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"I know it might not sound too impressive when heard second-hand, but Paul Wendell could tell me more of what was going on in the world than our Central Intelligence agents have been able to dig up in twenty years. And he claimed he could teach the trick to anyone. "I told him I'd think it over. Naturally, my first step was to make sure that he was followed twenty-four hours a day. A man with information like that simply could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands." The President scowled, as though angry with himself. "I'm sorry to say that I didn't realize the full potentialities of what he had said for several days--not until I got Frank's first report." * * * * * "You could hardly be expected to, Mr. President," Frank said. "After all, something like that is pretty heady stuff."

Run to be justice, then Joe he run, too; Knowed I was pop'lar and he hadn't a friend, So there wa'n't no use of my hurrying. The 'lection came off, we counted the votes; I hadn't enough; Joe had them to lend. Now all the way through I had been taking notes Of his disagreeable way, And it tickles me now to be able to say He's bested for good in the end; Got him down where he's bound to stay; I were a pall to his burrying. THE V-A-S-E BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE From the madding crowd they stand apart, The maidens four and the Work of Art; And none might tell from sight alone In which had Culture ripest grown-- The Gotham Million fair to see, The Philadelphia Pedigree, The Boston Mind of azure hue, Or the soulful Soul from Kalamazoo-- For all loved Art in a seemly way, With an earnest soul and a capital A. * * * * * Long they worshipped; but no one broke The sacred stillness, until upspoke The Western one from the nameless place, Who, blushing, said: "What a lovely vase!" Over three faces a sad smile flew, And they edged away from Kalamazoo. But Gotham's haughty soul was stirred To crush the stranger with one small word. Deftly hiding reproof in praise, She cries: "'T is, indeed, a lovely vaze!" But brief her unworthy triumph when The lofty one from the house of Penn, With the consciousness of two grandpapas, Exclaims: "It is quite a lovely vahs!" And glances round with an anxious thrill, Awaiting the word of Beacon Hill.

Some subtle change I seemed to detect in Mrs. Lascelles as in Bob. Had he really declared himself overnight, and had she actually accepted him? A new load seemed to rest upon her shoulders, a new anxiety, a new care; and as if to confirm my idea, she started and changed colour as I came up. "I didn't see you in church," she remarked, in her own natural fashion, when we had exchanged the ordinary salutations. "I am afraid you wouldn't expect to see me, Mrs. Lascelles." "Well, as a matter of fact, I didn't, but I suppose," added Mrs. Lascelles, as her rich voice fell into a pensive (but not a pathetic) key, "I suppose it is you who are much more surprised at seeing me. I can't help it if you are, Captain Clephane.

The Babe seemed continually to be precipitating himself at the feet of rushing forwards, and Charteris felt as if at least a dozen bones were broken in various portions of his anatomy. The game ended on Merevale's line, but they had won the match and the cup by two goals and a try to nothing. Charteris limped off the field, cheerful but damaged. He ached all over, and there was a large bruise on his left cheek-bone. He and Babe were going to the House, when they were aware that the Headmaster was beckoning to them. 'Well, MacArthur, and what was the result of the match?' 'We won, sir,' boomed the Babe. 'Two goals and a try to _nil_.' 'You have hurt your cheek, Charteris?' 'Yes, sir.'

I give it to the milkman!"] * * * * * [Illustration: PROGNOSTICATION When Mrs. Tubbles awoke (she sleeps very soundly), the morning after that farmers' dinner, she found John by her side with his boots on and the umbrella open! His explanation was that, besides being very tired, he perhaps "fansh'd there wash 'shtorm comin' on!" [It came! ] * * * * * A HUSBAND'S LAMENT AIR--"_I once had a sweet little Doll, dears._" (_Kingsley's words, set by A. Cecil._) I once saw a sweet pretty face, boys: Its beauty and grace were divine. And I felt what a swell I should be, boys, Could I boast that such charms were all mine! I wooed. Every man I cut out, boys, At my head deep anathemas hurled:-- But I said as I walked back from church, boys, "I'm the luckiest dog in the world!" As doves in a cot we began, boys, A cosy and orthodox pair: Till I found at my notable wife, boys, The world was beginning to stare.

You may be sent for." "You say--in perfect harmony." Hamar put in. "Does that mean without a quarrel, however slight?" "It means without a quarrel that would lead to separation. The moment you disunite the compact is broken." "What advantages will the secrets bring us?" Hamar inquired. "Can we gain unlimited wealth?" "Yes!"

I wish everybody here had left things like this." "Well, we'll have to check everything to make sure nothing was left on when the main power was cut," Conn said. "Don't do anything back there till we give you the go-ahead." Matsui nodded and set off on foot along the broad aisle in the middle. Conn looked around in the dim light that filtered through the dusty glass overhead. On either side of the central aisle were two production lines; between each pair, at intervals, stood massive machines which evidently fabricated parts for the power cartridges. Over them, and over the machines directly involved in production, were receptor aerials, all oriented toward a stubby tower, twenty feet thick and fifty in height, topped by a hemispherical dome. "That'll be the control tower for all the machinery in here," he decided. "Anse, suppose you and I go take a look at it." "We'll take a look at the machines," Rivas said.

Valencia," said Pembroke. "I've noticed that you walk with a very slight limp. If you have a bad leg, I should think you would do better to develop a more pronounced limp. Otherwise, you may appear to be self-conscious about it." * * * * * Spencer opened his mouth to protest, but saw with amazement that it was exactly this that Valencia was seeking. Pembroke was amused at his companion's reaction but observed that Spencer still failed to see the point. "Also, there is a certain effeminateness in the way in which you speak," said Pembroke. "Try to be a little more direct, a little more brusque. Speak in a monotone. It will make you more acceptable."

_Cl. of Ct._ Culprit. How wilt thou be tried? _Pris._ By God and my country. _Cl. of Ct._ God send thee a good deliverance. _L.C.J._ Why, how is this? Here has been a great to-do that you should not be tried at Exeter by your country, but be brought here to London, and now you ask to be tried by your country. Must we send you to Exeter again? _Pris._ My lord, I understood it was the form.

It is mine. I told you--don't you remember--when we returned from Coney Island--that I was writing a play." "Ah, but not this play." "Yes, this play. I conceived it, I practically wrote it." "The more's the pity that Clarke had preconceived it." "But it is mine!" "Did you tell him a word about it?" "No, to be sure." "Did you leave the manuscript in your room?"

The man in question rose, looking apologetic and unsure. He came nearer and offered his hand, which Brunner left dangling. Then with a heavy accent and sudden coldness he said. "I am the man who brought your wife here. I am General....." and his mouth produced some name. WHILE A BELGIAN OFFICER WAS RAPING YOUR WIFE. RAPING YOU WHILE A BELGIAN OFFICER WAS RAPING YOUR WIFE. RAPING YOUR WIFE, was all that his mind and last instinct understood. Something savage took hold of him. He struck the man with such a sudden, vicious blow that even in his weakened state it nearly broke both jaw and hand, as the general staggered and fell back.

They'll call me when it's ready." Fitzgerald snorted. "They'll call you when the bomb squad gets through checkin' it! When the guys at the garage lifted the hood they started runnin'. Then they hollered copper. There was a bomb in there!" Brink seemed to try to look surprised. He only looked interested. "Two sticks of dynamite," the detective told him grimly, "wired up to go off when your driver turned on the ignition. He did but it didn't.

