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So far, you haven't triggered any of his alarms." "Barbell to Barhop," Stanton whispered. "What's he doing?" "Still sitting motionless. Thinking, I guess. Or sleeping. It's hard to tell." "Let me know if he starts moving around." "Will do." _Poor, unsuspecting beastie,_ Stanton thought.

"What!" Nine Lensmen yelled the thought practically as one. "Precisely. Ossmen." It was a measure of the Venerian Lensman's concern that he used only two words instead of twenty or thirty. "In the red boat with the yellow sail." "Do you see any detector rigs?" Samms asked. "He wouldn't need any," DalNalten put in. "He will be able to see it.

I found myself on my feet emptying one magazine, then the other, clicking open the breech to re-load, snapping it to again, while cheering and yelling with pure ferocity and joy of slaughter as I did so. With our four guns the two of us made a horrible havoc. Both the guards who held Summerlee were down, and he was staggering about like a drunken man in his amazement, unable to realize that he was a free man. The dense mob of ape-men ran about in bewilderment, marveling whence this storm of death was coming or what it might mean. They waved, gesticulated, screamed, and tripped up over those who had fallen. Then, with a sudden impulse, they all rushed in a howling crowd to the trees for shelter, leaving the ground behind them spotted with their stricken comrades. The prisoners were left for the moment standing alone in the middle of the clearing. Challenger's quick brain had grasped the situation. He seized the bewildered Summerlee by the arm, and they both ran towards us. Two of their guards bounded after them and fell to two bullets from Lord John.

"When that hit, they started going over to Muz-Azin in droves, not only at Zurb but all over the Six Kingdoms. You ought to have seen the house we had for Sunset Sacrifice, this evening! About two hundred, and we used to get two thousand. It used to be all two men could do to lift the offering box at the door, afterward, and all the money we took in tonight I could put in one pocket!" The high priest used language that would have been considered unclerical even among the Hulguns. Verkan Vall nodded. Even without the quickie hypno-mech he had taken for this sector, he knew that the rabbit was domesticated among the Proto-Aryan Hulguns and was their chief meat animal. Hulgun rabbits were even a minor import on the First Level, and could be had at all the better restaurants in cities like Dhergabar. He mentioned that. "That's not the worst of it," Stranor Sleth told him.

After lunch I had an idea. "This afternoon," I said, "we will begin to get some furniture together." "But what about the electric fittings? We must finish off those." "This is an experiment. I want to see if we can buy a chest of drawers. It may just be our day for it." "And we settle the fittings to-morrow. Yes?" "I don't know.

The comm-blackout will itself set off alarms throughout the UIPS. By then, it will be too late for them to interfere." "Sounds reasonable, Mr. President," Brad said. "Once we get the situation under control, including lining up the Commanders of the allied warships, we can punch a hole in the barrier just big enough to get a flash through to you at the conference site, giving you the score." "Excellent, Brad, excellent." Narval beamed at his new Commander of Combat Operations and twisted his mouth into a malevolent grin. "One change," he said, eyes on Brad. "Up to now, the objective of your strategic planning and tactics has been the Depot. Now here this: the Depot is no longer the target.

"Homesick, Juli?" "I was, a little, the first years. But I was happy, believe me." She turned her face to me, shining with tears. "You've got to believe I never regretted it for a minute." "I'm glad," I said dully. _That made it just fine._ "Only that toy--" "Who knows? It might be a clue to something." The toy had reminded me of something, too, and I tried to remember what it was. I'd seen nonhuman toys in the Kharsa, even bought them for Mack's kids.

_Tommy_ (_in doubt_). "F-f-f-feel me!"] * * * * * [Illustration: _Bilious Old Uncle._ "I'm delighted to see this fall; it will give that dreadful boy chilblains, and he'll be laid up out of mischief."] * * * * * SUNDAY SCHOOLING.--_Teacher._ What does one mean by "Heaping coals of fire on someone's head" now, Harry Hawkins? _Harry Hawkins._ Givin' it 'im 'ot, teacher! * * * * * _Auntie._ Do you love the chickens, dear? _Dolly._ Yes, Auntie. But I do wish this big one hadn't such a funny laugh! * * * * * [Illustration: Occupation of "that dreadful boy" at the same period.] * * * * * CHRONOLOGY.--_Old Gentleman_ ("_putting a few questions_").

And I got up and sez, "You may as well leave the presence." And as he turned I sez in conclusion, thinkin' mebby I'd been too hash, "I dare say you have intellect and may be a good man so fur as I know only in this one iniquity and open defiance of our laws, and I advise you to turn right round in your tracks and git ready to set down on high, for you'll find it a much worse thing to prance round through all eternity without settin' than it is to not set here." He jest marched out of the door and didn't say good bye or good day or anything. But I didn't care. I knowed the minute his card wuz handed to me jest how many wives he had and how he wuz doin' all he could to uphold what he called his religion, but I did hope I'd done him some good but felt dubersome about it. But knowin' I'd clung to Duty's apron strings I felt like leavin' the event. And when Miss Meechim come in I wuz settin' calm and serene in a big chair windin' some clouded blue and white yarn, Aronette holdin' the skein. I'd brung along a lot of woollen yarn to knit Josiah some socks on the way, to make me feel more homelike. And the next day we proceeded on to California. CHAPTER V Miss Meechim and Dorothy looked brighter and happier as every revolution of the wheels brought us nearer their old home, and they talked about Robert Strong and other old friends I never see.

We hate to admit that, as a nation, we fought and paid for it afterwards with our family's bread-money just because we were irritated. That's natural; but most great wars are arranged by people who stay at home and sell groceries to the widow and orphan and old maids at one hundred per cent. advance. Arlington Heights and Alexandria were now seized and occupied by the Union troops for the protection of Washington, and mosquito-wires were put up in the Capitol windows to keep the largest of the rebels from coming in and biting Congress. Fort Monroe was garrisoned by a force under General Benjamin F. Butler, and an expedition was sent out against Big Bethel. On the way the Federal troops fired into each other, which pleased the Confederates very much indeed. The Union troops were repulsed with loss, and went back to the fort, where they stated that they were disappointed in the war. West Virginia was strongly for the Union in sentiment, and was set off from the original State of Virginia, and, after some fighting the first year of the war over its territory, came into line with the Northern States. The fighting here was not severe. Generals McClellan and Rosecrans (Union) and Lee (Confederate) were the principal commanders.

"Don't worry about it, Mr. Cornell." "But he said that she was not badly hurt." "She wasn't." "Then why was--is--she here so long?" Miss Farrow laughed cheerfully. "Your Christine is in fine shape. She is still here because she wouldn't leave until you were well out of danger. Now stop fretting. You'll see her soon enough."

But Bindabun, although both stirrupholes were untenanted, and he was compelled to hold on to his steed's mane by his teeth and nails, nevertheless remained triumphantly in the ascendant. On, on he rushed, making the entire circumference of the Park in his wild, delirious canter, and when the galloping horse once more reappeared, and Mr Bhosh was perceived to be still snug on his saddle, the spectators were unable to refrain from heartfelt joy. A second time the incorrigible courser careered round the Park on his thundering great hoofs, and still our heroic friend preserved his equilibrium--but, heigh-ho! I have to sorrowfully relate that, on his third circuit, it was the different pair of shoes--for the headstrong animal, abstaining from motion in a rather too abrupt manner, propelled Mr Bhosh over its head with excessive velocity into the elegant interior of a victoria-carriage. He alighted upon a great dame who had maliciously been enjoying the spectacle of his predicament, but who now was forced to experience the crushing repartee of his _tu quoque_, for such a forcible collision with his person caused her not only two blackened optics but irremediable damage to the leather of her nose. The pristine beauty of her features was irrecoverably dismantled, while Mr Bhosh--thanks to his landing on such soft and yielding material--remained intact and able to return to his domicile in a four-wheeled cab. Beloved reader, however sceptical thou mayest be, thou wilt infallibly admire with me the inscrutable workings of Nemesis, when thou learnest that the aforesaid great lady was no other than the Duchess of Dickinson, and (what is still more wonderful) that it was she who had insidiously presented him with such a fearful gift of the Danaides as an obstreperous and unwieldy steed! Truly, as poet Shakespeare sagaciously observes, there is a divinity that rough-hews our ends, however we may endeavour to preserve their shapeliness! CHAPTER VIII A RIGHTABOUT FACER FOR MR BHOSH Halloo! at a sudden your love warfare is changed!

