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Alien Resonance by Thomas A. Easton

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sun, 11 Jul 2021 18:19:00 +0000

Alec Strange balanced on a boulder that is lichen-covered. Various other boulders lay to right

And left, rounded humps and tilted slabs set in a matrix of gravel and sand and

broken sticks. The hefty boughs of balsam firs swayed at his straight back, saplings of

Maple and birch thrusting up one of them. Sunlight striking through new growth

bathed him in cool, soft green.

He faced a pool this is certainly deep about with granite and shale, its waters darkened by

the juices of rotting leaves. Glints of sunlight wet to the brook, shining

brown. Dabs of foam drifted from the present. Shadows marked underneath, as well as a

hollow dropped away beneath a rock that is steep-sided.

Whenever Alec cast his fly over the pool's area that is deepest, a gray-green form sped

through the below this is certainly dark. His heart began to race. He grinned, his hand tensed regarding the

pole, and a moment later he presented an trout that is eight-inch his hand.

He then shifted, stepping from their boulder to some other, savoring the crunch of

lichen, the cushion of moss, the brush of fir across his cheek. He relocated within the

stream, following a redstart as it soared bright from color to sunshine. He stepped

more than a cleft into the rock, and then he paused.

Beneath him gleamed some thing strange. He changed his legs, set straight down his pole, and

bent to thrust their supply shoulder-deep as a miniature, gravel-bottomed canyon.

He touched strangeness, a fantastic ovoid as away from place in these woods being a

Cadillac. He scraped it along with his nails, rapped it together with his knuckles, measured it

along with his eyes. Its luster this is certainly metallic deceived for though it rang lightly at their

touch, it felt less like gold than like some high-quality porcelain, a egg that is huge

perhaps two legs long. He wondered at the type of people who would keep such a

part of wilderness. He wondered if may possibly not have fallen from the plane,

perhaps a craft that is army maneuvers. He wondered if it can be a-bomb.

But he would not wonder difficult or very long. A-bomb felt not likely, the other

possibilities unimportant. Their curiosity was effortlessly pleased for now, and his

head had been on their fishing. Perhaps, he thought, he'd pry it from its crack on

their way back to camp. If nothing else, their buddies would be intrigued.

The stones across the brook suggested way more than they did to to Walter Ybarra

Alec Strange. Alec taught English at the university a hundred miles away. Ybarra

had been a geologist. Shade and fragrance and coolness and birdsong were not lost on

him, but he saw more profoundly. He noted the split and eroded layers associated with regional

sedimentary bedrock, and he monitored glaciers that are old the curved igneous

boulders that they had left. A hint was seen by him of metal at nighttime waters regarding the

stream, in which he wondered how acidic the rains had made this small fraction that is relaxed of

world he enjoyed.

The rains couldn't be that bad, nevertheless. The fish have there been. Alec had preceded

him within the brook, but he hadn't caught them, and Ybarra doubted he previously

caught the biggest. He had one eleven-incher himself, revealing his creel with his

empty alcohol can.

A stretch that is wide of water lured him. He mounted a boulder,

larger and flatter than its next-door neighbors, and dropped a nymph that is weighted the

current would tumble it through the eyes which can be predatory knew must lie in wait.

A murmur of rapids, muted by the firs and a flex for the stream, drew him in. But

while he turned upstream, a light caught his attention. The light was not the one that

belonged in that environment. It reflected cleanly, polished, like steel. Their first

idea ended up being for the abandoned will, but he switched anyhow. He then followed the alien

gleam to a cleft into the tone, and indeed there he saw the mystery that is egglike.

He failed to keep it. He put his creel and pole apart and bent to touch, to rap,

to drive. It appeared like opaque glass, light and resonant, however light enough

to transport easily, nor tiny enough. It had been drawn by him from its niche, startling a little

black salamander, and laid it from the woodland mildew. He squatted on his heels,

wondering, thinking that its material that is gemlike had been absolutely nothing he'd ever before seen

prior to.

He did not reckon that his discover was uncommon litter, or a lost piece of aircraft,

or a bomb. He would not also genuinely believe that his friends back in camp would be

fascinated with an oddity. He had been a scientist, and also at the brief moment he desired absolutely nothing

more than to lug their find returning to their campus lab, by foot if need be, the entire

Hundred miles, and precisely examine it with reagents, diamond saws, and

polishers. He thought as it had been, for beauty it was valuable enough to him

and novelty. However it would surely be well worth a paper or two also.

Camp nestled on the shore of the pond this is certainly small backed by fir, cedar, and birch. Five

little tents, two red, one blue, and two yellow, banned a coastline this is certainly crescent of

leaf-matted shingle. Two canoes flanked the array, beached on the sides. A

cairn of stone, ringed by rock and log seating, held coals being smoldering a wisp of

smoke lazing to the sky past a blackened aluminum coffee cooking pot. A grill that is crusted

leaned up against the cairn.

An alto sang nonsense syllables from beyond one horn associated with coastline that is crescent

punctuated by splashing noises. Brush crackled, and on the coastline stepped Diana

Hadden. Regarding the plate she presented were five trout. Their offal had gone to give the

pond's minnows, who would in change be food for trout and other animals.

Di was a biologist. She too taught at the college, and she too ended up being treasuring

The break this is certainly ten-day the termination of the springtime term. She forests being too liked oceans,

but she would not take care of tramping brooks. Her jeans, damp for their legs, showed

her choice for wading the margins of the pond, casting flies where no boughs

conspired to frustrate her. This afternoon she had been making use of streamers being little

with such success than she had held that she had released much more trout.

Establishing the dish up for grabs, she looked beyond the various other horn of the crescent,

shaking her head to settle her dark locks away from her look. A clatter of rock, a

splash, and she grinned. Franklin Massey, other biologist, had gone by doing this

With Ellen Young, chemist, and also by today, no or fish, he needs to be out of types.

She practically laughed whenever she saw Ellen first, but she was able instead a

sympathetic grin. Ellen ended up being walking straight-backed along the water's edge. Her

lips were a line that is compressed along with her normally hazel eyes had been darkly shadowed.

Her fly rod stood because straight as her back, a lance at rest. Her creel hung from

one neck such as a bag.

Behind her came Franklin, their pole that is spinning horizontal their creel slapping the

small of his straight back, a worm this is certainly synthetic jutting from their buckle. Their lips ended up being open,

their shoulders slumped, and his hand that is free flapped attractive.

Di imagined he was pleading with Ellen to your investment pass he had definitely made, to

Forgive their voice or hand or... She was in fact desired by him ever since he had very first accompanied

their particular group, from the time the expedition that is first had shared with them the year

before. And Ellen, as being a friend, could have no more of while she would accept him

him.

Both relaxed if they emerged near Di. They leaned their rods from the aluminum

camp table and emptied their particular creels in one single heap of fish on a lawn. "They May Be

striking better these days," said Ellen. "Even for him." She patted Franklin's bald

area, just a little harder than necessary, while he knelt to move the fish to a

plate.

He snorted. Yesterday"I got significantly more than you did. Bait's more reliable."

"But messier."

"I'll be back in a minute." Plate and knife at your fingertips, he headed down the shore

even while Alec emerged from the forests.

"Wait a minute, Franklin. I'll be right with you." Alec's rod joined up with the others

and, creel in hand, he implemented the other guy. He said, "Found as he passed Di

anything interesting. Let you know later on."

Her face softened as she saw his figure that is tall stroll, foot scuffing leaves

and crunching gravel, huge hands currently starting their jackknife. But she would not

watch long. She took corn and dish meal through the table and rummaged through

Wrappers and cardboard boxes for the pepper-and-salt to mix the layer for his or her

fresh-caught supper. Ellen stated absolutely nothing as she in turn took the coffee pot to

the pond's side to wash and fill it.

As Ybarra surfaced through the shrubbery near where Alec and Franklin had been cleaning

trout, Alec laughed. "So that's where it went."

Ybarra grinned straight back at him, breathing tough. His stomach had been larger than Alec's,

and his burden had reached him. "Had to pick it, you understand. Never seen

something want it."

Alec nodded. "Toss us your seafood, and continue."

Ybarra performed, when Alec and Franklin then followed him, the egg had been found by all of them lying on

the bottom beside the fire cairn. Franklin put the trout up for grabs and requested,

"the facts?"

There were just shrugs to resolve him. The five buddies gathered all over

ovoid, staring. Sunlight was setting. Reddened light brought features that are warm

the fact. Hands touched its strangeness. Di introduced a band this is certainly solid it whenever

she rapped it by way of a spoon handle. Franklin managed to make it chime just like a wine that is crystal

glass as he stroked it with fingers still wet from the pond.

Alec and Ybarra both told their tales. All agreed the ordinary thing ended up being odd, and none

Could you know what it might be or how it had started to lay among the list of rocks. It could

Be no kind or form of egg, despite its looks. It can be no rock, no crystal, no

technical contrivance, nothing they knew but secret. Finally, while the light

grew dim additionally the began to sweet, they assented they'd have to take it evening

residence. Ybarra's lab may give all of them responses, or Ellen's. It appeared not likely that

the biologists could be help this is certainly much.

Alec built up the fire with lumber from the stack next to the tent that is yellowish. Di added

larger pieces and greased their cast-iron frying-pan. Franklin sized coffee

reasons into the container within the cooking pot. Ybarra cleared room up for grabs and laid

out dishes. No chairs were had by all of them. They'd eat sitting on a lawn, or in the

stones and logs scattered nearby the fire.

They paused over and over repeatedly to look in the egg. When Di put the pan that is frying the

Grill to grow hot, Alec finally said, "Shouldn't we place that plain thing someplace

safe? Wouldn't wish stumble it. on it and break"

Ellen pointed. "Franklin's tent is nearest."

Ybarra nodded. Very carefully, he found the egg and carried it to the tent this is certainly blue

in the exact middle of the row. He believed to Franklin, "It really should not be as he emerged

in the way. We tucked it in behind your laundry this is certainly dirty.

The night's conversation had not been powerful. Franklin desired there have been more

bucks for analysis. Ybarra decided. Ellen said there is lots, should your work

interested the Defense Department. Di glumly added another dollop of rum to her

coffee.

Alec took the container and tipped a splash onto the ground before freshening their

very own cup. "The gods are aching he stated at us. "With reason."

Ybarra bent their mind upward as sparks travelled through the fire. "We see the movie stars

right here."

"And all the rest." Franklin waved an arm and took the container inside the change.

"Wilderness," said Di. "creatures, wild birds, fish, woods."

"Water," added Alec. "You can drink it without coming up with a face."

"For the days which are few the season." Ellen dashed dregs from her glass and achieved for

the cooking pot, venting vapor this is certainly red-lit the coals of the fire. A wood had been provided by her

with Ybarra.

"The air's clean in town." Franklin, their straight back against a rock that is alone seen as

Ellen poured and stretched.

"But there are so lights--pass that is numerous rum, please--and individuals."

"For just how long?" Ybarra's sound moved flat.

"Famines, conflicts, plagues..." Ellen echoed their tone.

"International paranoia." So did Franklin.

"Don't forget the specter this is certainly dread of unemployment." Alec tried to

chuckle, nevertheless the specter had been hardly educational. Each of them had pals that has

neglected to hold their toeholds.

Di shook her head. "No loaves of bread outlines for us, now."

"Chablis lines, possibly." Ellen laughed.

"Dip lines, processor chip lines," offered Alec.

"Hip lines, breasts lines." That was Franklin.

"Fly lines and tag outlines," said Ybarra, snorting. Franklin lacked, he believed, a

feeling of the right. It had been no surprise that Ellen held rejecting the

graceless other. Then why had they ever before allow him join their particular team? These people were every

of an age as well as all loved the outside, but... He viewed their buddies, their

gaze settling on Ellen. She met their attention. He beamed. Franklin had been a relative

outsider, but he was one of these. He was not simply tolerated.

No body picked up the relative type of banter Ybarra had fallen. Surrounded them evening,

perhaps not quiet, broken by the insistent bellows of small frogs, the scream of some

predator's hapless victim, the splash of a fish into the pond. Eventually, Ybarra

sighed. "And pass the rum."

Eventually, they went down. "Man~ana," stated Ellen, yawning. "We'll have to paddle

for miles."

"And drive all night," stated Ybarra.

Alec groaned theatrically. "Teaching! Students! Deans!"

"Paychecks," said Di. "Go to sleep!"

They left the warmth associated with the fire and rushed with their tents being individual. Resting

bags beckoned all of them past a flurry of good-nights, and there was clearly silence.

Alec woke at, once you understand he had imagined dawn. He recalled nothing regarding the dream

it self, but he felt better, much more cheerful, warmer, than he could keep in mind ever before

having felt before. He stretched in the bag this is certainly sleeping gently despite their

awareness that they would return to civilization today. It was only a fantasy, and

currently the experience had been evaporating.

He crawled from their bag, unzipped their tent, and headed toward the horn that is crescent

they had dubbed the "men's." From the coastline, he saw a while he relieved himself

loon floating from the sheet of gold that was the pond, saw it plunge and

resurface, given, a hundred feet beyond. There were no noises until a startled

"Hey!" broke the silence behind him.

The voice was Franklin's. Alec did not rush straight back. He thought maybe his friend

had uncovered a garter snake revealing his sleep, or a squirrel this is certainly red the potato chips.

He was amazed to see Ellen standing by the tent this is certainly blue two sets of feet

poking through the portal this is certainly narrow. Ellen was saying, "the facts?"

"Damn!" came Ybarra's vocals.

"It really is broken," stated Di.

"But just how?" cried Franklin. "we don't hear a thing."

"Let me see!" Alec crowded in as best he could, leaning over three bodies,

bracing himself on hands and feet. Here, spread among Franklin's dirty

washing, had been a nest of broken shards, as colorful as ever, tinted violet by the

tent-filtered light.

Ybarra ended up being poking among the list of fragments by having a little finger that is tentative. "Damn!" Di

grabbed a shard. Alec saw another thing within the heap. Achieving for it, he

Lurched, and for a brief moment his weight squeezed Di into Franklin's part, nevertheless

covered with their sleeping bag.

When they appeared from the tent, each possessed a award. Ybarra had a handful of

shards to assess. Di had three. Franklin, with the rest wrapped in a

sweatshirt, allow Ellen pick a few for by herself.

Alec's uncover seemed whole. It had been a lump this is certainly convoluted resembling an egg which had

already been half melted, pinched at the center, stretched, and twisted. It absolutely was held by him out

to Ybarra, which shook his head. "You saw it very first."

" you fetched it."

Franklin reached toward it, their appearance covetous. Alec had discovered it in his

tent, had not he? But he contented himself with managing a finger over its curves.

Alec nestled it in his palm, stroking it having a flash. At final, he slipped it

into their pants pocket.

Alec sighed while he pulled out from the parking area on the gravel road that was

The leg this is certainly next of trip house. Ybarra echoed him, after which he requested, "May I

see...?"

Alec fished the lump he'd obtained from the damages of this egg out of their pocket.

He stroked it by way of a thumb it over, and Ybarra performed exactly like before he handed

It was received by him.

"Feels great. Smooth, but..." their sound trailed off, bobbling given that Nissan

pick-up hit potholes and ruts. He presented the ordinary thing as much as the light. It glowed

gold, translucent, its area live with highlights. "I wonder just what it's?"

Alec spared a look for their buddy. "Think it is the stuff is exact same the layer?"

"Looks like it." Ybarra drew a shard from his shirt pocket and presented it up beside

one other. "Same shade, same glow. Have to get all of them within the lab. Though that

won't reveal where it originated from."

They rounded a bend and saw before them a state this is certainly solitary car, blocking

half the trail one hundred yards away. The trooper straddled one other lane, waving

their hands for them to stop.

"Wonder exactly what the roadblock's for," said Ybarra as Alec slowed the truck. He put

His away that is shard and the swelling back once again to Alec. Alec put it away and patted his

pocket. "Some escaped con?"

While they ended, Alec craned their neck out his screen. "just what's up?"

Their state trooper ended up being young, not long from the constant state academy. His hair was

short, their face bare, his uniform a powder-blue that is creased. The name label on his

breast said "Veilleux." "simply checking," he stated. "See something strange this

weekend?"

"simply outdoors and woods and trout. Ate them all, also." For a few good reason, Alec

stated nothing about the egg. Ybarra failed to make an effort to add anything to his reply.

"Mind if we take a look?"

Alec believed a lurch of impending loss inside the instinct. Have there been any shards in the

duffle? Within the creels? Had been they all in Ybarra's pouches? It had been a find it difficult to

program no security, but he believed he handled. "Not after all."

Officer Veilleux peered into the space behind Alec's seat. He leaned to the

vehicle body, patting the tent sacks and bags which are resting packages under the

canoe. Eventually, he endured as well as waved them on.

We make sure he understands? as they collected rate again, Alec asked, "the reason why didn't"

"from us. because he'd took what's remaining of this egg away"

"I bet. But the reason why?"

Ybarra shrugged. "we're able to are finding completely, but..."

"But some things tend to be supposed to remain secrets." Alec made a motion just as if to show

the truck's radio down. It was not on, with no intention ended up being had by him of changing

its status. He was in no dash to renew connection with the global globe in front of them.

Alec's small home that is hired painted in shades of blue, sat nearby the side of city

not far from the university. There have been woods behind it, rimmed with blackberry

bushes. An apple tree-shaded one back place associated with garden.

Inside, a pine that is round held all the work he had yet to complete to get ready when it comes to

summertime trimester. A face was created by him. That could wait. Better, he thought, to capture

up on what have been happening as he had been gone.

The tv screen announcer was a woman that is dark-haired a machine-gun delivery.

"The nation," she said, erectly really serious, "remains mystified. Those colorful

giant eggs are being reported from around our planet."

She vanished from the screen, replaced with a chance of gold and purple and crimson

eggs, dwarfing your feet regarding the people beside them. Uniformed figures appeared

beside a stack that must have held a huge selection of the things. Alec pulled his nugget

from his pocket and stared at it. That numerous? He had suspected there have been at

minimum a other individuals being few after they had fulfilled the roadblock. But countless? What had been

they?

The announcer's voice proceeded. "There are thousands of them. They can be found in

home gardens and hedges, in woods and areas, in city areas and parking lots. They Are

all the dimensions that is same nevertheless they can be found in most of the colors regarding the rainbow. And they're

unbreakable, except..."

A man that is young clad in mustache and white laboratory layer and hard hat, keeping a

sledgehammer. He was saying, "We've attempted, nonetheless they simply will not break. However, if we

leave them alone and go away for awhile--a coffee break, you know?--they autumn to

pieces." He gestured toward a heap of shards on the table beside him and added,

"not every one of all of them, and not all at once, but..."

The announcer leaned toward the camera, grinning. "they will not break unless no

one's looking. And when they do--this is really what's inside them. She presented up a

nugget that might have now been a twin to Alec's own. Alec imitated her movement as

she stroked it along with her thumb. "I don't know just what this is, but it is the very best

worrystone i have ever seen."

Another clip revealed a scientist this is certainly white-haired a laboratory packed with glassware

and computer systems. "they have to be from room. There is nothing remotely like

all of them on Earth, although these nuggets"--he also had one out of his hand--"do make myself

think about a petrified egg yolk."

The announcer looked much more serious. "Did some spaceship this is certainly interstellar them

once they spoiled in transit? Who knows? But federal government boffins are concerned

that the eggs may carry bacteria which can be totally unidentified viruses. Plans are

currently being meant to gather them and safely keep all of them. If you have one,

kindly change it directly into your authorities this is certainly regional place. Usually do not keep any worrystones or

items of egg-shell. Switch them all in. We do not understand they're dangerous, but simply

in the event..."

Today Alec understood the roadblock, though he barely believed the nice reason for it.

Yes, there were tens of thousands of those things. Maybe hundreds of thousands. But from space? He

very nearly laughed; he was no believer in ancient astronauts or science-fiction. The

eggs could not be dangerous. He fondled their nugget, their worrystone, once again,

and again. No. It believed good. It absolutely was benign, anywhere it emerged from. He would maybe not

surrender it, and then he believed sure he would not be alone in the possessiveness.

That, Alec imagined again night. Once again, he woke experiencing warm and cheerful,

Loved and loving. He stretched into the light, grinning, and then he remembered morning

a shred of the fantasy. There have been no details, no forms or figures or terms, but

he understood he should seek the mate to their worrystone. The dream was thought by your

could even have called the nugget that.

He laughed during the thought. How could a stone--or a piece of petrified egg

yolk--have a mate? Then again he frowned, sitting nude regarding the edge of his bed. The

dream was oddly powerful. He thought driven to go out and seek out various other

stones, for starters certain various other rock. It took effort to keep sitting, to do no

a lot more than scrape their ribs and consider what he previously to achieve that time. And where

could the dream have come from? Could his rock influence him? Had been it possibly

dangerous most likely?

He fetched the stone from their pants pocket. He stroked it, fondled it, applied it

Against the general part of their nose, and viewed the sheen of epidermis oil vanish as if

soaking to the stone. He considered making it within a drawer, and he surprised

Himself with regards to had been put by him back their pocket instead.

The paper ended up being enthusiastic about the rocks sunday. They certainly were the secret that is grandest

Ages, in addition to national federal government had been acting delightfully paranoid. The Bolivian crisis,

the power shortages regarding the West Coast, the Antarctic war for control over all the

fresh-water closed in the ice-cap, the smog that is nation-wide garbage

incinerators that had never ever worked as designed, all had vanished through the

headlines. The editorials reserved judgment, but Alec thought he detected an email

of endorsement, of preference when it comes to items that are odd. He guessed that the report's

editors had their worrystones that are very own and then he wondered if they too had imagined.

He invested a single day cleaning residence and grass this is certainly mowing. He itched to be performing

some thing, and he hated the very thought of the following weeks which are few. He'd had an adequate amount of

students into the just past, and right here he had been planning to take on more 12 months. He desired

he could enjoy summertime teaching just as much as Ybarra seemed to, or Ellen, or Di.

Franklin ended up being since unhappy as he.

Toward the end of the, his mother labeled as from Seattle mid-day. She had never ever

accompanied him and their Dad on the fishing trips as he had been a guy, and she

had never did actually worry until after Dad's demise. Then, very nearly as though her

husband's final condition was pneumonia caught for a Puget salmon boat, and

not the disease that had withered his legs and arms, she had prohibited the game.

Alec had needed to wait for university before he could come back to the woodlands and

streams he previously already been raised to love. Often he wondered why he'dn't develop into a

biologist like Di.

Maybe it was only he shared with her he was going that she had seemed so pleased when

to significant in English. She had understood of his trips, she had because it had been, every time

called for assurance he had not drowned. This time had been no various, though

her hectoring ended up being brief. She experienced a rock of her own; she had imagined like him;

and she was wondering exactly what it supposed to find her stone a spouse.

Like Alec and Ybarra, Di and Ellen had revealed nothing in the roadblock. Their Particular

shards had been their particular, secrets to be hoarded, in addition they were confident that

Franklin thought exactly the same. He'd been ahead of all of them, yet the cop had shown no

suspicion.

Di lived in a college apartment close to the edge of university. She had three areas,

with large windows and daffodil wall space, furnished in an blend that is ordinary of

Traditional and modern-day. Her table was a secretary that is tall had inherited from her

grandmother.

When she understood exactly how widespread the eggs and worrystones had been, she was tempted to

call Alec. Would the stone be turned by him in today? She wished to keep her shards, danger

or no. She desired to see more of him, yet she was also leery of altering their particular

commitment. She as well as the others shared a heat that is rare easiness, flawed just

by Franklin's limitless quest for Ellen. She didn't wish to increase that flaw,

to weaken the team's unity by way of a commitment that may too effortlessly become

exclusionary.

She would not call him. She labeled as no body, though very early afternoon Ellen did sunday

phone her. The two took a walk then, wandering through the campus arboretum and

the woods beyond it while steering clear of the a huge selection of other people who appeared to

have actually the point that is exact same brain. These people were exploring a sumac thicket when they heard

a triumphant yell. They burst right back on the road with time to see a man this is certainly heavy-set

in blue jeans and graying stagger that is beard all of them, an egg cradled in his arms.

"That's Abrams, in Math," stated Ellen. "can you think he will turn it in?"

Ellen laughed since the guy used a shoulder to block a learning student whom wished a closer

look and then brushed by them with no term. Other people along the road went quiet

too, staring after him.

They observed only a few other discoveries that and made none of their mid-day

own. Ultimately they threw in the towel to their search, though other people don't.

Over supper at Ellen's apartment, Di allow her to thoughts finally talk: "Our

Group... Do it is believed by you are able to endure?"

Ellen eyed her very carefully. "You fancy Alec, don't you?"

"I'd like to... to better understand him."

Ellen nodded. "I believe way about Walter, a little."

Di looked up from her plate, amused and somewhat startled. "But--Franklin?"

"Him!" one other snorted, maybe not delicately after all. "He's a nuisance. Sometimes We

would you like to grab Alec or Walter in order to discourage him."

"But would not that break us up?"

Ellen shrugged. "I do not think so. Partners can be buddies, too."

"Even by having an guy that is odd?"

"Would it make a difference? He could always deliver another woman in. Or leave."

Di believed that Ellen had more difficult edges than she performed by herself. She liked more

certainties, might be more definite, could assess with fewer reservations. In

that way, she had been like Ybarra, both of them experts that are physical. She, on the

other side, had been a biologist. And her industry had as much in common utilizing the

Humanities--with English--as with geology or chemistry. Franklin shared her

area, but she would not discover him after all as appealing as she did Alec. He might be

Just a close friend, never ever...

When Di later on stated she still had work to do for her classes, Ellen agreed to

drive her home. She declined, saying the distance had not been great, the was evening

not cold, and who knew? Possibly she'd be found by her egg on route.

Di had in regards to a mile to walk. Ellen lived in the city, into the upstairs half a

frame house lengthy emptied of this family that is huge which it absolutely was built. That

mile followed roads lined with similar homes, few lower than a century old,

their particular yards edged with hedges and dotted with shrubbery plus the fairy lights of

searchers.

She recognized that home presented few tourist attractions at present as she wandered. Her

classes have been an excuse. The week's lectures, them, had been tucked into

her texts. What waited on her now were just the two problems of Science that had

come while she was off fishing. There were three letters she should answer,

also.

She don't understand what she wished to do until she endured before her building,

staring at her own house windows which are dark.

Somehow, Alec wasn't amazed to locate Di looking at his stoop. Her existence

eased the itch that had perhaps not left him also he grinned at her as he worked, and.

"C'mon in. Drink?"

"You don't mind becoming interrupted?"

"similar to I'd mind not being interrupted. Simply focusing on notes." He led the

Way to the kitchen, where a half-gallon ended up being established by him of white wine. "just what's up?"

She informed him just how she had invested the afternoon. He described exactly what he remembered of

his fantasy, and he included, "If only you'd found one."

"It may possibly not have been a partner."

Their particular eyes came across, plus they might have touched. But Alec seemed away. It absolutely was known by your

ended up being unreasonable, but he could perhaps not end himself from drawing back.

They took their particular drinks into Alec's living room, and a window was established by him that

Experienced the relative back yard. The draperies had been relocated from a light snap in and out like breathing

behind a veil. They talked companionably for awhile, and finally they switched

in the tv.

Yet again, the eggs dominated the headlines. This time, however, the tone had been

various. Some individuals had turned within their eggs and shards and worrystones. The

National Guard, combing the country side, had discovered more. Every police section

And armory within the nationwide nation had been few, plus some had already been transported to

Washington, where government experts were trying to unravel their particular secrets.

But everybody who'd had a stone and slept had dreamed. The woman from the display

explained it: "When I woke up, we remembered just one thing. I happened to be expected to go

out and look for another for the things. I was supposed to think it is a partner."

There clearly was laughter when you look at the studio. Di stated, "the same as yours."

The announcer continued: "Maybe i will have taken a bath this is certainly cool. As it had been, the

feeling of compulsion lasted until after my cup that is second of." More

laughter. "Government representatives are worried."

She vanished, changed by way of a man this is certainly uniformed before a flag. "this might be

the beginning of some thing some of us have focused on for a time this is certainly long. If these

stones wish mates, chances are they can breed. We possibly may be seeing initial measures of an

intrusion."

The announcer came back, making a genuine face in the camera. "No one knows where this

Intrusion could be from. And never everybody believes the danger is genuine." Her second

video revealed a street scene. "In Chicago, those who surrendered their finds tend to be

now demanding all of them right back." A mob faced a rock building with the expressed word"Police"

over its home. There have been screams, shouts, surges of angry faces toward the few

officials which blocked the doorway.

"Elsewhere, authorities are voluntarily going back the stones." Another scene, a cop,

his holster vacant, moving rocks to arms that are outstretched. Some hands quickly

vanished, acquiring their particular rewards in pockets and purses. Other people stayed visible,

raised aloft, waving as if groping, searching for. Every so often, two arms came across,

and their particular stones seemed a solid "Clack!"

"The 'mates' may not be for breeding," said the announcer. "View." The camera

zoomed set for a close-up of two hands, one dark, one light, while they neared each

various other. The stones knocked together, but rather of the "Clack!" there clearly was a

resonant "Rringg!!"

The crowd dropped still round the sound. The camera kept its focus on the fingers,

slid downward to exhibit two faces that are rapt drew back again to show embracing arms, and back

once again to show two numbers walking through the group, consumed in one another.

A revolution of knocking worrystones spread through the set this is certainly moving the aftermath behind

a boat. Their particular success clearly excited those around all of them, as well as the digital camera lingered

whilst the clacks rattled like castanets. There were no longer Rringg!!s through to the

view changed to many other crowds of people.

"The enchantment seems to be only temporary," said the announcer. "But

enchantment it is. An enchantment of great sensation that some social people are saying

surpasses even a drug travel.

"And more eggs are arriving. We're getting reports that they're dropping from the

sky, drifting slowly, like huge, colorful snowflakes. There will be thousands

more about the bottom by early morning.

"Will there be adequate for everybody?" She organized her worrystone that is own flash

stroking, stroking. "Anyone wish to hit?"

Alec whistled. "I am able to think of whatever they're saying right now in the

Pentagon."

Di laughed, but uneasily. "they will not like to allow individuals have them, will they?"

"It wouldn't be in personality, would it not?"

Di lifted one-hand, unexpectedly conscious. She looked toward the screen this is certainly half-open.

"Shh!"

He waited until her hand dropped. "the thing that was it? An egg-hunter?"

She had been shaken by her head. "Something else. Not loud. Faint. Like breaking glass."

"Maybe?"

"Maybe!" She jumped to her feet. "Let's get see."

He implemented her through the entranceway that is back in the lawn. The night time was and that's cool

the sky was obvious. Stars glimmered above them. The moon was in its very first

quarter, and there is light that is just enough understand blackberry bushes.

"Over there." They went down on hands and legs as they neared the bushes. They

searched the side of the grass, after which, wincing at each brush of thorny stems,

they squeezed into and through the canes. Finally, one of the trees beyond, they

found the heap of shards whose Di that is creating had.

On the legs once again, Alec looming over her, Di sorted through the fragments until

The worrystone ended up being discovered by her. It was raised by her toward Alec, waiting. He fished his or her own

from the depths of their pocket and presented it out. They knocked, nevertheless the sound this is certainly just

was the "Clack" both had feared.

Her face fell. Alec believed a surge of disappointment. Neither said a expressed term as they

took a more roundabout path returning to the home.

Around once more, Di presented her rock towards the light. It glowed the springtime green of pine

candles. "It really is genuine," she stated. "But..."

"Try once more?" They knocked once more, with all the outcome that is exact same. "those two aren't

mates, are they?"

"I'd prefer to feel what the people on television were experiencing."

"So would I." Alec set one hand on the neck. She switched, her face against

His chest, her tresses fragrant with leafsmell and hair care. He tightened up the curl

of his arm, and bent his visit kiss her.

"Alec?"

"Hmm?"

"I don't wish to be alone. tonight" She looked down, away from him, in the stone

in her hand.

"I have a spare toothbrush."

For the time this is certainly very first they went along to sleep collectively. They set hand and hand, comforting

one another's frustration. They touched, holding, stroking. They kissed once again,

and once more, and when they made love they achieved a sense that is pale of they

thought a Rringg!! must bring the world's few sets that are lucky.

At final, they slept, each with a worrystone wrapped in a fist, pushed beneath

the edge of a pillow, close to a mind that is thinking praying that closer contact

might bring anything much more.

III

Golden shards were scattered across Ybarra's lab bench. One rested from the stage

of a binocular microscope close to the record sink that is old-fashioned. Ellen Young was

delicately modifying the focus this is certainly good her dark hair fanning ahead like wings.

"I see pores," she said as Ybarra pressed the switch on the 'scope's digital camera.

"good lines linking all of them. Curved bulges. Hexagonal, just like a honeycomb that is reversed.

The pores are at the corners."

Alec absorbed it all while he joined the space. His class that is initially ended up being until after

meal, in which he had wanted to see what his pals were as much as. Today he said, "You

Found some right time."

Ybarra grimaced. "You might have guessed. I became in only at five."

Alec laughed. Sometimes he wanted he previously one other's burning interest. "Do you

get a hold of other things?"

Ybarra rose from his stool to reach for the set that is little of. "Watch." He

Obtained a small caught and shard one corner with the pliers. As he squeezed, a

cloud of glittering dust sifted towards the workbench top. "They stated the eggs were

unbreakable."

"But..."

"But. Correctly. Once it breaks itself, the shell is as strong as... as

eggshell."

"Show him the rest." Ellen had switched from the 'scope. Now she pointed

more down the bench, where a row of small dishes, each 1 / 2 filled up with

substance, sat beside single shards. Some of the fluids looked oily, some watery,

some coloured, some obvious.

"Reagents," stated Ybarra. "Every one I could consider. Together with material responds with

the acids. It seems to be always a carbonate, again like eggshell."

"think about the worrystones?"

"Haven't got one to test."

Alec produced his or her own, though perhaps not with no brief moment of doubt. The other

instantly dipped its end right into a dish, analyzed it, and rinsed it by having a squirt

from the container marked "Distilled H2O." The procedure was duplicated by him with every of the

meals. Finally, he sighed. "Absolutely Nothing."

"Try the pliers." Ellen presented all of them on. Alec's neck tightened up while he quelled the

impulse to protest. They needed to know. He wished to understand.

Ybarra attempted to get a grip on the stone, nonetheless it ended up being also fat for the device that is tiny.

So when he attempted to gouge it, the material simply slid off, harmlessly. Alec

practically laughed with relief. Their rush this is certainly abrupt of also let him nod when

Ellen suggested they take to the geologist's hammer lying on a shelf above the

workbench. However the rock carried on to seem invulnerable.

"and it also seems simply the exact same," Ellen murmured. "If only we're able to have it underneath the

scope, but it is too large. Perhaps the SEM." Alec had heard about that. The school's

checking electron microscope could give a image this is certainly strikingly three-dimensional

of almost any structure that is microscopic. It may also gauge the energies of

mirrored electrons and so detect an item's constituent elements.

Ybarra handed the rock back into Alec. "we believe we are going to have to. But very first we are going to

need a bigger scope chamber. The shards--well, they may be broken by us to match." He

glanced toward Ellen, that has wandered toward the window. "We can most likely

borrow one from Boston."

Alec looked to follow his gaze as Ellen waved at them. "Hey, come right here. Have a look at

this."

The space had been entered by all of them. Ellen described the window. A class duration was ending,

and students were spilling away from buildings. Some had been gathering regarding the yard,

forming two circles which are wide.

"seems like a folk dance," said Alec.

Ellen leaned near to Ybarra as he responded. "That's what it's, i believe.

Of a type."

Even more pupils gathered, some joining the groups to make them broader, other people

forming clumps of observers to 1 side. As Alec and his pals saw, the

students into the groups raised their particular arms. Each one held a worrystone.

The observers started initially to clap. The sectors started to move, counterrotating to ensure that,

Each student in one group would face each one of these when you look at the various other for the minute. As

They passed, the training pupils knocked their rocks. The clacks reverberated across

the lawn and through the window, joining aided by the claps to determine a cosmic

rhythm.

"Efficiency," said Ybarra. "I'll bet there's an dance--student this is certainly art--or

that."

"How about phys ed?" requested Ellen.

"company?" rejoined Ybarra by way of a snort. But regardless of the lightness of his tone,

he kept seeing. Within the final end, he had been compensated by hearing three Rringg!!s and

seeing three pairs leave the crowd, clasping hands. One of many sets was two

teenagers, an engineering major through a handcomp in a holster on their gear plus an

English student through a brace of colorfully novels that are jacketed one arm. They

stared at each other just as if that they had discovered some commonality that is great.

Alec thought a pang of jealousy, much stronger than he had thought the prior night,

watching television. As Ellen and Ybarra turned away from the window, their particular arms

lined up yet not arms that are however clasping he thought they felt similar. Too, he thought

A regret this is certainly obscure Franklin had no Di, no Ellen, with who to share with you exactly what

already seemed the dawning of a age this is certainly new. The regret was tempered with relief

That Franklin could maybe not carefully observe he'd lost all hope of Ellen.

The campus club was in fact produced when the continuing state college had deemphasized

agriculture in support of more research that is technological. All of the cowbarn that is huge

had been converted into classrooms and workplaces, but one end was in fact kept nearly

alone. The stanchions that had cows being as soon as immobilized milking now formed the

wall space of stands.

It was maybe not the effluvium this is certainly light of manure, attracted through the woodwork on any

damp day, that shattered Alec's anticipatory mood almost the moment he entered.

Di ended up being truth be told there, holding a stall with her was Franklin, too packed with for him, but

one thing to let them have a term. Alec wondered if somehow their new

involvement with one another would not show.

Franklin practically bounced in the chair as he unsealed one hand to show the pinkish

worrystone he'd been stroking. "Hey!" he cried. "I got one!

"Right in my own front yard! The egg had busted, however the shards are there, and

this. This morning within a bush, first thing. I was heading out for my run, you

know..." and then he had been down. Alec tuned him out, focussing alternatively on Di, glorying

whenever she did actually aim her eyes and thoughts his way in exchange. Had night that is final

already been something which is one-time? Or would they be described as a pair from now on, for at the least a

whilst?

By having a start, he played straight back the final words which can be few had washed over him.

"Psychic activity?" he requested.

"Yeah. The eggs tend to be unbreakable, in line with the news. At the very least until they

opt to break. I am wondering how that could be, and I think there must

be some kind of psychic force that stabilizes the egg this is certainly intact..."

Alec interrupted the movement with a snort. Di stiffened her face to help keep from

smiling. "I am sure there exists a more description this is certainly reasonable and Ybarra and Ellen

will see it."

"Ellen?"

"They're working together." He suppressed a desire that is malicious state it was much more

than that. Franklin's face had fallen low sufficient because it ended up being.

Di kept the subject on a safer track. "It could be electric, or magnetized. But

long lasting description, the point that is first want to do is learn how to

cope with the stones. They're going to be extremely troublesome."

Alec wondered just what she suggested, in which he stated therefore.

"Fred Altman made the blunder of starting their botany class this by early morning

slamming with his students. Only six when you look at the class had stones, but he got a

Rringg!!, and he never performed bypass to lecturing. One of my advisees--Oh! She

was ripped!--told me about any of it."

"I'll bet she doesn't always have a rock," said Franklin.

"that's not what truly matters!" Di frowned at her other biologist. "We don't need

these exact things interfering with this tasks."

Alec sighed. "there exists a Senate meeting week this is certainly next. The situation could be pointed out by us

then."

"By then we won't need."

"The dean will defeat us to it." Franklin looked over his view. "I've got to get

ready for class. See you later on?"

"Me, too," stated Alec, but he did not keep. The moment Franklin was gone, he

came back their attention to Di. "Where's your rock?"

"the following." She beamed from her bag as she brought it. "Try once again?"

They knocked once again, equally they had therefore times that are numerous, and when more

all they got was a dull "Clack." Their smiles wavered as their grips on each

other's fingers tightened up. "Will you've got dinner beside me tonight?"

"we could even move around in with you." She smiled, but she seemed away as she did therefore.

He squeezed her hand nonetheless much harder. "I would like that."

Alec and Di woke to a chill, gray drizzle. They drove to campus, saying,

"Fishing weather, it. whenever you can stand" She had come east from the coast of

Oregon, plus they shared an expertise that is inbred reducing skies, open oceans,

And landscapes being soggy. They both preferred to be dry, plus the only western

features they actually missed were those associated with mountains that loomed over their particular

home coastline. After their particular classes, they found again to talk about coffee when you look at the biology

division's lounge. They took chairs near a screen that overlooked the typical.

Alec hung their sodden raincoat throughout the straight back of the chair this is certainly vacant. Di laughed,

"Better you than me personally," and gestured during the scene outside. Heavy rain today veiled

the gym within the length. The collection was near enough to be noticed,

white-corniced stone within a frame this is certainly gray. The English building had been out of picture to

one part. Other buildings--chemistry, engineering, art, and legislation, and two

Dorms--sank their glass and stone into the landscape. Ivy pulled them down.

Ancient trees leaned on it, their particular arching, spidery branches painfully raised

Resistant to the continuous works of human being architects.

Alec shuddered during the bleakness before him. He lifted their plastic glass to Di. "A

breathtaking to stay inside time. All we want is just a handful of easy chairs, hassocks,

great publications."

"And a fire inside a hearth."

"A mug of toddy."

"So pretend." She sipped ostentatiously at her coffee, just as if showing him what things to

do.

Their particular eyes went along to the window. Outside, everyone was gathering regarding the lawn

despite the rain. Their feet were awash in puddles, hats and raincoats were

leaking, a scatter of umbrellas was raised against the clouds. Most were

pupils, but while they formed into the circle that is twice had seen before, he

Spotted a true number of professors users along with other adults. "They must be crazy," he

said.

But Di had been on the legs. "Oh, seriously. Ours are not working. Right

wish to discover?"

"Sure, but..."

"therefore let us go!"

"we will get pneumonia!"

"That's what antibiotics are for. Come on!" She vanished, visited her workplace to

fetch her slicker. Alec emptied and sighed his cup. His raincoat ended up being inside that is damp

And out, nonetheless it was supposed by him was better than nothing. As well as a rringg ended up being desired by him!!

As they squeezed to the external group, Alec had been hit by the span that is rapt

On faces so chilled and sodden which they must have searched unhappy. Slowly,

some body began to chant "Havah nagilah." Alec held their stone off to the girl which

faced him through the other circle. They knocked, but all of the sound their stones

made was that solid "Clack." Their next-door neighbors knocked too, therefore the clacks

spattered on the list of raindrops, uncoordinated. The circles begun to revolve. Much More

Knocks emerged, synchronized today by the rhythms of this expressed words and feet. The groups

accelerated, and thus did the hits and clacks.

This time around, there have been no spectators, except perhaps from behind windows, warm

and dry. With a part this is certainly tiny of head, Alec believed they alone had been sane.

Definitely he had been not, staggering widdershins in the rain to an folksong this is certainly old

knocking his worrystone against those of total strangers and vague

associates. Here was that redhead from his writing class, here a guy that is younger

a dripping leather-based that is black colored, here a assistant from the admissions company,

right here a division mind, right here a assistant that is youthful he scarcely respected.

And it was clack, clack, clack, absolutely nothing but clacks.

A Rringg!! resounded down the circles to his left. He could see the pair this is certainly fortunate

sorting on their own from the herd since it paused with its orbit. Other people saw too, and

Alec noted one fellow whoever face bore no trace for the span shared by all

the remainder. He had been as young as any understanding student, his face clean-shaven. No cap ended up being worn by him,

and his hair was plastered to his forehead because of the rain. The color of their tie,

its knot noticeable into the vee of his raincoat, ended up being leaching in to the striped

textile of his collar.

Alec stared, intrigued, given that misfit shook their stone over their head and cried,

"Mine won't work! Any person wanta trade?" He was astonished as soon as the lady facing

him cried since loudly, "such a thing for chance!" and exchanged rocks utilizing the guy.

The groups started initially to go again, the chant getting speed. Soon there was

another Rringg!!, near by, and Alec thought his belly cramp. This time it absolutely was

Di. He shook beside him, arm-in-arm by way of a man he thought as she left the group

he previously last seen coaching the baseball staff. Both their faces were vibrant,

their eyes just for one another.

Water blinded him, but it wasn't rain. That should are his Rringg!! with

Di. He had lost her today, plus it ended up being all chance that is bad all the cursed rocks, all a

fate that had no shame on him. However he kept slamming, moving instantly,

Slamming and knocking, dripping and weeping with envy and jealousy.

And there was clearly a billowing sou'wester, yellowish plastic, all-covering pants and

Hat and jacket. The face area felt compared to a soccer player, a hulking, mindless

Jock, but it was as expectant as Alec's was indeed a brief minute before, plus it ended up being

Touched with sympathy as the optical eyes licensed Alec's discomfort.

"Was that the girl?" An hand this is certainly over-sized a rose-pink stone as lambently

translucent as Alec's silver. The cuff was held from a elastic band regarding the synthetic raincoat

shut against the rainfall.

Alec nodded, unwilling to generally meet the other's eyes, and additionally they knocked. And also at final

it simply happened. The sound ended up being no clack, but a solid, reverberating Rringg!! Alec's

hand tingled along with his arm sang. His pain evaporated as if it had never already been, and

he looked obviously during the various other guy.

The face glowed, as performed his heart this is certainly very own within. Alec basked within a powerful

sense of being loved, and he guessed--he knew--the other did aswell. He believed

nothing of this anxiety, the threat, of two strangers meeting for the full time this is certainly very first.

They were pals being old they had already been buddies all of their life, and maybe for

even more life before that. They trusted each other. They accepted one another, with

almost all their foibles, all unknown. They appreciated one another.

All in an instant, they were in love, though sex never joined the equation.

Alec wondered if it could or could with woman and man. He doubted it. It felt

a lot more crucial that here was someone he could talk with for hours, feel for,

Feel with and about, a soulmate and friend, a stonemate. He barely felt the

sturdy arm link his and guide him through the throng that is still-moving.

"I Am Bruce Dietz."

Alec introduced himself as they turned toward the club. Over hot coffee, he informed

just how he had acquired their stone within the forest. He told of Di, and then he informed of his

buddies' probings for the shards, and...

Bruce told him of other items: He had spent couple of years guerrillas which are advising

Africa and South America. On his return to life that is civilian he had learned to utilize

The abilities which are exact same an insurance adjuster. However he'd lost his partner and

Their two sons when she had gotten an operating task provide in another state. He previously

started drinking and destroyed their work. Today he ended up being an scholarly knowledge major who had always

done his better to keep away from the English division.

"Where did you get the stone?"

"It landed right behind the dormitory, crashed within a forsythia bush. A bunch of us saw

it, but I got here initially." He laughed.

"I'm happy you did not turn it in." Alec turned his stone in his hands. Bruce

reached to touch it with his own.

"The feds are just paranoid. Though..." He shrugged. "Well, the eggs are landing

all over the place. Mainly in locations, near where men and women live. And they also

Figure Rringg that is way too many are going to be detrimental to the economy, detrimental to taxes, detrimental to

the Defense Department..."

"Defense?"

"They don't desire individuals experiencing also friendly, you understand."

They chatted on. They shared. They adored each other like brothers, or daddy and

boy, or guy this is certainly long-married spouse. But fundamentally the enchantment performed fade.

Alec gone back to their office gradually, savoring the rain, savoring the radiance that

still pervaded him. There was a lethargy to that particular glow, more like the aftermath

of the full bowl of hot soup on a time that is cool the afterglow of intercourse, but there is an

energy to it also. He thought as he had often believed after a reunion with an

Old friend, relieved and satisfied, pleased and expectant, saturated in the memory and

the anticipation of joy.

Later on, Alec looked for Di. But she was not inside her office, not inside her laboratory, perhaps not in

the library. No body had seen her after the sectors was in fact remaining by her from the typical.

However Alec's jealousy did not get back. He felt that he comprehended. Her stonemate

was in fact an guy this is certainly appealing though it absolutely was his becoming the stonemate that mattered.

Appearance was absolutely nothing.

He swore no accounting would be demanded by him. He'd maybe not push her on her behalf

Whereabouts, though she was missed by him. He'd accuse her of no unfaithfulness, no

disloyalty, no betrayal.

Or did he swear? The ideas moved round and round in his mind, nevertheless they lacked

the vehemence to suit that word. It was more just as if he understood that the traditional

Dilemmas had no acknowledged invest the framework associated with rocks. Also it ended up being the rocks

themselves which had given him that understanding.

The information cheered him therefore little he was willing to spend evening

morosely inside the armchair, consuming, staring in the eye this is certainly blind of television.

From the real method home, nevertheless, he ended yet again in the geology lab.

Ybarra and Ellen remained they said nothing when he en~tered at it, but. He

watched all of them, bent over their particular microscopes, and then he considered the window, staring

out at the cloudy heavens, therefore apt a representation of his mood. Within a brief minute, both

his pals stood quietly beside him.

He looked at just what the ability had believed like. A pang was thought by him of envy, much

stronger he previously seen a Rringg!! as well as its than he had felt the first time

outcome, watching television. He turned from the screen, and Ellen should have

seen some thing in his face. She turned with him, her hand softly brushing his

supply.

He requested, "Have you seen Di?"

Their particular head-shakes being simultaneous him on. These people were told by him of losing her into the

crowd that, of finding his very own stonemate mid-day. He said absolutely nothing of exactly what he

considered, but Ellen sensed it, so when he left, she went with him.

As they stepped from the geology building, Ellen took his hand, saying, "we

Wish a stone had been had by myself, too."

"You'll find one. They are all on the accepted place."

She nodded. "Di and I took a stroll Sunday, through the arboretum. There were

individuals every-where, seeking them."

"And finding them?"

She nodded again. "She likes you, you understand. We chatted a little as to what's going

to happen with our group. No person's paired off, and that is unusual."

He bent their course toward the English building, grasping her hand much more tightly.

"It's not for lack of attempting. Franklin..."

She tossed and snorted her mind. "Him!" They stepped in silence for a minute.

Finally, she said, "We were about done. I became about to fry a hamburger

for dinner. I'll fry two, me personally. if you'd like to join"

He hesitated. But Di had disappeared, in which he was not at all yes he should waste

more hours hunting for her.

He squeezed Ellen's hand. "I'd be thrilled."

As Alec had thought when he had seen Di get her Rringg!!, Andy Witham had been a

baseball advisor. And also as Alec could have guessed, sports were the thing that is just

could or would mention. However, the charged power of the Rringg!! was such that Di,

just who generally had time this is certainly small spectator sports, listened raptly. Walking with

him through the rain, her supply in his, she allow him inform her exactly about the new

crop of players due to reach that fall. In the car, she paid attention to his own

record, the scholarship this is certainly athletic the injury which had stopped him playing, the

winning staff he had accumulated in a smaller college, the offer that had

brought him right here. Into the living room of his condo nearby the river, she finally

Surely got to state a little about herself, as instructor and biologist and displaced

westerner.

But her change did not last long. Barely had she admitted exactly what she taught than

Andy had been saying, "We've got doing something about those science classes. A number of

My boys cannot too get on really with all those realities, when their particular average

falls, they cannot play. That is no real option to run a college."

Later, Di would wonder how she had been in a position to sit him as long as she had.

Nevertheless the spell for the Rringg!! was strong, and she thought him a little while it lasted

marvelous fellow, true friend and soulmate. She allow him feed her, beef

bouguignon on foil dishes from the fridge, and she complimented their cooking.

She listened agreeably to his monolog, so when an opportunity ended up being got by her she said she

Thought fly casting must have a total good deal in common with placing basketballs through

nets.

That, finally, diverted him. He admitted he had accustomed seafood, though never

with flies. Their daddy was in fact a fan of competition bass fishing, and then he had

Taught Andy that is young to a rotating reel and plugs. Trout? In Missouri, where he

had developed, they weren't considered much. Bass, now... They argued amicably,

Di urging him to use the fishing nearby the institution, he saying he previouslyn't the

time.

Eventually, since it had with Alec and Bruce, the enchantment started initially to diminish. But Di and

Andy had been woman and guy, experiencing close despite their particular distinctions, plus it felt

just normal in order for them to attempt to expand the mood rather than parting. She allow him

lead her into the bedroom.

Later on she stared in the man sprawled in his sleep. She had looked at him therefore fondly

prior to, the good news is she thought betrayed. The Rringg!! was a high, indeed, however it had

nothing at all to do with intercourse. A mistake had been created by her, now she felt dirty, soiled.

She had abandoned a person who designed significantly more to her. Perhaps he previously been lost by her.

A look into she was told through the time clock it had been maybe not too late. She wondered where Alec was.

Had a stonemate ended up being found by him also? Maybe not bothering to wake Andy, she used his phone to

phone a taxi and dressed hurriedly, already praying she was wrong about losing

Alec, wondering where she might find him.

"Have you seen Alec?" She felt close to tears. A rringg was had by her!! however it

wasn't the same as what she had had, or exactly what she ended up being just starting to have, with

Alec. Andy was not the sort this is certainly exact same of at all. They had significantly less in keeping. He

was less considerate, less sharing, less of everything her long friendship with

Alec had uncovered in him. Even the sex...

"He was in the laboratory this. afternoon" Ybarra's vocals sounded sympathetic. She

desired he weren't on the other side end of the phone range. Lacking Alec, she'd

rather joyfully take their hand on her shoulder, their arms around her back. She

needed a hug. But... "He left with Ellen."

She scarcely licensed her friend's tone while the sides of her lips curved still

further downward. Rips began to form at the corners of her eyes. She remembered

just what Ellen had told her afternoon sunday. Had she seen an opportunity to grab

Alec?

She hung-up the device and paced across her kitchen area into the screen. She stood

looking down upon the road. Where were they now? In bed?

Alec was at their slim office, tilting back in their gray steel swivel chair, his

foot on his table. A stack of student papers waited by his shoulder. One ended up being spread

across their lap. But he had been perhaps not reading. Eyes shut, he fondled their worrystone and

recalled. Ellen had fed him that hamburger, along with half of a wine,

After which she had led him to her fabric chair, soothing and smooth. They'd

fired up the tv screen, and they had watched for awhile.

As soon as the news had demonstrated group dances, line dances, modified folk dances,

through the entire nation and around the globe, he had thought a morose that is sure

satisfaction. Companies were faltering as his or her employees abandoned their

duties to hit rocks. Rush-hour traffic crawled as individuals switched opposing

lanes into motorized knockfests, holding on their stones to drivers being driving

Snarling and preventing the movement each time they got a Rringg!! Shoppers were as

bad.

Alec remembered Officer Veilleux and also the national government demand that folks surrender

their rocks. Perhaps the officials were right. The stones might prove indeed

much more disruptive than civilization could stand. But he, like Bruce, like many

others, was not going to surrender their own.

Ellen had laid her head on his neck, an supply across their upper body. His own arm

Was indeed over her shoulder, the tactile hand close to her breast, and he was indeed

lured to accept what she provided. A feeling, a expressed word, in which he might have replaced

Di so easily, at the very least for the evening. Just what had ended him? Ellen, he believed,

was a lot of Ybarra's, or almost so. And she was not Di. Which was all. Di had been...

Di, in which he had not wanted to give up all the possibilities she represented.

In time, he might are making the move Ellen ended up being welcoming. She was had by her very own

opportunities. In which he liked her nearly as much before she had come while he had Di

to his residence. But then there was indeed that knock on the apartment door. Ellen

had pulled away she had been from him, and there. He had leaped to his feet, his face

hot, feeling guilty for just what he'd virtually done. He had said, "Di!" And she had

set you back him.

He hadn't did not note the frustration on Ellen's face, but their hands were

around Di, their face hidden inside her hair. In addition they had remained not any longer than it

took him to say, "Thanks."

That were a ago week. He wished Di would say more about her and night day

After her Rringg!! than that the impression had been understood by him himself. He would love to know

what had occurred between her along with her stonemate. Maybe someday he could bring

himself to inquire of.

His flash then followed the curves regarding the stone. He exposed his eyes and stared at it.

A thin line of sunlight struck warmth, making the rock shine to their lap such as a

cat's-eye in the ray of a vehicle's headlights. He and Di had knocked so times that are many

within the last days that are few and every time they'd heard simply a clack. He shifted their

gaze into the paper on their lap. He groaned. Student documents were uniformly terrible,

the exclusions rare enough to make him feel great for several days. In which he had seen no

exceptions into the pile so far.

He thought once again of Di, picturing her face this is certainly oval tilt of her breasts, and

more. Her brain, her character, those components of her he'd known longer, he

could not visualize.

The Rringg!! knowledge was a thing that is valuable. He had never experienced the sense of

fellowship he had found with Bruce. Never. Not with Di. In which he would want

to talk she'd give him an orifice, say one thing, perhaps not about any of it, if only

imagine it had never happened. Or could one speak about it only with a stonemate?

He shook his mind. Anyone who had had the experience would like to share it as

extensively as you possibly can, would not they? Or would they? Can it be a ecstasy this is certainly personal?

Something, such as an orgasm, that one simply assumes other individuals understand?

Folks did not discuss their orgasms. And individuals who had never had you could

have quite idea that is little of these people were truly lacking.

He seemed straight back during the documents. It didn't assist that their particular subjects had been so

monotonous. The eggs. The rocks. Flights of sophomoric viewpoint. Speculations

on origins and results in. Untrue romanticism and fin de siecle pessimism. Nothing

about orgasms.

Alec and Di sat collectively, dealing with their friends over the lunch dining table. Franklin

sat to 1 part, looking wistful as Ellen and Ybarra moved each other

repeatedly and tenderly. He didn't know very well what Alec--and perhaps Di--suspected,

that Ellen's inspiration had a feature of revenge, of fury at Alec for making

her when Di had appeared.

Ellen was stating that her students had been as obsessed with the rocks as Alec's.

"A few," she stated. "several tend to be even putting in time that is extra the lab, studying

the items. We have lasers, and they are doing sonography, and microscopy. And

they are testing the reagents on every stone they can discover."

Ybarra selected at their fries being french. "Are your children something that is finding? Mine

are not."

"They usually haven't seen any structure that is internal. Outdoors, they are all the except this is certainly exact same

for color." She paused to sip at her coffee. "There's a hint of microwaves,

radio waves."

"What about the shards?" requested Franklin.

Ybarra grunted. "Crystalline carbonates, doped with metals to give the colors."

"Doped?" asked Alec.

"Traces of copper, uranium, chromium. Like pottery glazes."

"Oh, yeah." Suddenly, Ellen brightened. "simply, among the children found a yesterday

number of rocks that respond with nitric acid."

Ybarra sat up straighter. Franklin, Di, and Alec all leaned ahead. "Just What?"

"The acid falls foam on contact."

"chances are they must certanly be carbonate too."

"Sure, but..."

"Do they Rringg!!?"

"Exactly What, Alec?"

"Do they work?"

"and just why did they drop their particular, their particular immunity to your examinations?" requested Franklin.

Ellen shook her mind. "We haven't the faintest, but the reason why should..."

"We've got to check on," said Ybarra. "there might be a link. Possibly whatever

Force stabilizes these plain things is exactly what gives all of them the Rringg!! capability. And this

is the first handle that is genuine things we've discovered. Maybe..."

"But exactly how?" requested Di.

Franklin grinned at them. "which is easy. Look for a few, and monitor them by way of a

handful of circle dances. Where are those foamers now?"

Two days later on, the solution ended up being obvious: The foamers never provided a Rringg!! at all.

These people were clackers only, as well as their clacks seemed faintly various.

These people were gathered in Ellen's lab with all the half-dozen students who had previously been

testing the foamers on the go. Alec was getting ready to hoist himself onto a

black colored and closet that is green Ybarra cried, "Easy, Alec! Which is an expensive

piece of equipment."

Alec slid straight back onto the floor. "What is it?"

"It really is for atomic resonance this is certainly magnetic." At Alec's perplexed appearance,

Ellen laughed. "Don't stress. There isn't any radiation. It makes use of industries which are magnetized

track atomic nuclei."

"Features it given you anything?"

"Zilch." The students laughed. The presenter, Michael Weldon, ended up being which is brief

muscular. He wore a t-shirt that is green revealed zippers tattooed on his arms;

they'd been a craze this is certainly low-key many years. When the laughter ended, he

scowled, for neither he nor one other students were actually pleased. That they had had

to trade their nonfoamers to have their particular duds which are experimental. "The foamers appear

to possess plenty of hydrogen inside their carbonate. The ones--they this is certainly realn't also

sign-up."

Ellen glared whenever Franklin muttered, "we however believe it may be psychic..." But

neither said anything more.

A girl that is small a forlorn phrase held up her foamer. She wore just one

blonde braid coiled such as a headband around her head. The rest of her locks fell

no-cost. "Are they dead? Do they live just for several days?"

"I do not think therefore, Naomi." Alec held down his own stone. "We discovered this one the

Very day this is certainly very first. Where's the acid?"

Ellen passed him a beaker of dilute acid this is certainly nitric a watch dropper. A student

held aside a clean container. Alec tested his stone, and it also failed to foam. Therefore did

Di's and Franklin's. Whenever Ellen produced one of her very own, a deeper green than

Di's, it too passed the test. Alec looked at Ybarra, but he'd obviously not

found one. He shook their head. "If they're inert to every little thing, they truly

should not deteriorate."

Alec knocked with Franklin, with Ellen, and--hopefully--with Di. They knocked

with one another. But there have been no Rringg!!s. Di touched her stone more gently

to his a second time, and she murmured, "Maybe the next occasion."

"Then exactly what?" said Naomi. "then... if they are not dead,"

"Maybe they truly are fakes," provided Michael Weldon.

"No!" Cries of protest erupted from the other pupils. Rips welled from

Naomi's eyes. "that would do that?"

Ybarra shrugged their ignorance for all of them. "You'll need certainly to discover people which are brand new. But

they truly are still arriving. There isn't any shortage."

"Yeah." Weldon stared at the floor. One hand that is white-knuckled his foamer.

"we could trade once again, too. And possibly we are able to know where those foamers come

from."

Ellen exposed an overhead cupboard. "You'll require a solution to spot them." She uncovered a

field of little vials, each one with a screw-on eyedropper. She taped them collectively

in sets. Then she loaded one out of each set with dilute acid this is certainly nitric one other

with distilled water, for rinsing. Them out, she said, "Test kits as she passed.

Make use of them whenever chance is got by you."

Once the lab door had shut behind the learning pupils, Alec bounced a test system inside the

hand. "I would prefer to know, also. That is the counterfeiter?"

Ybarra slipped a kit into their clothing pocket. "we believe our team got their particular foamers

off their pupils."

"Guess whom people they know tend to be," snorted Ellen.

"Still," said Di. "I've seen all of them stones that are exchanging the dances. Could somebody be

taking advantage of that...?"

"to slide in ringers?" No body smiled. Ellen ran her fingers over her own rock

For the brief minute, then she gripped it firmly. The tendons in her wrist stood

away. "We could learn. A trade might be accepted by us. But..."

"I don't want to either," stated Alec. He clutched his stone that is very own in darkness

of their pocket.

Alec never ever performed need trade their rock. Neither did others, for his or her

pupils answered their particular questions for them. Alec and Di had been on the method to his

spot belated that, walking toward the parking area because of the gymnasium, carrying afternoon

briefcases packed with texts and records and pupil reports. Their fingers which are free

entwined, their particular feet cleaning because they wandered.

The gymnasium sat at the end of the lengthy common, a mass that is rectilinear of and

cement. Unique drive arced off the thoroughfare that is primary enclosing a half-moon

Of shrubbery and lawn and trees. A yellow that is battered was parked at one end of

the arc, a bond of smoke increasing from the tailpipe. From the grass, surrounding

an island of yew and maple, were the familiar concentric sectors of students.

Alec and Di could see Naomi and Michael, knocking and chanting along with the rest.

Michael ended up being bare-armed, their zippers that are tattooed.

Alec and Di had no fascination with the dance this time around. That they had had an adequate amount of the

university for the day. They desired time for you by themselves, several hours of reading

documents dealing with one another across Alec's oaken dining table. Their particular course would lead them

really clear of the gymnasium in addition to pupils.

But simply as one place regarding the gym started initially to cut their line of sight--if they had

bothered to look--they heard someone yell: "It is a fake!"

They looked. The sectors were breaking, milling, converging using one part that is small

of these rim.

They let go of each other's hands and begun to run. They said absolutely nothing, but each

wished poorly to know what was taking place.

They shouldered their way through the crowd to find one disheveled man that is young

the bottom, tie askew, his legs and arms pinned by harsh fingers while Michael

Weldon experienced their pouches. He had been not struggling, and his eyes were intent

on Naomi, who was very carefully holding falls of acid to your rocks Michael discovered.

Beside her currently rested two tiny heaps of stones.

When Michael saw all of them, he explained: "He wanted to trade. It absolutely was when I examined

a foamer."

Alec nodded approvingly. Di scowled. Naomi pointed at certainly one of her heaps.

"Foamers," she said. She sounded disgusted, contemptuous. "A mess of them.

Fakes. The others tend to be genuine."

The pupils surrounding all of them began to protest: "Hey! We traded with this particular bird

yesterday--today--this morning. I would like my rock straight back. Cream the bastard!"

Michael found one more rock. "which is it."

Naomi waved her fellows right back. "Let me examine yours. We will give you good people."

She vanished within a press of figures, a wall of arms and rocks and pleading

sounds. The arms that had held the trader down let go.

Alec stated, "Michael! Bring him over here! Let us find out just who he could be."

An engine seemed as Michael pushed through the group, his prisoner in tow

close. No body looked. Di said, "Who's he working for? Where's his ID?"

The trader looked battered. A shave ended up being required by him. Their jacket, a plastic this is certainly gray

Windbreaker, had been torn at pocket and shoulder. There was clearly a rip in a single denim

trouser leg. A hip pocket flapped. Quick tresses this is certainly blond over their forehead. A

bruise swelled on their cheekbone. Their lips had been pressed tightly together.

Plainly, no intention was had by him of talking.

Michael bent the man's arm up behind their straight back. "I'll make him inform us."

But even while the guy's mouth whitened in discomfort, there clearly was a squeal that is brief of.

A blow that is sudden Alec to their knees. He rolled, plus the van ended up being seen by him he and Di

had noted earlier. Its dirty home that is yellowish available, moving where Alec had stood

an instant before. Two men, clad such as the trader in gray windbreakers, were

clubbing Michael into a bush that is yew. Di ended up being sitting on the grass, her skirt askew,

her briefcase available, spilling reports. The investor had been diving into the van.

It took just moments. The two strangers followed the trader, the van's engine

Roared, its tires squealed given that pavement ended up being reached because of it, additionally the van disappeared

round the gymnasium spot and through the parking lot.

Alec selected himself up and helped Di to her foot. Michael extricated himself

Through the shrubbery, his face red with frustration and anger, tears inside the eyes,

scratches marring his zippers. He stood, fists clenched, and stared after the

van. "Who are they?" he cried.

Alec believed no less mad. Their knees trembled, along with his voice shook as he attempted

to speak. He quit the time and effort, prying his hand loose from Di's supply, where it

Will need to have already been hurting her though no sign had been made by her. Her hand that is own lay his,

clenching simply as difficult. He viewed as his tension eased, as hers died down as

really plus the red gone back to her knuckles. Her grip remained tight.

Michael had claimed the relevant question undoubtedly. Just as they'd guessed, there have been

fake stones. That they had met those that passed them. In it, someplace,

were the counterfeiters. But who were they? Exactly what were their goals? Exactly what did they

want? No answers had been around the corner.

Although... Naomi ended up being keeping a wallet this is certainly well-aged one hand and saying, "I

believe he destroyed this."

Di's touch helped soothe the obstruction of trend in Alec's upper body. He desired to

phone the cops, the FBI, the dean, the... anybody who could undo the conceivably

evil they had fulfilled. He'd be calling for their mama if he remained a child.

But Di's hold gentled him, calmed him. He became able to talk, and also to listen,

and then he allow Di talk him into returning to his company. As soon as truth be told there, he called their particular

pals. Ybarra and Ellen emerged instantly; Franklin, stuck teaching a laboratory, said

he would catch up from the news later.

Ybarra, he? as he perched regarding the side of Alec's work desk, asked, "who had been"

But Alec could just shake their head. The wallet was in fact vacant aside from a couple of

tiny bills and a piece this is certainly single of by way of a telephone number written about it.

"He experienced a large amount of the rocks?"

Di nodded. She and Ellen had been sitting when you look at the couple of fiberglass chairs that took

up too much of Alec's floor space. "He will need to have had two dozen fakes. Naomi gave

all of them in my opinion." She ended up being established by her purse and started initially to pile the rocks in the work desk.

"The government?" requested Ellen. "They're nevertheless obtaining all of them?" Ybarra stirred

the pile with one hand. He handed her two whenever she reached out.

"by firmly taking advantageous asset of those who haven't had Rringg!!s yet, Ellen?" Alec

turned laterally inside the chair, however fuming, his arms gripping their knees, and

stared at the bookshelves in the front of him. There clearly was a Bible here, along with other

holy books, a text or two on ethics. He had once thought a book could possibly be authored by him

regarding the differences between how men and women thought they need to behave and just how they

actually did. Now he wondered shortly if your better contrast is almost certainly not

between folks and organizations, specifically governing bodies.

"I suppose," he included. "we suppose it might work."

"It really is much better than using all of them by power."

"Is it?" Alec stared at Ybarra. He recalled the group dance where he and Di had

had their very first Rringg!!s. "It really is theft, deception, cheating. And so they've been

carrying it out for awhile." He told them of that trader that is first had seen, their

expression therefore uninvolved when you look at the circle ritual, therefore intention on something else, so

calculating. "I am able to guess the reason why," he stated. "should they can put fakes which can be sufficient

Blood flow, the chances tend to be operate by them of having a Rringg!! way-down. That gets

people's thoughts straight back on the work and keeps the economic climate from falling apart." He

shook his head.

"At the very least, today we know what's going on," said Di.

"as well as the test kits worked."

"But don't we want a far better test, Walter?"

Ybarra nodded. "I'll have to think about that, Ellen. At this time, let me

Know how the fakes are built by all of them."

Ellen took her worrystone from her bag and presented it next to the fakes. "Floor

layer, I'll bet. With some type of binder."

Alec and Di took fakes of their own to compare with their rocks. "they appear

likewise."

"We should have the word aside, tell individuals not to trade."

Ybarra shook their mind. "It would not work. They would still do it, when they thought

they could trust the other man, and so they'd nevertheless get robbed."

"we believe," stated Alec, "that you had better produce that better test pretty

soon, then. And it also have to be user friendly."

"I have a thought or two."

Ellen was the first to ever increase, one hand tugging carefully at Ybarra's shoulder.

"C'mon then. Back to the laboratory."

Ybarra grunted as he rose through the edge of the work desk and started initially to scoop stones

into their pockets. "Home, first. We'll sleep onto it." One of several rocks fell from the

flooring.

Di endured, saying, "Here's one test." The heel ended up being brought by her of just one footwear down hard

on the stone. There clearly was a noise like grating cup, also it set in a dozen

pieces, puddled in gem-like dirt.

She whistled. "My father as soon as had an agate worrystone, shaped something like

these exact things." She paused. "It wouldn't Rringg!! nonetheless it had been a great deal more powerful than

that. It absolutely was donned by him on his keychain."

Ybarra took a bit of report from Alec's desk and knelt to scoop the fragments

up. He seemed thoughtful while he creased the report into an envelope. "They react

with acid, and they're more delicate. That is one thing.

Ellen touched him in the leg. "Maybe the test that's right simply to knock them

together difficult."

He shook his head. "The Next Day."

"Tomorrow, then," stated Alec. He ushered all of them out and locked their door, and then he and

Di yet again headed for home.

He did not know what the conference had been hoped by him would accomplish. What could they

do? Four faculty that is junior, not even close to the seating of power, could just dream

of switching the entire world. That did not signify they ought not to ever dream or decide to try what

They might, however it did mean they should be realistic.

Yet he didn't want to be practical. He had been angry.

Whenever Alec ended by the division office after course the mid-day this is certainly next Cam

Dvorak beckoned him into his quarters that are spacious. Dvorak ended up being the relative head associated with

department that year, a man that is tall hefty, his cheeks jowling beneath curly

black colored sideburns. His message was simple. A speaker ended up being arriving that evening,

and he wished Alec to fulfill him in the airport. "You'll like him," stated Dvorak.

"Right up your alley. Wrote that book on company writing." He rummaged on his

Desk until it was found by him. The cover had been a striking black colored, with red lettering.

Alec carefully noted the picture for the author when Dvorak unsealed the written book into the

straight back flap. Him a pink message slip while he left, the department assistant handed.

It bore a term this is certainly solitary "Lasagna," but that cryptic message he understood. Ellen

had decided the had been cool adequate to cook, she was indeed free of lectures and day

Labs, also it was thought by her too much time since she had last indulged her pals.

Alec informed and laughed the secretary where he'd be.

Ellen's apartment boasted sliding cup doorways available onto a redwood deck this is certainly little

that presented a table set with plastic cups, chips, and finger salad. Franklin and

Ybarra were already there whenever Alec and Di appeared, both seated nearby the doors,

In which the prepare might be seen by all of them.

As Alec uncorked the container he had poured and brought for Di, he believed that

Franklin was behaving well. He clearly knew all fantasy was lost by him of Ellen, but

he had been chatting now with no indication of animosity when it comes to man she had opted for.

"Have you figured it out however?" asked Ybarra.

"No," said Alec.

"What?" asked Franklin.

"the device number." Alec organized the scrap of paper and explained where it had

result from.

"So dial it," said Ybarra, grinning as Ellen took a seat beside him.

Franklin shook his head. "that may let them know too much. But..." He stepped

to the apartment, going back promptly using the phone-in his hand. "Not the

operator, " he said. "'Weee don' give owwwt that informaaation!' But I've got a

sis..."

He held on a tactile hand for Alec's scrap of paper. A second later on, he had been saying,

"Hey, Shawna... Appropriate. Look anything up for me?" His hand covering the

mouthpiece, he explained: "She's a billing super..." He listened, scribbling on

the scrap. "I'll tell you exactly about it in the future. See you Sunday?"

"Here," he said. "Easy." He viewed Ellen just as if for endorsement.

She grew up by her glass to him. "when you have the associates."

"Why don't we see." Ybarra took the scrap of report. "Jason Burr," he read. "not really really

great community."

"but that is where they may be hiding," stated Alec. "I'll bet they have a factory

for the fakes, as well as a dresser filled with real people."

"Maybe." Di leaned over Ybarra's neck to learn what Franklin wrote. "If

it offers almost anything to do with the dealers."

"Sure it does," insisted Franklin. He pouted, as though she had challenged their

contribution into the mystery. "Though we'll wager titleis a artificial."

Ybarra grinned. "a lot of whodunnits, my boy. Real world..."

The kitchen timer dinged. Ellen interrupted. "There's our Rringg!!"

The dining table had been full of the empty cooking pan, a plate with two celery this is certainly limp

stalks, a scatter of dirty paper plates, and five wine eyeglasses. The nearly vacant

container sat precariously on the deck's narrow railing. Alec cradled a coffee cup

in the lap while he leaned their chair straight back from the wall.

Ybarra ended up being saying, "The rocks fluoresce, you realize? The kids were shining

ultraviolet lights they got a significant shine. to them, and"

"Just the ones being genuine? The fakes?"

He shook their head. "Uh-uh, Di. Both. But I Am wondering. Perhaps there's some

difference indeed there. Perhaps they react to UV this is certainly different. I got to

check."

Franklin snorted. "I'm able to only see it. A torch this is certainly special every hand.

Looking brand new stones within the shrubs..."

"Hey! That'd work!"

"Criss-crossing beams over the circles from the common."

Each of them laughed.

"Maybe we're able to even offer what exactly. Get wealthy, and retire young. Spend the remainder

of your resides fishing."

Ellen looked because before she could if she didn't accept of Franklin's dream, but

Speak, the feeling ended up being broken by way of a buzz. She left, as well as in a short minute she led a hesitant Bruce

Dietz on the deck. "Alec?"

"Bruce!"

"I was trying to find you this afternoon. I became told through the division..."

"Sure!" Alec introduced them, while Franklin presented completely a glass that is plastic of.

Bruce explained himself: " an in depth friend of mine in the paper showed myself a line tale I

believed you would like."

"therefore tell." And then he performed. It had come in in the satellite beam, that includes

images and bearing the cable service's official stamp. A reporter, for a hunch,

had visited a zoo, in which he had found that the apes truth be told there, chimps and gorillas and

orangutans, had their particular stones which can be very own. These people were being knocked by all of them, too, plus some were

Even Rringg this is certainly getting.

"Are they reaching through the bars?" Ellen wanted to understand.

"think about in the great outdoors?" asked Di.

"And porpoises!" exclaimed Franklin.

Bruce shook his head. "I don't know about porpoises, also it did not say any such thing

in regards to the apes trying to knock with individuals. But, yes, they truly are evidently performing

it in the forest, too. The story pointed out a reports which are few. But..." He paused.

"Best of most, as soon as the report labeled as the solution to verify, all they got was a

denial."

"Just What?"

He nodded. "They may be guessing a bit this is certainly early of stress."

Alec checked and laughed his view. "I'm not surprised. But I've surely got to operate." He

explained his errand. Ybarra and Franklin volunteered to greatly help tidy up, and

Bruce said, "Why don't we take my van. Room for all." Alec and Di used him through the

apartment.

There was no mistaking Wendell Collin among the list of crowd disembarking through the

airplane. His mind erupted over the size, its rumpled tresses that is red advertising for

attention. Alec waved a tactile hand, calling, "Dr. Collin!"

Because the man switched toward him, Di allow one giggle escape that is tiny. Collin's prominent

chin jutted such as the prow of a boat while his human body was so thin it seemed

Impossible a wake is left by him. But their face was wrinkled with good humor, and

his look ended up being open while he presented out a hand. Alec introduced himself along with his

friends. "The motelis only a moments which can be few, and the van's in the great deal.

Baggage?"

"this will be it." Collin hefted the canvas case in the left hand.

They were at the motel only for enough time to drop the case in Collin's space and

determine where you should make the visitor for the bite as well as a beverage.

The Pilot's Haven was a construction that is nondescript of up against creosoted

timbers and relieved with lignum vitae shrubs set in beds of bark chips. In,

the wall space bore synthetic imitations of ship's rims, sextants, and astrolabes.

The stands had been cushioned synthetic dimly illuminated with vaguely brass this is certainly nautical

lights.

While they waited for his or her requests, Collin drew from their jacket pocket a

worrystone. He held it up, saying, "When we're fortunate, it will likely be a means that is very good get

acquainted."

Alec produced his very own, they knocked, as well as a clack ended up being got by all of them. Whenever Di and Bruce

fared no better, Collin said, "At the very least, we've done our duty by the order this is certainly brand new.

You do know very well what these plain things tend to be?" He presented his rock in one single hand, stroking it

with all the various other.

They shook their particular heads. He said, "Do the telephone is recalled by you system years

ago? it up like a dominance before they smashed? They called it 'Ma Bell,' and she

possessed a motto."

Di laughed. "You imply, 'Reach out and touch someone?'"

He touched their rock to hers once again. "It is the ghost of Ma Bell behind it

all, I'm sure. Making us reach out and touch, after which ringing our chimes for a

incentive." He had been interrupted because of the arrival of these drinks along with his sandwich. "At

the very least, that's the Bell hypothesis."

Bruce raised his cup, toasting the idea. "Have you heard of the chimps?"

Collin nodded, incorporating he had heard that that he only held it's place in New York, and

city's Finest was in fact sent into the Bronx Zoo's cages to confiscate the rocks.

"But the apes did not cooperate any longer than people have already been doing. They threw

things. One gorilla also put a cop."

Alec, grinning, said, "They're sneakier here." He told for the traders and also the

fakes and of their particular test the real deal people. Collin stated, "I'll pass the expressed term on that,

If i may. Many people are frustrated because they don't get the Rringg!!s

they want."

"But even people that are realn't Rringg!! everytime."

Collin nodded. "There's a team at Columbia. I'm told by them the rocks have to be

giving an answer to some type of resonance function in the individual. And since two rocks

never seem to Rringg!! twice in succession, they should reset the function,

whatever it's."

Di leaned forward. "but once do they reset it? Not just when they Rringg!!

Men and women obtain a clack with one knock and a Rringg!! the time that is next try."

"it spontaneously. so they do" Bruce lifted a tactile hand for the waitress. "And

occasionally, arbitrarily."

Alec exhausted their alcohol. "we wouldn't see a lot of Rringg!!s if they didn't. Simply

believe, there's most likely a minumum of one stone for all on Earth, and if they

don't reset, lots of people would find their stonemates never. They'd maintain

China or somewhere."

Collin's sharp face scanned all of them admiringly. "That's what they explained, though

They did state may possibly not be that bad. There can be simply a configurations which can be few

the resonances. A rock may not have just one single mate, but dozens, or hundreds."

After their first class the very next day, Alec walked over to Ybarra's laboratory, where he

found the geologist tilting over a digital camera this is certainly video clip a tripod. It was pointing at

A violet this is certainly radiant on a laboratory workbench; on its side was a sticker distinguishing it as

the property of the university broadcasting studio. Perhaps not not even close to the egg sat a

Brown carton with all the markings of an oxygen cargo solution.

"We haven't seen that color before," stated Alec.

"Me neither," said Ybarra. "But there it was. We even watched it secure, close to

the lawn." A sigh was presented with by him of pleasure. "It took me personally for enough time to get one."

He stepped all over tripod and patted his prize. "and I also've been keeping my attention

directly on it. Remained up all. evening"

"Aren't you planning allow it to break?"

He shook their mind. "Not until i have got this put up. I quickly'll leave the room.

With fortune, I'll get yourself a record associated with procedure."

"Dr. Ybarra?" The student into the hinged home ended up being Michael Weldon. Alec remembered him

along with his arm zippers both from this lab and through the donnybrook in front of the

gymnasium. "Have you seen any group dances this? morning"

Whenever both Ybarra and Alec shook their heads, Michael included, "The dealers aren't

around. They truly are gone."

"they have to hesitate you'd jump them once more." Alec grinned at the thought.

"We would, also, but..."

"What?"

"There's a number of brand new dudes. They state they have been stones which can be collecting in

the woods. And they are offering them."

"Did you get one?"

"Are you kidding? For fifty bucks? And nothing associated with the buyers will let us examine."

"they do not need to know when they've been taken," recommended Alec.

"I got one." The speaker this is certainly new Naomi, another of Ybarra's student helpers.

She was breathing and grinning hard, just as if she was in fact working to meet up with

Michael; the braid that is solitary wore around her mind had slipped over one eyebrow.

"They left their car unlocked."

"and I also'll bet it is a foamer," said Ybarra.

She nodded and presented out a worrystone this is certainly yellowish. It had been taken by him, went a flash over its

contours, and said, "we will obtain a look this is certainly great it later on." He pointed during the

carton in the bench. "the SEM that is new chamber this morning. But first..." He

set the rock down and flipped a switch on the medial side regarding the digital camera this is certainly video clip. "Let's

get free from right here for awhile. I wish to watch a genuine one hatch."

"It worked," stated Ybarra as he put his tray down and slid into the booth beside

Ellen. He presented aside his hand, palm up, to demonstrate them all a violet worrystone. One

thumb caressed it as if against their will.

"just what worked?" said Di.

Alec explained quickly in regards to the videotaping, and Ybarra produced a glossy-black

And image that is white by several white streaks of fixed. "It's a nonetheless from

the tape," he said, pointing. "See? A number of the shards continue to be falling, and

You could make aside this--it looks like a spider-web, or perhaps a working system of membranes.

The stone is supported by them in the middle. When the egg pauses, they look to powder."

Di pointed during the lines which are fixed. "That's not said to be indeed there, can it be?"

The geologist shrugged. "It was not, elsewhere from the tape. Simply Murphy, I

guess." He received a small glass this is certainly clear from his clothing pocket. It was half

filled with violet dust. "But look. This is the powder. It's the items that is same the

layer, carbonates, but there's an element this is certainly organic really."

Ellen laughed. "Franklin will say that proves it really is alive. Psychokinetic

membranes! They allow eggs float gently to Earth. And telepathic, too! Which Is

how they tell if you are watching."

"So what else could it be?" Franklin was standing by the final end of the table,

scowling at Ellen. No one had noticed their strategy, but obviously he'd been

there long enough to realize what they were referring to. Now he said, "we find

it hard to think that no one else has set up a camera."

"They clearly have actually," stated Ellen. "In some government laboratory. Nonetheless they're maybe not

talking."

"we expect," said Ybarra. "I anticipate they're attempting very hard to figure out that

anti-gravity result."

"Did you obtain a possiblity to decide to try that new SEM chamber?" requested Alec.

Another picture landed on the table. "Look," said the geologist. "Specific

grains." His little finger traced their boundaries. "In some kind of a binder. Most Likely

Epoxy or plastic. Some thing strong adequate to resist knocking, although not to

stomping." He grinned. "Press the combination in a mold. Polish the top. And

you have a fake. A foamer."

"So they're changing their particular techniques," stated Di. "they have to result in the fakes from

broken layer. But why?"

Alec sighed. "The government does not want men and women ringing each other's chimes."

He barely licensed Di's unexpected blush. "It's detrimental to business. Also it cuts the

performance of this military."

"You think oahu is the government?"

"which else?"

The strangest of occasions will come to appear regular should they but continue long

sufficient. Alec knew that, but still the newscaster's expressions of surprise and

Disappointment and outrage hit him as funny. "People are seeing the skies

tonight," she stated. "But in vain. Those Easter this is certainly gaily colored Eggs finally

ended drifting down from heaven." She held up a pale worrystone this is certainly blue. "Do you

get yours? If you don't, it is too late now. They usually have dropped everywhere, an projected

two apiece for almost any being this is certainly real human our planet. They will have landed on yards and in

areas as well as in woodlands and ponds and oceans. Many have surely already been found. Various

may nevertheless be on the market, waiting for their discoverers which can be lucky. But you will have no

more. They've ended coming."

"I never discovered one," a couple of dismayed people in the general public said to the

microphones before all of them. "and today we never will." They seemed willing to cry.

Government representatives sang a happier tune: "At final," they said. "The

crisis is finished. We are able to make contact with matters being essential as the war in..."

Internet marketers additionally seemed relieved, if for various reasons: "People just

Have not been spending the actual way we'd like," said one. "staff members being

slamming stones with one another additionally the customers, and then knocking off to talk

up their particular stonemates. They have their particular stones, of course. But perhaps now

things can get back to normal."

"A 'crisis,' they call it," stated Alec. He and Di had came back Wendell Collin to

their motel after their talk, and their time was now their particular. In the morning,

Collin would take a taxi to your airport. They just might stay-in sleep, appropriate where

these were now, viewing the television, snuggling warmly and companionably.

"Not for the fake-sellers," stated Di. "They won't be able to make their particular phonies

Fast enough, plus the price shall have the roof. They mightn't have timed

their move in strategies any benefit."

Alec consented. "People want exactly what the stones offer. When the chimes ring, they

feel an relationship this is certainly intense another person. It's not love, but..."

"Of program it is," said Di. She fingered the rim of their waist line as she spoke. "Perhaps Not

erotic love. Brotherly love. What the Greeks called agape."

"It really is too bad it really is short-term," stated Alec. "And over. A tad bit more associated with stuff

May help us resolve a whole large amount of problems."

"It is not over. And I'm seeing that perhaps the fakes can help us,

truly."

He made a sound that is skeptical his throat.

"Sure. When anyone are searching for a Rringg!! they may be maybe not looking for energy or

cash. And they're going to keep searching even one straight away when they don't get. They understand

it will take awhile."

He laughed. "so that the government has actually shot itself within the base. It's beaten

it self. It wanted to eradicate a distraction, and instead..."

She giggled. "now they have also place an amount on love. It will likely be a far better

motivator than ever."

"they will have put the cost on brotherly love. That is clearly a very first."

There was silence. Di turned her mind away and back. Her hand clutched at

skin of his stomach.

"just whatis the matter?"

"You haven't said something. But... But, it really is funny, just what the rocks do. Individuals

do not differentiate forms of love perfectly." She ended up being chatting rapidly, babbling as

if she had been lot to once say all at. "Some people can not even inform love this is certainly erotic

from parental love or love that is filial" she said. "It is also harder to tell erotic

from agapic love."

Alec winced she ended up being leading while he guessed where. He tightened up his arm around

her.

"Certainly," Di continued. "Certainly, I had the situation. Used to do."

Alec said absolutely nothing.

"It's time we told you," she said. "That stonemate i discovered? We slept with him. He

had been a boor that is self-centered however the rocks..." whenever Alec nodded she proceeded. "The

glow was wearing off. We wished to extend it. Or I did, anyhow. He may

only have now been benefit this is certainly using of. That is the kind or sorts of guy he could be. Nonetheless it

didn't work. I didn't desire ever before to see him again. whenever I left,"

Alec thought he comprehended, and then he said therefore. He did not say which he had come

near to doing the point that is same Ellen, and without the reason associated with rocks.

The paper bore a advertising headline early morning:

"GOD'S GRACE IS MISSING!"

The story beneath said that the Reverend Jimmy-Bob Gregory had announced the

formation for the Church regarding the 2nd Chance. Their message had been simple: God had

sent His eggs to Earth like a gift of Grace in tangible form. The Rringg!! while the

short-term bond of stonemate to stonemate brought imperfect beings being real human close

as they could previously arrived at the ever-lasting Brotherly Love believed by all in

Paradise. They need to have-been grateful. They should have flocked inside their

Hundreds of thousands towards the Jimmy-Bob's Church becoming conserved and baptized. But they had not.

Now God had withdrawn his gift. The lack of brand new eggs and stones was all the

evidence anyone required. Henceforth, everybody else that has perhaps not been baptized by Jimmy-Bob

himself would most surely fry in Hell!

Whenever Alec and Di reached the campus, they found a guy that is gray-haired for a

concrete bench, haranguing a audience that is little of who had paused on their method

to breakfast or classes. He wore a gown of rough cloth that is gray as performed his

assistant, a woman this is certainly younger had been clutching a sheaf of pamphlets to her upper body.

His message too was simple: Their was the Church that's true of 2nd Chance, in which he

alone certainly understood what was going on. God had whispered to him within the, in night

their hopes and dreams, and he understood that God had in no way withdrawn their Grace. The eggs

and rocks were gone, yes, but only for a moment! They'd return! God had been

carrying it out appropriate this time around. He'd learned from His mistake of two thousand many years

before it did not work simply to inform beings which can be individual love their neighbors.

He had to demonstrate them how, and that was just what the rocks and their Rringg!!s had been

all about! They would be back! They'd differ! Plus in due time, God

would send an egg that could hatch into Jesus Christ Himself, the 2nd Coming.

Time this is Judgment!

Later on, over coffee inside the laboratory, Ybarra stated, "we didn't see him, no, but he had been on

the radio today. When the news heard each of them sent out about him

teams. Reporters, cameras, mikes, the continuous works."

"I saw it on TV," said Ellen. "He had been surrounded."

"Me too," said Franklin. "He stated he obtained the Word night this is certainly simply final. He had been

half-asleep, and God told him extremely plainly that the Reverend Jimmy-Bob was

absolutely incorrect, because wrong as he might be. The Rringg!!s were Divine Grace, yes,

but that Grace was not withdrawn. No, the Divinity ended up being simply pausing while He

moved His weight in preparation for the next action upon the stairs."

"we must have anticipated all of them," said Di. "Both of them. Every time one thing

unusual takes place, the peanuts being religious from the woodwork. It's a indication of the

Rapture in the future. It's the 2nd Coming. It's the Anti-Christ. And then we aren't

that far from the change of the millennium."

Ybarra nodded. "we have to have expected it the moment the eggs that are first.

The thing that is surprising the length of time it took."

"People had been hectic," stated Alec. "Preoccupied. Chasing eggs and Rringg!!s."

"they are able to however knock their rocks."

"But whatever they've got is all they've got. Forget about spending all searching day

through the shrubbery. They have time for you to fantasize."

"It need to be fantasy," said Di by way of a shudder. She, just like the other people, was

not a believer, and she knew that if God were to directly touch her life and

unmistakably, the shock could be since great as though she had been to satisfy a genuine,

in-the-flesh vampire.

VII

"Have a look at this, Alec," said Ybarra. What he held appeared as if a flashlight by having a

pistol grip. From the lab workbench behind him were two china that is traditional cups, one

holding the violet worrystone which had hatched from the egg he had uncovered a few

days before, one other keeping the rock that is untrue had stolen.

"Michael figured it," said Ellen. As she spoke, the learning student proudly shook

one fist above their head. "It has an ultraviolet bulb from the

spectrophotometer."

Whenever Alec looked puzzled, she added, "that is clearly a gadget we used to recognize

particles in liquid solutions. Place a test-tube saturated in the perfect solution is in the

machine, vary the frequency of the UV light you shine through it, and graph

which frequencies tend to be soaked up, or those that result in the particles glow."

"similar to this." Ybarra aimed the device that is odd his violet rock and pulled the

trigger. The end of the flashlight turned a captivating blue, and absolutely nothing took place.

When he directed at the stone this is certainly yellow fired once more, the stone glowed green.

"It's the binder," stated Michael Weldon. "It fluoresces in a regularity that is various

through the material of the rocks and shards. Whenever we shine the regularity that is correct of

Ultraviolet on an egg..." He gestured, saying clearly, "There it is seen by you."

"It really is a test weapon," said Ybarra. "Ten foot is near adequate, then just aim and

fire. If it glows, it is a phony."

"just how many of them are you able to make?" asked Alec.

Ybarra shrugged. "we now have sufficient bulbs for three. So..." A cabinet had been opened by him

underneath the bench top and handed another regarding the test guns to Alec.

That, for awhile, the test firearms felt currently obsolete night.

Alec and Di had consumed at her apartment. A while later, they had begun to head into

town, thinking about visiting the ice-cream parlor, however they never managed to get. They

had been moving town's small park each time a weep received their particular interest. They saw

pointing arms and faces that are up-turned when they too looked up, they saw a

scatter of translucent gems, shining into the sunset light, drifting slowly toward

the ground.

"The eggs!" some one cried. "they are back!"

The statement had been barely required. The days of deprivation indeed were over,

although these eggs weren't very the same as the old. The moment 1st of

all of them achieved the ground, all could see that these were nearly big enough to

hold a young child that is ten-year-old. These people were also so clear that the forms at

their cores had been visible.

The arrivals which can be initially straight away surrounded by hushed categories of men and women. Alec

and Di found by themselves on the edge of 1 group that is such watching. At first,

everybody held an awed, respectful distance, but soon a denim-clad lady this is certainly youthful

stepped toward the closest of the eggs which are brand new. She leaned on it, hesitated, and

reached. It was moved by her, also it burst, the shards dropping musically into a ring

around a stone about twice as large as those with which everybody was familiar.

The watchers sighed, and Alec stated quietly, "It smells like drinking eggnog from a

beaver pond. Nutmeg and mud."

