Short Science Fiction Collection 063 - Various

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The Last Supper by TD Ham this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org the Last Supper by TD Ham Hampered as she was by the

child in her arms, the the woman

was running less fleetly now. A wave of exultation swept over Gultrin, drowning out that uneasy feeling of guilt for disobeying orders. The instructions were mandatory and concise. No capture must be attempted individually. In the event of sighting any form of human life, the ship must be notified immediately. All small craft must be back at the landing space not later than one hour before takeoff. Anyone not so reporting will be presumed lost. Guildren thought uneasily of the great seas of snow and ice sweeping inexorably toward each other since the Earth had reversed on its axis in the great catastrophe a millennium ago. Now, summer and winter alike brought paralyzing gales and blizzards, heralded by the sleety snow in which the woman's skin clad feet had left the tracks which led to discovery. His trained anthropologist's mind speculated avidly over the little they had gotten from the younger of the two men found a week before, nearly frozen and half starved, the older man had succumbed almost at once. The other, in the most primitive sign language, had indicated that for several humans living in caves to the west, only he and the other had survived to flee some mysterious terror. Guldrin felt a throb of pity for the woman and her child, left behind by the men, no doubt as a hindrance. But what a stroke of fortune that there should be left the male and female of the race to carry the seed of Terra to another planet. And what a triumph if he

should

be the one to return at the eleventh hour with the prize. No need of calling help. This was no armed party, but the most defenseless being in the universe, a mother burdened with a child. Guldrin put on another burst of speed. His previous shouts had served only to spur the woman to greater efforts. Surely there was some magic word that had survived even the centuries of illiteracy, something equivalent to the bread and salt of all illiterate peoples. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he shouted, food.

Food.

Ahead of them the woman turned her head, leaped lightly in mid stride, and went on slowing a little but still running doggedly. Guldrin's pulse leaped. He yelled again, food. The instant that his foot touched the yielding surface of the trap, he knew that he had met defeat. As his body crashed down on the fire sharpened stakes, he knew, too, the terror from which the last men of the human race had fled. Above him the woman looked down, her teeth gleaming wolfishly. She pointed down into the pit, spoke exultantly to the child. Food, said the last woman on Earth. End of the Last Supper By TD HAM.

Control Group by Roger D acock this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.orgControl Group by Roger D acock the cool green disc of Alphard 6 on the screen was infinitely welcome after the arid desolation and stinking swamplands of the Inner Planets, an airy jewel of a world that might have been designed specifically for the hard earned month of rest ahead. Navigator Forel, youngest and certainly most impulsive of the three man. Terran Reclamation's crew would have set the Marco 4 down at once, but for the greater caution of Stryker, nominally captain of the group, and of Gibson, engineer and linguist Javier, the ship's little mechanical had, as was usual and proper, no voice in the matter. Reconnaissance spiral first, arthur Stryker said firmly. He chuckled at Farrell's instant scowl, his little eyes twinkling and his naked paunch quaking over the belt of his shipboard shorts. Chapter 1, subsection 5, paragraph 27 no planetfall on an unreclaimed world shall be deemed safe without proper Forel, as Stryker had expected, interrupted with characteristic impatience. Do you sleep with that damned reclamation's handbook, Lee Alfred 6 isn't an unreclaimed world. It was never colonized before the Hymenopp invasion back in 3025, so why should it be inhabited now? Gibson, who for four hours had not looked up from his interminable chess game with Javier, paused with a beleaguered knight in one blunt brown hand. No point in taking chances, gibson said in his neutral baritone. He shrugged thick bare shoulders, his humorless black browed face unmoved when Forell included him in his scowl. We're 226 light years from Sol at the old limits of Terran expansion, and there's no knowing what we may turn up here. Alford's was one of the first systems the bees took over. It must have been one of the last to be abandoned when they pulled back to 70. Ohiuchi. And I think you live for the day, forel said acidly, when we stumble across a functioning dome of live, buzzing hymenops. Damn it, Gib, the bees pulled out a hundred years ago, before you and I were born. Neither of us ever saw a hymen up and never will. But I saw them, stryker said. I fought them for the better part of the century. They were here and I learned there's no predicting or understanding them. We never knew why they came, nor why they gave up and left. How can we know whether they'd leave a rear guard or booby trap here? He put a paternal hand on Forel's shoulder, understanding the younger man's eagerness and knowing that their close knit team would have been more poorly balanced without it. Gibbs. Right, he said. He nearly added, as usual, we are on rest leave at the moment. Yes, but our mission is still to find Terran colonies enslaved and abandoned by the bees, not to risk our necks and a valuable reorientation ship by landing blind on an unobserved planet. We're too close already. Cut in your shields and find a reconnaissance spiral, will you? Grumbling, Forel punched coordinates on the ring wave board that lifted the mark 04 out of her descent and restored the bluish, enveloping haze of her repellers. Stryker's caution was justified on the instant the speeding streamlined shape that had flashed up unobserved from below swerved sharply and exploded in a cataclysmic blaze of atomic fire that rocked the ship wildly and flung the three men to the floor in a jangling roar of alarms. So the handbook tacticians knew what they were about, stryker said minutes later. Deliberately. He adopted the smug tone best calculated to sting Forel out of his first self reproach and grinned when the navigator bristled defensively. Some of their enjoinders seem a little stuffy and obvious at times, but they're eminently sensible. When Forel refused to be baited, Stryker turned to Gibson, who was busily assessing the damage done to the ship's more fragile equipment and a hobby, Javier, who searched the planet's surface with the ship's magnoscanner. The Marko 4 ring wave generators, humming gently, hung at the moment just inside the orbit of Alfred 6's single dun colored moon. Gibson put down a test meter with an air of finality. Nothing damaged but the zero interval transfer computer. I can realign that in a couple of hours, but it'll have to be done before we hit transfer again. Stryker looked dubious. What if the issue is forced before the zit unit is repaired? Suppose they come up after us? I doubt that they can. Any installation crudely enough equipped to trust in guided missiles is hardly likely to have developed efficient spacecraft. Stryker was not reassured. That torpedo of theirs was deadly enough, he said, and its nature reflects the nature of the people who made it. Any race vicious enough to use atomic charges is too dangerous to trifle with. Worry made comical creases in his fat, good humored face. We'll have to find out who they are and why they're here. You know they can't be Hymenops, gibson said promptly. First, because the bees pin their faith on ringwave energy fields, as we did, rather than on missiles. Second, because there's no dome on Six. There were three empty domes on Five, which is a desert planet, forell pointed out. Why didn't they settle Six? It's a more inhabitable world. Gibson shrugged. I know the Bees always erected domes on every planet they colonized, Arthur. But precedent is a fallible tool, and it's even more firmly established that there's no possibility of our rationalizing the motivations of a culture as alien as the Hymenops. We've been over that argument a hundred times on other reclaimed world. But this was never an unreclaimed world, forel said with the faint malice of one too recently caught in the wrong Alphard. Six was surveyed and seeded with Terran bacteria around the year 3000. But the bees invaded before we could colonize, and that means we'll have to rule out any resurgent colonial group down there, because Six never had a colony in the beginning. The Bees have been gone for over a hundred years, stryker said. Colonists might have migrated from another Terran unoccupied planet. Gibson disagreed. We've touched at every inhabited world in this sector, Lee, and not one surviving colony has developed space travel on its own. The Hymenops had a hundred years to condition their human slaves to ignorance of everything beyond their immediate environment. The motives behind that conditioning usually escape us, but that's beside the point, and they did a thorough job of it. The colonists have had no more than a century of freedom since the bees pulled out, and four generations simply isn't enough time for any subjugated culture to climb from slavery to interstellar flight. Stryker made a padding turn around the control room, tugging unhappily at the scanty fringe of hair the years had left him. If they are neither Hymenops nor resurgent colonists, he said, then there's only one choice remaining. They're aliens from a system we haven't reached yet beyond the old sphere of Terran exploration. We always assumed that we'd find other races out here some day, and that they'd be as different from us in form and motivation as the Hymenops. Why not now? Gibson said seriously. Not probably the same objection that rules out the B's applies to any trans authority in culture. They'd have to be beyond the atomic fission stage, else they'd never have attempted interstellar flight. The ringwave, with its zero interval transfer principle in instantaneous communications applications, is the only answer to long range travel, and if they'd had that, they wouldn't have bothered with atomics. Stryker turned on him almost angrily. If they're not Hymenops or humans or aliens, then what in God's name are they? Ay, there's the rub, forel said, quoting a passage whose aptness had somehow seen it through a dozen reorganizations of insular tongue and a final translation to universal Terran. If the none of those three, we've only one conclusion left. There's no one down there at all. We're the victims of the first joint hallucination in psychiatric history. Stryker threw up his hands in surrender. We can't identify them by theorizing, and that brings us down to the business of first hand investigation. Who's going to bell the cats this time? I'd like to go, gibson said at once the zit computer can wait. Stryker vetoed his offer as promptly. No, the zit comes first. We may have to run for it. And we can't set up a transfer jump without the computer. It's got to be me or Arthur. Forell felt the familiar chill of uneasiness that inevitably preceded this moment of decision. He was not lacking in courage, else the circumstances under which he had worked for the past 10 years, the sometimes perilous, sometimes downright carnal conditions left by the fleeing Hymenop conquerors, would have broken him long ago. But that same hard experience had honed rather than blunted the edge of his imagination, and the prospect of a close quarters stalking of an unknown and patently hostile force was anything but attractive. You two did the field work on the last location, he said. It's high time I took my turn. And God knows I'd go mad if I had to stay in ship and listen to Lee memorizing his handbook subsections or gib practicing dead languages with Javier. Stryker laughed for the first time since the explosion that had so nearly wrecked the Mark 04. Good enough, though it wouldn't be more diverting to listen for hours to you improvising enharmonic variations on the laments for Old Terror with your accordion. Gibson, characteristically, had a refinement to offer. They'll be alerted down there for a reconnaissance sally, he said. Why not let Javier take the scouter down for overt diversion and drop Arthur off in the Healy hopper for a low level check? Stryker looked at Forell. All right, Arthur. Good enough, forell said. And to Javier, who had not moved from his post at the magnoscanner.

How does it look?

Hav have you pinned down the base yet? The mechanical answered him in a voice as smooth and clear and as inflectionless as a cello note. The planet seems uninhabited except for a large island some 300 miles in diameter. There are 27 small agrarian hamlets surrounded by cultivated fields. There is one city of perhaps a thousand buildings with a central square. In the square rests a grounded spaceship of approximately 10 times the bulk of the Marko 4.

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is no room for slowdowns.

With Grainger's vast selection of high quality motors, sensors, belts, and hard to find

parts, you can get what you need

fast and all in one place, so nothing gets in the way of getting the job done. Call 1-800-GRAINGER. Click grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done.

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They crowded about, the vision screen, jostling Javier's jointed gray shape in their interest. The central city lay in minutest detail before them, the battered hulk of the grounded ship glinting rustily in the late afternoon sunlight. Streets radiated away from the square in orderly succession, the whole so clearly depicted that they could see the throngs of people surging up and down, tiny foreshortened faces turned toward the sky. Well, at least, the human, Forel said. Relief replaced in some measure his earlier uneasiness. Which means that they're Terran and can be dealt with according to Reclamation's routine. Is that Hulk space worthy hive? Javier's mellow drone assumed the convention vibrato that indicated stark puzzlement. Its breeched hull makes the ship incapable of flight. Apparently it is used only to supply power to the outlying hamlets. The mechanical put a flexible gray finger upon an indicator graph derived from a composite section of detector meters. The power generated seems to be gross electric current conveyed by metallic cables. It is generated through a crudely governed process of continuous atomic fission. Forel himself, appalled by the information, still found himself able to chuckle at Stryker's bellow of consternation. Continuous fission. Good God. Only madmen would deliberately run a risk like that. Forel prodded him with cheerful malice. Why say madmen? Maybe they're humanoid aliens who thrive on hard radiation and look on the danger of being blown to hell in the middle of the night as a satisfactory risk. They're not alien, gibson said positively. Their architecture is Terran, and so is their ship. The ship is incredibly primitive, though. Those batteries of tubes at either end are thrust reaction jets, stryker finished in an awed voice. Primitive isn't the word, Gib. The thing is, prehistoric rocket propulsion hasn't been used in spacecraft since how long have Javier supplied the information with mechanical infallibility? Since the year 2100, when the ring wave propulsion communication principle was discovered. That principle has served men sense. Forel stared in blank disbelief at the anomalous craft on the screen. Primitive, as Stryker had said, was not the word for it. Clumsily ovoid, studded with torpedo domes and turrets and bristling at either end with propulsion tubes, it lay at the centre of its square like a rusted relic of a past largely destroyed and all but forgotten. What a magnificent disregard its builders must have had, he thought, for the lives and the genetic purity of their posterity. The sullen atomic fires banked in that oxidizing hulk. Stryker said plaintively, if you're right, Gib, then we're more in the dark than ever. How could a terran built ship 1100 years old get here? Gibson, absorbed in his chess player's contemplation of alternatives, seemed hardly to hear him. Logic or not logic, gibson said, if it's a Terran artifact, we can discover the reason for its presence. If not, any problem posed by one group of human beings can be resolved by any other group, regardless of ideology or conditioning, because the basic perceptive abilities of both must be the same through identical heredity. If it's an imitation, and this is another Hymenop experiment in condition ecology, then we're stumped. To begin with, gibson finished, because we're not equipped to evaluate the psychology of alien motivation, we've got to determine first which case applies here. He waited for Forel's expected irony, and when the navigator forestalled him by remaining grimly quiet, continued, the obvious premise is that a Terran ship must have been built by Terrans. Was it flown here or built here? It couldn't have been built here, Stryker said. Alphard 6 was surveyed just before the B's took over in 3025, and there was nothing of the sort here, then it couldn't have been built during the two and a quarter centuries. Since it's obviously much older than that, it was flown here. We progress, forel said dryly. Now, if you'll tell us how we're ready to move. I think the ship was built on terra during the 22nd century, Gibson said calmly. The atomic wars during that period destroyed practically all historical records, along with the technology of the time. But I've read well authenticated reports of atomic driven ships leaving Terra before then for the nearer stars. The human race climbed out of its pit again during the 23rd century and developed the technology that gave us the ring wave. Certainly no atomic powered ships were built after the wars. Our records are complete from that time. Forel shook his head at the inference. I've read any number of fanciful romances on the theme, Gib, but it won't stand up in practice. No shipboard society could last through a thousand year space voyage. It's a physical and psychological impossibility. There's got to be some other explanation. Gibson shrugged. We can only eliminate the least likely alternatives and accept the simplest one remaining. Then we can eliminate this one now, forel said flatly. It entails a thousand year voyage, which is an impossibility for any gross reaction drive, the application of suspended animation, a longevity or a successive generation program, and a final penetration of Hymenop occupied space to set up a colony under the very antennae of the bees. Longevity wasn't developed until around the year 3000. Lee here was one of the first to profit by it, if you remember. And suspended animation is still to come, so there's one theory you can forget. Arthur's right, stryker said reluctantly. An atomic powered ship couldn't have made such a trip Gib. And such a lineal descendant project couldn't have lasted through 40 generations. Speculative fiction to the contrary. The later generations would have been too far removed in ideology and intent from their ancestors. They'd have adapted to shipboard life as the norm. They'd have atrophied physically, perhaps even have mutated, and they'd never have fought past the B's during the Hymenop invasion and occupation, forel finished triumphantly. The Bs had better detection equipment than we had. They'd have picked this ship up long before it reached Alfred 6. But the ship wasn't here in 3000, Gibson said. And it is now. Therefore, it must have arrived at some time during the 200 years of hymenop occupation and evacuation. Forel, tangled in contradiction, swore bitterly. But why should the bees let them through? The Three domes on five are over 200 years old, which means the bees were here before the ship came. Why didn't they blast it or enslave its crew? We haven't touched on all the possibilities, gibson reminded him. We haven't even established yet that these people were never under hymenop control. Precedent won't hold always, and there's no predicting or evaluating the motives of an alien race. We never understood the hymenops because there's no common ground of logic between us. Why try to interpret their intentions now? Forel threw up his hands in disgust. Next you'll say this is an ancient Terran expedition that actually succeeded. There's only one way to answer the questions we've raised, and that's to go down and see for ourselves. Ready hav. But uncertainty nagged uneasily at him when Forel found himself alone in the healy hopper, with the forest flowing beneath like a leafy river and Javier's scouter disappearing bullet like into the dusk ahead. We never found a colony so advanced, Forel thought. Suppose this is a hymenop experiment that really paid off. The bees did some weird and wonderful things with human guinea pigs. What if they've created the ultimate booby trap here and primed it with conditioned myrmidons in our own form? Suppose, he thought, and derided himself for thinking it. One of those suicidal old interstellar ventures did succeed. Javier's voice, a mellowed drone from the helihopper's ring wave powered visicom, cut sharply into his musing. The ship has discovered the scouter and is training an electronic beam upon it. My instruments record an electromagnetic vibration pattern of low power but rapidly varying frequency. The operation seems pointless. Stryker's voice followed, querulous with worry. I'd better pull hov back. It may be something lethal. Don't, Gibson's baritone advised. Surprisingly, there was excitement in the engineer's voice. I think they're trying to communicate with us. Forel was on the point of demanding acidly to know how one went about communicating by means of a fluctuating electric field, when the unexpected cessation of forest diverted his attention, the helyhopper scudded over a cultivated area of considerable extent, fields stretching below and a vague, random checkerboard of lighter and darker earth, an undefined cluster of buildings at their center there was a central bonfire that burned like a wild red eye against the lower gloom, and in its plunging ruddy glow he made out an urgent scurrying of shadowy figures. I'm passing over a hamlet, forell reported. The one nearest the city. I think there's something odd going on down. Catastrophe struck so suddenly that he was caught completely unprepared. The healyhopper's flimsy carriage bucked and crumpled There was a blinding flare of electric discharge, a pungent stink of ozone, and a stunning shock that flung him headlong into darkness. He awoke slowly, with a brutal headache and a conviction of nightmare, heightened by the outlandish to surroundings. He lay on a narrow bed in a whitely antiseptic infirmary, an oblong metal cell cluttered with a grimly utilitarian array of tables and lockers and chests. The lighting was harsh and over bright, and the air hung thick with pungent, unfamiliar chemical odors from somewhere far off. Yet at the same time, as near as the bulkhead above him came the unceasing drone of machinery. Forel sat up, groaning when full consciousness made his position clear. He had been shot down by God knew what sort of devastating, unorthodox weapon and was a prisoner in the grounded ship. At his rising, a white, smocked, fat man with anachronistic spectacles and close cropped gray hair came into the room, moving with the professional assurance of a medicine. The man stopped short at Forel's stare and spoke. His words were utterly unintelligible, but his gesture was immistakeable. Forel followed him dumbly out of the infirmary and down a bare corridor whose metal floor rang coldly underfoot. An open port near the corridor's end relieved the blankness of wall and let in a flood of reddish Alphardian sunlight. Forel slowed to look out, wondering how long he had lain unconscious and felt panic knife at him when he saw Javier's scouter lying port open and undefended on the square outside. The mechanical had been as easily taken as himself. Then Stryker and Gibson, for all their professional caution, would fare no better. They could not have overlooked the capture of Forel and Javier, and when they tried, as a matter of course to rescue them, the Marco would be struck down in turn by the same weapon. The fat medic turned and said something urgent in his unintelligible tongue. Forel, dazed by the enormity of what had happened, followed without protest into an intersecting way that led through a bewildering succession of storage rooms and hydroponics gardens, through a small gymnasium fitted with physical training equipment in graduated sizes, and finally into a soundproof place that could have been nothing but a nursery. The implication behind its presence stopped Forel short. A crush? He said, stunned. He had a wild vision of endless generations of children growing up in this dim and stuffy room to be taught from their first toddling steps the functions they must fulfil before the venture of which they were a part could be consummated One of those old ventures had succeeded, he thought, and was awed by the daring of that thousand year odyssey. The realization left him more alarmed than before. For what technical marvels might not an isolated group of such dogged specialists have developed during a millennium of application? Such a weapon as had brought down the Helihopper and Scouter was patently beyond the reach of his own latter day technology. Perhaps, he thought, its possession explained the presence of these people here in the first stronghold of the Hymenops. Perhaps they had even fought and defeated the bees on their own invaded ground. He followed his white smocked guide through a power room where great crude generators whirred ponderously, pouring out gross electric current into arm thick cables. They were nearing the bow of the ship when they passed by another open port, and Forel, glancing out over the lowered rampway, saw that his fears for Stryker and Gibson had been well grounded. The Marco, four ports open, lay grounded outside. Forel could not have said later whether his next move was planned or reflexive. The whole desperate issue seemed to hang suspended for a breathless moment upon a hair fine edge of decision, and in that instant he made his bid. Without pausing in his stride, he sprang out and through the port and down the steep plain of the ramp. The rough stone pavement of the square drummed under foot. Sore muscles, muscles tore at him and weakness was like a weight about his neck. He expected momentarily to be blasted out of existence. He reached the Marko 4 with the startled shouts of his guide ringing unintelligibly in his ears. The port yawned. He plunged inside and stabbed at controls without waiting to seat himself. The port swung shut. The ship darted up under his manipulation and arrowed into space with an acceleration that sprung his knees and made his vision swim blackly.

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He was so weak with strain and with the success of his coup that he all but fainted when Stryker, his scanty hair tousled and his fat face comical with bewilderment, stumbled out of his sleeping cubicle and bellowed at him. What the hell are you doing, Arthur? Take us down. Forel gaped at him, speechless. Stryker lumbered past him and took the controls, spiraling the Marco 4 down. Men swarmed outside the ports when the reclamation's craft settled gently into the square again, Gibson and Javier reached the ship first. Gibson came inside quickly, leaving the mechanical outside, making patient explanations to an excited group of Alphardians. Gibson put a reassuring hand on Forell's arm. It's all right, Arthur, there's no trouble, forell said dumbly. I don't understand. They didn't shoot you and hov down, too? It was Gibson's turn to stare. No one shot you down. These people are primitive enough to use metallic power lines to carry electricity to their hamlets, an anachronism you forgot. Last night you piloted the helicopter into one of those lines, and the crash put you out for the rest of the night and most of today. These Alphardians are friendly, so desperately happy to be found again that it's really pathetic. Friendly. That torpedo. It wasn't a torpedo at all, stryker put in. Understanding the error under which Forel had labored erased his earlier irritation, and he chuckled commiseratingly. They had one small boat left for emergency missions and sent it up to contact us in the fear that we might overlook their settlement and move on. The boat was atomic powered, and our shield screens set off its engines. Forell dropped into a chair at the chart table, limp with reaction. He was suddenly exhausted, and his head ached dully. We cracked the communication problem early last night Gibson said. These people use an ancient system of electromagnetic wave propagation called frequency modulation, and once Lee and I rigged up a suitable transceiver, the rest was simple. Both Havre and I recognized the old language. The natives reported your accident, and we came down at once. They really came from Terra. They lived through a thousand years of flight. The ship left Terra for Sirius in 2171, Gibson said, but not with these people aboard, or their ancestors. That expedition perished after less than a light year when its hydroponic system failed. The Hymenops found the ship derelict when they invaded us and brought it to Alfred 6 in what was probably their first experiment with human subjects. The ship's log shows clearly what happened to the original complement. The rest is deducible from the situation here. Forel put his hands to his temples and groaned. The crash must have scrambled my wits, Gib. Where did they come from? From one of the first peripheral colonies conquered by the bees, gibson said patiently. The Hymenops were long range planners, remember? And masters of hypnotic conditioning. They stocked the ship with a captive crew of Terrans conditioned to believe themselves descendants of the original crew, and grounded it here in a disabled condition. They left for Alford 5 then to watch developments. Succeeding generations of colonists grew up accepting the fact that their ship had missed Sirius and made planetfall here. They still don't know where they really are. By luck, they never knew about the Hymenops, and they've struggled along with an inadequate technology in the hope that a later expedition would find them. They found the truth hard to take, but they're eager to enjoy the fruits of Terran assimilation. Stryker, grinning, brought Forell a frosted drink that tinkled invitingly. An unusually fortunate ending to a Hymenop experiment, he said. These people progress normally because they've been let alone. Reorienting them will be a simple matter. They'll be properly spoiled colonists within another generation. Forel sipped his drink, appreciation. But I don't see why the bees would go to such trouble to deceive these people. Why did they sit back and let them grow as they pleased? Gib, it doesn't make sense. But it does, for once, gibson said. The bees set up this colony as a control unit to study the species they were invading, and they had to give their specimens a normal, if obsolete, background in order to determine their capabilities. The fact that their experiment didn't tell them what they wanted to know may have had a direct bearing on their decision to pull out. Forel shook his head. It's a reverse application, isn't it of the old Saw about Terrans being incapable of understanding an alien culture? Of course, gibson said, surprised. It's obvious enough. Surely, hard as they tried, the bees never understood us either. End of Control Group by Roger D Acock Recording by Thomas Rose.

A Husband for My Wife by William W. Stewart this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org A husband for My Wife by William W. Stewart I admit it, he beat my time. But my day is coming any minute now. Time is about to run out on him. Soon, very soon now, the time will come for me to meet my wife's husband. I can hardly wait. Every dog has his day and Professor Thurlow Benjamin has just about had it. Every day has its dog too, and I am going to return to him with full 5 years interest the bad time he gave to me. The dog. Dog. Look, he stole my girl not once but twice. The second time he, you might say, took his time to beat my time and left me behind to the bad times that belong to him. Benjy is, or he was, and he will be, a scientifically sneaky two timing dog. And a dog's life is what he gave to me. But now, after nearly five years, time is on my side. He will get what minute by minute is coming to him. Not soon enough, but soon. Benjy Professor Thurlow Benjamin was my oldest, closest friend. I was his. We hated each other dearly in the way that only two boyhood pals can, and by chance or mischance, that quality of bitter, friendly boyish rivalry never left our relationship. Why a woman naturally. The first time we met he was a tall, gangling, red headed, big nosed kid of nine. I bull for Bullard Benton was shorter, stockier, heavier, maybe not handsome exactly, but clean cut, very clean cut. Benjy knocked a chip off my shoulder and I knocked his block off, but not without collecting a few lumps doing it. From then on we fought together against any one else when no one else was handy. We fought each other and naturally we each wanted what the other had. After high school we roomed together at Burlington University right there in our hometown Belt City. Benji was a brain, a scholar. I was an athlete. So he broke nearly every bone in his body trying to be a 6 foot 3,139 pound scat bat while I nearly sprained a brain. That was deep, definitely deep, but maybe not quite as quick on its feet as some trying for scholarship the last year and a half at the university, the competition between us narrowed down to a battle for Vera Milston, old Dean Millston's statuesque daughter. That was all a mistake. I can see it now. So can Benjy, but not then. Dean Millstone was the dourest, sourest, meanest old tyrant ever to suspend a football captain for a couple of unimportant Ds. One afternoon in junior year at basketball practice, Benjy was out dragging around a cast. Jocko bunter bet me 10 I didn't have the nerve to date the dean's daughter. Well, hell, I'd seen her around visiting the dean as regularly as I had to. She was a lot of girl, tall, honey blonde, a little on the regal, commanding side. And maybe her lips were a mite set over a chin that the old man should have kept to himself. But there are times when a young man doesn't analyze the details as carefully as he might. She was built like nothing I had tackled all fall. So I took a chance, got a date. 1 10. And that might and should have been that. She had a way of saying no that made me think of her father. But the thing was, Benjie didn't know about the bet. I dated her once, so he had to date her twice again. I didn't analyze. I jumped to the conclusion Benjie had the hots for her and went to work to cut him out. That kept us busy the next year and a half, and I led all the way. Vera and I got engaged at the spring prom to be married right after my graduation, which improved the odds on my graduating considerably. The dean was a grim old devil who considered Hamlet a comedy and could refuse anything to anyone except Vera. And how could I have known it was fear rather than affection that made him give in to her anyway? Perhaps the strain of passing me a diploma was too great. The next day the old devil passed on himself. And no matter where he may be sitting, I know he is happy as long as he can watch the others fry. But I shouldn't grumble. He saved me, unintentional though it was. Vera, possibly having second thoughts as she looked over the dean's list, said she couldn't marry me till after a reasonable period of mourning. The army took me and rejected Benjy. He stayed on for postgraduate study in physics. I told you he was a brain. A brain, but not equally acute in all fields. When I got back to Belt City three years later, Benjy was already an assistant professor of physics and Vera's husband. They were settled in the old dean's big ancient house just off the campus, and Benjy was aiming or being aimed at a distinguished academic career. I came back to town with the idea of winding up the family insurance and real estate business and pulling out mostly to keep away from them. It wasn't, you understand, that I was carrying such a heavy torch for Vera. She hadn't blighted my life, not then, that is. But it seemed to me that living in town with her and Professor Thurlow Benjamin, a gloating, triumphant Benjy laughing at me because he'd succeeded in marrying my girl, would be a real annoyance. But of course when I hit town I had to call them and they had to invite me to dinner for one ton. Anyway, I figured I had to accept. I gritted my teeth and went. I never had a sweeter, more enjoyable evening in all my life. I got there about seven in the evening and walked up the steps to the big old porch on the dean's house feeling a bit nervous and upset. I'd walked up those same steps often enough before, feeling nervous and upset, but this was different. I lifted the oversized brass knocker and rapt Vera's voice coming from the back of the house someplace cut through the evening air. Thurlow, answer the door. Yes, sweets, I'm on my way. Vera Hunbun. That was Benji Hun bun yet. And his voice was misery. It cringed and whined. I grinned to myself and began to feel more cheerful. Benjie let me in. His glasses were thicker and his hair thinner and he looked a lot older. But it was Benjy, the same old lanky gangling redhead, yet not the same too. He had a hang dog look that was new. And suddenly I felt so good I punched him playfully in the ribs. He winced and didn't even counter. If the fight hadn't gone out of him, it had sure been watered down. We went on into the parlor across the hall from the dean's old study. Vera joined us. She didn't look bad at a glance, but if you checked right close and I did. There was something in her look, a sharpness I hadn't noticed before. Her nose seemed bigger, beak like the broad solid shoulders deep down grooves at the corners of her mouth. She threw her arms around me and kissed me. My temperature stayed steady and cool. Boular. Boulard. Darling, you look marvelous. I felt great too. Vera, girl, you're as gorgeous as everradiant blooming still the campus goddess and Mrs. Thurlow Benjamin now. Hm, old Benjy is sure a lucky dog. Benjy forced a hollow laugh. Vera smiled a positive agreement. Then Benjy sort of coughed out a faint note of hope and pleaded, vera sweet, this is an occasion. Don't you agree, dear? Don't you? Do you think maybe I ought to fix us all a train? Thurlow, you drink far too much. You had a highball before dinner at Professor Dorman's only night before last. Almost, but not quite. I felt sorry for him. Ah, well, Vera doll, I said, this is an occasion, after all. And I do want to drink a toast to you and Benjy. Humph. Especially you, the love of my life. Lost now, but lovelier than ever Boulard. Well, Thurlow, don't stand there like an idiot. Go mix us some drinks and mind the line on the bottle. And then she turned back with some more gush for me. I enjoyed it, knowing now what I had been saved from. In fact, as I said, I enjoyed the whole evening. My playing up to Vera made her just that much rougher on Benjy. Revenge on Benjy, plus relief at what I had escaped, made life seem pleasant. And right there and then I changed my mind about leaving town. I decided to stay and settle down. Well, I did settle, but not too far down. Instead of selling out Uncle George's insurance and real estate firm, I went to work in it. It was prosperous enough and light work. There were plenty of girls around town if you got around. And I did. Looking back, those were the happy years. Naturally, I kept seeing quite a bit of Vera and Benjy rubbing it in. Sure, why not? Hell, half the pleasure in any success comes from giving a hard time to those who gave you a hard time. It may not be nice, but it is normal. I lolled in the shade and laughed. Benjy sweated and suffered. His boss's whip cracked merrily. He plodded ahead in the university physics department and fiddled around in his lab whenever he could escape into it. Then there came a black Friday evening in early autumn. I was due at Benjy's for dinner, just him and me. Vera had gone up to Chicago that morning to see her ever dying Aunt Bella and do some shopping. She would not be back till the next day, so she called on me to keep an eye on Benjy. So I was due for a quietly pleasant early evening, listening to Benjy talk about his sorrows. Then I figured Benjy would go to his lab in the old dean's study and I would go out on the town I had a date, one of the very best. Starlight Glow, formerly Daisy Hansell, formerly an office clerk. She was a pert little strawberry blonde, cute, with a lot of good humor and a lot of everything else too. About as unlike Vera as a girl could be. That week she was between night club engagements, back in her old home town and back in the old groove with me, too. I looked forward to the evening, first Benjy's troubles and then my own pleasures. I pulled up in front of Benjy's old place just at dusk. A late working lineman from Beltsville Power was fiddling around on the pole outside Benjy's lab room. Hey, Mac, he hollered. You going in there? Look, tell the professor they'll cut it in at 7am huh? Can't make it a minute sooner? I nodded as I went up the steps and across the porch, knocked once, walked on in, and stopped dead in the hallway to stare up the stairs. It was Benjy, but not the Vera's Benjy I was used to. He was dressed in the evening clothes Vera got him to wear only at major faculty functions. He carried a cane, wore a flower to night. He was Benjy, man about town night of the evening. Sharp, cool, cocky. He strutted on down the stairs and past me. He winked, grinned that dirty, sneaky grin of his I remembered all too well from the old days. At the door he looked back over his shoulder, still grinning, and said, stick around a minute, old boy. I have something to show you. The door slammed shut. I couldn't believe it. You wouldn't dare. Then I heard my car, my new sport car, starting outside, and I swore, grabbing the doorknob. Wait, Bull, you couldn't catch me. I spun around. Damned if it wasn't old Benjy coming down the stairs again, just as though it wasn't impossible this time. He loved himself, but worse. He had on an old lap smock and a new hangover. He looked awful, but with a hint of satisfaction too, like remembering the time he'd had getting into such lousy shape. Well, Bull boy, he mumbled, wavering on down the steps, holding the top of his head on with one hand, come on out in the lab. Maybe we could find a little nip. And I have something to show you. So you said, eh? Oh yes, so I did. Last night when I was going out. It was just now. Only you went out all dressed up and here you are all beat up. What's this all about? Come on, he said with a flash of temper. When I get a hair or two of the dog. I'll explain it to you. I followed him into his lab, the dean's old study. It was the only thing Benjy could call his own. Vera let him have it on the off chance that he might find something important enough to give their social and financial position a boost. In the lab, Benjy fished an amber filled flask from the wastebasket under the old roll top desk and poured himself a double me a single in a couple of big test tubes. I only half saw him out of a corner of the eye. What I was really looking at was a damned peculiar rig that filled up about a third of the space along the side wall next to the kitchen. It was. I couldn't figure it. It looked something like one of those jungle gym outfits in the kids playgrounds, but there were wires running from it to half a dozen wall plugs and a seat up in the middle with a bunch of dials and things. It was all odd, and oddest was the way it all sort of shimmered and blurred as I watched it. What in hell is that? I walked across the lab toward it, reaching out. Better not touch it. Bull. You might knock something out. Since he put it like that. I raised my hand to grab hold of one of the crossbars by the seat in the center of the thing, and there I was, resting comfortably on a small cloud in far outer space, watching a great spiral nebula whirling in infinite majesty through the vast empty blackness, and I thought about the mystery of the universe. I felt that if I could just reach out, I would have in my grasp the final answer. But then it drifted away and the nebula slowly narrowed and evolved into a great system of suns, planets, moons, and finally into the big old chandelier in the dean's study. When it all seemed to stabilize at that point, I sat up a little shakily. The room, Benjy's lab now, was still there. I stood up and felt lousy. My head ached. I looked around. Benjy was sitting at the desk, slumped over his head on his folded arms. The flask of whiskey, half gone, was on the desk beside him. I emptied it out a little more into me and checked my watch. Six o' clock and the sky showed gray outside. I had been out all night. I put my foot on the base of Benjy's swivel chair and shoved hard. The chair rolled back out from under him. He slumped down with a pleasing thud on the floor. He woke up with a pained expression that helped my Headache? A little. Damn you, Benjy. I said you did that out of spot to break my day with Daisy. I bet. He yawned. I told you you'd better not touch it because you knew then I'd have to go ahead and do it. It's a wonder with me knocked out. You didn't go to try to steal my girl. I did. I am. You what? I did go out with Daisy. I am with her now. Are you cracked? You are right here with me. True. But I am simultaneously with Daisy. He grinned reflectively. And I don't mind saying Daisy is much better company than you. Now wait, Bull. I know this is difficult for you to grasp, but it is a fact that I am in two places at the same time. Only on different circuits. This is big, Bull. Really big. After you help me with one or two details, I am going to share it with you. Listen to me. Sometimes I can be sickeningly gullible. All right, start explaining. Think, Bull. Last night you saw me go out the front door at substantially the same time. You also saw me dress quite differently, come down the hall stairs. It should be obvious I have built a time machine. I looked down at my watch and then back at him with raised eyebrows. No, Bull. Not a machine for telling time. A machine for traveling through time. Or actually more or less around it. You see my machine there, the Jungle Jim rigged was still at the side of the room, blurred and shimmering. Yeah, I see it. And don't bother telling me not to touch it again. I won't. Your own fault. Ordinarily you could touch even one of the bars. It is perfectly safe. But just now the machine is there twice. That creates further static force fields. Benjy, look at it. Looks as though you were seeing double. And you are. You see both this coming morning at 10 to 7. I took and we'll take the machine and I traveled back to 10 to 5 yesterday afternoon. that time, the machine was already there. Actually, I should have moved it just before. I used it this morning to limit the overlaps, but I was rushed. You'll see. Daisy and I will be here shortly. He grinned. It was an expression I had never particularly cared for. Have another drink, Bull.