He felt his pain. And he found himself fighting back tears as he rose. 'Why are you crying?' he said feebly. Then remembering, he signaled with his hands. 'Why?' And Barabbas misunderstood, as the wolves and tribesmen stood in silent truce around them, the guard deserted, and he thought Kalus asked. 'Why did you not let him kill me?' This was too much for him. He clenched his hands around nothing and bowed his head, and felt as if he stood at the center of a vast desert where nothing and no one could touch him and all he could do was fight and not win.

"Well, sir," continued Mr. Dope, "I'll never forget Sir John A. speaking here in the Odd Fellows' Hall, eh?" The Committee men nodded and gurgled in corroboration. "My! but he was PLASTERED. We had him over at Pete Robinson's hotel all afternoon, and I tell you he was plastered for fair. We ALL were. I remember I was so pickled myself I could hardly help Sir John up the steps of the platform. So were you, Mudd, do you remember?" "I certainly was!"

'What is happening?' it read. 'Shall I come over?' I sucked a pencil for a while, and then I wrote the reply. It was not an easy cable to word, but I managed it. 'No,' I wrote, 'stay where you are. Profession overcrowded.' WILTON'S HOLIDAY When Jack Wilton first came to Marois Bay, none of us dreamed that he was a man with a hidden sorrow in his life. There was something about the man which made the idea absurd, or would have made it absurd if he himself had not been the authority for the story. He looked so thoroughly pleased with life and with himself.

asked the neighbor of the widow recently bereaved. "Indeed, he didn't," was the quick reply. "He said my husband was better off." * * * * * "What kind of hen lays the longest?" "What kind?" "A dead hen." * * * * * CITYMAN--Do they keep a servant girl? SUBBUBS--O! certainly not. But as soon as one leaves they engage another.--_Philadelphia Press._ * * * * * If a woman would change her sex, what would her religion be?

"That's enough," Johnny cautioned. "Now let's set these buckets a good long ways from here." He picked up the buckets and carried them to the back porch. He vanished into the kitchen. By this time, the strange antics of the two men had attracted the attention of the clamoring newsmen outside the fence and they jammed against the wire, shouting pleas for an interview or information. The network television camera crews trained their own high-powered lights into the yard to add to the brilliance of the military lights and began recording the scene. Dr. Peterson glared angrily at the mob and turned as Johnny rejoined him. "Culpepper, are you trying to make a fool of me?" he hissed.

He began without preamble: "Your cargo is packed and ready to be moved in an underground vault five hundred yards from here. You will break up into pairs, a pilot and co-pilot for each jet." Sria Krishna and Pandit had already paired themselves together. "You work on your own time, getting the cargo with trundle-sleds, loading it, taking off, delivering it to the Denebian freighter at the spaceport. When you are finished, you collect your pay." "Where do we sleep?" someone asked. * * * * * Orkap smiled. "You didn't come out here to sleep. There is only a limited amount of cargo.

They found a stream. They found other fruits, and Cochrane prepared the same test for them as for the first. One of the samples turned his skin red and angry almost immediately. He discarded it and all the fruits of the kind from which it came. At midday they tasted the first-gathered fruit. The flesh was red and juicy. There was a texture it was satisfying to chew on. The taste was indeterminate save for a very mild flavor of maple and peppermint mixed together. They had no symptoms of distress afterward. Other fruits were less satisfactory.

He heard other sounds. Another creature. The first drew near, not moving in a straight line. The second creature followed it, drawing closer to the first. Lockley's scalp crawled. Creatures from space might have some of the highly-developed senses which men had lost while growing civilized--full keenness of scent, for example. Such a creature might be able to find Lockley and Jill in the darkness after trailing them for miles. And so primitive a talent, in a creature farther advanced than men, was somehow more horrifying than anything else Lockley had thought of about them. He gripped his club desperately, wholly aware that a star creature should be able to paralyze him with the terror beam.... There were whistling, squealing noises. They were very much like the squeaks his captors had directed at each other and at him when he was blindfolded and being led downhill to imprisonment in the compost pit shell.

he ejaculated. "That I should have lived to witness the reality of the fabled Carrion Caves! If these indeed be they, we have found a way beyond the ice-barrier. "The ancient chronicles of the first historians of Barsoom--so ancient that we have for ages considered them mythology--record the passing of the yellow men from the ravages of the green hordes that overran Barsoom as the drying up of the great oceans drove the dominant races from their strongholds. "They tell of the wanderings of the remnants of this once powerful race, harassed at every step, until at last they found a way through the ice-barrier of the north to a fertile valley at the pole. "At the opening to the subterranean passage that led to their haven of refuge a mighty battle was fought in which the yellow men were victorious, and within the caves that gave ingress to their new home they piled the bodies of the dead, both yellow and green, that the stench might warn away their enemies from further pursuit. "And ever since that long-gone day have the dead of this fabled land been carried to the Carrion Caves, that in death and decay they might serve their country and warn away invading enemies. Here, too, is brought, so the fable runs, all the waste stuff of the nation--everything that is subject to rot, and that can add to the foul stench that assails our nostrils. "And death lurks at every step among rotting dead, for here the fierce apts lair, adding to the putrid accumulation with the fragments of their own prey which they cannot devour. It is a horrid avenue to our goal, but it is the only one."

Good-bye er Howdy-do [Illustration] Say good-bye er howdy-do-- What's the odds betwixt the two? Comin'--goin'--every day Best friends first to go away-- Grasp of hands you druther hold Than their weight in solid gold, Slips their grip while greetin' you.-- Say good-bye er howdy-do? Howdy-do, and then, good-bye-- Mixes jest like laugh and cry; Deaths and births, and worst and best Tangled their contrariest; Ev'ry jinglin' weddin'-bell Skeerin' up some funeral knell.-- Here's my song, and there's your sigh: Howdy-do, and then, good-bye! Say good-bye er howdy-do-- Jest the same to me and you; 'Taint worth while to make no fuss, 'Cause the job's put up on us! Some one's runnin' this concern That's got nothin' else to learn-- If he's willin', we'll pull through. Say good-bye or howdy-do! [Illustration: SOCIETY GURGS From SANDY MUSH] The following constitute the items of great interest occurring on the East Side among the colored people of Blue Ruin: Montmorency Tousley of Pizen Ivy avenue cut his foot badly last week while chopping wood for a party on Willow street. He has been warned time and again not to chop wood when the sign was not right, but he would not listen to his friends. He not only cut off enough of his foot to weigh three or four pounds, but completely gutted the coffee sack in which his foot was done up at the time. It will be some time before he can radiate around among the boys on Pizen avenue again.

When a merchant has attached himself to your collar, can you do less than smite him on the other cheek? I merely acted in self-defence. You saw for yourself--' 'You know what I am alluding to. Your behaviour during my speech.' 'An excellent speech,' murmured Psmith courteously. 'Well?' said Mr Bickersdyke. 'It was, perhaps, mistaken zeal on my part, sir, but you must remember that I acted purely from the best motives. It seemed to me--' 'That is enough, Mr Smith. I confess that I am absolutely at a loss to understand you--' 'It is too true, sir,' sighed Psmith.

Its ridiculous body was not over four and a half feet long, though the head was larger than that of a normal man. In the old dark ages on Earth this body would have served for the jester of a lord, the comic butt of a king; in more recent times as the prize of a circus side-show. The huge, weighty head with its ugly brooding mask of a face, the child's body below--this was for the brain of Professor Erich Geinst, the solitary German who had stood preeminent on Earth in astronomy. * * * * * These creatures were the result of Hawk Carse's desperate search. They had composed, with one other, the band of isuanacs that had been rooting in the swamp at the end of the lake when the asteroid had first arrived. The Hawk had remembered them, and had quickly seen that they were the only answer to the problem. And so, with Ban Wilson, he had gone out for them, his mind steeled to the ghastly thought of the great scientists' brains in such bodies. In space-suits they had swept down on them. There had been no time for considerate measures: the four isuanacs had been abruptly knocked out by the impact of the great suits swooping against them, and carried back to the laboratory. Eliot Leithgow had been shocked at the idea of a scientist's brain in the head of the robot-coolie; how much greater, then, was his horror when confronted by the need of using these appalling remnants of men!

