I suppose that in the days before the catastrophe I was a very fair representative of the better type of business man. I had been successful in my own line, which was the application of mass-production methods to a better pattern of motor-car than had yet been dealt with upon a large scale; and the Flint car had been a good speculation. I was thinking of bringing out an economical type of gyroscopic two-wheeler just at the time we were overwhelmed. Organisation was my strong point; and much of my commercial success was due to a new system of control which I had introduced into my factories. I mention this point in passing, because it was this capacity of mine which first brought me to the notice of Nordenholt. Although at the time of which I speak I had become more a director than a designer, I was originally by...
The Computer could do no wrong. Then it was asked a simple little question by a simple little man. The little man had a head like an old-fashioned light bulb and a smile that seemed to say he had secrets from the rest of the world. He didn't talk much, just an occasional "Oh," "Mm" or "Ah." Krayton figured he must be all right, though. After all he'd been sent to Computer City by the Information Department itself, and his credentials must have been checked in a hundred ways and places. "Essentially each computer is the same," said Krayton, "but adjusted to translate problems into the special terms of the division it serves." Krayton had a pleasant, well-behaved impersonal voice. He was in his thirties and mildly handsome. He considered himself a master of the technique of building a career in Computer City—he knew how to stay within the limits...
Zurg thwirmed, and admitted to himself that he was uneasy. Arching his thorax, he unrolled his antennae slowly in a lazy gesture he hoped would conceal the unseemly nervousness he felt now that the ship had swung into an orbit around the strange planet. When a commander briefs his officers, he must radiate confidence and calm. "Companions, an historic moment has arrived," he began pompously, his antennae moving in the deliberate, stylized movements of the Court language. "Below us lies the verdant expanse of the third planet, green gem of the heavens." At this, several of his subordinates turned a rather puzzled yellow around their head orifices, obviously unable to understand a gesture of what he was saying. Only the second-in-command seemed unconcerned; he knew from long experience that his commander would revert to common vernacular when he had finished the usual ceremonial preamble. Zurg did so, noting the relieved...
While Professor Cargill lectured from the rostrum, Neal Pardeau prowled the dark auditorium. This, he knew, was the place to find them. Here was where they whispered and plotted and schemed—feeling safe in this pure, hard core of patriotism. Safe because Cargill was the Director of Education in the New State, just as Pardeau was the Director of Public Security. Safe because Cargill's lectures were given before a commanded audience, with attendance strictly mandatory. The insistence was not really necessary of course. The people would have come to hear Cargill regardless. His was a compelling, magnetic personality. Even now his great voice was booming out: "—and upon this anniversary of the New State, we can look out with great pride upon a clean and wholesome land. With strong emotion, we can look upon the physical manifestation of our glorious principles—that only through self-effacement—through fanatic love for the state—can the individual...
It was a tremendous house. And they were newlyweds. And were still a mite flighty. And for a while that accounted for the whole thing. At the moment, it seemed to Ernie Lane that in a house which even the real estate agent said had "either" eleven or twelve rooms, it was quite conceivable that he and Melinee had overlooked that extra room. After all, they had only been living at 1312 Cedar Lane for four days and had hardly had time to make a complete survey of the place. Now it was quite different. For Ernie Lane had stopped walking hurriedly past that extra door, had stopped giving it only casual curiosity, had even stopped wondering afterward. This night he had come home a bit tired, gone directly to greet his loving wife, and then decided to put a stop to the gnawing question. While Melinee fried the chicken,...
There are—and very probably will always be—some Terrestrials who can't, and for that matter don't want, to call their souls their own.... Xanabar lays across the Spiral Arm, a sprawling sphere of influence vast, mighty, solid at the core. Only the far-flung boundary shows the slight ebb and flow of contingent cultures that may win a system or two today and lose them back tomorrow or a hundred years from now. Xanabar is the trading post of the galaxy, for only Xanabar is strong enough to stand over the trading table when belligerents meet and offer to take them both at once if they do not sheathe their swords. For this service Xanabar assesses her percentage, therefore Xanabar is rich. Her riches buy her mercenaries to enforce her doctrines. Therefore Xanabar is rotten at the under-core, for mercenaries have no god but gold. The clatter of a hundred tongues mingled...
