AND THERE WAS LIGHT
From And There Was Light by Lester Del Rey
16 minute read
Stefanie was still white and weak, but the worry on her face had nothing to do with her recent sickness as she rushed about the small, crudely furnished apartment, trying to appear normal. Johann Volcek studied his young wife, worrying more about her than the meeting for the moment. If the child had only lived. Then he smiled a bit ironically, before letting his mind come up with the old palliatives. There'd be other children for him and Stefanie—and for this half of the world. The other half would simply have to suffer painlessly through a generation, for the good of the whole world. "But the Director, Johann." Stefanie's voice was on the thinnest edge of hysteria. "Johann, to our place! If I'd known, I could have made curtains, at least. And can you be sure." "It isn't suspicion, radost moya," he assured her quickly. "I told you the Director...
PYGMALION'S SPECTACLES
From Pygmalion's Spectacles by Stanley G. (Stanley Grauman) Weinbaum
32 minute read
"But what is reality?" asked the gnomelike man. He gestured at the tall banks of buildings that loomed around Central Park, with their countless windows glowing like the cave fires of a city of Cro-Magnon people. "All is dream, all is illusion; I am your vision as you are mine." Dan Burke, struggling for clarity of thought through the fumes of liquor, stared without comprehension at the tiny figure of his companion. He began to regret the impulse that had driven him to leave the party to seek fresh air in the park, and to fall by chance into the company of this diminutive old madman. But he had needed escape; this was one party too many, and not even the presence of Claire with her trim ankles could hold him there. He felt an angry desire to go home—not to his hotel, but home to Chicago and to the...
REALITY UNLIMITED
From Reality Unlimited by Robert Silverberg
13 minute read
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...
Prize Ship
From Prize Ship by Philip K. Dick
32 minute read
General Thomas Groves gazed glumly up at the battle maps on the wall. The thin black line, the iron ring around Ganymede, was still there. He waited a moment, vaguely hoping, but the line did not go away. At last he turned and made his way out of the chart wing, past the rows of desks. At the door Major Siller stopped him. "What's wrong, sir? No change in the war?" "No change." "What'll we do?" "Come to terms. Their terms. We can't let it drag on another month. Everybody knows that. They know that." "Licked by a little outfit like Ganymede." "If only we had more time. But we don't. The ships must be out in deep-space again, right away. If we have to capitulate to get them out, then let's do it. Ganymede!" He spat. "If we could only break them. But by that time—" "By that time...
A TEN-YEAR-OLD BOY GROWS UP FAST WHEN HISTORY CATCHES UP WITH THE HUMAN RACE.
From Tony And The Beetles by Philip K. Dick
22 minute read
Reddish-yellow sunlight filtered through the thick quartz windows into the sleep-compartment. Tony Rossi yawned, stirred a little, then opened his black eyes and sat up quickly. With one motion he tossed the covers back and slid to the warm metal floor. He clicked off his alarm clock and hurried to the closet. It looked like a nice day. The landscape outside was motionless, undisturbed by winds or dust-shift. The boy's heart pounded excitedly. He pulled his trousers on, zipped up the reinforced mesh, struggled into his heavy canvas shirt, and then sat down on the edge of the cot to tug on his boots. He closed the seams around their tops and then did the same with his gloves. Next he adjusted the pressure on his pump unit and strapped it between his shoulder blades. He grabbed his helmet from the dresser, and he was ready for the day. In...
2 B R 0 2 B
From 2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut
11 minute read
Everything was perfectly swell. There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars. All diseases were conquered. So was old age. Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers. The population of the United States was stabilized at forty-million souls. One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K. Wehling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many people were born a day any more. Wehling was fifty-six, a mere stripling in a population whose average age was one hundred and twenty-nine. X-rays had revealed that his wife was going to have triplets. The children would be his first. Young Wehling was hunched in his chair, his head in his hand. He was so rumpled, so still and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was perfect, since the waiting room...
“I may marry Perrine with a clear conscience now!”
From After Dark by Wilkie Collins
12 minute read
There are some parts of the world where it would be drawing no natural picture of human nature to represent a son as believing conscientiously that an offense against life and the laws of hospitality, secretly committed by his father, rendered him, though innocent of all participation in it, unworthy to fulfill his engagement with his affianced wife. Among the simple inhabitants of Gabriel’s province, however, such acuteness of conscientious sensibility as this was no extraordinary exception to all general rules. Ignorant and superstitious as they might be, the people of Brittany practiced the duties of hospitality as devoutly as they practiced the duties of the national religion. The presence of the stranger-guest, rich or poor, was a sacred presence at their hearths. His safety was their especial charge, his property their especial responsibility. They might be half starved, but they were ready to share the last crust with him,...