SOME unlucky lads in the University bearing a spite to the dean for his severity towards them, went secretly one night and daubed the rails of his staircase with tar. The dean coming down in the dark, dirtied his hands and coat very much with the tar; and, being greatly enraged, he sent for one most suspected to be the author. This the lad utterly denied; but said, "Truly, I did it not; but if you please, I can tell you who had _a hand in it_." Here they thought to have found out the truth, and asked him who. The lad answered, "_Your worship, sir_"; which caused him to be dismissed with great applause for his ingenuity. MCCXCV.--INGRATITUDE. WHEN Lord B---- died, a person met an old man who was one of his most intimate friends. He was pale, confused, awe-stricken. Every one was trying to console him, but in vain. "His loss," he exclaimed, "does not affect me so much as his horrible ingratitude.

I'll have to be going away somewhere and getting into training. I shouldn't be able to come and sit with you. But, if you gents feel like it, I'd be mighty glad to come in till I'm wanted to go into training-camp." "Great," said Billy; "that would suit us all the way up. If you'd do that, Kid, we'd be tickled to death." "And touching salary--" put in Psmith. "Shucks!" said the Kid with emphasis. "Nix on the salary thing. I wouldn't take a dime.

From this moment on he would be frantic for fear of losing it. But there could be no argument outside the laboratory. In the airlessness, anything anybody said by walkie-talkie could be heard by everybody. When Dabney and Simms followed out of the lock, Cochrane was helping Jones set up the device that had been prepared for this test. It was really two devices. One was a very flat cone, much like a coolie-hat and hardly larger, with a sort of power-pack of coils and batteries attached. The other was a space-ship's distress-signal rocket, designed to make a twenty-mile streak of red flame in emptiness. Nobody had yet figured out what good a distress signal would do, between Earth and moon, but the idea was soothing. The rocket was four feet long and six inches in diameter. At its nose there was a second coolie-hat cone, with other coils and batteries.

Dorothy was in bed, awake and sniffling over the cruelty inflicted upon her by an unthoughtful husband, and when he came in she turned her back and wouldn't speak. Sam didn't mind that; in fact, it was a welcome relief. But all night long she sniffled into her pillow, trying to win him over. Sam felt an odd mixture of sympathy and anger. "Oh, shut up," he said finally, and stuck his head under the pillow. In the morning the treatment continued, but it was not totally silent--for Dorothy's air of hostility was now accompanied by low, sometimes indistinct mumblings. Suddenly Sam said, "This coffee's cold." "If you don't like it," Dorothy said, and thrust her face near his, "make some yourself." Sam half-rose and gripped the table. "Look, my lovely one, _I'm_ the gent who brings home that weekly paycheck you can't get along without.

'You can't--' 'Watch and see!' he advised grimly. 'But I will pay you a vast ransom--' 'Devil take your ransom!' he answered roughly, his arms hardening about her supple figure. 'The kingdom of Vendhya could give me nothing I desire half so much as I desire you. I took you at the risk of my neck; if your courtiers want you back, let them come up the Zhaibar and fight for you.' 'But you have no followers now!' she protested. 'You are hunted! How can you preserve your own life, much less mine?'

It was intended to survive the passage through the air and convey its contents intact to the ground. The contents might have been virulent bacteria or toxic gas, according to the intentions of its makers. Among its brothers elsewhere in the sky this morning, there were such noxious loads. This one, however, was carrying the complex mechanism of a hydrogen bomb. Its destination was an American city; its object to replace that city with an expanding cloud of star-hot gas. * * * * * Suddenly the sleek cylinder disappeared in a puff of smoke, which quickly dissipated in the surrounding vacuum. What had been a precisely-built rocket had been reduced, by carefully-placed charges of explosive, to a collection of chunks of metal. Some were plates from the skin and fuel tanks. Others were large lumps from the computer-banks, gyro platform, fuel pumps, and other more massive components. This was not wanton destruction, however.

"Do it again!" "Tell it again?" "Good heavens, no! Forget all about her again." "Nothing," said Eustace Hignett gravely, "could make me do that. Our souls have blended. Our beings have called to one another from their deepest depths, saying ... There are your pyjamas, over in the corner ... saying, 'You are mine!' How could I forget her after that? Well, as I was saying, we parted. Little did I know that she was sailing on this very boat!

We'll be waiting for you." He turned and introduced another Kragan, about his own age, who wore the equipment and insignia of a Company native-major and was freshly painted with the Company emblem. "This is Kormork. He and I have borne young to each other. Kormork, you watch over Paula Quinton." He managed, on the second try, to make it more or less recognizable. "Bring her back safe. Or else find yourself a good place to hide." Kankad introduced the rest of his people, and von Schlichten introduced the Terrans from the telecast-station. Then Kankad looked at the watch he was wearing on his lower left wrist.

Martin could never talk very well, you know, and he just talked less and less as the years went by. It was so slow and so gradual that I never really noticed it." _Poor woman_, the doctor thought. _She's not well, herself. She should have married again, years ago, rather than force herself to carry the whole burden alone. Her role as a doting mother hasn't helped either of the boys to overcome the handicaps that were already present._ "I've honestly tried to do my very best with Martin," Mrs. Stanton went on unhappily. "And so has Bart, I know. When they were younger, Bart used to take him out all the time. They went everywhere together.

"Fine," grunted Connel. He rose, nodded, and left the room. He was not being curt, he was being Connel. The problem had been temporarily solved and there was nothing else he could do. There were other things that demanded his attention. "What about me going along too, Commander?" asked Joan. "Better not, Joan," said Walters. "You're more valuable to us here in the Academy laboratory." "Very well, sir," she said.

This brought Mrs Green suddenly to her knees. "Oh Lord, sir!" she said. "Oh! don't go making me go out of this room, sir, till I know he's caught. He might have got into the house, sir. He might be creeping, creeping, with that knife of his, along the passage this very--" She broke off suddenly and glared over him at the window. Her lower jaw dropped. Bailey turned his head sharply. For the space of half a second things seemed just as they were.

I never was a Z-2 agent. What I told these people was all moonshine." Harcourt nodded. "We know, of course, that you're not allowed to admit you're in Z-2 to anybody but the top guys, but we know that Z-2 does exist. If it didn't how could the President abolish it?" "How's that again?" I asked, sinking into the one easy chair. "Yeah, special confidential Executive Order No. 1734, signed today, abolishing Z-2 and transferring its duties to the War Department. There was something else, too, about giving you the Order of Merit for _quote_ special services which contributed usefully to the conduct of the war.

I haven't! It's funny how one doesn't do the things one thinks one does. I'm the sort of man..." "What is her name?" "Bennett." "Bennett? Wilhelmina Bennett? The daughter of Mr. Rufus Bennett? The red-haired girl I met at lunch one day at your father's house?" "That's it.

He knows who I am?" "Yeah," she said. "He does. I told him, so he'd get off my back." "And you have to go to California?" "Today. I have to go to California today." "Jesus, today? We just got here!" "Look, you've got lots of catching up to do with your Gran and your friends here.

That's _entre nous_. My present plan You know as well as I; Be just as Yankee as you can; If needs be, eat some pie. Cut out the kraut, cut out Rhine wine, Cut out the Schützenfest, The Sängerbund, the Turnverein, The Kommers, and the rest. And if some fool society "Die Wacht am Rhein" should sing, You sing "My Country 'tis of Thee"-- The tune's "God Save the King." To our own kindred in that land There's not much you need tell. Just tell them that you saw me, and That I was looking well. JOHNNY'S LESSONS[9] BY CARROLL WATSON RANKIN 'Tis very, very late; poor mamma and Cousin Kate, Papa and Aunty Jane, all know it to their sorrow. Struggling with the mystery of Latin, Greek, and history, They're learning Johnny's lessons for the morrow. His relatives are bright; still, it takes them half the night With only four of them--ofttimes a friend they borrow-- To grapple with hard sums, and to fill young John with crumbs Of wisdom 'gainst the coming of the morrow. They bitterly complain; still, with only _one_ small brain, The boy needs all his kin can give him, for oh!

The lava, in the last eruption of 1229, had forced a passage through this tunnel. It still lined the walls with a thick and glistening coat. The electric light was here intensified a hundredfold by reflection. The only difficulty in proceeding lay in not sliding too fast down an incline of about forty-five degrees; happily certain asperities and a few blisterings here and there formed steps, and we descended, letting our baggage slip before us from the end of a long rope. But that which formed steps under our feet became stalactites overhead. The lava, which was porous in many places, had formed a surface covered with small rounded blisters; crystals of opaque quartz, set with limpid tears of glass, and hanging like clustered chandeliers from the vaulted roof, seemed as it were to kindle and form a sudden illumination as we passed on our way. It seemed as if the genii of the depths were lighting up their palace to receive their terrestrial guests. "It is magnificent!" I cried spontaneously. "My uncle, what a sight!

