return of their leader—or for something that would give theship to them? Gwayne grabbed the phone and called Barker. How's the captive coming? Barker's voice sounded odd. Physically fine. You can see him. But— Gwayne dropped the phone and headed for the little sick bay. He sworeat Doc for not calling him at once, and then at himself for notchecking up sooner. Then he stopped at the sound of voices. There was the end of a question from Barker and a thick, harsh growlingsound that lifted the hair along the nape of Gwayne's neck. Barkerseemed to understand, and was making a comment as the captain dashed in. The captive was sitting on the bunk, unbound and oddly unmenacing. Thethick features were relaxed and yet somehow intent. He seemed to makesome kind of a salute as he saw Gwayne enter, and his eyes burned upunerringly toward the device on the officer's cap. Haarroo, Cabbaan! the thing said. <doc-sep>Captain Gwayne, may I present your former friend, Captain Hennessy?Barker said. There was a grin on the doctor's lips, but his face wastaut with strain. The creature nodded slowly and drew something from the thick hair onits head. It was the golden comet of a captain. He never meant to hurt the kids—just to talk to them, Barker cut inquickly. I've got some of the story. He's changed. He can't talk verywell. Says they've had to change the language around to make the soundsfit, and he's forgotten how to use what normal English he can. But itgets easier as you listen. It's Hennessy, all right. I'm certain. Gwayne had his own ideas on that. It was easy for an alien to seizeon the gold ornament of a captive earthman, even to learn a littleEnglish, maybe. But Hennessy had been his friend. How many barmaids in the Cheshire Cat? How many pups did your oldestkid's dog have? How many were brown? The lips contorted into something vaguely like a smile, and thecuriously shaped fingers that could handle no human-designed equipmentspread out. Three. Seven. Zero. The answers were right. By the time the session was over, Gwayne had begun to understand thetwisted speech from inhuman vocal cords better. But the story took along time telling. When it was finished, Gwayne and Barker sat for long minutes insilence. Finally Gwayne drew a shuddering breath and stood up. Is itpossible, Doc? No, Barker said flatly. He spread his hands and grimaced. No. Notby what I know. But it happened. I've looked at a few tissues underthe microscope. The changes are there. It's hard to believe abouttheir kids. Adults in eight years, but they stay shorter. It can't bea hereditary change—the things that affect the body don't change thegerm plasm. But in this case, what changed Hennessy is real, so maybethe fact that the change is passed on is as real as he claims. Gwayne led the former Hennessy to the exit. The waiting blobs droppeddown to touch the monstrous man, then leaped up again. The crowd ofmonsters began moving forward toward their leader. A few were almost astall as Hennessy, but most were not more than five feet high. The kids of the exploring party.... <doc-sep>Back in the control room, Gwayne found the emergency release levers,set the combinations and pressed the studs. There was a hiss and gurgleas the great tanks of fuel discharged their contents out onto theground where no ingenuity could ever recover it to bring life to theship again. He'd have to tell the men and women of the crew later, after he'd hadtime to organize things and present it all in a way they could accept,however much they might hate it at first. But there was no putting offgiving the gist of it to Jane. It was the blobs, he summarized it. They seem to be amused by men.They don't require anything from us, but they like us around. Hennessydoesn't know why. They can change our cells, adapt us. Before men came,all life here had twelve legs. Now they're changing that, as we've seen. And they don't have to be close to do it. We've all been outside thehull. It doesn't show yet—but we're changed. In another month, Earthfood would kill us. We've got to stay here. We'll bury the ships deeperthis time, and Earth won't find us. They can't risk trying a colonywhere three ships vanish, so we'll just disappear. And they'll neverknow. Nobody would know. Their children—odd children who matured in eightyears—would be primitive savages in three generations. The Earthtools would be useless, impossible for the hands so radically changed.Nothing from the ship would last. Books could never be read by the neweyes. And in time, Earth wouldn't even be a memory to this world. She was silent a long time, staring out of the port toward what mustnow be her home. Then she sighed. You'll need practice, but the othersdon't know you as well as I do, Bob. I guess we can fix it so they'llbelieve it all. And it's too late now. But we haven't really beenchanged yet, have we? No, he admitted. Damn his voice! He'd never been good at lying. No.They have to touch us. I've been touched, but the rest could go back. She nodded. He waited for the condemnation, but there was onlypuzzlement in her face. Why? And then, before he could answer, her own intelligence gave her thesame answer he had found for himself. The spawning ground! It was the only thing they could do. Earth needed a place to plant herseed, but no world other than Earth could ever be trusted to preservethat seed for generation after generation. Some worlds already werebecoming uncertain. Here, though, the blobs had adapted men to the alien world instead ofmen having to adapt the whole planet to their needs. Here, the strangechildren of man's race could grow, develop and begin the long trek backto civilization. The gadgets would be lost for a time. But perhapssome of the attitudes of civilized man would remain to make the nextrise to culture a better one. We're needed here, he told her, his voice pleading for theunderstanding he couldn't yet fully give himself. These people needas rich a set of bloodlines as possible to give the new race strength.The fifty men and women on this ship will be needed to start them witha decent chance. We can't go to Earth, where nobody would believe oraccept the idea—or even let us come back. We have to stay here. She smiled then and moved toward him, groping for his strength. Befruitful, she whispered. Be fruitful and spawn and replenish anearth. No, he told her. Replenish the stars. But she was no longer listening, and that part of his idea could wait. Some day, though, their children would find a way to the starlanesagain, looking for other worlds. With the blobs to help them, theycould adapt to most worlds. The unchanged spirit would lead themthrough all space, and the changing bodies would claim worlds beyondnumbering. Some day, the whole universe would be a spawning ground for thechildren of men! <doc-sep></s>

The Starship Pandora lands on a planet where an exploring ship and a rescue group disappear. Captain Gwayne was ordered to come and inspect the lost ships for a week. They prolong their stay because of a discovery of the carefully buried ship whose parts were exposed by a landslide and detected by a metal locator a few days ago. When two cadets, Kaufman and Pinelli, and one member, Doctor Barker, approach to examine the buried ship, a horde of mysterious creatures come to them. The leader of mysterious creatures, tall and man-like, kidnaps the two cadets with his members and runs away. Captain Gwayne and other crew members ride on jeeps and chase after the monsters. When they catch up to the mysterious leader, the cadets are sitting on each shoulder of the leader without harm. Captain Gwayne and Doctor Barker collaborate to defeat the leader and bring it back to the ship.After bringing back the captive, Captain Gwayne has learned from the creature that he is Hennessy, the missing captain of the buried ship. He reveals that the blobs, a peculiarity on the planet, can change the cells in living creatures to help them adapt to the planet, which has done to Captain Hennessy and his crew members. All the mysterious creatures surrounding the ship are either the original crew members or their descendants. They decided to bury the ship after noticing the changes. After he finished the story, Captain Hennessy went to gather with his people. And now, Captain Gwayne faces the same situation as Captain Hennessy did in the past: either die when they go back to the Earth or stay on the planet to become a different creature, which at least makes humankind survive differently. Captain Gwayne decides to stay, so he discharges all the fuel out to not let the ship live again. He then tells Jane Corey, the Lieutenant, the truth and his decision. They both know that they have to stay for the better strength of the species after generations because humankind needs to have at least one hope to spread their seeds, even in a different shape. They will obliterate all their traces so that the Earth will send no more humans to the planet.

<s> Spawning Ground By LESTER DEL REY They weren't human. They were something more—and something less—they were, in short, humanity's hopes for survival! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Starship Pandora creaked and groaned as her landing pads settledunevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed tobe restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years fromthe waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoedthrough her hallways. Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He wasa big, rawboned man, barely forty; but ten years of responsibilityhad pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under hisreddened eyes. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonieswere rough on the men who traveled them now. He shuffled toward thecontrol room, grumbling at the heavy gravity. Lieutenant Jane Corey looked up, nodding a blonde head at him as hemoved toward the ever-waiting pot of murky coffee. Morning, Bob. Youneed a shave. Yeah. He swallowed the hot coffee without tasting it, then ran ahand across the dark stubble on his chin. It could wait. Anything newduring the night? About a dozen blobs held something like a convention a little waysnorth of us. They broke up about an hour ago and streaked off into theclouds. The blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobodyknew anything. They looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to havean almost sentient curiosity about anything moving on the ground. Andour two cadets sneaked out again. Barker followed them, but lost themin the murk. I've kept a signal going to guide them back. Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmenin the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for trainingas cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he'd drawn, Kaufman andPinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution. Of course there was no obvious need for caution here. The blobs hadn'tseemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorousand harmless. They were ugly enough, looking like insects in spite oftheir internal skeletons, with anywhere from four to twelve legs eachon their segmented bodies. None acted like dangerous beasts. But something had happened to the exploration party fifteen yearsback, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to checkup. <doc-sep>He turned to the port to stare out at the planet. The Sol-type sunmust be rising, since there was a dim light. But the thick clouds thatwrapped the entire world diffused its rays into a haze. For a change,it wasn't raining, though the ground was covered by thick swirls offog. In the distance, the tops of shrubs that made a scrub forestglowed yellow-green. Motions around them suggested a herd of feedinganimals. Details were impossible to see through the haze. Even thedeep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship wascompletely hidden by the fog. There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animalsnow, as they often seemed to do. Gwayne stared at them for a minute,trying to read sense into the things. If he had time to study them.... But there was no time. Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load ofdeep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any signof Hennessy. He'd been here a week longer than he should have stayedalready. If there was no sign in another day or so of what had happenedto the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have toreport back. He would have left before, if a recent landslip hadn't exposed enoughof the buried ship for his metal locators to spot from the air byluck. It had obviously been hidden deep enough to foil the detectorsoriginally. Bob! Jane Corey's voice cut through his pondering. Bob, there arethe kids! Before he could swing to follow her pointing finger, movement caughthis eye. The blobs had left the herd. Now the three were streaking at fantasticspeed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something thatmoved there. He saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, justbeyond the movement he'd seen through the mist. Whatever was making the fog swirl must have reached higher ground.Something began to heave upwards. It was too far to see clearly, butGwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets. They must have seen whatever it was just as the call reached them.Young Kaufman grabbed at Pinelli, and they swung around together. Then the mists cleared. Under the dancing blobs, a horde of things was heading for the cadets.Shaggy heads, brute bodies vaguely man-like! One seemed to be almosteight feet tall, leading the others directly toward the spacesuitedcadets. Some of the horde were carrying spears or sticks. There was amomentary halt, and then the leader lifted one arm, as if motioning theothers forward. <doc-sep>Get the jeeps out! Gwayne yelled at Jane. He yanked the door ofthe little officers' lift open and jabbed the down button. It wasagonizingly slow, but faster than climbing down. He ripped the doorback at the exit deck. Men were dashing in, stumbling around inconfusion. But someone was taking over now—one of the crew women. Thejeeps were lining up. One, at the front, was stuttering into life, andGwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back. There was no time for suits or helmets. The air on the planet wasirritating and vile smelling, but it could be breathed. He leaped tothe seat, to see that the driver was Doctor Barker. At a gesture, thejeep rolled down the ramp, grinding its gears into second as it pickedup speed. The other two followed. There was no sign of the cadets at first. Then Gwayne spotted them;surrounded by the menacing horde. Seen from here, the things lookedhorrible in a travesty of manhood. The huge leader suddenly waved and pointed toward the jeeps that wereracing toward him. He made a fantastic leap backwards. Others swungabout, two of them grabbing up the cadets. The jeep was doing twentymiles an hour now, but the horde began to increase the distance, inspite of the load of the two struggling boys! The creatures diveddownward into lower ground, beginning to disappear into the mists. Follow the blobs, Gwayne yelled. He realized now he'd been a fool toleave his suit; the radio would have let him keep in contact with thekids. But it was too late to go back. The blobs danced after the horde. Barker bounced the jeep downward intoa gorge. Somewhere the man had learned to drive superlatively; but hehad to slow as the fog thickened lower down. Then it cleared to show the mob of creatures doubling back on their owntrail to confuse the pursuers. There was no time to stop. The jeep plowed through them. Gwayne had aglimpse of five-foot bodies tumbling out of the way. Monstrously coarsefaces were half hidden by thick hair. A spear crunched against thewindshield from behind, and Gwayne caught it before it could foul thesteering wheel. It had a wickedly beautiful point of stone. The creatures vanished as Barker fought to turn to follow them. Theother jeeps were coming up, by the sound of their motors, but too lateto help. They'd have to get to the group with the cadets in a hurry orthe horde would all vanish in the uneven ground, hidden by the fog. A blob dropped down, almost touching Gwayne. He threw up an instinctive hand. There was a tingling as the creatureseemed to pass around it. It lifted a few inches and drifted off. Abruptly, Barker's foot ground at the brake. Gwayne jolted forwardagainst the windshield, just as he made out the form of the eight-footleader. The thing was standing directly ahead of him, a cadet on eachshoulder. The wheels locked and the jeep slid protestingly forward. The creatureleaped back. But Gwayne was out of the jeep before it stopped, divingfor the figure. It dropped the boys with a surprised grunt. <doc-sep>The arms were thin and grotesque below the massively distortedshoulders, but amazingly strong. Gwayne felt them wrench at him as hishands locked on the thick throat. A stench of alien flesh was in hisnose as the thing fell backwards. Doc Barker had hit it seconds afterthe captain's attack. Its head hit rocky ground with a dull, heavysound, and it collapsed. Gwayne eased back slowly, but it made nofurther move, though it was still breathing. Another jeep had drawn up, and men were examining the cadets. Pinelliwas either laughing or crying, and Kaufman was trying to break free tokick at the monster. But neither had been harmed. The two were loadedonto a jeep while men helped Barker and Gwayne stow the bound monsteron another before heading back. No sign of skull fracture. My God, what a tough brute! Barker shookhis own head, as if feeling the shock of the monster's landing. I hope so, Gwayne told him. I want that thing to live—and you'redetailed to save it and revive it. Find out if it can make signlanguage or draw pictures. I want to know what happened to Hennessyand why that ship was buried against detection. This thing may be theanswer. Barker nodded grimly. I'll try, though I can't risk drugs on an alienmetabolism. He sucked in on the cigarette he'd dug out, then spatsickly. Smoke and this air made a foul combination. Bob, it stillmakes no sense. We've scoured this planet by infra-red, and there wasno sign of native villages or culture. We should have found some. Troglodytes, maybe, Gwayne guessed. Anyhow, send for me when you getanything. I've got to get this ship back to Earth. We're overstayingour time here already. The reports from the cadets were satisfactory enough. They'd beenpicked up and carried, but no harm had been done them. Now they werebusy being little heroes. Gwayne sentenced them to quarters as soonas he could, knowing their stories would only get wilder and lessinformative with retelling. If they could get any story from the captured creature, they might savetime and be better off than trying to dig through Hennessy's ship. Thatwas almost certainly spoorless by now. The only possible answer seemedto be that the exploring expedition and Hennessy's rescue group hadbeen overcome by the aliens. It was an answer, but it left a lot of questions. How could theprimitives have gotten to the men inside Hennessy's ship? Why was itsfuel dumped? Only men would have known how to do that. And who toldthese creatures that a space ship's metal finders could be fooled by alittle more than a hundred feet of solid rock? They'd buried the shipcunningly, and only the accidental slippage had undone their work. Maybe there would never be a full answer, but he had to findsomething—and find it fast. Earth needed every world she could makeremotely habitable, or mankind was probably doomed to extinction. <doc-sep>The race had blundered safely through its discovery of atomic weaponsinto a peace that had lasted two hundred years. It had managed toprevent an interplanetary war with the Venus colonists. It had founda drive that led to the stars, and hadn't even found intelligent lifethere to be dangerous on the few worlds that had cultures of their own. But forty years ago, observations from beyond the Solar System hadfinally proved that the sun was going to go nova. It wouldn't be much of an explosion, as such things go—but it wouldrender the whole Solar System uninhabitable for millenia. To survive,man had to colonize. And there were no worlds perfect for him, as Earth had been. Theexplorers went out in desperation to find what they could; theterraforming teams did what they could. And then the big starshipsbegan filling worlds with colonists, carried in deep sleep to conservespace. Almost eighty worlds. The nearest a four month journey from Earth andfour more months back. In another ten years, the sun would explode, leaving man only on thefootholds he was trying to dig among other solar systems. Maybe someof the strange worlds would let men spread his seed again. Maybe nonewould be spawning grounds for mankind in spite of the efforts. Each wasprecious as a haven for the race. If this world could be used, it would be nearer than most. If not, asit now seemed, no more time could be wasted here. Primitives could be overcome, maybe. It would be ruthless and unfair tostrip them of their world, but the first law was survival. But how could primitives do what these must have done? He studied the spear he had salvaged. It was on a staff made ofcemented bits of smaller wood from the scrub growth, skillfullylaminated. The point was of delicately chipped flint, done as no humanhand had been able to do for centuries. Beautiful primitive work, he muttered. Jane pulled the coffee cup away from her lips and snorted. You cansee a lot more of it out there, she suggested. He went to the port and glanced out. About sixty of the things weresquatting in the clearing fog, holding lances and staring at the ship.They were perhaps a thousand yards away, waiting patiently. For what?For the return of their leader—or for something that would give theship to them? Gwayne grabbed the phone and called Barker. How's the captive coming? Barker's voice sounded odd. Physically fine. You can see him. But— Gwayne dropped the phone and headed for the little sick bay. He sworeat Doc for not calling him at once, and then at himself for notchecking up sooner. Then he stopped at the sound of voices. There was the end of a question from Barker and a thick, harsh growlingsound that lifted the hair along the nape of Gwayne's neck. Barkerseemed to understand, and was making a comment as the captain dashed in. The captive was sitting on the bunk, unbound and oddly unmenacing. Thethick features were relaxed and yet somehow intent. He seemed to makesome kind of a salute as he saw Gwayne enter, and his eyes burned upunerringly toward the device on the officer's cap. Haarroo, Cabbaan! the thing said. <doc-sep>Captain Gwayne, may I present your former friend, Captain Hennessy?Barker said. There was a grin on the doctor's lips, but his face wastaut with strain. The creature nodded slowly and drew something from the thick hair onits head. It was the golden comet of a captain. He never meant to hurt the kids—just to talk to them, Barker cut inquickly. I've got some of the story. He's changed. He can't talk verywell. Says they've had to change the language around to make the soundsfit, and he's forgotten how to use what normal English he can. But itgets easier as you listen. It's Hennessy, all right. I'm certain. Gwayne had his own ideas on that. It was easy for an alien to seizeon the gold ornament of a captive earthman, even to learn a littleEnglish, maybe. But Hennessy had been his friend. How many barmaids in the Cheshire Cat? How many pups did your oldestkid's dog have? How many were brown? The lips contorted into something vaguely like a smile, and thecuriously shaped fingers that could handle no human-designed equipmentspread out. Three. Seven. Zero. The answers were right. By the time the session was over, Gwayne had begun to understand thetwisted speech from inhuman vocal cords better. But the story took along time telling. When it was finished, Gwayne and Barker sat for long minutes insilence. Finally Gwayne drew a shuddering breath and stood up. Is itpossible, Doc? No, Barker said flatly. He spread his hands and grimaced. No. Notby what I know. But it happened. I've looked at a few tissues underthe microscope. The changes are there. It's hard to believe abouttheir kids. Adults in eight years, but they stay shorter. It can't bea hereditary change—the things that affect the body don't change thegerm plasm. But in this case, what changed Hennessy is real, so maybethe fact that the change is passed on is as real as he claims. Gwayne led the former Hennessy to the exit. The waiting blobs droppeddown to touch the monstrous man, then leaped up again. The crowd ofmonsters began moving forward toward their leader. A few were almost astall as Hennessy, but most were not more than five feet high. The kids of the exploring party.... <doc-sep>Back in the control room, Gwayne found the emergency release levers,set the combinations and pressed the studs. There was a hiss and gurgleas the great tanks of fuel discharged their contents out onto theground where no ingenuity could ever recover it to bring life to theship again. He'd have to tell the men and women of the crew later, after he'd hadtime to organize things and present it all in a way they could accept,however much they might hate it at first. But there was no putting offgiving the gist of it to Jane. It was the blobs, he summarized it. They seem to be amused by men.They don't require anything from us, but they like us around. Hennessydoesn't know why. They can change our cells, adapt us. Before men came,all life here had twelve legs. Now they're changing that, as we've seen. And they don't have to be close to do it. We've all been outside thehull. It doesn't show yet—but we're changed. In another month, Earthfood would kill us. We've got to stay here. We'll bury the ships deeperthis time, and Earth won't find us. They can't risk trying a colonywhere three ships vanish, so we'll just disappear. And they'll neverknow. Nobody would know. Their children—odd children who matured in eightyears—would be primitive savages in three generations. The Earthtools would be useless, impossible for the hands so radically changed.Nothing from the ship would last. Books could never be read by the neweyes. And in time, Earth wouldn't even be a memory to this world. She was silent a long time, staring out of the port toward what mustnow be her home. Then she sighed. You'll need practice, but the othersdon't know you as well as I do, Bob. I guess we can fix it so they'llbelieve it all. And it's too late now. But we haven't really beenchanged yet, have we? No, he admitted. Damn his voice! He'd never been good at lying. No.They have to touch us. I've been touched, but the rest could go back. She nodded. He waited for the condemnation, but there was onlypuzzlement in her face. Why? And then, before he could answer, her own intelligence gave her thesame answer he had found for himself. The spawning ground! It was the only thing they could do. Earth needed a place to plant herseed, but no world other than Earth could ever be trusted to preservethat seed for generation after generation. Some worlds already werebecoming uncertain. Here, though, the blobs had adapted men to the alien world instead ofmen having to adapt the whole planet to their needs. Here, the strangechildren of man's race could grow, develop and begin the long trek backto civilization. The gadgets would be lost for a time. But perhapssome of the attitudes of civilized man would remain to make the nextrise to culture a better one. We're needed here, he told her, his voice pleading for theunderstanding he couldn't yet fully give himself. These people needas rich a set of bloodlines as possible to give the new race strength.The fifty men and women on this ship will be needed to start them witha decent chance. We can't go to Earth, where nobody would believe oraccept the idea—or even let us come back. We have to stay here. She smiled then and moved toward him, groping for his strength. Befruitful, she whispered. Be fruitful and spawn and replenish anearth. No, he told her. Replenish the stars. But she was no longer listening, and that part of his idea could wait. Some day, though, their children would find a way to the starlanesagain, looking for other worlds. With the blobs to help them, theycould adapt to most worlds. The unchanged spirit would lead themthrough all space, and the changing bodies would claim worlds beyondnumbering. Some day, the whole universe would be a spawning ground for thechildren of men! <doc-sep></s>

Hennessy is the captain of the lost ship sent to inspect an exploring team fifteen years ago on a planet. He is also a friend of Captain Gwayne, who comes after him to check his loss. He becomes a mysterious creature adapted by the blobs, a peculiarity on the planet. Due to this change to him and his crew members, they decide to bury their ships carefully not to let other people find them.When the Starship Pandora lands on the planet and the two cadets from the ship approach to examine the buried ship, Hennessy kidnaps them with his members, leading Captain Gwayne to come to capture him. After becoming a captive in the ship, he reveals his identity to Captain Gwayne, and Gwayne confirms his identity with a series of questions that are only known to them. Finally, he tells all the story to Gwayne and leaves to gather with his people outside the ship.

<s> Spawning Ground By LESTER DEL REY They weren't human. They were something more—and something less—they were, in short, humanity's hopes for survival! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Starship Pandora creaked and groaned as her landing pads settledunevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed tobe restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years fromthe waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoedthrough her hallways. Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He wasa big, rawboned man, barely forty; but ten years of responsibilityhad pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under hisreddened eyes. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonieswere rough on the men who traveled them now. He shuffled toward thecontrol room, grumbling at the heavy gravity. Lieutenant Jane Corey looked up, nodding a blonde head at him as hemoved toward the ever-waiting pot of murky coffee. Morning, Bob. Youneed a shave. Yeah. He swallowed the hot coffee without tasting it, then ran ahand across the dark stubble on his chin. It could wait. Anything newduring the night? About a dozen blobs held something like a convention a little waysnorth of us. They broke up about an hour ago and streaked off into theclouds. The blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobodyknew anything. They looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to havean almost sentient curiosity about anything moving on the ground. Andour two cadets sneaked out again. Barker followed them, but lost themin the murk. I've kept a signal going to guide them back. Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmenin the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for trainingas cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he'd drawn, Kaufman andPinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution. Of course there was no obvious need for caution here. The blobs hadn'tseemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorousand harmless. They were ugly enough, looking like insects in spite oftheir internal skeletons, with anywhere from four to twelve legs eachon their segmented bodies. None acted like dangerous beasts. But something had happened to the exploration party fifteen yearsback, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to checkup. <doc-sep>He turned to the port to stare out at the planet. The Sol-type sunmust be rising, since there was a dim light. But the thick clouds thatwrapped the entire world diffused its rays into a haze. For a change,it wasn't raining, though the ground was covered by thick swirls offog. In the distance, the tops of shrubs that made a scrub forestglowed yellow-green. Motions around them suggested a herd of feedinganimals. Details were impossible to see through the haze. Even thedeep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship wascompletely hidden by the fog. There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animalsnow, as they often seemed to do. Gwayne stared at them for a minute,trying to read sense into the things. If he had time to study them.... But there was no time. Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load ofdeep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any signof Hennessy. He'd been here a week longer than he should have stayedalready. If there was no sign in another day or so of what had happenedto the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have toreport back. He would have left before, if a recent landslip hadn't exposed enoughof the buried ship for his metal locators to spot from the air byluck. It had obviously been hidden deep enough to foil the detectorsoriginally. Bob! Jane Corey's voice cut through his pondering. Bob, there arethe kids! Before he could swing to follow her pointing finger, movement caughthis eye. The blobs had left the herd. Now the three were streaking at fantasticspeed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something thatmoved there. He saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, justbeyond the movement he'd seen through the mist. Whatever was making the fog swirl must have reached higher ground.Something began to heave upwards. It was too far to see clearly, butGwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets. They must have seen whatever it was just as the call reached them.Young Kaufman grabbed at Pinelli, and they swung around together. Then the mists cleared. Under the dancing blobs, a horde of things was heading for the cadets.Shaggy heads, brute bodies vaguely man-like! One seemed to be almosteight feet tall, leading the others directly toward the spacesuitedcadets. Some of the horde were carrying spears or sticks. There was amomentary halt, and then the leader lifted one arm, as if motioning theothers forward. <doc-sep>Get the jeeps out! Gwayne yelled at Jane. He yanked the door ofthe little officers' lift open and jabbed the down button. It wasagonizingly slow, but faster than climbing down. He ripped the doorback at the exit deck. Men were dashing in, stumbling around inconfusion. But someone was taking over now—one of the crew women. Thejeeps were lining up. One, at the front, was stuttering into life, andGwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back. There was no time for suits or helmets. The air on the planet wasirritating and vile smelling, but it could be breathed. He leaped tothe seat, to see that the driver was Doctor Barker. At a gesture, thejeep rolled down the ramp, grinding its gears into second as it pickedup speed. The other two followed. There was no sign of the cadets at first. Then Gwayne spotted them;surrounded by the menacing horde. Seen from here, the things lookedhorrible in a travesty of manhood. The huge leader suddenly waved and pointed toward the jeeps that wereracing toward him. He made a fantastic leap backwards. Others swungabout, two of them grabbing up the cadets. The jeep was doing twentymiles an hour now, but the horde began to increase the distance, inspite of the load of the two struggling boys! The creatures diveddownward into lower ground, beginning to disappear into the mists. Follow the blobs, Gwayne yelled. He realized now he'd been a fool toleave his suit; the radio would have let him keep in contact with thekids. But it was too late to go back. The blobs danced after the horde. Barker bounced the jeep downward intoa gorge. Somewhere the man had learned to drive superlatively; but hehad to slow as the fog thickened lower down. Then it cleared to show the mob of creatures doubling back on their owntrail to confuse the pursuers. There was no time to stop. The jeep plowed through them. Gwayne had aglimpse of five-foot bodies tumbling out of the way. Monstrously coarsefaces were half hidden by thick hair. A spear crunched against thewindshield from behind, and Gwayne caught it before it could foul thesteering wheel. It had a wickedly beautiful point of stone. The creatures vanished as Barker fought to turn to follow them. Theother jeeps were coming up, by the sound of their motors, but too lateto help. They'd have to get to the group with the cadets in a hurry orthe horde would all vanish in the uneven ground, hidden by the fog. A blob dropped down, almost touching Gwayne. He threw up an instinctive hand. There was a tingling as the creatureseemed to pass around it. It lifted a few inches and drifted off. Abruptly, Barker's foot ground at the brake. Gwayne jolted forwardagainst the windshield, just as he made out the form of the eight-footleader. The thing was standing directly ahead of him, a cadet on eachshoulder. The wheels locked and the jeep slid protestingly forward. The creatureleaped back. But Gwayne was out of the jeep before it stopped, divingfor the figure. It dropped the boys with a surprised grunt. <doc-sep>The arms were thin and grotesque below the massively distortedshoulders, but amazingly strong. Gwayne felt them wrench at him as hishands locked on the thick throat. A stench of alien flesh was in hisnose as the thing fell backwards. Doc Barker had hit it seconds afterthe captain's attack. Its head hit rocky ground with a dull, heavysound, and it collapsed. Gwayne eased back slowly, but it made nofurther move, though it was still breathing. Another jeep had drawn up, and men were examining the cadets. Pinelliwas either laughing or crying, and Kaufman was trying to break free tokick at the monster. But neither had been harmed. The two were loadedonto a jeep while men helped Barker and Gwayne stow the bound monsteron another before heading back. No sign of skull fracture. My God, what a tough brute! Barker shookhis own head, as if feeling the shock of the monster's landing. I hope so, Gwayne told him. I want that thing to live—and you'redetailed to save it and revive it. Find out if it can make signlanguage or draw pictures. I want to know what happened to Hennessyand why that ship was buried against detection. This thing may be theanswer. Barker nodded grimly. I'll try, though I can't risk drugs on an alienmetabolism. He sucked in on the cigarette he'd dug out, then spatsickly. Smoke and this air made a foul combination. Bob, it stillmakes no sense. We've scoured this planet by infra-red, and there wasno sign of native villages or culture. We should have found some. Troglodytes, maybe, Gwayne guessed. Anyhow, send for me when you getanything. I've got to get this ship back to Earth. We're overstayingour time here already. The reports from the cadets were satisfactory enough. They'd beenpicked up and carried, but no harm had been done them. Now they werebusy being little heroes. Gwayne sentenced them to quarters as soonas he could, knowing their stories would only get wilder and lessinformative with retelling. If they could get any story from the captured creature, they might savetime and be better off than trying to dig through Hennessy's ship. Thatwas almost certainly spoorless by now. The only possible answer seemedto be that the exploring expedition and Hennessy's rescue group hadbeen overcome by the aliens. It was an answer, but it left a lot of questions. How could theprimitives have gotten to the men inside Hennessy's ship? Why was itsfuel dumped? Only men would have known how to do that. And who toldthese creatures that a space ship's metal finders could be fooled by alittle more than a hundred feet of solid rock? They'd buried the shipcunningly, and only the accidental slippage had undone their work. Maybe there would never be a full answer, but he had to findsomething—and find it fast. Earth needed every world she could makeremotely habitable, or mankind was probably doomed to extinction. <doc-sep>The race had blundered safely through its discovery of atomic weaponsinto a peace that had lasted two hundred years. It had managed toprevent an interplanetary war with the Venus colonists. It had founda drive that led to the stars, and hadn't even found intelligent lifethere to be dangerous on the few worlds that had cultures of their own. But forty years ago, observations from beyond the Solar System hadfinally proved that the sun was going to go nova. It wouldn't be much of an explosion, as such things go—but it wouldrender the whole Solar System uninhabitable for millenia. To survive,man had to colonize. And there were no worlds perfect for him, as Earth had been. Theexplorers went out in desperation to find what they could; theterraforming teams did what they could. And then the big starshipsbegan filling worlds with colonists, carried in deep sleep to conservespace. Almost eighty worlds. The nearest a four month journey from Earth andfour more months back. In another ten years, the sun would explode, leaving man only on thefootholds he was trying to dig among other solar systems. Maybe someof the strange worlds would let men spread his seed again. Maybe nonewould be spawning grounds for mankind in spite of the efforts. Each wasprecious as a haven for the race. If this world could be used, it would be nearer than most. If not, asit now seemed, no more time could be wasted here. Primitives could be overcome, maybe. It would be ruthless and unfair tostrip them of their world, but the first law was survival. But how could primitives do what these must have done? He studied the spear he had salvaged. It was on a staff made ofcemented bits of smaller wood from the scrub growth, skillfullylaminated. The point was of delicately chipped flint, done as no humanhand had been able to do for centuries. Beautiful primitive work, he muttered. Jane pulled the coffee cup away from her lips and snorted. You cansee a lot more of it out there, she suggested. He went to the port and glanced out. About sixty of the things weresquatting in the clearing fog, holding lances and staring at the ship.They were perhaps a thousand yards away, waiting patiently. For what?For the return of their leader—or for something that would give theship to them? Gwayne grabbed the phone and called Barker. How's the captive coming? Barker's voice sounded odd. Physically fine. You can see him. But— Gwayne dropped the phone and headed for the little sick bay. He sworeat Doc for not calling him at once, and then at himself for notchecking up sooner. Then he stopped at the sound of voices. There was the end of a question from Barker and a thick, harsh growlingsound that lifted the hair along the nape of Gwayne's neck. Barkerseemed to understand, and was making a comment as the captain dashed in. The captive was sitting on the bunk, unbound and oddly unmenacing. Thethick features were relaxed and yet somehow intent. He seemed to makesome kind of a salute as he saw Gwayne enter, and his eyes burned upunerringly toward the device on the officer's cap. Haarroo, Cabbaan! the thing said. <doc-sep>Captain Gwayne, may I present your former friend, Captain Hennessy?Barker said. There was a grin on the doctor's lips, but his face wastaut with strain. The creature nodded slowly and drew something from the thick hair onits head. It was the golden comet of a captain. He never meant to hurt the kids—just to talk to them, Barker cut inquickly. I've got some of the story. He's changed. He can't talk verywell. Says they've had to change the language around to make the soundsfit, and he's forgotten how to use what normal English he can. But itgets easier as you listen. It's Hennessy, all right. I'm certain. Gwayne had his own ideas on that. It was easy for an alien to seizeon the gold ornament of a captive earthman, even to learn a littleEnglish, maybe. But Hennessy had been his friend. How many barmaids in the Cheshire Cat? How many pups did your oldestkid's dog have? How many were brown? The lips contorted into something vaguely like a smile, and thecuriously shaped fingers that could handle no human-designed equipmentspread out. Three. Seven. Zero. The answers were right. By the time the session was over, Gwayne had begun to understand thetwisted speech from inhuman vocal cords better. But the story took along time telling. When it was finished, Gwayne and Barker sat for long minutes insilence. Finally Gwayne drew a shuddering breath and stood up. Is itpossible, Doc? No, Barker said flatly. He spread his hands and grimaced. No. Notby what I know. But it happened. I've looked at a few tissues underthe microscope. The changes are there. It's hard to believe abouttheir kids. Adults in eight years, but they stay shorter. It can't bea hereditary change—the things that affect the body don't change thegerm plasm. But in this case, what changed Hennessy is real, so maybethe fact that the change is passed on is as real as he claims. Gwayne led the former Hennessy to the exit. The waiting blobs droppeddown to touch the monstrous man, then leaped up again. The crowd ofmonsters began moving forward toward their leader. A few were almost astall as Hennessy, but most were not more than five feet high. The kids of the exploring party.... <doc-sep>Back in the control room, Gwayne found the emergency release levers,set the combinations and pressed the studs. There was a hiss and gurgleas the great tanks of fuel discharged their contents out onto theground where no ingenuity could ever recover it to bring life to theship again. He'd have to tell the men and women of the crew later, after he'd hadtime to organize things and present it all in a way they could accept,however much they might hate it at first. But there was no putting offgiving the gist of it to Jane. It was the blobs, he summarized it. They seem to be amused by men.They don't require anything from us, but they like us around. Hennessydoesn't know why. They can change our cells, adapt us. Before men came,all life here had twelve legs. Now they're changing that, as we've seen. And they don't have to be close to do it. We've all been outside thehull. It doesn't show yet—but we're changed. In another month, Earthfood would kill us. We've got to stay here. We'll bury the ships deeperthis time, and Earth won't find us. They can't risk trying a colonywhere three ships vanish, so we'll just disappear. And they'll neverknow. Nobody would know. Their children—odd children who matured in eightyears—would be primitive savages in three generations. The Earthtools would be useless, impossible for the hands so radically changed.Nothing from the ship would last. Books could never be read by the neweyes. And in time, Earth wouldn't even be a memory to this world. She was silent a long time, staring out of the port toward what mustnow be her home. Then she sighed. You'll need practice, but the othersdon't know you as well as I do, Bob. I guess we can fix it so they'llbelieve it all. And it's too late now. But we haven't really beenchanged yet, have we? No, he admitted. Damn his voice! He'd never been good at lying. No.They have to touch us. I've been touched, but the rest could go back. She nodded. He waited for the condemnation, but there was onlypuzzlement in her face. Why? And then, before he could answer, her own intelligence gave her thesame answer he had found for himself. The spawning ground! It was the only thing they could do. Earth needed a place to plant herseed, but no world other than Earth could ever be trusted to preservethat seed for generation after generation. Some worlds already werebecoming uncertain. Here, though, the blobs had adapted men to the alien world instead ofmen having to adapt the whole planet to their needs. Here, the strangechildren of man's race could grow, develop and begin the long trek backto civilization. The gadgets would be lost for a time. But perhapssome of the attitudes of civilized man would remain to make the nextrise to culture a better one. We're needed here, he told her, his voice pleading for theunderstanding he couldn't yet fully give himself. These people needas rich a set of bloodlines as possible to give the new race strength.The fifty men and women on this ship will be needed to start them witha decent chance. We can't go to Earth, where nobody would believe oraccept the idea—or even let us come back. We have to stay here. She smiled then and moved toward him, groping for his strength. Befruitful, she whispered. Be fruitful and spawn and replenish anearth. No, he told her. Replenish the stars. But she was no longer listening, and that part of his idea could wait. Some day, though, their children would find a way to the starlanesagain, looking for other worlds. With the blobs to help them, theycould adapt to most worlds. The unchanged spirit would lead themthrough all space, and the changing bodies would claim worlds beyondnumbering. Some day, the whole universe would be a spawning ground for thechildren of men! <doc-sep></s>

Jane Corey is the lieutenant on the Starship Pandora. She calls Captain Gwayne “Bob.” She informs Captain Gwayne about the sneaking out of two cadets and the situation when Captain Gwayne asks her. She also gets the jeeps out when Captain Gwayne tries to catch up with the mysterious creatures who captured the cadets. In addition, after Captain Gwayne learns the truth from Hennessy, the leader of the mysterious creature, and discharges the fuel from the ship, he tells Jane about his decision. Jane does not condemn him for deciding the future of other members alone because she realizes that they must stay on the planet to function as a spawning ground for the human species. She is a good partner for Captain Gwayne.

<s> Spawning Ground By LESTER DEL REY They weren't human. They were something more—and something less—they were, in short, humanity's hopes for survival! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Starship Pandora creaked and groaned as her landing pads settledunevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed tobe restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years fromthe waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoedthrough her hallways. Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He wasa big, rawboned man, barely forty; but ten years of responsibilityhad pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under hisreddened eyes. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonieswere rough on the men who traveled them now. He shuffled toward thecontrol room, grumbling at the heavy gravity. Lieutenant Jane Corey looked up, nodding a blonde head at him as hemoved toward the ever-waiting pot of murky coffee. Morning, Bob. Youneed a shave. Yeah. He swallowed the hot coffee without tasting it, then ran ahand across the dark stubble on his chin. It could wait. Anything newduring the night? About a dozen blobs held something like a convention a little waysnorth of us. They broke up about an hour ago and streaked off into theclouds. The blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobodyknew anything. They looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to havean almost sentient curiosity about anything moving on the ground. Andour two cadets sneaked out again. Barker followed them, but lost themin the murk. I've kept a signal going to guide them back. Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmenin the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for trainingas cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he'd drawn, Kaufman andPinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution. Of course there was no obvious need for caution here. The blobs hadn'tseemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorousand harmless. They were ugly enough, looking like insects in spite oftheir internal skeletons, with anywhere from four to twelve legs eachon their segmented bodies. None acted like dangerous beasts. But something had happened to the exploration party fifteen yearsback, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to checkup. <doc-sep>He turned to the port to stare out at the planet. The Sol-type sunmust be rising, since there was a dim light. But the thick clouds thatwrapped the entire world diffused its rays into a haze. For a change,it wasn't raining, though the ground was covered by thick swirls offog. In the distance, the tops of shrubs that made a scrub forestglowed yellow-green. Motions around them suggested a herd of feedinganimals. Details were impossible to see through the haze. Even thedeep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship wascompletely hidden by the fog. There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animalsnow, as they often seemed to do. Gwayne stared at them for a minute,trying to read sense into the things. If he had time to study them.... But there was no time. Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load ofdeep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any signof Hennessy. He'd been here a week longer than he should have stayedalready. If there was no sign in another day or so of what had happenedto the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have toreport back. He would have left before, if a recent landslip hadn't exposed enoughof the buried ship for his metal locators to spot from the air byluck. It had obviously been hidden deep enough to foil the detectorsoriginally. Bob! Jane Corey's voice cut through his pondering. Bob, there arethe kids! Before he could swing to follow her pointing finger, movement caughthis eye. The blobs had left the herd. Now the three were streaking at fantasticspeed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something thatmoved there. He saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, justbeyond the movement he'd seen through the mist. Whatever was making the fog swirl must have reached higher ground.Something began to heave upwards. It was too far to see clearly, butGwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets. They must have seen whatever it was just as the call reached them.Young Kaufman grabbed at Pinelli, and they swung around together. Then the mists cleared. Under the dancing blobs, a horde of things was heading for the cadets.Shaggy heads, brute bodies vaguely man-like! One seemed to be almosteight feet tall, leading the others directly toward the spacesuitedcadets. Some of the horde were carrying spears or sticks. There was amomentary halt, and then the leader lifted one arm, as if motioning theothers forward. <doc-sep>Get the jeeps out! Gwayne yelled at Jane. He yanked the door ofthe little officers' lift open and jabbed the down button. It wasagonizingly slow, but faster than climbing down. He ripped the doorback at the exit deck. Men were dashing in, stumbling around inconfusion. But someone was taking over now—one of the crew women. Thejeeps were lining up. One, at the front, was stuttering into life, andGwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back. There was no time for suits or helmets. The air on the planet wasirritating and vile smelling, but it could be breathed. He leaped tothe seat, to see that the driver was Doctor Barker. At a gesture, thejeep rolled down the ramp, grinding its gears into second as it pickedup speed. The other two followed. There was no sign of the cadets at first. Then Gwayne spotted them;surrounded by the menacing horde. Seen from here, the things lookedhorrible in a travesty of manhood. The huge leader suddenly waved and pointed toward the jeeps that wereracing toward him. He made a fantastic leap backwards. Others swungabout, two of them grabbing up the cadets. The jeep was doing twentymiles an hour now, but the horde began to increase the distance, inspite of the load of the two struggling boys! The creatures diveddownward into lower ground, beginning to disappear into the mists. Follow the blobs, Gwayne yelled. He realized now he'd been a fool toleave his suit; the radio would have let him keep in contact with thekids. But it was too late to go back. The blobs danced after the horde. Barker bounced the jeep downward intoa gorge. Somewhere the man had learned to drive superlatively; but hehad to slow as the fog thickened lower down. Then it cleared to show the mob of creatures doubling back on their owntrail to confuse the pursuers. There was no time to stop. The jeep plowed through them. Gwayne had aglimpse of five-foot bodies tumbling out of the way. Monstrously coarsefaces were half hidden by thick hair. A spear crunched against thewindshield from behind, and Gwayne caught it before it could foul thesteering wheel. It had a wickedly beautiful point of stone. The creatures vanished as Barker fought to turn to follow them. Theother jeeps were coming up, by the sound of their motors, but too lateto help. They'd have to get to the group with the cadets in a hurry orthe horde would all vanish in the uneven ground, hidden by the fog. A blob dropped down, almost touching Gwayne. He threw up an instinctive hand. There was a tingling as the creatureseemed to pass around it. It lifted a few inches and drifted off. Abruptly, Barker's foot ground at the brake. Gwayne jolted forwardagainst the windshield, just as he made out the form of the eight-footleader. The thing was standing directly ahead of him, a cadet on eachshoulder. The wheels locked and the jeep slid protestingly forward. The creatureleaped back. But Gwayne was out of the jeep before it stopped, divingfor the figure. It dropped the boys with a surprised grunt. <doc-sep>The arms were thin and grotesque below the massively distortedshoulders, but amazingly strong. Gwayne felt them wrench at him as hishands locked on the thick throat. A stench of alien flesh was in hisnose as the thing fell backwards. Doc Barker had hit it seconds afterthe captain's attack. Its head hit rocky ground with a dull, heavysound, and it collapsed. Gwayne eased back slowly, but it made nofurther move, though it was still breathing. Another jeep had drawn up, and men were examining the cadets. Pinelliwas either laughing or crying, and Kaufman was trying to break free tokick at the monster. But neither had been harmed. The two were loadedonto a jeep while men helped Barker and Gwayne stow the bound monsteron another before heading back. No sign of skull fracture. My God, what a tough brute! Barker shookhis own head, as if feeling the shock of the monster's landing. I hope so, Gwayne told him. I want that thing to live—and you'redetailed to save it and revive it. Find out if it can make signlanguage or draw pictures. I want to know what happened to Hennessyand why that ship was buried against detection. This thing may be theanswer. Barker nodded grimly. I'll try, though I can't risk drugs on an alienmetabolism. He sucked in on the cigarette he'd dug out, then spatsickly. Smoke and this air made a foul combination. Bob, it stillmakes no sense. We've scoured this planet by infra-red, and there wasno sign of native villages or culture. We should have found some. Troglodytes, maybe, Gwayne guessed. Anyhow, send for me when you getanything. I've got to get this ship back to Earth. We're overstayingour time here already. The reports from the cadets were satisfactory enough. They'd beenpicked up and carried, but no harm had been done them. Now they werebusy being little heroes. Gwayne sentenced them to quarters as soonas he could, knowing their stories would only get wilder and lessinformative with retelling. If they could get any story from the captured creature, they might savetime and be better off than trying to dig through Hennessy's ship. Thatwas almost certainly spoorless by now. The only possible answer seemedto be that the exploring expedition and Hennessy's rescue group hadbeen overcome by the aliens. It was an answer, but it left a lot of questions. How could theprimitives have gotten to the men inside Hennessy's ship? Why was itsfuel dumped? Only men would have known how to do that. And who toldthese creatures that a space ship's metal finders could be fooled by alittle more than a hundred feet of solid rock? They'd buried the shipcunningly, and only the accidental slippage had undone their work. Maybe there would never be a full answer, but he had to findsomething—and find it fast. Earth needed every world she could makeremotely habitable, or mankind was probably doomed to extinction. <doc-sep>The race had blundered safely through its discovery of atomic weaponsinto a peace that had lasted two hundred years. It had managed toprevent an interplanetary war with the Venus colonists. It had founda drive that led to the stars, and hadn't even found intelligent lifethere to be dangerous on the few worlds that had cultures of their own. But forty years ago, observations from beyond the Solar System hadfinally proved that the sun was going to go nova. It wouldn't be much of an explosion, as such things go—but it wouldrender the whole Solar System uninhabitable for millenia. To survive,man had to colonize. And there were no worlds perfect for him, as Earth had been. Theexplorers went out in desperation to find what they could; theterraforming teams did what they could. And then the big starshipsbegan filling worlds with colonists, carried in deep sleep to conservespace. Almost eighty worlds. The nearest a four month journey from Earth andfour more months back. In another ten years, the sun would explode, leaving man only on thefootholds he was trying to dig among other solar systems. Maybe someof the strange worlds would let men spread his seed again. Maybe nonewould be spawning grounds for mankind in spite of the efforts. Each wasprecious as a haven for the race. If this world could be used, it would be nearer than most. If not, asit now seemed, no more time could be wasted here. Primitives could be overcome, maybe. It would be ruthless and unfair tostrip them of their world, but the first law was survival. But how could primitives do what these must have done? He studied the spear he had salvaged. It was on a staff made ofcemented bits of smaller wood from the scrub growth, skillfullylaminated. The point was of delicately chipped flint, done as no humanhand had been able to do for centuries. Beautiful primitive work, he muttered. Jane pulled the coffee cup away from her lips and snorted. You cansee a lot more of it out there, she suggested. He went to the port and glanced out. About sixty of the things weresquatting in the clearing fog, holding lances and staring at the ship.They were perhaps a thousand yards away, waiting patiently. For what?For the return of their leader—or for something that would give theship to them? Gwayne grabbed the phone and called Barker. How's the captive coming? Barker's voice sounded odd. Physically fine. You can see him. But— Gwayne dropped the phone and headed for the little sick bay. He sworeat Doc for not calling him at once, and then at himself for notchecking up sooner. Then he stopped at the sound of voices. There was the end of a question from Barker and a thick, harsh growlingsound that lifted the hair along the nape of Gwayne's neck. Barkerseemed to understand, and was making a comment as the captain dashed in. The captive was sitting on the bunk, unbound and oddly unmenacing. Thethick features were relaxed and yet somehow intent. He seemed to makesome kind of a salute as he saw Gwayne enter, and his eyes burned upunerringly toward the device on the officer's cap. Haarroo, Cabbaan! the thing said. <doc-sep>Captain Gwayne, may I present your former friend, Captain Hennessy?Barker said. There was a grin on the doctor's lips, but his face wastaut with strain. The creature nodded slowly and drew something from the thick hair onits head. It was the golden comet of a captain. He never meant to hurt the kids—just to talk to them, Barker cut inquickly. I've got some of the story. He's changed. He can't talk verywell. Says they've had to change the language around to make the soundsfit, and he's forgotten how to use what normal English he can. But itgets easier as you listen. It's Hennessy, all right. I'm certain. Gwayne had his own ideas on that. It was easy for an alien to seizeon the gold ornament of a captive earthman, even to learn a littleEnglish, maybe. But Hennessy had been his friend. How many barmaids in the Cheshire Cat? How many pups did your oldestkid's dog have? How many were brown? The lips contorted into something vaguely like a smile, and thecuriously shaped fingers that could handle no human-designed equipmentspread out. Three. Seven. Zero. The answers were right. By the time the session was over, Gwayne had begun to understand thetwisted speech from inhuman vocal cords better. But the story took along time telling. When it was finished, Gwayne and Barker sat for long minutes insilence. Finally Gwayne drew a shuddering breath and stood up. Is itpossible, Doc? No, Barker said flatly. He spread his hands and grimaced. No. Notby what I know. But it happened. I've looked at a few tissues underthe microscope. The changes are there. It's hard to believe abouttheir kids. Adults in eight years, but they stay shorter. It can't bea hereditary change—the things that affect the body don't change thegerm plasm. But in this case, what changed Hennessy is real, so maybethe fact that the change is passed on is as real as he claims. Gwayne led the former Hennessy to the exit. The waiting blobs droppeddown to touch the monstrous man, then leaped up again. The crowd ofmonsters began moving forward toward their leader. A few were almost astall as Hennessy, but most were not more than five feet high. The kids of the exploring party.... <doc-sep>Back in the control room, Gwayne found the emergency release levers,set the combinations and pressed the studs. There was a hiss and gurgleas the great tanks of fuel discharged their contents out onto theground where no ingenuity could ever recover it to bring life to theship again. He'd have to tell the men and women of the crew later, after he'd hadtime to organize things and present it all in a way they could accept,however much they might hate it at first. But there was no putting offgiving the gist of it to Jane. It was the blobs, he summarized it. They seem to be amused by men.They don't require anything from us, but they like us around. Hennessydoesn't know why. They can change our cells, adapt us. Before men came,all life here had twelve legs. Now they're changing that, as we've seen. And they don't have to be close to do it. We've all been outside thehull. It doesn't show yet—but we're changed. In another month, Earthfood would kill us. We've got to stay here. We'll bury the ships deeperthis time, and Earth won't find us. They can't risk trying a colonywhere three ships vanish, so we'll just disappear. And they'll neverknow. Nobody would know. Their children—odd children who matured in eightyears—would be primitive savages in three generations. The Earthtools would be useless, impossible for the hands so radically changed.Nothing from the ship would last. Books could never be read by the neweyes. And in time, Earth wouldn't even be a memory to this world. She was silent a long time, staring out of the port toward what mustnow be her home. Then she sighed. You'll need practice, but the othersdon't know you as well as I do, Bob. I guess we can fix it so they'llbelieve it all. And it's too late now. But we haven't really beenchanged yet, have we? No, he admitted. Damn his voice! He'd never been good at lying. No.They have to touch us. I've been touched, but the rest could go back. She nodded. He waited for the condemnation, but there was onlypuzzlement in her face. Why? And then, before he could answer, her own intelligence gave her thesame answer he had found for himself. The spawning ground! It was the only thing they could do. Earth needed a place to plant herseed, but no world other than Earth could ever be trusted to preservethat seed for generation after generation. Some worlds already werebecoming uncertain. Here, though, the blobs had adapted men to the alien world instead ofmen having to adapt the whole planet to their needs. Here, the strangechildren of man's race could grow, develop and begin the long trek backto civilization. The gadgets would be lost for a time. But perhapssome of the attitudes of civilized man would remain to make the nextrise to culture a better one. We're needed here, he told her, his voice pleading for theunderstanding he couldn't yet fully give himself. These people needas rich a set of bloodlines as possible to give the new race strength.The fifty men and women on this ship will be needed to start them witha decent chance. We can't go to Earth, where nobody would believe oraccept the idea—or even let us come back. We have to stay here. She smiled then and moved toward him, groping for his strength. Befruitful, she whispered. Be fruitful and spawn and replenish anearth. No, he told her. Replenish the stars. But she was no longer listening, and that part of his idea could wait. Some day, though, their children would find a way to the starlanesagain, looking for other worlds. With the blobs to help them, theycould adapt to most worlds. The unchanged spirit would lead themthrough all space, and the changing bodies would claim worlds beyondnumbering. Some day, the whole universe would be a spawning ground for thechildren of men! <doc-sep></s>

The blobs are insect-like creatures with skeletons inside with four to twelve legs on their bodies. They are harmless. They are curious about any moving objects on the ground. They can change the cells in any living thing to adapt to the planet. They like humans, so they change their cells to let them stay on the planet.The blobs are the main reason why Captain Hennessy and Gwayne decide to stay on the planet. They choose to stay because the blobs make them able to survive on the planet without having to change the whole planet to do so. Without the blobs, they may leave to search for other planets that can let humans survive. But with the blobs, someday in the future, humans may be able to seek out more possibilities in other worlds where the blobs will help them adapt to the new environments. In addition, the blobs also change their shape from only a twelve-leg body to having a four-leg form, which is also evidence of how they like human beings.

<s> Spawning Ground By LESTER DEL REY They weren't human. They were something more—and something less—they were, in short, humanity's hopes for survival! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Starship Pandora creaked and groaned as her landing pads settledunevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed tobe restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years fromthe waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoedthrough her hallways. Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He wasa big, rawboned man, barely forty; but ten years of responsibilityhad pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under hisreddened eyes. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonieswere rough on the men who traveled them now. He shuffled toward thecontrol room, grumbling at the heavy gravity. Lieutenant Jane Corey looked up, nodding a blonde head at him as hemoved toward the ever-waiting pot of murky coffee. Morning, Bob. Youneed a shave. Yeah. He swallowed the hot coffee without tasting it, then ran ahand across the dark stubble on his chin. It could wait. Anything newduring the night? About a dozen blobs held something like a convention a little waysnorth of us. They broke up about an hour ago and streaked off into theclouds. The blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobodyknew anything. They looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to havean almost sentient curiosity about anything moving on the ground. Andour two cadets sneaked out again. Barker followed them, but lost themin the murk. I've kept a signal going to guide them back. Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmenin the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for trainingas cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he'd drawn, Kaufman andPinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution. Of course there was no obvious need for caution here. The blobs hadn'tseemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorousand harmless. They were ugly enough, looking like insects in spite oftheir internal skeletons, with anywhere from four to twelve legs eachon their segmented bodies. None acted like dangerous beasts. But something had happened to the exploration party fifteen yearsback, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to checkup. <doc-sep>He turned to the port to stare out at the planet. The Sol-type sunmust be rising, since there was a dim light. But the thick clouds thatwrapped the entire world diffused its rays into a haze. For a change,it wasn't raining, though the ground was covered by thick swirls offog. In the distance, the tops of shrubs that made a scrub forestglowed yellow-green. Motions around them suggested a herd of feedinganimals. Details were impossible to see through the haze. Even thedeep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship wascompletely hidden by the fog. There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animalsnow, as they often seemed to do. Gwayne stared at them for a minute,trying to read sense into the things. If he had time to study them.... But there was no time. Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load ofdeep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any signof Hennessy. He'd been here a week longer than he should have stayedalready. If there was no sign in another day or so of what had happenedto the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have toreport back. He would have left before, if a recent landslip hadn't exposed enoughof the buried ship for his metal locators to spot from the air byluck. It had obviously been hidden deep enough to foil the detectorsoriginally. Bob! Jane Corey's voice cut through his pondering. Bob, there arethe kids! Before he could swing to follow her pointing finger, movement caughthis eye. The blobs had left the herd. Now the three were streaking at fantasticspeed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something thatmoved there. He saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, justbeyond the movement he'd seen through the mist. Whatever was making the fog swirl must have reached higher ground.Something began to heave upwards. It was too far to see clearly, butGwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets. They must have seen whatever it was just as the call reached them.Young Kaufman grabbed at Pinelli, and they swung around together. Then the mists cleared. Under the dancing blobs, a horde of things was heading for the cadets.Shaggy heads, brute bodies vaguely man-like! One seemed to be almosteight feet tall, leading the others directly toward the spacesuitedcadets. Some of the horde were carrying spears or sticks. There was amomentary halt, and then the leader lifted one arm, as if motioning theothers forward. <doc-sep>Get the jeeps out! Gwayne yelled at Jane. He yanked the door ofthe little officers' lift open and jabbed the down button. It wasagonizingly slow, but faster than climbing down. He ripped the doorback at the exit deck. Men were dashing in, stumbling around inconfusion. But someone was taking over now—one of the crew women. Thejeeps were lining up. One, at the front, was stuttering into life, andGwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back. There was no time for suits or helmets. The air on the planet wasirritating and vile smelling, but it could be breathed. He leaped tothe seat, to see that the driver was Doctor Barker. At a gesture, thejeep rolled down the ramp, grinding its gears into second as it pickedup speed. The other two followed. There was no sign of the cadets at first. Then Gwayne spotted them;surrounded by the menacing horde. Seen from here, the things lookedhorrible in a travesty of manhood. The huge leader suddenly waved and pointed toward the jeeps that wereracing toward him. He made a fantastic leap backwards. Others swungabout, two of them grabbing up the cadets. The jeep was doing twentymiles an hour now, but the horde began to increase the distance, inspite of the load of the two struggling boys! The creatures diveddownward into lower ground, beginning to disappear into the mists. Follow the blobs, Gwayne yelled. He realized now he'd been a fool toleave his suit; the radio would have let him keep in contact with thekids. But it was too late to go back. The blobs danced after the horde. Barker bounced the jeep downward intoa gorge. Somewhere the man had learned to drive superlatively; but hehad to slow as the fog thickened lower down. Then it cleared to show the mob of creatures doubling back on their owntrail to confuse the pursuers. There was no time to stop. The jeep plowed through them. Gwayne had aglimpse of five-foot bodies tumbling out of the way. Monstrously coarsefaces were half hidden by thick hair. A spear crunched against thewindshield from behind, and Gwayne caught it before it could foul thesteering wheel. It had a wickedly beautiful point of stone. The creatures vanished as Barker fought to turn to follow them. Theother jeeps were coming up, by the sound of their motors, but too lateto help. They'd have to get to the group with the cadets in a hurry orthe horde would all vanish in the uneven ground, hidden by the fog. A blob dropped down, almost touching Gwayne. He threw up an instinctive hand. There was a tingling as the creatureseemed to pass around it. It lifted a few inches and drifted off. Abruptly, Barker's foot ground at the brake. Gwayne jolted forwardagainst the windshield, just as he made out the form of the eight-footleader. The thing was standing directly ahead of him, a cadet on eachshoulder. The wheels locked and the jeep slid protestingly forward. The creatureleaped back. But Gwayne was out of the jeep before it stopped, divingfor the figure. It dropped the boys with a surprised grunt. <doc-sep>The arms were thin and grotesque below the massively distortedshoulders, but amazingly strong. Gwayne felt them wrench at him as hishands locked on the thick throat. A stench of alien flesh was in hisnose as the thing fell backwards. Doc Barker had hit it seconds afterthe captain's attack. Its head hit rocky ground with a dull, heavysound, and it collapsed. Gwayne eased back slowly, but it made nofurther move, though it was still breathing. Another jeep had drawn up, and men were examining the cadets. Pinelliwas either laughing or crying, and Kaufman was trying to break free tokick at the monster. But neither had been harmed. The two were loadedonto a jeep while men helped Barker and Gwayne stow the bound monsteron another before heading back. No sign of skull fracture. My God, what a tough brute! Barker shookhis own head, as if feeling the shock of the monster's landing. I hope so, Gwayne told him. I want that thing to live—and you'redetailed to save it and revive it. Find out if it can make signlanguage or draw pictures. I want to know what happened to Hennessyand why that ship was buried against detection. This thing may be theanswer. Barker nodded grimly. I'll try, though I can't risk drugs on an alienmetabolism. He sucked in on the cigarette he'd dug out, then spatsickly. Smoke and this air made a foul combination. Bob, it stillmakes no sense. We've scoured this planet by infra-red, and there wasno sign of native villages or culture. We should have found some. Troglodytes, maybe, Gwayne guessed. Anyhow, send for me when you getanything. I've got to get this ship back to Earth. We're overstayingour time here already. The reports from the cadets were satisfactory enough. They'd beenpicked up and carried, but no harm had been done them. Now they werebusy being little heroes. Gwayne sentenced them to quarters as soonas he could, knowing their stories would only get wilder and lessinformative with retelling. If they could get any story from the captured creature, they might savetime and be better off than trying to dig through Hennessy's ship. Thatwas almost certainly spoorless by now. The only possible answer seemedto be that the exploring expedition and Hennessy's rescue group hadbeen overcome by the aliens. It was an answer, but it left a lot of questions. How could theprimitives have gotten to the men inside Hennessy's ship? Why was itsfuel dumped? Only men would have known how to do that. And who toldthese creatures that a space ship's metal finders could be fooled by alittle more than a hundred feet of solid rock? They'd buried the shipcunningly, and only the accidental slippage had undone their work. Maybe there would never be a full answer, but he had to findsomething—and find it fast. Earth needed every world she could makeremotely habitable, or mankind was probably doomed to extinction. <doc-sep>The race had blundered safely through its discovery of atomic weaponsinto a peace that had lasted two hundred years. It had managed toprevent an interplanetary war with the Venus colonists. It had founda drive that led to the stars, and hadn't even found intelligent lifethere to be dangerous on the few worlds that had cultures of their own. But forty years ago, observations from beyond the Solar System hadfinally proved that the sun was going to go nova. It wouldn't be much of an explosion, as such things go—but it wouldrender the whole Solar System uninhabitable for millenia. To survive,man had to colonize. And there were no worlds perfect for him, as Earth had been. Theexplorers went out in desperation to find what they could; theterraforming teams did what they could. And then the big starshipsbegan filling worlds with colonists, carried in deep sleep to conservespace. Almost eighty worlds. The nearest a four month journey from Earth andfour more months back. In another ten years, the sun would explode, leaving man only on thefootholds he was trying to dig among other solar systems. Maybe someof the strange worlds would let men spread his seed again. Maybe nonewould be spawning grounds for mankind in spite of the efforts. Each wasprecious as a haven for the race. If this world could be used, it would be nearer than most. If not, asit now seemed, no more time could be wasted here. Primitives could be overcome, maybe. It would be ruthless and unfair tostrip them of their world, but the first law was survival. But how could primitives do what these must have done? He studied the spear he had salvaged. It was on a staff made ofcemented bits of smaller wood from the scrub growth, skillfullylaminated. The point was of delicately chipped flint, done as no humanhand had been able to do for centuries. Beautiful primitive work, he muttered. Jane pulled the coffee cup away from her lips and snorted. You cansee a lot more of it out there, she suggested. He went to the port and glanced out. About sixty of the things weresquatting in the clearing fog, holding lances and staring at the ship.They were perhaps a thousand yards away, waiting patiently. For what?For the return of their leader—or for something that would give theship to them? Gwayne grabbed the phone and called Barker. How's the captive coming? Barker's voice sounded odd. Physically fine. You can see him. But— Gwayne dropped the phone and headed for the little sick bay. He sworeat Doc for not calling him at once, and then at himself for notchecking up sooner. Then he stopped at the sound of voices. There was the end of a question from Barker and a thick, harsh growlingsound that lifted the hair along the nape of Gwayne's neck. Barkerseemed to understand, and was making a comment as the captain dashed in. The captive was sitting on the bunk, unbound and oddly unmenacing. Thethick features were relaxed and yet somehow intent. He seemed to makesome kind of a salute as he saw Gwayne enter, and his eyes burned upunerringly toward the device on the officer's cap. Haarroo, Cabbaan! the thing said. <doc-sep>Captain Gwayne, may I present your former friend, Captain Hennessy?Barker said. There was a grin on the doctor's lips, but his face wastaut with strain. The creature nodded slowly and drew something from the thick hair onits head. It was the golden comet of a captain. He never meant to hurt the kids—just to talk to them, Barker cut inquickly. I've got some of the story. He's changed. He can't talk verywell. Says they've had to change the language around to make the soundsfit, and he's forgotten how to use what normal English he can. But itgets easier as you listen. It's Hennessy, all right. I'm certain. Gwayne had his own ideas on that. It was easy for an alien to seizeon the gold ornament of a captive earthman, even to learn a littleEnglish, maybe. But Hennessy had been his friend. How many barmaids in the Cheshire Cat? How many pups did your oldestkid's dog have? How many were brown? The lips contorted into something vaguely like a smile, and thecuriously shaped fingers that could handle no human-designed equipmentspread out. Three. Seven. Zero. The answers were right. By the time the session was over, Gwayne had begun to understand thetwisted speech from inhuman vocal cords better. But the story took along time telling. When it was finished, Gwayne and Barker sat for long minutes insilence. Finally Gwayne drew a shuddering breath and stood up. Is itpossible, Doc? No, Barker said flatly. He spread his hands and grimaced. No. Notby what I know. But it happened. I've looked at a few tissues underthe microscope. The changes are there. It's hard to believe abouttheir kids. Adults in eight years, but they stay shorter. It can't bea hereditary change—the things that affect the body don't change thegerm plasm. But in this case, what changed Hennessy is real, so maybethe fact that the change is passed on is as real as he claims. Gwayne led the former Hennessy to the exit. The waiting blobs droppeddown to touch the monstrous man, then leaped up again. The crowd ofmonsters began moving forward toward their leader. A few were almost astall as Hennessy, but most were not more than five feet high. The kids of the exploring party.... <doc-sep>Back in the control room, Gwayne found the emergency release levers,set the combinations and pressed the studs. There was a hiss and gurgleas the great tanks of fuel discharged their contents out onto theground where no ingenuity could ever recover it to bring life to theship again. He'd have to tell the men and women of the crew later, after he'd hadtime to organize things and present it all in a way they could accept,however much they might hate it at first. But there was no putting offgiving the gist of it to Jane. It was the blobs, he summarized it. They seem to be amused by men.They don't require anything from us, but they like us around. Hennessydoesn't know why. They can change our cells, adapt us. Before men came,all life here had twelve legs. Now they're changing that, as we've seen. And they don't have to be close to do it. We've all been outside thehull. It doesn't show yet—but we're changed. In another month, Earthfood would kill us. We've got to stay here. We'll bury the ships deeperthis time, and Earth won't find us. They can't risk trying a colonywhere three ships vanish, so we'll just disappear. And they'll neverknow. Nobody would know. Their children—odd children who matured in eightyears—would be primitive savages in three generations. The Earthtools would be useless, impossible for the hands so radically changed.Nothing from the ship would last. Books could never be read by the neweyes. And in time, Earth wouldn't even be a memory to this world. She was silent a long time, staring out of the port toward what mustnow be her home. Then she sighed. You'll need practice, but the othersdon't know you as well as I do, Bob. I guess we can fix it so they'llbelieve it all. And it's too late now. But we haven't really beenchanged yet, have we? No, he admitted. Damn his voice! He'd never been good at lying. No.They have to touch us. I've been touched, but the rest could go back. She nodded. He waited for the condemnation, but there was onlypuzzlement in her face. Why? And then, before he could answer, her own intelligence gave her thesame answer he had found for himself. The spawning ground! It was the only thing they could do. Earth needed a place to plant herseed, but no world other than Earth could ever be trusted to preservethat seed for generation after generation. Some worlds already werebecoming uncertain. Here, though, the blobs had adapted men to the alien world instead ofmen having to adapt the whole planet to their needs. Here, the strangechildren of man's race could grow, develop and begin the long trek backto civilization. The gadgets would be lost for a time. But perhapssome of the attitudes of civilized man would remain to make the nextrise to culture a better one. We're needed here, he told her, his voice pleading for theunderstanding he couldn't yet fully give himself. These people needas rich a set of bloodlines as possible to give the new race strength.The fifty men and women on this ship will be needed to start them witha decent chance. We can't go to Earth, where nobody would believe oraccept the idea—or even let us come back. We have to stay here. She smiled then and moved toward him, groping for his strength. Befruitful, she whispered. Be fruitful and spawn and replenish anearth. No, he told her. Replenish the stars. But she was no longer listening, and that part of his idea could wait. Some day, though, their children would find a way to the starlanesagain, looking for other worlds. With the blobs to help them, theycould adapt to most worlds. The unchanged spirit would lead themthrough all space, and the changing bodies would claim worlds beyondnumbering. Some day, the whole universe would be a spawning ground for thechildren of men! <doc-sep></s>

After the invention of atomic weapons, humans maintained peace for nearly two centuries. However, four decades ago, observation revealed that the sun would soon go nova, which would make the whole solar system uninhabitable for millennia. Since then, humans have been searching for habitable planets in other solar systems. They send many starships carrying deep-sleep stored people to different worlds, hoping they could be the colonies for the human race in the future, but none has promised to be safe for generations. So the exploring teams are sent continuously. Yet the situation is challenging. The training schools cannot export enough astronauts, so promising young candidates are trained as cadets on starships. Humans do not have enough time to find another Earth to live on for generations.

<s> THE FIRST ONE By HERBERT D. KASTLE Illustrated by von Dongen [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog July 1961.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyrighton this publication was renewed.] The first man to return from beyond the Great Frontier may bewelcomed ... but will it be as a curiosity, rather than as ahero...? There was the usual welcoming crowd for a celebrity, and the usualspeeches by the usual politicians who met him at the airport which hadonce been twenty miles outside of Croton, but which the growing city hadsince engulfed and placed well within its boundaries. But everythingwasn't usual. The crowd was quiet, and the mayor didn't seem quite asat-ease as he'd been on his last big welcoming—for Corporal Berringer,one of the crew of the spaceship Washington , first to set Americansupon Mars. His Honor's handclasp was somewhat moist and cold. HisHonor's eyes held a trace of remoteness. Still, he was the honored home-comer, the successful returnee, thehometown boy who had made good in a big way, and they took the triumphaltour up Main Street to the new square and the grandstand. There he satbetween the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen,and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the NationalGuard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several ofthe churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct theirparishioners to treat him. But they had all come around. The tremendousnational interest, the fact that he was the First One, had made themcome around. It was obvious by now that they would have to adjust asthey'd adjusted to all the other firsts taking place in these—as thenewspapers had dubbed the start of the Twenty-first Century—theGalloping Twenties. He was glad when the official greeting was over. He was a very tired manand he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, thanany man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, akiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some oldfriends and a relative or two. He didn't want to talk about the journey.He wanted to forget the immediacy, the urgency, the terror; then perhapshe would talk. Or would he? For he had very little to tell. He had traveled and he hadreturned and his voyage was very much like the voyages of the greatmariners, from Columbus onward—long, dull periods of time passing,passing, and then the arrival. The house had changed. He saw that as soon as the official car let himoff at 45 Roosevelt Street. The change was, he knew, for the better.They had put a porch in front. They had rehabilitated, spruced up,almost rebuilt the entire outside and grounds. But he was sorry. He hadwanted it to be as before. The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who hadescorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him.He was glad. He'd had enough of strangers. Not that he was through withstrangers. There were dozens of them up and down the street, standingbeside parked cars, looking at him. But when he looked back at them,their eyes dropped, they turned away, they began moving off. He wasstill too much the First One to have his gaze met. He walked up what had once been a concrete path and was now an ornateflagstone path. He climbed the new porch and raised the ornamentalknocker on the new door and heard the soft music sound within. He wassurprised that he'd had to do this. He'd thought Edith would be watchingat a window. And perhaps she had been watching ... but she hadn't opened the door. The door opened; he looked at her. It hadn't been too long and shehadn't changed at all. She was still the small, slender girl he'd lovedin high school, the small, slender woman he'd married twelve years ago.Ralphie was with her. They held onto each other as if seeking mutualsupport, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. Theylooked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said,It's good to be home! Edith nodded and, still holding to Ralphie with one hand, put the otherarm around him. He kissed her—her neck, her cheek—and all the oldjokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, theand- then -I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger.She was trembling, and even as her lips came up to touch his he felt thedifference, and because of this difference he turned with urgency toRalphie and picked him up and hugged him and said, because he couldthink of nothing else to say, What a big fella, what a big fella. Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on thefloor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. Ididn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough. So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, thateverything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, GeneralCarlisle, had said it would early this morning before he leftWashington. Give it some time, Carlisle had said. You need the time; they needthe time. And for the love of heaven, don't be sensitive. <doc-sep>Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his,a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she satdown beside him—but she had hesitated. He wasn't being sensitive; shehad hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him. Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco DeGama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon—but moreso. Carlisle had said lots of things, but even Carlisle who had workedwith him all the way, who had engineered the entire fantasticjourney—even Carlisle the Nobel prize winner, the multi-degreed geniusin uniform, had not actually spoken to him as one man to another. The eyes. It always showed in their eyes. He looked across the room at Ralphie, standing in the doorway, a boyalready tall, already widening in the shoulders, already large offeature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himselftwenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in away that few ten-year-old faces are. How's it going in school? he asked. Gee, Dad, it's the second month of summer vacation. Well, then, before summer vacation? Pretty good. Edith said, He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, andhe made top forum the six-month period you went away, Hank. He nodded, remembering that, remembering everything, remembering thewarmth of her farewell, the warmth of Ralphie's farewell, their tears ashe left for the experimental flight station in the Aleutians. They hadfeared for him, having read of the many launchings gone wrong even incontinent-to-continent experimental flight. They had been right to worry. He had suffered much after that blow-up.But now they should be rejoicing, because he had survived and made thelong journey. Ralphie suddenly said, I got to go, Dad. I promised Waltand the others I'd pitch. It's Inter-Town Little League, you know. It'sHarmon, you know. I got to keep my word. Without waiting for an answer,he waved his hand—it shook; a ten-year-old boy's hand that shook—andran from the room and from the house. He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her inhis arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. I'm verytired. I'd like to lie down a while. Which wasn't true, because he'dbeen lying down all the months of the way back. She said, Of course. How stupid of me, expecting you to sit around andmake small talk and pick up just where you left off. He nodded. But that was exactly what he wanted to do—make small talkand pick up just where he'd left off. But they didn't expect it of him;they wouldn't let him; they felt he had changed too much. <doc-sep>She led him upstairs and along the foyer past Ralphie's room and pastthe small guest room to their bedroom. This, too, had changed. It wasnewly painted and it had new furniture. He saw twin beds separated by anornate little table with an ornate little lamp, and this looked moreominous a barrier to him than the twelve-foot concrete-and-barbed-wirefence around the experimental station. Which one is mine, he asked, and tried to smile. She also tried to smile. The one near the window. You always liked thefresh air, the sunshine in the morning. You always said it helped youto get up on time when you were stationed at the base outside of town.You always said it reminded you—being able to see the sky—that youwere going to go up in it, and that you were going to come down from itto this bed again. Not this bed, he murmured, and was a little sorry afterward. No, not this bed, she said quickly. Your lodge donated the bedroomset and I really didn't know— She waved her hand, her face white. He was sure then that she had known, and that the beds and the barrierbetween them were her own choice, if only an unconscious choice. He wentto the bed near the window, stripped off his Air Force blue jacket,began to take off his shirt, but then remembered that some arm scarsstill showed. He waited for her to leave the room. She said, Well then, rest up, dear, and went out. He took off his shirt and saw himself in the mirror on the oppositewall; and then took off his under-shirt. The body scars were faint, thescars running in long lines, one dissecting his chest, the other slicingdiagonally across his upper abdomen to disappear under his trousers.There were several more on his back, and one on his right thigh. They'dbeen treated properly and would soon disappear. But she had never seenthem. Perhaps she never would. Perhaps pajamas and robes and dark rooms wouldkeep them from her until they were gone. Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving WalterReed Hospital early this morning; which was something he founddistasteful, something he felt beneath them both. And, at the same time,he began to understand that there would be many things, previouslybeneath them both, which would have to be considered. She had changed;Ralphie had changed; all the people he knew had probablychanged—because they thought he had changed. He was tired of thinking. He lay down and closed his eyes. He lethimself taste bitterness, unhappiness, a loneliness he had never knownbefore. But sometime later, as he was dozing off, a sense of reassurance beganfiltering into his mind. After all, he was still Henry Devers, the sameman who had left home eleven months ago, with a love for family andfriends which was, if anything, stronger than before. Once he couldcommunicate this, the strangeness would disappear and the First Onewould again become good old Hank. It was little enough to ask for—areturn to old values, old relationships, the normalcies of the backwashinstead of the freneticisms of the lime-light. It would certainly begranted to him. He slept. <doc-sep>Dinner was at seven p.m. His mother came; his Uncle Joe and Aunt Lucillecame. Together with Edith, Ralphie and himself, they made six, and atein the dining room at the big table. Before he'd become the First One, it would have been a noisy affair. Hisfamily had never been noted for a lack of ebullience, a lack oftalkativeness, and Ralphie had always chosen mealtimes—especially withcompany present—to describe everything and anything that had happenedto him during the day. And Edith herself had always chatted, especiallywith his mother, though they didn't agree about much. Still, it had beengood-natured; the general tone of their lives had been good-natured. This wasn't good-natured. Exactly what it was he wasn't sure. Stiffwas perhaps the word. They began with grapefruit, Edith and Mother serving quickly,efficiently from the kitchen, then sitting down at the table. He lookedat Mother as he raised his first spoonful of chilled fruit, and said,Younger than ever. It was nothing new; he'd said it many many timesbefore, but his mother had always reacted with a bright smile and a quipsomething like, Young for the Golden Age Center, you mean. This timeshe burst into tears. It shocked him. But what shocked him even more wasthe fact that no one looked up, commented, made any attempt to comforther; no one indicated in any way that a woman was sobbing at the table. He was sitting directly across from Mother, and reached out and touchedher left hand which lay limply beside the silverware. She didn't moveit—she hadn't touched him once beyond that first, quick, strangely-coolembrace at the door—then a few seconds later she withdrew it and let itdrop out of sight. So there he was, Henry Devers, at home with the family. So there he was,the hero returned, waiting to be treated as a human being. The grapefruit shells were cleaned away and the soup served. Uncle Joebegan to talk. The greatest little development of circular uniformhouses you ever did see, he boomed in his powerful salesman's voice.Still going like sixty. We'll sell out before— At that point helooked at Hank, and Hank nodded encouragement, desperately interested inthis normalcy, and Joe's voice died away. He looked down at his plate,mumbled, Soup's getting cold, and began to eat. His hand shook alittle; his ruddy face was not quite as ruddy as Hank remembered it. Aunt Lucille made a few quavering statements about the Ladies' TuesdayGarden Club, and Hank looked across the table to where she sat betweenJoe and Mother—his wife and son bracketed him, and yet he feltalone—and said, I've missed fooling around with the lawn and the rosebushes. Here it is August and I haven't had my hand to a mower ortrowel. Aunt Lucille smiled, if you could call it that—a pitiful twitching ofthe lips—and nodded. She threw her eyes in his direction, and past him,and then down to her plate. Mother, who was still sniffling, said, Ihave a dismal headache. I'm going to lie down in the guest room awhile. She touched his shoulder in passing—his affectionate, effusivemother who would kiss stray dogs and strange children, who had oftenirritated him with an excess of physical and verbal caresses—she barelytouched his shoulder and fled. So now five of them sat at the table. The meat was served—thin, rareslices of beef, the pink blood-juice oozing warmly from the center. Hecut into it and raised a forkful to his mouth, then glanced at Ralphieand said, Looks fresh enough to have been killed in the back yard.Ralphie said, Yeah, Dad. Aunt Lucille put down her knife and fork andmurmured something to her husband. Joe cleared his throat and saidLucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was goinginto the living room for a while. She'll be back for dessert, ofcourse, he said, his laugh sounding forced. Hank looked at Edith; Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked atRalphie; Ralphie was busy with his plate. Hank looked at Joe; Joe waschewing, gazing out over their heads to the kitchen. Hank looked atLucille; she was disappearing into the living room. He brought his fist down on the table. The settings jumped; a glassoverturned, spilling water. He brought it down again and again. Theywere all standing now. He sat there and pounded the table with his bigright fist—Henry Devers, who would never have thought of making such ascene before, but who was now so sick and tired of being treated as theFirst One, of being stood back from, looked at in awe of, felt in fearof, that he could have smashed more than a table. Edith said, Hank! He said, voice hoarse, Shut up. Go away. Let me eat alone. I'm sick ofthe lot of you. <doc-sep>Mother and Joe returned a few minutes later where he sat forcing fooddown his throat. Mother said, Henry dear— He didn't answer. She beganto cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never saidanything really bad to his mother. He was afraid this would have beenthe time. Joe merely cleared his throat and mumbled something aboutgetting together again soon and drop out and see the new developmentand he, too, was gone. Lucille never did manage to speak to him. He finished his beef and waited. Soon Edith came in with the specialdessert she'd been preparing half the day—a magnificent English trifle.She served him, and spooned out a portion for herself and Ralphie. Shehesitated near his chair, and when he made no comment she called theboy. Then the three of them were sitting, facing the empty side of thetable. They ate the trifle. Ralphie finished first and got up and said,Hey, I promised— You promised the boys you'd play baseball or football or handball orsomething; anything to get away from your father. Ralphie's head dropped and he muttered, Aw, no, Dad. Edith said, He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an eveningtogether—talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly. Ralphie said, Gee, sure, Dad, if you want to. Hank stood up. The question is not whether I want to. You both know Iwant to. The question is whether you want to. They answered together that of course they wanted to. But theireyes—his wife's and son's eyes—could not meet his, and so he said hewas going to his room because he was, after all, very tired and would inall probability continue to be very tired for a long, long time and thatthey shouldn't count on him for normal social life. He fell asleep quickly, lying there in his clothes. But he didn't sleep long. Edith shook him and he opened his eyes to alighted room. Phil and Rhona are here. He blinked at her. She smiled,and it seemed her old smile. They're so anxious to see you, Hank. Icould barely keep Phil from coming up and waking you himself. They wantto go out and do the town. Please, Hank, say you will. He sat up. Phil, he muttered. Phil and Rhona. They'd had wonderfultimes together, from grammar school on. Phil and Rhona, their oldest andclosest friends. Perhaps this would begin his real homecoming. Do the town? They'd paint it and then tear it down! <doc-sep>It didn't turn out that way. He was disappointed; but then again, he'dalso expected it. This entire first day at home had conditioned him toexpect nothing good. They went to the bowling alleys, and Phil soundedvery much the way he always had—soft spoken and full of laughter andfull of jokes. He patted Edith on the head the way he always had, andclapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had—so muchmore gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than wasgood for them as he always had. And for once, Hank was ready to go alongon the drinking. For once, he matched Phil shot for shot, beer for beer. They didn't bowl very long. At ten o'clock they crossed the road toManfred's Tavern, where Phil and the girls ordered sandwiches and coffeeand Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but hemerely smiled and waved his hand and gulped another ounce of nirvana. There was dancing to a juke box in Manfred's Tavern. He'd been theremany times before, and he was sure several of the couples recognizedhim. But except for a few abortive glances in his direction, it was asif he were a stranger in a city halfway around the world. At midnight, he was still drinking. The others wanted to leave, but hesaid, I haven't danced with my girl Rhona. His tongue was thick, hismind was blurred, and yet he could read the strange expression on herface—pretty Rhona, who'd always flirted with him, who'd made a ritualof flirting with him. Pretty Rhona, who now looked as if she were goingto be sick. So let's rock, he said and stood up. They were on the dance floor. He held her close, and hummed and chatted.And through the alcoholic haze saw she was a stiff-smiled, stiff-bodied,mechanical dancing doll. The number finished; they walked back to the booth. Phil said,Beddy-bye time. Hank said, First one dance with my loving wife. He and Edith danced. He didn't hold her close as he had Rhona. He waitedfor her to come close on her own, and she did, and yet she didn't.Because while she put herself against him, there was something in herface—no, in her eyes; it always showed in the eyes—that made him knowshe was trying to be the old Edith and not succeeding. This time whenthe music ended, he was ready to go home. They rode back to town along Route Nine, he and Edith in the rear ofPhil's car, Rhona driving because Phil had drunk just a little too much,Phil singing and telling an occasional bad joke, and somehow not his oldself. No one was his old self. No one would ever be his old self withthe First One. They turned left, to take the short cut along Hallowed Hill Road, andPhil finished a story about a Martian and a Hollywood sex queen andlooked at his wife and then past her at the long, cast-iron fenceparalleling the road. Hey, he said, pointing, do you know why that'sthe most popular place on earth? Rhona glanced to the left, and so did Hank and Edith. Rhona made alittle sound, and Edith seemed to stop breathing, but Phil went on awhile longer, not yet aware of his supposed faux pas . You know why? he repeated, turning to the back seat, the laughterrumbling up from his chest. You know why, folks? Rhona said, Did you notice Carl Braken and his wife at— Hank said, No, Phil, why is it the most popular place on earth? Phil said, Because people are— And then he caught himself and wavedhis hand and muttered, I forgot the punch line. Because people are dying to get in, Hank said, and looked through thewindow, past the iron fence, into the large cemetery at the fleetingtombstones. The car was filled with horrified silence when there should have beennothing but laughter, or irritation at a too-old joke. Maybe you shouldlet me out right here, Hank said. I'm home—or that's what everyoneseems to think. Maybe I should lie down in an open grave. Maybe thatwould satisfy people. Maybe that's the only way to act, like Dracula oranother monster from the movies. Edith said, Oh, Hank, don't, don't! The car raced along the road, crossed a macadam highway, went fourblocks and pulled to a stop. He didn't bother saying good night. Hedidn't wait for Edith. He just got out and walked up the flagstone pathand entered the house. <doc-sep>Hank, Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, I'm so sorry— There's nothing to be sorry about. It's just a matter of time. It'llall work out in time. Yes, she said quickly, that's it. I need a little time. We all need alittle time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening.I should have told you that the moment you walked in. I think I've hurtyou terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we'refrightened. I'm going to stay in the guest room, he said, for as long asnecessary. For good if need be. How could it be for good? How, Hank? That question was perhaps the first firm basis for hope he'd had sincereturning. And there was something else; what Carlisle had told him,even as Carlisle himself had reacted as all men did. There are others coming, Edith. Eight that I know of in the tanks rightnow. My superior, Captain Davidson, who died at the same moment Idid—seven months ago next Wednesday—he's going to be next. He wassmashed up worse than I was, so it took a little longer, but he's almostready. And there'll be many more, Edith. The government is going to saveall they possibly can from now on. Every time a young and healthy manloses his life by accident, by violence, and his body can be recovered,he'll go into the tanks and they'll start the regenerative brain andorgan process—the process that made it all possible. So people have toget used to us. And the old stories, the old terrors, the ugly oldsuperstitions have to die, because in time each place will have some ofus; because in time it'll be an ordinary thing. Edith said, Yes, and I'm so grateful that you're here, Hank. Pleasebelieve that. Please be patient with me and Ralphie and— She paused.There's one question. He knew what the question was. It had been the first asked him byeveryone from the president of the United States on down. I saw nothing, he said. It was as if I slept those six and a halfmonths—slept without dreaming. She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he wassatisfied. Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories ofhow they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered andpulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his ownhome. THE END <doc-sep></s>

The story is about a family man - Henry Devers - returning to his hometown after a unique adventure. He was participating in an experimental flight that ended in an explosion. But he managed to survive thanks to regenerative technologies that helped rebuild his body and make him breathe again. The story starts with a grandiose tour around his town where the mayor, the National Guard, the Fire Department bands, and many other people participate though they all seem a little distant and scared to Devers. The official car lets him off at his house that, as he notices, has changed a little. Edith, his wife, and Ralphie, his ten-year-old son, meet him at the door. Later, in the living room, they have an awkward conversation about Ralphie’s school grades, his son quickly leaves for a baseball game, and soon Devers goes to sleep in his separate twin bed that his wife bought while he was away. He looks at his scars before going to bed, thinking about how people’s behavior changed because they believe Henry has changed. In the evening, Henry’s mother, uncle Joe, and aunt Lucille come for dinner. Again everyone seems aloof: Henry’s overly affectionate mother now barely touches him and even cries for several minutes, his aunt and uncle cannot talk about casual things - no one looks him in the eyes. After all, Devers gets infuriated and screams at the guests, they leave, and his son once again tries to leave instead of spending time with the parents. Later in the evening, Edith wakes her husband because his good friends Phil and Rhona came - they all go to bowling alleys and then to a tavern. Even Devers’ close friends seem stiff and cautious while talking to him, dancing with him, being around him. On their way back, Phil tries to make a joke about a cemetery but stops himself from finishing it - this upsets Henry even more, completely ruining the evening. When they get home Edith tries to apologize to her husband and admits that she’s frightened. In reply, he says that soon such regenerative technologies and processes will be an ordinary thing, and his captain, for example, who died together with Devers, will soon leave the hospital, too. She asks him to be patient with everybody.

<s> THE FIRST ONE By HERBERT D. KASTLE Illustrated by von Dongen [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog July 1961.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyrighton this publication was renewed.] The first man to return from beyond the Great Frontier may bewelcomed ... but will it be as a curiosity, rather than as ahero...? There was the usual welcoming crowd for a celebrity, and the usualspeeches by the usual politicians who met him at the airport which hadonce been twenty miles outside of Croton, but which the growing city hadsince engulfed and placed well within its boundaries. But everythingwasn't usual. The crowd was quiet, and the mayor didn't seem quite asat-ease as he'd been on his last big welcoming—for Corporal Berringer,one of the crew of the spaceship Washington , first to set Americansupon Mars. His Honor's handclasp was somewhat moist and cold. HisHonor's eyes held a trace of remoteness. Still, he was the honored home-comer, the successful returnee, thehometown boy who had made good in a big way, and they took the triumphaltour up Main Street to the new square and the grandstand. There he satbetween the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen,and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the NationalGuard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several ofthe churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct theirparishioners to treat him. But they had all come around. The tremendousnational interest, the fact that he was the First One, had made themcome around. It was obvious by now that they would have to adjust asthey'd adjusted to all the other firsts taking place in these—as thenewspapers had dubbed the start of the Twenty-first Century—theGalloping Twenties. He was glad when the official greeting was over. He was a very tired manand he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, thanany man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, akiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some oldfriends and a relative or two. He didn't want to talk about the journey.He wanted to forget the immediacy, the urgency, the terror; then perhapshe would talk. Or would he? For he had very little to tell. He had traveled and he hadreturned and his voyage was very much like the voyages of the greatmariners, from Columbus onward—long, dull periods of time passing,passing, and then the arrival. The house had changed. He saw that as soon as the official car let himoff at 45 Roosevelt Street. The change was, he knew, for the better.They had put a porch in front. They had rehabilitated, spruced up,almost rebuilt the entire outside and grounds. But he was sorry. He hadwanted it to be as before. The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who hadescorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him.He was glad. He'd had enough of strangers. Not that he was through withstrangers. There were dozens of them up and down the street, standingbeside parked cars, looking at him. But when he looked back at them,their eyes dropped, they turned away, they began moving off. He wasstill too much the First One to have his gaze met. He walked up what had once been a concrete path and was now an ornateflagstone path. He climbed the new porch and raised the ornamentalknocker on the new door and heard the soft music sound within. He wassurprised that he'd had to do this. He'd thought Edith would be watchingat a window. And perhaps she had been watching ... but she hadn't opened the door. The door opened; he looked at her. It hadn't been too long and shehadn't changed at all. She was still the small, slender girl he'd lovedin high school, the small, slender woman he'd married twelve years ago.Ralphie was with her. They held onto each other as if seeking mutualsupport, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. Theylooked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said,It's good to be home! Edith nodded and, still holding to Ralphie with one hand, put the otherarm around him. He kissed her—her neck, her cheek—and all the oldjokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, theand- then -I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger.She was trembling, and even as her lips came up to touch his he felt thedifference, and because of this difference he turned with urgency toRalphie and picked him up and hugged him and said, because he couldthink of nothing else to say, What a big fella, what a big fella. Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on thefloor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. Ididn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough. So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, thateverything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, GeneralCarlisle, had said it would early this morning before he leftWashington. Give it some time, Carlisle had said. You need the time; they needthe time. And for the love of heaven, don't be sensitive. <doc-sep>Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his,a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she satdown beside him—but she had hesitated. He wasn't being sensitive; shehad hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him. Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco DeGama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon—but moreso. Carlisle had said lots of things, but even Carlisle who had workedwith him all the way, who had engineered the entire fantasticjourney—even Carlisle the Nobel prize winner, the multi-degreed geniusin uniform, had not actually spoken to him as one man to another. The eyes. It always showed in their eyes. He looked across the room at Ralphie, standing in the doorway, a boyalready tall, already widening in the shoulders, already large offeature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himselftwenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in away that few ten-year-old faces are. How's it going in school? he asked. Gee, Dad, it's the second month of summer vacation. Well, then, before summer vacation? Pretty good. Edith said, He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, andhe made top forum the six-month period you went away, Hank. He nodded, remembering that, remembering everything, remembering thewarmth of her farewell, the warmth of Ralphie's farewell, their tears ashe left for the experimental flight station in the Aleutians. They hadfeared for him, having read of the many launchings gone wrong even incontinent-to-continent experimental flight. They had been right to worry. He had suffered much after that blow-up.But now they should be rejoicing, because he had survived and made thelong journey. Ralphie suddenly said, I got to go, Dad. I promised Waltand the others I'd pitch. It's Inter-Town Little League, you know. It'sHarmon, you know. I got to keep my word. Without waiting for an answer,he waved his hand—it shook; a ten-year-old boy's hand that shook—andran from the room and from the house. He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her inhis arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. I'm verytired. I'd like to lie down a while. Which wasn't true, because he'dbeen lying down all the months of the way back. She said, Of course. How stupid of me, expecting you to sit around andmake small talk and pick up just where you left off. He nodded. But that was exactly what he wanted to do—make small talkand pick up just where he'd left off. But they didn't expect it of him;they wouldn't let him; they felt he had changed too much. <doc-sep>She led him upstairs and along the foyer past Ralphie's room and pastthe small guest room to their bedroom. This, too, had changed. It wasnewly painted and it had new furniture. He saw twin beds separated by anornate little table with an ornate little lamp, and this looked moreominous a barrier to him than the twelve-foot concrete-and-barbed-wirefence around the experimental station. Which one is mine, he asked, and tried to smile. She also tried to smile. The one near the window. You always liked thefresh air, the sunshine in the morning. You always said it helped youto get up on time when you were stationed at the base outside of town.You always said it reminded you—being able to see the sky—that youwere going to go up in it, and that you were going to come down from itto this bed again. Not this bed, he murmured, and was a little sorry afterward. No, not this bed, she said quickly. Your lodge donated the bedroomset and I really didn't know— She waved her hand, her face white. He was sure then that she had known, and that the beds and the barrierbetween them were her own choice, if only an unconscious choice. He wentto the bed near the window, stripped off his Air Force blue jacket,began to take off his shirt, but then remembered that some arm scarsstill showed. He waited for her to leave the room. She said, Well then, rest up, dear, and went out. He took off his shirt and saw himself in the mirror on the oppositewall; and then took off his under-shirt. The body scars were faint, thescars running in long lines, one dissecting his chest, the other slicingdiagonally across his upper abdomen to disappear under his trousers.There were several more on his back, and one on his right thigh. They'dbeen treated properly and would soon disappear. But she had never seenthem. Perhaps she never would. Perhaps pajamas and robes and dark rooms wouldkeep them from her until they were gone. Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving WalterReed Hospital early this morning; which was something he founddistasteful, something he felt beneath them both. And, at the same time,he began to understand that there would be many things, previouslybeneath them both, which would have to be considered. She had changed;Ralphie had changed; all the people he knew had probablychanged—because they thought he had changed. He was tired of thinking. He lay down and closed his eyes. He lethimself taste bitterness, unhappiness, a loneliness he had never knownbefore. But sometime later, as he was dozing off, a sense of reassurance beganfiltering into his mind. After all, he was still Henry Devers, the sameman who had left home eleven months ago, with a love for family andfriends which was, if anything, stronger than before. Once he couldcommunicate this, the strangeness would disappear and the First Onewould again become good old Hank. It was little enough to ask for—areturn to old values, old relationships, the normalcies of the backwashinstead of the freneticisms of the lime-light. It would certainly begranted to him. He slept. <doc-sep>Dinner was at seven p.m. His mother came; his Uncle Joe and Aunt Lucillecame. Together with Edith, Ralphie and himself, they made six, and atein the dining room at the big table. Before he'd become the First One, it would have been a noisy affair. Hisfamily had never been noted for a lack of ebullience, a lack oftalkativeness, and Ralphie had always chosen mealtimes—especially withcompany present—to describe everything and anything that had happenedto him during the day. And Edith herself had always chatted, especiallywith his mother, though they didn't agree about much. Still, it had beengood-natured; the general tone of their lives had been good-natured. This wasn't good-natured. Exactly what it was he wasn't sure. Stiffwas perhaps the word. They began with grapefruit, Edith and Mother serving quickly,efficiently from the kitchen, then sitting down at the table. He lookedat Mother as he raised his first spoonful of chilled fruit, and said,Younger than ever. It was nothing new; he'd said it many many timesbefore, but his mother had always reacted with a bright smile and a quipsomething like, Young for the Golden Age Center, you mean. This timeshe burst into tears. It shocked him. But what shocked him even more wasthe fact that no one looked up, commented, made any attempt to comforther; no one indicated in any way that a woman was sobbing at the table. He was sitting directly across from Mother, and reached out and touchedher left hand which lay limply beside the silverware. She didn't moveit—she hadn't touched him once beyond that first, quick, strangely-coolembrace at the door—then a few seconds later she withdrew it and let itdrop out of sight. So there he was, Henry Devers, at home with the family. So there he was,the hero returned, waiting to be treated as a human being. The grapefruit shells were cleaned away and the soup served. Uncle Joebegan to talk. The greatest little development of circular uniformhouses you ever did see, he boomed in his powerful salesman's voice.Still going like sixty. We'll sell out before— At that point helooked at Hank, and Hank nodded encouragement, desperately interested inthis normalcy, and Joe's voice died away. He looked down at his plate,mumbled, Soup's getting cold, and began to eat. His hand shook alittle; his ruddy face was not quite as ruddy as Hank remembered it. Aunt Lucille made a few quavering statements about the Ladies' TuesdayGarden Club, and Hank looked across the table to where she sat betweenJoe and Mother—his wife and son bracketed him, and yet he feltalone—and said, I've missed fooling around with the lawn and the rosebushes. Here it is August and I haven't had my hand to a mower ortrowel. Aunt Lucille smiled, if you could call it that—a pitiful twitching ofthe lips—and nodded. She threw her eyes in his direction, and past him,and then down to her plate. Mother, who was still sniffling, said, Ihave a dismal headache. I'm going to lie down in the guest room awhile. She touched his shoulder in passing—his affectionate, effusivemother who would kiss stray dogs and strange children, who had oftenirritated him with an excess of physical and verbal caresses—she barelytouched his shoulder and fled. So now five of them sat at the table. The meat was served—thin, rareslices of beef, the pink blood-juice oozing warmly from the center. Hecut into it and raised a forkful to his mouth, then glanced at Ralphieand said, Looks fresh enough to have been killed in the back yard.Ralphie said, Yeah, Dad. Aunt Lucille put down her knife and fork andmurmured something to her husband. Joe cleared his throat and saidLucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was goinginto the living room for a while. She'll be back for dessert, ofcourse, he said, his laugh sounding forced. Hank looked at Edith; Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked atRalphie; Ralphie was busy with his plate. Hank looked at Joe; Joe waschewing, gazing out over their heads to the kitchen. Hank looked atLucille; she was disappearing into the living room. He brought his fist down on the table. The settings jumped; a glassoverturned, spilling water. He brought it down again and again. Theywere all standing now. He sat there and pounded the table with his bigright fist—Henry Devers, who would never have thought of making such ascene before, but who was now so sick and tired of being treated as theFirst One, of being stood back from, looked at in awe of, felt in fearof, that he could have smashed more than a table. Edith said, Hank! He said, voice hoarse, Shut up. Go away. Let me eat alone. I'm sick ofthe lot of you. <doc-sep>Mother and Joe returned a few minutes later where he sat forcing fooddown his throat. Mother said, Henry dear— He didn't answer. She beganto cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never saidanything really bad to his mother. He was afraid this would have beenthe time. Joe merely cleared his throat and mumbled something aboutgetting together again soon and drop out and see the new developmentand he, too, was gone. Lucille never did manage to speak to him. He finished his beef and waited. Soon Edith came in with the specialdessert she'd been preparing half the day—a magnificent English trifle.She served him, and spooned out a portion for herself and Ralphie. Shehesitated near his chair, and when he made no comment she called theboy. Then the three of them were sitting, facing the empty side of thetable. They ate the trifle. Ralphie finished first and got up and said,Hey, I promised— You promised the boys you'd play baseball or football or handball orsomething; anything to get away from your father. Ralphie's head dropped and he muttered, Aw, no, Dad. Edith said, He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an eveningtogether—talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly. Ralphie said, Gee, sure, Dad, if you want to. Hank stood up. The question is not whether I want to. You both know Iwant to. The question is whether you want to. They answered together that of course they wanted to. But theireyes—his wife's and son's eyes—could not meet his, and so he said hewas going to his room because he was, after all, very tired and would inall probability continue to be very tired for a long, long time and thatthey shouldn't count on him for normal social life. He fell asleep quickly, lying there in his clothes. But he didn't sleep long. Edith shook him and he opened his eyes to alighted room. Phil and Rhona are here. He blinked at her. She smiled,and it seemed her old smile. They're so anxious to see you, Hank. Icould barely keep Phil from coming up and waking you himself. They wantto go out and do the town. Please, Hank, say you will. He sat up. Phil, he muttered. Phil and Rhona. They'd had wonderfultimes together, from grammar school on. Phil and Rhona, their oldest andclosest friends. Perhaps this would begin his real homecoming. Do the town? They'd paint it and then tear it down! <doc-sep>It didn't turn out that way. He was disappointed; but then again, he'dalso expected it. This entire first day at home had conditioned him toexpect nothing good. They went to the bowling alleys, and Phil soundedvery much the way he always had—soft spoken and full of laughter andfull of jokes. He patted Edith on the head the way he always had, andclapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had—so muchmore gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than wasgood for them as he always had. And for once, Hank was ready to go alongon the drinking. For once, he matched Phil shot for shot, beer for beer. They didn't bowl very long. At ten o'clock they crossed the road toManfred's Tavern, where Phil and the girls ordered sandwiches and coffeeand Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but hemerely smiled and waved his hand and gulped another ounce of nirvana. There was dancing to a juke box in Manfred's Tavern. He'd been theremany times before, and he was sure several of the couples recognizedhim. But except for a few abortive glances in his direction, it was asif he were a stranger in a city halfway around the world. At midnight, he was still drinking. The others wanted to leave, but hesaid, I haven't danced with my girl Rhona. His tongue was thick, hismind was blurred, and yet he could read the strange expression on herface—pretty Rhona, who'd always flirted with him, who'd made a ritualof flirting with him. Pretty Rhona, who now looked as if she were goingto be sick. So let's rock, he said and stood up. They were on the dance floor. He held her close, and hummed and chatted.And through the alcoholic haze saw she was a stiff-smiled, stiff-bodied,mechanical dancing doll. The number finished; they walked back to the booth. Phil said,Beddy-bye time. Hank said, First one dance with my loving wife. He and Edith danced. He didn't hold her close as he had Rhona. He waitedfor her to come close on her own, and she did, and yet she didn't.Because while she put herself against him, there was something in herface—no, in her eyes; it always showed in the eyes—that made him knowshe was trying to be the old Edith and not succeeding. This time whenthe music ended, he was ready to go home. They rode back to town along Route Nine, he and Edith in the rear ofPhil's car, Rhona driving because Phil had drunk just a little too much,Phil singing and telling an occasional bad joke, and somehow not his oldself. No one was his old self. No one would ever be his old self withthe First One. They turned left, to take the short cut along Hallowed Hill Road, andPhil finished a story about a Martian and a Hollywood sex queen andlooked at his wife and then past her at the long, cast-iron fenceparalleling the road. Hey, he said, pointing, do you know why that'sthe most popular place on earth? Rhona glanced to the left, and so did Hank and Edith. Rhona made alittle sound, and Edith seemed to stop breathing, but Phil went on awhile longer, not yet aware of his supposed faux pas . You know why? he repeated, turning to the back seat, the laughterrumbling up from his chest. You know why, folks? Rhona said, Did you notice Carl Braken and his wife at— Hank said, No, Phil, why is it the most popular place on earth? Phil said, Because people are— And then he caught himself and wavedhis hand and muttered, I forgot the punch line. Because people are dying to get in, Hank said, and looked through thewindow, past the iron fence, into the large cemetery at the fleetingtombstones. The car was filled with horrified silence when there should have beennothing but laughter, or irritation at a too-old joke. Maybe you shouldlet me out right here, Hank said. I'm home—or that's what everyoneseems to think. Maybe I should lie down in an open grave. Maybe thatwould satisfy people. Maybe that's the only way to act, like Dracula oranother monster from the movies. Edith said, Oh, Hank, don't, don't! The car raced along the road, crossed a macadam highway, went fourblocks and pulled to a stop. He didn't bother saying good night. Hedidn't wait for Edith. He just got out and walked up the flagstone pathand entered the house. <doc-sep>Hank, Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, I'm so sorry— There's nothing to be sorry about. It's just a matter of time. It'llall work out in time. Yes, she said quickly, that's it. I need a little time. We all need alittle time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening.I should have told you that the moment you walked in. I think I've hurtyou terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we'refrightened. I'm going to stay in the guest room, he said, for as long asnecessary. For good if need be. How could it be for good? How, Hank? That question was perhaps the first firm basis for hope he'd had sincereturning. And there was something else; what Carlisle had told him,even as Carlisle himself had reacted as all men did. There are others coming, Edith. Eight that I know of in the tanks rightnow. My superior, Captain Davidson, who died at the same moment Idid—seven months ago next Wednesday—he's going to be next. He wassmashed up worse than I was, so it took a little longer, but he's almostready. And there'll be many more, Edith. The government is going to saveall they possibly can from now on. Every time a young and healthy manloses his life by accident, by violence, and his body can be recovered,he'll go into the tanks and they'll start the regenerative brain andorgan process—the process that made it all possible. So people have toget used to us. And the old stories, the old terrors, the ugly oldsuperstitions have to die, because in time each place will have some ofus; because in time it'll be an ordinary thing. Edith said, Yes, and I'm so grateful that you're here, Hank. Pleasebelieve that. Please be patient with me and Ralphie and— She paused.There's one question. He knew what the question was. It had been the first asked him byeveryone from the president of the United States on down. I saw nothing, he said. It was as if I slept those six and a halfmonths—slept without dreaming. She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he wassatisfied. Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories ofhow they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered andpulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his ownhome. THE END <doc-sep></s>

Henry Devers was participating in an experimental flight that ended in an explosion. After that, he became the first person ever saved by regenerative technologies that had helped rebuild his body and make him breathe again. At the beginning of the story, he leaves the hospital after months of medical sleep during which his body was healing. Devers is met by the mayor and curious yet quiet crowds, he goes on a triumphant tour around the town and finally comes home to his wife Edith and his ten-year-old son Ralphie. They also seem aloof and hesitant, having no idea what to say or do around him now. He realizes his wife bought a separate twin bed which looks like an additional barrier between them to him, and his son quickly leaves for a baseball game having no apparent desire to spend time with the father. In the evening, his mother, uncle Joe, and aunt Lucille come for dinner: his mother cries, his uncle and aunt are not talkative - everyone looks stiff and uncomfortable, they are avoiding Henry’s gaze. It infuriates him, and after his angry outburst, the guests soon leave. After another small awkward conversation with his family, he goes to bed only to be soon woken up by Edith who informs him about his friends’ arrival. Phil and Rhona seem happy to see their friend, but after going to bowling alleys and a tavern Devers realizes that they are apprehensive and scared, just like everyone else. After Phil’s unsuccessful joke about a cemetery, Devers understands that everyone treats him as The First One, they cannot act as they used to because they are afraid. Later at home, Edith admits that she’s frightened and they all need time to adapt. In reply, he tells her that soon such regenerative technologies and processes will be an ordinary thing, and his captain, for example, who died together with Henry, will soon leave the hospital, too. Devers won't be the only one. He goes to sleep in the guest room.

<s> THE FIRST ONE By HERBERT D. KASTLE Illustrated by von Dongen [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog July 1961.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyrighton this publication was renewed.] The first man to return from beyond the Great Frontier may bewelcomed ... but will it be as a curiosity, rather than as ahero...? There was the usual welcoming crowd for a celebrity, and the usualspeeches by the usual politicians who met him at the airport which hadonce been twenty miles outside of Croton, but which the growing city hadsince engulfed and placed well within its boundaries. But everythingwasn't usual. The crowd was quiet, and the mayor didn't seem quite asat-ease as he'd been on his last big welcoming—for Corporal Berringer,one of the crew of the spaceship Washington , first to set Americansupon Mars. His Honor's handclasp was somewhat moist and cold. HisHonor's eyes held a trace of remoteness. Still, he was the honored home-comer, the successful returnee, thehometown boy who had made good in a big way, and they took the triumphaltour up Main Street to the new square and the grandstand. There he satbetween the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen,and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the NationalGuard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several ofthe churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct theirparishioners to treat him. But they had all come around. The tremendousnational interest, the fact that he was the First One, had made themcome around. It was obvious by now that they would have to adjust asthey'd adjusted to all the other firsts taking place in these—as thenewspapers had dubbed the start of the Twenty-first Century—theGalloping Twenties. He was glad when the official greeting was over. He was a very tired manand he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, thanany man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, akiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some oldfriends and a relative or two. He didn't want to talk about the journey.He wanted to forget the immediacy, the urgency, the terror; then perhapshe would talk. Or would he? For he had very little to tell. He had traveled and he hadreturned and his voyage was very much like the voyages of the greatmariners, from Columbus onward—long, dull periods of time passing,passing, and then the arrival. The house had changed. He saw that as soon as the official car let himoff at 45 Roosevelt Street. The change was, he knew, for the better.They had put a porch in front. They had rehabilitated, spruced up,almost rebuilt the entire outside and grounds. But he was sorry. He hadwanted it to be as before. The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who hadescorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him.He was glad. He'd had enough of strangers. Not that he was through withstrangers. There were dozens of them up and down the street, standingbeside parked cars, looking at him. But when he looked back at them,their eyes dropped, they turned away, they began moving off. He wasstill too much the First One to have his gaze met. He walked up what had once been a concrete path and was now an ornateflagstone path. He climbed the new porch and raised the ornamentalknocker on the new door and heard the soft music sound within. He wassurprised that he'd had to do this. He'd thought Edith would be watchingat a window. And perhaps she had been watching ... but she hadn't opened the door. The door opened; he looked at her. It hadn't been too long and shehadn't changed at all. She was still the small, slender girl he'd lovedin high school, the small, slender woman he'd married twelve years ago.Ralphie was with her. They held onto each other as if seeking mutualsupport, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. Theylooked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said,It's good to be home! Edith nodded and, still holding to Ralphie with one hand, put the otherarm around him. He kissed her—her neck, her cheek—and all the oldjokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, theand- then -I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger.She was trembling, and even as her lips came up to touch his he felt thedifference, and because of this difference he turned with urgency toRalphie and picked him up and hugged him and said, because he couldthink of nothing else to say, What a big fella, what a big fella. Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on thefloor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. Ididn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough. So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, thateverything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, GeneralCarlisle, had said it would early this morning before he leftWashington. Give it some time, Carlisle had said. You need the time; they needthe time. And for the love of heaven, don't be sensitive. <doc-sep>Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his,a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she satdown beside him—but she had hesitated. He wasn't being sensitive; shehad hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him. Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco DeGama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon—but moreso. Carlisle had said lots of things, but even Carlisle who had workedwith him all the way, who had engineered the entire fantasticjourney—even Carlisle the Nobel prize winner, the multi-degreed geniusin uniform, had not actually spoken to him as one man to another. The eyes. It always showed in their eyes. He looked across the room at Ralphie, standing in the doorway, a boyalready tall, already widening in the shoulders, already large offeature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himselftwenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in away that few ten-year-old faces are. How's it going in school? he asked. Gee, Dad, it's the second month of summer vacation. Well, then, before summer vacation? Pretty good. Edith said, He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, andhe made top forum the six-month period you went away, Hank. He nodded, remembering that, remembering everything, remembering thewarmth of her farewell, the warmth of Ralphie's farewell, their tears ashe left for the experimental flight station in the Aleutians. They hadfeared for him, having read of the many launchings gone wrong even incontinent-to-continent experimental flight. They had been right to worry. He had suffered much after that blow-up.But now they should be rejoicing, because he had survived and made thelong journey. Ralphie suddenly said, I got to go, Dad. I promised Waltand the others I'd pitch. It's Inter-Town Little League, you know. It'sHarmon, you know. I got to keep my word. Without waiting for an answer,he waved his hand—it shook; a ten-year-old boy's hand that shook—andran from the room and from the house. He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her inhis arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. I'm verytired. I'd like to lie down a while. Which wasn't true, because he'dbeen lying down all the months of the way back. She said, Of course. How stupid of me, expecting you to sit around andmake small talk and pick up just where you left off. He nodded. But that was exactly what he wanted to do—make small talkand pick up just where he'd left off. But they didn't expect it of him;they wouldn't let him; they felt he had changed too much. <doc-sep>She led him upstairs and along the foyer past Ralphie's room and pastthe small guest room to their bedroom. This, too, had changed. It wasnewly painted and it had new furniture. He saw twin beds separated by anornate little table with an ornate little lamp, and this looked moreominous a barrier to him than the twelve-foot concrete-and-barbed-wirefence around the experimental station. Which one is mine, he asked, and tried to smile. She also tried to smile. The one near the window. You always liked thefresh air, the sunshine in the morning. You always said it helped youto get up on time when you were stationed at the base outside of town.You always said it reminded you—being able to see the sky—that youwere going to go up in it, and that you were going to come down from itto this bed again. Not this bed, he murmured, and was a little sorry afterward. No, not this bed, she said quickly. Your lodge donated the bedroomset and I really didn't know— She waved her hand, her face white. He was sure then that she had known, and that the beds and the barrierbetween them were her own choice, if only an unconscious choice. He wentto the bed near the window, stripped off his Air Force blue jacket,began to take off his shirt, but then remembered that some arm scarsstill showed. He waited for her to leave the room. She said, Well then, rest up, dear, and went out. He took off his shirt and saw himself in the mirror on the oppositewall; and then took off his under-shirt. The body scars were faint, thescars running in long lines, one dissecting his chest, the other slicingdiagonally across his upper abdomen to disappear under his trousers.There were several more on his back, and one on his right thigh. They'dbeen treated properly and would soon disappear. But she had never seenthem. Perhaps she never would. Perhaps pajamas and robes and dark rooms wouldkeep them from her until they were gone. Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving WalterReed Hospital early this morning; which was something he founddistasteful, something he felt beneath them both. And, at the same time,he began to understand that there would be many things, previouslybeneath them both, which would have to be considered. She had changed;Ralphie had changed; all the people he knew had probablychanged—because they thought he had changed. He was tired of thinking. He lay down and closed his eyes. He lethimself taste bitterness, unhappiness, a loneliness he had never knownbefore. But sometime later, as he was dozing off, a sense of reassurance beganfiltering into his mind. After all, he was still Henry Devers, the sameman who had left home eleven months ago, with a love for family andfriends which was, if anything, stronger than before. Once he couldcommunicate this, the strangeness would disappear and the First Onewould again become good old Hank. It was little enough to ask for—areturn to old values, old relationships, the normalcies of the backwashinstead of the freneticisms of the lime-light. It would certainly begranted to him. He slept. <doc-sep>Dinner was at seven p.m. His mother came; his Uncle Joe and Aunt Lucillecame. Together with Edith, Ralphie and himself, they made six, and atein the dining room at the big table. Before he'd become the First One, it would have been a noisy affair. Hisfamily had never been noted for a lack of ebullience, a lack oftalkativeness, and Ralphie had always chosen mealtimes—especially withcompany present—to describe everything and anything that had happenedto him during the day. And Edith herself had always chatted, especiallywith his mother, though they didn't agree about much. Still, it had beengood-natured; the general tone of their lives had been good-natured. This wasn't good-natured. Exactly what it was he wasn't sure. Stiffwas perhaps the word. They began with grapefruit, Edith and Mother serving quickly,efficiently from the kitchen, then sitting down at the table. He lookedat Mother as he raised his first spoonful of chilled fruit, and said,Younger than ever. It was nothing new; he'd said it many many timesbefore, but his mother had always reacted with a bright smile and a quipsomething like, Young for the Golden Age Center, you mean. This timeshe burst into tears. It shocked him. But what shocked him even more wasthe fact that no one looked up, commented, made any attempt to comforther; no one indicated in any way that a woman was sobbing at the table. He was sitting directly across from Mother, and reached out and touchedher left hand which lay limply beside the silverware. She didn't moveit—she hadn't touched him once beyond that first, quick, strangely-coolembrace at the door—then a few seconds later she withdrew it and let itdrop out of sight. So there he was, Henry Devers, at home with the family. So there he was,the hero returned, waiting to be treated as a human being. The grapefruit shells were cleaned away and the soup served. Uncle Joebegan to talk. The greatest little development of circular uniformhouses you ever did see, he boomed in his powerful salesman's voice.Still going like sixty. We'll sell out before— At that point helooked at Hank, and Hank nodded encouragement, desperately interested inthis normalcy, and Joe's voice died away. He looked down at his plate,mumbled, Soup's getting cold, and began to eat. His hand shook alittle; his ruddy face was not quite as ruddy as Hank remembered it. Aunt Lucille made a few quavering statements about the Ladies' TuesdayGarden Club, and Hank looked across the table to where she sat betweenJoe and Mother—his wife and son bracketed him, and yet he feltalone—and said, I've missed fooling around with the lawn and the rosebushes. Here it is August and I haven't had my hand to a mower ortrowel. Aunt Lucille smiled, if you could call it that—a pitiful twitching ofthe lips—and nodded. She threw her eyes in his direction, and past him,and then down to her plate. Mother, who was still sniffling, said, Ihave a dismal headache. I'm going to lie down in the guest room awhile. She touched his shoulder in passing—his affectionate, effusivemother who would kiss stray dogs and strange children, who had oftenirritated him with an excess of physical and verbal caresses—she barelytouched his shoulder and fled. So now five of them sat at the table. The meat was served—thin, rareslices of beef, the pink blood-juice oozing warmly from the center. Hecut into it and raised a forkful to his mouth, then glanced at Ralphieand said, Looks fresh enough to have been killed in the back yard.Ralphie said, Yeah, Dad. Aunt Lucille put down her knife and fork andmurmured something to her husband. Joe cleared his throat and saidLucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was goinginto the living room for a while. She'll be back for dessert, ofcourse, he said, his laugh sounding forced. Hank looked at Edith; Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked atRalphie; Ralphie was busy with his plate. Hank looked at Joe; Joe waschewing, gazing out over their heads to the kitchen. Hank looked atLucille; she was disappearing into the living room. He brought his fist down on the table. The settings jumped; a glassoverturned, spilling water. He brought it down again and again. Theywere all standing now. He sat there and pounded the table with his bigright fist—Henry Devers, who would never have thought of making such ascene before, but who was now so sick and tired of being treated as theFirst One, of being stood back from, looked at in awe of, felt in fearof, that he could have smashed more than a table. Edith said, Hank! He said, voice hoarse, Shut up. Go away. Let me eat alone. I'm sick ofthe lot of you. <doc-sep>Mother and Joe returned a few minutes later where he sat forcing fooddown his throat. Mother said, Henry dear— He didn't answer. She beganto cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never saidanything really bad to his mother. He was afraid this would have beenthe time. Joe merely cleared his throat and mumbled something aboutgetting together again soon and drop out and see the new developmentand he, too, was gone. Lucille never did manage to speak to him. He finished his beef and waited. Soon Edith came in with the specialdessert she'd been preparing half the day—a magnificent English trifle.She served him, and spooned out a portion for herself and Ralphie. Shehesitated near his chair, and when he made no comment she called theboy. Then the three of them were sitting, facing the empty side of thetable. They ate the trifle. Ralphie finished first and got up and said,Hey, I promised— You promised the boys you'd play baseball or football or handball orsomething; anything to get away from your father. Ralphie's head dropped and he muttered, Aw, no, Dad. Edith said, He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an eveningtogether—talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly. Ralphie said, Gee, sure, Dad, if you want to. Hank stood up. The question is not whether I want to. You both know Iwant to. The question is whether you want to. They answered together that of course they wanted to. But theireyes—his wife's and son's eyes—could not meet his, and so he said hewas going to his room because he was, after all, very tired and would inall probability continue to be very tired for a long, long time and thatthey shouldn't count on him for normal social life. He fell asleep quickly, lying there in his clothes. But he didn't sleep long. Edith shook him and he opened his eyes to alighted room. Phil and Rhona are here. He blinked at her. She smiled,and it seemed her old smile. They're so anxious to see you, Hank. Icould barely keep Phil from coming up and waking you himself. They wantto go out and do the town. Please, Hank, say you will. He sat up. Phil, he muttered. Phil and Rhona. They'd had wonderfultimes together, from grammar school on. Phil and Rhona, their oldest andclosest friends. Perhaps this would begin his real homecoming. Do the town? They'd paint it and then tear it down! <doc-sep>It didn't turn out that way. He was disappointed; but then again, he'dalso expected it. This entire first day at home had conditioned him toexpect nothing good. They went to the bowling alleys, and Phil soundedvery much the way he always had—soft spoken and full of laughter andfull of jokes. He patted Edith on the head the way he always had, andclapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had—so muchmore gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than wasgood for them as he always had. And for once, Hank was ready to go alongon the drinking. For once, he matched Phil shot for shot, beer for beer. They didn't bowl very long. At ten o'clock they crossed the road toManfred's Tavern, where Phil and the girls ordered sandwiches and coffeeand Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but hemerely smiled and waved his hand and gulped another ounce of nirvana. There was dancing to a juke box in Manfred's Tavern. He'd been theremany times before, and he was sure several of the couples recognizedhim. But except for a few abortive glances in his direction, it was asif he were a stranger in a city halfway around the world. At midnight, he was still drinking. The others wanted to leave, but hesaid, I haven't danced with my girl Rhona. His tongue was thick, hismind was blurred, and yet he could read the strange expression on herface—pretty Rhona, who'd always flirted with him, who'd made a ritualof flirting with him. Pretty Rhona, who now looked as if she were goingto be sick. So let's rock, he said and stood up. They were on the dance floor. He held her close, and hummed and chatted.And through the alcoholic haze saw she was a stiff-smiled, stiff-bodied,mechanical dancing doll. The number finished; they walked back to the booth. Phil said,Beddy-bye time. Hank said, First one dance with my loving wife. He and Edith danced. He didn't hold her close as he had Rhona. He waitedfor her to come close on her own, and she did, and yet she didn't.Because while she put herself against him, there was something in herface—no, in her eyes; it always showed in the eyes—that made him knowshe was trying to be the old Edith and not succeeding. This time whenthe music ended, he was ready to go home. They rode back to town along Route Nine, he and Edith in the rear ofPhil's car, Rhona driving because Phil had drunk just a little too much,Phil singing and telling an occasional bad joke, and somehow not his oldself. No one was his old self. No one would ever be his old self withthe First One. They turned left, to take the short cut along Hallowed Hill Road, andPhil finished a story about a Martian and a Hollywood sex queen andlooked at his wife and then past her at the long, cast-iron fenceparalleling the road. Hey, he said, pointing, do you know why that'sthe most popular place on earth? Rhona glanced to the left, and so did Hank and Edith. Rhona made alittle sound, and Edith seemed to stop breathing, but Phil went on awhile longer, not yet aware of his supposed faux pas . You know why? he repeated, turning to the back seat, the laughterrumbling up from his chest. You know why, folks? Rhona said, Did you notice Carl Braken and his wife at— Hank said, No, Phil, why is it the most popular place on earth? Phil said, Because people are— And then he caught himself and wavedhis hand and muttered, I forgot the punch line. Because people are dying to get in, Hank said, and looked through thewindow, past the iron fence, into the large cemetery at the fleetingtombstones. The car was filled with horrified silence when there should have beennothing but laughter, or irritation at a too-old joke. Maybe you shouldlet me out right here, Hank said. I'm home—or that's what everyoneseems to think. Maybe I should lie down in an open grave. Maybe thatwould satisfy people. Maybe that's the only way to act, like Dracula oranother monster from the movies. Edith said, Oh, Hank, don't, don't! The car raced along the road, crossed a macadam highway, went fourblocks and pulled to a stop. He didn't bother saying good night. Hedidn't wait for Edith. He just got out and walked up the flagstone pathand entered the house. <doc-sep>Hank, Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, I'm so sorry— There's nothing to be sorry about. It's just a matter of time. It'llall work out in time. Yes, she said quickly, that's it. I need a little time. We all need alittle time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening.I should have told you that the moment you walked in. I think I've hurtyou terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we'refrightened. I'm going to stay in the guest room, he said, for as long asnecessary. For good if need be. How could it be for good? How, Hank? That question was perhaps the first firm basis for hope he'd had sincereturning. And there was something else; what Carlisle had told him,even as Carlisle himself had reacted as all men did. There are others coming, Edith. Eight that I know of in the tanks rightnow. My superior, Captain Davidson, who died at the same moment Idid—seven months ago next Wednesday—he's going to be next. He wassmashed up worse than I was, so it took a little longer, but he's almostready. And there'll be many more, Edith. The government is going to saveall they possibly can from now on. Every time a young and healthy manloses his life by accident, by violence, and his body can be recovered,he'll go into the tanks and they'll start the regenerative brain andorgan process—the process that made it all possible. So people have toget used to us. And the old stories, the old terrors, the ugly oldsuperstitions have to die, because in time each place will have some ofus; because in time it'll be an ordinary thing. Edith said, Yes, and I'm so grateful that you're here, Hank. Pleasebelieve that. Please be patient with me and Ralphie and— She paused.There's one question. He knew what the question was. It had been the first asked him byeveryone from the president of the United States on down. I saw nothing, he said. It was as if I slept those six and a halfmonths—slept without dreaming. She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he wassatisfied. Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories ofhow they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered andpulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his ownhome. THE END <doc-sep></s>

The main character - Henry Devers - is the first man to have been saved by regenerative technologies. After leaving the hospital, he goes on a grandiose tour around the town, but he can see that the crowds are quiet. At home, his wife Edith seems overly hesitant and restrained, his son Ralphie quickly leaves them. Later in the evening, during dinner, his mother, aunt, and uncle also seem stiff and anxious, infuriating him. After that, he meets with his close friends hoping for them to treat him as before, but all their actions show that they are not comfortable with Devers either. He realizes that everyone he knows doesn't know how to behave around him, they cannot look him in the eyes and are scared. The First One status makes everyone terrified of him, which his wife later admits. But Devers assures her that soon this kind of technology will be ubiquitous, and the old superstitions will die, people like him will be ordinary citizens.

<s> THE FIRST ONE By HERBERT D. KASTLE Illustrated by von Dongen [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog July 1961.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyrighton this publication was renewed.] The first man to return from beyond the Great Frontier may bewelcomed ... but will it be as a curiosity, rather than as ahero...? There was the usual welcoming crowd for a celebrity, and the usualspeeches by the usual politicians who met him at the airport which hadonce been twenty miles outside of Croton, but which the growing city hadsince engulfed and placed well within its boundaries. But everythingwasn't usual. The crowd was quiet, and the mayor didn't seem quite asat-ease as he'd been on his last big welcoming—for Corporal Berringer,one of the crew of the spaceship Washington , first to set Americansupon Mars. His Honor's handclasp was somewhat moist and cold. HisHonor's eyes held a trace of remoteness. Still, he was the honored home-comer, the successful returnee, thehometown boy who had made good in a big way, and they took the triumphaltour up Main Street to the new square and the grandstand. There he satbetween the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen,and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the NationalGuard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several ofthe churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct theirparishioners to treat him. But they had all come around. The tremendousnational interest, the fact that he was the First One, had made themcome around. It was obvious by now that they would have to adjust asthey'd adjusted to all the other firsts taking place in these—as thenewspapers had dubbed the start of the Twenty-first Century—theGalloping Twenties. He was glad when the official greeting was over. He was a very tired manand he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, thanany man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, akiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some oldfriends and a relative or two. He didn't want to talk about the journey.He wanted to forget the immediacy, the urgency, the terror; then perhapshe would talk. Or would he? For he had very little to tell. He had traveled and he hadreturned and his voyage was very much like the voyages of the greatmariners, from Columbus onward—long, dull periods of time passing,passing, and then the arrival. The house had changed. He saw that as soon as the official car let himoff at 45 Roosevelt Street. The change was, he knew, for the better.They had put a porch in front. They had rehabilitated, spruced up,almost rebuilt the entire outside and grounds. But he was sorry. He hadwanted it to be as before. The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who hadescorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him.He was glad. He'd had enough of strangers. Not that he was through withstrangers. There were dozens of them up and down the street, standingbeside parked cars, looking at him. But when he looked back at them,their eyes dropped, they turned away, they began moving off. He wasstill too much the First One to have his gaze met. He walked up what had once been a concrete path and was now an ornateflagstone path. He climbed the new porch and raised the ornamentalknocker on the new door and heard the soft music sound within. He wassurprised that he'd had to do this. He'd thought Edith would be watchingat a window. And perhaps she had been watching ... but she hadn't opened the door. The door opened; he looked at her. It hadn't been too long and shehadn't changed at all. She was still the small, slender girl he'd lovedin high school, the small, slender woman he'd married twelve years ago.Ralphie was with her. They held onto each other as if seeking mutualsupport, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. Theylooked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said,It's good to be home! Edith nodded and, still holding to Ralphie with one hand, put the otherarm around him. He kissed her—her neck, her cheek—and all the oldjokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, theand- then -I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger.She was trembling, and even as her lips came up to touch his he felt thedifference, and because of this difference he turned with urgency toRalphie and picked him up and hugged him and said, because he couldthink of nothing else to say, What a big fella, what a big fella. Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on thefloor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. Ididn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough. So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, thateverything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, GeneralCarlisle, had said it would early this morning before he leftWashington. Give it some time, Carlisle had said. You need the time; they needthe time. And for the love of heaven, don't be sensitive. <doc-sep>Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his,a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she satdown beside him—but she had hesitated. He wasn't being sensitive; shehad hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him. Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco DeGama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon—but moreso. Carlisle had said lots of things, but even Carlisle who had workedwith him all the way, who had engineered the entire fantasticjourney—even Carlisle the Nobel prize winner, the multi-degreed geniusin uniform, had not actually spoken to him as one man to another. The eyes. It always showed in their eyes. He looked across the room at Ralphie, standing in the doorway, a boyalready tall, already widening in the shoulders, already large offeature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himselftwenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in away that few ten-year-old faces are. How's it going in school? he asked. Gee, Dad, it's the second month of summer vacation. Well, then, before summer vacation? Pretty good. Edith said, He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, andhe made top forum the six-month period you went away, Hank. He nodded, remembering that, remembering everything, remembering thewarmth of her farewell, the warmth of Ralphie's farewell, their tears ashe left for the experimental flight station in the Aleutians. They hadfeared for him, having read of the many launchings gone wrong even incontinent-to-continent experimental flight. They had been right to worry. He had suffered much after that blow-up.But now they should be rejoicing, because he had survived and made thelong journey. Ralphie suddenly said, I got to go, Dad. I promised Waltand the others I'd pitch. It's Inter-Town Little League, you know. It'sHarmon, you know. I got to keep my word. Without waiting for an answer,he waved his hand—it shook; a ten-year-old boy's hand that shook—andran from the room and from the house. He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her inhis arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. I'm verytired. I'd like to lie down a while. Which wasn't true, because he'dbeen lying down all the months of the way back. She said, Of course. How stupid of me, expecting you to sit around andmake small talk and pick up just where you left off. He nodded. But that was exactly what he wanted to do—make small talkand pick up just where he'd left off. But they didn't expect it of him;they wouldn't let him; they felt he had changed too much. <doc-sep>She led him upstairs and along the foyer past Ralphie's room and pastthe small guest room to their bedroom. This, too, had changed. It wasnewly painted and it had new furniture. He saw twin beds separated by anornate little table with an ornate little lamp, and this looked moreominous a barrier to him than the twelve-foot concrete-and-barbed-wirefence around the experimental station. Which one is mine, he asked, and tried to smile. She also tried to smile. The one near the window. You always liked thefresh air, the sunshine in the morning. You always said it helped youto get up on time when you were stationed at the base outside of town.You always said it reminded you—being able to see the sky—that youwere going to go up in it, and that you were going to come down from itto this bed again. Not this bed, he murmured, and was a little sorry afterward. No, not this bed, she said quickly. Your lodge donated the bedroomset and I really didn't know— She waved her hand, her face white. He was sure then that she had known, and that the beds and the barrierbetween them were her own choice, if only an unconscious choice. He wentto the bed near the window, stripped off his Air Force blue jacket,began to take off his shirt, but then remembered that some arm scarsstill showed. He waited for her to leave the room. She said, Well then, rest up, dear, and went out. He took off his shirt and saw himself in the mirror on the oppositewall; and then took off his under-shirt. The body scars were faint, thescars running in long lines, one dissecting his chest, the other slicingdiagonally across his upper abdomen to disappear under his trousers.There were several more on his back, and one on his right thigh. They'dbeen treated properly and would soon disappear. But she had never seenthem. Perhaps she never would. Perhaps pajamas and robes and dark rooms wouldkeep them from her until they were gone. Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving WalterReed Hospital early this morning; which was something he founddistasteful, something he felt beneath them both. And, at the same time,he began to understand that there would be many things, previouslybeneath them both, which would have to be considered. She had changed;Ralphie had changed; all the people he knew had probablychanged—because they thought he had changed. He was tired of thinking. He lay down and closed his eyes. He lethimself taste bitterness, unhappiness, a loneliness he had never knownbefore. But sometime later, as he was dozing off, a sense of reassurance beganfiltering into his mind. After all, he was still Henry Devers, the sameman who had left home eleven months ago, with a love for family andfriends which was, if anything, stronger than before. Once he couldcommunicate this, the strangeness would disappear and the First Onewould again become good old Hank. It was little enough to ask for—areturn to old values, old relationships, the normalcies of the backwashinstead of the freneticisms of the lime-light. It would certainly begranted to him. He slept. <doc-sep>Dinner was at seven p.m. His mother came; his Uncle Joe and Aunt Lucillecame. Together with Edith, Ralphie and himself, they made six, and atein the dining room at the big table. Before he'd become the First One, it would have been a noisy affair. Hisfamily had never been noted for a lack of ebullience, a lack oftalkativeness, and Ralphie had always chosen mealtimes—especially withcompany present—to describe everything and anything that had happenedto him during the day. And Edith herself had always chatted, especiallywith his mother, though they didn't agree about much. Still, it had beengood-natured; the general tone of their lives had been good-natured. This wasn't good-natured. Exactly what it was he wasn't sure. Stiffwas perhaps the word. They began with grapefruit, Edith and Mother serving quickly,efficiently from the kitchen, then sitting down at the table. He lookedat Mother as he raised his first spoonful of chilled fruit, and said,Younger than ever. It was nothing new; he'd said it many many timesbefore, but his mother had always reacted with a bright smile and a quipsomething like, Young for the Golden Age Center, you mean. This timeshe burst into tears. It shocked him. But what shocked him even more wasthe fact that no one looked up, commented, made any attempt to comforther; no one indicated in any way that a woman was sobbing at the table. He was sitting directly across from Mother, and reached out and touchedher left hand which lay limply beside the silverware. She didn't moveit—she hadn't touched him once beyond that first, quick, strangely-coolembrace at the door—then a few seconds later she withdrew it and let itdrop out of sight. So there he was, Henry Devers, at home with the family. So there he was,the hero returned, waiting to be treated as a human being. The grapefruit shells were cleaned away and the soup served. Uncle Joebegan to talk. The greatest little development of circular uniformhouses you ever did see, he boomed in his powerful salesman's voice.Still going like sixty. We'll sell out before— At that point helooked at Hank, and Hank nodded encouragement, desperately interested inthis normalcy, and Joe's voice died away. He looked down at his plate,mumbled, Soup's getting cold, and began to eat. His hand shook alittle; his ruddy face was not quite as ruddy as Hank remembered it. Aunt Lucille made a few quavering statements about the Ladies' TuesdayGarden Club, and Hank looked across the table to where she sat betweenJoe and Mother—his wife and son bracketed him, and yet he feltalone—and said, I've missed fooling around with the lawn and the rosebushes. Here it is August and I haven't had my hand to a mower ortrowel. Aunt Lucille smiled, if you could call it that—a pitiful twitching ofthe lips—and nodded. She threw her eyes in his direction, and past him,and then down to her plate. Mother, who was still sniffling, said, Ihave a dismal headache. I'm going to lie down in the guest room awhile. She touched his shoulder in passing—his affectionate, effusivemother who would kiss stray dogs and strange children, who had oftenirritated him with an excess of physical and verbal caresses—she barelytouched his shoulder and fled. So now five of them sat at the table. The meat was served—thin, rareslices of beef, the pink blood-juice oozing warmly from the center. Hecut into it and raised a forkful to his mouth, then glanced at Ralphieand said, Looks fresh enough to have been killed in the back yard.Ralphie said, Yeah, Dad. Aunt Lucille put down her knife and fork andmurmured something to her husband. Joe cleared his throat and saidLucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was goinginto the living room for a while. She'll be back for dessert, ofcourse, he said, his laugh sounding forced. Hank looked at Edith; Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked atRalphie; Ralphie was busy with his plate. Hank looked at Joe; Joe waschewing, gazing out over their heads to the kitchen. Hank looked atLucille; she was disappearing into the living room. He brought his fist down on the table. The settings jumped; a glassoverturned, spilling water. He brought it down again and again. Theywere all standing now. He sat there and pounded the table with his bigright fist—Henry Devers, who would never have thought of making such ascene before, but who was now so sick and tired of being treated as theFirst One, of being stood back from, looked at in awe of, felt in fearof, that he could have smashed more than a table. Edith said, Hank! He said, voice hoarse, Shut up. Go away. Let me eat alone. I'm sick ofthe lot of you. <doc-sep>Mother and Joe returned a few minutes later where he sat forcing fooddown his throat. Mother said, Henry dear— He didn't answer. She beganto cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never saidanything really bad to his mother. He was afraid this would have beenthe time. Joe merely cleared his throat and mumbled something aboutgetting together again soon and drop out and see the new developmentand he, too, was gone. Lucille never did manage to speak to him. He finished his beef and waited. Soon Edith came in with the specialdessert she'd been preparing half the day—a magnificent English trifle.She served him, and spooned out a portion for herself and Ralphie. Shehesitated near his chair, and when he made no comment she called theboy. Then the three of them were sitting, facing the empty side of thetable. They ate the trifle. Ralphie finished first and got up and said,Hey, I promised— You promised the boys you'd play baseball or football or handball orsomething; anything to get away from your father. Ralphie's head dropped and he muttered, Aw, no, Dad. Edith said, He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an eveningtogether—talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly. Ralphie said, Gee, sure, Dad, if you want to. Hank stood up. The question is not whether I want to. You both know Iwant to. The question is whether you want to. They answered together that of course they wanted to. But theireyes—his wife's and son's eyes—could not meet his, and so he said hewas going to his room because he was, after all, very tired and would inall probability continue to be very tired for a long, long time and thatthey shouldn't count on him for normal social life. He fell asleep quickly, lying there in his clothes. But he didn't sleep long. Edith shook him and he opened his eyes to alighted room. Phil and Rhona are here. He blinked at her. She smiled,and it seemed her old smile. They're so anxious to see you, Hank. Icould barely keep Phil from coming up and waking you himself. They wantto go out and do the town. Please, Hank, say you will. He sat up. Phil, he muttered. Phil and Rhona. They'd had wonderfultimes together, from grammar school on. Phil and Rhona, their oldest andclosest friends. Perhaps this would begin his real homecoming. Do the town? They'd paint it and then tear it down! <doc-sep>It didn't turn out that way. He was disappointed; but then again, he'dalso expected it. This entire first day at home had conditioned him toexpect nothing good. They went to the bowling alleys, and Phil soundedvery much the way he always had—soft spoken and full of laughter andfull of jokes. He patted Edith on the head the way he always had, andclapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had—so muchmore gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than wasgood for them as he always had. And for once, Hank was ready to go alongon the drinking. For once, he matched Phil shot for shot, beer for beer. They didn't bowl very long. At ten o'clock they crossed the road toManfred's Tavern, where Phil and the girls ordered sandwiches and coffeeand Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but hemerely smiled and waved his hand and gulped another ounce of nirvana. There was dancing to a juke box in Manfred's Tavern. He'd been theremany times before, and he was sure several of the couples recognizedhim. But except for a few abortive glances in his direction, it was asif he were a stranger in a city halfway around the world. At midnight, he was still drinking. The others wanted to leave, but hesaid, I haven't danced with my girl Rhona. His tongue was thick, hismind was blurred, and yet he could read the strange expression on herface—pretty Rhona, who'd always flirted with him, who'd made a ritualof flirting with him. Pretty Rhona, who now looked as if she were goingto be sick. So let's rock, he said and stood up. They were on the dance floor. He held her close, and hummed and chatted.And through the alcoholic haze saw she was a stiff-smiled, stiff-bodied,mechanical dancing doll. The number finished; they walked back to the booth. Phil said,Beddy-bye time. Hank said, First one dance with my loving wife. He and Edith danced. He didn't hold her close as he had Rhona. He waitedfor her to come close on her own, and she did, and yet she didn't.Because while she put herself against him, there was something in herface—no, in her eyes; it always showed in the eyes—that made him knowshe was trying to be the old Edith and not succeeding. This time whenthe music ended, he was ready to go home. They rode back to town along Route Nine, he and Edith in the rear ofPhil's car, Rhona driving because Phil had drunk just a little too much,Phil singing and telling an occasional bad joke, and somehow not his oldself. No one was his old self. No one would ever be his old self withthe First One. They turned left, to take the short cut along Hallowed Hill Road, andPhil finished a story about a Martian and a Hollywood sex queen andlooked at his wife and then past her at the long, cast-iron fenceparalleling the road. Hey, he said, pointing, do you know why that'sthe most popular place on earth? Rhona glanced to the left, and so did Hank and Edith. Rhona made alittle sound, and Edith seemed to stop breathing, but Phil went on awhile longer, not yet aware of his supposed faux pas . You know why? he repeated, turning to the back seat, the laughterrumbling up from his chest. You know why, folks? Rhona said, Did you notice Carl Braken and his wife at— Hank said, No, Phil, why is it the most popular place on earth? Phil said, Because people are— And then he caught himself and wavedhis hand and muttered, I forgot the punch line. Because people are dying to get in, Hank said, and looked through thewindow, past the iron fence, into the large cemetery at the fleetingtombstones. The car was filled with horrified silence when there should have beennothing but laughter, or irritation at a too-old joke. Maybe you shouldlet me out right here, Hank said. I'm home—or that's what everyoneseems to think. Maybe I should lie down in an open grave. Maybe thatwould satisfy people. Maybe that's the only way to act, like Dracula oranother monster from the movies. Edith said, Oh, Hank, don't, don't! The car raced along the road, crossed a macadam highway, went fourblocks and pulled to a stop. He didn't bother saying good night. Hedidn't wait for Edith. He just got out and walked up the flagstone pathand entered the house. <doc-sep>Hank, Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, I'm so sorry— There's nothing to be sorry about. It's just a matter of time. It'llall work out in time. Yes, she said quickly, that's it. I need a little time. We all need alittle time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening.I should have told you that the moment you walked in. I think I've hurtyou terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we'refrightened. I'm going to stay in the guest room, he said, for as long asnecessary. For good if need be. How could it be for good? How, Hank? That question was perhaps the first firm basis for hope he'd had sincereturning. And there was something else; what Carlisle had told him,even as Carlisle himself had reacted as all men did. There are others coming, Edith. Eight that I know of in the tanks rightnow. My superior, Captain Davidson, who died at the same moment Idid—seven months ago next Wednesday—he's going to be next. He wassmashed up worse than I was, so it took a little longer, but he's almostready. And there'll be many more, Edith. The government is going to saveall they possibly can from now on. Every time a young and healthy manloses his life by accident, by violence, and his body can be recovered,he'll go into the tanks and they'll start the regenerative brain andorgan process—the process that made it all possible. So people have toget used to us. And the old stories, the old terrors, the ugly oldsuperstitions have to die, because in time each place will have some ofus; because in time it'll be an ordinary thing. Edith said, Yes, and I'm so grateful that you're here, Hank. Pleasebelieve that. Please be patient with me and Ralphie and— She paused.There's one question. He knew what the question was. It had been the first asked him byeveryone from the president of the United States on down. I saw nothing, he said. It was as if I slept those six and a halfmonths—slept without dreaming. She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he wassatisfied. Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories ofhow they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered andpulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his ownhome. THE END <doc-sep></s>

At the beginning of the story, Henry Devers - the first man to have been saved by regenerative technologies - goes on a town tour up to Main Street to the new square and the grandstand. He gets off at 45 Roosevelt street - his home. Here he has an awkward interaction with his wife Edith and his son Ralphie who soon leaves for a baseball game. In the evening, Henry, his wife, son, mother, uncle, and aunt eat in the dining room - the guests seem to be stiff and nervous, it infuriates Devers. After an outburst of anger, he goes to his room. After his friends, Rhona and Phil, come to see him, they all go to bowling alleys and then to Manfred’s Tavern where they dance, though his friends seem relatively uncomfortable and scared. On their way back, they drive past a cemetery when Phil makes an inappropriate joke which leads to a moment of dead silence. Later, when they come home, Devers and Edith have a sincere conversation - she admits that everyone, including her, is terrified. After reassuring his wife, Henry goes to sleep in the guest room.