Kassar's head was round, his face flat, and he was already old enough to have grown a small black mustache. "From now on," the naqeeb bellowed from his hilltop, "anyone who misses once will not eat today. Anyone who misses twice will sleep in the desert tonight without tent or blankets." Nicetas, who was wearing a long, sleeveless robe, grinned and shook himself. "It will be cold out there tonight." "What if someone misses a third time, naqeeb?" someone called out. "He is no longer Mameluke," said Mahmoud in a soft voice that carried. "He goes back to El Kahira. To be a ghulman for the rest of his life."

In their lily-leaved pool, sunk deep in the old flagged terrace, upon whose borders the blackbird whistles his early-morning song, they remind me of sundials and lavender and old delightful things. But in their cheap glass bowl upon the three- legged table, above which the cloth-covered canary maintains a stolid silence, they remind me of antimacassars and horsehair sofas and all that is depressing. It is hard that the goldfish himself should have so little choice in the matter. Goldfish look pretty in the terrace pond, yet I doubt if it was the need for prettiness which brought them there. Rather the need for some thing to throw things to. No one of the initiate can sit in front of Nature's most wonderful effect, the sea, without wishing to throw stones into it, the physical pleasure of the effort and the aesthetic pleasure of the splash combining to produce perfect contentment. So by the margin of the pool the same desires stir within one, and because ants' eggs do not splash, and look untidy on the surface of the water, there must be a gleam of gold and silver to put the crown upon one's pleasure. Perhaps when you have been feeding the goldfish you have not thought of it like that. But at least you must have wondered why, of all diets, they should prefer ants' eggs. Ants' eggs are, I should say, the very last thing which one would take to without argument.

On the following day Stapleton was placed doubly out of bounds. Tony, who was still in bed, had not heard the news when Charteris came to see him on the evening of the day on which the edict had gone forth. 'How are you getting on?' asked Charteris. 'Oh, fairly well. It's rather slow.' 'The grub seems all right.' Charteris absently reached out for a slice of cake. 'Not bad.' 'And you don't have to do any work.'

Rip stepped inside and counted the men. All present. He ordered, "Cast off." As Koa did so and stepped aboard, Rip added, "Pilot, take off. Straight up." The landing boat rose from the asteroid. Rip counted the men again, just to be sure. The boat seemed a little crowded, but that was because the rear compartment took up quite a bit of room. Rip watched his chronometer. They had plenty of time.

"Surely my Lord is very patient." Holroyd had at first initiated his "nigger" into such elementary conceptions of the dynamo's working as would enable him to take temporary charge of the shed in his absence. But when he noticed the manner in which Azuma-zi hung about the monster he became suspicious. He dimly perceived his assistant was "up to something," and connecting him with the anointing of the coils with oil that had rotted the varnish in one place, he issued an edict, shouted above the confusion of the machinery, "Don't 'ee go nigh that big dynamo any more, Pooh-bah, or a'll take thy skin off!" Besides, if it pleased Azuma-zi to be near the big machine, it was plain sense and decency to keep him away from it. Azuma-zi obeyed at the time, but later he was caught bowing before the Lord of the Dynamos. At which Holroyd twisted his arm and kicked him as he turned to go away. As Azuma-zi presently stood behind the engine and glared at the back of the hated Holroyd, the noises of the machinery took a new rhythm, and sounded like four words in his native tongue. It is hard to say exactly what madness is. I fancy Azuma-zi was mad.

On the other hand, a condenser isn't usually considered as a power supply." Olcott chuckled. "I see your point. Could you give me a rough idea of the principle on which your Converter operates?" Bending allowed himself a thoughtful frown. "I'd rather not, just now, Mr. Olcott. As I said, I want to sort of spring this full-blown on the world." He grinned. He looked like a small boy who had just discovered that people liked him; but it was a calculated expression, not an automatic one.

Now, without laughter, he wondered again what his mother would have thought of him. She would have been proud. He realized now that she had done her best for him. And when every one else had given up hope for him, she had not. Perhaps she had protected him too much--but she had early learned the need for protection. He could look at her now in a new light. Her own father had died early in life, and then her husband soon after her son had been born. She had faced a tough fight, and had thought to spare him what she herself had gone through. Too bad she hadn't realized exactly what she was doing. She was bringing him up with the ability, as the old epigram had it, to resist everything but temptation.

came Huggles' question. "Where d'you s'pose it is, 'Uggles? Why, in Wilkie's waistcoat pocket o' course;" and Bindle left it at that. Just as Huggles' head appeared above the window, Mr. Wilton re-entered. "I have telephoned to Harridges," he said. "Her ladyship's instructions are quite clear, there seems to be no mistake." "There ain't no mistake, ole sport," said Bindle confidently. "It's all down in the delivery-note. The Ole Bird 'as sort o' taken a fancy to soldiers, an' wants to 'ave a supply on the premises."

"By the rings of Saturn!" exclaimed Tom. There in front of him, ripped open like a can of sardines, was the gleaming metal skin of the time capsule! The dirt floor of the tunnel around Strong and beside the capsule was littered with audio spools, sound disks, micropapers, and stereo slides. Tom kneeled down beside his skipper and stammered, "What--what does it mean, sir?" "It means," answered Strong slowly, "that we're dealing with two of the cleverest men in the universe! If they've stolen what I think they have, the entire Solar Guard, Solar Alliance, and just about everyone in the universe is at their mercy!" * * * * * "How do you feel, Roger?" asked Astro. The blond-haired cadet sat up in bed, dangled his feet over the side, and rubbed his neck.

Still fuming, Terry glanced at the pictures. The first was of a spherical object made of transparent plastic and probably of small size. It had a number of metallic elements clearly visible through the transparent case. It looked as if it might be an electronic device itself, but there was no sign of lead-in contacts, and the parts inside made no sense at all. The second and third photographs were of a similar yet slightly different object. The fourth photograph was a picture of what looked like ocean water, taken from a plane. The horizon showed in one corner. The center of the picture was an irregularly-shaped mass of white. On close examination it appeared to be foam. But it looked as if it were piled up in masses above the surface.

Nevertheless, I promised and I should like to keep my promise. What I have tried to do, in order to place life before you in a more favourable light, would seem purposeless, if your confidence feels the lack of this talisman to which you attach so great a value. We must not laugh at these little superstitions. They are often the mainspring of our best actions. "Dear friend, if you had helped me, I should have achieved yet one more victory. Alone and hard pushed by the proximity of the date, I have failed, not however without placing things on such a footing that the undertaking if you care to follow it up, has the greatest chance of success. "And you will follow it up, won't you? We have entered into a mutual agreement which we are bound to honour. It behooves us, within a fixed time, to inscribe in the book of our common life eight good stories, to which we shall have brought energy, logic, perseverance, some subtlety and occasionally a little heroism. This is the eighth of them.

Then they all sat down, and, as Paul had foreseen, there the white cocked-hat lay on the dark pew-carpet, hideously distinct, with _billet doux_ in every fold of it! It could only be a question of time now. The curate was reading the first lesson for the day, but Mr. Bultitude heard not a verse of it. He was waiting with bated breath for the blow to fall. It fell at last. Dulcie, either with the malevolent idea of hastening the crisis, or (which I prefer to believe for my own part) finding that her ex-lover's visible torments were too much for her desire of vengeance, was softly moving a heavy hassock towards the guilty note. The movement caught her mother's eye, and in an instant the compromising paper was in her watchful hands. She read it with incredulous horror, and handed it at once to the Doctor. The golden-haired one saw it all without betraying herself by any outward confusion.