"Have we got identification on our fatalities yet?" "Affirmative, Five Six," the radio replied. "The driver of the car struck by the hit-and-run vehicle was a Herman Lawrence Hanover, age forty-two, of 13460 One Hundred Eighty-First Street South, Camden, New Jersey, license number LFM 4151 dash 603 dash 2738. With him was his wife, Clara, age forty-one, same address. Driver of the green lane car was George R. Hamilton, age thirty-five, address Box 493, Route 12, Tucumcari, New Mexico." Ben broke in once more. "You indicate all three are fatalities. Is this correct, Pitt Control? The woman was alive when she was transferred to the ambulance." "Stand by, Five Six, and I'll check."

Nevertheless, he did not yet give in. How could Florence possibly be innocent? No, no, the evidence of his eyes, which had seen, and the evidence of his reason, which had judged, both rebelled against any such contention. He would not admit that Florence could suddenly be different from what she really was to him: a crafty, cunning, cruel, blood-thirsty monster. No, no, the man was lying with infernal cleverness. He put things with a skill amounting to genius, until it was no longer possible to differentiate between the false and the true, or to distinguish the light from the darkness. He was lying! He was lying! And yet how sweet were the lies he told! How beautiful was that imaginary Florence, the Florence compelled by destiny to commit acts which she loathed, but free of all crime, free of remorse, humane and pitiful, with her clear eyes and her snow-white hands!

"They're afraid," the spokesman said. "They want to know what you've done to them, what this new curse is that you bring in your syringes." "It's not a curse, but something has gone wrong. We need to learn what, in order to deal with it." "The people are afraid and angry," the spokesman said. "I don't know how long I can control them." And indeed, the attitude of the crowd around the ship was very strange. They were not just fearful; they were terrified. As the doctors walked back to the ship leading the stricken Bruckian behind them, the people shrank back with dreadful cries, holding up their hands as if to ward off some monstrous evil. Before, in the worst throes of the plague, there had been no sign of this kind of reaction.

SECTION 21 How I tried to teach the Theory of Three Dimensions to my Grandson, and with what success I awoke rejoicing, and began to reflect on the glorious career before me. I would go forth, methought, at once, and evangelize the whole of Flatland. Even to Women and Soldiers should the Gospel of Three Dimensions be proclaimed. I would begin with my Wife. Just as I had decided on the plan of my operations, I heard the sound of many voices in the street commanding silence. Then followed a louder voice. It was a herald's proclamation. Listening attentively, I recognized the words of the Resolution of the Council, enjoining the arrest, imprisonment, or execution of any one who should pervert the minds of people by delusions, and by professing to have received revelations from another World. I reflected. This danger was not to be trifled with.

It's inevitable, under the circumstances. And neither you nor I nor anyone has the right to condemn millions upon millions of others to death through war or disease." "I know," Harry said. "It's hopeless, I guess. All the same, I want out." He wet his lips. "Frazer, you're on the Board here. You've got connections higher up. If I could only get a chance to transfer to Ag Culture, go on one of those farms as a worker--" Frazer shook his head. "Sorry, Harry.

He liked the fellows--they had been among his best friends for five long, happy years. Only now was he truly beginning to realize what a tremendous price he was paying ... and would have to pay all his life. He stepped in and swung ... and was instantly the target for flying fists. He was knocked down several times, but always managed to get up again. He had been well trained in fighting of all types--and now he was putting all his knowledge and skill into use--but only for defense and the pretense of attack. Even so he was getting badly mauled, for they were as well trained--and were five to his one. His clothes were dirty and ripped from the knock-downs, and a button was torn off his coat. His knuckles were skinned, and he could feel that his face was becoming a mass of bruises. A hard left connected with his mouth, and he spat out a broken tooth. "'Ten-shun!"

"I'll make you all the lights you want." "I simply mean there must be something that will stop it." "Certainly. Transform it back to electric field before it gets a chance to close in, then repeat the process--the way light does." "That wouldn't make such a good magnetic shield. Every time that field started pulsing out through the walls of the ship it would generate heat. We want a permanent field that will stay on the job out there. I wonder if you couldn't make a conductor device that would open that field out--some special type of oscillating field that would keep it open." "H-m-m-m--that's an angle I might try. Any suggestions?"

A thought occurred. The police would be investigating the disposition of Hawkes' property; they would want to know the relationship between Hawkes and Alan, and perhaps there would be questions asked about the robbery. Alan decided to forestall that. He reached for the phone. He would call Security, tell them he had been living with Hawkes and had heard of the gambler's sudden violent death, and in all innocence ask for details. He would---- The door-announcer chimed. Alan whirled and put down the receiver. Reaching out, he flicked on the doorscreen and was shown a view of a distinguished-looking middle-aged man in the silver-gray uniform of the police. _So soon?_ Alan thought. _I didn't even get a chance to call----_ "Who is it?"

Against the wall lay the lead-lined suits used by the miners. Further to one side, Tom saw a huge open pipe. He nudged Astro. "Look, over there," Tom whispered. "That's where the oxygen is coming from!" Below them, Miles suddenly walked to the pipe and pulled a large lever on its side. The roaring sound stopped immediately and the boys felt the air pressure in the room lessen slightly. "That blasted noise is driving me crazy," explained Miles, walking back to the table, his voice echoing in the rock-walled cavern. Brett, leaning over the table, was stabbing around futilely in one of the sets of tubes in a complicated testing device. "Wish we had that squirt Manning here," he mumbled.

"What _is_ the good of tantalizing people?" "Besides," she continued, "the woman might reasonably feel slightly humiliated to find herself forgotten in that bare-faced manner." "The humiliation would be surely all the man's. Have you heard from the Wohenhoffens lately?" "The--what? The--who?" She raised her eyebrows. "The Wohenhoffens," he repeated. "What are the Wohenhoffens? Are they persons?

"Il ne vient toujours pas," she sighed (he still does not come). About her in the tall trees of the allee the percherons twittered while the soft roucoulement of the bees murmured drowsily in the tall calice of the chou-fleur. "Il n'est pas venu," she said (perfect tense, third singular, he is not, or has not, come). Can we blame him if he didn't? No doubt he was still studying his active verb before tackling Mere Pitou. But there! Let it pass. In any case it is not only the magazines, but the novels themselves, that are being transformed by the war. Witness this: BY ONE OF OUR MOST POPULAR NOVELISTS "It was in the summer house, at the foot of the old garden, that the awaited declaration came. Edwin kneeled at Angelina's feet.

He knew that those copper bodies were not encased in metal, for the flesh of the one he had fought with had sunk under his blows. Their skin was coated with a preparation, heat resistant without a doubt, and the golden one must have been treated in somewhat the same way. His thoughts flashed quickly over this. It was the face of that seated figure that riveted his attention, a white face, milk-white, so white it seemed almost chalky! * * * * * For one breathless second Rawson was filled with a wordless hope. Those white ones of his dream had looked upon him with kindly eyes. They were human--men of another race, but men. Then beneath the chalky whiteness of the face he found the hideous features of the red Mole-men, and knew that the white color of the face was as false as that of the golden body. But he was their leader. He was someone of importance.

Th' pilgrim father who bossed th' job was a fine ol' puritan be th' name iv Doherty, who come over in th' Mayflower about th' time iv th' potato rot in Wexford, an' he made me think they was a hole in th' breakwather iv th' haven iv refuge an' some iv th' wash iv th' seas iv opprission had got through. He was a stern an' rockbound la-ad himsilf, but I was a good hand at loose stones an' wan day--but I'll tell ye about that another time. "Annyhow, I was rayceived with open arms that sometimes ended in a clinch. I was afraid I wasn't goin' to assimilate with th' airlyer pilgrim fathers an' th' instichoochions iv th' counthry, but I soon found that a long swing iv th' pick made me as good as another man an' it didn't require a gr-reat intellect, or sometimes anny at all, to vote th' dimmycrat ticket, an' befure I was here a month, I felt enough like a native born American to burn a witch. Wanst in a while a mob iv intilligint collajeens, whose grandfathers had bate me to th' dock, wud take a shy at me Pathrick's Day procission or burn down wan iv me churches, but they got tired iv that befure long; 'twas too much like wurruk. "But as I tell ye, Hinnissy, 'tis diff'rent now. I don't know why 'tis diff'rent but 'tis diff'rent. 'Tis time we put our back again' th' open dure an' keep out th' savage horde. If that cousin iv ye'ers expects to cross, he'd betther tear f'r th' ship. In a few minyits th' gates 'll be down an' whin th' oppressed wurruld comes hikin' acrost to th' haven iv refuge, they'll do well to put a couplin' pin undher their hats, f'r th' Goddess iv Liberty 'll meet thim at th' dock with an axe in her hand.

