Galaxy 1951 02 Text

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FEBRUARY 1951
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SCIENCE FICTION
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A THE FIREMAN
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Galaxy
SCIENCE FICTION
February, 1951 Vol. 1, No. 5
Edilor-in-Chief
VERA CERUTTI
Editor H, L GOLD CONTENTS

Art Director
NOVELLA
W. L VAN DER POEL
Advertising Manager THE FIREMAN - * * < * ••.«.*«>..
GENE MARTINAT by Ray Bradbury 4
SHORT STORIES
. . . AND IT COMES OUT HERE
by Lester del Rey 62
Cover by
CHESLEY BONESTELL
Illustrating
THE PROTECTOR .... •*»«*«*»#*•» «.*«>
The Tying Down of a
Spaceship on Mars in
by Betsy Curtis 75
a Desert sandstorm
SECOND CHILDHOOD
GALAXY Science Fiction
is published monthly by , by Clifford D. S/mafc 83
World Editions, Inc. Main
offices: 105 West 40th St.,
New York 18, N. Y. 250 TWO WEEKS IN AUGUST
per copy, Subscriptions
(12 copies) $2.50 per year
in the United States, by Frank M. Robinson 1 02
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Central America and U. S.
Possessions. Elsewhere BOOK-LENGTH SERIAL— Installment 2
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as second-class matter is
pending at the Post Office, TYRANN
New York, N. Y. Copyright,
1950, by World Editions, by Isaac Asimov 108
Inc. President: George A,
Gogniat. Vice-President
Marco Lombi. Secretary FEATURES
and Treasurer Anne Swe-
:
reda. All rights, including EDITORIAL PAGE

translation, reserved. Ail
material submitted must be
accompanied by self -ad- by H. L Gold 2
dressed stamped envelopes.
The publisher assumes no
responsibility for unsolic- FIVE-STAR SHELF
ited material. All stories
printed^ in this magazine by Groff Conklin 99
are fiction, and any simil-
arity between characters
and actual persons is co-
incidental* Next issue at your newsstand first week In February
o|^|s^k^l73 Printed in the U. S. A. Reg. U. S. Pat. Off*
DON'T LOOK NOW, BUT . .
. . . GALAXY Science Fiction has:

• The most attractive appearance in its field. No reader,
whether Ph.D., M.D., D.D., hackie, housewife or haber-
dasher, is ashamed to be seen carrying GALAXY!
• The most beautiful covers in its field. Paintings by

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Kromekote, the choicest cover stock obtainable!
• The highest rates and most liberal policy on story

rights in its field. GALAXY demands no share what-
ever in the resale of any story that appears in it, which
helps to explain why GALAXY has . . .
• The best fiction in its field. The finest science fiction

writers —and now RAY BRADBURY!— are consistently
giving GALAXY their finest stories!
• Could this be why GALAXY Science Fiction has made

the greatest impact and is growing more swiftly than
any other magazine in its field?
• M'm, yes, it could be . . and it is! For 1 2 issues of

.
convincing proof, send $2.50 and your name and

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NEW YORK 18. N. Y.
Yardstick for Science
Fiction
k MONG readers, writers and "The quality of everything that
/% business rivals, there is no has appeared in GALAXY is so

/~\ doubt that GALAXY has high that, when I write for it, I
succeeded enormously. Of these, want to be represented by my best

only our competitors are baffled by work."
these phenomena: Guess at the name if you wish;
• GALAXY is naive enough to you may even be right but I'll . . .
believe in the publishing platitudes hold it until I have a definite an-

of good characterization, believable nouncement to make.
situations, credible conflict, all of Yes, there is enough good stuff
which have been talked up for to be had, now that writers are
years while the opposite was used. convinced GALAXY
wants them
Whether GALAXY really does to discard the shabby wrappings in
use them can be attested to by a which science fiction has been
from an author whose name
letter embalmed; mummified, almost.
would be instantly recognized: This policy was inevitable, for it
"... I opened the first issue merely applies the standards of any
with interest but without any spe- legitimate branch of literature to
cial one way or the
expectation, science fiction. I don't want to keep
other. I recognized your name on this policy exclusively ours, for I
the masthead and I was im- . . . do not fear good competition,

pressed with both the ambitious which can expand the field
format and the table of contents immensely, but I am mortally
names. Then I read it, almost at afraid of retread private eye, west-
one sitting and realized I was— ern and Congo Sam stories mas-
reading the first fully adult science querading as science fiction.
fiction magazine I had ever held in • As I mentioned in an earlier
my hands! editorial, reader-editor collabora-
". . . Frankly, I didn't think you tion has often been offered,seldom
could keep it up more than one meant. was meant in GALAXY,
It
issue, being fairly sure that there despite warnings even from read-
was not that much good stuff to be ers that *the screwballs might de-
had. But the second issue -was as mand old hat science fiction. None
good as the first and so was the did.
third . . . If GALAXY is a superior maga-
GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

zine it is due to reader participa- their inclination to give their work
tion and guidance! away for nothing —while demand-
• GALAXY has received the ing a share of resale price.
excited support of the best writers • Because of our higher rates and
of science fiction. These authors refusal to cut in on earnings that
were not misled by party girls on are not ethically a magazine pub-
our payroll, nor drugged into sub- lisher's, GALAXY is, as a natural
mitting. They came voluntarily be- consequence, getting the finest sci-
cause of our challenging editorial ence fiction stories.
policy and the highest rates in the Also as a consequence, apparent-

field. And just as important . . . ly, "Needle" by Hal Clement will
• GALAXY buys only first maga- not be the current 'GALAXY
zine publication rights. We retain Science Fiction Novel, though an-
no other rights at all, whether nounced last month. A fraction of
radio, pocketbook, anthologization, the book first appeared in another
or any other sort. We demand not magazine, and since it is that pub-
a single cent of the payment for lisher's policy to retain reprint
the resale of any GALAXY
story! rights, it has been refused us, de-
This point may be obscure to spite the wishes of the author and
non-writers, but it is of vital con- the publishers of the clothbound
cern to "authors. Vital enough, I be- edition.
lieve, for readers to have it Hal Clement has thus suffered a
explained to them. serious financial loss a guarantee —
Counting false starts, stories of almost the original price of the
that won't work out, stories that story, and royalties that could very
shouldn't have been written at all possibly make it much more
but seemed good at the time, re- through having his interests "pro-
search, productive labor, etc., it tected."
takes stupendous amount of
a It is dubious protection that can,
writing at even the highest rates cancel a sale for an author and
to support an author and his family yet often involve a demand for a
on magazine sales alone. substantial part of the payment. In
Any income a story-
additional some cases, this demand may
can bring in, through anthologiza- amount to as much as the original
tion, pocketbook reprint, or other price of the story.
resale, is important to him. We regret being unable to offer
Realizing this, GALAXY does this fine book . . . but we do have
not use fictitious excuses to deprive an ORIGINAL novel, "Prelude to
writers of this income, such as re- Space" by Arthur C. Clarke. It's
garding them as business infants good! And it's still only 25(f.
who must be protected against H. L. GOLD —
YARDSTICK FOR SCIENCE FICTION 3
THE
FIREMAN
By RAY BRADBURY
A master of science fiction presents his

masterwork of frightening conviction . .
the world of the future WE are creating!
Fire, Fire, Burn Books
HE men Mr. Montag among
T
four sat silently sat stiffly the
playingunder a
blackjack other firemen in the fire house,
green drop-light in the dark heard the voice-clock mourn out the
morning. Only a voice whispered cold hour and the cold year, and
from the ceiling: shivered.
"One thirty-five a.m. Thursday •The other three glanced up.
morning, October 4th, 2052, A.D. "What's wrong, Montag?"
. . One 'forty a.m.
. one . . . A radio hummed somewhere.
fifty . .
." ". . . War may be declared any

Illustrated by KARL ROGERS
hour. This country stands ready to

defend its destiny and . .
."
The house trembled as five

fire
hundred jet-planes screamed across

the black morning sky. colored hair. Stacked behind them
The firemen slumped in their were glittering piles of auxiliary
coal-blue uniforms, with the look helmets. Downstairs in concrete
of thirty years in their blue-shaved, dampness the fire monster itself
sharp, pink faces "and their burnt- slept, the silent dragon of nickel
THE FIREMAN
and tangerine colors, the boa-con r 1. Answer the alarm quickly.
strictor hoses, the twinkling brass. 2. Start the fire swiftly.
"I'm thinking of our last job," 3. Be sure you burn every-
said Mr. Montag. thing.
"Don't," said Leahy, the fire 4. Report back to fire house.
chief. 5. Stand alert for another
"That poor man, when we alarm:
burned his library. How would it
feel if firemen burned our houses Everyone watched Montag.
and our books?" He swallowed. "What will they
"We haven't any books." do to that old man we caught last
"But if we did have some." night with his books?"

"You got some?" "Insane asylum."
"No." "But he wasn't insane!"
Montag gazed beyond them to "Any man is who thinks he can
the wall and the typed lists of a hide books from the Government
million forbidden books. The titles or us." Leahy blew a great fiery
cringed in burning down the

fire, cloud of cigar smoke from his thin
years under his ax and his fire hose mouth. He idled back.
spraying not water but kerosene. — The alarm sounded.
"Was it always like this?" asked The bell kicked itself two hun-
Mr. Montag. "The fire house, our dred times in a few seconds. Sud-
duties? I mean, well, once upon a denly there were three empty chairs.
time . .
." The cards fell in a snow flurry.
"Once uponLeahy a time!" The brass pole trembled. The men
crowed. "What kind of language is were gone, their hats with them.
that?" Montag still sat. Below, the orange
Fool, cried Montag to himself. dragon coughed to life.
You'll give yourself away! That last Montag slid down the pole like
fire. A book of fairy tales. He had a man in a dream.
dared to read a line or so. "I mean," "Montag, you forgot your hat!"
he said, quickly, "in the old days, Hegot it and they were off, the
before homes were completely fire- night wind hammering about their
proof, didn't firemen ride to fires siren noise and their mighty metal
to put them out, instead of start thunder.
them?"
"I never knew that." Stoneman WAS a
IThouse flaking three-story
and Black drew forth their rule in the old section of town.
books and laid them where Mon- A century old if it was a day, but,
tag, though long familiar with like every house, it had been given
them, might read: a thin fireproof plastic coat fifty

years ago,and this preservative shell but it blazed in his mind for the
seemed to be holding it up. next minute as ifstamped there
"Here we are!" with a fiery iron. He dropped the
The engine slammed to a stop. book. Immediately, another fell into
Leahy, Stoneman, and Black ran up his arms.

the sidewalk, suddenly odious and "Montag, come on up!"
fat in their plump slickers. Montag Montag's hand closed like a trap,
followed. crushed the book with wild devo-
They crashed the front door and tion, with an insanity of mindless-
caught a woman, running. ness to his chest. The men above

"I didn't hurt anyone!" she were hurling shovelfuls of litera-
cried. ture into the dusty air. They fell
"Where are they?" Leahy twist- like slaughtered birds and the wo-
ed her wrist. '
man stood like a small girl among
"You wouldn't take an old wo- the bodies.
man's pleasures from her, would "Montag!"
you?" He climbed up into the attic.
Stoneman produced the tele- " 'This too shall pass away.' "
phone alarm card with the com- "What?" Leahy glared at him.
plaint signed in facsimile duplicate Montag froze, blinking. "Did I
on the back. "Says here, Chief, the say something?"
books are. in the attic." "Move, you idiot!"
"All right, men, let's get 'em!"
Next thing they were up in
musty blackness, swinging silver
THE books lay
left to dry.
in piles like fishes
hatchets at doors that were, after "Trash! Trash!" The men danced
all, unlocked, tumbling through like on the books. Titles glittered their
boys all rollick and shout. golden eyes, falling, gone.
"Hey!" "Kerosene!"
A fountain of books sprayed They pumped the cool fluid from
down on Montag as he climbed the white snake they had twined
shuddering up the steep stair well. upstairs. They coated every book;
Books bombarded his shoulders, his they pumped rooms full of it.
pale face. A book lit, almost obe- "This is better than the old man's
white pigeon, in his
diently, like a place last night, eh?"
hands, wings fluttering. In the dim, That had not been as much fun.
wavering light a page hung open The old man had lived in an apart-
and it was like a snowy feather, the ment house with other people. They
words delicately painted thereon. In had had to use controlled fire there.
all the rush and fervor, Montag Here, they could ravage the entire
had only an instant to read a line, '
house.
THE FIREMAN
They ran downstairs, Montag "Go on," said the woman.
reeling after them in the kerosene "Three," said Leahy.
fumes. "Come." Montag pulled at her.
"Come on, woman!" "I want to stay here," she re-
"My books," she said, quietly. plied, quietly.
"Four ."
She knelt among them to touch the . . . five . .
drenched leather, to read the gilt The woman twisted. Montag

titles with her fingers instead of slipped on an oily book and fell.
her eyes, while her eyes accused The woman ran up the stairs half
Montag. way and stood there with the books
"You can't take my books," she at her feet.
said. "Six . . . seven . . . Montag,"

"You know the law," said Leahy. said Leahy.
"Pure nonsense, all of it. No two Montag did not move. He looked
books alike, none agreeing. Confu- out the door at that man there with
sion. Stories about people who the pink face, pink and burned and
never existed. Come on, now." shiny from too many fires, pink
"No," she said. from night excitements, the pink
"The whole house'll burn." face of Mr. Leahy with the igniter
"I won't go." poised in his pink fingers.
The three men walked clumsily Montag felt the book hidden
They glanced back at
to the door. against his pounding chest.
Montag who stood near the woman. "Go get him!" ordered Leahy.
"You're not leaving her here?"
he protested. THE men dragged Montag yell-
"She won't come." ing from the house.

"But she's got to!" Leahy backed out after them,
Leahy raised his hand. It con- leaving a kerosene trail down the
tained the concealed igniter to start walk. When they were a hundred
the fire. "Got to get back to the feet away, Montag was still shout-,
station. Besides, she'd cost us a ing and kicking. He glanced wildly
trial, money, jail." back.
Montag placed his hand around In the front door where she had
the woman's elbow. "You can-come come to gaze out at them quietly,
with me." her quietness a condemnation, star-
"No." She actually focused her ing straight into Leahy's eyes, was
eyes on him for a moment. "Thank the woman.
you, anyway." Leahy twitched his finger to ignite
"I'm counting to ten," said the fuel.
Leahy. "One, two . .
." He was too late. Montag
"Please," said Montag. gasped.

The woman in the door, reach- up along his chest, his throat, his
ing with contempt toward them all, chin. Her hand brushed his cheek.
struck a match against the saturated He knew that she pulled her hand
wood. away from his cheek wet.
People ran out of houses all down A long time later when he was
the street. finally floating into sleep, he heard
her say, "You smell of kerosene."
"WHO
r
is it?" "I always smell of kerosene," he
Who would it be?" mumbled.
said Mr. Montag, leaning back Late in the night he looked over
against the closed door in the dark. at Mildred. She was awake. There
His wife said, at last, "Well, put was a tiny dance of melody in the
on the light." room. She had her thimble-radio
"I don't want the light," he said. tamped into her ear, listening, lis-
"Come to bed." tening to far people in far places,

He heard her roll impatiently; her eyes peeled wide at deep ceil-
the springs squeaked. "Are you ings of blackness. Many nights in

drunk?" the last ten years he had £pund her
He worked out of his coat and with her eyes open, like a dead
let it slump to the floor. He held woman. She would lie that way,
his pants out into an abyss and let blankly, hour upon hour, and then
them fall forever and forever into rise and go soundlessly to the bath.
darkness. You could hear faucet water run,
His wife said, "What are you the tinkle of the sedatives bottle,
doing?" and Mildred gulping hungrily,
He balanced in space with the frantically, at sleep.
book in his sweating, icy hand. She was awake now. In a mo-
A minute later, she said, "Well, ment she would rise and go for the
don't just stand there in the middle barbiturates.
of the room." "Mildred," he thought.
He made a small sound. And
suddenly she was so strange
"What?" she asked. thathe couldn't believe that he
He made more soft sounds. He knew her at all. He was in someone
stumbled toward the bed and else's house, like those jokes men
shoved the book clumsily under the told about the gentleman, drunk
cold pillow. He fell into bed and on life, who had come home late
his wife cried out, startled. He lay at night, unlocked the wrong door,
separate from her. She talked to him entered a wrong room. And now
for what seemed a long while and here Montag lay in the strange
when he didn't reply but only made night by this unidentified body he
sounds, he felt her hand creep over, had never seen before.
THE FIREMAN
"Millie?" he called. did it, why she wanted to die, and
"What!" she saying she didn't know, she
"I didn't mean to startle you. didn't know, she didn't know any-
What I want to know is, when did thing about anything!
we meet? And where?" She didn't belong to him; he
"For what?" didn't belong to her. She didn't
"I mean originally." know herself, him, or anyone; the
She was frowning in the dark. world didn't need her, she didn't
need herself, and in the hospital he
HE CLARIFIED it. "The first

time we ever met, where was
had realized that if she died he
would not cry. For it was the dying
it, and when?" of an unknown, a street face, a face
"Why, it was at . .
." in the newspaper^ and it was sud-
She stopped. denly so wrong that he had begun

"I don't know." to cry, not at death but at the
He was frightened. "Can't you thought of not crying at death, a
remember?" silly empty man beside an empty
They both tried. woman while the doctors emptied
"It's been so long." her still more.
"Only ten years. We're both only And why are we empty, lonely,
thirty!" and not in love? he had asked him-
"Don't get excited, I'm trying
(
self, a year ago.
to think." She laughed a strange They were never together. There
laugh. "How funny, not to remem- was always something between, a
ber where or when you met your radio, a televisor, a car, a plane, a
husband or wife." game, nervous exhaustion, or, sim-
He lay with his eyes tight, press- ply, a little pheno-barbitol. They
ing, massaging his brow. It was didn't know each other; they knew
suddenly more important than any things, inventions. They had ap-
other thing in a lifetime that he plauded science while' it had built
knew where he had met Mildred. a beautiful glass structure, a glitter-
"It doesn't matter." She was up, ing miracle of contraptions about
in the bathroom now. He heard the them, and, too late, they had found
water rushing, the swallowing it to be a glass wall. They could
sound. not shout through the wall; they
"No, I guess not," he murmured. could only pantomime silently,
And he wondered, did she take never touching, hearing, barely see-
twenty tablets now, like a year ago, ing each other.
when we had to pump her stomach, Looking at Mildred at the hos-
and me shouting to keep her awake, pital, he had thought, does it matter
walking her, asking her why she if we live of die?
10 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

That might not have been "Okay, mister, you can walk
enough if the people' had not moved now."
next door with their daughter. He had gone on, stomping his
Perhaps that had been the start feet, jerking his mouth and hands,
of his awareness of his job, his eyes blazing, gripping his elbows.
marriage, his life. "The nerve! The nerve! Is there a
law against pedestrians!"
ONEhe night — was so long ago

it The girl -turned a corner and
had gone out for a long walked toward him.
walk. In the moonlight, he realized . She stopped and glanced at him.
that he had come out to get away "Why, hello," she said, and put
from the nagging of his wife's tele- out her hand. "You're my neigh-
vision set. He walked, hands in bor, aren't you?"
pockets, blowing steam from his "Am I?" he said.
mouth into the cold air. She was smiling quietly. "We're
"Alone," He looked at the ave- the only live ones, aren't we?" She
nues ahead. "By God, I'm alone. waved at the empty sidewalks. "Did
Not another pedestrian in miles." the police stop you, too?"
He walked swiftly down street after "Walking's a crime."
"Why, I'm "They on me,
street.
trian in the entire

the only pedes-
city!" The but saw
flashed their lights
was a woman " She
I
—
streets were empty and long and was- no more than sixteen, Montag
quiet. Distantly, on crosstown arter- estimated, with eyes and hair as
ies, a few cars moved in the dark. dark as mulberries, and a paleness
But no other man ventured upon about her that was not illness but
the earth to test the use of his legs. radiance. "Then they drove away.
In fact, had been so many years
it I'm Clarisse McClellan. And you're
since the sidewalks were used that Mr. Montag, the fireman."
they were buckling, becoming ob- They walked together. And she
scured with grass. began to talk for both of them.
So he walked alone, aware of "It's a graveyard, this town," she
his loneliness, until the police car said. "I like to walk just to keep
pulled up and flashed its cold white my franchise on the sidewalks."
light upon him. He looked and it was true. The
"What're you doing?" shouted a city was like a dark tomb, every
voice. house deep in television dimness,
"I'm out for a walk." - not a sound or move anywhere.
"He says he's out for a walk."
The laughter, the cold, precise <<TTAVE you ever noticed all the
turning over of his identity cards, J. J. cars rushing?" she asked.
the careful noting of his address. "On the big boulevards down that
THE FIREMAN 11
way, day and night. I sometimes house,its lights were all blazing. It
think they don't know what grass was the only house, in a city of a
is, or flowers, because they never million houses, with its lights burn-
see them slowly. If you showed ing brightly.
them a green blur, oh, yes! they'd "What's going on?" Montag had
say, that's grass! A pink blur, yes, never seen that many house lights.
that's roses!" She laughed to her- "Oh, just my mother and father
self. "A white blur's a house. Quick and uncle sitting around, talking.
brown blursare cows. My uncle It's like being a pedestrian, only
drove slow on a highway once. rarer."
They threw him in jail. Isn't that "But what do they talk about?"
funny and sad, too?" She laughed at this, said good
"You think of a lot of things for night,and was gone.
a girl," said Montag, uneasily. -
At three in the cold morning,
"That's because I've got time to he got out of bed and stuck his
think. I never watch t-v or go to head out the front window. The
games or races or funparks. So I've moon was rising and there was a
lots of time for crazy thoughts, I man in the moon. Over the broad
guess. Have you seen the two hun- lawn, a million jewels of dew
dred-foot-long billboards in the sparkled.
country? Well, did you know that "I'll be damned," said Montag,
once billboards were only twenty- and went back to bed.

five feet long? But cars started go-
ing by so quickly, they had to
HE SAW Clarisse many after-
stretch the advertising out so it noons and came to hope he
could be seen." would be seeing her, found himself
"I didn't know that." Montag watching for her sitting on her
laughed abruptly. green lawn, studying the autumn
"Bet I know something else you leaves with a fine casual air, or re-
don't." turning from a distant woods with
"What?" wild yellow flowers, or looking at
"There's dew on the grass in the the sky, even while it was raining.
morning." "Isn't rain nice?" she said.
He couldn't remember, and sud- "I hadn't noticed."
denly it frightened him. "Believe me, it is nice."
"And, if you look, there's a man He always laughed embarrassed-
in the moon." ly. Whether at her, or at himself,
He had never looked. His heart he wasn't sure. "I believe you."
beat rapidly. "Do you really? Did you ever
They walked the rest of the way smell old leaves? Don't they smell
in silence. When they reached her like cinnamon? Here!"

"Why, it is cinnamon, yes!" seen and not heard. But that was a
She gazed at him with her clear long time ago, when they had disci-
dark eyes. "My gosh, you don't pline and Do you
responsibility.
really know very much, do you?" .
know, I'm disciplined? I'm spanked
She was not unkind, just concerned when I need it, and I've responsi-
for him. bility. I do all the shopping and
"I don't suppose any of us know housecleaning. By hand."

much." "And you know about rain," said
"I do," she said, quietly, "be- Mr. Montag, with the rain beating
cause I've time to look." on his hat and coat.
"Don't you attend school?" "It tastes good if you lean back
"Oh, no. They say I'm anti-social. and open your mouth. Go on."
I don't mix. And the yelling bully He leaned back and gaped.
is the thing among kids this season, "Why," he said, "it's wive."
you know."
"It's been a long season," ob- THAT had not been the end of
served Montag, and stood some- it. girl had talked to him
The
what shocked at his own percep- one bright afternoon and given him
tion. the dandelion test.
"Then you've noticed?" "It proves you're in love or not."

"Yes. But what about your She brushed a dandelion under
friends?" his chin.
"I haven't any. That's supposed "What a shame! You're not in
to prove I'm abnormal. But they're love with anyone."
always packed around the t-v, or And he thought, when did I
racing in cars, or shouting or beat- stop loving Mildred? and the an-
ing one another. Do you notice how swer was never! for he had never
people hurt one another now- known her. She was the pale, sad
adays?" goldfish that swam in the subter-
"You sound ancient." ranean illumination of the televi-
"I am. I know about rain. That sion parlor; her natural habitat.
makes me ancient to them. They "It's the dandelion you use,"
kill each other. It didn't used to be protested Montag.
that way, did it? Children killing "No," said Clarisse, solemnly.
each other all the time? Four of "You're not in love. A dandelion
my friends have been shot in the won't help." She tossed the flower
past year. I'm afraid of children." away. "Well, I've got to go see
"Maybe it was always this way." my psychiatrist. My teachers are
"My father says his grandfather sendingme to him. He's trying to
remembered when children didn't make me normal."
each other, when children were
kill "I'll throttle him if he does!"
THE FIREMAN 13
"Right now he's trying to figure "A month! But why didn't
out why I go away from the city someone tell me?"
and walk in the forests once a day. "Didn't I? I suppose it slipped
Have you ever walked in a forest? my mind. Yes, a car hit her."
No? It's so quiet and lovely, and "Did they find whose car it
nobody rushing. I like to watch the was?"
birds and the insects. They don't "No. You know how those things
rush:" are. What do you want for supper,
Before she lefthim to go inside, frozen steak or chops?"
she looked at him suddenly and
said,
I
"Do you know, Mr. Montag,
can't believe you're a fireman."
AND so Clarisse was dead.
disappeared! for in a
No,
large
"Why not?" cityyou didn't die, you simply van-
"Because you're so nice. Do you ished.No one missed you, no one
mind if I ask one last question?" saw you go; your death was as in-
"I don't mind." significant as that of a butterfly
"Why do you do what you do?" carried secretly away, caught in the
But before he knew what she radiator grille of a speeding car.
meant or could make a reply, she And with Clarisse's death, half
had run off, embarrassed at her own of the world was dead, and the
frankness. other half was instantly revealed to
"What did she mean, why do I him for what it was.
do what I do?" he said to himself. He saw what Mildred was and
"I'm a fireman, of course. I burn always would be, what he himself
books. Is that what she meant?" was but didn't want to be any more.
He didn't see Clarisse for a And he saw that it was no idle
month. He
watched for her every thing, Mildred's suicidal attempts,
day, but made no point of her ab- the lovely dark girl with the flow-
sence to his wife. He wanted to go ers being ground under a car; it was
rap on her parents' door, but de- a thing of the world they lived in.
cided against it; he didn't want It was a part of the screaming,

them misunderstanding his interest pressing down of people into elec-
in the child. But after thirty-six tric molds. It was the meaningless
days had passed, he brought Clar- flight of civilization down a rotary
isse's name up offhand. track to smash its own senseless
"Oh, her?" said Mildred, with tail. Mildred's flight was trying to
the radio music jarring the table die and escape nothingness, whereas
plates. "Why, didn't you know?" Clarisse had been fighting nothing-
"Know what?" ness with
something, with being
"She was killed by an automobile aware instead of forgetting, with
a month ago." walking instead of sitting, with go-

ing to get life instead of having it Mildred stood over his bed,
brought to her. curiously. He felt her there; he saw
And this civilization had killed her without opening his eyes, her
her for her trouble. Not purposely, hair burned by chemicals to a brittle
no, but with a fine ironic sense; for straw, her eyes with a kind of men-
no purpose at all. Killed by a tal cataract unseen but suspect far
vanilla-faced idiot racing nowhere behind the pupils, the reddened
for nothing and irritated that he pouting lips, the body as thin as a
had been detained 120 seconds praying mantis from dieting, and
while the police investigated and her flesh like raw milk. He could
released him on his way to some remember her no other way.
distant base which he must tag fran- "Will you bring me an analgesic
tically before running for home. and water?"
Montag felt the slow gathering "You've got to get up," she said.
of awareness. Mildred. Clarisse. "It's noon. You've slept five hours
The firemen. The murdering chil- later than usual."
dren. Last night, the old man's "Will you turn the radio off?"
books burned and him in an asylum. he asked.
Tonight, that woman burned be- "That's my favorite program."
fore his eyes. It was such a night- "Will you turn it off for a sick
mare that only another nightmare, man?"
less horrible, could be used to "I'll turn it down."
escape from it, and Clarisse had She went out of the room and
died weeks ago and he had not did nothing to the radio and came
seen her die, which made it some- back. "Is that better?"
how cruder and yet more bearable. "Thanks."
"Clarisse. Clarisse." "That's my favorite program,"
Montag lay all night long, think- she repeated, as if she had not said
ing, smelling the smoke on his it a thousand times before.
hands, in the dark. "What about the analgesic?"
"You've never been sick before."
HAD
H E
"You
morning.
can't
chills and fever in the
be sick," said Mil-

She went away again.
"Well, I'm sick now. I'm not
going to work tonight. Call Leahy
dred. for me."
He closed his eyes upon the "You acted funny last night."
hotness. '-'Yes." She returned, humming.
"But you were all right last "Where's the analgesic?" He
night." glanced at the water glass.
"No, I wasn't all right." He "Oh." She walked to the bath
heard the radio in the parlor. again. "Did something happen?"
THE FIREMAN 15
"A fire, that's all." "We burned a thousand books •
"I had a nice evening," she said, and a woman."

in the bathroom. "Forbidden books."
"What doing?" The radio was exploding in the
"Television." parlor.
"What was on?" "Yes. Copies of Plato and Soc-
"Programs." rates and Marcus Aurelius."
"What programs?" "Foreigners?"
"Some of the best ever." "Something like that."
"Who?" "Then they were radicals."
"Oh, you know, the big shows." "All foreigners can't be radicals."
"Yes, the big shows, big, big, "If they wrote books, they were."
big." He pressed at the pain in his Mildred fiddled with the telephone.
eyes and suddenly the odor of kero- "You don't expect me to call Mr.
sene made him vomit. Leahy, do you?"
Mildred came in, humming. She "You must!"
was surprised. "Why'd you do "Don't shout."
that?" "I wasn't shouting!" He was up
He looked with dismay at the in bed, suddenly, enraged and
floor. "We burned an old woman flushed, shaking. The radio roared
with her books." in the hot air. "I can't call him. I
"It's a good thing the rug's can't tell him I'm sick."
washable." She fetched a mop and "Why?"
swabbed clumsily at it. "I went to Because you're afraid, he thought,
Helen's last night." pretending illness, afraid to call.
"Couldn't you get the shows on Leahy because moment's dis-

after a
your own t-v?" cussion the conversation would run
"Sure, but it's nice visiting." so: "Yes, Mr. Leahy, I feel better
"Did Helen get over that finger already. I'll be in at ten o'clock
infection ?" tonight."
'
"I didn't notice." "You're not sick," said Mildred
Montag fell back in bed. He
SHE went out into the living reached under his pillow and
room. He heard her by the groped for the hidden book. It
radio, singing. was still there.
"Mildred?" he called. "Mildred, how would it be if
She returned, singing, snapping well, maybe I quit my job awhile?"
her fingers softly. "You want to give up every-
"Aren't you going to ask me thing? After all these years of
about night?" he said. working, because, one night, some
"What
last
about it?" woman and her books

—
u GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION
"You should have seen her, The radio was playing a dance
Millie!" tune.
"She's nothing to me. She "I've been killing the brain of
shouldn't have had books. It was the world for ten years, pouring
her responsibility; she should' ve kerosene on it. Millie, a book is a
thought of that. I hate her. She's brain. It isn't only that woman we
got you going and next thing you destroyed, or others like her, in
know we'll be out, no house, no these years, but it's the thoughts I
job, nothing." burned and never knew it."
"You weren't there, you didn't He got out of bed.

see," he "There must be
said. "It took some man a lifetime to
something in books, whole worlds put some of his thoughts on paper,
we don't dream about, to make a looking after all the beauty and
woman stay in a burning house. goodness in life, and then we come
There must be something fine along in two minutes and heave it
there. You don't stay and burn for in the incinerator!"
nothing." "Let me alone," said Mildred.
"She was simple-minded." "Let you alone!" He almost cried
"She was as rational as you or I, out with laughter. "Letting you
more so, and we burned her." alone is easy, but how can I leave
"That's water under the bridge." myself alone? That's what's wrong.
"No, not water, Millie, but fire. We need not to be let alone. We
You ever seen a burned house ? It need to be upset and stirred and
smolders for days. Well, this fire'll bothered, once in a while, anyway.
last me half a century. My God, Nobody bothers any more. Nobody
I've been trying to put it out, in thinks. Let a baby alone, why don't
my mind, all night, and I'm crazy you? What would you have in
with trying." twenty years? A savage, unable to
"You should've thought of that think or talk — like us!" '
before becoming a fireman." Mildred glanced out the window.