<s> THE FIRST ONE By HERBERT D. KASTLE Illustrated by von Dongen [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog July 1961.Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyrighton this publication was renewed.] The first man to return from beyond the Great Frontier may bewelcomed ... but will it be as a curiosity, rather than as ahero...? There was the usual welcoming crowd for a celebrity, and the usualspeeches by the usual politicians who met him at the airport which hadonce been twenty miles outside of Croton, but which the growing city hadsince engulfed and placed well within its boundaries. But everythingwasn't usual. The crowd was quiet, and the mayor didn't seem quite asat-ease as he'd been on his last big welcoming—for Corporal Berringer,one of the crew of the spaceship Washington , first to set Americansupon Mars. His Honor's handclasp was somewhat moist and cold. HisHonor's eyes held a trace of remoteness. Still, he was the honored home-comer, the successful returnee, thehometown boy who had made good in a big way, and they took the triumphaltour up Main Street to the new square and the grandstand. There he satbetween the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen,and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the NationalGuard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several ofthe churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct theirparishioners to treat him. But they had all come around. The tremendousnational interest, the fact that he was the First One, had made themcome around. It was obvious by now that they would have to adjust asthey'd adjusted to all the other firsts taking place in these—as thenewspapers had dubbed the start of the Twenty-first Century—theGalloping Twenties. He was glad when the official greeting was over. He was a very tired manand he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, thanany man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, akiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some oldfriends and a relative or two. He didn't want to talk about the journey.He wanted to forget the immediacy, the urgency, the terror; then perhapshe would talk. Or would he? For he had very little to tell. He had traveled and he hadreturned and his voyage was very much like the voyages of the greatmariners, from Columbus onward—long, dull periods of time passing,passing, and then the arrival. The house had changed. He saw that as soon as the official car let himoff at 45 Roosevelt Street. The change was, he knew, for the better.They had put a porch in front. They had rehabilitated, spruced up,almost rebuilt the entire outside and grounds. But he was sorry. He hadwanted it to be as before. The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who hadescorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him.He was glad. He'd had enough of strangers. Not that he was through withstrangers. There were dozens of them up and down the street, standingbeside parked cars, looking at him. But when he looked back at them,their eyes dropped, they turned away, they began moving off. He wasstill too much the First One to have his gaze met. He walked up what had once been a concrete path and was now an ornateflagstone path. He climbed the new porch and raised the ornamentalknocker on the new door and heard the soft music sound within. He wassurprised that he'd had to do this. He'd thought Edith would be watchingat a window. And perhaps she had been watching ... but she hadn't opened the door. The door opened; he looked at her. It hadn't been too long and shehadn't changed at all. She was still the small, slender girl he'd lovedin high school, the small, slender woman he'd married twelve years ago.Ralphie was with her. They held onto each other as if seeking mutualsupport, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. Theylooked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said,It's good to be home! Edith nodded and, still holding to Ralphie with one hand, put the otherarm around him. He kissed her—her neck, her cheek—and all the oldjokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, theand- then -I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger.She was trembling, and even as her lips came up to touch his he felt thedifference, and because of this difference he turned with urgency toRalphie and picked him up and hugged him and said, because he couldthink of nothing else to say, What a big fella, what a big fella. Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on thefloor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. Ididn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough. So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, thateverything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, GeneralCarlisle, had said it would early this morning before he leftWashington. Give it some time, Carlisle had said. You need the time; they needthe time. And for the love of heaven, don't be sensitive. <doc-sep>Edith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his,a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she satdown beside him—but she had hesitated. He wasn't being sensitive; shehad hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him. Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco DeGama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon—but moreso. Carlisle had said lots of things, but even Carlisle who had workedwith him all the way, who had engineered the entire fantasticjourney—even Carlisle the Nobel prize winner, the multi-degreed geniusin uniform, had not actually spoken to him as one man to another. The eyes. It always showed in their eyes. He looked across the room at Ralphie, standing in the doorway, a boyalready tall, already widening in the shoulders, already large offeature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himselftwenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in away that few ten-year-old faces are. How's it going in school? he asked. Gee, Dad, it's the second month of summer vacation. Well, then, before summer vacation? Pretty good. Edith said, He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, andhe made top forum the six-month period you went away, Hank. He nodded, remembering that, remembering everything, remembering thewarmth of her farewell, the warmth of Ralphie's farewell, their tears ashe left for the experimental flight station in the Aleutians. They hadfeared for him, having read of the many launchings gone wrong even incontinent-to-continent experimental flight. They had been right to worry. He had suffered much after that blow-up.But now they should be rejoicing, because he had survived and made thelong journey. Ralphie suddenly said, I got to go, Dad. I promised Waltand the others I'd pitch. It's Inter-Town Little League, you know. It'sHarmon, you know. I got to keep my word. Without waiting for an answer,he waved his hand—it shook; a ten-year-old boy's hand that shook—andran from the room and from the house. He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her inhis arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. I'm verytired. I'd like to lie down a while. Which wasn't true, because he'dbeen lying down all the months of the way back. She said, Of course. How stupid of me, expecting you to sit around andmake small talk and pick up just where you left off. He nodded. But that was exactly what he wanted to do—make small talkand pick up just where he'd left off. But they didn't expect it of him;they wouldn't let him; they felt he had changed too much. <doc-sep>She led him upstairs and along the foyer past Ralphie's room and pastthe small guest room to their bedroom. This, too, had changed. It wasnewly painted and it had new furniture. He saw twin beds separated by anornate little table with an ornate little lamp, and this looked moreominous a barrier to him than the twelve-foot concrete-and-barbed-wirefence around the experimental station. Which one is mine, he asked, and tried to smile. She also tried to smile. The one near the window. You always liked thefresh air, the sunshine in the morning. You always said it helped youto get up on time when you were stationed at the base outside of town.You always said it reminded you—being able to see the sky—that youwere going to go up in it, and that you were going to come down from itto this bed again. Not this bed, he murmured, and was a little sorry afterward. No, not this bed, she said quickly. Your lodge donated the bedroomset and I really didn't know— She waved her hand, her face white. He was sure then that she had known, and that the beds and the barrierbetween them were her own choice, if only an unconscious choice. He wentto the bed near the window, stripped off his Air Force blue jacket,began to take off his shirt, but then remembered that some arm scarsstill showed. He waited for her to leave the room. She said, Well then, rest up, dear, and went out. He took off his shirt and saw himself in the mirror on the oppositewall; and then took off his under-shirt. The body scars were faint, thescars running in long lines, one dissecting his chest, the other slicingdiagonally across his upper abdomen to disappear under his trousers.There were several more on his back, and one on his right thigh. They'dbeen treated properly and would soon disappear. But she had never seenthem. Perhaps she never would. Perhaps pajamas and robes and dark rooms wouldkeep them from her until they were gone. Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving WalterReed Hospital early this morning; which was something he founddistasteful, something he felt beneath them both. And, at the same time,he began to understand that there would be many things, previouslybeneath them both, which would have to be considered. She had changed;Ralphie had changed; all the people he knew had probablychanged—because they thought he had changed. He was tired of thinking. He lay down and closed his eyes. He lethimself taste bitterness, unhappiness, a loneliness he had never knownbefore. But sometime later, as he was dozing off, a sense of reassurance beganfiltering into his mind. After all, he was still Henry Devers, the sameman who had left home eleven months ago, with a love for family andfriends which was, if anything, stronger than before. Once he couldcommunicate this, the strangeness would disappear and the First Onewould again become good old Hank. It was little enough to ask for—areturn to old values, old relationships, the normalcies of the backwashinstead of the freneticisms of the lime-light. It would certainly begranted to him. He slept. <doc-sep>Dinner was at seven p.m. His mother came; his Uncle Joe and Aunt Lucillecame. Together with Edith, Ralphie and himself, they made six, and atein the dining room at the big table. Before he'd become the First One, it would have been a noisy affair. Hisfamily had never been noted for a lack of ebullience, a lack oftalkativeness, and Ralphie had always chosen mealtimes—especially withcompany present—to describe everything and anything that had happenedto him during the day. And Edith herself had always chatted, especiallywith his mother, though they didn't agree about much. Still, it had beengood-natured; the general tone of their lives had been good-natured. This wasn't good-natured. Exactly what it was he wasn't sure. Stiffwas perhaps the word. They began with grapefruit, Edith and Mother serving quickly,efficiently from the kitchen, then sitting down at the table. He lookedat Mother as he raised his first spoonful of chilled fruit, and said,Younger than ever. It was nothing new; he'd said it many many timesbefore, but his mother had always reacted with a bright smile and a quipsomething like, Young for the Golden Age Center, you mean. This timeshe burst into tears. It shocked him. But what shocked him even more wasthe fact that no one looked up, commented, made any attempt to comforther; no one indicated in any way that a woman was sobbing at the table. He was sitting directly across from Mother, and reached out and touchedher left hand which lay limply beside the silverware. She didn't moveit—she hadn't touched him once beyond that first, quick, strangely-coolembrace at the door—then a few seconds later she withdrew it and let itdrop out of sight. So there he was, Henry Devers, at home with the family. So there he was,the hero returned, waiting to be treated as a human being. The grapefruit shells were cleaned away and the soup served. Uncle Joebegan to talk. The greatest little development of circular uniformhouses you ever did see, he boomed in his powerful salesman's voice.Still going like sixty. We'll sell out before— At that point helooked at Hank, and Hank nodded encouragement, desperately interested inthis normalcy, and Joe's voice died away. He looked down at his plate,mumbled, Soup's getting cold, and began to eat. His hand shook alittle; his ruddy face was not quite as ruddy as Hank remembered it. Aunt Lucille made a few quavering statements about the Ladies' TuesdayGarden Club, and Hank looked across the table to where she sat betweenJoe and Mother—his wife and son bracketed him, and yet he feltalone—and said, I've missed fooling around with the lawn and the rosebushes. Here it is August and I haven't had my hand to a mower ortrowel. Aunt Lucille smiled, if you could call it that—a pitiful twitching ofthe lips—and nodded. She threw her eyes in his direction, and past him,and then down to her plate. Mother, who was still sniffling, said, Ihave a dismal headache. I'm going to lie down in the guest room awhile. She touched his shoulder in passing—his affectionate, effusivemother who would kiss stray dogs and strange children, who had oftenirritated him with an excess of physical and verbal caresses—she barelytouched his shoulder and fled. So now five of them sat at the table. The meat was served—thin, rareslices of beef, the pink blood-juice oozing warmly from the center. Hecut into it and raised a forkful to his mouth, then glanced at Ralphieand said, Looks fresh enough to have been killed in the back yard.Ralphie said, Yeah, Dad. Aunt Lucille put down her knife and fork andmurmured something to her husband. Joe cleared his throat and saidLucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was goinginto the living room for a while. She'll be back for dessert, ofcourse, he said, his laugh sounding forced. Hank looked at Edith; Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked atRalphie; Ralphie was busy with his plate. Hank looked at Joe; Joe waschewing, gazing out over their heads to the kitchen. Hank looked atLucille; she was disappearing into the living room. He brought his fist down on the table. The settings jumped; a glassoverturned, spilling water. He brought it down again and again. Theywere all standing now. He sat there and pounded the table with his bigright fist—Henry Devers, who would never have thought of making such ascene before, but who was now so sick and tired of being treated as theFirst One, of being stood back from, looked at in awe of, felt in fearof, that he could have smashed more than a table. Edith said, Hank! He said, voice hoarse, Shut up. Go away. Let me eat alone. I'm sick ofthe lot of you. <doc-sep>Mother and Joe returned a few minutes later where he sat forcing fooddown his throat. Mother said, Henry dear— He didn't answer. She beganto cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never saidanything really bad to his mother. He was afraid this would have beenthe time. Joe merely cleared his throat and mumbled something aboutgetting together again soon and drop out and see the new developmentand he, too, was gone. Lucille never did manage to speak to him. He finished his beef and waited. Soon Edith came in with the specialdessert she'd been preparing half the day—a magnificent English trifle.She served him, and spooned out a portion for herself and Ralphie. Shehesitated near his chair, and when he made no comment she called theboy. Then the three of them were sitting, facing the empty side of thetable. They ate the trifle. Ralphie finished first and got up and said,Hey, I promised— You promised the boys you'd play baseball or football or handball orsomething; anything to get away from your father. Ralphie's head dropped and he muttered, Aw, no, Dad. Edith said, He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an eveningtogether—talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly. Ralphie said, Gee, sure, Dad, if you want to. Hank stood up. The question is not whether I want to. You both know Iwant to. The question is whether you want to. They answered together that of course they wanted to. But theireyes—his wife's and son's eyes—could not meet his, and so he said hewas going to his room because he was, after all, very tired and would inall probability continue to be very tired for a long, long time and thatthey shouldn't count on him for normal social life. He fell asleep quickly, lying there in his clothes. But he didn't sleep long. Edith shook him and he opened his eyes to alighted room. Phil and Rhona are here. He blinked at her. She smiled,and it seemed her old smile. They're so anxious to see you, Hank. Icould barely keep Phil from coming up and waking you himself. They wantto go out and do the town. Please, Hank, say you will. He sat up. Phil, he muttered. Phil and Rhona. They'd had wonderfultimes together, from grammar school on. Phil and Rhona, their oldest andclosest friends. Perhaps this would begin his real homecoming. Do the town? They'd paint it and then tear it down! <doc-sep>It didn't turn out that way. He was disappointed; but then again, he'dalso expected it. This entire first day at home had conditioned him toexpect nothing good. They went to the bowling alleys, and Phil soundedvery much the way he always had—soft spoken and full of laughter andfull of jokes. He patted Edith on the head the way he always had, andclapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had—so muchmore gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than wasgood for them as he always had. And for once, Hank was ready to go alongon the drinking. For once, he matched Phil shot for shot, beer for beer. They didn't bowl very long. At ten o'clock they crossed the road toManfred's Tavern, where Phil and the girls ordered sandwiches and coffeeand Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but hemerely smiled and waved his hand and gulped another ounce of nirvana. There was dancing to a juke box in Manfred's Tavern. He'd been theremany times before, and he was sure several of the couples recognizedhim. But except for a few abortive glances in his direction, it was asif he were a stranger in a city halfway around the world. At midnight, he was still drinking. The others wanted to leave, but hesaid, I haven't danced with my girl Rhona. His tongue was thick, hismind was blurred, and yet he could read the strange expression on herface—pretty Rhona, who'd always flirted with him, who'd made a ritualof flirting with him. Pretty Rhona, who now looked as if she were goingto be sick. So let's rock, he said and stood up. They were on the dance floor. He held her close, and hummed and chatted.And through the alcoholic haze saw she was a stiff-smiled, stiff-bodied,mechanical dancing doll. The number finished; they walked back to the booth. Phil said,Beddy-bye time. Hank said, First one dance with my loving wife. He and Edith danced. He didn't hold her close as he had Rhona. He waitedfor her to come close on her own, and she did, and yet she didn't.Because while she put herself against him, there was something in herface—no, in her eyes; it always showed in the eyes—that made him knowshe was trying to be the old Edith and not succeeding. This time whenthe music ended, he was ready to go home. They rode back to town along Route Nine, he and Edith in the rear ofPhil's car, Rhona driving because Phil had drunk just a little too much,Phil singing and telling an occasional bad joke, and somehow not his oldself. No one was his old self. No one would ever be his old self withthe First One. They turned left, to take the short cut along Hallowed Hill Road, andPhil finished a story about a Martian and a Hollywood sex queen andlooked at his wife and then past her at the long, cast-iron fenceparalleling the road. Hey, he said, pointing, do you know why that'sthe most popular place on earth? Rhona glanced to the left, and so did Hank and Edith. Rhona made alittle sound, and Edith seemed to stop breathing, but Phil went on awhile longer, not yet aware of his supposed faux pas . You know why? he repeated, turning to the back seat, the laughterrumbling up from his chest. You know why, folks? Rhona said, Did you notice Carl Braken and his wife at— Hank said, No, Phil, why is it the most popular place on earth? Phil said, Because people are— And then he caught himself and wavedhis hand and muttered, I forgot the punch line. Because people are dying to get in, Hank said, and looked through thewindow, past the iron fence, into the large cemetery at the fleetingtombstones. The car was filled with horrified silence when there should have beennothing but laughter, or irritation at a too-old joke. Maybe you shouldlet me out right here, Hank said. I'm home—or that's what everyoneseems to think. Maybe I should lie down in an open grave. Maybe thatwould satisfy people. Maybe that's the only way to act, like Dracula oranother monster from the movies. Edith said, Oh, Hank, don't, don't! The car raced along the road, crossed a macadam highway, went fourblocks and pulled to a stop. He didn't bother saying good night. Hedidn't wait for Edith. He just got out and walked up the flagstone pathand entered the house. <doc-sep>Hank, Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, I'm so sorry— There's nothing to be sorry about. It's just a matter of time. It'llall work out in time. Yes, she said quickly, that's it. I need a little time. We all need alittle time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening.I should have told you that the moment you walked in. I think I've hurtyou terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we'refrightened. I'm going to stay in the guest room, he said, for as long asnecessary. For good if need be. How could it be for good? How, Hank? That question was perhaps the first firm basis for hope he'd had sincereturning. And there was something else; what Carlisle had told him,even as Carlisle himself had reacted as all men did. There are others coming, Edith. Eight that I know of in the tanks rightnow. My superior, Captain Davidson, who died at the same moment Idid—seven months ago next Wednesday—he's going to be next. He wassmashed up worse than I was, so it took a little longer, but he's almostready. And there'll be many more, Edith. The government is going to saveall they possibly can from now on. Every time a young and healthy manloses his life by accident, by violence, and his body can be recovered,he'll go into the tanks and they'll start the regenerative brain andorgan process—the process that made it all possible. So people have toget used to us. And the old stories, the old terrors, the ugly oldsuperstitions have to die, because in time each place will have some ofus; because in time it'll be an ordinary thing. Edith said, Yes, and I'm so grateful that you're here, Hank. Pleasebelieve that. Please be patient with me and Ralphie and— She paused.There's one question. He knew what the question was. It had been the first asked him byeveryone from the president of the United States on down. I saw nothing, he said. It was as if I slept those six and a halfmonths—slept without dreaming. She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he wassatisfied. Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories ofhow they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered andpulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his ownhome. THE END <doc-sep></s>

Edith is the wife of Henry Devers - the first man to have been saved by regenerative technologies. While he was healing, she managed to renovate their house and buy a new bed for her husband. Together with their son Ralphie Edith meets Henry at the porch after he leaves the hospital and goes on a tour around their town. She seems nervous and scared around her husband while trying to talk to him about their son’s academic achievements at school. Later she dines with Devers and his relatives, still feeling very hesitant and unsure about how she has to interact with him. Edith tries to placate her husband after he angrily screams at the guests because of how scared they are and the fact that they avoided his gaze during the entire evening. Soon, she goes to wake him up after his close friends come to see him. Four of them go to bowling alleys and then to Manfred’s Tavern, but his friends - Phil and Rhona - behave as strangely as everybody else. Phil makes awkward remarks, Rhona looks sick. After an inappropriate joke made by one of the friends, Edith has to calm her husband again. She finally talks to him when they get back, admitting that everyone, including her, is terrified and they need more time to adapt. After reassuring her, her husband goes to sleep in the guest room.

<s> DOUBLECROSS by JAMES Mac CREIGH Revolt was brewing on Venus, led by the descendant of the first Earthmen to land. Svan was the leader making the final plans—plotting them a bit too well. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Officer of the Deck was pleased as he returned to the main lock.There was no reason why everything shouldn't have been functioningperfectly, of course, but he was pleased to have it confirmed, all thesame. The Executive Officer was moodily smoking a cigarette in the openlock, staring out over the dank Venusian terrain at the native town. Heturned. Everything shipshape, I take it! he commented. The OD nodded. I'll have a blank log if this keeps up, he said.Every man accounted for except the delegation, cargo stowed, driversready to lift as soon as they come back. The Exec tossed away his cigarette. If they come back. Is there any question? The Exec shrugged. I don't know, Lowry, he said. This is a funnyplace. I don't trust the natives. Lowry lifted his eyebrows. Oh? But after all, they're human beings,just like us— Not any more. Four or five generations ago they were. Lord, they don'teven look human any more. Those white, flabby skins—I don't like them. Acclimation, Lowry said scientifically. They had to acclimatethemselves to Venus's climate. They're friendly enough. The Exec shrugged again. He stared at the wooden shacks that were theoutskirts of the native city, dimly visible through the ever-presentVenusian mist. The native guard of honor, posted a hundred yards fromthe Earth-ship, stood stolidly at attention with their old-fashionedproton-rifles slung over their backs. A few natives were gazingwonderingly at the great ship, but made no move to pass the line ofguards. Of course, Lowry said suddenly, there's a minority who are afraidof us. I was in town yesterday, and I talked with some of the natives.They think there will be hordes of immigrants from Earth, now that weknow Venus is habitable. And there's some sort of a paltry undergroundgroup that is spreading the word that the immigrants will drive thenative Venusians—the descendants of the first expedition, thatis—right down into the mud. Well— he laughed—maybe they will.After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of— The annunciator over the open lock clanged vigorously, and a metallicvoice rasped: Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instrumentsreports a spy ray focused on the main lock! Lowry, interrupted in the middle of a word, jerked his head back andstared unbelievingly at the tell-tale next to the annunciator. Sureenough, it was glowing red—might have been glowing for minutes. Hesnatched at the hand-phone dangling from the wall, shouted into it.Set up a screen! Notify the delegation! Alert a landing party! Buteven while he was giving orders, the warning light flickered suddenlyand went out. Stricken, Lowry turned to the Exec. The Executive Officer nodded gloomily. He said, You see! <doc-sep>You see? Svan clicked off the listening-machine and turned around. The fiveothers in the room looked apprehensive. You see? Svan repeated. Fromtheir own mouths you have heard it. The Council was right. The younger of the two women sighed. She might have been beautiful, inspite of her dead-white skin, if there had been a scrap of hair on herhead. Svan, I'm afraid, she said. Who are we to decide if thisis a good thing? Our parents came from Earth. Perhaps there will betrouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood. Svan laughed harshly. They don't think so. You heard them. We arenot human any more. The officer said it. The other woman spoke unexpectedly. The Council was right, sheagreed. Svan, what must we do? Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. One moment. Ingra, do you stillobject? The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She lookedaround at the others, found them reluctant and uneasy, but visiblyconvinced by Svan. No, she said slowly. I do not object. And the rest of us? Does any of us object? Svan eyed them, each in turn. There was a slow but unanimous gesture ofassent. Good, said Svan. Then we must act. The Council has told us that wealone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if theEarth-ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must notreturn. An old man shifted restlessly. But they are strong, Svan, hecomplained. They have weapons. We cannot force them to stay. Svan nodded. No. They will leave. But they will never get back toEarth. Never get back to Earth? the old man gasped. Has the Councilauthorized—murder? Svan shrugged. The Council did not know what we would face. TheCouncilmen could not come to the city and see what strength theEarth-ship has. He paused dangerously. Toller, he said, do youobject? Like the girl, the old man retreated before his eyes. His voice wasdull. What is your plan? he asked. Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at hisfeet, held up a shiny metal globe. One of us will plant this in theship. It will be set by means of this dial— he touched a spot on thesurface of the globe with a pallid finger—to do nothing for fortyhours. Then—it will explode. Atomite. He grinned triumphantly, looking from face to face. The grinfaded uncertainly as he saw what was in their eyes—uncertainty,irresolution. Abruptly he set the bomb down, savagely ripped six leavesoff a writing tablet on the table next him. He took a pencil and made amark on one of them, held it up. We will let chance decide who is to do the work, he said angrily. Isthere anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think.... No answer. Svan jerked his head. Good, he said. Ingra, bring me thatbowl. Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad armof her chair. It had held Venus-tobacco cigarettes; there were a fewleft. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidlycreasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred itwith his hand, offered it to the girl. You first, Ingra, he said. She reached in mechanically, her eyes intent on his, took out a slipand held it without opening it. The bowl went the rounds, till Svanhimself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at theirslips. Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them.This is the plan, he said. We will go, all six of us, in my groundcar, to look at the Earth-ship. No one will suspect—the whole cityhas been to see it already. One will get out, at the best point we canfind. It is almost dusk now. He can hide, surely, in the vegetation.The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with thecar—perhaps it will run off the road, start to sink in the swamp. Theguards will be called. There will be commotion—that is easy enough,after all; a hysterical woman, a few screams, that's all there is toit. And the sixth person will have his chance to steal to the sideof the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in thedark—they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel awayfrom the sun to return—in forty hours the danger is removed. There was comprehension in their eyes, Svan saw ... but still thatuncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: Look at the slips! Though he had willed his eyes away from it, his fingers had rebelled.Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over,striving to detect if it was the fatal one. They had felt nothing.... And his eyes saw nothing. The slip was blank. He gave it but a second'sglance, then looked up to see who had won the lethal game of chance.Almost he was disappointed. Each of the others had looked in that same second. And each was lookingup now, around at his neighbors. Svan waited impatiently for the chosenone to announce it—a second, ten seconds.... Then gray understanding came to him. A traitor! his subconsciouswhispered. A coward! He stared at them in a new light, saw theirindecision magnified, became opposition. Svan thought faster than ever before in his life. If there was acoward, it would do no good to unmask him. All were wavering, any mightbe the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspectingevery one, but—suppose the coward, cornered, fought back? In fractionsof a second, Svan had considered the evidence and reached his decision.Masked by the table, his hand, still holding the pencil, moved swiftlybeneath the table, marked his own slip. In the palm of his hand, Svan held up the slip he had just marked insecret. His voice was very tired as he said, I will plant the bomb. <doc-sep>The six conspirators in Svan's old ground car moved slowly along themain street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed exceptfor deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before theentrance to the town's Hall of Justice. Good, said Svan, observing them. The delegation is still here. Wehave ample time. He half turned in the broad front seat next to the driver, searchingthe faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered.Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men? The right answer leaped up at him. They all are , he thought. Not oneof them understands what this means. They're afraid. He clamped his lips. Go faster, Ingra, he ordered the girl who wasdriving. Let's get this done with. She looked at him, and he was surprised to find compassion in hereyes. Silently she nodded, advanced the fuel-handle so that the clumsycar jolted a trace more rapidly over the corduroy road. It was quitedark now. The car's driving light flared yellowishly in front of them,illuminating the narrow road and the pale, distorted vegetation of thejungle that surrounded them. Svan noticed it was raining a little. Thepresent shower would deepen and intensify until midnight, then fall offagain, to halt before morning. But before then they would be done. A proton-bolt lanced across the road in front of them. In the silencethat followed its thunderous crash, a man's voice bellowed: Halt! The girl, Ingra, gasped something indistinguishable, slammed on thebrakes. A Venusian in the trappings of the State Guard advanced on themfrom the side of the road, proton-rifle held ready to fire again. Where are you going? he growled. Svan spoke up. We want to look at the Earth-ship, he said. He openedthe door beside him and stepped out, careless of the drizzle. We heardit was leaving tonight, he continued, and we have not seen it. Isthat not permitted? The guard shook his head sourly. No one is allowed near the ship. Theorder was just issued. It is thought there is danger. Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. Itis urgent, he purred. His right hand flashed across his chest in acomplicated gesture. Do you understand? Confusion furrowed the guard's hairless brows, then was replaced bya sudden flare of understanding—and fear. The Council! he roared.By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this—He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan wasfaster. His gamble had failed; there was only one course remaining.He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over againstthe splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svansavagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-likenails—Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strengthin his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initialadvantage ... and it was only a matter of seconds before the guardlay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan hadruthlessly pounded it against the road. Svan grunted as his fingers constricted brutally. Svan rose, panting, stared around. No one else was in sight, save thepetrified five and the ground car. Svan glared at them contemptuously,then reached down and heaved on the senseless body of the guard. Overthe shoulder of the road the body went, onto the damp swampland of thejungle. Even while Svan watched the body began to sink. There would beno trace. Svan strode back to the car. Hurry up, he gasped to the girl. Nowthere is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keepa watch for other guards. <doc-sep>Venus has no moon, and no star can shine through its vast cloud layer.Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astro-dome in the bowof the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness. Can't see a thing, he complained to the Exec, steadily writing awayat the computer's table. Look—are those lights over there? The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. Probably the guards. Ofcourse, you can't tell. Might be a raiding party. Lowry, stung, looked to see if the Exec was smiling, but found noanswer in his stolid face. Don't joke about it, he said. Supposesomething happens to the delegation? Then we're in the soup, the Exec said philosophically. I told youthe natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for thelast three hundred years. It isn't all the natives, Lowry said. Look how they've doubled theguard around us. The administration is co-operating every way theyknow how. You heard the delegation's report on the intercom. It's thissecret group they call the Council. And how do you know the guards themselves don't belong to it? theExec retorted. They're all the same to me.... Look, your light's goneout now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to becoming from the town, anyhow.... <doc-sep>Svan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned thelights out and stopped the car. Then he reached in the compartmentunder the seat. If he took a little longer than seemed necessary to getthe atomite bomb out of the compartment, none of the others noticed.Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been two bombs inthe compartment, though Svan's hand emerged with only one. He got out of the car, holding the sphere. This will do for me, hesaid. They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—wewere wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do? Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. We must circle backagain, she parroted. We are to wait five minutes, then drive the carinto the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards. Svan, listening, thought: It's not much of a plan. The guards wouldnot be drawn away. I am glad I can't trust these five any more. Ifthey must be destroyed, it is good that their destruction will serve apurpose. Aloud, he said, You understand. If I get through, I will return to thecity on foot. No one will suspect anything if I am not caught, becausethe bomb will not explode until the ship is far out in space. Remember,you are in no danger from the guards. From the guards , his mind echoed. He smiled. At least, they wouldfeel no pain, never know what happened. With the amount of atomite inthat bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in aground-shaking crash. Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently countingoff the seconds. Go ahead, he ordered. I will wait here. Svan. The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reachedfor him, kissed him. Good luck to you, Svan, she said. Good luck, repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor ofthe car took hold. Skilfully the girl backed it up, turned it around,sent it lumbering back down the road. Only after she had traveled a fewhundred feet by the feel of the road did she turn the lights on again. Svan looked after them. The kiss had surprised him. What did it mean?Was it an error that the girl should die with the others? There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it wasdriven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. Andsince he could not know which was the one who had received the markedslip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. He advanced along the midnight road to where the ground rose and thejungle plants thinned out. Ahead, on an elevation, were the rain-dimmedlights of the Earth-ship, set down in the center of a clearing made byits own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circlingfigures of sentries, and knew that these would be the ship's own.They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with thoseslim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to theside of the ship. Svan settled himself at the side of the road, waiting for his chance.He had perhaps three minutes to wait; he reckoned. His fingers wentabsently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. Heturned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the firstcross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? <doc-sep>He became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground carwas racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glareof its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop. Paralyzed, he heard the girl's voice. Svan! They're coming! They foundthe guard's rifle, and they're looking for us! Thirty Earthmen, Svan,with those frightful guns. They fired at us, but we got away and camefor you. We must flee! He stared unseeingly at the light. Go away! he croaked unbelievingly.Then his muscles jerked into action. The time was almost up—the bombin the car— Go away! he shrieked, and turned to run. His fists clenched andswinging at his side, he made a dozen floundering steps beforesomething immense pounded at him from behind. He felt himself liftedfrom the road, sailing, swooping, dropping with annihilating forceonto the hard, charred earth of the clearing. Only then did he hear thesound of the explosion, and as the immense echoes died away he began tofeel the pain seeping into him from his hideously racked body.... The Flight Surgeon rose from beside him. He's still alive, he saidcallously to Lowry, who had just come up. It won't last long, though.What've you got there? Lowry, a bewildered expression on his beardless face, held out the twohalves of a metallic sphere. Dangling ends of wires showed where aconnection had been broken. He had a bomb, he said. A magnetic-type,delayed-action atomite bomb. There must have been another in the car,and it went off. They—they were planning to bomb us. Amazing, the surgeon said dryly. Well, they won't do any bombingnow. Lowry was staring at the huddled, mutilated form of Svan. He shuddered.The surgeon, seeing the shudder, grasped his shoulder. Better them than us, he said. It's poetic justice if I ever saw it.They had it coming.... He paused thoughtfully, staring at a piece ofpaper between his fingers. This is the only part I don't get, he said. What's that? Lowry craned his neck. A piece of paper with a cross onit? What about it? The surgeon shrugged. He had it clenched in his hand, he said. Hadthe devil of a time getting it loose from him. He turned it overslowly, displayed the other side. Now what in the world would he bedoing carrying a scrap of paper with a cross marked on both sides? <doc-sep></s>

Svan, a leader of members in the Council on Venus, plots to revolt against the Earthman delegations who are going to bring back the news of the habitability of Venus. Initially, he eavesdrops on the conversation between the Office of the Deck and the Executive Officer, which is about the untrustworthiness of Venusians, the descendants of the first generation of Earthman who migrated to Venus. Svan then initiates a revolting plan against the Earthman.By showing this conversation to the group, Svan convinces the members to conduct his plan of not letting the Earthman ship go back to the Earth. In his plan, they will drive near the ship, five people will cause some chaos to attract the guards, and one person will put the delayed-action atomite bomb on the ship. They draw lots to determine when they decide who will put the bomb. However, Svan finds that no one admits to being the one, so he draws a cross on his slip, pretending to be the one who has terrible luck. After assigning the tasks to each person, Svan and his members drive to cross the border, where Svan brings down a native guard. When they separate to let one group cause the commotion and let Svan put the bomb, Svan takes out one bomb and leaves another one in the car. He knows that the bomb on the car will explode and attract the Earthman guards, which is unknown by the other members. He sees the car leave and turns to wait for the explosion. But the car comes back because the native guards found the rifle left by the murdered guard. The members in the car try to pick up Svan to flee from the search of the Earthman when Svan tries his best to run away. The explosion happens. Svan is on the verge of death when the Office of the Deck and the Executive Officer come to see him. They find a slip with a cross drawn on both sides in his hand.

<s> DOUBLECROSS by JAMES Mac CREIGH Revolt was brewing on Venus, led by the descendant of the first Earthmen to land. Svan was the leader making the final plans—plotting them a bit too well. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Officer of the Deck was pleased as he returned to the main lock.There was no reason why everything shouldn't have been functioningperfectly, of course, but he was pleased to have it confirmed, all thesame. The Executive Officer was moodily smoking a cigarette in the openlock, staring out over the dank Venusian terrain at the native town. Heturned. Everything shipshape, I take it! he commented. The OD nodded. I'll have a blank log if this keeps up, he said.Every man accounted for except the delegation, cargo stowed, driversready to lift as soon as they come back. The Exec tossed away his cigarette. If they come back. Is there any question? The Exec shrugged. I don't know, Lowry, he said. This is a funnyplace. I don't trust the natives. Lowry lifted his eyebrows. Oh? But after all, they're human beings,just like us— Not any more. Four or five generations ago they were. Lord, they don'teven look human any more. Those white, flabby skins—I don't like them. Acclimation, Lowry said scientifically. They had to acclimatethemselves to Venus's climate. They're friendly enough. The Exec shrugged again. He stared at the wooden shacks that were theoutskirts of the native city, dimly visible through the ever-presentVenusian mist. The native guard of honor, posted a hundred yards fromthe Earth-ship, stood stolidly at attention with their old-fashionedproton-rifles slung over their backs. A few natives were gazingwonderingly at the great ship, but made no move to pass the line ofguards. Of course, Lowry said suddenly, there's a minority who are afraidof us. I was in town yesterday, and I talked with some of the natives.They think there will be hordes of immigrants from Earth, now that weknow Venus is habitable. And there's some sort of a paltry undergroundgroup that is spreading the word that the immigrants will drive thenative Venusians—the descendants of the first expedition, thatis—right down into the mud. Well— he laughed—maybe they will.After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of— The annunciator over the open lock clanged vigorously, and a metallicvoice rasped: Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instrumentsreports a spy ray focused on the main lock! Lowry, interrupted in the middle of a word, jerked his head back andstared unbelievingly at the tell-tale next to the annunciator. Sureenough, it was glowing red—might have been glowing for minutes. Hesnatched at the hand-phone dangling from the wall, shouted into it.Set up a screen! Notify the delegation! Alert a landing party! Buteven while he was giving orders, the warning light flickered suddenlyand went out. Stricken, Lowry turned to the Exec. The Executive Officer nodded gloomily. He said, You see! <doc-sep>You see? Svan clicked off the listening-machine and turned around. The fiveothers in the room looked apprehensive. You see? Svan repeated. Fromtheir own mouths you have heard it. The Council was right. The younger of the two women sighed. She might have been beautiful, inspite of her dead-white skin, if there had been a scrap of hair on herhead. Svan, I'm afraid, she said. Who are we to decide if thisis a good thing? Our parents came from Earth. Perhaps there will betrouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood. Svan laughed harshly. They don't think so. You heard them. We arenot human any more. The officer said it. The other woman spoke unexpectedly. The Council was right, sheagreed. Svan, what must we do? Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. One moment. Ingra, do you stillobject? The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She lookedaround at the others, found them reluctant and uneasy, but visiblyconvinced by Svan. No, she said slowly. I do not object. And the rest of us? Does any of us object? Svan eyed them, each in turn. There was a slow but unanimous gesture ofassent. Good, said Svan. Then we must act. The Council has told us that wealone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if theEarth-ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must notreturn. An old man shifted restlessly. But they are strong, Svan, hecomplained. They have weapons. We cannot force them to stay. Svan nodded. No. They will leave. But they will never get back toEarth. Never get back to Earth? the old man gasped. Has the Councilauthorized—murder? Svan shrugged. The Council did not know what we would face. TheCouncilmen could not come to the city and see what strength theEarth-ship has. He paused dangerously. Toller, he said, do youobject? Like the girl, the old man retreated before his eyes. His voice wasdull. What is your plan? he asked. Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at hisfeet, held up a shiny metal globe. One of us will plant this in theship. It will be set by means of this dial— he touched a spot on thesurface of the globe with a pallid finger—to do nothing for fortyhours. Then—it will explode. Atomite. He grinned triumphantly, looking from face to face. The grinfaded uncertainly as he saw what was in their eyes—uncertainty,irresolution. Abruptly he set the bomb down, savagely ripped six leavesoff a writing tablet on the table next him. He took a pencil and made amark on one of them, held it up. We will let chance decide who is to do the work, he said angrily. Isthere anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think.... No answer. Svan jerked his head. Good, he said. Ingra, bring me thatbowl. Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad armof her chair. It had held Venus-tobacco cigarettes; there were a fewleft. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidlycreasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred itwith his hand, offered it to the girl. You first, Ingra, he said. She reached in mechanically, her eyes intent on his, took out a slipand held it without opening it. The bowl went the rounds, till Svanhimself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at theirslips. Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them.This is the plan, he said. We will go, all six of us, in my groundcar, to look at the Earth-ship. No one will suspect—the whole cityhas been to see it already. One will get out, at the best point we canfind. It is almost dusk now. He can hide, surely, in the vegetation.The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with thecar—perhaps it will run off the road, start to sink in the swamp. Theguards will be called. There will be commotion—that is easy enough,after all; a hysterical woman, a few screams, that's all there is toit. And the sixth person will have his chance to steal to the sideof the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in thedark—they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel awayfrom the sun to return—in forty hours the danger is removed. There was comprehension in their eyes, Svan saw ... but still thatuncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: Look at the slips! Though he had willed his eyes away from it, his fingers had rebelled.Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over,striving to detect if it was the fatal one. They had felt nothing.... And his eyes saw nothing. The slip was blank. He gave it but a second'sglance, then looked up to see who had won the lethal game of chance.Almost he was disappointed. Each of the others had looked in that same second. And each was lookingup now, around at his neighbors. Svan waited impatiently for the chosenone to announce it—a second, ten seconds.... Then gray understanding came to him. A traitor! his subconsciouswhispered. A coward! He stared at them in a new light, saw theirindecision magnified, became opposition. Svan thought faster than ever before in his life. If there was acoward, it would do no good to unmask him. All were wavering, any mightbe the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspectingevery one, but—suppose the coward, cornered, fought back? In fractionsof a second, Svan had considered the evidence and reached his decision.Masked by the table, his hand, still holding the pencil, moved swiftlybeneath the table, marked his own slip. In the palm of his hand, Svan held up the slip he had just marked insecret. His voice was very tired as he said, I will plant the bomb. <doc-sep>The six conspirators in Svan's old ground car moved slowly along themain street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed exceptfor deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before theentrance to the town's Hall of Justice. Good, said Svan, observing them. The delegation is still here. Wehave ample time. He half turned in the broad front seat next to the driver, searchingthe faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered.Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men? The right answer leaped up at him. They all are , he thought. Not oneof them understands what this means. They're afraid. He clamped his lips. Go faster, Ingra, he ordered the girl who wasdriving. Let's get this done with. She looked at him, and he was surprised to find compassion in hereyes. Silently she nodded, advanced the fuel-handle so that the clumsycar jolted a trace more rapidly over the corduroy road. It was quitedark now. The car's driving light flared yellowishly in front of them,illuminating the narrow road and the pale, distorted vegetation of thejungle that surrounded them. Svan noticed it was raining a little. Thepresent shower would deepen and intensify until midnight, then fall offagain, to halt before morning. But before then they would be done. A proton-bolt lanced across the road in front of them. In the silencethat followed its thunderous crash, a man's voice bellowed: Halt! The girl, Ingra, gasped something indistinguishable, slammed on thebrakes. A Venusian in the trappings of the State Guard advanced on themfrom the side of the road, proton-rifle held ready to fire again. Where are you going? he growled. Svan spoke up. We want to look at the Earth-ship, he said. He openedthe door beside him and stepped out, careless of the drizzle. We heardit was leaving tonight, he continued, and we have not seen it. Isthat not permitted? The guard shook his head sourly. No one is allowed near the ship. Theorder was just issued. It is thought there is danger. Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. Itis urgent, he purred. His right hand flashed across his chest in acomplicated gesture. Do you understand? Confusion furrowed the guard's hairless brows, then was replaced bya sudden flare of understanding—and fear. The Council! he roared.By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this—He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan wasfaster. His gamble had failed; there was only one course remaining.He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over againstthe splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svansavagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-likenails—Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strengthin his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initialadvantage ... and it was only a matter of seconds before the guardlay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan hadruthlessly pounded it against the road. Svan grunted as his fingers constricted brutally. Svan rose, panting, stared around. No one else was in sight, save thepetrified five and the ground car. Svan glared at them contemptuously,then reached down and heaved on the senseless body of the guard. Overthe shoulder of the road the body went, onto the damp swampland of thejungle. Even while Svan watched the body began to sink. There would beno trace. Svan strode back to the car. Hurry up, he gasped to the girl. Nowthere is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keepa watch for other guards. <doc-sep>Venus has no moon, and no star can shine through its vast cloud layer.Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astro-dome in the bowof the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness. Can't see a thing, he complained to the Exec, steadily writing awayat the computer's table. Look—are those lights over there? The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. Probably the guards. Ofcourse, you can't tell. Might be a raiding party. Lowry, stung, looked to see if the Exec was smiling, but found noanswer in his stolid face. Don't joke about it, he said. Supposesomething happens to the delegation? Then we're in the soup, the Exec said philosophically. I told youthe natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for thelast three hundred years. It isn't all the natives, Lowry said. Look how they've doubled theguard around us. The administration is co-operating every way theyknow how. You heard the delegation's report on the intercom. It's thissecret group they call the Council. And how do you know the guards themselves don't belong to it? theExec retorted. They're all the same to me.... Look, your light's goneout now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to becoming from the town, anyhow.... <doc-sep>Svan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned thelights out and stopped the car. Then he reached in the compartmentunder the seat. If he took a little longer than seemed necessary to getthe atomite bomb out of the compartment, none of the others noticed.Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been two bombs inthe compartment, though Svan's hand emerged with only one. He got out of the car, holding the sphere. This will do for me, hesaid. They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—wewere wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do? Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. We must circle backagain, she parroted. We are to wait five minutes, then drive the carinto the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards. Svan, listening, thought: It's not much of a plan. The guards wouldnot be drawn away. I am glad I can't trust these five any more. Ifthey must be destroyed, it is good that their destruction will serve apurpose. Aloud, he said, You understand. If I get through, I will return to thecity on foot. No one will suspect anything if I am not caught, becausethe bomb will not explode until the ship is far out in space. Remember,you are in no danger from the guards. From the guards , his mind echoed. He smiled. At least, they wouldfeel no pain, never know what happened. With the amount of atomite inthat bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in aground-shaking crash. Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently countingoff the seconds. Go ahead, he ordered. I will wait here. Svan. The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reachedfor him, kissed him. Good luck to you, Svan, she said. Good luck, repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor ofthe car took hold. Skilfully the girl backed it up, turned it around,sent it lumbering back down the road. Only after she had traveled a fewhundred feet by the feel of the road did she turn the lights on again. Svan looked after them. The kiss had surprised him. What did it mean?Was it an error that the girl should die with the others? There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it wasdriven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. Andsince he could not know which was the one who had received the markedslip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. He advanced along the midnight road to where the ground rose and thejungle plants thinned out. Ahead, on an elevation, were the rain-dimmedlights of the Earth-ship, set down in the center of a clearing made byits own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circlingfigures of sentries, and knew that these would be the ship's own.They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with thoseslim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to theside of the ship. Svan settled himself at the side of the road, waiting for his chance.He had perhaps three minutes to wait; he reckoned. His fingers wentabsently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. Heturned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the firstcross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? <doc-sep>He became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground carwas racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glareof its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop. Paralyzed, he heard the girl's voice. Svan! They're coming! They foundthe guard's rifle, and they're looking for us! Thirty Earthmen, Svan,with those frightful guns. They fired at us, but we got away and camefor you. We must flee! He stared unseeingly at the light. Go away! he croaked unbelievingly.Then his muscles jerked into action. The time was almost up—the bombin the car— Go away! he shrieked, and turned to run. His fists clenched andswinging at his side, he made a dozen floundering steps beforesomething immense pounded at him from behind. He felt himself liftedfrom the road, sailing, swooping, dropping with annihilating forceonto the hard, charred earth of the clearing. Only then did he hear thesound of the explosion, and as the immense echoes died away he began tofeel the pain seeping into him from his hideously racked body.... The Flight Surgeon rose from beside him. He's still alive, he saidcallously to Lowry, who had just come up. It won't last long, though.What've you got there? Lowry, a bewildered expression on his beardless face, held out the twohalves of a metallic sphere. Dangling ends of wires showed where aconnection had been broken. He had a bomb, he said. A magnetic-type,delayed-action atomite bomb. There must have been another in the car,and it went off. They—they were planning to bomb us. Amazing, the surgeon said dryly. Well, they won't do any bombingnow. Lowry was staring at the huddled, mutilated form of Svan. He shuddered.The surgeon, seeing the shudder, grasped his shoulder. Better them than us, he said. It's poetic justice if I ever saw it.They had it coming.... He paused thoughtfully, staring at a piece ofpaper between his fingers. This is the only part I don't get, he said. What's that? Lowry craned his neck. A piece of paper with a cross onit? What about it? The surgeon shrugged. He had it clenched in his hand, he said. Hadthe devil of a time getting it loose from him. He turned it overslowly, displayed the other side. Now what in the world would he bedoing carrying a scrap of paper with a cross marked on both sides? <doc-sep></s>

Ingra is one of the members in the room where Svan plans his revolt against the Earthman. She initially objects to Svan’s plan, a plan to destroy the Earthman ship with an atomite bomb, but when she sees other people agree with Svan, who is the leader of the revolting group, she takes back her objection. She hands the bowl to Svan, letting him put six slips inside to determine their futures, which is that one of them will put the bomb on the ship. She is also the first one to pick a slip. When the conspirators conduct their plans, she is the one who drives the car. She listens to Svan whenever he orders her to do something, and she kisses him when they separate to conduct different missions. After leaving Svan alone, she drives the car in the opposite direction to Svan, trying to cause a commotion. However, the Earthman guards are searching for them due to the discovery of the left rifle from the murdered Venusian, the native guard Svan killed. With no weapons to fight against the guards, Ingra drives the car back to pick up Svan, wanting to flee with him, but dies in the explosion of the vehicle.

<s> DOUBLECROSS by JAMES Mac CREIGH Revolt was brewing on Venus, led by the descendant of the first Earthmen to land. Svan was the leader making the final plans—plotting them a bit too well. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Officer of the Deck was pleased as he returned to the main lock.There was no reason why everything shouldn't have been functioningperfectly, of course, but he was pleased to have it confirmed, all thesame. The Executive Officer was moodily smoking a cigarette in the openlock, staring out over the dank Venusian terrain at the native town. Heturned. Everything shipshape, I take it! he commented. The OD nodded. I'll have a blank log if this keeps up, he said.Every man accounted for except the delegation, cargo stowed, driversready to lift as soon as they come back. The Exec tossed away his cigarette. If they come back. Is there any question? The Exec shrugged. I don't know, Lowry, he said. This is a funnyplace. I don't trust the natives. Lowry lifted his eyebrows. Oh? But after all, they're human beings,just like us— Not any more. Four or five generations ago they were. Lord, they don'teven look human any more. Those white, flabby skins—I don't like them. Acclimation, Lowry said scientifically. They had to acclimatethemselves to Venus's climate. They're friendly enough. The Exec shrugged again. He stared at the wooden shacks that were theoutskirts of the native city, dimly visible through the ever-presentVenusian mist. The native guard of honor, posted a hundred yards fromthe Earth-ship, stood stolidly at attention with their old-fashionedproton-rifles slung over their backs. A few natives were gazingwonderingly at the great ship, but made no move to pass the line ofguards. Of course, Lowry said suddenly, there's a minority who are afraidof us. I was in town yesterday, and I talked with some of the natives.They think there will be hordes of immigrants from Earth, now that weknow Venus is habitable. And there's some sort of a paltry undergroundgroup that is spreading the word that the immigrants will drive thenative Venusians—the descendants of the first expedition, thatis—right down into the mud. Well— he laughed—maybe they will.After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of— The annunciator over the open lock clanged vigorously, and a metallicvoice rasped: Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instrumentsreports a spy ray focused on the main lock! Lowry, interrupted in the middle of a word, jerked his head back andstared unbelievingly at the tell-tale next to the annunciator. Sureenough, it was glowing red—might have been glowing for minutes. Hesnatched at the hand-phone dangling from the wall, shouted into it.Set up a screen! Notify the delegation! Alert a landing party! Buteven while he was giving orders, the warning light flickered suddenlyand went out. Stricken, Lowry turned to the Exec. The Executive Officer nodded gloomily. He said, You see! <doc-sep>You see? Svan clicked off the listening-machine and turned around. The fiveothers in the room looked apprehensive. You see? Svan repeated. Fromtheir own mouths you have heard it. The Council was right. The younger of the two women sighed. She might have been beautiful, inspite of her dead-white skin, if there had been a scrap of hair on herhead. Svan, I'm afraid, she said. Who are we to decide if thisis a good thing? Our parents came from Earth. Perhaps there will betrouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood. Svan laughed harshly. They don't think so. You heard them. We arenot human any more. The officer said it. The other woman spoke unexpectedly. The Council was right, sheagreed. Svan, what must we do? Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. One moment. Ingra, do you stillobject? The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She lookedaround at the others, found them reluctant and uneasy, but visiblyconvinced by Svan. No, she said slowly. I do not object. And the rest of us? Does any of us object? Svan eyed them, each in turn. There was a slow but unanimous gesture ofassent. Good, said Svan. Then we must act. The Council has told us that wealone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if theEarth-ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must notreturn. An old man shifted restlessly. But they are strong, Svan, hecomplained. They have weapons. We cannot force them to stay. Svan nodded. No. They will leave. But they will never get back toEarth. Never get back to Earth? the old man gasped. Has the Councilauthorized—murder? Svan shrugged. The Council did not know what we would face. TheCouncilmen could not come to the city and see what strength theEarth-ship has. He paused dangerously. Toller, he said, do youobject? Like the girl, the old man retreated before his eyes. His voice wasdull. What is your plan? he asked. Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at hisfeet, held up a shiny metal globe. One of us will plant this in theship. It will be set by means of this dial— he touched a spot on thesurface of the globe with a pallid finger—to do nothing for fortyhours. Then—it will explode. Atomite. He grinned triumphantly, looking from face to face. The grinfaded uncertainly as he saw what was in their eyes—uncertainty,irresolution. Abruptly he set the bomb down, savagely ripped six leavesoff a writing tablet on the table next him. He took a pencil and made amark on one of them, held it up. We will let chance decide who is to do the work, he said angrily. Isthere anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think.... No answer. Svan jerked his head. Good, he said. Ingra, bring me thatbowl. Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad armof her chair. It had held Venus-tobacco cigarettes; there were a fewleft. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidlycreasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred itwith his hand, offered it to the girl. You first, Ingra, he said. She reached in mechanically, her eyes intent on his, took out a slipand held it without opening it. The bowl went the rounds, till Svanhimself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at theirslips. Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them.This is the plan, he said. We will go, all six of us, in my groundcar, to look at the Earth-ship. No one will suspect—the whole cityhas been to see it already. One will get out, at the best point we canfind. It is almost dusk now. He can hide, surely, in the vegetation.The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with thecar—perhaps it will run off the road, start to sink in the swamp. Theguards will be called. There will be commotion—that is easy enough,after all; a hysterical woman, a few screams, that's all there is toit. And the sixth person will have his chance to steal to the sideof the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in thedark—they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel awayfrom the sun to return—in forty hours the danger is removed. There was comprehension in their eyes, Svan saw ... but still thatuncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: Look at the slips! Though he had willed his eyes away from it, his fingers had rebelled.Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over,striving to detect if it was the fatal one. They had felt nothing.... And his eyes saw nothing. The slip was blank. He gave it but a second'sglance, then looked up to see who had won the lethal game of chance.Almost he was disappointed. Each of the others had looked in that same second. And each was lookingup now, around at his neighbors. Svan waited impatiently for the chosenone to announce it—a second, ten seconds.... Then gray understanding came to him. A traitor! his subconsciouswhispered. A coward! He stared at them in a new light, saw theirindecision magnified, became opposition. Svan thought faster than ever before in his life. If there was acoward, it would do no good to unmask him. All were wavering, any mightbe the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspectingevery one, but—suppose the coward, cornered, fought back? In fractionsof a second, Svan had considered the evidence and reached his decision.Masked by the table, his hand, still holding the pencil, moved swiftlybeneath the table, marked his own slip. In the palm of his hand, Svan held up the slip he had just marked insecret. His voice was very tired as he said, I will plant the bomb. <doc-sep>The six conspirators in Svan's old ground car moved slowly along themain street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed exceptfor deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before theentrance to the town's Hall of Justice. Good, said Svan, observing them. The delegation is still here. Wehave ample time. He half turned in the broad front seat next to the driver, searchingthe faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered.Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men? The right answer leaped up at him. They all are , he thought. Not oneof them understands what this means. They're afraid. He clamped his lips. Go faster, Ingra, he ordered the girl who wasdriving. Let's get this done with. She looked at him, and he was surprised to find compassion in hereyes. Silently she nodded, advanced the fuel-handle so that the clumsycar jolted a trace more rapidly over the corduroy road. It was quitedark now. The car's driving light flared yellowishly in front of them,illuminating the narrow road and the pale, distorted vegetation of thejungle that surrounded them. Svan noticed it was raining a little. Thepresent shower would deepen and intensify until midnight, then fall offagain, to halt before morning. But before then they would be done. A proton-bolt lanced across the road in front of them. In the silencethat followed its thunderous crash, a man's voice bellowed: Halt! The girl, Ingra, gasped something indistinguishable, slammed on thebrakes. A Venusian in the trappings of the State Guard advanced on themfrom the side of the road, proton-rifle held ready to fire again. Where are you going? he growled. Svan spoke up. We want to look at the Earth-ship, he said. He openedthe door beside him and stepped out, careless of the drizzle. We heardit was leaving tonight, he continued, and we have not seen it. Isthat not permitted? The guard shook his head sourly. No one is allowed near the ship. Theorder was just issued. It is thought there is danger. Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. Itis urgent, he purred. His right hand flashed across his chest in acomplicated gesture. Do you understand? Confusion furrowed the guard's hairless brows, then was replaced bya sudden flare of understanding—and fear. The Council! he roared.By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this—He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan wasfaster. His gamble had failed; there was only one course remaining.He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over againstthe splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svansavagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-likenails—Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strengthin his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initialadvantage ... and it was only a matter of seconds before the guardlay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan hadruthlessly pounded it against the road. Svan grunted as his fingers constricted brutally. Svan rose, panting, stared around. No one else was in sight, save thepetrified five and the ground car. Svan glared at them contemptuously,then reached down and heaved on the senseless body of the guard. Overthe shoulder of the road the body went, onto the damp swampland of thejungle. Even while Svan watched the body began to sink. There would beno trace. Svan strode back to the car. Hurry up, he gasped to the girl. Nowthere is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keepa watch for other guards. <doc-sep>Venus has no moon, and no star can shine through its vast cloud layer.Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astro-dome in the bowof the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness. Can't see a thing, he complained to the Exec, steadily writing awayat the computer's table. Look—are those lights over there? The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. Probably the guards. Ofcourse, you can't tell. Might be a raiding party. Lowry, stung, looked to see if the Exec was smiling, but found noanswer in his stolid face. Don't joke about it, he said. Supposesomething happens to the delegation? Then we're in the soup, the Exec said philosophically. I told youthe natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for thelast three hundred years. It isn't all the natives, Lowry said. Look how they've doubled theguard around us. The administration is co-operating every way theyknow how. You heard the delegation's report on the intercom. It's thissecret group they call the Council. And how do you know the guards themselves don't belong to it? theExec retorted. They're all the same to me.... Look, your light's goneout now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to becoming from the town, anyhow.... <doc-sep>Svan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned thelights out and stopped the car. Then he reached in the compartmentunder the seat. If he took a little longer than seemed necessary to getthe atomite bomb out of the compartment, none of the others noticed.Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been two bombs inthe compartment, though Svan's hand emerged with only one. He got out of the car, holding the sphere. This will do for me, hesaid. They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—wewere wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do? Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. We must circle backagain, she parroted. We are to wait five minutes, then drive the carinto the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards. Svan, listening, thought: It's not much of a plan. The guards wouldnot be drawn away. I am glad I can't trust these five any more. Ifthey must be destroyed, it is good that their destruction will serve apurpose. Aloud, he said, You understand. If I get through, I will return to thecity on foot. No one will suspect anything if I am not caught, becausethe bomb will not explode until the ship is far out in space. Remember,you are in no danger from the guards. From the guards , his mind echoed. He smiled. At least, they wouldfeel no pain, never know what happened. With the amount of atomite inthat bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in aground-shaking crash. Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently countingoff the seconds. Go ahead, he ordered. I will wait here. Svan. The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reachedfor him, kissed him. Good luck to you, Svan, she said. Good luck, repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor ofthe car took hold. Skilfully the girl backed it up, turned it around,sent it lumbering back down the road. Only after she had traveled a fewhundred feet by the feel of the road did she turn the lights on again. Svan looked after them. The kiss had surprised him. What did it mean?Was it an error that the girl should die with the others? There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it wasdriven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. Andsince he could not know which was the one who had received the markedslip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. He advanced along the midnight road to where the ground rose and thejungle plants thinned out. Ahead, on an elevation, were the rain-dimmedlights of the Earth-ship, set down in the center of a clearing made byits own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circlingfigures of sentries, and knew that these would be the ship's own.They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with thoseslim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to theside of the ship. Svan settled himself at the side of the road, waiting for his chance.He had perhaps three minutes to wait; he reckoned. His fingers wentabsently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. Heturned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the firstcross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? <doc-sep>He became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground carwas racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glareof its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop. Paralyzed, he heard the girl's voice. Svan! They're coming! They foundthe guard's rifle, and they're looking for us! Thirty Earthmen, Svan,with those frightful guns. They fired at us, but we got away and camefor you. We must flee! He stared unseeingly at the light. Go away! he croaked unbelievingly.Then his muscles jerked into action. The time was almost up—the bombin the car— Go away! he shrieked, and turned to run. His fists clenched andswinging at his side, he made a dozen floundering steps beforesomething immense pounded at him from behind. He felt himself liftedfrom the road, sailing, swooping, dropping with annihilating forceonto the hard, charred earth of the clearing. Only then did he hear thesound of the explosion, and as the immense echoes died away he began tofeel the pain seeping into him from his hideously racked body.... The Flight Surgeon rose from beside him. He's still alive, he saidcallously to Lowry, who had just come up. It won't last long, though.What've you got there? Lowry, a bewildered expression on his beardless face, held out the twohalves of a metallic sphere. Dangling ends of wires showed where aconnection had been broken. He had a bomb, he said. A magnetic-type,delayed-action atomite bomb. There must have been another in the car,and it went off. They—they were planning to bomb us. Amazing, the surgeon said dryly. Well, they won't do any bombingnow. Lowry was staring at the huddled, mutilated form of Svan. He shuddered.The surgeon, seeing the shudder, grasped his shoulder. Better them than us, he said. It's poetic justice if I ever saw it.They had it coming.... He paused thoughtfully, staring at a piece ofpaper between his fingers. This is the only part I don't get, he said. What's that? Lowry craned his neck. A piece of paper with a cross onit? What about it? The surgeon shrugged. He had it clenched in his hand, he said. Hadthe devil of a time getting it loose from him. He turned it overslowly, displayed the other side. Now what in the world would he bedoing carrying a scrap of paper with a cross marked on both sides? <doc-sep></s>

Lowry is the Officer of the Deck on the Earthman ship. He has a conversation with the Executive Officer on the main lock, which is eavesdropped on by Svan, the leader of a revolting group. Lowry believes that the Venusians are trustworthy since they are humans with different appearances. Still, he also believes that there may be some fights between Earthmen and Venusians when Earthmen land more colonists on Venus.When Svan, the leader of a rebellious group, and his members drive the car coming towards the ship to plant the bomb, Lowry sees the car light. He is talking to the Executive Officer by then about this secret group called the Council against the Earthman colonies. Even though the Executive Officer highly doubts the loyalty of the Venusians, Lowry still believes that Venusians can be trusted.After Svan is blown away by the explosion of the car, Lowry and a surgeon come to inspect his body. They find the pieces of the bomb. They also find a piece of paper with both sides marked with a cross in his hand. Lowery is confused about the paper's purpose, but he is sure that Svan intended to explode the Earthman ship.

<s> DOUBLECROSS by JAMES Mac CREIGH Revolt was brewing on Venus, led by the descendant of the first Earthmen to land. Svan was the leader making the final plans—plotting them a bit too well. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Officer of the Deck was pleased as he returned to the main lock.There was no reason why everything shouldn't have been functioningperfectly, of course, but he was pleased to have it confirmed, all thesame. The Executive Officer was moodily smoking a cigarette in the openlock, staring out over the dank Venusian terrain at the native town. Heturned. Everything shipshape, I take it! he commented. The OD nodded. I'll have a blank log if this keeps up, he said.Every man accounted for except the delegation, cargo stowed, driversready to lift as soon as they come back. The Exec tossed away his cigarette. If they come back. Is there any question? The Exec shrugged. I don't know, Lowry, he said. This is a funnyplace. I don't trust the natives. Lowry lifted his eyebrows. Oh? But after all, they're human beings,just like us— Not any more. Four or five generations ago they were. Lord, they don'teven look human any more. Those white, flabby skins—I don't like them. Acclimation, Lowry said scientifically. They had to acclimatethemselves to Venus's climate. They're friendly enough. The Exec shrugged again. He stared at the wooden shacks that were theoutskirts of the native city, dimly visible through the ever-presentVenusian mist. The native guard of honor, posted a hundred yards fromthe Earth-ship, stood stolidly at attention with their old-fashionedproton-rifles slung over their backs. A few natives were gazingwonderingly at the great ship, but made no move to pass the line ofguards. Of course, Lowry said suddenly, there's a minority who are afraidof us. I was in town yesterday, and I talked with some of the natives.They think there will be hordes of immigrants from Earth, now that weknow Venus is habitable. And there's some sort of a paltry undergroundgroup that is spreading the word that the immigrants will drive thenative Venusians—the descendants of the first expedition, thatis—right down into the mud. Well— he laughed—maybe they will.After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of— The annunciator over the open lock clanged vigorously, and a metallicvoice rasped: Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instrumentsreports a spy ray focused on the main lock! Lowry, interrupted in the middle of a word, jerked his head back andstared unbelievingly at the tell-tale next to the annunciator. Sureenough, it was glowing red—might have been glowing for minutes. Hesnatched at the hand-phone dangling from the wall, shouted into it.Set up a screen! Notify the delegation! Alert a landing party! Buteven while he was giving orders, the warning light flickered suddenlyand went out. Stricken, Lowry turned to the Exec. The Executive Officer nodded gloomily. He said, You see! <doc-sep>You see? Svan clicked off the listening-machine and turned around. The fiveothers in the room looked apprehensive. You see? Svan repeated. Fromtheir own mouths you have heard it. The Council was right. The younger of the two women sighed. She might have been beautiful, inspite of her dead-white skin, if there had been a scrap of hair on herhead. Svan, I'm afraid, she said. Who are we to decide if thisis a good thing? Our parents came from Earth. Perhaps there will betrouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood. Svan laughed harshly. They don't think so. You heard them. We arenot human any more. The officer said it. The other woman spoke unexpectedly. The Council was right, sheagreed. Svan, what must we do? Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. One moment. Ingra, do you stillobject? The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She lookedaround at the others, found them reluctant and uneasy, but visiblyconvinced by Svan. No, she said slowly. I do not object. And the rest of us? Does any of us object? Svan eyed them, each in turn. There was a slow but unanimous gesture ofassent. Good, said Svan. Then we must act. The Council has told us that wealone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if theEarth-ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must notreturn. An old man shifted restlessly. But they are strong, Svan, hecomplained. They have weapons. We cannot force them to stay. Svan nodded. No. They will leave. But they will never get back toEarth. Never get back to Earth? the old man gasped. Has the Councilauthorized—murder? Svan shrugged. The Council did not know what we would face. TheCouncilmen could not come to the city and see what strength theEarth-ship has. He paused dangerously. Toller, he said, do youobject? Like the girl, the old man retreated before his eyes. His voice wasdull. What is your plan? he asked. Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at hisfeet, held up a shiny metal globe. One of us will plant this in theship. It will be set by means of this dial— he touched a spot on thesurface of the globe with a pallid finger—to do nothing for fortyhours. Then—it will explode. Atomite. He grinned triumphantly, looking from face to face. The grinfaded uncertainly as he saw what was in their eyes—uncertainty,irresolution. Abruptly he set the bomb down, savagely ripped six leavesoff a writing tablet on the table next him. He took a pencil and made amark on one of them, held it up. We will let chance decide who is to do the work, he said angrily. Isthere anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think.... No answer. Svan jerked his head. Good, he said. Ingra, bring me thatbowl. Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad armof her chair. It had held Venus-tobacco cigarettes; there were a fewleft. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidlycreasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred itwith his hand, offered it to the girl. You first, Ingra, he said. She reached in mechanically, her eyes intent on his, took out a slipand held it without opening it. The bowl went the rounds, till Svanhimself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at theirslips. Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them.This is the plan, he said. We will go, all six of us, in my groundcar, to look at the Earth-ship. No one will suspect—the whole cityhas been to see it already. One will get out, at the best point we canfind. It is almost dusk now. He can hide, surely, in the vegetation.The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with thecar—perhaps it will run off the road, start to sink in the swamp. Theguards will be called. There will be commotion—that is easy enough,after all; a hysterical woman, a few screams, that's all there is toit. And the sixth person will have his chance to steal to the sideof the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in thedark—they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel awayfrom the sun to return—in forty hours the danger is removed. There was comprehension in their eyes, Svan saw ... but still thatuncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: Look at the slips! Though he had willed his eyes away from it, his fingers had rebelled.Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over,striving to detect if it was the fatal one. They had felt nothing.... And his eyes saw nothing. The slip was blank. He gave it but a second'sglance, then looked up to see who had won the lethal game of chance.Almost he was disappointed. Each of the others had looked in that same second. And each was lookingup now, around at his neighbors. Svan waited impatiently for the chosenone to announce it—a second, ten seconds.... Then gray understanding came to him. A traitor! his subconsciouswhispered. A coward! He stared at them in a new light, saw theirindecision magnified, became opposition. Svan thought faster than ever before in his life. If there was acoward, it would do no good to unmask him. All were wavering, any mightbe the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspectingevery one, but—suppose the coward, cornered, fought back? In fractionsof a second, Svan had considered the evidence and reached his decision.Masked by the table, his hand, still holding the pencil, moved swiftlybeneath the table, marked his own slip. In the palm of his hand, Svan held up the slip he had just marked insecret. His voice was very tired as he said, I will plant the bomb. <doc-sep>The six conspirators in Svan's old ground car moved slowly along themain street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed exceptfor deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before theentrance to the town's Hall of Justice. Good, said Svan, observing them. The delegation is still here. Wehave ample time. He half turned in the broad front seat next to the driver, searchingthe faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered.Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men? The right answer leaped up at him. They all are , he thought. Not oneof them understands what this means. They're afraid. He clamped his lips. Go faster, Ingra, he ordered the girl who wasdriving. Let's get this done with. She looked at him, and he was surprised to find compassion in hereyes. Silently she nodded, advanced the fuel-handle so that the clumsycar jolted a trace more rapidly over the corduroy road. It was quitedark now. The car's driving light flared yellowishly in front of them,illuminating the narrow road and the pale, distorted vegetation of thejungle that surrounded them. Svan noticed it was raining a little. Thepresent shower would deepen and intensify until midnight, then fall offagain, to halt before morning. But before then they would be done. A proton-bolt lanced across the road in front of them. In the silencethat followed its thunderous crash, a man's voice bellowed: Halt! The girl, Ingra, gasped something indistinguishable, slammed on thebrakes. A Venusian in the trappings of the State Guard advanced on themfrom the side of the road, proton-rifle held ready to fire again. Where are you going? he growled. Svan spoke up. We want to look at the Earth-ship, he said. He openedthe door beside him and stepped out, careless of the drizzle. We heardit was leaving tonight, he continued, and we have not seen it. Isthat not permitted? The guard shook his head sourly. No one is allowed near the ship. Theorder was just issued. It is thought there is danger. Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. Itis urgent, he purred. His right hand flashed across his chest in acomplicated gesture. Do you understand? Confusion furrowed the guard's hairless brows, then was replaced bya sudden flare of understanding—and fear. The Council! he roared.By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this—He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan wasfaster. His gamble had failed; there was only one course remaining.He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over againstthe splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svansavagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-likenails—Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strengthin his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initialadvantage ... and it was only a matter of seconds before the guardlay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan hadruthlessly pounded it against the road. Svan grunted as his fingers constricted brutally. Svan rose, panting, stared around. No one else was in sight, save thepetrified five and the ground car. Svan glared at them contemptuously,then reached down and heaved on the senseless body of the guard. Overthe shoulder of the road the body went, onto the damp swampland of thejungle. Even while Svan watched the body began to sink. There would beno trace. Svan strode back to the car. Hurry up, he gasped to the girl. Nowthere is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keepa watch for other guards. <doc-sep>Venus has no moon, and no star can shine through its vast cloud layer.Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astro-dome in the bowof the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness. Can't see a thing, he complained to the Exec, steadily writing awayat the computer's table. Look—are those lights over there? The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. Probably the guards. Ofcourse, you can't tell. Might be a raiding party. Lowry, stung, looked to see if the Exec was smiling, but found noanswer in his stolid face. Don't joke about it, he said. Supposesomething happens to the delegation? Then we're in the soup, the Exec said philosophically. I told youthe natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for thelast three hundred years. It isn't all the natives, Lowry said. Look how they've doubled theguard around us. The administration is co-operating every way theyknow how. You heard the delegation's report on the intercom. It's thissecret group they call the Council. And how do you know the guards themselves don't belong to it? theExec retorted. They're all the same to me.... Look, your light's goneout now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to becoming from the town, anyhow.... <doc-sep>Svan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned thelights out and stopped the car. Then he reached in the compartmentunder the seat. If he took a little longer than seemed necessary to getthe atomite bomb out of the compartment, none of the others noticed.Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been two bombs inthe compartment, though Svan's hand emerged with only one. He got out of the car, holding the sphere. This will do for me, hesaid. They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—wewere wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do? Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. We must circle backagain, she parroted. We are to wait five minutes, then drive the carinto the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards. Svan, listening, thought: It's not much of a plan. The guards wouldnot be drawn away. I am glad I can't trust these five any more. Ifthey must be destroyed, it is good that their destruction will serve apurpose. Aloud, he said, You understand. If I get through, I will return to thecity on foot. No one will suspect anything if I am not caught, becausethe bomb will not explode until the ship is far out in space. Remember,you are in no danger from the guards. From the guards , his mind echoed. He smiled. At least, they wouldfeel no pain, never know what happened. With the amount of atomite inthat bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in aground-shaking crash. Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently countingoff the seconds. Go ahead, he ordered. I will wait here. Svan. The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reachedfor him, kissed him. Good luck to you, Svan, she said. Good luck, repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor ofthe car took hold. Skilfully the girl backed it up, turned it around,sent it lumbering back down the road. Only after she had traveled a fewhundred feet by the feel of the road did she turn the lights on again. Svan looked after them. The kiss had surprised him. What did it mean?Was it an error that the girl should die with the others? There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it wasdriven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. Andsince he could not know which was the one who had received the markedslip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. He advanced along the midnight road to where the ground rose and thejungle plants thinned out. Ahead, on an elevation, were the rain-dimmedlights of the Earth-ship, set down in the center of a clearing made byits own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circlingfigures of sentries, and knew that these would be the ship's own.They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with thoseslim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to theside of the ship. Svan settled himself at the side of the road, waiting for his chance.He had perhaps three minutes to wait; he reckoned. His fingers wentabsently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. Heturned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the firstcross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? <doc-sep>He became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground carwas racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glareof its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop. Paralyzed, he heard the girl's voice. Svan! They're coming! They foundthe guard's rifle, and they're looking for us! Thirty Earthmen, Svan,with those frightful guns. They fired at us, but we got away and camefor you. We must flee! He stared unseeingly at the light. Go away! he croaked unbelievingly.Then his muscles jerked into action. The time was almost up—the bombin the car— Go away! he shrieked, and turned to run. His fists clenched andswinging at his side, he made a dozen floundering steps beforesomething immense pounded at him from behind. He felt himself liftedfrom the road, sailing, swooping, dropping with annihilating forceonto the hard, charred earth of the clearing. Only then did he hear thesound of the explosion, and as the immense echoes died away he began tofeel the pain seeping into him from his hideously racked body.... The Flight Surgeon rose from beside him. He's still alive, he saidcallously to Lowry, who had just come up. It won't last long, though.What've you got there? Lowry, a bewildered expression on his beardless face, held out the twohalves of a metallic sphere. Dangling ends of wires showed where aconnection had been broken. He had a bomb, he said. A magnetic-type,delayed-action atomite bomb. There must have been another in the car,and it went off. They—they were planning to bomb us. Amazing, the surgeon said dryly. Well, they won't do any bombingnow. Lowry was staring at the huddled, mutilated form of Svan. He shuddered.The surgeon, seeing the shudder, grasped his shoulder. Better them than us, he said. It's poetic justice if I ever saw it.They had it coming.... He paused thoughtfully, staring at a piece ofpaper between his fingers. This is the only part I don't get, he said. What's that? Lowry craned his neck. A piece of paper with a cross onit? What about it? The surgeon shrugged. He had it clenched in his hand, he said. Hadthe devil of a time getting it loose from him. He turned it overslowly, displayed the other side. Now what in the world would he bedoing carrying a scrap of paper with a cross marked on both sides? <doc-sep></s>

The story happens on Venus. Venus is a habitable planet with a thick layer of clouds. There are two species on Venus, one is Venusians, who are the descendants of the first generation Earthmen coming to Venus, and the other is Earthmen, who come later as a delegation to collaborate with Venusians for the future colonies. The story happens in the background of the disharmony between Earthmen and part of the Venusians. There is a secret Venusian group called the Council, where the members fear that the future Earthmen colonies will harm them and deprive them of their living spaces. Therefore, to not let the Earthmen ship bring back the news of the habitability of Venus, the Council orders Svan as a leader to conduct some rebellious plan, which starts the story.

<s> DOUBLECROSS by JAMES Mac CREIGH Revolt was brewing on Venus, led by the descendant of the first Earthmen to land. Svan was the leader making the final plans—plotting them a bit too well. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1944. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The Officer of the Deck was pleased as he returned to the main lock.There was no reason why everything shouldn't have been functioningperfectly, of course, but he was pleased to have it confirmed, all thesame. The Executive Officer was moodily smoking a cigarette in the openlock, staring out over the dank Venusian terrain at the native town. Heturned. Everything shipshape, I take it! he commented. The OD nodded. I'll have a blank log if this keeps up, he said.Every man accounted for except the delegation, cargo stowed, driversready to lift as soon as they come back. The Exec tossed away his cigarette. If they come back. Is there any question? The Exec shrugged. I don't know, Lowry, he said. This is a funnyplace. I don't trust the natives. Lowry lifted his eyebrows. Oh? But after all, they're human beings,just like us— Not any more. Four or five generations ago they were. Lord, they don'teven look human any more. Those white, flabby skins—I don't like them. Acclimation, Lowry said scientifically. They had to acclimatethemselves to Venus's climate. They're friendly enough. The Exec shrugged again. He stared at the wooden shacks that were theoutskirts of the native city, dimly visible through the ever-presentVenusian mist. The native guard of honor, posted a hundred yards fromthe Earth-ship, stood stolidly at attention with their old-fashionedproton-rifles slung over their backs. A few natives were gazingwonderingly at the great ship, but made no move to pass the line ofguards. Of course, Lowry said suddenly, there's a minority who are afraidof us. I was in town yesterday, and I talked with some of the natives.They think there will be hordes of immigrants from Earth, now that weknow Venus is habitable. And there's some sort of a paltry undergroundgroup that is spreading the word that the immigrants will drive thenative Venusians—the descendants of the first expedition, thatis—right down into the mud. Well— he laughed—maybe they will.After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of— The annunciator over the open lock clanged vigorously, and a metallicvoice rasped: Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instrumentsreports a spy ray focused on the main lock! Lowry, interrupted in the middle of a word, jerked his head back andstared unbelievingly at the tell-tale next to the annunciator. Sureenough, it was glowing red—might have been glowing for minutes. Hesnatched at the hand-phone dangling from the wall, shouted into it.Set up a screen! Notify the delegation! Alert a landing party! Buteven while he was giving orders, the warning light flickered suddenlyand went out. Stricken, Lowry turned to the Exec. The Executive Officer nodded gloomily. He said, You see! <doc-sep>You see? Svan clicked off the listening-machine and turned around. The fiveothers in the room looked apprehensive. You see? Svan repeated. Fromtheir own mouths you have heard it. The Council was right. The younger of the two women sighed. She might have been beautiful, inspite of her dead-white skin, if there had been a scrap of hair on herhead. Svan, I'm afraid, she said. Who are we to decide if thisis a good thing? Our parents came from Earth. Perhaps there will betrouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood. Svan laughed harshly. They don't think so. You heard them. We arenot human any more. The officer said it. The other woman spoke unexpectedly. The Council was right, sheagreed. Svan, what must we do? Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. One moment. Ingra, do you stillobject? The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She lookedaround at the others, found them reluctant and uneasy, but visiblyconvinced by Svan. No, she said slowly. I do not object. And the rest of us? Does any of us object? Svan eyed them, each in turn. There was a slow but unanimous gesture ofassent. Good, said Svan. Then we must act. The Council has told us that wealone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if theEarth-ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must notreturn. An old man shifted restlessly. But they are strong, Svan, hecomplained. They have weapons. We cannot force them to stay. Svan nodded. No. They will leave. But they will never get back toEarth. Never get back to Earth? the old man gasped. Has the Councilauthorized—murder? Svan shrugged. The Council did not know what we would face. TheCouncilmen could not come to the city and see what strength theEarth-ship has. He paused dangerously. Toller, he said, do youobject? Like the girl, the old man retreated before his eyes. His voice wasdull. What is your plan? he asked. Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at hisfeet, held up a shiny metal globe. One of us will plant this in theship. It will be set by means of this dial— he touched a spot on thesurface of the globe with a pallid finger—to do nothing for fortyhours. Then—it will explode. Atomite. He grinned triumphantly, looking from face to face. The grinfaded uncertainly as he saw what was in their eyes—uncertainty,irresolution. Abruptly he set the bomb down, savagely ripped six leavesoff a writing tablet on the table next him. He took a pencil and made amark on one of them, held it up. We will let chance decide who is to do the work, he said angrily. Isthere anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think.... No answer. Svan jerked his head. Good, he said. Ingra, bring me thatbowl. Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad armof her chair. It had held Venus-tobacco cigarettes; there were a fewleft. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidlycreasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred itwith his hand, offered it to the girl. You first, Ingra, he said. She reached in mechanically, her eyes intent on his, took out a slipand held it without opening it. The bowl went the rounds, till Svanhimself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at theirslips. Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them.This is the plan, he said. We will go, all six of us, in my groundcar, to look at the Earth-ship. No one will suspect—the whole cityhas been to see it already. One will get out, at the best point we canfind. It is almost dusk now. He can hide, surely, in the vegetation.The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with thecar—perhaps it will run off the road, start to sink in the swamp. Theguards will be called. There will be commotion—that is easy enough,after all; a hysterical woman, a few screams, that's all there is toit. And the sixth person will have his chance to steal to the sideof the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in thedark—they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel awayfrom the sun to return—in forty hours the danger is removed. There was comprehension in their eyes, Svan saw ... but still thatuncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: Look at the slips! Though he had willed his eyes away from it, his fingers had rebelled.Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over,striving to detect if it was the fatal one. They had felt nothing.... And his eyes saw nothing. The slip was blank. He gave it but a second'sglance, then looked up to see who had won the lethal game of chance.Almost he was disappointed. Each of the others had looked in that same second. And each was lookingup now, around at his neighbors. Svan waited impatiently for the chosenone to announce it—a second, ten seconds.... Then gray understanding came to him. A traitor! his subconsciouswhispered. A coward! He stared at them in a new light, saw theirindecision magnified, became opposition. Svan thought faster than ever before in his life. If there was acoward, it would do no good to unmask him. All were wavering, any mightbe the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspectingevery one, but—suppose the coward, cornered, fought back? In fractionsof a second, Svan had considered the evidence and reached his decision.Masked by the table, his hand, still holding the pencil, moved swiftlybeneath the table, marked his own slip. In the palm of his hand, Svan held up the slip he had just marked insecret. His voice was very tired as he said, I will plant the bomb. <doc-sep>The six conspirators in Svan's old ground car moved slowly along themain street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed exceptfor deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before theentrance to the town's Hall of Justice. Good, said Svan, observing them. The delegation is still here. Wehave ample time. He half turned in the broad front seat next to the driver, searchingthe faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered.Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men? The right answer leaped up at him. They all are , he thought. Not oneof them understands what this means. They're afraid. He clamped his lips. Go faster, Ingra, he ordered the girl who wasdriving. Let's get this done with. She looked at him, and he was surprised to find compassion in hereyes. Silently she nodded, advanced the fuel-handle so that the clumsycar jolted a trace more rapidly over the corduroy road. It was quitedark now. The car's driving light flared yellowishly in front of them,illuminating the narrow road and the pale, distorted vegetation of thejungle that surrounded them. Svan noticed it was raining a little. Thepresent shower would deepen and intensify until midnight, then fall offagain, to halt before morning. But before then they would be done. A proton-bolt lanced across the road in front of them. In the silencethat followed its thunderous crash, a man's voice bellowed: Halt! The girl, Ingra, gasped something indistinguishable, slammed on thebrakes. A Venusian in the trappings of the State Guard advanced on themfrom the side of the road, proton-rifle held ready to fire again. Where are you going? he growled. Svan spoke up. We want to look at the Earth-ship, he said. He openedthe door beside him and stepped out, careless of the drizzle. We heardit was leaving tonight, he continued, and we have not seen it. Isthat not permitted? The guard shook his head sourly. No one is allowed near the ship. Theorder was just issued. It is thought there is danger. Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. Itis urgent, he purred. His right hand flashed across his chest in acomplicated gesture. Do you understand? Confusion furrowed the guard's hairless brows, then was replaced bya sudden flare of understanding—and fear. The Council! he roared.By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this—He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan wasfaster. His gamble had failed; there was only one course remaining.He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over againstthe splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svansavagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-likenails—Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strengthin his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initialadvantage ... and it was only a matter of seconds before the guardlay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan hadruthlessly pounded it against the road. Svan grunted as his fingers constricted brutally. Svan rose, panting, stared around. No one else was in sight, save thepetrified five and the ground car. Svan glared at them contemptuously,then reached down and heaved on the senseless body of the guard. Overthe shoulder of the road the body went, onto the damp swampland of thejungle. Even while Svan watched the body began to sink. There would beno trace. Svan strode back to the car. Hurry up, he gasped to the girl. Nowthere is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keepa watch for other guards. <doc-sep>Venus has no moon, and no star can shine through its vast cloud layer.Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astro-dome in the bowof the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness. Can't see a thing, he complained to the Exec, steadily writing awayat the computer's table. Look—are those lights over there? The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. Probably the guards. Ofcourse, you can't tell. Might be a raiding party. Lowry, stung, looked to see if the Exec was smiling, but found noanswer in his stolid face. Don't joke about it, he said. Supposesomething happens to the delegation? Then we're in the soup, the Exec said philosophically. I told youthe natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for thelast three hundred years. It isn't all the natives, Lowry said. Look how they've doubled theguard around us. The administration is co-operating every way theyknow how. You heard the delegation's report on the intercom. It's thissecret group they call the Council. And how do you know the guards themselves don't belong to it? theExec retorted. They're all the same to me.... Look, your light's goneout now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to becoming from the town, anyhow.... <doc-sep>Svan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned thelights out and stopped the car. Then he reached in the compartmentunder the seat. If he took a little longer than seemed necessary to getthe atomite bomb out of the compartment, none of the others noticed.Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been two bombs inthe compartment, though Svan's hand emerged with only one. He got out of the car, holding the sphere. This will do for me, hesaid. They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship—wewere wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do? Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. We must circle backagain, she parroted. We are to wait five minutes, then drive the carinto the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards. Svan, listening, thought: It's not much of a plan. The guards wouldnot be drawn away. I am glad I can't trust these five any more. Ifthey must be destroyed, it is good that their destruction will serve apurpose. Aloud, he said, You understand. If I get through, I will return to thecity on foot. No one will suspect anything if I am not caught, becausethe bomb will not explode until the ship is far out in space. Remember,you are in no danger from the guards. From the guards , his mind echoed. He smiled. At least, they wouldfeel no pain, never know what happened. With the amount of atomite inthat bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in aground-shaking crash. Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently countingoff the seconds. Go ahead, he ordered. I will wait here. Svan. The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reachedfor him, kissed him. Good luck to you, Svan, she said. Good luck, repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor ofthe car took hold. Skilfully the girl backed it up, turned it around,sent it lumbering back down the road. Only after she had traveled a fewhundred feet by the feel of the road did she turn the lights on again. Svan looked after them. The kiss had surprised him. What did it mean?Was it an error that the girl should die with the others? There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it wasdriven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. Andsince he could not know which was the one who had received the markedslip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die. He advanced along the midnight road to where the ground rose and thejungle plants thinned out. Ahead, on an elevation, were the rain-dimmedlights of the Earth-ship, set down in the center of a clearing made byits own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circlingfigures of sentries, and knew that these would be the ship's own.They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with thoseslim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to theside of the ship. Svan settled himself at the side of the road, waiting for his chance.He had perhaps three minutes to wait; he reckoned. His fingers wentabsently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. Heturned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the firstcross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men? <doc-sep>He became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground carwas racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glareof its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop. Paralyzed, he heard the girl's voice. Svan! They're coming! They foundthe guard's rifle, and they're looking for us! Thirty Earthmen, Svan,with those frightful guns. They fired at us, but we got away and camefor you. We must flee! He stared unseeingly at the light. Go away! he croaked unbelievingly.Then his muscles jerked into action. The time was almost up—the bombin the car— Go away! he shrieked, and turned to run. His fists clenched andswinging at his side, he made a dozen floundering steps beforesomething immense pounded at him from behind. He felt himself liftedfrom the road, sailing, swooping, dropping with annihilating forceonto the hard, charred earth of the clearing. Only then did he hear thesound of the explosion, and as the immense echoes died away he began tofeel the pain seeping into him from his hideously racked body.... The Flight Surgeon rose from beside him. He's still alive, he saidcallously to Lowry, who had just come up. It won't last long, though.What've you got there? Lowry, a bewildered expression on his beardless face, held out the twohalves of a metallic sphere. Dangling ends of wires showed where aconnection had been broken. He had a bomb, he said. A magnetic-type,delayed-action atomite bomb. There must have been another in the car,and it went off. They—they were planning to bomb us. Amazing, the surgeon said dryly. Well, they won't do any bombingnow. Lowry was staring at the huddled, mutilated form of Svan. He shuddered.The surgeon, seeing the shudder, grasped his shoulder. Better them than us, he said. It's poetic justice if I ever saw it.They had it coming.... He paused thoughtfully, staring at a piece ofpaper between his fingers. This is the only part I don't get, he said. What's that? Lowry craned his neck. A piece of paper with a cross onit? What about it? The surgeon shrugged. He had it clenched in his hand, he said. Hadthe devil of a time getting it loose from him. He turned it overslowly, displayed the other side. Now what in the world would he bedoing carrying a scrap of paper with a cross marked on both sides? <doc-sep></s>

The slip with a cross is used to determine who will be the one to plant the bomb on the ship when Svan, the leader of a rebellious group, assign tasks to each person. However, during the process of drawing lots, when the person who gets the slip with a cross on it should reveal oneself to accept the task, no one admits because Svan, who receives the slip, didn’t see the cross on the other side of the paper. As a result, he mistakenly thinks that the person who received the slip is a coward that does not want to do the task, so he secretly marks another cross on his paper and accepts the mission.This misunderstanding of no one accepting the task drives Svan to suspect all the other members as disloyal and cowardly, leading him to decide to put one bomb on the car. He is so furious that he wants them to die for their disloyalty and cowardice while serving as an attraction to the guards. However, when the plan does not go well, and the members come back to seek him, he unavoidably suffers from his deed. The paper is later found to have a cross on both sides, which forms an irony of Svan's behaviors. Ironically, Svan’s suspicion of other people causes their death when he is the real traitor.

<s> GOURMET By ALLEN KIM LANG [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine April 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This was the endless problem of all spaceship cooks: He had to feed the men tomorrow on what they had eaten today! Unable to get out to the ballgame and a long way off from the girls,men on ships think about, talk about, bitch about their food. It'strue that Woman remains a topic of thoughtful study, but discussioncan never replace practice in an art. Food, on the other hand, is achallenge shipmen face three times a day, so central to their thoughtsthat a history of sea-faring can be read from a commissary list. In the days when salt-sea sailors were charting islands and spearingseals, for example, the fo'c's'le hands called themselves Lobscousers,celebrating the liquid hash then prominent in the marine menu. TheLimey sailor got the name of the anti-scorbutic citrus squeezed intohis diet, a fruit known to us mariners of a more sophisticated ageonly as garnish for our groundside gin-and-tonic. And today we Marsmenare called Slimeheads, honoring in our title the Chlorella and Scenedesmus algae that, by filling up the spaces within, open theroad to the larger Space without. Should any groundsman dispute the importance of belly-furniture inhistory—whether it be exterminating whales, or introducing syphilisto the Fiji Islanders, or settling the Australian littoral withcross-coves from Middlesex and Hampshire—he is referred to thehundred-and-first chapter of Moby Dick , a book spooled in theamusement tanks of all but the smallest spacers. I trust, however, thatno Marsman will undertake to review this inventory of refreshment morethan a week from groundfall. A catalogue of sides of beef and heads ofLeyden cheese and ankers of good Geneva would prove heavy reading for aman condemned to snack on the Chlorella-spawn of cis-Martian space. The Pequod's crew ate wormy biscuit and salt beef. Nimitz's men wontheir war on canned pork and beans. The Triton made her underwaterperiplus of Earth with a galley stocked with frozen pizza andconcentrated apple-juice. But then, when sailors left the seas for theskies, a decline set in. The first amenity of groundside existence to be abandoned was decentfood. The earliest men into the vacuum swallowed protein squeezingsfrom aluminum tubes, and were glad enough to drop back to thegroundsman's diet of steak and fried potatoes. <doc-sep>Long before I was a boy in Med School, itching to look at black skythrough a view-port, galley science had fulfilled the disgustingexordium of Isaiah 36:12, to feed the Slimeheads for breakfast todaywhat was day-before-yesterday's table-scraps and jakes-water. The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turningoffal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard aspacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount.Slimeheads remember the H. M. S. Ajax fiasco, for example, in which agalleyman leveled his Chlorella tanks with heavy water from the ship'sshielding. Four officers and twenty-one Other Ranks were rescued fromthe Ajax in deep space, half dead from deuterium poisoning. We thinkof the Benjo Maru incident, too, caused by a Ship's Cook who allowedhis algaeal staff-of-life to become contaminated with a fast-growing Saccharomycodes yeast. The Japanese vessel staggered to her pad atPiano West after a twenty-week drunk: the alien yeast had got intothe stomach of every man aboard, where it fermented each subsequentbite he ate to a superior grade of sake . And for a third footnote tothe ancient observation, God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks,Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the Charles PartlowSale . The Sale blasted off from Brady Station in the middle of August, duein at Piano West in early May. In no special hurry, we were takingthe low-energy route to Mars, a pathway about as long in time as thehuman period of gestation. Our cargo consisted mostly of Tien-Shen firseedlings and some tons of an arctic grass-seed—these to be plantedin the maria to squeeze out the native blue bugberry vines. We hadaboard the Registry minimum of six men and three officers. Ship'sSurgeon was myself, Paul Vilanova. Our Captain was Willy Winkelmann,the hardest man in space and very likely the fattest. Ship's Cook wasRobert Bailey. Cooking aboard a spacer is a job combining the more frustratingtensions of biochemistry, applied mycology, high-speed farming,dietetics and sewage engineering. It's the Cook's responsibility tosee that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds ofwater, two pounds of oxygen, and one-and-a-half pounds of dry food.This isn't just a paragraph from the Spacer Union Contract. It's astatement of the least fuel a man can run on. Twelve tons of water, oxygen, and food would have filled the cargocompartments to bursting, and left a small ship like the C. P. Sale no reason to reach for Mars. By allowing a colony of Chlorella algae towork over our used air, water and other effluvia, though, three tonsof metabolites would see us through from Brady Station to Piano Westand back. Recycling was the answer. The molecule of carbohydrate, fat,protein or mineral that didn't feed the crew fed the algae. And thealgae fed us. All waste was used to fertilize our liquid fields. Even the stubblefrom our 2,680 shaves and the clippings from our 666 haircuts en routeand back would be fed into the Chlorella tanks. Human hair is rich inessential amino acids. The algae—dried by the Cook, bleached with methyl alcohol to kill thesmell and make the residue more digestible, disguised and seasoned in ahundred ways—served as a sort of meat-and-potatoes that never quitewore out. Our air and water were equally immortal. Each molecule ofoxygen would be conversant with the alveoli of every man aboard by theend of our trip. Every drop of water would have been intimate with theglomeruli of each kidney on the ship before we grounded in. Groundlingpoliticians are right enough when they say that we spacers are abreed apart. We're the one race of men who can't afford the luxury ofsqueamishness. <doc-sep>Though I'm signed aboard as Ship's Surgeon, I seldom lift a knifein space. My employment is more in the nature of TS-card-puncherextraordinary. My duties are to serve as wailing-wall, morale officer,guardian of the medicinal whiskey and frustrator of mutual murder.Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victimis the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain. If the Cook hadn't problems enough with the chemical and psychic dutiesof his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmannwas the sort of man who, if he had to go into space at all, had best doso alone. If the Prussians had a Marine Corps, Winkelmann would havedone splendidly as Drill Instructor for their boot camp. His heartwas a chip of helium ice, his voice dripped sarcastic acid. The planetEarth was hardly large enough to accommodate a wart as annoying asWilly Winkelmann. Cheek-by-jowl every day in a nacelle the size of aPullman car, our Captain quickly established himself as a major socialhemorrhoid. The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook.It was Winkelmann who saw humorous possibilities in the entry, Bailey,Robert, on Ship's Articles. He at once renamed our unfortunateshipmate Belly-Robber. It was Winkelmann who discussed hautcuisine and the properties of the nobler wines while we munched ouralgaeburgers and sipped coffee that tasted of utility water. And it wasCaptain Willy Winkelmann who never referred to the ship's head by anyother name than The Kitchen Cabinet. Bailey tried to feed us by groundside standards. He hid the tasteof synthetic methionine—an essential amino acid not synthesized byChlorella—by seasoning our algaeal repasts with pinches of oreganoand thyme. He tinted the pale-green dollops of pressed Chlorella pink,textured the mass to the consistency of hamburger and toasted theslabs to a delicate brown in a forlorn attempt to make mock-meat.For dessert, he served a fudge compounded from the dextrose-paste ofthe carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not.Belly-Robber, he said, his tone icy as winter wind off the North Sea,you had best cycle this mess through the tanks again. There is a punin my home country: Mensch ist was er isst. It means, you are whatyou eat. I think you are impertinent to suggest I should become this Schweinerei you are feeding me. Captain Winkelmann blotted his chinwith his napkin, heaved his bulk up from the table, and climbed up theladder from the dining-cubby. <doc-sep>Doc, do you like Winkelmann? the Cook asked me. Not much, I said. I suspect that the finest gift our Captain cangive his mother is to be absent from her on Mother's Day. But we've gotto live with him. He's a good man at driving a ship. I wish he'd leave off driving this Cook, Bailey said. The fat swine! His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey, Isaid. He eats well. We all do. I've dined aboard a lot of spacers inmy time, and I'll testify that you set a table second to none. Bailey took a handful of dried Chlorella from a bin and fingered it. Itwas green, smelled of swamp, and looked appetizing as a bedsore. Thisis what I have to work with, he said. He tossed the stuff back intoits bin. In Ohio, which is my home country, in the presence of ladies,we'd call such garbage Horse-Leavings. You'll never make Winkelmann happy, I said. Even the simultaneousdeath of all other human beings could hardly make him smile. Keep upthe good work, though, and you'll keep our Captain fat. Bailey nodded from his one-man cloud of gloom. I got a bottle of ryefrom Medical Stores and offered him a therapeutic draught. The Cookwaved my gift aside. Not now, Doc, he said. I'm thinking abouttomorrow's menu. The product of Bailey's cerebrations was on the mess table at noon thenext day. We were each served an individual head of lettuce, dressedwith something very like vinegar and oil, spiced with tiny leaves ofburnet. How Bailey had constructed those synthetic lettuces I can onlyguess: the hours spent preparing a green Chlorella paste, rolling anddrying and shaping each artificial leaf, the fitting together of nineheads like crisp, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles. The pièce derésistance was again a hamburger steak; but this time the algaealmass that made it up was buried in a rich, meaty gravy that was onlyfaintly green. The essence-of-steak used in these Chlorella cutlets hadbeen sprinkled with a lavish hand. Garlic was richly in evidence. It'sso tender, the radioman joked, that I can hardly believe it's reallysteak. Bailey stared across the dining-cubby toward Winkelmann, silentlyimploring the Captain's ratification of his masterpiece. The bigman's pink cheeks bulged and jumped with his chewing. He swallowed.Belly-Robber, Winkelmann said, I had almost rather you served methis pond-scum raw than have it all mucked-up with synthetic onions andcycler-salt. <doc-sep>You seem able enough to choke down Bailey's chow, Captain, I said. Igazed at Winkelmann's form, bulbous from a lifetime of surfeit feeding. Yes, I eat it, the Captain said, taking and talking through anotherbite. But I eat only as a man in the desert will eat worms andgrasshoppers, to stay alive. Sir, what in heaven's name do you expect from me? Bailey pleaded. Only good food, Winkelmann mumbled through his mouthful of disguisedalgae. He tapped his head with a finger. This—the brain that guidesthe ship—cannot be coaxed to work on hog-slop. You understand me,Belly-Robber? Bailey, his hands fisted at his sides, nodded. Yes, sir. But I reallydon't know what I can do to please you. You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban Hausfrau with thevapors, Winkelmann said. I do not expect from you hysterics, tantrumsor weeping. Only—can you understand this, so simple?—food that willkeep my belly content and my brain alive. Yes, sir, Bailey said, his face a picture of that offense the Britishterm Dumb Insolence. Winkelmann got up and climbed the ladder to the pilot-cubicle. Ifollowed him. Captain, I said, you're driving Bailey too hard.You're asking him to make bricks without straw. Winkelmann regarded me with his pale-blue stare. You think, Doctor,that my cruelty to the Belly-Robber is the biliousness of a middle-agedman? Frankly, I can't understand your attitude at all, I said. You accuse me of driving a man to make bricks without straw,Winkelmann said. Very well, Doctor. It is my belief that if thePharaoh's taskmaster had had my firmness of purpose, the Children ofIsrael would have made bricks with stubble. Necessity, Doctor, is themother of invention. I am Bailey's necessity. My unkindnesses make himuncomfortable, I doubt that not. But I am forcing him to experiment,to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learnsomehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks. You're driving him too hard, Sir, I said. He'll crack. Bailey will have some fifty thousand dollars' salary waiting when weground at Brady Station, Captain Winkelmann said. So much money buysmany discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova. Crew morale on the ship.... I began. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova, Captain Winkelmann repeated. <doc-sep>Bailey grew more silent as we threaded our way along the ellipticalpath to Mars. Each meal he prepared was a fresh attempt to propitiatethe appetite of our splenetic Captain. Each such offering was condemnedby that heartless man. Bailey began to try avoiding the Captain atmealtimes, but was frustrated by Winkelmann's orders. Convey mycompliments to the Chef, please, the Captain would instruct one ofthe crew, and ask him to step down here a moment. And the Cook wouldcheerlessly appear in the dining-cubby, to have his culinary geniusacidly called in question again. I myself do not doubt that Bailey was the finest Cook ever to gointo Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark inbrilliant galleymanship. We were served, for instance, an ersatz hotturkey supreme. The cheese-sauce was almost believable, the Chlorellaturkey-flesh was white and tender. Bailey served with this delicacya grainy and delicious cornbread, and had extracted from his algaea lipid butter-substitute that soaked into the hot bread with agenuinely dairy smell. Splendid, Bailey, I said. We are not amused, said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a secondhelping of the pseudo-turkey. You are improving, Belly-Robber, butonly arithmetically. Your first efforts were so hideous as to requirea geometric progression of improving excellence to raise them to mereedibility. By the time we are halfway 'round the Sun, I trust you willhave learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economicsstudent. That will be all, Bailey. The crew and my fellow-officers were amused by Winkelmann's riding ofBailey; they were in addition gratified that the battle between theirCaptain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embarkon an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their lastfew days aground to smuggle several hundred calories of fat and manymemories of good food aboard with them. This trip, none of the men hadlost weight during the first four months in space. Winkelmann, indeed,seemed to have gained. His uniform was taut over his plump backside,and he puffed a bit up the ladders. I was considering suggesting to ourCaptain that he curtail his diet for reasons of health, a bit of advicethat would have stood unique in the annals of space medicine, whenWinkelmann produced his supreme insult to our Cook. <doc-sep>Each man aboard a spacer is allowed ten kilograms of personal effectsbesides his uniforms, these being considered Ship's Furnishing. Ashis rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double thisration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds ofbooks, playing-cards, knitting-wool, whiskey or what have you to helphim while away the hours between the planets. Bailey, I knew for afact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case ofspices: marjoram and mint, costmary, file powder, basil and allspice,and a dozen others. Captain Winkelmann was not a reader, and had brought no books. Cardsinterested him not at all, as card-playing implies a sociability aliento his nature. He never drank aboard ship. I had supposed that he'dexercised his option of returning his personal-effects weight allowanceto the owners for the consideration of one hundred dollars a kilogram.To collect the maximum allowance, spacers have been known to comeaboard their ship mother-naked. But this was not the case with Winkelmann. His personal-effectsbaggage, an unlabeled cardboard box, appeared under the table at noonmess some hundred days out from Piano West. Winkelmann rested his feeton the mysterious box as he sat to eat. What disgusting form does the ship's garbage appear in today,Belly-Robber? he asked the Cook. Bailey frowned, but kept his temper, an asceticism in which by now he'dhad much practice. I've been working on the problem of steak, Sir,he said. I think I've whipped the taste; what was left was to get thetexture steak-like. Do you understand, Sir? I understand, Winkelmann growled. You intend that your latest messshould feel like steak to the mouth, and not like baby-food. Right? Yes, Sir, Bailey said. Well, I squeezed thesteak-substrate—Chlorella, of course, with all sorts of specialseasonings—through a sieve, and blanched the strands in hot algaealoil. Then I chopped those strands to bits and rolled them out. Voila! I had something very close in texture to the muscle-fibers of genuinemeat. Remarkable, Bailey, I said. It rather throws me off my appetite to hear how you muddle about withour food, the Captain said, his jowls settling into an expression ofdistaste. It's quite all right to eat lobster, for example, but Inever cared to see the ugly beast boiled before my eyes. Detail spoilsthe meal. Bailey lifted the cover off the electric warming-pan at the center ofthe table and tenderly lifted a small steak onto each of our plates.Try it, he urged the Captain. <doc-sep>Captain Winkelmann sliced off a corner of his algaeal steak. Thecolor was an excellent medium-rare, the odor was the rich smellof fresh-broiled beef. Winkelmann bit down, chewed, swallowed. Nottoo bad, Belly-Robber, he said, nodding. Bailey grinned and bobbedhis head, his hands folded before him in an ecstasy of pleasure. Akind word from the Captain bettered the ruffles-and-flourishes of amore reasonable man. But it still needs something ... something,Winkelmann went on, slicing off another portion of the tasty Chlorella.Aha! I have it! Yes, Sir? Bailey asked. This, Belly-Robber! Winkelmann reached beneath the mess-table andripped open his cardboard carton. He brought out a bottle and unscrewedthe cap. Ketchup, he said, splattering the red juice over Bailey'smasterpiece. The scarlet burial-shroud for the failures of Cooks.Lifting a hunk of the steak, streaming ketchup, to his mouth,Winkelmann chewed. Just the thing, he smiled. Damn you! Bailey shouted. Winkelmann's smile flicked off, and his blue eyes pierced the Cook. ... Sir, Bailey added. That's better, Winkelmann said, and took another bite. He saidmeditatively, Used with caution, and only by myself, I believe I havesufficient ketchup here to see me through to Mars. Please keep abottle on the table for all my future meals, Belly-Robber. But, Sir.... Bailey began. You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threatto the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealisticslops for another hundred days, without the small consolation ofthis sauce I had the foresight to bring with me, I'd likely be inno condition to jet us safely down to the Piano West pad. Do youunderstand, Belly-Robber? he demanded. I understand that you're an ungrateful, impossible, square-headed,slave-driving.... Watch your noun, Winkelmann cautioned the Cook. Your adjectives areinsubordinate; your noun might prove mutinous. Captain, you've gone too far, I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, wasscarlet, his chest heaving with emotion. Doctor, I must point out to you that it ill behooves the Ship'sSurgeon to side with the Cook against the Captain, Winkelmann said. Sir, Bailey has tried hard to please you, I said. The other officersand the men have been more than satisfied with his work. That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds, Winkelmann said.Doctor, you are excused. As are you, Belly-Robber, he added. <doc-sep>Bailey and I climbed from the mess compartment together. I steered himto my quarters, where the medical supplies were stored. He sat on mybunk and exploded into weeping, banging his fists against the metalbulkhead. You'll have that drink now, I said. No, dammit! he shouted. Orders, I said. I poured us each some fifty cc's of rye. This istherapy, Bailey, I told him. He poured the fiery stuff down his throatlike water and silently held out his glass for a second. I provided it. After a few minutes Bailey's sobbing ceased. Sorry, Doc, he said. You've taken more pressure than most men would, I said. Nothing tobe ashamed of. He's crazy. What sane man would expect me to dip Wiener schnitzeland sauerkraut and Backhahndl nach suddeutscher Art out of an algaetank? I've got nothing but microscopic weeds to cook for him! Worn-outmolecules reclaimed from the head; packaged amino acid additives. Andhe expects meals that would take the blue ribbon at the annual banquetof the Friends of Escoffier! Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey, I said. You've worked yourfingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, and you're notappreciated. But you're not married to Winkelmann, remember. A yearfrom now you'll be home in Ohio, fifty grand richer, set to start thatrestaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman. I hate him, Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. Hereached for the bottle. I let him have it. Sometimes alcohol can bean apt confederate of vis medicatrix naturae , the healing power ofnature. Half an hour later I strapped Bailey into his bunk to sleep itoff. That therapeutic drunk seemed to be just what he'd needed. For morning mess the next day we had a broth remarkable inhorribleness, a pottage or boiled Chlorella vulgaris that lookedand tasted like the vomit of some bottom-feeding sea-beast. Bailey,red-eyed and a-tremble, made no apology, and stared at Winkelmann asthough daring him to comment. The Captain lifted a spoonful of thedisgusting stuff to his lips, smacked and said, Belly-Robber, you'reimproving a little at last. Bailey nodded and smiled. Thank you, Sir, he said. I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses werenow strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults ofirony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that wasa price I was willing to pay for seeing destroyed the Willy Winkelmanntheory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captainhad pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, Ithought. Noon mess was nearly as awful as breakfast had been. The coffee tastedof salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment werevehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, forthe decline in culinary standards. Bailey seemed not to care. He servedthe algaeburgers with half a mind, and hurried back into his galleyoblivious of the taunts of his crewmates. <doc-sep>There being only three seats in the Sale's mess compartment, we ateour meals in three shifts. That evening, going down the ladder tosupper, my nose was met with a spine-tingling barbecue tang, a smellto make a man think of gray charcoal glowing in a picnic brazier,of cicadas chirping and green grass underfoot, of the pop and hissof canned beer being church-keyed. He's done it, Doc! one of thefirst-shift diners said. It actually tastes of food! Then he's beat the Captain at his game, I said. The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks, the crewmansaid. I sat, unfolded my napkin, and looked with hope to the electricwarming-pan at the center of the table. Bailey served the three ofus with the small steaks. Each contained about a pound of driedChlorella, I judged, teasing mine with my fork. But they were drenchedin a gravy rich as the stuff grandma used to make in her black ironskillet, peppery and seasoned with courageous bits of garlic. I cuta bit from my steak and chewed it. Too tender, of course; there arelimits to art. But the pond-scum taste was gone. Bailey appeared in thegalley door. I gestured for him to join me. You've done it, Bailey,I said. Every Slimehead in orbit will thank you for this. This isactually good . Thanks, Doc, Bailey said. I smiled and took another bite. You may not realize it, Bailey; butthis is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph;you couldn't have done it without him. You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?Bailey asked. He was driving you to do the impossible, I said; and you did it. OurCaptain may be a hard man, Bailey; but he did know how to coax maximumperformance out of his Ship's Cook. Bailey stood up. Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor? he asked. I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job.He persuaded his men by foul means, true; but it was all for the goodof the ship and his crew. Do I like Captain Winkelmann? I asked,spearing another piece of my artificial steak. Bailey, I'm afraid I'llhave to admit that I do. Bailey smiled and lifted a second steak from the warming-pan onto myplate. Then have another piece, he said. <doc-sep></s>

The story first begins discussing how food is a central topic for men on ships. The Marsmen are called Slimeheads, honoring in their title the Chlorella and Scenedesmus algae that open the road to the wider space without by filling the spaces within. The Ship’s Cook is described to be the most vital man on a spacer because he is the one who turns offal into eatables. There are also instances described where the cooks have messed up and created disasters for fellow crew members, such as poisoning them. Paul Vilanova, the narrator, goes on to tell what happened on the Charles Partlow Sale. The ship is to take a low-energy route and carries various seeds of plantlife. There are the Registry minimum of six men and three officers aboard, including Paul the surgeon, Willy Winkelmann the captain, and Robert Bailey the cook. The cook is responsible for the livelihood of all the men on the ship, and the algae also helped feed the men in a way where they cannot afford the luxury of squeamishness. Although Paul is the surgeon, he rarely lifts a knife in space because his duties are more in line with serving as a morale officer and wailing-wall. Captain Winkelman is described to have a heart of helium ice and is extremely unpopular. Bailey is often his target, but he tries his best as the Ship Cook to feed everybody in a way that makes the algae somewhat appetizing. Paul admits that he does not like the Captain much, but he tells Bailey that his cooking is what keeps the captain retaining his plump figure. Bailey cooks them a luxurious meal the next day, but the captain only criticizes him. Bailey tries to ask what Captain Winkelman wants from him, and even Paul says that he is going to crack from being driven so hard. The Captain tells him that he is simply trying to widen Bailey’s horizons in terms of cooking. Bailey tries to avoid the Captain during meal time after, and Paul believes that he is the finest cook to go into the Hohmann orbit. Even though everybody is impressed by his dishes, Winkelmann still refuses to compliment him despite gaining weight from eating. When Bailey tries to convince the Captain of his food again, Winkelmann takes out a bottle of ketchup to eat with his meal. Bailey is furious, while Paul tries to cheer him up over some fifty cc’s of rye. After the therapeutic drinking, Bailey begins to cook awful looking and tasting dishes. Winkelman, ironically, tells Bailey that he is improving even though the other crew members complain. When Paul goes to visit Bailey again later, one of the crew members exclaims that the cook has managed to make the algae taste similar to real food. Paul tells him that this is the result of the Captain’s continuous pushing; he answers that he does like the Captain when Bailey asks him again.

<s> GOURMET By ALLEN KIM LANG [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine April 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This was the endless problem of all spaceship cooks: He had to feed the men tomorrow on what they had eaten today! Unable to get out to the ballgame and a long way off from the girls,men on ships think about, talk about, bitch about their food. It'strue that Woman remains a topic of thoughtful study, but discussioncan never replace practice in an art. Food, on the other hand, is achallenge shipmen face three times a day, so central to their thoughtsthat a history of sea-faring can be read from a commissary list. In the days when salt-sea sailors were charting islands and spearingseals, for example, the fo'c's'le hands called themselves Lobscousers,celebrating the liquid hash then prominent in the marine menu. TheLimey sailor got the name of the anti-scorbutic citrus squeezed intohis diet, a fruit known to us mariners of a more sophisticated ageonly as garnish for our groundside gin-and-tonic. And today we Marsmenare called Slimeheads, honoring in our title the Chlorella and Scenedesmus algae that, by filling up the spaces within, open theroad to the larger Space without. Should any groundsman dispute the importance of belly-furniture inhistory—whether it be exterminating whales, or introducing syphilisto the Fiji Islanders, or settling the Australian littoral withcross-coves from Middlesex and Hampshire—he is referred to thehundred-and-first chapter of Moby Dick , a book spooled in theamusement tanks of all but the smallest spacers. I trust, however, thatno Marsman will undertake to review this inventory of refreshment morethan a week from groundfall. A catalogue of sides of beef and heads ofLeyden cheese and ankers of good Geneva would prove heavy reading for aman condemned to snack on the Chlorella-spawn of cis-Martian space. The Pequod's crew ate wormy biscuit and salt beef. Nimitz's men wontheir war on canned pork and beans. The Triton made her underwaterperiplus of Earth with a galley stocked with frozen pizza andconcentrated apple-juice. But then, when sailors left the seas for theskies, a decline set in. The first amenity of groundside existence to be abandoned was decentfood. The earliest men into the vacuum swallowed protein squeezingsfrom aluminum tubes, and were glad enough to drop back to thegroundsman's diet of steak and fried potatoes. <doc-sep>Long before I was a boy in Med School, itching to look at black skythrough a view-port, galley science had fulfilled the disgustingexordium of Isaiah 36:12, to feed the Slimeheads for breakfast todaywhat was day-before-yesterday's table-scraps and jakes-water. The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turningoffal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard aspacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount.Slimeheads remember the H. M. S. Ajax fiasco, for example, in which agalleyman leveled his Chlorella tanks with heavy water from the ship'sshielding. Four officers and twenty-one Other Ranks were rescued fromthe Ajax in deep space, half dead from deuterium poisoning. We thinkof the Benjo Maru incident, too, caused by a Ship's Cook who allowedhis algaeal staff-of-life to become contaminated with a fast-growing Saccharomycodes yeast. The Japanese vessel staggered to her pad atPiano West after a twenty-week drunk: the alien yeast had got intothe stomach of every man aboard, where it fermented each subsequentbite he ate to a superior grade of sake . And for a third footnote tothe ancient observation, God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks,Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the Charles PartlowSale . The Sale blasted off from Brady Station in the middle of August, duein at Piano West in early May. In no special hurry, we were takingthe low-energy route to Mars, a pathway about as long in time as thehuman period of gestation. Our cargo consisted mostly of Tien-Shen firseedlings and some tons of an arctic grass-seed—these to be plantedin the maria to squeeze out the native blue bugberry vines. We hadaboard the Registry minimum of six men and three officers. Ship'sSurgeon was myself, Paul Vilanova. Our Captain was Willy Winkelmann,the hardest man in space and very likely the fattest. Ship's Cook wasRobert Bailey. Cooking aboard a spacer is a job combining the more frustratingtensions of biochemistry, applied mycology, high-speed farming,dietetics and sewage engineering. It's the Cook's responsibility tosee that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds ofwater, two pounds of oxygen, and one-and-a-half pounds of dry food.This isn't just a paragraph from the Spacer Union Contract. It's astatement of the least fuel a man can run on. Twelve tons of water, oxygen, and food would have filled the cargocompartments to bursting, and left a small ship like the C. P. Sale no reason to reach for Mars. By allowing a colony of Chlorella algae towork over our used air, water and other effluvia, though, three tonsof metabolites would see us through from Brady Station to Piano Westand back. Recycling was the answer. The molecule of carbohydrate, fat,protein or mineral that didn't feed the crew fed the algae. And thealgae fed us. All waste was used to fertilize our liquid fields. Even the stubblefrom our 2,680 shaves and the clippings from our 666 haircuts en routeand back would be fed into the Chlorella tanks. Human hair is rich inessential amino acids. The algae—dried by the Cook, bleached with methyl alcohol to kill thesmell and make the residue more digestible, disguised and seasoned in ahundred ways—served as a sort of meat-and-potatoes that never quitewore out. Our air and water were equally immortal. Each molecule ofoxygen would be conversant with the alveoli of every man aboard by theend of our trip. Every drop of water would have been intimate with theglomeruli of each kidney on the ship before we grounded in. Groundlingpoliticians are right enough when they say that we spacers are abreed apart. We're the one race of men who can't afford the luxury ofsqueamishness. <doc-sep>Though I'm signed aboard as Ship's Surgeon, I seldom lift a knifein space. My employment is more in the nature of TS-card-puncherextraordinary. My duties are to serve as wailing-wall, morale officer,guardian of the medicinal whiskey and frustrator of mutual murder.Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victimis the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain. If the Cook hadn't problems enough with the chemical and psychic dutiesof his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmannwas the sort of man who, if he had to go into space at all, had best doso alone. If the Prussians had a Marine Corps, Winkelmann would havedone splendidly as Drill Instructor for their boot camp. His heartwas a chip of helium ice, his voice dripped sarcastic acid. The planetEarth was hardly large enough to accommodate a wart as annoying asWilly Winkelmann. Cheek-by-jowl every day in a nacelle the size of aPullman car, our Captain quickly established himself as a major socialhemorrhoid. The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook.It was Winkelmann who saw humorous possibilities in the entry, Bailey,Robert, on Ship's Articles. He at once renamed our unfortunateshipmate Belly-Robber. It was Winkelmann who discussed hautcuisine and the properties of the nobler wines while we munched ouralgaeburgers and sipped coffee that tasted of utility water. And it wasCaptain Willy Winkelmann who never referred to the ship's head by anyother name than The Kitchen Cabinet. Bailey tried to feed us by groundside standards. He hid the tasteof synthetic methionine—an essential amino acid not synthesized byChlorella—by seasoning our algaeal repasts with pinches of oreganoand thyme. He tinted the pale-green dollops of pressed Chlorella pink,textured the mass to the consistency of hamburger and toasted theslabs to a delicate brown in a forlorn attempt to make mock-meat.For dessert, he served a fudge compounded from the dextrose-paste ofthe carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not.Belly-Robber, he said, his tone icy as winter wind off the North Sea,you had best cycle this mess through the tanks again. There is a punin my home country: Mensch ist was er isst. It means, you are whatyou eat. I think you are impertinent to suggest I should become this Schweinerei you are feeding me. Captain Winkelmann blotted his chinwith his napkin, heaved his bulk up from the table, and climbed up theladder from the dining-cubby. <doc-sep>Doc, do you like Winkelmann? the Cook asked me. Not much, I said. I suspect that the finest gift our Captain cangive his mother is to be absent from her on Mother's Day. But we've gotto live with him. He's a good man at driving a ship. I wish he'd leave off driving this Cook, Bailey said. The fat swine! His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey, Isaid. He eats well. We all do. I've dined aboard a lot of spacers inmy time, and I'll testify that you set a table second to none. Bailey took a handful of dried Chlorella from a bin and fingered it. Itwas green, smelled of swamp, and looked appetizing as a bedsore. Thisis what I have to work with, he said. He tossed the stuff back intoits bin. In Ohio, which is my home country, in the presence of ladies,we'd call such garbage Horse-Leavings. You'll never make Winkelmann happy, I said. Even the simultaneousdeath of all other human beings could hardly make him smile. Keep upthe good work, though, and you'll keep our Captain fat. Bailey nodded from his one-man cloud of gloom. I got a bottle of ryefrom Medical Stores and offered him a therapeutic draught. The Cookwaved my gift aside. Not now, Doc, he said. I'm thinking abouttomorrow's menu. The product of Bailey's cerebrations was on the mess table at noon thenext day. We were each served an individual head of lettuce, dressedwith something very like vinegar and oil, spiced with tiny leaves ofburnet. How Bailey had constructed those synthetic lettuces I can onlyguess: the hours spent preparing a green Chlorella paste, rolling anddrying and shaping each artificial leaf, the fitting together of nineheads like crisp, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles. The pièce derésistance was again a hamburger steak; but this time the algaealmass that made it up was buried in a rich, meaty gravy that was onlyfaintly green. The essence-of-steak used in these Chlorella cutlets hadbeen sprinkled with a lavish hand. Garlic was richly in evidence. It'sso tender, the radioman joked, that I can hardly believe it's reallysteak. Bailey stared across the dining-cubby toward Winkelmann, silentlyimploring the Captain's ratification of his masterpiece. The bigman's pink cheeks bulged and jumped with his chewing. He swallowed.Belly-Robber, Winkelmann said, I had almost rather you served methis pond-scum raw than have it all mucked-up with synthetic onions andcycler-salt. <doc-sep>You seem able enough to choke down Bailey's chow, Captain, I said. Igazed at Winkelmann's form, bulbous from a lifetime of surfeit feeding. Yes, I eat it, the Captain said, taking and talking through anotherbite. But I eat only as a man in the desert will eat worms andgrasshoppers, to stay alive. Sir, what in heaven's name do you expect from me? Bailey pleaded. Only good food, Winkelmann mumbled through his mouthful of disguisedalgae. He tapped his head with a finger. This—the brain that guidesthe ship—cannot be coaxed to work on hog-slop. You understand me,Belly-Robber? Bailey, his hands fisted at his sides, nodded. Yes, sir. But I reallydon't know what I can do to please you. You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban Hausfrau with thevapors, Winkelmann said. I do not expect from you hysterics, tantrumsor weeping. Only—can you understand this, so simple?—food that willkeep my belly content and my brain alive. Yes, sir, Bailey said, his face a picture of that offense the Britishterm Dumb Insolence. Winkelmann got up and climbed the ladder to the pilot-cubicle. Ifollowed him. Captain, I said, you're driving Bailey too hard.You're asking him to make bricks without straw. Winkelmann regarded me with his pale-blue stare. You think, Doctor,that my cruelty to the Belly-Robber is the biliousness of a middle-agedman? Frankly, I can't understand your attitude at all, I said. You accuse me of driving a man to make bricks without straw,Winkelmann said. Very well, Doctor. It is my belief that if thePharaoh's taskmaster had had my firmness of purpose, the Children ofIsrael would have made bricks with stubble. Necessity, Doctor, is themother of invention. I am Bailey's necessity. My unkindnesses make himuncomfortable, I doubt that not. But I am forcing him to experiment,to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learnsomehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks. You're driving him too hard, Sir, I said. He'll crack. Bailey will have some fifty thousand dollars' salary waiting when weground at Brady Station, Captain Winkelmann said. So much money buysmany discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova. Crew morale on the ship.... I began. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova, Captain Winkelmann repeated. <doc-sep>Bailey grew more silent as we threaded our way along the ellipticalpath to Mars. Each meal he prepared was a fresh attempt to propitiatethe appetite of our splenetic Captain. Each such offering was condemnedby that heartless man. Bailey began to try avoiding the Captain atmealtimes, but was frustrated by Winkelmann's orders. Convey mycompliments to the Chef, please, the Captain would instruct one ofthe crew, and ask him to step down here a moment. And the Cook wouldcheerlessly appear in the dining-cubby, to have his culinary geniusacidly called in question again. I myself do not doubt that Bailey was the finest Cook ever to gointo Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark inbrilliant galleymanship. We were served, for instance, an ersatz hotturkey supreme. The cheese-sauce was almost believable, the Chlorellaturkey-flesh was white and tender. Bailey served with this delicacya grainy and delicious cornbread, and had extracted from his algaea lipid butter-substitute that soaked into the hot bread with agenuinely dairy smell. Splendid, Bailey, I said. We are not amused, said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a secondhelping of the pseudo-turkey. You are improving, Belly-Robber, butonly arithmetically. Your first efforts were so hideous as to requirea geometric progression of improving excellence to raise them to mereedibility. By the time we are halfway 'round the Sun, I trust you willhave learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economicsstudent. That will be all, Bailey. The crew and my fellow-officers were amused by Winkelmann's riding ofBailey; they were in addition gratified that the battle between theirCaptain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embarkon an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their lastfew days aground to smuggle several hundred calories of fat and manymemories of good food aboard with them. This trip, none of the men hadlost weight during the first four months in space. Winkelmann, indeed,seemed to have gained. His uniform was taut over his plump backside,and he puffed a bit up the ladders. I was considering suggesting to ourCaptain that he curtail his diet for reasons of health, a bit of advicethat would have stood unique in the annals of space medicine, whenWinkelmann produced his supreme insult to our Cook. <doc-sep>Each man aboard a spacer is allowed ten kilograms of personal effectsbesides his uniforms, these being considered Ship's Furnishing. Ashis rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double thisration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds ofbooks, playing-cards, knitting-wool, whiskey or what have you to helphim while away the hours between the planets. Bailey, I knew for afact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case ofspices: marjoram and mint, costmary, file powder, basil and allspice,and a dozen others. Captain Winkelmann was not a reader, and had brought no books. Cardsinterested him not at all, as card-playing implies a sociability aliento his nature. He never drank aboard ship. I had supposed that he'dexercised his option of returning his personal-effects weight allowanceto the owners for the consideration of one hundred dollars a kilogram.To collect the maximum allowance, spacers have been known to comeaboard their ship mother-naked. But this was not the case with Winkelmann. His personal-effectsbaggage, an unlabeled cardboard box, appeared under the table at noonmess some hundred days out from Piano West. Winkelmann rested his feeton the mysterious box as he sat to eat. What disgusting form does the ship's garbage appear in today,Belly-Robber? he asked the Cook. Bailey frowned, but kept his temper, an asceticism in which by now he'dhad much practice. I've been working on the problem of steak, Sir,he said. I think I've whipped the taste; what was left was to get thetexture steak-like. Do you understand, Sir? I understand, Winkelmann growled. You intend that your latest messshould feel like steak to the mouth, and not like baby-food. Right? Yes, Sir, Bailey said. Well, I squeezed thesteak-substrate—Chlorella, of course, with all sorts of specialseasonings—through a sieve, and blanched the strands in hot algaealoil. Then I chopped those strands to bits and rolled them out. Voila! I had something very close in texture to the muscle-fibers of genuinemeat. Remarkable, Bailey, I said. It rather throws me off my appetite to hear how you muddle about withour food, the Captain said, his jowls settling into an expression ofdistaste. It's quite all right to eat lobster, for example, but Inever cared to see the ugly beast boiled before my eyes. Detail spoilsthe meal. Bailey lifted the cover off the electric warming-pan at the center ofthe table and tenderly lifted a small steak onto each of our plates.Try it, he urged the Captain. <doc-sep>Captain Winkelmann sliced off a corner of his algaeal steak. Thecolor was an excellent medium-rare, the odor was the rich smellof fresh-broiled beef. Winkelmann bit down, chewed, swallowed. Nottoo bad, Belly-Robber, he said, nodding. Bailey grinned and bobbedhis head, his hands folded before him in an ecstasy of pleasure. Akind word from the Captain bettered the ruffles-and-flourishes of amore reasonable man. But it still needs something ... something,Winkelmann went on, slicing off another portion of the tasty Chlorella.Aha! I have it! Yes, Sir? Bailey asked. This, Belly-Robber! Winkelmann reached beneath the mess-table andripped open his cardboard carton. He brought out a bottle and unscrewedthe cap. Ketchup, he said, splattering the red juice over Bailey'smasterpiece. The scarlet burial-shroud for the failures of Cooks.Lifting a hunk of the steak, streaming ketchup, to his mouth,Winkelmann chewed. Just the thing, he smiled. Damn you! Bailey shouted. Winkelmann's smile flicked off, and his blue eyes pierced the Cook. ... Sir, Bailey added. That's better, Winkelmann said, and took another bite. He saidmeditatively, Used with caution, and only by myself, I believe I havesufficient ketchup here to see me through to Mars. Please keep abottle on the table for all my future meals, Belly-Robber. But, Sir.... Bailey began. You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threatto the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealisticslops for another hundred days, without the small consolation ofthis sauce I had the foresight to bring with me, I'd likely be inno condition to jet us safely down to the Piano West pad. Do youunderstand, Belly-Robber? he demanded. I understand that you're an ungrateful, impossible, square-headed,slave-driving.... Watch your noun, Winkelmann cautioned the Cook. Your adjectives areinsubordinate; your noun might prove mutinous. Captain, you've gone too far, I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, wasscarlet, his chest heaving with emotion. Doctor, I must point out to you that it ill behooves the Ship'sSurgeon to side with the Cook against the Captain, Winkelmann said. Sir, Bailey has tried hard to please you, I said. The other officersand the men have been more than satisfied with his work. That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds, Winkelmann said.Doctor, you are excused. As are you, Belly-Robber, he added. <doc-sep>Bailey and I climbed from the mess compartment together. I steered himto my quarters, where the medical supplies were stored. He sat on mybunk and exploded into weeping, banging his fists against the metalbulkhead. You'll have that drink now, I said. No, dammit! he shouted. Orders, I said. I poured us each some fifty cc's of rye. This istherapy, Bailey, I told him. He poured the fiery stuff down his throatlike water and silently held out his glass for a second. I provided it. After a few minutes Bailey's sobbing ceased. Sorry, Doc, he said. You've taken more pressure than most men would, I said. Nothing tobe ashamed of. He's crazy. What sane man would expect me to dip Wiener schnitzeland sauerkraut and Backhahndl nach suddeutscher Art out of an algaetank? I've got nothing but microscopic weeds to cook for him! Worn-outmolecules reclaimed from the head; packaged amino acid additives. Andhe expects meals that would take the blue ribbon at the annual banquetof the Friends of Escoffier! Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey, I said. You've worked yourfingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, and you're notappreciated. But you're not married to Winkelmann, remember. A yearfrom now you'll be home in Ohio, fifty grand richer, set to start thatrestaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman. I hate him, Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. Hereached for the bottle. I let him have it. Sometimes alcohol can bean apt confederate of vis medicatrix naturae , the healing power ofnature. Half an hour later I strapped Bailey into his bunk to sleep itoff. That therapeutic drunk seemed to be just what he'd needed. For morning mess the next day we had a broth remarkable inhorribleness, a pottage or boiled Chlorella vulgaris that lookedand tasted like the vomit of some bottom-feeding sea-beast. Bailey,red-eyed and a-tremble, made no apology, and stared at Winkelmann asthough daring him to comment. The Captain lifted a spoonful of thedisgusting stuff to his lips, smacked and said, Belly-Robber, you'reimproving a little at last. Bailey nodded and smiled. Thank you, Sir, he said. I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses werenow strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults ofirony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that wasa price I was willing to pay for seeing destroyed the Willy Winkelmanntheory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captainhad pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, Ithought. Noon mess was nearly as awful as breakfast had been. The coffee tastedof salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment werevehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, forthe decline in culinary standards. Bailey seemed not to care. He servedthe algaeburgers with half a mind, and hurried back into his galleyoblivious of the taunts of his crewmates. <doc-sep>There being only three seats in the Sale's mess compartment, we ateour meals in three shifts. That evening, going down the ladder tosupper, my nose was met with a spine-tingling barbecue tang, a smellto make a man think of gray charcoal glowing in a picnic brazier,of cicadas chirping and green grass underfoot, of the pop and hissof canned beer being church-keyed. He's done it, Doc! one of thefirst-shift diners said. It actually tastes of food! Then he's beat the Captain at his game, I said. The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks, the crewmansaid. I sat, unfolded my napkin, and looked with hope to the electricwarming-pan at the center of the table. Bailey served the three ofus with the small steaks. Each contained about a pound of driedChlorella, I judged, teasing mine with my fork. But they were drenchedin a gravy rich as the stuff grandma used to make in her black ironskillet, peppery and seasoned with courageous bits of garlic. I cuta bit from my steak and chewed it. Too tender, of course; there arelimits to art. But the pond-scum taste was gone. Bailey appeared in thegalley door. I gestured for him to join me. You've done it, Bailey,I said. Every Slimehead in orbit will thank you for this. This isactually good . Thanks, Doc, Bailey said. I smiled and took another bite. You may not realize it, Bailey; butthis is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph;you couldn't have done it without him. You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?Bailey asked. He was driving you to do the impossible, I said; and you did it. OurCaptain may be a hard man, Bailey; but he did know how to coax maximumperformance out of his Ship's Cook. Bailey stood up. Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor? he asked. I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job.He persuaded his men by foul means, true; but it was all for the goodof the ship and his crew. Do I like Captain Winkelmann? I asked,spearing another piece of my artificial steak. Bailey, I'm afraid I'llhave to admit that I do. Bailey smiled and lifted a second steak from the warming-pan onto myplate. Then have another piece, he said. <doc-sep></s>

One of the first-mentioned dishes that Bailey cooks is hamburger. He tries to create this out of the algae, seasoning the food to hide the flavors. He also serves a fudge for dessert that is compounded from the dextrose-paste of the carbohydrate recycler. After speaking with Paul initially, Bailey serves a dish of hamburger steak again. There is an individual head of lettuce served, along with a steak drenched in gravy. Later, he serves them a hot turkey supreme. The cheese-sauce is very believable, whereas the turkey is white and tender even though it is made from Chlorella. When Captain Winkelmann pushes Bailey too far, he begins to create disgusting foods. One of the first dishes he serves is boiled Chlorella vulgaris that resembles vomit. The coffee at noon also tastes of salt. However, at the very end of the story, Bailey succeeds in making his Chlorella steak actually taste like food.

<s> GOURMET By ALLEN KIM LANG [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine April 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This was the endless problem of all spaceship cooks: He had to feed the men tomorrow on what they had eaten today! Unable to get out to the ballgame and a long way off from the girls,men on ships think about, talk about, bitch about their food. It'strue that Woman remains a topic of thoughtful study, but discussioncan never replace practice in an art. Food, on the other hand, is achallenge shipmen face three times a day, so central to their thoughtsthat a history of sea-faring can be read from a commissary list. In the days when salt-sea sailors were charting islands and spearingseals, for example, the fo'c's'le hands called themselves Lobscousers,celebrating the liquid hash then prominent in the marine menu. TheLimey sailor got the name of the anti-scorbutic citrus squeezed intohis diet, a fruit known to us mariners of a more sophisticated ageonly as garnish for our groundside gin-and-tonic. And today we Marsmenare called Slimeheads, honoring in our title the Chlorella and Scenedesmus algae that, by filling up the spaces within, open theroad to the larger Space without. Should any groundsman dispute the importance of belly-furniture inhistory—whether it be exterminating whales, or introducing syphilisto the Fiji Islanders, or settling the Australian littoral withcross-coves from Middlesex and Hampshire—he is referred to thehundred-and-first chapter of Moby Dick , a book spooled in theamusement tanks of all but the smallest spacers. I trust, however, thatno Marsman will undertake to review this inventory of refreshment morethan a week from groundfall. A catalogue of sides of beef and heads ofLeyden cheese and ankers of good Geneva would prove heavy reading for aman condemned to snack on the Chlorella-spawn of cis-Martian space. The Pequod's crew ate wormy biscuit and salt beef. Nimitz's men wontheir war on canned pork and beans. The Triton made her underwaterperiplus of Earth with a galley stocked with frozen pizza andconcentrated apple-juice. But then, when sailors left the seas for theskies, a decline set in. The first amenity of groundside existence to be abandoned was decentfood. The earliest men into the vacuum swallowed protein squeezingsfrom aluminum tubes, and were glad enough to drop back to thegroundsman's diet of steak and fried potatoes. <doc-sep>Long before I was a boy in Med School, itching to look at black skythrough a view-port, galley science had fulfilled the disgustingexordium of Isaiah 36:12, to feed the Slimeheads for breakfast todaywhat was day-before-yesterday's table-scraps and jakes-water. The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turningoffal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard aspacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount.Slimeheads remember the H. M. S. Ajax fiasco, for example, in which agalleyman leveled his Chlorella tanks with heavy water from the ship'sshielding. Four officers and twenty-one Other Ranks were rescued fromthe Ajax in deep space, half dead from deuterium poisoning. We thinkof the Benjo Maru incident, too, caused by a Ship's Cook who allowedhis algaeal staff-of-life to become contaminated with a fast-growing Saccharomycodes yeast. The Japanese vessel staggered to her pad atPiano West after a twenty-week drunk: the alien yeast had got intothe stomach of every man aboard, where it fermented each subsequentbite he ate to a superior grade of sake . And for a third footnote tothe ancient observation, God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks,Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the Charles PartlowSale . The Sale blasted off from Brady Station in the middle of August, duein at Piano West in early May. In no special hurry, we were takingthe low-energy route to Mars, a pathway about as long in time as thehuman period of gestation. Our cargo consisted mostly of Tien-Shen firseedlings and some tons of an arctic grass-seed—these to be plantedin the maria to squeeze out the native blue bugberry vines. We hadaboard the Registry minimum of six men and three officers. Ship'sSurgeon was myself, Paul Vilanova. Our Captain was Willy Winkelmann,the hardest man in space and very likely the fattest. Ship's Cook wasRobert Bailey. Cooking aboard a spacer is a job combining the more frustratingtensions of biochemistry, applied mycology, high-speed farming,dietetics and sewage engineering. It's the Cook's responsibility tosee that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds ofwater, two pounds of oxygen, and one-and-a-half pounds of dry food.This isn't just a paragraph from the Spacer Union Contract. It's astatement of the least fuel a man can run on. Twelve tons of water, oxygen, and food would have filled the cargocompartments to bursting, and left a small ship like the C. P. Sale no reason to reach for Mars. By allowing a colony of Chlorella algae towork over our used air, water and other effluvia, though, three tonsof metabolites would see us through from Brady Station to Piano Westand back. Recycling was the answer. The molecule of carbohydrate, fat,protein or mineral that didn't feed the crew fed the algae. And thealgae fed us. All waste was used to fertilize our liquid fields. Even the stubblefrom our 2,680 shaves and the clippings from our 666 haircuts en routeand back would be fed into the Chlorella tanks. Human hair is rich inessential amino acids. The algae—dried by the Cook, bleached with methyl alcohol to kill thesmell and make the residue more digestible, disguised and seasoned in ahundred ways—served as a sort of meat-and-potatoes that never quitewore out. Our air and water were equally immortal. Each molecule ofoxygen would be conversant with the alveoli of every man aboard by theend of our trip. Every drop of water would have been intimate with theglomeruli of each kidney on the ship before we grounded in. Groundlingpoliticians are right enough when they say that we spacers are abreed apart. We're the one race of men who can't afford the luxury ofsqueamishness. <doc-sep>Though I'm signed aboard as Ship's Surgeon, I seldom lift a knifein space. My employment is more in the nature of TS-card-puncherextraordinary. My duties are to serve as wailing-wall, morale officer,guardian of the medicinal whiskey and frustrator of mutual murder.Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victimis the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain. If the Cook hadn't problems enough with the chemical and psychic dutiesof his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmannwas the sort of man who, if he had to go into space at all, had best doso alone. If the Prussians had a Marine Corps, Winkelmann would havedone splendidly as Drill Instructor for their boot camp. His heartwas a chip of helium ice, his voice dripped sarcastic acid. The planetEarth was hardly large enough to accommodate a wart as annoying asWilly Winkelmann. Cheek-by-jowl every day in a nacelle the size of aPullman car, our Captain quickly established himself as a major socialhemorrhoid. The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook.It was Winkelmann who saw humorous possibilities in the entry, Bailey,Robert, on Ship's Articles. He at once renamed our unfortunateshipmate Belly-Robber. It was Winkelmann who discussed hautcuisine and the properties of the nobler wines while we munched ouralgaeburgers and sipped coffee that tasted of utility water. And it wasCaptain Willy Winkelmann who never referred to the ship's head by anyother name than The Kitchen Cabinet. Bailey tried to feed us by groundside standards. He hid the tasteof synthetic methionine—an essential amino acid not synthesized byChlorella—by seasoning our algaeal repasts with pinches of oreganoand thyme. He tinted the pale-green dollops of pressed Chlorella pink,textured the mass to the consistency of hamburger and toasted theslabs to a delicate brown in a forlorn attempt to make mock-meat.For dessert, he served a fudge compounded from the dextrose-paste ofthe carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not.Belly-Robber, he said, his tone icy as winter wind off the North Sea,you had best cycle this mess through the tanks again. There is a punin my home country: Mensch ist was er isst. It means, you are whatyou eat. I think you are impertinent to suggest I should become this Schweinerei you are feeding me. Captain Winkelmann blotted his chinwith his napkin, heaved his bulk up from the table, and climbed up theladder from the dining-cubby. <doc-sep>Doc, do you like Winkelmann? the Cook asked me. Not much, I said. I suspect that the finest gift our Captain cangive his mother is to be absent from her on Mother's Day. But we've gotto live with him. He's a good man at driving a ship. I wish he'd leave off driving this Cook, Bailey said. The fat swine! His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey, Isaid. He eats well. We all do. I've dined aboard a lot of spacers inmy time, and I'll testify that you set a table second to none. Bailey took a handful of dried Chlorella from a bin and fingered it. Itwas green, smelled of swamp, and looked appetizing as a bedsore. Thisis what I have to work with, he said. He tossed the stuff back intoits bin. In Ohio, which is my home country, in the presence of ladies,we'd call such garbage Horse-Leavings. You'll never make Winkelmann happy, I said. Even the simultaneousdeath of all other human beings could hardly make him smile. Keep upthe good work, though, and you'll keep our Captain fat. Bailey nodded from his one-man cloud of gloom. I got a bottle of ryefrom Medical Stores and offered him a therapeutic draught. The Cookwaved my gift aside. Not now, Doc, he said. I'm thinking abouttomorrow's menu. The product of Bailey's cerebrations was on the mess table at noon thenext day. We were each served an individual head of lettuce, dressedwith something very like vinegar and oil, spiced with tiny leaves ofburnet. How Bailey had constructed those synthetic lettuces I can onlyguess: the hours spent preparing a green Chlorella paste, rolling anddrying and shaping each artificial leaf, the fitting together of nineheads like crisp, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles. The pièce derésistance was again a hamburger steak; but this time the algaealmass that made it up was buried in a rich, meaty gravy that was onlyfaintly green. The essence-of-steak used in these Chlorella cutlets hadbeen sprinkled with a lavish hand. Garlic was richly in evidence. It'sso tender, the radioman joked, that I can hardly believe it's reallysteak. Bailey stared across the dining-cubby toward Winkelmann, silentlyimploring the Captain's ratification of his masterpiece. The bigman's pink cheeks bulged and jumped with his chewing. He swallowed.Belly-Robber, Winkelmann said, I had almost rather you served methis pond-scum raw than have it all mucked-up with synthetic onions andcycler-salt. <doc-sep>You seem able enough to choke down Bailey's chow, Captain, I said. Igazed at Winkelmann's form, bulbous from a lifetime of surfeit feeding. Yes, I eat it, the Captain said, taking and talking through anotherbite. But I eat only as a man in the desert will eat worms andgrasshoppers, to stay alive. Sir, what in heaven's name do you expect from me? Bailey pleaded. Only good food, Winkelmann mumbled through his mouthful of disguisedalgae. He tapped his head with a finger. This—the brain that guidesthe ship—cannot be coaxed to work on hog-slop. You understand me,Belly-Robber? Bailey, his hands fisted at his sides, nodded. Yes, sir. But I reallydon't know what I can do to please you. You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban Hausfrau with thevapors, Winkelmann said. I do not expect from you hysterics, tantrumsor weeping. Only—can you understand this, so simple?—food that willkeep my belly content and my brain alive. Yes, sir, Bailey said, his face a picture of that offense the Britishterm Dumb Insolence. Winkelmann got up and climbed the ladder to the pilot-cubicle. Ifollowed him. Captain, I said, you're driving Bailey too hard.You're asking him to make bricks without straw. Winkelmann regarded me with his pale-blue stare. You think, Doctor,that my cruelty to the Belly-Robber is the biliousness of a middle-agedman? Frankly, I can't understand your attitude at all, I said. You accuse me of driving a man to make bricks without straw,Winkelmann said. Very well, Doctor. It is my belief that if thePharaoh's taskmaster had had my firmness of purpose, the Children ofIsrael would have made bricks with stubble. Necessity, Doctor, is themother of invention. I am Bailey's necessity. My unkindnesses make himuncomfortable, I doubt that not. But I am forcing him to experiment,to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learnsomehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks. You're driving him too hard, Sir, I said. He'll crack. Bailey will have some fifty thousand dollars' salary waiting when weground at Brady Station, Captain Winkelmann said. So much money buysmany discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova. Crew morale on the ship.... I began. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova, Captain Winkelmann repeated. <doc-sep>Bailey grew more silent as we threaded our way along the ellipticalpath to Mars. Each meal he prepared was a fresh attempt to propitiatethe appetite of our splenetic Captain. Each such offering was condemnedby that heartless man. Bailey began to try avoiding the Captain atmealtimes, but was frustrated by Winkelmann's orders. Convey mycompliments to the Chef, please, the Captain would instruct one ofthe crew, and ask him to step down here a moment. And the Cook wouldcheerlessly appear in the dining-cubby, to have his culinary geniusacidly called in question again. I myself do not doubt that Bailey was the finest Cook ever to gointo Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark inbrilliant galleymanship. We were served, for instance, an ersatz hotturkey supreme. The cheese-sauce was almost believable, the Chlorellaturkey-flesh was white and tender. Bailey served with this delicacya grainy and delicious cornbread, and had extracted from his algaea lipid butter-substitute that soaked into the hot bread with agenuinely dairy smell. Splendid, Bailey, I said. We are not amused, said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a secondhelping of the pseudo-turkey. You are improving, Belly-Robber, butonly arithmetically. Your first efforts were so hideous as to requirea geometric progression of improving excellence to raise them to mereedibility. By the time we are halfway 'round the Sun, I trust you willhave learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economicsstudent. That will be all, Bailey. The crew and my fellow-officers were amused by Winkelmann's riding ofBailey; they were in addition gratified that the battle between theirCaptain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embarkon an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their lastfew days aground to smuggle several hundred calories of fat and manymemories of good food aboard with them. This trip, none of the men hadlost weight during the first four months in space. Winkelmann, indeed,seemed to have gained. His uniform was taut over his plump backside,and he puffed a bit up the ladders. I was considering suggesting to ourCaptain that he curtail his diet for reasons of health, a bit of advicethat would have stood unique in the annals of space medicine, whenWinkelmann produced his supreme insult to our Cook. <doc-sep>Each man aboard a spacer is allowed ten kilograms of personal effectsbesides his uniforms, these being considered Ship's Furnishing. Ashis rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double thisration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds ofbooks, playing-cards, knitting-wool, whiskey or what have you to helphim while away the hours between the planets. Bailey, I knew for afact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case ofspices: marjoram and mint, costmary, file powder, basil and allspice,and a dozen others. Captain Winkelmann was not a reader, and had brought no books. Cardsinterested him not at all, as card-playing implies a sociability aliento his nature. He never drank aboard ship. I had supposed that he'dexercised his option of returning his personal-effects weight allowanceto the owners for the consideration of one hundred dollars a kilogram.To collect the maximum allowance, spacers have been known to comeaboard their ship mother-naked. But this was not the case with Winkelmann. His personal-effectsbaggage, an unlabeled cardboard box, appeared under the table at noonmess some hundred days out from Piano West. Winkelmann rested his feeton the mysterious box as he sat to eat. What disgusting form does the ship's garbage appear in today,Belly-Robber? he asked the Cook. Bailey frowned, but kept his temper, an asceticism in which by now he'dhad much practice. I've been working on the problem of steak, Sir,he said. I think I've whipped the taste; what was left was to get thetexture steak-like. Do you understand, Sir? I understand, Winkelmann growled. You intend that your latest messshould feel like steak to the mouth, and not like baby-food. Right? Yes, Sir, Bailey said. Well, I squeezed thesteak-substrate—Chlorella, of course, with all sorts of specialseasonings—through a sieve, and blanched the strands in hot algaealoil. Then I chopped those strands to bits and rolled them out. Voila! I had something very close in texture to the muscle-fibers of genuinemeat. Remarkable, Bailey, I said. It rather throws me off my appetite to hear how you muddle about withour food, the Captain said, his jowls settling into an expression ofdistaste. It's quite all right to eat lobster, for example, but Inever cared to see the ugly beast boiled before my eyes. Detail spoilsthe meal. Bailey lifted the cover off the electric warming-pan at the center ofthe table and tenderly lifted a small steak onto each of our plates.Try it, he urged the Captain. <doc-sep>Captain Winkelmann sliced off a corner of his algaeal steak. Thecolor was an excellent medium-rare, the odor was the rich smellof fresh-broiled beef. Winkelmann bit down, chewed, swallowed. Nottoo bad, Belly-Robber, he said, nodding. Bailey grinned and bobbedhis head, his hands folded before him in an ecstasy of pleasure. Akind word from the Captain bettered the ruffles-and-flourishes of amore reasonable man. But it still needs something ... something,Winkelmann went on, slicing off another portion of the tasty Chlorella.Aha! I have it! Yes, Sir? Bailey asked. This, Belly-Robber! Winkelmann reached beneath the mess-table andripped open his cardboard carton. He brought out a bottle and unscrewedthe cap. Ketchup, he said, splattering the red juice over Bailey'smasterpiece. The scarlet burial-shroud for the failures of Cooks.Lifting a hunk of the steak, streaming ketchup, to his mouth,Winkelmann chewed. Just the thing, he smiled. Damn you! Bailey shouted. Winkelmann's smile flicked off, and his blue eyes pierced the Cook. ... Sir, Bailey added. That's better, Winkelmann said, and took another bite. He saidmeditatively, Used with caution, and only by myself, I believe I havesufficient ketchup here to see me through to Mars. Please keep abottle on the table for all my future meals, Belly-Robber. But, Sir.... Bailey began. You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threatto the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealisticslops for another hundred days, without the small consolation ofthis sauce I had the foresight to bring with me, I'd likely be inno condition to jet us safely down to the Piano West pad. Do youunderstand, Belly-Robber? he demanded. I understand that you're an ungrateful, impossible, square-headed,slave-driving.... Watch your noun, Winkelmann cautioned the Cook. Your adjectives areinsubordinate; your noun might prove mutinous. Captain, you've gone too far, I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, wasscarlet, his chest heaving with emotion. Doctor, I must point out to you that it ill behooves the Ship'sSurgeon to side with the Cook against the Captain, Winkelmann said. Sir, Bailey has tried hard to please you, I said. The other officersand the men have been more than satisfied with his work. That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds, Winkelmann said.Doctor, you are excused. As are you, Belly-Robber, he added. <doc-sep>Bailey and I climbed from the mess compartment together. I steered himto my quarters, where the medical supplies were stored. He sat on mybunk and exploded into weeping, banging his fists against the metalbulkhead. You'll have that drink now, I said. No, dammit! he shouted. Orders, I said. I poured us each some fifty cc's of rye. This istherapy, Bailey, I told him. He poured the fiery stuff down his throatlike water and silently held out his glass for a second. I provided it. After a few minutes Bailey's sobbing ceased. Sorry, Doc, he said. You've taken more pressure than most men would, I said. Nothing tobe ashamed of. He's crazy. What sane man would expect me to dip Wiener schnitzeland sauerkraut and Backhahndl nach suddeutscher Art out of an algaetank? I've got nothing but microscopic weeds to cook for him! Worn-outmolecules reclaimed from the head; packaged amino acid additives. Andhe expects meals that would take the blue ribbon at the annual banquetof the Friends of Escoffier! Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey, I said. You've worked yourfingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, and you're notappreciated. But you're not married to Winkelmann, remember. A yearfrom now you'll be home in Ohio, fifty grand richer, set to start thatrestaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman. I hate him, Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. Hereached for the bottle. I let him have it. Sometimes alcohol can bean apt confederate of vis medicatrix naturae , the healing power ofnature. Half an hour later I strapped Bailey into his bunk to sleep itoff. That therapeutic drunk seemed to be just what he'd needed. For morning mess the next day we had a broth remarkable inhorribleness, a pottage or boiled Chlorella vulgaris that lookedand tasted like the vomit of some bottom-feeding sea-beast. Bailey,red-eyed and a-tremble, made no apology, and stared at Winkelmann asthough daring him to comment. The Captain lifted a spoonful of thedisgusting stuff to his lips, smacked and said, Belly-Robber, you'reimproving a little at last. Bailey nodded and smiled. Thank you, Sir, he said. I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses werenow strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults ofirony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that wasa price I was willing to pay for seeing destroyed the Willy Winkelmanntheory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captainhad pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, Ithought. Noon mess was nearly as awful as breakfast had been. The coffee tastedof salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment werevehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, forthe decline in culinary standards. Bailey seemed not to care. He servedthe algaeburgers with half a mind, and hurried back into his galleyoblivious of the taunts of his crewmates. <doc-sep>There being only three seats in the Sale's mess compartment, we ateour meals in three shifts. That evening, going down the ladder tosupper, my nose was met with a spine-tingling barbecue tang, a smellto make a man think of gray charcoal glowing in a picnic brazier,of cicadas chirping and green grass underfoot, of the pop and hissof canned beer being church-keyed. He's done it, Doc! one of thefirst-shift diners said. It actually tastes of food! Then he's beat the Captain at his game, I said. The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks, the crewmansaid. I sat, unfolded my napkin, and looked with hope to the electricwarming-pan at the center of the table. Bailey served the three ofus with the small steaks. Each contained about a pound of driedChlorella, I judged, teasing mine with my fork. But they were drenchedin a gravy rich as the stuff grandma used to make in her black ironskillet, peppery and seasoned with courageous bits of garlic. I cuta bit from my steak and chewed it. Too tender, of course; there arelimits to art. But the pond-scum taste was gone. Bailey appeared in thegalley door. I gestured for him to join me. You've done it, Bailey,I said. Every Slimehead in orbit will thank you for this. This isactually good . Thanks, Doc, Bailey said. I smiled and took another bite. You may not realize it, Bailey; butthis is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph;you couldn't have done it without him. You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?Bailey asked. He was driving you to do the impossible, I said; and you did it. OurCaptain may be a hard man, Bailey; but he did know how to coax maximumperformance out of his Ship's Cook. Bailey stood up. Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor? he asked. I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job.He persuaded his men by foul means, true; but it was all for the goodof the ship and his crew. Do I like Captain Winkelmann? I asked,spearing another piece of my artificial steak. Bailey, I'm afraid I'llhave to admit that I do. Bailey smiled and lifted a second steak from the warming-pan onto myplate. Then have another piece, he said. <doc-sep></s>

Robert Bailey is the cook of the ship; he is considered to have one of the most important roles on the ship because he is the one who must feed all of the crew members. Bailey works very hard to try and please Captain Winkelmann, even though the captain constantly berates him on his efforts. He takes pride in his cooking, which is why he constantly tries to improve in order to gain the Captain’s approval. Paul considers him to be the best cook in the entire orbit, especially when he is shown to be capable of creating algae food that tastes realistic at the end of the story. Apart from the Captain, Bailey is very respectful towards his fellow crew members, especially Paul. Bailey dedicates himself to his food entirely, trying to cook up the best meal he can out of the Chlorella algae. He also plans to open a restaurant once he returns to Ohio.

