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They didn't understand what it meant to feel responsible for equipment. They manufactured enough fuel for two trips, according to the rating of consumption in the books--but Dick wondered? The tanks were filled to capacity before the first trip, and hadn't been tested since. The happy dome people didn't consider that their ancestors might have been mistaken, or that actual operation might vary from the original plan. * * * * * For the first time in twenty years, the gauges were examined. Barrow and McCarthy crawled through the dust-coated passage beneath the floor of the machinery hold. They found a light switch, but the bulbs were so dust-coated that only a faint glow shed on the surrounding metal. They sneezed and coughed, as the dust-laden air filled their lungs. "Darned if you don't get the craziest ideas, Dick. What good will it do to know how much 'ship juice' there is, anyway?

Ashe gave up the struggle. "Tell me all about your feet," he said. And Mr. Beach told him all about his feet. The pleasantest functions must come to an end, and the moment arrived when the final word on the subject of swollen joints was spoken. Ashe, who had resigned himself to a permanent contemplation of the subject, could hardly believe he heard correctly when, at the end of some ten minutes, his companion changed the conversation. "You have been with Mr. Peters some time, Mr. Marson?" "Eh?

I figure on putting some lemming urge into the population." "How?" "I'll save that till I get the right signatures on the deal." * * * * * The hawk-faced man said, "I'd like to work with you on it, Barlow. My name's Ryan-Ngana." He put out his hand. Barlow looked closely at the hand, then at the man's face. "Ryan what?" "Ngana." "That sounds like an African name."

the new Chandler cried. "Look out--Indians!" "Just take it easy," Glaudot told him. Glaudot's face was very white, his eyes big and round and staring. Chandler looked down at the body on the rocks. His knees buckled and Glaudot caught him, stopping him from falling. Chandler tried to say something, but the words wouldn't come. He stared with horrified fascination at the body, which was an exact copy of himself--or a copy of the dead man from whom the new living man was copied. "May we go to your spaceship now?" Robin asked Glaudot politely.

Miss Plank demurred, and said "that it wuz some distance off;" but I held firm--Josiah see that I wuz firm--and he finally gin in quite graciously, and, sez he-- "I don't spoze it will take long, anyway, to see all that wimmen has brung here--and I spoze the buildin' will be a sight--all trimmed off with ornaments, and flowers, and tattin'; mebby they will have lace all festooned on the outside." Sez he, "I always did want to see a house trimmed with bobinet lace on the outside, and tattin' and ribbin streamers." I wouldn't dain a reply; he did it to lower my emotions about wimmen. But it wuz impossible. So we turned our bodies round and set off north by northwest. Agin Miss Plank mentioned the distance, and agin my Josiah spoke longin'ly of the live stock. And I sez with a calm dignity, "Josiah, you are not a woman." "No," sez he, "dum it all, I know I hain't, and so there hain't much chance of my gettin' my way." I kep on calmly, and with the same lofty mean, "You are not a woman, and therefore you can't tell a woman's desires that go with me, to see the glorification of her own sect, in their great and lofty work, and the high thrones on which they have sot themselves in the year of our Lord, 1893; I am sot," sez I, "I am sot as ever the statute of America is on her marble pedestal, jest so solid am I riz up on the firm and solid foundation of my love, and admiration, and appreciation for my own sect." And so, as I say, we turned round in our tracts and went back round that noble Adminstration Buildin'-- Josiah a-talkin' anon or oftener about what he expected to see in the Woman's Buildin', every one on 'em light and triflin' things, such as gauzes, and artificial flowers, and cossets, and high-heel shoes, and placks, and tattin', and etc.

But say, those guys are goin' some, ain't they now! Seems as if they was dead set on puttin' you out of business." "Their manner yesterday, Comrade Brady, certainly suggested the presence of some sketchy outline of such an ideal in their minds. One Sam, in particular, an ebony-hued sportsman, threw himself into the task with great vim. I rather fancy he is waiting for us with his revolver to this moment. But why worry? Here we are, safe and sound, and Comrade Windsor may be expected to arrive at any moment. I see, Comrade Brady, that you have been matched against one Eddie Wood." "It's about that I wanted to see you, Mr. Smith.

whispered Clarence. "This is my Father and Mother, Sir," he added aloud, "and anything you've got to propose must be settled with _them_." "O King and Queen of Märchenland!" said the Lake King, in a voice like the roar of a cataract, "is it true that ye consider a daughter of mine unworthy to wed your son?" "Without entering into personalities," replied King Sidney, "which are better avoided at all times, I may say that an alliance with a family whose nature is so--er--amphibious could not be seriously entertained by any civilised monarch." "It would be _too_ grotesque!" said Queen Selina, "even in a country like _this_!" "I have set my heart on becoming the Father-in-law of a Prince of the Royal blood," said the Lake King, "and I will not be denied." "Now--now--now," protested King Sidney, "what _is_ the good of taking that tone? If we were in England I should say this was a matter that could be settled in few minutes by our respective solicitors.

"But what were you doing in this lifecraft? No, let me guess. You were X-ray-eying it and fine-toothing it for improvements made since your last trip, and storing the details away in your eidetic memory." "Not eidetic, by any means. Merely very good." "And how many metric tons of apparatus have you got in the hold?" Deston asked. "Less than six. Just what I _must_ have in order to----" "Babe!" Jones' voice cut in.

Bindle whistled incredulously. "What's the matter now?" "You ain't goin' to trust 'im with Ole Dumb Abraham, are you?" he asked in a hushed voice. "And why not, pray?" she challenged. "Millie says Charley is very clever at mending things, and it's never played." Bindle said nothing. The musical-box had been left to Mrs. Bindle by "poor Aunt Anne"--Mrs.

He waved it frantically in the air. There was an ugly surge, a low-throated growl. It needed very little for the mob to get out of hand and hurl itself upon the steadily approaching Mercutian regiment. Hilary acted swiftly. He caught the man's pistol arm, thrust it down sharply out of sight. A quick wrench, and the gun was in his own hand. The man, wild-eyed, opened his mouth to shout. "Shut up," Hilary hissed fiercely. "Are you mad? You wouldn't have a chance.

If I can't _catch_ him, at least I keep him away from coming near you!" A few days later, however, he brought Charles some photographs. These he produced with evident pride. The first he showed us was a vignette of a little parson. "Who's that, then?" he inquired, much pleased. We gazed at it, open-eyed. One word rose to our lips simultaneously: "Brabazon!" "And how's this for high?" he asked again, producing another--the photograph of a gay young dog in a Tyrolese costume.

Brother-and-sister marriages, not uncommon in the Dry-towns, are based on expediency and suspicion, and are frequently, though not always loveless. It explained Dallisa's taunts, and it partly explained, only partly, why I found her in my arms. It did not explain Rakhal's part in this mysterious intrigue, nor why Kyral had taken me for Rakhal, (but only after he remembered seeing me in Terran clothing). I wondered why it had never occurred to me before that I might be mistaken for Rakhal. There was no close resemblance between us, but a casual description would apply equally well to me or to Rakhal. My height is unusual for a Terran--within an inch of Rakhal's own--and we had roughly the same build, the same coloring. I had copied his walk, imitated his mannerisms, since we were boys together. And, blurring minor facial characteristics, there were the scars of the _kifirgh_ on my mouth, cheeks, and shoulders. Anyone who did not know us by sight, anyone who had known us by reputation from the days when we had worked together in the Dry-towns, might easily take one of us for the other. Even Juli had blurted, "You're so much like--" before thinking better of it.

He took the knife from his son's hand. With the light directed upon the still, ivory face, he stepped towards the sarcophagus. As he did so, something dropped from the roof, narrowly missed falling upon his outstretched hand, and with a soft, dull thud dropped upon the mud brick floor. Impelled by some intuition, he suddenly directed the light to the roof above. Then with a shrill cry which he was wholly unable to repress, Robert Cairn seized his father's arm and began to pull him back towards the stair. "Quick, sir!" he screamed shrilly, almost hysterically. "My God! my God! _be quick_!"

Jon rose from the table. "I'll get back to my studying." "You listen to your mother, and don't study too hard," she warned, knowing how he was apt to "lose himself" in his books. "You need plenty of rest for tomorrow." "All right, Mom." But when she went into the control room long after dinner, he was still deep in his reelbook. She took it away from him. "Get to bed, Jon. You promised." "I'm sorry, Mom.