You're gonna be a *lot* of fun today, I can tell." They left the diner in a sleepdep haze and squinted into the sunrise and grinned at each other and burped up eggs and sausages and bacon and coffee and headed toward Kurt's Buick. "Hang on," Alan said. "Let's have a walk, okay?" The city smelled like morning, dew and grass and car-exhaust and baking bread and a whiff of the distant Cadbury's factory oozing chocolate miasma over the hills and the streetcar tracks. Around them, millions were stirring in their beds, clattering in their kitchens, passing water, and taking on vitamins. It invigorated him, made him feel part of something huge and all-encompassing, like being in his father the mountain. "Up there," Kurt said, pointing to a little playground atop the hill that rose sharply up Dupont toward Christie, where a herd of plastic rocking horses swayed creakily in the breeze. "Up there," Alan agreed, and they set off, kicking droplets of dew off the grass beside the sidewalk. The sunrise was a thousand times more striking from atop the climber, filtered through the new shoots on the tree branches.

It was the weakest thing he had done in his life. Nevertheless he accepted the position offered by Mr. Shayne. That same evening he rented a small apartment, and, lying on his bed, a clean bed, he wondered if he really cared about anything or about anyone. In the morning he took a shower and stood for a long time in front of the mirror on the bathroom door, staring at his nude body as if it were a rune he might learn to read, an enigma he might solve by concentration. Then he went to work. His affiliation with the Down Town Savings Bank lasted into the spring and was terminated by one of the oddest incidents of his career. Until the day of that incident his incumbency was in no way unusual. He was one of the bank's young men, receiving fifty dollars weekly to learn the banking business. They moved him from department to department, giving him mentally menial tasks which afforded him in each case a glimpse of a new facet of financial technique.

"Crazy or not it will be did; summer squash would look well and be equinomical, I could probable train 'em so you'd seem to be holdin' the squashes in your arms." "Give up the hull skeem, Josiah Allen; don't try to combine love and economy so clost." But he vowed he wouldn't give it up, and I spoze I may see trouble weanin' him from the idee. That night whilst I wuz restin' a little in my room after supper, Josiah havin' stayed down in the parlor a spell talkin' to granpa Huff and Billy, Blandina come into my room. She wuz all fagged out, but under the fag you could see that expression of perennial good nature and love to man. She said she'd been readin' all day to grandpa Huff and as near as I could make out he'd kep' her right down to them blood-curdlin' chapters where they fried the martyrs in ile and briled 'em on grid-irons. She looked dretful tired and I told her I wouldn't gin in and read such stuff all day. But she said Mr. Huff wuz anxious to hear it and she wuz perfectly willin' and more than willin' to please him, for sez she smilin' in a queer sort of a way and sort o' bridlin' a little, "I'm anxious to do anything for him I can because I love him devotedly." I wuz fairly stunted.

The gap in the reef was closed by the battling giants. They slavered. They gripped. They tore. They rent each other.... Terry saw a tentacle as thick as a barrel which had been haggled half through and dangled futilely as its stump still tried to fight. And more giants came. Terry shouted, and the _Esperance_ turned. He could see large patches of phosphorescence under the surface. And suddenly, he noticed that a few of them had swerved toward the _Esperance_. As they approached the sound-horn stung them.

Her memorial marker stood next to Maman's stone. A carved angel spread his wings over Helene's name and dates, "HELENE DE MARION VAILLANCOURT, Beloved Daughter and Sister. 1794-1812. She sings before the throne of God." Below that were inscribed the name and dates of her husband, Henri Vaillancourt, whose body also had never been found. Raoul carried inside himself his own inscription for Helene: _Murdered by Indians, August 15, 1812. She will be avenged._ And one act of vengeance would take place today, when the half-Sauk mongrel, whose presence was an affront to Helene, was thrown off this land. It gave Raoul an uneasy feeling to be working with Auguste, lifting Pierre's coffin off the wagon. It might be bad luck. But the time to strike had not yet come, so he had to walk beside Auguste carrying the coffin to the newly dug grave.

Bleak and cold, sharply black and white, it hung in a gigantic crescent in advance of our bow. The Sun, whose attraction I had ceased using some hours back, was visible sharply to one side now. Its great gas streams of giant flame licked up into the blackness of the firmament. The sunlight caught the lunar mountains with a white glare, and left the valleys black with shadow; moonlight and the mingled sunlight painted our bow. Behind our stem the great disk of Earth hung somber and glowing. And everywhere else was the great black enclosing firmament. The stars blazed with a new white glory never seen through the haze of an atmosphere. Like a little world in the vastness of this awesome void, we hung poised. Grantline came into the turret. "I've got everything ready, Gregg.

A Household Book Once on a time I discovered Samuel Butler; not the other two, but the one who wrote The Way of All Flesh, the second-best novel in the English language. I say the second-best, so that, if you remind me of Tom Jones or The Mayor of Casterbridge or any other that you fancy, I can say that, of course, that one is the best. Well, I discovered him, just as Voltaire discovered Habakkuk, or your little boy discovered Shakespeare the other day, and I committed my discovery to the world in two glowing articles. Not unnaturally the world remained unmoved. It knew all about Samuel Butler. Last week I discovered a Frenchman, Claude Tillier, who wrote in the early part of last century a book called Mon Oncle Benjamin, which may be freely translated My Uncle Benjamin. (I read it in the translation.) Eager as I am to be lyrical about it, I shall refrain. I think that I am probably safer with Tillier than with Butler, but I dare not risk it. The thought of your scorn at my previous ignorance of the world-famous Tillier, your amused contempt because I have only just succeeded in borrowing the classic upon which you were brought up, this is too much for me.

Not only do we jostle against the street crowd unknowing and unknown, but we go out and come in, we lie down and rise up, with strangers. Jupiter and Neptune sweep the heavens not more unfamiliar to us than the worlds that circle our own hearthstone. Day after day, and year after year a person moves by your side; he sits at the same table; he reads the same books; he kneels in the same church. You know every hair of his head, every trick of his lips, every tone of his voice; you can tell him far off by his gait. Without seeing him, you recognize his step, his knock, his laugh. "Know him? Yes, I have known him these twenty years." No, you don't know him. You know his gait, and hair, and voice. You know what preacher he hears, what ticket he voted, and what were his last year's expenses; but you don't know him.

They'se niver been a matther come up in my time that th' American people was so sure about as they ar-re about th' Dhryfliss case. Th' Frinch ar-re not so sure, but they'se not a polisman in this counthry that can't tell ye jus' where Dhry-russ was whin th' remains iv th' poor girl was found. That's because th' thrile was secret. If 'twas an open thrile, an' ye heerd th' tistimony, an' knew th' language, an' saw th' safe afther 'twas blown open, ye'd be puzzled, an' not care a rush whether Dhry-fuss was naked in a cage or takin' tay with his uncle at th' Benny Brith Club. "I haven't made up me mind whether th' Cap done th' shootin' or not. He was certainly in th' neighborhood whin th' fire started, an' th' polis dug up quite a lot iv lead pipe in his back yard. But it's wan thing to sus-pect a man iv doin' a job an' another thing to prove that he didn't. Me frind Zola thinks he's innocint, an' he raised th' divvle at th' thrile. Whin th' judge come up on th' bench an' opined th' coort, Zola was settin' down below with th' lawyers. 'Let us pro-ceed,' says th' impartial an' fair-minded judge, 'to th' thrile iv th' haynious monsther Cap Dhry-fuss,' he says.

All I know is that he did it. I can't tell you how I know it, but I do. Those lights were a human call for help. No living man but Haldgren could have flashed them. He's alive--or he was then; that's all I know." Spud crossed the control room as he had done a score of times to look through a glass port at the world outside. Chet, too, turned to the lookout by which he stood and stared through it. The men had found themselves surprisingly light within the ship. They had been compelled to guard against sudden motion; a step, instead of carrying them one stride, might hurl them the length of the room. This lowered gravitational pull helped to explain to the pilot that outer world.

"Oh, no, I sha'n't," said I gloomily. "I've got to be content with the honor of getting in; the editor wrote to say so, in so many words," I added. But I gave the gentleman his distinguished name. "You don't mean to say you've written for payment already?" No; it was the last thing I had intended to admit. But I had done it. The murder was out; there was no sense in further concealment. I had written for my money because I really needed it; if he must know, I was cursedly hard up. Raffles nodded as though he knew already. I warmed to my woes.