<s> GOURMET By ALLEN KIM LANG [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine April 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This was the endless problem of all spaceship cooks: He had to feed the men tomorrow on what they had eaten today! Unable to get out to the ballgame and a long way off from the girls,men on ships think about, talk about, bitch about their food. It'strue that Woman remains a topic of thoughtful study, but discussioncan never replace practice in an art. Food, on the other hand, is achallenge shipmen face three times a day, so central to their thoughtsthat a history of sea-faring can be read from a commissary list. In the days when salt-sea sailors were charting islands and spearingseals, for example, the fo'c's'le hands called themselves Lobscousers,celebrating the liquid hash then prominent in the marine menu. TheLimey sailor got the name of the anti-scorbutic citrus squeezed intohis diet, a fruit known to us mariners of a more sophisticated ageonly as garnish for our groundside gin-and-tonic. And today we Marsmenare called Slimeheads, honoring in our title the Chlorella and Scenedesmus algae that, by filling up the spaces within, open theroad to the larger Space without. Should any groundsman dispute the importance of belly-furniture inhistory—whether it be exterminating whales, or introducing syphilisto the Fiji Islanders, or settling the Australian littoral withcross-coves from Middlesex and Hampshire—he is referred to thehundred-and-first chapter of Moby Dick , a book spooled in theamusement tanks of all but the smallest spacers. I trust, however, thatno Marsman will undertake to review this inventory of refreshment morethan a week from groundfall. A catalogue of sides of beef and heads ofLeyden cheese and ankers of good Geneva would prove heavy reading for aman condemned to snack on the Chlorella-spawn of cis-Martian space. The Pequod's crew ate wormy biscuit and salt beef. Nimitz's men wontheir war on canned pork and beans. The Triton made her underwaterperiplus of Earth with a galley stocked with frozen pizza andconcentrated apple-juice. But then, when sailors left the seas for theskies, a decline set in. The first amenity of groundside existence to be abandoned was decentfood. The earliest men into the vacuum swallowed protein squeezingsfrom aluminum tubes, and were glad enough to drop back to thegroundsman's diet of steak and fried potatoes. <doc-sep>Long before I was a boy in Med School, itching to look at black skythrough a view-port, galley science had fulfilled the disgustingexordium of Isaiah 36:12, to feed the Slimeheads for breakfast todaywhat was day-before-yesterday's table-scraps and jakes-water. The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turningoffal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard aspacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount.Slimeheads remember the H. M. S. Ajax fiasco, for example, in which agalleyman leveled his Chlorella tanks with heavy water from the ship'sshielding. Four officers and twenty-one Other Ranks were rescued fromthe Ajax in deep space, half dead from deuterium poisoning. We thinkof the Benjo Maru incident, too, caused by a Ship's Cook who allowedhis algaeal staff-of-life to become contaminated with a fast-growing Saccharomycodes yeast. The Japanese vessel staggered to her pad atPiano West after a twenty-week drunk: the alien yeast had got intothe stomach of every man aboard, where it fermented each subsequentbite he ate to a superior grade of sake . And for a third footnote tothe ancient observation, God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks,Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the Charles PartlowSale . The Sale blasted off from Brady Station in the middle of August, duein at Piano West in early May. In no special hurry, we were takingthe low-energy route to Mars, a pathway about as long in time as thehuman period of gestation. Our cargo consisted mostly of Tien-Shen firseedlings and some tons of an arctic grass-seed—these to be plantedin the maria to squeeze out the native blue bugberry vines. We hadaboard the Registry minimum of six men and three officers. Ship'sSurgeon was myself, Paul Vilanova. Our Captain was Willy Winkelmann,the hardest man in space and very likely the fattest. Ship's Cook wasRobert Bailey. Cooking aboard a spacer is a job combining the more frustratingtensions of biochemistry, applied mycology, high-speed farming,dietetics and sewage engineering. It's the Cook's responsibility tosee that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds ofwater, two pounds of oxygen, and one-and-a-half pounds of dry food.This isn't just a paragraph from the Spacer Union Contract. It's astatement of the least fuel a man can run on. Twelve tons of water, oxygen, and food would have filled the cargocompartments to bursting, and left a small ship like the C. P. Sale no reason to reach for Mars. By allowing a colony of Chlorella algae towork over our used air, water and other effluvia, though, three tonsof metabolites would see us through from Brady Station to Piano Westand back. Recycling was the answer. The molecule of carbohydrate, fat,protein or mineral that didn't feed the crew fed the algae. And thealgae fed us. All waste was used to fertilize our liquid fields. Even the stubblefrom our 2,680 shaves and the clippings from our 666 haircuts en routeand back would be fed into the Chlorella tanks. Human hair is rich inessential amino acids. The algae—dried by the Cook, bleached with methyl alcohol to kill thesmell and make the residue more digestible, disguised and seasoned in ahundred ways—served as a sort of meat-and-potatoes that never quitewore out. Our air and water were equally immortal. Each molecule ofoxygen would be conversant with the alveoli of every man aboard by theend of our trip. Every drop of water would have been intimate with theglomeruli of each kidney on the ship before we grounded in. Groundlingpoliticians are right enough when they say that we spacers are abreed apart. We're the one race of men who can't afford the luxury ofsqueamishness. <doc-sep>Though I'm signed aboard as Ship's Surgeon, I seldom lift a knifein space. My employment is more in the nature of TS-card-puncherextraordinary. My duties are to serve as wailing-wall, morale officer,guardian of the medicinal whiskey and frustrator of mutual murder.Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victimis the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain. If the Cook hadn't problems enough with the chemical and psychic dutiesof his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmannwas the sort of man who, if he had to go into space at all, had best doso alone. If the Prussians had a Marine Corps, Winkelmann would havedone splendidly as Drill Instructor for their boot camp. His heartwas a chip of helium ice, his voice dripped sarcastic acid. The planetEarth was hardly large enough to accommodate a wart as annoying asWilly Winkelmann. Cheek-by-jowl every day in a nacelle the size of aPullman car, our Captain quickly established himself as a major socialhemorrhoid. The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook.It was Winkelmann who saw humorous possibilities in the entry, Bailey,Robert, on Ship's Articles. He at once renamed our unfortunateshipmate Belly-Robber. It was Winkelmann who discussed hautcuisine and the properties of the nobler wines while we munched ouralgaeburgers and sipped coffee that tasted of utility water. And it wasCaptain Willy Winkelmann who never referred to the ship's head by anyother name than The Kitchen Cabinet. Bailey tried to feed us by groundside standards. He hid the tasteof synthetic methionine—an essential amino acid not synthesized byChlorella—by seasoning our algaeal repasts with pinches of oreganoand thyme. He tinted the pale-green dollops of pressed Chlorella pink,textured the mass to the consistency of hamburger and toasted theslabs to a delicate brown in a forlorn attempt to make mock-meat.For dessert, he served a fudge compounded from the dextrose-paste ofthe carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not.Belly-Robber, he said, his tone icy as winter wind off the North Sea,you had best cycle this mess through the tanks again. There is a punin my home country: Mensch ist was er isst. It means, you are whatyou eat. I think you are impertinent to suggest I should become this Schweinerei you are feeding me. Captain Winkelmann blotted his chinwith his napkin, heaved his bulk up from the table, and climbed up theladder from the dining-cubby. <doc-sep>Doc, do you like Winkelmann? the Cook asked me. Not much, I said. I suspect that the finest gift our Captain cangive his mother is to be absent from her on Mother's Day. But we've gotto live with him. He's a good man at driving a ship. I wish he'd leave off driving this Cook, Bailey said. The fat swine! His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey, Isaid. He eats well. We all do. I've dined aboard a lot of spacers inmy time, and I'll testify that you set a table second to none. Bailey took a handful of dried Chlorella from a bin and fingered it. Itwas green, smelled of swamp, and looked appetizing as a bedsore. Thisis what I have to work with, he said. He tossed the stuff back intoits bin. In Ohio, which is my home country, in the presence of ladies,we'd call such garbage Horse-Leavings. You'll never make Winkelmann happy, I said. Even the simultaneousdeath of all other human beings could hardly make him smile. Keep upthe good work, though, and you'll keep our Captain fat. Bailey nodded from his one-man cloud of gloom. I got a bottle of ryefrom Medical Stores and offered him a therapeutic draught. The Cookwaved my gift aside. Not now, Doc, he said. I'm thinking abouttomorrow's menu. The product of Bailey's cerebrations was on the mess table at noon thenext day. We were each served an individual head of lettuce, dressedwith something very like vinegar and oil, spiced with tiny leaves ofburnet. How Bailey had constructed those synthetic lettuces I can onlyguess: the hours spent preparing a green Chlorella paste, rolling anddrying and shaping each artificial leaf, the fitting together of nineheads like crisp, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles. The pièce derésistance was again a hamburger steak; but this time the algaealmass that made it up was buried in a rich, meaty gravy that was onlyfaintly green. The essence-of-steak used in these Chlorella cutlets hadbeen sprinkled with a lavish hand. Garlic was richly in evidence. It'sso tender, the radioman joked, that I can hardly believe it's reallysteak. Bailey stared across the dining-cubby toward Winkelmann, silentlyimploring the Captain's ratification of his masterpiece. The bigman's pink cheeks bulged and jumped with his chewing. He swallowed.Belly-Robber, Winkelmann said, I had almost rather you served methis pond-scum raw than have it all mucked-up with synthetic onions andcycler-salt. <doc-sep>You seem able enough to choke down Bailey's chow, Captain, I said. Igazed at Winkelmann's form, bulbous from a lifetime of surfeit feeding. Yes, I eat it, the Captain said, taking and talking through anotherbite. But I eat only as a man in the desert will eat worms andgrasshoppers, to stay alive. Sir, what in heaven's name do you expect from me? Bailey pleaded. Only good food, Winkelmann mumbled through his mouthful of disguisedalgae. He tapped his head with a finger. This—the brain that guidesthe ship—cannot be coaxed to work on hog-slop. You understand me,Belly-Robber? Bailey, his hands fisted at his sides, nodded. Yes, sir. But I reallydon't know what I can do to please you. You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban Hausfrau with thevapors, Winkelmann said. I do not expect from you hysterics, tantrumsor weeping. Only—can you understand this, so simple?—food that willkeep my belly content and my brain alive. Yes, sir, Bailey said, his face a picture of that offense the Britishterm Dumb Insolence. Winkelmann got up and climbed the ladder to the pilot-cubicle. Ifollowed him. Captain, I said, you're driving Bailey too hard.You're asking him to make bricks without straw. Winkelmann regarded me with his pale-blue stare. You think, Doctor,that my cruelty to the Belly-Robber is the biliousness of a middle-agedman? Frankly, I can't understand your attitude at all, I said. You accuse me of driving a man to make bricks without straw,Winkelmann said. Very well, Doctor. It is my belief that if thePharaoh's taskmaster had had my firmness of purpose, the Children ofIsrael would have made bricks with stubble. Necessity, Doctor, is themother of invention. I am Bailey's necessity. My unkindnesses make himuncomfortable, I doubt that not. But I am forcing him to experiment,to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learnsomehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks. You're driving him too hard, Sir, I said. He'll crack. Bailey will have some fifty thousand dollars' salary waiting when weground at Brady Station, Captain Winkelmann said. So much money buysmany discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova. Crew morale on the ship.... I began. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova, Captain Winkelmann repeated. <doc-sep>Bailey grew more silent as we threaded our way along the ellipticalpath to Mars. Each meal he prepared was a fresh attempt to propitiatethe appetite of our splenetic Captain. Each such offering was condemnedby that heartless man. Bailey began to try avoiding the Captain atmealtimes, but was frustrated by Winkelmann's orders. Convey mycompliments to the Chef, please, the Captain would instruct one ofthe crew, and ask him to step down here a moment. And the Cook wouldcheerlessly appear in the dining-cubby, to have his culinary geniusacidly called in question again. I myself do not doubt that Bailey was the finest Cook ever to gointo Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark inbrilliant galleymanship. We were served, for instance, an ersatz hotturkey supreme. The cheese-sauce was almost believable, the Chlorellaturkey-flesh was white and tender. Bailey served with this delicacya grainy and delicious cornbread, and had extracted from his algaea lipid butter-substitute that soaked into the hot bread with agenuinely dairy smell. Splendid, Bailey, I said. We are not amused, said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a secondhelping of the pseudo-turkey. You are improving, Belly-Robber, butonly arithmetically. Your first efforts were so hideous as to requirea geometric progression of improving excellence to raise them to mereedibility. By the time we are halfway 'round the Sun, I trust you willhave learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economicsstudent. That will be all, Bailey. The crew and my fellow-officers were amused by Winkelmann's riding ofBailey; they were in addition gratified that the battle between theirCaptain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embarkon an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their lastfew days aground to smuggle several hundred calories of fat and manymemories of good food aboard with them. This trip, none of the men hadlost weight during the first four months in space. Winkelmann, indeed,seemed to have gained. His uniform was taut over his plump backside,and he puffed a bit up the ladders. I was considering suggesting to ourCaptain that he curtail his diet for reasons of health, a bit of advicethat would have stood unique in the annals of space medicine, whenWinkelmann produced his supreme insult to our Cook. <doc-sep>Each man aboard a spacer is allowed ten kilograms of personal effectsbesides his uniforms, these being considered Ship's Furnishing. Ashis rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double thisration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds ofbooks, playing-cards, knitting-wool, whiskey or what have you to helphim while away the hours between the planets. Bailey, I knew for afact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case ofspices: marjoram and mint, costmary, file powder, basil and allspice,and a dozen others. Captain Winkelmann was not a reader, and had brought no books. Cardsinterested him not at all, as card-playing implies a sociability aliento his nature. He never drank aboard ship. I had supposed that he'dexercised his option of returning his personal-effects weight allowanceto the owners for the consideration of one hundred dollars a kilogram.To collect the maximum allowance, spacers have been known to comeaboard their ship mother-naked. But this was not the case with Winkelmann. His personal-effectsbaggage, an unlabeled cardboard box, appeared under the table at noonmess some hundred days out from Piano West. Winkelmann rested his feeton the mysterious box as he sat to eat. What disgusting form does the ship's garbage appear in today,Belly-Robber? he asked the Cook. Bailey frowned, but kept his temper, an asceticism in which by now he'dhad much practice. I've been working on the problem of steak, Sir,he said. I think I've whipped the taste; what was left was to get thetexture steak-like. Do you understand, Sir? I understand, Winkelmann growled. You intend that your latest messshould feel like steak to the mouth, and not like baby-food. Right? Yes, Sir, Bailey said. Well, I squeezed thesteak-substrate—Chlorella, of course, with all sorts of specialseasonings—through a sieve, and blanched the strands in hot algaealoil. Then I chopped those strands to bits and rolled them out. Voila! I had something very close in texture to the muscle-fibers of genuinemeat. Remarkable, Bailey, I said. It rather throws me off my appetite to hear how you muddle about withour food, the Captain said, his jowls settling into an expression ofdistaste. It's quite all right to eat lobster, for example, but Inever cared to see the ugly beast boiled before my eyes. Detail spoilsthe meal. Bailey lifted the cover off the electric warming-pan at the center ofthe table and tenderly lifted a small steak onto each of our plates.Try it, he urged the Captain. <doc-sep>Captain Winkelmann sliced off a corner of his algaeal steak. Thecolor was an excellent medium-rare, the odor was the rich smellof fresh-broiled beef. Winkelmann bit down, chewed, swallowed. Nottoo bad, Belly-Robber, he said, nodding. Bailey grinned and bobbedhis head, his hands folded before him in an ecstasy of pleasure. Akind word from the Captain bettered the ruffles-and-flourishes of amore reasonable man. But it still needs something ... something,Winkelmann went on, slicing off another portion of the tasty Chlorella.Aha! I have it! Yes, Sir? Bailey asked. This, Belly-Robber! Winkelmann reached beneath the mess-table andripped open his cardboard carton. He brought out a bottle and unscrewedthe cap. Ketchup, he said, splattering the red juice over Bailey'smasterpiece. The scarlet burial-shroud for the failures of Cooks.Lifting a hunk of the steak, streaming ketchup, to his mouth,Winkelmann chewed. Just the thing, he smiled. Damn you! Bailey shouted. Winkelmann's smile flicked off, and his blue eyes pierced the Cook. ... Sir, Bailey added. That's better, Winkelmann said, and took another bite. He saidmeditatively, Used with caution, and only by myself, I believe I havesufficient ketchup here to see me through to Mars. Please keep abottle on the table for all my future meals, Belly-Robber. But, Sir.... Bailey began. You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threatto the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealisticslops for another hundred days, without the small consolation ofthis sauce I had the foresight to bring with me, I'd likely be inno condition to jet us safely down to the Piano West pad. Do youunderstand, Belly-Robber? he demanded. I understand that you're an ungrateful, impossible, square-headed,slave-driving.... Watch your noun, Winkelmann cautioned the Cook. Your adjectives areinsubordinate; your noun might prove mutinous. Captain, you've gone too far, I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, wasscarlet, his chest heaving with emotion. Doctor, I must point out to you that it ill behooves the Ship'sSurgeon to side with the Cook against the Captain, Winkelmann said. Sir, Bailey has tried hard to please you, I said. The other officersand the men have been more than satisfied with his work. That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds, Winkelmann said.Doctor, you are excused. As are you, Belly-Robber, he added. <doc-sep>Bailey and I climbed from the mess compartment together. I steered himto my quarters, where the medical supplies were stored. He sat on mybunk and exploded into weeping, banging his fists against the metalbulkhead. You'll have that drink now, I said. No, dammit! he shouted. Orders, I said. I poured us each some fifty cc's of rye. This istherapy, Bailey, I told him. He poured the fiery stuff down his throatlike water and silently held out his glass for a second. I provided it. After a few minutes Bailey's sobbing ceased. Sorry, Doc, he said. You've taken more pressure than most men would, I said. Nothing tobe ashamed of. He's crazy. What sane man would expect me to dip Wiener schnitzeland sauerkraut and Backhahndl nach suddeutscher Art out of an algaetank? I've got nothing but microscopic weeds to cook for him! Worn-outmolecules reclaimed from the head; packaged amino acid additives. Andhe expects meals that would take the blue ribbon at the annual banquetof the Friends of Escoffier! Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey, I said. You've worked yourfingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, and you're notappreciated. But you're not married to Winkelmann, remember. A yearfrom now you'll be home in Ohio, fifty grand richer, set to start thatrestaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman. I hate him, Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. Hereached for the bottle. I let him have it. Sometimes alcohol can bean apt confederate of vis medicatrix naturae , the healing power ofnature. Half an hour later I strapped Bailey into his bunk to sleep itoff. That therapeutic drunk seemed to be just what he'd needed. For morning mess the next day we had a broth remarkable inhorribleness, a pottage or boiled Chlorella vulgaris that lookedand tasted like the vomit of some bottom-feeding sea-beast. Bailey,red-eyed and a-tremble, made no apology, and stared at Winkelmann asthough daring him to comment. The Captain lifted a spoonful of thedisgusting stuff to his lips, smacked and said, Belly-Robber, you'reimproving a little at last. Bailey nodded and smiled. Thank you, Sir, he said. I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses werenow strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults ofirony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that wasa price I was willing to pay for seeing destroyed the Willy Winkelmanntheory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captainhad pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, Ithought. Noon mess was nearly as awful as breakfast had been. The coffee tastedof salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment werevehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, forthe decline in culinary standards. Bailey seemed not to care. He servedthe algaeburgers with half a mind, and hurried back into his galleyoblivious of the taunts of his crewmates. <doc-sep>There being only three seats in the Sale's mess compartment, we ateour meals in three shifts. That evening, going down the ladder tosupper, my nose was met with a spine-tingling barbecue tang, a smellto make a man think of gray charcoal glowing in a picnic brazier,of cicadas chirping and green grass underfoot, of the pop and hissof canned beer being church-keyed. He's done it, Doc! one of thefirst-shift diners said. It actually tastes of food! Then he's beat the Captain at his game, I said. The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks, the crewmansaid. I sat, unfolded my napkin, and looked with hope to the electricwarming-pan at the center of the table. Bailey served the three ofus with the small steaks. Each contained about a pound of driedChlorella, I judged, teasing mine with my fork. But they were drenchedin a gravy rich as the stuff grandma used to make in her black ironskillet, peppery and seasoned with courageous bits of garlic. I cuta bit from my steak and chewed it. Too tender, of course; there arelimits to art. But the pond-scum taste was gone. Bailey appeared in thegalley door. I gestured for him to join me. You've done it, Bailey,I said. Every Slimehead in orbit will thank you for this. This isactually good . Thanks, Doc, Bailey said. I smiled and took another bite. You may not realize it, Bailey; butthis is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph;you couldn't have done it without him. You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?Bailey asked. He was driving you to do the impossible, I said; and you did it. OurCaptain may be a hard man, Bailey; but he did know how to coax maximumperformance out of his Ship's Cook. Bailey stood up. Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor? he asked. I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job.He persuaded his men by foul means, true; but it was all for the goodof the ship and his crew. Do I like Captain Winkelmann? I asked,spearing another piece of my artificial steak. Bailey, I'm afraid I'llhave to admit that I do. Bailey smiled and lifted a second steak from the warming-pan onto myplate. Then have another piece, he said. <doc-sep></s>

The story is set on the Charles Partlow Sale in outer space. The ship left in the middle of August, and it is due at Piano West in early May. The path to Mars is considered to be as long in time as the human period of gestation. This is because the ship is taking a low-energy route. There are Chlorella tanks on the ship to grow the algae in. There is also a dining compartment with a mess table for the crew members to eat food on. The ship also has a cargo compartment, filled with the seeds of Tien-Shen fir and some tons of arctic grass. However, the ship itself is described to be quite small and cannot carry huge amounts of cargo.

<s> GOURMET By ALLEN KIM LANG [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine April 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] This was the endless problem of all spaceship cooks: He had to feed the men tomorrow on what they had eaten today! Unable to get out to the ballgame and a long way off from the girls,men on ships think about, talk about, bitch about their food. It'strue that Woman remains a topic of thoughtful study, but discussioncan never replace practice in an art. Food, on the other hand, is achallenge shipmen face three times a day, so central to their thoughtsthat a history of sea-faring can be read from a commissary list. In the days when salt-sea sailors were charting islands and spearingseals, for example, the fo'c's'le hands called themselves Lobscousers,celebrating the liquid hash then prominent in the marine menu. TheLimey sailor got the name of the anti-scorbutic citrus squeezed intohis diet, a fruit known to us mariners of a more sophisticated ageonly as garnish for our groundside gin-and-tonic. And today we Marsmenare called Slimeheads, honoring in our title the Chlorella and Scenedesmus algae that, by filling up the spaces within, open theroad to the larger Space without. Should any groundsman dispute the importance of belly-furniture inhistory—whether it be exterminating whales, or introducing syphilisto the Fiji Islanders, or settling the Australian littoral withcross-coves from Middlesex and Hampshire—he is referred to thehundred-and-first chapter of Moby Dick , a book spooled in theamusement tanks of all but the smallest spacers. I trust, however, thatno Marsman will undertake to review this inventory of refreshment morethan a week from groundfall. A catalogue of sides of beef and heads ofLeyden cheese and ankers of good Geneva would prove heavy reading for aman condemned to snack on the Chlorella-spawn of cis-Martian space. The Pequod's crew ate wormy biscuit and salt beef. Nimitz's men wontheir war on canned pork and beans. The Triton made her underwaterperiplus of Earth with a galley stocked with frozen pizza andconcentrated apple-juice. But then, when sailors left the seas for theskies, a decline set in. The first amenity of groundside existence to be abandoned was decentfood. The earliest men into the vacuum swallowed protein squeezingsfrom aluminum tubes, and were glad enough to drop back to thegroundsman's diet of steak and fried potatoes. <doc-sep>Long before I was a boy in Med School, itching to look at black skythrough a view-port, galley science had fulfilled the disgustingexordium of Isaiah 36:12, to feed the Slimeheads for breakfast todaywhat was day-before-yesterday's table-scraps and jakes-water. The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turningoffal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard aspacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount.Slimeheads remember the H. M. S. Ajax fiasco, for example, in which agalleyman leveled his Chlorella tanks with heavy water from the ship'sshielding. Four officers and twenty-one Other Ranks were rescued fromthe Ajax in deep space, half dead from deuterium poisoning. We thinkof the Benjo Maru incident, too, caused by a Ship's Cook who allowedhis algaeal staff-of-life to become contaminated with a fast-growing Saccharomycodes yeast. The Japanese vessel staggered to her pad atPiano West after a twenty-week drunk: the alien yeast had got intothe stomach of every man aboard, where it fermented each subsequentbite he ate to a superior grade of sake . And for a third footnote tothe ancient observation, God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks,Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the Charles PartlowSale . The Sale blasted off from Brady Station in the middle of August, duein at Piano West in early May. In no special hurry, we were takingthe low-energy route to Mars, a pathway about as long in time as thehuman period of gestation. Our cargo consisted mostly of Tien-Shen firseedlings and some tons of an arctic grass-seed—these to be plantedin the maria to squeeze out the native blue bugberry vines. We hadaboard the Registry minimum of six men and three officers. Ship'sSurgeon was myself, Paul Vilanova. Our Captain was Willy Winkelmann,the hardest man in space and very likely the fattest. Ship's Cook wasRobert Bailey. Cooking aboard a spacer is a job combining the more frustratingtensions of biochemistry, applied mycology, high-speed farming,dietetics and sewage engineering. It's the Cook's responsibility tosee that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds ofwater, two pounds of oxygen, and one-and-a-half pounds of dry food.This isn't just a paragraph from the Spacer Union Contract. It's astatement of the least fuel a man can run on. Twelve tons of water, oxygen, and food would have filled the cargocompartments to bursting, and left a small ship like the C. P. Sale no reason to reach for Mars. By allowing a colony of Chlorella algae towork over our used air, water and other effluvia, though, three tonsof metabolites would see us through from Brady Station to Piano Westand back. Recycling was the answer. The molecule of carbohydrate, fat,protein or mineral that didn't feed the crew fed the algae. And thealgae fed us. All waste was used to fertilize our liquid fields. Even the stubblefrom our 2,680 shaves and the clippings from our 666 haircuts en routeand back would be fed into the Chlorella tanks. Human hair is rich inessential amino acids. The algae—dried by the Cook, bleached with methyl alcohol to kill thesmell and make the residue more digestible, disguised and seasoned in ahundred ways—served as a sort of meat-and-potatoes that never quitewore out. Our air and water were equally immortal. Each molecule ofoxygen would be conversant with the alveoli of every man aboard by theend of our trip. Every drop of water would have been intimate with theglomeruli of each kidney on the ship before we grounded in. Groundlingpoliticians are right enough when they say that we spacers are abreed apart. We're the one race of men who can't afford the luxury ofsqueamishness. <doc-sep>Though I'm signed aboard as Ship's Surgeon, I seldom lift a knifein space. My employment is more in the nature of TS-card-puncherextraordinary. My duties are to serve as wailing-wall, morale officer,guardian of the medicinal whiskey and frustrator of mutual murder.Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victimis the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain. If the Cook hadn't problems enough with the chemical and psychic dutiesof his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmannwas the sort of man who, if he had to go into space at all, had best doso alone. If the Prussians had a Marine Corps, Winkelmann would havedone splendidly as Drill Instructor for their boot camp. His heartwas a chip of helium ice, his voice dripped sarcastic acid. The planetEarth was hardly large enough to accommodate a wart as annoying asWilly Winkelmann. Cheek-by-jowl every day in a nacelle the size of aPullman car, our Captain quickly established himself as a major socialhemorrhoid. The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook.It was Winkelmann who saw humorous possibilities in the entry, Bailey,Robert, on Ship's Articles. He at once renamed our unfortunateshipmate Belly-Robber. It was Winkelmann who discussed hautcuisine and the properties of the nobler wines while we munched ouralgaeburgers and sipped coffee that tasted of utility water. And it wasCaptain Willy Winkelmann who never referred to the ship's head by anyother name than The Kitchen Cabinet. Bailey tried to feed us by groundside standards. He hid the tasteof synthetic methionine—an essential amino acid not synthesized byChlorella—by seasoning our algaeal repasts with pinches of oreganoand thyme. He tinted the pale-green dollops of pressed Chlorella pink,textured the mass to the consistency of hamburger and toasted theslabs to a delicate brown in a forlorn attempt to make mock-meat.For dessert, he served a fudge compounded from the dextrose-paste ofthe carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not.Belly-Robber, he said, his tone icy as winter wind off the North Sea,you had best cycle this mess through the tanks again. There is a punin my home country: Mensch ist was er isst. It means, you are whatyou eat. I think you are impertinent to suggest I should become this Schweinerei you are feeding me. Captain Winkelmann blotted his chinwith his napkin, heaved his bulk up from the table, and climbed up theladder from the dining-cubby. <doc-sep>Doc, do you like Winkelmann? the Cook asked me. Not much, I said. I suspect that the finest gift our Captain cangive his mother is to be absent from her on Mother's Day. But we've gotto live with him. He's a good man at driving a ship. I wish he'd leave off driving this Cook, Bailey said. The fat swine! His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey, Isaid. He eats well. We all do. I've dined aboard a lot of spacers inmy time, and I'll testify that you set a table second to none. Bailey took a handful of dried Chlorella from a bin and fingered it. Itwas green, smelled of swamp, and looked appetizing as a bedsore. Thisis what I have to work with, he said. He tossed the stuff back intoits bin. In Ohio, which is my home country, in the presence of ladies,we'd call such garbage Horse-Leavings. You'll never make Winkelmann happy, I said. Even the simultaneousdeath of all other human beings could hardly make him smile. Keep upthe good work, though, and you'll keep our Captain fat. Bailey nodded from his one-man cloud of gloom. I got a bottle of ryefrom Medical Stores and offered him a therapeutic draught. The Cookwaved my gift aside. Not now, Doc, he said. I'm thinking abouttomorrow's menu. The product of Bailey's cerebrations was on the mess table at noon thenext day. We were each served an individual head of lettuce, dressedwith something very like vinegar and oil, spiced with tiny leaves ofburnet. How Bailey had constructed those synthetic lettuces I can onlyguess: the hours spent preparing a green Chlorella paste, rolling anddrying and shaping each artificial leaf, the fitting together of nineheads like crisp, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles. The pièce derésistance was again a hamburger steak; but this time the algaealmass that made it up was buried in a rich, meaty gravy that was onlyfaintly green. The essence-of-steak used in these Chlorella cutlets hadbeen sprinkled with a lavish hand. Garlic was richly in evidence. It'sso tender, the radioman joked, that I can hardly believe it's reallysteak. Bailey stared across the dining-cubby toward Winkelmann, silentlyimploring the Captain's ratification of his masterpiece. The bigman's pink cheeks bulged and jumped with his chewing. He swallowed.Belly-Robber, Winkelmann said, I had almost rather you served methis pond-scum raw than have it all mucked-up with synthetic onions andcycler-salt. <doc-sep>You seem able enough to choke down Bailey's chow, Captain, I said. Igazed at Winkelmann's form, bulbous from a lifetime of surfeit feeding. Yes, I eat it, the Captain said, taking and talking through anotherbite. But I eat only as a man in the desert will eat worms andgrasshoppers, to stay alive. Sir, what in heaven's name do you expect from me? Bailey pleaded. Only good food, Winkelmann mumbled through his mouthful of disguisedalgae. He tapped his head with a finger. This—the brain that guidesthe ship—cannot be coaxed to work on hog-slop. You understand me,Belly-Robber? Bailey, his hands fisted at his sides, nodded. Yes, sir. But I reallydon't know what I can do to please you. You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban Hausfrau with thevapors, Winkelmann said. I do not expect from you hysterics, tantrumsor weeping. Only—can you understand this, so simple?—food that willkeep my belly content and my brain alive. Yes, sir, Bailey said, his face a picture of that offense the Britishterm Dumb Insolence. Winkelmann got up and climbed the ladder to the pilot-cubicle. Ifollowed him. Captain, I said, you're driving Bailey too hard.You're asking him to make bricks without straw. Winkelmann regarded me with his pale-blue stare. You think, Doctor,that my cruelty to the Belly-Robber is the biliousness of a middle-agedman? Frankly, I can't understand your attitude at all, I said. You accuse me of driving a man to make bricks without straw,Winkelmann said. Very well, Doctor. It is my belief that if thePharaoh's taskmaster had had my firmness of purpose, the Children ofIsrael would have made bricks with stubble. Necessity, Doctor, is themother of invention. I am Bailey's necessity. My unkindnesses make himuncomfortable, I doubt that not. But I am forcing him to experiment,to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learnsomehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks. You're driving him too hard, Sir, I said. He'll crack. Bailey will have some fifty thousand dollars' salary waiting when weground at Brady Station, Captain Winkelmann said. So much money buysmany discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova. Crew morale on the ship.... I began. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova, Captain Winkelmann repeated. <doc-sep>Bailey grew more silent as we threaded our way along the ellipticalpath to Mars. Each meal he prepared was a fresh attempt to propitiatethe appetite of our splenetic Captain. Each such offering was condemnedby that heartless man. Bailey began to try avoiding the Captain atmealtimes, but was frustrated by Winkelmann's orders. Convey mycompliments to the Chef, please, the Captain would instruct one ofthe crew, and ask him to step down here a moment. And the Cook wouldcheerlessly appear in the dining-cubby, to have his culinary geniusacidly called in question again. I myself do not doubt that Bailey was the finest Cook ever to gointo Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark inbrilliant galleymanship. We were served, for instance, an ersatz hotturkey supreme. The cheese-sauce was almost believable, the Chlorellaturkey-flesh was white and tender. Bailey served with this delicacya grainy and delicious cornbread, and had extracted from his algaea lipid butter-substitute that soaked into the hot bread with agenuinely dairy smell. Splendid, Bailey, I said. We are not amused, said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a secondhelping of the pseudo-turkey. You are improving, Belly-Robber, butonly arithmetically. Your first efforts were so hideous as to requirea geometric progression of improving excellence to raise them to mereedibility. By the time we are halfway 'round the Sun, I trust you willhave learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economicsstudent. That will be all, Bailey. The crew and my fellow-officers were amused by Winkelmann's riding ofBailey; they were in addition gratified that the battle between theirCaptain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embarkon an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their lastfew days aground to smuggle several hundred calories of fat and manymemories of good food aboard with them. This trip, none of the men hadlost weight during the first four months in space. Winkelmann, indeed,seemed to have gained. His uniform was taut over his plump backside,and he puffed a bit up the ladders. I was considering suggesting to ourCaptain that he curtail his diet for reasons of health, a bit of advicethat would have stood unique in the annals of space medicine, whenWinkelmann produced his supreme insult to our Cook. <doc-sep>Each man aboard a spacer is allowed ten kilograms of personal effectsbesides his uniforms, these being considered Ship's Furnishing. Ashis rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double thisration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds ofbooks, playing-cards, knitting-wool, whiskey or what have you to helphim while away the hours between the planets. Bailey, I knew for afact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case ofspices: marjoram and mint, costmary, file powder, basil and allspice,and a dozen others. Captain Winkelmann was not a reader, and had brought no books. Cardsinterested him not at all, as card-playing implies a sociability aliento his nature. He never drank aboard ship. I had supposed that he'dexercised his option of returning his personal-effects weight allowanceto the owners for the consideration of one hundred dollars a kilogram.To collect the maximum allowance, spacers have been known to comeaboard their ship mother-naked. But this was not the case with Winkelmann. His personal-effectsbaggage, an unlabeled cardboard box, appeared under the table at noonmess some hundred days out from Piano West. Winkelmann rested his feeton the mysterious box as he sat to eat. What disgusting form does the ship's garbage appear in today,Belly-Robber? he asked the Cook. Bailey frowned, but kept his temper, an asceticism in which by now he'dhad much practice. I've been working on the problem of steak, Sir,he said. I think I've whipped the taste; what was left was to get thetexture steak-like. Do you understand, Sir? I understand, Winkelmann growled. You intend that your latest messshould feel like steak to the mouth, and not like baby-food. Right? Yes, Sir, Bailey said. Well, I squeezed thesteak-substrate—Chlorella, of course, with all sorts of specialseasonings—through a sieve, and blanched the strands in hot algaealoil. Then I chopped those strands to bits and rolled them out. Voila! I had something very close in texture to the muscle-fibers of genuinemeat. Remarkable, Bailey, I said. It rather throws me off my appetite to hear how you muddle about withour food, the Captain said, his jowls settling into an expression ofdistaste. It's quite all right to eat lobster, for example, but Inever cared to see the ugly beast boiled before my eyes. Detail spoilsthe meal. Bailey lifted the cover off the electric warming-pan at the center ofthe table and tenderly lifted a small steak onto each of our plates.Try it, he urged the Captain. <doc-sep>Captain Winkelmann sliced off a corner of his algaeal steak. Thecolor was an excellent medium-rare, the odor was the rich smellof fresh-broiled beef. Winkelmann bit down, chewed, swallowed. Nottoo bad, Belly-Robber, he said, nodding. Bailey grinned and bobbedhis head, his hands folded before him in an ecstasy of pleasure. Akind word from the Captain bettered the ruffles-and-flourishes of amore reasonable man. But it still needs something ... something,Winkelmann went on, slicing off another portion of the tasty Chlorella.Aha! I have it! Yes, Sir? Bailey asked. This, Belly-Robber! Winkelmann reached beneath the mess-table andripped open his cardboard carton. He brought out a bottle and unscrewedthe cap. Ketchup, he said, splattering the red juice over Bailey'smasterpiece. The scarlet burial-shroud for the failures of Cooks.Lifting a hunk of the steak, streaming ketchup, to his mouth,Winkelmann chewed. Just the thing, he smiled. Damn you! Bailey shouted. Winkelmann's smile flicked off, and his blue eyes pierced the Cook. ... Sir, Bailey added. That's better, Winkelmann said, and took another bite. He saidmeditatively, Used with caution, and only by myself, I believe I havesufficient ketchup here to see me through to Mars. Please keep abottle on the table for all my future meals, Belly-Robber. But, Sir.... Bailey began. You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threatto the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealisticslops for another hundred days, without the small consolation ofthis sauce I had the foresight to bring with me, I'd likely be inno condition to jet us safely down to the Piano West pad. Do youunderstand, Belly-Robber? he demanded. I understand that you're an ungrateful, impossible, square-headed,slave-driving.... Watch your noun, Winkelmann cautioned the Cook. Your adjectives areinsubordinate; your noun might prove mutinous. Captain, you've gone too far, I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, wasscarlet, his chest heaving with emotion. Doctor, I must point out to you that it ill behooves the Ship'sSurgeon to side with the Cook against the Captain, Winkelmann said. Sir, Bailey has tried hard to please you, I said. The other officersand the men have been more than satisfied with his work. That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds, Winkelmann said.Doctor, you are excused. As are you, Belly-Robber, he added. <doc-sep>Bailey and I climbed from the mess compartment together. I steered himto my quarters, where the medical supplies were stored. He sat on mybunk and exploded into weeping, banging his fists against the metalbulkhead. You'll have that drink now, I said. No, dammit! he shouted. Orders, I said. I poured us each some fifty cc's of rye. This istherapy, Bailey, I told him. He poured the fiery stuff down his throatlike water and silently held out his glass for a second. I provided it. After a few minutes Bailey's sobbing ceased. Sorry, Doc, he said. You've taken more pressure than most men would, I said. Nothing tobe ashamed of. He's crazy. What sane man would expect me to dip Wiener schnitzeland sauerkraut and Backhahndl nach suddeutscher Art out of an algaetank? I've got nothing but microscopic weeds to cook for him! Worn-outmolecules reclaimed from the head; packaged amino acid additives. Andhe expects meals that would take the blue ribbon at the annual banquetof the Friends of Escoffier! Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey, I said. You've worked yourfingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, and you're notappreciated. But you're not married to Winkelmann, remember. A yearfrom now you'll be home in Ohio, fifty grand richer, set to start thatrestaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman. I hate him, Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. Hereached for the bottle. I let him have it. Sometimes alcohol can bean apt confederate of vis medicatrix naturae , the healing power ofnature. Half an hour later I strapped Bailey into his bunk to sleep itoff. That therapeutic drunk seemed to be just what he'd needed. For morning mess the next day we had a broth remarkable inhorribleness, a pottage or boiled Chlorella vulgaris that lookedand tasted like the vomit of some bottom-feeding sea-beast. Bailey,red-eyed and a-tremble, made no apology, and stared at Winkelmann asthough daring him to comment. The Captain lifted a spoonful of thedisgusting stuff to his lips, smacked and said, Belly-Robber, you'reimproving a little at last. Bailey nodded and smiled. Thank you, Sir, he said. I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses werenow strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults ofirony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that wasa price I was willing to pay for seeing destroyed the Willy Winkelmanntheory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captainhad pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, Ithought. Noon mess was nearly as awful as breakfast had been. The coffee tastedof salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment werevehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, forthe decline in culinary standards. Bailey seemed not to care. He servedthe algaeburgers with half a mind, and hurried back into his galleyoblivious of the taunts of his crewmates. <doc-sep>There being only three seats in the Sale's mess compartment, we ateour meals in three shifts. That evening, going down the ladder tosupper, my nose was met with a spine-tingling barbecue tang, a smellto make a man think of gray charcoal glowing in a picnic brazier,of cicadas chirping and green grass underfoot, of the pop and hissof canned beer being church-keyed. He's done it, Doc! one of thefirst-shift diners said. It actually tastes of food! Then he's beat the Captain at his game, I said. The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks, the crewmansaid. I sat, unfolded my napkin, and looked with hope to the electricwarming-pan at the center of the table. Bailey served the three ofus with the small steaks. Each contained about a pound of driedChlorella, I judged, teasing mine with my fork. But they were drenchedin a gravy rich as the stuff grandma used to make in her black ironskillet, peppery and seasoned with courageous bits of garlic. I cuta bit from my steak and chewed it. Too tender, of course; there arelimits to art. But the pond-scum taste was gone. Bailey appeared in thegalley door. I gestured for him to join me. You've done it, Bailey,I said. Every Slimehead in orbit will thank you for this. This isactually good . Thanks, Doc, Bailey said. I smiled and took another bite. You may not realize it, Bailey; butthis is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph;you couldn't have done it without him. You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?Bailey asked. He was driving you to do the impossible, I said; and you did it. OurCaptain may be a hard man, Bailey; but he did know how to coax maximumperformance out of his Ship's Cook. Bailey stood up. Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor? he asked. I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job.He persuaded his men by foul means, true; but it was all for the goodof the ship and his crew. Do I like Captain Winkelmann? I asked,spearing another piece of my artificial steak. Bailey, I'm afraid I'llhave to admit that I do. Bailey smiled and lifted a second steak from the warming-pan onto myplate. Then have another piece, he said. <doc-sep></s>

The Chlorella algae is what keeps all of the crew members alive for the duration of the journey. Since twelve tons of water, oxygen, and food would have filled the compartment to bursting, Chlorella algae is the solution to this. It can work over used food, air, and effluvia, three tons of metabolites that would see them through the entire round trip. Everything the crew recycles is fed to the algae, which feeds the crew members in return. The waste is used to fertilize the liquid fields. Even their stubble from 2,600 shaves and clipping from 666 haircuts is used to feed the algae because human hair is rich in essential amino acids. The algae is their food, as well as the water and air that keeps the crew members going.

<s> UNBORN TOMORROW BY MACK REYNOLDS Unfortunately , there was onlyone thing he could bring backfrom the wonderful future ...and though he didn't want to... nevertheless he did.... Illustrated by Freas Betty looked up fromher magazine. She saidmildly, You're late. Don't yell at me, Ifeel awful, Simon toldher. He sat down at his desk, passedhis tongue over his teeth in distaste,groaned, fumbled in a drawer for theaspirin bottle. He looked over at Betty and said,almost as though reciting, What Ineed is a vacation. What, Betty said, are you goingto use for money? Providence, Simon told herwhilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle,will provide. Hm-m-m. But before providingvacations it'd be nice if Providenceturned up a missing jewel deal, say.Something where you could deducethat actually the ruby ring had gonedown the drain and was caught in theelbow. Something that would netabout fifty dollars. Simon said, mournful of tone,Fifty dollars? Why not make it fivehundred? I'm not selfish, Betty said. AllI want is enough to pay me thisweek's salary. Money, Simon said. When youtook this job you said it was the romancethat appealed to you. Hm-m-m. I didn't know mostsleuthing amounted to snoopingaround department stores to check onthe clerks knocking down. Simon said, enigmatically, Nowit comes. <doc-sep> There was a knock. Betty bounced up with Olympicagility and had the door swingingwide before the knocking was quitecompleted. He was old, little and had bugeyes behind pince-nez glasses. Hissuit was cut in the style of yesteryearbut when a suit costs two orthree hundred dollars you still retaincaste whatever the styling. Simon said unenthusiastically,Good morning, Mr. Oyster. He indicatedthe client's chair. Sit down,sir. The client fussed himself withBetty's assistance into the seat, bug-eyedSimon, said finally, You knowmy name, that's pretty good. Neversaw you before in my life. Stop fussingwith me, young lady. Your adin the phone book says you'll investigateanything. Anything, Simon said. Onlyone exception. Excellent. Do you believe in timetravel? Simon said nothing. Across theroom, where she had resumed herseat, Betty cleared her throat. WhenSimon continued to say nothing sheventured, Time travel is impossible. Why? Why? Yes, why? Betty looked to her boss for assistance.None was forthcoming. Thereought to be some very quick, positive,definite answer. She said, Well,for one thing, paradox. Suppose youhad a time machine and traveled backa hundred years or so and killed yourown great-grandfather. Then howcould you ever be born? Confound it if I know, the littlefellow growled. How? Simon said, Let's get to the point,what you wanted to see me about. I want to hire you to hunt me upsome time travelers, the old boysaid. Betty was too far in now to maintainher proper role of silent secretary.Time travelers, she said, notvery intelligently. The potential client sat more erect,obviously with intent to hold thefloor for a time. He removed thepince-nez glasses and pointed themat Betty. He said, Have you readmuch science fiction, Miss? Some, Betty admitted. Then you'll realize that there area dozen explanations of the paradoxesof time travel. Every writer inthe field worth his salt has explainedthem away. But to get on. It's mycontention that within a century orso man will have solved the problemsof immortality and eternal youth, andit's also my suspicion that he willeventually be able to travel in time.So convinced am I of these possibilitiesthat I am willing to gamble aportion of my fortune to investigatethe presence in our era of such timetravelers. Simon seemed incapable of carryingthe ball this morning, so Bettysaid, But ... Mr. Oyster, if thefuture has developed time travel whydon't we ever meet such travelers? Simon put in a word. The usualexplanation, Betty, is that they can'tafford to allow the space-time continuumtrack to be altered. If, say, atime traveler returned to a period oftwenty-five years ago and shot Hitler,then all subsequent history would bechanged. In that case, the time travelerhimself might never be born. Theyhave to tread mighty carefully. Mr. Oyster was pleased. I didn'texpect you to be so well informedon the subject, young man. Simon shrugged and fumbledagain with the aspirin bottle. <doc-sep> Mr. Oyster went on. I've beenconsidering the matter for some timeand— Simon held up a hand. There'sno use prolonging this. As I understandit, you're an elderly gentlemanwith a considerable fortune and yourealize that thus far nobody has succeededin taking it with him. Mr. Oyster returned his glasses totheir perch, bug-eyed Simon, but thennodded. Simon said, You want to hire meto find a time traveler and in somemanner or other—any manner willdo—exhort from him the secret ofeternal life and youth, which you figurethe future will have discovered.You're willing to pony up a part ofthis fortune of yours, if I can delivera bona fide time traveler. Right! Betty had been looking from oneto the other. Now she said, plaintively,But where are you going to findone of these characters—especially ifthey're interested in keeping hid? The old boy was the center again.I told you I'd been considering itfor some time. The Oktoberfest ,that's where they'd be! He seemedelated. Betty and Simon waited. The Oktoberfest , he repeated.The greatest festival the world hasever seen, the carnival, feria , fiesta to beat them all. Every year it's heldin Munich. Makes the New OrleansMardi gras look like a quiltingparty. He began to swing into thespirit of his description. It originallystarted in celebration of the weddingof some local prince a centuryand a half ago and the Bavarians hadsuch a bang-up time they've beenholding it every year since. TheMunich breweries do up a specialbeer, Marzenbräu they call it, andeach brewery opens a tremendous tenton the fair grounds which will holdfive thousand customers apiece. Millionsof liters of beer are put away,hundreds of thousands of barbecuedchickens, a small herd of oxen areroasted whole over spits, millions ofpair of weisswurst , a very specialsausage, millions upon millions ofpretzels— All right, Simon said. We'll acceptit. The Oktoberfest is one whaleof a wingding. <doc-sep> Well, the old boy pursued, intohis subject now, that's where they'dbe, places like the Oktoberfest . Forone thing, a time traveler wouldn'tbe conspicuous. At a festival like thissomebody with a strange accent, orwho didn't know exactly how to wearhis clothes correctly, or was off theordinary in any of a dozen otherways, wouldn't be noticed. You couldbe a four-armed space traveler fromMars, and you still wouldn't be conspicuousat the Oktoberfest . Peoplewould figure they had D.T.'s. But why would a time travelerwant to go to a— Betty began. Why not! What better opportunityto study a people than when theyare in their cups? If you could goback a few thousand years, the thingsyou would wish to see would be aRoman Triumph, perhaps the Ritesof Dionysus, or one of Alexander'sorgies. You wouldn't want to wanderup and down the streets of, say,Athens while nothing was going on,particularly when you might be revealedas a suspicious character notbeing able to speak the language, notknowing how to wear the clothes andnot familiar with the city's layout.He took a deep breath. No ma'am,you'd have to stick to some greatevent, both for the sake of actualinterest and for protection against beingunmasked. The old boy wound it up. Well,that's the story. What are your rates?The Oktoberfest starts on Friday andcontinues for sixteen days. You cantake the plane to Munich, spend aweek there and— Simon was shaking his head. Notinterested. As soon as Betty had got her jawback into place, she glared unbelievinglyat him. Mr. Oyster was taken aback himself.See here, young man, I realizethis isn't an ordinary assignment,however, as I said, I am willing torisk a considerable portion of myfortune— Sorry, Simon said. Can't bedone. A hundred dollars a day plus expenses,Mr. Oyster said quietly. Ilike the fact that you already seemto have some interest and knowledgeof the matter. I liked the way youknew my name when I walked in thedoor; my picture doesn't appear oftenin the papers. No go, Simon said, a sad qualityin his voice. A fifty thousand dollar bonus ifyou bring me a time traveler. Out of the question, Simonsaid. But why ? Betty wailed. Just for laughs, Simon told thetwo of them sourly, suppose I tellyou a funny story. It goes likethis: I got a thousand dollars from Mr.Oyster (Simon began) in the wayof an advance, and leaving him withBetty who was making out a receipt,I hustled back to the apartment andpacked a bag. Hell, I'd wanted a vacationanyway, this was a natural. Onthe way to Idlewild I stopped off atthe Germany Information Offices forsome tourist literature. It takes roughly three and a halfhours to get to Gander from Idlewild.I spent the time planning thefun I was going to have. It takes roughly seven and a halfhours from Gander to Shannon andI spent that time dreaming up materialI could put into my reports toMr. Oyster. I was going to have togive him some kind of report for hismoney. Time travel yet! What alaugh! Between Shannon and Munich afaint suspicion began to simmer inmy mind. These statistics I read onthe Oktoberfest in the Munich touristpamphlets. Five million peopleattended annually. Where did five million peoplecome from to attend an overgrownfestival in comparatively remoteSouthern Germany? The tourist seasonis over before September 21st,first day of the gigantic beer bust.Nor could the Germans account forany such number. Munich itself hasa population of less than a million,counting children. And those millions of gallons ofbeer, the hundreds of thousands ofchickens, the herds of oxen. Whoponied up all the money for such expenditures?How could the averageGerman, with his twenty-five dollarsa week salary? In Munich there was no hotelspace available. I went to the Bahnhofwhere they have a hotel serviceand applied. They put my namedown, pocketed the husky bribe,showed me where I could check mybag, told me they'd do what theycould, and to report back in a fewhours. I had another suspicious twinge.If five million people attended thisbeer bout, how were they accommodated? The Theresienwiese , the fairground, was only a few blocksaway. I was stiff from the plane rideso I walked. <doc-sep> There are seven major brewers inthe Munich area, each of them representedby one of the circuslike tentsthat Mr. Oyster mentioned. Each tentcontained benches and tables forabout five thousand persons and fromsix to ten thousands pack themselvesin, competing for room. In the centeris a tremendous bandstand, themusicians all lederhosen clad, themusic as Bavarian as any to be foundin a Bavarian beer hall. Hundreds ofpeasant garbed fräuleins darted aboutthe tables with quart sized earthenwaremugs, platters of chicken, sausage,kraut and pretzels. I found a place finally at a tablewhich had space for twenty-odd beerbibbers. Odd is right. As weird anassortment of Germans and foreigntourists as could have been dreamedup, ranging from a seventy- oreighty-year-old couple in Bavariancostume, to the bald-headed drunkacross the table from me. A desperate waitress bearing sixmugs of beer in each hand scurriedpast. They call them masses , by theway, not mugs. The bald-headedcharacter and I both held up a fingerand she slid two of the masses overto us and then hustled on. Down the hatch, the other said,holding up his mass in toast. To the ladies, I told him. Beforesipping, I said, You know, thetourist pamphlets say this stuff iseighteen per cent. That's nonsense.No beer is that strong. I took a longpull. He looked at me, waiting. I came up. Mistaken, I admitted. A mass or two apiece later he lookedcarefully at the name engraved onhis earthenware mug. Löwenbräu,he said. He took a small notebookfrom his pocket and a pencil, noteddown the word and returned thethings. That's a queer looking pencil youhave there, I told him. German? Venusian, he said. Oops, sorry.Shouldn't have said that. I had never heard of the brand soI skipped it. Next is the Hofbräu, he said. Next what? Baldy's conversationdidn't seem to hang together verywell. My pilgrimage, he told me. Allmy life I've been wanting to go backto an Oktoberfest and sample everyone of the seven brands of the bestbeer the world has ever known. I'monly as far as Löwenbräu. I'm afraidI'll never make it. I finished my mass . I'll helpyou, I told him. Very noble endeavor.Name is Simon. Arth, he said. How could youhelp? I'm still fresh—comparatively.I'll navigate you around. There areseven beer tents. How many have yougot through, so far? Two, counting this one, Arthsaid. I looked at him. It's going to bea chore, I said. You've already gota nice edge on. Outside, as we made our way tothe next tent, the fair looked likeevery big State-Fair ever seen, exceptit was bigger. Games, souvenirstands, sausage stands, rides, sideshows, and people, people, people. The Hofbräu tent was as overflowingas the last but we managed tofind two seats. The band was blaring, and fivethousand half-swacked voices wereroaring accompaniment. In Muenchen steht ein Hofbräuhaus! Eins, Zwei, G'sufa! At the G'sufa everybody uppedwith the mugs and drank each other'shealth. This is what I call a real beerbust, I said approvingly. Arth was waving to a waitress. Asin the Löwenbräu tent, a full quartwas the smallest amount obtainable. A beer later I said, I don't knowif you'll make it or not, Arth. Make what? All seven tents. Oh. A waitress was on her way by,mugs foaming over their rims. I gesturedto her for refills. Where are you from, Arth? Iasked him, in the way of makingconversation. 2183. 2183 where? He looked at me, closing one eyeto focus better. Oh, he said. Well,2183 South Street, ah, New Albuquerque. New Albuquerque? Where'sthat? Arth thought about it. Took anotherlong pull at the beer. Rightacross the way from old Albuquerque,he said finally. Maybe weought to be getting on to thePschorrbräu tent. Maybe we ought to eat somethingfirst, I said. I'm beginning to feelthis. We could get some of that barbecuedox. Arth closed his eyes in pain.Vegetarian, he said. Couldn't possiblyeat meat. Barbarous. Ugh. Well, we need some nourishment,I said. There's supposed to be considerablenourishment in beer. That made sense. I yelled, Fräulein!Zwei neu bier! <doc-sep> Somewhere along in here the fogrolled in. When it rolled out again,I found myself closing one eye thebetter to read the lettering on myearthenware mug. It read Augustinerbräu.Somehow we'd evidentlynavigated from one tent to another. Arth was saying, Where's yourhotel? That seemed like a good question.I thought about it for a while. FinallyI said, Haven't got one. Town'sjam packed. Left my bag at the Bahnhof.I don't think we'll ever makeit, Arth. How many we got togo? Lost track, Arth said. You cancome home with me. We drank to that and the fog rolledin again. When the fog rolled out, it wasdaylight. Bright, glaring, awful daylight.I was sprawled, complete withclothes, on one of twin beds. On theother bed, also completely clothed,was Arth. That sun was too much. I stumbledup from the bed, staggered tothe window and fumbled around fora blind or curtain. There was none. Behind me a voice said in horror,Who ... how ... oh, Wodo ,where'd you come from? I got a quick impression, lookingout the window, that the Germanswere certainly the most modern, futuristicpeople in the world. But Icouldn't stand the light. Where'sthe shade, I moaned. Arth did something and the windowwent opaque. That's quite a gadget, I groaned.If I didn't feel so lousy, I'dappreciate it. Arth was sitting on the edge ofthe bed holding his bald head in hishands. I remember now, he sorrowed.You didn't have a hotel.What a stupidity. I'll be phased.Phased all the way down. You haven't got a handful ofaspirin, have you? I asked him. Just a minute, Arth said, staggeringerect and heading for whatundoubtedly was a bathroom. Staywhere you are. Don't move. Don'ttouch anything. All right, I told him plaintively.I'm clean. I won't mess up theplace. All I've got is a hangover, notlice. Arth was gone. He came back intwo or three minutes, box of pills inhand. Here, take one of these. I took the pill, followed it with aglass of water. <doc-sep> And went out like a light. Arth was shaking my arm. Wantanother mass ? The band was blaring, and fivethousand half-swacked voices wereroaring accompaniment. In Muenchen steht ein Hofbräuhaus! Eins, Zwei, G'sufa! At the G'sufa everybody uppedwith their king-size mugs and drankeach other's health. My head was killing me. This iswhere I came in, or something, Igroaned. Arth said, That was last night.He looked at me over the rim of hisbeer mug. Something, somewhere, waswrong. But I didn't care. I finishedmy mass and then remembered. I'vegot to get my bag. Oh, my head.Where did we spend last night? Arth said, and his voice soundedcautious, At my hotel, don't you remember? Not very well, I admitted. Ifeel lousy. I must have dimmed out.I've got to go to the Bahnhof andget my luggage. Arth didn't put up an argumenton that. We said good-by and I couldfeel him watching after me as I pushedthrough the tables on the wayout. At the Bahnhof they could do meno good. There were no hotel roomsavailable in Munich. The head wasgetting worse by the minute. Thefact that they'd somehow managedto lose my bag didn't help. I workedon that project for at least a coupleof hours. Not only wasn't the bagat the luggage checking station, butthe attendant there evidently couldn'tmake heads nor tails of the checkreceipt. He didn't speak English andmy high school German was inadequate,especially accompanied by ablockbusting hangover. I didn't get anywhere tearing myhair and complaining from one endof the Bahnhof to the other. I drewa blank on the bag. And the head was getting worseby the minute. I was bleeding todeath through the eyes and insteadof butterflies I had bats in my stomach.Believe me, nobody should drinka gallon or more of Marzenbräu. <doc-sep> I decided the hell with it. I tooka cab to the airport, presented my returnticket, told them I wanted toleave on the first obtainable plane toNew York. I'd spent two days at the Oktoberfest , and I'd had it. I got more guff there. Somethingwas wrong with the ticket, wrongdate or some such. But they fixedthat up. I never was clear on whatwas fouled up, some clerk's error,evidently. The trip back was as uninterestingas the one over. As the hangover beganto wear off—a little—I was almostsorry I hadn't been able to stay.If I'd only been able to get a room I would have stayed, I told myself. From Idlewild, I came directly tothe office rather than going to myapartment. I figured I might as wellcheck in with Betty. I opened the door and there Ifound Mr. Oyster sitting in the chairhe had been occupying four—or wasit five—days before when I'd left.I'd lost track of the time. I said to him, Glad you're here,sir. I can report. Ah, what was ityou came for? Impatient to hear ifI'd had any results? My mind wasspinning like a whirling dervish ina revolving door. I'd spent a wad ofhis money and had nothing I couldthink of to show for it; nothing butthe last stages of a grand-daddyhangover. Came for? Mr. Oyster snorted.I'm merely waiting for your girl tomake out my receipt. I thought youhad already left. You'll miss your plane, Bettysaid. There was suddenly a double dipof ice cream in my stomach. I walkedover to my desk and looked down atthe calendar. Mr. Oyster was saying somethingto the effect that if I didn't leave today,it would have to be tomorrow,that he hadn't ponied up that thousanddollars advance for anythingless than immediate service. Stuffinghis receipt in his wallet, he fussedhis way out the door. I said to Betty hopefully, I supposeyou haven't changed this calendarsince I left. Betty said, What's the matterwith you? You look funny. How didyour clothes get so mussed? You torethe top sheet off that calendar yourself,not half an hour ago, just beforethis marble-missing client camein. She added, irrelevantly, Timetravelers yet. I tried just once more. Uh, whendid you first see this Mr. Oyster? Never saw him before in mylife, she said. Not until he camein this morning. This morning, I said weakly. While Betty stared at me as thoughit was me that needed candling by ahead shrinker preparatory to beingsent off to a pressure cooker, I fishedin my pocket for my wallet, countedthe contents and winced at thepathetic remains of the thousand.I said pleadingly, Betty, listen,how long ago did I go out that door—onthe way to the airport? You've been acting sick all morning.You went out that door aboutten minutes ago, were gone aboutthree minutes, and then came back. See here, Mr. Oyster said (interruptingSimon's story), did yousay this was supposed to be amusing,young man? I don't find it so. Infact, I believe I am being ridiculed. Simon shrugged, put one hand tohis forehead and said, That's onlythe first chapter. There are twomore. I'm not interested in more, Mr.Oyster said. I suppose your pointwas to show me how ridiculous thewhole idea actually is. Very well,you've done it. Confound it. However,I suppose your time, even whenspent in this manner, has some value.Here is fifty dollars. And good day,sir! He slammed the door after himas he left. Simon winced at the noise, tookthe aspirin bottle from its drawer,took two, washed them down withwater from the desk carafe. Betty looked at him admiringly.Came to her feet, crossed over andtook up the fifty dollars. Week'swages, she said. I suppose that'sone way of taking care of a crackpot.But I'm surprised you didn'ttake his money and enjoy that vacationyou've been yearning about. I did, Simon groaned. Threetimes. Betty stared at him. You mean— Simon nodded, miserably. She said, But Simon . Fifty thousanddollars bonus. If that story wastrue, you should have gone backagain to Munich. If there was onetime traveler, there might havebeen— I keep telling you, Simon saidbitterly, I went back there threetimes. There were hundreds of them.Probably thousands. He took a deepbreath. Listen, we're just going tohave to forget about it. They're notgoing to stand for the space-timecontinuum track being altered. Ifsomething comes up that looks likeit might result in the track beingchanged, they set you right back atthe beginning and let things start—foryou—all over again. They justcan't allow anything to come backfrom the future and change thepast. You mean, Betty was suddenlyfurious at him, you've given up!Why this is the biggest thing— Whythe fifty thousand dollars is nothing.The future! Just think! Simon said wearily, There's justone thing you can bring back withyou from the future, a hangover compoundedof a gallon or so of Marzenbräu.What's more you can pileone on top of the other, and anotheron top of that! He shuddered. If you think I'mgoing to take another crack at thismerry-go-round and pile a fourthhangover on the three I'm alreadynursing, all at once, you can thinkagain. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction June1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling andtypographical errors have been corrected without note.<doc-sep></s>

Simon goes to his desk as Betty remarks that he is late. He tells her that he needs a vacation, but she asks him where the funds will come from and her weekly salary. Suddenly, the door knocks, and a man named Mr. Oyster comes in. Despite having never met before, he is impressed that Simon knows him and asks the other man if he believes in time travel. Betty says it is impossible, and Mr. Oyster questions her about why. Simon then asks why he came, to which the potential client responds that he wants them to hunt up some time travelers. He asks Betty some more about science fiction and explains that he is willing to gamble his fortune to investigate the presence of time travelers in the current era. Mr. Oyster further says that these time travelers will be at the Oktoberfest in Munich, which is considered the greatest festival globally. Simon says that he is not interested in taking up the case. Betty is surprised, and Mr. Oyster tries to offer him a substantial amount of money. Simon then tells them a story where he accepts Mr. Oyster’s offer. Simon thinks about how much fun he will have and a fake report to generate for Mr. Oyster. He then goes on to be suspicious about how five million people can appear to attend a festival in a remote part of southern Germany, especially considering the population of Munich is less than one million. There is no hotel space in Munch, so Simon must go to Bahnhof to apply for hotel service. It is suspicious how the five million attendees are accommodated for this festival. The circus-like tents represent the seven major brewers of the Munich area, and many people are going around. Simon finds a space at one of the tables; he notes that the crowd is made up of both tourists and Germans. A bald-headed person and he both drink beer. The bald man accidentally reveals that his pencil is Venusian and tells Simon that his dream is to sample each of the seven best beer brands. The man then introduces himself as Arth and tells Simon that he is from a strange location. Arth offers to take him to his hotel later, and Simon goes with him. Arth gives him a box of pills for his hangover, and the scene cuts to them drinking at the festival again. Simon feels that something is off and decides to go back to New York. He returns to the office, where Mr. Oyster tells him that Betty has just finished the receipt. They are both confused and say that he has only been gone for about three minutes. Mr. Oyster is furious and leaves, while Betty asks why he didn’t just take the money. Simon tells her that he experienced the trip three times and says that he will not be dealing with a fourth hangover on top of the three already-present ones.

<s> UNBORN TOMORROW BY MACK REYNOLDS Unfortunately , there was onlyone thing he could bring backfrom the wonderful future ...and though he didn't want to... nevertheless he did.... Illustrated by Freas Betty looked up fromher magazine. She saidmildly, You're late. Don't yell at me, Ifeel awful, Simon toldher. He sat down at his desk, passedhis tongue over his teeth in distaste,groaned, fumbled in a drawer for theaspirin bottle. He looked over at Betty and said,almost as though reciting, What Ineed is a vacation. What, Betty said, are you goingto use for money? Providence, Simon told herwhilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle,will provide. Hm-m-m. But before providingvacations it'd be nice if Providenceturned up a missing jewel deal, say.Something where you could deducethat actually the ruby ring had gonedown the drain and was caught in theelbow. Something that would netabout fifty dollars. Simon said, mournful of tone,Fifty dollars? Why not make it fivehundred? I'm not selfish, Betty said. AllI want is enough to pay me thisweek's salary. Money, Simon said. When youtook this job you said it was the romancethat appealed to you. Hm-m-m. I didn't know mostsleuthing amounted to snoopingaround department stores to check onthe clerks knocking down. Simon said, enigmatically, Nowit comes. <doc-sep> There was a knock. Betty bounced up with Olympicagility and had the door swingingwide before the knocking was quitecompleted. He was old, little and had bugeyes behind pince-nez glasses. Hissuit was cut in the style of yesteryearbut when a suit costs two orthree hundred dollars you still retaincaste whatever the styling. Simon said unenthusiastically,Good morning, Mr. Oyster. He indicatedthe client's chair. Sit down,sir. The client fussed himself withBetty's assistance into the seat, bug-eyedSimon, said finally, You knowmy name, that's pretty good. Neversaw you before in my life. Stop fussingwith me, young lady. Your adin the phone book says you'll investigateanything. Anything, Simon said. Onlyone exception. Excellent. Do you believe in timetravel? Simon said nothing. Across theroom, where she had resumed herseat, Betty cleared her throat. WhenSimon continued to say nothing sheventured, Time travel is impossible. Why? Why? Yes, why? Betty looked to her boss for assistance.None was forthcoming. Thereought to be some very quick, positive,definite answer. She said, Well,for one thing, paradox. Suppose youhad a time machine and traveled backa hundred years or so and killed yourown great-grandfather. Then howcould you ever be born? Confound it if I know, the littlefellow growled. How? Simon said, Let's get to the point,what you wanted to see me about. I want to hire you to hunt me upsome time travelers, the old boysaid. Betty was too far in now to maintainher proper role of silent secretary.Time travelers, she said, notvery intelligently. The potential client sat more erect,obviously with intent to hold thefloor for a time. He removed thepince-nez glasses and pointed themat Betty. He said, Have you readmuch science fiction, Miss? Some, Betty admitted. Then you'll realize that there area dozen explanations of the paradoxesof time travel. Every writer inthe field worth his salt has explainedthem away. But to get on. It's mycontention that within a century orso man will have solved the problemsof immortality and eternal youth, andit's also my suspicion that he willeventually be able to travel in time.So convinced am I of these possibilitiesthat I am willing to gamble aportion of my fortune to investigatethe presence in our era of such timetravelers. Simon seemed incapable of carryingthe ball this morning, so Bettysaid, But ... Mr. Oyster, if thefuture has developed time travel whydon't we ever meet such travelers? Simon put in a word. The usualexplanation, Betty, is that they can'tafford to allow the space-time continuumtrack to be altered. If, say, atime traveler returned to a period oftwenty-five years ago and shot Hitler,then all subsequent history would bechanged. In that case, the time travelerhimself might never be born. Theyhave to tread mighty carefully. Mr. Oyster was pleased. I didn'texpect you to be so well informedon the subject, young man. Simon shrugged and fumbledagain with the aspirin bottle. <doc-sep> Mr. Oyster went on. I've beenconsidering the matter for some timeand— Simon held up a hand. There'sno use prolonging this. As I understandit, you're an elderly gentlemanwith a considerable fortune and yourealize that thus far nobody has succeededin taking it with him. Mr. Oyster returned his glasses totheir perch, bug-eyed Simon, but thennodded. Simon said, You want to hire meto find a time traveler and in somemanner or other—any manner willdo—exhort from him the secret ofeternal life and youth, which you figurethe future will have discovered.You're willing to pony up a part ofthis fortune of yours, if I can delivera bona fide time traveler. Right! Betty had been looking from oneto the other. Now she said, plaintively,But where are you going to findone of these characters—especially ifthey're interested in keeping hid? The old boy was the center again.I told you I'd been considering itfor some time. The Oktoberfest ,that's where they'd be! He seemedelated. Betty and Simon waited. The Oktoberfest , he repeated.The greatest festival the world hasever seen, the carnival, feria , fiesta to beat them all. Every year it's heldin Munich. Makes the New OrleansMardi gras look like a quiltingparty. He began to swing into thespirit of his description. It originallystarted in celebration of the weddingof some local prince a centuryand a half ago and the Bavarians hadsuch a bang-up time they've beenholding it every year since. TheMunich breweries do up a specialbeer, Marzenbräu they call it, andeach brewery opens a tremendous tenton the fair grounds which will holdfive thousand customers apiece. Millionsof liters of beer are put away,hundreds of thousands of barbecuedchickens, a small herd of oxen areroasted whole over spits, millions ofpair of weisswurst , a very specialsausage, millions upon millions ofpretzels— All right, Simon said. We'll acceptit. The Oktoberfest is one whaleof a wingding. <doc-sep> Well, the old boy pursued, intohis subject now, that's where they'dbe, places like the Oktoberfest . Forone thing, a time traveler wouldn'tbe conspicuous. At a festival like thissomebody with a strange accent, orwho didn't know exactly how to wearhis clothes correctly, or was off theordinary in any of a dozen otherways, wouldn't be noticed. You couldbe a four-armed space traveler fromMars, and you still wouldn't be conspicuousat the Oktoberfest . Peoplewould figure they had D.T.'s. But why would a time travelerwant to go to a— Betty began. Why not! What better opportunityto study a people than when theyare in their cups? If you could goback a few thousand years, the thingsyou would wish to see would be aRoman Triumph, perhaps the Ritesof Dionysus, or one of Alexander'sorgies. You wouldn't want to wanderup and down the streets of, say,Athens while nothing was going on,particularly when you might be revealedas a suspicious character notbeing able to speak the language, notknowing how to wear the clothes andnot familiar with the city's layout.He took a deep breath. No ma'am,you'd have to stick to some greatevent, both for the sake of actualinterest and for protection against beingunmasked. The old boy wound it up. Well,that's the story. What are your rates?The Oktoberfest starts on Friday andcontinues for sixteen days. You cantake the plane to Munich, spend aweek there and— Simon was shaking his head. Notinterested. As soon as Betty had got her jawback into place, she glared unbelievinglyat him. Mr. Oyster was taken aback himself.See here, young man, I realizethis isn't an ordinary assignment,however, as I said, I am willing torisk a considerable portion of myfortune— Sorry, Simon said. Can't bedone. A hundred dollars a day plus expenses,Mr. Oyster said quietly. Ilike the fact that you already seemto have some interest and knowledgeof the matter. I liked the way youknew my name when I walked in thedoor; my picture doesn't appear oftenin the papers. No go, Simon said, a sad qualityin his voice. A fifty thousand dollar bonus ifyou bring me a time traveler. Out of the question, Simonsaid. But why ? Betty wailed. Just for laughs, Simon told thetwo of them sourly, suppose I tellyou a funny story. It goes likethis: I got a thousand dollars from Mr.Oyster (Simon began) in the wayof an advance, and leaving him withBetty who was making out a receipt,I hustled back to the apartment andpacked a bag. Hell, I'd wanted a vacationanyway, this was a natural. Onthe way to Idlewild I stopped off atthe Germany Information Offices forsome tourist literature. It takes roughly three and a halfhours to get to Gander from Idlewild.I spent the time planning thefun I was going to have. It takes roughly seven and a halfhours from Gander to Shannon andI spent that time dreaming up materialI could put into my reports toMr. Oyster. I was going to have togive him some kind of report for hismoney. Time travel yet! What alaugh! Between Shannon and Munich afaint suspicion began to simmer inmy mind. These statistics I read onthe Oktoberfest in the Munich touristpamphlets. Five million peopleattended annually. Where did five million peoplecome from to attend an overgrownfestival in comparatively remoteSouthern Germany? The tourist seasonis over before September 21st,first day of the gigantic beer bust.Nor could the Germans account forany such number. Munich itself hasa population of less than a million,counting children. And those millions of gallons ofbeer, the hundreds of thousands ofchickens, the herds of oxen. Whoponied up all the money for such expenditures?How could the averageGerman, with his twenty-five dollarsa week salary? In Munich there was no hotelspace available. I went to the Bahnhofwhere they have a hotel serviceand applied. They put my namedown, pocketed the husky bribe,showed me where I could check mybag, told me they'd do what theycould, and to report back in a fewhours. I had another suspicious twinge.If five million people attended thisbeer bout, how were they accommodated? The Theresienwiese , the fairground, was only a few blocksaway. I was stiff from the plane rideso I walked. <doc-sep> There are seven major brewers inthe Munich area, each of them representedby one of the circuslike tentsthat Mr. Oyster mentioned. Each tentcontained benches and tables forabout five thousand persons and fromsix to ten thousands pack themselvesin, competing for room. In the centeris a tremendous bandstand, themusicians all lederhosen clad, themusic as Bavarian as any to be foundin a Bavarian beer hall. Hundreds ofpeasant garbed fräuleins darted aboutthe tables with quart sized earthenwaremugs, platters of chicken, sausage,kraut and pretzels. I found a place finally at a tablewhich had space for twenty-odd beerbibbers. Odd is right. As weird anassortment of Germans and foreigntourists as could have been dreamedup, ranging from a seventy- oreighty-year-old couple in Bavariancostume, to the bald-headed drunkacross the table from me. A desperate waitress bearing sixmugs of beer in each hand scurriedpast. They call them masses , by theway, not mugs. The bald-headedcharacter and I both held up a fingerand she slid two of the masses overto us and then hustled on. Down the hatch, the other said,holding up his mass in toast. To the ladies, I told him. Beforesipping, I said, You know, thetourist pamphlets say this stuff iseighteen per cent. That's nonsense.No beer is that strong. I took a longpull. He looked at me, waiting. I came up. Mistaken, I admitted. A mass or two apiece later he lookedcarefully at the name engraved onhis earthenware mug. Löwenbräu,he said. He took a small notebookfrom his pocket and a pencil, noteddown the word and returned thethings. That's a queer looking pencil youhave there, I told him. German? Venusian, he said. Oops, sorry.Shouldn't have said that. I had never heard of the brand soI skipped it. Next is the Hofbräu, he said. Next what? Baldy's conversationdidn't seem to hang together verywell. My pilgrimage, he told me. Allmy life I've been wanting to go backto an Oktoberfest and sample everyone of the seven brands of the bestbeer the world has ever known. I'monly as far as Löwenbräu. I'm afraidI'll never make it. I finished my mass . I'll helpyou, I told him. Very noble endeavor.Name is Simon. Arth, he said. How could youhelp? I'm still fresh—comparatively.I'll navigate you around. There areseven beer tents. How many have yougot through, so far? Two, counting this one, Arthsaid. I looked at him. It's going to bea chore, I said. You've already gota nice edge on. Outside, as we made our way tothe next tent, the fair looked likeevery big State-Fair ever seen, exceptit was bigger. Games, souvenirstands, sausage stands, rides, sideshows, and people, people, people. The Hofbräu tent was as overflowingas the last but we managed tofind two seats. The band was blaring, and fivethousand half-swacked voices wereroaring accompaniment. In Muenchen steht ein Hofbräuhaus! Eins, Zwei, G'sufa! At the G'sufa everybody uppedwith the mugs and drank each other'shealth. This is what I call a real beerbust, I said approvingly. Arth was waving to a waitress. Asin the Löwenbräu tent, a full quartwas the smallest amount obtainable. A beer later I said, I don't knowif you'll make it or not, Arth. Make what? All seven tents. Oh. A waitress was on her way by,mugs foaming over their rims. I gesturedto her for refills. Where are you from, Arth? Iasked him, in the way of makingconversation. 2183. 2183 where? He looked at me, closing one eyeto focus better. Oh, he said. Well,2183 South Street, ah, New Albuquerque. New Albuquerque? Where'sthat? Arth thought about it. Took anotherlong pull at the beer. Rightacross the way from old Albuquerque,he said finally. Maybe weought to be getting on to thePschorrbräu tent. Maybe we ought to eat somethingfirst, I said. I'm beginning to feelthis. We could get some of that barbecuedox. Arth closed his eyes in pain.Vegetarian, he said. Couldn't possiblyeat meat. Barbarous. Ugh. Well, we need some nourishment,I said. There's supposed to be considerablenourishment in beer. That made sense. I yelled, Fräulein!Zwei neu bier! <doc-sep> Somewhere along in here the fogrolled in. When it rolled out again,I found myself closing one eye thebetter to read the lettering on myearthenware mug. It read Augustinerbräu.Somehow we'd evidentlynavigated from one tent to another. Arth was saying, Where's yourhotel? That seemed like a good question.I thought about it for a while. FinallyI said, Haven't got one. Town'sjam packed. Left my bag at the Bahnhof.I don't think we'll ever makeit, Arth. How many we got togo? Lost track, Arth said. You cancome home with me. We drank to that and the fog rolledin again. When the fog rolled out, it wasdaylight. Bright, glaring, awful daylight.I was sprawled, complete withclothes, on one of twin beds. On theother bed, also completely clothed,was Arth. That sun was too much. I stumbledup from the bed, staggered tothe window and fumbled around fora blind or curtain. There was none. Behind me a voice said in horror,Who ... how ... oh, Wodo ,where'd you come from? I got a quick impression, lookingout the window, that the Germanswere certainly the most modern, futuristicpeople in the world. But Icouldn't stand the light. Where'sthe shade, I moaned. Arth did something and the windowwent opaque. That's quite a gadget, I groaned.If I didn't feel so lousy, I'dappreciate it. Arth was sitting on the edge ofthe bed holding his bald head in hishands. I remember now, he sorrowed.You didn't have a hotel.What a stupidity. I'll be phased.Phased all the way down. You haven't got a handful ofaspirin, have you? I asked him. Just a minute, Arth said, staggeringerect and heading for whatundoubtedly was a bathroom. Staywhere you are. Don't move. Don'ttouch anything. All right, I told him plaintively.I'm clean. I won't mess up theplace. All I've got is a hangover, notlice. Arth was gone. He came back intwo or three minutes, box of pills inhand. Here, take one of these. I took the pill, followed it with aglass of water. <doc-sep> And went out like a light. Arth was shaking my arm. Wantanother mass ? The band was blaring, and fivethousand half-swacked voices wereroaring accompaniment. In Muenchen steht ein Hofbräuhaus! Eins, Zwei, G'sufa! At the G'sufa everybody uppedwith their king-size mugs and drankeach other's health. My head was killing me. This iswhere I came in, or something, Igroaned. Arth said, That was last night.He looked at me over the rim of hisbeer mug. Something, somewhere, waswrong. But I didn't care. I finishedmy mass and then remembered. I'vegot to get my bag. Oh, my head.Where did we spend last night? Arth said, and his voice soundedcautious, At my hotel, don't you remember? Not very well, I admitted. Ifeel lousy. I must have dimmed out.I've got to go to the Bahnhof andget my luggage. Arth didn't put up an argumenton that. We said good-by and I couldfeel him watching after me as I pushedthrough the tables on the wayout. At the Bahnhof they could do meno good. There were no hotel roomsavailable in Munich. The head wasgetting worse by the minute. Thefact that they'd somehow managedto lose my bag didn't help. I workedon that project for at least a coupleof hours. Not only wasn't the bagat the luggage checking station, butthe attendant there evidently couldn'tmake heads nor tails of the checkreceipt. He didn't speak English andmy high school German was inadequate,especially accompanied by ablockbusting hangover. I didn't get anywhere tearing myhair and complaining from one endof the Bahnhof to the other. I drewa blank on the bag. And the head was getting worseby the minute. I was bleeding todeath through the eyes and insteadof butterflies I had bats in my stomach.Believe me, nobody should drinka gallon or more of Marzenbräu. <doc-sep> I decided the hell with it. I tooka cab to the airport, presented my returnticket, told them I wanted toleave on the first obtainable plane toNew York. I'd spent two days at the Oktoberfest , and I'd had it. I got more guff there. Somethingwas wrong with the ticket, wrongdate or some such. But they fixedthat up. I never was clear on whatwas fouled up, some clerk's error,evidently. The trip back was as uninterestingas the one over. As the hangover beganto wear off—a little—I was almostsorry I hadn't been able to stay.If I'd only been able to get a room I would have stayed, I told myself. From Idlewild, I came directly tothe office rather than going to myapartment. I figured I might as wellcheck in with Betty. I opened the door and there Ifound Mr. Oyster sitting in the chairhe had been occupying four—or wasit five—days before when I'd left.I'd lost track of the time. I said to him, Glad you're here,sir. I can report. Ah, what was ityou came for? Impatient to hear ifI'd had any results? My mind wasspinning like a whirling dervish ina revolving door. I'd spent a wad ofhis money and had nothing I couldthink of to show for it; nothing butthe last stages of a grand-daddyhangover. Came for? Mr. Oyster snorted.I'm merely waiting for your girl tomake out my receipt. I thought youhad already left. You'll miss your plane, Bettysaid. There was suddenly a double dipof ice cream in my stomach. I walkedover to my desk and looked down atthe calendar. Mr. Oyster was saying somethingto the effect that if I didn't leave today,it would have to be tomorrow,that he hadn't ponied up that thousanddollars advance for anythingless than immediate service. Stuffinghis receipt in his wallet, he fussedhis way out the door. I said to Betty hopefully, I supposeyou haven't changed this calendarsince I left. Betty said, What's the matterwith you? You look funny. How didyour clothes get so mussed? You torethe top sheet off that calendar yourself,not half an hour ago, just beforethis marble-missing client camein. She added, irrelevantly, Timetravelers yet. I tried just once more. Uh, whendid you first see this Mr. Oyster? Never saw him before in mylife, she said. Not until he camein this morning. This morning, I said weakly. While Betty stared at me as thoughit was me that needed candling by ahead shrinker preparatory to beingsent off to a pressure cooker, I fishedin my pocket for my wallet, countedthe contents and winced at thepathetic remains of the thousand.I said pleadingly, Betty, listen,how long ago did I go out that door—onthe way to the airport? You've been acting sick all morning.You went out that door aboutten minutes ago, were gone aboutthree minutes, and then came back. See here, Mr. Oyster said (interruptingSimon's story), did yousay this was supposed to be amusing,young man? I don't find it so. Infact, I believe I am being ridiculed. Simon shrugged, put one hand tohis forehead and said, That's onlythe first chapter. There are twomore. I'm not interested in more, Mr.Oyster said. I suppose your pointwas to show me how ridiculous thewhole idea actually is. Very well,you've done it. Confound it. However,I suppose your time, even whenspent in this manner, has some value.Here is fifty dollars. And good day,sir! He slammed the door after himas he left. Simon winced at the noise, tookthe aspirin bottle from its drawer,took two, washed them down withwater from the desk carafe. Betty looked at him admiringly.Came to her feet, crossed over andtook up the fifty dollars. Week'swages, she said. I suppose that'sone way of taking care of a crackpot.But I'm surprised you didn'ttake his money and enjoy that vacationyou've been yearning about. I did, Simon groaned. Threetimes. Betty stared at him. You mean— Simon nodded, miserably. She said, But Simon . Fifty thousanddollars bonus. If that story wastrue, you should have gone backagain to Munich. If there was onetime traveler, there might havebeen— I keep telling you, Simon saidbitterly, I went back there threetimes. There were hundreds of them.Probably thousands. He took a deepbreath. Listen, we're just going tohave to forget about it. They're notgoing to stand for the space-timecontinuum track being altered. Ifsomething comes up that looks likeit might result in the track beingchanged, they set you right back atthe beginning and let things start—foryou—all over again. They justcan't allow anything to come backfrom the future and change thepast. You mean, Betty was suddenlyfurious at him, you've given up!Why this is the biggest thing— Whythe fifty thousand dollars is nothing.The future! Just think! Simon said wearily, There's justone thing you can bring back withyou from the future, a hangover compoundedof a gallon or so of Marzenbräu.What's more you can pileone on top of the other, and anotheron top of that! He shuddered. If you think I'mgoing to take another crack at thismerry-go-round and pile a fourthhangover on the three I'm alreadynursing, all at once, you can thinkagain. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction June1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling andtypographical errors have been corrected without note.<doc-sep></s>

Oktoberfest, as described by Mr. Oyster, is held in Munich. It is the greatest festival the world has ever seen; each brewery opens a tremendous tent on the fairgrounds, holding five thousand customers apiece. There are millions of liters of beer, hundreds of thousands of barbecued chickens, oxen roasted over spits, millions of pairs of weisswurst sausage, and millions of pretzels. Since there are many people at Oktoberfest, it is perfect for strange people to blend in since nobody will notice. Oktoberfest is also mentioned to start on a Friday and continues for sixteen days. In Simon’s story, the seven major brewers of the Munich area are all represented by circus-like tents. Each tent contains benches and tables that can seat up to five thousand people. There is a tremendous bandstand in the tent's center, where the musicians are lederhosen-clad. The music is described to be Bavarian as well. It is described that there are many desperate waitresses as well, scrambling around and handing people masses of beer. In terms of people, it is extremely loud and crowded; tourists and German natives are all present and try to squeeze into the tents.

<s> UNBORN TOMORROW BY MACK REYNOLDS Unfortunately , there was onlyone thing he could bring backfrom the wonderful future ...and though he didn't want to... nevertheless he did.... Illustrated by Freas Betty looked up fromher magazine. She saidmildly, You're late. Don't yell at me, Ifeel awful, Simon toldher. He sat down at his desk, passedhis tongue over his teeth in distaste,groaned, fumbled in a drawer for theaspirin bottle. He looked over at Betty and said,almost as though reciting, What Ineed is a vacation. What, Betty said, are you goingto use for money? Providence, Simon told herwhilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle,will provide. Hm-m-m. But before providingvacations it'd be nice if Providenceturned up a missing jewel deal, say.Something where you could deducethat actually the ruby ring had gonedown the drain and was caught in theelbow. Something that would netabout fifty dollars. Simon said, mournful of tone,Fifty dollars? Why not make it fivehundred? I'm not selfish, Betty said. AllI want is enough to pay me thisweek's salary. Money, Simon said. When youtook this job you said it was the romancethat appealed to you. Hm-m-m. I didn't know mostsleuthing amounted to snoopingaround department stores to check onthe clerks knocking down. Simon said, enigmatically, Nowit comes. <doc-sep> There was a knock. Betty bounced up with Olympicagility and had the door swingingwide before the knocking was quitecompleted. He was old, little and had bugeyes behind pince-nez glasses. Hissuit was cut in the style of yesteryearbut when a suit costs two orthree hundred dollars you still retaincaste whatever the styling. Simon said unenthusiastically,Good morning, Mr. Oyster. He indicatedthe client's chair. Sit down,sir. The client fussed himself withBetty's assistance into the seat, bug-eyedSimon, said finally, You knowmy name, that's pretty good. Neversaw you before in my life. Stop fussingwith me, young lady. Your adin the phone book says you'll investigateanything. Anything, Simon said. Onlyone exception. Excellent. Do you believe in timetravel? Simon said nothing. Across theroom, where she had resumed herseat, Betty cleared her throat. WhenSimon continued to say nothing sheventured, Time travel is impossible. Why? Why? Yes, why? Betty looked to her boss for assistance.None was forthcoming. Thereought to be some very quick, positive,definite answer. She said, Well,for one thing, paradox. Suppose youhad a time machine and traveled backa hundred years or so and killed yourown great-grandfather. Then howcould you ever be born? Confound it if I know, the littlefellow growled. How? Simon said, Let's get to the point,what you wanted to see me about. I want to hire you to hunt me upsome time travelers, the old boysaid. Betty was too far in now to maintainher proper role of silent secretary.Time travelers, she said, notvery intelligently. The potential client sat more erect,obviously with intent to hold thefloor for a time. He removed thepince-nez glasses and pointed themat Betty. He said, Have you readmuch science fiction, Miss? Some, Betty admitted. Then you'll realize that there area dozen explanations of the paradoxesof time travel. Every writer inthe field worth his salt has explainedthem away. But to get on. It's mycontention that within a century orso man will have solved the problemsof immortality and eternal youth, andit's also my suspicion that he willeventually be able to travel in time.So convinced am I of these possibilitiesthat I am willing to gamble aportion of my fortune to investigatethe presence in our era of such timetravelers. Simon seemed incapable of carryingthe ball this morning, so Bettysaid, But ... Mr. Oyster, if thefuture has developed time travel whydon't we ever meet such travelers? Simon put in a word. The usualexplanation, Betty, is that they can'tafford to allow the space-time continuumtrack to be altered. If, say, atime traveler returned to a period oftwenty-five years ago and shot Hitler,then all subsequent history would bechanged. In that case, the time travelerhimself might never be born. Theyhave to tread mighty carefully. Mr. Oyster was pleased. I didn'texpect you to be so well informedon the subject, young man. Simon shrugged and fumbledagain with the aspirin bottle. <doc-sep> Mr. Oyster went on. I've beenconsidering the matter for some timeand— Simon held up a hand. There'sno use prolonging this. As I understandit, you're an elderly gentlemanwith a considerable fortune and yourealize that thus far nobody has succeededin taking it with him. Mr. Oyster returned his glasses totheir perch, bug-eyed Simon, but thennodded. Simon said, You want to hire meto find a time traveler and in somemanner or other—any manner willdo—exhort from him the secret ofeternal life and youth, which you figurethe future will have discovered.You're willing to pony up a part ofthis fortune of yours, if I can delivera bona fide time traveler. Right! Betty had been looking from oneto the other. Now she said, plaintively,But where are you going to findone of these characters—especially ifthey're interested in keeping hid? The old boy was the center again.I told you I'd been considering itfor some time. The Oktoberfest ,that's where they'd be! He seemedelated. Betty and Simon waited. The Oktoberfest , he repeated.The greatest festival the world hasever seen, the carnival, feria , fiesta to beat them all. Every year it's heldin Munich. Makes the New OrleansMardi gras look like a quiltingparty. He began to swing into thespirit of his description. It originallystarted in celebration of the weddingof some local prince a centuryand a half ago and the Bavarians hadsuch a bang-up time they've beenholding it every year since. TheMunich breweries do up a specialbeer, Marzenbräu they call it, andeach brewery opens a tremendous tenton the fair grounds which will holdfive thousand customers apiece. Millionsof liters of beer are put away,hundreds of thousands of barbecuedchickens, a small herd of oxen areroasted whole over spits, millions ofpair of weisswurst , a very specialsausage, millions upon millions ofpretzels— All right, Simon said. We'll acceptit. The Oktoberfest is one whaleof a wingding. <doc-sep> Well, the old boy pursued, intohis subject now, that's where they'dbe, places like the Oktoberfest . Forone thing, a time traveler wouldn'tbe conspicuous. At a festival like thissomebody with a strange accent, orwho didn't know exactly how to wearhis clothes correctly, or was off theordinary in any of a dozen otherways, wouldn't be noticed. You couldbe a four-armed space traveler fromMars, and you still wouldn't be conspicuousat the Oktoberfest . Peoplewould figure they had D.T.'s. But why would a time travelerwant to go to a— Betty began. Why not! What better opportunityto study a people than when theyare in their cups? If you could goback a few thousand years, the thingsyou would wish to see would be aRoman Triumph, perhaps the Ritesof Dionysus, or one of Alexander'sorgies. You wouldn't want to wanderup and down the streets of, say,Athens while nothing was going on,particularly when you might be revealedas a suspicious character notbeing able to speak the language, notknowing how to wear the clothes andnot familiar with the city's layout.He took a deep breath. No ma'am,you'd have to stick to some greatevent, both for the sake of actualinterest and for protection against beingunmasked. The old boy wound it up. Well,that's the story. What are your rates?The Oktoberfest starts on Friday andcontinues for sixteen days. You cantake the plane to Munich, spend aweek there and— Simon was shaking his head. Notinterested. As soon as Betty had got her jawback into place, she glared unbelievinglyat him. Mr. Oyster was taken aback himself.See here, young man, I realizethis isn't an ordinary assignment,however, as I said, I am willing torisk a considerable portion of myfortune— Sorry, Simon said. Can't bedone. A hundred dollars a day plus expenses,Mr. Oyster said quietly. Ilike the fact that you already seemto have some interest and knowledgeof the matter. I liked the way youknew my name when I walked in thedoor; my picture doesn't appear oftenin the papers. No go, Simon said, a sad qualityin his voice. A fifty thousand dollar bonus ifyou bring me a time traveler. Out of the question, Simonsaid. But why ? Betty wailed. Just for laughs, Simon told thetwo of them sourly, suppose I tellyou a funny story. It goes likethis: I got a thousand dollars from Mr.Oyster (Simon began) in the wayof an advance, and leaving him withBetty who was making out a receipt,I hustled back to the apartment andpacked a bag. Hell, I'd wanted a vacationanyway, this was a natural. Onthe way to Idlewild I stopped off atthe Germany Information Offices forsome tourist literature. It takes roughly three and a halfhours to get to Gander from Idlewild.I spent the time planning thefun I was going to have. It takes roughly seven and a halfhours from Gander to Shannon andI spent that time dreaming up materialI could put into my reports toMr. Oyster. I was going to have togive him some kind of report for hismoney. Time travel yet! What alaugh! Between Shannon and Munich afaint suspicion began to simmer inmy mind. These statistics I read onthe Oktoberfest in the Munich touristpamphlets. Five million peopleattended annually. Where did five million peoplecome from to attend an overgrownfestival in comparatively remoteSouthern Germany? The tourist seasonis over before September 21st,first day of the gigantic beer bust.Nor could the Germans account forany such number. Munich itself hasa population of less than a million,counting children. And those millions of gallons ofbeer, the hundreds of thousands ofchickens, the herds of oxen. Whoponied up all the money for such expenditures?How could the averageGerman, with his twenty-five dollarsa week salary? In Munich there was no hotelspace available. I went to the Bahnhofwhere they have a hotel serviceand applied. They put my namedown, pocketed the husky bribe,showed me where I could check mybag, told me they'd do what theycould, and to report back in a fewhours. I had another suspicious twinge.If five million people attended thisbeer bout, how were they accommodated? The Theresienwiese , the fairground, was only a few blocksaway. I was stiff from the plane rideso I walked. <doc-sep> There are seven major brewers inthe Munich area, each of them representedby one of the circuslike tentsthat Mr. Oyster mentioned. Each tentcontained benches and tables forabout five thousand persons and fromsix to ten thousands pack themselvesin, competing for room. In the centeris a tremendous bandstand, themusicians all lederhosen clad, themusic as Bavarian as any to be foundin a Bavarian beer hall. Hundreds ofpeasant garbed fräuleins darted aboutthe tables with quart sized earthenwaremugs, platters of chicken, sausage,kraut and pretzels. I found a place finally at a tablewhich had space for twenty-odd beerbibbers. Odd is right. As weird anassortment of Germans and foreigntourists as could have been dreamedup, ranging from a seventy- oreighty-year-old couple in Bavariancostume, to the bald-headed drunkacross the table from me. A desperate waitress bearing sixmugs of beer in each hand scurriedpast. They call them masses , by theway, not mugs. The bald-headedcharacter and I both held up a fingerand she slid two of the masses overto us and then hustled on. Down the hatch, the other said,holding up his mass in toast. To the ladies, I told him. Beforesipping, I said, You know, thetourist pamphlets say this stuff iseighteen per cent. That's nonsense.No beer is that strong. I took a longpull. He looked at me, waiting. I came up. Mistaken, I admitted. A mass or two apiece later he lookedcarefully at the name engraved onhis earthenware mug. Löwenbräu,he said. He took a small notebookfrom his pocket and a pencil, noteddown the word and returned thethings. That's a queer looking pencil youhave there, I told him. German? Venusian, he said. Oops, sorry.Shouldn't have said that. I had never heard of the brand soI skipped it. Next is the Hofbräu, he said. Next what? Baldy's conversationdidn't seem to hang together verywell. My pilgrimage, he told me. Allmy life I've been wanting to go backto an Oktoberfest and sample everyone of the seven brands of the bestbeer the world has ever known. I'monly as far as Löwenbräu. I'm afraidI'll never make it. I finished my mass . I'll helpyou, I told him. Very noble endeavor.Name is Simon. Arth, he said. How could youhelp? I'm still fresh—comparatively.I'll navigate you around. There areseven beer tents. How many have yougot through, so far? Two, counting this one, Arthsaid. I looked at him. It's going to bea chore, I said. You've already gota nice edge on. Outside, as we made our way tothe next tent, the fair looked likeevery big State-Fair ever seen, exceptit was bigger. Games, souvenirstands, sausage stands, rides, sideshows, and people, people, people. The Hofbräu tent was as overflowingas the last but we managed tofind two seats. The band was blaring, and fivethousand half-swacked voices wereroaring accompaniment. In Muenchen steht ein Hofbräuhaus! Eins, Zwei, G'sufa! At the G'sufa everybody uppedwith the mugs and drank each other'shealth. This is what I call a real beerbust, I said approvingly. Arth was waving to a waitress. Asin the Löwenbräu tent, a full quartwas the smallest amount obtainable. A beer later I said, I don't knowif you'll make it or not, Arth. Make what? All seven tents. Oh. A waitress was on her way by,mugs foaming over their rims. I gesturedto her for refills. Where are you from, Arth? Iasked him, in the way of makingconversation. 2183. 2183 where? He looked at me, closing one eyeto focus better. Oh, he said. Well,2183 South Street, ah, New Albuquerque. New Albuquerque? Where'sthat? Arth thought about it. Took anotherlong pull at the beer. Rightacross the way from old Albuquerque,he said finally. Maybe weought to be getting on to thePschorrbräu tent. Maybe we ought to eat somethingfirst, I said. I'm beginning to feelthis. We could get some of that barbecuedox. Arth closed his eyes in pain.Vegetarian, he said. Couldn't possiblyeat meat. Barbarous. Ugh. Well, we need some nourishment,I said. There's supposed to be considerablenourishment in beer. That made sense. I yelled, Fräulein!Zwei neu bier! <doc-sep> Somewhere along in here the fogrolled in. When it rolled out again,I found myself closing one eye thebetter to read the lettering on myearthenware mug. It read Augustinerbräu.Somehow we'd evidentlynavigated from one tent to another. Arth was saying, Where's yourhotel? That seemed like a good question.I thought about it for a while. FinallyI said, Haven't got one. Town'sjam packed. Left my bag at the Bahnhof.I don't think we'll ever makeit, Arth. How many we got togo? Lost track, Arth said. You cancome home with me. We drank to that and the fog rolledin again. When the fog rolled out, it wasdaylight. Bright, glaring, awful daylight.I was sprawled, complete withclothes, on one of twin beds. On theother bed, also completely clothed,was Arth. That sun was too much. I stumbledup from the bed, staggered tothe window and fumbled around fora blind or curtain. There was none. Behind me a voice said in horror,Who ... how ... oh, Wodo ,where'd you come from? I got a quick impression, lookingout the window, that the Germanswere certainly the most modern, futuristicpeople in the world. But Icouldn't stand the light. Where'sthe shade, I moaned. Arth did something and the windowwent opaque. That's quite a gadget, I groaned.If I didn't feel so lousy, I'dappreciate it. Arth was sitting on the edge ofthe bed holding his bald head in hishands. I remember now, he sorrowed.You didn't have a hotel.What a stupidity. I'll be phased.Phased all the way down. You haven't got a handful ofaspirin, have you? I asked him. Just a minute, Arth said, staggeringerect and heading for whatundoubtedly was a bathroom. Staywhere you are. Don't move. Don'ttouch anything. All right, I told him plaintively.I'm clean. I won't mess up theplace. All I've got is a hangover, notlice. Arth was gone. He came back intwo or three minutes, box of pills inhand. Here, take one of these. I took the pill, followed it with aglass of water. <doc-sep> And went out like a light. Arth was shaking my arm. Wantanother mass ? The band was blaring, and fivethousand half-swacked voices wereroaring accompaniment. In Muenchen steht ein Hofbräuhaus! Eins, Zwei, G'sufa! At the G'sufa everybody uppedwith their king-size mugs and drankeach other's health. My head was killing me. This iswhere I came in, or something, Igroaned. Arth said, That was last night.He looked at me over the rim of hisbeer mug. Something, somewhere, waswrong. But I didn't care. I finishedmy mass and then remembered. I'vegot to get my bag. Oh, my head.Where did we spend last night? Arth said, and his voice soundedcautious, At my hotel, don't you remember? Not very well, I admitted. Ifeel lousy. I must have dimmed out.I've got to go to the Bahnhof andget my luggage. Arth didn't put up an argumenton that. We said good-by and I couldfeel him watching after me as I pushedthrough the tables on the wayout. At the Bahnhof they could do meno good. There were no hotel roomsavailable in Munich. The head wasgetting worse by the minute. Thefact that they'd somehow managedto lose my bag didn't help. I workedon that project for at least a coupleof hours. Not only wasn't the bagat the luggage checking station, butthe attendant there evidently couldn'tmake heads nor tails of the checkreceipt. He didn't speak English andmy high school German was inadequate,especially accompanied by ablockbusting hangover. I didn't get anywhere tearing myhair and complaining from one endof the Bahnhof to the other. I drewa blank on the bag. And the head was getting worseby the minute. I was bleeding todeath through the eyes and insteadof butterflies I had bats in my stomach.Believe me, nobody should drinka gallon or more of Marzenbräu. <doc-sep> I decided the hell with it. I tooka cab to the airport, presented my returnticket, told them I wanted toleave on the first obtainable plane toNew York. I'd spent two days at the Oktoberfest , and I'd had it. I got more guff there. Somethingwas wrong with the ticket, wrongdate or some such. But they fixedthat up. I never was clear on whatwas fouled up, some clerk's error,evidently. The trip back was as uninterestingas the one over. As the hangover beganto wear off—a little—I was almostsorry I hadn't been able to stay.If I'd only been able to get a room I would have stayed, I told myself. From Idlewild, I came directly tothe office rather than going to myapartment. I figured I might as wellcheck in with Betty. I opened the door and there Ifound Mr. Oyster sitting in the chairhe had been occupying four—or wasit five—days before when I'd left.I'd lost track of the time. I said to him, Glad you're here,sir. I can report. Ah, what was ityou came for? Impatient to hear ifI'd had any results? My mind wasspinning like a whirling dervish ina revolving door. I'd spent a wad ofhis money and had nothing I couldthink of to show for it; nothing butthe last stages of a grand-daddyhangover. Came for? Mr. Oyster snorted.I'm merely waiting for your girl tomake out my receipt. I thought youhad already left. You'll miss your plane, Bettysaid. There was suddenly a double dipof ice cream in my stomach. I walkedover to my desk and looked down atthe calendar. Mr. Oyster was saying somethingto the effect that if I didn't leave today,it would have to be tomorrow,that he hadn't ponied up that thousanddollars advance for anythingless than immediate service. Stuffinghis receipt in his wallet, he fussedhis way out the door. I said to Betty hopefully, I supposeyou haven't changed this calendarsince I left. Betty said, What's the matterwith you? You look funny. How didyour clothes get so mussed? You torethe top sheet off that calendar yourself,not half an hour ago, just beforethis marble-missing client camein. She added, irrelevantly, Timetravelers yet. I tried just once more. Uh, whendid you first see this Mr. Oyster? Never saw him before in mylife, she said. Not until he camein this morning. This morning, I said weakly. While Betty stared at me as thoughit was me that needed candling by ahead shrinker preparatory to beingsent off to a pressure cooker, I fishedin my pocket for my wallet, countedthe contents and winced at thepathetic remains of the thousand.I said pleadingly, Betty, listen,how long ago did I go out that door—onthe way to the airport? You've been acting sick all morning.You went out that door aboutten minutes ago, were gone aboutthree minutes, and then came back. See here, Mr. Oyster said (interruptingSimon's story), did yousay this was supposed to be amusing,young man? I don't find it so. Infact, I believe I am being ridiculed. Simon shrugged, put one hand tohis forehead and said, That's onlythe first chapter. There are twomore. I'm not interested in more, Mr.Oyster said. I suppose your pointwas to show me how ridiculous thewhole idea actually is. Very well,you've done it. Confound it. However,I suppose your time, even whenspent in this manner, has some value.Here is fifty dollars. And good day,sir! He slammed the door after himas he left. Simon winced at the noise, tookthe aspirin bottle from its drawer,took two, washed them down withwater from the desk carafe. Betty looked at him admiringly.Came to her feet, crossed over andtook up the fifty dollars. Week'swages, she said. I suppose that'sone way of taking care of a crackpot.But I'm surprised you didn'ttake his money and enjoy that vacationyou've been yearning about. I did, Simon groaned. Threetimes. Betty stared at him. You mean— Simon nodded, miserably. She said, But Simon . Fifty thousanddollars bonus. If that story wastrue, you should have gone backagain to Munich. If there was onetime traveler, there might havebeen— I keep telling you, Simon saidbitterly, I went back there threetimes. There were hundreds of them.Probably thousands. He took a deepbreath. Listen, we're just going tohave to forget about it. They're notgoing to stand for the space-timecontinuum track being altered. Ifsomething comes up that looks likeit might result in the track beingchanged, they set you right back atthe beginning and let things start—foryou—all over again. They justcan't allow anything to come backfrom the future and change thepast. You mean, Betty was suddenlyfurious at him, you've given up!Why this is the biggest thing— Whythe fifty thousand dollars is nothing.The future! Just think! Simon said wearily, There's justone thing you can bring back withyou from the future, a hangover compoundedof a gallon or so of Marzenbräu.What's more you can pileone on top of the other, and anotheron top of that! He shuddered. If you think I'mgoing to take another crack at thismerry-go-round and pile a fourthhangover on the three I'm alreadynursing, all at once, you can thinkagain. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction June1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling andtypographical errors have been corrected without note.<doc-sep></s>

Arth is a bald man at Oktoberfest. He is first introduced as a bald-headed drunk who sits across from Simon. They share a beer together and toast. After, Arth makes a note to write down the name engraved on his mug in a small notebook with a pencil. When Simon asks if he is German, Arth accidentally responds that his pencil is Venusian. Arth is very determined to fulfill his pilgrimage of trying every single beer at Oktoberfest, but he is disappointed that he will never make it. Simon asks him where he is from when they go to another tent, and Arth responds that he is from 2183 South St in New Albuquerque; it is situated right across Old Albuquerque. Arth also has a kind side to him, as he offers to take Simon to his hotel to rest for the night. He even offers Simon a box of pills to help with his hangover. When they go back to drinking again, he looks at Simon cautiously when the latter does not remember where he spent the night. Arth looks at Simon strangely as he goes back, even though he is initially portrayed as a friendly and kind bald man.

<s> UNBORN TOMORROW BY MACK REYNOLDS Unfortunately , there was onlyone thing he could bring backfrom the wonderful future ...and though he didn't want to... nevertheless he did.... Illustrated by Freas Betty looked up fromher magazine. She saidmildly, You're late. Don't yell at me, Ifeel awful, Simon toldher. He sat down at his desk, passedhis tongue over his teeth in distaste,groaned, fumbled in a drawer for theaspirin bottle. He looked over at Betty and said,almost as though reciting, What Ineed is a vacation. What, Betty said, are you goingto use for money? Providence, Simon told herwhilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle,will provide. Hm-m-m. But before providingvacations it'd be nice if Providenceturned up a missing jewel deal, say.Something where you could deducethat actually the ruby ring had gonedown the drain and was caught in theelbow. Something that would netabout fifty dollars. Simon said, mournful of tone,Fifty dollars? Why not make it fivehundred? I'm not selfish, Betty said. AllI want is enough to pay me thisweek's salary. Money, Simon said. When youtook this job you said it was the romancethat appealed to you. Hm-m-m. I didn't know mostsleuthing amounted to snoopingaround department stores to check onthe clerks knocking down. Simon said, enigmatically, Nowit comes. <doc-sep> There was a knock. Betty bounced up with Olympicagility and had the door swingingwide before the knocking was quitecompleted. He was old, little and had bugeyes behind pince-nez glasses. Hissuit was cut in the style of yesteryearbut when a suit costs two orthree hundred dollars you still retaincaste whatever the styling. Simon said unenthusiastically,Good morning, Mr. Oyster. He indicatedthe client's chair. Sit down,sir. The client fussed himself withBetty's assistance into the seat, bug-eyedSimon, said finally, You knowmy name, that's pretty good. Neversaw you before in my life. Stop fussingwith me, young lady. Your adin the phone book says you'll investigateanything. Anything, Simon said. Onlyone exception. Excellent. Do you believe in timetravel? Simon said nothing. Across theroom, where she had resumed herseat, Betty cleared her throat. WhenSimon continued to say nothing sheventured, Time travel is impossible. Why? Why? Yes, why? Betty looked to her boss for assistance.None was forthcoming. Thereought to be some very quick, positive,definite answer. She said, Well,for one thing, paradox. Suppose youhad a time machine and traveled backa hundred years or so and killed yourown great-grandfather. Then howcould you ever be born? Confound it if I know, the littlefellow growled. How? Simon said, Let's get to the point,what you wanted to see me about. I want to hire you to hunt me upsome time travelers, the old boysaid. Betty was too far in now to maintainher proper role of silent secretary.Time travelers, she said, notvery intelligently. The potential client sat more erect,obviously with intent to hold thefloor for a time. He removed thepince-nez glasses and pointed themat Betty. He said, Have you readmuch science fiction, Miss? Some, Betty admitted. Then you'll realize that there area dozen explanations of the paradoxesof time travel. Every writer inthe field worth his salt has explainedthem away. But to get on. It's mycontention that within a century orso man will have solved the problemsof immortality and eternal youth, andit's also my suspicion that he willeventually be able to travel in time.So convinced am I of these possibilitiesthat I am willing to gamble aportion of my fortune to investigatethe presence in our era of such timetravelers. Simon seemed incapable of carryingthe ball this morning, so Bettysaid, But ... Mr. Oyster, if thefuture has developed time travel whydon't we ever meet such travelers? Simon put in a word. The usualexplanation, Betty, is that they can'tafford to allow the space-time continuumtrack to be altered. If, say, atime traveler returned to a period oftwenty-five years ago and shot Hitler,then all subsequent history would bechanged. In that case, the time travelerhimself might never be born. Theyhave to tread mighty carefully. Mr. Oyster was pleased. I didn'texpect you to be so well informedon the subject, young man. Simon shrugged and fumbledagain with the aspirin bottle. <doc-sep> Mr. Oyster went on. I've beenconsidering the matter for some timeand— Simon held up a hand. There'sno use prolonging this. As I understandit, you're an elderly gentlemanwith a considerable fortune and yourealize that thus far nobody has succeededin taking it with him. Mr. Oyster returned his glasses totheir perch, bug-eyed Simon, but thennodded. Simon said, You want to hire meto find a time traveler and in somemanner or other—any manner willdo—exhort from him the secret ofeternal life and youth, which you figurethe future will have discovered.You're willing to pony up a part ofthis fortune of yours, if I can delivera bona fide time traveler. Right! Betty had been looking from oneto the other. Now she said, plaintively,But where are you going to findone of these characters—especially ifthey're interested in keeping hid? The old boy was the center again.I told you I'd been considering itfor some time. The Oktoberfest ,that's where they'd be! He seemedelated. Betty and Simon waited. The Oktoberfest , he repeated.The greatest festival the world hasever seen, the carnival, feria , fiesta to beat them all. Every year it's heldin Munich. Makes the New OrleansMardi gras look like a quiltingparty. He began to swing into thespirit of his description. It originallystarted in celebration of the weddingof some local prince a centuryand a half ago and the Bavarians hadsuch a bang-up time they've beenholding it every year since. TheMunich breweries do up a specialbeer, Marzenbräu they call it, andeach brewery opens a tremendous tenton the fair grounds which will holdfive thousand customers apiece. Millionsof liters of beer are put away,hundreds of thousands of barbecuedchickens, a small herd of oxen areroasted whole over spits, millions ofpair of weisswurst , a very specialsausage, millions upon millions ofpretzels— All right, Simon said. We'll acceptit. The Oktoberfest is one whaleof a wingding. <doc-sep> Well, the old boy pursued, intohis subject now, that's where they'dbe, places like the Oktoberfest . Forone thing, a time traveler wouldn'tbe conspicuous. At a festival like thissomebody with a strange accent, orwho didn't know exactly how to wearhis clothes correctly, or was off theordinary in any of a dozen otherways, wouldn't be noticed. You couldbe a four-armed space traveler fromMars, and you still wouldn't be conspicuousat the Oktoberfest . Peoplewould figure they had D.T.'s. But why would a time travelerwant to go to a— Betty began. Why not! What better opportunityto study a people than when theyare in their cups? If you could goback a few thousand years, the thingsyou would wish to see would be aRoman Triumph, perhaps the Ritesof Dionysus, or one of Alexander'sorgies. You wouldn't want to wanderup and down the streets of, say,Athens while nothing was going on,particularly when you might be revealedas a suspicious character notbeing able to speak the language, notknowing how to wear the clothes andnot familiar with the city's layout.He took a deep breath. No ma'am,you'd have to stick to some greatevent, both for the sake of actualinterest and for protection against beingunmasked. The old boy wound it up. Well,that's the story. What are your rates?The Oktoberfest starts on Friday andcontinues for sixteen days. You cantake the plane to Munich, spend aweek there and— Simon was shaking his head. Notinterested. As soon as Betty had got her jawback into place, she glared unbelievinglyat him. Mr. Oyster was taken aback himself.See here, young man, I realizethis isn't an ordinary assignment,however, as I said, I am willing torisk a considerable portion of myfortune— Sorry, Simon said. Can't bedone. A hundred dollars a day plus expenses,Mr. Oyster said quietly. Ilike the fact that you already seemto have some interest and knowledgeof the matter. I liked the way youknew my name when I walked in thedoor; my picture doesn't appear oftenin the papers. No go, Simon said, a sad qualityin his voice. A fifty thousand dollar bonus ifyou bring me a time traveler. Out of the question, Simonsaid. But why ? Betty wailed. Just for laughs, Simon told thetwo of them sourly, suppose I tellyou a funny story. It goes likethis: I got a thousand dollars from Mr.Oyster (Simon began) in the wayof an advance, and leaving him withBetty who was making out a receipt,I hustled back to the apartment andpacked a bag. Hell, I'd wanted a vacationanyway, this was a natural. Onthe way to Idlewild I stopped off atthe Germany Information Offices forsome tourist literature. It takes roughly three and a halfhours to get to Gander from Idlewild.I spent the time planning thefun I was going to have. It takes roughly seven and a halfhours from Gander to Shannon andI spent that time dreaming up materialI could put into my reports toMr. Oyster. I was going to have togive him some kind of report for hismoney. Time travel yet! What alaugh! Between Shannon and Munich afaint suspicion began to simmer inmy mind. These statistics I read onthe Oktoberfest in the Munich touristpamphlets. Five million peopleattended annually. Where did five million peoplecome from to attend an overgrownfestival in comparatively remoteSouthern Germany? The tourist seasonis over before September 21st,first day of the gigantic beer bust.Nor could the Germans account forany such number. Munich itself hasa population of less than a million,counting children. And those millions of gallons ofbeer, the hundreds of thousands ofchickens, the herds of oxen. Whoponied up all the money for such expenditures?How could the averageGerman, with his twenty-five dollarsa week salary? In Munich there was no hotelspace available. I went to the Bahnhofwhere they have a hotel serviceand applied. They put my namedown, pocketed the husky bribe,showed me where I could check mybag, told me they'd do what theycould, and to report back in a fewhours. I had another suspicious twinge.If five million people attended thisbeer bout, how were they accommodated? The Theresienwiese , the fairground, was only a few blocksaway. I was stiff from the plane rideso I walked. <doc-sep> There are seven major brewers inthe Munich area, each of them representedby one of the circuslike tentsthat Mr. Oyster mentioned. Each tentcontained benches and tables forabout five thousand persons and fromsix to ten thousands pack themselvesin, competing for room. In the centeris a tremendous bandstand, themusicians all lederhosen clad, themusic as Bavarian as any to be foundin a Bavarian beer hall. Hundreds ofpeasant garbed fräuleins darted aboutthe tables with quart sized earthenwaremugs, platters of chicken, sausage,kraut and pretzels. I found a place finally at a tablewhich had space for twenty-odd beerbibbers. Odd is right. As weird anassortment of Germans and foreigntourists as could have been dreamedup, ranging from a seventy- oreighty-year-old couple in Bavariancostume, to the bald-headed drunkacross the table from me. A desperate waitress bearing sixmugs of beer in each hand scurriedpast. They call them masses , by theway, not mugs. The bald-headedcharacter and I both held up a fingerand she slid two of the masses overto us and then hustled on. Down the hatch, the other said,holding up his mass in toast. To the ladies, I told him. Beforesipping, I said, You know, thetourist pamphlets say this stuff iseighteen per cent. That's nonsense.No beer is that strong. I took a longpull. He looked at me, waiting. I came up. Mistaken, I admitted. A mass or two apiece later he lookedcarefully at the name engraved onhis earthenware mug. Löwenbräu,he said. He took a small notebookfrom his pocket and a pencil, noteddown the word and returned thethings. That's a queer looking pencil youhave there, I told him. German? Venusian, he said. Oops, sorry.Shouldn't have said that. I had never heard of the brand soI skipped it. Next is the Hofbräu, he said. Next what? Baldy's conversationdidn't seem to hang together verywell. My pilgrimage, he told me. Allmy life I've been wanting to go backto an Oktoberfest and sample everyone of the seven brands of the bestbeer the world has ever known. I'monly as far as Löwenbräu. I'm afraidI'll never make it. I finished my mass . I'll helpyou, I told him. Very noble endeavor.Name is Simon. Arth, he said. How could youhelp? I'm still fresh—comparatively.I'll navigate you around. There areseven beer tents. How many have yougot through, so far? Two, counting this one, Arthsaid. I looked at him. It's going to bea chore, I said. You've already gota nice edge on. Outside, as we made our way tothe next tent, the fair looked likeevery big State-Fair ever seen, exceptit was bigger. Games, souvenirstands, sausage stands, rides, sideshows, and people, people, people. The Hofbräu tent was as overflowingas the last but we managed tofind two seats. The band was blaring, and fivethousand half-swacked voices wereroaring accompaniment. In Muenchen steht ein Hofbräuhaus! Eins, Zwei, G'sufa! At the G'sufa everybody uppedwith the mugs and drank each other'shealth. This is what I call a real beerbust, I said approvingly. Arth was waving to a waitress. Asin the Löwenbräu tent, a full quartwas the smallest amount obtainable. A beer later I said, I don't knowif you'll make it or not, Arth. Make what? All seven tents. Oh. A waitress was on her way by,mugs foaming over their rims. I gesturedto her for refills. Where are you from, Arth? Iasked him, in the way of makingconversation. 2183. 2183 where? He looked at me, closing one eyeto focus better. Oh, he said. Well,2183 South Street, ah, New Albuquerque. New Albuquerque? Where'sthat? Arth thought about it. Took anotherlong pull at the beer. Rightacross the way from old Albuquerque,he said finally. Maybe weought to be getting on to thePschorrbräu tent. Maybe we ought to eat somethingfirst, I said. I'm beginning to feelthis. We could get some of that barbecuedox. Arth closed his eyes in pain.Vegetarian, he said. Couldn't possiblyeat meat. Barbarous. Ugh. Well, we need some nourishment,I said. There's supposed to be considerablenourishment in beer. That made sense. I yelled, Fräulein!Zwei neu bier! <doc-sep> Somewhere along in here the fogrolled in. When it rolled out again,I found myself closing one eye thebetter to read the lettering on myearthenware mug. It read Augustinerbräu.Somehow we'd evidentlynavigated from one tent to another. Arth was saying, Where's yourhotel? That seemed like a good question.I thought about it for a while. FinallyI said, Haven't got one. Town'sjam packed. Left my bag at the Bahnhof.I don't think we'll ever makeit, Arth. How many we got togo? Lost track, Arth said. You cancome home with me. We drank to that and the fog rolledin again. When the fog rolled out, it wasdaylight. Bright, glaring, awful daylight.I was sprawled, complete withclothes, on one of twin beds. On theother bed, also completely clothed,was Arth. That sun was too much. I stumbledup from the bed, staggered tothe window and fumbled around fora blind or curtain. There was none. Behind me a voice said in horror,Who ... how ... oh, Wodo ,where'd you come from? I got a quick impression, lookingout the window, that the Germanswere certainly the most modern, futuristicpeople in the world. But Icouldn't stand the light. Where'sthe shade, I moaned. Arth did something and the windowwent opaque. That's quite a gadget, I groaned.If I didn't feel so lousy, I'dappreciate it. Arth was sitting on the edge ofthe bed holding his bald head in hishands. I remember now, he sorrowed.You didn't have a hotel.What a stupidity. I'll be phased.Phased all the way down. You haven't got a handful ofaspirin, have you? I asked him. Just a minute, Arth said, staggeringerect and heading for whatundoubtedly was a bathroom. Staywhere you are. Don't move. Don'ttouch anything. All right, I told him plaintively.I'm clean. I won't mess up theplace. All I've got is a hangover, notlice. Arth was gone. He came back intwo or three minutes, box of pills inhand. Here, take one of these. I took the pill, followed it with aglass of water. <doc-sep> And went out like a light. Arth was shaking my arm. Wantanother mass ? The band was blaring, and fivethousand half-swacked voices wereroaring accompaniment. In Muenchen steht ein Hofbräuhaus! Eins, Zwei, G'sufa! At the G'sufa everybody uppedwith their king-size mugs and drankeach other's health. My head was killing me. This iswhere I came in, or something, Igroaned. Arth said, That was last night.He looked at me over the rim of hisbeer mug. Something, somewhere, waswrong. But I didn't care. I finishedmy mass and then remembered. I'vegot to get my bag. Oh, my head.Where did we spend last night? Arth said, and his voice soundedcautious, At my hotel, don't you remember? Not very well, I admitted. Ifeel lousy. I must have dimmed out.I've got to go to the Bahnhof andget my luggage. Arth didn't put up an argumenton that. We said good-by and I couldfeel him watching after me as I pushedthrough the tables on the wayout. At the Bahnhof they could do meno good. There were no hotel roomsavailable in Munich. The head wasgetting worse by the minute. Thefact that they'd somehow managedto lose my bag didn't help. I workedon that project for at least a coupleof hours. Not only wasn't the bagat the luggage checking station, butthe attendant there evidently couldn'tmake heads nor tails of the checkreceipt. He didn't speak English andmy high school German was inadequate,especially accompanied by ablockbusting hangover. I didn't get anywhere tearing myhair and complaining from one endof the Bahnhof to the other. I drewa blank on the bag. And the head was getting worseby the minute. I was bleeding todeath through the eyes and insteadof butterflies I had bats in my stomach.Believe me, nobody should drinka gallon or more of Marzenbräu. <doc-sep> I decided the hell with it. I tooka cab to the airport, presented my returnticket, told them I wanted toleave on the first obtainable plane toNew York. I'd spent two days at the Oktoberfest , and I'd had it. I got more guff there. Somethingwas wrong with the ticket, wrongdate or some such. But they fixedthat up. I never was clear on whatwas fouled up, some clerk's error,evidently. The trip back was as uninterestingas the one over. As the hangover beganto wear off—a little—I was almostsorry I hadn't been able to stay.If I'd only been able to get a room I would have stayed, I told myself. From Idlewild, I came directly tothe office rather than going to myapartment. I figured I might as wellcheck in with Betty. I opened the door and there Ifound Mr. Oyster sitting in the chairhe had been occupying four—or wasit five—days before when I'd left.I'd lost track of the time. I said to him, Glad you're here,sir. I can report. Ah, what was ityou came for? Impatient to hear ifI'd had any results? My mind wasspinning like a whirling dervish ina revolving door. I'd spent a wad ofhis money and had nothing I couldthink of to show for it; nothing butthe last stages of a grand-daddyhangover. Came for? Mr. Oyster snorted.I'm merely waiting for your girl tomake out my receipt. I thought youhad already left. You'll miss your plane, Bettysaid. There was suddenly a double dipof ice cream in my stomach. I walkedover to my desk and looked down atthe calendar. Mr. Oyster was saying somethingto the effect that if I didn't leave today,it would have to be tomorrow,that he hadn't ponied up that thousanddollars advance for anythingless than immediate service. Stuffinghis receipt in his wallet, he fussedhis way out the door. I said to Betty hopefully, I supposeyou haven't changed this calendarsince I left. Betty said, What's the matterwith you? You look funny. How didyour clothes get so mussed? You torethe top sheet off that calendar yourself,not half an hour ago, just beforethis marble-missing client camein. She added, irrelevantly, Timetravelers yet. I tried just once more. Uh, whendid you first see this Mr. Oyster? Never saw him before in mylife, she said. Not until he camein this morning. This morning, I said weakly. While Betty stared at me as thoughit was me that needed candling by ahead shrinker preparatory to beingsent off to a pressure cooker, I fishedin my pocket for my wallet, countedthe contents and winced at thepathetic remains of the thousand.I said pleadingly, Betty, listen,how long ago did I go out that door—onthe way to the airport? You've been acting sick all morning.You went out that door aboutten minutes ago, were gone aboutthree minutes, and then came back. See here, Mr. Oyster said (interruptingSimon's story), did yousay this was supposed to be amusing,young man? I don't find it so. Infact, I believe I am being ridiculed. Simon shrugged, put one hand tohis forehead and said, That's onlythe first chapter. There are twomore. I'm not interested in more, Mr.Oyster said. I suppose your pointwas to show me how ridiculous thewhole idea actually is. Very well,you've done it. Confound it. However,I suppose your time, even whenspent in this manner, has some value.Here is fifty dollars. And good day,sir! He slammed the door after himas he left. Simon winced at the noise, tookthe aspirin bottle from its drawer,took two, washed them down withwater from the desk carafe. Betty looked at him admiringly.Came to her feet, crossed over andtook up the fifty dollars. Week'swages, she said. I suppose that'sone way of taking care of a crackpot.But I'm surprised you didn'ttake his money and enjoy that vacationyou've been yearning about. I did, Simon groaned. Threetimes. Betty stared at him. You mean— Simon nodded, miserably. She said, But Simon . Fifty thousanddollars bonus. If that story wastrue, you should have gone backagain to Munich. If there was onetime traveler, there might havebeen— I keep telling you, Simon saidbitterly, I went back there threetimes. There were hundreds of them.Probably thousands. He took a deepbreath. Listen, we're just going tohave to forget about it. They're notgoing to stand for the space-timecontinuum track being altered. Ifsomething comes up that looks likeit might result in the track beingchanged, they set you right back atthe beginning and let things start—foryou—all over again. They justcan't allow anything to come backfrom the future and change thepast. You mean, Betty was suddenlyfurious at him, you've given up!Why this is the biggest thing— Whythe fifty thousand dollars is nothing.The future! Just think! Simon said wearily, There's justone thing you can bring back withyou from the future, a hangover compoundedof a gallon or so of Marzenbräu.What's more you can pileone on top of the other, and anotheron top of that! He shuddered. If you think I'mgoing to take another crack at thismerry-go-round and pile a fourthhangover on the three I'm alreadynursing, all at once, you can thinkagain. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction June1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling andtypographical errors have been corrected without note.<doc-sep></s>

Simon works with Betty investigating many cases at their office in New York. He initially has a terrible headache and has to take aspirin for his hangover. He is perceptive as well, knowing who Mr. Oyster is without having seen him before and informative about time travel. However, he does show a stubborn side when he refuses Mr. Oyster’s offer no matter how much money the other man offers him. Even though he could just create a false report for Mr. Oyster, he refuses to take the job. Simon later reveals to Betty that he has already experienced going to Oktoberfest three times and has brought nothing but multiple hangovers back. In the story he tells, Simon is very friendly towards Arth and tries to help him on his pilgrimage. He ends up getting extremely hungover and goes back to New York, which then resets the entire cycle of events again.

<s> UNBORN TOMORROW BY MACK REYNOLDS Unfortunately , there was onlyone thing he could bring backfrom the wonderful future ...and though he didn't want to... nevertheless he did.... Illustrated by Freas Betty looked up fromher magazine. She saidmildly, You're late. Don't yell at me, Ifeel awful, Simon toldher. He sat down at his desk, passedhis tongue over his teeth in distaste,groaned, fumbled in a drawer for theaspirin bottle. He looked over at Betty and said,almost as though reciting, What Ineed is a vacation. What, Betty said, are you goingto use for money? Providence, Simon told herwhilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle,will provide. Hm-m-m. But before providingvacations it'd be nice if Providenceturned up a missing jewel deal, say.Something where you could deducethat actually the ruby ring had gonedown the drain and was caught in theelbow. Something that would netabout fifty dollars. Simon said, mournful of tone,Fifty dollars? Why not make it fivehundred? I'm not selfish, Betty said. AllI want is enough to pay me thisweek's salary. Money, Simon said. When youtook this job you said it was the romancethat appealed to you. Hm-m-m. I didn't know mostsleuthing amounted to snoopingaround department stores to check onthe clerks knocking down. Simon said, enigmatically, Nowit comes. <doc-sep> There was a knock. Betty bounced up with Olympicagility and had the door swingingwide before the knocking was quitecompleted. He was old, little and had bugeyes behind pince-nez glasses. Hissuit was cut in the style of yesteryearbut when a suit costs two orthree hundred dollars you still retaincaste whatever the styling. Simon said unenthusiastically,Good morning, Mr. Oyster. He indicatedthe client's chair. Sit down,sir. The client fussed himself withBetty's assistance into the seat, bug-eyedSimon, said finally, You knowmy name, that's pretty good. Neversaw you before in my life. Stop fussingwith me, young lady. Your adin the phone book says you'll investigateanything. Anything, Simon said. Onlyone exception. Excellent. Do you believe in timetravel? Simon said nothing. Across theroom, where she had resumed herseat, Betty cleared her throat. WhenSimon continued to say nothing sheventured, Time travel is impossible. Why? Why? Yes, why? Betty looked to her boss for assistance.None was forthcoming. Thereought to be some very quick, positive,definite answer. She said, Well,for one thing, paradox. Suppose youhad a time machine and traveled backa hundred years or so and killed yourown great-grandfather. Then howcould you ever be born? Confound it if I know, the littlefellow growled. How? Simon said, Let's get to the point,what you wanted to see me about. I want to hire you to hunt me upsome time travelers, the old boysaid. Betty was too far in now to maintainher proper role of silent secretary.Time travelers, she said, notvery intelligently. The potential client sat more erect,obviously with intent to hold thefloor for a time. He removed thepince-nez glasses and pointed themat Betty. He said, Have you readmuch science fiction, Miss? Some, Betty admitted. Then you'll realize that there area dozen explanations of the paradoxesof time travel. Every writer inthe field worth his salt has explainedthem away. But to get on. It's mycontention that within a century orso man will have solved the problemsof immortality and eternal youth, andit's also my suspicion that he willeventually be able to travel in time.So convinced am I of these possibilitiesthat I am willing to gamble aportion of my fortune to investigatethe presence in our era of such timetravelers. Simon seemed incapable of carryingthe ball this morning, so Bettysaid, But ... Mr. Oyster, if thefuture has developed time travel whydon't we ever meet such travelers? Simon put in a word. The usualexplanation, Betty, is that they can'tafford to allow the space-time continuumtrack to be altered. If, say, atime traveler returned to a period oftwenty-five years ago and shot Hitler,then all subsequent history would bechanged. In that case, the time travelerhimself might never be born. Theyhave to tread mighty carefully. Mr. Oyster was pleased. I didn'texpect you to be so well informedon the subject, young man. Simon shrugged and fumbledagain with the aspirin bottle. <doc-sep> Mr. Oyster went on. I've beenconsidering the matter for some timeand— Simon held up a hand. There'sno use prolonging this. As I understandit, you're an elderly gentlemanwith a considerable fortune and yourealize that thus far nobody has succeededin taking it with him. Mr. Oyster returned his glasses totheir perch, bug-eyed Simon, but thennodded. Simon said, You want to hire meto find a time traveler and in somemanner or other—any manner willdo—exhort from him the secret ofeternal life and youth, which you figurethe future will have discovered.You're willing to pony up a part ofthis fortune of yours, if I can delivera bona fide time traveler. Right! Betty had been looking from oneto the other. Now she said, plaintively,But where are you going to findone of these characters—especially ifthey're interested in keeping hid? The old boy was the center again.I told you I'd been considering itfor some time. The Oktoberfest ,that's where they'd be! He seemedelated. Betty and Simon waited. The Oktoberfest , he repeated.The greatest festival the world hasever seen, the carnival, feria , fiesta to beat them all. Every year it's heldin Munich. Makes the New OrleansMardi gras look like a quiltingparty. He began to swing into thespirit of his description. It originallystarted in celebration of the weddingof some local prince a centuryand a half ago and the Bavarians hadsuch a bang-up time they've beenholding it every year since. TheMunich breweries do up a specialbeer, Marzenbräu they call it, andeach brewery opens a tremendous tenton the fair grounds which will holdfive thousand customers apiece. Millionsof liters of beer are put away,hundreds of thousands of barbecuedchickens, a small herd of oxen areroasted whole over spits, millions ofpair of weisswurst , a very specialsausage, millions upon millions ofpretzels— All right, Simon said. We'll acceptit. The Oktoberfest is one whaleof a wingding. <doc-sep> Well, the old boy pursued, intohis subject now, that's where they'dbe, places like the Oktoberfest . Forone thing, a time traveler wouldn'tbe conspicuous. At a festival like thissomebody with a strange accent, orwho didn't know exactly how to wearhis clothes correctly, or was off theordinary in any of a dozen otherways, wouldn't be noticed. You couldbe a four-armed space traveler fromMars, and you still wouldn't be conspicuousat the Oktoberfest . Peoplewould figure they had D.T.'s. But why would a time travelerwant to go to a— Betty began. Why not! What better opportunityto study a people than when theyare in their cups? If you could goback a few thousand years, the thingsyou would wish to see would be aRoman Triumph, perhaps the Ritesof Dionysus, or one of Alexander'sorgies. You wouldn't want to wanderup and down the streets of, say,Athens while nothing was going on,particularly when you might be revealedas a suspicious character notbeing able to speak the language, notknowing how to wear the clothes andnot familiar with the city's layout.He took a deep breath. No ma'am,you'd have to stick to some greatevent, both for the sake of actualinterest and for protection against beingunmasked. The old boy wound it up. Well,that's the story. What are your rates?The Oktoberfest starts on Friday andcontinues for sixteen days. You cantake the plane to Munich, spend aweek there and— Simon was shaking his head. Notinterested. As soon as Betty had got her jawback into place, she glared unbelievinglyat him. Mr. Oyster was taken aback himself.See here, young man, I realizethis isn't an ordinary assignment,however, as I said, I am willing torisk a considerable portion of myfortune— Sorry, Simon said. Can't bedone. A hundred dollars a day plus expenses,Mr. Oyster said quietly. Ilike the fact that you already seemto have some interest and knowledgeof the matter. I liked the way youknew my name when I walked in thedoor; my picture doesn't appear oftenin the papers. No go, Simon said, a sad qualityin his voice. A fifty thousand dollar bonus ifyou bring me a time traveler. Out of the question, Simonsaid. But why ? Betty wailed. Just for laughs, Simon told thetwo of them sourly, suppose I tellyou a funny story. It goes likethis: I got a thousand dollars from Mr.Oyster (Simon began) in the wayof an advance, and leaving him withBetty who was making out a receipt,I hustled back to the apartment andpacked a bag. Hell, I'd wanted a vacationanyway, this was a natural. Onthe way to Idlewild I stopped off atthe Germany Information Offices forsome tourist literature. It takes roughly three and a halfhours to get to Gander from Idlewild.I spent the time planning thefun I was going to have. It takes roughly seven and a halfhours from Gander to Shannon andI spent that time dreaming up materialI could put into my reports toMr. Oyster. I was going to have togive him some kind of report for hismoney. Time travel yet! What alaugh! Between Shannon and Munich afaint suspicion began to simmer inmy mind. These statistics I read onthe Oktoberfest in the Munich touristpamphlets. Five million peopleattended annually. Where did five million peoplecome from to attend an overgrownfestival in comparatively remoteSouthern Germany? The tourist seasonis over before September 21st,first day of the gigantic beer bust.Nor could the Germans account forany such number. Munich itself hasa population of less than a million,counting children. And those millions of gallons ofbeer, the hundreds of thousands ofchickens, the herds of oxen. Whoponied up all the money for such expenditures?How could the averageGerman, with his twenty-five dollarsa week salary? In Munich there was no hotelspace available. I went to the Bahnhofwhere they have a hotel serviceand applied. They put my namedown, pocketed the husky bribe,showed me where I could check mybag, told me they'd do what theycould, and to report back in a fewhours. I had another suspicious twinge.If five million people attended thisbeer bout, how were they accommodated? The Theresienwiese , the fairground, was only a few blocksaway. I was stiff from the plane rideso I walked. <doc-sep> There are seven major brewers inthe Munich area, each of them representedby one of the circuslike tentsthat Mr. Oyster mentioned. Each tentcontained benches and tables forabout five thousand persons and fromsix to ten thousands pack themselvesin, competing for room. In the centeris a tremendous bandstand, themusicians all lederhosen clad, themusic as Bavarian as any to be foundin a Bavarian beer hall. Hundreds ofpeasant garbed fräuleins darted aboutthe tables with quart sized earthenwaremugs, platters of chicken, sausage,kraut and pretzels. I found a place finally at a tablewhich had space for twenty-odd beerbibbers. Odd is right. As weird anassortment of Germans and foreigntourists as could have been dreamedup, ranging from a seventy- oreighty-year-old couple in Bavariancostume, to the bald-headed drunkacross the table from me. A desperate waitress bearing sixmugs of beer in each hand scurriedpast. They call them masses , by theway, not mugs. The bald-headedcharacter and I both held up a fingerand she slid two of the masses overto us and then hustled on. Down the hatch, the other said,holding up his mass in toast. To the ladies, I told him. Beforesipping, I said, You know, thetourist pamphlets say this stuff iseighteen per cent. That's nonsense.No beer is that strong. I took a longpull. He looked at me, waiting. I came up. Mistaken, I admitted. A mass or two apiece later he lookedcarefully at the name engraved onhis earthenware mug. Löwenbräu,he said. He took a small notebookfrom his pocket and a pencil, noteddown the word and returned thethings. That's a queer looking pencil youhave there, I told him. German? Venusian, he said. Oops, sorry.Shouldn't have said that. I had never heard of the brand soI skipped it. Next is the Hofbräu, he said. Next what? Baldy's conversationdidn't seem to hang together verywell. My pilgrimage, he told me. Allmy life I've been wanting to go backto an Oktoberfest and sample everyone of the seven brands of the bestbeer the world has ever known. I'monly as far as Löwenbräu. I'm afraidI'll never make it. I finished my mass . I'll helpyou, I told him. Very noble endeavor.Name is Simon. Arth, he said. How could youhelp? I'm still fresh—comparatively.I'll navigate you around. There areseven beer tents. How many have yougot through, so far? Two, counting this one, Arthsaid. I looked at him. It's going to bea chore, I said. You've already gota nice edge on. Outside, as we made our way tothe next tent, the fair looked likeevery big State-Fair ever seen, exceptit was bigger. Games, souvenirstands, sausage stands, rides, sideshows, and people, people, people. The Hofbräu tent was as overflowingas the last but we managed tofind two seats. The band was blaring, and fivethousand half-swacked voices wereroaring accompaniment. In Muenchen steht ein Hofbräuhaus! Eins, Zwei, G'sufa! At the G'sufa everybody uppedwith the mugs and drank each other'shealth. This is what I call a real beerbust, I said approvingly. Arth was waving to a waitress. Asin the Löwenbräu tent, a full quartwas the smallest amount obtainable. A beer later I said, I don't knowif you'll make it or not, Arth. Make what? All seven tents. Oh. A waitress was on her way by,mugs foaming over their rims. I gesturedto her for refills. Where are you from, Arth? Iasked him, in the way of makingconversation. 2183. 2183 where? He looked at me, closing one eyeto focus better. Oh, he said. Well,2183 South Street, ah, New Albuquerque. New Albuquerque? Where'sthat? Arth thought about it. Took anotherlong pull at the beer. Rightacross the way from old Albuquerque,he said finally. Maybe weought to be getting on to thePschorrbräu tent. Maybe we ought to eat somethingfirst, I said. I'm beginning to feelthis. We could get some of that barbecuedox. Arth closed his eyes in pain.Vegetarian, he said. Couldn't possiblyeat meat. Barbarous. Ugh. Well, we need some nourishment,I said. There's supposed to be considerablenourishment in beer. That made sense. I yelled, Fräulein!Zwei neu bier! <doc-sep> Somewhere along in here the fogrolled in. When it rolled out again,I found myself closing one eye thebetter to read the lettering on myearthenware mug. It read Augustinerbräu.Somehow we'd evidentlynavigated from one tent to another. Arth was saying, Where's yourhotel? That seemed like a good question.I thought about it for a while. FinallyI said, Haven't got one. Town'sjam packed. Left my bag at the Bahnhof.I don't think we'll ever makeit, Arth. How many we got togo? Lost track, Arth said. You cancome home with me. We drank to that and the fog rolledin again. When the fog rolled out, it wasdaylight. Bright, glaring, awful daylight.I was sprawled, complete withclothes, on one of twin beds. On theother bed, also completely clothed,was Arth. That sun was too much. I stumbledup from the bed, staggered tothe window and fumbled around fora blind or curtain. There was none. Behind me a voice said in horror,Who ... how ... oh, Wodo ,where'd you come from? I got a quick impression, lookingout the window, that the Germanswere certainly the most modern, futuristicpeople in the world. But Icouldn't stand the light. Where'sthe shade, I moaned. Arth did something and the windowwent opaque. That's quite a gadget, I groaned.If I didn't feel so lousy, I'dappreciate it. Arth was sitting on the edge ofthe bed holding his bald head in hishands. I remember now, he sorrowed.You didn't have a hotel.What a stupidity. I'll be phased.Phased all the way down. You haven't got a handful ofaspirin, have you? I asked him. Just a minute, Arth said, staggeringerect and heading for whatundoubtedly was a bathroom. Staywhere you are. Don't move. Don'ttouch anything. All right, I told him plaintively.I'm clean. I won't mess up theplace. All I've got is a hangover, notlice. Arth was gone. He came back intwo or three minutes, box of pills inhand. Here, take one of these. I took the pill, followed it with aglass of water. <doc-sep> And went out like a light. Arth was shaking my arm. Wantanother mass ? The band was blaring, and fivethousand half-swacked voices wereroaring accompaniment. In Muenchen steht ein Hofbräuhaus! Eins, Zwei, G'sufa! At the G'sufa everybody uppedwith their king-size mugs and drankeach other's health. My head was killing me. This iswhere I came in, or something, Igroaned. Arth said, That was last night.He looked at me over the rim of hisbeer mug. Something, somewhere, waswrong. But I didn't care. I finishedmy mass and then remembered. I'vegot to get my bag. Oh, my head.Where did we spend last night? Arth said, and his voice soundedcautious, At my hotel, don't you remember? Not very well, I admitted. Ifeel lousy. I must have dimmed out.I've got to go to the Bahnhof andget my luggage. Arth didn't put up an argumenton that. We said good-by and I couldfeel him watching after me as I pushedthrough the tables on the wayout. At the Bahnhof they could do meno good. There were no hotel roomsavailable in Munich. The head wasgetting worse by the minute. Thefact that they'd somehow managedto lose my bag didn't help. I workedon that project for at least a coupleof hours. Not only wasn't the bagat the luggage checking station, butthe attendant there evidently couldn'tmake heads nor tails of the checkreceipt. He didn't speak English andmy high school German was inadequate,especially accompanied by ablockbusting hangover. I didn't get anywhere tearing myhair and complaining from one endof the Bahnhof to the other. I drewa blank on the bag. And the head was getting worseby the minute. I was bleeding todeath through the eyes and insteadof butterflies I had bats in my stomach.Believe me, nobody should drinka gallon or more of Marzenbräu. <doc-sep> I decided the hell with it. I tooka cab to the airport, presented my returnticket, told them I wanted toleave on the first obtainable plane toNew York. I'd spent two days at the Oktoberfest , and I'd had it. I got more guff there. Somethingwas wrong with the ticket, wrongdate or some such. But they fixedthat up. I never was clear on whatwas fouled up, some clerk's error,evidently. The trip back was as uninterestingas the one over. As the hangover beganto wear off—a little—I was almostsorry I hadn't been able to stay.If I'd only been able to get a room I would have stayed, I told myself. From Idlewild, I came directly tothe office rather than going to myapartment. I figured I might as wellcheck in with Betty. I opened the door and there Ifound Mr. Oyster sitting in the chairhe had been occupying four—or wasit five—days before when I'd left.I'd lost track of the time. I said to him, Glad you're here,sir. I can report. Ah, what was ityou came for? Impatient to hear ifI'd had any results? My mind wasspinning like a whirling dervish ina revolving door. I'd spent a wad ofhis money and had nothing I couldthink of to show for it; nothing butthe last stages of a grand-daddyhangover. Came for? Mr. Oyster snorted.I'm merely waiting for your girl tomake out my receipt. I thought youhad already left. You'll miss your plane, Bettysaid. There was suddenly a double dipof ice cream in my stomach. I walkedover to my desk and looked down atthe calendar. Mr. Oyster was saying somethingto the effect that if I didn't leave today,it would have to be tomorrow,that he hadn't ponied up that thousanddollars advance for anythingless than immediate service. Stuffinghis receipt in his wallet, he fussedhis way out the door. I said to Betty hopefully, I supposeyou haven't changed this calendarsince I left. Betty said, What's the matterwith you? You look funny. How didyour clothes get so mussed? You torethe top sheet off that calendar yourself,not half an hour ago, just beforethis marble-missing client camein. She added, irrelevantly, Timetravelers yet. I tried just once more. Uh, whendid you first see this Mr. Oyster? Never saw him before in mylife, she said. Not until he camein this morning. This morning, I said weakly. While Betty stared at me as thoughit was me that needed candling by ahead shrinker preparatory to beingsent off to a pressure cooker, I fishedin my pocket for my wallet, countedthe contents and winced at thepathetic remains of the thousand.I said pleadingly, Betty, listen,how long ago did I go out that door—onthe way to the airport? You've been acting sick all morning.You went out that door aboutten minutes ago, were gone aboutthree minutes, and then came back. See here, Mr. Oyster said (interruptingSimon's story), did yousay this was supposed to be amusing,young man? I don't find it so. Infact, I believe I am being ridiculed. Simon shrugged, put one hand tohis forehead and said, That's onlythe first chapter. There are twomore. I'm not interested in more, Mr.Oyster said. I suppose your pointwas to show me how ridiculous thewhole idea actually is. Very well,you've done it. Confound it. However,I suppose your time, even whenspent in this manner, has some value.Here is fifty dollars. And good day,sir! He slammed the door after himas he left. Simon winced at the noise, tookthe aspirin bottle from its drawer,took two, washed them down withwater from the desk carafe. Betty looked at him admiringly.Came to her feet, crossed over andtook up the fifty dollars. Week'swages, she said. I suppose that'sone way of taking care of a crackpot.But I'm surprised you didn'ttake his money and enjoy that vacationyou've been yearning about. I did, Simon groaned. Threetimes. Betty stared at him. You mean— Simon nodded, miserably. She said, But Simon . Fifty thousanddollars bonus. If that story wastrue, you should have gone backagain to Munich. If there was onetime traveler, there might havebeen— I keep telling you, Simon saidbitterly, I went back there threetimes. There were hundreds of them.Probably thousands. He took a deepbreath. Listen, we're just going tohave to forget about it. They're notgoing to stand for the space-timecontinuum track being altered. Ifsomething comes up that looks likeit might result in the track beingchanged, they set you right back atthe beginning and let things start—foryou—all over again. They justcan't allow anything to come backfrom the future and change thepast. You mean, Betty was suddenlyfurious at him, you've given up!Why this is the biggest thing— Whythe fifty thousand dollars is nothing.The future! Just think! Simon said wearily, There's justone thing you can bring back withyou from the future, a hangover compoundedof a gallon or so of Marzenbräu.What's more you can pileone on top of the other, and anotheron top of that! He shuddered. If you think I'mgoing to take another crack at thismerry-go-round and pile a fourthhangover on the three I'm alreadynursing, all at once, you can thinkagain. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction June1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling andtypographical errors have been corrected without note.<doc-sep></s>

The story that Simon tells relates back to Mr. Oyster’s initial request about time travelers because he is the one who time traveled. Although he calls it a funny story, the sequence of events he describes is all actual events he experiences. The entire purpose of Mr. Oyster’s request and his desire to spend a portion of his fortune is to find a time traveler and come to a conclusion that they exist. However, he fails to realize that the very person he is asking has time traveled. Since the events were repeated three times, Simon’s refusal now changes the flow of events in the near future to avoid a fourth hangover. Even though Mr. Oyster leaves angrily, Simon’s story serves as a true report of time traveling and fulfills Mr. Oyster’s request.