The group relocated forward just as if their words had released them from physical bonds

all of its users aiming toward an egg, pressing and, after the burst of noise

and fragrance, picking right on up the worrystones which can be brand new.

Some members of the crowd had been prompt to make their particular older worrystones and

offer to hit. Other individuals were as prompt to react. And Rringg!!s had been chiming

over the park.

"they truly are not exactly the same," stated Alec. "And there are way too many of them."

"They never fail!" said Di. Her vocals had been awed.

"Except..." Alec pointed at a couple who had knocked two associated with stones being new

collectively. "And..." He drew their test weapon from their pocket and aimed it in a rock

whose owner ended up being nonetheless waving it in the air. The trigger ended up being taken by him, as well as the stone

glowed yellow. "The fakes," he stated. "the rocks being brand new!! whenever they

touch an old one. We don't require these." He bounced the test weapon inside the hand.

Di set her palm on their forearm. "Of program we do," she stated. "It can always check numerous

rocks at once, and at a length, and without distraction because of the Rringg!!s."

He nodded, eyeing the group. That distraction had been very real. He saw one man whom

held two stones, one old, one new, either in hand. Every moments which are few he moved

all of them together; his face had been completely oblivious to their surroundings, and a string

of drool fell from a single place of his lips. He may as well happen regarding the

most powerful of drugs, or experienced a wire plugged into their pleasure center.

Alec place the test firearm away. He found his worrystone and presented it toward his spouse.

She produced her own, touched his, so when the sum total result was a disappointing

"clack," said, "We require one, do not we?"

It didn't just take them long the moment some distance had been put by them between

by themselves as well as the audience. The eggs that are new everywhere, and even in the radiant

dusk they emitted a dim but light that is brilliantly hued as if every one had stored a

fragment associated with sunset.

Alec and Di knelt with a pale egg that is green. "Go ahead," stated Alec. "You touch it."

She had been shaken by her head. "No. You."

They achieved together and revealed the burst of scent and noise. Di selected up

the worrystone. Alec retrieved a number of shards for their friends' labs. Whenever

he discovered something like a scrap that is damp of balloon, he stated, "check this.

The membranes don't head to powder."

"Never mind," said Di. "Feel this. It's softer, almost like cartilage, but...

Where's your stone?"

They moved, and also at serve you for a rringg had been had by all of them!! However it was perhaps not what they had

expected. They failed to have the unexpected upwelling of affection and opinion that is good

and generosity which had marked their particular rringg that is previous with other individuals.

Instead, they discovered themselves observing the stone that is brand-new sensation love, yes,

But respect that is also immense also awe.

The tide of feeling didn't be as durable as that enchantment emitted by the original

stones, however it was at its method as powerful. Whenever it subsided, Alec stated, "Is that

exactly what religion is a lot like?"

Di shook her mind. "I would personallyn't understand." She paused, looking at the stone in her own

hand. "It is another types of love. But it is maybe not directed at people. Perhaps not at whoever

is keeping the rock you knock yours against."

"It really is aimed at the stone it self, isn't it?"

By lunchtime a single day that is next most people had one of the new worrystones, and

Franklin and Ybarra had each found time and energy to do a little screening. "the materials is the

exact same." The geologist set one of many stones that are brand-new the middle of the table as he

spoke. "therefore could be the structure. But there is however more water, as if the eggs that are very first

stones were just these, dry out."

The five pals were once more into the university pub. Franklin nodded eagerly over

his sandwich. "they are flesh!" he said. "we looked at the membrane that supports

the rocks, and it has a construction this is certainly cellular with long strands that needs to be

nerve cells. That is how they float down from the sky, the way they tell we are

searching or perhaps not looking, how they make us love the other person, or all of them."

Ellen laughed. Therefore did Di, who then said, "they can not be psychic. There isn't any such

thing. It's technology. Alien super-science."

"Clarke's law," said Ybarra. If the others looked puzzled, he included, "I

Paraphrase, nevertheless the real point is that in cases where a technology is indeed advanced you can't

Grasp the idea that is foggiest of how it functions, it may too be miraculous."

"Psychic or otherwise not," said Alec. "It makes no distinction, eh?"

Ybarra shrugged. "Exactly. I am much more interested in..." He hesitated. "First they

made us love each other. They made us love them. What is next?"

"will there be a sequence?" requested Di. "Are the chancers being second?"

"I would rather know how they work," said Franklin.

Ellen stated, "those who are brand new off stronger bursts of microwaves." She tilted

her mind toward Ybarra. "My pupils checked a couple of this. early morning"

Franklin nodded furiously. "Electromagnetic waves can impact the brain," he

stated. "they have been shown to cause seizures and change response times, among

other items."

"Will there be another round?" requested Alec. "Bigger eggs? More powerful signals?

Another kind of love?"

"And what exactly is the idea?" requested Ybarra. "What are they here for? Are they benign?

Or perhaps a hazard?"

"they truly are softening us up," said Franklin.

"for just what?" stated Ellen. "Invasion? Alien contact? Or...?"

"The Second-Chancers know the solution," stated Di.

Their particular laughter this is certainly uneasy ended Alec said, "We don't."

"I do not trust them," said Franklin.

The Reverend Jimmy-Bob Gregory ended up being in the tv development that night,

flamboyant in sequined cassock and gestures being rhetorical. He previously already been incorrect, he

stated, showing a talent that is virtuoso changing their mind. The stones weren't

God's gift of Grace. The stones which are brand new that. They made folks worship all of them,

just as if they were idols that are graven. They turned individuals far from God. And so they

revealed themselves at last to be temptations regarding the Devil. The eggs therefore the

Stones, new and old, he declared anathema. All just who utilized all of them had been damned.

"Gregory," said the round-faced, balding announcer, "gained followers very

rapidly as soon as the eggs ended coming. People were disappointed, and worse, and

they demanded answers. However now those followers that are same fleeing Gregory's camp

as fast as they came. The eggs tend to be straight back, as well as other email address details are very popular."

The display screen full of the prophet of this Church this is certainly second of 2nd Chance,

The person this is certainly very and Di had seen on campus. He was indoors now, standing behind

a pulpit, and even though his motions were because extravagant as Gregory's, his robe was

The drab that is exact same he'd worn prior to. "the stones which can be new" he shouted. "They

link brotherly and love this is certainly divine. They increase God's class. And when Christ comes

All, everybody else, the whole individual types, would be ready when it comes to 2nd time

to love Him while he should always be liked. Salvation has reached hand!"

Alec and Di were part that is sitting side from the low settee in the family room. The

tv had been off. The peeping this is certainly shrill of frogs arrived through the available

window. From the hassock before them their particular two worrystones which are initial gold and

spring green, flanked the single stone that is brand-new a somewhat darker green, that they

had based in the park.

They might now, they knew, have Rringg!! every time they wished. All that they had to

do was drive among the smaller rocks, his or hers, across the inch of area

that separated them from the larger one. It absolutely was done by all of them twice currently. But it

was not exactly the same.

They acquired their stones being original examined all of them, stroked all of them, and held them

toward one another. They knocked. But all they heard was a lifeless "clack."

Alec took Di's turn in their. "I wish...," he said.

She nodded. She shared and knew their desire. They had currently talked it out: A

Rringg!! could forge a relationship between strangers. They already had a relationship of these

very own, a more one that's standard. Both thought that becoming stonemates too could

only draw them nearer to one another, deepen and strengthen their thoughts. But

the Rringg!! they craved remained elusive.

They were one of many inside their craving. The campus circle dances proceeded, often

With an fresh air of frenzied frustration, when Ybarra's acid kits and test weapons

Uncovered stones which can be phony their owners cursed and wept and drew larger stones from

their pouches, saying they certainly were not similar, however they were better than absolutely nothing.

"Is that true?" stated Alec the full time this is certainly first saw that effect. "Love for other

people, brotherly love, agape, can it truly be better than divine love? Is

divine love merely a substitute for brotherly love, for people who can't find the

latter?"

"Don't people who love God more love their guys that are other the very least?" expected

Ellen.

She and Alec and Di were viewing a-dance nearby the campus collection. They saw no

offers to trade, no harvesters with stones to market. They performed see testers with

acid kits roaming the edges of this crowd, preventing once in a while to check a

rock for foam.

"Do you note that?" cried Ellen in an sound this is certainly outraged. She had been pointing toward a

son perhaps not far away. He wore stained jeans and a t-shirt that is black along with his

forearms had been tattooed. Within one hand a pair occured by him of cup bottles topped with

plastic light bulbs. He was nodding reassuringly just like one other hand he passed an

orange stone back once again to its owner.

"What?" requested Di.

"He checked that stone and said it was fine, and then he turned it! He palmed

it!"

But before any of all of them could raise your voice whatever they had observed, the tester's

"client" produced her test that is very own system. The tester, eyes today wide with alarm, turned

as though to operate, but bystanders blocked his course.

VIII

Alec breathed a sigh of relief as soon as the home regarding the van that is little beside his

walk opened and Bruce Dietz stepped down. "Is Di he started initially to phone, however with your

then she jumped through the opposite side for the vehicle. "Wait till you notice exactly what

we have here!" she cried.

He could make out a few numbers behind the smoky glass of while he got closer

the van's rear area. Di slid open the relative part door. Bruce said, " he had been discovered by them

inside a dormitory."

The van's seating had been arranged to face each other. Sitting in it were five

Students, their particular grins a mixture of anger and pleasure. Beneath their foot was a

rather older guy this is certainly younger unshaven and dirty and pale with concern, tied up hand and

base using what appeared to be strips of torn bedsheet.

"Right," stated one of several students. Alec had had him in one of his courses the

term before. Their name ended up being Dana some thing, and he belonged into the college's

wrestling team. "He was going right through drawers. Taking worrystones." He held up

a fabric sack.

"therefore we grabbed him. Then we went searching for Dr. Hadden." The text reminded

Alec that Dana had been a biology major.

"we saw them crossing the quad," said Bruce. "So I tagged along."

"the reason why did you not phone the cops?"

Another pupil snorted derisively. "You're your head associated with opposition, are not

you?"

Alec hadn't understood that the spotting of this fakes that had grown from their particular

tiny energy to evaluate the rocks have been therefore glorified. But he supposed they

had been certainly a opposition of types, and the just one on campus. "Okay." He sighed

once again. "Then why don't we get him inside. Down into the basement."

Among the basement's two chambers being little occupied by a fuel furnace. The

other, crowded with firewood and junk that is assorted was clammy even in the heat of

summer time. Today it was nearly cool, and spiderwebs and dirt gave it a dungeon-like

air that seemed proper at this time. "I do not possess a rack," stated Alec.

"Sorry."

Bruce Dietz laughed. "just what's your name?"

"Jimmy Crane."

It took really persuading this is certainly bit get his story. He was, he said, a part-time

pupil who had previously been in the practice of amplifying his earnings by peddling just a little

dope. Recently, nevertheless, one of his customers had shown a badge. Crane had

immediately agreed to gather worrystones when it comes to government. Today the agent came by

his apartment every for the stones he had collected that time evening. He thought

his "owners" need recruited others like him.

"I'll bet they usually have," stated Di.

"We ought to set a pitfall," stated Dana. "Go to their apartment, grab whoever shows

up, while making him talk too."

"just how?" snorted one of his buddies. "He's bound becoming harder."

"There's a lot more of us," said Bruce.

Jimmy Crane's apartment had been interestingly really furnished, but dust was

everywhere, streaked by fingerprints, and meals which can be dirty the small

kitchen.

"He likes journey simulation games," said Bruce Dietz, pointing at an elaborate

control yoke wired to a pricey computer system this is certainly individual.

Alec made sure the hinged home ended up being unlocked while the others concealed themselves as

best they could. He then forced Crane in to a leather-based sling chair, switched on the

television, and stated, "When he knocks, you merely say, 'It's open. C'mon in.'"

The knock did not come for another hour, whenever it was outside this is certainly completely dark.

Crane obeyed his requests, together with man this is certainly gray-suited stepped to the apartment

ended up being immediately surrounded. He would not appear astonished while he raised his hands and

stated, "I do not carry a gun, Dr. Strange, Dr. Hadden." When Bruce effectively

pressed him from the wall surface and patted him down, he included, "You've already been

trained." Surprise showed in the sound.

"Army," said Bruce.

"Zimbabwe?"

Bruce stated nothing.

"You understand us?" requested Di.

"Of course." He would not have a look at her, or Alec, but held their gaze on Bruce just as if

acknowledging that this was the only person of his captors just who actually had chance this is certainly much

of keeping him from escaping. But Bruce stared straight back as intently and alertly as

he. "We've already been watching you, wishing we could stop your interference."

"Who's 'we'?" asked Bruce.

The broker shrugged. "we might as well tell you. The rocks are wanted by the federal government

away from circulation, and that is our work. We result from a few companies."

"But why?" stated Dana. Di produced real face and switched the television down. "The stones

tend to be safe. They are even..."

The representative shook their head. "they truly are alien devices, and also you understand it. They Are

establishing us up for an intrusion, weakening us, distracting us. We are defending the

nation."

"Then that makes us..." Alec cleared their neck. He had anticipated that he and his

friends could be accountable for the situation, however their prisoner seemed

supremely confident of the rightness of their along with his superiors' actions. Jimmy

Crane was smirking. "that has to make us traitors, or collaborators. We do not

trust you."

The agent nodded earnestly. "we will be attention that is taking of later on." Their tone said

he had been making no vacant threat but an vow this is certainly inexorable.

"we believe," stated Bruce. "we think we are much more legal than you will be. At least, we

aren't burglars."

"There tend to be greater loyalties." The appearance he fired up Bruce had been one generally speaking

reserved for erring children. Clearly, he believed that a soldier, even an

Ex-soldier, had no continuing business opposing their federal government's desires.

Alec made a face this is certainly disgusted. The response had been foreseeable.

"we must check his automobile," said Dana. "we could make an effort to if he's got any stones

return them."

"Go ahead," said Alec. To the broker, he stated, "Your tips?"

A minutes which can be few, Dana spilled a larger sack than they had obtained from Jimmy

Crane onto the carpet. The result was a rainbow that is sparkling made Alec think

of the pirate's treasure.

Nevertheless when he brought his attention back into the readily available room and the men and women around him, he

found the agent gone together with apartment door standing ajar.

"We were watching the..." Di gestured in the pile of rocks.

Alec never ever even turned-off the motor of their vehicle.

The sunlight was lower in the sky behind his house. It shone through the house windows in the

far wall, reflected from the painted walls inside, making the windows being nearside

glow.

There needs already been no sign that anybody was at the building, however a shadow

moved, and Alec caught their breathing. He knew that it could not be Di. That

afternoon, his division secretary had passed him a message this is certainly green that bore

The phrase this is certainly single "Spaghetti." Once more he had informed and laughed the secretary he

could be at Ellen's. He then had known as Di to state she'd be chosen by him up at her

apartment, the moment he had fetched a wine at home.

"think about Bruce?" she had expected, and it also hit him that whenever his

stonemate, student he installed directly into their particular circle though he be, showed up.

"seek the advice of Ellen," he had informed her. "we could get a hold of him once I've got the wine."

However the wine would need to remain where it was. He performed in contrast to that shadow. It

was not Di. He understood where she ended up being. None of their various other buddies had an integral, and also

They would wait outdoors, at the very least although the climate was since nice just as if they did

it was.

He stepped regarding the gasoline again, while the truck moved on just as if its driver had stopped

In order to check an light or address a smoking. He didn't that is amazing whoever

was hidden in the house had been tricked.

The moment Alec slowed the truck up to a end, Di unsealed the hinged door, slid in, and

said, "Ellen currently requested him. Where's the wine?"

"we don't obtain it." She was told by him why.

"A burglar?"

He shook his head. "I believed maybe we--Ybarra, Bruce, Franklin--could return back

and discover. We should be able to outnumber whoever it is, if he's still

around."

"Not without me personally, you're not." When he snorted in answer, Di stated, "And imagine if he

features a firearm? If you should be gonna get killed, i'll be there with you."

Bruce had been waiting from the yard beyond your house that is transformed held Ellen's

apartment. He stated, "There's no answer. once they got out of the truck,"

Alec looked up during the house windows of Ellen's apartment. Her deck had been on the other side

region of the building, but he could see into her family area. It absolutely was dim, as if

only a solitary lightbulb this is certainly small truth be told there. He may also look at hinged door to her

Kitchen, and therefore available area had been dark. She had been attempted by him buzzer, but though he presented the

Button down for nearly the full min, she would not respond.

Di told Bruce just what Alec had seen, and abruptly Alec wondered whether the shadow

in the household had belonged to a burglar that is mere all. Possibly the federal government

had determined he was an excessive amount of a annoyance, which he along with his pals were getting

way too much in their method. Ellen also. And...

"Shit!" he said.

"I performed see Dr. Ybarra," stated Bruce. "He was in the rear of a van, going that

way." He pointed within the direction that is general of town center.

"Where were you once you saw him?" asked Di.

"A couple of blocks over in that way. He might were originating from right here. I didn't

begin to see the driver."

Alec's throat was so tight that their sigh seemed to rip on its way-out. "They

can't stand interference, do they?"

Was that Alec's friend? Bruce? He was walking in direction of Ellen's

apartment. Soon he'd realize that nobody had been home, then...

"Get down!"

A hand this is certainly tough Ybarra's knee. The blow was more painful than was

required simply to get their interest. He slid from the chair, joining Ellen and

Franklin on the floor. Their two guards likewise crouched below the recognized level of the

windows. One, the one farthest away, the main one most away from reach, held a weapon in

one hand. A person this is certainly 3rd the van.

The knock had come as no surprise. Ybarra and Franklin have been wine this is certainly consuming

And veggies which are cutting the salad while Ellen stirred sauce and put the

dining table. That they had been awaiting the remainder of the pals, and they had established

the door without suspicion.

The two men in the hall had held badges inside their hands and said, "You're coming

with us." When Franklin had asked to see their particular warrant, one had attracted a gun, the

Same gun Ybarra could close see so right now. The other had said, "we do not require

one," grabbed Franklin by one arm, and shoved him toward the wall. "Hands up and

aside. Spread your feet. And hold it." As soon as Ybarra and Ellen were within the

Exact same place this is certainly uncomfortable the invader had patted them down and found and removed

their particular worrystones. Then he had produced circuit this is certainly quick of apartment, returning

empty-handed with the exception of half a tomato that had been intended for the salad.

"Nothing," he stated. "No stones. No..." He took and shrugged a bite.

The federal government, Alec had told him. The rocks had been wanted by all of them for themselves, and

they had become accountable for the fakes, and for the thefts which are numerous. He

suspected that their particular captor's uncompleted "No..." required that he was in fact looking

for the fake detectors he along with his pupils had cobbled collectively. To himself, as

expressionlessly he laughed while he could handle. Alec had one. So did Michael

Weldon. He had set his or her own for a dining table in the family area, maybe not definately not the TV

set.

A moment later, the 3 of these had been becoming herded down the stairs. The van's

driver had stated, "simply three? Irrespective of. We'll have the other people quickly enough." Today

the vehicle leaned because it rounded sides. Whenever Ybarra dropped against Franklin, he

stated nothing, neither aloud nor by their body gestures. Whenever their body pushed

against Ellen's, he added a weight that is small if to say, "I'm here. We're in this

together. It collectively. whenever we can, we are going to get free from" He was answered by her through a

look, a blink, a thrust that is nervous of tongue tip between her mouth.

Dark shadows, cast by the sunlight that is reasonable flickered last. The engine roared. The brake system

squealed. Concrete wall space loomed overhead, all that Ybarra could see from his low

vantage point. An conflict this is certainly echoing of established the orifice of a home into

Some area that is cavernous plus they had been surrounded by near-total blackness damaged

only by the small gray patches that have been house windows that are high-up. A warehouse, thought

Ybarra. Not really a jail. They want us on ice, out of reach of solicitors, where we can not

interfere as they... exactly what?

The engine passed away. Dim lights came in. The van's doors unsealed. "Let's get," some body

said, and near a wall that is distant saw a table heaped with worrystones. Not

far from the table was a forklift this is certainly tiny.

Their particular mobile had been a area this is certainly windowless starkness ended up being relieved just because of the thick

foam shields that covered half the floor. Ybarra had collapsed among the pads against

the wall to make a backrest. Today he sat, leaning against it. Beside him, Ellen

had her feet crossed in a lotus that is patiently meditative. Franklin is at the side

of this pad, their chin on their folded knees. All three had been facing the door this is certainly secured

as to what they are able to muster of hope.

"These are generallyn't planning to why don't we loose," said Franklin.

"They didn't get us all," said Ellen. "Di's nonetheless available to you."

"And Alec," stated Ybarra. "Maybe he is able to take action."

A sound that is technical the opening of the home. A radio into the history

had been crackling with urgency: "...big one! Biggest!..."

They looked up at the figure associated with the agent who had held the gun on them within the

van. "Not most likely," he stated, admitting that each and every noise they made could be

overheard. There is a tone this is certainly harsh their words. "we will have him when he

goes residence. After which, you can forget ambushes for all of us. No longer disturbance." He pressed

the doorway more available to unveil two guys standing behind him. "My boss," he said.

"Lieutenant Kube."

Lieutenant Kube wore a continuing condition police uniform. The other wore an brown that is expensive

suit. When Ybarra stared curiously he stated, "Anderson, National Security at him

Agency."

"You're scientists," said Lieutenant Kube. "and also you've been learning the stones.

That's the method in which is just could have spotted our fakes."

Anderson glared as though he did not think Kube necessary to expose a great deal. Then he

stated, "just what maybe you have heard bout all of them?"

"Why should we inform you?" requested Franklin.

"Because they are the vanguard of an alien intrusion." Anderson sighed wearily.

"should youn't, all mankind are dead within a. 12 months"

Ybarra laughed, even these people were wrong though he had been not sure.

"It really is little," stated Bruce. "But at the very least you can findn't any strangers here."

A bench-like worktable presented their computer system, two printers, and an modem that is additional.

A tiny kitchen occupied a distinct segment that could are a cabinet throughout the space

inside a bigger apartment. Two doors launched on a restroom as well as a bedroom that is tiny.

An amp's diodes glowed as well as a vocals said, "God understands what is next to the bed

inside this 1. Oahu is the biggest yet, and there's only one. The campus authorities

want to rope it off..."

"I wish we were here," stated Alec. "That's where all the answers are. What the

rocks have been leading us toward."

Di and Bruce both nodded. Then she stated, "But we've something different to do. Our

pals..."

"them," stated Alec. "they may be everywhere. if we could just find"

"That contact number," said Di. "All we need's the target Franklin got." She

recited it from memory.

Bruce produced a populous city chart. "There," he said. "Warehouse district."

"we cannot just knock-on the entranceway," said Alec.

"Have you thought to?" Bruce gestured toward the air. "I'll bet the feds are on their particular means

to your university right now."

The rescue had been nearly as easy as Bruce had recommended. The warehouse ended up being dark,

vacant, its entry unguarded. Bruce used the general back of their van to break down the

door, and once they certainly were inside it was only a matter of locating the light

switches and shouting, "Helen! Franklin! Walter!"

Answering cries led all of them to a metallic door whose knob refused to show. "It Is

locked," said Alec.

"we realize," said Ybarra. "Use the forklift."

"I notice it," stated Di.

The van's radio was saying that the egg that is newest was still sitting from the grass in

front side of this university library. It had been however the one that is largest that anyone had

ever before seen. The shadows they relocated, whilst the within it had been similarly larger, and

egg itself made two distinct and noises which can be separate. One was a faint that is continual

'rrrinnggg.' The other sounded just as if something had been scratching in the inside

the shell.

"this 1's going to hatch," said Franklin as the van swayed around a corner. He

sounded satisfied.

"Then let's rush up," said Alec. "I want to be truth be told there."

"the reason why should this become one to hatch?" Ellen asked from her seat in the back of

the van. Franklin braced their arms contrary to the vehicle's sides, worked their means

ahead, and squatted behind the motorist's chair in order for he could see where they

had been going. "It really is the progression," he stated. "First, the stones tried to make

everyone loves one another. Not sexually. Brotherly love. Agape. The group this is certainly second

switched that feeling in the stones on their own. Simply regarding the ones that are brand-new really. This

group..." He hesitated even though the van swerved to pass a truck that is double-parked.

"They should change the sensation about what's behind the stones. And to do that, they

need to hatch. To show us exactly what sort to be laid the eggs."

"Aliens," said Ybarra. "That's what that NSA other said, and then he's probably

right. They truly are coming to visit, and so they want to be yes they get a good

reception."

"Invaders," said Ellen. "They may be softening us up so we will not resist."

"Make us love all of them," stated Bruce. "Then they'll screw us blind."

"Maybe," said Alec. He viewed his friends in the dimness regarding the van's cramped

interior, letting his eyes linger on Di's. "But." He hesitated.

"That's an view this is certainly awfully cynical" stated Di. She deepened her voice so that it

boomed portentously inside the van. "expecting aliens which are bad accomplish their particular

nefarious ends by manipulating our finer thoughts."

"But how can they be bad?" requested Alec. "If they manipulate those thoughts..."

Franklin interrupted. "chances are they need to be able to recognize those emotions.

And they have to own them themselves, don't they?"

"So they're great dudes," said Bruce. "and you also're a number of Pollyannas. But I

hope you're right."

Headlights flashed to their rear. A horn that is stentorian them to maneuver apart.

They obeyed, and a vehicle wearing the drab that is olive of National Guard roared

past all of them. The Guardsmen packed beneath its fabric top each waved one-hand.

Their other hands held weapons upright.

The truck remained coming soon ahead of all of them for just what remained of the real solution to the

college. It pulled when it achieved the quadrangle in the heart of university

on the grass, stopped, and disgorged its cargo of armed men. The troops

promptly dispersed. Some appeared assigned to carry the pupils as well as others

who had been streaming toward the university library; their particular attempts had been useless,

for no one obeyed their particular instructions that are shouted crucial motions in addition they had been

not enough presenting a barrier this is certainly real. The Guardsmen this is certainly continuing to be relocated

toward the cluster that is thick of in front of the library.

Happily, a lot of the audience thus far had arrived by foot. Franklin directed Bruce

toward the biology building's however great deal that is almost empty.

"Over there," stated Ybarra, and a moment later on he along with his six companions had

discovered room to stand on the library measures where they could overlook the developing

crowd. The campus's drives and walkways were illuminated by bright sodium vapor

lights, plus one was near enough to let them start to see the object around that the

crowd had been gathering.

That item was undoubtedly an egg, resting on one end as if it had been set

very carefully with its location. It had been significantly bigger than an adult human, and it also

glowed a brilliant lime in the salt light this is certainly yellow. The individuals surrounding it

left it virtually no space except that on which it sat. These were virtually hushed

aside from a murmur of voices like the noise associated with ocean washing a coast that is rocky.

Scattered among them had been a true number of individuals in gray robes. Various held

hastily lettered placards, their paint however reflecting wetly, because of the legend,

"HE IS COME!" Numerous people in the crowd, such as the chancers which are second were

keeping worrystones aloft within their fingers. These rocks glowed because brilliantly as

their oversized successor in the exact middle of the group.

From their particular vantage point, Alec could hear the egg's continual muted rrrinnggg!!

Occasionally, when the group's wave-like murmur subsided, he believed he could

write out a crackling sound that is low.

The Guardsmen were floodlights which can be erecting the edge of the group. A captain,

the insignia on their helmet gleaming within the lights, had been sales which can be bellowing

commanding their forces to disperse the size of individuals and encircle the egg. In

response, the crowd faced outward and drew nearer to the egg, packing into an

previously stronger wall surface of skin. Several Guardsmen, first one and then more, turned

to manage the egg, dug rocks from their pockets, and held them up.

"There's Anderson," stated Ybarra. "the Boss this is certainly huge.

He was pointing at a civilian that is well-dressed was screaming at a National Guard

lieutenant while waving one-hand toward the egg that is giant the midst of the

throng. Because they saw, the lieutenant received his sidearm and aimed as if to

shoot the egg, however a man in fatigues took the firearm far from him. Anderson flung

His fingers which can be open the sky as though in agonized frustration and switched away. The

group emitted an sigh this is certainly audible if it were an individual organism and encountered the egg

once more. They was awaiting something to occur.

"These aliens had better be the guys which can be good" said Franklin. "should they're not..."

Three television this is certainly white vans had been today parked from the lawn, emptying by themselves of

minicam crews.

The crowd was however growing. Alec recognized some of the understanding pupils coming from

the direction associated with the dorms. He saw the university's parking lots filling and brand new

arrivals simply stopping regarding the roadways and pathways and lawns. He saw professors

people and strangers, and even though worrystones were noticeable every-where, he saw no

one knocking.

Newcomers crowded on the measures around Alec along with his friends that are remaining. Di

clutched their supply, and they heard a discussion that is quiet far-away:

"Do you really bear in mind the communes?" The sound was softly feminine.

"Hippies? The sixties? I was thinking these were all gone," said a guy.

"There's a few remaining," spoke a woman this is certainly 2nd.

"a buddy of mine," stated the girl this is certainly very first. "She was raised in one single in Colorado. Simply

such as the remainder of us, they got rocks, and additionally they didn't get Rringg that is many. But

they kept attempting with one another, and lately..."

"they are getting ultimately more of these?" The woman that is second excited.

"Maybe," said the person. "Maybe love tunes them to each other. Or maybe you just

have to keep trying. Keep slamming, as well as the concept is got by all of them. They learn."

"Could it be?" asked Di, her mouth practically against Alec's ear.

"Never say die," he responded lightly. "we could hope, and keep attempting, and..."

"We haven't attempted for awhile, have we?"

"Should we?" He held out his free-hand to their stone. The hand quivered with

his stress. He had wanted a Rringg!! since she had appeared on with her ever

his doorstep. That they had achieved something different alternatively, anything more

Traditional, anything as true and good and good as any person could want. They'd

tried for more, plus the Fates--or that grey god Murphy which leaches all color

through the world--had rebuffed all of them. They'd given up the attempting, virtually without

noticing that these were surrendering. But he still wanted a Rringg!! And she

desired it as badly as he.

"Not here." Her locks this is certainly dark bounced she shook her head. "We could go home?"

He thought: Their particular hopes had soared. Their particular knockings had never yielded significantly more than

A clack that is lifeless. They'd no reason at all that is genuine expect any thing more tonight. Yet

they did, with such an urgency they both desired to be alone when they

lifted their worrystones to...

A loud "Crack!" silenced the group and froze their ideas. Alec stared at the

giant egg on the grass below him. Its surface had been now marred with a range this is certainly jagged a

break, plainly noticeable when you look at the dazzle of this National Guard's floodlights as well as the

campus's own salt vapor lights.

The egg's crackling noises grew louder. Di's hand tightened on his supply until their

flesh ached. The egg rocked, while the group swayed with it, ahead and back, and

again, one step, two, three.

The layer rang musically as something hammered at its inside. The group gasped

given that crack in the layer widened, dropped right back upon it self, widened again, and

eventually branched, smaller cracks shooting from it in all directions. Pieces of

shell the size of dinner dishes dropped aside, and...

The group's scream had not been noisy. The figure which had suddenly appeared was

unusual, but not also unusual. Nor was it horrifying or frightening. Indeed, its

really type did actually awaken an echo of a Rringg!! in the mind of each and every onlooker.

A bond of relationship, of love, also of adoration did actually hover in the

possible edge of actuality. A word is adequate to allow it to be genuine.

The figure had been roughly man in features. It had four limbs and a slim

torso that bulged in front as though having a potbelly that is little. It blinked eyes being large

its students wide despite the lights being bright. Those eyes bulged from the upper

bend of a dome that is wide. The mouth ended up being a little less wide, as well as its lips did

perhaps not appear soft, but stiff and rubbery, a beak this is certainly stubby. The skin was smooth,

unmarked by scales or feathers, plus it glistened into the light using the fluids

Which had nourished and buoyed it inside the egg. A tiny around its wide foot

puddle of excess fluid soaked into the floor. A falls which can be few from its human body.

"It is a frog," said someone. "a huge frog."

"A duck," said Ellen.

An laugh this is certainly uneasy through the crowd.

The alien uttered a squawking grunt that didn't hit Alec as bearing any

resemblance to language. It had been the kind of sound a chick, an version that is immature

Associated with the adult of the species, will make, and it was discovered by him oddly reassuring. It

meant that those adults, wherever they might be, nonetheless they could be viewing

this scene, had to trust humans never to hurt the youngster. Either that, or they

were happy to risk things to humans could be their particular most asset that is precious of.

Or ended up being it any danger at all? If these aliens had been undoubtedly invaders, conquering by

stimulating love instead of dread, if these were such masters of manipulation,

then perhaps kids being very own nothing to them.

Those individuals into the forefront regarding the audience, those closest to the alien, raised

their particular worrystones. They looked just as if they were microphones being expanding a vain

effort to interview the strange infant.

Alec nearly laughed out loud if the squawked that is alien. But then it lifted

One leg, tottered for a brief moment just as if it are not yet sure of its balance, and

staggered forward. It stretched one hand toward the worrystone that is nearest. The

personal took half a advance. The alien moved the stone, while the muted

rrrinnggg! that had granted from the egg came back, more powerful, pervasive, humming

out across the quadrangle and making every stone within its range, at hand or

Purse or pocket, hum in resonant reply.

"It really is a chime-binder," said Franklin softly, almost whispering.

The alien took the stone through the tactile hand that held it high. It lifted the stone to

its mouth. It had been consumed because of it.

The air throbbed. Alec's very own rock hummed in his hand. A wave had been felt by him of warmth,

Of fellow-feeling, of adoration and love, that nearly brought him to their knees.

His eyes watered, and through their rips he could see those around him bowing

their particular heads. A individuals that are few knelt, and the gray-robed

representatives associated with the Church associated with the Chance that is 2nd criedHail!" and

"Hallelujah!"

Nor were the National Guardsmen whom remained on the fringes associated with group immune.

They also bobbed their heads and wept and knelt. So when someone resisted the revolution

of adoration and raised their rifle, another stepped right in front of him and presented the

muzzle of their firearm that is own beneath other's chin.

Alec sighed. In the event that aliens were undoubtedly invaders, should they undoubtedly wished to

conquer, they could have attacked in no better way. Humans now welcomed just what

would otherwise have seemed awful, repulsive, beasts. The eggs and rocks

had undermined all hope of opposition.

Or had they only undone xenophobia that is human fostering a willingness to listen to

other viewpoints, to compromise, to find serenity as opposed to war? He expected

people must be liberated to work barbarically. The us government's stone-thieves,

counterfeiters, and kidnappers proved that much, as performed the two troops who'd

simply raised their particular weapons, one from the alien, one resistant to the various other.

He felt embarrassed of himself and all his type. All the human ages of barbarism

seemed plainly over now, and also as soon as people demonstrated that they could

accept this child that is alien they could indeed reject their xenophobia and

accept those who had been more alien than their particular kind that is own could be, the

adults would secure.

Or was the point to successfully test how the rocks and their particular psychological

resonances had enslaved the species being real human?

Exactly what would they need? Had been they conquerors? Traders? Missionaries? Or only

parents, seeking babysitters?

Had been that the trick of the eggs? Had been they just food sprinkled on the nesting

ground when it comes to chicks to come, and the Rringg!!s and their particular impacts inducement

for humans to gather up and deliver all of the tidbits?

"Ants do that," stated Di. "They lay eggs which can be sterile feed their larvae."

Made it happen even matter?

What the aliens had done felt entirely irresistable.

The alien reached again toward the crowd. A woodland of upraised arms and

worrystones came across its fingers that are outstretched. It hesitated, appearing to think about the

alternatives it decided on one rock, another, and another before it, and then. Yet again

These were placed by it in its mouth.

There must be more chicks which are such spread across the nation therefore the world.

Much more crowds providing and collecting the meals the aliens had furnished.

Alec wondered whether those crowds would neglect more affairs which can be real human. Was

civilization over? Were people now a maximum of nannies, servants to alien

chicks?

He didn't think a Rringg!! had been well worth the cost.

But... somebody giggled. Alec felt a tug on his arm. He switched. Di had been indeed there, of

course. In her hand, her worrystone was still humming carefully. So was his or her own.

She gestured, away from the group, the lights, the alien as well as its unknown intent,

toward the shadows of structures and woods, toward residence.

He resisted just for a short moment before following her pull.

They might perhaps not wait to reach Alec's house or Di's apartment. As soon as they

had been away from picture associated with audience, they presented their particular stones toward one another.

Carefully, tentatively, they allow them to touch.

By, they knew that, though a Rringg!! awakened just agape, not eros morning,

where eros already existed a Rringg!! awakened anything a lot more marvelous than

either kind of love alone.

Terry McGarry (Author of Illumination)

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sat, 03 Jul 2021 18:14:00 +0000

This Terry McGarry (Author of Illumination) originally appeared in the March/April 1991 dilemma of Aboriginals.

Science Fiction magazine, edited by Charles Ryan, and was illustrated by
Patricia Davis.

On ascension day, Bridget ended up being the final to struggle through the bent

and scarred opening into the entire world. Her eyes could maybe not fix the blur of grey

and brown to start with, when she seemed up she nearly dropped, her eyes watering;

the sky was not blue with a sunlight that is golden level and gray therefore vast she thought it

must break her. She sat down and then lay level, pressing to the floor--the

surface, she must don't forget to phone it, the soil--which this is certainly irish soft and manufactured from

grains of earth and woven strands of growing things. The shouts were heard by her of the

others, some afraid to move out of the hatch, some working wildly about with

Mr. Fitzhugh ordering them to prevent; nevertheless they all seemed as though muffled through

the wall hangings that embellished the survival this is certainly nuclear-war she as well as the

various other members of the textiles team had just emerged from, and she started initially to

determine what length ended up being.

"Oh, God," her mother had been crying, softly, continuously. She had fallen

to her knees and drawn handfuls for the green development to her damp, purple face.

Bridget relocated closer to peer during the short-stemmed, fragile plants. "Mam?"

"The clover, Bridget. It should only have three leaves, but four was

considered fortunate, and Bridget, even with the blast as well as a century's time, it really is

nonetheless here...."

Bridget grew uncomfortable using the emotion that is unforeseen switched her

eyes up to a row of black colored stumps enclosed by tufts of infant woods, recognizable

though none exactly fit the movies she had seen. Air had been thick with odors,

Acrid and nice, and she opened her lips to inhale just as if she could unravel its

elements with her tongue.

After her seven many years within the caps below, the very last seven wakes were

clearest inside her mind. She clutched the leperchaun embroidery in her own

Pocket--leprechaun, Mrs. Simmons she's got already been corrected by the, informing

her gently which they are not real--and remembered the in class when they day

had talked about the ascension that is coming genuine terms the very first time, since the

interaction limit had announced it was actually likely to happen. In

preparation she had rehearsed to by herself the words that are prohibited rainfall and sunshine

and sky--báisteach, grian, spéir--and counted in her own head the colors when you look at the tiny

rainbow thrown on the all by her sibling David's bit of angled glass, to ensure that

she'd recognize the ones that are huge she saw all of them.

"My dad says we don't determine if it's not all water above with no flooring

After all anymore, that heat melted the ice near the top of the worldwide world and flooded

our islands," David had stated.

"My parent said which was a-bomb the IRA could comprehend," Jimmy

Hanlon had put in, not to be bested in dad- quoting.

The language had blurred into meaningless babble to Bridget, although she

had been taught to memorize in the place of utilizing report that is limited disks; whenever Mrs.

Simmons wasn't searching, she had slipped out a written book of fairy tales and allow

rigid workroom fade away.

The thing that is next had known, David ended up being yanking the guide from her

hands. "Lesson's over and Jesus will you leave that dreamworld of yours."

"Leave her," Glenn Fitzhugh had said lightly. "she actually is just a early wane,

and you also're a bully, Dai."

Bridget had followed the altercation absently, her eyes nevertheless on the

yellowish page. She appreciated Glenn's kindness and had already been sorry whenever David hit

him, because Glenn couldn't fight back without harming. David had cursed her,

which stung given that it designed that Father made it happen. He had stated she ended up being unwelcome,

she was the child this is certainly third mama smashed the rules, Mother was a Catholic and they

Had been stupid and bad but nobody wanted any more difficulty so they really pretended that

Great-great-grandfather hadn't smuggled Great-great-grandmother down here,

using the lightweight in bad faith, and Father pretended he had beenn't sorry because

everyone else needed to get married based on genetics and lots of times it did not work out

with no one else complained, and then he worked additional difficult as though it may replace

The lips this is certainly additional feed, in addition to a fortunate note about ascension was being rid of

Them....

"You're half one if that which you say is true," Glenn had stated with bovine,

implacable reasoning through the pile of fabric into which David had forced him. David

had possessed a tantrum then and Mrs. Simmons had can be bought in and scolded them for maybe not

being at tea and Bridget had squeezed her leprechaun tightly and looked up from

the sewing benches and dietary fiber recyclers towards the smooth wall space that are gray illumination

pipes above, above, where there wouldn't be any combat anymore.

***

"It is not that they may be bad and we also're good, Bridget," Mother had

whispered later on, attaching the hangings within the alcove orifice and switching on

The generator that is white-noise. Bridget connected the hiss which can be fuzzy the rows it

was resulted in noisy to drown out--rows about her. "It is exactly that we are

various; we're the people these people were attempting to hold completely once the capsules were

Made, and although most of these personal people are great men and women, and our buddies, there

are some which still resent us even with all this work time. Hate dies difficult, love."

She had smoothed Bridget's hair straight back and braided it, deftly, gently. "Now say a

Hail Mary in my situation."

"I would rather say a poem. We see clearly within a written guide concerning the fairies. 'Up the

airy hill, down the glen this is certainly rushy we daren't get a-hunting, for anxiety about

little--'"

"You while the fairies. You're because bad as my mom ended up being. Nonetheless, it's our

custom, and it also no one will. whenever we don't preserve"

"we are the last, aren't we, Mam?" Bridget had said quietly, the poem

forgotten.

"Ah, now, Bridget, I don't realize that. We are the final in this limit,

anyway."

"And David and Anne? Glenn said..."

"Glenn's a chap this is certainly good he doesn't understand everything. No, I was youthful

whenever David and Anne were created, I let the Compact have actually them. I became afraid they'd

do to me whatever they performed to your grandma when they found out she had been teaching

me personally the methods which can be old. You are our opportunity this is certainly last. This is exactly why you were had by myself and

That is why you need to remember the expressed terms and prayers."

"I'm afraid, Mam."

Her mother had made a clucking sound. "What can they are doing, with

ascension therefore shortly? The cap that is whole about us anyhow, and there's bad feeling

by what ended up being done to your grandma." She had paused, and swallowed.

"Do you think...above..." Bridget had desired to inquire about the fairies,

but her mama had misunderstood her.

"no body knows, mo chroí. But I'll let you know what I believe. Our individuals

were left up there to die by individuals with the income therefore the industry to build the

limits. But our people are survivors, Bridget, and I also think they are nevertheless here.

In my opinion they took back once again the land that was theirs whenever most of the Orangemen hid

under it, and that they--"

"You'd best decrease your sound before the cap that is entire and lynches

you after all." Father's voice had preceded him through the fabric this is certainly hefty the

alcove home. Bridget had glanced at her mommy's tight face and scurried past

him to your chamber this is certainly outer where David and Anne were breathing lightly inside their

goals. The tape that is thirdsleep of thunderstorm had looped simply audibly between

their particular cots. Bridget had crawled in close to Anne and believed how understanding that

liquid didn't always originate from synthtanks but fell from above in small drops

that made the noise from the tape had not been rather the same as discovering that mom

and Father hated each other. But she had discovered them during the time that is same and so they

were both only things to understand. It was fine. She understood about leprechauns,

too.

Bridget remembered the length of time the next six wakes had seemed to extend

before her. And from now on, miraculously, right here these were....

Then your leprechaun had been seen by her. To start with it absolutely was thought by her had been one of several

other young ones that has wandered down, but it had been an form that is odd didn't go

precisely. It seemed to feel her stare and, having a appearance that is crazy disappeared.

Mam had gone down to talk to Mrs. Simmons; Bridget made certain she wasn't

focusing and begun to operate toward the woods. She had never run on surface

prior to; it absolutely was more difficult compared to the treadmill machine, and her feet that are short her as

haltingly as her tongue pronounced the words being old. Because of the right time she achieved the

trees there was clearly no sign of the animal that is small. Her heart fell, but she

Remembered that they were decided and shy to take a seat on a stone and wait. She had been

far adequate in to the forests to feel concealed from Mam therefore the sleep, though it had been

hard to know very well what could be seen from far away. It had been chilly right here, but in a brand new

Way; she knew that the fresh air ended up being blowing against her with water on it, not

rather rainfall however a moisture that is good and she raised her face and shut her eyes and

smiled in to the snap.

She sensed its existence practically prior to the crackle was heard by her of its

tips, and started her eyes slowly, keeping her breathing against her beating heart.

It had been dirty, and no taller that it had been a than she was, and she knew at once

leprechaun, because they were the fairies which are worst-looking.

"concern," the animal said.

The noise startled Bridget, therefore little had he had been expected by her to speak.

She frowned. "No, i am perhaps not afraid."

He shook his mind at her, so vehemently that their hair that is matted swung

backwards and forwards. "Neel, iss fear may."

Bridget, no more confused by this than she frequently had been by Mrs. Simmons,

memorized the noises and then attempted to fit them to English. "Are you afraid?

You shouldn't be afraid--" She reached out to him and he nodded vigorously.

"concern, fear," he said, pointing to himself and smiling. He truly

seemed unafraid, although is teeth which can be awful in frightening Bridget. He then

pointed to her. "Colleen."

"My name's Bridget," she said. He don't seem to comprehend, so she

directed to herself and continued her title until his rheumy eyes widened and then he

grinned.

"Bridget!" he said, pleased. Then, pointing once more to himself, he

said, "Shay!"

He jumped-up and down with apparent glee and then pointed and sat

systematically to every thing around all of them. She comprehended he had been naming

things, nevertheless the noises made less and less feeling, and Bridget had stopped trying

to mentally catalogue when he pointed up and said, "Spare."

Her heart hopped as if he had uttered an obscenity, and she

automatically seemed available for eavesdroppers. Then she stared at him. "Spéir,"

she stated, pointing up. He nodded, encouraged, and presented his hand at her mind (it

Had been so crooked and filthy she flinched) after which large above it. "Colleen. Ban.

Colleen anish. Ban amawruck."

"Cailín," she repeated gradually. "Girl."

"Colleen."

"Fear," she said, pointing to him, and she visualized the while he nodded

Irish spelling in her head. "Anxiety! Man! You're trying to say you are a guy in the

old language! Oh, but it is said by you so oddly. Is worry tú! Is cailín mé!"

He laughed, an audio this is certainly hacking might have frightened her had she not

already been so happy, and she started initially to laugh herself, the motions of the muscles

unknown inside her stomach, way too long had it already been.

Shay and Bridget sat laughing among the list of black stumps of this old

woodland, repeating the shared terms until the rainfall arrived.

***

She came across Shay regularly next wakes--days which can be few she learned to call

Them, just as she discovered to accept the going and coming of light without

switches. It absolutely was very easy to fall away; the job of erecting shelters ended up being and that's hefty

rushed, and she ended up being informed to help keep out of underfoot.

At first they shared language, since she knew only a few

full expressions. After a few years they certainly were able to carry on a discussion this is certainly easy

while eating fruits and strolling through the woods being simple. His Irish was

altered, with altered English mixed in, and all sorts of from it was garbled by their

Queer mouth this is certainly crooked but it ended up being simpler to find out than Mam's because with Shay she

could speak aloud and sometimes.

She would not tell her mother about Shay; she wasn't only jealous of

her key but afraid. She had asked if there were other individuals like him; nodding,

Shay had explained because he had been crippled and may not hunt which he had been alone

("the lips that is additional feed," David's terms echoed inside her brain), and he had hinted

darkly that others wouldn't be friendly.

***

They arrived on the day this is certainly 5th. They were quiet and very quickly,

appearing just at twilight as Bridget began right back for dinner. The leaves performed

perhaps not crackle under their foot, therefore the noises that are first heard were a sickening

thwack and Shay's yelp of pain. She turned upon her and saw bloodstream because they were

On Shay's face, made more grotesque by anxiety and trend. He tried to wrest her

from their store but ended up being driven down with stones that thudded having a rustle in to the

bracken after hitting him. She drew breathing to shriek and inhaled just the stench

of the hand this is certainly hairy clamped over her lips and nose. She had never ever passed away out

before; she struggled violently against it, with bursting lungs, until the

glittering blackness loaded her mind and she couldn't any longer see Shay.

***

Bridget had never before felt something like the horror that is cold

filled her when she found. She informed by herself why these brief, ragged guys were

trouping fairies, friendly people who desired perhaps to swap a fairy child for a

genuine one. However their fingers were too harsh, their sounds too harsh, and additionally they had

tied her up as if she had been a case of mending. She ended up being carried through the forest,

through darkness therefore total that she wondered if she'd actually woken up. After a

while--perhaps a hundred breaths--a that is precious light began to develop, and

she heard sounds. She had been fallen into the ground, pulled past a huge, scorching

fire, and left within a rock structure that is wet. A man stationed himself at the

orifice; within the firelight, his hair this is certainly white and eyes made her cringe.

Shay had not followed all of them. By, that understanding ached inside her dawn

very nearly up to her requirement for Mam. But she looked up from her distress and saw

that the guard had opted, and she managed to move by herself to your opening and

keep an eye out.

There were eleven other huts, no two alike, standing in a ring around

the hole where in actuality the fire burned. Near it, creatures grazed and picked and lots of

tiny kids played.

She unearthed that somebody had left her some food, but she ended up being unwell after

It absolutely was consumed by her. Her retching received a blended band of silver ladies to hover over her, and she

thought comforted once they stroked her locks and cooed over its red color.

"will you be banshees?" she asked in Irish. They drew right back in surprise at

These words that are initially her. One of those, evidently the youngest though they

were all wizened and hollow-eyed, offered her a dish that is created of and sat

She consumed before her as.

"we're maybe not banshees," she said gradually, just as if sensing Bridget's

newness to their tongue. "we am Mora. Are you regarding the Tuatha?"

Bridget seriously considered the legend associated with Tuatha and said she don't

know. "Bridget is my title."

This elicited a nod this is certainly solemn. "They stated you'd get back and make the

land one day."

Bridget remembered exactly what her mom had stared and said during the

wrinkled, pale face before her. She thought desperately of something to express with

Her shop that is tiny of that would show she was a buddy; then she remembered

her leprechaun swatch, and reached aside with her hands which can be bound tug in the

female's rags. "More, I can fix these," she said, and managed to draw the little

needle from the sheath in her pocket. Mora's eyes expanded large during the sight of the

Gleaming metallic this is certainly stainless and she viewed in fascination as Bridget unraveled a

long strand from her embroidery and threaded the needle deftly, barely hampered

by her bonds. "Look," Bridget said, and stitched up the largest opening in Mora's

tunic as neatly as she could. "See? Better." Several of Mora's clothing were woven,

however some were of the fabric that is solid had never ever seen before, fastened with

big, harsh thongs. Bridget's whipstitching seemed sophisticated and fragile

by comparison, and also to her relief, Mora beamed broadly.

Bridget spent the rest of the utilizing the women, just who told her that day

the males were out hunting. She discovered to milk a goat and also to tell time from a

rock's shadow. Mora had an old, crack-faced watch, and Bridget wound it for

her, because astonished as they certainly were that she that they had forgotten this easy thing

didn't understand what pet epidermis was.

If the men came back, Mora told her she was to start to see the priest-king.

Frightened, she struggled a little as she was delivered to the hut that is largest, this 1

made of obstructs of planet by way of a grass that is woven, and she sat trembling by its

cold fire gap, looking at the priest-king. He had been almost bald, with one green

attention and another milky one that is blue as well as a great mauve splotch over half their face. He

Leaned down and untied Bridget's chafed wrists, then kindled and sat a fire,

completing the area by way of a pleasant, turfy smoke.

"My girl tells me you are a mender," he stated quietly.

Intimidated and bashful, though no further shaking, Bridget seemed down. "I

would you like to help. Don't hurt me."

He did not answer, but his craggy, discolored face was somehow both

Merry and grave. "Do you realize exactly what a seanchaí is?" he asked then, in English.

"A storyteller," she replied.

"And more than that, aswell. The books had been all burned for gasoline very long

ago, when you look at the time that is cold the seanchaí recalls all the stories and all sorts of the

Record, and recites them and so the social individuals will understand their last. You can find tales of

the Tuatha Dé Danann, gods whom went to the planet many thousands of years ago; there

are numerous which think that is who you are, but more which say your folks have arisen

from the earth not quite as gods but as our enemies that are true cursed and abandoned us."

He did actually observe that she could not follow even their English, and frowned with

your time and effort of simplification. "We suggest you no harm, but we don't know your

men and women. We took you out of anxiety from similar that they would strike us

ignorance. You may go home tomorrow and present your if you wish to help

folks an email of peace from us. It is vital and you also shall need

Learn a complete large amount of terms, as being a seanchaí. Do you want to do this?"

Bridget nodded, the obligation making her solemn. She was remaining by him then

so she could rest. There was clearly no guard, along with her hands were free; she curled up

from the room's emptiness additionally the embers' unearthly glow, and thought hard

about comfort and Mam in addition to limits and what was real and exactly what were stories, until

at final she fell asleep.

***

Shay came for her that night. She woke to feel him bundling the furs

Her to the screen around her and holding. The fireplace had been filled with ashes, and

from far came the sound of several voices arguing. She tried to struggle as

Shay lifted her out to the floor and hopped down she ended up being beside her, but

Half-asleep, and also by just the right time she untangled herself from the covers he had one half

held, half dragged her really away from picture of the band of homes. "Shay, i'd like to

down," she protested. He let her stand but would not allow her to get. "I do not wish

to go out of today."

Shay shook his mind and jumped up and down, they first while he had whenever

came across. He stated which they had taken her buying that she ended up being only a trading thing

safety, that they would kill her if her individuals tried to make the land away.

"No, Shay, that won't occur now, maybe not she said, but he if we return

would not be persuaded, and then he began to go her in the way associated with the limits.

It did not happen to her to try to escape from him. She attempted to change

many times, but Shay would have none from it, and soon she ended up being lost into the

black colored, moonless woods together with no choice but to follow along with him. Exactly what would the

priest-king say, she wondered miserably, as he found that she had abandoned

all of them? Would there be another war that is bad? If there is, it could be all her

fault, and she started to cry while they stepped. Shay patted her just a little but would

Maybe not stop, though they were both ill-shod and fatigued. She stumbled within the mud

and bracken and started to shiver as her garments were wet through by water shaken

through the saplings while they passed. Odd pet noises made her hang nervously

on Shay's supply, uncertain he was powerful enough to protect her. He could not go

in that way, therefore he disengaged her clutching hands making her walk behind him.

This rejection that is tiny a new flood of tears that lasted many actions, but

whenever she was all cried out and trudging blind and numb behind Shay's rhythmic

limp, it stumbled on her in a flash of light compared to program, she could supply the

peace message anyhow, inside her words that are own. It was going to be all right, she

thought, and a springtime crept into her step.

They appeared from the woods as seeped redly in to the eastern dawn

clouds. The shelters seemed smooth and large and clean now to Bridget, compared

with where she'd already been. She took a breathing that is deep started toward them, but Shay

hung back, shaking his mind. "It really is okay," she told him. "I'll tell them

you are my buddy...." But he would not tune in, and she eventually forget about his

hand, saying a goodbye-and-thanks being unwilling he switched.

There was clearly a shout through the protection behind her therefore the flash of a

energy gun; Bridget screamed as Shay fell, stunned, along with her father came

running out to grab her up roughly in the arms. "It's all right now, Bridget, we

got the tiny bastard."

Torn between your love inside the words which are first the cruelty within the rest,

Bridget froze for a brief moment, then clawed her method liberated to bounce on the springy

turf and into her mother's hands, during the time this is certainly same toward Shay, who was simply

currently manacled by Mr. Hanlon. "Stop it!" she cried helplessly, grasping at

Shay's coarse tunic. "Mam, make them stop it!"

"We've discovered her, Fitzhugh," Father stated once the limit frontrunner accompanied

all of them. "And Jamie right here has found their particular camp; we could attack in a time, before

The opportunity is had by them in the other young ones."

Mr. Fitzhugh produced indication at Mr. Hanlon, and Shay had been released to

tumble at Bridget's feet. She crouched down next to him and saw Mr. Fitzhugh

turn toward her daddy.

"Looks more to me you. like she found"

"Ah, she is maybe not light; she'd brought us a hostage, I'd say, and then we'd be

rock angry to let the possibility slide by."

Bridget tried to object, but her mom shushed her, though her very own

hands were anxious with fury on Bridget's shoulders.

"we did not would you like to live up here, the good news is that We have I'm damned if I'll

are now living in worry," her parent completed.

"But they may be scared of you!" Bridget burst out, and also at final Mr.

Fitzhugh looked to her.

"Let's hear from early Bridget he stated before we stop half-cocked,

and looked down at her.

"this can be Shay," she explained quickly, desperately. "He's my friend, I

met him on ascension day, he wouldn't harm any person. I became taken by the clann away

You'll you will need to use the land away once more like into the because they had been afraid

old times. Nonetheless they're great individuals and they were great to me. I will talk with

Them--Mam, they talk Irish!--and I happened to be told through the priest-king to create that you peace

message, but--"

"Catholics." Mr. Hanlon spat the expressed word in to the turf. "I would figured as

much. Macdonald, let's go--"

"You certainly will perhaps not." Bridget's mommy endured up slowly, plus one in her own

face made the other individuals fall quiet. "David Macdonald, the issue i have seen in you

All these for our child has made me question when we've quarreled for nothing

years. But you shall maybe not start this hell on the planet yet again. Did we invest

five years within a gap into the surface for nothing? During the Problems they

Utilized bombs that are little have actually we not seen what the big ones do that we should start it

all again?"

"No one's speaking about bombs, Mary," stated Father uncomfortably, but

much more gently than Bridget had heard him talk to her.

"Mrs. Macdonald features a real point," said Mr. Fitzhugh. "I say we head to all of them,

react to their serenity provide, possibly even learn--"

Mr. Hanlon swore. "stroll straight into their particular trap."

"this has been many years that are numerous we'd soldiers, Jamie. It suits us poorly

today. We are the foreigners up here." Mr. Fitzhugh scraped their beard and switched

into the crowd that had gathered. "Everyone here should get back to work. We'll

Leave in an complete hour to take Bridget to Shay's men and women, attempt to earn some type of

contract."

The crowd erupted into noisy debate, but Bridget wasn't paying attention. She

aided Shay out from the metal cuffs and also to their legs, then told him in Irish that

he'd a house him straight back together with her if his folks would not simply take. He nodded and

grinned his smile this is certainly awful they turned together to Mr. Fitzhugh.

For that, at the very least, there is no combat, and Bridget refused to day

hesitate even if her mother warned her not to hope too hard, that people were

tough and quite often didn't keep their guarantees. That in her own cot night,

after-hours of more speaking than she had done in a very long time, Bridget paid attention to

the patter of real rain in the refuge roofing. "You thought in legends, and you

became one yourself, my wee changeling," her mother said as she fixed the

covers we lost a human baby along with a fairy girl returned to me personally. around her. ""

Through the window, Bridget viewed the streaks of rainfall weave into gleaming

pools on the floor and hoped there is a rainbow each day. In her own

head she traced a droplet's path back-up in to the sky, above which even her

imagination could not go.

Young Zaphod Plays It Safe A Short Story By Douglas Adams

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Thu, 01 Jul 2021 17:28:00 +0000

A Short Story Young Zaphod Plays It Safe is written By Douglas Adams

A sizable art this is certainly flying swiftly throughout the area of an Astoundingly ocean this is certainly gorgeous. From mid-morning onwards, it plied as well as forth in great widening arcs, as well as final attracted the interest regarding the regional islanders, a calm, sea-food people that are enjoying collected in the beach and squinted up to the sun that is blinding trying to see the thing that was there. Any sophisticated person that is knowledgeable who'd knocked about, seen a few things, might have remarked on probably how much the craft looked just like a filing case - a big and recently burgled filing case lying on its drawers to its back into the environment and traveling.

The islanders, whoever experience ended up being of a sort that is different were alternatively struck by how small it appeared to be a lobster. They chattered excitedly about its shortage this is certainly total of, it's stiff Unbendy right back, plus the understood fact that it appeared to experience the best difficulty keeping on the ground. This particular aspect is certainly last especially funny for them. They hopped along on the spot an entire lot to demonstrate into the thing this is certainly stupid they by themselves found staying on a lawn the simplest part of the world. But shortly this enjoyment started initially to pall for them. After all, since It absolutely was perfectly clear to them that the ordinary thing was not a lobster, and since their particular globe ended up being blessed with a variety of things that had been lobsters (a one half that is good dozen of which were now marching succulently up the beach they saw no reason at all to waste any longer time in the toward them thing but decided alternatively to adjourn instantly for the lobster this is certainly late lunch.

The craft ended abruptly in mid-air then at that precise minute upended itself and plunged headlong to the ocean by way of a crash that is great of spray which sent them shouting to the trees. These were if they re-emerged, nervously, a couple of minutes later, all able to see was an effortlessly scarred group of liquid and a gulping this is certainly few bubbles. That is strange, they said to each other between mouthfuls of the finest lobster to be had anywhere in the Western Galaxy, that's the time that is 2nd which is happened in 12 months. The art which wasn't a lobster dived direct to a depth of two hundred legs and hung here when you look at the blueness that is heavy while vast masses of water swayed about any of it.

High above, where the water was magically clear, A formation this is certainly brilliant of flashed away. Under, where the light had Difficulty achieving the color of the liquid sank to a savage and dark blue. Right here, at 2 hundred legs, the sunlight streamed feebly. A large, silk Skinned sea-mammal rolled idly by, examining the craft by having a kind or variety of half-interest, as though it had half expected to discover something with this type round about here, and then it slid on up and away to the rippling light. The craft waited here for a moment or two, using readings, after which descended another hundred legs. At this level, it was getting really dark. Following a brief moment or two the inner lights for the craft shut down, plus in the next or so that passed away before the primary beams that are external instantly stabbed out, the only real noticeable light originated in a hazily that is little Illuminated indication that is pink browse the Beeblebrox Salvage and Really Wild Stuff Corporation. The massive beams switched downwards, catching a shoal this is certainly vast of fish, which swiveled away in silent panic. When you look at the control that is dim which extended inside a wide bow through the craft's blunt prow, four minds had been gathered round some type of computer display which was analyzing the very, extremely light and indicators which can be intermittent were[?] coming from deep in the ocean sleep. "That's it," stated the master of one of many minds finally. "Can we be quite certain?" stated who owns another of the minds. "a hundred % positive," replied who owns your head that is initially.

"You're a hundred percent positive that the ship that will be crashed From the bottom of the sea may be the ship that you had been said by you're one hundred % excellent could a hundred % favorably never crash?" said the owner of the 2 heads which can be continuing to be. "Hey," he put up two of their hands, "I'm just asking." The two officials from the Safety and Civil Reassurance Administration responded to the by having an extremely stare that is cool however the guy using the odd, or rather the even number of heads, missed it. He flung himself straight back from the pilot couch, opened a couple of beers - one for himself therefore the various other additionally for himself - stuck their foot regarding the system, and said "Hey, infant" through the ultra-glass at seafood that is moving. "Mr. Beeblebrox...," began the reduced and less reassuring of the two officials in a voice this is certainly reduced. "Yup?" said Zaphod, rapping a suddenly empty can straight down on some of the More instruments that are sensitive "you ready to plunge? Why don't we go." "Mr. Beeblebrox, let's make a very important factor completely clear..." "Yeah let's," stated Zaphod, "just how concerning this in the first place. The trend is to simply let me know what is true about this ship." "We now have informed you," stated the official. "By-products." Zaphod exchanged glances that are weary himself. "By-products," he stated. "By-products of just what?" "Processes." said the state. "What processes?" "Processes being perfectly safe." "Santa Zarquana Voostra!" exclaimed both of Zaphod's heads in chorus, "so safe you need to create a zarking fortress ship to use the by-products towards the nearest gap this is certainly black colored tip them in! Just it does not Make it happen just because a detour is done because of the pilot- is this right? - to pick up some lobster...? OK, therefore the man is cool, but... I am talking about own up, this is certainly barking time, this might be lunch that is major this might be stool approaching critical size, this might be... this really is... total language failure!" "close up!" their head that is right yelled his left, "we're flanging!" He got a beneficial hold that is soothing the rest of the beer can. "Listen, guys," he resumed after a moment's comfort and contemplation. The 2 officials had said absolutely nothing. Discussion at this recognized level wasn't something to that they believed they are able to aspire. "I just want to know," insisted Zaphod, "what you're getting me into right here." He stabbed a finger at the readings being intermittent within the computer screen.

They designed nothing for him but he doesn't such as the look of those at all. These people were all squiggly with lots of lengthy figures and things. "It's splitting up, is he shouted it. "It has got a hold full epsilon radiating aorist rods or something which fry this entire area sector for zillions of many years as well as it is splitting up. Is the fact that the story? Is that which we're going down to get? Was I going to turn out of the wreck with even more minds?" "It cannot come to be a wreck, Mr. Beeblebrox," insisted the formal, "the ship is going to be perfectly safe. It cannot perhaps split up" "Then why are you so keen to go and look at it?" "We prefer to examine items that are completely safe." "Freeeooow!" "Mr. Beeblebrox," said on official, patiently, you that"may I remind There is a working job to accomplish?" "Yeah, really possibly I don't feel so thinking about doing it out of the blue. Just what you think I'm, completely with no whatsits being ethical what are they labeled as, those moral things?" "Scruples?" "Scruples, many thanks, whatsoever? Well?" The two officials waited calmly. They coughed slightly to greatly help pass enough time. Zaphod sighed a "what is the international world coming to" type of sigh to absolve himself from all blame, and swung himself round in his chair. "Ship?" he labeled as. "Yup?" stated the ship. "Do the things I do." The ship considered this for milliseconds that are few then, after double-checking every the seal on its heavyweight bulkheads, it started gradually, inexorably, when you look at the blaze this is certainly hazy of lights, to sink to your most affordable depths. Five hundred legs. A lot of. Two thousand. Right here, in the stress of nearly seventy atmospheres, in the chilling depths where no light hits, nature keeps its many imaginings that are heated.

Two nightmares which can be foot-long wildly to the bleaching light yawned, and vanished back to the blackness. Two . 5 thousand feet. At the dim edges for the ship's lights secrets that are responsible by with their particular eyes on stalks. Slowly the geography of this sea sleep is certainly distantly nearing resolved with greater and greater quality on the computer shows until At serve you for a form could be made down that has been distinct and individual from its environments. It absolutely was just like a huge lopsided fortress this is certainly cylindrically widened greatly halfway along its size to accommodate the heavy ultra-plating with that your storage space that is vital were clad, and which had been expected by its builders to own made this the most which are secure impregnable spaceship ever before built. Before launching the structure of the material With this area have been battered, rammed, exposed, and blasted to every attack its builders knew it might withstand to be able to demonstrate so it could endure all of them. The silence this is certainly anxious the seat tightened perceptibly as it became obvious it was this part which had damaged rather neatly in 2. "In fact, it is completely safe," stated one of many officials, "it's built so regardless of if the ship does split up, the storage holds cannot come to be breached." Three thousand, eight hundred and twenty-five legs. Four Hi-Presh-A SmartSuits moved slowly from the hatchway this is certainly open of the salvage art and waded through the barrage of its lights towards The form that is monstrous loomed darkly out of the ocean evening. They relocated by having a type of clumsy sophistication, near-weightless though weighed on with a realm of water. Along with his head, that is right-hand Zaphod up into the black immensities above him and for a second his mind sang by way of a roar this is certainly silent of.

He glanced to him was and left relieved to see that their other mind was hectic watching the Brockman Ultra-Cricket broadcasts on the helmet vid without issue. Slightly behind him to his remaining moved the 2 officials through the Safety and Civil Reassurance Administration, slightly in front of him to his right walked the suit this is certainly vacant carrying their particular Executes and testing the actual way for all of them. They passed the rift that is huge the broken-backed Starship Billion Year Bunker and played their flashlights up into it. Mangled equipment loomed between torn and bulkheads which are turned two-foot dense. A family group of Huge eels are clear in there today and seemed to enjoy it. The fit that is bare all of them over the period of the ship's gigantic murky hull, while using the airlocks. The one which is 3rd tested ground opened uneasily. They crowded within it and waited for several minutes which are very long even though the pump mechanisms managed pressure that is hideous the ocean exerted, and slowly replaced it by having a pressure this is certainly equally hideous of And gases that are inert. At final the doorway this is certainly internal open, in addition, they were accepted to a dark holding this is certainly outer of this Starship Billion 12 months Bunker. A few more protection this is certainly high doors had to be passed through, each of which the officials started with a variety of quark secrets. Shortly they were so deep within the safety that is hefty that the UltraCricket broadcasts were just starting to diminish, and Zaphod needed to change to one of the stone video clip stations since there clearly was nowhere that they weren't able to attain. A doorway this is certainly last open, and so they emerged into a huge sepulchral room. Zaphod played their flashlight resistant to the wall surface that is other it dropped strong a wild-eyed face this is certainly screaming. Zaphod screamed a diminished fifth himself, dropped their light, and sat Heavily on the floor, or in other words on an actual body which has been lying here undisturbed for around half a year and which reacted to becoming sat on by bursting with great assault. Zaphod wondered what direction to go about all this, and after a brief but hectic discussion that is interior that moving out is the thing, this is certainly very. He came to minutes that are few and pretended not to know who he was, He had got indeed there, but wasn't able to convince where he had been or how anybody.

Then pretended that their memory abruptly came back having a dash and that the shock caused him to once again distribute, but he was helped unwillingly to his feet because of the fit this is certainly vacant that he ended up being just starting to have a dislike this is certainly really serious - and forced to come to terms along with his environments. They certainly were dimly and fitfully lit and unpleasant within a real number of areas, the obvious of which was the arrangement that is colorful of areas of the ship's belated Navigation this is certainly lamented Officer a floor, walls and roof, and particularly over the lower 1 / 2 of his, Zaphod's, match. The effect with this ended up being so astoundingly nasty that we shall never be Discussing once again at any true point in this narrative - other than to record Fleetingly the known fact that it caused Zaphod to purge inside his suit, Which he therefore swapped and eliminated, after appropriate headgear adjustments, utilizing the empty one. Sadly the stench of the fetid environment in the ship, accompanied by the picture of his fit that is own walking casually draped in rotting intestines was enough to make him throw up in The other suit as well, that has been a nagging problem that he together with the suit would simply have to live with. There. All done. You can forget nastiness. At the very least, no further of the nastiness this is certainly certain. Who owns the facial skin that is screaming calmed down extremely slightly now and ended up being bubbling away incoherently within a tank that is large of liquid - a disaster suspension container. "It was crazy," he babbled, "crazy! He had been told through me we're able to constantly try The lobster on the genuine long ago, but he was crazy. Obsessed! Do you ever get like this about lobster? Because I don't. Seems to me it's all rubbery and fiddly to consume, and not that much taste, really I am talking about will there be? I infinitely choose scallops and said so. Oh Zarquon, I stated so!" Zaphod stared as of this apparition this is certainly extraordinary flailing with its container.

The man had been mounted on all sorts of life-support pipes, along with his sound had been bubbling out of speakers that echoed insanely round the ship, returning as haunting echoes from deep and corridors which are remote. "which was where we moved incorrect" the madman yelled, "I really said Because I hadn't had real that we preferred scallops and then he said it absolutely was lobster like they did where their ancestors came from, that was right here, and he would show it. He stated it had been no irritating problem, he stated the lobster here was worth a journey this is certainly whole let alone the small diversion it could take to Arrive here, and he swore the ship could be managed by him within the environment, but it was insanity, insanity!" he screamed, and paused together with his eyes rolling, As though the expressed term had rung some sort of bell in his mind's eye, "The ship went right out of control! I really couldn't think what we were performing and just to Show a genuine point about lobster that is really therefore overrated as meals, I'm sorry to be on about lobsters so much, I'll attempt to stay in a minute, But they've been back at my head much for the complete months I have been in our tank, can you picture exactly what it's want to be trapped within a ship with the exact same guys for months junk that is consuming when all one guy will mention is lobster and then invest 6 months drifting yourself inside a tank thinking about it. We promise I shall try and shut up about the lobsters, I truly will. Lobsters, lobsters, lobsters - adequate! I believe I Am a just survivor. I'm the only one who managed to get to a crisis container before we transpired. I sent the Mayday and then we hit. It's really a tragedy, isn't it? An emergency that is total and all as the guy liked lobsters. Just how sense this is certainly much I making? It's really tough for me to tell." He gazed at all of them beseechingly, along with his head felt to back sway slowly down-to-earth just like a leaf this is certainly falling.

He looked and blinked at all of them oddly such as for instance a monkey peering in seafood this is certainly odd. He scrabbled curiously together with his wrinkled-up fingers during the cup side of the container. Tiny, thick yellow Bubbles loosed themselves from his nose and lips, caught quickly in the swab of hair, and strayed on upwards. "Oh Zarquon, oh heavens," he mumbled pathetically to himself, "I've already been discovered. I have been rescued..." "Well," said one of the officials, briskly, "you've been found at the very least." He strode over to the computer that is primary in the center of the chamber and started examining rapidly through the ship's primary monitor circuits for harm reports. "The aorist pole chambers are intact," he stated. "Holy dingo's dos," snarled Zaphod, "there tend to be aorist rods on board...!" Aorist rods were devices utilized in a now joyfully abandoned kind of energy production. When the hunt for brand new types of energy had at one point got especially frantic, one brilliant chap this is certainly young spotted that certain place which had never ever consumed all its energy that's available as days have gone by. Along with the dash that is abrupt of to your head that such Insights have a tendency to induce, he invented a proper means of mining it that exact same guys for months junk that is consuming when all one guy will mention is lobster and then invest 6 months drifting yourself inside a tank thinking about it.

We promise I shall try and shut up about the lobsters, I truly will. Lobsters, lobsters, lobsters - adequate! I believe I Am a just survivor. I'm the only one who managed to get to a crisis container before we transpired. I sent the Mayday and then we hit. It's really a tragedy, isn't it? An emergency that is total and all as the guy liked lobsters. Just how sense this is certainly much I making? It's really tough for me to tell." He gazed at all of them beseechingly, along with his head felt to back sway slowly down-to-earth just like a leaf this is certainly falling.

He looked and blinked at all of them oddly such as for instance a monkey peering in seafood this is certainly odd. He scrabbled curiously together with his wrinkled-up fingers during the cup side of the container. Tiny, thick yellow Bubbles loosed themselves from his nose and lips, caught quickly in the swab of hair, and strayed on upwards. "Oh Zarquon, oh heavens," he mumbled pathetically to himself, "I've already been discovered. I have been rescued..." "Well," said one of the officials, briskly, "you've been found at the very least." He strode over to the computer that is primary in the center of the chamber and started examining rapidly through the ship's primary monitor circuits for harm reports. "The aorist pole chambers are intact," he stated. "Holy dingo's dos," snarled Zaphod, "there tend to be aorist rods on board...!" Aorist rods were devices utilized in a now joyfully abandoned kind of energy production. When the hunt for brand new types of energy had at one point got especially frantic, one brilliant chap this is certainly young spotted that certain place which had never ever consumed all its energy that's available as days have gone by. Along with the dash that is abrupt of to your head that such Insights have a tendency to induce, he invented a proper means of mining it that exact same night, and inside a year huge tracts of history had been being drained of each of their power and simply wasting away.

Those that reported that the past must certainly be left unspoiled had been accused of indulging in an excessively expensive type of sentimentality. Yesteryear offered a tremendously cheap, plentiful and resource that is clean of, there might often be a couple of All-natural Past Reserves set up if any person desired to buy their upkeep, so when for the declare that draining the past impoverished the present, really, maybe it performed, somewhat, but the results were immeasurable and you actually had to keep a feeling of proportion.

It was only if it was realized that today's reality was being Impoverished and that the good cause for it had been that those selfish plundering wastrel bastards up, later on, had been performing the exact same thing, that everybody realized that each and every aorist this is certainly solitary, additionally the terrible key of the way they were made would have to be utterly and forever ruined. It had been claimed by them had been with regard to their particular grand-parents and grandchildren, however, it was needless to say for the sake of their particular grandparent's grandchildren, and their particular grandchildren's grandparents. The official from the Safety and Civil Reassurance Administration gave a shrug that is dismissive. "They may be perfectly safe," he said. He glanced up at Zaphod and abruptly stated with uncharacteristic frankness, "there's worse than that onboard. At least," he added, tapping at among the computer system displays, "I hope it really is up to speed."

The other official rounded on him greatly. "What the hell do you think you're saying?" he clicked. 1st shrugged once again. He stated "no matter. They can state just what he likes. He would be thought of by nobody. It's the reason we thought we would rather use him than do just about anything official, isn't it? The greater amount of crazy the entire story he informs, the greater it's going to seem like he is some adventurer this is certainly hippy it up. He can even say he appear to be we said this and it will make him paranoid." He beamed pleasantly at Zaphod who was seething inside a fit packed with unwellness. "You may accompany us," he told him, "if you wish." "The thing is that?" said the official, examining the ultra-titanium outer seals for the aorist pole hold. "completely protected, completely safe." He said exactly the same thing while they passed holds chemical this is certainly containing tools therefore powerful that the teaspoonful could infect a whole fatally planet. He stated the matter that is same they passed holds containing zeta-active substances so effective that the teaspoonful could blow up earth this is certainly entire. He stated the matter that is the same they passed holds containing theta-active compounds so effective that a teaspoonful could irradiate a world this is certainly whole. "I'm glad I'm not really a planet," muttered Zaphod. "You'd have absolutely nothing to fear," guaranteed the official through the security and Civil Reassurance Administration, "planets are particularly safe. Supplied," he added - and paused. These people were nearing the hold nearest to the point where the back for the Starship Billion Bunker was broken for 12 months. The corridor right here was twisted and deformed, therefore the flooring was which is damp sticky in spots. "Ho-hum," he said, "ho really much hum." "Just what's in this hold?" demanded Zaphod. "By-products" stated the state, clamming up once more. "By-products..." insisted Zaphod, quietly, "of exactly what?" Neither authoritative responded. Instead, the hold was analyzed by them home very Very carefully and saw that its seals had been twisted aside by the potent causes that had deformed the corridor that is entire. One of them touched the hinged home gently. It swung open to his touch. There was darkness inside, in just a handful of dim lights which are yellow within it. "Of what?" hissed Zaphod.

The state this is certainly ultimately causing the other. "there is a getaway capsule," he stated, "that the staff was to utilize to abandon ship before jettisoning it into the hole that is black" he said. "We think it might be good to understand that it is nonetheless indeed there." The other Official left and nodded with no term. The state this is certainly initially beckoned Zaphod in. The large yellow that is dim lights glowed about twenty legs from their website. "the main reason," he said, quietly "why the rest in this ship is, I keep, safe, is no one is really crazy adequate to use them. No one. At the least, nobody that crazy would previously get near all of them. Anyone that angry or band this is certainly dangerous deep alarm bells. Folks can be stupid but they're not too stupid." "By-products," hissed Zaphod again, - he had to hiss to ensure that their vocals shouldn't be heard to tremble - "of what." "Er, Designer Individuals." "What?" "The Sirius Cybernetics Corporation was awarded a study this is certainly huge grant to develop and produce personalities being synthetic order. The results were consistently disastrous. All the "people" and "personalities" turned out to be amalgams of traits that merely could perhaps not co-exist in normal life this is certainly happening. Many had been simply bad ridiculous misfits, many were deeply, profoundly dangerous. Dangerous since they didn't band alarm bells in other folks.

They could walk Through situations the true method in which ghosts walk through wall space because no one spotted the risk. "the essential danger of most had been three people which can be identical they certainly were placed in this hold, to be blasted, with this particular ship, right using this world. They're not evil, in fact, they have been instead charming and simple. Nevertheless, they are the most creatures which are dangerous ever before lived because there is Nothing they shall perhaps not do if allowed, and nothing they will not be permitted to do..." Zaphod looked over the dim-yellow lights, the two dim lights being yellowish. As his eyes became accustomed to the light he saw that the 2 lights framed a place this is certainly the third something was damaged. Damp patches which can be sticky gleamed dully onto the floor. Zaphod therefore the official walked cautiously to the lights. At that brief minute, four words arrived crashing to the helmet headsets through the various other officials. "The capsule has gone," he said tersely. "Trace it," clicked Zaphod's partner. "Get hold of wherever it has gone. We must know where it has gone!" Zaphod slid aside a ground glass home this is certainly big. Beyond a tank be laid because of it full of thick yellow liquid, and drifting inside it had been a guy, a kindly searching man with lots of pleasant laugh lines around his face. He felt becoming floating rather contentedly and smiling to himself. Another message that is terse emerged through his helmet headset.

The earth towards which the escape pill had headed had been already identified. It absolutely was in Galactic Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha. The man that is kindly looking at the container appeared to be babbling gently to himself, just like the co-pilot had been in his container. Little yellow bubbles beaded regarding the people's lips. Zaphod uncovered a presenter this is certainly tiny the tank and turned it in. The man had been heard by him babbling gently in regards to a shining city for a mountain. He additionally heard the Official through the Safety and Civil Reassurance Administration issue directions that the planet in ZZ9 z this is certainly plural should be made "perfectly safe."

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Fri, 25 Jun 2021 21:30:00 +0000

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul book was written and typeset on an Apple Macintosh II and an Apple LaserWriter II NTX.

The word processing software was FullWrite Professional from Ashton Tate. The final proofing and photosetting were done by The Last Word, London SW6. I would like to say an enormous thank you to my amazing and wonderful editor, Sue Freestone. Her help, support, criticism, encouragement, enthusiasm, and sandwiches have been beyond measure. I also owe thanks and apologies to Sophie, James, and Vivian saw so little of her during the final weeks of work.

It can hardly be a coincidence that no language on Earth has ever

produced the expression "as pretty as an airport."

Airports are ugly. Some are very ugly. Some attain a degree of

ugliness that can only be the result of a special effort. This ugliness

arises because airports are full of people who are tired, cross, and

have just discovered that their luggage has landed in Murmansk

(Murmansk airport is the only known exception to this otherwise

infallible rule), and architects have on the whole tried to reflect

this in their designs.

They have sought to highlight the tiredness and crossness motif with

brutal shapes and nerve-jangling colours, to make effortless the

business of separating the traveller for ever from his or her luggage

or loved ones, to confuse the traveller with arrows that appear to

point at the windows, distant tie racks, or the current position of

Ursa Minor in the night sky, and wherever possible to expose the

plumbing on the grounds that it is functional, and conceal the location

of the departure gates, presumably on the grounds that they are not.

Caught in the middle of a sea of hazy light and a sea of hazy noise,

Kate Schechter stood and doubted.

All the way out of London to Heathrow she had suffered from doubt.

She was not a superstitious person, or even a religious person, she was

simply someone who was not at all sure she should be flying to Norway.

But she was finding it increasingly easy to believe that God, if there

was a God, and if it was remotely possible that any godlike being who

could order the disposition of particles at the creation of the

Universe would also be interested in directing traffic on the M4, did

not want her to fly to Norway either. All the trouble with the tickets,

finding a next-door neighbour to look after the cat, then finding the

cat so it could be looked after by the next-door neighbour, the sudden

leak in the roof, the missing wallet, the weather, the unexpected death

of the next-door neighbour, the pregnancy of the cat -- it all had the

semblance of an orchestrated campaign of obstruction which had begun to

assume godlike proportions.

Even the taxi-driver -- when she had eventually found a taxi -- had

said, "Norway? What you want to go there for?" And when she hadn't

instantly said, "The aurora borealis!" or "Fjords!" but had looked

doubtful for a moment and bitten her lip, he had said, "I know, I bet

it's some bloke dragging you out there. Tell you what, tell him to

stuff it. Go to Tenerife."

There was an idea.

Tenerife.

Or even, she dared to think for a fleeting second, home.

She had stared dumbly out of the taxi window at the angry tangles of

traffic and thought that however cold and miserable the weather was

here, that was nothing to what it would be like in Norway.

Or, indeed, at home. Home would be about as icebound as Norway right

now. Icebound, and punctuated with geysers of steam bursting out of the

ground, catching in the frigid air and dissipating between the glacial

cliff faces of Sixth Avenue.

A quick glance at the itinerary Kate had pursued in the course of

her thirty years would reveal her without any doubt to be a New Yorker.

For though she had lived in the city very little, most of her life had

been spent at a constant distance from it. Los Angeles, San Francisco,

Europe, and a period of distracted wandering around South America five

years ago following the loss of her newly married husband, Luke, in a

New York taxi-hailing accident.

She enjoyed the notion that New York was home, and that she missed

it, but in fact the only thing she really missed was pizza. And not

just any old pizza, but the sort of pizza they brought to your door if

you phoned them up and asked them to. That was the only real pizza.

Pizza that you had to go out and sit at a table staring at red paper

napkins for wasn't real pizza however much extra pepperoni and anchovy

they put on it.

London was the place she liked living in most, apart, of course,

from the pizza problem, which drove her crazy. Why would no one deliver

pizza? Why did no one understand that it was fundamental to the whole

nature of pizza that it arrived at your front door in a hot cardboard

box? That you slithered it out of greaseproof paper and ate it in

folded slices in front of the TV? What was the fundamental flaw in the

stupid, stuck-up, sluggardly English that they couldn't grasp this

simple principle? For some odd reason it was the one frustration she

could never learn simply to live with and accept, and about once a

month or so she would get very depressed, phone a pizza restaurant,

order the biggest, most lavish pizza she could describe -- pizza with

an extra pizza on it, essentially -- and then, sweetly, ask them to

deliver it.

"To what?"

"Deliver. Let me give you the address --"

"I don't understand. Aren't you going to come and pick it up?"

"No. Aren't you going to deliver? My address --"

"Er, we don't do that, miss."

"Don't do what?"

"Er, deliver..."

"You /don't deliver/? Am I /hearing you correctly/...?"

The exchange would quickly degenerate into an ugly slanging match

which would leave her feeling drained and shaky, but much, much better

the following morning. In all other respects she was one of the most

sweet-natured people you could hope to meet.

But today was testing her to the limit.

There had been terrible traffic jams on the motorway, and when the

distant flash of blue lights made it clear that the cause was an

accident somewhere ahead of them Kate had become more tense and had

stared fixedly out of the other window as eventually they had crawled

past it.

The taxi-driver had been bad-tempered when at last he had dropped

her off because she didn't have the right money, and there was a lot of

disgruntled hunting through tight trouser pockets before he was

eventually able to find change for her. The atmosphere was heavy and

thundery and now, standing in the middle of the main check-in concourse

at Terminal Two, Heathrow Airport, she could not find the check-in desk

for her flight to Oslo.

She stood very still for a moment, breathing calmly and deeply and

trying not to think of Jean-Philippe.

Jean-Philippe was, as the taxi-driver had correctly guessed, the

reason why she was going to Norway, but was also the reason why she was

convinced that Norway was not at all a good place for her to go.

Thinking of him therefore made her head oscillate and it seemed best

not to think about him at all but simply to go to Norway as if that was

where she happened to be going anyway. She would then be terribly

surprised to bump into him at whatever hotel it was he had written on

the card that was tucked into the side pocket of her handbag.

In fact she would be surprised to find him there anyway. What she

would be much more likely to find was a message from him saying that he

had been unexpectedly called away to Guatemala, Seoul or Tenerife and

that he would call her from there. Jean-Philippe was the most

continually absent person she had ever met. In this he was the

culmination of a series. Since she had lost Luke to the great yellow

Chevrolet she had been oddly dependent on the rather vacant emotions

that a succession of self-absorbed men had inspired in her.

She tried to shut all this out of her mind, and even shut her eyes

for a second. She wished that when she opened them again there would be

a sign in front of her saying "This way for Norway' which she could

simply follow without needing to think about it or anything else ever

again. This, she reflected, in a continuation of her earlier train of

thought, was presumably how religions got started, and must be the

reason why so many sects hang around airports looking for converts.

They know that people there are at their most vulnerable and perplexed,

and ready to accept any kind of guidance.

Kate opened her eyes again and was, of course, disappointed. But

then a second or two later there was a momentary parting in a long

surging wave of cross Germans in inexplicable yellow polo shirts and

through it she had a brief glimpse of the check-in desk for Oslo.

Lugging her garment bag on to her shoulder, she made her way towards

it.

There was just one other person before her in the line at the desk

and he, it turned out, was having trouble or perhaps making it.

He was a large man, impressively large and well-built -- even

expertly built -- but he was also definitely odd-looking in a way that

Kate couldn't quite deal with. She couldn't even say what it was that

was odd about him, only that she was immediately inclined not to

include him on her list of things to think about at the moment. She

remembered reading an article which had explained that the central

processing unit of the human brain only had seven memory registers,

which meant that if you had seven things in your mind at the same time

and then thought of something else, one of the other seven would

instantly drop out.

In quick succession she thought about whether or not she was likely

to catch the plane, about whether it was just her imagination that the

day was a particularly bloody one, about airline staff who smile

charmingly and are breathtakingly rude, about Duty Free shops which are

able to charge much lower prices than ordinary shops but --

mysteriously -- don't, about whether or not she felt a magazine article

about airports coming on which might help pay for the trip, about

whether her garment bag would hurt less on her other shoulder and

finally, in spite of all her intentions to the contrary, about Jean-

Philippe, who was another set of at lest seven subtopics all to

himself.

The man standing arguing in front of her popped right out of her

mind.

It was only the announcement on the airport Tannoy of the last call

for her flight to Oslo which forced her attention back to the situation

in front of her.

The large man was making trouble about the fact that he hadn't been

given a first-class seat reservation. It had just transpired that the

reason for this was that he didn't in fact have a first-class ticket.

Kate's spirits sank to the very bottom of her being and began to

prowl around there making a low growling noise.

It now transpired that the man in front of her didn't actually have

a ticket at all, and the argument then began to range freely and

angrily over such topics as the physical appearance of the airline

check-in girl, her qualities as a person, theories about her ancestors,

speculations as to what surprises the future might have in store for

her and the airline for which she worked, and finally lit by chance on

the happy subject of the man's credit card.

He didn't have one.

Further discussions ensued, and had to do with cheques, and why the

airline did not accept them.

Kate took a long, slow, murderous look at her watch.

"Excuse me," she said, interrupting the transactions. "Is this going

to take long? I have to catch the Oslo flight."

"I'm just dealing with this gentleman," said the girl, "I'll be with

you in just one second."

Kate nodded and politely allowed just one second to go by.

"It's just that the flight's about to leave," she said then. "I have

one bag, I have my ticket, I have a reservation. It'll take about

thirty seconds. I hate to interrupt, but I'd hate even more to miss my

flight for the sake of thirty seconds. That's thirty actual seconds,

not thirty "just one" seconds, which could keep us here all night."

The check-in girl turned the full glare on her lipgloss on to Kate,

but before she could speak the large blond man looked round, and the

effect of his face was a little disconcerting.

"I, too," he said in a slow, angry Nordic voice, "wish to fly to

Oslo."

Kate stared at him. He looked thoroughly out of place in an airport,

or rather, the airport looked thoroughly out of place around him.

"Well," she said, "the way we're stacked up at the moment it looks

like neither of us is going to make it. Can we just sort this one out?

What's the hold-up?"

The check-in girl smiled her charming, dead smile and said, "The

airline does not accept cheques, as a matter of company policy."

"Well I do," said Kate, slapping down her own credit card. "Charge

the gentleman's ticket to this, and I'll take a cheque from him.

"OK?" she added to the big man, who was looking at her with slow

surprise. His eyes were large and blue and conveyed the impression that

they had looked at a lot of glaciers in their time. They were

extraordinarily arrogant and also muddled.

"OK?" she repeated briskly. "My name is Kate Schechter. Two "c"s,

two "h's, two "e's and also a "t", an "R and an "s". Provided they're

all there the bank won't be fussy about the order they come in. They

never seem to know themselves."

The man very slowly inclined his head a little towards her in a

rough bow of acknowledgement. He thanked her for her kindness, courtesy

and some Norwegian word that was lost on her, said that it was a long

while since he had encountered anything of the kind, that she was a

woman of spirit and some other Norwegian word, and that he was indebted

to her. He also added, as an afterthought, that he had no cheque-book.

"Right!" said Kate, determined not to be deflected from her course.

She fished in her handbag for a piece of paper, took a pen from the

check-in counter, scribbled on the paper and thrust it at him.

"That's my address," she said, "send me the money. Hock your fur

coat if you have to. Just send it me. OK? I'm taking a flyer on

trusting you."

The big man took the scrap of paper, read the few words on it with

immense slowness, then folded it with elaborate care and put it into

the pocket of his coat. Again he bowed to her very slightly.

Kate suddenly realised that the check-in girl was silently waiting

for her pen back to fill in the credit card form. She pushed it back at

her in annoyance, handed over her own ticket and imposed on herself an

icy calm.

The airport Tannoy announced the departure of their flight.

"May I see your passports, please?" said the girl unhurriedly.

Kate handed hers over, but the big man didn't have one.

"You /what/?" exclaimed Kate. The airline girl simply stopped moving

at all and stared quietly at a random point on her desk waiting for

someone else to make a move. It wasn't her problem.

The man repeated angrily that he didn't have a passport. He shouted

it and banged his fist on the counter so hard that it was slightly

dented by the force of the blow.

Kate picked up her ticket, her passport and her credit card and

hoisted her garment bag back up on to her shoulder.

"This is when I get off," she said, and simply walked away. She felt

that she had made every effort a human being could possibly be expected

to make to catch her plane, but that it was not to be. She would send a

message to Jean-Philippe saying that she could not be there, and it

would probably sit in a slot next to his message to her saying why he

could not be there either. For once they would be equally absent.

For the time being she would go and cool off. She set off in search

of first a newspaper and then some coffee, and by dint of following the

appropriate signs was unable to locate either. She was then unable to

find a working phone from which to send a message, and decided to give

up on the airport altogether. Just get out, she told herself, find a

taxi, and go back home.

She threaded her way back across the check-in concourse, and had

almost made it to the exit when she happened to glance back at the

check-in desk that had defeated her, and was just in time to see it

shoot up through the roof engulfed in a ball of orange flame.

As she lay beneath a pile of rubble, in pain, darkness, and choking

dust, trying to find sensation in her limbs, she was at least relieved

to be able to think that she hadn't merely been imagining that this was

a bad day. So thinking, she passed out.

[::: CHAPTER 2 ::::::::::::]

The usual people tried to claim responsibility.

First the IRA, then the PLO and the Gas Board. Even British Nuclear

Fuels rushed out a statement to the effect that the situation was

completely under control, that it was a one in a million chance, that

there was hardly any radioactive leakage at all, and that the site of

the explosion would make a nice location for a day out with the kids

and a picnic, before finally having to admit that it wasn't actually

anything to do with them at all.

No cause could be found for the explosion.