When people talk about getting away from it all, they are 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 four 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 radioactives 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...
Her Great Idea “Jack, Jack, I have had a truly wonderful inspiration!” cried Pam as she came dashing down the stairs like a whirlwind. Unfortunately Barbara, the little maid-of-all-work, was at that moment toiling upwards with the soup tureen and a pile of plates on a tray. She was near the top, too, and very much out of breath. She had no strength to stand against the violent impact, but went down before it, being brought up in a heap at the turn of the stairs while tray, tureen, and plates went careering to the bottom, accompanied by a stream of soup. “Now you’ve done it!” exclaimed Jack, with an ominous growl in his voice, as, leaning on his stick, he came limping from the kitchen to survey the ruins. “Oh, haven’t I just!” cried Pam in heartfelt contrition. Then she gasped: “Whatever will Mother say?” The afflicted Barbara, who...
Tommy Driscoll lay on his stomach in the grass outside his father's laboratory and read his comic books. He was ten years old and wholly innocent of any idea that Fate or Chance or Destiny might make use of him to make the comic books come true. He was clad in grubby shorts, with sandals, and no socks or blouse. Ants crawled on his legs as he lay on the ground, and he absently scratched them off. To the adult eye he was merely the son of that Professor Driscoll who taught advanced physics at Harwell College, and in summer vacation puttered around with research. As such, Tommy was inconsiderable from any standpoint except that of Fate or Chance or Destiny. They had use for him. He was, however, wholly and triumphantly a normal small boy. As he scratched thoughtfully and absorbed the pictures in his comic book, he was...
In a gleaming chrome and glass federal building located at the center of Venusport, Division Chief Carl Wattles wearily arose from his office couch. He had been taking his usual two-hour, after-lunch nap, but today it had brought him little refreshment. Earlier he had received an unexpected report that made sleep impossible. "John?" he mumbled. John Claxson, the generously padded assistant division chief, stopped drilling out his earwax but did not remove his feet from the blotter of his desk. "Yeah, Chief?" "I've heard from the Kentons again." "I thought something was deviling you, the way you was carrying on in your sleep." He raised thick eyebrows. "Is their production down again?" "Worse than that, John. Kenton has had the gall to request time off to build a new house!" "No! I can't believe it." "I can't either, John. They know it's not in the Manual." "Certainly it's not, Chief....
"Why is Gramma making mad pictures at you?" I asked Gramp. Gramp looked at me. "What pictures, Chum?" "Pictures in her mind like you're lazy. And like she wanted to hurt you," I said. Gramp's eyes got wide. He kept looking at me, and then he said, "Get your cap, Chum. We're gonna take a little walk." Gramp didn't say anything until we walked all the way to the main road and past Mr. Watchorn's corn field. I walked behind him, counting the little round holes his wooden leg made in the gravel. Finally Gramp said, "Abracadabra." That was our secret word. It meant that if I was playing one of our games, I was to stop for awhile. Gramp and I had lots of games we played. One of them was where we made believe. Sometimes we'd play that Gramp and I had been working all day, when we...
The foundling could not have been more than three years old. Yet he held a secret that was destined to bring joy to many unhappy people. Unlike Gaul , the north continent of Venus is divided into four parts. No Caesar has set foot here either, nor shall one—for the dank, stinging, caustic air swallows up the lives of men and only Venus may say, I conquered . This is colonized Venus, where one may walk without the threat of sudden death—except from other men—the most bitterly fought for, the dearest, bloodiest, most worthless land in the solar system. Separated by men into East and West at the center of the Twilight Zone, the division across the continent is the irregular, jagged line of Mud River, springing from the Great Serpent Range. The African Republic holds one quarter which the Negroes exploit as best they can, encumbered by filter masks...
They said—as they have said of so many frontiersmen just like him—that there must have been a woman in his past, to make him what he was. And indeed there had, but she was no flesh-and-blood female. The name of his lady was Victoria, whom the Greeks called Nike and early confounded with the Pallas Athena, that sterile maiden. And at the age of thirty-four she had Calvin Mulloy most firmly in her grasp, for he had neither wife nor child, nor any close friend worth mentioning—only his hungry dream for some great accomplishment. It had harried him to the stars, that dream of his. It had driven him to the position of top survey engineer on the new, raw planet of Mersey, still largely unexplored and unmapped. And it had pushed him, too, into foolishnesses like this latest one, building a sailplane out of scrap odds and ends around...