<s> A FALL OF GLASS By STANLEY R. LEE Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The weatherman was always right: Temperature, 59; humidity, 47%; occasional light showers—but of what? The pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously. It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, thehumidity a mildly dessicated 47%. The sun was a flaming orange ball ina cloudless blue sky. His pockets were picked eleven times. It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was amasterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was HumphreyFownes' abstraction; he was an uncommonly preoccupied individual. Hewas strolling along a quiet residential avenue: small private houses,one after another, a place of little traffic and minimum distractions.But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject tobegin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking sodeeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too manypeople were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum DomeConditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a boguspostman, who pretended to be reading a postal card, jostled him. In theconfusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postmanrifled Fownes's handkerchief and inside jacket pockets. <doc-sep>He was still thinking about temperature and humidity when a pretty girlhappened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got hisright and left jacket pockets. It was much too much for coincidence.The sidewalk was wide enough to allow four people to pass at one time.He should surely have become suspicious when two men engaged in aheated argument came along. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied hisrear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of thehandkerchief pocket. It all went off very smoothly, like a game of putand take—the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea hewas playing. There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass. It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist,hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings ofa celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-lightfragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Domeweevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed thehuge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing. Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass stillintrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humiditythat was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was thisrather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tightsurveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of gettinghis fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayedand chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returningthem. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled afive-pound bag of flour as he was passing. It was really plaster ofParis. He left his shoe prints, stride measurement, height, weight andhandedness behind. By the time Fownes reached his front door an entire dossier completewith photographs had been prepared and was being read by two men in anorange patrol car parked down the street. <doc-sep>Lanfierre had undoubtedly been affected by his job. Sitting behind the wheel of the orange car, he watched Humphrey Fownesapproach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was anodd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similarto that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new andparticularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope. Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be toleratedwithin the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a socialforce; it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it,Lanfierre had become an admirer of eccentricity. He came to see thatgenuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his ownsmall efforts, rarer. Fownes was a masterpiece of queerness. He was utterly inexplicable.Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes. Sometimes his house shakes , Lanfierre said. House shakes, Lieutenant MacBride wrote in his notebook. Then hestopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written. You heard right. The house shakes , Lanfierre said, savoring it. MacBride looked at the Fownes house through the magnifying glass ofthe windshield. Like from ... side to side ? he asked in a somewhatpatronizing tone of voice. And up and down. MacBride returned the notebook to the breast pocket of his orangeuniform. Go on, he said, amused. It sounds interesting. He tossedthe dossier carelessly on the back seat. Lanfierre sat stiffly behind the wheel, affronted. The cynical MacBridecouldn't really appreciate fine aberrations. In some ways MacBridewas a barbarian. Lanfierre had held out on Fownes for months. Hehad even contrived to engage him in conversation once, a pleasantlyabsurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. It wasonly with the greatest reluctance that he finally mentioned Fownesto MacBride. After years of searching for differences Lanfierre hadseen how extraordinarily repetitious people were, echoes really, dimlyresounding echoes, each believing itself whole and separate. They spokein an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievablytrite. Then a fine robust freak came along and the others—the echoes—refusedto believe it. The lieutenant was probably on the point of suggesting avacation. Why don't you take a vacation? Lieutenant MacBride suggested. It's like this, MacBride. Do you know what a wind is? A breeze? Azephyr? I've heard some. They say there are mountain-tops where winds blow all the time. Strongwinds, MacBride. Winds like you and I can't imagine. And if there wasa house sitting on such a mountain and if winds did blow, it wouldshake exactly the way that one does. Sometimes I get the feeling thewhole place is going to slide off its foundation and go sailing downthe avenue. <doc-sep>Lieutenant MacBride pursed his lips. I'll tell you something else, Lanfierre went on. The windows allclose at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden everysingle window in the place will drop to its sill. Lanfierre leanedback in the seat, his eyes still on the house. Sometimes I thinkthere's a whole crowd of people in there waiting for a signal—as ifthey all had something important to say but had to close the windowsfirst so no one could hear. Why else close the windows in a domed city?And then as soon as the place is buttoned up they all explode intoconversation—and that's why the house shakes. MacBride whistled. No, I don't need a vacation. A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against thewindshield. Lanfierre started and bumped his knee on the steering wheel. No, you don't need a rest, MacBride said. You're starting to seeflying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in yourbrain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality— At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammedshut. The street was deserted and quiet, not a movement, not a sound.MacBride and Lanfierre both leaned forward, as if waiting for theghostly babble of voices to commence. The house began to shake. It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed anddipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. Thehouse could have been preparing to take off and sail down the.... MacBride looked at Lanfierre and Lanfierre looked at MacBride and thenthey both looked back at the dancing house. And the water , Lanfierre said. The water he uses! He could bethe thirstiest and cleanest man in the city. He could have a wholefamily of thirsty and clean kids, and he still wouldn't need all thatwater. The lieutenant had picked up the dossier. He thumbed through the pagesnow in amazement. Where do you get a guy like this? he asked. Didyou see what he carries in his pockets? And compasses won't work on this street. The lieutenant lit a cigarette and sighed. He usually sighed when making the decision to raid a dwelling. Itexpressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and gotneurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. Therewas something implacable about his sighs. He'll be coming out soon, Lanfierre said. He eats supper next doorwith a widow. Then he goes to the library. Always the same. Supper atthe widow's next door and then the library. MacBride's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. The library? hesaid. Is he in with that bunch? Lanfierre nodded. Should be very interesting, MacBride said slowly. I can't wait to see what he's got in there, Lanfierre murmured,watching the house with a consuming interest. They sat there smoking in silence and every now and then their eyeswidened as the house danced a new step. <doc-sep>Fownes stopped on the porch to brush the plaster of paris off hisshoes. He hadn't seen the patrol car and this intense preoccupationof his was also responsible for the dancing house—he simply hadn'tnoticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. Hehad a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and thehigh-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of thehouse. At least, he called it buffeting; he'd never thought to watchfrom outside. He went in and threw his jacket on the sofa, there being no roomleft in the closets. Crossing the living room he stopped to twist adraw-pull. Every window slammed shut. Tight as a kite, he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward thecloset at the foot of the stairs and then stopped again. Was thatright? No, snug as a hug in a rug . He went on, thinking: The olddevils. The downstairs closet was like a great watch case, a profusion ofwheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-sawthat went back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels had acurious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged fromgrandfather's clocks and music boxes and they went around in gracefulcircles at the rate of 30 and 31 times an hour ... although therewas one slightly eccentric cam that vacillated between 28 and 29. Hewatched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them forseven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year. Outside, the domed city vanished. It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear,the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a moresatisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion.Looking through the window he saw only a garden. Instead of an orange sun at perpetual high noon, there was a red sunsetting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which leftthe smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid ahuge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon agarden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses. Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. And cocktails fortwo. Blast, he'd never be able to figure that one out! He watched asthe moon played, Oh, You Beautiful Doll and the neon roses flashedslowly from red to violet, then went back to the closet and turned onthe scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated roseas the moon shifted to People Will Say We're In Love . <doc-sep>He rubbed his chin critically. It seemed all right. A dreamy sunset,an enchanted moon, flowers, scent. They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rosereally smelled—or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. Butthen, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive. Insist on it. I tell you, my dear, this is a genuine realisticromantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icyfingers marching up and down your spine? His own spine didn't seem to be affected. But then he hadn't read thatbook on ancient mores and courtship customs. How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incrediblylong and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amountof falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. Nomeant any number of things, depending on the tone of voice and thecircumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later onthis evening. He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker,thinking roguishly: Thou shalt not inundate. The risks he was taking!A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant Singing in the Rain . Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red suncontinued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over anddemolished several of the neon roses. The last wheel in the bedroom closet was a rather elegant steeringwheel from an old 1995 Studebaker. This was on the bootleg pipe; hegingerly turned it. Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle ofwinds came to him. He went downstairs to watch out the living room window. This wasimportant; the window had a really fixed attitude about air currents.The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose andthe moon shook a trifle as it whispered Cuddle Up a Little Closer . He watched with folded arms, considering how he would start. My dearMrs. Deshazaway. Too formal. They'd be looking out at the romanticgarden; time to be a bit forward. My very dear Mrs. Deshazaway. No.Contrived. How about a simple, Dear Mrs. Deshazaway . That might beit. I was wondering, seeing as how it's so late, if you wouldn'trather stay over instead of going home.... Preoccupied, he hadn't noticed the winds building up, didn't hear theshaking and rattling of the pipes. There were attic pipes connectedto wall pipes and wall pipes connected to cellar pipes, and they madeone gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance ashigh-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening theStudebaker valve wider and wider.... The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sunshot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moonfell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When theBlue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day . The shaking house finally woke him up. He scrambled upstairs to theStudebaker wheel and shut it off. At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn'tthe first time the winds got out of line. Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all downand went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months,about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April.Its days were thirty and it followed September. And all the rest havethirty-one. What a strange people, the ancients! He still didn't see the orange car parked down the street. <doc-sep>Men are too perishable, Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. For allpractical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die. Would you pass the beets, please? Humphrey Fownes said. She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. And don't look at methat way, she said. I'm not going to marry you and if you wantreasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse. The widow was a passionate woman. She did everythingpassionately—talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionatelyred. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelrytinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes hadnever known anyone like her. You forgot to put salt on the potatoes,she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible forher to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. Do you have anyidea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I robmy husbands of their life force and when they're empty I carry theirbodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace. As long as there are people, he said philosophically, there'll betalk. But it's the air! Why don't they talk about that? The air is stale,I'm positive. It's not nourishing. The air is stale and Andrew, Curt,Norman and Alphonse couldn't stand it. Poor Alphonse. He was never sohealthy as on the day he was born. From then on things got steadilyworse for him. I don't seem to mind the air. She threw up her hands. You'd be the worst of the lot! She left thetable, rustling and tinkling about the room. I can just hear them. Trysome of the asparagus. Five. That's what they'd say. That woman didit again. And the plain fact is I don't want you on my record. Really, Fownes protested. I feel splendid. Never better. He could hear her moving about and then felt her hands on hisshoulders. And what about those very elaborate plans you've beenmaking to seduce me? Fownes froze with three asparagus hanging from his fork. Don't you think they'll find out? I found out and you can bet they will. It's my fault, I guess. I talk too much. And I don'talways tell the truth. To be completely honest with you, Mr. Fownes, itwasn't the old customs at all standing between us, it was air. I can'thave another man die on me, it's bad for my self-esteem. And now you'vegone and done something good and criminal, something peculiar. <doc-sep>Fownes put his fork down. Dear Mrs. Deshazaway, he started to say. And of course when they do find out and they ask you why, Mr. Fownes,you'll tell them. No, no heroics, please! When they ask a man aquestion he always answers and you will too. You'll tell them I wantedto be courted and when they hear that they'll be around to ask me afew questions. You see, we're both a bit queer. I hadn't thought of that, Fownes said quietly. Oh, it doesn't really matter. I'll join Andrew, Curt, Norman— That won't be necessary, Fownes said with unusual force. With alldue respect to Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse, I might as well statehere and now I have other plans for you, Mrs. Deshazaway. But my dear Mr. Fownes, she said, leaning across the table. We'relost, you and I. Not if we could leave the dome, Fownes said quietly. That's impossible! How? In no hurry, now that he had the widow's complete attention, Fownesleaned across the table and whispered: Fresh air, Mrs. Deshazaway?Space? Miles and miles of space where the real-estate monopoly hasno control whatever? Where the wind blows across prairies ; or isit the other way around? No matter. How would you like that , Mrs.Deshazaway? Breathing somewhat faster than usual, the widow rested her chin on hertwo hands. Pray continue, she said. Endless vistas of moonlight and roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshazaway.And June, which as you may know follows directly upon April and issupposed to be the month of brides, of marrying. June also lies beyondthe dome. I see. And , Mr. Fownes added, his voice a honeyed whisper, they saythat somewhere out in the space and the roses and the moonlight,the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's vernal and that's when it roams the Open Country where geigers nolonger scintillate. My. Mrs. Deshazaway rose, paced slowly to the window and then cameback to the table, standing directly over Fownes. If you can get usoutside the dome, she said, out where a man stays warm long enoughfor his wife to get to know him ... if you can do that, Mr. Fownes ...you may call me Agnes. <doc-sep>When Humphrey Fownes stepped out of the widow's house, there was alook of such intense abstraction on his features that Lanfierre felt awistful desire to get out of the car and walk along with the man. Itwould be such a deliciously insane experience. (April has thirtydays, Fownes mumbled, passing them, because thirty is the largestnumber such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisorwith it are primes . MacBride frowned and added it to the dossier.Lanfierre sighed.) Pinning his hopes on the Movement, Fownes went straight to thelibrary several blocks away, a shattered depressing place given overto government publications and censored old books with holes inthem. It was used so infrequently that the Movement was able to meetthere undisturbed. The librarian was a yellowed, dog-eared woman ofeighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like thebooks around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into nearunintelligibility. Here's one, she said to him as he entered. Gulliver's Travels. Loaned to John Wesley Davidson on March 14, 1979 for five days. Whatdo you make of it? In the litter of books and cards and dried out ink pads that surroundedthe librarian, Fownes noticed a torn dust jacket with a curiousillustration. What's that? he said. A twister, she replied quickly. Now listen to this . Seven yearslater on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book.What do you make of that ? I'd say, Humphrey Fownes said, that he ... that he recommended itto her, that one day they met in the street and he told her aboutthis book and then they ... they went to the library together and sheborrowed it and eventually, why eventually they got married. Hah! They were brother and sister! the librarian shouted in herparched voice, her old buckram eyes laughing with cunning. Fownes smiled weakly and looked again at the dust jacket. The twisterwas unquestionably a meteorological phenomenon. It spun ominously, likea malevolent top, and coursed the countryside destructively, carryinga Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anythingto feminine pulses, if they could possibly be a part of a moonlitnight, with cocktails and roses. He absently stuffed the dust jacketin his pocket and went on into the other rooms, the librarian mumblingafter him: Edna Murdoch Featherstone, April 21, 1991, as thoughreading inscriptions on a tombstone. <doc-sep>The Movement met in what had been the children's room, where unpaidladies of the afternoon had once upon a time read stories to otherpeople's offspring. The members sat around at the miniature tableslooking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting. Where did the old society fail? the leader was demanding of them. Hestood in the center of the room, leaning on a heavy knobbed cane. Heglanced around at the group almost complacently, and waited as HumphreyFownes squeezed into an empty chair. We live in a dome, the leadersaid, for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thingthat the great technological societies before ours could not invent,notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise? Fownes was the kind of man who never answered a rhetorical question. Hewaited, uncomfortable in the tight chair, while the others struggledwith this problem in revolutionary dialectics. A sound foreign policy , the leader said, aware that no one else hadobtained the insight. If a sound foreign policy can't be created theonly alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus themovement into domes began— by common consent of the governments . Thisis known as self-containment. Dialectically out in left field, Humphrey Fownes waited for a lullin the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might bearranged for him to get out. Out? the leader said, frowning. Out? Out where? Outside the dome. Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up andleave. And that day I'll await impatiently, Fownes replied with marveloustact, because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My futurewife and I have to leave now . Nonsense. Ridiculous! You have to be prepared for the Open Country.You can't just up and leave, it would be suicide, Fownes. Anddialectically very poor. Then you have discussed preparations, the practical necessities oflife in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else?Have I left anything out? The leader sighed. The gentleman wants to know if he's left anythingout, he said to the group. Fownes looked around at them, at some dozen pained expressions. Tell the man what he's forgotten, the leader said, walking to the farwindow and turning his back quite pointedly on them. Everyone spoke at the same moment. A sound foreign policy , they allsaid, it being almost too obvious for words. <doc-sep>On his way out the librarian shouted at him: A Tale of a Tub ,thirty-five years overdue! She was calculating the fine as he closedthe door. Humphrey Fownes' preoccupation finally came to an end when he was oneblock away from his house. It was then that he realized somethingunusual must have occurred. An orange patrol car of the security policewas parked at his front door. And something else was happening too. His house was dancing. It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one'sresidence frisking about on its foundation. It was such a strange sightthat for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causingit. But when he stepped gingerly onto the porch, which was doing itsown independent gavotte, he reached for the doorknob with an immensecuriosity. The door flung itself open and knocked him back off the porch. From a prone position on his miniscule front lawn, Fownes watched ashis favorite easy chair sailed out of the living room on a blast ofcold air and went pinwheeling down the avenue in the bright sunshine. Awild wind and a thick fog poured out of the house. It brought chairs,suits, small tables, lamps trailing their cords, ashtrays, sofacushions. The house was emptying itself fiercely, as if disgorging anold, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of hisancient upright piano as it rolled ponderously from room to room. He stood up; a wet wind swept over him, whipping at his face, toyingwith his hair. It was a whistling in his ears, and a tingle on hischeeks. He got hit by a shoe. As he forced his way back to the doorway needles of rain played overhis face and he heard a voice cry out from somewhere in the living room. Help! Lieutenant MacBride called. Standing in the doorway with his wet hair plastered down on hisdripping scalp, the wind roaring about him, the piano rumbling in thedistance like thunder, Humphrey Fownes suddenly saw it all very clearly. Winds , he said in a whisper. What's happening? MacBride yelled, crouching behind the sofa. March winds, he said. What?! April showers! The winds roared for a moment and then MacBride's lost voice emergedfrom the blackness of the living room. These are not Optimum DomeConditions! the voice wailed. The temperature is not 59 degrees.The humidity is not 47%! <doc-sep>Fownes held his face up to let the rain fall on it. Moonlight! heshouted. Roses! My soul for a cocktail for two! He grasped thedoorway to keep from being blown out of the house. Are you going to make it stop or aren't you! MacBride yelled. You'll have to tell me what you did first! I told him not to touch that wheel! Lanfierre. He's in the upstairsbedroom! When he heard this Fownes plunged into the house and fought his wayup the stairs. He found Lanfierre standing outside the bedroom with awheel in his hand. What have I done? Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock. Fownes took the wheel. It was off a 1995 Studebaker. I'm not sure what's going to come of this, he said to Lanfierre withan astonishing amount of objectivity, but the entire dome air supplyis now coming through my bedroom. The wind screamed. Is there something I can turn? Lanfierre asked. Not any more there isn't. They started down the stairs carefully, but the wind caught them andthey quickly reached the bottom in a wet heap. Recruiting Lieutenant MacBride from behind his sofa, the men carefullyedged out of the house and forced the front door shut. The wind died. The fog dispersed. They stood dripping in the OptimumDome Conditions of the bright avenue. I never figured on this , Lanfierre said, shaking his head. With the front door closed the wind quickly built up inside the house.They could see the furnishing whirl past the windows. The house did awild, elated jig. What kind of a place is this? MacBride said, his courage beginningto return. He took out his notebook but it was a soggy mess. He tossedit away. Sure, he was different , Lanfierre murmured. I knew that much. When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certainamount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully,standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It wasstrangely slow motion, as was the black twirling cloud that now roseout of the master bedroom, spewing shorts and socks and cases everywhich way. Now what? MacBride said, thoroughly exasperated, as this strangeblack cloud began to accelerate, whirling about like some malevolenttop.... <doc-sep>Humphrey Fownes took out the dust jacket he'd found in the library. Heheld it up and carefully compared the spinning cloud in his bedroomwith the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identicalshape of the illustration. It's a twister, he said softly. A Kansas twister! What, MacBride asked, his bravado slipping away again, what ... is atwister? The twister roared and moved out of the bedroom, out over the rear ofthe house toward the side of the dome. It says here, Fownes shoutedover the roaring, that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twisterand that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land beyond theconfines of everyday living . MacBride's eyes and mouth were great zeros. Is there something I can turn? Lanfierre asked. Huge chunks of glass began to fall around them. Fownes! MacBride shouted. This is a direct order! Make it go back! But Fownes had already begun to run on toward the next house, dodgingmountainous puffs of glass as he went. Mrs. Deshazaway! he shouted.Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshazaway! The dome weevils were going berserk trying to keep up with theprecipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then,emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quicklyemptied and then rushed about empty-handed. Yoo-hoo! he yelled,running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister.Optimum temperature collapsed. Mrs. Deshazaway! Agnes , will youmarry me? Yoo-hoo! Lanfierre and Lieutenant MacBride leaned against their car and waited,dazed. There was quite a large fall of glass. <doc-sep></s>

Mr. Humphrey Fownes has been pickpocketed eleven times despite the weather being good. This is because he is an uncommonly preoccupied individual and has constantly been thinking about the weather for the entire day. The first person who pickpockets him is a bogus postman who jostles him while pretending to read a postal card. The next person who pickpockets him is a pretty girl who collides with him. The next people are two men who pretend to be in a heated argument. Humphrey continuously thinks about the weather outside; this allows the police to maintain tight surveillance of him. Lanfierre is one of the people in the orange car and thinks about Humphrey Fownes being unique. He tells Lieutenant MacBride that Fownes’ house sometimes shakes, which makes the other man frown. Lanfierre considers MacBride to be a barbarian because he is cynical and cannot appreciate the peculiar nature of Fownes. He goes on to tell him that the windows all close at the same time in the house. MacBride refuses to believe him and tells him to take a rest, but all of the windows close, and the house suddenly begins to shake. They continue to observe the man; Fownes goes into his house and begins to think about his dinner with Mrs. Deshazaway. The house begins to shake more, and he decides that repairs are a must. During his dinner, Mrs. Deshazaway explains how she will never marry again. The widow is a passionate woman, and she passionately tells him he forgot salt on his potatoes during the explanation of why they cannot marry because of the air. When she continues to refuse him, Fownes brings up the idea of leaving the dome city for freedom. She tells him that if they can leave, then she will let him call her by her first name. After the date, he goes to the library, where the old librarian tries to test him with old library cards. The story then cuts to a movement meeting, where the members discuss how the old society failed and the lack of a sound foreign policy. Fownes impatiently explains that he and his future wife must leave now, to which the leader explains that it is impossible because there is no sound foreign policy. When Fownes returns to the house, he finds MacBride in the doorway with dripping hair. MacBride yells that these are not optimum dome conditions, explaining that Lanfierre is in the upstairs bedroom. The entire dome air supply is going through his bedroom, and a strange black cloud appears. Fownes recognizes this as a Kansas twister and runs towards the next house for Mrs. Deshazaway. The dome glass has begun to fall, destroying the artificial sun and optimum temperature.

<s> A FALL OF GLASS By STANLEY R. LEE Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The weatherman was always right: Temperature, 59; humidity, 47%; occasional light showers—but of what? The pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously. It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, thehumidity a mildly dessicated 47%. The sun was a flaming orange ball ina cloudless blue sky. His pockets were picked eleven times. It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was amasterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was HumphreyFownes' abstraction; he was an uncommonly preoccupied individual. Hewas strolling along a quiet residential avenue: small private houses,one after another, a place of little traffic and minimum distractions.But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject tobegin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking sodeeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too manypeople were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum DomeConditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a boguspostman, who pretended to be reading a postal card, jostled him. In theconfusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postmanrifled Fownes's handkerchief and inside jacket pockets. <doc-sep>He was still thinking about temperature and humidity when a pretty girlhappened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got hisright and left jacket pockets. It was much too much for coincidence.The sidewalk was wide enough to allow four people to pass at one time.He should surely have become suspicious when two men engaged in aheated argument came along. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied hisrear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of thehandkerchief pocket. It all went off very smoothly, like a game of putand take—the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea hewas playing. There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass. It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist,hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings ofa celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-lightfragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Domeweevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed thehuge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing. Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass stillintrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humiditythat was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was thisrather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tightsurveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of gettinghis fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayedand chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returningthem. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled afive-pound bag of flour as he was passing. It was really plaster ofParis. He left his shoe prints, stride measurement, height, weight andhandedness behind. By the time Fownes reached his front door an entire dossier completewith photographs had been prepared and was being read by two men in anorange patrol car parked down the street. <doc-sep>Lanfierre had undoubtedly been affected by his job. Sitting behind the wheel of the orange car, he watched Humphrey Fownesapproach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was anodd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similarto that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new andparticularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope. Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be toleratedwithin the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a socialforce; it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it,Lanfierre had become an admirer of eccentricity. He came to see thatgenuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his ownsmall efforts, rarer. Fownes was a masterpiece of queerness. He was utterly inexplicable.Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes. Sometimes his house shakes , Lanfierre said. House shakes, Lieutenant MacBride wrote in his notebook. Then hestopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written. You heard right. The house shakes , Lanfierre said, savoring it. MacBride looked at the Fownes house through the magnifying glass ofthe windshield. Like from ... side to side ? he asked in a somewhatpatronizing tone of voice. And up and down. MacBride returned the notebook to the breast pocket of his orangeuniform. Go on, he said, amused. It sounds interesting. He tossedthe dossier carelessly on the back seat. Lanfierre sat stiffly behind the wheel, affronted. The cynical MacBridecouldn't really appreciate fine aberrations. In some ways MacBridewas a barbarian. Lanfierre had held out on Fownes for months. Hehad even contrived to engage him in conversation once, a pleasantlyabsurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. It wasonly with the greatest reluctance that he finally mentioned Fownesto MacBride. After years of searching for differences Lanfierre hadseen how extraordinarily repetitious people were, echoes really, dimlyresounding echoes, each believing itself whole and separate. They spokein an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievablytrite. Then a fine robust freak came along and the others—the echoes—refusedto believe it. The lieutenant was probably on the point of suggesting avacation. Why don't you take a vacation? Lieutenant MacBride suggested. It's like this, MacBride. Do you know what a wind is? A breeze? Azephyr? I've heard some. They say there are mountain-tops where winds blow all the time. Strongwinds, MacBride. Winds like you and I can't imagine. And if there wasa house sitting on such a mountain and if winds did blow, it wouldshake exactly the way that one does. Sometimes I get the feeling thewhole place is going to slide off its foundation and go sailing downthe avenue. <doc-sep>Lieutenant MacBride pursed his lips. I'll tell you something else, Lanfierre went on. The windows allclose at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden everysingle window in the place will drop to its sill. Lanfierre leanedback in the seat, his eyes still on the house. Sometimes I thinkthere's a whole crowd of people in there waiting for a signal—as ifthey all had something important to say but had to close the windowsfirst so no one could hear. Why else close the windows in a domed city?And then as soon as the place is buttoned up they all explode intoconversation—and that's why the house shakes. MacBride whistled. No, I don't need a vacation. A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against thewindshield. Lanfierre started and bumped his knee on the steering wheel. No, you don't need a rest, MacBride said. You're starting to seeflying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in yourbrain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality— At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammedshut. The street was deserted and quiet, not a movement, not a sound.MacBride and Lanfierre both leaned forward, as if waiting for theghostly babble of voices to commence. The house began to shake. It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed anddipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. Thehouse could have been preparing to take off and sail down the.... MacBride looked at Lanfierre and Lanfierre looked at MacBride and thenthey both looked back at the dancing house. And the water , Lanfierre said. The water he uses! He could bethe thirstiest and cleanest man in the city. He could have a wholefamily of thirsty and clean kids, and he still wouldn't need all thatwater. The lieutenant had picked up the dossier. He thumbed through the pagesnow in amazement. Where do you get a guy like this? he asked. Didyou see what he carries in his pockets? And compasses won't work on this street. The lieutenant lit a cigarette and sighed. He usually sighed when making the decision to raid a dwelling. Itexpressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and gotneurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. Therewas something implacable about his sighs. He'll be coming out soon, Lanfierre said. He eats supper next doorwith a widow. Then he goes to the library. Always the same. Supper atthe widow's next door and then the library. MacBride's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. The library? hesaid. Is he in with that bunch? Lanfierre nodded. Should be very interesting, MacBride said slowly. I can't wait to see what he's got in there, Lanfierre murmured,watching the house with a consuming interest. They sat there smoking in silence and every now and then their eyeswidened as the house danced a new step. <doc-sep>Fownes stopped on the porch to brush the plaster of paris off hisshoes. He hadn't seen the patrol car and this intense preoccupationof his was also responsible for the dancing house—he simply hadn'tnoticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. Hehad a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and thehigh-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of thehouse. At least, he called it buffeting; he'd never thought to watchfrom outside. He went in and threw his jacket on the sofa, there being no roomleft in the closets. Crossing the living room he stopped to twist adraw-pull. Every window slammed shut. Tight as a kite, he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward thecloset at the foot of the stairs and then stopped again. Was thatright? No, snug as a hug in a rug . He went on, thinking: The olddevils. The downstairs closet was like a great watch case, a profusion ofwheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-sawthat went back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels had acurious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged fromgrandfather's clocks and music boxes and they went around in gracefulcircles at the rate of 30 and 31 times an hour ... although therewas one slightly eccentric cam that vacillated between 28 and 29. Hewatched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them forseven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year. Outside, the domed city vanished. It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear,the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a moresatisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion.Looking through the window he saw only a garden. Instead of an orange sun at perpetual high noon, there was a red sunsetting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which leftthe smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid ahuge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon agarden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses. Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. And cocktails fortwo. Blast, he'd never be able to figure that one out! He watched asthe moon played, Oh, You Beautiful Doll and the neon roses flashedslowly from red to violet, then went back to the closet and turned onthe scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated roseas the moon shifted to People Will Say We're In Love . <doc-sep>He rubbed his chin critically. It seemed all right. A dreamy sunset,an enchanted moon, flowers, scent. They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rosereally smelled—or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. Butthen, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive. Insist on it. I tell you, my dear, this is a genuine realisticromantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icyfingers marching up and down your spine? His own spine didn't seem to be affected. But then he hadn't read thatbook on ancient mores and courtship customs. How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incrediblylong and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amountof falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. Nomeant any number of things, depending on the tone of voice and thecircumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later onthis evening. He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker,thinking roguishly: Thou shalt not inundate. The risks he was taking!A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant Singing in the Rain . Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red suncontinued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over anddemolished several of the neon roses. The last wheel in the bedroom closet was a rather elegant steeringwheel from an old 1995 Studebaker. This was on the bootleg pipe; hegingerly turned it. Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle ofwinds came to him. He went downstairs to watch out the living room window. This wasimportant; the window had a really fixed attitude about air currents.The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose andthe moon shook a trifle as it whispered Cuddle Up a Little Closer . He watched with folded arms, considering how he would start. My dearMrs. Deshazaway. Too formal. They'd be looking out at the romanticgarden; time to be a bit forward. My very dear Mrs. Deshazaway. No.Contrived. How about a simple, Dear Mrs. Deshazaway . That might beit. I was wondering, seeing as how it's so late, if you wouldn'trather stay over instead of going home.... Preoccupied, he hadn't noticed the winds building up, didn't hear theshaking and rattling of the pipes. There were attic pipes connectedto wall pipes and wall pipes connected to cellar pipes, and they madeone gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance ashigh-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening theStudebaker valve wider and wider.... The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sunshot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moonfell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When theBlue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day . The shaking house finally woke him up. He scrambled upstairs to theStudebaker wheel and shut it off. At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn'tthe first time the winds got out of line. Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all downand went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months,about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April.Its days were thirty and it followed September. And all the rest havethirty-one. What a strange people, the ancients! He still didn't see the orange car parked down the street. <doc-sep>Men are too perishable, Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. For allpractical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die. Would you pass the beets, please? Humphrey Fownes said. She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. And don't look at methat way, she said. I'm not going to marry you and if you wantreasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse. The widow was a passionate woman. She did everythingpassionately—talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionatelyred. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelrytinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes hadnever known anyone like her. You forgot to put salt on the potatoes,she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible forher to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. Do you have anyidea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I robmy husbands of their life force and when they're empty I carry theirbodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace. As long as there are people, he said philosophically, there'll betalk. But it's the air! Why don't they talk about that? The air is stale,I'm positive. It's not nourishing. The air is stale and Andrew, Curt,Norman and Alphonse couldn't stand it. Poor Alphonse. He was never sohealthy as on the day he was born. From then on things got steadilyworse for him. I don't seem to mind the air. She threw up her hands. You'd be the worst of the lot! She left thetable, rustling and tinkling about the room. I can just hear them. Trysome of the asparagus. Five. That's what they'd say. That woman didit again. And the plain fact is I don't want you on my record. Really, Fownes protested. I feel splendid. Never better. He could hear her moving about and then felt her hands on hisshoulders. And what about those very elaborate plans you've beenmaking to seduce me? Fownes froze with three asparagus hanging from his fork. Don't you think they'll find out? I found out and you can bet they will. It's my fault, I guess. I talk too much. And I don'talways tell the truth. To be completely honest with you, Mr. Fownes, itwasn't the old customs at all standing between us, it was air. I can'thave another man die on me, it's bad for my self-esteem. And now you'vegone and done something good and criminal, something peculiar. <doc-sep>Fownes put his fork down. Dear Mrs. Deshazaway, he started to say. And of course when they do find out and they ask you why, Mr. Fownes,you'll tell them. No, no heroics, please! When they ask a man aquestion he always answers and you will too. You'll tell them I wantedto be courted and when they hear that they'll be around to ask me afew questions. You see, we're both a bit queer. I hadn't thought of that, Fownes said quietly. Oh, it doesn't really matter. I'll join Andrew, Curt, Norman— That won't be necessary, Fownes said with unusual force. With alldue respect to Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse, I might as well statehere and now I have other plans for you, Mrs. Deshazaway. But my dear Mr. Fownes, she said, leaning across the table. We'relost, you and I. Not if we could leave the dome, Fownes said quietly. That's impossible! How? In no hurry, now that he had the widow's complete attention, Fownesleaned across the table and whispered: Fresh air, Mrs. Deshazaway?Space? Miles and miles of space where the real-estate monopoly hasno control whatever? Where the wind blows across prairies ; or isit the other way around? No matter. How would you like that , Mrs.Deshazaway? Breathing somewhat faster than usual, the widow rested her chin on hertwo hands. Pray continue, she said. Endless vistas of moonlight and roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshazaway.And June, which as you may know follows directly upon April and issupposed to be the month of brides, of marrying. June also lies beyondthe dome. I see. And , Mr. Fownes added, his voice a honeyed whisper, they saythat somewhere out in the space and the roses and the moonlight,the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's vernal and that's when it roams the Open Country where geigers nolonger scintillate. My. Mrs. Deshazaway rose, paced slowly to the window and then cameback to the table, standing directly over Fownes. If you can get usoutside the dome, she said, out where a man stays warm long enoughfor his wife to get to know him ... if you can do that, Mr. Fownes ...you may call me Agnes. <doc-sep>When Humphrey Fownes stepped out of the widow's house, there was alook of such intense abstraction on his features that Lanfierre felt awistful desire to get out of the car and walk along with the man. Itwould be such a deliciously insane experience. (April has thirtydays, Fownes mumbled, passing them, because thirty is the largestnumber such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisorwith it are primes . MacBride frowned and added it to the dossier.Lanfierre sighed.) Pinning his hopes on the Movement, Fownes went straight to thelibrary several blocks away, a shattered depressing place given overto government publications and censored old books with holes inthem. It was used so infrequently that the Movement was able to meetthere undisturbed. The librarian was a yellowed, dog-eared woman ofeighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like thebooks around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into nearunintelligibility. Here's one, she said to him as he entered. Gulliver's Travels. Loaned to John Wesley Davidson on March 14, 1979 for five days. Whatdo you make of it? In the litter of books and cards and dried out ink pads that surroundedthe librarian, Fownes noticed a torn dust jacket with a curiousillustration. What's that? he said. A twister, she replied quickly. Now listen to this . Seven yearslater on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book.What do you make of that ? I'd say, Humphrey Fownes said, that he ... that he recommended itto her, that one day they met in the street and he told her aboutthis book and then they ... they went to the library together and sheborrowed it and eventually, why eventually they got married. Hah! They were brother and sister! the librarian shouted in herparched voice, her old buckram eyes laughing with cunning. Fownes smiled weakly and looked again at the dust jacket. The twisterwas unquestionably a meteorological phenomenon. It spun ominously, likea malevolent top, and coursed the countryside destructively, carryinga Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anythingto feminine pulses, if they could possibly be a part of a moonlitnight, with cocktails and roses. He absently stuffed the dust jacketin his pocket and went on into the other rooms, the librarian mumblingafter him: Edna Murdoch Featherstone, April 21, 1991, as thoughreading inscriptions on a tombstone. <doc-sep>The Movement met in what had been the children's room, where unpaidladies of the afternoon had once upon a time read stories to otherpeople's offspring. The members sat around at the miniature tableslooking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting. Where did the old society fail? the leader was demanding of them. Hestood in the center of the room, leaning on a heavy knobbed cane. Heglanced around at the group almost complacently, and waited as HumphreyFownes squeezed into an empty chair. We live in a dome, the leadersaid, for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thingthat the great technological societies before ours could not invent,notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise? Fownes was the kind of man who never answered a rhetorical question. Hewaited, uncomfortable in the tight chair, while the others struggledwith this problem in revolutionary dialectics. A sound foreign policy , the leader said, aware that no one else hadobtained the insight. If a sound foreign policy can't be created theonly alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus themovement into domes began— by common consent of the governments . Thisis known as self-containment. Dialectically out in left field, Humphrey Fownes waited for a lullin the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might bearranged for him to get out. Out? the leader said, frowning. Out? Out where? Outside the dome. Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up andleave. And that day I'll await impatiently, Fownes replied with marveloustact, because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My futurewife and I have to leave now . Nonsense. Ridiculous! You have to be prepared for the Open Country.You can't just up and leave, it would be suicide, Fownes. Anddialectically very poor. Then you have discussed preparations, the practical necessities oflife in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else?Have I left anything out? The leader sighed. The gentleman wants to know if he's left anythingout, he said to the group. Fownes looked around at them, at some dozen pained expressions. Tell the man what he's forgotten, the leader said, walking to the farwindow and turning his back quite pointedly on them. Everyone spoke at the same moment. A sound foreign policy , they allsaid, it being almost too obvious for words. <doc-sep>On his way out the librarian shouted at him: A Tale of a Tub ,thirty-five years overdue! She was calculating the fine as he closedthe door. Humphrey Fownes' preoccupation finally came to an end when he was oneblock away from his house. It was then that he realized somethingunusual must have occurred. An orange patrol car of the security policewas parked at his front door. And something else was happening too. His house was dancing. It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one'sresidence frisking about on its foundation. It was such a strange sightthat for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causingit. But when he stepped gingerly onto the porch, which was doing itsown independent gavotte, he reached for the doorknob with an immensecuriosity. The door flung itself open and knocked him back off the porch. From a prone position on his miniscule front lawn, Fownes watched ashis favorite easy chair sailed out of the living room on a blast ofcold air and went pinwheeling down the avenue in the bright sunshine. Awild wind and a thick fog poured out of the house. It brought chairs,suits, small tables, lamps trailing their cords, ashtrays, sofacushions. The house was emptying itself fiercely, as if disgorging anold, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of hisancient upright piano as it rolled ponderously from room to room. He stood up; a wet wind swept over him, whipping at his face, toyingwith his hair. It was a whistling in his ears, and a tingle on hischeeks. He got hit by a shoe. As he forced his way back to the doorway needles of rain played overhis face and he heard a voice cry out from somewhere in the living room. Help! Lieutenant MacBride called. Standing in the doorway with his wet hair plastered down on hisdripping scalp, the wind roaring about him, the piano rumbling in thedistance like thunder, Humphrey Fownes suddenly saw it all very clearly. Winds , he said in a whisper. What's happening? MacBride yelled, crouching behind the sofa. March winds, he said. What?! April showers! The winds roared for a moment and then MacBride's lost voice emergedfrom the blackness of the living room. These are not Optimum DomeConditions! the voice wailed. The temperature is not 59 degrees.The humidity is not 47%! <doc-sep>Fownes held his face up to let the rain fall on it. Moonlight! heshouted. Roses! My soul for a cocktail for two! He grasped thedoorway to keep from being blown out of the house. Are you going to make it stop or aren't you! MacBride yelled. You'll have to tell me what you did first! I told him not to touch that wheel! Lanfierre. He's in the upstairsbedroom! When he heard this Fownes plunged into the house and fought his wayup the stairs. He found Lanfierre standing outside the bedroom with awheel in his hand. What have I done? Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock. Fownes took the wheel. It was off a 1995 Studebaker. I'm not sure what's going to come of this, he said to Lanfierre withan astonishing amount of objectivity, but the entire dome air supplyis now coming through my bedroom. The wind screamed. Is there something I can turn? Lanfierre asked. Not any more there isn't. They started down the stairs carefully, but the wind caught them andthey quickly reached the bottom in a wet heap. Recruiting Lieutenant MacBride from behind his sofa, the men carefullyedged out of the house and forced the front door shut. The wind died. The fog dispersed. They stood dripping in the OptimumDome Conditions of the bright avenue. I never figured on this , Lanfierre said, shaking his head. With the front door closed the wind quickly built up inside the house.They could see the furnishing whirl past the windows. The house did awild, elated jig. What kind of a place is this? MacBride said, his courage beginningto return. He took out his notebook but it was a soggy mess. He tossedit away. Sure, he was different , Lanfierre murmured. I knew that much. When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certainamount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully,standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It wasstrangely slow motion, as was the black twirling cloud that now roseout of the master bedroom, spewing shorts and socks and cases everywhich way. Now what? MacBride said, thoroughly exasperated, as this strangeblack cloud began to accelerate, whirling about like some malevolenttop.... <doc-sep>Humphrey Fownes took out the dust jacket he'd found in the library. Heheld it up and carefully compared the spinning cloud in his bedroomwith the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identicalshape of the illustration. It's a twister, he said softly. A Kansas twister! What, MacBride asked, his bravado slipping away again, what ... is atwister? The twister roared and moved out of the bedroom, out over the rear ofthe house toward the side of the dome. It says here, Fownes shoutedover the roaring, that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twisterand that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land beyond theconfines of everyday living . MacBride's eyes and mouth were great zeros. Is there something I can turn? Lanfierre asked. Huge chunks of glass began to fall around them. Fownes! MacBride shouted. This is a direct order! Make it go back! But Fownes had already begun to run on toward the next house, dodgingmountainous puffs of glass as he went. Mrs. Deshazaway! he shouted.Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshazaway! The dome weevils were going berserk trying to keep up with theprecipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then,emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quicklyemptied and then rushed about empty-handed. Yoo-hoo! he yelled,running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister.Optimum temperature collapsed. Mrs. Deshazaway! Agnes , will youmarry me? Yoo-hoo! Lanfierre and Lieutenant MacBride leaned against their car and waited,dazed. There was quite a large fall of glass. <doc-sep></s>

Mrs. Agnes Deshazaway is a widow who had previously married four men. All of her four husbands died; she claims that she will never marry again. However, she is also considered to be a passionate woman who does everything passionately. Whether it be talking, cooking, dressing, everything about her is passionate. She also has uncontrollable dynamism, and Fownes remarks that he has never known anyone like her. Despite her passion, she is also self-conscious of what other people think of her, telling Fownes that there is a rumor that she is a cannibal. She blames her husbands’ deaths on the air and gets angry when Fownes says that he does not mind. Despite how reluctant she is to marry Fownes, Mrs. Deshazaway also has a hopeful side to her. She is quite attentive when Fownes tells her the possibility of leaving the dome, telling him that she will allow him to marry her if the both of them can leave.

<s> A FALL OF GLASS By STANLEY R. LEE Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The weatherman was always right: Temperature, 59; humidity, 47%; occasional light showers—but of what? The pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously. It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, thehumidity a mildly dessicated 47%. The sun was a flaming orange ball ina cloudless blue sky. His pockets were picked eleven times. It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was amasterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was HumphreyFownes' abstraction; he was an uncommonly preoccupied individual. Hewas strolling along a quiet residential avenue: small private houses,one after another, a place of little traffic and minimum distractions.But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject tobegin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking sodeeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too manypeople were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum DomeConditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a boguspostman, who pretended to be reading a postal card, jostled him. In theconfusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postmanrifled Fownes's handkerchief and inside jacket pockets. <doc-sep>He was still thinking about temperature and humidity when a pretty girlhappened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got hisright and left jacket pockets. It was much too much for coincidence.The sidewalk was wide enough to allow four people to pass at one time.He should surely have become suspicious when two men engaged in aheated argument came along. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied hisrear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of thehandkerchief pocket. It all went off very smoothly, like a game of putand take—the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea hewas playing. There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass. It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist,hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings ofa celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-lightfragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Domeweevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed thehuge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing. Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass stillintrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humiditythat was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was thisrather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tightsurveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of gettinghis fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayedand chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returningthem. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled afive-pound bag of flour as he was passing. It was really plaster ofParis. He left his shoe prints, stride measurement, height, weight andhandedness behind. By the time Fownes reached his front door an entire dossier completewith photographs had been prepared and was being read by two men in anorange patrol car parked down the street. <doc-sep>Lanfierre had undoubtedly been affected by his job. Sitting behind the wheel of the orange car, he watched Humphrey Fownesapproach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was anodd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similarto that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new andparticularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope. Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be toleratedwithin the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a socialforce; it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it,Lanfierre had become an admirer of eccentricity. He came to see thatgenuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his ownsmall efforts, rarer. Fownes was a masterpiece of queerness. He was utterly inexplicable.Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes. Sometimes his house shakes , Lanfierre said. House shakes, Lieutenant MacBride wrote in his notebook. Then hestopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written. You heard right. The house shakes , Lanfierre said, savoring it. MacBride looked at the Fownes house through the magnifying glass ofthe windshield. Like from ... side to side ? he asked in a somewhatpatronizing tone of voice. And up and down. MacBride returned the notebook to the breast pocket of his orangeuniform. Go on, he said, amused. It sounds interesting. He tossedthe dossier carelessly on the back seat. Lanfierre sat stiffly behind the wheel, affronted. The cynical MacBridecouldn't really appreciate fine aberrations. In some ways MacBridewas a barbarian. Lanfierre had held out on Fownes for months. Hehad even contrived to engage him in conversation once, a pleasantlyabsurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. It wasonly with the greatest reluctance that he finally mentioned Fownesto MacBride. After years of searching for differences Lanfierre hadseen how extraordinarily repetitious people were, echoes really, dimlyresounding echoes, each believing itself whole and separate. They spokein an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievablytrite. Then a fine robust freak came along and the others—the echoes—refusedto believe it. The lieutenant was probably on the point of suggesting avacation. Why don't you take a vacation? Lieutenant MacBride suggested. It's like this, MacBride. Do you know what a wind is? A breeze? Azephyr? I've heard some. They say there are mountain-tops where winds blow all the time. Strongwinds, MacBride. Winds like you and I can't imagine. And if there wasa house sitting on such a mountain and if winds did blow, it wouldshake exactly the way that one does. Sometimes I get the feeling thewhole place is going to slide off its foundation and go sailing downthe avenue. <doc-sep>Lieutenant MacBride pursed his lips. I'll tell you something else, Lanfierre went on. The windows allclose at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden everysingle window in the place will drop to its sill. Lanfierre leanedback in the seat, his eyes still on the house. Sometimes I thinkthere's a whole crowd of people in there waiting for a signal—as ifthey all had something important to say but had to close the windowsfirst so no one could hear. Why else close the windows in a domed city?And then as soon as the place is buttoned up they all explode intoconversation—and that's why the house shakes. MacBride whistled. No, I don't need a vacation. A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against thewindshield. Lanfierre started and bumped his knee on the steering wheel. No, you don't need a rest, MacBride said. You're starting to seeflying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in yourbrain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality— At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammedshut. The street was deserted and quiet, not a movement, not a sound.MacBride and Lanfierre both leaned forward, as if waiting for theghostly babble of voices to commence. The house began to shake. It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed anddipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. Thehouse could have been preparing to take off and sail down the.... MacBride looked at Lanfierre and Lanfierre looked at MacBride and thenthey both looked back at the dancing house. And the water , Lanfierre said. The water he uses! He could bethe thirstiest and cleanest man in the city. He could have a wholefamily of thirsty and clean kids, and he still wouldn't need all thatwater. The lieutenant had picked up the dossier. He thumbed through the pagesnow in amazement. Where do you get a guy like this? he asked. Didyou see what he carries in his pockets? And compasses won't work on this street. The lieutenant lit a cigarette and sighed. He usually sighed when making the decision to raid a dwelling. Itexpressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and gotneurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. Therewas something implacable about his sighs. He'll be coming out soon, Lanfierre said. He eats supper next doorwith a widow. Then he goes to the library. Always the same. Supper atthe widow's next door and then the library. MacBride's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. The library? hesaid. Is he in with that bunch? Lanfierre nodded. Should be very interesting, MacBride said slowly. I can't wait to see what he's got in there, Lanfierre murmured,watching the house with a consuming interest. They sat there smoking in silence and every now and then their eyeswidened as the house danced a new step. <doc-sep>Fownes stopped on the porch to brush the plaster of paris off hisshoes. He hadn't seen the patrol car and this intense preoccupationof his was also responsible for the dancing house—he simply hadn'tnoticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. Hehad a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and thehigh-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of thehouse. At least, he called it buffeting; he'd never thought to watchfrom outside. He went in and threw his jacket on the sofa, there being no roomleft in the closets. Crossing the living room he stopped to twist adraw-pull. Every window slammed shut. Tight as a kite, he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward thecloset at the foot of the stairs and then stopped again. Was thatright? No, snug as a hug in a rug . He went on, thinking: The olddevils. The downstairs closet was like a great watch case, a profusion ofwheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-sawthat went back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels had acurious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged fromgrandfather's clocks and music boxes and they went around in gracefulcircles at the rate of 30 and 31 times an hour ... although therewas one slightly eccentric cam that vacillated between 28 and 29. Hewatched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them forseven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year. Outside, the domed city vanished. It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear,the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a moresatisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion.Looking through the window he saw only a garden. Instead of an orange sun at perpetual high noon, there was a red sunsetting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which leftthe smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid ahuge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon agarden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses. Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. And cocktails fortwo. Blast, he'd never be able to figure that one out! He watched asthe moon played, Oh, You Beautiful Doll and the neon roses flashedslowly from red to violet, then went back to the closet and turned onthe scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated roseas the moon shifted to People Will Say We're In Love . <doc-sep>He rubbed his chin critically. It seemed all right. A dreamy sunset,an enchanted moon, flowers, scent. They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rosereally smelled—or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. Butthen, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive. Insist on it. I tell you, my dear, this is a genuine realisticromantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icyfingers marching up and down your spine? His own spine didn't seem to be affected. But then he hadn't read thatbook on ancient mores and courtship customs. How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incrediblylong and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amountof falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. Nomeant any number of things, depending on the tone of voice and thecircumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later onthis evening. He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker,thinking roguishly: Thou shalt not inundate. The risks he was taking!A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant Singing in the Rain . Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red suncontinued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over anddemolished several of the neon roses. The last wheel in the bedroom closet was a rather elegant steeringwheel from an old 1995 Studebaker. This was on the bootleg pipe; hegingerly turned it. Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle ofwinds came to him. He went downstairs to watch out the living room window. This wasimportant; the window had a really fixed attitude about air currents.The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose andthe moon shook a trifle as it whispered Cuddle Up a Little Closer . He watched with folded arms, considering how he would start. My dearMrs. Deshazaway. Too formal. They'd be looking out at the romanticgarden; time to be a bit forward. My very dear Mrs. Deshazaway. No.Contrived. How about a simple, Dear Mrs. Deshazaway . That might beit. I was wondering, seeing as how it's so late, if you wouldn'trather stay over instead of going home.... Preoccupied, he hadn't noticed the winds building up, didn't hear theshaking and rattling of the pipes. There were attic pipes connectedto wall pipes and wall pipes connected to cellar pipes, and they madeone gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance ashigh-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening theStudebaker valve wider and wider.... The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sunshot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moonfell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When theBlue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day . The shaking house finally woke him up. He scrambled upstairs to theStudebaker wheel and shut it off. At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn'tthe first time the winds got out of line. Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all downand went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months,about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April.Its days were thirty and it followed September. And all the rest havethirty-one. What a strange people, the ancients! He still didn't see the orange car parked down the street. <doc-sep>Men are too perishable, Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. For allpractical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die. Would you pass the beets, please? Humphrey Fownes said. She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. And don't look at methat way, she said. I'm not going to marry you and if you wantreasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse. The widow was a passionate woman. She did everythingpassionately—talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionatelyred. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelrytinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes hadnever known anyone like her. You forgot to put salt on the potatoes,she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible forher to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. Do you have anyidea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I robmy husbands of their life force and when they're empty I carry theirbodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace. As long as there are people, he said philosophically, there'll betalk. But it's the air! Why don't they talk about that? The air is stale,I'm positive. It's not nourishing. The air is stale and Andrew, Curt,Norman and Alphonse couldn't stand it. Poor Alphonse. He was never sohealthy as on the day he was born. From then on things got steadilyworse for him. I don't seem to mind the air. She threw up her hands. You'd be the worst of the lot! She left thetable, rustling and tinkling about the room. I can just hear them. Trysome of the asparagus. Five. That's what they'd say. That woman didit again. And the plain fact is I don't want you on my record. Really, Fownes protested. I feel splendid. Never better. He could hear her moving about and then felt her hands on hisshoulders. And what about those very elaborate plans you've beenmaking to seduce me? Fownes froze with three asparagus hanging from his fork. Don't you think they'll find out? I found out and you can bet they will. It's my fault, I guess. I talk too much. And I don'talways tell the truth. To be completely honest with you, Mr. Fownes, itwasn't the old customs at all standing between us, it was air. I can'thave another man die on me, it's bad for my self-esteem. And now you'vegone and done something good and criminal, something peculiar. <doc-sep>Fownes put his fork down. Dear Mrs. Deshazaway, he started to say. And of course when they do find out and they ask you why, Mr. Fownes,you'll tell them. No, no heroics, please! When they ask a man aquestion he always answers and you will too. You'll tell them I wantedto be courted and when they hear that they'll be around to ask me afew questions. You see, we're both a bit queer. I hadn't thought of that, Fownes said quietly. Oh, it doesn't really matter. I'll join Andrew, Curt, Norman— That won't be necessary, Fownes said with unusual force. With alldue respect to Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse, I might as well statehere and now I have other plans for you, Mrs. Deshazaway. But my dear Mr. Fownes, she said, leaning across the table. We'relost, you and I. Not if we could leave the dome, Fownes said quietly. That's impossible! How? In no hurry, now that he had the widow's complete attention, Fownesleaned across the table and whispered: Fresh air, Mrs. Deshazaway?Space? Miles and miles of space where the real-estate monopoly hasno control whatever? Where the wind blows across prairies ; or isit the other way around? No matter. How would you like that , Mrs.Deshazaway? Breathing somewhat faster than usual, the widow rested her chin on hertwo hands. Pray continue, she said. Endless vistas of moonlight and roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshazaway.And June, which as you may know follows directly upon April and issupposed to be the month of brides, of marrying. June also lies beyondthe dome. I see. And , Mr. Fownes added, his voice a honeyed whisper, they saythat somewhere out in the space and the roses and the moonlight,the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's vernal and that's when it roams the Open Country where geigers nolonger scintillate. My. Mrs. Deshazaway rose, paced slowly to the window and then cameback to the table, standing directly over Fownes. If you can get usoutside the dome, she said, out where a man stays warm long enoughfor his wife to get to know him ... if you can do that, Mr. Fownes ...you may call me Agnes. <doc-sep>When Humphrey Fownes stepped out of the widow's house, there was alook of such intense abstraction on his features that Lanfierre felt awistful desire to get out of the car and walk along with the man. Itwould be such a deliciously insane experience. (April has thirtydays, Fownes mumbled, passing them, because thirty is the largestnumber such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisorwith it are primes . MacBride frowned and added it to the dossier.Lanfierre sighed.) Pinning his hopes on the Movement, Fownes went straight to thelibrary several blocks away, a shattered depressing place given overto government publications and censored old books with holes inthem. It was used so infrequently that the Movement was able to meetthere undisturbed. The librarian was a yellowed, dog-eared woman ofeighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like thebooks around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into nearunintelligibility. Here's one, she said to him as he entered. Gulliver's Travels. Loaned to John Wesley Davidson on March 14, 1979 for five days. Whatdo you make of it? In the litter of books and cards and dried out ink pads that surroundedthe librarian, Fownes noticed a torn dust jacket with a curiousillustration. What's that? he said. A twister, she replied quickly. Now listen to this . Seven yearslater on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book.What do you make of that ? I'd say, Humphrey Fownes said, that he ... that he recommended itto her, that one day they met in the street and he told her aboutthis book and then they ... they went to the library together and sheborrowed it and eventually, why eventually they got married. Hah! They were brother and sister! the librarian shouted in herparched voice, her old buckram eyes laughing with cunning. Fownes smiled weakly and looked again at the dust jacket. The twisterwas unquestionably a meteorological phenomenon. It spun ominously, likea malevolent top, and coursed the countryside destructively, carryinga Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anythingto feminine pulses, if they could possibly be a part of a moonlitnight, with cocktails and roses. He absently stuffed the dust jacketin his pocket and went on into the other rooms, the librarian mumblingafter him: Edna Murdoch Featherstone, April 21, 1991, as thoughreading inscriptions on a tombstone. <doc-sep>The Movement met in what had been the children's room, where unpaidladies of the afternoon had once upon a time read stories to otherpeople's offspring. The members sat around at the miniature tableslooking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting. Where did the old society fail? the leader was demanding of them. Hestood in the center of the room, leaning on a heavy knobbed cane. Heglanced around at the group almost complacently, and waited as HumphreyFownes squeezed into an empty chair. We live in a dome, the leadersaid, for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thingthat the great technological societies before ours could not invent,notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise? Fownes was the kind of man who never answered a rhetorical question. Hewaited, uncomfortable in the tight chair, while the others struggledwith this problem in revolutionary dialectics. A sound foreign policy , the leader said, aware that no one else hadobtained the insight. If a sound foreign policy can't be created theonly alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus themovement into domes began— by common consent of the governments . Thisis known as self-containment. Dialectically out in left field, Humphrey Fownes waited for a lullin the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might bearranged for him to get out. Out? the leader said, frowning. Out? Out where? Outside the dome. Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up andleave. And that day I'll await impatiently, Fownes replied with marveloustact, because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My futurewife and I have to leave now . Nonsense. Ridiculous! You have to be prepared for the Open Country.You can't just up and leave, it would be suicide, Fownes. Anddialectically very poor. Then you have discussed preparations, the practical necessities oflife in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else?Have I left anything out? The leader sighed. The gentleman wants to know if he's left anythingout, he said to the group. Fownes looked around at them, at some dozen pained expressions. Tell the man what he's forgotten, the leader said, walking to the farwindow and turning his back quite pointedly on them. Everyone spoke at the same moment. A sound foreign policy , they allsaid, it being almost too obvious for words. <doc-sep>On his way out the librarian shouted at him: A Tale of a Tub ,thirty-five years overdue! She was calculating the fine as he closedthe door. Humphrey Fownes' preoccupation finally came to an end when he was oneblock away from his house. It was then that he realized somethingunusual must have occurred. An orange patrol car of the security policewas parked at his front door. And something else was happening too. His house was dancing. It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one'sresidence frisking about on its foundation. It was such a strange sightthat for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causingit. But when he stepped gingerly onto the porch, which was doing itsown independent gavotte, he reached for the doorknob with an immensecuriosity. The door flung itself open and knocked him back off the porch. From a prone position on his miniscule front lawn, Fownes watched ashis favorite easy chair sailed out of the living room on a blast ofcold air and went pinwheeling down the avenue in the bright sunshine. Awild wind and a thick fog poured out of the house. It brought chairs,suits, small tables, lamps trailing their cords, ashtrays, sofacushions. The house was emptying itself fiercely, as if disgorging anold, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of hisancient upright piano as it rolled ponderously from room to room. He stood up; a wet wind swept over him, whipping at his face, toyingwith his hair. It was a whistling in his ears, and a tingle on hischeeks. He got hit by a shoe. As he forced his way back to the doorway needles of rain played overhis face and he heard a voice cry out from somewhere in the living room. Help! Lieutenant MacBride called. Standing in the doorway with his wet hair plastered down on hisdripping scalp, the wind roaring about him, the piano rumbling in thedistance like thunder, Humphrey Fownes suddenly saw it all very clearly. Winds , he said in a whisper. What's happening? MacBride yelled, crouching behind the sofa. March winds, he said. What?! April showers! The winds roared for a moment and then MacBride's lost voice emergedfrom the blackness of the living room. These are not Optimum DomeConditions! the voice wailed. The temperature is not 59 degrees.The humidity is not 47%! <doc-sep>Fownes held his face up to let the rain fall on it. Moonlight! heshouted. Roses! My soul for a cocktail for two! He grasped thedoorway to keep from being blown out of the house. Are you going to make it stop or aren't you! MacBride yelled. You'll have to tell me what you did first! I told him not to touch that wheel! Lanfierre. He's in the upstairsbedroom! When he heard this Fownes plunged into the house and fought his wayup the stairs. He found Lanfierre standing outside the bedroom with awheel in his hand. What have I done? Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock. Fownes took the wheel. It was off a 1995 Studebaker. I'm not sure what's going to come of this, he said to Lanfierre withan astonishing amount of objectivity, but the entire dome air supplyis now coming through my bedroom. The wind screamed. Is there something I can turn? Lanfierre asked. Not any more there isn't. They started down the stairs carefully, but the wind caught them andthey quickly reached the bottom in a wet heap. Recruiting Lieutenant MacBride from behind his sofa, the men carefullyedged out of the house and forced the front door shut. The wind died. The fog dispersed. They stood dripping in the OptimumDome Conditions of the bright avenue. I never figured on this , Lanfierre said, shaking his head. With the front door closed the wind quickly built up inside the house.They could see the furnishing whirl past the windows. The house did awild, elated jig. What kind of a place is this? MacBride said, his courage beginningto return. He took out his notebook but it was a soggy mess. He tossedit away. Sure, he was different , Lanfierre murmured. I knew that much. When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certainamount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully,standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It wasstrangely slow motion, as was the black twirling cloud that now roseout of the master bedroom, spewing shorts and socks and cases everywhich way. Now what? MacBride said, thoroughly exasperated, as this strangeblack cloud began to accelerate, whirling about like some malevolenttop.... <doc-sep>Humphrey Fownes took out the dust jacket he'd found in the library. Heheld it up and carefully compared the spinning cloud in his bedroomwith the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identicalshape of the illustration. It's a twister, he said softly. A Kansas twister! What, MacBride asked, his bravado slipping away again, what ... is atwister? The twister roared and moved out of the bedroom, out over the rear ofthe house toward the side of the dome. It says here, Fownes shoutedover the roaring, that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twisterand that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land beyond theconfines of everyday living . MacBride's eyes and mouth were great zeros. Is there something I can turn? Lanfierre asked. Huge chunks of glass began to fall around them. Fownes! MacBride shouted. This is a direct order! Make it go back! But Fownes had already begun to run on toward the next house, dodgingmountainous puffs of glass as he went. Mrs. Deshazaway! he shouted.Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshazaway! The dome weevils were going berserk trying to keep up with theprecipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then,emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quicklyemptied and then rushed about empty-handed. Yoo-hoo! he yelled,running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister.Optimum temperature collapsed. Mrs. Deshazaway! Agnes , will youmarry me? Yoo-hoo! Lanfierre and Lieutenant MacBride leaned against their car and waited,dazed. There was quite a large fall of glass. <doc-sep></s>

The story is set inside a dome city with an artificial sun and optimal weather conditions. Fownes first strolls down a quiet residential avenue lined with private houses. Although the weather is generally cloudless, there are light showers that make small geysers of shiny mist. His house is also noted to be located right next to Mrs. Deshazaway’s house. Inside of an orange car, Lanfierre and MacBride watch him. Fownes’ house has a porch and a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system. His downstairs closet contains the Master Mechanism. The illusion he sees is of a red sun setting brightly, marred by an occasional arcover that leaves the scent of ozone. There is a garden outside as well, and a gigantic moon hidden in a large area of the sky. Neon large roses are found in the garden, and their colors change from red to violet. Inside of his bedroom closet upstairs, there is a rainmaker. The outside world that Fownes describes to Mrs. Deshazaway, outside of the dome, is one with miles and miles of space. The real-estate monopoly has no control, and the windows blow across prairies. When Fownes goes to the library, the place is described as a shattered and depressing place. It is used very infrequently, filled with given over government publications and censored old books with holes in them. The librarian's desk has ancient library cards that are almost impossible to read.

<s> A FALL OF GLASS By STANLEY R. LEE Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The weatherman was always right: Temperature, 59; humidity, 47%; occasional light showers—but of what? The pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously. It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, thehumidity a mildly dessicated 47%. The sun was a flaming orange ball ina cloudless blue sky. His pockets were picked eleven times. It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was amasterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was HumphreyFownes' abstraction; he was an uncommonly preoccupied individual. Hewas strolling along a quiet residential avenue: small private houses,one after another, a place of little traffic and minimum distractions.But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject tobegin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking sodeeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too manypeople were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum DomeConditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a boguspostman, who pretended to be reading a postal card, jostled him. In theconfusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postmanrifled Fownes's handkerchief and inside jacket pockets. <doc-sep>He was still thinking about temperature and humidity when a pretty girlhappened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got hisright and left jacket pockets. It was much too much for coincidence.The sidewalk was wide enough to allow four people to pass at one time.He should surely have become suspicious when two men engaged in aheated argument came along. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied hisrear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of thehandkerchief pocket. It all went off very smoothly, like a game of putand take—the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea hewas playing. There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass. It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist,hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings ofa celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-lightfragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Domeweevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed thehuge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing. Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass stillintrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humiditythat was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was thisrather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tightsurveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of gettinghis fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayedand chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returningthem. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled afive-pound bag of flour as he was passing. It was really plaster ofParis. He left his shoe prints, stride measurement, height, weight andhandedness behind. By the time Fownes reached his front door an entire dossier completewith photographs had been prepared and was being read by two men in anorange patrol car parked down the street. <doc-sep>Lanfierre had undoubtedly been affected by his job. Sitting behind the wheel of the orange car, he watched Humphrey Fownesapproach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was anodd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similarto that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new andparticularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope. Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be toleratedwithin the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a socialforce; it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it,Lanfierre had become an admirer of eccentricity. He came to see thatgenuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his ownsmall efforts, rarer. Fownes was a masterpiece of queerness. He was utterly inexplicable.Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes. Sometimes his house shakes , Lanfierre said. House shakes, Lieutenant MacBride wrote in his notebook. Then hestopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written. You heard right. The house shakes , Lanfierre said, savoring it. MacBride looked at the Fownes house through the magnifying glass ofthe windshield. Like from ... side to side ? he asked in a somewhatpatronizing tone of voice. And up and down. MacBride returned the notebook to the breast pocket of his orangeuniform. Go on, he said, amused. It sounds interesting. He tossedthe dossier carelessly on the back seat. Lanfierre sat stiffly behind the wheel, affronted. The cynical MacBridecouldn't really appreciate fine aberrations. In some ways MacBridewas a barbarian. Lanfierre had held out on Fownes for months. Hehad even contrived to engage him in conversation once, a pleasantlyabsurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. It wasonly with the greatest reluctance that he finally mentioned Fownesto MacBride. After years of searching for differences Lanfierre hadseen how extraordinarily repetitious people were, echoes really, dimlyresounding echoes, each believing itself whole and separate. They spokein an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievablytrite. Then a fine robust freak came along and the others—the echoes—refusedto believe it. The lieutenant was probably on the point of suggesting avacation. Why don't you take a vacation? Lieutenant MacBride suggested. It's like this, MacBride. Do you know what a wind is? A breeze? Azephyr? I've heard some. They say there are mountain-tops where winds blow all the time. Strongwinds, MacBride. Winds like you and I can't imagine. And if there wasa house sitting on such a mountain and if winds did blow, it wouldshake exactly the way that one does. Sometimes I get the feeling thewhole place is going to slide off its foundation and go sailing downthe avenue. <doc-sep>Lieutenant MacBride pursed his lips. I'll tell you something else, Lanfierre went on. The windows allclose at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden everysingle window in the place will drop to its sill. Lanfierre leanedback in the seat, his eyes still on the house. Sometimes I thinkthere's a whole crowd of people in there waiting for a signal—as ifthey all had something important to say but had to close the windowsfirst so no one could hear. Why else close the windows in a domed city?And then as soon as the place is buttoned up they all explode intoconversation—and that's why the house shakes. MacBride whistled. No, I don't need a vacation. A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against thewindshield. Lanfierre started and bumped his knee on the steering wheel. No, you don't need a rest, MacBride said. You're starting to seeflying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in yourbrain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality— At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammedshut. The street was deserted and quiet, not a movement, not a sound.MacBride and Lanfierre both leaned forward, as if waiting for theghostly babble of voices to commence. The house began to shake. It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed anddipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. Thehouse could have been preparing to take off and sail down the.... MacBride looked at Lanfierre and Lanfierre looked at MacBride and thenthey both looked back at the dancing house. And the water , Lanfierre said. The water he uses! He could bethe thirstiest and cleanest man in the city. He could have a wholefamily of thirsty and clean kids, and he still wouldn't need all thatwater. The lieutenant had picked up the dossier. He thumbed through the pagesnow in amazement. Where do you get a guy like this? he asked. Didyou see what he carries in his pockets? And compasses won't work on this street. The lieutenant lit a cigarette and sighed. He usually sighed when making the decision to raid a dwelling. Itexpressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and gotneurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. Therewas something implacable about his sighs. He'll be coming out soon, Lanfierre said. He eats supper next doorwith a widow. Then he goes to the library. Always the same. Supper atthe widow's next door and then the library. MacBride's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. The library? hesaid. Is he in with that bunch? Lanfierre nodded. Should be very interesting, MacBride said slowly. I can't wait to see what he's got in there, Lanfierre murmured,watching the house with a consuming interest. They sat there smoking in silence and every now and then their eyeswidened as the house danced a new step. <doc-sep>Fownes stopped on the porch to brush the plaster of paris off hisshoes. He hadn't seen the patrol car and this intense preoccupationof his was also responsible for the dancing house—he simply hadn'tnoticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. Hehad a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and thehigh-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of thehouse. At least, he called it buffeting; he'd never thought to watchfrom outside. He went in and threw his jacket on the sofa, there being no roomleft in the closets. Crossing the living room he stopped to twist adraw-pull. Every window slammed shut. Tight as a kite, he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward thecloset at the foot of the stairs and then stopped again. Was thatright? No, snug as a hug in a rug . He went on, thinking: The olddevils. The downstairs closet was like a great watch case, a profusion ofwheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-sawthat went back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels had acurious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged fromgrandfather's clocks and music boxes and they went around in gracefulcircles at the rate of 30 and 31 times an hour ... although therewas one slightly eccentric cam that vacillated between 28 and 29. Hewatched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them forseven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year. Outside, the domed city vanished. It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear,the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a moresatisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion.Looking through the window he saw only a garden. Instead of an orange sun at perpetual high noon, there was a red sunsetting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which leftthe smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid ahuge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon agarden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses. Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. And cocktails fortwo. Blast, he'd never be able to figure that one out! He watched asthe moon played, Oh, You Beautiful Doll and the neon roses flashedslowly from red to violet, then went back to the closet and turned onthe scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated roseas the moon shifted to People Will Say We're In Love . <doc-sep>He rubbed his chin critically. It seemed all right. A dreamy sunset,an enchanted moon, flowers, scent. They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rosereally smelled—or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. Butthen, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive. Insist on it. I tell you, my dear, this is a genuine realisticromantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icyfingers marching up and down your spine? His own spine didn't seem to be affected. But then he hadn't read thatbook on ancient mores and courtship customs. How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incrediblylong and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amountof falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. Nomeant any number of things, depending on the tone of voice and thecircumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later onthis evening. He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker,thinking roguishly: Thou shalt not inundate. The risks he was taking!A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant Singing in the Rain . Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red suncontinued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over anddemolished several of the neon roses. The last wheel in the bedroom closet was a rather elegant steeringwheel from an old 1995 Studebaker. This was on the bootleg pipe; hegingerly turned it. Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle ofwinds came to him. He went downstairs to watch out the living room window. This wasimportant; the window had a really fixed attitude about air currents.The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose andthe moon shook a trifle as it whispered Cuddle Up a Little Closer . He watched with folded arms, considering how he would start. My dearMrs. Deshazaway. Too formal. They'd be looking out at the romanticgarden; time to be a bit forward. My very dear Mrs. Deshazaway. No.Contrived. How about a simple, Dear Mrs. Deshazaway . That might beit. I was wondering, seeing as how it's so late, if you wouldn'trather stay over instead of going home.... Preoccupied, he hadn't noticed the winds building up, didn't hear theshaking and rattling of the pipes. There were attic pipes connectedto wall pipes and wall pipes connected to cellar pipes, and they madeone gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance ashigh-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening theStudebaker valve wider and wider.... The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sunshot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moonfell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When theBlue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day . The shaking house finally woke him up. He scrambled upstairs to theStudebaker wheel and shut it off. At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn'tthe first time the winds got out of line. Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all downand went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months,about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April.Its days were thirty and it followed September. And all the rest havethirty-one. What a strange people, the ancients! He still didn't see the orange car parked down the street. <doc-sep>Men are too perishable, Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. For allpractical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die. Would you pass the beets, please? Humphrey Fownes said. She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. And don't look at methat way, she said. I'm not going to marry you and if you wantreasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse. The widow was a passionate woman. She did everythingpassionately—talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionatelyred. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelrytinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes hadnever known anyone like her. You forgot to put salt on the potatoes,she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible forher to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. Do you have anyidea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I robmy husbands of their life force and when they're empty I carry theirbodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace. As long as there are people, he said philosophically, there'll betalk. But it's the air! Why don't they talk about that? The air is stale,I'm positive. It's not nourishing. The air is stale and Andrew, Curt,Norman and Alphonse couldn't stand it. Poor Alphonse. He was never sohealthy as on the day he was born. From then on things got steadilyworse for him. I don't seem to mind the air. She threw up her hands. You'd be the worst of the lot! She left thetable, rustling and tinkling about the room. I can just hear them. Trysome of the asparagus. Five. That's what they'd say. That woman didit again. And the plain fact is I don't want you on my record. Really, Fownes protested. I feel splendid. Never better. He could hear her moving about and then felt her hands on hisshoulders. And what about those very elaborate plans you've beenmaking to seduce me? Fownes froze with three asparagus hanging from his fork. Don't you think they'll find out? I found out and you can bet they will. It's my fault, I guess. I talk too much. And I don'talways tell the truth. To be completely honest with you, Mr. Fownes, itwasn't the old customs at all standing between us, it was air. I can'thave another man die on me, it's bad for my self-esteem. And now you'vegone and done something good and criminal, something peculiar. <doc-sep>Fownes put his fork down. Dear Mrs. Deshazaway, he started to say. And of course when they do find out and they ask you why, Mr. Fownes,you'll tell them. No, no heroics, please! When they ask a man aquestion he always answers and you will too. You'll tell them I wantedto be courted and when they hear that they'll be around to ask me afew questions. You see, we're both a bit queer. I hadn't thought of that, Fownes said quietly. Oh, it doesn't really matter. I'll join Andrew, Curt, Norman— That won't be necessary, Fownes said with unusual force. With alldue respect to Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse, I might as well statehere and now I have other plans for you, Mrs. Deshazaway. But my dear Mr. Fownes, she said, leaning across the table. We'relost, you and I. Not if we could leave the dome, Fownes said quietly. That's impossible! How? In no hurry, now that he had the widow's complete attention, Fownesleaned across the table and whispered: Fresh air, Mrs. Deshazaway?Space? Miles and miles of space where the real-estate monopoly hasno control whatever? Where the wind blows across prairies ; or isit the other way around? No matter. How would you like that , Mrs.Deshazaway? Breathing somewhat faster than usual, the widow rested her chin on hertwo hands. Pray continue, she said. Endless vistas of moonlight and roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshazaway.And June, which as you may know follows directly upon April and issupposed to be the month of brides, of marrying. June also lies beyondthe dome. I see. And , Mr. Fownes added, his voice a honeyed whisper, they saythat somewhere out in the space and the roses and the moonlight,the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's vernal and that's when it roams the Open Country where geigers nolonger scintillate. My. Mrs. Deshazaway rose, paced slowly to the window and then cameback to the table, standing directly over Fownes. If you can get usoutside the dome, she said, out where a man stays warm long enoughfor his wife to get to know him ... if you can do that, Mr. Fownes ...you may call me Agnes. <doc-sep>When Humphrey Fownes stepped out of the widow's house, there was alook of such intense abstraction on his features that Lanfierre felt awistful desire to get out of the car and walk along with the man. Itwould be such a deliciously insane experience. (April has thirtydays, Fownes mumbled, passing them, because thirty is the largestnumber such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisorwith it are primes . MacBride frowned and added it to the dossier.Lanfierre sighed.) Pinning his hopes on the Movement, Fownes went straight to thelibrary several blocks away, a shattered depressing place given overto government publications and censored old books with holes inthem. It was used so infrequently that the Movement was able to meetthere undisturbed. The librarian was a yellowed, dog-eared woman ofeighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like thebooks around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into nearunintelligibility. Here's one, she said to him as he entered. Gulliver's Travels. Loaned to John Wesley Davidson on March 14, 1979 for five days. Whatdo you make of it? In the litter of books and cards and dried out ink pads that surroundedthe librarian, Fownes noticed a torn dust jacket with a curiousillustration. What's that? he said. A twister, she replied quickly. Now listen to this . Seven yearslater on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book.What do you make of that ? I'd say, Humphrey Fownes said, that he ... that he recommended itto her, that one day they met in the street and he told her aboutthis book and then they ... they went to the library together and sheborrowed it and eventually, why eventually they got married. Hah! They were brother and sister! the librarian shouted in herparched voice, her old buckram eyes laughing with cunning. Fownes smiled weakly and looked again at the dust jacket. The twisterwas unquestionably a meteorological phenomenon. It spun ominously, likea malevolent top, and coursed the countryside destructively, carryinga Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anythingto feminine pulses, if they could possibly be a part of a moonlitnight, with cocktails and roses. He absently stuffed the dust jacketin his pocket and went on into the other rooms, the librarian mumblingafter him: Edna Murdoch Featherstone, April 21, 1991, as thoughreading inscriptions on a tombstone. <doc-sep>The Movement met in what had been the children's room, where unpaidladies of the afternoon had once upon a time read stories to otherpeople's offspring. The members sat around at the miniature tableslooking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting. Where did the old society fail? the leader was demanding of them. Hestood in the center of the room, leaning on a heavy knobbed cane. Heglanced around at the group almost complacently, and waited as HumphreyFownes squeezed into an empty chair. We live in a dome, the leadersaid, for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thingthat the great technological societies before ours could not invent,notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise? Fownes was the kind of man who never answered a rhetorical question. Hewaited, uncomfortable in the tight chair, while the others struggledwith this problem in revolutionary dialectics. A sound foreign policy , the leader said, aware that no one else hadobtained the insight. If a sound foreign policy can't be created theonly alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus themovement into domes began— by common consent of the governments . Thisis known as self-containment. Dialectically out in left field, Humphrey Fownes waited for a lullin the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might bearranged for him to get out. Out? the leader said, frowning. Out? Out where? Outside the dome. Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up andleave. And that day I'll await impatiently, Fownes replied with marveloustact, because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My futurewife and I have to leave now . Nonsense. Ridiculous! You have to be prepared for the Open Country.You can't just up and leave, it would be suicide, Fownes. Anddialectically very poor. Then you have discussed preparations, the practical necessities oflife in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else?Have I left anything out? The leader sighed. The gentleman wants to know if he's left anythingout, he said to the group. Fownes looked around at them, at some dozen pained expressions. Tell the man what he's forgotten, the leader said, walking to the farwindow and turning his back quite pointedly on them. Everyone spoke at the same moment. A sound foreign policy , they allsaid, it being almost too obvious for words. <doc-sep>On his way out the librarian shouted at him: A Tale of a Tub ,thirty-five years overdue! She was calculating the fine as he closedthe door. Humphrey Fownes' preoccupation finally came to an end when he was oneblock away from his house. It was then that he realized somethingunusual must have occurred. An orange patrol car of the security policewas parked at his front door. And something else was happening too. His house was dancing. It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one'sresidence frisking about on its foundation. It was such a strange sightthat for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causingit. But when he stepped gingerly onto the porch, which was doing itsown independent gavotte, he reached for the doorknob with an immensecuriosity. The door flung itself open and knocked him back off the porch. From a prone position on his miniscule front lawn, Fownes watched ashis favorite easy chair sailed out of the living room on a blast ofcold air and went pinwheeling down the avenue in the bright sunshine. Awild wind and a thick fog poured out of the house. It brought chairs,suits, small tables, lamps trailing their cords, ashtrays, sofacushions. The house was emptying itself fiercely, as if disgorging anold, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of hisancient upright piano as it rolled ponderously from room to room. He stood up; a wet wind swept over him, whipping at his face, toyingwith his hair. It was a whistling in his ears, and a tingle on hischeeks. He got hit by a shoe. As he forced his way back to the doorway needles of rain played overhis face and he heard a voice cry out from somewhere in the living room. Help! Lieutenant MacBride called. Standing in the doorway with his wet hair plastered down on hisdripping scalp, the wind roaring about him, the piano rumbling in thedistance like thunder, Humphrey Fownes suddenly saw it all very clearly. Winds , he said in a whisper. What's happening? MacBride yelled, crouching behind the sofa. March winds, he said. What?! April showers! The winds roared for a moment and then MacBride's lost voice emergedfrom the blackness of the living room. These are not Optimum DomeConditions! the voice wailed. The temperature is not 59 degrees.The humidity is not 47%! <doc-sep>Fownes held his face up to let the rain fall on it. Moonlight! heshouted. Roses! My soul for a cocktail for two! He grasped thedoorway to keep from being blown out of the house. Are you going to make it stop or aren't you! MacBride yelled. You'll have to tell me what you did first! I told him not to touch that wheel! Lanfierre. He's in the upstairsbedroom! When he heard this Fownes plunged into the house and fought his wayup the stairs. He found Lanfierre standing outside the bedroom with awheel in his hand. What have I done? Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock. Fownes took the wheel. It was off a 1995 Studebaker. I'm not sure what's going to come of this, he said to Lanfierre withan astonishing amount of objectivity, but the entire dome air supplyis now coming through my bedroom. The wind screamed. Is there something I can turn? Lanfierre asked. Not any more there isn't. They started down the stairs carefully, but the wind caught them andthey quickly reached the bottom in a wet heap. Recruiting Lieutenant MacBride from behind his sofa, the men carefullyedged out of the house and forced the front door shut. The wind died. The fog dispersed. They stood dripping in the OptimumDome Conditions of the bright avenue. I never figured on this , Lanfierre said, shaking his head. With the front door closed the wind quickly built up inside the house.They could see the furnishing whirl past the windows. The house did awild, elated jig. What kind of a place is this? MacBride said, his courage beginningto return. He took out his notebook but it was a soggy mess. He tossedit away. Sure, he was different , Lanfierre murmured. I knew that much. When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certainamount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully,standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It wasstrangely slow motion, as was the black twirling cloud that now roseout of the master bedroom, spewing shorts and socks and cases everywhich way. Now what? MacBride said, thoroughly exasperated, as this strangeblack cloud began to accelerate, whirling about like some malevolenttop.... <doc-sep>Humphrey Fownes took out the dust jacket he'd found in the library. Heheld it up and carefully compared the spinning cloud in his bedroomwith the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identicalshape of the illustration. It's a twister, he said softly. A Kansas twister! What, MacBride asked, his bravado slipping away again, what ... is atwister? The twister roared and moved out of the bedroom, out over the rear ofthe house toward the side of the dome. It says here, Fownes shoutedover the roaring, that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twisterand that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land beyond theconfines of everyday living . MacBride's eyes and mouth were great zeros. Is there something I can turn? Lanfierre asked. Huge chunks of glass began to fall around them. Fownes! MacBride shouted. This is a direct order! Make it go back! But Fownes had already begun to run on toward the next house, dodgingmountainous puffs of glass as he went. Mrs. Deshazaway! he shouted.Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshazaway! The dome weevils were going berserk trying to keep up with theprecipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then,emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quicklyemptied and then rushed about empty-handed. Yoo-hoo! he yelled,running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister.Optimum temperature collapsed. Mrs. Deshazaway! Agnes , will youmarry me? Yoo-hoo! Lanfierre and Lieutenant MacBride leaned against their car and waited,dazed. There was quite a large fall of glass. <doc-sep></s>

Humphrey Fownes is an interesting man who always seems to be preoccupied with the weather. Despite it being optimal conditions, he does not seem to notice anything around him even when he is being pickpocketed. He owns an assortment of machinery, capable of creating his ideal illusions and even affecting the weather outside. It is revealed that most of this is part of his plan to leave the dome. Fownes is a very persistent person as well, trying his very hardest to convince Mrs. Deshazaway to marry him even after she rejects his offer. He is stubborn, too, especially when the leader of The Movement explains that they cannot just leave the dome without a sound foreign policy. No matter what, he is determined to leave the dome and marry the widow. However, his plans seem to finally come together when MacBride and Lanfierre mess with the wheel in his house. When the dome begins to break, Fownes sees this as an opportunity and becomes excited at the thought of finally leaving this dome and living in the outside world with his future wife.

<s> A FALL OF GLASS By STANLEY R. LEE Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Magazine October 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The weatherman was always right: Temperature, 59; humidity, 47%; occasional light showers—but of what? The pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously. It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, thehumidity a mildly dessicated 47%. The sun was a flaming orange ball ina cloudless blue sky. His pockets were picked eleven times. It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was amasterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was HumphreyFownes' abstraction; he was an uncommonly preoccupied individual. Hewas strolling along a quiet residential avenue: small private houses,one after another, a place of little traffic and minimum distractions.But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject tobegin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking sodeeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too manypeople were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum DomeConditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a boguspostman, who pretended to be reading a postal card, jostled him. In theconfusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postmanrifled Fownes's handkerchief and inside jacket pockets. <doc-sep>He was still thinking about temperature and humidity when a pretty girlhappened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got hisright and left jacket pockets. It was much too much for coincidence.The sidewalk was wide enough to allow four people to pass at one time.He should surely have become suspicious when two men engaged in aheated argument came along. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied hisrear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of thehandkerchief pocket. It all went off very smoothly, like a game of putand take—the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea hewas playing. There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass. It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist,hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings ofa celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-lightfragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Domeweevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed thehuge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing. Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass stillintrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humiditythat was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was thisrather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tightsurveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of gettinghis fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayedand chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returningthem. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled afive-pound bag of flour as he was passing. It was really plaster ofParis. He left his shoe prints, stride measurement, height, weight andhandedness behind. By the time Fownes reached his front door an entire dossier completewith photographs had been prepared and was being read by two men in anorange patrol car parked down the street. <doc-sep>Lanfierre had undoubtedly been affected by his job. Sitting behind the wheel of the orange car, he watched Humphrey Fownesapproach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was anodd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similarto that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new andparticularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope. Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be toleratedwithin the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a socialforce; it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it,Lanfierre had become an admirer of eccentricity. He came to see thatgenuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his ownsmall efforts, rarer. Fownes was a masterpiece of queerness. He was utterly inexplicable.Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes. Sometimes his house shakes , Lanfierre said. House shakes, Lieutenant MacBride wrote in his notebook. Then hestopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written. You heard right. The house shakes , Lanfierre said, savoring it. MacBride looked at the Fownes house through the magnifying glass ofthe windshield. Like from ... side to side ? he asked in a somewhatpatronizing tone of voice. And up and down. MacBride returned the notebook to the breast pocket of his orangeuniform. Go on, he said, amused. It sounds interesting. He tossedthe dossier carelessly on the back seat. Lanfierre sat stiffly behind the wheel, affronted. The cynical MacBridecouldn't really appreciate fine aberrations. In some ways MacBridewas a barbarian. Lanfierre had held out on Fownes for months. Hehad even contrived to engage him in conversation once, a pleasantlyabsurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. It wasonly with the greatest reluctance that he finally mentioned Fownesto MacBride. After years of searching for differences Lanfierre hadseen how extraordinarily repetitious people were, echoes really, dimlyresounding echoes, each believing itself whole and separate. They spokein an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievablytrite. Then a fine robust freak came along and the others—the echoes—refusedto believe it. The lieutenant was probably on the point of suggesting avacation. Why don't you take a vacation? Lieutenant MacBride suggested. It's like this, MacBride. Do you know what a wind is? A breeze? Azephyr? I've heard some. They say there are mountain-tops where winds blow all the time. Strongwinds, MacBride. Winds like you and I can't imagine. And if there wasa house sitting on such a mountain and if winds did blow, it wouldshake exactly the way that one does. Sometimes I get the feeling thewhole place is going to slide off its foundation and go sailing downthe avenue. <doc-sep>Lieutenant MacBride pursed his lips. I'll tell you something else, Lanfierre went on. The windows allclose at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden everysingle window in the place will drop to its sill. Lanfierre leanedback in the seat, his eyes still on the house. Sometimes I thinkthere's a whole crowd of people in there waiting for a signal—as ifthey all had something important to say but had to close the windowsfirst so no one could hear. Why else close the windows in a domed city?And then as soon as the place is buttoned up they all explode intoconversation—and that's why the house shakes. MacBride whistled. No, I don't need a vacation. A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against thewindshield. Lanfierre started and bumped his knee on the steering wheel. No, you don't need a rest, MacBride said. You're starting to seeflying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in yourbrain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality— At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammedshut. The street was deserted and quiet, not a movement, not a sound.MacBride and Lanfierre both leaned forward, as if waiting for theghostly babble of voices to commence. The house began to shake. It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed anddipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. Thehouse could have been preparing to take off and sail down the.... MacBride looked at Lanfierre and Lanfierre looked at MacBride and thenthey both looked back at the dancing house. And the water , Lanfierre said. The water he uses! He could bethe thirstiest and cleanest man in the city. He could have a wholefamily of thirsty and clean kids, and he still wouldn't need all thatwater. The lieutenant had picked up the dossier. He thumbed through the pagesnow in amazement. Where do you get a guy like this? he asked. Didyou see what he carries in his pockets? And compasses won't work on this street. The lieutenant lit a cigarette and sighed. He usually sighed when making the decision to raid a dwelling. Itexpressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and gotneurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. Therewas something implacable about his sighs. He'll be coming out soon, Lanfierre said. He eats supper next doorwith a widow. Then he goes to the library. Always the same. Supper atthe widow's next door and then the library. MacBride's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. The library? hesaid. Is he in with that bunch? Lanfierre nodded. Should be very interesting, MacBride said slowly. I can't wait to see what he's got in there, Lanfierre murmured,watching the house with a consuming interest. They sat there smoking in silence and every now and then their eyeswidened as the house danced a new step. <doc-sep>Fownes stopped on the porch to brush the plaster of paris off hisshoes. He hadn't seen the patrol car and this intense preoccupationof his was also responsible for the dancing house—he simply hadn'tnoticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. Hehad a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and thehigh-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of thehouse. At least, he called it buffeting; he'd never thought to watchfrom outside. He went in and threw his jacket on the sofa, there being no roomleft in the closets. Crossing the living room he stopped to twist adraw-pull. Every window slammed shut. Tight as a kite, he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward thecloset at the foot of the stairs and then stopped again. Was thatright? No, snug as a hug in a rug . He went on, thinking: The olddevils. The downstairs closet was like a great watch case, a profusion ofwheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-sawthat went back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels had acurious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged fromgrandfather's clocks and music boxes and they went around in gracefulcircles at the rate of 30 and 31 times an hour ... although therewas one slightly eccentric cam that vacillated between 28 and 29. Hewatched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them forseven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year. Outside, the domed city vanished. It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear,the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a moresatisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion.Looking through the window he saw only a garden. Instead of an orange sun at perpetual high noon, there was a red sunsetting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which leftthe smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid ahuge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon agarden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses. Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory. And cocktails fortwo. Blast, he'd never be able to figure that one out! He watched asthe moon played, Oh, You Beautiful Doll and the neon roses flashedslowly from red to violet, then went back to the closet and turned onthe scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated roseas the moon shifted to People Will Say We're In Love . <doc-sep>He rubbed his chin critically. It seemed all right. A dreamy sunset,an enchanted moon, flowers, scent. They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rosereally smelled—or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. Butthen, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive. Insist on it. I tell you, my dear, this is a genuine realisticromantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icyfingers marching up and down your spine? His own spine didn't seem to be affected. But then he hadn't read thatbook on ancient mores and courtship customs. How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incrediblylong and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amountof falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. Nomeant any number of things, depending on the tone of voice and thecircumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later onthis evening. He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker,thinking roguishly: Thou shalt not inundate. The risks he was taking!A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant Singing in the Rain . Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red suncontinued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over anddemolished several of the neon roses. The last wheel in the bedroom closet was a rather elegant steeringwheel from an old 1995 Studebaker. This was on the bootleg pipe; hegingerly turned it. Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle ofwinds came to him. He went downstairs to watch out the living room window. This wasimportant; the window had a really fixed attitude about air currents.The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose andthe moon shook a trifle as it whispered Cuddle Up a Little Closer . He watched with folded arms, considering how he would start. My dearMrs. Deshazaway. Too formal. They'd be looking out at the romanticgarden; time to be a bit forward. My very dear Mrs. Deshazaway. No.Contrived. How about a simple, Dear Mrs. Deshazaway . That might beit. I was wondering, seeing as how it's so late, if you wouldn'trather stay over instead of going home.... Preoccupied, he hadn't noticed the winds building up, didn't hear theshaking and rattling of the pipes. There were attic pipes connectedto wall pipes and wall pipes connected to cellar pipes, and they madeone gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance ashigh-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening theStudebaker valve wider and wider.... The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sunshot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moonfell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning When theBlue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day . The shaking house finally woke him up. He scrambled upstairs to theStudebaker wheel and shut it off. At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn'tthe first time the winds got out of line. Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all downand went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months,about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April.Its days were thirty and it followed September. And all the rest havethirty-one. What a strange people, the ancients! He still didn't see the orange car parked down the street. <doc-sep>Men are too perishable, Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. For allpractical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die. Would you pass the beets, please? Humphrey Fownes said. She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. And don't look at methat way, she said. I'm not going to marry you and if you wantreasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse. The widow was a passionate woman. She did everythingpassionately—talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionatelyred. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelrytinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes hadnever known anyone like her. You forgot to put salt on the potatoes,she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible forher to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. Do you have anyidea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I robmy husbands of their life force and when they're empty I carry theirbodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace. As long as there are people, he said philosophically, there'll betalk. But it's the air! Why don't they talk about that? The air is stale,I'm positive. It's not nourishing. The air is stale and Andrew, Curt,Norman and Alphonse couldn't stand it. Poor Alphonse. He was never sohealthy as on the day he was born. From then on things got steadilyworse for him. I don't seem to mind the air. She threw up her hands. You'd be the worst of the lot! She left thetable, rustling and tinkling about the room. I can just hear them. Trysome of the asparagus. Five. That's what they'd say. That woman didit again. And the plain fact is I don't want you on my record. Really, Fownes protested. I feel splendid. Never better. He could hear her moving about and then felt her hands on hisshoulders. And what about those very elaborate plans you've beenmaking to seduce me? Fownes froze with three asparagus hanging from his fork. Don't you think they'll find out? I found out and you can bet they will. It's my fault, I guess. I talk too much. And I don'talways tell the truth. To be completely honest with you, Mr. Fownes, itwasn't the old customs at all standing between us, it was air. I can'thave another man die on me, it's bad for my self-esteem. And now you'vegone and done something good and criminal, something peculiar. <doc-sep>Fownes put his fork down. Dear Mrs. Deshazaway, he started to say. And of course when they do find out and they ask you why, Mr. Fownes,you'll tell them. No, no heroics, please! When they ask a man aquestion he always answers and you will too. You'll tell them I wantedto be courted and when they hear that they'll be around to ask me afew questions. You see, we're both a bit queer. I hadn't thought of that, Fownes said quietly. Oh, it doesn't really matter. I'll join Andrew, Curt, Norman— That won't be necessary, Fownes said with unusual force. With alldue respect to Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse, I might as well statehere and now I have other plans for you, Mrs. Deshazaway. But my dear Mr. Fownes, she said, leaning across the table. We'relost, you and I. Not if we could leave the dome, Fownes said quietly. That's impossible! How? In no hurry, now that he had the widow's complete attention, Fownesleaned across the table and whispered: Fresh air, Mrs. Deshazaway?Space? Miles and miles of space where the real-estate monopoly hasno control whatever? Where the wind blows across prairies ; or isit the other way around? No matter. How would you like that , Mrs.Deshazaway? Breathing somewhat faster than usual, the widow rested her chin on hertwo hands. Pray continue, she said. Endless vistas of moonlight and roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshazaway.And June, which as you may know follows directly upon April and issupposed to be the month of brides, of marrying. June also lies beyondthe dome. I see. And , Mr. Fownes added, his voice a honeyed whisper, they saythat somewhere out in the space and the roses and the moonlight,the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's vernal and that's when it roams the Open Country where geigers nolonger scintillate. My. Mrs. Deshazaway rose, paced slowly to the window and then cameback to the table, standing directly over Fownes. If you can get usoutside the dome, she said, out where a man stays warm long enoughfor his wife to get to know him ... if you can do that, Mr. Fownes ...you may call me Agnes. <doc-sep>When Humphrey Fownes stepped out of the widow's house, there was alook of such intense abstraction on his features that Lanfierre felt awistful desire to get out of the car and walk along with the man. Itwould be such a deliciously insane experience. (April has thirtydays, Fownes mumbled, passing them, because thirty is the largestnumber such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisorwith it are primes . MacBride frowned and added it to the dossier.Lanfierre sighed.) Pinning his hopes on the Movement, Fownes went straight to thelibrary several blocks away, a shattered depressing place given overto government publications and censored old books with holes inthem. It was used so infrequently that the Movement was able to meetthere undisturbed. The librarian was a yellowed, dog-eared woman ofeighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like thebooks around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into nearunintelligibility. Here's one, she said to him as he entered. Gulliver's Travels. Loaned to John Wesley Davidson on March 14, 1979 for five days. Whatdo you make of it? In the litter of books and cards and dried out ink pads that surroundedthe librarian, Fownes noticed a torn dust jacket with a curiousillustration. What's that? he said. A twister, she replied quickly. Now listen to this . Seven yearslater on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book.What do you make of that ? I'd say, Humphrey Fownes said, that he ... that he recommended itto her, that one day they met in the street and he told her aboutthis book and then they ... they went to the library together and sheborrowed it and eventually, why eventually they got married. Hah! They were brother and sister! the librarian shouted in herparched voice, her old buckram eyes laughing with cunning. Fownes smiled weakly and looked again at the dust jacket. The twisterwas unquestionably a meteorological phenomenon. It spun ominously, likea malevolent top, and coursed the countryside destructively, carryinga Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anythingto feminine pulses, if they could possibly be a part of a moonlitnight, with cocktails and roses. He absently stuffed the dust jacketin his pocket and went on into the other rooms, the librarian mumblingafter him: Edna Murdoch Featherstone, April 21, 1991, as thoughreading inscriptions on a tombstone. <doc-sep>The Movement met in what had been the children's room, where unpaidladies of the afternoon had once upon a time read stories to otherpeople's offspring. The members sat around at the miniature tableslooking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting. Where did the old society fail? the leader was demanding of them. Hestood in the center of the room, leaning on a heavy knobbed cane. Heglanced around at the group almost complacently, and waited as HumphreyFownes squeezed into an empty chair. We live in a dome, the leadersaid, for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thingthat the great technological societies before ours could not invent,notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise? Fownes was the kind of man who never answered a rhetorical question. Hewaited, uncomfortable in the tight chair, while the others struggledwith this problem in revolutionary dialectics. A sound foreign policy , the leader said, aware that no one else hadobtained the insight. If a sound foreign policy can't be created theonly alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus themovement into domes began— by common consent of the governments . Thisis known as self-containment. Dialectically out in left field, Humphrey Fownes waited for a lullin the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might bearranged for him to get out. Out? the leader said, frowning. Out? Out where? Outside the dome. Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up andleave. And that day I'll await impatiently, Fownes replied with marveloustact, because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My futurewife and I have to leave now . Nonsense. Ridiculous! You have to be prepared for the Open Country.You can't just up and leave, it would be suicide, Fownes. Anddialectically very poor. Then you have discussed preparations, the practical necessities oflife in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else?Have I left anything out? The leader sighed. The gentleman wants to know if he's left anythingout, he said to the group. Fownes looked around at them, at some dozen pained expressions. Tell the man what he's forgotten, the leader said, walking to the farwindow and turning his back quite pointedly on them. Everyone spoke at the same moment. A sound foreign policy , they allsaid, it being almost too obvious for words. <doc-sep>On his way out the librarian shouted at him: A Tale of a Tub ,thirty-five years overdue! She was calculating the fine as he closedthe door. Humphrey Fownes' preoccupation finally came to an end when he was oneblock away from his house. It was then that he realized somethingunusual must have occurred. An orange patrol car of the security policewas parked at his front door. And something else was happening too. His house was dancing. It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one'sresidence frisking about on its foundation. It was such a strange sightthat for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causingit. But when he stepped gingerly onto the porch, which was doing itsown independent gavotte, he reached for the doorknob with an immensecuriosity. The door flung itself open and knocked him back off the porch. From a prone position on his miniscule front lawn, Fownes watched ashis favorite easy chair sailed out of the living room on a blast ofcold air and went pinwheeling down the avenue in the bright sunshine. Awild wind and a thick fog poured out of the house. It brought chairs,suits, small tables, lamps trailing their cords, ashtrays, sofacushions. The house was emptying itself fiercely, as if disgorging anold, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of hisancient upright piano as it rolled ponderously from room to room. He stood up; a wet wind swept over him, whipping at his face, toyingwith his hair. It was a whistling in his ears, and a tingle on hischeeks. He got hit by a shoe. As he forced his way back to the doorway needles of rain played overhis face and he heard a voice cry out from somewhere in the living room. Help! Lieutenant MacBride called. Standing in the doorway with his wet hair plastered down on hisdripping scalp, the wind roaring about him, the piano rumbling in thedistance like thunder, Humphrey Fownes suddenly saw it all very clearly. Winds , he said in a whisper. What's happening? MacBride yelled, crouching behind the sofa. March winds, he said. What?! April showers! The winds roared for a moment and then MacBride's lost voice emergedfrom the blackness of the living room. These are not Optimum DomeConditions! the voice wailed. The temperature is not 59 degrees.The humidity is not 47%! <doc-sep>Fownes held his face up to let the rain fall on it. Moonlight! heshouted. Roses! My soul for a cocktail for two! He grasped thedoorway to keep from being blown out of the house. Are you going to make it stop or aren't you! MacBride yelled. You'll have to tell me what you did first! I told him not to touch that wheel! Lanfierre. He's in the upstairsbedroom! When he heard this Fownes plunged into the house and fought his wayup the stairs. He found Lanfierre standing outside the bedroom with awheel in his hand. What have I done? Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock. Fownes took the wheel. It was off a 1995 Studebaker. I'm not sure what's going to come of this, he said to Lanfierre withan astonishing amount of objectivity, but the entire dome air supplyis now coming through my bedroom. The wind screamed. Is there something I can turn? Lanfierre asked. Not any more there isn't. They started down the stairs carefully, but the wind caught them andthey quickly reached the bottom in a wet heap. Recruiting Lieutenant MacBride from behind his sofa, the men carefullyedged out of the house and forced the front door shut. The wind died. The fog dispersed. They stood dripping in the OptimumDome Conditions of the bright avenue. I never figured on this , Lanfierre said, shaking his head. With the front door closed the wind quickly built up inside the house.They could see the furnishing whirl past the windows. The house did awild, elated jig. What kind of a place is this? MacBride said, his courage beginningto return. He took out his notebook but it was a soggy mess. He tossedit away. Sure, he was different , Lanfierre murmured. I knew that much. When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certainamount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully,standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It wasstrangely slow motion, as was the black twirling cloud that now roseout of the master bedroom, spewing shorts and socks and cases everywhich way. Now what? MacBride said, thoroughly exasperated, as this strangeblack cloud began to accelerate, whirling about like some malevolenttop.... <doc-sep>Humphrey Fownes took out the dust jacket he'd found in the library. Heheld it up and carefully compared the spinning cloud in his bedroomwith the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identicalshape of the illustration. It's a twister, he said softly. A Kansas twister! What, MacBride asked, his bravado slipping away again, what ... is atwister? The twister roared and moved out of the bedroom, out over the rear ofthe house toward the side of the dome. It says here, Fownes shoutedover the roaring, that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twisterand that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land beyond theconfines of everyday living . MacBride's eyes and mouth were great zeros. Is there something I can turn? Lanfierre asked. Huge chunks of glass began to fall around them. Fownes! MacBride shouted. This is a direct order! Make it go back! But Fownes had already begun to run on toward the next house, dodgingmountainous puffs of glass as he went. Mrs. Deshazaway! he shouted.Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshazaway! The dome weevils were going berserk trying to keep up with theprecipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then,emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quicklyemptied and then rushed about empty-handed. Yoo-hoo! he yelled,running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister.Optimum temperature collapsed. Mrs. Deshazaway! Agnes , will youmarry me? Yoo-hoo! Lanfierre and Lieutenant MacBride leaned against their car and waited,dazed. There was quite a large fall of glass. <doc-sep></s>

The Master Mechanism in the downstairs closet is similar to a watch being inside of a great watch case. There is a profusion of wheels surrounding it, and the Mechanism itself is a miniature see-saw that goes back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels are salvaged from grandfather’s clocks and music boxes, going around in graceful circles at a rate of 30 to 31 times an hour. However, there is one eccentric cam that goes between 28 and 29. Fownes also sets the time to seven o’clock on April 7th of any year. This Master Mechanism is significant because it is capable of showing the ideal illusion to Fownes. He uses this Mechanism to envision his ideal life outside of the dome, and it gives him the home that he hopes to see instead of the one that he is currently living inside of the dome. These illusions also motivate him to try and find a way to leave the dome with the widow. The Master Mechanism serves as a motivator for Fownes, and it allows him to envision his dreams into a form of reality.

<s> SURVIVAL TACTICS By AL SEVCIK ILLUSTRATOR NOVICK The robots were built to serveMan; to do his work, see to hiscomforts, make smooth his way.Then the robots figured out anadditional service—putting Manout of his misery. <doc-sep> There was a sudden crashthat hung sharply in the air,as if a tree had been hit bylightning some distance away.Then another. Alan stopped,puzzled. Two more blasts, quicklytogether, and the sound of ascream faintly. Frowning, worrying about thesounds, Alan momentarily forgotto watch his step until his footsuddenly plunged into an anthill, throwing him to the junglefloor. Damn! He cursed again,for the tenth time, and stooduncertainly in the dimness.From tall, moss-shrouded trees,wrist-thick vines hung quietly,scraping the spongy ground likethe tentacles of some monstroustree-bound octopus. Fitful littleplants grew straggly in theshadows of the mossy trunks,forming a dense underbrush thatmade walking difficult. At middaysome few of the blue sun'srays filtered through to thejungle floor, but now, late afternoonon the planet, the shadowswere long and gloomy. Alan peered around him at thevine-draped shadows, listeningto the soft rustlings and fainttwig-snappings of life in thejungle. Two short, poppingsounds echoed across the stillness,drowned out almost immediatelyand silenced by anexplosive crash. Alan started,Blaster fighting! But it can'tbe! Suddenly anxious, he slasheda hurried X in one of the treesto mark his position then turnedto follow a line of similar marksback through the jungle. Hetried to run, but vines blockedhis way and woody shrubscaught at his legs, tripping himand holding him back. Then,through the trees he saw theclearing of the camp site, thetemporary home for the scoutship and the eleven men who,with Alan, were the only humanson the jungle planet, Waiamea. Stepping through the lowshrubbery at the edge of thesite, he looked across the openarea to the two temporary structures,the camp headquarterswhere the power supplies andthe computer were; and thesleeping quarters. Beyond, nosehigh, stood the silver scout shipthat had brought the advanceexploratory party of scientistsand technicians to Waiameathree days before. Except for afew of the killer robots rollingslowly around the camp site ontheir quiet treads, there was noone about. So, they've finally got thosethings working. Alan smiledslightly. Guess that means Iowe Pete a bourbon-and-sodafor sure. Anybody who canbuild a robot that hunts by homingin on animals' mind impulses ...He stepped forwardjust as a roar of blue flame dissolvedthe branches of a tree,barely above his head. Without pausing to think,Alan leaped back, and fellsprawling over a bush just asone of the robots rolled silentlyup from the right, lowering itsblaster barrel to aim directly athis head. Alan froze. My God,Pete built those things wrong! Suddenly a screeching whirlwindof claws and teeth hurleditself from the smolderingbranches and crashed against therobot, clawing insanely at theantenna and blaster barrel.With an awkward jerk the robotswung around and fired its blaster,completely dissolving thelower half of the cat creaturewhich had clung across the barrel.But the back pressure of thecat's body overloaded the dischargecircuits. The robot startedto shake, then clicked sharplyas an overload relay snappedand shorted the blaster cells.The killer turned and rolled backtowards the camp, leaving Alanalone. Shakily, Alan crawled a fewfeet back into the undergrowthwhere he could lie and watch thecamp, but not himself be seen.Though visibility didn't makeany difference to the robots, hefelt safer, somehow, hidden. Heknew now what the shootingsounds had been and why therehadn't been anyone around thecamp site. A charred blob lyingin the grass of the clearing confirmedhis hypothesis. His stomachfelt sick. I suppose, he muttered tohimself, that Pete assembledthese robots in a batch and thenactivated them all at once, probablynever living to realize thatthey're tuned to pick up humanbrain waves, too. Damn!Damn! His eyes blurred andhe slammed his fist into the softearth. When he raised his eyes againthe jungle was perceptibly darker.Stealthy rustlings in theshadows grew louder with thesetting sun. Branches snappedunaccountably in the trees overheadand every now and thenleaves or a twig fell softly to theground, close to where he lay.Reaching into his jacket, Alanfingered his pocket blaster. Hepulled it out and held it in hisright hand. This pop gunwouldn't even singe a robot, butit just might stop one of thosepumas. They said the blast with your name on it would findyou anywhere. This looked like Alan's blast. Slowly Alan looked around,sizing up his situation. Behindhim the dark jungle rustled forbiddingly.He shuddered. Not avery healthy spot to spend thenight. On the other hand, I certainlycan't get to the camp witha pack of mind-activated mechanicalkillers running around.If I can just hold out until morning,when the big ship arrives ...The big ship! GoodLord, Peggy! He turned white;oily sweat punctuated his forehead.Peggy, arriving tomorrowwith the other colonists, thewives and kids! The metal killers,tuned to blast any livingflesh, would murder them theinstant they stepped from theship! A pretty girl, Peggy, the girlhe'd married just three weeksago. He still couldn't believe it.It was crazy, he supposed, tomarry a girl and then take offfor an unknown planet, with herto follow, to try to create a homein a jungle clearing. Crazy maybe,but Peggy and her green eyesthat changed color with thelight, with her soft brown hair,and her happy smile, had endedthirty years of loneliness andhad, at last, given him a reasonfor living. Not to be killed!Alan unclenched his fists andwiped his palms, bloody wherehis fingernails had dug into theflesh. There was a slight creak abovehim like the protesting of abranch too heavily laden. Blasterready, Alan rolled over onto hisback. In the movement, his elbowstruck the top of a smallearthy mound and he was instantlyengulfed in a swarm oflocust-like insects that beat disgustinglyagainst his eyes andmouth. Fagh! Waving hisarms before his face he jumpedup and backwards, away fromthe bugs. As he did so, a darkshapeless thing plopped fromthe trees onto the spot where hehad been lying stretched out.Then, like an ambient fungus,it slithered off into the jungleundergrowth. For a split second the junglestood frozen in a brilliant blueflash, followed by the sharp reportof a blaster. Then another.Alan whirled, startled. Theplanet's double moon had risenand he could see a robot rollingslowly across the clearing in hisgeneral direction, blasting indiscriminatelyat whatever mindimpulses came within its pickuprange, birds, insects, anything.Six or seven others also left thecamp headquarters area andheaded for the jungle, each to aslightly different spot. Apparently the robot hadn'tsensed him yet, but Alan didn'tknow what the effective rangeof its pickup devices was. Hebegan to slide back into thejungle. Minutes later, lookingback he saw that the machine,though several hundred yardsaway, had altered its course andwas now headed directly forhim. His stomach tightened. Panic.The dank, musty smell of thejungle seemed for an instant tothicken and choke in his throat.Then he thought of the big shiplanding in the morning, settlingdown slowly after a lonely two-weekvoyage. He thought of abrown-haired girl crowding withthe others to the gangway, eagerto embrace the new planet, andthe next instant a charred nothing,unrecognizable, the victimof a design error or a misplacedwire in a machine. I have totry, he said aloud. I have totry. He moved into the blackness. Powerful as a small tank, thekiller robot was equipped tocrush, slash, and burn its waythrough undergrowth. Nevertheless,it was slowed by thelarger trees and the thick, clingingvines, and Alan found thathe could manage to keep aheadof it, barely out of blaster range.Only, the robot didn't get tired.Alan did. The twin moons cast pale, deceptiveshadows that waveredand danced across the junglefloor, hiding debris that trippedhim and often sent him sprawlinginto the dark. Sharp-edgedgrowths tore at his face andclothes, and insects attracted bythe blood matted against hispants and shirt. Behind, the robotcrashed imperturbably afterhim, lighting the night with fitfulblaster flashes as somewinged or legged life came withinits range. There was movement also, inthe darkness beside him, scrapingsand rustlings and an occasionallow, throaty sound like anangry cat. Alan's fingers tensedon his pocket blaster. Swiftshadowy forms moved quickly inthe shrubs and the growling becamesuddenly louder. He firedtwice, blindly, into the undergrowth.Sharp screams punctuatedthe electric blue discharge asa pack of small feline creaturesleaped snarling and clawingback into the night. Mentally, Alan tried to figurethe charge remaining in his blaster.There wouldn't be much.Enough for a few more shots,maybe. Why the devil didn't Iload in fresh cells this morning! The robot crashed on, loudernow, gaining on the tired human.Legs aching and bruised,stinging from insect bites, Alantried to force himself to runholding his hands in front ofhim like a child in the dark. Hisfoot tripped on a barely visibleinsect hill and a winged swarmexploded around him. Startled,Alan jerked sideways, crashinghis head against a tree. Heclutched at the bark for a second,dazed, then his kneesbuckled. His blaster fell into theshadows. The robot crashed loudly behindhim now. Without stoppingto think, Alan fumbled along theground after his gun, straininghis eyes in the darkness. Hefound it just a couple of feet toone side, against the base of asmall bush. Just as his fingersclosed upon the barrel his otherhand slipped into somethingsticky that splashed over hisforearm. He screamed in painand leaped back, trying franticallyto wipe the clinging,burning blackness off his arm.Patches of black scraped off ontobranches and vines, but the restspread slowly over his arm asagonizing as hot acid, or as fleshbeing ripped away layer bylayer. Almost blinded by pain, whimpering,Alan stumbled forward.Sharp muscle spasms shot fromhis shoulder across his back andchest. Tears streamed across hischeeks. A blue arc slashed at the treesa mere hundred yards behind.He screamed at the blast. Damnyou, Pete! Damn your robots!Damn, damn ... Oh, Peggy!He stepped into emptiness. Coolness. Wet. Slowly, washedby the water, the pain began tofall away. He wanted to lie thereforever in the dark, cool, wetness.For ever, and ever, and ...The air thundered. In the dim light he could seethe banks of the stream, higherthan a man, muddy and loose.Growing right to the edge of thebanks, the jungle reached outwith hairy, disjointed arms asif to snag even the dirty littlestream that passed so timidlythrough its domain. Alan, lying in the mud of thestream bed, felt the earth shakeas the heavy little robot rolledslowly and inexorably towardshim. The Lord High Executioner,he thought, in battledress. He tried to stand but hislegs were almost too weak andhis arm felt numb. I'll drownhim, he said aloud. I'll drownthe Lord High Executioner. Helaughed. Then his mind cleared.He remembered where he was. Alan trembled. For the firsttime in his life he understoodwhat it was to live, because forthe first time he realized that hewould sometime die. In othertimes and circumstances hemight put it off for a while, formonths or years, but eventually,as now, he would have to watch,still and helpless, while deathcame creeping. Then, at thirty,Alan became a man. Dammit, no law says I haveto flame-out now ! He forcedhimself to rise, forced his legsto stand, struggling painfully inthe shin-deep ooze. He workedhis way to the bank and began todig frenziedly, chest high, abouttwo feet below the edge. His arm where the black thinghad been was swollen and tender,but he forced his hands to dig,dig, dig, cursing and crying tohide the pain, and biting hislips, ignoring the salty taste ofblood. The soft earth crumbledunder his hands until he had asmall cave about three feet deepin the bank. Beyond that thesoil was held too tightly by theroots from above and he had tostop. The air crackled blue and atree crashed heavily past Alaninto the stream. Above him onthe bank, silhouetting againstthe moons, the killer robot stoppedand its blaster swivelledslowly down. Frantically, Alanhugged the bank as a shaft ofpure electricity arced over him,sliced into the water, and explodedin a cloud of steam. Therobot shook for a second, itsblaster muzzle lifted erraticallyand for an instant it seemed almostout of control, then itquieted and the muzzle againpointed down. Pressing with all his might,Alan slid slowly along the bankinches at a time, away from themachine above. Its muzzle turnedto follow him but the edge ofthe bank blocked its aim. Grindingforward a couple of feet,slightly overhanging the bank,the robot fired again. For a splitsecond Alan seemed engulfed inflame; the heat of hell singed hishead and back, and mud boiledin the bank by his arm. Again the robot trembled. Itjerked forward a foot and itsblaster swung slightly away. Butonly for a moment. Then the gunswung back again. Suddenly, as if sensing somethingwrong, its tracks slammedinto reverse. It stood poised fora second, its treads spinningcrazily as the earth collapsed underneathit, where Alan haddug, then it fell with a heavysplash into the mud, ten feetfrom where Alan stood. Without hesitation Alanthrew himself across the blasterhousing, frantically locking hisarms around the barrel as therobot's treads churned furiouslyin the sticky mud, causing it tobuck and plunge like a Brahmabull. The treads stopped and theblaster jerked upwards wrenchingAlan's arms, then slammeddown. Then the whole housingwhirled around and around, tiltingalternately up and down likea steel-skinned water monstertrying to dislodge a tenaciouscrab, while Alan, arms and legswrapped tightly around the blasterbarrel and housing, pressedfiercely against the robot's metalskin. Slowly, trying to anticipateand shift his weight with thespinning plunges, Alan workedhis hand down to his right hip.He fumbled for the sheath clippedto his belt, found it, and extracteda stubby hunting knife.Sweat and blood in his eyes,hardly able to move on the wildlyswinging turret, he felt downthe sides to the thin crack betweenthe revolving housing andthe stationary portion of the robot.With a quick prayer hejammed in the knife blade—andwas whipped headlong into themud as the turret literally snappedto a stop. The earth, jungle and moonsspun in a pinwheeled blur,slowed, and settled to their properplaces. Standing in the sticky,sweet-smelling ooze, Alan eyedthe robot apprehensively. Halfburied in mud, it stood quiet inthe shadowy light except for anoccasional, almost spasmodicjerk of its blaster barrel. Forthe first time that night Alanallowed himself a slight smile.A blade in the old gear box,eh? How does that feel, boy? He turned. Well, I'd betterget out of here before the knifeslips or the monster cooks upsome more tricks with whateverit's got for a brain. Digginglittle footholds in the soft bank,he climbed up and stood onceagain in the rustling jungledarkness. I wonder, he thought, howPete could cram enough braininto one of those things to makeit hunt and track so perfectly.He tried to visualize the computingcircuits needed for theoperation of its tracking mechanismalone. There just isn'troom for the electronics. You'dneed a computer as big as theone at camp headquarters. In the distance the sky blazedas a blaster roared in the jungle.Then Alan heard the approachingrobot, crunching and snappingits way through the undergrowthlike an onrushing forestfire. He froze. Good Lord!They communicate with eachother! The one I jammed mustbe calling others to help. He began to move along thebank, away from the crashingsounds. Suddenly he stopped, hiseyes widened. Of course! Radio!I'll bet anything they'reautomatically controlled by thecamp computer. That's wheretheir brain is! He paused.Then, if that were put out ofcommission ... He jerked awayfrom the bank and half ran, halfpulled himself through the undergrowthtowards the camp. Trees exploded to his left asanother robot fired in his direction,too far away to be effectivebut churning towards himthrough the blackness. Alan changed direction slightlyto follow a line between thetwo robots coming up fromeither side, behind him. His eyeswere well accustomed to the darknow, and he managed to dodgemost of the shadowy vines andbranches before they could snagor trip him. Even so, he stumbledin the wiry underbrush andhis legs were a mass of stingingslashes from ankle to thigh. The crashing rumble of thekiller robots shook the night behindhim, nearer sometimes,then falling slightly back, butfollowing constantly, moreunshakable than bloodhoundsbecause a man can sometimes covera scent, but no man can stop histhoughts. Intermittently, likephotographers' strobes, blueflashes would light the jungleabout him. Then, for secondsafterwards his eyes would seedancing streaks of yellow andsharp multi-colored pinwheelsthat alternately shrunk and expandedas if in a surrealist'snightmare. Alan would have topause and squeeze his eyelidstight shut before he could seeagain, and the robots wouldmove a little closer. To his right the trees silhouettedbriefly against brilliance asa third robot slowly moved upin the distance. Without thinking,Alan turned slightly to theleft, then froze in momentarypanic. I should be at the campnow. Damn, what direction amI going? He tried to thinkback, to visualize the twists andturns he'd taken in the jungle.All I need is to get lost. He pictured the camp computerwith no one to stop it, automaticallysending its robots inwider and wider forays, slowlywiping every trace of life fromthe planet. Technologically advancedmachines doing the jobfor which they were built, completely,thoroughly, without feeling,and without human mastersto separate sense from futility.Finally parts would wear out,circuits would short, and one byone the killers would crunch toa halt. A few birds would stillfly then, but a unique animallife, rare in the universe, wouldexist no more. And the bones ofchildren, eager girls, and theirmen would also lie, beside arusty hulk, beneath the aliensun. Peggy! As if in answer, a tree besidehim breathed fire, then exploded.In the brief flash of theblaster shot, Alan saw the steelglint of a robot only a hundredyards away, much nearer thanhe had thought. Thank heavenfor trees! He stepped back, felthis foot catch in something,clutched futilely at some leavesand fell heavily. Pain danced up his leg as hegrabbed his ankle. Quickly hefelt the throbbing flesh. Damnthe rotten luck, anyway! Heblinked the pain tears from hiseyes and looked up—into a robot'sblaster, jutting out of thefoliage, thirty yards away. Instinctively, in one motionAlan grabbed his pocket blasterand fired. To his amazement therobot jerked back, its gun wobbledand started to tilt away.Then, getting itself under control,it swung back again to faceAlan. He fired again, and againthe robot reacted. It seemed familiarsomehow. Then he rememberedthe robot on the riverbank, jiggling and swaying forseconds after each shot. Ofcourse! He cursed himself formissing the obvious. The blasterstatic blanks out radiotransmission from the computerfor a few seconds. They even doit to themselves! Firing intermittently, hepulled himself upright and hobbledahead through the bush.The robot shook spasmodicallywith each shot, its gun tilted upwardat an awkward angle. Then, unexpectedly, Alan sawstars, real stars brilliant in thenight sky, and half dragging hisswelling leg he stumbled out ofthe jungle into the camp clearing.Ahead, across fifty yards ofgrass stood the headquartersbuilding, housing the robot-controllingcomputer. Still firing atshort intervals he started acrossthe clearing, gritting his teethat every step. Straining every muscle inspite of the agonizing pain, Alanforced himself to a limping runacross the uneven ground, carefullyavoiding the insect hillsthat jutted up through the grass.From the corner of his eye hesaw another of the robots standingshakily in the dark edge ofthe jungle waiting, it seemed,for his small blaster to run dry. Be damned! You can't winnow! Alan yelled between blastershots, almost irrational fromthe pain that ripped jaggedlythrough his leg. Then it happened.A few feet from thebuilding's door his blaster quit.A click. A faint hiss when hefrantically jerked the triggeragain and again, and the spentcells released themselves fromthe device, falling in the grassat his feet. He dropped the uselessgun. No! He threw himself onthe ground as a new robot suddenlyappeared around the edgeof the building a few feet away,aimed, and fired. Air burnedover Alan's back and ozone tingledin his nostrils. Blinding itself for a few secondswith its own blaster static,the robot paused momentarily,jiggling in place. In thisinstant, Alan jammed his handsinto an insect hill and hurled thepile of dirt and insects directlyat the robot's antenna. In a flash,hundreds of the winged thingserupted angrily from the hole ina swarming cloud, each part ofwhich was a speck of lifetransmitting mental energy to therobot's pickup devices. Confused by the sudden dispersionof mind impulses, therobot fired erratically as Alancrouched and raced painfully forthe door. It fired again, closer,as he fumbled with the lockrelease. Jagged bits of plastic andstone ripped past him, torn looseby the blast. Frantically, Alan slammedopen the door as the robot, sensinghim strongly now, aimedpoint blank. He saw nothing, hismind thought of nothing but thered-clad safety switch mountedbeside the computer. Time stopped.There was nothing else inthe world. He half-jumped, half-felltowards it, slowly, in tenthsof seconds that seemed measuredout in years. The universe went black. Later. Brilliance pressed uponhis eyes. Then pain returned, amulti-hurting thing that crawledthrough his body and draggedragged tentacles across hisbrain. He moaned. A voice spoke hollowly in thedistance. He's waking. Call hiswife. Alan opened his eyes in awhite room; a white light hungover his head. Beside him, lookingdown with a rueful smile,stood a young man wearingspace medical insignia. Yes,he acknowledged the question inAlan's eyes, you hit the switch.That was three days ago. Whenyou're up again we'd all like tothank you. Suddenly a sobbing-laughinggreen-eyed girl was pressedtightly against him. Neither ofthem spoke. They couldn't. Therewas too much to say. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Science Fiction Stories October 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling andtypographical errors have been corrected without note.<doc-sep></s>

Alan is walking when he hears a sudden crash that hangs sharply in the air. He loses his footing and trips, realizing that there is a possibility of blaster fighting. He hurries to mark an X on a tree for his position and heads back to the clearing of the temporary camp site. This place is home to the only eleven humans, with Alan, on the planet of Waiamea. Once Alan returns to the site, he observes the killer robots and praises Pete for getting them to work. However, when the robots turn on him, he realizes that the robots must have been programmed to pick up human brain waves. He thinks back to Penny, a girl he married three weeks ago who will be arriving with the rest of the colonists tomorrow. This becomes his reason to live against the killer robots, and he observes the killer robots. He fires into the undergrowth and berates himself for not loading fresh cells in the morning as the robot gets louder. He is injured by one and cries out as he feels himself dying. As the robot comes towards him again, he understands what it means to live and forces himself to keep walking. Alan then hugs the bank as pure electricity arches over him, sliding slowly and away from the machine above. The robot trembles and suddenly falls; this gives Alan an opportunity to tackle it. The two struggle, but Alan takes a hunting knife out and jams it into the robot. He wonders how Pete managed to create these robots so perfectly. Suddenly, he hears an approaching robot and realizes that they communicate with each other even if one of them is jammed. Alan decides to run towards the camp because he realizes that’s where the brain of the robots is located. Shortly after running, he finds himself lost because the camp has not appeared in sight yet. He tries to think back to where the camp could be and narrowly misses getting blasted by one of the killer robots. When he fires the pocket blaster, it cancels out the radio transmission from the computer to the robot; Alan sees this as an opportunity to go towards the headquarters building. His blaster suddenly quits, but he manages to hurl a pile of dirt and insects at the robots. He goes into the room quickly as the robot continues to blast. The robot aims point blank at him as he hurls himself towards the red-clad safety switch. Everything then fades to black. When Alan wakes up again, there is a young man wearing a medical insignia telling him that he had hit the switch three days ago. Suddenly, his wife appears, and they hold each other tight.

<s> SURVIVAL TACTICS By AL SEVCIK ILLUSTRATOR NOVICK The robots were built to serveMan; to do his work, see to hiscomforts, make smooth his way.Then the robots figured out anadditional service—putting Manout of his misery. <doc-sep> There was a sudden crashthat hung sharply in the air,as if a tree had been hit bylightning some distance away.Then another. Alan stopped,puzzled. Two more blasts, quicklytogether, and the sound of ascream faintly. Frowning, worrying about thesounds, Alan momentarily forgotto watch his step until his footsuddenly plunged into an anthill, throwing him to the junglefloor. Damn! He cursed again,for the tenth time, and stooduncertainly in the dimness.From tall, moss-shrouded trees,wrist-thick vines hung quietly,scraping the spongy ground likethe tentacles of some monstroustree-bound octopus. Fitful littleplants grew straggly in theshadows of the mossy trunks,forming a dense underbrush thatmade walking difficult. At middaysome few of the blue sun'srays filtered through to thejungle floor, but now, late afternoonon the planet, the shadowswere long and gloomy. Alan peered around him at thevine-draped shadows, listeningto the soft rustlings and fainttwig-snappings of life in thejungle. Two short, poppingsounds echoed across the stillness,drowned out almost immediatelyand silenced by anexplosive crash. Alan started,Blaster fighting! But it can'tbe! Suddenly anxious, he slasheda hurried X in one of the treesto mark his position then turnedto follow a line of similar marksback through the jungle. Hetried to run, but vines blockedhis way and woody shrubscaught at his legs, tripping himand holding him back. Then,through the trees he saw theclearing of the camp site, thetemporary home for the scoutship and the eleven men who,with Alan, were the only humanson the jungle planet, Waiamea. Stepping through the lowshrubbery at the edge of thesite, he looked across the openarea to the two temporary structures,the camp headquarterswhere the power supplies andthe computer were; and thesleeping quarters. Beyond, nosehigh, stood the silver scout shipthat had brought the advanceexploratory party of scientistsand technicians to Waiameathree days before. Except for afew of the killer robots rollingslowly around the camp site ontheir quiet treads, there was noone about. So, they've finally got thosethings working. Alan smiledslightly. Guess that means Iowe Pete a bourbon-and-sodafor sure. Anybody who canbuild a robot that hunts by homingin on animals' mind impulses ...He stepped forwardjust as a roar of blue flame dissolvedthe branches of a tree,barely above his head. Without pausing to think,Alan leaped back, and fellsprawling over a bush just asone of the robots rolled silentlyup from the right, lowering itsblaster barrel to aim directly athis head. Alan froze. My God,Pete built those things wrong! Suddenly a screeching whirlwindof claws and teeth hurleditself from the smolderingbranches and crashed against therobot, clawing insanely at theantenna and blaster barrel.With an awkward jerk the robotswung around and fired its blaster,completely dissolving thelower half of the cat creaturewhich had clung across the barrel.But the back pressure of thecat's body overloaded the dischargecircuits. The robot startedto shake, then clicked sharplyas an overload relay snappedand shorted the blaster cells.The killer turned and rolled backtowards the camp, leaving Alanalone. Shakily, Alan crawled a fewfeet back into the undergrowthwhere he could lie and watch thecamp, but not himself be seen.Though visibility didn't makeany difference to the robots, hefelt safer, somehow, hidden. Heknew now what the shootingsounds had been and why therehadn't been anyone around thecamp site. A charred blob lyingin the grass of the clearing confirmedhis hypothesis. His stomachfelt sick. I suppose, he muttered tohimself, that Pete assembledthese robots in a batch and thenactivated them all at once, probablynever living to realize thatthey're tuned to pick up humanbrain waves, too. Damn!Damn! His eyes blurred andhe slammed his fist into the softearth. When he raised his eyes againthe jungle was perceptibly darker.Stealthy rustlings in theshadows grew louder with thesetting sun. Branches snappedunaccountably in the trees overheadand every now and thenleaves or a twig fell softly to theground, close to where he lay.Reaching into his jacket, Alanfingered his pocket blaster. Hepulled it out and held it in hisright hand. This pop gunwouldn't even singe a robot, butit just might stop one of thosepumas. They said the blast with your name on it would findyou anywhere. This looked like Alan's blast. Slowly Alan looked around,sizing up his situation. Behindhim the dark jungle rustled forbiddingly.He shuddered. Not avery healthy spot to spend thenight. On the other hand, I certainlycan't get to the camp witha pack of mind-activated mechanicalkillers running around.If I can just hold out until morning,when the big ship arrives ...The big ship! GoodLord, Peggy! He turned white;oily sweat punctuated his forehead.Peggy, arriving tomorrowwith the other colonists, thewives and kids! The metal killers,tuned to blast any livingflesh, would murder them theinstant they stepped from theship! A pretty girl, Peggy, the girlhe'd married just three weeksago. He still couldn't believe it.It was crazy, he supposed, tomarry a girl and then take offfor an unknown planet, with herto follow, to try to create a homein a jungle clearing. Crazy maybe,but Peggy and her green eyesthat changed color with thelight, with her soft brown hair,and her happy smile, had endedthirty years of loneliness andhad, at last, given him a reasonfor living. Not to be killed!Alan unclenched his fists andwiped his palms, bloody wherehis fingernails had dug into theflesh. There was a slight creak abovehim like the protesting of abranch too heavily laden. Blasterready, Alan rolled over onto hisback. In the movement, his elbowstruck the top of a smallearthy mound and he was instantlyengulfed in a swarm oflocust-like insects that beat disgustinglyagainst his eyes andmouth. Fagh! Waving hisarms before his face he jumpedup and backwards, away fromthe bugs. As he did so, a darkshapeless thing plopped fromthe trees onto the spot where hehad been lying stretched out.Then, like an ambient fungus,it slithered off into the jungleundergrowth. For a split second the junglestood frozen in a brilliant blueflash, followed by the sharp reportof a blaster. Then another.Alan whirled, startled. Theplanet's double moon had risenand he could see a robot rollingslowly across the clearing in hisgeneral direction, blasting indiscriminatelyat whatever mindimpulses came within its pickuprange, birds, insects, anything.Six or seven others also left thecamp headquarters area andheaded for the jungle, each to aslightly different spot. Apparently the robot hadn'tsensed him yet, but Alan didn'tknow what the effective rangeof its pickup devices was. Hebegan to slide back into thejungle. Minutes later, lookingback he saw that the machine,though several hundred yardsaway, had altered its course andwas now headed directly forhim. His stomach tightened. Panic.The dank, musty smell of thejungle seemed for an instant tothicken and choke in his throat.Then he thought of the big shiplanding in the morning, settlingdown slowly after a lonely two-weekvoyage. He thought of abrown-haired girl crowding withthe others to the gangway, eagerto embrace the new planet, andthe next instant a charred nothing,unrecognizable, the victimof a design error or a misplacedwire in a machine. I have totry, he said aloud. I have totry. He moved into the blackness. Powerful as a small tank, thekiller robot was equipped tocrush, slash, and burn its waythrough undergrowth. Nevertheless,it was slowed by thelarger trees and the thick, clingingvines, and Alan found thathe could manage to keep aheadof it, barely out of blaster range.Only, the robot didn't get tired.Alan did. The twin moons cast pale, deceptiveshadows that waveredand danced across the junglefloor, hiding debris that trippedhim and often sent him sprawlinginto the dark. Sharp-edgedgrowths tore at his face andclothes, and insects attracted bythe blood matted against hispants and shirt. Behind, the robotcrashed imperturbably afterhim, lighting the night with fitfulblaster flashes as somewinged or legged life came withinits range. There was movement also, inthe darkness beside him, scrapingsand rustlings and an occasionallow, throaty sound like anangry cat. Alan's fingers tensedon his pocket blaster. Swiftshadowy forms moved quickly inthe shrubs and the growling becamesuddenly louder. He firedtwice, blindly, into the undergrowth.Sharp screams punctuatedthe electric blue discharge asa pack of small feline creaturesleaped snarling and clawingback into the night. Mentally, Alan tried to figurethe charge remaining in his blaster.There wouldn't be much.Enough for a few more shots,maybe. Why the devil didn't Iload in fresh cells this morning! The robot crashed on, loudernow, gaining on the tired human.Legs aching and bruised,stinging from insect bites, Alantried to force himself to runholding his hands in front ofhim like a child in the dark. Hisfoot tripped on a barely visibleinsect hill and a winged swarmexploded around him. Startled,Alan jerked sideways, crashinghis head against a tree. Heclutched at the bark for a second,dazed, then his kneesbuckled. His blaster fell into theshadows. The robot crashed loudly behindhim now. Without stoppingto think, Alan fumbled along theground after his gun, straininghis eyes in the darkness. Hefound it just a couple of feet toone side, against the base of asmall bush. Just as his fingersclosed upon the barrel his otherhand slipped into somethingsticky that splashed over hisforearm. He screamed in painand leaped back, trying franticallyto wipe the clinging,burning blackness off his arm.Patches of black scraped off ontobranches and vines, but the restspread slowly over his arm asagonizing as hot acid, or as fleshbeing ripped away layer bylayer. Almost blinded by pain, whimpering,Alan stumbled forward.Sharp muscle spasms shot fromhis shoulder across his back andchest. Tears streamed across hischeeks. A blue arc slashed at the treesa mere hundred yards behind.He screamed at the blast. Damnyou, Pete! Damn your robots!Damn, damn ... Oh, Peggy!He stepped into emptiness. Coolness. Wet. Slowly, washedby the water, the pain began tofall away. He wanted to lie thereforever in the dark, cool, wetness.For ever, and ever, and ...The air thundered. In the dim light he could seethe banks of the stream, higherthan a man, muddy and loose.Growing right to the edge of thebanks, the jungle reached outwith hairy, disjointed arms asif to snag even the dirty littlestream that passed so timidlythrough its domain. Alan, lying in the mud of thestream bed, felt the earth shakeas the heavy little robot rolledslowly and inexorably towardshim. The Lord High Executioner,he thought, in battledress. He tried to stand but hislegs were almost too weak andhis arm felt numb. I'll drownhim, he said aloud. I'll drownthe Lord High Executioner. Helaughed. Then his mind cleared.He remembered where he was. Alan trembled. For the firsttime in his life he understoodwhat it was to live, because forthe first time he realized that hewould sometime die. In othertimes and circumstances hemight put it off for a while, formonths or years, but eventually,as now, he would have to watch,still and helpless, while deathcame creeping. Then, at thirty,Alan became a man. Dammit, no law says I haveto flame-out now ! He forcedhimself to rise, forced his legsto stand, struggling painfully inthe shin-deep ooze. He workedhis way to the bank and began todig frenziedly, chest high, abouttwo feet below the edge. His arm where the black thinghad been was swollen and tender,but he forced his hands to dig,dig, dig, cursing and crying tohide the pain, and biting hislips, ignoring the salty taste ofblood. The soft earth crumbledunder his hands until he had asmall cave about three feet deepin the bank. Beyond that thesoil was held too tightly by theroots from above and he had tostop. The air crackled blue and atree crashed heavily past Alaninto the stream. Above him onthe bank, silhouetting againstthe moons, the killer robot stoppedand its blaster swivelledslowly down. Frantically, Alanhugged the bank as a shaft ofpure electricity arced over him,sliced into the water, and explodedin a cloud of steam. Therobot shook for a second, itsblaster muzzle lifted erraticallyand for an instant it seemed almostout of control, then itquieted and the muzzle againpointed down. Pressing with all his might,Alan slid slowly along the bankinches at a time, away from themachine above. Its muzzle turnedto follow him but the edge ofthe bank blocked its aim. Grindingforward a couple of feet,slightly overhanging the bank,the robot fired again. For a splitsecond Alan seemed engulfed inflame; the heat of hell singed hishead and back, and mud boiledin the bank by his arm. Again the robot trembled. Itjerked forward a foot and itsblaster swung slightly away. Butonly for a moment. Then the gunswung back again. Suddenly, as if sensing somethingwrong, its tracks slammedinto reverse. It stood poised fora second, its treads spinningcrazily as the earth collapsed underneathit, where Alan haddug, then it fell with a heavysplash into the mud, ten feetfrom where Alan stood. Without hesitation Alanthrew himself across the blasterhousing, frantically locking hisarms around the barrel as therobot's treads churned furiouslyin the sticky mud, causing it tobuck and plunge like a Brahmabull. The treads stopped and theblaster jerked upwards wrenchingAlan's arms, then slammeddown. Then the whole housingwhirled around and around, tiltingalternately up and down likea steel-skinned water monstertrying to dislodge a tenaciouscrab, while Alan, arms and legswrapped tightly around the blasterbarrel and housing, pressedfiercely against the robot's metalskin. Slowly, trying to anticipateand shift his weight with thespinning plunges, Alan workedhis hand down to his right hip.He fumbled for the sheath clippedto his belt, found it, and extracteda stubby hunting knife.Sweat and blood in his eyes,hardly able to move on the wildlyswinging turret, he felt downthe sides to the thin crack betweenthe revolving housing andthe stationary portion of the robot.With a quick prayer hejammed in the knife blade—andwas whipped headlong into themud as the turret literally snappedto a stop. The earth, jungle and moonsspun in a pinwheeled blur,slowed, and settled to their properplaces. Standing in the sticky,sweet-smelling ooze, Alan eyedthe robot apprehensively. Halfburied in mud, it stood quiet inthe shadowy light except for anoccasional, almost spasmodicjerk of its blaster barrel. Forthe first time that night Alanallowed himself a slight smile.A blade in the old gear box,eh? How does that feel, boy? He turned. Well, I'd betterget out of here before the knifeslips or the monster cooks upsome more tricks with whateverit's got for a brain. Digginglittle footholds in the soft bank,he climbed up and stood onceagain in the rustling jungledarkness. I wonder, he thought, howPete could cram enough braininto one of those things to makeit hunt and track so perfectly.He tried to visualize the computingcircuits needed for theoperation of its tracking mechanismalone. There just isn'troom for the electronics. You'dneed a computer as big as theone at camp headquarters. In the distance the sky blazedas a blaster roared in the jungle.Then Alan heard the approachingrobot, crunching and snappingits way through the undergrowthlike an onrushing forestfire. He froze. Good Lord!They communicate with eachother! The one I jammed mustbe calling others to help. He began to move along thebank, away from the crashingsounds. Suddenly he stopped, hiseyes widened. Of course! Radio!I'll bet anything they'reautomatically controlled by thecamp computer. That's wheretheir brain is! He paused.Then, if that were put out ofcommission ... He jerked awayfrom the bank and half ran, halfpulled himself through the undergrowthtowards the camp. Trees exploded to his left asanother robot fired in his direction,too far away to be effectivebut churning towards himthrough the blackness. Alan changed direction slightlyto follow a line between thetwo robots coming up fromeither side, behind him. His eyeswere well accustomed to the darknow, and he managed to dodgemost of the shadowy vines andbranches before they could snagor trip him. Even so, he stumbledin the wiry underbrush andhis legs were a mass of stingingslashes from ankle to thigh. The crashing rumble of thekiller robots shook the night behindhim, nearer sometimes,then falling slightly back, butfollowing constantly, moreunshakable than bloodhoundsbecause a man can sometimes covera scent, but no man can stop histhoughts. Intermittently, likephotographers' strobes, blueflashes would light the jungleabout him. Then, for secondsafterwards his eyes would seedancing streaks of yellow andsharp multi-colored pinwheelsthat alternately shrunk and expandedas if in a surrealist'snightmare. Alan would have topause and squeeze his eyelidstight shut before he could seeagain, and the robots wouldmove a little closer. To his right the trees silhouettedbriefly against brilliance asa third robot slowly moved upin the distance. Without thinking,Alan turned slightly to theleft, then froze in momentarypanic. I should be at the campnow. Damn, what direction amI going? He tried to thinkback, to visualize the twists andturns he'd taken in the jungle.All I need is to get lost. He pictured the camp computerwith no one to stop it, automaticallysending its robots inwider and wider forays, slowlywiping every trace of life fromthe planet. Technologically advancedmachines doing the jobfor which they were built, completely,thoroughly, without feeling,and without human mastersto separate sense from futility.Finally parts would wear out,circuits would short, and one byone the killers would crunch toa halt. A few birds would stillfly then, but a unique animallife, rare in the universe, wouldexist no more. And the bones ofchildren, eager girls, and theirmen would also lie, beside arusty hulk, beneath the aliensun. Peggy! As if in answer, a tree besidehim breathed fire, then exploded.In the brief flash of theblaster shot, Alan saw the steelglint of a robot only a hundredyards away, much nearer thanhe had thought. Thank heavenfor trees! He stepped back, felthis foot catch in something,clutched futilely at some leavesand fell heavily. Pain danced up his leg as hegrabbed his ankle. Quickly hefelt the throbbing flesh. Damnthe rotten luck, anyway! Heblinked the pain tears from hiseyes and looked up—into a robot'sblaster, jutting out of thefoliage, thirty yards away. Instinctively, in one motionAlan grabbed his pocket blasterand fired. To his amazement therobot jerked back, its gun wobbledand started to tilt away.Then, getting itself under control,it swung back again to faceAlan. He fired again, and againthe robot reacted. It seemed familiarsomehow. Then he rememberedthe robot on the riverbank, jiggling and swaying forseconds after each shot. Ofcourse! He cursed himself formissing the obvious. The blasterstatic blanks out radiotransmission from the computerfor a few seconds. They even doit to themselves! Firing intermittently, hepulled himself upright and hobbledahead through the bush.The robot shook spasmodicallywith each shot, its gun tilted upwardat an awkward angle. Then, unexpectedly, Alan sawstars, real stars brilliant in thenight sky, and half dragging hisswelling leg he stumbled out ofthe jungle into the camp clearing.Ahead, across fifty yards ofgrass stood the headquartersbuilding, housing the robot-controllingcomputer. Still firing atshort intervals he started acrossthe clearing, gritting his teethat every step. Straining every muscle inspite of the agonizing pain, Alanforced himself to a limping runacross the uneven ground, carefullyavoiding the insect hillsthat jutted up through the grass.From the corner of his eye hesaw another of the robots standingshakily in the dark edge ofthe jungle waiting, it seemed,for his small blaster to run dry. Be damned! You can't winnow! Alan yelled between blastershots, almost irrational fromthe pain that ripped jaggedlythrough his leg. Then it happened.A few feet from thebuilding's door his blaster quit.A click. A faint hiss when hefrantically jerked the triggeragain and again, and the spentcells released themselves fromthe device, falling in the grassat his feet. He dropped the uselessgun. No! He threw himself onthe ground as a new robot suddenlyappeared around the edgeof the building a few feet away,aimed, and fired. Air burnedover Alan's back and ozone tingledin his nostrils. Blinding itself for a few secondswith its own blaster static,the robot paused momentarily,jiggling in place. In thisinstant, Alan jammed his handsinto an insect hill and hurled thepile of dirt and insects directlyat the robot's antenna. In a flash,hundreds of the winged thingserupted angrily from the hole ina swarming cloud, each part ofwhich was a speck of lifetransmitting mental energy to therobot's pickup devices. Confused by the sudden dispersionof mind impulses, therobot fired erratically as Alancrouched and raced painfully forthe door. It fired again, closer,as he fumbled with the lockrelease. Jagged bits of plastic andstone ripped past him, torn looseby the blast. Frantically, Alan slammedopen the door as the robot, sensinghim strongly now, aimedpoint blank. He saw nothing, hismind thought of nothing but thered-clad safety switch mountedbeside the computer. Time stopped.There was nothing else inthe world. He half-jumped, half-felltowards it, slowly, in tenthsof seconds that seemed measuredout in years. The universe went black. Later. Brilliance pressed uponhis eyes. Then pain returned, amulti-hurting thing that crawledthrough his body and draggedragged tentacles across hisbrain. He moaned. A voice spoke hollowly in thedistance. He's waking. Call hiswife. Alan opened his eyes in awhite room; a white light hungover his head. Beside him, lookingdown with a rueful smile,stood a young man wearingspace medical insignia. Yes,he acknowledged the question inAlan's eyes, you hit the switch.That was three days ago. Whenyou're up again we'd all like tothank you. Suddenly a sobbing-laughinggreen-eyed girl was pressedtightly against him. Neither ofthem spoke. They couldn't. Therewas too much to say. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Science Fiction Stories October 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling andtypographical errors have been corrected without note.<doc-sep></s>

Alan is one of the men who have arrived on Waiamea. He ventures around the jungle planet but goes on the run after a programming error with Pete’s robots. Alan is thirty years old, and he married a woman named Peggy three weeks earlier. Initially, he is very afraid of death and tries to protect himself from the robots. However, he does realize his love for Peggy and sees it as a motivation to continue living. He understands what it means to live for the first time in his life, and he becomes a lot more courageous. Instead of giving up, Alan chooses to find a way to defeat the robots. He also shows himself to be intelligent, figuring out that the robots are being controlled by radio transmissions via a computer in the headquarters building. Furthermore, he is capable of using his pocket blaster and knife to defeat one of the robots, even though it could instantly kill him with a single blast. Alan is very resilient as well; he is injured and continues to run around and fight against the robots. Even when the odds are against him, his desire to be with his wife gives him the strength to continue heading towards the headquarters building and flip off the switch.