He felt himself grow, felt his body grow vaster, assume greater proportions, felt new vitality flow through him. It was the other men, the men who were flinging themselves into the column of light in the laboratory to be warped back to this plane, to be incorporated in his body. It was not his body, however. His brain was not his alone. The pronoun, he realized, represented the sum total of those other men, his fellow adventurers. Suddenly a new feeling came, a feeling of completeness, a feeling of supreme fitness. He knew that the last of the ninety-eight men had stepped across the disk, that all were here in this giant body. Now he could see more clearly. Things in the landscape, which had escaped him before, became recognizable. Awful thoughts ran through his brain, heavy, ponderous, black thoughts.

Henderson with a laugh. "Now," he continued, "I was about to give a few general instructions about the airship, when Washington interrupted us. "You men who are here against your will I am sorry about. I could not stop and let you off a while ago, because there was a man at the shed whom I did not want to meet. But if you want to go back to your homes I will let the airship down to the earth and you can go. I would like to have you stay with me. I can promise you all good wages, since I am well off as regards money. "To you, Mr. Sudds, I can promise such game hunting as you never had before. And to you two farm hands I can promise such sights as you never saw before.

Psmith Makes Inquiries Psmith, as was his habit of a morning when the fierce rush of his commercial duties had abated somewhat, was leaning gracefully against his desk, musing on many things, when he was aware that Bristow was standing before him. Focusing his attention with some reluctance upon this blot on the horizon, he discovered that the exploiter of rainbow waistcoats and satin ties was addressing him. 'I say, Smithy,' said Bristow. He spoke in rather an awed voice. 'Say on, Comrade Bristow,' said Psmith graciously. 'You have our ear. You would seem to have something on your chest in addition to that Neapolitan ice garment which, I regret to see, you still flaunt. If it is one tithe as painful as that, you have my sympathy. Jerk it out, Comrade Bristow.' 'Jackson isn't half copping it from old Bick.'

It was the power of vision and movement, the power of spell and incantation. The others called it magic, though no gypsy would call it so. Marya Proderenska sat quietly in the back room of the little shop and waited. A woman would come; she knew that, and the knowledge was another piece of her power, and a proof of it. Farther she could not see, but in the cloud of the future the woman was clear. (What power Marya Proderenska had, a blond social worker had, too, and other people; she had never been able to clear her mind of her own superstitions enough to train the power or work very effectively with it. The power was sufficient for her.) Marya Proderenska sighed. The power demanded its own responsibilities. She could not marry outside the clan into which she had been born.

"I think we both could use a drink." Later, the puzzled steward departed for the dining salon to return the steak knife which Snow had "accidentally" picked up. We sipped our drinks in mutual silence for a minute or two, regarding one another over the rims of our tumblers. To me, Snow was looking better by the minute. I even had a momentary thought of flashing the Amnesty at her to see if those red velvet lips could fulfill in a tactile way the promise they made visually. But instead, I said, "Tell me, do you always attack Amnesty-bearers with the nearest weapon you can lay hold of?" Snow laughed musically, shaking her head. "I didn't mean to come in at full threat, Jery," she said softly. "I just wanted some sort of defense in case--Well, Amnesty-bearers think they can ask _anything_ of a person, and--" She left the explanation unfinished, but I found myself glad I hadn't tried pulling rank for a fast romance. "I'm very curious to know just what you did come in here for, Snow.

They got into the space tug. It floated free. "_You will fire in ten seconds_," said a crisp voice in Joe's headphones. "_Ten ... nine ... eight ... seven ... six ... five ... four ... three ... two ... one ... fire!_" Joe crooked his index finger. There was an explosive jolt. Rockets flamed terribly in emptiness. The space tug rushed toward the west. The Platform seemed to dwindle with startling suddenness. It seemed to rush away and become lost in the myriads of stars. The space tug accelerated at four gravities in the direction opposed to its orbital motion.

Don't put away that notebook. Turn to a clean page, moisten your pencil, and write as follows. Are you ready? By the way, what is your Christian name? . . . Gooch, Gooch, this is no way to speak! Well, if you are sensitive on the point, we will waive the Christian name. It is my duty to tell you, however, that I suspect it to be Percy.

Disconcerted, wholly ill at ease, the four went obediently to the library, deserted now that the cotillion was beginning. The two men struggled valiantly with the conversation, but the twins sat stricken to shamed dumbness: no topic could thrive in the face of their mute rigidity. Silences stalked the failing efforts. Mr. White's eyes clung to the clock while his throat dilated with secret yawns; Mr. Morton twisted restlessly and finally let a nervous sigh escape. Dora suddenly clasped her hands tightly together. "We hate it just as much as you do," she said distinctly. They turned startled faces toward her. Cora paled, but flew to her sister's aid.

The effect was that of a body encased in clear ice--and like clear ice, the encasing shell sparkled and glittered radiantly in the sunlight that poured in at the windows. Thorn moved. His glazed arms and legs and torso glistened with all the colors in the spectrum; while under the filmed bulges of glass his eyes looked as large as apples. The Secretary felt a chill of superstitious fear as he gazed at that weird and glittering figure with its enormous glazed eyes. "But you aren't invisible," he said at length. "That comes now," said Thorn, walking ahead of the Secretary while on the ceiling above him danced red and yellow and blue rainbows of refracted light. * * * * * He stepped onto a big metal plate. Suspended above was a huge metal ring, with its hole directly over the spot on which he stood. "Soft magnets," explained Thorn. "As simply as I can put it, my process for rendering an object invisible is this: I place the object, coated with the film, on this plate.

The grape is picked in the dark. It is then carried, still in the dark, to the testing room. There every particle of alcohol is removed. Try it." "Thank you," said the President. "I am no longer thirsty." "Will anybody have some more of the grape juice?" asked Mr. Bryan, running his eye along the ranks of the guests. No one spoke.

The ladder, the table on the window-sill, they lead nowhere. The only people who came up that ladder were the two men who brought it from the scaffolding. You can see their footsteps. Nobody went down it at all. It was mere waste of time to bother with those traces." "But the footprint under the book?" said the Duke. "Oh, that," said Guerchard. "One of the burglars sat on the couch there, rubbed plaster on the sole of his boot, and set his foot down on the carpet. Then he dusted the rest of the plaster off his boot and put the book on the top of the footprint."

Her name escaped his lips, and rang with a pleasant echo through the house. In another moment he was in the room, and had clasped her to his breast. "My own--my beautiful--my true!" "Charles, dear Charles!" "Oh, Flora, what have I not endured since last we met; but this repays me--more than repays me for all." "What is the past now," cried Flora--"what are all its miseries placed against this happy, happy moment?" "D--me, nobody thinks of me," said the admiral. "My dear uncle," said Charles, looking over Flora's shoulder, as he still held her in his arms, "is that you?" "Yes, yes, swab, it is me, and you know it; but give us your five, you mutinous vagabond; and I tell you what, I'll do you the greatest favour I've had an opportunity of doing you some time--I'll leave you alone, you dog. Come along, Jack."

But he don't complain." "What a companion Waitstill would be for him?" I sez agin. "Yes," sez Phila, "but I don't believe she will ever marry any one, she looks so sad." "It seems jest if they wuz made for each other," sez I, "and I know he worships the ground she walks on. But I don't know as she will ever marry any one after what she has went through," and I sithed. "She would marry," sez Phila warmly, "if she knew what a lovely, lovely state it wuz." How strange it is that some folks are as soft as putty on some subjects and real cute on others. Phila knew enough on any other subject only jest marriage. But I spozed that her brain would harden up on this subject when she got more familiar with it--they generally do.