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That was an expression I liked better. I did have one. His story was unbelievable, but I was beginning to believe it, partly because of the machine there and the fact that I had seen two of him practically at once the evening before. Partly because I knew Benjy would be capable of almost anything if it would let him steal a girl from me and get away from Vera. Besides, he took a short nip himself and went, I won't strain your limited facilities by trying to give you the technical side of it. More or less, it is a matter of setting up the proper number of counteracting magnetic force fields properly focused in a proper relationship, each with the other to bend the normal space factors in such a way as to circumvent time. Is that clear? Not to me, I said. Is it to you? Not altogether. But what is clear is my machine works. I can jump through time to any time. Got any special messages from Cleopatra? The amount or period of time is a question of power with only the regular house current I have connected now, about a day at a step is the limit. That is as far as I have gone. Of course I could go one day and then another and then another, forward or back indefinitely. With war current, there would be no such limitations. How about taking a run up to the end of the week and let me know how the World Series is going to come out. Ah, now you begin to see. I told you this is a big thing. Tremendous. And all I ask is just a little help from you and you will share in the proceeds. What?

Me?

Help? How? I had the power company run in a special power line yesterday. It will cut in this morning at seven. With this added power, the machine can travel five years. Five years at a jump. Which as far as I we, that is want to go. Well, just suppose what you say is true, Benjy. If it is, then you used your sneaky machine to two time me with Daisy last night, eh? I like that. Vera will like that too. But you expect to bribe me with a share in your rig to help you out. How? With what? Bull, it's like this. I did go out last night. My first time in a long time, you know, Vera. So considering the past few years, you can understand that I was eh, maybe a bit reckless last night. Ran into a few little problems. Nothing serious, of course. And besides, with your help the police won't be able. The police? Yes. But Bull, you've been right here with me all night. You can swear to that. So I couldn't possibly have driven your car up the steps and through the glass doors into the ancient history section of the museum. My car? Now, Bull, we'll make money. You can get lots of cars. And I didn't mean to smash up yours. I simply wanted to give Daisy a rough idea of a time trip back into the past. But you can tell the police I was right here when someone broke out through the window by the Neanderthal exhibit while the police were coming in the front door after us. So someone else must have driven off in the police car. You stole the police car? I yelped. Oh, we won't keep it, he said airily. But perhaps they are upset about our borrowing it. And about the duet of as Time Goes by that Daisy and I sang over the police radio. Lord. And when did you finish all this fun and games? I demanded. When? Let's see, it's 6:40am so we, Daisy and I are on our way back here now in the patrol car. Now. You and Daisy in the patrol car? The one we borrowed. The police, they seem to have a lot of cars, are not far behind. I believe they think they recognize me. You can tell them how wrong they are. He stopped to listen. I heard it too. A sound of sirens in the distance coming closer. So, Benjy, in a minute or so you a second edition of you when one has always been plenty. You are coming here with all the cops in town on your tail and with my girl, and you expect me to step forward and lying in my teeth tell these enraged cops that you are innocent? This is quite a request, Benjy. There was the roar of a car racing down the quiet Saturday dawn street. Benjy looked at me anxiously. Here we come. Bull, please. You wouldn't turn me over to the police, would you?

No.

I didn't want the cops to get him. I wanted to get him myself and let Vera finish him. There was a sound of running footsteps up the porch stairs. The hallway door opened. Arm in arm, laughing like a pair of idiots. In came Benjy. Benjy, too, and my girl Daisy. They staggered across the room. Benjy, too, threw his arms around Daisy and kissed her with conviction and assurance. Then quickly he stepped away from her and walked over to the time machine rig. Hurry it up, said the first Benjy. Quick. The power will cut off any second now until they switch in the new line. Drunk or not, Benjy too knew what he was doing. He dragged the straight chair by the wall to the side of the machine and climbed it. He swayed, almost fell. Then, without touching any of the bars, he managed to step from the chair into the seat of the machine rig. He fiddled with the dial or knob and vanished. The double exposure look of the machine disappeared too. Benjy, said Daisy, staring blankly at the machine. Daisy, said the leftover Benjy walking toward her. The sound of sirens outside sounded loud and louder and then moaned to a stop in the front of the house. Benjy, daisy said again, giving me and the sirens about as much attention as an individual aunt gets at a family picnic. Benjy, it was true then. All that you were telling me about going through time was true. And we can, of course, sweet, I told you I'd be with you, that everything will be all right with good old Bull to help us. What time have you. Bull? Huh? I was dazed. The time. What time is it? It's just about seven. But heavy footsteps pounded up the front stairs and across the porch. The front door knocker thundered. Bull, said Benjy. Bull, old friend, I think there may be someone at the door. Would you see who it is? I don't know why I didn't make him go answer. I still don't know. But I walked out into the hall from the lab and opened the front door and nearly got trampled by a screen squad of four cops headed by big tough Sergeant Winesap. There were, I saw through the open door, two squad cars parked out front and another coming down the block just behind a taxi. Oh, said Winesap, it's you, Benton. Say, you weren't in this crime wave, too, were you? We only saw two that madman friend of yours, Professor Benjamin, and the girl in your car. Look, you know what they did? They knocked off three hydrants whooping about time in the fountain of youth and wrecked the museum and the police car. And what they did to Officer Durlin. Maybe you weren't in on it, Benton, but we know they came in here, friend or no friend. Don't try to obstruct justice. Where are they? Yes, Officer? Inquired Benjy, bland as could be from the lab door. What seems to be the trouble? Did you wish to see me? His manner must have been disarming. At least they didn't shoot him on the spot. They just advanced, loosening guns and holsters like a thoughtful lynching party. Benjy strolled back into the lab and over to Daisy, who was standing by the machine at the side of the room. The officers were confused. Benjy, sober or nearly so, in his old lamp smock, looked a good deal different to them from the wild man they'd been chasing all over town. But there was Daisy in her evening gown. That's them all right, said a young rookie with a fine blooming shiner. She's the one that threw the eggplants. I'd know her anywhere. And that's Benjamin, said Winesap grimly. Okay, both of you. Don't try to run. Come along, and no more nonsense. Benjy held up one hand and slipped the other arm around Daisy's waist. Gentlemen, please. I have no idea what this is about, but surely it can have nothing to do with me. Mr. Benton and I have been right here in my laboratory all night, working. He can verify that. They looked at me. I opened my mouth. I didn't say a word. Vera did. She stood there in the doorway. It must have been her in the cab coming back bright and early from Chicago. She took in the whole scene. Benjy. Daisy. Police. Me, Benjy, she said. You couldn't imagine what she put into that one word. Everyone turned then to look at her. Slowly and with infinite menace, she started across the room. Now, dear, said Benjy nervously. Now, sweet, take it easy. This is only a little experiment. Not what you are thinking at all. We swung back toward Benjy. He had boosted Daisy onto the seat of his time rig and swung up beside her. Vera yelled and started to run toward them. Benjy twisted a Knob and grinned. Goodbye now, he said. And they were gone. Benjy was gone again. Daisy was gone. The whole rig was gone. Vera, looking a little forlorn and foolish, ended up her dash stumbling into the empty space where the thing had been. I expect we all looked a little foolish standing there gaping. But I had to carry foolishness to the ultimate of idiocy. Vera at that single moment seemed sort of sad and helpless and Lord knows I was mixed up. I walked over and put an arm around Vera, saying, there, there, Vera Hun, it's all right, I'm here. I should never have called her attention to it. There I was. And the hell of it was I had kept playing up to her all this time just to need old Benjy. When that morning I put my arm around her, I never had a chance. I was married to Vera. I still am. It has been a long, long time. Almost five years by the calendar, centuries by subjective time. I am Vera's husband, sitting by the light of a kerosene lamp in Dean Millstone old study which had been Benjy's lab writing. Benjy and Daisy got away and I got caught. But now I can smile about it. Now after nearly five years, you understand, with the power he got into his machine from the new power line, he said he could go just five years at a jump, of course, away from Vera. Probably he figured on going further, that he would go the power limit of five years, stop and then jump again and again far enough for complete safety. But I have had a lot more time to figure than he did. I am figuring on a little party, a little reception in honor of our first intrepid time traveller. A surprise party. It will be five years to the hour since Daisy and Benjy left. Benjy will be the surprise, since only I know that he will pop up in our midst. It will surprise Benjy. It will surprise Vera and our guests, among whom I have included Sergeant Captain, now Winesap and the others of his squad. Eccentric. A party like that, I suppose. But to Vera and the others it is a breakfast anniversary party. The anniversary of the very moment of our engagement. Vera is flattered enough to be tolerant and even pleased at this romantic notion. And since I know I have only one out and that is coming, I am dutiful, cringing and servile, that is husband. So Vera indulges me in a harmless eccentricity or two. My other little eccentricity is electric power. I don't favor it. I use Benjy's lab. The old dean's study as my den. I claim to be writing a historical novel. I need realism, atmosphere. I have had all electric power lines removed from that entire section of the house. There is no powder. None. That's why I'm writing by lamplight. Our anniversary party will be here. The lamps and candles and the dawn of a bright new day will be light enough. When, to the total astonishment of Vera and our guests, Benjy and Daisy in the time rig suddenly appear among us, I will greet them with enthusiasm, but this will be as nothing to the greeting they will get from other sources. Benjy will work his dials and controls frantically. Nothing will happen. No power. Vera will step forward. The hell with whether the statute of limitations may or may not have run out on Benji's assorted legal crimes and misdemeanors, the wrath of Vera accepts no limitations. Benji will have run out of time. And it will be my time then

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End of A Husband for My Wife By William W. Stewart.

There is A Reaper by Charles V. De Vet this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Ivan Avatisian There is A Reaper by Charles V. Deveth Doctors had given him just one month to live, a month to wonder what comes afterward. There was one way to find out. Ask a dead man. The amber brown of the liquor disguised the poison it held, and I watched with a smile on my lips as he drank it. There was no pity in my heart for him. He was a jackal in the jungle of life, and I I was one of the carnivores. It is the lot of the jackals of life to be devoured by the carnivore. Suddenly the contented look on his face froze into a startled stillness. I knew he was feeling the first savage twinge of the agony that was to come. He turned his head and looked at me, and I saw suddenly that he knew what I had done. You murderer, he cursed at me, and then his body arched in the middle and his voice choked off deep in his throat. For a short minute he sat tense, his body stiffened by the agony that rode it. Unable to move a muscle, I watched the torment in his eyes build up to a crescendo of pain until the suffering became so great that it filmed his eyes, and I knew that though he still stared directly at me, he no longer saw me. Then, as suddenly as the spasm had come, the starch went out of his body and his back slid slowly down the chair edge. He landed heavily with his head resting limply against the seat of the chair, his right leg doubled up in a kind of jerk. Before he was still. I knew the time had come. Where are you? I asked. This moment had cost me $60,000 three weeks ago. The best doctors in the state had given me a month to live, and with $7 million in the bank I couldn't buy a minute more. I accepted the doctor's decision philosophically, like the gambler that I am. But I had a plan, one which necessity had never forced me to use until now. Several years before I had read an article about the medicine men of a certain tribe of aborigines living in the jungles at the source of the Amazon River. They had discovered a process in which the juice of a certain bush, known only to them, could be used to poison a man. Anyone subjected to this poison died, but for a few minutes after the life left his body, the medicine men could still converse with him. The subject, though ostensibly and actually dead, answered the medicine men's every question. This was their primitive, though reportedly effective, method of catching glimpses of what lay in the world of death. I had conceived my idea at the time I read the article, but I had never had the need to use it until the doctors gave me a month to live. Then I spent my $60,000, and three weeks later I held in my hands a small bottle of the witch doctor's fluid. The next step was to secure my victim, my collaborator, as I preferred to call him. The man I chose was a nobody, a homeless, friendless nonentity picked up off the street. He had once been an educated man, but now he was only a bum, and when he died, he'd never be missed. A perfect man for my experiment. I'm a rich man because I have a system. The system is simple. I never make a move until I know exactly where that move will lead me. My field of operations is the stock market. I spend money unstintingly to secure the information I need before I take each step. I hire the best investigators, bribe employees and persons in positions to give me the information I want, and only when I am as certain as humanly possible that I cannot be wrong do I move. And the system never fails. $7 million in the bank is proof of that. Now, knowing that I could not live, I intended to make the system work for me one last time before I died. I'm a firm believer in the adage that any situation can be whipped, given prior knowledge of its coming and, of course, its attendant circumstances. For a moment he did not answer, and I began to fear that my experiment had failed. Where are you? I repeated, louder and sharper this time. The small muscles about his eyes puckered with an abnormal tension, while the rest of his face held its death frost. Slowly, slowly, unnaturally, as though energized by some hyperrational power, his lips and tongue moved. The words he spoke were clear. I am in a. A tunnel, he said. It is lighted dimly, but there's nothing for me to see. Blue veins showed through the flesh of his cheek, cheeks like watermarks on translucent paper. He paused, and I urged go on. I am alone, he said. The realities I knew no longer exist, and I'm damp and cold. All about me is a sense of gloom and dejection. It is an apprehension, an emanation so deep and real as to be almost a tangible thing. The walls to either side of me seem to be formed not of substance, but rather of the soundless cries of melancholy, of spirits I cannot see. I am waiting, waiting in the gloom for something which will come to me. That need to wait is an innate part of my being, and I have no thought of questioning it. His voice died again. What are you waiting for? I asked. I do not know, he said, his voice dreary with the despair of centuries of hopelessness. I only know that I must wait. That compulsion is greater than my strength to combat. The tone of his voice changed slightly. The tunnel about me is widening, and now the walls have receded into invisibility. The tunnel has become a plain, but the plain is as desolate as. As forlorn and dreary as was the tunnel. And still I stand in wait. How long must this go on? He fell silent again, and I was about to prompt him with another question. I could not afford to let the time run out in long silences. But abruptly the muscles about his eyes tightened, and subtly a new aspect replaced their hopeless dejection. Now they expressed a black, bottomless terror. For a moment I marvelled that so small a portion of a facial anatomy could express such horror. There's something coming toward me, he said. A beast of brutish foulness. Beast is too inadequate a term to describe it, but I know no words to tell its form. It is an intangible and evasive thing, but very real, and it is coming closer. It has no organs of sight as I know them, but I feel that it can see me, or rather, that it is aware of me with a sense sharper than vision itself. It is very near now, O God, the malevolence, the hate, the potentiality of awful, fearsome destructiveness that is its very essence, and still I cannot move. The expression of terrified anticipation centered in his eyes lessened slightly and was replaced instantly by its former deep, deep despair. I am no longer afraid, he said. Why? I interjected. Why? I was impatient to learn all that I could before the end came. Because. He paused. Because it holds no threat for me. Somehow, someday, I understand. I know that it too is seeking that for which I wait. What is it doing now? I asked. It has stopped beside me, and we stand together, gazing across the stark, empty plain. Now a second awful entity with the same leashed virulence about it, moves up and stands at my other side. We all three wait, myself with a dark fear of this dismal universe, my unnatural companions with patient, malicious menace. Bits of he faltered, of I can name it only aura go out from the beasts like an acid stream and touch me. The hate and the venom chill my body like a wave of intense cold. Now there are others of the awful breed behind me. We stand waiting, waiting for that which will come. What it is, I do not know. I could see the pallor of death creeping steadily into the last corners of his lips, and I knew that the end was not far away. Suddenly a black frustration built up within me. What are you waiting for? I screamed, the tenseness and the importance of this moment forcing me to lose the iron self control upon which I've always prided myself. I knew that the answer held the secret of what I must know. If I could learn that my experiment would not be in vain and I could make whatever preparations were necessary for my own death. I had to know the answer. Think, think, I pleaded.

What are you waiting for?

I do not know. The dreary despair in his eyes, sightless as they met mine, chilled me with a coldness that I felt in the marrow of my being. I do not know, he repeated.

I.

Yes, I do know. Abruptly the plasmatic film cleared from his eyes, and I knew that for the first time since the poison struck, he was seeing me clearly. I sensed this was the last moment before he left for good. It had to be now. Tell me.

I command you.

I cried. What are you waiting for? His voice was quiet as he murmured softly, implacably, before he was gone. We are waiting, he said, for you. The End End of There is a Reaper by Charles V. De Vet Recorded by Ivan Avatisian.

Slaves of the Dust by Sophie Wenzel Ellis this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Ian Bradford Nunga Nunga tah pew Slaves of the Dust by Sophie Wenzel Ellis It's a poor science that would hide from us the great, deep sacred infinitude of Nescience, whither we can never penetrate, on which all science swims. As mere superficial film Carlyle the two bataloues turn from the open waters of the lower Tapajo river into the Igarape, the lily smothered shallows that often mark an Indian settlement in the jungles of Brazil. One of the two half breed rubber gatherers suddenly stopped his bataloue by thrusting a paddle against a giant clump of lilies. In a corruption of the Tupi dialect, he called over to the white men occupying the other frail craft. We dare go no further, master. The country of the Ungapuks is bewitched. It is too dangerous. Fearfully he stared over his shoulder towards a spot in the slimy water where a dim bulk moved, which was only an alligator hunting for his breakfast. Hale Oakham, as long and lanky and level eyed as Charles Lindbergh, ran despairing fingers through his damp hair and groaned.

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But how can I find this jungle village without a guide? The Caboclo shrugged. The village will find you. It is bewitched Master, but you will soon see the path through the mato. Can't you stay by me until time to land? I don't like the looks of these alligators. It is better for a white man to face an alligator than for a caboklo to face ungap. Once they used to kill and eat us for our strength. Now Again his shrug was eloquent. Now Hale prompted impatiently, the white God who put a spell on these one time cannibals will bewitch us and make us wash and rejoice when it is time to die. He shuddered and spat at a caiman that was lumbering away from his bataloue. Hale Oakum laughed, a hearty, boyish laugh for a rather learned young professor. Is that all they do to you? He asked. No. All who enter this magic motto die soon, rejoicing before the last breath comes. It is said their bodies turn into a handful of silver dust. Poof. Like that. He snapped his dirty fingers. Then the life that leaves them goes into the rocks that walk. Hale sighed resignedly. There wasn't any use to argue. Unload your bataloue, he ordered testily, and get your filthy carcasses away. The half breeds obeyed readily. As the departing bataloue turned from the Igarape into the open water of the river, the young man repressed a sudden lifting of his scalp. He was in for it now, his long body sprawled out in the batalue, he paddled about aimlessly for several minutes until he found an aisle through the jungle, the path that led to the village which he was visiting in the name of science and for a certain award. Before plunging into that waiting tangle where life and death carried on a visible, unceasing struggle, he hesitated. Instinctively, he shrank from losing himself in that mad green world. He had first heard of the Ungapuks at the convention of the Nescience Club in New York, that body of scientists near scientists and adventurers linked together for the purpose of awarding the yearly Woolman Prizes for the most spectacular addition of empiric fact to various branches of science. One of the members of the club, an explorer, had told a wild yarn about a tribe of Brazilian Indians headed by Sir Basil Addington, an English scientist who was conducting secret experiments in biochemistry in his jungle laboratory. The explorer had said that the scientist, half crazed by a powerful narcotic, had seemingly discovered some secret of life which enabled him to produce monsters in his laboratory and to change the physical characteristics of the Ungapuk Indians, who in five years had been transformed from cannibals into cultured men and women. And now Hale Oakham, hoping to win one of the Woolman prizes, was here in the country of the Ungapuks, entering the jungle path that led to the unknown. 50ft from the Igarape, the path curved sharply away from a giant tree. Hale approached the bend with his hand on his gun. Just before he reached it, he stopped suddenly to listen. A woman's voice had suddenly broke forth in a wild, incredibly sweet song. Hale stood entranced, drinking in the heady sounds that stirred his emotions, like Masada, the jungle intoxicant. The singer approached the bend in the path while the young man waited eagerly. The first sight of her made him gasp. He had expected to see an Indian girl. No sane traveler would imagine a white woman in the Amazon jungle with skin as amazingly pale as the great fleshy Victoria regia lilies in the Igorape. When she saw Hale, she stopped instantly. With a quick practice twist, she reached for the bow flung across her shoulders and fitted a barbed arrow to the string. She was a beautiful barbarian, standing quivering before him. In the thick, dull gold braids hanging over her bare shoulders flamed two enormous scarlet flowers. No redder than her own lips pouted in alarm. There was a savage brevity to her clothing, which consisted only of a short skirt of rough native grass and breastplates of beaten gold held in place by strings of colored seeds. The girl held out an imperious hand and in perfect English said, go back. Hale drew his long body up to its slim height, folded his arms, and gave her his most winning smile. His insolence added to his wholesome good looks. Why, he exclaimed. I've come a couple thousand miles to call on you. He saw that the eyes, which held his levelly, were pure and limpid and of an astonishing orchid blue. Who are you? Her throaty, vibrant voice was a thing of the flesh, whipping Hale's senses to sudden madness. I'm Hale Oakham, he said a little tremulously. A lone would be scientist knocking about the jungle. Won't you tell me your name? She nodded gravely. I am Anya. I too am White. Her rich voice was quietly proud. Come, I'll see if Aimu will receive you. With surprising childlike trust, she held out her little hand to him. The gesture was so delightfully natural that Hale, grinning boyishly, took her hand and held it as they walked down the jungle path. Sing for me, he demanded abruptly. Sing the song you sang just now. That? Asked the girl, turning the virgin blue fire of her eyes on him. That was my Death song that I practice each day. Perhaps soon I shall be released from this. She passed her hands over her beautiful half clothed body. Hale's warm glance swept over her. Do you want to die? Yes. Don't you? But you do not, or you would not have retreated from my poisoned arrow. No, Anya. I want to live. To live and be a slave of. Of this again. Her hand went over her slim body. A slave of a pile of flesh that you must feed and protect from the agonies that attack it on every side.

Bah.

But I am hoping that my turn will come next. Your turn for what, Anya? To enter the Room of Release. Perhaps if Aimu approves of you, you too may taste of death. Her gentle smile was beatific. Do you speak of Sir Basil Addington? He was called that once before he came to us. Now he has no name. We can find none holy enough for him, so we call him Aimu, which means good friend. Her beautiful face was sweet with reverence, and now in the distance, Hale saw that the path led into a large clearing. He slowed his pace, for he wanted to know this lovely girl better before he joined the Ungapuks. Who are you, Anya? He asked suddenly, bending closer to the crinkled dull gold hair. I am Anya. A white woman. She looked at him frankly. But who are your parents? How did you get among the Ungapok? Anya's red lips curved into a dewy smile. I thought all white men were wise like Aimu. But you are stupid. How do you think a white woman could appear in a tribe of Indians who live in the jungle many weeks journey from what you call civilization? Hale looked a little blank and more than a little disconcerted. I suppose I am stupid, he said dryly. But tell me, Anya, how did you get here?

Why.

She exclaimed. He made me. Made you? Good Lord, what do you mean? Just what I said. Hail Oakham. If he can take a few grains of dust and make a shoot that will grow into a giant tree like yonder monster E taubah, don't you think he can create a small white girl like me? Her orchid blue eyes glowed innocently into his. The eager questions that he would have asked froze upon his lips, for a party of Indians approached. The six nearly naked red men came close and surveyed him, toying nervously with their primitive feather decorated weapons. A tall, handsome young fellow who possessed something of the picturesque perfection of the North American plains Indian stepped forward and in perfect English, good morning, white stranger. What is it you wish of the Ungapuks? I came to see your white Cacique, said Hale. Aimu, what is it you wish of a He is ours, white stranger. Yes, he is yours. I come as a friend, perhaps to help him in his great work. Perhaps. The young Indian folded his bronze muscular arms over his broad chest and continued his cool survey of hail. White men. Before you have come spies and thieves. Some we poisoned with curare. Others Aymu took into the room of release. He turned to Anya, who was still standing by Hale, and his expression softened. What shall we do with him, Anya? He asked the question. A fleeting look of hunger swept his fine flashing eyes. Anya flushed beautifully and, moving closer to Hale, with an impulsive, almost childish gesture, slipped her arm through his. Let us take him to our village, Unani Asu, she suggested. I like him. It was Hale's turn to flush, which he did like a schoolboy. Unaniyasu's brows drew together in a scowl. The hand holding his blowpipe jerked convulsively. Anya, come away, he growled. You mustn't touch a stranger. Anya's blue eyes stretched with astonishment. But I like to touch him. Unani Asu, the tall Indian, with a half comical gesture of despair, said, don't misunderstand her, stranger. She is young, very young. Ah, and she has known only the reborn men of the Ungapoks. He stepped firmly over to Anya and taking the girl by the arm, drew her away. Run ahead, he commanded, and tell Aymu that we come. Anya, her feathered bamboo anklets clicking together, sped away. Unani Asu bowed courteously to Hail. Come, stranger. If you are an enemy, it is you who must fear. He motioned for him to proceed down the jungle path. The path ended at a clearing studded with malaccas, the Indian grass huts made of plated straw. Altogether, the scene was peaceful and sane and far removed from the strange tales that Hale had heard concerning the Ungapuks. Hale was conducted to a long, low stone building where in the doorway stood a tall and emaciated white man. Aimoo, said the Indians reverently, and bowed themselves over the bare brown backs. The white man looked at Hale. Sir Basil Addington? Asked the young man.

Yes?

You are welcome. Come in. Hale entered the building. He was in a book filled study furnished with handmade chairs and a desk. Sir Basil asked him to be seated. He offered the young man long brown native cigarettes and a very good drink made from yucca. After several minutes of conversation, Sir Basil suddenly changed his manner and now he shot out, eyeing the young man through narrowed lids. Will you please state the purpose of this Visit? Hale looked squarely at his questioner. Frankly, Sir Basil, I have called on you because I am so intensely interested in your work among the ungapuks that I wish to offer my services. He gave in detail his family history, his education, and his experience as a teacher and a scientist.

Scientist?

Sir Basil tapped his teeth thoughtfully with a pencil. But why do you think you can be of assistance to me? That, of course, is for you to decide. Hale thought that the scientist looked like a huge starved crow in his loose fitting coat. He was so fleshless that when the light fell strongly on his face, as it did now, the bones of his head and hands showed through the skin with horrible clearness. Hale, under Sir Basil's scrutiny, decided instantly that he did not like him. I need a helper, the scientist went on with an air of talking to himself. A white assistant who neither loves nor fears me. Unaniyasu is good enough in his way, but I need a helper who has had technical training. Suddenly he wheeled on Hale and asked, how are your nerves, young man? Hale started, but managed to answer calmly. Excellent. My war record isn't half bad, and that was surely backed with good nerves. And you say you have no close relatives, no ties of any sort to interfere with work? That is dangerous. And something else. Not a soul would care if I passed out today, Sir Basil.

Good.

And now tell me, are you one of those scientists whose minds are so mechanical, so mathematically made, as it were, that your entire outlook on science is based on old established beliefs? Or do you belong to that rare but modern type of trained thinker and dreamer who refuses to permit yesterday's convictions to influence today's visions? Hale smiled quietly. I recently lost my chair in a famous university because of my so called unscientific teachings regarding ether drift. Expressing himself in purely scientific terms, he went into an elaboration of his revolutionary theory. When he had finished, Sir Basil reached out his claw like hand to him. Good. He approved. You have dared to think originally. Now listen to my theory of mind electrons, which has grown into the established fact that I have discovered the secret of life and death. The long thin hands reached into a pocket for a box of pills. He swallowed one greedily and immediately his emaciated face seemed charged with new virility. He spoke out suddenly. Our world, you know, is made up of three matter, energy, and what you call life. I might really say that there are but two powers, for matter, in its last analysis, is a form of energy. And what is life? You can't call it a form of Energy. For every inorganic atom has energy without having life. Life, Mr. Oakham, is mind or consciousness. He began pacing the floor restlessly. Everything that lives has this consciousness. And I say this in defiance of some fixed scientific views. The amoeba in a stagnant pool, a thalophyte on a bit of old bread, any of the myriad trees and plants that you see in the jungle, all have consciousness as well as you. And why? He brought his fist down upon the table. Because they issue from the same source as you and I. The almighty mind, eternal indestructible, which has permitted itself to be enslaved by matter. You are Hale Oakham. I am Basil Addington. Yet we are one and the same. Let me illustrate. He seized a glass and poured it full of masada. Look. Two portions of masada. But I pour what is in the glass back into the bottle. The molecules cohere and the two portions become one again. Someday, you and I, our individual consciousnesses, will flow back. Back to the hole. That sounds mystical. But listen. We scientists hold that the electron explains nearly all the physical and chemical phenomena. I go further and say that it explains all matter. Electricity, light, heat, magnetism, all can be reduced to the ultimate unit. So, Mr. Oakham, I am going to make clear to you how life itself is electronic. His long finger touched Hale's arm. You, I yonder mosquito on your sleeve, even one of the germs that is causing my malaria. All being individual living things, are the ultimate units of what I shall personify as the mind. When I say you, I do not speak of that mound of flesh in which you exist and which can be reduced to the same familiar basic elements and compounds as make up inorganic structures. I speak of your mind, your consciousness, for that is the real you. Are you following me? Perfectly, Sir Basil. Hale reached for another drink. But do you mean to say that you and I are no more than a mosquito, a malaria protozoan, or even one of those trees in the jungle? Sir Basil's dry skin slipped back into a long smile. Startling, isn't it? You, I, and all other living organisms are nothing but matter, energy and consciousness. You and I have a larger share of consciousness because our organic structure permits the mind electrons greater freedom over the matter that composes our bodies. We are more acutely aware of the universe about us, have a greater facility for enjoyment and suffering, a more intricate brain and nervous system. Yet when our bodies die and our consciousness is released, the mind electrons enslaved by our atoms go back to the elemental whole. This holds good for protozoan, the tree, the man for all things that live. Hale was drinking again. You mean, Sir Basil, that there is a sort of war waged against what you personify as the mind by matter? That matter is constantly seeking to enslave mind electrons so that it may become an organism which for a while may enjoy what we call life. Sir Basil pushed back his tufted hair and looked happy. Yes, and it's nature's supreme blunder. In the end, the mind always conquers and gains its release. Yet the eternal chain of enslavement goes on and on, and will continue to go on as long as there is a living organism in the world to bind mind to matter. Hale was excited now, as much from the fiery intoxicant as from the scientists. Weird revelation I get you, he said, rather inelegantly for a professor. You mean that if every living thing in the world should pass out, every man, every plant, every animal, even down to microscopic infusoria, the mind would collect all its electrons and through some more jealous law of, er, cohesion, hold these electrons inviolate from matter and energy? Right. And again, as in the beginning, the mind would rule supreme. But what I have proved you and I and all the other creatures that now have life, may as separate unfleshed electrons, enjoy eternal consciousness as part of the mind. A new passion leaped to his dark eyes. When I have finished my mission, no more need we be slave of the dust, subject to all the frightful sufferings of this dunghill of flesh. He brought his fist down upon his skinny leg with a resounding blow. But you cannot reduce your theory to fact, Sir Basil.

No.

Again came that frightful grin to his cadaverous face. Can you withstand shock? If you mean shock to the eye, let me remind you that I served two years in the big fight, then come to my laboratory. Better take another drink. While Hale helped himself again from the masata bottle, Sir Basil swallowed another pellet. Then the two went into the adjoining apartment. Sir Basil had his hand over the doorknob, paused. Before we go in, he said, I want you to remember that we call natural that which is characteristic of the physical world.

World?

Everything alive in this laboratory was produced by nature. I merely made available the materials, or rather, I made the conditions under which matter was able to enslave mind electrons. He opened the door, slipped his body through, and with his ugly teeth revealing grin, gestured for Hale to follow him. Hale steeled himself and looked around half fearfully. The first glance took in a large, well equipped laboratory, somewhat fetid with animal odors. The second lingered here and there on cages, aquariums, incubators, and other containers where creatures moved suddenly as something scuttled across the floor and disappeared into a hole in the wall. Hale cried out and covered his eyes with a hand. Sir Basil laughed aloud. Why didn't you examine it closer? Hale looked nauseated. My God, Sir Basil. A rat with a man's head and face. Sir Basil's voice was sharp, decisive. Before you leave this laboratory, you're going to come out of your foolish belief that man is a creature apart from other living organisms. You, the conscious you, is no greater, no more important in the final balance than the spark of consciousness in that rational when your body and the rat's body give up their atoms to nature's laboratory, the little enslaved mind electron that is you and the one that is the rat will be identical again. Hale shivered and turned away from that cold, too thin face. The scientist was speaking. Step around to all those cages and pens. I want you to see all my slaves of the dust. But long before Hale had encircled the room, he was so disturbed at what he saw that he could scarcely complete his frightful inspection. In every enclosure he viewed a monstrosity that in some way resembled a human. Every reptile, every insect, every queer, misshapen animal not only looked human in some shocking manner, but also seemed to possess human characteristics. It seemed as though some demented creator with a perverted sense of humor had attempted to mock man by calling forth monsters in his image. At last the young man cried out, how did you breed these freaks? They are not freaks, and I did not breed them. They are nature's parentless products whose basic elements were brought together in this laboratory and by a scientific reproduction of the functions of creation endowed with the life principle, which is merely mind electrons. He smoothed his long tuft of hair nervously. Would you like to see how life springs from a wedding of matter, energy, and consciousness? I suspect I can stand anything now, hale admitted. Then come and peep into a very remarkable group of apparatus I have developed where you can watch atoms building molecules and molecules building living organisms. You say I can see atoms? Not directly, of course. The light waves will forever prevent us from actually seeing the atom. But I have perfected a system of photography which magnifies particles smaller than light waves, and separating their images from the light waves renders details clear in the moving pictures. He went to a huge machine or series of machines which took up all the center floor space of the laboratory, where he busied himself in an intricate network of wires, mirrors, electrodes, ray projectors, and traveling metal compartments. Presently he called out to Hale. Let me remind you, Oakham, that while any scientists can break up any of the various Proteid molecules which are the basis of all living cells, animals and vegetable, no scientist before me has been able to compound the atoms and build them into a Proteid molecule. He bared his teeth in the smile that Hale hated. I am proud to tell you that the Proteid molecule can be built up only when the third element of nature's trinity is added, the mind electron. I have found a means of capturing the mind electron and of bringing it in contact with Proteid elements, and now it is possible to bring forth life in the laboratory. Come closer and watch Proteid forming protoplasm, protoplasm forming a cell, and the cell evolving into. Well, what do you want? An animal, plant, or an insect? Hale had fallen under the scientist's spell. He did not feel foolish when he said, let's have a rat. Hale became so absorbed in the wonders of the laboratory that when lunchtime came, Sir Basil had food brought to them. While they were eating a very good vegetable stew, farina, and luscious tropical fruits, a sudden agonized scream rang out, followed by other screams and wails. Sir Basil opened the door and looked out. Anya came running forward. Her blue eyes were flooded with tears. Oh, Aimu, she moaned. A tree fell on Unani Asu. She buried her beautiful face in her hands and sobbed aloud. Sir Basil frowned heavily. I can't lose Unani Asu yet, he declared. He is a wonderful help around the laboratory. Is he dead?

No.

We should rejoice if his time of release has come. But his legs, Aimoo. No one wants to suffer and be crippled. Even in her distress, the girl's voice was rich and vibrant, and every tone moved Hale curiously. Hurry. Cried the scientist. Have them bring him here before he dies. The girl leapt to her feet and sped away. Come, Oakum, continued Sir Basil. Here is a rare opportunity for you to see how completely I have mastered the laws that govern organic matter. Help me prepare. For several minutes, Hale worked under the scientist's sharp spoken directions. By the time the injured man was brought to the laboratory, Sir Basil was ready for him. Unani Asu was still conscious, but his pale face indicated that he had lost much blood. When the improvised stretcher was lowered to the floor, Sir Basil sent all the Indians away. Unani Asu opened his eyes and called feebly, anya. Be still. Ordered Sir Basil. Anya is not here.

Please.