A double miracle had been wrought for me. I had not been stranded upon the shore of this strange world to find myself alone and companionless. My love, whom I had dreamed lost, had been reembodied for my consolation. When at last, in an ecstasy of gratitude and tenderness, I folded the lovely girl in my arms, the two Ediths were blended in my thought, nor have they ever since been clearly distinguished. I was not long in finding that on Edith's part there was a corresponding confusion of identities. Never, surely, was there between freshly united lovers a stranger talk than ours that afternoon. She seemed more anxious to have me speak of Edith Bartlett than of herself, of how I had loved her than how I loved herself, rewarding my fond words concerning another woman with tears and tender smiles and pressures of the hand. "You must not love me too much for myself," she said. "I shall be very jealous for her. I shall not let you forget her.

_I'm not even proficient as a telepath yet!_ Outside, he could hear the murmur of the city--the traffic, the people, moving along their separate paths to their own destinations in the humid afternoon heat. Well, anyway, once the complete curtain of security had fallen, there had been no more leaks. Proving that if a secret was big enough, it could be kept. Another classic problem. Do the people have the right to be informed? Does forewarned really mean forearmed? And how about the other nations of the world? * * * * * An hour after the dinner dishes had been cleared away by the government agent dubbing as a room-service waiter, the telephone rang with an awful insistency. Wilmer was the closest, but Hayes beat him to it by a full stride. After identifying himself, Hayes listened in silence.

Fracture of the skull, Dr. Amos says. He wouldn't have disturbed you but you're the only brain man in town, with Dr. Hendryx away on vacation." "I know." He was already in the hall, reaching for his hat. "Man's work is from sun to sun, but a doctor's work is never done," he misquoted. "I'll drive you." Edith followed him out. "You sit back and relax for another ten minutes...." * * * * * Two hours later, as they drove homeward, the traffic was light, which was fortunate.

I swear, Mr. Deputy, that I had no other intention than to talk to Mathias de Gorne. Knowing certain particulars of his life which enabled me to bring effective pressure to bear upon him, I wished to make use of this advantage in order to achieve my purpose. If things turned out differently, I am not wholly to blame.... So I went there a little before nine o'clock. The servants, I knew, were out. He opened the door himself. He was alone." "Monsieur," said the deputy, interrupting him, "you are saying something--as Madame de Gorne, for that matter, did just now--which is manifestly opposed to the truth. Mathias de Gorne did not come home last night until eleven o'clock. We have two definite proofs of this: his father's evidence and the prints of his feet in the snow, which fell from a quarter past nine o'clock to eleven."

Rolf had a brief moment of doubt when he pictured Laney and Kanaday at this very moment, playing cards in their mouldering hovel while he walked down this plastiline corridor back into a world he had left behind. Quinton came out into the hall to greet him. Rolf recognized him by the missing ears; his skin was now a subdued blue to go with his orange robe. "I'm so glad you came," the little Earther bubbled. "Come on in and I'll introduce you to everyone." The door opened photoelectrically as they approached. Quinton seized him by the hand and dragged him in. There was the sound of laughter and of shouting. As he entered it all stopped, suddenly, as if it had been shut off. Rolf stared at them quizzically from under his lowering brows, and they looked at him with ill-concealed curiosity.

That's not the same as saying we were doing it. Besides, it's something else, Red." But Red had not used up his grievances. "And where did you go anyway? I thought you were coming to the house. They acted like it was my fault you weren't there." "But I'm trying to tell you about that, if you'd only shut _up_ a second and let me talk. You don't give a fellow a chance." "Well, go on and tell me if you've got so much to say." "I'm _trying_ to.

I yelped. "Everyone needs a partner out there. Send out a team to follow his cable and drag him in here by it." "He didn't hook on a cable, Captain," Wallace said. "I suppose he intended to go beyond the three-mile limit as you demanded." "Shut up, Wallace. You don't have to like me, but you can't twist what I said as long as I command this spacer." "Cool off, Gav," Nagurski advised me. "It's been done before. Anybody else would have been a fool to go out alone, but Quade is the most experienced man we have.

"And I checked back on every one," Boyd went on. "Your hunch was absolutely right, Ken. The prosecuting attorneys and the attorneys general are all new men--all the ones involved in this stuff. Each one replaced a previous incumbent in a recent election. In two cases, the governor was new, too--elected last year." "That figures," Malone said. "What about the rest?" Boyd's grandiose wave of a hand took in all the papers on the desk. "It's all the same," he said. "They all follow a pattern, Ken, _the_ pattern.

The way he played poker. The way he played bridge. He never took the unexpected into account." "But why should he want to kill you here on the ship?" Fitzhugh asked. "Why not wait until you got back to Earth, where he'd have a better chance?" "I think he was afraid I already knew who he was--or would find out very quickly. Besides, he had already tried to kill me once, back on Earth." Leda Crannon looked blank. "When was that, Mike?"

It was night. There was darkness over all the lowlands, and over all the area of perhaps a hundred square miles which the humans of Burl's acquaintance really knew. He, alone of his tribe, had been as much as forty miles from the foraging-ground over which they wandered. At any given time the tribe clung together for comfort, venturing only as far as was necessary to find food. Although the planet possessed continents, they knew less than a good-sized county of it. The planet owned oceans, and they knew only small brooks and one river which, where they knew it, was assuredly less than two hundred yards across. And they faced stark disaster that was not strictly a local one, but beyond their experience and hopelessly beyond their ability to face. They were superior to the insects about them only in the fact they realized what was threatening them. The disaster was the red puffballs. But it was night.

But in this arrangement of wires and iron no magnetism resulted, yet, the random motion of the atoms in their framework of crystal structure was coördinated. In any object above absolute zero all the atoms and their constituent electrons and nuclei move constantly in all directions. In such a core as Burke had formed and repeated along the shaft's length, they all tried to move in one direction at the same time. Simultaneously, a terrific surge of current appeared in the coils. A high-speed poleward velocity developed in all the substance of the shaft. It was the heat-energy contained in the metal, all turned instantly into kinetic energy. And when its heat-energy was transformed to something else, the shaft got cold. Once this fact was understood, control was easy. A single variable inductance in series with the windings handled everything. In a certain sense, the gadget was a magnet with negative--minus--self-inductance.

Still vaguely distrustful of Barret's behavior, Astro turned to Hemmingwell. "How about it, Professor?" he asked. "Do we haul this guy in?" Hemmingwell looked at Troy steadily. "Pat, you knew about that new unit I was building?" "Yes, sir," replied Troy forthrightly. "I accidentally overheard you and Commander Walters discussing it. From what you said about it, I knew you would need new timers for the oscillators--" Roger and Astro had heard about the vital unit that had not been destroyed, and realized that Troy was admitting to knowledge he shouldn't have had. Roger raised the blaster menacingly.

I can help yer. I want to help yer!" George's views on infanticide underwent a slight modification. After all, he felt, much must be excused to Youth. Youth thinks it funny to see a man kissing a letter. It is not funny, of course; it is beautiful; but it's no good arguing the point. Let Youth have its snigger, provided, after it has finished sniggering, it intends to buckle to and be of practical assistance. Albert, as an ally, was not to be despised. George did not know what Albert's duties as a page-boy were, but they seemed to be of a nature that gave him plenty of leisure and freedom; and a friendly resident of the castle with leisure and freedom was just what he needed. "That's very good of you," he said, twisting his reluctant features into a fairly benevolent smile.

The big redhead was yelling: "Bring the governor out here. Lafon wants to talk to him!" * * * * * O'Leary went to the door of the cell, fast. A slim, pale con from Block A was pushing the governor down the hall, toward Sauer and Lafon. The governor was a strong man, but he didn't struggle. His face was as composed and remote as the medic's; if he was afraid, he concealed it extremely well. Sue-Ann Bradley stood beside O'Leary. "What's happening?" He kept his eyes on what was going on. "Lafon is going to try to use the governor as a shield, I think."

He was a-standin' out a little ways to one side a-lookin' up to the handsome front of the house, and I sez to him, in a voice nearly tremblin' with emotion-- "I have wanted to tell you, Governor Markham, how I feel, and how Josiah feels." He turned round and looked kinder surprised, but good-natered, and I see then that he wuz a real good-lookin' man, and sez he--"Who is Josiah?" And I sez, "My own pardner. I am Josiah Allen's Wife." And as I sez this, bein' very polite, I kinder bowed my head, and he kinder bowed his head too. We appeared real well, both on us. And sez I, "We feel it dretful, the passin' away and expirin' of one of your folks." And sez he, "You allude to Senator Stanford?" And I sez, "Yes; when I think of that noble school of hisen that he has sot up there in your great State--the finest school in the world for poor boys and poor girls, as well as rich ones--when I think what that great educational power is a-goin' to do for the children of this great country, rich and poor, I think on him almost by the side of Christopher Columbus. For if Christopher discovered a new world, Senator Stanford wuz a-takin' the youth of this country into a new realm--a-sailin' 'em out into a new world, and a grander one than they'd any idee on--a-sailin' 'em out on the great ship of his magnificent Charity; and that Ship," sez I, in a kind of a tremblin' voice, "wuz wafted out at first on the sombre wings of a heart-breakin' sorrow; but they grew white," sez I--"they grew silver white as that great Ship sailed on and on.