The other man laughed. "Sure," he said. "I'll go on now, just so you're all right. Want a doc?" "Uh-uh!" the man on the seat beside me shook his head. "My name's Tompkins and I live in Bedford Hills. If there's any damage, it's my fault and I'll pay for it. Sure you're okay?" "Yep!"

NOT going to sleep after 1. NEVER having "a dinner! gown to put on," when invited out anywhere. 2. Never going anywhere 2. Always being down the in the evening, excepting first to breakfast! always "to the club!" being dressed in time for dinner! and never keeping the carriage (or the cab) waiting at the door a minute! 3.

Hence--there is this much in common between the moon and cats--the one influences and the other is influenced by psychic phenomena--a fact that could scarcely have failed to be recognized by so keen observers of the occult as the Ancient Egyptians. "The presence of the cat's effigy in the temples of Isis might thus be explained. Over and over again we come across the cat in the land of the Pharaohs. It seems to be inseparable from the esoteric side of Egyptian life. The goddess Bast is depicted with a cat's head, holding the sistrum, i.e. the symbol of the world's harmony, in her hand. "One of the most ancient symbols of the cat is to be found in the Necropolis of Thebes, which contains the tomb of Hana (who probably belonged to the Eleventh Dynasty). There, Hana is depicted standing erect, proud and kingly, with his favourite cat Borehaki--Borehaki, the picture of all things strange and psychic, and from whom one cannot help supposing he may have chosen his occult inspiration--at his feet. So sure were the Egyptians that the cat possessed a soul that they deemed it worthy of the same funeral rites they bestowed on man. Cats were embalmed, and innumerable cat mummies have been discovered in wooden coffins at Bubastis, Speos, Artemidos and Thebes.

Pickering, E.C., discovers ninth moon of Saturn, 195. finds Eros on Harvard plates, 133. on shape of Eros, 136. on light of Eros, 137. Pickering, W.H., on lunar atmosphere, 247. observes changes in moon, 244. sees Mars's canals, 92. theory of Tycho's rays, 246. on Venus's atmosphere, 54. Planets, classification of, 15. how to find, 256, 273. resemblances among, 12. Plato, lunar ring plain, 225. Plurality of worlds in literature, 2. subject ignored, 8. Proctor, R.A., on Jupiter's moons, 180. on other worlds, 8. Roche's limit, 201. Rosse, Lord, on temperature of moon, 255. Saturn, age of, 189. composition of, 190. density of, 188. distance of, 186. the gauze ring, 199-202. gravity on, 188. inclination of axis, 187. interior of, 206. length of year, 186. popular telescopic object, 185. rings of, 185, 196. gaps in, 197. origin of, 200. periodic disappearance of, 198. seen from planet, 207. shadow of, 198. rotation of, 187. satellites of, 195. size of, 187. Schiaparelli discovers canals on Mars, 90. describes Martian canals, 93. discovers Mercury's rotation, 30, 32. on rotation of Venus, 76.

"Then I suppose I must have fainted, but when I recovered consciousness again, I found myself upon a couch, and a man presenting some stimulus to me in a cup. I could not distinguish objects distinctly, but I heard him say, 'Drink, and you will be better.' "I did drink, for a raging thirst consumed me, and then I fell into a sound sleep, which, I was afterwards told, lasted nearly twenty-four hours, and when I recovered from that, I heard again the same voice that had before spoken to me, asking me how I was. "I turned in the direction of the sound, and, as my vision was now clearer, I could see that it was the hangman, whose face had made upon the scaffold such an impression upon me--an impression which I then considered my last in this world, but which turned out not to be such by many a mingled one of pain and pleasure since. "It was some time before I could speak, and when I did, it was only in a few muttered words, to ask what had happened, and where I was. "'Do you not remember,' he said, 'that you were hanged?' "'I do--I do,' was my reply. 'Is this the region of damned souls?' "'No; you are still in this world, however strange you may think it. Listen to me, and I will briefly tell you how it is that you have come back again, as it were, from the very grave, to live and walk about among the living."

Ten miles--on his hands and knees. Crawling, creeping through the night. His shoes were mud-caked. He was scratched and limping, utterly exhausted. But ahead of him lay Oak Grove. He took a deep breath and started down the hill. Twice he stumbled and fell, picking himself up and trudging on. His ears rang. Everything receded and wavered. But he was there.

Would not our first installation have been made under better circumstances? Yes, evidently. As to the invisible side, we could have visited that in our exploring expeditions on the lunar globe. So, therefore, the time of the full moon was well chosen. But we ought to have reached our goal, and in order to have reached it we ought not to have deviated from our road." "There is no answer to make to that," said Michel Ardan. "Yet we have passed a fine opportunity for seeing the moon! Who knows whether the inhabitants of the other planets are not more advanced than the _savants_ of the earth on the subject of their satellites?" The following answer might easily have been given to Michel Ardan's remark:--Yes, other satellites, on account of their greater proximity, have made the study of them easier. The inhabitants of Saturn, Jupiter, and Uranus, if they exist, have been able to establish communication with their moons much more easily.

He'd been a passenger on a freighter when it had unaccountably blown up, and he'd been forced to leave the dying vessel in one of those automatic castaway emergency shells. The capsule had got him down to the surface of this planet and was, as far as he knew, still up in the hills where he'd left it. After wandering for a week and almost starving to death he'd been picked up by some peasants. They had turned him in to the soldiers of a nearby garrison, thinking he must be a runaway slave on whom they'd collect a reward. Taken to the capital city of Quotz, Green had almost been freed because there was no record of his being anybody's property. But his tallness, blondness and inability to speak the local language had convinced his captors that he must have wandered down from some far northern country. Therefore if he wasn't a slave he should be. Presto, changeo! He was. And he'd put in six months in a quarry and a year as a dock worker.

"So long--see you in a few days," he added, and the _Pleiades_ vanished; to appear instantaneously high above the stratosphere over what was to become the Galaxian Field of Earth. * * * "Got a minute, Gene?" he sent a thought. "For you two Primes, as many as you like. We haven't started building or fencing yet, as you suggested, but we have bought all the real estate. So land the ship anywhere out there and I'll send a jeep out after you." "Thanks, but no jeep. Nobody but you knows that we've really got control of the _Pleiades_, and I want everybody else to keep on thinking it's strictly for the birds. We'll 'port in to your office whenever you say." "I say now."

The Arisian seemed to smile. "Exactly." Samms blushed, but held his ground. "Nobody does anything for nothing. Altruism is beautiful in theory, but it has never been known to work in practice. I will pay a tremendous price--any price within reason or possibility--for the Lens; but I will have to know what that price is to be." "It will be heavier than you think, or can at present realize; although not in the sense you fear." Mentor's thought was solemnity itself. "Whoever wears the Lens of Arisia will carry a load that no weaker mind could bear. The load of authority; of responsibility; of knowledge that would wreck completely any mind of lesser strength.

I asked her what she meant, thinking I could see the influence of von Schoenvorts raising a suspicion against one of my most trusted men. "If you will note the boat's course a half-hour after Benson goes on duty," she said, "you will know what I mean, and you will understand why he prefers a night watch. Possibly, too, you will understand some other things that have taken place aboard." Then she went back to her room, thus ending the conversation. I waited until half an hour after Benson had gone on duty, and then I went on deck, passing through the conning-tower where Benson sat, and looking at the compass. It showed that our course was north by west--that is, one point west of north, which was, for our assumed position, about right. I was greatly relieved to find that nothing was wrong, for the girl's words had caused me considerable apprehension. I was about to return to my room when a thought occurred to me that again caused me to change my mind--and, incidentally, came near proving my death-warrant. When I had left the conning-tower little more than a half-hour since, the sea had been breaking over the port bow, and it seemed to me quite improbable that in so short a time an equally heavy sea could be deluging us from the opposite side of the ship--winds may change quickly, but not a long, heavy sea. There was only one other solution--since I left the tower, our course had been altered some eight points.