Gasped the dying man. I want her. My Anya. Ser Basil sucked in his breath sharply. What's this? Have you been making love to Anya again after my warning to you? The sufferer stirred uneasily. No, he panted. But perhaps my hour of release has come and I want to look at her once more. The scientist smiled unpleasantly as he eyed the magnificent body, which looked like a broken statue in bronze. Some human characteristics are strange, he muttered. In spite of everything I do, this fellow continues to love Anya. Anya, whom I intended for myself. He stepped to the apparatus and swiftly changed one of the adjustments. Perhaps, he resumed with a gleam in his eye that chilled Hale, this will forever cure him. In another moment the still half dead body was lifted and gently slipped into a compartment before Hale's horrified gaze fastened on the eyepiece, which revealed moving pictures of every process that went on within. Unani Asu's body was reduced almost instantly to a fine silvery dust. Good God. He cried. You've killed him. The scientist's teeth showed in his wide smile. Think so? Does a woman destroy a dress when she rips it up to make it over? Do you mean me to understand that you can reduce a living body to its basic elements and then rebuild these elements into a remade man?

Watch.

Warned the scientist. Hale looked again and saw the silver dust that was once a living being being whirled into a tiny grub like thing. He saw the grub expand into an embryo and the embryo develop into a fetus. From now on, the development was slower, and he often stopped to talk with Sir Basil. Once he asked, if this man had died naturally, could you have brought him back to life? Sir Basil shook his head. No. Once the mind electron is completely freed from its enslavement by matter, it is forever beyond recall by the body it has just vacated. Like atomic electrons whose equilibrium disturbed break away from their planetary system and go dashing off into space, only to be drawn in to another planetary system. The mind electron may be enslaved almost immediately by extraneous matter. Had Unani Asu died, his liberated mind electron might at once have been captured by a jungle flower going to seed. Immediately a new seed would be started, and now the former Unaniyasu would be a seed of a jungle flower, later to find new life as a plant. Suddenly the scientist threw up his hand and cried, you see, the mind will be eternally enslaved as long as there is life. Oh, for the time of deliverance. He gazed fanatically into space as though he dreamed magnificently. Hale observed him thoughtfully. When the great brain weakened, the consequences would be frightful. Sir Basil, as though he had made A sudden decision went over to that part of his machine which he called the molecule disintegrator. Oakham, he called out, I have taken you partly into my confidence. Now I want to show you something. Come here. Hale obeyed with misgivings. The scientist pointed out the window to a group of Indians, anxious relatives of Unani ast. Watch, he ordered, Turning one of the projectors on the machine towards the window. He sighted carefully and pressed a button. Immediately one of the Indians fell to the ground and struggled. His companions began dancing around him in evident joy. Faintly to the laboratory came a familiar chant which Hale recognized as Anya's death song. Dust to dust, mind to mind. He will shed his body as the green snake sheds his skin. As Hale watched, the struggling Indian's body seemed to shrink, and then instantly it disappeared. Watch them scatter the dust, said the scientist. One of the Indians stooped and blew upon the grass. What have you done? Hale gasped. You've killed this one. Oh, I see now. These poor devils are totally ignorant that you are killing them for practice. They worship you while you turn them to silver dust. He turned angrily on the scientist as though he longed to strike him. Keep cool, young man. Sir Basil held up his fleshless hand. There is no death change, yes, but no permanent blotting out of consciousness. Can't you see the horror of it as nature works? When your time for release comes, as it inevitably will, your mind electron might find new enslavement in a worm. Hale's reply came. If that is true, why do you murder these poor devils deliberately? My dear Oakham, perhaps you are not so brilliant as I had hoped. All that I have done thus far is only child's play in preparation for my real work. Haven't you guessed by now what I'm getting ready to do?

No.

I'm a poor guesser. The scientist made a gesture of mock despair. Then let me tell you. The molecule disintegrator is active only on organic structures when I concentrate it so. He reached out again, sighted the projector on some point beyond the window, and pressed a button. One single living organism passes out. See that chupatti tree by the rock disappear before Hale's eyes. The tall, slender tree melted into air. But, continued Sir Basil, if I should broadcast my molecule disintegrator on electron magnetic waves, destruction would pass out in all directions, following the curve of the Earth's surface, penetrating earth, air, water. He wet his lips carefully. You understand? Hale stiffened suddenly. I understand no life could survive these vibrations of destruction through every corner of the earth. Where life lurks, they would reach.

Yes.

Cried Sir Basil. There would be not a blade of grass, not a living spore, not a hidden egg. Think of it, oakum. No more would the clean air and sweet earth reek with life. And at last the ultimate Mind electron would be released forever. He was breathing fast, and his emaciated face burned with two red spots, Hale thought rapidly. He was convinced now that the fate of all life lay within that diabolical network of chemical apparatus. At last he said, and what of you and I, Sir Basil? Shall we too be caught in this wholesale destruction? Not immediately, replied the scientist.

Of course.

I want to remain in the flesh long enough to be sure that my purpose has been accomplished. I have provided a way for my own safety. If you desire, you may remain with me. He smiled craftily. I have planned to keep Anya also the woman who I called into life and made as I wished. His words pounded against Hale's tortured ears with almost physical force. With a supreme effort, the young man controlled his rage and despair. Anya needed him too much now for him to risk defeat by showing his emotions. To Sir Basil, he said, but if all life disappears from the earth, what shall we do for food? You, Anya, and I, Ser. Basil lifted his brows. You don't think I overlooked that, do you? What is food? Various combinations of the basic elements. I who have conquered the atom need never worry about starving to death. All this time the machinery had been humming, and now the humming changed its note to a shrill whistle. Sir Basil went to the eyepiece and looked into it. Opening a door in the machinery, he disappeared inside. He came out soon, flushed and evidently elated. Bring that stretcher, Oakham, he ordered. Hale brought the stretcher, placing it close to the machine. Then Sir Basil opened a metal door and gently eased out a human body. It was Unani Asu, unconscious but alive and breathing. Hale helped the scientist to get the man on the stretcher, noticed that the crushed legs were perfectly healed. Together they bore him to a long seat. The Indian's eyes were still closed, but his even breathing indicated that he was only sleeping. Suddenly Hale pointed a finger and cried out, my God, Sir Basil. Look at his hands and feet. Unani Asu, still lying like a recumbent bronze statue sculpted by a master, was perfect from shoulder to wrist, from thigh to ankle. But somewhere in that diabolical machine through which he had passed his hands and feet had undergone a hideous metamorphism which had transformed them from the well formed extremities of a splendid young Indian into the hairy paws of a Giant rat. Hale turned away, his head sick with disgust. Sir Basil cut the silence triumphantly. Now he'll never again face Anya with love in his eyes. What broke in Hale? Did you plan this monstrous thing? Of course. I told you I should forever cure him of his mad infatuation. But why didn't you kill him as you killed the others? It would have been the most merciful way. Sir Basil showed his teeth in his ugly smile. A creator is never merciful. A quiver passed through the Indian's body, and presently he sighed deeply and opened his eyes. He seemed dazed, puzzled. He looked from Hale to the scientist and turned, seeking eyes to other parts of the laboratory. Anya, he called weakly. Where is Anya? He pulled himself a little unsteadily to his feet, to the spatulated, hairy rodent feet that had come out of the life machine. Staggering, he would have fallen had he not thrown out his arms to steady himself. Instinctively, he tried to grasp something for support. And then, for the first time, he discovered his deformity. Hale was never to forget that expression of horror and disgust that swept over the Indian's face as he spread open his revolting extremities and stared at them. A sudden wild roar of despair rang through the room. Aim o my hands. The scientist smiled with evident amusement. You're a grotesque sight, Hunani asu. Do you want to see Anya? Now the fright and horror faded from the Indian's face, for now he glared with hate into the mad, mocking eyes. You did it. The Indian ground out. You've made me into a thing from which aa will run screaming. Through the quiet rage of the perfectly spoken English ran a thread of sorrow. Aimu, whom we considered too holy to name. Choking, he hobbled away to the door, which he unbolted. As he passed out into the open, Sir Basil went over to the machine and began sighting the projector, which cast forth the ray of destruction. No. Cried Hale. You've done enough murder for today. The scientist paused. I was trying to be merciful. And then I wonder if it is safe to let him go on hating me. Oh, well. He shrugged his narrow shoulders. I seldom leave the laboratory, and certainly nothing can harm me here. He touched the death projector. Significantly, Hale made a mental decision. I must find out how the damn thing works and put it out of commission. With this determination uppermost in his mind, he assumed a more intense interest in that strange laboratory. For the next two days he assisted Sir Basil so assiduously that he learned much about the operation of the life machine. And gradually he stopped being horrified as the Fascination of producing life in the laboratory grew upon him after he had assisted the scientist in building living organisms from basic elements. He ceased to cringe when he remembered that perhaps it was true that Anya was created in the mysterious life machine. Once the scientist declared, she is untainted with inheritance. She is the perfect mate that I called into life so that before I pass from the flesh I may taste that one human emotion I've never experienced. Experienced love. That very night, Hail kept a secret tryst with Anya after the village slept. Sweet, virginal Anya, who knew less of the world than a civilized child of 12. What a sensation she would create in New York with her beauty, her culture, her natural fascination with her in his arms and an orange tropical moon hanging low in the hot black sky. He ceased to care that she had no ancestors, for now his one passionate desire was to save her from Ser Basil and to hold her forever for himself. He might have been content to go on like this for months, tampering with creation in the daytime, courting Anya in secret at night. Had not Unani Asu come back for revenge? On the fourth night, after Unani Asu had disappeared into the jungle, Hale went to the Igarape to meet Anya. He had gone only half the distance when he encountered her running frantically up the path towards him. Hale. She gasped, falling into his opened arms where she lay panting and exhausted. Hale gently patted the long braids shimmering in silver tangles under the moonlight, and crushing the soft, little trembling body close, he murmured, what's the matter, darling? She dug her face deeper into the bend of his arm. Oh, Hail, I saw Unani Asu a few minutes ago. For several moments she was unable to go on, for sudden sobs cut off her breath. It's terrible, Hale, what Aimu did to his hands and feet. But what Unani's going to do to Aimu is still more terrible. Hale placed his hand gently under her chin and tilted up her small, pale, tear drenched face. Be calm, Anya, and tell me plainly. Still clinging to him, she went on, he told me that Aimu is a devil, Hale. He showed me his hands and asked me if I could ever get used to them and be his squaw. The round gold breastplates and the necklace of painted seeds clicked together over her panting bosom. I told him about you, Hael, and he seemed to go mad. He said he'd kill Ayumu tonight. But Anya, why did he let you go, knowing that you would give the alarm? He didn't let me go. Her petaled lips parted in a Faint smile. I escaped. Unani Asu tied me to a tree by the Igarape. Because he doesn't hate me, he could not bear to tie me too tightly. Then he must be close to the laboratory now. If he breaks in upon Aimu. Oh my God. Hale remembered the death projector. If Serbasil were in danger of attack, he would not hesitate to touch the waiting button that would broadcast death throughout the world. He seized Anya's little hand and cried out, run, Anya. The only safe place now is Aimu's laboratory. Run. As they dashed on madly, Hale opened wide his nostrils to scent the heavy, flower laden air of the jungle. Any moment, all this sweet, rich life might vanish instantly. He had a horrible vision of a world devoid of life. A world of bare rocks, dry sand, odorless dead waters. For it was life that greened the landscape, roughened the stones with moss and lichen, thickened the ocean with ooze and turned the dry sand into loam. Life that swarmed underfoot overhead, all around. And now, just as they reached the laboratory door, panting and frantic, a hoarse shriek broke forth, dragging Anya after him. Hale dashed forward, conscious of two masculine voices raised in passion. The door to the room where the life machine performed its vile work was locked. Hale pounded against it and called out to Sir Bazaar. But only curses and the sound of tumbling bodies came from beyond the door. Although originally the door had been thick and strong, the destructive forces of the tropics had pitted and rotted the wood. A few blows of Hale's shoulder broke it down. Under the brilliant electric light, Ser Basil and Unani Asu were fighting upon the blood spattered floor. The struggle was uneven. The scientist's emaciated body was no match for the splendid strength of the young Indian. Help. Aimu. Cried Anya, pushing hail forward. Aimu was being choked to death. Hale acted fantastically but efficiently. Catching up a bottle of ammonia, he moistened a handkerchief and clasped it against Unani Asu's nose. Instantly the Indian choked, releasing Sir Basil and fell back, gasping for breath. Hale thrust the handkerchief into his pocket. Get out. He ordered Unani Asu.

Quick.

He threatened him with the ammonia bottle. But Unani Asu was not looking at the bottle. Aimu. He screamed, pointing. When Hale saw and understood, he leapt across the room to plant his body in front of Anya. For Sir Basil was behind the life machine, reaching for the controls of the ray projector. Suddenly, from behind Hale, a silver streak shriek shot across the room. Sir Basil groaned and sank to the floor of the laboratory. A keen bladed dissecting knife thrown by Anya stuck out from his left breast. Anya ran forward, sobbing wildly. Oh, Aimu, I'm sorry. I didn't mean for it to strike you there. Only your hand. Aimu. I didn't want Hale to die. Aimu. I didn't.

Oh.

She was on her knees by the scientist's side, his head held in her slender arms. He's breathing. She rejoiced. Some masata Hail. Quick. Hale found a bottle of good brandy which he had contributed from his own supplies. Soon Sir Basil gasped and opened his eyes. He stared about him wildly, then gasped. I'm dying, Hale. Oakum.

Quick.

The life machine. Before my mind electron escapes. He tried to pull his body up, but fell back, weak and panting. Hale hesitated, looking doubtfully at Anya. For God's sake, quick. Screamed Sir Basil. Im dying, I say. I must have rebirth. Lift me to the disintegrator. Hurry. His voice trailed off faintly. He is dying. Snapped Hale. We might as well try it. He jerked open the door to the disintegrator. Here, Unaniyasu, lend me a hand. Instantly the Indian came forward, a peculiar, pleased expression on his handsome face. In a moment, Sir Basil's body was inside, and the machine began its weird humming, the humming that indicated the transformation of a human body into dust.

Now.

Cried Unani Asu exultantly, going behind the machine. I have helped him enough to understand that if one changes this and this and this. He made some rapid adjustments on the machine. Something that is not pleasant will happen. Stop. Cried Hale. What did you change? The Indian laughed mockingly. Wouldn't you like to know? But yet you should not worry. You have no cause to love him, have you? I can't be a traitor, Unaniyasu. Arrange the machine as it was originally. And I give you my word of honor that when Sir Basil comes out, I'll wreck the damn thing beyond repair. See, Unaniyasu, you and I together will smash it. The Indian folded his arm so that the repulsive things that should have been his hands were hidden. It's too late now, he admitted, shaking his head. Yet I've done no more to him than he did to me. Hale went to the eyepiece in the machine and started to look inside. Unani Asu stepped forward, tapped him on the shoulder, and, fingering significantly the dissecting knife which he had picked up, said, I am operating the machine. Will you sit over there by Anya and wait? It won't be long. And white stranger, remember this. I am your friend. I am turned against none but our common Enemy. He pointed significantly to the machine. Two hours passed, long silent hours for the watchers in the laboratory. Anya fell asleep in a sweet, childish bundle upon the piled cushions, her golden hair still decorated with the red flowers which she always wore, crushed and withered. Now, several times, Hayle caught Unaniyasu gazing at her sadly. His own look saddened when it rested on the Indian's strong, outraged body. The humming of the machine changed to a whistle. Placing his fingers on his lips in a signal of quiet, Unani Asu whispered, let Anya sleep. She mustn't see this. Opening a door in the machine, his handsome face lighted with a grim smile, he whispered exultingly, watch. A scuttling sound issued forth, and then, half drunkenly, an enormous rat tumbled out. One of those horrible rats with the hairless human like faces that had so frequently come from the life machine. Hale could not crush back the cry that issued from his throat. Where is Sir Basil? He gasped. There. Cried the Indian, pointing to the kicking rat, which was fast gaining strength. Hale staggered back. No. You don't mean it, do you? Unani Asu turned the rat over with a contemptuous toe. Yes, I mean it. Behold, I'm the man who thought himself creator and destroyer. The man who said that a human being was no higher than a rat. Perhaps he was right, for see this thing that was once a man. Hale buried his face in his hands. Kill it, Unaniyasu. Kill it. Unani Asu's low laugh was metallic. You kill it. Hale uncovered his face. Open the disintegrator. Gingerly he reached for the rat's tail, but his hand never touched the animal. The hairless face turned for a second, and the little beady eyes blinked up at Hale with an expression that his fevered imagination thought almost human. Then, like a dark shadow, the rat dashed away. Once around the room, it scampered, hunting for an exit. Hale started in pursuit. He was almost upon the animal again when, leaping up from his grasp, it landed on a low shelf where chemicals were stored. Several bottles fell, filling the room with fumes. Another bottle fell, and suddenly, amid a thunderous roar, the ceilings and wall began falling. Some highly explosive chemical had been stored in one of the bottles. Hail was thrown violently against the couch. His hand touched Anya's body. One last shred of consciousness enabled him to pick her up and drag her out in the open. He fell aware, before the blackness descended, that flames leapt high over the laboratory building and that Unani Asu lay dead within. Hale and Anya leaning over the deck rail of a small steam Launch gazed into the dark waters of the Amazon. We ought to reach Para by morning, said Hale. And then, dearest, we're off for New York. Anya, wearing one of the first civilized dresses she had ever donned and looking as smart as any debutante, slipped her hand into her husband's. Isn't it a shame, Hale, she moaned, that the fire burned all the animals and insects, the machinery, and even your notes? Her beautiful face saddened. Just one or two specimens might have been proof enough for your, what you call it?

Club?

The Nescience Club, darling. No, I can't expect to win the Wolman Prize, but I've won a prize worth far more. He squeezed her little hand and looked devotedly into her blue eyes. And Anya, I've reasoned out something concerning mind electrons which even Sir Basil overlooked. What is it, Hale? He maintained that matter seeks always to enslave mind electrons. But I'm convinced that mind electrons seek to enslave matter. Understand it's creation, Anya. Had Sir Basil succeeded in broadcasting death throughout the world, the freed mind electrons, as in the beginning, would have started again to vitalize inorganic atoms. And in a few million years, which is no time to the mind, the world would be humming with a new civilization. Large thought, eh, sweetheart? End of Slaves of the Dust by Sophie Wenzel Ellis Recording by Ian Bradford Nunga Nunga Taha Pew. You can find me at ianpugh.com I a n-pugh.com. The Undersea Tube by L. Taylor Hansen this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Ian Bradford Nunga Nunga Taha Pew the Undersea Tube by L. Taylor Hannah if my friend the engineer had not told me the tube was dangerous, I would not have bought a ticket on that fatal night, and the world would never have learned the story of the Golden Cavern and the City of the Dead. Having therefore, according to universal custom, first made my report as the sole survivor of the much discussed undersea tube disaster to the International Committee for the Investigation of Disasters, I am now ready to outline that story for the world. Naturally, I am aware of the many wild tales and rumors that have been circulated ever since the accident, but I must ask my readers to bear with me while I attempt to briefly sketch not only the tremendous difficulties to be overcome by the engineers, but also the wind propulsion theory which was made use of in this undertaking because it is only by understanding something of these two phases of the tube's engineering problem. That one can understand the accident and its subsequent revelations. It will be recalled by those who have not allowed their view of modern history to become too hazy. That the close of the 20th century saw a dream of the engineering world at last realized. The completion of the long heralded undersea railroad. It will also be recalled that the engineers in charge of this stupendous undertaking. Were greatly encouraged by the signal success of the first tube under the English Channel. Joining England and France by rail. However, it was from the second tube across the channel. And the tube connecting Montreal to New York. As well as the one connecting New York and Chicago. That they obtained some of their then radical ideas. Concerning the use of wind power for propulsion. Therefore, before the undersea tube had been completed. The engineers in charge had decided to make use of the new method in the world's longest tunnel. And upon that decision, work was immediately commenced upon the blueprints for the great air pumps. That were to rise at the two ends, Liverpool and New York. However, I will touch upon the theory of wind propulsion later. And after the manner in which it was explained to me. It will be recalled that after great ceremonies. The tube was begun simultaneously at the two terminating cities. And proceeded through solid rock. Low enough below the ocean floor. To overcome the terrible pressure of the body of water over it. And yet close enough to the sea to overcome the intensity of subterranean heat. Needless to say, it was an extremely hazardous undertaking. Despite the very careful surveys that had been made for the little parties of workmen could never tell when they would strike a crack. Or an unexpected crevice. That would let down upon them with a terrible rush the waters of the Atlantic. But hazard is adventure. And as the two little groups of laborers dug towards each other. The eyes of the press followed them with more persistent interest. Than it has ever followed the daily toil of any man or group of men Ever before or since. Once the world was startled by the extre y Announcing that the English group had broken into an extinct volcano. Whose upper end had apparently been sealed ages before. For it contained not water, but air. Curiously close and choking perhaps, but at least it was not the watery deluge of death. And then came the great discovery. No one who lived through that time will forget the thrill that quickened the pulse of mankind. When the American group, digging through a seam of old lava. Under what scientists called the ancient ridge. Broke into a sealed cavern. Which gleamed in the probing flashlights of the workers. Like the scintillating points of a thousand diamonds. But when they found the jeweled casket through whose glass top they peered curiously down upon the white body of a beautiful woman, partly draped in the ripples of her heavy red hair. The world gasped and wondered. Entered, as every school child knows. The casket was opened by curious scientists who flocked into the tube from the length of the world. But at the first exposure to the air, the strange liquid that had protected the body vanished, leaving in the casket not the white figure, but only a crumbling mass of grey dust. But the questions that the finding of the cave had raised remained unanswered. Who was this woman? How did she get into the sealed cavern? If she had been the court favorite of that mythical kingdom, now sunk beneath the waves and had been disposed of in court intrigue, why would her murderers have buried her in such a casket? How had she been killed? An unknown poison? Perhaps she had been a favorite slave of the monarch. This view gained many converts among the archaeologists, who argued that from all the evidence we have available, the race carrying the Iberian or proto Egyptian culture, long thought to have been the true refugees from sinking Atlantis, were a slight dark haired race. Therefore this woman must have been a captive. Geologists analyzing the lava announced that it had hardened in air and not in water, while anthropologists classed the skull of the woman as essentially more modern than either the Neanderthal or CRO Magnon types. But the engineers, secretly fuming at the delay, finally managed to fill up the cave and press on with their drills. Then, following the arguments that still flourished in the press, came a tiny little news article and the first message to carry concern to the hearts of the engineers. The sea had begun to trickle in through one slight crack. Perhaps it was only because the crevice was located on the English side of the now famous ancient ridge that the article brought forth any notice at all. But for the engineers it meant the first warning of possibly ultimate disaster. They could not seal the crack and pumps were brought into play. However, as a month wore on, the crack did not appear to widen to any material extent, and the danger cry of a few pessimists was forgotten. Finally, it will be remembered that sounders listening in the rocks heard the drillers of the other party. And then, with wild enthusiasm, the work was pushed on to completion. The long tube had been dug. Now it only remained for the sides at the junction to be enlarged and encased with cast iron. While the work of setting up the great machines designed to drive the pellet trains through was also pushed on to its ultimate end, man had essayed the greatest feat of engineering ever undertaken in the history of the planet and had won a period of wild celebration, greeted the first human beings to cross each direction below the sea. Did the volume of water increase that was carried daily out of the tube and dumped from the two stations? If it did, the incident was ignored by the press. Instead, the fact that some cranks persisted in calling man's latest toy unsafe only attracted more travel. The undersea tube functioned on a regular schedule for three years, became the usual method of ocean transit. This was the state of matters when on the 4th of March last, our textile company ordered me to France to straighten out some orders with the France house, the situation being such that they preferred to send a man. Why they did not use radiovision I do not care to state, as this is my company's business. Therefore, upon entering my apartment, I was in the midst of packing when the television phone called me. The jovial features of Dutch Higgins, my one time college roommate and now one of the much maligned engineers of the undersea tube, smiled back at me from the disc. Where are you? I thought we had a sort of dinner engagement at my apartment, Bob Knob. By gollies, I forgot. Dutch, I'll be right over before it gets cold. Then immediately I turned the knob to the municipal aerial car yards and ordered my motor as I grabbed my hat and hurried to the roof. In due time, of course, I sprang the big surprise of the evening, adding, and of course I'm going by the tube. I feel sort of a half partnership in it because you are one of the designers. A curious this half pained look crossed his face. We had finished our meal and were smoking with pushed back chairs. He finished filling his pipe and scowled. Well, why don't you say something? I thought you'd be, well, sort of pleased. He struck his automatic lighter and drew in a long puff of smoke before answering. Wish you'd take another route, Bob. Take another route? Yes, if you want it straight. The tube is not safe. You're joking. But as I looked into his cold, thoughtful blue eyes, I knew he had never been more serious. I wish that you would go by the transatlantic airliners. They're just as fast. But you used to be so enthusiastic about the tube, Dutch. Why? I remember when it was being drilled that you would call me up at all kinds of wild hours to tell me the latest bit of news. He nodded slowly. Yes, that was in the days before the crack. Yet you expected to take care of possible leaks. You know, I countered. But this crack opened after the tunnel had been dug past it, and lately it has opened more. Are the other Engineers alarmed? No, we are easily taking care of the extra water. And again the opening seemed to remain at a stationary width, as it has for the past three years. But we cannot caulk it. Are you going to publish these views? No, I made out a minority report. I can do no more. Dutch, you're becoming over cautious. First sign of old age, perhaps with the old smile. But after all, it's now more than three years since we have had a talk on the tube. After it began to function as well as the air express, you sort of lost interest in it. And the world did too, certainly. But the public ever was a fickle mistress. Who said that before me? He laughed and blew out a long puff of smoke. Everyone Bob. But as to the tube, if I cross under the sea, I would want to be as well informed on the road as I was three years ago. Now, in the meantime, you have dropped interest in the long tunnel, while I have become more interested in textiles, with the result that I have forgotten all I ever did know, which compared to your grasp of the details was little enough. But his face showed none of the old time animation on the subject. What a different man, I mused to myself, from that enthusiastic engineering student that I used to come upon dreaming over his blueprint. He was considered half cracked in those days when he would enthuse over his undersea railroad. But his animated face was lit with inspiration now the light was gone. Well, Dutch, how about it? Are you going to make me that brief little sketch of the length plan and the cross section of the tube? I remember your sketch of it in college, and it tends to confuse me with the real changes that were made necessary when the wind propulsion method was adopted. All right, old timer, you remember that the tube was widened at the sides in order that we might make two circular tubes side by side, one going each way. I had forgotten they were circular, that is because of pressure. A circle presents the best resistance. And picking an odd envelope from his pocket, he made the following sketch and passed it to me. Cross section of the tube. Tube consisting of a half circle with thick metal outer caisson whose interior is filled with concrete into which two large metal transport tubes are suspended, along with several smaller drainage pipes fitted beneath along the flat bottom edge. I nodded as I recognized the cross section. Now the plan of the thing is like this, he added, putting aside his pipe and pulling a sheet of paper from the corner of his desk rapidly with his old accuracy. He sketched the main plan and leaned over as he handed it to me. You see, he explained, picking up his pipe. Again, both pumps work at the same time. In fact, I should say all four because this plan is duplicated on the English side. On both ends, a train is gently pushed in by an electric locomotive. A car at a time goes through the gate so that there is a cushion of air between each car. The same thing happens in Liverpool. Now, when the dew train comes out of the suction tube, it goes on out the gate, but the air behind it travels right on around and comes in behind the train that is leaving. But how are you assured that it will not stall somewhere? It won't be likely to, with pressure pumps going behind it and suction pumps pulling from in front. We can always put extra power on if necessary. Thus far the road has worked perfectly. How much power do you need to send it through? Under normal conditions our trains have been averaging about 50 tons. And for that weight we have found that a pound pressure is quite sufficient. Now, taking the tunnel's length is 4,000 miles. Of course it's not that long, but round figures are more convenient. And the tube width 11 1/4ft each. And working this out, we have 3,020,000 cubic feet of air per minute, or 2,904,000 cubic feet of compressed air, which would use about 70,000 horsepower on the air compressor. But isn't the speed rather dizzying? Not any more dizzy, Bob, than those old fashioned money carrying machines that the department stores used to use. That is, in comparison to size, the average speed is about 360ft a second. Of course, the train is allowed to slow down towards the end of its run, even before it hits the braking machinery beyond the gate. But how much pressure did you say would be put on the back of the diaphragm? I remember that each car has a flat disc on the back that fits fairly tightly to the tube. The pressure on the back is less than 7 tons. However, the disk does not fit tight. There are several leaks. For instance, the cars are, as you know, run on the principle of the monorail with a guiding rail on each side. The grooves for the rail with their three rollers are in each car. There is a slight leakage of air Here. You used the turbo type of blower, didn't you? Had to because of the noise. We put some silencing devices on that and yet we could not kill all of the rackets. However, a new invention has come up that we will make use of soon. Now. But I can't understand Dutch, why you seemed so put out when I announced my intention of going to Europe Via the tube. Why, I can remember the day when that would have tickled you to death. You followed the digging of the tube, didn't you? Yes, of course. You remember the volcano and lava seams? Yes. Well, I do not believe the crack was a pressure crevice. If it had been, we were far enough below the ocean floor to have partly relieved the situation by the unusually solid building of the tube, the tremendous shell of this new type of specially hardened metal and the rich concrete that was used as filling. That was one job no one slipped up on. I remember how you watched it. Yet the crack has widened, Bob, since the tube was completed. How can you be certain? By the amount of water coming through the drain pipes. But you said that once more it was stationary. Yes, and that is the very thing that proves, I believe, the nature of the crack. I don't follow you. Why, it isn't a crack at all, Bob. It's an earthquake fault. Good heavens. You don't mean. Yes, I do. I mean that the next time the land slips, our little tube will be twisted up like a piece of string or crushed like an eggshell. That always was a rocky bit of land, I thought. In going that far north, though, we had missed the main line of activity. I mean the disturbances that had once wiped out a whole nation. If your scientists are correct, then you mean that it's only a matter of time. Yes. And I have been informed by one expert that the old volcanic activity is not dead either. So that is what has stolen away your laugh. Well, I'm one of the engineers and they won't suspend the service. Fate has played an ugly trick on you, Dutch. And through your own dreams too. However, you have made me decide to go by the tube. He took his pipe out of his mouth and stared at me. Sooner or later that tube will be through. And I have never been across nothing risked a dull life. Mine has been altogether too dull. I am now most certainly going by the tube. A bit of old fire lit up his eyes. Same old Bob. He grunted as I rose and then grasped my hand with a grin. Good luck, my boy, on your journey. And may old Vulcan be out on vacation when you pass his door. Thus we said good bye. I did not know then that I would never see him again, that he also took the train that night in order to make one last plea to the international committee, and so laid down his life with the passengers for whom he had pleaded. It was with many conflicting thoughts, however, that I hurried to the great terminus that fatal night, where, after being ticketed Photographed and tabulated by an efficient army of clerks, I found myself in due time being ushered to my car of the train for the benefit of those who have never ridden upon the famous flyer. I could describe the cars no better than to say that coming upon them by the night as I did, they looked like a gigantic shiny worm of strange shape through whose tiny portholes of heavy glass in the sides glowed its luminous vitals. I was pompously shown to the front car, which very much resembled a tremendous cartridge carriage, as did all the other segments of this great glowworm. Having dismissed the porter with a tip and suspicion that my having the front car was the work of my friend, who was willing to give me my money's worth of thrill, and that the porter was aware of this, I stowed away my bags and started to get ready for bed. I had no sooner taken off my coat than the door was opened and an old fellow with a mass of silver hair peered in at me. I beg your pardon, sir, but I understand you have engaged this car alone. Yes. I can get no other accommodation to night. You have an extra berth here, and I must get to Paris to morrow. I will pay you well. I smiled. Take it. I was beginning to feel lonesome anyway. He bowed gravely and ordered the porter to bring in his things. I decided he was a musician. Only artists go for such lovely hair. But he undressed in dignified silence, not casting so much as another glance in my direction. While on my part I also forgot his presence when looking through the porthole, I realized the train had begun to move. Soon the drone of the propelling engines began to make itself heard. Then the train began to dip down and the steel sides of the entrance became too high for me to see over. My friend of the silver hair had already turned off the light, and now I knew by the darkness that we had entered the tube. For some time I lay awake thinking of Dutch and the ultimate failure of his life's dream as he outlined it to me. And then I sank into a deep, dreamless sleep. I was awakened by a terrible shock that hurled me up against the side of the compartment. A dull red glow poured through the porthole, lighting up the interior with a weird, bloody reflection. I crept painfully up to the porthole and looked out. The strangest sight that man has ever looked upon met my eyes. The side of the wall had blown out into a gigantic cavern, and with it the rest of the cars had rolled down the bluff. A tangled, twisted mass of steel. My car had almost passed by, and now it still stuck in the tube, even though the last porthole through which I peered seemed to be suspended in air. But it was not direct cars from which rose such wails of despair and agony that held my attention, but the cavern itself. For it was not really a cave, but a vast underground city whose wide, marbled streets stretched away to an inferno of flame and lava. By the terrible light was lit up a great white palace with its gold tipped scrolls, and closer to me, the golden temple of the sun, with its tiers of lustrous yellow stairs, stairs worn by the feet of many generations. Above the stairs towered the great statue of a man on horseback. He was dressed in a sort of tunic, and in his uplifted arm he carried a scroll as if for the people to read. His face was turned towards me, and I marveled, even in that wild moment, that the unknown sculptor could have caused such an expression of appeal. I can see the high intellectual brow as if it were before me at this moment, the level sympathetic eyes and the firm chin. Then something moving caught my eyes, and I swear I saw a child, a living child, coming from the burning city.

City.

Running madly, breathlessly from a wave of glowing lava that was threatening to engulf him at any moment. In spite of all the ridicule that has been showered upon me, I still declare that the child did not come from the wreckage and that he wore a tunic similar to the one of the statue and not the torn bit of a nightgown or sheet. He was some distance from me, but I could plainly see his expression of wild distraction as he began to climb those gleaming stairs. Strangely lustrous in the weird light was that worn gold stairway. Gold. The ancient metal of the sun. With the slowness of one about to faint, he dragged himself up while his breath seemed to be torn from his throat in agonizing gasps. Behind him, the glowing liquid splashed against the steps and the yellow metal of the sun began to drip into its fiery cauldron. Children. The child reached the leg of the horse and clung there. Then suddenly the whole scene began to shake, as if I had been looking at a mirage, while just behind my car I had a flashing glimpse in that lurid light of an emerald green deluge bursting in like a dark sky of solid water. And in that split second before a crushing blow upon my back, even through the tangle of bedclothes, knocked me into unconsciousness, I seemed to hear again the hopeless note in that voice of my friend as he an earthquake fault. After what seemed to me aeons of strange buzzing noises and peculiar lights, I at last made out the objects around me as those of a hospital men with serious faces were watching me. I have since been told that I babbled incoherently about saving the little fellow and other equally incomprehensible murmurings. From them I learned that the train the other way was washed out, a tangled mass of wreckage just like my car, both terminus stations wrecked utterly, and no one found alive except myself. So although I am to be a hopeless cripple, I am not sorry that the skill and untiring patience of the great English surgeon Dr. Thompson managed to nurse back the feeble spark of my life through all those weeks that I hung on the borderland. For if he had not, the world never would have known. As it is, I wander over the events of that night as if it had not been an experience at all but a wild, weird dream. Even the gentleman with the mass of silver hair is a mystery, for he was never identified. And yet, in my mind's recess I can still hear his cultured voice asking about the extra birth and mentioning his pressing mission to Paris. And somehow he gives the last touch of strangeness to the events of that fatal night, and in my mind he becomes a part of it, no less than the child on the stairs, the burning inferno that lit the background, and the great statue of the unknown hero who held out his scroll for a moment in that lurid light like a symbol from the sunken city of the dead. The End end of the Undersea 2 by L. Taylor Hansen Recording by Ian Bradford Nunga Taha Pew. You can find me at ianpugh.com I a n-pugh.com.