"Now you've done it. Look who's
"IT1HOUGHT!" he said. "Was I here."
jL given a choice? I was raised "I don't give a damn." He was
to think the best thing in the world feeling better but didn't know
is not to r^id. The best thing is why.
television and radio and ball games "It's Mr. Leahy."
and a home I can't afford and, Good The elation drained away. Mr.
Lord, now, only now I realize what Montag slumped.
I've done. My grandfather and "Go open the door," he said, at
father were firemen. Walking in last. him I'm sick."
"Tell
my sleep, I followed them." "Tell him yourself."
THE FIREMAN 17
He made sure the book was this. They only need understanding,
hidden behind the pillow, climbed need to know how the wheels run,
back into bed, and had made him- what the history of our profession
self tremblingly- uncomfortable, is. They don't give it to rookies any
when the door opened and Mr. more. Only fire chiefs remember it
Leahy strolled in, hands in pockets. now. I'll let you in on it." He lit
"Shut the radio off," said Leahy, the cigar leisurely.

abstractedly. Mildred fidgeted.
This time, Mildred obeyed. "You ask yourself about the
Mr. Leahy sat down in a com- burning of books, why, how,
fortable chair with a look of strange when." Leahy exuded a great gray
peace in his pink face. He did not cloud of smoke.
look at Montag. "Maybe," said Montag.
"Just thought I'd come by and "It started around about the
see how the sick man is." Civil War, I'd say. Photography
"How'd you guess?" discovered. Fast printing presses
"Oh." Leahy smiled his pink coming up. Films at the early part
smile, and shrugged. "I'm an old of the 20th Century. Radio. Tele-
hand at this. I've seen it all. You vision. Things began to have mass,
were going to call me and tell me Montag, mass."
you needed a day off." "I see."
"Yes." "And because they had mass,
they became simpler. Books, now.
"TT7ELL, take a day off," said Once they appealed to various small
VV Leahy, looking at his groups of people, here and there.
hands. He carried an eternal match They could afford to be different.
with him at times in a little case The world was roomy. But then the
which said, Guaranteed: One Mil- world got full of mass and elbows.
lion Cigarets Can Be Lit with this Films and radios and magazines and
Match, and kept striking this ab- books had to level down to a sort
stractedly against its case he
as of paste- pudding norm. Do you
talked. "Take a day off. Take two. follow me?"
But never take three." He struck "I think so."
the match and looked at the flame Leahy looked through a veil of
and blew it out. "When will you smoke, not at Montag, but at the
be well?" thing he was describing. "Picture
"Tomorrow, the next day, first of it.The 19th Century man with his
the week, I . .
." horses, dogs,and slow living. You
"We've been wondering about might call him a slow motion man.
you." Leahy put a cigar in his Then in the 20th Century you speed
mouth. "Every fireman goes through up the camera."

"A good analogy." hidden book out from behind the
"Splendid. Books get shorter. pillow and displaying it as if it
Condensations appear. Digests. were a reptile!
Tabloids. Radio programs simplify. Leahy blew a cumulus of cigar
Everything sublimates itself to the smoke at the ceiling. "School is
gag, the snap ending." shortened, discipline relaxed, phi-
"Snap ending." Mildred nodded losophies, histories, languages
approvingly. "You should have dropped, English and spelling neg-
heard last night
— lected, finally ignored. Life is
"Great classics are cut to fit fif- immediate. The job counts. Why
teen minute shows, then two min- learn anything save pressing but-
ute book columns, then two line tons, pulling switches, fitting
digest resumes. Magazines become bolts?"
picture books. Out of the nursery "Let me fix your pillow," said
to the college, back to the nursery, Mildred, being the video house-
in a few short centuries!" wife.
"No," whispered Montag.
MILDRED arose. She was losing "The zipper replaces the button.
the thread of the talk, Mon- Does a man have time to think
tag knew, and when this happened while dressing in the morning, a
she began to fiddle with things. philosophical time?"
She went about the room, picking "No," said Montag, automati-
up. cally.
"Faster and faster the film, Mr. Mildred tugged at the pillow.
Montag! Quick, Click, Pic, Look. "Get away," said Montag.
Eye, Now/ Flash,
Flick, Here, "Life becomes one big Prat Fall,
There, Swift,Up, Down, Why, Mr. Montag. No more subtleties. "
How, Who, Eh? Mr. Montag, di- Everything is bang and boff and
gest-digests, political affairs in one wow!"
column, a sentence, a headline, and "Wow," reflected Mildred, yank-
then, in mid-air, vanish! The mind ing the pillow edge.
of man, whirling so fast under the "For God's sake, let me be!"
pumping hands of publishers, pub- criedMontag, passionately.
licists, ad men, broadcasters that the Leahy stared.
centrifuge throws off all ideas! He Mildred's hand was frozen be-
is unable to concentrate!" hind the pillow. Her hand was on
Mildred was smoothing the bed the book, her face stunned, her
now. Montag felt panic as she ap- mouth opening to ask a ques-
proached his pillow to straighten it. tion . . .
In a moment, with sublime inno- "Theaters stand empty, Mr.

cence, she would be pulling the Montag, replaced by television and
THE FIREMAN 19
baseball and sports where nobody the trick. Today, thanks to them,
has to think at all, not at all, at you can read comics, confessions,
all." Now Leahy was almost in- or trade journals, nothing else. All
visible, a voice somewhere back of the rest is dangerous."
a choking screen of cigar smoke. "Yes, but why the firemen?"
"What's this?" asked Mildred, asked Montag.'
with delight, almost. Montag "Ah," said Leahy, leaning for-
crushed and heaved back against ward in the clouds of smoke to
her hands. "What've you hid finish. "With schools turning out
there?" doers instead of thinkers, with non-
down!" Montag screamed.
"Sit readers, naturally, in ignorance,
She jumped back, her hands they hated and feared books. You
empty. "We're talking!" always fear an unfamiliar thing.
'Intellectual' became a swear word.
LEAHY continued, mildly. "Car- Books were snobbish things.

toons everywhere. Books be- "The little man wants you and
come cartoons.The mind drinks me to be like him. Not everyone
less and less. Impatience. Time to born free and equal, as the Consti-
kill. No work, all leisure. Highways tution says, but everyone made
full of crowds going somewhere, equal. A book gun in
is a loaded
anywhere, nowhere. The gasoline the house next door. Burn Take it.
refugee, towns becoming motels, the shot out of the weapon. Un-
people in nomadic surges from city breach men's minds. Who knows
to city, impatient, following the who might be the target of the
moon tides, living tonight in the well-readman? And so, when
room where you slept last night and houses became all fireproof and
I the night before." there was no longer need of firemen
Mildred went into the other for protection, they were given the
room and slammed the door. She new job, as official censors, judges,
turned on the radio. jurors, punishers. That's you, Mr.
"Go on," said Montag. Montag, and me."
"Intelligent writers gave up in Leahy stood up. "I've got to get
disgust. Magazines were vanilla going."
tapioca. The book buyer, bored by Montag lay back in bed. "Thanks
dishwater, his brain spinning, quit for explaining it to me."
buying. Everyone but the comic- "You must understand our civil-
publisher died a slow publishing ization is so vast that we can't have
death. There you have it. Don't our minorities upset and stirred.
blame the Government. Technol- People must be contented. Books
ogy, mass exploitation, and censor- bother them. Colored people don't
ship from frightened officials did like Little Black Sambo. We burn

it.White people don't like Uncle Mildred had turned on the after-
Tom's Cabin. Burn it, too. Any- noon television show and was star-
thing for serenity." ing into the shadow screen.
Leahy shook Montag's limp Montag cleared his throat, but
hand. she didn't look up.
"Oh, one last thing. Once in his "It's only a step," he said, "from
career, every fireman gets curious. not working today, to not working
What do the books say, he won- tomorrow, to not working ever
ders. A
good question. Well, they again."
say nothing, Mr. Montag. Nothing "You're going to work tonight,
you can touch or believe in. They're though?"
about non-existent people, figments. "I'm doing more than that," he
Not to be trusted. But anyway, say, said. "I'm going to start to kill
a fireman 'takes' a book, at a fire, people and rave, and buy books!"
almost by 'accident.' A natural "A one-man revolution," said
error." Mildred, lightly, turning to look at
"Natural." him. "They'd put you in jail,
"We allow that. We let him wouldn't they?"

keep it 24 hours. If he hasn't "That's not a bad idea. The best
burned it by then, we burn it for people are there." He put his
him." clothes on, furiously, walking
"I see," said Montag. His throat about the bedroom. "But I'd kill a
was dry. few people before I did get locked
"You'll be at work tonight at up. There's a real bastard, that
six- o'clock?" Leahy. Did you bear him! Knows
"No." all the answers, but does nothing
"What!" about it!"
Montag shut his eyes. "I'll be "I won't even listen to all this
in later, maybe." junk," said Mildred.
"See that you do." "No?" he said. "This is your
"I'll never come in again!" house as well as mine, isn't it?"
yelled Montag, but only in his "Yes."
mind. "Then I have something I want
"Get well." you to see, something I put away
Leahy, trailing smoke, went out. and never looked at again during
the past year, not even knowing
MONTAG watched through the why I put them away and hid them
front window as Leahy drove and kept them and never told you."
away in his gleaming beetle which He dragged a chair into the hall,
was the color of the last fire they climbed up on it, and opened an
had set. air-vent. Reaching up, he began
THE FIREMAN 21
throwing books, big ones, little we haven't done and must do.
ones, red, yellow, green books, We've got to know what these
twenty, thirty, fifty books, one by books are so we can tell others, and
one, swiftly, into the parlor at her so that, eventually, they can tell
feet. "There!" everyone. Sit down now, Millie,

"Leonard Montag! You didn't!" there, right there. I'll help you,
"So you're not in this with me? we'll help each other. Between us,
You're in it up to your neck!" we'll do something to destroy men
She backed away as if she were like Leahy and Stoneman and
surrounded by a pack of terrible Black and myself, and this world
rats. Her face was paled out and we live in, and put it all back to-
her eyes were fastened wide and gether a different way. Do you
she was breathing as if someone bear me?"
had struck her in the stomach. "Yes." Her body sagged.
"They'll burn our house. They'll The doorbell rang.
kill us." They jerked about to stare at the
"Let them try." door and the books toppled every-
She hesitated; then, moaning, she where, everywhere in heaps.
seized a book and ran toward the "Leahy!"
fireplace. "It can't be him!"
He caught her. "No, Millie! No! "He's come back!" sobbed Mil-
Never touch my books. Never. Or, dred.
by God, if you do, touch just one The bell rang again.
of them meaning to burn it, be- "Let him stand out there. We
lieve me, Millie, I'll kill you." won't answer." Montag reached
"Leonard Montag! You would- blindly for a book on the floor,
n't!" any book, any beginning, any start,
any beauty at all would do. He put
HE SHOOK her. "Listen," he the book into Mildred's shaking

pleaded down into her face. hands.
He held her shoulders firmly, while The bell rang a third time, in-
her bobbed helplessly,
face and sistently.
tears sprang from her eyes. "Read." He quivered a hand to
"You must help me," he said, a page. "Out loud."
slowly, trying to find his way into Mildred's eyes were on the door
her thinking. "You're in this now, and the bell rang angrily, loudly,
whether you like it or not. I've again and again. "He'll come io,"
never asked for anything in my life she said, "oh, God, and set fire to
of you, but I ask it now, I plead it. everything, and us."
We must start somewhere. We're But at last she found the line,
going to read books. It's a thing with Montag standing over her,

swaying, any line in the book, and rare and beautiful wine but does
after trying it four times, she be- not know
it, went on enclosing the
gan to fumble out the words of a words in plain glass, pouring forth
poem printed there on the white, the beauties with a loose mouth,
unburned paper: while her drab eyes moved over the
"And evening vanish and no more, words and over the words and the
The low pale light across the and the hour grew late.
rain rained
the land
— They readman named Shake-
a
speare and a man named Poe and
The bell rang.
part of a book by a man named
"Nor now the long light on the
Matthew and one named Mark. On
sea
occasion, Mildred glanced fearfully
And here face downward in the
at the window.
sun ."
. .
"Go on," said Mr. Montag.
Another ring. "Someone might be watching.
Montag whispered. "He'll go That might' ve been Mr. Leahy at
away in a minute." our door a while back."
Mildred's lips trembled: "Whoever it was went away.
"To feel how swift, how secretly Read that last section again. I want
The shadow of the night comes to understand that."
on . .
." She from the works of
read
Near the ceiling, smoke from Jeffersonand Lincoln.
Leahy's cigar still lingered. When it was five o'clock her
hands dropped open. "I'm tired.
II
Can I stop now?" Her voice was
hoarse.
The Sieve and the Sand "How thoughtless of me." He
took a book from her. "But isn't
THEY noon through, while the fire

read the long after- it beautiful, Millie?
and the thoughts, aren't they ex-
•
The words,
flickered and blew on the citing?"

hearth and the October rain fell "I don't understand any of it."
from the sky upon the strangely "But surely . .
."
quiet house. Now and again, Mr. "Just words."

Montag would silently pace the "But you remember some of it."
room, or bring in a bottle of cold "Nothing."
beer and drink it easily or say, "You'll learn. It's difficult at
"Will you read that part over first."
again? Isn't that an idea now?" "I don't like books," she said.
And Mildred's voice, as colorless "I don't understand books. They're
as a beer bottle which contains a over my head. They're for profes-
THE FIREMAN 23
sors and radicals and I don't want heavens, as if a running giant had
to read any more. Please, promise drawn his breath. Those sharp, al-
you won't make me." most quiet whistles, here and gone
"Mildred!" in so much less than an instant that
"I'm afraid," she said, putting one almost believed one had heard
nothing. And seeing nothing in the
'
her face into her shaking hands.
"I'm so terribly frightened by these sky, if you did look, was worse
ideas, by Mr. Leahy, and having than seeing something. There was
these books in the house. They'll a feeling as if a great invisible fan
burn our books and kill us. Now, was whirring blade after hostile
. I'm sick." blade across the stars, with giant
"I'm sorry," he said at last, sigh- murmurs and no motion, perhaps
ing. "I've put you on trial, haven't only a faint trembling of starlight.
I ?I'm way out front, trying to drag All night, every night of their
you, when I should be walking be- lives, they had heard those jet
side you, barely touching. I expect sounds and seen nothing, until, like
too much. It'll take months to put the tick of a clock or a time-bomb,
you in the frame of mind where it had come to be unnoticed, for it
you can receive the ideas in these was the sound of today and the
books. It's not fair of me. All right, sound of today dying, the Cheyne-
you won't have to read aloud Stokes respiration of civilization.
again." "I want to know why and how
"Thanks." we are where we are," said Mon-
"But you must listen. I'll ex- tag. "How did those bombers get
plain." in the sky every instant? Why have
"I'll never learn. I just know I there been three semi-atomic wars
won't." since I960? Where did we take the
"You must if you want to be wrong turn ? What can we do about
free." it? Only the books know this. May-
"I'm free already. I couldn't be be the books can't solve my prob-

freer." lem, but they can bring me out in
"You can't be free if you're not the light. And they might stop us
aware." from going on with the same in-
"Why do you want to ruin us" sane mistakes."
with all this?" she asked. "You can't stop wars. There've
"Listen," he said. always been wars."
"No, I can't. War's so much a
SHE listened. part of us now that in the last three
Jet-bombers were crossing days, though we're on the very rim
the sky over their house. of war, people hardly mention it.
Those quick gasps in the Ignoring it, at least, isn't the an-

swer. But now, about us. We must MILDRED was chattering. The
have a schedule of reading. An hour radio was thundering, turned
in the morning. An hour or so in on again.
the afternoon. Two hours in the And then Mr. Montag remem-
evening
— bered; about a month ago, walking
"You're not going to forbid me through the park alone, he had
my radio, are you?" Her voice come upon a man in a black suit,
rose. unaware. The man had been read-
"Well, to start ." . . ing something. Montag hadn't seen
She was up in a fury, raging at a book; he had only seen the man
him. "I'll sit and listen if you want move hastily, face flushed. The man
me to for a while every day," she had jumped up as if to run, and
cried. "But I've got to have my Montag had said, simply, "Sit
radio programs, too, and every down."
night —you
on the t-v can't take "I didn't do anything."
that away from me!" "No one said you did."
"But don't you see? That's the They had sat in the park all after-
very thing I'd like to counter- noon. Montag had drawn the man
act—" out. He was a retired professor of
The telephone rang. They both English literature, who had lost his
started.Mildred snatched it up and job forty years before when the last
was almost immediately laughing. college of fine arts had been closed.
"Hello, Ann. Yes, oh, yes! Tonight, His name was William Faber, and
you come here. Yes, the White he admitted he had
shyly, fearfully,
Clown's on tonight and the Terror been reading a little book of Amer-
will be fun." ican poems, forbidden poems which
Mr. Montag shuddered, sick. He he now produced from his coat
room. He walked through
left the pocket.
the house, thinking. "Just to know I'm alive," said
Leahy, the fire house, these dan- Mr. Faber. "Just to know where I
gerous books. am and what things are. To sense
"I'll shoot him tonight," he said, things. Most of my friends sense
aloud. "I'll kill Leahy. That'll be nothing. Most of them can't talk.
one censor out of the way. No." They stutter and halt and hunt
He laughed coldly. "I'd have to words. And what they talk is sales
shoot most of the people in the and profits and what they saw on
world. How does one start a revo- television the hour before."
lution? I'm alone. My wife, as the What a nice afternoon that had
saying goes, does not understand been. Professor Faber had read
me. What can a single lonely man some of the poems to Montag, none
do?" of which Montag understood, but
THE FIREMAN
ihe sounds were good, and slowly "I can't discuss such things, Mon-
the in. When it was
meaning crept tag."
all over, Montag said, "I'm a fire- "This line is closed. There's no
man." one listening."
Faber had looked as if he might "Is this some sort of trap? I
die on the spot. can't talk to just anyone on the

"Don't be afraid. I won't turn phone."
you in," said Montag hastily. "I "Tell me, are there any copies?"
stopped being mean about it years "None!" And Faber hung up.
ago. You know, the way you talk None.
reminds me of a girl I knew once,
name of She was killed a

Clarisse. MONTAG fell back in his
few months ago by a car. But she chair. None! None in all the
had me thinking, too. We met each world, none left, none anywhere,
other because we took long walks. all, all of them destroyed, torn
No one walks any more. I haven't apart, burned. The Bible at last
seen a pedestrian in ten years on dead for all time to the world.
our street. Are you ever stopped by He got up shakily and walked
police simply because you're a across the room and bent down
pedestrian ?" among the books. He took hold of
Heand Faber had smiled, ex- one book and lifted it.
changed addresses orally, and "The old and new testaments,

parted. He had never seen Faber Millie! One last copy and we have
again. It wouldn't be safe to know it here!"
a former English literature profes- "Fine," she said vaguely.
sor. But now .? . . "Do you realize what it means,
He dialed a call. the importance of this copy here in
"Hello, Professor Faber?" our house? If anything should
"Who is this?" happen to this book, it would be
"This is Montag. You remem- lost forever."
ber? The park? A month ago?" "And you have to hand it back
"Yes, Mr. Montag. Can I help to Mr. Leahy tonight to be burned,
you?" 'don't you?" said Mildred. She was
"Mr. Faber." He hesitated. not being cruel. She was merely
"How many copies of the Bible are relieved that the one book, at least,
left in the world?" was going out of her life.
"I'm afraid I don't know what "Yes."

you're talking about." The voice He could see Leahy turning the
grew cold. book over with slow appreciation.
"I want to know if there are any "Sit down, Montag. I want you to
copies at all." watch this. Delicately, like a head

of lettuce, see?" Ripping one page hot summer day, trying to fill a
after another from the binding. sieve with sand. The faster he
Lighting the first page with a poured, the faster it sifted through
match. And when it had curled with a hot whispering. He tried all
down into black wings, lighting the day because some cruel cousin had
second page from the first and the said, "Fill this sieve and you'll get
third from the second, and so on, a dime!"
chain-smoking the entire volume Seated there in the midst of
chapter by printed chapter, all of July, he had cried. His hands were
the words and the wisdom. When tired, the sand was boiling, the
it was finished, with Montag seated sieve was empty.
there sweating, the floor would re- And now, as the jet-underground
semble a swarm of blackmoths car roared him through the lower
that had fluttered and died in one cellars of town, rocking him, jolt-
small storm. And Leahy smiling, ing him, he remembered that frus-
washing his hands. trating sieve and he held this
"My God, Millie, we've got to precious copy of the old and new
do something! We've got to copy testaments fiercely in his hands,
this. There must be a duplicate trying to pour the words into his
made. This can't be lost!" mind. But the words fell through,
"You haven't time." and he thought, in a few hours I
"No, not by hand. But if we must hand this book to Leahy, but
could photograph it." I must remember each word, no
"No one would do it for you." phrase must escape me, each line
He stopped. She was right. There can be memorized. I must remem-
was no one to trust, except, per- ber, I must.
haps, Professor Faber. Montag "But I do not remember." He
started for the door. shut the book and pressed it with
"You'll be here for the t-v party, his fists and tried to force his mind.
won't you?" Mildred called after "Try Denham's Dentifrice to-
him. "It wouldn't be fun without night!" screamed the radio in the
you." bright, shuddering wall of the jet-
"You'd never miss me." But she train. Trumpets blared.
was looking at the late afternoon "Shut up," thought Mr. Monta::
t-v show and didn't hear. He went in panic. "Behold, the lilies of the
out and slammed the door, the book field—"
in his hand. "Denham's Dentifrice!"
"They toil not
—
ONCE, as a child, he had sat "Denham's Dentifrice!"
upon the yellow dunes by the "Behold, the lilies of the field,
sea in the middle of the blue and shut up, let me remember!"
THE FIREMAN 27
"Denham's Dentifrice!" Only that saved him. The car
He tore the book open furiously stopped. Montag, thrown into the
and flicked the pages about as if aisle by the grinding halt, rolled
blind, tearing at the lines with raw over, book in hand, leaped up past
eyes, staring until his eyelashes the pale, frightened faces, screamed
were wet and quivering. in his mind soundlessly, and was
"Denham's, Denham's, Den- out the opening door of the train
ham's! D-E-N— and running on the white tiles up
"They toil not, neither do and up through tunnels, alone, that
they . .
." voice still crying like a seagull on
A whisper, a faint sly whisper of a lonely shore after him, "Den-
yellow sand through empty, empty ham's, Denham's . .
."
sieve.
"Denham's does
—
it!" PROFESSOR FABER opened
"Behold, the lilies the door, saw the book, seized
"No dandier dental detergent!" it. "My God, I haven't held a copy
"Shut up!" It was a shriek so in years!"
loud, so vicious that the loud- "We burned a house last night.
speaker seemed stunned. Mr. Mon- I stole it."
tag found himself on his feet, the "What a chance to take!"
shocked inhabitants of the loud car Montag stood catching his
looking at him, recoiling from a breath. "I was curious."
man with an insane, gorged face, a "Of course. It's beautiful. Here,
gibbering wet mouth, a flapping come in, shut the door, sit down."
book in his fist. These rabbit peo- Faber walked with the book in his
ple who hadn't asked for music finger-s, feeling it, flipping the
and commercials on their public pages slowly, hungrily, a thin man,
trains but who had
got it by the bald, with slender hands, as light
sewerful, drenched and
the air as chaff. "There were a lot of love-
sprayed and pummeled and kicked ly books once. Before we let them
by voices and music every instant. go." He sat down and put his hand
And here was an idiot man, him- over his eyes. "You are looking at
self, suddenly scrabbling at the a coward, Mr. Montag. When they
wall, beating at the loudspeaker, at burned the last of the evil books,
the enemy of peace, at the killer of as they called them, forty years
philosophy and privacy! back, I made only a few feeble
"Madman !" protestations and subsided. I've
"Call the conductor!" damned myself ever since."
"Denham's, Denham's Double "It's not too late. There are still
Dentifrice!" books."
"Fourteenth Street!" "And there is still life in me, and

I'm afraid of dying. Civilizations "Yes, and see the engines roar
fall because men like myself fear up. See the doors battered down
death." on firemen's houses for a change.
"I've a plan," said Montag. "I'm And see the planted books found
in a position do things. I'm a
to and each fireman, at last, accused
fireman; I can find and hide books. and thrown in jail!"
Last night I lay awake, thinking. The professor put his hand to
We might publish many books pri- his face. "Why, that's absolutely
vately when we have copies to print sinister."
from." "Do you like it?"
"How many have been killed for "The dragon eats his tail."
that?" "You'll join me?"
"We'll get a press." "I didn't say that. No, no."
"We? Not we. You, Mr. Mon-
tag." ""DDT you see the confusion and
"You must help me. You're the -L» suspicion we could spread?"
only one I know. You must." "Yes, plenty of trouble there."
"Must? What do you mean, "I've a list of firemen's homes
must?' all across the states. With an under-
"We could find someone to ground, we could reap fire and
build a press for us." chaos for every blind bastard in the
"Impossible. The books are industry."
dead." "You can't trust anyone, though."
"We can bring them back. I "What about professors like
have a little money." yourself, former actors, directors,
"No, no." Faber waved his writers, historians, linguists?"
hands, his old hands, blotched with "Dead, or ancient, all of them."
liver freckles. "Good. They'll have fallen from
"But let me
tell you my plan." public notice. You know hundreds
"I don't want to hear. If you of them. I know you must."
insist on telling me, I must ask you "Nevertheless, I can't help you,
to leave." Montag. I'll admit your idea ap-

"We'll have extra copies of each peals to my sense of humor, to my
book printed and hide them in fire-
!"
delight in striking back. A tem-
men's houses porary delight, however. I'm a
"What?" The professor raised frightened man; I frighten easily."
his brows and gazed at Montag as "Think of the actors alone, then,
if a bright lighthad been switched who haven't acted Shakespeare or
on. Pirandello. We could use their
"Yes, and put in an alarm." anger, and the rage of historians
"Call the fire engines?" who haven't written for forty years.
THE FIREMAN 29
We could start small classes in ture ready when this one falls," in-
reading . .
." sistedMontag. "That's us."
"Impractical." "A bunch of men quoting Shake-
"We could try." speare and saying I remember
"The whole must
civilization Sophocles ? It would be funny if it
fall. We change just the
can't were not tragic."
front. The framework needs melt- "We've got to be there. We've
ing and remolding. Don't you real- got to remind those who are left
ize, young man, that the Great that there are things more urgent
Burning forty years back was almost than machines. We must remember
unnecessary? By that time the pub- that the right kind of work is
lic had stopped reading. Libraries happiness, instead of the wrong
were Saharas of emptiness. Except kind of leisure. We must give peo-
the Science Department." ple things to do. We must make
"But—" them feel wanted again."
"Can you shout louder than "They will only war again. No,
radio, dance faster than t-v? Peo- Montag, go on home and go to
ple don't want to think. They're bed. It was nice seeing you. But
having fun." it's a lost cause."
"Committing suicide."
"Let them commit it." MONTAG paced about the
"Murdering." room forfew moments,
a
"Let them murder. The fewer chafing his hands, then he returned
fools there will be." and picked up the book and held
"A war is starting, perhaps to- it toward the other man.
night, and no one will even talk "Do you see this book? Would
about it." you like to own it?"
Thehouse shook. A bomber "My God, yes! I'd give my right
flightwas moving south. It had arm for it."
slowed to five hundred miles an "Watch." Montag began ripping
hour and was trembling the two the pages out, one by one, drop-
men standing there across from each ping them to the floor, tearing
other. them in half, spitting on them and
"Let the war turn off the t-vs rolling them into wads.
and radio, and bomb the true con- "Stop it!" cried Faber. "You
fessions." idiot, stop it!" He sprang forward.
"I can't wait," said Montag. Montag warded him off and went
"Patience. The civilization is on tearing at the pages.
flinging itself to pieces. Stand back "Do you see?" he said, a fistful
from the centrifuge." of pages in his tightening fist, flour-
"There has to be another struc- ishing them under the chin of the

old man. "Do you see what it college paper.That was the year I
means to have your heart torn out? came one morning and
to class
Do you see what they do?" found only two students' to sign up
"Don't tear any more, please," for Ancient Greek Drama. You see,
said the old man. that's how it went. Like an iceblock
"Who can stop me? You? I'm a melting in the sun. And when the
do anything I want
fireman. I can people had censored themselves into
to do. Why, I could burn your a living idiocy with their purchas-
house now, do you know that? I ing power, the Government, which
could burn everything. I have the of course represents the people's
power." will, being composed of representa-
"You wouldn't!" tive people, froze the situation.
"No. I wouldn't." Newspapers died. No one cared if
"Please. The book; don't rip it the Government said they couldn't
any more. I can't stand that." Faber come back. No one wanted them
sank into a chair, his face white, back. Do they now? I doubt it,
his mouth trembling. "I see; I un- but I'll Montag.

contact a printer,
derstand. My God, I'm old enough We'll get the books started, and
so it shouldn't matter what happens wait for the war. That's one fine
to me. I'll help you. I can't take thing; war destroys machines so
any more of this. If I'm killed, it beautifully."
won't make any difference. I'm a
terrible fool of an old man and MONTAG went to the door.
it's too late, but I'll help you." "I'm afraid I'll have to take
"To print the books?" the Bible along."
"Yes." "No!"
"To start classes?" "Leahy guessed I a book in
have
"Yes, yes, anything, but don't the house. He didn'tcome right
ruin that book, don't. I never out and accuse me, or name the
thought a book could mean so much book . .
."
to me." Faber sighed. "Let us say "Can't you substitute another

that you have -my limited coopera- book for this?"
tion. Let us say that part of your "I can't chance it. It might be
plan, at least, intrigues me, the idea a trap. If he expects me to bring a
of striking back with books planted Bible and I brought something else,
in firemen's homes. I'll help. How I'd be in jail very quickly. No, I'm
much money could you get me to- afraid this Bible will be burned to-
day?" night."
"Five thousand dollars." "That's hard to accept." Faber
"Bring it here when you can. I took it for a moment and turned
know a man who once printed our the pages, slowly, reading.
THE FIREMAN 31
"I've tried to memorize it," said Seven flights of jet-rockets went
Montag. "But I forget. It's driven over the sky in a breath. Montag
me crazy, trying to remember." felt the money in his pocket, the
"Oh, God, if we only had a little Bible in his hand. He had given up
time." trying to memorize now; he was
it
"I keep thinking that. Sorry." simply reading 'it for the enjoyment
He took the book. "Good night." it gave, the simple pleasure of good
The door shut. Montag was in words on the tongue and in -the
the darkening street again, looking mind. He uncupped the Seashell
at the real world. radio from his ear and read another
page of the Book of Job by moon-
YOU could feel the war getting
ready in the sky that night.
light.
The way the clouds

and came back, and the way the
moved aside
AT EIGHT o'clock,
door scanner recognized three
the front
stars looked, a million of them hov- women and opened, letting them in
ering between the clouds, like the with laughter and loud, empty talk.
enemy discs, and the feeling that Mrs. Masterson, Mrs. Phelps, and
the sky might fall upon the city Mrs. Bowles drank the martinis
and turn the homes to chalk dust, Mildred handed them, rioting like
and the moon turn to red fire; that a crystal chandelier thatsomeone
was how the night felt. has pushed, tinkling upon them-
Montag walked from the sub- selves in a million crystal chimes,
way stop with his money in His flashing the same white smiles, their
pocket —he
had been to the bank echoes repeated in empty corridors.
which stayed open until all hours Mr. Montag found himself in the
with mechanical tellers doling out middle of a conversation, the main
the money —and as he walked he topic of which was how nice every-
was listening abstractedly to the one looked.
Seashell radiowhich you could cup "Doesn't everyone look nice?"
to your ear (Buy a Seashell and "Real nice."
hear the Ocean of Time!) and a "You look fine, Alma."
voice was talking to him and only "You look fine, too, Mildred."
him as he turned his feet toward "Everybody looks nice and fine,"
home. "Things took another turn said Montag.
for the worse today. War threatens He had put the book aside. None
at any hour." of it would stay in his mind. The x
Always the same monologue.- harder he tried to remember Job,

Nothing about causes or effects, no for instance,- the quicker it van-
facts, no figures, nothing but sud- ished. He wanted to be out paying
den turns for the worse. this money to Professor Faber, get-

ting things going, and yet he "I thought we might enjoy a
delayed himself. It would be dan- little silence."
gerous to be seen at Faber's twice Everyone blinked.
within a few hours, just in case "Perhaps we might try a little
conversation ."
Leahy was taking the precaution of . .
having Montag watched. "Conversation?"