He pushed him into one of the end carriages. The train started and soon disappeared in the tunnel. Then Don Luis flung himself on a bench in a waiting room and remained there for two hours, pretending to read the newspapers. But his eyes wandered and his mind was haunted by the agonizing question that once more forced itself upon him: was Florence guilty or not? * * * * * It was five o'clock exactly when Major Comte d'Astrignac, Maître Lepertuis, and the secretary of the American Embassy were shown into M. Desmalions's office. At the same moment some one entered the messengers' room and handed in his card. The messenger on duty glanced at the pasteboard, turned his head quickly toward a group of men talking in a corner, and then asked the newcomer: "Have you an appointment, sir?" "It's not necessary. Just say that I'm here: Don Luis Perenna." A kind of electric shock ran through the little group in the corner; and one of the persons forming it came forward.

Mrs. Bindle was a sharp, hatchet-faced woman, with eyes too closely set together to satisfy an artist. The narrowness of her head was emphasised by the way in which her thin, sandy hair was drawn behind each ear and screwed tightly into a knot at the back. Her lips were thin and slightly marked, and when she was annoyed they had a tendency to disappear altogether. "How are we going to live?" she demanded. "Answer me that! You and your strikes!" Bindle struck a match and became absorbed in lighting his pipe. "What are you going to do for food?"

He would be sure to find congenial society in the neighbourhood of Hanwell, and by selecting this spot as his destination, the expense of a return ticket would be saved. ANXIOUS MOTHER.--So glad that you intend taking your dear ten children to Poppleton-on-Sea for three weeks' change of air. And all that you tell me about Timothy's pet rabbit and Selina's last attack of measles is so deeply interesting. Unfortunately I cannot answer all your questions myself, but I will print them here, so that some of my kind readers may be able to assist you. You want to know, in regard to Poppleton-- (1) Whether the pavements (if any) are stone or asphalte. (2) What is the mean temperature, the annual rain-fall, and the death-rate. (3) What are the Rector's "views," and if there is a comfortable pew in the church, out of draughts, calculated to hold eleven. (4) What time the shops at Poppleton close on Saturdays. DUBIOUS.--As you say, it _is_ difficult to make up one's mind where to spend the holidays, because there are so many places from which to choose. And you were so wise to write and ask me to give you the name of one single place which I could thoroughly recommend, and so save you all further worry.

One week. This is like leukemia. Got it? This is like leukemia." June rose. It was time for her to take over the job. She leaned across his desk and spoke into the speaker system. "Doctor Walton talking," she said. "This is to the women. Don't let any of the men work any more; they'll kill themselves.

He had tucked carefully under his arm a sphere of about the size of a basketball and, if he had made it to my specifications, weighing thirty-five pounds. He had a worried frown on his forehead. "It looks good," I said. "What's the trouble?" "There seems to be a slight hitch," he said. "I've been testing for conductivity. It seems to be quite low." "That's what I'm working on now. It's just a mechanical problem of pumping enough warm air back to the ball. We can do it with no more than a twenty per cent efficiency loss.

The firmament swung, in a slow arc, and steadied with the Earth behind us and the Sun and Moon in advance of our bow. We were on our course, plunging through space with accelerating velocity toward the unknown enemy ship hovering two hundred thousand miles ahead of us. My orders were to find the ship and maneuver us close to it; and Grantline's orders were to assail it. I gazed down at the convex North Atlantic with the reddening coastline of North America spread like a map. What was the nature of this strange enemy whom we sought? That opalescent beam from Greater New York mounted with its radiance into the dome-like starfield; the one from Venus and the other from Mars seemed crossing overhead amid the stars. Three swords crossing the sky! What did they mean? * * * * * "Will you swing east or west of the Moon?" "We haven't decided."

His hand was thin almost to the point of emaciation. Blue veins stood out on the back and his long, slim, mobile fingers, the fingers of an artist and dreamer, were mere claws, with the skin drawn tight over the bones. A man in a white uniform bent over him. "Drink this, Doctor," came in soothing tones. He was too weak to protest and he managed to sip the drink through a glass tube. Slowly he felt himself sinking through vast unexplored reaches of darkness. How long he lay there he did not know but when he again opened his eyes the light was no longer over him. He strove to speak and a husky whisper came from his lips. A tall woman in white hastened forward and bent over him. "Where am I?"

But after something like three hours' search, the darkness already down, the two men returned to camp with nothing to report. Fresh snow had covered all signs, and though they had followed the blazed trees to the spot where Simpson had turned back, they had not discovered the smallest indication of a human being--or for that matter, of an animal. There were no fresh tracks of any kind; the snow lay undisturbed. It was difficult to know what was best to do, though in reality there was nothing more they _could_ do. They might stay and search for weeks without much chance of success. The fresh snow destroyed their only hope, and they gathered round the fire for supper, a gloomy and despondent party. The facts, indeed, were sad enough, for Défago had a wife at Rat Portage, and his earnings were the family's sole means of support. Now that the whole truth in all its ugliness was out, it seemed useless to deal in further disguise or pretense. They talked openly of the facts and probabilities. It was not the first time, even in the experience of Dr.

Johnny leaned back in his chair, and his eyes were thoughtful but unseeing. "Even we of the west learned the lesson. The most important factor in our leadership was our wonderful trained labor force. As far back as 1960 we had more than 65 million Americans working daily in industry and distribution. Even the Russkies, with their larger population, didn't begin to equal that number." "What are you driveling about?" the reporter demanded. "To sum it up," Johnny said mildly, "the battle for men's minds continues and each of the world's great powers has discovered that it can't afford to limit its population--its greatest resource. So population continues to explode and the world is currently frantically seeking sources of food for its new billions. The Amazon basin is being made into a tropical garden; the Japanese, landless, are devising a hundred methods of farming the sea; Australia is debouching into its long unpopulated interior, doing much the same things we are here in the Sahara.

"I'll say you will," said Murray, helping Gloria up. "It's as bad for the guy that's using it as the one at the other end. But seriously, you've got something good there. What happened to the iron plate?" "Disintegrated. Let's see, where does iron come in the periodic table, Ben? Twenty-six? Then you'll probably find small quantities of all the chemical elements from twenty-five down in that heap of ashes. Phooey, what a rotten smell! That must be the action of the beam on the nitrogen in the air."

If only one could work and sleep alternately, twenty-four hours a day, the year round! There's no use trying to play in London. It's so hard to find a playmate. The English people take their pleasures without salt." "The dungeons of Castle Ennui," she repeated meditatively. "Yes, we are fellow-prisoners. I'm bored to extermination too. Still," she added, "one is allowed out on parole, now and again. And sometimes one has really quite delightful little experiences." "It would ill become me, in the present circumstances, to dispute that," he answered, bowing.

We'll give you jewels to buy an empire. Or if it is vengeance against whatever you feel we are, you shall know my secret name and the name of everyone here. Do with us then what you like. _But fix the sky!_" It shook Hanson. He had been prepared to face fury, or to try lying his way out if there was a chance with some story of having needed to study Menes's methods. Or of being lost. But he had no defense prepared against such an appeal. It was utterly mad. He could do nothing, and their demands were impossible. But before the picture of the world dying and the decay of the old Sather's pride, even Hanson's own probable death with the dying world seemed unimportant.