The Forgotten Planet by Sewell Peasley Wright this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please librivox.org the Forgotten Planet by Sewell Peasley Wright I have been asked to record, plainly and without prejudice, a brief history of the Forgotten Planet. That this record, when completed, will be sealed in the archives of the Interplanetary alliance and remain there a secret and rather dreadful bit of history. History is no concern of mine. I am an old man, well past the century mark, and what disposal is made of my work is of little importance to me. I grow weary of life and living which is good. The fear of death was not lost when our scientists showed us how to live until we grew weary of life. But I am digressing an old man's failing. The Forgotten Planet was not always so named. The name that it once bore had Been, as every child knows, stricken from the records, actual and mental of the universe. It is well that evil should not be remembered. But in order that this history may be clear in the centuries to come, my record should go back to beginnings. So far as the universe is concerned, the history of the Forgotten planet begins with the visit of the first craft ever to span the space between the worlds, the crude, adventuresome Edorn, whose name, as well as the names of the nine Xinians who manned her, occupy the highest places in the role of honor of the universe. Amy Be ove, the commander and historian of the Edorn, made but brief comment on his stop at the forgotten planet. I shall record it in full. We came to rest upon the surface of this, the fourth of the planets visited during the trip of the Edorn. 18 spaces before the height of the sun. We found ourselves surrounded immediately by vast numbers of creatures very different from ourselves, and from their expressions and gestures we gathered that they were both curious and unfriendly. Careful analysis of the atmosphere proved it to be sufficiently similar, similar to our own to make it possible for us to again stretch our legs outside the rather cramped quarters of the Edorn and tread the soil of still another world. No sooner had we emerged, however, that we were angrily beset by the people of this unfriendly planet, and rather than do them injury, we retired immediately and concluded our brief observations through our ports. The topography of this planet is similar to our own, save that there are no mountains and the flora is highly concentrated, almost without exception, and apparently quite largely parasitical in nature. The people are rather short in stature, with hairless heads and high foreheads. Instead of being round or oval, however, the heads of these people rise to a rounded ridge which runs back from a point between and just above the eyes, nearly to the nape of the neck behind. They give evidence of a fair order of intelligence, but are suspicious and unfriendly. From the number and size of the cities we saw, this planet is evidently thickly populated. We left about 16 spaces before the height of the sun and continued towards the fifth and last planet before our return to Zinnia. This report quite naturally caused other explorers in space to hesitate. There were so many friendly, eager worlds to visit during the years that relations between the planets were being established, that unfriendly people were ignored. However, from time to time, as spaceships became perfected and more common, parties from many of the more progressive planets did call. Each of them met with the same hostile reception. And at last, shortly after the second War of the Planets, the Victorious alliance set a fleet fleet of the small but terrible Dauber spears, convoyed by four of the largest of the disintegrator ray ships to subjugate the forgotten planet. Five great cities were destroyed and the control city, the seat of the government, was menaced before the surly inhabitants conceded allegiance to the Alliance. Parties of scientists, fabricators and workmen were then landed and a dictatorship was appointed from all the worlds of the Alliance. Instruments and equipments were brought to the forgotten planet. A great educational system was planned and executed. The benign and kindly influence of the alliance made every effort to improve the conditions existing on the forgotten planet and to win the friendship and allegiance of these people. For two centuries the work went on. Two centuries of bloodshed, strife, hate and disturbance. Nowhere else within the known universe was there ill feeling. The second awful War of the Planets had at last succeeded in teaching the lesson of peace. Two centuries of effort, wasted effort. It was near the end of the second century that my own story begins. Commander at the time of the supercruiser Tamon, a special patrol ship of the Alliance, I was not at all surprised to receive orders from the Central Council to report at emergency speed. Special patrol work in those days, before the advent of the present decentralized system, was a succession of false starts, hurried recalls and urgent emergency orders. I obeyed at once. In the Special Patrol Service there is no questioning orders. The planet Earth from which I sprang is and always has been proud of the fact that from the very beginning her men have been picked. Picked to command the ships of the Special Patrol. No matter how dangerous, how forlorn and hopeless the mission given to a commander of the Special patrol ship. History has never recorded that any commander has ever hesitated. That is why our uniform of blue and silver commands the respect that it does even in this day and age of softening and decadence, when men but again an old man digresses. And perhaps it is not for me to judge. I pointed the blunt nose of the Tamon at Zinnium, seat of the Central Council, and in four hours Earth time the great craft swept over the gleaming city of the Central Council and settled swiftly to the court before the mighty columned hall of the Planets. Four pages of the Council in their white and scarlet livery met me and conducted me instantly to a little ante room, room behind the Great Council chamber. There were three men awaiting me there. Three men whose faces at the time were familiar to every person in the known universe. Khalin, the oldest of the three and the spokesman, rose as I entered the room. The others did likewise as the pages closed the heavy doors behind me. You are prompt, and that is good, thought Khaleen. I welcome you. Remove now thy menore. I glanced up at him swiftly. This must surely be an important matter, that I was asked to remove my manure band. It will of course be understood that at the time we had but a bulky and clumsy instrument to enable us to convey and receive thought, a device consisting of a heavy band of metal in which were embedded the necessary instruments and a tiny atomic energy generator, the whole being worn as a circlet or crown upon the head. Wonderingly I removed my manure, placed it upon the long dark table around which the three men were standing and bowed. Each of the three in turn lifted their gleaming circlets from their heads and placed them likewise upon the table before them. You wonder, said Colleen, speaking, of course, in the soft and liquid universal language which is, I understand, still disseminated in our schools. Rules as it should be. I shall explain as quickly and briefly as possible. We have called you here on a dangerous mission, a mission that will require tact and quickness of mind as well as bravery. We have selected you, have called you because we agree that you possess the qualities required. Is it not so? He glanced at his two companions, and they nodded gravely, solemnly, without speaking. You are a young man, John Hanson, continued Colleen, but your record in service is one of which you can be proud. We trust you with knowledge that is so secret, so precious, that we must revert to speech in order to convey it. We dare not trust it, even in this protected and guarded place, to the menors. Quicker but less discreet communication. He paused, paused for a moment, frowning thoughtfully, as though dreading to begin. I waited silently, and at last he spoke. There is a world. And he named a name which I shall not repeat, the name of the forgotten planet. That is a festering sore upon the body of the universe. As you know, for two centuries we have tried to pass on to these people an understanding of peace and friendship. I believe that nothing has been left undone. The Council and the forces behind it have done everything within their power. And now he stopped again, and there was an expression of deepest pain written upon his wise and kindly face. The pause was but for an instant, and now he went on firmly, it is at an end. Our work has been undone. Two centuries of effort undone. They have risen in revolt. They have killed all those sent by the alliance of which they this Council is the governing body and the mouthpiece, and they have sent us an ultimatum, a threat of war. Calan nodded his magnificent old head gravely. I do not wonder that you start, he said heavily. War. It must not be. It cannot be. And yet war is what they threaten. But sir, I put in eagerly. I was young and rash in those days. Who are they to make war against a united universe? I have visited your planet Earth, said Kalen, smiling very faintly. You have a tiny winged insect you call bee. Is it not so? Yes. The bee is a tiny thing of little strength. A man, a child, might crush one to death between a thumb and finger, but the bee may sting before it is crushed, and the sting may linger on for days. A painful and unpleasant thing. Is that not so? I see, sir, I replied, somewhat abashed, before the tolerant, kindly wisdom of this great man. They cannot hope to wage successful war, but they may bring much suffering to others. Much suffering, nodded Collin, still gently smiling. And we were determined that this thing shall not be not. And his face grew gray with a terrible bitter resolve. Not if we have to bring to bear upon that dark and unwilling world the disintegrating rays of every ship of the alliance, so that the very shell of the planet shall disappear and no life ever again shall move upon its surface but this. And he seemed to shudder at the thought. Thought is a terrible and ruthless thing to even contemplate. We first must try once again to point out to them the folly of their ways. It is with this mission that we would burden you, John Hanson. It is no burden but an honor, sir, I said quietly. Youth, youth, cullen chided me gently. Foolish, yet rather glorious. Let me tell you the rest, and then we shall ask for your reply again. The news came to us by a small scout ship attached to that unhappy world. It barely made the journey to Jorun, the nearest planet, and crashed so badly from lack of power that all save one man were killed. He luckily tore off his menore and insisted in speech that he be brought here. He was obeyed, and in a dying condition was brought to this very chamber. Khalen glanced swiftly, sadly around the room as though he could still visualize that scene. Every agent of the alliance upon that hateful planet was set upon and killed, following the working out of some gigantic and perfectly executed plan. All save the crew of this one tiny scout ship, which was spared to act as a messenger. Tell your great council was the message these people sent to us. Us that here is rebellion we do not want, nor will we tolerate your peace. We have learned now that upon other worlds than ours there are great riches. These we shall take. If there is resistance, we have a new and terrible death to deal a death that your great scientists will be helpless against. A horrible and irresistible death that will make desolate and devoid of intelligent life in any world where we were forced to sow the seeds of ultimate disaster. We are not ready yet. If we were, we would not move, for we prefer that your council have time to think about what is surely to come. If you doubt that we have the power to do what we have threatened to do, send one ship commanded by a man whose words you will trust, and we will prove to him that these are no empty words. That is nearly as I can remember it concluded. Calen is the message. The man who brought it died almost before he had finished. That is the message. You are the man we have picked to accept their challenge. Remember, though, that there are but four of us in this room. There are but four of us who know these things. If you for any reason do not wish to accept this mission, there will be none to judge you, least of all any of us who knows best of all the perils. You say, sir, I said quietly, although my heart was pounding in my throat and roaring in my ears, that there would be none to judge me, sir. There would be myself. There could be no more merciless judge. I am honored that I have been selected for this task, and I accept the responsibility willingly, gladly. When is it your wish that we should start? The three presiding members of the council glanced at each other faintly, smiling as though they would say as Colleen had said in a short time before, youth, youth. Yet I believe they were glad and somewhat proud that I had replied as I did. You may start, said Colin, as soon as you can complete the necessary preparations. Detailed instructions will be given you later. He bowed to me and the others did likewise. Then Calen picked up his manure and adjusted it. The interview was over. What do you make of it? I asked the observer. He glanced up from his instrument. Jaron, sir. 3 degrees to port, elevation between 5 and 6 degrees, approximate only, of course. Course, sir. Good enough. Please ask Mr. Barry to hold his present course. We shall not stop at Joran. The observer glanced at me curiously, but he was too well disciplined to hesitate or ask questions. Yes, sir, he said crisply, and spoke into the microphone beside him. None of us wore manures when on duty for several reasons. Our instruments were not nearly as perfect as those, and day to day use and verbal orders were clearer and carried more authority than mental instructions. The delicate and powerful electrical and atomic mechanisms of our ship interfered with the functioning of the manures, and at the time the old habit of Speech was far more firmly entrenched due to hereditary influence than it is now. I nodded to the man and made my way to my own quarters. I wished most heartily that I could talk over my plans with someone, but this had been expressly forbidden. I realize that you trust your men, and more particularly your officers, colleen had told me during the course of his parting conversation with me. I trust them also. Yet we must remember that the peace of mind of the universe is concerned. If news, even a rumor of this threatened disaster should become known, it is impossible to predict the disturbance it might create. Say nothing to anyone. It is your problem. You alone should leave the ship when you land. You alone shall hear or see the evidence they have to present, and you alone shall bring the word of it to us. That is the wish of the Council. Then it is my wish, I had said. And so it had been settled. Aft in the crew's quarters, a gong sounded sharply, the signal for changing watches and the beginning of a sleep period. I glanced at the remote control dials that glowed behind their glass panel on one side of my room. From the registered attraction of Djarin. At our present speed, we should be passing her within according to Earth time, about two hours. That meant that their outer patrols might be seeking our business, and I touched Barry's attention button and spoke into the microphone beside my bunk. Mr. Barry, I'm turning in for a little sleep. Before you turn over the watch to Et Al, will you see that the nose rays are set for the special patrol code signal for this Einar? We shall be close to Djarin shortly. Yes, sir. Any other orders? No, I'll keep her on her present course. Course, I shall take the watch for Mr. Attell. Since there have been changes since those days and will undoubtedly be others in the future, it might be well to make clear in a document such as this that at this period all ships of the Special Patrol Service identified themselves by means of invisible ray flashes in certain sequences from the two nose or forward projectors. These code signals were changed every enar a period of time arbitrarily set by the council, about 18 days as time is measured on Earth and divided into 10 periods as at present known as Inerrans. These were further divided into inaros, thus giving us a time reckoning system for use in space, correspondingly roughly to the months, days and hours of the Earth. I retired, but not to sleep.

Sleep.

Sleep would not come. I knew, of course, that if curious outer patrol ships from Jaran did investigate us, they would be able to detect our invisible ray code signal and thus satisfy themselves that we are on the Council's business. There would be no difficulty on that score. But what I should do after landing upon the rebellious sphere, I had not the slightest idea. Be stern, indifferent to their threats, Colleen had counseled me. But do everything within your power to make them see the folly of their attitude. Do not threaten them, for they are surly people and you might precipitate matters. Swallow your pride, if you must. Remember that yours is a gigantic responsibility. And upon the information you bring us may depend the salvation of millions. I am convinced that they are not. You have a word in your language that fits exactly. Not pretending. What's the word? Bluffing, I had supplied in English, smiling. Right. Bluffing. It is a very descriptive word, and I'm sure they're not bluffing. I was sure of it. Also. They knew the power of the Alliance. They had been made to feel it more than once. A bluff would have been a foolish thing, and these people were not fools. In some lines of research they were extraordinarily brilliant. But what could their new terrible weapon be? Rays. We had at least half a dozen rays of destruction. The terrible dehydrating ray of the dauber sphere, the disintegrating ray that dated back before Amy Beauve and his first voyage into space. The concentrated ultraviolet ray that. That struck men down in fiery torment. No, it could hardly be a new ray that was their boasted weapon. What then? Electricity had even been exhausted of all its possibilities. Atomic energy had been released, harnessed, and directed. Yet it would take fabulous time and expense to make these machines of destruction do what they claimed they would do. Still pondering the problem, I did fall at last into a fitful travesty of sleep. I was glad when the soft clamor of the bell aft announced the next change of watch. I rose, cleared the cobwebs from my brain with an icy shower, and made my way directly to the navigating room. Everything tidy, sir? Said Attell, my second officer and a Zinian. He was thin and very dark, like all Xinians, and he had the high effeminate voice of the people. But he was cool and fearless and had the uncanny celebration of his kind. I trusted him as completely I trusted Barry, my first officer, who, like myself, was a native of Earth. Will you take over? Yes, I nodded, glancing at the twin charts beneath the ground glass top of the control table. Get what sleep you can for the next few ernos. Presently I shall want every man on duty at his station. He glanced at me Curiously, as the observer had done, but saluted and left with only a brief yes, sir. I returned the salute and turned my attention again to the charts. The navigating room of the interplanetary ship is without doubt unfamiliar ground to most, so it might be well for me to say that such ships have, for the most part, twin charts showing progress in two dimensions. To use land terms, lateral and vertical, these charts are really no more than large sheets of ground glass ruled in both directions, with fine black lines representing all relatively close heavenly bodies by green lights of varying sizes. The ship itself is represented by a red spark, and the whole is, of course, entirely automatic in action. The instruments comprising the chart being operated by the super radio reflexes Djarin, the chart showed me at a glance, was now far behind and almost directly above. It is necessary to resort to these unscientific terms to make my meanings clear was the tiny world of Elon, home of the friendly but impossibly dull winged people, the only ones in the known universe. I was there but once and found them almost laughably like our common dragonflies on Earth, dragonflies that grow some 7ft long and with gauzy wings of amazing strength. Directly ahead on both charts was a brilliantly glowing sphere of green, our destination. I made some rapid mental calculations, studying the few fine black lines between the red spark that was our ship and the nearest edge of the great green sphere. I glanced at our speed indicator and then the attraction meter. The little red slide that moved around the rim of the attraction meter was squarely at the top, showing that the attraction was from straight ahead. The great black hand was nearly a third of the way around the face. We were very close. Two hours would bring us into the atmospheric envelope. In less than two hours and a half we would be in the control city of what is now called the Forgotten Planet. I glanced forward through the thick glass partitions into the operating room. Three men stood there watching intently. They too were wondering why we visited an unfriendly world. The planet itself loomed up straight ahead, a great half circle, its curved rim sharp and bright against the empty blackness of of space, the cord ragged and blurred. In two hours I turned away and began a restless pacing. An hour went by, an hour and a half. I pressed the attention button to the operating room and gave orders to reduce our speed by half. We were very close to the outer fringe of the atmospheric envelope. Then, keeping my eye on the big surface temperature gauge with its stubby red hand, I resumed my nervous pacing. Slowly, the thick red hand of the surface temperature gauge began to move slowly and then more rapidly until the eyes could catch its creeping. Reduced to atmospheric speed, I ordered curtly and glanced down through a side port at one end of the long navigation room. We were at the moment directly above the twilight belt. To my right. As I looked down, I could see a portion of the glistening Antarctic ice cap. Here and there were the great flat lakes, almost seas of the planet. Our geographies of the universe today do not show the topography of the forgotten planet. I might say, therefore, that the entire sphere was land area, with numerous great lakes imbedded in its surface, together with many broad, very crooked rivers. As Amy be ove had reported, there were no mountains and no high land altitude constant. I ordered port 3 degrees. Stand by for further orders. The Earth seemed to whirl slowly beneath us. Great cities drifted astern, and I compared the scene below me with the great maps I took from our chart case. The Control city should be just beyond the visible realm, well in the daylight area. Port 5 degrees, I said, and pressed the attention button to Barry's quarters. Mr. Barry, please call all men to quarters, including the off duty watch, and then report to the navigating room. Mr. Attell will be under my direct orders. We shall descend within the next few minutes. Very well, sir. I press the attention button to Attell's room. Mr. Attell, please pick 10 of your best men and have them report to the forward exit. Await me with the men at that place. I shall be with you as soon as I turn the Command over to Mr. Barry. We are descending immediately. Right, sir, said Attell. I turned from the microphone to find that Barry had just entered the navigating room. We will descend into the great court of the control city. Mr. Barry, I said, I have a mission here. I'm sorry, but these are the only instructions I can leave you. I do not know how long I shall be gone from the ship, but if I do not return within three hours, depart without me and report directly to Colleen of the Council, to him and no other. Tell him verbally what took place. Should there be any concerted action against the Tamon. Use your own judgment as to the action to be taken, remembering that the safety of the ship, ship and its crew and the report of the Council are infinitely more important than my personal welfare. Is that clear? Yes, sir. Too damned clear. I smiled and shook my head. Don't worry, I said lightly. I'll be back well within the appointed time. I hope so. But there is something wrong as hell here. I'm talking now as man to man, not to my commanding officer. I've been watching below and I have seen at least two spots where large numbers of our ships have been destroyed. The remaining ships bear their own damned emblem where the crest of the alliance should be and was. What does it mean? It means, I said slowly, that I shall have to rely upon every man and officer to forget himself and myself and obey orders without hesitation and without flinching. The orders are not mine, but direct from the Council itself. I held out my hand to him, an ancient Earth gesture of greeting, Good will and farewell. And he shook it vigorously. God go with you, he said softly, and with a little nod of thanks I turned and quickly left the room. Itell with his 10 men were waiting for me at the forward exit. It the men fell back a few paces and came to attention. Itell saluted smartly. We are ready, sir. What are your orders? You are to guard this opening. Under no circumstances is anyone to enter, save myself. I shall be gone not longer than three hours. If I am not back within that time, Mr. Barry has his orders. The exit will be sealed and the Tamon will depart immediately without me. Yes, sir. You will pardon me, but I gather that your mission is a dangerous one. May I not accompany you? I shook my head. I shall need you here. But sir, they are very excited and angry. I have been watching them from the observation ports and there is a vast crowd of them around the ship. I had expected that. I thank you for your concern, but I must go alone. Those are the orders. Will you unseal the exit? His yes, sir was brisk and efficient, but there was a worried frown on his features as he unlocked and released the switch that opened the exit. The huge plug of metal, some 10ft in diameter, revolved swiftly and noiselessly, backing slowly in its fine threads into the interior of the ship, Grim, gripped by the ponderous gimballs which as the last thread disengaged swung the mighty disk to one side like the door of some great safe. Remember your orders. I smiled, and with a little gesture to convey an assurance which I certainly did not feel, I strode through the circular opening out into the crowd. The heavy glass secondary door shot down behind me and I was in the hands of the enemy. The first thing I observed was that my manure, which I had picked up on my way to the exit, was not functioning. Not a person in all that vast multitude wore a manure. The five black robed dignitaries who marched to meet me wore none. Nothing could have showed me more clearly that I was in trouble. To invite a visitor, as Colleen had done. To remove his menorah first was of course a polite and courteous thing to do if one wished to communicate by speech. To remove the menore before greeting a visitor wearing one was a tactic. Admission of rank enmity, a confession that one's thoughts were to be concealed. My first impulse was to snatch off my own instrument and fling it in the solemn, ugly faces of the nearest of the five dignitaries. I remembered Colleen's warning just in time. Quietly I removed the metal circlet and tucked it under my arm, bowing slightly to the Committee of Five as I did so. I am Ja Ben, said the first of the five with an evil grin. You are the representative of the Council that we commanded to appear. I am John Hanson, commander of the ship Tamon of the Special Patrol Service. I am here to represent the Central Council. I replied with dignity. As we commanded, grinned Ja Ben. That is good. Follow us and you shall have the evidence you were promised. Ja Ben led the way with two of his black robed followers. The other two fell in behind me, a virtual prisoner. I marched between them through the vast crowd that made way grudgingly to let us pass. I have seen the people of most of the planets of the known universe. Many of them to Earth notion are odd, but these people, so much like us in many respects, were strangely repulsive. Their heads, as Amy Beauve had recorded, were not round like ours, but possessed a high bony crest that ran from between their lashless browless eyes down to the very nape of their necks. Their skin, even that covering their hairless heads, was a dull and papery white like parchment. And their eyes were abnormally small and nearly round. A hateful ugly people, perpetually scowling, snarling. Their very voices resembled more the growl of wild beasts than the speech of intelligent beings. Ja Ben led the way straight to the low but vast building of dun colored stone that I knew was the administration building of the Control City. We marched up the broad crowded steps, through the muttering, jeering multitude into the building itself. The guards at the door stood aside to let us through, and the crowd at last was left behind. A swift cylindrical elevator shot us upward into a great glass walled laboratory built like a sort of penthouse on the roof. Ja Ben walked quickly across the room towards the long glass topped table, and the other four are closed in on me silently but suggestively. That is unnecessary, I said quietly. See, I am unarmed and completely in your power. I am here as an ambassador of the Central Council, not as a warrior. Which is as well for you, grinned Ja Ben. What I have to show you. You can see quickly and then depart. From a great cabinet in one corner of the room. He took a shining cylinder of dark red metal and held it up before him, stroking its sleek sides with an affectionate hand. Here it is, he said, chuckling. The secret of our power in here, safely imprisoned now, but capable of being released at our command, is death for every living thing upon any planet we choose to destroy. He replaced the great cylinder in the cabinet and picked up in its stead a tiny vial of the same metal, no larger than my little finger and not so long. Here, he said, turning again towards me, is the means of proving our power to you. Come closer. With my bodyguard of four watching every move, I approached. Ja. Ben selected a large hollow hemisphere of crystal. Glass.

Glass.

And placed it upon a smooth sheet of flat glass. Next, he picked a few blossoms from a bowl that stood incredulously enough on the table and threw them under the glass hemisphere.

Flora.

He grinned, hurrying to the other end of the room, he reached into a large, flat metal cage and brought forth three small rodent like animals, natives of that world. These he also tossed carelessly under the glass. Glass. Fauna. He grunted and picked up the tiny metal vial. One end of the vial unscrewed. He turned the cap gently, carefully, a strained, anxious look upon his face. My four guards watched him Breathlessly, fearfully. The cap came loose at last, disclosing the end of the tube sealed with a grayish substance that looked like wax. Very quickly, Jabin rolled the little cylinder under the glass hemisphere and picked up a beaker that had begun bubbling gently on an electric plate close by. Swiftly, he poured the thick contents of the beaker around the base of the glass bell. The stuff hardened almost instantly, forming an airtight seal between the glass hemisphere and the flat plate of glass upon which it rested. Then, with an evil, triumphant smile. Ja. Ben looked up. Flora, he repeated. Fauna and death.

Watch.

The little metal cylinder is plugged still. But in a moment that plug will disappear. Simply a volatile solid, you understand? It is going rapidly, rapidly. It is almost gone. Now. Watch. In an instant.

Now.

Ah. I saw the gray substance that stopped the entrance of the little metal vial disappear. The rodents ran around and over it, trying to find a crevice by which they might escape. The flowers, bright and beautiful, lay untidily on the bottom of the glass prison. Then, just as the last vestige of the gray plug vanished, an amazing. A terrible thing happened. At the mouth of the tiny metal vial, a greenish cloud appeared. I call it a cloud, but it was not that it was solid, and it spread in every direction, sending out little needles that lashed about and ran together into solid mass, while millions of little needles reached out swiftly. One of these little needles touched a scurrying animal. Instantly the tiny brute stiffened, and from his entire body the greenish needles spread swiftly. One of the flowers turned suddenly, thick and pulpy with the soft green mass. Then another. Another of the rodents. God. In the space of two heartbeats, the entire hemisphere was filled with the green mass that still moved and writhed and seemed to press against the glass sides, as though the urge to expand was insistent, imperative. What is it? I whispered, still staring at the thing. Death grunted. Ja, Ben, thrusting his hateful face close to mine, his tiny round eyes with their lashless lids glinting. Death, my friend, go and tell your great Council of this death that we have created for every planet that will not obey us. We have gone back into the history of dealing death and have come back with a death such as the universe has never known before. There is a rapacious, deadly fungus we have been two centuries in developing. The spores contained in that tiny metal tube would be invisible to the naked eye, and yet, given but a little time to grow with air and vegetation and flesh to feed upon, and even that small capsule would wipe out a world. And in the cabinet it he pointed, grinning triumphantly. We have ready for instant use enough of the spores of this deadly fungus to wipe out all the worlds of your great Alliance. To wipe them out utterly, he repeated, his voice shaking with a sort of frenzy now. Every living thing upon their faces, wrapped in that thin, hungry green stuff you see there under that glass. All life wiped out, made uninhabitable so long as the universe shall endure. And we, we shall be rulers, unquestioned, of that universe. Tell your daughtering Council that. He leaned back against the table, panting with hate. I shall tell them all I have seen all you have said. I nodded. You believe we have the power to do this? I do. God help me and the universe, I said solemnly. There was no doubt in my mind. I could see all too clearly how well their plans had been laid, how quickly this hellish growth would strangle all life once its spores began to develop. The only possible chance was to get back to the council and make my report with all possible speed, so that every available armed ship of the universe might concentrate here and wipe out these people before they had time to. I know what you're thinking, my friend, broke in. Ja, Ben mockingly. You might as well have warned the Menor. You would have the ships of the alliance destroy us before we have time to act. We had foreseen that and have provided for the possibility. As soon as you leave here, ships provided with many tubes like the one just used for our little demonstration will be dispersed in every direction. We shall be in constant communication with those ships, and at the least sign of hostility, they will be ordered to depart and spread their death upon every world they can reach. Some of them you may be able to locate and eliminate. A number of them are certain to elude capture in infinite space. And if only one, one lone ship should escape the doom of the alliance in millions upon millions of people will be pronounced. I warn you, it will be better, much better, to bow to our wishes and pay us the tribute we shall demand. Any attempt at resistance will precipitate certain disaster. Disaster for your council and all the worlds the council governs. At least we would wipe you out first, I said hoarsely. True, nodded Jabin, but the vengeance of our ships would be a terrible thing. You would not dare to take the chance. I stood there staring at him in a sort of daze. What he had said was so true, terribly, damnably true. If onlythere was but one chance I could see. And desperate as it was, I took it. Whirling the heavy metal ring of my manure in hand, I sprang towards the table. If I could break the sealed glass hemisphere and loose the fungus upon its creators, deal to them the doom they had planned for the universe, then perhaps all might yet be well. Jabin understood instantly what was in my mind. He and his four aides leaped between me and the table, their tiny round eyes blazing with anger. I struck one of the four viciously with the manore, and with a gasp, he fell back and slumped to the floor. Before I could break through the opening, however, Ja Ben struck me full in the face with his mighty fist, a blow that sent me dazed and reeling into a corner of the room. I brought up with a crash against the cabinet there, groped wildly in an effort to steady myself, and fell to the floor. Almost before I struck, all four of them were upon me. They hammered me viciously, shouted at me, cursed me in the universal tongue, but I paid no heed. I pretended to be unconscious, but my heart was beating high with sudden, glorious hope, and in my brain a terrible, merciless plan was forming. When I had groped against the cabinet in an effort to regain my balance, my fingers had closed upon one of the little metal vials. As I fell, I covered that hand with my body and hastily hid the tiny tube in a deep pocket of my blue and silver service uniform. Slowly, after a few seconds, I opened my eyes and looked up at them helplessly. Go now. Snarled Ja Ben, dragging me to my feet. Go and tell your council we are more than a match for you and for them. He thrust me reeling towards his three assistants. Take him to his ship and send aid for I France here. He glanced at the still unconscious figure of the victim of my menore and then turned to me with a last warning. Remember one thing more, my friend. You have disintegrator ray equipment on your ship. You have the little atomic bombs that won for the alliance the Second War of the Planets. I know that. But if you make the slightest effort to use them, I shall dispatch my supply of the Green Death to our ships and they will depart upon their missions at once. You would take upon yourself a terrible responsibility by making the smallest hostile hostile move. Go now, and when you return, bring with you members of your Great Council who will have the power to hear our demands and see that they are obeyed. And do not keep us waiting overlong, for we are an impatient race. He bowed mockingly and passed his left hand swiftly before his face, his people's sign of parting. I nodded, not trusting myself to speak beak, and hemmed in by the three black robed conductors, was hurried down the elevator and back through the jeering mob to my ship. The glass secondary door shot up to permit me to enter and Attell grabbed my shoulder anxiously, his eyes smoldering angrily. Are you hurt, sir? He said in his odd high pitched voice, staring into my bruised face. What? It's nothing, I assured him. Close the exit immediately. We depart at once. Yes, sir. He closed the switch and the great threaded plug swung gently on its gimbals and began to revolve swiftly and silently. A little bell sounded sharply and the great door ceased its motion. Attell locked the switch and returned the key to his pocket. Good. All men are at their stations. Yes, Sir. Except these 10 detailed to guard the exit. Have them report to their regular stations. Issue orders to the ray operators that they are to instantly and without further orders, destroy any ship that may leave the surface of this planet. Have every atomic bomb crew ready for an instant and concentrated offensive directed at the control city. But command them do not act under any circumstances unless I give the order. Is that clear, Mr. Attell? Yes, sir. I nodded and turned away, making my way immediately to the navigating room. Mr. Barry, I said quickly and gravely, I believe that the fate of the known universe depends upon us. At this moment we will ascend vertically at once, slowly, until we are just outside the envelope, maintaining only sufficient horizontal motion to keep us directly over over the control city. Will you give the necessary orders immediately, sir. He pressed the attention button to the operating room and spoke swiftly into the microphone before he completed the order I had left. We were already ascending when I reached the port forward atomic bomb station. The man in charge, Azinian, saluted with automatic precision and awaited orders. You have a bomb in readiness, this? I asked, returning the salute. Those are my orders, sir. Correct. Remove it, please. I waited impatiently while the crew removed the bomb from the releasing strap. It was withdrawn at last, a fish shaped affair very much like the ancient airplane bombs, save that it was no larger than my two fists placed one upon the other, and that it had four silvery wires running along along its side from rounded nose to pointed tail, held at a distance from the body by a series of insulating struts. Now, I said quickly, how quickly can you put another object in the trap, reseal the opening, and release the object while the commander counts 10 with reasonable speed, said the Xenian with pride. We won first honors in the Special Patrol Service contest at the last examination. The Commander may remember. I do remember. That is why I selected you for this duty. With hands that trembled a little, I think, I drew forth the little vial of gleaming red metal while the bomb crew watched me curiously. I shall unscrew the cap from this little vial, I explained, and drop it immediately into the releasing trap. Reseal the trap and release this object as quickly as it is possible to do so. If you can better the time you made to win the honors at examination. In God's name, do so. Yes, sir, replied the zinnian. He gave brisk orders to his crew, and each of the three men sprang alertly into position. As quickly as I could, I turned off the cap of the little metal vial and dropped it into the trap. The heavy plug, a tiny duplicate of the exit door, clicked shut upon it and spun whining gently into the opening. Something clicked sharply and one of the the crew dropped a bar into place. As it shot home, the Zinian in command of the crew pulled the release plunger. Done, sir, he said proudly. I did not reply, my eye fixed upon the observation tube that was following the tiny missile to the ground. The control city was directly below us. I lost sight of the vial almost instantly, but the indicating crosshairs showed me exactly where the vial would strike at a point point approximately half way between the edge of the city and the great squat pile of the administrating building with its gleaming glass penthouse. The laboratory in which, only a few minutes before, I had witnessed the demonstration of the death which awaited the universe. Excellent. I exclaimed. Smartly done, men. I turned and hurried to the navigating room where the most powerful of our television disks was located. The disk was not as perfect as those we have today. It was hooded to keep out exterior light, which is not necessary with the later instruments, and it was more unwieldy. However, it did its work and did it well in the hands of an experienced operator. With only a nod to Barry, I turned the range band to maximum and brought it swiftly to bear upon that portion of the city in which the little vial had fallen. As I drew the focusing lever towards me, the scene leaped at me through the clear, glowing glass disk. Froth, green, billowing froth that grew and boiled and spread unceasingly in places. It reached high into the air, and it moved with an eager inner life that was somehow terrible and revolting. I moved the range hand back, and the view seemed to drop away from me swiftly. I could see the whole city now. All one side of it was covered with the spreading green stain that moved and flowed so swiftly. Thousands of tiny black figures were running in the streets, crowding away from the awful danger that menaced them. The green patch spread more swiftly. Always when I had first seen it, the edges were advancing as rapidly as a man could run. Now they were fairly racing, and the speed grew constantly. A ship, two of them, three of them, came darting from somewhere else towards the administration building with its glass cupola. I held my breath as the deep, sudden humming from the Tamon told me that our rays were busy. Would they. One of the enemy ships disappeared suddenly in a little cloud of dirty, heavy dust that settled swiftly. Another and a third, three little streaks of dust falling, falling. A fourth ship and a fifth ship came rushing up their sides, faintly glowing from the speed they had made. The green flood, thick and insistent, was racing up and over the administration building. Now it reached the roof, ran swiftly. The fourth ship shattered into dust. The fifth settled swiftly, and then that ship also disappeared together with the corner of the building. Then the thick green stuff flowed over the whole building, and there was nothing to be seen there but a mound of saw, soft, flowing gray green stuff that rushed on now with the swiftness of the wind. I looked up into Barry's face. You're ill, he said quickly. Is there anything I can do, sir? Yes, I said, forming the words with difficulty. Give orders to ascend at emergency speed. For once my first officer hesitated. He glanced at the attraction meter and then turned to me again, wondering. At this height, sir, emergency speed will mean dangerous heating of the surface. Perhaps. I want it white hot, Mr. Barry. She is built to stand it. Emergency speed, please. Immediately. Right, sir, he said briskly, and gave the order. I felt my weight increase as the order was obeyed. Gradually the familiar, uncomfortable feeling left me. Silently, Barry and I watched the big surface temperature gauge as it started to move.

Move.

The heat inside became uncomfortable, grew intense. The sweat poured from us in the operating room. Forward. I could see the men casting quick, wondrous glances up at us through the heavy glass partition that lay between. The thick, stubby red hand of the surface temperature gauge moved slowly but steadily towards the heavy red line that marked the temperature at which the outer shell of our hole would become incandescent. The hand was within 3 or 4 degrees of that mark when I gave Barry the order to arrest our motion. When he had given the order, I turned to him and motioned towards the television disc. Look, I said. He looked, and when at last he tore his face away from the hood, he seemed 10 years older. What is it? He asked in a choked whisper. Why, they're being wiped out the whole of that world. True, and some of the seeds of that terrible death might have drifted upward and found a lodging place upon the surface of our ship. That is why I ordered the emergency speed while we were still within the atmospheric envelope, Barry. To burn away that contamination if it existed. Now we're safe unless I press the attention button to the station of the the chief of the Ray operators. Your report. I ordered nine ships disintegrated, sir, he replied instantly. Five before the city was destroyed. Four later. You are certain that none escaped? Positive, sir. Very good. I turned to Barry, smiling. Point her Nose for Zinnia, Mr. Barry, I said. As soon as it is feasible. Resume emergency speed. There are some very anxious gentlemen there awaiting our report, and I dare not convey it except in person. Yes, sir, barry said crisply. This, then, is the history of the forgotten planet. On the charts of the universe, it appears as an unnamed world. No ship is permitted to pass close enough to it so that its attraction is greater than that of the nearest other mass. A permanent outpost of fixed station ships with headquarters upon Djarin. The closest world is maintained by the Council. There are millions of people who might be greatly disturbed if they knew of this potential menace that lurks in the midst of our universe. But they do not know the wisdom of the Council made certain of that. But in order that in the ages to come there might be a record of this matter, I have been asked to prepare this document for the sealed Archives. Lives of the alliance it has been a pleasant task. I have relived for a little time a part of my youth. The work is done now, and that is well. I am an old man and weary. Sometimes I wish I might live to see the wonders that the next generation or so will witness. But my years are heavy upon me. My work is done. End of the Forgotten Planet by Seawell Peasley Wright.