Like it or not, he must spend the
rest of the evening at home, and
THE house shook with successive
bombers which
be ready to report to work at eleven waves of jet
so that Leahy wouldn't be suspi- splashed the drinks in the ladies'

cious. Most of all, Montag wanted hands.
to walk, but he rarely did this any "There they go," said Montag,
more. Somehow he was always watching the ceiling. "When do
afraid that he might meet Clafisse, you suppose the war will start?"
or not meet her again, on his strolls, "What war? There won't be a
so that kept him here standing -
war."
among these blonde) tenpins, bowl- "I notice your husbands aren't
ing back at them with socially re- here tonight."
quired leers and wisecracks. Mrs. Masterson glanced nervous-
Somehow the television set was ly at the empty t-v screen. "Oh,
turned on before they had even fin- Dick'll be back in a week or so.
ished saying how nice everyone The Army called him. But they
looked, and there on the screen was have these things every month or
aman selling orange soda pop and so." She beamed.
a woman drinking it with a smile; "Don't you worry about the
how could she drink and smile war?"
simultaneously? A real stunt! Fol- "Well, heavens, if there is one,
lowing this, a demonstration of how it'sgot to be over with. can't We
to bake a certain new cake, fol- just sit and worry, can we?"
lowed by a rather dreary domestic "No, but we can think about it?'
comedy, a news analysis that did '"I'll let Dick think of it." A
not analyze anything and did not nervous giggle.
mention the war, even though the "And die maybe."
house was shaking constantly with "It's always someone else's hus-
the flight of new jets from four band dies, isn't that the joke?" The
directions, and an intolerable quiz women all tittered.
show naming the state capitals. Yes, thought Montag, and even
Montag sat tapping his fingers if Dick does what does it mat-
die,
on knee and exhaling.
his ter? We've learned
the magic of
Abruptly, he walked to the tele- the replaceable part from machines.
visor and snapped it off. You can't tell one man from an-
THE FIREMAN 33
-ntoifiiT- "Wait a minute," said Montag,
angrily. "Mrs. Phelps, why
did you
marry your husband ? What did you
have in common?"
The woman waved her hands
helplessly. "Why, he had such a
nice sense of humor, and
the same t-v shows and
— we liked
"Did you have any children?"

"Don't be ridiculous."
"Come to think of it, no one
here has children," said Montag.
"Except Mrs. Bowles."
"Four, by Caesarian section. It's
easy that way."

"The Caesarians weren't neces-
sary?"
"I always said I'd be damned if
I'd go through agony just
all that
for a baby. Four Caesarians. Noth-
ing to it, really."
Yes, everything easy. Montag
clenched his teeth. To mistake the
other these days. And women, like easy way for the right way, how
so many plastic dolls delicious a temptation. But it wasn't
Everyone was silent, like children living. A woman who wouldn't
with a schoolmaster. bear, or a shiftless man didn't be-
"Did you see the Clarence Dove long; they were passing through.
film last night?" said Mildred, They belonged to nothing and did
suddenly. nothing.
"He's hilarious." "Have you ever thought, ladies,"
"But what if Dick should die, or he said, growing more contemptu-
your husband, Mrs. Phelps?" Mon- ous of them by the moment, "that
tag insisted. perhaps this isn't the best of all
"He's dead. He died a week ago. possible worlds? That perhaps our
Didn't you know? He jumped from civil rights and other precious pos-
the tenth floor of the State Hotel." sessions haven't been taken away in
"I didn't know." Montag fell the past century, but have, if any-
silent, embarrassed. thing, been given away by us?"
"But to get back to Clarence "Why, that can't be true! We'd
Dove . .
." said Mildred. have heard about it."

"/~\N THAT pap-dispenser?" speak the poem right, and he was
Vv Montag, jerking his
cried afraid that he might stumble. He
hand at the t-v. Suddenly he shoved read.
his hand in his pocket and drew His voice rose and fell in the
forth a piece of printed paper. He silent room and he found his way
was shaking with rage and irrita- through to the final verses of the
tion and he was half blind, staring poem:
down at the twitching sheet before
his eyes. "The Sea of Faith
"What's that?" Mrs. Masterson Was once, too, at the full, and
squinted. round earth's shore
"A poem I tore from a book." Lay like the folds of a bright
"I don't like poetry." girdle furled.
"Have you ever heard any?" But now I only hear
Mildred jumped up, but Montag Its melancholy, long, withdrawing
said, coldly, "Sit down." The wo- roar,
men all lit cigarets nervously, Retreating, to the breath
twisting their red mouths. Of the night-wind, down the vast
"This is illegal, isn't it?" edges drear
squealed Mrs. Phelps. "I'm afraid. And naked shingles of the world."
I'm going home."
"Sit down and shut up," said The four women twisted in their
Montag. chairs.
The room was quiet. Montag finished it out:
"This is a poem by a man named
Matthew Arnold," said Montag. "Ah, love, let us be true
"Its title is Dover Beach." To one another! for the world,
The women were all glancing which seems
with expectation at the television To lie before us like a land of
set, as if might save them from
it dreams,
this moment. So various, so beautiful, so new,
Montag cleared his throat. He Hath really neither" joy, nor love,
waited. He wanted very much to nor light,
THE FIREMAN 35
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help The door slammed.
for pain; "Go home and think of your
And we are here as on a darkling first husband, Mrs. Masterson, in
plain the insane asylum, and of Mr.
Swept with confused alarms of Phelps jumping off a building!"
struggle and flight, yelled Montag through the shut
Where ignorant armies clash by door.
night." * The house was completely aban-
doned. He stood alone.
Montag let the white piece of In the bathroom, water was run-
paper fall slowly to the floor. The ning. He heard Mildred shaking
women watched it flutter and settle. the sleeping tablets out into her
Mildred said, "Can I turn the palm.
t-v on now?" "You fool," he said to himself.
"No, God damn it, no!" "You idiot. Now you've done it.
Mildred sat down. Now you've ruined it all, you and
Mrs. Masterson said, "I don't your poem, you and your righteous
get it. The poem, I mean." indignation."
"What was it about?" asked He went into the kitchen and
Mrs. Phelps, her eyes darting fear- found the books where Mildred had
fully in flashes of white and dark. stacked them behind the refrigera-
"Don't you see?" shouted Mon- tor. He carried a selection of them
tag. into the back yard, hid them in the
"Nothing to get upset about," weeds near the fence. "Just in
said Mrs. Masterson, casually. case," he thought, "Mildred gets a
"But it is, it is." passion for burning things during
"Just silly words," said Mrs. the night. The best books out here;
Masterson. "But, Mr. Montag, I the others in the house don't mat-
don't mind telling you — it is only ter."
because you're a fireman that we He went back through the house.
haven't called in an alarm on you "Mildred ?" he called at the bed-
for reading this to us. It's illegal. room door but there was no sound.
But it's also very silly. was non-
It He shut the front door quietly
sense." She got to her feet and and left for work.
mashed out her cigaret. "Ladies,
don't you think it's time for us to "rnHANK you, Montag." Mr.
leave?" JL Leahy accepted the copy of
"I don't want to come back the Bible and, without even looking
here, ever," said Mrs. Phelps, hur- at it, dropped it into the wall in-
rying for the door. cinerator. "Let's forget all about it.
"Please stay!" cried Mildred. Glad to see you back, Montag."

They walked upstairs. "Not smoking, Montag?"
They sat and played cards at one "I've a cigaret cough."
minute after midnight. And then, of course, the smoke
In Leahy's sight, Montag felt the reminded him of old men and old
guilt of his hands. His fingers were women screaming and falling into
like ferrets thathad done some evil wild cinders, and it was not good
deed, and now were never at rest, any more to hold fire in your hand.
always stirring and picking and He put his hands under the
hiding in pockets, or moving out table. "Let's have your hands in
from under Leahy's alcohol-flame sight," said Leahy, casually. "Not
gaze. If Leahy so much as breathed that we don't trust you."
on them, Montag felt that they They all laughed.
might wither upon his wrists and The phone rang.
die and he might never shake them
to life again; they would be buried LEAHY, carrying his cards
forever in his coat sleeves, forgot-
MR. in pink hand, walked
one
ten. _ slowly over and stood by the
For these were the hands that phone, let it ring twice more, and
had acted on their own, that were then picked it up.
no part of him, that were his swift "Yes?"
and clever conscience, that snatched Mr. Montag listened, eyes shut.
books, tore pages, hid paragraphs The clock ticked in the room.
and sentences in little wads to be "I see," said Leahy. He looked
opened later, at home, by match- at Montag. He smiled. He winked.
light, read and burned. They were Montag glanced away. "Better give
the hands that in the last year had me that address again."
darted off with Shakespeare and Mr. Montag got up. He walked
Job and Ruth and shelved them around the room, hands in pockets.
away next his crashing heart, over The other two men were standing
the throbbing ribs and the hot, ready. Leahy jerked his head "to-
roaring blood of a man excited by ward their coats, as if to say, "On
his theft, appalled by his temerity, the double!" They shoved their
betrayed by ten fingers which at arms in their coats and pushed on
times he held up to watch as if their helmets, joking in whispers.
they were gloved with blood. Mr.< Montag waited.
The game proceeded. Twice in "I understand perfectly," said
half an hour, Montag got up and Leahy into the phone. "Yes. Yes.
went to the latrine to wash his Perfectly. No, that's all right. Don't
hands. He came back. He sat down. you worry. We'll be right out."
He held his cards. Leahy watched Leahy deposited the receiver.
his fingers fumble the cards. "Well, well."
THE FIREMAN 37
"A call? Books to be burned?" chaff women, with the kernels
"So it seems." blown out from under them by a
Mr. Montag sat down heavily. neon wind, and his reading a book
"I don't feel well." to them.
"What a shame; this is a special What. a silly thing it was now!
case," said Leahy, coming forward For what was a book? Sheets of
slowly, putting on his slicker. paper, lines of type. Why should he
"I think I'm handing in my resig- fret for books —
one, two, or ten
nation." thousand of them, really? He was
"Not yet, Montag. One more the only inhabitant of a burning
fire, eh? Then be agreeable;
I'll world that cared, so why not drop
you can hand in your papers. We'll it all, forget it, let the now-mean-
all be happy." ingless books lie?
"Do you mean that?" "Here we go!" shouted Leahy.
"Have I ever lied to you?" "Elm Street?"
Leahy fetched a helmet. "Put this "Right!"
on. The job'll be over in an hour. He saw Leahy up on his driver's
I understand you, Montag, really I throne, with his massive black
do. Everything will be just as you slicker flapping out behind. He
want it." seemed to be an immense black bat
"All right." flying above the engine, over the
They slid down the brass pole. brass numbers, taking the wind.
"Where's the fire?" His pink, phosphorescent face glim-
"I'll drive!" shouted Leahy. mered in the high darkness, press-
"I've got the address." ing forward, and he was smiling
The engine blasted to life and furiously.
in the gaseous tornado they all "Here we go to keep the world
leaped aboard. happy!"
And Mr. Montag thought, "No,
THEY rounded a corner in thun- I can't let the books rot; I can't let
der and siren, with concussion them burn. As long as there are
of tires, with scream of rubber, with souls like Leahy, I can't hold my
a shift of kerosene bulk in the glit- breath. But what can I do? I can't
tery brass tank, like the food in the kill everyone. It's me against the
stomach of a giant, with Mr. Mon- world, and the odds too big for
tag's fingers jolting off the silver any man. What can I do? Against
rail,swinging into cold space, with fire, what water is best?"
the wind tearing his hair back from "Now over on Park Terrace!"
his bleak face, with the wind whis- The fire engine boomed to a halt,
tling in his teeth, and he all the throwing the men off in skips and
while thinking of the women, the clumsy hops. Mr. Montag stood fix-

ing his raw eyes to the cold bright gers, the valise handles. Her mouth
rail under his gripped fingers. was bloodless.
"I can't do it," he murmured. "I "You didn't!" he said.
can't go in there. I can't rip another She shoved the valises into a
book." waiting taxi-beetle and climbed in
Leahy jumped from his throne, and sat there, staring straight
smelling of the wind that had ahead.
hammered him about. "Okay, Mon- Montag started toward her.
tag, fetch the kerosene!" Leahy caught his arm.
The hoses were snaked out. The "Come on, Montag."
men ran on soft boots, as clumsy The cab drove away slowly down
as cripples, as quiet as deadly black the lighted street.
spiders. There was a crystal tinkling as
Mr. Montag turned his head. Stonemari and Black chopped the
"What's wrong, Montag?" Leahy windows to provide fine drafts for
asked, solicitously. the fire.
"Why," protested Montag, "that Mr. Montag walked but did not
is my house." feel his feet touch the walk, nor the
"So it is," agreed Leahy, heart- hose in his icy hands, nor did he
ily. hear. Leahy talking continually as
All the lights were lit. Down the they reached the door.
street, more lights were flicking on, "Pour the kerosene in, Montag."
people were standing on porches, Montag stood gazing in at the
as the door of Montag's house queer house, made strange by the
opened. In it, with two suitcases in hour of the night, by the murmur
her hands, stood Mildred. When of neighbor voices, by the littered
she saw her husband, she came glass, the lights blazing, and there
down the steps quickly, with a on the floor, their covers plucked
dreamlike rigidity, looking at the off, the pages spilled about like
third button on his coat. pigeon feathers, were his incredible
"Mildred!" books, and they looked so pitiful
She said nothing. and silly and not worth bothering
"Okay, Montag, up with the hose with, for they were nothing but type
and ax." and paper and raveled binding.
"Just a moment, Mr. Leahy. Mil- Montag stepped forward in a
dred, you didn't telephone this call huge silence and picked up one of
in, did you?" the pages of the books and read
what it had to say.
SHE walked past him with her He had read only three lines
arms stiff and at the ends of when Leahy snatched the paper
them, in the sharp, red-nailed fin- from him.
THE FIREMAN 39
"Oh, no," he said, smiling. "Be- "When you're all done, Mon-
cause then we'd have to burn your tag," Leahy behind
said him,
mind, too. Mustn't have that." He "you're under arrest."
stepped back. "Ready?"
"Ready." Montag snapped the Ill
valve lock on the fire-thrower.
"Aim," said Leahy. Water, Water, Quench Yire
"Aim."
"Fire!"
He
burned the television set first
THE It
house fell into
bedded itself down to

red ruin.
and then the radio and he burned sleepy pink ashes and a
the motion picture projector and smoke pall hung over it, rising
he burned the films and the gossip straight to the sky. It was ten min-
magazines and the litter of cos- utes after one in the morning. The
metics on a table, and he took crowd drew back into their houses;
pleasure in it all, and he burned the the fun was over.
walls because he wanted to change Mr. Montag stood with the fire-
everything, the chairs, the tables, thrower in his stiff hands, great
the paintings. He didn't want to islands of perspiration standing out
remember that he had lived here under his arms, his face smeared
with some strange woman who with soot. The three other firemen
would forget him tomorrow, who waited behind him in the darkness,
had gone and forgotten him already their faces illumined faintly by the
and was listening to a radio as she burned house, by the house which
rode across town. So he burned the Mr. Montag had just charred and
room with a precise fury. crumpled so efficiently with kero-
"The books, Montag, the sene, flame-gun, and deliberate aim.
!" "All right, Montag," said Leahy.
books
He directed the fire at the books. "Come along. You've done your
They leaped and danced, like roast- duty. Now, you're in custody."
ed birds, their wings frantically "What've I done?"
ablaze in red and yellow feathers. '•'You know what you did. Don't
They fell in charred lumps. ask."
"Get that one there, get it!" di- "Why so much fuss over a few l
rected Leahy, pointing. bits of paper?"

Montag burned the indicated "We won't stand here arguing;
book. it's cold."
Heburned books, he burned "Was it my wife called you, or
them by the dozen, he burned one of her friends?"
books with sweat pouring down "It doesn't matter."
his cheeks. "Was it my wife?"

Leahy nodded. "But her friends Montag jerked the weapon at
turned in an alarm earlier. I let it them. "Turn around!"
ride. One way or the other, you'd They turned stiffly. He beat them
have got it. That was pretty silly, over the heads with the gun shaft;
quoting poetry around free and he didn't want to burn any other
easy, Montag. Very silly. Come on, thing ever again. They fell. Then
now." Montag turned the fire-thrower on
"I think not," said Montag. the fire engine itself, set the trigger,
He twitched the fire-trigger in and ran. Voices screamed in sev-
his hand. Leahy glanced at Mon- eral houses. The engine blew up,
tag's fingers and saw what he in- hundreds of gallons of kerosene in
tended before Montag himself had one great flower of heat.
even considered it. In that instant, Montag ran away down the
Montag was stunned by the thought streetand into an alley, thinking,
of murder, for murder is always a "That's the end of you, Leahy!
new and Montag knew
thing, That's the end of you and what
nothing of murder; he knew only you were!"
burning and burning things that He kept running.
people said were evil.
"I know what's
with the world," said Montag.
really wrong
HE REMEMBERED
and turned back.
the books
"Look here, Montag

— " cried "You're a fool, a damned fool,
Leahy. an awful fool, an idiot, but most of
And he was a shrieking
then all a fool." He stumbled and fell.
blaze, jumping, sprawling, gib-

a He got up. "You blind idiot, you
bering thing, all aflame, writhing and your pride and your stinking
on the grass as Montag shot three temper and your righteousness,
more blazing pulses of liquid fire you've ruined it all, at the very
over him. There was a hissing and start, you fumbler. But those
bubbling like a snail upon which women, those stupid women, they
salt has been poured. There was a drove me to it with their non-
sound like spittle on a red-hot sense!" he protested to himself.
stove. Montag shut his eyes and "A fool, nevertheless, no better
yelled and tried to get his hands than they!
to his ears to cut away the sounds. "We'll save what we can. We'll
Leahy twisted in upon himself like do what has to be done. We'll take
a ridiculous black wax doll and lay a few more firemen with us if we
!"
silent. burn
The other two firemen stood ap- He found the books where he
palled. had left them, beyond the garden
"Montag !'* fence. He heard voices yelling in
THE FIREMAN 41
the night and flashbeams were to the professor's, Leahy, the Bible,
swirling about. Other fire engines memorizing, the sieve, and the sand,
wailed from far off and police cars the bank money, the printing press,
were arriving. the plan, the rage, the alarm, Mil-
Mr Montag took as many books dred's departure, the fire, Leahy
as he could carry under one arm into a torch — too much for any
and staggered down the alley. He one day any one life.
in
hadn't realized what a shock the At he was able to get to his
last
evening had been to him, but sud- feet, but the books seemed impos-
denly he fell and lay sobbing, sibly heavy. He fumbled along the
weak, his legs folded, his face in alley and the voices and sirens
the gravel. At a distance he heard faded behind him. He moved in
running feet. Get up, he told him- darkness, panting.
self. But he lay there. Get up, get "You must remember," he said,
up! But he cried like a child. He "that you've got to burn them or
hadn't wanted to kill anyone, not they'll burn you. Burn them or
even Leahy. Killing did nothing they'll burn you."
but kill something of yourself He searched his pockets. The
when you did it, and suddenly he money was there. In his shirt pocket
saw Leahy again, a torch, scream- he found the Seashell radio and
ing, and he shut his hand over his slapped it to his ear.
wet face, gagging. "I'm sorry, I'm "Attention! Attention, all police
sorry." alert. Special Wanted: Leon-
alarm.
Everything at once. In twenty- ard Montag, fugitive, for murder
four hours the burning of a wo- and crimes against the State. De-
man, the burning of books, the trip scription . .
."

Six blocks away the alley opened to give him this money. Whatever
out onto a wide empty thorough- happened, he wanted the money to
fare. It looked like a clean stage, go on after him. Perhaps he could
so bored, so quiet, so well lit, and make it to open country, Jive on
him alone, running across it, easily the rivers and near highways, in
seen, easily shot down. the meadows and hills, the sort of
"Beware of the pedestrian, watch life he had often thought about but
for the pedestrian!" The Seashell never tried.

stung his ear. Something caught at one corner
Montag hid back in the shadows. of his vision and he turned to look
He must use only the alleys. There at the sky.
was a gas might
station nearby. It The police helicopters were ris-
give him the slightest extra margin ing, far away, like a flight of gray
of safety if he were clean and pre- moths, spreading out, six of them.
sentable. He must get to the station He saw them wavering, indecisive,
rest room and wash up, comb his a half mile off, like butterflies
hair, then, with books under arm, puzzled by autumn, dying with win-
stroll calmly across that wide boule- ter,and then they were landing,
vard to get where he was going. one by one, dropping softly to the
"Where am I going?" streets where, turned into cars, they
would shriek along the boulevards
NOWHERE. There was nowhere or, just as suddenly, hop back into
to no friend to turn to.

go, the air, continuing their search.
Faber couldn't take him in; it would And here was the gas station. Ap-
be murder to even try; but he had proaching from the rear, Mr. Mon-
to see Faber for a minute or two, tag entered the men's wash room.
THE FIREMAN 43
Through the tin wall he heard a "Keep going."
radio voice crying, "War has been Montag faltered, got
a new hold
declared Repeat war has been de-
! — — on his books, and forced himself
clared! Ten minutes ago " But not to freeze. Nor should he draw
the sound of washing his hands and suspicion to himself by running.
rinsing his face and toweling him- He was now one-third of the way
self dry cut the announcer's voice across. There was a growl from the
away. Emerging from the wash- car's motor as it put on speed.
room cleaner, newer man, less
a
suspect, Mr. Montag walked as THE police, thought Montag.
casually as a man looking for a bus, They see me, of course. But
to the edge of the empty boule- walk slowly, quietly, don't turn,
vard. don't look, don't seem concerned.
There it lay, a game for him to Walk, that's it, walk, walk.
win, a bowling alley in the
vast The was rushing at a terrific
car
dark morning. The boulevard was speed. A good one hundred miles
as clean as a pinball machine, but an hour. Its horn blared. Its light
underneath, somewhere, one could flushed the concrete. The heat of
feel the electrical energy, the readi- the lights, it seemed, burned Mon-
ness to dart lights, flash red and tag's cheeksand eyelids and brought
blue, and out of nowhere, rolling the sweat coursing from his body.
might thunder the
like a silver ball, He began to shuffle idiotically,
searchers! Three blocks away, there then broke and ran. The horn hoot-
were a few headlights. Montag ed. The motor sound whined
drew a deep breath. His lungs were higher. Montag sprinted. He
like burning brooms in his chest; dropped a book, whirled, hesitated,
his mouth was sucked dry from left it there, plunged on, yelling to
running. All of the iron in the himself, in the middle of concrete
world lay in his dragging feet. emptiness, the car a hundred feet
He began to walk across the away, closer, closer, hooting, push-
empty avenue. ing, rolling, screeching, the horn
A hundred yards across. He esti- hunting, himself running, his legs
mated. A hundred yards in the up, down, out, back, his eyes blind
open, more than plenty of time for in the flashing glare, the horn
a police car to appear, see him, and nearer, now on top of .him
run him down. They'll run me down, they know
He listened to his own loud foot- who I am, it's all over, thought
steps. Montag, it's done!
A was coming. Its headlights
car He stumbled and fell.
leaped and caught Montag in full . An instant before reaching him,

stride. '
the wild car swerved around him

and was gone. Falling had saved empty avenue, four blocks away, the
him. car of laughing children had
Mr. Montag lay flat, his head turned. Now it was racing back,
down. Wisps of laughter trailed picking up speed.
back with the blue car exhaust. Montag dodged into an alley and
That wasn't the police, thought was gone in the shadow long be-
Mr. Montag. fore the car returned.
It was "a earful of high-school
children, yelling, whistling, hurrah- THE house was silent.

ing. And they had seen a man, a Mr. Montag approached it
pedestrian, a rarity, and they had from the back, creeping through the
yelled "Let's gethim!" They didn't scent of daffodils and roses and
know he was the fugitive Mr. Mon- wet grass. He touched the screen
tag; they were simply out for a door, found it open, slipped in, tip-
night of roaring five hundred miles toed across the porch, and, behind
in a few moonlit hours, their faces the refrigerator in the kitchen, de-
icy with wind. posited three of the books. He
"They would have killedme," waited, listening to the house.
whispered Montag to the shaking "Mrs. Black, are you asleep up
concrete under his bruised cheek. there?" he asked of the second
"For no reason at all in the world, floor in a whisper. "I hate to do
they would have killed me." this to you, but your husband did
He got up and walked unstead- just as bad to others, never asking,
ily to the far curb. Somehow, he never wondering, never worrying.
had remembered to pick up the You're a fireman's wife, Mrs. Black,
spilled books. He shuffled them, and now it's your house, and you
oddly, in his numb hands. will be in jail a while, for all the
"I wonder if they were the ones houses your husband has burned
who killed Clarisse." and people he's killed."
His eyes watered. The ceiling did not reply.
The thing that had saved him Quietly, Montag slipped from the
was falling The driver
flat. of that house and returned to the alley. The
car, seeing Montag prone, consid- house was still dark; no one had
ered the possibility that running heard him come or go.
over a body at one hundred miles He walked casually down the
an hour might turn the car over alley, and came to an all-night,
and spill them all out. Now, if dimly lighted phone booth. He
Montag had remained upright, closed himself in the booth and
things would have been far differ- dialed a number.
ent .. . "I want to report an illegal own-
Montag gasped. Far down the . ership of books," he said.
THE FIREMAN 45
The voice sharpened on the other dered what had happened to you."
end. "The address?" "I was delayed." Montag patted
He gaveand added, "Better
it his pocket. "The money's
inside
get there before they burn them. here." He took it out and laid it on
Check the kitchen." the desk, then sat tiredly sipping
Montag stepped out and stood his drink. "How do you feel?"
in the cold night air, waiting. At a "This is the first night in many
great he heard the fire
distance years I've fallen right to sleep,"
sirens coming, coming to burn Mr. said Faber. "That must mean I'm
Black's house while he was away doing the right thing. I think we
at work, and make his wife stand can trust me now. Once, I didn't
shivering in the morning air while think so."
the .roof dropped down. But now "People never trust themselves,
she was upstairs, deep in sleep. but they never let others know. I
"Good night, Mrs. Black," said suppose that's why we do rash

Mr. Montag. "You'll excuse me things, expose ourselves in posi-
Ihave several other visits to make." tions from which we don't dare
retreat. Unconsciously, we fear we
RAP
A at the door.
"Professor Faber!"
Another rap and a long waiting.
might give in, quit the
so we do a foolish thing,
ing poetry to women."
fight,
like read-
Montag
and
Then, from within, lights flickered laughed "So I guess I'm

at himself.
on about the small house. After on the run. It'll be up to you to

another pause, the front door keep things moving."
opened. "I'll do my damnedest." Faber
"Who is it?" Faber cried, for sat down. "Tell me about it. What
the man who staggered in was in you did just now, I mean."
the dark for a moment and then "I hid my remaining books in
rushing past. "Oh, Montag!" four firemen's homes. Then I tele-
"I'm going away," said Montag, phoned an alarm. I figured I might
stumbling to a chair. "I've been a be dead by morning, and I wanted
fool." to have done something before
Professor Faber stood at the door then."
listening to the distant sirens wail- "God, I'd like to've been there."
ing off like animals in the morn- "Yes, the places burned very
ing. "Someone's been busy." well."
worked."
"It "Where are you going now?"
"At least you were a fool about "I don't know."
the right things." Faber shut the "Try the factory section, follow
door, came back, and poured a the old rail lines, look up some of
drink for each of them. "I won- the hobo camps. I didn't tell you

this before —maybe I didn't quite in 24 hours. Here's a bulletin. The
trust you yet, I don't know but — Electric Dog is being transported
—
they were in touch with' me last here from Green Town
year, wanting me to go underground Montag and Faber glanced at
with them." each other.
"With tramps?" " —
You may recall the interviews
"There are a lot of Harvard de- recently on t-v concerning this in-
grees on the tracks between here credible new invention, a machine
and Los Angeles. What else can so delicate in sense perception that
they do? Most of them are wanted it can follow trails much as blood-
and hunted in cities. They survive. hounds did for centuries. But this
I don't think they have a plan for machine, without fail, always finds
a revolution, though; I never heard its quarry!"
them speak of it. They simply sit by Montag put his empty glass
their fires. Not a very lively group. down and he was cold.
But they might hide you now." "The machine is self-operating,
"I'll try. I'm heading for the weighs only forty pounds, is pro-
river, I think, then the old factory pelled on seven rubber wheels. The
district. I'll keep in touch with front is a nose, which in reality is
you.' a thousand noses, so sensitive that
"In Boston, then. I'm leaving on they can distinguish 10,000 food
the three o'clock train tonight — or, combinations, 5,000 flower smells,
rather, morning. That's not
this and remember identity index odors
long from now. There's a retired of 15,000 men without the bother
printer in Boston that I want to of resetting."
see with this money." Faber began to tremble. He
"I'll contact you there," said looked at his house, at the door,
Montag. "And get books from you the floor, the chair in which Mon-
when I need them, to plant in fire- tag sat. Montag interpreted this
men's houses across the country." look. They both stared together at
the invisible trail of his footprints
MONTAG drained his drink. leading to this house, the odor of
"Do you want to sleep here his hand on the brass doorknobs,
a while?" Faber asked. the smell of his body in the air and
"I'd better get going. I wouldn't on this chair.
want you held responsible." "The Electric Hound is now
"Let's check." Faber switched on landing, by helicopter, at the burned
the televisor. A voice was talking Montag home. We take you there
swiftly: by t-v control!"
" — this evening. Montag has So they must have a game,
escaped, but we expect his arrest thought Montag. In the midst of a
THE FIREMAN 47
time of war, they must play the the big game, the big hunt, the
game out. Scoop
There was the burned house, the "There it is," whispered Faber,
crowd, and something with a sheet hoarsely.
over Mr. Leahy yes, Mr.
it,
—
—
Leahy and out of the sky, flutter- OUT of the helicopter glided
ing, came the red helicopter, land- something that was not a ma-
ing like a grotesque and menacing chine, not an animal, not dead, not
flower. alive, just gliding. Itglowed with
Montag watched the scene with a green phosphorescence, and dt
a solid fascination, not wanting to was on a long leash. Behind it came
move, ever. If he wished, he could a man, dressed lightly, with ear-
linger here, in comfort, and follow phones on his shaven head.
the entire hunt on through its quick "I can't stay here." Montag
phases, down alleys, up streets, leaped up, his eyes still fixed to the
across empty running avenues, with scene. The Electric Hound shot for-
the sky finally lightening with ward to the smoking ruins, the man
dawn, up other alleys to burned running after it. A coat was brought
houses, and so on to this place here, forward. Montag recognized it as
this house, with Faber and him- his own, dropped in the yard dur-
self seated at their leisure, smoking ing flight. The Electric Hound
idly, drinking good wine, while the studied it for only a moment. There
Electric Hound sniffed down the was a whirring and clicking of dials
fatal paths, whirring and pausing and meters.
with finality right outside that door "You can't escape." Faber
there. mourned over it, turning away.
Then, if he wished, Montag "I've heard about that damned
could rise, walk keep
to the door, monster. No one has ever escaped."
one eye on the t-v screen, open the "I'll try, anyway. I'm sorry about
door, look out, look back, and see this, Professor."
himself, dramatized, described, "About me? About my house?
made over, standing there, limned Don't be. I'm the one to be sorry
from
in the bright television screen, I didn't act years ago. Whatever I
outside, a drama to be watched ob- get out of this, I deserve. You run,
jectively, and he would catch him- now; perhaps can delay them here
self, an instant before oblivion, somehow
— I
being killed for the benefit of a "Wait a minute." Montag moved

million televiewers who had been forward. "There's no use your be-
wakened from their sleeps a few ing discovered. We can erase the
minutes ago by the frantic beep- trail here. First the chair. Get me
beeping of their receivers to watch a knife."