I didn't like it very well, and acted rough, so they give me solitary--boot, bandage, and so on. So I tried a break--killed six or eight, maybe a dozen, guards--but didn't quite make it. So they slated me for the big whiff. That's all, boss." "I'm promoting you, now, to squad leader. Here's the sap." He handed Tworn his blackjack. "Watch 'em--I'll be too busy to. This landing is going to be tough." "Gotcha, boss."

Ten thousand was probably his idea of what we'd think the pistols were worth." Dunmore ignored that and turned to Rand. "Did Arnold Rivers actually tell you he'd pay twenty-five thousand dollars for the collection?" he asked. "I can't believe that he'd raise his own offer like that." "He didn't raise his offer; I threw it out and told him to make one that could be taken seriously." Rand repeated, as closely as he could, his conversation with the arms-dealer. When he had finished, Dunmore was frowning in puzzled displeasure. "And you think he's actually willing to pay that much?" "Yes, I do.

They all breathed a sigh of relief when, after three days, no more signs of the mysterious illness showed on new members of the crew. It became routine to parade before Tau stripped to the waist each morning for the inspection of the danger points, and the Medic's vigilance did not relax. In the meantime neither Mura nor Kosti appeared to suffer. Once the initial stages of headaches and blackouts were passed, the patients lapsed into a semi-conscious state as if they were under sedation of some type. They would eat, if the food was placed in their mouths, but they did not seem to know what was going on about them, nor did they answer when spoken to. Tau, between visits to them, worked feverishly in his tiny lab, analyzing blood samples, reading the records of obscure diseases, trying to find the reason for their attacks. But as yet his discoveries were exactly nothing. He had come out of his quarters and sat in limp exhaustion at the mess table while Dane placed before him a mug of stimulating caf-hag. "I don't get it!" The Medic addressed the table top rather than the amateur cook.

But at this depth of some yards, the Nautilus was unmoved by its fury and reposed peacefully in still water. So we progressed, incessantly charmed by some new marvel. The days passed rapidly away, and I took no account of them. Ned, according to habit, tried to vary the diet on board. Like snails, we were fixed to our shells, and I declare it is easy to lead a snail's life. Thus this life seemed easy and natural, and we thought no longer of the life we led on land; but something happened to recall us to the strangeness of our situation. On the 18th of January, the Nautilus was in 105° long. and 15° S. lat. The weather was threatening, the sea rough and rolling. There was a strong east wind.

By the mystic kinship that had declared itself between their sorrowful destinies, she felt a sense of nearness to him greater than her new love had given or ever could give her toward Henry. She recalled how she had sat listening to George's talk that evening, pitifully, indeed, but only half comprehending what he meant, with no dim, foreboding warning that she was fated to reproduce his experience so closely. Yes, reproduce it, perhaps, God only knew, even to the end. She could not bear this always. She understood now--ah! how well--his longing for the river of Lethe whose waters give forgetfulness. She often saw his pale face in dreams, wearing the smile he wore as he lay in the coffin, a smile as if he had been washed in those waters he sighed for. CHAPTER IX. Henry had not referred to their marriage after the first interview. From day to day, and week to week, he had put off doing so, hoping that she might grow into a more serene condition of mind.

He feels vinegary; his blood runs cold; he wishes he could immerse himself in bicarbonate of soda. But the call of his art is more potent than the protest of his poisoned and quaking liver, and so he manfully climbs the spiral stairway to his organ-loft. Once there, he takes off his hat and overcoat, stoops down to blow the dust off the organ keys, throws the electrical switch which sets the bellows going, and then proceeds to take off his shoes. This done, he takes his seat, reaches for the pedals with his stockinged feet, tries an experimental 32-foot CCC, and then wanders gently into a Bach toccata. It is his limbering-up piece: he always plays it as a prelude to a wedding job. It thus goes very smoothly and even brilliantly, but when he comes to the end of it and tackles the ensuing fugue he is quickly in difficulties, and after four or five stumbling repetitions of the subject he hurriedly improvises a crude coda and has done. Peering down into the church to see if his flounderings have had an audience, he sees two old maids enter, the one very tall and thin and the other somewhat brisk and bunchy. They constitute the vanguard of the nuptial throng, and as they proceed hesitatingly up the center aisle, eager for good seats but afraid to go too far, the organist wipes his palms upon his trousers legs, squares his shoulders, and plunges into the program that he has played at all weddings for fifteen years past. It begins with Mendelssohn's Spring Song, pianissimo. Then comes Rubinstein's Melody in F, with a touch of forte toward the close, and then Nevin's "Oh, That We Two Were Maying" and then the Chopin waltz in A flat, Opus 69, No.

And though for some time tables and chairs, and even beds and bureaus had a way of advancin' up towards us and then retreatin' away from us over and over, yet as I say terry wuz considerable more firmy than the deck had been. Well, it wuzn't long before we found ourselves at a comfortable hotel, not too comfortable, but decently so; and in the fulness of time we wuz seated at the table partaking of food which, though it didn't taste like my good Jonesville vittles, still I could eat and be thankful for. Josiah whispered to me: "Onions and garlicks and peppers; I never could bear any on 'em, and here I be filled up with 'em; there hain't a single dish on this table but what's full of 'em. Oh, Samantha!" sez he pitifully, "if I could only eat one of your good dinnerses or supperses agin' it seems as if I would be willin' to die." And I whispered back to him to be calm. Sez I, "Do be reasonable; it ain't logic or religion to expect to be to home and travellin' abroad at the same time." He see it wuzn't and subsided with a low groan, and begun to nibble agin' on his food, but his looks wuz mournful, and if I could I would have put on a apron willin'ly and gone down into the kitchen and cooked him a good square meal, but I knew it wouldn't be thought on, so I kep' calm. Well, our bed wuz kinder queer. It wuz quite noble lookin', four high posts with lace curtains looped up and mosquito nettin' danglin' down, and instead of springs a woven cane mattress stretched out lookin' some like our cane seat chairs.

It had been the same story, at every stage of my journey; the chances were that it would be the same thing again at Baden-Baden. There may have been something, however, of which I was unaware in my smile; for I found myself under close observation by the bride; and as our eyes met her hand slipped within her husband's arm. "I guess _we_ won't find her there," she said. "I guess we'll just light out for ourselves, and wish the captain luck." A stern chase is proverbially protracted, but on dry land it has usually one end. Mine ended in Baden on the fifth (and first fine) day, rather early in the afternoon. On arrival I drove straight to the Darmstaedterhof, and asked to see no visitors' books, for the five days had taken the edge off my finesse, but inquired at once whether a Mrs. Lascelles was staying there or not. She was. It seemed incredible.

A friend of mine knows Guhak, the fellow who invented that new brake for the track car a few years ago." "We know about that brake," Piq observed. "It stops a car so good, the chains are twice as late nowadays as they used to be, and you couldn't strictly say they were ever on time." Everybody laughed again. Irik quivered with anger. "Guhak has invented a car that doesn't need to go on tracks. It can run _whenever_ it wants _wherever_ it wants. And one car will be able to go faster than three hax teams." "That I'll believe when I've ridden on it," Kuqal grinned. "Even the chains aren't that fast."

cried Mrs. Bindle, turning suddenly, her nostrils detecting the smell of alcohol. "Do what?" enquired Bindle from where he knelt beside the damaged Mr. Gupperduck. "Give him that," said Mrs. Bindle, "he's temperance." "Well, 'e ain't now," remarked Bindle with calm conviction. "Oh, you villain!" The vindictiveness of Mrs.

"How did they turn out? I understand the depression is terrible there." "So I understand," the other said. "The vote turned out as was to be expected." Simonov's eyebrows went up. "The Party has been voted into power?" "Ha!" the other snorted. "The vote for the Party has fallen off by more than a third." The security colonel scowled at him.