<s> SURVIVAL TACTICS By AL SEVCIK ILLUSTRATOR NOVICK The robots were built to serveMan; to do his work, see to hiscomforts, make smooth his way.Then the robots figured out anadditional service—putting Manout of his misery. <doc-sep> There was a sudden crashthat hung sharply in the air,as if a tree had been hit bylightning some distance away.Then another. Alan stopped,puzzled. Two more blasts, quicklytogether, and the sound of ascream faintly. Frowning, worrying about thesounds, Alan momentarily forgotto watch his step until his footsuddenly plunged into an anthill, throwing him to the junglefloor. Damn! He cursed again,for the tenth time, and stooduncertainly in the dimness.From tall, moss-shrouded trees,wrist-thick vines hung quietly,scraping the spongy ground likethe tentacles of some monstroustree-bound octopus. Fitful littleplants grew straggly in theshadows of the mossy trunks,forming a dense underbrush thatmade walking difficult. At middaysome few of the blue sun'srays filtered through to thejungle floor, but now, late afternoonon the planet, the shadowswere long and gloomy. Alan peered around him at thevine-draped shadows, listeningto the soft rustlings and fainttwig-snappings of life in thejungle. Two short, poppingsounds echoed across the stillness,drowned out almost immediatelyand silenced by anexplosive crash. Alan started,Blaster fighting! But it can'tbe! Suddenly anxious, he slasheda hurried X in one of the treesto mark his position then turnedto follow a line of similar marksback through the jungle. Hetried to run, but vines blockedhis way and woody shrubscaught at his legs, tripping himand holding him back. Then,through the trees he saw theclearing of the camp site, thetemporary home for the scoutship and the eleven men who,with Alan, were the only humanson the jungle planet, Waiamea. Stepping through the lowshrubbery at the edge of thesite, he looked across the openarea to the two temporary structures,the camp headquarterswhere the power supplies andthe computer were; and thesleeping quarters. Beyond, nosehigh, stood the silver scout shipthat had brought the advanceexploratory party of scientistsand technicians to Waiameathree days before. Except for afew of the killer robots rollingslowly around the camp site ontheir quiet treads, there was noone about. So, they've finally got thosethings working. Alan smiledslightly. Guess that means Iowe Pete a bourbon-and-sodafor sure. Anybody who canbuild a robot that hunts by homingin on animals' mind impulses ...He stepped forwardjust as a roar of blue flame dissolvedthe branches of a tree,barely above his head. Without pausing to think,Alan leaped back, and fellsprawling over a bush just asone of the robots rolled silentlyup from the right, lowering itsblaster barrel to aim directly athis head. Alan froze. My God,Pete built those things wrong! Suddenly a screeching whirlwindof claws and teeth hurleditself from the smolderingbranches and crashed against therobot, clawing insanely at theantenna and blaster barrel.With an awkward jerk the robotswung around and fired its blaster,completely dissolving thelower half of the cat creaturewhich had clung across the barrel.But the back pressure of thecat's body overloaded the dischargecircuits. The robot startedto shake, then clicked sharplyas an overload relay snappedand shorted the blaster cells.The killer turned and rolled backtowards the camp, leaving Alanalone. Shakily, Alan crawled a fewfeet back into the undergrowthwhere he could lie and watch thecamp, but not himself be seen.Though visibility didn't makeany difference to the robots, hefelt safer, somehow, hidden. Heknew now what the shootingsounds had been and why therehadn't been anyone around thecamp site. A charred blob lyingin the grass of the clearing confirmedhis hypothesis. His stomachfelt sick. I suppose, he muttered tohimself, that Pete assembledthese robots in a batch and thenactivated them all at once, probablynever living to realize thatthey're tuned to pick up humanbrain waves, too. Damn!Damn! His eyes blurred andhe slammed his fist into the softearth. When he raised his eyes againthe jungle was perceptibly darker.Stealthy rustlings in theshadows grew louder with thesetting sun. Branches snappedunaccountably in the trees overheadand every now and thenleaves or a twig fell softly to theground, close to where he lay.Reaching into his jacket, Alanfingered his pocket blaster. Hepulled it out and held it in hisright hand. This pop gunwouldn't even singe a robot, butit just might stop one of thosepumas. They said the blast with your name on it would findyou anywhere. This looked like Alan's blast. Slowly Alan looked around,sizing up his situation. Behindhim the dark jungle rustled forbiddingly.He shuddered. Not avery healthy spot to spend thenight. On the other hand, I certainlycan't get to the camp witha pack of mind-activated mechanicalkillers running around.If I can just hold out until morning,when the big ship arrives ...The big ship! GoodLord, Peggy! He turned white;oily sweat punctuated his forehead.Peggy, arriving tomorrowwith the other colonists, thewives and kids! The metal killers,tuned to blast any livingflesh, would murder them theinstant they stepped from theship! A pretty girl, Peggy, the girlhe'd married just three weeksago. He still couldn't believe it.It was crazy, he supposed, tomarry a girl and then take offfor an unknown planet, with herto follow, to try to create a homein a jungle clearing. Crazy maybe,but Peggy and her green eyesthat changed color with thelight, with her soft brown hair,and her happy smile, had endedthirty years of loneliness andhad, at last, given him a reasonfor living. Not to be killed!Alan unclenched his fists andwiped his palms, bloody wherehis fingernails had dug into theflesh. There was a slight creak abovehim like the protesting of abranch too heavily laden. Blasterready, Alan rolled over onto hisback. In the movement, his elbowstruck the top of a smallearthy mound and he was instantlyengulfed in a swarm oflocust-like insects that beat disgustinglyagainst his eyes andmouth. Fagh! Waving hisarms before his face he jumpedup and backwards, away fromthe bugs. As he did so, a darkshapeless thing plopped fromthe trees onto the spot where hehad been lying stretched out.Then, like an ambient fungus,it slithered off into the jungleundergrowth. For a split second the junglestood frozen in a brilliant blueflash, followed by the sharp reportof a blaster. Then another.Alan whirled, startled. Theplanet's double moon had risenand he could see a robot rollingslowly across the clearing in hisgeneral direction, blasting indiscriminatelyat whatever mindimpulses came within its pickuprange, birds, insects, anything.Six or seven others also left thecamp headquarters area andheaded for the jungle, each to aslightly different spot. Apparently the robot hadn'tsensed him yet, but Alan didn'tknow what the effective rangeof its pickup devices was. Hebegan to slide back into thejungle. Minutes later, lookingback he saw that the machine,though several hundred yardsaway, had altered its course andwas now headed directly forhim. His stomach tightened. Panic.The dank, musty smell of thejungle seemed for an instant tothicken and choke in his throat.Then he thought of the big shiplanding in the morning, settlingdown slowly after a lonely two-weekvoyage. He thought of abrown-haired girl crowding withthe others to the gangway, eagerto embrace the new planet, andthe next instant a charred nothing,unrecognizable, the victimof a design error or a misplacedwire in a machine. I have totry, he said aloud. I have totry. He moved into the blackness. Powerful as a small tank, thekiller robot was equipped tocrush, slash, and burn its waythrough undergrowth. Nevertheless,it was slowed by thelarger trees and the thick, clingingvines, and Alan found thathe could manage to keep aheadof it, barely out of blaster range.Only, the robot didn't get tired.Alan did. The twin moons cast pale, deceptiveshadows that waveredand danced across the junglefloor, hiding debris that trippedhim and often sent him sprawlinginto the dark. Sharp-edgedgrowths tore at his face andclothes, and insects attracted bythe blood matted against hispants and shirt. Behind, the robotcrashed imperturbably afterhim, lighting the night with fitfulblaster flashes as somewinged or legged life came withinits range. There was movement also, inthe darkness beside him, scrapingsand rustlings and an occasionallow, throaty sound like anangry cat. Alan's fingers tensedon his pocket blaster. Swiftshadowy forms moved quickly inthe shrubs and the growling becamesuddenly louder. He firedtwice, blindly, into the undergrowth.Sharp screams punctuatedthe electric blue discharge asa pack of small feline creaturesleaped snarling and clawingback into the night. Mentally, Alan tried to figurethe charge remaining in his blaster.There wouldn't be much.Enough for a few more shots,maybe. Why the devil didn't Iload in fresh cells this morning! The robot crashed on, loudernow, gaining on the tired human.Legs aching and bruised,stinging from insect bites, Alantried to force himself to runholding his hands in front ofhim like a child in the dark. Hisfoot tripped on a barely visibleinsect hill and a winged swarmexploded around him. Startled,Alan jerked sideways, crashinghis head against a tree. Heclutched at the bark for a second,dazed, then his kneesbuckled. His blaster fell into theshadows. The robot crashed loudly behindhim now. Without stoppingto think, Alan fumbled along theground after his gun, straininghis eyes in the darkness. Hefound it just a couple of feet toone side, against the base of asmall bush. Just as his fingersclosed upon the barrel his otherhand slipped into somethingsticky that splashed over hisforearm. He screamed in painand leaped back, trying franticallyto wipe the clinging,burning blackness off his arm.Patches of black scraped off ontobranches and vines, but the restspread slowly over his arm asagonizing as hot acid, or as fleshbeing ripped away layer bylayer. Almost blinded by pain, whimpering,Alan stumbled forward.Sharp muscle spasms shot fromhis shoulder across his back andchest. Tears streamed across hischeeks. A blue arc slashed at the treesa mere hundred yards behind.He screamed at the blast. Damnyou, Pete! Damn your robots!Damn, damn ... Oh, Peggy!He stepped into emptiness. Coolness. Wet. Slowly, washedby the water, the pain began tofall away. He wanted to lie thereforever in the dark, cool, wetness.For ever, and ever, and ...The air thundered. In the dim light he could seethe banks of the stream, higherthan a man, muddy and loose.Growing right to the edge of thebanks, the jungle reached outwith hairy, disjointed arms asif to snag even the dirty littlestream that passed so timidlythrough its domain. Alan, lying in the mud of thestream bed, felt the earth shakeas the heavy little robot rolledslowly and inexorably towardshim. The Lord High Executioner,he thought, in battledress. He tried to stand but hislegs were almost too weak andhis arm felt numb. I'll drownhim, he said aloud. I'll drownthe Lord High Executioner. Helaughed. Then his mind cleared.He remembered where he was. Alan trembled. For the firsttime in his life he understoodwhat it was to live, because forthe first time he realized that hewould sometime die. In othertimes and circumstances hemight put it off for a while, formonths or years, but eventually,as now, he would have to watch,still and helpless, while deathcame creeping. Then, at thirty,Alan became a man. Dammit, no law says I haveto flame-out now ! He forcedhimself to rise, forced his legsto stand, struggling painfully inthe shin-deep ooze. He workedhis way to the bank and began todig frenziedly, chest high, abouttwo feet below the edge. His arm where the black thinghad been was swollen and tender,but he forced his hands to dig,dig, dig, cursing and crying tohide the pain, and biting hislips, ignoring the salty taste ofblood. The soft earth crumbledunder his hands until he had asmall cave about three feet deepin the bank. Beyond that thesoil was held too tightly by theroots from above and he had tostop. The air crackled blue and atree crashed heavily past Alaninto the stream. Above him onthe bank, silhouetting againstthe moons, the killer robot stoppedand its blaster swivelledslowly down. Frantically, Alanhugged the bank as a shaft ofpure electricity arced over him,sliced into the water, and explodedin a cloud of steam. Therobot shook for a second, itsblaster muzzle lifted erraticallyand for an instant it seemed almostout of control, then itquieted and the muzzle againpointed down. Pressing with all his might,Alan slid slowly along the bankinches at a time, away from themachine above. Its muzzle turnedto follow him but the edge ofthe bank blocked its aim. Grindingforward a couple of feet,slightly overhanging the bank,the robot fired again. For a splitsecond Alan seemed engulfed inflame; the heat of hell singed hishead and back, and mud boiledin the bank by his arm. Again the robot trembled. Itjerked forward a foot and itsblaster swung slightly away. Butonly for a moment. Then the gunswung back again. Suddenly, as if sensing somethingwrong, its tracks slammedinto reverse. It stood poised fora second, its treads spinningcrazily as the earth collapsed underneathit, where Alan haddug, then it fell with a heavysplash into the mud, ten feetfrom where Alan stood. Without hesitation Alanthrew himself across the blasterhousing, frantically locking hisarms around the barrel as therobot's treads churned furiouslyin the sticky mud, causing it tobuck and plunge like a Brahmabull. The treads stopped and theblaster jerked upwards wrenchingAlan's arms, then slammeddown. Then the whole housingwhirled around and around, tiltingalternately up and down likea steel-skinned water monstertrying to dislodge a tenaciouscrab, while Alan, arms and legswrapped tightly around the blasterbarrel and housing, pressedfiercely against the robot's metalskin. Slowly, trying to anticipateand shift his weight with thespinning plunges, Alan workedhis hand down to his right hip.He fumbled for the sheath clippedto his belt, found it, and extracteda stubby hunting knife.Sweat and blood in his eyes,hardly able to move on the wildlyswinging turret, he felt downthe sides to the thin crack betweenthe revolving housing andthe stationary portion of the robot.With a quick prayer hejammed in the knife blade—andwas whipped headlong into themud as the turret literally snappedto a stop. The earth, jungle and moonsspun in a pinwheeled blur,slowed, and settled to their properplaces. Standing in the sticky,sweet-smelling ooze, Alan eyedthe robot apprehensively. Halfburied in mud, it stood quiet inthe shadowy light except for anoccasional, almost spasmodicjerk of its blaster barrel. Forthe first time that night Alanallowed himself a slight smile.A blade in the old gear box,eh? How does that feel, boy? He turned. Well, I'd betterget out of here before the knifeslips or the monster cooks upsome more tricks with whateverit's got for a brain. Digginglittle footholds in the soft bank,he climbed up and stood onceagain in the rustling jungledarkness. I wonder, he thought, howPete could cram enough braininto one of those things to makeit hunt and track so perfectly.He tried to visualize the computingcircuits needed for theoperation of its tracking mechanismalone. There just isn'troom for the electronics. You'dneed a computer as big as theone at camp headquarters. In the distance the sky blazedas a blaster roared in the jungle.Then Alan heard the approachingrobot, crunching and snappingits way through the undergrowthlike an onrushing forestfire. He froze. Good Lord!They communicate with eachother! The one I jammed mustbe calling others to help. He began to move along thebank, away from the crashingsounds. Suddenly he stopped, hiseyes widened. Of course! Radio!I'll bet anything they'reautomatically controlled by thecamp computer. That's wheretheir brain is! He paused.Then, if that were put out ofcommission ... He jerked awayfrom the bank and half ran, halfpulled himself through the undergrowthtowards the camp. Trees exploded to his left asanother robot fired in his direction,too far away to be effectivebut churning towards himthrough the blackness. Alan changed direction slightlyto follow a line between thetwo robots coming up fromeither side, behind him. His eyeswere well accustomed to the darknow, and he managed to dodgemost of the shadowy vines andbranches before they could snagor trip him. Even so, he stumbledin the wiry underbrush andhis legs were a mass of stingingslashes from ankle to thigh. The crashing rumble of thekiller robots shook the night behindhim, nearer sometimes,then falling slightly back, butfollowing constantly, moreunshakable than bloodhoundsbecause a man can sometimes covera scent, but no man can stop histhoughts. Intermittently, likephotographers' strobes, blueflashes would light the jungleabout him. Then, for secondsafterwards his eyes would seedancing streaks of yellow andsharp multi-colored pinwheelsthat alternately shrunk and expandedas if in a surrealist'snightmare. Alan would have topause and squeeze his eyelidstight shut before he could seeagain, and the robots wouldmove a little closer. To his right the trees silhouettedbriefly against brilliance asa third robot slowly moved upin the distance. Without thinking,Alan turned slightly to theleft, then froze in momentarypanic. I should be at the campnow. Damn, what direction amI going? He tried to thinkback, to visualize the twists andturns he'd taken in the jungle.All I need is to get lost. He pictured the camp computerwith no one to stop it, automaticallysending its robots inwider and wider forays, slowlywiping every trace of life fromthe planet. Technologically advancedmachines doing the jobfor which they were built, completely,thoroughly, without feeling,and without human mastersto separate sense from futility.Finally parts would wear out,circuits would short, and one byone the killers would crunch toa halt. A few birds would stillfly then, but a unique animallife, rare in the universe, wouldexist no more. And the bones ofchildren, eager girls, and theirmen would also lie, beside arusty hulk, beneath the aliensun. Peggy! As if in answer, a tree besidehim breathed fire, then exploded.In the brief flash of theblaster shot, Alan saw the steelglint of a robot only a hundredyards away, much nearer thanhe had thought. Thank heavenfor trees! He stepped back, felthis foot catch in something,clutched futilely at some leavesand fell heavily. Pain danced up his leg as hegrabbed his ankle. Quickly hefelt the throbbing flesh. Damnthe rotten luck, anyway! Heblinked the pain tears from hiseyes and looked up—into a robot'sblaster, jutting out of thefoliage, thirty yards away. Instinctively, in one motionAlan grabbed his pocket blasterand fired. To his amazement therobot jerked back, its gun wobbledand started to tilt away.Then, getting itself under control,it swung back again to faceAlan. He fired again, and againthe robot reacted. It seemed familiarsomehow. Then he rememberedthe robot on the riverbank, jiggling and swaying forseconds after each shot. Ofcourse! He cursed himself formissing the obvious. The blasterstatic blanks out radiotransmission from the computerfor a few seconds. They even doit to themselves! Firing intermittently, hepulled himself upright and hobbledahead through the bush.The robot shook spasmodicallywith each shot, its gun tilted upwardat an awkward angle. Then, unexpectedly, Alan sawstars, real stars brilliant in thenight sky, and half dragging hisswelling leg he stumbled out ofthe jungle into the camp clearing.Ahead, across fifty yards ofgrass stood the headquartersbuilding, housing the robot-controllingcomputer. Still firing atshort intervals he started acrossthe clearing, gritting his teethat every step. Straining every muscle inspite of the agonizing pain, Alanforced himself to a limping runacross the uneven ground, carefullyavoiding the insect hillsthat jutted up through the grass.From the corner of his eye hesaw another of the robots standingshakily in the dark edge ofthe jungle waiting, it seemed,for his small blaster to run dry. Be damned! You can't winnow! Alan yelled between blastershots, almost irrational fromthe pain that ripped jaggedlythrough his leg. Then it happened.A few feet from thebuilding's door his blaster quit.A click. A faint hiss when hefrantically jerked the triggeragain and again, and the spentcells released themselves fromthe device, falling in the grassat his feet. He dropped the uselessgun. No! He threw himself onthe ground as a new robot suddenlyappeared around the edgeof the building a few feet away,aimed, and fired. Air burnedover Alan's back and ozone tingledin his nostrils. Blinding itself for a few secondswith its own blaster static,the robot paused momentarily,jiggling in place. In thisinstant, Alan jammed his handsinto an insect hill and hurled thepile of dirt and insects directlyat the robot's antenna. In a flash,hundreds of the winged thingserupted angrily from the hole ina swarming cloud, each part ofwhich was a speck of lifetransmitting mental energy to therobot's pickup devices. Confused by the sudden dispersionof mind impulses, therobot fired erratically as Alancrouched and raced painfully forthe door. It fired again, closer,as he fumbled with the lockrelease. Jagged bits of plastic andstone ripped past him, torn looseby the blast. Frantically, Alan slammedopen the door as the robot, sensinghim strongly now, aimedpoint blank. He saw nothing, hismind thought of nothing but thered-clad safety switch mountedbeside the computer. Time stopped.There was nothing else inthe world. He half-jumped, half-felltowards it, slowly, in tenthsof seconds that seemed measuredout in years. The universe went black. Later. Brilliance pressed uponhis eyes. Then pain returned, amulti-hurting thing that crawledthrough his body and draggedragged tentacles across hisbrain. He moaned. A voice spoke hollowly in thedistance. He's waking. Call hiswife. Alan opened his eyes in awhite room; a white light hungover his head. Beside him, lookingdown with a rueful smile,stood a young man wearingspace medical insignia. Yes,he acknowledged the question inAlan's eyes, you hit the switch.That was three days ago. Whenyou're up again we'd all like tothank you. Suddenly a sobbing-laughinggreen-eyed girl was pressedtightly against him. Neither ofthem spoke. They couldn't. Therewas too much to say. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Science Fiction Stories October 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling andtypographical errors have been corrected without note.<doc-sep></s>

The killer robots work by homing in on the mind of animals’ impulses. However, due to mass production, robots are also capable of picking up human brain waves. The robots are also capable of firing beams from its blaster, as one had dissolved a cat creature’s entire lower half when it clung onto the robot. The blaster aim is almost always perfect unless the robot’s radio wave or discharge circuit is interrupted. One of its features is also a pickup device. The robots can move around quietly, too, as their original purpose was to guard the campsite. When Alan continues to escape from them, it is revealed that the robots can communicate with each other and the camp computer. The communication works by using radio waves, but it is possible to interrupt these waves using a pocket blaster.

<s> SURVIVAL TACTICS By AL SEVCIK ILLUSTRATOR NOVICK The robots were built to serveMan; to do his work, see to hiscomforts, make smooth his way.Then the robots figured out anadditional service—putting Manout of his misery. <doc-sep> There was a sudden crashthat hung sharply in the air,as if a tree had been hit bylightning some distance away.Then another. Alan stopped,puzzled. Two more blasts, quicklytogether, and the sound of ascream faintly. Frowning, worrying about thesounds, Alan momentarily forgotto watch his step until his footsuddenly plunged into an anthill, throwing him to the junglefloor. Damn! He cursed again,for the tenth time, and stooduncertainly in the dimness.From tall, moss-shrouded trees,wrist-thick vines hung quietly,scraping the spongy ground likethe tentacles of some monstroustree-bound octopus. Fitful littleplants grew straggly in theshadows of the mossy trunks,forming a dense underbrush thatmade walking difficult. At middaysome few of the blue sun'srays filtered through to thejungle floor, but now, late afternoonon the planet, the shadowswere long and gloomy. Alan peered around him at thevine-draped shadows, listeningto the soft rustlings and fainttwig-snappings of life in thejungle. Two short, poppingsounds echoed across the stillness,drowned out almost immediatelyand silenced by anexplosive crash. Alan started,Blaster fighting! But it can'tbe! Suddenly anxious, he slasheda hurried X in one of the treesto mark his position then turnedto follow a line of similar marksback through the jungle. Hetried to run, but vines blockedhis way and woody shrubscaught at his legs, tripping himand holding him back. Then,through the trees he saw theclearing of the camp site, thetemporary home for the scoutship and the eleven men who,with Alan, were the only humanson the jungle planet, Waiamea. Stepping through the lowshrubbery at the edge of thesite, he looked across the openarea to the two temporary structures,the camp headquarterswhere the power supplies andthe computer were; and thesleeping quarters. Beyond, nosehigh, stood the silver scout shipthat had brought the advanceexploratory party of scientistsand technicians to Waiameathree days before. Except for afew of the killer robots rollingslowly around the camp site ontheir quiet treads, there was noone about. So, they've finally got thosethings working. Alan smiledslightly. Guess that means Iowe Pete a bourbon-and-sodafor sure. Anybody who canbuild a robot that hunts by homingin on animals' mind impulses ...He stepped forwardjust as a roar of blue flame dissolvedthe branches of a tree,barely above his head. Without pausing to think,Alan leaped back, and fellsprawling over a bush just asone of the robots rolled silentlyup from the right, lowering itsblaster barrel to aim directly athis head. Alan froze. My God,Pete built those things wrong! Suddenly a screeching whirlwindof claws and teeth hurleditself from the smolderingbranches and crashed against therobot, clawing insanely at theantenna and blaster barrel.With an awkward jerk the robotswung around and fired its blaster,completely dissolving thelower half of the cat creaturewhich had clung across the barrel.But the back pressure of thecat's body overloaded the dischargecircuits. The robot startedto shake, then clicked sharplyas an overload relay snappedand shorted the blaster cells.The killer turned and rolled backtowards the camp, leaving Alanalone. Shakily, Alan crawled a fewfeet back into the undergrowthwhere he could lie and watch thecamp, but not himself be seen.Though visibility didn't makeany difference to the robots, hefelt safer, somehow, hidden. Heknew now what the shootingsounds had been and why therehadn't been anyone around thecamp site. A charred blob lyingin the grass of the clearing confirmedhis hypothesis. His stomachfelt sick. I suppose, he muttered tohimself, that Pete assembledthese robots in a batch and thenactivated them all at once, probablynever living to realize thatthey're tuned to pick up humanbrain waves, too. Damn!Damn! His eyes blurred andhe slammed his fist into the softearth. When he raised his eyes againthe jungle was perceptibly darker.Stealthy rustlings in theshadows grew louder with thesetting sun. Branches snappedunaccountably in the trees overheadand every now and thenleaves or a twig fell softly to theground, close to where he lay.Reaching into his jacket, Alanfingered his pocket blaster. Hepulled it out and held it in hisright hand. This pop gunwouldn't even singe a robot, butit just might stop one of thosepumas. They said the blast with your name on it would findyou anywhere. This looked like Alan's blast. Slowly Alan looked around,sizing up his situation. Behindhim the dark jungle rustled forbiddingly.He shuddered. Not avery healthy spot to spend thenight. On the other hand, I certainlycan't get to the camp witha pack of mind-activated mechanicalkillers running around.If I can just hold out until morning,when the big ship arrives ...The big ship! GoodLord, Peggy! He turned white;oily sweat punctuated his forehead.Peggy, arriving tomorrowwith the other colonists, thewives and kids! The metal killers,tuned to blast any livingflesh, would murder them theinstant they stepped from theship! A pretty girl, Peggy, the girlhe'd married just three weeksago. He still couldn't believe it.It was crazy, he supposed, tomarry a girl and then take offfor an unknown planet, with herto follow, to try to create a homein a jungle clearing. Crazy maybe,but Peggy and her green eyesthat changed color with thelight, with her soft brown hair,and her happy smile, had endedthirty years of loneliness andhad, at last, given him a reasonfor living. Not to be killed!Alan unclenched his fists andwiped his palms, bloody wherehis fingernails had dug into theflesh. There was a slight creak abovehim like the protesting of abranch too heavily laden. Blasterready, Alan rolled over onto hisback. In the movement, his elbowstruck the top of a smallearthy mound and he was instantlyengulfed in a swarm oflocust-like insects that beat disgustinglyagainst his eyes andmouth. Fagh! Waving hisarms before his face he jumpedup and backwards, away fromthe bugs. As he did so, a darkshapeless thing plopped fromthe trees onto the spot where hehad been lying stretched out.Then, like an ambient fungus,it slithered off into the jungleundergrowth. For a split second the junglestood frozen in a brilliant blueflash, followed by the sharp reportof a blaster. Then another.Alan whirled, startled. Theplanet's double moon had risenand he could see a robot rollingslowly across the clearing in hisgeneral direction, blasting indiscriminatelyat whatever mindimpulses came within its pickuprange, birds, insects, anything.Six or seven others also left thecamp headquarters area andheaded for the jungle, each to aslightly different spot. Apparently the robot hadn'tsensed him yet, but Alan didn'tknow what the effective rangeof its pickup devices was. Hebegan to slide back into thejungle. Minutes later, lookingback he saw that the machine,though several hundred yardsaway, had altered its course andwas now headed directly forhim. His stomach tightened. Panic.The dank, musty smell of thejungle seemed for an instant tothicken and choke in his throat.Then he thought of the big shiplanding in the morning, settlingdown slowly after a lonely two-weekvoyage. He thought of abrown-haired girl crowding withthe others to the gangway, eagerto embrace the new planet, andthe next instant a charred nothing,unrecognizable, the victimof a design error or a misplacedwire in a machine. I have totry, he said aloud. I have totry. He moved into the blackness. Powerful as a small tank, thekiller robot was equipped tocrush, slash, and burn its waythrough undergrowth. Nevertheless,it was slowed by thelarger trees and the thick, clingingvines, and Alan found thathe could manage to keep aheadof it, barely out of blaster range.Only, the robot didn't get tired.Alan did. The twin moons cast pale, deceptiveshadows that waveredand danced across the junglefloor, hiding debris that trippedhim and often sent him sprawlinginto the dark. Sharp-edgedgrowths tore at his face andclothes, and insects attracted bythe blood matted against hispants and shirt. Behind, the robotcrashed imperturbably afterhim, lighting the night with fitfulblaster flashes as somewinged or legged life came withinits range. There was movement also, inthe darkness beside him, scrapingsand rustlings and an occasionallow, throaty sound like anangry cat. Alan's fingers tensedon his pocket blaster. Swiftshadowy forms moved quickly inthe shrubs and the growling becamesuddenly louder. He firedtwice, blindly, into the undergrowth.Sharp screams punctuatedthe electric blue discharge asa pack of small feline creaturesleaped snarling and clawingback into the night. Mentally, Alan tried to figurethe charge remaining in his blaster.There wouldn't be much.Enough for a few more shots,maybe. Why the devil didn't Iload in fresh cells this morning! The robot crashed on, loudernow, gaining on the tired human.Legs aching and bruised,stinging from insect bites, Alantried to force himself to runholding his hands in front ofhim like a child in the dark. Hisfoot tripped on a barely visibleinsect hill and a winged swarmexploded around him. Startled,Alan jerked sideways, crashinghis head against a tree. Heclutched at the bark for a second,dazed, then his kneesbuckled. His blaster fell into theshadows. The robot crashed loudly behindhim now. Without stoppingto think, Alan fumbled along theground after his gun, straininghis eyes in the darkness. Hefound it just a couple of feet toone side, against the base of asmall bush. Just as his fingersclosed upon the barrel his otherhand slipped into somethingsticky that splashed over hisforearm. He screamed in painand leaped back, trying franticallyto wipe the clinging,burning blackness off his arm.Patches of black scraped off ontobranches and vines, but the restspread slowly over his arm asagonizing as hot acid, or as fleshbeing ripped away layer bylayer. Almost blinded by pain, whimpering,Alan stumbled forward.Sharp muscle spasms shot fromhis shoulder across his back andchest. Tears streamed across hischeeks. A blue arc slashed at the treesa mere hundred yards behind.He screamed at the blast. Damnyou, Pete! Damn your robots!Damn, damn ... Oh, Peggy!He stepped into emptiness. Coolness. Wet. Slowly, washedby the water, the pain began tofall away. He wanted to lie thereforever in the dark, cool, wetness.For ever, and ever, and ...The air thundered. In the dim light he could seethe banks of the stream, higherthan a man, muddy and loose.Growing right to the edge of thebanks, the jungle reached outwith hairy, disjointed arms asif to snag even the dirty littlestream that passed so timidlythrough its domain. Alan, lying in the mud of thestream bed, felt the earth shakeas the heavy little robot rolledslowly and inexorably towardshim. The Lord High Executioner,he thought, in battledress. He tried to stand but hislegs were almost too weak andhis arm felt numb. I'll drownhim, he said aloud. I'll drownthe Lord High Executioner. Helaughed. Then his mind cleared.He remembered where he was. Alan trembled. For the firsttime in his life he understoodwhat it was to live, because forthe first time he realized that hewould sometime die. In othertimes and circumstances hemight put it off for a while, formonths or years, but eventually,as now, he would have to watch,still and helpless, while deathcame creeping. Then, at thirty,Alan became a man. Dammit, no law says I haveto flame-out now ! He forcedhimself to rise, forced his legsto stand, struggling painfully inthe shin-deep ooze. He workedhis way to the bank and began todig frenziedly, chest high, abouttwo feet below the edge. His arm where the black thinghad been was swollen and tender,but he forced his hands to dig,dig, dig, cursing and crying tohide the pain, and biting hislips, ignoring the salty taste ofblood. The soft earth crumbledunder his hands until he had asmall cave about three feet deepin the bank. Beyond that thesoil was held too tightly by theroots from above and he had tostop. The air crackled blue and atree crashed heavily past Alaninto the stream. Above him onthe bank, silhouetting againstthe moons, the killer robot stoppedand its blaster swivelledslowly down. Frantically, Alanhugged the bank as a shaft ofpure electricity arced over him,sliced into the water, and explodedin a cloud of steam. Therobot shook for a second, itsblaster muzzle lifted erraticallyand for an instant it seemed almostout of control, then itquieted and the muzzle againpointed down. Pressing with all his might,Alan slid slowly along the bankinches at a time, away from themachine above. Its muzzle turnedto follow him but the edge ofthe bank blocked its aim. Grindingforward a couple of feet,slightly overhanging the bank,the robot fired again. For a splitsecond Alan seemed engulfed inflame; the heat of hell singed hishead and back, and mud boiledin the bank by his arm. Again the robot trembled. Itjerked forward a foot and itsblaster swung slightly away. Butonly for a moment. Then the gunswung back again. Suddenly, as if sensing somethingwrong, its tracks slammedinto reverse. It stood poised fora second, its treads spinningcrazily as the earth collapsed underneathit, where Alan haddug, then it fell with a heavysplash into the mud, ten feetfrom where Alan stood. Without hesitation Alanthrew himself across the blasterhousing, frantically locking hisarms around the barrel as therobot's treads churned furiouslyin the sticky mud, causing it tobuck and plunge like a Brahmabull. The treads stopped and theblaster jerked upwards wrenchingAlan's arms, then slammeddown. Then the whole housingwhirled around and around, tiltingalternately up and down likea steel-skinned water monstertrying to dislodge a tenaciouscrab, while Alan, arms and legswrapped tightly around the blasterbarrel and housing, pressedfiercely against the robot's metalskin. Slowly, trying to anticipateand shift his weight with thespinning plunges, Alan workedhis hand down to his right hip.He fumbled for the sheath clippedto his belt, found it, and extracteda stubby hunting knife.Sweat and blood in his eyes,hardly able to move on the wildlyswinging turret, he felt downthe sides to the thin crack betweenthe revolving housing andthe stationary portion of the robot.With a quick prayer hejammed in the knife blade—andwas whipped headlong into themud as the turret literally snappedto a stop. The earth, jungle and moonsspun in a pinwheeled blur,slowed, and settled to their properplaces. Standing in the sticky,sweet-smelling ooze, Alan eyedthe robot apprehensively. Halfburied in mud, it stood quiet inthe shadowy light except for anoccasional, almost spasmodicjerk of its blaster barrel. Forthe first time that night Alanallowed himself a slight smile.A blade in the old gear box,eh? How does that feel, boy? He turned. Well, I'd betterget out of here before the knifeslips or the monster cooks upsome more tricks with whateverit's got for a brain. Digginglittle footholds in the soft bank,he climbed up and stood onceagain in the rustling jungledarkness. I wonder, he thought, howPete could cram enough braininto one of those things to makeit hunt and track so perfectly.He tried to visualize the computingcircuits needed for theoperation of its tracking mechanismalone. There just isn'troom for the electronics. You'dneed a computer as big as theone at camp headquarters. In the distance the sky blazedas a blaster roared in the jungle.Then Alan heard the approachingrobot, crunching and snappingits way through the undergrowthlike an onrushing forestfire. He froze. Good Lord!They communicate with eachother! The one I jammed mustbe calling others to help. He began to move along thebank, away from the crashingsounds. Suddenly he stopped, hiseyes widened. Of course! Radio!I'll bet anything they'reautomatically controlled by thecamp computer. That's wheretheir brain is! He paused.Then, if that were put out ofcommission ... He jerked awayfrom the bank and half ran, halfpulled himself through the undergrowthtowards the camp. Trees exploded to his left asanother robot fired in his direction,too far away to be effectivebut churning towards himthrough the blackness. Alan changed direction slightlyto follow a line between thetwo robots coming up fromeither side, behind him. His eyeswere well accustomed to the darknow, and he managed to dodgemost of the shadowy vines andbranches before they could snagor trip him. Even so, he stumbledin the wiry underbrush andhis legs were a mass of stingingslashes from ankle to thigh. The crashing rumble of thekiller robots shook the night behindhim, nearer sometimes,then falling slightly back, butfollowing constantly, moreunshakable than bloodhoundsbecause a man can sometimes covera scent, but no man can stop histhoughts. Intermittently, likephotographers' strobes, blueflashes would light the jungleabout him. Then, for secondsafterwards his eyes would seedancing streaks of yellow andsharp multi-colored pinwheelsthat alternately shrunk and expandedas if in a surrealist'snightmare. Alan would have topause and squeeze his eyelidstight shut before he could seeagain, and the robots wouldmove a little closer. To his right the trees silhouettedbriefly against brilliance asa third robot slowly moved upin the distance. Without thinking,Alan turned slightly to theleft, then froze in momentarypanic. I should be at the campnow. Damn, what direction amI going? He tried to thinkback, to visualize the twists andturns he'd taken in the jungle.All I need is to get lost. He pictured the camp computerwith no one to stop it, automaticallysending its robots inwider and wider forays, slowlywiping every trace of life fromthe planet. Technologically advancedmachines doing the jobfor which they were built, completely,thoroughly, without feeling,and without human mastersto separate sense from futility.Finally parts would wear out,circuits would short, and one byone the killers would crunch toa halt. A few birds would stillfly then, but a unique animallife, rare in the universe, wouldexist no more. And the bones ofchildren, eager girls, and theirmen would also lie, beside arusty hulk, beneath the aliensun. Peggy! As if in answer, a tree besidehim breathed fire, then exploded.In the brief flash of theblaster shot, Alan saw the steelglint of a robot only a hundredyards away, much nearer thanhe had thought. Thank heavenfor trees! He stepped back, felthis foot catch in something,clutched futilely at some leavesand fell heavily. Pain danced up his leg as hegrabbed his ankle. Quickly hefelt the throbbing flesh. Damnthe rotten luck, anyway! Heblinked the pain tears from hiseyes and looked up—into a robot'sblaster, jutting out of thefoliage, thirty yards away. Instinctively, in one motionAlan grabbed his pocket blasterand fired. To his amazement therobot jerked back, its gun wobbledand started to tilt away.Then, getting itself under control,it swung back again to faceAlan. He fired again, and againthe robot reacted. It seemed familiarsomehow. Then he rememberedthe robot on the riverbank, jiggling and swaying forseconds after each shot. Ofcourse! He cursed himself formissing the obvious. The blasterstatic blanks out radiotransmission from the computerfor a few seconds. They even doit to themselves! Firing intermittently, hepulled himself upright and hobbledahead through the bush.The robot shook spasmodicallywith each shot, its gun tilted upwardat an awkward angle. Then, unexpectedly, Alan sawstars, real stars brilliant in thenight sky, and half dragging hisswelling leg he stumbled out ofthe jungle into the camp clearing.Ahead, across fifty yards ofgrass stood the headquartersbuilding, housing the robot-controllingcomputer. Still firing atshort intervals he started acrossthe clearing, gritting his teethat every step. Straining every muscle inspite of the agonizing pain, Alanforced himself to a limping runacross the uneven ground, carefullyavoiding the insect hillsthat jutted up through the grass.From the corner of his eye hesaw another of the robots standingshakily in the dark edge ofthe jungle waiting, it seemed,for his small blaster to run dry. Be damned! You can't winnow! Alan yelled between blastershots, almost irrational fromthe pain that ripped jaggedlythrough his leg. Then it happened.A few feet from thebuilding's door his blaster quit.A click. A faint hiss when hefrantically jerked the triggeragain and again, and the spentcells released themselves fromthe device, falling in the grassat his feet. He dropped the uselessgun. No! He threw himself onthe ground as a new robot suddenlyappeared around the edgeof the building a few feet away,aimed, and fired. Air burnedover Alan's back and ozone tingledin his nostrils. Blinding itself for a few secondswith its own blaster static,the robot paused momentarily,jiggling in place. In thisinstant, Alan jammed his handsinto an insect hill and hurled thepile of dirt and insects directlyat the robot's antenna. In a flash,hundreds of the winged thingserupted angrily from the hole ina swarming cloud, each part ofwhich was a speck of lifetransmitting mental energy to therobot's pickup devices. Confused by the sudden dispersionof mind impulses, therobot fired erratically as Alancrouched and raced painfully forthe door. It fired again, closer,as he fumbled with the lockrelease. Jagged bits of plastic andstone ripped past him, torn looseby the blast. Frantically, Alan slammedopen the door as the robot, sensinghim strongly now, aimedpoint blank. He saw nothing, hismind thought of nothing but thered-clad safety switch mountedbeside the computer. Time stopped.There was nothing else inthe world. He half-jumped, half-felltowards it, slowly, in tenthsof seconds that seemed measuredout in years. The universe went black. Later. Brilliance pressed uponhis eyes. Then pain returned, amulti-hurting thing that crawledthrough his body and draggedragged tentacles across hisbrain. He moaned. A voice spoke hollowly in thedistance. He's waking. Call hiswife. Alan opened his eyes in awhite room; a white light hungover his head. Beside him, lookingdown with a rueful smile,stood a young man wearingspace medical insignia. Yes,he acknowledged the question inAlan's eyes, you hit the switch.That was three days ago. Whenyou're up again we'd all like tothank you. Suddenly a sobbing-laughinggreen-eyed girl was pressedtightly against him. Neither ofthem spoke. They couldn't. Therewas too much to say. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Science Fiction Stories October 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling andtypographical errors have been corrected without note.<doc-sep></s>

The story is set on the jungle planet of Waiamea. There are tall moss-shrouded trees and wrist-thick vines that hang similar to a monstrous tree-bound octopus. Fitful little plants grow straggly in the shadows of the mossy trunks, and the sun is blue. The campsite that Alan goes to houses power supplies, one central computer, and sleeping quarters. There are also a variety of animals that live on the planet. Some of these animals include feline creatures and insects attracted by the scent of blood. The planet also has a double moon when it becomes night time. When Alan escapes from the robot, he ends up in a stream of water and mud. As he runs towards the headquarters building, there is a small insect pile that he takes advantage of against the robot. Inside of the headquarters building, there is a red-clad safety switch mounted beside the computer. During Alan’s recovery, he is in a white room with a white light hanging over him.

<s> SURVIVAL TACTICS By AL SEVCIK ILLUSTRATOR NOVICK The robots were built to serveMan; to do his work, see to hiscomforts, make smooth his way.Then the robots figured out anadditional service—putting Manout of his misery. <doc-sep> There was a sudden crashthat hung sharply in the air,as if a tree had been hit bylightning some distance away.Then another. Alan stopped,puzzled. Two more blasts, quicklytogether, and the sound of ascream faintly. Frowning, worrying about thesounds, Alan momentarily forgotto watch his step until his footsuddenly plunged into an anthill, throwing him to the junglefloor. Damn! He cursed again,for the tenth time, and stooduncertainly in the dimness.From tall, moss-shrouded trees,wrist-thick vines hung quietly,scraping the spongy ground likethe tentacles of some monstroustree-bound octopus. Fitful littleplants grew straggly in theshadows of the mossy trunks,forming a dense underbrush thatmade walking difficult. At middaysome few of the blue sun'srays filtered through to thejungle floor, but now, late afternoonon the planet, the shadowswere long and gloomy. Alan peered around him at thevine-draped shadows, listeningto the soft rustlings and fainttwig-snappings of life in thejungle. Two short, poppingsounds echoed across the stillness,drowned out almost immediatelyand silenced by anexplosive crash. Alan started,Blaster fighting! But it can'tbe! Suddenly anxious, he slasheda hurried X in one of the treesto mark his position then turnedto follow a line of similar marksback through the jungle. Hetried to run, but vines blockedhis way and woody shrubscaught at his legs, tripping himand holding him back. Then,through the trees he saw theclearing of the camp site, thetemporary home for the scoutship and the eleven men who,with Alan, were the only humanson the jungle planet, Waiamea. Stepping through the lowshrubbery at the edge of thesite, he looked across the openarea to the two temporary structures,the camp headquarterswhere the power supplies andthe computer were; and thesleeping quarters. Beyond, nosehigh, stood the silver scout shipthat had brought the advanceexploratory party of scientistsand technicians to Waiameathree days before. Except for afew of the killer robots rollingslowly around the camp site ontheir quiet treads, there was noone about. So, they've finally got thosethings working. Alan smiledslightly. Guess that means Iowe Pete a bourbon-and-sodafor sure. Anybody who canbuild a robot that hunts by homingin on animals' mind impulses ...He stepped forwardjust as a roar of blue flame dissolvedthe branches of a tree,barely above his head. Without pausing to think,Alan leaped back, and fellsprawling over a bush just asone of the robots rolled silentlyup from the right, lowering itsblaster barrel to aim directly athis head. Alan froze. My God,Pete built those things wrong! Suddenly a screeching whirlwindof claws and teeth hurleditself from the smolderingbranches and crashed against therobot, clawing insanely at theantenna and blaster barrel.With an awkward jerk the robotswung around and fired its blaster,completely dissolving thelower half of the cat creaturewhich had clung across the barrel.But the back pressure of thecat's body overloaded the dischargecircuits. The robot startedto shake, then clicked sharplyas an overload relay snappedand shorted the blaster cells.The killer turned and rolled backtowards the camp, leaving Alanalone. Shakily, Alan crawled a fewfeet back into the undergrowthwhere he could lie and watch thecamp, but not himself be seen.Though visibility didn't makeany difference to the robots, hefelt safer, somehow, hidden. Heknew now what the shootingsounds had been and why therehadn't been anyone around thecamp site. A charred blob lyingin the grass of the clearing confirmedhis hypothesis. His stomachfelt sick. I suppose, he muttered tohimself, that Pete assembledthese robots in a batch and thenactivated them all at once, probablynever living to realize thatthey're tuned to pick up humanbrain waves, too. Damn!Damn! His eyes blurred andhe slammed his fist into the softearth. When he raised his eyes againthe jungle was perceptibly darker.Stealthy rustlings in theshadows grew louder with thesetting sun. Branches snappedunaccountably in the trees overheadand every now and thenleaves or a twig fell softly to theground, close to where he lay.Reaching into his jacket, Alanfingered his pocket blaster. Hepulled it out and held it in hisright hand. This pop gunwouldn't even singe a robot, butit just might stop one of thosepumas. They said the blast with your name on it would findyou anywhere. This looked like Alan's blast. Slowly Alan looked around,sizing up his situation. Behindhim the dark jungle rustled forbiddingly.He shuddered. Not avery healthy spot to spend thenight. On the other hand, I certainlycan't get to the camp witha pack of mind-activated mechanicalkillers running around.If I can just hold out until morning,when the big ship arrives ...The big ship! GoodLord, Peggy! He turned white;oily sweat punctuated his forehead.Peggy, arriving tomorrowwith the other colonists, thewives and kids! The metal killers,tuned to blast any livingflesh, would murder them theinstant they stepped from theship! A pretty girl, Peggy, the girlhe'd married just three weeksago. He still couldn't believe it.It was crazy, he supposed, tomarry a girl and then take offfor an unknown planet, with herto follow, to try to create a homein a jungle clearing. Crazy maybe,but Peggy and her green eyesthat changed color with thelight, with her soft brown hair,and her happy smile, had endedthirty years of loneliness andhad, at last, given him a reasonfor living. Not to be killed!Alan unclenched his fists andwiped his palms, bloody wherehis fingernails had dug into theflesh. There was a slight creak abovehim like the protesting of abranch too heavily laden. Blasterready, Alan rolled over onto hisback. In the movement, his elbowstruck the top of a smallearthy mound and he was instantlyengulfed in a swarm oflocust-like insects that beat disgustinglyagainst his eyes andmouth. Fagh! Waving hisarms before his face he jumpedup and backwards, away fromthe bugs. As he did so, a darkshapeless thing plopped fromthe trees onto the spot where hehad been lying stretched out.Then, like an ambient fungus,it slithered off into the jungleundergrowth. For a split second the junglestood frozen in a brilliant blueflash, followed by the sharp reportof a blaster. Then another.Alan whirled, startled. Theplanet's double moon had risenand he could see a robot rollingslowly across the clearing in hisgeneral direction, blasting indiscriminatelyat whatever mindimpulses came within its pickuprange, birds, insects, anything.Six or seven others also left thecamp headquarters area andheaded for the jungle, each to aslightly different spot. Apparently the robot hadn'tsensed him yet, but Alan didn'tknow what the effective rangeof its pickup devices was. Hebegan to slide back into thejungle. Minutes later, lookingback he saw that the machine,though several hundred yardsaway, had altered its course andwas now headed directly forhim. His stomach tightened. Panic.The dank, musty smell of thejungle seemed for an instant tothicken and choke in his throat.Then he thought of the big shiplanding in the morning, settlingdown slowly after a lonely two-weekvoyage. He thought of abrown-haired girl crowding withthe others to the gangway, eagerto embrace the new planet, andthe next instant a charred nothing,unrecognizable, the victimof a design error or a misplacedwire in a machine. I have totry, he said aloud. I have totry. He moved into the blackness. Powerful as a small tank, thekiller robot was equipped tocrush, slash, and burn its waythrough undergrowth. Nevertheless,it was slowed by thelarger trees and the thick, clingingvines, and Alan found thathe could manage to keep aheadof it, barely out of blaster range.Only, the robot didn't get tired.Alan did. The twin moons cast pale, deceptiveshadows that waveredand danced across the junglefloor, hiding debris that trippedhim and often sent him sprawlinginto the dark. Sharp-edgedgrowths tore at his face andclothes, and insects attracted bythe blood matted against hispants and shirt. Behind, the robotcrashed imperturbably afterhim, lighting the night with fitfulblaster flashes as somewinged or legged life came withinits range. There was movement also, inthe darkness beside him, scrapingsand rustlings and an occasionallow, throaty sound like anangry cat. Alan's fingers tensedon his pocket blaster. Swiftshadowy forms moved quickly inthe shrubs and the growling becamesuddenly louder. He firedtwice, blindly, into the undergrowth.Sharp screams punctuatedthe electric blue discharge asa pack of small feline creaturesleaped snarling and clawingback into the night. Mentally, Alan tried to figurethe charge remaining in his blaster.There wouldn't be much.Enough for a few more shots,maybe. Why the devil didn't Iload in fresh cells this morning! The robot crashed on, loudernow, gaining on the tired human.Legs aching and bruised,stinging from insect bites, Alantried to force himself to runholding his hands in front ofhim like a child in the dark. Hisfoot tripped on a barely visibleinsect hill and a winged swarmexploded around him. Startled,Alan jerked sideways, crashinghis head against a tree. Heclutched at the bark for a second,dazed, then his kneesbuckled. His blaster fell into theshadows. The robot crashed loudly behindhim now. Without stoppingto think, Alan fumbled along theground after his gun, straininghis eyes in the darkness. Hefound it just a couple of feet toone side, against the base of asmall bush. Just as his fingersclosed upon the barrel his otherhand slipped into somethingsticky that splashed over hisforearm. He screamed in painand leaped back, trying franticallyto wipe the clinging,burning blackness off his arm.Patches of black scraped off ontobranches and vines, but the restspread slowly over his arm asagonizing as hot acid, or as fleshbeing ripped away layer bylayer. Almost blinded by pain, whimpering,Alan stumbled forward.Sharp muscle spasms shot fromhis shoulder across his back andchest. Tears streamed across hischeeks. A blue arc slashed at the treesa mere hundred yards behind.He screamed at the blast. Damnyou, Pete! Damn your robots!Damn, damn ... Oh, Peggy!He stepped into emptiness. Coolness. Wet. Slowly, washedby the water, the pain began tofall away. He wanted to lie thereforever in the dark, cool, wetness.For ever, and ever, and ...The air thundered. In the dim light he could seethe banks of the stream, higherthan a man, muddy and loose.Growing right to the edge of thebanks, the jungle reached outwith hairy, disjointed arms asif to snag even the dirty littlestream that passed so timidlythrough its domain. Alan, lying in the mud of thestream bed, felt the earth shakeas the heavy little robot rolledslowly and inexorably towardshim. The Lord High Executioner,he thought, in battledress. He tried to stand but hislegs were almost too weak andhis arm felt numb. I'll drownhim, he said aloud. I'll drownthe Lord High Executioner. Helaughed. Then his mind cleared.He remembered where he was. Alan trembled. For the firsttime in his life he understoodwhat it was to live, because forthe first time he realized that hewould sometime die. In othertimes and circumstances hemight put it off for a while, formonths or years, but eventually,as now, he would have to watch,still and helpless, while deathcame creeping. Then, at thirty,Alan became a man. Dammit, no law says I haveto flame-out now ! He forcedhimself to rise, forced his legsto stand, struggling painfully inthe shin-deep ooze. He workedhis way to the bank and began todig frenziedly, chest high, abouttwo feet below the edge. His arm where the black thinghad been was swollen and tender,but he forced his hands to dig,dig, dig, cursing and crying tohide the pain, and biting hislips, ignoring the salty taste ofblood. The soft earth crumbledunder his hands until he had asmall cave about three feet deepin the bank. Beyond that thesoil was held too tightly by theroots from above and he had tostop. The air crackled blue and atree crashed heavily past Alaninto the stream. Above him onthe bank, silhouetting againstthe moons, the killer robot stoppedand its blaster swivelledslowly down. Frantically, Alanhugged the bank as a shaft ofpure electricity arced over him,sliced into the water, and explodedin a cloud of steam. Therobot shook for a second, itsblaster muzzle lifted erraticallyand for an instant it seemed almostout of control, then itquieted and the muzzle againpointed down. Pressing with all his might,Alan slid slowly along the bankinches at a time, away from themachine above. Its muzzle turnedto follow him but the edge ofthe bank blocked its aim. Grindingforward a couple of feet,slightly overhanging the bank,the robot fired again. For a splitsecond Alan seemed engulfed inflame; the heat of hell singed hishead and back, and mud boiledin the bank by his arm. Again the robot trembled. Itjerked forward a foot and itsblaster swung slightly away. Butonly for a moment. Then the gunswung back again. Suddenly, as if sensing somethingwrong, its tracks slammedinto reverse. It stood poised fora second, its treads spinningcrazily as the earth collapsed underneathit, where Alan haddug, then it fell with a heavysplash into the mud, ten feetfrom where Alan stood. Without hesitation Alanthrew himself across the blasterhousing, frantically locking hisarms around the barrel as therobot's treads churned furiouslyin the sticky mud, causing it tobuck and plunge like a Brahmabull. The treads stopped and theblaster jerked upwards wrenchingAlan's arms, then slammeddown. Then the whole housingwhirled around and around, tiltingalternately up and down likea steel-skinned water monstertrying to dislodge a tenaciouscrab, while Alan, arms and legswrapped tightly around the blasterbarrel and housing, pressedfiercely against the robot's metalskin. Slowly, trying to anticipateand shift his weight with thespinning plunges, Alan workedhis hand down to his right hip.He fumbled for the sheath clippedto his belt, found it, and extracteda stubby hunting knife.Sweat and blood in his eyes,hardly able to move on the wildlyswinging turret, he felt downthe sides to the thin crack betweenthe revolving housing andthe stationary portion of the robot.With a quick prayer hejammed in the knife blade—andwas whipped headlong into themud as the turret literally snappedto a stop. The earth, jungle and moonsspun in a pinwheeled blur,slowed, and settled to their properplaces. Standing in the sticky,sweet-smelling ooze, Alan eyedthe robot apprehensively. Halfburied in mud, it stood quiet inthe shadowy light except for anoccasional, almost spasmodicjerk of its blaster barrel. Forthe first time that night Alanallowed himself a slight smile.A blade in the old gear box,eh? How does that feel, boy? He turned. Well, I'd betterget out of here before the knifeslips or the monster cooks upsome more tricks with whateverit's got for a brain. Digginglittle footholds in the soft bank,he climbed up and stood onceagain in the rustling jungledarkness. I wonder, he thought, howPete could cram enough braininto one of those things to makeit hunt and track so perfectly.He tried to visualize the computingcircuits needed for theoperation of its tracking mechanismalone. There just isn'troom for the electronics. You'dneed a computer as big as theone at camp headquarters. In the distance the sky blazedas a blaster roared in the jungle.Then Alan heard the approachingrobot, crunching and snappingits way through the undergrowthlike an onrushing forestfire. He froze. Good Lord!They communicate with eachother! The one I jammed mustbe calling others to help. He began to move along thebank, away from the crashingsounds. Suddenly he stopped, hiseyes widened. Of course! Radio!I'll bet anything they'reautomatically controlled by thecamp computer. That's wheretheir brain is! He paused.Then, if that were put out ofcommission ... He jerked awayfrom the bank and half ran, halfpulled himself through the undergrowthtowards the camp. Trees exploded to his left asanother robot fired in his direction,too far away to be effectivebut churning towards himthrough the blackness. Alan changed direction slightlyto follow a line between thetwo robots coming up fromeither side, behind him. His eyeswere well accustomed to the darknow, and he managed to dodgemost of the shadowy vines andbranches before they could snagor trip him. Even so, he stumbledin the wiry underbrush andhis legs were a mass of stingingslashes from ankle to thigh. The crashing rumble of thekiller robots shook the night behindhim, nearer sometimes,then falling slightly back, butfollowing constantly, moreunshakable than bloodhoundsbecause a man can sometimes covera scent, but no man can stop histhoughts. Intermittently, likephotographers' strobes, blueflashes would light the jungleabout him. Then, for secondsafterwards his eyes would seedancing streaks of yellow andsharp multi-colored pinwheelsthat alternately shrunk and expandedas if in a surrealist'snightmare. Alan would have topause and squeeze his eyelidstight shut before he could seeagain, and the robots wouldmove a little closer. To his right the trees silhouettedbriefly against brilliance asa third robot slowly moved upin the distance. Without thinking,Alan turned slightly to theleft, then froze in momentarypanic. I should be at the campnow. Damn, what direction amI going? He tried to thinkback, to visualize the twists andturns he'd taken in the jungle.All I need is to get lost. He pictured the camp computerwith no one to stop it, automaticallysending its robots inwider and wider forays, slowlywiping every trace of life fromthe planet. Technologically advancedmachines doing the jobfor which they were built, completely,thoroughly, without feeling,and without human mastersto separate sense from futility.Finally parts would wear out,circuits would short, and one byone the killers would crunch toa halt. A few birds would stillfly then, but a unique animallife, rare in the universe, wouldexist no more. And the bones ofchildren, eager girls, and theirmen would also lie, beside arusty hulk, beneath the aliensun. Peggy! As if in answer, a tree besidehim breathed fire, then exploded.In the brief flash of theblaster shot, Alan saw the steelglint of a robot only a hundredyards away, much nearer thanhe had thought. Thank heavenfor trees! He stepped back, felthis foot catch in something,clutched futilely at some leavesand fell heavily. Pain danced up his leg as hegrabbed his ankle. Quickly hefelt the throbbing flesh. Damnthe rotten luck, anyway! Heblinked the pain tears from hiseyes and looked up—into a robot'sblaster, jutting out of thefoliage, thirty yards away. Instinctively, in one motionAlan grabbed his pocket blasterand fired. To his amazement therobot jerked back, its gun wobbledand started to tilt away.Then, getting itself under control,it swung back again to faceAlan. He fired again, and againthe robot reacted. It seemed familiarsomehow. Then he rememberedthe robot on the riverbank, jiggling and swaying forseconds after each shot. Ofcourse! He cursed himself formissing the obvious. The blasterstatic blanks out radiotransmission from the computerfor a few seconds. They even doit to themselves! Firing intermittently, hepulled himself upright and hobbledahead through the bush.The robot shook spasmodicallywith each shot, its gun tilted upwardat an awkward angle. Then, unexpectedly, Alan sawstars, real stars brilliant in thenight sky, and half dragging hisswelling leg he stumbled out ofthe jungle into the camp clearing.Ahead, across fifty yards ofgrass stood the headquartersbuilding, housing the robot-controllingcomputer. Still firing atshort intervals he started acrossthe clearing, gritting his teethat every step. Straining every muscle inspite of the agonizing pain, Alanforced himself to a limping runacross the uneven ground, carefullyavoiding the insect hillsthat jutted up through the grass.From the corner of his eye hesaw another of the robots standingshakily in the dark edge ofthe jungle waiting, it seemed,for his small blaster to run dry. Be damned! You can't winnow! Alan yelled between blastershots, almost irrational fromthe pain that ripped jaggedlythrough his leg. Then it happened.A few feet from thebuilding's door his blaster quit.A click. A faint hiss when hefrantically jerked the triggeragain and again, and the spentcells released themselves fromthe device, falling in the grassat his feet. He dropped the uselessgun. No! He threw himself onthe ground as a new robot suddenlyappeared around the edgeof the building a few feet away,aimed, and fired. Air burnedover Alan's back and ozone tingledin his nostrils. Blinding itself for a few secondswith its own blaster static,the robot paused momentarily,jiggling in place. In thisinstant, Alan jammed his handsinto an insect hill and hurled thepile of dirt and insects directlyat the robot's antenna. In a flash,hundreds of the winged thingserupted angrily from the hole ina swarming cloud, each part ofwhich was a speck of lifetransmitting mental energy to therobot's pickup devices. Confused by the sudden dispersionof mind impulses, therobot fired erratically as Alancrouched and raced painfully forthe door. It fired again, closer,as he fumbled with the lockrelease. Jagged bits of plastic andstone ripped past him, torn looseby the blast. Frantically, Alan slammedopen the door as the robot, sensinghim strongly now, aimedpoint blank. He saw nothing, hismind thought of nothing but thered-clad safety switch mountedbeside the computer. Time stopped.There was nothing else inthe world. He half-jumped, half-felltowards it, slowly, in tenthsof seconds that seemed measuredout in years. The universe went black. Later. Brilliance pressed uponhis eyes. Then pain returned, amulti-hurting thing that crawledthrough his body and draggedragged tentacles across hisbrain. He moaned. A voice spoke hollowly in thedistance. He's waking. Call hiswife. Alan opened his eyes in awhite room; a white light hungover his head. Beside him, lookingdown with a rueful smile,stood a young man wearingspace medical insignia. Yes,he acknowledged the question inAlan's eyes, you hit the switch.That was three days ago. Whenyou're up again we'd all like tothank you. Suddenly a sobbing-laughinggreen-eyed girl was pressedtightly against him. Neither ofthem spoke. They couldn't. Therewas too much to say. THE END Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Science Fiction Stories October 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling andtypographical errors have been corrected without note.<doc-sep></s>

Alan’s realization that he must continue to live makes him become a man at thirty. Not only does it fill him with determination, but it is also what fuels him to stop the robots and end up saving everybody. He declares that no law says he has to flame-out at this age, so he continues to work his way through the jungle and against the robots. Without this realization, he would not have been motivated to use his pocket blaster against the robots and knife. Alan would also not have lived long enough to figure out the control of the robots as the computer in the headquarters building. This, itself, also lets him actually choose to go back to the area at the risk of death to find the safety button. Finally, his will to live lets him put aside his fear and goes to push the button, which ends up saving everybody.

<s> Nuts to wild talents! Mine was no satisfaction, never earned me a penny—and now it had me fighting for my life in ... THE LITTLE RED BAG By JERRY SOHL [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] About an hour out of San Francisco on the flight to Los Angeles, I madethe discovery. I had finished reading the Chronicle , folded and putit beside me, turned and looked out the window, expecting to see theSan Joaquin Valley but finding only a sea of clouds instead. So Ireturned my attention to the inside of the plane, to the overstuffedgray-haired woman asleep beside me, to the backs of heads in seatsbefore me, across the aisle to other heads, and down to the blonde. I had seen her in the concourse and at the gate, a shapely thing. Nowshe had crossed her legs and I was privileged to view a trim ankle andcalf, and her profile as she stared moodily across the aisle and out awindow where there was nothing to see. I slid my eyes past her to others. A crossword-puzzle worker, atogetherness-type-magazine reader. Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing Ishould be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angelesfor, and not wanting to. So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhapsthat sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody evercomplained. It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explorethe insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawersand—well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble.It's like swimming through spaghetti. And I've got to stay away fromelectric wires. They hurt. Now don't ask me how they hurt. Maybe you think it's fun. For the most part, it really isn't. I alwaysknew what was in Christmas presents before I unwrapped them, andtherefore Christmas was always spoiled for me as a kid. I can't feelthe color of anything, just its consistency. An apple senses about thesame as a potato, except for the core and the stem. I can't even tellif there's writing on a piece of paper. So you see it isn't much. Justthe feel of shapes, the hardnesses and softnesses. But I've learned tobecome pretty good at guessing. Like this woman next to me. She had a short, cylindrical metal objectin her purse with waxlike stuff inside it—a lipstick. A round, hardobject with dust inside—a compact. Handkerchief, chewing gum, a smallbook, probably an address book, money in a change purse—a few billsand coins. Not much else. I was a little disappointed. I've run across a gun or two in my time.But I never say anything. <doc-sep>I learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade whenMiss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eatmy sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with someof the other kids. This was the punishment for some minor infraction.Lunchtime was nearly over and we'd both finished eating; she said she'dbe gone for a few moments and that I was to erase the blackboard duringher absence, which I dutifully did. Class had hardly resumed when she started looking around the desk forher favorite mechanical pencil, asking if any of us had seen it, andlooking straight at me. I didn't want her to think I had taken it whileshe was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, whichshe always kept in the upper right drawer of her desk. It's in your purse, I blurted out. I was sent home with a stinging note. Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was ableto sense. I've known better for years. Still, I wonder how many otherpeople are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine. I used to think that some day I'd make a lot of money out of it, buthow? I can't read thoughts. I can't even be sure what some of thethings I sense in probing really are. But I've learned to move things. Ever so little. A piece of paper. Afeather. Once I stopped one of those little glass-enclosed light orheat-powered devices with vanes you see now and then in a jeweler'swindow. And I can stop clocks. Take this morning, for example. I had set my alarm for five-thirtybecause I had to catch the seven o'clock plane at San FranciscoInternational Airport. This being earlier than I usually get up, itseems all I did during the night was feel my way past the escapementand balance wheel to see where the notch for the alarm was. The lasttime I did it there was just the merest fraction of an inch between thepawl and the notch. So I sighed and moved to the balance wheel and itsdelicate ribbon of spiraling steel. I hung onto the wheel, exertinginfluence to decrease the restoring torque. The wheel slowed down until there was no more ticking. It took quitea bit of effort, as it always does, but I did it, as I usually do. Ican't stand the alarm. When I first learned to do this, I thought I had it made. I even wentto Las Vegas to try my hand, so to speak, with the ratchets and pawlsand cams and springs on the slot machines. But there's nothing delicateabout a slot machine, and the spring tensions are too strong. I droppedquite a lot of nickels before I finally gave up. So I'm stuck with a talent I've found little real use for. Except thatit amuses me. Sometimes. Not like this time on the plane. The woman beside me stirred, sat up suddenly and looked across me outthe window. Where are we? she asked in a surprised voice. I told herwe were probably a little north of Bakersfield. She said, Oh, glancedat her wristwatch and sank back again. Soon the stewardesses would bring coffee and doughnuts around, so Icontented myself with looking at the clouds and trying to think aboutAmos Magaffey, who was purchasing agent for a Los Angeles amusementchain, and how I was going to convince him our printing prices weremaybe a little higher but the quality and service were better. My mindwandered below where I was sitting, idly moving from one piece ofluggage to another, looking for my beat-up suitcase. I went throughslips and slippers, lingerie and laundry, a jig saw puzzle and aukulele. I never did find my suitcase because I found the bomb first. The bomb was in a small bag—a woman's bag judging by the soft,flimsy things you'd never find in a man's—and I didn't know it was abomb right away. I thought it was just a clock, one of those small,quiet alarms. I was going to pass it by and go on, but what held mewas that something was taped to it. By the feel, I knew it must beelectrician's tape. Interested and curious, I explored the clock moreclosely, found two wires. One went to a battery and the other to hardround cylinders taped together. The hairs stood up at the base of myneck when I suddenly realized what it was. The clock's balance wheel was rocking merrily. Quickly I went up pastthe train of gears to the alarm wheel. If this was anything like my ownalarm clock, this one had something like ten minutes to go. It was forty minutes to Burbank and Lockheed Air Terminal. My mind was churning when I turned from the window to look aroundat the unconcerned passengers, the woman at my side asleep again. Ithought: Which one of these.... No, none of them would know it wasthere. I glanced out the window again; clouds were still in the way.We'd be leaving the valley for the mountain range north of Los Angelessoon, if we hadn't left it already. No place to land the plane there. But of course that had been the plan! My heart was beating in jackhammer rhythm; my mouth was dry and my mindwas numb. Tell somebody about the bomb before it's too late! No, they'dthink I put it there. Besides, what good would it do? There would bepanic and they'd never get the plane down in time—if they believed me. Sir. My head jerked around. The stewardess stood in the aisle,smiling, extending a tray to me, a brown plastic tray bearing a smallpaper cup of tomato juice, a cup of coffee, a cellophane-wrappeddoughnut, paper spoon, sugar and dehydrated cream envelopes, and anapkin. I goggled at her, managed to croak, No, thanks. She gave me an oddlook and moved along. My seatmate had accepted hers and was tearing atthe cellophane. I couldn't bear to watch her. I closed my eyes, forced my mind back to the luggage compartment, spenta frantic moment before I found the bag again. I had to stop thatbalance wheel, just as I stopped my alarm clock every morning. I triedto close everything off—the throb of engines, the rush of air, thewoman sipping coffee noisily beside me—and I went into the clock andsurrounded the seesawing wheel. When it went forward, I pulled it back;when it went back, I pulled it forward. I struggled with it, and it waslike trying to work with greasy hands, and I was afraid I wasn't goingto be able to stop it. Then, little by little, it started to slow its beat. But I could notafford to relax. I pushed and pulled and didn't dare release my holduntil it came to a dead stop. Anything the matter? My eyelids flew open and I looked into the eyes of the woman next tome. There was sugar from the doughnut around her mouth and she wasstill chewing. No, I said, letting out my breath. I'm all right. You were moaning, it sounded like. And you kept moving your head backand forth. Must have been dreaming, I said as I rang for the stewardess. Whenshe came I told her I'd take some of that coffee now. No, nothing else,just coffee. I didn't tell her how much I needed it. I sat there clammywith sweat until she returned. Coffee never tasted so good. <doc-sep>All right, so I had stopped the bomb's timer. My mind raced ahead tothe landing. When they unloaded the luggage, the balance wheel wouldstart again. I wouldn't be able to stay with it, keeping it still.I considered telling the authorities as soon as we landed, or maybecalling in ahead, but wouldn't that just bring suspicion, questions.Maybe I could convince them I could stop a clock—but not before thebomb exploded. And then what? My secret would be out and my life wouldbe changed. I'd be a man not to be trusted, a prying man, a manliterally with gimlet eyes. Mountain crags jutted through the clouds. We were in the range north ofthe city. Here and there were clear spots and I could see roads below,but there were also clouds far above us. It was very beautiful, but itwas also very bumpy, and we started to slip and slide. To my horror I found that the balance wheel was rocking again. Closingmy eyes and gritting my teeth, I forced my senses to the wheel, tuggingand pulling and shoving and pushing until it finally stopped. A jab in the shoulder. I jumped, startled. Your cup, my seat partner said, pointing. I looked down at the coffee cup I had crushed in my hands. Then Ilooked up into the eyes of the stewardess. I handed it to her. She tookit without a word and went away. Were you really asleep that time? Not really, I said. I was tempted to tell the woman I was subject tofits, but I didn't. It was only a few minutes to landing, but they became the longestminutes of my life as time after time I stopped the rocking wheel whenthe plane dipped and bumped to a landing. Leaving the apron with the other passengers, I tried to walk asunconcernedly as they through the exit gate. I would have liked walkingthrough the terminal and out the entrance and away, but I could not. Ihad my suitcase to get, for one thing. The damned bomb was the other.So I strolled out into the concourse again to look at the plane andwatch the baggagemen at work, transferring the luggage to two airfieldcarts. They weren't as careful as I would have been. It was impossible to tell from this distance just which bag containedthe bomb; I could hardly identify my own scarred suitcase. Theassortment of bags—a strange conglomeration of sizes and colors—waspacked in some places six deep, and it rolled toward the gate whereI was standing. I didn't know whether to stay or run, imagining thebalance wheel now happily rocking again. The load went past me down aramp to the front of the air terminal where the luggage was unloadedand placed in a long rack. I went with it. There was a flurry of ticket matching, hands grabbing for suitcases,and a general exodus on the part of my fellow passengers, too fast todetermine who had got the one with the bomb. Now all that was left wasthe attendant and I had two bags—my own battered veteran of years, anda fine new red overnight case, small enough to be the one. I lit a cigarette, reached out. Inside were a woman's things and—aclock. The escapement was clicking vigorously. I didn't moan this time. I just closed my eyes, stretched towardand grabbed the balance wheel I was getting to know like my own. Ientered into a union with it so strong that after I had reduced it toimmobility, it was like waking when I opened my eyes. <doc-sep>The baggage claim attendant was staring at me. For only a moment Istared back. Then I quickly reached for my baggage check and presentedit to him. His hand hovered over the handle of the little red bag and Iwas ready to yell at him. But then, matching numbers on the tags withhis eyes, his hand grasped the handle of my own suitcase and pushed ittoward me. Thanks, I said, taking it. I glanced ever so casually toward theremaining bag. One left over, eh? Yeah. He was so bored I was tempted to tell him what was in it. Buthe was eying me with a well-why-don't-you-get-along? look. I said, What happens if nobody claims it? Take it inside. Why? He was getting too curious. Oh, I just wondered, that's all. I stepped on my cigarette and walked toward the air terminal entranceand put my suitcase on the stone steps there. A redcap came hurryingover. Cab? I shook my head. Just waiting. Just waiting for somebody to pick up a bomb. I lit another cigarette and glanced now and then toward the baggageclaim area. The red bag was still there. All sorts of theories ranthrough my head as to why it should still be there, and none satisfiedme. I should not have been there, that much I knew; I should be with aman named Amos Magaffey on Sixth Street at ten o'clock, discussingsomething very mundane, the matter of a printing order. But what couldI do? If I left the airport, the attendant would eventually take thebag inside and there would be an explosion, and I wouldn't be able tolive with myself. No. I had to stay to keep the balance wheel stationary until—untilwhat? A man in tan gabardine, wearing a police cap and badge, walked out ofthe entrance to stand on the stone steps beside me while he put on apair of dark glasses. A member of the airport police detail. I couldtell him. I could take him down to the little red bag and explain thewhole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my ownbusiness. But he moved on down the steps, nodded at the redcap, and startedacross the street to the parking area. I could have called to him,Hey, officer, let me tell you about a bomb in a little red bag. ButI didn't. I didn't because I caught a movement at the baggage claimcounter out of the side of my eye. The attendant had picked up the bag and was walking with it up the rampto the rear of the air terminal. Picking up my own suitcase, I wentinside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bagon the scales at the airline desk and say something to the clerk. Theclerk nodded and moved the bag to the rear room. I could visualize the balance wheel once again rocking like crazy. Howmany minutes—or seconds—were left? I was sweating when I moved to thecounter, and it wasn't because of the sunshine I'd been soaking in. Ihad to get as close to the bag as I could if I was going to stop theclock again. Can I help you? the clerk asked. No. I'm waiting for someone. I turned my back to him, put down my suitcase, leaned against thecounter and reached out for the wheel. I found I could reach thedevice, but it was far away. When I tried to dampen it, the wheelescaped my grasp. Do you have my suitcase? I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The blonde in the plane stoodthere looking very fresh and bright and unconcerned. In her right handshe had a green baggage claim check. The clerk took it, nodded, and in a moment brought out the overnightcase and set it on the scales. The girl thanked him, picked it up,glanced at me indifferently, and then started for the entrance with it. Just a moment, I found myself saying, grabbing my bag and hurryingafter her. <doc-sep>At her side and a little ahead of her, I said, Listen to me. She looked annoyed and increased her stride toward the door. It's a matter of life or death, I said. I wanted to wrest the bagfrom her and hurl it out through the doorway into the street, but Irestrained myself. She stopped and stared. I noticed a short, fat man in a rumpledsuitcoat and unpressed pants staring, too. Ignoring him, I said,Please put the bag down. Over there. I indicated a spot beside atelephone booth where it would be out of the way. She didn't move. She just said, Why? For God's sake! I took the case. She offered no resistance. I put herbag and mine next to the booth. When I turned around she was standingthere looking at me as if I had gone out of my mind. Her eyes were blueand brown-flecked, very pretty eyes, and my thought at the moment was,I'm glad the bomb didn't go off; these eyes wouldn't be looking at meor anything else right now if it had. I've got to talk to you. It's very important. The girl said, Why? I was beginning to think it was the only word sheknew. At the same time I was wondering why anyone would want to killsomeone so lovely. I'll explain in a moment. Please stand right here while I make atelephone call. I moved toward the phone booth, paused and said, Anddon't ask me why. She gave me a speculative look. I must not have seemed a complete idiot because she said, All right,but— I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door,pretended to drop a coin and dial a number. But all the time I was inthere, I was reaching out through the glass for the clock. At thisrange it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel. Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet. Now will you please tell me what this is all about? she said stiffly. Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain. She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followedthe short, fat man into the coffee shop. Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensoryability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, andhow I had discovered what was in her overnight bag. During the telling, her untouched coffee grew a skin, her face grewpale, her eyes grew less curious and more troubled. There were tearsthere when I finished. I asked her who put the bomb in her bag. Joe did, she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more butstaring vacantly across the room. Joe put it there. Behind her eyesshe was reliving some recent scene. Who is Joe? My husband. I thought she was going to really bawl, but she gotcontrol again. This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit mysister. Her smile was bleak. I see now why he wanted to put in thosebooks. I'd finished packing and was in the bathroom. He said he'd putin some books we'd both finished reading—for my sister. That's when hemust have put the—put it in there. I said gently, Why would he want to do a thing like that? I don't know. She shook her head. I just don't know. And she wasclose to bawling again. Then she recovered and said, I'm not sure Iwant to know. I admired her for saying it. Joe must have been crazy. It's all right now? she asked. I nodded. As long as we don't move it. I told her I didn't know how much more time there was, that I'd beenthinking it over and that the only way out seemed to be to tell theairport policeman. After I explained it to her, the girl—she said hername was Julia Claremont—agreed to tell him she thought there was abomb in her bag, that she had noticed a ticking and had become worriedbecause she knew she hadn't packed a clock. It wasn't good, but itwould have to do. We've got to get it deactivated, I said, watching the fat man pay forhis coffee and leave. The sooner the better. <doc-sep>I finished my coffee in one gulp and went to pay the bill with her.I asked her why she didn't claim the bag at the same time the otherpeople had. She said she had called her sister and the phone was busyfor a long while. She was supposed to meet me, and when she wasn't here, I got worried.She said she isn't feeling well and asked me to take a cab. She smileda little. It was a bright, cheery thing. I had the feeling it was allfor me. That's where I was going when you caught up with me. It had become a very nice day. But the bottom dropped out of it againwhen we reached the lobby. The two bags weren't there. I ran to the entrance and nearly collided with the redcap. See anybody go out of here with a little red bag and an old batteredsuitcase? Bag? Suitcase? he mumbled. Then he became excited. Why, a man juststepped out of here— He turned to look down the street. That's him. The dumpy man I'd seen was walking off; Julia's bag in his right hand,mine in his left. He seemed in no hurry. Hey! I shouted, starting toward him. The man turned, took one look at me, and started to run. He cameabreast an old gray, mud-spattered coupe, ran around, opened the doorand threw both bags into the rear seat as he got in. The car was a hundred feet away and gathering speed by the time Ireached where it had been parked. I watched it for a moment, thenwalked back to the entranceway where Julia was standing with theredcap, who said, That man steal them suitcases? That he did, I said. Just then the airport policeman started across the street from theparking lot. Redcap said, Better tell him about it. The policeman was sympathetic and concerned. He said, We'd better getover to the office. But we never left the spot because an explosion some blocks distantshattered the air. Julia's hand grasped my arm. Hard. Jets, the redcap said, eying the sky. I don't know, the policeman said. Didn't sound much like a jet tome. We stood there. I could visualize the wreckage of an old gray coupein the middle of a street, but I couldn't visualize the driver. Thatwas all right. I didn't want to see him. I didn't know what Julia wasthinking. She said, About those bags, and looked at me. The officer said, Yes, miss? I—I don't care about mine. I didn't have much of anything in it. I feel the same way, I said. Would it be all right if we didn'tbother to report it? Well, the policeman said, I can't make you report it. I'd rather not then, Julia said. She turned to me. I'd like someair. Can't we walk a little? Sure, I said. We started down the street, her arm in mine, as the air began to fillwith the distant sounds of sirens. <doc-sep></s>

On a seemingly normal flight from San Francisco to Los Angeles sits our protagonist, on his way to complete a printing order. In his initial musings, we find out that his curiosity and intuition about his fellow passengers come out of his extrasensory ability to see inside objects and human beings. The protagonist is also revealed to be able to manipulate time by stopping clocks, which he uses to his benefit with early wake-up calls. Despite his unique abilities, he laments that it renders largely useless and mundane as it often ruins surprises like Christmas gifts, requires a bit of guessing, and fails to work as gimmicks in manipulating games like Vegas slot machines. And so with his seemingly useless but curious gaze, the protagonist ponders about his seat-mate’s purse, Amos Magaffey the purchasing agent, and rifling through luggages and identifying his own. All of sudden, his musings are halted by the discovery of a bomb in one of the luggages, with a countdown timer ticking with 10 minutes or less. The flight is still 40 minutes away from its destination and so with great effort and increasing suspicion from his seat-mate, the protagonist uses his ability to stop the ticking bomb. The flight lands safely with the bomb remaining inactivated, but the protgaonist now worries between alerting authorities - which may cast suspicion upon himself - or follow the luggage and identify who picks it up. With no one initially picking up the luggage with the bomb - the little red bag - it is delivered by the flight attendant to the rear room. Soon, a young lady arrives to pick it up. It is then that the protagonist hurries over to her in hopes of warning her of the ticking time bomb. It turns out that the likely culprit of planting the bomb is the young lady’s - Julia Claremont - husband, whose motives are unknown but nevertheless unhinged. Armed with this information and a false story about the bag’s suspicion, the pair decides to approach an airport policeman and inform them of the bomb. However, as they return to where they left their bags, they find that both his and Julia’s luggages have been stolen by a strange man entering his grey vehicle. Turning to the airport policeman in reporting this stolen luggage, they are interrupted by an explosion in a grey vehicle. Shocked and somber, Julia and the protagonist inform the policeman that they no longer wish to report the stolen luggage, and the two begin to walk away from the airport.

<s> Nuts to wild talents! Mine was no satisfaction, never earned me a penny—and now it had me fighting for my life in ... THE LITTLE RED BAG By JERRY SOHL [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] About an hour out of San Francisco on the flight to Los Angeles, I madethe discovery. I had finished reading the Chronicle , folded and putit beside me, turned and looked out the window, expecting to see theSan Joaquin Valley but finding only a sea of clouds instead. So Ireturned my attention to the inside of the plane, to the overstuffedgray-haired woman asleep beside me, to the backs of heads in seatsbefore me, across the aisle to other heads, and down to the blonde. I had seen her in the concourse and at the gate, a shapely thing. Nowshe had crossed her legs and I was privileged to view a trim ankle andcalf, and her profile as she stared moodily across the aisle and out awindow where there was nothing to see. I slid my eyes past her to others. A crossword-puzzle worker, atogetherness-type-magazine reader. Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing Ishould be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angelesfor, and not wanting to. So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhapsthat sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody evercomplained. It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explorethe insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawersand—well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble.It's like swimming through spaghetti. And I've got to stay away fromelectric wires. They hurt. Now don't ask me how they hurt. Maybe you think it's fun. For the most part, it really isn't. I alwaysknew what was in Christmas presents before I unwrapped them, andtherefore Christmas was always spoiled for me as a kid. I can't feelthe color of anything, just its consistency. An apple senses about thesame as a potato, except for the core and the stem. I can't even tellif there's writing on a piece of paper. So you see it isn't much. Justthe feel of shapes, the hardnesses and softnesses. But I've learned tobecome pretty good at guessing. Like this woman next to me. She had a short, cylindrical metal objectin her purse with waxlike stuff inside it—a lipstick. A round, hardobject with dust inside—a compact. Handkerchief, chewing gum, a smallbook, probably an address book, money in a change purse—a few billsand coins. Not much else. I was a little disappointed. I've run across a gun or two in my time.But I never say anything. <doc-sep>I learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade whenMiss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eatmy sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with someof the other kids. This was the punishment for some minor infraction.Lunchtime was nearly over and we'd both finished eating; she said she'dbe gone for a few moments and that I was to erase the blackboard duringher absence, which I dutifully did. Class had hardly resumed when she started looking around the desk forher favorite mechanical pencil, asking if any of us had seen it, andlooking straight at me. I didn't want her to think I had taken it whileshe was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, whichshe always kept in the upper right drawer of her desk. It's in your purse, I blurted out. I was sent home with a stinging note. Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was ableto sense. I've known better for years. Still, I wonder how many otherpeople are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine. I used to think that some day I'd make a lot of money out of it, buthow? I can't read thoughts. I can't even be sure what some of thethings I sense in probing really are. But I've learned to move things. Ever so little. A piece of paper. Afeather. Once I stopped one of those little glass-enclosed light orheat-powered devices with vanes you see now and then in a jeweler'swindow. And I can stop clocks. Take this morning, for example. I had set my alarm for five-thirtybecause I had to catch the seven o'clock plane at San FranciscoInternational Airport. This being earlier than I usually get up, itseems all I did during the night was feel my way past the escapementand balance wheel to see where the notch for the alarm was. The lasttime I did it there was just the merest fraction of an inch between thepawl and the notch. So I sighed and moved to the balance wheel and itsdelicate ribbon of spiraling steel. I hung onto the wheel, exertinginfluence to decrease the restoring torque. The wheel slowed down until there was no more ticking. It took quitea bit of effort, as it always does, but I did it, as I usually do. Ican't stand the alarm. When I first learned to do this, I thought I had it made. I even wentto Las Vegas to try my hand, so to speak, with the ratchets and pawlsand cams and springs on the slot machines. But there's nothing delicateabout a slot machine, and the spring tensions are too strong. I droppedquite a lot of nickels before I finally gave up. So I'm stuck with a talent I've found little real use for. Except thatit amuses me. Sometimes. Not like this time on the plane. The woman beside me stirred, sat up suddenly and looked across me outthe window. Where are we? she asked in a surprised voice. I told herwe were probably a little north of Bakersfield. She said, Oh, glancedat her wristwatch and sank back again. Soon the stewardesses would bring coffee and doughnuts around, so Icontented myself with looking at the clouds and trying to think aboutAmos Magaffey, who was purchasing agent for a Los Angeles amusementchain, and how I was going to convince him our printing prices weremaybe a little higher but the quality and service were better. My mindwandered below where I was sitting, idly moving from one piece ofluggage to another, looking for my beat-up suitcase. I went throughslips and slippers, lingerie and laundry, a jig saw puzzle and aukulele. I never did find my suitcase because I found the bomb first. The bomb was in a small bag—a woman's bag judging by the soft,flimsy things you'd never find in a man's—and I didn't know it was abomb right away. I thought it was just a clock, one of those small,quiet alarms. I was going to pass it by and go on, but what held mewas that something was taped to it. By the feel, I knew it must beelectrician's tape. Interested and curious, I explored the clock moreclosely, found two wires. One went to a battery and the other to hardround cylinders taped together. The hairs stood up at the base of myneck when I suddenly realized what it was. The clock's balance wheel was rocking merrily. Quickly I went up pastthe train of gears to the alarm wheel. If this was anything like my ownalarm clock, this one had something like ten minutes to go. It was forty minutes to Burbank and Lockheed Air Terminal. My mind was churning when I turned from the window to look aroundat the unconcerned passengers, the woman at my side asleep again. Ithought: Which one of these.... No, none of them would know it wasthere. I glanced out the window again; clouds were still in the way.We'd be leaving the valley for the mountain range north of Los Angelessoon, if we hadn't left it already. No place to land the plane there. But of course that had been the plan! My heart was beating in jackhammer rhythm; my mouth was dry and my mindwas numb. Tell somebody about the bomb before it's too late! No, they'dthink I put it there. Besides, what good would it do? There would bepanic and they'd never get the plane down in time—if they believed me. Sir. My head jerked around. The stewardess stood in the aisle,smiling, extending a tray to me, a brown plastic tray bearing a smallpaper cup of tomato juice, a cup of coffee, a cellophane-wrappeddoughnut, paper spoon, sugar and dehydrated cream envelopes, and anapkin. I goggled at her, managed to croak, No, thanks. She gave me an oddlook and moved along. My seatmate had accepted hers and was tearing atthe cellophane. I couldn't bear to watch her. I closed my eyes, forced my mind back to the luggage compartment, spenta frantic moment before I found the bag again. I had to stop thatbalance wheel, just as I stopped my alarm clock every morning. I triedto close everything off—the throb of engines, the rush of air, thewoman sipping coffee noisily beside me—and I went into the clock andsurrounded the seesawing wheel. When it went forward, I pulled it back;when it went back, I pulled it forward. I struggled with it, and it waslike trying to work with greasy hands, and I was afraid I wasn't goingto be able to stop it. Then, little by little, it started to slow its beat. But I could notafford to relax. I pushed and pulled and didn't dare release my holduntil it came to a dead stop. Anything the matter? My eyelids flew open and I looked into the eyes of the woman next tome. There was sugar from the doughnut around her mouth and she wasstill chewing. No, I said, letting out my breath. I'm all right. You were moaning, it sounded like. And you kept moving your head backand forth. Must have been dreaming, I said as I rang for the stewardess. Whenshe came I told her I'd take some of that coffee now. No, nothing else,just coffee. I didn't tell her how much I needed it. I sat there clammywith sweat until she returned. Coffee never tasted so good. <doc-sep>All right, so I had stopped the bomb's timer. My mind raced ahead tothe landing. When they unloaded the luggage, the balance wheel wouldstart again. I wouldn't be able to stay with it, keeping it still.I considered telling the authorities as soon as we landed, or maybecalling in ahead, but wouldn't that just bring suspicion, questions.Maybe I could convince them I could stop a clock—but not before thebomb exploded. And then what? My secret would be out and my life wouldbe changed. I'd be a man not to be trusted, a prying man, a manliterally with gimlet eyes. Mountain crags jutted through the clouds. We were in the range north ofthe city. Here and there were clear spots and I could see roads below,but there were also clouds far above us. It was very beautiful, but itwas also very bumpy, and we started to slip and slide. To my horror I found that the balance wheel was rocking again. Closingmy eyes and gritting my teeth, I forced my senses to the wheel, tuggingand pulling and shoving and pushing until it finally stopped. A jab in the shoulder. I jumped, startled. Your cup, my seat partner said, pointing. I looked down at the coffee cup I had crushed in my hands. Then Ilooked up into the eyes of the stewardess. I handed it to her. She tookit without a word and went away. Were you really asleep that time? Not really, I said. I was tempted to tell the woman I was subject tofits, but I didn't. It was only a few minutes to landing, but they became the longestminutes of my life as time after time I stopped the rocking wheel whenthe plane dipped and bumped to a landing. Leaving the apron with the other passengers, I tried to walk asunconcernedly as they through the exit gate. I would have liked walkingthrough the terminal and out the entrance and away, but I could not. Ihad my suitcase to get, for one thing. The damned bomb was the other.So I strolled out into the concourse again to look at the plane andwatch the baggagemen at work, transferring the luggage to two airfieldcarts. They weren't as careful as I would have been. It was impossible to tell from this distance just which bag containedthe bomb; I could hardly identify my own scarred suitcase. Theassortment of bags—a strange conglomeration of sizes and colors—waspacked in some places six deep, and it rolled toward the gate whereI was standing. I didn't know whether to stay or run, imagining thebalance wheel now happily rocking again. The load went past me down aramp to the front of the air terminal where the luggage was unloadedand placed in a long rack. I went with it. There was a flurry of ticket matching, hands grabbing for suitcases,and a general exodus on the part of my fellow passengers, too fast todetermine who had got the one with the bomb. Now all that was left wasthe attendant and I had two bags—my own battered veteran of years, anda fine new red overnight case, small enough to be the one. I lit a cigarette, reached out. Inside were a woman's things and—aclock. The escapement was clicking vigorously. I didn't moan this time. I just closed my eyes, stretched towardand grabbed the balance wheel I was getting to know like my own. Ientered into a union with it so strong that after I had reduced it toimmobility, it was like waking when I opened my eyes. <doc-sep>The baggage claim attendant was staring at me. For only a moment Istared back. Then I quickly reached for my baggage check and presentedit to him. His hand hovered over the handle of the little red bag and Iwas ready to yell at him. But then, matching numbers on the tags withhis eyes, his hand grasped the handle of my own suitcase and pushed ittoward me. Thanks, I said, taking it. I glanced ever so casually toward theremaining bag. One left over, eh? Yeah. He was so bored I was tempted to tell him what was in it. Buthe was eying me with a well-why-don't-you-get-along? look. I said, What happens if nobody claims it? Take it inside. Why? He was getting too curious. Oh, I just wondered, that's all. I stepped on my cigarette and walked toward the air terminal entranceand put my suitcase on the stone steps there. A redcap came hurryingover. Cab? I shook my head. Just waiting. Just waiting for somebody to pick up a bomb. I lit another cigarette and glanced now and then toward the baggageclaim area. The red bag was still there. All sorts of theories ranthrough my head as to why it should still be there, and none satisfiedme. I should not have been there, that much I knew; I should be with aman named Amos Magaffey on Sixth Street at ten o'clock, discussingsomething very mundane, the matter of a printing order. But what couldI do? If I left the airport, the attendant would eventually take thebag inside and there would be an explosion, and I wouldn't be able tolive with myself. No. I had to stay to keep the balance wheel stationary until—untilwhat? A man in tan gabardine, wearing a police cap and badge, walked out ofthe entrance to stand on the stone steps beside me while he put on apair of dark glasses. A member of the airport police detail. I couldtell him. I could take him down to the little red bag and explain thewhole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my ownbusiness. But he moved on down the steps, nodded at the redcap, and startedacross the street to the parking area. I could have called to him,Hey, officer, let me tell you about a bomb in a little red bag. ButI didn't. I didn't because I caught a movement at the baggage claimcounter out of the side of my eye. The attendant had picked up the bag and was walking with it up the rampto the rear of the air terminal. Picking up my own suitcase, I wentinside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bagon the scales at the airline desk and say something to the clerk. Theclerk nodded and moved the bag to the rear room. I could visualize the balance wheel once again rocking like crazy. Howmany minutes—or seconds—were left? I was sweating when I moved to thecounter, and it wasn't because of the sunshine I'd been soaking in. Ihad to get as close to the bag as I could if I was going to stop theclock again. Can I help you? the clerk asked. No. I'm waiting for someone. I turned my back to him, put down my suitcase, leaned against thecounter and reached out for the wheel. I found I could reach thedevice, but it was far away. When I tried to dampen it, the wheelescaped my grasp. Do you have my suitcase? I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The blonde in the plane stoodthere looking very fresh and bright and unconcerned. In her right handshe had a green baggage claim check. The clerk took it, nodded, and in a moment brought out the overnightcase and set it on the scales. The girl thanked him, picked it up,glanced at me indifferently, and then started for the entrance with it. Just a moment, I found myself saying, grabbing my bag and hurryingafter her. <doc-sep>At her side and a little ahead of her, I said, Listen to me. She looked annoyed and increased her stride toward the door. It's a matter of life or death, I said. I wanted to wrest the bagfrom her and hurl it out through the doorway into the street, but Irestrained myself. She stopped and stared. I noticed a short, fat man in a rumpledsuitcoat and unpressed pants staring, too. Ignoring him, I said,Please put the bag down. Over there. I indicated a spot beside atelephone booth where it would be out of the way. She didn't move. She just said, Why? For God's sake! I took the case. She offered no resistance. I put herbag and mine next to the booth. When I turned around she was standingthere looking at me as if I had gone out of my mind. Her eyes were blueand brown-flecked, very pretty eyes, and my thought at the moment was,I'm glad the bomb didn't go off; these eyes wouldn't be looking at meor anything else right now if it had. I've got to talk to you. It's very important. The girl said, Why? I was beginning to think it was the only word sheknew. At the same time I was wondering why anyone would want to killsomeone so lovely. I'll explain in a moment. Please stand right here while I make atelephone call. I moved toward the phone booth, paused and said, Anddon't ask me why. She gave me a speculative look. I must not have seemed a complete idiot because she said, All right,but— I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door,pretended to drop a coin and dial a number. But all the time I was inthere, I was reaching out through the glass for the clock. At thisrange it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel. Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet. Now will you please tell me what this is all about? she said stiffly. Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain. She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followedthe short, fat man into the coffee shop. Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensoryability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, andhow I had discovered what was in her overnight bag. During the telling, her untouched coffee grew a skin, her face grewpale, her eyes grew less curious and more troubled. There were tearsthere when I finished. I asked her who put the bomb in her bag. Joe did, she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more butstaring vacantly across the room. Joe put it there. Behind her eyesshe was reliving some recent scene. Who is Joe? My husband. I thought she was going to really bawl, but she gotcontrol again. This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit mysister. Her smile was bleak. I see now why he wanted to put in thosebooks. I'd finished packing and was in the bathroom. He said he'd putin some books we'd both finished reading—for my sister. That's when hemust have put the—put it in there. I said gently, Why would he want to do a thing like that? I don't know. She shook her head. I just don't know. And she wasclose to bawling again. Then she recovered and said, I'm not sure Iwant to know. I admired her for saying it. Joe must have been crazy. It's all right now? she asked. I nodded. As long as we don't move it. I told her I didn't know how much more time there was, that I'd beenthinking it over and that the only way out seemed to be to tell theairport policeman. After I explained it to her, the girl—she said hername was Julia Claremont—agreed to tell him she thought there was abomb in her bag, that she had noticed a ticking and had become worriedbecause she knew she hadn't packed a clock. It wasn't good, but itwould have to do. We've got to get it deactivated, I said, watching the fat man pay forhis coffee and leave. The sooner the better. <doc-sep>I finished my coffee in one gulp and went to pay the bill with her.I asked her why she didn't claim the bag at the same time the otherpeople had. She said she had called her sister and the phone was busyfor a long while. She was supposed to meet me, and when she wasn't here, I got worried.She said she isn't feeling well and asked me to take a cab. She smileda little. It was a bright, cheery thing. I had the feeling it was allfor me. That's where I was going when you caught up with me. It had become a very nice day. But the bottom dropped out of it againwhen we reached the lobby. The two bags weren't there. I ran to the entrance and nearly collided with the redcap. See anybody go out of here with a little red bag and an old batteredsuitcase? Bag? Suitcase? he mumbled. Then he became excited. Why, a man juststepped out of here— He turned to look down the street. That's him. The dumpy man I'd seen was walking off; Julia's bag in his right hand,mine in his left. He seemed in no hurry. Hey! I shouted, starting toward him. The man turned, took one look at me, and started to run. He cameabreast an old gray, mud-spattered coupe, ran around, opened the doorand threw both bags into the rear seat as he got in. The car was a hundred feet away and gathering speed by the time Ireached where it had been parked. I watched it for a moment, thenwalked back to the entranceway where Julia was standing with theredcap, who said, That man steal them suitcases? That he did, I said. Just then the airport policeman started across the street from theparking lot. Redcap said, Better tell him about it. The policeman was sympathetic and concerned. He said, We'd better getover to the office. But we never left the spot because an explosion some blocks distantshattered the air. Julia's hand grasped my arm. Hard. Jets, the redcap said, eying the sky. I don't know, the policeman said. Didn't sound much like a jet tome. We stood there. I could visualize the wreckage of an old gray coupein the middle of a street, but I couldn't visualize the driver. Thatwas all right. I didn't want to see him. I didn't know what Julia wasthinking. She said, About those bags, and looked at me. The officer said, Yes, miss? I—I don't care about mine. I didn't have much of anything in it. I feel the same way, I said. Would it be all right if we didn'tbother to report it? Well, the policeman said, I can't make you report it. I'd rather not then, Julia said. She turned to me. I'd like someair. Can't we walk a little? Sure, I said. We started down the street, her arm in mine, as the air began to fillwith the distant sounds of sirens. <doc-sep></s>

Julia Claremont is a young blonde in the plane that initially peaks the protagonist's interest with her attractive profile, who later is identified as the owner of the little red bag that houses the ticking bomb. Flying from San Francisco to Los Angeles to visit her sister on her husband’s suggestion, she is the first person that the protagonist reveals his extrasensory abilities to. Despite the extraordinary tale, Claremont believes him and reveals herself that the likely culprit of the bomb to be her husband. Under the guise of putting in books for her sister to read, she surmises that her husband likely used that opportunity to plant the bomb. However, she is unable to identify the motives of her husband or more likely, she would rather not to. Despite this shock, Claremont and the protagonist devise a somewhat likely story to alert the airport policeman of her suspicious of a bomb in her luggage in order to quickly deactivate it as well as divert attention from how the protgaonist was able to sense it. On their way over to where they left their bags, they noticed them to be stolen and identified a dumpy man as the thief, heading over to his grey vehicle to take off with them. As they approach an airport policeman to report this theft instead, they are interrupted by an explosion - the bomb having gone off. Seemingly on the same page, Claremont turns to the policeman as she retracts her desire to report the theft - with the protagonist doing the same - and turns to walk away, leaving the mayhem of the explosion at the airport behind them.

<s> Nuts to wild talents! Mine was no satisfaction, never earned me a penny—and now it had me fighting for my life in ... THE LITTLE RED BAG By JERRY SOHL [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] About an hour out of San Francisco on the flight to Los Angeles, I madethe discovery. I had finished reading the Chronicle , folded and putit beside me, turned and looked out the window, expecting to see theSan Joaquin Valley but finding only a sea of clouds instead. So Ireturned my attention to the inside of the plane, to the overstuffedgray-haired woman asleep beside me, to the backs of heads in seatsbefore me, across the aisle to other heads, and down to the blonde. I had seen her in the concourse and at the gate, a shapely thing. Nowshe had crossed her legs and I was privileged to view a trim ankle andcalf, and her profile as she stared moodily across the aisle and out awindow where there was nothing to see. I slid my eyes past her to others. A crossword-puzzle worker, atogetherness-type-magazine reader. Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing Ishould be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angelesfor, and not wanting to. So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhapsthat sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody evercomplained. It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explorethe insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawersand—well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble.It's like swimming through spaghetti. And I've got to stay away fromelectric wires. They hurt. Now don't ask me how they hurt. Maybe you think it's fun. For the most part, it really isn't. I alwaysknew what was in Christmas presents before I unwrapped them, andtherefore Christmas was always spoiled for me as a kid. I can't feelthe color of anything, just its consistency. An apple senses about thesame as a potato, except for the core and the stem. I can't even tellif there's writing on a piece of paper. So you see it isn't much. Justthe feel of shapes, the hardnesses and softnesses. But I've learned tobecome pretty good at guessing. Like this woman next to me. She had a short, cylindrical metal objectin her purse with waxlike stuff inside it—a lipstick. A round, hardobject with dust inside—a compact. Handkerchief, chewing gum, a smallbook, probably an address book, money in a change purse—a few billsand coins. Not much else. I was a little disappointed. I've run across a gun or two in my time.But I never say anything. <doc-sep>I learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade whenMiss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eatmy sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with someof the other kids. This was the punishment for some minor infraction.Lunchtime was nearly over and we'd both finished eating; she said she'dbe gone for a few moments and that I was to erase the blackboard duringher absence, which I dutifully did. Class had hardly resumed when she started looking around the desk forher favorite mechanical pencil, asking if any of us had seen it, andlooking straight at me. I didn't want her to think I had taken it whileshe was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, whichshe always kept in the upper right drawer of her desk. It's in your purse, I blurted out. I was sent home with a stinging note. Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was ableto sense. I've known better for years. Still, I wonder how many otherpeople are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine. I used to think that some day I'd make a lot of money out of it, buthow? I can't read thoughts. I can't even be sure what some of thethings I sense in probing really are. But I've learned to move things. Ever so little. A piece of paper. Afeather. Once I stopped one of those little glass-enclosed light orheat-powered devices with vanes you see now and then in a jeweler'swindow. And I can stop clocks. Take this morning, for example. I had set my alarm for five-thirtybecause I had to catch the seven o'clock plane at San FranciscoInternational Airport. This being earlier than I usually get up, itseems all I did during the night was feel my way past the escapementand balance wheel to see where the notch for the alarm was. The lasttime I did it there was just the merest fraction of an inch between thepawl and the notch. So I sighed and moved to the balance wheel and itsdelicate ribbon of spiraling steel. I hung onto the wheel, exertinginfluence to decrease the restoring torque. The wheel slowed down until there was no more ticking. It took quitea bit of effort, as it always does, but I did it, as I usually do. Ican't stand the alarm. When I first learned to do this, I thought I had it made. I even wentto Las Vegas to try my hand, so to speak, with the ratchets and pawlsand cams and springs on the slot machines. But there's nothing delicateabout a slot machine, and the spring tensions are too strong. I droppedquite a lot of nickels before I finally gave up. So I'm stuck with a talent I've found little real use for. Except thatit amuses me. Sometimes. Not like this time on the plane. The woman beside me stirred, sat up suddenly and looked across me outthe window. Where are we? she asked in a surprised voice. I told herwe were probably a little north of Bakersfield. She said, Oh, glancedat her wristwatch and sank back again. Soon the stewardesses would bring coffee and doughnuts around, so Icontented myself with looking at the clouds and trying to think aboutAmos Magaffey, who was purchasing agent for a Los Angeles amusementchain, and how I was going to convince him our printing prices weremaybe a little higher but the quality and service were better. My mindwandered below where I was sitting, idly moving from one piece ofluggage to another, looking for my beat-up suitcase. I went throughslips and slippers, lingerie and laundry, a jig saw puzzle and aukulele. I never did find my suitcase because I found the bomb first. The bomb was in a small bag—a woman's bag judging by the soft,flimsy things you'd never find in a man's—and I didn't know it was abomb right away. I thought it was just a clock, one of those small,quiet alarms. I was going to pass it by and go on, but what held mewas that something was taped to it. By the feel, I knew it must beelectrician's tape. Interested and curious, I explored the clock moreclosely, found two wires. One went to a battery and the other to hardround cylinders taped together. The hairs stood up at the base of myneck when I suddenly realized what it was. The clock's balance wheel was rocking merrily. Quickly I went up pastthe train of gears to the alarm wheel. If this was anything like my ownalarm clock, this one had something like ten minutes to go. It was forty minutes to Burbank and Lockheed Air Terminal. My mind was churning when I turned from the window to look aroundat the unconcerned passengers, the woman at my side asleep again. Ithought: Which one of these.... No, none of them would know it wasthere. I glanced out the window again; clouds were still in the way.We'd be leaving the valley for the mountain range north of Los Angelessoon, if we hadn't left it already. No place to land the plane there. But of course that had been the plan! My heart was beating in jackhammer rhythm; my mouth was dry and my mindwas numb. Tell somebody about the bomb before it's too late! No, they'dthink I put it there. Besides, what good would it do? There would bepanic and they'd never get the plane down in time—if they believed me. Sir. My head jerked around. The stewardess stood in the aisle,smiling, extending a tray to me, a brown plastic tray bearing a smallpaper cup of tomato juice, a cup of coffee, a cellophane-wrappeddoughnut, paper spoon, sugar and dehydrated cream envelopes, and anapkin. I goggled at her, managed to croak, No, thanks. She gave me an oddlook and moved along. My seatmate had accepted hers and was tearing atthe cellophane. I couldn't bear to watch her. I closed my eyes, forced my mind back to the luggage compartment, spenta frantic moment before I found the bag again. I had to stop thatbalance wheel, just as I stopped my alarm clock every morning. I triedto close everything off—the throb of engines, the rush of air, thewoman sipping coffee noisily beside me—and I went into the clock andsurrounded the seesawing wheel. When it went forward, I pulled it back;when it went back, I pulled it forward. I struggled with it, and it waslike trying to work with greasy hands, and I was afraid I wasn't goingto be able to stop it. Then, little by little, it started to slow its beat. But I could notafford to relax. I pushed and pulled and didn't dare release my holduntil it came to a dead stop. Anything the matter? My eyelids flew open and I looked into the eyes of the woman next tome. There was sugar from the doughnut around her mouth and she wasstill chewing. No, I said, letting out my breath. I'm all right. You were moaning, it sounded like. And you kept moving your head backand forth. Must have been dreaming, I said as I rang for the stewardess. Whenshe came I told her I'd take some of that coffee now. No, nothing else,just coffee. I didn't tell her how much I needed it. I sat there clammywith sweat until she returned. Coffee never tasted so good. <doc-sep>All right, so I had stopped the bomb's timer. My mind raced ahead tothe landing. When they unloaded the luggage, the balance wheel wouldstart again. I wouldn't be able to stay with it, keeping it still.I considered telling the authorities as soon as we landed, or maybecalling in ahead, but wouldn't that just bring suspicion, questions.Maybe I could convince them I could stop a clock—but not before thebomb exploded. And then what? My secret would be out and my life wouldbe changed. I'd be a man not to be trusted, a prying man, a manliterally with gimlet eyes. Mountain crags jutted through the clouds. We were in the range north ofthe city. Here and there were clear spots and I could see roads below,but there were also clouds far above us. It was very beautiful, but itwas also very bumpy, and we started to slip and slide. To my horror I found that the balance wheel was rocking again. Closingmy eyes and gritting my teeth, I forced my senses to the wheel, tuggingand pulling and shoving and pushing until it finally stopped. A jab in the shoulder. I jumped, startled. Your cup, my seat partner said, pointing. I looked down at the coffee cup I had crushed in my hands. Then Ilooked up into the eyes of the stewardess. I handed it to her. She tookit without a word and went away. Were you really asleep that time? Not really, I said. I was tempted to tell the woman I was subject tofits, but I didn't. It was only a few minutes to landing, but they became the longestminutes of my life as time after time I stopped the rocking wheel whenthe plane dipped and bumped to a landing. Leaving the apron with the other passengers, I tried to walk asunconcernedly as they through the exit gate. I would have liked walkingthrough the terminal and out the entrance and away, but I could not. Ihad my suitcase to get, for one thing. The damned bomb was the other.So I strolled out into the concourse again to look at the plane andwatch the baggagemen at work, transferring the luggage to two airfieldcarts. They weren't as careful as I would have been. It was impossible to tell from this distance just which bag containedthe bomb; I could hardly identify my own scarred suitcase. Theassortment of bags—a strange conglomeration of sizes and colors—waspacked in some places six deep, and it rolled toward the gate whereI was standing. I didn't know whether to stay or run, imagining thebalance wheel now happily rocking again. The load went past me down aramp to the front of the air terminal where the luggage was unloadedand placed in a long rack. I went with it. There was a flurry of ticket matching, hands grabbing for suitcases,and a general exodus on the part of my fellow passengers, too fast todetermine who had got the one with the bomb. Now all that was left wasthe attendant and I had two bags—my own battered veteran of years, anda fine new red overnight case, small enough to be the one. I lit a cigarette, reached out. Inside were a woman's things and—aclock. The escapement was clicking vigorously. I didn't moan this time. I just closed my eyes, stretched towardand grabbed the balance wheel I was getting to know like my own. Ientered into a union with it so strong that after I had reduced it toimmobility, it was like waking when I opened my eyes. <doc-sep>The baggage claim attendant was staring at me. For only a moment Istared back. Then I quickly reached for my baggage check and presentedit to him. His hand hovered over the handle of the little red bag and Iwas ready to yell at him. But then, matching numbers on the tags withhis eyes, his hand grasped the handle of my own suitcase and pushed ittoward me. Thanks, I said, taking it. I glanced ever so casually toward theremaining bag. One left over, eh? Yeah. He was so bored I was tempted to tell him what was in it. Buthe was eying me with a well-why-don't-you-get-along? look. I said, What happens if nobody claims it? Take it inside. Why? He was getting too curious. Oh, I just wondered, that's all. I stepped on my cigarette and walked toward the air terminal entranceand put my suitcase on the stone steps there. A redcap came hurryingover. Cab? I shook my head. Just waiting. Just waiting for somebody to pick up a bomb. I lit another cigarette and glanced now and then toward the baggageclaim area. The red bag was still there. All sorts of theories ranthrough my head as to why it should still be there, and none satisfiedme. I should not have been there, that much I knew; I should be with aman named Amos Magaffey on Sixth Street at ten o'clock, discussingsomething very mundane, the matter of a printing order. But what couldI do? If I left the airport, the attendant would eventually take thebag inside and there would be an explosion, and I wouldn't be able tolive with myself. No. I had to stay to keep the balance wheel stationary until—untilwhat? A man in tan gabardine, wearing a police cap and badge, walked out ofthe entrance to stand on the stone steps beside me while he put on apair of dark glasses. A member of the airport police detail. I couldtell him. I could take him down to the little red bag and explain thewhole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my ownbusiness. But he moved on down the steps, nodded at the redcap, and startedacross the street to the parking area. I could have called to him,Hey, officer, let me tell you about a bomb in a little red bag. ButI didn't. I didn't because I caught a movement at the baggage claimcounter out of the side of my eye. The attendant had picked up the bag and was walking with it up the rampto the rear of the air terminal. Picking up my own suitcase, I wentinside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bagon the scales at the airline desk and say something to the clerk. Theclerk nodded and moved the bag to the rear room. I could visualize the balance wheel once again rocking like crazy. Howmany minutes—or seconds—were left? I was sweating when I moved to thecounter, and it wasn't because of the sunshine I'd been soaking in. Ihad to get as close to the bag as I could if I was going to stop theclock again. Can I help you? the clerk asked. No. I'm waiting for someone. I turned my back to him, put down my suitcase, leaned against thecounter and reached out for the wheel. I found I could reach thedevice, but it was far away. When I tried to dampen it, the wheelescaped my grasp. Do you have my suitcase? I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The blonde in the plane stoodthere looking very fresh and bright and unconcerned. In her right handshe had a green baggage claim check. The clerk took it, nodded, and in a moment brought out the overnightcase and set it on the scales. The girl thanked him, picked it up,glanced at me indifferently, and then started for the entrance with it. Just a moment, I found myself saying, grabbing my bag and hurryingafter her. <doc-sep>At her side and a little ahead of her, I said, Listen to me. She looked annoyed and increased her stride toward the door. It's a matter of life or death, I said. I wanted to wrest the bagfrom her and hurl it out through the doorway into the street, but Irestrained myself. She stopped and stared. I noticed a short, fat man in a rumpledsuitcoat and unpressed pants staring, too. Ignoring him, I said,Please put the bag down. Over there. I indicated a spot beside atelephone booth where it would be out of the way. She didn't move. She just said, Why? For God's sake! I took the case. She offered no resistance. I put herbag and mine next to the booth. When I turned around she was standingthere looking at me as if I had gone out of my mind. Her eyes were blueand brown-flecked, very pretty eyes, and my thought at the moment was,I'm glad the bomb didn't go off; these eyes wouldn't be looking at meor anything else right now if it had. I've got to talk to you. It's very important. The girl said, Why? I was beginning to think it was the only word sheknew. At the same time I was wondering why anyone would want to killsomeone so lovely. I'll explain in a moment. Please stand right here while I make atelephone call. I moved toward the phone booth, paused and said, Anddon't ask me why. She gave me a speculative look. I must not have seemed a complete idiot because she said, All right,but— I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door,pretended to drop a coin and dial a number. But all the time I was inthere, I was reaching out through the glass for the clock. At thisrange it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel. Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet. Now will you please tell me what this is all about? she said stiffly. Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain. She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followedthe short, fat man into the coffee shop. Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensoryability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, andhow I had discovered what was in her overnight bag. During the telling, her untouched coffee grew a skin, her face grewpale, her eyes grew less curious and more troubled. There were tearsthere when I finished. I asked her who put the bomb in her bag. Joe did, she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more butstaring vacantly across the room. Joe put it there. Behind her eyesshe was reliving some recent scene. Who is Joe? My husband. I thought she was going to really bawl, but she gotcontrol again. This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit mysister. Her smile was bleak. I see now why he wanted to put in thosebooks. I'd finished packing and was in the bathroom. He said he'd putin some books we'd both finished reading—for my sister. That's when hemust have put the—put it in there. I said gently, Why would he want to do a thing like that? I don't know. She shook her head. I just don't know. And she wasclose to bawling again. Then she recovered and said, I'm not sure Iwant to know. I admired her for saying it. Joe must have been crazy. It's all right now? she asked. I nodded. As long as we don't move it. I told her I didn't know how much more time there was, that I'd beenthinking it over and that the only way out seemed to be to tell theairport policeman. After I explained it to her, the girl—she said hername was Julia Claremont—agreed to tell him she thought there was abomb in her bag, that she had noticed a ticking and had become worriedbecause she knew she hadn't packed a clock. It wasn't good, but itwould have to do. We've got to get it deactivated, I said, watching the fat man pay forhis coffee and leave. The sooner the better. <doc-sep>I finished my coffee in one gulp and went to pay the bill with her.I asked her why she didn't claim the bag at the same time the otherpeople had. She said she had called her sister and the phone was busyfor a long while. She was supposed to meet me, and when she wasn't here, I got worried.She said she isn't feeling well and asked me to take a cab. She smileda little. It was a bright, cheery thing. I had the feeling it was allfor me. That's where I was going when you caught up with me. It had become a very nice day. But the bottom dropped out of it againwhen we reached the lobby. The two bags weren't there. I ran to the entrance and nearly collided with the redcap. See anybody go out of here with a little red bag and an old batteredsuitcase? Bag? Suitcase? he mumbled. Then he became excited. Why, a man juststepped out of here— He turned to look down the street. That's him. The dumpy man I'd seen was walking off; Julia's bag in his right hand,mine in his left. He seemed in no hurry. Hey! I shouted, starting toward him. The man turned, took one look at me, and started to run. He cameabreast an old gray, mud-spattered coupe, ran around, opened the doorand threw both bags into the rear seat as he got in. The car was a hundred feet away and gathering speed by the time Ireached where it had been parked. I watched it for a moment, thenwalked back to the entranceway where Julia was standing with theredcap, who said, That man steal them suitcases? That he did, I said. Just then the airport policeman started across the street from theparking lot. Redcap said, Better tell him about it. The policeman was sympathetic and concerned. He said, We'd better getover to the office. But we never left the spot because an explosion some blocks distantshattered the air. Julia's hand grasped my arm. Hard. Jets, the redcap said, eying the sky. I don't know, the policeman said. Didn't sound much like a jet tome. We stood there. I could visualize the wreckage of an old gray coupein the middle of a street, but I couldn't visualize the driver. Thatwas all right. I didn't want to see him. I didn't know what Julia wasthinking. She said, About those bags, and looked at me. The officer said, Yes, miss? I—I don't care about mine. I didn't have much of anything in it. I feel the same way, I said. Would it be all right if we didn'tbother to report it? Well, the policeman said, I can't make you report it. I'd rather not then, Julia said. She turned to me. I'd like someair. Can't we walk a little? Sure, I said. We started down the street, her arm in mine, as the air began to fillwith the distant sounds of sirens. <doc-sep></s>

The protagonist finds out about his extraordinary ability at an early age and quickly finds out that it is better to keep this information to himself. One incident that drove this message home occured in the fourth grade with his teacher, Miss Winters. At the time, the protagonist was sentenced to eat lunch with her as a minor punishment. After the lunch period was over, Miss Winters found herself looking for her favorite mechanical pencil, asking the class if anyone had seen it while casting a suspicious eye at the protagonist. Aiming to maintain his innocence and help out his teacher, the protagonist used his ability to find the pencil - in Miss Winters’ purse all along - and let her know. Instead, he was rewarded with a note sent home. Ever since then, he found it to be safer to keep his ability a secret. Despite his curiosities about other potential extraordinary individuals, he recognizes that revealing any information gained from his ability would only cast suspicion upon himself from the authorities. For example, had the protagonist immediately alerted a flight attendant or the authorities about a bomb in one of the luggages the moment he discovered it on the plane, intrusive questions about how he knew or suspicions about him being the one to plant it were highly likely to arise.

<s> Nuts to wild talents! Mine was no satisfaction, never earned me a penny—and now it had me fighting for my life in ... THE LITTLE RED BAG By JERRY SOHL [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] About an hour out of San Francisco on the flight to Los Angeles, I madethe discovery. I had finished reading the Chronicle , folded and putit beside me, turned and looked out the window, expecting to see theSan Joaquin Valley but finding only a sea of clouds instead. So Ireturned my attention to the inside of the plane, to the overstuffedgray-haired woman asleep beside me, to the backs of heads in seatsbefore me, across the aisle to other heads, and down to the blonde. I had seen her in the concourse and at the gate, a shapely thing. Nowshe had crossed her legs and I was privileged to view a trim ankle andcalf, and her profile as she stared moodily across the aisle and out awindow where there was nothing to see. I slid my eyes past her to others. A crossword-puzzle worker, atogetherness-type-magazine reader. Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing Ishould be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angelesfor, and not wanting to. So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhapsthat sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody evercomplained. It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explorethe insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawersand—well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble.It's like swimming through spaghetti. And I've got to stay away fromelectric wires. They hurt. Now don't ask me how they hurt. Maybe you think it's fun. For the most part, it really isn't. I alwaysknew what was in Christmas presents before I unwrapped them, andtherefore Christmas was always spoiled for me as a kid. I can't feelthe color of anything, just its consistency. An apple senses about thesame as a potato, except for the core and the stem. I can't even tellif there's writing on a piece of paper. So you see it isn't much. Justthe feel of shapes, the hardnesses and softnesses. But I've learned tobecome pretty good at guessing. Like this woman next to me. She had a short, cylindrical metal objectin her purse with waxlike stuff inside it—a lipstick. A round, hardobject with dust inside—a compact. Handkerchief, chewing gum, a smallbook, probably an address book, money in a change purse—a few billsand coins. Not much else. I was a little disappointed. I've run across a gun or two in my time.But I never say anything. <doc-sep>I learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade whenMiss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eatmy sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with someof the other kids. This was the punishment for some minor infraction.Lunchtime was nearly over and we'd both finished eating; she said she'dbe gone for a few moments and that I was to erase the blackboard duringher absence, which I dutifully did. Class had hardly resumed when she started looking around the desk forher favorite mechanical pencil, asking if any of us had seen it, andlooking straight at me. I didn't want her to think I had taken it whileshe was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, whichshe always kept in the upper right drawer of her desk. It's in your purse, I blurted out. I was sent home with a stinging note. Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was ableto sense. I've known better for years. Still, I wonder how many otherpeople are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine. I used to think that some day I'd make a lot of money out of it, buthow? I can't read thoughts. I can't even be sure what some of thethings I sense in probing really are. But I've learned to move things. Ever so little. A piece of paper. Afeather. Once I stopped one of those little glass-enclosed light orheat-powered devices with vanes you see now and then in a jeweler'swindow. And I can stop clocks. Take this morning, for example. I had set my alarm for five-thirtybecause I had to catch the seven o'clock plane at San FranciscoInternational Airport. This being earlier than I usually get up, itseems all I did during the night was feel my way past the escapementand balance wheel to see where the notch for the alarm was. The lasttime I did it there was just the merest fraction of an inch between thepawl and the notch. So I sighed and moved to the balance wheel and itsdelicate ribbon of spiraling steel. I hung onto the wheel, exertinginfluence to decrease the restoring torque. The wheel slowed down until there was no more ticking. It took quitea bit of effort, as it always does, but I did it, as I usually do. Ican't stand the alarm. When I first learned to do this, I thought I had it made. I even wentto Las Vegas to try my hand, so to speak, with the ratchets and pawlsand cams and springs on the slot machines. But there's nothing delicateabout a slot machine, and the spring tensions are too strong. I droppedquite a lot of nickels before I finally gave up. So I'm stuck with a talent I've found little real use for. Except thatit amuses me. Sometimes. Not like this time on the plane. The woman beside me stirred, sat up suddenly and looked across me outthe window. Where are we? she asked in a surprised voice. I told herwe were probably a little north of Bakersfield. She said, Oh, glancedat her wristwatch and sank back again. Soon the stewardesses would bring coffee and doughnuts around, so Icontented myself with looking at the clouds and trying to think aboutAmos Magaffey, who was purchasing agent for a Los Angeles amusementchain, and how I was going to convince him our printing prices weremaybe a little higher but the quality and service were better. My mindwandered below where I was sitting, idly moving from one piece ofluggage to another, looking for my beat-up suitcase. I went throughslips and slippers, lingerie and laundry, a jig saw puzzle and aukulele. I never did find my suitcase because I found the bomb first. The bomb was in a small bag—a woman's bag judging by the soft,flimsy things you'd never find in a man's—and I didn't know it was abomb right away. I thought it was just a clock, one of those small,quiet alarms. I was going to pass it by and go on, but what held mewas that something was taped to it. By the feel, I knew it must beelectrician's tape. Interested and curious, I explored the clock moreclosely, found two wires. One went to a battery and the other to hardround cylinders taped together. The hairs stood up at the base of myneck when I suddenly realized what it was. The clock's balance wheel was rocking merrily. Quickly I went up pastthe train of gears to the alarm wheel. If this was anything like my ownalarm clock, this one had something like ten minutes to go. It was forty minutes to Burbank and Lockheed Air Terminal. My mind was churning when I turned from the window to look aroundat the unconcerned passengers, the woman at my side asleep again. Ithought: Which one of these.... No, none of them would know it wasthere. I glanced out the window again; clouds were still in the way.We'd be leaving the valley for the mountain range north of Los Angelessoon, if we hadn't left it already. No place to land the plane there. But of course that had been the plan! My heart was beating in jackhammer rhythm; my mouth was dry and my mindwas numb. Tell somebody about the bomb before it's too late! No, they'dthink I put it there. Besides, what good would it do? There would bepanic and they'd never get the plane down in time—if they believed me. Sir. My head jerked around. The stewardess stood in the aisle,smiling, extending a tray to me, a brown plastic tray bearing a smallpaper cup of tomato juice, a cup of coffee, a cellophane-wrappeddoughnut, paper spoon, sugar and dehydrated cream envelopes, and anapkin. I goggled at her, managed to croak, No, thanks. She gave me an oddlook and moved along. My seatmate had accepted hers and was tearing atthe cellophane. I couldn't bear to watch her. I closed my eyes, forced my mind back to the luggage compartment, spenta frantic moment before I found the bag again. I had to stop thatbalance wheel, just as I stopped my alarm clock every morning. I triedto close everything off—the throb of engines, the rush of air, thewoman sipping coffee noisily beside me—and I went into the clock andsurrounded the seesawing wheel. When it went forward, I pulled it back;when it went back, I pulled it forward. I struggled with it, and it waslike trying to work with greasy hands, and I was afraid I wasn't goingto be able to stop it. Then, little by little, it started to slow its beat. But I could notafford to relax. I pushed and pulled and didn't dare release my holduntil it came to a dead stop. Anything the matter? My eyelids flew open and I looked into the eyes of the woman next tome. There was sugar from the doughnut around her mouth and she wasstill chewing. No, I said, letting out my breath. I'm all right. You were moaning, it sounded like. And you kept moving your head backand forth. Must have been dreaming, I said as I rang for the stewardess. Whenshe came I told her I'd take some of that coffee now. No, nothing else,just coffee. I didn't tell her how much I needed it. I sat there clammywith sweat until she returned. Coffee never tasted so good. <doc-sep>All right, so I had stopped the bomb's timer. My mind raced ahead tothe landing. When they unloaded the luggage, the balance wheel wouldstart again. I wouldn't be able to stay with it, keeping it still.I considered telling the authorities as soon as we landed, or maybecalling in ahead, but wouldn't that just bring suspicion, questions.Maybe I could convince them I could stop a clock—but not before thebomb exploded. And then what? My secret would be out and my life wouldbe changed. I'd be a man not to be trusted, a prying man, a manliterally with gimlet eyes. Mountain crags jutted through the clouds. We were in the range north ofthe city. Here and there were clear spots and I could see roads below,but there were also clouds far above us. It was very beautiful, but itwas also very bumpy, and we started to slip and slide. To my horror I found that the balance wheel was rocking again. Closingmy eyes and gritting my teeth, I forced my senses to the wheel, tuggingand pulling and shoving and pushing until it finally stopped. A jab in the shoulder. I jumped, startled. Your cup, my seat partner said, pointing. I looked down at the coffee cup I had crushed in my hands. Then Ilooked up into the eyes of the stewardess. I handed it to her. She tookit without a word and went away. Were you really asleep that time? Not really, I said. I was tempted to tell the woman I was subject tofits, but I didn't. It was only a few minutes to landing, but they became the longestminutes of my life as time after time I stopped the rocking wheel whenthe plane dipped and bumped to a landing. Leaving the apron with the other passengers, I tried to walk asunconcernedly as they through the exit gate. I would have liked walkingthrough the terminal and out the entrance and away, but I could not. Ihad my suitcase to get, for one thing. The damned bomb was the other.So I strolled out into the concourse again to look at the plane andwatch the baggagemen at work, transferring the luggage to two airfieldcarts. They weren't as careful as I would have been. It was impossible to tell from this distance just which bag containedthe bomb; I could hardly identify my own scarred suitcase. Theassortment of bags—a strange conglomeration of sizes and colors—waspacked in some places six deep, and it rolled toward the gate whereI was standing. I didn't know whether to stay or run, imagining thebalance wheel now happily rocking again. The load went past me down aramp to the front of the air terminal where the luggage was unloadedand placed in a long rack. I went with it. There was a flurry of ticket matching, hands grabbing for suitcases,and a general exodus on the part of my fellow passengers, too fast todetermine who had got the one with the bomb. Now all that was left wasthe attendant and I had two bags—my own battered veteran of years, anda fine new red overnight case, small enough to be the one. I lit a cigarette, reached out. Inside were a woman's things and—aclock. The escapement was clicking vigorously. I didn't moan this time. I just closed my eyes, stretched towardand grabbed the balance wheel I was getting to know like my own. Ientered into a union with it so strong that after I had reduced it toimmobility, it was like waking when I opened my eyes. <doc-sep>The baggage claim attendant was staring at me. For only a moment Istared back. Then I quickly reached for my baggage check and presentedit to him. His hand hovered over the handle of the little red bag and Iwas ready to yell at him. But then, matching numbers on the tags withhis eyes, his hand grasped the handle of my own suitcase and pushed ittoward me. Thanks, I said, taking it. I glanced ever so casually toward theremaining bag. One left over, eh? Yeah. He was so bored I was tempted to tell him what was in it. Buthe was eying me with a well-why-don't-you-get-along? look. I said, What happens if nobody claims it? Take it inside. Why? He was getting too curious. Oh, I just wondered, that's all. I stepped on my cigarette and walked toward the air terminal entranceand put my suitcase on the stone steps there. A redcap came hurryingover. Cab? I shook my head. Just waiting. Just waiting for somebody to pick up a bomb. I lit another cigarette and glanced now and then toward the baggageclaim area. The red bag was still there. All sorts of theories ranthrough my head as to why it should still be there, and none satisfiedme. I should not have been there, that much I knew; I should be with aman named Amos Magaffey on Sixth Street at ten o'clock, discussingsomething very mundane, the matter of a printing order. But what couldI do? If I left the airport, the attendant would eventually take thebag inside and there would be an explosion, and I wouldn't be able tolive with myself. No. I had to stay to keep the balance wheel stationary until—untilwhat? A man in tan gabardine, wearing a police cap and badge, walked out ofthe entrance to stand on the stone steps beside me while he put on apair of dark glasses. A member of the airport police detail. I couldtell him. I could take him down to the little red bag and explain thewhole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my ownbusiness. But he moved on down the steps, nodded at the redcap, and startedacross the street to the parking area. I could have called to him,Hey, officer, let me tell you about a bomb in a little red bag. ButI didn't. I didn't because I caught a movement at the baggage claimcounter out of the side of my eye. The attendant had picked up the bag and was walking with it up the rampto the rear of the air terminal. Picking up my own suitcase, I wentinside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bagon the scales at the airline desk and say something to the clerk. Theclerk nodded and moved the bag to the rear room. I could visualize the balance wheel once again rocking like crazy. Howmany minutes—or seconds—were left? I was sweating when I moved to thecounter, and it wasn't because of the sunshine I'd been soaking in. Ihad to get as close to the bag as I could if I was going to stop theclock again. Can I help you? the clerk asked. No. I'm waiting for someone. I turned my back to him, put down my suitcase, leaned against thecounter and reached out for the wheel. I found I could reach thedevice, but it was far away. When I tried to dampen it, the wheelescaped my grasp. Do you have my suitcase? I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The blonde in the plane stoodthere looking very fresh and bright and unconcerned. In her right handshe had a green baggage claim check. The clerk took it, nodded, and in a moment brought out the overnightcase and set it on the scales. The girl thanked him, picked it up,glanced at me indifferently, and then started for the entrance with it. Just a moment, I found myself saying, grabbing my bag and hurryingafter her. <doc-sep>At her side and a little ahead of her, I said, Listen to me. She looked annoyed and increased her stride toward the door. It's a matter of life or death, I said. I wanted to wrest the bagfrom her and hurl it out through the doorway into the street, but Irestrained myself. She stopped and stared. I noticed a short, fat man in a rumpledsuitcoat and unpressed pants staring, too. Ignoring him, I said,Please put the bag down. Over there. I indicated a spot beside atelephone booth where it would be out of the way. She didn't move. She just said, Why? For God's sake! I took the case. She offered no resistance. I put herbag and mine next to the booth. When I turned around she was standingthere looking at me as if I had gone out of my mind. Her eyes were blueand brown-flecked, very pretty eyes, and my thought at the moment was,I'm glad the bomb didn't go off; these eyes wouldn't be looking at meor anything else right now if it had. I've got to talk to you. It's very important. The girl said, Why? I was beginning to think it was the only word sheknew. At the same time I was wondering why anyone would want to killsomeone so lovely. I'll explain in a moment. Please stand right here while I make atelephone call. I moved toward the phone booth, paused and said, Anddon't ask me why. She gave me a speculative look. I must not have seemed a complete idiot because she said, All right,but— I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door,pretended to drop a coin and dial a number. But all the time I was inthere, I was reaching out through the glass for the clock. At thisrange it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel. Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet. Now will you please tell me what this is all about? she said stiffly. Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain. She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followedthe short, fat man into the coffee shop. Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensoryability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, andhow I had discovered what was in her overnight bag. During the telling, her untouched coffee grew a skin, her face grewpale, her eyes grew less curious and more troubled. There were tearsthere when I finished. I asked her who put the bomb in her bag. Joe did, she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more butstaring vacantly across the room. Joe put it there. Behind her eyesshe was reliving some recent scene. Who is Joe? My husband. I thought she was going to really bawl, but she gotcontrol again. This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit mysister. Her smile was bleak. I see now why he wanted to put in thosebooks. I'd finished packing and was in the bathroom. He said he'd putin some books we'd both finished reading—for my sister. That's when hemust have put the—put it in there. I said gently, Why would he want to do a thing like that? I don't know. She shook her head. I just don't know. And she wasclose to bawling again. Then she recovered and said, I'm not sure Iwant to know. I admired her for saying it. Joe must have been crazy. It's all right now? she asked. I nodded. As long as we don't move it. I told her I didn't know how much more time there was, that I'd beenthinking it over and that the only way out seemed to be to tell theairport policeman. After I explained it to her, the girl—she said hername was Julia Claremont—agreed to tell him she thought there was abomb in her bag, that she had noticed a ticking and had become worriedbecause she knew she hadn't packed a clock. It wasn't good, but itwould have to do. We've got to get it deactivated, I said, watching the fat man pay forhis coffee and leave. The sooner the better. <doc-sep>I finished my coffee in one gulp and went to pay the bill with her.I asked her why she didn't claim the bag at the same time the otherpeople had. She said she had called her sister and the phone was busyfor a long while. She was supposed to meet me, and when she wasn't here, I got worried.She said she isn't feeling well and asked me to take a cab. She smileda little. It was a bright, cheery thing. I had the feeling it was allfor me. That's where I was going when you caught up with me. It had become a very nice day. But the bottom dropped out of it againwhen we reached the lobby. The two bags weren't there. I ran to the entrance and nearly collided with the redcap. See anybody go out of here with a little red bag and an old batteredsuitcase? Bag? Suitcase? he mumbled. Then he became excited. Why, a man juststepped out of here— He turned to look down the street. That's him. The dumpy man I'd seen was walking off; Julia's bag in his right hand,mine in his left. He seemed in no hurry. Hey! I shouted, starting toward him. The man turned, took one look at me, and started to run. He cameabreast an old gray, mud-spattered coupe, ran around, opened the doorand threw both bags into the rear seat as he got in. The car was a hundred feet away and gathering speed by the time Ireached where it had been parked. I watched it for a moment, thenwalked back to the entranceway where Julia was standing with theredcap, who said, That man steal them suitcases? That he did, I said. Just then the airport policeman started across the street from theparking lot. Redcap said, Better tell him about it. The policeman was sympathetic and concerned. He said, We'd better getover to the office. But we never left the spot because an explosion some blocks distantshattered the air. Julia's hand grasped my arm. Hard. Jets, the redcap said, eying the sky. I don't know, the policeman said. Didn't sound much like a jet tome. We stood there. I could visualize the wreckage of an old gray coupein the middle of a street, but I couldn't visualize the driver. Thatwas all right. I didn't want to see him. I didn't know what Julia wasthinking. She said, About those bags, and looked at me. The officer said, Yes, miss? I—I don't care about mine. I didn't have much of anything in it. I feel the same way, I said. Would it be all right if we didn'tbother to report it? Well, the policeman said, I can't make you report it. I'd rather not then, Julia said. She turned to me. I'd like someair. Can't we walk a little? Sure, I said. We started down the street, her arm in mine, as the air began to fillwith the distant sounds of sirens. <doc-sep></s>

This story has two settings: first, on an airplane from San Francisco to Los Angeles and second, at the Los Angeles airport in the baggage claim and arrivals terminal. The first setting - on the airplane mid flight - is highly important to the story because it is here that the protagonist discovered the bomb in the luggage. Not only that, he discovers that bomb is on a countdown with 10 minutes remaining before detonation while the flight still has 40 minutes before arrival. It is due to this fact that the protagonist utilizes his time manipulation ability to stop the clock successfully. In the second setting, the tensions in this story continue to rise. Despite the protagonist successfully stopping the clock in the air, it appears to continue on the ground. With both the anticipation of watching to see who picks up the little red bag and dodging suspicions from the airport policeman and workers, we can imagine the hectic and panicked energy that sometimes appears in baggage claims. Additionally, an airport is filled with many people arriving and departing, which adds to the pressure the protagonist is facing in dealing with deactivating the bomb before anyone gets hurt.

<s> Nuts to wild talents! Mine was no satisfaction, never earned me a penny—and now it had me fighting for my life in ... THE LITTLE RED BAG By JERRY SOHL [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] About an hour out of San Francisco on the flight to Los Angeles, I madethe discovery. I had finished reading the Chronicle , folded and putit beside me, turned and looked out the window, expecting to see theSan Joaquin Valley but finding only a sea of clouds instead. So Ireturned my attention to the inside of the plane, to the overstuffedgray-haired woman asleep beside me, to the backs of heads in seatsbefore me, across the aisle to other heads, and down to the blonde. I had seen her in the concourse and at the gate, a shapely thing. Nowshe had crossed her legs and I was privileged to view a trim ankle andcalf, and her profile as she stared moodily across the aisle and out awindow where there was nothing to see. I slid my eyes past her to others. A crossword-puzzle worker, atogetherness-type-magazine reader. Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing Ishould be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angelesfor, and not wanting to. So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhapsthat sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody evercomplained. It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explorethe insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawersand—well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble.It's like swimming through spaghetti. And I've got to stay away fromelectric wires. They hurt. Now don't ask me how they hurt. Maybe you think it's fun. For the most part, it really isn't. I alwaysknew what was in Christmas presents before I unwrapped them, andtherefore Christmas was always spoiled for me as a kid. I can't feelthe color of anything, just its consistency. An apple senses about thesame as a potato, except for the core and the stem. I can't even tellif there's writing on a piece of paper. So you see it isn't much. Justthe feel of shapes, the hardnesses and softnesses. But I've learned tobecome pretty good at guessing. Like this woman next to me. She had a short, cylindrical metal objectin her purse with waxlike stuff inside it—a lipstick. A round, hardobject with dust inside—a compact. Handkerchief, chewing gum, a smallbook, probably an address book, money in a change purse—a few billsand coins. Not much else. I was a little disappointed. I've run across a gun or two in my time.But I never say anything. <doc-sep>I learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade whenMiss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eatmy sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with someof the other kids. This was the punishment for some minor infraction.Lunchtime was nearly over and we'd both finished eating; she said she'dbe gone for a few moments and that I was to erase the blackboard duringher absence, which I dutifully did. Class had hardly resumed when she started looking around the desk forher favorite mechanical pencil, asking if any of us had seen it, andlooking straight at me. I didn't want her to think I had taken it whileshe was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, whichshe always kept in the upper right drawer of her desk. It's in your purse, I blurted out. I was sent home with a stinging note. Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was ableto sense. I've known better for years. Still, I wonder how many otherpeople are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine. I used to think that some day I'd make a lot of money out of it, buthow? I can't read thoughts. I can't even be sure what some of thethings I sense in probing really are. But I've learned to move things. Ever so little. A piece of paper. Afeather. Once I stopped one of those little glass-enclosed light orheat-powered devices with vanes you see now and then in a jeweler'swindow. And I can stop clocks. Take this morning, for example. I had set my alarm for five-thirtybecause I had to catch the seven o'clock plane at San FranciscoInternational Airport. This being earlier than I usually get up, itseems all I did during the night was feel my way past the escapementand balance wheel to see where the notch for the alarm was. The lasttime I did it there was just the merest fraction of an inch between thepawl and the notch. So I sighed and moved to the balance wheel and itsdelicate ribbon of spiraling steel. I hung onto the wheel, exertinginfluence to decrease the restoring torque. The wheel slowed down until there was no more ticking. It took quitea bit of effort, as it always does, but I did it, as I usually do. Ican't stand the alarm. When I first learned to do this, I thought I had it made. I even wentto Las Vegas to try my hand, so to speak, with the ratchets and pawlsand cams and springs on the slot machines. But there's nothing delicateabout a slot machine, and the spring tensions are too strong. I droppedquite a lot of nickels before I finally gave up. So I'm stuck with a talent I've found little real use for. Except thatit amuses me. Sometimes. Not like this time on the plane. The woman beside me stirred, sat up suddenly and looked across me outthe window. Where are we? she asked in a surprised voice. I told herwe were probably a little north of Bakersfield. She said, Oh, glancedat her wristwatch and sank back again. Soon the stewardesses would bring coffee and doughnuts around, so Icontented myself with looking at the clouds and trying to think aboutAmos Magaffey, who was purchasing agent for a Los Angeles amusementchain, and how I was going to convince him our printing prices weremaybe a little higher but the quality and service were better. My mindwandered below where I was sitting, idly moving from one piece ofluggage to another, looking for my beat-up suitcase. I went throughslips and slippers, lingerie and laundry, a jig saw puzzle and aukulele. I never did find my suitcase because I found the bomb first. The bomb was in a small bag—a woman's bag judging by the soft,flimsy things you'd never find in a man's—and I didn't know it was abomb right away. I thought it was just a clock, one of those small,quiet alarms. I was going to pass it by and go on, but what held mewas that something was taped to it. By the feel, I knew it must beelectrician's tape. Interested and curious, I explored the clock moreclosely, found two wires. One went to a battery and the other to hardround cylinders taped together. The hairs stood up at the base of myneck when I suddenly realized what it was. The clock's balance wheel was rocking merrily. Quickly I went up pastthe train of gears to the alarm wheel. If this was anything like my ownalarm clock, this one had something like ten minutes to go. It was forty minutes to Burbank and Lockheed Air Terminal. My mind was churning when I turned from the window to look aroundat the unconcerned passengers, the woman at my side asleep again. Ithought: Which one of these.... No, none of them would know it wasthere. I glanced out the window again; clouds were still in the way.We'd be leaving the valley for the mountain range north of Los Angelessoon, if we hadn't left it already. No place to land the plane there. But of course that had been the plan! My heart was beating in jackhammer rhythm; my mouth was dry and my mindwas numb. Tell somebody about the bomb before it's too late! No, they'dthink I put it there. Besides, what good would it do? There would bepanic and they'd never get the plane down in time—if they believed me. Sir. My head jerked around. The stewardess stood in the aisle,smiling, extending a tray to me, a brown plastic tray bearing a smallpaper cup of tomato juice, a cup of coffee, a cellophane-wrappeddoughnut, paper spoon, sugar and dehydrated cream envelopes, and anapkin. I goggled at her, managed to croak, No, thanks. She gave me an oddlook and moved along. My seatmate had accepted hers and was tearing atthe cellophane. I couldn't bear to watch her. I closed my eyes, forced my mind back to the luggage compartment, spenta frantic moment before I found the bag again. I had to stop thatbalance wheel, just as I stopped my alarm clock every morning. I triedto close everything off—the throb of engines, the rush of air, thewoman sipping coffee noisily beside me—and I went into the clock andsurrounded the seesawing wheel. When it went forward, I pulled it back;when it went back, I pulled it forward. I struggled with it, and it waslike trying to work with greasy hands, and I was afraid I wasn't goingto be able to stop it. Then, little by little, it started to slow its beat. But I could notafford to relax. I pushed and pulled and didn't dare release my holduntil it came to a dead stop. Anything the matter? My eyelids flew open and I looked into the eyes of the woman next tome. There was sugar from the doughnut around her mouth and she wasstill chewing. No, I said, letting out my breath. I'm all right. You were moaning, it sounded like. And you kept moving your head backand forth. Must have been dreaming, I said as I rang for the stewardess. Whenshe came I told her I'd take some of that coffee now. No, nothing else,just coffee. I didn't tell her how much I needed it. I sat there clammywith sweat until she returned. Coffee never tasted so good. <doc-sep>All right, so I had stopped the bomb's timer. My mind raced ahead tothe landing. When they unloaded the luggage, the balance wheel wouldstart again. I wouldn't be able to stay with it, keeping it still.I considered telling the authorities as soon as we landed, or maybecalling in ahead, but wouldn't that just bring suspicion, questions.Maybe I could convince them I could stop a clock—but not before thebomb exploded. And then what? My secret would be out and my life wouldbe changed. I'd be a man not to be trusted, a prying man, a manliterally with gimlet eyes. Mountain crags jutted through the clouds. We were in the range north ofthe city. Here and there were clear spots and I could see roads below,but there were also clouds far above us. It was very beautiful, but itwas also very bumpy, and we started to slip and slide. To my horror I found that the balance wheel was rocking again. Closingmy eyes and gritting my teeth, I forced my senses to the wheel, tuggingand pulling and shoving and pushing until it finally stopped. A jab in the shoulder. I jumped, startled. Your cup, my seat partner said, pointing. I looked down at the coffee cup I had crushed in my hands. Then Ilooked up into the eyes of the stewardess. I handed it to her. She tookit without a word and went away. Were you really asleep that time? Not really, I said. I was tempted to tell the woman I was subject tofits, but I didn't. It was only a few minutes to landing, but they became the longestminutes of my life as time after time I stopped the rocking wheel whenthe plane dipped and bumped to a landing. Leaving the apron with the other passengers, I tried to walk asunconcernedly as they through the exit gate. I would have liked walkingthrough the terminal and out the entrance and away, but I could not. Ihad my suitcase to get, for one thing. The damned bomb was the other.So I strolled out into the concourse again to look at the plane andwatch the baggagemen at work, transferring the luggage to two airfieldcarts. They weren't as careful as I would have been. It was impossible to tell from this distance just which bag containedthe bomb; I could hardly identify my own scarred suitcase. Theassortment of bags—a strange conglomeration of sizes and colors—waspacked in some places six deep, and it rolled toward the gate whereI was standing. I didn't know whether to stay or run, imagining thebalance wheel now happily rocking again. The load went past me down aramp to the front of the air terminal where the luggage was unloadedand placed in a long rack. I went with it. There was a flurry of ticket matching, hands grabbing for suitcases,and a general exodus on the part of my fellow passengers, too fast todetermine who had got the one with the bomb. Now all that was left wasthe attendant and I had two bags—my own battered veteran of years, anda fine new red overnight case, small enough to be the one. I lit a cigarette, reached out. Inside were a woman's things and—aclock. The escapement was clicking vigorously. I didn't moan this time. I just closed my eyes, stretched towardand grabbed the balance wheel I was getting to know like my own. Ientered into a union with it so strong that after I had reduced it toimmobility, it was like waking when I opened my eyes. <doc-sep>The baggage claim attendant was staring at me. For only a moment Istared back. Then I quickly reached for my baggage check and presentedit to him. His hand hovered over the handle of the little red bag and Iwas ready to yell at him. But then, matching numbers on the tags withhis eyes, his hand grasped the handle of my own suitcase and pushed ittoward me. Thanks, I said, taking it. I glanced ever so casually toward theremaining bag. One left over, eh? Yeah. He was so bored I was tempted to tell him what was in it. Buthe was eying me with a well-why-don't-you-get-along? look. I said, What happens if nobody claims it? Take it inside. Why? He was getting too curious. Oh, I just wondered, that's all. I stepped on my cigarette and walked toward the air terminal entranceand put my suitcase on the stone steps there. A redcap came hurryingover. Cab? I shook my head. Just waiting. Just waiting for somebody to pick up a bomb. I lit another cigarette and glanced now and then toward the baggageclaim area. The red bag was still there. All sorts of theories ranthrough my head as to why it should still be there, and none satisfiedme. I should not have been there, that much I knew; I should be with aman named Amos Magaffey on Sixth Street at ten o'clock, discussingsomething very mundane, the matter of a printing order. But what couldI do? If I left the airport, the attendant would eventually take thebag inside and there would be an explosion, and I wouldn't be able tolive with myself. No. I had to stay to keep the balance wheel stationary until—untilwhat? A man in tan gabardine, wearing a police cap and badge, walked out ofthe entrance to stand on the stone steps beside me while he put on apair of dark glasses. A member of the airport police detail. I couldtell him. I could take him down to the little red bag and explain thewhole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my ownbusiness. But he moved on down the steps, nodded at the redcap, and startedacross the street to the parking area. I could have called to him,Hey, officer, let me tell you about a bomb in a little red bag. ButI didn't. I didn't because I caught a movement at the baggage claimcounter out of the side of my eye. The attendant had picked up the bag and was walking with it up the rampto the rear of the air terminal. Picking up my own suitcase, I wentinside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bagon the scales at the airline desk and say something to the clerk. Theclerk nodded and moved the bag to the rear room. I could visualize the balance wheel once again rocking like crazy. Howmany minutes—or seconds—were left? I was sweating when I moved to thecounter, and it wasn't because of the sunshine I'd been soaking in. Ihad to get as close to the bag as I could if I was going to stop theclock again. Can I help you? the clerk asked. No. I'm waiting for someone. I turned my back to him, put down my suitcase, leaned against thecounter and reached out for the wheel. I found I could reach thedevice, but it was far away. When I tried to dampen it, the wheelescaped my grasp. Do you have my suitcase? I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The blonde in the plane stoodthere looking very fresh and bright and unconcerned. In her right handshe had a green baggage claim check. The clerk took it, nodded, and in a moment brought out the overnightcase and set it on the scales. The girl thanked him, picked it up,glanced at me indifferently, and then started for the entrance with it. Just a moment, I found myself saying, grabbing my bag and hurryingafter her. <doc-sep>At her side and a little ahead of her, I said, Listen to me. She looked annoyed and increased her stride toward the door. It's a matter of life or death, I said. I wanted to wrest the bagfrom her and hurl it out through the doorway into the street, but Irestrained myself. She stopped and stared. I noticed a short, fat man in a rumpledsuitcoat and unpressed pants staring, too. Ignoring him, I said,Please put the bag down. Over there. I indicated a spot beside atelephone booth where it would be out of the way. She didn't move. She just said, Why? For God's sake! I took the case. She offered no resistance. I put herbag and mine next to the booth. When I turned around she was standingthere looking at me as if I had gone out of my mind. Her eyes were blueand brown-flecked, very pretty eyes, and my thought at the moment was,I'm glad the bomb didn't go off; these eyes wouldn't be looking at meor anything else right now if it had. I've got to talk to you. It's very important. The girl said, Why? I was beginning to think it was the only word sheknew. At the same time I was wondering why anyone would want to killsomeone so lovely. I'll explain in a moment. Please stand right here while I make atelephone call. I moved toward the phone booth, paused and said, Anddon't ask me why. She gave me a speculative look. I must not have seemed a complete idiot because she said, All right,but— I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door,pretended to drop a coin and dial a number. But all the time I was inthere, I was reaching out through the glass for the clock. At thisrange it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel. Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet. Now will you please tell me what this is all about? she said stiffly. Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain. She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followedthe short, fat man into the coffee shop. Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensoryability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, andhow I had discovered what was in her overnight bag. During the telling, her untouched coffee grew a skin, her face grewpale, her eyes grew less curious and more troubled. There were tearsthere when I finished. I asked her who put the bomb in her bag. Joe did, she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more butstaring vacantly across the room. Joe put it there. Behind her eyesshe was reliving some recent scene. Who is Joe? My husband. I thought she was going to really bawl, but she gotcontrol again. This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit mysister. Her smile was bleak. I see now why he wanted to put in thosebooks. I'd finished packing and was in the bathroom. He said he'd putin some books we'd both finished reading—for my sister. That's when hemust have put the—put it in there. I said gently, Why would he want to do a thing like that? I don't know. She shook her head. I just don't know. And she wasclose to bawling again. Then she recovered and said, I'm not sure Iwant to know. I admired her for saying it. Joe must have been crazy. It's all right now? she asked. I nodded. As long as we don't move it. I told her I didn't know how much more time there was, that I'd beenthinking it over and that the only way out seemed to be to tell theairport policeman. After I explained it to her, the girl—she said hername was Julia Claremont—agreed to tell him she thought there was abomb in her bag, that she had noticed a ticking and had become worriedbecause she knew she hadn't packed a clock. It wasn't good, but itwould have to do. We've got to get it deactivated, I said, watching the fat man pay forhis coffee and leave. The sooner the better. <doc-sep>I finished my coffee in one gulp and went to pay the bill with her.I asked her why she didn't claim the bag at the same time the otherpeople had. She said she had called her sister and the phone was busyfor a long while. She was supposed to meet me, and when she wasn't here, I got worried.She said she isn't feeling well and asked me to take a cab. She smileda little. It was a bright, cheery thing. I had the feeling it was allfor me. That's where I was going when you caught up with me. It had become a very nice day. But the bottom dropped out of it againwhen we reached the lobby. The two bags weren't there. I ran to the entrance and nearly collided with the redcap. See anybody go out of here with a little red bag and an old batteredsuitcase? Bag? Suitcase? he mumbled. Then he became excited. Why, a man juststepped out of here— He turned to look down the street. That's him. The dumpy man I'd seen was walking off; Julia's bag in his right hand,mine in his left. He seemed in no hurry. Hey! I shouted, starting toward him. The man turned, took one look at me, and started to run. He cameabreast an old gray, mud-spattered coupe, ran around, opened the doorand threw both bags into the rear seat as he got in. The car was a hundred feet away and gathering speed by the time Ireached where it had been parked. I watched it for a moment, thenwalked back to the entranceway where Julia was standing with theredcap, who said, That man steal them suitcases? That he did, I said. Just then the airport policeman started across the street from theparking lot. Redcap said, Better tell him about it. The policeman was sympathetic and concerned. He said, We'd better getover to the office. But we never left the spot because an explosion some blocks distantshattered the air. Julia's hand grasped my arm. Hard. Jets, the redcap said, eying the sky. I don't know, the policeman said. Didn't sound much like a jet tome. We stood there. I could visualize the wreckage of an old gray coupein the middle of a street, but I couldn't visualize the driver. Thatwas all right. I didn't want to see him. I didn't know what Julia wasthinking. She said, About those bags, and looked at me. The officer said, Yes, miss? I—I don't care about mine. I didn't have much of anything in it. I feel the same way, I said. Would it be all right if we didn'tbother to report it? Well, the policeman said, I can't make you report it. I'd rather not then, Julia said. She turned to me. I'd like someair. Can't we walk a little? Sure, I said. We started down the street, her arm in mine, as the air began to fillwith the distant sounds of sirens. <doc-sep></s>

The protagonist’s relationship with authority figures - like the airport policeman in this story - is a double edged sword. On one hand, it is figures like the policeman who are the right figure to report his suspicions towards. They are the ones equipped with the knowledge and resources on how to deal with the bomb in the little red bag. More importantly, informing them is the right thing to do and would save the lives of everyone else at the airport. On the other hand, however, we can see that the protagonist has revealed that authority figures in the past often choose to cast suspicion upon him rather than appreciate the usefulness of the knowledge that comes about his ability. If the protagonist were to approach the policeman in a suspicious manner or reveal too much information about his know-how of the bomb, it is likely that they will suspect him to be the culprit and probe him on something he is unable to explain, and hence arrest him. The protagonist has to carefully consider the implications of either decision and try to optimize both the safety of others around him and his own. The protagonist chooses to inform the policeman of a suspicious baggage situation through the luggage’s owner, Julia Clarmeont, which would deflect any suspicion on himself. However, the bomb detonates before they are able to follow through with it.

