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"Go right in there." He gaped at my arm when the bandages were off. I took a quick glance and wished I hadn't. "How did you do this?" "Smoking in bed," I said. "Have you got ... something that...." He caught me before I hit the floor, got me into a chair. Then he had that Scotch he'd been wanting, gave me a shot as an after-thought, and looked at me narrowly. "I suppose you fell out of that same bed and broke your leg," he said. "Right. Hell of a dangerous bed."

"He'll have it. In writing, if he wishes." "Yes, I assured him on that point. He'll be here about noon tomorrow--it's a hundred and fifty miles from the hospital, but the doctor flies his own plane--and the examination can start at two in the afternoon. He seems familiar with the facilities of the psychology department, here; I assured him that they were at his disposal. Will that be satisfactory to you, Doctor Chalmers?" "I have a class at that time, but one of the instructors can take it over--if holding classes will be possible around here tomorrow," he said. "Now, if you gentlemen will pardon me, I think I'll go home and get some sleep." * * * * * Weill came up to the apartment with him. He mixed a couple of drinks and they went into the living room with them.

"What we call Unit Eight--the heart of the drive." Then, tight-beamed to Garlock: "This is the thing that you designed _in toto_ and that I never could understand any part of. All I did was build it. It must generate those Prime fields." "Probably," Garlock flashed back. "I didn't understand it any too well myself. How does it look?" "He isn't even close. He's got only half of the constants down, and half of the ones he has got down are wrong. Look at this mess here...." "I'll take your word for it.

"Excuse me," he said, "I think--" "Thank you," said the girl. Garnet made his way back to his carriage. "They are blue," he said. THE ARRIVAL IV From Axminster to Lyme Regis the line runs through country as pretty as any that can be found in the island, and the train, as if in appreciation of this fact, does not hurry over the journey. It was late afternoon by the time the chicken farmers reached their destination. The arrangements for the carrying of luggage at Lyme Regis border on the primitive. Boxes are left on the platform, and later, when he thinks of it, a carrier looks in and conveys them down into the valley and up the hill on the opposite side to the address written on the labels. The owner walks. Lyme Regis is not a place for the halt and maimed. Ukridge led his band in the direction of the farm, which lay across the valley, looking through woods to the sea.

"Well, moderately so, Barncastle, moderately so. Fact is," said the Duchess, "you can stir a multitude with your eloquence; you can write a novel that so will absorb a school-girl that she can't take her eyes from its early pages to look into the back of the book and see how it is all going to turn out; you can talk a hostile parliament into doing violence to its secret convictions; but in some respects you are wanting. You are an atrocious horse-back rider, you never take a run with the hounds, and I must say I have seen times when you seemed to me to be literally too big for yourself." "By Jove!" thought Toppleton. "What a clever fellow I am! If this duchess is so competent a reader of character as her estimate of Barncastle shows her to be, it's a marvel she hasn't found me out." Barncastle laughed with a seeming heartiness at the duchess's remark, though to Toppleton, who was now watching him closely, he paled slightly. "One of us is more than he expected, and two of us simply shock him," said Hopkins to himself. "Of course, Mr.

"Yes." . . . . "Well, take it. Pronounce my name, noting exactly the second when you speak. I will repeat it as soon as it shall come to me, and you will observe the exact moment when you get my answer." "Yes; and half the time between my call and your answer will exactly indicate that which my voice will take in coming to you." .

What there's left of it, that is." Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I felt the speculative regard of the lieutenant. I pulled out a packet of cigarettes, which I had opened, as always, by tearing off the top. I happened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. Before I could move my foot to obliterate what they had spelled out on the sidewalk, the two cops saw it. The lieutenant gave me a hard look, but said nothing. I quickly kicked the insulting cigarettes into the gutter. When we got to the restaurant, it was crowded but cool--although it didn't stay cool for long. We sat down at a side table near the door and ordered Tom Collinses as we looked at the menu. Sitting at the next table were a fat lady, wearing a very long, brilliant green evening gown, and a dried-up sour-looking man in a tux.

All three were nearly enough alike--small weapons, rather heavier than they looked, firing a tiny ten-grain bullet at ten thousand foot-seconds. On impact, such a bullet would almost disintegrate; a man hit anywhere in the body with one would be killed instantly, his nervous system paralyzed and his heart stopped by internal pressure. Each of the pistols carried twenty rounds in the magazine. Verkan Vall and Sirzob of Abo took their places, their pistols lowered at their sides, facing each other across a measured twenty meters. "Are you ready, gentlemen?" Klarnood asked. "You will not raise your pistols until the command to fire; you may fire at will after it. Ready. _Fire!_" [Illustration: ] Both pistols swung up to level. Verkan Vall found Sirzob's head in his sights and squeezed; the pistol kicked back in his hand, and he saw a lance of blue flame jump from the muzzle of Sirzob's.

I looked down into the street, hitherto deserted ... and into the upturned face of Fu-Manchu! Wearing a heavy fur-collared coat, and with his yellow, malignant countenance grotesquely horrible beneath the shadow of a large tweed motor cap, he stood motionless, looking up at me. That he had seen me, I could not doubt; but had he seen my companion? In a choking whisper Kâramanèh answered my unspoken question. "He has not seen me! I have done much for you; do in return a small thing for me! Save my life!" She dragged me back from the window and fled across the room to the weird laboratory where I had lain captive. Throwing herself upon the divan, she held out her white wrists and glanced significantly at the manacles. "Lock them upon me!"

Drawing herself to her full height, she tossed back her head and flung out her arms before her. "No one can know I am afraid--but you," she said. "And I--shall forget." She dropped her arms and stood passive. "I go now to take the drug--there in the little garden behind, where no one can notice. You will come down?" The Big Business Man cleared his throat. When he spoke his voice was tremulous with emotion. "How long will you be gone--Lylda?" he asked.

But each face she looked at was the same. Watching them dissolve and regrow in the nutrient solution, she had only been able to guess at the horror of what was happening. Now she knew. They were all the same lean-boned, blond-skinned face, with a pin-feather growth of reddish down on cheeks and scalp. All horribly--and handsomely--the same. A medical kit lay carelessly on the floor beside Max's tank. She stood near the bag. "Max," she said, and found her throat closing. The canned voice of the mechanical mocked her, speaking glibly about waking and sitting up. "I'm sorry, Max...." The tall man with rugged features and bright blue eyes sat up sleepily and lifted an eyebrow at her, and ran his hand over his red-fuzzed head in a gesture of bewilderment.

But to anyone who knew him as intimately as I did, such an hypothesis is untenable; nor, if admitted, would it explain some of the strangest incidents. Moreover, it was strongly negatived by Dr. Frobisher, from whose verdict in such matters there was at the time no appeal, by Dr. Dobie, and by Dr. Bruton, who had known Sir John from his infancy. It is possible that towards the close of his life he suffered occasionally from hallucination, though I could not positively affirm even so much; but this was only when his health had been completely undermined by causes which are very difficult to analyse. When I first knew him at Oxford he was a strong man physically as well as mentally; open-hearted, and of a merry and genial temperament. At the same time he was, like most cultured persons--and especially musicians,--highly strung and excitable. But at a certain point in his career his very nature seemed to change; he became reserved, secretive, and saturnine. On this moral metamorphosis followed an equally startling physical change.

It was poor stuff, no doubt--what else could one expect?--but it was a start. He would tell them what was wrong with it, and they would try again. Literary criticism, armaments, tariffs, manners--there was no end to it. "What else?" Luke stepped forward. "The plans for the large weapons You commanded Your servants to design, Master." He put three large sheets of parchment on the desk. Weaver looked at the neat tracery on the first, and frowned. "You may come near Me," He said. "Show Me how these are meant to operate."

And I see he begun to be impressed. How true it is that, from the Bible down to Josiah Allen's Wife, you have to talk in stories in order to impress the masses! You have to hold up the hammer of a personal incident to drive home the nail of Truth and have it clench and hold fast. But mine wuz some different--mine wuz facts, every one of 'em. I could have brung them to that man and laid 'em down in front of him from that time, almost half past ten a.m., and kep stiddy at it till ten p.m., and then not know that I had took any from the heap, so high and lofty is the stack of injustices and wrongs committed in the name of the Law and shielded by its mantilly. But I had only brung up two, jest two of 'em; not the most flagrant ones either, but the first ones that come into my mind, jest as it is when you go to a pile of potatoes to git some for dinner, you take the first ones you come to, knowin' there is fur bigger ones in the pile. But them potatoes smashed up with cream and butter are jest as satisfyin' as if they wuz bigger. So these little truthful incidents laid down in front of my pardner convinced him; so they wuz jest as good for me to use as if I had picked out bigger and more flagranter ones. I first brung up before him the case of the good little Christian school-teacher who had toiled for years at her hard work and laid up a little money, and finally married a sick young feller more'n half out of pity, for he hadn't a cent of money, and had the consumption, and took good care of him till he died. And wantin' to humor him, she let him make his will, though he didn't so much as own the sheet of paper he wrote on, or the ink or the pen.