It seemed to have happened spontaneously and of its own free will.

Explanations were advanced, but most of these were simply phrases which

restated the problem in different words, along the same principles

which had given the world "metal fatigue". In fact, a very similar

phrase was invented to account for the sudden transition of wood,

metal, plastic and concrete into an explosive condition, which was

"non-linear catastrophic structural exasperation", or to put it another

way -- as a junior cabinet minister did on television the following

night in a phrase which was to haunt the rest of his career -- the

check-in desk had just got "fundamentally fed up with being where it

was".

As in all such disastrous events, estimates of the casualties varied

wildly. They started at forty-seven dead, eighty-nine seriously

injured, went up to sixty-three dead, a hundred and thirty injured, and

rose as high as one hundred and seventeen dead before the figures

started to be revised downwards once more. The final figures revealed

that once all the people who could be accounted for had been accounted

for, in fact no one had been killed at all. A small number of people

were in hospital suffering from cuts and bruises and varying degrees of

traumatised shock, but that, unless anyone had any information about

anybody actually being missing, was that.

This was yet another inexplicable aspect to the whole affair. The

the force of the explosion had been enough to reduce a large part of the

front of Terminal Two to rubble, and yet everyone inside the building

had somehow either fallen very luckily, or been shielded from one piece

of falling masonry by another, or had the shock of the explosion

absorbed by their luggage. All in all, very little luggage had survived

at all. There were questions asked in Parliament about this, but not

very interesting ones.

It was a couple of days before Kate Schechter became aware of any of

these things, or indeed of anything at all in the outside world.

She passed the time quietly in a world of her own in which she was

surrounded as far as the eye could see with old cabin trunks full of

past memories in which she rummaged with great curiosity, and sometimes

bewilderment. Or, at least, about a tenth of the cabin trunks were full

of vivid, and often painful or uncomfortable memories of her past life;

the other nine-tenths were full of penguins, which surprised her.

Insofar as she recognised at all that she was dreaming, she realised

that she must be exploring her own subconscious mind. She had heard it

said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their

brains, and that no one was very clear what the other nine-tenths were

for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used

for storing penguins.

Gradually the trunks, the memories and the penguins began to grow

indistinct, to become all white and swimmy, then to become like walls

that was all white and swimmy, and finally to become walls that were

merely white, or rather a yellowish, greenish kind of off-white, and to

enclose her in a small room.

The room was in semi-darkness. A bedside light was on but turned

down low, and the light from a street lamp found its way between the

grey curtains and threw sodium patterns on the opposite wall. She

became dimly aware of the shadowed shape of her own body lying under

the white, turned-down sheet and the pale, neat blankets. She stared at

it for a nervous while, checking that it looked right before she tried,

tentatively, to move any part of it. She tried her right hand, and that

seemed to be fine. A little stiff and aching, but the fingers all

responded, and all seemed to be of the right length and thickness, and

to bend in the right places and in the right directions.

She panicked briefly when she couldn't immediately locate her left

hand, but then she found it lying across her stomach and nagging at her

in some odd way. It took her a second or two of concentration to put

together a number of rather disturbing feelings and realise that there

was a needle bandaged into her arm. This shook her quite badly. From

the needle there snaked a long thin transparent pipe that glistened

yellowly in the light from the street lamp and hung in a gentle curl

from a thick plastic bag suspended from a tall metal stand. An array of

horrors briefly assailed her in respect of this apparatus, but she

peered dimly at the bag and saw the words "Dextro-Saline". She made

herself calm down again and lay quietly for a few moments before

continuing her exploration.

Her ribcage seemed undamaged. Bruised and tender, but there was no

sharper pain anywhere to suggest that anything was broken. Her hips and

thighs ached and were stiff, but revealed no serious hurt. She flexed

the muscles down her right leg and then her left. She rather fancied

that her left ankle was sprained.

In other words, she told herself, she was perfectly all right. So

what was she doing here in what she could tell from the septic colour

of the paint was clearly a hospital?

She sat up impatiently, and immediately rejoined the pen guins for

an entertaining few minutes.

The next time she came round she treated herself with a little more

care, and lay quietly, feeling gently nauseous.

She poked gingerly at her memory of what had happened. It was dark

and blotchy and came at her in sick, greasy waves like the North Sea.

Lumpy things jumbled themselves out of it and slowly arranged

themselves into a heaving airport. The airport was sour and ached in

her head, and in the middle of it, pulsing like a migraine, was the

memory of a moment's whirling splurge of light.

It became suddenly very clear to her that the check-in concourse of

Terminal Two at Heathrow Airport had been hit by a meteorite.

Silhouetted in the flare was the fur-coated figure of a big man who

must have caught the full force of it and been reduced instantly to a

cloud of atoms that were free to go as they pleased. The thought caused

a deep and horrid shudder to go through her. He had been infuriating

and arrogant, but she had liked him in an odd way. There had been

something oddly noble in his perverse bloody-mindedness. Or maybe, she

realised, she liked to think that such perverse bloody-mindedness was

noble because it reminded her of herself trying to order pizza to be

delivered in an alien, hostile and non-pizza-delivering world.

Nobleness was one word for making a fuss about the trivial

inevitabilities of life, but there were others.

She felt a sudden surge of fear and loneliness, but it quickly ebbed

away and left her feeling much more composed, relaxed, and wanting to

go to the lavatory.

According to her watch it was shortly after three o'clock, and

according to everything else it was night-time. She should probably

call a nurse and let the world know she had come round. There was a

window in the side wall of the room through which she could see a dim

corridor in which stood a stretcher trolley and a tall black oxygen

bottle, but which was otherwise empty. Things were very quiet out

there.

Peering around her in the small room she saw a white-painted plywood

cupboard, a couple of tubular steel and vinyl chairs lurking quietly in

the shadows, and a white-painted plywood bedside cabinet which

supported a small bowl with a single banana in it. On the other side of

the bed stood her drip stand. Set into the wall on that side of the bed

was a metal plate with a couple of black knobs and a set of old

bakelite headphones hanging from it and wound around the tubular side

pillar of the bedhead was a cable with a bell push attached to it,

which she fingered, and then decided not to push.

She was fine. She could find her own way about.

Slowly, a little woozily, she pushed herself up on to her elbows,

and slid her legs out from under the sheets and on to the floor, which

was cold to her feet. She could tell almost immediately that she

shouldn't be doing this because every part of her feet was sending back

streams of messages telling her exactly what every tiniest bit of the

floor that they touched felt like, as if it was a strange and worrying

thing the like of which they had never encountered before. Nevertheless

she sat on the edge of the bed and made her feet accept the floor as

something they were just going to have to get used to.

The hospital had put her into a large, baggy, striped thing. It

wasn't merely baggy, she decided on examining it more closely, it

actually was a bag. A bag of loose blue and white striped cotton. It

opened up the back and let in chilly night draughts. Perfunctory

sleeves flopped half-way down her arms. She moved her arms around in

the light, examining the skin, rubbing it and pinching it, especially

around the bandage which held her drip needle in place. Normally her

arms were lithe and the skin was firm and supple. Tonight, however,

they looked like bits of chickens. Briefly she smoothed each forearm

with her other hand, and then looked up again, purposefully.

She reached out and gripped the drip stand and, because it wobbled

slightly less than she did, she was able to use it to pull herself

slowly to her feet. She stood there, her tall slim figure trembling,

and after a few seconds she held the drip stand away at a bent arm's

length, like a shepherd holding a crook.

She had not made it to Norway, but she was at least standing up.

The drip stand rolled on four small and independently perverse

wheels which behaved like four screaming children in a supermarket, but

nevertheless Kate was able to propel it to the door ahead of her.

Walking increased her sense of wooziness, but also increased her

resolve not to give in to it. She reached the door, opened it, and

pushing the drip stand out ahead of her, looked out into the corridor.

To her left the corridor ended in a couple of swing-doors with

circular porthole windows, which seemed to lead into a larger area, an

open ward perhaps. To her right a number of smaller doors opened off

the corridor as it continued on for a short distance before turning a

sharp corner. One of those doors would probably be the lavatory. The

others? Well, she would find out as she looked for the lavatory.

The first two were cupboards. The third was slightly bigger and had

a chair in it and therefore probably counted as a room since most

people don't like to sit in cupboards, even nurses, who have to do a

lot of things that most people wouldn't like to. It also had a stack of

styro beakers, a lot of semi-congealed coffee creamer and an elderly

coffee maker, all sitting on top of a small table together and seeping

grimly over a copy of the /Evening Standard/.

Kate picked up the dark, damp paper and tried to reconstruct some of

her missing days from it. However, what with her own wobbly condition

making it difficult to read, and the droopily stuck-together condition

of the newspaper, she was able to glean little more than the fact that

no one could really say for certain what had happened. It seemed that

no one had been seriously hurt, but that an employee of one of the

airlines was still unaccounted for. The incident had now been

officially classified as an "Act of God".

"Nice one, God," thought Kate. She put down the remains of the paper

and closed the door behind her.

The next door she tried was another small side ward like her own.

There was a bedside table and a single banana in the fruit bowl.

The bed was clearly occupied. She pulled the door to quickly, but

she did not pull it quickly enough. Unfortunately something odd had

caught her attention, but although she had noticed it, she could not

immediately say what it was. She stood there with the door half closed,

staring at the door, knowing that she should not look again, and

knowing that she would.

Carefully she eased the door back open again.

The room was darkly shadowed and chilly. The chilliness did not give

her a good feeling about the occupant of the bed. She listened. The

silence didn't sound too good either. It wasn't the silence of healthy

deep sleep, it was the silence of nothing but a little distant traffic

noise.

She hesitated for a long while, silhouetted in the doorway, looking

and listening. She wondered about the sheer bulk of the occupant of the

bed and how cold he was with just a thin blanket pulled over him. Next

to the bed was a small tubular-legged vinyl bucket chair which was

rather overwhelmed by the huge and heavy fur coat draped over it, and

Kate thought that the coat should more properly be draped over the bed

and its cold occupant.

At last, walking as softly and cautiously as she could, she moved

into the room and over to the bed. She stood looking down at the face

of the big, Nordic man. Though cold, and though his eyes were shut, his

face was frowning slightly as if he was still rather worried about

something. This struck Kate as being almost infinitely sad. In life the

man had had the air of someone who was beset by huge, if somewhat

puzzling, difficulties, and the appearance that he had almost

immediately found things beyond this life that were a bother to him as

well was miserable to contemplate.

She was astonished that he appeared to be so unscathed. His skin was

totally unmarked. It was rugged and healthy -- or rather had been

healthy until very recently. Closer inspection showed a network of fine

lines which suggested that he was older than the mid-thirties she had

originally assumed. He could even have been a very fit and healthy man

in his late forties.

Standing against the wall, by the door, was something unexpected. It

was a large Coca-Cola vending machine. It didn't look as if it had been

installed there: it wasn't plugged in and it had a small neat sticker

on it explaining that it was temporarily out of order. It looked as if

it had simply been left there inadvertently by someone who was probably

even now walking around wondering which room he had left it in. Its

large red and white wavy panel stared glassily into the room and did

not explain itself. The only thing the machine communicated to the

outside world was that there was a slot into which coins of a variety

of denominations might be inserted, and an aperture to which a variety

of different cans would be delivered if the machine was working, which

it was not. There was also an old sledge-hammer leaning against it

which was, in its own way, odd.

Faintness began to creep over Kate, the room began to develop a

slight spin, and there was some restless rustling in the cabin trunks

of her mind.

Then she realised that the rustling wasn't simply her imagination.

There was a distinct noise in the room -- a heavy, beating, scratching

noise, a muffled fluttering. The noise rose and fell like the wind, but

in her dazed and woozy state, Kate could not at first tell where the

noise was coming from. At last her gaze fell on the curtains. She

stared at them with the worried frown of a drunk trying to work out why

the door is dancing. The sound was coming from the curtains. She walked

uncertainly towards them and pulled them apart. A huge eagle with

circles tattooed on its wings was clattering and beating against the

window, staring in with great yellow eyes and pecking wildly at the

glass.

Kate staggered back, turned and tried to heave herself out of the

room. At the end of the corridor the porthole doors swung open and two

figures came through them. Hands rushed towards her as she became

hopelessly entangled in the drip stand and began slowly to spin towards

the floor.

She was unconscious as they carefully laid her back in her bed. She

was unconscious half an hour later when a disturbingly short figure in

a worryingly long white doctor's coat arrived, wheeled the big man away

on a stretcher trolley and then returned after a few minutes for the

Coca-Cola machine.

She woke a few hours later with a wintry sun seeping through the

window. The day looked very quiet and ordinary, but Kate was still

shaking.

[::: CHAPTER 3 ::::::::::::]

The same sun later broke in through the upper windows of a house in

North London and struck the peacefully sleeping figure of a man.

The room in which he slept was large and bedraggled and did not much

benefit from the sudden intrusion of light. The sun crept slowly across

the bedclothes, as if nervous of what it might find amongst them, slunk

down the side of the bed, moved in a rather startled way across some

objects it encountered on the floor, toyed nervously with a couple of

motes of dust, lit briefly on a stuffed fruitbat hanging in the corner,

and fled.

This was about as big an appearance as the sun ever put in here, and

it lasted for about an hour or so, during which time the sleeping

figure scarcely stirred.

At eleven o'clock the phone rang, and still the figure did not

respond, any more than it had responded when the phone had rung at

twenty-five to seven in the morning, again at twenty to seven, again at

ten to seven, and again for ten minutes continuously starting at five

to seven, after which it has settled into a long and significant

silence, disturbed only by the braying of police sirens in a nearby

street at around nine o'clock, the delivery of a large eighteenth-

century dual manual harpsichord at around nine-fifteen, and the

collection of same by bailiffs at a little after ten. This was a not

uncommon sort of occurrence -- the people concerned were accustomed to

finding the key under the doormat, and the man in the bed was

accustomed to sleeping through it. You would probably not say that he

was sleeping the sleep of the just, unless you meant the just asleep,

but it was certainly the sleep of someone who was not fooling about

when he climbed into bed of a night and turned off the light.

The room was not a room to elevate the soul. Louis XIV, to pick a

name at random, would not have liked it, would have found it not sunny

enough, and insufficiently full of mirrors. He would have desired

someone to pick up the socks, put the records away, and maybe burn the

place down. Michelangelo would have been distressed by its proportions,

which were neither lofty nor shaped by any noticeable inner harmony or

symmetry, other than that all parts of the room were pretty much

equally full of old coffee mugs, shoes and brimming ashtrays, most of

which were now sharing their tasks with each other. The walls were

painted in almost precisely that shade of green which Raffaello Sanzio

would have bitten off his own right hand at the wrist rather than use,

and Hercules, on seeing the room, would probably have returned half an

hour later armed with a navigable river. It was, in short, a dump, and

was likely to remain so for as long as it remained in the custody of Mr

Svlad, or "Dirk", Gently, né Cjelli.

At last Gently stirred.

The sheets and blankets were pulled up tightly around his head, but

from somewhere half way down the length of the bed a hand slowly

emerged from under the bedclothes and its fingers felt their way in

little tapping movements along the floor. Working from experience, they

neatly circumvented a bowl of something very nasty that had been

sitting there since Michaelmas, and eventually happened upon a half-

empty pack of untipped Gauloises and a box of matches. The fingers

shook a crumpled white tube free of the pack, seized it and the box of

matches, and then started to poke a way through the sheets tangled

together at the top of the bed, like a magician prodding at a

handkerchief from which he intends to release a flock of doves.

The cigarette was at last inserted into the hole. The cigarette was

lit. For a while the bed itself appeared to be smoking the cigarette in

great heaving drags. It coughed long, loud and shudderingly and then

began at last to breathe in a more measured rhythm. In this way, Dirk

Gently achieved consciousness.

He lay there for a while feeling a terrible sense of worry and guilt

about something weighing on his shoulders. He wished he could forget

about it, and promptly did. He levered himself out of bed and a few

minutes later padded downstairs.

The mail on the doormat consisted of the usual things: a rude letter

threatening to take away his American Express card, an invitation to

apply for an American Express card, and a few bills of the more

hysterical and unrealistic type. He couldn't understand why they kept

sending them. The cost of the postage seemed merely to be good money

thrown after bad. He shook his head in wonderment at the malevolent

incompetence of the world, threw the mail away, entered the kitchen and

approached the fridge with caution.

It stood in the corner.

The kitchen was large and shrouded in a deep gloom that was not

relieved, only turned yellow, by the action of switching on the light.

Dirk squatted down in front of the fridge and carefully examined the

edge of the door. He found what he was looking for. In fact he found

more than he was looking for.

Near the bottom of the door, across the narrow gap which separated

the door from the main body of the fridge, which held the strip of grey

insulating rubber, lay a single human hair. It was stuck there with

dried saliva. That he had expected. He had stuck it there himself three

days earlier and had checked it on several occasions since then. What

he had not expected to find was a second hair.

He frowned at it in alarm. A /second/ hair?

It was stuck across the gap in the same way as the first one, only

this hair was near the top of the fridge door, and he had not put it

there. He peered at it closely, and even went so far as to go and open

the old shutters on the kitchen windows to let some extra light in upon

the scene.

The daylight shouldered its way in like a squad of policemen, and

did a lot of /what's-all-this/ing around the room which, like the

bedroom, would have presented anyone of an aesthetic disposition with

difficulties. Like most of the rooms in Dirk's house it was large,

looming and utterly dishevelled. It simply sneered at anyone's attempts

to tidy it, sneered at them and brushed them aside like one of the

small pile of dead and disheartened flies that lay beneath the window,

on top of a pile of old pizza boxes.

The light revealed the second hair for what it was -- a grey hair at

root, dyed a vivid metallic orange. Dirk pursed his lips and thought

very deeply. He didn't need to think hard in order to realise who the

hair belonged to -- there was only one person who regularly entered the

kitchen looking as if her head had been used for extracting metal

oxides from industrial waste -- but he did have seriously to consider

the implications of the discovery that she had been plastering her hair

across the door of his fridge.

It meant that the silently waged conflict between himself and his

cleaning lady had escalated to a new and more frightening level. It was

now, Dirk reckoned, fully three months since this fridge door had been

opened, and each of them was grimly determined not to be the one to

open it first. The fridge no longer merely stood there in the corner of

the kitchen, it actually lurked. Dirk could quite clearly remember the

day on which the thing had started lurking. It was about a week ago,

when Dirk had tried a simple subterfuge to trick Elena -- the old bat's

name was Elena, pronounced to rhyme with cleaner, which was an irony

that Dirk now no longer relished -- into opening the fridge door. The

subterfuge had been deftly deflected and had nearly rebounded horribly

on Dirk.

He had resorted to the strategy of going to the local mini-market to

buy a few simple groceries. Nothing contentious -- a little milk, some

eggs, some bacon, a carton or two of chocolate custard and a simple

half-pound of butter. He had left them, innocently, on top of the

fridge as if to say, "Oh, when you have a moment, perhaps you could pop

these inside..."

When he had returned that evening his heart bounded to see that they

were no longer on top of the fridge. They were gone! They had not been

merely moved aside or put on a shelf, they were nowhere to be seen. She

must finally have capitulated and put them away. In the fridge. And she

would surely have cleaned it out once it was actually open. For the

first and only time his heart swelled with warmth and gratitude towards

her, and he was about to fling open the door of the thing in relief and

triumph when an eighth sense (at the last count, Dirk reckoned he had

eleven) warned him to be very, very careful, and to consider first

where Elena might have put the cleared out contents of the fridge.

A nameless doubt gnawed at his mind as he moved noiselessly towards

the garbage bin beneath the sink. Holding his breath, he opened the lid

and looked.

There, nestling in the folds of the fresh black bin liner, were his

eggs, his bacon, his chocolate custard and his simple half-pound of

butter. Two milk bottles stood rinsed and neatly lined up by the sink

into which their contents had presumably been poured.

She had thrown it away.

Rather than open the fridge door, she had thrown his food away. He

looked round slowly at the grimy, squat, white monolith, and that was

the exact moment at which he realised without a shadow of a doubt that

his fridge had now begun seriously to lurk.

He made himself a stiff black coffee and sat, slightly trembling. He

had not even looked directly at the sink, but he knew that he must

unconsciously have noticed the two clean milk bottles there, and some

busy part of his mind had been alarmed by them.

The next day he had explained all this away to himself. He was

becoming needlessly paranoiac. It had surely been an innocent or

careless mistake on Elena's part. She had probably been brooding

distractedly on her son's attack of bronchitis, peevishness or

homosexuality or whatever it was that regularly prevented her from

either turning up, or from having noticeable effect when she did. She

was Italian and probably had absent-mindedly mistaken his food for

garbage.

But the business with the hair changed all that. It established

beyond all possible doubt that she knew exactly what she was doing. She

was under no circumstances going to open the fridge door until he had

opened it first, and he was under no circumstances going to open the

fridge until she had.

Obviously she had not noticed his hair, otherwise it would have been

her most effective course simply to pull it off, thus tricking him into

thinking she had opened the fridge. He should presumably now remove her

hair in the hope of pulling that same trick on her, but even as he sat

there he knew that somehow that wouldn't work, and that they were

locked into a tightening spiral of non-fridge-opening that would lead

them both to madness or perdition.

He wondered if he could hire someone to come and open the fridge.

No. He was not in a position to hire anybody to do anything. He was

not even in a position to pay Elena for the last three weeks. The only

reason he didn't ask her to leave was that sacking somebody inevitably

involved paying them off, and this he was in no position to do. His

secretary had finally left him on her own initiative and gone off to do

something reprehensible in the travel business. Dirk had attempted to

cast scorn on her preferring monotony of pay over --

"/Regularity/ of pay," she had calmly corrected him.

-- over job satisfaction.

She had nearly said, "Over /what/?", but at that moment she realised

that if she said that she would have to listen to his reply, which

would be bound to infuriate her into arguing back. It occurred to her

for the first time that the only way of escaping was just not to get

drawn into these arguments. If she simply did not respond this time,

then she was free to leave. She tried it. She felt a sudden freedom.

She left. A week later, in much the same mood, she married an airline

cabin steward called Smith.

Dirk had kicked her desk over, and then had to pick it up himself

later when she didn't come back.

The detective business was currently as brisk as the tomb. Nobody,

it seemed, wished to have anything detected. He had recently, to make

ends meet, taken up doing palmistry in drag on Thursday evenings, but

he wasn't comfortable with it. He could have withstood it -- the

hateful, abject humiliation of it all was something to which he had, in

different ways, now become accustomed, and he was quite anonymous in

his little tent in the back garden of the pub -- he could have

withstood it all if he hadn't been so horribly, excruciatingly good at

it. It made him break out in a sweat of self-loathing. He tried by

every means to cheat, to fake, to be deliberately and cynically bad,

but whatever fakery he tried to introduce always failed and he

invariably ended up being right.

His worst moment had come about as a result of the poor woman from

Oxfordshire who had come in to see him one evening. Being in something

of a waggish mood, he had suggested that she should keep an eye on her

husband, who, judging by her marriage line, looked to be a bit of a

flighty type. It transpired that her husband was in fact a fighter

pilot, and that his plane had been lost in an exercise over the North

Sea only a fortnight earlier.

Dirk had been flustered by this and had soothed meaninglessly at

her. He was certain, he said, that her husband would be restored to her

in the fullness of time, that all would be well, and that all manner of

things would be well and so on. The woman said that she thought this

was not very likely seeing as the world record for staying alive in the

North Sea was rather less than an hour, and since no trace of her

husband had been found in two weeks it seemed fanciful to imagine that

he was anything other than stone dead, and she was trying to get used

to the idea, thank you very much. She said it rather tartly.

Dirk had lost all control at this point and started to babble.

He said that it was very clear from reading her hands that the great

sum of money she had coming to her would be no consolation to her for

the loss of her dear, dear husband, but that at least it might comfort

her to know that he had gone on to that great something or other in the

sky, that he was floating on the fleeciest of white clouds, looking

very handsome in his new set of wings, and that he was terribly sorry

to be talking such appalling drivel but she had caught him rather by

surprise. Would she care for some tea, or some vodka, or some soup?

The woman demurred. She said she had only wandered into the tent by

accident, she had been looking for the lavatories, and what was that

about the money?

"Complete gibberish," Dirk had explained. He was in great

difficulties, what with having the falsetto to keep up. "I was making

it up as I went along," he said. "Please allow me to tender my most

profound apologies for intruding so clumsily on your private grief, and

to escort you to, er, or rather, direct you to the, well, what I can

only in the circumstances call the lavatory, which is out of the tent

and on the left."

Dirk had been cast down by this encounter, but was then utterly

horrified a few days later when he discovered that the very following

morning the unfortunate woman had learnt that she had won £250,000 on

the Premium Bonds. He spent several hours that night standing on the

roof of his house, shaking his fist at the dark sky and shouting, "Stop

it!" until a neighbour complained to the police that he couldn't sleep.

The police had come round in a screaming squad car and woken up the

rest of the neighbourhood as well.

Today, this morning, Dirk sat in his kitchen and stared dejectedly

at his fridge. The bloody-minded ebullience which he usually relied on

to carry him through the day had been knocked out of him in its very

opening moments by the business with the fridge. His will sat

imprisoned in it, locked up by a single hair.

What he needed, he thought, was a client. Please, God, he thought,

if there is a god, any god, bring me a client. Just a simple client,

the simpler the better. Credulous and rich. Someone like that chap

yesterday. He tapped his fingers on the table.

The problem was that the more credulous the client, the more Dirk

fell foul at the end of his own better nature, which was constantly

rearing up and embarrassing him at the most inopportune moments. Dirk

frequently threatened to hurl his better nature to the ground and kneel

on its windpipe, but it usually managed to get the better of him by

dressing itself up as guilt and self-loathing, in which guise it could

throw him right out of the ring.

Credulous and rich. Just so that he could pay off some, perhaps even

just one, of the more prominent and sensational bills. He lit a

cigarette. The smoke curled upwards in the morning light and attached

itself to the ceiling.

Like that chap yesterday...

He paused.

The chap yesterday...

The world held its breath.

Quietly and gently there settled on him the knowledge that

something, somewhere, was ghastly. Something was terribly wrong.

There was a disaster hanging silently in the air around him waiting

for him to notice it. His knees tingled.

What he needed, he had been thinking, was a client. He had been

thinking that as a matter of habit. It was what he always thought at

this time of the morning. What he had forgotten was that he had one.

He stared wildly at his watch. Nearly eleven-thirty. He shook his

head to try and clear the silent ringing between his ears, then made a

hysterical lunge for his hat and his great leather coat that hung

behind the door.

Fifteen seconds later he left the house, five hours late but moving

fast.

[::: CHAPTER 4 ::::::::::::]

A minute or two later Dirk paused to consider his best strategy.

Rather than arrive five hours late and flustered it would be better all

round if he were to arrive five hours and a few extra minutes late, but

triumphantly in command.

"Pray God I am not too soon!" would be a good opening line as he

swept in, but it needed a good follow-through as well, and he wasn't

sure what it should be.

Perhaps it would save time if he went back to get his car, but then

again it was only a short distance, and he had a tremendous propensity

for getting lost when driving. This was largely because of his method

of "Zen' navigation, which was simply to find any car that looked as if

it knew where it was going and follow it. The results were more often

surprising than successful, but he felt it was worth it for the sake of

the few occasions when it was both.

Furthermore he was not at all certain that his car was working.

It was an elderly Jaguar, built at that very special time in the

company's history when they were making cars which had to stop for

repairs more often than they needed to stop for petrol, and frequently

needed to rest for months between outings. He was, however, certain,

now that he came to think about it, that the car didn't have any petrol

and furthermore he did not have any cash or valid plastic to enable him

to fill it up.

He abandoned that line of thought as wholly fruitless.

He stopped to buy a newspaper while he thought things over. The

clock in the newsagent's said eleven thirty-five. Damn, damn, damn. He

toyed with the idea of simply dropping the case. Just walking away and

forgetting about it. Having some lunch. The whole thing was fraught

with difficulties in any event. Or rather it was fraught with one

particular difficulty which was that of keeping a straight face. The

whole thing was complete and utter nonsense. The client was clearly

loopy and Dirk would not have considered taking the case except for one

very important thing.

Three hundred pounds a day plus expenses.

The client had agreed to it just like that. And when Dirk had

started his usual speech to the effect that his methods, involving as

they did the fundamental interconnectedness of all things, often led to

expenses that might appear to the untutored eye to be som

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens| Free Ebook 2021

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Wed, 23 Jun 2021 10:59:00 +0000

I have endeavored in this Ghostly little book A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humor with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

Their faithful Friend and Servant, C. D.

December 1843.

Start reading now

Stave 1: Marley’s Ghost
Stave 2: The First of the Three Spirits
Stave 3: The Second of the Three Spirits
Stave 4: The Last of the Spirits
Stave 5: The End of It

Bethmoora by Lord Dunsany| Free short Story

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:12:00 +0000

In this story, the writer tells us about Bethmoora by Lord Dunsany.

There is a faint freshness in the London night as though

some strayed reveler of a breeze had left his comrades in

the Kentish uplands and had entered the town by stealth.

The pavements are a little damp and shiny. Upon one's ears

that at this late hour have become very acute there hits the

tap of a remote footfall. Louder and louder grow the taps,

filling the whole night. And a black-cloaked figure passes

by and goes tapping into the dark. One who has danced goes

homewards. Somewhere a ball has closed its doors and

ended. Its yellow lights are out, its musicians are silent,

its dancers have all gone into the night air, and Time has

said of it, "Let it be passed and over, and among the things

that I have put away."

Shadows begin to detach themselves from their great

gathering places. No less silently than those shadows that

are thin and dead move homewards the stealthy cats. Thus

have we even in London our faint forebodings of the dawn's

approach, which the birds and the beasts and the stars are

crying aloud to the untrammeled fields.

At what moment I know not I perceive that the night

itself is irrecoverably overthrown. It is suddenly revealed

to me by the weary pallor of the street lamps that the

streets are silent and nocturnal still, not because there is

any strength in the night, but because men have not yet arisen

from sleep to defy him. So have I seen dejected and untidy

guards still bearing antique muskets in palatial gateways,

although the realms of the monarch that they guard have

shrunk to a single province which no enemy yet has troubled

to overrun.

And it is now manifest from the aspect of the street

lamps, those abashed dependants of night, that already

English mountain peaks have seen the dawn, that the cliffs

of Dover are standing white to the morning, that the

sea-mist has lifted and is pouring inland.

And now men with a hose have come and are sluicing out

the streets.

Behold now night is dead.

What memories, what fancies throng one's mind! A night

but just now gathered out of London by the hostile hand of

Time. A million common artificial things all cloaked for a

while in mystery, like beggars robed in purple, and seated

on dread thrones. Four million people asleep, dreaming

perhaps. What worlds have they gone into? Whom have they

met? But my thoughts are far off with Bethmoora in her

loneliness, whose gates swing to and fro. To and fro they

swing, and creak and creak in the wind, but no one hears

them. They are of green copper, very lovely, but no one

sees them now. The desert wind pours sand into their

hinges, no watchman comes to ease them. No guard goes round

Bethmoora's battlements, no enemy assails them. There are

no lights in her houses, no footfall in her streets; she

stands there dead and lonely beyond the Hills of Hap, and I

would see Bethmoora once again, but dare not.

It is many a year, as they tell me, since Bethmoora

became desolate.

Her desolation is spoken of in taverns where sailors

meet, and certain travelers have told me of it.

I had hoped to see Bethmoora once again. It is many a

year ago, they say when the vintage was last gathered in

from the vineyards that I knew, where it is all desert now.

It was a radiant day, and the people of the city were

dancing by the vineyards, while here and there one played

upon the kalipac. The purple flowering shrubs were all in

bloom, and the snow shone upon the Hills of Hap.

Outside the copper gates, they crushed the grapes in vats

to make the syllabub. It had been a goodly vintage.

In little gardens at the desert's edge men beat the

tambang and the tittibuk, and blew melodiously the zootibar.

All there was mirth and song and dance, because the

vintage had been gathered in, and there would be ample

syrabub for the winter months, and much left over to

exchange for turquoises and emeralds with the merchants who

come down from Oxuhahn. Thus they rejoiced all day over

their vintage on the narrow strip of cultivated ground that

lay between Bethmoora and the desert which meets the sky to

the South. And when the heat of the day began to abate, and

the sun drew near to the snows on the Hills of Hap, the note

of the zootibar still rose clear from the gardens, and the

brilliant dresses of the dancers still wound among the

flowers. All that day three men on mules had been noticed

crossing the face of the Hills of Hap. Backward and

forwards they moved as the track wound lower and lower,

three little specks of black against the snow. They were

seen first in the very early morning up near the shoulder of

Pool Jagganoth and seemed to be coming out of Uttar Vehi.

All-day they came. And in the evening, just before lights

come out and colors change, they appeared before

Bethmoora's copper gates. They carried staves, such as

messengers bear in those lands and seemed sombrely clad

when the dancers all came round them with their green and

lilac dresses. Those Europeans who were present and heard

the message given were ignorant of the language, and only

caught the name of Uttar Vehi. But it was brief and passed

rapidly from mouth to mouth, and almost at once the people

burnt their vineyards and began to flee away from Bethmoora,

going for the most part northwards, though some went to the

East. They ran down out of their fair white houses, and

streamed through the copper gate; the throbbing of the

tambang and the tittibuk suddenly ceased with the note of

the zootibar, and the clinking kalipac stopped a moment

after. The three strange travelers went back the way they

came the instant their message was given. It was the hour

when a light would have appeared in some high tower, and

window after window would have poured into the dusk its

lion-frightening light, and the copper gates would have been

fastened up. But no lights came out in windows there that

night and have not ever since, and those copper gates were

left wide and have never shut, and the sound arose of the

red fire crackling in the vineyards, and the pattering of

feet fleeing softly. There were no cries, no other sounds

at all, only the rapid and determined flight. They fled as

swiftly and quietly as a herd of wild cattle flees when they

suddenly see a man. It was as though something had befallen

which had been feared for generations, which could only be

escaped by instant flight, which left no time for

indecision.

Then fear took the Europeans also, and they too fled.

And what the message was I have never heard.

Many believe that it was a message from Thuba Mleen, the

mysterious emperor of those lands, who is never seen by man,

advising that Bethmoora should be left desolate. Others say

that the message was one of warning from the gods, whether

from friendly gods or from adverse ones they know not.

And others hold that the Plague was ravaging a line of

cities over in Uttar Vehi, following the South-west wind

which for many weeks had been blowing across them towards

Beth Moore.

Some say that the terrible gnousar sickness was upon the

three travelers, and that their very mules were dripping

with it, and suppose that they were driven to the city by

hunger, but suggest no better reason for so terrible a

crime.

But most believe that it was a message from the desert

himself, who owns all the Earth to the southwards, spoken

with his peculiar cry to those three who knew his voice --

men who had been out on the sand-wastes without tents by

night, who had been by day without water, men who had been

out there where the desert mutters and had grown to know

his needs and his malevolence. They say that the desert had

a need for Bethmoora, that he wished to come into her lovely

streets, and to send into her temples and her houses his

storm-winds draped with sand. For he hates the sound and

the sight of men in his old evil heart, and he would have

Bethmoora silent and undisturbed, save for the weird love he

whispers at her gates.

If I knew what that message was that the three men

brought on mules, and told in the copper gate, I think that

I should go and see Bethmoora once again. For a great

longing comes on me here in London to see once more that

white and beautiful city; and yet I dare not, for I know not

the danger I should have to face, whether I should risk the

fury of unknown dreadful gods, or some disease unspeakable

and slow, or the desert's curse, or torture in some little

private room of the Emperor Thuba Meleen, or something that

the travelers have not told -- perhaps more fearful still.

The Bad Old Woman in Black by Lord Dunsany|Free Ebook

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Mon, 21 Jun 2021 09:04:00 +0000

The bad old woman in black ran down the street of the ox-butchers.

Windows at once were opened high up in those crazy

gables; heads were thrust out: it was she. Then there arose

the counsel of anxious voices, calling sideways from window

to window or across to opposite houses. Why was she there

with her sequins and bugles and old black gown? Why had she

left her dreaded house? On what fell errand she hasted?

They watched her lean, lithe figure, and the wind in that

old black dress, and soon she was gone from the cobbled

street and under the town's high gateway. She turned at

once to her right and was hid from the view of the houses.

Then they all ran down to their doors, and small groups

formed on the pavement; there they took counsel together,

the eldest speaking first. Of what they had seen they said

nothing, for there was no doubt it was she; it was of the

future they spoke, and the future only.

In what notorious thing would her errand end? What gains

had tempted her out from her fearful home? What brilliant

but sinful scheme had her genius planned? Above all, what

future evil did this portend? Thus at first, it was only questioned. And then the old grey-beards spoke, each one to

a little group; they had seen her out before, had known her

when she was younger and had noted the evil things that had

followed her goings: the small groups listened well to their

low and earnest voices. No one asked questions now or

guessed at her infamous errand, but listened only to the

wise old men who knew the things that had been, and who told

the younger men of the dooms that had come before.

Nobody knew how many times she had left her dreaded

house; but the oldest recounted all the times that they

knew, and the way she had gone each time, and the doom that

had followed her going, and two could remember the

the earthquake that there was in the street of the shearers.

So were there many tales of the times that were, told on

the pavement near the old green doors by the edge of the

cobbled street, and the experience that the aged men had

bought with their white hairs might be had cheap by the

young. But from all their experience only this was clear,

that never twice in their lives had she done the same

infamous thing, and that the same calamity twice had never

followed her goings. Therefore it seemed that means were

doubtful and few for finding out what thing was about to

befall, and an ominous feeling of the gloom came down on the

street of the ox-butchers. And in the gloom grew fears of

the very worst. This comfort they only had when they put

their fear into words -- that the doom that followed her

goings had never yet been anticipated. One feared that with

the magic she meant to move the moon, and he would have dammed

the high tide on the neighboring coast, knowing that as the

moon attracted the sea must attract the moon, and

hoping by his device to humble her spells. Another would

have fetched iron bars and clamped them across the street,

remembering the earthquake there was in the street of the

shearers. Another would have honored his household gods,

the little cat-faced idols seated above his hearth, gods to

whom magic was no unusual thing, and, having paid their fees

and honored them well, would have put the whole case before

them. His scheme found favor with many, and yet at last

was rejected, for others ran indoors and brought out their

gods too, to be honored, till there was a herd of gods all

seated there on the pavement; yet would they have honored

them and put their case before them but that a fat man ran

up last of all, carefully holding under a reverent arm his

own two hound-faced gods, though he knew well -- as indeed,

all men must -- that they were notoriously at war with the

little cat-faced idols. And although the animosities

natural to the faith had all been lulled by the crisis, yet a

the look of anger had come into the cat-like faces that no one

dared disregard, and all perceived that if they stayed a

moment longer there would be flaming around them the

jealousy of the gods; so each man hastily took his idols

home, leaving the fat man insisting that his hound-faced

gods should be honored.

Then there were schemes again and voices raised in

debate and many new dangers feared and new plans made.

But in the end, they made no defense against danger, for

they knew not what it would be, but wrote upon parchment as

a warning, and so that all might know: "*The bad old

woman in black ran down the street of the ox-butchers.*"

The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 08:24:00 +0000

The true story of Khaled Hosseini is The Kite Runner . He tells us Amir's companion as a child was his servant.

Amir, a well-to-do Pashtun boy, and Hassan, a Hazara and the son of Amir's father's servant, Ali, spend their days in a peaceful Kabul, kite fighting, roaming the streets, and being boys. Amir’s father (who is generally referred to as Baba, "daddy", throughout the book) loves both the boys, but seems critical of Amir for not being manly enough. Amir also fears his father blames him for his mother’s death during childbirth. However, he has a kind father figure in the form of Rahim Khan, Baba’s friend, who understands Amir better, and is supportive of his interest in writing stories.

Assef, a notoriously mean and violent older boy with sadistic tendencies, blames Amir for socializing with a Hazara, according to Assef an inferior race that should only live in Hazarajat. He prepares to attack Amir with his steel knuckles, but Hassan bravely stands up to him, threatening to shoot Assef in the eye with his slingshot. Assef and his henchmen back off, but Assef says he will take revenge.

Hassan is a successful "kite runner" for Amir, knowing where the kite will land without even watching it. One triumphant day, Amir wins the local tournament, and finally Baba's praise. Hassan goes running the last cut kite, a great trophy, for Amir saying "For you, thousand times over." Unfortunately, Hassan runs into Assef and his two henchmen. Hassan refuses to give up Amir's kite, so Assef exacts his revenge, assaulting and raping him. Wondering why Hassan is taking so long, Amir searches for Hassan and hides when he hears Assef's voice. He witnesses the rape but is too scared to help him. Afterward, for some time Hassan and Amir keep a distance from each other. Amir reacts indifferently because he feels ashamed, and is frustrated by Hassan's saint-like behavior. Already jealous of Baba's love for Hassan, he worries if Baba knew how bravely Hassandefended Amir's kite, and how cowardly Amir acted, that Baba's love for Hassan would grow even more.

To force Hassan to leave, Amir frames him as a thief, and Hassan falsely confesses. Baba forgives him, even though, as he explained earlier, he believes that "there is no act more wretched than stealing." Hassan and his father Ali, to Baba's extreme sorrow, leave anyway. Hassan's departure frees Amir of the daily reminder of his cowardice and betrayal, but he still lives in their shadow and his guilt.

Five years later, the Russians invade Afghanistan; Amir and Baba escape to Peshawar, Pakistan, and then to Fremont, California, where Amir and Baba, who lived in luxury in an expansive mansion in Afghanistan, settle in a run-down apartment and Baba begins work at a gas station. Amir eventually takes classes at a local community college to develop his writing skills. Every Sunday, Baba, and Amir make extra money selling used goods at a flea market in San Jose. There, Amir meets fellow refugee Soraya Taheri and her family; Soraya's father, who was a high-ranking officer in Afghanistan, has contempt of Amir's literary aspiration. Baba is diagnosed with terminal oat cell carcinoma but is still capable of granting Amir one last favor: he asks Soraya's father's permission for Amir to marry her. He agrees and the two marry. Shortly thereafter Baba dies. Amir and Soraya learn that they cannot have children.

Amir embarks on a successful career as a novelist. Fifteen years after his wedding, Amir receives a call from Rahim Khan, who is dying from an illness. Rahim Khan asks Amir to come to Pakistan. He enigmatically tells Amir "there is a way to be good again." Amir goes.

From Rahim Khan, Amir learns the fates of Ali and Hassan. Ali was killed by a land mine. Hassan had a wife and a son, named Sohrab, and had returned to Baba’s house as a caretaker at Rahim Khan’s request. One day the Taliban ordered him to give it up and leave, but he refused and was murdered, along with his wife. Rahim Khan reveals that Ali was not really Hassan's father. Hassan was actually the son of Baba, therefore Amir's half-brother. Finally, Rahim Khan tells Amir that the true reason he has called Amir to Pakistan is to go to Kabul to rescue Hassan's son, Sohrab, from an orphanage.

Amir returns to Taliban-controlled Kabul with a guide, Farid, and searches for Sohrab at the orphanage. To enter Taliban territory, Amir, who is normally clean-shaven, dons a fake beard and mustache, because otherwise, the Taliban would exact Shariah's punishment against him. However, he does not find Sohrab where he was supposed to be: the director of the orphanage tells them that a Taliban official comes often, brings cash, and usually takes a girl back with him. Once in a while, however, he takes a boy, recently Sohrab. The director tells Amir to go to a soccer match and the man "who does the speeches" is the man who took Sohrab. Farid manages to secure an appointment with the speaker at his home, by saying that he and Amir have "personal business" with him.

At the house, Amir has his meeting with the man in sunglasses, who says the man who does the speeches is not available,. The man in sunglasses is eventually revealed to be his childhood nemesis, Assef. Assef is aware of Amir's identity from the very beginning, but Amir doesn't realize who he's sitting across from until Assef starts asking about Ali, Baba, and Hassan. Sohrab is being kept at the home where he is made to dance dressed in women's clothes, and it seems Assef might have been sexually assaulting him. (Sohrab later says, "I'm so dirty and full of sin. The bad man and the other two did things to me.") Assef agrees to relinquish him, but only for a price - cruelly beating Amir. However, Amir is saved when Sohrab uses his slingshot to shoot out Assef's left eye, fulfilling the threat his father had made many years before.

Amir tells Sohrab of his plans to take him back to America and possibly adopt him and promises that he will never be sent to an orphanage again. After almost having to break that promise (after decades of war, paperwork documenting Sohrab's orphan status, as demanded by the US authorities, is impossible to get) and Sohrab attempting suicide, Amir manages to take him back to the United States and introduces him to his wife. However, Sohrab is emotionally damaged and refuses to speak or even glance at Soraya. This continues until his frozen emotions are thawed when Amir reminisces about his father, Hassan, while kite flying. Amir shows off some of Hassan’s tricks, and Sohrab begins to interact with Amir again. In the end, Sohrab only shows a lopsided smile, but Amir takes to it with all his heart as he runs the kite for Sohrab, saying, "For you, thousand times over.".

Major Characters

Amir

• main character and narrator

• Best friend of Hassan, son of Baba, husband of Soraya

• Makes a decision as a child which haunts him in adulthood

• Half brother of Hassan (both Baba's progeny)

• Adoptive father of Sohrab

Hassan

• Best friend and servant of Amir

• Thought to be the son of Ali, but it is revealed in chapter 17 he is actually Baba's son

• Loyal to Amir despite any impact it may have on himself

Baba

• Father of Amir (and Hassan)

• Wealthy citizen of Kabul who is known for his public works

• Has a strained relationship with his son, Amir

• Respected by citizens of Kabul

• Dies of lung cancer

Ali

• Servant of Baba, the supposed father of Hassan

• Like a brother to Baba

• Leg crippled from Polio

• Poor

• Dies from a landmine explosion

• Hazara

• He can not have kids because of the Polio (Which Amir Learns Later)

Rahim Khan

• business associate and close friend of Baba

• Has a close relationship with Amir

• Also the main reason Amir returns back to the middle east

Assef

• Antagonist

• Neighborhood bully who hates Hassan because he is of Hazara descent.

• Firm believer in the ways of Adolf Hitler.

• Future leader of Taliban

• Takes Sohrab from an orphanage in Kabul

Soraya

• Afghan living in California

• Wife of Amir

Sohrab

• Orphan son of Hassan

• Adopted by Amir

• Amir's half-nephew

• Suffers from depression, and attempts suicide

The Old Man and the Sea free online reading Ebook

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sun, 20 Jun 2021 07:48:00 +0000

The Old Man and the Sea is a novella (by Ernest Hemingway, written in Cuba in 1951 and published in 1952.

It was the last major work of fiction to be produced by Hemingway and published in his lifetime. One of his most famous works, it centers upon Santiago, an aging Cuban fisherman who struggles with a giant marlin far out in the Gulf Stream. It is noteworthy in twentieth-century fiction, reaffirming Hemingway's worldwide literary prominence as well as being a significant factor in his selection for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1954. Background and publication Most people maintain that the years following Hemingway's publication of For Whom the Bell Tolls in 1940 until 1952 were the bleakest in his literary career.

The novel Across the River and Into the Trees (1950) was almost unanimously disparaged by critics as self-parody. Evidently, his participation as an Allied correspondent in World War II did not yield fruits equivalent to those wrought of his experiences in World War I (A Farewell to Arms, 1929) or the Spanish Civil War (For Whom the Bell Tolls). Hemingway had initially planned to use Santiago's story, which became The Old Man and the Sea, as part of a random intimacy between mother and son and also the fact of relationships that cover most of the book relates to the Bible, which he referred to as "The Sea Book." (He also referred to the Bible as the "Sea of Knowledge" and other such things.) Some aspects of it did appear in the posthumously published Islands in the Stream. The positive feedback he received for On the Blue Water (Esquire, April 1936) led him to rewrite it as an independent work. The book is a novella because it has no chapters or parts and is slightly longer than a short story. The novella first appeared, in its 26,500-word entirety, as part of the September 1, 1952 edition of Life magazine. 5.3 million copies of that issue were sold within two days. The majority of concurrent criticism was positive, although some dissenting criticism has since emerged. The title was misprinted on the cover of an early edition as The Old Men and the Sea.

Inspiration for character

Gregorio Fuentes is one possible model for Hemingway's eponymous "Old Man". While Hemingway was living in Cuba beginning in 1940 with his third wife Martha Gellhorn, one of his favorite pastimes was to sail and fish in his boat named the Pilar. General biographical consensus holds that the model for Santiago in The Old Man and the Sea was, at least in part, the Cuban fisherman Gregorio Fuentes. Fuentes, also known as Goyo to his friends, was born in 1897 on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, migrated to Cuba when he was six years old, and met Hemingway there in 1928. In the 1930s, Hemingway hired him to look after his boat. During Hemingway's Cuban years a strong friendship formed between Hemingway and Fuentes. For almost thirty years, Fuentes served as the captain of the Pilar; this included time during which Hemingway did not live in Cuba.

Fuentes at times would admit that the story was not exactly about him. He related that the true inspiration of the old man and the boy did exist but they never knew who they were. The story goes that in the late 1940s, upon return from an early morning fishing trip, Fuentes and Hemingway saw a small rowboat 10 miles out to sea. Hemingway asked Fuentes to approach the vessel to see if they needed help. Inside the boat were an old man and a boy. As the vessels closed in the old man began yelling at them with insults including telling them to go to hell, indicating that they had scared away the fish. According to Fuentes, he and Hemingway looked at each other in surprise. Just the same, Hemingway asked Fuentes to lower them some food and drinks while the old man and boy glared at them. Without another word exchanged, the two boats parted ways.

According to Fuentes, Hemingway began immediately to write in his notebook and later asked him to find the old man. According to Fuentes, he never was able to find the fisherman that had made such an impression on Hemingway. Fuentes recounts that this was the real origin of the lore. A few years after. The Old Man and the Sea were published, residents of Cojimar believed that the old fisherman that Fuentes and Hemingway ran into at sea was a humble local fisherman they called el Viejo Miguel; some described his physical appearance as a wiry Spencer Tracy.

Fuentes, suffering from cancer, died in 2002; he was 104 years old. Prior to his death, he donated Hemingway's Pilar to the Cuban government Plot summary. The Old Man and the Sea recounts an epic battle between an old, experienced fisherman and a giant marlin said to be the largest catch of his life. It opens by explaining that the fisherman, who is named Santiago, has gone 84 days without catching any fish at all. He is apparently so unlucky that his young apprentice, Manolin, has been forbidden by his parents to sail with the old man and been ordered to fish with more successful fishermen. Still dedicated to the old man, however, the boy visits Santiago's shack each night, hauling back his fishing gear, feeding him, and discussing American baseball — most notably Santiago's idol, Joe DiMaggio. Santiago tells Manolin that on the next day, he will venture far out into the Gulf to fish, confident that his unlucky streak is near its end.

Thus on the eighty-fifth day, Santiago sets out alone, taking his skiff far into the Gulf. He sets his lines and, by noon of the first day, a big fish that he is sure is a marlin takes his bait. Unable to pull in the great marlin, Santiago instead finds the fish pulling his skiff. Two days and two nights pass in this manner, during which the old man bears the tension of the line with his body. Though he is wounded by the struggle and in pain, Santiago expresses a compassionate appreciation for his adversary, often referring to him as a brother. He also determines that because of the fish's great dignity, no one will be worthy of eating the marlin. On the third day of the ordeal, the fish begins to circle the skiff, indicating his tiredness to the old man. Santiago, now completely worn out and almost in delirium, uses all the strength he has left in him to pull the fish onto its side and stab the marlin with a harpoon, thereby ending the long battle between the old man and the tenacious fish. Santiago straps the marlin to his skiff and heads home, thinking about the high price the fish will bring him at the market and how many people he will feed. While Santiago continues his journey back to the shore, sharks are attracted to the trail of blood left by the marlin in the water.

The first, a great mako shark, Santiago kills with his harpoon, losing that weapon in the process. He makes a new harpoon by strapping his knife to the end of an oar to help ward off the next line of sharks; in total, five sharks are slain and many others are driven away. But by night, the sharks have almost devoured the marlin's entire carcass, leaving a skeleton consisting mostly of its backbone, its tail, and its head, the latter still bearing the giant spear. The old man castigates himself for sacrificing the marlin. Finally reaching the shore before dawn on the next day, he struggles on the way to his shack, carrying the heavy mast on his shoulder. Once home, he slumps onto his bed and enters a very deep sleep. A group of fishermen gathers the next day around the boat where the fish's skeleton is still attached. One of the fishermen measures it to be eighteen feet from nose to tail. Tourists at the nearby café mistakenly take it for a shark. Manolin, worried during the old man's endeavor, cries upon finding him safe asleep. The boy brings him newspapers and coffee. When the old man wakes, they promise to fish together once again. Upon his return to sleep, Santiago dreams of lions on the African beach.

Symbolism of character

The Old Man and the Sea allow various interpretations. Hemingway emphasizes that No good book has ever been written that has in it symbols arrived at beforehand and stuck in. ... I tried to make a real old man, a real boy, a real sea and a real fish and real sharks. But if I made them good and true enough they would mean many things.

The style of the work, the simplicity, and the concreteness of its descriptions provide a rich opportunity for symbolic interpretations. Some insights follow. Santiago represents Christ's suffering. Hemingway compares him to Jesus Christ on several occasions. He describes Santiago's cry as "...a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hand and into the wood" (107). Santiago also "...picked the mast up and put it on his shoulder and started up the road. He...[sat] down five times before he reached his shack" .much like Jesus did on the journey to his crucifixion, carrying the cross.

Later Santiago sleeps "...face down ... with his arms out straight and the palms of his hands up" the position of Jesus on the cross. All throughout the book, the old man wishes for salt, a staple seasoning in the human diet. He is a fisherman, similar to Christ's disciples. It is also quite ironic that he is longing for salt in the environment that abounds in besides open space, salty seawater. Quite like the predicament of man, he feels he is surrounded by "it" yet it is the precise "it" that he longs for. He wishes the dissolved salt (it) could crystallize and be intelligible to him. The marlin represents what man is searching for whether it may be good or bad. Some men love their gods, but he hates the fish as men hate their gods. The fish was very beautiful and huge and Santiago felt a connection with it, considering it his brother. Hemingway says that Santiago is not a religious man, but he seems to have some faith as shown by his offers to say his "Hail Marys" and praises if he catches the marlin.

Literary significance and criticism

The Old Man and the Sea served to reinvigorate Hemingway's literary reputation and prompted a reexamination of his entire body of work. The novella was initially received with much popularity; it restored many readers' confidence in Hemingway's capability as an author. Its publisher, Scribner's, on an early dust jacket, called the novella a "new classic," and many critics favorably compared it with such works as William Faulkner's "The Bear" and Herman Melville's Moby-Dick. Following such acclaim, however, a school of critics emerged that interpreted the novella as a disappointing minor work. For example, critic Philip Young provided an admiring review in 1952, just following The Old Man and the Sea's publication, in which he stated that it was the book "in which Hemingway said the finest single thing he ever had to say as well as he could ever hope to say it." However, in 1966, Young claimed that the "failed novel" too often "went way out."

These self-contradictory views show that critical reaction ranged from adoration of the book's mythical, pseudo-religious intonations to flippant dismissal as pure fakery. The latter is founded in the notion that Hemingway, once a devoted student of realism, failed in his depiction of Santiago as a supernatural, clairvoyant impossibility. Joseph Waldmeir's essay entitled "Confiteor Hominem: Ernest Hemingway's Religion of Man" is one of the most famed favorable critical readings of the novella—and one which has defined analytical considerations since. Perhaps the most memorable claim therein is Waldmeir's answer to the Just what is the book's message? The answer assumes a third level on which The Old Man and the Sea must be read—as a sort of allegorical commentary on all his previous work, by means of which it may be established that the religious overtones of The Old Man and the Sea are not peculiar to that book among Hemingway's works and that Hemingway has finally taken the decisive step in elevating what might be called his philosophy of Manhood to the level of a religion. As of 2006, the current cover for the Charles Scribner's Sons edition of the novella Waldmeir was one of the most prominent critics to wholly consider the function of the novella's Christian imagery, made most evident through Santiago's blatant reference to the crucifixion following his sighting of the sharks that reads: Ay, he said aloud. There is no translation for this word and perhaps it is just a noise such as a man might make, involuntarily, feeling the nail go through his hands and into the wood. Waldmeir's analysis of this line, supplemented with other instances of similar symbolism, caused him to claim that The Old Man and the Sea was a seminal work in raising Hemingway's "philosophy of Manhood" to a religious level. This hallmark criticism stands as one of the most durable, positive treatments of the novella. On the other hand, one of the most outspoken critics of The Old Man and the Sea is Robert P. Weeks. His 1962 piece "Fakery in The Old Man and the Sea" presents his claim that the novella is a weak and unexpected divergence from the typical, realistic Hemingway (referring to the rest of Hemingway's body of work as "earlier glories").

In juxtaposing this novella against Hemingway's previous works, Weeks explains that The difference, however, in the effectiveness with which Hemingway employs this characteristic device in his best work and in The Old Man and the Sea is illuminating. The work of fiction in which Hemingway devoted the most attention to natural objects, The Old Man and the Sea, is pieced out with an extraordinary quantity of fakery, extraordinary because one would expect to find no inexactness, no romanticizing of natural objects in a writer who loathed W.H. Hudson, could not read Thoreau, deplored Melville's rhetoric in Moby Dick, and who was himself criticized by other writers, notably Faulkner, for his devotion to the facts and his unwillingness to "invent."

Awards and nominations

The Old Man and the Sealed to numerous accolades for Hemingway, including the 1953 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

He also earned the Award of Merit Medal for the Novel from the American Academy of Letters that same year. Most prestigiously, the Nobel Prize in Literature came in 1954, "for his mastery of the art of narrative, most recently demonstrated in The Old Man and the Sea, and for the influence that he has exerted on contemporary style."

Pop culture references

The Old Man and the Sea were referenced in an episode of South Park named "D-Yikes!", where an angry Mr. Garrison assigns his class a homework assignment of reading the book and writing an essay about it over a weekend.

The boys then pay a group of Mexicans to do it for them. It was also featured in the episode of Arrested Development where Maeby tries to adapt it into a feature film. Due to being skewed for younger audiences, the film is changed to The Young Man and the Beach, starring Jude Law. The character Peter Griffin appears reading this book in an episode of Family Guy named "The Thin White Line".

The video game World of Warcraft features a fishing trainer with a name that is presumably a reference to The Old Man and the Sea. The titles of three episodes of The Simpsons reference the book, those being "The Old Man and the Lisa", "The Old Man and the Key", and "The Old Man and the 'C' Student". Sage Francis' song "Black Out on White Night" from the album Human the Death Dance samples the lines "It was too good to last, he thought" and "Might as well have been a dream, he thought". It was referenced by Sol in Notes from the Midnight Driver. The Old Man and the Sea was the main plot of an episode of Case Closed special edition manga.

The Exiles Club by Lord Dunsany| Free Ebook

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Wed, 16 Jun 2021 15:48:00 +0000

Free online Ebook of The Exiles Club by Lord Dunsany

It was an evening party, and something someone had said to

I had started me talking about a subject that to me is full

of fascination, the subject of old religions, forsaken

gods. The truth (for all religions have some of it), the

wisdom, the beauty, of the religions of countries to which I

travel have not the same appeal to me; for one only notices

in them their tyranny and intolerance and the abject

servitude that they claim from thought; but when a dynasty

has been dethroned in heaven and goes forgotten and outcast

even among men, one's eyes no longer dazzled by its power

find something very wistful in the faces of fallen gods

suppliant to be remembered, something almost tearfully

beautiful, like a long warm summer twilight fading gently

away after some day memorable in the story of earthly wars.

Between what Zeus, for instance, has been once and the

half-remembered tale he is to-day there lies a space so

great that there is no change of fortune known to man

whereby we may measure the height down which he has fallen.

And it is the same with many another god at whom once the

ages trembled and the twentieth century treats as an old

wives' tale. The fortitude that such a fall demands is

surely more than human.

Some such things as these I was saying, and being upon a

subject that much attracts me I possibly spoke too loudly,

certainly I was not aware that standing close behind me was

no less a person than the ex-King of Eritivaria, the thirty

islands of the East, or I would have moderated my voice and

moved away a little to give him more room. I was not aware

of his presence until his satellite, one who had fallen with

him into exile but still revolved about him, told me that

his master desired to know me; and so to my surprise I was

presented though neither of them even knew my name. And

that was how I came to be invited by the ex-King to dine at

his club.

At the time I could only account for his wishing to know

me by supposing that he found in his own exiled condition

some likeness to the fallen fortunes of the gods of whom I

talked unwitting of his presence; but now I know that it was

not of himself he was thinking when he asked me to dine at

that club.

The club would have been the most imposing building in

any street in London, but in that obscure mean quarter of

London in which they had built it it appeared unduly

enormous. Lifting right up above those grotesque houses and

built in that Greek style that we call Georgian, there was

something Olympian about it. To my host an unfashionable

street could have meant nothing, through all his youth

wherever he had gone had become fashionable the moment he

went there; words like the East End could have had no

meaning to him.

Whoever built that house had enormous wealth and cared

nothing for fashion, perhaps despised it. As I stood gazing

at the magnificent upper windows draped with great curtains,

indistinct in the evening, on which huge shadows flickered

my host attracted my attention from the doorway, and so I

went in and met for the second time the ex-King of

Eritivaria.

In front of us a stairway of rare marble led upwards, he

took me through a side-door and downstairs and we came to a

banqueting-hall of great magnificence. A long table ran up

the middle of it, laid for quite twenty people, and I

noticed the peculiarity that instead of chairs there were

thrones for everyone except me, who was the only guest and

for whom there was an ordinary chair. My host explained to

me when we all sat down that everyone who belonged to that

club was by rights a king.

In fact none was permitted, he told me, to belong to the

club unless his claim to a kingdom made out in writing had

been examined and allowed by those whose duty it was. The

whim of a populace or the candidate's own misrule were never

considered by the investigators, nothing counted with them

but heredity and lawful descent from kings, all else was

ignored. At that table there were those who had once

reigned themselves, others lawfully claimed descent from

kings that the world had forgotten, the kingdoms claimed by

some had even changed their names. Hatzgurh, the mountain

kingdom, is almost regarded as mythical.

I have seldom seen greater splendour than that long hall

provided below the level of the street. No doubt by day it

was a little sombre, as all basements are, but at night with

its great crystal chandeliers, and the glitter of heirlooms

that had gone into exile, it surpassed the splendour of

palaces that have only one king. They had come to London

suddenly most of those kings, or their fathers before them,

or forefathers; some had come away from their kingdoms by

night, in a light sleigh, flogging the horses, or had

galloped clear with morning over the border, some had

trudged roads for days from their capital in disguise, yet

many had had time just as they left to snatch up some small

thing without price in markets, for the sake of old times as

they said, but quite as much, I thought, with an eye to the

future. And there these treasures glittered on that long

table in the banqueting-hall of the basement of that strange

club. Merely to see them was much, but to hear their story

that their owners told was to go back in fancy to epic times

on the romantic border of fable and fact, where the heroes

of history fought with the gods of myth. The famous silver

horses of Gilgianza were there climbing their sheer

mountain, which they did by miraculous means before the time

of the Goths. It was not a large piece of silver but its

workmanship outrivaled the skill of the bees.

A yellow Emperor had brought out of the East a piece of

that incomparable porcelain that had made his dynasty famous

though all their deeds are forgotten, it had the exact shade

of the right purple.

And there was a little golden statuette of a dragon

stealing a diamond from a lady, the dragon had the diamond

in his claws, large and of the first water. There had been

a kingdom whose whole constitution and history were founded

on the legend, from which alone its kings had claimed their

right to the sceptre, that a dragon stole a diamond from a

lady. When its last king left that country, because his

favourite general used a peculiar formation under the fire

of artillery, he brought with him the little ancient image

that no longer proved him a king outside that singular club.

There was the pair of amethyst cups of the turbaned King

of Foo, the one that he drank from himself, and the one that

he gave to his enemies, eye could not tell which was which.

All these things the ex-King of Eritivaria showed me,

telling me a marvellous tale of each; of his own he had

brought nothing, except the mascot that used once to sit on

the top of the water tube of his favourite motor.

I have not outlined a tenth of the splendour of that

table, I had meant to come again and examine each piece of

plate and make notes of its history; had I known that this

was the last time I should wish to enter that club I should

have looked at its treasures more attentively, but now as

the wine went round and the exiles began to talk I took my

eyes from the table and listened to strange tales of their

former state.

He that has seen better times was usually a poor tale to

tell, some mean and trivial thing that has been his undoing,

but they that dined in that basement had mostly fallen like

oaks on nights of abnormal tempest, had fallen mightily and

shaken a nation. Those who had not been kings themselves,

but claimed through an exiled ancestor, had stories to tell

of even grander disaster, history seeming to have mellowed

their dynasty's fate as moss grows over an oak a great while

fallen. There were no jealousies there as so often there

are among kings, rivalry must have ceased with the loss of

their navies and armies, and they showed no bitterness

against those that had turned them out, one speaking of the

error of his Prime Minister by which he had lost his throne

as "poor old Friedrich's Heaven-sent gift of tactlessness."

They gossiped pleasantly of many things, the

tittle-tattle we all had to know when we were learning

history, and many a wonderful story I might have heard, many

a side-light on mysterious wars had I not made use of one

unfortunate word. That word was "upstairs."

The ex-King of Eritivaria having pointed out to me those

unparalleled heirlooms to which I have alluded, and many

more besides, hospitably asked me if there was anything else

that I would care to see, he meant the pieces of plate that

they had in the cupboards, the curiously graven swords of

other princes, historic jewels, legendary seals, but I who

had had a glimpse of their marvelous staircase, whose

balustrade I believed to be solid gold and wondering why in

such a stately house they chose to dine in the basement,

mentioned the word "upstairs." A profound hush came down on

the whole assembly, the hush that might greet levity in a

cathedral.

"Upstairs!" he gasped, "We cannot go upstairs."

I perceived that what I had said was an ill-chosen

thing. I tried to excuse myself but knew not how.

"Of course," I muttered, "members may not take guests

upstairs."

"Members!" he said to me, "We are not the members!"

There was such reproof in his voice that I said no more,

I looked at him questioningly, perhaps my lips moved, I may

have said, "What are you?" A great surprise had come on me

at their attitude.

"We are the waiters," he said.

That I could not have known, here at least was honest

ignorance that I had no need to be ashamed of, the very

opulence of their table denied it.

"Then who are the members?" I asked.

Such a hush fell at that question, such a hush of genuine

awe, that all of a sudden a wild thought entered my head, a

thought strange and fantastic and terrible. I gripped my

host by the wrist and hushed my voice.

"Are they too exiles?" I asked.

Twice as he looked in my face he gravely nodded his head.

I left that club very swiftly indeed, never to see it

again, scarcely pausing to say farewell to those menial

kings, and as I left the door a great window opened far up

at the top of the house and a flash of lightning streamed

from it and killed a dog.

FLOOR GAMES by Herbert George Wells| Free Ebook

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Tue, 15 Jun 2021 16:00:00 +0000

Herbert George Wells Floor Games is published by Pennsylvania State University. This portable document file is provided free of charge and free of charge. Anyone who uses this document file for any purpose and in any way is doing so on their own. Neither Pennsylvania State University, nor Jim Manis, faculty editor, nor anyone affiliated with Pennsylvania State University accepts in any way any responsibility for the material in this document or for the file as an electronic transmission.

THE JOLLIEST INDOOR GAMES for boys and girls demand a floor,

and the home that has no floor upon which games may be

played falls so far short of happiness. It must be a floor covered

with linoleum or cork carpet, so that toy soldiers and

such-like will stand up upon it, and of a color and surface

that will take and show chalk marks; the common greencolored

cork carpet without a pattern is the best of all. It

must be no highway to other rooms, and well lit and airy.

Occasionally, alas! it must be scrubbed—and then a truce to

Floor Games. Upon such a floor may be made an infinitude

of imaginative games, not only keeping boys and girls happy

for days together, but building up a framework of spacious

and inspiring ideas in them for after life. The men of tomorrow

will gain new strength from nursery floors. I am going

to tell of some of these games and what is most needed to

play them; I have tried them all and a score of others like

them with my sons, and all of the games here illustrated

have been set out by us. I am going to tell of them here

because I think what we have done will interest other fathers

and mothers, and perhaps be of use to them (and to uncles

and such-like tributary sub-species of humanity) in buying

presents for their own and other people’s children.

Now, the toys we play with time after time, and in a thousand

permutations and combinations, belong to four main

groups. We have (1) SOLDIERS, and with these I class sailors,

railway porters, civilians, and the lower animals generally,

such as I will presently describe in greater detail; (2) BRICKS;

(3) BOARDS and PLANKS; and (4) a lot of CLOCKWORK

RAILWAY ROLLING-STOCK AND RAILS. Also there are

certain minor objects—tin ships, Easter eggs, and the like—

of which I shall make incidental mention, that like the kiwi

and the duck-billed platypus refuse to be classified.

These we arrange and rearrange in various ways upon our

floor, making a world of them. In doing so we have found

out all sorts of pleasant facts, and also many undesirable

possibilities; and very probably our experience will help a

reader here and there to the former and save him from the

latter. For instance, our planks and boards, and what one

can do with them, have been a great discovery. Lots of boys

and girls seem to be quite without planks and boards at all,

and there is no regular trade in them. The toyshops, we found,

did not keep anything of the kind we wanted, and our boards,

which we had to get made by a carpenter, are the basis of

half the games we play. The planks and boards we have are

of various sizes. We began with three of two yards by one;

they were made with cross pieces like small doors; but these

we found unnecessarily large, and we would not get them

now after our present experience. The best thickness, we

think, is an inch for the larger sizes and three-quarters and a

half inch for the smaller; and the best sizes are a yard square,

thirty inches square, two feet, and eighteen inches square—

one or two of each, and a greater number of smaller ones, 18

x 9, 9 x 9, and 9 x 4-1/2. With the larger ones we make

islands and archipelagos on our floor while the floor is a sea,

or we make a large island or a couple on the Venice pattern,

or we pile the smaller on the larger to make hills when the

floor is a level plain, or they roof in railway stations or serve

as bridges, in such manner as I will presently illustrate. And

these boards of ours pass into our next most important possession,

which is our box of bricks.

(But I was nearly forgetting to tell this, that all the thicker

and larger of these boards have holes bored through them.

At about every four inches is a hole, a little larger than an

ordinary gimlet hole. These holes have their uses, as I will

tell later, but now let me get on to the box of bricks.)

This, again, wasn’t a toy-shop acquisition. It came to us by

gift from two generous friends, unhappily growing up and

very tall at that; and they had it from parents who were one

of several families who shared in the benefit of a Good Uncle.

I know nothing certainly of this man except that he was a

Radford of Plymouth. I have never learned nor cared to learn

of his commoner occupations, but certainly he was one of

those shining and distinguished uncles that tower up at times

above the common levels of humanity. At times, when we

consider our derived and undeserved share of his inheritance

and count the joys it gives us, we have projected half in

jest and half in earnest the putting together of a little exemplary

book upon the subject of such exceptional men: Celebrated

Uncles, it should be called; and it should stir up all

who read it to some striving at least towards the glories of

the avuncular crown. What this great benefactor did was to

engage a deserving unemployed carpenter through an entire

winter making big boxes of wooden bricks for the almost

innumerable nephews and nieces with which an appreciative

circle of brothers and sisters had blessed him. There are

whole bricks 4-1/2 inches x 2-1/4 x 1-1/8; and there are

quarters—called by those previous owners (who have now

ascended to, we hope but scarcely believe, a happier life near

the ceiling) “piggys.” You note how these sizes fit into the

sizes of the boards, and of each size—we have never counted

them, but we must have hundreds. We can pave a dozen

square yards of floor with them.

How utterly we despise the silly little bricks of the toyshops!

They are too small to make a decent home for even the poorest

lead soldiers, even if there were hundreds of them, and there

are never enough, never nearly enough; even if you take one

at a time and lay it down and say, “This is a house,” even

then there are not enough. We see rich people, rich people

out of motor cars, rich people beyond the dreams of avarice,

going into toyshops and buying these skimpy, sickly, ridiculous

pseudo-boxes of bricklets, because they do not know

what to ask for, and the toyshops are just the merciless mercenary

enemies of youth and happiness —so far, that is, as

bricks are concerned. Their unfortunate under-parented offspring

mess about with these gifts, and don’t make very much

of them, and put them away; and you see their consequences

in after life in the weakly-conceived villas and silly suburbs

that people have built all round big cities. Such poor undernourished

nurseries must needs fall back upon the Encyclopedia

Britannica, and even that is becoming flexible on India

paper! But our box of bricks almost satisfies. With our box of

bricks we can scheme and build, all three of us, for the best

part of the hour, and still have more bricks in the box.

So much now for the bricks. I will tell later how we use

cartridge paper and cardboard and other things to help in

our and of the decorative make of plasticine. Of course, it

goes without saying that we despise those foolish, expensive,

made-up wooden and pasteboard castles that are sold in

shops—playing with them is like playing with somebody

else’s dead game in a state of rigor mortis. Let me now say a

little about toy soldiers and the world to which they belong.

Toy soldiers used to be flat, small creatures in my own boyhood,

in comparison with the magnificent beings one can buy

to-day. There has been an enormous improvement in our national

physique in this respect. Now they stand nearly two

inches high and look you broadly in the face, and they have

the movable arms and alert intelligence of scientifically exercised

men. You get five of them mounted or nine afoot in a

box for a small price. We three like those of British manufacture

best; other makes are of incompatible sizes, and we have a

rule that saves much trouble, that all red coats belong to G. P.

W., and all other colored coats to F. R. W., all gifts, bequests,

and accidents notwithstanding. Also we have sailors; but, since

there are no red-coated sailors, blue counts as red.

Then we have “beefeaters,” (Footnote; The warders in the

Tower of London are called “beefeaters”; the origin of the

term is obscure.) Indians, Zulus, for whom there are special

rules. We find we can buy lead dogs, cats, lions, tigers, horses,

camels, cattle, and elephants of a reasonably corresponding

size, and we have also several boxes of railway porters, and

some soldiers we bought in Hesse-Darmstadt that we pass

off on an unsuspecting home world as policemen. But we

want civilians very badly. We found a box of German from

an exaggerated curse of militarism, and even the grocer wears

epaulettes. This might please Lord Roberts and Mr. Leo

Maxse, but it certainly does not please us. I wish, indeed,

that we could buy boxes of tradesmen: a blue butcher, a white

baker with a loaf of standard bread, a merchant or so; boxes

of servants, boxes of street traffic, smart sets, and so forth.

We could do with a judge and lawyers, or a box of vestrymen.

It is true that we can buy Salvation Army lasses and football

players, but we are cold to both of these. We have, of course,

boy scouts. With such boxes of civilians we could have much

more fun than with the running, marching, swashbuckling

soldiery that pervades us. They drive us to reviews; and it is

only emperors, kings, and very silly small boys who can take

an undying interest in uniforms and reviews.

And lastly, of our railways, let me merely remark here that

we have always insisted upon one uniform gauge and everything

we buy fits into and develops our existing railway system.

Nothing is more indicative of the wambling sort of parent

and a coterie of witless, worthless uncles than a heap of

railway toys of different gauges and natures in the children’s

playroom. And so, having told you of the material we have,

let me now tell you of one or two games (out of the innumerable

many) that we have played. Of course, in this I have

to be a little artificial. Actual games of the kind I am illustrating

here have been played by us, many and many a time,

with joy and happy invention and no thought of publication.

They have gone now, those games, into that vaguely

luminous and iridescent into which happiness have tried out

again points in world of memories all love-engendering must

go. But we our best to set them and recall the good them

here.

Section II

THE GAME OF THE WONDERFUL
ISLANDS

IN THIS GAME the floor is the sea. Half—rather the larger half

because of some instinctive right of primogeniture—is assigned

to the elder of my two sons (he is, as it were, its Olympian),

and the other half goes to his brother. We distribute

our boards about the sea in an archipelagic manner. We then

dress our islands, objecting strongly to too close a scrutiny of

our proceedings until we have done. Here, in the illustration,

is such an archipelago ready for its explorers, or rather

on the verge of exploration. There are altogether four islands,

two to the reader’s right and two to the left, and the nearer

ones are the more northerly; it is as many as we could get

into the camera. The northern island to the right is most

advanced in civilization, and is chiefly temple. That temple

has a flat roof, diversified by domes made of half Easter eggs

and cardboard cones. These are surmounted by decorative

work of a flamboyant character in plasticine, designed by G.

P. W. An oriental population crowds the courtyard and pours

out upon the roadway. Note the grotesque plasticine monsters

who guard the portals, also by G. P. W., who had a free

hand with the architecture of this remarkable specimen of

eastern religiosity. They are nothing, you may be sure, to the

gigantic idols inside, out of the reach of the sacrilegious camera.

To the right is a tropical thatched hut. The thatched

roof is really that nice ribbed paper that comes round

bottles—a priceless boon to these games. All that comes into

the house is saved for us. The owner of the hut lounges outside

the door. He is a dismounted cavalry-corps man, and he

owns one cow. His fence, I may note, belonged to a little

wooden farm we bought in Switzerland. Its human inhabitants

are scattered; its beasts follow a precarious living as wild

guinea-pigs on the islands to the south.

Your attention is particularly directed to the trees about

and behind the temple, which thicken to a forest on the further

island to the right. These trees we make of twigs taken

from trees and bushes in the garden, and stuck into holes in

our boards. Formerly we lived in a house with a little wood

close by, and our forests were wonderful. Now we are restricted

to our garden, and we could get nothing for this set

out but jasmine and pear. Both have wilted a little, and are

not nearly such spirited trees as you can make out of fir trees,

for instance. It is for these woods chiefly that we have our

planks perforated with little holes. No tin trees can ever be

so plausible and various and jolly as these. With a good garden

to draw upon one can make terrific sombre woods, and

then lie down and look through them at lonely horsemen or

wandering beasts.

That further island on the right is a less settled country

than the island of the temple. Camels, you note, run wild

there; there is a sort of dwarf elephant, similar to the now

extinct kind of which one finds skeletons in Malta, pigs, a

red parrot, and other such creatures, of lead and wood. The

pear-trees are fine. It is those which have attracted white settlers

(I suppose they are), whose thatched huts are to be seen

both upon the beach and in-land. By the huts on the beach

lie a number of pear-tree logs; but a raid of negroid savages

from the to the left is in the only settler is the man in a

adjacent island progress, and clearly visible rifleman’s uniform

running inland for help. Beyond, peeping out among

the trees, are the supports he seeks.

These same negroid savages are as bold as they are ferocious.

They cross arms of the sea upon their rude canoes,

made simply of a strip of cardboard. Their own island, the

one to the south-left, is a rocky wilderness containing caves.

Their chief food is the wild-goat, but in pursuit of these creatures

you will also sometimes find the brown bear, who sits—

he is small but perceptible to the careful student—in the

mouth of his cave. Here, too, you will distinguish small guinea

pig-like creatures of wood, in happier days the inhabitants

of that Swiss farm. Sunken rocks off this island are indicated

by a white foam which takes the form of letters, and you will

also note a whirlpool between the two islands to the right.

Finally comes the island nearest to the reader on the left.

This also is wild and rocky, inhabited not by negroid blacks,

but by Indians, whose tents, made by F. R. W. out of ordinary

brown paper and adorned with chalk totems of a rude

and characteristic kind, pour forth their fierce and well-armed

inhabitants at the intimation of an invader. The rocks on

this island, let me remark, have great mineral wealth. Among

them are to be found not only sheets and veins of silver paper,

but great nuggets of metal, obtained by the melting down

of hopelessly broken soldiers in an iron spoon. Note, too,

the peculiar and romantic shell beach of this country. It is an

island of exceptional interest to the geologist and scientific

explorer. The Indians, you observe, have domesticated one

leaden and one wooden cow.

This is how the game would be set out. Then we build

ships and explore these islands, but in these pictures the ships

are represented as already arriving. The ships are built out of

our wooden bricks on flat keels made of two wooden pieces

of 9 x 4-1/2; inches, which are very convenient to push about

over the floor. Captain G. P. W. is steaming into the bay

between the eastern and western islands. He carries heavy

guns, his ship bristles with an extremely aggressive soldiery,

who appear to be blazing away for the mere love of the thing.

(I suspect him of Imperialist intentions.) Captain F. R. W. is

apparently at anchor between his northern and southern islands.

His ship is of a slightly more pacific type. I note on his

deck a lady and a gentleman (of German origin) with a bag,

two of our all too rare civilians. No doubt the bag contains

samples and a small conversation dictionary in the negroid

dialects. (I think F. R. W. may turn out to be a Liberal.)

Perhaps he will sail on and rescue the raided huts, perhaps

he will land and build a jetty, and begin mining among the

rocks to fill his hold with silver. Perhaps the natives will kill

and eat the gentleman with the bag. All that is for Captain F.

R. W. to decide.

You see how the game goes on. We land and alter things,

and build and rearrange, and hoist paper flags on pins, and

subjugate populations, and confer all the blessings of civilization

upon these lands. We keep them going for days. And

at last, as we begin to tire of them, comes the scrubbing

brush, and we must burn our trees and dismantle our islands,

and put our soldiers in the little nests of drawers, and

stand the island boards up against the wall, and put everything

away. Then perhaps, after a few days, we begin upon

some other such game, just as we feel disposed. But it is

never quite the same game, never. Another time it may be

wildernesses for example, and the boards are hills, and never

a drop of water is to be found except for the lakes and rivers

we may mark out in chalk. But after one example others are

easy, and next I will tell you of our way of making towns.

Section III

OF THE BUILDING OF CITIES

WE ALWAYS BUILD TWIN CITIES, like London and Westminster,

or Buda-Pesth, because two of us always want, both of them,

to be mayors and municipal councils, and it makes for local

freedom and happiness to arrange it so; but when steam railways

or street railways are involved we have our rails in common,

and we have an excellent law that rails must be laid down

and switches kept open in such a manner that anyone feeling

so disposed of may send a through train from their own station

back to their own station again without needless negotiation

or the personal invasion of anybody else’s administrative area.

It is an undesirable thing to have other people bulging over

one’s housing, standing in one’s open spaces, and, in extreme

cases, knocking down and even treading on one’s citizens. It

leads at times to explanations that are afterward regretted.

We always have twin cities, or at the utmost stage of coalescence

a city with two wards, Red End and Blue End; we

mark the boundaries very carefully, and our citizens have so

much local patriotism (Mr. Chesterton will learn with plea

sure) that they stray but rarely over that thin little streak of

white that bounds their municipal allegiance. Sometimes we

have an election for mayor; it is like a census but very abusive,

and Red always wins. Only citizens with two legs and at

least one arm and capable of standing up may vote, and voters

may poll on horseback; boy scouts and women and children

do not vote, though there is a vigorous agitation to

remove these disabilities. Zulus and foreign-looking persons,

such as East Indian cavalry and American Indians, are also

disfranchised. So are riderless horses and camels; but the elephant

has never attempted to vote on any occasion, and

does not seem to desire the privilege. It influences public

opinion quite sufficiently as it is by nodding its head.

We have set out and I have photographed one of our cities

to illustrate more clearly the amusement of the game. Red

End is to the reader’s right, and includes most of the hill on

which the town stands, a shady zoological garden, the town

hall, a railway tunnel through the hill, a museum (away in

the extreme right-hand corner), a church, a rifle range, and a

shop. Blue End has the railway station, four or five shops,

several homes, a hotel, and a farm-house, close to the railway

station. The boundary drawn by me as overlord (who

also made the hills and tunnels and appointed the trees to

grow) runs irregularly between the two shops nearest the

cathedral, over the shoulder in front of the town hall, and

between the farm and the rifle range.

The nature of the hills I have already explained, and this

time we have had no lakes or ornamental water. These are

very easily made out of a piece of glass—the glass lid of a box

for example—laid upon silver paper. Such water becomes

very readily populated by those celluloid seals and swans and

ducks that are now so common. Paper fish appear below the

surface and may be peered at by the curious. But on this

occasion we have nothing of the kind, nor have we made use

of a green-colored tablecloth we sometimes use to drape our

hills. Of course, a large part of the fun of this game lies in the

witty incorporation of all sorts of extraneous objects. But

the incorporation must be witty, or you may soon convert

the whole thing into an incoherent muddle of half-good ideas.

I have taken two photographs, one to the right and one to

the left of this agreeable place. I may perhaps adopt a kind of

guide-book style in reviewing its principal features: I begin

at the railway station. I have made a rather nearer and larger

photograph of the railway station, which presents a diversified

and entertaining scene to the incoming visitor. Porters

(out of a box of porters) career here and there with the trucks

and light baggage. Quite a number of our all-too-rare civilians

parade the platform: two gentlemen, a lady, and a small

but evil-looking child are particularly noticeable; and there

is a wooden sailor with jointed legs, in a state of intoxication

as reprehensible as it is nowadays happily rare. Two virtuous

dogs regard his abandon with quiet scorn. The seat on which

he sprawls is a broken piece of some toy whose nature I have

long forgotten, the station clock is a similar fragment, and

so is the metallic pillar which bears the name of the station.

So many toys, we find, only become serviceable with a little

smashing. There is an allegory in this—as Hawthorne used

to write in his diary.

(“What is he doing, the great god Pan, Down in the reeds

by the river?”)

The fences at the ends of the platforms are pieces of wood

belonging to the game of Matador—that splendid and very

educational construction game, hailing, I believe, from Hungary.

There is also, I regret to say, a blatant advertisement of

Jab’s “Hair Color,” showing the hair. (In the photograph the

hair does not come out very plainly.) This is by G. P. W.,

who seems marked out by destiny to be the advertisementwriter

of the next generation. He spends much of his scanty

leisure inventing and drawing advertisements of imaginary

commodities. Oblivious to many happy, beautiful, and noble

things in life, he goes about studying and imitating the literature

of the billboards. He and his brother write newspapers

almost entirely devoted to these annoying appeals. You

will note, too, the placard at the mouth of the railway tunnel

urging the existence of Jinks’ Soap upon the passing traveller.

The oblong object on the placard represents, no doubt,

a cake of this offensive and aggressive commodity. The zoological

garden flaunts a placard, “Zoo, two cents pay,” and

the grocer’s picture of a cabbage with “Get Them” is not to

be ignored. F. R. W. is more like the London County Council

in this respect, and prefers bare walls.

“Returning from the station,” as the guide-books say, and

“giving one more glance” at the passengers who are waiting

for the privilege of going round the circle in open cars and

returning in a prostrated condition to the station again, and

“observing” what admirable platforms are made by our 9 x 4-

1/2 pieces, we pass out to the left into the village street. A

motor omnibus (a one-horse hospital cart in less progressive

days) stands waiting for passengers; and, on our way to the

Cherry Tree Inn, we remark two nurses, one in charge of a

child with a plasticine head. The landlord of the inn is a small

grotesque figure of plaster; his sign is fastened on by a pin. No

doubt the refreshment supplied here has an enviable reputation,

to judge by the alacrity with which a number of riflemen

move to-wards the door. The inn, by the by, like the station

and some private houses, is roofed with stiff paper.

These stiff-paper roofs are one of our great inventions. We

get After the game is over, we put these roofs inside one another

and stick them into the bookshelves. The roof one folds

and puts away will live to roof another day.

Proceeding on our way past the Cherry Tree, and resisting

cosy invitation of its portals, we come to the shopping quarter

of the town. The stock in windows is made by hand out

of plasticine. We note the meat and hams of “Mr. Woddy,”

the cabbages and carrots of “Tod & Brothers,” the general

activities of the “Jokil Co.” shopmen. It is de rigueur with

our shop assistants that they should wear white helmets. In

the street, boy scouts go to and fro, a wagon clatters by; most

of the adult population is about its business, and a red-coated

band plays along the roadway. Contrast this animated scene

with the mysteries of sea and forest, rock and whirlpool, in

our previous game. Further on is the big church or cathedral.

It is built in an extremely debased Gothic style; it reminds

us most of a church we once surveyed during a brief

visit to Rotterdam on our way up the Rhine. A solitary boy

scout, mindful of the views of Lord Haldane, enters its high

portal. Passing the cathedral, we continue to the museum.

This museum is no empty boast; it contains mineral specimens,

shells—such great shells as were found on the beaches

of our previous game—the Titanic skulls of extinct rabbits

and cats, and other such wonders. The slender curious may

lie down on the floor and peep in at the windows.

“We now,” says the guide-book, “retrace our steps to the

shops, and then, turning to the left, ascend under the trees

up the terraced hill on which stands the Town Hall. This

magnificent building is surmounted by a colossal statue of a

chamois, the work of a Wengen artist; it is in two stories, with

a battlemented roof, and a crypt (entrance to right of steps)

used for the incarceration of offenders. It is occupied by the

town guard, who wear ‘beefeater’ costumes of ancient origin.”

Note the red parrot perched on the battlements; it lives

tame in the zoological gardens, and is of the same species as

one we formerly observed in our archipelago. Note, too, the

brisk cat-and-dog encounter below. Steps descend in wide

flights down the hillside into Blue End. The two couchant

lions on either side of the steps are in plasticine, and were

executed by that versatile artist, who is also mayor of Red

End, G. P. W. He is present. Our photographer has hit upon

a happy moment in the history of this town, and a conversation

of the two mayors is going on upon the terrace before

the palace. F. R. W., mayor of Blue End, stands on the steps

in the costume of an admiral; G. P. W. is on horseback (his

habits are equestrian) on the terrace. The town guard parades

in their honor, and up the hill a number of musicians

(a little hidden by trees) ride on gray horses towards them.

Passing in front of the town hall, and turning to the right,

we approach the zoological gardens. Here we pass two of our

civilians: a gentleman in black, a lady, and a large boy scout,

presumably their son. We enter the gardens, which are protected

by a bearded janitor, and remark at once a band of

three performing dogs, who are, as the guide-book would

say, “discoursing sweet music.” In neither ward of the city

does there seem to be the slightest restraint upon the use of

musical instruments. It is no place for neurotic people.

The gardens contain the inevitable elephants, camels (which

we breed, and which are therefore in considerable numbers),

a sitting bear, brought from last game’s caves, goats from the

same region, tamed and now running loose in the gardens,

dwarf elephants, wooden nondescripts, and other rare creatures.

The keepers wear a uniform not unlike that of railway

guards and porters. We wander through the gardens, return,

descend the hill by the school of musketry, where soldiers

are to be seen shooting at the butts, pass through the paddock

of the old farm, and so return to the railway station,

extremely gratified by all we have seen, and almost equally

divided in our minds between the merits and attractiveness

of either ward. A clockwork train comes clattering into the

station, we take our places, somebody hoots or whistles for

the engine (which can’t), the signal is knocked over in the

excitement of the moment, the train starts, and we “wave a

long, regretful farewell to the salubrious cheerfulness of

Chamois City.”

You see now how we set out and the spirit in which we set

out our towns. It demands but the slightest exercise of the

imagination to devise a hundred additions and variations of

the scheme. You can make picture-galleries—great fun for

small boys who can draw; you can make factories; you can

plan out flower-gardens—which appeals very strongly to

intelligent little girls; your town hall may become a fortified

castle; or you may put the whole town on boards and make

a Venice of it, with ships and boats upon its canals, and bridges

across them. We used to have some very serviceable ships of

cardboard, with flat bottoms; and then we used to have a

harbor, and the ships used to sail away to distant rooms, and

even into the garden, and return with the most remarkable

cargoes, loads of nasturtium-stem logs, for example. We had

sacks then, made of glove-fingers, and several toy cranes. I

suppose we could find most of these again if we hunted for

them. Once, with this game fresh in our we went to see the

docks, which struck us as just our old harbor game magnified.

“I say, Daddy,” said one of us in a quiet corner, wistfully,

as one who speaks knowingly against the probabilities of the

case, and yet with a faint, thin hope, “couldn’t we play just

for a little with these sacks … until some-body comes?”

Of course the setting-out of the city is half the game. Then

you devise incidents. As I wanted to photograph the particular

set-out for the purpose of illustrating this account, I

took a larger share in the arrangement than I usually do. It

was necessary to get everything into the picture, to ensure a

light background that would throw up some of the trees,

prevent too much overlapping, and things like that. When

the photographing was over, matters became more normal. I

left the schoolroom, and when I returned I found that the

group of riflemen which had been converging on the

publichouse had been sharply recalled to duty, and were trotting

in a disciplined, cheerless way towards the railway station.

The elephant had escaped from the zoo into the Blue

Ward, and was being marched along by a military patrol.

The originally scattered boy scouts were being paraded. G.

P. W. had demolished the shop of the Jokil Company, and

was building a Red End station near the bend. The stock of

the Jokil Company had passed into the hands of the adjacent

storekeepers. Then the town hall ceremonies came to

an end and the guard marched off. Then G. P. W. demolished

the rifle-range, and ran a small branch of the urban

railway uphill to the town hall door, and on into the zoological

gardens. This was only the beginning of a period of

enterprise in transit, a small railway boom. A number of halts

of simple construction sprang up. There was much making

of railway tickets, of a size that enabled passengers to stick

their heads through the middle and wear them as a Mexican

does his blanket. Then a battery of artillery turned up in the

High Street and there was talk of fortifications. Suppose wild

Indians were to turn up across the plains to the left and attack

the town! Fate still has toy drawers untouched. . .

So things will go on till putting-away night on Friday. Then

we shall pick up the roofs and shove them away among the

books, return the clockwork engines very carefully to their

boxes, for engines are fragile things, stow the soldiers and

civilians and animals in their nests of drawers, burn the trees

again—this time they are sweet-bay; and all the joys and

sorrows and rivalries and successes of Blue End and Red End

will pass, and follow Carthage and Nineveh, the empire of

Aztec and Roman, the arts of Etruria and the palaces of Crete,

and the plannings and contrivings of innumerable myriads

of children, into the limbo of games exhausted . . . it may be,

leaving some profit, in thoughts widened, in strengthened

apprehensions; it may be, leaving nothing but a memory

that dies.

SECTION IV

FUNICULARS, MARBLE TOWERS,
CASTLES AND WAR GAMES, BUT VERY
LITTLE OF WAR GAMES

I HAVE NOW GIVEN TWO GENERAL TYPES of floor game; but

these are only just two samples of delightful and imagination-

stirring variations that can be contrived out of the toys

I have described. I will now glance rather more shortly at

some other very good uses of the floor, the boards, the bricks,

the soldiers, and the railway system—that pentagram for exorcising

the evil spirit of dulness from the lives of little boys

and girls. And first, there is a kind of lark we call Funiculars.

There are times when islands cease somehow to dazzle, and

towns and cities are too orderly and uneventful and cramped

for us, and we want something—something to whizz. Then

we say: “Let us make a funicular. Let us make a funicular

more than we have ever done. Let us make one to reach up

to the table.” We dispute whether it isn’t a mountain railway

we are after. The bare name is refreshing; it takes us back to

that unforgettable time when we all went to Wengen, winding

in and out and up and up the mountain side—from

slush, to such snow and sunlight as we had never seen before.