The petty officer in charge of the work pushed in the switch, and the pump started, sucking dry with a harsh racket. The natives twittered in surprise. Then the water came, and the pump settled down to a steady _thugg-thugg, thugg-thugg_. The Svants seemed to like the new sound; they grimaced in pleasure and moved closer; within forty or fifty feet, they all squatted on the ground and sat entranced. Others came in from the fields, drawn by the sound. They, too, came up and squatted, until there was a semicircle of them. The tank took a long time to fill; until it did, they all sat immobile and fascinated. Even after it stopped, many remained, hoping that it would start again. Paul Meillard began wondering, a trifle uneasily, if that would happen every time the pump went on. "They get a positive pleasure from it.

I dug my spoon into it with an assumption of gaiety which I was far from feeling. The first mouthful almost nauseated me. It was like cold hair-oil. But I stuck to it. I could not break down now. I could not bear to forfeit the newly-won esteem of my comrades. They were gulping their sundaes down with the speed and enjoyment of old hands. I set my teeth, and persevered, and by degrees a strange exhilaration began to steal over me. I felt that I had burnt my boats and bridges; that I had crossed the Rubicon. I was reckless.

"This spaceship of yours--" she began. "Wait. Wait a minute. If you can create anything, how's about re-creating Chandler?" "Chand-ler? What is Chand-ler?" "The boy back there. The one your braves killed." Robin said: "If you wish," and Glaudot held his breath. The power over life and death, he thought.... He looked down and saw Chandler's spacesuited body there, the two arrows protruding from his chest.

"What happened to your own?" "Solar Guard picked them up," answered Roger simply. "For what?" asked Shinny. "Taking ice cream away from the skipper's pet monkey!" snapped Roger. Shinny threw back his head and laughed. "That's good--very good!" He wiped his mouth after spitting at a near-by cuspidor. He reached over and patted Roger on the arm.

I misinterpreted this, fancied it was a reflection of my flickering lamp, and turned again to the stores in the shed. I went on rummaging among them, as well as a one-armed man could, finding this convenient thing and that, and putting them aside for to-morrow's launch. My movements were slow, and the time passed quickly. Insensibly the daylight crept upon me. The chanting died down, giving place to a clamour; then it began again, and suddenly broke into a tumult. I heard cries of, "More! more!" a sound like quarrelling, and a sudden wild shriek. The quality of the sounds changed so greatly that it arrested my attention. I went out into the yard and listened.

Mr. Cattell had suggestions of a technical kind to offer, with which I need not trouble you. He had also views as to the general desirability of the pattern which were vaguely adverse. "You say you don't wish this to be supplied excepting to personal friends equipped with a authorization from yourself, sir. It shall be done. I quite understand your wish to keep it exclusive: lends a catchit, does it not, to the suite? What's every man's, it's been said, is no man's." "Do you think it would be popular if it were generally obtainable?" asked Mr. Denton.

He'd heard about that, on the voyage from Audhumla. Every person on Marduk would be retired on an adequate pension after thirty years regular employment or at the age of sixty. When he had wanted to know where the money would come from, he had been told that there would be a sales tax, and that the pensions must all be spent within thirty days, which would stimulate business, and the increased business would provide tax money to pay the pensions. "We have a joke about three Gilgameshers space-wrecked on an uninhabited planet," he said. "Ten years later, when they were rescued, all three were immensely wealthy, from trading hats with each other. That's about the way this thing will work." One of the lady social workers bristled; it wasn't right to make derogatory jokes about racial groups. One of the professors harrumphed; wasn't a parallel at all, the Self-Sustaining Rotary Pension Plan was perfectly feasible. With a shock, Trask recalled that he was a professor of economics. Alvyn Karffard wouldn't need any twenty ships to loot Marduk.

He was an out-and-out brick while he was alive; and he's turned to a brick now he's dead." "Give it to me, Dick," said the boy; "I should like to have that brick, just for the fun of the thing." "I'll see you turned into a pantile first. I sha'n't part with this here, it looks so blessed sensible; it's a gaining on me every minute as a most remarkable likeness, d----d if it ain't." By this time the bewilderment of the mob had subsided; now that there was no dead butcher to look upon, they fancied themselves most grievously injured; and, somehow or other, Dick, notwithstanding all his exertions in their service, was looked upon in the light of a showman, who had promised some startling exhibition and then had disappointed his auditors. The first intimation he had of popular vengeance was a stone thrown at him, but Dick's eye happened to be upon the fellow who threw it, and collaring him in a moment, he dealt him a cuff on the side of the head, which confused his faculties for a week. "Hark ye," he then cried, with a loud voice, "don't interfere with me; you know it won't go down. There's something wrong here; and, as one of yourselves, I'm as much interested in finding out what it is as any of you can possibly be. There seems to be some truth in this vampyre business; our old friend, the butcher, you see, is not in his grave; where is he then?" The mob looked at each other, and none attempted to answer the question.

CHAPTER FOUR THE CLOUDED TURQUOISE It was about nine o'clock in the morning when the Prefect of Police entered the study in which the incomprehensible tragedy of that double murder had been enacted. He did not even bow to Don Luis; and the magistrates who accompanied him might have thought that Don Luis was merely an assistant of Sergeant Mazeroux, if the chief detective had not made it his business to tell them, in a few words, the part played by the stranger. M. Desmalions briefly examined the two corpses and received a rapid explanation from Mazeroux. Then, returning to the hall, he went up to a drawing-room on the first floor, where Mme. Fauville, who had been informed of his visit, joined him almost at once. Perenna, who had not stirred from the passage, slipped into the hall himself. The servants of the house, who by this time had heard of the murder, were crossing it in every direction. He went down the few stairs leading to a ground-floor landing, on which the front door opened. There were two men there, of whom one said: "You can't pass." "But--" "You can't pass: those are our orders."

"You should have a night nurse too, but I've been staying on in her place." Cherubin. An angel? No--cherubim was spelt with an "M." And she wasn't _that_ young or quite as rosy-cheeked as cherubs are supposed to be. What made it really tragic was my inability to reach out and touch her or ask her a single question, because right at that moment another wave of dizziness swept over me and I blacked out again. 11 Right at this point there has to be a shift in the way I've been recording events as they happened, because what happened next took place elsewhere, while I was flat on my back in the hospital. By "what happened next" I mean ... to me and Joan personally and to Commander Littlefield and the Martian Colonization Board and everything I'd come to Mars to take cognizance of, and do my best to change for the better. I know, I know. Ten million separate events are taking place all the time on Earth and on Mars and by no stretch of the imagination could they be thought of as an immediate part of this record.

For himself, Hugo did not care. But it was easy to see why no one had been working on the place when Hugo arrived, why they were eager to hire a transient stranger. He learned part of what he had already guessed from a clerk in the general store. One of the cows was ailing. Mr. Cane could not drive to town (Mrs. Cane, it seemed, never left the house and its environs) and they had sent Hugo. "You working for the Canes?" the clerk had asked. "Yes."

But how much? His lower-level colorimeter had long since reached maximum red, and his high-level dosimeter could be read only on a measuring device. Meanwhile, he had other worries. Radiation had no immediate effect. At worst, it would be a few hours before he felt any symptoms. As he sized up his position and that of the asteroid, he let out a yell of triumph. His gamble would succeed! He had estimated that going into the direct gravity pull of the sun at the proper moment and lighting off their last tubes would put them into a landing position. The asteroid was moving rapidly, into a new orbit that would intersect the course he and Santos were on. He had planned on the asteroid's change of orbit.

snapped Sanford. Joe clambered awkwardly to the seat the senior crew member pointed out. He made his way to it by handholds on the walls. He fumbled into the chair and threw over the curved thigh grips that would hold him in place. Suddenly he was oriented. He had seen this room before--before the Platform was launched. True, the man at the radar screens was upside-down with reference to himself, and Sanford had hooked a knee negligently around the arm of a firmly anchored chair with his body at right angles to Joe's own, but at least Joe knew where he was and what he was to do. "Go ahead and report," said Sanford sardonically. "You might tell them that you heroically destroyed the rockets that attacked us, and that your crew behaved splendidly, and that you have landed in the Space Platform and the situation is well in hand. It isn't, but it will make nice headlines."