"Would you mind informing Spider Reilly of that fact? It will make life pleasanter for all of us." "Mr. Scobell sent me along here to ask you to come and talk over this thing with him. He's at the Knickerbocker. I've a cab waiting outside. Can you come along?" "I'd rather he came here." "And I bet he'd rather come here than be where he is. That little surprise packet of yours last night put him down and out.

Further, I believe you are Terran and I will not deal with you. And finally, you have twice saved my life and I would find small pleasure in torturing you. I say no. Drink again with me and we part without a quarrel." Beaten, I turned to go. "Wait," said Dallisa. She stood up and came down from the dais, slowly this time, walking with dignity to the rhythm of her musically clashing chains. "I have a quarrel with this man." I started to say that I did not quarrel with women, and stopped myself. The Terran concept of chivalry has no equivalent on Wolf.

Dowson said, waving a hand at them. "You may feel that poking fun at insanity is humorous, Mr. Malone, but let me tell you--" "It wasn't like that at all," Boyd said. "And," Dr. Dowson continued in a somewhat louder voice, "wanting to take Mr. Logan away from us. Mr. Logan is a very sick man, Mr. Malone. He should be properly cared for."

My eyes clamped shut against the monstrous blaze of heat and light. Then, Snow's hand tightly gripped in mine, I was enveloped in inky blackness, with nothing but empty air beneath the soles of my boots. And falling. 20 "Snow! Darling, are you all right?" I asked, getting groggily to my feet and pressing her hand between both of mine. The fall hadn't been as bad as the one I'd taken earlier through that hole in the floor, but it was enough to shake me up. "Y-Yes, I think so, Jery," she said, pressing one slim hand to her forehead, then brushing a wisp of hair back out of her eyes. I took her tightly in my arms and held her. Only then did I suddenly realize where we were.

of his unfinished paper on "Snake Poisons and Their Antidotes." By chance he pulled out the brief account, written the same morning, of his uncanny experience during the night. He read it through reflectively. It was incomplete. A certain mental haziness which he had noted upon awakening had in some way obscured the facts. His memory of the dream had been imperfect. Even now, whilst recognizing that some feature of the experience was missing from his written account, he could not identify the omission. But one memory arose starkly before him--that of the cowled man who had stood behind the curtains. It had power to chill him yet. The old incredulity returned and methodically he re-examined the contents of some of the table drawers.

The fortress-castle of Oscarburg, on the lonely wooded shore of Viborg Bay, had kept many a secret safely before now, and it would keep this one. Every retainer in the Castle, every man, woman, and child on the estates for leagues around, was his, body and soul, as their fathers before them had been the blind, unquestioning serfs of his fathers. There his word was law, and his will was fate. There was no "liberty" within his domains, since no man wanted it, or would have understood it had it been given to him. When their argument was over they parted, apparently the best of friends. Franklin Marmion went to bed calmly curious as to what was going to happen, and Oscarovitch paid a visit to his captain. A little after three that morning he opened the door of the Professor's state-room very gently and looked in. The room was dark, and he listened. A soft, just audible sound of breathing came from the bed. It was the breathing of a man fast asleep.

"What the devil do you mean by entering my room?" A tall, irate man, with the Army stamped all over him, dressed in pyjamas, with a monocle firmly wedged in his left eye, was fiercely eyeing a smaller man in a bath-robe. "Not content with having got into my room, but damme, sir, you must needs try and get into my trousers. What the devil do you mean by it?" Bindle looked along the corridor appreciatively. "Looks like a shipwreck at night, it do," he remarked to the chambermaid. "It's my room," said the man in the bathrobe. "Confound you," was the reply, "this is my room, and I'll prosecute you for libel." "My room is No. 18," responded the other, "and I left my wife there half an hour ago."

answered Connel. "What?" exclaimed Roger, momentarily forgetting he was addressing a senior officer. "How in blazes are you going to do that?" Connel turned to the chart-screen projector and switched it on. Immediately an image of Earth and its Moon, and much farther away the sun, was visible. Connel stepped to the screen and pointed to Moon. "The Moon is a captive satellite of Earth, revolving around Earth the same way Earth revolves around the sun. It's the same situation we have here. This satellite is a captive of Tara, and Tara is a captive of Alpha Centauri.

"Events have been moving somewhat rapidly since then," said Challenger, picking up his pile of telegrams. "I am in close touch both with the authorities and with the press, so that news is converging upon me from all parts. There is, in fact, a general and very insistent demand that I should come to London; but I see no good end to be served. From the accounts the poisonous effect begins with mental excitement; the rioting in Paris this morning is said to have been very violent, and the Welsh colliers are in a state of uproar. So far as the evidence to hand can be trusted, this stimulative stage, which varies much in races and in individuals, is succeeded by a certain exaltation and mental lucidity--I seem to discern some signs of it in our young friend here--which, after an appreciable interval, turns to coma, deepening rapidly into death. I fancy, so far as my toxicology carries me, that there are some vegetable nerve poisons----" "Datura," suggested Summerlee. "Excellent!" cried Challenger. "It would make for scientific precision if we named our toxic agent. Let it be daturon.

But she looked real mauger, and I sez: "You look kinder beat out, Jane Olive, hain't you well?" Yes, she said she wuz well, but had so many cares that they wore on her. "Why," sez I, "you don't try to do your housework alone, do you?" No, she said she had ten servants. So I knowed she didn't have to do the heaviest of her work, but her face looked dretful tired and disappinted and I knowed it wuz caused by her efforts to git into fashionable society, for I'd hearn more about it since I come here, Miss Huff knowed a woman that lived neighbor to her, she said that in spite of all Sam Perkinses money and Jane Olive's efforts she couldn't git so fur into the circle of the first as she wanted to, though she had done everything a woman could do. Went off summers where the first went and winters too. When it wuz fashionable to go to springs and seasides she went and ocean trips and south and north, and when it wuz the fashion to go into the quiet country she come to Jonesville. And now she wuz tryin' a new skeem to git into the first, she got up a name for bein' very charitable. That took her in, or that is part way in, for her money went jest as fur and wuz jest as welcome to heathens and such as if it wuzn't made out of pork. It went jest as fur as the money that wuz handed down from four fathers or even five or six fathers who wuz small farmers and trappers in Manhattan years and years ago.

I shall watch till the end. Then he heard a faint, faint noise. From somewhere there was a humming. The merest shadow of a hum, and Robin listened to it, startled. The humming rose in pitch, it was no dream, and as he sat, mouth open, amazed, there was a thin, high-pitched screaming outside the rocket and he suddenly began to feel hot. Robin had but a second in which to think to himself, There's an atmosphere and we're burning up, when there came a new sound. A sort of _bloop_ from over his head, a snapping noise, and something seemed to grab the rocket and jerk it upside down violently. Robin was tossed in a sharp somersault, banging against the original floor of his compartment in a jumble of arms and legs. He sat up and realized that he was sitting--not floating--but actually sitting _against gravity's pull_! He scrambled onto his knees, peeped through his peephole.

"Well, Axel, there is a very simple answer to your objection that this soil is alluvial." "What! at such a depth below the surface of the earth?" "No doubt; and there is a geological explanation of the fact. At a certain period the earth consisted only of an elastic crust or bark, alternately acted on by forces from above or below, according to the laws of attraction and gravitation. Probably there were subsidences of the outer crust, when a portion of the sedimentary deposits was carried down sudden openings." "That may be," I replied; "but if there have been creatures now extinct in these underground regions, why may not some of those monsters be now roaming through these gloomy forests, or hidden behind the steep crags?" And as this unpleasant notion got hold of me, I surveyed with anxious scrutiny the open spaces before me; but no living creature appeared upon the barren strand. I felt rather tired, and went to sit down at the end of a promontory, at the foot of which the waves came and beat themselves into spray. Thence my eye could sweep every part of the bay; within its extremity a little harbour was formed between the pyramidal cliffs, where the still waters slept untouched by the boisterous winds.