And we make a mountain railway. So far, we have never

got it up to the table, but some day we will, Then we will

have a station there on the flat, and another station on the

floor, with shunts and sidings to each.

The peculiar joy of the mountain railway is that, if it is

properly made, a loaded car—not a toy engine; it is too rough

a game for delicate, respectable engines—will career from

top to bottom of the system, and go this way and that as

your cunningly-arranged switches determine; and afterwards—

and this is a wonderful and distinctive discovery—

you can send it back by ‘lectric.

What is a ‘lectric? You may well ask. ‘Lectrics were invented

almost by accident, by one of us, to whom also the name is

due. It came out of an accident to a toy engine; a toy engine

that seemed done for and that was yet full of life.

You know, perhaps, what a toy engine is like. It has the

general appearance of a railway engine; funnels, buffers, cab,

and so forth. All these are very elegant things, no doubt; but

they do not make for lightness, they do not facilitate hill

climbing. Now, sometimes an engine gets its clockwork out

of order, and then it is over and done for; but sometimes it is

merely the outer semblance that is injured—the funnel bent,

the body twisted. You remove the things and, behold ! you

have bare clockwork on wheels, an apparatus of almost malignant

energy, soul without body, a kind of metallic rage.

This it was that our junior member instantly knew for a

‘lectric, and loved from the moment of its stripping.

(I have, by the by, known a very serviceable little road ‘lectric

made out of a clockwork mouse.)

Well, when we have got chairs and boxes and bricks, and

graded our line skilfully and well, easing the descent, and being

very careful of the joining at the bends for fear that the

descending trucks and cars will jump the rails, we send down

first an empty truck, then trucks loaded with bricks and lead

soldiers, and then the ‘lectric; and then afterwards the sturdy

‘lectric shoves up the trucks again to the top, with a kind of

savagery of purpose and a whizz that is extremely gratifying to

us. We make switches in these lines; we make them have levelcrossings,

at which collisions are always being just averted; the

lines go over and under each other, and in and out of tunnels.

The marble tower, again, is a great building, on which we

devise devious slanting ways down which marbles run. I do

not know why it is amusing to make a marble run down a

long intricate path, and dollop down steps, and come almost

but not quite to a stop, and rush out of dark places and

across little bridges of card: it is, and we often do it.

Castles are done with bricks and cardboard turrets and a

portcullis of card, and drawbridge and moats; they are a mere

special sort of city-building, done because we have a box of

men in armor. We could reconstruct all sorts of historical

periods if the toy soldier makers would provide us with

people. But at present, as I have already complained, they

make scarcely anything but contemporary fighting men. And

of the war game I must either write volumes or nothing. For

the present let it be nothing. Some day, perhaps, I will write

a great book about the war game and tell of battles and campaigns

and strategy and tactics. But this time I set out merely

to tell of the ordinary joys of playing with the floor, and to

gird improvingly and usefully at toymakers. So much, I think,

I have done. If one parent or one uncle buys the wiselier for

me, I shall not altogether have lived in vain.

Doctor Marigold by Charles Dickens| Free Ebook

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sun, 13 Jun 2021 15:05:00 +0000

Free online reading Ebook Doctor Marigold by Charles Dickens

I am a Cheap Jack, and my own father's name was William Marigold. It

was in his lifetime supposed by some that his name was William, but

my own father always consistently said, No, it was William. On which

point I content myself with looking at the argument this way: If a

man is not allowed to know his own name in a free country, how much

is he allowed to know in a land of slavery? As to looking at the

argument through the medium of the Register, Willum Marigold come

into the world before Registers come up much,--and went out of it

too. They wouldn't have been greatly in his line neither, if they

had chanced to come up before him.

I was born on the Queen's highway, but it was the King's at that

time. A doctor was fetched to my own mother by my own father, when

it took place on a common; and in consequence of his being a very

kind gentleman, and accepting no fee but a tea-tray, I was named

Doctor, out of gratitude and compliment to him. There you have me.

Doctor Marigold.

I am at present a middle-aged man of a broadish build, in cords,

leggings, and a sleeved waistcoat the strings of which is always

gone behind. Repair them how you will, they go like fiddle-strings.

You have been to the theatre, and you have seen one of the wiolin-

players screw up his wiolin, after listening to it as if it had been

whispering the secret to him that it feared it was out of order, and

then you have heard it snap. That's as exactly similar to my

waistcoat as a waistcoat and a wiolin can be like one another.

I am partial to a white hat, and I like a shawl round my neck wore

loose and easy. Sitting down is my favourite posture. If I have a

taste in point of personal jewelry, it is mother-of-pearl buttons.

There you have me again, as large as life.

The doctor having accepted a tea-tray, you'll guess that my father

was a Cheap Jack before me. You are right. He was. It was a

pretty tray. It represented a large lady going along a serpentining

up-hill gravel-walk, to attend a little church. Two swans had

likewise come astray with the same intentions. When I call her a

large lady, I don't mean in point of breadth, for there she fell

below my views, but she more than made it up in heighth; her heighth

and slimness was--in short THE heighth of both.

I often saw that tray, after I was the innocently smiling cause (or

more likely screeching one) of the doctor's standing it up on a

table against the wall in his consulting-room. Whenever my own

father and mother were in that part of the country, I used to put my

head (I have heard my own mother say it was flaxen curls at that

time, though you wouldn't know an old hearth-broom from it now till

you come to the handle, and found it wasn't me) in at the doctor's

door, and the doctor was always glad to see me, and said, "Aha, my

brother practitioner! Come in, little M.D. How are your

inclinations as to sixpence?"

You can't go on for ever, you'll find, nor yet could my father nor

yet my mother. If you don't go off as a whole when you are about

due, you're liable to go off in part, and two to one your head's the

part. Gradually my father went off his, and my mother went off

hers. It was in a harmless way, but it put out the family where I

boarded them. The old couple, though retired, got to be wholly and

solely devoted to the Cheap Jack business, and were always selling

the family off. Whenever the cloth was laid for dinner, my father

began rattling the plates and dishes, as we do in our line when we

put up crockery for a bid, only he had lost the trick of it, and

mostly let 'em drop and broke 'em. As the old lady had been used to

sit in the cart, and hand the articles out one by one to the old

gentleman on the footboard to sell, just in the same way she handed

him every item of the family's property, and they disposed of it in

their own imaginations from morning to night. At last the old

gentleman, lying bedridden in the same room with the old lady, cries

out in the old patter, fluent, after having been silent for two days

and nights: "Now here, my jolly companions every one,--which the

Nightingale club in a village was held, At the sign of the Cabbage

and Shears, Where the singers no doubt would have greatly excelled,

But for want of taste, voices and ears,--now, here, my jolly

companions, every one, is a working model of a used-up old Cheap

Jack, without a tooth in his head, and with a pain in every bone:

so like life that it would be just as good if it wasn't better, just

as bad if it wasn't worse, and just as new if it wasn't worn out.

Bid for the working model of the old Cheap Jack, who has drunk more

gunpowder-tea with the ladies in his time than would blow the lid

off a washerwoman's copper, and carry it as many thousands of miles

higher than the moon as naught nix naught, divided by the national

debt, carry nothing to the poor-rates, three under, and two over.

Now, my hearts of oak and men of straw, what do you say for the lot?

Two shillings, a shilling, tenpence, eightpence, sixpence,

fourpence. Twopence? Who said twopence? The gentleman in the

scarecrow's hat? I am ashamed of the gentleman in the scarecrow's

hat. I really am ashamed of him for his want of public spirit. Now

I'll tell you what I'll do with you. Come! I'll throw you in a

working model of a old woman that was married to the old Cheap Jack

so long ago that upon my word and honour it took place in Noah's

Ark, before the Unicorn could get in to forbid the banns by blowing

a tune upon his horn. There now! Come! What do you say for both?

I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I don't bear you malice for

being so backward. Here! If you make me a bid that'll only reflect

a little credit on your town, I'll throw you in a warming-pan for

nothing, and lend you a toasting-fork for life. Now come; what do

you say after that splendid offer? Say two pound, say thirty

shillings, say a pound, say ten shillings, say five, say two and

six. You don't say even two and six? You say two and three? No.

You shan't have the lot for two and three. I'd sooner give it to

you, if you was good-looking enough. Here! Missis! Chuck the old

man and woman into the cart, put the horse to, and drive 'em away

and bury 'em!" Such were the last words of Willum Marigold, my own

father, and they were carried out, by him and by his wife, my own

mother, on one and the same day, as I ought to know, having followed

as mourner.

My father had been a lovely one in his time at the Cheap Jack work,

as his dying observations went to prove. But I top him. I don't

say it because it's myself, but because it has been universally

acknowledged by all that has had the means of comparison. I have

worked at it. I have measured myself against other public

speakers,--Members of Parliament, Platforms, Pulpits, Counsel

learned in the law,--and where I have found 'em good, I have took a

bit of imagination from 'em, and where I have found 'em bad, I have

let 'em alone. Now I'll tell you what. I mean to go down into my

grave declaring that of all the callings ill used in Great Britain,

the Cheap Jack calling is the worst used. Why ain't we a

profession? Why ain't we endowed with privileges? Why are we

forced to take out a hawker's license, when no such thing is

expected of the political hawkers? Where's the difference betwixt

us? Except that we are Cheap Jacks and they are Dear Jacks, I don't

see any difference but what's in our favour.

For look here! Say it's election time. I am on the footboard of my

cart in the market-place, on a Saturday night. I put up a general

miscellaneous lot. I say: "Now here, my free and independent

woters, I'm a going to give you such a chance as you never had in

all your born days, nor yet the days preceding. Now I'll show you

what I am a going to do with you. Here's a pair of razors that'll

shave you closer than the Board of Guardians; here's a flat-iron

worth its weight in gold; here's a frying-pan artificially flavoured

with essence of beefsteaks to that degree that you've only got for

the rest of your lives to fry bread and dripping in it and there you

are replete with animal food; here's a genuine chronometer watch in

such a solid silver case that you may knock at the door with it when

you come home late from a social meeting, and rouse your wife and

family, and save up your knocker for the postman; and here's half-a-

dozen dinner plates that you may play the cymbals with to charm baby

when it's fractious. Stop! I'll throw in another article, and I'll

give you that, and it's a rolling-pin; and if the baby can only get

it well into its mouth when its teeth is coming and rub the gums

once with it, they'll come through double, in a fit of laughter

equal to being tickled. Stop again! I'll throw you in another

article, because I don't like the looks of you, for you haven't the

appearance of buyers unless I lose by you, and because I'd rather

lose than not take money to-night, and that's a looking-glass in

which you may see how ugly you look when you don't bid. What do you

say now? Come! Do you say a pound? Not you, for you haven't got

it. Do you say ten shillings? Not you, for you owe more to the

tallyman. Well then, I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll

heap 'em all on the footboard of the cart,--there they are! razors,

flat watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and away for four shillings,

and I'll give you sixpence for your trouble!" This is me, the Cheap

Jack. But on the Monday morning, in the same market-place, comes

the Dear Jack on the hustings--HIS cart--and, what does HE say?

"Now my free and independent woters, I am a going to give you such a

chance" (he begins just like me) "as you never had in all your born

days, and that's the chance of sending Myself to Parliament. Now

I'll tell you what I am a going to do for you. Here's the interests

of this magnificent town promoted above all the rest of the

civilised and uncivilised earth. Here's your railways carried, and

your neighbours' railways jockeyed. Here's all your sons in the

Post-office. Here's Britannia smiling on you. Here's the eyes of

Europe on you. Here's uniwersal prosperity for you, repletion of

animal food, golden cornfields, gladsome homesteads, and rounds of

applause from your own hearts, all in one lot, and that's myself.

Will you take me as I stand? You won't? Well, then, I'll tell you

what I'll do with you. Come now! I'll throw you in anything you

ask for. There! Church-rates, abolition of more malt tax, no malt

tax, universal education to the highest mark, or uniwersal ignorance

to the lowest, total abolition of flogging in the army or a dozen

for every private once a month all round, Wrongs of Men or Rights of

Women--only say which it shall be, take 'em or leave 'em, and I'm of

your opinion altogether, and the lot's your own on your own terms.

There! You won't take it yet! Well, then, I'll tell you what I'll

do with you. Come! You ARE such free and independent woters, and I

am so proud of you,--you ARE such a noble and enlightened

constituency, and I AM so ambitious of the honour and dignity of

being your member, which is by far the highest level to which the

wings of the human mind can soar,--that I'll tell you what I'll do

with you. I'll throw you in all the public-houses in your

magnificent town for nothing. Will that content you? It won't?

You won't take the lot yet? Well, then, before I put the horse in

and drive away, and make the offer to the next most magnificent town

that can be discovered, I'll tell you what I'll do. Take the lot,

and I'll drop two thousand pound in the streets of your magnificent

town for them to pick up that can. Not enough? Now look here.

This is the very furthest that I'm a going to. I'll make it two

thousand five hundred. And still you won't? Here, missis! Put the

horse--no, stop half a moment, I shouldn't like to turn my back upon

you neither for a trifle, I'll make it two thousand seven hundred

and fifty pound. There! Take the lot on your own terms, and I'll

count out two thousand seven hundred and fifty pound on the foot-

board of the cart, to be dropped in the streets of your magnificent

town for them to pick up that can. What do you say? Come now! You

won't do better, and you may do worse. You take it? Hooray! Sold

again, and got the seat!"

These Dear Jacks soap the people shameful, but we Cheap Jacks don't.

We tell 'em the truth about themselves to their faces, and scorn to

court 'em. As to wenturesomeness in the way of puffing up the lots,

the Dear Jacks beat us hollow. It is considered in the Cheap Jack

calling, that better patter can be made out of a gun than any

article we put up from the cart, except a pair of spectacles. I

often hold forth about a gun for a quarter of an hour, and feel as

if I need never leave off. But when I tell 'em what the gun can do,

and what the gun has brought down, I never go half so far as the

Dear Jacks do when they make speeches in praise of THEIR guns--their

great guns that set 'em on to do it. Besides, I'm in business for

myself: I ain't sent down into the market-place to order, as they

are. Besides, again, my guns don't know what I say in their

laudation, and their guns do, and the whole concern of 'em have

reason to be sick and ashamed all round. These are some of my

arguments for declaring that the Cheap Jack calling is treated ill

in Great Britain, and for turning warm when I think of the other

Jacks in question setting themselves up to pretend to look down upon

it.

I courted my wife from the footboard of the cart. I did indeed.

She was a Suffolk young woman, and it was in Ipswich marketplace

right opposite the corn-chandler's shop. I had noticed her up at a

window last Saturday that was, appreciating highly. I had took to

her, and I had said to myself, "If not already disposed of, I'll

have that lot." Next Saturday that come, I pitched the cart on the

same pitch, and I was in very high feather indeed, keeping 'em

laughing the whole of the time, and getting off the goods briskly.

At last I took out of my waistcoat-pocket a small lot wrapped in

soft paper, and I put it this way (looking up at the window where

she was). "Now here, my blooming English maidens, is an article,

the last article of the present evening's sale, which I offer to

only you, the lovely Suffolk Dumplings biling over with beauty, and

I won't take a bid of a thousand pounds for from any man alive. Now

what is it? Why, I'll tell you what it is. It's made of fine gold,

and it's not broke, though there's a hole in the middle of it, and

it's stronger than any fetter that ever was forged, though it's

smaller than any finger in my set of ten. Why ten? Because, when

my parents made over my property to me, I tell you true, there was

twelve sheets, twelve towels, twelve table-cloths, twelve knives,

twelve forks, twelve tablespoons, and twelve teaspoons, but my set

of fingers was two short of a dozen, and could never since be

matched. Now what else is it? Come, I'll tell you. It's a hoop of

solid gold, wrapped in a silver curl-paper, that I myself took off

the shining locks of the ever beautiful old lady in Threadneedle

Street, London city; I wouldn't tell you so if I hadn't the paper to

show, or you mightn't believe it even of me. Now what else is it?

It's a man-trap and a handcuff, the parish stocks and a leg-lock,

all in gold and all in one. Now what else is it? It's a wedding-

ring. Now I'll tell you what I'm a going to do with it. I'm not a

going to offer this lot for money; but I mean to give it to the next

of you beauties that laughs, and I'll pay her a visit to-morrow

morning at exactly half after nine o'clock as the chimes go, and

I'll take her out for a walk to put up the banns." She laughed, and

got the ring handed up to her. When I called in the morning, she

says, "O dear! It's never you, and you never mean it?" "It's ever

me," says I, "and I am ever yours, and I ever mean it." So we got

married, after being put up three times--which, by the bye, is quite

in the Cheap Jack way again, and shows once more how the Cheap Jack

customs pervade society.

She wasn't a bad wife, but she had a temper. If she could have

parted with that one article at a sacrifice, I wouldn't have swopped

her away in exchange for any other woman in England. Not that I

ever did swop her away, for we lived together till she died, and

that was thirteen year. Now, my lords and ladies and gentlefolks

all, I'll let you into a secret, though you won't believe it.

Thirteen year of temper in a Palace would try the worst of you, but

thirteen year of temper in a Cart would try the best of you. You

are kept so very close to it in a cart, you see. There's thousands

of couples among you getting on like sweet ile upon a whetstone in

houses five and six pairs of stairs high, that would go to the

Divorce Court in a cart. Whether the jolting makes it worse, I

don't undertake to decide; but in a cart it does come home to you,

and stick to you. Wiolence in a cart is SO wiolent, and aggrawation

in a cart is SO aggrawating.

We might have had such a pleasant life! A roomy cart, with the

large goods hung outside, and the bed slung underneath it when on

the road, an iron pot and a kettle, a fireplace for the cold

weather, a chimney for the smoke, a hanging-shelf and a cupboard, a

dog and a horse. What more do you want? You draw off upon a bit of

turf in a green lane or by the roadside, you hobble your old horse

and turn him grazing, you light your fire upon the ashes of the last

visitors, you cook your stew, and you wouldn't call the Emperor of

France your father. But have a temper in the cart, flinging

language and the hardest goods in stock at you, and where are you

then? Put a name to your feelings.

My dog knew as well when she was on the turn as I did. Before she

broke out, he would give a howl, and bolt. How he knew it, was a

mystery to me; but the sure and certain knowledge of it would wake

him up out of his soundest sleep, and he would give a howl, and

bolt. At such times I wished I was him.

The worst of it was, we had a daughter born to us, and I love

children with all my heart. When she was in her furies she beat the

child. This got to be so shocking, as the child got to be four or

five year old, that I have many a time gone on with my whip over my

shoulder, at the old horse's head, sobbing and crying worse than

ever little Sophy did. For how could I prevent it? Such a thing is

not to be tried with such a temper--in a cart--without coming to a

fight. It's in the natural size and formation of a cart to bring it

to a fight. And then the poor child got worse terrified than

before, as well as worse hurt generally, and her mother made

complaints to the next people we lighted on, and the word went

round, "Here's a wretch of a Cheap Jack been a beating his wife."

Little Sophy was such a brave child! She grew to be quite devoted

to her poor father, though he could do so little to help her. She

had a wonderful quantity of shining dark hair, all curling natural

about her. It is quite astonishing to me now, that I didn't go

tearing mad when I used to see her run from her mother before the

cart, and her mother catch her by this hair, and pull her down by

it, and beat her.

Such a brave child I said she was! Ah! with reason.

"Don't you mind next time, father dear," she would whisper to me,

with her little face still flushed, and her bright eyes still wet;

"if I don't cry out, you may know I am not much hurt. And even if I

do cry out, it will only be to get mother to let go and leave off."

What I have seen the little spirit bear--for me--without crying out!

Yet in other respects her mother took great care of her. Her

clothes were always clean and neat, and her mother was never tired

of working at 'em. Such is the inconsistency in things. Our being

down in the marsh country in unhealthy weather, I consider the cause

of Sophy's taking bad low fever; but however she took it, once she

got it she turned away from her mother for evermore, and nothing

would persuade her to be touched by her mother's hand. She would

shiver and say, "No, no, no," when it was offered at, and would hide

her face on my shoulder, and hold me tighter round the neck.

The Cheap Jack business had been worse than ever I had known it,

what with one thing and what with another (and not least with

railroads, which will cut it all to pieces, I expect, at last), and

I was run dry of money. For which reason, one night at that period

of little Sophy's being so bad, either we must have come to a dead-

lock for victuals and drink, or I must have pitched the cart as I

did.

I couldn't get the dear child to lie down or leave go of me, and

indeed I hadn't the heart to try, so I stepped out on the footboard

with her holding round my neck. They all set up a laugh when they

see us, and one chuckle-headed Joskin (that I hated for it) made the

bidding, "Tuppence for her!"

"Now, you country boobies," says I, feeling as if my heart was a

heavy weight at the end of a broken sashline, "I give you notice

that I am a going to charm the money out of your pockets, and to

give you so much more than your money's worth that you'll only

persuade yourselves to draw your Saturday night's wages ever again

arterwards by the hopes of meeting me to lay 'em out with, which you

never will, and why not? Because I've made my fortunes by selling

my goods on a large scale for seventy-five per cent. less than I

give for 'em, and I am consequently to be elevated to the House of

Peers next week, by the title of the Duke of Cheap and Markis

Jackaloorul. Now let's know what you want to-night, and you shall

have it. But first of all, shall I tell you why I have got this

little girl round my neck? You don't want to know? Then you shall.

She belongs to the Fairies. She's a fortune-teller. She can tell

me all about you in a whisper, and can put me up to whether you're

going to buy a lot or leave it. Now do you want a saw? No, she

says you don't, because you're too clumsy to use one. Else here's a

saw which would be a lifelong blessing to a handy man, at four

shillings, at three and six, at three, at two and six, at two, at

eighteen-pence. But none of you shall have it at any price, on

account of your well-known awkwardness, which would make it

manslaughter. The same objection applies to this set of three

planes which I won't let you have neither, so don't bid for 'em.

Now I am a going to ask her what you do want." (Then I whispered,

"Your head burns so, that I am afraid it hurts you bad, my pet," and

she answered, without opening her heavy eyes, "Just a little,

father.") "O! This little fortune-teller says it's a memorandum-

book you want. Then why didn't you mention it? Here it is. Look

at it. Two hundred superfine hot-pressed wire-wove pages--if you

don't believe me, count 'em--ready ruled for your expenses, an

everlastingly pointed pencil to put 'em down with, a double-bladed

penknife to scratch 'em out with, a book of printed tables to

calculate your income with, and a camp-stool to sit down upon while

you give your mind to it! Stop! And an umbrella to keep the moon

off when you give your mind to it on a pitch-dark night. Now I

won't ask you how much for the lot, but how little? How little are

you thinking of? Don't be ashamed to mention it, because my

fortune-teller knows already." (Then making believe to whisper, I

kissed her,--and she kissed me.) "Why, she says you are thinking of

as little as three and threepence! I couldn't have believed it,

even of you, unless she told me. Three and threepence! And a set

of printed tables in the lot that'll calculate your income up to

forty thousand a year! With an income of forty thousand a year, you

grudge three and sixpence. Well then, I'll tell you my opinion. I

so despise the threepence, that I'd sooner take three shillings.

There. For three shillings, three shillings, three shillings!

Gone. Hand 'em over to the lucky man."

As there had been no bid at all, everybody looked about and grinned

at everybody, while I touched little Sophy's face and asked her if

she felt faint, or giddy. "Not very, father. It will soon be

over." Then turning from the pretty patient eyes, which were opened

now, and seeing nothing but grins across my lighted grease-pot, I

went on again in my Cheap Jack style. "Where's the butcher?" (My

sorrowful eye had just caught sight of a fat young butcher on the

outside of the crowd.) "She says the good luck is the butcher's.

Where is he?" Everybody handed on the blushing butcher to the

front, and there was a roar, and the butcher felt himself obliged to

put his hand in his pocket, and take the lot. The party so picked

out, in general, does feel obliged to take the lot--good four times

out of six. Then we had another lot, the counterpart of that one,

and sold it sixpence cheaper, which is always wery much enjoyed.

Then we had the spectacles. It ain't a special profitable lot, but

I put 'em on, and I see what the Chancellor of the Exchequer is

going to take off the taxes, and I see what the sweetheart of the

young woman in the shawl is doing at home, and I see what the

Bishops has got for dinner, and a deal more that seldom fails to

fetch em 'up in their spirits; and the better their spirits, the

better their bids. Then we had the ladies' lot--the teapot, tea-

caddy, glass sugar-basin, half-a-dozen spoons, and caudle-cup--and

all the time I was making similar excuses to give a look or two and

say a word or two to my poor child. It was while the second ladies'

lot was holding 'em enchained that I felt her lift herself a little

on my shoulder, to look across the dark street. "What troubles you,

darling?" "Nothing troubles me, father. I am not at all troubled.

But don't I see a pretty churchyard over there?" "Yes, my dear."

"Kiss me twice, dear father, and lay me down to rest upon that

churchyard grass so soft and green." I staggered back into the cart

with her head dropped on my shoulder, and I says to her mother,

"Quick. Shut the door! Don't let those laughing people see!"

"What's the matter?" she cries. "O woman, woman," I tells her,

"you'll never catch my little Sophy by her hair again, for she has

flown away from you!"

Maybe those were harder words than I meant 'em; but from that time

forth my wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or walk

beside it, hours at a stretch, with her arms crossed, and her eyes

looking on the ground. When her furies took her (which was rather

seldomer than before) they took her in a new way, and she banged

herself about to that extent that I was forced to hold her. She got

none the better for a little drink now and then, and through some

years I used to wonder, as I plodded along at the old horse's head,

whether there was many carts upon the road that held so much

dreariness as mine, for all my being looked up to as the King of the

Cheap Jacks. So sad our lives went on till one summer evening,

when, as we were coming into Exeter, out of the farther West of

England, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel manner, who

screamed, "Don't beat me! O mother, mother, mother!" Then my wife

stopped her ears, and ran away like a wild thing, and next day she

was found in the river.

Me and my dog were all the company left in the cart now; and the dog

learned to give a short bark when they wouldn't bid, and to give

another and a nod of his head when I asked him, "Who said half a

crown? Are you the gentleman, sir, that offered half a crown?" He

attained to an immense height of popularity, and I shall always

believe taught himself entirely out of his own head to growl at any

person in the crowd that bid as low as sixpence. But he got to be

well on in years, and one night when I was conwulsing York with the

spectacles, he took a conwulsion on his own account upon the very

footboard by me, and it finished him.

Being naturally of a tender turn, I had dreadful lonely feelings on

me arter this. I conquered 'em at selling times, having a

reputation to keep (not to mention keeping myself), but they got me

down in private, and rolled upon me. That's often the way with us

public characters. See us on the footboard, and you'd give pretty

well anything you possess to be us. See us off the footboard, and

you'd add a trifle to be off your bargain. It was under those

circumstances that I come acquainted with a giant. I might have

been too high to fall into conversation with him, had it not been

for my lonely feelings. For the general rule is, going round the

country, to draw the line at dressing up. When a man can't trust

his getting a living to his undisguised abilities, you consider him

below your sort. And this giant when on view figured as a Roman.

He was a languid young man, which I attribute to the distance

betwixt his extremities. He had a little head and less in it, he

had weak eyes and weak knees, and altogether you couldn't look at

him without feeling that there was greatly too much of him both for

his joints and his mind. But he was an amiable though timid young

man (his mother let him out, and spent the money), and we come

acquainted when he was walking to ease the horse betwixt two fairs.

He was called Rinaldo di Velasco, his name being Pickleson.

This giant, otherwise Pickleson, mentioned to me under the seal of

confidence that, beyond his being a burden to himself, his life was

made a burden to him by the cruelty of his master towards a step-

daughter who was deaf and dumb. Her mother was dead, and she had no

living soul to take her part, and was used most hard. She travelled

with his master's caravan only because there was nowhere to leave

her, and this giant, otherwise Pickleson, did go so far as to

believe that his master often tried to lose her. He was such a very

languid young man, that I don't know how long it didn't take him to

get this story out, but it passed through his defective circulation

to his top extremity in course of time.

When I heard this account from the giant, otherwise Pickleson, and

likewise that the poor girl had beautiful long dark hair, and was

often pulled down by it and beaten, I couldn't see the giant through

what stood in my eyes. Having wiped 'em, I give him sixpence (for

he was kept as short as he was long), and he laid it out in two

three-penn'orths of gin-and-water, which so brisked him up, that he

sang the Favourite Comic of Shivery Shakey, ain't it cold?--a

popular effect which his master had tried every other means to get

out of him as a Roman wholly in vain.

His master's name was Mim, a wery hoarse man, and I knew him to

speak to. I went to that Fair as a mere civilian, leaving the cart

outside the town, and I looked about the back of the Vans while the

performing was going on, and at last, sitting dozing against a muddy

cart-wheel, I come upon the poor girl who was deaf and dumb. At the

first look I might almost have judged that she had escaped from the

Wild Beast Show; but at the second I thought better of her, and

thought that if she was more cared for and more kindly used she

would be like my child. She was just the same age that my own

daughter would have been, if her pretty head had not fell down upon

my shoulder that unfortunate night.

To cut it short, I spoke confidential to Mim while he was beating

the gong outside betwixt two lots of Pickleson's publics, and I put

it to him, "She lies heavy on your own hands; what'll you take for

her?" Mim was a most ferocious swearer. Suppressing that part of

his reply which was much the longest part, his reply was, "A pair of

braces." "Now I'll tell you," says I, "what I'm a going to do with

you. I'm a going to fetch you half-a-dozen pair of the primest

braces in the cart, and then to take her away with me." Says Mim

(again ferocious), "I'll believe it when I've got the goods, and no

sooner." I made all the haste I could, lest he should think twice

of it, and the bargain was completed, which Pickleson he was thereby

so relieved in his mind that he come out at his little back door,

longways like a serpent, and give us Shivery Shakey in a whisper

among the wheels at parting.

It was happy days for both of us when Sophy and me began to travel

in the cart. I at once give her the name of Sophy, to put her ever

towards me in the attitude of my own daughter. We soon made out to

begin to understand one another, through the goodness of the

Heavens, when she knowed that I meant true and kind by her. In a

very little time she was wonderful fond of me. You have no idea

what it is to have anybody wonderful fond of you, unless you have

been got down and rolled upon by the lonely feelings that I have

mentioned as having once got the better of me.

You'd have laughed--or the rewerse--it's according to your

disposition--if you could have seen me trying to teach Sophy. At

first I was helped--you'd never guess by what--milestones. I got

some large alphabets in a box, all the letters separate on bits of

bone, and saying we was going to WINDSOR, I give her those letters

in that order, and then at every milestone I showed her those same

letters in that same order again, and pointed towards the abode of

royalty. Another time I give her CART, and then chalked the same

upon the cart. Another time I give her DOCTOR MARIGOLD, and hung a

corresponding inscription outside my waistcoat. People that met us

might stare a bit and laugh, but what did I care, if she caught the

idea? She caught it after long patience and trouble, and then we

did begin to get on swimmingly, I believe you! At first she was a

little given to consider me the cart, and the cart the abode of

royalty, but that soon wore off.

We had our signs, too, and they was hundreds in number. Sometimes

she would sit looking at me and considering hard how to communicate

with me about something fresh,--how to ask me what she wanted

explained,--and then she was (or I thought she was; what does it

signify?) so like my child with those years added to her, that I

half-believed it was herself, trying to tell me where she had been

to up in the skies, and what she had seen since that unhappy night

when she flied away. She had a pretty face, and now that there was

no one to drag at her bright dark hair, and it was all in order,

there was a something touching in her looks that made the cart most

peaceful and most quiet, though not at all melancholy. [N.B. In

the Cheap Jack patter, we generally sound it lemonjolly, and it gets

a laugh.]

The way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly

surprising. When I sold of a night, she would sit in the cart

unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes

when I looked in, and would hand me straight the precise article or

articles I wanted. And then she would clap her hands, and laugh for

joy. And as for me, seeing her so bright, and remembering what she

was when I first lighted on her, starved and beaten and ragged,

leaning asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give me such heart

that I gained a greater heighth of reputation than ever, and I put

Pickleson down (by the name of Mim's Travelling Giant otherwise

Pickleson) for a fypunnote in my will.

This happiness went on in the cart till she was sixteen year old.

By which time I began to feel not satisfied that I had done my whole

duty by her, and to consider that she ought to have better teaching

than I could give her. It drew a many tears on both sides when I

commenced explaining my views to her; but what's right is right, and

you can't neither by tears nor laughter do away with its character.

So I took her hand in mine, and I went with her one day to the Deaf

and Dumb Establishment in London, and when the gentleman come to

speak to us, I says to him: "Now I'll tell you what I'll do with

you, sir. I am nothing but a Cheap Jack, but of late years I have

laid by for a rainy day notwithstanding. This is my only daughter

(adopted), and you can't produce a deafer nor a dumber. Teach her

the most that can be taught her in the shortest separation that can

be named,--state the figure for it,--and I am game to put the money

down. I won't bate you a single farthing, sir, but I'll put down

the money here and now, and I'll thankfully throw you in a pound to

take it. There!" The gentleman smiled, and then, "Well, well,"

says he, "I must first know what she has learned already. How do

you communicate with her?" Then I showed him, and she wrote in

printed writing many names of things and so forth; and we held some

sprightly conversation, Sophy and me, about a little story in a book

which the gentleman showed her, and which she was able to read.

"This is most extraordinary," says the gentleman; "is it possible

that you have been her only teacher?" "I have been her only

teacher, sir," I says, "besides herself." "Then," says the

gentleman, and more acceptable words was never spoke to me, "you're

a clever fellow, and a good fellow." This he makes known to Sophy,

who kisses his hands, claps her own, and laughs and cries upon it.

We saw the gentleman four times in all, and when he took down my

name and asked how in the world it ever chanced to be Doctor, it

come out that he was own nephew by the sister's side, if you'll

believe me, to the very Doctor that I was called after. This made

our footing still easier, and he says to me:

"Now, Marigold, tell me what more do you want your adopted daughter

to know?"

"I want her, sir, to be cut off from the world as little as can be,

considering her deprivations, and therefore to be able to read

whatever is wrote with perfect ease and pleasure."

"My good fellow," urges the gentleman, opening his eyes wide, "why I

can't do that myself!"

I took his joke, and gave him a laugh (knowing by experience how

flat you fall without it), and I mended my words accordingly.

"What do you mean to do with her afterwards?" asks the gentleman,

with a sort of a doubtful eye. "To take her about the country?"

"In the cart, sir, but only in the cart. She will live a private

life, you understand, in the cart. I should never think of bringing

her infirmities before the public. I wouldn't make a show of her

for any money."

The gentleman nodded, and seemed to approve.

"Well," says he, "can you part with her for two years?"

"To do her that good,--yes, sir."

"There's another question," says the gentleman, looking towards

her,--"can she part with you for two years?"

I don't know that it was a harder matter of itself (for the other

was hard enough to me), but it was harder to get over. However, she

was pacified to it at last, and the separation betwixt us was

settled. How it cut up both of us when it took place, and when I

left her at the door in the dark of an evening, I don't tell. But I

know this; remembering that night, I shall never pass that same

establishment without a heartache and a swelling in the throat; and

I couldn't put you up the best of lots in sight of it with my usual

spirit,--no, not even the gun, nor the pair of spectacles,--for five

hundred pound reward from the Secretary of State for the Home

Department, and throw in the honour of putting my legs under his

mahogany arterwards.

Still, the loneliness that followed in the cart was not the old

loneliness, because there was a term put to it, however long to look

forward to; and because I could think, when I was anyways down, that

she belonged to me and I belonged to her. Always planning for her

coming back, I bought in a few months' time another cart, and what

do you think I planned to do with it? I'll tell you. I planned to

fit it up with shelves and books for her reading, and to have a seat

in it where I could sit and see her read, and think that I had been

her first teacher. Not hurrying over the job, I had the fittings

knocked together in contriving ways under my own inspection, and

here was her bed in a berth with curtains, and there was her

reading-table, and here was her writing-desk, and elsewhere was her

books in rows upon rows, picters and no picters, bindings and no

bindings, gilt-edged and plain, just as I could pick 'em up for her

in lots up and down the country, North and South and West and East,

Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone

astray, Over the hills and far away. And when I had got together

pretty well as many books as the cart would neatly hold, a new

scheme come into my head, which, as it turned out, kept my time and

attention a good deal employed, and helped me over the two years'

stile.

Without being of an awaricious temper, I like to be the owner of

things. I shouldn't wish, for instance, to go partners with

yourself in the Cheap Jack cart. It's not that I mistrust you, but

that I'd rather know it was mine. Similarly, very likely you'd

rather know it was yours. Well! A kind of a jealousy began to

creep into my mind when I reflected that all those books would have

been read by other people long before they was read by her. It

seemed to take away from her being the owner of 'em like. In this

way, the question got into my head: Couldn't I have a book new-made

express for her, which she should be the first to read?

It pleased me, that thought did; and as I never was a man to let a

thought sleep (you must wake up all the whole family of thoughts

you've got and burn their nightcaps, or you won't do in the Cheap

Jack line), I set to work at it. Considering that I was in the

habit of changing so much about the country, and that I should have

to find out a literary character here to make a deal with, and

another literary character there to make a deal with, as

opportunities presented, I hit on the plan that this same book

should be a general miscellaneous lot,--like the razors, flat-iron,

chronometer watch, dinner plates, rolling-pin, and looking-glass,--

and shouldn't be offered as a single indiwidual article, like the

spectacles or the gun. When I had come to that conclusion, I come

to another, which shall likewise be yours.

Often had I regretted that she never had heard me on the footboard,

and that she never could hear me. It ain't that I am vain, but that

YOU don't like to put your own light under a bushel. What's the

worth of your reputation, if you can't convey the reason for it to

the person you most wish to value it? Now I'll put it to you. Is

it worth sixpence, fippence, fourpence, threepence, twopence, a

penny, a halfpenny, a farthing? No, it ain't. Not worth a

farthing. Very well, then. My conclusion was that I would begin

her book with some account of myself. So that, through reading a

specimen or two of me on the footboard, she might form an idea of my

merits there. I was aware that I couldn't do myself justice. A man

can't write his eye (at least I don't know how to), nor yet can a

man write his voice, nor the rate of his talk, nor the quickness of

his action, nor his general spicy way. But he can write his turns

of speech, when he is a public speaker,--and indeed I have heard

that he very often does, before he speaks 'em.

Well! Having formed that resolution, then come the question of a

name. How did I hammer that hot iron into shape? This way. The

most difficult explanation I had ever had with her was, how I come

to be called Doctor, and yet was no Doctor. After all, I felt that

I had failed of getting it correctly into her mind, with my utmost

pains. But trusting to her improvement in the two years, I thought

that I might trust to her understanding it when she should come to

read it as put down by my own hand. Then I thought I would try a

joke with her and watch how it took, by which of itself I might

fully judge of her understanding it. We had first discovered the

mistake we had dropped into, through her having asked me to

prescribe for her when she had supposed me to be a Doctor in a

medical point of view; so thinks I, "Now, if I give this book the

name of my Prescriptions, and if she catches the idea that my only

Prescriptions are for her amusement and interest,--to make her laugh

in a pleasant way, or to make her cry in a pleasant way,--it will be

a delightful proof to both of us that we have got over our

difficulty." It fell out to absolute perfection. For when she saw

the book, as I had it got up,--the printed and pressed book,--lying

on her desk in her cart, and saw the title, DOCTOR MARIGOLD'S

PRESCRIPTIONS, she looked at me for a moment with astonishment, then

fluttered the leaves, then broke out a laughing in the charmingest

way, then felt her pulse and shook her head, then turned the pages

pretending to read them most attentive, then kissed the book to me,

and put it to her bosom with both her hands. I never was better

pleased in all my life!

But let me not anticipate. (I take that expression out of a lot of

romances I bought for her. I never opened a single one of 'em--and

I have opened many--but I found the romancer saying "let me not

anticipate." Which being so, I wonder why he did anticipate, or who

asked him to it.) Let me not, I say, anticipate. This same book

took up all my spare time. It was no play to get the other articles

together in the general miscellaneous lot, but when it come to my

own article! There! I couldn't have believed the blotting, nor yet

the buckling to at it, nor the patience over it. Which again is

like the footboard. The public have no idea.

At last it was done, and the two years' time was gone after all the

other time before it, and where it's all gone to, who knows? The

new cart was finished,--yellow outside, relieved with wermilion and

brass fittings,--the old horse was put in it, a new 'un and a boy

being laid on for the Cheap Jack cart,--and I cleaned myself up to

go and fetch her. Bright cold weather it was, cart-chimneys

smoking, carts pitched private on a piece of waste ground over at

Wandsworth, where you may see 'em from the Sou'western Railway when

not upon the road. (Look out of the right-hand window going down.)

"Marigold," says the gentleman, giving his hand hearty, "I am very

glad to see you."

"Yet I have my doubts, sir," says I, "if you can be half as glad to

see me as I am to see you."

"The time has appeared so long,--has it, Marigold?"

"I won't say that, sir, considering its real length; but--"

"What a start, my good fellow!"

Ah! I should think it was! Grown such a woman, so pretty, so

intelligent, so expressive! I knew then that she must be really

like my child, or I could never have known her, standing quiet by

the door.

"You are affected," says the gentleman in a kindly manner.

"I feel, sir," says I, "that I am but a rough chap in a sleeved

waistcoat."

" I feel," says the gentleman, "that it was you who raised her from

misery and degradation, and brought her into communication with her

kind. But why do we converse alone together, when we can converse

so well with her? Address her in your own way."

"I am such a rough chap in a sleeved waistcoat, sir," says I, "and

she is such a graceful woman, and she stands so quiet at the door!"

"TRY if she moves at the old sign," says the gentleman.

They had got it up together o' purpose to please me! For when I

give her the old sign, she rushed to my feet, and dropped upon her

knees, holding up her hands to me with pouring tears of love and

joy; and when I took her hands and lifted her, she clasped me round

the neck, and lay there; and I don't know what a fool I didn't make

of myself, until we all three settled down into talking without

sound, as if there was a something soft and pleasant spread over the

whole world for us.

[A portion is here omitted from the text, having reference to the

sketches contributed by other writers; but the reader will be

pleased to have what follows retained in a note:

"Now I'll tell you what I am a-going to do with you. I am a-going

to offer you the general miscellaneous lot, her own book, never read

by anybody else but me, added to and completed by me after her first

reading of it, eight-and-forty printed pages, six-and-ninety

columns, Whiting's own work, Beaufort House to wit, thrown off by

the steam-ingine, best of paper, beautiful green wrapper, folded

like clean linen come home from the clear-starcher's, and so

exquisitely stitched that, regarded as a piece of needlework alone,

it's better than the sampler of a seamstress undergoing a

Competitive examination for Starvation before the Civil Service

Commissioners--and I offer the lot for what? For eight pound? Not

so much. For six pound? Less. For four pound. Why, I hardly

expect you to believe me, but that's the sum. Four pound! The

stitching alone cost half as much again. Here's forty-eight

original pages, ninety-six original columns, for four pound. You

want more for the money? Take it. Three whole pages of

advertisements of thrilling interest thrown in for nothing. Read

'em and believe 'em. More? My best of wishes for your merry

Christmases and your happy New Years, your long lives and your true

prosperities. Worth twenty pound good if they are delivered as I

send them. Remember! Here's a final prescription added, "To be

taken for life," which will tell you how the cart broke down, and

where the journey ended. You think Four Pound too much? And still

you think so? Come! I'll tell you what then. Say Four Pence, and

keep the secret."]

So every item of my plan was crowned with success. Our reunited

life was more than all that we had looked forward to. Content and

joy went with us as the wheels of the two carts went round, and the

same stopped with us when the two carts stopped. I was as pleased

and as proud as a Pug-Dog with his muzzle black-leaded for a evening

party, and his tail extra curled by machinery.

But I had left something out of my calculations. Now, what had I

left out? To help you to guess I'll say, a figure. Come. Make a

guess and guess right. Nought? No. Nine? No. Eight? No.

Seven? No. Six? No. Five? No. Four? No. Three? No. Two?

No. One? No. Now I'll tell you what I'll do with you. I'll say

it's another sort of figure altogether. There. Why then, says you,

it's a mortal figure. No, nor yet a mortal figure. By such means

you got yourself penned into a corner, and you can't help guessing a

IMmortal figure. That's about it. Why didn't you say so sooner?

Yes. It was a immortal figure that I had altogether left out of my

Calculations. Neither man's, nor woman's, but a child's. Girl's or

boy's? Boy's. "I, says the sparrow with my bow and arrow." Now

you have got it.

We were down at Lancaster, and I had done two nights more than fair

average business (though I cannot in honour recommend them as a

quick audience) in the open square there, near the end of the street

where Mr. Sly's King's Arms and Royal Hotel stands. Mim's

travelling giant, otherwise Pickleson, happened at the self-same

time to be trying it on in the town. The genteel lay was adopted

with him. No hint of a van. Green baize alcove leading up to

Pickleson in a Auction Room. Printed poster, "Free list suspended,

with the exception of that proud boast of an enlightened country, a

free press. Schools admitted by private arrangement. Nothing to

raise a blush in the cheek of youth or shock the most fastidious."

Mim swearing most horrible and terrific, in a pink calico pay-place,

at the slackness of the public. Serious handbill in the shops,

importing that it was all but impossible to come to a right

understanding of the history of David without seeing Pickleson.

I went to the Auction Room in question, and I found it entirely

empty of everything but echoes and mouldiness, with the single

exception of Pickleson on a piece of red drugget. This suited my

purpose, as I wanted a private and confidential word with him, which

was: "Pickleson. Owing much happiness to you, I put you in my will

for a fypunnote; but, to save trouble, here's fourpunten down, which

may equally suit your views, and let us so conclude the

transaction." Pickleson, who up to that remark had had the dejected

appearance of a long Roman rushlight that couldn't anyhow get

lighted, brightened up at his top extremity, and made his

acknowledgments in a way which (for him) was parliamentary

eloquence. He likewise did add, that, having ceased to draw as a

Roman, Mim had made proposals for his going in as a conwerted Indian

Giant worked upon by The Dairyman's Daughter. This, Pickleson,

having no acquaintance with the tract named after that young woman,

and not being willing to couple gag with his serious views, had

declined to do, thereby leading to words and the total stoppage of

the unfortunate young man's beer. All of which, during the whole of

the interview, was confirmed by the ferocious growling of Mim down

below in the pay-place, which shook the giant like a leaf.

But what was to the present point in the remarks of the travelling

giant, otherwise Pickleson, was this: "Doctor Marigold,"--I give

his words without a hope of conweying their feebleness,--"who is the

strange young man that hangs about your carts?"--"The strange young

MAN?" I gives him back, thinking that he meant her, and his languid

circulation had dropped a syllable. "Doctor," he returns, with a

pathos calculated to draw a tear from even a manly eye, "I am weak,

but not so weak yet as that I don't know my words. I repeat them,

Doctor. The strange young man." It then appeared that Pickleson,

being forced to stretch his legs (not that they wanted it) only at

times when he couldn't be seen for nothing, to wit in the dead of

the night and towards daybreak, had twice seen hanging about my

carts, in that same town of Lancaster where I had been only two

nights, this same unknown young man.

It put me rather out of sorts. What it meant as to particulars I no

more foreboded then than you forebode now, but it put me rather out

of sorts. Howsoever, I made light of it to Pickleson, and I took

leave of Pickleson, advising him to spend his legacy in getting up

his stamina, and to continue to stand by his religion. Towards

morning I kept a look out for the strange young man, and--what was

more--I saw the strange young man. He was well dressed and well

looking. He loitered very nigh my carts, watching them like as if

he was taking care of them, and soon after daybreak turned and went

away. I sent a hail after him, but he never started or looked

round, or took the smallest notice.

We left Lancaster within an hour or two, on our way towards

Carlisle. Next morning, at daybreak, I looked out again for the

strange young man. I did not see him. But next morning I looked

out again, and there he was once more. I sent another hail after

him, but as before he gave not the slightest sign of being anyways

disturbed. This put a thought into my head. Acting on it I watched

him in different manners and at different times not necessary to

enter into, till I found that this strange young man was deaf and

dumb.

The discovery turned me over, because I knew that a part of that

establishment where she had been was allotted to young men (some of

them well off), and I thought to myself, "If she favours him, where

am I? and where is all that I have worked and planned for?" Hoping-

-I must confess to the selfishness--that she might NOT favour him, I

set myself to find out. At last I was by accident present at a

meeting between them in the open air, looking on leaning behind a

fir-tree without their knowing of it. It was a moving meeting for

all the three parties concerned. I knew every syllable that passed

between them as well as they did. I listened with my eyes, which

had come to be as quick and true with deaf and dumb conversation as

my ears with the talk of people that can speak. He was a-going out

to China as clerk in a merchant's house, which his father had been

before him. He was in circumstances to keep a wife, and he wanted

her to marry him and go along with him. She persisted, no. He

asked if she didn't love him. Yes, she loved him dearly, dearly;

but she could never disappoint her beloved, good, noble, generous,

and I-don't-know-what-all father (meaning me, the Cheap Jack in the

sleeved waistcoat) and she would stay with him, Heaven bless him!

though it was to break her heart. Then she cried most bitterly, and

that made up my mind.

While my mind had been in an unsettled state about her favouring

this young man, I had felt that unreasonable towards Pickleson, that

it was well for him he had got his legacy down. For I often

thought, "If it hadn't been for this same weak-minded giant, I might

never have come to trouble my head and wex my soul about the young

man." But, once that I knew she loved him,--once that I had seen

her weep for him,--it was a different thing. I made it right in my

mind with Pickleson on the spot, and I shook myself together to do

what was right by all.

She had left the young man by that time (for it took a few minutes

to get me thoroughly well shook together), and the young man was

leaning against another of the fir-trees,--of which there was a

cluster, -with his face upon his arm. I touched him on the back.

Looking up and seeing me, he says, in our deaf-and-dumb talk, "Do

not be angry."

"I am not angry, good boy. I am your friend. Come with me."

I left him at the foot of the steps of the Library Cart, and I went

up alone. She was drying her eyes.

"You have been crying, my dear."

"Yes, father."

"Why?"

"A headache."

"Not a heartache?"

"I said a headache, father."

"Doctor Marigold must prescribe for that headache."

She took up the book of my Prescriptions, and held it up with a

forced smile; but seeing me keep still and look earnest, she softly

laid it down again, and her eyes were very attentive.

"The Prescription is not there, Sophy."

"Where is it?"

"Here, my dear."

I brought her young husband in, and I put her hand in his, and my

only farther words to both of them were these: "Doctor Marigold's

last Prescription. To be taken for life." After which I bolted.

When the wedding come off, I mounted a coat (blue, and bright

buttons), for the first and last time in all my days, and I give

Sophy away with my own hand. There were only us three and the

gentleman who had had charge of her for those two years. I give the

wedding dinner of four in the Library Cart. Pigeon-pie, a leg of

pickled pork, a pair of fowls, and suitable garden stuff. The best

of drinks. I give them a speech, and the gentleman give us a

speech, and all our jokes told, and the whole went off like a sky-

rocket. In the course of the entertainment I explained to Sophy

that I should keep the Library Cart as my living-cart when not upon

the road, and that I should keep all her books for her just as they

stood, till she come back to claim them. So she went to China with

her young husband, and it was a parting sorrowful and heavy, and I

got the boy I had another service; and so as of old, when my child

and wife were gone, I went plodding along alone, with my whip over

my shoulder, at the old horse's head.

Sophy wrote me many letters, and I wrote her many letters. About

the end of the first year she sent me one in an unsteady hand:

"Dearest father, not a week ago I had a darling little daughter, but

I am so well that they let me write these words to you. Dearest and

best father, I hope my child may not be deaf and dumb, but I do not

yet know." When I wrote back, I hinted the question; but as Sophy

never answered that question, I felt it to be a sad one, and I never

repeated it. For a long time our letters were regular, but then

they got irregular, through Sophy's husband being moved to another

station, and through my being always on the move. But we were in

one another's thoughts, I was equally sure, letters or no letters.

Five years, odd months, had gone since Sophy went away. I was still

the King of the Cheap Jacks, and at a greater height of popularity

than ever. I had had a first-rate autumn of it, and on the twenty-

third of December, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, I

found myself at Uxbridge, Middlesex, clean sold out. So I jogged up

to London with the old horse, light and easy, to have my Christmas-

eve and Christmas-day alone by the fire in the Library Cart, and

then to buy a regular new stock of goods all round, to sell 'em

again and get the money.

I am a neat hand at cookery, and I'll tell you what I knocked up for

my Christmas-eve dinner in the Library Cart. I knocked up a

beefsteak-pudding for one, with two kidneys, a dozen oysters, and a

couple of mushrooms thrown in. It's a pudding to put a man in good

humour with everything, except the two bottom buttons of his

waistcoat. Having relished that pudding and cleared away, I turned

the lamp low, and sat down by the light of the fire, watching it as

it shone upon the backs of Sophy's books.

Sophy's books so brought Sophy's self, that I saw her touching face

quite plainly, before I dropped off dozing by the fire. This may be

a reason why Sophy, with her deaf-and-dumb child in her arms, seemed

to stand silent by me all through my nap. I was on the road, off

the road, in all sorts of places, North and South and West and East,

Winds liked best and winds liked least, Here and there and gone

astray, Over the hills and far away, and still she stood silent by

me, with her silent child in her arms. Even when I woke with a

start, she seemed to vanish, as if she had stood by me in that very

place only a single instant before.

I had started at a real sound, and the sound was on the steps of the

cart. It was the light hurried tread of a child, coming clambering

up. That tread of a child had once been so familiar to me, that for

half a moment I believed I was a-going to see a little ghost.

But the touch of a real child was laid upon the outer handle of the

door, and the handle turned, and the door opened a little way, and a

real child peeped in. A bright little comely girl with large dark

eyes.

Looking full at me, the tiny creature took off her mite of a straw

hat, and a quantity of dark curls fell about her face. Then she

opened her lips, and said in a pretty voice,

"Grandfather!"

"Ah, my God!" I cries out. "She can speak!"

"Yes, dear grandfather. And I am to ask you whether there was ever

any one that I remind you of?"

In a moment Sophy was round my neck, as well as the child, and her

husband was a-wringing my hand with his face hid, and we all had to

shake ourselves together before we could get over it. And when we

did begin to get over it, and I saw the pretty child a-talking,

pleased and quick and eager and busy, to her mother, in the signs

that I had first taught her mother, the happy and yet pitying tears

fell rolling down my face.

The Legend of Sleepy Hollow| Free Reading Book

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sat, 12 Jun 2021 14:53:00 +0000

Free online reading Book The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving

In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore

of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the

ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently

shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they

crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is

called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the

name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by

the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate propensity

of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market days. Be that

as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, for the sake of

being precise and authentic. Not far from this village, perhaps about two

miles, there is a little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, which is

one of the quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through

it, with just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle

of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever

breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting was in

a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. I had

wandered into it at noontime, when all nature is peculiarly quiet, and was

startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath stillness around

and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever I should

wish for a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its distractions,

and dream quietly away from the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none more

promising than this little valley.

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of its

inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers, this

sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow, and

its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all the

neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the

land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place was

bewitched by a High German doctor, during the early days of the

settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his

tribe, held his powwows there before the country was discovered by Master

Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under the sway of

some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the good people,

causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given to all kinds of

marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions, and frequently see

strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air. The whole

the neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and twilight

superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley than in

any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her whole ninefold,

seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region and seems

to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air is the apparition of a

figure on horseback, without ahead. It is said by some to be the ghost of a

Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball, in

some nameless battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever and

anon saw by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night, as if on

the wings of the wind. His haunts are not confined to the valley but extend

at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the vicinity of a church at

no great distance. Indeed, certain of the most authentic historians of those

parts, who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts

concerning this specter, allege that the body of the trooper having been

buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in

nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed with which he

sometimes passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his

being belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has

furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and the

specter is known at all the country firesides, by the name of the Headless

Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

Remarkably, the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not

confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously

imbibed by everyone who resides there for a time. However wide awake

they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure, in

a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin to grow

imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions.

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud for it is in such little

retired Dutch valleys found here and there embosomed in the great State of

New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed, while the

a great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making such incessant

changes in other parts of this restless country sweeps by them unobserved.

They are like those little nooks of still water, which border a rapid stream,

where we may see the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or slowly

revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed by the rush of the passing

current. Though many years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of

Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not still find the same trees

and the same families vegetating in its sheltered bosom.

In this by-place of nature their abode, in a remote period of American

history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of

Ichabod Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, “tarried,” in Sleepy

Hollow, to instruct the children of the vicinity. He was a

a native of Connecticut, a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for

the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of

frontier woodmen and country schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was

not inapplicable to his person. He was tall but exceedingly lank, with

narrow shoulders, long arms, and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his

sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most

loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at the top, with huge ears,

large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a

weather-cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way the wind

blew. To see him striding along with the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his

clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for

the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped

from a cornfield.

His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed

of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old

copybooks. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours, by a withe

twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the window

shutters; so that though a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find

some embarrassment in getting out, – an idea most probably borrowed by

the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an eelpot. The

the schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at the foot of

a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and a formidable birch-tree

growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils’ voices,

conning over their lessons might be heard in a drowsy summer’s day, like

the hum of a beehive; interrupted now and then by the authoritative voice of

the master, in the tone of menace or command, or, peradventure, by the

appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some tardy loiterer along the

flowery path of knowledge. Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and

ever bore in mind the golden maxim, “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”

Ichabod Crane’s scholars certainly were not spoiled.

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel

potentates of the school who joy in the smart of their subjects; on the

contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than severity;

taking the burden off the backs of the weak, and laying it on those of the

strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish of the rod,

was passed by with indulgence, but the claims of justice were satisfied by

inflicting a double portion on some little tough wrong-headed, broad-skirted

Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and grew dogged and sullen beneath

the birch. All this he called “doing his duty by their parents;” and he never

inflicted a chastisement without following it by the assurance, so

consolatory to the smarting urchin, that “he would remember it and thank

him for it the longest day he had to live.”

When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate of

the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of the

smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good

housewives for mothers noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed, it

behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising

from his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to

furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though lank,

had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his maintenance, he

was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded and lodged at the

houses of the farmers whose children he instructed. With these, he lived

successively a week at a time, thus going the rounds of the neighborhood,

with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton handkerchief.

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic patrons,

who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and

schoolmasters as mere drones he had various ways of rendering himself

both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers occasionally in the

lighter labors of their farms helped to make hay, mended the fences, took

the horses to water drove the cows from pasture and cut wood for the

winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant dignity and absolute sway

with which he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and became

wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found favor in the eyes of the

mothers by petting the children, particularly the youngest; and like the lion

bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did hold, he would sit with

a child on one knee, and rock a cradle with his foot for whole hours

together.

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the

neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the young

folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him on Sundays, to

take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band of chosen singers;

where, in his own mind, he completely carried away the palm from the

parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all the rest of the

congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church,

and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to the opposite side of

the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning, which is said to be legitimately

descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers little

makeshifts, in that ingenious way which is commonly denominated “by

hook and by crook,” the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and

was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of headwork, to

have a wonderfully easy life of it.

A schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female

circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle,

gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to

the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the

parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the

tea-table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary dish of cakes

or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot. Our man of

letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the country

damsels. How he would figure among them in the churchyard, between

services on Sundays; gathering grapes for them from the wild vines that

overran the surrounding trees; reciting for their amusement all the epitaphs

on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of them, along the

banks of the adjacent mill-pond; while the more bashful country bumpkins

hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and address.

From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of traveling gazette, carrying

the whole budget of local gossip from house to house, so that his

the appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover,

esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read several

books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather’s “History

of New England Witchcraft,” in which, by the way, he most firmly and

potently believed.

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity.

His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally

extraordinary, and both had been increased by his residence in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his capacious

swallow. It was often his delight after his school was dismissed in the

afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover bordering the little

the brook that whimpered by his school-house, and their con over old Mather’s

direful tales, until the gathering dusk of evening, made the printed page a

mere mist before his eyes. Then, as he wended his way by swamp and

stream and awful woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be

quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching hour, fluttered his excited

imagination, – the moan of the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding

cry of the tree toad, that harbinger of the storm, the dreary hooting of the

screech owl, to the sudden rustling in the thicket of birds, frightened from

their roost. The fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest

places, now and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would

stream across his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came

winging his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give

up the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch’s token. His only

resource on such occasions, either to drown thought or drive away evil

spirits was to sing psalm tunes and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as

they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe at hearing

his nasal melody, “in linked sweetness long drawn out,” floating from the

distant hill, or along the dusky road.

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter evenings

with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of

apples roasting and spluttering along with the hearth, and listen to their

marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and haunted

brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the

headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they sometimes

called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft,

and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in the air, which

prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut, and would frighten them

woefully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars; and with the

the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and that they were

half the time topsy-turvy!

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in the chimney

corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood

fire, and were, of course, no specter dared to show its face, it was dearly

purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk homewards. What fearful

shapes and shadows beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of a

snowy night! With what wistful look did he eye every trembling ray of light

streaming across the waste fields from some distant window! How often

was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, which, like a sheeted

specter beset his very path! How often did he shrink with curdling awe at

the sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his feet; and dread to

look over his shoulder, lest he should behold some uncouth being tramping

close behind him! and how often was he thrown into complete dismay by

some rushing blast, howling among the trees, in the idea that it was the

Galloping Hessian on one of his nightly scourings!

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the mind

that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many specters in his time,

and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his lonely

perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils, and he would

have passed a pleasant life of it, despite the Devil and all his works, if

his path had not been crossed by a being that causes more perplexity to

the mortal man than ghosts, goblins and the whole race of witches put together,

and that was – a woman.

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week, to

receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter

and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a blooming lass of

fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as

one of her father’s peaches, and universally famed, not merely for her

beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a little of a coquette, as

might be perceived even in her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and

modern fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She wore the

ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her great-great-grandmother had

brought over from Saar dam; the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and

withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the prettiest foot and ankle

in the country round.

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards the sex, and it is not to

be wondered at, that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes,

more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion. Old Baltus

Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted

farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his thoughts beyond the

boundaries of his own farm; but within those everything was snug, happy

and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not proud of it;

and piqued himself upon the hearty abundance, rather than the style in

which he lived. His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hudson, in

one of those green, sheltered, fertile nooks in which the Dutch farmers are

so fond of nestling. A great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at the

the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a

little well formed of a barrel, and then stole sparkling away through the

grass, to a neighboring brook, that babbled along among alders and dwarf

willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have served for

a church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting forth with

the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding within it from

morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the

eaves; rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up as if watching the

weather, some with their heads under their wings or buried in their bosoms,

and others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were

enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting in

the repose and abundance of their pens, from whence, sallied forth, now and

then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of

snowy geese were riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of

ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and

Guinea fowls fretting about it, like ill-tempered housewives, with their

peevish, discontented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant cock,

that pattern of a husband, a warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his

burnished wings and crowing in the pride and gladness of his heart, –

sometimes tearing up the earth with his feet, and then generously calling his

ever-hungry family of wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he

had discovered.

The pedagogue’s mouth watered as he looked upon this sumptuous promise

of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind’s eye, he pictured to himself

every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly, and an apple

in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and

tucked in with a coverlet of a crust; the geese were swimming in their own

gravy; and the ducks pairing cozily in dishes, like snug married couples,

with a decent competency of onion sauce. In the porkers, he saw carved out

the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy relishing ham; not a turkey but he

beheld daintily trussed up, with its gizzard under its wing, and,

peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages; and even bright chanticleer

himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side dish, with uplifted claws, as if

craving that quarter which his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while

living.

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great green

eyes over the fat meadow lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of

buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy fruit,

which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned after

the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded

with the idea, how they might be readily turned into cash, and the money

invested in immense tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces in the

wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and presented to

him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children, mounted on the

top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots and kettles

dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a

colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, – or the Lord knows

where!

When he entered the house, the conquest of his heart was complete. It was

one of those spacious farmhouses, with high-ridged but lowly sloping roofs,

built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers; the low

projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of being closed

up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, various utensils of

husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring river. Benches were built

along the sides for summer use; and a great spinning-wheel at one end, and

a churn at the other, showed the various uses to which this important porch

might be devoted. From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the hall,

which formed the center of the mansion, and the place of usual residence.

Here rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes.

In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be spun; in another, a

quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and

strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls,

mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep

into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany tables

shone like mirrors; andirons, with their accompanying shovel and tongs,

glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and conchshells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various-colored birds eggs were

suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the center of the

room, and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense

treasures of old silver and well-mended china.

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight, the

peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the

affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise,

however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of a

knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery

dragons, and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend with and

had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass, and walls of

adamant to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart was confined; all

which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his way to the center of a

Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her hand as a matter of course.

Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart of a country

coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and caprices, which were forever

presenting new difficulties and impediments; and he had to encounter a host

of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the numerous rustic admirers,

who beset every portal to her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon

each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause against any new

competitor.

Among these, the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roystering blade, of

the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van

Brunt, the hero of the country round which rang with his feats of strength

and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short

curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance, having a

mingled air of fun and arrogance From his Herculean frame and great

powers of limb he had received the nickname of Brom Bones, by which he

was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and skill in

horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was

foremost at all races and cock fights; and, with the ascendancy which bodily

strength always acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all disputes, setting

his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone that

admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready for either a fight or

a frolic; but had more mischief than ill-will in his composition; and with all

his overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of waggish good humor

at bottom. He had three or four boon companions, who regarded him as

their model, and at the head of whom he scoured the country, attending

every scene of feud or merriment for miles round. In cold weather he was

distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox’s tail; and when

the folks at a country gathering descried this well-known crest at a distance,

whisking about among a squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a

squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard dashing along past the

farmhouses at midnight, with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don

Cossacks; and the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a

moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, “Ay, there

goes Brom Bones and his gang!” The neighbors looked upon him with a

mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will; and, when any madcap prank or

rustic brawl occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and

warranted Brom Bones was at the bottom of it.

This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina for

the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his amorous toyings were

something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a bear, yet it was

whispered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his

advances were signals for rival candidates to retire, who felt no inclination

to cross a lion in his amours; insomuch, that when his horse was seen tied to

Van Tassel’s paling, on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his master was

courting, or, as it is termed, “sparking,” within, all other suitors passed by in

despair, and carried the war into other quarters.

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend,

and, considering, all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from

the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a

happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in form

and spirit like a supple-jackayielding, but tough; though he bent, he never

broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment

it was away – jerk! – he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever.

To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been madness;

for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that

stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet and

gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master,

he made frequent visits at the farmhouse; not that he had anything to

apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a

stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was an easy

indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his pipe, and, like a

reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have her way in everything.

His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping

and manage her poultry; for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are

foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of

themselves. Thus, while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her

spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his

evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden

warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting

the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the mean time, Ichabod would carry

on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm,

or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover’s

eloquence.

I profess not to know how women’s hearts are wooed and won. To me they

have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but

one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand

avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great

triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to

maintain possession of the latter, for man must battle for his fortress at

every door and window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is

therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over

the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case

with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment Ichabod Crane

made his advances, the interests of the former evidently declined: his horse

was no longer seen tied to the palings on Sunday nights, and a deadly feud

gradually arose between him and the preceptor of Sleepy Hollow.

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain have

carried matters to open warfare and have settled their pretensions to the

lady, according to the mode of those most concise and simple reasoners, the

knights-errant of yore, – by single combat; but lchabod was too conscious

of the superior might of his adversary to enter the lists against him; he had

overheard a boast of Bones, that he would “double the schoolmaster up, and

lay him on a shelf of his own schoolhouse;” and he was too wary to give

him an opportunity. There was something extremely provoking, in this

obstinately pacific system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the

funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish practical

jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to

Bones and his gang of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful

domains, smoked out his singing-school by stopping up the chimney, broke

into the schoolhouse at night, despite its formidable fastenings of withe

and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, so that the poor

schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held their

meetings there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took all

Opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress, and

had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous

manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod’s, to instruct her in psalmody.

In this way matters went on for some time, without producing any material

effect on the relative situations of the contending powers. On a fine

autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty

stool from whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary

realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that scepter of despotic power; the

birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the throne, a constant terror to

evil doers, while on the desk before him might be seen sundry contraband

articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon the persons of idle urchins,

such as half-munched apples, popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole

legions of rampant little paper game-cocks. Apparently there had been some

appalling act of justice recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily

intent upon their books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept

upon the master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the

schoolroom. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in

tow-cloth jacket and trowsers. a round-crowned fragment of a hat, like the

cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken

colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up

to the school-door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making

or “quilting-frolic,” to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel’s; and

having, delivered his message with that air of importance and effort at fine

language which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind, he

dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering, away up the Hollow, full

of the importance and hurry of his mission.

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet schoolroom. The scholars

were hurried through their lessons without stopping at trifles; those who

were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those who were tardy had

a smart application now and then in the rear, to quicken their speed or help

them over a tall word. Books were flung aside without being put away on

the shelves, inkstands were overturned, benches thrown down, and the

whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting forth

like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green in joy at

their early emancipation.

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet,

brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only suit of rusty black, and

arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that hung up in the

schoolhouse. That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the

true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he

was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the name of Hans Van Ripper,

and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of

adventures. But it is meet I should, in the true spirit of romantic story, give

some account of the looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The

animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow-horse, that had outlived almost

everything but its viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck,

and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted

with burs; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the

other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and

mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He

had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his master’s, the choleric Van Ripper,

who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own

spirit into the animal; for, old and broken-down as he looked, there was

more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in the country.

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups,

which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp

elbows stuck out like grasshoppers’; he carried his whip perpendicularly in

his hand, like a scepter, and as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms

was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on

the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called, and

the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horses tail. Such was

the appearance of Ichabod and his steed as they shambled out of the gate of

Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to

be met with in broad daylight.

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene,

and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with

the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow,

while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into

brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks

began to make their appearance high in the air; the bark of the squirrel

might be heard from the groves of beech and hickory-nuts, and the pensive

whistle of the quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble field.

The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness of their

revelry, they fluttered, chirping and frolicking from bush to bush, and tree

to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety around them. There

was the honest cockrobin, the favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its

loud querulous note; and the twittering blackbirds flying in sable clouds,

and the golden-winged woodpecker with his crimson crest, his broad black

gorget, and splendid plumage; and the cedar-bird, with its red tipt wings and

yellow-tipt tail and its little monteiro cap of feathers; and the blue jay, that

noisy coxcomb, in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes,

screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending

to be on good terms with every songster of the grove.

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom

of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly

autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples: some hanging in

oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels for

the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther on he

beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears peeping from their

leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding; and

the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning up their fair round bellies

to the sun, and giving ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies; and

anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat fields breathing the odor of the

beehive, and as he beheld them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of

dainty slap-jacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, by the

delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel.

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and “sugared

suppositions,” he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which look

out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun

gradually wheeled his broad disk down in the west. The wide bosom of the

Tappan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a

gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shallow of the distant

mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air to

move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually into a

pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A

slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that overhung

some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the dark gray and purple of

their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping slowly

down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly against the mast; and as the

reflection of the sky gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the vessel

was suspended in the air.

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer Van

Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent

country old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun coats and

breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles.

Their brisk, withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted

short-gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pin-cushions, and gay

calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated

as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps a

white frock gave symptoms of city innovation. The sons, in short square skirted coats, with rows of stupendous brass buttons, and their hair

generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially if they could

procure an eelskin for the purpose, it being esteemed throughout the

the country as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the hair.

Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the

gathering on his favorite steed Daredevil, a creature, like himself, full of

mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. He was,

in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds of tricks

which kept the rider at constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable,

well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit.

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon the

enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel’s

mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their luxurious

display of red and white; but the ample charms of a genuine Dutch country

tea-table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up platters of

cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only to experienced

Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the tender olykoek,

and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger

cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes. And then there were

apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies; besides slices of ham and

smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes of preserved plums, and

peaches, and pears, and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted

chickens; together with bowls of milk and cream, all mingled higgledypiggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot

sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst – Heaven bless the mark! I

want breath and time to discuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too

eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a

hurry as his historian but did ample justice to every dainty.

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as

his skin was filled with good cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating, as

some men’s do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large eyes

round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he might one

day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor.

Then, he thought, how soon he‘d turn his back upon the old schoolhouse;

snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly

patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors that should dare to

call him comrade!

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated

with content and good humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His

hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a shake

of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to

“fall to, and help themselves.”

And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall,

summoned to the dance. The musician was an old gray-headed negro, who

had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a

century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part

of the time he scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every

movement of the bow with a motion of the head; bowing almost to the

ground, and stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple was to start.

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal powers.

Not a limb, not a fiber about him was idle; and to have seen his loosely

hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, you would have

thought St. Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was figuring

before you in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes; who, having

gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the neighborhood, stood

forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every door and window; gazing

with delight at the scene; rolling their white eye-balls, and showing

grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be

otherwise than animated and joyous? the lady of his heart was his partner in

the dance, and smiling graciously in reply to all his amorous oglings; while

Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, sat brooding by himself

in one corner.

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the sager

folks, who, with Old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza,

gossiping over former times, and drawing out long stories about the war.

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of those

highly favored places which abound with chronicle and great men. The

British and American line had run near it during the war; it had, therefore],

been the scene of marauding and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and all

kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed to enable each

story-teller to dress up his tale with a little becoming fiction, and, in the

the indistinctness of his recollection, to make himself the hero of every exploit.

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman,

who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder from a

mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge. And there

was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a mynheer to

be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of White Plains, being an excellent

master of defense, parried a musket-ball with a small-sword, insomuch that

he absolutely felt it whiz around the blade, and glance off at the hilt; in proof

of which he was ready at any time to show the sword, with the hilt a little

bent. There were several more that had been equally great in the field, not

one of whom but was persuaded that he had a considerable hand in bringing

the war to a happy termination.

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that

succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of its kind.

Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered, long-settled

retreats; but are trampled underfoot by the shifting throng that forms the

population of most of our country places. Besides, there is no

encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely

had time to finish their first nap and turn themselves in their graves before

their surviving friends have traveled away from the neighborhood; so that

when they turn out at night to walk their rounds, they have no acquaintance

left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of

ghosts except in our long-established Dutch communities.

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural stories in

these parts, was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There

was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region; it

breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the land.

Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel’s, and, as

usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many dismal tales

were told about funeral trains, and mourning cries and wailings heard and

seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major Andre was taken, and

which stood in the neighborhood. Some mention was made also of the

woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often

heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm, having perished there in the

snow. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite

specter of Sleepy Hollow, the Headless Horseman, who had been heard

several times of late, patrolling the country; and, it was said, tethered his

horse nightly among the graves in the churchyard.

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it a

a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust,

trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent, whitewashed walls shine

modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the shades of

retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of water,

bordered by high trees, between which, peeps may be caught at the blue

hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams

seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at least the dead might

rest in peace. On one side of the church extends a wide woody dell, along

which raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks of fallen trees.

Over a deep black part of the stream, not far from the church, was formerly

thrown a wooden bridge; the road that led to it, and the bridge itself, were

thickly shaded by overhanging trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in

the daytime; but occasioned fearful darkness at night. Such was one of the

favorite haunts of the Headless Horseman, and the place where he was most

frequently encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical

a disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the Horseman returning from his foray

into Sleepy Hollow, and was obliged to get up behind him; how they

galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the

bridge; when the Horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old

Brouwer into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of

thunder.

This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvelous adventure of

Brom Bones, who made light of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey.

He affirmed that on returning one night from the neighboring village of

Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had

offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it too,

for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but just as they came to the

church bridge, the Hessian bolted and vanished in a flash of fire.

All these tales told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in the

dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a casual

the gleam from the glare of a pipe sank deep in the mind of Ichabod. He repaid

them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather,

and added many marvelous events that had taken place in his native State

of Connecticut, and fearful sights which he had seen in his nightly walks

about Sleepy Hollow.

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together their

families in their wagons and were heard for some time rattling along the

hollow roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the damsels mounted on

pillions behind their favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter,

mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands,

sounding fainter and fainter, until they gradually died away, – and the late

scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered

behind, according to the custom of country lovers, to have a tete-a-tete with

the heiress; fully convinced that he was now on the high road to success.

What passed at this interview I will not pretend to say, for ,in fact, I do not

know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he

certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air quite desolate

and chapfallen. Oh, these women! these women! Could that girl have been

playing off any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encouragement of the poor

pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her conquest of his rival? Heaven only

knows, not I! Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the air of one

who had been sacking a henroost, rather than a fair lady’s heart. Without

looking to the right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on which he

had so often gloated, he went straight to the stable, and with several hearty

cuffs and kicks roused his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable

quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn

and oats, and whole valleys of timothy and clover.

It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted and

crest-fallen, pursued his travels homewards, along the sides of the lofty hills

which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so cheerily in the

afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him the Tappan

Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and there the

the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under the land. In the dead hush

of midnight, he could even hear the barking of the watchdog from the

the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was so vague and faint as only to give

an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of man. Now and then,

too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally awakened, would sound

far, far off, from some farmhouse away among the hills – but it was like a

dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred near him, but

occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or perhaps the guttural

the twang of a bull-frog from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping

uncomfortably and turning suddenly in his bed.

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon now

came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and darker; the

stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds occasionally hid

them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and dismal. He was,

moreover, approaching the very place where many of the scenes of the

ghost stories had been laid. In the center of the road stood an enormous

tulip tree, which towered like a giant above all the other trees of the

neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were gnarled and

fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary trees, twisting down

almost to the earth, and rising again into the air. It was connected with the

tragic story of the unfortunate Andre, who had been taken prisoner hard

by; and was universally known by the name of Major Andre’s tree. The

common people regarded it with a mixture of respect and superstition,

partly out of sympathy for the fate of its ill-starred namesake, and partly

from the tales of strange sights, and doleful lamentations told concerning it.

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he thought his

whistle was answered; it was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry

branches. As he approached a little nearer, he thought he saw something

white, hanging in the midst of the tree: he paused, and ceased whistling but,

on looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place where the tree had

been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard

a groan – his teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the saddle: it was

but the rubbing of one huge bough upon another, as they were swayed about

by the breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils lay before him.

About two hundred yards from the tree, a small brook crossed the road and

ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley’s

Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served as a bridge over this

stream. On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood, a group

of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape vines, threw a

cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest trial. It was at

this identical spot that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and under the

covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen concealed who

surprised him. This has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and

fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to pass it alone after dark.

As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump he summoned up,

however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs,

and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead of starting

forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement, and ran

broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay,

jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with the contrary foot:

it was all in vain; his steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the

opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder-bushes. The

schoolmaster now bestowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of

old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and snorting, but came to a

stand just by the bridge, with a suddenness that had nearly sent his rider

sprawling over his head. Just at this moment, a plashy tramp by the side of

the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the

grove, on the margin of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen

and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some

gigantic monster ready to spring upon the traveler.

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror. What

was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides, what chance

was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which could ride upon

the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show of courage, he

demanded in stammering accents, “Who are you?” He received no reply. He

repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still, there was no

answer. Once more he cudgeled the sides of the inflexible Gunpowder, and,

shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just

then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with a scramble

and a bound stood at once in the middle of the road. Though the night was

dark and dismal, yet the form of the unknown might now in some degree be

ascertained. He appeared to be a horseman of large dimensions and

mounted on a black horse of powerful frame. He made no offer of

molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the road, jogging

along on the blind side of old Gunpowder, who had now got over his fright

and waywardness.

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and

bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping

Hessian, now quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. The

stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up,

and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind, – the other did the same. His

heart began to sink within him; he endeavored to resume his psalm tune, but

his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a

stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence of this

pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling. It was soon

fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which brought the

figure of his ffellow travelerin relief against the sky, gigantic in height, and

muffled in a cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was

headless! but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head,

which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the

pommel of his saddle! His terror rose to desperation; he rained a shower of

kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give

his companion the slip; but the specter started full jump with him. Away,

then, they dashed through thick and thin; stones flying and sparks flashing

at every bound. Ichabod’s flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he

stretched his long lank body away over his horse’s head, in the eagerness of

his flight.

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but

Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it,

made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong downhill to the left. This

the road leads through a sandy hollow shaded by trees for about a quarter of a

mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story; and just beyond

swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskilful rider an apparent

the advantage in the chase, but just as he had got halfway through the hollow,

the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from under him. He

seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain; and

had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder round the neck,

when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it trampled underfoot by his

pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper’s wrath passed across

his mind, – for it was his Sunday saddle; but this was no time for petty

fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches; and (unskilful rider that he

was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat; sometimes slipping on one

side, sometimes on another, and sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his

horse’s backbone, with a violence, that he verily feared would leave him

asunder.

An opening, in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church

bridge was at hand. The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of

the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church

dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom

Bones’ ghostly competitor had disappeared. “If I can but reach that bridge,”

thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard the black steed panting and

blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath.

Another convulsive kick in the ribs and old Gunpowder sprang upon the

bridge; he thundered over the resounding planks; he gained the opposite

side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind to see if his pursuer should

vanish, according to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then he saw

the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the very act of hurling his head at

him. Ichabod endeavored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It

encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash, – he was tumbled

headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder, the black steed, and the goblin

rider, passed by like a whirlwind.

The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and with the

bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master’s gate.

Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast; dinner-hour came, but no

Ichabod. The boys assembled at the schoolhouse and strolled idly about the

banks of the brook, but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now began to

feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod, and his saddle. An

inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent investigation, they came upon his

traces. In one part of the road leading to the church was found the saddle

trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses’ hoofs deeply dented in the road,

and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on

the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black,

was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered

pumpkin.

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be

discovered. Hans Van Ripper as executor of his estate examined the bundle

which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two shirts and a

half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted stockings; an old pair

of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a book of psalm tunes full of

dog’s-ears; and a broken pitch-pipe. As to the books and furniture of the

schoolhouse, they belonged to the community, excepting Cotton Mather’s

History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and a book of dreams and

fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and

blotted in several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in honor of the

heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books and the poetic scrawl were

forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van Ripper; who, from that time

forward, determined to send his children no more to school; observing that

he never knew any good come of this same reading and writing. Whatever

the money the schoolmaster possessed, and he had received his quarter’s pay

but a day or two before, he must have had about his person at the time of

his disappearance.

The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the

following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the

churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin had

been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of others

were called to mind; and when they had diligently considered them all, and

compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook their

heads, and came to the conclusion chat Ichabod had been carried off by the

Galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody’s debt, nobody

troubled his head any more about him; the school was removed to a

a different quarter of the Hollow and another pedagogue reigned in his stead.

It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York on a visit several

years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure was

received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive;

that he had left the neighborhood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans

Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been suddenly dismissed

by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the

country; had kept school and studied law at the same time; had been

admitted to the bar; turned politician; electioneered; written for the

newspapers; and finally had been made a justice of the ten-pound court.

Brom Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival’s disappearance conducted the

blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar was observed to look exceedingly

knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a

hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin; which led some to suspect that

he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell.

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters,

maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means;

and it is a favorite story often told about the neighborhood around the winter

evening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of superstitious

awe; and that may be the reason why the road has been altered of late years,

to approach the church by the border of the mill-pond. The

the schoolhouse being deserted soon fell to decay and was reported to be

haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue and the plow-boy,

loitering homeward of a still summer evening has often fancied his voice at

a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil solitudes

of Sleepy Hollow.

The Listeners by James E. Gunn| Free Online Book

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Read The Listeners novel online free on this novel bucket platform this novel written by James E. Gunn

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveler,

Knocking on the moonlit door. . . .

The voices babbled.

MacDonald heard them and knew that there was meaning

in them, that they were trying to communicate and that he

could understand them and respond to them if he could only

concentrate on what they were saying, but he couldn't bring

himself to make the effort. He tried again.

"Back behind everything, lurking like a silent shadow

behind the closed door, is the question we can never answerr

except positively: Is there anybody there?"

That was Bob Adams, eternally the devil's advocate, look-

ing querulously at the others around the conference table.

His round face was sweating, although the mahogany-paneled

room was cool.

Saunders puffed hard on his pipe. "But that's true of all

science. The image of the scientist eliminating all negative

possibilities is ridiculous. Can't be done. So he goes ahead on

faith and statistical probability."

MacDonald watched the smoke rise above Saunders' head

in clouds and wisps until it wavered in the draft from the

air duct, thinned out, disappeared. He could not see it, but

the odor reached his nostrils. It was an aromatic blend easily

distinguishable from the flatter smell of cigarettes being

smoked by Adams and some of the others.

Wasn't this their task? MacDonald wondered. To detect the

thin smoke of life that drifts through the universe, to separate

one trace from another, molecule by molecule, and then force

them to reverse their entropic paths into their ordered and

meaningful original form.

All the king's horses, and alt the king's men. . . . Life itself

is impossible, he thought, but men exist by reversing entropy.

Down the long table cluttered with overflowing ash trays

and coffee cups and doodled scratch pads Olsen, said, "We

always knew it would be a long search. Not years but cen-

turies. The computers must have sufficient data, and that

means bits of information approximating the number of

molecules in the universe. Let's not chicken out now."

"// seven maids with seven mops

Swept it for half a year,

Do you suppose," the Walrus said,

"That they could get it clear?"

". . . ridiculous," someone was saying, and then Adams

broke in, "It's easy for you to talk about centuries when

you've been here only three years. Wait until you've been at it

for ten years, like I have. Or Mac here who has been on the

Project for twenty years and head of it for fifteen."

"What's the use of arguing about something we can't know

anything about?" Sonnenborn said reasonably. "We have to

base our position on probabilities. Shkiovskii and Sagan esti-

mated that there are more than one thousand million habit-

able planets in our galaxy alone. Von Hoemer estimated that

one in three million have advanced societies in orbit around

them; Sagan said one in one hundred thousand. Either way

it's good odds that there's somebody therethree hundred or

ten thousand in our segment of the universe. Our job is to

listen in the right place or in the right way or understand

what we hear."

Adams to MacDonald. "What do you say, Mac?"

"I say these basic discussions are good for us," MacDonald

said mildly, "and we need to keep reminding ourselves what it

is we're doing, or we'll get swallowed in a quicksand of data.

I also say that it's time now to get down to the business at

handwhat observations do we make tonight and the rest of

the week before our next staff meeting?"

Saunders began, "I think we should make a methodical

sweep of. the entire galactic lens, listening on all wave-

lengths"

"We've done that a hundred times," said Sonnenborn.

"Not with my new filter"

"Tau Ceti still is the most likely," said Olsen. "Let's really

give it a hearing"

MacDonald heard Adams grumbling half to himself, "If

there is anybody, and they are trying to communicate, some

amateur is going to pick it up on his ham set, decipher it on

his James Bond coderule, and leave us sitting here on one

hundred million dollars of equipment with egg all over our

faces"

"And don't forget," MacDonald said, "tomorrow is Satur-

day night and Maria and I will be expecting you all at our

place at eight for the customary beer and bull. Those who

have more to say can save it for then.."

MacDonald did not feel as jovial as he tried to sound. He

did not know whether he could stand another Saturday night

session of drink and discussion and dissension about the

Project. This was one of his low periods when everything

seemed to pile up on top of him, and he could not get out

from under, or tell anybody how he felt. No matter how he

felt, the Saturday nights were good for the morale of the

others.

Piles no es pmible que est& continue el arco armado

ni la condicidn y flaqueza humana se pueda sustenar

sin alguna Kcita recreacidn

Within the Project, morale was always a problem. Besides,

it was good for Maria. She did not get out enough. She

needed to see people. And then. . . .

And then maybe Adams was right. Maybe nobody was

there. Maybe nobody was sending signals because there was

nobody to send signals. Maybe man was all alone in the

universe. Alone with God. Or alone with himself, whichever

was worse.

Maybe all the money was being wasted, and the effort, and

the preparationall the intelligence and education and ideas

being drained away into an endlessly empty cavern.

Habe nun, ach! Philosophic,

luristerei und Medizin,

Under leider auch Theologie

Durchaus studiert, mit heissern Bemiihn.

Da steh' ich nun, ich armer Tor!

Und bin so klug als wie zuvor;

Heisse Magister, heisse Doktor gar,

Und ziehe schon an die zehen Jahr

Herauf, herab und quer und krumm

Meine SchUler an der Nose herum

Und sehe, doss wir nichts wissen konneni .

Poor fool. Why me? MacDonald thought. Could not some

other lead them better, not by the nose but by his real wis-

dom? Perhaps all he was good for was the Saturday night

parties. Perhaps it was time for a change.

He shook himself. It was the endless waiting that wore him

down, the waiting for something that did not happen, and the

Congressional hearings were coming up again. What could

he say that he had not said before? How could he justify a

project that already had gone on for nearly fifty years without

results and might go on for centuries more?

"Gentlemen," he said briskly, "to our listening posts."

By the time he had settled himself at his disordered desk,

Lily was standing beside him.

"Here's last night's computer analysis," she said, putting

down in front of him a thin folder. "Reynolds says there's

nothing there, but you always want to see it anyway. Here's

the transcription of last year's Congressional hearings." A

thick binder went on top of the folder. "The correspondence

and the actual appropriation measure are in another file if

you want them."

MacDonald shook his head.

"There's a form letter here from NASA establishing the

ground rules for this year's budget and a personal letter from

Ted Wartinian saying that conditions are really tight and

some cuts look inevitable. In fact, he says there's a possibility

the Project might be scrubbed."

Lily glanced at him. "Not a chance," MacDonald said

confidently.

"There's a few applications for employment. Not as many

as we used to get. The letters from school children I answered

myself. And there's the usual nut letters from people who've

been receiving messages from outer space, and from one

who's had a ride in a UFO. That's what he called itnot a

saucer or anything. A feature writer wants to interview you

and some others for an article on the Project. I think he's

with us. And another one who sounds as if he wants to do

an expose."

MacDonald listened patiently. Lily was a wonder. She

could handle everything in the office as well as he could. In

fact, things might run smoother if he were not around to take

up her time.

"They've both sent some questions for you to answer. And

Joe wants to talk to you."

"Joe?"

"One of the janitors."

"What does he want?" They couldn't afford to lose a jani-

tor. Good janitors were harder to find than astronomers,

harder even than electronicians.

"He says he has to talk to you, but I've heard from some

of the lunchroom staff that he's been complaining about

getting messages on hison his"

"Yes?"

"On his false teeth."

MacDonald sighed. "Pacify him somehow, will you, Lily?

If I talk to him we might lose a janitor."

"I'll do my best. And Mrs. MacDonald called. Said it

wasn't important and you needn't call back."

"Call her," MacDonald said. "And, Lilyyou're coming to

the party tomorrow night, aren't you?"

"What would I be doing at a party with all the brains?"

"We want you to come. Maria asked particularly. It isn't

all shop talk, you know. And there are never enough women.

You might strike it off with one of the young bachelors."

"At my age, Mr. MacDonald? You're just trying to get rid

of me."

"Never."

"I'll get Mrs. MacDonald." Lily turned at the door. "I'll

think about the party."

MacDonald shuffled through the papers. Down at the

bottom was the only one he was interested inthe computer

analysis of last night's listening. But he kept it there, on the

bottom, as a reward for going through the others. Ted was

really worried. Move over, Ted. And then the writers. He

supposed he would have to work them in somehow. At least

it was part of the fallout to locating the Project in Puerto

Rico. Nobody just dropped in. And the questions. Two of

them caught his attention.

How did you come to be named Project Director? That

was the friendly one. What are your qualifications to be

Director? That was the other. How would he answer them?

Could he answer them at all?

Finally he reached the computer analysis, and it was just

like those for the rest of the week, and the week before that,

and the months and the years before that. No significant

correlations. Noise. There were a few peaks of receptionat

the twenty-one-centimeter line, for instancebut these were

merely concentrated noise. Radiating clouds of hydrogen, as

the Little Ear functioned like an ordinary radio telescope.

At least the Project showed some results. It was feeding

star survey data tapes into the international pool. Fallout.

Of a process that had no other product except negatives.

Maybe the equipment wasn't sensitive enough. Maybe.

They could beef it up some more. At least it might be a

successful ploy with the Committee, some progress to present,

if only in the hardware. You don't stand still. You spend

more money or they cut you backor off.

Note; Soundersplans to increase sensitivity.

Maybe the equipment wasn't discriminating enough. But

they had used up a generation of ingenuity canceling out

background noise, and in its occasional checks the Big Ear

indicated that they were doing adequately on terrestrial noise,

at least.

Note: Adamsnew discrimination gimmick.

Maybe the computer wasn't recognizing a signal when it

had one fed into it. Perhaps it wasn't sophisticated enough to

perceive certain subtle relationships. . . . And yet sophisti-

cated codes had been broken in seconds. And the Project was

asking it to distinguish only where a signal existed, whether

the reception was random noise or had some element of the

unrandom. At this level it wasn't even being asked to note

the influence of consciousness.

Note: ask computeris it missing something? Ridiculous?

Ask Olsen.

Maybe they shouldn't be searching the radio spectrum at

all. Maybe radio was a peculiarity of man's civilization.

Maybe others had never had it or had passed it by and now

had more sophisticated means of communication. Lasers, for

instance. Telepathy, or what might pass for it with man.

Maybe gamma rays, as Morrison sugested years before Ozma.

Well, maybe. But if it were so, somebody else would have

to listen for those. He had neither the equipment nor the

background nor the working lifetime left to tackle something

new.

And maybe Adams was right.

He buzzed Lily. "Have you reached Mrs. MaeDonald?"

"The telephone hasn't answered"

Unreasoned panic. . . .

"oh, here she is now. Mr. MaeDonald, Mrs. Mac-

Donald."

"Hello, darling. I was alarmed when you didn't answer."

That had been foolish, he thought, and even more foolish to

mention it.

Her voice was sleepy. "I must have been dozing." Even

drowsy, it was an exciting voice, gentle, a little husky, that

speeded MacDonald's pulse. "What did you want?"

"You called me," MaeDonald said.

"Did I? I've forgotten."

"Glad you're resting. You didn't sleep well last night."

"I took some pills."

"How many?"

"Just the two you left out."

"Good girl. I'll see you in a couple of hours. Go back to

sleep. Sorry I woke you."

But her voice wasn't sleepy any more. "You won't have

to go back tonight, will you? We'll have the evening to-

gether?"

"We'll see," he promised.

But he knew he would have to return.

MaeDonald paused outside the long, low concrete building

which housed the offices and laboratories and computers. It

was twilight. The sun had descended below the green hills,

but orange and purpling wisps of cirrus trailed down the

western sky.