<s> The Sense of Wonder By MILTON LESSER Illustrated by HARRY ROSENBAUM [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] When nobody aboard ship remembers where it's going, how can they tell when it has arrived? Every day for a week now, Rikud had come to the viewport to watchthe great changeless sweep of space. He could not quite explain thefeelings within him; they were so alien, so unnatural. But ever sincethe engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone,from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of hislife, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings hadgrown. If anyone else had noticed the change, he failed to mention it. Thisdisturbed Rikud, although he could not tell why. And, because he hadrealized this odd difference in himself, he kept it locked up insidehim. Today, space looked somehow different. The stars—it was a meaninglessconcept to Rikud, but that was what everyone called the brightpinpoints of light on the black backdrop in the viewport—were notapparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Instead,there was more of the blackness, and one very bright star set apartby itself in the middle of the viewport. If he had understood the term, Rikud would have told himself this wasodd. His head ached with the half-born thought. It was—it was—whatwas it? Someone was clomping up the companionway behind Rikud. He turned andgreeted gray-haired old Chuls. In five more years, the older man chided, you'll be ready to sirechildren. And all you can do in the meantime is gaze out at the stars. Rikud knew he should be exercising now, or bathing in the rays of thehealth-lamps. It had never occurred to him that he didn't feel like it;he just didn't, without comprehending. Chuls' reminder fostered uneasiness. Often Rikud had dreamed of thetime he would be thirty and a father. Whom would the Calculator selectas his mate? The first time this idea had occurred to him, Rikudignored it. But it came again, and each time it left him with a feelinghe could not explain. Why should he think thoughts that no other manhad? Why should he think he was thinking such thoughts, when it alwaysembroiled him in a hopeless, infinite confusion that left him with aheadache? Chuls said, It is time for my bath in the health-rays. I saw you hereand knew it was your time, too.... His voice trailed off. Rikud knew that something which he could notexplain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it haddeparted almost before Chuls knew of its existence. I'll go with you, Rikud told him. <doc-sep>A hardly perceptible purple glow pervaded the air in the room of thehealth-rays. Perhaps two score men lay about, naked, under the raytubes. Chuls stripped himself and selected the space under a vacanttube. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watchthe one new bright star. He had the distinct notion it was growinglarger every moment. He turned to go, but the door clicked shut and ametallic voice said. Fifteen minutes under the tubes, please. Rikud muttered to himself and undressed. The world had begun to annoyhim. Now why shouldn't a man be permitted to do what he wanted, whenhe wanted to do it? There was a strange thought, and Rikud's brainwhirled once more down the tortuous course of half-formed questions andunsatisfactory answers. He had even wondered what it was like to get hurt. No one ever gothurt. Once, here in this same ray room, he had had the impulse to hurlhimself head-first against the wall, just to see what would happen.But something soft had cushioned the impact—something which had comeinto being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-beingagain, something which was as impalpable as air. Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no realauthority to stop him. This puzzled him, because somehow he felt thatthere should have been authority. A long time ago the reading machinein the library had told him of the elders—a meaningless term—who hadgoverned the world. They told you to do something and you did it, butthat was silly, because now no one told you to do anything. You onlylistened to the buzzer. And Rikud could remember the rest of what the reading machine had said.There had been a revolt—again a term without any real meaning, a termthat could have no reality outside of the reading machine—and theelders were overthrown. Here Rikud had been lost utterly. The peoplehad decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, andthat it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They wereborn and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like littlecogs in a great machine. Much of this Rikud could not understand, buthe knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with thepeople against the elders, and it said the people had won. Now in the health room, Rikud felt a warmth in the rays. Grudgingly, hehad to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. He could see thelook of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down uponhim, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generationsbefore Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge ofmedicine. But when, in another ten years, Chuls would perish of oldage, the rays would no longer suffice. Nothing would, for Chuls. Rikudoften thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future,not without a sense of alarm. Yet old Chuls seemed heedless, with onlya decade to go. Under the tube at Rikud's left lay Crifer. The man was short and heavythrough the shoulders and chest, and he had a lame foot. Every timeRikud looked at that foot, it was with a sense of satisfaction. True,this was the only case of its kind, the exception to the rule, but itproved the world was not perfect. Rikud was guiltily glad when he sawCrifer limp. But, if anyone else saw it, he never said a word. Not even Crifer. <doc-sep>Now Crifer said, I've been reading again, Rikud. Yes? Almost no one read any more, and the library was heavy with thesmell of dust. Reading represented initiative on the part of Crifer; itmeant that, in the two unoccupied hours before sleep, he went to thelibrary and listened to the reading machine. Everyone else simply satabout and talked. That was the custom. Everyone did it. But if he wasn't reading himself, Rikud usually went to sleep. All thepeople ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and itwas always the same. Yes, said Crifer. I found a book about the stars. They're alsocalled astronomy, I think. This was a new thought to Rikud, and he propped his head up on oneelbow. What did you find out? That's about all. They're just called astronomy, I think. Well, where's the book? Rikud would read it tomorrow. I left it in the library. You can find several of them under'astronomy,' with a cross-reference under 'stars.' They're synonymousterms. You know, Rikud said, sitting up now, the stars in the viewport arechanging. Changing? Crifer questioned the fuzzy concept as much as hequestioned what it might mean in this particular case. Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than theothers. Astronomy says some stars are variable, Crifer offered, but Rikudknew his lame-footed companion understood the word no better than hedid. Over on Rikud's right, Chuls began to dress. Variability, he toldthem, is a contradictory term. Nothing is variable. It can't be. I'm only saying what I read in the book, Crifer protested mildly. Well, it's wrong. Variability and change are two words withoutmeaning. People grow old, Rikud suggested. A buzzer signified that his fifteen minutes under the rays were up, andChuls said, It's almost time for me to eat. Rikud frowned. Chuls hadn't even seen the connection between the twoconcepts, yet it was so clear. Or was it? He had had it a moment ago,but now it faded, and change and old were just two words. His own buzzer sounded a moment later, and it was with a strangefeeling of elation that he dressed and made his way back to theviewport. When he passed the door which led to the women's half of theworld, however, he paused. He wanted to open that door and see a woman.He had been told about them and he had seen pictures, and he dimlyremembered his childhood among women. But his feelings had changed;this was different. Again there were inexplicable feelings—strangechannelings of Rikud's energy in new and confusing directions. He shrugged and reserved the thought for later. He wanted to see thestars again. <doc-sep>The view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulsesleap with excitement. All the stars were paler now than before, andwhere Rikud had seen the one bright central star, he now saw a globe oflight, white with a tinge of blue in it, and so bright that it hurt hiseyes to look. Yes, hurt! Rikud looked and looked until his eyes teared and he had toturn away. Here was an unknown factor which the perfect world failedto control. But how could a star change into a blinking blue-whiteglobe—if, indeed, that was the star Rikud had seen earlier? Therewas that word change again. Didn't it have something to do with age?Rikud couldn't remember, and he suddenly wished he could read Crifer'sbook on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Except that it wasvariable, which was like change, being tied up somehow with age. Presently Rikud became aware that his eyes were not tearing any longer,and he turned to look at the viewport. What he saw now was so new thathe couldn't at first accept it. Instead, he blinked and rubbed hiseyes, sure that the ball of blue-white fire somehow had damaged them.But the new view persisted. Of stars there were few, and of the blackness, almost nothing. Gone,too, was the burning globe. Something loomed there in the port, so hugethat it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big andround, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikudhad no name. A few moments more, and Rikud no longer could see the sphere. A sectionof it had expanded outward and assumed the rectangular shape of theviewport, and its size as well. It seemed neatly sheered down themiddle, so that on one side Rikud saw an expanse of brown and green,and on the other, blue. Startled, Rikud leaped back. The sullen roar in the rear of the worldhad ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regularintervals by a sharp booming. Change— Won't you eat, Rikud? Chuls called from somewhere down below. Damn the man, Rikud thought. Then aloud: Yes, I'll eat. Later. It's time.... Chuls' voice trailed off again, impotently. But Rikud forgot the old man completely. A new idea occurred to him,and for a while he struggled with it. What he saw—what he had alwaysseen, except that now there was the added factor of change—perhaps didnot exist in the viewport. Maybe it existed through the viewport. That was maddening. Rikud turned again to the port, where he could seenothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, moreconfusing than ever. Chuls, he called, remembering, come here. I am here, said a voice at his elbow. Rikud whirled on the little figure and pointed to the swirling cloud ofvapor. What do you see? Chuls looked. The viewport, of course. What else? Else? Nothing. Anger welled up inside Rikud. All right, he said, listen. What doyou hear? Broom, brroom, brrroom! Chuls imitated the intermittent blasting ofthe engines. I'm hungry, Rikud. The old man turned and strode off down the corridor toward the diningroom, and Rikud was glad to be alone once more. <doc-sep>Now the vapor had departed, except for a few tenuous whisps. For amoment Rikud thought he could see the gardens rearward in the world.But that was silly. What were the gardens doing in the viewport? Andbesides, Rikud had the distinct feeling that here was something farvaster than the gardens, although all of it existed in the viewportwhich was no wider than the length of his body. The gardens, moreover,did not jump and dance before his eyes the way the viewport gardensdid. Nor did they spin. Nor did the trees grow larger with every jolt. Rikud sat down hard. He blinked. The world had come to rest on the garden of the viewport. <doc-sep>For a whole week that view did not change, and Rikud had come to acceptit as fact. There—through the viewport and in it—was a garden. Agarden larger than the entire world, a garden of plants which Rikud hadnever seen before, although he had always liked to stroll through theworld's garden and he had come to know every plant well. Nevertheless,it was a garden. He told Chuls, but Chuls had responded, It is the viewport. Crifer, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. It looks like the garden,he admitted to Rikud. But why should the garden be in the viewport? Somehow, Rikud knew this question for a healthy sign. But he couldnot tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in theviewport could mean only one thing. The world had been walking—theword seemed all wrong to Rikud, but he could think of no other, unlessit were running. The world had been walking somewhere. That somewherewas the garden and the world had arrived. It is an old picture of the garden, Chuls suggested, and the plantsare different. Then they've changed? No, merely different. Well, what about the viewport? It changed. Where are the stars?Where are they, Chuls, if it did not change? The stars come out at night. So there is a change from day to night! I didn't say that. The stars simply shine at night. Why should theyshine during the day when the world wants them to shine only at night? Once they shone all the time. Naturally, said Crifer, becoming interested. They are variable. <doc-sep>Rikud regretted that he never had had the chance to read that book onastronomy. He hadn't been reading too much lately. The voice of thereading machine had begun to bore him. He said, Well, variable or not,our whole perspective has changed. And when Chuls looked away in disinterest, Rikud became angry. If onlythe man would realize! If only anyone would realize! It all seemed soobvious. If he, Rikud, walked from one part of the world to another,it was with a purpose—to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in thehealth-rays. Now if the world had walked from—somewhere, through thevast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this alsowas purposeful. The world had arrived at the garden for a reason. Butif everyone lived as if the world still stood in blackness, how couldthey find the nature of that purpose? I will eat, Chuls said, breaking Rikud's revery. Damn the man, all he did was eat! Yet he did have initiative after a sort. He knew when to eat. Becausehe was hungry. And Rikud, too, was hungry. Differently. <doc-sep>He had long wondered about the door in the back of the library, andnow, as Crifer sat cross-legged on one of the dusty tables, readingmachine and book on astronomy or stars in his lap, Rikud approached thedoor. What's in here? he demanded. It's a door, I think, said Crifer. I know, but what's beyond it? Beyond it? Oh, you mean through the door. Yes. Well, Crifer scratched his head, I don't think anyone ever openedit. It's only a door. I will, said Rikud. You will what? Open it. Open the door and look inside. A long pause. Then, Can you do it? I think so. You can't, probably. How can anyone go where no one has been before?There's nothing. It just isn't. It's only a door, Rikud. No— Rikud began, but the words faded off into a sharp intake ofbreath. Rikud had turned the knob and pushed. The door opened silently,and Crifer said, Doors are variable, too, I think. Rikud saw a small room, perhaps half a dozen paces across, at the otherend of which was another door, just like the first. Halfway across,Rikud heard a voice not unlike that of the reading machine. He missed the beginning, but then: —therefore, permit no unauthorized persons to go through thisdoor. The machinery in the next room is your protection against therigors of space. A thousand years from now, journey's end, you mayhave discarded it for something better—who knows? But if you havenot, then here is your protection. As nearly as possible, this shipis a perfect, self-sustaining world. It is more than that: it ishuman-sustaining as well. Try to hurt yourself and the ship will notpermit it—within limits, of course. But you can damage the ship, andto avoid any possibility of that, no unauthorized persons are to bepermitted through this door— Rikud gave the voice up as hopeless. There were too many confusingwords. What in the world was an unauthorized person? More interestingthan that, however, was the second door. Would it lead to anothervoice? Rikud hoped that it wouldn't. When he opened the door a strange new noise filled his ears, a gentlehumming, punctuated by a throb-throb-throb which sounded not unlikethe booming of the engines last week, except that this new sound didn'tblast nearly so loudly against his eardrums. And what met Rikud'seyes—he blinked and looked again, but it was still there—cogs andgears and wheels and nameless things all strange and beautiful becausethey shone with a luster unfamiliar to him. Odd, Rikud said aloud. Then he thought, Now there's a good word, butno one quite seems to know its meaning. Odder still was the third door. Rikud suddenly thought there mightexist an endless succession of them, especially when the third oneopened on a bare tunnel which led to yet another door. Only this one was different. In it Rikud saw the viewport. But how? Theviewport stood on the other end of the world. It did seem smaller, and,although it looked out on the garden, Rikud sensed that the topographywas different. Then the garden extended even farther than he hadthought. It was endless, extending all the way to a ridge of mounds wayoff in the distance. And this door one could walk through, into the garden. Rikud put hishand on the door, all the while watching the garden through the newviewport. He began to turn the handle. Then he trembled. What would he do out in the garden? He couldn't go alone. He'd die of the strangeness. It was a sillythought; no one ever died of anything until he was a hundred. Rikudcouldn't fathom the rapid thumping of his heart. And Rikud's mouth feltdry; he wanted to swallow, but couldn't. Slowly, he took his hand off the door lever. He made his way backthrough the tunnel and then through the room of machinery and finallythrough the little room with the confusing voice to Crifer. By the time he reached the lame-footed man, Rikud was running. He didnot dare once to look back. He stood shaking at Crifer's side, andsweat covered him in a clammy film. He never wanted to look at thegarden again. Not when he knew there was a door through which he couldwalk and then might find himself in the garden. It was so big. <doc-sep>Three or four days passed before Rikud calmed himself enough totalk about his experience. When he did, only Crifer seemed at allinterested, yet the lame-footed man's mind was inadequate to cope withthe situation. He suggested that the viewport might also be variableand Rikud found himself wishing that his friend had never read thatbook on astronomy. Chuls did not believe Rikud at all. There are not that many doors inthe world, he said. The library has a door and there is a door to thewomen's quarters; in five years, the Calculator will send you throughthat. But there are no others. Chuls smiled an indulgent smile and Rikud came nearer to him. Now, bythe world, there are two other doors! Rikud began to shout, and everyone looked at him queerly. What are you doing that for? demanded Wilm, who was shorter even thanCrifer, but had no lame foot. Doing what? Speaking so loudly when Chuls, who is close, obviously has no troublehearing you. Maybe yelling will make him understand. Crifer hobbled about on his good foot, doing a meaningless little jig.Why don't we go see? he suggested. Then, confused, he frowned. Well, I won't go, Chuls replied. There's no reason to go. If Rikudhas been imagining things, why should I? I imagined nothing. I'll show you— You'll show me nothing because I won't go. Rikud grabbed Chuls' blouse with his big fist. Then, startled by whathe did, his hands began to tremble. But he held on, and he tugged atthe blouse. Stop that, said the older man, mildly. <doc-sep>Crifer hopped up and down. Look what Rikud's doing! I don't know whathe's doing, but look. He's holding Chuls' blouse. Stop that, repeated Chuls, his face reddening. Only if you'll go with me. Rikud was panting. Chuls tugged at his wrist. By this time a crowd had gathered. Some ofthem watched Crifer jump up and down, but most of them watched Rikudholding Chuls' blouse. I think I can do that, declared Wilm, clutching a fistful of Crifer'sshirt. Presently, the members of the crowd had pretty well paired off, eachpartner grabbing for his companion's blouse. They giggled and laughedand some began to hop up and down as Crifer had done. A buzzer sounded and automatically Rikud found himself releasing Chuls. Chuls said, forgetting the incident completely, Time to retire. In a moment, the room was cleared. Rikud stood alone. He cleared histhroat and listened to the sound, all by itself in the stillness. Whatwould have happened if they hadn't retired? But they always did thingspunctually like that, whenever the buzzer sounded. They ate with thebuzzer, bathed in the health-rays with it, slept with it. What would they do if the buzzer stopped buzzing? This frightened Rikud, although he didn't know why. He'd like it,though. Maybe then he could take them outside with him to the biggarden of the two viewports. And then he wouldn't be afraid because hecould huddle close to them and he wouldn't be alone. <doc-sep>Rikud heard the throbbing again as he stood in the room of themachinery. For a long time he watched the wheels and cogs and gearsspinning and humming. He watched for he knew not how long. And then hebegan to wonder. If he destroyed the wheels and the cogs and the gears,would the buzzer stop? It probably would, because, as Rikud saw it, hewas clearly an unauthorized person. He had heard the voice againupon entering the room. He found a metal rod, bright and shiny, three feet long and half aswide as his arm. He tugged at it and it came loose from the wires thatheld it in place. He hefted it carefully for a moment, and then heswung the bar into the mass of metal. Each time he heard a grinding,crashing sound. He looked as the gears and cogs and wheels crumbledunder his blows, shattered by the strength of his arm. Almost casually he strode about the room, but his blows were notcasual. Soon his easy strides had given way to frenzied running. Rikudsmashed everything in sight. When the lights winked out, he stopped. Anyway, by that time the roomwas a shambles of twisted, broken metal. He laughed, softly at first,but presently he was roaring, and the sound doubled and redoubled inhis ears because now the throbbing had stopped. He opened the door and ran through the little corridor to the smallerviewport. Outside he could see the stars, and, dimly, the terrainbeneath them. But everything was so dark that only the stars shoneclearly. All else was bathed in a shadow of unreality. Rikud never wanted to do anything more than he wanted to open thatdoor. But his hands trembled too much when he touched it, and once,when he pressed his face close against the viewport, there in thedarkness, something bright flashed briefly through the sky and was gone. Whimpering, he fled. <doc-sep>All around Rikud were darkness and hunger and thirst. The buzzer didnot sound because Rikud had silenced it forever. And no one went toeat or drink. Rikud himself had fumbled through the blackness and thewhimpering to the dining room, his tongue dry and swollen, but thesmooth belt that flowed with water and with savory dishes did not runany more. The machinery, Rikud realized, also was responsible for food. Chuls said, over and over, I'm hungry. We will eat and we will drink when the buzzer tells us, Wilm repliedconfidently. It won't any more, Rikud said. What won't? The buzzer will never sound again. I broke it. Crifer growled. I know. You shouldn't have done it. That was a badthing you did, Rikud. It was not bad. The world has moved through the blackness and thestars and now we should go outside to live in the big garden therebeyond the viewport. That's ridiculous, Chuls said. Even Crifer now was angry at Rikud. He broke the buzzer and no one caneat. I hate Rikud, I think. There was a lot of noise in the darkness, and someone else said, Ihate Rikud. Then everyone was saying it. Rikud was sad. Soon he would die, because no one would go outside withhim and he could not go outside alone. In five more years he would havehad a woman, too. He wondered if it was dark and hungry in the women'squarters. Did women eat? Perhaps they ate plants. Once, in the garden, Rikud had broken off afrond and tasted it. It had been bitter, but not unpleasant. Maybe theplants in the viewport would even be better. We will not be hungry if we go outside, he said. We can eat there. We can eat if the buzzer sounds, but it is broken, Chuls said dully. Crifer shrilled, Maybe it is only variable and will buzz again. No, Rikud assured him. It won't. Then you broke it and I hate you, said Crifer. We should break you,too, to show you how it is to be broken. We must go outside—through the viewport. Rikud listened to the oddgurgling sound his stomach made. A hand reached out in the darkness and grabbed at his head. He heardCrifer's voice. I have Rikud's head. The voice was nasty, hostile. Crifer, more than anyone, had been his friend. But now that he hadbroken the machinery, Crifer was his enemy, because Crifer came nearerto understanding the situation than anyone except Rikud. The hand reached out again, and it struck Rikud hard across the face.I hit him! I hit him! Other hands reached out, and Rikud stumbled. He fell and then someonewas on top of him, and he struggled. He rolled and was up again, andhe did not like the sound of the angry voices. Someone said, Let usdo to Rikud what he said he did to the machinery. Rikud ran. In thedarkness, his feet prodded many bodies. There were those who were tooweak to rise. Rikud, too, felt a strange light-headedness and a gnawinghurt in his stomach. But it didn't matter. He heard the angry voicesand the feet pounding behind him, and he wanted only to get away. It was dark and he was hungry and everyone who was strong enough to runwas chasing him, but every time he thought of the garden outside, andhow big it was, the darkness and the hunger and the people chasing himwere unimportant. It was so big that it would swallow him up completelyand positively. He became sickly giddy thinking about it. But if he didn't open the door and go into the garden outside, he woulddie because he had no food and no water and his stomach gurgled andgrumbled and hurt. And everyone was chasing him. He stumbled through the darkness and felt his way back to the library,through the inner door and into the room with the voice—but thevoice didn't speak this time—through its door and into the place ofmachinery. Behind him, he could hear the voices at the first door, andhe thought for a moment that no one would come after him. But he heardCrifer yell something, and then feet pounding in the passage. Rikud tripped over something and sprawled awkwardly across the floor.He felt a sharp hurt in his head, and when he reached up to touch itwith his hands there in the darkness, his fingers came away wet. He got up slowly and opened the next door. The voices behind him werecloser now. Light streamed in through the viewport. After the darkness,it frightened Rikud and it made his eyes smart, and he could hear thosebehind him retreating to a safe distance. But their voices were notfar away, and he knew they would come after him because they wanted tobreak him. Rikud looked out upon the garden and he trembled. Out there was life.The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster oflow mounds against the bright blue which roofed the many plants. Ifplants could live out there as they did within the world, then so couldpeople. Rikud and his people should . This was why the world had movedacross the darkness and the stars for all Rikud's lifetime and more.But he was afraid. He reached up and grasped the handle of the door and he saw that hisfingers were red with the wetness which had come from his hurt head.Slowly he slipped to the cool floor—how his head was burning!—and fora long time he lay there, thinking he would never rise again. Inside heheard the voices again, and soon a foot and then another pounded onthe metal of the passage. He heard Crifer's voice louder than the rest:There is Rikud on the floor! Tugging at the handle of the door, Rikud pulled himself upright.Something small and brown scurried across the other side of theviewport and Rikud imagined it turned to look at him with two hideousred eyes. Rikud screamed and hurtled back through the corridor, and his facewas so terrible in the light streaming in through the viewport thateveryone fled before him. He stumbled again in the place of themachinery, and down on his hands and knees he fondled the bits of metalwhich he could see in the dim light through the open door. Where's the buzzer? he sobbed. I must find the buzzer. Crifer's voice, from the darkness inside, said, You broke it. Youbroke it. And now we will break you— Rikud got up and ran. He reached the door again and then he slippeddown against it, exhausted. Behind him, the voices and the footstepscame, and soon he saw Crifer's head peer in through the passageway.Then there were others, and then they were walking toward him. His head whirled and the viewport seemed to swim in a haze. Could itbe variable, as Crifer had suggested? He wondered if the scurryingbrown thing waited somewhere, and nausea struck at the pit of hisstomach. But if the plants could live out there and the scurrying thingcould live and that was why the world had moved through the blackness,then so could he live out there, and Crifer and all the others.... So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. Andhis heart pounded hard and he felt the pulses leaping on either side ofhis neck. He stared out into the garden, and off into the distance, where theblue-white globe which might have been a star stood just above the rowof mounds. <doc-sep>Crifer was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the door, andsomeone was grabbing at his legs, trying to make him fall. He kickedout and the hands let go, and then he turned the handle and shoved theweight of his body with all his strength against the door. It opened and he stepped outside into the warmth. The air was fresh, fresher than any air Rikud had ever breathed. Hewalked around aimlessly, touching the plants and bending down to feelthe floor, and sometimes he looked at the blue-white globe on thehorizon. It was all very beautiful. Near the ship, water that did not come from a machine gurgled acrossthe land, and Rikud lay down and drank. It was cool and good, and whenhe got up, Crifer and Wilm were outside the world, and some of theothers followed. They stood around for a long time before going to thewater to drink. Rikud sat down and tore off a piece of a plant, munching on it. It wasgood. Crifer picked his head up, from the water, his chin wet. Even feelingsare variable. I don't hate you now, Rikud. Rikud smiled, staring at the ship. People are variable, too, Crifer.That is, if those creatures coming from the ship are people. They're women, said Crifer. They were strangely shaped in some ways, and yet in others completelyhuman, and their voices were high, like singing. Rikud found them oddlyexciting. He liked them. He liked the garden, for all its hugeness.With so many people, and especially now with women, he was not afraid. It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer,frightening doors and women by appointment only. Rikud felt at home. <doc-sep></s>

The story starts off with the main character, Rikud, watching space from a viewport that is located on what seems to be a spaceship. Rikud is part of a group of men that live on the spaceship under a strict set of unspoken rules. Rikud then connects with other characters named Chuls and Crifer while getting a bath of health-rays, an example of the high technology in the ship. After the stars in the viewport start changing, Rikud doubts the way of living that the men have taken. He starts to doubt the fact that they have a set span of years, and that they have to live separately from the women (even though he doesn't know what women are). When the view of the viewport changes to “gardens”, Rikud begins to question more and more, and ends up finding the machine room for the ship, as well as a control center that has another viewport. Unsuccessfully convincing the others to go outside with him, Rikud becomes enraged and breaks the machine room of the ship. After realizing that Rikud has messed up the buzzers that control the actions of the people, they begin to hurt Rikud and chase him through the ship. Rikud ends up opening the door that leads outside from the control room, and they discover a new world where they can live freely with the women.

<s> The Sense of Wonder By MILTON LESSER Illustrated by HARRY ROSENBAUM [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] When nobody aboard ship remembers where it's going, how can they tell when it has arrived? Every day for a week now, Rikud had come to the viewport to watchthe great changeless sweep of space. He could not quite explain thefeelings within him; they were so alien, so unnatural. But ever sincethe engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone,from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of hislife, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings hadgrown. If anyone else had noticed the change, he failed to mention it. Thisdisturbed Rikud, although he could not tell why. And, because he hadrealized this odd difference in himself, he kept it locked up insidehim. Today, space looked somehow different. The stars—it was a meaninglessconcept to Rikud, but that was what everyone called the brightpinpoints of light on the black backdrop in the viewport—were notapparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Instead,there was more of the blackness, and one very bright star set apartby itself in the middle of the viewport. If he had understood the term, Rikud would have told himself this wasodd. His head ached with the half-born thought. It was—it was—whatwas it? Someone was clomping up the companionway behind Rikud. He turned andgreeted gray-haired old Chuls. In five more years, the older man chided, you'll be ready to sirechildren. And all you can do in the meantime is gaze out at the stars. Rikud knew he should be exercising now, or bathing in the rays of thehealth-lamps. It had never occurred to him that he didn't feel like it;he just didn't, without comprehending. Chuls' reminder fostered uneasiness. Often Rikud had dreamed of thetime he would be thirty and a father. Whom would the Calculator selectas his mate? The first time this idea had occurred to him, Rikudignored it. But it came again, and each time it left him with a feelinghe could not explain. Why should he think thoughts that no other manhad? Why should he think he was thinking such thoughts, when it alwaysembroiled him in a hopeless, infinite confusion that left him with aheadache? Chuls said, It is time for my bath in the health-rays. I saw you hereand knew it was your time, too.... His voice trailed off. Rikud knew that something which he could notexplain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it haddeparted almost before Chuls knew of its existence. I'll go with you, Rikud told him. <doc-sep>A hardly perceptible purple glow pervaded the air in the room of thehealth-rays. Perhaps two score men lay about, naked, under the raytubes. Chuls stripped himself and selected the space under a vacanttube. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watchthe one new bright star. He had the distinct notion it was growinglarger every moment. He turned to go, but the door clicked shut and ametallic voice said. Fifteen minutes under the tubes, please. Rikud muttered to himself and undressed. The world had begun to annoyhim. Now why shouldn't a man be permitted to do what he wanted, whenhe wanted to do it? There was a strange thought, and Rikud's brainwhirled once more down the tortuous course of half-formed questions andunsatisfactory answers. He had even wondered what it was like to get hurt. No one ever gothurt. Once, here in this same ray room, he had had the impulse to hurlhimself head-first against the wall, just to see what would happen.But something soft had cushioned the impact—something which had comeinto being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-beingagain, something which was as impalpable as air. Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no realauthority to stop him. This puzzled him, because somehow he felt thatthere should have been authority. A long time ago the reading machinein the library had told him of the elders—a meaningless term—who hadgoverned the world. They told you to do something and you did it, butthat was silly, because now no one told you to do anything. You onlylistened to the buzzer. And Rikud could remember the rest of what the reading machine had said.There had been a revolt—again a term without any real meaning, a termthat could have no reality outside of the reading machine—and theelders were overthrown. Here Rikud had been lost utterly. The peoplehad decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, andthat it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They wereborn and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like littlecogs in a great machine. Much of this Rikud could not understand, buthe knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with thepeople against the elders, and it said the people had won. Now in the health room, Rikud felt a warmth in the rays. Grudgingly, hehad to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. He could see thelook of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down uponhim, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generationsbefore Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge ofmedicine. But when, in another ten years, Chuls would perish of oldage, the rays would no longer suffice. Nothing would, for Chuls. Rikudoften thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future,not without a sense of alarm. Yet old Chuls seemed heedless, with onlya decade to go. Under the tube at Rikud's left lay Crifer. The man was short and heavythrough the shoulders and chest, and he had a lame foot. Every timeRikud looked at that foot, it was with a sense of satisfaction. True,this was the only case of its kind, the exception to the rule, but itproved the world was not perfect. Rikud was guiltily glad when he sawCrifer limp. But, if anyone else saw it, he never said a word. Not even Crifer. <doc-sep>Now Crifer said, I've been reading again, Rikud. Yes? Almost no one read any more, and the library was heavy with thesmell of dust. Reading represented initiative on the part of Crifer; itmeant that, in the two unoccupied hours before sleep, he went to thelibrary and listened to the reading machine. Everyone else simply satabout and talked. That was the custom. Everyone did it. But if he wasn't reading himself, Rikud usually went to sleep. All thepeople ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and itwas always the same. Yes, said Crifer. I found a book about the stars. They're alsocalled astronomy, I think. This was a new thought to Rikud, and he propped his head up on oneelbow. What did you find out? That's about all. They're just called astronomy, I think. Well, where's the book? Rikud would read it tomorrow. I left it in the library. You can find several of them under'astronomy,' with a cross-reference under 'stars.' They're synonymousterms. You know, Rikud said, sitting up now, the stars in the viewport arechanging. Changing? Crifer questioned the fuzzy concept as much as hequestioned what it might mean in this particular case. Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than theothers. Astronomy says some stars are variable, Crifer offered, but Rikudknew his lame-footed companion understood the word no better than hedid. Over on Rikud's right, Chuls began to dress. Variability, he toldthem, is a contradictory term. Nothing is variable. It can't be. I'm only saying what I read in the book, Crifer protested mildly. Well, it's wrong. Variability and change are two words withoutmeaning. People grow old, Rikud suggested. A buzzer signified that his fifteen minutes under the rays were up, andChuls said, It's almost time for me to eat. Rikud frowned. Chuls hadn't even seen the connection between the twoconcepts, yet it was so clear. Or was it? He had had it a moment ago,but now it faded, and change and old were just two words. His own buzzer sounded a moment later, and it was with a strangefeeling of elation that he dressed and made his way back to theviewport. When he passed the door which led to the women's half of theworld, however, he paused. He wanted to open that door and see a woman.He had been told about them and he had seen pictures, and he dimlyremembered his childhood among women. But his feelings had changed;this was different. Again there were inexplicable feelings—strangechannelings of Rikud's energy in new and confusing directions. He shrugged and reserved the thought for later. He wanted to see thestars again. <doc-sep>The view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulsesleap with excitement. All the stars were paler now than before, andwhere Rikud had seen the one bright central star, he now saw a globe oflight, white with a tinge of blue in it, and so bright that it hurt hiseyes to look. Yes, hurt! Rikud looked and looked until his eyes teared and he had toturn away. Here was an unknown factor which the perfect world failedto control. But how could a star change into a blinking blue-whiteglobe—if, indeed, that was the star Rikud had seen earlier? Therewas that word change again. Didn't it have something to do with age?Rikud couldn't remember, and he suddenly wished he could read Crifer'sbook on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Except that it wasvariable, which was like change, being tied up somehow with age. Presently Rikud became aware that his eyes were not tearing any longer,and he turned to look at the viewport. What he saw now was so new thathe couldn't at first accept it. Instead, he blinked and rubbed hiseyes, sure that the ball of blue-white fire somehow had damaged them.But the new view persisted. Of stars there were few, and of the blackness, almost nothing. Gone,too, was the burning globe. Something loomed there in the port, so hugethat it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big andround, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikudhad no name. A few moments more, and Rikud no longer could see the sphere. A sectionof it had expanded outward and assumed the rectangular shape of theviewport, and its size as well. It seemed neatly sheered down themiddle, so that on one side Rikud saw an expanse of brown and green,and on the other, blue. Startled, Rikud leaped back. The sullen roar in the rear of the worldhad ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regularintervals by a sharp booming. Change— Won't you eat, Rikud? Chuls called from somewhere down below. Damn the man, Rikud thought. Then aloud: Yes, I'll eat. Later. It's time.... Chuls' voice trailed off again, impotently. But Rikud forgot the old man completely. A new idea occurred to him,and for a while he struggled with it. What he saw—what he had alwaysseen, except that now there was the added factor of change—perhaps didnot exist in the viewport. Maybe it existed through the viewport. That was maddening. Rikud turned again to the port, where he could seenothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, moreconfusing than ever. Chuls, he called, remembering, come here. I am here, said a voice at his elbow. Rikud whirled on the little figure and pointed to the swirling cloud ofvapor. What do you see? Chuls looked. The viewport, of course. What else? Else? Nothing. Anger welled up inside Rikud. All right, he said, listen. What doyou hear? Broom, brroom, brrroom! Chuls imitated the intermittent blasting ofthe engines. I'm hungry, Rikud. The old man turned and strode off down the corridor toward the diningroom, and Rikud was glad to be alone once more. <doc-sep>Now the vapor had departed, except for a few tenuous whisps. For amoment Rikud thought he could see the gardens rearward in the world.But that was silly. What were the gardens doing in the viewport? Andbesides, Rikud had the distinct feeling that here was something farvaster than the gardens, although all of it existed in the viewportwhich was no wider than the length of his body. The gardens, moreover,did not jump and dance before his eyes the way the viewport gardensdid. Nor did they spin. Nor did the trees grow larger with every jolt. Rikud sat down hard. He blinked. The world had come to rest on the garden of the viewport. <doc-sep>For a whole week that view did not change, and Rikud had come to acceptit as fact. There—through the viewport and in it—was a garden. Agarden larger than the entire world, a garden of plants which Rikud hadnever seen before, although he had always liked to stroll through theworld's garden and he had come to know every plant well. Nevertheless,it was a garden. He told Chuls, but Chuls had responded, It is the viewport. Crifer, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. It looks like the garden,he admitted to Rikud. But why should the garden be in the viewport? Somehow, Rikud knew this question for a healthy sign. But he couldnot tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in theviewport could mean only one thing. The world had been walking—theword seemed all wrong to Rikud, but he could think of no other, unlessit were running. The world had been walking somewhere. That somewherewas the garden and the world had arrived. It is an old picture of the garden, Chuls suggested, and the plantsare different. Then they've changed? No, merely different. Well, what about the viewport? It changed. Where are the stars?Where are they, Chuls, if it did not change? The stars come out at night. So there is a change from day to night! I didn't say that. The stars simply shine at night. Why should theyshine during the day when the world wants them to shine only at night? Once they shone all the time. Naturally, said Crifer, becoming interested. They are variable. <doc-sep>Rikud regretted that he never had had the chance to read that book onastronomy. He hadn't been reading too much lately. The voice of thereading machine had begun to bore him. He said, Well, variable or not,our whole perspective has changed. And when Chuls looked away in disinterest, Rikud became angry. If onlythe man would realize! If only anyone would realize! It all seemed soobvious. If he, Rikud, walked from one part of the world to another,it was with a purpose—to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in thehealth-rays. Now if the world had walked from—somewhere, through thevast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this alsowas purposeful. The world had arrived at the garden for a reason. Butif everyone lived as if the world still stood in blackness, how couldthey find the nature of that purpose? I will eat, Chuls said, breaking Rikud's revery. Damn the man, all he did was eat! Yet he did have initiative after a sort. He knew when to eat. Becausehe was hungry. And Rikud, too, was hungry. Differently. <doc-sep>He had long wondered about the door in the back of the library, andnow, as Crifer sat cross-legged on one of the dusty tables, readingmachine and book on astronomy or stars in his lap, Rikud approached thedoor. What's in here? he demanded. It's a door, I think, said Crifer. I know, but what's beyond it? Beyond it? Oh, you mean through the door. Yes. Well, Crifer scratched his head, I don't think anyone ever openedit. It's only a door. I will, said Rikud. You will what? Open it. Open the door and look inside. A long pause. Then, Can you do it? I think so. You can't, probably. How can anyone go where no one has been before?There's nothing. It just isn't. It's only a door, Rikud. No— Rikud began, but the words faded off into a sharp intake ofbreath. Rikud had turned the knob and pushed. The door opened silently,and Crifer said, Doors are variable, too, I think. Rikud saw a small room, perhaps half a dozen paces across, at the otherend of which was another door, just like the first. Halfway across,Rikud heard a voice not unlike that of the reading machine. He missed the beginning, but then: —therefore, permit no unauthorized persons to go through thisdoor. The machinery in the next room is your protection against therigors of space. A thousand years from now, journey's end, you mayhave discarded it for something better—who knows? But if you havenot, then here is your protection. As nearly as possible, this shipis a perfect, self-sustaining world. It is more than that: it ishuman-sustaining as well. Try to hurt yourself and the ship will notpermit it—within limits, of course. But you can damage the ship, andto avoid any possibility of that, no unauthorized persons are to bepermitted through this door— Rikud gave the voice up as hopeless. There were too many confusingwords. What in the world was an unauthorized person? More interestingthan that, however, was the second door. Would it lead to anothervoice? Rikud hoped that it wouldn't. When he opened the door a strange new noise filled his ears, a gentlehumming, punctuated by a throb-throb-throb which sounded not unlikethe booming of the engines last week, except that this new sound didn'tblast nearly so loudly against his eardrums. And what met Rikud'seyes—he blinked and looked again, but it was still there—cogs andgears and wheels and nameless things all strange and beautiful becausethey shone with a luster unfamiliar to him. Odd, Rikud said aloud. Then he thought, Now there's a good word, butno one quite seems to know its meaning. Odder still was the third door. Rikud suddenly thought there mightexist an endless succession of them, especially when the third oneopened on a bare tunnel which led to yet another door. Only this one was different. In it Rikud saw the viewport. But how? Theviewport stood on the other end of the world. It did seem smaller, and,although it looked out on the garden, Rikud sensed that the topographywas different. Then the garden extended even farther than he hadthought. It was endless, extending all the way to a ridge of mounds wayoff in the distance. And this door one could walk through, into the garden. Rikud put hishand on the door, all the while watching the garden through the newviewport. He began to turn the handle. Then he trembled. What would he do out in the garden? He couldn't go alone. He'd die of the strangeness. It was a sillythought; no one ever died of anything until he was a hundred. Rikudcouldn't fathom the rapid thumping of his heart. And Rikud's mouth feltdry; he wanted to swallow, but couldn't. Slowly, he took his hand off the door lever. He made his way backthrough the tunnel and then through the room of machinery and finallythrough the little room with the confusing voice to Crifer. By the time he reached the lame-footed man, Rikud was running. He didnot dare once to look back. He stood shaking at Crifer's side, andsweat covered him in a clammy film. He never wanted to look at thegarden again. Not when he knew there was a door through which he couldwalk and then might find himself in the garden. It was so big. <doc-sep>Three or four days passed before Rikud calmed himself enough totalk about his experience. When he did, only Crifer seemed at allinterested, yet the lame-footed man's mind was inadequate to cope withthe situation. He suggested that the viewport might also be variableand Rikud found himself wishing that his friend had never read thatbook on astronomy. Chuls did not believe Rikud at all. There are not that many doors inthe world, he said. The library has a door and there is a door to thewomen's quarters; in five years, the Calculator will send you throughthat. But there are no others. Chuls smiled an indulgent smile and Rikud came nearer to him. Now, bythe world, there are two other doors! Rikud began to shout, and everyone looked at him queerly. What are you doing that for? demanded Wilm, who was shorter even thanCrifer, but had no lame foot. Doing what? Speaking so loudly when Chuls, who is close, obviously has no troublehearing you. Maybe yelling will make him understand. Crifer hobbled about on his good foot, doing a meaningless little jig.Why don't we go see? he suggested. Then, confused, he frowned. Well, I won't go, Chuls replied. There's no reason to go. If Rikudhas been imagining things, why should I? I imagined nothing. I'll show you— You'll show me nothing because I won't go. Rikud grabbed Chuls' blouse with his big fist. Then, startled by whathe did, his hands began to tremble. But he held on, and he tugged atthe blouse. Stop that, said the older man, mildly. <doc-sep>Crifer hopped up and down. Look what Rikud's doing! I don't know whathe's doing, but look. He's holding Chuls' blouse. Stop that, repeated Chuls, his face reddening. Only if you'll go with me. Rikud was panting. Chuls tugged at his wrist. By this time a crowd had gathered. Some ofthem watched Crifer jump up and down, but most of them watched Rikudholding Chuls' blouse. I think I can do that, declared Wilm, clutching a fistful of Crifer'sshirt. Presently, the members of the crowd had pretty well paired off, eachpartner grabbing for his companion's blouse. They giggled and laughedand some began to hop up and down as Crifer had done. A buzzer sounded and automatically Rikud found himself releasing Chuls. Chuls said, forgetting the incident completely, Time to retire. In a moment, the room was cleared. Rikud stood alone. He cleared histhroat and listened to the sound, all by itself in the stillness. Whatwould have happened if they hadn't retired? But they always did thingspunctually like that, whenever the buzzer sounded. They ate with thebuzzer, bathed in the health-rays with it, slept with it. What would they do if the buzzer stopped buzzing? This frightened Rikud, although he didn't know why. He'd like it,though. Maybe then he could take them outside with him to the biggarden of the two viewports. And then he wouldn't be afraid because hecould huddle close to them and he wouldn't be alone. <doc-sep>Rikud heard the throbbing again as he stood in the room of themachinery. For a long time he watched the wheels and cogs and gearsspinning and humming. He watched for he knew not how long. And then hebegan to wonder. If he destroyed the wheels and the cogs and the gears,would the buzzer stop? It probably would, because, as Rikud saw it, hewas clearly an unauthorized person. He had heard the voice againupon entering the room. He found a metal rod, bright and shiny, three feet long and half aswide as his arm. He tugged at it and it came loose from the wires thatheld it in place. He hefted it carefully for a moment, and then heswung the bar into the mass of metal. Each time he heard a grinding,crashing sound. He looked as the gears and cogs and wheels crumbledunder his blows, shattered by the strength of his arm. Almost casually he strode about the room, but his blows were notcasual. Soon his easy strides had given way to frenzied running. Rikudsmashed everything in sight. When the lights winked out, he stopped. Anyway, by that time the roomwas a shambles of twisted, broken metal. He laughed, softly at first,but presently he was roaring, and the sound doubled and redoubled inhis ears because now the throbbing had stopped. He opened the door and ran through the little corridor to the smallerviewport. Outside he could see the stars, and, dimly, the terrainbeneath them. But everything was so dark that only the stars shoneclearly. All else was bathed in a shadow of unreality. Rikud never wanted to do anything more than he wanted to open thatdoor. But his hands trembled too much when he touched it, and once,when he pressed his face close against the viewport, there in thedarkness, something bright flashed briefly through the sky and was gone. Whimpering, he fled. <doc-sep>All around Rikud were darkness and hunger and thirst. The buzzer didnot sound because Rikud had silenced it forever. And no one went toeat or drink. Rikud himself had fumbled through the blackness and thewhimpering to the dining room, his tongue dry and swollen, but thesmooth belt that flowed with water and with savory dishes did not runany more. The machinery, Rikud realized, also was responsible for food. Chuls said, over and over, I'm hungry. We will eat and we will drink when the buzzer tells us, Wilm repliedconfidently. It won't any more, Rikud said. What won't? The buzzer will never sound again. I broke it. Crifer growled. I know. You shouldn't have done it. That was a badthing you did, Rikud. It was not bad. The world has moved through the blackness and thestars and now we should go outside to live in the big garden therebeyond the viewport. That's ridiculous, Chuls said. Even Crifer now was angry at Rikud. He broke the buzzer and no one caneat. I hate Rikud, I think. There was a lot of noise in the darkness, and someone else said, Ihate Rikud. Then everyone was saying it. Rikud was sad. Soon he would die, because no one would go outside withhim and he could not go outside alone. In five more years he would havehad a woman, too. He wondered if it was dark and hungry in the women'squarters. Did women eat? Perhaps they ate plants. Once, in the garden, Rikud had broken off afrond and tasted it. It had been bitter, but not unpleasant. Maybe theplants in the viewport would even be better. We will not be hungry if we go outside, he said. We can eat there. We can eat if the buzzer sounds, but it is broken, Chuls said dully. Crifer shrilled, Maybe it is only variable and will buzz again. No, Rikud assured him. It won't. Then you broke it and I hate you, said Crifer. We should break you,too, to show you how it is to be broken. We must go outside—through the viewport. Rikud listened to the oddgurgling sound his stomach made. A hand reached out in the darkness and grabbed at his head. He heardCrifer's voice. I have Rikud's head. The voice was nasty, hostile. Crifer, more than anyone, had been his friend. But now that he hadbroken the machinery, Crifer was his enemy, because Crifer came nearerto understanding the situation than anyone except Rikud. The hand reached out again, and it struck Rikud hard across the face.I hit him! I hit him! Other hands reached out, and Rikud stumbled. He fell and then someonewas on top of him, and he struggled. He rolled and was up again, andhe did not like the sound of the angry voices. Someone said, Let usdo to Rikud what he said he did to the machinery. Rikud ran. In thedarkness, his feet prodded many bodies. There were those who were tooweak to rise. Rikud, too, felt a strange light-headedness and a gnawinghurt in his stomach. But it didn't matter. He heard the angry voicesand the feet pounding behind him, and he wanted only to get away. It was dark and he was hungry and everyone who was strong enough to runwas chasing him, but every time he thought of the garden outside, andhow big it was, the darkness and the hunger and the people chasing himwere unimportant. It was so big that it would swallow him up completelyand positively. He became sickly giddy thinking about it. But if he didn't open the door and go into the garden outside, he woulddie because he had no food and no water and his stomach gurgled andgrumbled and hurt. And everyone was chasing him. He stumbled through the darkness and felt his way back to the library,through the inner door and into the room with the voice—but thevoice didn't speak this time—through its door and into the place ofmachinery. Behind him, he could hear the voices at the first door, andhe thought for a moment that no one would come after him. But he heardCrifer yell something, and then feet pounding in the passage. Rikud tripped over something and sprawled awkwardly across the floor.He felt a sharp hurt in his head, and when he reached up to touch itwith his hands there in the darkness, his fingers came away wet. He got up slowly and opened the next door. The voices behind him werecloser now. Light streamed in through the viewport. After the darkness,it frightened Rikud and it made his eyes smart, and he could hear thosebehind him retreating to a safe distance. But their voices were notfar away, and he knew they would come after him because they wanted tobreak him. Rikud looked out upon the garden and he trembled. Out there was life.The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster oflow mounds against the bright blue which roofed the many plants. Ifplants could live out there as they did within the world, then so couldpeople. Rikud and his people should . This was why the world had movedacross the darkness and the stars for all Rikud's lifetime and more.But he was afraid. He reached up and grasped the handle of the door and he saw that hisfingers were red with the wetness which had come from his hurt head.Slowly he slipped to the cool floor—how his head was burning!—and fora long time he lay there, thinking he would never rise again. Inside heheard the voices again, and soon a foot and then another pounded onthe metal of the passage. He heard Crifer's voice louder than the rest:There is Rikud on the floor! Tugging at the handle of the door, Rikud pulled himself upright.Something small and brown scurried across the other side of theviewport and Rikud imagined it turned to look at him with two hideousred eyes. Rikud screamed and hurtled back through the corridor, and his facewas so terrible in the light streaming in through the viewport thateveryone fled before him. He stumbled again in the place of themachinery, and down on his hands and knees he fondled the bits of metalwhich he could see in the dim light through the open door. Where's the buzzer? he sobbed. I must find the buzzer. Crifer's voice, from the darkness inside, said, You broke it. Youbroke it. And now we will break you— Rikud got up and ran. He reached the door again and then he slippeddown against it, exhausted. Behind him, the voices and the footstepscame, and soon he saw Crifer's head peer in through the passageway.Then there were others, and then they were walking toward him. His head whirled and the viewport seemed to swim in a haze. Could itbe variable, as Crifer had suggested? He wondered if the scurryingbrown thing waited somewhere, and nausea struck at the pit of hisstomach. But if the plants could live out there and the scurrying thingcould live and that was why the world had moved through the blackness,then so could he live out there, and Crifer and all the others.... So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. Andhis heart pounded hard and he felt the pulses leaping on either side ofhis neck. He stared out into the garden, and off into the distance, where theblue-white globe which might have been a star stood just above the rowof mounds. <doc-sep>Crifer was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the door, andsomeone was grabbing at his legs, trying to make him fall. He kickedout and the hands let go, and then he turned the handle and shoved theweight of his body with all his strength against the door. It opened and he stepped outside into the warmth. The air was fresh, fresher than any air Rikud had ever breathed. Hewalked around aimlessly, touching the plants and bending down to feelthe floor, and sometimes he looked at the blue-white globe on thehorizon. It was all very beautiful. Near the ship, water that did not come from a machine gurgled acrossthe land, and Rikud lay down and drank. It was cool and good, and whenhe got up, Crifer and Wilm were outside the world, and some of theothers followed. They stood around for a long time before going to thewater to drink. Rikud sat down and tore off a piece of a plant, munching on it. It wasgood. Crifer picked his head up, from the water, his chin wet. Even feelingsare variable. I don't hate you now, Rikud. Rikud smiled, staring at the ship. People are variable, too, Crifer.That is, if those creatures coming from the ship are people. They're women, said Crifer. They were strangely shaped in some ways, and yet in others completelyhuman, and their voices were high, like singing. Rikud found them oddlyexciting. He liked them. He liked the garden, for all its hugeness.With so many people, and especially now with women, he was not afraid. It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer,frightening doors and women by appointment only. Rikud felt at home. <doc-sep></s>

The story is located in space, inside of a large spaceship. The ship has a viewport that looks outside of the ship, and is where Rikad spends most of his time. The ship also seems to have high tech, showcased in the med room. Here is where the men go to stay healthy by being showered under health rays. The ship also has a library, which is where Crifer and Rikud read about astronomy and stars, and where Rikud started to doubt more and more about their lifestyle. The ship then arrives at a planet, full of lush greenery, making Rikud more and more suspicious of the changing view. After exploring the back of the room Rikud finds a series of rooms. These rooms include both a machinery room that is full of gears and tubes as well as a control room that has a smaller viewport. The story ends in the new planet, after Rikud opened the door that led outside, knowing that they would be able to survive after he compared the new planet to the gardens that the ship had.

<s> The Sense of Wonder By MILTON LESSER Illustrated by HARRY ROSENBAUM [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] When nobody aboard ship remembers where it's going, how can they tell when it has arrived? Every day for a week now, Rikud had come to the viewport to watchthe great changeless sweep of space. He could not quite explain thefeelings within him; they were so alien, so unnatural. But ever sincethe engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone,from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of hislife, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings hadgrown. If anyone else had noticed the change, he failed to mention it. Thisdisturbed Rikud, although he could not tell why. And, because he hadrealized this odd difference in himself, he kept it locked up insidehim. Today, space looked somehow different. The stars—it was a meaninglessconcept to Rikud, but that was what everyone called the brightpinpoints of light on the black backdrop in the viewport—were notapparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Instead,there was more of the blackness, and one very bright star set apartby itself in the middle of the viewport. If he had understood the term, Rikud would have told himself this wasodd. His head ached with the half-born thought. It was—it was—whatwas it? Someone was clomping up the companionway behind Rikud. He turned andgreeted gray-haired old Chuls. In five more years, the older man chided, you'll be ready to sirechildren. And all you can do in the meantime is gaze out at the stars. Rikud knew he should be exercising now, or bathing in the rays of thehealth-lamps. It had never occurred to him that he didn't feel like it;he just didn't, without comprehending. Chuls' reminder fostered uneasiness. Often Rikud had dreamed of thetime he would be thirty and a father. Whom would the Calculator selectas his mate? The first time this idea had occurred to him, Rikudignored it. But it came again, and each time it left him with a feelinghe could not explain. Why should he think thoughts that no other manhad? Why should he think he was thinking such thoughts, when it alwaysembroiled him in a hopeless, infinite confusion that left him with aheadache? Chuls said, It is time for my bath in the health-rays. I saw you hereand knew it was your time, too.... His voice trailed off. Rikud knew that something which he could notexplain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it haddeparted almost before Chuls knew of its existence. I'll go with you, Rikud told him. <doc-sep>A hardly perceptible purple glow pervaded the air in the room of thehealth-rays. Perhaps two score men lay about, naked, under the raytubes. Chuls stripped himself and selected the space under a vacanttube. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watchthe one new bright star. He had the distinct notion it was growinglarger every moment. He turned to go, but the door clicked shut and ametallic voice said. Fifteen minutes under the tubes, please. Rikud muttered to himself and undressed. The world had begun to annoyhim. Now why shouldn't a man be permitted to do what he wanted, whenhe wanted to do it? There was a strange thought, and Rikud's brainwhirled once more down the tortuous course of half-formed questions andunsatisfactory answers. He had even wondered what it was like to get hurt. No one ever gothurt. Once, here in this same ray room, he had had the impulse to hurlhimself head-first against the wall, just to see what would happen.But something soft had cushioned the impact—something which had comeinto being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-beingagain, something which was as impalpable as air. Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no realauthority to stop him. This puzzled him, because somehow he felt thatthere should have been authority. A long time ago the reading machinein the library had told him of the elders—a meaningless term—who hadgoverned the world. They told you to do something and you did it, butthat was silly, because now no one told you to do anything. You onlylistened to the buzzer. And Rikud could remember the rest of what the reading machine had said.There had been a revolt—again a term without any real meaning, a termthat could have no reality outside of the reading machine—and theelders were overthrown. Here Rikud had been lost utterly. The peoplehad decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, andthat it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They wereborn and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like littlecogs in a great machine. Much of this Rikud could not understand, buthe knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with thepeople against the elders, and it said the people had won. Now in the health room, Rikud felt a warmth in the rays. Grudgingly, hehad to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. He could see thelook of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down uponhim, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generationsbefore Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge ofmedicine. But when, in another ten years, Chuls would perish of oldage, the rays would no longer suffice. Nothing would, for Chuls. Rikudoften thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future,not without a sense of alarm. Yet old Chuls seemed heedless, with onlya decade to go. Under the tube at Rikud's left lay Crifer. The man was short and heavythrough the shoulders and chest, and he had a lame foot. Every timeRikud looked at that foot, it was with a sense of satisfaction. True,this was the only case of its kind, the exception to the rule, but itproved the world was not perfect. Rikud was guiltily glad when he sawCrifer limp. But, if anyone else saw it, he never said a word. Not even Crifer. <doc-sep>Now Crifer said, I've been reading again, Rikud. Yes? Almost no one read any more, and the library was heavy with thesmell of dust. Reading represented initiative on the part of Crifer; itmeant that, in the two unoccupied hours before sleep, he went to thelibrary and listened to the reading machine. Everyone else simply satabout and talked. That was the custom. Everyone did it. But if he wasn't reading himself, Rikud usually went to sleep. All thepeople ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and itwas always the same. Yes, said Crifer. I found a book about the stars. They're alsocalled astronomy, I think. This was a new thought to Rikud, and he propped his head up on oneelbow. What did you find out? That's about all. They're just called astronomy, I think. Well, where's the book? Rikud would read it tomorrow. I left it in the library. You can find several of them under'astronomy,' with a cross-reference under 'stars.' They're synonymousterms. You know, Rikud said, sitting up now, the stars in the viewport arechanging. Changing? Crifer questioned the fuzzy concept as much as hequestioned what it might mean in this particular case. Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than theothers. Astronomy says some stars are variable, Crifer offered, but Rikudknew his lame-footed companion understood the word no better than hedid. Over on Rikud's right, Chuls began to dress. Variability, he toldthem, is a contradictory term. Nothing is variable. It can't be. I'm only saying what I read in the book, Crifer protested mildly. Well, it's wrong. Variability and change are two words withoutmeaning. People grow old, Rikud suggested. A buzzer signified that his fifteen minutes under the rays were up, andChuls said, It's almost time for me to eat. Rikud frowned. Chuls hadn't even seen the connection between the twoconcepts, yet it was so clear. Or was it? He had had it a moment ago,but now it faded, and change and old were just two words. His own buzzer sounded a moment later, and it was with a strangefeeling of elation that he dressed and made his way back to theviewport. When he passed the door which led to the women's half of theworld, however, he paused. He wanted to open that door and see a woman.He had been told about them and he had seen pictures, and he dimlyremembered his childhood among women. But his feelings had changed;this was different. Again there were inexplicable feelings—strangechannelings of Rikud's energy in new and confusing directions. He shrugged and reserved the thought for later. He wanted to see thestars again. <doc-sep>The view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulsesleap with excitement. All the stars were paler now than before, andwhere Rikud had seen the one bright central star, he now saw a globe oflight, white with a tinge of blue in it, and so bright that it hurt hiseyes to look. Yes, hurt! Rikud looked and looked until his eyes teared and he had toturn away. Here was an unknown factor which the perfect world failedto control. But how could a star change into a blinking blue-whiteglobe—if, indeed, that was the star Rikud had seen earlier? Therewas that word change again. Didn't it have something to do with age?Rikud couldn't remember, and he suddenly wished he could read Crifer'sbook on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Except that it wasvariable, which was like change, being tied up somehow with age. Presently Rikud became aware that his eyes were not tearing any longer,and he turned to look at the viewport. What he saw now was so new thathe couldn't at first accept it. Instead, he blinked and rubbed hiseyes, sure that the ball of blue-white fire somehow had damaged them.But the new view persisted. Of stars there were few, and of the blackness, almost nothing. Gone,too, was the burning globe. Something loomed there in the port, so hugethat it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big andround, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikudhad no name. A few moments more, and Rikud no longer could see the sphere. A sectionof it had expanded outward and assumed the rectangular shape of theviewport, and its size as well. It seemed neatly sheered down themiddle, so that on one side Rikud saw an expanse of brown and green,and on the other, blue. Startled, Rikud leaped back. The sullen roar in the rear of the worldhad ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regularintervals by a sharp booming. Change— Won't you eat, Rikud? Chuls called from somewhere down below. Damn the man, Rikud thought. Then aloud: Yes, I'll eat. Later. It's time.... Chuls' voice trailed off again, impotently. But Rikud forgot the old man completely. A new idea occurred to him,and for a while he struggled with it. What he saw—what he had alwaysseen, except that now there was the added factor of change—perhaps didnot exist in the viewport. Maybe it existed through the viewport. That was maddening. Rikud turned again to the port, where he could seenothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, moreconfusing than ever. Chuls, he called, remembering, come here. I am here, said a voice at his elbow. Rikud whirled on the little figure and pointed to the swirling cloud ofvapor. What do you see? Chuls looked. The viewport, of course. What else? Else? Nothing. Anger welled up inside Rikud. All right, he said, listen. What doyou hear? Broom, brroom, brrroom! Chuls imitated the intermittent blasting ofthe engines. I'm hungry, Rikud. The old man turned and strode off down the corridor toward the diningroom, and Rikud was glad to be alone once more. <doc-sep>Now the vapor had departed, except for a few tenuous whisps. For amoment Rikud thought he could see the gardens rearward in the world.But that was silly. What were the gardens doing in the viewport? Andbesides, Rikud had the distinct feeling that here was something farvaster than the gardens, although all of it existed in the viewportwhich was no wider than the length of his body. The gardens, moreover,did not jump and dance before his eyes the way the viewport gardensdid. Nor did they spin. Nor did the trees grow larger with every jolt. Rikud sat down hard. He blinked. The world had come to rest on the garden of the viewport. <doc-sep>For a whole week that view did not change, and Rikud had come to acceptit as fact. There—through the viewport and in it—was a garden. Agarden larger than the entire world, a garden of plants which Rikud hadnever seen before, although he had always liked to stroll through theworld's garden and he had come to know every plant well. Nevertheless,it was a garden. He told Chuls, but Chuls had responded, It is the viewport. Crifer, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. It looks like the garden,he admitted to Rikud. But why should the garden be in the viewport? Somehow, Rikud knew this question for a healthy sign. But he couldnot tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in theviewport could mean only one thing. The world had been walking—theword seemed all wrong to Rikud, but he could think of no other, unlessit were running. The world had been walking somewhere. That somewherewas the garden and the world had arrived. It is an old picture of the garden, Chuls suggested, and the plantsare different. Then they've changed? No, merely different. Well, what about the viewport? It changed. Where are the stars?Where are they, Chuls, if it did not change? The stars come out at night. So there is a change from day to night! I didn't say that. The stars simply shine at night. Why should theyshine during the day when the world wants them to shine only at night? Once they shone all the time. Naturally, said Crifer, becoming interested. They are variable. <doc-sep>Rikud regretted that he never had had the chance to read that book onastronomy. He hadn't been reading too much lately. The voice of thereading machine had begun to bore him. He said, Well, variable or not,our whole perspective has changed. And when Chuls looked away in disinterest, Rikud became angry. If onlythe man would realize! If only anyone would realize! It all seemed soobvious. If he, Rikud, walked from one part of the world to another,it was with a purpose—to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in thehealth-rays. Now if the world had walked from—somewhere, through thevast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this alsowas purposeful. The world had arrived at the garden for a reason. Butif everyone lived as if the world still stood in blackness, how couldthey find the nature of that purpose? I will eat, Chuls said, breaking Rikud's revery. Damn the man, all he did was eat! Yet he did have initiative after a sort. He knew when to eat. Becausehe was hungry. And Rikud, too, was hungry. Differently. <doc-sep>He had long wondered about the door in the back of the library, andnow, as Crifer sat cross-legged on one of the dusty tables, readingmachine and book on astronomy or stars in his lap, Rikud approached thedoor. What's in here? he demanded. It's a door, I think, said Crifer. I know, but what's beyond it? Beyond it? Oh, you mean through the door. Yes. Well, Crifer scratched his head, I don't think anyone ever openedit. It's only a door. I will, said Rikud. You will what? Open it. Open the door and look inside. A long pause. Then, Can you do it? I think so. You can't, probably. How can anyone go where no one has been before?There's nothing. It just isn't. It's only a door, Rikud. No— Rikud began, but the words faded off into a sharp intake ofbreath. Rikud had turned the knob and pushed. The door opened silently,and Crifer said, Doors are variable, too, I think. Rikud saw a small room, perhaps half a dozen paces across, at the otherend of which was another door, just like the first. Halfway across,Rikud heard a voice not unlike that of the reading machine. He missed the beginning, but then: —therefore, permit no unauthorized persons to go through thisdoor. The machinery in the next room is your protection against therigors of space. A thousand years from now, journey's end, you mayhave discarded it for something better—who knows? But if you havenot, then here is your protection. As nearly as possible, this shipis a perfect, self-sustaining world. It is more than that: it ishuman-sustaining as well. Try to hurt yourself and the ship will notpermit it—within limits, of course. But you can damage the ship, andto avoid any possibility of that, no unauthorized persons are to bepermitted through this door— Rikud gave the voice up as hopeless. There were too many confusingwords. What in the world was an unauthorized person? More interestingthan that, however, was the second door. Would it lead to anothervoice? Rikud hoped that it wouldn't. When he opened the door a strange new noise filled his ears, a gentlehumming, punctuated by a throb-throb-throb which sounded not unlikethe booming of the engines last week, except that this new sound didn'tblast nearly so loudly against his eardrums. And what met Rikud'seyes—he blinked and looked again, but it was still there—cogs andgears and wheels and nameless things all strange and beautiful becausethey shone with a luster unfamiliar to him. Odd, Rikud said aloud. Then he thought, Now there's a good word, butno one quite seems to know its meaning. Odder still was the third door. Rikud suddenly thought there mightexist an endless succession of them, especially when the third oneopened on a bare tunnel which led to yet another door. Only this one was different. In it Rikud saw the viewport. But how? Theviewport stood on the other end of the world. It did seem smaller, and,although it looked out on the garden, Rikud sensed that the topographywas different. Then the garden extended even farther than he hadthought. It was endless, extending all the way to a ridge of mounds wayoff in the distance. And this door one could walk through, into the garden. Rikud put hishand on the door, all the while watching the garden through the newviewport. He began to turn the handle. Then he trembled. What would he do out in the garden? He couldn't go alone. He'd die of the strangeness. It was a sillythought; no one ever died of anything until he was a hundred. Rikudcouldn't fathom the rapid thumping of his heart. And Rikud's mouth feltdry; he wanted to swallow, but couldn't. Slowly, he took his hand off the door lever. He made his way backthrough the tunnel and then through the room of machinery and finallythrough the little room with the confusing voice to Crifer. By the time he reached the lame-footed man, Rikud was running. He didnot dare once to look back. He stood shaking at Crifer's side, andsweat covered him in a clammy film. He never wanted to look at thegarden again. Not when he knew there was a door through which he couldwalk and then might find himself in the garden. It was so big. <doc-sep>Three or four days passed before Rikud calmed himself enough totalk about his experience. When he did, only Crifer seemed at allinterested, yet the lame-footed man's mind was inadequate to cope withthe situation. He suggested that the viewport might also be variableand Rikud found himself wishing that his friend had never read thatbook on astronomy. Chuls did not believe Rikud at all. There are not that many doors inthe world, he said. The library has a door and there is a door to thewomen's quarters; in five years, the Calculator will send you throughthat. But there are no others. Chuls smiled an indulgent smile and Rikud came nearer to him. Now, bythe world, there are two other doors! Rikud began to shout, and everyone looked at him queerly. What are you doing that for? demanded Wilm, who was shorter even thanCrifer, but had no lame foot. Doing what? Speaking so loudly when Chuls, who is close, obviously has no troublehearing you. Maybe yelling will make him understand. Crifer hobbled about on his good foot, doing a meaningless little jig.Why don't we go see? he suggested. Then, confused, he frowned. Well, I won't go, Chuls replied. There's no reason to go. If Rikudhas been imagining things, why should I? I imagined nothing. I'll show you— You'll show me nothing because I won't go. Rikud grabbed Chuls' blouse with his big fist. Then, startled by whathe did, his hands began to tremble. But he held on, and he tugged atthe blouse. Stop that, said the older man, mildly. <doc-sep>Crifer hopped up and down. Look what Rikud's doing! I don't know whathe's doing, but look. He's holding Chuls' blouse. Stop that, repeated Chuls, his face reddening. Only if you'll go with me. Rikud was panting. Chuls tugged at his wrist. By this time a crowd had gathered. Some ofthem watched Crifer jump up and down, but most of them watched Rikudholding Chuls' blouse. I think I can do that, declared Wilm, clutching a fistful of Crifer'sshirt. Presently, the members of the crowd had pretty well paired off, eachpartner grabbing for his companion's blouse. They giggled and laughedand some began to hop up and down as Crifer had done. A buzzer sounded and automatically Rikud found himself releasing Chuls. Chuls said, forgetting the incident completely, Time to retire. In a moment, the room was cleared. Rikud stood alone. He cleared histhroat and listened to the sound, all by itself in the stillness. Whatwould have happened if they hadn't retired? But they always did thingspunctually like that, whenever the buzzer sounded. They ate with thebuzzer, bathed in the health-rays with it, slept with it. What would they do if the buzzer stopped buzzing? This frightened Rikud, although he didn't know why. He'd like it,though. Maybe then he could take them outside with him to the biggarden of the two viewports. And then he wouldn't be afraid because hecould huddle close to them and he wouldn't be alone. <doc-sep>Rikud heard the throbbing again as he stood in the room of themachinery. For a long time he watched the wheels and cogs and gearsspinning and humming. He watched for he knew not how long. And then hebegan to wonder. If he destroyed the wheels and the cogs and the gears,would the buzzer stop? It probably would, because, as Rikud saw it, hewas clearly an unauthorized person. He had heard the voice againupon entering the room. He found a metal rod, bright and shiny, three feet long and half aswide as his arm. He tugged at it and it came loose from the wires thatheld it in place. He hefted it carefully for a moment, and then heswung the bar into the mass of metal. Each time he heard a grinding,crashing sound. He looked as the gears and cogs and wheels crumbledunder his blows, shattered by the strength of his arm. Almost casually he strode about the room, but his blows were notcasual. Soon his easy strides had given way to frenzied running. Rikudsmashed everything in sight. When the lights winked out, he stopped. Anyway, by that time the roomwas a shambles of twisted, broken metal. He laughed, softly at first,but presently he was roaring, and the sound doubled and redoubled inhis ears because now the throbbing had stopped. He opened the door and ran through the little corridor to the smallerviewport. Outside he could see the stars, and, dimly, the terrainbeneath them. But everything was so dark that only the stars shoneclearly. All else was bathed in a shadow of unreality. Rikud never wanted to do anything more than he wanted to open thatdoor. But his hands trembled too much when he touched it, and once,when he pressed his face close against the viewport, there in thedarkness, something bright flashed briefly through the sky and was gone. Whimpering, he fled. <doc-sep>All around Rikud were darkness and hunger and thirst. The buzzer didnot sound because Rikud had silenced it forever. And no one went toeat or drink. Rikud himself had fumbled through the blackness and thewhimpering to the dining room, his tongue dry and swollen, but thesmooth belt that flowed with water and with savory dishes did not runany more. The machinery, Rikud realized, also was responsible for food. Chuls said, over and over, I'm hungry. We will eat and we will drink when the buzzer tells us, Wilm repliedconfidently. It won't any more, Rikud said. What won't? The buzzer will never sound again. I broke it. Crifer growled. I know. You shouldn't have done it. That was a badthing you did, Rikud. It was not bad. The world has moved through the blackness and thestars and now we should go outside to live in the big garden therebeyond the viewport. That's ridiculous, Chuls said. Even Crifer now was angry at Rikud. He broke the buzzer and no one caneat. I hate Rikud, I think. There was a lot of noise in the darkness, and someone else said, Ihate Rikud. Then everyone was saying it. Rikud was sad. Soon he would die, because no one would go outside withhim and he could not go outside alone. In five more years he would havehad a woman, too. He wondered if it was dark and hungry in the women'squarters. Did women eat? Perhaps they ate plants. Once, in the garden, Rikud had broken off afrond and tasted it. It had been bitter, but not unpleasant. Maybe theplants in the viewport would even be better. We will not be hungry if we go outside, he said. We can eat there. We can eat if the buzzer sounds, but it is broken, Chuls said dully. Crifer shrilled, Maybe it is only variable and will buzz again. No, Rikud assured him. It won't. Then you broke it and I hate you, said Crifer. We should break you,too, to show you how it is to be broken. We must go outside—through the viewport. Rikud listened to the oddgurgling sound his stomach made. A hand reached out in the darkness and grabbed at his head. He heardCrifer's voice. I have Rikud's head. The voice was nasty, hostile. Crifer, more than anyone, had been his friend. But now that he hadbroken the machinery, Crifer was his enemy, because Crifer came nearerto understanding the situation than anyone except Rikud. The hand reached out again, and it struck Rikud hard across the face.I hit him! I hit him! Other hands reached out, and Rikud stumbled. He fell and then someonewas on top of him, and he struggled. He rolled and was up again, andhe did not like the sound of the angry voices. Someone said, Let usdo to Rikud what he said he did to the machinery. Rikud ran. In thedarkness, his feet prodded many bodies. There were those who were tooweak to rise. Rikud, too, felt a strange light-headedness and a gnawinghurt in his stomach. But it didn't matter. He heard the angry voicesand the feet pounding behind him, and he wanted only to get away. It was dark and he was hungry and everyone who was strong enough to runwas chasing him, but every time he thought of the garden outside, andhow big it was, the darkness and the hunger and the people chasing himwere unimportant. It was so big that it would swallow him up completelyand positively. He became sickly giddy thinking about it. But if he didn't open the door and go into the garden outside, he woulddie because he had no food and no water and his stomach gurgled andgrumbled and hurt. And everyone was chasing him. He stumbled through the darkness and felt his way back to the library,through the inner door and into the room with the voice—but thevoice didn't speak this time—through its door and into the place ofmachinery. Behind him, he could hear the voices at the first door, andhe thought for a moment that no one would come after him. But he heardCrifer yell something, and then feet pounding in the passage. Rikud tripped over something and sprawled awkwardly across the floor.He felt a sharp hurt in his head, and when he reached up to touch itwith his hands there in the darkness, his fingers came away wet. He got up slowly and opened the next door. The voices behind him werecloser now. Light streamed in through the viewport. After the darkness,it frightened Rikud and it made his eyes smart, and he could hear thosebehind him retreating to a safe distance. But their voices were notfar away, and he knew they would come after him because they wanted tobreak him. Rikud looked out upon the garden and he trembled. Out there was life.The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster oflow mounds against the bright blue which roofed the many plants. Ifplants could live out there as they did within the world, then so couldpeople. Rikud and his people should . This was why the world had movedacross the darkness and the stars for all Rikud's lifetime and more.But he was afraid. He reached up and grasped the handle of the door and he saw that hisfingers were red with the wetness which had come from his hurt head.Slowly he slipped to the cool floor—how his head was burning!—and fora long time he lay there, thinking he would never rise again. Inside heheard the voices again, and soon a foot and then another pounded onthe metal of the passage. He heard Crifer's voice louder than the rest:There is Rikud on the floor! Tugging at the handle of the door, Rikud pulled himself upright.Something small and brown scurried across the other side of theviewport and Rikud imagined it turned to look at him with two hideousred eyes. Rikud screamed and hurtled back through the corridor, and his facewas so terrible in the light streaming in through the viewport thateveryone fled before him. He stumbled again in the place of themachinery, and down on his hands and knees he fondled the bits of metalwhich he could see in the dim light through the open door. Where's the buzzer? he sobbed. I must find the buzzer. Crifer's voice, from the darkness inside, said, You broke it. Youbroke it. And now we will break you— Rikud got up and ran. He reached the door again and then he slippeddown against it, exhausted. Behind him, the voices and the footstepscame, and soon he saw Crifer's head peer in through the passageway.Then there were others, and then they were walking toward him. His head whirled and the viewport seemed to swim in a haze. Could itbe variable, as Crifer had suggested? He wondered if the scurryingbrown thing waited somewhere, and nausea struck at the pit of hisstomach. But if the plants could live out there and the scurrying thingcould live and that was why the world had moved through the blackness,then so could he live out there, and Crifer and all the others.... So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. Andhis heart pounded hard and he felt the pulses leaping on either side ofhis neck. He stared out into the garden, and off into the distance, where theblue-white globe which might have been a star stood just above the rowof mounds. <doc-sep>Crifer was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the door, andsomeone was grabbing at his legs, trying to make him fall. He kickedout and the hands let go, and then he turned the handle and shoved theweight of his body with all his strength against the door. It opened and he stepped outside into the warmth. The air was fresh, fresher than any air Rikud had ever breathed. Hewalked around aimlessly, touching the plants and bending down to feelthe floor, and sometimes he looked at the blue-white globe on thehorizon. It was all very beautiful. Near the ship, water that did not come from a machine gurgled acrossthe land, and Rikud lay down and drank. It was cool and good, and whenhe got up, Crifer and Wilm were outside the world, and some of theothers followed. They stood around for a long time before going to thewater to drink. Rikud sat down and tore off a piece of a plant, munching on it. It wasgood. Crifer picked his head up, from the water, his chin wet. Even feelingsare variable. I don't hate you now, Rikud. Rikud smiled, staring at the ship. People are variable, too, Crifer.That is, if those creatures coming from the ship are people. They're women, said Crifer. They were strangely shaped in some ways, and yet in others completelyhuman, and their voices were high, like singing. Rikud found them oddlyexciting. He liked them. He liked the garden, for all its hugeness.With so many people, and especially now with women, he was not afraid. It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer,frightening doors and women by appointment only. Rikud felt at home. <doc-sep></s>

Variability is a big part of the story. The inhabitants of the ship have always lived the same routine, the same life, and when things start to change they don’t know how to react. First, when the view of the ship starts to change, Rikud doesn’t understand what it means, and begins to think about the meaning of change. These thoughts are enhanced when Crifer told him that he had been reading Astronomy, and that stars are variable. When the ship lands on the new planet, and Rikud begins to explore, he starts to think about the variability of doors, and the meaning of going through doors and how it relates to the viewport. In the end, the change from having the buzzers to not knowing how to act is what sparks the violence of the men towards Rikud. This is due to the fact that he changed their routine, and having never experienced it, they don’t know how to react to change.

<s> The Sense of Wonder By MILTON LESSER Illustrated by HARRY ROSENBAUM [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] When nobody aboard ship remembers where it's going, how can they tell when it has arrived? Every day for a week now, Rikud had come to the viewport to watchthe great changeless sweep of space. He could not quite explain thefeelings within him; they were so alien, so unnatural. But ever sincethe engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone,from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of hislife, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings hadgrown. If anyone else had noticed the change, he failed to mention it. Thisdisturbed Rikud, although he could not tell why. And, because he hadrealized this odd difference in himself, he kept it locked up insidehim. Today, space looked somehow different. The stars—it was a meaninglessconcept to Rikud, but that was what everyone called the brightpinpoints of light on the black backdrop in the viewport—were notapparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Instead,there was more of the blackness, and one very bright star set apartby itself in the middle of the viewport. If he had understood the term, Rikud would have told himself this wasodd. His head ached with the half-born thought. It was—it was—whatwas it? Someone was clomping up the companionway behind Rikud. He turned andgreeted gray-haired old Chuls. In five more years, the older man chided, you'll be ready to sirechildren. And all you can do in the meantime is gaze out at the stars. Rikud knew he should be exercising now, or bathing in the rays of thehealth-lamps. It had never occurred to him that he didn't feel like it;he just didn't, without comprehending. Chuls' reminder fostered uneasiness. Often Rikud had dreamed of thetime he would be thirty and a father. Whom would the Calculator selectas his mate? The first time this idea had occurred to him, Rikudignored it. But it came again, and each time it left him with a feelinghe could not explain. Why should he think thoughts that no other manhad? Why should he think he was thinking such thoughts, when it alwaysembroiled him in a hopeless, infinite confusion that left him with aheadache? Chuls said, It is time for my bath in the health-rays. I saw you hereand knew it was your time, too.... His voice trailed off. Rikud knew that something which he could notexplain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it haddeparted almost before Chuls knew of its existence. I'll go with you, Rikud told him. <doc-sep>A hardly perceptible purple glow pervaded the air in the room of thehealth-rays. Perhaps two score men lay about, naked, under the raytubes. Chuls stripped himself and selected the space under a vacanttube. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watchthe one new bright star. He had the distinct notion it was growinglarger every moment. He turned to go, but the door clicked shut and ametallic voice said. Fifteen minutes under the tubes, please. Rikud muttered to himself and undressed. The world had begun to annoyhim. Now why shouldn't a man be permitted to do what he wanted, whenhe wanted to do it? There was a strange thought, and Rikud's brainwhirled once more down the tortuous course of half-formed questions andunsatisfactory answers. He had even wondered what it was like to get hurt. No one ever gothurt. Once, here in this same ray room, he had had the impulse to hurlhimself head-first against the wall, just to see what would happen.But something soft had cushioned the impact—something which had comeinto being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-beingagain, something which was as impalpable as air. Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no realauthority to stop him. This puzzled him, because somehow he felt thatthere should have been authority. A long time ago the reading machinein the library had told him of the elders—a meaningless term—who hadgoverned the world. They told you to do something and you did it, butthat was silly, because now no one told you to do anything. You onlylistened to the buzzer. And Rikud could remember the rest of what the reading machine had said.There had been a revolt—again a term without any real meaning, a termthat could have no reality outside of the reading machine—and theelders were overthrown. Here Rikud had been lost utterly. The peoplehad decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, andthat it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They wereborn and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like littlecogs in a great machine. Much of this Rikud could not understand, buthe knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with thepeople against the elders, and it said the people had won. Now in the health room, Rikud felt a warmth in the rays. Grudgingly, hehad to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. He could see thelook of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down uponhim, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generationsbefore Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge ofmedicine. But when, in another ten years, Chuls would perish of oldage, the rays would no longer suffice. Nothing would, for Chuls. Rikudoften thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future,not without a sense of alarm. Yet old Chuls seemed heedless, with onlya decade to go. Under the tube at Rikud's left lay Crifer. The man was short and heavythrough the shoulders and chest, and he had a lame foot. Every timeRikud looked at that foot, it was with a sense of satisfaction. True,this was the only case of its kind, the exception to the rule, but itproved the world was not perfect. Rikud was guiltily glad when he sawCrifer limp. But, if anyone else saw it, he never said a word. Not even Crifer. <doc-sep>Now Crifer said, I've been reading again, Rikud. Yes? Almost no one read any more, and the library was heavy with thesmell of dust. Reading represented initiative on the part of Crifer; itmeant that, in the two unoccupied hours before sleep, he went to thelibrary and listened to the reading machine. Everyone else simply satabout and talked. That was the custom. Everyone did it. But if he wasn't reading himself, Rikud usually went to sleep. All thepeople ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and itwas always the same. Yes, said Crifer. I found a book about the stars. They're alsocalled astronomy, I think. This was a new thought to Rikud, and he propped his head up on oneelbow. What did you find out? That's about all. They're just called astronomy, I think. Well, where's the book? Rikud would read it tomorrow. I left it in the library. You can find several of them under'astronomy,' with a cross-reference under 'stars.' They're synonymousterms. You know, Rikud said, sitting up now, the stars in the viewport arechanging. Changing? Crifer questioned the fuzzy concept as much as hequestioned what it might mean in this particular case. Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than theothers. Astronomy says some stars are variable, Crifer offered, but Rikudknew his lame-footed companion understood the word no better than hedid. Over on Rikud's right, Chuls began to dress. Variability, he toldthem, is a contradictory term. Nothing is variable. It can't be. I'm only saying what I read in the book, Crifer protested mildly. Well, it's wrong. Variability and change are two words withoutmeaning. People grow old, Rikud suggested. A buzzer signified that his fifteen minutes under the rays were up, andChuls said, It's almost time for me to eat. Rikud frowned. Chuls hadn't even seen the connection between the twoconcepts, yet it was so clear. Or was it? He had had it a moment ago,but now it faded, and change and old were just two words. His own buzzer sounded a moment later, and it was with a strangefeeling of elation that he dressed and made his way back to theviewport. When he passed the door which led to the women's half of theworld, however, he paused. He wanted to open that door and see a woman.He had been told about them and he had seen pictures, and he dimlyremembered his childhood among women. But his feelings had changed;this was different. Again there were inexplicable feelings—strangechannelings of Rikud's energy in new and confusing directions. He shrugged and reserved the thought for later. He wanted to see thestars again. <doc-sep>The view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulsesleap with excitement. All the stars were paler now than before, andwhere Rikud had seen the one bright central star, he now saw a globe oflight, white with a tinge of blue in it, and so bright that it hurt hiseyes to look. Yes, hurt! Rikud looked and looked until his eyes teared and he had toturn away. Here was an unknown factor which the perfect world failedto control. But how could a star change into a blinking blue-whiteglobe—if, indeed, that was the star Rikud had seen earlier? Therewas that word change again. Didn't it have something to do with age?Rikud couldn't remember, and he suddenly wished he could read Crifer'sbook on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Except that it wasvariable, which was like change, being tied up somehow with age. Presently Rikud became aware that his eyes were not tearing any longer,and he turned to look at the viewport. What he saw now was so new thathe couldn't at first accept it. Instead, he blinked and rubbed hiseyes, sure that the ball of blue-white fire somehow had damaged them.But the new view persisted. Of stars there were few, and of the blackness, almost nothing. Gone,too, was the burning globe. Something loomed there in the port, so hugethat it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big andround, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikudhad no name. A few moments more, and Rikud no longer could see the sphere. A sectionof it had expanded outward and assumed the rectangular shape of theviewport, and its size as well. It seemed neatly sheered down themiddle, so that on one side Rikud saw an expanse of brown and green,and on the other, blue. Startled, Rikud leaped back. The sullen roar in the rear of the worldhad ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regularintervals by a sharp booming. Change— Won't you eat, Rikud? Chuls called from somewhere down below. Damn the man, Rikud thought. Then aloud: Yes, I'll eat. Later. It's time.... Chuls' voice trailed off again, impotently. But Rikud forgot the old man completely. A new idea occurred to him,and for a while he struggled with it. What he saw—what he had alwaysseen, except that now there was the added factor of change—perhaps didnot exist in the viewport. Maybe it existed through the viewport. That was maddening. Rikud turned again to the port, where he could seenothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, moreconfusing than ever. Chuls, he called, remembering, come here. I am here, said a voice at his elbow. Rikud whirled on the little figure and pointed to the swirling cloud ofvapor. What do you see? Chuls looked. The viewport, of course. What else? Else? Nothing. Anger welled up inside Rikud. All right, he said, listen. What doyou hear? Broom, brroom, brrroom! Chuls imitated the intermittent blasting ofthe engines. I'm hungry, Rikud. The old man turned and strode off down the corridor toward the diningroom, and Rikud was glad to be alone once more. <doc-sep>Now the vapor had departed, except for a few tenuous whisps. For amoment Rikud thought he could see the gardens rearward in the world.But that was silly. What were the gardens doing in the viewport? Andbesides, Rikud had the distinct feeling that here was something farvaster than the gardens, although all of it existed in the viewportwhich was no wider than the length of his body. The gardens, moreover,did not jump and dance before his eyes the way the viewport gardensdid. Nor did they spin. Nor did the trees grow larger with every jolt. Rikud sat down hard. He blinked. The world had come to rest on the garden of the viewport. <doc-sep>For a whole week that view did not change, and Rikud had come to acceptit as fact. There—through the viewport and in it—was a garden. Agarden larger than the entire world, a garden of plants which Rikud hadnever seen before, although he had always liked to stroll through theworld's garden and he had come to know every plant well. Nevertheless,it was a garden. He told Chuls, but Chuls had responded, It is the viewport. Crifer, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. It looks like the garden,he admitted to Rikud. But why should the garden be in the viewport? Somehow, Rikud knew this question for a healthy sign. But he couldnot tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in theviewport could mean only one thing. The world had been walking—theword seemed all wrong to Rikud, but he could think of no other, unlessit were running. The world had been walking somewhere. That somewherewas the garden and the world had arrived. It is an old picture of the garden, Chuls suggested, and the plantsare different. Then they've changed? No, merely different. Well, what about the viewport? It changed. Where are the stars?Where are they, Chuls, if it did not change? The stars come out at night. So there is a change from day to night! I didn't say that. The stars simply shine at night. Why should theyshine during the day when the world wants them to shine only at night? Once they shone all the time. Naturally, said Crifer, becoming interested. They are variable. <doc-sep>Rikud regretted that he never had had the chance to read that book onastronomy. He hadn't been reading too much lately. The voice of thereading machine had begun to bore him. He said, Well, variable or not,our whole perspective has changed. And when Chuls looked away in disinterest, Rikud became angry. If onlythe man would realize! If only anyone would realize! It all seemed soobvious. If he, Rikud, walked from one part of the world to another,it was with a purpose—to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in thehealth-rays. Now if the world had walked from—somewhere, through thevast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this alsowas purposeful. The world had arrived at the garden for a reason. Butif everyone lived as if the world still stood in blackness, how couldthey find the nature of that purpose? I will eat, Chuls said, breaking Rikud's revery. Damn the man, all he did was eat! Yet he did have initiative after a sort. He knew when to eat. Becausehe was hungry. And Rikud, too, was hungry. Differently. <doc-sep>He had long wondered about the door in the back of the library, andnow, as Crifer sat cross-legged on one of the dusty tables, readingmachine and book on astronomy or stars in his lap, Rikud approached thedoor. What's in here? he demanded. It's a door, I think, said Crifer. I know, but what's beyond it? Beyond it? Oh, you mean through the door. Yes. Well, Crifer scratched his head, I don't think anyone ever openedit. It's only a door. I will, said Rikud. You will what? Open it. Open the door and look inside. A long pause. Then, Can you do it? I think so. You can't, probably. How can anyone go where no one has been before?There's nothing. It just isn't. It's only a door, Rikud. No— Rikud began, but the words faded off into a sharp intake ofbreath. Rikud had turned the knob and pushed. The door opened silently,and Crifer said, Doors are variable, too, I think. Rikud saw a small room, perhaps half a dozen paces across, at the otherend of which was another door, just like the first. Halfway across,Rikud heard a voice not unlike that of the reading machine. He missed the beginning, but then: —therefore, permit no unauthorized persons to go through thisdoor. The machinery in the next room is your protection against therigors of space. A thousand years from now, journey's end, you mayhave discarded it for something better—who knows? But if you havenot, then here is your protection. As nearly as possible, this shipis a perfect, self-sustaining world. It is more than that: it ishuman-sustaining as well. Try to hurt yourself and the ship will notpermit it—within limits, of course. But you can damage the ship, andto avoid any possibility of that, no unauthorized persons are to bepermitted through this door— Rikud gave the voice up as hopeless. There were too many confusingwords. What in the world was an unauthorized person? More interestingthan that, however, was the second door. Would it lead to anothervoice? Rikud hoped that it wouldn't. When he opened the door a strange new noise filled his ears, a gentlehumming, punctuated by a throb-throb-throb which sounded not unlikethe booming of the engines last week, except that this new sound didn'tblast nearly so loudly against his eardrums. And what met Rikud'seyes—he blinked and looked again, but it was still there—cogs andgears and wheels and nameless things all strange and beautiful becausethey shone with a luster unfamiliar to him. Odd, Rikud said aloud. Then he thought, Now there's a good word, butno one quite seems to know its meaning. Odder still was the third door. Rikud suddenly thought there mightexist an endless succession of them, especially when the third oneopened on a bare tunnel which led to yet another door. Only this one was different. In it Rikud saw the viewport. But how? Theviewport stood on the other end of the world. It did seem smaller, and,although it looked out on the garden, Rikud sensed that the topographywas different. Then the garden extended even farther than he hadthought. It was endless, extending all the way to a ridge of mounds wayoff in the distance. And this door one could walk through, into the garden. Rikud put hishand on the door, all the while watching the garden through the newviewport. He began to turn the handle. Then he trembled. What would he do out in the garden? He couldn't go alone. He'd die of the strangeness. It was a sillythought; no one ever died of anything until he was a hundred. Rikudcouldn't fathom the rapid thumping of his heart. And Rikud's mouth feltdry; he wanted to swallow, but couldn't. Slowly, he took his hand off the door lever. He made his way backthrough the tunnel and then through the room of machinery and finallythrough the little room with the confusing voice to Crifer. By the time he reached the lame-footed man, Rikud was running. He didnot dare once to look back. He stood shaking at Crifer's side, andsweat covered him in a clammy film. He never wanted to look at thegarden again. Not when he knew there was a door through which he couldwalk and then might find himself in the garden. It was so big. <doc-sep>Three or four days passed before Rikud calmed himself enough totalk about his experience. When he did, only Crifer seemed at allinterested, yet the lame-footed man's mind was inadequate to cope withthe situation. He suggested that the viewport might also be variableand Rikud found himself wishing that his friend had never read thatbook on astronomy. Chuls did not believe Rikud at all. There are not that many doors inthe world, he said. The library has a door and there is a door to thewomen's quarters; in five years, the Calculator will send you throughthat. But there are no others. Chuls smiled an indulgent smile and Rikud came nearer to him. Now, bythe world, there are two other doors! Rikud began to shout, and everyone looked at him queerly. What are you doing that for? demanded Wilm, who was shorter even thanCrifer, but had no lame foot. Doing what? Speaking so loudly when Chuls, who is close, obviously has no troublehearing you. Maybe yelling will make him understand. Crifer hobbled about on his good foot, doing a meaningless little jig.Why don't we go see? he suggested. Then, confused, he frowned. Well, I won't go, Chuls replied. There's no reason to go. If Rikudhas been imagining things, why should I? I imagined nothing. I'll show you— You'll show me nothing because I won't go. Rikud grabbed Chuls' blouse with his big fist. Then, startled by whathe did, his hands began to tremble. But he held on, and he tugged atthe blouse. Stop that, said the older man, mildly. <doc-sep>Crifer hopped up and down. Look what Rikud's doing! I don't know whathe's doing, but look. He's holding Chuls' blouse. Stop that, repeated Chuls, his face reddening. Only if you'll go with me. Rikud was panting. Chuls tugged at his wrist. By this time a crowd had gathered. Some ofthem watched Crifer jump up and down, but most of them watched Rikudholding Chuls' blouse. I think I can do that, declared Wilm, clutching a fistful of Crifer'sshirt. Presently, the members of the crowd had pretty well paired off, eachpartner grabbing for his companion's blouse. They giggled and laughedand some began to hop up and down as Crifer had done. A buzzer sounded and automatically Rikud found himself releasing Chuls. Chuls said, forgetting the incident completely, Time to retire. In a moment, the room was cleared. Rikud stood alone. He cleared histhroat and listened to the sound, all by itself in the stillness. Whatwould have happened if they hadn't retired? But they always did thingspunctually like that, whenever the buzzer sounded. They ate with thebuzzer, bathed in the health-rays with it, slept with it. What would they do if the buzzer stopped buzzing? This frightened Rikud, although he didn't know why. He'd like it,though. Maybe then he could take them outside with him to the biggarden of the two viewports. And then he wouldn't be afraid because hecould huddle close to them and he wouldn't be alone. <doc-sep>Rikud heard the throbbing again as he stood in the room of themachinery. For a long time he watched the wheels and cogs and gearsspinning and humming. He watched for he knew not how long. And then hebegan to wonder. If he destroyed the wheels and the cogs and the gears,would the buzzer stop? It probably would, because, as Rikud saw it, hewas clearly an unauthorized person. He had heard the voice againupon entering the room. He found a metal rod, bright and shiny, three feet long and half aswide as his arm. He tugged at it and it came loose from the wires thatheld it in place. He hefted it carefully for a moment, and then heswung the bar into the mass of metal. Each time he heard a grinding,crashing sound. He looked as the gears and cogs and wheels crumbledunder his blows, shattered by the strength of his arm. Almost casually he strode about the room, but his blows were notcasual. Soon his easy strides had given way to frenzied running. Rikudsmashed everything in sight. When the lights winked out, he stopped. Anyway, by that time the roomwas a shambles of twisted, broken metal. He laughed, softly at first,but presently he was roaring, and the sound doubled and redoubled inhis ears because now the throbbing had stopped. He opened the door and ran through the little corridor to the smallerviewport. Outside he could see the stars, and, dimly, the terrainbeneath them. But everything was so dark that only the stars shoneclearly. All else was bathed in a shadow of unreality. Rikud never wanted to do anything more than he wanted to open thatdoor. But his hands trembled too much when he touched it, and once,when he pressed his face close against the viewport, there in thedarkness, something bright flashed briefly through the sky and was gone. Whimpering, he fled. <doc-sep>All around Rikud were darkness and hunger and thirst. The buzzer didnot sound because Rikud had silenced it forever. And no one went toeat or drink. Rikud himself had fumbled through the blackness and thewhimpering to the dining room, his tongue dry and swollen, but thesmooth belt that flowed with water and with savory dishes did not runany more. The machinery, Rikud realized, also was responsible for food. Chuls said, over and over, I'm hungry. We will eat and we will drink when the buzzer tells us, Wilm repliedconfidently. It won't any more, Rikud said. What won't? The buzzer will never sound again. I broke it. Crifer growled. I know. You shouldn't have done it. That was a badthing you did, Rikud. It was not bad. The world has moved through the blackness and thestars and now we should go outside to live in the big garden therebeyond the viewport. That's ridiculous, Chuls said. Even Crifer now was angry at Rikud. He broke the buzzer and no one caneat. I hate Rikud, I think. There was a lot of noise in the darkness, and someone else said, Ihate Rikud. Then everyone was saying it. Rikud was sad. Soon he would die, because no one would go outside withhim and he could not go outside alone. In five more years he would havehad a woman, too. He wondered if it was dark and hungry in the women'squarters. Did women eat? Perhaps they ate plants. Once, in the garden, Rikud had broken off afrond and tasted it. It had been bitter, but not unpleasant. Maybe theplants in the viewport would even be better. We will not be hungry if we go outside, he said. We can eat there. We can eat if the buzzer sounds, but it is broken, Chuls said dully. Crifer shrilled, Maybe it is only variable and will buzz again. No, Rikud assured him. It won't. Then you broke it and I hate you, said Crifer. We should break you,too, to show you how it is to be broken. We must go outside—through the viewport. Rikud listened to the oddgurgling sound his stomach made. A hand reached out in the darkness and grabbed at his head. He heardCrifer's voice. I have Rikud's head. The voice was nasty, hostile. Crifer, more than anyone, had been his friend. But now that he hadbroken the machinery, Crifer was his enemy, because Crifer came nearerto understanding the situation than anyone except Rikud. The hand reached out again, and it struck Rikud hard across the face.I hit him! I hit him! Other hands reached out, and Rikud stumbled. He fell and then someonewas on top of him, and he struggled. He rolled and was up again, andhe did not like the sound of the angry voices. Someone said, Let usdo to Rikud what he said he did to the machinery. Rikud ran. In thedarkness, his feet prodded many bodies. There were those who were tooweak to rise. Rikud, too, felt a strange light-headedness and a gnawinghurt in his stomach. But it didn't matter. He heard the angry voicesand the feet pounding behind him, and he wanted only to get away. It was dark and he was hungry and everyone who was strong enough to runwas chasing him, but every time he thought of the garden outside, andhow big it was, the darkness and the hunger and the people chasing himwere unimportant. It was so big that it would swallow him up completelyand positively. He became sickly giddy thinking about it. But if he didn't open the door and go into the garden outside, he woulddie because he had no food and no water and his stomach gurgled andgrumbled and hurt. And everyone was chasing him. He stumbled through the darkness and felt his way back to the library,through the inner door and into the room with the voice—but thevoice didn't speak this time—through its door and into the place ofmachinery. Behind him, he could hear the voices at the first door, andhe thought for a moment that no one would come after him. But he heardCrifer yell something, and then feet pounding in the passage. Rikud tripped over something and sprawled awkwardly across the floor.He felt a sharp hurt in his head, and when he reached up to touch itwith his hands there in the darkness, his fingers came away wet. He got up slowly and opened the next door. The voices behind him werecloser now. Light streamed in through the viewport. After the darkness,it frightened Rikud and it made his eyes smart, and he could hear thosebehind him retreating to a safe distance. But their voices were notfar away, and he knew they would come after him because they wanted tobreak him. Rikud looked out upon the garden and he trembled. Out there was life.The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster oflow mounds against the bright blue which roofed the many plants. Ifplants could live out there as they did within the world, then so couldpeople. Rikud and his people should . This was why the world had movedacross the darkness and the stars for all Rikud's lifetime and more.But he was afraid. He reached up and grasped the handle of the door and he saw that hisfingers were red with the wetness which had come from his hurt head.Slowly he slipped to the cool floor—how his head was burning!—and fora long time he lay there, thinking he would never rise again. Inside heheard the voices again, and soon a foot and then another pounded onthe metal of the passage. He heard Crifer's voice louder than the rest:There is Rikud on the floor! Tugging at the handle of the door, Rikud pulled himself upright.Something small and brown scurried across the other side of theviewport and Rikud imagined it turned to look at him with two hideousred eyes. Rikud screamed and hurtled back through the corridor, and his facewas so terrible in the light streaming in through the viewport thateveryone fled before him. He stumbled again in the place of themachinery, and down on his hands and knees he fondled the bits of metalwhich he could see in the dim light through the open door. Where's the buzzer? he sobbed. I must find the buzzer. Crifer's voice, from the darkness inside, said, You broke it. Youbroke it. And now we will break you— Rikud got up and ran. He reached the door again and then he slippeddown against it, exhausted. Behind him, the voices and the footstepscame, and soon he saw Crifer's head peer in through the passageway.Then there were others, and then they were walking toward him. His head whirled and the viewport seemed to swim in a haze. Could itbe variable, as Crifer had suggested? He wondered if the scurryingbrown thing waited somewhere, and nausea struck at the pit of hisstomach. But if the plants could live out there and the scurrying thingcould live and that was why the world had moved through the blackness,then so could he live out there, and Crifer and all the others.... So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. Andhis heart pounded hard and he felt the pulses leaping on either side ofhis neck. He stared out into the garden, and off into the distance, where theblue-white globe which might have been a star stood just above the rowof mounds. <doc-sep>Crifer was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the door, andsomeone was grabbing at his legs, trying to make him fall. He kickedout and the hands let go, and then he turned the handle and shoved theweight of his body with all his strength against the door. It opened and he stepped outside into the warmth. The air was fresh, fresher than any air Rikud had ever breathed. Hewalked around aimlessly, touching the plants and bending down to feelthe floor, and sometimes he looked at the blue-white globe on thehorizon. It was all very beautiful. Near the ship, water that did not come from a machine gurgled acrossthe land, and Rikud lay down and drank. It was cool and good, and whenhe got up, Crifer and Wilm were outside the world, and some of theothers followed. They stood around for a long time before going to thewater to drink. Rikud sat down and tore off a piece of a plant, munching on it. It wasgood. Crifer picked his head up, from the water, his chin wet. Even feelingsare variable. I don't hate you now, Rikud. Rikud smiled, staring at the ship. People are variable, too, Crifer.That is, if those creatures coming from the ship are people. They're women, said Crifer. They were strangely shaped in some ways, and yet in others completelyhuman, and their voices were high, like singing. Rikud found them oddlyexciting. He liked them. He liked the garden, for all its hugeness.With so many people, and especially now with women, he was not afraid. It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer,frightening doors and women by appointment only. Rikud felt at home. <doc-sep></s>

At the beginning of the story, the relationship between Rikud and Chuls seemed like a mentor-mentee or like a father-son relationship. Rikud was a young forward-thinker, and Chuls was an older man who had already lived a lot and tried to guide Rikud on how he should live. As the story progresses more, Rikud seems to stray from Chuls’ guidance and tries to figure out what to think on his own. When Rikud tries to explain his reasoning, Chuls doesn’t understand because he has lived so much time inside of the ship and its routine that he can’t seem to doubt it. This led to Rikud getting mildly violent at Chuls because he couldn’t understand why Chuls didn’t believe him.

<s> The Sense of Wonder By MILTON LESSER Illustrated by HARRY ROSENBAUM [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] When nobody aboard ship remembers where it's going, how can they tell when it has arrived? Every day for a week now, Rikud had come to the viewport to watchthe great changeless sweep of space. He could not quite explain thefeelings within him; they were so alien, so unnatural. But ever sincethe engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone,from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of hislife, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings hadgrown. If anyone else had noticed the change, he failed to mention it. Thisdisturbed Rikud, although he could not tell why. And, because he hadrealized this odd difference in himself, he kept it locked up insidehim. Today, space looked somehow different. The stars—it was a meaninglessconcept to Rikud, but that was what everyone called the brightpinpoints of light on the black backdrop in the viewport—were notapparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Instead,there was more of the blackness, and one very bright star set apartby itself in the middle of the viewport. If he had understood the term, Rikud would have told himself this wasodd. His head ached with the half-born thought. It was—it was—whatwas it? Someone was clomping up the companionway behind Rikud. He turned andgreeted gray-haired old Chuls. In five more years, the older man chided, you'll be ready to sirechildren. And all you can do in the meantime is gaze out at the stars. Rikud knew he should be exercising now, or bathing in the rays of thehealth-lamps. It had never occurred to him that he didn't feel like it;he just didn't, without comprehending. Chuls' reminder fostered uneasiness. Often Rikud had dreamed of thetime he would be thirty and a father. Whom would the Calculator selectas his mate? The first time this idea had occurred to him, Rikudignored it. But it came again, and each time it left him with a feelinghe could not explain. Why should he think thoughts that no other manhad? Why should he think he was thinking such thoughts, when it alwaysembroiled him in a hopeless, infinite confusion that left him with aheadache? Chuls said, It is time for my bath in the health-rays. I saw you hereand knew it was your time, too.... His voice trailed off. Rikud knew that something which he could notexplain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it haddeparted almost before Chuls knew of its existence. I'll go with you, Rikud told him. <doc-sep>A hardly perceptible purple glow pervaded the air in the room of thehealth-rays. Perhaps two score men lay about, naked, under the raytubes. Chuls stripped himself and selected the space under a vacanttube. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watchthe one new bright star. He had the distinct notion it was growinglarger every moment. He turned to go, but the door clicked shut and ametallic voice said. Fifteen minutes under the tubes, please. Rikud muttered to himself and undressed. The world had begun to annoyhim. Now why shouldn't a man be permitted to do what he wanted, whenhe wanted to do it? There was a strange thought, and Rikud's brainwhirled once more down the tortuous course of half-formed questions andunsatisfactory answers. He had even wondered what it was like to get hurt. No one ever gothurt. Once, here in this same ray room, he had had the impulse to hurlhimself head-first against the wall, just to see what would happen.But something soft had cushioned the impact—something which had comeinto being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-beingagain, something which was as impalpable as air. Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no realauthority to stop him. This puzzled him, because somehow he felt thatthere should have been authority. A long time ago the reading machinein the library had told him of the elders—a meaningless term—who hadgoverned the world. They told you to do something and you did it, butthat was silly, because now no one told you to do anything. You onlylistened to the buzzer. And Rikud could remember the rest of what the reading machine had said.There had been a revolt—again a term without any real meaning, a termthat could have no reality outside of the reading machine—and theelders were overthrown. Here Rikud had been lost utterly. The peoplehad decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, andthat it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They wereborn and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like littlecogs in a great machine. Much of this Rikud could not understand, buthe knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with thepeople against the elders, and it said the people had won. Now in the health room, Rikud felt a warmth in the rays. Grudgingly, hehad to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. He could see thelook of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down uponhim, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generationsbefore Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge ofmedicine. But when, in another ten years, Chuls would perish of oldage, the rays would no longer suffice. Nothing would, for Chuls. Rikudoften thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future,not without a sense of alarm. Yet old Chuls seemed heedless, with onlya decade to go. Under the tube at Rikud's left lay Crifer. The man was short and heavythrough the shoulders and chest, and he had a lame foot. Every timeRikud looked at that foot, it was with a sense of satisfaction. True,this was the only case of its kind, the exception to the rule, but itproved the world was not perfect. Rikud was guiltily glad when he sawCrifer limp. But, if anyone else saw it, he never said a word. Not even Crifer. <doc-sep>Now Crifer said, I've been reading again, Rikud. Yes? Almost no one read any more, and the library was heavy with thesmell of dust. Reading represented initiative on the part of Crifer; itmeant that, in the two unoccupied hours before sleep, he went to thelibrary and listened to the reading machine. Everyone else simply satabout and talked. That was the custom. Everyone did it. But if he wasn't reading himself, Rikud usually went to sleep. All thepeople ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and itwas always the same. Yes, said Crifer. I found a book about the stars. They're alsocalled astronomy, I think. This was a new thought to Rikud, and he propped his head up on oneelbow. What did you find out? That's about all. They're just called astronomy, I think. Well, where's the book? Rikud would read it tomorrow. I left it in the library. You can find several of them under'astronomy,' with a cross-reference under 'stars.' They're synonymousterms. You know, Rikud said, sitting up now, the stars in the viewport arechanging. Changing? Crifer questioned the fuzzy concept as much as hequestioned what it might mean in this particular case. Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than theothers. Astronomy says some stars are variable, Crifer offered, but Rikudknew his lame-footed companion understood the word no better than hedid. Over on Rikud's right, Chuls began to dress. Variability, he toldthem, is a contradictory term. Nothing is variable. It can't be. I'm only saying what I read in the book, Crifer protested mildly. Well, it's wrong. Variability and change are two words withoutmeaning. People grow old, Rikud suggested. A buzzer signified that his fifteen minutes under the rays were up, andChuls said, It's almost time for me to eat. Rikud frowned. Chuls hadn't even seen the connection between the twoconcepts, yet it was so clear. Or was it? He had had it a moment ago,but now it faded, and change and old were just two words. His own buzzer sounded a moment later, and it was with a strangefeeling of elation that he dressed and made his way back to theviewport. When he passed the door which led to the women's half of theworld, however, he paused. He wanted to open that door and see a woman.He had been told about them and he had seen pictures, and he dimlyremembered his childhood among women. But his feelings had changed;this was different. Again there were inexplicable feelings—strangechannelings of Rikud's energy in new and confusing directions. He shrugged and reserved the thought for later. He wanted to see thestars again. <doc-sep>The view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulsesleap with excitement. All the stars were paler now than before, andwhere Rikud had seen the one bright central star, he now saw a globe oflight, white with a tinge of blue in it, and so bright that it hurt hiseyes to look. Yes, hurt! Rikud looked and looked until his eyes teared and he had toturn away. Here was an unknown factor which the perfect world failedto control. But how could a star change into a blinking blue-whiteglobe—if, indeed, that was the star Rikud had seen earlier? Therewas that word change again. Didn't it have something to do with age?Rikud couldn't remember, and he suddenly wished he could read Crifer'sbook on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Except that it wasvariable, which was like change, being tied up somehow with age. Presently Rikud became aware that his eyes were not tearing any longer,and he turned to look at the viewport. What he saw now was so new thathe couldn't at first accept it. Instead, he blinked and rubbed hiseyes, sure that the ball of blue-white fire somehow had damaged them.But the new view persisted. Of stars there were few, and of the blackness, almost nothing. Gone,too, was the burning globe. Something loomed there in the port, so hugethat it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big andround, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikudhad no name. A few moments more, and Rikud no longer could see the sphere. A sectionof it had expanded outward and assumed the rectangular shape of theviewport, and its size as well. It seemed neatly sheered down themiddle, so that on one side Rikud saw an expanse of brown and green,and on the other, blue. Startled, Rikud leaped back. The sullen roar in the rear of the worldhad ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regularintervals by a sharp booming. Change— Won't you eat, Rikud? Chuls called from somewhere down below. Damn the man, Rikud thought. Then aloud: Yes, I'll eat. Later. It's time.... Chuls' voice trailed off again, impotently. But Rikud forgot the old man completely. A new idea occurred to him,and for a while he struggled with it. What he saw—what he had alwaysseen, except that now there was the added factor of change—perhaps didnot exist in the viewport. Maybe it existed through the viewport. That was maddening. Rikud turned again to the port, where he could seenothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, moreconfusing than ever. Chuls, he called, remembering, come here. I am here, said a voice at his elbow. Rikud whirled on the little figure and pointed to the swirling cloud ofvapor. What do you see? Chuls looked. The viewport, of course. What else? Else? Nothing. Anger welled up inside Rikud. All right, he said, listen. What doyou hear? Broom, brroom, brrroom! Chuls imitated the intermittent blasting ofthe engines. I'm hungry, Rikud. The old man turned and strode off down the corridor toward the diningroom, and Rikud was glad to be alone once more. <doc-sep>Now the vapor had departed, except for a few tenuous whisps. For amoment Rikud thought he could see the gardens rearward in the world.But that was silly. What were the gardens doing in the viewport? Andbesides, Rikud had the distinct feeling that here was something farvaster than the gardens, although all of it existed in the viewportwhich was no wider than the length of his body. The gardens, moreover,did not jump and dance before his eyes the way the viewport gardensdid. Nor did they spin. Nor did the trees grow larger with every jolt. Rikud sat down hard. He blinked. The world had come to rest on the garden of the viewport. <doc-sep>For a whole week that view did not change, and Rikud had come to acceptit as fact. There—through the viewport and in it—was a garden. Agarden larger than the entire world, a garden of plants which Rikud hadnever seen before, although he had always liked to stroll through theworld's garden and he had come to know every plant well. Nevertheless,it was a garden. He told Chuls, but Chuls had responded, It is the viewport. Crifer, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. It looks like the garden,he admitted to Rikud. But why should the garden be in the viewport? Somehow, Rikud knew this question for a healthy sign. But he couldnot tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in theviewport could mean only one thing. The world had been walking—theword seemed all wrong to Rikud, but he could think of no other, unlessit were running. The world had been walking somewhere. That somewherewas the garden and the world had arrived. It is an old picture of the garden, Chuls suggested, and the plantsare different. Then they've changed? No, merely different. Well, what about the viewport? It changed. Where are the stars?Where are they, Chuls, if it did not change? The stars come out at night. So there is a change from day to night! I didn't say that. The stars simply shine at night. Why should theyshine during the day when the world wants them to shine only at night? Once they shone all the time. Naturally, said Crifer, becoming interested. They are variable. <doc-sep>Rikud regretted that he never had had the chance to read that book onastronomy. He hadn't been reading too much lately. The voice of thereading machine had begun to bore him. He said, Well, variable or not,our whole perspective has changed. And when Chuls looked away in disinterest, Rikud became angry. If onlythe man would realize! If only anyone would realize! It all seemed soobvious. If he, Rikud, walked from one part of the world to another,it was with a purpose—to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in thehealth-rays. Now if the world had walked from—somewhere, through thevast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this alsowas purposeful. The world had arrived at the garden for a reason. Butif everyone lived as if the world still stood in blackness, how couldthey find the nature of that purpose? I will eat, Chuls said, breaking Rikud's revery. Damn the man, all he did was eat! Yet he did have initiative after a sort. He knew when to eat. Becausehe was hungry. And Rikud, too, was hungry. Differently. <doc-sep>He had long wondered about the door in the back of the library, andnow, as Crifer sat cross-legged on one of the dusty tables, readingmachine and book on astronomy or stars in his lap, Rikud approached thedoor. What's in here? he demanded. It's a door, I think, said Crifer. I know, but what's beyond it? Beyond it? Oh, you mean through the door. Yes. Well, Crifer scratched his head, I don't think anyone ever openedit. It's only a door. I will, said Rikud. You will what? Open it. Open the door and look inside. A long pause. Then, Can you do it? I think so. You can't, probably. How can anyone go where no one has been before?There's nothing. It just isn't. It's only a door, Rikud. No— Rikud began, but the words faded off into a sharp intake ofbreath. Rikud had turned the knob and pushed. The door opened silently,and Crifer said, Doors are variable, too, I think. Rikud saw a small room, perhaps half a dozen paces across, at the otherend of which was another door, just like the first. Halfway across,Rikud heard a voice not unlike that of the reading machine. He missed the beginning, but then: —therefore, permit no unauthorized persons to go through thisdoor. The machinery in the next room is your protection against therigors of space. A thousand years from now, journey's end, you mayhave discarded it for something better—who knows? But if you havenot, then here is your protection. As nearly as possible, this shipis a perfect, self-sustaining world. It is more than that: it ishuman-sustaining as well. Try to hurt yourself and the ship will notpermit it—within limits, of course. But you can damage the ship, andto avoid any possibility of that, no unauthorized persons are to bepermitted through this door— Rikud gave the voice up as hopeless. There were too many confusingwords. What in the world was an unauthorized person? More interestingthan that, however, was the second door. Would it lead to anothervoice? Rikud hoped that it wouldn't. When he opened the door a strange new noise filled his ears, a gentlehumming, punctuated by a throb-throb-throb which sounded not unlikethe booming of the engines last week, except that this new sound didn'tblast nearly so loudly against his eardrums. And what met Rikud'seyes—he blinked and looked again, but it was still there—cogs andgears and wheels and nameless things all strange and beautiful becausethey shone with a luster unfamiliar to him. Odd, Rikud said aloud. Then he thought, Now there's a good word, butno one quite seems to know its meaning. Odder still was the third door. Rikud suddenly thought there mightexist an endless succession of them, especially when the third oneopened on a bare tunnel which led to yet another door. Only this one was different. In it Rikud saw the viewport. But how? Theviewport stood on the other end of the world. It did seem smaller, and,although it looked out on the garden, Rikud sensed that the topographywas different. Then the garden extended even farther than he hadthought. It was endless, extending all the way to a ridge of mounds wayoff in the distance. And this door one could walk through, into the garden. Rikud put hishand on the door, all the while watching the garden through the newviewport. He began to turn the handle. Then he trembled. What would he do out in the garden? He couldn't go alone. He'd die of the strangeness. It was a sillythought; no one ever died of anything until he was a hundred. Rikudcouldn't fathom the rapid thumping of his heart. And Rikud's mouth feltdry; he wanted to swallow, but couldn't. Slowly, he took his hand off the door lever. He made his way backthrough the tunnel and then through the room of machinery and finallythrough the little room with the confusing voice to Crifer. By the time he reached the lame-footed man, Rikud was running. He didnot dare once to look back. He stood shaking at Crifer's side, andsweat covered him in a clammy film. He never wanted to look at thegarden again. Not when he knew there was a door through which he couldwalk and then might find himself in the garden. It was so big. <doc-sep>Three or four days passed before Rikud calmed himself enough totalk about his experience. When he did, only Crifer seemed at allinterested, yet the lame-footed man's mind was inadequate to cope withthe situation. He suggested that the viewport might also be variableand Rikud found himself wishing that his friend had never read thatbook on astronomy. Chuls did not believe Rikud at all. There are not that many doors inthe world, he said. The library has a door and there is a door to thewomen's quarters; in five years, the Calculator will send you throughthat. But there are no others. Chuls smiled an indulgent smile and Rikud came nearer to him. Now, bythe world, there are two other doors! Rikud began to shout, and everyone looked at him queerly. What are you doing that for? demanded Wilm, who was shorter even thanCrifer, but had no lame foot. Doing what? Speaking so loudly when Chuls, who is close, obviously has no troublehearing you. Maybe yelling will make him understand. Crifer hobbled about on his good foot, doing a meaningless little jig.Why don't we go see? he suggested. Then, confused, he frowned. Well, I won't go, Chuls replied. There's no reason to go. If Rikudhas been imagining things, why should I? I imagined nothing. I'll show you— You'll show me nothing because I won't go. Rikud grabbed Chuls' blouse with his big fist. Then, startled by whathe did, his hands began to tremble. But he held on, and he tugged atthe blouse. Stop that, said the older man, mildly. <doc-sep>Crifer hopped up and down. Look what Rikud's doing! I don't know whathe's doing, but look. He's holding Chuls' blouse. Stop that, repeated Chuls, his face reddening. Only if you'll go with me. Rikud was panting. Chuls tugged at his wrist. By this time a crowd had gathered. Some ofthem watched Crifer jump up and down, but most of them watched Rikudholding Chuls' blouse. I think I can do that, declared Wilm, clutching a fistful of Crifer'sshirt. Presently, the members of the crowd had pretty well paired off, eachpartner grabbing for his companion's blouse. They giggled and laughedand some began to hop up and down as Crifer had done. A buzzer sounded and automatically Rikud found himself releasing Chuls. Chuls said, forgetting the incident completely, Time to retire. In a moment, the room was cleared. Rikud stood alone. He cleared histhroat and listened to the sound, all by itself in the stillness. Whatwould have happened if they hadn't retired? But they always did thingspunctually like that, whenever the buzzer sounded. They ate with thebuzzer, bathed in the health-rays with it, slept with it. What would they do if the buzzer stopped buzzing? This frightened Rikud, although he didn't know why. He'd like it,though. Maybe then he could take them outside with him to the biggarden of the two viewports. And then he wouldn't be afraid because hecould huddle close to them and he wouldn't be alone. <doc-sep>Rikud heard the throbbing again as he stood in the room of themachinery. For a long time he watched the wheels and cogs and gearsspinning and humming. He watched for he knew not how long. And then hebegan to wonder. If he destroyed the wheels and the cogs and the gears,would the buzzer stop? It probably would, because, as Rikud saw it, hewas clearly an unauthorized person. He had heard the voice againupon entering the room. He found a metal rod, bright and shiny, three feet long and half aswide as his arm. He tugged at it and it came loose from the wires thatheld it in place. He hefted it carefully for a moment, and then heswung the bar into the mass of metal. Each time he heard a grinding,crashing sound. He looked as the gears and cogs and wheels crumbledunder his blows, shattered by the strength of his arm. Almost casually he strode about the room, but his blows were notcasual. Soon his easy strides had given way to frenzied running. Rikudsmashed everything in sight. When the lights winked out, he stopped. Anyway, by that time the roomwas a shambles of twisted, broken metal. He laughed, softly at first,but presently he was roaring, and the sound doubled and redoubled inhis ears because now the throbbing had stopped. He opened the door and ran through the little corridor to the smallerviewport. Outside he could see the stars, and, dimly, the terrainbeneath them. But everything was so dark that only the stars shoneclearly. All else was bathed in a shadow of unreality. Rikud never wanted to do anything more than he wanted to open thatdoor. But his hands trembled too much when he touched it, and once,when he pressed his face close against the viewport, there in thedarkness, something bright flashed briefly through the sky and was gone. Whimpering, he fled. <doc-sep>All around Rikud were darkness and hunger and thirst. The buzzer didnot sound because Rikud had silenced it forever. And no one went toeat or drink. Rikud himself had fumbled through the blackness and thewhimpering to the dining room, his tongue dry and swollen, but thesmooth belt that flowed with water and with savory dishes did not runany more. The machinery, Rikud realized, also was responsible for food. Chuls said, over and over, I'm hungry. We will eat and we will drink when the buzzer tells us, Wilm repliedconfidently. It won't any more, Rikud said. What won't? The buzzer will never sound again. I broke it. Crifer growled. I know. You shouldn't have done it. That was a badthing you did, Rikud. It was not bad. The world has moved through the blackness and thestars and now we should go outside to live in the big garden therebeyond the viewport. That's ridiculous, Chuls said. Even Crifer now was angry at Rikud. He broke the buzzer and no one caneat. I hate Rikud, I think. There was a lot of noise in the darkness, and someone else said, Ihate Rikud. Then everyone was saying it. Rikud was sad. Soon he would die, because no one would go outside withhim and he could not go outside alone. In five more years he would havehad a woman, too. He wondered if it was dark and hungry in the women'squarters. Did women eat? Perhaps they ate plants. Once, in the garden, Rikud had broken off afrond and tasted it. It had been bitter, but not unpleasant. Maybe theplants in the viewport would even be better. We will not be hungry if we go outside, he said. We can eat there. We can eat if the buzzer sounds, but it is broken, Chuls said dully. Crifer shrilled, Maybe it is only variable and will buzz again. No, Rikud assured him. It won't. Then you broke it and I hate you, said Crifer. We should break you,too, to show you how it is to be broken. We must go outside—through the viewport. Rikud listened to the oddgurgling sound his stomach made. A hand reached out in the darkness and grabbed at his head. He heardCrifer's voice. I have Rikud's head. The voice was nasty, hostile. Crifer, more than anyone, had been his friend. But now that he hadbroken the machinery, Crifer was his enemy, because Crifer came nearerto understanding the situation than anyone except Rikud. The hand reached out again, and it struck Rikud hard across the face.I hit him! I hit him! Other hands reached out, and Rikud stumbled. He fell and then someonewas on top of him, and he struggled. He rolled and was up again, andhe did not like the sound of the angry voices. Someone said, Let usdo to Rikud what he said he did to the machinery. Rikud ran. In thedarkness, his feet prodded many bodies. There were those who were tooweak to rise. Rikud, too, felt a strange light-headedness and a gnawinghurt in his stomach. But it didn't matter. He heard the angry voicesand the feet pounding behind him, and he wanted only to get away. It was dark and he was hungry and everyone who was strong enough to runwas chasing him, but every time he thought of the garden outside, andhow big it was, the darkness and the hunger and the people chasing himwere unimportant. It was so big that it would swallow him up completelyand positively. He became sickly giddy thinking about it. But if he didn't open the door and go into the garden outside, he woulddie because he had no food and no water and his stomach gurgled andgrumbled and hurt. And everyone was chasing him. He stumbled through the darkness and felt his way back to the library,through the inner door and into the room with the voice—but thevoice didn't speak this time—through its door and into the place ofmachinery. Behind him, he could hear the voices at the first door, andhe thought for a moment that no one would come after him. But he heardCrifer yell something, and then feet pounding in the passage. Rikud tripped over something and sprawled awkwardly across the floor.He felt a sharp hurt in his head, and when he reached up to touch itwith his hands there in the darkness, his fingers came away wet. He got up slowly and opened the next door. The voices behind him werecloser now. Light streamed in through the viewport. After the darkness,it frightened Rikud and it made his eyes smart, and he could hear thosebehind him retreating to a safe distance. But their voices were notfar away, and he knew they would come after him because they wanted tobreak him. Rikud looked out upon the garden and he trembled. Out there was life.The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster oflow mounds against the bright blue which roofed the many plants. Ifplants could live out there as they did within the world, then so couldpeople. Rikud and his people should . This was why the world had movedacross the darkness and the stars for all Rikud's lifetime and more.But he was afraid. He reached up and grasped the handle of the door and he saw that hisfingers were red with the wetness which had come from his hurt head.Slowly he slipped to the cool floor—how his head was burning!—and fora long time he lay there, thinking he would never rise again. Inside heheard the voices again, and soon a foot and then another pounded onthe metal of the passage. He heard Crifer's voice louder than the rest:There is Rikud on the floor! Tugging at the handle of the door, Rikud pulled himself upright.Something small and brown scurried across the other side of theviewport and Rikud imagined it turned to look at him with two hideousred eyes. Rikud screamed and hurtled back through the corridor, and his facewas so terrible in the light streaming in through the viewport thateveryone fled before him. He stumbled again in the place of themachinery, and down on his hands and knees he fondled the bits of metalwhich he could see in the dim light through the open door. Where's the buzzer? he sobbed. I must find the buzzer. Crifer's voice, from the darkness inside, said, You broke it. Youbroke it. And now we will break you— Rikud got up and ran. He reached the door again and then he slippeddown against it, exhausted. Behind him, the voices and the footstepscame, and soon he saw Crifer's head peer in through the passageway.Then there were others, and then they were walking toward him. His head whirled and the viewport seemed to swim in a haze. Could itbe variable, as Crifer had suggested? He wondered if the scurryingbrown thing waited somewhere, and nausea struck at the pit of hisstomach. But if the plants could live out there and the scurrying thingcould live and that was why the world had moved through the blackness,then so could he live out there, and Crifer and all the others.... So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. Andhis heart pounded hard and he felt the pulses leaping on either side ofhis neck. He stared out into the garden, and off into the distance, where theblue-white globe which might have been a star stood just above the rowof mounds. <doc-sep>Crifer was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the door, andsomeone was grabbing at his legs, trying to make him fall. He kickedout and the hands let go, and then he turned the handle and shoved theweight of his body with all his strength against the door. It opened and he stepped outside into the warmth. The air was fresh, fresher than any air Rikud had ever breathed. Hewalked around aimlessly, touching the plants and bending down to feelthe floor, and sometimes he looked at the blue-white globe on thehorizon. It was all very beautiful. Near the ship, water that did not come from a machine gurgled acrossthe land, and Rikud lay down and drank. It was cool and good, and whenhe got up, Crifer and Wilm were outside the world, and some of theothers followed. They stood around for a long time before going to thewater to drink. Rikud sat down and tore off a piece of a plant, munching on it. It wasgood. Crifer picked his head up, from the water, his chin wet. Even feelingsare variable. I don't hate you now, Rikud. Rikud smiled, staring at the ship. People are variable, too, Crifer.That is, if those creatures coming from the ship are people. They're women, said Crifer. They were strangely shaped in some ways, and yet in others completelyhuman, and their voices were high, like singing. Rikud found them oddlyexciting. He liked them. He liked the garden, for all its hugeness.With so many people, and especially now with women, he was not afraid. It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer,frightening doors and women by appointment only. Rikud felt at home. <doc-sep></s>

The viewport is one of the most important parts of the story. Rikud goes to the viewport in order to get a break from his routine life inside the ship. The changing stars that he could see through the viewport is what inspired Rikud to think more about the changes going on around him and to explore hhhhhhhe ship. Ultimately it is the viewport that showed him the possibility of a new life on the planet. The viewport essentially lead Rikud to breaking the engine room and to opening the door of the ship.

<s> Raiders of the Second Moon By GENE ELLERMAN A strange destiny had erased Noork's memory, and had brought him to this tiny world—to write an end to his first existence. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Beyond earth swings that airless pocked mass of fused rock and grayvolcanic dust that we know as Luna. Of this our naked eyes assure us.But of the smaller satellite, hidden forever from the mundane view byLuna's bulk, we know little. Small is Sekk, that second moon, less than five hundred miles indiameter, but the period of its revolution is thirty two hours, and itsmeaner mass retains a breathable atmosphere. There is life on Sekk,life that centers around the sunken star-shaped cavity where an ovallake gleams softly in the depths. And the eleven radiating tips of thestarry abyss are valleys green with jungle growth. In one of those green valleys the white savage that the Vasads calledNoork squatted in the ample crotch of a jungle giant and watched thetrail forty feet below. For down there moved alertly a golden skinnedgirl, her only weapons a puny polished bow of yellow wood and asheathed dagger. Sight of the girl's flowing brown hair and the graceful femininecontours of her smooth-limbed body beneath its skin-halter and theinsignificant breech-clout, made his brow wrinkle with concentration.Not forever had he lived in this jungle world of valleys and raggedcliffs. Since he had learned the tongue of the hairy Vasads of forest,and the tongue of their gold-skinned leader, Gurn, the renegade, he hadconfirmed that belief. For a huge gleaming bird had carried him in its talons to the top ofthe cliff above their valley and from the rock fire had risen to devourthe great bird. Somehow he had been flung clear and escaped the deathof the mysterious bird-thing. And in his delirium he had babbled thewords that caused the apish Vasads to name him Noork. Now he repeatedthem aloud. New York, he said, good ol' New York. The girl heard. She looked upward fearfully, her rounded bare arm goingback to the bow slung across her shoulder. Swiftly she fitted an arrowand stepped back against the friendly bole of a shaggy barked junglegiant. Noork grinned. Tako, woman, he greeted her. Tako, she replied fearfully. Who speaks to Tholon Sarna? Be youhunter or escaped slave? A friend, said Noork simply. It was I who killed the spotted narl last night when it attacked you. Doubtfully the girl put away her bow. Her fingers, however, were neverfar from the hilt of her hunting dagger. Noork swung outward from his perch, and then downward along the ladderof limbs to her side. The girl exclaimed at his brown skin. Your hair is the color of the sun! she said. Your garb is Vasad, yetyou speak the language of the true men. Her violet oddly slanting eyesopened yet wider. Who are you? I am Noork, the man told her. For many days have I dwelt among thewild Vasads of the jungle with their golden-skinned chief, Gurn, formy friend. The girl impulsively took a step nearer. Gurn! she cried. Is he talland strong? Has he a bracelet of golden discs linked together withhuman hair? Does he talk with his own shadow when he thinks? That is Gurn, admitted Noork shortly. He is also an exile from thewalled city of Grath. The city rulers call him a traitor. He has toldme the reason. Perhaps you know it as well? Indeed I do, cried Sarna. My brother said that we should no longermake slaves of the captured Zurans from the other valleys. Noork smiled. I am glad he is your brother, he said simply. <doc-sep>The girl's eyes fell before his admiring gaze and warm blood floodedinto her rounded neck and lovely cheeks. Brown-skinned one! she cried with a stamp of her shapely littlesandalled foot. I am displeased with the noises of your tongue. I willlisten to it no more. But her eyes gave the provocative lie to her words. This brown-skinnedgiant with the sunlit hair was very attractive.... The girl was still talking much later, as they walked together alongthe game-trail. When my captors were but one day's march from theirfoul city of Bis the warriors of the city of Konto, through whosefertile valley we had journeyed by night, fell upon the slavers. And in the confusion of the attack five of us escaped. We returnedtoward the valley of Grath, but to avoid the intervening valley whereour enemies, the men of Konto, lived, we swung close to the Lake ofUzdon. And the Misty Ones from the Temple of the Skull trailed us. Ialone escaped. Noork lifted the short, broad-bladed sword that swung in its sheathat his belt and let it drop back into place with a satisfying whisperof flexible leather on steel. He looked toward the east where lay themysterious long lake of the Misty Ones. Some day, he said reflectively, I am going to visit the island ofthe unseen evil beings who stole away your friends. Perhaps after Ihave taken you to your brother's hidden village, and from there toyour city of Grath.... He smiled. The girl did not answer. His keen ears, now that he was no longerspeaking, caught the scuffing of feet into the jungle behind him. Heturned quickly to find the girl had vanished, and with an instinctivereflex of motion he flung himself to one side into the dense wall ofthe jungle. As it was the unseen club thudded down along his right arm,numbing it so he felt nothing for some time. One armed as he was temporarily, and with an unseen foe to reckon with,Noork awkwardly swung up into the comparative safety of the trees. Oncethere, perched in the crotch of a mighty jungle monarch, he peered downat the apparently empty stretch of sunken trail beneath. Noork At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently there was nostir of life along that leaf-shadowed way. And then he caught a glimpseof blurring shadowy shapes, blotches of cottony mist that blended alltoo well with the foliage. One of the things from the island in theLake of Uzdon moved, and he saw briefly the bottom of a foot dirtiedwith the mud of the trail. Noork squinted. So the Misty Ones were not entirely invisible. Painwas growing in his numbed arm now, but as it came so came strength. Heclimbed further out on the great branch to where sticky and overripefruit hung heavy. With a grin he locked his legs upon the forking ofthe great limb and filled his arms with fruit. A barrage of the juicy fruit blanketed the misty shapes. Stains spreadand grew. Patchy outlines took on a new color and sharpness. Noorkfound that he was pelting a half-dozen hooded and robed creatures whosearms and legs numbered the same as his own, and the last remnant ofsuperstitious fear instilled in his bruised brain by the shaggy Vasadsvanished. These Misty Ones were living breathing creatures like himself! Theywere not gods, or demons, or even the ghostly servants of demons. Hestrung his bow quickly, the short powerful bow that Gurn had given him,and rained arrows down upon the cowering robed creatures. And the monsters fled. They fled down the trail or faded away into thejungle. All but one of them. The arrow had pierced a vital portion ofthis Misty One's body. He fell and moved no more. A moment later Noork was ripping the stained cloak and hood from thefallen creature, curious to learn what ghastly brute-thing hid beneaththem. His lip curled at what he saw. The Misty One was almost like himself. His skin was not so golden asthat of the other men of Zuran, and his forehead was low and retreatingin a bestial fashion. Upon his body there was more hair, and his facewas made hideous with swollen colored scars that formed an irregulardesign. He wore a sleeveless tunic of light green and his only weaponswere two long knives and a club. So, said Noork, the men of the island prey upon their own kind. Andthe Temple of Uzdon in the lake is guarded by cowardly warriors likethis. Noork shrugged his shoulders and set off at a mile-devouring pace downthe game trail toward the lake where the Temple of the Skull and itsunseen guardians lay. Once he stopped at a leaf-choked pool to wash thestains from the dead man's foggy robe. The jungle was thinning out. Noork's teeth flashed as he lifted thedrying fabric of the mantle and donned it. <doc-sep>Ud tasted the scent of a man and sluggishly rolled his bullet head fromshoulder to shoulder as he tried to catch sight of his ages-old enemy.For between the hairy quarter-ton beast men of the jungles of Sekk andthe golden men of the valley cities who enslaved them there was eternalwar. A growl rumbled deep in the hairy half-man's chest. He could see noenemy and yet the scent grew stronger with every breath. You hunt too near the lake, called a voice. The demons of the waterwill trap you. Ud's great nostrils quivered. He tasted the odor of a friend mingledwith that of a strange Zuran. He squatted. It's Noork, he grunted. Why do I not see you? I have stolen the skin of a demon, answered the invisible man. Go toGurn. Tell him to fear the demons no longer. Tell him the Misty Onescan be trapped and skinned. Why you want their skins? Ud scratched his hairy gray skull. Go to save Gurn's ... and here Noork was stumped for words. To savehis father's woman woman, he managed at last. Father's woman womancalled Sarna. And the misty blob of nothingness was gone again, its goal now themarshy lowlands that extended upward perhaps a thousand feet from thejungle's ragged fringe to end at last in the muddy shallows of the Lakeof Uzdon. To Noork it seemed that all the world must be like these savage junglefastnesses of the twelve valleys and their central lake. He knew thatthe giant bird had carried him from some other place that his batteredbrain could not remember, but to him it seemed incredible that mencould live elsewhere than in a jungle valley. But Noork was wrong. The giant bird that he had ridden into the depthsof Sekk's fertile valleys had come from a far different world. And theother bird, for which Noork had been searching when he came upon thegolden-skinned girl, was from another world also. The other bird had come from space several days before that of Noork,the Vasads had told him, and it had landed somewhere within the landof sunken valleys. Perhaps, thought Noork, the bird had come from thesame valley that had once been his home. He would find the bird andperhaps then he could remember better who he had been. So it was, ironically enough, that Stephen Dietrich—whose memory wasgone completely—again took up the trail of Doctor Karl Von Mark, lastof the Axis criminals at large. The trail that had led the red-hairedyoung American flier from rebuilding Greece into Africa and the hiddenvalley where Doctor Von Mark worked feverishly to restore the crumbledstructure of Nazidom, and then had sent him hurtling spaceward in thesecond of the Doctor's crude space-ships was now drawing to an end.The Doctor and the young American pilot were both trapped here on thislittle blob of cosmic matter that hides beyond the Moon's cratered bulk. The Doctor's ship had landed safely on Sekk, the wily scientistpreferring the lesser gravity of this fertile world to that of thelifeless Moon in the event that he returned again to Earth, butDietrich's spacer had crashed. Two words linked Noork with the past, the two words that the Vasadshad slurred into his name: New York. And the battered wrist watch, itscrystal and hands gone, were all that remained of his Earthly garb. <doc-sep>Noork paddled the long flat dugout strongly away from the twilightshore toward the shadowy loom of the central island. Though he couldnot remember ever having held a paddle before he handled the ungainlyblade well. After a time the clumsy prow of the craft rammed into a yieldingcushion of mud, and Noork pulled the dugout out of the water into theroofing shelter of a clump of drooping trees growing at the water'sedge. Sword in hand he pushed inward from the shore and ended with asmothered exclamation against an unseen wall. Trees grew close up tothe wall and a moment later he had climbed out along a horizontalbranch beyond the wall's top, and was lowering his body with the aid ofa braided leather rope to the ground beyond. He was in a cultivated field his feet and hands told him. And perhapshalf a mile away, faintly illumined by torches and red clots ofbonfires, towered a huge weathered white skull! Secure in the knowledge that he wore the invisible robes of a MistyOne he found a solitary tree growing within the wall and climbed to acomfortable crotch. In less than a minute he was asleep. The new slave, a rough voice cut across his slumber abruptly, is thedaughter of Tholon Dist the merchant. Noork was fully awake now. They were speaking of Sarna. Her father'sname was Tholon Dist. It was early morning in the fields of the MistyOnes and he could see the two golden-skinned slaves who talked togetherbeneath his tree. That matters not to the priests of Uzdon, the slighter of thetwo slaves, his hair almost white, said. If she be chosen for thesacrifice to great Uzdon her blood will stain the altar no redder thananother's. But it is always the youngest and most beautiful, complained theyounger slave, that the priests chose. I wish to mate with a beautifulwoman. Tholon Sarna is such a one. The old man chuckled dryly. If your wife be plain, he said, neithermaster nor fellow slave will steal her love. A slave should choose agood woman—and ugly, my son. Some night, snarled the slave, I'm going over the wall. Even theMisty Ones will not catch me once I have crossed the lake. Silence, hissed the white-haired man. Such talk is madness. We aresafe here from wild animals. There are no spotted narls on the islandof Manak. The priests of most holy Uzdon, and their invisible minions,are not unkind. Get at your weeding of the field, Rold, he finished, and I willcomplete my checking of the gardens. Noork waited until the old man was gone before he descended from thetree. He walked along the row until he reached the slave's bent back,and he knew by the sudden tightening of the man's shoulder musclesthat his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet madeclear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. Continue to work, he said to the young man. Do not be too surprisedat what I am about to tell you, Rold. He paused and watched the goldenman's rather stupid face intently. I am not a Misty One, Noork said. I killed the owner of this strangegarment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue thegirl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke. Rold's mouth hung open but his hard blunt fingers continued to work.The Misty Ones, then, he said slowly, are not immortal demons! Henodded his long-haired head. They are but men. They too can die. If you will help me, Rold, said Noork, to rescue the girl and escapefrom the island I will take you along. Rold was slow in answering. He had been born on the island and yet hispeople were from the valley city of Konto. He knew that they wouldwelcome the news that the Misty Ones were not demons. And the girl fromthe enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him forhelping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. I will help you, stranger, he agreed. Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison whereTholon Sarna is held. The slave's fingers flew. All the young female slaves are cagedtogether in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directlyoverhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice tomighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of thenext day the chosen one will be bound across the altar before greatUzdon's image and her heart torn from her living breast. The slave'smismatched eyes, one blue and the other brown, lifted from his work. Tholon Sarna is in the pit beneath the Temple with the other femaleslaves. And the Misty Ones stand guard over the entrance to the templepits. It is enough, said Noork. I will go to rescue her now. Be preparedto join us as we return. I will have a robe for you if all goes well. If you are captured, cried Rold nervously, you will not tell them Italked with you? Noork laughed. You never saw me, he told the slave. <doc-sep>The skull was a gigantic dome of shaped white stone. Where theeye-sockets and gaping nose-hole should have been, black squares ofrock gave the illusion of vacancy. Slitted apertures that served forwindows circled the grisly whiteness of the temple's curving walls atthree distinct levels. Noork drifted slowly up the huge series of long bench-like stepsthat led up to the gaping jaws of the Skull. He saw red andpurple-robed priests with nodding head-dresses of painted plumes andfeathers climbing and descending the stairs. Among them moved thesquatty gnarled shapes of burdened Vasads, their shaggy bowed legsfettered together with heavy copper or bronze chains, and cringinggolden-skinned slaves slipped furtively through the press of thebrilliant-robed ones. The stale sweaty odor of the slaves and the beastmen mingled with the musky stench of the incense from the temple. Other misty blobs, the invisible guards of the ghastly temple, werestationed at regular intervals across the great entrance into theSkull's interior, but they paid Noork no heed. To them he was anotherof their number. He moved swiftly to cross the wide stone-slabbed entry within thejaws, and a moment later was looking down into a sunken bowl whoserocky floor was a score of feet below where he stood. Now he saw thecentral raised altar where the gleam of precious stones and cunninglyworked metal—gold, silver and brass—vied with the faded garishcolors of the draperies beneath it. And on the same dais there loomedtwo beast-headed stone images, the lion-headed god a male and thewolf-headed shape a female. These then were the two blood hungry deities that the men of Zuraworshipped—mighty Uzdon and his mate, Lornu! Noork joined the descending throng that walked slowly down the centralramp toward the altar. As he searched for the entrance to the lowerpits his eyes took in the stone steps that led upward into the twoupper levels. Only priests and the vague shapelessness of the MistyOnes climbed those steps. The upper levels, then, were forbidden tothe slaves and common citizens of the island. As he circled the curving inner wall a foul dank odor reached hissensitive nostrils, and his eyes searched for its origin. He found itthere just before him, the opening that gave way to a descending flightof clammy stone steps. He darted toward the door and from nowhere twoshort swords rose to bar his way. None are to pass save the priests, spoke a voice from nowheregruffly. The High Priest knows that we of the temple guards covet themost beautiful of the slave women, but we are not to see them until thesacrifice is chosen. Noork moved backward a pace. He grumbled something inaudible and drewhis sword. Before him the two swords slowly drew aside. In that instant Noork attacked. His keen sword, whetted to razorsharpness on abrasive bits of rock, bit through the hidden neck andshoulder of the guard on his right hand, and with the same forwardimpetus of attack he smashed into the body of the startled guard on hisleft. His sword had wrenched from his hand as it jammed into the bonystructure of the decapitated Misty One's shoulder, and now both hishands sought the throat of the guard. The unseen man's cry of warninggurgled and died in his throat as Noork clamped his fingers shut uponit, and his shortened sword stabbed at Noork's back. The struggle overbalanced them. They rolled over and over down theshadowy stair, the stone smashing at their softer flesh unmercifully.For a moment the battling men brought up with a jolt as the obstructionof the first guard's corpse arrested their downward course, and thenthey jolted and jarred onward again from blood-slippery step toblood-slippery step. The sword clattered from the guardian Misty One's clutch and in thesame instant Noork's steel fingers snapped the neck of the other manwith a pistol-like report. The limp body beneath him struggled no more.He sprang to his feet and became aware of a torch-lighted doorway but ahalf-dozen paces further down along the descending shaft of steps. In a moment, he thought, the fellows of this guard would come chargingout, swords in hand. They could not have failed to hear the struggleon the stairs of stone, he reasoned, for here the noise and confusionof the upper temple was muted to a murmur. So it was that he ran quickly to the door, in his hand the sword thathad dropped from the dead man's fingers, and sprang inside, prepared tobattle there the Misty Ones, lest one escape to give the alarm. He looked about the narrow stone-walled room with puzzled eyes. Twowarriors lay on a pallet of straw, one of them emitting hideousgurgling sounds that filled the little room with unpleasing echoes.Noork grinned. From the floor beside the fatter of the two men, the guard who did notsnore, he took a club. Twice he struck and the gurgling sound changedto a steady deep breathing. Noork knew that now the two guards wouldnot give the alarm for several hours. Thoughtfully he looked about theroom. There were several of the hooded cloaks hanging from pegs wedgedinto the crevices of the chamber's wall, their outlines much plainerhere in the artificial light of the flickering torch. Noork shed his own blood-stained robe quickly and donned one of theothers. The cloaks were rather bulky and so he could carry but twoothers, rolled up, beneath his own protective covering. The matter of his disguise thus taken care of he dragged the two bodiesfrom the stairway and hid them beneath their own fouled robes in thechamber of the sleeping guards. Not until then did he hurry on down thestone steps toward the prison pit where Tholon Sarna, the golden girl,was held prisoner. <doc-sep>The steps opened into a dimly lit cavern. Pools of foul black waterdotted the uneven floor and reflected back faintly the light of the twosputtering torches beside the entrance. One corner of the cavern waswalled off, save for a narrow door of interlocking brass strips, andtoward this Noork made his way. He stood beside the door. Sarna, he called softly, Tholon Sarna. There were a score of young women, lately captured from the mainlandby the Misty Ones, sitting dejectedly upon the foul dampness of therotting grass that was their bed. Most of them were clad in the simpleskirt and brief jacket, reaching but to the lower ribs, that is themark of the golden people who dwell in the city-states of Zura'svalleys, but a few wore a simple band of cloth about their hips andconfined their breasts with a strip of well-cured leopard or antelopehide. One of the women now came to her feet and as she neared themetal-barred entrance Noork saw that she was indeed Sarna. He examinedthe outer lock of the door and found it to be barred with a massivetimber and the timber locked in place with a metal spike slipped into aprepared cavity in the prison's rocky wall. It is Noork, he said softly as she came closer. He saw her eyes gowide with fear and sudden hope, and then reached for the spike. The priest, hissed the girl. Noork had already heard the sound of approaching feet. He dropped thespike and whirled. His sword was in his hand as though by magic, as hefaced the burly priest of the Skull. Across the forehead and upper half of the priest's face a curved shieldof transparent tinted material was fastened. Noork's eyes narrowed ashe saw the sword and shield of the gigantic holy man. So, he said, to the priests of Uzdon we are not invisible. You donot trust your guards, then. The priest laughed. We also have robes of invisibility, he said, andthe sacred window of Uzdon before our eyes. He snarled suddenly at thesilent figure of the white man. Down on your knees, guard, and show meyour face before I kill you! Noork raised his sword. Take my hood off if you dare, priest, heoffered. The burly priest's answer was a bellow of rage and a lunge forward ofhis sword arm. Their swords clicked together and slid apart with thevelvety smoothness of bronze on bronze. Noork's blade bit a chunk fromthe priest's conical shield, and in return received a slashing cut thatdrew blood from left shoulder to elbow. The fighting grew more furious as the priest pressed the attack. Hewas a skilled swordsman and only the superior agility of the whiteman's legs kept Noork away from that darting priestly blade. Even sohis robe was slashed in a dozen places and blood reddened his bronzedbody. Once he slipped in a puddle of foul cavern water and only by theslightest of margins did he escape death by the priest's weapon. The priest was tiring rapidly, however. The soft living of the temple,and the rich wines and over-cooked meats that served to pad his paunchso well with fat, now served to rob him of breath. He opened hismouth to bawl for assistance from the guard, although it is doubtfulwhether any sound could have penetrated up into the madhouse of themain temple's floor, and in that instant Noork flipped his sword at hisenemy. Between the shield and the transparent bit of curving material thesword drove, and buried itself deep in the priest's thick neck. Noorkleaped forward; he snatched the tinted face shield and his sword, and amoment later he had torn the great wooden timber from its sockets. Tholon Sarna stumbled through the door and he caught her in his arms.Hurriedly he loosed one of the two robes fastened about his waist andslipped it around her slim shivering shoulders. Are there other priests hidden here in the pits? Noork asked tensely. No, came the girl's low voice, I do not think so. I did not knowthat this priest was here until he appeared behind you. A slow smilecrossed Noork's hidden features. His robe must be close by, he toldthe girl. He must have been stationed here because the priests fearedthe guards might spirit away some of the prisoners. Slowly he angled back and forth across the floor until his foot touchedthe soft material of the priest's discarded robe near the stairwayentrance. He slipped the thongs of the transparent mask, called by thepriest Uzdon's window over his hood, and then proceeded to don thenew robe. My own robe is slit in a dozen places, he explained to the girl'scurious violet eyes—-all that was visible through the narrow visionslot of her hood. He finished adjusting the outer robe and took thegirl's hand. Come, he said, let us escape over the wall before the alarm isgiven. <doc-sep>Without incident they reached the field where Rold toiled among therows of vegetables. Another slave was working in a nearby field,his crude wooden plow pulled by two sweating Vasads, but he was notwatching when Rold abruptly faded from view. Noork was sweating with the weight of two cloaks and the airlessness ofthe vision shield as they crossed the field toward his rope, but he hadno wish to discard them yet. The tinted shield had revealed that dozensof the Misty Ones were stationed about the wall to guard against theescape of the slaves. They came to the wall and to Noork's great joy found the rope hangingas he had left it. He climbed the wall first and then with Rold helpingfrom below, drew Sarna to his side. A moment later saw the three ofthem climbing along the limb to the bole of the tree and so to thejungle matted ground outside the wall. Will we hide here in the trees until night? asked the girl's fullvoice. Noork held aside a mossy creeper until the girl had passed. I thinknot, he said. The Misty Ones are continually passing from the islandto the shore. We are Misty Ones to any that watch from the wall. So wewill paddle boldly across the water. That is good, agreed the slave, unless they see us put out from theshore. Their two landing stages are further along the beach, oppositethe Temple of Uzdon. Then we must hug to the shore until we pass the tip of the island,said Noork thoughtfully. In that way even if they detect us we willhave put a safe distance between us. Shortly after midday Noork felt the oozy slime of the marshy lowlandsof the mainland beneath his paddle and the dugout ran ashore in thegrassy inlet for which they had been heading. His palms were blisteredand the heavy robes he yet wore were soaked with sweat. Once we reach the jungle, he told the girl, off come these robes. Iam broiled alive. Suddenly Noork froze in his tracks. He thrust the girl behind him.Misty Ones! he hissed to Rold. They crouch among the reeds. Theycarry nets and clubs to trap us. Rold turned back toward the boat with Noork and Sarna close at hisheels. But the Misty Ones were upon them and by sheer numbers they borethem to the ground. Noork's mightier muscles smashed more than onehooded face but in the end he too lay smothered beneath the nets andbodies of the enemy. A misty shape came to stand beside these three new captives as theywere stripped of their robes. His foot nudged at Noork's head curiouslyand a guttural voice commanded the shield be removed. Then his voicechanged—thickened—as he saw the features of Noork. So, he barked in a tongue that should have been strange to Noork butwas not, it is the trapper's turn to be trapped, eh Captain Dietrich? <doc-sep>A fat, square-jawed face, harsh lines paralleling the ugly blob of anose, showed through the opened robe of the leader. The face was thatof Doctor Von Mark the treacherous Nazi scientist that Stephen Dietrichhad trailed across space to Sekk! But Noork knew nothing of that chase.The man's face seemed familiar, and hateful, but that was all heremembered. I see you have come from the island, said the Doctor. Perhaps youcan tell me the secret of this invisible material I wear. With thesecret of invisibility I, Karl Von Mark, can again conquer Earth andmake the Fatherland invincible. I do not understand too well, said Noork hesitantly. Are we enemies?There is so much I have forgotten. He regarded the brutal facethoughtfully. Perhaps you know from what valley the great bird brought me, he said.Or perhaps the other bird brought you here. Von Mark's blue eyes widened and then he roared with a great noisethat was intended to be mirth. His foot slammed harder into Noork'sdefenseless ribs. Perhaps you have forgotten, swine of an American, he roared suddenly,and in his hand was an ugly looking automatic. He flung back his robeand Noork saw the dress uniform of a general. Perhaps, the scientistrepeated, but I will take no chances. The amnesia is often but apretense. His lip curled. This is something for you to remember, CaptainDietrich, he said as the ugly black muzzle of the gun centered onNoork's bronzed chest. And then Doctor Von Mark cursed as the gun dropped from his nervelessfingers and his hands clawed weakly at the arrow buried in his widebelly. He stumbled backward. Arrows rained from the mistiness that had closed in about Von Mark andhis men. The men from Wari, their faces unshielded, fell like flies.In a moment those yet alive had taken to their heels, and Noork feltinvisible fingers tearing at the nets that bound him. As he rose to his feet the robed figure let its misty covering dropaside. A handsome golden-skinned warrior stood revealed. Gurn! cried Noork. A glad cry came from the throat of Tholon Sarna as she saw her brother.And then she crept closer to Noork's side as the invisible mantlesof Gurn's loyal Vasads opened to reveal the hairy beast men theyconcealed. Rold whimpered fearfully. The message that Ud carried to me was good, laughed Gurn. The MistyOnes skin easily. We were trapping the Misty Ones as they came acrossthe lake, he looked at the dying Von Mark, as were these others. Soonwe would have come to your rescue, Noork, my friend. Lucky I escaped first, Noork told him. The priests of Uzdon wouldhave trapped you. To them the Misty Ones are visible. He picked up the fallen vision shield that lay beside their feet. Hischest expanded proudly. No longer, he told Gurn, am I a man without a name. I am CaptainDietrich from a distant valley called America. I was hunting this evilman when my bird died. He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. Theevil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peacewith you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle. It is good, Noork, smiled Tholon Sarna. <doc-sep></s>

Noork is in a tree on a moon named Sekk, watching a woman walk through the jungle. When they speak, they learn that Noork has been living with her brother, Gurn. With this introduction, they begin to travel together.The woman explains that she had been captured by slavers in the past but had escaped. The escapees were then followed by the Misty Ones, and the woman was the only one who made a complete escape. Noork states that he will visit the island where the Misty Ones live one day, but the woman does not answer. When Noork turns back to her, she has disappeared, and Noork is attacked. He hides in the trees and spies the Misty Ones below. He throws fruit down on them until he can easily see them by the stains the fruit makes on their clothing, then attacks with arrows. The Misty Ones flee except for one who has been killed with an arrow. Noork takes the robe of this one and sets off toward the Temple of the Skull, the home of the Misty Ones, to free the woman.Noork encounters Ud, his friend, near the lake, and tells him to tell Gurn that the MIsty Ones can be trapped and skinned. He asks Ud to tell Gurn that Noork is going to save Gurn's "father's woman woman" called Sarna.Noork paddles across the lake and sneaks close to the Temple of the Skull. He falls asleep in a tree and is awakened by the conversation of two slaves talking about Sarna. After one slave leaves, he speaks with the other slave, Rold, and tells him that he is there to rescue Sarna. Rold, realizing that the Misty Ones are only mortal men, tells Noork that Sarna is held in a pit beneath the temple with the other young women slaves.Noork finds the entrance to the pit but is blocked by two guards, whom he kills.He then proceeds to the cage where the young women are held, where he is confronted by a priest. He fights the priest, kills him, and frees Sarna. They go back to the field, get Rold, and the three of them flee into the jungle. They plan to go for a boat and leave, but are caught by Misty Ones waiting to trap them. At this time, Dr. Von Mark, a Nazi from Earth, confronts Noork, who is also Stephen Dietrich, an American pilot who has been hunting him and had tracked him through space to Sekk. Due to Dietrich/Noork's amnesia, he remembers none of this. Just as Von Mark is about to kill him, Gurn and other men from Wari kill the Misty Ones with arrows and Noork and the others are freed. Noork states that he can now live in peace with Gurn and Sarna in the jungle.