"What a horrible-looking man!" said Billie, breaking it with a little gasp. Jno. Peters often affected the opposite sex like that at first sight. "I beg your pardon?" said Sam absently. "What a dreadful-looking man! He quite frightened me!" For some moments Sam sat without speaking. If this had not been one of his Napoleonic mornings, no doubt the sudden arrival of his old friend, Mr.

We bring you knowledge and skills and our own need, they said in effect, we will be an asset to your country if you admit us. The Americans could not understand; they themselves had been fair to all and only kept out undesirable immigrants. Gradually the world geared itself to a slower tempo. The gogetter followed the brontosaurus to extinction, and we Americans with the foresight to carry on our businesses from new bases profited by the unAmerican backwardness of our competitors. At this time I daresay I was among the hundred most important figures of the world. In the marketing and packaging of our original products I had been forced to acquire papermills and large interests in aluminum and steel; from there the progression to tinmines and rollingmills, to coalfields and railroads, to shippinglines and machineshops was not far. Consolidated Pemmican, once the center of my business existence, was now but a minor point on its periphery. I expanded horizontally and vertically, delighted to show my competitors that Americans, even when deprived of America, were not robbed of the traditional American enterprise. _68._ It was at this time, many months after we had given up all hope of hearing from Joe again, that General Thario received a longdelayed package from his son. It contained the third movement of the symphony and a covering letter: "Dear Father--Stuart Thario--General-- I shall not finish this letter tonight; it will be sent with as much of the First Symphony as makes a worthy essence when it goes.

It was one of these extremely local tempests which expend all their principal fury over a small space of country; and, in this instance, the space seemed to include little more than the river, and the few meadows which immediately surrounded it, and lent it so much of its beauty. Marchdale soon found that his cries were drowned by the louder voices of the elements. The wailing of the wind among the ancient ruins was much more full of sound than his cries; and, now and then, the full-mouthed thunder filled the air with such a volume of roaring, and awakened so many echoes among the ruins, that, had he possessed the voices of fifty men, he could not have hoped to wage war with it. And then, although we know that Charles Holland would have encountered death himself, rather than he would have willingly left anything human to expire of hunger in that dungeon, yet Marchdale, judging of others by himself, felt by no means sure of any such thing, and, in his horror of apprehension, fancied that that was just the sort of easy, and pleasant, and complete revenge that it was in Charles Holland's power to take, and just the one which would suggest itself, under the circumstances, to his mind. Could anything be possibly more full of horror than such a thought? Death, let it come in any shape it may, is yet a most repulsive and unwelcome guest; but, when it comes, so united with all that can add to its terrors, it is enough to drive reason from its throne, and fill the mind with images of absolute horror. Tired of shrieking, for his parched lips and clogged tongue would scarcely now permit him to utter a sound higher than a whisper. Marchdale lay, listening to the furious storm without, in the last abandonment of despair. "Oh! what a death is this," he groaned.

Outside there was the occasional cry of some animal in alarm or pain, or calling to its mate, and the intermittent sounds of the Malay and Dyak servants. Presently one of the men began a queer chanting song, in which the others joined at intervals. After this it would seem that they turned in for the night, for no further sound came from their direction, and the whispering stillness became more and more profound. The clockwork ticked steadily. The shrill hum of a mosquito explored the place and grew shriller in indignation at Woodhouse's ointment. Then the lantern went out and all the observatory was black. Woodhouse shifted his position presently, when the slow movement of the telescope had carried it beyond the limits of his comfort. He was watching a little group of stars in the Milky Way, in one of which his chief had seen or fancied a remarkable colour variability. It was not a part of the regular work for which the establishment existed, and for that reason perhaps Woodhouse was deeply interested. He must have forgotten things terrestrial.

Without conscious volition, Howell's pistol was out and he was thumbing the safety off. The Svant stopped short, then dropped the knife, ducked his head, and threw his arms over it to shield his comb. He backed away a few steps, then turned and bolted into the nearest house. The others, including the woman in the ragged tunic, were twittering in alarm. Only the man in the leather apron was calm; he was saying, tonelessly, "_Ghrooogh-ghrooogh_." Luis Gofredo was coming up on the double, followed by three of his riflemen. "What happened, Mark? Trouble?" "All over now." He told Gofredo what had happened.

"And then?" I said huskily--for my heart was fluttering like a captive bird. "Alas! from that day to this I see her no more, my gentlemen. I travel not only in Egypt but near and far, and still I see her no more until in Rangoon I hear that which brings me to England again"--he extended his palms naïvely--"and here I am--Smith Pasha." Smith sprang upright again and turned to me. "Either I am growing over-credulous," he said, "or Azîz speaks the truth. But"--he held up his hand--"you can tell me all that at some other time, Petrie! We must take no chances. Sergeant Carter is downstairs with the cab; you might ask him to step up.

I think I can convince you that I am _not_ suffering from space-shock. I've found Miss Ramsey. She's been badly hurt and needs immediate medical attention." The Commander looked as if a man he had thought sane was standing before him with a gun in his hand. Not Corriston, but some other, more violent man. For a moment longer he remained rigid and then his hand went out and tightened on Corriston's arm. "By heaven, if you're lying to me!" "I would have no reason to lie, sir. It proves I'm not a space-shock case. But that's unimportant now.

With upraised weapon I gazed cautiously out. Miko had disappeared. The deck within my line of vision, was empty. But was it? Something told me to beware. I clung to the casement, ready upon the instant to shove myself down. There was a movement in a shadow along the deck. Then a figure rose up. "Don't fire, Haljan!" The sharp command, half appeal, stopped the pressure of my finger.

As she ascended the stairs, her fit of temper at the Doctor passed, and she felt lonely, weary, and unutterably miserable. She sank to a seat on the topmost step and gave herself over to bitter reflections. Nick was gone! The realization came poignantly at last; there would be no more evening rides, no more conversations whose range was limited only by the scope of the universe, no more breath-taking kisses, the sweeter for his reluctance. She sat mournfully silent, and considered the miserable situation in which she found herself. In love with a madman! Or worse--in love with a demon! With a being half of whose nature worshiped her while the other half was bent on her destruction! Was any one, she asked herself--was any one, anywhere, ever in a more hopeless predicament? What could she do?

Prepare yourself!' When the Mantis' head finally did appear, leering in at them ominously, she found doing exactly as he told her infinitely easier than not doing it. She clung to him as if possessed, and the Mantis' first glimpse of them was exactly as Kalus had wanted it. Akar stood submissively to one side, allowing the Monarch an unobstructed view. After studying the three closely, he gestured for the wolf to follow him to the broad ledge outside the larger cave. Akar obeyed unquestioningly, snaking his way carefully down the sharp incline. 'What will he do now?' asked the girl, moving with Kalus to watch from the stone lip that ran like a low parapet just beyond the entrance of the niche. 'I do not know. He will want to know why we are here, but after that I cannot say.

Colonel Paula Quinton wanted to know. Her military education was progressing, but it still had a few gaps to fill in. "The next time they're air-struck, they won't stay bunched," Mordkovitz replied. "A lot of them didn't stay bunched this time, if you noticed. And they'll keep out from between the fences." In the large screen, a quick succession of gun-flashes leaped up from the direction of the Hoork River and shells began bursting over the scene of the attack. The screen tuned to the pickup on the airjeep went dead; in the big screen, there was a twinkling of falling fire. Almost at once, thirty or forty rocket-trails converged on the gun-position, and, for a moment, explosions burned like a bonfire. "They had a 75-mm at the rear of the column," somebody called from the big switchboard. "Lieutenant Kalanang's jeep was hit; Lieutenant Vermaas is cutting in his pickup on the same wavelength."

The arrow caught the doe full in the side, and in the same moment Nobs was after her. She turned to flee with the two of us pursuing her, Nobs with his great fangs bared and I with my short spear poised for a cast. The balance of the herd sprang quickly away; but the hurt doe lagged, and in a moment Nobs was beside her and had leaped at her throat. He had her down when I came up, and I finished her with my spear. It didn't take me long to have a fire going and a steak broiling, and while I was preparing for my own feast, Nobs was filling himself with raw venison. Never have I enjoyed a meal so heartily. For two days I searched fruitlessly back and forth from the inland sea almost to the barrier cliffs for some trace of Ajor, and always I trended northward; but I saw no sign of any human being, not even the band of Galu warriors under Du-seen; and then I commenced to have misgivings. Had Chal-az spoken the truth to me when he said that Ajor had quit the village of the Kro-lu? Might he not have been acting upon the orders of Al-tan, in whose savage bosom might have lurked some small spark of shame that he had attempted to do to death one who had befriended a Kro-lu warrior--a guest who had brought no harm upon the Kro-lu race--and thus have sent me out upon a fruitless mission in the hope that the wild beasts would do what Al-tan hesitated to do? I did not know; but the more I thought upon it, the more convinced I became that Ajor had not quitted the Kro-lu village; but if not, what had brought Du-seen forth without her?