Commander Losure gave orders to his navigator to bring the ship in on the satellite out of sight of the prying telescopes which no doubt existed on such an invitingly green planet. He was a cautious man and didn't intend to lose any more crew members if he could help it. He could tell by the unusually poor handling of the ship that the crew was still demoralized from the brush with the high I.Q. slugs on that last planet which they had approached so directly. They'd lost three men in that scrap, one of them a highly-valued anthropologist. There were only two more of those left in the freeze locker. Too bad it couldn't have been a radio operator, there were plenty of those on ice. The Commander's thoughts were interrupted by his second officer who entered without the customary military burp. "I'll forgive you this time, Montresig," said...
ARRIVALS AND DEPARTURES Spaceport Chicago, February 26, 2168.... DEPARTING—Spaceliner American Beauty, Galactic Spaceways, for Mars. Scheduled to arrive Spaceport New Dallas May 14. Eighty-seven passengers. Captain Anthony Kostov in Command. FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BULLETIN THE SPACELINER AMERICAN BEAUTY CRASHED IN FLAMES TODAY ON THE LANDING FIELD AT NEW DALLAS, MARS. OFFICIALS OF GALACTIC SPACEWAYS STATED THAT LOSS OF LIFE WAS QUOTE LIMITED UNQUOTE. NO FURTHER DETAILS IMMEDIATELY AVAILABLE. TRANSCRIPT May 27, 2168—The following conversation between the spaceliner American Beauty and GCA, Spaceport New Dallas, Mars, was recorded 5/14/2168 and played at the official inquiry today: KOSTOV: Calling GCA. This is Kostov in American Beauty calling GCA New Dallas. Do you read me? Come in, GCA. Over. GCA: GCA to American Beauty. You're in the screen. Come in. All clear for landing. Over. KOSTOV: Check. Coming in. Speed now ten thousand. Over. GCA: You are now visible in northern sky....
Dane Thorson, Cargo-master-apprentice of the Solar Queen, Galactic Free Trader spacer, Terra registry, stood in the middle of the ship's cramped bather while Rip Shannon, assistant Astrogator and his senior in the Service of Trade by some four years, applied gobs of highly scented paste to the skin between Dane's rather prominent shoulder blades. The small cabin was thickly redolent with spicy odors and Rip sniffed appreciatively. "You're sure going to be about the best smelling Terran who ever set boot on Sargol's soil," his soft slur of speech ended in a rich chuckle. Dane snorted and tried to estimate progress over one shoulder. "The things we have to do for Trade!" his comment carried a hint of present embarrassment. "Get it well in—this stuff's supposed to hold for hours. It'd better. According to Van those Salariki can talk your ears right off your head and say nothing worth hearing....
Lord Loudwater was paying attention neither to his breakfast nor to the cat Melchisidec. Absorbed in a leader in The Times newspaper, now and again he tugged at his red-brown beard in order to quicken his comprehension of the weighty phrases of the leader-writer; now and again he made noises, chiefly with his nose, expressive of disgust. Lady Loudwater paid no attention to these noises. She did not even raise her eyes to her husband's face. She ate her breakfast with a thoughtful air, her brow puckered by a faint frown. She also paid no attention to her favourite, Melchisidec. Melchisidec, unduly excited by the smell of grilled sole, came to Lord Loudwater, rose on his hind legs, laid his paws on his trousers, and stuck some claws into his thigh. It was no more than gentle, arresting pricks; but the tender nobleman sprang from his chair with a short...
The punishment had to fit more than just the crime—it had to suit every world in the Galaxy! e was intimately and unfavorably known everywhere in the Galaxy, but with special virulence on eight planets in three different solar systems. He was eagerly sought on each; they all wanted to try him and punish him—in each case, by their own laws and customs. This had been going on for 26 terrestrial years, which means from minus ten to plus 280 in some of the others. The only place that didn't want him was Earth, his native planet, where he was too smart to operate—but, of course, the Galactic Police were looking for him there too, to deliver him to the authorities of the other planets in accordance with the Interplanetary Constitution. For all of those years, The Eel (which was his Earth monicker; elsewhere, he was known by names indicating...