Between MaeDonald and the sky was a giant dish held

aloft by skeleton metal fingersheld high as if to catch the

star dust that drifted down at night from the Milky Way.

Go and catch a falling star,

Get with child a mandrake root,

Tell me where all past years are,

Or who cleft the Devil's foot;

Teach me to hear mermaids singing,

Or to keep off envy's stinging,

And find

What wind

Serves to advance an honest mind.

Then the dish began to turn, noiselessly, incredibly, and to

tip. And it was not a dish any more but an ear, a-listening

ear cupped by the surrounding hills to overhear the whisper-

ing universe.

Perhaps this was what kept them at their jobs, MacDonald

thought. In spite of all disappointments, in spite of all vain

efforts, perhaps it was this massive machinery, as sensitive

as their fingertips, which kept them struggling with the

unfathomable. When they grew weary at their electronic

listening posts, when their eyes grew dim with looking at

unrevealing dials and studying uneventful graphs, they could

step outside their concrete cells and renew their dull spirits

in communion with the giant mechanism they commanded,

the silent, sensing instrument in which the smallest packets

of energy, the smallest waves of matter, were detected in their

headlong, eternal flight across the universe. It was the stetho-

scope with which they took the pulse of the all and noted the

birth and death of stars, the probe with which, here on an

insignificant planet of an undistinguished star on the edge of

its galaxy, they explored the infinite.

Or perhaps it was not just the reality but the imagery, like

poetry, which soothed their doubting souls, the bowl held up

to catch Donne's falling star, the ear cocked to catch the

suspected shout that faded to an indistinguishable murmur

by the time it reached them. And one thousand miles above

them was the giant, five-mile-in-diameter network, the largest

radio telescope ever built, which men had cast into the

heavens to catch the stars.

If they had the Big Ear for more than an occasional

reference check, MacDonald thought practically, then they

might get some results. But he knew the radio astronomers

would never relinquish time to the frivolity of listening for

signals that never came. It was only because of the Big Ear

that the Project had inherited the Little Ear. There had been

talk recently about a larger net, twenty miles in diameter.

Perhaps when it was done, if it were done, the Project might

inherit time on the Big Ear.

If they could endure until then, MacDonald thought, if

they could steer their fragile vessel of faith between the Scylla

of self-doubt and the Charybdis of Congressional appropria-

tions.

The images were not all favorable. There were others that

went boompin the night. There was the image, for instance,

of man listening, listening, listening to the silent stars, listen-

ing for an eternity, listening for signals that would never

come, becausethe ultimate horrorman was alone in the

universe, a cosmic accident of self-awareness which needed

and would never receive the comfort of companionship. To

be alone, to be all alone, would be like being all alone on

earth, with no one to talk to, everlike being alone inside

a bone prison, with no way to get out, no way to communi-

cate with anyone outside, no way to know if anyone was

outside....

Perhaps that, in the end, was what kept them goingto

stave off the terrors of the night. While they listened there

was hope; to give up now would be to admit final defeat.

Some said they should never have started; then they never

would have the problem of surrender. Some of the new reli-

gions said that. The Solitarians, for one. There is nobody

there; we are the one, the only created intelligence in the

universe. Let us glory in our uniqueness. But the older reli-

gions encouraged the Project to continue. Why would God

have created the myriads of other stars and other planets if

He had not intended them for living creatures; why should

man only be created in His image? Let us find out, they said.

Let us communicate with them. What revelations have they

had? What saviors have redeemed them?

These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was

yet with you, that alt things must be fulfilled, which were

written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the

psalms, concerning me. . . . Thus it is written, and thus it

behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third

day: and that repentance and remission of sins should be

preached in his name among alt nations, beginning at Jerusa-

lem. And ye are witnesses of these things.

And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you:

but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with

power from on high.

Dusk had turned to night. The sky had turned to black.

The stars had been born again. The listening had begun.

MacDonald made his way to his car in the parking lot behind

the building, coasted until he was behind the hill, and turned

on the motor for the long drive home.

The hacienda was dark. It had that empty feeling about it

that MacDonald knew so well, the feeling it haJ for him

when Maria went to visit friends in Mexico City. But it was

not empty now. Maria was here.

He opened the door and flicked on the hall light. "Maria?"

He walked down the tiled hall, not too fast, not too slow.

"jQuerida?" He turned on the living room light as he passed.

He continued down the hall, past the dining room, the guest

room, the study, the kitchen. He reached the dark doorway

to the bedroom. "Maria Chavez?"

He turned on the bedroom light, low. She was asleep, her

face peaceful, her dark hair scattered across the pillow. She

lay on her side, her legs drawn up under the covers.

Men che dramma

Di sangue m'e rimoso, che no tremi;

Conosco i segni deff antica fiamma.

MacDonald looked down at her, comparing her features

one by one with those he had fixed in his memory. Even now,

with those dark, expressive eyes closed, she was the most

beautiful woman he had ever seen. What glories they had

known! He renewed his spirit in the warmth of his remem-

brances, recalling moments with loving details.

C'est de quay fay ie plus de peur que la pear.

He sat down upon the edge of the bed and leaned over to

kiss her upon the cheek and then upon her upthrust shoulder

where the gown had slipped down. She did not waken. He

shook her shoulder gently. "Maria!" She turned upon her

back, straightening. She sighed, and her eyes came open,

staring blankly. "It is Robby," MacDonald said, dropping

unconsciously into a faint brogue.

Her eyes came alive and her lips smiled sleepily. "Robby.

You're home."

"Yo te amo," he murmured, and kissed her. As he pulled

himself away, he said, "I'll start dinner. Wake up and get

dressed. I'll see you in half an hour. Or sooner."

"Sooner," she said.

He turned and went to the kitchen. There was romaine

lettuce in the refrigerator, and as he rummaged further, some

thin slices of veal. He prepared Caesar salad and veal scal-

lopine, doing it all quickly, expertly. He liked to cook. The

salad was ready, and the lemon juice, tarragon, white wine,

and a minute later, the beef bouillon had been added to the

browned veal when Maria appeared.

She stood in the doorway, slim, lithe, lovely, and sniffed

the air. "I smell something delicious."

It was a joke. When Maria cooked, she cooked Mexican,

something peppery that burned all the way into the stomach

and lay there like a banked furnace. When MacDonald

cooked, it was something exoticFrench, perhaps, or Italian,

or Chinese. But whoever cooked, the other had to appreciate

it or take over all the cooking for a week.

MacDonald filled their wine glasses. "A la tr&s-bonne, & la

tres-belle," he said, "qui fait ma joie et ma sante."

"To the Project," Maria said. "May there be a signal

received tonight."

MacDonald shook his head. One should not mention what

one desires too much. "Tonight there is only us."

Afterward there were only the two of them, as there had

been now for twenty years. And she was as alive and as

urgent, as filled with love and laughter, as when they first had

been together.

At last the urgency was replaced by a vast ease and con-

tentment in which for a time the thought of the Project faded

into something remote which one day he would return to and

finish. "Maria," he said.

"Robby?"

"Yo te amo, coraz.6n"

"Yo te amo, Robby."

Gradually then, as he waited beside her for her breathing

to slow, the Project returned. When he thought she was

asleep, he got up and began to dress in the dark.

"Robby?" Her voice was awake and frightened.

"jQuerida?"

"You are going again?"

"I didn't want to wake you."

"Do you have to go?"

"It's my job."

"Just this once. Stay with me tonight."

He turned on the light. In the dimness he could see that

her face was concerned but not hysterical. "Rast ich, so rost

ich. Besides, I would feel ashamed."

"I understand. Go, then. Come home soon."

He put out two pills on the little shelf in the bathroom and

put the others away again.

The headquarters building was busiest at night when the

radio noise of the sun was least and listening to the-stars was

best. Girls hustled down the halls with coffee pots, and men

stood near the water fountain, talking earnestly.

MacDonald went into the control room.' Adams was at the

control panel; Montaleone was the technician. Adams looked

up, pointed to his earphones with a gesture of futility, and

shrugged. MacDonald nodded at him, nodded at Montaleone,

and glanced at the graph. It looked random to him.

Adams leaned past him to point out a couple of peaks.

"These might be something." He had removed the earphones.

"Odds," MacDonald said.

"Suppose you're right. The computer hasn't sounded any

alarms."

"After a few years of looking at these things, you get the

feel of them. You begin to think like a computer."

"Or you get oppressed by failure."

"There's that."

The room was shiny and efficient, glass and metal and

plastic, all smooth and sterile; and it smelted like electricity.

MacDonald knew that electricity had no smell, but that was

the way he thought of it. Perhaps it was the ozone that

smelled or warm insulation or oil. Whatever it was, it wasn't

worth the time to find out, and MacDonald didn't really want

to know. He would rather think of it as the smell of elec-

tricity. Perhaps that was why he was a failure as a scientist.

"A scientist is a man who wants to know why," his teachers

always had told him.

MacDonald leaned over the control panel and flicked a

switch. A thin, hissing noise filled the room. It was something

like air escaping from an inner tubea susurration of sur-

reptitious sibilants from subterranean sessions of seething

serpents.

He turned a knob and the sound became what someone-

Tennyson?had called "the murmuring of innumerable bees."

Again, and it became Matthew Amold's

. . . melancholy, long withdrawing roar

Retreating, to the breath

Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear

And naked shingles of the world.

He turned the knob once more, and the sound was a babble

of distant voices, some shouting, some screaming, some con-

versing calmly, some whisperingall of them trying beyond

desperation to communicate, and everything just below the

level of intelligibility. If he closed his eyes, MacDonald could

almost see their faces, pressed against a distant screen, dis-

torted with the awful effort to make themselves heard and

understood.

But they all insisted on speaking at once. MacDonald

wanted to_shout at them. "Silence, everybody! All but you

there, with the purple antenna. One at a time and we'll listen

to all of you if it takes a hundred years or a hundred life-

times."

"Sometimes," Adams said, "I think it was a mistake to put

in the speaker system. You begin to anthropomorphize. After

a while you begin to hear things. Sometimes you even get

messages. I don't listen to the voices any more. I used to

wake up in the night with someone whispering to me. I was

just on the verge of getting the message that would solve

everything, and I would wake up." He flicked off the switch.

"Maybe someday somebody will get the message," Mac-

Donald said. "That's what the audio frequency translation

is intended to do. To keep the attention focused. It can mes-

merize and it can torment, but these are the conditions out

of which spring inspiration."

"Also madness," Adams said. "You've got to be able to

continue."

"Yes." MacDonald picked up the earphones Adams had

put down and held one of them to his ear.

"Tico-tico, tico-tico," it sang. 'They're listening in Puerto

Rico. Listening for words that never come. Tico-tico, tico-

tico. They're listening in Puerto Rico. Can it be the stars are

stricken dumb?"

MacDonald put the earphones down and smiled. "Maybe

there's inspiration in that, too."

"At least it takes my mind off the futility."

"Maybe off the job, too? Do you really want to find anyone

out there?"

"Why else would I be here? But there are times when I

wonder if we would not be better off not knowing."

"We all think that sometimes," MacDonald said.

In his office he attacked the stack of papers and letters

again. When he had worked his way to the bottom, he sighed

and got up, stretching. He wondered if he would feel better,

less frustrated, less uncertain, if he were working on the

Problem instead of just working so somebody else could work

on the Problem. But somebody had to do it. Somebody had

to keep the Project going, personnel coming in, funds in the

bank, bills paid, feathers smoothed.

Maybe it was more important that he do all the dirty little

work in the office. Of course it was routine. Of course Lily

could do it as well as he. But it was important that he do it,

that there be somebody in charge who believed in the Project

or who never let his doubts be known.

Like the Little Ear, he was a symboland it is by symbols

men liveor refuse to let their despair overwhelm them.

The janitor was waiting for him in the outer office.

"Can I see you, Mr. MacDonald?" the janitor said.

"Of course, Joe," MacDonald said, locking the door of his

office carefully behind him. "What is it?"

"It's my teeth, sir." The old man got to his feet and with a

deft movement of his tongue and mouth dropped his teeth

into his hand.

MacDonald stared at them with a twinge of revulsion.

There was nothing wrong with them. They were a carefully

constructed pair of false teeth, but they looked too real.

MacDonald always had shuddered away from those things

which seemed to be what they were not, as if there were some

treachery in them.

"They talk to me, Mr. MacDonald," the janitor mumbled,

staring at the teeth in his hand with what seemed like suspi-

cion. "In the glass beside my bed at night, they whisper to

me. About things far off, like. Messages, like."

MacDonald stared at the janitor. It was a strange word for

the old man to use, and hard to say without teeth. Still, the

word had been "messages." But why should it be strange? He

could have picked it up around the offices or the laboratories.

It would be odd, indeed, if he had not picked up something

about what was going on. Of course: messages.

"I've heard of that sort of thing happening," MacDonald

said. "False teeth accidentally constructed into a kind of

crystal .set, that pick' up radio waves. Particularly near a

powerful station. And we have a lot of stray frequencies

floating around, what with the antennas and all. Tell you

what, Joe. We'll make an appointment with the Project dentist

to fix your teeth so that they don't bother you. Any small

alteration should do it."

"Thank you, Mr. MacDonald," the old man said. He fitted

his teeth back into his mouth. "You're a great man, Mr.

MacDonald."

MacDonald drove the ten dark miles to the hacienda with

a vague feeling of unease, as if he had done something during

the day or left something undone that should have been

otherwise.

But the house was dark when he drove up in front, not

empty-dark as it had seemed to him a few hours before, but

friendly-dark. Maria was asleep, breathing peacefully.

The house was brilliant with lighted windows that cast long

fingers into the night, probing the dark hills, and the sound of

many voices stirred echoes until the countryside itself seemed

alive.

"Come in, Lily," MacDonald said at the door, and was

reminded of a winter scene when a Lily had met the gentle-

men at the door and helped them off with their overcoats.

But that was another Lily and another occasion and another

place and somebody else's imagination. "I'm glad you decided

to come." He had a can of beer in his hand, and he waved it

in the general direction of the major center of noisemaking.

"There's beer in the living room and something more potent

in the study190 proof grain alcohol, to be precise. Be care-

ful with that. It will sneak up on you. Butnunc est

bibendumi"

"Where's Mrs. MacDonald?" Lily asked.

"Back there, somewhere." MacDonald waved again. "The

men, and a few brave women, are in the study. The women,

and a few brave men, are in the living room. The kitchen is

common territory. Take your choice."

"I really shouldn't have come," Lily said. "I offered to spell

Mr. Saunders in the control room, but he said I hadn't been

checked out. It isn't as if the computer couldn't handle it all

alone, and I know enough to call somebody if anything unex-

pected should happen."

"Shall I tell you something, Lily?" MacDonald said. "The

computer could do it alone. And you and .the computer could

do it better than any of us, including me. But if the men ever

feel that they are unnecessary, they would feel more useless

than ever. They would give up. And they mustn't do that."

"Oh, Mac!" Lily said.

"They mustn't do that. Because one of them is going to

come up with the inspiraton that solves it all. Not me. One

of them. We'll send somebody to relieve Charley before the

evening is over."

Wer immer strebens sich bemiiht,

Den konnen wir erlSsen.

Lily sighed. "Okay, boss."

"And enjoy yourself!"

"Okay, boss, okay."

"Find a man, Lily," MacDonald muttered. And then he,

too, turned toward the living room, for Lily had been the last

who might come.

He listened for a moment at the doorway, sipping slowly

from the warming can.

"work more on gamma rays"

"Who's got the money to build a generator? Since nobody's

built one yet, we don't even know what it might cost."

"gamma-ray sources should be a million times more rare

than radio sources at twenty-one centimeters"

"That's what Cocconi said nearly fifty years ago. The same

arguments. Always the same arguments."

"If they're right, they're right."

"But the hydrogen-emission line is so uniquely logical. As

Morrison said to Cocconiand Cocconi, if you remember,

agreedit represents a logical, prearranged rendezvous point.

'A unique, objective standard of frequency, which must be

known to every observer of the universe,' was the way they

put it."

"but the noise level"

MacDonald smiled and moved on to the kitchen for a cold

can of beer.

"Bracewell's 'automated messengers'?" a voice asked

querulously.

"What about them?"

"Why aren't we looking for them?"

"The point of Bracewell's messengers is that they make

themselves known to us!"

"Maybe there's something wrong with ours. After a few

million years in orbit"

"laser beams make more sense."

"And get lost in all that star shine?"

"As Schwartz and Townes pointed out, all you have to do

is select a wavelength of light that is absorbed by stellar

atmospheres. Put a narrow laser beam in the center of one of

the calcium absorption lines"

In the study they were talking about quantum noise.

"Quantum noise favors low frequencies."

"But the noise itself sets a lower limit on those frequencies."

"Drake calculated the most favorable frequencies, con-

sidering the noise level, lie between 3.2 and 8.1 centimeters."

"Drake! Drake! What did he know? We've had nearly fifty

years experience on him. Fifty years of technological advance.

Fifty years ago we could send radio messages one thousand

light-years and laser signals ten light-years. Today those

figures are ten thousand and five hundred at least."

"What if nobody's there?" Adams said gloomily.

Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint.

"Short-pulse it, like Oliver suggested. One hundred million

billion watts in a ten billionth of a second would smear across

the entire radio spectrum. Here, Mac, fill this, will you?"

And MacDonald wandered away through the clustering

guests toward the bar.

"And I told Charley," said a woman to two other women

in the corner, "if I had a dime for every dirty diaper I've

changed, I sure wouldn't be sitting here in Puerto Rico"

"neutrinos," said somebody.

"Nuts," said somebody else, as MacDonald poured grain

alcohol carefully into the glass and filled it with orange juice,

"the only really logical medium is Q waves."

"I knowthe waves we haven't discovered yet but are

going to discover about ten years from now. Only here it is

nearly fifty years after Morrison suggested it, and we still

haven't discovered them."

MacDonald wended his way back across the room.

"It's the night work that gets me," said someone's wife.

"The kids up all day, and then he wants me there to greet

him when he gets home at dawn. Brother!"

"Or what if everybody's listening?" Adams said gloomily.

"Maybe everybody's sitting there, listening, just the way we

are, because it's so much cheaper than sending."

"Here you are," MacDonald said.

"But don't you suppose somebody would have thought of

that by this time and begun to send?"

"Double-think it all the way through and figure what just

occurred to you would have occurred to everybody else, so

you might as well listen. Think about iteverybody sitting

around, listening. If there is anybody. Either way it makes the

skin creep."

"All right, then, we ought to send something."

"What would you send?"

"I'd have to think about it. Prime numbers, maybe."

"Think some more. What if a civilization weren't mathe-

matical?"

"Idiot! How would they build an antenna?"

"Maybe they'd rule-of-thumb it, like a ham. Of maybe they

have built-in, antennae."

"And maybe you have built-in antennae and don't know

it."

MacDonald's can of beer was empty. He wandered back

toward the kitchen again.

"insist on equal time with the Big Ear. Even if nobody's

sending we could pick up the normal electronic commerce of

a civilization tens of light-years away. The problem would be

deciphering, not hearing."

"They're picking it up now, when they're studying the

relatively close systems. Ask for a tape and work out your

program."

"All right, I will. Just give me a chance to work up a

request"

MacDonald found himself beside Maria. He put his arm

around her waist and pulled her close. "All right?" he said.

"All right."

Her face was tired, though, MacDonald thought. He

dreaded the notion that she might be growing older, that she

was entering middle age. He could face it for himself. He

could feel the years piling up inside his bones. He still thought

of himself, inside, as twenty, but he knew that he was forty-

seven, and mostly he was glad that he had found happiness

and love and peace and serenity. He even was willing to pay

the price in youthful exuberance and belief in his personal

immortality. But not Maria!

Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita

Mi ritrovai per ana selva oscura,

Che la diritta via era smarrita.

"Sure?"

She nodded.

He leaned close to her ear. "I wish it was just the two of

us, as usual."

"I, too."

"I'm going to leave ill a little while"

"Must you?"

"I must relieve Saunders. He's on duty. Give him an oppor-

tunity to celebrate a little with the others."

"Can't you send somebody else?"

"Who?" MaeDonald gestured with good-humored futility

at all the clusters of people held together by bonds of ordered

sounds 'shared consecutively. "It's a good party. No one will

miss me."

"I will."

"Of course, querida."

"You are their mother, father, priest, all in one," Maria

said. "You worry about them too much."

"I must keep them together. What else am I good for?"

"For much more."

MaeDonald bugged her with one arm.

"Look at Mac and Maria, will you?" said someone who

was having trouble with his consonants. "What god-damned

devotion!"

MaeDonald smiled and suffered himself to be pounded on

the back while he protected Maria in front of him. "I'll see

you later," he said.

As he passed the living room someone was saying, "Like

Eddie said, we ought to look at the long-chain molecules in

carbonaceous chondrites. No telling how far they've traveled

or been sentor what messages might be coded in the

molecules."

As he closed the front door behind him, the noise dropped

to a roar and then a mutter. He stopped for a moment at the

door of the car and looked up at the sky.

E quindi uscimmo a riveder ie stelle.

The noise from the hacienda reminded him of something

the speakers in the control room. All those voices talking,

talking, talking, and from here he could not understand a

thing.

Somewhere there was an idea if he could only concentrate

on it hard enough. But he had drunk one beer too manyor

perhaps one too few.

After the long hours of listening to the voices, MaeDonald

always felt a little crazy, but tonight it was worse than usual.

Perhaps it was all the conversation before, or the beers, or

something elsesome deeper concern that would not. surf ace.

But then the listeners had to be crazy to begin withto get

committed to a project that might go for centuries without

results.

Tico-tico, tico-tico. . . .

Even if they could pick up a message, they still would

likely be dead and gone before any exchange could take place

even with the nearest likely star. What kind of mad dedication

could sustain such perseverance?

They're listening in Puerto Rico. . . .

Religion could. At least once it did, during the era of

cathedral building in Europe, the cathedrals that took cen-

turies to build.

"What are you doing, fellow?"

"I'm working for ten francs a day."

"And what are you doing?"

"I'm laying stone."

"And youwhat are you doing?"

"I am building a cathedral."

They were building cathedrals, most of them. Most of them

had that religious mania about their mission that would

sustain them through a lifetime of labors in which no progress

could be seen.

Listening for words that never come. . . .

The mere layers of stone and those who worked for pay

alone eliminated themselves in time and left only those who

kept alive in themselves the concept, the dream.

But they had to be a little mad to begin with.

Can it be the stars are stricken dumb?

Tonight he had heard the voices nearly all night long.

They kept trying to tell him something, something urgent,

something he should do, but he could not quite make out the

words. There was only the babble of distant voices, urgent

and unintelligible.

Tico-tico, tico-tic. . . .

He had wanted to shout "Shut up!" to the universe. "One

at a time!" "You first!" But of course there was no way to do

that. Or had he tried? Had he shouted?

They're listening with ears this big!

Had he dozed at the console with the voices mumbling in

his ears, or had he only thought he dozed? Or had he only

dreamed he waked. Or dreamed he dreamed?

Listening for thoughts just like their own.

There was a madness to it all, but perhaps it was a divine

madness, a creative madness. And is not that madness that

which sustains man in his terrible self-knowledge, the driving

madness which demands reason of a casual universe, the

awful aloneness which seeks among the stars for companion-

ship?

Can it be that -we are all alone?

The ringing of the telephone half penetrated through the

mists of mesmerization. He picked up the handset, half

expecting that it would be the universe calling, perhaps with a

clipped British accent, "Hello there, Man. Hello. Hello. I say,

we seem to have a bad connection, what? Just wanted you to

know that we're here. Are you there? Are you listening?

Message on the way. May not get there for a couple of

centuries. Do be around to answer, will you? That's a good

being. Righto. . . ."

Only it wasn't. It was the familiar American voice of

Charley Saunders saying, "Mac, there's been an accident.

Olsen is on his way to relieve you, but I think you'd better

leave now. It's Maria."

Leave it. Leave it all. What does it matter? But leave the

controls on automatic; the computer can take care of it all.

Maria! Get in the car. Start it. Don't fumble! That's it. Go.

Go. Car passing. Must be Olsen. No matter.

What kind of accident? Why didn't I ask? What does it

matter what kind of accident? Maria. Nothing could have

happened. Nothing serious. Not with all those people around.

Nil desperandum. And yetwhy did Charley call if it was

not serious? Must be serious. I must be prepared for some-

thing bad, something that will shake the world, that will tear

my insides.

I must not break up in front of them. Why not? Why must

I appear infallible? Why must I always be cheerful, imper-

turbable, my faith unshaken? Why me? If there is something

bad, if something impossibly bad has happened to Maria,

what will matter? Ever? Why didn't I ask Charley what it

was? Why? The bad can wait; it will get no worse for being

unknown.

What does the universe care for my agony? I am nothing.

My feelings are nothing to anyone but me. My only possible

meaning to the universe is the Project. Only this slim poten-

tial links me with eternity. My love and my agony are me,

but the significance of my life or death are the Project.

HIC'SITVS'ESTFHAETHON'CVSRVS'AVRIGA'PATERNI

QVEM'Sr NON'TENVTI' MAGNIS'TAMEN' EXCIDIT'AVSIS

By the time he reached the hacienda, MacDonald was

breathing evenly. His emotions were under control. Dawn had

grayed the eastern sky. It was a customary hour for Project

personnel to be returning home.

Saunders met him at the door. "Dr. Lessenden is here. He's

with Maria."

The odor of stale smoke and the memory of babble still

lingered in the air, but someone had been busy. The party

remains had been cleaned up. No doubt they all had pitched

in. They were good people.

"Betty found her in the bathroom off your bedroom. She

wouldn't have been there except the others were occupied.

I blame myself. I shouldn't have let you relieve me. Maybe if

you had been hereBut I knew you wanted it that way."

"No one's to blame. She was alone a great deal," Mac-

Donald said. "What happened?"

"Didn't I tell you? Her wrists. Slashed with a razor. Both

of them. Betty found her in the bathtub. Like pink lemonade,

she said."

Perce jusques au fond du coew

D'une atteinte imprevue aussi bien que mortelle.

A fist tightened inside MacDonald's gut and then slowly

relaxed. Yes, it had been that. He had known it, hadn't he?

He had known it would happen ever since the sleeping pills,

even though he had kept telling himself, as she had told him,

that the overdose had been an accident.

Or had he known? He knew only that Saunders' news had

been no surprise.

Then they were at the bedroom door, and Maria was lying

under a blanket on the bed, scarcely making it mound over

her body, and her arms were on top of the blankets, palms

up, bandages like white paint across the olive perfection of

her arms, now, MacDonald reminded himself, no longer

perfection but marred with ugly red lips that spoke of hidden

misery and untold sorrow and a life that was a lie. . . .

Dr. Lessenden looked up, sweat trickling down from his

hairline. "The bleeding is stopped, but she's lost agood deal

of blood. I've got to take her to the hospital for a transfusion.

The ambulance should be here any minute." He paused.

MacDonald looked at Maria's face. It was paler than he had

ever seen it. It looked almost waxen, as if it were already

arranged for all time on a satin pillow. "Her chances are

fifty-fifty," Lessenden said in answer to his unspoken question.

And then the attendants brushed their way past him with

their litter.

"Betty found this on her dressing table," Saunders said. He

handed MacDonald a slip of paper folded once.

MacDonald unfolded, it: Je m'en vay chercher un grand

Peut-etre.

Everyone was surprised to see MacDonald at the office.

They did not say anything, and he did not volunteer the

information that he could not bear to sit at home, among the

remembrances, and wait for word to come. But they asked

him about Maria, and he said, "Dr. Lessenden is hopeful.

She's still unconscious. Apparently will be for some time. The

doctor said I might as well wait here as at the hospital. I think

I made them nervous. They're hopeful. Maria's still un-

conscious. ..." 3

0 lente, lente currite, noctis equi!

The stars move stilt, time runs, the clock will strike. . . .

Finally MacDonald was alone. He pulled out paper and

pencil and worked for a long time on the statement, and then.

he balled it up and threw it into the wastebasket, scribbled a

single sentence on another sheet of paper, and called Lily.

"Send this!"

She glanced at it. "No, Mac."

"Send it!"

"But"

"It's not an impulse. I've thought it over carefully. Send it."

Slowly she left, holding the piece of paper gingerly in her

fingertips. MacDonald pushed the papers around on his desk,

waiting for the telephone to ring. But without knocking,

unannounced, Saundeis came through the door first.

"You can't do this, Mac," Saunders said.

MacDonald sighed. "Lily told you. I would fire that girl if

she weren't so loyal."

"Of course she told me. This isn't just you. It affects the

whole Project."

"That's what I'm thinking about."

"I think I know what you're going through) Mac"

Saunders stopped. "No, of course I don't know what you're

going through. It must be hell. But don't desert us. Think of

the Pro)'ect!"

"That's what I'm thinking about. I'm a failure, Charley.

Everything I touchashes."

"You're the best of us."

"A poor linguist? An indifferent engineer? I have no quali-

fications for this job, Charley. You need someone with ideas

to head the Project, someone dynamic, someone who can

lead, someone withcharisma."

A few minutes later he went over it all again with Olsen.

When he came to the qualifications part, all Olsen could say

was, "You give a good party, Mac."

It was Adams, the skeptic, who affected him most. "Mac,

you're what I believe in instead of God."

Sonnenborn said, "You are the Project. If you go, it all

falls apart. It's over."

"It seems like it, always, but it never happens to those

things that have life in them. The Project was here before I

came. It will be here after I leave. It must be longer lived

than any of us, because we are for the years and it is for the

centuries."

After Sonnenborn, MacDonald told Lily wearily, "No

more, Lily"

None o* them h"d had the courage to mention Maria, but

MacDonald considered that failure, too. She had tried to

communicate with him a month ago when she took the pills,

and he had been unable to understand. How could he riddle

the stars when he couldn't even understand those closest to

him? Now he had to pay.

Meine Ruh' ist hin,

Meine Hen ist schwer.

What would Maria want? He knew what she wanted, but

if she lived h" could not let her pay that price. Too long she

had been there when he wanted her, waiting like a doll put

away on a shelf for him to return and take her down, so that

he could have the strength to continue.

And somehow the agony had built up inside her, the dread-

ful progress of the years, most dread of all to a beautliful

woman growing old, alone, too much alone. He had been

selfish. He had kept her to himself. He had not wanted chil-

dren to mar the perfection of their being together.

Perfection for him; less than that for her.

Perhaps it was not too late for them if she lived. And if

she diedhe would not have the heart to go on with work to

which, he knew now, he could contribute nothing.

Que acredito su ventura,

Morir querdo y vivir loco.

And finally the call came. "She's going to be all right,

Mac," Lessenden said. And after a moment, "Mac, I said"

"I heard."

"She wants to see you."

"I'll be there."

"She said to give you a message. 'Tell Robby I've been a

little crazy in the head. I'll be better now. That "great per-

haps" looks too certain from here. And tell him not to be

crazy in the head, too.' "

MacDonald put down the telephone and walked through

the doorway and through the outer office, a feeling in his

chest as if it were going to burst. "She's going to be all right,"

he threw over his shoulder at Lily.

"Oh, Mac"

In the hall, Joe the janitor stopped him. "Mr. Mac-

Donald"

MacDonald stopped. "Been to the dentist yet, Joe?"

"No, sir, not yet, but it's not"

"Don't go. I'd like to put a tape recorder beside your bed

for a while, Joe. Who knows?"

"Thank you, sir. But it's They say you're leaving, Mr.

MacDonald."

"Somebody else will do it."

"You don't understand. Don't go, Mr. MacDonaldl"

"Why not, Joe?"

"You're the one who cares."

MacDonald had been about to move on, but that stopped

him.

Ful wys is he that can himselven knowel

He turned and went back to the office. "Have you got tha

sheet of paper, Lily?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have you sent it?"

"No, sir."

"Bad girl. Give it to me."

He read the sentence on the paper once more: I have grea

confidence in the goals and ultimate success of the Project

but for personal reasons I must submit my resignation.

He studied it for a moment.

Pigmcei gigantum humeris impositi plusquam ipsi gigantel

vidant.

And he tore it up.

TRANSLATIONS

1. Pues no es posible . . .

The bow cannot always stand bent, nor can human frailty

subsist without some lawful recreation.

Cervantes, Don Quixote

2. Habe nun, ach! Philosophle, . . .

Now I have studied philosophy,

Medicine and the law,

And, unfortunately, theology,

Wearily sweating, yet I stand now,

Poor fool, no wiser than I was before;

I am called Master, even Doctor,

And for these last ten years have drawn

My students, by the nose, up, down,

Crosswise and crooked. Now I see

That we can know nothing finally.

Goethe, Faust, opening lines

3. Men che dramma . . .

Less than a drop

Of blood remains in me that does not tremble;

I recognize the signals of the ancient flame.

Dante, The Divine Comedy,

Purgatorio

4. C'est de quoy fay ie plus de pew que la pew.

The thing of which I have most fear is fear.

Montaigne, Essay.

5. A la trSs-bonne, & la tris-belle, qui fait ma joie et ma sant&

To the best, to the most beautiful, who is my joy and m}

well-being

6. Rast ich, so rest ich

When I rest, I rust.

7. Nunc est bibendumi

Now's the time for drinkingi

Baudelaire, Les Epavel

German proverb

Horace Odes. Book I

8. Wer immer strebens sich bemUhl, . . .

Who strives always to the utmost,

Him can we save.

Goethe, Faust, Part I

9. Ich bin der Geist der stets verneint

I am the spirit that always denies.

riripthf. F/iiitf Part T

10. Net mezzo del cammin di nostra vita . . .

In the middle of the journey of our life

I came to myself in a dark wood,

Where the straight way was lost.

Dante, The Divine Comedy,

Inferno, opening lines

11. E quindi uscimmo a riveder ie stelle.

And thence we issued out, again to see the stars.

Dante, The Divine Comedy,

Inferno

12. Nil desperandum.

Thore's no cause for despair.

Unmr.a rtfiffv ttnrkiT T

13. HIC ' SITVS ' EST ' PHAETHON ' CVRRVS ' AVRIOA *

P ATERN I . . .

Here Phaeton lies: in Phoebus' car he fared,

And though he greatly failed, more greatly dared.

Ovid, Metamorphoses

14. Perc6 jusques au fond da coeur . .

Pierced to the depth of my heart

By a blow unforeseen and mortal.

ComeiUe, Le Cid

15. Je m'en vay chercher un grand Peut-Stre.

I am going to seek a great Perhaps.

Rabelais on his deathbed

16. 0 lente, lente currite, noctis equi!

Oh, slowly, slowly nm, horses of the night!

Marlowe, Dr. Faustus

(Faustus is quoting Ovid. He waits for Mephistopheles to

appear to claim his soul at midnight. The next line: "The devil

will come and Faustus must be damn'd.")

17. Mein, Ruh' ist hin, . . .

My peace is gone,

My heart is heavy.

18. Que acredito su ventura, . . .

For if he like a madman lived,

At least he like a wise one died.

Fifty-One Tales By Lord Dunsany

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sun, 06 Jun 2021 16:56:00 +0000

Free online reading Fifty-One Tales By Lord Dunsany Ebook

The Assignation

Fame singing in the highways, and trifling as she sang, with

sordid adventurers passed the poet by.

And still, the poet made for her little chaplets of song,

to deck her forehead in the courts of Time: and still she

wore instead of the worthless garlands, that boisterous

citizens flung to her in the ways, made out of perishable

things.

And after a while whenever these garlands died the poet

came to her with his chaplets of song, and still she laughed

at him and wore the worthless wreaths, though they always

died at the evening. And one day in his bitterness the poet rebuked her, and

said to her: "Lovely Fame, even in the highways and the

byways you have not forborne to laugh and shout and jest

with worthless men, and I have toiled for you and dreamed of

you and you mock me and pass me by."

And Fame turned her back on him and walked away, but in

departing she looked over her shoulder and smiled at him as

she had not smiled before, and, almost speaking in a

whisper said:

"I will meet you in the graveyard at the back of the

Workhouse in a hundred years."

Charon

leaned forward and rowed.

All things were one with
his weariness.

It was not with him a matter of years or of centuries,

but of wide floods of time, and an old heaviness and a pain

in the arms that had become for his part of the scheme that

the gods had made and were of a piece with Eternity.

If the gods had even sent him a contrary wind it would

have divided all-time in his memory into two equal slabs.

So grey were all things always where he was that if any

radiance lingered a moment among the dead, on the face of

such a queen perhaps as Cleopatra, his eyes could not have

perceived it.

It was strange that the dead nowadays were coming in such

numbers. They were coming in thousands where they used to

come in the fifties. It was neither Charon's duty nor his wont

to ponder in his grey soul why these things might be.

Charon leaned forward and rowed.

Then no one came for a while. It was not usual for the

gods to send no one down from Earth for such a space. But

the gods knew best.

Then one man came alone. And the little shade sat

shivering on a lonely bench and the great boat pushed off.

Only one passenger; the gods knew best.

And great and weary Charon rowed on and on beside the

little, silent, shivering ghost.

And the sound of the river was like a mighty sigh that

Grief, in the beginning, had sighed among her sisters, and

that could not die like the echoes of human sorrow failing

on earthly hills, but was as old as time, and the pain in

Charon's arms.

Then the boat from the slow, grey river loomed up to the

the coast of Dis and the little, silent shade still shivering

stepped ashore, and Charon turned the boat to go wearily

back to the world. Then the little shadow spoke, that had

been a man.
"I am the last," he said.
No one had ever made Charon smile before, no one before

had ever made him a wee.

The Death of Pan

When travelers from London entered Arcady they lamented one to another the death of Pan. And anon they saw him lying stiff and still. Horned Pan was still and the dew was on his fur; he had not the look of a live animal. And then they said, "It is true that Pan is dead." And, standing melancholy by that huge prone body, they looked for long at memorable Pan. And evening came and a small star appeared. And presently from a hamlet of some Arcadian valley, with a sound of the idle song, Arcadian maidens came. And, when they saw there, suddenly in the twilight, that old recumbent god, they stopped in their running and whispered among themselves. "How silly he looks," they said, and thereat they laughed a little. And at the sound of their laughter Pan leaped up and the gravel flew from his hooves. And, for as long as the travelers stood and listened, the crags and the hilltops of Arcady rang with the sounds of pursuit.

The Sphinx at Gizeh

I saw the other day the Sphinx's painted face. She had painted her face in order to ogle Time. And he has spared no other painted face in all the world but hers. Delilah was younger than she, and Delilah is dust. Time hath loved nothing but this worthless painted face. I do not care that she is ugly, nor that she has painted her face so that she only lure his secret from Time. Time dallies like a fool at her feet when he should be smiting cities. Time never wearies of her silly smile. There are temples all about her that he has forgotten to spoil. I saw an old man go by, and Time never touched him. Time that has carried away the seven gates of Thebes! She has tried to bind him with ropes of eternal sand, she had hoped to oppress him with the Pyramids. He lies there in the sand with his foolish hair all spread about her paws. If she ever finds his secret we will put out his eyes so that he shall find no more our beautiful things -- there are lovely gates in Florence that I fear he will carry away. We have tried to bind him with song and with old customs, but they only held him for a little while, and he has always smitten us and mocked us. When he is blind he shall dance to us and make sport. Great clumsy time shall stumble and dance, who liked to kill little children and can hurt even the daisies no longer. Then shall our children laugh at him who slew Babylon's winged bulls, and smote great numbers of the gods and fairies -- when he is shorn of his hours and his years. We will shut him up in the Pyramid of Cheops, in the great chamber where the sarcophagus is. Thence we will lead him out when we give our feasts. He shall ripen our corn for us and do menial work. We will kiss they painted face, O Sphinx, if thou wilt betray to us Time. And yet I fear that in his ultimate anguish he may take hold blindly of the world and the moon, and slowly pull down upon him the House of Man.

The Hen

All along the farmyard gables the swallows sat a-row, twittering uneasily to one another, telling of many things, but thinking only of Summer and the South, for Autumn was afoot and the North wind waiting. And suddenly one day they were all quite gone. And everyone spoke of the swallows and the South. "I think I shall go South myself next year," said a hen. And the year wore on and the swallows came again, and the year wore on and they sat again on the gables, and all the poultry discussed the departure of the hen. And very early one morning, the wind being from the North, the swallows all soared suddenly and felt the wind in their wings; and a strength came upon them and a strange old knowledge and a more than human faith, and flying high they left the smoke of our cities and small remembered eaves, and saw at last the huge and homeless sea, and steering by grey sea-currents went southward with the wind. And going South they went by glittering fog-banks and saw old islands lifting their heads above them; they saw the slow quests of the wandering ships, and divers seeking pearls, and lands at war, till there came in view the mountains that they sought and the sight of the peaks they knew; and they descended into an austral valley, and saw Summer sometimes sleeping and sometimes singing song. "I think the wind is about right," said the hen; and she spread her wings and ran out of the poultry-yard. And she ran fluttering out on to the road and some way down it until she came to a garden. At evening she came back panting. And in the poultry-yard she told the poultry how she had gone South as far as the high road, and saw the great world's traffic going by, and came to lands where the potato grew, and saw the stubble upon which men live, and at the end of the road had found a garden, and there were roses in it -- beautiful roses! -- and the gardener himself was there with his braces on. "How extremely interesting," the poultry said, "and what a really beautiful description!" And the Winter wore away, and the bitter months went by, and the Spring of the year appeared, and the swallows came again. "We have been to the South," they said, "and the valleys beyond the sea." But the poultry would not agree that there was a sea in the South: "You should hear our hen," they said.

Wind and Fog

"Way for us," said the North Wind as he came down the sea on an errand of old Winter. And he saw before him the grey silent fog that lay along the tides. "Way for us," said the North Wind, "O ineffectual fog, for I am Winter's leader in his age-old war with the ships. I overwhelm them suddenly in my strength, or drive upon them the huge seafaring bergs. I cross an ocean while you move a mile. There is mourning in inland places when I have met the ships. I drive them upon the rocks and feed the sea. Wherever I appear they bow to our lord the Winter." And to his arrogant boasting nothing said the fog. Only he rose up slowly and trailed away from the sea and, crawling up long valleys, took refuge among the hills; and night came down and everything was still, and the fog began to mumble in the stillness. And I heard him telling infamously to himself the tale of his horrible spoils. "A hundred and fifteen galleons of old Spain, a certain argosy that went from Tyre, eight fisher-fleets and ninety ships of the line, twelve warships under sail, with their carronades, three hundred and eighty-seven river-craft, forty-two merchantmen that carried spice, thirty yachts, twenty-one battleships of the modern time, nine thousand admirals....." he mumbled and chuckled on, till I suddenly rose and fled from his fearful contamination.

The Raft-Builders

All we who write put me in mind of sailors hastily making rafts upon doomed ships. When we break up under the heavy years and go down into eternity with all that is ours our thoughts like small lost rafts float on awhile upon Oblivion's sea. They will not carry much over those tides, our names and a phrase or two and little else. They that write as a trade to please the whim of the day, they are like sailors that work at the rafts only to warm their hands and to distract their thoughts from their certain doom; their rafts go all to pieces before the ship breaks up. See now Oblivion shimmering all around us, its very tranquility deadlier than tempest. How little all our keels have troubled it. Time in its deeps swims like a monstrous whale; and, like a whale, feeds on the littlest things -- small tunes and little unskilled songs of the olden, golden evenings -- and anon turneth whale-like to overthrow the whole ships. See now the wreckage of Babylon floating idly, and something there that once was Nineveh; already their kings and queens are in the deeps among the weedy masses of old centuries that hide the sodden bulk of sunken Tyre and make a darkness round Persepolis. For the rest I dimly see the forms of foundered ships on the sea-floor strewn with crowns. Our ships were all unseaworthy from the first. There goes the raft that Homer made for Helen.

The Workman

I saw a workman fall with his scaffolding right from the summit of some vast hotel. And as he came down I saw him holding a knife and trying to cut his name on the scaffolding. He had time to try and do this for he must have had nearly three hundred feet to fall. And I could think of nothing but his folly in doing this futile thing, for not only would the man be unrecognizably dead in three seconds, but the very pole on which he tried to scratch whatever of his name he had time for was certain to be burnt in a few weeks for firewood. Then I went home for I had work to do. And all that evening I thought of the man's folly, till the thought hindered me from serious work. And late that night while I was still at work, the ghost of the workman floated through my wall and stood before me laughing. I heard no sound until after I spoke to it; but I could see the grey diaphanous form standing before me shuddering with laughter. I spoke at last and asked what it was laughing at, and then the ghost spoke. It said: "I'm a laughin' at you sittin' and workin' there." "And why," I asked, "do you laugh at serious work?" "Why, yer bloomin' life 'ull go by like a wind," he said, "and yer 'ole silly civilization 'ull be tidied up in a few centuries." Then he fell to laughing again and this time audibly; and, laughing still, faded back through the wall again and into the eternity from which he had come.

The Guest

A young man came into an ornate restaurant at eight o'clock in London. He was alone, but two places had been laid at the table which was reserved for him. He had chosen the dinner very carefully, by letter a week before. A waiter asked him about the other guest. "You probably won't see him till the coffee comes," the young man told him; so he was served alone. Those at adjacent tables might have noticed the young man continually addressing the empty chair and carrying on a monologue with it throughout his elaborate dinner. "I think you knew my father," he said to it over the soup. "I sent for you this evening," he continued, "because I want you to do me a good turn; in fact I must insist on it." There was nothing eccentric about the man except for this habit of addressing an empty chair, certainly he was eating as good a dinner as any sane man could wish for. After the Burgundy had been served he became more voluble in his monologue, not that he spoiled his wine by drinking excessively. "We have several acquaintances in common," he said. "I met King Seti a year ago in Thebes. I think he has altered very little since you knew him. I thought his forehead a little low for a king's. Cheops has left the house that he built for your reception, he must have prepared for you for years and years. I suppose you have seldom been entertained like that. I ordered this dinner over a week ago. I thought then that a lady might have come with me, but as she wouldn't I've asked you. She may not after all be as lovely as Helen of Troy. Was Helen very lovely? Not when you knew her, perhaps. You were lucky in Cleopatra, you must have known her when she was in her prime. "You never knew the mermaids nor the fairies nor the lovely goddesses of long ago, that's where we have the best of you." He was silent when the waiters came to his table, but rambled merrily on as soon as they left, still turned to the empty chair. "You know I saw you here in London only the other day. You were on a motor bus going down Ludgate Hill. It was going much too fast. London is a good place. But I shall be glad enough to leave it. It was in London that I met the lady I that was speaking about. If it hadn't been for London I probably shouldn't have met her, and if it hadn't been for London she probably wouldn't have had so much besides me to amuse her. It cuts both ways." He paused once to order coffee, gazing earnestly at the waiter and putting a sovereign in his hand. "Don't let it be chicory," said he. The waiter brought the coffee, and the young man dropped a tabloid of some sort into his cup. "I don't suppose you come here very often," he went on. "Well, you probably want to be going. I haven't taken you much out of your way, there is plenty for you to do in London." Then having drunk his coffee he fell on the floor by a foot of the empty chair, and a doctor who was dining in the room bent over him and announced to the anxious manager the visible presence of the young man's guest. Death and Odysseus In the Olympian courts Love laughed at Death, because he was unsightly, and because She couldn't help it, and because he never did anything worth doing, and because She would. And Death hated being laughed at, and used to brood apart thinking only of his wrongs and of what he could do to end this intolerable treatment. But one day Death appeared in the courts with an air and They all noticed it. "What are you up to now?" said Love. And Death with some solemnity said to Her: "I am going to frighten Odysseus"; and drawing about him his grey traveller's cloak went out through the windy door with his jowl turned earthwards. And he came soon to Ithaca and the hall that Athene knew, and opened the door and saw there famous Odysseus, with his white locks bending close over the fire, trying to warm his hands. And the wind through the open door blew bitterly on Odysseus. And death came up behind him, and suddenly shouted. And Odysseus went on warming his pale hands. Then Death came close and began to mouth at him. And after a while Odysseus turned and spoke. And "Well, old servant," he said, "have your masters been kind to you since I made you work for me round Ilion?" And Death for some while stood mute, for the thought of the laughter of Love. Then "Come now," said Odysseus, "lend me your shoulder," and he leaning heavily on that bony joint, they went together through the open door.

Death and the Orange

Two dark young men in a foreign southern land sat at a restaurant table with one woman. And on the woman's plate was a small orange which had evil laughter in its heart. And both of the men would be looking at the woman all the time, and they ate little and they drank much. And the woman was smiling equally at each. Then the small orange that had the laughter in its heart rolled slowly off the plate on to the floor. And the dark young men both sought for it at once, and they met suddenly beneath the table, and soon they were speaking swift words to one another, and a horror and an impotence came over the Reason of each as she sat helpless at the back of the mind, and the heart of the orange laughed and the woman went on smiling; and Death, who was sitting at another table, tete-a-tete with an old man, rose and came over to listen to the quarrel.

The Prayer of the Flowers

It was the voice of the flowers on the West wind, the lovable, the old, the lazy West wind, blowing ceaselessly, blowing sleepily, going Greecewards. "The woods have gone away, they have fallen and left us; men love us no longer, we are lonely by moonlight. Great engines rush over the beautiful fields, their ways lie hard and terrible up and down the land. "The cancrous cities spread over the grass, they clatter in their lairs continually, they glitter about us blemishing the night. "The woods are gone, O Pan, the woods, the woods. And thou art far, O Pan, and far away." I was standing by night between two railway embankments on the edge of a Midland city. On one of them, I saw the trains go by, once in every two minutes, and on the other, the trains went by twice in every five. Quite close were the glaring factories, and the sky above them wore the fearful look that it wears in dreams of fever. The flowers were right in the stride of that advancing city, and thence I heard them sending up their cry. And then I heard, beating musically upwind, the voice of Pan reproving them from Arcady -- "Be patient a little, these things are not for long."

Time and the Tradesman

Once Time as he prowled the world, his hair grey not with weakness but with dust of the ruin of cities, came to a furniture shop and entered the Antique department. And there he saw a man darkening the wood of a chair with dye and beating it with chains and making imitation worm-holes in it. And when Time saw another doing his work he stood by him awhile and looked on critically. And at last he said: "That is not how I work," and he turned the man's hair white and bent his back and put some furrows in his little cunning face; then turned and strode away, for a mighty city that was weary and sick and too long had troubled the fields was sore in need of him.

The Little City

I was in the pre-destined 11.8 from Goraghwood to Drogheda, when I suddenly saw the city. It was a little city in a valley, and only seemed to have a little smoke, and the sun caught the smoke and turned it golden so that it looked like an old Italian picture where angels walk in the foreground and the rest is a blaze of gold. And beyond, as one could tell by the lie of land although one could not see through the golden smoke, I knew that there lay the paths of the roving ships. All-round there lay a patchwork of small fields all over the slopes of the hills, and the snow had come upon them tentatively, but already the birds of the waste had moved to the sheltered places for every omen boded more to fall. Far away some little hills blazed like an aureate bulwark broken off by age and fallen from the earthward rampart of Paradise. And aloof and dark the mountains stared unconcernedly seawards. And when I saw those grey and watchful mountains sitting where they sat while the cities of the civilization of Araby and Asia arose like crocuses, and like crocuses fell, I wondered for how long there would be smoke in the valley and little fields on the hills.

The Unpasturable Fields

Thus spake the mountains: "Behold us, even us; the old ones, the grey ones, that wear the feet of Time. Time on our rocks shall break his staff and stumble: and still we shall sit majestic, even as now, hearing the sound of the sea, our old coeval sister, who nurses the bones of her children and weeps for the things she has done. "Far, far, we stand above all things; befriending the little cities until they grow old and leave us to go among the myths. "We are the most imperishable mountains." And softly the clouds foregathered from far places, and crag on crag and mountain upon mountain in the likeness of Caucasus upon Himalaya came riding past the sunlight upon the backs of storms and looked down idly from their golden heights upon the crests of the mountains. "Ye pass away," said the mountains. And the clouds answered, as I dreamed or fancied, "We pass away, indeed we pass away, but upon our unpasturable fields Pegasus prances. Here Pegasus gallops and browses upon song which the larks bring to him every morning from far terrestrial fields. His hoof-beats ring upon our slopes at sunrise as though our fields were of silver. And breathing the dawn-wind in dilated nostrils, with head tossed upwards and with quivering wings, he stands and stares from our tremendous heights, and snorts and sees far-future wonderful wars rage in the creases and the folds of the togas that cover the knees of the gods."

The Worm and the Angel

As he crawled from the tombs of the fallen a worm met with an angel. And together they looked upon the kings and kingdoms, and youths and maidens and the cities of men. They saw the old men heavy in their chairs and heard the children singing in the fields. They saw far wars and warriors and walled towns, wisdom and wickedness, and the pomp of kings, and the people of all the lands that the sunlight knew. And the worm spake to the angel saying: "Behold my food." "Be d'akeon para thina polyphloisboio thalasses," murmured the angel, for they walked by the sea, "and can you destroy that too?" And the worm paled in his anger to a greyness ill to behold, for for three thousand years he had tried to destroy that line and still its melody was ringing in his head.

The Songless Country

The poet came unto a great country in which there were no songs. And he lamented gently for the nation that had not any little foolish songs to sing to itself at evening. And at last he said: "I will make for them myself some little foolish songs so that they may be merry in the lanes and happy by the fireside." And for some days he made for them aimless songs such as maidens sing on the hills in the older happier countries. Then he went to some of that nation as they sat weary with the work of the day and said to them: "I have made you some aimless songs out of the small unreasonable legends, that are somewhat akin to the wind in the vales of my childhood; and you may care to sing them in your disconsolate evenings." And they said to him: "If you think we have time for that sort of nonsense nowadays you cannot know much of the progress of modern commerce." And the poet wept for he said: "Alas! They are damned."

The Latest Thing

I saw an unclean feeder by the banks of the river of Time. He crouched by orchards numerous with apples in a happy land of flowers; colossal barns stood near which the ancients had stored with grain, and the sun was golden on serene far hills behind the level lands. But his back was to all these things. He crouched and watched the river. And whatever the river chanced to send him down the unclean-feeder clutched at greedily with his arms, wading out into the water. Now there were in those days, and indeed still are, certain uncleanly cities upon the river of Time; and from them fearfully nameless things came floating shapelessly by. And whenever the odor of these came down the river before them the unclean-feeder plunged into the dirty water and stood far out, expectant. And if he opened his mouth one saw these things on his lips. Indeed from the upper reaches there came down sometimes the fallen rhododendron's petal, sometimes a rose; but they were useless to the unclean-feeder, and when he saw them he growled. A poet walked beside the river's bank; his head was lifted and his look was afar; I think he saw the sea, and the hills of Fate from which the river ran. I saw the unclean-feeder standing voracious, up to his waist in that evil-smelling river. "Look," I said to the poet. "The current will sweep him away," the poet said. "But those cities that poison the river," I said to him. He answered: "Whenever the centuries melt on the hills of Fate the river terribly floods."

The Demagogue and the Demi-monde

I dreamt that I went back to the hills I knew, whence on a the clear day you can see the walls of Ilion and the plains of Roncesvalles. There used to be woods along the tops of those hills with clearings in them where the moonlight fell, and there when no one watched the fairies danced. But there were no woods when I went back, no fairies nor distant glimpse of Ilion or plains of Roncesvalles, only one giant poppy waved in the wind, and as it waved it hummed "Remember not." And by its oak-like stem a poet sat, dressed like a shepherd and playing an ancient tune softly upon a pipe. I asked him if the fairies had passed that way or anything olden. He said: "The poppy has grown apace and is killing gods and fairies. Its fumes are suffocating the world, and its roots drain it of its beautiful strength." And I asked him why he sat on the hills I knew, playing an olden tune. And he answered: "Because the tune is bad for the poppy, which would otherwise grow more swiftly; and because if the brotherhood of which I am one were to cease to pipe on the hills men would stray over the world and be lost or come to terrible ends. We think we have saved Agamemnon." Then he fell to piping again that olden tune, while the wind among the poppy's sleepy petals murmured "Remember not. Remember not."

The Giant Poppy

Roses

I know a roadside where the wild rose blooms with a strange abundance. There is a beauty in the blossoms too of an almost exotic kind, a taint of deeper pink that shocks the Puritan flowers. Two hundred generations ago (generations, I mean, of roses) this was a village street; there was a floral decadence when they left their simple life and the roses came from the wilderness to clamber round houses of men. Of all the memories of that little village, of all the cottages that stood there, of all the men and women whose homes they were, nothing remains but a more beautiful blush on the faces of the roses. I hope that when London is clean passed away and the defeated fields come back again, like an exiled people returning after a war, they may find some beautiful thing to remind them of it all; because we have loved a little that swart old city.

The Man With the Golden Ear-Rings

It may be that I dreamed this. So much at least is certain -- that I turned one day from the traffic of a city, and came to its docks and saw its slimy wharves going down a green and steep into the water, and saw the huge grey river slipping by and the lost things that went with it turning over and over, and I thought of the nations and unpitying Time, and saw and marveled at the queenly ships come newly from the sea. It was then, if I mistake not, that I saw leaning against a wall, with his face to the ships, a man with golden earrings. His skin had the dark tint of the southern men: the deep black hairs of his mustache were whitened a little with salt; he wore a dark blue jacket such as sailors wear, and the long boots of seafarers, but the look in his eyes was further afield than the ships, he seemed to be beholding the farthest things. Even when I spoke to him he did not call home that looks but answered me dreamily with that same fixed stare as though his thoughts were heaving on far and lonely seas. I asked him what ship he had come by, for there were many there. The sailing ships were there with their sails all furled and their masts straight and still like a wintry forest; the steamers were there, and great liners, puffing up idle smoke into the twilight. He answered he had come by none of them. I asked him what line he worked on, for he was clearly a sailor; I mentioned well-known lines, but he did not know them. Then I asked him where he worked and what he was. And he said: "I work in the Sargasso Sea, and I am the last of the pirates, the last left alive." And I shook him by the hand I do not know how many times. I said: "We feared you were dead. We feared you were dead." And he answered sadly: "No. No. I have sinned too deeply on the Spanish seas: I am not allowed to die."

The Dream of King Karna-Vootra

King Karna-Vootra sitting on his throne commanding all things said: "I very clearly saw last night the queenly Vava-Nyria. Though partly she was hidden by great clouds that swept continually by her, rolling over and over, yet her face was unhidden and shone, being full of moonlight. "I said to her: `Walk with me by the great pools in many-gardened, beautiful Istrakhan where the lilies float that give delectable dreams; or, drawing aside the curtain of hanging orchids, pass with me thence from the pools by a secret path through the else impassable jungle that fills the only way between the mountains that shut in Istrakhan. They shut it in and look on it with joy at morning and at evening when the pools are strange with light, till in their gladness sometimes there melts the deadly snow that kills upon lonely heights the mountaineer. They have valleys among them older than the wrinkles in the moon. "`Come with me thence or linger with me there and either we shall come to romantic lands which the men of the caravans only speak of in song; or else we shall listlessly walk in a land so lovely that even the butterflies that float about it when they see their images flash in the sacred pools are terrified by their beauty, and each night we shall hear the myriad nightingales all in one chorus sing the stars to death. Do this and I will send heralds far from here with tidings of thy beauty; and they shall run and come to Sendara and men shall know it there who herd brown sheep; and from Sendara the rumour shall spread on, down either bank of the holy river of Zoth, till the people that make wattles in the plains shall hear of it and sing; but the heralds shall go northward along the hills until they come to Sooma. And in that golden city they shall tell the kings, that sit in their lofty alabaster house, of thy strange and sudden smiles. And often in distant markets shall thy story be told by merchants out from Sooma as they sit telling careless tales to lure men to their wares. "`And the heralds passing thence shall come even to Ingra, to Ingra where they dance. And there they shall tell of thee, so that thy name long hence shall be sung in that joyous city. And there they shall borrow camels and pass over the sands and go by desert ways to distant Nirid to tell of thee to the lonely men in the mountain monasteries. "`Come with me even now for it is Spring.'" "And as I said this she faintly yet perceptibly shook her head. And it was only then I remembered my youth was gone, and she dead forty years."

The Storm

They saw a little ship that was far at sea and that went by the name of the "Petite Esperance." And because of its uncouth rig and its lonely air and the look that it had of coming from strangers' lands they said: "It is neither a ship to greet nor desire, nor yet to succor when in the hands of the sea." And the sea rose up as is the wont of the sea and the little ship from afar was in his hands, and frailer than ever seemed its feeble masts with their sails of fantastic cut and their alien flags. And the sea made a great and very triumphing voice, as the sea doth. And then there arose a wave that was very strong, even the ninth-born son of the hurricane and the tide, and hid the little ship and hid the whole of the far parts of the sea. Thereat said those who stood on the good dry land: "'Twas but a little, worthless alien ship and it is sunk at sea, and it is good and right that the storm have spoil." And they turned and watched the course of the merchantmen, laden with silver and appeasing spice; year after year they cheered them into port and praised their goods and their familiar sails. And many years went by. And at last with decks and bulwarks covered with cloth of gold; with age-old parrots that had known the troubadours, singing illustrious songs and preening their feathers of gold; with a hold full of emeralds and rubies; all silken with Indian loot; furling as it came in its way-worn alien sails, a galleon glided into port, shutting the sunlight from the merchantmen: and lo! it loomed the equal of the cliffs. "Who are you?" they asked, "far-travelled wonderful ship?" And they said: "The `Petite Esperance.'" "O," said the people on shore. "We thought you were sunk at sea." "Sunk at sea?" sang the sailors. "We could not be sunk at sea -- we had the gods on board."

A Mistaken Identity

Fame, as she walked at evening in a city, saw the painted face of Notoriety flaunting beneath a gas lamp, and many kneeled unto her in the dirt of the road. "Who are you?" Fame said to her. "I am Fame," said Notoriety. Then Fame stole softly away so that no one knew she had gone. And Notoriety presently went forth and all her worshippers rose and followed after, and she led them, as was most meet, to her native Pit.

The True History of the Hare and the Tortoise

For a long time there was doubt with acrimony among the beasts as to whether the Hare or the Tortoise could run the swifter. Some said the Hare was the swifter of the two because he had such long ears, and others said the Tortoise was the swifter because anyone whose shell was so hard as that should be able to run hard too. And lo, the forces of estrangement and disorder perpetually postponed a decisive contest. But when there was nearly war among the beasts, at last an arrangement was come to and it was decided that the Hare and the Tortoise should run a race of five hundred yards so that all should see who was right. "Ridiculous nonsense!" said the Hare, and it was all his backers could do to get him to run. "The contest is most welcome to me," said the Tortoise, "I shall not shirk it." O, how his backers cheered. Feeling ran high on the day of the race; the goose rushed at the fox and nearly pecked him. Both sides spoke loudly of the approaching victory up to the very moment of the race. "I am absolutely confident of success," said the Tortoise. But the Hare said nothing, he looked bored and cross. Some of his supporters deserted him then and went to the other side, who were loudly cheering the Tortoise's inspiriting words. But many remained with the Hare. "We shall not be disappointed in him," they said. "A beast with such long ears is bound to win." "Run hard," said the supporters of the Tortoise. And "run hard" became a kind of catch-phrase which everybody repeated to one another. "Hard shell and hard living. That's what the country wants. Run hard," they said. And these words were never uttered but multitudes cheered from their hearts. Then they were off, and suddenly there was a hush. The Hare dashed off for about a hundred yards, then he looked round to see where his rival was. "It is rather absurd," he said, "to race with a Tortoise." And he sat down and scratched himself. "Run hard! Run hard!" shouted some. "Let him rest," shouted others. And "let him rest" became a catch-phrase too. And after a while his rival drew near to him. "There comes that damned Tortoise," said the Hare, and he got up and ran as hard as could be so that he should not let the Tortoise beat him. "Those ears will win," said his friends. "Those ears will win; and establish upon an incontestable footing the truth of what we have said." And some of them turned to the backers of the Tortoise and said: "What about your beast now?" "Run hard," they replied. "Run hard." The Hare ran on for nearly three hundred yards, nearly in fact as far as the winning-post, when it suddenly struck him what a fool he looked running races with a Tortoise who was nowhere in sight, and he sat down again and scratched. "Run hard. Run hard," said the crowd, and "Let him rest." "Whatever is the use of it?" said the Hare, and this time he stopped for good. Some say he slept. There was desperate excitement for an hour or two, and then the Tortoise won. "Run hard. Run hard," shouted his backers. "Hard shell and hard living: that's what has done it." And then they asked the Tortoise what his achievement signified, and he went and asked the Turtle. And the Turtle said, "It is a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness." And then the Tortoise repeated it to his friends. And all the beasts said nothing else for years. And even to this day, "a glorious victory for the forces of swiftness" is a catch-phrase in the house of the snail. And the reason that this version of the race is not widely known is that very few of those that witnessed it survived the great forest-fire that happened shortly after. It came up over the weald by night with a great wind. The Hare and the Tortoise and a very few of the beasts saw it far off from a high bare hill that was at the edge of the trees, and they hurriedly called a meeting to decide what messenger they should send to warn the beasts in the forest. They sent the Tortoise.

Alone in Immortals

I heard it said that very far away from here, on the wrong side of the deserts of Cathay and in a country dedicated to winter, are all the years that are dead. And there a certain valley shuts them in and hides them, as rumor has it, from the world, but not from the sight of the moon nor from those that dream in his rays. And I said: I will go from here by ways of dream and I will come to that valley and enter in and mourn there for the good years that are dead. And I said: I will take a wreath, a wreath of mourning, and lay it at their feet in token of my sorrow for their dooms. And when I sought about among the flowers, among the flowers for my wreath of mourning, the lily looked too large and the laurel looked too solemn and I found nothing frail enough nor slender to serve as an offering to the years that were dead. And at last I made a slender wreath of daisies in the manner that I had seen them made in one of the years that is dead. "This," said I, "is scarce less fragile or less frail than one of those delicate forgotten years." Then I took my wreath in my hand and went from here. And when I had come by paths of mystery to that romantic land, where the valley that rumour told of lies close to the mountainous moon, I searched among the grass for those poor slight years for whom I bought my sorrow and my wreath. And when I found there nothing in the grass I said: "Time has shattered them and swept them away and left not even any faint remains." But looking upwards in the blaze of the moon I suddenly saw colossi sitting near, and towering up and blotting out the stars and filling the night with blackness; and at those idols' feet I saw praying and making obeisance kings and the days that are and all times and all cities and all nations and all their gods. Neither the smoke of incense nor of the sacrifice burning reached those colossal heads, they sat there not to be measured, not to be overthrown, not to be worn away. I said: "Who are those?" One answered: "Alone the Immortals." And I said sadly: "I came not to see dread gods, but I came to shed my tears and to offer flowers at the feet of certain little years that are dead and may not come again." He answered me: "These ARE the years that are dead, alone the immortals; all years to be are Their children -- They fashioned their smiles and their laughter; all earthly kings They have crowned, all gods They have created; all the events to be flow down from their feet like a river, the worlds are flying pebbles that They have already thrown, and Time and all his centuries behind him kneel there with bended crests in token of vassalage at Their potent feet." And when I heard this I turned away with my wreath, and went back to my own land comforted.

A Moral Little Tale

There was once an earnest Puritan who held it wrong to dance. And for his principles he labored hard, his was a zealous life. And there loved him all of those who hated the dance; and those that loved the dance respected him too; they said "He is a pure, good man and acts according to his lights." He did much to discourage dancing and helped to close several Sunday entertainments. Some kinds of poetry, he said, he liked, but not the fanciful kind as that might corrupt the thoughts of the very young. He always dressed in black. He was quite interested in morality and was quite sincere and there grew to be much respect on Earth for his honest face and his flowing pure-white beard. One night the Devil appeared unto him in a dream and said "Well done." "Avaunt," said that earnest man. "No, no, friend," said the Devil. "Dare not to call me `friend,'" he answered bravely. "Come, come, friend," said the Devil. "Have you not put apart the couples that would dance? Have you not checked their laughter and their accursed mirth? Have you not worn my livery of black? O friend, friend, you do not know what a detestable thing it is to sit in hell and hear people being happy, and singing in theatres and singing in the fields, and whispering after dances under the moon," and he fell to cursing fearfully. "It is you," said the Puritan, "that put into their hearts the evil desire to dance; and black is God's own livery, not yours." And the Devil laughed contemptuously and spoke. "He only made the silly colors," he said, "and useless dawns on hill-slopes facing South, and butterflies flapping along with them as soon as the sun rose high, and foolish maidens coming out to dance, and the warm mad West wind, and worst of all than the warm mad West wind, and worst of all that pernicious influence Love." And when the Devil said that God made Love that earnest man sat up in bed and shouted "Blasphemy! Blasphemy!" "It's true," said the Devil. "It isn't I that send the village fools muttering and whispering two by two in the woods when the harvest moon is high, it's as much as I can bear even to see them dancing." "Then," said the man, "I have mistaken right for wrong; but as soon as I wake I will fight you yet." "O, no you don't," said the Devil. "You don't wake up out of this sleep." And somewhere far away Hell's black steel doors were opened, and arm in arm those two were drawn within, and the doors shut behind them and still they went arm in arm, trudging further and further into the deeps of Hell, and it was that Puritan's punishment to know that those that he cared for on Earth would do evil as he had done.

The Return of Song

"The swans are singing again," said to one another the gods. And looking downwards, for my dreams had taken me to some fair and far Valhalla, I saw below me an iridescent bubble not greatly larger than a star shine beautifully but faintly, and up and up from it looking larger and larger came a flock of white, innumerable swans, singing and singing and singing, till it seemed as though even the gods were wild ships swimming in music. "What is it?" I said to one that was humble among the gods. "Only a world has ended," he said to me, "and the swans are coming back to the gods returning the gift of song." "A whole world dead!" I said. "Dead," said he that was humble among the gods. "The worlds are not for ever; only song is immortal." "Look! Look!" he said. "There will be a new one soon." And I looked and saw the larks, going down from the gods.

Spring in Town

At a street corner sat, and played with a wind, Winter disconsolate. Still tingled the fingers of the passers-by and still their breath was visible, and still they huddled their chins into their coats when turning a corner they met with a new wind, still windows lighted sent out into the street the thought of romantic comfort by evening fires; these things still were, yet the throne of Winter tottered, and every breeze brought tidings of further fortresses lost on lakes or boreal hill-slopes. And not any longer as a king did Winter appear in those streets, as when the city was decked with gleaming white to greet him as a conqueror and he rode in with his glittering icicles and haughty retinue of prancing winds, but he sat there with a little wind at the corner of the street like some old blind beggar with his hungry dog. And as to some old blind beggar Death approaches, and the alert ears of the sightless man prophetically hear his far-off footfall, so there came suddenly to Winter's ears the sound, from some neighbouring garden, of Spring approaching as she walked on daisies. And Spring approaching looked at huddled inglorious Winter. "Begone," said Spring. "There is nothing for you to do here," said Winter to her. Nevertheless he drew about him his grey and battered cloak and rose and called to his little bitter wind and up a side street that led northward strode away. Pieces of paper and tall clouds of dust went with him as far as the city's outer gate. He turned then and called to Spring: "You can do nothing in this city," he said; then he marched homeward over plains and sea and heard his old winds howling as he marched. The ice broke up behind him and foundered like navies. To left and to right of him flew the flocks of the sea-birds, and far before him the geese's triumphant cry went like a clarion. Greater and greater grew his stature as he went northwards and ever more kingly his mien. Now he took baronies at a stride and now counties and came again to the snow-white frozen lands where the wolves came out to meet him and, draping himself anew with old grey clouds, strode through the gates of his invincible home, two old ice barriers swinging on pillars of ice that had never known the sun. So the town was left to Spring. And she peered about to see what she could do with it. Presently she saw a dejected dog coming prowling down the road, so she sang to him and he gambolled. I saw him next day strutting by with something of an air. Where there were trees she went to them and whispered, and they sang the arboreal song that only trees can hear, and the green buds came peeping out as stars while yet it is twilight, secretly one by one. She went to gardens and awaked from dreaming the warm maternal earth. In little patches bare and desolate she called up like a flame the golden crocus, or its purple brother like an emperor's ghost. She gladdened the graceless backs of untidy houses, here with a weed, there with a little grass. She said to the air, "Be joyous." Children began to know that daisies blew in unfrequented corners. Buttonholes began to appear in the coats of the young men. The work of Spring was accomplished.

How the Enemy Came to Thlunrana

It had been prophesied of old and foreseen from the ancient days that its enemy would come upon Thlunrana. And the date of its doom was known and the gate by which it would enter, yet none had prophesied of the enemy who he was save that he was of the gods though he dwelt with men. Meanwhile Thlunrana, that secret lamaserai, that chief cathedral of wizardry, was the terror of the valley in which it stood and of all lands round about it. So narrow and high were the windows and so strange when lighted at night that they seemed to regard men with the demoniac leer of something that had a secret in the dark. Who were the magicians and the deputy-magicians and the great arch-wizard of that furtive place nobody knew, for they went veiled and hooded and cloaked completely in black. Though her doom was close upon her and the enemy of prophecy should come that very night through the open, southward door that was named the Gate of the Doom, yet that rocky edifice Thlunrana remained mysterious still, venerable, terrible, dark, and dreadfully crowned with her doom. It was not often that anyone dared wander near to Thlunrana by night when the moan of the magicians invoking we know not Whom rose faintly from inner chambers, scaring the drifting bats: but on the last night of all the man from the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees came, because he would see Thlunrana once again before the enemy that was divine, but that dwelt with men, should come against it and it should be no more. Up the dark valley he went like a bold man, but his fears were thick upon him; his bravery bore their weight but stooped a little beneath them. He went in at the southward gate that is named the Gate of the Doom. He came into a dark hall, and up a marble stairway passed to see the last of Thlunrana. At the top a curtain of black velvet hung and he passed into a chamber heavily hung with curtains, with a gloom in it that was blacker than anything they could account for. In a sombre chamber beyond, seen through a vacant archway, magicians with lighted tapers plied their wizardry and whispered incantations. All the rats in the place were passing away, going whimpering down the stairway. The man from the black-thatched cottage passed through that second chamber: the magicians did not look at him and did not cease to whisper. He passed from them through heavy curtains still of black velvet and came into a chamber of black marble where nothing stirred. Only one taper burned in the third chamber; there were no windows. On the smooth floor and under the smooth wall a silk pavilion stood with its curtains drawn close together: this was the holy of holies of that ominous place, its inner mystery. One on each side of it dark figures crouched, either of men or women or cloaked stone, or of beasts trained to be silent. When the awful stillness of the mystery was more than he could bear the man from the black-thatched cottage by the five pine-trees went up to the silk pavilion, and with a bold and nervous clutch of the hand drew one of the curtains aside, and saw the inner mystery, and laughed. And the prophecy was fulfilled, and Thlunrana was never more a terror to the valley, but the magicians passed away from their terrific halls and fled through the open fields wailing and beating their breasts, for laughter was the enemy that was doomed to come against Thlunrana through her southward gate (that was named the Gate of the Doom), and it is of the gods but dwells with man.

A Losing Game

Once in a tavern Man met face to skull with Death. Man entered gaily but Death gave no greeting, he sat with his jowl morosely over an ominous wine. "Come, come," said Man, "we have been antagonists long, and if I were losing yet I should not be surly." But Death remained unfriendly watching his bowl of wine and gave no word in answer. Then Man solicitously moved nearer to him and, speaking cheerily still, "Come, come," he said again, "you must not resent defeat." And still Death was gloomy and cross and sipped at his infamous wine and would not look up at Man and would not be companionable. But Man hated gloom either in beast or god, and it made him unhappy to see his adversary's discomfort, all the more because he was the cause, and still he tried to cheer him. "Have you not slain the Dinatherium?" he said. "Have you not put out the Moon? Why! you will beat me yet." And with a dry and barking sound Death wept and nothing said; and presently Man arose and went wondering away; for he knew not if Death wept out of pity for his opponent, or because he knew that he should not have such sport again when the old game was over and Man was gone, or whether because perhaps, for some hidden reason, he could never repeat on Earth his triumph over the Moon.

Taking Up Picadilly

Going down Picadilly one day and nearing Grosvenor Place I saw, if my memory is not at fault, some workmen with their coats off -- or so they seemed. They had pickaxes in their hands and wore corduroy trousers and that little leather band below the knee that goes by the astonishing name of "York-to-London." They seemed to be working with peculiar vehemence, so that I stopped and asked one what they were doing. "We are taking up Picadilly," he said to me. "But at this time of year?" I said. "Is it usual in June?" "We are not what we seem," said he. "Oh, I see," I said, "you are doing it for a joke." "Well, not exactly that," he answered me. "For a bet?" I said. "Not precisely," said he. And then I looked at the bit that they had already picked, and though it was broad daylight over my head it was darkness down there, all full of the southern stars. "It was noisy and bad and we grew aweary of it," said he that wore corduroy trousers. "We are not what we appear." They were taking up Picadilly altogether.

After the Fire

When that happened which had been so long in happening and the world hit a black, uncharted star, certain tremendous creatures out of some other world came peering among the cinders to see if there were anything there that it were worth while to remember. They spoke of the great things that the world was known to have had; they mentioned the mammoth. And presently they saw man's temples, silent and windowless, staring like empty skulls. "Some great thing has been here," one said, "in these huge places." "It was the mammoth," said one. "Something greater than he," said another. And then they found that the greatest thing in the world had been the dreams of man. The City In time as well as space my fancy roams far from here. It led me once to the edge of certain cliffs that were low and red and rose up out of a desert: a little way off in the desert there was a city. It was evening, and I sat and watched the city. Presently I saw men by threes and fours come softly stealing out of that city's gate to the number of about twenty. I heard the hum of men's voices speaking at evening. "It is well they are gone," they said. "It is well they are gone. We can do business now. It is well they are gone." And the men that had left the city sped away over the sand and so passed into the twilight. "Who are these men?" I said to my glittering leader. "The poets," my fancy answered. "The poets and artists." "Why do they steal away?" I said to him. "And why are the people glad that they have gone?" He said: "It must be some doom that is going to fall on the city, something has warned them and they have stolen away. Nothing may warn the people." I heard the wrangling voices, glad with commerce, rise up from the city. And then I also departed, for there was an ominous look on the face of the sky. And only a thousand years later I passed that way, and there was nothing, even among the weeds, of what had been that city.

The Food of Death

Death was sick. But they brought him bread that the modern bakers make, whitened with alum, and the tinned meats of Chicago, with a pinch of our modern substitute for salt. They carried him into the dining room of a great hotel (in that close atmosphere Death breathed more freely), and there they gave him their cheap Indian tea. They brought him a bottle of wine that they called champagne. Death drank it up. They brought a newspaper and looked up the patent medicines; they gave him the foods that it recommended for invalids, and a little medicine as prescribed in the paper. They gave him some milk and borax, such as children drink in England. Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through the cities. The Lonely Idol I had from a friend an old outlandish stone, a little swine-faced idol to whom no one prayed. And when I saw his melancholy case as he sat cross-legged at receipt of prayer, holding a little scourge that the years had broken (and no one heeded the scourge and no one prayed and no one came with squealing sacrifice; and he had been a god), then I took pity on the little forgotten thing and prayed to it as perhaps they prayed long since, before the coming of the strange dark ships, and humbled myself and said: "O idol, idol of the hard pale stone, invincible to the years, O scourge-holder, give ear for behold I pray. "O little pale-green image whose wanderings are from far, know thou that here in Europe and in other lands near by, too soon there pass from us the sweets and song and the lion strength of youth: too soon do their cheeks fade, their hair grow grey and our beloved die; too brittle is beauty, too far off is fame and the years are gathered too soon; there are leaves, leaves falling, everywhere falling; there is autumn among men, autumn and reaping; failure there is, struggle, dying and weeping, and all that is beautiful hath not remained but is even as the glory of morning upon the water. "Even our memories are gathered too with the sound of the ancient voices, the pleasant ancient voices that come to our ears no more; the very gardens of our childhood fade, and there dims with the speed of the years even the mind's own eye. "O be not any more the friend of Time, for the silent hurry of his malevolent feet have trodden down what's fairest; I almost hear the whimper of the years running behind him hound-like, and it takes few to tear us. "All that is beautiful he crushes down as a big man tramples daises, all that is fairest. How very fair are the little children of men. It is autumn with all the world, and the stars weep to see it. "Therefore no longer be the friend of Time, who will not let us be, and be not good to him but pity us, and let lovely things live on for the sake of our tears." Thus prayed I out of compassion one windy day to the snout-faced idol to whom no one kneeled. The Sphinx in Thebes (Massachusetts) There was a woman in a steel-built city who had all that money could buy, she had gold and dividends and trains and houses, and she had pets to play with, but she had no sphinx. So she besought them to bring her a live sphinx; and therefore they went to the menageries, and then to the forests and the desert places, and yet could find no sphinx. And she would have been content with a little lion but that one was already owned by a woman she knew; so they had to search the world again for a sphinx. And still there was none. But they were not men that it is easy to baffle, and at last they found a sphinx in a desert at evening watching a ruined temple whose gods she had eaten hundreds of years ago when her hunger was on her. And they cast chains on her, who was still with an ominous stillness, and took her westwards with them and brought her home. And so the sphinx came to the steel-built city. And the woman was very glad that she owned a sphinx: but the sphinx stared long into her eyes one day, and softly asked a riddle of the woman. And the woman could not answer, and she died. And the sphinx is silent again and none knows what she will do. The Reward One's spirit goes further in dreams than it does by day. Wandering once by night from a factory city I came to the edge of Hell. The place was foul with cinders and cast-off things, and jagged, half-buried things with shapeless edges, and there was a huge angel with a hammer building in plaster and steel. I wondered what he did in that dreadful place. I hesitated, then asked him what he was building. "We are adding to Hell," he said, "to keep pace with the times." "Don't be too hard on them," I said, for I had just come out of a compromising age and a weakening country. The angel did not answer. "It won't be as bad as the old hell, will it?" I said. "Worse," said the angel. "How can you reconcile it with your conscience as a Minister of Grace," I said, "to inflict such a punishment?" (They talked like this in the city whence I had come and I could not avoid the habit of it.) "They have invented a new cheap yeast," said the angel. I looked at the legend on the walls of the hell that the angel was building, the words were written in flame, every fifteen seconds they changed their color, "Yeasto, the great new yeast, it builds up body and brain, and something more." "They shall look at it for ever," the angel said. "But they drove a perfectly legitimate trade," I said, "the law allowed it." The angel went on hammering into place the huge steel uprights. "You are very revengeful," I said. "Do you never rest from doing this terrible work?" "I rested one Christmas Day," the angel said, "and looked and saw little children dying of cancer. I shall go on now until the fires are lit." "It is very hard to prove," I said, "that the yeast is as bad as you think." "After all," I said, "they must live." And the angel made no answer but went on building his hell.

The Trouble in Leafy Green Street

She went to the idol shop in Moleshill Street, where the old man mumbles, and said: "I want a god to worship when it is wet." The old man reminded her of the heavy penalties that rightly attach to idolatry and, when he had enumerated all, she answered him as was meet: "Give me a god to worship when it is wet." And he went to the back places of his shop and sought out and brought her a god. The same was carved of grey stone and wore a propitious look and was named, as the old man mumbled, The God of Rainy Cheerfulness. Now it may be that long confinement to the house affects adversely the liver, or these things may be of the soul, but certain it is that on a rainy day her spirits so far descended that those cheerful creatures came within sight of the Pit, and, having tried cigarettes to no good end, she bethought her of Moleshill Street and the mumbling man. He brought the grey idol forth and mumbled of guarantees, although he put nothing on paper, and she paid him there and then his preposterous price and took the idol away. And on the next wet day that there ever was she prayed to the grey-stone idol that she had bought, the God of Rainy Cheerfulness (who knows with what ceremony or what lack of it?), and so brought down on her in Leafy Green Street, in the preposterous house at the corner, that doom of which all men speak.

The Mist

The mist said unto the mist: "Let us go up into the Downs."

And the mist came up weeping.

And the mist went into the high places and the hollows.

And clumps of trees in the distance stood ghostly in the

haze.

But I went to a prophet, one who loved the Downs, and I

said to him: "Why does the mist come up weeping into the

Downs when it goes into the high places and the hollows?"

And he answered: "The mist is the company of a multitude

of souls who never saw the Downs, and now are dead.

Therefore they come up weeping into the Downs, who are dead

and never saw them."

Furrow-Maker

He was all in black, but his friend was dressed in brown, members of two old families. "Is there any change in the way you build your houses?" said he in black. "No change," said the other. "And you?" "We change not," he said. A man went by in the distance riding a bicycle. "He is always changing," said the one in black, "of late almost every century. He is uneasy. Always changing." "He changes the way he builds his house, does he not?" said the brown one. "So my family say," said the other. "They say he has changed of late." "They say he takes much to cities?" the brown one said. "My cousin who lives in belfries tells me so," said the black one. "He says he is much in cities." "And there he grows lean?" said the brown one. "Yes, he grows lean." "Is it true what they say?" said the brown one. "Caw," said the black one. "Is it true that he cannot live many centuries?" "No, no," said the black one. "Furrow-maker will not die. We must not lose furrow-maker. He has been foolish of late, he has played with smoke and is sick. His engines have wearied him and his cities are evil. Yes, he is very sick. But in a few centuries he will forget his folly and we shall not lose furrow-maker. Time out of mind he has delved and my family have got their food from the raw earth behind him. He will not die." "But they say, do they not?" said the brown one, "his cities are noisome, and that he grows sick in them and can run no longer, and that it is with him as it is with us when we grow too many, and the grass has the bitter taste in the rainy season, and our young grow bloated and die." "Who says it?" replied the black one. "Pigeon," the brown one answered. "He came back all dirty. And Hare went down to the edge of the cities once. He says it too. Man was too sick to chase him. He thinks that Man will die, and his wicked friend Dog with him. Dog, he will die. That nasty fellow Dog. He will die too, the dirty fellow!" "Pigeon and Hare!" said the black one. "We shall not lose furrow-maker." "Who told you he will not die?" his brown friend said. "Who told me!" the black one said. "My family and his have understood each other times out of mind. We know what follies will kill each other and what each may survive, and I say that furrow-maker will not die." "He will die," said the brown one. "Caw," said the other. And Man said in his heart: "Just one invention more. There is something I want to do with petrol yet, and then I will give it all up and go back to the woods."

Lobster Salad

I was climbing around the perilous outside of the Palace of Colquonhombros. So far below me that in the tranquil twilight and clear air of those lands I could only barely see them lay the craggy tops of the mountains. It was along no battlements or terrace edge I was climbing, but on the sheer face of the wall itself, getting what foothold I could where the boulders joined. Had my feet been bare I was done, but though I was in my night-shirt I had on stout leather boots, and their edges somehow held in those narrow cracks. My fingers and wrists were aching. Had it been possible to stop for a moment I might have been lured to give a second look at the fearful peaks of the mountains down there in the twilight, and this must have been fatal. That the thing was all a dream is beside the point. We have fallen in dreams before, but it is well known that if in one of those falls you ever hit the ground -- you die: I had looked at those menacing mountaintops and knew well that such a fall as the one I feared must have such a termination. Then I went on. It is strange what different sensations there can be in different boulders -- every one gleaming with the same white light and every one chosen to match the rest by minions of ancient kings -- when your life depends on the edges of every one you come to. Those edges seemed strangely different. It was of no avail to overcome the terror of one, for the next would give you a hold in quite a different way or hand you over to death in a different manner. Some were too sharp to hold and some too flush with the wall, those whose hold was the best crumbled the soonest; each rock had its different terror: and then there were those things that followed behind me. And at last I came to a breach made long ago by earthquake, lightning or war: I should have had to go down a thousand feet to get round it and they would come up with me while I was doing that, for certain sable apes that I have not mentioned as yet, things that had tigerish teeth and were born and bred on that wall, had pursued me all the evening. In any case I could have gone no farther, nor did I know what the king would do along whose wall I was climbing. It was time to drop and be done with it or stop and await those apes. And then it was that I remembered a pin, thrown carelessly down out of an evening-tie in another world to the one where grew that glittering wall, and lying now if no evil chance had removed it on a chest of drawers by my bed. The apes were very close, and hurrying, for they knew my fingers were slipping, and the cruel peaks of those infernal mountains seemed surer of me than the apes. I reached out with a desperate effort of will towards where the pin lay on the chest of drawers. I groped about. I found it! I ran it into my aThe Return of the Exiles The old man with a hammer and the one-eyed man with a spear were seated by the roadside talking as I came up the hill. "It isn't as though they hadn't asked us," the one with the hammer said. "There ain't no more than twenty as knows about it," said the other. "Twenty's twenty," said the first. "After all these years," said the one-eyed man with the spear. "After all these years. We might go back just once." "O' course we might," said the other. Their clothes were old even for laborers, the one with the hammer had a leather apron full of holes and blackened, and their hands looked like leather. But whatever they were they were English, and this was pleasant to see after all the motors that had passed me that day with their burden of mixed and doubtful nationalities. When they saw me the one with the hammer touched his greasy cap. "Might we make so bold, sir," he said, "as the ask the way to Stonehenge?" "We never ought to go," mumbled the other plaintively. "There's not more than twenty as knows, but..." I was bicycling there myself to see the place so I pointed out the way and rode on at once, for there was something so utterly servile about them both that I did not care for their company. They seemed by their wretched mien to have been persecuted or utterly neglected for many years, I thought that very likely they had done long terms of penal servitude. When I came to Stonehenge I saw a group of about a score of men standing among the stones. They asked me with some solemnity if I was expecting anyone, and when I said No they spoke to me no more. It was three miles back where I left those strange old men, but I had not been in the stone circle long when they appeared, coming with great strides along the road. When they saw them all the people took off their hats and acted very strangely, and I saw that they had a goat which they led up then to the old altar stone. And the two old men came up with their hammer and spear and began apologizing plaintively for the liberty they had taken in coming back to that place, and all the people knelt on the grass before them. And then still kneeling they killed the goat by the altar, and when the two old men saw this they came up with many excuses and eagerly sniffed the blood. And at first this made them happy. But soon the one with the spear began to whimper. "It used to be men," he lamented. "It used to be men." And the twenty men began looking uneasily at each other, and the plaint of the one-eyed man went on in that tearful voice, and all of a sudden they all looked at me. I do not know who the two old men were or what any of them were doing, but there are moments when it is clearly time to go, and I left them there and then. And just as I got up on to my bicycle I heard the plaintive voice of the one with the hammer apologizing for the liberty he had taken in coming back to Stonehenge. "But after all these years," I heard him crying, "After all these years..." And the one with the spear said: "Yes, after three thousand years..."

Nature and Time

Through the streets of Coventry, one winter's night strode a triumphant spirit. Behind him stooping, unkempt, utterly ragged, wearing the clothes and look that outcasts have, whining, weeping, reproaching, an ill-used spirit tried to keep pace with him. Continually she plucked him by the sleeve and cried out to him as she panted after and he strode resolute on. It was a bitter night, yet it did not seem to be the cold that she feared, ill-clad though she was, but the trams and the ugly shops and the glare of the factories, from which she continually winced as she hobbled on, and the pavement hurt her feet. He that strode on in front seemed to care for nothing, it might be hot or cold, silent or noisy, pavement or open fields, he merely had the air of striding on. And she caught up and clutched him by the elbow. I heard her speak in her unhappy voice, you scarcely heard it for the noise of the traffic. "You have forgotten me," she complained to him. "You have forsaken me here." She pointed to Coventry with a wide wave of her arm and seemed to indicate other cities beyond. And he gruffly told her to keep pace with him and that he did not forsake her. And she went on with her pitiful lamentation. "My anemones are dead for miles," she said, "all my woods are fallen and still the cities grow. My child Man is unhappy and my other children are dying, and still the cities grow and you have forgotten me!" And then he turned angrily on her, almost stopping in that stride of his that began when the stars were made. "When have I ever forgotten you?" he said, "or when forsaken you ever? Did I not throw down Babylon for you? And is not Nineveh gone? Where is Persepolis that troubled you? Where Tarshish and Tyre? And you have said I forget you." And at this she seemed to take a little comfort. I heard her speak once more, looking wistfully at her companion. "When will the fields come back and the grass for my children?" "Soon, soon," he said: then they were silent. And he strode away, she limping along behind him, and all the clocks in the towers chimed as he passed.

The Song of the Blackbird

As the poet passed the thorn tree the blackbird sang. "However do you do it?" the poet said, for he knew the bird language. "It was like this," said the blackbird. "It really was the most extraordinary thing. I made that song last Spring, it came to me all of a sudden. There was the most beautiful she-blackbird that the world has ever seen. Her eyes were blacker than lakes are at night, her feathers were blacker than the night itself, and nothing was as yellow as her beak; she could fly much faster than the lightning. She was not an ordinary she-blackbird, there has never been any other like her at all. I did not dare go near her because she was so wonderful. One day last Spring when it got warm again -- it had been cold, we ate berries, things were quite different then, but Spring came and it got warm -- one day I was thinking how wonderful she was and it seemed so extraordinary to think that I should ever have seen her, the only really wonderful she-blackbird in the world, that I opened my beak to give a shout, and then this song came, and there had never been anything like it before, and luckily I remembered it, the very song that I sang just now. But what is so extraordinary, the most amazing occurence of that marvellous day, was that no sooner had I sung the song than that very bird, the most wonderful she-blackbird in the world, flew right up to me and sat quite close to me on the same tree. I never remember such wonderful times as those. "Yes, the song came in a moment, and as I was saying..." And an old wanderer walking with a stick came by and the a blackbird flew away, and the poet told the old man the blackbird's wonderful story. "That song new?" said the wanderer. "Not a bit of it. God made it years ago. All the blackbirds used to sing it when I was young. It was new then."

The Messengers

One wandering nigh Parnassus chasing hares heard the high Muses. "Take us a message to the Golden Town." Thus sang the Muses. But the man said: "They do not call to me. Not to such as me speak the Muses." And the Muses called him by name. "Take us a message," they said, "to the Golden Town." And the man was downcast for he would have chased hares. And the Muses called again. And when whether in valleys or on high crags of the hills he still heard the Muses he went at last to them and heard their message, though he would fain have left it to other men and chased the fleet hares still in happy valleys. And they gave him a wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds as only the Muses can carve. "By this," they said, "they shall know that you come from the Muses." And the man went from that place and dressed in scarlet silks as befitted one that came from the high Muses. And through the gateway of the Golden Town he ran and cried his message, and his cloak floated behind him. All silent sat the wise men and the aged, they of the Golden Town; cross-legged they sat before their houses reading from parchments a message of the Muses that they sent long before. And the young man cried his message from the Muses. And they rose up and said: "Thou art not from the Muses. Otherwise spake they." And they stoned him and he died. And afterwards they carved his message upon gold; and read it in their temples on holy days. When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? They sent another messenger to the Golden Town. And they gave him a wand of ivory to carry in his hand with all the beautiful stories of the world wondrously carved thereon. And only the Muses could have carved it. "By this," they said, "they shall know that you come from the Muses." And he came through the gateway of the Golden Town with the message he had for its people. And they rose up at once in the Golden street, they rose from reading the message that they had carved upon gold. "The last who came," they said, "came with a wreath of laurels carved out of emeralds, as only the Muses can carve. You are not from the Muses." And even as they had stoned the last so also they stoned him. And afterwards they carved his message on gold and laid it up in their temples. When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? Even yet once again they sent a messenger under the gateway into the Golden Town. And for all that he wore a garland of gold that the high Muses gave him, a garland of kingcups soft and yellow on his head, yet fashioned of pure gold and by whom but the Muses, yet did they stone him in the Golden Town. But they had the message, and what care the Muses? And yet they will not rest, for some while since I heard them call to me. "Go take our message," they said, "unto the Golden Town." But I would not go. And they spake a second time. "Go take our message," they said. And still I would not go, and they cried out a third time: "Go take our message." And though they cried a third time I would not go. But morning and night they cried and through long evenings. When will the Muses rest? When are they weary? And when they would not cease to call to me I went to them and I said: "The Golden Town is the Golden Town no longer. They have sold their pillars for brass and their temples for money, they have made coins out of their golden doors. It is become a dark town full of trouble, there is no ease in its streets, beauty has left it and the old songs are gone." "Go take our message," they cried. And I said to the high Muses: "You do not understand. You have no message for the Golden Town, the holy city no longer." "Go take our message," they cried. "What is your message?" I said to the high Muses. And when I heard their message I made excuses, dreading to speak such things in the Golden Town; and again they bade me go. And I said: "I will not go. None will believe me." And still the Muses cry to me all night long. They do not understand. How should they know?