He might have no soul, but a lifetime of being an overseer had given him habits that replaced the need for what had been a pretty slim soul to begin with. "Quitters!" he yelled. "Lazy, worthless, work-dodging goldbrick artists!" He knelt in fury, thumbing back the eyelids of the corpses. There was little need for the test. They were too limp, too waxen to be pretending. The overseer cut them out of the chain and kicked at Hanson. "Move along!" he bellowed.

Drinking and walking is what the doctors prescribe and I d'no but what the walking in the invigorating mountain air does as much good as the water. The doctor generally makes you drink a glass about seven in the morning, then take a little walk, then drink another glass, and another little walk and so on until about eight, when you can go to the Swiss bakery and get the zwiebach or twice baked bread, which is handed you in a paper bag, and then you can go to some cafay on the sidewalk and get coffee or tea and boiled eggs and make out your breakfast. No butter is given you unless the doctor orders it. That madded Josiah and he said they kep' it back because they wuz clost and wanted to save. He is a great case for butter. And then after resting for an hour, you go for a walk up the mountains, or if you are too weak to walk, you can get a cart and a donkey, the driver walking alongside; up the shady paths you will go, resting anon or oftener at some pleasant summer house or cafay. At one you have your dinner, you can get it anywhere along your way or go back to your tarven for it; Josiah and I generally went back and got our dinner at the tarven and rested for a while. After dinner, folks generally go for another walk, but Josiah and I and Tommy used often to go to the Sprudel Corridor and listen to first-rate music or to a garden concert nigh by. It wuz a sight to set in the Sprudel Corridor and see the crowds of people go by, each one bearin' a little mug in their hands or strapped over their shoulders. All sorts of lookin' folks, handsome and humbly, tall and short, thick and thin, thousands and thousands of 'em a-goin' every morning for their drink and walk, drink and walk.

When he went for his constitutional that day he was still chuckling at the absurd story his paper would have had him believe. Wasps indeed--killing a dog! Incidentally as he passed by the site of that first crop of puff-balls he remarked that the grass was growing very rank there, but he did not connect that in any way with the matter of his amusement. "We should certainly have heard something of it," he said; "Whitstable can't be twenty miles from here." Beyond he found another puff-ball, one of the second crop, rising like a roc's egg out of the abnormally coarsened turf. The thing came upon him in a flash. He did not take his usual round that morning. Instead he turned aside by the second stile and came round to the Caddles' cottage. "Where's that baby?" he demanded, and at the sight of it, "Goodness me!"

The loudspeaker said severely: "_The checking should have been done earlier!_" There was silence. Mike and Joe, together, painstakingly checked over the very many items that had to be made sure. Every rocket had to have its firing circuit inspected. The tanks' contents and pressure verified. The air connection to Mike's space suit. The air pressure. The device that made sure that air going to Mike's space suit was neither as hot as metal in burning sunlight, nor cold as the chill of a shadow in space. Everything checked. Mike straddled his red-painted mount. Joe left the lock and said curtly: "Okay to pump the airlock.

Up to a certain point it maddens almost beyond endurance; but, that point past, it soothes. At least, it was so in my case. Gradually I found myself hating him less. Soon I began to listen, then to answer. Before I left the club that night, the first mad frenzy, in which I could have been capable of anything, had gone from me, and I walked home, feeling curiously weak and helpless, but calm, to begin the new life. Three years passed before I met Cynthia. I spent those years wandering in many countries. At last, as one is apt to do, I drifted back to London, and settled down again to a life which, superficially, was much the same as the one I had led in the days before I knew Audrey. My old circle in London had been wide, and I found it easy to pick up dropped threads. I made new friends, among them Cynthia Drassilis.

A desperate effort was in me to say the strong, sensible thing which should destroy the oppressive horror that grew so stiflingly about us both, but again the mirror drew the attempted smile into the merest grin, betraying the distortion that was everywhere in the place. "You mean," I stammered beneath my breath, "that her faith has gone, but that the terror has remained?" I asked it, dully groping. I moved out of the line of the reflection in the glass. She bowed her head as though beneath a weight; her skin was the pallor of grey ashes. "You mean," I said louder, "that she has lost her--mind?" "She is terror incarnate," was the whispered answer. "Mabel has lost her soul. Her soul is--there!" She pointed horribly below.

"I do," he answered. "It may be that it is something in my temperament, I suppose one would call it a sort of spiritual mindedness. But I think of it all constantly. Often as I stand here beside the window and see these cars go by"--he indicated a passing street car--"I cannot but realise that the time will come when I am no longer a managing director and wonder whether they will keep on trying to hold the dividend down by improving the rolling stock or will declare profits to inflate the securities. These mysteries beyond the grave fascinate me, sir. Death is a mysterious thing. Who for example will take my seat on the Exchange? What will happen to my majority control of the power company? I shudder to think of the changes that may happen after death in the assessment of my real estate." "Yes," I said, "it is all beyond our control, isn't it?"

Brutal? You bet it was, but I couldn't afford to take any chances on his coming to. What would you have done? If I'd killed him right then and there, the Board would not have censured me. I was sure of that. Not to have done so was perhaps foolish, a weakness in me. I was cutting down my chances of getting as far as the Colony, before a security alert went out, and the Wendel police started after me with instructions to blast me down on sight. But somehow I couldn't do it. Not only for the reasons I've mentioned ... because a new head on the Wendel boa constrictor would have solved nothing ... but because it went against the grain. I'd have had a feeling of guilt I never could have completely thrown off.

Mr Bickersdyke seemed to think them so. He rose again, and returned to the first room. 'I have made you restless,' said Psmith, in a voice of self-reproach, when he had settled himself once more by the manager's side. 'I am sorry. I will not pursue the subject. Indeed, I believe that my fears are unnecessary. Statistics show, I understand, that large numbers of men emerge in safety every year from Turkish Baths. There was another matter of which I wished to speak to you. It is a somewhat delicate matter, and I am only encouraged to mention it to you by the fact that you are so close a friend of my father's.' Mr Bickersdyke had picked up an early edition of an evening paper, left on the table at his side by a previous bather, and was to all appearances engrossed in it.

It's Dan. Daniel Crowley." The three of them looked at him in bewilderment. The ape was beginning to shimmer as though he was being seen through a window wet with driving rain. "Don's my goody-goody brother. Used to live in the same house with me, but ever since we were kids and I got picked up on a juvenile delinquent rap for swiping a car, he's been snotty. Anyway, now he's moved out to Frisco." Patricia blurted, "But ... but you let us believe you were Donald...." He brushed it off with a flick of his hand. "You said you had some deal where I could make me some money. O.K., I was between jobs."

_Mrs. L.-C._ And I never knew a woman who couldn't work and talk bonnets at the same time. _Mrs. C._ Just a few palms--don't you think, Mrs. Bulkwise?--in those dreary, _dreary_ rooms, and some oriental rugs on the floors, and a little bunch of flowers on each desk would make life so much easier to live. [_Colonel Bulkwise murmurs something unintelligible_. _Mrs. B._ What do you say, George? _Colonel B. (with sudden fierceness)._ I said, that there are too many old women, as it is, in the War Office.

It's frozen solid. It would take almost a year to get to it on Abbot drive, and if your ship has Dillinghams, why not take a little longer and go to a good planet? So nobody bothered with Abaddon." But for Dunnan's purpose, it would be perfect. He called Prince Bentrik and Alvyn Karffard to him; they found the idea instantly convincing. They talked about it through dinner, and held a general discussion afterward. Even Guatt Kirbey, the ship's pessimist, could find no objection to it. Trask and Bentrik began at once making battle plans. Karffard wondered if they hadn't better wait till they got to Gimli and discuss it with the others. "No," Trask told him.