The river ran still and deep, green and gray in the eddies with the warm smell of late summer rising out of the slow water. Madrone and birch and willow, limp in the evening quiet, and the taste of smouldering leaves.... It wasn’t the Russian River. It was the Sacred Iss. The sun had touched the gem-encrusted cliffs by the shores of the Lost Sea of Korus and had vanished, leaving only the stillness of the dusk and the lonely cry of shore birds. From downstream came the faint sounds of music. It might have been a phonograph playing in one of the summer cabins with names like Polly Ann Roost and Patches and Seventh Heaven, but to Kimmy it was the hated cry of the Father of Therns calling the dreadful Plant Men to their feast of victims borne into this Valley Dor by the mysterious Iss. Kimmy shifted...
BY H. B. FYFE ILLUSTRATED BY EMSH The Dome of Eyes made it almost impossible for Terrans to reach the world of Tepokt. For those who did land there, there was no returning—only the bitterness of respect—and justice! The Tepoktan student, whose blue robe in George Kinton's opinion clashed with the dull purple of his scales, twiddled a three-clawed hand for attention. Kinton nodded to him from his place on the dais before the group. "Then you can give us no precise count of the stars in the galaxy, George?" Kinton smiled wrily, and ran a wrinkled hand through his graying hair. In the clicking Tepoktan speech, his name came out more like "Chortch." Questions like this had been put to him often during the ten years since his rocket had hurtled through the meteorite belt and down to the surface of Tepokt, leaving him the only survivor. Barred off...
The sun had not yet taken the chill out of the early April morning that broke on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, when the ship settled to the ground. It was surprisingly large compared to the aircraft native to this planet, and yet ridiculously small to have brought enough men and material to launch an invasion across light years of space. The landing went unobserved in this fearful year of 1955. The world faced too many crucial crises of their own making to consider the necessity to be watchful for an extra-terrestrial invasion. Hardly had the craft come to rest, when the outer lock slid noiselessly open and a small ladder-like stairway came down until it too had touched earth. A man appeared in the doorway, pausing to study the landscape which lay before him. His features, his body, were human. Despite his being too well muscled, and his...
What a wife! Pretty, smart ... and when she cooked it was just out of this world! "Baby Doll," George called from the bathroom. There was no answer. George wrapped a towel around his rump and came into the living room. Rosy sat curled up reading a magazine. "Do me a favor, Rosy," George said. "Put caps on bottles so your perfume won't evaporate. I paid twelve bucks for that Chanel." Rosy looked up at him, stretching her neck a little. "And next time close the damn Bendix so I won't have to swim through the basement to shut it off." "I told you, the catch wouldn't catch." "The catch would catch all right if you didn't leave Timmy's diaper hanging out." "That's not fair," Rosy said. "Blaming little Timmy." His hands tried to crush an invisible bowling ball. "Just a little ... presence of mind, Rosy. Okay?" "You dropped...
On the morning of July 21, 1840, the Daily News announced the arrival of the ship Rival at Sydney, New South Wales. As ocean steam navigation had not yet extended so far, the advent of this ship with the English mail created the usual excitement. An eager crowd beset the post-office, waiting for the delivery of the mail; and little knots at the street corners were busily discussing the latest hints at news which had been gathered from papers brought ashore by the officers or passengers. At the lower end of King Street was a large warehouse, with an office at the upper extremity, over which was a new sign, which showed with newly gilded letters the words: COMPTON & BRANDON. The general appearance of the warehouse showed that Messrs. Compton and Brandon were probably commission merchants, general agents, or something of that sort. On the morning mentioned two men...