Hawks drove the low, sleek jet car around the fair, taking a short cut through the outdoor mercuryball field and pulled up in front of the _Polaris_. The five spacemen turned toward the concession site across the promenade and stopped, aghast. "Gone!" exclaimed Strong. "Astro, you made a mistake! It was their ship we saw blasting off. It's too late to warn the space-station patrol. Wallace and Simms could be anywhere in space now!" "But, sir," protested Astro, "I'm certain that an atomic-powered ship blasted off. And their old freighter was a chemical burner!"

We leave the mouldy air of the subterranean vault for the keen winds of the moorland. The terrors of the invisible world only fill the stray corners of his huge scene. He creates romance out of the stuff of real life. CHAPTER IX - LATER DEVELOPMENTS OF THE TALE OF TERROR. As the novel of terror passes from the hands of Mrs. Radcliffe to those of "Monk" Lewis, Maturin and their imitators, there is a crashing crescendo of emotion. The villain's sardonic smile is replaced by wild outbursts of diabolical laughter, his scowl grows darker and darker, and as his designs become more bloody and more dangerous, his victims no longer sigh plaintively, but give utterance to piercing shrieks and despairing yells; tearful Amandas are unceremoniously thrust into the background by vindictive Matildas, whose passions rage in all their primitive savagery; the fearful ghost "fresh courage takes," and stands forth audaciously in the light of day; the very devil stalks shamelessly abroad in manifold disguises. We are caught up from first to last in the very tempest, torrent and whirlwind of passion. When the novel of terror thus throws restraint to the winds, outrageously o'ersteps the modesty of nature and indulges in a farrago of frightfulness, it begins to defeat its own purposes and to fail in its object of freezing the blood. The limit of human endurance has been reached--and passed.

A positive vice like over-indulgence in alcohol altered him completely. It gave him a significance. "I told him to get you a lemonade," said Reggie. "He seems to be taking his time about it. Hi!" George approached deferentially. "Sir?" "Where's that lemonade?" "Lemonade, sir?" "Didn't I ask you to bring this lady a glass of lemonade?"

Had I, Pitt?" "Not a minute." "And how was it you were so late?" Spennie plunged into an explanation, feeling all the time that he was making things worse for himself. Nobody is at his best in the matter of explanations if a lady whom he knows to be possessed of a firm belief in the incurable weakness of his intellect is looking fixedly at him during the recital. A prolonged conversation with Lady Blunt always made him feel exactly as if he were being tied into knots. "All this," said Sir Thomas, as his nephew paused for breath, "is very, very characteristic of our dear Spennie." Our dear Spennie broke into a perspiration. "However," continued Sir Thomas, "there's room for either you or----" "Pitt," said Jimmy. "P--i double t."

"Shade and cool water," Humbolt said. "And maybe things that don't like strangers. Let's go find out." They watched warily as they walked, their crossbows in their hands. At the closer range they saw that the roofs and arches were the outer remains of a system of natural caves that went back into the valley's walls. The green vegetation grew wherever the roofs gave part-time shade, consisting mainly of a holly-leafed bush with purple flowers and a tall plant resembling corn. Under some of the roofs the corn was mature, the orange colored grains visible. Under others it was no more than half grown. He saw the reason and said to Barber: "There are both warm and cold springs here. The plants watered by the warm springs would grow almost the year around; the ones watered by the cold springs only in the summer.

The corrupt flood was now being reinforced, however, by an ever-rising tide of material that had once been mountains. And the slope, which had not been even noticeable at the mountains or over the plain, was here very evident. As the rapidly-flowing golop struck water, the water shivered, came to a weirdly unforgettable cold boil, and exploded into drops and streamers and jagged-edged chunks of something that was neither water nor land; or rock or soil or sand or Satan's unholy brew. Nevertheless, the water won. There was _so_ much of it! Each barrel of water that was destroyed was replaced instantly and enthusiastically; with no lowering of level or of pressure. And when water struck the golop, the golop also shivered violently, then sparkled even more violently, then stopped sparkling and turned dark, then froze solid. The frozen surface, however, was neither thick enough nor strong enough to form an effective wall. Again and again the wave of golop built up high enough to crack and to shatter that feeble wall; again and again golop and water met in ultimately furious, if insensate, battle. Inch by inch the ocean's shoreline was driven backward toward ocean's depths; but every inch the ocean lost was to its tactical advantage, since the advancing front was by now practically filled with hard, solid, dead blocks of its own substance which it could neither assimilate nor remove from the scene of conflict.

But the weirdest thing about them to Gusterson was that from the first instant he had the impression that only one mind had entered the room and that it did not reside in any of the eight persons, even though he recognized three of them, but in something that they were carrying. Several things contributed to this impression. The eight people all had the same blank expression--watchful yet empty-eyed. They all moved in the same slithery crouch. And they had all taken off their shoes. Perhaps, Gusterson thought wildly, they believed he and Daisy ran a Japanese flat. Gusterson was being held by two burly women, one of them quite pimply. He considered stamping on her toes, but just at that moment the gun dug in his back with a corkscrew movement. The man holding the gun on him was Fay's colleague Davidson. Some yards beyond Fay's couch, Kester was holding a gun on Daisy, without digging it into her, while the single strange man holding Daisy herself was doing so quite decorously--a circumstance which afforded Gusterson minor relief, since it made him feel less guilty about not going berserk.

De Boodles covered with diamonds, a great success, especially old John De Boodle, who tells racy stories over the _demi-tasse_ when the ladies have gone into the drawing-room. De Boodle voted a character. Next thing, Bridge Whist party. Everybody there. Society a good winner. The De Boodles magnificent losers. Popularity cinched. Next, yachting party. Everybody on board. De Boodle on deck in fine shape.

No more to be stopped than a glacier, and twice as hard and ten times as cold. A woman simply _can't_ have that kind of a mind! There is going to be a woman Lensman some day--just one--but not for years and years; and I wouldn't be in her shoes for anything. In this job of mine, of...." "Well, go on. What is this job you're so sure you are going to do?" "Why, I don't know!" Jill exclaimed, startled eyes wide. "I thought I knew all about it, but I don't! Do you, about yours?" They did not, not one of them; and they were all as surprised at that fact as the girl had been.

"It's all right, I guess," Chuck said. "We got married and bought a house. A couple of years ago, I went into business on my own--Hi-Fi and TV repairs. Business isn't too bad." He flashed another look at the golden girl sunning herself by the pool. "Estelle hasn't changed much in all these years," he said nostalgically. "She's still as beautiful as ever." Then he banged his glass down hard on the window sill. "You must be trying to put something over on me! What's the gag?"

"Worse!" "The lass seemed o'er anxious to see you." "Well, you know, Mrs. M'Gregor, she comes a considerable distance." "So I am given to understand, Mr. Keppel," replied the old lady; "and in a grand luxurious car." Stuart assumed an expression of perplexity to hide his embarrassment. "Mrs. M'Gregor," he said rather ruefully, "you watch over me as tenderly as my own mother would have done. I have observed a certain restraint in your manner whenever you have had occasion to refer to Mlle.

Go your way in peace. We will take care of our brother." Don started to turn away. "I hope he----" The other nodded curtly. "The gersal's poison is strong," he said. "But soon we shall see. May your way be safe." He turned back to his patient. Don turned away and went around the curve in the path. Well, maybe the Korental had been right, he thought.

He declared that Winstead had just enough time for a nap. Winstead's next awakening was in the echo of a terrified scream. A light was turned on and he discovered that the man-eating vine which had been strangling him was in reality an acceleration net. The face that floated before him was clean-shaven and anxious. With considerable mental effort, Winstead deduced that the face was inquiring as to his health. "Quite ... fine ... thank ... you," he answered with difficulty. "Haven't we met somewhere?" "Sure! Last week, Mr. Winstead, when we took you to Topaz IV," said the face.

Already a veritable torrent was gushing over it with a fine uproar. I have never better appreciated the incomparable sure-footedness of camels in the most precipitate places. Bracing themselves, stretching out their great legs, balancing themselves among the rocks that were beginning to be swept loose, our camels accomplished at that moment what the mules of the Pyrannees might have failed in. After several moments of superhuman effort we found ourselves at last out of danger, on a kind of basaltic terrace, elevated some fifty meters above the channel of the stream we had just left. Luck was with us; a little grotto opened out behind. Bou-Djema succeeded in sheltering the camels there. From its threshold we had leisure to contemplate in silence the prodigious spectacle spread out before us. You have, I believe, been at the Camp of Chalons for artillery drills. You have seen when the shell bursts how the chalky soil of the Marne effervesces like the inkwells at school, when we used to throw a piece of calcium carbonate into them. Well, it was almost like that, but in the midst of the desert, in the midst of obscurity.