The minutes passed; the silence lengthened out, and at last after an hour of security my courage began to return to me. By this time I was no longer very much terrified or very miserable. I had, as it were, passed the limit of terror and despair. I felt now that my life was practically lost, and that persuasion made me capable of daring anything. I had even a certain wish to encounter Moreau face to face; and as I had waded into the water, I remembered that if I were too hard pressed at least one path of escape from torment still lay open to me,--they could not very well prevent my drowning myself. I had half a mind to drown myself then; but an odd wish to see the whole adventure out, a queer, impersonal, spectacular interest in myself, restrained me. I stretched my limbs, sore and painful from the pricks of the spiny plants, and stared around me at the trees; and, so suddenly that it seemed to jump out of the green tracery about it, my eyes lit upon a black face watching me. I saw that it was the simian creature who had met the launch upon the beach. He was clinging to the oblique stem of a palm-tree. I gripped my stick, and stood up facing him.

Therefore, if father had not made a fortune he would not have bullied her. Practically, in fact, if father did not bully her he would not be rich. And if he were not rich-- She took in the faded carpet, the stained wall paper and the soiled curtains with a comprehensive glance. It certainly cut both ways. She began to be a little ashamed of her misery. "It's nothing at all; really," she said. "I think I've been making rather a fuss about very little." Joan was relieved. The struggling life breeds moods of depression, and such a mood had come to her just before Aline's arrival. Life, at that moment, had seemed to stretch before her like a dusty, weary road, without hope.

On coming close to their victims they found them to measure twelve feet from tip to tip, and to have a tremendous thickness of feathers and down. "From the looks of these beauties," said Bearwarden, "I should say they probably inhabited a pretty cold place." "They are doubtless northern birds," said Cortlandt, "that have just come south. It is easy to believe that the depth to which the temperature may fall in the upper air of this planet must be something startling." As they turned from the cranes, to which species the birds seemed to belong, they became mute with astonishment. Every mushroom had disappeared, but the toadstools still remained. "Is it possible we did not see them?" gasped Ayrault. "We must inadvertently have walked some distance since we saw them," said Cortlandt. "They were what I looked forward to for lunch," exclaimed Bearwarden.

To steady himself he shut his eyes, shook his head as though to clear it, then looked again at that strip of metal in his hand. Attached to it were two slender strips of leather like straps, ending in small, bronze buckles. "Why, it's not from the plane," he stammered aloud. "Damned if it doesn't look like a greave the old Greek warriors used to wear to protect their shins." Suddenly alarmed and mystified beyond words, he shuffled forward over the snow, the greave yet clutched in a fur gloved hand. Presently two more objects, already half buried by the stinging, swirling drifts, caught his attention. One was the stock of Alden's rifle, protruding starkly brown from the unrelieved whiteness, and the other was a broken wooden shaft that ended a graceful but wickedly sharp bronze spear head. "I've either gone crazy," he said, "or I'm delirious. Yes, I must be clean nutty! There _couldn't_ be a human settlement within a thousand miles.

Aga's burned corpse. The cutlass was lying by her side, assuring him of her identity. Re-oriented, he turned back, still pulling Amra by the hand. This time he ran into a wall, but he had his free hand stretched out in front of him for just such an event. Frantically, he groped to his left until he came to the corner of the room. Then, knowing that the doorway lay back to his right, he turned and felt along the metal until he came to the opening. He plunged through it, almost fell into the other room, which was as dark and dusty as the one he'd just left. He trotted on ahead, bumped into another wall, groped to his right, found the next exit and ran through that. Here the air was much more free of dust. He could actually make out outlines of his companions as the light was penetrating the fainter haze.

"'Look what I worked out, with a little, minor help from one of the employees in my sector.' "But I've seen that line worked before, Bond, and worked smoothly. You don't catch the Old Man napping so easily as that." He paused. "Of course we don't know whether or not this device is going to be of any real use. But we do know that this man, Graham, has developed one thing which can be profitably incorporated into conventional equipment. That power source of his appears to be quite practical, and we'll adopt it. Offer it to the man's employer, subject to community royalty. And see if you can get Graham a little time off work in compensation. Then, keep a close watch on his work on the rest of his device.

"May I speak?" Reiner asked icily. The old man nodded and re-lit his cigar. "I have been called--behind my back, naturally--a fanatic," Reiner said. He pointedly did not look anywhere near F. W. Taylor as he spoke the word. "Perhaps this is correct and perhaps fanaticism is what's needed at a time like this. Let me point out what the so-called Government stands for: brutal 'taxation,' extirpation of gambling, denial of life's simple pleasures to the poor and severe limitation of them to all but the wealthy, sexual prudery viciously enforced by penal laws of appalling barbarity, endless regulation and coercion governing every waking minute of the day. That was its record during the days of its power and that would be its record if it returned to power. I fail to see how this menace to our liberty can be condoned by certain marginal benefits which are claimed to accrue from its continued existence." He faltered for a moment as his face twisted with an unpleasant memory.

"Your eyes drive me mad!" he hissed. "Your lips taunt me, and I know all earthly greatness to be a mirage, its conquests visions, and its fairness dust. I would rather be a captive in your white arms than the emperor of heaven! Your sweetness intoxicates me, Miska. A fever burns me up!" Helpless, enmeshed in the toils of that mighty will, Miska raised her head; and gradually her expression changed. Fear was smoothed away from her lovely face as by some magic brush. She grew placid; and finally she smiled--the luresome, caressing smile of the East. Nearer and nearer drew the green veil.

Well, he drew himself up proudly, there was a way. He was not afraid to die. "Whoa, now, wait a minute. Let's think this out. Death's no answer." For a new idea had just struck him. He forced the worry, the fear, the ... the self-pity ... from his mind, and settled down to consider this new concept. Maybe it wasn't as bad as he had thought, after all. "Yandor and his goons were the only ones who knew I was a Terran, and they're dead," he thought. "So they can't tell on me.

They had one proverb that embraced it all: "Labor is the necessity of life." I studied this peculiar phase of Mizora life, and at last comprehended that in this very law of social equality lay the foundation of their superiority. Their admirable system of adapting the mind to the vocation in which it was most capable of excelling, and endowing that with dignity and respect, and, at the same time, compelling the highest mental culture possible, had produced a nation in the enjoyment of universal refinement, and a higher order of intelligence than any yet known to the outside world. The standard of an ordinary education was to me astonishingly high. The reason for it was easily understood when informed that the only aristocracy of the country was that of intellect. Scholars, artists, scientists, literateurs, all those excelling in intellectual gifts or attainments, were alone regarded as superiors by the masses. In all the houses that I had visited I had never seen a portrait hung in a room thrown open to visitors. On inquiry, I was informed that it was a lack of taste to make a portrait conspicuous. "You meet faces at all times," said my informant, "but you cannot at all times have a variety of scenery before you. How monotonous it would be with a drawing-room full of women, and the walls filled with their painted representatives.

West, that this explanation corresponds with the facts as you observed them?" "Entirely so," I replied. "It might be added, too, that the changes in fashions were greatly fomented and assisted by the self-interest of vast industrial and commercial interests engaged in purveying the materials of dress and personal belongings. Every change, by creating a demand for new materials and rendering those in use obsolete, was what we called good for trade, though if tradesmen were unlucky enough to be caught by a sudden change of fashion with a lot of goods on hand it meant ruin to them. Great losses of this sort, indeed, attended every change in fashion." "But we read that there were fashions in many things besides dress," said Edith. "Certainly," said the superintendent. "Dress was the stronghold and main province of fashion because imitation was easiest and most effective through dress, but in nearly everything that pertained to the habits of living, eating, drinking, recreation, to houses, furniture, horses and carriages, and servants, to the manner of bowing even, and shaking hands, to the mode of eating food and taking tea, and I don't know what else--there were fashions which must be followed, and were changed as soon as they were followed. It was indeed a sad, fantastic race, and, Mr. West's contemporaries appear to have fully realized it; but as long as society was made up of unequals with no caste barriers to prevent imitation, the inferiors were bound to ape the superiors, and the superiors were bound to baffle imitation, so far as possible, by seeking ever-fresh devices for expressing their superiority."

The dark blur of struggling Tartars and Mamelukes grew rapidly larger. Qutuz's banner was nowhere to be seen, but the beast-tail Tartar standard rose up in the west, and Kalawun's black banner was waving far to the north. They were coming on the Tartar horsemen from the flank and rear. Daoud was close enough to see faces turn and Tartars wheel their ponies to meet the attack. Daoud drew his bow out again, picked a big Tartar with a drooping black mustache, and loosed an arrow at him. The Tartar fell back over his gray pony's rump, and the pony slowed, trotted out of the Tartar formation, and stood nibbling on the tall dead grass while its dead master lay nearby. Three Tartars peeled off from their formation and charged at Daoud. His arrows took two of them, and an arrow from one of his men struck down the third. Elated, he whispered a prayer of thanks to God. Baibars's yellow standard changed direction.