The Three Tall Sons

And at last Man raised on high the final glory of his civilization, the towering edifice of the ultimate city. Softly beneath him in the deeps of the earth purred his machinery fulfilling all his needs, there was no more toil for man. There he sat at ease discussing the Sex Problem. And sometimes painfully out of forgotten fields, there came to his outer door, came to the furthest rampart of the final glory of Man, a poor old woman begging. And always they turned her away. This glory of Man's achievement, this city was not for her. It was Nature that came thus begging in from the fields, whom they always turned away. And away she went again alone to her fields. And one day she came again, and again they sent her hence. But her three tall sons came too. "These shall go in," she said. "Even these my sons to your city." And the three tall sons went in. And these are Nature's sons, the forlorn one's terrible children, War, Famine and Plague. Yea and they went in there and found Man unawares in his city still poring over his Problems, obsessed with his civilization, and never hearing their tread as those three came up behind. Compromise They built their gorgeous home, their city of glory, above the lair of the earthquake. They built it of marble and gold in the shining youth of the world. There they feasted and fought and called their city immortal, and danced and sang songs to the gods. None heeded the earthquake in all those joyous streets. And down in the deeps of the earth, on the black feet of the abyss, they that would conquer Man mumbled long in the darkness, mumbled and goaded the earthquake to try his strength with that city, to go forth blithely at night and to gnaw its pillars like bones. And down in those grimy deeps the earthquake answered them, and would not do their pleasure and would not stir from thence, for who knew who they were who danced all day where he rumbled, and what if the lords of that city that had no fear of his anger were haply even the gods! And the centuries plodded by, on and on round the world, and one day they that had danced, they that had sung in that city, remembered the lair of the earthquake in the deeps down under their feet, and made plans one with another and sought to avert the danger, sought to appease the earthquake and turn his anger away. They sent down singing girls, and priests with oats and wine, they sent down garlands and propitious berries, down by dark steps to the black depths of the earth, they sent peacocks newly slain, and boys with burning spices, and their thin white sacred cats with collars of pearls all newly drawn from sea, they sent huge diamonds down in coffers of teak, and ointment and strange oriental dyes, arrows and armor and the rings of their queen. "Oho," said the earthquake in the coolth of the earth, "so they are not the gods."

What We Have Come To

When the advertiser saw the cathedral spires over the downs

in the distance, he looked at them and wept.

"If only," he said, "this were an advertisement of Beefo,

so nice, so nutritious, try it in your soup, ladies like

it."

The Tomb of Pan

"Seeing," they said, "that old-time Pan is dead, let us now make a tomb for him and a monument, that the dreadful worship of long ago may be remembered and avoided by all." So said the people of the enlightened lands. And they built a white and mighty tomb of marble. Slowly it rose under the hands of the builders and longer every evening after sunset it gleamed with rays of the departed sun. And many mourned for Pan while the builders built; many reviled him. Some called the builders to cease and to weep for Pan and others called them to leave no memorial at all of so infamous a god. But the builders built on steadily. And one day all was finished, and the tomb stood there like a steep sea cliff. And Pan was carved thereon with humbled head and the feet of angels pressed upon his neck. And when the tomb was finished the sun had already set, but the afterglow was rosy on the huge bulk of Pan. And presently all the enlightened people came, and saw the tomb and remembered Pan who was dead, and all deplored him and his wicked age. But a few wept apart because of the death of Pan. But at evening as he stole out of the forest, and slipped like a shadow softly along the hills, Pan saw the tomb and laughed.

The Polar King | Tsutsui Yasutama

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sat, 05 Jun 2021 16:02:00 +0000

The Polar King is written by Tsutsui Yasutama. it is a free online Ebook anyone can read for free

"A Summer Vacation Trip".
I heard that Kano had been to Hawaii with his mother.
Farther than that, Fujimori's family took her to Canada, which is much farther than Hawaii.
But I had no one to take me on a trip because I have neither Father nor Mother.
My Father and Mother died in a traffic accident when I was four years old. Ever since then, I have been living with my Grandmother.
Everybody is going to make fun of me since I have not traveled anywhere so I cannot write the assignment essay.
Yet, to tell the truth, I've had a trip.
I went there alone.
This is true.
The place I've been is much much farther than Hawaii or even Canada.
It is the North Pole.
I'm not lying, not at all.
The reason I could go to such a far place by myself is that I had a letter of invitation from Polar King.
The letter went like this:
Dear Kazuhiro Uno,
How are you doing?
How is your grandmother?
Prices and taxes have gone up too high these days, haven't they?
I suppose, Kazuhiro, you will not go out anywhere during the summer vacation.
But that will give you trouble when the time comes to write the summer assignment essay.
So I invite you to the North Pole.
The North Pole is a wonderful place.
I would be glad if you'd come.
Don't worry about the train fare. Use the ticket I enclosed.
I'm looking forward to seeing you. Sincerely, Polar King

I showed the letter to Grandmother right away.

She was very pleased and the next day she got up early in the morning to prepare a lunch box for me.

"Take extra underwear with you as the North Pole is a cold place," said Grandmother, putting my underwear and the lunch box into my bag.

She also gave me a thousand yen.

In the morning, Friday, August sixteenth, I set out for the North Pole with my bag.

Leaving home but going in the opposite direction from school, I turned the corner

of Tomoe-Ya Candy Store, and went through Hachiman-Mae Mall, passing Sakura Beauty Parlor, then came out in front of Takasu-Hachiman Station.

I presented my ticket from Polar King to the ticket taker.

He was surprised at the ticket and said, "Well, well. You'll go all the way to the North Pole all by yourself? Good boy!"

A train bound for Hagite-Ochiai came along after I'd been waiting on the platform for a while.

There were many people in the train and every one of them gave me a pat on the back when they heard I was visiting the North Pole alone.

Passing the railroad bridge across Kamito River and making stops at stations such as Higashi-Tugumo-Cho and Hachiken-Sakagami, the train arrived at Hagite-Ochiai.

I had to change there. I asked a railroad officer at the station which train I should transfer to.

There were many people on that train too, but I could find a seat.

The train rushed, rushed and rushed through rice fields, farms, and villages, through forests and woods, through big towns and beaches, through mountains and meadows, through railroad bridges and tunnels, and through countless numbers of them.

The train seemed going northward and northward.

At the northern end of Japan is Hokkaido.

I arrived at Hokkaido by train.

According to a railroad officer at Hokkaido Station, the land of Soviet Union is the north of Hokkaido, so you cannot go farther north unless you take a Soviet train.

The officer also told me that Japan and the Soviet Union once had been in a bad mood, fighting, invading territories and once friends,--well, now they are still getting along--besides, there had been countless of various other things that you cannot explain in a word, the numbers of complicating, troublesome affairs between them, therefore the Japanese train cannot go into the Soviet land.

So I had to walk from Hokkaido Station to the entrance of the Soviet Union.

The entrance of the Soviet Union is the exit of Japan.

I walked up, up to the north through Hokkaido Mall in front of the station, just as told by the railroad officer of Hokkaido Station.

Then I came to the end of Japan.

There stood the Soviet entrance gate, as large as the main gate of Tempuku-Ji Temple, and on the entrance was written "Entrance of the Soviet Union" in the Soviet language.

I passed through the gate into the Soviet land.

From the gate continues the Soviet Mall. There I walked through up and up to the north.

Soon, it was noon.

I was hungry, so I went into the Noodle Heaven in the Soviet Mall and ordered a bowl of noodle soup to have lunch in my bag with, just like when Grandmother and I had been to the Noodle Heaven in Tempuku-Ji Temple Mall to have lunch.

After I finished eating, I paid seventy yen for the noodle, and walked up, up to the north through the mall again.

Then I found myself in front of the Soviet Station. I presented my ticket again to the railroad officer of the Soviet Station and got on the train.

The Soviet train ran up and up to the north.

It rushed, rushed and rushed through rice fields, farms, and villages, through forests and woods, through big towns and beaches, through mountains and meadows, over railroad bridges and through tunnels, and through countless numbers of them.

And the train arrived at the Arctic Station at last.

The North Pole was so cold that I put on my underwear as I came out of the Arctic Station.

I asked a Chinese noodle vendor in front of the Arctic Station for Polar King's house and he kindly showed me the way.

I walked and walked through the Arctic Mall just as the noodle vendor told me to.

There were numbers of polar bears, penguins, and fur seals walking around in the Arctic Mall.

And there stood icebergs, too.

Getting out of the mall and turning to the right at the ward community center, the seventh ready-built house from the corner is Polar King's home.

It was a very neat, new, ready-built house with a garage and everything.

None of its window panes were broken.

When I pushed the front buzzer, Mrs. Polar King appeared.

She came out smiling in her usual white pants.

She was a very nice-looking lady.

"I'm proud that you came here all by yourself. Good boy," said Mrs. Polar King and led me into the house.

In the house was a large dining room, as large as any dining room of my friends' houses.

Polar King was there.

Polar King was a tall, gentleman with glasses, and he was drinking beer and smiling merrily as usual.

Polar King had just come home from his office.

I said hello to him politely and talked to Polar King and his wife about school, Grandmother, and various other things.

I also told them my friends made fun of me because I did not have parents.

Polar King got very angry and shouted, "I'll go and butcher all those swine for you!"

We enjoyed talking about other things and the three of us laughed together.

Polar King was so funny and good at telling stories.

Soon, night fell.

Fath Polar King said, "You stay tonight."

Mrs. Polar King prepared dinner for us.

The main dish of the dinner was meat.

And hamburger steak.

And fried chicken.

And curry and rice.

And then, omelet and rice, and fried prawns, and caramel pudding, and ice cream.
And there were many many other good things, so I ate more.
Everything was delicious.
Then we talked again.
Soon, I got sleepy.
Mrs. Polar King spread two sets of futon in the back room.
Polar King wore red pajamas and lay on the inside set of futon, and I lay on the other set, as I used to, with Moth Mrs. Polar King.
Mrs. Polar King, in her white negligee, smelled so sweet and nice.
She smelled so dear to me that I cried a little.
Red, blue, yellow and green lights were flickeringly reflected in the window.
They looked like the supermarket's neon sign in the back of my house.
When I told her so, Mrs. Polar King replied, "They are Arctic auroras, boy."
It was the first time I'd ever seen Arctic auroras.
The wind blew and stormed outside, but I was not scared at all because I was sleeping between Polar King and his wife who hugged me.
I slept soundly.
Next day, when I woke up, Polar King and his wife were not there.
Flustered, I hurried to the dining room and found Polar King eating breakfast.
I, too, had a toast, beacon, a fried egg, salad, milk, coffee and some fruits for breakfast with him.
Mrs. Polar King had got up early in the morning to prepare a lunch box for me.
Polar King said, "Which souvenir do you want for your grandmother?"
I said, "The Arctic ice, please."
"You may have as much as you like," said Mrs. Polar King taking lots of ice out of the refrigerator, and she put them into my bag with the lunch box.
"Won't they melt before I get home?" asked I, then Polar King laughed and said, "The Arctic ice will never melt."
Polar King and his wife saw me off when I left their home.
Just as Polar King had told me, the ice did not melt before I arrived home.
This is all true story.
(This fiction was inspired by a real, historical person. All events in this story are however fictional. The story first appeared in June of 1990 in _SF Ad_.)

A Dream of Armageddon by H. G. Wells

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sat, 05 Jun 2021 15:40:00 +0000

Free online reading Ebook -A Dream of Armageddon by H. G. Wells

The man with the white face entered the carriage at Rugby. He moved slowly despite his porter's urgency, and even while he was still on the platform I

noted how ill he seemed. He dropped into the corner across from me with a sigh,

made an incomplete attempt to arrange his traveling shawl, and became motionless, his eyes staring vacantly. I returned to my reading.

"That book," he said, pointing a lean finger, "is about dreams."

"Obviously," I answered, for it was Fortnum Roscoe's the Dream States, and the title

was on the cover.

He hung silent for space as if seeking words. "Yes," he said at last, "but

they know nothing."

I looked attentively at him.

"There are dreams," he said, "and dreams... Tell me, do you ever dream vividly?"

"Rarely," I answered. "I doubt I have three vivid dreams in a year."

"Ah!" he said, "Then your dreams don't mix with your memories? You don't find

yourself in doubt; did this happen or did it not?"

"Hardly ever. Except for a momentary hesitation now and then. I suppose few people do. Roscoe says it happens at times and gives the usual explanation about

the intensity of impression and the like to account for its not happening as a rule.

I suppose you know of these theories--"

"They are wrong."

His emaciated hand played with the strap of the window for a time. I prepared to resume reading, and that seemed to precipitate his next remark. He leaned

forward almost as though to touch me.

"Isn't there something called consecutive dreaming--that goes on night after

night?"

"I believe there is. There are cases given in most books on mental trouble."

"Right place for them. But what I mean--" He looked at his bony knuckles. "Is

that sort of thing really dreaming? Or something else?"

I should have snubbed his persistent conversation but for the drawn anxiety of his face. I remember now the look of his faded eyes and the lids red stained.

"I'm not just arguing about a matter of opinion," he said. "It's killing me."

"Dreams?"

"If you call them dreams. Night after night. Vivid!--so vivid...this--" he

indicated the landscape that went streaming by the window "seems unreal in

comparison! I can scarcely remember who I am, what business I am on..."

"You mean the dream is always the same?" I asked.

"No. It's over. I died."

"Died?"

"Smashed and killed, and now, so much of me as that dream was, is dead. Forever.

I dreamt I was another man, living in a different part of the world at a

different time. Night after night I woke into that other life. Fresh scenes and

fresh happenings--until I came upon the last--when I died."

It was clear I was in for this dream. And after all, I had an hour before me,

the light was fading fast, and Fortnum Roscoe is rather dreary. "Living in a

different time," I said: "do you mean in some different age?"

"Yes, to come."

"The year 3,000, for example?"

"I don't know. I did when I was asleep and dreaming, but not now that I am

awake. I have forgotten many things since I woke out of these dreams, though I

knew them at the time when I was--I suppose it was dreaming. They called the

year differently from our way... What did they call it?" He put his hand to his

forehead. "No, I forget."

He sat smiling weakly. I feared he would not tell me his dream. As a rule, I hate

people who tell their dreams, but this struck me differently. I proffered

assistance even. "It began--" I suggested.

"It was vivid from the first. I seemed to wake up in it suddenly. The first

time, I found myself sitting in a sort of loggia looking out over the sea. I had

been dozing, and suddenly I woke up--fresh and vivid--not a bit

dreamlike--because the girl had stopped fanning me."

"What girl?"

"Please don't interrupt. I woke up, I say because the girl had stopped fanning

me. I was not surprised to find myself there or anything of that sort, you

understand. I did not feel I had fallen into it suddenly. I simply took it up at

that point. Whatever memory I had of this life, this 19th-century life faded as

I woke, vanished like a dream. I knew all about myself, knew that my name was no

longer Cooper but Hedon, and all about my position in the world. I've forgotten

a lot since I woke--there's a want of connection--but it was all quite clear and

matter-of-fact then."

He hesitated, gripping the window strap, putting his face forward, and looking up

to me appealingly.

"This seems bosh to you?"

"No, no!" I cried. "Go on. Tell me what this loggia was like!"

"It was not really a loggia--I don't know what to call it. It faced south. It

was small. It was all in shadow except the semicircle above the balcony that

showed the sky and sea and the corner where the girl stood. I was on a metal

couch with light striped cushions--and the girl was leaning over the balcony

with her back to me. The light of the sunrise fell on her ear and cheek. Her

pretty white neck and the little curls that nestled there, and her white

shoulder were in the sun, and all the grace of her body was in the cool shadow.

She was dressed--how can I describe it? It was easy and flowing. And there she

stood so that it came to me how beautiful and desirable she was, as though I

had never seen her before. And when at last I spoke and raised myself upon my

arm she turned to face me--"

He stopped.

"I have lived 53 years in this world. I have had mother, sisters, friends, wife

, and daughters--all their faces, the play of their faces, I know. But the face of

this girl--it is much more real to me. I can bring it back into memory so that I

see it again--I could draw it or paint it. And after all--"

He stopped--but I said nothing.

"The face of a dream--the face of a dream. She was beautiful. Not that beauty

which is terrible, cold, and worshipful, like the beauty of a saint; nor that

beauty that stirs fierce passions; but a sort of glow, sweet lips that softened

into smiles, and grave gray eyes. And she moved so gracefully--"

He stopped, his face downcast and hidden. Then he looked up at me and went on,

making no further attempt to disguise his absolute belief in the reality of his

story.

"You see, I had given up my plans and ambitions, given up all I had ever worked

for or desired, for her sake. I had been a master man away there in the north,

with influence and property and a great reputation, but it was all nothing

compared to her. I had come to the place, this city of sunny pleasures with her,

and left all those things to wreck and ruin just to save a remnant at least of

my life. While I had been in love with her before I knew that she too loved me,

all my life had seemed vain and hollow, dust and ashes. It was dust and ashes.

Night after night and through endless days I had longed and desired--my soul had

beaten against the thing forbidden!

"But it is impossible for one man to tell another just these things. It's

emotion, it's a tint, a light that comes and goes. Only while it's there,

everything changes, everything. The thing is I came away and left them in their

Crisis to do what they could."

"Left whom?" I asked, puzzled.

"The people up in the north. You see, in this dream, I had been a big man, a

leader who other men trusted and grouped themselves about. Millions who had

never seen me were ready to do things and take risks because of their confidence

in me. I had played that big laborious game--politics--for years, amid intrigues

and betrayals, speech and agitation. At last, I had power against the Gang--an

organization whose scoundrelly projects, base ambitions, and vast public

emotional stupidities and catchwords kept the world noisy and blind year by

year and drifting toward infinite disaster. I can't expect you to understand

the shades and complications of that time. I had it all--down to the last

detail--in my dream.

"I rubbed my eyes and thanked God for the sunlight. I sat up on the couch,

looking at the woman and rejoicing that I had come away out of all that tumult,

folly, and violence before it was too late. After all, I thought, this is

life--love and beauty, desire and delight, are they not worth all those dismal

struggles for vague, gigantic ends? I blamed myself for having ever sought to be

a leader when I might have given my days to love. All my being went out in love

and tenderness to my dear mistress, my dear lady, who had come at last and

compelled me by her invincible charm to lay that life aside.

"'You are worth it, my dearest one' I said, without intending her to hear;

'worth pride and praise and all things. Love! to have you is worth them all

together." And at the murmur of my voice, she turned about.

"'Come and see,' she cried--I can hear her now--'come and see the sunrise upon

Monte Solaro.'

"I remember how I sprang to my feet and joined her at the balcony. She put a

white hand upon my shoulder and pointed toward great masses of limestone,

flushing, as it were, into life. I looked. But first I noted the sunlight on her

face caressing the lines of her cheeks and neck. How can I describe to you the

scene before us? We were at Capri--"

"I have been there," I said. "I have clambered up Monte Solaro and drunk Vero

Capri--muddy stuff like cider--at the summit."

"Ah!" said the man with the white face; "then perhaps you can tell me--you will

know if this is indeed Capri. For in this life I have never been there. Let me

describe it. We were in a little room, one of a multitude of little rooms, cool

and sunny, hollowed out of the limestone of a sort of cape, high above the sea.

The whole island was one enormous hotel, complex beyond explaining, and on the

other side were miles of floating hotels, and huge floating stages to which

flying machines came. They called it a pleasure city. Of course, there was none

of that in your time--rather, I should say, is none of that now.

"Well, this room of ours was at the extremity of the cape, so we could see east

and west. Eastward was a great cliff--a thousand feet high perhaps--coldly gray

except for one bright edge of gold and beyond it the Isle of the Sirens, and a

falling coast that faded and passed into the hot sunrise. When one turned to the

west, distinct and near was a little bay, a little beach still in shadow. Out of

that shadow rose Solaro straight and tall, flushed and golden crested, like a

beauty throned, and the white moon was floating behind her in the sky. And

before us from east to west stretched the many-tinted sea all dotted with little

sailing boats.

"Eastward, of course, these little boats were gray and very minute and clear,

but westward they were little boats of gold--shining gold--almost like little

flames. And just below us was a rock with an arch worn through it. The blue

sea-water broke to green and foam all around the rock, and a galley came gliding

out of the arch."

"I know that rock," I said. "I was nearly drowned there. It is called the

Faraglioni."

"I Faraglioni? Yes, she called it that," answered the man with the white face.

"Well, that is the first thing I remember, the first dream I had, that little

shaded room and the beautiful air and sky and that dear lady of mine, with her

shining arms and her graceful robe, and how we sat and talked in half whispers

to one another. We talked in whispers not because there was anyone to hear, but

because there was still such a freshness of mind between us that our thoughts

were a little frightened, I think, to find themselves at last in words. And so

they went softly.

"Presently we were hungry and we went from our apartment, going by a strange

passage with a moving floor until we came to the great breakfast room--there

was a fountain and music. A pleasant and joyful place it was, with its sunlight

and splashing, and the murmur of plucked strings. And we sat and ate and smiled

at one another, and I would not heed a man who was watching me from a table

nearby.

"And afterwards we went on to the dancing hall. But I cannot describe that hall.

The place was enormous--larger than any building you have ever seen--and in one

place there was the old gate of Capri, caught into the wall of a gallery high

overhead. Light girders, stems, and threads of gold, burst from the pillars like

fountains, streamed like an Aurora across the roof and interlaced, like--like

conjuring tricks. All about the great circle for the dancers, there were

beautiful figures, strange dragons, and intricate and wonderful grotesques

bearing lights. The place was inundated with artificial light that shamed the

newborn day. And as we went through the throng the people turned about and

looked at us, for all through the world my name and face were known, and how I

had suddenly thrown up pride and struggle to come to this place. And they looked

also at the lady beside me, though half the story of how at last she had come to

me was unknown or mistold. And few of the men who were there, I know, but judged

me a happy man, in spite of all the shame and dishonor that had come upon my

name.

"The air was full of music, full of harmonious scents, full of the rhythm of

beautiful motions. Thousands of beautiful people swarmed about the hall, crowded

the galleries, sat in a myriad recess; they were dressed in splendid colors

and crowned with flowers; thousands danced about the great circle beneath the

white images of the ancient gods, and glorious processions of youths and maidens

came and went. We two danced, not the dreary monotonies of your days--of this

time, I mean--but dances that were beautiful, intoxicating. And even now I can

see my lady dancing--dancing joyously. She danced, you know, with a serious

face; she danced with a serious dignity, and yet she was smiling at me and

caressing me--smiling and caressing with her eyes.

"The music was different," he murmured. "It went--I cannot describe it, but it

was infinitely richer and more varied than any music that has ever come to me

awake.

"And then--it was when we had done dancing--a man came to speak to me. He was a

lean, resolute man, very soberly clad for that place, and already I had marked

his face watching me in the breakfasting hall, and afterward as we went along

the passage I had avoided his eye. But now, as we sat in a little alcove,

smiling at the pleasure of all the people who went to and fro across the shining

floor, he came and touched me, and spoke to me so that I was forced to listen.

And he asked that he might speak to me for a little time apart.

"'No,' I said. 'I have no secrets from this lady. What do you want to tell me?'

"He said it was a trivial matter, or at least a dry matter, for a lady to hear.

"'Perhaps for me to hear,' said I.

"He glanced at her, as though almost he would appeal to her. Then he asked me

suddenly if I had heard of a great and avenging declaration that Evesham had

made? Now, Evesham had always before been the man next to myself in the

leadership of that great party in the north. He was a forcible, hard, and

tactless man, and only I had been able to control and soften him. It was on his

account even more than my own, I think, that the others had been so dismayed at

my retreat. So this question about what he had done reawakened my old interest

in the life I had put aside just for a moment.

"'I have taken no heed of any news for many days,' I said. 'What has Evesham

been saying?'

"And with that, the man began, nothing loth, and I must confess even I was struck

by Evesham's reckless folly in the wild and threatening words he had used. And

this messenger they had sent to me not only told me of Evesham's speech but

went on to ask counsel and to point out what need they had of me. While he

talked, my lady sat a little forward and watched his face and mine.

"My old habits of scheming and organizing reasserted themselves. I could even

see myself suddenly returning to the north and all the dramatic effect of it.

All that this man said witnessed to the disorder of the party indeed, but not to

its damage. I should go back stronger than I had come. And then I thought of my

lady. You see--how can I tell you? There were certain peculiarities of our

relationship--as things are I need not tell you about that--which would render

her presence with me impossible. I should have had to leave her; indeed, I

should have had to renounce her clearly and openly, if I was to do all that I

could do in the north. And the man knew that, even as he talked to her and me,

knew it as well as she did, that my steps to duty were--first, separation, then

abandonment. At a touch of that thought my dream of a return was shattered. I

turned on the man suddenly, as he was imagining his eloquence was gaining ground

with me.

"'What have I to do with these things now?' I said. 'I have done with them. Do

you think I am coquetting with your people in coming here?'

"'No,' he said. 'But--'

"'Why cannot you leave me alone? I have done with these things. I have ceased to

be anything but a private man.'

"'Yes,' he answered. 'But have you thought?--this talk of war, these reckless

challenges, these wild aggressions--'

"I stood up.

"'No!' I cried. 'I won't hear you. I took count of all those things, I weighed

them--and I have come away.'

"He seemed to consider the possibility of persistence. He looked from me to

where the lady sat regarding us.

"'War,' he said, as if he were speaking to himself, and then turned slowly from

me and walked away.

"I stood, caught in the whirl of thoughts his appeal had set going.

"I heard my lady's voice.

"'Dear,' she said; 'but if they have need of you--'

"She did not finish her sentence, she let it rest there. I turned to her sweet

face, and the balance of my mood swayed and reeled.

"'They want me only to do the thing they dare not do themselves,' I said. 'If

they distrust Evesham they must settle with him themselves.'

"She looked at me doubtfully.

"'But war--' she said.

"I saw a doubt on her face that I had seen before, a doubt of herself and me,

the first shadow of the discovery that, seen strongly and completely, must drive

us apart forever.

"Now, I was an older mind than hers, and I could sway her to this belief or

that.

"'My dear one,' I said, 'you must not trouble over these things. There will be

no war. Certainly there will be no war. The age of wars is past. Trust me to

know the justice of this case. They have no right upon me, dearest, and no one

has a right upon me. I have been free to choose my life, and I have chosen

this.'

"'But war--,' she said.

"I sat down beside her. I put an arm behind her and took her hand in mine. I set

myself to drive that doubt away--I set myself to fill her mind with pleasant

things again. I lied to her, and in lying to her I lied also to myself. And she

was only too ready to believe me, only too ready to forget.

"Very soon the shadow had gone again, and we were hastening to our bathing-place

in the Grotta del Bovo Marino, where it was our custom to bathe every day. We

swam and splashed one another, and in that buoyant water I seemed to become

something lighter and stronger than a man. And at last we came out dripping and

rejoicing and raced among the rocks. And then I put on a dry bathing-dress, and

we sat to bask in the sun, and presently I nodded, resting my head against her

knee, and she put her hand upon my hair and stroked it softly and I dozed. And

behold! as it were with the snapping of the string of a violin, I was awakening,

and I was in my own bed in Liverpool, in the life of today.

"Only for a time I could not believe that all these vivid moments had been no

more than the substance of a dream.

"In truth, I could not believe it a dream for all the sobering reality of things

about me. I bathed and dressed as it were by habit, and as I shaved I argued why

I of all men should leave the woman I loved to go back to fantastic politics in

the hard and strenuous north. Even if Evesham did force the world back to war,

what was that to me? I was a man with the heart of a man, and why should I feel

the responsibility of a deity for the way the world might go?

"You know that is not quite the way I think about affairs, about my real

affairs. I am a solicitor, you know, with a point of view.

"The vision was so real, you must understand, so utterly unlike a dream that I

kept perpetually recalling little irrelevant details; even the ornament of the

book-cover that lay on my wife's sewing machine in the breakfast-room recalled

with the utmost vividness the gilt line that ran about the seat in the alcove

where I had talked with the messenger from my deserted party. Have you ever

heard of a dream that had a quality like that?"

"Like--?"

"So that afterwards you remembered little details you had forgotten."

I thought. I had never noticed the point before, but he was right.

"Never," I said. "That is what you never seem to do with dreams."

"No," he answered. "But that is just what I did. I am a solicitor, you must

understand, in Liverpool, and I could not help wondering what the clients and

businesspeople I found myself talking to in my office would think if I told them

suddenly I was in love with a girl who would be born a couple of hundred years

or so hence, and worried about the politics of my

great-great-great-grandchildren. I was chiefly busy that day negotiating a

99-year building lease. It was a private builder in a hurry, and we wanted to

tie him in every possible way. I had an interview with him, and he showed a

certain want of temper that sent me to bed still irritated. That night I had no

dream. Nor did I dream the next night, at least, to remember.

"Something of that intense reality of conviction vanished. I began to feel sure

it was a dream. And then it came again.

"When the dream came again, nearly four days later, it was very different. I

think it certain that four days had also elapsed in the dream. Many things had

happened in the north, and the shadow of them was back again between us, and

this time it was not so easily dispelled. I began, I know, with moody musings.

Why, in spite of all, should I go back, go back for all the rest of my days to

toil and stress, insults and perpetual dissatisfaction, simply to save hundreds

of millions of common people, whom I did not love, whom too often I could do no

other than despise, from the stress and anguish of war and infinite misrule? And

after all I might fail. They all sought their own narrow ends, and why should

not I--why should not I also live as a man? And out of such thoughts her voice

summoned me, and I lifted my eyes.

I found myself awake and walking. We had come out above the Pleasure City, we

were near the summit of Monte Solaro and looking towards the bay. It was the

late afternoon and very clear. Far away to the left Ischia hung in a golden haze

between sea and sky, and Naples was coldly white against the hills, and before

us was Vesuvius with a tall and slender streamer feathering at last towards the

south, and the ruins of Torre dell' Annunziata and Castellammare glittering and

near."

I interrupted suddenly: "You have been to Capri, of course?"

"Only in this dream," he said, "only in this dream. All across the bay beyond

Sorrento were the floating palaces of the Pleasure City moored and chained. And

northward were the broad floating stages that received the airplanes. Airplanes

fell out of the sky every afternoon, each bringing its thousands of

pleasure-seekers from the uttermost parts of the earth to Capri and its

delights. All these things, I say, stretched below.

"But we noticed them only incidentally because of an unusual sight that evening

had to show. Five war airplanes that had long slumbered useless in the distant

arsenals of the Rhinemouth were maneuvering now in the eastward sky. Evesham had

astonished the world by producing them and others, and sending them to circle

here and there. It was the threat material in the great game of bluff he was

playing, and it had taken even me by surprise. He was one of those incredibly

stupid energetic people who seem sent by heaven to create disasters. His energy

to the first glance seemed so wonderfully like capacity! But he had no

imagination, no invention, only a stupid, vast, driving force of will, and a mad

faith in his stupid idiot 'luck' to pull him through. I remember how we stood

upon the headland watching the squadron circling far away, and how I weighed the

full meaning of the sight, seeing clearly the way things must go. And then even

it was not too late.

I might have gone back, I think, and saved the world. The people of the north

would follow me, I knew, granted only that in one thing I respected their moral

standards. The east and south would trust me as they would trust no other

northern man. And I knew I had only to put it to her and she would have let me

go... Not because she did not love me!

"Only I did not want to go; my will was all the other way about. I had so newly

thrown off the incubus of responsibility: I was still so fresh a renegade from

duty that the daylight clearness of what I ought to do had no power at all to

touch my will. My will was to live, to gather pleasures and make my dear lady

happy. But though this sense of vast neglected duties had no power to draw me,

it could make me silent and preoccupied, it robbed the days I had spent of half

their brightness and roused me into dark meditations in the silence of the

night. And as I stood and watched Evesham's airplanes sweep to and fro--those

birds of infinite ill omen--she stood beside me watching me, perceiving the

trouble indeed, but not perceiving it clearly--her eyes questioning my face, her

expression shaded with perplexity. Her face was gray because the sunset was

fading out of the sky. It was no fault of hers that she held me. She had asked

me to go from her, and again in the nighttime and with tears she had asked me to

go.

"At last it was the sense of her that roused me from my mood. I turned upon her

suddenly and challenged her to race down the mountain slopes. 'No,' she said, as

if I had jarred with her gravity, but I was resolved to end that gravity, and

make her run--no one can be very gray and sad who is out of breath--and when she

stumbled I ran with my hand beneath her arm. We ran down past a couple of men,

who turned back staring in astonishment at my behavior--they must have

recognized my face. And halfway down the slope came a tumult in the air,

clang-clank, clang-clank, and we stopped, and presently over the hill-crest

those war things came flying one behind the other."

The man seemed hesitating on the verge of a description.

"What were they like?" I asked.

"They had never fought," he said. "They were just like our ironclads are

nowadays; they had never fought. No one knew what they might do, with excited

men inside them; few even cared to speculate. They were great driving things

shaped like spearheads without a shaft, with a propeller in the place of the

shaft."

"Steel?"

"Not steel."

"Aluminum?"

"No, no, nothing of that sort. An alloy that was very common--as common as

brass, for example. It was called--let me see--" He squeezed his forehead with

the fingers of one hand. "I am forgetting everything," he said.

"And they carried guns?"

"Little guns, firing high explosive shells. They fired the guns backwards, out

of the base of the leaf, so to speak, and rammed with the beak. That was the

theory, you know, but they had never been fought. No one could tell exactly what

was going to happen. And meanwhile I suppose it was very fine to go whirling

through the air like a flight of young swallows, swift and easy. I guess the

captains tried not to think too clearly what the real thing would be like. And

these flying war machines, you know, were only one sort of the endless war

contrivances that had been invented and had fallen into abeyance during the long

peace. There were all sorts of these things that people were routing out and

furbishing up; infernal things, silly things; things that had never been tried;

big engines, terrible explosives, great guns. You know the silly way of these

ingenious sort of men who make these things; they turn 'em out as beavers build

dams, and with no more sense of the rivers they're going to divert and the lands

they're going to flood!

"As we went down the winding stepway to our hotel again, in the twilight, I

foresaw it all: I saw how clearly and inevitably things were driving for war in

Evesham's silly, violent hands, and I had some inkling of what war was bound to

be under these new conditions. And even then, though I knew it was drawing near

the limit of my opportunity, I could find no will to go back."

He sighed.

"That was my last chance.

"We didn't go into the city until the sky was full of stars, so we walked out

upon the high terrace, to and fro, and--she counseled me to go back.

"'My dearest,' she said, and her sweet face looked up to me, 'this is Death.

This life you lead is Death. Go back to them, go back to your duty--'

"She began to weep, saying, between her sobs, and clinging to my arm as she said

it, 'Go back--Go back.'

"Then suddenly she fell mute, and, glancing down at her face, I read in an

instant the thing she had thought to do. It was one of those moments when one

sees.

"'No!' I said.

"'No?' she asked, in surprise and I think a little fearful at the answer to her

thought.

"'Nothing,' I said, 'shall send me back. Nothing! I have chosen. Love, I have

chosen, and the world must go. Whatever happens I will live this life--I will

live for you! It--nothing shall turn me aside; nothing, my dear one. Even if you

died--even if you died--'

"'Yes?' she murmured, softly.

"'Then--I also would die.'

"And before she could speak again I began to talk, talking eloquently--as I

could do in that life--talking to exalt love, to make the life we were living

seem heroic and glorious; and the thing I was deserting something hard and

enormously ignoble that it was a fine thing to set aside. I bent all my mind to

throw that glamor upon it, seeking not only to convert her but myself to that.

We talked, and she clung to me, torn too between all that she deemed noble and

all that she knew was sweet. And at last I did make it heroic, made all the

thickening disaster of the world only a sort of glorious setting to our

unparalleled love, and we two poor foolish souls strutted there at last, clad in

that splendid delusion, drunken rather with that glorious delusion, under the

still stars.

"And so my moment passed.

"It was my last chance. Even as we went to and fro there, the leaders of the

south and east were gathering their resolve, and the hot answer that shattered

Evesham's bluffing forever, took shape and waited. And, all over Asia, and the

ocean, and the South, the air and the wires were throbbing with their warnings

to prepare--prepare.

"No one living, you know, knew what war was; no one could imagine, with all

these new inventions, what horror war might bring. I believe most people still

believed it would be a matter of bright uniforms and shouting charges and

triumphs and flags and bands--in a time when half the world drew its food supply

from regions ten thousand miles away--"

The man with the white face paused. I glanced at him, and his face was intent on

the floor of the carriage. A little railway station, a string of loaded trucks,

a signal-box, and the back of a cottage, shot by the carriage window, and a

bridge passed with a clap of noise, echoing the tumult of the train.

"After that," he said, "I dreamt often. For three weeks of nights that dream was

my life. And the worst of it was there were nights when I could not dream, when

I lay tossing on a bed in this accursed life; and there--somewhere lost to

me--things were happening--momentous, terrible things... I lived at nights--my

days, my waking days, this life I am living now, became a faded, faraway dream,

a drab setting, the cover of the book."

He thought.

"I could tell you all, tell you every little thing in the dream, but as to what

I did in the daytime--no. I could not tell--I do not remember. My memory--my

memory has gone. The business of life slips from me--"

He leaned forward, and pressed his hands upon his eyes. For a long time he said

nothing.

"And then?" said I.

"The war burst like a hurricane."

He stared before him at unspeakable things.

"And then?" I urged again.

"One touch of unreality," he said, in the low tone of a man who speaks to

himself, "and they would have been nightmares. But they were not

nightmares--they were not nightmares. No!"

He was silent for so long that it dawned upon me that there was a danger of

losing the rest of the story. But he went on talking again in the same tone of

questioning self-communion.

"What was there to do but flight? I had not thought the war would touch Capri--I

had seemed to see Capri as being out of it all, as the contrast to it all; but

two nights after the whole place was shouting and bawling, every woman almost

and every other man wore a badge--Evesham's badge--and there was no music but a

jangling war-song over and over again, and everywhere men enlisting, and in the

dancing halls they were drilling. The whole island was awhirl with rumors; it

was said, again and again, that fighting had begun. I had not expected this. I

had seen so little of the life of pleasure that I had failed to reckon with this

violence of the amateurs. And as for me, I was out of it. I was like the man who

might have prevented the firing of a magazine. The time had gone. I was no one;

the vainest stripling with a badge counted for more than I. The crowd jostled us

and bawled in our ears; that accursed song deafened us; a woman shrieked at my

lady because no badge was on her, and we two went back to our own place again,

ruffled and insulted--my lady white and silent, and I aquiver with rage. So

furious was I, I could have quarrelled with her if I could have found one shade

of accusation in her eyes.

"All my magnificence had gone from me. I walked up and down our rock cell, and

outside was the darkling sea and a light to the southward that flared and passed

and came again.

"'We must get out of this place,' I said over and over. 'I have made my choice,

and I will have no hand in these troubles. I will have nothing of this war. We

have taken our lives out of all these things. This is no refuge for us. Let us

go.'

"And the next day we were already in flight from the war that covered the world.

"And all the rest was Flight--all the rest was Flight."

He mused darkly.

"How much was there of it?"

He made no answer.

"How many days?"

His face was white and drawn and his hands were clenched. He took no heed of my

curiosity.

I tried to draw him back to his story with questions.

"Where did you go?" I said.

"When?"

"When you left Capri."

"Southwest," he said, and glanced at me for a second. "We went in a boat."

"But I should have thought an airplane?"

"They had been seized."

I questioned him no more. Presently I thought he was beginning again. He broke

out in an argumentative monotone:

"But why should it be? If, indeed, this battle, this slaughter and stress is

life, why have we this craving for pleasure and beauty? If there is no refuge,

if there is no place of peace, and if all our dreams of quiet places are a folly

and a snare, why have we such dreams? Surely it was no ignoble cravings, no base

intentions, had brought us to this; it was Love had isolated us. Love had come

to me with her eyes and robed in her beauty, more glorious than all else in

life, in the very shape and color of life, and summoned me away. I had silenced

all the voices, I had answered all the questions--I had come to her. And

suddenly there was nothing but War and Death!"

I had an inspiration. "After all," I said, "it could have been only a dream."

"A dream!" he cried, flaming upon me, "a dream--when, even now--"

For the first time he became animated. A faint flush crept into his cheek. He

raised his open hand and clenched it, and dropped it to his knee. He spoke,

looking away from me, and for all the rest of the time he looked away. "We are

but phantoms!" he said, "and the phantoms of phantoms, desires like

cloud-shadows and wills of straw that eddy in the wind; the days pass, use and

wont carry us through as a train carries the shadow of its lights--so be it! But

one thing is real and certain, one thing is no dream-stuff, but eternal and

enduring. It is the center of my life, and all other things about it are

subordinate or altogether vain. I loved her, that woman of a dream. And she and

I are dead together!

"A dream! How can it be a dream, when it drenched a living life with

unappeasable sorrow, when it makes all that I have lived for and cared for,

worthless and unmeaning?

"Until that very moment when she was killed I believed we had still a chance of

getting away," he said. "All through the night and morning that we sailed across

the sea from Capri to Salerno, we talked of escape. We were full of hope, and it

clung about us to the end, hope for the life together we should lead, out of it

all, out of the battle and struggle, the wild and empty passions, the empty

arbitrary 'thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not' of the world. We were uplifted, as

though our quest was a holy thing, as though love for another was a mission...

"Even when from our boat we saw the fair face of that great rock Capri--already

scarred and gashed by the gun emplacements and hiding-places that were to make

it a fastness--we reckoned nothing of the imminent slaughter, though the fury of

preparation hung about in the puffs and clouds of dust at a hundred points amid

the gray; but, indeed, I made a text of that and talked. There, you know, was

the rock, still beautiful for all its scars, with its countless windows and

arches and ways, tier upon tier, for a thousand feet, a vast carving of gray,

broken by vine-clad terraces, and lemon and orange groves, and masses of agave

and prickly pear, and puffs of almond blossom. And out under the archway that is

built over the Piccola Marina other boats were coming; and as we came round the

cape and within sight of the mainland, another little string of boats came into

view, driving before the wind toward the southwest. In a little while a

multitude had come out, the remoter just little specks of ultramarine in the

shadow of the eastward cliff.

"'It is love and reason,' I said, 'fleeing from all this madness of war.'

"And though we presently saw a squadron of airplanes flying across the southern

sky we did not heed it. There it was--a line of little dots in the sky--and then

more, dotting the southeastern horizon, and then still more, until all that

quarter of the sky was stippled with blue specks. Now they were all thin little

strokes of blue, and now one and now a multitude would heel and catch the sun

and become short flashes of light. They came, rising and falling and growing

larger, like some huge flight of gulls or rooks or suchlike birds, moving with a

marvelous uniformity, and ever as they drew nearer they spread over a greater

width of sky. The southward wind flung itself in an arrowheaded cloud athwart

the sun. And then suddenly they swept round to the eastward and streamed

eastward, growing smaller and smaller and clearer and clearer again until they

vanished from the sky. And after that we noted to the northward and very high

Evesham's fighting machines hanging high over Naples like an evening swarm of

gnats.

"It seemed to have no more to do with us than a flight of birds.

"Even the mutter of guns far away in the southeast seemed to us to signify

nothing...

"Each day, each dream after that, we were still exalted, still seeking that

refuge where we might live and love. Fatigue had come upon us, pain and many

distresses. For though we were dusty and stained by our toilsome tramping, and

half starved and with the horror of the dead men

we had seen and the flight of the peasants--for very soon a gust of fighting

swept up the peninsula--with these things haunting our minds it still resulted

only in a deepening resolution to escape. Oh, but she was brave and patient! She

who had never faced hardship and exposure had courage for herself and me. We

went to and fro seeking an outlet, over a country all commandeered and ransacked

by the gathering hosts of war. Always we went on foot. At first there were other

fugitives, but we did not mingle with them. Some escaped northward, some were

caught in the torrent of peasantry that swept along the main roads; many gave

themselves into the hands of the soldiery and were sent northward. Many of the

men were impressed. But we kept away from these things; we had brought no money

to bribe a passage north, and I feared for my lady at the hands of these

conscript crowds. We had landed at Salerno, and we had been turned back from

Cava, and we had tried to cross toward Taranto by a pass over Mount Alburno, but

we had been driven back for want of food, and so we had come down among the

marshes by Paestum, where those great temples stand alone. I had some vague idea

that by Paestum it might be possible to find a boat or something, and take once

more to sea. And there it was the battle overtook us.

"A sort of soul-blindness had me. Plainly I could see that we were being hemmed

in; that the great net of that giant Warfare had us in its toils. Many times we

had seen the levies that had come down from the north going to and fro, and had

come upon them in the distance amid the mountains making ways for the ammunition

and preparing the mounting of the guns. Once we fancied they had fired at us,

taking us for spies--at any rate a shot had gone shuddering over us. Several

times we had hidden in woods from hovering airplanes.

"But all these things do not matter now, these nights of flight and pain... We

were in an open place near those great temples at Paestum, at last, on a blank

stony place dotted with spiky bushes, empty and desolate and so flat that a

grove of eucalyptus far away showed to the feet of its stems. How I can see it!

My lady was sitting down under a bush resting a little, for she was very weak

and weary, and I was standing up watching to see if I could tell the distance of

the firing that came and went. They were still, you know, fighting far from each

other, with those terrible new weapons that had never before been used: guns

that would carry beyond sight, and airplanes that would do--What they would do

no man could foretell.

"I knew that we were between the two armies, and that they drew together. I knew

we were in danger, and that we could not stop there and rest!

"Though all these things were in my mind, they were in the background. They

seemed to be affairs beyond our concern. Chiefly, I was thinking of my lady. An

aching distress filled me. For the first time she had owned herself beaten and

had fallen a-weeping. Behind me I could hear her sobbing, but I would not turn

around to her because I knew she had need of weeping, and had held herself so

far and so long for me. It was well, I thought, that she would weep and rest and

then we would toil on again, for I had no inkling of the thing that hung so

near. Even now I can see her as she sat there, her lovely hair upon her

shoulder, can mark again the deepening hollow of her cheek.

"'If we had parted,' she said, 'if I had let you go.'

"'No,' said I. 'Even now, I do not repent. I will not repent; I made my choice,

and I will hold on to the end.'

"And then--

"Overhead in the sky flashed something and burst, and all about us I heard the

bullets making a noise like a handful of peas suddenly thrown. They chipped the

stones about us, and whirled fragments from the bricks and passed..."

He put his hand to his mouth, and then moistened his lips.

"At the flash I had turned about...

"You know--she stood up--

"She stood up, you know, and moved a step toward me--as though she wanted to

reach me--

"And she had been shot through the heart."

He stopped and stared at me. I felt all that foolish incapacity an Englishman

feels on such occasions. I met his eyes for a moment, and then stared out of the

window. For a long space we kept silence. When at last I looked at him he was

sitting back in his corner, his arms folded, and his teeth gnawing at his

knuckles.

He bit his nail suddenly, and stared at it.

"I carried her," he said, "toward the temples, in my arms--as though it

mattered. I don't know why. They seemed a sort of sanctuary, you know, they had

lasted so long, I suppose.

"She must have died almost instantly. Only--I talked to her all the way."

Silence again.

"I have seen those temples," I said abruptly, and indeed he had brought those

still, sunlit arcades of worn sandstone very vividly before me.

"It was the brown one, the big brown one. I sat down on a fallen pillar and held

her in my arms... Silent after the first babble was over. And after a little

while the lizards came out and ran about again, as though nothing unusual was

going on, as though nothing had changed... It was tremendously still there, the

sun high and the shadows still; even the shadows of the weeds upon the

entablature were still--in spite of the thudding and banging that went all about

the sky.

"I seem to remember that the airplanes came up out of the south, and that the

battle went away to the west. One airplane was struck, and overset and fell. I

remember that--though it didn't interest me in the least. It didn't seem to

signify. It was like a wounded gull, you know--flapping for a time in the water.

I could see it down the aisle of the temple--a black thing in the bright blue

water.

"Three or four times shells burst about the beach, and then that ceased. Each

time that happened all the lizards scuttled in and hid for a space. That was all

the mischief done, except that once a stray bullet gashed the stone hard

by--made just a fresh bright surface.

"As the shadows grew longer, the stillness seemed greater.

"The curious thing," he remarked, with the manner of a man who makes a trivial

conversation, "is that I didn't think--at all. I sat with her in my arms amidst

the stones--in a sort of lethargy--stagnant.

"And I don't remember waking up. I don't remember dressing that day. I know I

found myself in my office, with my letters all slit open in front of me, and how

I was struck by the absurdity of being there, seeing that in reality I was

sitting, stunned, in that Paestum Temple with a dead woman in my arms. I read my

letters like a machine. I have forgotten what they were about."

He stopped, and there was a long silence.

Suddenly I perceived that we were running down the incline from Chalk Farm to

Euston. I started at this passing of time. I turned on him with a brutal

question, with the tone of "Now or never."

"And did you dream again?"

"Yes."

He seemed to force himself to finish. His voice was very low.

"Once more, and as it were only for a few instants. I seemed to have suddenly

awakened out of a great apathy, to have risen into a sitting position, and the

body lay there on the stones beside me.

A gaunt body. Not her, you know. So soon--it was not her...

"I may have heard voices. I do not know. Only I knew clearly that men were

coming into the solitude and that that was a last outrage.

"I stood up and walked through the temple, and then there came into sight--first

one man with a yellow face, dressed in a uniform of dirty white, trimmed with

blue, and then several, climbing to the crest of the old wall of the vanished

city, and crouching there. They were little bright figures in the sunlight, and

there they hung, weapon in hand, peering cautiously before them.

"And further away I saw others and then more at another point in the wall. It

was a long lax line of men in open order.

"Presently the man I had first seen stood up and shouted a command, and his men

came tumbling down the wall and into the high weeds toward the temple. He

scrambled down with them and led them. He came facing toward me, and when he saw

me he stopped.

"At first I had watched these men with a mere curiosity, but when I had seen

they meant to come to the temple I was moved to forbid them. I shouted to the

officer.

"'You must not come here,' I cried, 'I am here. I am here with my dead.'

"He stared, and then shouted a question back to me in some unknown tongue.

"I repeated what I had said.

"He shouted again, and I folded my arms and stood still. Presently he spoke to

his men and came forward. He carried a drawn sword.

"I signed to him to keep away, but he continued to advance. I told him again

very patiently and clearly: 'You must not come here. These are old temples and I

am here with my dead.'

"Presently he was so close I could see his face clearly. It was a narrow face,

with dull gray eyes, and a black moustache. He had a scar on his upper lip, and

he was dirty and unshaven. He kept shouting unintelligible things, questions,

perhaps, at me.

"I know now that he was afraid of me, but at the time that did not occur to me.

As I tried to explain to him, he interrupted me in imperious tones, bidding me,

I suppose, stand aside.

"He made to go past me, and I caught hold of him.

"I saw his face change at my grip.

"'You fool!' I cried. 'Don't you know? She is dead!'

"He started back. He looked at me with cruel eyes. I saw a sort of exultant

resolve leap into them--delight. Then, suddenly, with a scowl, he swept his

sword back--so--and thrust."

He stopped abruptly.

I became aware of a change in the rhythm of the train. The brakes lifted their

voices and the carriage jarred and jerked. This present world insisted upon

itself, became clamorous. I saw through the steamy window huge electric lights

glaring down from tall masts upon a fog, saw rows of stationary empty carriages

passing by, and then a signal-box hoisting its constellation of green and red

into the murky London twilight, marched after them. I looked again at his drawn

features.

"He ran me through the heart. It was with a sort of astonishment--no fear, no

pain--but just amazement, that I felt it pierce me, felt the sword drive home

into my body. It didn't hurt, you know. It didn't hurt at all."

The yellow platform lights came into the field of view, passing first rapidly,

then slowly, and at last stopping with a jerk. Dim shapes of men passed to and

fro without.

"Euston!" cried a voice.

"Do you mean--?"

"There was no pain, no sting or smart. Amazement and then darkness sweeping over

everything. The hot, brutal face before me, the face of the man who had killed

me, seemed to recede. It swept out of existence--"

"Euston!" clamored the voices outside; "Euston!"

The carriage door opened, admitting a flood of sound, and a porter stood

regarding us. The sounds of doors slamming, and the hoof-clatter of cab-horses,

and behind these things the featureless remote roar of the London cobblestones,

came to my ears. A truckload of lighted lamps blazed along the platform.

"A darkness, a flood of darkness that opened and spread and blotted out all

things."

"Any luggage, sir?" said the porter.

"And that was the end?" I asked.

He seemed to hesitate. Then, almost inaudibly, he answered, "No."

"You mean?"

"I couldn't get to her. She was there on the other side of the temple--And

then--"

"Yes," I insisted. "Yes?"

"Nightmares," he cried; "nightmares indeed! My God! Great birds that fought and

tore."

Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind| Free online Book

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Thu, 03 Jun 2021 07:33:00 +0000

Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind is a very good Book anyone can read for free.

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The misfortunes of human beings may be divided into two classes:

First, those inflicted by the non-human environment and, second,

those inflicted by other people. As mankind has progressed in

knowledge and technique, the second class has become a continually

increasing percentage of the total. In old times, famine, for example,

was due to natural causes, and although people did their best to

combat it, large numbers of them died of starvation. At the present

moment large parts of the world are faced with the threat of famine,

but although natural causes have contributed to the situation, the

principal causes are human. For six years the civilized nations of the

world devoted all their best energies to killing each other, and they

find it difficult suddenly to switch over to keeping each other alive.

Having destroyed harvests, dismantled agricultural machinery, and

disorganized shipping, they find it no easy matter to relieve the

shortage of crops in one place by means of a superabundance in

another, as would easily be done if the economic system were in

normal working order. As this illustration shows, it is now man that is

man's worst enemy. Nature, it is true, still sees to it that we are

mortal, but with the progress in medicine it will become more and

more common for people to live until they have had their fill of life. We

are supposed to wish to live for ever and to look forward to the

unending joys of heaven, of which, by miracle, the monotony will

never grow stale. But in fact, if you question any candid person who is

no longer young, he is very likely to tell you that, having tasted life in

this world, he has no wish to begin again as a 'new boy' in another.

For the future, therefore, it may be taken that much the most important evils that mankind have to consider are those which they

inflict upon each other through stupidity or malevolence or both.

I think that the evils that men inflict on each other, and by resection

upon themselves, have their main source in evil passions rather than

in ideas or beliefs. But ideas and principles that do harm are, as a rule,

though not always, cloaks for evil passions. In Lisbon when heretics

were publicly burnt, it sometimes happened that one of them, by a

particularly edifying recantation, would be granted the boon of being

strangled before being put into the flames. This would make the

spectators so furious that the authorities had great difficulty in

preventing them from lynching the penitent and burning him on their

own account. The spectacle of the writhing torments of the victims

was, in fact, one of the principal pleasures to which the populace

looked forward to enliven a somewhat drab existence. I cannot doubt

that this pleasure greatly contributed to the general belief that the

burning of heretics was a righteous act. The same sort of thing applies

to war. People who are vigorous and brutal often find war enjoyable,

provided that it is a victorious war and that there is not too much

interference with rape and plunder. This is a great help in persuading

people that wars are righteous. Dr Arnold, the hero of Tom Brown's

Schooldays, and the admired reformer of Public Schools, came across

some cranks who thought it a mistake to flog boys. Anyone reading his

outburst of furious indignation against this opinion will be forced to the

conclusion that he enjoyed inflicting floggings, and did not wish to be

deprived of this pleasure.

It would be easy to multiply instances in support of the thesis that

opinions which justify cruelty are inspired by cruel impulses. When we

pass in review the opinions of former times which are now recognized

as absurd, it will be found that nine times out of ten they were such as

to justify the infliction of suffering. Take, for instance, medical

practice. When anesthetics were invented they were thought to be

wicked as being an attempt to thwart God's will. Insanity was thought

to be due to diabolic possession, and it was believed that demons

inhabiting a madman could be driven out by inflicting pain upon him,

and so making them uncomfortable. In pursuit of this opinion, lunatics

were treated for years on end with systematic and conscientious

brutality. I cannot think of any instance of an erroneous medical

treatment that was agreeable rather than disagreeable to the patient.

Or again, take moral education. Consider how much brutality has been

justified by the rhyme:

A dog, a wife, and a walnut tree,

The more you beat them the better they be.

I have no experience of the moral effect of flagellation on walnut

trees, but no civilized person would now justify the rhyme as regards

wives. The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard,

chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

But although passions have had more to do than beliefs with what is

amiss in human life, yet beliefs, especially where they are ancient and

systematic and embodied in organizations, have a great power of

delaying desirable changes of opinion and of influencing in the wrong

direction people who otherwise would have no strong feelings either

way. Since my subject is 'Ideas that have Harmed Mankind,' it is

especially harmful systems of beliefs that I shall consider.

The most obvious case as regards past history is constituted by the

beliefs which may be called religious or superstitious, according to

one's personal bias. It was supposed that human sacrifice would

improve the crops, at first for purely magical reasons, and then

because the blood of victims was thought pleasing to the gods, who

certainly were made in the image of their worshippers. We read in the

Old Testament that it was a religious duty to exterminate conquered

races completely, and that to spare even their cattle and sheep was an

impiety. Dark terrors and misfortunes in the life to come oppressed

the Egyptians and Etruscans, but never reached their full development

until the victory of Christianity. Gloomy saints who abstained from all

pleasures of sense, who lived in solitude in the desert, denying

themselves meat and wine and the society of women, were,

nevertheless, not obliged to abstain from all pleasures. The pleasures

of the mind were considered to be superior to those of the body, and a

high place among the pleasures of the mind was assigned to the

contemplation of the eternal tortures to which the pagans and heretics

would hereafter be subjected. It is one of the drawbacks to asceticism

that it sees no harm in pleasures other than those of sense, and yet, in

fact, not only the best pleasures, but also the very worst, are purely

mental. Consider the pleasures of Milton's Satan when he

contemplates the harm that he could do to man. As Milton makes him

say:

The mind is its own place, and in itself

Can make a heav'n hell, a hell of heav'n.

and his psychology is not so very different from that of Tertullian,

exulting in the thought that he will be able to look out from heaven at

the sufferings of the damned. The ascetic depreciation of the pleasures

of sense has not promoted kindliness or tolerance, or any of the other

virtues that a non-superstitious outlook on human life would lead us to

desire. On the contrary, when a man tortures himself he feels that it

gives him a right to torture others, and inclines him to accept any

system of dogma by which this right is fortified.

The ascetic form of cruelty is, unfortunately, not confined to the

fiercer forms of Christian dogma, which are now seldom believed with

their former ferocity. The world has produced new and menacing forms

of the same psychological pattern. The Nazis in the days before they

achieved power lived laborious lives, involving much sacrifice of ease

and present pleasure in obedience to the belief in strenuousness and

Nietzsche's maxim that one should make oneself hard. Even after they

achieved power, the slogan 'guns rather than butter' still involved a

sacrifice of the pleasures of sense for the mental pleasures of

prospective victory - the very pleasures, in fact, with which Milton's

Satan consoles himself while tortured by the fires of hell. The same

mentality is to be found among earnest Communists, to whom luxury

is an evil, hard work the principal duty, and universal poverty the

means to the millennium. The combination of asceticism and cruelty

has not disappeared with the softening of Christian dogma, but has

taken on new forms hostile to Christianity. There is still much of the

same mentality: mankind are divided into saints and sinners; the

saints are to achieve bliss in the Nazi or Communists heaven, while the

sinners are to be liquidated, or to suffer such pains as human beings

can inflict in concentration camps - inferior, of course, to those which

Omnipotence was thought to inflict in hell, but the worst that human

beings with their limited powers are able to achieve. There is still, for

the saints, a hard period of probation followed by 'the shout of them

that triumph, the song of them that feast', as the Christian hymn says

in describing the joys of heaven.

As this psychological pattern seems so persistent and so capable of

clothing itself in completely new mantles of dogma, it must have its

roots somewhat deep in human nature. This is the kind of matter that

is studied by psycho-analysts, and while I am very far from

subscribing to all their doctrines, I think that their general methods are

important if we wish to seek out the source of evil in our innermost

depths. The twin conceptions of sin and vindictive punishment seem to

be at the root of much that is most vigorous, both in religion and

politics. I cannot believe, as some psycho-analysts do, that the feeling

of sin is innate, though I believe it to be a product of very early

infancy. I think that, if this feeling could be eradicated, the amount of

cruelty in the world would be very greatly diminished. Given that we

are all sinners and that we all deserve punishment, there is evidently

much to be said for a system that causes the punishment to fall upon

others than ourselves. Calvinists, by the fiat of undeserved mercy,

would go to heaven, and their feelings that sin deserved punishment

would receive a merely vicarious satisfaction. Communists have a

similar outlook. When we are born we do not choose whether we are

to be born capitalists or proletarians, but if the latter we are among

the elect, and if the former we are not Without any choice on our own

parts, by the working of economic determinism, we are fated to be on

the right side in the one case, and on the wrong side in the other.

Marx'' father became a Christian when Marx was a little boy, and

some, at least, of the dogmas he must have then accepted seem to

have borne fruit in his son's psychology.

One of the odd effects of the importance which each of u attaches to

himself, is that we tend to imagine our own good or evil fortune to be

the purpose of other people's actions. I you pass in a train a field

containing grazing cows, you ma sometimes see them running away in

terror as the train passes. The cow, if it were a metaphysician, would

argue: 'Everything in my own desires and hopes and fears has

reference to myself; hence by induction I conclude that everything in

the universe has reference to myself. This noisy train, therefore,

intends to do me either good or evil. I cannot suppose that it intends

to do me good, since it comes in such a terrifying form, and therefore,

as a prudent cow, I shall endeavor to escape from it.' If you were to

explain to this metaphysical ruminant that the train has no intention of

leaving the rails, and is totally indifferent to the fate of the cow, the

poor beast would be bewildered by anything so unnatural. The train

that wishes her neither well nor ill would seem more cold and more

abysmally horrifying than a train that wished her ill. Just this has

happened with human beings. The course of nature brings them

sometimes good fortune, sometimes evil. They cannot believe that this

happens by accident. The cow, having known of a companion which

had strayed on to the railway line and been killed by a train, would

pursue her philosophical reflections, if she were endowed with that

moderate degree of intelligence that characterizes most human beings,

to the point of concluding that the unfortunate cow had been punished

for sin by the god of the railway. She would be glad when his priests

put fences along the line, and would warn younger and friskier cows

never to avail themselves of accidental openings in the fence, since

the wages of sin is death. By similar myths men have succeeded,

without sacrificing their selfimportance, in explaining many of the

misfortunes to which they are subject. But sometimes misfortune

befalls the wholly virtuous, and what are we to say in this case? We

shall still be prevented by our feeling that we must be the centre of

the universe from admitting that misfortune has merely happened to

us without anybody's intending it, and since we are not wicked by

hypothesis, our misfortune must be due to somebody's malevolence,

that is to say, to somebody wishing to injure us from mere hatred and

not from the hope of any advantage to himself. It was this state of

mind that gave rise to demonology, and the belief in witchcraft and

black magic. The witch is a person who injures her neighbors from

sheer hatred, not from any hope of gain. The belief in witchcraft, until

about the middle of the seventeenth century, afforded a most

satisfying outlet for the delicious emotion of self-righteous cruelty.

There was Biblical warrant for the belief, since the Bible says: 'Thou

shalt not suffer a witch to live.' And on this ground the Inquisition

punished not only witches, but those who did not believe in the

possibility of witchcraft, since to disbelieve it was heresy. Science, by

giving some insight into natural causation, dissipated the belief in

magic, but could not wholly dispel the fear and sense of insecurity that

had given rise to it. In modem times, these same emotions find an

outlet in fear of foreign nations, an outlet which, it must be confessed,

requires not much in the way of superstitious support.

One of the most powerful sources of false belief is envy. In any small

town you will find, if you question the comparatively well-todo, that

they all exaggerate their neighbors' incomes, which gives them an

opportunity to justify an accusation of meanness. The jealousies of

women are proverbial among men, but in any large office you will find

exactly the same kind of jealousy among male ofiicials. When one of

them secures promotion the others will say: 'Humph! So-and so knows

how to make up to the big men. I could have riser quite as fast as he

has if I had chosen to debase myself by using the sycophantic arts of

which he is not ashamed. No doubt his work has a flashy brilliance, but

it lacks solidly, and sooner or later the authorities will find out their

mistake.' So all the mediocre men will say if a really able man is

allowed to rise as fast as his abilities deserve, and that is why there is

a tendency to adopt the rule of seniority, which, since it has nothing to

do with merit, does not give rise to the same envious discontent.

One of the most unfortunate results of our proneness to envy is that

it has caused a complete misconception of economic selfinterest, both

individual and national. I will illustrate by a parable. There was once

upon a time a medium sized town containing a number of butchers, a

number of bakers, and so forth. One butcher, who was exceptionally

energetic, decided that he would make much larger profits if all the

other butchers were ruined and he became a monopolist. By

systematically under-selling them he succeeded in his object, though

his losses meanwhile had almost exhausted his command of capital

and credit. At the same time an energetic baker had had the same

idea and had pursued it to a similar successful conclusion. In every

trade which lived by selling goods to consumers the same thing had

happened. Each of the successful monopolists had a happy anticipation

of making a fortune, but unfortunately the ruined butchers were no

longer in the position to buy bread, and the ruined bakers were no

longer in the position to buy meat. Their employees had had to be

dismissed and had gone elsewhere. The consequence was that,

although the butcher and the baker each had a monopoly, they sold

less than they had done in the old days. They had forgotten that while

a man may be injured by his competitors he is benefited by his

customers, and that customers become more numerous when the

general level of prosperity is increased. Envy had made them

concentrate their attention upon competitors and forget altogether the

aspect of their prosperity that depended upon customers.

This is a fable, and the town of which I have been speaking never

existed, but substitute for a town the world, and for individuals

nations, and you will have a perfect picture of the economic policy

universally pursued in the present day. Every nation is persuaded that

its economic interest is opposed to that of every other nation, and that

it must profit if other nations are reduced to destitution. During the

first World War, I used to hear English people saying how immensely

British trade would benefit from the destruction of German trade,

which was to be one of the principal fruits of our victory. After the war,

although we should have liked to find a market on the Continent of

Europe, and although the industrial life of Western Europe depended

upon coal from the Ruhr, we could not bring ourselves to allow the

Ruhr coal industry to produce more than a tiny fraction of what it

produced before the Germans were defeated. The whole philosophy of

economic nationalism, which is now universal throughout the world, is

based upon the false belief that the economic interest of one nation is

necessarily opposed to that of another. This false belief, by producing

international hatreds and rivalries, is a cause of war, and in this way

tends to make itself true, since when war has once broken out the

conflict of national interests becomes only too real. If you try to

explain to someone, say, in the steel industry, that possibly prosperity

in other countries might be advantageous to him, you will find it quite

impossible to make him see the argument, because the only foreigners

of whom he is vividly aware are his competitors in the steel industry.

Other foreigners are shadowy beings in whom he has no emotional

interest. This is the psychological root of economic nationalism, and

war, and manmade starvation, and all the other evils which will bring

our civilization to a disastrous and disgraceful end unless men can be

induced to take a wider and less hysterical view of their mutual

relations.

Another passion which gives rise to false beliefs that are politically

harmful is pride - pride of nationally, race, sex, class, or creed. When I

was young France was still regarded as the traditional enemy of

England, and I gathered as an unquestionable truth that one

Englishman could defeat three Frenchmen. When Germany became the

enemy this belief was modified and English people ceased to mention

derisively the French propensity for eating frogs. But in spite of

governmental efforts, I think few Englishmen succeeded in genuinely

regarding the French as their equals. Americans and Englishmen, when

they become acquainted with the Balkans, feel an astonished contempt

when they study the mutual enmities of Bulgarians and Serbs, or

Hungarians and Rumanians. It is evident to them that these enmities

are absurd and that the belief of each little nation in its own

superiority has no objective basis. But most of them are quite unable

to see that the national pride of a Great Power is essentially as

unjustifiable as that of a little Balkan country.

Pride of race is even more harmful than national pride. When I was in

China I was struck by the fact that cultivated Chinese were perhaps

more highly civilized than any other human beings that it has been my

good fortune to meet. Nevertheless, I found numbers of gross and

ignorant white men who despised even the best of the Chinese solely

because their skins were yellow. In general, the British were more to

blame in this than the Americans, but there were exceptions. I was

once in the company of a Chinese scholar of vast learning, not only of

the traditional Chinese kind, but also of the kind taught in Western

universities, a man with a breadth of culture which I scarcely hoped to

equal. He and I went together into a garage to hire a motor car. The

garage proprietor was a bad type of American, who treated my

Chinese friend like dirt, contemptuously accused him of being

Japanese, and made my blood boil by his ignorant malevolence. The

similar attitude of the English in India, exacerbated by their political

power, was one of the main causes of the friction that arose in that

country between the British and the educated Indians. The superiority

of one race to another is hardly ever believed in for any good reason.

Where the belief persists it is kept alive by military supremacy. So long

as the Japanese were victorious, they entertained a contempt for the

white man, which was the counterpart of the contempt that the white

man had felt for them while they were weak. Sometimes, however, the

feeling of superiority has nothing to do with military prowess. The

Greeks despised the barbarians, even at times when the barbarians

surpassed them in warlike strength. The more enlightened among the

Greeks held that slavery was justifiable so long as the masters were

Greek and the slaves barbarian, but that otherwise it was contrary to

nature. The Jews had, in antiquity, a quite peculiar belief in their own

racial superiority; ever since Christianity became the religion of the

State Gentiles have had an equally irrational belief in their superiority

to Jews. Beliefs of this kind do infinite harm, and it should be, but is

not, one of the aims of education to eradicate them. I spoke a moment

ago about the attitude of superiority that Englishmen have permitted

themselves in their dealings with the inhabitants of India, which was

naturally resented in that country, but the caste system arose as a

result of successive invasions by 'superior' races from the North, and is

every bit as objectionable as white arrogance.

The belief in the superiority of the male sex, which has now officially

died out in Western nations, is a curious example of the sin of pride.

There was, I think, never any reason to believe in any innate

superiority of the male, except his superior muscle. I remember once

going to a place where they kept a number of pedigree bulls, and what

made a bull illustrious was the milk-giving qualities of his female

ancestors. But if bulls had drawn up the pedigrees they would have

been very different. Nothing would have been said about the female

ancestors, except that they were docile and virtuous, whereas the

male ancestors would have been celebrated for their supremacy in

battle. In the case of cattle we can take a disinterested view of the

relative merits of the sexes, but in the case of our own species we find

this more difficult. Male superiority in former days was easily

demonstrated, because if a woman questioned her husband's he could

beat her. From superiority in this respect others were thought to

follow. Men were more reasonable than women, more inventive, less

swayed by their emotions, and so on. Anatomists, until the women had

the vote, developed a number of ingenious arguments from the study

of the brain to show that men's intellectual capacities must be greater

than women's. Each of these arguments in turn was proved to be

fallacious, but it always gave place to another from which the same

conclusion would follow. It used to be held that the male fetus

acquires a soul after six weeks, but the female only after three

months. This opinion also has been abandoned since women have had

the vote. Thomas Aquinas states parenthetically, as something entirely

obvious, that men are more rational than women. For my part, I see

no evidence of this. Some few individuals have some slight

glimmerings of rationality in some directions, but so far as my

observations go, such glimmerings are no commoner among men than

among women.

Male domination has had some very unfortunate effects. It made the

most intimate of human relations, that of marriage, one of master and

slave, instead of one between equal partners. It made it unnecessary

for a man to please a woman in order to acquire her as his wife, and

thus confined the arts of courtship to irregular relations. By the

seclusion which it forced upon respectable women it made them dull

and uninteresting; the only women who could be interesting and

adventurous were social outcasts. Owing to the dullness of respectable

women, the most civilized men in the most civilized countries often

became homosexual. Owing to the fact that there was no equality in

marriage men became confirmed in domineering habits. All this has

now more or less ended in civilized countries, but it will be a long time

before either men or women learn to adapt their behavior completely

to the new state of affairs. Emancipation always has at first certain

bad effects; it leaves former superiors sore and former inferiors selfassertive.

But it is to be hoped that time will bring adjustment in this

matter as in others.

Another kind of superiority which is rapidly disappearing is that of

class, which now survives only in Soviet Russia. In that country the

son of a proletarian has advantages over the son of a bourgeois, but

elsewhere such hereditary privileges are regarded as unjust. The

disappearance of class distinction is, however, far from complete. In

America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since

all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social

inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all

men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards. There is on this

subject a profound and widespread hypocrisy whenever people talk in

general terms. What they really think and feel can be discovered by

reading second-rate novels, where one finds that it is a dreadful thing

to be born on the wrong side of the tracks, and that there is as much

fuss about a mesalliance as there used to be in a small German Court.

So long as great inequalities of wealth survive it is not easy to see how

this can be otherwise. In England, where snobbery is deeply ingrained,

the equalization of incomes which has been brought about by the war

has had a profound effect, and among the young the snobbery of their

elders has begun to seem somewhat ridiculous. There is still a very

large amount of regrettable snobbery in England, but it is connected

more with education and manner of speech than with income or with

social status in the old sense.

Pride of creed is another variety of the same kind of feeling. When I

had recently returned from China I lectured on that country to a

number of women's clubs in America. There was always one elderly

woman who appeared to be sleeping throughout the lecture, but at the

end would ask me, somewhat portentously, why I had omitted to

mention that the Chinese, being heathen, could of course have no

virtues. I imagine that the Mormons of Salt Lake City must have had a

similar attitude when non-Mormons were first admitted among them.

Throughout the Middle Ages, Christians and Mohammedans were

entirely persuaded of each other's wickedness and were incapable of

doubting their own superiority.

All these are pleasant ways of feeling 'grand'. In order to be happy we

require all kinds of supports to our self-esteem. We are human beings,

therefore human beings are the purpose of creation. We are

Americans, therefore America is God's own country. We are white, and

therefore God cursed Ham and his descendants who were black. We

are Protestant or Catholic, as the case may be, therefore Catholics or

Protestants, as the case may be, are an abomination. We are male,

and therefore women are unreasonable; or female, and therefore men

are brutes. We are Easterners, and therefore the West is wild and

woolly; or Westerners, and therefore the East is effete. We work with

our brains, and therefore it is the educated classes that are important;

or we work with our hands, and therefore manual labor alone gives

dignity. Finally, and above all, we each have one merit which is

entirely unique, we are Ourself. With these comforting reflections we

go out to do battle with the world; without them our courage might

fail. Without them, as things are, we should feel inferior because we

have not learnt the sentiment of equality. If we could feel genuinely

that we are the equals of our neighbors, neither their betters nor their

inferiors, perhaps life would become less of a battle, and we should

need less in the way of intoxicating myth to give us Dutch courage.

One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and

nations can be subjected, is that of imagining themselves special

instruments of the Divine Will. We know that when the Israelites

invaded the Promised Land it was they who were fulfilling the Divine

Purpose, and not the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the

Canaanites, the Perizites, the Hivites, or the Jebbusites. Perhaps if

these others had written long history books the matter might have

looked a little different. In fact, the Hittites did leave some

inscriptions, from which you would never guess what abandoned

wretches they were. It was discovered, 'after the fact', that Rome was

destined by the gods for the conquest of the world. Then came Islam

with its fanatical belief that every soldier dying in battle for the True

Faith went straight to a Paradise more attractive than that of the

Christians, as houris are more attractive than harps. Cromwell was

persuaded that he was the Divinely appointed instrument of justice for

suppressing Catholics and malignants. Andrew Jackson was the agent

of Manifest Destiny in freeing North America from the incubus of

Sabbath-breaking Spaniards. In our day, the sword of the Lord has

been put into the hands of the Marxists. Hegel thought that the

Dialectic with fatalistic logic had given supremacy to Germany.

'No,'said Marx,'not to Germany,but to the Proletariat'. This doctrine

has kinship with the earlier doctrines of the Chosen People and

Manifest Destiny. In its character of fatalism it has viewed the struggle

of opponent' as one against destiny, and argued that therefore the

wise man would put himself on the winning side as quickly as possible.

That is why this argument is such a useful one politically. The only

objection to it is that it assumes a knowledge of the Divine purposes to

which no rational man can lay claim, and that in the execution of them

it justifies a ruthless cruelty which would be condemned if our

programme had a merely mundane origin. It is good to know that God

is on our side, but a little confusing when you find the enemy equally

con vinced of the opposite. To quote the immortal lines of the poet

during the first World War:

Gott strafe England, and God save the King.

God this, and God that, and God the other thing.

'Good God,' said God, 'I've got my work cut out.'

Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that

have afflicted the human race. I think perhaps one of the wisest things

ever said was when Cromwell said to the Scots before the battle of

Dunbar: 'I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that

you may be mistaken.' But the Scots did not, and so he had to defeat

them in battle. It is a pity that Cromwell never addressed the same

remark to himself. Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted

upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about

something which, in fact, was false. To know the truth is more difficult

than most men suppose, and to act with ruthless determination in the

belief that truth is the monopoly of their party is to invite disaster.

Long calculations that certain evil in the present is worth inflicting for

the sake of some doubtful benefit in the future are always to be

viewed with suspicion, for, as Shakespeare says: 'What's to come is

still unsure.' Even the shrewdest men are apt to be wildly astray if

they prophesy so much as ten years ahead. Some people will consider

this doctrine immoral, but after all it is the Gospel which says 'take no

thought for the morrow'.

In public, as in private life, the important thing is tolerance and

kindliness, without the presumption of a superhuman ability to read

the future.

Instead of calling this essay 'Ideas that have harmed mankind', I

might perhaps have called it simply 'Ideas have harmed mankind', for,

seeing that the future cannot be foretold and that there is an almost

endless variety of possible beliefs about it, the chance that any belief

which a man may hold may be true is very slender. Whatever you

think is going to happen ten years hence, unless it is something like

the sun rising tomorrow that has nothing to do with human relations,

you are almost sure to be wrong. I find this thought consoling when I

remember some gloomy prophesies of which I myself have rashly been

guilty.

But you will say: how is statesmanship possible except on the

assumption that the future can be to some extent foretold} I admit

that some degree of prevision is necessary, and I am not suggesting

that we are completely ignorant. It is a fair prophecy that if you tell a

man he is a knave and a fool he will not love you, and it is a fair

prophecy that if you say the same thing to seventy million people they

will not love you. It is safe to assume that cutthroat competition will

not produce a feeling of good fellowship between the competitors. It is

highly probable that if two States equipped with modern armament

face each other across a frontier, and if their leading statesmen devote

themselves to mutual insults, the population of each side will in time

become nervous, and one side will attack for fear of the other doing

so. It is safe to assume that a great modern war will not raise the level

of prosperity even among the victors. Such generalizations are not

difficult to know. What is difficult is to foresee in detail the long-run

consequences of a concrete policy. Bismarck with extreme astuteness

won three wars and unified Germany. The long run result of his policy

has been that Germany has suffered two colossal defeats. These

resulted because he taught Germans to be indifferent to the interests

of all countries except Germany, and generated an aggressive spirit

which in the end united the world against his successors. Selfishness

beyond a point, whether individual or national, is not wise. It may with

luck succeed, but if it fails failure is terrible. Few men will run this risk

unless they are supported by a theory, for it is only theory that makes

men completely incautious.

Passing from the moral to the purely intellectual point of view, we

have to ask ourselves what social science can do in the way of

establishing such causal laws as should be a help to statesmen in

making political decisions. Some things of real importance have begun

to be known, for example how to avoid slumps and largescale

unemployment such as afflicted the world after the last war. It is also

now generally known by those who have taken the trouble to look into

the matter that only an international government can prevent war, and

that civilization is hardly likely to survive more than one more great

war, if that. But although these things are known, the knowledge is

not effective; it has not penetrated to the great masses of men, and it

is not strong enough to control sinister interests. There is, in fact, a

great deal more social science than politicians are willing or able to

apply. Some people attribute this failure to democracy, but-it seems to

me to be more marked in autocracy than anywhere else. Belief in

democracy, however, like any other belief, may be carried to the point

where it becomes fanatical, and therefore harmful. A democrat need

not believe that the majority will always decide wisely; what he must

believe is that the decision of the majority, whether wise or unwise,

must be accepted until such time as the majority decides otherwise.

And this he believes not from any mystic conception of the wisdom of

the plain man, but as the best practical device for putting the reign of

law in place of the reign of arbitrary force. Nor does the democrat

necessarily believe that democracy is the best system always and

everywhere. There are many nations which lack the self-restraint and

political experience that are required for the success of parliamentary

institutions, where the democrat, while he would wish them to acquire

the necessary political education, will recognize that it is useless to

thrust upon them prematurely a system which is almost certain to

break down. In politics, as elsewhere, it does not do to deal in

absolutes; what is good in one time and place may be bad in another,

and what satisfies the political instincts of one nation may to another

seem wholly futile. The general aim of the democrat is to substitute

government by general assent for government by force, but this

requires a population that has undergone a certain kind of training.

Given a nation divided into two nearly equal portions which hate each

other and long to fly at each other's throats, that portion which is just

less than half will not submit tamely to the domination of the other

portion, nor will the portion which is just more than half show, in the

moment of victory, the kind of moderation which might heal the

breach.

The world at the present day stands in need of two kinds of things.

On the one hand, organization - political organization for the

elimination of wars, economic organization to enable men to work

productively, especially in the countries that have been devastated by

war, educational organization to generate a sane internationalism. On

the other hand it needs certain moral qualities the qualities which have

been advocated by moralists for many ages, but hitherto with little

success. The qualities most needed are charity and tolerance, not

some form of fanatical faith such as is offered to us by the various

rampant isms. I think these two aims, the organizational and the

ethical, are closely interwoven; given either the other would soon

follow. But, in effect, if the world is to move in the right direction it will

have to move simultaneously in both respects. There will have to be a

gradual lessening of the evil passions which are the natural aftermath

of war, and a gradual increase of the organizations by means of which

mankind can bring each other mutual help. There will have to be a

realization at once intellectual and moral that we are all one family,

and that the happiness of no one branch of this family can be built

securely upon the ruin of another. At the present time, moral defects

stand in the way of clear thinking, and muddled thinking encourages

moral defects. Perhaps, though I scarcely dare to hope it, the

hydrogen bomb will terrify mankind into sanity and tolerance. If this

should happen we shall have reason to bless its inventors.

Bertrand Russell educational philosophy| Free online reading

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Free online reading Ebook Bertrand Russell educational philosophy.

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Any serious educational theory must consist of two parts: a conception of the ends of life,

and a science of psychological dynamics, i.e. of the laws of mental change. Two men

who differ as to the ends of life cannot hope to agree about education. The educational

machine, throughout Western civilization, is dominated by two ethical theories: that of

Christianity, and that of nationalism.

These two, when taken seriously, are incompatible,

as is becoming evident in Germany. For my part, I hold that, where they differ,

Christianity is preferable, but where they agree, both are mistaken. The conception which

I should substitute as the purpose of education is civilization, a term which, as I mean it,

has a definition which is partly individual, partly social. It consists, in the individual, of

both intellectual and moral qualities: intellectually, a certain minimum of general

knowledge, technical skill in one's own profession, and a habit of forming opinions on

evidence; morally, of impartiality, kindliness, and a modicum of self-control. I should

add a quality which is neither moral nor intellectual, but perhaps physiological: zest and

joy of life. In communities, civilization demands respect for law, justice as between man

and man, purposes not involving permanent injury to any section of the human race, and

intelligent adaptation of means to ends. If these are to be the purpose of education, it is a

question for the science of psychology to consider what can be done towards realizing

them, and, in particular, what degree of freedom is likely to prove most effective.

On the question of freedom in education there are at present three main schools of

thought, deriving partly from differences as to ends and partly from differences in

psychological theory.

There are those who say that children should be completely free,

however bad they may be; there are those who say they should be completely subject to

authority, however good they may be; and there are those who say they should be free,

but in spite of freedom they should be always good. This last party is larger than it has

any logical right to be; children, like adults, will not all be virtuous if they are all free.

The belief that liberty will ensure moral perfection is a relic of Rousseauism, and would

not survive a study of animals and babies. Those who hold this belief think that education

should have no positive purpose, but should merely offer an environment suitable for

spontaneous development. I cannot agree with this school, which seems to me too

individualistic, and unduly indifferent to the importance of knowledge. We live in

communities which require co-operation, and it would be utopian to expect all the

necessary co-operation to result from spontaneous impulse. The existence of a large

population on a limited area is only possible owing to science and technique; education

must, therefore, hand on the necessary minimum of these. The educators who allow most

freedom are men whose success depends upon a degree of benevolence, self-control, and

trained intelligence which can hardly be generated where every impulse is left

unchecked; their merits, therefore, are not likely to be perpetuated if their methods are

undiluted. Education, viewed from a social standpoint, must be something more positive

than a mere opportunity for growth. It must, of course, provide this, but it must also

provide a mental and moral equipment which children cannot acquire entirely for

themselves.

The arguments in favour of a great degree of freedom in education are derived not from

man's natural goodness, but from the effects of authority, both on those who suffer it and

on those who exercise it. Those who are subject to authority become either submissive or

rebellious, and each attitude has its drawbacks.

The submissive lose initiative, both in thought and action;moreover, the anger generated

by the feeling of being thwarted tends to find an outlet in bullying those who are weaker.

That is why tyrannical institutions are self-perpetuating: what a man has suffered from

his father he inflicts upon his son, and the humiliations which he remembers having

endured at his public school he passes on to Ònatives" when he becomes an empirebuilder.

Thus an unduly authoritative education turns the pupils into timid tyrants,

incapable of either claiming or tolerating originality in word or deed. The effect upon the

educators is even worse: they tend to become sadistic disciplinarians, glad to inspire

terror, and content to inspire nothing else. As these men represent knowledge, the pupils

acquire a horror of knowledge, which, among the English upper-class, is supposed to be

part of human nature, but is really part of the well- grounded hatred of the authoritarian

pedagogue.

Rebels, on the other hand,, though they may be necessary, can hardly be just to what

exists. Moreover, there are many ways of rebelling, and only a small minority of these are

wise. Galileo was a rebel and was wise; believers in the flat-earth theory are equally

rebels, but are foolish. There is a great danger in the tendency to suppose that opposition

to authority is essentially meritorious and that unconventional opinions are bound to be

correct: no useful purpose is served by smashing lamp-posts or maintaining Shakespeare

to be no poet. Yet this excessive rebelliousness is often the effect that too much authority

has on spirited pupils. And when rebels become educators, they sometimes encourage

defiance in their pupils, for whom at the same time they are trying to produce a perfect

environment, although these two aims are scarcely compatible.

What is wanted is neither submissiveness nor rebellion, but good nature, and general

friendliness both to people and to new ideas. These qualities are due in part to physical

causes, to which old-fashioned educators paid too little attention; but they are due still

more to freedom from the feeling of baffled impotence which arises when vital impulses

are thwarted. If the young are to grow into friendly adults, it is necessary, in most cases,

that they should feel their environment friendly. This requires that there should be a

certain sympathy with the child's important desires, and not merely an attempt to use him

for some abstract end such as the glory of God or the greatness of one's country. And, in

teaching, every attempt should be made to cause the pupil to feel that it is worth his while

to know what is being taught-at least when this is true. When the pupil co-operates

willingly, he learns twice as fast and with half the fatigue. All these are valid reasons for

a very great degree of freedom.

It is easy, however, to carry the argument too far. It is not desirable that children, in

avoiding the vices of the slave, should acquire those of the aristocrat. Consideration for

others, not only in great matters, but also in little everyday things, is an essential element

in civilization, without which social life would be intolerable. I am not thinking of mere

forms of politeness, such as saying "please" and "thank you": formal manners are most

fully developed among barbarians, and diminish with every advance in culture. I am

thinking rather of willingness to take a fair share of necessary work, to be obliging in

small ways that save trouble on the balance. Sanity itself is a form of politeness and it is

not desirable to give a child a sense of omnipotence, or a belief that adults exist only to

minister to the pleasures of the young. And those who disapprove of the existence of the

idle rich are hardly consistent if they bring up their children without any sense that work

is necessary, and without the habits that make continuous application possible.

There is another consideration to which some advocates of freedom attach too little

importance. In a community of children which is left without adult interference there is a

tyranny of the stronger, which is likely to be far more brutal than most adult tyranny. If

two children of two or three years old are left to play together, they will, after a few

fights, discover which is bound to be the victor, and the other will then become a slave.

Where the number of children is larger, one or two acquire complete mastery, and the

others have far less liberty than they would have if the adults interfered to protect the

weaker and less pugnacious. Consideration for others does not, with most children, arise

spontaneously, but has to be taught, and can hardly be taught except by the exercise of

authority. This is perhaps the most important argument against the abdication of the

adults.

I do not think that educators have yet solved the problem of combining the desirable

forms of freedom with the necessary minimum of moral training. The right solution, it

must be admitted, is often made impossible by parents before the child is brought to an

enlightened school. just as psychoanalysts, from their clinical experience, conclude that

we are all mad, so the authorities in modern schools, from their contact with pupils whose

parents have made them unmanageable, are disposed to conclude that all children are

"difficult" and all parents utterly foolish. Children who have been driven wild by parental

tyranny (which often takes the form of solicitous affection) may require a longer or

shorter period of complete liberty before they can view any adult without suspicion. But

children who have been sensibly handled at home can bear to be checked in minor ways,

so long as they feel that they are being helped in the ways that they themselves regard as

important. Adults who like children, and are not reduced to a condition of nervous

exhaustion by their company, can achieve a great deal in the way of discipline without

ceasing to be regarded with friendly feelings by their pupils.

I think modern educational theorists are inclined to attach too much importance to the

negative virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the positive merit of

enjoying their company. If you have the sort of liking for children that many people have

for horses or dogs, they will be apt to respond to your suggestions, and to accept

prohibitions, perhaps with some good-humoured grumbling, but without resentment. It is

no use to have the sort of liking that consists in regarding them as a field for valuable

social endeavour, orÑwhat amounts to the same thingÑas an outlet for power-impulses.

No child will be grateful for an interest in him that springs from the thought that he will

have a vote to be secured for your party or a body to be sacrificed to king and country.

The desirable sort of interest is that which consists in spontaneous pleasure in the

presence of children, without any ulterior purpose. Teachers who have this quality will

seldom need to interfere with children's freedom, but will be able to do so, when

necessary, without causing psychological damage.

Unfortunately, it is utterly impossible for over-worked teachers to preserve an instinctive

liking for children; they are bound to come to feel towards them as the proverbial

confectioner's apprentice does towards macaroons. I do not think that education ought to

be anyone's whole profession: it should be undertaken for at most two hours a day by

people whose remaining hours are spent away from children. The society of the young is

fatiguing, especially when strict discipline is avoided. Fatigue, in the end, produces

irritation, which is likely to express itself somehow, whatever theories the harassed

teacher may have taught himself or herself to believe. The necessary friendliness cannot

be preserved by self-control alone. But where it exists, it should be unnecessary to have

rules in advance as to how "naughty" children are to be treated, since impulse is likely to

lead to the right decision, and almost any decision will be right if the child feels that you

like him. No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact.

Arlanni | Howell Jeff | Free online Novel

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 15:22:00 +0000

Anyone can be reading the Free online Ebook Arlanni written by Howell Jeff.

Hagor the innkeeper only picked at his beard when he was worried. He picked it now as he studied the delicate cursive script on the transparently thin parchment. His chin was decidedly less luxuriant, such was his consternation at the unexpected missive. It was not the message itself, which was brief to the point of rudeness. "Care for the girl", it read, "the seal, your fee". A few minutes ago, the wax seal had discharged a finely cut gemstone as Hagor had broken it. He was no jeweler, but he was used to adventuring types paying for their stay with gems. He guessed this one was worth at least as much as the inn. Another tuft of hair rolled between his fingertips as he looked across at the disheveled wench who lay curled up by the dying hearth. If she was indeed the subject, then whoever wrote the letter must have a rare prescience - it must have been written sometime before she arrived, or the ink would still be wet, and the seal still soft.

A polite, tiny cough in front of Hagor snapped his concentration. The beard-tuft drifted to the counter top and rolled off to join its fellows on the worn boards. "A copper for Oliver?" said the urchin expectantly. The boy had delivered the letter over five minutes ago, and deserved at least a copper piece for the trouble. "Who gave it you?" growled the man. "I, er , just found it" he replied hesitantly, not expecting to be believed. Hagor scowled, but somehow, that was the answer he wanted. This was a strange business, smelling of wizards and magic. One does not pry into the affairs of wizards. Hagor's huge hand swept a copper from the counter and hurled it at the urchin's face with such force that it could have put out an eye. The boy caught it easily - as he always did - and grinned back widely. "Now hoppit, young Sarmy" roared Hagor, as the boy took flight through the kitchen and out into the night.

The innkeeper turned again to observe the girl. She was wrapped in what might have been a sturdy travelling cloak once, though now it was little more than a large rag. A black leather sleeved jerkin showed underneath, and worn boots held together by knotted twine. An empty satchel wrapped round some kindling served as a pillow. With no money for a room the girl had begged for a few minutes by the fire to warm herself and promptly fallen asleep. With an unsteady hand he picked up the letter which had been enwrapped within the one addressed to "innkeeper". It was engraved with one word in the same tiny archaic hand as the other. It was an unusual girl's name. It read - "arlanni"

Someone was calling. Insistent, distant, over and over again. She spun round, trying to locate the voice, and saw only the dark grey stone of the castle, and her companions, all around her, lying broken and still. Fearing the terrible elven sorcerer would appear at any moment to fix her with his single ghastly eye, and devour her screaming soul. Fearing the wild pale woman that tore poor Arkayn to pieces with bare hands, would seize and shred her too. But the voice was not their voice. It was human, compassionate, concerned, even a bit nervous. Then suddenly she was awake, and staring with frightened eyes at the kindly innkeeper who had allowed her respite from her race through the cold night. They stared at each other in silence for a long minute. The innkeeper swallowed several times during this, and she tugged the edges of the cloak in a futile attempt to hide within it.