Where the Pebbles Go By Miriam Allen Deford this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org read for Librivox by klaatu at mixedsignals mlcnc where the FFF Pebbles Go by Miriam Allen Deford Grahl and Hadnuth were playing fff. In case you are not a pff and haven't ever seen Blitzen's classic ways of improving your FF game, its essence consists in lobbing pebbles at a target as near the horizon as your skill permits. After each throw, you fly over to see how far you went. It sounds like a simple game, but it has complicated restrictions and rules, and a good FFF player can command any amount of heavy service from the spectators. Since a lot of the ground dwellers are also fff, they could never become players, of course, being far too small and light to handle the pebbles. This means that a real champion never has to do any kind of work again, being fed, clothed, housed and entertained by his admirers, and can devote all his time to the game. Grahl and Hadnoth, having alternated as champions for many a long ganath, had it pretty easy, but neither of them was given to lying back on his laurels and growing soft. This meant that when a match was announced, ground dwellers as well as we real people came by the Hanthoids from Ziggles around to watch through viewing tubes, and whichever of the two won piled up a lot of bilibs of voluntary service. Voluntary service, as most economists admit, is true wealth, since the pledge is incumbent on the offerer's heirs until it is fully satisfied and can likewise be willed by the recipient to his heirs. Naturally, no pfft player is absolutely perfect. If he were, there would be no contest and nobody would bother to attend the game. Pebbles fall short, they go awry, and sometimes they are thrown so hard that they escape altogether from our light gravity and fly into outer space. At the end of the game, period, the referee, usually a superannuated former champion, totes up the score and announces how many times each player missed the target and by which of these errors he missed it. By a rather confusing arithmetical computation, he then determines which of them won, and the winner collects his pledges, and the fans collect the side bets they have been making all through the game. In this particular game, Hodnath won, but then he won about half the time, so that wasn't what gave it its importance. The Ground Dwellers, as everyone knows, are an excitable and volatile race, which is why we conquered them so easily, with the added advantage of our command of levitation and our immensely greater size and strength. So just an ordinary FFF game often looks like a riot. When anything out of the way occurs, such as the appearance of a new young contender to take on one of the champions, the ground Dwellers simply go wild. And this time they practically exploded. I confess that even we real people were amazed one of the thinkers was discovered attending the game. Now, when we first arrived here and cleaned up the Ground Dwellers and established them in their proper subservient position, the thinkers were our leaders. It was they who had figured out the whole invasion, had headed the 60 hastgund flight, and had worked out the tactics and logistics of the great conquest. But once we were settled and things were going smoothly, they called a last general meeting and told us that their part was finished and that now they were going to retire to the Far Colony and go on with their thinking. Since then, if a problem arises that our own council can't handle, one of us has to fly to the Far Colony and obtain the advice of a Thinker. They live together there with their families, supported of course by all of us, and spend all their time in study and research. It is one of the natural advantages of us real people that we have these specialized thinkers to do all our intellectual and cultural tasks and teach us what we need to know, leaving us others free for the truly satisfying functions of government and commerce. Never in all the gnaths since that last general meeting had a thinker been seen among us. And that so august a being should condescend to attend a mere pff game was unbelievable. Yet there he was, easily recognizable. Naturally, since all thinkers have long white hair and long white beards. Even the female thinkers, though some heretics say their beards are artificial. In fact, that is the way one knows that a new thinker has been born. Soon after birth, his hair and beard begin to grow both white, and as soon as he is weaned, we fly him to the Far colony to be reared and educated by his own. If a thinker has a child who isn't one, they send him back to us. As soon as the spectators realized that a Thinker was among us, the excitement reached boiling point. The ground dwellers almost went crazy, for of all things, the Thinker had seated himself not in the perches of honor of the real people in front, but in the ground dwellers bleachers. We ourselves noticed all the scrambling and heaving, and when some of us flew over to investigate, we could hardly believe our eyes. When I say scrambling and heaving, I don't mean they were mobbing him. They're much too afraid of us for that, and anyway, their reverence for the thinkers is positively religious, much more so than ours. After all, the Thinkers are simply specialized members of our own race, and though we revere them, we could scarcely worship them as the ground dwellers do. No, they were clearing a respectful space all around him. But then they kept gazing at him in awe, half of them falling on their knees in his presence. I sneaked a glance at the FFF players, and as I suspected, they were looking anything but happy. Champions are pretty vain. They don't care for rival attractions. One of our party. It was Sephar, who as usual, pushed himself forward, bowed to the thinker, and asked if he wouldn't be more comfortable among us. But he shook his white beard and said no, he could see better where he was. I wonder if thinkers may not have a bit of vanity, too, and if he wasn't enjoying seeing all those poor creatures prostrate themselves around him. Then will your honor join us when the game is over? Persisted Sephar. If you would enter my poor pit of a dwelling, it would overwhelm me with pleasure to have you feast with us. His poor pit of dwelling, indeed. I wish you could see the palace he lived in. The roof opening is plated with solid nag. I was just about bursting with indignation, but I should have known you can trust a Thinker to deflate a fellow like that. Thank you, brother, he said mildly, but I'm here doing some research, and I'll have to fly back right after the game. Sephar opened his mouth to argue, but by that time I had him by the wing and I pulled him back. He said rudely, I say firmly, do you want to give us a bad name for presumption, Brother? I whispered, don't interfere with a thinker when he's thinking. Some of the rest of us nodded agreement. So Sephar shut up, but he had a nasty gleam in his eye, and I braced myself for trouble. Later, we bowed and returned to our places. Thanks to Sephar and his performance, I missed the last throw Grau made, which lost him the contest. But I heard the moan from the spectators who weren't watching the Thinker instead, so I knew he'd lobbed a too high one. It must have been a humdinger, one of the throws into space. I glanced back as I was flying away, and the Thinker was standing up and gazing intently after it. Well, I thought to myself, imagine a Thinker getting worked up over a throw. The game was over soon after that, and Hodnoth went around collecting his pledges while Grahl was being consoled by his backers. When I got a chance to look again where the Thinker had been sitting, he had disappeared. The one who hadn't disappeared was Sephar. He was waiting for me, just as I'd expected. Not here, I snarled at him. Do you want the ground Dwellers to see real people in a brawl? So we adjourned to Marnag's courtyard, which was the nearest dueling place, and it was a nice little fight, and I won. Quite a group gathered around, and I was pleased to see that several of my friends were making bets on me. Some of Sephar's sycophants lugged him off to the hospital to have a fractured wingtip treated. The rest came home with me, and we spent our winnings on a good dinner with plenty of mastogne to wash it down. Several of us speculated about the Thinker, and we wondered if his research wasn't a fake, and if he just decided to enjoy a game like the rest of us.

Us?

After all, Marnag pointed out, he might be only a boy. You can't tell with a Thinker, I suppose. Young thinkers can be frivolous and rebellious, like our own youngsters. Niepar, who is something of a wag, yelled, hey, listen to Marnag. He's thinking. Come on, Marnag. Are you really a Thinker in disguise? Let's see if that green hair of yours has dyed. You could have shaved the beard, and he poured a pitcher of mastogne right over Marnak's head to find out if the color would come off. After that, the party got really rough, and I don't remember the rest of it. A whole gnath. After that, the Thinkers sent one of their messengers to tell us in the Council that we were summoned to a meeting in the Far Colony, that doesn't happen often, so we knew something extremely important must be up. I, for one, was all of a twitter. Not one of us connected the summons with that thinker who had come to the PFF contest between Grahl and Hotness. That was our stupidity. We should have guessed it when we found the two champions had been sent for also. Grahl flew next to me on the trip, and of all things, both he and Hotnuth were carrying with them several PFF pebbles, which the thinkers had ordered them to bring along. It's hard to tell the thinkers apart, at least for us who aren't thinkers, but I recognized the one who had been at the game. He sat right by Lledo, who always acts as their spokesman when we consult them about anything. Welcome, and thank you for coming so promptly, hleto began. Did you two PFF players bring the pebbles? Grahl and Hadnuth handed over the load, and Hledo passed it on to the one we knew. This is Mirowan, hleto said, and he will tell you the urgent thing he has thought. I became interested a long time ago, meerowan began in a rather rusty voice. All the thinkers except Hledo have. They spend most of their time in study and meditation and don't talk much among themselves. In a question that seems never to have occurred to any of us, where do pebbles go when they are thrown beyond our feeble gravity and escape into outer space? What becomes of them in the end? And who, if anyone, collects them? And what conclusions about them and our world do such persons draw? I raised my hand to ask a question, and Miriwan nodded. I don't understand, I said politely, meaning he was being too abstruse for any of us. For it is understood that there is no keener apprehension in the Council than my own. Is your honor implying that there exist outside our world other intelligences that would be capable of observing and drawing conclusions from the pebbles? Exactly. I know that the general belief is that it is impossible that extra planetary beings can exist, least of all intelligent beings. That was the belief of my own colleagues until I gave them the results of my recent thought. It is the reason we have summoned you here. For some time now we have been receiving peculiar radio waves from outside the world. We have considered them merely manifestations of random radiation from other planets and stars. But now they have suddenly become, shall I say, rhythmical? Measured, directional. They leave the impression that someone or something is trying to communicate with us. The astronomers among us have become more and more concerned. We have finally been led to the reluctant belief that our former theories have been wrong, that this actually is not the only inhabited planet. Now, I need not tell you how disastrous it would be for us if that were true. If there are intelligent beings on other planets, if they are trying to communicate with us, then the next step would be that they would try to visit us. Marnag raised his hand. What harm would that do if such beings exist? And if they could come here, why wouldn't we go there, too, wherever it is? And wouldn't that enrich our lives? Of course I'm not a thinker. I had a fleeting vision of Niepar and the picture of Mastogne. But I'm a real man, and I can see no reason why it would hurt us to find we are not alone in the universe. No, said Mirowan dryly, you are not a thinker. My friend. We enjoy here a completely stable civilization. It is the best of all possible social systems. We do not want it disturbed. I see, said Marnag, and several others nodded. I confess that a heretical idea crossed my mind mind that any such disturbance might well dethrone the thinkers first of all. But I suppressed it, mirowan went on, and that is where the pebbles come in. In the course of my research on these previously unknown waves, I began to wonder what, if anything, had initiated the interest of outsiders in our planet, Assuming that outsiders exist, Certainly we had made no move toward trying either to reach or to communicate with any putative dwellers on other planets. There had been no major changes on our planet that could have enlisted the attention of outside astronomers, even granting that they have telescopes as powerful as our own. Only one thing, so far as I can ascertain, has ever left this planet for outer space, and that was the pff. Pebbles, we call them pebbles to beings who might consider us giants. And if there really are intelligent beings in other worlds, they might might well be of an entirely different size from us, though no less dangerous for all that they might seem. Huge meteors. Suppose that, though most of them would undoubtedly burn up and all of them be considerably reduced before they struck another planet as meteorites, some of them, at least, might still be sufficiently large to be analyzed chemically. And suppose that where they struck there existed beings capable of analyzing them, this was getting a little deep for anybody not a thinker to take in. Several council members raised their hands plaintively and so indicated. All right, I'll try to make it plainer, mirowan said. Let us pretend that instead of the little fragments of space debris that fall harmlessly in the annual meteor showers. Here we were pelted with enormous chunks of matter, perhaps causing major damage to property and life. Wouldn't we immediately undertake an intensive study to determine whence they came and of what precisely they consisted? And if we found that these residual meteorites contained material indicating their origin in an inhabited world? Still worse, in a world sufficiently evolved to entail the possibility or probability that its highest life forms might be intelligent or even civilized, wouldn't we take steps at once to investigate? Moreover, wouldn't we be outraged to the point where our primary object would be to avenge ourselves? Of course we would. And so, of course, would any beings of other planets under similar circumstances. You mean, Marnag asked, that if beings came here from space, they would attack us? That too. But even if that were not their reaction, curiosity alone could be enough to spur them on to exploration.

But.

But what can we do? Quavered old Gantes. He is really growing too senile to be on the Council much longer. We can discourage them, and we can mislead them.

How?

We can make certain that nothing reaches them in the future which gives them the least sign that any but the lowest forms of life, if even those exist in our world. I studied this whole question systematically, as we always do. I came to the conclusion that only the PFF pebbles could possibly betray us. I attended a PFF game to see for myself if a pebble actually could be thrown with sufficient force to become, as it were, an artificial meteor. I found that it could. Indeed, I saw Growl make such a throw. Grahl looked stricken. He fell flat on his face, groveling before the thinkers. Oh, your reverences. He cried. I never dreamt. I never. Get up, Grahl. Mereloan ordered. Nobody's blaming you. Nobody expects anyone but a thinker to think. We'll make it a rule from now on to hold our shots. We'll bar anyone from the game forever who lobs a pebble too hard, hodnath promised fervently. Far from it, said Mirowan. On the contrary, in the future you must concentrate on supragravity. Shots give extra points to anyone who performs one. Why? Several of us murmured, completely bewildered. Because I have already analyzed three pebbles I brought back with me from the game. With the ones you have brought, I shall be able to make further tests. If they confirm my previous findings, I think we shall be able to mislead any potential attackers. Every FFF pebble henceforth will be doctored. To use any unauthorized pebble will become a felony. What has happened in the past. We can't change. But there may still be time to save ourselves. From this time forth, there are going to be more meteors shot off our atmosphere than ever before, and every one of them is going to tell a completely false story about conditions in their plate of origin. Of course, we may be entirely wrong. These new waves may be due to purely physical causes. Other planets may all be as devoid of intelligent life as we have always assumed. But if there is the faintest possibility, and I feel there is, that we are in danger, it would be fatal not to take such measures as we can to avert it. What's in the pebbles now that could tell anything about us? Grau asked. And if something is, how could you alter it? Mirowan froze up a little. The thinkers don't like to have us ask detailed questions. But he realized that Grahl was still upset and answered kindly, it wouldn't mean a lot to you if I told you, but you can understand this much. Chemical analysis of the pebbles I've looked at so far shows fragments of embedded fossils. Of plants, you mean? Mirowan smiled. Plants don't become fossilized, he said. In one pebble there was a microscopic piece of a metal knife. In another there was half a fossilized tooth. Ground dweller relics, true, but human. You must remember that all the hills around here from which you gather the pebbles are really million ganath old burial places of the ground dwellers. We haven't bothered to dig up most of them because we're so rich in prehistoric remains with our immensely old civilization that we have all the fossils and ancient artifacts facts we need. But let's imagine an alien civilization a great deal younger than ours. Let's imagine that in even one of these pebbles, which would be a meteorite to them, even a minute trace of that kind of thing should be left. What would they think? For they would have to have thinkers, too, to be civilized at all. I'll tell you what they'd think. They'd decide that somewhere out in space there is a rich, undiscovered planet. Planet full of valuable knowledge and even better valuable artifacts. Probably a world with a culture much more advanced than their own. And they'd try hard to trace the direction from which those meteorites came and to calculate the distance. Then suppose they had some means of transportation in space. That may well be what these new radio waves mean. They may be attempts at communication if we were foolish enough to respond to them. We don't dare to take any chances. So from now on there are going to be swarms and swarms of those meteoroids, and every one of them is going to be a real artifact on its own. A manufactured one, made according to our specifications, carrying an unmistakable message. A false one. They will be cunningly constructed from forms of matter injurious to any conceivable variety of life. Life will cover them all, and they'll be barren of even the most primitive bacteria. They will carry in themselves a silent warning. Approach the planet from which these come at peril of your instant death, no matter what kind of being you are. That should save us forever. I'd been wondering why Sephar had kept his big mouth shut all this time. To my way of feeling, he should never have been with us at all. He would never have been a council member if he hadn't been a multi billet bear. But I'd want a fair fight with him, and officially we had to be friends, so I hadn't protested when I found he was included in the summons. But now the big blowhard had to put his two groksworth. Your Reverence, your Honor, he spluttered, may I ask a question? Certainly, brother. Since players have been lobbing pebbles out into space for thousands and thousands of gnaths, and as your honor says, some of them must long ago have landed somewhere, who knows what dead giveaways may have been in any of them? Is that your question? No, I have two first, why haven't these intelligent beings whose existence you're presupposing I saw Mira's face set and I knew he'd noted that rude and insulting word, but I managed to conceal my smile. Why haven't they come here before this? And since they haven't come, if they're smart enough to figure out our whereabouts, why aren't they also smart enough to realize the difference between the old pebbles and these new ones? And to know that we're putting something over on them? We sometimes say that though the thinkers are of course overwhelmingly our superiors, mentally they lack the emotional control which is the great characteristic of the rest of us real people. I wish those scandal mongers could have seen Mirowan then. His face was as white as his beard and his wings quivered. But he let Sephar have his say out, and he answered him very quiet, quietly. As to your first question, brother, and if anybody ever called me brother in that tone, I'd know it was a case of fight or run. The only logical reason is that it must be only recently that such beings have reached a state of culture where they are able to analyze the pebbles and draw the right conclusions from them. And the answer to your second question is that we can only hope. Hope that all of the pebbles already in their possession are free of, shall we say, incriminating evidence. All we can guarantee is that all they find in the future will be. Does that answer you satisfactorily? It will have to, muttered Sephar sullenly. I moved away from him and was glad to notice that I was not the only one. What I have said to you, continued the Thinker calmly, you may communicate to any of the real people you wish. You will naturally keep it from the ground dwellers. There is no reason to agitate them at present time enough for that, if we should ever need them as soldiers, which I devoutly hope we never shall. But who will make the artificial pebbles if the ground dwellers aren't to know about them? Asked Marnag. What about our slogan Thought from the thinkers, Government and administration from the real people, technical skill and heavy labor from the ground dwellers? We shall handle that. When you go home, tell Earnig I want to see him at once. Brief him first. He and his bureau will see that the job is done, and the ground dwellers needn't be told just what they are making. They'll be delighted to hear that we are planning a new kind of pebble to increase the interest of the game. They love it whenever one is batted clear away. Well, all this was last, Gnath. The new pebbles are in use. So far nothing has happened, unless you count the fact that, according to Mirowan, those peculiar radio waves have ceased. Let us hope that if his whole theory is correct and thinkers don't talk about their thoughts till they're pretty sure of them, those alien beings have given up, decided either that they were mistaken and there is no intelligence here able to communicate, or that they themselves haven't the ability to interpret. Our answer answers Sephar. Oh, he isn't around anymore. One of the Thinkers is doing some experiments in psychological adjustment. Kledo asked the Council's recommendation of somebody they could commandeer as a test subject according to the Agreement on Thinkers Privileges, and I got them to suggest Sephar. He was very nasty about it, but I ignored his underbred invective. I felt it my duty also respectfully, to remind Khledo of Sephar's past indiscretions, in case they'd forgotten. Usually when the Thinkers have finished with a subject, he's no longer of much use, and they put him in a rest home for the remainder of his life. So since I've done pretty well for myself lately. I was able to buy Sephar's home with its nog plated roof opening and move into it. He had a very attractive wife who of course couldn't go with him to the Far Colony. It just goes to show that virtue, as one of the thinkers once remarked wittily, is its own reward. End of where do the Pebbles Go? By Miriam Allen Deford Recording by klaatu at mixedsignals MLCNC. One Way by Miriam Allen Deford this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Read for Librivox by Klaatu at Mixed Signals MLCNC One Way by Miriam Allen Deford we had the driver let us off in the central district and took a copter taxi back to home field. There's no disgrace about it, of course. We just didn't feel like having all the neighbors see the big skycar with Lydna project painted on its side and then having them drop in casually to express what they would call interest and we would know to be curiosity. There are people who boast that their sons and daughters have been picked for Lydna. What is there to boast about? It's pure chance, within limits. And Hal is our only child and we love him. Lucy didn't say a word all the way back from saying goodbye to him. Lucy and I have been married now for 27 years, and I guess I know her about as well as anybody on earth does. People who don't know her so well think she's cold, but I knew what feelings she was crushing down inside her. Besides, I wasn't feeling much like talking myself. I was remembering too many things. Hal at about 2, looking up at me when I would come home dead tired from a hard day of being chewed at by half a dozen bosses, was right up to the editor in chief whenever anything went the least bit out of kilter, with a smile that made all my tiredness disappear. Hal when I'd pick him up at school, proudly displaying a cybernetics approval slip and ignoring the fact that half the other kids had one too.

Hal.

The day I took him to the beard removal center, certain that he was a man now, that he was old enough for depilation. Hal that morning two weeks ago, setting out to get his vocational assignment certificate, it that's when I stopped remembering. It had been five years after our marriage before they let us start a child. Some question about Lucy's uncle and my grandmother. Most parents aren't as old as we are when they get the news and usually have other children left, so it isn't so bad. When we got home, Lucy still was silent. She took off her scarf and cloak and put them away, and then she pushed the button for dinner without even asking me what I wanted. I noticed, though, that she was ordering all the things I like. We both had the day off, of course, to go and say goodbye to Hal. Lucy is a technician at Hydroponics Center. I felt awkward and clumsy. Her ways are so different from mine I explode and then it's over. Just a sore place where it hurts if I touch it. Lucy never explodes, but I knew the sore place would be there forever and getting worse instead of better. We ate dinner in silence, though neither of us felt hungry, and had the table cleared. Then it was nearly 19:00 o'clock and I had to speak. The takeoff will be at 1910, I said. Want me to tune in now? Last year when Mutro was Solar president, he gave a good speech before the kids left. Don't turn it on at all, she said sharply. Then in a softer voice, she added, of course, Frank. Turn it on whenever you like. I'll just go up to my room and open the soundproofing. There were still no tears in her eyes. I thought of a thousand things to say. Don't you want to catch a glimpse of Hal and the crowd going up the ramp? Mightn't they let the kids wave a last farewell to their folks, listening and watching in? Mightn't something in the President's speech make us feel a little better? But I heard myself saying, never mind, Lucy, don't go. I'll leave the thing off. I didn't want to be alone. I wanted Lucy there with me. So we sat out the whole time of the visicast, side by side on the window couch, holding hands. I'll say this for the neighbors, they must all have known, for Hal was the first to be selected from Home field in nearly 40 years, and the newscast must have announced it over and over. But not a single person on the whole 62 floors of the house butted in on us, not even that snoopy student from Venus in 47 town 14 who's always dropping in on other tenants and taking notes on the mores of Earth Aboriginals. People can be very decent sometimes. We needn't have worried about coming home in the Lidna project bus. It was no good trying to keep my mind on anything else, whether I Wanted to or not. The last two hours we'd ever have with Hal. It couldn't mean to him what it meant to us. We were losing. He was both losing and gaining. We were losing our whole lives. For 21 years past, he was too. But he was entering a new life we would never know anything about. No word ever comes from Lydna. That's part of the project. Nobody even knows where it is for sure, though it's supposed to be on one of the outer asteroids. Both boys and girls are sent, and there must be marriages and children, though probably the death rate is pretty high. For every year they have to select, collect 200 more from Earth to keep the population balanced. We would never know if our son married there or whom or when he died. We would never see our grandchildren or even know if we had any. Hal was a good son, and I think we were fairly good parents and had made his childhood happy. But at 21, faced with a great mysterious adventure and an unknown and exciting future, a boy can't be expected to be drowned in grief at saying goodbye to his humdrum old father and mother. It might have been tougher for him 200 years ago when they hadn't learned to decondition children early from parental fixations. But no youngster today would possess that kind of unwholesome dependency. If he did, he would never have been selected for Lydna in the first place. That's one comfort we have. It's a sort of proof we had reared a child far above the average. It was just weakness in me to half wish that Hal hadn't been so healthy, so handsome, so intelligent, so fine in character. They were a wonderful lot. We said our goodbyes in an enormous room of the spaceport with this year's 200 selectees there from all over Earth, each with relatives and whoever else had permission to make the last visit. I suppose it's a matter of accommodations and transportation, for nobody's allowed more than three. So it was mostly parents with a few brothers, sisters and sweethearts or friends. The selectees themselves choose the names. After all, they've had two weeks after they were notified to say goodbye to everyone else who matters to them. Most of the time, all I could keep my mind on was Hal, trying to fix forever in my memory every last detail of him. We had dozens of sound stereos, of course, but this was the last time. Still, it's my business at the news office and has been for 30 years, to observe people and form conclusions about them. So I couldn't help noticing with a professional eye some of the rest of the selectees. This farewell visit is a private affair, and the press is barred, which is why I'd never been there before. There were two kinds of selectees that stood out in my mind. One was those who had nobody at all to see them off completely alone. Poor kids, orphans, doubtless with no families, and apparently not even friends near enough to matter. But in a way they would be the happiest. Life on earth couldn't have been very rewarding for them. And on Lydna they might find companionship, if only companionship and misery, I thought, but I shied away from that. In our business there are always leaks. We know or guess a few things about Lydna nobody else does, outside the authorities themselves, but we keep our mouths shut. The ones that tore my hearts were the boys and girls in love. They never take married people for Lydna, but a machine can't tell what a boy or a girl is feeling about another girl or a boy, and it's a machine that does the selection. There's no use putting up an argument for once made, the choice is inexorable and unchangeable. In my work as a news gatherer, I've heard some terrible stories. There have been suicide pacts and murders. You could tell the couple's in love. Not that there were any scenes. If there had been any in the two weeks past, they were over. But anybody who had learned to read human reactions as I have could recognize the agony those youngsters were going through. I felt a deep gratitude that Hal wasn't one of them. He'd had his share of adolescent affairs, of course, but I was sure he was still just playing around. He'd seen a lot of Bet Millen, a girl, a class ahead of him in school and college, but I didn't think she meant more to him than any of the others. If she had, she'd have been along to say goodbye. But he'd asked for only the two of us. She was now a laboratory assistant in our hospital and could easily have gotten the time off. It was growing late, almost midnight, and Lucy and I had to be at work tomorrow, no matter how we felt. I forced myself to talk, with Lucy's silent pain smothering me like a forced blanket. I made an effort and cleared my throat. Lucy, go to bed and turn on the hypno. Try to get some sleep. Lucy stood up obediently, but she shook her head. You, you go, dear, she said, her voice firm. I can't. I the Roof buzzer sounded. Somebody had landed in a copter and wanted us. Don't answer, I said quickly. There's nobody we want to see. But she had already pressed the button to open the door. It was Bette Millen, the girl Hal used to go around with. I braced myself. This might be bad. She might have cared more for Hal than we had guessed. But she didn't look grief stricken. She looked excited and determined and a little bit frightened. She scarcely glanced at me. She went right up to Lucy and took both Lucy's hands in hers and well, she said in a clipped, tense voice, we made it. Then Lucy broke for the first time. The tears ran down her face and she didn't even wipe them away. Are you certain? Positive. And I got word to him we'd agreed on a code. That's why he didn't want me there today. We couldn't trust ourselves not to betray it either way. I stood there staring at them, bewildered. What's this all about? I demanded. Have you two cooked up some crazy scheme to rescue Hal? I hope to heaven not. It would ruin us all, including him. The wild daydreams I'd had myself flashed through my mind. The drug that would seem to kill him and wouldn't the anonymous false accusation of subversion, the previous secret marriage. All impossible, all fatal. Lucy disengaged her hand from the girl's and slipped her arm through mine. You tell him, Bet, she said gently. You're the one who should. I'd never noticed how pretty the girl was till then. When she stood there with her face flushed and her eyes straight on mine, a pang went through me. If only she and Hal could have. No, Mr. Sturt, she said. We haven't rescued Hal. He's gone. But we've rescued part of him. I'm going to have his baby. Bet's going to live with us and be our daughter. Frank. Lucy, she explained. Hal and she and I worked it out in these two weeks after they came to me and told me how they felt about each other. We couldn't tell you till we were sure. I couldn't bear to have you hope and then be disappointed. It would be enough for me to have to suffer. That, that is. I'll come if you want me here, Mr. Sturt said bet. I had to sit down before I could speak. Of course I want you. But what about your own family? I haven't any. My mother's dead and my father's an engineer on Ganymede and gets home on leave about once in three years. I'VE been living in a youth hostel. But look here. I turned to Lucy. How on earth can you know? Two weeks or less is no time. Lucy gave me a look. I recognized the patient, one of the scientist for the layman. The Chao Vasalius test, dear. One day after the fertilized ovum starts dividing, and I ran it myself every day for over a week. That's one of my jobs in the lab, and it was easy to slip in another specimen. And it didn't.

And it didn't.

I went nearly out of my mind. Every time Hal entered the apartment, I'd look at him and he'd shake his head. Lucy interrupted. It meant everything to him, and it would have just broken my heart. Mine too, bet said softly. And his. And today was the last chance. I was scared to try it. This afternoon, at 14:30, just before the farewell visits, was the deadline for viz messages to any of them. If I'd had to send mine without the word we'd agreed on, that would tell him it was all right. But it was at last. And now he knows. Even if I never. Even if we never. Excuse me, please. It's been a strain. I'm afraid I'm going to ball. We let her alone. Kids nowadays hate to be fussed over us. We'd lost our son and that was going to stay with us forever. But now we would have his child to love. And an appalling thought struck me suddenly. I can't imagine why I hadn't realized it soonrall, this emotion, I suppose. Good God, I cried. An illegal child. We can't keep it. Nobody's going to know, lucy replied calmly. Bet's going to live with us, and when it starts to show, she's going to take her allowed leave. We'll take ours too, and we'll all go on a trip to Mars, maybe, or Venus, one of the settled colonies where we can rent a house. Babies don't have to be born in hospitals, you know. Our ancestors had them right at home. She's strong and healthy and I know what to do. Then we'll come back here and we'll have a baby with us that we adopted wherever we were. Nobody will ever know. Look, I said in a voice I tried to keep from rising. There are 4 billion people on Earth and about 28 billion in the colonized solar planet. Every one of those people is on record at Central Cybernetics. How do you suppose you're going to get away with the phony adoption of a non existent child? The first time you have to take it to a baby clinic. They'll find it has no card. I thought of that, Lucy said. And it can be done because it must, Frank, for heaven's sake, use your wits. You're a news gatherer. You know all sorts of people everywhere. I don't know any machines. And it's machines that handle the records. Machines under the supervision of humans. Sure, I said sarcastically. I just go to my ex newsgatherer pal who feeds the records to I.O. or Ceres and say, look, old fellow, do me a favor, will you? My wife wants to adopt a baby from your colony. So just make up the names of two people and give them a life check. Invent their ancestry back to the time Central Cybernetics was established, and then slip in cards for their marriage and the birth of their child. I'll let you know later whether to make it a boy or a girl, and then their deaths. And then my wife and I can adopt the made up baby. What kind of blackmailing hold do you think I have on any record? Official? I asked angrily. To make him do a thing like that and keep his mouth shut about it. I could be eliminated for treason for even making such a suggestion. Frank, think, Think. Surely there must be some way. And then it struck me. Wait, I just got an idea. When I said treason just now, it might barely be possible. Oh, what? It would have to be Marsthe North Polar Cap Colony. The K alf conspiracy messed things up there badly. I remember Mr. Sturt Bet said excitedly. They wrecked everything in the three months before the rebellion was crushed, didn't they? Everything, including their cybernetics equipment. Central doesn't want it known, but I have inside information that it's still not in going condition. That colony is full of children who have never been registered, and I doubt if it will be in 100% shape for the best part of another year. Those hellions really did a job. Let's see, this is the end of month two. We'd have to get away around month eight at the latest. And the baby would be born when exactly? Bet early in month 12. We could all be back here again by the first of next year, or even by the end of month 13. Well, I have enough accumulated leave for that. And I guess you have too. Lucy, neither of us has taken more than two or three weeks for years. But what about you, Bet? You've been working less than a year. I can borrow it. Our director is crazy about travel and she'll be all for it when I tell her I have a chance to go to Mars for a long visit.

It.

Besides, she knows about Hal and me. I mean, the way we were about each other. And she'll understand that. I'd want to get away for a while now. Asher, my editor in chief, would feel the same way, I thought, and so would Lucy's boss. I knew you'd find a way, remarked my wife complacently. I looked at the telecron. We've all got to be at work in seven hours, I said, if we expect to get through before the end of the afternoon. What say we turn in? You stay here with us, Bet, said Lucy. You parked your copter in our port, didn't you, Frank? I think we need a drink. I pushed the buttons. Nobody said anything, but somehow it was a toast to hell. I knew the liquor had to get past a lump in my throat, and the women were both crying. It wasn't like my self contained Lucy. I guess she thought so herself, for she braced herself, but her voice was still trembling when she turned to Bet. A year from now, she said, we'll all be back here in this room. And this time part of Hal will be here with us. His son. Our little Hal. It might be our little Hallie. Bet smiled through her tears. It will be ten weeks before I can run the Schuster test to find out. It won't make any difference. Hal will never know that. But he'll know, way out there on Lidna that his baby has been born. He'll know, even though he can never see it. Or us. Lucy blinked, then went on bravely. Every time he looks in a mirror there, he'll say to himself, well, back on Earth there's a little tyke with my blue eyes and my curly hair and my mouth and nose and chin who's going to grow up to be tall and straight like me. Or maybe like Bet, but also a lot like me. And as he grows older, he can think back to the way he was as a child and a boy and a man, and know that his son or his daughter will be feeling and thinking and looking someday, just about the way he himself is then and will be, a link with Earth and with us. That was when I had to go to the window and look out for a long time to pull myself together before I could face them again. Lydna is top, top secret. But as I've said before, we newsgatherers get inside information. I have a pretty shrewd idea of what the mysterious Lidna Project is. It's to alter human beings so they can adapt to the colonization of outer space. The medics do things to them to enable them and their descendants to resist every possible condition of temperature and radiation and gravity. They have to alter the genes. Acquired characters would be of use only in a short term project, and this is long term. But you can't alter genes without affecting the individual. We'd have Hal's normal child, but when Hal got to Lydna, he and the rest of them would be shocked and sick for a while at sight of some of the inhabitants. And if he had any children on Lydna, we back here would scarcely recognize them as human. Some of them might have extra limbs, some might have eyes and ears in odd places. Some might have lungs outside their bodies or brains without a skull. By that time Hal himself would have got over being sick, unless sometime he got hold of a mirror and remembered the boy he used to be. End of One Way by Miriam Allen Deford Read for Librivox by Klaatu at Mixed Signals MLCNC.

A Trip to Plutopia by Emmanuel Haldeman Julius this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Jeff Burke A Trip to Plutopia by Emmanuel Haldeman Julius Plutopia is Greek for hog island. It is still in the experimental stage. The dream back of this venture is to try out the latest ideas in exploitation and if successful, the plan is to be applied generally. Plutopia is the heaven of the exploiters, the haven of the 12 percenters, the paradise of the dividendists. It is a small body of land completely surrounded by graft. The system of government is simplicity epitomized. In fact there is no government. It is sublimated anarchy, the administration of affairs at Plutopia approximating perfection. There is no need for an organized government. At present there are 50,000 inhabitants at Plutopia. All but 500 are working people. Let me begin with the 49,500. When one describes the first, he has practically described the last. For they are about alike in dress, habits and tastes. They do not have names. Each has his own number and answers to it like a conviction. I had occasion to interview number 31,497. He told me he was satisfied with the way things were run and hoped there would never be a change. He was very thankful to the 500 in the palaces because they gave him an opportunity to work 12 hours each day in one of the rolling mills. He said the first thing he learned was to believe that the 49,500 who worked should do nothing but work, While the remaining 500 who worked should not do everything but work. He confessed this was a difficult theory to get into his head. But as his head had never been overtaxed in any way, he managed to adopt the idea. At present, he said, it seems that I always believed that we were supposed to work all the time. The plan is easy to understand. We have absolutely no worries and we are taken care of as well as we've been taught to expect. This point needed explanation, which 31,497 was glad to supply. An inventor in the employ of the 500 plutopists had produced a pill which was placed on the tongue and permitted to dissolve. Three pills went to a worker each day. It was considered sufficient to keep him strong enough to work 12 hours each day. As for clothes, wood pulp was used for the manufacture of paper sacks, on the back of which was printed the number of the worker. One huge building housed the 49,500, each being assigned to his room, which measured 6 by 8ft. The lights were turned off at 8:50. Once a year on Christmas Eve, all were given free tickets to a movie. It was figured out scientifically that the upkeep of each hand was exactly 11 cents and 4 mils a day. Number 31,497 said. One good feature about the new system at Plutopia was that the men did not have to take care of their families. In fact, they were not permitted to have families. The women were housed in a separate building. The children were sent to a sort of orphanage where they were educated to take their place in the industrial order when they became of age, which was placed at nine years. This is highly interesting. Let us now turn our gaze toward the remaining 500 where the 49,500 were housed. In one building. There was a palace for each of the beneficiaries of Plutopia. Having solved the problem of labor and having cut down expenses to the lowest possible point, the income was enormous. They no longer figured in dollars and cents. They struck off currency that began at $100,000. Because they never cared to bother with less, as it was considered very discommoding to be cluttered up with a lot of loose change. While they believed it was ideal for the workers to partake of food pills three times each day, they preferred to satisfy their gastronomical desires with more tangible edibles. They imported chefs who were in reality Arabian magicians who waved a wand and brought rare dishes from their culinary alchemy There is, as we have already mentioned, no government in Plutopia. The 500 have things arranged so precisely that there is no need for a police force. By training the 49,500 with the utmost care, there is no need to waste money on policemen, constables and the like. As for courts, they also were abolished as they are considered unnecessary expenses. In the old days, the capitalists spent huge sums in their courts. But the science of controlling labor through psychology enabled them to discard the expensive system. At least in this experiment station at Plutopia, one of the most distinguished looking of the 500, when interviewed, was quite ready to talk. Here is the ideal system at last, said the Plutopist, unable to conceal his satisfaction. I'm sure that it will be only a question of time before the world will follow our methods. This is the last word in organization. We have absolutely no doubts about our hands. They are nothing more than hands. Because we are careful that nothing should get into their craniums except what we want lodged there. There is the secret of success. Our hands are not permitted to study once they are given a place in our mills. Because study after working hours is tiring and throws our whole schedule out of whack. You see, we have just so many calories in the three pills the hand gets each day. And if he wastes any effort, we might be forced to give him four. And that would increase expenses one third of a cent, which we could never consider. Besides, thinking is bad for contentment. We don't like them to think about anything but their work. If there is any thinking to be done around here, we take the job on our own shoulders. What must be done before a person can become one of the 500? The Plutopist was asked nothing. We have a closed corporation and we try to pass the property on only to our blood relatives. Sometimes we reach out and invite outsiders. But the best method is that of inheritance. We got it from our parents and our children will get it from us. It is much like being a crown prince. How about the 49,500? Do they stand a chance to join your 500? Of course they do. They have a wonderful chance. If we happen to like one. We could have him admitted to our ranks by voting on the question. A unanimous vote is needed, however. But that doesn't alter the fact that our hands have an equal chance to take our places. Have you ever admitted one of your hands? No, not yet. We may someday. Aren't you a little afraid that this army of hands might get organized and throw your friends into discard? Ah, you mean are we afraid of socialism? Not a whit. Our hands are too well trained. You already understand how we take them through our training school and turn them out perfect workers. That is our strongest argument. Our scientists are now at work on a still bigger idea. This is confidential, of course. Certainly, I answered. Not a word will be said about it. Very well, he answered. See that it goes no further. We are working on a wonderful idea. We see the possibility of doing away entirely with our expensive training school. This was interesting. Urged to continue, he added. If nature is able to give us human beings with hands, eyes, ears and fingernails, why not have nature go still further and present us with human beings who already have the ideas we try so hard to inculcate. This was too brilliant for syntax. They had hit on the amazing idea of breeding ideal hands. It was almost unbelievable. We'll work it out in time. Our hope is to combine the strength of the ox with the blind loyalty of the dog.