"We accept," I answered; "only I will ask your permission, sir, to address one question to you--one only." "Speak, sir." "You said that we should be free on board." "Entirely." "I ask you, then, what you mean by this liberty?" "Just the liberty to go, to come, to see, to observe even all that passes here save under rare circumstances--the liberty, in short, which we enjoy ourselves, my companions and I." It was evident that we did not understand one another. "Pardon me, sir," I resumed, "but this liberty is only what every prisoner has of pacing his prison. It cannot suffice us." "It must suffice you, however."

Don't you know that the heir to the title always goes on a yachting cruise, with his whole family, and gets drowned--and the children too? It happens in every English novel you read." "Listen, Aline! Let us get this thing straight: I have been in love with you since I wore knickerbockers. I proposed to you at your first dance--" "Very clumsily." "But sincerely. Last year, when I found that you had gone to England, I came on after you as soon as the firm could spare me. And I found you engaged to this Freddie excrescence." "I like the way you stand up for Freddie. So many men in your position might say horrid things about him."

And Joe was very glad they did make it before then. He wouldn't have liked to be merely astride a skinny framework in that ghastly darkness, with the monstrous blackness of the Abyss seeming to be trying to devour him. Haney met them in the airlock. He grinned. "Nice job, Joe! Nice job, Chief!" he said warmly. "Uh--the Lieutenant Commander wants you to report to him, Joe. Right away." Joe cocked an eyebrow at him.

But a moment later I saw it--a small black oblong bundle--hovering beside us. It was perhaps a hundred feet away, circling us. Held by the Planetara's bulk, it had momentarily become our satellite. It swung around us like a moon. Gruesome satellite, by nature's laws forever to follow us. Then from another tube at the bow, Blackstone operated a small Zed-co-ray projector. Its dull light caught the floating bundle, neutralizing its metallic wrappings. It swung off at a tangent. Speeding. Falling free in the dome of the heavens.

He knew not whether they were players, men that would vanish suddenly as they came, disappearing by the track that climbed the hill; or whether they were indeed magicians, workers of great and efficacious spells, who knew the secret word by which the earth may be transformed into the hall of Gehenna, so that they that gazed and listened, as at a passing spectacle, should be entrapped by the sound and the sight presented to them, should be drawn into the elaborated figures of that mystic dance, and so should be whirled away into those unending mazes on the wild hills that were abhorred, there to wander for evermore. But Darnell was not afraid, because of the Daystar that had risen in his heart. It had dwelt there all his life, and had slowly shone forth with clearer and clearer light, and he began to see that though his earthly steps might be in the ways of the ancient town that was beset by the Enchanters, and resounded with their songs and their processions, yet he dwelt also in that serene and secure world of brightness, and from a great and unutterable height looked on the confusion of the mortal pageant, beholding mysteries in which he was no true actor, hearing magic songs that could by no means draw him down from the battlements of the high and holy city. His heart was filled with a great joy and a great peace as he lay down beside his wife and fell asleep, and in the morning, when he woke up, he was glad. IV In a haze as of a dream Darnell's thoughts seemed to move through the opening days of the next week. Perhaps nature had not intended that he should be practical or much given to that which is usually called 'sound common sense,' but his training had made him desirous of good, plain qualities of the mind, and he uneasily strove to account to himself for his strange mood of the Sunday night, as he had often endeavoured to interpret the fancies of his boyhood and early manhood. At first he was annoyed by his want of success; the morning paper, which he always secured as the 'bus delayed at Uxbridge Road Station, fell from his hands unread, while he vainly reasoned, assuring himself that the threatened incursion of a whimsical old woman, though tiresome enough, was no rational excuse for those curious hours of meditation in which his thoughts seemed to have dressed themselves in unfamiliar, fantastic habits, and to parley with him in a strange speech, and yet a speech that he had understood. With such arguments he perplexed his mind on the long, accustomed ride up the steep ascent of Holland Park, past the incongruous hustle of Notting Hill Gate, where in one direction a road shows the way to the snug, somewhat faded bowers and retreats of Bayswater, and in another one sees the portal of the murky region of the slums. The customary companions of his morning's journey were in the seats about him; he heard the hum of their talk, as they disputed concerning politics, and the man next to him, who came from Acton, asked him what he thought of the Government now. There was a discussion, and a loud and excited one, just in front, as to whether rhubarb was a fruit or vegetable, and in his ear he heard Redman, who was a near neighbour, praising the economy of 'the wife.'

"What?" He was settling himself beside the mouth of the crack, where a man would have to come clear inside to get a shot at him. "A starship implies the intention to go to the stars. Why haven't you?" "For the simplest reason in the world," said Shearing bitterly. "The damn thing can't fly." "But--" said Hyrst, in astonishment. "It isn't finished. It's been building for over seventy years now, and a long and painful process that's been, too, Hyrst--doing it bit by bit in secret, and every bit having to be dreamed up out of whole cloth, and often discarded and dreamed up again, because the principle of a workable star-drive has never been formulated before. And it still isn't finished.

"What I call you if I not call you father?" "Don't call me anything. Say 'sir.' What did you want to say?" "Father, sir," began Brute again, "Adam forget. Adam fall." With a muted roar, Adam swept his powerful arm in a backhanded arc that caught Brute full on the side of his head. The blow would have felled an ox, but Brute was not shaken. Apparently unhurt, he stood patiently, his blue eyes on Goat with something of pleading in them. "Adam, let him alone!"

Wayne bent and, for good measure, took off the man's helmet and tapped him none too gently on the skull. There was the sound of footsteps, the harsh _chitch-chitch_ of feet against the rock. "He's up that way," he heard a deep voice boom. That meant the others had heard the rock hitting Hollingwood's plexalloy helmet. They were coming toward him. Wayne sprang back defensively and glanced around. He hoped there were only five of them, that the rule of six was still being maintained. Otherwise things could become really complicated, as they hunted him relentlessly through the twisted gulleys. He hated to have to knock out too many of the men; it just meant more trouble later. Still, there was no help for it, if he wanted there to be any later.

Your boss said "Trail along." Well, do it, then. I should hate to lose you. I don't suppose you know it, but you've been the best mascot this tour that I've ever come across. Right from the start we've been playing to enormous business. I'd rather kill a black cat than lose you. Drop the disguises, and stay with us. Come behind all you want, and be sociable.' A detective is only human. The less of a detective, the more human he is.

"Part! No!" "You have thought?" he insisted. "I will not part." She took his hand. "If this meant death, _now_, I would not let you go." "If it meant death," he said, and she felt his grip upon her fingers. He looked about him as if he feared to see the little people coming as he spoke. And then: "It may mean death."

Now, have you had any information on Kennedy since I called last?" "Hm, no. I did mention to Thomson, as you asked me to, that I'd heard rumors of some revolutionary encephalographic techniques and would be interested in seeing the work. Why did you want me to do that?" "Thomson," said Fraser, "is one of Kennedy's men. Now look, Jim, before long you're going to be invited to visit Kennedy. He'll give you a spiel about his research and ask to measure your brain waves. I want you to say yes. Then I want to know the exact times of the three appointments he'll give you--the first two, at least." "Hmmm--if Kennedy's doing what you claim--" "Jim, it's a necessary risk, but _I'm_ the one who's taking it.

"O.K., Tom, I'm sorry," he said. "O.K., let's get back to work," ordered Tom. Back at the _Polaris_, as they continued cleaning the hull of the ship, Tom saw the two men disappear into their craft, throwing dirty looks back at the three cadets as they went. "You know, Roger, I think you made a very bad mistake," he said. "One way or another, they'll try to even the score with you." "And it won't be just a report to Captain Strong," added Astro darkly. Roger, cocky and unafraid, broke out his engaging grin again and shrugged his shoulders. CHAPTER 3 "... And so we dedicate this capsule to the civilizations of the future. Those who may dig this cylinder out of the ground in ages to come will find within it the tools, the inventions, and the scientific wonders which have made the era of the Solar Alliance one of peace and lasting prosperity." Captain Steve Strong paused, glanced at the huge crane and the shimmering steel capsule that dangled at the end of a cable, then called out, "Lower the capsule!"