Faber ran and fetched a knife. They shook hands again and
With it, Montag attacked the chair glanced at the t-v. The Electric
where he had sat. He cut the up- Hound was on its way, followed by
holstery free, shoved it,
then bit mobile camera units, through alleys,
by bit, without touching the lid, across empty morning streets, si-
into the wall incinerator. , "Now," lently, silently, sniffing the great
he said, "after I leave, rip up the night wind for Mr. Leonard Mon-
carpet. It has my footprints on it. tag.
Cut it up, burn it, air the house. "Be seeing you!"
Rub doorknobs with alcohol.
the And Montag was out the door,
After I go, turn your garden sprink- running lightly, with the half
ler on full. That'll wash away the empty case. Behind him, he saw and
sidewalk traces." felt and heard the garden sprinkler
Faber shook his hand vigorously. system jump up, filling the dark
"You don't know what this means. air with synthetic rain to wash away
I'll do anything to help you in the the smell of Montag. Through the
future. Get in touch with me in back window, the last thing he saw
Boston, then." of Faber was the older man ripping
"One more thing. A suitcase, up the carpet and cramming it in
Get it, fill it with your dirty laun- the wall incinerator.
dry, an old suit, the dirtier the Montag ran.
denim pants maybe, a shirt,

better, Behind him, in the night city,
some old sneakers and socks." the Electric Hound followed.

Faber was gone and back in a
minute.
case with
Montag
scotch
sealed the full suit-
tape. "To keep
HE STOPPED now
panting, across town, to watch
and again,
the odor in," he said, breathlessly. through the dimly lighted windows
He poured a liberal amount of of wakened houses. He peered in at
cognac over the exterior of the case. silhouettes before television screens
"I don't want that Hound picking and there on the screens saw where
up two odors at once. Mind if I Hound was, now at Elm
the Electric
take this bottle of whisky? I'll need Terrace,now at Lincoln Avenue,
it later. When I get to the river, now at 34th, now up the alley to-
I'll change clothes." ward Mr. Faber's, now at Faber's!
"And identities; from Montag to "No, no!" thought Montag. "Go
Faber." on past! Don't turn in, don't!"
"Christ, hope
works! If your
I it He held his breath.
clothes smell strong enough, which The Electric Hound hesitated,
God knows they seem to, we might then plunged on, leaving Faber's
confuse the Hound, anyway." house behind. For a moment the
"Good luck." t-v camera scanned Faber's home.
THE FIREMAN 49
The windows were dark. In the drawn and staked to the sand. He
garden, the water sprinkled the took possession.
cool air, softly. The boat slid easily on the long
silenceof river and went away
THE
down
Electric Hound raced ahead, downstream from the city, bobbing
and whispering, while Montag
the alley.
"Good going, Professor." And stripped in darkness down to the
Montag was gone, again, racing to- skin, and splashed his body, his
ward the distant river, stopping at arms, his legs, his face with raw
other houses to see the game on liquor. Then he changed into
the t-v sets, the long running game, Faber's old clothing and shoes. He
and the Hound drawing near be- tossed his own clothing into the
hind. "Only a mile away now!" river with the suitcase.
As he ran he had the Seashell at He sat watching the dark shore.
his ear and a voice ran with every There would be a delay while the
step, with the beat of his heart and pursuit rode the Electric Hound up
the sound of his shoes on gravel. and down stream to see where a
"Watch for the pedestrian Look ! man named Montag had stepped
for the pedestrian Anyone on the
! ashore.
sidewalks or in the street, walking Whether or not the smell of
or running, is suspect ! Watch for Faber would be strong enough,
the pedestrian!" with the aid of the alcohol, was
How simple in a city where no something else again. He pulled
one walked. Look, look for the out a handkerchief he had saved
walking man, the man who proves over, doused it with the remainder
his legs. Thank God for good dark of the liquor. He must hold this
alleys where men could run in over his mouth when stepping
peace. House lights flashed on all ashore.
about. Montag saw faces peering The particles of his breathing
streetward as he passed behind might remain in an electronically
them, faces hid by curtains, pale, detectable invisible cloud for hours
night-frightened faces, like odd ani- after he had passed on.
mals peering from electric caves, He couldn't wait any longer. He
faces with gray eyes and gray was below the town now, in a lone-
minds, and he plunged ahead, leav- ly place of weeds and old railway
ing them to their tasks, and in an- tracks. He rowed the boat toward
other minute was at the black, shore, tied the handkerchief over his
moving river. face, and leaped out as the boat
He found what he was looking touched briefly.
for after five minutes of running The current swept the boat
along the bank. It was a rowboat away, turning slowly.

"Farewell to Mr. Montag," he leader of the little group. "Sit
said. "Hello, Mr. Faber." down. Have some coffee."
He went into the woods. He watched the dark steaming
mixture poured into a collapsible
HE FOUND his way along

road tracks that had not been
rail- cup which was handed him straight
off. He sipped it gingerly. He felt
used in years, crusted with brown the scald on his lips. The men were
rust and overgrown with weeds. He watching him. Their faces were un-
listened to his feet moving in the shaved but their beards were much
long grass. He paused now and too and their, hands were
neat,
then, checking behind to see if he clean.They had stood up, as if to

was followed, but was not. welcome a guest, and now they sat
Firelight shone far ahead. "One down again. Montag sipped.
of the camps," thought Montag. "Thanks," he said.
"One of the places where the hobo The leader said, "My name is
intellectuals cook their meals and Granger, as good a name as any.

talk!" It was unbelievable. You don't have to tell us your name
Half an hour later he came out at all." He remembered something.
of the weeds and the forest into "Here, before you finish the coffee,
the half light of the fire, for only better take this." He held out a
a moment, then he hid back and small bottle of colorless fluid.
waited, watching the group of seven "What is it?"
men, holding their hands to the "Drink Whoever you are, you
it.
small blaze, murmuring. To their wouldn't be here unless you were

right, a quarter mile away, was the in trouble. Either that, or you're a
river. Up the stream a mile, and Government spy, in which case we
still apparent in the dark, was the are only a bunch of men traveling
city, and no sound except the voices nowhere and hurting no one. In
and the fire crackling. any event, whoever you are, an hour
Montag waited ten minutes in after you've drunk this fluid, you'll
the shadows. Finally a voice called: be someone else. It does something
"All right, you can come out now." to the perspiratory system —changes
He shrank back. the sweat content. If you want to
"It's okay," said the voice. stay here you'll have to drink it,
"You're welcome here." otherwise you'll have to move on.

He let himself stand forth and If there's a Hound after you, you'd
then he walked tiredly toward the be bad company."
fire, peering at the men and their "I think I took care of the
dirty clothing. Hound," said Montag, and drank
"We're not very elegant," said the tasteless stuff. The fluid stung
the man who seemed to be the his throat. He was sick for a mo-
THE FIREMAN 51
ment; there was a blackness in his for the hell of it. Anyway, up that
eyes, and a roaring in his head. street the police know that every
Then it passed. morning a certain man walks alone,
for the air, to smoke. Call him
"rpHAT'S Mr. Montag,"
better, Billings or Brown or Baumgartner,
-L said Granger, and snorted at but the search is getting nearer to
his social error. "I beg your par- him every minute. See?"
—
don -" He poked his thumb at a In the video screen, a man
small portable t-v beyond the fire. turned a corner. The Electric
"We've been watching. They vi- Hound rushed forward, screeching.
Jeoed a picture of you, not a very The police converged upon the
good resemblance. We hoped you'd man.
head this way." The t-v voice cried, "There's
been quite a chase."
"It's Montag now"! The search is over!"
"Yes." Granger snapped the t-v The innocent man stood watch-
on. It was no bigger than a handing the crowd come on. In his hand
bag, weighing some seven pounds, was a cigaret, half smoked. He
mostly screen. A voice from the set looked at the Hound and his jaw
cried: dropped and he some- started to say
"The chase is now veering south thing when boomed,
a godlike voice
along the river. On the eastern "All right, Montag, don't move!
-
shore the police helicopters are We've got you, Montag!"

converging on Avenue 87 and Elm By the small fire, with seven
Grove Park." other men, Mr. Montag sat, ten
"You're safe," said Granger. miles removed, the light of the
"They're faking. You threw them video screen on his face.
off at the river, but they can't ad- "Don't run, Montag!"
mit it. Must be a million people The man turned, bewildered.
watching that bunch of scoundrels The crowd roared. The Hound
hound after you. They'll catch you leaped up.
in five minutes." "The poor son of a bitch" said
"But if they're ten miles away, Granger, bitterly.
how can they . .

.?" A dozen shots rattled out. The
"Watch." man crumpled.
He made the t-v picture brighter. "Montag is dead, the search is
"Up that street there, somewhere, over, a criminal is given his due,"
right now, out for an early morning said the announcer.
walk. A rarity, an odd one. Don't The camera trucked forward.
think the police don't know the Just before it showed the dead
habits of queer ducks like that, men man's face, however, the screen
who walk early in the morning just went black.

"We now switch you to the Sky to run. I've been running ever
Room of the Hotel Lux in San since. And Simmons here . .
."
Francisco for a half hour of dawn quoted Donne the midst

dance music by
— "I
of a genetics class one afternoon.
in
For no reason at all. Just started

GRANGER turned it off. "They quoting Donne. You see ? Fools, all
didn't show the man's face, of us."
naturally. Better if everyone thinks They glanced at the fire, self-
it's Montag." consciously.
Montag said nothing, but simply "So you want to join us, Mr.
looked at the blank screen. He could Montag?"
not move or speak. "Yes."
Granger put out his hand. "Wel- "What have you to offer?"
come back from the dead, Mr. "Nothing. I thought I had the
Montag." Montag took the hand, Book of Job, but I haven't even
numbly. The man said, "My real got that now."
name is Clement, former occupant "The Book of Job would do very
of the T. S. Eliot Chair at Cam- well. Where was it?"
bridge. That was before it became "Here." Montag touched his
an Electrical Engineering School. head.
This gentleman here is Dr. Sim- "Ah," said Granger-Clement. He
mons from U.C.L.A." smiled and nodded.
"I don't belong here," said Mon- "What's wrong? Isn't that all
tag, at last, slowly. "I've been an right?" said Montag.
idiot, all the
bungled and messed and
way down the line,
tripped
"Better than
Mr. Montag, you have
all right
hit
—uponperfect!
the
myself up." secret of, if you want to give it a
"Anger makes idiots of us all, term, our organization. Living
I'm afraid. You can only be angry books, Mr. Montag, living books.
so long, then you explode and do Inside the old skull where no one
the wrong things. It can't be helped can see." He turned to Simmons.
now." "Do we have a Book of Job?"
"I shouldn't have come here. It "Only one. A man named Harris
might endanger you." in Youngstown."
"We're used to that. We all "Mr. Montag." The man grasped
make mistakes, or we wouldn't be Montag's shoulder firmly. "Walk
here ourselves. When we were sep- slowly, be careful, take your health
arate individuals, all we had was seriously. If anything should hap-
rage. I struck a fireman in the face, pen to Harris, you are the Book of
once. He'd come to burn my library Tob. Do you see how important you
back about forty years ago. I had are?"
THE FIREMAN 53
"But I've forgotten it!" "None of it. But I can't get it
"Nonsense, nothing is ever for- out. Once it's in, it's like solidified
gotten. Mislaid, perhaps, but not glue in a bottle, there for good. Mr.
forgotten. We
have ways, several Granger says it's important. That's
new methods of hypnosis, to shake good enough for me."
down the clinkers there. You'll re- "We're old friends," said Gran-
member, don't fear." ger. "We hadn't seen each other
"I've been trying to remember." since we were boys. We met a few
"Don't try. Relax. It'll come years ago on that track, somewhere
when we need it. Some people are between here and Seattle, walking,
quick studies but don't know it. me running away from firemen, he
Some of God's simplest creatures running from cities."
have the ability called eidetic or "Never liked cities," said the one
photographic memory, the ability who was Plato. "Always felt that
to memorize entire pages of print cities owned men, that was all, and
at a glance. It has nothing to do used men to keep themselves going,

with I.Q. No offense, Montag. It to keep machines oiled and dusted.
varies. Would you like, one day, to So I got out. And then I met
read Plato's Republic?" Granger and he found out that I
"Of course." had this eidetic memory, as he calls
Granger nodded to a man who it, and he gave me a book to read
had been sitting to one side. and then we burned the book our-
"Mr. Plato, if you please." selves so we wouldn't be caught
with it. And now I'm Plato; that's
THE man began to talk. He what I am."
looked at Montag idly, his "He is also Socrates."
hands filling a corncob pipe, un- The man nodded.
aware of the words tumbling from "And Schopenhauer."
his lips. He talked for two minutes Another nod.
without a- pause or stumble. "And John Dewey."
Granger made the smallest move "All that in one bottle. You
of his fingers. The man cut off. wouldn't think there was room. But
"Perfect memory,
word-for-word I can open my head like a concer-
every word important, every word tina and play it. There's plenty of
Plato's," said Granger. room if you don't try to think about
"And," said the man who was what you've memorized. It's when
Plato, "I don't understand a you start thinking that all of a
damned word of it. I just say it. sudden it's crowded. I don't think
It's up to you to understand." about anything except eating, sleep-
"Don't you understand any of ing, and traveling. I let you people
it?" asked Montag. do the thinking when you hear what

I recite. Oh, there's plenty of ferocious trying to go at it the way
room, believe me." I did, planting books and calling
"So here we are, Mr. Montag. firemen."
Mr. Simmons is really Mr. John "You did what you thought you
Donne and Mr. Charles Darwin had to do. But our way is simpler
and Mr. Aristophanes. These other and better and the thing we wish
gentlemen are Matthew, Mark, to do is keep the knowledge intact
Luke, and John. And / am Ruth." and safe and not to excite or anger
Everyone laughed quietly. anyone; for then, if we are de-
"You see, we are not without stroyed, the knowledge is most cer-
humor in this melancholy age. I'm tainly dead. We are model citizens
also bits and pieces, Mr. Montag, in our own special way we walk —
snatches of Byron and Shelley and the tracks, we lie in the hills at
Shaw and Washington Irving and night, we bother no one, and the
Shakespeare. I'm one of those city people let us be. We're stopped
kaleidoscopes. Hold me up to the and searched for books, occasion-
sun, give a shake, watch the pat- ally, but we have none, and our
terns. And
you are Mr. Job, and faces have been changed by plastic
in half an hour or less, a war will surgery, as have our fingerprints. So
begin. While those people in that we wait quietly for the day when
anthill across the river have been the machines are dented junk and
busy chasing Montag, as if he were then we hope to walk by and say.
the cause of all their nervous 'Here we are,' to those who survive
anxiety and frustration, the war has this war, and we'll say, 'Have you
been getting under way. By this come to your senses now? Perhaps
time tomorrow the world will be- a few books will do you some
"
long to the little green towns and good.'
the rusted railroad tracks and the "But will they listen to you?"
men walking on them; that's us. "Perhaps not. Then we'll have to
The cities will be soot and baking wait some more. Maybe a few hun-
powder." dred years. Maybe they'll never lis
ten; we can'tmake them. So we'll
THE
switched
rang
t-v
it on.
a bell. Granger pass the books on to our children,
minds, and let them wait,
in their
"Final negotiations are arranged on other people. Some day
in turn,
for a conference today with the someone will need us. This can't
enemy government — •"
last forever."
Granger snapped it off. "How many of you are there?"
"Well, what do you think, Mon- "Thousands on the road, on the
tag?" rails, bums on the outside, libraries
"I think I was pretty blind and on the inside. It wasn't really
THE FIREMAN 55
planned; it grew. Each man had a MONTAG looked at the men's
book he wanted to remember and faces, old, all of them, in the
did. Then we discovered each firelight, and certainly tired. Per-
other and over twenty years or so haps he was looking for a bright-
got a loose network together and ness, a resolve, a triumph over to-
made a plan. The important thing morrow that' wasn't really there.
we had to learn was that we were Perhaps he expected these men to
not important, we were not to be be proud with the knowledge they
pedants, we were not to feel su- carried, to glow with the wisdom
perior, we were nothing more than as lanterns glow with the fire they
covers for books, of no individual contain.
significance whatever. Some of us But all the light came from the
live in small towns- —chapter one of campfire here, and these men
Walden in Nantucket, chapter two seemed no different than any other
in Reading, chapter three in Wau- man who has run a long run,
kesha, each according to his ability. searched a long search, seen pre-
Some can learn a few lines, some a cious things destroyed, seen old
lot." friends die, and now, very late in
"The books are safe then." time, were gathered together to
"Couldn't be safer. Why, there's watch the machines die, or hope
one village in North Carolina, some they might die, even while cherish-
200 people, no bomb'll ever touch ing a last paradoxical love for those
their town, which is the complete very machines which could spin
Meditations of Marcus Aurelius. out a material with happiness in the
You could pick up that town, al- warp and terror in the woof, so
most, and flip the pages, a page to interblended that a man might go
a person. People who wouldn't insane trying to tell the design to
dream of being seen with a book himself, and his place in it.
gladly memorized a page. You can't They weren't at all certain that
be caught with that. And when the what they carried in their heads
war's over and we've time and need, might make every future dawn
the books can be written again. The dawn brighter. They were sure of
people will be called in one by one nothing save that the books were
to recite what they know and it'll on file behind their solemn eyes and
be in print again until another Dark that if man put his mind to them
Age, when maybe we'll have to do properly, something of dignity and
the whole damned thing over again, happiness might be regained.
man being the fool he is." Montag looked from one face to
"What do we do tonight?" asked another.
Montag. "Don't judge a book by its
"Just wait, that's all." cover," said someone.

A soft laughter moved among divisions, the blood astounded to
is
them. be free on the air,and the brain

Montag turned to look at the city gives up all its precious memories
across the river. and, still puzzled, dies.
"My wife's in that city now," he
said. THIS war was not to be believed.
"I'm sorry to hear that." It was merely a gesture. It was
"Look," said Simmons. the flirt of a great metal hand over

Montag glanced up. the city and a voice saying, "Dis-
The bombardment was finished integrate. Leave no stone upon an-
and over, even while the seeds were other. Perish. Die."
in the windy sky. The bombs were Montag held the bombs in the
there, the jet-planes were there, for sky for a precious moment, with his
the merest trifle of an instant, like mind and his hands. "Run!" he
grain thrown across the heavens by cried to Faber. To Clarisse, "Run!"
a great hand, and the bombs drifted To Mildred, "Get out, get out of
with a dreadful slowness down there!" But Clarisse, he remem-.
upon the morning where all of
city bered, was dead. And Faber was
the people looked up at their des- out; there, in the deep valleys of
tiny coming upon them like the lid the country, went the dawn train
of a dream shutting tight and be- on its way from one desolation to
come an instant later a red and another. Though the desolation had
powdery nightmare. not yet arrived, was still in the air,
The bombardment to all military it was as certain as man could make
purposes was finished. Once the it. Before the train had gone an-
planes had sighted their target, other fifty yards on the track, its
alerted bombardier at five

their destination would be meaningless,
thousand miles an hour, as quick its point of departure made from
as the whisper of a knife through a metropolis into a junkyard.
the sky, the war was finished. Once And Mildred!
the was pulled, once the
trigger "Get out, run!" he thought.
bombs took flight, it was over. He could see Mildred in that
Now, a full three seconds, all of metropolis now, in the half second
the time in history, before the remaining, as the bombs were per-
bombs struck, the enemy ships haps three inches, three small inches
themselves were gone, half around shy of her hotel building. He could
the visible world, it seemed, like see her leaning into the t-v set as if
bullets which an island savage

in all of the hunger of looking would
might not believe because they were find the secret of her sleepless un-
unseen, yet the heart is struck sud- ease there. Mildred, leaning anx-
denly, the body falls into separate iously, nervously, into that tubular
THE FIREMAN 57
world as info a crystal ball to find pounds of brick, metal and people
happiness. down into the cellar, there to dis-
The first bomb struck. pose of them in its unreasonable
"Mildred I" way.
Perhaps the television station "I remember now," thought
went first into oblivion. Montag, "where we first met. It
Montag saw the screen go dark was in Chicago, Yes, now I re-
in Mildred's face, and heard her member."
screaming, because in the next mil- Montag found himself on his
lionth part of time left, she would face. The concussion had knocked
see her own face reflected there, the air across the river, turned the
hungry and alone, in a mirror in- men down like dominoes in a line,
stead of a crystal ball, and it would blown out the fire like a last candle,
be such a wildly empty face that and caused the trees to mourn with
she would at last recognize it, and a great voice of wind passing away
stare at the ceiling almost with south.
welcome as it and the entire struc- Montag lay with his face toward
ture of the hotel blasted down upon the city. Now it, instead of the
her, carrying her with a million bombs, was in the air. They had

displaced each other. For another
of those impossible instants the city
stood, rebuilt and unrecognizable,
taller than it had ever hoped or
strived to be, taller than man had
built it, erected at last in gouts of
dust and sparkles of torn metal into
a city not unlike a reversed aval-
anche, formed of flame and steel
and stone,' a door where a window
ought to be, a top for a bottom, a
side for a back, and then the city
rolled over and fell.
The sound of its death came
after.
THE FIREMAN 59
member another thing. Now I re- tions and minute obsessions. They
member the Book of Job." He said lay blinking their stunned eyelids.
it over to himself, lying tight to You could hear them breathing
the earth; he said the words of it fast, then slower, then with the
many times and they were perfect slowness of normality.
without trying. "Now I remember Montag sat up. He move
did not
the book of Job. Now I do remem- any farther, however. The other
ber . .
." men did likewise. The sun was
"There," said a voice, Granger's touching the black horizon with a
voice. faint red tip. The air was cool and
The men lay like gasping fish on sweet and smelled of rain. In a few
the grass. minutes it would smell of dust and
They did not get up for a long pulverized iron, but now it was
time, but held to the earth as chil- sweet.

dren hold to a familiar thing, no And across the world, thought
matter how cold or dead, no matter Montag, the cities of the other na-
what has happened or will happen. tions are dead, too, almost in the
Their fingers were clawed into the same instant.
soil, and they were all shouting to Silently, the leader of the small
keep their ears in balance and open, group, Granger, arose, felt of his
Montag shouting with them, a pro- arms and touched his face to
legs,
test against the wind that swept see if everything was in its place,
them, shaking their hair, tearing at then shuffled over to the blown-
their lips, making their noses out fire and bent over it. Montag
bleed. watched.
Montag watched the blood drip Everyone watched.
into the earth with such an absorp- Striking a match, Granger
tion that the city was effortlessly touched it to a piece of paper and
forgotten. shoved this under a bit of kindling,
The wind died. and shoved together bits of straw

The city was flat, as if one had and dry wood, and after a while,
taken a heaping tablespoon of flour drawing the men slowly, awkward-
and passed a finger over it, smoothly to it by its glow, the fire licked
ing it to an even level. up, coloring their faces pink and
The men said nothing. They lay yellow, while the sun rose slowly
a while like people on the dawn to color their backs.
edge of sleep, not yet ready to arise
and begin the day's obligations, its THERE was no sound except the
fires and foods, its thousand details low and secret talk of men at
of putting foot after foot, hand morning, and the talk was no more
after hand, its deliveries and func- than this:

"How many strips?" in their hands, waiting a moment
"Two each." for the eggs to cool, while the lead-
"Good enough." er started the routine, and others
The bacon was counted out on a took it up, here or there, round
wax paper. The frying pan was set about.
to the fire and the bacon laid in it.
After a
and dance
moment
in the
began to flutter
it
pan and the sput-

WHEN
he spoke, too:
it was Montag's turn,
ter of it filled the morning air with

its aroma. Eggs were cracked in "To everything there is a season,
upon the bacon and ,the men And a time to every purpose under
watched this ritual, for the leader the heaven . . >
was a participant, as were they, in A time to be born, and a time to

a religion of early rising, a thing die . . .
man had done for many centuries, A time to kill, and a time to
thought Montag, a thing man had heal . .
."
done over and over again, and Mon-

tag felt at ease among them, as if The forks moved in the pink
during the long night the walls of light. Now each of the men re-
a great prison had vaporized membered and different
a separate
around them and they were on the thing, a bit of poetry, a line from
land again and only the birds sang a play, an old song. And they spoke
on or off as they pleased, with no these little bits and pieces in the
schedule, and with no nagging hu- early morning air:
man insistence.
"Here," said Granger, dishing "Man that is born of a woman
out the bacon and eggs to each Is of few days and full of
from the hot pan. They each held trouble . .
."
out the scratched tin plates that had

been passed around. A wind blew in the trees.
Then, without looking up,
breaking more eggs into the pan- for "To be or not to be, that is the
himself, Granger slowly and with question . .
."
a concern both for what he said, re-

calling it, rounding it, and for The sun was fully up.
making the food also, began to re-
cite snatches and rhythms, even "Oh, do you remember, Sweet
while the day brightened all about Alice, Ben Bolt . .
.?"
as if a pink lamp had been given
more wick, and Montag listened Montag felt fine.
and they all looked at the tin plates —RAY BRADBURY
THE FIREMAN 61
• • and it
By LESTER
YOU'RE wrong. I'm ways have ... or do ... or will.

NO, not
even
your
if I
father's
do look a
ghost,
bit
I don't know, verbs get all mixed
up. We don't have the right atti-

like him.But it's a longish story, tude toward tenses for a situation
and you might as well let me in. like this.
You will, you know, so why Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did,
quibble about it? At least, you also you will.

comes out here
Illustrated by DON SIBLEY
There is one fact no sane man can quarrel with

...everything has a beginning and an end. But
some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!
Thanks. You think you're crazy, thirty years from now, or you're
of course, but you'll find out you me. remember just how you feel;
I
aren't. It's just that things are a bit I felt the same way when he
confused. And don't look at the that is,' of course, I or we—came
machine out there too long until — back to tell me about it, thirty years
you get used to it, you'll find it's ago.
hard on the eyes, trying to follow Here, have one of these. You'll
where the vanes go. You'll get get to like them in a couple more
used to it, of course, but it will years. And you can look at the
take about thirty years. revenue stamp date, if you still
You're wondering whether to doubt my story. You'll believe it
give me a drink, as I remember it. eventually, though, so it doesn't

Why not? And naturally, since we matter.
have the same tastes, you can make Right now, you're shocked. It's
the same for me as you're having. a realwrench when a man meets
Of course we havethe same tastes himself for the first time. Some
—we're the same person. I'm you kind of telepathy seems to work
.AND IT COMES OUT HERE 63

between two of the same people. cockpit; it is probably the field that
You sense things. So I'll simply go prevents passage through time from
ahead talking for half an hour or affecting us. The luggage section
so, until you get over it. After that isn't protected, though.
you'll come along with me. You You start to say something, but
know, I could try to change things by then I'm pressing a black but-
around by telling what happened ton, and everything outside will
to me; but he I ——
told me what I disappear. You look for your house,
was going to do, so I might as well but it isn't there. There is exactly
do the same. I probably couldn't —
nothing there in fact, there is no
help telling you the same thing in there. You are completely outside
the same words, even if I tried of time and space, as best you can
and I don't intend to try. I've got- guess how things are.
ten past that stage in worrying You can't feel any motion, of
about all this. course. You try to reach a hand
So let's begin when you get up out through the field into the noth-
in half an hour and come out ing around you and your hand goes
with me. You'll take a closer look out, all right, but nothing happens.
at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be Where the screen ends, your hand
pretty obvious it must 'be a time just turns over and pokes back at
ma'chine. You'll sense that, too. you. Doesn't hurt, and when you
You've seen it, just a small little pull your arm back, you're still
cage with two seats, a luggage com- sound and uninjured. But it looks
partment, and a few buttons on a frightening and you don't try it
dash. You'll be puzzling over what again.
I'll tell you, and you'll be getting Then it comes to you slowly that
used to the idea that you are the you're actually traveling in time.
man who makes atomic power prac- You turn to me, getting used to the
tical. Jerome Boell,* just a plain idea. "So this is the fourth dimen-
engineer, the man who put atomic sion?" you ask.
power in every home. You won't Then you feel silly, because
exactly believe it, but you'll want you'll remember that I said you'd
to go along. ask that. Well, I asked it after I
was told, then I came back and told
I'LL BE tired of talking by then, it to you, and I still can't help an-
and in a hurry to get going. So swering when you speak.