The MAROONER
From The Marooner by Charles A. Stearns
17 minute read
Steadily they smashed the mensurate battlements, in blackness beyond night and darkness without stars. Yet Mr. Wordsley, the engineer, who was slight, balding and ingenious, was able to watch the firmament from his engine room as it drifted from bow to beam to rocket's end. This was by virtue of banked rows of photon collectors which he had invented and installed in the nose of the ship. And Mr. Wordsley, at three minutes of the hour of seventeen over four, tuned in a white, new star of eye-blinking magnitude and surpassing brilliance. Discovering new stars was a kind of perpetual game with Mr. Wordsley. Perhaps more than a game. "I wish I may, I wish I might " Mr. Wordsley said. The fiddly hatch clanged. DeCastros, that gross, terrifying clown of a man, clumped down the ladder from the bridge to defeat the enchantment of the moment. DeCastros held sway....
The Hunter’s Lodge Case
From The Hunter's Lodge Case by Agatha Christie
20 minute read
The famous “little gray cells” of the great detective Poirot function admirably in solving what at first seems a particularly puzzling murder mystery. “After all,” murmured Poirot, “it is possible that I shall not die this time.” Coming from a convalescent influenza patient, I hailed the remark as showing a beneficial optimism. I myself had been the first sufferer from the disease. Poirot in his turn had gone down. He was now sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows. “Yes, yes,” my little friend continued. “Once more shall I be myself again, the great Hercule Poirot, the terror of evildoers! Figure to yourself, mon ami , that I have a little paragraph to myself in Society Gossip . But yes! Here it is! “‘Go it, criminals—all out! Hercule Poirot,—and believe me, girls, he’s some Hercules!—our own pet society detective can’t get a grip on you. ’Cause why? ’Cause he’s...
§4
From Unravelled Knots by Emmuska Orczy Orczy
17 minute read
The Old Man in the Corner paused in his narrative. He drank half a glass of milk, smacked his lips, and for a few moments appeared intent on examining one of the complicated knots which he had made in his bit of string. Then after a while he resumed. "The one member of the Levison family," he said, "for whom every one felt sorry was the eldest son Aaron. Like most men of his race he had been very fond of his mother, not because of any affection she may have shown him but just because she was his mother. He had worked hard for her all his life, and now through her death he found himself very much left out in the cold. It seems that by her will the old lady left all her savings, which, it seems, were considerable, and a certain share in the business, to...
Hall of Mirrors
From Hall Of Mirrors by Fredric Brown
10 minute read
It is a tough decision to make—whether to give up your life so you can live it over again! For an instant you think it is temporary blindness, this sudden dark that comes in the middle of a bright afternoon. It must be blindness, you think; could the sun that was tanning you have gone out instantaneously, leaving you in utter blackness? Then the nerves of your body tell you that you are standing , whereas only a second ago you were sitting comfortably, almost reclining, in a canvas chair. In the patio of a friend's house in Beverly Hills. Talking to Barbara, your fiancée. Looking at Barbara—Barbara in a swim suit—her skin golden tan in the brilliant sunshine, beautiful. You wore swimming trunks. Now you do not feel them on you; the slight pressure of the elastic waistband is no longer there against your waist. You touch your hands...
THE HAPPY UNFORTUNATE
From The Happy Unfortunate by Robert Silverberg
29 minute read
Rolf Dekker stared incredulously at the slim, handsome young Earther who was approaching the steps of Rolf's tumbling-down Spacertown shack. He's got no ears , Rolf noted in unbelief. After five years in space, Rolf had come home to a strangely-altered world, and he found it hard to accept. Another Earther appeared. This one was about the same size, and gave the same impression of fragility. This one had ears, all right—and a pair of gleaming, two-inch horns on his forehead as well. I'll be eternally roasted , Rolf thought. Now I've seen everything. Both Earthers were dressed in neat, gold-inlaid green tunics, costumes which looked terribly out of place amid the filth of Spacertown, and their hair was dyed a light green to match. He had been scrutinizing them for several moments before they became aware of him. They both spotted him at once and the one with no...