Mort and Mike got strange calls on this phone; they didn't come through Central! here is an empty cigar store on the first floor of the loop building in which I keep my office. Formerly it was managed by two of the slickest small time gambling operators who ever booked a bang-tail or banked a game of Hooligan. There is a small, neatly lettered sign on the door of that unoccupied store now, however, which has caused no end of comment from the former customers of the "cigar store" who had always been all too cheerfully happy to lose their daily dollars there. The sign reads: "CLOSED FOR THE DURATION Due to our having Entered The Armed Forces of the U. S. GOD BLESS AMERICA Mort & Mike" If you haven't guessed as much by now, the signatures at the bottom of that sign are those of the two...
It was a strange world and a deadly one, the incredible alien planet— Gral and Hodnuth were playing phph. In case you are not a phph fan, and haven't ever seen Bliten's classic Ways of Improving Your Phph 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 phph player can command any amount of heavy service from the spectators. Since a lot of the Ground Dwellers are also phph addicts (they could never become players, of course, being far too small and light to handle the phph 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,...
Sometimes the queerly shaped Venusian trees seemed to talk to him, but their voices were soft. They were loyal people. There were four men in the lifeboat that came down from the space-cruiser. Three of them were still in the uniform of the Galactic Guards. The fourth sat in the prow of the small craft looking down at their goal, hunched and silent, bundled up in a greatcoat against the coolness of space—a greatcoat which he would never need again after this morning. The brim of his hat was pulled down far over his forehead, and he studied the nearing shore through dark-lensed glasses. Bandages, as though for a broken jaw, covered most of the lower part of his face. He realized suddenly that the dark glasses, now that they had left the cruiser, were unnecessary. He slipped them off. After the cinematographic grays his eyes had seen through these...
They brought Father Phillip Burt to St. Luke's as our "share" of the research project on the mysterious disease which afflicted most of the crew of the recently returned Phoenix Nebula expedition. News of the disease, of course, was not spread beyond the research teams, as the public seems to fear a plague worse than damnation itself. And it didn't seem to be a very serious disease: Father Phillip was easily the worst case of all; and although several members of the expedition had died, their deaths could be evaluated as due to secondary infections of common enough earth origin. Very few of the crew members were in actual pain; but Father Phillip was in constant agony which no amount of sedation seemed to calm. I ran the customary tissue cultures and biopsies, including those on internal organs not customarily available. We were given an excuse for getting internal samples...
If it had been possible for Theodore Savage to place on record for those who came after him the story of his life and experiences, he would have been the first to admit that the interest of the record lay in circumstance and not in himself. From beginning to end he was much what surroundings made of him; in his youth the product of a public school, Wadham and the Civil Service; in maturity and age a toiler with his hands in the company of men who lived brutishly. In his twenties, no doubt, he was frequently bored by his clerking duties and the routine of the Distribution Office; later on there were seasons when all that was best in him cried out against confinement in a life that had no aspiration; but neither boredom nor resentment ever drove him to revolt or set him to the moulding of circumstance....
I always shook when I came out of the Arena, but this time the tension wrapped my stomach in painful knots and salty perspiration stung my neck where I had shaved only a little over an hour earlier. And despite the heavy knot in my stomach. I felt strangely empty. I had never been able to sort out my reactions to an Execution. The atmosphere of careful boredom, the strictly business-as-usual air failed to dull my senses as it did for the others. I could always taste the ozone in the air, mixed with the taste of fear—whether mine, or that of the Condemned, I never knew. My nostrils always gave an involuntary twitch at the confined odors and I felt an almost claustrophic fear at being packed into the Arena with the other nine hundred ninety-nine Citizens on Execution Duty. I had been expecting my notice for several months...
The small cargo rocket was halfway to Venus when Bronson decided it was time to take it over. He took care of Orlan first. While Orlan slept in his bunk, Bronson hit him behind the ear with an alloy bar and killed him instantly. He then dragged him down to the cargo bins. The robot was down there, waiting to be sent out into the highly radioactive areas of Venus where the valuable stuff was, but where no human could go. He dumped Orlan in there. It might be construed as an accident, but it probably wouldn't matter to Bronson one way or the other. Bronson then went up the narrow ladder to the control room where Captain Morrow sat with his broad back to Bronson, bent over the charts. He felt slightly nervous now, looking at Morrow's back. He brushed the black hair out of his eyes. His long,...