Dog.

The self sacrifice of the egg laying hen and the mentality of the jackass. It's revolutionary. But it can be done. When we succeed, our problem will be solved for all time. The interview at an end. I applied for a pass to the training school. Being a friendly sort of person and knowing there could be no harm in granting the request, the plutopist wrote out the order. I began my tour in the kindergarten. There I saw a large class of children, all under five years of age. They were being taught how to use words. In unison. They recited I want to work. Very good, said the teacher. Very good. Now try to put a little more gladness into your voices. With added enthusiasm, the children yelled, I want to work. It was inspiring. Next came 12 hours a day. I want to work 12 hours a day. The teacher announced a little later that the children must say this 100 times each day, including Sunday. In the next class, the children are given little jobs. The mills were reproduced in miniature and the children were impressed with the fact that the greatest happiness would come when they became old enough to go into the genuine mills. In the miniature, the youngsters tended machines that were as tiny as dolls and yet able to do satisfactory work. Incidentally, these children, despite the smallness of the tools, turned out quite an amount of goods. But unfortunately the output was not enough to cover expenses. This was the fatal flaw in the system and undoubtedly was the reason why the 500 wanted to do away with it entirely and resort to having the children born with the idea of the virtue of work and the blessedness of producing for others. As stated before, when the child becomes nine years old, a place is found in the mills. Up to then, the total cost of upkeep for each child is four and six tenths of a cent per day. I heard a great commotion. The teachers were rushing about in terror. Something fearful must have happened. I rushed along with them and when the opportunity presented itself, I asked the cause of this excitement. It's too terrible for words, answered the person to whom I had directed my question. It's the first time such a thing ever happened. What? I demanded. The children in the kindergarten were repeating their lesson a few minutes ago and everything was going nicely. They were saying, I want to work as they should. When one boy forgot himself and said, I want a pair of skates. It's too terrible, too terrible. And then, trying to excuse the slip, the teacher it may be a hereditary taint. It must be. What makes you think so? It has been reported that this boy's father is a dangerous character who will bear watching. Once he made a remark to the effect that he thought it might be a good idea if the hands got four pills a day instead of three. Think of it. He actually proposed an increase in rations of 200 calories or 1,400 a week. Oh, we must watch these hands. Even after the best kind of an education, they are likely to get socialistic ideas. What will you do if they threaten to go on strike for the extra pill? Oh, there are plenty of ways of handling the issue. If feeling gets strong and it begins to look as though they stand a chance of winning, we'll give in to them. Is it possible? We will give in, but there won't be any real difference in the end. Let me explain. They get 600 calories a day, and as we control the manufacture of food pills, we will give them four a day. But there will be 150 instead of 200 calories in each. That's one way, but I don't think it will ever come to that point. We have them too well trained. Yes, Plutopia is a wonderful island. It will work as long as the hands consent to work. But so long as there are youngsters who crave a pair of skates and a grown up who doesn't conceal his desire for an extra pill. There is a standing menace to the future security of Plutopia. End of A TRIP TO Plutopia by Emanuel Haldeman Julius.

Atom Drive by Charles Fontenay this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org/drive the two spaceship crews were friendly enemies, sitting across the table from each other for their last meal before blastoff. Outside the ports, the sky was nothing but light, streaked blackness punctured periodically by Earth glare for Space Station 2 whirled swiftly on its axis, creating an artificial gravity. John, or I figured you the last man ever to desert the rockets for a hot rod tow job, chided Russo, beat captain of the Mars Corporation's gleaming new freighter Marsward 18. Bayotte was fat and red faced and one of the shrewdest space captains in the business. Johnner Johns, at the other end of the table, inclined his grizzled head and smiled. Times change, Rousseau, he answered quietly. Even the Mars Corporation can't stop that. Is it true that you're pulling 5,000 tons of cargo, Captain? Asked one of the crewmen of the Mars. Word 18. Something like that, agreed Johner, and his smile broadened. And I have only about twice the fuel supply you carry for a 100 ton payload. The communicator above them squawked and blared, Captain Johns and Captain Bayat of Martian competition run, please report to control for final briefing. I knew it, grumbled Bayotte, getting heavily and reluctantly to his feet. I haven't gotten to finish a meal on this blasted merry go round yet. In the space station's Control section, Commander Ortega of the Space Control Commission, an ascetic officer in plain blues, looked them up and down severely. As you know, gentlemen, he said, blast off time is o600 tonnage of cargo. Fuel and empty vessels cannot be a factor. Under the law, the Mars Corporation will retain its exclusive franchise to the Earth Mars run unless the sheep sponsored by Atom Star Company returns to Earth with the full cargo at least 20 hours ahead of the ship sponsored by the Mars Corporation. Cargo must be unloaded at Mars and new cargo taken on. I do not consider the 20 hour bias in favor of the Mars Corporation a fair one, said Ortega severely, turning his gaze to Bayot. But the Space Control Commission does not make the laws it enforces them. Docking and loading facilities will be available to both of you on an equal basis at Phobos and Marsport. Good luck. He shook hands with both of them. Saturn, I'm glad to get out of there. Exclaimed Beat, mopping his brow as they left the control section. Every time I take a step I feel like I'm falling on my face. It's because the control section's so close to the center, replied Johner. The station's spinning to maintain artificial gravity and Your feet are away from the center. As long as you're standing upright, the pull is straight up and down to you, but actually your feet are moving faster than your head in a larger orbit. When you try to move as in normal gravity, your body swings out of that line of pull and you nearly fall. The best corrective I've found is to lean backwards slightly when you start to walk. As the two space captains walked back toward the wardroom together, Beat, said Johner, I hear the Mars Corporation offered you the Marsward 18 for this run first. And you turned them down.

Why?

You piloted the Marsward 5 and the Wayward lady for MarsCorp when those upstarts in the Argentine were trying to crack the Earth Mars run. This Atom Star couldn't have enough money to buy you away from MarsCorp. No, MarsCorp offered me more, said Johner soberly now. But this atomic drive is the future of space travel, Rousseau. MarsCorp has it, but they're sitting on it because they've got their fingers in hydrazine interests here. And the atom drive will make hydrazine useless for space fuel unless I can break the franchise for Atom Star. It may be a hundred years before we switch to the atom drive in space. What the hell difference does that make to you? Asked Bayot bluntly. Hydrazine's expensive, replied Johner. Reaction mass isn't, and you use less of it. I was born on Mars, Rousseau. Mars is my home, and I want to see my people get the supplies they need from Earth at a reasonable transport cost. Not pay through the nose for every packet of vegetable seed. They reached the wardroom door. Too bad I have to degrav my old chief, said Beat, chuckling. But I'm a rocket man myself, and I say to hell with your hot rod atom drive. I'm sorry you got deflected into this run, Johner. You'll never break Mars Corps orbit. The Marsward 18 was a huge vessel, the biggest the Mars Corporation ever had put into space. It was a collection of spheres and cylinders joined together by a network of steel ties. Nearly 90% of its weight was fuel for the one way trip to Mars. Its competitor, the radiant hope, riding 10 miles away in orbit around the Earth, was the strangest looking vessel ever to get clearance from a space station. It looked like a tug towing a barge. The tug was the atomic power plant, two miles behind. Attached by a thin cable, was the passenger compartment and cargo. On the control deck of the Radiant Hope. Johner gripped a microphone and shouted profane instructions at the pilot of a squat ground space rocket 20 miles away. Tan Li Cho, the ship's engineer, was peering out the port at the speck of light toward which Johner was directing his wrath path while Kokol, the Martian astrogator, worked at his charts on the other side of the deck. I thought all cargo was aboard, Johner, said Tom. It is, said Johner, laying the mike aside. That G boat isn't hauling cargo. It's going with us. I'm not taking any chances on MarsCorp. Refusing to ferry our cargo back and forth at Mars is plotted, Joner. Boomed Kokol, turning his head to peer at them with huge eyes through the spidery tangle of his thin double jointed arms and legs. He reached an eight foot arm across the deck and handed Johner his figures. Johner gave them to Tann. Figure out power for that one, Tann, ordered Johner and took his seat in the cushioned control chair. Tann pulled a slide rule from his tunic pocket, but his black almond eyes rested quizzically Jon Johner. It's four hours before blastoff, he reminded. I've cleared power for this with space control, replied Johner. That planet loving G boat jockey missed orbit. We'll have to swing out a little and go to him. On a conventional spacecraft, the order for acceleration would have sent the engineer to the engine deck to watch his gauges and report by intercom. But the radiant Hope Hope's engine deck was the atomic tug two miles ahead, which Tann in heavy armor would enter only in emergencies. He calculated for a moment, then called softly to Johner, pile 1 in 10 in 10, confirmed Johner, pulling a lever on the calibrated gauge of the radio control. Pile two in 15 and 15.

Check.

I'll have the length of burst figured for you in a jiffy. A faint glow appeared around the atomic tug far ahead, and there was the faintest shiver in the ship. But after a moment Cocol said in a puzzled tone, no GS, Johner. Engine not work. Sure she's working, said Johner with a grin. You'll never get any more G than we've got now, Kokol, all the way to Mars. Our maximum acceleration will be 1 3,000th. Gee, 1 3,000th. Exclaimed Tann, shaken out of his oriental column. Johner, the Marsward will blast away at one or two GS. How do you expect to beat that at 1 3,000th? Because they have to cut off and coast most of the way in an elliptical orbit. Like any other rocket, answered Johner calmly. We drives straight across the system under power all the time we accelerate halfway, decelerate the other half B1 3000th. You'll be surprised at what constant power can do. I know Bayot and I know the trick he's going to use. It's obvious from the blast off time they arranged. He's going to tack off the moon and use his power right to cut 20 days off that regular 237 day schedule. But this tugboat will make it in 154 days. They took aboard the 200 ton landing boat. By the time they got it secured, the radio already was sounding warnings for blastoff. Zero hour arrived again. Johner pulled levers and again the faint glow appeared around the tail of their distant tug. Across space the exhaust of the Marzward 18 flared into blinding flame. In a moment it began to pull ahead visibly and soon was receding like a meteor. Near the radiant hope. The space station seemed not to have changed position at all. The race is not always to the Swift, remarked Johner philosophically. And we're the tortoise, said Ton. How about filling us in on this Jontjohner? His should, Johner agreed. Koko Tahn know all about crazy new engine. I know all about crazy new orbits. Both not know all you tell. I'd plan to anyway, said Johner. I had figured on having Serge in on it, but he wouldn't understand much of it anyhow. There's no use waking him up. Serge was the ship's doctor, psychologist and fourth member of the crew. He was asleep below on the center deck. For your information, Kokol, said Johner, the atomic engine produces electrical energy which accelerates reaction mass. Actually, it's a crude ion engine. Tann can explain the details to you later, but the important thing is that the fuel is cheap, the fuel to cargo ratio is low, and constant acceleration is practical. As for you, Tan, I was surprised at your not understanding why. We'll use low acceleration to boost the engine power and give us more GS. We'd either have to carry more fuel or coast part of the way on momentum like an ordinary rocket. This way's more efficient and our 63 day margin over the Marsward each way is more than enough for unloading and loading more cargo and fuel. With those figures I can't see how MarsCorp is expects to win this competition, said Tann. We've got them flat on the basis of performance, agreed Johner. So we'll have to watch for tricks. I know MarsCorp. That's why I arranged to take aboard that G boat at the last minute. MarsCorp controls all the G boats at Mars Port, and they're smart enough to keep us from using them in spite of the Space Control Commission. As for refueling, for the return trip, we can knock a chunk off of Phobos for reaction mass. The meteor alarm bells clanged suddenly and the screen lit up once with a fast moving red line that traced the path of the approaching object. Miss us about half a mile, said Johner after a glance at the screen. Must be pretty big. And it's coming up. He and Tann floated to one of the ports and in a few moments saw the object speed by. That's no meteor. Exclaimed Johner with a puzzled frown. That's man made. But it's too small for a G boat. The radio blared, all craft in orbit near Space Station 2. Warning all craft near Space Station 2. Experimental missile misfired from White Sands. Repeat. Experimental missile misfired from White Sands coordinates. Find time to tell us, remarked Tann dryly. Experimental missile, hell. Snorted John, her comprehension dawning. Kokol. What would have happened if we hadn't shifted orbit to take aboard that G boat? Kokol calculated a moment. It's our engines, he announced, dead center. Johner's blue eyes clouded ominously. Looks like they're playing for keeps this time, boys. The Brotherhood of Spacemen is an excellent exclusive club. Any captain, astrogator, or engineer is likely to be well known to his colleagues, either personally or by reputation. The ship's doctor psychologist, is in a different category. Most of them sign on for a few runs for the adventure of it as a means of getting back and forth between planets without paying the high cost of passage, or to pick up even more money than they can get from lucrative planet bound practices. Johner did not know Serge, the radiant Hopes Doctor. Neither Tann nor Kokol had ever heard of him, but Serge appeared to know his business well enough and was friendly enough. It was Serge's first trip and he was very interested in the way the ship operated. He nosed into every corner of it and asked a hundred questions a day. You're as inquisitive as a cadet, spaceman Serge Donner told him on the 25th, fifth day out. Everybody knew everyone else well by then, which meant that Johner and Kokol, who had served together before, had become acquainted with Tann and Serge. There's a lot to see and learn about space, Captain, said Serge. He was a young fellow with fair hair and an easy grin. Think I could go outside? If you keep a lifeline hooked on the suits have magnetic shoes to hold you to the hull of the ship, but you can lose your footing. Thanks, said Serge. He touched his hand to his forehead and left the control deck. Johner, near the end of his eight hour duty shift, watched the dials. The red light showing the inner airlock door was open, blinked on. It blinked off. Then the outer airlock indicator went on and off. A shadow fell across Johner briefly. He glanced at the port and reached for the microphone. Careful, and don't step on any of the ports, he warned Serge. The magnetic soles won't hold on them. I'll be careful, sir, answered Serge. No one but a veteran spaceman would have noticed the faint quiver that ran through the ship, but Johner felt it automatically. He swung his control chair and his eyes swept the bank of dials. At first he saw nothing. The outer lock light blinked on and off, and then the interlock indicator. That was Serge coming back inside. Then Johner noted that the hand on one dial rested on zero. Above the dial was the word acceleration. His eyes snapped to the radio controls. The atomic pile levers were still at their proper calibration. The dials above them said the engines were working properly. The atomic tug was still accelerating, but the passengers and cargo were in free fall. Swearing, Johner jerked at the levers to pull out the piles aboard the tug. A blue flash flared across the control board, momentarily blinding him. Johner recoiled, only his webbed safety belt preventing him from plummeting from the control chair. He swung back anxiously to the dials, brushing futilely at the spots that swam before his eyes. He breathed a sigh of relief. The radio controls had operated. The atomic engines had ceased firing. Tentatively, cautiously, he reversed the lever. There was no blue flash this time, but neither did the dials quiver. He swore something had burned out in the radio controls. He couldn't reverse the tug. He punched the general alarm button viciously, and the raucous clangor of the bell sounded through the confines of the ship. One by one, the other crew members popped up to the control deck from below. He turned the controls over to Kokol. Take readings on that damn tug, Johnr ordered. I think our cable broke. Tahn, let's go take a look. When they got outside, they found about a foot of the 1 inch cable still attached to the ship. The rest of it? Was it drawn away by the tug? Before Johner could cut, acceleration was out of sight. Going to be welded ton? It can, but it'll take a while, replied the engineer slowly. First we'll have to Reverse that tug and get the other end of that brake. Damn. And the radio controls burned out. I tried to reverse it before I sounded the alarm. Tan, how fast can you get those controls repaired? Great space. Exclaimed Tan softly. Without seeing it. I'd say at least two days, Johner. Those controls are complicated as hell. They re entered the ship. Coco was working at his diagrams and Serge was looking over his shoulder. Johner took a heat gun quietly from the wreck and pointed it at Serge. You'll get below, mister, he commanded grimly. You'll be handcuffed to your bunk from here on out. Sir, I don't understand, stammered Serge. Like hell you don't. You cut that cable, Johner accused. Serge started to shrug, but he dropped his eyes. They paid me, he said in a low tone. They paid me a thousand solars. What good would a thousand solars do you when you're dead, Serge? Dead of suffocation and drifting forever into space. Serge looked up in astonishment. Why, you can still reach Earth by radio easy, he said. It wouldn't take long for a rescue ship to reach us. Chemical rockets have their limitations, said Johner coldly. And you don't realize what speed we've built up. With steady acceleration, we'd head straight out of the system and nothing could intercept us. If that tug had gotten too far before we noticed it was gone. He jabbed the white faced doctor with the muzzle of the heat gun. Get below, he ordered. I'll turn you over to space Control at Mars. When Serge had left the control deck, Johner turned to the others. His face was grave. That tug picked up speed before I could shut off the engines. After the cable was cut, he said. It's moving away from us slowly and at a tangent. And solar gravity's acting on both bodies now. By the time we get those controls repaired, the drift may be such that we'll waste weeks maneuvering the tug back. I could jet out to the tug in a spacesuit before it gets too far away, said Ton thoughtfully. But that wouldn't do any good. There's no way of controlling the engines at the tug. It has to be done by radio. If we get out of this, remind me to recommend that atomic ships always carry a spare cable, said Johner gloomily. If we had one, we could splice them and hold the ship to the tug until the controls are repaired. Is cable and cargo strong enough? Johner asked Kokol. That's right. Exclaimed Johner, brightening. Most of our cargo is cable. That 4,000 ton spool we're hauling back there is 6,000 miles of cable to lay a television network between the Martian cities. Television cable? Repeated Tahn doubtfully. Will that be strong enough? It's bound in flonite, that new fluorine compound. It's strong enough to tow this whole cargo at a couple of gees. There's nothing aboard this ship that would cut off a length of it. A heat gun at full power wouldn't even scorch it. But we can unwind enough of it and block the spool. It'll hold the ship to the tug until the controls can be repaired. Then we can reverse the tug and weld the cable. You mean the whole 6,000 miles of it is in one piece? Demanded Tann in astonishment. Well, that's not so much. The cable laying steamer Dominia carried 3,000 miles in one piece to lay Atlantic cables in the early 20th century. But how will we ever get 4,000 tons in one piece down to Mars? Asked Ton. No G boat can carry that load. Johner chuckled. The same way they got it up from Earth to the ship, he answered. They attached one end of it to a G boat and sent it up to orbit, then wound it up on a fast winch. Since the G boat will be decelerating to Mars, the unwinding will have to be slowed or the cable would tangle itself all over Syrtis. Sounds like it's made to order, said Tann, grinning. I'll get into my spacesuit. You'll get to work on the radio controls, contradicted Johner, getting up.

Up.

That's something I can't do. And I can get into a spacesuit and haul a length of cable out to the tug. Kokol can handle the winch. Daveet, the Atom Star Company's representative at Mars City, and Kruger of the Space Control Commission were waiting when the Radiant Hope's G boat dropped down from the Phobos station and came to rest in a wash of jets. They rode out to the G boat together in a commission ground car. Johner emerged from the G boat, following the handcuffed Serge. He's all yours, johner told Kruger, gesturing at Serge. You have my radio reports on the cable cutting, and I'll make my log available to you. Kruger put his prisoner in the front seat of the ground car beside him, and Johner climbed in the back seat with Daveet. I brought the crates of dyes for the ground car factory down this time, johner told Daveet. We'll bring down all the loose cargo before shooting the television cable down while they're unloading the G boat. I wish you'd get the tanks refilled with hydrazine and nitric acid. I've got enough to get back up, but not enough for a round trip. What do you plan to do? Asked Davit. He was a dark skinned, long faced man with a sardonic twist to his mouth. I've got to sign on a new ship's doctor to replace Serge when the Marsward comes in. MarsCorp will have a dozen G boats working round the clock to unload and reload load. Herc with only one G boat, we've got to make every hour count. We still have reaction masts to pick up on Phobos, Right, agreed Davit. You can take the return cargo up in one load, though. It's just 20 tons of Martian relics for the Solar Museum. Mars to Earth cargoes run light at the administration building, Johner took his leave of Daveet and went up to the Space Control Commission's personnel office on the second floor. He was in luck. On the board is applying for a Mars Earth run as a ship's doctor Psychologist was one name Lana Eldon. He looked up the name in the Mars City directory and dialed into the city from a nearby telephone booth. A woman's voice answered. Is Lana Eldon there? Asked Johner. I'm Lanna Eldin, she said. Johner swore under his breath. A woman, but if she weren't qualified, her name would not have been on the commission board. The verbal contract was made quickly and Johner cut the commission monitor into the line to make it binding. That was done often when rival ships, even of the same line, were bidding for the services of crewmen. Last off time is 21 o' clock to night, he said, ending the interview. Be here. Johner left the personnel office and walked down the hall. At the elevator, Daveet and Kruger hurried out, almost colliding with him. Johner, we've run into trouble. Exclaimed Daveet. Space Fuels won't sell us any hydrazine and nitric acid to refill the tanks. They say they have a new contract with MarsCorp that takes all their supply. Contract hell, Snorted Johner. Marscorp owns Space Fuels. What can be done about it, Kruger? Kruger shook his head. I'm all for you, but Space Control has no jurisdiction, he said. If a private firm wants to restrict its sales to a franchise line, there's nothing we can do about it. If you had a franchise, we could force them to allot fuel on the basis of cargo handled, since Space Fuels has a monopoly here. But you don't have a franchise yet. Johners scratched his gray head thoughtfully. It was a serious situation. The atom powered Radiant Hope could no more make a planetary landing than the chemically powered ship ships. Its power gave a low sustained thrust that permitted it to accelerate constantly over long periods of time. To beat the powerful pull of planetary surface gravity, the terrific burst of quick energy from the streamlined G boats. The planetary landing craft was needed. We can still handle it, johner said at last. With only 20 tons return cargo, we can take it up this trip, add some large parachutes to that De Veet. We'll shoot the end of the cable down by signal rocket out in the lowlands and stop the winch when we've made contact long enough to attach the rest of the cargo to the cable. Pull it down with the cable and with Mars low gravity, the parachutes will keep it from being damaged. But when Johner got back to the landing field to check on unloading operations, his plan was smashed. As he approached the G boat, a mechanic wearing an ill concealed smirk came up to him. Captain, looks like you sprung a leak in your fuel line, he said. All your hydrazines leaked out in the sand. Johnner swung from the waist and knocked the man flat. Then he turned on his heel and went back to the administration building to pay the 10 credit fine he would be assessed for assaulting a spaceport employee. The Space Control Commission's hearing room in Mars City was almost empty. The examiner sat on the bench, resting his chin on his hand as he listened to testimony. In the plaintiff's section sat Johner, flanked by De Veet and Lana Eldon. In the defense box were the Mars corporation attorney and captain Rousseau beat of the Marsward 18. Kruger, seated near the rear of the room, was the only spectator. The Mars Corporation attorney had succeeded in delaying the final hearing more than a 42 day Martian month by legal maneuvers. Meanwhile the Marsward 18 had blasted down to Phobos, and G Boats had been shuttling back and forth, unloading the vessel and reloading it for the return trip to Earth. When testimony had been completed, the examiner shuffled through his papers. He put on his spectacles and peered over them at the litigants. It is the ruling of this court, he said formally, that the plaintiffs have not presented sufficient evidence to prove tampering with the fuel line of the G boat of the spaceship Radiant Hope. There is no evidence that it was cut or burned, but only that it was broken. The court must remind the plaintiffs that this could have been done accidentally through inept handling of cargo. Since the plaintiffs have not been able to prove their contention. This court of complaint has no alternative than to dismiss the case. The examiner arose and left the hearing room. Bayat waddled across the aisle, puffing. Too bad, Joner, he said. I don't like the stuff Mars Corp's pulling, and I think you know I don't have anything to do with it. I want to win, but I want to win fair and square. If there's anything I can do to help. Haven't got a spare G boat in your pocket, have you? Retorted Johner with a rueful smile. Bayot pulled at his jowls. The Mars word isn't carrying G boats, he said regretfully. They all belong to the port, and Mars Corps got them so tied up you'll never get a sniff of one. But if you want to get back to your ship Ship, Johner, I can take you up to Phobos with me as my guest. Johner shook his head. I figure on taking the Radiant Hope back to Earth, he said. But I'm not blasting off without cargo until it's too late for me to beat you on the run. You sure this'll be my last ferry trip? The Marsward blasts off for Earth at 0300 to Morrow. No thanks, Rousseau, but I will appreciate you taking my ship's doctor, Dr. Eldon, up to Phobos. Done, agreed Bayott. Let's go, Dr. Eldon. The G boat leaves Marsh Port in two hours. Johner watched Beat puff away with the slender white clad brunette at his side. Beat personally would see Lana Eldon safely aboard the Radiant Hope, even if it delayed his own blast off. Morosely, he left the hearing room with Daveet. What I can't understand, said the latter, is why all this dirty work? Why didn't MarsCorp just use one of their Atom Drive ships for the competition run? Because whatever ship is used on a competition run has to be kept in service on the franchise run, answered Johner. MarsCorp has millions tied up in hydrazine interests, and they're more interested in keeping an atomic ship off this run than they are in a monopoly franchise. But they tie in together. If MarsCorp loses the monopoly franchise and Atom Star puts in atom drive ships, MarsCorp will have to switch to Atom Drive to meet the competition. If we had a franchise, we could force Space Fuels to sell us hydrazine, said Daveet unhappily. Well, we don't. And at this rate we'll never get one. Johner and Daveet were fishing at the Mars City Recreation Center. It had been several weeks since the Marzward 18 blasted off to Earth with a full cargo. And still the atomic ship Radiant Hope rested on Phobos with most of her Mars bound cargo still aboard. And still her crew languished at the Phobos space station. And still Johner moved back and forth between Mars City and Marsport, daily racking his brain for a solution that would not come. How in space do you get 20 tons of cargo up to an orbit 5,800 miles out without any rocket fuel? He demanded of Daveet. More than once he received no satisfactory answer. The recreation center was a two acre park that lay beneath the plastic dome of Mars City. Above them they could see swift moving Phobos and distant Deimos among the other stars that that powdered the night in the park around them, colonists rode the amusement machines, canoed along the canal that twisted through the park or sipped refreshment at scattered tables. A dozen or more sat, like Johner and Daveet, around the edge of the tiny lake, fishing. David's line tightened. He pulled in a streamlined, flapping object from which the light glistened wetly. Good catch, complimented Johner. That's worth a full credit. Daveet unhooked his catch and laid it on the bank beside him. It was a metal fish. Live fish were unknown on Mars. They paid for the privilege of fishing for a certain time, and any fish caught were sold back to the management at a fixed price, depending on size, to be put back into the lake. You're pretty good at it, said Johner. That's your third tonight, right? It's all in the speed at which you reel in your line, explained Davit. The fish move at preset speeds. They're made to turn and catch a hook that moves across their path at a slightly slower speed than their swimming. The management changes the speeds once a week to keep the fisherman from getting too expert. You can't beat the management, chuckled Johner. But if it's a matter of matching orbital speeds to make contact, I ought to do pretty well when I get the hang of it. It he cocked an eye up toward the transparent dome. Phobos had moved across the sky into Capricorn since he last saw her. His memory automatically ticked off the satellite's orbital speed, 1.32 miles a second speed in relation to planetary motion. Why go over that again? One had to have fuel first. Meanwhile, the radiant Hope lay idle on Phobos. Phobos and its crew whiled away the hours at the space station inside the Moon, their feet spinning faster than their Heads. No, that wasn't true on Phobos because it didn't have a spin to impart artificial gravity like the space stations around Earth. He sat up suddenly. Daveet looked at him in surprise. Johner's lips moved silently for a moment, then he got to his feet. Where can we use a radiophone? He asked. One in my office, said Daveet, standing up. Let's go quick, before Phobos sets. They turned in their rods, Daveet collecting the credits for his fish, and left the recreation center. When they reached the Atom Star Company's Martian office, Johner plugged in the radiophone and called the Phobos space station. He got 10. All of you get aboard, johner ordered. Then have Kokul call me. He signed off and turned to Davit. Can we charter a plane to haul our earthbound cargo out of Marsport? A plane? I suppose so. Where do you want to haul it? Charax is as good as any other place, but I need a fast plane. I think we can get it. MarsCorp still controls all the airlines, but the Mars government keeps a pretty strict finger on their planet bound operations. They can't refuse a cargo haul without good reason. Just to play safe, have some friend of yours whom they don't know charter the plane in his name. They won't know it's us till we start loading cargo. Right, said Daveet, picking up the telephone. I know just the man. Tow motors scuttled across the landing area at Mars Port, shifting the cargo that had been destined for the Radiant Hope from the helpless G boat to a jet cargo plane nearby. Watching the operation were Johner and De Veet with the Marsport agent of Mars Air Transport Company. We didn't know Atom Star was the one chartering the plane until you ordered the G boat cargo loaded on it, confessed the Mars Air agent. I see you and Mr. De Viet are signed up to accompany the cargo. You'll have to rent suits for the trip. We have to play it safe, and there's always the possibility of a forced landing. There are a couple of space suits aboard the G boat that we want to take along, said Johner casually. We'll just wear those instead, ok? The agent spread his hands and shrugged. Everybody at Marsport knows about you bucking Mars Corp. Captain. What you expect to gain by transferring your cargo to Chyrax is beyond me, but it's your business. An hour later the chartered airplane took off with a thunder of jets. Aboard was the 20 ton cargo the radiant Hope was supposed to carry to Earth, plus some large parachutes. The Mars Air pilot wore a light suit with a plastic helmet designed for survival in the thin, cold Martian air. Johnr and Daveet wore the bulkier spacesuits. Five minutes out of Marsport, Johner thrust the muzzle of a heat gun in the pilot's back, set it on automatic. Strap on your parachute and bail out, he ordered. We're taking over. The pilot had no choice. He went through the plane's airlock and jumped, helped by a hearty boost from Johner. His parachute blossomed out as he drifted down toward the green Syrtis Major lowland. Johner didn't worry about him. He knew the pilot's helmet radio would reach Marsport and a helicopter would rescue him shortly. I don't know what you're trying to do, Johner, said David apprehensively over his space helmet radio, but whatever it is, you'd better do it fast. They'll have every plane on Mars looking for us in half an hour. Let em look and keep quiet awhile, retorted Johner. I've got some figuring to do. He put the plane on automatic, took off the spacesuit handhooks, and scribbled figures on a scrap of paper. He tuned in the plane's radio and called Kokol. On Phobos. They talked to each other briefly in Martian the darker green line of a canal crossed the green lowland below them. Good, there's drosinas, muttered Johner. Let's see. Time 1424 hours. Speed 660 miles an hour. Johner boosted the jets a bit and watched the watched the terrain by Saturn. I almost overran it. He exclaimed. Daveet, smash out those ports. Break out the ports, repeated Daveet. That'll depressurize the cabin. That's right. So you'd better be sure your spacesuit's secure. Obviously puzzled, Daveet strode up and down the cabin, knocking out its six windows with the hand hooks of his space suit. Johner maneuvered the plane gently and set it on automatic. He got out of the pilot's seat and strode to the right front port. Reaching through the broken window, he pulled in a section of cable that was trailing alongside. While the baffled davit watched, he reeled it in until he brought up the end of it, to which was attached a fish shaped finned metal missile. Johner carried the cable end and the attached missile across the cabin and tossed it out the broken front port on the other side, swinging it so that the 700 mile an hour slipstream snapped it back in through the rearmost port like a bullet Pick it up and pass it out the right rear port, he commanded. We'll have to pass it to each other from port to port. The slip stream won't let us swing it forward and through. In a few moments the two of them had worked the missile and the cable end to the right front port and in through it. It originating above the plane, it now made a loop through the four open ports. Johner untied the missile and tied the end to the portion which came into the cabin, making a bowline knot of the loop. Daveet picked up the missile from the floor where Johner had thrown it. Looks like a spent rocket shell, he commented. It's a signal rocket, said Johner. The flare trigger was disconnected. He picked up the microphone and called the Radiant Hope on Phobos. We've hooked our fish, Ko Kol, he told the Martian and laid the mic aside. What does that mean? Asked Davit. Means we'd better strap in, said Johner, suiting the action to the words. You're in for a short trip to Phobos Devit. Johner pulled back slowly on the elevator control, and the plane began a shallow climb. At 700 miles an hour it began to attain a height at which its broad wings, broader than those of any terrestrial plane, would not support it. I'm trying to decide, said Daveet with forced calm, whether you've flipped your helmet. Nope, answered Johner. Trolling for those fish in Mars City gave me the idea. The rest was no more than an astrogation problem, like any rendezvous with a ship ship in a fixed orbit, which Kokol could figure remember that 6,000 mile television cable the ship's hauling? Kokol just shot the end of it down to Mars surface by a signal rocket we hooked on, and now he'll haul us up to Phobos. He's got the ship's engine hooked onto the cable winch. The jets coughed and stopped. The plane was out of fuel. It was on momentum to be drawn by the cable or to snap it and fall. Impossible. Cried David in alarm. Phobos's orbital speed is more than a mile a second. No cable can take the sudden difference in that and the speed we're traveling. When the slack is gone, it'll break. The slack's gone already. You're thinking of the speed of Phobos. At Phobos, at this end of the cable, we're like the head of a man in the control section of a space station, which is traveling slower than his feet because its orbit is smaller. But it revolves around the center in the same time. Look, johner added. I'll put it in round numbers. Figure your cable as part of a radius of Phobos orbit. Phobos travels at 1.32, but the other end of the radius travels at zero because it's at the center. The cable end at the Martian surface travels at a speed in between roughly 1200 miles an hour hour, but it keeps up with Phobos revolution. Since the surface of Mars itself rotates at 500 miles an hour. All I had to do was boost the plane up to 700 to match the speed of the cable end. That cable will haul a hell of a lot more than 20 tons, and that's all that's on it right now. By winching us up slowly, there'll never be too great a strain on it. De Veet looked apprehensively out of the port port. The plane was hanging sidewise now, and the distant Martian surface was straight out the left hand ports. The cable was holding. We can make the trip to Earth 83 days faster than the Marsward, said Johner. And they have only about 20 days start. It won't take us but a few days to make Phobos and get this cable and the rest of the cargo shot back to Mars. Atom Star will get its franchise and you'll see all spaceships switching to the atomic drive within the next decade. How about this plane? Asked Daveet. We stole it, you know. You can hire a G boat to take it back to Marsport, said Johner with a chuckle. Pay Mars Air for the time and the broken ports and settle out of court with that pilot we dropped. I don't think they'll send you to jail, Duvet. He was silent for a few minutes. By the way, Davit, said Johner. Then radio Atom Star to buy some Phlognite cable of their own and ship it to Phobos. Damned if I don't think this is cheaper than G boats. End of Atom Drive Recording by Thomas Rose.