Blades stiffened. "What's the matter?" Ellen sounded alarmed. "Huh?" _A fine conspirator I make, if she can see my emotions on me in neon capitals!_ "Nothing. Nothing. It just seemed a little strange, you know. Not taking any replacement units." "I understand the work is only a matter of making certain adjustments." "Then they should've finished a lot quicker, shouldn't they?"

June nudged Max, and Max shrugged indifferently. It wasn't anything a man would pay attention to, perhaps. But June watched Pat for a moment more, then glanced uneasily back to Max. He was eating and listening to Pat's answers and did not feel her gaze. For some reason Max looked almost shrunken to her. He was shorter than she had realized; she had forgotten that he was only the same height as herself. She was dimly aware of the clear lilting chatter of female voices increasing at Pat's end of the table. "That guy's a menace," Max said, and laughed to himself, cutting another slice of hydroponic mushroom steak. "What's eating you?" he added, glancing aside at her when he noticed her sudden stillness.

"I can keep it dark for the present, till all is arranged for. I need only say I have interests in South Africa." So, one morning on deck, as we were approaching the Banks, he broached his scheme gently to the doctor and Mrs. Quackenboss. He remarked that he was connected with one of the biggest financial concerns in the Southern hemisphere; and that he would pay Elihu fifteen hundred a year to represent him at the diggings. "What, dollars?" the lady said, smiling and accentuating the tip-tilted nose a little more. "Oh, Mr. Porter, it ain't good enough!" "No, pounds, my dear madam," Charles responded.

He said to the chauffeur: "I can see by your face that you intend to talk about me. Don't do that, my man: it would be foolish of you. Here's a thousand-franc note for you. Only, if you blab, I'll make you repent it. That's all I have to say to you." He turned to Davanne, whose machine was beginning to block the traffic, and asked: "Can we start?" "Whenever you like. Where are we going?" Paying no attention to the movements of the people coming from every side, Don Luis unfolded his map of France and spread it out before him. He experienced a few seconds of anxiety at seeing the complicated tangle of roads and picturing the infinite number of places to which the villain might carry Florence.

Rather than meet General Grant and entertain him when there was no pie in the house, he and the Treasury had escaped from the haunts of man, wishing to commune with nature for a while. He was captured at Irwinsville, Georgia, under peculiar and rather amusing circumstances. He was never punished, with the exception perhaps that he published a book and did not realize anything from it. Lee fled to the westward, but was pursued by the triumphant Federals, especially by Sheridan, whose cavalry hung on his flanks day and night. Food failed the fleeing foe, and the young shoots of trees for food and the larger shoots of the artillery between meals were too much for that proud army, once so strong and confident. Let us not dwell on the particulars. As Sheridan planted his cavalry squarely across Lee's path of retreat, the worn but heroic tatters of a proud army prepared to sell themselves for a bloody ransom and go down fighting, but Grant had demanded their surrender, and, seeing back of the galling, skirmishing cavalry solid walls of confident infantry, the terms of surrender were accepted by General Lee, and April 9 the Confederate army stacked its arms near Appomattox Court-House. The Confederate war debt was never paid, for some reason or other, but the Federal debt when it was feeling the best amounted to two billion eight hundred and forty-four million dollars. One million men lost their lives. Was it worth while?

One of them, the tapered tube of metal that angled up to the hut's ceiling, its base a mass of wheels and dials and tubing, was evidently the weapon of the ray that had struck the scout down. There were three men visible in the room, and Chris switched his attention now to them. Two were standing by a table in the center of the room, directly under a shaft of light from a powerful electric bulb. The shorter of them was saying to a third man, who knelt in front of the dynamo: "On full." Then, as a full-throated drone pulsed from it: "Zenalishin iss there? Yess. Put him in." The voice of the hissing s's--that was Istafiev. Short, stocky, black-haired, he was a direct contrast to the tall figure next him of one whose pointed black beard gave elegance to sharp, thin features. He carried a gun at his waist, and he identified himself as Kashtanov by saying languidly: "Better strap him in.

"Now come!" my uncle cried; "if you are frightened already, what will you be by and by? We have not gone a single inch yet into the bowels of the earth." "What do you mean?" "I mean that we have only reached the level of the island, long vertical tube, which terminates at the mouth of the crater, has its lower end only at the level of the sea." "Are you sure of that?" "Quite sure. Consult the barometer." In fact, the mercury, which had risen in the instrument as fast as we descended, had stopped at twenty-nine inches. "You see," said the Professor, "we have now only the pressure of our atmosphere, and I shall be glad when the aneroid takes the place of the barometer."

But to kill her now, before learning how she planned to cross the supposedly impassable bridge, seemed as purposeless and impulsive as Ida herself. Roddie didn't think, in any case, that her death would satisfy the soldiers. With new and useful information to offer, he might join them as an equal at last. But if his dalliance with this enemy seemed pointless, not even Molly's knitting needles could protect him. He was sure the soldiers must be tracking the mysterious emanations of his watch dial, and had trouble to keep from glancing over his shoulder at every step. But arrival at the bridge approach ended the need for this self-restraint. Here, difficult going demanded full attention. * * * * * He'd never gone as far as the bridge before, not having wanted to look as if he might be leaving the city. The approach was a jungle of concrete with an underbrush of reinforcing-steel that reached for the unwary with rusted spines. Frequently they had to balance on cracked girders, and inch over roadless spots high off the ground.

"You're just in this by accident," he said. "You see, after the explosion and the amputation, my fellow-members on the board of Ledman Atomics decided that a semi-basket case like myself was a poor risk as Head of the Board, and they took my company away. All quite legal, I assure you. They left me almost a pauper!" Then he snapped the punchline at me. "They renamed Ledman Atomics. Who did you say you worked for?" I began, "Uran--" "Don't bother. A more inventive title than Ledman Atomics, but not quite as much heart, wouldn't you say?" He grinned.

"They're responsible for what's happened here on Titan!" whispered Tom. "They have been sucking off oxygen from the main pumps supporting the force field." "Come on, Tom," growled Astro. "My fist is just itching to make contact with a couple of no-good chins." "Not so fast! We still don't know where they've got Roger." "You want to keep on following them?" asked Astro. "At least to their ship," Tom replied.

He had accepted expulsion from the place of his birth as the alternative to the court's sentence of labor in Callisto's encapsulated subsurface mines. Educated and trained to practice law in the Outer Region's inter-satellite and interplanetary courts he had, instead, become a serious liability to his government and to his community. At his disbarment, the investigating officer of the Callisto Ethical Practices Board had presented irrefutable evidence of Narval's numerous conflicts of interests, extortions, frauds and other crimes in the performance of his responsibilities as an officer-of-the-court. Removed from the judicial arena, he was proven to have also cheated in the Callisto gambling halls, swindled citizens of sound repute, and twice convicted of murder. Callisto and its orbiting colonies were wide open, but Reen Narval was too much for them. He was told to quickly depart Callisto's jurisdiction or take the consequences. He left gracelessly, found a haven on Planet Pluto, and applied his many talents with vigor. Organizing Coldfield's fragmented criminal elements, he ruled with an iron fist. Solidly entrenched, he imposed tactics of terror on the population and encountered little resistance. He rose to the top, balanced on a mound of cracked skulls and crushed bodies.

"He's all covered with blood." The little figure presented a ghastly sight. As it steadily grew larger they could see and recognize the Chemist's haggard face, his cheek and neck stained with blood, and his white suit covered with dirt. "Look at his feet," whispered the Big Business Man. They were horribly cut and bruised and greatly swollen. The Doctor bent over and whispered gently, "What can I do to help you?" The Chemist shook his head. His body, lying prone upon the handkerchief, had torn it apart in growing. When he was about twelve inches in length he raised his head. The Doctor bent closer.