It was going to be the show of the century—absolutely the tops. There was a line eight blocks long outside the theater—the theater that had been specially built to contain Ultrarama . Paul Hendriks had been in line since early the morning before, and so he was only a block or so from the still-unopened ticket-booth. His wife had come by from time to time, bringing sandwiches and coffee. Hendriks was determined to get a pair of tickets. He turned to the man next to him. "Got the time?" "Five to nine." "That's what I thought. That means the ticket-office opens in five minutes." Hendriks rose on tiptoe and squinted ahead. "There must be five hundred people ahead of us." "They say the theater holds five thousand." "I know. And that you get the same effect no matter where you sit. But still, I'd like to be right down there...
They were like any other boys sporting in their old swimming hole—in the depths of space! I was a little bit worried when I saw Captain Hannah again. I thought he might have decided he wanted his elephants back, and I'd grown sort of attached to them. Although I couldn't break the baby of the habit of nibbling on Gasha leaves, in spite of the fact that they're not good for him. A few months earlier, Captain Hannah had conned me into taking the elephants off his hands and out of his tramp spaceship. He had suffered from intellectual terrestrial zoological insufficiency—or in other words, he hadn't known whales are mammals, and had delivered the multi-ton Beulah instead, to the Prinkip of Penguin, as an adult sample of Earth's largest mammal. The Prinkip had quite properly refused delivery, and Hannah had stuck me with her and her incipient progeny. I...
It was a new time and a vast new war of complete and awful annihilation. Yet, some things never change, and, as in ancient times, Ulysses walked again—brave and unconquerable—and again, the sirens wove their deadly spell with a smile and a song. They came like monsters, rather than men, into the vast ruin of what had once been a great city. They walked carefully, side by side, speaking to each other by radio as though they were in deep space rather than upon solid ground. The winding way they followed through the ruins was marked by blurred footsteps in the dust and the two men, clumsy in their bulky suits, found the going difficult. They stopped, and one of them held out an instrument. He studied the dial. "All clear," and both men removed their helmets. They wiped sweat from their faces and glanced at each other. The blonde...
It's had it. Finished. Done. My wonderful red Thunderflash, I thought to myself, isn't worth the electricity to atomize it to Kingdom Come. Ever since that drunk in his two-seat Charioteer plowed into the rear end with such force that even my radar repellant couldn't stop it, my Thunderflash had been out of kilter. The specialists my garage recommended worked over it for two days, but couldn't get it to running the way it did new. And what was I supposed to do for an automobile now? I had signed the customary 40-year pact for half my salary to pay for it. That meant I would still be shelling out by 2117. Weeping over it wasn't going to do any good. It was stuck on the fifth level expressway and that was that. I levered myself out (at least the ejector still worked) then got behind the car and gave...
To the Reader of this Work: In submitting Captain Carter’s strange manuscript to you in book form, I believe that a few words relative to this remarkable personality will be of interest. My first recollection of Captain Carter is of the few months he spent at my father’s home in Virginia, just prior to the opening of the civil war. I was then a child of but five years, yet I well remember the tall, dark, smooth-faced, athletic man whom I called Uncle Jack. He seemed always to be laughing; and he entered into the sports of the children with the same hearty good fellowship he displayed toward those pastimes in which the men and women of his own age indulged; or he would sit for an hour at a time entertaining my old grandmother with stories of his strange, wild life in all parts of the world. We all...
The room was small, but it held a whole universe—and Norcriss had no place in it! I "How much did they tell you about the fix we're in?" said Dr. Alan Burgess to his visitor. Lieutenant Jerry Norcriss shook his head. "They said you'd fill me in. They said it was urgent." Burgess paused, lighted a cigarette, then belatedly offered one to Jerry, who declined. "Well," he said, interspersing his words with short nervous puffs of smoke, "about a year ago, I stumbled on a way to reverse the process of an electro-encephalograph, to play pre-recorded thoughts and experiences to a man's mind. You zoologists, with your Contact process for penetrating newly discovered fauna's minds, will be familiar with the process. Luckily for us." Jerry eyed him. "Go on." "My development involves an infinitely selective feedback. We give the subject a saturating dose of inflowing concepts. His mind is free...