Young Gillis wanted to know if Rand was a collector. "In a small way. General-pistol collector," Rand told him. "Have you many Colts, now?" There was a whole table devoted to Colts. No spurious Whitneyville Walkers; after all, a dealer can sell just so many of such top-drawer rarities before the finger of suspicion begins leveling itself in his direction, and Arnold Rivers had long ago passed that point. There were several of the commoner percussion models, however, with lovely, perfect bluing that was considerably darker than that applied at the Colt factory during the 'fifties and 'sixties of the last century. The silver plating on backstraps and trigger-guards was perfect, too, but the naval-battle and stagecoach-holdup engravings on the cylinders were far from clear--in one case, completely obliterated. The cylinder of one 1851 Navy bore serial numbers that looked as though they had been altered to conform to the numbers on other parts of the weapon. Many of the Colts, however, were entirely correct, and all were in reasonably good condition.

Sue told him she had been watching him for weeks now. And she had gone to Manschoff and suggested it, and she was very glad. And they had to meet here, out in the open, so as not to complicate the situation or disturb any of the other patients. So Harry naturally asked her about the other patients, and the whole general setup, and she said Dr. Manschoff would answer all those questions in due time. But right now, with only an hour or so to spare, was he going to spend it all asking for information? Matters were accordingly adjusted to their mutual satisfaction, and it was on that basis that they continued their almost daily meetings for some time. The next few months were perhaps the happiest Harry had ever known. The whole interval took on a dreamlike quality--idealized, romanticized, yet basically sensual. There is probably such a dream buried deep within the psyche of every man, Harry reflected, but to few is it ever given to realize its reality.

I mean, I repudiate the entire concern. It's the work of a raving lunatic--a place that no English gentleman, sir, with any self-respect or--ah!--consideration for his reputation and position in the county, could consent to occupy for a single hour!" "Oh," said Horace, feeling deathly sick, "in that case it is useless, of course, to suggest any modifications." "Absolutely!" said Mr. Wackerbath. "Very well, then; there's no more to be said," replied Horace. "You will have no difficulty in finding an architect who will be more successful in realising your intentions. Mr. Beevor, the gentleman you met just now," he added, with a touch of bitterness, "would probably be just your man.

and Mrs. This included the preacher and his wife. A friend of mine who is one of the gentry of this century got on the trail of his ancestry last spring, and traced them back to where they were not allowed to be called Mr. and Mrs., and, fearing he would fetch up in Scotland Yard if he kept on, he slowly unrolled the bottoms of his trousers, got a job on the railroad, and since then his friends are gradually returning to him. He is well pleased now, and looks humbly gratified even if you call him a gent. The Scriptures were literally interpreted, and the Old Testament was read every morning, even if the ladies fainted. The custom yet noticed sometimes in country churches and festive gatherings of placing the males and females on opposite sides of the room was originated not so much as a punishment to both, as to give the men an opportunity to act together when the red brother felt ill at ease. I am glad the red brother does not molest us nowadays, and make us sit apart that way. Keep away, red brother; remain on your reservation, please, so that the pale-face may sit by the loved one and hold her little soft hand during the sermon. Church services meant business in those days.

Whatever disappointment Ventimore felt, it may be said to his credit that he allowed no sign of it to appear. "Of course I'll go, with pleasure," he said, "if I can be of any use." "I knew I shouldn't come to you in vain," said the Professor. "I remembered your wonderful good nature, sir, in accompanying my wife and daughter on all sorts of expeditions in the blazing hot weather we had at St. Luc--when you might have remained quietly at the hotel with me. Not that I should trouble you now, only I have to lunch at the Oriental Club, and I've an appointment afterwards to examine and report on a recently-discovered inscribed cylinder for the Museum, which will fully occupy the rest of the afternoon, so that it's physically impossible for me to go to Hammond's myself, and I strongly object to employing a broker when I can avoid it. Where did I put that catalogue?... Ah, here it is. This was sent to me by the executors of my old friend, General Collingham, who died the other day. I met him at Nakada when I was out excavating some years ago.

"So be it," I said, too hot to care what happened. "I have no levee dress with me. I lost my luggage check some time ago, but if you will wait outside I will be with you in a moment." Hastily tidying myself up, and giving my hair a comb, as though just off to see Mr. Secretary for the Navy, or on the way to get a senator to push a new patent medicine for me, I rejoined my guide outside, and together we crossed the wide courtyard, entered the great log-built portals of Ar-hap's house, and immediately afterwards found ourselves in a vast hall dimly lit by rays coming in through square spaces under the eaves, and crowded on both sides with guards, courtiers, and supplicants. The heat was tremendous, the odour of Thither men and the ill-dressed hides they wore almost overpowering. Yet little I recked for either, for there at the top of the room, seated on a dais made of rough-hewn wood inlet with gold and covered with splendid furs, was Ar-hap himself. A fine fellow, swarthy, huge, and hairy, at any other time or place I could have given him due admiration as an admirable example of the savage on the borderland of grace and culture, but now I only glanced at him, and then to where at his side a girl was crouching, a gem of human loveliness against that dusky setting. It was Heru, my ravished princess, and, still clad in her diaphanous Hither robes, her face white with anxiety, her eyes bright as stars, the embodiment of helpless, flowery beauty, my heart turned over at sight of her. Poor girl!

In the meantime you'd better get them back to their homes before they're missed." "I can't," I confessed. "The controller isn't big enough to handle eight of you--not as individuals." Donald chuckled grimly. "That's your worry. Remember, unless you find out which of them will be missed and act accordingly, you're going to be very much in the public eye." * * * * * I didn't feel too happy as I cut off, but Donald had given me an idea. One by one I checked the new proxies. Of the six, two were living together. They had the casual emotional involvement with males so characteristic of this species, but they could remain here for several days without causing comment.

Gee, and I'm all wet. I'm catching cold. It's all through your blamed foolishness, bringing us out here. Why couldn't we stay in the house?' 'We could not have kept them out of the house for five minutes,' I explained. 'We can hold this place.' 'Who wants to hold it? I don't. What does it matter if they do get me? _I_ don't care.

Tugs, utilities, and emergency craft took their stations. The UIPS Eagle nosed forward and matched its headings and moments to the Disk. Mass attractors took over, fine-tuned the alignment and drift, and gently drew the Eagle a third its length into the dock. Mooring beams grasped the vessel and it was transfixed. A red and white candy-striped umbilical snaked out from the dock and sealed against the Eagle's main portal. Eagle, the host, had docked. Turning to the guests, the "Ready" signals flashed again. Taking the lead, Planet Pluto's Revenge matched up and was drawn into its docking space. The others followed. The disk was transformed into a multi-spoke wheel spinning slowly against the backdrop of sun, planets, satellites, space colonies and stars.

The woman! Strike her down; it is her plot. Kill her! Kill her!" Calling to Dejah Thoris to get behind me I worked my way toward the little doorway back of the throne, but the officers realized my intentions, and three of them sprang in behind me and blocked my chances for gaining a position where I could have defended Dejah Thoris against an army of swordsmen. The Tharks were having their hands full in the center of the room, and I began to realize that nothing short of a miracle could save Dejah Thoris and myself, when I saw Tars Tarkas surging through the crowd of pygmies that swarmed about him. With one swing of his mighty longsword he laid a dozen corpses at his feet, and so he hewed a pathway before him until in another moment he stood upon the platform beside me, dealing death and destruction right and left. The bravery of the Zodangans was awe-inspiring, not one attempted to escape, and when the fighting ceased it was because only Tharks remained alive in the great hall, other than Dejah Thoris and myself. Sab Than lay dead beside his father, and the corpses of the flower of Zodangan nobility and chivalry covered the floor of the bloody shambles. My first thought when the battle was over was for Kantos Kan, and leaving Dejah Thoris in charge of Tars Tarkas I took a dozen warriors and hastened to the dungeons beneath the palace.

At first he thought she was playing possum, so he turned her over, his stiletto ready to shut off any outcry. A glance at her hanging jaw and ashen color convinced him that her possum-playing days were over. At first, he thought she'd tripped and broken her neck, but an examination disproved this. The only thing he could think of was that her old heart had given away under the sudden fright and the stress of running. Something brushed his ankles. So startled was he, so convinced that a spear had just missed him, he leaped into the air and whirled around. Then he saw that it was only the cat that had rubbed itself against him when he'd first come out of the tunnel. It was a large female cat with a beautiful long black silky coat and with golden eyes. It exactly resembled the Earth cat and was probably descended from the same ancestors as its terrestrial counterpart. Wherever Homo sapiens of the unthinkably long ago had penetrated he seemed to have taken his canine and feline pets.