Which of course left the horse to Val. And Val was becoming slightly bored with Louisiana, at least with that portion of it which immediately surrounded them. Charity was hard at work on her picture of the swamp hunter, for Jeems had come back without warning from his mysterious concerns in the swamp. There was no one to talk to and nowhere to go. LeFleur had notified them that he believed he was on the track of some discreditable incident in the past of their rival which would banish him from their path. And no more handkerchiefs had been found, ownerless, in their hall. It was a serene morning. But, Val thought long afterwards, he should have been warned by that very serenity and remembered the old saying, that it was always calmest before a storm. On the contrary, he was riding Sam's horse along the edge of that swamp, wondering what lay hidden back in that dark jungle. Some day, he determined, he would do a little exploring in that direction.

Parker looked at the door. It was closed. He bent forward. "See here," he said, "I'm going to talk straight, if you'll let me." "Assuredly, Comrade Parker. There must be no secrets, no restraint between us. I would not have you go away and say to yourself, 'Did I make my meaning clear? Was I too elusive?'" Mr. Parker scratched the floor with the point of a gleaming shoe.

That it still existed, in undisputed possession of nearly all Southern California after dispersing and scattering millions of people all over the country, disturbing by its very being a large part of the national economy, was only something read in newspapers, an accepted fact to be pushed into the farthest background of awareness, now the immediate threat was gone. The salt patrol, vigilant for erosions or leachings, a select corps, was alert night and day to keep the saline wall intact. The general attitude, if it concerned itself at all with the events of the past half year, looked upon it merely as one of those setbacks periodically afflicting the country like depressions, epidemics, floods, earthquakes, or other manmade or natural misfortunes. The United States had been a great nation when Los Angeles was a pueblo of five thousand people; the movies could set up in business elsewhere, Iowans find another spot for senescence, the country go on much as usual. One of the first results of the defeat of the grass was the building, almost overnight, it seemed, of a great city on the east bank of the Salton Sea. Displaced realtors from the metropolis found the surrounding mountains ideally suited for subdivision and laid out romantically named suburbs large enough to contain the entire population of California before the site of the city had been completely surveyed. Beyond their claims, the memorial parks, columbariums, homes of eternal rest and elysian lawns offered choice lots--with a special discount on caskets--on the installmentplan. Magnificent brochures were printed, a skeletal biographical dictionary--$5 for notice, $50 for a portrait--planned, advertisements in leading magazines urged the migration of industry: "contented labor and all local taxes remitted for ten years." These essential preliminaries accomplished, the city itself was laid out, watermains installed, and paving and grading begun. It was no great feat to divert the now aimless Colorado River aqueduct to the site nor to erect thousands of prefabricated houses.

Nevertheless, that memory is in my mind, recorded in neuronic chains, exact and accurate." He paused significantly. "You have access to that memory." "At least partially. But what good does that do?" "Visual projector and plastic which will take the imprint. I think hard about the identification as I remember it. You record and feed it back to me while I concentrate on projecting it on the plastic. After we get it down, we change the chemical composition of the plastic. It will then pass everything except destructive analysis, and they don't often do that."

Once that's done, I'll show you the committal document, all right?" "Thank you," I said. They drove me through the Route 128 traffic in the sealed and padded compartment in the back of their van. I was strapped in at the waist, and strapped over my shoulders with a padded harness that reminded me of a rollercoaster restraint. We made slow progress, jerking and changing lanes at regular intervals. The traffic signature of 128 was unmistakable. The intake doctor wanded me for contraband, drew fluids from my various parts, and made light chitchat with me along the way. It was the last time I saw him. Before I knew it, a beefy orderly had me by the arm and was leading me to my room. He had a thick Eastern European accent, and he ran down the house rules for me in battered English.

Bird, of the Bureau of Standards." "Oh, Bird. I've heard of you. You can understand me when I say that as heat, positive heat is a concomitant of ordinary light. I have found that cold, negative heat, is a concomitant of cold light. Is my apparatus in good shape outside?" "The reflector is smashed." "I'm sorry. You would have enjoyed studying it. I presume that you saw that it was a catenary curve?"

I'll have a talk with him." He stepped forward to the edge of the porch, still munching on a honey-dipped piece of corn bread, and glanced up at the sky. That was a queer bird; he'd never seen a bird with a wing action like that. Then he realized that the object was not a bird at all. His father was staring at it, too. "Murray! That's ... that's like the old stories from the time of the wars!" But Murray was already racing across the parade ground toward the Aitch-Cue House, where the big iron ring hung by its chain from a gallows-like post, with the hammer beside it. * * * * * The stockaded village grew larger, details became plainer, as the helicopter came slanting down and began spiraling around it. It was a fairly big place, some forty or fifty acres in a rough parallelogram, surrounded by a wall of varicolored stone and brick and concrete rubble from old ruins, topped with a palisade of pointed poles.

Malone said. Burris shook his head. "His daughter," he said. "And don't tell me there isn't any such name as Luba. I know there isn't. But what would you pick to go with Garbitsch?" "Wastepaper basket," Malone said instantly. "Grapefruit rinds. Lemon peels. Coffee grounds."

"This being so, hear now our decision. Keston and Meron, you will remain here to meet all emergencies. You others, your function is done. You have done your work well, you are now no longer needed to control the machines. Therefore,"--he paused, and my heart almost stopped--"therefore, being no longer of value, you will be disposed of." A click sounded loud through the stunned silence. Beyond the white crowd the huge black portal slid slowly open. A shimmering radiance of glowing vapors blazed from the space beyond. "Prolats, file singly into the Death Bath!" Atuna raised his voice only slightly with the command.

We humans must use a piece of paper to multiply two ten-digit numbers together, but that's because our memories are faulty. A Nipe has no need for such aids." "Are you really positive of all this, George?" Stanton asked. Yoritomo shrugged. "How can we be absolutely positive at this stage of the game? Eh? Our evidence is sketchy, I admit. It is not as solidly based as our other reconstructions of his background, but it appears that he thinks of symbols as being unable to convey much information. The pattern for his raids, for instance, indicates that his knowledge of the materials he wants and their locations comes from vocal sources--television advertising, eavesdropping on shipping orders, and so on.

Feeling instinctively that it was the inspector, Celia and I got behind the sofa ... and emerged some minutes later to find Jane alone in the room. "Somebody come to see about an insurance card or something," she said. "I said you were both out, and would he come to-morrow." Technically I suppose we _were_ both out. That is, we were not receiving. "Thank you, Jane," I said stiffly. I turned to Celia. "There you are," I said. "To-morrow something _must_ be done." "I always said I'd do it to-morrow," said Celia.

It felt like another, but I checked myself. I needed a clear head. I thought about going back to the hotel for some sleep; I still had the key in my pocket (I wasn't trusting it to any clerk). No, I had had sleep on Thanksgiving, bracing up for trying the lift at Brother Partridge's. Let's see, it was daylight outside again, so this was the day after Thanksgiving. But it had only been sixteen or twenty hours since I had slept. That was enough. I left the money on the counter for the hamburgers and coffee and the beer. There was $7.68 left. As I passed the counterman's friend on his stool, my voice said, "I think you're yellow."