Much better than Livy.... Lunch Score--Two hundred lines. During lunch he had the misfortune to upset a glass of water. Pure accident, of course, but there it was, don't you know, all over the table. Mr Dexter had called him-- (a) clumsy; (b) a pig; and had given him (1) Advice--"You had better be careful, Jackson". (2) A present--"Two hundred lines, Jackson". On the match being resumed at two o'clock, with four hundred lines on the score-sheet, he had played a fine, free game during afternoon school, and Mr Dexter, who objected to fine, free games--or, indeed, any games--during school hours, had increased the total to six hundred, when stumps were drawn for the day. So on a bright sunny Saturday afternoon, when he should have been out in the field cheering the house-team on to victory against the School House, Jackson sat in the junior day-room at Dexter's copying out portions of Virgil, Aeneid Two. To him, later on in the afternoon, when he had finished half his task, entered Painter, with the news that Dexter's had taken thirty points off the School House just after half-time. "Mopped them up," said the terse and epigrammatic Painter. "Made rings round them.

"Try bullets," Jak unlimbered his gun from his back, and started firing it into the base of the crystals nearest the lockdoor. The heavy bullets shattered the crystals easily, and soon the boys could begin to see that they were clearing the way. "You keep firing while I open the door and climb in," Jon yelled. "Then you climb in while I'm going to the control room and I'll lift ship." "Right," Jak replied and fired even faster as Jon touched the outer mechanism-stud that opened the lock. Hardly had it begun opening, however, than they heard the sound of another gun being fired through the opening. They looked up in surprise and saw it was their mother, shooting a shotgun. Jon scrambled up into the lock. "Good work, Mom, but get back in. I'm lifting ship."

He proceeds to do as much work as will steer him safely between the, ah--I may say, the Scylla of punishment and the Charybdis of being considered what my, er--fellow-pupils euphoniously term a swot. That, I think, is all this morning. _Good_ day. Pray do not trouble to rise. I will find my way out.' I should then have made for the door, locked it, if possible, on the outside, and, rushing to the railway station, have taken a through ticket to Spitzbergen or some other place where Extradition treaties do not hold good. But 'twas not mine to play the Tib. Gracchus, to emulate the O. Cromwell. So far from pouring my opinions like so much boiling oil into the ear of my task-master, I was content to play the part of audience while _he_ did the talking, my sole remark being 'Yes'r' at fixed intervals. And yet I knew that I was in the right.

Then, well, after a while I lit the lamp in the sittin' room so's it wouldn't seem so gloomy in the house, and went out and sat on my side stoop, and after a little my neighbour on that side, Mrs. Robson, came acrost the lawn--there aint no fence between, ye know--and we talked for some time, and my little girl fell asleep with her head in my lap." "Don't be too long with the story," broke in the doctor. "I don't want it to spoil Mr. Brierly's breakfast, for he needs it badly." "Yes, sir. Well, just about that time--it must have been half-past eight, I guess--and there was plenty of folks all along the street, a boy came running across the lawn and right up to me. "'If you please,' he says, touching his hat rim, 'Mr. Brierly, down to the doctor's, forgot to get the key to his brother's room, and he sent me to get it for him.' I s'pose I was foolish.

They came for me in the morning when I was still in bed. Maybe the order had been given to arrest some house painter - that seems possible after what the judge has said - someone who is as innocent as I am, but it was me they chose. There were two police thugs occupying the next room. They could not have taken better precautions if I had been a dangerous robber. And these policemen were unprincipled riff-raff, they talked at me till I was sick of it, they wanted bribes, they wanted to trick me into giving them my clothes, they wanted money, supposedly so that they could bring me my breakfast after they had blatantly eaten my own breakfast in front of my eyes. And even that was not enough. I was led in front of the supervisor in another room. This was the room of a lady who I have a lot of respect for, and I was forced to look on while the supervisor and the policemen made quite a mess of this room because of me, although not through any fault of mine. It was not easy to stay calm, but I managed to do so and was completely calm when I asked the supervisor why it was that I was under arrest. If he were here he would have to confirm what I say.

His head, which was covered with a transparent down, like that which clothes very small chickens, plainly permitting the scalp to show through, to an imaginative mind might have suggested that succulent vegetable. That his parents, recognizing some poetical significance in the fruits of the season, might have given this name to an August child, was an oriental explanation. That from his infancy, he was fond of indulging in melons, seemed on the whole the most likely, particularly as Fancy was not bred in McGinnis's Court. He dawned upon me as Melons. His proximity was indicated by shrill, youthful voices, as "Ah, Melons!" or playfully, "Hi, Melons!" or authoritatively, "You Melons!" McGinnis's Court was a democratic expression of some obstinate and radical property-holder. Occupying a limited space between two fashionable thoroughfares, it refused to conform to circumstances, but sturdily paraded its unkempt glories, and frequently asserted itself in ungrammatical language. My window--a rear room on the ground floor--in this way derived blended light and shadow from the court.

"You are right for once in a way, Charley." "What was it that alarmed you?" said Charles, tenderly, as he now took one of Flora's hands in his. "Varney--Varney, the vampyre." "Varney!" exclaimed Henry; "Varney here!" "Yes, he came in at that door: and when I screamed, I suppose--for I hardly was conscious--he darted out through the window." "This," said Henry, "is beyond all human patience. By Heaven! I cannot and will not endure it."

Buck Kendall, lieutenant of the IP, found he would have to make regular application to see McLaurin through a dozen intermediate officers. By this time, Kendall was savagely determined to see McLaurin himself, and see him in the least possible time. Cole, too, was beginning to believe in Kendall's assertion of the stranger ship's extra-systemic origin. As yet neither could understand the strange actions of the machine, its attack on the Pluto mines, and the capture and theft of a patrol ship. "There is," said Kendall angrily, "just one way to see McLaurin and see him quick. And, by God, I'm going to. Will you resign with me, Cole? I'll see him within a week then, I'll bet." For a minute, Cole hesitated. Then he shook hands with his friends.

On Venus, Radium City was taken by the rebels within twenty-four hours after the first call to revolt had rung across the worlds, but New Chicago, the seat of government, still was in the government's hands, facing a siege. Government propagandists spread the word that the material energy engines were not safe. Reports were broadcast that on at least two occasions the engines had blown up, killing the men who operated them. But this propaganda failed to gain credence, for in the cities that were in the rebel hands, technicians were at work manufacturing and setting up the material engines. Demonstrations were given. The people saw them, saw what enormous power they developed. * * * * * Russ Page stared incredulously at the television screen. It seemed to be shifting back and forth. One second it held the distorted view of Satellite City on Ganymede, and the next second the view of jumbled, icy desert somewhere outside the city. "Look here, Greg," he said.

The sunlight edged the distant mountains; and presently this rapidly turning little world brought the sunlight forward. It was day beneath us. We slid gently downward. Thirty thousand feet now, above a sparkling blue ocean. The coastline was just ahead; green with a lush, tropical vegetation. Giant trees, huge-leaved. Long, dangling vines; air plants, with giant pods and vivid orchidlike blossoms. I sat at the turret window, staring through my glasses. A fair, little world, yet obviously uninhabited. I could fancy that all this was newly sprung vegetation.

But we are speaking of the discovery of New York. About this time a solitary horseman might have been seen at West 209th Street, clothed in a little brief authority, and looking out to the west as he petulantly spoke in the Tammany dialect, then in the language of the blank-verse Indian. He began, "Another day of anxiety has passed, and yet we have not been discovered! The Great Spirit tells me in the thunder of the surf and the roaring cataract of the Harlem that within a week we will be discovered for the first time." As he stands there aboard of his horse, one sees that he is a chief in every respect and in life's great drama would naturally occupy the middle of the stage. It was at this moment that Hudson slipped down the river from Albany past Fort Lee, and, dropping a nickel in the slot at 125th Street, weighed his anchor at that place. As soon as he had landed and discovered the city, he was approached by the chief, who said, "We gates. I am one of the committee to show you our little town. I suppose you have a power of attorney, of course, for discovering us?" "Yes," said Hudson.

Then it convulsed with color again, and this time Ertado's Star, still in the center, was a coin-sized disk, with the little sparks of its seven planets scattered around it. Tanith was the third--the inhabitable planet of a G-class system usually was. It had a single moon, barely visible in the telescopic screen, five hundred miles in diameter and fifty thousand off-planet. "You know," Kirbey said, as though he was afraid to admit it, "that wasn't too bad. I think we can make it in one more microjump." Some time, Trask supposed, he'd be able to use the expression "micro-" about a distance of fifty-five million miles, too. "What do you think about it?" Harkaman asked him, as deferentially as though seeking expert guidance instead of examining his apprentice. "Where should Guatt put us?" "As close as possible, of course."