"How did you know my name?" whispered the thief eventually. "So it is true" said Hagor slowly. "What is true?" she asked. "You have a friend of great power" he replied, handing her the little fold of fine parchment. "He has paid me well for your keep." Hagor paused, as his mind adjusted to more familiar territory. "Would you like some ale while I prepare a room? Perhaps a bite to eat?" Arlanni nodded. She was utterly dumbstruck by this turn of events. She had no friends now. The corpses of the other eight members of the Company of Nine lay in the sorcerer's castle in Helgate. The same sorcerer who had restored her life, for no reason, as casually as he had struck down her companions. She had left his money with the church of Pelor, fearing he would control her through it. Or was there a reason after all? If so, how did he know where she would run to. It was more than she could comprehend.

Arlanni felt a firm hand grasp her arm and seat her unresistingly at a worn trestle. She did not notice a small mug of ale appear beside her, or the flicker of the flames from the kindling which was shaken out of her rolled pack into the embers. She clutched the parchment tightly in one fist, not daring to look at it, as she chewed mechanically at the doorstep of bread placed in the other. Her mind had simply shut down with the cumulative shock of the last few days, and would remain so until she woke the following morning. Hagor picked at his beard again as he watched the two kettle girls haul the limp form up to a hastily made bed. "No good will come of this", he muttered to himself.

Arlanni slept soundly, completely exhausted from her travel as she was, and did not rise until late morning. Remembering with a start the sudden change in her fortunes she scrabbled for the note which she hoped would answer the host of questions in her mind. After several minutes of rising panic, a crumpled folded sheet eventually turned up amongst the bedsheets, where it had been dropped from a manic grip relaxed by sleep.

Sitting on the edge of the bed, Arlanni picked at the edges of the fold with unsteady fingers. It opened with a resisting scrape as the creased edges were flattened. The message was rather more verbose than the innkeeper's, although Arlanni did not know this. There were only two lines to it, in letters that wasted no space upon the parchment. It read "stay if you seek employment." Then on a new line "curiosity is not becoming. " Finally a small but unmistakable outline of a keyhole with a lockpick alongside it. A strange mixture of elation and fear flowed through her veins. There was no doubt that a powerful and probably wealthy man needed her professional skills, and for fairly obvious reasons wished to remain anonymous. Things were definitely looking up.

Once this fact had been digested, Arlanni took a closer look at the room her new employer had provided. It might be the best room in the inn, she decided, more likely if the inn had a poor run of fortune. The mattress was well stuffed, the sheets were clean, the room was well lit from windows behind the curtain. As she pulled back the curtain, she gasped at the window itself, or rather the bolts securing the frames. Recently fitted, they were quite massive, and would resist a determined assault. Feeling quite apprehensive now, she decided to ask the innkeeper about both this feature, and the terms upon which he would keep her.

Hagor was busy preparing his other guests for departure when she saw him. It turned out that he had little more idea about her benefactor than she did. He did not elaborate on the nature of the payment, but insisted she need not worry about it, though stroking the bare patches around his chin with his fingers as he spoke this. Earlier the gem had fetched 100 gold griffons at the moneychanger's, so it must have been worth at least double that. She must be a truly special lady, he thought.

"What about the window bolts?" asked Arlanni suddenly. Hagor looked puzzled for a moment, but quickly caught the thread. "You're new to Hardby, lass. Some folks are believing the rumours about night creatures. You'll find most houses are well locked at night these-a-days. But don't you trouble yourself, they're a superstitious bunch round here. Anyways, there's plenty of good folks about who will gladly give chase if such things were real". "What sort of things?" she asked anxiously, knowing that most of her work would be at night. "I don't rightly know" he replied, lifting a tangled knot out from under his chin by the roots. Arlanni winced at his unsavoury habit, making Hagor embarrassingly aware of it and hastily flicking the evidence to the floor. "I never saw anything meself, like" he continued, holding both his hands firmly on the trestle, lest they wandered back to their former haunt. "But a few people have vanished over the past year and, like, rumours have grown in the telling". Arlanni decided that a few jugs of ale might loosen other tongues around the town, so decided not to press the innkeeper further. Besides, he was her only source of food, shelter, and anything else she needed for the foreseeable future, so she best not upset him.

The next four weeks passed uneventfully for Arlanni, and Hagor seemed very relaxed about things too. He had clearly found some money from somewhere because the inn was soon crawling with carpenters, tilers, limners and other trades. All manner of things which had seemed a deliberate part of the olde-worlde atmosphere were repaired or replaced. The inn was the only one of any size in the town, and catered especially for merchants and adventurers travelling the high road to Helgate. Arlanni's room was indeed the best room in the house, and remained pretty much as she had first seen it. Hagor had decided that 'care' covered food and board only, not unlimited spending money. The food was well cooked and plentiful, and she soon found herself putting on weight. This meant that apart from a few utilitarian robes donated by the kettle girls, she had to make do and mend her original adventuring garb, while she still fitted it.

During this time Arlanni frequently mused on the nature of her new, mysterious benefactor. She was being well cared for, so she had something valuable to offer in return. Her lockpicking was improving from regular practice with the various devices around the room. Apart from this though she still had no idea of what was expected of her. Perhaps he was indeed the one-eyed sorcerer. But what would such a powerful man want with a low-level thief at all? Or maybe a merchant in Hardby, desperate for revenge on a rival. And the note. Why was it written on such a small parchment, so tersely? Surely words themselves are not so precious that they must be conserved? Or ink and parchment that it must be used so sparingly. In contrast, the strange obsession with security turned out to be just a local peculiarity. Nothing had happened in Hardby for months, and the night here seemed no different to any other when she dared to practice her nocturnal talents. On the whole, Arlanni was content to keep herself to herself, wait for instructions, and enjoy her new position as a kept woman.

It had been a tiring journey that night, taking over two hours to reach Hardby. The tiny burdens, insignificant to a man, together weighed almost a fifth of the creature's weight. Exhausted by the flight, it had waited gratefully on the rooftop of the inn, watching with mouse-like eyes and ears for the boy. It had swooped down, releasing the tube in front of its target, who caught it before it drew level with his waist. But there was still more, much more to do. The boy might have glimpsed a diamond glitter against the black night as he glanced upwards, then it was gone, seeking rest, preparing itself for the fulfilment of its mission.

A knock on her room late that evening brought Arlanni face to face with the inn's adopted urchin, Oliver. "Message for you, miss" he announced, and stepped back smartly when she opened the door. Eye roughly in line with the keyhole, she thought. Arlanni looked down at the hand which was held in a cup shape, ready to receive a coin or two. A minute tube of parchment protruded up from between his fingers. "Just found it, miss" he volunteered. A smile crossed her lips. "Honest miss, it just fell down in front of me" he blurted, looking quite hurt. "You're a lying rat, Sarmy. But here's your due" she said, deftly taking the tube and tossing a brass bit into the air. The cupped hand flew up, closing round the disc even as is slowed in its upward arc, and sped off down the passage. But Arlanni was not watching. She had already turned back into the room, eager to discover how she might secure even greater favours from her new boss.

The letter was not surprisingly in the same style as the other. But this time it contained very clear instructions. "take jewel from neck of corpse in mortuary. be armed, unseen, tonight". Arlanni's heart jumped with anticipation. Action at last!. This jewel may be a powerful artefact, or an extremely rare and precious stone. Now I will show I am worthy of your trust, she thought.

Then she began to prepare for the assignment. She knew the mortuary was part of a small temple, situated around the back, where bodies are kept for burial the following morning. She knew it could be approached unseen if she waited until after midnight. It was almost certainly locked, so her lockpicking would be tested. Why armed? Simple precaution, she supposed. She slipped the small dagger into its sheath and buckled the straps which would hold it there. Lockpicks, in a roll on her belt. Dark leather jerkin, hood, pants and boots would make her just about invisible to the occasional watchmen who might brave the imaginary night-creatures. Finally she opened the heavy window bolts and slipped silently down the shaded wall and into the night.

Arlanni had no trouble in gaining the mortuary doors. It was a bright moonlit night, but with plenty of shadows to hide in, there was little risk of being spotted. The lock was a tough one, and it took several attempts to open it. Then she slipped inside. The room was about 20 feet long, with trestles round the side and end. The moonlight filtered in through slots in the walls which served as windows - too small to admit anything larger than a mouse, but plentiful enough to ventilate the room of the noisome odour of decay. As she became accustomed to the light, she could make out a shroud on one of the trestles which might conceal a corpse.

Arlanni was not comfortable with death in any form, and felt very apprehensive as she approached the shroud. A hand protruded from beneath it, silver white in the moon beam. Suddenly she felt afraid. What if it was a trap? Perhaps the sorcerer lay beneath the shroud, black sword in hand, waiting to pounce and exact his revenge to violating his castle? She hesitated for several seconds, considering these and other absurd possibilities. Then she reached out and touched the hand, and recoiled from the shock. It was stone cold. It was dead, she realised. Really dead, of course it would be cold. She felt foolish at her own timidity. Swiftly, boldly, she swept the shroud off the body.

She gasped in surprise, for instead of the old man she expected, ribs wasted with disease or limbs smashed by a violent death, was a beautiful young woman, unmarked and unblemished. Long black hair was wrapped into neat coils either side of the head. She followed the line of the naked body up from the navel, past the breasts, to the slender neck and finely featured face. Around the neck, fastened closely by a delicate chain and locket, was a small, brilliant diamond. Arlanni swallowed dryly, but the lump in her throat was quite persistent. If she were dead herself, would she look like this? What misfortune had befallen this poor woman, to cut her down thus? There was nothing else on the body, no weapon or charm, and nowhere to hide one. Arlanni slowly stroked a cold leg with a finger tip, as if it might be restored to life by her touch. The finger travelled up to the jewel, curled round it, and went to tug it free.

The jewel was firmly attached by the chain through the little locket. Her mind focused now as a professional with a clear objective. The locket would need to be picked, or the chain broken. She was only asked for the jewel, but confidence in her own lockpicking skills made the locket the obvious target. Ignoring the body now, Arlanni leant down closely over the locket to begin the delicate job of picking it. So intent was she that she did not notice the silvery hands moving slowly up towards her throat until they locked around it.

Arlanni tried to draw breath to scream, but the hands were already constricting her windpipe too closely. The only sound was the clatter as lockpicks fell on the wood and stone around them. She scrabbled wildly at the cold hands to prise them away, as the corpse sat up and drew its face close to that the terrified thief. "Arlanni, meet your employer" it said slowly and quietly. Arlanni was frozen with fear, and ceased trying to pull the hands away, or even unfasten the dagger from the straps around its sheath. "Be silent or I will terminate our contract" it added. The hands unfastened themselves from her neck, and she collapsed on the floor by the trestle, trying to get her breath back, but otherwise not moving.

The corpse swung its slim legs over the side and slipped down onto the floor. It knelt down by the gasping thief, lifted her easily under her armpits and sat her on the trestle. Arlanni was still very shocked, but the fact that she was still alive did much to reassure her that this creature was probably not what it appeared to be. She kept her eyes down, staring at the part of the trestle between her legs, not daring to look up. "Let me introduce myself", said the creature. A hand was placed under her chin and slowly but powerfully raised, forcing her bowed head upright. She half-closed her eyes as her unwilling gaze moved up the creatures body, trying to avoid looking at the thighs, hips, navel and chest in turn . "My name is Victoria" it said, as her eyes locked onto its own. Arlanni realised with a shock that the hand was now warm, living, soft. "It is I you must thank for your comfortable stay here".

"What do you want with me?", whispered the thief. "All in time", said Victoria. "First, clothe me." Arlanni blinked uncomprehendingly for several seconds. "I did not bring any" she said eventually. Victoria stepped back and glanced quickly down and up Arlanni's seated body, finally staring back at her eyes. "You don't mean .. Oh" said the thief, getting the drift. Nervously, Arlanni started to unfasten the jerkin.

This was entirely to Victoria's plan. She needed human form for the next part of the mission, and humans usually wore clothes. Unfortunately, she had not yet mastered the skill of morphing her possessions to bat form. The thief garb would be ideal from a number of angles. She looked hungrily at the plump arms and round belly as they emerged from the jerkin. The thief looked up as she handed the jerkin to Victoria and caught her eyes. "You have a pretty body", said Victoria, slipping an arm into the sleeve. Arlanni looked down, embarrassed that she was being appraised. "Boots next", Victoria commanded, fastening the jerkin.

Arlanni bent down to the laces and unfastened the leather strips. The twine which had held them when she arrived had been discarded long ago. "Why is she mocking me", thought the thief. "I am not pretty, I am fat, because you have kept me waiting around so long." Then as if to confirm this, the pants clung obstinately to her hips as she wiggled the waistband over them. As she lifted her bare foot out of the last leg, she realised the woman was still looking at her intently. She quickly shoved the dark pants on the trestle and snatched up the shroud from the floor to conceal her shame.

"A man might find you attractive", said Victoria in a hard, level voice. She watched with amusement as the thief raised one corner of the shroud to her shoulder, and fumbled awkwardly with another, to hide more of herself from further remarks. She smoothed the garments she now wore. The jerkin was a little short, and the pants would be rather loose, though neither fact would be important. Victoria fastened the boot laces in silence, and snapped the end off one to bind back her long hair with. She then reached under the trestle for a lock pick which had been dropped in the earlier struggle. The thief sat cowering inside the shroud, knees drawn up to her chin, holding the fabric tightly round her.

"Tell me about the Watch". Arlanni was relieved to be back on to familiar subjects again. "There is a guardhouse to the north.", she answered confidently, having taken the time to study this vital aspect of her work. "Three watchmen are on duty each night, and they take turns to walk through the main streets. They usually carry a crossbow and a cudgel. They are quite predictable and easily avoided." "By a thief", she almost added, but decided such opinions of her trade would not be welcome. "Good. Repack your tools," commanded Victoria, "and wait here till I return".

Arlanni was very confused as she watched the strange woman leave the mortuary, dressed as a thief, but moving very clumsily. No thief would expect to get very far like that. She wanted to get away from all this, and fast. It was getting too complicated, too quickly. She occupied her mind packing the lockpicks in the tool roll. All apart from the one the woman took. What use would a Grimtooth double-zero be to her?

The thief decided at that point she was going to run, anywhere, as long as it was away from Hardby. She stood up to race to the door, leaving the shroud where she had crouched. As the shroud fell away, and the cold air raised goosebumps on her skin, she realised a problem. Her white skin, and blonde hair, would shine like a beacon in the moonlight. The shroud, also white, offered no advantage. All her training, at evasion and concealment, relied on appropriate clothing. And the clever woman had taken it all. The woman, who knew who she was, and where she was going before she had even arrived. Whose enchantments could let her enter a locked building and play dead. Who was at least twice her strength. Who was totally in command. Arlanni then knew she was trapped in this contract, and slowly picked up the shroud, to pull about her cold shoulders and wait.

Victoria, meanwhile, knew that this was the most difficult and dangerous part of the mission for her. She knew where the money in Hardby lived, and headed indirectly for the most impressive house, which happened to belong to the moneychanger. She noted her route, which lay off the main streets, because she would need to retrace it. Arriving at the front door, she squatted in front of it, in full view of the street. The moonlight cast her shadow clearly on the door. She then took the lockpick and began idly poking at the magnificent lock which adorned it. The outer calm hid a deep anxiety. This was going to hurt.

Old Snaresbutt was not the bravest of the bunch, but he felt that heroism was not a key skill for a watchman at the moment. The dreaded night creatures had not been seen for months, in fact they had never been seen by anyone who could tell of it. What he meant was there were no more unexplained disappearances. Though few townsfolk made the distinction. To him, it was necessary to patrol the streets of Hardby with an unflinching resolve to keep young troublemakers like Oliver Sarmy out of mischief. He took great pride in his achievement. He had given that lad a good whipping in his first week with the watch, and had never seen him or his cronies on the streets again.

Snaresbutt strolled with practised tread along the narrow wagon track which served as a pavement for the guild quarter. The bright moonlight was a blessing to him, giving a clear view of the great houses who paid his wages. A movement in the near distance had caught his eye. He stopped abruptly, raising the crossbow almost in a reflex action. By the gods! There was someone at the door of Tiberius's stronghold! Too big to be young Sarmy. The watchman had plenty of time to take aim; he knew that Tiberius would award him a griffon piece bonus for a clean kill.

Another pair of eyes watched the drama unfolding from a nearby rooftop. The black-clad female figure was behaving very strangely, he thought. She had managed to get away from the inn without trace, but had been easier to follow than a wounded pig when she approached the door. And now, she was a sitting target which no competent watchman could possibly miss. The time between the twunk of the bow and the thump of the quarrel was but a blink of an eye. The figure recoiled a span from the momentum of the heavy quarrel as it disappeared into the jerkin, then slumped further forward against the door. The eyes followed the slim rod which fell from its twitching fingers. He observed the watchman approaching, then pause as the figure hauled itself upright and tugged at the straps of the dagger sheath. He saw the watchman reach for his whistle, and heard the shrill sound echo off the walls, which would bring the other watchmen running. Time to go, thought Oliver. He did not want another close encounter with Snaresbutt's cudgel.

Victoria winced as the bolt tore into her thorax. The impact had taken her breath away, and left her rather giddy. It was a killing shot, she thought. The pain was over now, she could go and claim her reward, her right, that she had planned for all those weeks ago. All she needed was a head start. The crossbowman was approaching, he needs to realise she was still a threat. The dagger would be sufficient, if thrown to miss. Before she could unstrap it, the whistle cut through the air, piercingly loud at such short range. This was a serious complication, one which she had not anticipated. Victoria cursed the thief for not mentioning the whistles, but realised that they are not obvious unless they had been used. An answering whistle told her that time was getting short. She turned and hurled the dagger at the man, who had taken a step backwards as he tried to reload the bow, and it whirled past his ear. The watchman, already unsettled by the fact that his opponent was still alive, turned and ran.

Arlanni heard the whistles too, and looked up at the door, expecting the watch to burst through at any moment. Then quietly running footsteps, and the woman wearing thief's garb slipped breathlessly through the doorway. "Quick, lock the door" clipped Victoria.. The thief stepped out of the shroud, grabbed the tool roll, and ran barefoot to the door, eager to obey. The watch was as big a threat to her as to her employer, it appeared. By the time the lock clicked shut, Victoria was breathing normally again, and had started to unstrap one of the boots. "Teamwork, eh?", she said brightly as she pulled the boot off and drew up the other. "Now we wait a while".

It was a good quarter hour before they heard the watchmen tramping around outside, grumbling about their poor fortune to be on duty tonight. The pair were mouse-quiet as a heavy hand rattled the lock, and announced it was secure. Then the crunch of boots receded, and all was still. By this time, Victoria had removed all her clothing and shoved most of the pile towards Arlanni, who had sat huddled in the shroud. "You can dress again. I have no further need of these", said Victoria. So far, things were coming together nicely for her. The quarrel had left a nasty hole which would take a day or two to heal, but it was never a real risk. Her immunity to normal weapons gave her so much more tactical flexibility.

The hunger returned to Victoria as she sat cross-legged on the trestle watching the thief stand up to pull on the pants. The smooth, rounded features carried such promise to her kind. First though, the girl deserved an explanation. "Do you know why you were spared?" began Victoria, as the thief tightened the boot straps. "Spared from what?" asked Arlanni, suddenly feeling worried. "Come now, has a month of good living affected your memory so quickly?" she retorted. "Why were you nursed back to health, when your fellow thieves all perished?". The thief shook her head.

"Your body is quite exquisite", continued Victoria. She really meant this, but not for the reasons that Arlanni could guess at. "It could stir the heart of any man". Victoria could not see the thief blush at this compliment, since the moonlight washed out the colour. She did notice the thief quickly look around for the jerkin, but as Victoria was still sitting on it, reach instead for the shroud. "I think you were spared because he liked you" she said in a voice choked with jealousy. Arlanni sensed the tension, and drew the shroud quickly up to her shoulders with both hands. Victoria then hopped smartly off the trestle and strode towards the trembling girl, who was backing away towards the locked door.

"He is MINE!", she roared, filled with an emotion which had been gnawing at her mind since Belphanior had healed and freed the thief after the raid on the castle in Helgate. "You violated our home, you sought to steal our wealth, you tried to kill us when we defended ourselves. What right have you to be LIKED by him?"

Arlanni was too shocked to speak. She felt very frightened of this angry woman and only wanted to get out of this room as soon as possible. She was leaning with her bare back against the door by now, gripping the shroud protectively over her neck with both fists, shaking her head at the woman whose face was hard with rage. She was locked in this trap by her own hands. The shroud was torn away from her by powerful arms and tossed into the centre of the room. She crossed her wrists defensively in front of her chest, palms flat below her collar, watching and waiting fearfully for whatever punishment was due.

Victoria stepped back to regard the terrified thief. She then reached forward and gripped Arlanni's upper arm. The girl shrank away from her firm grasp, but could only press herself harder against the cold rough wood of the door. "The innkeeper has fattened you up nicely", she said menacingly, squeezing the soft flesh twice. "Hagor? Fattened?" whispered Arlanni, through dry lips. "Oh, don't be angry with him. He knows nothing about me", said Victoria casually, the terror in the girl's eyes having mollified her fury. "Then this was all .. a trick?", said Arlanni, scarcely believing what she was hearing. "Of course", answered the woman. "I could have killed you anytime I wanted. But you were skin and bones when you left Helgate. Now I take my profit. I am a vampire".

Half an hour or so later, Victoria stood up feeling quite full, and very satisfied with the outcome of her plan. The net cost would be only two round trips and one of her odd gemstones. It was good value. The girl's blood was fresh, nourishing and plentiful. She looked down at the remains of her leisurely meal, laid chest down on the trestle. It had been so refreshingly different from the usual rushed feeding. Two round holes close together in the upper back revealed the manner of the assault, and nature of the assailant. A few bruises and scratches suggested a short struggle. She had put up quite a fight, thought Victoria. Now though, drained of much of her blood, she did not even have the strength to stand.

Arlanni groaned quietly, and attempted to rise to her hands and knees. Exhausted by the effort, she collapsed back onto the boards. She then hauled herself onto an elbow to raise her head to speak. "You won't get away with this", she gasped, "they will find me and hunt you down". The vampire stood in full view of the thief, legs apart and arms on bare hips in triumph. "You fool!", she taunted. "Do you think I have not planned for that?" Arlanni closed her eyes, unable to bear the sight of the vampire's stomach swollen with her own blood. She twisted ineffectually as her limp arms were stuffed into the sleeves of the jerkin. She felt a hand thrust under her waistband lift her easily off the trestle and toss her onto the floor. She realised ironically that the waistband was now a much looser fit. She felt the hem of the jerkin being tugged downwards and then smoothed on her back. Something sharp was being prodded through the jerkin, finding its place on her skin. Then it was stabbed deeply into her body.

The wretched thief convulsed as Victoria used her inhuman strength to push the quarrel, which she had removed from herself, through the puncture wounds from her feeding. By the grey light she saw the dark fluid pulse out from the hole, flow over the jerkin and drip from the fletching. "Excellent!", thought Victoria. She had judged the remaining blood in her victim to make a convincing puddle on the floor. She allowed herself to gloat just once more. "They will not find a vampire's victim in here. They will find a thief who crawled wounded into the mortuary and bled to death!".

Poor Arlanni died shortly afterwards, alone and delirious on the mortuary floor. By then, a well-fed bat was well over a quarter of the way back to Helgate, clutching a tiny diamond locket and chain in its claws.

The following morning found a town in the grip of a crisis. News of the encounter by the watch had spread like wildfire, and the two versions which circulated were remarkably consistent. The wizard's woman, as she was known, had been killed attempting to break into Tiberius's stronghold by the fearless Snaresbutt. Her body was found, fittingly, in the mortuary, with a set of lockpicks as evidence of her profession. Hagor was rather sad that it had ended thus. He was not sorry that the wizard's funds were now his to invest on property development, and the inn at Hardby later sported an extra wing.

"Can I keep it?" said Oliver to his grandfather. "Grimtooth double zero", said Tiberius approvingly, turning the slim black rod over in his hand. "Good pick, that. Dropped by the thief last night, you say?" Oliver nodded. "What sort of lass was she, now?". Oliver considered this a bit. "She had a podgy tummy" he finally replied, with a definitive air. Tiberius scowled. "No, no, I mean was she acting like a professional thief?" he asked, exasperated. "Sometimes yes, and sometimes no", answered Oliver, with utter honesty. Tiberius lost patience with the boy then, and spoke what was on his mind. "Well, lad, your tale takes some believing. You need at least a number 5 to do that lock of mine. This here", he said, jabbing the little pick towards his youngest apprentice for emphasis, " is only good for jewellery".

Belphanior was asleep when Victoria returned to the castle just before dawn broke. So they did not meet each other until the following evening. He knew her true nature and had a shrewd idea of what she had been up to. It was now over a month since the failed break-in, when she had fed well on the fallen. "How was the hunting?" he asked. He didn't need to ask whether it had been a success; her smug, flushed appearance told of a recent full meal. He was more concerned at the greater distances she needed to fly each time to reach unprotected victims. "More like farming", she replied, with a huge grin.

Battlefield Earth Free Book Online

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Tue, 01 Jun 2021 15:10:00 +0000

Recently there came a period when I had little to do. Battlefield Earth novel in a life so crammed with busy years, and I decided to amuse myself by writing a novel that was pure science fiction.

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Recently there came a period when I had little to do. This was novel in a life so crammed with busy years, and I decided to amuse myself by writing a novel that was pure science fiction.

In the hard-driven times between 1930 and 1950, I was a professional writer not simply because it was my job, but because I wanted to finance more serious researches. In those days few agencies were pouring out large grants to independent workers. Despite what you might hear about Roosevelt's "relief," those were depression years. One succeeded or one starved. One became a top-liner or a gutter bum. One had to work very hard at his craft or have no craft at all. It was a very challenging time for anyone who lived through it.

I have heard it said, as an intended slur, "He was a science fiction writer," and have heard it said of many. It brought me to realize that few people understand the role science fiction has played in the lives of Earth's whole population.

I have just read several standard books that attempt to define "science fiction" and to trace its history. There are many experts in this field, many controversial opinions. Science fiction is favored with the most closely knit reading public that may exist, possibly the most dedicated of any genre. Devotees are called "fans," and the word has a special prestigious meaning in science fiction.

Few professional writers, even those in science fiction, have written very much on the character of "sf." They are usually too busy turning out the work itself to expound on what they have written. But there are many experts on this subject among both critics and fans, and they have a lot of worthwhile things to say.

However, many false impressions exist, both of the genre and of its writers. So when one states that he set out to write a work of pure science fiction, he had better state what definition he is using.

It will probably be best to return to the day in 1938 when I first entered this field, the day I met John W. Campbell, Jr., a day in the very dawn of what has come to be known as The Golden Age of science fiction. I was quite ignorant of the field and regarded it, in fact, a bit diffidently. I was not there of my own choice. I had been summoned to the vast old building on Seventh Avenue in dusty, dirty, old New York by the very top brass of Street and Smith publishing company - an executive named Black and another, F. Orlin Tremaine. Ordered there with me was another writer, Arthur J. Burks. In those days when the top brass of a publishing company - particularly one as old and prestigious as Street and Smith - "invited" a writer to visit, it was like being commanded to appear before the king or receiving a court summons. You arrived, you sat there obediently, and you spoke when you were spoken to.

We were both, Arthur J. Burks and I, top-line professionals in other writing fields. By the actual tabulation of A. B. Dick, which set advertising rates for publishing firms, either of our names appearing on a magazine cover would send the circulation rate skyrocketing, something like modern TV ratings.

The top brass came quickly to the point. They had recently started or acquired a magazine called Astounding Science Fiction. Other magazines were published by other houses, but Street and Smith were unhappy because its magazine was mainly publishing stories about machines and machinery. As publishers, its executives knew you had to have people in stories. They had called us in because, aside from our A. B. Dick rating as writers, we could write about real people. They knew we were busy and had other commitments. But would we be so kind as to write science fiction? We indicated we would.

They called in John W. Campbell, Jr., the editor of the magazine. He found himself looking at two adventure-story writers, and though adventure writers might be the aristocrats of the whole field and might have vast followings of their own, they were not science fiction writers. He resisted. In the first place, calling in top-liners would ruin his story budget due to their word rates. And in the second place, he had his own ideas of what science fiction was.

Campbell, who dominated the whole field of SF as its virtual czar until he died in 1971, was a huge man who had majored in physics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and graduated from Duke University with a Bachelor of Sciences degree.

His idea of getting a story was to have some professor or scientist write it and then doctor it up and publish it. Perhaps that is a bit unkind, but it really was what he was doing. To fill his pages even he, who had considerable skill as a writer, was writing stories for the magazine.

The top brass had to directly order Campbell to buy and to publish what we wrote for him. He was going to get people into his stories and get something going besides machines.

I cannot tell you how many other writers were called in. I do not know. In all justice, it may have been Campbell himself who found them later on. But do not get the impression that Campbell was anything less than a master and a genius in his own right. Any of the stables of writers he collected during this Golden Age will tell you that. Campbell could listen. He could improve things. He could dream up little plot twists that were masterpieces. He well deserved the title that he gained and kept as the top editor and the dominant force that made science fiction as respectable as it became. Star Wars, the all-time box office record movie to date (exceeded only by its sequel), would never have happened if science fiction had not become as respectable as Campbell made it. More than that - Campbell played no small part in driving this society into the space age.

You had to actually work with Campbell to know where he was trying to go, what his idea was of this thing called "science fiction." I cannot give you any quotations from him; I can just tell you what I felt he was trying to do. In time we became friends. Over lunches and in his office and at his home on weekends - where his wife Dona kept things smooth - the talk was always of stories but also of science. To say that Campbell considered science fiction as "prophecy" is an oversimplification. He had very exact ideas about it.

Only about a tenth of my stories were written for the fields of science fiction and fantasy. I was what they called a high production writer, and these fields were just not big enough to take everything I could write. I gained my original reputation in other writing fields during the eight years before the Street and Smith interview.

Campbell, without saying too much about it, considered the bulk of the stories I gave him to be not science fiction but fantasy, an altogether different thing. Some of my stories he eagerly published as science fiction - among them Final Blackout. Many more, actually. I had, myself, somewhat of a science background, had done some pioneering work in rockets and liquid gases, but I was studying the branches of man's past knowledge at that time to see whether he had ever come up with anything valid. This, and a love of the ancient tales now called The Arabian Nights, led me to write quite a bit of fantasy. To handle this fantasy material, Campbell introduced another magazine, Unknown. As long as I was writing novels for it, it continued. But the war came and I and others went, and I think Unknown only lasted about forty months. Such novels were a bit hard to come by. And they were not really Campbell's strength.

So anyone seeking to say that science fiction is a branch of fantasy or an extension of it is, unfortunately, colliding with a time-honored professional usage of terms. This is an age of mixed genres. I hear different forms of music mixed together like soup. I see so many different styles of dance tangled together into one "dance" that I wonder whether the choreographers really know the different genres of dance anymore. There is abroad today the concept that only conflict produces new things. Perhaps the philosopher Hegel introduced that, but he also said that war was necessary for the mental health of the people and a lot of other nonsense. If all new ideas have to spring from the conflict between old ones, one must deny that virgin ideas can be conceived.

So what would pure science fiction be?

It has been surmised that science fiction must come from an age where science exists. At the risk of raising dispute and outcry - which I have risked all my life and received but not been bothered by, and have gone on and done my job anyway - I wish to point out some things:

Science fiction does not come after the fact of a scientific discovery or development. It is the herald of possibility. It is the plea that someone should work in the future. Yet it is not prophecy. It is the dream that precedes the dawn when the inventor or scientist awakens and goes to his books or his lab saying, "I wonder whether I could make that dream come true in the world of real science."

You can go back to Lucian; second century A.D., or to Johannes Kepler (1571 - 1630) - who founded modern dynamical astronomy and who also wrote Somnium, an imaginary space flight to the moon - or to Mary Shelley and her Frankenstein, or to Poe or Verne or Wells and ponder whether this was really science fiction. Let us take an example: a man invents an eggbeater. A writer later writes a story about an eggbeater. He has not, thereby, written science fiction. Let us continue the example: a man writes a story about some metal that, when twiddled, beats an egg, but no such tool has ever before existed in fact. He has now written science fiction. Somebody else, a week or a hundred years later, reads the story and says, "Well, well. Maybe it could be done." And makes an eggbeater. But whether or not it was possible that twiddling two pieces of metal would beat eggs, or whether or not anybody ever did it afterward, the man still has written science fiction.

How do you look at the word "fiction?" It is a sort of homograph. In this case, it means two different things. A professor of literature knows it means "a literary work whose content is produced by the imagination and is not necessarily based on fact; the category of literature comprising works of this kind, including novels, short stories, and plays." It is derived from Latin fiction, a making, a fashioning, from fictus, past participle of fingere, to touch, form, mold.

But when we join the word to "science" and get "science fiction," the word "fiction" acquires two meanings in the same use: 1) the science used in the story is at least partly fictional; and 2) any story is fiction. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language defines science fiction as "fiction in which scientific developments and discoveries form an element of plot or background; especially a work of fiction based on prediction of future scientific possibilities."

So, by dictionary definition and a lot of discussions with Campbell and fellow writers of that time, science fiction has to do with the material universe and sciences; these can include economics, sociology, medicine, and suchlike, all of which have a material base.

Then what is fantasy?

Well, believe me, if it were simply the application of vivid imagination, then a lot of economists and government people and such would be fully qualified authors! Applying the word "imaginative" to fantasy would be like calling an entire library "some words." Too simplistic, too general a term.

In these modern times many of the ingredients that make up "fantasy" as a type of fiction have vanished from the stage. You hardly even find them in encyclopedias anymore. These subjects were spiritualism, mythology, magic, divination, the supernatural, and many other fields of that type. None of them had anything really to do with the real universe. This does not necessarily mean that they never had any validity or that they will not again arise; it merely means that man, currently, has sunk into a materialistic binge.

The bulk of these subjects consist of false data, but there probably never will come a time when all such phenomena are explained. The primary reason such a vast body of knowledge dropped from view is that material science has been undergoing a long series of successes. But I do notice that every time modern science thinks it is down to the nitty-gritty of it all, it runs into (and sometimes adopts) such things as the Egyptian myths that man came from mud, or something like that. But the only point I am trying to make here is that there is a whole body of phenomena that we cannot classify as "material." They are the nonmaterial, non universe subjects. And no matter how false many of the old ideas were, they still existed; who knows but what there might not be some validity in some bits of them. One would have to study these subjects to have a complete comprehension of all the knowledge and beliefs possible. I am not opening the door to someone's saying I believe in all these things: I am only saying that there is another realm besides dedicated - and even simpleminded - materialism.

"Fantasy," so far as literature is concerned, is defined in the dictionary as "literary or dramatic fiction characterized by highly fanciful or supernatural elements." Even that is a bit limited as a definition.

So fantasy could be called any fiction that takes up elements such as spiritualism, mythology, magic, divination, the supernatural, and so on. The Arabian Nights was a gathering together of the tales of many, many countries and civilizations - not just of Arabia as many believe. Its actual title was A Thousand and One Nights of Entertainment. It abounds with examples of fantasy fiction.

When you mix science fiction with fantasy you do not have a pure genre. The two are, to a professional, separate genres. I notice today there is a tendency to mingle them and then excuse the result by calling it "imaginative fiction." Actually they don't mix well: science fiction, to be credible, has to be based on some degree of plausibility; fantasy gives you no limits at all. Writing science fiction demands care on the part of the author; writing fantasy is as easy as strolling in the park. (In fantasy, a guy has no sword in his hand; bang, there's a magic sword in his hand.) This doesn't say one is better than the other. They are simply very different genres from a professional viewpoint.

But there is more to this: science fiction, particularly in its Golden Age, had a mission. I cannot, of course, speak for my friends of that period. But from Campbell and from "shooting the breeze" with other writers of the time, one got the very solid impression that they were doing a heavy job of beating the drum to get man to the stars.

At the beginning of that time, science fiction was regarded as a sort of awful stepchild in the world of literature. But worse than that, science itself was not getting the attention or the grants or the government expenditures it should have received. There has to be a lot of public interest and demand before politicians shell out the financing necessary to get a subject whizzing.

Campbell's crew of writers were pretty stellar. They included very top-liner names. They improved the literary quality of the genre. And they began the boom of its broader popularity.

A year or so after The Golden Age began, I recall going into a major university's science department. I wanted some data on cytology for my own serious researches. I was given a courteous reception and was being given the references when I noticed that the room had been gradually filling up. And not with students but with professors and deans. It had been whispered around the offices who was in the biology department, and the next thing I knew, I was shaking a lot of hands held out below beaming faces. And what did they want to know: What did I think of this story or that? And had I seen this or that writer lately? And how was Campbell?

They had a literature! Science fiction!

And they were proud of it!

For a while, before and after World War II, I was in rather steady association with the new era of scientists, the boys who built the bomb, who were beginning to get the feel of rockets. They were all science fiction buffs. And many of the hottest scientists around were also writing science fiction on the side.

In 1945 I attended a meeting of old scientist and science fiction friends. The meeting was at the home of my dear friend, the incomparable Bob Heinlein. And do you know what was their agenda? How to get man into space fast enough so that he would be distracted from further wars on Earth. And they were the lads who had the government ear and authority to do it! We are coming close to doing it. The scientists got man into space and they even had the Russians cooperating for a while.

One can't go on living a naive life believing that everything happens by accident, that events simply follow events, that there is a natural order of things and that everything will come out right somehow. That isn't science. That's fate, kismet, and we're back in the world of fantasy. No, things do get planned. The Golden Age of science fiction that began with Campbell and Astounding Science Fiction gathered enough public interest and readership to help push man into space. Today, you hear top scientists talking the way we used to talk in bull sessions so long ago.

Campbell did what he set out to do. So long as he had his first wife and others around him to remind him that science was for people, that it was no use to just send machines out for the sake of machines, that there was no point into going into space unless the mission had something to do with people, too, he kept winning. For he was a very brilliant man and a great and very patient editor. After he lost his first wife, Dona, in 1949 - she married George O. Smith - and after he no longer had a sounding-board who made him keep people in stories, and when he no longer had his old original writing crew around, he let his magazine slip back, and when it finally became named Analog, his reign was over. But The Golden Age had kicked it all into high gear. So Campbell won after all.

When I started out to write this novel, I wanted to write pure science fiction. And not in the old tradition. Writing forms and styles have changed, so I had to bring myself up to date and modernize the styles and patterns. To show that science fiction is not science fiction because of a particular kind of plot, this novel contains practically every type of story there is - detective, spy, adventure, western, love, air war, you name it. All except fantasy; there is none of that. The term "science" also includes economics and sociology and medicine where these are related to material things. So they're in here, too.

In writing for magazines, the editors (because of magazine format) force one to write to exact lengths. I was always able to do that - it is a kind of knack. But this time I decided not to cut everything out and to just roll her as she rolled, so long as the pace kept up. So I may have wound up writing the biggest sf novel ever in terms of length. The experts - and there are lots of them to do so - can verify whether this is so.

Some of my readers may wonder that I did not include my own serious subjects in this book. It was with no thought of dismissal of them. It was just that I put on my professional writer's hat. I also did not want to give anybody the idea I was doing a press relations job for my other serious works.

Some will look at this book and say, "See? We told you he is just a science fiction writer!" Well, as one of the crew of writers that helped start man to the stars, I'm very proud of also being known as a science fiction writer. You have satellites out there, man has walked on the moon, you have probes going to the planets, don't you? Somebody had to dream the dream, and a lot of somebodies like those great writers of The Golden Age and later had to get an awful lot of people interested in it to make it true.

I hope you enjoy this novel. It is the only one I ever wrote just to amuse myself. It also celebrates my golden wedding with the muse. Fifty years a professional - 1930 - 1980.

And as an old pro I assure you that it is pure science fiction. No fantasy. Right on the rails of the genre. Science is for people. And so is science fiction.

Ready?

Stand by.

Blast off!

L. Ron Hubbard

October 1980

PART 1

- 1 -

"Man," said Terl, "is an endangered species."

The hairy paws of the Chamco brothers hung suspended above the broad keys of the laser-bash game. The cliffs of Char's eyebones drew down over his yellow orbs as he looked up in mystery. Even the steward, who had been padding quietly about picking up her saucepans, lumbered to a halt and stared.

Terl could not have produced a more profound effect had he thrown a meat-girl naked into the middle of the room.

The clear dome of the Intergalactic Mining Company employee recreation hall shone black around and above them, silvered at its crossbars by the pale glow of the Earth's single moon, half-full on this late summer night.

Terl lifted his large amber eyes from the tome that rested minutely in his massive claws and looked around the room. He was suddenly aware of the effect he had produced, and it amused him. Anything to relieve the humdrum monotony of a ten-year [Time, distance, and weight have been translated in all cases throughout this book to old Earth time, distance, and weight systems for the sake of uniformity and to prevent confusion in the various systems employed by the Psychlos. - Translator] duty tour in this gods-abandoned mining camp, way out here on the edge of a minor galaxy.

In an even more professorial voice, already deep and roaring enough, Terl repeated his thought. "Man is an endangered species."

Char glowered at him. "What in the name of diseased crap are you reading?"

Terl did not much care for his tone. After all, Char was simply one of several mine managers, but Terl was chief of minesite security. "I didn't read it. I thought it."

"You must've got it from somewhere," growled Char. "What is that book?"

Terl held it up so Char could see its back. It said, "General Report of Geological Minesites, Volume 250,369." Like all such books it was huge but printed on material that made it almost weightless, particularly on a low-gravity planet such as Earth, a triumph of design and manufacture that did not cut heavily into the payloads of freighters.

"Rughr," growled Char in disgust. "That must be two, three hundred Earth-years old. If you want to prowl around in books, I got an up-to-date general board of directors' report that says we're thirty-five freighters behind in bauxite deliveries."

The Chamco brothers looked at each other and then at their game to see where they had gotten to in shooting down the live mayflies in the air box. But Terl's next words distracted them again.

"Today," said Terl, brushing Char's push for work aside, "I got a sighting report from a recon drone that recorded only thirty-five men in that valley near that peak." Terl waved his paw westward toward the towering mountain range silhouetted by the moon.

"So?" said Char.

"So I dug up the books out of curiosity. There used to be hundreds in that valley. And furthermore," continued Terl with his professorial ways coming back, "there used to be thousands and thousands of them on this planet."

"You can't believe all you read," said Char heavily. "On my last duty tour - it was Arcturus IV -'

"This book," said Terl, lifting it impressively, "was compiled by the culture and ethnology department of the Intergalactic Mining Company."

The larger Chamco brother batted his eyebones. "I didn't know we had one."

Char sniffed. "It was disbanded more than a century ago. Useless waste of money. Yapping around about ecological impacts and junk like that." He shifted his bulk around to Terl. "Is this some kind of scheme to explain a nonscheduled vacation? You're going to get your butt in a bind. I can see it, a pile of requisitions this high for breathe-gas tanks and scoutcraft. You won't get any of my workers."

"Turn off the juice," said Terl. "I only said that man -"

"I know what you said. But you got your appointment because you are clever. That's right, clever. Not intelligent. Clever. And I can see right through an excuse to go on a hunting expedition. What Psychlo in his right skull would bother with the things?"

The smaller Chamco brother grinned. "I get tired of just dig-dig-dig, ship-ship-ship. Hunting might be fun. I didn't think anybody did it for -'

Char turned on him like a tank zeroing in on its prey. "Fun hunting those things! You ever see one?" He lurched to his feet and the floor creaked. He put his paw just above his belt. "They only come up to here! They got hardly any hair on them except their heads. They're a dirty white color like a slug. They're so brittle they break up when you try to put them in a pouch." He snarled in disgust and picked up a saucepan of kerbango. "They're so weak they couldn't pick this up without straining their guts. And they're not good eating." He tossed off the kerbango and made an earthquake shudder.

"You ever see one?" said the bigger Chamco brother.

Char sat down, the dome rumbled, and he handed the empty saucepan to the steward. "No," he said. "Not alive. I seen some bones in the shafts and I heard."

"There were thousands of them once," said Terl, ignoring the mine manager. "Thousands! All over the place."

Char belched. "Shouldn't wonder they die off. They breathe this oxygen-nitrogen air. Deadly stuff."

"I got a crack in my face mask yesterday," said the smaller Chamco brother. "For about thirty seconds I thought I wasn't going to make it. Bright lights bursting inside your skull. Deadly stuff. I really look forward to getting back home where you can walk around without a suit or mask, where the gravity gives you something to push against, where everything is a beautiful purple and there's not one bit of this green stuff. My papa used to tell me that if I wasn't a good Psychlo and if I didn't say sir-sir-sir to the right people, I'd wind up at a butt end of nowhere like this. He was right. I did. It's your shot, brother."

Char sat back and eyed Terl. "You ain't really going hunting for a man, are you?"

Terl looked at his book. He inserted one of his talons to keep his place and then thumped the volume against his knee.

"I think you're wrong," he mused. "There was something to these creatures. Before we came along, it says here, they had towns on every continent. They had flying machines and boats. They even appear to have fired off stuff into space."

"How do you know that wasn't some other race?" said Char. "How do you know it wasn't some lost colony of Psychlos?"

"No, it wasn't that," said Terl. "Psychlos can't breathe this air. It was man all right, just like the cultural guys researched. And right in our own histories, you know how it says we got here?"

"Ump," said Char.

"Man apparently sent out some kind of probe that gave full directions to the place, had pictures of man on it and everything. It got picked up by a Psychlo recon. And you know what?"

"Ump," said Char.

"The probe and the pictures were on a metal that was rare everywhere and worth a clanking fortune. And Intergalactic paid the Psychlo governors sixty trillion Galactic credits for the directions and the concession. One gas barrage and we were in business. "

"Fairy tales, fairy tales," said Char. "Every planet I ever helped gut has some butt and crap story like that. Every one." He yawned his face into a huge cavern. "All that was hundreds, maybe thousands of years ago. You ever notice that the public relations department always puts their fairy tales so far back nobody can ever check them?"

"I'm going to go out and catch one of these things," said Terl.

"Not with any of my crews or equipment you ain't," said Char.

Terl heaved his mammoth bulk off the seat and crossed the creaking floor to the berthing hatch.

"You're as crazy as a nebula of crap," said Char.

The two Chamco brothers got back into their game and intently laser-blasted the entrapped mayflies into smoky puffs, one by one.

Char looked at the empty door. The security chief knew no Psychlo could go up into those mountains. Terl really was crazy. There was deadly uranium up there. But Terl, rumbling along a hallway to his room, did not consider himself crazy. He was being very clever as always. He had started the rumors so no questions would get out of hand when he began to put into motion the personal plans that would make him wealthy and powerful and, almost as important, dig him out of this accursed planet.

The man-things were the perfect answer. All he needed was just one and then he could get the others. His campaign had begun and begun very well, he thought.

He went to sleep gloating over how clever he was.

- 2 -

It was a good day for a funeral, only it seemed there wasn't going to be one.

Dark, stormy-looking clouds were creeping in from the west, shredded by the snow-speckled peaks, leaving only a few patches of blue sky showing.

Jonnie Goodboy Tyler stood beside his horse at the upper end of the wide mountain meadow and looked with discontent upon the sprawled and decaying village.

His father was dead and he ought to be properly buried. He hadn't died of the red blotches and there was no question of somebody else catching it. His bones had just crumbled away. So there was no excuse not to properly bury him. Yet there was no sign of anyone doing so.

Jonnie had gotten up in the dawn dark, determined to choke down his grief and go about his correct business. He had yelled up Windsplitter, the fastest of his several horses, put a cowhide rope on his nose, and gone down through the dangerous defiles to the lower plain and with a lot of hard riding and herding pushed five wild cattle back up to the mountain meadow. He had then bashed out the brains of the fattest of them and ordered his Aunt Ellen to push the barbecue fire together and get meat cooking.

Aunt Ellen hadn't cared for the orders. She had broken her sharpest rock, she said, and couldn't skin and cut the meat, and certain men hadn't dragged in any firewood lately.

Jonnie Goodboy had stood very tall and looked at her. Among people who were average height, Jonnie Goodboy stood half a head taller, a muscular six feet shining with the bronzed health of his twenty years. He had just stood there, wind tangling his corn-yellow hair and beard, looking at her with his ice-blue eyes. And Aunt Ellen had gone and found some wood and had put a stone to work, even though it was a very dull one. He could see her now, down there below him, wrapped in the smoke of slow roasting meat, busy.

There ought to be more activity in the village, Jonnie thought. The last big funeral he had seen was when he was about five years old, when Smith the mayor had died. There had been songs and preaching and a feast and it had ended with a dance by moonlight. Mayor Smith had been put in a hole in the ground and the dirt filled in over him, and while the two cross-sticks of the marker were long since gone, it had been a proper respectful funeral. More recently they had just dumped the dead in the black rock gulch below the waterpool and let the coyotes clean them up.

Well, that wasn't the way you went about it, Jonnie told himself. Not with his father, anyway.

He spun on his heel and with one motion went aboard Windsplitter. The thump of his hard bare heel sent the horse down toward the courthouse.

He passed by the decayed ruins of cabins on the outskirts. Every year they caved in further. For a long time anybody needing a building log hadn't cut any trees: they had just stripped handy existing structures. But the logs in these cabins were so eaten up and rotted now, they hardly even served as firewood.

Windsplitter picked his way down the weed-grown track, walking watchfully to avoid stepping on ancient and newly discarded food bones and trash. He twitched his ear toward a distant wolf howl from up in a mountain glen.

The smell of new blood and the meat smoke must be pulling the wolves down, thought Jonnie, and he hefted his kill-club from where it dangled by a thong into his palm. He'd lately seen a wolf right down in the cabins, prowling around for bones, or maybe even a puppy or a child. Even a decade ago it wouldn't have happened. But every year there were fewer and fewer people.

Legend said that there had been a thousand in the valley, but Jonnie thought that was probably an exaggeration. There was plenty of food. The wide plains below the peaks were overrun with wild cattle, wild pigs, and bands of horses. The ranges above were alive with deer and goats. And even an unskilled hunter had no trouble getting food. There was plenty of water due to the melting snows and streams, and the little patches of vegetables would thrive if anybody planted and tended them.

No, it wasn't food. It was something else. Animals reproduced, it seemed, but man didn't. At least not to any extent. The death rate and the birth rate were unbalanced, with death the winner. Even when children were born they sometimes had only one eye or one lung or one hand and had to be left out in the icy night. Monsters were unwanted things. All life was overpowered by a fear of monsters.

Maybe it was this valley.

When he was seven he had asked his father about it. "But maybe people can't live in this place," he had said.

His father had looked at him wearily. "There were people in some other valleys, according to the legends. They're all gone, but there are still some of us."

He had not been convinced. Jonnie had said, "There's all those plains down there and they're full of animals. Why don't we go live there?"

Jonnie had always been a bit of a trial. Too smart, the elders had said. Always stirring things up. Questions, questions. And did he believe what he was told? Even by older men who knew a lot better? No. Not Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. But his father had not brought any of this up. He had just said wearily, "There's no timber down there to build cabins."

This hadn't explained anything, so Jonnie had said, "I bet I could find something down there to build a cabin with."

His father had knelt down, patient for once, and said, "You're a good boy, Jonnie. And your mother and I love you very much. But nobody could build anything that would keep out the monsters. "

Monsters, monsters. All his life Jonnie had been hearing about the monsters. He'd never seen one. But he held his peace. The oldsters believed in monsters, so they believed in monsters.

But thinking of his father brought an unwelcome wetness to his eyes.

And he was almost unseated as his horse reared. A string of foot-long mountain rats had rushed headlong from a cabin and hit Windsplitter's legs.

What you get for dreaming, Jonnie snapped to himself. He put Windsplitter's four hoofs back down on the path and drummed him forward the last few yards to the courthouse.

Chrissie was standing there, her leg being hugged as always by her younger sister.

Jonnie Goodboy ignored her and looked at the courthouse. The old, old building was the only one to have a stone foundation and stone floor. Somebody had said it was a thousand years old, and though Jonnie didn't believe it, the place sure looked it. Even its seventeenth roof was as sway-backed as an overpacked horse. There wasn't a log in the upper structure that wasn't gaping with worm holes. The windows were mainly caved in like eyeholes in a rotted skull. The stone walkway close to it was worn half afoot deep by the bare horny feet of scores of generations of villagers coming here to be tried and punished in the olden days when somebody had cared. In his lifetime Jonnie had never seen a trial, or a town meeting for that matter.

"Parson Staffor is inside," said Chrissie. She was a slight girl, very pretty, about eighteen. She had large black eyes in strange contrast to her corn-silk hair. She had wrapped around herself a doeskin, really tight, and it showed her breasts and a lot of bare leg.

Her little sister, Pattie, a budding copy of the older girl, looked bright-eyed and interested. "Is there going to be a real funeral, Jonnie?"

Jonnie didn't answer. He slid off Windsplitter in a graceful single motion. He handed the lead rope to Pattie, who ecstatically uncoiled herself from Chrissie's leg and snatched at it. At seven Pattie had no parents and little enough of a home, and her sun rose and set only on Jonnie's proud orders.

"Is there going to be meat and a burying in a hole in the ground and everything?" demanded Pattie.

Jonnie started through the courthouse door, paying no heed to the hand Chrissie put out to touch his arm.

Parson Staffor lay sprawled on a mound of dirty grass, mouth open in snores, flies buzzing about. Jonnie stirred him with his foot.

Parson Staffor had seen better days. Once he had been fat and inclined to pomposity. But that was before he had begun to chew locoweed - to ease his toothaches, he said. He was gaunt now, dried up, nearly toothless, seamed with inlaid grime. Some wads of weed lay on the stones beside his moldy bed.

As the toe prodded him again, Staffor opened his eyes and rubbed some of the scum out of them in alarm. Then he saw it was Jonnie Goodboy Tyler, and he fell back without interest.

"Get up," said Jonnie.

"That's this generation," muttered the parson. "No respect for their elders. Rushing off to the bushes, fornicating, grabbing the best meat pieces."

"Get up," said Jonnie. "You are going to give a funeral."

"A funeral?" moaned Staffor.

"With meat and sermons and dancing."

"Who is dead?"

"You know quite well who's dead. You were there at the end."

"Oh, yes. Your father. A good man. Yes, a good man. Well, maybe he was your father."

Jonnie suddenly looked a little dangerous. He was standing there at ease, but he was wearing the skin of a puma that he himself had slain and he had his kill-club on a wrist thong. The club seemed to jump of its own volition into his palm.

Parson Staffor abruptly sat up. "Now don't take it wrong, Jonnie. It's just that things are a little mixed up these days, you know. Your mother had three husbands one time and another, and there being no real ceremonies these days -"

"You better get up," said Jonnie.

Staffor clawed for the corner of an ancient, scarred bench and pulled himself upright. He began to tie the deerskin he usually wore, and obviously had worn far too long, using a frayed wovengrass rope. "My memory isn't so good these days, Jonnie. One time I could remember all kinds of things. Legends, marriage ceremonies, hunt blessings, even family quarrels." He was looking around for some fresh locoweed.

"When the sun is straight up," said Jonnie, "you're going to call the whole village together at the old graveyard and you're -"

"Who's going to dig the hole? There has to be a hole, you know, for a proper funeral."

"I'll dig the hole," said Jonnie.

Staffor had found some fresh locoweed and began to gum it. He looked relieved. "Well, I'm glad the town doesn't have to dig the hole. Horns, but this stuff is green. You said meat. Who is going to kill and cook it?"

"That's all taken care of."

Staffor nodded and then abruptly saw more work ahead. "Who's going to assemble the people?"

"I'll ask Pattie to tell them."

Staffor looked at him reproachfully. "Then there's nothing for me to do until straight-up. Why'd you wake me up?" He threw himself back down on the dirty grass and sourly watched Jonnie walk out of the ancient room.

Jonnie Goodboy sat with his knees to his chest, his arms wrapped around them, staring into the remains of the dance fire.

Chrissie lay on her stomach beside him, idly shredding the seeds from a large sunflower between her very white teeth. She looked up at Jonnie from time to time, a little puzzled but not unduly so. She had never seen him cry before, even as a little boy. She knew he had loved his father. But Jonnie was usually so tall and grand, even cold. Could it be that under that good-looking, almost pretty face he felt emotions for her, too? It was something to speculate about. She knew very well how she felt about Jonnie. If anything happened to Jonnie she would throw herself off the cliff where they sometimes herded wild cattle to their death an easy way to kill them. Life without Jonnie Goodboy would not only not be worth living, it would be completely unbearable. Maybe Jonnie did care about her. The tears showed something.

Pattie had no such troubles. She had not only stuffed herself with roast meat, she had also stuffed herself with the wild strawberries that had been served by the heap. And then during the dancing she had run and run and run with two or three little boys and then come back to eat some more. She was sleeping so heavily she looked like a mound of rags.

Jonnie blamed himself. He had tried to tell his father, not just when he was seven, but many times thereafter, that something was wrong with this place. Places were not all the same. Jonnie had been - was - sure of it. Why did the pigs and horses and cattle in the plains have little pigs and horses and cattle so numerously and so continuously? Yes, and why were there more and more wolves and coyotes and pumas and birds up in the higher ranges, and fewer and fewer men?

The villagers had been quite happy with the funeral, especially since Jonnie and a couple of others had done most of the work.

Jonnie had not been happy with it at all. It wasn't good enough.

They had gathered at sun straight-up on the knoll above the village where some said the graveyard had been. The markers were all gone. Maybe it had been a graveyard. When Jonnie had toiled - naked so as not to stain his puma-skin cloak and doe britches - in the morning sun, he had dug into something that might have been an old grave. At least there was a bone in it that could have been human.

The villagers had come slouching around and there had been a wait while Pattie tore back to the courthouse and awakened Parson Staffor again. Only twenty-five of them had assembled. The others had said they were tired and asked for any food to be brought back to them.

Then there had been an argument about the shape of the grave hole. Jonnie had dug it oblong so the body could lie level, but when Staffor arrived he said it should be straight up and down, that graves were dug straight up and down because you could get more bodies into a graveyard that way. When Jonnie pointed out that there weren't any burials these days and there was plenty of room, Staffor told him off in front of everybody.

"You're too smart," Staffor rapped at him. "When we had even half a council they used to remark on it. Every few council meetings, some prank of yours would come up. You'd ridden to the high ridge and killed a goat. You'd gone clear up Highpeak and gotten lost in a blizzard and found your way back, you said, by following the downslope of the ground. Too smart. Who else trained six horses? Everybody knows graves should be straight up and down."

But they had buried his father lying flat anyway, because nobody else had wanted to do more digging and the sun was now past straight-up and it was getting hot.

Jonnie hadn't dared suggest what he really wanted to do. There would have been a riot.

He had wanted to put his father in the cave of the ancient gods, far up at the top of the dark canyon, a savage cleft in the side of the tallest peak. When he was twelve he had strayed up there, more trying out a pony than going someplace. But the way up the canyon had been very flat and inviting. He had gone for miles and miles and miles and then he had been abruptly halted by giant, vertical doors. They were of some kind of metal, heavily corroded. One couldn't see them from above or even from the canyon rims. They were absolutely huge. They went up and up.

He had gotten off his pony and climbed over the rubble in front of them and simply stared. He had walked all around in circles and then come back and stared some more.

After a while he had gotten brave and had walked up to them. But push as he might, he couldn't open them. Then he had found a latch-like bar and he had pried it off and it fell, just missing his foot. Rusted but very heavy.

He had braced his shoulder against one door, sure that it was a door, and pushed and pushed. But his twelve-year-old shoulder and weight hadn't had much effect on it.

Then he had taken the fallen bar and begun to pry it into the slight crack, and after a few minutes he had gotten a purchase with it.

There had been a horrible groaning sound that almost stood his hair up straight, and he dropped the bar and ran for the pony.

Once he was mounted, his fright ebbed a bit. Maybe it was just a sound caused by the rusted hinges. Maybe it wasn't a monster.

He had gone back and worked some more with the bar, and sure enough it was just the door groaning on the pins that held it.

An awful smell had come out of the cracked opening. The smell itself had made him afraid. A little light had been let in and he peeked inside.

A long flight of steps led down, remarkably even steps. And they would have been very neat, except . . .

The steps were covered by skeletons tumbled every which way. Skeletons in strips of clothing - clothing like he had never seen.

Bits of metal, some bright, had fallen among the bones.

He ran away again, but this time not as far as the pony. He had suddenly realized he would need proof.

Bracing his nerve to a pitch he had seldom before achieved, he went back and gingerly stepped inside and picked up one of the bits of metal. It had a pretty design, a bird with flying wings holding arrows in its claws, quite bright.

His heart almost stopped when the skull he had removed it from tipped sideways and went to powder before his very gaze, as though it reproached him with its gaping eyes for his robbery and then expired.

The pony had been in a white-coat lather when he pulled up in the village.

For two whole days he said nothing, wondering how best to ask his questions. Previous experience in asking questions had made him cautious.

Mayor Duncan was still alive at that time. Jonnie had sat quietly beside him until the big man was properly stuffed with venison and was quiet except for a few belches.

"That big tomb," Jonnie had said abruptly.

"What big what?" Mayor Duncan had snorted.

"The place up the dark canyon where they used to put the dead people. "

"What place?"

Jonnie had taken out the bright bird badge and shown it to Mayor Duncan.

Duncan had looked at it, twisting his head this way and that, twisting the badge this way and that.

Parson Staffor, brighter in those days, had reached across the fire in a sudden swoop and grabbed the badge.

The ensuing interrogation had not been pleasant: about young boys who went to places that were forbidden and got everybody in trouble and didn't listen at conferences where they had to learn legends and were too smart anyway.

Mayor Duncan, however, had himself been curious and finally pinned Parson Staffor into recounting an applicable legend.

"A tomb of the old gods," the parson had finally said. "Nobody has been there in living memory - small boys do not count. But it was said to exist by my great-grandfather when he was still alive - and he lived a long time. The gods used to come into these mountains and they buried the great men in huge caverns. When the lightning flashed on Highpeak, it was because the gods had come to bury a great man from over the water.

"Once thousands and thousands were living in big villages a hundred times the size of this one. These villages were to the east, and it is said there is the remains of one straight east where thousands lived. And the place was flat except for some hills. And when a great man died there the gods brought him to the tomb of the gods."

Parson Staffor had shaken the badge. "This was placed on the foreheads of the great when they were laid to rest in the great tomb of the gods. And that's what it is, and ancient law says that nobody is supposed to go there and everybody had better stay away from there forever - especially little boys." And he had put the badge in his pouch, and that was the last Jonnie ever saw of it. After all, Staffor was a holy man and in charge of holy things.

Nevertheless, Jonnie thought his father should have been buried in the tomb of the gods. Jonnie had never been back there again and thought of it only when he saw lightning hit Highpeak.

But he wished he had buried his father there.

"Are you worried?" asked Chrissie.

Jonnie looked down at her, his reverie broken. The dying fire wove a reddish sheen into her hair and sparked in her dark eyes.

"It's my fault," said Jonnie.

Chrissie smiled and shook her head. Nothing could be Jonnie's fault.

"Yes, it is," said Jonnie. "There's something wrong with this place. My father's bones . . . in the last year they just crumbled like that skeleton's in the tomb of the gods."

"The tomb of the what?" said Chrissie idly. If Jonnie wanted to talk nonsense it was all right with her. At least he was talking to her.

"I should have buried him there. He was a great man. He taught me a lot of things - how to braid grass-rope, how to wait for a puma to crouch before you stepped aside and hit him as he sprang: they can't turn in mid-air, you know. How to cut hide into strips . . . "

"Jonnie, you aren't guilty of anything."

"It was a bad funeral. "

"Jonnie, it's the only funeral I remember."

"No, it was not a good funeral. Staffor didn't preach a funeral sermon. "

"He talked. I didn't listen because I was helping gather strawberries, but I know he talked. Did he say something bad?"

"No. Only it didn't apply."

"Well, what did he say, Jonnie?"

"Oh, you know, all that stuff about god being angry with the people. Everybody knows that legend. I can quote it myself."

"Quote it."

Jonnie sniffed a little impatiently. But she was interested and it made him feel a little better.

"And then there came a day when god was wroth. And wearied he was of the fornicating and pleasure dallying of the people. And he did cause a wondrous cloud to come and everywhere it struck; the anger of god snuffed out the breath and breathing of ninety-nine out of a hundred men. And disaster lay upon the land and plagues and epidemics rolled and smote the unholy, and when it was done the wicked were gone and only the holy and righteous, the true children of the lord, remained upon the stark and bloodied field. But god even then was not sure and so he tested them. He sent monsters upon them to drive them to the hills and secret places, and lo the monsters hunted them and made them less and less until at last all men remaining were the only holy, the only blessed, the only sure righteous upon Earth. Hey man!"'

"Oh, that one. You say it very nicely, Jonnie."

"It's my fault," said Jonnie morosely. "I should have made my father listen. There is something wrong with this place. I am certain that if he had listened and we moved elsewhere, he would be alive today. I feel it!"

"Where else is there?"

"There's that whole great plain out there. Weeks of riding on it, I am sure. And they say man once lived in a big village out there."

"Oh, no, Jonnie. The monsters."

"I've never seen a monster."

"You've seen the shiny flashing things that sail overhead every few days."

"Oh, those. The sun and moon sail overhead too. So do the stars. And even shooting stars."

Chrissie was frightened suddenly. "Jonnie, you're not going to do something?"

"I am. With first light I am going to ride out and see if there really was a big village in the plains."

Chrissie felt her heart contract. She looked up at his determined profile. It was as though she was sinking down, down into the earth, as though she lay in today's grave.

"Please, Jonnie. "

"No, I'm going."

"Jonnie, I'll go with you."

"No, you stay here." He thought fast, something to deter her. "I may be gone for a whole year."

Water got into her sight. "What will I do if you don't come back?"

"I'll come back."

"Jonnie, if you don't come back in a year, I'll come looking for you." Jonnie frowned. He scented blackmail.

"Jonnie, if you're leaving, you see those stars up there? When they come back to the same place next year and you haven't returned, I will come looking."

"You'd be killed out in the plains. The pigs, the wild cattle... "

"Jonnie, that is what I will do. I swear it, Jonnie."

"You think I'd just wander off and never return?"

"That's what I will do, Jonnie. You can go. But that's what I will do."

The first dawn light was painting Highpeak rose. It was going to be a beautiful day.

Jonnie Goodboy was completing the packing of a lead horse. Windsplitter was sidling about, biting at the grass but not really eating. He had his eye on Jonnie. They were obviously going somewhere, and Windsplitter was not going to be left out.

Some wisps of smoke were coming from the breakfast fire of the Jimson family nearby. They were roasting a dog. Yesterday at the funeral feast nearly a score of dogs had gotten into an idiot fight. There had been plenty of bones and meat as well. But the pack had gotten into a fight and a big brindle had been killed. Looked like the Jimson family would have meat all day.

Jonnie was trying to keep his mind on petty details. And off Chrissie and Pattie, who were standing there watching him quietly.

Brown Limper Staffor was also there, idling about in the background. He had a clubfoot and should have been killed at birth, but he was the only child the Staffors had ever had, and Staffor was parson after all. Maybe mayor, too, since there wasn't any now.

There was no affection whatever between Jonnie and Brown Limper. During the funeral dancing, Brown had sat on the sidelines making sneering remarks about the dancing, about the funeral, about the meat, about the strawberries. But when he had made a remark about Jonnie's father - "Maybe never had a bone in the right place," - Jonnie had hit him a backhand cuff. Made Jonnie ashamed of himself, hitting a cripple.

Brown Limper stood crookedly, a faint blue bruise on his cheek, watching Jonnie get ready, wishes of bad luck written all over him. Two other boys of similar age - there were only five in the whole village who were in their late teens - wandered up and asked Brown what was going on. Brown shrugged.

Jonnie kept his mind carefully on his business. He was probably taking too much, but he didn't know what he'd run into. Nobody knew. In the two buckskin sacks he was roping on either side of the lead horse he had flint stones for fire, rat's nests for tinder, bundles of cut thongs, some sharp-edged rocks that were sometimes hard to find and cut indifferently well, three spare kill-clubs - one heavy enough to crush a bear's skull just in case - some warm robes that didn't stink very much, a couple of buckskins for spare clothes...

He gave a start. He hadn't realized Chrissie had come within a foot of him. He hoped he wouldn't have to talk.

Blackmail, that's what it was - plain as possible and all bad. If she'd said she would kill herself if he didn't come back, well, one could have put that down to girl vaporings. But threatening to follow him in a year put another shadow on it entirely. It meant he would have to be cautious. He'd have to be careful not to get himself killed. It was one thing to worry about his own life; he didn't care a snap for risk or danger. But the thought of Chrissie going down on the plains if he didn't come back made him snow-cold at the pit of his stomach. She'd be gored or mauled or eaten alive and every agonizing second of it would be Jonnie's fault. She had effectively committed him to caution and care just what she intended.

She was holding something out to him. Two somethings. One was a large bone needle with a thong hole in it, and the other was a skin awl. Both were worn and polished and valuable.

"They were mama's," said Chrissie.

"I don't need anything."

"No, you have them."

"I won't need them!"

"If you lose your clothes," she wailed, "how are you going to sew?"

The crowd had thickened. Jonnie didn't need any outbursts. He snatched the needle and awl out of her hand and unlashed the neck of a sack and dropped them in, made sure they hadn't missed and dropped out, and then relashed the sack.

Chrissie stood more quietly. Jonnie turned and faced her. He was a little bit shocked. There wasn't even a smudge of color in her face. She looked like she hadn't slept and had tick fever as well.

Jonnie's resolution wavered. Then beyond Chrissie he saw Brown Limper tittering and talking behind his hand to Petie Thommso.

Jonnie's face went tight. He grabbed Chrissie and kissed her hard. It was as though he had taken a board from an irrigation trough; the tears went down her cheeks.

"Now look," said Jonnie. "Don't you follow me!"

She made a careful effort to control her voice. "If you don't come back in a year, I will. By all the gods on Highpeak, Jonnie. "

He looked at her. Then he beckoned to Windsplitter, who sidled over. With one smooth spring he mounted, the lead rope of the other horse gripped in his hand.

"You can have my other four horses," said Jonnie to Chrissie. "Don't eat them; they're trained." He paused. "Unless you get awful hungry, of course, like in the winter."

Chrissie hung on to his leg for a moment and then she stepped back and sagged.

Jonnie thumped Windsplitter with a heel and they moved off. This was going to be no wild free ride to adventure. This was going to be a tiptoe scout with care. Chrissie had seen to that!

At the entrance to the defile he looked back. About fifteen people were still standing there watching him go. They all looked dejected. He used a heel signal to make Windsplitter rear and waved his hand. They all waved back with sudden animation.

Then Jonnie was gone down the dark canyon trail to the wide and unknown plains.

The rest of the people drifted off. Chrissie still stood there, hoping with a wild crazy hope that he would ride into sight, returning.

Pattie tugged at her leg. "Chrissie. Chrissie, will he come back?"

Chrissie's voice was very low, her eyes like ashes in a dead fire. "Goodbye," she whispered.

Terl belched. It was a polite way to attract attention, but the belch didn't make much impression through the whine and howl of machines in the transport department maintenance dome.

Zzt's concentration on his work became more marked. Minesite 16's transport chief had little use for the security head. Every time a tool or a car or fuel turned up missing - or something was broken - it got attention from security.

Three crashed cars were strewn about in various stages of reassembly, one of them very messy with splotches of green Psychlo blood in the interior upholstery. The big drills that dangled from the ceiling rails pointed sharp beaks this way and that, idling in their programming. Lathes with nothing in their jaws spun waiting for something to twist and shave. Belts snarled and slapped at each other.

Terl watched the surprisingly nimble talons of Zzt disassemble the small concentric shells of a high-speed jet engine. Terl had hoped to detect a small tremble or two in Zzt's paws - if the transport chiefs conscience was bothering him it would be much easier to do business. There was no tremble.

Zzt finished the disassembly and threw the last ring on the bench. His yellow orbs contracted as he looked at Terl. "Well? What have I done now?"

Terl lumbered closer and looked around. "Where are your maintenance men?"

"We're fifteen mechanics under complement. They were transferred to operations over the last month. I know it and you know it. So why are you here?"

As chief of security, Terl had learned through experience not to be very straightforward. If he simply asked for a manual reconnaissance plane, the transport chief would demand the emergency voucher, not get it, and say "No transport." And there were no emergencies for security on this dull planet. Not real ones. In hundreds of years of operation, there had not been the slightest security threat to Intergalactic Mining operations here. A dull security scene, and consequently the chief of that department was not considered very important. Apparent threats had to be manufactured with guile as their sole ingredient.

"I've been investigating a suspicion of conspiracy to sabotage transport," said Terl. "Kept me busy for the last three weeks." He eased his bulk back against a wrecked car.

"Don't lean on that recon. You'll dent its wing."

Terl decided it was better to be friendly and rumbled over to a stool at the bench where Zzt was working. "Confidentially, Zzt, I've had an idea that could get us some outside personnel. I'm working on it, and that's why I need a manual recon."

Zzt batted his eyebones and sat down on another stool, which creaked despairingly under his thousand-pound bulk.

"This planet," said Terl confidingly, "used to have a sentient race on it."

"What race was that?" asked Zzt suspiciously.

"Man," said Terl.

Zzt looked at him searchingly. A security officer was never noted for his sense of humor. Some had been known to bait and entrap and then file charges. But Zzt couldn't help himself. His mouthbones started to stretch, and even though he sought to control them, they spread and suddenly his laugh exploded in Terl's face. Zzt hastily got it under control and turned back to his bench to resume work.

"Anything else on your mind?" asked Zzt, as an afterthought.

This was not going well, thought Terl. Well, that's what happened when you were frank. It just didn't mix with security.

"This suspicion of conspiracy to sabotage transport," said Terl as he looked around at the wrecked cars with half-lowered eyebones, "could reach to high places."

Zzt threw down a wrench with a clang. A low snarl rumbled in him. He sat there, staring in front of him. He was thinking.

"What do you really want?" he asked at last. "A recon plane. For five or six days."

Zzt got up and yanked a transport schedule clipboard off the wall and studied it. He could hear Terl almost purring.

"You see this schedule?" said Zzt, pushing it under Terl's nose.

"Well, yes."

"Do you see where it has six drone recons assigned to security?"

"Of course."

"And do you see where this has been going on for -" Zzt peeled back sheet after sheet, '"- blast! For centuries I suppose."

"Have to keep a minesite planet under surveillance," said Terl complacently.

"Under surveillance for what?" said Zzt. "Every scrap of ore was spotted and estimated long before your and my living memory. There's nothing out there but mammals. Air organisms."

"There might be a hostile landing."

"Here?" sneered Zzt. "Company probes in outer space would detect it ages before it ever arrived here. Terl, transport has to fuel and maintain and recondition those drones two and three times a year. You know and I know the company is on an economy wave. Tell you what."

Terl waited sourly to be told.

"If you will let us cancel those recon drones, I'll put a triwheel ground cycle at your disposal for a limited time."

Terl let out a small shrill scream.

Zzt amended his bargain. "A ground car at your disposal when ordered."

Terl lumbered over to the crashed vehicle that had blood on its seats. "Wonder if this was caused by faulty maintenance."

Zzt stood there, unrelenting. The crash had been caused by too much kerbango on duty.

"One recon drone programmed to cover the whole planet once a month," said Zzt. "One ground car at your permanent disposal. "

Terl looked at the other wrecks but couldn't think of anything. These investigations were done and dead. Teach him to close investigations!

He wandered back to Zzt. "One drone recon programmed to cover the whole planet once a month. One armored and firepower ground car at permanent disposal with no questions on ammunition, breathe-gas, or fuel requisitions."

Zzt took the forms from the bench drawer and made them out. He shoved the papers and clipboard at Terl.

As he signed, Terl thought to himself that this transport chief really ought to be looked into. Maybe for ore robbery!

Zzt took the papers back and removed from the switchboard the combination keycard of the oldest and rattiest ground car that was gathering dust in the garage dome. He coupled it with a coupon book for ammo, another for breathe-gas, and another for fuel.

The deal would never actually become part of recorded history as a deal, for the dates of the orders were carefully not coincident. Neither suspected that they had just materially altered the future of the planet. And not for the better of Intergalactic. But that is sometimes the way with large commercial companies.

When Terl had left to get his Mark II (armored, firepower) ground car, Zzt thought to himself that it was wonderful what lies executives told just to be able to go hunting. Kill-mad they all were. Machine kill-mad, too, from the jam-ups he had to repair. What a story! Man a sentient race indeed! He laughed and got back to work.

Jonnie Goodboy Tyler galloped free across the vast ocean of grass, Windsplitter exuberantly stretching his legs, the lead horse rollicking along behind.

What a day. Blue sky and the wind a cooling freshness on his face.

Now two days out, he had come down from the mountains, through the foothills, and into the vastest plain he had ever imagined. He could still see the tiniest tip of Highpeak behind him, and with the sun it kept him true on course and reassured him that he could find his way home whenever he wanted.

Total security! The herds of wild cattle were many, but he had been living with those all his life. A few wolves, but what werewolves? No bear, no puma so far. Why, in all reverence to the gods, did anybody ever stay cooped up in the mountains?

And monsters - what monsters? Phage! Crazy tales!

Even that shiny, floating cylinder that had gone overhead every few days the whole of his life was overdue down here. It had come from west to east with the regularity of every other heavenly body, but even it seemed to have stopped. On his present course, he would have seen it.

In short, Jonnie Goodboy Tyler was suffering from a bad case of overconfidence. And the first disaster that hit him had to do with pigs.

Pigs were usually easy to kill - if you were a bit nimble and watched out for charges of the boars. And a small suckling pig was exactly what one could use for supper.

Right there ahead of him, clear in the late-afternoon light, was a compact herd of pigs out in the open. There were big ones and small ones, but they were all fat.

Jonnie pulled Windsplitter to a halt and slid off. The wind was not quite right, a bit too downwind to the pigs. They'd smell him if he approached directly.

With a bent-knee run, he brought himself silently around them until the wind was at right angles.

He stopped and hefted his club. The tall grass was nearly to his waist.

The pigs were rooting around a shallow depression in the plain, where water stood in the wet months, making a temporary marsh. There must be roots to be had there, Jonnie supposed. There were dozens of pigs, every one with his snout down.

With a crouching gait, staying below the grass tops, Jonnie went forward closing the distance yard by yard.

Only a few feet separated him now from the outermost fringe of pigs. Silently he rose until his eyes were just above the level of the grass. A small porker was only three arm-spans from him, an easy throw.

"Here's for supper," breathed Jonnie and heaved his kill-club straight and true at the head of the pig.

Dead on, a direct hit. The piglet out an earsplitting and dropped.

But that wasn't all that happened. Instant confusion roared.

Hidden from Jonnie by the tall grass and slightly behind him and to his right, a five-hundred-pound boar who had become tired of eating had lain down for a nap.

The squeal of the hit pig acted like a whip on the whole herd, and away they went in an instant charge, straight upwind at Jonnie's horses.

For the big boar, to see was to charge.

Jonnie felt like he had been struck by a mountain avalanche. He was knocked flat and squashed in instants so close together they felt like one.

He rolled. But the whole sky over him was filled with boar belly. He didn't see but he sensed the teeth and tusks trying to find him.

He rolled again, the savage squeals mixing with the roaring pound of the blood in his ears.

Once more he rolled and this time he saw daylight and a back.

In the blink of an eye, he was on the boar's back.

He reached an arm across the throat.

The boar spun around and around like a bucking horse.

Jonnie's arm tightened until he could feel his sinews crack.

And then the boar, strangled, dropped into a limp, jerking pile.

Jonnie unloaded quickly and backed up. The boar was gasping its breath back. It lurched to unsteady feet, and, seeing no opponent, staggered off.

Jonnie went over and picked up the small pig, keeping an eye on the departing boar. But the boar, although it cast about and made small convulsive charges, still couldn't see anybody, and after a bit, it trotted in the direction the herd had taken, following the trampled grass.

There was no herd insight.

And there were no horses!

No horses! Jonnie stood there with the dead pig. He had no sharp rock to cut it. He had no flints to start a fire and roast it. And he had no horses.

It might be worse. He looked at his legs, expecting to see tusk gashes. But he found none. His back and face ached a bit from the collision of the charge and his own collision with the ground, but that was all.

Mentally kicking himself, more ashamed than scared, he made off in the direction of the trail of crushed grass. After a while his depression wore off a bit, to be replaced by optimism. He began to whistle a call. The horses would not have just gone on running in front of the pigs. They would have veered off somewhere.

Just as darkness was falling he spotted Windsplitter calmly cropping grass. The horse looked up with a "Where have you been?" and then, with a plainly mischievous grin, as though he had intended to all the time, came over and bumped Jonnie with his muzzle.

It took another ten minutes of anxious casting about to locate the lead horse and the packs.

Jonnie went back a short way to a little spring they'd passed and made camp. There he made himself a belt and a pouch, and into the latter, he put tinder and flint and some small, sharp-edged stones. He put a stronger thong on the big kill club and fastened it to the belt. He wasn't going to be caught empty-handed a second time in this vast prairie. No indeed.

That night he dreamed of Chrissie being strangled by pigs, Chrissie mauled by bears, Chrissie crushed to a pulp under stampeding hoofs while he stood helpless in the sky where the spirits go, unable to do a damned thing.

The "Great Village" where "thousands had lived" was obviously another one of those myths, like monsters. But he would look for it nonetheless.

By the half-light of the yellowing dawn, Jonnie was again trotting eastward.

The plain was changing. Some features about it didn't seem usual, such as those mounds. Jonnie detoured from his way into the sun to look at one of them.

He stopped, leaning forward with a hand braced on Windsplitter's shoulder, to study the place.

It was a little sort of hill, but it had a hole in the side. A rectangular hole. Otherwise, the mound was all covered with dirt and grass. Some freak of nature? A window opening?

He slid off his horse and approached it. He walked around it. Then he paced it out. It was about thirty-five paces long and ten paces wide. Hah! Maybe the mound was rectangular too!

An old, splintered stump stood to one side and Jonnie appropriated a jagged piece of it.

He approached the window and, using a scrap of wood, began to push away the grass edges. It surprised him that he seemed to be digging not in earth but in loose sand.

When he got the lower part of the rectangle cleared, he could get right up to it and look into it.

The mound was hollow.

He backed up and looked at his horses and then around at the countryside. There wasn't anything menacing there.

He bent over and started to crawl into the mound.

And the window bit him!

He straightened right up and looked at his wrist.

It was bleeding.

It wasn't a bad cut. It was that he was cut at all that startled him.

Very carefully he looked at the window.

It had teeth!

Well, maybe they weren't teeth. They were dull-bright and had a lot of colors in them and they stood all around the outside edges of the frame. He pulled one of them out - they were very loose. He took a bit of thong from his belt and tried it.

The wonder of wonders, the tooth readily cut the thong, far better than the best rock edge.

Hey, he thought, delighted, look what I got! And with the greatest care - for the things did bite unless you were carefulremoveoved the splinters, big and small, from the frame and stacked them neatly. He went to his pack and got a piece of buckskin and wrapped them up. Valuable! You could cut and skin and scrape something wonderful with these things. Some kind of rock. Or this mound was the skull of some strange beast and these were the remains of its teeth. Wonderful!

When he had them all and they were carefully stowed in his pack - except one nice bit he put in his belt pouch - he returned to the task of entering the mound.

There was nothing to bite him now and he climbed through the rectangle. There wasn't any pit. The level of the inside seemed to be a bit higher than the outside ground.

A sudden flurry startled him half out of his wits. But it was just a bird that had a nest in here, and it left through the window with a rustle of wings. Once outside, it found a place to sit and began to scold and scold.

Jonnie fumbled his way through the dimness. There wasn't much there, mainly rust. But there had been things there; he could tell from the rust piles and wall marks.

Walls? Yes, the place had walls. They were of some sort of rough stone or something, very evenly fitted together in big square blocks.

Yes, these were walls. No animal made anything like this.

And no animal made anything like this tray. It must have been part of something else, now turned to reddish powder. At the bottom of the powder were some circular discs about as big as three thumbnails. And at the bottom of the pile of discs was one that was almost bright.

Jonnie picked it up and turned it over. He caught his breath.

He moved over to the window where there was better light. There could be no mistake.

It was the big bird with spread wings and arrows gripped in its claws.

The same sign he had found in the tomb.

He stood in quivering excitement for a bit and then calmed down. He had it now. The mystery was solved. And he went back out the window and showed Windsplitter.

"God house," said Jonnie. "This is where they stayed while waiting to take great men up to the tomb. Pretty, isn't it?"

Windsplitter finished chewing a mouthful of grass and gave Jonnie a shove in the chest. It was time they were going.

Jonnie put the disc in his belt pouch. Well, it was no Great Village, but it proved definitely that there were things to find out here in the plains. Walls, imagine that. Those gods could build walls.

The bird stopped scolding in some relief as Jonnie mounted up and moved away. It looked after the little cavalcade and then, with a couple more criticisms, went back inside the ancient ruin.

- 9ThereTerl was as happy as a baby Psychlo on a diet of straicurbingango. Although it was late in the day, he was on his way!

He steered the Mark II ground car down the ramp, through the atmosphere port, and into the open air.

There was a warning plaque on the ledge in front of the driver's seat:

BATTLE READINESS MUST BE OBSERVED AT ALL TIMES!

Although this tank is compression contained, personal face masks and independent breathing systems must be kept in place. Personal and unauthorized battle is use prohibited. (signed) Political Department, Intergalactic Mining Company, Vice-Director SzTellTerl grinned at the sign. In the absence of political officers - on a planet where there was no indigenous politics - and in the absence of a war department - on a planet that had nothing to war against - the chief of security covered both those functions. That this old battle car existed on the planet at all meant that it must be very, very old and in addition must have gotten there as a result of fixed allocations of vehicles to company stations. Clerks in Planet 1, Galaxy 1 offices were not always well-advised when they wrote their endless directives and orders to the far-flung outposts of the commercial empire. Tell threw his personal face mask and tank onto the gunner's seat beside him and rubbed a thankful paw over his craggy face.

What a lark! The old car ran like a well-greased digger. Small, not more than thirty feet long and ten feet high, it skimmed above the ground like a low-flying wingless bird. Cunning mathematics had contoured it so that every exterior surface would make a hostile projectile glance off at an angle. Missile-proof glass slots gave a fine view of the terrain. Even the blast muzzles of its artillery were cleverly recessed. The interior upholstery, though worn and cracked in places, was a beautiful soothing shade of purple.

Tell felt good. He had five days of jet fuel and breathe-gas and five days of rations in their ten-pound packs. He had cleaned up every scrap of paper in his baskets and had started no new "emergencies." He had a "borrowed" shaft analysis picto-recorder that would take great pictures when put to other uses. And he was on his way!

A break in the dull life of a security chief on a planet without insecurities. A planet that wasn't likely to produce many opportunities for an ambitious security chief to get promotion and advancement.

It had been a gut blow when they ordered him to Earth. He wondered at once what he had done, whom he had accidentally insulted, whose bad side he had gotten on, but they assured him that none of these was the case. He was young. A Psychlo had a life span of about 190 years, and Terl had been only 39 when he had been appointed. It was pointed out to him that few ever became security chiefs at such a tender age. It would show in his record that he had been one. And when he came back from the duty tour, they would see. Plums, like planets you could breathe on, went to older Psychlos.

He had not been fooled, really. Nobody in security personnel pool, Planet 1, Galaxy 1 had wanted anything at all to do with this post. He could hear the future assignment interview now.

"Last post?"

"Earth."

"Where?"

"Earth, rim star, third planet, secondary galaxy 16."

"Oh. What did you accomplish on that post?"

"It's all in the record."

"Yes, but there's nothing in the record."

"There must be something. Let me see it."

"No, no. Confidential company record."

And then the final horror: "Employee Terl, it just happens that we have an opening in another rim star system, Galaxy 32. It's a quiet place, no indigenous life and no atmosphere at all . . . ."

Or even worse: "Employee Terl, Intergalactic has been dropping for some time on the exchange and we have orders to economize. I'm afraid your record doesn't recommend continued employment. Don't call us. We'll call you."

He already had a bit of scribble on the wall. A month ago he'd received word that his tour of duty had been extended and there was no mention of his relief. A little bit of horror had touched him, a vision of a 190-year-old Terl tottering around on this same planet, long forgotten by friends and family, ending his days in a dome-crazy stupor, lowered into a slit-trench grave, and ticked off the roster by a clerk who kept the records neat - but didn't know a single face on them.

Such questionable fates required action - big action.

There were better daydreams: waiting in a big entrance hall, uniformed ushers at attention but one of them whispering to another, "Who's that?" And the other, "Don't you know? That's Terl." And the big doors opening - "The president of the company is waiting to thank you, sir. Please come this way. . . ."

According to the mine surveys there was an ancient highway to the north of here. Terl flipped the ground car onto auto and spread out a big map. There it was, running east and west. And west was where he wanted to go. It would be busted up and overgrown, maybe even hard to spot. But it would have no steep grades and it would run squarely up into the mountains. Terl had drawn a big circle around the target meadow.

There was the "highway" ahead.

He threw the controls to manual and fumbled a bit. He hadn't driven one of these things since security school years ago, and his uncertain control made the car yaw.

He zoomed up the side embankment of the road and yanked back the throttles and pawed the brakes. The car slammed to earth in a geysering puff of dust, square in the center of the highway. It was a pretty jolting stop but not bad, not bad. He'd get better at it.

He picked up his face mask and tank and donned them. Then he hit the decompression button so the tanks would recontain the breathe-gas without waste. There was a momentary vacuum, a trifle uncomfortable on the hearing bones, and then with a sigh, the outside air entered the cab.

Terl swung open the top hatch and stood up on the seat, the tank creaking and shuddering under his repositioned weight. The wind felt cool outside the borders of his face mask.

He gazed around with some distaste. This sure was wide country. And empty. The only sound was the whisper of wind in the grass. And the sound of silence, vast silence. Even a far-off bird call made the silence heavier.

The earth was tan and brown. The grass and occasional shrubs were green. The sky was an expansive blue, specked with white puffs of clouds. A strange country. People on home planet wouldn't believe it. No purple anywhere.

With a sudden inspiration Terl reached down into the car and grabbed the picto-recorder. He aimed it in a sweeping circle, letting it grind away. He'd send his folks a spool of this. Then they'd believe him when he said it was one horns-awful of a planet and maybe sympathize with him.

"My daily view," he said into the recorder as he finished the sweep. The words rumbled through his mask, sounding sad.

There was something purple. Straight west there were some mountains and they looked purple. He put the picto-recorder down and grinned at the mountains so far away. This was better than he thought. No wonder men lived up in the mountains. They were purple. Maybe the men were a bit sentient after all. He hoped so, but not with any great confidence; he was probably optimistic. But it gave some substance to his nebulous plans.

Still looking westward, he suddenly caught sight of a landscape feature between himself and the mountains: a distant skyline silhouetted against the declining sun. He shifted a lever on his face mask glass to get magnification. The skyline leaped closer. Yes, he was right. There was a ruined city. Fuzzy and broken but the buildings still very tall. And quite extensive.

The wind fluttered his mine map as he looked at it. The ancient highway ran straight west into it. Reaching down, he took a massive tome off the pile he had on the rear crew seat and opened it to a marked place. There was an insert drawing on the page - some cultural artist had sketched it a few centuries ago.

The company had used air-breathing Chinkos for cultural posts on planets where there was air. The Chinkos had come from Galaxy 2, beings as tall as Psychlos but thread-thin and delicate. They were an old race, and the Psychlos didn't like to admit they had learned what they knew of cultural arts from them. But they had been easy to transport, despite breathing air and being feather-light. And they were cheap. Alas, they were no more, not even in Galaxy 2, having initiated a strike of all things. Intergalactic had wiped them out. But that was long after the culture and ethnology department had been terminated on Earth. Terl had never seen a Chinko. Remarkable beings, drawing pictures like this. Colorful too. Why would anybody draw something?

He compared the distant skyline to the sketch. Aside from a bit of blunting and crumbling in the ensuing years, they were the same.

The text said, "To eastward of the mountains lies the ruin of a man-city, remarkably well preserved. It was man-called 'Denver.' It is not as aesthetically advanced as those in the middle or eastern part of the continent. The usual miniature doors have little or no ornamentation. The interiors are no more than slightly oversized dollhouses. Utility rather than artistry seems to have been the overall architectural purpose. There are three cathedrals, which were apparently devoted to the worship of different heathen gods, showing that the culture was not monosectarian even though it may have been dominated by priesthoods. One god, 'bank,' seems to have been more general in worship. There was a man-library remarkably well stocked with books. The department sealed some of the library rooms after removing to archives the only important volumes - those on mining. As no ore bodies were evident under the foundations and no valuable ore materials were employed by the indigenous population in its construction, the man-city remains in a remarkable state of preservation, aided in part by the dry climate. The cost of further restoration is being requisitioned."

Terl laughed to himself. No wonder the culture and ethnology department had been phased out on this planet, if it was applying for credits to reconstruct man-cities! He could hear the counterblast from the directors now. They'd fair put a shaft through the heads of such arty types.

Well, it was data he might use in his plans. Who knew?

He got back to the business at hand. There was the highway stretching out. He was right in the middle of it. It was a couple of hundred feet wide at this point and it could be clearly discerned. It probably had two or three feet of sand on top of it, but the growing grass was uniform and the shrubs to either side, not being able to put down roots directly on it, defined between their two edge rows a straight course.

Terl took another look around. There were some cattle, a small herd of horses in the distance. Nothing worth shooting - since no Psychlo could eat meat of that metabolism - nothing dangerous enough to offer sport. It was luxurious to have time to think about hunting and even to be equipped for it - and even more luxurious not to do it! He had a bigger game going anyway.

He dropped down into the driver's seat and punched the buttons to close the top. The unbreathable air exhausted from the cab and was replaced by proper gas. He took off his face mask, contrary to regulations, and dropped it on the gunner's seat. The purple interior was a relief to his nerves.

This confounded planet! It even looked bad through the purple tint of in the windscreens.

He glanced again at the map. Now was the time for some luck. He knew he couldn't go up into the mountains themselves due to the uranium the recon drones always indicated in that area. But the recon drones also reported that these man-things sometimes came down to the mountain foothills, which were safe enough.

Terl thought over his plans again. They were beautiful plans. Personal wealth, personal power. The recon drones had told him more than others knew. The scans had pointed out a vein of almost solid gold, uncovered by a landslide after Intergalactic surveys were finalized. A delicious, fabulously rich vein of gold in plain sight, a vein about which the company was ignorant - since the landslide was recent and Terl had destroyed the records. A joke on Zzt to propose no more recon drones over the area!