The plane stopped its antics and drove on steadily. "It's like driving in a fog," he said over his shoulder. "All right back there now?" "Yes." Gerrod was answering. "What happened?" "With nothing to tell which was up and which down, we lost our level and couldn't find it again. I've flown upside down for five minutes, going through a cloud, and didn't know it until my barometer dropped upward. We're all right, but what's happened to the earth?" Gerrod cautiously made his way to a point beside Davis, who was driving with his eyes glued to the instruments.

"It's perfectly clear. I wonder why I didn't see it before." "That's it!" Malone cried. "That's the difference!" "Sure," Boyd said. "It's perfectly clear. I wonder why I didn't see it before." "Because you weren't looking for it," Malone said. "Because nobody was.

It was a beastly night out. The wind shrieked through the court there, and it was cold enough to freeze the marrow in a grilled bone. I was just about to sign my communication to Mr. Baskins, when I heard a knock at the door. "'Come in,' I said. "And then, Mr. Toppleton, as sure as I am sitting here in this Aunt Sallie talking to you, the door opened and then slowly closed, a light step was perceptible to the ear, moving across the carpet, and in a moment a rocking-chair owned by me began to sway to and fro, just as this one sways when I or you are sitting in it, but to my eyes there was absolutely nothing visible that had not always been in the room." Hopkins began to feel chilly again. "You mean to say that to all intents and purposes, an invisible being like yourself called on you as you have called on me?" he said in a minute, his breath coming in short, quick gasps.

And she knows it. That's why he never comes down here. Coast clear. Fancy she's rather sweet on me. By Jove! we had a forty-mile-an-hour-express flirtation before her marriage! Must take care what I'm about now. Mustn't have a collision with Tom--good old man, after all, if he is a fool. Take this note round, Charles, to the same place. [Illustration: A CUTTER ON THE BEECH] _Mrs.

"My dear old chap, for the baby." "Oh, I see. That's awfully nice of you. He'll love it." I wondered if Simpson had ever seen a month-old baby. "What's its name?" "I've been calling it Duncan in the train, but, of course, he will want to choose his own name for it." "Well, you must talk it over with him to-night after the ladies have gone to bed. How about your luggage? We mustn't keep Myra waiting."

Or my generosity." "I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job." "Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as Earthborn as I am." "I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth," he said smoothly. "I happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary fluke, my race is identical with yours.

Paul laughed a little. "I had a reason for coming here this morning," he answered, briefly; and with that he walked away, his bag in one hand and the two bulky, gaudy papers in the other. Mike watched him turn the corner, and then went into the store again, where Bob greeted him promptly with the query why the old man's son had been getting up by the bright light. "If I was the boss, or the boss's son either," said Bob, "I wouldn't get up till I was good and ready. I'd have my breakfast in bed if I had a mind to, an' my dinner too, an' my supper. An' I wouldn't do no work, an' I'd go to the theayter every night, and twice on Saturdays." "I dunno why Mister Paul was down," Mike explained. "All he wanted was two o' thim Sunday papers with pictures in thim. What did he want two o' thim for I dunno. There's reading enough in one o' thim to last me a month of Sundays."

You've got to do the same thing. You've got to go out and dig up some plants. You've got to bring them in here and plant them the way I did. You know which ones they are?" "Yes," she said. He closed his eyes, trying to think of a way to make her see how vital a thing a tiny plant could be. The complex chemistry of it bubbled to the surface of his mind. He wanted to tell her why the plants died in the artificial human atmosphere and had to be replaced every week or so. He wanted to tell her, but he was growing weaker. "They purify the air by releasing oxygen.

i cood see him laffin when he thought i wood snort and sputter. so i waded out a little ways and then div in and swam under water most across, and when i came up i looked to see if father was surprised. gosh you aught to have seen him. he had pulled off his coat and vest and there he stood up to his waste in the water with his eyes jest bugging rite out as big as hens eggs, and he was jest a going to dive for my dead body. then i turned over on my back and waved my hand at him. he dident say anything for a minute, only he drawed in a long breth. then he began to look foolish, and then mad, and then he turned and started to slosh back to the bank where he slipped and went in all over. When he got to the bank he was pretty mad and yelled for me to come out. when i came out he cut a stick and whaled me, and as soon as i got home he sent me to bed for lying, but i gess he was mad becaus i about scart the life out of him. but that nite i heard him telling mother about it and he said that he div 3 times for me in about thirty feet of water.

"Law's law, you know." "Uncommonly true that; and the nephew stuck to it like a cobbler to his last--he said they should go out, and they did go out; and, say what they would about their natural claims, he would not listen to them, but bundled them out and out in a pretty short space of time." "It was trying to them, mind you, to leave the house they had been born in with very different expectations to those which now appeared to be their fate. Poor things, they looked ruefully enough, and well they might, for there was a wide world for them, and no prospect of a warm corner. "Well, as I was saying, he had them all out and the house clear to himself. "Now," said he, "I have an open field and no favour. I don't care for no--Eh! what?" "There was a sudden knocking, he thought, the door, and went and opened it, but nothing was to be seen. "Oh!

Captain Meford hesitated. The others waited. "They were then scaling the cliff, sir." "And General Shorter, was he told of this immediately?" Mr. Ryan asked. "I don't know when the general was told." "You discovered them?" "Yes, sir. I ... you see, at the time the winds completely prohibited air traffic.

Yoritomo urged. "Well, shaking hands, for example. We still do that, even if we don't have it fixed solidly in our heads that we _must_ do it. I suppose it would never occur to a Nipe not to perform such a ritual." "Just so," Yoritomo agreed vigorously. "Such things, once established, would tend to remain. But it is a characteristic of a ritual-taboo system that it resists change. How, then, do you account for their high technological achievements?" "The pragmatic engineering approach, I imagine. If a thing works, it is usable.

"Perhaps we'd--" "Just a minute," said Orne. "About us--" He swallowed. She withdrew her hand. "I think my parents already suspect. We Bullones are notorious love-at-first-sighters." Her overlarge eyes studied him fondly. "You don't feel feverish, but maybe we'd better--" "What a dope I am!" snarled Orne. "I just realized that I have to be a Nathian, too." "You _just_ realized?"

The figure raised a gun and pointed it at him. This time, she was going to shoot _him_. It figured. He always had bad luck. "Stop!" the woman on the stairs said. "Stop or I'll shoot, Mr. Collins!" * * * * * Collins stopped, catching to the bannister. He squinted hard, and as a stereoptic slide lost its depth when you shut one eye, the woman on the stairs was no longer his mother.

But the Professor, no doubt, was pursuing his observations or taking notes, for in one of our halts he said to me: "The farther I go the more confidence I feel. The order of these volcanic formations affords the strongest confirmation to the theories of Davy. We are now among the primitive rocks, upon which the chemical operations took place which are produced by the contact of elementary bases of metals with water. I repudiate the notion of central heat altogether. We shall see further proof of that very soon." No variation, always the same conclusion. Of course, I was not inclined to argue. My silence was taken for consent and the descent went on. Another three hours, and I saw no bottom to the chimney yet. When I lifted my head I perceived the gradual contraction of its aperture.

"The fact that there's nothing beyond it there shows that they hadn't created any of the transuranics. A student could go to that thing and point out the outer electron of any of the ninety-two elements." * * * * * Ninety-two! That was it; there were ninety-two items in the table on the left wall! Hydrogen was Number One, she knew; One, _Sarfaldsorn_. Helium was Two; that was _Tirfaldsorn_. She couldn't remember which element came next, but in Martian it was _Sarfalddavas_. _Sorn_ must mean matter, or substance, then. And _davas_; she was trying to think of what it could be. She turned quickly to the others, catching hold of Hubert Penrose's arm with one hand and waving her clipboard with the other.