I cut off your questions, and get you "Not exactly," I try to explain.
inside. I snap on a green button, "Maybe it's no dimension —or it
and everything seems to cut off might be the fifth; if you're going
around us. You can see a sort of to skip over the so-called fourth
foggy nothing surrounding the without traveling along it, you'd

v <•
need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't realize that everything in the ma-
invent the machine and I don't un- chine is wide open, yet you
derstand it." haven't seen any effects of air loss.
"But . .
." "Where are we getting our air?"
I let it go, and so do you. If you you ask. "Or why don't we lose it?"
don't, a good way of going crazy. "No place for it to go," I ex-
You'll see later why I couldn't have plain. There isn't. Out there is
invented the machine. Of course, neither time nor space, apparently.

there may have been a start for all How could the air leak out? You
this There may have been a
once. still feel gravity, but I can't explain
time when you did invent the ma- that, either. Maybe the machine has
chine — the atomic motor first, then a gravity field built in, or maybe
the time-machine. And when you the time that makes your watch run
closed the loop by going back and is responsible for gravity. In spite
saving yourself the trouble, it got of Einstein, you have always had
all tangled up. I figured out once the idea that time is an effect of
that such a universe would need gravity, and I sort of agree, still.
some seven or eight time and space Then the machine stops— at least,
dimensions. It's simpler just to the field around us cuts off. You
figure that this is the way time got feel a dankish sort of air replace
bent back on itself. Maybe there is the stale air, and you breathe
no machine, and it's just easier for easier, though we're in complete
us to imagine it. When you spend darkness, except for the weak light
thirty years thinking about it, as I in the machine, which always burns,
did —
and you will you get further — and a few feet of rough dirty
and further from an answer. cement floor around. You take an-
Anyhow, you sit there, watching other cigaret from me and you get
nothing all around you, and no out of the machine, just as I do.
time, apparently, though there is a I've got a bundle of clothes and
time effect the luggage
back in I start changing. It's a sort of
space. You your watch and
look at simple, short-limbed, one-piece af-
it's still running. That means you fair I put on, but it feels comfort-
either carry a small time field with able.
you, or you are catching a small "I'm staying here," I tell you.
increment of time from the main "This is like the things they wear
field. I don't know, and you won't in this century, as near as I can
think about that then, either. remember it, and I should be able
to pass fairly well. I've had all my
I'M
SMOKING, and so are you, fortune — the one you make on that
and the air in the machine is atomic generator — invested in such
getting a bit stale. You suddenly a way I can get it on using some
AND IT COMES OUT HERE 65

with me, so
identification I've got nobody around. I grab your hand
I'lldo all right. I know they still and shake it. "You go that way.
use some kind of money, you'll see Don't worry about getting lost; you
evidence of that. And it's a pretty never did, so you can't. Find the
easygoing civilization, from what I museum, grab the motor, and get
could see. We'll go up and I'll out. And good luck to you."
leave you. I like the looks of things You act as if you're dreaming,
here, so I won't be coming back though you can't believe it's a
with you." dream. You nod at me and I move
You nod, remembering I've told out into the main corridor. A sec-
you about it. "What century is this, ond later, you see me going by,
anyway?" mixed into a crowd that is loafing
I'd told you that, too, but you've along toward a restaurant, or some-
forgotten. "As near as I can guess, thing like it, that is just opening.
it's about 2150. He told me, just I'm asking questions of a man, who
as I'm telling you, that it's an inter- points, and I turn and move off.
stellar civilization." You come out of the side corri-
You take another cigaret from dor and go down a hall, away from
me, and follow me. I've got a small the restaurant. There are quiet little
flashlight and we grope through a signs along the hall. You look at
pile of rubbish, out into a corridor. them, realizing for the first time
This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We that things have changed.
have to walk up a flight of stairs, Steij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dis-
and there is an elevator waiting, penser/. The signs are very quiet
fortunately with the door open. and dignified. Some of them can
"What about the time ma- be decoded to stationery shops,
chine?" you ask. fountains, and the like. What a zer-
"Since nobody ever stole it, it's got is, you don't know. You stop
•
safe." at a sign that announces: Trav:l

Bhvrou — F.rst-Clas fun—Man,
WE GET say "first" to
in the elevator,
it. It
and
gives out
I Viin*s,
Spej:l reits
and
tti
x: Trouj:n
aol s*nz wixin 60
Planets.
a soughing noise and the basement lyt iirz! But there is only a single
openings begin to click by us. picture of a dull-looking metal
There's no feeling of acceleration sphere, with passengers moving up
some kind of false gravity they use a ramp, and the office is closed. You
in the future. Then the door opens, begin to get the hang of the spell-
and the elevator says "first" back ing they use, though.
at us. Now there are people around
It's obviously a service elevator you, but nobody pays much atten-
and we're in a dim corridor, with tion to you. Why should they ? You

wouldn't care if you saw a man in and the friendly grin on his face,
a leopard-skin suit; you'd figure it he looks like any other guard.
was some part in a play and let it What's more, he speaks pretty
go. Well, people don't change clearly. Everyone says things in a
much. sort of drawl, with softer vowels
You up your courage and go
get and slurred consonants, but it's
up boy selling something that
to a rather pleasant.
might be papers on tapes. "Help you, sir? Oh, of course.
"Where can I find the Museum You must be playing in 'Atoms and
of Science?" Axioms.' The museum's closed, but
"Downayer rien turn lefa the I'll be glad to let you study what-
sign. Stoo bloss," he tells you. ever you need for realism in your
Around you, you hear some pretty role. Nice show. I saw it twice."
normal English, but there are others "Thanks," you mutter, wonder-
using stuff as garbled as his. The ing what kind of civilization can
educated and uneducated? I don't produce guards as polite as that.
know. "I —I'm told I should investigate
You go right until you find a big your display of atomic generators."
sign built into the rubbery surface He beams at that. "Of course."
of the walk: *v Syens.
M':uzi:m The gate is swung to behind you,
There's an arrow pointing and you but obviously he isn't locking it.
turn left. Ahead of you, two blocks In fact, there doesn't seem to be a
on, you can see a pink building, lock. "Must be a new part. You go
with faint aqua trimming, bigger down that corridor, up one flight
than most of the others. They are of stairs and left. Finest display in
building lower than they used to, all the known worlds. We've got
apparently. Twenty floors up seems the original of the first thirteen
about the maximum. You head for models. Professor Jonas was using
it, and find the sidewalk is marked them to check his latest theory of
with the information that it is the how they work. Too bad he could
museum. not explain the principle, either.
Someone will, some day, though.
YOU go up seems
see thjt it
the steps, but you
to be closed.
Lord, the genius of that twentieth
century inventor! It's quite a hobby
You hesitate for a moment, then. with me, sir. I've read everything
You're beginning to think the I could get on the period. Oh
whole affair is complete nonsense, congratulations on your pronuncia-
and you should get back to the tion. Sounds just like some of our
time machine and go home. But oldest tapes."
then a guard comes to the gate. Ex- You get away from him, finally,
cept for the short legs in his suit after some polite thanks. The
..AND IT COMES OUT HERE 67
'
\ *. ,
building seems deserted and you
BY THAT time, you're almost
wander up the stairs. There's a convinced. And
you've been
room on your right filled with doing a lot of thinking about what
something that proclaims itself the you can" do. The story I'm telling
first diamond former,
truly plastic has been sinking in, but you aren't
and you go up to it. As you come completely willing to accept it.
near, it goes through a crazy wiggle You notice that the models are
inside, stops turning out a con- all mounted on tables and that
tinual row of what seem to be bear- they're a lot smaller than you
ings, and slips something the size thought. They seem to be in chrono-
of a penny toward you. logical order, and the latest one,
"Souvenir," it announces in a marked 2147 —Rhics Dyn*pat:, is
well-modulated voice. "This is a about the size of a desk telephone.
typical gem of the twentieth cen- The earlier ones are larger, of
tury, properly cut to 58 facets, course, clumsier, but with varia-
known technically as a Jaegger dia- tions, probably depending on the
mond, and approximately twenty power output. A big sign on the
carats in size. You can have it made ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic
into a ring on the third floor during generators, explaining that this is
morning hours for one-tenth credit. the first invention which leaped full
If you have more than one child, blown into basically final form.
press the red button for the num- You study it, but it mentions cas-
ber of stones you desire." ually the inventor, without giving
You put it in your pocket, gulp- his name. Either they don't know
ing a and get back to the
little, it, or they take it for granted that
corridor. You turn left and go past everyone does, which seems more
a big room in which models of probable. They call attention to the
spaceships —
from the original thing fact that have the original
they
that looks like a V-2, and is labeled model of the first atomic generator
first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot built, complete with design draw-
globe, complete with miniature ings, original manuscript on opera-
manikins—are sailing about in tion, and full patent application.
some kind of orbits. Then there is They state that it has all major
one labeled Wep:nz, filled with refinements, operating on any fuel,
everything from a crossbow to a producing electricity at any desired
tiny rod four inches long and half voltage up to five million, any
the thickness of a pencil, marked chosen cyclic rate from direct cur-
Fynal Hand Arm. Beyond is the rent to one thousand megacycles,
end of the corridor, and a big place and any amperage up to one thou-
that bears a sign, Mad:lz *v Atamic sand, its maximum power output
Pau.r Sorsez. being fifty kilowatts, limited by

the current-carrying capacity of the that Rinks Dynapattuh, or what-
outputs. They also mention that the ever it transliterates to. That's
operating principle is still being small and you can carry it. But the
investigated, and that only such re- darned thing is absolutely fixed.
finements as better alloys and the You can't see any bolts, but you
addition of magnetric and nuclea- can't budge it, either.
tric current outlets have been added
since the original.

So you go to the end and look
YOU
be
work down the
foolish to take
line.
the early
It'd
over the thing. It's simply a square model if you can get one with:
box with a huge plug on each side, built-in magnetic current terminals
and a set of vernier controls on top, —Ehrenhaft or some other prin-
plus a little hole marked, in old- —and
ciple ? nuclear binding-force
style spelling, Drop BBs or wire energy terminals. But they're all
here. Apparently that's the way it's held down by the same whatcha-
fueled. It's about one foot on each maycallem effect.
side. And, finally, you're right back
"Nice," the guard says over your beside the original first model. It's
shoulder. "It finally wore out one probably bolted down, too, but you
of the cathogrids and we had to try it tentatively and you find it
replace that, but otherwise it's ex- moves. There's a little sign under
actly as the great inventor made it. it, indicating you shouldn't touch
And it still operates as well as ever. it, since the gravostatic plate is be-
Like to have me
you about it?"
tell ing renewed.
"Not particularly," you begin, Well, you won't be able to
and then realize bad manners might change the time cycle by doing any-
be conspicuous here. While you're thing I haven't told you, but a
searching for an answer, the guard working model such as that is a
pulls v something out of his pocket handy thing. You lift it; it only
and stares at it. weighs about fifty pounds! Natur-
"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altase- ally, it can be carried.
carba — Centaurian, you know is — You expect a warning bell, but

arriving, but I'll be back in about nothing happens. As a matter of
ten minutes. He wants to examine fact, if you'd stop drinking so much
some of the weapons for a mono- of that scotch and staring at the
graph on Centaurian primitives time machine out there now, you'd
compared to nineteenth century hear what I'm saying and know
man. You'll pardon me?" what will happen to you. But of
You pardon him pretty eagerly course, just as I did, you're going
and he wanders off happily. You to miss a lot of what I say from
go up to the head of the line, to now on, and have to find out for
..AND IT COMES OUT HERE 69

yourself. But maybe some of it
helps. I've tried to remember how
much I remembered, after he told
me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep
on talking. I probably can't help it,
anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.
Well, you stagger down the cor-
ridor, looking out for the guard,
but all seems clear. Then you hear
his voice from the weapons room.
You bend down and try to scurry
past, but you know you're in full
view. Nothing happens, though.

pressions you haven't time to see.
There's another yell behind you.
Something goes over your head
and drops on the sidewalk just in
front' of your feet, with a sudden
ringing sound. You don't wait to
find out about that, either. Some-
body reaches out a hand to catch
you and you dart past.
The street is pretty clear now and
you jolt along, with your arms
seeming to come out of the sockets,
and that atomic generator getting
heavier at every step.
.Out of nowhere, something in a
blue uniform about six feettall and
on the beefy side appears and the —

badge hasn't changed 'much. The
cop catches your arm and you know
you're not going to get away, so
you stop.
"You can't exert yourself that
hard in this heat, fellow," the cop
says. "There are laws against that,
without a yellow sticker. Here, let
me grab you a taxi."
REACTION sets in a bit and

You stumble down the stairs, your knees begin to buckle,
feeling all the futuristic rays in the but you shake your head and come
world on your back, and still noth- up for air.
ing happens. Ahead of you, the "I —
I left my money home," you
gate is closed. You reach it and it begin.

opens obligingly by itself. You The cop nods. "Oh, that explains
breathe a quick sigh of relief and it. won't have to give you
Fine, I
start out onto the street. an appearance schedule. But you

Then there's a yell behind you. should have come to me." He
You don't wait. You put one leg in reaches out and taps a pedestrian
front of the other and you begin lightly on the shoulder. "Sir, an
racing down the walk, ducking past emergency request. Would you help
people, who stare at you with ex- this gentleman?"
AND IT COMES OUT HERE 71

The pedestrian grins, looks at You swallow several sets of ton-
his watch, and nods. "How far?" silsyou had removed years before,
You did notice the name of the and take the bundle of papers he
building from which you came and hands you out of the little case.
you .mutter it. The stranger nods He pumps you for some more in-
again, reaches out and picks up the formation, which you give him at
other side of the generator, blow- random. It seems- to satisfy your
ing a little whistle the cop hands amiable guard friend. He finally
him. Pedestrians begin to move smiles in satisfaction and heads back
aside, and you and the stranger jog to the museum.
down the street at a trot, with a You still don't believe it, but you
nice clear path, while the cop stands pick up the atomic generator and
beaming at you both. the information sheets, and you
That way, it isn't so bad. And head down toward the service ele-
you begin to see why I decided I vator. There is no button on it. In
might like to stay in the future. fact, there's no door there.
But all the same, the organized co- You start looking for other doors
operation here doesn't look too or corridors, but you know this is
good. The guard can get the same right. The signs along the halls are
and be there before you. the same as they were.
And he is. He stands just inside
the door of the building as you THEN there's a sort of cough
reach it. The stranger lifts an eye- and something dilates in the
brow and goes off at once when wall. It forms a perfect door and
you nod at him, not waiting for the elevator stands there waiting.
thanks. And the guard comes up, You get in, gulping out something
holding some dinkus in his hand, about going all the way down, and
about the size of a big folding then wonder how a machine geared
camera and not too dissimilar in for voice operation can make any-
other ways. He snaps it open and thing of that. What the deuce
you get set to duck. would that lowest basement be
"You forgot the prints, mono- called? But the elevator has closed
graph, and patent applications," he and is moving downward in a
says. "They go with the generator hurry. It coughs again and you're
—we don't like to have them sep- at the original level. You get out
arated. A good thing I knew the and you don't have a light.
realize
production office of 'Atoms and You'll never know what you
Axioms' was in this building. Just stumbled over, but, somehow, you
let us know when you're finished move back in the direction of the
with the model and we'll pick it time machine, bumping against
up." boxes, staggering here and there,

and trying to find the right place Instead, everything flashes off
by sheer feel. Then a shred of dim and you're sitting in the machine
light appears; it's the weak light in in your own back yard.
the time machine. You'll figure out the cycle in
You ve located it. more details later. You get into the
You put the atomic generator in machine in front of your house, go
the luggage space, throw the papers to the future in the sub-basement,
down and climb into the
beside it, land in your back yard, and then
cockpit, and mumbling.
sweating hop back thirty years to pick up
You reach forward toward the yourself, landing in front of your
green button and hesitate. There's house. Just that. But right then,
a red one beside it and you finally you don't care. You jump out and
decide on that. start pulling out that atomic gen-
Suddenly, there's a confused yell erator and taking it inside.
from the direction of the elevator
and a beam of light strikes against ISN'T hard to disassemble, but
ITyou
your eyes, with a shout punctuat- don't learn a thing; just
ing it. Your finger touches the red some plates of metal, some spiral
button. coils, and a few odds and ends
You'll never know what the all things that can be made easily
shouting was about —whether they enough, all obviously of common
finally doped out the fact that metals. But when you put it to-
they'd been robbed, or whether they gether again, about an hour later,
were trying to help you. You don't you notice something.
care which it is. The field springs Everything in it is brand-new
up around you and the next button and there's one set of copper wires
—
you touch the one on the board missing! It won't work. You put
that hasn't been used so far sends — some #12 house wire in, exactly
you off into nothingness. There is like the set on the other side, drop
no beam of light, you can't hear a in some iron filings, and try it
thing, and you're safe. again.
It isn't much of a trip back. You Andwith the controls set at 120
sit there smoking and letting your volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes,
nerves settle back to normal. You you get just that. You don't need
notice a third set of buttons, with the power company any more. And
some pencil marks over them — you feel a little happier when you
"Press these to return to yourself 30 realize that the luggage space
years" —and you begin waiting for wasn't insulated from time effects
the air to get stale. It doesn't be- by a field, so the motor has moved
cause there is only one of you this backward in time, somehow, and is
time. back to its original youth—minus
.AND IT COMES OUT HERE 73

the replaced wires the guard men- worst times in history for a few
tioned —which probably wore out years. Your name eventually be-
because of the makeshift job you've comes as common as Ampere, or
just done. Faraday, or any other spelled with-
But you begin getting more of a out a capital letter.
jolt when you find that the papers But you're thinking of the
are all in your own writing, that puzzle. You can't find any an-
your name is down as the inventor, swer.
and that the date of the patent ap- One day you come across an old
plication is 1951. —
poem something about some folks
It will begin to soak in, then. callingit evolution and others call-
You pick up an atomic generator ing God. You go out, make a

it
in the future and bring it back to few provisions for the future, and
the past —yourthepresent — so that it come back to climb into the time
can be put in museum with
you machine that's waiting in the build-
as the inventor so you can steal it ing you had put around it. Then
to be the inventor. And yoij do it you'll be knocking on your own i
—
,
in a time machine which you bring door, thirty years back or right
back to yourself to take yourself now, from your view and telling —
into the future to return to take your younger self all these things
back to yourself . . . I'm telling you.
Who invented what? And who But now . . .
built which ? Well, the drinks are finished.

Before long, your riches from the You're woozy enough to go along
generator are piling in. Little kids with me without protest, and I
from school are coming around to want to find out just why those
stare at the man who changed his- people up there came looking for
tory and made -atomic power so you and shouting, before the time
common that no nation could hope machine left.
to be anything but a democracy and Let's go.
a peaceful one —
after some of the —LESTER DEL REY
The Big News Next Month. . .
The Wind Between the Worlds

A Major Novelet by LESTER DEL REY

The
Protector
BY BETSY CURTIS
There's a fortune in a boxer

who feels no pain. This one
didn't, except in odd ways...
HOW Gorlin
it's
come I live here on
permanent ? Well,
something like this.
There is nobody real surprised
when some scientist writes an article
in the Sunday supplement about
the primitive tribes of Anestha dy-
ing out, probably. The Anesthon
natives is freaks, anyway, and folks
Illustrated by DAVIO STONE
THE PROTECTOR 75
just naturally figure they can't last tough till afterward. He comes from
long in stiff competition. If you Gorlin. Of course I have to stable
are likethem and your body don't him on Venus long enough for a
feelany pain any time, you need a legal residence, or the Boxing Com-
nursemaid around to keep you from mission would have him investi-
doing dumb things, like walking in gated and maybe banned from the
front of a truck or starving to ring as a telepath. Tough training
death. him, too. He can't see the sense of
I am here on Gorlin a couple fighting, but, man, he can stay in
times and know about 'em. Some the ring all night. He never does
folks think it's comical to watch get real speedy on his feet, but he
the space crews think up ways to learns fastand packs a wicked left.
give an Anesthon a workout. 1 see I have to lie when I am
don't
one Anesthon girl a real looker — thinking real hard he is champeen
she is, too —
dance fourteen hours material.
before she gives out, just for a Anyhow, Pierre gets all worked
perfume and one of them
bottle of up over his race getting extinct. He
Venusian fur lou/ige robes. They has a sister who is glenched to some
sure enjoy their pleasures, even if nice boy and his old man is some
they never feel no pain. You feel- sort of a chief. He is all for beating
ing any? More thiska? it back by the next via- Venus ship
Hey, Noor! Another round of to see what is getting at the old
thiska for the boys! folks at home. I calm him down
Well, they can feel your feel- though, give him a couple of shots
ings, and any thoughts that are of thiska and say I better take him
about them, too. I guess all they around to see that scientist-dope-
live for is pleasure and a pat on ster and get the inside first. I have
the back. One time a little runty to go everywhere with him to see he
Anesthon guy even builds a whole doesn't break a leg and forget to
stone blockhouse for a first looie, tell me about it.
when the looie thinks real hard

that the little guy looks like a first- WE hope TAT Chi and
SOmake a in
rate hod carrier. Time the house is Washington where
for
built,the Anesthon's hands is all this science fellow is with some
bloody and one ankle broke where Smithsonian Institute. He is nice
a chunk of rock drops on him. He enough about seeing us, but he can't
don't notice it, of course. figure how a Chinaman like Pierre
Pierre gets all worked up about has any be steamed'up about
call to
them Anestha dying out. That's my the Anestha (you seen these Anes-
boy Pierre, the heavyweight. I name tha with their slick black hair and
him Pierre so's nobody thinks he is goldy skin and smooth eyelids like

a Earth Chinaman) so I have to jittery and homesick, too, when the
break down 'and tell him about guy starts raving about swimming
Pierre being an Anesthon. in the flaff pools and the feeling of
That scientist is pretty peeved katweela petals under your bare
with me bringing Pierre into the feet, so I says we have to catch a
Earth system, but when I tell him plane and get out of there.
Pierre wants to go back to help out Pierre still wants to head for
the folks, he kind of clams up and Gorlin. He says his people must
says the article is just one of those be unhappy about something or
Sunday paper things. There don't they are more careful. Life on Gor-
really seem to be anything wrong lin is too much fun to just go and
on Gorlin except that all the work- die for no reason.

ers are getting more careless than I try to pep him up on the way
usual, falling off walls they are back about his next
to Chi, talking
building and getting hit by rocks fight with Kid Bop, but he says he
during blasting, or walking in can't see any reason in fighting,
front of full cars in the mines. either, justnow. I tell him I think
Pierre gives the man a look. he kind of likes fighting, but he
"Workers? Mines? Blasting?" he says what he likes is the nice things
says."What gives? There are no I think about him when he wins,
mines on Gorlin," he says, "just a and he is too worried about his fam-
few quarries and a lot of big farms. ily to pay much attention to what I
We never have to kill ourselves think just now.

working. What gives?" he says.
"Oh," the man comes back, WELL, we are both pretty flush
"there's a couple big targ mines in from one of the best fight
full swing. Some big Earth con- seasons I ever see and a rest won't
cern is shipping out the . stuff five hurt the boy, so I say okay, we are
freighters a day Mercury for
to going by the first liner off the Flats.
mass insulation. All native work- "You don't have to go, Joe," he
ers.They don't get paid much says."Keep your dough and train a
weej cigarettes, bubble bath, some couple more kids. I may not be
thiska, electro-fur blankets, stuff back," he says.
like that —but 1 don't hear yapping. "Look, boy," I says, "you know
If I do, I report anything that looks what the food is like on them
like slavery." Of course he says it liners," I says, kind of kidding,
with a lot of grammar and it takes "and if there's nobody around to
him a half hour, but that is the cram it down you, you don't eat, and
slant. if you don't eat, you starve and —
He wants to gab some then with if you starve, you are in no condi-
Pierre. I see that the boy is getting tion to cheer up your sister and
THE PROTECTOR 77
your old man. Besides," I says, "I has a cloudrift shower that you
can afford a vacation and you're the nearly float away on.
I want to work with.
only fighter But Pierre just doesn't relax. I
You've got a real future," I says, keep trying to make him get in the
"and I'm going to bring you back shower, but it is no use.^He says
alive." he is just too worried to take any
I guess that makes him feel kind pleasure in it. I don't think we
of good, because he grins first time ought to go scouting till night and
since he reads that paper and says, that is thirty some hours yet, but
"All right, Joe,come on along." when I see he is settling down to
wear the fuzz right off the floor
WE BUY
neckties
a
in
few
the
pretties
station
and
and
walking round and round, I give in,
feed him a sandwich I bring from
ship out of Chi for the Flats on the the ship, and we stroll off in the
next TAT. Pierre wants to get some woods like we are looking for flow-
perfume for his sister, but I tell ers.
him we can get better on Venus, There are no signs around the
where good stuff is made.
all the hotel saying which way to the
The trip from Venus Space Base mines, so we set off to circle the
to Gorlin is fast on account of over- hotel and spaceport clearing to look
drive, but even so I have no trou- for the rail-line that brings the targ
ble passing Pierre off as a fighter to the port. I figure we have gone
who has the and is headed
jitters about two-thirds of the way around
for a vacation where he learns to when I nearly fall over a guy sit-
take it easy the easy way. He is ting on the ground with his head
always burning his fingers or his in his hands. What I think is kat-
mouth on a cigarette, and I have weela flowers is just the red Anes-
to keep an eye on him all the time. thon kloa he has on. He looks up
Nerves, I explain to the passengers. sort of dull and then he sees Pierre
When we land, Pierre is all for with me. He
lets out a yip and sits
hunting up his folks, but I says no, back on the ground and
hard
if there is some trouble, it is moans. Pierre yanks the fellow up
smarter to case the joint. We check on his feet and hugs him and starts
in at the swanky tourist hotel. She to jabber away so fast I can't tell
is new since I am on Gorlin a what he is saying. Foreigners al-
couple years ago and what class! ways talk faster than anybody else.
She is built around one of the big- The other guy puts in a word or
gest flaff pools on the whole planet two every once in a while and then
and our room is completely lined he scrams off through the trees.
with padded velvety stuff, sort of a Noor,"
"That's Pierre informs
deep red color, and the bathroom me, "the guy my sister Jennel is

glenched to. He's gonna get us a Noor and takes off
sees her, too,
couple of kloas so nobody'll notice like a bat back the way we come.
us around the mine. He's feeling Pierre jogs ahead and when J get
mighty low, but I can't figure out up with him, there he is hugging
why. He says Jennel and the old and jabbering again.
man are okay, only he can't ever "My sister Jennel," he says, and,
carry Jennel to his own house be- "Jennel, this is Joe, my manager."
cause he ain't man enough. I don't She is a cute trick with lots of
get it. He can make a good fighter, yumph showing through the molla.
Joe." She stands kind
slumped, of
though, and a few of the flowers in
BEFORE you can count three, her shiny black hair are pretty
Noor back again with the
is mashed.
kloas and Pierre strips and gets into " 'Smatter, Jennel?" I says. "You
his. I ain't too keen to show my look kind dragged out for a
of
shapelies, but Pierre starts grabbing dame whose brother comes home
my shirt and I have to put the kloa practically a champeen. Karweela
on or else. The boys head south at flowers go on strike?" I says, just
a good clip and I tag along trying tryjng to make talk.
to catch up and find out the score. She slumps a little more and says
When Pierre sees Iam making like the boss don't like her and how it's
winded, he slows down and tells me too bad her brother has to come
we are going to the mine owner's home and find her still alive and
fancy dump about two miles down cluttering up the woods.
the drag. Pierre says Noor tells him I tell Pierre she better take us to
the mine owner doesn't like him this boss that don't like a babe like
and he has to leave us when we get her, but she just shakes her head
in sight of the house. and says go that way and we come
After about a mile, Noor begins to the house. Then she says the
to drag along. Then he just sits boss makes the natives use the em-
down under another tree and says ployees' entrance on the other side
that is the end of the line for him. of the house and she offers to take
He through the trees and
points and show us the way. She kind of
says go on, maybe he is still there twitches when she says "natives."
when we come back, maybe not. She don't even says yes or no all
While Pierre is jawing with him, I the way to the gate till, just before
look up the trail and see a Anesthon we get there, I trip on a root and
babe about a hundred feet away. bang my knee on a rock on the way
You can tell it is a babe from one down. Well, I howl and cuss some
of them blue and green mollos and she comes up close and asks
draped around her over the kloa. me what seems to be the matter. I
THE PROTECTOR 79
tell her the blamed rock hurts my .up at the big house. They are be-
knee and I think real hard about ing talked to by the boss about not
how her knee would feel if a rock getting out enough targ on the
hits it and she busts right out cry- shifts where they are foremen, and
ing. she says how sad it is about Pierre
"Oh, you poor man, you poor coming home.
man, you," she sobs. "That rock It is just beginning to filter
don't like you at all." through my thick skull that the boss
"It don't hate me, either," I says. is connected with all this dying out
"It's only a rock." of the Anestha, as the Sunday paper

"But it makes a hurt to you. It puts it, and I grab Pierre away
don't love you and now you are not from Jennel and hustle him through
happy where there's any rocks be- .the gate.
cause they don't love you," she "Look, Pierre," I says, "we'll go
says,and she helps me up and starts around' and listen by them long
dragging me along, still crying like windows and see what cooks. I'll
crazy. bet that boss is up to something
dirty in there. If he is the one who
DON'T make nothing out of messed up Jennel," I says, "we
I that, but pretty soon we come better justmess him up some."
to a little gate in a thick row of There is nobody in sight on the
bushes. Jennel lets go of me then lawn and we just march up to the
and hopes Pierre is a strong
says she window easy as pie. There is this
man >and a good worker and that the big booming voice giving some-
boss likes him. And then she gives body what for.
a big sigh and says if the boss "You poor miserable idiots,"
don't like him, we can find her yells this voice, "you can't keep the
over there where the men are cut- workers off the tracks and you get
ting down a bunch of trees, because out less than twenty tons of targ
ifone of the trees likes her, it will since last night, and then you waste
maybe fall on her pretty soon. a whole charge of nitro by not tell-
Pierre tells her to wait right there ing the watchman he's not supposed
by the gate because he is coming to smoke in the enclosure. All those
back. He isn't looking for work so people are dead and it's your fault."
the boss won't care if he is strong or I hear a behind me and

sniffle
not. She just sighs again and sits when I turn around, there is Jennel.
down on the grass and whimpers. She ha§ sneaked up behind us to
Pierre tries once more to get her see what we are going to do.
to tell him what is the matter, but "That's how he talks to me, too,"
all she says is that their father and she lets us know in a whisper,
some other fellow named Frith are "only he says I am not fit to even

wash dishes, let alone ever have a "You get in there and poke him,
house of my own when I drop . . . boy," I says and give him a push.
one of his plates a little while ago. "I like you and I see you fight and
He says I am looking in a mirror the Anestha got more guts than

instead of where I am going and anybody!"
he hopes I see what an ugly pan I
have, because I ought to know it
and keep out of people's way so
THE big guy hears us and turns
around. "Get out of here, you
they won't have to look at me." mangy natives," he bellows. "You
Her tears splash right down on the good for nothing, shivering, snivel-
grass. ing, cowardly boobs. I'm not ready
"And that's not all," the yelling for you yet." He is shaking a
inside goes on. "Not only do you whippy-looking cane at me and
kill off all my workers, but at this Pierre, and I think he has turned
rate I'm losing money paying you purple.
four packs of cigarettes a day. If I "We're ready for you, though,"
have to blast off and start from I yell back. I climb into the room
scratch insome other part of this pulling Pierre in after me. "Pierre's
blamed universe, you stupid, gut- no sniveling coward and you can
less why, you aren't even men.
. . . quit talking to his brave, heroic,
You worms don't even run when Put
self-sacrificing father like that.
you see a car coming at you. Too 'em up and defend yourself, you
blamed dumb to come in out of howling ape," I yell, "because
the rain." Pierre is going to give you the beat-
I stick my head
around the cor- ing of your howling life!"
ner and look and there is the
in, I see Pierre's old man and the
back of a big guy in a Mercury- other fellow spruce up some.
made suit and with a bald head The big guy sits down in a chair
that is red all the way round to the real quick, and, sucking in a big
back of his neck. On the other side breath, he starts going all fatherly
of the room I see a couple of the at Pierre, telling him that he
sorriest-looking Anestha God ever doesn't want to have to hit him
makes, shuffling their feet and look- back, because Pierre will not feel it
ing like kicked dogs. when he kills him, which'he doesn't

I turn to Pierre. "Go in there want have to do because Pierre
to
swinging," I says, like at a fight, is poor weak Anesthon who
just a
and pull the window open. don't know from nothing, and he
"He won't like me," Pierre says, doesn't want to injure any of his
hanging back. "He says Anestha are workers and he is just telling
dumb cowards. Maybe he knows. Pierre's "old man a few things to
Maybe I won't dare hit Him." protect the Anestha.
THE PROTECTOR 81
Pierre looks at me kind of doubt- corded report. He is sending a doc-
ful. tor out by 'copter.
"Go on, hit the fat bully," I says, We beat it for the port, leaving
real icy. "He has it coming. You the fat boss sleeping on the floor.
owe it to your old man and Noor We all stay in protective custody
and Jennel here. Go ahead and at the hotel, swimming
in flaff and
show him what kind of champeens lounging around the thiska bar for
the Anestha can turn out. It's just a couple of weeks, until the com-
for his own good," I says, "so hit mission headed by that scientist
him now. Then you can tell your from the Smithsonian Institute
dad what a great guy you are." comes out and takes the boss back
Pierre's left obediently swings to Earth. He has to see a judge
into the lug's jaw with a crack like about why he should not go into
a rifle. He don't even watch the big stir for a while for psychological
guy sag down on the floor. He be- coercion or something like that.
gins hugging his father and the Before they leave, the commis-
other fellow and grinning and jab- sion hands me an official charge at
bering away like blue blazes. a hundred thou a year to stay as
The big guy is still breathing, but Protector of Morale to the Anestha.
out cold, so I go to look for a tele^ That is better than the fight racket,
viz. I figure the authorities better but the protectorship is a laugh. I
hear my story before the big guy can't even go out for a walk with-
wakes up. out a couple dozen Anestha tagging
After I make my spiel, the port along, to keep me from stubbing
chief says to come
and bring in my toe on some unfriendly pebble,
Pierre and his father and Frith and or socking my eye on some unloving
Jennel and Noor, too, if we can devil of a doorknob.
find him, and make an official re- —BETSY CURTIS
NEXT MONTH'S CONTENTS PAGE

NOVELETS
THE WIND BETWEEN THE WORLDS by Lester del Rev
GOOD NIGHT, MR. JAMES by Clifford D. Simak
BOOK-LENGTH SERIAL— Conclusion
TYRANN by Isaac Asimov
SHORT STORIES* • ARTICLES* • FEATURES
*One astonishing article and at least three GALAXY quality short stories.