The ship, for reasons that had to do with the politics of appropriations, was named Senator Joseph L. Holloway, but the press and the public called her Big Joe. Her captain, six-star Admiral Heselton, thought of her as Great Big Joe, and never fully got over being awestruck at the size of his command. "She's a mighty big ship, Rogers," he said proudly to the navigator, ignoring the latter's rather vacant stare and fixed smile. "More than a mile long, and wider than hell." He waved his hands expansively. "She's never touched down on Earth, you know. Never will. Too big for that. They built her on the moon. The cost? Well ..." Swiveling his chair around, Heselton slowly surveyed the ship's control room with a small, satisfied smile. The two pilots sitting far forward, almost hidden by their banks of instruments, the radar operators idly watching their scopes, the...
P ARIS wears her greenest livery and puts on her most gracious airs in early summer. When the National Fete commemorative of the Bastille’s fall has gone, there are few Parisians of wealth or leisure who remain in their city. Trouville, Deauville, Etretat and other pleasure cities claim them and even the bourgeoisie hie them to their summer villas. The city is given up to those tourists from America and England whom Paris still persists in calling Les Cooks in memory of that enterprising blazer of cheap trails for the masses. Your true Parisian and the stranger who has stayed within the city’s gates to know her well, find themselves wholly out of sympathy with the eager crowds who follow beaten tracks and absorb topographical knowledge from guide-books. Monty Vaughan was an American who knew his Paris in all months but those two which are sacred to foreign travelers, and...
The old courthouse was in the unreconstructed part of town. No buses ran out here, and the only way that Stan and Julie could reach the court was on foot, threading their way through the debris of neglect and vandalism that littered the narrow streets. This was a part of New York that Julie had never seen. Twentieth century tenements, dimly illuminated by ancient incandescent lamps, lined the rubble-filled streets, where garbage and the decaying carcasses of poisoned rats lay stinking in the gutters. The night was warm, but Julie shivered. She hurried along at Stan's side, trying to hold her breath to shut out the unpleasant smells. They stopped at the edge of the sidewalk across the street from the court and watched a crowd of people milling about the entrance, anxiously pressing to the box office to try to get hard-to-get tickets. "Look at that mob!" Julie said....
Clouds hung low over the city, gray and dismal. The shining metal thruway partially reflected their somber visage. A few vehicles scurried nervously through the city. Keller turned away from the window dismally. His conscience was bothering him, and it affected his every movement. Looking over his humbly furnished office, he entertained the thought, not for the first time, that he should change jobs if he wanted to eat. A buzz sounded—the intercom system. That would be Sally, his secretary. It was a mystery what she would want. Usually she never bothered him except in case of an emergency, and the last client Keller had had dropped his case three months ago. Apparently it was another customer, unlikely as it seemed. Keller heard voices outside, Sally's irritated and protesting, and a nervous baritone. Abruptly the door opened, disclosing a rugged, bushy-haired C-3 (average intelligence and advanced extra-sensory perception, but unexercised),...
Jeff Engel studied the feverish crowd hurrying through the subway turnstiles. As he checked each passing face against a card-index mind, he smiled to himself. Even when off duty, the habit persisted. There was always the chance he'd spot a face that would fit, one that would close another active file in Missing Persons Bureau. A mousey little guy slipped through a turnstile and bumped into a fat woman shopper. Engel glanced at the thin apologetic face and then at a briefcase bearing the faded initials, "C. G." As a train rumbled in and the noise of the commuters rose, something glinted at Engel's feet. He bent down, curious. It was a cheap fountain pen inscribed with the same initials. He caught a glimpse of the stranger on the crowded subway stairs. "Wait a minute, mister!" he yelled. When C. G. didn't turn, Engel hesitated, then pounded up the stairs...
CAESAR HAD THE SAME PROBLEM AND NEVER SOLVED IT. LORD HELP US IF IT JUST CAN'T BE DONE! Alexander the Great had not dreamed of India, nor even Egypt, when he embarked upon his invasion of the Persian Empire. It was not a matter of being like the farmer: "I ain't selfish, all I want is the land that jines mine." It was simply that after regaining the Greek cities of Asia Minor from Darius, he could not stop. He could not afford to have powerful neighbors that might threaten his domains tomorrow. So he took Egypt, and the Eastern Satrapies, and then had to continue to India. There he learned of the power of Cathay, but an army mutiny forestalled him and he had to return to Babylon. He died there while making plans to attack Arabia, Carthage, Rome. You see, given the military outlook, he could not afford...