<s> Raiders of the Second Moon By GENE ELLERMAN A strange destiny had erased Noork's memory, and had brought him to this tiny world—to write an end to his first existence. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Beyond earth swings that airless pocked mass of fused rock and grayvolcanic dust that we know as Luna. Of this our naked eyes assure us.But of the smaller satellite, hidden forever from the mundane view byLuna's bulk, we know little. Small is Sekk, that second moon, less than five hundred miles indiameter, but the period of its revolution is thirty two hours, and itsmeaner mass retains a breathable atmosphere. There is life on Sekk,life that centers around the sunken star-shaped cavity where an ovallake gleams softly in the depths. And the eleven radiating tips of thestarry abyss are valleys green with jungle growth. In one of those green valleys the white savage that the Vasads calledNoork squatted in the ample crotch of a jungle giant and watched thetrail forty feet below. For down there moved alertly a golden skinnedgirl, her only weapons a puny polished bow of yellow wood and asheathed dagger. Sight of the girl's flowing brown hair and the graceful femininecontours of her smooth-limbed body beneath its skin-halter and theinsignificant breech-clout, made his brow wrinkle with concentration.Not forever had he lived in this jungle world of valleys and raggedcliffs. Since he had learned the tongue of the hairy Vasads of forest,and the tongue of their gold-skinned leader, Gurn, the renegade, he hadconfirmed that belief. For a huge gleaming bird had carried him in its talons to the top ofthe cliff above their valley and from the rock fire had risen to devourthe great bird. Somehow he had been flung clear and escaped the deathof the mysterious bird-thing. And in his delirium he had babbled thewords that caused the apish Vasads to name him Noork. Now he repeatedthem aloud. New York, he said, good ol' New York. The girl heard. She looked upward fearfully, her rounded bare arm goingback to the bow slung across her shoulder. Swiftly she fitted an arrowand stepped back against the friendly bole of a shaggy barked junglegiant. Noork grinned. Tako, woman, he greeted her. Tako, she replied fearfully. Who speaks to Tholon Sarna? Be youhunter or escaped slave? A friend, said Noork simply. It was I who killed the spotted narl last night when it attacked you. Doubtfully the girl put away her bow. Her fingers, however, were neverfar from the hilt of her hunting dagger. Noork swung outward from his perch, and then downward along the ladderof limbs to her side. The girl exclaimed at his brown skin. Your hair is the color of the sun! she said. Your garb is Vasad, yetyou speak the language of the true men. Her violet oddly slanting eyesopened yet wider. Who are you? I am Noork, the man told her. For many days have I dwelt among thewild Vasads of the jungle with their golden-skinned chief, Gurn, formy friend. The girl impulsively took a step nearer. Gurn! she cried. Is he talland strong? Has he a bracelet of golden discs linked together withhuman hair? Does he talk with his own shadow when he thinks? That is Gurn, admitted Noork shortly. He is also an exile from thewalled city of Grath. The city rulers call him a traitor. He has toldme the reason. Perhaps you know it as well? Indeed I do, cried Sarna. My brother said that we should no longermake slaves of the captured Zurans from the other valleys. Noork smiled. I am glad he is your brother, he said simply. <doc-sep>The girl's eyes fell before his admiring gaze and warm blood floodedinto her rounded neck and lovely cheeks. Brown-skinned one! she cried with a stamp of her shapely littlesandalled foot. I am displeased with the noises of your tongue. I willlisten to it no more. But her eyes gave the provocative lie to her words. This brown-skinnedgiant with the sunlit hair was very attractive.... The girl was still talking much later, as they walked together alongthe game-trail. When my captors were but one day's march from theirfoul city of Bis the warriors of the city of Konto, through whosefertile valley we had journeyed by night, fell upon the slavers. And in the confusion of the attack five of us escaped. We returnedtoward the valley of Grath, but to avoid the intervening valley whereour enemies, the men of Konto, lived, we swung close to the Lake ofUzdon. And the Misty Ones from the Temple of the Skull trailed us. Ialone escaped. Noork lifted the short, broad-bladed sword that swung in its sheathat his belt and let it drop back into place with a satisfying whisperof flexible leather on steel. He looked toward the east where lay themysterious long lake of the Misty Ones. Some day, he said reflectively, I am going to visit the island ofthe unseen evil beings who stole away your friends. Perhaps after Ihave taken you to your brother's hidden village, and from there toyour city of Grath.... He smiled. The girl did not answer. His keen ears, now that he was no longerspeaking, caught the scuffing of feet into the jungle behind him. Heturned quickly to find the girl had vanished, and with an instinctivereflex of motion he flung himself to one side into the dense wall ofthe jungle. As it was the unseen club thudded down along his right arm,numbing it so he felt nothing for some time. One armed as he was temporarily, and with an unseen foe to reckon with,Noork awkwardly swung up into the comparative safety of the trees. Oncethere, perched in the crotch of a mighty jungle monarch, he peered downat the apparently empty stretch of sunken trail beneath. Noork At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently there was nostir of life along that leaf-shadowed way. And then he caught a glimpseof blurring shadowy shapes, blotches of cottony mist that blended alltoo well with the foliage. One of the things from the island in theLake of Uzdon moved, and he saw briefly the bottom of a foot dirtiedwith the mud of the trail. Noork squinted. So the Misty Ones were not entirely invisible. Painwas growing in his numbed arm now, but as it came so came strength. Heclimbed further out on the great branch to where sticky and overripefruit hung heavy. With a grin he locked his legs upon the forking ofthe great limb and filled his arms with fruit. A barrage of the juicy fruit blanketed the misty shapes. Stains spreadand grew. Patchy outlines took on a new color and sharpness. Noorkfound that he was pelting a half-dozen hooded and robed creatures whosearms and legs numbered the same as his own, and the last remnant ofsuperstitious fear instilled in his bruised brain by the shaggy Vasadsvanished. These Misty Ones were living breathing creatures like himself! Theywere not gods, or demons, or even the ghostly servants of demons. Hestrung his bow quickly, the short powerful bow that Gurn had given him,and rained arrows down upon the cowering robed creatures. And the monsters fled. They fled down the trail or faded away into thejungle. All but one of them. The arrow had pierced a vital portion ofthis Misty One's body. He fell and moved no more. A moment later Noork was ripping the stained cloak and hood from thefallen creature, curious to learn what ghastly brute-thing hid beneaththem. His lip curled at what he saw. The Misty One was almost like himself. His skin was not so golden asthat of the other men of Zuran, and his forehead was low and retreatingin a bestial fashion. Upon his body there was more hair, and his facewas made hideous with swollen colored scars that formed an irregulardesign. He wore a sleeveless tunic of light green and his only weaponswere two long knives and a club. So, said Noork, the men of the island prey upon their own kind. Andthe Temple of Uzdon in the lake is guarded by cowardly warriors likethis. Noork shrugged his shoulders and set off at a mile-devouring pace downthe game trail toward the lake where the Temple of the Skull and itsunseen guardians lay. Once he stopped at a leaf-choked pool to wash thestains from the dead man's foggy robe. The jungle was thinning out. Noork's teeth flashed as he lifted thedrying fabric of the mantle and donned it. <doc-sep>Ud tasted the scent of a man and sluggishly rolled his bullet head fromshoulder to shoulder as he tried to catch sight of his ages-old enemy.For between the hairy quarter-ton beast men of the jungles of Sekk andthe golden men of the valley cities who enslaved them there was eternalwar. A growl rumbled deep in the hairy half-man's chest. He could see noenemy and yet the scent grew stronger with every breath. You hunt too near the lake, called a voice. The demons of the waterwill trap you. Ud's great nostrils quivered. He tasted the odor of a friend mingledwith that of a strange Zuran. He squatted. It's Noork, he grunted. Why do I not see you? I have stolen the skin of a demon, answered the invisible man. Go toGurn. Tell him to fear the demons no longer. Tell him the Misty Onescan be trapped and skinned. Why you want their skins? Ud scratched his hairy gray skull. Go to save Gurn's ... and here Noork was stumped for words. To savehis father's woman woman, he managed at last. Father's woman womancalled Sarna. And the misty blob of nothingness was gone again, its goal now themarshy lowlands that extended upward perhaps a thousand feet from thejungle's ragged fringe to end at last in the muddy shallows of the Lakeof Uzdon. To Noork it seemed that all the world must be like these savage junglefastnesses of the twelve valleys and their central lake. He knew thatthe giant bird had carried him from some other place that his batteredbrain could not remember, but to him it seemed incredible that mencould live elsewhere than in a jungle valley. But Noork was wrong. The giant bird that he had ridden into the depthsof Sekk's fertile valleys had come from a far different world. And theother bird, for which Noork had been searching when he came upon thegolden-skinned girl, was from another world also. The other bird had come from space several days before that of Noork,the Vasads had told him, and it had landed somewhere within the landof sunken valleys. Perhaps, thought Noork, the bird had come from thesame valley that had once been his home. He would find the bird andperhaps then he could remember better who he had been. So it was, ironically enough, that Stephen Dietrich—whose memory wasgone completely—again took up the trail of Doctor Karl Von Mark, lastof the Axis criminals at large. The trail that had led the red-hairedyoung American flier from rebuilding Greece into Africa and the hiddenvalley where Doctor Von Mark worked feverishly to restore the crumbledstructure of Nazidom, and then had sent him hurtling spaceward in thesecond of the Doctor's crude space-ships was now drawing to an end.The Doctor and the young American pilot were both trapped here on thislittle blob of cosmic matter that hides beyond the Moon's cratered bulk. The Doctor's ship had landed safely on Sekk, the wily scientistpreferring the lesser gravity of this fertile world to that of thelifeless Moon in the event that he returned again to Earth, butDietrich's spacer had crashed. Two words linked Noork with the past, the two words that the Vasadshad slurred into his name: New York. And the battered wrist watch, itscrystal and hands gone, were all that remained of his Earthly garb. <doc-sep>Noork paddled the long flat dugout strongly away from the twilightshore toward the shadowy loom of the central island. Though he couldnot remember ever having held a paddle before he handled the ungainlyblade well. After a time the clumsy prow of the craft rammed into a yieldingcushion of mud, and Noork pulled the dugout out of the water into theroofing shelter of a clump of drooping trees growing at the water'sedge. Sword in hand he pushed inward from the shore and ended with asmothered exclamation against an unseen wall. Trees grew close up tothe wall and a moment later he had climbed out along a horizontalbranch beyond the wall's top, and was lowering his body with the aid ofa braided leather rope to the ground beyond. He was in a cultivated field his feet and hands told him. And perhapshalf a mile away, faintly illumined by torches and red clots ofbonfires, towered a huge weathered white skull! Secure in the knowledge that he wore the invisible robes of a MistyOne he found a solitary tree growing within the wall and climbed to acomfortable crotch. In less than a minute he was asleep. The new slave, a rough voice cut across his slumber abruptly, is thedaughter of Tholon Dist the merchant. Noork was fully awake now. They were speaking of Sarna. Her father'sname was Tholon Dist. It was early morning in the fields of the MistyOnes and he could see the two golden-skinned slaves who talked togetherbeneath his tree. That matters not to the priests of Uzdon, the slighter of thetwo slaves, his hair almost white, said. If she be chosen for thesacrifice to great Uzdon her blood will stain the altar no redder thananother's. But it is always the youngest and most beautiful, complained theyounger slave, that the priests chose. I wish to mate with a beautifulwoman. Tholon Sarna is such a one. The old man chuckled dryly. If your wife be plain, he said, neithermaster nor fellow slave will steal her love. A slave should choose agood woman—and ugly, my son. Some night, snarled the slave, I'm going over the wall. Even theMisty Ones will not catch me once I have crossed the lake. Silence, hissed the white-haired man. Such talk is madness. We aresafe here from wild animals. There are no spotted narls on the islandof Manak. The priests of most holy Uzdon, and their invisible minions,are not unkind. Get at your weeding of the field, Rold, he finished, and I willcomplete my checking of the gardens. Noork waited until the old man was gone before he descended from thetree. He walked along the row until he reached the slave's bent back,and he knew by the sudden tightening of the man's shoulder musclesthat his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet madeclear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. Continue to work, he said to the young man. Do not be too surprisedat what I am about to tell you, Rold. He paused and watched the goldenman's rather stupid face intently. I am not a Misty One, Noork said. I killed the owner of this strangegarment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue thegirl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke. Rold's mouth hung open but his hard blunt fingers continued to work.The Misty Ones, then, he said slowly, are not immortal demons! Henodded his long-haired head. They are but men. They too can die. If you will help me, Rold, said Noork, to rescue the girl and escapefrom the island I will take you along. Rold was slow in answering. He had been born on the island and yet hispeople were from the valley city of Konto. He knew that they wouldwelcome the news that the Misty Ones were not demons. And the girl fromthe enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him forhelping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. I will help you, stranger, he agreed. Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison whereTholon Sarna is held. The slave's fingers flew. All the young female slaves are cagedtogether in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directlyoverhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice tomighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of thenext day the chosen one will be bound across the altar before greatUzdon's image and her heart torn from her living breast. The slave'smismatched eyes, one blue and the other brown, lifted from his work. Tholon Sarna is in the pit beneath the Temple with the other femaleslaves. And the Misty Ones stand guard over the entrance to the templepits. It is enough, said Noork. I will go to rescue her now. Be preparedto join us as we return. I will have a robe for you if all goes well. If you are captured, cried Rold nervously, you will not tell them Italked with you? Noork laughed. You never saw me, he told the slave. <doc-sep>The skull was a gigantic dome of shaped white stone. Where theeye-sockets and gaping nose-hole should have been, black squares ofrock gave the illusion of vacancy. Slitted apertures that served forwindows circled the grisly whiteness of the temple's curving walls atthree distinct levels. Noork drifted slowly up the huge series of long bench-like stepsthat led up to the gaping jaws of the Skull. He saw red andpurple-robed priests with nodding head-dresses of painted plumes andfeathers climbing and descending the stairs. Among them moved thesquatty gnarled shapes of burdened Vasads, their shaggy bowed legsfettered together with heavy copper or bronze chains, and cringinggolden-skinned slaves slipped furtively through the press of thebrilliant-robed ones. The stale sweaty odor of the slaves and the beastmen mingled with the musky stench of the incense from the temple. Other misty blobs, the invisible guards of the ghastly temple, werestationed at regular intervals across the great entrance into theSkull's interior, but they paid Noork no heed. To them he was anotherof their number. He moved swiftly to cross the wide stone-slabbed entry within thejaws, and a moment later was looking down into a sunken bowl whoserocky floor was a score of feet below where he stood. Now he saw thecentral raised altar where the gleam of precious stones and cunninglyworked metal—gold, silver and brass—vied with the faded garishcolors of the draperies beneath it. And on the same dais there loomedtwo beast-headed stone images, the lion-headed god a male and thewolf-headed shape a female. These then were the two blood hungry deities that the men of Zuraworshipped—mighty Uzdon and his mate, Lornu! Noork joined the descending throng that walked slowly down the centralramp toward the altar. As he searched for the entrance to the lowerpits his eyes took in the stone steps that led upward into the twoupper levels. Only priests and the vague shapelessness of the MistyOnes climbed those steps. The upper levels, then, were forbidden tothe slaves and common citizens of the island. As he circled the curving inner wall a foul dank odor reached hissensitive nostrils, and his eyes searched for its origin. He found itthere just before him, the opening that gave way to a descending flightof clammy stone steps. He darted toward the door and from nowhere twoshort swords rose to bar his way. None are to pass save the priests, spoke a voice from nowheregruffly. The High Priest knows that we of the temple guards covet themost beautiful of the slave women, but we are not to see them until thesacrifice is chosen. Noork moved backward a pace. He grumbled something inaudible and drewhis sword. Before him the two swords slowly drew aside. In that instant Noork attacked. His keen sword, whetted to razorsharpness on abrasive bits of rock, bit through the hidden neck andshoulder of the guard on his right hand, and with the same forwardimpetus of attack he smashed into the body of the startled guard on hisleft. His sword had wrenched from his hand as it jammed into the bonystructure of the decapitated Misty One's shoulder, and now both hishands sought the throat of the guard. The unseen man's cry of warninggurgled and died in his throat as Noork clamped his fingers shut uponit, and his shortened sword stabbed at Noork's back. The struggle overbalanced them. They rolled over and over down theshadowy stair, the stone smashing at their softer flesh unmercifully.For a moment the battling men brought up with a jolt as the obstructionof the first guard's corpse arrested their downward course, and thenthey jolted and jarred onward again from blood-slippery step toblood-slippery step. The sword clattered from the guardian Misty One's clutch and in thesame instant Noork's steel fingers snapped the neck of the other manwith a pistol-like report. The limp body beneath him struggled no more.He sprang to his feet and became aware of a torch-lighted doorway but ahalf-dozen paces further down along the descending shaft of steps. In a moment, he thought, the fellows of this guard would come chargingout, swords in hand. They could not have failed to hear the struggleon the stairs of stone, he reasoned, for here the noise and confusionof the upper temple was muted to a murmur. So it was that he ran quickly to the door, in his hand the sword thathad dropped from the dead man's fingers, and sprang inside, prepared tobattle there the Misty Ones, lest one escape to give the alarm. He looked about the narrow stone-walled room with puzzled eyes. Twowarriors lay on a pallet of straw, one of them emitting hideousgurgling sounds that filled the little room with unpleasing echoes.Noork grinned. From the floor beside the fatter of the two men, the guard who did notsnore, he took a club. Twice he struck and the gurgling sound changedto a steady deep breathing. Noork knew that now the two guards wouldnot give the alarm for several hours. Thoughtfully he looked about theroom. There were several of the hooded cloaks hanging from pegs wedgedinto the crevices of the chamber's wall, their outlines much plainerhere in the artificial light of the flickering torch. Noork shed his own blood-stained robe quickly and donned one of theothers. The cloaks were rather bulky and so he could carry but twoothers, rolled up, beneath his own protective covering. The matter of his disguise thus taken care of he dragged the two bodiesfrom the stairway and hid them beneath their own fouled robes in thechamber of the sleeping guards. Not until then did he hurry on down thestone steps toward the prison pit where Tholon Sarna, the golden girl,was held prisoner. <doc-sep>The steps opened into a dimly lit cavern. Pools of foul black waterdotted the uneven floor and reflected back faintly the light of the twosputtering torches beside the entrance. One corner of the cavern waswalled off, save for a narrow door of interlocking brass strips, andtoward this Noork made his way. He stood beside the door. Sarna, he called softly, Tholon Sarna. There were a score of young women, lately captured from the mainlandby the Misty Ones, sitting dejectedly upon the foul dampness of therotting grass that was their bed. Most of them were clad in the simpleskirt and brief jacket, reaching but to the lower ribs, that is themark of the golden people who dwell in the city-states of Zura'svalleys, but a few wore a simple band of cloth about their hips andconfined their breasts with a strip of well-cured leopard or antelopehide. One of the women now came to her feet and as she neared themetal-barred entrance Noork saw that she was indeed Sarna. He examinedthe outer lock of the door and found it to be barred with a massivetimber and the timber locked in place with a metal spike slipped into aprepared cavity in the prison's rocky wall. It is Noork, he said softly as she came closer. He saw her eyes gowide with fear and sudden hope, and then reached for the spike. The priest, hissed the girl. Noork had already heard the sound of approaching feet. He dropped thespike and whirled. His sword was in his hand as though by magic, as hefaced the burly priest of the Skull. Across the forehead and upper half of the priest's face a curved shieldof transparent tinted material was fastened. Noork's eyes narrowed ashe saw the sword and shield of the gigantic holy man. So, he said, to the priests of Uzdon we are not invisible. You donot trust your guards, then. The priest laughed. We also have robes of invisibility, he said, andthe sacred window of Uzdon before our eyes. He snarled suddenly at thesilent figure of the white man. Down on your knees, guard, and show meyour face before I kill you! Noork raised his sword. Take my hood off if you dare, priest, heoffered. The burly priest's answer was a bellow of rage and a lunge forward ofhis sword arm. Their swords clicked together and slid apart with thevelvety smoothness of bronze on bronze. Noork's blade bit a chunk fromthe priest's conical shield, and in return received a slashing cut thatdrew blood from left shoulder to elbow. The fighting grew more furious as the priest pressed the attack. Hewas a skilled swordsman and only the superior agility of the whiteman's legs kept Noork away from that darting priestly blade. Even sohis robe was slashed in a dozen places and blood reddened his bronzedbody. Once he slipped in a puddle of foul cavern water and only by theslightest of margins did he escape death by the priest's weapon. The priest was tiring rapidly, however. The soft living of the temple,and the rich wines and over-cooked meats that served to pad his paunchso well with fat, now served to rob him of breath. He opened hismouth to bawl for assistance from the guard, although it is doubtfulwhether any sound could have penetrated up into the madhouse of themain temple's floor, and in that instant Noork flipped his sword at hisenemy. Between the shield and the transparent bit of curving material thesword drove, and buried itself deep in the priest's thick neck. Noorkleaped forward; he snatched the tinted face shield and his sword, and amoment later he had torn the great wooden timber from its sockets. Tholon Sarna stumbled through the door and he caught her in his arms.Hurriedly he loosed one of the two robes fastened about his waist andslipped it around her slim shivering shoulders. Are there other priests hidden here in the pits? Noork asked tensely. No, came the girl's low voice, I do not think so. I did not knowthat this priest was here until he appeared behind you. A slow smilecrossed Noork's hidden features. His robe must be close by, he toldthe girl. He must have been stationed here because the priests fearedthe guards might spirit away some of the prisoners. Slowly he angled back and forth across the floor until his foot touchedthe soft material of the priest's discarded robe near the stairwayentrance. He slipped the thongs of the transparent mask, called by thepriest Uzdon's window over his hood, and then proceeded to don thenew robe. My own robe is slit in a dozen places, he explained to the girl'scurious violet eyes—-all that was visible through the narrow visionslot of her hood. He finished adjusting the outer robe and took thegirl's hand. Come, he said, let us escape over the wall before the alarm isgiven. <doc-sep>Without incident they reached the field where Rold toiled among therows of vegetables. Another slave was working in a nearby field,his crude wooden plow pulled by two sweating Vasads, but he was notwatching when Rold abruptly faded from view. Noork was sweating with the weight of two cloaks and the airlessness ofthe vision shield as they crossed the field toward his rope, but he hadno wish to discard them yet. The tinted shield had revealed that dozensof the Misty Ones were stationed about the wall to guard against theescape of the slaves. They came to the wall and to Noork's great joy found the rope hangingas he had left it. He climbed the wall first and then with Rold helpingfrom below, drew Sarna to his side. A moment later saw the three ofthem climbing along the limb to the bole of the tree and so to thejungle matted ground outside the wall. Will we hide here in the trees until night? asked the girl's fullvoice. Noork held aside a mossy creeper until the girl had passed. I thinknot, he said. The Misty Ones are continually passing from the islandto the shore. We are Misty Ones to any that watch from the wall. So wewill paddle boldly across the water. That is good, agreed the slave, unless they see us put out from theshore. Their two landing stages are further along the beach, oppositethe Temple of Uzdon. Then we must hug to the shore until we pass the tip of the island,said Noork thoughtfully. In that way even if they detect us we willhave put a safe distance between us. Shortly after midday Noork felt the oozy slime of the marshy lowlandsof the mainland beneath his paddle and the dugout ran ashore in thegrassy inlet for which they had been heading. His palms were blisteredand the heavy robes he yet wore were soaked with sweat. Once we reach the jungle, he told the girl, off come these robes. Iam broiled alive. Suddenly Noork froze in his tracks. He thrust the girl behind him.Misty Ones! he hissed to Rold. They crouch among the reeds. Theycarry nets and clubs to trap us. Rold turned back toward the boat with Noork and Sarna close at hisheels. But the Misty Ones were upon them and by sheer numbers they borethem to the ground. Noork's mightier muscles smashed more than onehooded face but in the end he too lay smothered beneath the nets andbodies of the enemy. A misty shape came to stand beside these three new captives as theywere stripped of their robes. His foot nudged at Noork's head curiouslyand a guttural voice commanded the shield be removed. Then his voicechanged—thickened—as he saw the features of Noork. So, he barked in a tongue that should have been strange to Noork butwas not, it is the trapper's turn to be trapped, eh Captain Dietrich? <doc-sep>A fat, square-jawed face, harsh lines paralleling the ugly blob of anose, showed through the opened robe of the leader. The face was thatof Doctor Von Mark the treacherous Nazi scientist that Stephen Dietrichhad trailed across space to Sekk! But Noork knew nothing of that chase.The man's face seemed familiar, and hateful, but that was all heremembered. I see you have come from the island, said the Doctor. Perhaps youcan tell me the secret of this invisible material I wear. With thesecret of invisibility I, Karl Von Mark, can again conquer Earth andmake the Fatherland invincible. I do not understand too well, said Noork hesitantly. Are we enemies?There is so much I have forgotten. He regarded the brutal facethoughtfully. Perhaps you know from what valley the great bird brought me, he said.Or perhaps the other bird brought you here. Von Mark's blue eyes widened and then he roared with a great noisethat was intended to be mirth. His foot slammed harder into Noork'sdefenseless ribs. Perhaps you have forgotten, swine of an American, he roared suddenly,and in his hand was an ugly looking automatic. He flung back his robeand Noork saw the dress uniform of a general. Perhaps, the scientistrepeated, but I will take no chances. The amnesia is often but apretense. His lip curled. This is something for you to remember, CaptainDietrich, he said as the ugly black muzzle of the gun centered onNoork's bronzed chest. And then Doctor Von Mark cursed as the gun dropped from his nervelessfingers and his hands clawed weakly at the arrow buried in his widebelly. He stumbled backward. Arrows rained from the mistiness that had closed in about Von Mark andhis men. The men from Wari, their faces unshielded, fell like flies.In a moment those yet alive had taken to their heels, and Noork feltinvisible fingers tearing at the nets that bound him. As he rose to his feet the robed figure let its misty covering dropaside. A handsome golden-skinned warrior stood revealed. Gurn! cried Noork. A glad cry came from the throat of Tholon Sarna as she saw her brother.And then she crept closer to Noork's side as the invisible mantlesof Gurn's loyal Vasads opened to reveal the hairy beast men theyconcealed. Rold whimpered fearfully. The message that Ud carried to me was good, laughed Gurn. The MistyOnes skin easily. We were trapping the Misty Ones as they came acrossthe lake, he looked at the dying Von Mark, as were these others. Soonwe would have come to your rescue, Noork, my friend. Lucky I escaped first, Noork told him. The priests of Uzdon wouldhave trapped you. To them the Misty Ones are visible. He picked up the fallen vision shield that lay beside their feet. Hischest expanded proudly. No longer, he told Gurn, am I a man without a name. I am CaptainDietrich from a distant valley called America. I was hunting this evilman when my bird died. He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. Theevil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peacewith you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle. It is good, Noork, smiled Tholon Sarna. <doc-sep></s>

The story begins in thick jungle on Sekk, which we are told is a "second moon" which retains a "breathable atmosphere" around a lake surrounded by eleven jungled valleys. In this way, it is implied that Sekk is a second moon of Earth.In the jungle, we meet Noork and a young woman named Sarna. They begin traveling together through the jungle, but soon Sarna disappears and Noork is attacked. This is our first encounter with the Misty Ones, who blend in with the jungle foliage. Noork defeats the Misty Ones and continues toward the lake and island where they make their home.Noork briefly encounters his friend Ud near the marshy lowlands that lie between the jungled valleys on Sekk and the central Lake of Uzdon, but this area is not described. When Noork reaches the central island in the lake, we encounter a non-jungle landscape for the first time. Noork finds himself in a cultivated field, and sees the shape of a huge white skull about half a mile away. After speaking with an enslaved man and learning where Sarna is being held, Noork continues toward the skull.The skull is a dome of white stone, with black stone for eye-sockets and nose-holes. The interior contains a raised altar made of precious metals--gold, silver, and brass--and precious stones, as well as stone images of the two gods the Misty Ones worship. Below the altar is the caged area where the young women are held; Noork detects the entrance to this area by its foul odor. The room where the young women are kept is dimly lit by only two torches, very damp with pools of dirty water all around, and holds at least twenty young women. They have nothing to sit on but rotten grass mats. In contrast to the enslaved men who are out in the cultivated fields and open air, the young women are in a desperate situation indeed. They can only sit in their foul, rotting prison and wait to be sacrificed.

<s> Raiders of the Second Moon By GENE ELLERMAN A strange destiny had erased Noork's memory, and had brought him to this tiny world—to write an end to his first existence. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Beyond earth swings that airless pocked mass of fused rock and grayvolcanic dust that we know as Luna. Of this our naked eyes assure us.But of the smaller satellite, hidden forever from the mundane view byLuna's bulk, we know little. Small is Sekk, that second moon, less than five hundred miles indiameter, but the period of its revolution is thirty two hours, and itsmeaner mass retains a breathable atmosphere. There is life on Sekk,life that centers around the sunken star-shaped cavity where an ovallake gleams softly in the depths. And the eleven radiating tips of thestarry abyss are valleys green with jungle growth. In one of those green valleys the white savage that the Vasads calledNoork squatted in the ample crotch of a jungle giant and watched thetrail forty feet below. For down there moved alertly a golden skinnedgirl, her only weapons a puny polished bow of yellow wood and asheathed dagger. Sight of the girl's flowing brown hair and the graceful femininecontours of her smooth-limbed body beneath its skin-halter and theinsignificant breech-clout, made his brow wrinkle with concentration.Not forever had he lived in this jungle world of valleys and raggedcliffs. Since he had learned the tongue of the hairy Vasads of forest,and the tongue of their gold-skinned leader, Gurn, the renegade, he hadconfirmed that belief. For a huge gleaming bird had carried him in its talons to the top ofthe cliff above their valley and from the rock fire had risen to devourthe great bird. Somehow he had been flung clear and escaped the deathof the mysterious bird-thing. And in his delirium he had babbled thewords that caused the apish Vasads to name him Noork. Now he repeatedthem aloud. New York, he said, good ol' New York. The girl heard. She looked upward fearfully, her rounded bare arm goingback to the bow slung across her shoulder. Swiftly she fitted an arrowand stepped back against the friendly bole of a shaggy barked junglegiant. Noork grinned. Tako, woman, he greeted her. Tako, she replied fearfully. Who speaks to Tholon Sarna? Be youhunter or escaped slave? A friend, said Noork simply. It was I who killed the spotted narl last night when it attacked you. Doubtfully the girl put away her bow. Her fingers, however, were neverfar from the hilt of her hunting dagger. Noork swung outward from his perch, and then downward along the ladderof limbs to her side. The girl exclaimed at his brown skin. Your hair is the color of the sun! she said. Your garb is Vasad, yetyou speak the language of the true men. Her violet oddly slanting eyesopened yet wider. Who are you? I am Noork, the man told her. For many days have I dwelt among thewild Vasads of the jungle with their golden-skinned chief, Gurn, formy friend. The girl impulsively took a step nearer. Gurn! she cried. Is he talland strong? Has he a bracelet of golden discs linked together withhuman hair? Does he talk with his own shadow when he thinks? That is Gurn, admitted Noork shortly. He is also an exile from thewalled city of Grath. The city rulers call him a traitor. He has toldme the reason. Perhaps you know it as well? Indeed I do, cried Sarna. My brother said that we should no longermake slaves of the captured Zurans from the other valleys. Noork smiled. I am glad he is your brother, he said simply. <doc-sep>The girl's eyes fell before his admiring gaze and warm blood floodedinto her rounded neck and lovely cheeks. Brown-skinned one! she cried with a stamp of her shapely littlesandalled foot. I am displeased with the noises of your tongue. I willlisten to it no more. But her eyes gave the provocative lie to her words. This brown-skinnedgiant with the sunlit hair was very attractive.... The girl was still talking much later, as they walked together alongthe game-trail. When my captors were but one day's march from theirfoul city of Bis the warriors of the city of Konto, through whosefertile valley we had journeyed by night, fell upon the slavers. And in the confusion of the attack five of us escaped. We returnedtoward the valley of Grath, but to avoid the intervening valley whereour enemies, the men of Konto, lived, we swung close to the Lake ofUzdon. And the Misty Ones from the Temple of the Skull trailed us. Ialone escaped. Noork lifted the short, broad-bladed sword that swung in its sheathat his belt and let it drop back into place with a satisfying whisperof flexible leather on steel. He looked toward the east where lay themysterious long lake of the Misty Ones. Some day, he said reflectively, I am going to visit the island ofthe unseen evil beings who stole away your friends. Perhaps after Ihave taken you to your brother's hidden village, and from there toyour city of Grath.... He smiled. The girl did not answer. His keen ears, now that he was no longerspeaking, caught the scuffing of feet into the jungle behind him. Heturned quickly to find the girl had vanished, and with an instinctivereflex of motion he flung himself to one side into the dense wall ofthe jungle. As it was the unseen club thudded down along his right arm,numbing it so he felt nothing for some time. One armed as he was temporarily, and with an unseen foe to reckon with,Noork awkwardly swung up into the comparative safety of the trees. Oncethere, perched in the crotch of a mighty jungle monarch, he peered downat the apparently empty stretch of sunken trail beneath. Noork At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently there was nostir of life along that leaf-shadowed way. And then he caught a glimpseof blurring shadowy shapes, blotches of cottony mist that blended alltoo well with the foliage. One of the things from the island in theLake of Uzdon moved, and he saw briefly the bottom of a foot dirtiedwith the mud of the trail. Noork squinted. So the Misty Ones were not entirely invisible. Painwas growing in his numbed arm now, but as it came so came strength. Heclimbed further out on the great branch to where sticky and overripefruit hung heavy. With a grin he locked his legs upon the forking ofthe great limb and filled his arms with fruit. A barrage of the juicy fruit blanketed the misty shapes. Stains spreadand grew. Patchy outlines took on a new color and sharpness. Noorkfound that he was pelting a half-dozen hooded and robed creatures whosearms and legs numbered the same as his own, and the last remnant ofsuperstitious fear instilled in his bruised brain by the shaggy Vasadsvanished. These Misty Ones were living breathing creatures like himself! Theywere not gods, or demons, or even the ghostly servants of demons. Hestrung his bow quickly, the short powerful bow that Gurn had given him,and rained arrows down upon the cowering robed creatures. And the monsters fled. They fled down the trail or faded away into thejungle. All but one of them. The arrow had pierced a vital portion ofthis Misty One's body. He fell and moved no more. A moment later Noork was ripping the stained cloak and hood from thefallen creature, curious to learn what ghastly brute-thing hid beneaththem. His lip curled at what he saw. The Misty One was almost like himself. His skin was not so golden asthat of the other men of Zuran, and his forehead was low and retreatingin a bestial fashion. Upon his body there was more hair, and his facewas made hideous with swollen colored scars that formed an irregulardesign. He wore a sleeveless tunic of light green and his only weaponswere two long knives and a club. So, said Noork, the men of the island prey upon their own kind. Andthe Temple of Uzdon in the lake is guarded by cowardly warriors likethis. Noork shrugged his shoulders and set off at a mile-devouring pace downthe game trail toward the lake where the Temple of the Skull and itsunseen guardians lay. Once he stopped at a leaf-choked pool to wash thestains from the dead man's foggy robe. The jungle was thinning out. Noork's teeth flashed as he lifted thedrying fabric of the mantle and donned it. <doc-sep>Ud tasted the scent of a man and sluggishly rolled his bullet head fromshoulder to shoulder as he tried to catch sight of his ages-old enemy.For between the hairy quarter-ton beast men of the jungles of Sekk andthe golden men of the valley cities who enslaved them there was eternalwar. A growl rumbled deep in the hairy half-man's chest. He could see noenemy and yet the scent grew stronger with every breath. You hunt too near the lake, called a voice. The demons of the waterwill trap you. Ud's great nostrils quivered. He tasted the odor of a friend mingledwith that of a strange Zuran. He squatted. It's Noork, he grunted. Why do I not see you? I have stolen the skin of a demon, answered the invisible man. Go toGurn. Tell him to fear the demons no longer. Tell him the Misty Onescan be trapped and skinned. Why you want their skins? Ud scratched his hairy gray skull. Go to save Gurn's ... and here Noork was stumped for words. To savehis father's woman woman, he managed at last. Father's woman womancalled Sarna. And the misty blob of nothingness was gone again, its goal now themarshy lowlands that extended upward perhaps a thousand feet from thejungle's ragged fringe to end at last in the muddy shallows of the Lakeof Uzdon. To Noork it seemed that all the world must be like these savage junglefastnesses of the twelve valleys and their central lake. He knew thatthe giant bird had carried him from some other place that his batteredbrain could not remember, but to him it seemed incredible that mencould live elsewhere than in a jungle valley. But Noork was wrong. The giant bird that he had ridden into the depthsof Sekk's fertile valleys had come from a far different world. And theother bird, for which Noork had been searching when he came upon thegolden-skinned girl, was from another world also. The other bird had come from space several days before that of Noork,the Vasads had told him, and it had landed somewhere within the landof sunken valleys. Perhaps, thought Noork, the bird had come from thesame valley that had once been his home. He would find the bird andperhaps then he could remember better who he had been. So it was, ironically enough, that Stephen Dietrich—whose memory wasgone completely—again took up the trail of Doctor Karl Von Mark, lastof the Axis criminals at large. The trail that had led the red-hairedyoung American flier from rebuilding Greece into Africa and the hiddenvalley where Doctor Von Mark worked feverishly to restore the crumbledstructure of Nazidom, and then had sent him hurtling spaceward in thesecond of the Doctor's crude space-ships was now drawing to an end.The Doctor and the young American pilot were both trapped here on thislittle blob of cosmic matter that hides beyond the Moon's cratered bulk. The Doctor's ship had landed safely on Sekk, the wily scientistpreferring the lesser gravity of this fertile world to that of thelifeless Moon in the event that he returned again to Earth, butDietrich's spacer had crashed. Two words linked Noork with the past, the two words that the Vasadshad slurred into his name: New York. And the battered wrist watch, itscrystal and hands gone, were all that remained of his Earthly garb. <doc-sep>Noork paddled the long flat dugout strongly away from the twilightshore toward the shadowy loom of the central island. Though he couldnot remember ever having held a paddle before he handled the ungainlyblade well. After a time the clumsy prow of the craft rammed into a yieldingcushion of mud, and Noork pulled the dugout out of the water into theroofing shelter of a clump of drooping trees growing at the water'sedge. Sword in hand he pushed inward from the shore and ended with asmothered exclamation against an unseen wall. Trees grew close up tothe wall and a moment later he had climbed out along a horizontalbranch beyond the wall's top, and was lowering his body with the aid ofa braided leather rope to the ground beyond. He was in a cultivated field his feet and hands told him. And perhapshalf a mile away, faintly illumined by torches and red clots ofbonfires, towered a huge weathered white skull! Secure in the knowledge that he wore the invisible robes of a MistyOne he found a solitary tree growing within the wall and climbed to acomfortable crotch. In less than a minute he was asleep. The new slave, a rough voice cut across his slumber abruptly, is thedaughter of Tholon Dist the merchant. Noork was fully awake now. They were speaking of Sarna. Her father'sname was Tholon Dist. It was early morning in the fields of the MistyOnes and he could see the two golden-skinned slaves who talked togetherbeneath his tree. That matters not to the priests of Uzdon, the slighter of thetwo slaves, his hair almost white, said. If she be chosen for thesacrifice to great Uzdon her blood will stain the altar no redder thananother's. But it is always the youngest and most beautiful, complained theyounger slave, that the priests chose. I wish to mate with a beautifulwoman. Tholon Sarna is such a one. The old man chuckled dryly. If your wife be plain, he said, neithermaster nor fellow slave will steal her love. A slave should choose agood woman—and ugly, my son. Some night, snarled the slave, I'm going over the wall. Even theMisty Ones will not catch me once I have crossed the lake. Silence, hissed the white-haired man. Such talk is madness. We aresafe here from wild animals. There are no spotted narls on the islandof Manak. The priests of most holy Uzdon, and their invisible minions,are not unkind. Get at your weeding of the field, Rold, he finished, and I willcomplete my checking of the gardens. Noork waited until the old man was gone before he descended from thetree. He walked along the row until he reached the slave's bent back,and he knew by the sudden tightening of the man's shoulder musclesthat his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet madeclear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. Continue to work, he said to the young man. Do not be too surprisedat what I am about to tell you, Rold. He paused and watched the goldenman's rather stupid face intently. I am not a Misty One, Noork said. I killed the owner of this strangegarment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue thegirl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke. Rold's mouth hung open but his hard blunt fingers continued to work.The Misty Ones, then, he said slowly, are not immortal demons! Henodded his long-haired head. They are but men. They too can die. If you will help me, Rold, said Noork, to rescue the girl and escapefrom the island I will take you along. Rold was slow in answering. He had been born on the island and yet hispeople were from the valley city of Konto. He knew that they wouldwelcome the news that the Misty Ones were not demons. And the girl fromthe enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him forhelping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. I will help you, stranger, he agreed. Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison whereTholon Sarna is held. The slave's fingers flew. All the young female slaves are cagedtogether in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directlyoverhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice tomighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of thenext day the chosen one will be bound across the altar before greatUzdon's image and her heart torn from her living breast. The slave'smismatched eyes, one blue and the other brown, lifted from his work. Tholon Sarna is in the pit beneath the Temple with the other femaleslaves. And the Misty Ones stand guard over the entrance to the templepits. It is enough, said Noork. I will go to rescue her now. Be preparedto join us as we return. I will have a robe for you if all goes well. If you are captured, cried Rold nervously, you will not tell them Italked with you? Noork laughed. You never saw me, he told the slave. <doc-sep>The skull was a gigantic dome of shaped white stone. Where theeye-sockets and gaping nose-hole should have been, black squares ofrock gave the illusion of vacancy. Slitted apertures that served forwindows circled the grisly whiteness of the temple's curving walls atthree distinct levels. Noork drifted slowly up the huge series of long bench-like stepsthat led up to the gaping jaws of the Skull. He saw red andpurple-robed priests with nodding head-dresses of painted plumes andfeathers climbing and descending the stairs. Among them moved thesquatty gnarled shapes of burdened Vasads, their shaggy bowed legsfettered together with heavy copper or bronze chains, and cringinggolden-skinned slaves slipped furtively through the press of thebrilliant-robed ones. The stale sweaty odor of the slaves and the beastmen mingled with the musky stench of the incense from the temple. Other misty blobs, the invisible guards of the ghastly temple, werestationed at regular intervals across the great entrance into theSkull's interior, but they paid Noork no heed. To them he was anotherof their number. He moved swiftly to cross the wide stone-slabbed entry within thejaws, and a moment later was looking down into a sunken bowl whoserocky floor was a score of feet below where he stood. Now he saw thecentral raised altar where the gleam of precious stones and cunninglyworked metal—gold, silver and brass—vied with the faded garishcolors of the draperies beneath it. And on the same dais there loomedtwo beast-headed stone images, the lion-headed god a male and thewolf-headed shape a female. These then were the two blood hungry deities that the men of Zuraworshipped—mighty Uzdon and his mate, Lornu! Noork joined the descending throng that walked slowly down the centralramp toward the altar. As he searched for the entrance to the lowerpits his eyes took in the stone steps that led upward into the twoupper levels. Only priests and the vague shapelessness of the MistyOnes climbed those steps. The upper levels, then, were forbidden tothe slaves and common citizens of the island. As he circled the curving inner wall a foul dank odor reached hissensitive nostrils, and his eyes searched for its origin. He found itthere just before him, the opening that gave way to a descending flightof clammy stone steps. He darted toward the door and from nowhere twoshort swords rose to bar his way. None are to pass save the priests, spoke a voice from nowheregruffly. The High Priest knows that we of the temple guards covet themost beautiful of the slave women, but we are not to see them until thesacrifice is chosen. Noork moved backward a pace. He grumbled something inaudible and drewhis sword. Before him the two swords slowly drew aside. In that instant Noork attacked. His keen sword, whetted to razorsharpness on abrasive bits of rock, bit through the hidden neck andshoulder of the guard on his right hand, and with the same forwardimpetus of attack he smashed into the body of the startled guard on hisleft. His sword had wrenched from his hand as it jammed into the bonystructure of the decapitated Misty One's shoulder, and now both hishands sought the throat of the guard. The unseen man's cry of warninggurgled and died in his throat as Noork clamped his fingers shut uponit, and his shortened sword stabbed at Noork's back. The struggle overbalanced them. They rolled over and over down theshadowy stair, the stone smashing at their softer flesh unmercifully.For a moment the battling men brought up with a jolt as the obstructionof the first guard's corpse arrested their downward course, and thenthey jolted and jarred onward again from blood-slippery step toblood-slippery step. The sword clattered from the guardian Misty One's clutch and in thesame instant Noork's steel fingers snapped the neck of the other manwith a pistol-like report. The limp body beneath him struggled no more.He sprang to his feet and became aware of a torch-lighted doorway but ahalf-dozen paces further down along the descending shaft of steps. In a moment, he thought, the fellows of this guard would come chargingout, swords in hand. They could not have failed to hear the struggleon the stairs of stone, he reasoned, for here the noise and confusionof the upper temple was muted to a murmur. So it was that he ran quickly to the door, in his hand the sword thathad dropped from the dead man's fingers, and sprang inside, prepared tobattle there the Misty Ones, lest one escape to give the alarm. He looked about the narrow stone-walled room with puzzled eyes. Twowarriors lay on a pallet of straw, one of them emitting hideousgurgling sounds that filled the little room with unpleasing echoes.Noork grinned. From the floor beside the fatter of the two men, the guard who did notsnore, he took a club. Twice he struck and the gurgling sound changedto a steady deep breathing. Noork knew that now the two guards wouldnot give the alarm for several hours. Thoughtfully he looked about theroom. There were several of the hooded cloaks hanging from pegs wedgedinto the crevices of the chamber's wall, their outlines much plainerhere in the artificial light of the flickering torch. Noork shed his own blood-stained robe quickly and donned one of theothers. The cloaks were rather bulky and so he could carry but twoothers, rolled up, beneath his own protective covering. The matter of his disguise thus taken care of he dragged the two bodiesfrom the stairway and hid them beneath their own fouled robes in thechamber of the sleeping guards. Not until then did he hurry on down thestone steps toward the prison pit where Tholon Sarna, the golden girl,was held prisoner. <doc-sep>The steps opened into a dimly lit cavern. Pools of foul black waterdotted the uneven floor and reflected back faintly the light of the twosputtering torches beside the entrance. One corner of the cavern waswalled off, save for a narrow door of interlocking brass strips, andtoward this Noork made his way. He stood beside the door. Sarna, he called softly, Tholon Sarna. There were a score of young women, lately captured from the mainlandby the Misty Ones, sitting dejectedly upon the foul dampness of therotting grass that was their bed. Most of them were clad in the simpleskirt and brief jacket, reaching but to the lower ribs, that is themark of the golden people who dwell in the city-states of Zura'svalleys, but a few wore a simple band of cloth about their hips andconfined their breasts with a strip of well-cured leopard or antelopehide. One of the women now came to her feet and as she neared themetal-barred entrance Noork saw that she was indeed Sarna. He examinedthe outer lock of the door and found it to be barred with a massivetimber and the timber locked in place with a metal spike slipped into aprepared cavity in the prison's rocky wall. It is Noork, he said softly as she came closer. He saw her eyes gowide with fear and sudden hope, and then reached for the spike. The priest, hissed the girl. Noork had already heard the sound of approaching feet. He dropped thespike and whirled. His sword was in his hand as though by magic, as hefaced the burly priest of the Skull. Across the forehead and upper half of the priest's face a curved shieldof transparent tinted material was fastened. Noork's eyes narrowed ashe saw the sword and shield of the gigantic holy man. So, he said, to the priests of Uzdon we are not invisible. You donot trust your guards, then. The priest laughed. We also have robes of invisibility, he said, andthe sacred window of Uzdon before our eyes. He snarled suddenly at thesilent figure of the white man. Down on your knees, guard, and show meyour face before I kill you! Noork raised his sword. Take my hood off if you dare, priest, heoffered. The burly priest's answer was a bellow of rage and a lunge forward ofhis sword arm. Their swords clicked together and slid apart with thevelvety smoothness of bronze on bronze. Noork's blade bit a chunk fromthe priest's conical shield, and in return received a slashing cut thatdrew blood from left shoulder to elbow. The fighting grew more furious as the priest pressed the attack. Hewas a skilled swordsman and only the superior agility of the whiteman's legs kept Noork away from that darting priestly blade. Even sohis robe was slashed in a dozen places and blood reddened his bronzedbody. Once he slipped in a puddle of foul cavern water and only by theslightest of margins did he escape death by the priest's weapon. The priest was tiring rapidly, however. The soft living of the temple,and the rich wines and over-cooked meats that served to pad his paunchso well with fat, now served to rob him of breath. He opened hismouth to bawl for assistance from the guard, although it is doubtfulwhether any sound could have penetrated up into the madhouse of themain temple's floor, and in that instant Noork flipped his sword at hisenemy. Between the shield and the transparent bit of curving material thesword drove, and buried itself deep in the priest's thick neck. Noorkleaped forward; he snatched the tinted face shield and his sword, and amoment later he had torn the great wooden timber from its sockets. Tholon Sarna stumbled through the door and he caught her in his arms.Hurriedly he loosed one of the two robes fastened about his waist andslipped it around her slim shivering shoulders. Are there other priests hidden here in the pits? Noork asked tensely. No, came the girl's low voice, I do not think so. I did not knowthat this priest was here until he appeared behind you. A slow smilecrossed Noork's hidden features. His robe must be close by, he toldthe girl. He must have been stationed here because the priests fearedthe guards might spirit away some of the prisoners. Slowly he angled back and forth across the floor until his foot touchedthe soft material of the priest's discarded robe near the stairwayentrance. He slipped the thongs of the transparent mask, called by thepriest Uzdon's window over his hood, and then proceeded to don thenew robe. My own robe is slit in a dozen places, he explained to the girl'scurious violet eyes—-all that was visible through the narrow visionslot of her hood. He finished adjusting the outer robe and took thegirl's hand. Come, he said, let us escape over the wall before the alarm isgiven. <doc-sep>Without incident they reached the field where Rold toiled among therows of vegetables. Another slave was working in a nearby field,his crude wooden plow pulled by two sweating Vasads, but he was notwatching when Rold abruptly faded from view. Noork was sweating with the weight of two cloaks and the airlessness ofthe vision shield as they crossed the field toward his rope, but he hadno wish to discard them yet. The tinted shield had revealed that dozensof the Misty Ones were stationed about the wall to guard against theescape of the slaves. They came to the wall and to Noork's great joy found the rope hangingas he had left it. He climbed the wall first and then with Rold helpingfrom below, drew Sarna to his side. A moment later saw the three ofthem climbing along the limb to the bole of the tree and so to thejungle matted ground outside the wall. Will we hide here in the trees until night? asked the girl's fullvoice. Noork held aside a mossy creeper until the girl had passed. I thinknot, he said. The Misty Ones are continually passing from the islandto the shore. We are Misty Ones to any that watch from the wall. So wewill paddle boldly across the water. That is good, agreed the slave, unless they see us put out from theshore. Their two landing stages are further along the beach, oppositethe Temple of Uzdon. Then we must hug to the shore until we pass the tip of the island,said Noork thoughtfully. In that way even if they detect us we willhave put a safe distance between us. Shortly after midday Noork felt the oozy slime of the marshy lowlandsof the mainland beneath his paddle and the dugout ran ashore in thegrassy inlet for which they had been heading. His palms were blisteredand the heavy robes he yet wore were soaked with sweat. Once we reach the jungle, he told the girl, off come these robes. Iam broiled alive. Suddenly Noork froze in his tracks. He thrust the girl behind him.Misty Ones! he hissed to Rold. They crouch among the reeds. Theycarry nets and clubs to trap us. Rold turned back toward the boat with Noork and Sarna close at hisheels. But the Misty Ones were upon them and by sheer numbers they borethem to the ground. Noork's mightier muscles smashed more than onehooded face but in the end he too lay smothered beneath the nets andbodies of the enemy. A misty shape came to stand beside these three new captives as theywere stripped of their robes. His foot nudged at Noork's head curiouslyand a guttural voice commanded the shield be removed. Then his voicechanged—thickened—as he saw the features of Noork. So, he barked in a tongue that should have been strange to Noork butwas not, it is the trapper's turn to be trapped, eh Captain Dietrich? <doc-sep>A fat, square-jawed face, harsh lines paralleling the ugly blob of anose, showed through the opened robe of the leader. The face was thatof Doctor Von Mark the treacherous Nazi scientist that Stephen Dietrichhad trailed across space to Sekk! But Noork knew nothing of that chase.The man's face seemed familiar, and hateful, but that was all heremembered. I see you have come from the island, said the Doctor. Perhaps youcan tell me the secret of this invisible material I wear. With thesecret of invisibility I, Karl Von Mark, can again conquer Earth andmake the Fatherland invincible. I do not understand too well, said Noork hesitantly. Are we enemies?There is so much I have forgotten. He regarded the brutal facethoughtfully. Perhaps you know from what valley the great bird brought me, he said.Or perhaps the other bird brought you here. Von Mark's blue eyes widened and then he roared with a great noisethat was intended to be mirth. His foot slammed harder into Noork'sdefenseless ribs. Perhaps you have forgotten, swine of an American, he roared suddenly,and in his hand was an ugly looking automatic. He flung back his robeand Noork saw the dress uniform of a general. Perhaps, the scientistrepeated, but I will take no chances. The amnesia is often but apretense. His lip curled. This is something for you to remember, CaptainDietrich, he said as the ugly black muzzle of the gun centered onNoork's bronzed chest. And then Doctor Von Mark cursed as the gun dropped from his nervelessfingers and his hands clawed weakly at the arrow buried in his widebelly. He stumbled backward. Arrows rained from the mistiness that had closed in about Von Mark andhis men. The men from Wari, their faces unshielded, fell like flies.In a moment those yet alive had taken to their heels, and Noork feltinvisible fingers tearing at the nets that bound him. As he rose to his feet the robed figure let its misty covering dropaside. A handsome golden-skinned warrior stood revealed. Gurn! cried Noork. A glad cry came from the throat of Tholon Sarna as she saw her brother.And then she crept closer to Noork's side as the invisible mantlesof Gurn's loyal Vasads opened to reveal the hairy beast men theyconcealed. Rold whimpered fearfully. The message that Ud carried to me was good, laughed Gurn. The MistyOnes skin easily. We were trapping the Misty Ones as they came acrossthe lake, he looked at the dying Von Mark, as were these others. Soonwe would have come to your rescue, Noork, my friend. Lucky I escaped first, Noork told him. The priests of Uzdon wouldhave trapped you. To them the Misty Ones are visible. He picked up the fallen vision shield that lay beside their feet. Hischest expanded proudly. No longer, he told Gurn, am I a man without a name. I am CaptainDietrich from a distant valley called America. I was hunting this evilman when my bird died. He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. Theevil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peacewith you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle. It is good, Noork, smiled Tholon Sarna. <doc-sep></s>

We first hear Gurn's name mentioned by Noork in his initial meeting with Sarna. He tells her that he has been living with the wild Vasads of the jungle with Gurn, his friend and their chief. Noork goes on to say that Gurn is an exile from the walled city of Grath and asks Sarna if she knows why this is. Sarna says that her brother says they should no longer enslave Zurans they capture from other valleys. In this way, their relationships with Gurn build a bridge between them, allowing them to consider a relationship with one another.Gurn is next mentioned when Noork encounters his friend Ud near the central lake of Sekk, the moon they are on. Noork asks Ud to go to their mutual friend Gurn and pass on a message. Noork asks Ud to tell Gurn that the Misty Ones can be trapped and skinned. When Ud wonders why anyone would want to do such a thing, Noork tells him that Noork is trying to save Gurn's "father's woman woman", as he describes Gurn's sister Sarna.Gurn then arrives as something between a hero and a deus ex machina at the very end of the story. Noork, Sarna, and Rold, an enslaved man who helped Noork free Sarna, are about to be murdered by Doctor Von Mark and the Misty Ones, when Gurn and his allies arrive and shoot the enemy full of arrows, saving all their lives. Gurn reveals that he received Ud's messages and they were trapping the Misty Ones as they came across the lake and stealing their robes so they could come to Noork's rescue. Without Gurn, Noork and Sarna would never have traveled together in the first place, nor would they have been rescued at the end.

<s> Raiders of the Second Moon By GENE ELLERMAN A strange destiny had erased Noork's memory, and had brought him to this tiny world—to write an end to his first existence. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Beyond earth swings that airless pocked mass of fused rock and grayvolcanic dust that we know as Luna. Of this our naked eyes assure us.But of the smaller satellite, hidden forever from the mundane view byLuna's bulk, we know little. Small is Sekk, that second moon, less than five hundred miles indiameter, but the period of its revolution is thirty two hours, and itsmeaner mass retains a breathable atmosphere. There is life on Sekk,life that centers around the sunken star-shaped cavity where an ovallake gleams softly in the depths. And the eleven radiating tips of thestarry abyss are valleys green with jungle growth. In one of those green valleys the white savage that the Vasads calledNoork squatted in the ample crotch of a jungle giant and watched thetrail forty feet below. For down there moved alertly a golden skinnedgirl, her only weapons a puny polished bow of yellow wood and asheathed dagger. Sight of the girl's flowing brown hair and the graceful femininecontours of her smooth-limbed body beneath its skin-halter and theinsignificant breech-clout, made his brow wrinkle with concentration.Not forever had he lived in this jungle world of valleys and raggedcliffs. Since he had learned the tongue of the hairy Vasads of forest,and the tongue of their gold-skinned leader, Gurn, the renegade, he hadconfirmed that belief. For a huge gleaming bird had carried him in its talons to the top ofthe cliff above their valley and from the rock fire had risen to devourthe great bird. Somehow he had been flung clear and escaped the deathof the mysterious bird-thing. And in his delirium he had babbled thewords that caused the apish Vasads to name him Noork. Now he repeatedthem aloud. New York, he said, good ol' New York. The girl heard. She looked upward fearfully, her rounded bare arm goingback to the bow slung across her shoulder. Swiftly she fitted an arrowand stepped back against the friendly bole of a shaggy barked junglegiant. Noork grinned. Tako, woman, he greeted her. Tako, she replied fearfully. Who speaks to Tholon Sarna? Be youhunter or escaped slave? A friend, said Noork simply. It was I who killed the spotted narl last night when it attacked you. Doubtfully the girl put away her bow. Her fingers, however, were neverfar from the hilt of her hunting dagger. Noork swung outward from his perch, and then downward along the ladderof limbs to her side. The girl exclaimed at his brown skin. Your hair is the color of the sun! she said. Your garb is Vasad, yetyou speak the language of the true men. Her violet oddly slanting eyesopened yet wider. Who are you? I am Noork, the man told her. For many days have I dwelt among thewild Vasads of the jungle with their golden-skinned chief, Gurn, formy friend. The girl impulsively took a step nearer. Gurn! she cried. Is he talland strong? Has he a bracelet of golden discs linked together withhuman hair? Does he talk with his own shadow when he thinks? That is Gurn, admitted Noork shortly. He is also an exile from thewalled city of Grath. The city rulers call him a traitor. He has toldme the reason. Perhaps you know it as well? Indeed I do, cried Sarna. My brother said that we should no longermake slaves of the captured Zurans from the other valleys. Noork smiled. I am glad he is your brother, he said simply. <doc-sep>The girl's eyes fell before his admiring gaze and warm blood floodedinto her rounded neck and lovely cheeks. Brown-skinned one! she cried with a stamp of her shapely littlesandalled foot. I am displeased with the noises of your tongue. I willlisten to it no more. But her eyes gave the provocative lie to her words. This brown-skinnedgiant with the sunlit hair was very attractive.... The girl was still talking much later, as they walked together alongthe game-trail. When my captors were but one day's march from theirfoul city of Bis the warriors of the city of Konto, through whosefertile valley we had journeyed by night, fell upon the slavers. And in the confusion of the attack five of us escaped. We returnedtoward the valley of Grath, but to avoid the intervening valley whereour enemies, the men of Konto, lived, we swung close to the Lake ofUzdon. And the Misty Ones from the Temple of the Skull trailed us. Ialone escaped. Noork lifted the short, broad-bladed sword that swung in its sheathat his belt and let it drop back into place with a satisfying whisperof flexible leather on steel. He looked toward the east where lay themysterious long lake of the Misty Ones. Some day, he said reflectively, I am going to visit the island ofthe unseen evil beings who stole away your friends. Perhaps after Ihave taken you to your brother's hidden village, and from there toyour city of Grath.... He smiled. The girl did not answer. His keen ears, now that he was no longerspeaking, caught the scuffing of feet into the jungle behind him. Heturned quickly to find the girl had vanished, and with an instinctivereflex of motion he flung himself to one side into the dense wall ofthe jungle. As it was the unseen club thudded down along his right arm,numbing it so he felt nothing for some time. One armed as he was temporarily, and with an unseen foe to reckon with,Noork awkwardly swung up into the comparative safety of the trees. Oncethere, perched in the crotch of a mighty jungle monarch, he peered downat the apparently empty stretch of sunken trail beneath. Noork At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently there was nostir of life along that leaf-shadowed way. And then he caught a glimpseof blurring shadowy shapes, blotches of cottony mist that blended alltoo well with the foliage. One of the things from the island in theLake of Uzdon moved, and he saw briefly the bottom of a foot dirtiedwith the mud of the trail. Noork squinted. So the Misty Ones were not entirely invisible. Painwas growing in his numbed arm now, but as it came so came strength. Heclimbed further out on the great branch to where sticky and overripefruit hung heavy. With a grin he locked his legs upon the forking ofthe great limb and filled his arms with fruit. A barrage of the juicy fruit blanketed the misty shapes. Stains spreadand grew. Patchy outlines took on a new color and sharpness. Noorkfound that he was pelting a half-dozen hooded and robed creatures whosearms and legs numbered the same as his own, and the last remnant ofsuperstitious fear instilled in his bruised brain by the shaggy Vasadsvanished. These Misty Ones were living breathing creatures like himself! Theywere not gods, or demons, or even the ghostly servants of demons. Hestrung his bow quickly, the short powerful bow that Gurn had given him,and rained arrows down upon the cowering robed creatures. And the monsters fled. They fled down the trail or faded away into thejungle. All but one of them. The arrow had pierced a vital portion ofthis Misty One's body. He fell and moved no more. A moment later Noork was ripping the stained cloak and hood from thefallen creature, curious to learn what ghastly brute-thing hid beneaththem. His lip curled at what he saw. The Misty One was almost like himself. His skin was not so golden asthat of the other men of Zuran, and his forehead was low and retreatingin a bestial fashion. Upon his body there was more hair, and his facewas made hideous with swollen colored scars that formed an irregulardesign. He wore a sleeveless tunic of light green and his only weaponswere two long knives and a club. So, said Noork, the men of the island prey upon their own kind. Andthe Temple of Uzdon in the lake is guarded by cowardly warriors likethis. Noork shrugged his shoulders and set off at a mile-devouring pace downthe game trail toward the lake where the Temple of the Skull and itsunseen guardians lay. Once he stopped at a leaf-choked pool to wash thestains from the dead man's foggy robe. The jungle was thinning out. Noork's teeth flashed as he lifted thedrying fabric of the mantle and donned it. <doc-sep>Ud tasted the scent of a man and sluggishly rolled his bullet head fromshoulder to shoulder as he tried to catch sight of his ages-old enemy.For between the hairy quarter-ton beast men of the jungles of Sekk andthe golden men of the valley cities who enslaved them there was eternalwar. A growl rumbled deep in the hairy half-man's chest. He could see noenemy and yet the scent grew stronger with every breath. You hunt too near the lake, called a voice. The demons of the waterwill trap you. Ud's great nostrils quivered. He tasted the odor of a friend mingledwith that of a strange Zuran. He squatted. It's Noork, he grunted. Why do I not see you? I have stolen the skin of a demon, answered the invisible man. Go toGurn. Tell him to fear the demons no longer. Tell him the Misty Onescan be trapped and skinned. Why you want their skins? Ud scratched his hairy gray skull. Go to save Gurn's ... and here Noork was stumped for words. To savehis father's woman woman, he managed at last. Father's woman womancalled Sarna. And the misty blob of nothingness was gone again, its goal now themarshy lowlands that extended upward perhaps a thousand feet from thejungle's ragged fringe to end at last in the muddy shallows of the Lakeof Uzdon. To Noork it seemed that all the world must be like these savage junglefastnesses of the twelve valleys and their central lake. He knew thatthe giant bird had carried him from some other place that his batteredbrain could not remember, but to him it seemed incredible that mencould live elsewhere than in a jungle valley. But Noork was wrong. The giant bird that he had ridden into the depthsof Sekk's fertile valleys had come from a far different world. And theother bird, for which Noork had been searching when he came upon thegolden-skinned girl, was from another world also. The other bird had come from space several days before that of Noork,the Vasads had told him, and it had landed somewhere within the landof sunken valleys. Perhaps, thought Noork, the bird had come from thesame valley that had once been his home. He would find the bird andperhaps then he could remember better who he had been. So it was, ironically enough, that Stephen Dietrich—whose memory wasgone completely—again took up the trail of Doctor Karl Von Mark, lastof the Axis criminals at large. The trail that had led the red-hairedyoung American flier from rebuilding Greece into Africa and the hiddenvalley where Doctor Von Mark worked feverishly to restore the crumbledstructure of Nazidom, and then had sent him hurtling spaceward in thesecond of the Doctor's crude space-ships was now drawing to an end.The Doctor and the young American pilot were both trapped here on thislittle blob of cosmic matter that hides beyond the Moon's cratered bulk. The Doctor's ship had landed safely on Sekk, the wily scientistpreferring the lesser gravity of this fertile world to that of thelifeless Moon in the event that he returned again to Earth, butDietrich's spacer had crashed. Two words linked Noork with the past, the two words that the Vasadshad slurred into his name: New York. And the battered wrist watch, itscrystal and hands gone, were all that remained of his Earthly garb. <doc-sep>Noork paddled the long flat dugout strongly away from the twilightshore toward the shadowy loom of the central island. Though he couldnot remember ever having held a paddle before he handled the ungainlyblade well. After a time the clumsy prow of the craft rammed into a yieldingcushion of mud, and Noork pulled the dugout out of the water into theroofing shelter of a clump of drooping trees growing at the water'sedge. Sword in hand he pushed inward from the shore and ended with asmothered exclamation against an unseen wall. Trees grew close up tothe wall and a moment later he had climbed out along a horizontalbranch beyond the wall's top, and was lowering his body with the aid ofa braided leather rope to the ground beyond. He was in a cultivated field his feet and hands told him. And perhapshalf a mile away, faintly illumined by torches and red clots ofbonfires, towered a huge weathered white skull! Secure in the knowledge that he wore the invisible robes of a MistyOne he found a solitary tree growing within the wall and climbed to acomfortable crotch. In less than a minute he was asleep. The new slave, a rough voice cut across his slumber abruptly, is thedaughter of Tholon Dist the merchant. Noork was fully awake now. They were speaking of Sarna. Her father'sname was Tholon Dist. It was early morning in the fields of the MistyOnes and he could see the two golden-skinned slaves who talked togetherbeneath his tree. That matters not to the priests of Uzdon, the slighter of thetwo slaves, his hair almost white, said. If she be chosen for thesacrifice to great Uzdon her blood will stain the altar no redder thananother's. But it is always the youngest and most beautiful, complained theyounger slave, that the priests chose. I wish to mate with a beautifulwoman. Tholon Sarna is such a one. The old man chuckled dryly. If your wife be plain, he said, neithermaster nor fellow slave will steal her love. A slave should choose agood woman—and ugly, my son. Some night, snarled the slave, I'm going over the wall. Even theMisty Ones will not catch me once I have crossed the lake. Silence, hissed the white-haired man. Such talk is madness. We aresafe here from wild animals. There are no spotted narls on the islandof Manak. The priests of most holy Uzdon, and their invisible minions,are not unkind. Get at your weeding of the field, Rold, he finished, and I willcomplete my checking of the gardens. Noork waited until the old man was gone before he descended from thetree. He walked along the row until he reached the slave's bent back,and he knew by the sudden tightening of the man's shoulder musclesthat his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet madeclear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. Continue to work, he said to the young man. Do not be too surprisedat what I am about to tell you, Rold. He paused and watched the goldenman's rather stupid face intently. I am not a Misty One, Noork said. I killed the owner of this strangegarment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue thegirl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke. Rold's mouth hung open but his hard blunt fingers continued to work.The Misty Ones, then, he said slowly, are not immortal demons! Henodded his long-haired head. They are but men. They too can die. If you will help me, Rold, said Noork, to rescue the girl and escapefrom the island I will take you along. Rold was slow in answering. He had been born on the island and yet hispeople were from the valley city of Konto. He knew that they wouldwelcome the news that the Misty Ones were not demons. And the girl fromthe enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him forhelping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. I will help you, stranger, he agreed. Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison whereTholon Sarna is held. The slave's fingers flew. All the young female slaves are cagedtogether in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directlyoverhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice tomighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of thenext day the chosen one will be bound across the altar before greatUzdon's image and her heart torn from her living breast. The slave'smismatched eyes, one blue and the other brown, lifted from his work. Tholon Sarna is in the pit beneath the Temple with the other femaleslaves. And the Misty Ones stand guard over the entrance to the templepits. It is enough, said Noork. I will go to rescue her now. Be preparedto join us as we return. I will have a robe for you if all goes well. If you are captured, cried Rold nervously, you will not tell them Italked with you? Noork laughed. You never saw me, he told the slave. <doc-sep>The skull was a gigantic dome of shaped white stone. Where theeye-sockets and gaping nose-hole should have been, black squares ofrock gave the illusion of vacancy. Slitted apertures that served forwindows circled the grisly whiteness of the temple's curving walls atthree distinct levels. Noork drifted slowly up the huge series of long bench-like stepsthat led up to the gaping jaws of the Skull. He saw red andpurple-robed priests with nodding head-dresses of painted plumes andfeathers climbing and descending the stairs. Among them moved thesquatty gnarled shapes of burdened Vasads, their shaggy bowed legsfettered together with heavy copper or bronze chains, and cringinggolden-skinned slaves slipped furtively through the press of thebrilliant-robed ones. The stale sweaty odor of the slaves and the beastmen mingled with the musky stench of the incense from the temple. Other misty blobs, the invisible guards of the ghastly temple, werestationed at regular intervals across the great entrance into theSkull's interior, but they paid Noork no heed. To them he was anotherof their number. He moved swiftly to cross the wide stone-slabbed entry within thejaws, and a moment later was looking down into a sunken bowl whoserocky floor was a score of feet below where he stood. Now he saw thecentral raised altar where the gleam of precious stones and cunninglyworked metal—gold, silver and brass—vied with the faded garishcolors of the draperies beneath it. And on the same dais there loomedtwo beast-headed stone images, the lion-headed god a male and thewolf-headed shape a female. These then were the two blood hungry deities that the men of Zuraworshipped—mighty Uzdon and his mate, Lornu! Noork joined the descending throng that walked slowly down the centralramp toward the altar. As he searched for the entrance to the lowerpits his eyes took in the stone steps that led upward into the twoupper levels. Only priests and the vague shapelessness of the MistyOnes climbed those steps. The upper levels, then, were forbidden tothe slaves and common citizens of the island. As he circled the curving inner wall a foul dank odor reached hissensitive nostrils, and his eyes searched for its origin. He found itthere just before him, the opening that gave way to a descending flightof clammy stone steps. He darted toward the door and from nowhere twoshort swords rose to bar his way. None are to pass save the priests, spoke a voice from nowheregruffly. The High Priest knows that we of the temple guards covet themost beautiful of the slave women, but we are not to see them until thesacrifice is chosen. Noork moved backward a pace. He grumbled something inaudible and drewhis sword. Before him the two swords slowly drew aside. In that instant Noork attacked. His keen sword, whetted to razorsharpness on abrasive bits of rock, bit through the hidden neck andshoulder of the guard on his right hand, and with the same forwardimpetus of attack he smashed into the body of the startled guard on hisleft. His sword had wrenched from his hand as it jammed into the bonystructure of the decapitated Misty One's shoulder, and now both hishands sought the throat of the guard. The unseen man's cry of warninggurgled and died in his throat as Noork clamped his fingers shut uponit, and his shortened sword stabbed at Noork's back. The struggle overbalanced them. They rolled over and over down theshadowy stair, the stone smashing at their softer flesh unmercifully.For a moment the battling men brought up with a jolt as the obstructionof the first guard's corpse arrested their downward course, and thenthey jolted and jarred onward again from blood-slippery step toblood-slippery step. The sword clattered from the guardian Misty One's clutch and in thesame instant Noork's steel fingers snapped the neck of the other manwith a pistol-like report. The limp body beneath him struggled no more.He sprang to his feet and became aware of a torch-lighted doorway but ahalf-dozen paces further down along the descending shaft of steps. In a moment, he thought, the fellows of this guard would come chargingout, swords in hand. They could not have failed to hear the struggleon the stairs of stone, he reasoned, for here the noise and confusionof the upper temple was muted to a murmur. So it was that he ran quickly to the door, in his hand the sword thathad dropped from the dead man's fingers, and sprang inside, prepared tobattle there the Misty Ones, lest one escape to give the alarm. He looked about the narrow stone-walled room with puzzled eyes. Twowarriors lay on a pallet of straw, one of them emitting hideousgurgling sounds that filled the little room with unpleasing echoes.Noork grinned. From the floor beside the fatter of the two men, the guard who did notsnore, he took a club. Twice he struck and the gurgling sound changedto a steady deep breathing. Noork knew that now the two guards wouldnot give the alarm for several hours. Thoughtfully he looked about theroom. There were several of the hooded cloaks hanging from pegs wedgedinto the crevices of the chamber's wall, their outlines much plainerhere in the artificial light of the flickering torch. Noork shed his own blood-stained robe quickly and donned one of theothers. The cloaks were rather bulky and so he could carry but twoothers, rolled up, beneath his own protective covering. The matter of his disguise thus taken care of he dragged the two bodiesfrom the stairway and hid them beneath their own fouled robes in thechamber of the sleeping guards. Not until then did he hurry on down thestone steps toward the prison pit where Tholon Sarna, the golden girl,was held prisoner. <doc-sep>The steps opened into a dimly lit cavern. Pools of foul black waterdotted the uneven floor and reflected back faintly the light of the twosputtering torches beside the entrance. One corner of the cavern waswalled off, save for a narrow door of interlocking brass strips, andtoward this Noork made his way. He stood beside the door. Sarna, he called softly, Tholon Sarna. There were a score of young women, lately captured from the mainlandby the Misty Ones, sitting dejectedly upon the foul dampness of therotting grass that was their bed. Most of them were clad in the simpleskirt and brief jacket, reaching but to the lower ribs, that is themark of the golden people who dwell in the city-states of Zura'svalleys, but a few wore a simple band of cloth about their hips andconfined their breasts with a strip of well-cured leopard or antelopehide. One of the women now came to her feet and as she neared themetal-barred entrance Noork saw that she was indeed Sarna. He examinedthe outer lock of the door and found it to be barred with a massivetimber and the timber locked in place with a metal spike slipped into aprepared cavity in the prison's rocky wall. It is Noork, he said softly as she came closer. He saw her eyes gowide with fear and sudden hope, and then reached for the spike. The priest, hissed the girl. Noork had already heard the sound of approaching feet. He dropped thespike and whirled. His sword was in his hand as though by magic, as hefaced the burly priest of the Skull. Across the forehead and upper half of the priest's face a curved shieldof transparent tinted material was fastened. Noork's eyes narrowed ashe saw the sword and shield of the gigantic holy man. So, he said, to the priests of Uzdon we are not invisible. You donot trust your guards, then. The priest laughed. We also have robes of invisibility, he said, andthe sacred window of Uzdon before our eyes. He snarled suddenly at thesilent figure of the white man. Down on your knees, guard, and show meyour face before I kill you! Noork raised his sword. Take my hood off if you dare, priest, heoffered. The burly priest's answer was a bellow of rage and a lunge forward ofhis sword arm. Their swords clicked together and slid apart with thevelvety smoothness of bronze on bronze. Noork's blade bit a chunk fromthe priest's conical shield, and in return received a slashing cut thatdrew blood from left shoulder to elbow. The fighting grew more furious as the priest pressed the attack. Hewas a skilled swordsman and only the superior agility of the whiteman's legs kept Noork away from that darting priestly blade. Even sohis robe was slashed in a dozen places and blood reddened his bronzedbody. Once he slipped in a puddle of foul cavern water and only by theslightest of margins did he escape death by the priest's weapon. The priest was tiring rapidly, however. The soft living of the temple,and the rich wines and over-cooked meats that served to pad his paunchso well with fat, now served to rob him of breath. He opened hismouth to bawl for assistance from the guard, although it is doubtfulwhether any sound could have penetrated up into the madhouse of themain temple's floor, and in that instant Noork flipped his sword at hisenemy. Between the shield and the transparent bit of curving material thesword drove, and buried itself deep in the priest's thick neck. Noorkleaped forward; he snatched the tinted face shield and his sword, and amoment later he had torn the great wooden timber from its sockets. Tholon Sarna stumbled through the door and he caught her in his arms.Hurriedly he loosed one of the two robes fastened about his waist andslipped it around her slim shivering shoulders. Are there other priests hidden here in the pits? Noork asked tensely. No, came the girl's low voice, I do not think so. I did not knowthat this priest was here until he appeared behind you. A slow smilecrossed Noork's hidden features. His robe must be close by, he toldthe girl. He must have been stationed here because the priests fearedthe guards might spirit away some of the prisoners. Slowly he angled back and forth across the floor until his foot touchedthe soft material of the priest's discarded robe near the stairwayentrance. He slipped the thongs of the transparent mask, called by thepriest Uzdon's window over his hood, and then proceeded to don thenew robe. My own robe is slit in a dozen places, he explained to the girl'scurious violet eyes—-all that was visible through the narrow visionslot of her hood. He finished adjusting the outer robe and took thegirl's hand. Come, he said, let us escape over the wall before the alarm isgiven. <doc-sep>Without incident they reached the field where Rold toiled among therows of vegetables. Another slave was working in a nearby field,his crude wooden plow pulled by two sweating Vasads, but he was notwatching when Rold abruptly faded from view. Noork was sweating with the weight of two cloaks and the airlessness ofthe vision shield as they crossed the field toward his rope, but he hadno wish to discard them yet. The tinted shield had revealed that dozensof the Misty Ones were stationed about the wall to guard against theescape of the slaves. They came to the wall and to Noork's great joy found the rope hangingas he had left it. He climbed the wall first and then with Rold helpingfrom below, drew Sarna to his side. A moment later saw the three ofthem climbing along the limb to the bole of the tree and so to thejungle matted ground outside the wall. Will we hide here in the trees until night? asked the girl's fullvoice. Noork held aside a mossy creeper until the girl had passed. I thinknot, he said. The Misty Ones are continually passing from the islandto the shore. We are Misty Ones to any that watch from the wall. So wewill paddle boldly across the water. That is good, agreed the slave, unless they see us put out from theshore. Their two landing stages are further along the beach, oppositethe Temple of Uzdon. Then we must hug to the shore until we pass the tip of the island,said Noork thoughtfully. In that way even if they detect us we willhave put a safe distance between us. Shortly after midday Noork felt the oozy slime of the marshy lowlandsof the mainland beneath his paddle and the dugout ran ashore in thegrassy inlet for which they had been heading. His palms were blisteredand the heavy robes he yet wore were soaked with sweat. Once we reach the jungle, he told the girl, off come these robes. Iam broiled alive. Suddenly Noork froze in his tracks. He thrust the girl behind him.Misty Ones! he hissed to Rold. They crouch among the reeds. Theycarry nets and clubs to trap us. Rold turned back toward the boat with Noork and Sarna close at hisheels. But the Misty Ones were upon them and by sheer numbers they borethem to the ground. Noork's mightier muscles smashed more than onehooded face but in the end he too lay smothered beneath the nets andbodies of the enemy. A misty shape came to stand beside these three new captives as theywere stripped of their robes. His foot nudged at Noork's head curiouslyand a guttural voice commanded the shield be removed. Then his voicechanged—thickened—as he saw the features of Noork. So, he barked in a tongue that should have been strange to Noork butwas not, it is the trapper's turn to be trapped, eh Captain Dietrich? <doc-sep>A fat, square-jawed face, harsh lines paralleling the ugly blob of anose, showed through the opened robe of the leader. The face was thatof Doctor Von Mark the treacherous Nazi scientist that Stephen Dietrichhad trailed across space to Sekk! But Noork knew nothing of that chase.The man's face seemed familiar, and hateful, but that was all heremembered. I see you have come from the island, said the Doctor. Perhaps youcan tell me the secret of this invisible material I wear. With thesecret of invisibility I, Karl Von Mark, can again conquer Earth andmake the Fatherland invincible. I do not understand too well, said Noork hesitantly. Are we enemies?There is so much I have forgotten. He regarded the brutal facethoughtfully. Perhaps you know from what valley the great bird brought me, he said.Or perhaps the other bird brought you here. Von Mark's blue eyes widened and then he roared with a great noisethat was intended to be mirth. His foot slammed harder into Noork'sdefenseless ribs. Perhaps you have forgotten, swine of an American, he roared suddenly,and in his hand was an ugly looking automatic. He flung back his robeand Noork saw the dress uniform of a general. Perhaps, the scientistrepeated, but I will take no chances. The amnesia is often but apretense. His lip curled. This is something for you to remember, CaptainDietrich, he said as the ugly black muzzle of the gun centered onNoork's bronzed chest. And then Doctor Von Mark cursed as the gun dropped from his nervelessfingers and his hands clawed weakly at the arrow buried in his widebelly. He stumbled backward. Arrows rained from the mistiness that had closed in about Von Mark andhis men. The men from Wari, their faces unshielded, fell like flies.In a moment those yet alive had taken to their heels, and Noork feltinvisible fingers tearing at the nets that bound him. As he rose to his feet the robed figure let its misty covering dropaside. A handsome golden-skinned warrior stood revealed. Gurn! cried Noork. A glad cry came from the throat of Tholon Sarna as she saw her brother.And then she crept closer to Noork's side as the invisible mantlesof Gurn's loyal Vasads opened to reveal the hairy beast men theyconcealed. Rold whimpered fearfully. The message that Ud carried to me was good, laughed Gurn. The MistyOnes skin easily. We were trapping the Misty Ones as they came acrossthe lake, he looked at the dying Von Mark, as were these others. Soonwe would have come to your rescue, Noork, my friend. Lucky I escaped first, Noork told him. The priests of Uzdon wouldhave trapped you. To them the Misty Ones are visible. He picked up the fallen vision shield that lay beside their feet. Hischest expanded proudly. No longer, he told Gurn, am I a man without a name. I am CaptainDietrich from a distant valley called America. I was hunting this evilman when my bird died. He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. Theevil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peacewith you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle. It is good, Noork, smiled Tholon Sarna. <doc-sep></s>

Enslavement and freedom as themes run throughout the story. When Noork and Sarna first meet each other in the opening scene, one of the ways they decide to trust one another is because of their mutual relationships with Gurn, a third character. Gurn has been exiled from the city of Grath because he says that his people should no longer enslave the captured Zurans from other valleys of Sekk. In the next scene, we learn that Sarna, Gurn's sister, was kidnapped by one group of slavers, escaped them with four others, and only narrowly escaped capture by a second group of slavers, the Misty Ones from the Temple of the Skull, who captured the other four of her group. Noork tells her that one day he will visit the island of Misty Ones who took her friends. At this time, he realizes that Sarna has disappeared, and he is attacked by the Misty Ones, though he is able to fight them off.During Noork's travels to the island of the Misty Ones, we learn his backstory: he is American pilot Stephen Dietrich, and he arrived on the moon of Sekk by following Doctor Karl Von Mark, last of the Nazi criminals at large. Dietrich's ship had crashed on Sekk, robbing him of his memory. In the conflict between the Allies and Nazis, we again see the conflict between enslavement and freedom: the Nazis forced those they considered racially "impure" into prison camps where they were either murdered outright or forced to engage in labor under inhumane conditions until they died; the Allied forces were a hope of freedom for these imprisoned, enslaved people.Noork spies on enslaved men in the fields outside the temple of the Misty Ones and hears them gossiping about Sarna. The older man suggests that their life is not so bad, but the younger man protests and states that one day he plans to escape. Noork approaches the younger man to find out where Sarna is being held and promises to take him along when he and Sarna escape. Noork then fights off multiple guards and a priest in order to free Sarna from the pit where she is held, which is dank and full of rotting grass mats and little light.While the story touches on themes of enslavement and freedom, it does not engage with them fully. The dungeon where the enslaved young women is held is described in foul terms, but Noork does not seem to free all the young women from their prison. That may happen as a result of Gurn's final attack on Doctor Von Mark and the Misty Ones, but Noork escapes only with Sarna and Rold. Rold is unhappy with being enslaved, not because he is being harmed or others are, but because he is not free to mate with attractive young women like Sarna. While the story should not need to spell out every reason why enslavement is wrong, it takes a very superficial approach to a deeply painful issue.

<s> Raiders of the Second Moon By GENE ELLERMAN A strange destiny had erased Noork's memory, and had brought him to this tiny world—to write an end to his first existence. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1945. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Beyond earth swings that airless pocked mass of fused rock and grayvolcanic dust that we know as Luna. Of this our naked eyes assure us.But of the smaller satellite, hidden forever from the mundane view byLuna's bulk, we know little. Small is Sekk, that second moon, less than five hundred miles indiameter, but the period of its revolution is thirty two hours, and itsmeaner mass retains a breathable atmosphere. There is life on Sekk,life that centers around the sunken star-shaped cavity where an ovallake gleams softly in the depths. And the eleven radiating tips of thestarry abyss are valleys green with jungle growth. In one of those green valleys the white savage that the Vasads calledNoork squatted in the ample crotch of a jungle giant and watched thetrail forty feet below. For down there moved alertly a golden skinnedgirl, her only weapons a puny polished bow of yellow wood and asheathed dagger. Sight of the girl's flowing brown hair and the graceful femininecontours of her smooth-limbed body beneath its skin-halter and theinsignificant breech-clout, made his brow wrinkle with concentration.Not forever had he lived in this jungle world of valleys and raggedcliffs. Since he had learned the tongue of the hairy Vasads of forest,and the tongue of their gold-skinned leader, Gurn, the renegade, he hadconfirmed that belief. For a huge gleaming bird had carried him in its talons to the top ofthe cliff above their valley and from the rock fire had risen to devourthe great bird. Somehow he had been flung clear and escaped the deathof the mysterious bird-thing. And in his delirium he had babbled thewords that caused the apish Vasads to name him Noork. Now he repeatedthem aloud. New York, he said, good ol' New York. The girl heard. She looked upward fearfully, her rounded bare arm goingback to the bow slung across her shoulder. Swiftly she fitted an arrowand stepped back against the friendly bole of a shaggy barked junglegiant. Noork grinned. Tako, woman, he greeted her. Tako, she replied fearfully. Who speaks to Tholon Sarna? Be youhunter or escaped slave? A friend, said Noork simply. It was I who killed the spotted narl last night when it attacked you. Doubtfully the girl put away her bow. Her fingers, however, were neverfar from the hilt of her hunting dagger. Noork swung outward from his perch, and then downward along the ladderof limbs to her side. The girl exclaimed at his brown skin. Your hair is the color of the sun! she said. Your garb is Vasad, yetyou speak the language of the true men. Her violet oddly slanting eyesopened yet wider. Who are you? I am Noork, the man told her. For many days have I dwelt among thewild Vasads of the jungle with their golden-skinned chief, Gurn, formy friend. The girl impulsively took a step nearer. Gurn! she cried. Is he talland strong? Has he a bracelet of golden discs linked together withhuman hair? Does he talk with his own shadow when he thinks? That is Gurn, admitted Noork shortly. He is also an exile from thewalled city of Grath. The city rulers call him a traitor. He has toldme the reason. Perhaps you know it as well? Indeed I do, cried Sarna. My brother said that we should no longermake slaves of the captured Zurans from the other valleys. Noork smiled. I am glad he is your brother, he said simply. <doc-sep>The girl's eyes fell before his admiring gaze and warm blood floodedinto her rounded neck and lovely cheeks. Brown-skinned one! she cried with a stamp of her shapely littlesandalled foot. I am displeased with the noises of your tongue. I willlisten to it no more. But her eyes gave the provocative lie to her words. This brown-skinnedgiant with the sunlit hair was very attractive.... The girl was still talking much later, as they walked together alongthe game-trail. When my captors were but one day's march from theirfoul city of Bis the warriors of the city of Konto, through whosefertile valley we had journeyed by night, fell upon the slavers. And in the confusion of the attack five of us escaped. We returnedtoward the valley of Grath, but to avoid the intervening valley whereour enemies, the men of Konto, lived, we swung close to the Lake ofUzdon. And the Misty Ones from the Temple of the Skull trailed us. Ialone escaped. Noork lifted the short, broad-bladed sword that swung in its sheathat his belt and let it drop back into place with a satisfying whisperof flexible leather on steel. He looked toward the east where lay themysterious long lake of the Misty Ones. Some day, he said reflectively, I am going to visit the island ofthe unseen evil beings who stole away your friends. Perhaps after Ihave taken you to your brother's hidden village, and from there toyour city of Grath.... He smiled. The girl did not answer. His keen ears, now that he was no longerspeaking, caught the scuffing of feet into the jungle behind him. Heturned quickly to find the girl had vanished, and with an instinctivereflex of motion he flung himself to one side into the dense wall ofthe jungle. As it was the unseen club thudded down along his right arm,numbing it so he felt nothing for some time. One armed as he was temporarily, and with an unseen foe to reckon with,Noork awkwardly swung up into the comparative safety of the trees. Oncethere, perched in the crotch of a mighty jungle monarch, he peered downat the apparently empty stretch of sunken trail beneath. Noork At first he saw nothing out of the ordinary. Apparently there was nostir of life along that leaf-shadowed way. And then he caught a glimpseof blurring shadowy shapes, blotches of cottony mist that blended alltoo well with the foliage. One of the things from the island in theLake of Uzdon moved, and he saw briefly the bottom of a foot dirtiedwith the mud of the trail. Noork squinted. So the Misty Ones were not entirely invisible. Painwas growing in his numbed arm now, but as it came so came strength. Heclimbed further out on the great branch to where sticky and overripefruit hung heavy. With a grin he locked his legs upon the forking ofthe great limb and filled his arms with fruit. A barrage of the juicy fruit blanketed the misty shapes. Stains spreadand grew. Patchy outlines took on a new color and sharpness. Noorkfound that he was pelting a half-dozen hooded and robed creatures whosearms and legs numbered the same as his own, and the last remnant ofsuperstitious fear instilled in his bruised brain by the shaggy Vasadsvanished. These Misty Ones were living breathing creatures like himself! Theywere not gods, or demons, or even the ghostly servants of demons. Hestrung his bow quickly, the short powerful bow that Gurn had given him,and rained arrows down upon the cowering robed creatures. And the monsters fled. They fled down the trail or faded away into thejungle. All but one of them. The arrow had pierced a vital portion ofthis Misty One's body. He fell and moved no more. A moment later Noork was ripping the stained cloak and hood from thefallen creature, curious to learn what ghastly brute-thing hid beneaththem. His lip curled at what he saw. The Misty One was almost like himself. His skin was not so golden asthat of the other men of Zuran, and his forehead was low and retreatingin a bestial fashion. Upon his body there was more hair, and his facewas made hideous with swollen colored scars that formed an irregulardesign. He wore a sleeveless tunic of light green and his only weaponswere two long knives and a club. So, said Noork, the men of the island prey upon their own kind. Andthe Temple of Uzdon in the lake is guarded by cowardly warriors likethis. Noork shrugged his shoulders and set off at a mile-devouring pace downthe game trail toward the lake where the Temple of the Skull and itsunseen guardians lay. Once he stopped at a leaf-choked pool to wash thestains from the dead man's foggy robe. The jungle was thinning out. Noork's teeth flashed as he lifted thedrying fabric of the mantle and donned it. <doc-sep>Ud tasted the scent of a man and sluggishly rolled his bullet head fromshoulder to shoulder as he tried to catch sight of his ages-old enemy.For between the hairy quarter-ton beast men of the jungles of Sekk andthe golden men of the valley cities who enslaved them there was eternalwar. A growl rumbled deep in the hairy half-man's chest. He could see noenemy and yet the scent grew stronger with every breath. You hunt too near the lake, called a voice. The demons of the waterwill trap you. Ud's great nostrils quivered. He tasted the odor of a friend mingledwith that of a strange Zuran. He squatted. It's Noork, he grunted. Why do I not see you? I have stolen the skin of a demon, answered the invisible man. Go toGurn. Tell him to fear the demons no longer. Tell him the Misty Onescan be trapped and skinned. Why you want their skins? Ud scratched his hairy gray skull. Go to save Gurn's ... and here Noork was stumped for words. To savehis father's woman woman, he managed at last. Father's woman womancalled Sarna. And the misty blob of nothingness was gone again, its goal now themarshy lowlands that extended upward perhaps a thousand feet from thejungle's ragged fringe to end at last in the muddy shallows of the Lakeof Uzdon. To Noork it seemed that all the world must be like these savage junglefastnesses of the twelve valleys and their central lake. He knew thatthe giant bird had carried him from some other place that his batteredbrain could not remember, but to him it seemed incredible that mencould live elsewhere than in a jungle valley. But Noork was wrong. The giant bird that he had ridden into the depthsof Sekk's fertile valleys had come from a far different world. And theother bird, for which Noork had been searching when he came upon thegolden-skinned girl, was from another world also. The other bird had come from space several days before that of Noork,the Vasads had told him, and it had landed somewhere within the landof sunken valleys. Perhaps, thought Noork, the bird had come from thesame valley that had once been his home. He would find the bird andperhaps then he could remember better who he had been. So it was, ironically enough, that Stephen Dietrich—whose memory wasgone completely—again took up the trail of Doctor Karl Von Mark, lastof the Axis criminals at large. The trail that had led the red-hairedyoung American flier from rebuilding Greece into Africa and the hiddenvalley where Doctor Von Mark worked feverishly to restore the crumbledstructure of Nazidom, and then had sent him hurtling spaceward in thesecond of the Doctor's crude space-ships was now drawing to an end.The Doctor and the young American pilot were both trapped here on thislittle blob of cosmic matter that hides beyond the Moon's cratered bulk. The Doctor's ship had landed safely on Sekk, the wily scientistpreferring the lesser gravity of this fertile world to that of thelifeless Moon in the event that he returned again to Earth, butDietrich's spacer had crashed. Two words linked Noork with the past, the two words that the Vasadshad slurred into his name: New York. And the battered wrist watch, itscrystal and hands gone, were all that remained of his Earthly garb. <doc-sep>Noork paddled the long flat dugout strongly away from the twilightshore toward the shadowy loom of the central island. Though he couldnot remember ever having held a paddle before he handled the ungainlyblade well. After a time the clumsy prow of the craft rammed into a yieldingcushion of mud, and Noork pulled the dugout out of the water into theroofing shelter of a clump of drooping trees growing at the water'sedge. Sword in hand he pushed inward from the shore and ended with asmothered exclamation against an unseen wall. Trees grew close up tothe wall and a moment later he had climbed out along a horizontalbranch beyond the wall's top, and was lowering his body with the aid ofa braided leather rope to the ground beyond. He was in a cultivated field his feet and hands told him. And perhapshalf a mile away, faintly illumined by torches and red clots ofbonfires, towered a huge weathered white skull! Secure in the knowledge that he wore the invisible robes of a MistyOne he found a solitary tree growing within the wall and climbed to acomfortable crotch. In less than a minute he was asleep. The new slave, a rough voice cut across his slumber abruptly, is thedaughter of Tholon Dist the merchant. Noork was fully awake now. They were speaking of Sarna. Her father'sname was Tholon Dist. It was early morning in the fields of the MistyOnes and he could see the two golden-skinned slaves who talked togetherbeneath his tree. That matters not to the priests of Uzdon, the slighter of thetwo slaves, his hair almost white, said. If she be chosen for thesacrifice to great Uzdon her blood will stain the altar no redder thananother's. But it is always the youngest and most beautiful, complained theyounger slave, that the priests chose. I wish to mate with a beautifulwoman. Tholon Sarna is such a one. The old man chuckled dryly. If your wife be plain, he said, neithermaster nor fellow slave will steal her love. A slave should choose agood woman—and ugly, my son. Some night, snarled the slave, I'm going over the wall. Even theMisty Ones will not catch me once I have crossed the lake. Silence, hissed the white-haired man. Such talk is madness. We aresafe here from wild animals. There are no spotted narls on the islandof Manak. The priests of most holy Uzdon, and their invisible minions,are not unkind. Get at your weeding of the field, Rold, he finished, and I willcomplete my checking of the gardens. Noork waited until the old man was gone before he descended from thetree. He walked along the row until he reached the slave's bent back,and he knew by the sudden tightening of the man's shoulder musclesthat his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet madeclear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. Continue to work, he said to the young man. Do not be too surprisedat what I am about to tell you, Rold. He paused and watched the goldenman's rather stupid face intently. I am not a Misty One, Noork said. I killed the owner of this strangegarment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue thegirl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke. Rold's mouth hung open but his hard blunt fingers continued to work.The Misty Ones, then, he said slowly, are not immortal demons! Henodded his long-haired head. They are but men. They too can die. If you will help me, Rold, said Noork, to rescue the girl and escapefrom the island I will take you along. Rold was slow in answering. He had been born on the island and yet hispeople were from the valley city of Konto. He knew that they wouldwelcome the news that the Misty Ones were not demons. And the girl fromthe enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him forhelping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. I will help you, stranger, he agreed. Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison whereTholon Sarna is held. The slave's fingers flew. All the young female slaves are cagedtogether in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directlyoverhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice tomighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of thenext day the chosen one will be bound across the altar before greatUzdon's image and her heart torn from her living breast. The slave'smismatched eyes, one blue and the other brown, lifted from his work. Tholon Sarna is in the pit beneath the Temple with the other femaleslaves. And the Misty Ones stand guard over the entrance to the templepits. It is enough, said Noork. I will go to rescue her now. Be preparedto join us as we return. I will have a robe for you if all goes well. If you are captured, cried Rold nervously, you will not tell them Italked with you? Noork laughed. You never saw me, he told the slave. <doc-sep>The skull was a gigantic dome of shaped white stone. Where theeye-sockets and gaping nose-hole should have been, black squares ofrock gave the illusion of vacancy. Slitted apertures that served forwindows circled the grisly whiteness of the temple's curving walls atthree distinct levels. Noork drifted slowly up the huge series of long bench-like stepsthat led up to the gaping jaws of the Skull. He saw red andpurple-robed priests with nodding head-dresses of painted plumes andfeathers climbing and descending the stairs. Among them moved thesquatty gnarled shapes of burdened Vasads, their shaggy bowed legsfettered together with heavy copper or bronze chains, and cringinggolden-skinned slaves slipped furtively through the press of thebrilliant-robed ones. The stale sweaty odor of the slaves and the beastmen mingled with the musky stench of the incense from the temple. Other misty blobs, the invisible guards of the ghastly temple, werestationed at regular intervals across the great entrance into theSkull's interior, but they paid Noork no heed. To them he was anotherof their number. He moved swiftly to cross the wide stone-slabbed entry within thejaws, and a moment later was looking down into a sunken bowl whoserocky floor was a score of feet below where he stood. Now he saw thecentral raised altar where the gleam of precious stones and cunninglyworked metal—gold, silver and brass—vied with the faded garishcolors of the draperies beneath it. And on the same dais there loomedtwo beast-headed stone images, the lion-headed god a male and thewolf-headed shape a female. These then were the two blood hungry deities that the men of Zuraworshipped—mighty Uzdon and his mate, Lornu! Noork joined the descending throng that walked slowly down the centralramp toward the altar. As he searched for the entrance to the lowerpits his eyes took in the stone steps that led upward into the twoupper levels. Only priests and the vague shapelessness of the MistyOnes climbed those steps. The upper levels, then, were forbidden tothe slaves and common citizens of the island. As he circled the curving inner wall a foul dank odor reached hissensitive nostrils, and his eyes searched for its origin. He found itthere just before him, the opening that gave way to a descending flightof clammy stone steps. He darted toward the door and from nowhere twoshort swords rose to bar his way. None are to pass save the priests, spoke a voice from nowheregruffly. The High Priest knows that we of the temple guards covet themost beautiful of the slave women, but we are not to see them until thesacrifice is chosen. Noork moved backward a pace. He grumbled something inaudible and drewhis sword. Before him the two swords slowly drew aside. In that instant Noork attacked. His keen sword, whetted to razorsharpness on abrasive bits of rock, bit through the hidden neck andshoulder of the guard on his right hand, and with the same forwardimpetus of attack he smashed into the body of the startled guard on hisleft. His sword had wrenched from his hand as it jammed into the bonystructure of the decapitated Misty One's shoulder, and now both hishands sought the throat of the guard. The unseen man's cry of warninggurgled and died in his throat as Noork clamped his fingers shut uponit, and his shortened sword stabbed at Noork's back. The struggle overbalanced them. They rolled over and over down theshadowy stair, the stone smashing at their softer flesh unmercifully.For a moment the battling men brought up with a jolt as the obstructionof the first guard's corpse arrested their downward course, and thenthey jolted and jarred onward again from blood-slippery step toblood-slippery step. The sword clattered from the guardian Misty One's clutch and in thesame instant Noork's steel fingers snapped the neck of the other manwith a pistol-like report. The limp body beneath him struggled no more.He sprang to his feet and became aware of a torch-lighted doorway but ahalf-dozen paces further down along the descending shaft of steps. In a moment, he thought, the fellows of this guard would come chargingout, swords in hand. They could not have failed to hear the struggleon the stairs of stone, he reasoned, for here the noise and confusionof the upper temple was muted to a murmur. So it was that he ran quickly to the door, in his hand the sword thathad dropped from the dead man's fingers, and sprang inside, prepared tobattle there the Misty Ones, lest one escape to give the alarm. He looked about the narrow stone-walled room with puzzled eyes. Twowarriors lay on a pallet of straw, one of them emitting hideousgurgling sounds that filled the little room with unpleasing echoes.Noork grinned. From the floor beside the fatter of the two men, the guard who did notsnore, he took a club. Twice he struck and the gurgling sound changedto a steady deep breathing. Noork knew that now the two guards wouldnot give the alarm for several hours. Thoughtfully he looked about theroom. There were several of the hooded cloaks hanging from pegs wedgedinto the crevices of the chamber's wall, their outlines much plainerhere in the artificial light of the flickering torch. Noork shed his own blood-stained robe quickly and donned one of theothers. The cloaks were rather bulky and so he could carry but twoothers, rolled up, beneath his own protective covering. The matter of his disguise thus taken care of he dragged the two bodiesfrom the stairway and hid them beneath their own fouled robes in thechamber of the sleeping guards. Not until then did he hurry on down thestone steps toward the prison pit where Tholon Sarna, the golden girl,was held prisoner. <doc-sep>The steps opened into a dimly lit cavern. Pools of foul black waterdotted the uneven floor and reflected back faintly the light of the twosputtering torches beside the entrance. One corner of the cavern waswalled off, save for a narrow door of interlocking brass strips, andtoward this Noork made his way. He stood beside the door. Sarna, he called softly, Tholon Sarna. There were a score of young women, lately captured from the mainlandby the Misty Ones, sitting dejectedly upon the foul dampness of therotting grass that was their bed. Most of them were clad in the simpleskirt and brief jacket, reaching but to the lower ribs, that is themark of the golden people who dwell in the city-states of Zura'svalleys, but a few wore a simple band of cloth about their hips andconfined their breasts with a strip of well-cured leopard or antelopehide. One of the women now came to her feet and as she neared themetal-barred entrance Noork saw that she was indeed Sarna. He examinedthe outer lock of the door and found it to be barred with a massivetimber and the timber locked in place with a metal spike slipped into aprepared cavity in the prison's rocky wall. It is Noork, he said softly as she came closer. He saw her eyes gowide with fear and sudden hope, and then reached for the spike. The priest, hissed the girl. Noork had already heard the sound of approaching feet. He dropped thespike and whirled. His sword was in his hand as though by magic, as hefaced the burly priest of the Skull. Across the forehead and upper half of the priest's face a curved shieldof transparent tinted material was fastened. Noork's eyes narrowed ashe saw the sword and shield of the gigantic holy man. So, he said, to the priests of Uzdon we are not invisible. You donot trust your guards, then. The priest laughed. We also have robes of invisibility, he said, andthe sacred window of Uzdon before our eyes. He snarled suddenly at thesilent figure of the white man. Down on your knees, guard, and show meyour face before I kill you! Noork raised his sword. Take my hood off if you dare, priest, heoffered. The burly priest's answer was a bellow of rage and a lunge forward ofhis sword arm. Their swords clicked together and slid apart with thevelvety smoothness of bronze on bronze. Noork's blade bit a chunk fromthe priest's conical shield, and in return received a slashing cut thatdrew blood from left shoulder to elbow. The fighting grew more furious as the priest pressed the attack. Hewas a skilled swordsman and only the superior agility of the whiteman's legs kept Noork away from that darting priestly blade. Even sohis robe was slashed in a dozen places and blood reddened his bronzedbody. Once he slipped in a puddle of foul cavern water and only by theslightest of margins did he escape death by the priest's weapon. The priest was tiring rapidly, however. The soft living of the temple,and the rich wines and over-cooked meats that served to pad his paunchso well with fat, now served to rob him of breath. He opened hismouth to bawl for assistance from the guard, although it is doubtfulwhether any sound could have penetrated up into the madhouse of themain temple's floor, and in that instant Noork flipped his sword at hisenemy. Between the shield and the transparent bit of curving material thesword drove, and buried itself deep in the priest's thick neck. Noorkleaped forward; he snatched the tinted face shield and his sword, and amoment later he had torn the great wooden timber from its sockets. Tholon Sarna stumbled through the door and he caught her in his arms.Hurriedly he loosed one of the two robes fastened about his waist andslipped it around her slim shivering shoulders. Are there other priests hidden here in the pits? Noork asked tensely. No, came the girl's low voice, I do not think so. I did not knowthat this priest was here until he appeared behind you. A slow smilecrossed Noork's hidden features. His robe must be close by, he toldthe girl. He must have been stationed here because the priests fearedthe guards might spirit away some of the prisoners. Slowly he angled back and forth across the floor until his foot touchedthe soft material of the priest's discarded robe near the stairwayentrance. He slipped the thongs of the transparent mask, called by thepriest Uzdon's window over his hood, and then proceeded to don thenew robe. My own robe is slit in a dozen places, he explained to the girl'scurious violet eyes—-all that was visible through the narrow visionslot of her hood. He finished adjusting the outer robe and took thegirl's hand. Come, he said, let us escape over the wall before the alarm isgiven. <doc-sep>Without incident they reached the field where Rold toiled among therows of vegetables. Another slave was working in a nearby field,his crude wooden plow pulled by two sweating Vasads, but he was notwatching when Rold abruptly faded from view. Noork was sweating with the weight of two cloaks and the airlessness ofthe vision shield as they crossed the field toward his rope, but he hadno wish to discard them yet. The tinted shield had revealed that dozensof the Misty Ones were stationed about the wall to guard against theescape of the slaves. They came to the wall and to Noork's great joy found the rope hangingas he had left it. He climbed the wall first and then with Rold helpingfrom below, drew Sarna to his side. A moment later saw the three ofthem climbing along the limb to the bole of the tree and so to thejungle matted ground outside the wall. Will we hide here in the trees until night? asked the girl's fullvoice. Noork held aside a mossy creeper until the girl had passed. I thinknot, he said. The Misty Ones are continually passing from the islandto the shore. We are Misty Ones to any that watch from the wall. So wewill paddle boldly across the water. That is good, agreed the slave, unless they see us put out from theshore. Their two landing stages are further along the beach, oppositethe Temple of Uzdon. Then we must hug to the shore until we pass the tip of the island,said Noork thoughtfully. In that way even if they detect us we willhave put a safe distance between us. Shortly after midday Noork felt the oozy slime of the marshy lowlandsof the mainland beneath his paddle and the dugout ran ashore in thegrassy inlet for which they had been heading. His palms were blisteredand the heavy robes he yet wore were soaked with sweat. Once we reach the jungle, he told the girl, off come these robes. Iam broiled alive. Suddenly Noork froze in his tracks. He thrust the girl behind him.Misty Ones! he hissed to Rold. They crouch among the reeds. Theycarry nets and clubs to trap us. Rold turned back toward the boat with Noork and Sarna close at hisheels. But the Misty Ones were upon them and by sheer numbers they borethem to the ground. Noork's mightier muscles smashed more than onehooded face but in the end he too lay smothered beneath the nets andbodies of the enemy. A misty shape came to stand beside these three new captives as theywere stripped of their robes. His foot nudged at Noork's head curiouslyand a guttural voice commanded the shield be removed. Then his voicechanged—thickened—as he saw the features of Noork. So, he barked in a tongue that should have been strange to Noork butwas not, it is the trapper's turn to be trapped, eh Captain Dietrich? <doc-sep>A fat, square-jawed face, harsh lines paralleling the ugly blob of anose, showed through the opened robe of the leader. The face was thatof Doctor Von Mark the treacherous Nazi scientist that Stephen Dietrichhad trailed across space to Sekk! But Noork knew nothing of that chase.The man's face seemed familiar, and hateful, but that was all heremembered. I see you have come from the island, said the Doctor. Perhaps youcan tell me the secret of this invisible material I wear. With thesecret of invisibility I, Karl Von Mark, can again conquer Earth andmake the Fatherland invincible. I do not understand too well, said Noork hesitantly. Are we enemies?There is so much I have forgotten. He regarded the brutal facethoughtfully. Perhaps you know from what valley the great bird brought me, he said.Or perhaps the other bird brought you here. Von Mark's blue eyes widened and then he roared with a great noisethat was intended to be mirth. His foot slammed harder into Noork'sdefenseless ribs. Perhaps you have forgotten, swine of an American, he roared suddenly,and in his hand was an ugly looking automatic. He flung back his robeand Noork saw the dress uniform of a general. Perhaps, the scientistrepeated, but I will take no chances. The amnesia is often but apretense. His lip curled. This is something for you to remember, CaptainDietrich, he said as the ugly black muzzle of the gun centered onNoork's bronzed chest. And then Doctor Von Mark cursed as the gun dropped from his nervelessfingers and his hands clawed weakly at the arrow buried in his widebelly. He stumbled backward. Arrows rained from the mistiness that had closed in about Von Mark andhis men. The men from Wari, their faces unshielded, fell like flies.In a moment those yet alive had taken to their heels, and Noork feltinvisible fingers tearing at the nets that bound him. As he rose to his feet the robed figure let its misty covering dropaside. A handsome golden-skinned warrior stood revealed. Gurn! cried Noork. A glad cry came from the throat of Tholon Sarna as she saw her brother.And then she crept closer to Noork's side as the invisible mantlesof Gurn's loyal Vasads opened to reveal the hairy beast men theyconcealed. Rold whimpered fearfully. The message that Ud carried to me was good, laughed Gurn. The MistyOnes skin easily. We were trapping the Misty Ones as they came acrossthe lake, he looked at the dying Von Mark, as were these others. Soonwe would have come to your rescue, Noork, my friend. Lucky I escaped first, Noork told him. The priests of Uzdon wouldhave trapped you. To them the Misty Ones are visible. He picked up the fallen vision shield that lay beside their feet. Hischest expanded proudly. No longer, he told Gurn, am I a man without a name. I am CaptainDietrich from a distant valley called America. I was hunting this evilman when my bird died. He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. Theevil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peacewith you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle. It is good, Noork, smiled Tholon Sarna. <doc-sep></s>

The Misty Ones are a group of highly feared beings, thought to be supernatural in some way at the beginning of the story because of their ability to remain unseen. Noork, however, is able to catch a glimpse of the bottom of one of their feet from his vantage point high in a tree and begins to pelt the area where he believes they are with fruit. After this, he can see their outlines and that they are wearing robes with hoods, and he ceases to be afraid and attacks with arrows, killing one of the Misty Ones. He disrobes this man, who is described as heavily scarred on his face, having a low forehead, with more hair on his body and less golden skin than other men of Zuran. Once Noork is sure that the Misty Ones are not supernatural, he decides to pursue them in an attempt to rescue Sarna, sister of his friend Gurn, who has been kidnapped by them.Noork spreads the word to his friend Ud that the Misty Ones are not demons and can be trapped and skinned and lets Ud know of his rescue mission for Sarna. He also tells Rold, an enslaved man on the island of the Misty Ones and the priests of Uzdon (the god who demands sacrifice of young women). Rold decides he will help Noork with his rescue mission in exchange for Noork's promise to rescue him as well--realizing that he is imprisoned by men and not demons has allowed him to dream that he can kill his captors and be free.When Noork fights a priest of Uzdon in order to free Sarna, he learns that the priests not only have the robes of concealment the Misty Ones have, they also have transparent masks that allow them to see through that concealment. It allows him to anticipate their ambush at the end of the story, though not quite soon enough to stop it. Gurn, though, has received his message and acted on it. He has been capturing and "skinning" Misty Ones who have crossed the lake and he and his warriors ambush the Misty Ones and priests in return, freeing Noork and his friends. With the realization that the Misty Ones are men with special cloaks rather than demons with supernatural powers, their mystique evaporates and everyone they have terrorized is willing to attack them. Characters unwilling to battle demons are unafraid to attack men.

<s> GALACTIC GHOST By WALTER KUBILIUS The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin'slips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of hisfingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the MaryLou were now black as meteor dust. We'll never see Earth again, he whispered feebly, plucked weakly atthe cover. Nonsense! Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying manwould not see through the lie. We've got the sun's gravity helpingus drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon andwe'll start to work again on a new idea of mine.... His voice trailedhelplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use. The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. Hisface contorted as he tried to withhold a sob. To see Earth again! he said weakly. To walk on solid ground oncemore! Four years! Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt.No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to beanguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but noman could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel ofthe solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among thestars. Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, likeDobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years fromnow, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship inspace and bring them home again. Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard liftedhim so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of thestars. Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of theheavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft hefirst crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin woulddie a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as anyman could. Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and atremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard. I saw it! his voice cracked, trembling. Saw what? It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there! In heaven's name, Dobbin, Willard demanded, What do you see? What isit? Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studdedspace. The Ghost Ship! Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of inwhispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales.But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner ofDobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come upin this time of delirium. There's nothing there, he said firmly. It's come—for me! Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly towardWillard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. Hismouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now onewith the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone. For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the bodyof his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what wasnecessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he hadever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in theuseless motors of the Mary Lou . <doc-sep>The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though theship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damagedit had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant careand attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept.The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as preciousfood and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed. When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would bethen that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimeshe thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless controlboard, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours inthe direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A greatloneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had everknown would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despairand hopeless pain. Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard wassitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars.A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered!Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted,it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? Hewatched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion.And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth! Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanishedinstantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a fewminutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minuteswould help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a massof fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even amoving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worthinvestigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon thelast flashing seconds of life. Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plottedits semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but,instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations causedhis heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, itwould reach the Mary Lou . Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearinghis ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars,though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was somethingabout its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. Itresembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes fortyyears ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, thoughhalf-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was arocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence ofany material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed.But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated thepresence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these yearsin space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faintghost-like rocket ships? The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship!Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that wasimpossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall talestold by men drunk with the liquors of Mars. There is no ship there. There is no ship there, Willard told himselfover and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, nowmotionless a few hundred miles away. Deep within him a faint voice cried, It's come—for me! but Willardstilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it.There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history therehad been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roamforever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was truefor the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space? He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it wasnot nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. Amoment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The GhostShip was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his handas if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again. But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller,fainter and fainter. Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocketrecede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreadedloneliness of the stars descended upon him. <doc-sep>Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willardwould never see there was published a small item: Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for theexploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not beenseen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, isplanning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father. Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but thecold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the onlythings both dear and precious to him. Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well forhe had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease theanguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not bedone. And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up theEarth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had knownon Earth. In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden andfeeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under hisfeet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew.How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth andfriendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he wouldnever see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workersand scientists. Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and theshops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Oddthat he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to aman who is alone. Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he,for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it reallyonly a product of his imagination? What of all the others who hadseen it? Was it possible for many different men under many differentsituations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. Butperhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase hereand a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the GhostShip haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is itstragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again.When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes alifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you! And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairyship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage.Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind. Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard losttrack of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purposecould time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was therereason for clocks and records. Days and months and years becamemeaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. Aboutthree years must have passed since his last record in the log bookof the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered anothergreat disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared afull-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad withjoy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joywas short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowlydisappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of adistant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell uponhim. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him. Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vaguefear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waitingand watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it. How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was nolonger a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing.Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care. <doc-sep>Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, notbecause it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long beeningrained in him through the years. He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanismof the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was inperfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was nospeed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. Allwas in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, whenthere was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth,long forgotten Earth. He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him.He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already beingmarked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater ofthe stars, he suddenly froze. There was a ship, coming toward him! For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubtassailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But nophantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlightshone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solidand had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in theGhost Ship in his youth. For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin,had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him. The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him. CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU, the message rapped out, CALLING SPACESHIP MARY LOU. With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sentthe answering message. SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD! He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst withinhim and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listenedto the happiest message he had ever heard: NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOUARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TOCOME? Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words. YES! COMING! The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou .In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, patheticallyglad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago.He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful tohim. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twentyyears of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair. He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock. The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards awayand a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope wastossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leavingthe Mary Lou behind him forever. Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see norsay anything. His heart was choked with emotion. It's all right, a kindly voice assured him, You're safe now. He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed inbed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him. <doc-sep>He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of thepassing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him somuch of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to thepoint of gibbering insanity. He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating henever remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and toremove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind toalso realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to thevalue of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mentalshock of moving about among his people back on Earth. During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparingit with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and hisfriends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans'sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges.And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy andconfused. Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he nolonger was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. Butthere was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; theyrefused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actualrunning of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions,they mumbled and drifted away. And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep onenight while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earthswimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of theyears he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he hadonce known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that yearsof solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind. <doc-sep>He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thoughtthat perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling faceof a man quickly reassured him. I'll call the captain, the space man said. He said to let him knowwhen you came to. Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! Hepressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! Heyawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through hisentire body. He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in hismind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this yearand perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonianexpedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to homebase Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was atthe end of the trail. Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And thoseyears, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else. The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stoodup and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that ofhis ship, but he would manage. How do you feel, Space Man Willard? Oh, you know me? Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou . The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a veryold man. You don't know how much I suffered there, Willard said slowly,measuring each word. Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing! Yes? the old captain said. Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only thethought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find meand help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would havedied. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, ofvast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must benow! A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered thecaptain's eyes. I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die. Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips. When will we go to Earth? he asked. The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tuggedat him. You don't know, the Captain said. It was not a question or astatement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly. Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew . Matter is relative, he said, the existent under one condition isnon-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. Allthings that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their massand energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happenedto the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty yearsago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feelthe change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we becamemore and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to anyEarth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But tosome ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteenyears—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist. Then this ship, Willard said, stunned, you and I and everything onit... ... are doomed, the Captain said. We cannot go to Earth for thesimple reason that we would go through it! The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earthagain. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as hewalked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs ofbirds. Never. Never. Never.... Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts! Yes. <doc-sep></s>

John Willard and Larry Dobbin are astronauts who have been in space for four years on the rocket Mary Lou, and as Dobbin is dying, he regrets that he will not see Earth again. Willard assures him that they will make it back, but he knows that they will never make it back because their ship was damaged by a meteor. Although the ship can still carry out functions to support life, it is not navigable. After Willard helps Dobbin look at the stars one more time, Dobbin cries out that it’s true—when an astronaut is dying, the Ghost Ship comes for him. Willard recycles Dobbin’s body but feels regretful about it. He longs to see the Earth again and walk on it, but he knows this will never happen and feels intensely lonely. After two years, a strange thing happens. Willard is looking at the stars, and it seems that they are winking at him. Something seems to be moving toward him, and it turns out to be an ancient ship. Willard’s gauges do not register the ship’s presence although he sees it with his own eyes, and Willard realizes that it is the Ghost Ship coming for him. Strangely enough, however, the ship turns away and moves away from him.Seven years later, a newspaper on Earth publishes a story that Willard’s son, J. Willard II, plans to build a larger version of his father’s ship, the Mary Lou II, in memory of his father, but Willard Sr. is unaware of this. He continues to experience excruciating loneliness and dreams about his life on Earth—the people he knew, the sounds, and the cities. One day a giant rocket ship comes alongside the Mary Lou, and Willard is thrilled that he has been discovered. But the vessel turns away and leaves. Willard notices that he can see starlight through the ship and realizes it is the Ghost Ship. One day he sees another ship and, at first, fears the Ghost Ship has returned. The new ship looks solid, though, and it contacts him, addressing the Mary Lou by name. Willard believes that this ship will take him back to Earth and eagerly boards it. Willard is kept drugged for a while but eventually is alert enough to speak with the captain. When Willard asks when they will return to Earth, the captain explains that they cannot return because matter in space loses its mass and energy until nothing is left. If they tried to return to Earth, they would pass through it. Willard then realizes he is on the Ghost Ship, and he is one of its Ghosts.

<s> GALACTIC GHOST By WALTER KUBILIUS The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin'slips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of hisfingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the MaryLou were now black as meteor dust. We'll never see Earth again, he whispered feebly, plucked weakly atthe cover. Nonsense! Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying manwould not see through the lie. We've got the sun's gravity helpingus drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon andwe'll start to work again on a new idea of mine.... His voice trailedhelplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use. The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. Hisface contorted as he tried to withhold a sob. To see Earth again! he said weakly. To walk on solid ground oncemore! Four years! Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt.No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to beanguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but noman could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel ofthe solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among thestars. Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, likeDobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years fromnow, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship inspace and bring them home again. Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard liftedhim so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of thestars. Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of theheavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft hefirst crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin woulddie a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as anyman could. Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and atremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard. I saw it! his voice cracked, trembling. Saw what? It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there! In heaven's name, Dobbin, Willard demanded, What do you see? What isit? Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studdedspace. The Ghost Ship! Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of inwhispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales.But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner ofDobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come upin this time of delirium. There's nothing there, he said firmly. It's come—for me! Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly towardWillard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. Hismouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now onewith the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone. For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the bodyof his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what wasnecessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he hadever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in theuseless motors of the Mary Lou . <doc-sep>The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though theship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damagedit had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant careand attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept.The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as preciousfood and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed. When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would bethen that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimeshe thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless controlboard, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours inthe direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A greatloneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had everknown would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despairand hopeless pain. Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard wassitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars.A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered!Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted,it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? Hewatched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion.And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth! Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanishedinstantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a fewminutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minuteswould help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a massof fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even amoving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worthinvestigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon thelast flashing seconds of life. Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plottedits semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but,instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations causedhis heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, itwould reach the Mary Lou . Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearinghis ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars,though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was somethingabout its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. Itresembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes fortyyears ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, thoughhalf-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was arocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence ofany material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed.But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated thepresence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these yearsin space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faintghost-like rocket ships? The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship!Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that wasimpossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall talestold by men drunk with the liquors of Mars. There is no ship there. There is no ship there, Willard told himselfover and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, nowmotionless a few hundred miles away. Deep within him a faint voice cried, It's come—for me! but Willardstilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it.There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history therehad been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roamforever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was truefor the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space? He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it wasnot nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. Amoment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The GhostShip was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his handas if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again. But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller,fainter and fainter. Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocketrecede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreadedloneliness of the stars descended upon him. <doc-sep>Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willardwould never see there was published a small item: Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for theexploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not beenseen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, isplanning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father. Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but thecold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the onlythings both dear and precious to him. Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well forhe had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease theanguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not bedone. And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up theEarth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had knownon Earth. In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden andfeeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under hisfeet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew.How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth andfriendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he wouldnever see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workersand scientists. Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and theshops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Oddthat he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to aman who is alone. Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he,for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it reallyonly a product of his imagination? What of all the others who hadseen it? Was it possible for many different men under many differentsituations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. Butperhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase hereand a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the GhostShip haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is itstragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again.When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes alifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you! And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairyship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage.Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind. Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard losttrack of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purposecould time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was therereason for clocks and records. Days and months and years becamemeaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. Aboutthree years must have passed since his last record in the log bookof the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered anothergreat disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared afull-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad withjoy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joywas short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowlydisappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of adistant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell uponhim. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him. Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vaguefear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waitingand watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it. How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was nolonger a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing.Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care. <doc-sep>Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, notbecause it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long beeningrained in him through the years. He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanismof the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was inperfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was nospeed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. Allwas in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, whenthere was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth,long forgotten Earth. He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him.He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already beingmarked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater ofthe stars, he suddenly froze. There was a ship, coming toward him! For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubtassailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But nophantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlightshone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solidand had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in theGhost Ship in his youth. For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin,had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him. The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him. CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU, the message rapped out, CALLING SPACESHIP MARY LOU. With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sentthe answering message. SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD! He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst withinhim and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listenedto the happiest message he had ever heard: NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOUARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TOCOME? Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words. YES! COMING! The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou .In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, patheticallyglad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago.He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful tohim. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twentyyears of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair. He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock. The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards awayand a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope wastossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leavingthe Mary Lou behind him forever. Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see norsay anything. His heart was choked with emotion. It's all right, a kindly voice assured him, You're safe now. He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed inbed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him. <doc-sep>He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of thepassing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him somuch of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to thepoint of gibbering insanity. He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating henever remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and toremove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind toalso realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to thevalue of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mentalshock of moving about among his people back on Earth. During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparingit with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and hisfriends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans'sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges.And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy andconfused. Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he nolonger was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. Butthere was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; theyrefused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actualrunning of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions,they mumbled and drifted away. And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep onenight while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earthswimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of theyears he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he hadonce known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that yearsof solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind. <doc-sep>He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thoughtthat perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling faceof a man quickly reassured him. I'll call the captain, the space man said. He said to let him knowwhen you came to. Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! Hepressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! Heyawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through hisentire body. He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in hismind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this yearand perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonianexpedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to homebase Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was atthe end of the trail. Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And thoseyears, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else. The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stoodup and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that ofhis ship, but he would manage. How do you feel, Space Man Willard? Oh, you know me? Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou . The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a veryold man. You don't know how much I suffered there, Willard said slowly,measuring each word. Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing! Yes? the old captain said. Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only thethought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find meand help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would havedied. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, ofvast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must benow! A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered thecaptain's eyes. I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die. Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips. When will we go to Earth? he asked. The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tuggedat him. You don't know, the Captain said. It was not a question or astatement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly. Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew . Matter is relative, he said, the existent under one condition isnon-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. Allthings that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their massand energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happenedto the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty yearsago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feelthe change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we becamemore and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to anyEarth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But tosome ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteenyears—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist. Then this ship, Willard said, stunned, you and I and everything onit... ... are doomed, the Captain said. We cannot go to Earth for thesimple reason that we would go through it! The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earthagain. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as hewalked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs ofbirds. Never. Never. Never.... Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts! Yes. <doc-sep></s>

Both Dobbin and Willard have memories of Earth that sadden them and make them lonely. As Dobbin is dying, he remembers his life on Earth, and his greatest regret is that he will never see it again. Dobbin is satisfied with his life and experiences, but his Earth-loneliness prevents him from dying a happy man. Willard is also pained by his memories of Earth and what he has lost and will never have again. Alone in space, Willard considers his memories the only things of value to him. Because his memories cause him so much pain, Willard tries to ignore them or remove them, but they return in his dreams. His memories in his dreams are full of sensory details and other details that he did not notice when he was on Earth. However, when Willard is drugged and sleeping on the Ghost Ship, his dreams are of memories from the years he spent on the Mary Lou, and his dreams about people that he knew are unpleasant. Willard believes that if he could walk on Earth one more time, he would die a happy man.

<s> GALACTIC GHOST By WALTER KUBILIUS The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin'slips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of hisfingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the MaryLou were now black as meteor dust. We'll never see Earth again, he whispered feebly, plucked weakly atthe cover. Nonsense! Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying manwould not see through the lie. We've got the sun's gravity helpingus drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon andwe'll start to work again on a new idea of mine.... His voice trailedhelplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use. The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. Hisface contorted as he tried to withhold a sob. To see Earth again! he said weakly. To walk on solid ground oncemore! Four years! Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt.No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to beanguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but noman could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel ofthe solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among thestars. Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, likeDobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years fromnow, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship inspace and bring them home again. Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard liftedhim so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of thestars. Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of theheavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft hefirst crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin woulddie a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as anyman could. Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and atremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard. I saw it! his voice cracked, trembling. Saw what? It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there! In heaven's name, Dobbin, Willard demanded, What do you see? What isit? Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studdedspace. The Ghost Ship! Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of inwhispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales.But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner ofDobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come upin this time of delirium. There's nothing there, he said firmly. It's come—for me! Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly towardWillard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. Hismouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now onewith the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone. For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the bodyof his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what wasnecessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he hadever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in theuseless motors of the Mary Lou . <doc-sep>The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though theship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damagedit had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant careand attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept.The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as preciousfood and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed. When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would bethen that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimeshe thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless controlboard, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours inthe direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A greatloneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had everknown would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despairand hopeless pain. Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard wassitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars.A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered!Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted,it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? Hewatched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion.And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth! Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanishedinstantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a fewminutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minuteswould help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a massof fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even amoving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worthinvestigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon thelast flashing seconds of life. Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plottedits semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but,instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations causedhis heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, itwould reach the Mary Lou . Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearinghis ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars,though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was somethingabout its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. Itresembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes fortyyears ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, thoughhalf-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was arocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence ofany material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed.But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated thepresence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these yearsin space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faintghost-like rocket ships? The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship!Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that wasimpossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall talestold by men drunk with the liquors of Mars. There is no ship there. There is no ship there, Willard told himselfover and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, nowmotionless a few hundred miles away. Deep within him a faint voice cried, It's come—for me! but Willardstilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it.There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history therehad been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roamforever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was truefor the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space? He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it wasnot nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. Amoment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The GhostShip was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his handas if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again. But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller,fainter and fainter. Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocketrecede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreadedloneliness of the stars descended upon him. <doc-sep>Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willardwould never see there was published a small item: Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for theexploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not beenseen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, isplanning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father. Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but thecold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the onlythings both dear and precious to him. Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well forhe had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease theanguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not bedone. And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up theEarth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had knownon Earth. In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden andfeeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under hisfeet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew.How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth andfriendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he wouldnever see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workersand scientists. Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and theshops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Oddthat he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to aman who is alone. Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he,for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it reallyonly a product of his imagination? What of all the others who hadseen it? Was it possible for many different men under many differentsituations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. Butperhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase hereand a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the GhostShip haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is itstragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again.When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes alifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you! And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairyship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage.Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind. Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard losttrack of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purposecould time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was therereason for clocks and records. Days and months and years becamemeaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. Aboutthree years must have passed since his last record in the log bookof the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered anothergreat disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared afull-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad withjoy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joywas short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowlydisappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of adistant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell uponhim. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him. Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vaguefear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waitingand watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it. How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was nolonger a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing.Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care. <doc-sep>Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, notbecause it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long beeningrained in him through the years. He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanismof the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was inperfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was nospeed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. Allwas in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, whenthere was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth,long forgotten Earth. He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him.He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already beingmarked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater ofthe stars, he suddenly froze. There was a ship, coming toward him! For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubtassailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But nophantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlightshone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solidand had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in theGhost Ship in his youth. For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin,had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him. The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him. CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU, the message rapped out, CALLING SPACESHIP MARY LOU. With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sentthe answering message. SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD! He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst withinhim and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listenedto the happiest message he had ever heard: NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOUARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TOCOME? Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words. YES! COMING! The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou .In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, patheticallyglad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago.He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful tohim. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twentyyears of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair. He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock. The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards awayand a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope wastossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leavingthe Mary Lou behind him forever. Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see norsay anything. His heart was choked with emotion. It's all right, a kindly voice assured him, You're safe now. He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed inbed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him. <doc-sep>He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of thepassing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him somuch of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to thepoint of gibbering insanity. He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating henever remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and toremove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind toalso realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to thevalue of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mentalshock of moving about among his people back on Earth. During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparingit with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and hisfriends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans'sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges.And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy andconfused. Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he nolonger was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. Butthere was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; theyrefused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actualrunning of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions,they mumbled and drifted away. And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep onenight while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earthswimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of theyears he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he hadonce known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that yearsof solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind. <doc-sep>He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thoughtthat perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling faceof a man quickly reassured him. I'll call the captain, the space man said. He said to let him knowwhen you came to. Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! Hepressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! Heyawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through hisentire body. He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in hismind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this yearand perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonianexpedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to homebase Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was atthe end of the trail. Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And thoseyears, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else. The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stoodup and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that ofhis ship, but he would manage. How do you feel, Space Man Willard? Oh, you know me? Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou . The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a veryold man. You don't know how much I suffered there, Willard said slowly,measuring each word. Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing! Yes? the old captain said. Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only thethought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find meand help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would havedied. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, ofvast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must benow! A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered thecaptain's eyes. I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die. Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips. When will we go to Earth? he asked. The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tuggedat him. You don't know, the Captain said. It was not a question or astatement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly. Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew . Matter is relative, he said, the existent under one condition isnon-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. Allthings that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their massand energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happenedto the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty yearsago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feelthe change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we becamemore and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to anyEarth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But tosome ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteenyears—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist. Then this ship, Willard said, stunned, you and I and everything onit... ... are doomed, the Captain said. We cannot go to Earth for thesimple reason that we would go through it! The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earthagain. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as hewalked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs ofbirds. Never. Never. Never.... Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts! Yes. <doc-sep></s>

John Willard considers Larry Dobbin his best friend. They are both astronauts in a rocket ship that was on a voyage past Pluto to explore a possible planetoid. Their ship was struck by a meteor and can no longer fly, so they are drifting through space. When the story opens, Dobbin is dying. His breathing is erratic, and his fingertips are black. Dobbin has accepted his impending death, but Willard tries to convince Dobbin that he is not dying and that they will return to Earth. Dobbin longs to return to Earth and regrets that he will not see it again. He remembers his first space flight as Willard raises him to look out the port window at the stars. Before he dies, Dobbin declares that the Ghost Ship has come for him. He points to it out the window, but Willard does not see it. Willard believes that Dobbin has gone mad. Dobbin then dies. Dobbin is mentioned in a newspaper account thirteen years after the men left on their voyage when Willard’s son builds a larger version of their ship called the Mary Lou II. The article indicates they were never heard from again.

<s> GALACTIC GHOST By WALTER KUBILIUS The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin'slips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of hisfingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the MaryLou were now black as meteor dust. We'll never see Earth again, he whispered feebly, plucked weakly atthe cover. Nonsense! Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying manwould not see through the lie. We've got the sun's gravity helpingus drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon andwe'll start to work again on a new idea of mine.... His voice trailedhelplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use. The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. Hisface contorted as he tried to withhold a sob. To see Earth again! he said weakly. To walk on solid ground oncemore! Four years! Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt.No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to beanguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but noman could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel ofthe solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among thestars. Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, likeDobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years fromnow, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship inspace and bring them home again. Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard liftedhim so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of thestars. Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of theheavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft hefirst crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin woulddie a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as anyman could. Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and atremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard. I saw it! his voice cracked, trembling. Saw what? It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there! In heaven's name, Dobbin, Willard demanded, What do you see? What isit? Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studdedspace. The Ghost Ship! Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of inwhispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales.But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner ofDobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come upin this time of delirium. There's nothing there, he said firmly. It's come—for me! Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly towardWillard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. Hismouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now onewith the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone. For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the bodyof his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what wasnecessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he hadever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in theuseless motors of the Mary Lou . <doc-sep>The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though theship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damagedit had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant careand attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept.The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as preciousfood and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed. When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would bethen that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimeshe thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless controlboard, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours inthe direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A greatloneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had everknown would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despairand hopeless pain. Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard wassitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars.A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered!Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted,it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? Hewatched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion.And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth! Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanishedinstantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a fewminutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minuteswould help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a massof fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even amoving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worthinvestigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon thelast flashing seconds of life. Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plottedits semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but,instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations causedhis heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, itwould reach the Mary Lou . Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearinghis ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars,though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was somethingabout its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. Itresembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes fortyyears ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, thoughhalf-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was arocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence ofany material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed.But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated thepresence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these yearsin space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faintghost-like rocket ships? The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship!Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that wasimpossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall talestold by men drunk with the liquors of Mars. There is no ship there. There is no ship there, Willard told himselfover and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, nowmotionless a few hundred miles away. Deep within him a faint voice cried, It's come—for me! but Willardstilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it.There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history therehad been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roamforever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was truefor the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space? He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it wasnot nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. Amoment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The GhostShip was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his handas if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again. But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller,fainter and fainter. Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocketrecede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreadedloneliness of the stars descended upon him. <doc-sep>Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willardwould never see there was published a small item: Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for theexploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not beenseen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, isplanning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father. Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but thecold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the onlythings both dear and precious to him. Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well forhe had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease theanguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not bedone. And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up theEarth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had knownon Earth. In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden andfeeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under hisfeet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew.How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth andfriendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he wouldnever see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workersand scientists. Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and theshops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Oddthat he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to aman who is alone. Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he,for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it reallyonly a product of his imagination? What of all the others who hadseen it? Was it possible for many different men under many differentsituations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. Butperhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase hereand a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the GhostShip haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is itstragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again.When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes alifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you! And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairyship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage.Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind. Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard losttrack of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purposecould time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was therereason for clocks and records. Days and months and years becamemeaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. Aboutthree years must have passed since his last record in the log bookof the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered anothergreat disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared afull-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad withjoy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joywas short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowlydisappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of adistant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell uponhim. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him. Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vaguefear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waitingand watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it. How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was nolonger a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing.Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care. <doc-sep>Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, notbecause it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long beeningrained in him through the years. He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanismof the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was inperfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was nospeed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. Allwas in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, whenthere was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth,long forgotten Earth. He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him.He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already beingmarked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater ofthe stars, he suddenly froze. There was a ship, coming toward him! For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubtassailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But nophantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlightshone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solidand had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in theGhost Ship in his youth. For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin,had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him. The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him. CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU, the message rapped out, CALLING SPACESHIP MARY LOU. With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sentthe answering message. SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD! He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst withinhim and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listenedto the happiest message he had ever heard: NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOUARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TOCOME? Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words. YES! COMING! The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou .In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, patheticallyglad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago.He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful tohim. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twentyyears of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair. He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock. The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards awayand a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope wastossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leavingthe Mary Lou behind him forever. Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see norsay anything. His heart was choked with emotion. It's all right, a kindly voice assured him, You're safe now. He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed inbed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him. <doc-sep>He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of thepassing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him somuch of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to thepoint of gibbering insanity. He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating henever remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and toremove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind toalso realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to thevalue of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mentalshock of moving about among his people back on Earth. During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparingit with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and hisfriends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans'sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges.And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy andconfused. Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he nolonger was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. Butthere was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; theyrefused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actualrunning of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions,they mumbled and drifted away. And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep onenight while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earthswimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of theyears he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he hadonce known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that yearsof solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind. <doc-sep>He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thoughtthat perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling faceof a man quickly reassured him. I'll call the captain, the space man said. He said to let him knowwhen you came to. Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! Hepressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! Heyawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through hisentire body. He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in hismind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this yearand perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonianexpedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to homebase Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was atthe end of the trail. Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And thoseyears, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else. The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stoodup and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that ofhis ship, but he would manage. How do you feel, Space Man Willard? Oh, you know me? Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou . The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a veryold man. You don't know how much I suffered there, Willard said slowly,measuring each word. Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing! Yes? the old captain said. Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only thethought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find meand help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would havedied. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, ofvast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must benow! A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered thecaptain's eyes. I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die. Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips. When will we go to Earth? he asked. The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tuggedat him. You don't know, the Captain said. It was not a question or astatement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly. Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew . Matter is relative, he said, the existent under one condition isnon-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. Allthings that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their massand energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happenedto the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty yearsago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feelthe change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we becamemore and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to anyEarth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But tosome ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteenyears—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist. Then this ship, Willard said, stunned, you and I and everything onit... ... are doomed, the Captain said. We cannot go to Earth for thesimple reason that we would go through it! The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earthagain. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as hewalked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs ofbirds. Never. Never. Never.... Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts! Yes. <doc-sep></s>

There are legends and tall tales about the Ghost Ships, told mainly by drunken men and professional storytellers. Willard remembers that there are stories on Earth about Ghost Ships that sail the Seven Seas. The story goes that the crews of Ghost Ships have broken a particular law, and their punishment is to roam forever. The Ghost Ship in space is said to be the home of spacemen who could not return to Earth. When Dobbin is dying, he claims to see the Ghost Ship and that it has come for him, but when Willard looks for the ship, he does not see it. Later, when Willard sees the Ghost Ship for himself for the first time, he tries to convince himself it is not really there. He remembers the stories about oceangoing Ghost Ships and reasons that there could also be Ghost Ships in space. When the Ghost Ship turns to leave, Willard is almost sorry to see it go because he has been so lonely. When the Ghost Ship appears to Willard for the second time, it has pulled alongside the Mary Lou, and Willard thinks it is a real ship. Only when the Ghost Ship abruptly speeds away and Willard sees stars shining through it does Willard realize it was the Ghost Ship, and he believes it is mocking him. With his third sighting of the Ghost Ship, Willard immediately thinks it is the Ghost Ship but then convinces himself it is not when it messages him. After he is on the ship, he realizes it is indeed the Ghost Ship and that he is now a Ghost.

<s> GALACTIC GHOST By WALTER KUBILIUS The Flying Dutchman of space was a harbinger of death. But Willard wasn't superstitions. He had seen the phantom—and lived. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The only friend in space Willard had ever known was dying. Dobbin'slips were parched and his breath came spasmodically. The tips of hisfingers that had so many times caressed the control board of the MaryLou were now black as meteor dust. We'll never see Earth again, he whispered feebly, plucked weakly atthe cover. Nonsense! Willard broke in hurriedly, hoping that the dying manwould not see through the lie. We've got the sun's gravity helpingus drift back to Earth! We'll be there soon! You'll get well soon andwe'll start to work again on a new idea of mine.... His voice trailedhelplessly away and the words were lost. It was no use. The sick man did not hear him. Two tears rolled down his cheeks. Hisface contorted as he tried to withhold a sob. To see Earth again! he said weakly. To walk on solid ground oncemore! Four years! Willard echoed faintly. He knew how his space mate felt.No man can spend four years away from his home planet, and fail to beanguished. A man could live without friends, without fortune, but noman could live without Earth. He was like Anteus, for only the feel ofthe solid ground under his feet could give him courage to go among thestars. Willard also knew what he dared not admit to himself. He, too, likeDobbin, would never see Earth again. Perhaps, some thousand years fromnow, some lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship inspace and bring them home again. Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard liftedhim so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of thestars. Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of theheavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft hefirst crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin woulddie a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as anyman could. Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and atremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard. I saw it! his voice cracked, trembling. Saw what? It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there! In heaven's name, Dobbin, Willard demanded, What do you see? What isit? Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studdedspace. The Ghost Ship! Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of inwhispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales.But he had never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner ofDobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come upin this time of delirium. There's nothing there, he said firmly. It's come—for me! Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly towardWillard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. Hismouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now onewith the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone. For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the bodyof his friend and space mate. When the time was up he did what wasnecessary and nothing remained of Harry Dobbin, the best friend he hadever had. The atoms of his body were now pure energy stored away in theuseless motors of the Mary Lou . <doc-sep>The weeks that followed were like a blur in Willard's mind. Though theship was utterly incapable of motion, the chance meteor that damagedit had spared the convertors and assimilators. Through constant careand attention the frail balance that meant life or death could be kept.The substance of waste and refuse was torn down and rebuilt as preciousfood and air. It was even possible to create more than was needed. When this was done, Willard immediately regretted it. For it would bethen that the days and the weeks would roll by endlessly. Sometimeshe thought he would go mad when, sitting at the useless controlboard, which was his habit, he would stare for hours and hours inthe direction of the Sun where he knew the Earth would be. A greatloneliness would then seize upon him and an agony that no man had everknown would tear at his heart. He would then turn away, full of despairand hopeless pain. Two years after Dobbin's death a strange thing happened. Willard wassitting at his accustomed place facing the unmoving vista of the stars.A chance glance at Orion's belt froze him still. A star had flickered!Distinctly, as if a light veil had been placed over it and then lifted,it dimmed and turned bright again. What strange phenomena was this? Hewatched and then another star faded momentarily in the exact fashion.And then a third! And a fourth! And a fifth! Willard's heart gave a leap and the lethargy of two years vanishedinstantly. Here, at last, was something to do. It might be only a fewminutes before he would understand what it was, but those few minuteswould help while away the maddening long hours. Perhaps it was a massof fine meteorites or a pocket of gas that did not disperse, or even amoving warp of space-light. Whatever it was, it was a phenomena worthinvestigating and Willard seized upon it as a dying man seizes upon thelast flashing seconds of life. Willard traced its course by the flickering stars and gradually plottedits semi-circular course. It was not from the solar system but,instead, headed toward it. A rapid check-up on his calculations causedhis heart to beat in ever quickening excitement. Whatever it was, itwould reach the Mary Lou . Again he looked out the port. Unquestionably the faint mass was nearinghis ship. It was round in shape and almost invisible. The stars,though dimmed, could still be seen through it. There was somethingabout its form that reminded him of an old-fashioned rocket ship. Itresembled one of those that had done pioneer service in the lanes fortyyears ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, thoughhalf-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was arocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence ofany material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed.But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated thepresence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these yearsin space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of faintghost-like rocket ships? The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship!Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that wasimpossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall talestold by men drunk with the liquors of Mars. There is no ship there. There is no ship there, Willard told himselfover and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, nowmotionless a few hundred miles away. Deep within him a faint voice cried, It's come—for me! but Willardstilled it. This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it.There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history therehad been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roamforever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was truefor the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space? He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it wasnot nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. Amoment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The GhostShip was turning back! Unconsciously Willard reached out with his handas if to hold it back, for when it was gone he would be alone again. But the Ghost Ship went on. Its outline became smaller and smaller,fainter and fainter. Trembling, Willard turned away from the window as he saw the rocketrecede and vanish into the emptiness of space. Once more the dreadedloneliness of the stars descended upon him. <doc-sep>Seven years passed and back on Earth in a small newspaper that Willardwould never see there was published a small item: Arden, Rocketport —Thirteen years ago the Space Ship Mary Lou under John Willard and Larry Dobbin left the Rocket Port for theexploration of an alleged planetoid beyond Pluto. The ship has not beenseen or heard from since. J. Willard, II, son of the lost explorer, isplanning the manufacture of a super-size exploration ship to be called Mary Lou II , in memory of his father. Memories die hard. A man who is alone in space with nothing but thecold friendship of star-light looks back upon memories as the onlythings both dear and precious to him. Willard, master and lone survivor of the Mary Lou , knew this well forhe had tried to rip the memories of Earth out of his heart to ease theanguish of solitude within him. But it was a thing that could not bedone. And so it was that each night—for Willard did not give up theEarth-habit of keeping time—Willard dreamed of the days he had knownon Earth. In his mind's eye, he saw himself walking the streets of Arden andfeeling the crunch of snow or the soft slap of rainwater under hisfeet. He heard again, in his mind, the voices of friends he knew.How beautiful and perfect was each voice! How filled with warmth andfriendship! There was the voice of his beautiful wife whom he wouldnever see again. There were the gruff and deep voices of his co-workersand scientists. Above all there were the voices of the cities, and the fields and theshops where he had worked. All these had their individual voices. Oddthat he had never realized it before, but things become clearer to aman who is alone. Clearer? Perhaps not. Perhaps they become more clouded. How could he,for example, explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it reallyonly a product of his imagination? What of all the others who hadseen it? Was it possible for many different men under many differentsituations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. Butperhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase hereand a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the GhostShip haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is itstragedy, for it is the home of spacemen who can never go home again.When your last measure of fuel is burnt and your ship becomes alifeless hulk—the Ghost will come—for you! And this is all there was to the legend. Merely a tale of some fairyship told to amuse and to while away the days of a star-voyage.Bitterly, Willard dismissed it from his mind. Another year of loneliness passed. And still another. Willard losttrack of the days. It was difficult to keep time for to what purposecould time be kept. Here in space there was no time, nor was therereason for clocks and records. Days and months and years becamemeaningless words for things that once may have had meaning. Aboutthree years must have passed since his last record in the log bookof the Mary Lou . At that time, he remembered, he suffered anothergreat disappointment. On the port side there suddenly appeared afull-sized rocket ship. For many minutes Willard was half-mad withjoy thinking that a passing ship was ready to rescue him. But the joywas short-lived, for the rocket ship abruptly turned away and slowlydisappeared. As Willard watched it go away he saw the light of adistant star through the space ship. A heart-breaking agony fell uponhim. It was not a ship from Earth. It was the Ghost Ship, mocking him. Since then Willard did not look out the window of his craft. A vaguefear troubled him that perhaps the Ghost Ship might be here, waitingand watching, and that he would go mad if he saw it. How many years passed he could not tell. But this he knew. He was nolonger a young man. Perhaps fifteen years has disappeared into nothing.Perhaps twenty. He did not know and he did not care. <doc-sep>Willard awoke from a deep sleep and prepared his bed. He did it, notbecause it was necessary, but because it was a habit that had long beeningrained in him through the years. He checked and rechecked every part of the still functioning mechanismof the ship. The radio, even though there was no one to call, was inperfect order. The speed-recording dials, even though there was nospeed to record, were in perfect order. And so with every machine. Allwas in perfect order. Perfect useless order, he thought bitterly, whenthere was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth,long forgotten Earth. He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him.He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already beingmarked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater ofthe stars, he suddenly froze. There was a ship, coming toward him! For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubtassailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? But nophantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlightshone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solidand had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in theGhost Ship in his youth. For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin,had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him. The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him. CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU, the message rapped out, CALLING SPACESHIP MARY LOU. With trembling fingers that he could scarcely control, old Willard sentthe answering message. SPACE SHIP MARY LOU REPLYING. RECEIVED MESSAGE. THANK GOD! He broke off, unable to continue. His heart was ready to burst withinhim and the tears of joy were already welling in his eyes. He listenedto the happiest message he had ever heard: NOTICE THAT SPACE SHIP MARY LOU IS DISABLED AND NOT SPACE WORTHY. YOUARE INVITED TO COME ABOARD. HAVE YOU SPACE SUIT AND—ARE YOU ABLE TOCOME? Willard, already sobbing with joy, could send only two words. YES! COMING! The years of waiting were over. At last he was free of the Mary Lou .In a dream like trance, he dressed in his space suit, patheticallyglad that he had already checked every detail of it a short time ago.He realized suddenly that everything about the Mary Lou was hateful tohim. It was here that his best friend died, and it was here that twentyyears of his life were wasted completely in solitude and despair. He took one last look and stepped into the air-lock. The Earth-ship, he did not see its name, was only a hundred yards awayand a man was already at the air-lock waiting to help him. A rope wastossed to him. He reached for it and made his way to the ship, leavingthe Mary Lou behind him forever. Suddenly the world dropped away from him. Willard could neither see norsay anything. His heart was choked with emotion. It's all right, a kindly voice assured him, You're safe now. He had the sensation of being carried by several men and then placed inbed. The quiet of deep sleep descended upon him. <doc-sep>He woke many times in the following days, but the privations of thepassing years had drained his strength and his mind, had made him somuch of a hermit that the presence of other men frightened him to thepoint of gibbering insanity. He knew that the food and drink were drugged, for after eating henever remembered seeing the men enter the room to care for him and toremove the dirty dishes. But there was enough sanity in his mind toalso realize that, without the gradual reawakening of his senses to thevalue of human companionship, he might not be able to stand the mentalshock of moving about among his people back on Earth. During those passing days, he savored each new impression, comparingit with what he remembered from that age-long past when he and hisfriends had walked on Earth's great plains and ridden on the oceans'sleek ships or flown with the wings of birds over the mountain ranges.And each impression was doubly enjoyable, for his memory was hazy andconfused. Gradually, though, his mind cleared; he remembered the past, and he nolonger was afraid of the men who visited him from time to time. Butthere was a strangeness about the men that he could not fathom; theyrefused to talk about anything, any subject, other than the actualrunning of the great ship. Always, when he asked his eager questions,they mumbled and drifted away. And then in his third week on the rescue ship, he went to sleep onenight while peering from the port hole at the blue ball of Earthswimming in the blackness of space. He slept and he dreamed of theyears he had spent by himself in the drifting, lifeless hulk of the Mary Lou . His dreams were vivid, peopled with men and women he hadonce known, and were horrible with the fantasies of terror that yearsof solitary brooding had implanted deep in his mind. <doc-sep>He awoke with a start and a cry of alarm ran through him as he thoughtthat perhaps he might still be in the Mary Lou . The warm, smiling faceof a man quickly reassured him. I'll call the captain, the space man said. He said to let him knowwhen you came to. Willard could only nod in weak and grateful acceptance. It was true! Hepressed his head back against the bed's pillows. How soft! How warm! Heyawned and stretched his arms as a thrill of happiness shot through hisentire body. He would see Earth again! That single thought ran over and over in hismind without stopping. He would see Earth again! Perhaps not this yearand perhaps not the next—for the ship might be on some extra-Plutonianexpedition. But even if it would take years before it returned to homebase Willard knew that those years would fly quickly if Earth was atthe end of the trail. Though he had aged, he still had many years before him. And thoseyears, he vowed, would be spent on Earth and nowhere else. The captain, a pleasant old fellow, came into the room as Willard stoodup and tried to walk. The gravity here was a bit different from that ofhis ship, but he would manage. How do you feel, Space Man Willard? Oh, you know me? Willard looked at him in surprise, and then smiled,Of course, you looked through the log book of the Mary Lou . The captain nodded and Willard noticed with surprise that he was a veryold man. You don't know how much I suffered there, Willard said slowly,measuring each word. Years in space—all alone! It's a horrible thing! Yes? the old captain said. Many times I thought I would go completely mad. It was only thethought and hope that some day, somehow, an Earth-ship would find meand help me get back to Earth. If it was not for that, I would havedied. I could think of nothing but of Earth, of blue green water, ofvast open spaces and the good brown earth. How beautiful it must benow! A note of sadness, matched only by that of Willard's, entered thecaptain's eyes. I want to walk on Earth just once—then I can die. Willard stopped. A happy dreamy smile touched his lips. When will we go to Earth? he asked. The Captain did not answer. Willard waited and a strange memory tuggedat him. You don't know, the Captain said. It was not a question or astatement. The Captain found it hard to say it. His lips moved slowly. Willard stepped back and before the Captain told him, he knew . Matter is relative, he said, the existent under one condition isnon-existent under another. The real here is the non-real there. Allthings that wander alone in space are gradually drained of their massand energy until nothing is left but mere shells. That is what happenedto the Mary Lou . Your ship was real when we passed by twenty yearsago. It is now like ours, a vague outline in space. We cannot feelthe change ourselves, for change is relative. That is why we becamemore and more solid to you, as you became more and more faint to anyEarth-ship that might have passed. We are real—to ourselves. But tosome ship from Earth which has not been in space for more than fifteenyears—to that ship, to all intents and purposes, we do not exist. Then this ship, Willard said, stunned, you and I and everything onit... ... are doomed, the Captain said. We cannot go to Earth for thesimple reason that we would go through it! The vision of Earth and green trees faded. He would never see Earthagain. He would never feel the crunch of ground under feet as hewalked. Never would listen to the voices of friends and the songs ofbirds. Never. Never. Never.... Then this is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts! Yes. <doc-sep></s>

Larry Dobbin and John Willard are astronauts together in space on a mission to explore a planetoid beyond Pluto. When a meteor damages their rocket, they both realize they will never return to Earth. Willard considers Dobbin the best friend he has ever had friend, and when Dobbin is dying, Willard tries to keep his spirits up by telling him that he has a new plan for a way for them to return to Earth. When Dobbin wants to see the stars one last time before he dies, Willard raises him so that he can see them out the port window. When Dobbins sees the Ghost Ship and says that it has come for him, Willard assures him that nothing is there. After Dobbin dies, Willard holds a wake for him for two days before he recycles Dobbin’s body because the ship can still break down waste and refuse to create food and air. Afterward, Willard regrets disposing of Dobbin’s body. With Dobbin gone, Willard experiences great pain and loneliness. Eventually, Willard sees the Ghost Ship and knows that his friend was right about it.