Second Childhood
By CLIFFORD D. SIMAK
Achieving immortality is only

half of the problem. The other
half knowing how to live
is
with once it's been made

it
possible— and inescapable!
YOU did not die.

There was no normal
svay to die.
You lived as carelessly and as
recklessly as you could and you
hoped that you would be lucky and
be accidentally killed.
You kept on living and you got
tired of living.
"God, how tired a man can get
of living!" Andrew Young said.
John Riggs, chairman of the im-
mortality commission, cleared his
throat.
"You realize," he said to An-
drew Young, "that this petition is
a highly irregular procedure to

bring to our attention."
He picked up the sheaf of papers
off the table and ruffled through
them rapidly.
IMastrnted by DON HUNTER
SECOND CHILDHOOD 83
"There is no precedent," he five thousand years. No more than
added. in a life of only a hundred years.
"I had hoped," said Andrew If Man is to be immortal, he must
Young, "to establish precedent." be genuinely immortal. He cannot
Commissioner Stanford said, "I compromise."
must admit that you have made a "And yet," said Young, "my
good case, Ancestor Young. Yet friends are gone."
you must realize that this commis-
sion has no possible jurisdiction
over the any person, except
life of
HE GESTURED
Riggs held m
at the papers
his hands. "I
to see that everyone is assured of have them listed there," he said.
all the benefits of immortality and "Their names and when and where
to work out any kinks that may and how they died. Take a look at
show up." them. More than two hundred
"I am well aware of that," an- names. People of my own genera-
swered Young, "and it seems to tion and of the generations closely
me that my case is one of the kinks following mine. Their names and
you mention." . the photo-copies of their death cer-
He stood silently, watching the tificates."
faces of the members of the board. He put both of his hands upon
They are afraid, he thought. Every the table,palms flat against the
one of them. Afraid of the day table, and leaned his weight upon
they will face the thing I am facing his arms.
now. They have sought an answer "Take a look at how they died,"
and there is no answer yet except he said. "Every one involves acci-
the pitifully basic answer, the bru- dental violence. Some of them
tally fundamental answer that I drove their vehicles too fast and,
have given them. more than likely, very recklessly.
"My request is simple," he told One fell off a cliff when he reached
them, calmly. "I have asked for down to pick a flower that was
permission to discontinue life. And growing on its edge. A case of de-
since suicide has been made psy- liberately poor judgment, to my
chologically impossible, I have mind. One got stinking drunk and
asked that this commission appoint took a bath and passed out in the
a panel of next-friends to make the tub. He drowned ." . .
necessary and somewhat distasteful "Ancestor Young," Riggs said

arrangements to bring about the dis- sharply, "you are surely not imply-
continuance of my life." ing these folks were suicides."
"If we did," said Riggs, "we "No," Andrew Young said bit-
would destroy everything we have. terly. "We abolished suicide three
There is no virtue in a life of only thousand years ago, cleared it clean

out of human minds. How could the planet Earth on September 21,
they have killed themselves?" 1968. I have served humankind
Stanford said, peering up at well in those fifty-seven centuries.
Young, "I believe, sir, you sat on My record is there for you to see.
the board that resolved that prob- Boards, commissions, legislative
lem." posts, diplomatic missions. No one
Andrew Young nodded. "It was can say that have shirked my duty.
I
after the first wave of suicides. I I submit that I have paid any debt
remember it quite well. It took I owe humanity even the well-

. . .
years of work. We had to change intentioned debt for a chance at

human perspective, shift certain immortality."
facets ofhuman nature. We had to "We wish," said Riggs, "that
condition human reasoning by edu- you would reconsider."
cation and propaganda and instill "I am a lonely man," replied
a new set of moral values. I think Young. "A lonely man and tired.
we did a good job of it. Perhaps I have no friends. There is nothing
too good a job. Today a man can any longer that holds my interest.
no more think of deliberately com- It is my hope that I can make you
mitting suicide than he could think see the desirability of assuming
of overthrowing our government. jurisdiction in cases such as mine.
The very idea, the very word is re- Someday you may find a solution
pulsive, instinctively repulsive. You to the problem, but until that time
can come a long way, gentlemen, arrives, I ask you, in the name of
thousand years."
in three mercy, to give us relief from life."
He leaned across the table and "The problem, as we see it," said
tapped the sheaf of papers with a Riggs, "is to find some way to
lean, tense finger. wipe out mental perspective. When
"They didn't kill themselves," he a man lives as you have, sir, for
said. "They did not commit sui- fifty centuries, he has too long a
cide. They just didn't give a damn. memory. The memories add up to
They were tired of living ... as I the disadvantage of present reali-
am tired of living. So they lived ties and prospects for the future."
recklessly in every way. Perhaps "I know," said Young. "I re-
there always was a secret hope that member we used to talk about that
they would drown while drunk or was one of the
in the early days. It
their car would hit a tree or ." . . problems was recognized
which
when immortality first became prac-
HE STRAIGHTENED
faced them. "Gentlemen," he
up and tical. But we always thought that
memory would erase itself, that }he

said. "I am 5,786 years of age. I brain could accommodate only so
was born at Lancaster, Maine, on many memories, that when it got
SECOND CHILDHOOD 85
full up would dump the old
it "We have tried," said Stanford.
ones. It hasn't worked that way." "We tried conditioning, the same
He made a savage gesture. "Gen- solution that worked with suicides.
tlemen, I can recall my childhood But in this, it didn't work. For a
much more vividly than I recall man's life is built upon his mem-
anything that happened yesterday." ories. There are certain basic mem-
"Memories are buried," said ories that must remain intact. With
Riggs, "and in the old days, when conditioning, you could not be se-
men lived no longer than a hundred lective. You could not keep the
years at most, it was thought those structural memories and winnow
buried memories were forgotten. out the trash. It didn't work that
Life, Man told himself, is a process way."
of forgetting. So Man wasn't too "There was one machine that
worried over memories when he be- worked," Riggs put in. "It got rid
came immortal. He thought he of memories. I don't understand ex-
would forget them." actly how it worked, but it did the
"He should have known," ar- job all right. It did too good a job.
gued Young. "I can remember my It swept the mind as clean as an
father, and I remember him much empty room. It didn't leave a thing.
more intimately than I will remem- It took all memories and it left no
ber you gentlemen once I leave this capacity to build a new set. A man
room. ... I can remember my went in a human being and came
father telling me that, in his later out a vegetable."
years, he could recall things which "Suspended animation," said
happened in his childhood that had Stanford, "would be a solution. If
been forgotten all his younger we had suspended animation. Simp-
years. And that, alone, should have ly stack a man away until we found
tipped us off. The brain buries only the answer, then revive and recon-
the newer memories deeply . . . dition him."
they are not available; they do not "Be that as it may," Young told
rise to bother one, because they are them, "I should like your most
not sorted or oriented or correlated earnest consideration of my peti-
or whatever it is that the brain may tion. do not feel quite equal to
I
do with them. But once they are waiting until you have the answer
allnicely docketed and filed, they solved."
pop up in an instant." Riggs said, harshly, "You are
asking us to legalize death."
RIGGS nodded agreement. Young nodded. "If you wish to
"There's a lag of a good many phrase it that way. I'm asking it in
years in the brain's bookkeeping. the name of common decency."
We will overcome it in time." Commissioner Stanford said,

"We can ill afford to lose you, An- faces. It'sall new to them and so
cestor." old, so damned and damnably old

Young sighed. "There is that to me."
damned attitude again. Immortality "Ancestor Young," said Stan-
pays all debts. When a man is made ford, "you have seen Man spread
immortal, he has received full com- out from Earth to distant stellar
pensation for everything that he systems. You have seen the human
may endure. I have lived longer race expand from one planet to
than any man could be expected to several thousand planets. You have
live and still I am denied the dig- had a part in this. Is there not Some
nity of old age. A
man's desires satisfaction ..."
are few, and quickly sated, and "You're talking in abstracts,"
yet he is expected to continue Young cut in. "What I am con-
living with desires burned up cerned about is myself ... a certain
and blown away to ash. He gets specificmass of protoplasm shaped
to a point where nothing has in biped form and tagged by- the
a value . . . even to a point designation, ironic as it may seem,
where his own personal values of Andrew Young. I have been un-
are no more than shadows. Gen- selfish all my life. I've asked little
tlemen, there was a time when for myself. Now I am being utterly
I could not have committed murder and entirely selfish and I ask that
. .literally could not have forced
. this matter be regarded as a per-
myself to kill another man . . . but sonal problem rather than as a racial
today I could, without a second abstraction."
thought. Disillusion and cynicism "Whether you'll admit it or not,"
have crept in upon me and I have said Stanford, "it is more than a
no conscience." personal problem. It is a problem
which some day must be solved for

<<fT>HERE are compensations," the salvation of the race."
J- Riggs said. "Your fam- "That is what I am trying to im-
ily
„- •
•" press upon you," Young snapped.
"They get in my hair," said "It is a problem that you must
Young "Thousands
disgustedly. face. Some day you will solve it, but
upon thousands of young squirts until you do, you must make pro-
calling me Grandsire and Ancestor visions for those who face the un-
and coming to me for advice they solved problem."
practically never follow. I don't "Wait a while," counseled Chair-
know even a fraction of them and man Riggs. "Who knows? Today,
I listen to them carefully explain a tomorrow."
relationship so tangled and trivial "Or a million years from now,"
that it makes me yawn in their Young told him bitterly and left, a
SECOND CHILDHOOD 87
tall,vigorous-looking man whose of trees misty with the breaking
step was swift in anger where nor- leaves of Spring.
mally it was slow with weariness Something else, thought Andrew
and despair. Young. Something that was not hu-
—
man yet. A tiny animal that had
THERE was yet a chance, of many ways to choose, many roads to
course. walk. And, of course, I chose the
But there was little hope. wrong way. I chose the human way.
How can a man go back almost But there was another way. I know
six thousand years and snare a thing there must have been. A fairy way
he never understood? — or a brownie way, or maybe even
And yet Andrew Young remem- pixie. That sounds foolish and
bered it. Remembered it as clearly childish now, but it wasn't always.
as ifit had been a thing that had I chose the human way because
happened in the morning of this I was guided into it. I was pushed
very day. and shoved, like a herded sheep.
It was a shining thing, a bright I grew up and I lost the thing I
thing, a happiness that was brand- held.

new and fresh as a bluebird's wing" He sat and made his mind go
of an April morning or a shy woods hard and tried to analyze what it
flower after sudden rain. was he sought and there was no
He had been a boy and he had name for it. Except happiness. And
seen the bluebird and he had no happiness was a state of being, not
words to say the thing he felt, but a thing to regain and grasp.
he had held up his tiny fingers and
pointed and shaped his lips to coo.
Once, he thought, I had it in my
BUT heWith
could
felt.
remember how
his eyes open in the
it
very fingers and I did not have the present, he could remember the
experience to know what it was, nor brightness of the day of the past,
the value of it. And now I know the clean-washed goodness of it,
the value, but it has escaped me thewonder of the colors that were
it escaped me on the day that I be- more brilliant than he ever since
gan to think like a human being. had seen — as if it were the first sec-
The first adult thought pushed it ond after Creation and the world
just a little and the next one pushed was still shiningly new.
it farther and finally it was gone was that new, of course.
It It
entirely and I didn't even know that would be that new to a child.
it had gone. But that didn't explain it all.
He sat in the chair on the flag- It didn't explain the bottomless
stone patio and felt the Sun upon capacity for seeing and knowing
him, filtering through the branches and believing in the beauty and the
.. GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

goodness of a clean new world. It was one with the leaves and the
didn't explain the almost non-hu- whispers that they made, one with
man elation of knowing that there the gold and the autumn sunshine
were colors to see and scents to and the far blue mist upon the hill
smell and soft green grass to touch. above the apple orchard.
I'm insane, Andrew Young said A foot crunched stone behind
to himself. Insane, or going insane. him and his eyes came open and
But if insanity will take me back the golden leaves were gone.
to an understanding of the strange "I am sorry if I disturbed you,
perception I had when I was a Ancestor," said the man. "I had an
child, and lost, I'll take insanity. appointment for this hour, but I
He leaned back in his chair and would not have disturbed you if I
let his eyes go shut and his mind had known."

drift- back. Young stared at him reproach-
He was crouching in a corner of fully without answering.
a garden and the leaves were drift- "I am kin," the man told him.
ing down from the walnut trees "I wouldn't doubt said An- it,"
like a rain of saffron gold. He lift- drew Young. "The Galaxy is clut-
ed one of the leaves and it slipped tered up with descendants of
from his fingers, for his hands were mine."
chubby still and not too sure in The man was very humble. "Of
grasping. But he tried again and he course, you must resent us some-
clutched it by the stem in one stubby times. But we are proud of you,
fist and he saw that it was not just I might almost say that we
a blob of yellowness, but delicate,

sir.
revere you. No other family

—
with many little veins. When he "I know," interrupted Andrew
held it so that the Sun struck it, he Young. "No other family has any
imagined that he could almost see fossil quite so old as I am."
through it, the gold was spun so "Nor as wise," said the man.
fine. Andrew Young snorted. "Cut
He crouched with the leaf clutch- out that nonsense. Let's hear what
ed tightly in his hand and for a you have to say and get it over
moment there was a silence that with."
held him motionless. Then he heard
the frost-loosened leaves pattering
all around him, pattering as they
THE
and
technician was
worried and very frankly
harassed
fell, talking in little whispers as puzzled. But he stayed respectful,

they sailed down through the air for one always was respectful to an
and found themselves a bed with ancestor, whoever he might be. To-
their golden fellows. day there were mighty few left who
In that moment he knew that he had been born into a mortal world.
SECOND CHILDHOOD 89
Not that Andrew Young looked entertain them with a bag of tricks
old. He looked like all adults, a that leave the young'uns no room
fine figure of a person in the early for imagination. They couldn't pos-
twenties. sibly think up, on their own, all
The technician shifted uneasily. the screwy thjngs these new toys
"But, sir, this . . . this . .
." do. Built-in responses and implied
"Teddy bear," said Young. consciousness and all such mechan-
"Yes, of course. An extinct ter- ical trivia. ..."
restrial subspecies ofanimal?" "You just want a stuffed fab-
"It's a toy," Young told him. "A ric," said the technician, sadly,
very ancient toy. All children used "with jointed arms and legs."
to have them five thousand years "Precisely," agreed Young.
ago. They took them to bed." "You're sure you want fabric,
sir? I could do a neater job in plas-
THE
deplorable
technician shuddered.
custom. Primitive."
"A tics."
"Fabric," Young insisted firmly,
"Depends on the viewpoint," "and it must be scratchy."
said Young. "I've slept with them "Scratchy, sir?"
many a time. There's a world of "Sure. You know. Bristly. So it
comfort in one, I can personally scratches when you rub your face <
assure you." against it."
The it was no
technician saw that "But no one in his right mind
use to argue. He
might as well fab- would want to rub his face . .
."
ricate the thing and get it over "I would," said Andrew Young.
with. "I fully intend to do so."
"I can build you a fine model, "As you wish, sir," the techni-
sir," he said, trying to work up cian answered, beaten now.
some enthusiasm. "I'll build in a "When you get it done," said
response mechanism so that it can Young, "I have some other things
give simple answers to certain in mind."
keyed questions and, of course, I'll "Other things?" The technician
fix it so it'll walk, either on two looked wildly about, as if seeking
legs or four. . .
." some escape.
"No," said Andrew Young. "A high chair," said Young.
The technician looked surprised "And a crib. And a woolly dog.
and hurt. "No?" And buttons."
"No," repeated Andrew Young. "Buttons?" asked the technician.
"I don't want it fancied up. I want "What are buttons?"
it lump of make-believe.
a simple "I'll explain it all to you,"
No wonder the children of today Young told him airily. "It all is
have no imagination. Modern toys very simple."

SEEMED, when Andrew Young stood for a long moment,
ITYoung came room,
into the looking at the two of them. Then
that Riggs and Stanford had been he said, "I thank you, gentlemen.
expecting him, had known that he I thank you for your helpfulness
was coming and had been waiting and your understanding. But most
for him. of all I thank you for not asking
He wasted no time on prelim- any questions."

inaries or formalities. He turned slowly and walked
They know, he told himself. out of the room and they sat in
They know, or they have guessed. silence for minutes after he was
They would be watching me. Ever gone.
since brought in my petition, they
I Finally, Stanford offered a de-
have been watching me, wondering duction: "It will have to be a place
what I would be "thinking, trying that a boy would like. Woods to
to puzzle out what
might do next.
I run in and a little stream to fish in
They know every move I've made, and a field where he can fly his
they know about the toys and the kites. What elsecould it be?"
furniture and all the other things. "He's been out ordering chil-
And I don't need to tell them what dren's furniture and Riggs toys,"
I plan to do. agreed. "Stuff from five thousand
"I need some help," he said, and years ago. The kind of things he
they nodded soberly, as if they used when he was a child. But
had guessed he needed help. scaled to adult size."
"I want to build a house," he "Now," said Stanford, "he wants
explained. "A big house. Much a house built to the same propor-
larger than the usual house." tions. A house that will make him
Riggs "We'll draw
said, the think or help him believe that he
plans for you. Do anything a child. But will work, Riggs?
that you
— else is
His body will not change.

it
He can-
"A house," Young went on, not make it change. It will only be
"about four or five times as big as in his mind."
the ordinary house. Four or five "Illusion," declared Riggs. "The
times normal scale, I mean. Doors illusion of bigness in relation to
twenty-five to thirty feet high and himself. To a child, creeping on the
everything else in proportion." floor, a door is twenty-five to thirty
"Neighbors or privacy?" asked feet high, relatively. Of course the
Stanford. child doesn't know
But An- that.
"Privacy," said Young. drew Young does. I don't see how
"We'll take care of it," prom- he'll overcome that."
ised Riggs. "Leave the matter of "At first," suggested Stanford,
the house to us." "he will know that it's illusion, but
SECOND CHILDHOOD 91
after a time, isn't there a possi- memories with the outlook he had
bility that it will become reality so when he was a child. His mind
far as he's concerned? That's why must be washed out, refreshed,
he needs our help. So that the wiped clean and shining and made
house will not be firmly planted in new again . . . ready to live another
his memory as a thing that's merely five thousand years."
out of proportion ... so that it The two men sat and looked at
will slide from illusion into reality one another and in each other's
without too great a strain." eyes they saw a single thought
"We must keep our mouths the day would come when they, too,
shut." Riggs nodded soberly. each of them alone, would face the
"There must be no interference. It's problem Andrew Young faced.
a thing he must do himself . . . "We must help," said Riggs, "in
entirely by himself. Our help with every way we can and we must keep
the house must be the help of watch and we must be ready . . .
an unseen, silent agency. Like but Andrew Young cannot know

brownies, I think the term was that that we are helping or that we are
he used, we must help and be never watching him. We must anticipate
seen. Intrusion by anyone would in- the materials and tools and the aids
troduce a jarring note and would that he may need." -
destroy illusion and that is all he

has to work on. Illusion pure and STANFORD started to speak,
simple." then hesitated, as if seeking
"Others have tried," objected in his mind for the proper words.
Stanford, pessimistic again. "Many "Yes," said Riggs. "What is it?"
others. With gadgets and ma- "Later on," Stanford, managed
chines . .
." to say, "much later on, toward the
"None has tried it," said Riggs, very end, there is a certain factor
"with the power of mind alone. that we must supply. The one thing
With the sheer determination to that he will need the most and the
wipe out five thousand years of one thing that he cannot think
memory." about, even in advance. All the rest
"That will be his stumbling can be stage setting and he can
block," said Stanford. "The old, still go on toward the time when
dead memories are the things he it becomes reality. All the rest may
has to beat. He has to get rid of be make-believe, but one thing

them . . . not just bury them, but must come as genuine or the entire
get rid of them for good and all, effort will collapse in failure."
forever." Riggs nodded. "Of course. That's
"He must do more than that," something we'll have to work out
said Riggs. "He must replace his carefully."

"If we can," Stanford said. seen any of his neighbors for a long
spell now.
THE yellow button over here and A suspicion came into his mind.
the red one over there and the Maybe they knew what he was do-
green one doesn't fit, so I'll throw ing, maybe they were deliberately
iton the floor and just for the fun keeping out of his way in order not
of it, I'll put the pink one in my to embarrass him.
mouth and someone will find me That, of course, would be what
with it and they'll raise a ruckus they would do if they had realized
because they will be afraid that I what he was about. But he had ex-
will swallow it. pected ... he had expected . . .
And there's nothing, absolutely that fellow, what's his name? . . .
nothing, that I love better than a at the commission, what's the name
full-blown ruckus. Especially if it of that commission, anyhow? Well,
is over me. . anyway, he'd expected a fellow
"Ug," said Andrew Young, and whose name he couldn't remember
he swallowed the button. from a commission the name of
He sat stiff and straight in the which he could not recall to come
towering high chair and then, in a snooping around, wondering what
fury, swept the oversized muffin tin he might be up to, offering to help,
and its freight of buttons crashing spoiling the whole setup, every-
to the floor. thing he'd planned.
For a second he felt like weep- I can't remember, he complained
ing in utter frustration and then a to himself. I can't remember the
sense of shame crept in on him. name of a man whose name I knew
Big baby, he said to himself. so short a time ago as yesterday.
Crazy to be sitting in an over- Nor the name of a commission that
grown high chair, playing with but- I knew as well as I know my name.
tons and mouthing baby talk and I'm getting forgetful. I'm getting
trying to force a mind conditioned downright childish.
by five thousand years of life into Childish?
the channels of an infant's thoughts. Childish
Carefully he disengaged the tray Childish and forgetful.
and slid it out, cautiously shinnied Good Lord, thought Andrew
down the twelve-foot-high chair. Young, that's just the way I want
The room engulfed him, the ceil- it.
ing towering far above him. On hands and knees he scrabbled

The neighbors, he told himself, about and picked up the buttons,
no doubt thought him crazy, al- put them in his pocket. Then, with
though none of them had said so. the muffin tin underneath his arm,
Come to think of it, he had not he shinnied up the high chair and,
SECOND CHILDHOOD 93
Seating himself comfortably, sorted more substantial stuff on a regular
out the buttons in the pan. schedule and leaves it where he can
The green one over here in this find it. We
have to be careful. We
compartment and the yellow one can't mess around too much. We
. . . oops, there she goes onto the can't intrude on him. I have a feel-
floor. And the red one in with the ing he's almost reached an actual
blue one and this one . . . this turning point. We can't afford to
one what's the color of
. . . this upset things now that he's come
one? Color? What's that? this far."
What is what? "The android's ready?"
What— "Just about," said Stanford.
"And the playmates?"
«TT'S almost time," said Stanford, "Ready. They were less of a
X "and we are ready, as ready problem."
as we'll ever be. We'll move in "There's nothing more that we
when the time is right, but we can do?"
can't move in too soon. Better to "Nothing," Stanford said. "Just
be a little late than a little early. wait, that's all. Young has carried
We have
Special size diapers
all the things
and
—we need. himself
of will alone.
this far by the sheer force
That will is gone
"Good Lord," exclaimed Riggs, now. He can't consciously force
"it won't go that far, will it?" himself any further back. He is
"It should," said Stanford. "It more child than adult now. He's
should go even further to work built up a regressive momentum and
right. He got lost yesterday. One the only question is whether that
of our men found him and led him momentum is sufficient to carry him
home. He didn't have the slightest -all the way back to actual baby-
idea where he was and he was get- hood."
ting pretty scared and he cried a "It has to go back to that?"
little. He chattered about birds and Riggs looked unhappy, obviously
•
flowers and he insisted that our thinking of his own future. "You're
man stay and play with him." only guessing, aren't j'ou?"
Riggs chuckled softly. "Did he?" "All the way or it simply is no
"Oh, certainly. He came back good," Stanford said dogmatically.
worn to a frazzle." "He has to get an absolutely fresh
"Food?" asked Riggs. "How is start. All the way or nothing."
he feeding himself?" "And if he gets stuck halfway
"We see there's a supply of stuff, between? Half child, half man,
cookies and such-wise, left on a low what then?"
shelf, where he can get at them. "That's -something I don't want
One of the robots cooks up some to think about," Stanford said.

HE HAD lost his favorite
bear and gone to hunt it in

teddy
Your money back

the dusk that was filled with elusive
if this isn't the
fireflies and the hush of a world
quieting down for the time of most exciting science-
sleep. The grass was drenched with fiction anthology
dew and he felt the cold wetness of
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itsoaking through his shoes as he
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went from bush to hedge to flower-
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bed, looking for the missing toy. All new!
was necessary, he told himself,
It The book bargain of the year for
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of interstellar travel, supersonic

it was the one that slept with him
speed, and atomic power, by Pad-
and if he did not find it, he knew gett, Kaempffert, Pratt, Sturgeon,
that it would spend a lonely and Bradbury, Leinster, Russell, and

many scientist-writers.
comfortless night. But at no time
Just published, only S3 -00
did he admit, even to his innermost
thought, that it was he who needed
BIG BOOK OF
the bear and not the bear who
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A soaring bat swooped low and
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for a horrified
sight of the
moment, catching
zooming terror, a blob
FICTION
Edited by GROFF CONKLIN
of darkness in the gathering dusk, B*~ SEND NO MONEY NOW!
he squatted low against the ground,
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now he saw the great dark garden JUST MAIL THIS COUPON
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that
hind each bush and snarled in
every darkened corner. But even as
the fear washed over him, there
was one hidden corner of his mind
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fear. It was as if that one area of
SECOND CHILDHOOD 95
his brain still fought against the reach. But there was another way,
rest of him, as if that small section a small swinging door built into the
of cells might know that the bat big door, the sort of door that is
was no more than a flying bat, that built for cats and dogs and some-
the shadows in the garden were no times little children. He darted
more than absence of light. through and felt the sureness and
it
There was a reason, he knew, the comfort of the house about him.
why he should not be afraid — The sureness and the comfort
good reason born of a certain and the loneliness.
knowledge he no longer had. And He found his second-best teddy
that he should have such knowledge bear, and, picking it up, clutched it
seemed unbelievable, for he was to his sobbing into its

breast,
scarcely two years old. scratchy back in pure relief from
terror.
HE TRIED to say it —two years There something wrong, he

is
old. thought. Something dreadfully

There was something wrong wrong. Something is as it should
with his tongue, something the not be. It is not the garden or the
matter with the way he had to use darkened bushes or the swooping
his mouth, with the way his lips winged shape that came out of the
refused to shape the words he night. It is something else, some-
meant to say. thing missing, something that
He tried to define the words, should be here and isn't.
tried to tell himself what he meant Clutching the teddy bear, he sat
by two years old and one moment rigid and tried desperately to drive
it seemed that he knew the meaning his mind back along the way that
of it and then it escaped him. would tell him what was wrong.
The bat came again and he There was an answer, he was sure
huddled close against the ground, of that. There was an answer some-
shivering as he crouched. He lifted where; at one time he had known
his eyes fearfully, darting glances it. At one time he had recognized
here and there, and out of the cor- the need he felt and there had been
ner of his eye he saw the looming no way to supply it and now he —
house and it was a place he knew couldn't even know the need, could
as refuge. feel it, but he could not know it.
"House," he said, and the word He clutched the bear closer and
was wrong, not the word itself, but huddled in the darkness, watching
the way he said it. the moonbeam came through
that
He ran on trembling, unsure feet a window, high above his head, and
and the great door loomed before etched a square of floor in bright-
him, with the latch too high to ness.