He might know that a rocket doesn't go where it's pointed, as a matter of theory. He might even know intellectually that the final speed and course of a rocket is the sum of all its previous speeds and courses. But he hadn't used the knowledge Joe and the Chief had. Something rushed at them. They went into evasive action. And they didn't merely turn the noses of their space wagons. They flung them about end-for-end, and blasted. They used wholly different accelerations at odd angles. Joe shot away from Earth on steering rocket thrust, and touched off a four-three while he faced toward Earth's north pole, and halfway along that four-second rush he flipped his craft in a somersault and the result was nearly a right-angled turn. When the four-three burned out he set off a twelve-two, and halfway through its burning fired a three-two with it, so that at the beginning he had two gravities acceleration, then four gravities for three seconds, and then two again.

He knew he was not alone in this, for the arresting planes of her face, the dramatic color of her rustling taffeta gowns, attracted many followers. He would sit in the lounge at night and watch her dancing, and then realize, suddenly, that she had disappeared, long before the evening was over. She was an elusive creature, as unpredictable as a butterfly. Wandering listlessly about the ship, one afternoon he stepped through the open door of the Library. In the almost empty room he saw the auburn head of Tanya, bent over so as to hide her face and show him only her glowing hair. She raised her head as he approached. "Are you looking for a book, Dr. Chase?" "No, I just wondered what was interesting you so much." * * * * * She shifted her seat, to let him see a large sheet of rough drawing paper covered with a chalk sketch of a desolate gray marsh over which green waves swirled from the sea, behind them loomed rose-colored granite hills.

But I will not hamper your escape. Burdened with me you would fail. Nay, do not fear for me. They will never suspect that I aided you willingly. Go! What you have just said will glorify my life throughout the long years.' He caught her up in his iron arms, crushed her slim, vibrant figure to him and kissed her fiercely on eyes, cheeks, throat and lips, until she lay panting in his embrace; gusty and tempestuous as a storm-wind, even his love-making was violent. 'I'll go,' he muttered. 'But by Crom, I'll come for you some day!' Wheeling, he gripped the gold bars and tore them from their sockets with one tremendous wrench; threw a leg over the sill and went down swiftly, clinging to the ornaments on the wall.

"It's the journey, dude, not the destination -- the act of organizing all these people, of putting up the APs, of advancing the art. It's all worthwhile in and of itself." Kurt shook his head. "You want to eat Vietnamese?" "Sure," Alan said. "I know a place," he said, and nudged the car through traffic and on to the Don Valley Parkway. "Where the hell are we *going*?" Alan said, once they'd left the city limits and entered the curved, identical cookie-cutter streets of the industrial suburbs in the north end. "Place I know," Kurt said. "It's really cheap and really good.

Later, Sola, with the aid of several of the other women, remodeled the trappings to fit my lesser proportions, and after they completed the work I went about garbed in all the panoply of war. From then on Sola instructed me in the mysteries of the various weapons, and with the Martian young I spent several hours each day practicing upon the plaza. I was not yet proficient with all the weapons, but my great familiarity with similar earthly weapons made me an unusually apt pupil, and I progressed in a very satisfactory manner. The training of myself and the young Martians was conducted solely by the women, who not only attend to the education of the young in the arts of individual defense and offense, but are also the artisans who produce every manufactured article wrought by the green Martians. They make the powder, the cartridges, the firearms; in fact everything of value is produced by the females. In time of actual warfare they form a part of the reserves, and when the necessity arises fight with even greater intelligence and ferocity than the men. The men are trained in the higher branches of the art of war; in strategy and the maneuvering of large bodies of troops. They make the laws as they are needed; a new law for each emergency. They are unfettered by precedent in the administration of justice. Customs have been handed down by ages of repetition, but the punishment for ignoring a custom is a matter for individual treatment by a jury of the culprit's peers, and I may say that justice seldom misses fire, but seems rather to rule in inverse ratio to the ascendency of law.

"None of the rest of the staff will come in until we're through." Colonel Mannheim looked at the biophysicist speculatively. "You seem to think secrecy's important all of a sudden." Bart Stanton grinned and kept silent. Dr. Farnsworth went over to a table, where an urn of coffee radiated soft warmth. "Cream and sugar over there on the tray," he said as he began to fill cups. "Frankly," Colonel Mannheim said, "I was going to ask you to find us a place where we could talk privately. You seem to have anticipated me." "I thought you might have something like that in mind," said Dr.

Of course, if anything happens to the old man, then we get it all. I don't think he'll last long. I notice him each day, how weak he's getting. My son in the business? Well, I'd like him to be. But he don't seem to take to it somehow--I'm afraid he takes more after his mother; or else it's the college that's doing it. Somehow, I don't think the colleges bring out business character, do you? X. A Study in Still Life--My Tailor He always stands there--and has stood these thirty years--in the back part of his shop, his tape woven about his neck, a smile of welcome on his face, waiting to greet me. "Something in a serge," he says, "or perhaps in a tweed?" There are only these two choices open to us.

Continually he was thrown into the rough wall at his right by the centrifugal force of the asteroid. How far did the passageway extend? Was Ku Sui at the end of it? It occurred to the Hawk that the asteroid was a developing shooting star, eating up the few hundred miles of life that remained, streaking down into the atmosphere, where waited quick friction and incandescence--and he down in the heart of it, blind, without clue to what lay in front of him, ignorant of everything, and with only minutes in which to achieve his end. There'd be no heat-warning through his insulated suit. Even now, perhaps, there was no time to get out; already the deadline might have been crossed; he could not know. He went on.... How far? A hundred yards; two hundred? Easily that, he thought, and still no variation in the blackness around him! The passageway seemed straight, so he might now be past the rim of the dome above.

Show a picture of what you see. Are the slaves escaping?" "Everything's all right," Sherman sent back. "Something broke loose down below and I stumbled trying to look at it." He closed his eyes, forming a mental picture of the hall, with everything in order, then one of the passage, and reached up and detached the helmet, motioning to Murray for the knife. An instant's sawing and the device short-circuited with a fizzing of blue sparks. "That will give that one a headache for a while," he remarked. "We'll have to hurry, though. When he comes to he'll investigate and then there'll be trouble." "What's that?"

But there are one or two things I should like to get settled in my mind.' He meditated for a long while, pacing up and down the room. Light after light was extinguished in Edna Road, and the people of the suburb slept all around him, but still the gas was alight in Darnell's drawing-room, and he walked softly up and down the floor. He was thinking that about the life of Mary and himself, which had been so quiet, there seemed to be gathering on all sides grotesque and fantastic shapes, omens of confusion and disorder, threats of madness; a strange company from another world. It was as if into the quiet, sleeping streets of some little ancient town among the hills there had come from afar the sound of drum and pipe, snatches of wild song, and there had burst into the market-place the mad company of the players, strangely bedizened, dancing a furious measure to their hurrying music, drawing forth the citizens from their sheltered homes and peaceful lives, and alluring them to mingle in the significant figures of their dance. Yet afar and near (for it was hidden in his heart) he beheld the glimmer of a sure and constant star. Beneath, darkness came on, and mists and shadows closed about the town. The red, flickering flame of torches was kindled in the midst of it. The song grew louder, with more insistent, magical tones, surging and falling in unearthly modulations, the very speech of incantation; and the drum beat madly, and the pipe shrilled to a scream, summoning all to issue forth, to leave their peaceful hearths; for a strange rite was preconized in their midst. The streets that were wont to be so still, so hushed with the cool and tranquil veils of darkness, asleep beneath the patronage of the evening star, now danced with glimmering lanterns, resounded with the cries of those who hurried forth, drawn as by a magistral spell; and the songs swelled and triumphed, the reverberant beating of the drum grew louder, and in the midst of the awakened town the players, fantastically arrayed, performed their interlude under the red blaze of torches.

* * * * * Ambition has many origins. The urge to return home became a drive. The result was Junior Spaceman Howard Reed's complete preoccupation with the mathematics known as Hansen's Folly. As the months went by he exhausted his original knowledge. He took to the library, to the local schools, and to self-study to improve his grasp. He approached the basic mathematics of the space drive from several different angles, even going back to the old original Einstein Equations and learning their fault in the hope that this study might point the way. Then, as the months began to grow into the close of his first year, Reed took advantage of the casually informal operation at the Space Service Base. He began to experiment with hardware on the theory that he would have a better grasp of the problem if he tried some empirical work as well as the academic approach. Junior Spaceman Howard Reed had been on Eden, Tau Ceti, for eighteen terrestrial months before his superior officer, making a tour of inspection, opened the office reserved for him at the Administration Building. On the eighth day of his visit, Commander Breckenridge summoned the junior spaceman to his office.