<s> AIDE MEMOIRE BY KEITH LAUMER The Fustians looked like turtles—but they could move fast when they chose! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Across the table from Retief, Ambassador Magnan rustled a stiff sheetof parchment and looked grave. This aide memoire, he said, was just handed to me by the CulturalAttache. It's the third on the subject this week. It refers to thematter of sponsorship of Youth groups— Some youths, Retief said. Average age, seventy-five. The Fustians are a long-lived people, Magnan snapped. These mattersare relative. At seventy-five, a male Fustian is at a trying age— That's right. He'll try anything—in the hope it will maim somebody. Precisely the problem, Magnan said. But the Youth Movement isthe important news in today's political situation here on Fust. Andsponsorship of Youth groups is a shrewd stroke on the part of theTerrestrial Embassy. At my suggestion, well nigh every member of themission has leaped at the opportunity to score a few p—that is, cementrelations with this emergent power group—the leaders of the future.You, Retief, as Councillor, are the outstanding exception. I'm not convinced these hoodlums need my help in organizing theirrumbles, Retief said. Now, if you have a proposal for a pest controlgroup— To the Fustians this is no jesting matter, Magnan cut in. Thisgroup— he glanced at the paper—known as the Sexual, Cultural, andAthletic Recreational Society, or SCARS for short, has been awaitingsponsorship for a matter of weeks now. Meaning they want someone to buy them a clubhouse, uniforms, equipmentand anything else they need to complete their sexual, cultural andathletic development, Retief said. If we don't act promptly, Magnan said, the Groaci Embassy may wellanticipate us. They're very active here. That's an idea, said Retief. Let 'em. After awhile they'll go brokeinstead of us. Nonsense. The group requires a sponsor. I can't actually order you tostep forward. However.... Magnan let the sentence hang in the air.Retief raised one eyebrow. For a minute there, he said, I thought you were going to make apositive statement. <doc-sep>Magnan leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. I don't thinkyou'll find a diplomat of my experience doing anything so naive, hesaid. I like the adult Fustians, said Retief. Too bad they have to lughalf a ton of horn around on their backs. I wonder if surgery wouldhelp. Great heavens, Retief, Magnan sputtered. I'm amazed that even youwould bring up a matter of such delicacy. A race's unfortunate physicalcharacteristics are hardly a fit matter for Terrestrial curiosity. Well, of course your experience of the Fustian mentality is greaterthan mine. I've only been here a month. But it's been my experience,Mr. Ambassador, that few races are above improving on nature. Otherwiseyou, for example, would be tripping over your beard. Magnan shuddered. Please—never mention the idea to a Fustian. Retief stood. My own program for the day includes going over to thedockyards. There are some features of this new passenger liner theFustians are putting together that I want to look into. With yourpermission, Mr. Ambassador...? Magnan snorted. Your pre-occupation with the trivial disturbs me,Retief. More interest in substantive matters—such as working withYouth groups—would create a far better impression. Before getting too involved with these groups, it might be a good ideato find out a little more about them, said Retief. Who organizesthem? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's thealignment of this SCARS organization? You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak, Magnan said.Politics mean nothing to them ... yet. Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in atwo-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing butbusiness. But what has Fust got that they could use? You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance, said Magnan.Fust possesses a vigorous steel-age manufacturing economy. The Groaciare barely ahead of them. Barely, said Retief. Just over the line into crude atomics ... likefission bombs. Magnan shook his head, turned back to his papers. What market existsfor such devices on a world at peace? I suggest you address yourattention to the less spectacular but more rewarding work of studyingthe social patterns of the local youth. I've studied them, said Retief. And before I meet any of the localyouth socially I want to get myself a good blackjack. II Retief left the sprawling bungalow-type building that housed thechancery of the Terrestrial Embassy, swung aboard a passing flat-carand leaned back against the wooden guard rail as the heavy vehicletrundled through the city toward the looming gantries of the shipyards. It was a cool morning. A light breeze carried the fishy odor of Fustydwellings across the broad cobbled avenue. A few mature Fustianslumbered heavily along in the shade of the low buildings, audiblywheezing under the burden of their immense carapaces. Among them,shell-less youths trotted briskly on scaly stub legs. The driver of theflat-car, a labor-caste Fustian with his guild colors emblazoned on hisback, heaved at the tiller, swung the unwieldy conveyance through theshipyard gates, creaked to a halt. Thus I come to the shipyard with frightful speed, he said in Fustian.Well I know the way of the naked-backs, who move always in haste. Retief climbed down, handed him a coin. You should take upprofessional racing, he said. Daredevil. He crossed the littered yard and tapped at the door of a rambling shed.Boards creaked inside. Then the door swung back. A gnarled ancient with tarnished facial scales and a weathered carapacepeered out at Retief. Long-may-you-sleep, said Retief. I'd like to take a look around, ifyou don't mind. I understand you're laying the bedplate for your newliner today. May-you-dream-of-the-deeps, the old fellow mumbled. He waved a stumpyarm toward a group of shell-less Fustians standing by a massive hoist.The youths know more of bedplates than do I, who but tend the place ofpapers. I know how you feel, old-timer, said Retief. That sounds like thestory of my life. Among your papers do you have a set of plans for thevessel? I understand it's to be a passenger liner. The oldster nodded. He shuffled to a drawing file, rummaged, pulled outa sheaf of curled prints and spread them on the table. Retief stoodsilently, running a finger over the uppermost drawing, tracing lines.... What does the naked-back here? barked a deep voice behind Retief. Heturned. A heavy-faced Fustian youth, wrapped in a mantle, stood at theopen door. Beady yellow eyes set among fine scales bored into Retief. I came to take a look at your new liner, said Retief. We need no prying foreigners here, the youth snapped. His eye fell onthe drawings. He hissed in sudden anger. Doddering hulk! he snapped at the ancient. May you toss innightmares! Put by the plans! My mistake, Retief said. I didn't know this was a secret project. <doc-sep>The youth hesitated. It is not a secret project, he muttered. Whyshould it be secret? You tell me. The youth worked his jaws and rocked his head from side to side in theFusty gesture of uncertainty. There is nothing to conceal, he said.We merely construct a passenger liner. Then you don't mind if I look over the drawings, said Retief. Whoknows? Maybe some day I'll want to reserve a suite for the trip out. The youth turned and disappeared. Retief grinned at the oldster. Wentfor his big brother, I guess, he said. I have a feeling I won't getto study these in peace here. Mind if I copy them? Willingly, light-footed one, said the old Fustian. And mine is theshame for the discourtesy of youth. Retief took out a tiny camera, flipped a copying lens in place, leafedthrough the drawings, clicking the shutter. A plague on these youths, said the oldster, who grow more virulentday by day. Why don't you elders clamp down? Agile are they and we are slow of foot. And this unrest is new.Unknown in my youth was such insolence. The police— Bah! the ancient rumbled. None have we worthy of the name, nor havewe needed ought ere now. What's behind it? They have found leaders. The spiv, Slock, is one. And I fear they plotmischief. He pointed to the window. They come, and a Soft One withthem. Retief pocketed the camera, glanced out the window. A pale-featuredGroaci with an ornately decorated crest stood with the youths, who eyedthe hut, then started toward it. That's the military attache of the Groaci Embassy, Retief said. Iwonder what he and the boys are cooking up together? Naught that augurs well for the dignity of Fust, the oldster rumbled.Flee, agile one, while I engage their attentions. I was just leaving, Retief said. Which way out? The rear door, the Fustian gestured with a stubby member. Rest well,stranger on these shores. He moved to the entrance. Same to you, pop, said Retief. And thanks. He eased through the narrow back entrance, waited until voices wereraised at the front of the shed, then strolled off toward the gate. <doc-sep>The second dark of the third cycle was lightening when Retief left theEmbassy technical library and crossed the corridor to his office. Heflipped on a light. A note was tucked under a paperweight: Retief—I shall expect your attendance at the IAS dinner at firstdark of the fourth cycle. There will be a brief but, I hope, impressiveSponsorship ceremony for the SCARS group, with full press coverage,arrangements for which I have managed to complete in spite of yourintransigence. Retief snorted and glanced at his watch. Less than three hours. Justtime to creep home by flat-car, dress in ceremonial uniform and creepback. Outside he flagged a lumbering bus. He stationed himself in a cornerand watched the yellow sun, Beta, rise rapidly above the low skyline.The nearby sea was at high tide now, under the pull of the major sunand the three moons, and the stiff breeze carried a mist of salt spray. Retief turned up his collar against the dampness. In half an hour hewould be perspiring under the vertical rays of a third-noon sun, butthe thought failed to keep the chill off. Two Youths clambered up on the platform, moving purposefully towardRetief. He moved off the rail, watching them, weight balanced. That's close enough, kids, he said. Plenty of room on this scow. Noneed to crowd up. There are certain films, the lead Fustian muttered. His voice wasunusually deep for a Youth. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and movedawkwardly. His adolescence was nearly at an end, Retief guessed. I told you once, said Retief. Don't crowd me. The two stepped close, slit mouths snapping in anger. Retief put out afoot, hooked it behind the scaly leg of the overaged juvenile and threwhis weight against the cloaked chest. The clumsy Fustian tottered, fellheavily. Retief was past him and off the flat-car before the otherYouth had completed his vain lunge toward the spot Retief had occupied.The Terrestrial waved cheerfully at the pair, hopped aboard anothervehicle, watched his would-be assailants lumber down from their car,tiny heads twisted to follow his retreating figure. So they wanted the film? Retief reflected, thumbing a cigar alight.They were a little late. He had already filed it in the Embassy vault,after running a copy for the reference files. And a comparison of the drawings with those of the obsolete Mark XXXVbattle cruiser used two hundred years earlier by the Concordiat NavalArm showed them to be almost identical, gun emplacements and all. Theterm obsolete was a relative one. A ship which had been outmoded inthe armories of the Galactic Powers could still be king of the walk inthe Eastern Arm. But how had these two known of the film? There had been no one presentbut himself and the old-timer—and he was willing to bet the elderlyFustian hadn't told them anything. At least not willingly.... Retief frowned, dropped the cigar over the side, waited until theflat-car negotiated a mud-wallow, then swung down and headed for theshipyard. <doc-sep>The door, hinges torn loose, had been propped loosely back in position.Retief looked around at the battered interior of the shed. The oldfellow had put up a struggle. There were deep drag-marks in the dust behind the building. Retieffollowed them across the yard. They disappeared under the steel door ofa warehouse. Retief glanced around. Now, at the mid-hour of the fourth cycle, theworkmen were heaped along the edge of the refreshment pond, deep intheir siesta. He took a multi-bladed tool from a pocket, tried variousfittings in the lock. It snicked open. He eased the door aside far enough to enter. Heaped bales loomed before him. Snapping on the tiny lamp in the handleof the combination tool, Retief looked over the pile. One stack seemedout of alignment ... and the dust had been scraped from the floorbefore it. He pocketed the light, climbed up on the bales, looked overinto a nest made by stacking the bundles around a clear spot. The agedFustian lay in it, on his back, a heavy sack tied over his head. Retief dropped down inside the ring of bales, sawed at the tough twineand pulled the sack free. It's me, old fellow, Retief said. The nosy stranger. Sorry I got youinto this. The oldster threshed his gnarled legs. He rocked slightly and fellback. A curse on the cradle that rocked their infant slumbers, herumbled. But place me back on my feet and I hunt down the youth,Slock, though he flee to the bottommost muck of the Sea of Torments. How am I going to get you out of here? Maybe I'd better get some help. Nay. The perfidious Youths abound here, said the old Fustian. Itwould be your life. I doubt if they'd go that far. Would they not? The Fustian stretched his neck. Cast your lighthere. But for the toughness of my hide.... Retief put the beam of the light on the leathery neck. A great smear ofthick purplish blood welled from a ragged cut. The oldster chuckled, asound like a seal coughing. Traitor, they called me. For long they sawed at me—in vain. Thenthey trussed me and dumped me here. They think to return with weaponsto complete the task. Weapons? I thought it was illegal! Their evil genius, the Soft One, said the Fustian. He would providefuel to the Devil himself. The Groaci again, said Retief. I wonder what their angle is. And I must confess, I told them of you, ere I knew their fullintentions. Much can I tell you of their doings. But first, I pray, theblock and tackle. Retief found the hoist where the Fustian directed him, maneuvered itinto position, hooked onto the edge of the carapace and hauled away.The immense Fustian rose slowly, teetered ... then flopped on his chest. Slowly he got to his feet. My name is Whonk, fleet one, he said. My cows are yours. Thanks. I'm Retief. I'd like to meet the girls some time. But rightnow, let's get out of here. Whonk leaned his bulk against the ponderous stacks of baled kelp,bulldozed them aside. Slow am I to anger, he said, but implacable inmy wrath. Slock, beware! Hold it, said Retief suddenly. He sniffed. What's that odor? Heflashed the light around, played it over a dry stain on the floor. Heknelt, sniffed at the spot. What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now? Whonk considered. There were drums, he said. Four of them, quitesmall, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, theGroaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the firstperiod they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge MossRock . The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it? I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movementsafter I have settled a score with certain Youths. We'd better follow this up first, Whonk. There's only one substance Iknow of that's transported in drums and smells like that blot on thefloor. That's titanite: the hottest explosive this side of a uraniumpile. III Beta was setting as Retief, Whonk puffing at his heels, came up to thesentry box beside the gangway leading to the plush interior of theofficial luxury space barge Moss Rock . A sign of the times, said Whonk, glancing inside the empty shelter.A guard should stand here, but I see him not. Doubtless he crept awayto sleep. Let's go aboard and take a look around. They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough boxstood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant notein the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it. Curious, he said. What means this? He held up a stained cloak oforange and green, a metal bracelet, papers. Orange and green, mused Relief. Whose colors are those? I know not. Whonk glanced at the arm-band. But this is lettered. Hepassed the metal band to Retief. SCARS, Retief read. He looked at Whonk. It seems to me I've heardthe name before, he murmured. Let's get back to the Embassy—fast. Back on the ramp Retief heard a sound ... and turned in time to duckthe charge of a hulking Fustian youth who thundered past him andfetched up against the broad chest of Whonk, who locked him in a warmembrace. Nice catch, Whonk. Where'd he sneak out of? The lout hid there by the storage bin, rumbled Whonk. The captiveyouth thumped fists and toes fruitlessly against the oldster's carapace. Hang onto him, said Retief. He looks like the biting kind. No fear. Clumsy I am, yet not without strength. Ask him where the titanite is tucked away. Speak, witless grub, growled Whonk, lest I tweak you in twain. The youth gurgled. Better let up before you make a mess of him, said Retief. Whonklifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thumpthat made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at theelder, mouth snapping. This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for thekilling, said Whonk. In his repentance he will tell all to his elder. That's the same young squirt that tried to strike up an acquaintancewith me on the bus, Retief said. He gets around. The youth scrambled to hands and knees, scuttled for freedom. Retiefplanted a foot on his dragging cloak; it ripped free. He stared at thebare back of the Fustian— By the Great Egg! Whonk exclaimed, tripping the refugee as he triedto rise. This is no Youth! His carapace has been taken from him! Retief looked at the scarred back. I thought he looked a little old.But I thought— This is not possible, Whonk said wonderingly. The great nerve trunksare deeply involved. Not even the cleverest surgeon could excise thecarapace and leave the patient living. It looks like somebody did the trick. But let's take this boy with usand get out of here. His folks may come home. Too late, said Whonk. Retief turned. Three youths came from behind the sheds. Well, Retief said. It looks like the SCARS are out in force tonight.Where's your pal? he said to the advancing trio. The sticky littlebird with the eye-stalks? Back at his Embassy, leaving you suckersholding the bag, I'll bet. Shelter behind me, Retief, said Whonk. Go get 'em, old-timer. Retief stooped, picked up one of the pry-bars.I'll jump around and distract them. Whonk let out a whistling roar and charged for the immature Fustians.They fanned out ... and one tripped, sprawled on his face. Retiefwhirled the metal bar he had thrust between the Fustian's legs, slammedit against the skull of another, who shook his head, turned onRetief ... and bounced off the steel hull of the Moss Rock as Whonktook him in full charge. Retief used the bar on another head. His third blow laid the Fustianon the pavement, oozing purple. The other two club members departedhastily, seriously dented but still mobile. Retief leaned on his club, breathing hard. Tough heads these kidshave got. I'm tempted to chase those two lads down, but I've gotanother errand to run. I don't know who the Groaci intended to blast,but I have a sneaking suspicion somebody of importance was scheduledfor a boat ride in the next few hours. And three drums of titanite isenough to vaporize this tub and everyone aboard her. The plot is foiled, said Whonk. But what reason did they have? The Groaci are behind it. I have an idea the SCARS didn't know aboutthis gambit. Which of these is the leader? asked Whonk. He prodded a fallen Youthwith a horny toe. Arise, dreaming one. Never mind him, Whonk. We'll tie these two up and leave them here. Iknow where to find the boss. <doc-sep>A stolid crowd filled the low-ceilinged banquet hall. Retief scannedthe tables for the pale blobs of Terrestrial faces, dwarfed by thegiant armored bodies of the Fustians. Across the room Magnan fluttereda hand. Retief headed toward him. A low-pitched vibration filled theair: the rumble of subsonic Fustian music. Retief slid into his place beside Magnan. Sorry to be late, Mr.Ambassador. I'm honored that you chose to appear at all, said Magnan coldly. Heturned back to the Fustian on his left. Ah, yes, Mr. Minister, he said. Charming, most charming. So joyous. The Fustian looked at him, beady-eyed. It is the Lament ofHatching , he said; our National Dirge. Oh, said Magnan. How interesting. Such a pleasing balance ofinstruments— It is a droon solo, said the Fustian, eyeing the TerrestrialAmbassador suspiciously. Why don't you just admit you can't hear it, Retief whispered loudly.And if I may interrupt a moment— Magnan cleared his throat. Now that our Mr. Retief has arrived,perhaps we could rush right along to the Sponsorship ceremonies. This group, said Retief, leaning across Magnan, the SCARS. How muchdo you know about them, Mr. Minister? Nothing at all, the huge Fustian elder rumbled. For my taste, allYouths should be kept penned with the livestock until they grow acarapace to tame their irresponsibility. We mustn't lose sight of the importance of channeling youthfulenergies, said Magnan. Labor gangs, said the minister. In my youth we were indentured tothe dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge. But in these modern times, put in Magnan, surely it's incumbent onus to make happy these golden hours. The minister snorted. Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon meand pelted me with overripe stench-fruit. But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations,cried Magnan. Their essential tenderness— You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder, the ministersaid, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, if you drilledboreholes and blasted. <doc-sep>Why, that's our guest of honor, said Magnan, a fine young fellow!Slop I believe his name is. Slock, said Retief. Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And— Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, tothem, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering.Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Someof the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose.Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and greenwine gushed on the tablecloth. What in the name of the Great Egg! the Minister muttered. He blinked,breathing deeply. Oh, forgive me, blurted Magnan, dabbing at the wine. Too bad the glass gave out, said Retief. In another minute you'dhave cleared the hall. And then maybe I could have gotten a word insideways. There's a matter you should know about— Your attention, please, Magnan said, rising. I see that our fineyoung guest has arrived, and I hope that the remainder of his committeewill be along in a moment. It is my pleasure to announce that our Mr.Retief has had the good fortune to win out in the keen bidding for thepleasure of sponsoring this lovely group. Retief tugged at Magnan's sleeve. Don't introduce me yet, he said. Iwant to appear suddenly. More dramatic, you know. Well, murmured Magnan, glancing down at Retief, I'm gratified tosee you entering into the spirit of the event at last. He turned hisattention back to the assembled guests. If our honored guest will joinme on the rostrum...? he said. The gentlemen of the press may want tocatch a few shots of the presentation. Magnan stepped up on the low platform at the center of the wide room,took his place beside the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras. How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more thegreat pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS, he said, talking slowlyfor the benefit of the scribbling reporters. We'd like to think thatin our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieveduring the years ahead. Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two lowsteps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as thenewcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the new arrival. Retief pushed through the crowd, stepped up to face the Fustian youth.Slock stared at him, drew back. You know me, Slock, said Retief loudly. An old fellow named Whonktold you about me, just before you tried to saw his head off, remember?It was when I came out to take a look at that battle cruiser you'rebuilding. IV With a bellow Slock reached for Retief—and choked off in mid-cry asthe Fustian elder, Whonk, pinioned him from behind, lifting him clearof the floor. Glad you reporters happened along, said Retief to the gaping newsmen.Slock here had a deal with a sharp operator from the Groaci Embassy.The Groaci were to supply the necessary hardware and Slock, as foremanat the shipyards, was to see that everything was properly installed.The next step, I assume, would have been a local take-over, followedby a little interplanetary war on Flamenco or one of the other nearbyworlds ... for which the Groaci would be glad to supply plenty of ammo. Magnan found his tongue. Are you mad, Retief? he screeched. Thisgroup was vouched for by the Ministry of Youth! The Ministry's overdue for a purge, snapped Retief. He turned backto Slock. I wonder if you were in on the little diversion that wasplanned for today. When the Moss Rock blew, a variety of clues wereto be planted where they'd be easy to find ... with SCARS written allover them. The Groaci would thus have neatly laid the whole affairsquarely at the door of the Terrestrial Embassy ... whose sponsorshipof the SCARS had received plenty of publicity. The Moss Rock ? said Magnan. But that was—Retief! This is idiotic.Slock himself was scheduled to go on a cruise tomorrow! Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his griploosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, buttinghis way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnanwatched, open-mouthed. The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual, Retief said. Theyintended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served theirpurpose. Well, don't stand there, yelped Magnan over the uproar. If Slock isthe ring-leader of a delinquent gang...! He moved to give chase. Retief grabbed his arm. Don't jump down there! You'd have as muchchance of getting through as a jack-rabbit through a threshing contest. Ten minutes later the crowd had thinned slightly. We can get throughnow, Whonk called. This way. He lowered himself to the floor, bulledthrough to the exit. Flashbulbs popped. Retief and Magnan followed inWhonk's wake. In the lounge Retief grabbed the phone, waited for the operator, gave acode letter. No reply. He tried another. No good, he said after a full minute had passed. Wonder what'sloose? He slammed the phone back in its niche. Let's grab a cab. <doc-sep>In the street the blue sun, Alpha, peered like an arc light under a lowcloud layer, casting flat shadows across the mud of the avenue. Thethree mounted a passing flat-car. Whonk squatted, resting the weight ofhis immense shell on the heavy plank flooring. Would that I too could lose this burden, as has the false youth webludgeoned aboard the Moss Rock , he sighed. Soon will I be forcedinto retirement. Then a mere keeper of a place of papers such as Iwill rate no more than a slab on the public strand, with once-dailyfeedings. And even for a man of high position, retirement is nopleasure. A slab in the Park of Monuments is little better. A dismaloutlook for one's next thousand years! You two carry on to the police station, said Retief. I want to playa hunch. But don't take too long. I may be painfully right. What—? Magnan started. As you wish, Retief, said Whonk. The flat-car trundled past the gate to the shipyard and Retief jumpeddown, headed at a run for the VIP boat. The guard post still stoodvacant. The two Youths whom he and Whonk had left trussed were gone. That's the trouble with a peaceful world, Retief muttered. No policeprotection. He stepped down from the lighted entry and took up aposition behind the sentry box. Alpha rose higher, shedding a glaringblue-white light without heat. Retief shivered. Maybe he'd guessedwrong.... There was a sound in the near distance, like two elephants colliding. Retief looked toward the gate. His giant acquaintance, Whonk, hadreappeared and was grappling with a hardly less massive opponent. Asmall figure became visible in the melee, scuttled for the gate. Headedoff by the battling titans, he turned and made for the opposite sideof the shipyard. Retief waited, jumped out and gathered in the fleeingGroaci. Well, Yith, he said, how's tricks? You should pardon the expression. Release me, Retief! the pale-featured alien lisped, his throatbladder pulsating in agitation. The behemoths vie for the privilege ofdismembering me out of hand! I know how they feel. I'll see what I can do ... for a price. I appeal to you, Yith whispered hoarsely. As a fellow diplomat, afellow alien, a fellow soft-back— Why don't you appeal to Slock, as a fellow skunk? said Retief. Nowkeep quiet ... and you may get out of this alive. The heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to theground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure wason its back, helpless. That's Whonk, still on his feet, said Retief. I wonder who he'scaught—and why. Whonk came toward the Moss Rock dragging the supine Fustian, whokicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind thesentry box. Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I canoutrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do. He stepped out andhailed Whonk. Puffing like a steam engine Whonk pulled up before him. Sleep,Retief! He panted. You followed a hunch; I did the same. I sawsomething strange in this one when we passed him on the avenue. Iwatched, followed him here. Look! It is Slock, strapped into a deadcarapace! Now many things become clear. <doc-sep>Retief whistled. So the Youths aren't all as young as they look.Somebody's been holding out on the rest of you Fustians! The Soft One, Whonk said. You laid him by the heels, Retief. I saw.Produce him now. Hold on a minute, Whonk. It won't do you any good— Whonk winked broadly. I must take my revenge! he roared. I shalltest the texture of the Soft One! His pulped remains will be scoured upby the ramp-washers and mailed home in bottles! Retief whirled at a sound, caught up with the scuttling Yith fifty feetaway, hauled him back to Whonk. It's up to you, Whonk, he said. I know how important ceremonialrevenge is to you Fustians. I will not interfere. Mercy! Yith hissed, eye-stalks whipping in distress. I claimdiplomatic immunity! No diplomat am I, rumbled Whonk. Let me see; suppose I start withone of those obscenely active eyes— He reached.... I have an idea, said Retief brightly. Do you suppose—just thisonce—you could forego the ceremonial revenge if Yith promised toarrange for a Groaci Surgical Mission to de-carapace you elders? But, Whonk protested, those eyes! What a pleasure to pluck them, oneby one! Yess, hissed Yith, I swear it! Our most expert surgeons ... platoonsof them, with the finest of equipment. I have dreamed of how it would be to sit on this one, to feel himsquash beneath my bulk.... Light as a whissle feather shall you dance, Yith whispered.Shell-less shall you spring in the joy of renewed youth— Maybe just one eye, said Whonk grudgingly. That would leave himfour. Be a sport, said Retief. Well. It's a deal then, said Retief. Yith, on your word as a diplomat,an alien, a soft-back and a skunk, you'll set up the mission. Groacisurgical skill is an export that will net you more than armaments.It will be a whissle feather in your cap—if you bring it off. Andin return, Whonk won't sit on you. And I won't prefer charges ofinterference in the internal affairs of a free world. Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of theborrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seizehim, lift him high and head for the entry to the Moss Rock . Hey, Retief called. Where are you going? I would not deny this one his reward, called Whonk. He hoped tocruise in luxury. So be it. Hold on, said Retief. That tub is loaded with titanite! Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me avengeance. Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden up the rampand disappeared within the ship. I guess Whonk means business, he said to Yith, who hung in his grasp,all five eyes goggling. And he's a little too big for me to stop. Whonk reappeared, alone, climbed down. What did you do with him? said Retief. Tell him you were going to— We had best withdraw, said Whonk. The killing radius of the drive isfifty yards. You mean— The controls are set for Groaci. Long-may-he-sleep. <doc-sep>It was quite a bang, said Retief. But I guess you saw it, too. No, confound it, Magnan said. When I remonstrated with Hulk, orWhelk— Whonk. —the ruffian thrust me into an alley bound in my own cloak. I'll mostcertainly complain to the Minister. How about the surgical mission? A most generous offer, said Magnan. Frankly, I was astonished. Ithink perhaps we've judged the Groaci too harshly. I hear the Ministry of Youth has had a rough morning of it, saidRetief. And a lot of rumors are flying to the effect that Youth Groupsare on the way out. Magnan cleared his throat, shuffled papers. I—ah—have explained tothe press that last night's—ah— Fiasco. —affair was necessary in order to place the culprits in an untenableposition. Of course, as to the destruction of the VIP vessel and thepresumed death of, uh, Slop. The Fustians understand, said Retief. Whonk wasn't kidding aboutceremonial vengeance. The Groaci had been guilty of gross misuse of diplomatic privilege,said Magnan. I think that a note—or perhaps an Aide Memoire: lessformal.... The Moss Rock was bound for Groaci, said Retief. She was alreadyin her transit orbit when she blew. The major fragments will arrive onschedule in a month or so. It should provide quite a meteorite display.I think that should be all the aide the Groaci's memoires will needto keep their tentacles off Fust. But diplomatic usage— Then, too, the less that's put in writing, the less they can blame youfor, if anything goes wrong. That's true, said Magnan, lips pursed. Now you're thinkingconstructively, Retief. We may make a diplomat of you yet. He smiledexpansively. Maybe. But I refuse to let it depress me. Retief stood up. I'mtaking a few weeks off ... if you have no objection, Mr. Ambassador. Mypal Whonk wants to show me an island down south where the fishing isgood. But there are some extremely important matters coming up, saidMagnan. We're planning to sponsor Senior Citizen Groups— Count me out. All groups give me an itch. Why, what an astonishing remark, Retief! After all, we diplomats areourselves a group. Uh-huh, Retief said. Magnan sat quietly, mouth open, and watched as Retief stepped into thehall and closed the door gently behind him. <doc-sep></s>

As the story opens, Ambassador Magnan briefs Councillor Retief on the Terrestrial Embassy’s request for sponsorship of youth groups on the planet Fust. Councillor Retief is not interested. Magnan specifically suggests that Retief sponsor the group SCARS (Sexual, Cultural and Athletic Recreational Society), and warns Retief that the rival Groaci may fill any void. Retief suggests researching the youth groups before giving them money. Magnan is dismissive. Retief is still not interested, and leaves to go look at plans for a new passenger liner being built by the Fustians. Retief takes a flat-car to the ship yard and meets Whonk, who is a shipyard clerk. He asks to see the blueprints, which he photographs. He and Whonk chat about the attitude of the youth, and Whonk blames it on their new leader, Slock, who hangs around with Yith, a member of the Groaci embassy.Later, while Retief is on his way home to dress for a dinner and press event organized by Magnan, two Fustian youths threaten him on the bus. Retief realizes that they were after his photos, which showed that the ship under construction was a battle cruiser, not a passenger liner. He also realizes that Whonk may be in danger. Retief escapes the youths and races back to the shipyard to find that Whonk has been dragged off and tied up in a warehouse. From the Fustian’s wounds, Retief realized that they had tried to kill him.Retief figures out that the Fustian youths have taken some titanite, an explosive, over to a ship called the Moss Rock, which would be full of dignitaries later. He and Whonk race over there and encounter more Fustians, and win a fight with them, effectively breaking up the Groaci-backed plot to blow up the ship. Retief arrives at the banquet a little late, and exchanges a few words with Magnan, who proceeds to make the Fustians miserable with his cultural insensitivity. A few minutes later, the SCARS leader, Slock, arrives. Retief reveals Slock’s plan: Slock, backed by the Groaci, was planning to take over Fust. The Groaci tried to frame the Terrestrial Embassy for the plot.Slock escaped. Retief went back toward the Moss Rock, where Whonk tackled Slock, and Retief accosted Yith. Whonk wanted to take revenge on Yith for attacking him earlier, but Retief instead negotiated a deal in which Yith, who had mastered removing the Fustian carapace surgically, which would be a great relief to Whonk and other elders, would agree to do so in return for not being ritually dismembered. Just as this agreement was completed, Slock tried to escape again, but Whonk dumped him on the Moss Rock, and set the autopilot for Groaci, still full of titanite. It blew up on the way there.Magnan wrested what he could, diplomatically speaking, from the wreckage of the youth sponsorship program and moved on to plans to sponsor Senior Citizens Groups.

<s> AIDE MEMOIRE BY KEITH LAUMER The Fustians looked like turtles—but they could move fast when they chose! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Across the table from Retief, Ambassador Magnan rustled a stiff sheetof parchment and looked grave. This aide memoire, he said, was just handed to me by the CulturalAttache. It's the third on the subject this week. It refers to thematter of sponsorship of Youth groups— Some youths, Retief said. Average age, seventy-five. The Fustians are a long-lived people, Magnan snapped. These mattersare relative. At seventy-five, a male Fustian is at a trying age— That's right. He'll try anything—in the hope it will maim somebody. Precisely the problem, Magnan said. But the Youth Movement isthe important news in today's political situation here on Fust. Andsponsorship of Youth groups is a shrewd stroke on the part of theTerrestrial Embassy. At my suggestion, well nigh every member of themission has leaped at the opportunity to score a few p—that is, cementrelations with this emergent power group—the leaders of the future.You, Retief, as Councillor, are the outstanding exception. I'm not convinced these hoodlums need my help in organizing theirrumbles, Retief said. Now, if you have a proposal for a pest controlgroup— To the Fustians this is no jesting matter, Magnan cut in. Thisgroup— he glanced at the paper—known as the Sexual, Cultural, andAthletic Recreational Society, or SCARS for short, has been awaitingsponsorship for a matter of weeks now. Meaning they want someone to buy them a clubhouse, uniforms, equipmentand anything else they need to complete their sexual, cultural andathletic development, Retief said. If we don't act promptly, Magnan said, the Groaci Embassy may wellanticipate us. They're very active here. That's an idea, said Retief. Let 'em. After awhile they'll go brokeinstead of us. Nonsense. The group requires a sponsor. I can't actually order you tostep forward. However.... Magnan let the sentence hang in the air.Retief raised one eyebrow. For a minute there, he said, I thought you were going to make apositive statement. <doc-sep>Magnan leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. I don't thinkyou'll find a diplomat of my experience doing anything so naive, hesaid. I like the adult Fustians, said Retief. Too bad they have to lughalf a ton of horn around on their backs. I wonder if surgery wouldhelp. Great heavens, Retief, Magnan sputtered. I'm amazed that even youwould bring up a matter of such delicacy. A race's unfortunate physicalcharacteristics are hardly a fit matter for Terrestrial curiosity. Well, of course your experience of the Fustian mentality is greaterthan mine. I've only been here a month. But it's been my experience,Mr. Ambassador, that few races are above improving on nature. Otherwiseyou, for example, would be tripping over your beard. Magnan shuddered. Please—never mention the idea to a Fustian. Retief stood. My own program for the day includes going over to thedockyards. There are some features of this new passenger liner theFustians are putting together that I want to look into. With yourpermission, Mr. Ambassador...? Magnan snorted. Your pre-occupation with the trivial disturbs me,Retief. More interest in substantive matters—such as working withYouth groups—would create a far better impression. Before getting too involved with these groups, it might be a good ideato find out a little more about them, said Retief. Who organizesthem? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's thealignment of this SCARS organization? You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak, Magnan said.Politics mean nothing to them ... yet. Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in atwo-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing butbusiness. But what has Fust got that they could use? You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance, said Magnan.Fust possesses a vigorous steel-age manufacturing economy. The Groaciare barely ahead of them. Barely, said Retief. Just over the line into crude atomics ... likefission bombs. Magnan shook his head, turned back to his papers. What market existsfor such devices on a world at peace? I suggest you address yourattention to the less spectacular but more rewarding work of studyingthe social patterns of the local youth. I've studied them, said Retief. And before I meet any of the localyouth socially I want to get myself a good blackjack. II Retief left the sprawling bungalow-type building that housed thechancery of the Terrestrial Embassy, swung aboard a passing flat-carand leaned back against the wooden guard rail as the heavy vehicletrundled through the city toward the looming gantries of the shipyards. It was a cool morning. A light breeze carried the fishy odor of Fustydwellings across the broad cobbled avenue. A few mature Fustianslumbered heavily along in the shade of the low buildings, audiblywheezing under the burden of their immense carapaces. Among them,shell-less youths trotted briskly on scaly stub legs. The driver of theflat-car, a labor-caste Fustian with his guild colors emblazoned on hisback, heaved at the tiller, swung the unwieldy conveyance through theshipyard gates, creaked to a halt. Thus I come to the shipyard with frightful speed, he said in Fustian.Well I know the way of the naked-backs, who move always in haste. Retief climbed down, handed him a coin. You should take upprofessional racing, he said. Daredevil. He crossed the littered yard and tapped at the door of a rambling shed.Boards creaked inside. Then the door swung back. A gnarled ancient with tarnished facial scales and a weathered carapacepeered out at Retief. Long-may-you-sleep, said Retief. I'd like to take a look around, ifyou don't mind. I understand you're laying the bedplate for your newliner today. May-you-dream-of-the-deeps, the old fellow mumbled. He waved a stumpyarm toward a group of shell-less Fustians standing by a massive hoist.The youths know more of bedplates than do I, who but tend the place ofpapers. I know how you feel, old-timer, said Retief. That sounds like thestory of my life. Among your papers do you have a set of plans for thevessel? I understand it's to be a passenger liner. The oldster nodded. He shuffled to a drawing file, rummaged, pulled outa sheaf of curled prints and spread them on the table. Retief stoodsilently, running a finger over the uppermost drawing, tracing lines.... What does the naked-back here? barked a deep voice behind Retief. Heturned. A heavy-faced Fustian youth, wrapped in a mantle, stood at theopen door. Beady yellow eyes set among fine scales bored into Retief. I came to take a look at your new liner, said Retief. We need no prying foreigners here, the youth snapped. His eye fell onthe drawings. He hissed in sudden anger. Doddering hulk! he snapped at the ancient. May you toss innightmares! Put by the plans! My mistake, Retief said. I didn't know this was a secret project. <doc-sep>The youth hesitated. It is not a secret project, he muttered. Whyshould it be secret? You tell me. The youth worked his jaws and rocked his head from side to side in theFusty gesture of uncertainty. There is nothing to conceal, he said.We merely construct a passenger liner. Then you don't mind if I look over the drawings, said Retief. Whoknows? Maybe some day I'll want to reserve a suite for the trip out. The youth turned and disappeared. Retief grinned at the oldster. Wentfor his big brother, I guess, he said. I have a feeling I won't getto study these in peace here. Mind if I copy them? Willingly, light-footed one, said the old Fustian. And mine is theshame for the discourtesy of youth. Retief took out a tiny camera, flipped a copying lens in place, leafedthrough the drawings, clicking the shutter. A plague on these youths, said the oldster, who grow more virulentday by day. Why don't you elders clamp down? Agile are they and we are slow of foot. And this unrest is new.Unknown in my youth was such insolence. The police— Bah! the ancient rumbled. None have we worthy of the name, nor havewe needed ought ere now. What's behind it? They have found leaders. The spiv, Slock, is one. And I fear they plotmischief. He pointed to the window. They come, and a Soft One withthem. Retief pocketed the camera, glanced out the window. A pale-featuredGroaci with an ornately decorated crest stood with the youths, who eyedthe hut, then started toward it. That's the military attache of the Groaci Embassy, Retief said. Iwonder what he and the boys are cooking up together? Naught that augurs well for the dignity of Fust, the oldster rumbled.Flee, agile one, while I engage their attentions. I was just leaving, Retief said. Which way out? The rear door, the Fustian gestured with a stubby member. Rest well,stranger on these shores. He moved to the entrance. Same to you, pop, said Retief. And thanks. He eased through the narrow back entrance, waited until voices wereraised at the front of the shed, then strolled off toward the gate. <doc-sep>The second dark of the third cycle was lightening when Retief left theEmbassy technical library and crossed the corridor to his office. Heflipped on a light. A note was tucked under a paperweight: Retief—I shall expect your attendance at the IAS dinner at firstdark of the fourth cycle. There will be a brief but, I hope, impressiveSponsorship ceremony for the SCARS group, with full press coverage,arrangements for which I have managed to complete in spite of yourintransigence. Retief snorted and glanced at his watch. Less than three hours. Justtime to creep home by flat-car, dress in ceremonial uniform and creepback. Outside he flagged a lumbering bus. He stationed himself in a cornerand watched the yellow sun, Beta, rise rapidly above the low skyline.The nearby sea was at high tide now, under the pull of the major sunand the three moons, and the stiff breeze carried a mist of salt spray. Retief turned up his collar against the dampness. In half an hour hewould be perspiring under the vertical rays of a third-noon sun, butthe thought failed to keep the chill off. Two Youths clambered up on the platform, moving purposefully towardRetief. He moved off the rail, watching them, weight balanced. That's close enough, kids, he said. Plenty of room on this scow. Noneed to crowd up. There are certain films, the lead Fustian muttered. His voice wasunusually deep for a Youth. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and movedawkwardly. His adolescence was nearly at an end, Retief guessed. I told you once, said Retief. Don't crowd me. The two stepped close, slit mouths snapping in anger. Retief put out afoot, hooked it behind the scaly leg of the overaged juvenile and threwhis weight against the cloaked chest. The clumsy Fustian tottered, fellheavily. Retief was past him and off the flat-car before the otherYouth had completed his vain lunge toward the spot Retief had occupied.The Terrestrial waved cheerfully at the pair, hopped aboard anothervehicle, watched his would-be assailants lumber down from their car,tiny heads twisted to follow his retreating figure. So they wanted the film? Retief reflected, thumbing a cigar alight.They were a little late. He had already filed it in the Embassy vault,after running a copy for the reference files. And a comparison of the drawings with those of the obsolete Mark XXXVbattle cruiser used two hundred years earlier by the Concordiat NavalArm showed them to be almost identical, gun emplacements and all. Theterm obsolete was a relative one. A ship which had been outmoded inthe armories of the Galactic Powers could still be king of the walk inthe Eastern Arm. But how had these two known of the film? There had been no one presentbut himself and the old-timer—and he was willing to bet the elderlyFustian hadn't told them anything. At least not willingly.... Retief frowned, dropped the cigar over the side, waited until theflat-car negotiated a mud-wallow, then swung down and headed for theshipyard. <doc-sep>The door, hinges torn loose, had been propped loosely back in position.Retief looked around at the battered interior of the shed. The oldfellow had put up a struggle. There were deep drag-marks in the dust behind the building. Retieffollowed them across the yard. They disappeared under the steel door ofa warehouse. Retief glanced around. Now, at the mid-hour of the fourth cycle, theworkmen were heaped along the edge of the refreshment pond, deep intheir siesta. He took a multi-bladed tool from a pocket, tried variousfittings in the lock. It snicked open. He eased the door aside far enough to enter. Heaped bales loomed before him. Snapping on the tiny lamp in the handleof the combination tool, Retief looked over the pile. One stack seemedout of alignment ... and the dust had been scraped from the floorbefore it. He pocketed the light, climbed up on the bales, looked overinto a nest made by stacking the bundles around a clear spot. The agedFustian lay in it, on his back, a heavy sack tied over his head. Retief dropped down inside the ring of bales, sawed at the tough twineand pulled the sack free. It's me, old fellow, Retief said. The nosy stranger. Sorry I got youinto this. The oldster threshed his gnarled legs. He rocked slightly and fellback. A curse on the cradle that rocked their infant slumbers, herumbled. But place me back on my feet and I hunt down the youth,Slock, though he flee to the bottommost muck of the Sea of Torments. How am I going to get you out of here? Maybe I'd better get some help. Nay. The perfidious Youths abound here, said the old Fustian. Itwould be your life. I doubt if they'd go that far. Would they not? The Fustian stretched his neck. Cast your lighthere. But for the toughness of my hide.... Retief put the beam of the light on the leathery neck. A great smear ofthick purplish blood welled from a ragged cut. The oldster chuckled, asound like a seal coughing. Traitor, they called me. For long they sawed at me—in vain. Thenthey trussed me and dumped me here. They think to return with weaponsto complete the task. Weapons? I thought it was illegal! Their evil genius, the Soft One, said the Fustian. He would providefuel to the Devil himself. The Groaci again, said Retief. I wonder what their angle is. And I must confess, I told them of you, ere I knew their fullintentions. Much can I tell you of their doings. But first, I pray, theblock and tackle. Retief found the hoist where the Fustian directed him, maneuvered itinto position, hooked onto the edge of the carapace and hauled away.The immense Fustian rose slowly, teetered ... then flopped on his chest. Slowly he got to his feet. My name is Whonk, fleet one, he said. My cows are yours. Thanks. I'm Retief. I'd like to meet the girls some time. But rightnow, let's get out of here. Whonk leaned his bulk against the ponderous stacks of baled kelp,bulldozed them aside. Slow am I to anger, he said, but implacable inmy wrath. Slock, beware! Hold it, said Retief suddenly. He sniffed. What's that odor? Heflashed the light around, played it over a dry stain on the floor. Heknelt, sniffed at the spot. What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now? Whonk considered. There were drums, he said. Four of them, quitesmall, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, theGroaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the firstperiod they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge MossRock . The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it? I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movementsafter I have settled a score with certain Youths. We'd better follow this up first, Whonk. There's only one substance Iknow of that's transported in drums and smells like that blot on thefloor. That's titanite: the hottest explosive this side of a uraniumpile. III Beta was setting as Retief, Whonk puffing at his heels, came up to thesentry box beside the gangway leading to the plush interior of theofficial luxury space barge Moss Rock . A sign of the times, said Whonk, glancing inside the empty shelter.A guard should stand here, but I see him not. Doubtless he crept awayto sleep. Let's go aboard and take a look around. They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough boxstood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant notein the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it. Curious, he said. What means this? He held up a stained cloak oforange and green, a metal bracelet, papers. Orange and green, mused Relief. Whose colors are those? I know not. Whonk glanced at the arm-band. But this is lettered. Hepassed the metal band to Retief. SCARS, Retief read. He looked at Whonk. It seems to me I've heardthe name before, he murmured. Let's get back to the Embassy—fast. Back on the ramp Retief heard a sound ... and turned in time to duckthe charge of a hulking Fustian youth who thundered past him andfetched up against the broad chest of Whonk, who locked him in a warmembrace. Nice catch, Whonk. Where'd he sneak out of? The lout hid there by the storage bin, rumbled Whonk. The captiveyouth thumped fists and toes fruitlessly against the oldster's carapace. Hang onto him, said Retief. He looks like the biting kind. No fear. Clumsy I am, yet not without strength. Ask him where the titanite is tucked away. Speak, witless grub, growled Whonk, lest I tweak you in twain. The youth gurgled. Better let up before you make a mess of him, said Retief. Whonklifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thumpthat made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at theelder, mouth snapping. This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for thekilling, said Whonk. In his repentance he will tell all to his elder. That's the same young squirt that tried to strike up an acquaintancewith me on the bus, Retief said. He gets around. The youth scrambled to hands and knees, scuttled for freedom. Retiefplanted a foot on his dragging cloak; it ripped free. He stared at thebare back of the Fustian— By the Great Egg! Whonk exclaimed, tripping the refugee as he triedto rise. This is no Youth! His carapace has been taken from him! Retief looked at the scarred back. I thought he looked a little old.But I thought— This is not possible, Whonk said wonderingly. The great nerve trunksare deeply involved. Not even the cleverest surgeon could excise thecarapace and leave the patient living. It looks like somebody did the trick. But let's take this boy with usand get out of here. His folks may come home. Too late, said Whonk. Retief turned. Three youths came from behind the sheds. Well, Retief said. It looks like the SCARS are out in force tonight.Where's your pal? he said to the advancing trio. The sticky littlebird with the eye-stalks? Back at his Embassy, leaving you suckersholding the bag, I'll bet. Shelter behind me, Retief, said Whonk. Go get 'em, old-timer. Retief stooped, picked up one of the pry-bars.I'll jump around and distract them. Whonk let out a whistling roar and charged for the immature Fustians.They fanned out ... and one tripped, sprawled on his face. Retiefwhirled the metal bar he had thrust between the Fustian's legs, slammedit against the skull of another, who shook his head, turned onRetief ... and bounced off the steel hull of the Moss Rock as Whonktook him in full charge. Retief used the bar on another head. His third blow laid the Fustianon the pavement, oozing purple. The other two club members departedhastily, seriously dented but still mobile. Retief leaned on his club, breathing hard. Tough heads these kidshave got. I'm tempted to chase those two lads down, but I've gotanother errand to run. I don't know who the Groaci intended to blast,but I have a sneaking suspicion somebody of importance was scheduledfor a boat ride in the next few hours. And three drums of titanite isenough to vaporize this tub and everyone aboard her. The plot is foiled, said Whonk. But what reason did they have? The Groaci are behind it. I have an idea the SCARS didn't know aboutthis gambit. Which of these is the leader? asked Whonk. He prodded a fallen Youthwith a horny toe. Arise, dreaming one. Never mind him, Whonk. We'll tie these two up and leave them here. Iknow where to find the boss. <doc-sep>A stolid crowd filled the low-ceilinged banquet hall. Retief scannedthe tables for the pale blobs of Terrestrial faces, dwarfed by thegiant armored bodies of the Fustians. Across the room Magnan fluttereda hand. Retief headed toward him. A low-pitched vibration filled theair: the rumble of subsonic Fustian music. Retief slid into his place beside Magnan. Sorry to be late, Mr.Ambassador. I'm honored that you chose to appear at all, said Magnan coldly. Heturned back to the Fustian on his left. Ah, yes, Mr. Minister, he said. Charming, most charming. So joyous. The Fustian looked at him, beady-eyed. It is the Lament ofHatching , he said; our National Dirge. Oh, said Magnan. How interesting. Such a pleasing balance ofinstruments— It is a droon solo, said the Fustian, eyeing the TerrestrialAmbassador suspiciously. Why don't you just admit you can't hear it, Retief whispered loudly.And if I may interrupt a moment— Magnan cleared his throat. Now that our Mr. Retief has arrived,perhaps we could rush right along to the Sponsorship ceremonies. This group, said Retief, leaning across Magnan, the SCARS. How muchdo you know about them, Mr. Minister? Nothing at all, the huge Fustian elder rumbled. For my taste, allYouths should be kept penned with the livestock until they grow acarapace to tame their irresponsibility. We mustn't lose sight of the importance of channeling youthfulenergies, said Magnan. Labor gangs, said the minister. In my youth we were indentured tothe dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge. But in these modern times, put in Magnan, surely it's incumbent onus to make happy these golden hours. The minister snorted. Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon meand pelted me with overripe stench-fruit. But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations,cried Magnan. Their essential tenderness— You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder, the ministersaid, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, if you drilledboreholes and blasted. <doc-sep>Why, that's our guest of honor, said Magnan, a fine young fellow!Slop I believe his name is. Slock, said Retief. Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And— Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, tothem, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering.Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Someof the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose.Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and greenwine gushed on the tablecloth. What in the name of the Great Egg! the Minister muttered. He blinked,breathing deeply. Oh, forgive me, blurted Magnan, dabbing at the wine. Too bad the glass gave out, said Retief. In another minute you'dhave cleared the hall. And then maybe I could have gotten a word insideways. There's a matter you should know about— Your attention, please, Magnan said, rising. I see that our fineyoung guest has arrived, and I hope that the remainder of his committeewill be along in a moment. It is my pleasure to announce that our Mr.Retief has had the good fortune to win out in the keen bidding for thepleasure of sponsoring this lovely group. Retief tugged at Magnan's sleeve. Don't introduce me yet, he said. Iwant to appear suddenly. More dramatic, you know. Well, murmured Magnan, glancing down at Retief, I'm gratified tosee you entering into the spirit of the event at last. He turned hisattention back to the assembled guests. If our honored guest will joinme on the rostrum...? he said. The gentlemen of the press may want tocatch a few shots of the presentation. Magnan stepped up on the low platform at the center of the wide room,took his place beside the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras. How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more thegreat pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS, he said, talking slowlyfor the benefit of the scribbling reporters. We'd like to think thatin our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieveduring the years ahead. Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two lowsteps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as thenewcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the new arrival. Retief pushed through the crowd, stepped up to face the Fustian youth.Slock stared at him, drew back. You know me, Slock, said Retief loudly. An old fellow named Whonktold you about me, just before you tried to saw his head off, remember?It was when I came out to take a look at that battle cruiser you'rebuilding. IV With a bellow Slock reached for Retief—and choked off in mid-cry asthe Fustian elder, Whonk, pinioned him from behind, lifting him clearof the floor. Glad you reporters happened along, said Retief to the gaping newsmen.Slock here had a deal with a sharp operator from the Groaci Embassy.The Groaci were to supply the necessary hardware and Slock, as foremanat the shipyards, was to see that everything was properly installed.The next step, I assume, would have been a local take-over, followedby a little interplanetary war on Flamenco or one of the other nearbyworlds ... for which the Groaci would be glad to supply plenty of ammo. Magnan found his tongue. Are you mad, Retief? he screeched. Thisgroup was vouched for by the Ministry of Youth! The Ministry's overdue for a purge, snapped Retief. He turned backto Slock. I wonder if you were in on the little diversion that wasplanned for today. When the Moss Rock blew, a variety of clues wereto be planted where they'd be easy to find ... with SCARS written allover them. The Groaci would thus have neatly laid the whole affairsquarely at the door of the Terrestrial Embassy ... whose sponsorshipof the SCARS had received plenty of publicity. The Moss Rock ? said Magnan. But that was—Retief! This is idiotic.Slock himself was scheduled to go on a cruise tomorrow! Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his griploosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, buttinghis way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnanwatched, open-mouthed. The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual, Retief said. Theyintended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served theirpurpose. Well, don't stand there, yelped Magnan over the uproar. If Slock isthe ring-leader of a delinquent gang...! He moved to give chase. Retief grabbed his arm. Don't jump down there! You'd have as muchchance of getting through as a jack-rabbit through a threshing contest. Ten minutes later the crowd had thinned slightly. We can get throughnow, Whonk called. This way. He lowered himself to the floor, bulledthrough to the exit. Flashbulbs popped. Retief and Magnan followed inWhonk's wake. In the lounge Retief grabbed the phone, waited for the operator, gave acode letter. No reply. He tried another. No good, he said after a full minute had passed. Wonder what'sloose? He slammed the phone back in its niche. Let's grab a cab. <doc-sep>In the street the blue sun, Alpha, peered like an arc light under a lowcloud layer, casting flat shadows across the mud of the avenue. Thethree mounted a passing flat-car. Whonk squatted, resting the weight ofhis immense shell on the heavy plank flooring. Would that I too could lose this burden, as has the false youth webludgeoned aboard the Moss Rock , he sighed. Soon will I be forcedinto retirement. Then a mere keeper of a place of papers such as Iwill rate no more than a slab on the public strand, with once-dailyfeedings. And even for a man of high position, retirement is nopleasure. A slab in the Park of Monuments is little better. A dismaloutlook for one's next thousand years! You two carry on to the police station, said Retief. I want to playa hunch. But don't take too long. I may be painfully right. What—? Magnan started. As you wish, Retief, said Whonk. The flat-car trundled past the gate to the shipyard and Retief jumpeddown, headed at a run for the VIP boat. The guard post still stoodvacant. The two Youths whom he and Whonk had left trussed were gone. That's the trouble with a peaceful world, Retief muttered. No policeprotection. He stepped down from the lighted entry and took up aposition behind the sentry box. Alpha rose higher, shedding a glaringblue-white light without heat. Retief shivered. Maybe he'd guessedwrong.... There was a sound in the near distance, like two elephants colliding. Retief looked toward the gate. His giant acquaintance, Whonk, hadreappeared and was grappling with a hardly less massive opponent. Asmall figure became visible in the melee, scuttled for the gate. Headedoff by the battling titans, he turned and made for the opposite sideof the shipyard. Retief waited, jumped out and gathered in the fleeingGroaci. Well, Yith, he said, how's tricks? You should pardon the expression. Release me, Retief! the pale-featured alien lisped, his throatbladder pulsating in agitation. The behemoths vie for the privilege ofdismembering me out of hand! I know how they feel. I'll see what I can do ... for a price. I appeal to you, Yith whispered hoarsely. As a fellow diplomat, afellow alien, a fellow soft-back— Why don't you appeal to Slock, as a fellow skunk? said Retief. Nowkeep quiet ... and you may get out of this alive. The heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to theground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure wason its back, helpless. That's Whonk, still on his feet, said Retief. I wonder who he'scaught—and why. Whonk came toward the Moss Rock dragging the supine Fustian, whokicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind thesentry box. Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I canoutrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do. He stepped out andhailed Whonk. Puffing like a steam engine Whonk pulled up before him. Sleep,Retief! He panted. You followed a hunch; I did the same. I sawsomething strange in this one when we passed him on the avenue. Iwatched, followed him here. Look! It is Slock, strapped into a deadcarapace! Now many things become clear. <doc-sep>Retief whistled. So the Youths aren't all as young as they look.Somebody's been holding out on the rest of you Fustians! The Soft One, Whonk said. You laid him by the heels, Retief. I saw.Produce him now. Hold on a minute, Whonk. It won't do you any good— Whonk winked broadly. I must take my revenge! he roared. I shalltest the texture of the Soft One! His pulped remains will be scoured upby the ramp-washers and mailed home in bottles! Retief whirled at a sound, caught up with the scuttling Yith fifty feetaway, hauled him back to Whonk. It's up to you, Whonk, he said. I know how important ceremonialrevenge is to you Fustians. I will not interfere. Mercy! Yith hissed, eye-stalks whipping in distress. I claimdiplomatic immunity! No diplomat am I, rumbled Whonk. Let me see; suppose I start withone of those obscenely active eyes— He reached.... I have an idea, said Retief brightly. Do you suppose—just thisonce—you could forego the ceremonial revenge if Yith promised toarrange for a Groaci Surgical Mission to de-carapace you elders? But, Whonk protested, those eyes! What a pleasure to pluck them, oneby one! Yess, hissed Yith, I swear it! Our most expert surgeons ... platoonsof them, with the finest of equipment. I have dreamed of how it would be to sit on this one, to feel himsquash beneath my bulk.... Light as a whissle feather shall you dance, Yith whispered.Shell-less shall you spring in the joy of renewed youth— Maybe just one eye, said Whonk grudgingly. That would leave himfour. Be a sport, said Retief. Well. It's a deal then, said Retief. Yith, on your word as a diplomat,an alien, a soft-back and a skunk, you'll set up the mission. Groacisurgical skill is an export that will net you more than armaments.It will be a whissle feather in your cap—if you bring it off. Andin return, Whonk won't sit on you. And I won't prefer charges ofinterference in the internal affairs of a free world. Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of theborrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seizehim, lift him high and head for the entry to the Moss Rock . Hey, Retief called. Where are you going? I would not deny this one his reward, called Whonk. He hoped tocruise in luxury. So be it. Hold on, said Retief. That tub is loaded with titanite! Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me avengeance. Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden up the rampand disappeared within the ship. I guess Whonk means business, he said to Yith, who hung in his grasp,all five eyes goggling. And he's a little too big for me to stop. Whonk reappeared, alone, climbed down. What did you do with him? said Retief. Tell him you were going to— We had best withdraw, said Whonk. The killing radius of the drive isfifty yards. You mean— The controls are set for Groaci. Long-may-he-sleep. <doc-sep>It was quite a bang, said Retief. But I guess you saw it, too. No, confound it, Magnan said. When I remonstrated with Hulk, orWhelk— Whonk. —the ruffian thrust me into an alley bound in my own cloak. I'll mostcertainly complain to the Minister. How about the surgical mission? A most generous offer, said Magnan. Frankly, I was astonished. Ithink perhaps we've judged the Groaci too harshly. I hear the Ministry of Youth has had a rough morning of it, saidRetief. And a lot of rumors are flying to the effect that Youth Groupsare on the way out. Magnan cleared his throat, shuffled papers. I—ah—have explained tothe press that last night's—ah— Fiasco. —affair was necessary in order to place the culprits in an untenableposition. Of course, as to the destruction of the VIP vessel and thepresumed death of, uh, Slop. The Fustians understand, said Retief. Whonk wasn't kidding aboutceremonial vengeance. The Groaci had been guilty of gross misuse of diplomatic privilege,said Magnan. I think that a note—or perhaps an Aide Memoire: lessformal.... The Moss Rock was bound for Groaci, said Retief. She was alreadyin her transit orbit when she blew. The major fragments will arrive onschedule in a month or so. It should provide quite a meteorite display.I think that should be all the aide the Groaci's memoires will needto keep their tentacles off Fust. But diplomatic usage— Then, too, the less that's put in writing, the less they can blame youfor, if anything goes wrong. That's true, said Magnan, lips pursed. Now you're thinkingconstructively, Retief. We may make a diplomat of you yet. He smiledexpansively. Maybe. But I refuse to let it depress me. Retief stood up. I'mtaking a few weeks off ... if you have no objection, Mr. Ambassador. Mypal Whonk wants to show me an island down south where the fishing isgood. But there are some extremely important matters coming up, saidMagnan. We're planning to sponsor Senior Citizen Groups— Count me out. All groups give me an itch. Why, what an astonishing remark, Retief! After all, we diplomats areourselves a group. Uh-huh, Retief said. Magnan sat quietly, mouth open, and watched as Retief stepped into thehall and closed the door gently behind him. <doc-sep></s>

Fustians somewhat resemble gigantic, intelligent snapping turtles, and like turtles, start life as eggs. During their youth and adolescence, they are relatively agile and have no shells (unlike turtles). It is notable how many Fustian elders take a dim view of adolescents, with the Minister of Fust himself saying that the Youth should be “kept penned with the livestock until they grow a carapace to tame their irresponsibility.”When Fustians mature, they develop an enormous, horny carapace which they are obliged to carry around on their backs for the rest of their lives, which last over a thousand years. The carapaces cause the adult Fustians to be slow-moving, and they take up a lot of space – hence their public transportation consists of flat-cars instead of buses with seats. Unfortunately, not much is known by off-worlders of Fustian females.Like most intelligent races, Fustians enjoy music. The frequencies at which their music is played are subsonic, and therefore not audible to the human ear. Likewise, their ears are quite sensitive to high frequencies, such as those produced by tapping on a crystal glass with a spoon. This is not just unpleasant, but painful to Fustian ears.

<s> AIDE MEMOIRE BY KEITH LAUMER The Fustians looked like turtles—but they could move fast when they chose! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Across the table from Retief, Ambassador Magnan rustled a stiff sheetof parchment and looked grave. This aide memoire, he said, was just handed to me by the CulturalAttache. It's the third on the subject this week. It refers to thematter of sponsorship of Youth groups— Some youths, Retief said. Average age, seventy-five. The Fustians are a long-lived people, Magnan snapped. These mattersare relative. At seventy-five, a male Fustian is at a trying age— That's right. He'll try anything—in the hope it will maim somebody. Precisely the problem, Magnan said. But the Youth Movement isthe important news in today's political situation here on Fust. Andsponsorship of Youth groups is a shrewd stroke on the part of theTerrestrial Embassy. At my suggestion, well nigh every member of themission has leaped at the opportunity to score a few p—that is, cementrelations with this emergent power group—the leaders of the future.You, Retief, as Councillor, are the outstanding exception. I'm not convinced these hoodlums need my help in organizing theirrumbles, Retief said. Now, if you have a proposal for a pest controlgroup— To the Fustians this is no jesting matter, Magnan cut in. Thisgroup— he glanced at the paper—known as the Sexual, Cultural, andAthletic Recreational Society, or SCARS for short, has been awaitingsponsorship for a matter of weeks now. Meaning they want someone to buy them a clubhouse, uniforms, equipmentand anything else they need to complete their sexual, cultural andathletic development, Retief said. If we don't act promptly, Magnan said, the Groaci Embassy may wellanticipate us. They're very active here. That's an idea, said Retief. Let 'em. After awhile they'll go brokeinstead of us. Nonsense. The group requires a sponsor. I can't actually order you tostep forward. However.... Magnan let the sentence hang in the air.Retief raised one eyebrow. For a minute there, he said, I thought you were going to make apositive statement. <doc-sep>Magnan leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. I don't thinkyou'll find a diplomat of my experience doing anything so naive, hesaid. I like the adult Fustians, said Retief. Too bad they have to lughalf a ton of horn around on their backs. I wonder if surgery wouldhelp. Great heavens, Retief, Magnan sputtered. I'm amazed that even youwould bring up a matter of such delicacy. A race's unfortunate physicalcharacteristics are hardly a fit matter for Terrestrial curiosity. Well, of course your experience of the Fustian mentality is greaterthan mine. I've only been here a month. But it's been my experience,Mr. Ambassador, that few races are above improving on nature. Otherwiseyou, for example, would be tripping over your beard. Magnan shuddered. Please—never mention the idea to a Fustian. Retief stood. My own program for the day includes going over to thedockyards. There are some features of this new passenger liner theFustians are putting together that I want to look into. With yourpermission, Mr. Ambassador...? Magnan snorted. Your pre-occupation with the trivial disturbs me,Retief. More interest in substantive matters—such as working withYouth groups—would create a far better impression. Before getting too involved with these groups, it might be a good ideato find out a little more about them, said Retief. Who organizesthem? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's thealignment of this SCARS organization? You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak, Magnan said.Politics mean nothing to them ... yet. Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in atwo-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing butbusiness. But what has Fust got that they could use? You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance, said Magnan.Fust possesses a vigorous steel-age manufacturing economy. The Groaciare barely ahead of them. Barely, said Retief. Just over the line into crude atomics ... likefission bombs. Magnan shook his head, turned back to his papers. What market existsfor such devices on a world at peace? I suggest you address yourattention to the less spectacular but more rewarding work of studyingthe social patterns of the local youth. I've studied them, said Retief. And before I meet any of the localyouth socially I want to get myself a good blackjack. II Retief left the sprawling bungalow-type building that housed thechancery of the Terrestrial Embassy, swung aboard a passing flat-carand leaned back against the wooden guard rail as the heavy vehicletrundled through the city toward the looming gantries of the shipyards. It was a cool morning. A light breeze carried the fishy odor of Fustydwellings across the broad cobbled avenue. A few mature Fustianslumbered heavily along in the shade of the low buildings, audiblywheezing under the burden of their immense carapaces. Among them,shell-less youths trotted briskly on scaly stub legs. The driver of theflat-car, a labor-caste Fustian with his guild colors emblazoned on hisback, heaved at the tiller, swung the unwieldy conveyance through theshipyard gates, creaked to a halt. Thus I come to the shipyard with frightful speed, he said in Fustian.Well I know the way of the naked-backs, who move always in haste. Retief climbed down, handed him a coin. You should take upprofessional racing, he said. Daredevil. He crossed the littered yard and tapped at the door of a rambling shed.Boards creaked inside. Then the door swung back. A gnarled ancient with tarnished facial scales and a weathered carapacepeered out at Retief. Long-may-you-sleep, said Retief. I'd like to take a look around, ifyou don't mind. I understand you're laying the bedplate for your newliner today. May-you-dream-of-the-deeps, the old fellow mumbled. He waved a stumpyarm toward a group of shell-less Fustians standing by a massive hoist.The youths know more of bedplates than do I, who but tend the place ofpapers. I know how you feel, old-timer, said Retief. That sounds like thestory of my life. Among your papers do you have a set of plans for thevessel? I understand it's to be a passenger liner. The oldster nodded. He shuffled to a drawing file, rummaged, pulled outa sheaf of curled prints and spread them on the table. Retief stoodsilently, running a finger over the uppermost drawing, tracing lines.... What does the naked-back here? barked a deep voice behind Retief. Heturned. A heavy-faced Fustian youth, wrapped in a mantle, stood at theopen door. Beady yellow eyes set among fine scales bored into Retief. I came to take a look at your new liner, said Retief. We need no prying foreigners here, the youth snapped. His eye fell onthe drawings. He hissed in sudden anger. Doddering hulk! he snapped at the ancient. May you toss innightmares! Put by the plans! My mistake, Retief said. I didn't know this was a secret project. <doc-sep>The youth hesitated. It is not a secret project, he muttered. Whyshould it be secret? You tell me. The youth worked his jaws and rocked his head from side to side in theFusty gesture of uncertainty. There is nothing to conceal, he said.We merely construct a passenger liner. Then you don't mind if I look over the drawings, said Retief. Whoknows? Maybe some day I'll want to reserve a suite for the trip out. The youth turned and disappeared. Retief grinned at the oldster. Wentfor his big brother, I guess, he said. I have a feeling I won't getto study these in peace here. Mind if I copy them? Willingly, light-footed one, said the old Fustian. And mine is theshame for the discourtesy of youth. Retief took out a tiny camera, flipped a copying lens in place, leafedthrough the drawings, clicking the shutter. A plague on these youths, said the oldster, who grow more virulentday by day. Why don't you elders clamp down? Agile are they and we are slow of foot. And this unrest is new.Unknown in my youth was such insolence. The police— Bah! the ancient rumbled. None have we worthy of the name, nor havewe needed ought ere now. What's behind it? They have found leaders. The spiv, Slock, is one. And I fear they plotmischief. He pointed to the window. They come, and a Soft One withthem. Retief pocketed the camera, glanced out the window. A pale-featuredGroaci with an ornately decorated crest stood with the youths, who eyedthe hut, then started toward it. That's the military attache of the Groaci Embassy, Retief said. Iwonder what he and the boys are cooking up together? Naught that augurs well for the dignity of Fust, the oldster rumbled.Flee, agile one, while I engage their attentions. I was just leaving, Retief said. Which way out? The rear door, the Fustian gestured with a stubby member. Rest well,stranger on these shores. He moved to the entrance. Same to you, pop, said Retief. And thanks. He eased through the narrow back entrance, waited until voices wereraised at the front of the shed, then strolled off toward the gate. <doc-sep>The second dark of the third cycle was lightening when Retief left theEmbassy technical library and crossed the corridor to his office. Heflipped on a light. A note was tucked under a paperweight: Retief—I shall expect your attendance at the IAS dinner at firstdark of the fourth cycle. There will be a brief but, I hope, impressiveSponsorship ceremony for the SCARS group, with full press coverage,arrangements for which I have managed to complete in spite of yourintransigence. Retief snorted and glanced at his watch. Less than three hours. Justtime to creep home by flat-car, dress in ceremonial uniform and creepback. Outside he flagged a lumbering bus. He stationed himself in a cornerand watched the yellow sun, Beta, rise rapidly above the low skyline.The nearby sea was at high tide now, under the pull of the major sunand the three moons, and the stiff breeze carried a mist of salt spray. Retief turned up his collar against the dampness. In half an hour hewould be perspiring under the vertical rays of a third-noon sun, butthe thought failed to keep the chill off. Two Youths clambered up on the platform, moving purposefully towardRetief. He moved off the rail, watching them, weight balanced. That's close enough, kids, he said. Plenty of room on this scow. Noneed to crowd up. There are certain films, the lead Fustian muttered. His voice wasunusually deep for a Youth. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and movedawkwardly. His adolescence was nearly at an end, Retief guessed. I told you once, said Retief. Don't crowd me. The two stepped close, slit mouths snapping in anger. Retief put out afoot, hooked it behind the scaly leg of the overaged juvenile and threwhis weight against the cloaked chest. The clumsy Fustian tottered, fellheavily. Retief was past him and off the flat-car before the otherYouth had completed his vain lunge toward the spot Retief had occupied.The Terrestrial waved cheerfully at the pair, hopped aboard anothervehicle, watched his would-be assailants lumber down from their car,tiny heads twisted to follow his retreating figure. So they wanted the film? Retief reflected, thumbing a cigar alight.They were a little late. He had already filed it in the Embassy vault,after running a copy for the reference files. And a comparison of the drawings with those of the obsolete Mark XXXVbattle cruiser used two hundred years earlier by the Concordiat NavalArm showed them to be almost identical, gun emplacements and all. Theterm obsolete was a relative one. A ship which had been outmoded inthe armories of the Galactic Powers could still be king of the walk inthe Eastern Arm. But how had these two known of the film? There had been no one presentbut himself and the old-timer—and he was willing to bet the elderlyFustian hadn't told them anything. At least not willingly.... Retief frowned, dropped the cigar over the side, waited until theflat-car negotiated a mud-wallow, then swung down and headed for theshipyard. <doc-sep>The door, hinges torn loose, had been propped loosely back in position.Retief looked around at the battered interior of the shed. The oldfellow had put up a struggle. There were deep drag-marks in the dust behind the building. Retieffollowed them across the yard. They disappeared under the steel door ofa warehouse. Retief glanced around. Now, at the mid-hour of the fourth cycle, theworkmen were heaped along the edge of the refreshment pond, deep intheir siesta. He took a multi-bladed tool from a pocket, tried variousfittings in the lock. It snicked open. He eased the door aside far enough to enter. Heaped bales loomed before him. Snapping on the tiny lamp in the handleof the combination tool, Retief looked over the pile. One stack seemedout of alignment ... and the dust had been scraped from the floorbefore it. He pocketed the light, climbed up on the bales, looked overinto a nest made by stacking the bundles around a clear spot. The agedFustian lay in it, on his back, a heavy sack tied over his head. Retief dropped down inside the ring of bales, sawed at the tough twineand pulled the sack free. It's me, old fellow, Retief said. The nosy stranger. Sorry I got youinto this. The oldster threshed his gnarled legs. He rocked slightly and fellback. A curse on the cradle that rocked their infant slumbers, herumbled. But place me back on my feet and I hunt down the youth,Slock, though he flee to the bottommost muck of the Sea of Torments. How am I going to get you out of here? Maybe I'd better get some help. Nay. The perfidious Youths abound here, said the old Fustian. Itwould be your life. I doubt if they'd go that far. Would they not? The Fustian stretched his neck. Cast your lighthere. But for the toughness of my hide.... Retief put the beam of the light on the leathery neck. A great smear ofthick purplish blood welled from a ragged cut. The oldster chuckled, asound like a seal coughing. Traitor, they called me. For long they sawed at me—in vain. Thenthey trussed me and dumped me here. They think to return with weaponsto complete the task. Weapons? I thought it was illegal! Their evil genius, the Soft One, said the Fustian. He would providefuel to the Devil himself. The Groaci again, said Retief. I wonder what their angle is. And I must confess, I told them of you, ere I knew their fullintentions. Much can I tell you of their doings. But first, I pray, theblock and tackle. Retief found the hoist where the Fustian directed him, maneuvered itinto position, hooked onto the edge of the carapace and hauled away.The immense Fustian rose slowly, teetered ... then flopped on his chest. Slowly he got to his feet. My name is Whonk, fleet one, he said. My cows are yours. Thanks. I'm Retief. I'd like to meet the girls some time. But rightnow, let's get out of here. Whonk leaned his bulk against the ponderous stacks of baled kelp,bulldozed them aside. Slow am I to anger, he said, but implacable inmy wrath. Slock, beware! Hold it, said Retief suddenly. He sniffed. What's that odor? Heflashed the light around, played it over a dry stain on the floor. Heknelt, sniffed at the spot. What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now? Whonk considered. There were drums, he said. Four of them, quitesmall, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, theGroaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the firstperiod they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge MossRock . The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it? I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movementsafter I have settled a score with certain Youths. We'd better follow this up first, Whonk. There's only one substance Iknow of that's transported in drums and smells like that blot on thefloor. That's titanite: the hottest explosive this side of a uraniumpile. III Beta was setting as Retief, Whonk puffing at his heels, came up to thesentry box beside the gangway leading to the plush interior of theofficial luxury space barge Moss Rock . A sign of the times, said Whonk, glancing inside the empty shelter.A guard should stand here, but I see him not. Doubtless he crept awayto sleep. Let's go aboard and take a look around. They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough boxstood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant notein the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it. Curious, he said. What means this? He held up a stained cloak oforange and green, a metal bracelet, papers. Orange and green, mused Relief. Whose colors are those? I know not. Whonk glanced at the arm-band. But this is lettered. Hepassed the metal band to Retief. SCARS, Retief read. He looked at Whonk. It seems to me I've heardthe name before, he murmured. Let's get back to the Embassy—fast. Back on the ramp Retief heard a sound ... and turned in time to duckthe charge of a hulking Fustian youth who thundered past him andfetched up against the broad chest of Whonk, who locked him in a warmembrace. Nice catch, Whonk. Where'd he sneak out of? The lout hid there by the storage bin, rumbled Whonk. The captiveyouth thumped fists and toes fruitlessly against the oldster's carapace. Hang onto him, said Retief. He looks like the biting kind. No fear. Clumsy I am, yet not without strength. Ask him where the titanite is tucked away. Speak, witless grub, growled Whonk, lest I tweak you in twain. The youth gurgled. Better let up before you make a mess of him, said Retief. Whonklifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thumpthat made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at theelder, mouth snapping. This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for thekilling, said Whonk. In his repentance he will tell all to his elder. That's the same young squirt that tried to strike up an acquaintancewith me on the bus, Retief said. He gets around. The youth scrambled to hands and knees, scuttled for freedom. Retiefplanted a foot on his dragging cloak; it ripped free. He stared at thebare back of the Fustian— By the Great Egg! Whonk exclaimed, tripping the refugee as he triedto rise. This is no Youth! His carapace has been taken from him! Retief looked at the scarred back. I thought he looked a little old.But I thought— This is not possible, Whonk said wonderingly. The great nerve trunksare deeply involved. Not even the cleverest surgeon could excise thecarapace and leave the patient living. It looks like somebody did the trick. But let's take this boy with usand get out of here. His folks may come home. Too late, said Whonk. Retief turned. Three youths came from behind the sheds. Well, Retief said. It looks like the SCARS are out in force tonight.Where's your pal? he said to the advancing trio. The sticky littlebird with the eye-stalks? Back at his Embassy, leaving you suckersholding the bag, I'll bet. Shelter behind me, Retief, said Whonk. Go get 'em, old-timer. Retief stooped, picked up one of the pry-bars.I'll jump around and distract them. Whonk let out a whistling roar and charged for the immature Fustians.They fanned out ... and one tripped, sprawled on his face. Retiefwhirled the metal bar he had thrust between the Fustian's legs, slammedit against the skull of another, who shook his head, turned onRetief ... and bounced off the steel hull of the Moss Rock as Whonktook him in full charge. Retief used the bar on another head. His third blow laid the Fustianon the pavement, oozing purple. The other two club members departedhastily, seriously dented but still mobile. Retief leaned on his club, breathing hard. Tough heads these kidshave got. I'm tempted to chase those two lads down, but I've gotanother errand to run. I don't know who the Groaci intended to blast,but I have a sneaking suspicion somebody of importance was scheduledfor a boat ride in the next few hours. And three drums of titanite isenough to vaporize this tub and everyone aboard her. The plot is foiled, said Whonk. But what reason did they have? The Groaci are behind it. I have an idea the SCARS didn't know aboutthis gambit. Which of these is the leader? asked Whonk. He prodded a fallen Youthwith a horny toe. Arise, dreaming one. Never mind him, Whonk. We'll tie these two up and leave them here. Iknow where to find the boss. <doc-sep>A stolid crowd filled the low-ceilinged banquet hall. Retief scannedthe tables for the pale blobs of Terrestrial faces, dwarfed by thegiant armored bodies of the Fustians. Across the room Magnan fluttereda hand. Retief headed toward him. A low-pitched vibration filled theair: the rumble of subsonic Fustian music. Retief slid into his place beside Magnan. Sorry to be late, Mr.Ambassador. I'm honored that you chose to appear at all, said Magnan coldly. Heturned back to the Fustian on his left. Ah, yes, Mr. Minister, he said. Charming, most charming. So joyous. The Fustian looked at him, beady-eyed. It is the Lament ofHatching , he said; our National Dirge. Oh, said Magnan. How interesting. Such a pleasing balance ofinstruments— It is a droon solo, said the Fustian, eyeing the TerrestrialAmbassador suspiciously. Why don't you just admit you can't hear it, Retief whispered loudly.And if I may interrupt a moment— Magnan cleared his throat. Now that our Mr. Retief has arrived,perhaps we could rush right along to the Sponsorship ceremonies. This group, said Retief, leaning across Magnan, the SCARS. How muchdo you know about them, Mr. Minister? Nothing at all, the huge Fustian elder rumbled. For my taste, allYouths should be kept penned with the livestock until they grow acarapace to tame their irresponsibility. We mustn't lose sight of the importance of channeling youthfulenergies, said Magnan. Labor gangs, said the minister. In my youth we were indentured tothe dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge. But in these modern times, put in Magnan, surely it's incumbent onus to make happy these golden hours. The minister snorted. Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon meand pelted me with overripe stench-fruit. But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations,cried Magnan. Their essential tenderness— You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder, the ministersaid, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, if you drilledboreholes and blasted. <doc-sep>Why, that's our guest of honor, said Magnan, a fine young fellow!Slop I believe his name is. Slock, said Retief. Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And— Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, tothem, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering.Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Someof the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose.Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and greenwine gushed on the tablecloth. What in the name of the Great Egg! the Minister muttered. He blinked,breathing deeply. Oh, forgive me, blurted Magnan, dabbing at the wine. Too bad the glass gave out, said Retief. In another minute you'dhave cleared the hall. And then maybe I could have gotten a word insideways. There's a matter you should know about— Your attention, please, Magnan said, rising. I see that our fineyoung guest has arrived, and I hope that the remainder of his committeewill be along in a moment. It is my pleasure to announce that our Mr.Retief has had the good fortune to win out in the keen bidding for thepleasure of sponsoring this lovely group. Retief tugged at Magnan's sleeve. Don't introduce me yet, he said. Iwant to appear suddenly. More dramatic, you know. Well, murmured Magnan, glancing down at Retief, I'm gratified tosee you entering into the spirit of the event at last. He turned hisattention back to the assembled guests. If our honored guest will joinme on the rostrum...? he said. The gentlemen of the press may want tocatch a few shots of the presentation. Magnan stepped up on the low platform at the center of the wide room,took his place beside the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras. How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more thegreat pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS, he said, talking slowlyfor the benefit of the scribbling reporters. We'd like to think thatin our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieveduring the years ahead. Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two lowsteps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as thenewcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the new arrival. Retief pushed through the crowd, stepped up to face the Fustian youth.Slock stared at him, drew back. You know me, Slock, said Retief loudly. An old fellow named Whonktold you about me, just before you tried to saw his head off, remember?It was when I came out to take a look at that battle cruiser you'rebuilding. IV With a bellow Slock reached for Retief—and choked off in mid-cry asthe Fustian elder, Whonk, pinioned him from behind, lifting him clearof the floor. Glad you reporters happened along, said Retief to the gaping newsmen.Slock here had a deal with a sharp operator from the Groaci Embassy.The Groaci were to supply the necessary hardware and Slock, as foremanat the shipyards, was to see that everything was properly installed.The next step, I assume, would have been a local take-over, followedby a little interplanetary war on Flamenco or one of the other nearbyworlds ... for which the Groaci would be glad to supply plenty of ammo. Magnan found his tongue. Are you mad, Retief? he screeched. Thisgroup was vouched for by the Ministry of Youth! The Ministry's overdue for a purge, snapped Retief. He turned backto Slock. I wonder if you were in on the little diversion that wasplanned for today. When the Moss Rock blew, a variety of clues wereto be planted where they'd be easy to find ... with SCARS written allover them. The Groaci would thus have neatly laid the whole affairsquarely at the door of the Terrestrial Embassy ... whose sponsorshipof the SCARS had received plenty of publicity. The Moss Rock ? said Magnan. But that was—Retief! This is idiotic.Slock himself was scheduled to go on a cruise tomorrow! Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his griploosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, buttinghis way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnanwatched, open-mouthed. The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual, Retief said. Theyintended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served theirpurpose. Well, don't stand there, yelped Magnan over the uproar. If Slock isthe ring-leader of a delinquent gang...! He moved to give chase. Retief grabbed his arm. Don't jump down there! You'd have as muchchance of getting through as a jack-rabbit through a threshing contest. Ten minutes later the crowd had thinned slightly. We can get throughnow, Whonk called. This way. He lowered himself to the floor, bulledthrough to the exit. Flashbulbs popped. Retief and Magnan followed inWhonk's wake. In the lounge Retief grabbed the phone, waited for the operator, gave acode letter. No reply. He tried another. No good, he said after a full minute had passed. Wonder what'sloose? He slammed the phone back in its niche. Let's grab a cab. <doc-sep>In the street the blue sun, Alpha, peered like an arc light under a lowcloud layer, casting flat shadows across the mud of the avenue. Thethree mounted a passing flat-car. Whonk squatted, resting the weight ofhis immense shell on the heavy plank flooring. Would that I too could lose this burden, as has the false youth webludgeoned aboard the Moss Rock , he sighed. Soon will I be forcedinto retirement. Then a mere keeper of a place of papers such as Iwill rate no more than a slab on the public strand, with once-dailyfeedings. And even for a man of high position, retirement is nopleasure. A slab in the Park of Monuments is little better. A dismaloutlook for one's next thousand years! You two carry on to the police station, said Retief. I want to playa hunch. But don't take too long. I may be painfully right. What—? Magnan started. As you wish, Retief, said Whonk. The flat-car trundled past the gate to the shipyard and Retief jumpeddown, headed at a run for the VIP boat. The guard post still stoodvacant. The two Youths whom he and Whonk had left trussed were gone. That's the trouble with a peaceful world, Retief muttered. No policeprotection. He stepped down from the lighted entry and took up aposition behind the sentry box. Alpha rose higher, shedding a glaringblue-white light without heat. Retief shivered. Maybe he'd guessedwrong.... There was a sound in the near distance, like two elephants colliding. Retief looked toward the gate. His giant acquaintance, Whonk, hadreappeared and was grappling with a hardly less massive opponent. Asmall figure became visible in the melee, scuttled for the gate. Headedoff by the battling titans, he turned and made for the opposite sideof the shipyard. Retief waited, jumped out and gathered in the fleeingGroaci. Well, Yith, he said, how's tricks? You should pardon the expression. Release me, Retief! the pale-featured alien lisped, his throatbladder pulsating in agitation. The behemoths vie for the privilege ofdismembering me out of hand! I know how they feel. I'll see what I can do ... for a price. I appeal to you, Yith whispered hoarsely. As a fellow diplomat, afellow alien, a fellow soft-back— Why don't you appeal to Slock, as a fellow skunk? said Retief. Nowkeep quiet ... and you may get out of this alive. The heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to theground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure wason its back, helpless. That's Whonk, still on his feet, said Retief. I wonder who he'scaught—and why. Whonk came toward the Moss Rock dragging the supine Fustian, whokicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind thesentry box. Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I canoutrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do. He stepped out andhailed Whonk. Puffing like a steam engine Whonk pulled up before him. Sleep,Retief! He panted. You followed a hunch; I did the same. I sawsomething strange in this one when we passed him on the avenue. Iwatched, followed him here. Look! It is Slock, strapped into a deadcarapace! Now many things become clear. <doc-sep>Retief whistled. So the Youths aren't all as young as they look.Somebody's been holding out on the rest of you Fustians! The Soft One, Whonk said. You laid him by the heels, Retief. I saw.Produce him now. Hold on a minute, Whonk. It won't do you any good— Whonk winked broadly. I must take my revenge! he roared. I shalltest the texture of the Soft One! His pulped remains will be scoured upby the ramp-washers and mailed home in bottles! Retief whirled at a sound, caught up with the scuttling Yith fifty feetaway, hauled him back to Whonk. It's up to you, Whonk, he said. I know how important ceremonialrevenge is to you Fustians. I will not interfere. Mercy! Yith hissed, eye-stalks whipping in distress. I claimdiplomatic immunity! No diplomat am I, rumbled Whonk. Let me see; suppose I start withone of those obscenely active eyes— He reached.... I have an idea, said Retief brightly. Do you suppose—just thisonce—you could forego the ceremonial revenge if Yith promised toarrange for a Groaci Surgical Mission to de-carapace you elders? But, Whonk protested, those eyes! What a pleasure to pluck them, oneby one! Yess, hissed Yith, I swear it! Our most expert surgeons ... platoonsof them, with the finest of equipment. I have dreamed of how it would be to sit on this one, to feel himsquash beneath my bulk.... Light as a whissle feather shall you dance, Yith whispered.Shell-less shall you spring in the joy of renewed youth— Maybe just one eye, said Whonk grudgingly. That would leave himfour. Be a sport, said Retief. Well. It's a deal then, said Retief. Yith, on your word as a diplomat,an alien, a soft-back and a skunk, you'll set up the mission. Groacisurgical skill is an export that will net you more than armaments.It will be a whissle feather in your cap—if you bring it off. Andin return, Whonk won't sit on you. And I won't prefer charges ofinterference in the internal affairs of a free world. Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of theborrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seizehim, lift him high and head for the entry to the Moss Rock . Hey, Retief called. Where are you going? I would not deny this one his reward, called Whonk. He hoped tocruise in luxury. So be it. Hold on, said Retief. That tub is loaded with titanite! Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me avengeance. Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden up the rampand disappeared within the ship. I guess Whonk means business, he said to Yith, who hung in his grasp,all five eyes goggling. And he's a little too big for me to stop. Whonk reappeared, alone, climbed down. What did you do with him? said Retief. Tell him you were going to— We had best withdraw, said Whonk. The killing radius of the drive isfifty yards. You mean— The controls are set for Groaci. Long-may-he-sleep. <doc-sep>It was quite a bang, said Retief. But I guess you saw it, too. No, confound it, Magnan said. When I remonstrated with Hulk, orWhelk— Whonk. —the ruffian thrust me into an alley bound in my own cloak. I'll mostcertainly complain to the Minister. How about the surgical mission? A most generous offer, said Magnan. Frankly, I was astonished. Ithink perhaps we've judged the Groaci too harshly. I hear the Ministry of Youth has had a rough morning of it, saidRetief. And a lot of rumors are flying to the effect that Youth Groupsare on the way out. Magnan cleared his throat, shuffled papers. I—ah—have explained tothe press that last night's—ah— Fiasco. —affair was necessary in order to place the culprits in an untenableposition. Of course, as to the destruction of the VIP vessel and thepresumed death of, uh, Slop. The Fustians understand, said Retief. Whonk wasn't kidding aboutceremonial vengeance. The Groaci had been guilty of gross misuse of diplomatic privilege,said Magnan. I think that a note—or perhaps an Aide Memoire: lessformal.... The Moss Rock was bound for Groaci, said Retief. She was alreadyin her transit orbit when she blew. The major fragments will arrive onschedule in a month or so. It should provide quite a meteorite display.I think that should be all the aide the Groaci's memoires will needto keep their tentacles off Fust. But diplomatic usage— Then, too, the less that's put in writing, the less they can blame youfor, if anything goes wrong. That's true, said Magnan, lips pursed. Now you're thinkingconstructively, Retief. We may make a diplomat of you yet. He smiledexpansively. Maybe. But I refuse to let it depress me. Retief stood up. I'mtaking a few weeks off ... if you have no objection, Mr. Ambassador. Mypal Whonk wants to show me an island down south where the fishing isgood. But there are some extremely important matters coming up, saidMagnan. We're planning to sponsor Senior Citizen Groups— Count me out. All groups give me an itch. Why, what an astonishing remark, Retief! After all, we diplomats areourselves a group. Uh-huh, Retief said. Magnan sat quietly, mouth open, and watched as Retief stepped into thehall and closed the door gently behind him. <doc-sep></s>

Magnan is the Ambassador to Fust, and thus is Retief’s boss. He is also a spineless, political wind-sniffing clod. His main role, or function in the story is as a foil to the hero, Retief. Magnan’s clueless blathering sets up Retief’s dry, sarcastic remarks – remarks which, if Magnan were not so oblivious, would perhaps offend Magnan to the point of firing Retief. While Retief is running around Fust getting into fist fights and spoiling terrorists’ plots, Magnan is back at the office shuffling whatever papers came in from the Terrestrial Embassy that day, implementing the “program of the week.” Magnan is flat. Retief is three-dimensional.Magnan’s main contributions to the story are to: 1. Ignore Retief’s advice to check out the Fustian youth organizations before sponsoring them, which leads to the potential for the Terrestrial Embassy being embarrassed by the Groaci attempts to frame SCARS for the explosion they hoped to cause aboard the Moss Rock. 2. Set up the banquet to honor SCARS where he grossly insults his Fustian counterparts by having the hired musicians play a dirge, the “Lament of Hatching,” and then shattering their ear drums by tapping on his wine glass.3. Whip up a meringue of obfuscation to hide the fiasco of the youth organization sponsorship program and try to make himself smell like a rose in the process4. Start a new sponsorship program for Fustian Senior Citizens.At no point in the story does he do anything useful at all.

<s> AIDE MEMOIRE BY KEITH LAUMER The Fustians looked like turtles—but they could move fast when they chose! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Across the table from Retief, Ambassador Magnan rustled a stiff sheetof parchment and looked grave. This aide memoire, he said, was just handed to me by the CulturalAttache. It's the third on the subject this week. It refers to thematter of sponsorship of Youth groups— Some youths, Retief said. Average age, seventy-five. The Fustians are a long-lived people, Magnan snapped. These mattersare relative. At seventy-five, a male Fustian is at a trying age— That's right. He'll try anything—in the hope it will maim somebody. Precisely the problem, Magnan said. But the Youth Movement isthe important news in today's political situation here on Fust. Andsponsorship of Youth groups is a shrewd stroke on the part of theTerrestrial Embassy. At my suggestion, well nigh every member of themission has leaped at the opportunity to score a few p—that is, cementrelations with this emergent power group—the leaders of the future.You, Retief, as Councillor, are the outstanding exception. I'm not convinced these hoodlums need my help in organizing theirrumbles, Retief said. Now, if you have a proposal for a pest controlgroup— To the Fustians this is no jesting matter, Magnan cut in. Thisgroup— he glanced at the paper—known as the Sexual, Cultural, andAthletic Recreational Society, or SCARS for short, has been awaitingsponsorship for a matter of weeks now. Meaning they want someone to buy them a clubhouse, uniforms, equipmentand anything else they need to complete their sexual, cultural andathletic development, Retief said. If we don't act promptly, Magnan said, the Groaci Embassy may wellanticipate us. They're very active here. That's an idea, said Retief. Let 'em. After awhile they'll go brokeinstead of us. Nonsense. The group requires a sponsor. I can't actually order you tostep forward. However.... Magnan let the sentence hang in the air.Retief raised one eyebrow. For a minute there, he said, I thought you were going to make apositive statement. <doc-sep>Magnan leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. I don't thinkyou'll find a diplomat of my experience doing anything so naive, hesaid. I like the adult Fustians, said Retief. Too bad they have to lughalf a ton of horn around on their backs. I wonder if surgery wouldhelp. Great heavens, Retief, Magnan sputtered. I'm amazed that even youwould bring up a matter of such delicacy. A race's unfortunate physicalcharacteristics are hardly a fit matter for Terrestrial curiosity. Well, of course your experience of the Fustian mentality is greaterthan mine. I've only been here a month. But it's been my experience,Mr. Ambassador, that few races are above improving on nature. Otherwiseyou, for example, would be tripping over your beard. Magnan shuddered. Please—never mention the idea to a Fustian. Retief stood. My own program for the day includes going over to thedockyards. There are some features of this new passenger liner theFustians are putting together that I want to look into. With yourpermission, Mr. Ambassador...? Magnan snorted. Your pre-occupation with the trivial disturbs me,Retief. More interest in substantive matters—such as working withYouth groups—would create a far better impression. Before getting too involved with these groups, it might be a good ideato find out a little more about them, said Retief. Who organizesthem? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's thealignment of this SCARS organization? You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak, Magnan said.Politics mean nothing to them ... yet. Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in atwo-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing butbusiness. But what has Fust got that they could use? You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance, said Magnan.Fust possesses a vigorous steel-age manufacturing economy. The Groaciare barely ahead of them. Barely, said Retief. Just over the line into crude atomics ... likefission bombs. Magnan shook his head, turned back to his papers. What market existsfor such devices on a world at peace? I suggest you address yourattention to the less spectacular but more rewarding work of studyingthe social patterns of the local youth. I've studied them, said Retief. And before I meet any of the localyouth socially I want to get myself a good blackjack. II Retief left the sprawling bungalow-type building that housed thechancery of the Terrestrial Embassy, swung aboard a passing flat-carand leaned back against the wooden guard rail as the heavy vehicletrundled through the city toward the looming gantries of the shipyards. It was a cool morning. A light breeze carried the fishy odor of Fustydwellings across the broad cobbled avenue. A few mature Fustianslumbered heavily along in the shade of the low buildings, audiblywheezing under the burden of their immense carapaces. Among them,shell-less youths trotted briskly on scaly stub legs. The driver of theflat-car, a labor-caste Fustian with his guild colors emblazoned on hisback, heaved at the tiller, swung the unwieldy conveyance through theshipyard gates, creaked to a halt. Thus I come to the shipyard with frightful speed, he said in Fustian.Well I know the way of the naked-backs, who move always in haste. Retief climbed down, handed him a coin. You should take upprofessional racing, he said. Daredevil. He crossed the littered yard and tapped at the door of a rambling shed.Boards creaked inside. Then the door swung back. A gnarled ancient with tarnished facial scales and a weathered carapacepeered out at Retief. Long-may-you-sleep, said Retief. I'd like to take a look around, ifyou don't mind. I understand you're laying the bedplate for your newliner today. May-you-dream-of-the-deeps, the old fellow mumbled. He waved a stumpyarm toward a group of shell-less Fustians standing by a massive hoist.The youths know more of bedplates than do I, who but tend the place ofpapers. I know how you feel, old-timer, said Retief. That sounds like thestory of my life. Among your papers do you have a set of plans for thevessel? I understand it's to be a passenger liner. The oldster nodded. He shuffled to a drawing file, rummaged, pulled outa sheaf of curled prints and spread them on the table. Retief stoodsilently, running a finger over the uppermost drawing, tracing lines.... What does the naked-back here? barked a deep voice behind Retief. Heturned. A heavy-faced Fustian youth, wrapped in a mantle, stood at theopen door. Beady yellow eyes set among fine scales bored into Retief. I came to take a look at your new liner, said Retief. We need no prying foreigners here, the youth snapped. His eye fell onthe drawings. He hissed in sudden anger. Doddering hulk! he snapped at the ancient. May you toss innightmares! Put by the plans! My mistake, Retief said. I didn't know this was a secret project. <doc-sep>The youth hesitated. It is not a secret project, he muttered. Whyshould it be secret? You tell me. The youth worked his jaws and rocked his head from side to side in theFusty gesture of uncertainty. There is nothing to conceal, he said.We merely construct a passenger liner. Then you don't mind if I look over the drawings, said Retief. Whoknows? Maybe some day I'll want to reserve a suite for the trip out. The youth turned and disappeared. Retief grinned at the oldster. Wentfor his big brother, I guess, he said. I have a feeling I won't getto study these in peace here. Mind if I copy them? Willingly, light-footed one, said the old Fustian. And mine is theshame for the discourtesy of youth. Retief took out a tiny camera, flipped a copying lens in place, leafedthrough the drawings, clicking the shutter. A plague on these youths, said the oldster, who grow more virulentday by day. Why don't you elders clamp down? Agile are they and we are slow of foot. And this unrest is new.Unknown in my youth was such insolence. The police— Bah! the ancient rumbled. None have we worthy of the name, nor havewe needed ought ere now. What's behind it? They have found leaders. The spiv, Slock, is one. And I fear they plotmischief. He pointed to the window. They come, and a Soft One withthem. Retief pocketed the camera, glanced out the window. A pale-featuredGroaci with an ornately decorated crest stood with the youths, who eyedthe hut, then started toward it. That's the military attache of the Groaci Embassy, Retief said. Iwonder what he and the boys are cooking up together? Naught that augurs well for the dignity of Fust, the oldster rumbled.Flee, agile one, while I engage their attentions. I was just leaving, Retief said. Which way out? The rear door, the Fustian gestured with a stubby member. Rest well,stranger on these shores. He moved to the entrance. Same to you, pop, said Retief. And thanks. He eased through the narrow back entrance, waited until voices wereraised at the front of the shed, then strolled off toward the gate. <doc-sep>The second dark of the third cycle was lightening when Retief left theEmbassy technical library and crossed the corridor to his office. Heflipped on a light. A note was tucked under a paperweight: Retief—I shall expect your attendance at the IAS dinner at firstdark of the fourth cycle. There will be a brief but, I hope, impressiveSponsorship ceremony for the SCARS group, with full press coverage,arrangements for which I have managed to complete in spite of yourintransigence. Retief snorted and glanced at his watch. Less than three hours. Justtime to creep home by flat-car, dress in ceremonial uniform and creepback. Outside he flagged a lumbering bus. He stationed himself in a cornerand watched the yellow sun, Beta, rise rapidly above the low skyline.The nearby sea was at high tide now, under the pull of the major sunand the three moons, and the stiff breeze carried a mist of salt spray. Retief turned up his collar against the dampness. In half an hour hewould be perspiring under the vertical rays of a third-noon sun, butthe thought failed to keep the chill off. Two Youths clambered up on the platform, moving purposefully towardRetief. He moved off the rail, watching them, weight balanced. That's close enough, kids, he said. Plenty of room on this scow. Noneed to crowd up. There are certain films, the lead Fustian muttered. His voice wasunusually deep for a Youth. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and movedawkwardly. His adolescence was nearly at an end, Retief guessed. I told you once, said Retief. Don't crowd me. The two stepped close, slit mouths snapping in anger. Retief put out afoot, hooked it behind the scaly leg of the overaged juvenile and threwhis weight against the cloaked chest. The clumsy Fustian tottered, fellheavily. Retief was past him and off the flat-car before the otherYouth had completed his vain lunge toward the spot Retief had occupied.The Terrestrial waved cheerfully at the pair, hopped aboard anothervehicle, watched his would-be assailants lumber down from their car,tiny heads twisted to follow his retreating figure. So they wanted the film? Retief reflected, thumbing a cigar alight.They were a little late. He had already filed it in the Embassy vault,after running a copy for the reference files. And a comparison of the drawings with those of the obsolete Mark XXXVbattle cruiser used two hundred years earlier by the Concordiat NavalArm showed them to be almost identical, gun emplacements and all. Theterm obsolete was a relative one. A ship which had been outmoded inthe armories of the Galactic Powers could still be king of the walk inthe Eastern Arm. But how had these two known of the film? There had been no one presentbut himself and the old-timer—and he was willing to bet the elderlyFustian hadn't told them anything. At least not willingly.... Retief frowned, dropped the cigar over the side, waited until theflat-car negotiated a mud-wallow, then swung down and headed for theshipyard. <doc-sep>The door, hinges torn loose, had been propped loosely back in position.Retief looked around at the battered interior of the shed. The oldfellow had put up a struggle. There were deep drag-marks in the dust behind the building. Retieffollowed them across the yard. They disappeared under the steel door ofa warehouse. Retief glanced around. Now, at the mid-hour of the fourth cycle, theworkmen were heaped along the edge of the refreshment pond, deep intheir siesta. He took a multi-bladed tool from a pocket, tried variousfittings in the lock. It snicked open. He eased the door aside far enough to enter. Heaped bales loomed before him. Snapping on the tiny lamp in the handleof the combination tool, Retief looked over the pile. One stack seemedout of alignment ... and the dust had been scraped from the floorbefore it. He pocketed the light, climbed up on the bales, looked overinto a nest made by stacking the bundles around a clear spot. The agedFustian lay in it, on his back, a heavy sack tied over his head. Retief dropped down inside the ring of bales, sawed at the tough twineand pulled the sack free. It's me, old fellow, Retief said. The nosy stranger. Sorry I got youinto this. The oldster threshed his gnarled legs. He rocked slightly and fellback. A curse on the cradle that rocked their infant slumbers, herumbled. But place me back on my feet and I hunt down the youth,Slock, though he flee to the bottommost muck of the Sea of Torments. How am I going to get you out of here? Maybe I'd better get some help. Nay. The perfidious Youths abound here, said the old Fustian. Itwould be your life. I doubt if they'd go that far. Would they not? The Fustian stretched his neck. Cast your lighthere. But for the toughness of my hide.... Retief put the beam of the light on the leathery neck. A great smear ofthick purplish blood welled from a ragged cut. The oldster chuckled, asound like a seal coughing. Traitor, they called me. For long they sawed at me—in vain. Thenthey trussed me and dumped me here. They think to return with weaponsto complete the task. Weapons? I thought it was illegal! Their evil genius, the Soft One, said the Fustian. He would providefuel to the Devil himself. The Groaci again, said Retief. I wonder what their angle is. And I must confess, I told them of you, ere I knew their fullintentions. Much can I tell you of their doings. But first, I pray, theblock and tackle. Retief found the hoist where the Fustian directed him, maneuvered itinto position, hooked onto the edge of the carapace and hauled away.The immense Fustian rose slowly, teetered ... then flopped on his chest. Slowly he got to his feet. My name is Whonk, fleet one, he said. My cows are yours. Thanks. I'm Retief. I'd like to meet the girls some time. But rightnow, let's get out of here. Whonk leaned his bulk against the ponderous stacks of baled kelp,bulldozed them aside. Slow am I to anger, he said, but implacable inmy wrath. Slock, beware! Hold it, said Retief suddenly. He sniffed. What's that odor? Heflashed the light around, played it over a dry stain on the floor. Heknelt, sniffed at the spot. What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now? Whonk considered. There were drums, he said. Four of them, quitesmall, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, theGroaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the firstperiod they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge MossRock . The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it? I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movementsafter I have settled a score with certain Youths. We'd better follow this up first, Whonk. There's only one substance Iknow of that's transported in drums and smells like that blot on thefloor. That's titanite: the hottest explosive this side of a uraniumpile. III Beta was setting as Retief, Whonk puffing at his heels, came up to thesentry box beside the gangway leading to the plush interior of theofficial luxury space barge Moss Rock . A sign of the times, said Whonk, glancing inside the empty shelter.A guard should stand here, but I see him not. Doubtless he crept awayto sleep. Let's go aboard and take a look around. They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough boxstood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant notein the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it. Curious, he said. What means this? He held up a stained cloak oforange and green, a metal bracelet, papers. Orange and green, mused Relief. Whose colors are those? I know not. Whonk glanced at the arm-band. But this is lettered. Hepassed the metal band to Retief. SCARS, Retief read. He looked at Whonk. It seems to me I've heardthe name before, he murmured. Let's get back to the Embassy—fast. Back on the ramp Retief heard a sound ... and turned in time to duckthe charge of a hulking Fustian youth who thundered past him andfetched up against the broad chest of Whonk, who locked him in a warmembrace. Nice catch, Whonk. Where'd he sneak out of? The lout hid there by the storage bin, rumbled Whonk. The captiveyouth thumped fists and toes fruitlessly against the oldster's carapace. Hang onto him, said Retief. He looks like the biting kind. No fear. Clumsy I am, yet not without strength. Ask him where the titanite is tucked away. Speak, witless grub, growled Whonk, lest I tweak you in twain. The youth gurgled. Better let up before you make a mess of him, said Retief. Whonklifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thumpthat made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at theelder, mouth snapping. This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for thekilling, said Whonk. In his repentance he will tell all to his elder. That's the same young squirt that tried to strike up an acquaintancewith me on the bus, Retief said. He gets around. The youth scrambled to hands and knees, scuttled for freedom. Retiefplanted a foot on his dragging cloak; it ripped free. He stared at thebare back of the Fustian— By the Great Egg! Whonk exclaimed, tripping the refugee as he triedto rise. This is no Youth! His carapace has been taken from him! Retief looked at the scarred back. I thought he looked a little old.But I thought— This is not possible, Whonk said wonderingly. The great nerve trunksare deeply involved. Not even the cleverest surgeon could excise thecarapace and leave the patient living. It looks like somebody did the trick. But let's take this boy with usand get out of here. His folks may come home. Too late, said Whonk. Retief turned. Three youths came from behind the sheds. Well, Retief said. It looks like the SCARS are out in force tonight.Where's your pal? he said to the advancing trio. The sticky littlebird with the eye-stalks? Back at his Embassy, leaving you suckersholding the bag, I'll bet. Shelter behind me, Retief, said Whonk. Go get 'em, old-timer. Retief stooped, picked up one of the pry-bars.I'll jump around and distract them. Whonk let out a whistling roar and charged for the immature Fustians.They fanned out ... and one tripped, sprawled on his face. Retiefwhirled the metal bar he had thrust between the Fustian's legs, slammedit against the skull of another, who shook his head, turned onRetief ... and bounced off the steel hull of the Moss Rock as Whonktook him in full charge. Retief used the bar on another head. His third blow laid the Fustianon the pavement, oozing purple. The other two club members departedhastily, seriously dented but still mobile. Retief leaned on his club, breathing hard. Tough heads these kidshave got. I'm tempted to chase those two lads down, but I've gotanother errand to run. I don't know who the Groaci intended to blast,but I have a sneaking suspicion somebody of importance was scheduledfor a boat ride in the next few hours. And three drums of titanite isenough to vaporize this tub and everyone aboard her. The plot is foiled, said Whonk. But what reason did they have? The Groaci are behind it. I have an idea the SCARS didn't know aboutthis gambit. Which of these is the leader? asked Whonk. He prodded a fallen Youthwith a horny toe. Arise, dreaming one. Never mind him, Whonk. We'll tie these two up and leave them here. Iknow where to find the boss. <doc-sep>A stolid crowd filled the low-ceilinged banquet hall. Retief scannedthe tables for the pale blobs of Terrestrial faces, dwarfed by thegiant armored bodies of the Fustians. Across the room Magnan fluttereda hand. Retief headed toward him. A low-pitched vibration filled theair: the rumble of subsonic Fustian music. Retief slid into his place beside Magnan. Sorry to be late, Mr.Ambassador. I'm honored that you chose to appear at all, said Magnan coldly. Heturned back to the Fustian on his left. Ah, yes, Mr. Minister, he said. Charming, most charming. So joyous. The Fustian looked at him, beady-eyed. It is the Lament ofHatching , he said; our National Dirge. Oh, said Magnan. How interesting. Such a pleasing balance ofinstruments— It is a droon solo, said the Fustian, eyeing the TerrestrialAmbassador suspiciously. Why don't you just admit you can't hear it, Retief whispered loudly.And if I may interrupt a moment— Magnan cleared his throat. Now that our Mr. Retief has arrived,perhaps we could rush right along to the Sponsorship ceremonies. This group, said Retief, leaning across Magnan, the SCARS. How muchdo you know about them, Mr. Minister? Nothing at all, the huge Fustian elder rumbled. For my taste, allYouths should be kept penned with the livestock until they grow acarapace to tame their irresponsibility. We mustn't lose sight of the importance of channeling youthfulenergies, said Magnan. Labor gangs, said the minister. In my youth we were indentured tothe dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge. But in these modern times, put in Magnan, surely it's incumbent onus to make happy these golden hours. The minister snorted. Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon meand pelted me with overripe stench-fruit. But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations,cried Magnan. Their essential tenderness— You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder, the ministersaid, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, if you drilledboreholes and blasted. <doc-sep>Why, that's our guest of honor, said Magnan, a fine young fellow!Slop I believe his name is. Slock, said Retief. Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And— Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, tothem, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering.Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Someof the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose.Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and greenwine gushed on the tablecloth. What in the name of the Great Egg! the Minister muttered. He blinked,breathing deeply. Oh, forgive me, blurted Magnan, dabbing at the wine. Too bad the glass gave out, said Retief. In another minute you'dhave cleared the hall. And then maybe I could have gotten a word insideways. There's a matter you should know about— Your attention, please, Magnan said, rising. I see that our fineyoung guest has arrived, and I hope that the remainder of his committeewill be along in a moment. It is my pleasure to announce that our Mr.Retief has had the good fortune to win out in the keen bidding for thepleasure of sponsoring this lovely group. Retief tugged at Magnan's sleeve. Don't introduce me yet, he said. Iwant to appear suddenly. More dramatic, you know. Well, murmured Magnan, glancing down at Retief, I'm gratified tosee you entering into the spirit of the event at last. He turned hisattention back to the assembled guests. If our honored guest will joinme on the rostrum...? he said. The gentlemen of the press may want tocatch a few shots of the presentation. Magnan stepped up on the low platform at the center of the wide room,took his place beside the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras. How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more thegreat pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS, he said, talking slowlyfor the benefit of the scribbling reporters. We'd like to think thatin our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieveduring the years ahead. Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two lowsteps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as thenewcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the new arrival. Retief pushed through the crowd, stepped up to face the Fustian youth.Slock stared at him, drew back. You know me, Slock, said Retief loudly. An old fellow named Whonktold you about me, just before you tried to saw his head off, remember?It was when I came out to take a look at that battle cruiser you'rebuilding. IV With a bellow Slock reached for Retief—and choked off in mid-cry asthe Fustian elder, Whonk, pinioned him from behind, lifting him clearof the floor. Glad you reporters happened along, said Retief to the gaping newsmen.Slock here had a deal with a sharp operator from the Groaci Embassy.The Groaci were to supply the necessary hardware and Slock, as foremanat the shipyards, was to see that everything was properly installed.The next step, I assume, would have been a local take-over, followedby a little interplanetary war on Flamenco or one of the other nearbyworlds ... for which the Groaci would be glad to supply plenty of ammo. Magnan found his tongue. Are you mad, Retief? he screeched. Thisgroup was vouched for by the Ministry of Youth! The Ministry's overdue for a purge, snapped Retief. He turned backto Slock. I wonder if you were in on the little diversion that wasplanned for today. When the Moss Rock blew, a variety of clues wereto be planted where they'd be easy to find ... with SCARS written allover them. The Groaci would thus have neatly laid the whole affairsquarely at the door of the Terrestrial Embassy ... whose sponsorshipof the SCARS had received plenty of publicity. The Moss Rock ? said Magnan. But that was—Retief! This is idiotic.Slock himself was scheduled to go on a cruise tomorrow! Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his griploosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, buttinghis way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnanwatched, open-mouthed. The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual, Retief said. Theyintended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served theirpurpose. Well, don't stand there, yelped Magnan over the uproar. If Slock isthe ring-leader of a delinquent gang...! He moved to give chase. Retief grabbed his arm. Don't jump down there! You'd have as muchchance of getting through as a jack-rabbit through a threshing contest. Ten minutes later the crowd had thinned slightly. We can get throughnow, Whonk called. This way. He lowered himself to the floor, bulledthrough to the exit. Flashbulbs popped. Retief and Magnan followed inWhonk's wake. In the lounge Retief grabbed the phone, waited for the operator, gave acode letter. No reply. He tried another. No good, he said after a full minute had passed. Wonder what'sloose? He slammed the phone back in its niche. Let's grab a cab. <doc-sep>In the street the blue sun, Alpha, peered like an arc light under a lowcloud layer, casting flat shadows across the mud of the avenue. Thethree mounted a passing flat-car. Whonk squatted, resting the weight ofhis immense shell on the heavy plank flooring. Would that I too could lose this burden, as has the false youth webludgeoned aboard the Moss Rock , he sighed. Soon will I be forcedinto retirement. Then a mere keeper of a place of papers such as Iwill rate no more than a slab on the public strand, with once-dailyfeedings. And even for a man of high position, retirement is nopleasure. A slab in the Park of Monuments is little better. A dismaloutlook for one's next thousand years! You two carry on to the police station, said Retief. I want to playa hunch. But don't take too long. I may be painfully right. What—? Magnan started. As you wish, Retief, said Whonk. The flat-car trundled past the gate to the shipyard and Retief jumpeddown, headed at a run for the VIP boat. The guard post still stoodvacant. The two Youths whom he and Whonk had left trussed were gone. That's the trouble with a peaceful world, Retief muttered. No policeprotection. He stepped down from the lighted entry and took up aposition behind the sentry box. Alpha rose higher, shedding a glaringblue-white light without heat. Retief shivered. Maybe he'd guessedwrong.... There was a sound in the near distance, like two elephants colliding. Retief looked toward the gate. His giant acquaintance, Whonk, hadreappeared and was grappling with a hardly less massive opponent. Asmall figure became visible in the melee, scuttled for the gate. Headedoff by the battling titans, he turned and made for the opposite sideof the shipyard. Retief waited, jumped out and gathered in the fleeingGroaci. Well, Yith, he said, how's tricks? You should pardon the expression. Release me, Retief! the pale-featured alien lisped, his throatbladder pulsating in agitation. The behemoths vie for the privilege ofdismembering me out of hand! I know how they feel. I'll see what I can do ... for a price. I appeal to you, Yith whispered hoarsely. As a fellow diplomat, afellow alien, a fellow soft-back— Why don't you appeal to Slock, as a fellow skunk? said Retief. Nowkeep quiet ... and you may get out of this alive. The heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to theground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure wason its back, helpless. That's Whonk, still on his feet, said Retief. I wonder who he'scaught—and why. Whonk came toward the Moss Rock dragging the supine Fustian, whokicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind thesentry box. Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I canoutrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do. He stepped out andhailed Whonk. Puffing like a steam engine Whonk pulled up before him. Sleep,Retief! He panted. You followed a hunch; I did the same. I sawsomething strange in this one when we passed him on the avenue. Iwatched, followed him here. Look! It is Slock, strapped into a deadcarapace! Now many things become clear. <doc-sep>Retief whistled. So the Youths aren't all as young as they look.Somebody's been holding out on the rest of you Fustians! The Soft One, Whonk said. You laid him by the heels, Retief. I saw.Produce him now. Hold on a minute, Whonk. It won't do you any good— Whonk winked broadly. I must take my revenge! he roared. I shalltest the texture of the Soft One! His pulped remains will be scoured upby the ramp-washers and mailed home in bottles! Retief whirled at a sound, caught up with the scuttling Yith fifty feetaway, hauled him back to Whonk. It's up to you, Whonk, he said. I know how important ceremonialrevenge is to you Fustians. I will not interfere. Mercy! Yith hissed, eye-stalks whipping in distress. I claimdiplomatic immunity! No diplomat am I, rumbled Whonk. Let me see; suppose I start withone of those obscenely active eyes— He reached.... I have an idea, said Retief brightly. Do you suppose—just thisonce—you could forego the ceremonial revenge if Yith promised toarrange for a Groaci Surgical Mission to de-carapace you elders? But, Whonk protested, those eyes! What a pleasure to pluck them, oneby one! Yess, hissed Yith, I swear it! Our most expert surgeons ... platoonsof them, with the finest of equipment. I have dreamed of how it would be to sit on this one, to feel himsquash beneath my bulk.... Light as a whissle feather shall you dance, Yith whispered.Shell-less shall you spring in the joy of renewed youth— Maybe just one eye, said Whonk grudgingly. That would leave himfour. Be a sport, said Retief. Well. It's a deal then, said Retief. Yith, on your word as a diplomat,an alien, a soft-back and a skunk, you'll set up the mission. Groacisurgical skill is an export that will net you more than armaments.It will be a whissle feather in your cap—if you bring it off. Andin return, Whonk won't sit on you. And I won't prefer charges ofinterference in the internal affairs of a free world. Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of theborrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seizehim, lift him high and head for the entry to the Moss Rock . Hey, Retief called. Where are you going? I would not deny this one his reward, called Whonk. He hoped tocruise in luxury. So be it. Hold on, said Retief. That tub is loaded with titanite! Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me avengeance. Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden up the rampand disappeared within the ship. I guess Whonk means business, he said to Yith, who hung in his grasp,all five eyes goggling. And he's a little too big for me to stop. Whonk reappeared, alone, climbed down. What did you do with him? said Retief. Tell him you were going to— We had best withdraw, said Whonk. The killing radius of the drive isfifty yards. You mean— The controls are set for Groaci. Long-may-he-sleep. <doc-sep>It was quite a bang, said Retief. But I guess you saw it, too. No, confound it, Magnan said. When I remonstrated with Hulk, orWhelk— Whonk. —the ruffian thrust me into an alley bound in my own cloak. I'll mostcertainly complain to the Minister. How about the surgical mission? A most generous offer, said Magnan. Frankly, I was astonished. Ithink perhaps we've judged the Groaci too harshly. I hear the Ministry of Youth has had a rough morning of it, saidRetief. And a lot of rumors are flying to the effect that Youth Groupsare on the way out. Magnan cleared his throat, shuffled papers. I—ah—have explained tothe press that last night's—ah— Fiasco. —affair was necessary in order to place the culprits in an untenableposition. Of course, as to the destruction of the VIP vessel and thepresumed death of, uh, Slop. The Fustians understand, said Retief. Whonk wasn't kidding aboutceremonial vengeance. The Groaci had been guilty of gross misuse of diplomatic privilege,said Magnan. I think that a note—or perhaps an Aide Memoire: lessformal.... The Moss Rock was bound for Groaci, said Retief. She was alreadyin her transit orbit when she blew. The major fragments will arrive onschedule in a month or so. It should provide quite a meteorite display.I think that should be all the aide the Groaci's memoires will needto keep their tentacles off Fust. But diplomatic usage— Then, too, the less that's put in writing, the less they can blame youfor, if anything goes wrong. That's true, said Magnan, lips pursed. Now you're thinkingconstructively, Retief. We may make a diplomat of you yet. He smiledexpansively. Maybe. But I refuse to let it depress me. Retief stood up. I'mtaking a few weeks off ... if you have no objection, Mr. Ambassador. Mypal Whonk wants to show me an island down south where the fishing isgood. But there are some extremely important matters coming up, saidMagnan. We're planning to sponsor Senior Citizen Groups— Count me out. All groups give me an itch. Why, what an astonishing remark, Retief! After all, we diplomats areourselves a group. Uh-huh, Retief said. Magnan sat quietly, mouth open, and watched as Retief stepped into thehall and closed the door gently behind him. <doc-sep></s>

Whonk is a very old Fustian who works as a clerk at the shipyards. He meets Retief when Retief comes to to inquire about seeing plans for the new passenger liner. Whonk is neutral and correct, but not especially friendly. His partnership, and it seems fair to say, friendship with Retief really begins when Retief returns to the shipyard to look for Whonk and finds that the Fustian thugs who tried and failed to kill him, due to his thick, mature skin and shell, have left him tied up, in an undignified position on his back.Retief apologizes for putting him in danger, and gets the old Fustian back on his feet. Whonk is so grateful that he tells Retief, “My cows are yours,” a heartfelt, traditional Fustian expression of gratitude. Whonk is extremely angry about what the Fustian Slock and his gang have done to him, and throws in his lot with Retief. Thereafter, every time Retief is in physical danger from Fustians, Whonk is right there to help. At the end of the story, Whonk steps in again to help Retief capture Yith, a member of the Groaci diplomatic mission, and Slock the rebel adult Fustian with no carapace. His desire for vengeance against these two nearly overwhelms his good sense. He puts Slock on the Moss Rose with the titanite that Slock had intended to use against Fustian politicians, and sets the rocket to blast off to Groaci, knowing that it would below up before it got there. But Retief manages to settle him down enough not to take Yith apart piece by piece, by getting the Groaci to do something that would make Whonk’s life a lot easier and more pleasant: surgically remove his carapace. Whonk is steadfast, reliable, implacable – a good sidekick for Retief.

<s> AIDE MEMOIRE BY KEITH LAUMER The Fustians looked like turtles—but they could move fast when they chose! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Across the table from Retief, Ambassador Magnan rustled a stiff sheetof parchment and looked grave. This aide memoire, he said, was just handed to me by the CulturalAttache. It's the third on the subject this week. It refers to thematter of sponsorship of Youth groups— Some youths, Retief said. Average age, seventy-five. The Fustians are a long-lived people, Magnan snapped. These mattersare relative. At seventy-five, a male Fustian is at a trying age— That's right. He'll try anything—in the hope it will maim somebody. Precisely the problem, Magnan said. But the Youth Movement isthe important news in today's political situation here on Fust. Andsponsorship of Youth groups is a shrewd stroke on the part of theTerrestrial Embassy. At my suggestion, well nigh every member of themission has leaped at the opportunity to score a few p—that is, cementrelations with this emergent power group—the leaders of the future.You, Retief, as Councillor, are the outstanding exception. I'm not convinced these hoodlums need my help in organizing theirrumbles, Retief said. Now, if you have a proposal for a pest controlgroup— To the Fustians this is no jesting matter, Magnan cut in. Thisgroup— he glanced at the paper—known as the Sexual, Cultural, andAthletic Recreational Society, or SCARS for short, has been awaitingsponsorship for a matter of weeks now. Meaning they want someone to buy them a clubhouse, uniforms, equipmentand anything else they need to complete their sexual, cultural andathletic development, Retief said. If we don't act promptly, Magnan said, the Groaci Embassy may wellanticipate us. They're very active here. That's an idea, said Retief. Let 'em. After awhile they'll go brokeinstead of us. Nonsense. The group requires a sponsor. I can't actually order you tostep forward. However.... Magnan let the sentence hang in the air.Retief raised one eyebrow. For a minute there, he said, I thought you were going to make apositive statement. <doc-sep>Magnan leaned back, lacing his fingers over his stomach. I don't thinkyou'll find a diplomat of my experience doing anything so naive, hesaid. I like the adult Fustians, said Retief. Too bad they have to lughalf a ton of horn around on their backs. I wonder if surgery wouldhelp. Great heavens, Retief, Magnan sputtered. I'm amazed that even youwould bring up a matter of such delicacy. A race's unfortunate physicalcharacteristics are hardly a fit matter for Terrestrial curiosity. Well, of course your experience of the Fustian mentality is greaterthan mine. I've only been here a month. But it's been my experience,Mr. Ambassador, that few races are above improving on nature. Otherwiseyou, for example, would be tripping over your beard. Magnan shuddered. Please—never mention the idea to a Fustian. Retief stood. My own program for the day includes going over to thedockyards. There are some features of this new passenger liner theFustians are putting together that I want to look into. With yourpermission, Mr. Ambassador...? Magnan snorted. Your pre-occupation with the trivial disturbs me,Retief. More interest in substantive matters—such as working withYouth groups—would create a far better impression. Before getting too involved with these groups, it might be a good ideato find out a little more about them, said Retief. Who organizesthem? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's thealignment of this SCARS organization? You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak, Magnan said.Politics mean nothing to them ... yet. Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in atwo-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing butbusiness. But what has Fust got that they could use? You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance, said Magnan.Fust possesses a vigorous steel-age manufacturing economy. The Groaciare barely ahead of them. Barely, said Retief. Just over the line into crude atomics ... likefission bombs. Magnan shook his head, turned back to his papers. What market existsfor such devices on a world at peace? I suggest you address yourattention to the less spectacular but more rewarding work of studyingthe social patterns of the local youth. I've studied them, said Retief. And before I meet any of the localyouth socially I want to get myself a good blackjack. II Retief left the sprawling bungalow-type building that housed thechancery of the Terrestrial Embassy, swung aboard a passing flat-carand leaned back against the wooden guard rail as the heavy vehicletrundled through the city toward the looming gantries of the shipyards. It was a cool morning. A light breeze carried the fishy odor of Fustydwellings across the broad cobbled avenue. A few mature Fustianslumbered heavily along in the shade of the low buildings, audiblywheezing under the burden of their immense carapaces. Among them,shell-less youths trotted briskly on scaly stub legs. The driver of theflat-car, a labor-caste Fustian with his guild colors emblazoned on hisback, heaved at the tiller, swung the unwieldy conveyance through theshipyard gates, creaked to a halt. Thus I come to the shipyard with frightful speed, he said in Fustian.Well I know the way of the naked-backs, who move always in haste. Retief climbed down, handed him a coin. You should take upprofessional racing, he said. Daredevil. He crossed the littered yard and tapped at the door of a rambling shed.Boards creaked inside. Then the door swung back. A gnarled ancient with tarnished facial scales and a weathered carapacepeered out at Retief. Long-may-you-sleep, said Retief. I'd like to take a look around, ifyou don't mind. I understand you're laying the bedplate for your newliner today. May-you-dream-of-the-deeps, the old fellow mumbled. He waved a stumpyarm toward a group of shell-less Fustians standing by a massive hoist.The youths know more of bedplates than do I, who but tend the place ofpapers. I know how you feel, old-timer, said Retief. That sounds like thestory of my life. Among your papers do you have a set of plans for thevessel? I understand it's to be a passenger liner. The oldster nodded. He shuffled to a drawing file, rummaged, pulled outa sheaf of curled prints and spread them on the table. Retief stoodsilently, running a finger over the uppermost drawing, tracing lines.... What does the naked-back here? barked a deep voice behind Retief. Heturned. A heavy-faced Fustian youth, wrapped in a mantle, stood at theopen door. Beady yellow eyes set among fine scales bored into Retief. I came to take a look at your new liner, said Retief. We need no prying foreigners here, the youth snapped. His eye fell onthe drawings. He hissed in sudden anger. Doddering hulk! he snapped at the ancient. May you toss innightmares! Put by the plans! My mistake, Retief said. I didn't know this was a secret project. <doc-sep>The youth hesitated. It is not a secret project, he muttered. Whyshould it be secret? You tell me. The youth worked his jaws and rocked his head from side to side in theFusty gesture of uncertainty. There is nothing to conceal, he said.We merely construct a passenger liner. Then you don't mind if I look over the drawings, said Retief. Whoknows? Maybe some day I'll want to reserve a suite for the trip out. The youth turned and disappeared. Retief grinned at the oldster. Wentfor his big brother, I guess, he said. I have a feeling I won't getto study these in peace here. Mind if I copy them? Willingly, light-footed one, said the old Fustian. And mine is theshame for the discourtesy of youth. Retief took out a tiny camera, flipped a copying lens in place, leafedthrough the drawings, clicking the shutter. A plague on these youths, said the oldster, who grow more virulentday by day. Why don't you elders clamp down? Agile are they and we are slow of foot. And this unrest is new.Unknown in my youth was such insolence. The police— Bah! the ancient rumbled. None have we worthy of the name, nor havewe needed ought ere now. What's behind it? They have found leaders. The spiv, Slock, is one. And I fear they plotmischief. He pointed to the window. They come, and a Soft One withthem. Retief pocketed the camera, glanced out the window. A pale-featuredGroaci with an ornately decorated crest stood with the youths, who eyedthe hut, then started toward it. That's the military attache of the Groaci Embassy, Retief said. Iwonder what he and the boys are cooking up together? Naught that augurs well for the dignity of Fust, the oldster rumbled.Flee, agile one, while I engage their attentions. I was just leaving, Retief said. Which way out? The rear door, the Fustian gestured with a stubby member. Rest well,stranger on these shores. He moved to the entrance. Same to you, pop, said Retief. And thanks. He eased through the narrow back entrance, waited until voices wereraised at the front of the shed, then strolled off toward the gate. <doc-sep>The second dark of the third cycle was lightening when Retief left theEmbassy technical library and crossed the corridor to his office. Heflipped on a light. A note was tucked under a paperweight: Retief—I shall expect your attendance at the IAS dinner at firstdark of the fourth cycle. There will be a brief but, I hope, impressiveSponsorship ceremony for the SCARS group, with full press coverage,arrangements for which I have managed to complete in spite of yourintransigence. Retief snorted and glanced at his watch. Less than three hours. Justtime to creep home by flat-car, dress in ceremonial uniform and creepback. Outside he flagged a lumbering bus. He stationed himself in a cornerand watched the yellow sun, Beta, rise rapidly above the low skyline.The nearby sea was at high tide now, under the pull of the major sunand the three moons, and the stiff breeze carried a mist of salt spray. Retief turned up his collar against the dampness. In half an hour hewould be perspiring under the vertical rays of a third-noon sun, butthe thought failed to keep the chill off. Two Youths clambered up on the platform, moving purposefully towardRetief. He moved off the rail, watching them, weight balanced. That's close enough, kids, he said. Plenty of room on this scow. Noneed to crowd up. There are certain films, the lead Fustian muttered. His voice wasunusually deep for a Youth. He was wrapped in a heavy cloak and movedawkwardly. His adolescence was nearly at an end, Retief guessed. I told you once, said Retief. Don't crowd me. The two stepped close, slit mouths snapping in anger. Retief put out afoot, hooked it behind the scaly leg of the overaged juvenile and threwhis weight against the cloaked chest. The clumsy Fustian tottered, fellheavily. Retief was past him and off the flat-car before the otherYouth had completed his vain lunge toward the spot Retief had occupied.The Terrestrial waved cheerfully at the pair, hopped aboard anothervehicle, watched his would-be assailants lumber down from their car,tiny heads twisted to follow his retreating figure. So they wanted the film? Retief reflected, thumbing a cigar alight.They were a little late. He had already filed it in the Embassy vault,after running a copy for the reference files. And a comparison of the drawings with those of the obsolete Mark XXXVbattle cruiser used two hundred years earlier by the Concordiat NavalArm showed them to be almost identical, gun emplacements and all. Theterm obsolete was a relative one. A ship which had been outmoded inthe armories of the Galactic Powers could still be king of the walk inthe Eastern Arm. But how had these two known of the film? There had been no one presentbut himself and the old-timer—and he was willing to bet the elderlyFustian hadn't told them anything. At least not willingly.... Retief frowned, dropped the cigar over the side, waited until theflat-car negotiated a mud-wallow, then swung down and headed for theshipyard. <doc-sep>The door, hinges torn loose, had been propped loosely back in position.Retief looked around at the battered interior of the shed. The oldfellow had put up a struggle. There were deep drag-marks in the dust behind the building. Retieffollowed them across the yard. They disappeared under the steel door ofa warehouse. Retief glanced around. Now, at the mid-hour of the fourth cycle, theworkmen were heaped along the edge of the refreshment pond, deep intheir siesta. He took a multi-bladed tool from a pocket, tried variousfittings in the lock. It snicked open. He eased the door aside far enough to enter. Heaped bales loomed before him. Snapping on the tiny lamp in the handleof the combination tool, Retief looked over the pile. One stack seemedout of alignment ... and the dust had been scraped from the floorbefore it. He pocketed the light, climbed up on the bales, looked overinto a nest made by stacking the bundles around a clear spot. The agedFustian lay in it, on his back, a heavy sack tied over his head. Retief dropped down inside the ring of bales, sawed at the tough twineand pulled the sack free. It's me, old fellow, Retief said. The nosy stranger. Sorry I got youinto this. The oldster threshed his gnarled legs. He rocked slightly and fellback. A curse on the cradle that rocked their infant slumbers, herumbled. But place me back on my feet and I hunt down the youth,Slock, though he flee to the bottommost muck of the Sea of Torments. How am I going to get you out of here? Maybe I'd better get some help. Nay. The perfidious Youths abound here, said the old Fustian. Itwould be your life. I doubt if they'd go that far. Would they not? The Fustian stretched his neck. Cast your lighthere. But for the toughness of my hide.... Retief put the beam of the light on the leathery neck. A great smear ofthick purplish blood welled from a ragged cut. The oldster chuckled, asound like a seal coughing. Traitor, they called me. For long they sawed at me—in vain. Thenthey trussed me and dumped me here. They think to return with weaponsto complete the task. Weapons? I thought it was illegal! Their evil genius, the Soft One, said the Fustian. He would providefuel to the Devil himself. The Groaci again, said Retief. I wonder what their angle is. And I must confess, I told them of you, ere I knew their fullintentions. Much can I tell you of their doings. But first, I pray, theblock and tackle. Retief found the hoist where the Fustian directed him, maneuvered itinto position, hooked onto the edge of the carapace and hauled away.The immense Fustian rose slowly, teetered ... then flopped on his chest. Slowly he got to his feet. My name is Whonk, fleet one, he said. My cows are yours. Thanks. I'm Retief. I'd like to meet the girls some time. But rightnow, let's get out of here. Whonk leaned his bulk against the ponderous stacks of baled kelp,bulldozed them aside. Slow am I to anger, he said, but implacable inmy wrath. Slock, beware! Hold it, said Retief suddenly. He sniffed. What's that odor? Heflashed the light around, played it over a dry stain on the floor. Heknelt, sniffed at the spot. What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now? Whonk considered. There were drums, he said. Four of them, quitesmall, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, theGroaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the firstperiod they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge MossRock . The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it? I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movementsafter I have settled a score with certain Youths. We'd better follow this up first, Whonk. There's only one substance Iknow of that's transported in drums and smells like that blot on thefloor. That's titanite: the hottest explosive this side of a uraniumpile. III Beta was setting as Retief, Whonk puffing at his heels, came up to thesentry box beside the gangway leading to the plush interior of theofficial luxury space barge Moss Rock . A sign of the times, said Whonk, glancing inside the empty shelter.A guard should stand here, but I see him not. Doubtless he crept awayto sleep. Let's go aboard and take a look around. They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough boxstood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant notein the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it. Curious, he said. What means this? He held up a stained cloak oforange and green, a metal bracelet, papers. Orange and green, mused Relief. Whose colors are those? I know not. Whonk glanced at the arm-band. But this is lettered. Hepassed the metal band to Retief. SCARS, Retief read. He looked at Whonk. It seems to me I've heardthe name before, he murmured. Let's get back to the Embassy—fast. Back on the ramp Retief heard a sound ... and turned in time to duckthe charge of a hulking Fustian youth who thundered past him andfetched up against the broad chest of Whonk, who locked him in a warmembrace. Nice catch, Whonk. Where'd he sneak out of? The lout hid there by the storage bin, rumbled Whonk. The captiveyouth thumped fists and toes fruitlessly against the oldster's carapace. Hang onto him, said Retief. He looks like the biting kind. No fear. Clumsy I am, yet not without strength. Ask him where the titanite is tucked away. Speak, witless grub, growled Whonk, lest I tweak you in twain. The youth gurgled. Better let up before you make a mess of him, said Retief. Whonklifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thumpthat made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at theelder, mouth snapping. This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for thekilling, said Whonk. In his repentance he will tell all to his elder. That's the same young squirt that tried to strike up an acquaintancewith me on the bus, Retief said. He gets around. The youth scrambled to hands and knees, scuttled for freedom. Retiefplanted a foot on his dragging cloak; it ripped free. He stared at thebare back of the Fustian— By the Great Egg! Whonk exclaimed, tripping the refugee as he triedto rise. This is no Youth! His carapace has been taken from him! Retief looked at the scarred back. I thought he looked a little old.But I thought— This is not possible, Whonk said wonderingly. The great nerve trunksare deeply involved. Not even the cleverest surgeon could excise thecarapace and leave the patient living. It looks like somebody did the trick. But let's take this boy with usand get out of here. His folks may come home. Too late, said Whonk. Retief turned. Three youths came from behind the sheds. Well, Retief said. It looks like the SCARS are out in force tonight.Where's your pal? he said to the advancing trio. The sticky littlebird with the eye-stalks? Back at his Embassy, leaving you suckersholding the bag, I'll bet. Shelter behind me, Retief, said Whonk. Go get 'em, old-timer. Retief stooped, picked up one of the pry-bars.I'll jump around and distract them. Whonk let out a whistling roar and charged for the immature Fustians.They fanned out ... and one tripped, sprawled on his face. Retiefwhirled the metal bar he had thrust between the Fustian's legs, slammedit against the skull of another, who shook his head, turned onRetief ... and bounced off the steel hull of the Moss Rock as Whonktook him in full charge. Retief used the bar on another head. His third blow laid the Fustianon the pavement, oozing purple. The other two club members departedhastily, seriously dented but still mobile. Retief leaned on his club, breathing hard. Tough heads these kidshave got. I'm tempted to chase those two lads down, but I've gotanother errand to run. I don't know who the Groaci intended to blast,but I have a sneaking suspicion somebody of importance was scheduledfor a boat ride in the next few hours. And three drums of titanite isenough to vaporize this tub and everyone aboard her. The plot is foiled, said Whonk. But what reason did they have? The Groaci are behind it. I have an idea the SCARS didn't know aboutthis gambit. Which of these is the leader? asked Whonk. He prodded a fallen Youthwith a horny toe. Arise, dreaming one. Never mind him, Whonk. We'll tie these two up and leave them here. Iknow where to find the boss. <doc-sep>A stolid crowd filled the low-ceilinged banquet hall. Retief scannedthe tables for the pale blobs of Terrestrial faces, dwarfed by thegiant armored bodies of the Fustians. Across the room Magnan fluttereda hand. Retief headed toward him. A low-pitched vibration filled theair: the rumble of subsonic Fustian music. Retief slid into his place beside Magnan. Sorry to be late, Mr.Ambassador. I'm honored that you chose to appear at all, said Magnan coldly. Heturned back to the Fustian on his left. Ah, yes, Mr. Minister, he said. Charming, most charming. So joyous. The Fustian looked at him, beady-eyed. It is the Lament ofHatching , he said; our National Dirge. Oh, said Magnan. How interesting. Such a pleasing balance ofinstruments— It is a droon solo, said the Fustian, eyeing the TerrestrialAmbassador suspiciously. Why don't you just admit you can't hear it, Retief whispered loudly.And if I may interrupt a moment— Magnan cleared his throat. Now that our Mr. Retief has arrived,perhaps we could rush right along to the Sponsorship ceremonies. This group, said Retief, leaning across Magnan, the SCARS. How muchdo you know about them, Mr. Minister? Nothing at all, the huge Fustian elder rumbled. For my taste, allYouths should be kept penned with the livestock until they grow acarapace to tame their irresponsibility. We mustn't lose sight of the importance of channeling youthfulenergies, said Magnan. Labor gangs, said the minister. In my youth we were indentured tothe dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge. But in these modern times, put in Magnan, surely it's incumbent onus to make happy these golden hours. The minister snorted. Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon meand pelted me with overripe stench-fruit. But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations,cried Magnan. Their essential tenderness— You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder, the ministersaid, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, if you drilledboreholes and blasted. <doc-sep>Why, that's our guest of honor, said Magnan, a fine young fellow!Slop I believe his name is. Slock, said Retief. Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And— Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, tothem, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering.Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Someof the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose.Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and greenwine gushed on the tablecloth. What in the name of the Great Egg! the Minister muttered. He blinked,breathing deeply. Oh, forgive me, blurted Magnan, dabbing at the wine. Too bad the glass gave out, said Retief. In another minute you'dhave cleared the hall. And then maybe I could have gotten a word insideways. There's a matter you should know about— Your attention, please, Magnan said, rising. I see that our fineyoung guest has arrived, and I hope that the remainder of his committeewill be along in a moment. It is my pleasure to announce that our Mr.Retief has had the good fortune to win out in the keen bidding for thepleasure of sponsoring this lovely group. Retief tugged at Magnan's sleeve. Don't introduce me yet, he said. Iwant to appear suddenly. More dramatic, you know. Well, murmured Magnan, glancing down at Retief, I'm gratified tosee you entering into the spirit of the event at last. He turned hisattention back to the assembled guests. If our honored guest will joinme on the rostrum...? he said. The gentlemen of the press may want tocatch a few shots of the presentation. Magnan stepped up on the low platform at the center of the wide room,took his place beside the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras. How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more thegreat pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS, he said, talking slowlyfor the benefit of the scribbling reporters. We'd like to think thatin our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieveduring the years ahead. Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two lowsteps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as thenewcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the new arrival. Retief pushed through the crowd, stepped up to face the Fustian youth.Slock stared at him, drew back. You know me, Slock, said Retief loudly. An old fellow named Whonktold you about me, just before you tried to saw his head off, remember?It was when I came out to take a look at that battle cruiser you'rebuilding. IV With a bellow Slock reached for Retief—and choked off in mid-cry asthe Fustian elder, Whonk, pinioned him from behind, lifting him clearof the floor. Glad you reporters happened along, said Retief to the gaping newsmen.Slock here had a deal with a sharp operator from the Groaci Embassy.The Groaci were to supply the necessary hardware and Slock, as foremanat the shipyards, was to see that everything was properly installed.The next step, I assume, would have been a local take-over, followedby a little interplanetary war on Flamenco or one of the other nearbyworlds ... for which the Groaci would be glad to supply plenty of ammo. Magnan found his tongue. Are you mad, Retief? he screeched. Thisgroup was vouched for by the Ministry of Youth! The Ministry's overdue for a purge, snapped Retief. He turned backto Slock. I wonder if you were in on the little diversion that wasplanned for today. When the Moss Rock blew, a variety of clues wereto be planted where they'd be easy to find ... with SCARS written allover them. The Groaci would thus have neatly laid the whole affairsquarely at the door of the Terrestrial Embassy ... whose sponsorshipof the SCARS had received plenty of publicity. The Moss Rock ? said Magnan. But that was—Retief! This is idiotic.Slock himself was scheduled to go on a cruise tomorrow! Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his griploosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, buttinghis way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnanwatched, open-mouthed. The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual, Retief said. Theyintended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served theirpurpose. Well, don't stand there, yelped Magnan over the uproar. If Slock isthe ring-leader of a delinquent gang...! He moved to give chase. Retief grabbed his arm. Don't jump down there! You'd have as muchchance of getting through as a jack-rabbit through a threshing contest. Ten minutes later the crowd had thinned slightly. We can get throughnow, Whonk called. This way. He lowered himself to the floor, bulledthrough to the exit. Flashbulbs popped. Retief and Magnan followed inWhonk's wake. In the lounge Retief grabbed the phone, waited for the operator, gave acode letter. No reply. He tried another. No good, he said after a full minute had passed. Wonder what'sloose? He slammed the phone back in its niche. Let's grab a cab. <doc-sep>In the street the blue sun, Alpha, peered like an arc light under a lowcloud layer, casting flat shadows across the mud of the avenue. Thethree mounted a passing flat-car. Whonk squatted, resting the weight ofhis immense shell on the heavy plank flooring. Would that I too could lose this burden, as has the false youth webludgeoned aboard the Moss Rock , he sighed. Soon will I be forcedinto retirement. Then a mere keeper of a place of papers such as Iwill rate no more than a slab on the public strand, with once-dailyfeedings. And even for a man of high position, retirement is nopleasure. A slab in the Park of Monuments is little better. A dismaloutlook for one's next thousand years! You two carry on to the police station, said Retief. I want to playa hunch. But don't take too long. I may be painfully right. What—? Magnan started. As you wish, Retief, said Whonk. The flat-car trundled past the gate to the shipyard and Retief jumpeddown, headed at a run for the VIP boat. The guard post still stoodvacant. The two Youths whom he and Whonk had left trussed were gone. That's the trouble with a peaceful world, Retief muttered. No policeprotection. He stepped down from the lighted entry and took up aposition behind the sentry box. Alpha rose higher, shedding a glaringblue-white light without heat. Retief shivered. Maybe he'd guessedwrong.... There was a sound in the near distance, like two elephants colliding. Retief looked toward the gate. His giant acquaintance, Whonk, hadreappeared and was grappling with a hardly less massive opponent. Asmall figure became visible in the melee, scuttled for the gate. Headedoff by the battling titans, he turned and made for the opposite sideof the shipyard. Retief waited, jumped out and gathered in the fleeingGroaci. Well, Yith, he said, how's tricks? You should pardon the expression. Release me, Retief! the pale-featured alien lisped, his throatbladder pulsating in agitation. The behemoths vie for the privilege ofdismembering me out of hand! I know how they feel. I'll see what I can do ... for a price. I appeal to you, Yith whispered hoarsely. As a fellow diplomat, afellow alien, a fellow soft-back— Why don't you appeal to Slock, as a fellow skunk? said Retief. Nowkeep quiet ... and you may get out of this alive. The heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to theground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure wason its back, helpless. That's Whonk, still on his feet, said Retief. I wonder who he'scaught—and why. Whonk came toward the Moss Rock dragging the supine Fustian, whokicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind thesentry box. Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I canoutrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do. He stepped out andhailed Whonk. Puffing like a steam engine Whonk pulled up before him. Sleep,Retief! He panted. You followed a hunch; I did the same. I sawsomething strange in this one when we passed him on the avenue. Iwatched, followed him here. Look! It is Slock, strapped into a deadcarapace! Now many things become clear. <doc-sep>Retief whistled. So the Youths aren't all as young as they look.Somebody's been holding out on the rest of you Fustians! The Soft One, Whonk said. You laid him by the heels, Retief. I saw.Produce him now. Hold on a minute, Whonk. It won't do you any good— Whonk winked broadly. I must take my revenge! he roared. I shalltest the texture of the Soft One! His pulped remains will be scoured upby the ramp-washers and mailed home in bottles! Retief whirled at a sound, caught up with the scuttling Yith fifty feetaway, hauled him back to Whonk. It's up to you, Whonk, he said. I know how important ceremonialrevenge is to you Fustians. I will not interfere. Mercy! Yith hissed, eye-stalks whipping in distress. I claimdiplomatic immunity! No diplomat am I, rumbled Whonk. Let me see; suppose I start withone of those obscenely active eyes— He reached.... I have an idea, said Retief brightly. Do you suppose—just thisonce—you could forego the ceremonial revenge if Yith promised toarrange for a Groaci Surgical Mission to de-carapace you elders? But, Whonk protested, those eyes! What a pleasure to pluck them, oneby one! Yess, hissed Yith, I swear it! Our most expert surgeons ... platoonsof them, with the finest of equipment. I have dreamed of how it would be to sit on this one, to feel himsquash beneath my bulk.... Light as a whissle feather shall you dance, Yith whispered.Shell-less shall you spring in the joy of renewed youth— Maybe just one eye, said Whonk grudgingly. That would leave himfour. Be a sport, said Retief. Well. It's a deal then, said Retief. Yith, on your word as a diplomat,an alien, a soft-back and a skunk, you'll set up the mission. Groacisurgical skill is an export that will net you more than armaments.It will be a whissle feather in your cap—if you bring it off. Andin return, Whonk won't sit on you. And I won't prefer charges ofinterference in the internal affairs of a free world. Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of theborrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seizehim, lift him high and head for the entry to the Moss Rock . Hey, Retief called. Where are you going? I would not deny this one his reward, called Whonk. He hoped tocruise in luxury. So be it. Hold on, said Retief. That tub is loaded with titanite! Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me avengeance. Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden up the rampand disappeared within the ship. I guess Whonk means business, he said to Yith, who hung in his grasp,all five eyes goggling. And he's a little too big for me to stop. Whonk reappeared, alone, climbed down. What did you do with him? said Retief. Tell him you were going to— We had best withdraw, said Whonk. The killing radius of the drive isfifty yards. You mean— The controls are set for Groaci. Long-may-he-sleep. <doc-sep>It was quite a bang, said Retief. But I guess you saw it, too. No, confound it, Magnan said. When I remonstrated with Hulk, orWhelk— Whonk. —the ruffian thrust me into an alley bound in my own cloak. I'll mostcertainly complain to the Minister. How about the surgical mission? A most generous offer, said Magnan. Frankly, I was astonished. Ithink perhaps we've judged the Groaci too harshly. I hear the Ministry of Youth has had a rough morning of it, saidRetief. And a lot of rumors are flying to the effect that Youth Groupsare on the way out. Magnan cleared his throat, shuffled papers. I—ah—have explained tothe press that last night's—ah— Fiasco. —affair was necessary in order to place the culprits in an untenableposition. Of course, as to the destruction of the VIP vessel and thepresumed death of, uh, Slop. The Fustians understand, said Retief. Whonk wasn't kidding aboutceremonial vengeance. The Groaci had been guilty of gross misuse of diplomatic privilege,said Magnan. I think that a note—or perhaps an Aide Memoire: lessformal.... The Moss Rock was bound for Groaci, said Retief. She was alreadyin her transit orbit when she blew. The major fragments will arrive onschedule in a month or so. It should provide quite a meteorite display.I think that should be all the aide the Groaci's memoires will needto keep their tentacles off Fust. But diplomatic usage— Then, too, the less that's put in writing, the less they can blame youfor, if anything goes wrong. That's true, said Magnan, lips pursed. Now you're thinkingconstructively, Retief. We may make a diplomat of you yet. He smiledexpansively. Maybe. But I refuse to let it depress me. Retief stood up. I'mtaking a few weeks off ... if you have no objection, Mr. Ambassador. Mypal Whonk wants to show me an island down south where the fishing isgood. But there are some extremely important matters coming up, saidMagnan. We're planning to sponsor Senior Citizen Groups— Count me out. All groups give me an itch. Why, what an astonishing remark, Retief! After all, we diplomats areourselves a group. Uh-huh, Retief said. Magnan sat quietly, mouth open, and watched as Retief stepped into thehall and closed the door gently behind him. <doc-sep></s>

The story is set entirely on the planet Fust. The native inhabitants of Fust are described as something similar to snapping turtles that walk on their hind legs, and much of the imagery used by Fustians when speaking revolves around themes of the sea and mud. Fust is a peaceful enough world that they don’t even really have much of a police force, despite the rowdy and rebellious behavior of Fustian youths. Not much is known about the physical characteristics of the planet, such as the proportion of sea and dry land. We know there must be oceans, because the warehouse where Wonk was tied up and left was full of bales of kelp, a sea product. The city of the story is also near a sea, whose breezes make it a bit cool at certain times of day.The city where all the action takes place is an important city, perhaps the capitol. It is full of diplomatic missions from all planets, and is apparently a place of some Fustian learning and culture, given that it has musicians for hire. There is a space ship building operation right outside the city, which can be reached by public transport that consists of flat open wagons. This is practical for the unwieldy shape of the adult Fustian, if not too comfortable for a human.One of the most interesting things about Fust, and the hardest for an outsider to understand, is their assorted suns and moons. Fust is lit by a blue sun called Alpha and a yellow sun known as Beta, and three moons orbit Fust. There is also a third sun, unnamed, so that there are three “noons” on Fust.