No comforts, the strictest necessaries only. Captain Nemo pointed to a seat. "Be so good as to sit down," he said. I seated myself, and he began thus: CHAPTER XI ALL BY ELECTRICITY "Sir," said Captain Nemo, showing me the instruments hanging on the walls of his room, "here are the contrivances required for the navigation of the Nautilus. Here, as in the drawing-room, I have them always under my eyes, and they indicate my position and exact direction in the middle of the ocean. Some are known to you, such as the thermometer, which gives the internal temperature of the Nautilus; the barometer, which indicates the weight of the air and foretells the changes of the weather; the hygrometer, which marks the dryness of the atmosphere; the storm-glass, the contents of which, by decomposing, announce the approach of tempests; the compass, which guides my course; the sextant, which shows the latitude by the altitude of the sun; chronometers, by which I calculate the longitude; and glasses for day and night, which I use to examine the points of the horizon, when the Nautilus rises to the surface of the waves." "These are the usual nautical instruments," I replied, "and I know the use of them. But these others, no doubt, answer to the particular requirements of the Nautilus. This dial with movable needle is a manometer, is it not?" "It is actually a manometer.

"Say, what's eating you?" "Honestly, Astro," said Roger, "I've never felt more miserable in my life." "Don't let it get you down, Roger," said Astro. "The major said it was a mistake anyone could make." "Yeah," flared Roger, "but have you seen the way he just--_talks_?" "Talks?" asked Astro blankly. "Yeah, talks," said Roger. "No yelling, or blasting off, or handing out demerits like they were candy. Nothing!

She just told me I'd gotten to be as big a crook as you two." He had the car up to fifty thousand; putting it into a wide circle around the city, he locked the controls and got out his cigarettes. "Rod, we've got to stop this. You were just lucky this time. Some of these days your luck's going to run out." "How can we stop?" Conn demanded. "Tell them the truth? They'd lynch us, and then go on hunting for Merlin." "Worse than that; it'd be a smash worse than the one when the War ended.

"That's right; it was! They bought up all the cigarettes, and caused a conspicuous shortage, after Fourth Level cigarettes had been introduced on this line and had become popular. They should have spread their purchases over a number of lines, and kept them within the local supply-demand frame. And they also got into trouble with the local government for selling unrationed petrol and automobile tires. We had to send in a special-operations group, and they came closer to having to engage in out-time local politics than I care to think of." Tortha Karf quoted a line from a currently popular song about the sorrows of a policeman's life. "We're jugglers, Vall; trying to keep our traders and sociological observers and tourists and plain idiots like the late Gavran Sarn out of trouble; trying to prevent panics and disturbances and dislocations of local economy as a result of our operations; trying to keep out of out-time politics--and, at all times, at all costs and hazards, by all means, guarding the secret of paratime transposition. Sometimes I wish Ghaldron Karf and Hesthor Ghrom had strangled in their cradles!" Verkan Vall shook his head. "No, chief," he said.

He is a man of very deep and strong feelings, yet as you probably know, anything but kindly or demonstrative. Even when he first came here from Hungary with his older sisters Hani and Hilda, there was a cloak of loneliness about him--or rather about the three of them. "Hani and Hilda were athletic outdoor women, yet fiercely proud--I don't imagine they ever spoke to anyone in America except as to a servant--and with a seething distaste for all men except Martin. They showered all their devotion on him. So of course, though Martin didn't realize it, they were consumed with jealousy when he fell in love with Mary Alice Pope. They'd thought that since he'd reached forty without marrying, he was safe. "Mary Alice came from a pure-bred, or as a biologist would say, inbred British stock. She was very young, but very sweet, and up to a point very wise. She sensed Hani and Hilda's feelings right away and did everything she could to win them over. For instance, though she was afraid of horses, she took up horseback riding, because that was Hani and Hilda's favorite pastime.

"Let's go down," Garlock said. "I want to get all of this on tape." They went down, over what had been one of that world's largest cities. The air, the stratosphere, and all nearby space were full of battling vessels of all shapes and sizes; ranging from the tremendous globular spaceships of the invaders down to the tiny, one-man jet-fighters of the Arpalones. * * * The Dilipics were using projectile weapons only--ranging in size, with the size of the vessels, from heavy machine guns up to seventy-five-millimeter quick-firing rifles. They were also launching thousands of guided missiles of fantastic speed and of tremendous explosive power. The Arpalones were not using anything solid at all. Each defending vessel, depending upon its type and class, carried from four up to a hundred or so burnished-metal reflectors some four feet in diameter; each with a small black device at its optical center and each pouring out a tight beam of highly effective energy. It was at these reflectors, and particularly at these tiny devices, that the small-arms fire was directed, and the marksmanship of the Dilipics was very good indeed. However, each projector was oscillating irregularly and each fighter-plane was taking evasive action; and, since a few bullet-holes in any reflector did not reduce its efficiency very much, and since the central mechanisms were so small and were moving so erratically, a good three-quarters of the Arpalonian beams were still in action.

"Can't do it," the skipper said regretfully. "I'd better get started. All your party healthy?" "All healthy so far," Sorensen said. He smiled. "Except for some bad cases of gold fever." "You'll never find gold in this place," the skipper said seriously. "I'll look in on you in about six months. Good luck." After shaking hands, the skipper went down to the beach and boarded his ship.

"I owe my life to you, Petrie," he said. "Once to your strength of arm, and once to--" "Don't speak of her, Smith," I interrupted. "Dr. Fu-Manchu may have discovered the part she played! In which event--" "God help her!" CHAPTER XVI UPON the following day we were afoot again, and shortly at handgrips with the enemy. In retrospect, that restless time offers a chaotic prospect, with no peaceful spot amid its turmoils. All that was reposeful in nature seemed to have become an irony and a mockery to us--who knew how an evil demigod had his sacrificial altars amid our sweetest groves. This idea ruled strongly in my mind upon that soft autumnal day. "The net is closing in," said Nayland Smith.

"Are we fools?" Tichnat clicked. "To lose what we've gained? To return to our tribe? To be destroyed?" Starza's calm gaze caressed each face, probing. "You see? Stalemate. Whoever you are, _you're bluffing_. Tomorrow our conveyor speeds return to normal.

This passage was recently used by Fu-Manchu!" I gained the bottom of the well, and found myself standing in the entrance to an arched passage. Kennedy was directing the light of the lamp down upon the floor. "You see, the door was guarded" said Nayland Smith. "What!" "Puff adder!" he snapped, and indicated a small snake whose head was crushed beneath his heel. Sir Lionel now joined us; and, a silent quartette, we stood staring from the dead reptile into the damp and evil-smelling tunnel. A distant muttering and rumbling rolled, echoing awesomely along it. "For Heaven's sake what was that, sir?"

They fell back in alarm as it pointed its nose skyward and accelerated with incredible rapidity, the silver energy bathing them in its blinding luminescence. They burst forth in excited recrimination when it vanished into the blue. Courtney Davis shook his fist after the departing vessel and swore mightily. Carr Parker forgot them entirely when he clambered into the bucket seat beside Mado, who sat at the Nomad's controls. He was free at last: free to probe the mysteries of outer space, to roam the skies with this Martian he had admired since boyhood. "Glad you came?" Mado asked his Terrestrial friend. "You bet. But tell me about yourself. How you've been and how come you've rebelled, too?

This crescent then showed itself under considerable dimensions. It looked like an enormous arch stretched across the firmament. Some points, more vividly lighted, especially in its concave part, announced the presence of high mountains; but they disappeared sometimes under black spots, which are never seen on the surface of the lunar disc. They were rings of clouds placed concentrically round the terrestrial spheroid. However, by dint of a natural phenomenon, identical with that produced on the moon when she is in her octants, the contour of the terrestrial globe could be traced. Its entire disc appeared slightly visible through an effect of pale light, less appreciable than that of the moon. The reason of this lessened intensity is easy to understand. When this reflection is produced on the moon it is caused by the solar rays which the earth reflects upon her satellite. Here it was caused by the solar rays reflected from the moon upon the earth. Now terrestrial light is thirteen times more intense than lunar light on account of the difference of volume in the two bodies.

"And I want one." "All right. But go in the house and put on your swim suit." "Oh, _Mother_. Why?" "Because, dear, I said so." The boy had already raced across the terrace and jack-knifed into the pool. The cool sound of the dive sent the girl scurrying for her suit. I looked at my wife. "What's the idea?"