His father was Osborne Drake, a chemist at Dow Corning, who was sentenced to the electric chair in 1967 for unauthorized bacterial experiments which resulted in an accidental epidemic and eight deaths. Dow Corning was the first major manufactury of silicones in America, though not connected in any way with Osborne Drake's criminal experiments. It links together, does it not?" "It is not a disease, it is strength!" Alcala insisted doggedly. * * * * * The small investigator looked up from his notebook and his smile was an unnatural thing, a baring of teeth. "Half the world died of this strength, Senor. If you will not think of the men and women, think of the children. Millions of children died!" The waiter brought the bill, dropping it on the table between them.

Panting, Harry reached the top, checked his location against a wall map, and started down the long ramp which led toward the building he had tried to call. Another shot broke out behind him. The wall alongside powdered away, leaving a gaping hole. On impulse, he leaped into the hole, running through to the rear of the building as the weakened wall swayed and crumbled into a heap of rubble just as Webber reached the place Harry had entered. Harry breathed a sigh of relief and raced up the stairs of the building to reach a ramp on another level. He turned his eyes toward the tall building at the end of the concourse. There he could hide and relax and try, somehow, to make a contact. Someone fell into step beside him and took his arm gently but firmly. Harry jerked away, turning terrified eyes to the one who had joined him. "Quiet," said the man, steering him over toward the edge of the concourse.

If this was a sample of life in the office, she thought, the paper had been well named. She felt soothed and almost happy. Interesting and exciting things, New York things, began to happen at once. To her, meditating, there entered Pugsy Maloney, the guardian of the gate of this shrine of Peace, a nonchalant youth of about fifteen, with a freckled, mask-like face, the expression of which never varied, bearing in his arms a cat. The cat was struggling violently, but he appeared quite unconscious of it. Its existence did not seem to occur to him. "Say!" said Pugsy. Betty was fond of cats. "Oh, don't hurt her!"

* * * * * Hortense now saw a prosperous-looking shop which occupied almost the whole of the ground-floor and whose windows, blazing with electric light, displayed a huddled array of old furniture and antiquities. She stood there for a few seconds, gazing at it absently. A sign-board bore the words "The Mercury," together with the name of the owner of the shop, "Pancaldi." Higher up, on a projecting cornice which ran on a level with the first floor, a small niche sheltered a terra-cotta Mercury poised on one foot, with wings to his sandals and the caduceus in his hand, who, as Hortense noted, was leaning a little too far forward in the ardour of his flight and ought logically to have lost his balance and taken a header into the street. "Now!" she said, under her breath. She turned the handle of the door and walked in. Despite the ringing of the bells actuated by the opening door, no one came to meet her. The shop seemed to be empty. However, at the extreme end there was a room at the back of the shop and after that another, both crammed with furniture and knick-knacks, many of which looked very valuable.

The other plainclothesman came up to Sergeant Ketzel and Bending as they entered. "Pretty easy to see what happened," he said. "Come on over and take a look." He led them over to the wall where the Converter had been hidden. "See," he said, "here's your main power line coming in here. It's been burned off. They shut off the power to cut off the burglar alarm to that safe over there." Ketzel shook his head slowly, but said nothing for the moment. He looked at Bending. "Has the safe been robbed?"

I may go to Washington this fall if I can sell a block of stock in the Pauper's Dream, a rich gold claim of mine on Elk mountain. It is a very rich claim, but needs capital to develop it. (This remark is not original with me. I quote from an exchange.) If I do come over to Washington do not let that make any difference in your plans. If I thought your wife would send out to the neighbors and borrow dishes and such things on my account I would not go a step. Just stick your head out of the window and whistle as soon as the cabinet is gone and I will come up there and spend the evening. Remember that I have not grown cold toward you just because you have married. You will find me the kind of a friend who will not desert you just when you are in trouble. Yours, as heretofore, _Bill Nye._ P.

CHAPTER III "He is a Perfectly Impossible Person" My friend's fear or hope was not destined to be realized. When I called on Wednesday there was a letter with the West Kensington postmark upon it, and my name scrawled across the envelope in a handwriting which looked like a barbed-wire railing. The contents were as follows:-- "ENMORE PARK, W. "SIR,--I have duly received your note, in which you claim to endorse my views, although I am not aware that they are dependent upon endorsement either from you or anyone else. You have ventured to use the word 'speculation' with regard to my statement upon the subject of Darwinism, and I would call your attention to the fact that such a word in such a connection is offensive to a degree. The context convinces me, however, that you have sinned rather through ignorance and tactlessness than through malice, so I am content to pass the matter by. You quote an isolated sentence from my lecture, and appear to have some difficulty in understanding it. I should have thought that only a sub-human intelligence could have failed to grasp the point, but if it really needs amplification I shall consent to see you at the hour named, though visits and visitors of every sort are exceeding distasteful to me. As to your suggestion that I may modify my opinion, I would have you know that it is not my habit to do so after a deliberate expression of my mature views. You will kindly show the envelope of this letter to my man, Austin, when you call, as he has to take every precaution to shield me from the intrusive rascals who call themselves 'journalists.'

The absence of other tracks shows that his confreres leave 'Scissor- jaw' alone." Keeping a sharp lookout in all directions, they resumed their march along the third side of the square which was to bring them back to the Callisto. Their course was parallel to the stream, and on comparatively high ground. Cortlandt's gun did good service, bringing down between fifty and sixty birds that usually allowed them to get as near as they pleased, and often seemed unwilling to leave their branches. By the time they were ready for luncheon they saw it would be dark in an hour. As the rapidity of the planet's rotation did not give them a chance to become tired, they concluded not to pitch their camp, but to resume the march by moonlight, which would be easy in the high, open country they were traversing. While in quest of fire-wood, they came upon great heaps of bones, mostly those of birds, and were attracted by the tall, bell-shaped flowers growing luxuriantly in their midst. These exhaled a most delicious perfume, and at the centre of each flower was a viscous liquid, the colour of honey. "If this tastes as well as it looks," said Bearwarden, "it will come in well for dessert"; saying which he thrust his finger into the recesses of the flower, intending to taste the essence. Quietly, but like a flash, the flower closed, his hand being nearly caught and badly scratched by the long, sharp thorns that now appeared at the edges.

I felt that commonplaces would choke me. And although to this day I cannot condone my behavior, for the good of my soul I must confess the truth. I took her in my arms, held her fast and kissed her. An overwhelming consciousness of guilt came to me even as her lips met mine, and, releasing her, I turned aside, groaning. "Isobel!" I said hoarsely--"Isobel, forgive me! I was a cad, a villain ... to _him_. But--it was inevitable. Try to forget that I was so weak. But, Isobel--" I felt her hand trembling on my arm.

He looked like something out of an old Frankenstein movie. His clothes were ripped almost completely away. Those remaining were stained with blood and red clay, and soaked with rain. Baker's face was laced with a network of scars as if he had been slashed with a shower of glass not too long ago and the wounds were freshly healed. Blood was caked and cracked on his face and was matted in his hair. [Illustration] He smiled grotesquely as he staggered toward the car door. "About time you got here," he said. "A man could catch his death of cold standing out here in this weather." * * * * * Dr. William Baker was quite sure he had no need of hospitalization, but he let them settle him in a hospital bed anyway.

"_I_ believe, Mummy," chirped Ruby, "Miss Heritage is right, and this _is_ Fairyland." "Don't be so ridiculous, child! You'll believe next that we came here in a car drawn by flying storks, I suppose!" "D'you know, Mater," said Clarence, "I'm not so sure we mayn't have. What I mean is--there's some sort of flying machine coming along now. I grant you it isn't drawn by storks, but they're _birds_ anyhow, and there seems to be some one in the car too." "Nothing of the kind!" declared Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson obstinately. "At least one may fancy one sees anything with the sun in our eyes as it is.

I want to find that secret." [Footnote 1: Islands of Space.] Stel Felso Theu was looking out through the window at a group of men excitedly beckoning. He called the attention of the others to them, and himself went out. Arcot and Wade joined him in a moment. "They tell me that Fellsheh, well to the poleward of here has used four of its eight shots. They are still being attacked," explained the Talsonian gravely. "Well, get in," snapped Arcot as he ran back to the ship. Stel Felso hastily followed, and the _Ancient Mariner_ shot into the air, and darted away, poleward, to the Talsonian's directions. The ground fled behind them at a speed that made the scientist grip the hand-rail with a tenseness that showed his nervousness.