The Addicts by William Morrison. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Colleen McMahon the attics by William Morrison. You must understand that Palmer loved his wife as much as ever, or he never would have thought of his simple little scheme at all. It was entirely for her own good, as he had told himself a dozen times in the past day, and with that he stilled whatever qualms of conscience he might otherwise have had. He didn't think of himself as being something of a murderer. She was sitting at the artificial fireplace, a cheerful relic of ancient days, reading just as peacefully as if she had been back home on Mars instead of on this desolate outpost of space. She had adjusted quickly to the loneliness and the strangeness of this life, to the absence of friends, the need for conserving air, the strange feeling of an artificial gravity that varied slightly at the whim of impurities in the station. Fuel to everything, in fact. But her husband. She seemed to sense his eyes on her, for she looked up and smiled. Feeling all right, dear? She asked naturally. How about you? Do as well as can be expected. Not very good, then. She didn't reply, and he thought, she hates to admit it, but she really envies me. Well, I'll fix it so that she needn't anymore. And he stared through the thick, transparent metal window at the beauty of the stars, their light undimmed by dust or atmosphere. The stories told about the wretchedness of the lighthouse keepers who lived on asteroids didn't apply at all to this particular bit of cosmic rock. Life here had been wonderful, incredibly satisfying. At least it had been that way for him, and now it would be the same way for his wife as well. He would have denied it hotly if you had accused him of finding her repulsive. But to certain drunks the sober man or woman is an offense. And Palmer was much more than a drunk. He was a Marack addiction, and in the eyes of the Marak fiends, all things and all people were wonderful. Except those who did not share their taste for the drug. The latter were miserable, depraved creatures, practically subhuman. Of course, that was not the way most of them put it. Certainly it was not the way Palmer did. He regarded his wife, he told himself, as an unfortunate individual whom he loved very much, one whom it was his duty to make happiness happy. That her newfound happiness would also hasten her death was merely an unfortunate coincidence. She was sure to die anyway before long, so why not have her live out her last days in the peace and contentment that only Marack could bring? Louise herself would have had an answer to that if he had ever put the question to her. He was careful never to do so. She laid the book aside and looked up at him again. She said, jim, darling, do you think you could get the television set working again? Not without a Mezatron rectifier. Even the radio would be a comfort. It wouldn't do any good anyway. Too much static from both Mars and Earth this time of year. That was the beauty of the Mirack, he thought. It changed his mood and left him calm and in full command of his faculties, able to handle any problem that came up. He himself, of course, missed neither the radio nor the television, and he never touched the fine library of micro books. He didn't need them. A shadow flitted by outside the thick window, blotting out for a moment the blaze of stars. It was the shadow of death, as he knew, and he was able to smile even at that. Even death was wonderful. When it finally came, it would find him happy. He would not shudder away from it as he saw Louise doing now at the sight of the ominous shadow. He smiled at his wife again, remembering the six years they had lived together. It had been a short married life, but again that word suggested itself to him, a wonderful one. There had been only one quarrel of importance in the second year, and after that they had got along perfectly. And then two years ago he had begun to take Marack, and after that he couldn't have quarreled with anyone. It was a paragon among drugs, and it was one of the mysteries of his existence that anybody should object to his using it. Louise had tried to argue with him after she had found out, but he had turned every exchange of views into a peaceful discussion which from his side at least was brimming over with good humor. He had even been good humored when she had tried to slip the antidote into his food. It was this attitude of his that had so often left her baffled and enraged, aged, and he had a good chuckle out of that too. Imagine a wife getting angry because her husband was too good natured. But she was never going to get angry again, he would see to that. Not after tonight. A big change was going to take place in her life. She had picked up another book, and for the moment he pitied her. He knew that she wasn't interested in any books. She was merely restless, looking for something to do with herself. Herself seeking some method of killing time before the shadows outside killed it for her for good and all. She couldn't understand his being so peaceful and contented, doing nothing at all. She threw the second book down and snarled. Yes, that was the word. You're such a fool, Jim. You sit there smug and sure of yourself, your mind blank, just waiting. Waiting for them to kill you and me. And you seem actually happy when I mention it.

It?

I'm happy at anything and everything, dear. At the thought of dying too. Living or dying, it doesn't make any difference, whatever happens. I'm incapable of being unhappy. If it weren't for the drug, we'd both live. You'd think of a way to kill them before they killed us. There is no way. There must be. You just can't think of it while the drug has you in its grip. The drug doesn't have you, dear. He asked without sarcasm. Why don't you think of a way? Because I lack the training you have. Because I don't have the scientific knowledge. And all the equipment scattered around means nothing to me. There's nothing to be done. Her fists clenched. If you weren't under the influence of the drug, you know that it doesn't affect the ability to think. Tests have shown that. Tests conducted by addicts themselves. The fact that they can conduct the test should be proof enough that there's nothing wrong with their minds. But there is. She shouted. I can see it in you. Oh, I know that you can still add and subtract, and you can draw lines under two words which mean the same thing. But that isn't really thinking. Really thinking means the ability to tackle real problems, hard problems that you can't handle merely with paper and pencil. It means having the incentive to use your brain for a long time at time. A a stretch. And that's what the drug has ruined. It has taken away all your incentive. I still go about my duties. Not as well as you used to. And even at that. Only because they've become a habit. Just as you talk to me. Because I've become a habit. If you'd let me give you the antidote. He chuckled at the absurdity of her suggestion. Once an addict had been cured, he could not become addicted again. The antidote acted to produce a permanent immunization against the effects of the drug. It was the realization of this fact that made addicts fight so hard against any attempt to cure them, and she thought that she could convince him by argument. He said, you talk of not being able to think. I know, she replied hotly. I'm the one who blunders. I'm the fool for arguing with you when I realize that it's important. Impossible to convince a Marack addict. That's it. He nodded and chuckled again. But that wasn't quite it, for he was also chuckling at his plan. She had thought him unable to tackle a real problem. Well, he would tackle one tonight. Then she would simply adopt his point of view, and she would no longer be unhappy. After she had accepted the solution he had provided, she would wonder how she could ever have opposed him. He fell into one of his dozes and hardly noticed her glaring at him. When he came out of it at last, it was to hear her say, we have to stay alive as long as possible. For the sake of the lighthouse. Of course, my dear, I don't dispute that at all. And the longer we stay alive, the more chance there is that some ship will pick us up. Oh, no, there's no chance of that at all, he asserted cheerfully. You know that as well as I do. Do no use deceiving yourself, my love. That, he observed to himself, was the way of non addicts. They couldn't look facts in the face. They had to cling to a blind and silly optimism which no facts justified. He knew that there was no hope. He was able to review the facts calmly, judiciously, to see the inevitability of their dying, and to take pleasure even in that. He reviewed them for her. Now, now, let us see, sweetheart, whether I've lost my ability to analyze a situation. We're here with our pretty little lighthouse in the middle of a group of asteroids between Mars and Earth. Ships have been wrecked here, and our task is to prevent future wrecks. The lighthouse sends out a standard high frequency beam whose intensity and phase permit astrogators to estimate their distance and direction from us. Ordinarily there's nothing for us to do, but on the rare occasions when the beam fails, that will be the end. On those occasions, he continued, unruffled by her interruption, I am supposed to leave my cozy little shelter, so thoughtfully equipped with all the comforts of Earth or Mars, and make repairs as rapidly as possible under the usual conditions. Lighthouse keeping is a boring task. In fact, it has been known to drive people insane. That's why it's generally assigned to happily married couples like us, us who are accustomed to living quietly without excitement. And that, she added bitterly, is why even happily married couples are usually relieved after one year. But, darling, he said, his tone cheerful, you mustn't blame anyone. Who would have expected that a maverick meteor would come at us and displace us from our orbit? And who would have expected that the meteor would have collided first with the outer asteroids and picked up a cargo of those moves. He gestured toward the window, where a shadow had momentarily paused. By the light that shone through, he could see that the creature was relatively harmless looking. It had what appeared to be a round, humorous face whose unhumorous intentions would be revealed only at the moment of the kill. The seeming face was actually featureless, for it was not a face at all. It had neither eyes nor nose nor mouth. The effect of features was given by the odd blend of of colors. Almost escaping notice because of their unusual position and their dull brown hue were the stomach fangs in neat rows which could be extended and retracted like those of a snake. He noticed that Louise had shuddered again and said in the manner of a man making conversation, interesting, aren't they? They're rock breathers, you know. They need very little oxygen and they extract that from the silicates and other oxygen containing compounds. Mounds of the rock. Don't talk about them. All right, if you don't want me to. But about us. You see, my dear, no one expected us to be lost. And even if the lighthouse service has started to look for us, it will take a long time to find us. We have food, water, air. If not for those beasts, we'd last until a rescue ship appeared. But even a rescue ship wouldn't be able to reach us unless we kept the beam going. So far we've been lucky be it's really functioned remarkably well. But sooner or later it'll go out of order, and then I'll have to go out and fix it. You agree to that, don't you, Louise dear? She nodded. She said quietly, the bee must be kept in order. That's when the creatures will get me, he said almost with satisfaction. I may kill one or two of them, although the way I feel toward everything, I hate to kill anything at all. But you know, sweetheart, that there are more than a dozen of them altogether other and it's clumsy shooting in a spacesuit at beasts which move as swiftly as they do. And if you don't succeed in fixing what's wrong if they get you. She broke down suddenly and began to cry. He looked at her with compassion and smoothed her hair. And yet, under the influence of the drug, he enjoyed even her crying. It was, as he never tired of repeating to himself and to her, a wonderful drug. Under its spell a man or a woman could really enjoy life. Tonight she would begin to enjoy life along with him. Their chronometer functioned perfectly, and they still regulated their living habits by it, using Greenwich Earth time. At seven in the evening they sat down to a fine meal, knowing that tomorrow they might die. Louise had decided that tonight they would eat and drink as well as they could, and she had selected a Christmas special. She had merely to pull a leather lever and the food had slid into the oven to be cooked at once by an intense beam of high frequency radiation. Jim himself had chosen the wine and the brandy. One of the peculiarities of the marack was that it did not affect the actual enjoyment of alcoholic drinks in the slightest. And one of the sights of the solar system was to see an addict who was also drunk. But it was a rare sight, for the marack itself created such a pervading sense sensation of well being that it often acted as a cure for alcoholism. Once an alcoholic had experienced its effect, he had no need to get drunk, to forget his troubles. He enjoyed his troubles instead and drank the alcohol for its own sake, for its ability to provide a slightly different sensation and not for its ability to release him from an unhappy world. So tonight Palmer drank moderately, taking just enough, as it seemed to him, to stimulate his brain. And he did what he now realized he should have done long ago. Unobserved. He placed a tablet of marak in his own wine glass and one in Louise's. The slight bitterness of taste would be hardly perceptible, and after that, Louise would be an edict too. That was the way the marak worked. There was nothing mysterious about the craving. It was simply that once you had experienced how delightful it was, you wouldn't do without it.

It.

The tablet he had taken that morning was losing its effect. But he felt so pleased at what he was doing that he didn't mind even that for the next half hour he would enjoy himself simply by looking at Louise and thinking that now, at last, they would be united again, no longer kept apart by her silly ideas about doing something to save themselves. And then the drug would take effect and they would feel themselves lifted to the stars together, never to come down to the this substitute for earth again. Until the beam failed and they went out together to make the repairs and the shadows closed in on them. He had made sure that Louise had her back to him when he dropped the tablet into her glass and he saw that she suspected nothing. She drank her wine, he noticed, without even commenting on the taste. He felt a sudden impulse to kiss her and somewhat to her surprise, he did so. Then he sat down again and went on with the dinner. Dinner. He waited. An hour later. He knew that he had made her happy. She was laughing as she hadn't laughed for a long time. She laughed at the humorous things he said, at the flattering way he raised his glass to her, even at what she saw through the window. Sometimes it seemed to him that she was laughing at nothing at all. He tried to think of how he had reacted the first time he had taken the drug. He hadn't been quite so aggressively cheerful, not quite so hysterical, but Then the drug didn't have exactly the same effect on everyone. She wasn't as well balanced as he had been. The important thing was that she was happy. Curiously enough, he himself wasn't happy at all. It took about five seconds for the thought to become clear to him. Five seconds in which he passed from dull amazement to an enraged and horrified comprehension. He sprang to his feet, overturning the table at which they still sat, and he saw that she wasn't surprised at all, that she still stared at him with a secret satisfaction. You've cured me. He cried. You've fed me the antidote. And he began to curse. He remembered the other time she had tried it, the time when he had been on the alert and had easily detected the strange metallic taste of. Of the stuff. He had spat it out, and under the influence of the drug from which she had hoped to save him, he had laughed at her. Now he was unable to laugh. He had been so intent on feeding the tablet to her that he had forgotten to guard himself. And he had been caught. He was normal now. Her idea of being normal. And he would never again know the wonderful feeling the drug gave. He began to realize his situation on the this horrible, lonely asteroid. He cast a glance at the window and at what must be waiting outside, and it was his turn to shudder. He noticed that she was still smiling. He said bitterly, you're the addict now, and I'm cured. She stopped smiling and said quietly, jim, listen to me. You're wrong. Completely wrong. I didn't give you the antidote, and you didn't give me the drug. I put it in your wine glass myself. She shook her head. That was a tablet I substituted for yours. It's an antivirus dose from our medicine chest. You took one of the same things. That's why you feel so depressed. You're not under the influence of the drug anymore. He took a deep breath. But I'm not cured. No. I knew that I wouldn't be able to slip you the antidote. The taste is too strong. Later you'll be able to start taking the drug again. That is, if you want to, after experiencing for a time what it is to be normal. But not now. You have to keep your head clear. You have to think of something to save us. But there's nothing to think of. He shouted angrily. I told you that the drug doesn't affect the intelligence. I still don't believe you. If you'd only exert yourself. Use your mind, he said savagely. I'm not going to bother. Give me Those marac towels. Tablets. She backed away from him. I thought she might want them. I took no chances. I threw them out. Out there. A horrified and incredulous look was on his face. You mean that I'm stuck here without them? Louise, you fool. There's no help for us the other way. At least we'd have died happy. But now. He stared out the window. The shadows were there in full force. Not one now, but but two. Three. He counted half a dozen. It was almost as if they knew that the end had come. They had reason to be happy, he thought with despair, and perhaps he shrank back from the thought, but it forced itself into his mind. Perhaps now that all happiness had gone and wretchedness had taken its place, he might as well end everything. There would be no days to spend torturing himself in anticipation of a horrible death. Louise exclaimed suddenly. Jim, look. They're frolicking. He looked. The beasts certainly were gay. One of them leaped from the airless surface of the asteroid and sailed over its fellow. He'd never seen them do that before. Usually they clung to the rocky surface. Another was spinning around oddly, as if it had lost its sense of balance. Louise said, they've swallowed the tablet. Over a hundred doses. Enough to drug every beast on the asteroid. For a moment Palmer stared at the gamboling alien drug addicts. Then he put on his spacesuit and took his gun and without the slightest danger to himself, went out and shot them one by one. He noted with a kind of grim envy that they died happy. End of the Addicts by William Morrison recording by Colleen McMahon.

A Bad Day for Vermin by Keith Laumer this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Dale Grothman they came in friendship and love. They couldn't help the way they looked. A Bad Day for Vermin By Keith Lammer Judge Carter gates of the 3rd Circuit Court finished his chicken salad on whole wheat, thoughtfully crumpled up the wax paper bag and turned to drop it in the wastebasket behind his chair and sat Transfixed. Through his second floor office window window he saw a 40 foot flower petal shape of pale turquoise settling gently between the well tended petunia beds on the courthouse lawn. On the upper or stem end of the vessel a translucent pink panel popped up and a slender, graceful form, not unlike a large violet caterpillar, undulated into view. Judge Gates whirled to the telephone. Telephone. Half an hour later he put it to the officials gathered with him in a tight group on the Lawn Boys. This thing is intelligent. Any fool can see that. It's putting together what my boys assure me is some kind of talking machine, and any minute now it's going to start communicating. It's been 20 minutes since I notified Washington on this thing. It won't be long before somebody back there decides this is top secret and slaps a freeze on us here that will make the Manhattan Project look like a publicity campaign. Now, I say that this is the biggest thing that ever happened to Plum county, but if we don't aim to be put right out of the picture, we'd better move fast. What do you got in mind, Judge? I propose that we hold an open hearing right here in the courthouse house. The minute the thing gets its gear to working, we'll put it on the air. Tom Klember's at the radio station's already stringing wires. I see. Too bad we got no TV equipment, but Jody heard has a movie camera. We'll put Willow Grove on the map bigger' n Cape Canaveral ever was. We're with you on that, Carter. Ten minutes after the melodious voice of the fianna's translator had requested escort to the village head man, the visitor was looking over the crowded courtroom with an expression reminiscent of a St. Bernard puppy, hoping for a romp. The rustle of feet and throat clearing subsided and the speaker People of the green world happy the cycle heads turned at the heavy clump of feet, feet coming down the side aisle. A heavy torsoed man of middle age, bald, wearing a khaki shirt and trousers and rimless glasses, and with a dark leather holster slapping his hip at each step, cleared the end of the front row of seats, planted himself, feet apart, yanked the heavy nickel plated.44 revolver from its holster, took aim and fired five shots into the body of the fianna at a range of 10ft. The violet form whipped convulsively, writhed from the bench to the floor with a sound like a wet fire hose being dropped, uttered a gasping twitter and lay still. The gunman turned, dropped the pistol, threw up his hands and called, sheriff Hoskins, I'm putting myself in your protective custody. There was a moment of stunned silence, then a rush of spectators for the alien. The sheriff's 309 pound bulk bellied through the shouting mob to take up a stand before the khaki clad man. Always knew you was a mean one, Cecil Stump, he said, unlimbering handcuffs. Ever since I seen you making up them ground glass baits for Joe Potter's dog. But I never thought I'd see you turn to cold blooded mercy murder. He waved at the bystanders. Clear a path through here. I'm taking my prisoner over to the jail. Just a dad blame minute. Sheriff Stamp's face was pale. His glasses were gone and one of the khaki shoulder straps dangled, but what was almost a grin twisted one meaty cheek. He hid his hands behind his back, leaned away from the cuffs. I don't like the word prison prisoner. I asked you for protection and better look out who you're throwing the word murder off at, too. I ain't murdered nobody. The sheriff blinked and roared, how's the victim, Doc? A small gray haired head rose from bending over the limp form of a fiena deader n a mackerel. Sheriff, I guess that's it. Let's go, Cecil. What's the charge? First degree murder. Who done murder? Why, you killed this here, this stranger. That ain't no stranger. That's a varmint. Murder's got to do with killin humans, way I understand it. You gonna tell me that thing's human? 10 people shouted at human as I am. Intelligent being. Tell me you can simply kill. Must be some kind of law. The sheriff raised his hands, his jowls drawn down in a scowl. What about it, Judge Gates? Any law against Cecil's stump killin the the judge thrust out his lower lip. Well, let's see, he began. Technically. Good Lord, somebody blurted. You mean the laws on murder don't define what constitutes? I mean what. What a humorin is? Stump snorted. Whatever it says, it's sure Bob don't include no purple worms. That's a varmint, pure and simple. Ain't no difference killing it than any other critter. Then by God, we'll get him on malicious damage, the man called. Or hunting without a license at a season carrying concealed weapons. Stump went for his hip pocket, fumbled out a fat, shapeless wallet, extracted a thumbed rectangle of folded paper, offered it I'm a licensed exterminator. Got a permit to carry a gun, too. I ain't broke no law. He grinned openly now. Just doin my job, Sheriff. And at no charge to the county. A smaller man with bristling red hair flared his nostrils at Stump. You bloodthirsty idiot. He raised his fist and shook it. We'll be a national disgrace. Worse than Little Rock. Lynching's too good for you. Hold on there, Weinstein, the sheriff cut in. Let's not go gettin no lynch talk started. Lynch, is it? Cecil Thump bellowed, his face suddenly red. Why, I done a favor for every man here. Now you listen to me. What is that thing over there? He jerked a blunt thumb toward the judicial bench. It's some kind of critter from Mars or some place. You know that as well as me. And what's it here for? It ain't for the good of the likes of you or me, I can tell you that. It's them or us. And this time, by God, we got in the first lick. Why you you hate monger. Now hold on right there. I'm as liberal minded as the next feller. Hell, I like a nigger and I can't hardly tell a Jew from a white man. But when it comes to taking in a damn purple worm and calling it humorin, that's where I draw the line. Sheriff Hoskins pushed between Stump and the surging front rank of the crowd. Stay back there. I want you to disperse peaceably and let the law handle this. I reckon I'll push off now. Sheriff. Stump hitched up his belt. I figgered you might have to calm him down right at first. But now they've had a chance to think it over over and see I ain't broke no law. Ain't none of these law abiding folks goin to do anything illegal like trying to get rough with a licensed exterminator. Just doing his job. He stood, retrieved his gun. Here, I'll take that, Sheriff Hoskin said. You can consider your gun license cancelled and your exterminate license too. Stump grinned again and handed the revolver over. Sure, I'm cooperative, Sheriff. Anything you say. Send it around to my place when you're done with it. He pushed his way through the crowd to the corridor door. The rest of you stay put. A portly man with a head of bushy white hair pushed his way through to the bench. I'm calling an emergency town meeting to order here and now. He banged the gavel on the scarred bench. Top glanced down at the body of the dead alien now covered by a flag. Gentlemen, we've got to take fast action. If the wire services get hold of this before we've gone on the record, Willow Grove will be a blighted area. Look here, Willard, judge Gates said, rising. This mob isn't competent to take legal action. Never mind what's legal, Judge. Sure this calls for federal legislation, maybe a constitutional amendment, but in the meantime we're going to redefine what constitutes a person within the incorporated limits of Willow Grove. That's the last thing we can do. A thin faced woman snapped, glaring at Judge Gates. Do you think we're going to sit here and condone this outrage? Nonsense gave shouted. I don't like what happened any better than you do. But a person. Well, a person's got two arms and two legs, and shape's got nothing to do with it. The chairman cut in. Bears walk on two legs. Dave Zwocke lost his in the war. Monkeys have hands. Any intelligent creature, the woman started. Nope, that won't do either. My unfortunate cousin's boy, Melvin, was born an imbecile. Poor lad. Now, folks, there's no time to waste. We'll find it very difficult to formulate a satisfactory definition based on considerations such as these. However, I think we can resolve the question in terms that will form a basis for future legislation on the question.

Question.

It's going to make some big changes in things. Hunters ain't gonna like it, and the meat industry will be affected. But if, as it appears, we're entering into an era of contact with, uh, creatures from other worlds, we gotta get our house in order. You tell em, Senator, somebody yelled. We better leave this for Congress to figure out, another voice insisted. We got to do something. The senator held up his hands. Quiet, everybody. There'll be reporters here in a matter of minutes. Maybe our ordnance won't hold water, but it'll start em thinking. And it'll make a lot better copy for Willow Grove than the killing. What do you got in mind, Senator? This is the senator said solemnly, a person is any harmless creature. Pete shuffled. Somebody coughed. What about a man who commits a violent act, then? Judge Gates demanded. What's he, eh? That's obvious, gentlemen, the senator said flatly. He's vermin. On the courthouse steps Cecil Stump stood, hands in hip pockets, talking to a reporter from the big town paper in Mattoon, surrounded by a crowd of latecomers who had missed the excitement inside. He described the accuracy of his five shots, the sound they made hitting the big blue snake, and the ludicrous spectacle the latter had presented in its death agony. He winked at the foxy man in overalls, picking his nose on the edge of the crowd. Guess it'll be a while fore any more damn reptiles move in here like that. They own the place, he concluded. The courthouse doors banged wide. Excited citizens poured forth, veering aside from Cecil Stump. The crowd around him thin broke up as its members collared those emerging with the hot news. The reporter picked a target. Perhaps you'd care to give me a few details of the action taken by the special committee, sir. Senator Custis pursed his lips. A session of the town council was called, he said. We've defined what a person is in this town. Stump, standing 10ft away, snorted. Can't touch me with no ex post factory law. And also what can be classified as vermin, custis went on. Stump closed his mouth with a snap. Here. That's supposed to be some kind of slam at me, Custis, by God, come election time. Above, the door opened again. A tall man in a leather jacket stepped out, stood looking down. The crowd pressed back. Senator Custis and the reporter moved aside. The newcomer came down the steps slowly. He carried Cecil Stump's nickel plated.44 in his hand. Standing alone now, Stump watched him. Here, he said. His voice carried a sudden note of strain. Who are you? The man reached the foot of the steps, raised the revolver and cocked it with a thumb. I'm the new exterminator, he said. End of a Bad Day for Vermin By Keith Laumer. Belly Laugh by Randall Garrett this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Dale Grothman youn hear a lot of talk these days about secret weapons. If it's not a new wrinkle in nuclear fission, it's a gun to shoot around corners and down winding staircases. Or maybe a nice new strain of bacteria guaranteed to give you radioactive dandruff. Our own suggestion is to pipe a few of our television television commercials into Russia and bore the enemy to death. While it seems that Ivar Jorgensen has hit on the ultimate engine of destruction, a weapon designed to exploit man's greatest weakness, the blueprints can be found in the next few pages. And as the soldier in the story says, our only hope is to keep a sense of humor. Belly Laughter by Randall Garrett Me, I'm looking for my outfit. Got cut off in the Holland Tunnel Attack. Mind if I sit down with you guys a while? Thanks. Coffee. Damn, this is heaven. Ain't seen a cup of coffee in a year. What? You said it. This sure is a hell of a war. Tough on a guy's feet. Yeah, that's right. Holland Tunnel skirmish where the Ruskies used that new gun. Uh. God, it was awful. Guys popping off all around a guy and him not knowing why. No sense to it. No noise, no wound. Just popping off. That's the trouble with this war. It won't settle down To a routine. Always something new. What the hell chance has a guy got to figure things out? And I tell you, them Russkies are coming up with new weapons just as fast as we are. Enough to make your hair stand on end, sugar? Christ, yes. Ain't seen sugar for a year. You see, it's like this. We were bottled up in the pits around the tunnel for seven damn days. It was like nothing you ever saw before. Oops, sorry. Didn't mean to splash you. I was laughing about something that happened there to a guy. Maybe you guys would get a kick out of it. After all, we gotta keep our sense of humor. You see, there was me and a Kentucky kid named Stilwell in this pair. A big pit with lots of room, and we were all alone. This Stilwell was a nice kid, green and lonesome, and it's pretty sad, really, but there's a yak in it, and I say we gotta keep a sense of humor. Well, this Stilwell, a really green kid, is unhappy and just plain drooling for his gal back home.

Home.

He talks about his mother, of course, and his old man, but it's the girl that's really on his mind, as you guys can plainly understand. He's seeing her everyplace, like spots in front of his eyes. Nice spots, doing things to him. When this Rusky babe shows up, my gun came up without any orders from me just as she poked her puss over the edge of the pit and. Huh? Oh, thank you kindly. It sure tastes good, but I don't want to short you guys. Thank you kindly. Well, as I said, this Rusky babe pokes her nose over the edge of the pit, and Stilwell dives and knocks down my gun. He says, you son of a bitch. Just like that. Wild and desperate, like you'd say to a guy if a guy was just. Just kicking over the last jug of water on a desert island. It would have been long enough for her to kill us if I hadn't had good reflexes. Even then, all I had time to do was knock the pistol out of her hand and drag her into the pit with her play. Bollocks. She was confused and bewildered. She ain't a fighter. And she sits back against the wall, staring at us deadpan, with big and expressionless eyes. She's a pretty babe, too. And I could see exactly what had happened. As far as Stilwell was concerned, his spots had come to life in very adequate form, so to speak. Stilwell goes over and sits down beside her, and I'm very much on alert. Because I know where his courage comes from. But I decide it's alright. Because I see the babe is not belligerent, just confused. Kind of. And friendly and willing. Kind of a whip little dog, willing. And man oh man, she was sure what Stilwell needed. They kind of went together like a hand in a glove. Natural like. And it followed pretty natural that when Stilwell got up and led her around to the wing of the pit, out of sight, she went willing, smilingly, like the same little dog. Uh uh. No you guys, two's enough. I wouldn't rob you. Well, ok. And thanks kindly. Well, there I was, all alone and happy for Stilwell. Cause I know it's what the kid needs. And in spots like that, what difference does it make? Yank, Rusky, Mongolian, as long as she's willing. Then you guys, Stilwell comes back out walleyed. Real walleyed. Like being hit but not knocked out and still walking. I know what it is. Some kind of shock. I get up and walk over and take a look at the babe where he'd left her and I bust out laughing. I told you guys there was a yak in this. I laughed like a fool. It was that funny. As much as I had time to before Stilwell cracked, it was enough to crack him. The little thing that pushes the guy over the edge. He lets out a yell and screams, for Christ's sake. For Christ's sake. Nothing but a bucket of bolts. Nothing but a couple of plastic lumps. That was when I hit him. I had to. He was for the birds. Stilwell was an hour later. We got relieved and a couple of the medicos carried him away. Strapped to a stretcher. Gone like a kite. They took the robot too, and its clothes. But they forgot the brassiere. So I took it and I've been carrying it ever since. And I'll leave it with you guys if you want. For the coffee. Might make you think about home after all. Like the man said, we gotta keep our sense of humor. Well, so long you guys. And thanks. Belly Laugh by Randall Garrett. Felony by James O. Causey this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Dale Grothman Vogel started with crossword puzzles and worked his way up to man's greatest enigma. Felony by James O. Cossey when he was nine, Vogel almost killed another boy who inadvertently scattered his half completed jigsaw puzzle. At 16, he discovered the mysteries of the Danish gambit and cried. At 22, he crouched in a foxhole on Okinawa, oblivious to the death bursting about him, squinting in a painful ecstasy at the tattered fragment of a newspaper on his knee. His sergeant screamed in agony, then died at his elbow. Vogel's face lit up. Sleigh, he said happily, scribbling. As crossword puzzles go, it had been a toughie. At 30, he was production manager of Saxe Fixtures. His men hated him. The general manager loved him. Tall, gaunt, and ruthless. He could glance at any detail, print, and instantly pinpoint the pattern of final assembly, total man hour budget, and the fabrication lead time. Once he made a mistake on a $40,000 job lot. He estimated too high on production scrap. When the final assemblies were completed, they had two feet of bulb extension left over. It disturbed him. He spent that evening in his den, brooding over chessme. Then his wife left him alone. Personnel called that morning and apologized. No experience, but amazing shop aptitude. He's coming down to you for an interview. I want, vogel said into the phone. Three bench men by noon with shop experience. Personnel was sorry. Vogel snarled and hung up. Hello? Please, sir, said a voice. Vogel stared icily. Meekness cowered in front of his desk. Meekness in the form of a small bird like person with beseeching amber eyes. I am Amenth, he said cringingly. Vogel eyed the olive skin, the cheekbones, the blue black hair. A wetback, he said. Three men short. And they send me wetbacks. You know, sheet metal, Buster. I am not of the understanding, ameth offered. Experience, no. He beamed. Aptitude, yes. Fighting apoplexy. Vogel took him out into the shop. Ameth cringed at the howl of the air tools and punch presses. Vogel contemptuously took him by the arm and led him to a workbench where a wizened persimmon of a man performed deft lightnings with rivets and air wrench. Benny, this is Amanth. He's new. Vogel pronounced it like a curse. Get him some goggles from the crib and a rivet gun. Vogel returned to his office, scowling. The phone rang almost instantly. Boss, said Benny. He is from nothing. All thumbs with an air wrench, and he don't know alcladd from stainless. Be right out, vogel said, hanging up before he had a chance to fire Ammon. The fabrication super came in with a production process problem. Vogel solved it, but it was almost an hour before he returned to Benny's bench and stared. Ament was a blur of motion. His Keller chattered like a live thing. A furious, sweating Benny snapped at Vogel, you playing practical jokes? Look, this Guy's gone crazy. He's 50% understandard. Tell him to slow down before I file a grievance. Amanth Beam. I am of the aptitude, he said. A queer, deep tingle went through Vogel, the crystal delight of challenge he felt when confronted by an apparently impregnable fianceto. That was the first day. A week later, Vogel was compiling a progress report from the completed shop. Track travelers. Abruptly, he scowled at one traveler and then Charlie. Yes, sir, one of the planters said. Why didn't these galley panels go out for drop hammer? Charlie preened at the form and whistled. Somebody must have changed the planning sheet. Get me the story. Charley went hurriedly out into the shop. Some time later he returned with a pale, dazed look. It's this guy in assembly, he said. Name is Amanth. He didn't even read the traveler, just looked at the attached detail print and decided to miter the edges, then reverse the flange with a weld. He threw the completed part on Vogel's desk. Go ahead, check those tolerances, he said whitely. Right on the money. Vogel walked over to a calculator and figured there was a dreamy expression in his eyes. He said softly, all fabrication in our own shop. A net savings of $0.93 per unit, or $800 total. I believe you planned this item, Charlie. Vogel fired it him. That same afternoon, Ameth came into the office on Vogel's orders. Sir, don't you know how to read a traveler? Vogel said sternly. It was a lucky accident. Ameth looked terrified. I just read the print and did what seemed logical statement. Then very quiet question. What happened to your accent? The little men looked blank. Bogle took a slow, deep breath. I've got a material planning job open, he said tightly. 3:50 to start. Interested for a moment he thought Ameth would lick his hand. The little man took to planning sheets like a duck to water. He pored feverishly over blueprints, turned out travelers in a steady flood. Vogel watched him. He went over to Personnel, requested Ameth's employment application, read it and scowled. It was a masterpiece of anonymity. New York Former laborer None. He memorized Amethyst's address and returned the application. Vogel always ate lunch in his office with his expediters. That noon, two of them got into an argument about the planets. I say there's life on Mars, pete Stone insisted stubbornly. When the polar ice cap melts, the water runs along the canals and traces of green from growing vegetation can be spotted, which proves Nothing. Harry Lamb yawned. Lamb was chief expediter. Man couldn't live there anyway. There's not enough oxygen. You would be amazed, emet said quietly, at the adaptability of man. Bogle set down his thermos and leaned forward. You mean Martians, for instance, could live here? Assuming they existed and had spaceships. Ameth's smile was infinitely bitter. Until they'd go mad. The talk turned to baseball. Vogel lit his pipe and gave Ameth a surreptitious glance. The little man slumped in the corner, bleak and withdrawn. It was delicious. Vogel left the shop and drove across the town to Amethyst's address. It turned out to be in an ancient rooming house on the west side. Mrs. Reardon, the landlady, was an apathetic woman who brightened when he asked her about Emmett. He moved in just three weeks ago. Her face softened in recollection. He was like a lost dog coming in out of the rain. Couldn't hardly speak English, and he wanted me to trust him for the rent. I must have been crazy. Her nostrils flared. Not that he hasn't paid up. Are you a cop? Vogel nodded as he took out his wallet. In it was his honorary sheriff's badge, but he doubted if the woman would know the difference. She didn't. She led the way upstairs to Ammon's room, worrying, and Vogel assured her they were only looking for a hit and run witness, that it was strictly routine. Ammon's room was incredibly antiseptic, barren of pictures, ashtrays, dirty laundry, any of the normal masculine debris. Vogel got the stark impression of a convict's cell. In the bleak dresser were two pairs of socks, underwear, one tie. In the closet hung one white shirt. Period. Everything wore an indefinable patina of newness. Two books graced the top of the dresser. Bogle recognized one of them, a text on fabrication and design, which Amonth had borrowed from his office. The other was a child's primer on English. He stays in his room almost every every night. Reads mostly. And he speaks English much better now, said Mrs. Reardon. A good tenant. I can't complain. He's quiet and clean. She described Ameth, and Vogel shook his head. Our man is about 60 with a beard, he said. Funny coincidence. It's a strange name, Mrs. Reardon agreed. Vogel drove back to the shop whistling. He did not go to his chess club that night but went to the library instead. He read about flying saucers, about space travel, about the possibility of life on other planets. Sometimes he chuckled. Once he frowned deeply and bit his lip. That night in bed, listening to his wife's shallow breathing, he said, alice. Yes? Suppose you were lost on a desert island. What would you do? I'd build a raft, she said sleepily. Vogel smiled into the darkness. The next day he made a systematic tour of the stock room, scanning the racks of completed sub assemblies, the gleaming fixture components, the rows of panels, brackets, extrusions, all waiting like soldiers to march from the stock room into final assembly. Vogel suddenly grunted. There, half hidden behind a row of stainless steel basin assemblies, was a nine inch bowl. He examined it. The bowl was heavy and shiny. There was no part number stamp, and the metal was not Alklad, not stainless, not CAD, nor zinc. 5 small copper disks had been welded to the lower flange. Bogle carefully scraped off a sample with a file. Then he replaced the part in the stock rack and went into his office, where he placed the sample in an envelope. That afternoon he ranged the shop like a hound. In the shipping crib he found a half completed detail that struck a chord of strange two twisted copper vanes with a crumbled shop traveler signed by Emmett. The next operation specified furnace brays. Vogel squinted at the attached detail print. It was a current job number. He spent the next two hours in the ozolid room leafing through the print files. The job number called for a deep freeze showcase, and there were exactly two hundred and seven detailed drawings involved. Not one of them matched the print in shipping. After an almost silent dinner at home, he sat smoking his pipe, waiting for the phone to ring. It rang at eight. It's platinum, carstairs said. Tim Carstairs was the night shift chemist. Anything wrong, Mr. Vogel?

No.