With good reason, Professor H. Klauson hesitated; his wife's arms were holding him with a strangely insistent urgency and fear. He tried to disengage himself, but not with much enthusiasm. Although he had not admitted it to anyone but the Presidium's psycho-medic staff, he was afraid, too. Desperately and helplessly afraid. "Howard, please." Her pale blue eyes were wide, staring into his with that intimacy only someone loved completely and without compromise ever sees. "Don't go back to the Laboratories, Howard. Don't ever go back again." He smiled, unsuccessfully. He had never been able to hide anything from Lin. "But, dear, this is ridiculous. We're scientists! We're not frightened by vague, intangible fears." Her hands tightened on his shoulders. "We're scientists; so let us admit the obvious. Something doesn't want you to ever complete your research, Howard. We've worked together for ten years, and now you're right on the verge...
"Feetch!" grated Ogden Piltdon, president of the Piltdon Opener Company, slamming the drafting board with his hairy fist, "I want results!" Heads lifted over boards. Kalvin Feetch shrunk visibly. "As chief engineer you're not carrying the ball," Piltdon went on savagely. "The Piltdon Can-Opener is trailing the competition. Advertising and Sales are breaking their necks. It's Engineering that's missing the boat!" "But Mr. Piltdon," remonstrated Feetch unsteadily under his employer's glare, "don't you remember? I tried to...." "For two years there hasn't been one lousy improvement in the Piltdon Can-Opener!" roared Mr. Piltdon. "Look at our competitors. The International rips apart cans in three and three-tenths seconds. Universal does it in four." "But Mr. Piltdon—" "The Minerva Mighty Midget does it in four point two two and plays Home Sweet Home in chimes. Our own Piltdon opener barely manages to open a can in eight point nine without chimes. Is...
Once upon a time in Colorado lived a man named Abednego Danner and his wife, Matilda. Abednego Danner was a professor of biology in a small college in the town of Indian Creek. He was a spindling wisp of a man, with a nature drawn well into itself by the assaults of the world and particularly of the grim Mrs. Danner, who understood nothing and undertook all. Nevertheless these two lived modestly in a frame house on the hem of Indian Creek and they appeared to be a settled and peaceful couple. The chief obstacle to Mrs. Danner's placid dominion of her hearth was Professor Danner's laboratory, which occupied a room on the first floor of the house. It was the one impregnable redoubt in her domestic stronghold. Neither threat nor entreaty would drive him and what she termed his "stinking, unchristian, unhealthy dinguses" from that room. After he had...
Illustrated by EMSH Overture—Adagio Misterioso THE NEUROSURGEON peeled the thin surgical gloves from his hands as the nurse blotted the perspiration from his forehead for the last time after the long, grueling hours. "They're waiting outside for you, Doctor," she said quietly. The neurosurgeon nodded wordlessly. Behind him, three assistants were still finishing up the operation, attending to the little finishing touches that did not require the brilliant hand of the specialist. Such things as suturing up a scalp, and applying bandages. The nurse took the sterile mask—no longer sterile now—while the doctor washed and dried his hands. "Where are they?" he asked finally. "Out in the hall, I suppose?" She nodded. "You'll probably have to push them out of the way to get out of Surgery." HER PREDICTION was almost perfect. The group of men in conservative business suits, wearing conservative ties, and holding conservative, soft, felt hats in...
Gaylord Kram, Vice-colonel of Intelligence, Terrestrial Federal government, sat pondering one of the worst poker hands he had ever witnessed, and he had witnessed a goodly number in his 38 years, when he should have been sweating blood over his tottering government's most perplexing problem: what to do about the colonists from Sirius and their G-ray. But what could even a Kram do with two deuces, the joker, a five and an eight-spot, all of different suits? The other three Intelligence officers who were taking a little badly-needed recreation the "old fashioned" way weren't too surprised when Kram raised a thousand credits. There was no sense in trying to analyze Kram's poker, any more than there was any sense in trying to analyze Kram. He usually won. Always a different technique, but he usually won anyway. Major Ignacius Luverduk, Kram's somewhat useful assistant, knew this and folded his lowly hand...