Fascinated, he watched the moon-
beam and all at once the terror
faded. He dropped the bear and
crawled on hands and knees, stalk-
ing the moonbeam. It did not try
to get away and he reached its edge
and thrust his hands into it and
laughed with glee when his hands
were painted by the light coming
through the window.
He lifted his face and stared up
at the blackness and saw the white
globe of the Moon, looking at him,
watching him. The Moon seemed
to wink at him and he chortled joy-
fully.
Behind him a door creaked open
and he turned clumsily around.
Someone stood in the doorway,
almost filling it —a beautiful per-
son who smiled at him. Even in
the darkness he could serjse the
sweetness of the smile, the glory of
her golden hair.
"Time to eat, Andy," said the
woman. "Eat and get a bath and
then to bed."
Andrew Young hopped joyfully
on both feet, arms held out
happy and excited and contented.
"Mummy!" he cried. "Mummy
. . . Moon!"
He swung about with a pointing
finger and the woman came swiftly
across the floor, knelt and put her
arms around him, held him close
against her. His cheek against hers,
he stared up at the Moon and it
was a wondrous thing, a bright and
golden thing, a wonder that was
shining new and fresh.
SECOND CHILDHOOD 97
ON THE street outside,
and Riggs stood looking up
Stanford sibility. It's
the final
enough to get him over
hump, to place him safely
at the huge house that towered and securely in the second child-
above the trees. hood that he had to have. Now he
"She's in there now," said Stan- can curl up, contented. There is
ford. "Everything's quiet so it must someone to look after him and
be all right." think for him and take care of him.
Riggs said,"He was crying in He'll probably go back just a little
the garden. He ran in terror for further ... a little closer to the
the house. He stopped crying about cradle. And that is good, for the
the time she must have come in." . further he goes, the more memories
Stanford nodded. "I was afraid are erased."
we were putting it off too long, but "And then?" asked Riggs wor-
I don't see now how we could have riedly.
done it sooner. Any outside inter- "Then he can proceed to grow
ference would have shattered the up again."
thing he tried to do. He had to They stood watching, silently.
really need her. Well, it's all right In the enormous house, lights
now. The timing was just about came on in the kitchen and the
perfect." windows gleamed with a homey
"You're sure, Stanford?" brightness.
"Sure? Certainly I am sure. We I, too, Stanford was thinking.
created the android and we trained Some day, I, too. Young has point-
her. We instilled a deep maternal ed the way, he has blazed the path.
sense into her personality. She He had shown us, all the other
knows what to do. She is almost billions of us, here on Earth and
human. She is as close as we could allover the Galaxy, the way it can
come to a human mother eighteen be done. There will be others and
feet tall. We
don't know what for them there will be more help.
Young's mother looked like, but We'll know then how to do it bet-
chances are he doesn't either. Over ter.
the years his memory has idealized Now we have something to

her. That's what we did. We made work on.
an ideal mother." Another thousand years or so, he
"If it only works," said Riggs. thought, and I will go back, too.
"It will work," said Stanford, Back to the cradle and the dreams
confidently. "Despite the shortcom- of childhood and the safe security
ings we may discover by trial and of a mother's arms.
error, it will work. He's been fight- It didn't frighten him in the
ing himself all this time. Now he least.
can quit fighting and shift respon- —CLIFFORD D. SIMAK

BY GROFF CONKLIN
FARMER IN THE SKY, by Rob- Sky underemphasizes philosophical

ert A. Heinlein. Charles Scrib- ideology, grandiose concepts of
ner's Sons, 1950. $2.50, 216 space, and complex scientific jar-
pages. gon; it really is just an adventure
story with an unusual amount of
THOUGH conceived as a book realism in its telling. It is not child-
for "adolescents," and first ish. When I compare it with the
published, in a shorter version, in boys' books' of a generation or so
Boy's Life, this book is also one of ago, such as The Rover Boys or
the best of the month's output in Tom Swift, I am astonished at the
science fiction for adults. I don't advance in quality that has taken
know what this proves; but I hope place in books for boys.
it indicates that the so-called The fact of the matter is that
adolescent of our time is acquiring any lover of realistic and exciting
a pretty mature and down-to-Earth narratives of "different" places will
outlook on science fiction. thoroughly enjoy this tale of the
It is true that Farmer in the attempts of mankind to establish
• • • • • SHELF 99
settlements on Ganymede, one of The whole book is a very effec-
Jupiter's moons. It has all the'feel tive antidote to the complex and
of the believable that a good story often bloody tales of intergalactic
of adventure in strange places of and interplanetary wars which seem
the known world gives one —rplus to be the stock in trade of too
the bonus tingle of the fact that it many modern science fiction writ-
is, today, only a dream. ers. The Lord be praised for this
The methods of making Gany- touch of simple sanity in the mad

mede habitable are not described worlds of science fantasy!
in rich, beautiful pseudo-scientific
prose. They are mentioned, some- A GNOME THERE WAS, by
times actually described, but never Lewis Padgett. Simon & Schuster,
overelaborated : a trick which a Inc., 1950. $2.50, 276 pages.
good many established science fic-
tion writers might well adopt.

the circumstances that lead to the
colonization of Ganymede
And
are de-
A COLLECTION
the better
short stories from past issues of
of eleven of
Kuttner-Padgett
scribed with equal realism and Astounding and other magazines,

simplicity. The story takes place at and consequently a must for every-
a time in the future when Earth one who likes top-grade science fic-
itself is drastically overpopulated, tion and fantasy. I have certain
;uid food is in very short supply. reservations, as a matter of personal
The colonists on Ganymede have taste, against the two Hogben opera
one thing the Earth inhabitants do included," and particularly against
not have, which is plenty to eat. the two out-and-out fantasies in the
On the other hand, they have trou- book (The Gnome, a "semi"-hu-
bles, too —
troubles which seem morous tale about a man who be-
possible when you read them, even comes a gnome, and Compliments
though they are foreign now. of the Author, an overlong fiction
Above all, the book is peopled about cats as familiars and a small-
with real and entirely human-scale time blackmailer who sold his soul
human beings. There is not a space- to the devil) but the rest of the
jockey among them unless you — tales are top drawer stuff. There
consider old Captain Hattie, the are what you need, The Tivonky,
crotchety female who operates the The Cure, Mimsy Were the Boro-
-ancient rocket ship that is used to groves (a masterpiece of subtle and
ferry passengers and freight from elegant writing about the strange-
the huge modern Terran space liner ness of being very young), Jesting
(which cannot land on Ganymede) Pilot, Main Check (with its su-
to the satellite's surface, the very perb snap end) and This
at the Is
model of a future astronaut. The House (which, though not as

well known as The T wonky, is just this colossal concept with the quiet
as good and just as frightening) realities of Heinlein's tale of
Incidentally, as far as I know, colonizing Ganymede is not favor-
this is the second Kuttner item to able to the Simak, but the com-
see the light of day as a bound parison should be made. It shows
book. Fury, which was done under how science fiction —even for "ado-
the pseudonym ofLawrence lescents" —has
improved since.
O'Donnell in Astounding, was The writing in the book is on
published recently in the Grosset the immature side, too, as a com-
& Dunlap Dollar series of science parison with Simak's own magnifi-
fiction (GALAXY, Nov. 1950). cent Quarry (GALAXY,
Time
The book is which
a genuine first, Oct.-Dec. 1950) shows. It is very
makes and im-
this tale of violence pleasant to see how the author has
mortality in the underwater Keeps
of Venus especially worth your
improved with age
both science fiction
— proving
and science
that
fic-
—
while and only $1. tion authors are maturing!
COSMIC ENGINEERS, by Clif- THE SHIP OF ISHTAR, by A.

ford Simak. Gnome Press, 1950. Merritt. Memorial Edition,
$2.50, 224 pages. illustrated by Virgil Finlay. Bor-
den Publishing Co., 1950. $3.50,
THIS well-remembered story of 309 pages.

inter-universe adventure has
been made into a solid novel from AVERY handsome volume, with
the shorter form in which it orig- its five superb and sexy Fin-
inally appeared back in 1939. Fall- lays,and an acceptable In Memor-

ing more or less into the super- iam for the Old Master of fantasy.
impossible school of science fiction As for the melodramatic, color-
of which Donald Wandrei used to ful, corny old plot (the story was
be the leader, it has an old-fash- first published in 1924), there is no
ioned and somewhat frenetic ring need to describe it here. Ifyou like
to it which, nevertheless, is rather Merritt, you'll love this example of
pleasant. The tale tells how, from his weird and fruity imagination;
a space station on Pluto, a few if you don't, you won't care any-
Earthians, by an incredible
aided how. I'm one of those who like it,
girl who been in suspended
has though sometimes I wonder if it's
animation for a thousand years, are simple hankering for my adoles-
able to help avert the collision of cence, when Merritt was the most
our universe with another, a crash wonderful thing that ever hap-
which would have been "slightly pened.
fatal" to both. A comparison of —GROFF CONKLIN
• • • • • SHELF 101
Two Weeks in August
The humblest events sometimes result from the
most grandiose beginnings. You'd never imagine
space travel starting this way, for instancel
By FRANK M. ROBINSON
SUPPOSE there's a guy like could never get along with Mc-
McCleary in every office. Cleary. To be he was,
as disliked as
I Now I'm not a hard

get along with and it
man
usually takes
to you have to work at it.
What kind of guy was he? Well,
quite a bit more than overly bright if you came down to the office one
remarks from the office boy to day proud as Punch because of
bother me. But try as I might, I something little Johnny or Josephine
Illustrated by ELIZABETH MaclNTYRE

had said, it was a sure cinch that got the money, I'll never know.
McCleary would horn in with some- Sometimes I'd tell the wife about it
thing his little Louie had spouted and she'd sniff and wonder what
off that morning. At any rate, when kind of shabby house they lived in
McCleary got through, you felt like that they could afford all the other
taking Johnny to the doctor to find things. I never looked him up my-
out what made him subnormal. self. Tell you the truth, I was afraid
Or maybe you happened to buy I'd find the McClearys lived on

a new Super-eight that week and Park Avenue.
were bragging about the mileage,
the terrific pickup, and how quickly
she responded to the wheel. Leave
NOW tion
you look forward to a vaca-
all year, but particularly
it to McCleary to give a quick run- during the latter part of July, when,
down on his own car that would what with the heat and the stuffy
make you feel like selling yours for office, you begin to feel like a half-
junk at the nearest scrap heap. done hotdog at a barbecue. I was

Well, you see what I mean. feeling even worse than usual as I
But by far the worst of it was was faced with spending my two
when vacation time rolled around. weeks in my own backyard, most of
You could forgive a guy for top- my vacation dough having gone to
ping you about how brainy his kids pay the doctor. The only thing I
are, and you might even find it in minded was having McCleary find
your heart to forget the terrific bar- out about it and seeing that phony
gain he drove to work in. But vaca- look of sympathy roll across his fat
tion time was when he'd really get face while he rambled on about the
on your nerves. You could pack the vacation he was going to have.
wife and kids in Old Reliable and It was lunch time and we had
roll out to 'the lake for your two just finished talking about the latest
weeks in August. You might even on television and what was wrong
break the bank and spend the two with the Administration and who'd
weeks at a poor man's Sun Valley. win the pennant when Bob Young
But no matter where you went, brought up the subject of vacations.
when you came back, you'd have to It turned out he was due for a trip
sit in silence and listen to Mc- to the Ozarks and Donley was
Cleary's account of his Vacation in going after wall-eye pike in north-
the Adirondacks, or his Tramp in ern Wisconsin. I could sense Mc-
the Canadian Wilds, or maybe even Cleary prick up his ears clear across
the Old French Quarter. the room.
The trouble was he always had the "How about you, Bill?" Donley
photographs, the ticket stubs, and asked me. "Got any plans?"
the souvenirs to prove it. Where he I winked heavily and jerked a
TWO WEEKS IN AUGUST 103

thumb warningly toward McCleary, surprised eyebrow. "Oh, I suppose
making sure McCleary couldn't see a little, but worth it. The wife
it's
the gesture. and I got a roomette on the Princess

"My vacation is really going to of Mars for $139.50. That's one
be out of the world this time," I way, of course."
said. "Me and the wife are going "Mars!" Young sighed wistfully.
to Mars. Dry, you know. Even bet- There was a moment of silence,
ter than Arizona for her sinus." with all three of us paying silent
Even with the wink they were tribute to the ultimate" in vacations.
caught off guard for a minute. McCleary slowly masticated a leaf
"Mars?" Donley said feebly, of lettuce, his initial look of suspi-
edging his chair away. "Yeah, sure. cion giving way to half-belief.
Great place. Never been there my- "Let's hear some more about it,"
self, though." Young said enthusiastically, sud-

Young just gaped, then grinned denly recovering from his reverie.
as he caught on. "I understand it's "Oh, there isn't much more," I
a wonderful spot," he chipped in. said indifferently. "We plan to stay

I casually peeled a hard-boiled at the Redsands hotel in Marsport
egg the wife had packed in my —American plan. Take in Mars-
lunch bucket and leaned back in my port, with maybe a side trip to
swivel chair. "It's really swell," I Crystallite. If we have time we
said dreamily, but loudenough so might even take a waterway cruise
North Pole ."
McCleary couldn't help but over- to the . .
hear. "Drifting down the Grand

Canal at evening, the sun a faint
golden disk behind the crystal tow-
1 BROKE
the ribs.
off and dug Donley in
ers of Marsport ..." I let my voice "Man, you never fished until you
drift into a long sigh and reached have a Martian flying fish at the
for Donley's sack of grapes. end of the line!" I grabbed a ruler
About this time McCleary had off the desk and began using it as
gnawed his way through a big an imaginary rod and reel. "Talk
pastrami sandwich and waddled about fight ... oh, sorry, Mac."
over. He stood there expectantly, My ruler had amputated part of a
but we carefully ignored him. floppy lettuce leaf that hung from
"Always wanted to go myself," McCleary's sandwich.
Donley said in the same tone of I settled down in my chair again
voice he would have used to say and started paying attention to my
he'd like to go to California some- lunch. "Nothing like it," I added"
day. "Pretty expensive, though, between mouthfuls of liverwurst.
isn't it?" "How about entertainment?"
"Expensive?" I raised a studiedly Young winked slyly.

"Well, you know the wife will — I sighed softly, acting disgusted
be along," I said. "But some of the at having to deal with somebody as
places near the Grand Canal and — stupid as McCleary. "Mac, that's
those Martian Mist Maidens! the government and besides they're
Brother, if I was unattached ." . . dealing with military rockets. And
"There ain't any life on Mars," did you ever hear of the govern-
McCleary said, suspicious again. ment perfecting .something before
All three of us looked at him in private industry? Who perfected
shocked silence. the telephone, the radio, television ?
"He says there's no life on The government? No, private in-

Mars!" Donley repeated. dustry, of course! Private industry
"You ever been there, 'Mc- has always been ahead of the gov-
Cleary?" I asked sarcastically. ernment on everything, including
"No, but just the same . .
." rockets. Get on the stick, Mac."
"All right," I cut in, "then you McCleary started in on his lettuce
don't know whether there is or leaf again, looking very shrewd.
isn't.So kindly reserve your opin- "How come never heard of it
I
ion until you know a little about before now?" he

asked, springing
the subject under discussion." the clincher argument.
"Look, Mac, this is relatively
TURNED back to Donley and new. The company's just starting,
I Young. can't afford to take full-page ads
"Really wonderful place for
a and that sort of thing. Just give 'em
your health. Dry, thin air, nice and time, that's all. Why, a couple of
cool at night. And beautiful! From yearsfrom now you'll be spending
Marsport you can see low-slung your vacation on Venus or Jupiter
mountains in the distance, dunes of or some place like that. From now
soft, red sand stretching out to on California and the Bahamas will
them. If I were you, Bob, I'd forget be strictly old hat."
all about the Ozarks and sign up on McCleary looked half-believing.
the rocket." "Where'd you get your tickets?"
"There ain't any rockets going to I waved vaguely in the direction
Mars," McCleary said obstinately. of downtown. "Oh, there must be

"Isn't," I corrected. "I mean, at least a couple of agencies down-
there is. Besides, McCleary, just town. Might even be able to find
because you never heard of some- them in the phone book. Look
thing doesn't mean it doesn't exist." under Interplanetary Rocket Lines
"The government's still working or something like that. You might
on V-2," McCleary said flatly. have a little difficulty, of course.
"They haven't even reached the Like I say, they're not too well ad-
moon yet." vertised."

McCleary was about to say some- The three of us looked blank for
thing more, but then the one o'clock a minute and then we caught on. It
bell rang and we went back to the took us a while to recover from
office grind. laughing and my sides were still
aching when saw McCleary's face.
I
WELL, McCleary didn't say any- It definitely had a hurt look on it.
thing more about it the next "You don't think I did," he ac-
day, even though we'd throw in a cused us.
chance comment about Mars every "Oh, come off it, McCleary," I
now and then, as if it were the most said crossly. "A gag's a gag, but it
natural thing in the world, but Mac can be carried toofar. Where'd you
didn't rise to the bait. We gradually go? California, Oregon, some place
forgot about it. like that?"
The next couple came of weeks "I said I went to Mars," Mc-
and went and then my two weeks in Cleary repeated hotly, "and I can
August. Like I said before, my va- prove it!"

cation dough had gone to pay the "Sure," I said. "Like I can prove
doctor, so I stayed at home and the world's flat and it's supported
watered the begonias. by four elephants standing on
The Monday morning after vaca- a turtle's back like the old
tion, we were all back in the office, Greeks ..."
if anything looking more fagged I cut off. McCleary had thrown a
than we had when we left. When couple of pasteboards on the desk

lunch time rolled around, Donley and I picked them up. The printing
and Young and I piled our lunches on it was like you see on a Pullman
on Donley's desk — his desk was ticket. It said something about a
near a window on the north side of roomette, first-class passage on the
the building so we could get the Mar/tan Prime, for $154.75, and
breeze —
and talked about what we there was even .a place where they
had done during vacation. had the tax figured. In two blanks
McCleary ambled up and like it at the top of the ticket, they had it
usually does after McCleary comes filled out to E. C. McCleary and
around, the conversation just natu- wife. The bottom half was torn off,
rally died down. After a two min- just like they do with train tickets.
ute silence I finally took the hook. "Very clever," I said, "but you
"Okay, Mac," I said, "I know shouldn't have gone to all that trou-
you're just dying to tell us. Where ble to have these printed up."
did you go?" McCleary scowled and dropped
He almost looked surprised. "To a little bunch of kodachrome slides
Mars," he said, like he might have on the desk. 1 took one and held it
said Aunt Minnie's. up to the light. It showed Mac and

his wife mounted something on puzzledly. "I asked the passenger
that looked like a cross between a agent about the Princess of Mars
camel and a zebra. They were at the and he said he had never heard of
top of a sand dune and in the dis- the ship. And it's Mars City, not
tance you could see the towers of a Marsport. Couldn't understand how
city. The funny thing was the tow- you made a mistake."
ers looked a little —
but not much- "It was easy," I said weakly. I
like minarets and the sand dunes pointed to the pasteboard ducats.
were colored a beautiful pink. "Where'd you get these, Mac?"
I passed it on to Donley and He waved generously in the di-
Young and started leafing through rection of downtown. "Like you
the rest. They were beautiful slides. said, there's a couple of agencies
McCIeary and spouse in front of downtown. . .
."
various structures in a delicately

tinted marble and
CIeary in a pink-and-black boat on
crystal city. Mc-
YOU know, sometimes
misjudged McCIeary.
I think
It takes a
we
a canal that looked as wide as the while to get to know a guy like
Mississippi. McCIeary standing on Mac. Maybe his' Louie is brighter
a strangely carved sandstone para- than Johnny, and maybe his chug-
pet, admiring a sunset caused by a mobile is something terrific.
sun looking half as big as ours. For the last few years, all on ac-
And everywhere were the dunes of count of Mac, my two weeks in
pink sand. August have really been well spent.
"Pictures can be faked, Mac," I Beautiful! Why, from Mars City
said. you can see low-slung mountains in
He looked hurt and got some the distance and dunes of soft, red
things out of his desk —a sateen sand stretching out to them. And
pillow with scenes like those on his the sunsets when you're standing
snapshots, an urn fdled with pink on the parapets of that delicate
sand, a tiny boat like a gondola, crystal city And, man, fishing in
. . .
only different, a letter opener made the Grand Canal ... >
out of peculiar bubbly pink glass. How do you get to Mars ? There's
They were all stamped "Souvenir probably a couple of agencies in
of Mars" and that kind of junk you your own town. You can look them
don't have made up for a gag. I up inyour phone book under "Va-
know mass-produced articles when cation at the Planets of Pleasure" or
I see them. something like that. They might be
"We couldn't afford the first-
a little difficult to find, though.
class tour," McCIeary said expan- • You see, they're not very well
sively, "but I figure we can cover advertised yet.
that next year." He turned to me —FRANK M. ROBINSON

TYRANN By ISAAC ASIMOV
Part 2 of a 3 part serial
Synopsis the Tyranni make another attempt

to kill him as the representative of
DrylRON FARRILL,
aristocrat of the
son of an
Nebular King-
an aristocratic family toe danger-
ously popular with their subjects.
doms, is about to complete bis uni- Biron leaves for the planet
versitywork on Earth. He is Rhodia under an assumed name.
awakened on one of his last nights There he expects to see the planet's
in the dormitory to find himself Director, who is a favorite of the
locked in with a deadly radiation Tyranni overlords and may use his
bomb. He is rescued from this sit- influence with them to have Biron's
uation by Sander fonti, a native of ancestral land holdings restored to
the same region of the Galaxy, who him. On the ship to Rhodia, bow-
states that Biron's father has been ever,Biron finds that his cabin has
arrested and probably executed by been searched and some of his pri-
the Tyranni, the inhabitants of the vate papers taken. He realizes that
planet Tyrann who, fifty years ear- his identity must be known and
had conquered
lier, all the Nebular that he is in grave danger. On land-
Kingdoms. ing at Rhodia he is turned over to
fonti apparently also knows that Simok Aratap, the Tyranni Conimis-
Biron has been asked by his father sioner for that sector of space.
to obtain a mysterious document Aratap is aware of Biron's real
from Earth's archives which seems identity, but releases bim in order
to be of major importance to the to be able to discover the true extent
success of the conspiracy, fonti ad- of what he feels must be a vast
vises Biron to leave Earth before conspiracy, of which Biron and his
Illustrated by JOHN BUNCH
Rebellions logically are led by men who have

nothing to lose. But this galactic conspiracy
was staffed with noblemen who had nothing to
gain and everything to lose if it succeeded!

TYRANN 109
father were only a small part. For be arrested and delivered back to
that purpose, conducted to
Biron is Aratap.
Hinrik, the Director of Rhodia. With Gillbret' s help, Biron
Meanwhile, back on Earth, escapes from the two guards sent
Sander Jonti continues the search to arrest him and seeks refuge in
for the important document which Artemisia's room. She conceals him
Biron had been sent to obtain. He and now faces the company of
finds it had disappeared from guards who are ransacking the pal-
Earth's archives twenty years earlier. ace and who wish to search her
He has not the slightest notion of room. With them is Gillbret.
the nature of the document, except In Artemisia's dressing room,
that dates prior to the time of
it Biron waits tensely.
the discovery of space-travel. What
Earth of the pre-atomic age can Part Two
possibly contribute to a conspiracy
of the Galactic Era is a mystery. CHAPTER LY
On Rhodia, Biron meets Hinrik,
the weakling Director, who is And an Overlord's Trousers
frightened nearly to idiocy of the
Tyranni, and therefore makes a per- ARTEMISIA did not have to
fect tool for them. He meets Arte- feign uneasiness. She spoke
misia, the Director's daughter, who ^to Gillbret, who, with the
is being driven to desperation by captain of the guard, was at the
an impending marriage of state door. Half a dozen uniformed men
with an old Tyranni courtier; and hovered discreetly in the back-
Gillbret, the Director's cousin, who ground. She asked, quickly, "Has
dabbles in scientific gadgets al- anything happened to father?"
though all forms of research among "No, no," Gillbret reassured her.
the subject peoples have been for- "Nothing has happened that need
bidden by the Tyranni. Biron re- concern you at all. Were you
'
veals his actual identity to them. asleep ?"
In a private conference, Gillbret "Just about," she replied, "and
tellsBiron of his own passionate my have been about their own
girls
opposition to Tyranni rule and asks affairs for hours. There was no one
Biron to help him and Artemisia to answer but myself and you near-
escape from the planet. Biron ly frightened me to death."
agrees. But meanwhile, Hinrik, con- She turned to the captain sud-
vinced that Biron's presence is a denly, with a stiffening attitude.
trap set for him by the Tyranni, in- "What is wanted of me, captain?
tended to test his loyalty {and in Quickly, please. This is not the time
this he is right), orders that Biron of day for a proper audience."

Gillbret broke in, before the statement that you have not seen
other more than open his
could the fugitive is, of course, sufficient.
mouth, "A most amusing thing, Under the circumstances, it was
Arta. The young man, whatsisname necessary to assure ourselves of your
—you know—has dashed off, break- safety. He is a dangerous man."
ing two heads on his way. We're "Surely not so dangerous that he
hunting him on even terms now. cannot be handled by you and your
One platoon of soldiers to one fugi- company."
tive. And here I am myself, hot on
the trail, delighting our good cap- GILLBRET' S high-pitched voice
tain with my
and courage."
zeal "Captain,
interposed, come,
Artemisia managed to look com- come. While you exchange courtly
pletely bewildered. sentiments with my niece, our man
Under his breath, the captain has had time to rifle the armory. I
muttered a monosyllabic impreca- would suggest that you leave a
tion. His lips scarcely moved. He guard at the lady Artemisia's door,
said, "If you please, my Lord, you so that what remains of her sleep
are not quite plain, and we are de- will not be further disturbed. Un-
laying matters insufferably. My less, my dear," and he twinkled his
Lady, the man who calls himself the fingers at Artemisia, "you would
son of the ex-Rancher of Widemos care to join us."
has been arrested for treason. He "I shall satisfy myself," said
has managed to escape and is now Artemisia, coldly, "in locking my
at large. We
must search the Pal- door and retiring, thank you."
ace for him, room by room." "Pick a large guard," cried Gill-
Artemisia stepped back, frown- bret. "Take that one. A fine uni-
ing. "Including my room?" form our guards have, Artemisia.
"If your Ladyship permits." You can recognize a guard as far
'^1 do not. I would certainly as you can see him by his uniform
know if there were a strange man alone."
in my room. And the suggestion "My Lord," said the captain, im-
that might be having dealings
I patiently, "there is no time. You
with such a man, or any strange delay matters."
man, at this time of night is highly At a gesture from him, a guard
improper. Please observe due re- fell out of the platoon, saluted
spect for my position, captain." Artemisia through the closing door,
It worked quite well. The cap- then the captain. The sound of or-
tain could only bow and "No
say, dered footsteps fell away in both
such implication was intended, my directions.
Lady. Your pardon for annoying Artemisia waited, then slid the
you at this time of night. Your door quietly open an inch or two.
TYRANN 111
Jfwf
^'•.'.'"i'.W.V, in,'- .
The guard was

back
hand
rigid, right
there,
alarm button. He was

at his
legs
hand armed,
apart,
left B IRON
and
away
tensed as the door slid
again. He
his fingers stiffened.
held his breath
the guard suggested by Gillbret, a Artemisia stared at his neuronic

tall one. As
Biron of Wide-
tall as whips, which he had aimed instant-
mos, though slimmer of shoulders. ly at her. "Be careful/"
It occurred to her, at that mo- He puffed out his breath in re-
ment, that Biron, though young and lief and stuffed each whip into a
therefore rather unreasonable in pocket. They were very uncomfort-
some of was at least
his viewpoints, able there, but he had no proper
large and well-muscled, which was holsters. He said, "That was just in
convenient. It had been foolish of case it was somebody looking for
her to snap at him. Quite pleasant- me."
looking, too. "Come out. And whisper."
'
She closed the door, and stepped She was still in her night-robe,
toward the dressing room. woven out of a smooth fabric with
1T2 GALAXY SCIENCE FICTION