Vogel paused. Thanks, Tim. He hung up, glancing at his fingers. They were shaking. You, alice said. Look ready to call mate in three. I'm going over to the shop, he said, kissing her. Don't wait up. He was not surprised to see the light on in the parts control section. Ameth was writing planets sheets. I don't believe we authorized overtime, bogle told him mildly, hanging up his coat. Just loose ends. Emma's smile was nervous. Tying up those burden charts? I'm on my own time. I thought I'd set up next month's budget. Bogle sat at his desk. By the way, what did you do before you came here? Odd jobs. Emmett's lips twitched. Your family live on the coast? Sweat glistened on the little man's forehead. Ah, no. My folks passed on years ago. Cat and mouse. You've done good work lately. Vogel yawned, studying the progress chart on the wall behind him, he heard a soft exhalation of relief, the furtive rustle of papers as Ameth cleaned off his desk. When Ameth finally left, Vogel went over to his desk and methodically ransacked the work in progress file. It took him two hours to find what he was looking for. One a schematic detail on graph paper which resembled no type of circuit vogel had ever seen. 2:14 completed shot travelers on which were typed clearly call Ameth upon completion. This was not unusual. Most expediters wanted to be notified when the hot part hit the inspection. The unusual part was that no inspection stamp had been placed opposite the final operation of inspected identified return to stock. Ergo, Ameth had inspected and stocked the parts himself. 3 A progress chart with dates indicating four detail parts still remaining in a fabrication final assembly tomorrow. The following afternoon, Vogel sat alone in the conference room. The door opened and Ameth came in. You sent for me, sir? Sit down, Ameth. Let's talk a while. Ameth sat down uneasily. We're considering you for promotion, vogel said, silencing the little man's protest with a deprecating wave. But we've got to know if you're ready. Let's talk about your job. Ament relaxed. They talked shop for a few moments, then Vogel opened a folder, took out his watch. Very good, he said. Now let's check your initiative potential. As Amyth stiffened, Vogel reassured him. Relax. It's a routine association test. For the next 10 minutes, he timed Ameth's responses with a stopwatch. Most of the words were familiar shop words, and most of the responses were standard job escape, ameth said instantly. Blueprint create noise, hate, want home. It was all so childish, so obvious, and Amethyst's eyes were frightened. Amber pool's when Vogel dismissed him. No matter. Let him suspect. Vogel studied the reaction results with grim amusement. Outside, the shop roared and Amethyst travelers sped the rounds. Issue material, shear to size, form on break, weld for print, miter, drill, inspect, stock. One by one the strange details were being formed. Finished to lie inert in the stock room to await final assembly. Assembly of what? Tonight was project completion. Midnight Vogel stood in the darkness, leaning against the wall. He was tired. He had maintained this visual for three hours. His right leg was numb and he started to shift positions, then froze as he heard footsteps three aisles over. A light exploded blindingly. He held his breath. From inside, in fabrication came the muffled clang of drill presses and power brake and the sounds of the night shift. He waited three aisles over. Something moved. Someone fumbled in the stock bins, collecting shaped pieces of metal, grunting with the effort of piling them on a salvage bench, now panting with impatience while assembling the parts. There was a hammering, a fitting together, a flash of light, a hum of power, and finally, a sob of relief. Vogel's hand slipped into his pocket and grasped the gun. He moved silently. Ameth stood at the salvage bench, adjusting studs and connecting terminals. Vogel stared at the final assembly. It was a helmet. A large silvery helmet connected with a nightmarish maze of wiring, mounted on a rectangular plastic base. It hummed, although there was no visible source of power. Ameth put on the helmet with a feverish haste. Vogel chuckled. Ameth stood motionless. Then, when his hand darted toward the stand, Vogel said sharply, don't. Emet stared at the gun. Take it off. Vogel's voice was iron. Emmett slowly took off the helmet. His eyes were golden with tears. Please, he said. Mars or Venus, vogel said. Which? N. Neither. You could not grasp the concept. Let me go. Please. Where? Vogel prodded. Another dimension? You would call it that, the alien whispered. Hope brightened in his face. You want something. Wealth. Power. It was the way he said the words, like the white trader offering his aborigine captors glass beads to set him free. Bogle nodded toward the surface circuit. That hookup. You trap the gravitational field directly. Cosmic rays. Your planet's magnetic force lines. Look, I'll leave you the schematic diagram. It's simple, really. You can use it to transmute. He babbled on with a heartbreaking eagerness, and Vogel listened. In my own world, said Amethyst, brokenly, I'm a moron. A criminal moron. Once, out of a childish malice, I destroyed beauty. One of the singing crystals. He shuddered. I was punished. They sent me here to the snake pit. Sentence for felony. This, he indicated. The helmet would have fused three seconds after I used it. So, incidentally, would this entire shock. I had no time to construct a feedback dispers. Tell me about your world, vogel said. Amethyst told him. Vogel's breath hissed softly between his teeth. All his life, a uniform vision had tormented him, driven him toward perfection. Apparently, the vision was reality. He smiled, moved forward. You should have told me. Ammunt saw the intent in his eyes and started to bay. Bogle clipped him behind the ear. He put the helmet on gingerly. The electrodes tingled against his temple, and his grin was wry as he thought of Alice. Then he depressed the stud. Bogle sobbed. Color blinded him. Rainbows blared in sweet sparkling thunder he whimpered, covered his eyes. The music drowned him in a fugue of weeping delight. Slowly he raised his head. He stood ankle deep in gold crystals that stretched out forever in a splendid sea of flame. The crystals sang softly, achingly, to the silver sun in the emerald sky. A grove of blue needled trees tingled in ecstasy on his left, and beyond those trees a city sang. White spires formed skyward in impossible cataracts of glory. A glissando of joy burned his ear drums, and he could not face that living splendor. It was a city beyond dreams, beyond legend. A city where all dreams end. He strode toward it raptly. The crystal screen, the blue needled forest lashed wildly, and terror shivered through the air in a shrieking dissonance. From the blue forest people ran, beautiful people with great golden eyes and scarlet tunics. They had been Amethyst's brothers and sisters. They stared, horror and revulsion. Twisting their faces, they started toward him. Vogel understood. If destroying beauty on this world was a crime, then killing ugliness must be a duty. On this world he was ugly. End of Felony By James O. Cossey.

Beside Still Waters by Robert Shackley this this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org when people talk about getting away from it all, they're usually thinking about our great open spaces out West. But to science fiction writers, that would be practically in the heart of Times Square. When a man of the future wants solitude, he picks a slab of rock floating in space 4 light years east of Andromeda. Here is a gentle little story about a man who sought the solitude of such a location. And who did he take along for company? None other than Charles the Robot. Mark Rogers was a prospector, and he went to the asteroid belt looking for radioactive and rare metals. He searched for years, never finding much, hopping from fragment to fragment. After a time he settled on a slab of rock half a mile thick. Rogers had been born old and he didn't age much past a point. His face was white with the pallor of space, and his hands shook a little. He called his slab of rock Maria, after no girl he had ever known. He made a little strike, enough to equip Marta with an air pump at a shack, a few tons of dirt and some water tanks, and a robot. Then he settled back and watched the stars. The robot he bought was a standard model all around worker with building memory and a 30 word vocabulary. Mark added to that bit by bit. He was something of a tinkerer, and he enjoyed adapting his environment. At first, all the robot could say was, yes, sir and no, sir. He could state simple problems. The air pump is laboring, sir. The corn is budding, sir. He could perform a satisfactory salutation. Good morning, sir. Mark changed that. He eliminated the sirs from the robot's vocabulary. Equality was the rule in Mark's hunk of rock. Then he dubbed the robot Charles, after a father he had never known. As the years passed, the air pump began to labor a little as it converted the oxygen in the planetoid's rock into breathable atmosphere. The air seeped into space, and the pump worked a little harder, supplying more. The crops continued to grow in the tamed black dirt of the planetoid. Looking up, Mark could see the sheer blackness of the river of space, the floating points of the stars around him. Under him, overhead, masses of rock drifted, and sometimes the starlight glinted from their black sides. Occasionally, Mark caught a glimpse of Mars or Jupiter. Once he thought he saw Earth. Mark began to tape new responses into Charles. He added simple responses to cue words. When he said, how does it look? Charles would answer, oh, pretty good, I guess. At first the answers were what Mark had been answering himself and the long dialogue held over the years. But slowly he began to build a new personality into Charles. Mark had always been suspicious and scornful of women, but for some reason he didn't tape the same suspicion into Charles. Charles outlook was quite different. Different. What do you think of girls? Mark would ask, sitting on a packaging case outside the shack after the chores were done. Oh, I don't know. You have to find the right one, the robot would reply, dutifully repeating what had been put in its tape. I never saw a good one yet, mark would say. Well, that's not fair. Perhaps you didn't look long enough. There's a girl in the world for every man. You're romantic, Mark would say scornfully. Robot would pause, a build in pause and chuckle, a carefully constructed chuckle. I dreamed of a girl named Marta once, charles would say. Maybe if I would have looked, I would have found her. Then it would be bedtime. Or perhaps Mark would want more conversation. What do you think of girls? He would ask again, and the discussion would follow its same course. Charles grew old. His limbs lost their flexibility, and some of his wiring started to corrode. Mark would spend hours keeping the robot in repair. You're getting rusty, he would cackle. You're not so young yourself, charles would reply. Give an answer for Almost everything. Nothing involved but an answer. It was always night on Marta. But Mark broke up his time into mornings, afternoons and evenings. Their life followed a simple routine. Breakfast for vegetables in Mark's canned store. Then the robot would work in the fields and the plants grew. Used to his touch, Mark would repair the pump, check the water supply and straighten up the immaculate shack. Lunch and the robot's chores were usually finished. The two would sit in the packaging case and watch the stars. They would talk until supper, sometimes late into the endless night. In time, Mark built more complicated conversations into Charles. He couldn't give the robot free choice, of course, but he managed a pretty close approximation of it. Slowly, Charles. Charles's personality emerged. But it was strikingly different from Mark's. Where Mark was querulous, Charles was calm. Mark was sardonic, Charles was naive. Mark was a cynic, Charles was an idealist. Mark was often sad. Charles was forever content. And in time, Mark forgot he had built the answers. It's to Charles. He accepted the robot as a friend of about his own age. A friend of long years standing. The thing I don't understand, Mark would say, is why a man like you would want to live here. I mean, it's alright for me. No one cares about me and I never give much of a damn about anyone. But why you here? I have the whole world, Charles would reply. Where on earth I had to share with billions. I have a stars bigger and brighter than on earth. I have all space around me, close like still waters. And I have you, Mark. Don't go getting sentimental on me. I'm not. Friendship counts. Love was lost love ago, Mark. The love of a girl named Marta who neither of us ever met. And that's a pity. But friendship remains in the eternal night. You're a bloody poet, Mark would say, half admiringly. A poor poet. Time passed unnoticed by the stars and the air pump hissed and clanked and leaked. Mark was fixing it constantly. But the air of Marta became increasingly rare. Although Charles labored in the fields, the crops, deprived of sufficient air, died. Mark was tired now and barely able to crawl around even without the grip of gravity. He stayed in his bunk most of the time. Charles fed him as best he could. Moving on. Rusty Creek Freaking limps. What do you think of girls? I never saw a good one yet. Well, that's not fair. Mark was too tired to see the end coming and Charles wasn't interested. But the end was on its way. The air pump threatened to give out momentarily. There hadn't been any food for days. But why you gasping in the escaping air. Strand.

Here I have the whole world.

Don't get sentimental. And the love of a girl named Marta. From his bunk Mark saw the stars from the last time. Big, bigger than ever, endlessly floating in the still waters of space. Stars, Mark said. Yes, the sun shall shine as now.

Now.

A bloody poet. A poor poet. And girls. I dreamed of a girl named Marta once. Maybe, if what do you think of girls and stars and earth and it was bedtime this time. Forever. Charles stood beside the body of his friend. He felt for a pulse once and allowed the withered hand to fall. He walked to a corner of the shack and turned off the tired air pump. The tape that Mark had prepared had a few cracked inches left to run. I hope he finds his Marta, the robot croaked. And then the tape broke. His rusted limbs would not bend, and he stood frozen, staring back at the naked stone. Then he bowed his head. The Lord is my shepherd, charles said. I shall not want. He maketh me lie down in green pastures. He leadeth me end of beside still waters.

Pipe of Peace by James McKimme Jr. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Recording by Thomas Ehrman Pipe of Peace by James McKimmie Jr. The Farmer Refused to work. His wife, a short, thin woman with worried eyes, watched him while he sat before the kitchen table. He was thin, too, like his wife, but tall and tough skinned. His face, with its leather look, was immobile. Why? Asked his wife. Good reasons, the farmer said. He poured yellow cream into a coffee cup of coffee. He let the cup sit on the table. Henry, said the woman, as though she were really speaking to someone else. She walked around the kitchen in quick, aimless bird steps. My right, said Henry. He lifted his cup, finally tasting. We'll starve. Not likely. Not until everybody else does, anyway. The woman circled the room and came back to her husband. Her eyes winked and there were lines between them. Her fingers clutched the edge of the table. You've gone crazy, she said, as though it were half question, a half pronouncement. The farmer was relaxing now, leaning back in his chair. Might have. Might have at that. Why? She asked. The farmer turned his coffee cup carefully. Thing to do is all. Each man in his own turn. This is my turn. The woman watched him for a long time. Then she sat down on a chair beside the table. The quick, nervous movement was gone out of her. She sat like a frozen sparrow the farmer looked up and grinned. Feels good just to sit here. Does well for the back and the arms. Been working too hard, Henry, said the woman. The farmer tasted his coffee again. He put the cup on the table and leaned back, tapping his brown fingers. Just in time, I'd say. Waited any longer would have done any good. Another few years, farmer wouldn't mean anything. The woman watched him, her eyes frightened as though he might suddenly gnash his teeth or leap in the air. Pretty soon, the farmer said, they'd have it all mechanical. Couldn't stop anything now, he said, wife smiling. We can stop at all, Henry. Go out to the fields, the woman said. No, henry said, standing, stretching his thin, hard body. I won't go out to the fields. Neither will August Brown nor Clyde Briggs nor Alfred Swanson. None of us anywhere. Not until the food's been stopped long enough for people to wake up. The farmer looked out of the kitchen window, beyond his tractor and the cow barn and the windmill. He looked at rows of strong corn, shivering their soft silk in the morning breeze. We'll stop the corn, stop the wheat, stop the cattle, the hogs, the chickens. You can't. I can't. But all of us together can. No sense, the woman said, wagging her head. No sense. It's sense, all right. Best sense we've ever had. Can't use any army with no stomach. Old as the earth. Can't fight without food. Takes food to run war. You'll starve the two of us. That's all you'll do. Nobody else will. Stop work. The farmer turned to his wife. Yes, they will. Everywhere a farmer is the same. He works the land. He reads the paper. He votes. He listens to the radio. He watches the television. Mostly he works the land alone with his own thoughts and ideas. He isn't any different in Maine than he is in Oregon. We've all stopped work now, this morning. How about those across the ocean? Are they stopping, too? They're not going to feed up their soldiers to kill us if we don't starve first to they stop to. A farmer's a farmer. Like a leaf on a tree. No matter on what tree, what country, on whose land. A leaf is a leaf. A farmer is the same. Farmer's a farmer. It won't work, the woman said dully. Yes, it will. They'll make you work. How? It's our own property. Well, they'll take it away from you. Who'll work it then? The woman rocked in her chair, her mouth quivering. They'll get somebody. The farmer shook his head. Too many people doing other things, like making shells and guns, like sitting in foxholes or flying planes. The woman sat rocking her hands together in her lap. It won't work, she repeated. It'll work, said the farmer. Right now it'll work. Yes, we've got milkers and shuckers and we've got hatchers for the chickens. We got tractors and combines and threshing machines. They're all mechanical, all right, but we don't have mechanical farmers yet. The pumps, the trackers, the milkers don't work by themselves. In time, maybe, but not now. We're still ahead of them at that. It'll work. Go out to the fields, Henry, his wife said, her voice like the sound of a worn phonographic record. Nope, said the farmer, taking a pipe from his overalls. I think instead I'll just sit in the sun and watch the corn, watch the birds on top of the barn. Maybe I'll fill my pipe and sit there and smoke and watch. When I get sleepy I'll sleep. After a while I might go see August Brown, Clyde Briggins, or maybe Alfred Swanson. We'll sit and talk about pleasant things, peaceful things. We'll wait. The farmer put the pipe between his teeth and walked to the door. He put on his straw hat, buttoned the sleeves of his blue shirt, stepped outside. His wife sat at the table, staring at nothing in the room. The farmer walked across the barnyard, listened to the sound of the the chickens and the sound of the breeze going through the corn. Near the barn he sat upon an old tree stump and filled his pipe with tobacco. He lit the pipe, cupping his hands, and sat there smoking, the smoke spiraling up into the bright warm air. He took his pipe from his teeth and looked at it. Pipe of peace, he said, laughing inside himself. The breeze was soft and the sun warm on his back. He sat there smoking, feeling the quiet of the morning, the peace of the great sky above. He had no time to stand or to take his pipe from his mouth when the two men crossed the yard and lifted him up by the arms. He dropped the pipe while he was dragged past the house to the road beyond. He had no time to yell or scream before his hat was swept from his head, the overalls and the blue shirt stripped, stripped from his body. He had not even thought about what it was that had happened before he was thrust inside a white truck with strong steel sides and with grilled windows like those of a cell. He was just sitting there in the truck without his clothes, speeding away with August Brown and Clyde Briggins and Alfred Swanson. Outside, the sun was warm upon the earth. Chickens clucked in their pens while birds fluttered about the top of the barn. A pig squealed, the corn rustled, and beside the farmhouse on the ground lay a pipe. Its tobacco spilled, the last of its smoke swirling out of its bowl into the air, disappearing. The woman sat in the kitchen of the farmhouse and turned her head. When the door opened, she widened her eyes and caught at her throat with her hand. The sun through the doorway shone down on metallic hands and a metallic face gleaming on the surface which the straw hat and the overalls and the blue shirt didn't hide. The door snapped shut and there was a sound of a heavy metal footsteps against the kitchen floor. The woman pressed against her chair. Who are you? She screamed. Henry said the mechanical thing. End of Pipe of Peace by James McKimmie Jr. Recording by Thomas Ehrman. What's he doing in there? By Fritz Lieber this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Thomas Ehrman what's he doing in there? By Fritz Lieber the professor was congratulating Earth's first visitor from another planet on his wisdom in getting in touch with a cultural anthropologist before contacting any other scientist, scientists, or governments, God forbid, and in learning English from radio and TV before landing from his orbit parked rocket, when the Martian stood up and said hesitantly, excuse me, please, but where is it? That baffled the professor, and the Martian seemed to grow anxious. At least his long mouth curved upward, and he had earlier explained that it, curling downward, was his his smile, and he repeated, please, where is it? He was surprisingly humanoid in most respects, but his complexion was textured so like the rich dark armchair he'd just been occupying that the professor's pinstriped gray suit, which he had eagerly consented to wear, seemed an arbitrary interruption between him and the chair, a sort of Mother Hubbard dress on a phantom conjured from its leather. The professor's wife, always a perceptive hostess, came to her husband's rescue by saying with equal rapidity, top of the stairs, end of the hall, last door. The Martian's mouth curled happily downward and he said, thank you very much, and was off. Comprehension burst on the professor. He caught up with his guest at the foot of the stairs. Here, I'll show you the way, he said. No, I can find it myself, thank you, the Martian assured him. Something rather final in the Martian's tone made the professor desist. And after watching his visitor sway up the stairs with an almost hypnotic softly jogging movement, he rejoined his wife in the study, saying wonderly, who'd have thought it? By George, function taboos as strict as our own. I'm glad some of your professional visitors maintain him, his wife said darkly. But this one's from Mars, darling, and to find out he's well, similar in an aspect of life is as thrilling as a discovery that water has burned hydrogen. When I think of the day not far distant when I'll put his entries in the cross cultural Index, he was still rhapsodizing when the professor's little son raced in. Pop, the Martian's gone to the bathroom. Hush, dear, manners. Now, it's perfectly natural, darling, that the boy should notice and be excited. Yes, son, the Martian's not so very different from us. Oh, certainly, the professor's wife said with a trace of bitterness. I don't imagine his turquoise complexion will cause any comment at all when you bring him home to a faculty research. They'll just figure he's had a hard night and that he got that baby elephant nose sniffing around for assistant professorships. Really, darling, he probably thinks of our noses as disagreeably amputated and paralyzed. Well, anyway, Pop, he's in the bathroom. I followed him when he squiggled upstairs. Now, son, you shouldn't have done that. He's on a strange planet and it might make him nervous if he thought he was being spied on. We must show him every courtesy. By George, I can't wait to discuss these things with Ackerley Ramsbottom. When I think of how much more this encounter has to give the anthropologist than even the psychiatrist or astronomer. He was still going strong on his second rhapsody when he was interrupted by another high speed entrance. It was the professor's cultish daughter. Mom, Pop, the Martians. Hush, dear, we know. The professor's cultish daughter regained her adolescent poise, which was considerable. Well, he's still in there, she said. I just tried the door and it was locked. I'm glad it was, the professor said, while his wife added, yes, we can't be sure what. And caught herself. Really, dear, that was very bad manners. I thought he'd come downstairs long ago, her daughter explained. He's been in there an awfully long time. It must have been a half hour ago when I saw him Guy earn Gimble upstairs in that real gone way he has with nosy here following him. The professor's cultish daughter was currently soaking up both jive and Alice. When the professor checked his wristwatch, his expression grew troubled. By George, he is taking his time. Though of course we don't know how much time. Martians, I wonder. I listened for a while. Pop, his son volunteered. He was running the water a lot. Running the water, eh? Well, we know Mars is a water starved planet. I suppose that in the presence of unlimited water he might be seized by a kind of madness and but he seemed so well adjusted. Then his wife spoke, voicing all of her thoughts. Her outlook on life gave her a naturally sepulchral voice. What's he doing in there? 20 minutes and at least as many fantastic suggestions later, the professor glanced again at his watch and nerved himself for action. Motioning his family aside, he mounted the stairs and tiptoed down the hall. He paused only once to shake his head and munder under his breath. By George, I wish I had French urn or von Gottschalk here. They're a shade better than I am on intercultural contracts, especially taboo breakings and affronts. His family followed him at a short distance. The professor stopped in front of the bathroom door. Everything was quiet as death. He listened for a minute and then rapped measuredly, steadying his hand by clutching its wrist with the other. There was a faint splashing, but no other sound. Another minute passed. The professor rapped again. Now there was no response at all. He very gingerly tried the knob. The door was still locked. When they had retreated to the stairs, it was the professor's wife who once more voiced their thoughts. This time her voice carried overtones of supernatural horror. What's he doing in there? He may be dead or dying, the professor's cultish daughter suggested briskly. Maybe we ought to call the fire department, like they did for old Miss Frisby. The professor winced. I'm afraid you haven't visualized the complications, dear, he said gently. No one but ourselves knows that the Martian is on Earth or has even the slightest inkling that interplanetary travel has been achieved. Whatever we do, it will have to be on our own to break in on a creature engaged in. Well, we don't know what primal private activity is against all anthropological practice. Still, dying's a primal activity, his daughter said crisply. So is ritual bathing before mass murder, his wife added.

Please.

Still, as I was about to say, we do have the moral duty to succor him. If you all too reasonably suggest he's been incapacitated by a germ or virus, or more likely, by some simple environmental factor such as Earth's greater gravity. Tell you what, Pop, I can look in the bathroom window and see what he's doing. All I have to do is crawl out my bedroom window and along the gutter a little ways. It's safe as houses. The professor's question, beginning with son, how do you know? Died unuttered as he refused to notice the words his daughter was voicing silently at her brother. He glanced at his wife's sardonically composed face, thought once more of the fire department and of other and larger even more jealous, or would it be skeptical government agencies, and clutched at the straw, offered him him. Ten minutes later he was quite unnecessarily assisting his son back through the bedroom window. Gee, Pop, I couldn't see a sign of him. That's why I took so long. Hey, Pop, don't look so scared. He's in there. Sure enough. It's just that the bathtub's under the window and you have to get real close up to see into it. The Martian's taking a bath.

Yep.

Yup, got it full up and just the end of his little old schnozzle. Stickin out your suit, Pop, was hangin on the door. The one word the professor's wife spoke was like a death knell. Drowned? No, Ma, I don't think so. His schnozzle was opening and closing regular like. Maybe he's a shapeshifter, the professor's cultish daughter said in a burst of evil fantasy. Maybe he softens in water and thins out after a while until he's like an eel. Then he'll go exploring through the sewer pipes. Wouldn't it be funny if he went under the street and knocked on the stopper from underneath and crawled into the bathtub with President Rexford? Or Ms. President Rexford? Or maybe right into the middle of one of Janie Rexford's oh I'm so sexy. Bubble baths, please. The professor put his hand to his eyebrows and kept it there, cuddling the elbow in his other hand. Well, have you thought of something? The professor's wife asked him after a bit. What are you going to do? The professor dropped his hand and blinked his eyes hard and took a deep breath. Telegraph Fenchurch and Ackerley Ramsbottom and then break in, he said in a resigned voice, into which, nevertheless, a note of hope seemed to have come from first, however, I'm going to wait until morning. And he sat down cross legged in the hall a few yards from the bathroom door and folded his arms. So the long vigil commenced. The professor's family shared it, and he offered no objection. Other and sterner men, he told himself, might claim to be able successfully to order their children to go to bed when there was a Martian locked in the bathroom. But he would like to see them faced with the situation. Finally, dawn began to seep from the bedrooms. When the bulb in the hall had grown quite dim, the professor unfolded his arms. Just then there was a loud splashing in the bathroom. The professor's family looked toward the door. The splashing stopped, and they heard the Martian moving around. Then the door opened and the Martian appeared in the professor's gray pinstripe suit. His mouth curled sharply downward in a broad alien smile as he saw the professor. Good morning, the Martian said happily. I never slept better in my life, even in my own little wet bed back on Mars. He looked around more closely, and his mouth straightened. But where did you all sleep? He asked. Don't tell me you stayed dry all night. You didn't give up your only bed to me. His mouth curled upward in misery. Oh, dear, he said. I'm afraid I've made a mistake somehow. Yet I don't understand how. Before I studied you, I didn't know what your sleeping habits would be. But. But then question was answered for me. In fact, it looked so reassuringly homelike when I saw those brief TV scenes of your females ready for sleep in their little tubs. Of course, on Mars only the fortunate can always be sure of sleeping wet. But here, with your abundance of water, I thought there would be wet beds for all. He paused. It's true I had some doubts last night, wondering if I'd used the right words and all. But then when you rapped good night to me, I splashed the sentiment back at you, and you went to sleep in a wink. But I'm afraid that somewhere I've blundered and no, no, dear chap, the professor managed to say. He'd been waving his hand in a gentle circle for some time, in token that he wanted to interrupt. Everything is quite all right. It's true we stayed up all night, but please consider that as a wash. An honor garred by George, which we kept to indicate our esteem. End of what's He Doing in There? By Fritz Lieber Read by Thomas Ehrman.

The Eyes have it by Philip K. Dick this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Matt Bounds the Eyes have it by Philip K. Dick it was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by life forms from another planet. As yet, I haven't done anything about it. I can't think of anything to do. I wrote to the government and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses. Anyhow, the whole thing is known. I'm not the first to discover it. Maybe it's even under control. I was sitting in my easy chair, idly turning the pages of a paperback book someone had left on the bus, when I came across the reference that first put me on the trail. For a moment I didn't respond. It took some time for the full import to sink in. After I'd comprehended it seemed odd I hadn't noticed it right away. The reference was clearly to a non human species of incredible properties not indigenous to Earth, a species, I hasten to point out, customarily masquerading as ordinary human beings. Their disguise, however, became transparent in the face of the following observations by the author. It was at once obvious the author knew everything, knew everything, and was taking it in his stride. The lineand I tremble remembering it even now. Read. His eyes slowly roved across the room. Vague chills assailed me. I tried to picture the eyes. Did they roll like dimes? The passage indicated not. They seemed to move through the air, not over the surface. Rather rapidly, apparently. Apparently no one in the story was surprised. That's what tipped me off. No sign of amazement at such an outrageous thing. Later, the matter was amplified. His eyes moved from person to person. There it was in a nutshell. The eyes had clearly come apart from the rest of him and were on their own. My heart pounded and my breath choked in my windpipe. I had stumbled on an accidental mention of a totally unfamiliar race, obviously non terrestrial. Yet to the characters in the book it was perfectly natural, which suggested they belonged to the same species. And the author. A slow suspicion burned in my mind. The author was taking it rather too easily in his stride. Evidently he felt this was quite a usual thing. He made absolutely no attempt to conceal his knowledge. The story continued. Presently his eyes fastened on Julia. Julia, being a lady, had at least the breeding to feel indignant. She's described as blushing and knitting her brows angrily. At this I sighed with relief. They weren't all non terrestrial. The narrative continues. Slowly, calmly, his eyes examined every inch of her. Great Scott. But here the girl turned and stomped off, and the matter ended. I lay back in my chair, gasping with horror. My wife and family regarded me in wonder. What's wrong, dear? My wife asked. I Couldn't tell her. Knowledge like this was too much for the ordinary run of the mill person. I had to keep it to myself. Nothing. I gasped. I leapt up, snatched the book and hurried out of the room. In the garage I continued reading. There was more. Trembling, I read the next revealing passage. He put his arm around Julia. Presently she asked him if he he would remove his arm. He immediately did so with a smile. It's not said what was done with the arm after the fellow had removed it. Maybe it was left standing upright in the corner. Maybe it was thrown away. I don't care. In any case, the full meaning was there, staring me right in the face. Here was a race of creatures capable of removing portions of their anatomy at will. Eyes, arms, and maybe more without batting an eyelash. My knowledge of biology came in handy at this point. Obviously they were simple beings, unicellular. Some sort of primitive single celled things. Beings no more developed than starfish. Starfish can do the same thing, you know. I read on and came to this incredible revelation, tossed off coolly by the author without the faintest trimmer. Outside the movie theater, we split up. Part of us went inside, part over to the cafe for dinner. Binary fission obviously splitting in half and forming two entities. Probably each lower half went to the cafe, it being farther and the upper halves to the movies. I read on, my hands shaking. I had really stumbled onto something here. My mind reeled as I made out this passage. I'm afraid there's no doubt about it. Poor Bibny has lost his head again. Which was followed by and Bob says he has utterly no guts. Yet Bibny got around as well as the next person. The next person, however, was just as strange. He was soon described as totally lacking in brains. There was no doubt of the thing in the next passage. Julia, whom I had thought thought to be the one normal person, reveals herself as also being an alien lifeform similar to the rest. Quite deliberately, Julia had given her heart to the young man.

Hmm.

It didn't relate what the final disposition of the organ was, but I didn't really care. It was evident Julia had gone right on living in her usual manner, like all the others in the book. Without heart, arms, eyes, brains, viscera, dividing up into when the occasion demanded, without a qualm. Thereupon she gave him her hand. Ah, I sickened. The rascal now had her hand as well as her heart. I shudder to think what he's done with them by this time. He took her arm. Not content to wait, he had to start dismantling her on his own. Flushing crimson. I slammed the book shut and leapt to my feet, but not in time to escape. One last reference to the those carefree bits of anatomy whose travels had originally thrown me on the track. Her eyes followed him all the way down the road and across the meadow. I rushed from the garage and back inside the warm house as if the accursed things were following me. My wife and children were playing Monopoly in the kitchen. I joined them and played with frantic fervor, brow feverish, teeth chattering. I had had enough of the thing. I want to hear no more about it. Let them come on. Let them invade Earth. I don't want to get mixed up in it. I have absolutely no stomach for it. End of the Eyes have It by Philip K. Dick.

Prelude to Space by Robert W. Hasseltine this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org prelude to space by Robert W. Hasseltine. You're certain to be included in a survey at one time or another. However, there's one you may not recognize as such. Chances are it will be more important than you imagine it could be. Man's Prelude to Space I was climbing the steep side of a central Wisconsin hill, holding my bow away from my body for balance, when I first saw the stranger. He sat on a stump at the crest and watched me struggle up. As I drew nearer, I panted out a greeting and received his cheerful hi in return. When I finally reached the top, I threw myself on the ground and began catching my breath. He did not say anything at first, just looked at the bow and the quiver of arrows at my back. Finally he said, may I look at it? And reached for the bow. I handed it to him. He examined it carefully and returned it. Beautiful workmanship. Is that all you use? He asked. I never cared much for guns, I answered. I've always thought a bow gave the animal more of an even chance for his life. We talked then on the various aspects of hunting and how the crisp fall air seemed to make the deer seem closer than during the heat of summer. While we talked, I tried to place the reason he disturbed me, but I couldn't seem to do it. He was dressed in an old plaid shirt and dungarees, and his blond hair wasn't many shades removed from my own straw thatch much, but there was something odd about him that I couldn't quite find. Perhaps it's the cloth. His words surprised me. You see, it hasn't been discovered on this planet as yet. My face must have shown astonishment because he went on in the same vein. I admit it's confusing, but it's also true my clothes weren't made on Earth. He chuckled, then, deep in his throat, I don't blame you for being confused. I know how I would feel if I met an extraterrestrial being before space travel was a reality. I kept staring at him. Finally I blurted out, what in Sam Hill are you talking about? He leaned forward on the stump and his face grew earnest. You might say I am a poll taker. I have to decide certain things from various interviews with individuals I meet. What are you trying to prove? I asked. I'm sorry, but I can't tell you that until I'm finished with the interview. If I told you, your interest in the subject would tend to prejudice your answers. Fair enough. What do you want to ask me? He pulled out a notebook and smiled. These questions may seem a little silly, but I must have straightforward answers to them. Will you go along with me? I nodded my head. Let's see now. If you were the head of a government and wanted to ascertain whether another country was ready for admission into the United nations, what would you do? I shrugged. I suppose I would read books and magazines from the country and possibly have an interview with the heads of the government after I had collected my data. I could then act upon it. For the sake of argument. Suppose the books and other periodicals were written so as to be prejudicial in favor of the government, and the heads also were coloring what they said. I thought for a minute. In that case, I suppose I would secretly place someone inside the country to interview the people and get a first hand view of the situation. Then I would act on his data. He nodded his head. Yes. The people themselves and the conditions they live in will give you the needed data. He turned a page in the book. Now suppose that you wish to know if a certain planet was ready to enter into an organization such as the Galactic Federation. What would you do? I suppose I'd act as I did before. Place people inside the various areas of the planet to interview and observe. They would bring back the information needed to ascertain whether they would be an asset or a detriment to the organization. I thought to myself that the question was a trifle silly. After all, hadn't science proved that life couldn't exist on the other planets in our system? He relaxed after I answered, and his smile was brighter than the previous ones. Right, he said. Naturally we had to learn the language first, but now a first hand check can be made. You see, there is a civilization out there. He raised his hand and swept the sky. And we have to check to see if this planet is ready to take its place as an adult civilization with the rest of us. Earth, within a very short time, will be reaching her fingers into space. Once she gets there, she will be eligible to join the Galactic Federation. That's all right, I said. Then we can exchange culture and knowledge with other civilizations. Yes, if you are able to join. But you said that once we reach space we will be eligible. Look at it this way, he said. The main purpose of the Galactic Federation is to promote peace and understanding among the various planets. Planets Earth would have to be prepared to take its place as just another member, and not an important member at that. Earth, you see, is one of the smaller planets and also would be the latest one to join. In times past some planets have reached space without being fully prepared for what they would find. They still had internal troubles on their own world worlds. We had to place them in quarantine until they reached that degree of civilization where they were ready to live in peace. Now we check a planet before it reaches space travel stage. We find out the reactions of the inhabitants to certain situations. What sort of situations? I asked. Well, naturally we want to see their artifacts as an indication as to their achievement. We have to know what the average man thinks of space travel and trade with other planets and their ideas on peace and their feelings toward their fellow men. All are very important. Actually, when a planet once enters the Federation, the people are the ones who decide on people, peace, and war. So if the majority of the people on a planet are peace loving, that planet is ready to enter the Federation. But how do you find out all these things? I asked. When a man finds out what you're trying to prove, he may lie because he wants to get into space. His eyes held a mischievous glint as he answered. Simple. The art of telepathy has been highly developed among my race. I have your thoughts on everything I've mentioned. Later, when all the data from thousands of similar interviews is in, it will be evaluated and the decision made as to whether your world will be allowed to reach space. We have the means of keeping you from it if we decide you are yet ready. He stood up and I followed suit. I must be going now. He sighed. This work keeps me on the run, and I have many more interviews to make. Believe me, it was a pleasure meeting you. I hope we meet again later. We shook hands and he strolled over the hill into the valley. Perhaps I should have followed him, but it wouldn't have done any good, really, because a few moments later I saw something shimmering over the top of the hill. It was big and disc shaped and shot into the sky with a speed that was unbelievable. I still don't know what to think about him or what we talked about. I'm going to keep watching the papers, though, and hoping he got the right answers. If we reach the moon, I'll know he did. End of Prelude to Space by Robert W. Hasseltine.