It would detect those immediately and I would only stand convicted as a liar or worse. Tonight's events might well spell the end, the closing of the door just when I thought I stood on the threshold of a momentous discovery.... * * * * * Cephalon Ariz. Nov. 11th. Went to the P. G. last night. Tried everything for over an hour. Result: zero. No contact with The Brain. * * * * * Cephalon Ariz. Nov.

He remembered now the skulking figure he had seen outside the house. There were more than two, for now he heard other voices, and some one calling Targo's name. He held the girl closer and stood motionless. Like rats in a trap, he thought. He felt the fingers of his right hand holding something heavy. It was a piece of stone--the stone he had looked at through the microscope--the stone with which he had struck Targo. He smiled to himself, and slipped it into his pocket. The girl had slowly pulled him over to the inner wall of the room. The footsteps came closer. They would be here in a moment.

Where will you find a cooler spot?" "Oh, it's cool enough anywhere! Let's go back," she replied, starting to return as she spoke. She saw his excitement, and, being herself a little confused, had no idea of allowing a scene to be precipitated just then. She flitted on before with so light a foot that he did not overtake her until she came to a bank too steep for her to surmount without aid. He sprang up and extended her his hand. Assuming an expression as if she were unconscious who was helping her, she took it, and he drew her up to his side. Then with a sudden, audacious impulse, half hoping she would not be angry, half reckless if she were, he clasped her closely in his arms, and kissed her lips. She gasped, and freed herself. "How dared you do such a thing to me?"

"I will reorganise my campaign. First the skirmishers, then the real attack. I will peg along with verses till somebody begins to take my stories and articles." I felt easier in my mind than I had felt for some time. A story came back by the nine o'clock post from a monthly magazine (to which I had sent it from mere bravado), but the thing did not depress me. I got out my glue-pot and began to fasten the rejection form to the wall, whistling a lively air as I did so. While I was engaged in this occupation there was a testy rap at the door, and Mrs. Driver appeared. She eyed my manoeuvres with the rejection form with a severe frown. After a preliminary sniff she embarked upon a rapid lecture on what she called my irregular and untidy habits.

"What's the meaning of this?" he muttered. "What was the idea?..." He picked it up examined it. Then he gave a grin and a click of the tongue and chuckled, slowly: "Don't move an eyelash, my dear. Let all these people clear off. All this is no business of ours, is it? The troubles of police don't concern us. We are two motorists travelling for our pleasure and collecting old saucepans if we feel so inclined." He called his chauffeur: "Adolphe, take us to the Parc des Landes by a roundabout road."

"Naturally you doubt me, my boy, naturally. All you need do is to wait until Friday the thirteenth and if I'm right you'll know it and if I'm wrong you'll know it. But I assure you that I am not wrong. The war is over and Roosevelt is the only obstacle to certain long-range practical arrangements for organizing the peace. The Old World, mind you, doesn't like outsiders like Wilson and Roosevelt telling them what to do with victory. From now on, America is going to be immobilized. It's all rather simple, really, but I haven't time to explain how simple it is because the explanation is bloody complicated." "You still haven't told me why you have passed on this fantastic story to me," I pointed out. "Oh, that? It's just this, my boy.

"How can that possibly be?" "Mr. West, we are losing some charming music," was her only reply to this, and turning to the telephone, at a touch of her finger she set the air to swaying to the rhythm of an adagio. After that she took good care that the music should leave no opportunity for conversation. She kept her face averted from me, and pretended to be absorbed in the airs, but that it was a mere pretense the crimson tide standing at flood in her cheeks sufficiently betrayed. When at length she suggested that I might have heard all I cared to, for that time, and we rose to leave the room, she came straight up to me and said, without raising her eyes, "Mr. West, you say I have been good to you. I have not been particularly so, but if you think I have, I want you to promise me that you will not try again to make me tell you this thing you have asked to-night, and that you will not try to find it out from any one else,--my father or mother, for instance." To such an appeal there was but one reply possible. "Forgive me for distressing you.

This room is free of ammonia gas." "But how in the star-blazing dickens can they keep it out of here when everything else outside is flooded with it?" asked Tom. Astro spun around and began to examine the walls. "Just as I thought!" he exclaimed. "This room is airtight! Sealed! Oxygen is being pumped in here." "From where?"

My message was in code, but it could be quickly broken if someone wanted to try hard enough. I took it to the message center myself. The psiman was in his transparent cubicle and I locked myself in with him. His eyes were unfocused as he spoke softly into a mike, pulling in a message from somewhere across the galaxy. Outside the rushing transcribers copied, coded and filed messages, but no sound penetrated the insulated wall. I waited until his attention clicked back into the room, and handed him the sheets of paper. "League Central 14--rush," I told him. He raised his eyebrows, but didn't ask any questions. Establishing contact only took a few seconds, as they had an entire battery of psimen for their communications. He read the code words carefully, shaping them with his mouth but not speaking aloud, the power of his thoughts carrying across the light-years of distance.

She said unsteadily, "Holding the wire, I smell that horrible smell." He put his hand on the wire's end. He shared the sensation. "Terror beam across the highway," he said calmly. "Maybe on our account, maybe not. But there was a side road a little way back." He backed the car. He'd smashed the backing lights, too. He guided himself by starlight. Presently he swung the wheel and faced the car about.

I only want to know what it is that he is after. In the quiet hours when we are alone with ourselves and there is nobody to tell us what fine fellows we are, we come sometimes upon a weak moment in which we wonder, not how much money we are earning, nor how famous we are becoming, but what good we are doing. If a barrister ever has such a moment, what is his consolation? It can only be that he is helping Justice to be administered. If he is to be proud of his profession, and in that lonely moment tolerant of himself, he must feel that he is taking a noble part in the vindication of legal right, the punishment of legal wrong. But he must do more than this. Just as the doctor, with increased knowledge and experience, becomes a better fighter against disease, advancing himself, no doubt, but advancing also medical science; just as the schoolmaster, having learnt new and better ways of teaching, can now give a better education to his boys, increasing thereby the sum of knowledge; so the barrister must be able to tell himself that the more expert he becomes as an advocate, the better will he be able to help in the administration of this Justice which is his ideal. Can he tell himself this? I do not see how he can. His increased expertness will be of increased service to himself, of increased service to his clients, but no ideal will be the better served by reason of it.

It makes terrible hams of them all. He spat on the floor. "A living doll," I said. I took a better look at this honey. Face it, he was an oily snake, cleaned up as much as possible, but not enough. No amount of dude ranch duds, gold spurs or Indian jewelry could hide his stiletto mentality. He was just a Tenderloin hoodlum with some of the scum scraped off. Well, I should know. So was I. Simonetti finished licking the seam of his roach. He came forward as he lit it and blew too much smoke in my face.

"Very well," he said, finally, "It was nice knowing you." "Shut the door quietly on the way out," she retorted. He stared at her, his face revealing nothing. He turned, went to the door, and opened it. He looked back. She had not moved. He left without a word. Rhoda Kane lit another cigarette. She stared out across the East River at the expensive view that went with her high-rent apartment. She got up and went to the liquor cabinet and made herself a drink.

I put the gun away and stood up. I had a feeling I would have to put it over now or not at all. "The rest of the squadron is still out there. If we don't show, they'll carry on alone. They're supplied for a century's operation. They don't need us." That was true up to a point. The squadron had everything--except fuel. "You figure you got it made if you can get your hands on that scout-boat," Arena said. "You figure to pick up fuel pretty easy by knocking off say the Lackawanna Pile."

When they sank out of sight it was supposed that the god had accepted the present, and would show his gratitude for it by favoring winds and peaceful weather. "A thousand years afterward history speaks of the occurrence derisively, as an absurd superstition, and at the same time they believed in and lauded a more absurd and cruel religion. They worshipped an imaginary being who had created and possessed absolute control of everything. Some of the human family it had pleased him to make eminently good, while others he made eminently bad. For those whom he had created with evil desires, he prepared a lake of molten fire into which they were to be cast after death to suffer endless torture for doing what they had been expressly created to do. Those who had been created good were to be rewarded for following out their natural inclinations, by occupying a place near the Deity, where they were to spend eternity in singing praises to him. "He could, however, be persuaded by prayer from following his original intentions. Very earnest prayer had caused him to change his mind, and send rain when he had previously concluded to visit the country with drouth. "Two nations at war with each other, and believing in the same Deity, would pray for a pestilence to visit their enemy. Death was universally regarded as a visitation of Providence for some offense committed against him instead of against the laws of nature.