Samms, as to these trials and the White Book?" "I can add very little, I'm afraid, to what I have already said and what is in the book; and that little can be classed as 'I told you so'. We are trying, and will continue to try, to force those criminals to trial; to break up, to prohibit, an unending series of hair-splitting delays. We want, and are determined to get, legal action; to make each of those we have accused defend himself in court and under oath. Morgan and his crew, however, are working desperately to avoid any action at all, because they know that we can and will prove every allegation we have made." The Telenews ace signed off, Samms and Kinnison went to their respective offices, and Cosmocratic orators throughout the nation held a field-day. They glowed and scintillated with triumph. They yelled themselves hoarse, leather-lunged tub-thumpers though they were, in pointing out the unsullied purity, the spotless perfection of their own party and its every candidate for office; in shuddering revulsion at the never-to-be-sufficiently-condemned, proved and demonstrated villainy and blackguardy of the opposition. And the Nationalists, although they had been dealt a terrific and entirely unexpected blow, worked near-miracles of politics with what they had. Morgan and his minions ranted and raved.

The errors of perception regarding time; the idea of SEEING A SOUND; the illusion that the room alternately increased and diminished in size; your fit of laughter, and the recollection of the name Bayard Taylor. Since evidently you are familiar with that author's work--'The Land of the Saracen,' is it not?--these symptoms of the attack should be familiar, I think." Norris West pressed his hands to his evidently aching head. "Bayard Taylor's book," he said dully. "Yes! . . . I know of what my brain sought to remind me--Taylor's account of his experience under hashish. Mr.

I read it once and was amazed. I read it a second time and was--tempted. It was mine. The writer himself had authorized me to treat it as if it were my own; had voluntarily sacrificed his own claim to its authorship that he might relieve me of my very pressing embarrassment. Not only this; he had almost intimated that in putting my name to his work I should be doing him a favor. Why not do so, then, I asked myself; and immediately my better self rejected the idea as impossible. How could I put out as my own another man's work and retain my self -respect? I resolved on another and better course--to send you the story in lieu of my own with a full statement of the circumstances under which it had come into my possession, when that demon rose up out of the floor at my side, this time more evil of aspect than before, more commanding in its manner. With a groan I shrank back into the cushions of my chair, and by passing my hands over my eyes tried to obliterate forever the offending sight; but it was useless. The uncanny thing approached me, and as truly as I write sat upon the edge of my couch, where for the first time it addressed me.

And I am weary, weary, Of her silly, simpering ways, Bugles, buckles, buttons, spangles, Tight tiebacks, tighter stays. And I am weary, weary, Of that hollow little laugh, Of the slang that stands for humour, Of the chatter and the chaff. Sick of the inch-deep feeling Of that hollow little heart, Its "too lovely" latest fashions, Its "too exquisite" high Art. Its Church high, higher, highest, Their curates and their clothes, Their intonings, genuflections, Masqueradings, mops and mows. But I must curb my temper, Grumbling helps not wedlock's ills. Fashion, High Church, or Æsthetics, Let me grin and pay the bills! * * * * * [Illustration: FOREWARNED _Claude Merridew, leaderette-writer, reviewer, &c. (sentimentally)._ "Whenever I think of Althæa, Miss Vansittart I mean, I am irresistibly reminded of those matchless words of Steele's--'To love her was a liberal education.'" _Algy (following the idea with difficulty)._ "That's all right, old man, that's all right, 'course I know a lot of you writin' chaps are like that, but I think I ought to tell you that her father is one of the head johnnies in the Primrose League."] * * * * * THE EDUCATION OF HUSBANDS How suggestive is the new year of bills; and bills of housekeeping.

And, of course, if every man were granted a guaranteed immortality, we'd have one cluttered-up world." I had to admit that he was right, but I still could not accept his statistical attitude. Not while I'm the statistic. He followed my thought even though he was esper; it wasn't hard to follow anyway. "All right, I admit that this is no time to sit around discussing philosophy or metaphysics or anything of that nature. What you are interested in is you." "How absolutely correct." "You know, of course, that you are a carrier." "So I've come to believe. At least, everybody I seem to have any contact with either turns up missing or comes down with Mekstrom's--or both."

But such an interpretation didn't ring entirely true. It was too involved for an idea which could have been better expressed in four words--_I know the truth_. Tossing the note aside Dirrul turned on the water in the shower room and thoughtfully disrobed. As he threw his tunic aside a violent paralyzing terror seized his mind, making his head sing with a screeching vibration. Blindly he snatched up the tunic in order to stuff the cloth into his mouth so he would not cry out. But as soon as he pressed it against his skin his terror vanished, like a siren suddenly stilled. The pattern of the real truth fell into place then. Now he understood the power of Vinin. Experimentally he took Sorgel's disk out of his tunic and laid it on a table. As soon as he did so the blinding nameless horror flamed up.

"We've never doubted you." "Anybody with any sense could figure out that you really tried to kill Amir," another said. "Why, look. You're the one who started all this, and you sure wouldn't have worked so hard, or spent so much on this campaign, if you hadn't intended going through with it." "That's right. What happened was just some tough luck. And Esbor was getting ideas that were bigger than he was. So let's forget what's passed, and settle down to planning something else, and making sure it's fool-proof this time." But Hanlon, disgusted as he was at the way they truckled to Irad, afraid of their skins, touched their minds and read the wonder they felt as to what had so changed Irad this past year. He had always been ambitious and, since being designated Second-In-Line, somewhat inclined to be dictatorial and overbearing.

I made for the hall, for the telephone. I could scarcely drag my feet along. It seemed to take me half-an-hour to get there. I remember calling up Scotland Yard, and I remember no more." There was a short, tense interval. In some respects I was nonplused; but, frankly, I think Inspector Weymouth considered West insane. Smith, his hands locked behind his back, stared out of the window. "ANDAMAN--SECOND" he said suddenly. "Weymouth, when is the first train to Tilbury?" "Five twenty-two from Fenchurch Street," replied the Scotland Yard man promptly.

And he did so because he knew of Cosmo Mornington's will. It is he whom I accuse, Monsieur le Préfet. "I accuse him at the very least of that part of the crimes and felonies which cannot be attributed to Hippolyte Fauville. I accuse him of breaking open the drawer of the desk in which Maître Lepertuis, Cosmo Mornington's solicitor, had put his client's will. I accuse him of entering Cosmo Mornington's room and substituting a phial containing a toxic fluid for one of the phials of glycero-phosphate which Cosmo Mornington used for his hypodermic injections. I accuse him of playing the part of a doctor who came to certify Cosmo Mornington's death and of delivering a false certificate. I accuse him of supplying Hippolyte Fauville with the poison which killed successively Inspector Vérot, Edmond Fauville, and Hippolyte Fauville himself. I accuse him of arming and turning against me the hand of Gaston Sauverand, who, acting under his advice and his instructions, tried three times to take my life and ended by causing the death of my chauffeur. I accuse him of profiting by the relations which Gaston Sauverand had established with the infirmary in order to communicate with Marie Fauville, and of arranging for Marie Fauville to receive the hypodermic syringe and the phial of poison with which the poor woman was able to carry out her plans of suicide." Perenna paused to note the effect of these charges.

"What kind of...?" "All kinds. Enough to make the plans slow down and halt. The embassy sent there couldn't discover the reason--we have trouble enough understanding their way of thinking at all--and they yelled for help. We sent a couple of S S men there, and when they failed, I went there myself, to help them, and the embassy came home." He shook his head. "I can't find a thing, either, that seems significant. Oh, the surface opposition is easily discernable. Papers, handbills, inflammatory speeches by spellbinders, whispering campaigns, all calling for keeping Estrella for the Estrellans and running out all foreigners bent on plundering the planet for their own enrichment--that sort of thing." "Maybe some natives who want to take over, themselves," Hanlon ventured.

"Damn it," Boyd said, "I _can't_ say it again." "Cheer up," Malone said. "Maybe some day you'll learn. Meantime, Thomas, did you get the stuff we talked about?" Boyd nodded. "I think I got enough of it," he said. "Anyhow, there is a definite trend developing. Come on into the private office, and I'll show you." There, on Boyd's massive desk, were several neat piles of paper. "It looks like enough," Malone said.