The uranium count in that area of the mountains was formidable and so no Psychlo could mine it. Even a few bits of uranium-dust could explode Psychlo breathe-gas.

Terl smiled at his own genius. All he needed was a man-thing and then a few more man-things. They could mine it, and to blast with uranium. Somehow he would get the gold off the planet and home, and he had ideas about how he could do that too. Then wealth and power! And no more of this place!

All the security chief had to do was keep others from suspecting what he was really doing, to advertise quite other reasons. But Terl was an expert at that.

If he were truly lucky he could catch a man-thing this side of the meadow. He did not have too much time to lie in wait. He felt lucky.

The sun was very low, thanks to his late start. He'd lie up in that man-city for the night, sleeping in the car.

He sent the Mark II skimming along the ancient highway.

A skyline!

Jonnie Goodboy Tyler pulled up with a yank so sudden he startled Windsplitter into a rear.

There it was, straight east. It wasn't hills or mountains. It wasn't some trick of the eye. It was sharp and rectangular.

He had been so unconvinced.

When he had left the ancient ruin, he found a very easy way to travel. It was almost as if the ruin with the window had once had a broad path leading to it.

There were shrubs on the right and shrubs on the left, two rows about two hundred feet apart that dwindled eastward into the distance. Underfoot there was fairly even grass. You had to watch it a bit because there were shallow gullies in places. When you looked down between these little gullies, there was something gray-white. Jonnie had inspected it with care. He had gotten down and dug at the edges of such a crack and it seemed that the gray-white stuff was continuous.

Just like the inner walls of the ruin.

Maybe it was a wall of the ancients, fallen over sideways. But no, it would have cracked as it fell.

Outside the courthouse at home, level stones had been laid as pavement. But who wanted a pavement two hundred feet wide? And hours journey long? For what?

This big path had not been used for a long time. If it was a path. It went between hillocks that had been sliced into and it went across watercourses - although it was pretty irregular and broken in these.

He had been excited about a while, but then he got used to it and devoted his attention mainly to keeping Windsplitter from tripping in the little gullies.

When he was a little boy, one of the families had had a wheeled cart they hauled firewood in, and he had been told that once there had been a lot of carts, even one that was pulled by a mare. Well, you could sure roll a cart on this wide turf. And roll it fast and far.

But as to the Great Village, he was coming to believe as the afternoon wore on that somebody had probably seen that god house back there and multiplied it in his imagination.

And then suddenly there it was!

But was it?

He put Windsplitter up to a trot regardless of the little gullies. In the clear air the skyline wasn't coming his way very fast. It even appeared to be receding.

He stopped. Maybe it was a trick of the eye after all. But no, the lines it made were up and down and flat on top and there was an awful lot of it.

It wasn't hills or mountains. Only building sides could be that regular.

He started up again, more sedately, remembering now to be careful. And after a while he could see that he was getting closer.

The sun was coming down and he wasn't there yet. The prospect of entering that place in the dark was definitely not cheering. Who knew what it might be full of? Ghosts? Gods? People?

Monsters? Ah, no. Not monsters. They were just the stuff mamas frightened their kids to sleep with.

He pulled off the path where it crossed a stream and made camp. He warmed up some of his roasted pork and then cut it with one of the sharp, shiny things he had taken out of the window.

My, he marveled, imagine anything cutting like that. It would make life a real pleasure. You had to watch it not to cut your own fingers, as he had already done twice, slightly. Maybe you could bed the cutting edge in wood or something for a handle. Then you would really have something.

After supper he built up his fire to keep the wolves off - a couple was sitting over there now, amber-eyed in the reflected firelight and looking hungry.

"Runaway," shouted Jonnie, "or I'll be wearing your hides." But the wolves just sat there.

Windsplitter and the lead horse didn't want to go away from the fire. The wolves made them nervous. So Jonnie picked up a couple of rocks, fist-sized, from the nearby stream bed.

He wasn't interested in hunting wolves, but his horses had to find grass.

He threw a pork bone about ten feet beyond the fire and in the direction of the wolves.

Big rangy things they were. One slunk forward, belly low, snarling to reach the pork bone. In a moment the wolf's attention would be fixed on the bone.

Jonnie's arm blurred. The far wolf caught the rock squarely between his eyes.

Jonnie's arm blurred again. The near wolf didn't jump in time and he too was a dead wolf.

Jonnie said to Windsplitter, "I got to do all the work, is that it?" And he walked over to the far wolf and hauled the carcass to the fire. Then he dragged the closer one in. Nope, neither one had a pelt worth taking at this time of the year. And they had ticks too.

"Go on and eat," he told the horses.

He built up the fire again, just in case the wolves had friends, and rolled up his robes. Tomorrow was going to be the day.

Jonnie approached the Great Village cautiously -

He was up before first light, and the yellow dawn found him in the outskirts of the place, peering, halting, looking closer at the strange sights, nervous.

Sand lay over everything, and grass and even scrub grew in the wide paths between the buildings.

He gave a start every time a rabbit or a rat came tearing out of the ancient structures, disturbed by his footfalls. Even though the hoofs were muffled by the grass and sand, the silence of the place was so intense that any disturbance of it seemed overloud.

He had never heard an echo before to notice it. The return of sound caused him a great deal of worry. For a little while he thought there must be another horse walking in the distance. But at last he worked it out.

He hit his wrist kill-club against the one in his belt and promptly heard the same sound repeated softly like a mockery. He waited but no further mock occurred. Then he hit the clubs together again and the same sound returned. He decided it didn't happen unless he did it first.

He looked about him. To both his left and his right were the tall remains of buildings, very tall indeed. Pitted by wind erosion, discolored by endless centuries of weather, they still stood, flat and even and imposing. Astonishing. Whoever could build such things? Gods, perhaps?

He eyed the massive size of the building blocks. No man could lift one by himself.

Jonnie sat his horse in the middle of what must have been the main path of the "Great Village." He frowned, straining to comprehend the building of such a place. Many men? But how could they reach so high?

He concentrated laboriously. Gradually he could conceive that if one built up steps of logs, and if many, many men put ropes around a block, and if they carried it up the steps and then took the steps away, they might have done it. Marvelous, dizzy, and dangerous. But it was possible.

Satisfied that it didn't need gods or monsters to have made this place, and therefore very relieved, he continued his exploration.

He wondered whether some odd kind of tree had grown along this path. He got down and looked at the stump of one. It was hard and jagged. It had been hollow and it was deep in the strange rock. It wasn't wood. It was a reddish metal, and when you scraped away the red powder, underneath was black. He looked up and down both sides of the wide path. The placing of these things was very precise. Although he couldn't figure out what they were for, it was obvious that, like buildings, they were placed objects.

The innumerable windows surrounded him, seeming to stare back at him. The morning sun had come now and it shone into those that faced it. Here and there were vast surfaces of the shiny stuff he had collected from the mound on the plain. It was not clear; it was whitish and bluish like cataracts on an old man's eyes. But there were whole sheets of it in some places. He began to realize it was some kind of covering, perhaps to keep out the cold and heat and yet let in light. People at home sometimes did that, using the tissue of animal stomachs. But those who had built the Great Village had access to some kind of rock or hard substance that came in sheets. They must have been very clever people.

He saw a great yawning doorway ahead of him. The doors had fallen away and lay there half-buried in the sand. The inside of the building gaped darkly.

Jonnie walked his horse through the door and looked about in the dimness. Debris was scattered all about, rotted and decayed beyond identification. But a waist-high series of platforms stood; they were of a remarkably white stone that had bluish veins in it.

He leaned down from his horse and stared at the walls behind them. There were heavy, heavy doors set into it, two of them ajar, one of the wide open. Big wheels of still bright metal were inset into them.

Jonnie stepped to the platforms of white stone and dropped to the other side. Cautiously he approached the open niche.

There were shelves, and on the shelves, tangled with rotted remains of some kind of sacking, were mounds and mounds and mounds of discs. Some were a dull gray, almost tarnished away, but one pile was bright yellow.

Jonnie picked up a disc. It was as wide across as two fingernails and remarkably heavy. He turned it over and his eyes bugged.

Here was that bird again! Talons gripping a bundle of arrows. Hastily he pawed into the other mounds, looking at disc after disc. Most of them had a bird on one side. The face of a man, the faces of different men, were on the other.

The face of a man!

And some of them had women on them.

This was not a god symbol. This was a man symbol.

The bird with the arrows belonged to man!

The shock of it sent him reeling. He supported himself against the wall of the niche for minutes. He felt his head buzzing with the readjustment of ideas.

These doors to the niches were man-made. The Great Village was man-made. The doors of the tomb in the mountains were of similar material even if larger.

The tomb was not a god tomb. The mound out on the plain was also man-made.

Man had once built things - he was certain of it.

And it would take many men to make this Great Village. Therefore there must have been many men at one time.

He rode his horse out of the place in a deep daze. His most basic ideas and values had suffered severe shifts and it took a lot of getting used to. What legends were true? Which ones were false?

There was the legend of the Great Village and here it was. Man had obviously made it and had lived here in forgotten times.

Maybe the legend of god getting angry with man and wiping him out was true. And maybe it wasn't. Maybe it had just been a big storm.

He looked around the paths and buildings. There was no evidence of a storm: the buildings were still standing. Many even had that strange thin sheeting in the windows. There were no bodies about, but from a time so long ago, bones wouldn't last.

And then he saw a structure that had its doors firmly closed and sheets of metal fastened where the windows should be, and looking closer, he saw that a huge metal clamp sealed the place. He got down and inspected the clamp.

It was of a different age than the village: there was no tarnish on it at all. It was old, but not that old.

Something or someone at some time had pushed aside the sand in front of the doors. It was grass-grown sand but it had been disturbed.

Jonnie frowned. This building was not like the rest. It was in a fair state of preservation. Somebody had put metal sheets on the windows and the metal was quite different from any in the rest of the town: it showed no signs of corrosion.

Somebody had given this building special treatment.

He backed up to get a better overall view. It was indeed a different kind of building. Fewer windows. Block solid.

As an experienced tracker, Jonnie studied the time differences here. Long, long after the "village" had been abandoned, somebody had made access to this place, made a path, even dug a path in and out of the doors, and then fastened the doors thoroughly. But even that had been a long time ago.

Curious, he scanned the front facade. One of the metal window covers was loose. It was higher than his head so he stood on his horse and pried at it. It gave a little bit. Encouraged, he shoved the handle of his kill club into the crack, and with a protesting whine, the cover suddenly sprang loose, startling Windsplitter, who moved off.

Jonnie held on to the ledge, his feet dangling.

He pulled himself up. The transparent sheeting under the cover was still in place. He took his kill club and managed to hit it.

The crash and tinkle of the stuff as it fell was shockingly loud in this quiet place.

Experienced now with the cutting quality of this stuff, Jonnie hung on to the ledge with one arm and cleaned up the jagged bits from one side of the frame and dusted off the ledge.

He pulled himself through.

The place was so dark that it took quite a while to see anything. The light was coming through in thin cracks where other windows remained covered. At length, his eyes adjusted and he dropped cautiously down into the huge room. Now that he was not blocking the window's light he could see quite well.

Dust and sand were only a filmy cover over things. There were tables and tables and tables and chairs and chairs and chairs, all marshaled in orderly rows. But they were not the interesting things.

Almost every wall was covered with shelving. The stacks of shelves even protruded out into the room. Somebody had covered them with a sheeting you could see through. Something lay under the sheeting on every shelf.

Jonnie approached cautiously. He carefully removed the fastenings to the sheeting and looked behind it.

Queer, thick rectangles stood on these shelves. Rows of them. At first, he thought it was all one piece and then he found that one could remove a single rectangle. He took one off the shelf.

It almost fell to pieces in his hands!

Awkwardly, he juggled to hold it together and then succeeded. What a strange object! It was a box that wasn't a box. The covers slid sideways away from each other, enclosing a packet of thin, remarkably thin slices that had black marks on them, lots of little, tiny black marks all in orderly rows. What a strange object! How complicated!

He put the first one back on the shelf and took a second, smaller one. It too fell open.

Jonnie found himself staring at a picture.

It didn't have depth. At first, it seemed to, but his finger told him it was just a flat plane. The object there was a big red circle, much bigger than a strawberry, much smoother. It had a stem. And alongside it there was a black tent with a crossbar in the middle of it.

He turned the sheet. There was a picture of a bee. No bee was ever that big, but this was certainly a bee. It too looked three-dimensional until his finger told him it wasn't. And a black thing beside it had two bulges on it.

Jonnie turned another sheet. There was a cat - a small cat, to be sure, but it was definitely a cat. And it had a curved black thing beside it like a new moon.

A few pages later there was a picture of a fox. And besides it was a black pole with two flags coming off it.

Suddenly a quiver went through Jonnie. He held his breath. He grabbed the first object he had taken and pried it open again. There was the tent. There was the bee's black mark. Yes - and there was the pole with two flags.

He held the two rectangles, his head in a whirl. He stared at them.

There was a meaning here. Foxes? Bees? Cats? Tents, bulges, new moons?

These things had meanings in them!

But about what? Animals? Weather?

He could sort all that out later. He crowded the two rectangles into his belt pouch. Anything that was connected to weather and animals had value. Rectangles with meaning in them. The idea made bright lights pop in your skull.

He replaced the protective sheet, went back out the window, replaced the metal covering as well as he could, and whistled Windsplitter over, dropping down to the horse's back.

Jonnie looked around him expansively. Who knew what things of enormous value were in the Great Village? He felt rich, excited.

There was no reason at all for his people to stay cooped up there in the mountains. Here was shelter and to spare. There was firewood growing in the streets. Here were rooms and rooms and rooms!

And come to think of it, he felt better since he had been away from the mountain meadow. Better physically.

And it hadn't taken a year - actually just a few days.

He gathered up the lead rope of his packhorse and they trotted briskly along the wide paths toward the eastern part of the Great Village.

Although his eyes were busy taking it all in, his mind was engrossed in organizing a migration from the mountains down to this place: what he would have to pick up for evidence to convince them; what he was going to say to Stafford; how they could transport their goods . . . maybe build a cart? Maybe there were carts right here in the Great Village. He could round up some horses. These piles of red dust he saw along either side of the wide paths from time to time might once have been carts of a sort. It was hard to figure out what shape they had really had, they were so caved in. The impression of a wheel. Sheets of translucent rock. No, they hadn't been horse carts, or had they? He began to look at such objects more closely. And then he saw the insect.

It was very bright daylight now. And there it sat. There could be no mistaking it.

Alien.

Surely it must be an insect. Only cockroaches looked like that. Or beetles. No, cockroaches.

But there were no cockroaches that big. Not thirty feet long and ten feet high and maybe twelve feet side to side.

A horrible brown color. And smooth.

Jonnie had stopped, the lead horse bunched up behind. The thing was sitting squarely in the middle of the wide path. It seemed to have two eyes in front, slit. There was nothing like this on the plains or in the mountains, and he had seen nothing like it in the Great Village center. It looked new, with very little dust on it, and shiny.

He felt it was alive. There was something about it. Yes, alive. Not inanimate metal but a living thing. Then he saw what made him think so.

There had been a slight rocking motion. Something moved behind the slitted eyes.

Jonnie, making no sudden movements, turned Windsplitter and, pulling the lead horse, began to move away in the direction from which he had approached. He had already noted that these paths were mostly rectangular and that you could go all the way around a group of buildings and come back to the same place.

There was the open country to the east, not very far. He would go down a side path and then circle back and get out into the plains. Hopefully, he could outrun it. If it moved.

There was an earsplitting roar!

Jonnie glanced back in terror. The thing rose up three feet above the ground. Dust flew from below it. It began to inch forward. It was alive!

He put Windsplitter into a gallop straight down the street. He passed one corner path, two. The thing was falling behind. It was now two corners back.

He swerved Windsplitter up a side path, yanking the lead horse with him. They reached another corner and again he turned. Up ahead were two tall buildings. He'd keep going and reach the open country. He'd make it.

And then suddenly there was a sheet of flame. Ahead of him the right-hand building exploded apart. Its top slid slowly down and into the street ahead, blocking it.

Spattered with dust, Jonnie hauled up short.

He could hear the roaring of the thing somewhere beyond the rubble. He listened, holding his breath. The position of the roar was changing. It was shifting to the right.

He traced it with his ears. It was going on down the other street. Now it was level with him. Now it was getting behind him.

The thing had somehow blocked the street ahead of him and then gone on, planning to come up behind him.

He was trapped.

Jonnie looked at the smoking mound of fresh rubble ahead of him. It rose twenty feet above the pavement, a steep barricade.

There was no panic in him now. He slowed the hard pounding of his heart. The thing to do was wait until the monster was right in the street behind him - then go over that barricade.

He sidled Windsplitter back to get a good run.

The thing was roaring down the side path behind him. Now it was turning. He glanced back. There it was, wisps of smoke coming out of its nostrils.

Jonnie put the heel to Windsplitter. He yanked on the lead rope.

"EEYAH!" shouted Jonnie:

The horses sprinted at the barricade. Rough and full of loose stones. Dangerous.

Up they scrambled. Rubble slid. Pray the gods no broken legs.

Up they went.

They hit the top. One glance back showed the thing rolling up to the very bottom of the barricade.

Jonnie sent the horses down in a turmoil of tumbling debris.

They hit the street before them at a run and kept running.

The walls racketed with the thunder of their run. Jonnie swerved through a checkerboard of paths, edging to the open country.

He could not hear the roaring thing now over the powerful thud of the running hoofs.

Further and further. The buildings were thinning. He saw open country between two structures to his right and skidded down off the embankment and raced for freedom.

As soon as he had free running space everywhere but toward the town, he slowed.

Windsplitter and the lead horse were blowing and puffing. He walked them until they caught their breath, casting his eyes restlessly up and down the edges of the town behind them.

Then he caught the roaring again. He strained his eyes, watching.

There it was!

It slid out from among the buildings and started straight toward him.

He put the horses up to a trot.

The thing was closing the distance.

He put the horses up to a run.

The thing not only closed the distance but started to pass him.

Jonnie swerved at right angles.

The thing banked into a turn and flashed by him, went well ahead, turned, and blocked his way.

Jonnie pulled up. There it was, ugly, roaring, gleaming.

He turned around and began to run away from it.

It let out a blasting roar, scorched by him, and again stopped, blocking his way.

Jonnie's face tightened into determination.

He took his biggest kill club from his belt. He put the thong solidly on his wrist. He cast off the lead horse.

Walking Windsplitter, he went up ahead of the thing. It didn't move. He went about a hundred feet in front of the thing. It didn't move. He carefully spotted the position of a slitted eye.

He began to whirl the kill club. It swooshed in the air.

He put a heel to Windsplitter and they raced straight at the thing.

The kill-club, carried with the full speed of the running horse, whooshed down straight at the slitted eye.

The crash of impact was deafening.

Jonnie slowed beyond the thing. It had not moved.

He trotted Windsplitter back to the original position, a hundred feet in front of the thing. He turned and made ready for a second run.

The lead horse came up behind him to its habitual place. Jonnie glanced at it and then back at the thing. He calculated the distance and the run to strike at the other slitted eye.

He touched a heel. Windsplitter plunged forward.

And then a great gout of yellow bloomed out from between the eyes. Jonnie was struck a blow like all the winds of Highpeak rolled into one.

Windsplitter caught the full force of it. Up into the air went horse and rider. Down they came with a shuddering crash against the earth.

Terl didn't know what he was looking at.

He had bunked down in the car in the outskirts. He had the old Chinko map of the ancient city, but he had no curiosity about it.

With a few shots of curbing, he had eased himself off into sleep, intending to be gone with the dawn, through the city, and into the mountains. Senseless, even risky, to go on in the dark.

The car, however, had grown hot with the morning sun before he awoke. And now he stared out at an odd thing in the street before him. Maybe it had been the footfalls that had awakened him.

He didn't know what it was. He had seen horses - they were always falling down mine shafts. But he had never before seen a horse with two heads.

That's right. Two heads. One in front and one in the middle.

And a second animal of similar sort behind. Only this one only had a second body in the middle, as if the second head was bent down out of sight.

He batted his eye bones. He shifted over into the driver's seat and stared more intently through the armored windshield.

The two beasts had now turned around and were walking the other way, so Terl started up and began to follow.

It became apparent to him at once that the beasts knew he was after them. He took a hasty look at his ancient street map, thinking he could flash around a couple of blocks and head them off.

But instead it was the beasts who turned.

Terl saw they would dead-end and knew they would circle a block. It was elementary indeed to handle that.

He glanced again at his map and spotted the right buildings to make a barricade.

The firepower of the old Mark II was not very heavy but it was surely enough for that. He adjusted the force lever with a fumbling and inexperienced paw and steered the tank into position. He hit the fire button.

The resulting explosion was extremely satisfactory. A whole building tipped over to make a barricade.

He jockeyed his throttle and wheeled around and went down the street, turned, and sure enough! There they were. He had his quarry trapped.

Then he sat with slack jawbones to see the beasts go straight up over the smoking rubble and vanish from view.

Tell sat there for a minute or two. Was this any part of what he was trying to accomplish? He was puzzled by the beasts but they didn't have anything to do with the business he was in.

Oh, well. He had lots of time, and hunting was hunting after all. He pushed a button and fired off an antenna capsule set to hover three hundred feet up and then turned on his picture screen.

Sure enough, there were the beasts, tearing along, zigzagging around blocks. He watched their progress while he ate some breakfast. That done, he took a small shot of curbing, engaged the drive train, and following the picture was soon out in the open country with his quarry in plain sight.

He raced around in front and blocked them. They turned. He did it again.

What were they? The second beast still had his head down, but the one in the lead definitely had two heads. Tell decided he had better not talk about this in the recreation room. They'd roast him.

He watched with curiosity when the beast in the front stopped, took a stick out of his belt, and began a run at him. His curiosity turned to amazement. The thing was going to attack him. Incredible!

The crash of the club against the windshield was deafening. His earbones rang with the assault. And that wasn't all. There was an immediate atmosphere sizzle.

A wave of dizziness hit Tell. Bright lights popped in his skull. Air! Air was getting into the cab!

This old Mark II had seen better days. The supposedly armored windscreen had come loose in its mounts. Terl gaped at it in disbelief. The side gasket had given way!

He panicked. Then his eye caught the sign about face masks and he hastily snatched the mask and flask of breathe-gas off the gunner's seat and snapped it over his face, opening the valve. He inhaled deeply and the dizziness lessened. He took three deep breaths to clean the damned air out of his lungs.

Tell started anew at the strange beast. It was lining up for another run!

His paws fumbled with the firepower. He wanted no recoil of the blast blowing back through the opened windscreen and he pulled the force lever low to "stun." He hoped it was enough.

The beast started the run. Tell hit the fire button.

It was enough all right. The ions sizzled and glared. The beasts were slammed back, lifted clean off the ground. They fell.

Terl watched intently to make sure they kept on lying where they had fallen. Good! They did.

He let out a shuddering sigh into his mask, winding down. And then he sat up straight in new amazement. He had thought, when they were hit, that he was dealing with two four-legged beasts. But lying on the ground they had come apart!

Tell swung a side door wide and crawled out. He checked his belt gun and then rumbled over to the game he had hit.

Three beasts, maybe four!

The two four-legged beasts were two. On the one behind, a bundle of something had fallen apart. That may be made three. The nearer one definitely was two different beasts.

What confusion!

He shook his head, trying to clear it. The effects of air were not wearing off fast enough: little bright sparks were still popping in front of his eyes.

He lumbered over to the more distant one, pushing the tall grass away. It was a horse. He had seen plenty of horses; the plains were full of them. But this horse had had a bundle tied on its back. Simple as that. The bundle had come loose. He kicked it. It wasn't anything alive, just some skins, some animal hides, and nonsense bits of other things.

He walked back toward the tank through the high grass.

The other thing was also a horse. And over to the right where it had fallen clear . . .

Terl pushed back the grass. Well, luck of the gold nebula! It was a man.

The Psychlo turned the man over. What a small, puny body! Hair on the face and head but nowhere else. Two arms, two legs. White-brown skin.

Terl was unwilling to admit that Char's description fitted. In fact, he resented the fact that it did come close and promptly rejected' it.

The chest was moving - only slightly, true - but it was still alive. Terl felt fortunate indeed. His excursion was successful without his even going up into the mountains.

He picked the man up with one paw and went back to the tank, throwing the man into the gunner's seat, which engulfed it. Then he set to work repairing the windscreen gasket with some perma-stick. The whole side of the glass had been dislodged, and although the glass itself was not even scratched, that had been quite a blow. He looked down at the small body swallowed in the seat. A fluke. It was the age of this tank, the brittleness of its gaskets. Sure was a ratty car; he'd find something wrong and put it in Zzt's records - misplaced parts or something. He went over the other gaskets, the doors, and the other screen. They seemed all right, if brittle. Well, he wasn't going underwater and there would surely be no more attacks from things like that.

Terl stood up on the driver's seat and looked all around the horizon. All clear. No more of these beasts.

He banged down the top and settled himself. His paw hit the compression change, and the hiss of air exhausting from the cab and the gurgle of breathe-gas entering was welcome. His face mask was sweaty in the growing heat of the day and he hated the thing. Oh, for a proper-atmosphere planet, a planet with right gravity, with purple trees -

The man-thing went into a sudden convulsion.

Terl drew back, alarmed. It was turning blue and jerking about. The last thing he wanted was a raving mad animal inside the cab.

Hastily he adjusted his face mask, reversed the compression, and kicked open the side door. With one bat of his paw, he knocked the thing back out onto the grass.

Terl sat there watching it. He was afraid his plans were going up in a puff. The thing must have been more heavily affected by the stun blast than he knew. Crap, they were weak!

He opened the cab top and looked over at one of the horses.

He could see its sides moving. It was breathing and wasn't in any convulsion. It was even recovering. Well, a horse was a horse, and a man might be . . .

He suddenly got it. The man-thing couldn't breathe breathe-gas. The bluish color was fading; the convulsions had stopped. The chest was panting as the thing gulped in the air.

That gave Tell a problem. Blast if he was going to ride back to the minisite in a face mask.

He got out of the car and went to the farther horse. It was recovering, too. The sacks were lying near it. Tell rummaged through one and came up with some thongs.

He went back and picked up the man-thing and slammed it up on top of the car. He arranged it so its arms stuck out to each side. Tying piece after piece of thong together he made a long rope. He tied one end to one wrist of the thing, passed the rope under the car - grunting a bit as he lifted it up to do so - and tied the other wrist. He yanked it well and tight. Then he pushed at the man-thing experimentally to see whether it would fall off.

Very good. He threw the sacks onto the gunner's seat and got in, closed up, and restarted the atmosphere change.

The nearest horse was lifting its head, struggling to get up. Aside from surface blood boils caused by the stun gun, it seemed to be all right, which meant that the man-thing would probably recover.

Terl stretched his jawbones in a grin. Well, it was coming out all right after all.

He started up the car, turned it, and headed back toward the mine site.

Start Reading Part-2

Poor Cruel Folk by Arkady Strugatsky| Free Online novel

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Mon, 31 May 2021 15:16:00 +0000

The Poor Cruel Folk King sat naked. Like a foolish pauper on the street, he sat leaning
against a cold wall, drawing in his blue, goose-bumped legs.

He shivered, with his eyes closed, he listened, but everything was quiet.

He awoke at midnight from a nightmare and immediately understood that

he was finished. Someone wheezed and writhed by the door of the bedroom

suite, he heard footsteps, metallic jingling, and drunken mumbling of His

Highness, Uncle Buht: "Let me through... Let me.. Break it down, hell with

it..." Wet with icy sweat, he slightly rolled off his bed, ducked into a

sector closet, and loosing himself he ran down the underground passage.

Something squelched under his bare feet, the startled rats dashed away, but

he did not notice anything, just now, sitting next to a wall he remembered

everything; the darkness, the slippery walls, and the pain from a blow on

the head against the shackled door to the temple, and his own unbearable high

yelp.

They shall not enter here, he thought. No one shall enter here. Only if

the King order's so. But the King shall not order... He snickered

hysterically. Oh no, the King will not order! He carefully unscrewed up his

eyes and saw his blue, hairless legs with scraped knees. Still alive, he

thought. I will live because they shall not enter here.

Everything in the temple was blueish from the cold light of the

lanterns -- long glowing tubes that were stretched under the ceiling. In the

center, God stood on an eminence, big, heavy, with sparkling dead eyes. The

King continuously and stupidly stared, until God was suddenly screened by a

shabby lay brother, still a greenhorn. Scratching, with an open mouth he

gazed at the naked King. The King squinted once again. Scum, he thought, a

lousy vermine, catch the mongrel and to the dogs, for them to ravage... He

reasoned that he did not remember the lout well, but he was long gone. So

scrawny, snotty... That's all right, we'll remember. We'll remember

everything, Your Highness, Uncle But. During the father's reign, I dare

say you sat quietly, drank a bit, and kept silent, were afraid to be noticed,

you knew that King Prostyaga did not forget you ignoble treachery...

Great was the father, the King thought with accustomed envy. You'd

be great if your advisors are God's angels in flesh. All know, all have

seen them: their faces fearful, white, like milk, and their garment were

such that one could not understand if they were naked or not. And their

arrows were fiery, like lightning, they drove off the nomads with the

arrows, and although they cast them overhead, half the horde cripled from

fear.

His Highness, an Uncle But, whispered once upon a time, drunk and

burping, that those arrows can be cast by anyone, that special slings are

needed that the angels have and that would be nice to take from them. And he

said then -- he was drunk then, -- that if it is nice to have, why not have

it, why not... Soon after that table talk one angel fell off the wall into

the moat, probably slipped. Next to him they found one of the uncle's bodyguards with a javelin between his shoulder blades. It was a dark, dark

deed... It good that the people did not care about the angels, they were

scary to look at, but it is not clear why is it scary -- angels were happy,

cordial people.

Only their eyes were scary. Small, shiny, and they keep

racing around... nonhumanoid eyes, not peaceful. So the people hushed down,

although father, King Prostyaga gave them such freedom that it is shameful

to remember... although, before the Coup, father, they say was a saddle

maker. For saying so, with my own hands I had torn eyes out, and sewen ears

shut. But I remember, he used to sit in the evenings by the Crystal Tower,

and he would cut out leather -- beautiful work. And I would perch myself at

his side, it's warm and comfy... The angels were singing from the rooms, so

quietly, and in harmony, and father would start to accompany -- he knew

their language -- it used to be spacious, nobody around... not like now,

guards are stuck at every corner, but there is no sense in it...

The King lamented. Yes, he was a good father, just that he did not die

for a long time. You can't do that while your son is still alive... The son

is also the King, the son also want's to... But Prostyaga did not age, I'm

over fifty, and he still looks younger than me... It looks like the angels

had asked God for his health... They asked about his health, but they forgot

about me. They say that the second one they managed to pin down in the

father's room, he had a sling in each hand, but he did not fight. Before

death, they say, he threw both of them out the window, they burst into a

blue flame, there was no dust left... Too bad about the slings... And

Prostyaga, they say, cried and got drunk then, within an inch of his life --

the first time since his reign -- looked for me, they said, loved me,

believed...

The King drew his knees to his chin and hugged his legs. So what if

he believed? One should know one's limit, abdicate like it is done

elsewhere... and I do not know anything, and do not want to. There was only

a conversation with my uncle, His Highness.

"Prostyaga, -- he said, -- doesn't age". -- "Yes, -- I tell him, -- but

what can we do, the angels pleaded for his health." Uncle then sneered,

scum, and whispered: "Angels, -- he said, -- no longer sing their songs

here". And I blurted out: "It is true, but now there is a way to deal with

them, not just with humans". Uncle looked at me soberly and immediately

left... And I didn't really say anything... Empty words, without meaning...

And in a week Prostyaga died from a heart attack. So what? It was his time.

He looked young, but in reality he was over one hundred. We'll all die...

The King was startled, and covering himself, awkwardly sat up. Into the

temple came the High Priest Agar. Lay brothers were leading him by the

hands. He didn't look at the King, came up to God, and kneeled in front of

the eminence, tall, hunch-backed, with waist-length dirty-white hair. The

King gloated "It's the end of you, Your Highness, you did manage, I'm not

like Prostyaga, you'll ravage your own intestines, drunken swine..." Agar

spoke in a rich voice:

- God! The King wishes to speak to you! Forgive him and listen!

The room fell silent, no one dared to breathe. The King contemplated:

when the great flood happened, and the earth burst, Prostyaga asked God to

help, and God came down from the sky as a ball of flame on the same day, and

that night the earth closed up, and the flood disappeared. It means that

this is how it will happen today. You were late uncle, Your Highness, you

didn't manage. No one can help you now...

Agar straightened up. The lay brothers that supported him, jumped away,

turned with their backs to God, and covered their heads with their arms. The

Kind saw, how Agar stretched his clasped hands and put them on God's chest.

God's eyes lit up. The King snapped his jaw from fear: the eyes were big and

different -- one was snakish-green, the other white, as bright as light. One

could hear how God started to breathe, heavily, with crackling, like

consumption. Agar backed away.

- Speak, - he whispered. It looked like he was unsettled as well.

The King lowered to all fours and started to crawl to the eminence. He

did not know what to do or how. And he did not know how he should start and

whether he should tell the complete truth. God breathed heavily, wheezing,

suddenly he started to whimper, quietly and thinly - scary.

- I'm the son of Prostyaga -- said the King in despair, smothering his

face against the cold stone. -- Prostyaga died. I ask for protection from the

conspirators. Prostyaga made mistakes. He did not know what he was doing. I

have fixed everything: calmed the people, became great and unattainable, like

you, I gathered an army... And the treacherous But is disrupting my plans

to conquer the world... He wants to kill me! Help me!

He raised his head. God, without blinking, was looking in his face with

green and white. God was silent.

- Help me... - repeated the King. -- Help! Help! - He suddenly thought,

that he is doing something wrong and that God is indifferent towards him,

and inopportunely remembered: they said, his father, Prostyaga, did not die

from a heart attack, but was killed here, in the temple when the killers

came in, without asking permission. -- Help!.-- he screamed desperately.

-- I'm afraid to die today! Help! Help!

He hunched up on the stone tiles, biting his hands from an unbearable

terror. Differently-eyed God hoarsely breathed above his head.

- Old mine, - said Tolya. Ernst was quiet. On the screen, through

the sparks of static, an ugly black shape of a human lay splattered on the

floor. -- When I think, Tolya spoke again, -- that if not for him, Alan and

Derek would be alive, I want to do something, that you never wanted to do.

Ernst shrugged his shoulders and moved to the table.

- And I always think, - Tolya continued, - why didn't Derek shoot? He

could have killed all...

- He couldn't, - said Ernst.

- Why couldn't he?

- Have you ever tried shooting at a human being?

Tolya made a wry face but didn't say anything.

- Well that's what it was, - said Ernst. -- Try to imagine it. It is

almost as disgusting.

A sorrowful howl was heard from the loudspeaker. "HELP HELP I AM AFRAID

HELP..," the auto-translater was writing.

- Poor cruel folk... - said Tolya.

The Man Who Lost the Sea By Theodore - Free online Novels

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Mon, 31 May 2021 14:38:00 +0000

The Man Who Lost the Sea By Theodorenovel is very different from other novels

Start Reading Now..........

Say you're a kid, and one dark night you're running along the cold sand with this helicopter in your hand, saying very fast witchy-witchy-witchy. You pass the sick man and he wants you to shove off with that thing. Maybe he thinks you're too old to play with toys. So you squat next to him in the sand and tell him it isn't a toy, it's a model. You tell him look hers, here's something most people don't know about helicopters. You take a blade of the rotor in your fingers and show him how it can move in the hub, up and down a little, back and forth a little, and twist a little, to change pitch. You start to tell hun how this flexibility does away with the gyroscopic effect, but he won't listen. He doesn't want to think about flying, about helicopters, or

About you, and he most especially does not want explanations about anything by anybody. Not now. Now, he wants to think about the sea. So you go away.

The sick man is buried in the cold sand with only his head and his left arm showing. He is dressed in a pressure suit and looks like a man from Mars. Built into his left sleeve is a combination time-piece and pressure gauge, the gauge with a luminous blue indicator which makes no sense, the clock hands luminous red. He can hear the pounding of the surf and the soft swift pulse of his pumps. One time long ago when he was swimming he went too deep and stayed down too long and came up too fast, and when he came to it was like this: they said, "Don't move, boy. You've got the bends. Don't even try to move." He had tried anyway. It hurt. So now, this time, he lies in the sand without moving, without trying.

His head isn't working right. But he knows clearly that it isn't working right, which is a strange thing that happens to people in shock sometimes. Say you were that kid, you could say how it was, because once you woke up lying in the gym office in high school and asked what had happened. They explained how you tried something on the parallel bars and fell on your head. You understood exactly, though you couldn't remember falling. Then a minute later you asked again what had happened and they told you. You understood it. And a minute later. . .forty-one times they told you, and you understood. It was just that no matter how many times they pushed it into your head, it wouldn't stick there; but all the while you knew that your head would start working again in time. And in time it did... Of course, if you were that kid, always explaining things to people and to yourself, you wouldn't want to bother the sick man with it now.~

Look what you've done already, making him send you away with that angry shrug of the mind (which, with the eyes, are the only things that will move just now). The motionless effort t~osts him a wave of nausea. He has felt seasick before but he has never been, seasick, and the formula for that is to keep, your eyes on the horizon and stay busy. Now! Then he'd better get busy now; for there's one place especially not to be seasick in, and that's locked up in a pressure suit. Now!

So he busies himself as best he can, with the seascape, landscape, sky. He lies on high ground, his head propped on a vertical wall of black rock. There is another such outcrop before him, whip-topped with white sand and with smooth fiat sand. Beyond and down is the valley, salt-flat, estuary; he cannot yet be sure. He is sure of the line of footprints, which begin behind him, pass to his left, disappear in the outcrop shadows, and reappear beyond to vanish at last into the shadows of the valley.

Stretched across the sky is old mourning cloth, with starlight burning holes in it, and between the holes, the black is absolute wintertime, mountaintop sky-black.

(Far off on the horizon within himself, he sees the swell and crest of approaching nausea; he counters with an undertow of weakness, which meets and rounds and settles the wave before it can break. Get busier. Now.)

Burst in on him, then, with the X-15 model. That'll get him. Hey, how about this for a gimmick? Get too high for the thin air to give you any control, you have these little jets in the wingtips, see? and on the sides of the empennage: bank, roll, yaw, whatever, with squirts of compressed air.

But the sick man curls his sick lip: oh, git, kid, git, will you?-that has nothing to do with the sea. So you git.

Out 'and out the sick man forces his view, etching all he sees with meticulous intensity, as if it might be his charge, one day, to duplicate all this, To his left is the only starlit sea, windless. In front of him across the valley, rounded hills with dim white epaulets of light. To his right, the jutting corner of the black wall against which his helmet rests. (He thinks the distant moundings of nausea becalmed, but he will not look yet.) ~So he scans the sky, black and bright, calling Sirius, calling Pleiades, Polaris, Ursa Minor, calling that . . . that . . . Why it moves. Watch it: yes, it moves! It is a fleck of light, seeming to be wrinkled, fissured, rather like a chip of boiled cauliflower in the sky. (Of course, he knows better than to trust his own eyes just now.) But that movement

As a child, he had stood on cold sand in a frosty Cape Co

evening, watching Sputnik's steady spark rise out of the haze (madly, dawning a little north of west); and after that, he had sleeplessly wound special coils for his receiver, risked his life restringing high antennas, all for the brief capture of an unreadable tweetle-eep-tweetle in his earphones from Vanguard, Explorer, Lunik, Discoverer, Mercury. He knew them all (well, some people collect match-covers, stamps) and he knew especially that unmistakable steady sliding in the sky.

This moving fleck was a satellite, and in a moment, motionless, uninstrumented but for his chronometer and his part-brain, he will know which one. (He is grateful beyond expression-without that sliding chip of light, there were only those footprints, those wandering footprints, to tell a man he was not alone in the world.)

Say you were a kid, eager and challengeable and more than a little bright, you might in a day or so work out a way to measui~e the period of a satellite with nothing but a timepiece and a brain; you might eventually see that the shadow in the rocks ahead had been there from the first only because of the light from the rising satellite. Now if you check the time exactly at the moment when the shadow on the sand is equal to the height of the outcrop, and time it again when the light is at the zenith and the shadow was gone, you will multiply this number of minutes by 8-think why, now: horizon to zenith is one-fourth of the orbit, give or take a little, and halfway up the sky is half that quarter- and you will then know this satellite's period. You know all the periods-ninety minutes, two, two-and-a-half hours; with that and the appearance of this bird, you'll find out which one it is.

But if you were that kid, eager or resourceful or whatever, you wouldn't jabber about it to the sick man, for not only does he not want to be bothered with you, he's thought of all that long since and is even now watching the shadows for that triangular split second of measurement. Now! His eyes drop to the face of his chronometer: 0400, near as makes no never mind.

He has minutes to wait for now-ten?... thirty?.. . twenty-three?-while this babymoon eats up its slice of shadowpie; and that's too bad, the waiting, for though the inner sea is calm there are currents below, shadows that shift and swim. Be busy. Be busy. He must not swim near that great invisible ameba, whatever happens: its first cold pseudopod is even now reaching for the vitals.

Being a knowledgeable young fellow, not quite a kid anymore, wanting to help the sick man too, you want to tell him everything you know about that cold-in-the-gut, that reaching invisible surrounding implacable ameba. You know all about it-listen, you want to yell at him, don't let that touch of cold bother you. Just know what it is, that's all. Know what it is that is touching your gut. You want to tell him, listen:

Listen, this is how you met the monster and dissected it. Listen, you were skin-diving in the Grenadines, a hundred tropical shoal-water islands; you had a new blue snorkel mask, the kind with face-plate and breathing-tube all in one, and new blue flippers on your feet, and a new blue spear-gun-all this new because you'd only begun, you see; you were a beginner, aghast with pleasure at your easy intrusion into this underwater otherworld. You'd been out in a boat, you were coming back, you'd just reached the mouth of the little bay, you'd taken the notion to swim the rest of the way. You'd said as much to the boys and slipped into the warm silky water. You brought your gun.

Not far to go at all, but then beginners find wet distances deceiving. For the first five minutes or so it was only delightful, the sun hot on your back and the water so warm it seemed not to have any temperature at all and you were flying. With your face under the water, your mask was not so much attached as part of you, your wide blue flippers trod away yards, your gun rode all but weightless in your hand, the taut rubber sling making an occasional hum as your passage plucked it in the sunlit green. In your ears crooned the breathy monotone of the snorkel tube, and through the invisible disk of plate glass, you saw wonders. The bay was shallow-ten, twelve feet or so-and sandy, with great growths of brain-, bone-, and fire-coral, intricate waving sea-fans, and fish-such fish! Scarlet and green and

Aching azure, gold, and rose and slate-color studded with sparks of enamel-blue, pink and peach, and silver. And that thing got into you, that... monster.

There were enemies in this otherworld: the sand-colored spotted sea-snake with his big ugly head and turned-down mouth, who would not retreat but lay watching the intruder pass; and the mottled moray with jaws like bolt-cutters; and somewhere around, certainly, the barracuda with his undershot face and teeth turned in-ward so that he must take away whatever he might strike. There were urchins-the plump white sea-egg with its thick fur of sharp quills and the black ones with the long slender spines that would break off in unwary flesh and fester there for weeks; and file-fish and stone-fish with their poisoned barbs and lethal meat; and the stingaree who could drive his spike through a leg bone. Yet these were not monsters, and could not matter to you, the invader churning along above them all. For you were above them in so .many ways-armed, rational, comforted by the close shore (ahead of the beach, the rocks on each side) and by the presence of the boat not too far behind. Yet you were. . . attacked.

At first, it was uneasiness, not pressing, but pervasive, a contact quite as intimate as that of the sea; you were sheathed in it. And also there was the touch-the cold in-ward contact. Aware of it, at last, you laughed: for Pete's sake, what's there to be scared of?

The monster, the ameba.

You raised your head and looked back in the air. The boat had edged into the cliff at the right; someone was giving a last poke around for lobster. You waved at the boat; it was your gun you waved, and emerging from the water it gained its latent ounces so that,t you sank a bit, and as if you had no snorkel on, you tipped your head back to get a breath. But tipping your head back plunged the end of the tube underwater; the valve closed; you drew in a hard lungful of nothing at all. You dropped your face under; up came to the tube; you got your air, and along with it a bullet of seawater which struck you somewhere inside the throat. You coughed it out and floundered, sobbing as you sucked in air, inflating your chest until it hurt, and the air you got seemed no good, no good at all, a worthless devitalized inert gas.

You clenched your teeth and headed for the beach, kicking strongly and knowing it was the right thing to do; and then below and to the right you saw a great bulk mounding up out of the sand floor of the sea. You knew it was only the reef, rocks, and coral and weed, but the sight of it made you scream; you didn't care what you knew. You turned hard left to avoid it, fought by as if it would reach for you, and you couldn't get air, couldn't get air, for all the unobstructed hooting of your snorkel tube. You couldn't bear the mask, suddenly, not for another second, so you shoved it upward clear of your mouth and rolled over, floating on your back and opening your mouth to the sky and breathing with a quacking noise.

It was then and there that the monster well and truly engulfed you, mantling you round and about within itself- formless, borderless, the illimitable ameba. The beach, mere yards away, and the rocky arms of the bay, and the not-too-distant boat-these you could identify but no longer distinguish, for they were all one and the same thing, the thing called unreachable.

You fought that way for a time, on your back, dangling the gun under and behind you and straining to get enough warm sun-stained air into your chest. And in time some particles of sanity began to swirl in the roil of your mind and to dissolve and tint it. The air pumping in and out of your square-grinned frightened mouth began to be meaningful at last, and the monster relaxed away from you.

You took stock, saw surf, beach, a leaning tree. You felt the new scend of your body as the rollers humped to become breakers. Only a dozen firm kicks brought you to where you could roll over and double up; your shin struck coral with a lovely agony and ~ou stood in foam and waded ashore. You gained the wet sand, hard sand, and ultimately with two more paces powered by bravado, you crossed the high-water mark and lay in the dry sand, unable to move.

You lay in the sand, and before you were able to move or to think, you were able to feel a triumph-a triumph because you were alive and knew that much without thinking at all.

When you were able to think, your first thought was of the gun, and the first movie you were able to make was to let go at last of the thing. You had nearly died because you had not let it go before; without it, you would not have been burdened and you would not have panicked. You had (you began to understand) kept it because someone else would have had to retrieve it easily enough-and you could not have stood the laughter. You had almost died because They might laugh at you.

This was the beginning of the dissection, analysis, study of the monster. It began then; it had never finished. Some of what you had learned from it was merely important; some of the rest-vital.

You had learned, for example, never to swim farther with a snorkel than you could swim back without one. You learned never to burden yourself with the unnecessary in

an emergency: even a hand or a foot might be as expend- -able as a gun; pride was expendable, dignity was. You learned never to dive alone, even if They laugh at you, even if you have to shoot a fish yourself and say afterward "we" shot it. Most of all, you learned that fear has many fingers, and one of them a simple one, made of too great a concentration of carbon dioxide in your blood, as from too rapid breathing in and out of the same tube-is not really fear at all but feels like fear, and can turn into panic and kill you.

Listen, you want to say, listen, there isn't anything wrong with such an experience or with all the study it leads to, because a man who can learn enough from it could become fit enough, cautious enough, foresighted, unafraid, modest, teachable enough to be chosen, to be qualified for- You lose the thought, or turn it away because the sick man feels that cold touch deep inside, feels it right now, feels it beyond ignoring, above and beyond anything that you, with all your experience and certainty, could explain to him even if he would listen, which he won't. Make him, then; tell him the cold touch is some simple explainable thing like anoxia, like gladness even: some triumph that he will be able to appreciate when his head is working - right again.

Triumph? Here he's alive after . . . whatever it is, and that doesn't seem to be triumph enough, though it was in the Grenadines, and that other time, when he got the bends, saved his own life, saved two other lives. Now, somehow, it's not the same: there seems to be a reason why just being alive afterward isn't a triumph.

Why not triumph? Because not twelve, not twenty, not even thirty minutes is it taking the satellite to complete its eighth-of-an-orbit: fifty minutes are gone, and still there's a slice of shadow yonder. It is this, this which is placing the cold finger upon his heart, and he doesn't know why, he doesn't know why he will not know why; he is afraid he shall when his head is working again.

Oh, where's the kid? Where is any way to busy the mind, apply it to something, anything else but the watch hand which outruns the moon? Here, kid: come over here-what you got there?

If you were the kid, then you'd forgive everything and hunker down with your new model, not a toy, not a helicopter or a rocket plane, but the big one, the one that looks like an overgrown cartridge. It's so big, even as a model, that even an angry sick man wouldn't call it a toy. A giant cartridge, but watch: the lower four-fifths is Alpha-all muscle-over a million pounds thrust. (Snap it off, throw it away.) Half the rest is Beta-all brains-it puts you on your way. (Snap it off, throw it away.) And now look at the polished fraction which is left. Touch a control somewhere and see-see? it has wings-wide triangular wings. This is Gamma, the one with wings, and on its back is a small sausage; it is a moth with a sausage on its back. The sausage (click! it comes free) is Delta. Delta is the last, the smallest: Delta is the way home.

What will they think of next? Quite a toy. Quite a toy. Beat it, kid. The satellite is almost overhead, the sliver of shadow going-going-almost gone and . . . gone.

Check 0459. Fifty-nine minutes? give or take a few. Times eight. . . 472 ... is, uh, 7 hours 52 minutes.

Seven hours fifty-two minutes? Why there isn't a satellite around earth with a period like that. In all the solar system there's only

The cold finger turns fierce, implacable.

The east is paling and the sick man turns to it, wanting the light, the sun, an end to questions whose answers couldn't be looked upon. The sea stretches endlessly out to the growing light, and endlessly, somewhere out of sight, the~ surf roars. The paling east bleaches the sandy hilltops and throws the line of footprints into aching relief. That would be the buddy, the sick man knows, gone for help. He cannot at the moment recall who the buddy is, but in time he will, and meanwhile, the footprints make him less alone.

The sun's upper rim thrusts itself above the horizon with a flash of green, instantly gone. There is no dawn, just the green flash and then a clear white blast of unequivocal sunup. The sea could not be whiter, more still, if it were frozen and snow-blanketed. In the west, stars still blaze, and overhead the crinkled satellite is scarcely abashed by the growing light. A formless jumble in the valley below begins to resolve itself into a sort of tent-city, or installation of some kind, with tubelike and saillike buildings. This would have meaning for the sick man if his head were working right. Soon, it would. Will. (Oh...)

The sea, out on the horizon just under the rising sun, is behaving strangely, for, in that place where properly be-longs a pool of unbearable brightness, there is instead a notch of brown. It is as if the white fire of the sun is drinking dry the sea-for look, look! the notch becomes a bow and the bow a crescent, racing ahead of the sunlight, white sea ahead of it and behind it a cocoa-dry stain spreading across and down toward where he watches.

Besides the finger of fear which lies on him, another finger places itself, and another, making ready for that clutch, that grip, that ultimate insane squeeze of panic. Yet beyond that again, past that squeeze when it comes, to be savored if the squeeze is only fear and not panic, lies triumph-triumph, and a glory. It is perhaps this which constitutes his whole battle: to fit himself, prepare himself to bear the utmost that fear could do, for if he can do that, there is a triumph on the other side. But . . . not yet. Please, not yet awhile,

Something flies (or flew, or will fly-he is a little confused on this point) toward him, from the far right where

- the stars still shine. It is not a bird and it is unlike any aircraft on earth, for the aerodynamics are wrong. Wings so wide and so fragile would be useless, would melt and tear away in any of earth's atmosphere but the outer fringes. He sees then (because he prefers to see it so) that it is the kid's model or part of it, and for a toy, it does very well indeed.

It is the part called Gamma, and it glides in, balancing, parallels the sand and holds away, holds away slowing, then settles, all in slow motion, throwing up graceful sheet-fountains of fine sand from its skids. And it runs along the ground for an impossible distance, letting down its weight by the ounce and stingily the ounce, until lookout until a skid look outfits itself into a bridged crevasse lookout, look out! and still moving on, it settles down to the struts. Gamma then, tired, digs her wide left wingtip carefully into the racing sand, digs it is hard; and as the wing breaks off, Gamma slews, sidles, slides slowly, pointing her other triangular tentlike wing at the sky, and broadside crashes into the rocks at the valley's end.

As she rolls smashing over, there breaks from her broad back the sausage, the little Delta, which somersaults away to break its back upon the rocks, and through the broken hull, spill smashed shards of graphite from the moderator of her power-pile. Look out! Look out! and at the same instant from the finally checked mass of Gamma there explodes a doll, which slides and tumbles into the sand, into the rocks, and smashed hot graphite from the wreck of Delta.

The sick man numbly watches this toy destroy itself: what will they think of next?-and with a gelid horror prays at the doll lying in the raging rubble of the atomic pile:

don't stay there, man-get away! getaway! that's hot, you know? But it seems like a night and a day and a half another night before the doll staggers to its feet and, clumsy in its

pressure-suit, runs away up the valley side, climbs a sand-topped outcrop, slips, falls, lies under a slow cascade of cold ancient sand until, but for an arm and the helmet, it is buried.

The sun is high now, high enough to show the sea is not a sea, but brown plain with the frost burned off it, as now it burns away from the hills, diffusing in air and blurring the edges of the sun's disk, so that in a very few minutes there is no sun at all, but only a glare in the east. Then the valley below loses its shadows, and as an arrangement in a diorama, reveals the form and nature of the wreckage below: no tent-city this, no installation, but the true real ruin of Gamma and the eviscerated hulk of Delta. (Alpha was the muscle, Beta the brain; Gamma was a bird, but Delta, Delta was the way home.)

And from it stretches the line of footprints, to and by the sick man, above to the bluff, and gone with the sand-slide which had buried him there. Whose footprints?

He knows whose, whether or not he knows that he knows, or wants to or not. He knows what satellite has (give or take a bit) a period like that (want it exactly?-it's 7.66 hours). He knows what world has such a night and such a frosty glare by day. He knows these things as he knows how spilled radioactively will pour the crash and mutter of - surf into a man's earphones.

Say you were that kid: say, instead, at last, that you are the sick man, for they are the same; surely then you can understand why of all things, even while shattered, shocked, sick with radiation calculated (leaving) radiation computed (arriving) and radiation past all bearing (lying in the wreckage of Delta) you would want to think of the sea. For no farmer who fingers the soil with love and knowledge, no poet who sings of it, artist, contractor, engineer, even child bursting into tears at the inexpressible beauty of a field of daffodils-none of these is as intimate with Earth as those who live on, live with, breathe and drift in its seas. So of these things,, you must think; with these,, you must dwell until you are less sick and more ready to face the truth.

The truth, then, is that the satellite fading here is Phobos, that those footprints are your own, that there is no sea here, that you have crashed and are killed and will in a moment be dead. The cold hand ready to squeeze and still your heart is not anoxia at even fear, it is death. Now, if there is something more important than this, is time for it to show itself.

The sick man looks at the line of his own footprints, which testify that he is alone, and at the wreckage below, which states that there is no way back, and at the white east and the mottled west and the paling fleck like a satellite above. Surf sounds in his ears. He hears his pumps. He hears what is left of his breathing. The cold clamps down and folds him round past measuring, past all limit.

Then he speaks, cries out: then with joy he takes his triumph at the other side of death, as one takes a great fish, as one completes a skilled and mighty task, rebalances at the end of some great daring leap; and as he used to say "we shot a fish" he uses no "I":

"God," he cries, dying on Mars, 'God, we made it!"

Who Moved My Cheese?| Free Online Novels

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sun, 30 May 2021 15:11:00 +0000

The one-minute manager from the bestselling novel Who Moved My Cheese

Start Reading Now...

Once, long ago in a land far away, there lived four little characters who ran through a maze

looking for cheese to nourish them and make them happy.

Two were mice named “Sniff” and “Scurry” and two were little people- beings who were as small

as mice but who looked and acted a lot like people today. Their names were “Hem” and “Haw.”

Due to their small size, it would be easy not to notice what the four of them were doing. But if

you looked closely enough, you could discover the most amazing things!

Every day the mice and the little people spent time in the maze looking for their own special

cheese.

The mice, Sniff and Scurry, possessing only simple rodent brains, but good instincts, searched for

the hard nibbling cheese they liked, as mice often do.

The two little people, Hem and Haw, used their brains, filled with many beliefs, to search for a

very different kind of Cheese- with a capital C- which they believed would make them feel happy and

successful.

As different as the mice and little people were, they shared something in common: every morning,

they each put on their jogging suits and running shoes, left their little homes, and raced out into the maze

looking for their favorite cheese.

The maze was a labyrinth of corridors and chambers, some containing delicious cheese. But there

were also dark corners and blind alleys leading nowhere. It was an easy place for anyone to get lost.

However, for those who found their way, the maze held secrets that let them enjoy a better life.

The mice, Sniff and Scurry, had only simple brains. So, they just used the simple, but inefficient,

trial-and-error method of finding cheese.

Sniff would smell out the general direction of the cheese, using his great nose, and Scurry would

race ahead. They got lost, as you might expect, went off in the wrong direction, and often bumped into

walls.

However, the two little people, Hem and Haw, had complex brains- with beliefs and emotions- that

made life in the maze more complicated and challenging. They relied on a more sophisticated method of

finding Cheese that depended on their ability to think and learn from their past experiences, although their

abilities were clouded by the way they looked at things.

Eventually, in their own way, they all discovered what they were looking for they each found their

own kind of cheese one day at the end of one of the corridors in Cheese Station C.

Every morning after that, the mice and the little people dressed in their running gear and headed

over to Cheese Station C. It wasn’t long before they each established their own routine.

Sniff and Scurry continued to wake up early every day and race through the maze, always

following the same route.

When they arrived at their destination, the mice took off their running shoes, tied them together, and hung them around their necks- so they could get to them quickly whenever they needed them again.

Then they enjoyed the cheese.

In the beginning, Hem and Haw also raced toward Cheese Station C every morning to enjoy the

tasty new morsels that awaited them.

But after a while, a different routine set in for the little people.

Hem and Haw awoke each day a little later, dressed a little slower, and walked to Cheese Station

C. After all, they knew where the Cheese was now and how to get there.

They had no idea where the Cheese came from, or who put it there. They just assumed it would be

there.

As soon as Hem and Haw arrived at Cheese Station C each morning, they settled in and made

themselves at home. They hung up their jogging suits, put away their running shoes, and put on their

slippers. They were becoming very comfortable now that they had found the Cheese.

“This is great,” Hem said. “There’s enough Cheese here to last us forever.” The little people felt

happy and successful, and though they were now secure.

It wasn’t long before Hem and Haw regarded the Cheese they found at Cheese Station C as their

cheese. It was such a large store of Cheese that they eventually moved their homes closer to it, and built a

social life around it.

To make themselves feel more at home, Hem and Haw decorated the walls with sayings and even

drew pictures of Cheese around them, which made them smile. One read:

Having Cheese Makes You Happy:

Sometimes Hem and Haw would take their friends by to see their pile of Cheese and Cheese

Station C, and point to it with pride, saying, “Pretty nice Cheese, huh?” Sometimes they shared it with

their friends and sometimes they didn’t.

“We deserve this Cheese,” Hem said. “We certainly had to work long and hard enough to find it.”

He picked up a nice fresh piece and ate it.

Afterward, Hem fell asleep, as he often did.

Every night the little people would waddle home, full of Cheese, and every morning they would

confidently return for more.

This went on for quite some time.

After a while Hem and Haw’s confidence grew into arrogance. Soon they became so comfortable

they didn’t even notice what was happening.

As time went on, Sniff and Scurry continued their routine. They arrived early each morning and

sniffed and scratched and scurried around Cheese Station C, inspecting the area to see if there had been any

changes from the day before. Then they would sit down to nibble on the cheese.

One morning they arrived at Cheese Station C and discovered there was no cheese.

They weren’t surprised. Since Sniff and Scurry had noticed the supply of cheese had been getting

small every day, they were prepared for the inevitable and knew instinctively what to do.

They looked at each other, removed the running shoes they had tied together, and hung

conveniently around their necks, put them on their feet, and laced them up.

The mice did not overanalyze things. And they were not burdened with many complex beliefs.

To the mice, the problem and answer were both simple. The situation at Cheese Station C had

changed. So, Sniff and Scurry decided to change.

They both looked out into the maze. Then Sniff lifted his nose, sniffed, and nodded to Scurry,

who took off running through the maze, while Sniff followed as fast as he could.

They were quickly off in search of New Cheese.

Later that same day, Hem and Haw arrived at Cheese Station C. They had not been paying

attention to the small changes that had been taking place each day, so they took it for granted their Cheese

would be there.

They were unprepared for what they found.

“What! No Cheese?” Hem yelled. He continued yelling, “No Cheese? No Cheese?” as though if

he shouted loud enough someone would put it back.

“Who moved my Cheese?” he hollered.

Finally, he put his hands on his hips, his face turned red, and he screamed at the top of his voice,

“It’s not fair!”

Haw just shook his head in disbelief. He, too, had counted on finding Cheese and Cheese Station

C. He stood there for a long time, frozen with shock. He was just not ready for this.

The hem was yelling something, but Haw didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to deal with what was

facing him, so he just tuned everything out.

The little people's behavior was not very attractive or productive but it was understandable.

Finding Cheese wasn’t easy, and it meant a great deal more to the little people than just having

enough of it to eat every day.

Finding Cheese was the little people's way of getting what they thought they needed to be happy.

They had their own ideas of what Cheese meant to them, depending on their taste.

For some, finding Cheese was having material things. For others, it was enjoying good health or

developing a spiritual sense of well-being.

For Haw, Cheese just meant feeling safe, having a loving family someday, and living in a cozy

cottage on Cheddar Lane.

To Hem, Cheese was becoming A Big Cheese in charge of others and owning a big house atop

Camembert Hill.

do. All they could think of was to keep looking around Cheeseless Station C to see if the Cheese

was really gone.

While Sniff and Scurry had quickly moved on, Hem and Haw continued to hem and haw.

They ranted and raved at the injustice of it all. Haw started to get depressed. What would happen

if the Cheese wasn’t there tomorrow? He had made future plans based on this Cheese.

The little people couldn’t believe it. How could this have happened? No one had warned them. It

wasn’t right. It was not the way things were supposed to be.

Hem and Haw went home that night hungry and discouraged. But before they left, Haw wrote on

the wall:

The More Important The Cheese Is To You The More You Want To Hold On To It.

The next day Hem and Haw left their homes and returned to Cheese Station C again, where they

still expected, somehow, to find their Cheese.

The situation hadn’t changed; the Cheese was no longer there. The little people didn’t know what

to do. Hem and Haw just stood there, immobilized like two statues.

Haw shut his eyes as tight as he could and put his hands over his ears. He just wanted to block

everything out. He didn’t want to know the Cheese supply had gradually been getting smaller. He

believed it had been moved all of a sudden.

He analyzed the situation over and over and eventually, his complicated brain with its huge belief

system took hold. “Why did they do this to me?” he demanded. “What’s really going on here?”

Finally, Haw opened his eyes, looked around, and said, “By the way, where are Sniff and Scurry?

Do you think they know something we don’t?”

Hem scoffed, “What would they know?”

He continued, “They’re just simple mice. They just respond to what happens. We’re

little people. We’re special. We should be able to figure this out. And, besides, we deserve better.

“This should not happen to us, or if it does, we should at least get some benefits.”

“Why should we get benefits?” Haw asked.

“Because we’re entitled,” Hem claimed.

“Entitled to what?” Haw wanted to know.

“We’re entitled to our Cheese.”

“Why?” Haw asked.

“Because we didn’t cause this problem,” Hem said. “Somebody else did this and we should get

something out of it.”

Haw suggested, “Maybe we should stop analyzing the situation so much and just get going and

find some New Cheese.”

“Oh no,” Hem argued. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this.”

While Hem and Haw were still trying to decide what to do, Sniff and Scurry were already well on

their way. They went farther into the maze, up and down corridors, looking for cheese in every Cheese

Station they could find.

They didn’t think of anything else but finding New Cheese.

They didn’t find any for some time until they finally went into an area of the maze where they had

never been before: Cheese Station N.

They squealed with delight. They found what they had been looking for: a great supply of New

Cheese.

They could hardly believe their eyes. It was the biggest store of cheese the mice had ever seen.

In the meantime, Hem and Haw were still back in Cheese Station C evaluating their situation.

They were now suffering from the effects of having no Cheese. They were becoming frustrated and angry

and were blaming each other for the situation they were in.

Now and then Haw thought about his mice buddies, Sniff and Scurry, and wondered if they had

found any cheese yet. He believed they might be having a hard time, as running through the maze usually

involved some uncertainty. But he also knew that it was likely to only last for a while.

Sometimes, Haw would imagine Sniff and Scurry finding New Cheese and enjoying it. He

thought about how good it would be for him to be out on an adventure in the maze, and to find fresh New

Cheese. He could almost taste it.

The more clearly Haw saw the image of himself finding and enjoying the New Cheese, the more

he saw himself leaving Cheese Station C.

“Let’s go!” he exclaimed, all of a sudden.

“No,” Hem quickly responded. “I like it here. It’s comfortable. It’s what I know. Besides, it’s

dangerous out there.”

“No it isn’t,” Haw argued. “We’ve run through many parts of the maze before, and we can do it

again.”

“I’m getting too old for that,” Hem said. “And I’m afraid I’m not interested in getting lost and

making a fool of myself. Are you?”

With that, Haw’s fear of failing returned, and his hope of finding New Cheese faded.

So every day, the little people continued to do what they had done before. They went to Cheese

Station C, found no Cheese, and returned home, carrying their worries and frustrations with them.

They tried to deny what was happening, but found it harder to get to sleep, had less energy the

next day, and were becoming irritable.

Their homes were not the nurturing places they once were. The little people had difficulty sleeping

and were having nightmares about not finding any Cheese.

But Hem and Haw still returned to Cheese Station C and waited there every day.

Hem said, “You know, if we just work harder we’ll find that nothing has really changed that

much. The Cheese is probably nearby. Maybe they just hid it behind the wall.”

The next day, Hem and Haw returned with tools. Hem held the chisel while Haw banged on the

hammer until they made a hole in the wall of Cheese Station C. They peered inside but found no Cheese.

They were disappointed but believed they could solve the problem. So they started earlier, stayed

longer, and worked harder. But after a while, all they had was a large hole in the wall.

Haw was beginning to realize the difference between activity and productivity.

“Maybe,” Hem said, “We should just sit here and see what happens. Sooner or later they have to

put the Cheese back.”

Haw wanted to believe that. So each day he went home to rest and returned reluctantly with Hem

to Cheese Station C. But Cheese never reappeared.

By now the little people were growing weak from hunger and stress. Haw was getting tired of just

waiting for their situation to improve. He began to see that the longer they stayed in their Cheeseless

situation, the worse off they would be.

Haw knew they were losing their edge.

Finally, one day Haw began laughing at himself. “Haw, haw, look at me. I keep doing the same

things over and over again and wonder why things don’t get better. If this wasn’t so ridiculous, it would be

even funnier.”

Haw did not like the idea of having to run through the maze again, because he knew he would get

lost and have no idea where he would find any Cheese. But he had to laugh at his folly when he saw what

his fear was doing to him.

He asked Hem, “Where did we put our jogging suits and running shoes?” It took a long time to

find them because they had put everything away when they found their Cheese at Cheese Station C,

thinking they wouldn’t be needing them anymore.

As Hem saw his friend getting into his running gear, he said, “You’re not really going out into the

maze again, are you? Why don’t you just wait here with me until they put the Cheese back?”

“Because, you just don’t get it,” Haw said. “I didn’t want to see it either, but now I realize they’re

never going to put the Old Cheese back. That was yesterday’s Cheese. It’s time to find New Cheese.”

Hem argued, “But what if there is no Cheese out there? Or even if there is, what if you don’t find

it?”

“I don’t know,” Haw said. He had asked himself those same questions too many times and started

to feel the fears again that kept him where he was.

Then he thought about finding New Cheese and all the good things that came with it and gathered

his courage.

“Sometimes,” Haw said, “things change and they are never the same again. This looks like one of

those times, Hem. That’s a lie! Life moves on. And so should we.”

Haw looked at his emaciated companion and tried to talk sense to him, but Hem’s fear had turned

into anger and he wouldn’t listen.

Haw didn’t mean to be rude to his friend, but he had to laugh at how silly they both looked.

As Haw prepared to leave, he started to feel more alive, knowing that he was finally able to laugh

at himself, let go and move on.

He announced, “It’s maze time!”

Hem didn’t laugh and he didn’t respond.

Haw picked up a small, sharp rock and wrote a serious thought on the wall for Hem to think about.

As was his custom, Haw even drew a picture of cheese around it, hoping it would help Hem to smile,

lighten up, and go after the New Cheese. But Hem didn’t want to see it.

It read:

If You Do Not Change, You Can Become Extinct.

Then, Haw stuck his head out and peered anxiously into the maze. He thought about how he’d

gotten himself into this cheeseless situation.

He had believed that there may be any Cheese in the maze, or he may not find it. Such fearful

beliefs were immobilizing and killing him.

Haw smiled. He knew Hem was wondering, “Who moved my Cheese?” but Haw was wondering,

“Why didn’t I get up and move with the Cheese sooner?”

As he started out into the maze, Haw looked back to where he had come from and felt its comfort.

He could feel himself being drawn back into familiar territory- even though he hadn’t found any Cheese

there for some time.

Haw became more anxious and wondered if he really wanted to go out into the maze. He wrote a

saying on the wall ahead of him and stared at it for some time:

What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?

He thought about it.

He knew sometimes some fear can be good. When you are afraid things are going to get worse if

you don’t do something, it can prompt you into action. But it is not good when you are so afraid that it

keeps you from doing anything.

He looked to his right, to the part of the maze where he had never been, and felt the fear.

Then, he took a deep breath, turned right into the maze, and jogged slowly, into the unknown.

As he tried to find his way, Haw worried, at first, that he might have waited too long in Cheese

Station C. He hadn’t had any Cheese for so long that he was now weak. It took him longer and it was

more painful than usual to get through the maze. He decided that if he ever got the chance again, he would

adapt to change sooner. It would make things easier.

Then, Haw smiled a weak smile as he thought, “Better late than never.”

During the next several days, Haw found a little Cheese here and there, but nothing that lasted

very long. He had hoped to find enough Cheese to take some back to Hem and encourage him to come out

into the maze.

But Haw didn’t feel confident enough yet. He had to admit, he found it confusing in the maze.

Things seemed to have changed since the last time he was out there.

Just when he thought he was getting ahead, he would get lost in the corridors. It seemed his

progress was two steps forward and one step backward. It was a challenge, but he had to admit that being

back in the maze, hunting for Cheese, wasn’t nearly as bad as he feared it might be.

As time went on he began to wonder if it was realistic for him to expect to find New Cheese. He

wondered if he had bitten off more than he could chew. Then he laughed, realizing that he had nothing to

chew on at the moment.

Whenever he started to get discouraged he reminded himself that what he was doing, as

uncomfortable as it was at the moment, was in reality much better than staying in the Cheeseless situation.

He was taking control, rather than simply letting things happen to him.

Then he reminded himself if Sniff and Scurry could move on, so could he!

Later, as Haw looked back on things, he realized that the Cheese at Cheese Station C had not just

disappeared overnight, as he has once thought. The amount of Cheese that had been there toward the end

had been getting smaller, and what was left had grown old. It didn’t taste as good.

Mold may have even begun to grow on the Old Cheese, although he hadn’t noticed it. He had to

admit, however, that if he had wanted to, he probably could have seen what was coming. But he didn’t.

Haw now realized that the change probably would not have taken him by surprise if he had been

watching what was happening all along and if he had anticipated change. Maybe that’s what Sniff and

Scurry had been doing.

He stopped for a rest and wrote on the wall of the maze:

Smell The Cheese Often So You Know When It is Getting Old.

Sometime later, after not finding Cheese for what seemed like a long time, Haw finally came

across a huge Cheese Station, which looked promising. When he went inside, however, he was most

disappointed to discover that the Cheese station was empty.

“This empty feeling has happened to me too often,” he thought. He felt like giving up.

Haw was losing his physical strength. He knew he was lost and was afraid he would not survive.

He thought about turning around and heading back to Cheese Station C. At least, if he made it back, and

The hem was still there, Haw wouldn’t be alone. Then he asked himself the same question, again: “What

would I do if I weren’t afraid?”

He was afraid more often than he liked to admit, even to himself. He wasn’t always sure what he

was afraid of, but, in his weakened condition, he knew now he was simply fearful of going on alone. Haw

didn’t know it, but he was running behind because he was weighed down by fearful beliefs.

Haw wondered if Hem had moved on, or if he was still paralyzed by his fears. Then, Haw

remembered the times when he had felt his best in the maze. It was when he was moving along.

He wrote on the wall, know

Movement In A New Direction Helps You Find New Cheese.

Haw looked down the dark passageway and was aware of his fear. What lay ahead? Was it

empty? Or worse, were there dangers lurking? He began to imagine all kinds of frightening things that

could happen to him. He was scaring himself to death.

Then he laughed at himself. He realized his fears were making things worse. So he did what he

would do if he wasn’t afraid. He moved in a new direction.

As he started running down the dark corridor he began to smile. Haw didn’t realize it yet, but he

was discovering what nourished his soul. He was letting go and trusting what lay ahead for him, even

though he did not know exactly what it was.

To his surprise, Haw started enjoying himself more and more. “Why do I feel so good?” he

wondered. “I don’t have any Cheese and I don’t know where I am going.”

Before long, he knew why he felt good.

He stopped to write again on the wall:

When You Move Beyond Your Fear, You Feel Free.

Haw realized he had been held captive by his own fear. Moving in a new direction had freed him.

Now he felt the cool breeze that was blowing in his part of the maze and it was refreshing. He

took in some deep breaths and felt invigorated by the movement. Once he had gotten past his fear, it turned

out to be more enjoyable than he once believed it could be.

Haw hadn’t felt this way for a long time. He had almost forgotten how much fun it was.

To make things even better, Haw started to paint a picture in his mind. He saw himself in great

realistic detail, sitting in the middle of a pile of all his favorite cheeses- from Cheddar to Brie! He saw

himself eating the many kinds of cheese he liked, and he enjoyed what he saw. Then he imagined how much he

would enjoy all their great tastes.

The more clearly he swathes the image of New Cheese, the more real it became, and the more he could

the sense that he was going to find it.

He wrote:

Imagining Myself Enjoying New Cheese Even Before I Find It, Leads Me To It.

“Why didn’t I do this before?” Haw asked himself.

Then he raced through the maze with greater strength and agility. Before long he spotted a Cheese

Station and became excited as he noticed little pieces of New Cheese near the entrance.

They were types of Cheeses he had never seen before, but they looked great. He tried them and

found that they were delicious. He ate most of the New Cheese bits that were available and put a few in his

pocket to have later and perhaps share with Hem. He began to regain his strength.

He entered the Cheese Station with great excitement. But to his dismay, he found it was empty.

Someone had already been there and had left only a few bits of New Cheese.

He realized that if he had moved sooner, he would very likely have found a good deal of New

Cheese here.

Haw decided to go back and see if Hem was ready to join him.As he retraced his steps, he stopped

and wrote on the wall:

The Quicker You Let Go Of Old Cheese, The Sooner You Find New Cheese.

After a while, Haw made his way back to Cheese Station C and found Hem. He offered Hem bits

of New Cheese but was turned down.

Hem appreciated his friend’s gesture but said, “I don’t think I would like New Cheese. It’s not

what I am used to. I want my own Cheese back and I’m not going to change until I get what I want.”

Haw just shook his head in disappointment and reluctantly went back out on his own. As he

returned to the farthest point he had reached in the maze, he missed his friend but realized he liked what he

was discovering. Even before he found what he hoped would be a great supply of New Cheese if ever, he

knew that what made him happy wasn’t just having Cheese.

He was happy when he wasn’t being run by his fear. He liked what he was doing now.

Knowing this, Haw didn’t feel as weak as he did when he stayed in Cheese Station C with no

Cheese. Just realizing he was not letting his fear stop him and knowing that he had taken a new direction

nourished him and gave him strength.

Now he felt that it was just a question of time before he found what he needed. In fact, he sensed

he had already found what he was looking for.

He smiled as he realized:

It Is Safer To Search In The Maze Than Remain In A Cheeseless SituationIt Is Safer To Search In The Maze Than Remain In A Cheeseless Situation

Haw realized again, as he had once before, that what you are afraid of is never as bad as what you

imagine. The fear you let build up in your mind is worse than the situation that actually exists.

He’d been so afraid of never finding New Cheese that he didn’t even want to start looking. But

since starting his journey he had found enough Cheese in the corridors to keep him going. Now he looked

forward to finding more. Just looking ahead was becoming exciting.

His old thinking had been clouded by his worries and fears. He used to think about not having

enough Cheese, or not having it last as long as he wanted. He used to think more about what could go

wrong than what could go right.

But that had changed in the days since he had left Cheese Station C.

He used to believe that Cheese should never be moved and that change wasn’t right.

Now he realized it was natural for change to continually occur, whether you expect it to or not.

The change could surprise you only if you didn’t expect it and weren’t looking for it.

When he realized he had changed his beliefs, he paused to write on the wall:

Old Beliefs Do Not Lead You To New Cheese

Haw hadn’t found any Cheese yet but, as he ran through the maze, he thought about what he had

already learned.

Haw now realized that his new beliefs were encouraging new behaviors. He was behaving

differently than when he kept returning to the same cheeseless station.

He knew when you change what you believe, you change what you do.

You can believe that a change will harm you and resists it. Or you can believe that finding New

The cheese will help you embrace the change.

It all depends on what you choose to believe.

He wrote on the wall:

When You See That You Can Find And Enjoy New Cheese, You Change Course

Haw knew he would be in better shape now if he had embraced the change much sooner and left

Cheeseless Station C earlier. He would feel stronger in body and spirit and he could have coped better with

the challenge of finding New Cheese. In fact, he probably would have found it by now if he had expected

change, rather than wasting time denying that the change had already taken place.

He gathered his will and decided to keep proceeding into the newer parts of the maze. He found

little bits of cheese here and there and began to regain his strength and confidence.

As he thought back on where he had come from, Haw was glad he had written on the wall in many

places. He trusted it would serve as a marked trail for Hem to follow through the maze if he chose to leave

Cheese Station C.

He just hoped he was heading in the right direction. He thought about the possibility that Hem

would read The Handwriting On The Wall and find his way.

He wrote on the wall what he had been thinking about for some time:

Noticing Small Changes Early Helps You Adapt To The Bigger Changes That Are

To Come.

By now, Haw had let go of the past and was adapting to the present.

He continued on through the maze with greater strength and speed. And before long, it happened.

When it seemed like he had been in the maze forever, his journey- or at least part of his journey ended

quickly and happily.

Haw found New Cheese at Cheese Station N!

When he went inside, he was startled by what he saw. Piled high everywhere was the greatest

supply of Cheese he had ever seen. He didn’t recognize all that he saw, as some kinds of Cheese were new

to him.

Then he wondered for a moment whether it was real or just his imagination until he saw his old

friends Sniff and Scurry.

Sniff welcomed Haw with a nod of his head and Scurry waved his paw. Their fat little bellies

showed that they had been here for some time.

Haw quickly said his hellos and soon took bites of every one of his favorite Cheeses. He pulled

off his shoes and jogging suit and folded them neatly nearby in case he needed them again. Then he

jumped into the New Cheese. When he had eaten his fill, he lifted a piece of fresh Cheese and made a

toast. “Hooray for Change!”

As Haw enjoyed the New Cheese, he reflected on what he had learned.

He realized that when he had been afraid to change he had been holding on to the illusion of Old

The cheese was no longer there.

So what was it that made him change? Was it the fear of starving to death? Haw thought, “Well,

that helped.”

Then he laughed and realized that he had started to change as soon as he had learned to laugh at

himself and at what he had been doing wrong. He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your

own folly- then you can let go and quickly move on.

He knew he had learned something useful about moving on from his mice buddies, Sniff and

Scurry. They kept life simple. They didn’t overanalyze or overcomplicate things. When the situation

changed and the Cheese had been moved, they changed and moved with the Cheese. He would remember

that.

Then Haw used his wonderful brain to do what little people do better than mice.

He reflected on the mistakes he had made in the past and used them to plan for his future. He

knew that you could learn to deal with change:

You could be more aware of the need to keep things simple, be flexible, and move quickly.

You did not need to overcomplicate matters or confuse yourself with fearful beliefs.

You could notice when the little changes began so that you would be better prepared for the big

change that might be becoming.

He knew he needed to adapt faster, for if you do not adapt in time, you might as well not adapt at

all.

He had to admit that the biggest inhibitor to change lies within yourself and that nothing gets

better until you change.

Perhaps most important of all, he realized that there is always New Cheese out there whether you

recognize it at the time or not. And that you are rewarded with it when you go past your fear and enjoy the

adventure.

He knew some fear should be respected, as it can keep you out of real danger. But he realized

most of his fears were irrational and had kept him from changing when he needed to change.

He didn’t like it at the time, but he knew that the change had turned out to be a blessing in disguise

as it led him to find better Cheese.

He had even found a better part of himself.

As Haw recalled what he had learned, he thought about his friend Hem. He wondered if Hem had

read any of the sayings Haw had written on the wall at Cheese Station C and throughout the maze.

Had Hem ever decided to let go and move on? Had he ever entered the maze and discovered what

could make his life better?

Haw thought about going back again to Cheese Station C to see if he could find Hem- assuming

that Haw could find his way back there. If he found Hem, he thought he might be able to show him how to

get out of his predicament. But Haw realized that he had already tried to get his friend to change.

Hem had to find his own way, beyond his comforts and past his fears. No one else could do it for

him, or talk him into it. He somehow had to see the advantage of changing himself.

Haw knew he had left a trail for Hem and that he could find his way if he could just read The

Handwriting On The Wall.

He went over and wrote down a summary of what he had learned on the largest wall of Cheese

Station N. He drew a large piece of cheese around all the insights he had become aware of and smiled as

he looked at what he had learned:

Yasutaka Tsutsui - The Rumors About Me | Free online novels

noreply@blogger.com (ER Shubham) — Sun, 30 May 2021 14:42:00 +0000

The Rumors About Me, I was astonished while watching the news on NHK when the announcer suddenly began talking about me. "...and that concludes our news about Vietnam. Next, domestic topics. "Today, Mr. Tsutomu Morishita invited Miss Akiko Mikawa, a typist at his company, out to tea, but was refused.

This was the fifth time Mr. Morishita had invited Miss Mikawa out to tea, though she'd only agreed to accompany him on the first occasion. Since then, he had been turned down repeatedly." "Huh? What, what, what!!" I banged my cup down on the low table and my eyes widened. "Wh-what the devil is this!" My mug shot filled the screen.

"The reason for Miss Mikawa's refusal of Mr. Morishita's invitation for a date is not yet known," continued the announcer. "However, according to Miss Hiruma Sakamoto, Miss Mikawa's friend and co-worker, Miss Mikawa does not necessarily dislike Mr. Morishita. The reason she refused likely is that she simply does not like him all that much." Ahead and shoulders shot of Akiko Mikawa loomed on the screen. "From this, it is believed that Mr. Morishita did not make a particularly strong impression on Miss Mikawa the first time she had tea with him. Meanwhile, informed sources report that tonight Mr. Morishita did not go anywhere after work, but returned directly to his lodgings, where he prepared and is eating dinner by himself.

That concludes our news about Mr. Morishita. "In other news, this evening is the night festival at the Yakuyoke Hachiman Shrine in Mizugaoka, Kobe. Let's go to our live report on the festivities from Mr. Mizuno, reporting from the scene." "Yes! Mizuno here..." I sat dazed, blankly watching the screen as the television broadcast the next story. "Whew, that was a shock," I murmured at last. It was a hallucination.

It had to be. An illusion, and an auditory hallucination at that. Anything else was unthinkable. In the first place, what was the point of reporting that I had invited Akiko Misawa out and that I had been soundly turned down as usual? It had no news value. Still, for a hallucination, the photographs of myself and Akiko Mikawa shown on the screen, the style of character used for our names underneath, and the way the announcer had spoken lingered all too vividly in my memory. I shook my head violently. "Impossible!" The news ended. I nodded decisively, then declared resolutely.

"It's an illusion. Yes. An illusion." I murmured on. "I guess there really are illusions as clear as this one." "Ha ha ha ha ha!" I laughed. The sound of my low laughter echoed in the four-and-a-half tatami-mat room. I tried imagining what would happen if the story really had been broadcast. If Akiko Mikawa had seen it, or if the guys at the office had seen it, what on earth would they think? I burst out laughing again at the thought, and it just wouldn't stop. "Ah-hahaha! Hahahahahahaha! Hee, hee! Hahahahahahaha!" Even after I'd burrowed into my futon, I still couldn't stop laughing for some time. The next morning I was on the human interest page of the newspaper.

MISS MIKAWA REFUSES

MR. MORISHITA'S INVITATION!

"At approximately 4:40 p.m. on the 18th, Mr. Tsutomu Morishita(28), an employee of Kasuyama Electric Industry Ltd. of Sanko-machi, Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, was turned down after asking Miss Akiko Mikawa(23), a typist at the same company, to have tea with him after work. Miss Mikawa said she had to return home early. When he asked Miss Mikawa in the hall, Mr.Morishita was wearing a red necktie with green polka dots purchased the previous day at a Shinjuku supermarket.

"Mr. Morishita had no choice but to return to his lodgings in Kichijoji's Higashi-machi, where he prepared dinner and ate by himself. After dinner, he is believed to have gone straight to bed as usual. It was the fourth time in a row that Miss Mikawa had turned Mr. Morishita's invitation down."

There was a mug shot of me. It was the same one I'd seen on television the night before. There was no picture of Akiko Mikawa. Apparently, I was the main subject of the story.

I read the article over four or five times while I drank some milk. Then I ripped it into shreds and dumped it in the wastebasket.

"It's a plot," I muttered. It's somebody's plot. Damn! Going to all this trouble!"

It must cost money to print even a single copy of a newspaper. Who on earth would go to all that expense to plot to drive me crazy? I had absolutely no memory of doing anything to make someone hate me. If anything, I suppose it could be that someone else was in love with Akiko Mikawa. But even then, all That I'd gotten from her so far was the cold shoulder.

I figured that anyone who would try a prank on this scale must be a real loony. But there simply wasn't anyone like that around me.

I boarded the crowded commuter train. As I stood in the aisle toward the middle of the car, trying to figure out who among the people I know might be responsible, I suddenly noticed the newspaper the man next to me was reading. It was a different paper, but there was still an article about me in it. Moreover, "At approximately 4:40 p.m. on the 18th, Mr. Tsutomu Morishita(28), an employee of Kasuyama Electric Industry Ltd. of Sanko-machi, Shinjuku Ward, Tokyo, was turned down after asking Miss Akiko Mikawa(23), a typist at the same company, to have tea with him after work.

Miss Mikawa said she had to return home early. When he asked Miss Mikawa in the hall, Mr.Morishita was wearing a red necktie with green polka dots purchased the previous day at a Shinjuku supermarket." Mr. Morishita had no choice but to return to his lodgings in Kichijoji's Higashi-machi, where he prepared dinner and ate by himself. After dinner, he is believed to have gone straight to bed as usual. It was the fourth time in a row that Miss Mikawa had turned Mr. Morishita's invitation down."There was a mug shot of me. It was the same one I'd seen on television the night before. There was no picture of Akiko Mikawa. Apparently, I was the main subject of the story. I read the article over four or five times while I drank some milk. Then I ripped it into shreds and dumped it in the wastebasket.

"It's a plot," I muttered. It's somebody's plot. Damn! Going to all this trouble!"

I figured that anyone who would try a prank on this scale must be a real loony. But there simply wasn't anyone like that around me.

"Oh dear, it would have been better if I hadn't torn up that newspaper." I clicked my tongue at my own short temper. It might have helped me find the criminal, and it would have been evidence once I had him. I boarded the crowded commuter train. As I stood in the aisle toward the middle of the car, trying to figure out who among the people I know might be responsible, I suddenly noticed the newspaper the man next to me was reading. It was a different paper, but there was still an article about me in it. Moreover, this one was two columns long!

"Whatcc" I uttered softly.

The man reading the paper looked me in the face, turned his eyes back to the page, and after looking at my picture, then raised his head and stared at me. I hastily turned my back on him.

What a bastard! I felt outraged as a sudden wave of anger swept me. The criminal had switched the morning papers with fakes along the entire rail line. He had not only forced me to read the article about me, but everyone riding with me on this train.

He was trying to make a laughing stock out of me, to ruin my reputation. And it goes without saying that he was trying to drive me crazy. I filled my lungs with the stuffy air of the packed train. Damn! I wouldn't fall for it! I'd never let him drive me mad!

"Hahahahahahahaha!" I laughed shrilly. "Who's going mad?" I shouted. "I'm perfectly sane! Hahahahahahahahahaha!"

The loudspeakers were barking away as usual when we arrived at Shinjuku Station.

"Shinjuku. Shinjuku. Passengers changing to the Yamanote Line please proceed to the platform for Yamanote trains. This train is bound for Yotsuya, Kanda, and Tokyo. Incidentally, Mr. Tsutomu Morishita is riding in the sixth car; He had only a bottle of milk for breakfast this morning. Well everybody, have a good day and work hard!""There was nothing especially unusual about the atmosphere at work. Except that when I entered the room, seven or eight of my co-workers were huddled together.

They gave me sidelong glances as they whispered back and forth together. They're bad-mouthing me, I thought. After taking care of the two or three vouchers on my desk, I went to the typists' little room. The moment they saw me, the girls put on poker faces and began pounding furiously at the keys. They'd obviously been ignoring their work and gossiping about me until that very moment.

I didn't give Akiko Mikawa a glance and instead called Hiruma Sakamoto out into the corridor.

"Did somebody ask about me yesterday?"

She looked like she was about to cry. Apparently nervous she falteringly answered.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know those people were newspaper reporters. I never imagined an article like that would show up in the newspapers."

"Those people. What kind of guys were they?"

"There were four or five men. Of course, I didn't know any of them. They surrounded me on my way home and asked me all kinds of things about you."

"Hmmm."

I pondered this. The plot was a far bigger affair than even I had imagined.

A little afternoon I was called over by my section chief. After giving me some new work to do, he lowered his voice.

"I saw this morning's newspaper."

"Yes, Sir." I didn't know what to say.

My section chief grinned slyly and leaned close to me.

"Well, after all, the media are irresponsible, so I wouldn't let it get to you. I don't think anything of it myself."

This is what he said, but it was clear to me that he was actually eager to know what was going on.

I left the office to take care of the work he had given me and flagged down a taxicab. The young driver had the car radio volume turned up full.

"Take me to Ginza 2-Chome."

"Eh? What's say?"

"Ginza 2-Chome."

"Ginza what chome?"

"2-Chome! 2-Chome!"

He finally nodded, and off we went.

The music ended, and the announcer came on.

"And now for the 2 o'clock news. The government this morning issued directives to all prefectural police to immediately confiscate and vigorously crackdown on the underground production and sale of the laughing bags now being sold across the nation. The laugh bags in question are toy bags that laugh uproariously. The latest directive was issued because of a recent sharp increase in prank telephone calls using these laughing bags, which have inconvenienced many people. The pranksters apparently call at one or two in the morning and make the bag laugh into the telephone. It is reported that there are many cases in which people receiving these calls find them very annoying.

"And now to our next newscc. Today Mr.Tsutomu Morishita arrived at work on time. It is believed that immediately after arriving at the office, he went to the typists'room and called Miss Hiruma Sakamoto out into the hallway, where he spoke with her at length. Nothing is known at this time about the contents of the discussion becomes available. Meanwhile, Mr. Morishita subsequently boarded a taxi on company business and is at this time headed in the direction of the Ginza.

"In other news, the Ministry of Health and Welfare today released the results of a nationwide survey on pinball pros and pinball pin placers. According to the study, it is extremely bad for one's health to play pachinko after eating eels. When asked for comments, Tadashi Akanemura, chairman of the Japan Pinball Pin Placers' Association, saidcc."

The driver turned off the radio. I presumed he found it uninteresting.

Was I really that well known to everybody? I closed my eyes and thought about it. Could it really be that my nameless self was known throughout society?

I did have a title of sorts, but it was only a company employee. A title like employee of Kasuyama Electric Industry Ltd.' was the same as no title at all in the world of the mass media. So, just how well known is my name or my face? Take this cabbie, for instance. As he listened to the news, did he realize that the subject was none other than the man sitting in the back seat of his own taxicab? Or had he recognized me from the moment I get in? Or did he know absolutely nothing about me at all?

I tried asking.

"Hey, hey, driver. Do you know who I am?"

The driver peered into the rearview mirror and studied my face.

"Did I meet you somewhere?"

"No. We've never met."

"Then there's no way I could know you, is there?"

after a moment, he questioned me back.

"You some kind of celebrity?"

"No. I'm no celebrity. I'm just an office worker."

"Are You on TV a lot?"

"No, I've never been on television."

The driver laughed sourly.

"No reason I should know anybody like that, now, is there?"

"I guess not," I nodded. "You're absolutely right." I thought back to the radio news of a moment ago.

The announcer had even known I was headed toward the Ginza in a taxicab at that very moment. And that meant that somebody must be tailing me and observing my movements. I looked behind us. Once I started feeling suspicious, every car looked suspect.

"There's a good possibility we're being followed," I told the driver."Can you shake them?"

"That's a real hassle." The driver made a sour face. "I don't even know what car they're in, do I? For a start it's so crowded „Ÿ there's no way to lose them."

"It's probably that black Cedric. Look, it's flying a newspaper company flag on the bumper."

"Well, in that case, I'll see what I can do. But if you ask me, you've just got a persecution complex."

I'm perfectly sane," I told him hastily. "Don't take me to a mental hospital or anything like that."

After wobbling here and there as if a sleepwalker was driving, the taxi arrived at Ginza 2-Chome.

"Well, at least I shook the black Cedric," smirked the driver."I hope you'll be giving me a tip."

I had no choice. I gave him just 500 more than the meter showed. When I entered our client's office in Ginza 2-Chome, a receptionist I know by sight showed me into a waiting room for special guests, with unusual politeness. Normally I'd just be called to the desk of the clerk in charge, and have to talk standing up while he stayed put in his chair. I sat down on the sofa in the vast reception room. As I was squirming there uneasily, for some unaccountable reason both our client's department director and section chief entered the room and greeted me formally.

"We appreciate all the help you've given our Suzuki," said the director, bowing deeply. Suzuki was the chief clerk who always dealt with me.

"Oh, no. not at all."

I sat there, flustered, as the director and section chief completely ignored the business at hand and extravagantly praised my necktie, lauded my good taste, and finally even began to eulogize my good looks. I winced, and as soon as I'd handed over the papers I'd received from my boss and delivered his message, I hurried from the office.