I lit the last cigarette I would ever smoke and took my airsuit out of the compartment under the control-board. The two-man cubicle was coffin-cold even under the blast of sunlight pouring through the forward port, and the air smelled of stale tobacco and machine oil. Beside me Charlie Kosta's voice droned into the communicator, winging back two-hundred thirty thousand miles to the listening millions of Earth. "Our air is nearly gone," Charlie said. "We have about twelve minutes left for deceleration, but we'll never make landing. The Luna V is riddled like a sieve, spewing out heavy-water fuel along with her air ... it's a miracle that a chunk hasn't crashed through our fuel pile or the communicator—or through us. That's what blew up the first four ships, we know now ... if men ever reach the moon they'll first have to develop some sort of armor that will...
It was upon the waterfront that I first met her, in one of the shabby little tea shops frequented by able sailoresses of the poorer type. The uptown, glittering resorts of the Lady Aviators' Union were not for such as she. Stern of feature, bronzed by wind and sun, her age could only be guessed, but I surmised at once that in her I beheld a survivor of the age of turbines and oil engines—a true sea-woman of that elder time when woman's superiority to man had not been so long recognized. When, to emphasize their victory, women in all ranks were sterner than today's need demands. The spruce, smiling young maidens—engine-women and stokers of the great aluminum rollers, but despite their profession, very neat in gold-braided blue knickers and boleros—these looked askance at the hard-faced relic of a harsher day, as they passed in and out of the shop....
The thing was not large. About the size of a large dog. It lay on its metallic side on the operating table, and it was alive. In its own way, it lived ... because Craig Stevens had given it life. Now, Craig stroked that metallic surface and smiled. "Very well, Sheila," he said pleasantly. "Get out. Get out and never come back. I'm not keeping you." The woman who stood across the table from him uttered a choked, strangled noise that could have been anger or sorrow. "I hate you. I never thought that I could hate anyone, but you've taught me in these last three years, Craig. You've taught me." The other nodded and picked up a small battery from the table. "I'm glad that our three years together haven't been a total loss, my dear." Sheila dabbed at her eyes. "You don't even give me the satisfaction of...
Curt felt the airship going out of control as he passed over a rock spattered stretch of sand. Automatically he looked for a smooth place to land and steered the bucking ship for it. The jolt of the landing triggered the ejector seat and in a second he was hurtling through the air away from the explosion of the damaged vehicle. Just before he blacked out, he thought—almost calmly—"a good hundred and fifty miles from the colony." When he regained consciousness, night was passing and the first of the three suns was peeking over the horizon. Curt lay still for a while, afraid to find out what might be wrong with him. And the rescue ship could take anything from an hour to a week to find him. He moved his head to discover if there might be anything left of his ship; he saw nothing but pieces. "Well," he...
Thirty minutes to Litchfield. Conn Maxwell, at the armor-glass front of the observation deck, watched the landscape rush out of the horizon and vanish beneath the ship, ten thousand feet down. He thought he knew how an hourglass must feel with the sand slowly draining out. It had been six months to Litchfield when the Mizar lifted out of La Plata Spaceport and he watched Terra dwindle away. It had been two months to Litchfield when he boarded the City of Asgard at the port of the same name on Odin. It had been two hours to Litchfield when the Countess Dorothy rose from the airship dock at Storisende. He had had all that time, and now it was gone, and he was still unprepared for what he must face at home. The words echoed in his mind as though he had spoken them aloud, and then, realizing that he...
The hatch to the front compartment swung open for the first time. One man came out. He turned at once to make sure that the air-tight door behind him had locked. Satisfied that it had, he turned again to look down the cabin at us. His face showed that insolence we'd learned to know as the uniform of the "Bupo", the State Secret Police. The man from Bupo walked down the aisle between the passengers toward the rear of the car. He swept his eyes right and left like a suspecting-machine, catching every detail of us on his memory. People leaned toward the walls as he approached, like children shrinking back from a big animal, and relaxed as he went by. He was out of sight in the galley at the rear for a moment, then was back, carrying a pitcher of water in one hand and the key to...