Stanford and Hon. F. F. Low, Governor Elect of California._ REPORTED BY SAMUEL L. CLEMENS For the past month the sporting world has been in a state of feverish excitement on account of the grand prize fight set for last Sunday between the two most distinguished citizens of California, for a purse of one hundred thousand dollars. The high social standing of the competitors, their exalted position in the arena of politics, together with the princely sum of money staked upon the issue of the combat, all conspired to render the proposed prize fight a subject of extraordinary importance, and to give it an éclat never before vouchsafed to such a circumstance since the world began. Additional lustre was shed upon the coming contest by the lofty character of the seconds or bottle-holders chosen by the two champions, these being no other than Judge Field (on the part of Gov. Low), Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Hon. Wm. M. Stewart (commonly called "Bill Stewart," or "Bullyragging Bill Stewart"), of the city of Virginia, the most popular as well as the most distinguished lawyer in Nevada Territory, member of the Constitutional Convention, and future U. S. Senator for the state of Washoe, as I hope and believe--on the part of Gov. Stanford. Principals and seconds together, it is fair to presume that such an array of talent was never entered for a combat of this description upon any previous occasion. Stewart and Field had their men in constant training at the Mission during the six weeks preceding the contest, and such was the interest taken in the matter that thousands visited that sacred locality daily to pick up such morsels of information as they might, concerning the physical and scientific improvement being made by the gubernatorial acrobats.

Another hour took them to Gronski again. Lamoureux shook his head. "No sign of Kalinoff." "What do we do now?" "We go back to the ship and carry on from there. I don't know what steps we'll take after that, but at least we'll get back to shelter, out of this snow." "Which way is the ship?" "That," said Lamoureux, "is one question we can find the answer to." He spoke into his radio. "Haskell!"

You'll get a million black spots and seven hundred years in the clink! That's better--'bye now--I'll see you up at New York Spaceport." Jack Kinnison dashed to the nearest window, threw it open, and dived headlong out of the building. CHAPTER 14 The employment office of any concern with personnel running into the hundreds of thousands is a busy place indeed, even when its plants are all on Tellus and its working conditions are as nearly ideal as such things can be made. When that firm's business is Colonial, however, and its working conditions are only a couple of degrees removed from slavery, procurement of personnel is a first-magnitude problem; the Personnel Department, like Alice in Wonderland, must run as fast as it can go in order to stay where it is. Thus the "Help Wanted" advertisements of Uranium, Incorporated covered the planet Earth with blandishment and guile; and thus for twelve hours of every day and for seven days of every week the employment offices of Uranium, Inc. were filled with men--mostly the scum of Earth. There were, of course, exceptions; one of which strode through the motley group of waiting men and thrust a card through the "Information" wicket. He was a chunky-looking individual, appearing shorter than his actual five feet nine because of a hundred and ninety pounds of weight--even though every pound was placed exactly where it would do the most good. He looked--well, slouchy--and his mien was sullen.

The carriage had whirled us under I know not how many triumphal arches in process of construction, and past the tents and flag-poles of a juicy-looking cricket-field, on which Raffles undertook to bowl up to his reputation. But the chief signs of festival were within, where we found an enormous house-party assembled, including more persons of pomp, majesty, and dominion than I had ever encountered in one room before. I confess I felt overpowered. Our errand and my own presences combined to rob me of an address upon which I have sometimes plumed myself; and I have a grim recollection of my nervous relief when dinner was at last announced. I little knew what an ordeal it was to prove. I had taken in a much less formidable young lady than might have fallen to my lot. Indeed I began by blessing my good fortune in this respect. Miss Melhuish was merely the rector's daughter, and she had only been asked to make an even number. She informed me of both facts before the soup reached us, and her subsequent conversation was characterized by the same engaging candor. It exposed what was little short of a mania for imparting information.

Stepping forward and to one side, Verkan Vall, Brannad Klav and the others took care of the sleepers on the floor. In less than thirty seconds, every Chuldun in the temple was incapacitated. "All right, make sure none of them come out of it prematurely," Verkan Vall directed. "Get their weapons, and be sure nobody has a knife or anything hidden on him. Who has the syringe and the sleep-drug ampoules?" Somebody had, it developed, who was still on the First Level, to come up with the second conveyer load. Verkan Vall swore. Something like this always happened, on any operation involving more than half a dozen men. "Well, some of you stay here: patrol around, and use your paralyzers on anybody who even twitches a muscle." Ultrasonics were nice, effective, humane police weapons, but they were unreliable.

I turned back to my fries and tried to kill the subject. "Do you know how he made his stake?" "The chlorophyll thing, in Saudi Arabia." "Sweet!" he said. "Very sweet. I've got a client who's got some secondary patents from that one. What's he go after?" "Oh, pretty much everything," I said, resigning myself to discussing the topic after all. "But lately, the same as you -- cowboys and Injuns."

The whole empire turned out to search for the missing ones, but nothing came of it all. Yet I never ceased to hope, especially after my talk with Maka. "Aye," he said, when I questioned him, "it were barely possible that they have left this world for all time. I have calculated the speed which their craft might have attained, had it the right proportions, and, in truth, it might have left the spillway at such a speed that it entirely overcame the draw of the ground. "But I think it were a slim chance. It is more than likely, Strokor, that Ave shall return to thee." Was I not the fitter man? Surely Edam's purpose could not succeed; Jon would not have it so. The woman was mine, because I had chosen her; and she must come back to me, and in safety, or I should tear Edam into bits. But as time went on and naught transpired, I became more and more melancholy.

CHAPTER XXI MARK ON GUARD After the hearty supper, and the excitement of the bear-killing, they were all more or less ready for bed. The professor figured that the sun would not appear again to the Crusoes on this island in the air for quite fourteen hours. They all ought to get sufficient sleep before that time. The havoc wrought by the rays of the torrid sun upon the glacier had been apparent as they came over it to this fringe of trees at the base of the cliff. It might be necessary for them to move quickly from the ice to save their lives. "We can afford to spend some hours in rest, and will start with bodies refreshed, at least. Now we will divide the watches," suggested the scientist. But the others would not hear of the professor going on guard. Andy declared for the first watch, for he had to 'tend his "jerked" bear meat. And following him the die fell to Mark.

Was he going to double the Cape of Good Hope, then Cape Horn, and finally go as far as the Antarctic pole? Would he come back at last to the Pacific, where his Nautilus could sail free and independently? Time would show. After having skirted the sands of Cartier, of Hibernia, Seringapatam, and Scott, last efforts of the solid against the liquid element, on the 14th of January we lost sight of land altogether. The speed of the Nautilus was considerably abated, and with irregular course she sometimes swam in the bosom of the waters, sometimes floated on their surface. During this period of the voyage, Captain Nemo made some interesting experiments on the varied temperature of the sea, in different beds. Under ordinary conditions these observations are made by means of rather complicated instruments, and with somewhat doubtful results, by means of thermometrical sounding-leads, the glasses often breaking under the pressure of the water, or an apparatus grounded on the variations of the resistance of metals to the electric currents. Results so obtained could not be correctly calculated. On the contrary, Captain Nemo went himself to test the temperature in the depths of the sea, and his thermometer, placed in communication with the different sheets of water, gave him the required degree immediately and accurately. It was thus that, either by overloading her reservoirs or by descending obliquely by means of her inclined planes, the Nautilus successively attained the depth of three, four, five, seven, nine, and ten thousand yards, and the definite result of this experience was that the sea preserved an average temperature of four degrees and a half at a depth of five thousand fathoms under all latitudes.

Though the edges were all rubbed off, and the mouldings in some cases entirely removed, I could trace without difficulty a shield in the midst; and a more narrow inspection revealed underneath the whitewash, which had partly peeled away, enough remnants of colour to show that it had certainly been once painted gold and borne a cherub's head with three lilies. "That is the shield of the old Neapolitan house of Doma-Cavalli," my brother continued; "they bore a cherub's head fanning three lilies on a shield or. It was in the balcony behind this shield, long since blocked up as you see, that the musicians sat on that ball night of which Gaskell dreamt. From it they looked down on the hall below where dancing was going forward, and I will now take you downstairs that you may see if the description tallies." So saying, he raised himself, and descending the stairs with much less difficulty than he had shown in mounting them, flung open the door which I had seen in the passage and ushered us into the shop on the ground-floor. The evening light had now faded so much that we could scarcely see even in the passage, and the shop having its windows barricaded with shutters, was in complete darkness. Raffaelle, however, struck a match and lit three half-burnt candles in a tarnished sconce upon the wall. The shop had evidently been lately in the occupation of a wine-seller, and there were still several empty wooden wine-butts, and some broken flasks on shelves. In one corner I noticed that the earth which formed the floor had been turned up with spades. There was a small heap of mould, and a large flat stone was thus exposed below the surface.