Biron looked up at her face.
"What? Oh, I'm sorry."
He turned his back to her and
remained stiffly attentive to the faint
rustling of the change of outer gar-
ments.It did not occur to him to
wonder why she had not used the

dressing room, or why, better still,
she had not changed before open-

ing the door. There are depths in
feminine psychology, which, with-
out experience, defy analysis.
She was when he turned,
in black
which did not reach
a two-piece suit
below the knee. It had that more
substantial appearance that went
with clothing meant for the out-
doors, rather than for the ballroom.
Biron said, automatically, "Are
•we leaving, then?"
She shook her head. "You'll
have to do your part first. You'll
need other clothes yourself. Get to
BBSS one side of the door, and I'll have
the guard in."
which Biron was unfamiliar, "What guard?"
adorned with little tufts of silvery She smiled briefly. "They left a
fur, and clinging to the body guard at the door, at Uncle Gil's
through some faint static attraction suggestion."
inherent in the material so that The door to the corridor ran
neither buttons, clasps, loops, nor smoothly along its runners an inch
seam-fields were necessary. Nor, as or two.
a consequence, did it do more than The guard was still there, stiffly
merely faintly dim the outlines of immobile.
Artemisia's figure. "Guard," she whispered. "In
Biron felt his ears reddening, and here, quickly."
liked the sensation very much. There was no reason for a com-
Artemisia waited, then made a mon soldier to hesitate in his obe-
little whirling gesture with her dience to the Director's daughter.
forefinger and said, "Do you He entered the widening door, with
mind?" a respectful, "At your service, my
TYRANN 113
L
—
" and then his knees buckled Biron said, "You must have
under the weight which came down some Cellite stockings. They would
upon his shoulders, while his words do fine." He had already stripped
were cut off, without even an inter- the guard of weapons and outer
rupting squawk, by the forearm clothing, "And I'd like to wash
which slammed against his larynx. up. In fact, I have to."
Artemisia closed the door hur-
riedly and watched with sensations WAS pleasant to step
ITthrough
that amounted almost to nausea. the detergent mist in
The the Palace of the Hin-
life in Artemisia's bathroom. It left him
riadswas mild almost to decadence, perhaps a trifle overscented, but the
and she had never before seen a open air would take care of the
man's face congest with blood and fragrance, he hoped. At least, he
his mouth yawn and puff futilely was clean; and it required merely
under the influence of asphyxia. the momentary passage through the
She looked away. fine, suspended droplets that shot
Biron bared his teeth with effort past him forcefully in a warm air
as he tightened the circle of bone stream. No special drying chamber

and muscle about the other's throat. was required, since he stepped out
For a minute, the guard's weaken- dry as well as clean. They didn't
ing hands ripped futilely at Biron's have this on Widemos, or on Earth.
arm, while his feet groped in aim- The guard's uniform was a bit
less kicks. Biron heaved him clear tight, and Biron did not like the
off the floor. way the somewhat ugly, conical
And then the guard's hands fell military cap fit over his brachy-
to his sides, his legs hung loosely cephalic head. He stared at his re-
and the and useless
convulsive flection with some dissatisfaction.
heavings of the chest began to sub- "How do I look?"
side. Biron lowered him gently to "Quite like a soldier," she said.
the floor. The guard sprawled out •He 'said, "You'll have to carry
limply as though he were a sack one of these whips. I can't handle
which had been emptied. three."
"Is he dead?" asked Artemisia, She took it between two fingers
in a horrified whisper. and dropped it into her bag which
"I doubt it," said Biron. "It then was suspended from her wide
takes four or five minutes of it to belt by another micro-force, so that
kill a man. But he'll be out of her hands remained free.
things for a while. Do you have "We had better go, now," she
anything to tie him up with?" said. "Don't say a word if we meet
She shook her head. For the mo- anyone; let me do the talking. Your
ment, she felt quite helpless. accent isn't right, and it would be

impossible to talk in my presence much. Where are the other
unless you were directly addressed, guards?"
anyway. Remember, you're a com- "Everyone objects to a few
mon soldier." words," he said, pettishly. "The
The guard on the floor was be- other guards are working their way
ginning to wriggle a bit and roll up the tower. They've decided that
his eyes. His wrists and ankles were our friend is on none of the lower
securely tied at the small of his levels, so they've just left some men
back with stockings that had the at the main exits and at the ramps,
tensile strength of more than an with the general alarm system in
equal amount of steel. His tongue operation as well. We can get past
worked futilely at his gag. it."
He had been shoved out of the "Won't they miss you, sir?"
way, so that it was not necessary to asked Biron.
step over him to get to the door. "Me? Hah! The captain was
"This way," breathed Artemisia. glad to see me go for all his toe-
scraping. They won't look for me,
THE
AT first was
turning, there
a footstep behind them and a
I assure you."
They were speaking in whispers,
hand came down on Biron's shoul- but now even those died away. A
der. guard stood at the bottom of the
Biron stepped to one side quick- ramp, while two others flanked the
ly and turned, one hand catching large, carved double door that led
the other's arm, while' his other to the open air.
snatched at his whip. Gillbret called out, "Any word
But it was Gillbret, who said, of the escaped prisoner, men?"
"Easy, man!" "No, my Lord," said the nearest.
Biron loosened his grip. He clicked his heels together and
Gillbret rubbed his arm. "I've saluted.
been waiting for you, but that's no "Well, keep your eyes open."
reason to break my bones. Let me And they walked past them and
stare admiringly at you, Farrill. out, one of the guards at the door
Your clothes seem
have shrunk to carefully neutralizing that section
on you, but not bad; not bad at all. of the alarm as they left.
Nobody would look twice at you in It was night-time outside. The

that get-up. It's the advantage of a. sky was clear and starry, the ragged
uniform. It's taken for granted that mass of the Dark Nebula blotting
a soldier's uniform holds a soldier out the specks of light near the
and nothing else." horizon. Palace Central was a dark
"Uncle Gil," whispered Arte- mass behind them, and the Palace
misia, urgently, "don't talk so Field was half a mile away.
TYRANN 115
But after five minutes of walking There's nothing to do now. We
along the quiet path, Gillbret grew can't fight Tyranni."
restless. "Why not?"- Biron demanded,
"There's something wrong," he savagely. "Why can't we fight
said. them? They have no reason to sus-
Artemisia said, "Uncle Gil, you pect trouble and we're armed. Let's
haven't forgotten to arrange to have take the Commissioner's own ship.
the ship ready?" Let's leave him with his trousers
"Of course not," he snapped at down."
her, as nearly as one could snap in He stepped forward, out of the
a whisper, "but why is the Field relative obscurity of the trees and
Tower lit up?
should be dark."
It on to the bare Field. The others
He pointed up through the trees, followed. There was ,no reason to
to where the Tower was a honey- hide. They were two members of
comb of white light. Ordinarily, the royal family and an escorting
that would indicate business at the soldier.
Field, ships leaving for space or But it was the Tyranni they were
arriving from it. fighting now.
Gillbret muttered, "Nothing was
scheduled for tonight. That was SIMOK ARATAP of Tyrann had
definite." been impressed the first time
They saw the answer at a dis- he had ever seen the Palace
tance, or Gillbret did.He stopped Grounds at Rhodia years earlier,
suddenly and spread his arms wide but it had turned out to be only a
to hold back the others. shell that had impressed him. The
"That's all," he said, and giggled interior was nothing but a musty
almost hysterically. "This time Hin- relic. Two generations earlier,
rik has really messed things prop- Rhodia's legislative chambers had
erly, the idiot. They're here! The met on these grounds and most of
Tyranni ! Don't you understand ? the administrative offices had been
That's Aratap's private armored quartered there. Palace Central had
cruiser." been the heartbeat of a dozen
Biron saw it, gleaming faintly worlds.
under the lights, standing out But now the legislative chambers
among the other undistinguished (still existing, for the Khan never
ships. was smoother, slimmer,
It interfered with local legalisms) met
more deadly feline than the Rhod- once a year to ratify the executive
ian vessels. orders of the past twelve months.
Gillbret said, "The captain said a It was only a formality. The Ex-
'personage' was being entertained ecutive Council was still, nom-
today, and I paid no attention. inally, in continuous session, but it

consisted of a dozen men who re- Widemos had been a traitor, and
mained on their estates nine weeks Widemos's son had attempted a
in ten. The various executive bu- meeting with the Director of Rho-
reaus were still active, since one dia. He had attempted it first in
could not govern without them secret and when that had failed,
whether the Director or the Khan such was the urgency, he attempted
ruled, but they were now scattered it openly with his ridiculous story
over the planet; made less depend- of an assassination plot. Surely that
ent upon the Director, more con- must have been the beginning of a
scious of their actual masters, the pattern.
Tyranni. And now it fell apart. Hinrik
Which left the Palace as majes- was giving up the boy with inde-
ticas it had always been in stone cent haste. He could not even wait
and metal and that only. It housed the night, it seemed. And that did
the Directorial family, a scarcely not fit at afl, or else Aratap had
adequate corps of servants, and an not yet learned all the facts.
entirely inadequate corps of native
guards.
Aratap uncomfortable in the
felt
HE FOCUSED his attention
the Director. Hinrik was sense-
on
palatial shell and was unhappy. It lesslybeginning to repeat himself.

was late, he was tired, his eyes Aratap felt a twinge of compas-
burned so that he longed to remove sion. The man had been made into
his contact lenses, and, most of all, such a coward that even the Ty-
he was disappointed. ranni themselves grew impatient
There was no recognizable pat- with him. And yet it was the only
tern of motive and counter-motive. way. Nothing but fear could insure
He glanced occasionally at his mili- absolute loyalty.
tary aide, major was
but the Widemos had not been afraid,
listening to the Director with ex- and, despite the fact that his self-
pressionless stolidity. As for Aratap interest had been bound at every
himself, he paid little attention. point with the maintenance of Ty-
"Widemos's son! Indeed?" he ranni rule, he had rebelled. Hinrik
would say, in abstraction. Then was afraid and that made the dif-
later, "And so you arrested him? ference.
Quite right!" And because Hinrik was afraid,
But it meant little to him, since he sat there, lapsing into incoher-
events lacked a design. Aratap had ence as to wheedle
he struggled
a neat and tidy mind which could some gesture of approval. The ma-
not bear the thought of individual jor -would give none, of course,
facts loosely clumped together with Aratap knew. The man had no
no decent arrangement. imagination. He sighed and wished
TYRANN 117
he had none, either. Politics was a alarm. They are still only minutes
filthy business. away."
So he said, with some air of "Yes, by all means," stuttered
animation, "I commend your quick Hinrik, "by all means. A general
decision and your zeal in the service alarm, indeed. Just the thing.
of the Khan. You may be sure he Quickly! Quickly! Commissioner, I
will hear of it." cannot understand how it could
have happened. Captain, put every
HINRIK brightened visibly, his man to work. There will be an in-
relief obvious. vestigation, Commissioner. If nec-
Aratap said, "Have him brought essary, every man on the guards
in, then, and let us hear what our will be broken. Broken! Broken!"
cockerel has to say." He suppressed He repeated the word in near-
a desire to yawn. He had absolutely hysteria, but the captain remained
no interest in what the "cockerel" standing. It was obvious that he had
had to say. more to say.
It was Hinrik's intention at this Aratap said, "Why do you
point to signal for the captain of wait?"
the guard, but there was no neces- "May I speak to your Excellency
sity for that. The captain stood in in private?" asked the captain,
the doorway, unannounced. abruptly.
"Excellency," he said and strode Hinrik cast a quick, frightened
in without waiting for permission. look at the bland, unperturbed
Hinrik stared hard at his hand, Commissioner. He mustered a
still from the signal, as
inches feeble indignation. "There are no
though wondering whether his in- from the of
tention had somehow developed
secrets
Khan, our friends, our
—
soldiers the
sufficient force to substitute for the "Say your say, captain," inter-
act. posed Aratap, gently.
He asked, uncertainly, "What is The captain brought his heels to-
it, captain?" gether sharply. "Since I am ordered
The captain said, "Excellency, to speak, your Excellency, I regret
the prisoner has escaped." to inform you that my lady Arte-
Aratap felt some of the weari- misia and my lord Gillbret accom-
ness disappear. What was this? pany the prisoner in his escape."
"The details, captain!" he ordered, "He dared to kidnap them?"
and straightened in his chair. Hinrik was on his feet. "And my
The captain gave them with a guards allowed it?"
blunt economy of words. He con- "They were not kidnaped, Excel-
cluded, "I ask your permission, Ex- lency. They accompany him volun-
cellency, to proclaim a general tarily."

"How do you know?" Aratap duties and look to your Director.
was delighted,and thoroughly —Come, major."
awake. It formed a pattern now,
after all. A better pattern than he
could have anticipated.
THE Tyrannian major spoke
tensely once they had left the
The captain said, "We have the mass of Palace Central behind
testimony of the guard they over- them.
powered, and the guards who, un- "Aratap," he said, "I presume
wittingly, allowed them to leave the you know what you're doing. I kept
building." He hesitated, then added my mouth shut in there on the basis
grimly, "When I interviewed my of that presumption."
lady Artemisia at the door of her "Thank you, major." Aratap
private chambers, she told me she liked the night air of a planet full
had been on the point of sleep. It of green and growing things. Ty-
was only later that I realized that rann was more beautiful in its way,
when she told me that, her face was but it was a terrible beauty of arid
elaborately made up. When I re- rocks and mountains.

turned, it was too late. I accept the He went on, "You cannot
blame for the mismanagement of handle Hinrik, Major Andros. In
this affair. After tonight, I will re- your hands, he would wilt and
quest your Excellency to accept my break. 'He is useful, but requires
resignation, but, first, have I still gentle treatment if he is to remain
your permission to sound the gen- so."
eral alarm ? Without your authority, The major brushed that aside.
I could not interfere with members "I'm not referring to that. Why not
of the royal family." the general alarm? Don't you want
But Hinrik was swaying on his them?"
feet and could only stare at him "Do you?" Aratap stopped. "Let
vacantly. us sit here for a moment, Andros.
Aratap said, "Captain, you would A bench on pathway along a
a
do better to look to the health of lawn. What more beautiful and
your Director. I would suggest you what place is safer f ram spy beams ?
call his physician." Why do you want the young man,
"The general alarm," repeated major?"
the captain. "Why do I want any traitor and
"There will be no general conspirator?"
alarm," said Aratap. "Do you un- "Why do you, indeed, if you
derstand me? No general alarm! only catch a few tools while leav-
No recapture of the prisoner! The ing the source of the poison un-
incident is closed ! Return your men touched? Whom would you have?
to their quarters and ordinary A cub, a silly girl, a senile idiot."
TYRANN 119
There was the faint splashing of bers of the royal family go unrec-
an artificial waterfall nearby. A ognized? Particularly the girl."
small one, but decorative. Now that "They would have to leave the
was a real wonder to Aratap. planet then."
Imagine water, spilling out, run- "And from where? They can
ning to waste, pouring down the reach the Palace Field in a fifteen-
rocks and along the ground. He had minute walk. Now do you see the
never educated himself out of a purpose of our being here?"
prim indignation over it. The major said, "Our ship?"
"Of course. A Tyrannian ship
<* A S IT is," said the major, "we would seem ideal to them. Other-
-£~X have nothing." wise, they would have to choose
"We have a pattern. When the among freighters. Farrill has been
young man first arrived, we con- educated on Earth, and, I'm sure,
nected him with Hinrik and that can fly a cruiser."
bothered us because Hinrik is "Now there's a point," the ma-
what he is.was the best we
But it jor agreed. "Why do we allow the
could do. Now we see it was not nobility to send out their sons in
Hinrik at all; that Hinrik was a all directions? What business has
misdirection. It was Hinrik's daugh- a subject to know more about
ter and cousin he was after and that travel than will suffice him for lo-
makes more sense." cal trade? We raise soldiers against
"Why didn't he call us sooner? us."
He waited for the middle of the "Nevertheless," said Aratap,
night." with polite indifference, "at the mo-
"Because he is the tool of who- ment, Farrill has a foreign educa-
ever is the first to reach him, and tionand let us take that into account
Gillbret, I am sure, suggested this objectively, without growing angry
night meeting as a sign of great about it. The fact remains that I am
zeal on his part." completely certain they have taken
"You mean we were called here our cruiser."
on purpose? To witness their "I can't believe it."
escape?" "You have your wrist-caller.

"No, not for that reason. Ask Make contact with the. ship, if you
yourself. Where do these people can."
intend going?" The major tried, futilely.
The major shrugged. "Rhodia is Aratap "Try the Field
said,
big." Tower."
"Yes, were the young Far-
if it The major did so, and the small
rill alone who was
concerned. But voice came out of the tiny receiver,
where on Rhodia would two mem- in minute agitation. "But, Excel-

lency, I don't understand. There is would surely have escaped and
some mistake. Your pilot took off (what's the expression?) I would
ten minutes ago." have been caught with my trousers
Aratap was smiling. "You see? down this night. As it is,my trous-
Work out the pattern and each little ers are firmly belted and nothing
event becomes inevitable. And now can save the three of them. And
do you fully understand the conse- when I pluck them back, in my
quences?" own good time" —
he emphasized
the words with satisfaction "I —
THE major did. He slapped his will have the rest of the conspiracy
thigh, and laughed briefly. "Of in my hands as well."
course!" He sighed and found himself be-
"Well," said Aratap, "they ginning to feel sleepy once more,
couldn't know, of course, but they "Well, we have been lucky, and
have ruined themselves. Had they now there is no hurry. Call Central
been satisfied with the clumsiest Base and have them send another
Rhodian freighter on the field, they ship after us."
TYRANN 121
CHAPTER X bruised against the padded web-
bing. The Tyrannian prisoner had
Maybe! lain pressed against the wall, tear-
ing at his bonds and cursing in a
BIRON FARRILL'S training in monotone.
had
spationautics back at Earth Biron had risen shakily to his
been largely academic. There had feet, kicked the Tyrannian into a
been the university courses in the brooding silence and made his way
various phases of spatial engineer- along the wall-rail, hand over hand
ing which, though half a semester against the acceleration, back to his
was spent on the theory of the seat.. Forward blasts of power
hyperatomic motor, offered little quivered the ship and reduced the
when it came to the actual manipu- rate of increasing velocity to a bear-
lation of ships in space. The best able pressure.
and most skilled pilots learned their They were in the upper reaches
art in practice and not in school- of the Rhodian atmosphere by then.
rooms. The sky was a deep violet and the
He had managed to take off with- hull of the ship was hot with air
out actual accident, though that was friction, so that warmth could be
more luck than design. The Re- felt within.
morseless answered the controls far It took hours thereafter to set the
more quickly than Biron had an- ship an orbit about Rhodia.
into
ticipated. He had manipulated sev- Biron could find no way of readily
eral ships on Earth out into space calculating the velocity necessary to
and back to the planet, but those justovercome Rhodia's gravity. He
had been aged and sedate models, had to work it by hit and miss,
maintained for the use of students. varying the velocity with puffs of
They had been gentle, and very, power forward and backward,
very tired, and had lifted with an watching the massometer, which in-
effort and spiraled slowly upward dicated their distance from the plan-
through the atmosphere and into et's surface by measuring the
space. intensity of the gravitational field.
The Remorseless, on the other Fortunately the massometer was al-
hand, had lifted effortlessly, spring- ready calibrated for Rhodia's mass
ing upward and whistling through and radius. Without considerable
the air, so that Biron had fallen experimentation, Biron. could not
backward out of his chair and all have adjusted the calibration him-
but dislocated his shoulder. Arte- self.
misia and Gillbret, with the greater Eventually, the massometer held
caution of the inexperienced, had steady and over a period of two
strapped themselves in, and were hours showed no appreciable drift.

Biron allowed himself to relax, and the master race is really the unfor-
the others climbed out of their givable sin."
belts. "But what is the alternative?"
"We'll land him."
ARTEMISIA said, "You don't "All right. Where?"
have a very light touch, my "On Rhodia."
lord Rancher." "What?"
"I'm flying by touch, my Lady," "It's the one place they won't be
Biron replied, curtly. "If you can looking for us. Besides, we've got
do better, you're welcome to try, but to go down pretty soon, anyway."
only after I myself disembark." "Why?"
"Quiet, quiet," said Gillbret. "Look, this is the Commission-
"The ship is too cramped for pet- er's ship, and he's been using it for
tishness, and, in addition, since we hopping about the surface of the
are to be crushed into an incon- planet. It wouldn't be provisioned
venient familiarity in this leaping for space voyages. Before we go
prison pen, I suggest we discard the anywhere, we'll have to take com-
many 'lords' and 'ladies' which will plete inventory aboard ship, and at
otherwise encrust our conversation. least make sure that we have enough
I am Gillbret, you are Biron, she is food and water."
Artemisia. I suggest we memorize Artemisia was nodding vigorous-
those terms of address, or any var- ly. "That's right. I wouldn't have
iation we care to use. And as for thought of that myself. Very
piloting the ship, why not use the clever, Biron."
help of our Tyrannian friend Biron made a deprecating ges-
here?" ture, but warmed with pleasure,
The Tyrannian glared, and Biron nevertheless. It was the first time
said, "No. There is no way we she had used his first name. She
could trust him. And my own pilot- could be quite pleasant when she
ing will improve as I get the hang tried.
of this ship. I haven't cracked you Gillbret said, "But he'll radio our
up yet, have I?" whereabouts instantly."
His shoulder hurt still as a. re- "I don't think so," said Biron.
sult of the first lurch and, as usual, "In the first place, Rhodia has its
pain made him peevish. desolate areas, I imagine. We don't

"Well," said Gillbret, "what do have to drop him into the business
we do with him?" - section of a city, or into the middle
"I don't like to kill him in cold of one of the Tyranni garrisons.
blood," said Biron, "and that won't Besides, he may not be so anxious
help us. It would just make the Ty- to contact his superiors as you might
ranni doubly excited. Killing one of think. -
— Say, private, what would
TYRANN 123
happen to a soldier who allowed and allowed to flutter downward
the Commissioner of the Khan to some fifty miles from the nearest
have his private cruiser stolen from sizable town.
him?" The landing, on an empty beach,
The prisoner did not answer, but was only mildly jerky, and Biron,
his lip-line became pale. as the one least likely to be recog-
Biron would not have wanted to nized, made the necessary pur-
be in the soldier's place. To be chases. Such Rhodian currency as
sure, he could scarcely be blamed. Gillbret had had the presence of
There was no reason why he should mind to bring with him had scarce-
have suspected trouble resulting ly sufficed for elementary needs,
from mere politeness to members since much
of it went for a little
of the Rhodian royal family. Stick- bi-wheel and tow-cart, on which
ing to the letter of the Tyranni Biron could carry the supplies away
military code, he had refused to piecemeal.
allow them aboard ship without the "You might have stretched the
permission of his commanding offi- money further," said Artemisia, "if
cer. If the Director himself had de- you hadn't wasted so much of it on
manded permission to enter, he the Tyranni mush you bought."
would have to deny it. But in the "There was nothing else to do,"
meantime, they had closed in upon said Biron, hotly. "It may be Ty-
him, and by the time he realized ranni mush to you, but it's a well-
he should have followed the mili- balanced food, and will see us
tary code still more closely and had through better than anything else I
his weapon was too late.

ready, it could have gotten."
A neuronic whip was practically He was annoyed. It had been
touching his chest. stevedore's work, getting all that
Nor had he given in tamely, even stuff out of the city and then aboard
then. It had taken a whip-blast at ship. And it had meant a consider-
his chest to stop him. And even so, able risk, buying it at one of the
he could face only courtmartial and Tyranni-run commissaries in the

conviction. No one doubted that, city. He had expected appreciation,
least of all the soldier. not carping.
There was no alternative, actual-
THEY had landed two days later ly. The Tyranni forces had evolved
at the outskirts of the city of an entire technique
of supply
Southwark. had been chosen de-
It adapted entirely to the fact that they
liberately because it lay far from used tiny ships. They couldn't afford
the main centers of Rhodian popu- the huge storage spaces of other
lation. The Tyrannian soldier had fleets,which were stacked with the
been strapped into a repulsion unit carcasses of whole animals, neatly

hung in rows. They ha* to develop Well, she would have to get used
a„ standard food-concentrate con- to it. Biron felt that he had done
taining what was necessary in the enough for her, gone sufficiently
way of and food-factors and
calories out of his way. Why couldn't she
let it .go at that. It took up only be pleasant about it, and smile once
one-twentieth of the space that an in a while? She had a nice smile,
equivalent supply of natural animal and he had to admit she wasn't bad
food would take, and it could be outside her temper. But, oh, that
piled up in the low-temperature temper
storeroom like packaged bricks. Well, why waste his time think-
ing about her?
r
"W ELL, it
Artemisia.
"You'll get used to
tastes awful," said
it," retorted
The
worst.
water situation was the
Tyrann was a desert planet
in the first place, where water was
Biron, mimicking her petulance, so at a premium and men knew its
that she flushed and turned away value, so none was included on
angrily. board ship for washing purposes.
What was bothering her, Biron Soldiers could wash themselves and
knew, was simply the lack of space their personal effects once they had
and all that accompanied the lack. landed on a planet. During trips, a
It wasn't just a question of using little grime and sweat would not
a monotonous food-stock because, hurt them. Even for drinking pur-

in that way, more
calories could be poses, water was barely sufficient
packed to the cubic inch. It was for the longer trips. After all, wa-
that there were no separate sleeping ter could be neither concentrated
rooms, for instance. There were the nor dehydrated, but had to be car-
engine rooms and the control room, ried in bulk, the problem being
which took up most of the ship's aggravated by the fact that the wa-
space. (After all, Biron thought, ter content of the food concentrates
this is a warship, not a pleasure was quite low.
yacht.) Then there were the store- There were distilling devices to
room, and one small cabin, with re-use water lost by the body, but
two tiers of three bunks on either Biron, when he realized their func-
side. The plumbing was located in tion, squeamish and arranged
felt
a little niche just outside the cabin. for the disposal of waste products
It meant crowding; it meant a without attempt at water recovery.
complete absence of privacy; and it Chemically, it was a sensible pro-
meant that Artemisia would have to cedure, but one has to be educated
adjust herself to the fact that there into that sort of thing.
were no women's clothes aboard, The second takeoff was, com-
no mirrors, no washing facilities. paratively, a model of smooth-
TYRANN 125
ness, and Biron spent time playing manufactured this ship." It was a
with the controls afterward. The relief to shout at Gillbret. It was a
control board resembled only in the relief to shout at anybody.
dimmest fashion those of the ships The door opened again, and
he had handled on Earth. It had Artemisia stood there. She. said,
been compressed and compacted freezingly, "I would refrain, Mr.

frightfully. As Biron puzzled out Farrill, from shouting if I were
the action of a contact or the pur- you. You can be distinctly heard
pose of a he wrote minute di-
dial, all over the ship."
rections on paper and pasted them "That," said Biron, "does not
appropriately on the board. bother me. And if the ship bothers
Gillbret entered the pilot room. you, just remember that if your
Biron looked over his shoulder. father hadn't tried to kill me off
"Artemisia's in the cabin, I sup- and marry you off, neither one of
pose?" us would be here."
"There isn't any place else she "Don't you criticize my father."
could be and stay inside the ship." "I'll criticize anyone I please."
Biron said, "When you see her, Gillbret put his hands over his
tell her I'll make up a bunk here in ears. "Please!"
the pilot room. I'd advise you to do
the same, and let her have the cabin BROUGHT a brief halt. Gill-
He muttered, "It wasn't
ITbret said, "Shall we discuss the
to herself."
bad enough —we had to bring along matter of our destination now? It's
a damn girl." * obvious at this point that the

"You have your moments, too, sooner we're somewhere and
else
Biron," said Gillbret. "You'll have get out of this ship, the more com-
to remember the sort of life she's fortable we'll be."
used to." "I agree with you there, Gil,"
"All right, I do remember it,and said Biron. "Just let's go somewhere
so what? What sort of life do you where I don't have to listen to her
think I'm used to? I wasn't born clacking. Talk about women on
in the mine fields of some asteroidal spaceships!"
belt, you know. I was born on the Artemisia ignored him and ad-
biggest ranch of Nephelos. But if dressed Gillbret exclusively. "Why
you're caught in a situation, you've don't we get out of the Nebular
got to make the best of it. Damn it, area altogether?"
I can't stretch the hull of the ship. "I don't know about you," said
It will hold just so much food and Biron, at once, "but I've got to get
water, and I can't do anything about my Ranch back and do a little some-
the fact that there isn't any shower. thing about my father's murder. I'll
She picks on me as if I personally stay in the Kingdoms, thanks."

"I did not mean," said Artemisia, which will someday destroy that
"that we were to leave forever; same Khan."
only till the worst of the search was "Go on," said Biron.
over. I don't see what you intend "The trip from Rhodia to Ty-
doing about your Ranch, anyway. rann was by Tyranni warship, of
You can't get it back unless the course, as was the trip back. A ship
Tyranni Empire is broken to pieces, like this, I might say, but rather
and you doing
I can't see that." larger. The trip there was unevent-
"You never mind what I intend ful. The stay on Tyrann had its
doing. It's my business." points of amusement, but, for our
"Might I make a suggestion?" purposes now, was likewise un-
asked Gillbret, mildly. He took si- eventful. On the trip back, how-
lence for consent, and went on, ever, a meteor hit us."
"Then suppose I tell you where we "What?"
ought to go, and exactly what we
ought to do to help break the Em- GILLBRET held up a hand. "I
pire to pieces, just as Arta said." know it's an unlikely acci-
"Oh? How do you propose do- dent. The incidence of meteors in
ing that?" said Biron. space, especially in interstellar
Gillbret smiled. "My dear boy, space, is low enough to make the
you're taking a very amusing atti- chances of collision with a ship
tude. Don't you trust me? You look completely insignificant, but it does
at meas though you think that any happen, as you know. And it did
enterprise I might be interested in happen in this case. Of course any
was bound to be a foolish one. I meteor that does hit, even when it
got you out of the Palace, you isthe size of a pinhead, as most of
know." them are, can penetrate the hull of
"I know that. I'm perfectly will- any but the most heavily armored
ing to listen to you." ship."
"Do so then. I've been waiting "I know," said Biron. "It's a
for over twenty years for my chance question of their momentum, which
to get away from them. If I had is a product of their mass and
been a private citizen, I could have velocity. The velocity more than
done it Jong since; but, through the makes up for their lack of mass."
curse of birth, I've been in the pub- He recited it glumly, like a school
lic eye. And yet if it hadn't been lesson, and caught himself watch-
for the fact that I was born a Hin- ing Artemisia furtively.
riad, I would not have attended the She had seated herself to listen
coronation of the present Khan of to Gillbret,and she .vas so dose
Tyrann, and in that case I would that they were almost touching. It
never have stumbled on the secret occurred to Biron that her profile
TYRANN 127
was beautiful as she sat there, even "As it was, however, it plunged
if her hair was becoming a little into the control room, ricocheted
bedraggled. She wasn't wearing her off the far wall and slammed back
little jacket, and the fluffy white- and forth till it came to a halt. It
ness of her blouse was still smooth couldn't have taken more than a
and unwrinkled after forty-eight fraction of a minute to do so, but
hours. He wondered how she man- at an original velocity of a hundred
aged to do that. miles a minute, it must have criss-
The trip, he decided, could be crossed the room a hundred times.
quite wonderful if she would only Both crewmen were cut to pieces,
learn to behave herself. The trouble and I escaped only because I was in
was that no one had ever controlled the cabin at the time.
her properly, that was all. Certain- "I heard the thin clang of the
ly not her father. She'd become too meteor when it originally penetrat-
used to having her own way. If ed the hull, then the click-clack of
she'd been born a commoner, she its bouncing and the terrifying
would have been a very lovely crea- short screams of the two crew men.
ture. When I jumped into the control
room, there was only the blood
HE WAS just beginning to slip everywhere and the t^rn flesh. The
into a daydream in which be things that happened next I remem-
controlled her properly and brought ber only vaguely, although for
her to a state of proper- apprecia- years I lived it over step by step in
tion of himself, when she turned my nightmares.
her head and met his eye calmly. "The cold sound of escaping air
Biron looked away and fastened his led me to the meteor hole. I slapped
attention instantly on Gillbret. He a disk of metal over it and air pres-
had missed a few sentences. sure made a decent seal of it. I

"1 haven't the slightest idea why found the little battered space-
the ship's screen had tailed. It was pebble on the floor. It was warm to
just one of those things to which the touch, but I hit it with a span-
no one will ever know the answer, ner and split it in two. The exposed
but it had failed. Anyway, the me-
• interior frosted over instantly. It
teor struck amidships. It was was still at the temperature of space.

pebble-size and piercing the hull "I tied a cord to the wrist of
slowed it just sufficiently so that it each corpse and then fastened each
couldn't blaze its way out again cord to a towing magnet. I dumped
through the other had
side. If it them through the airlock, heard the
done that, there would have been magnets clank against the hold, and
little harm to it, since the hull could knew that the hard-frozen bodies
be temporarily patched in no time. would follow the ship now where-

ever it went. You see, I knew I skillfully, but they had a definite
.
would need the evidence of their military edge Everyone as well.

bodies to show that it had been the knows were supe-
that their tactics
meteor that had killed them and rior to ours, and part of that was
not I, once we returned to Rhodia. due to the automatic Jump. It meant
"But how was I to return? I was a great increase in the maneuver-
quite helpless. There was no way / ability of their ships and made
could run the ship, and there was possible much more elaborate battle
nothing I dared try there in the plans than any we could set up.
depths of interstellar space. I didn't "It's one of their best-kept se-
even know how to use the sub- crets, this technique of theirs. I
etheric communication system, so never learned was trapped

it until I
that I couldn't SOS. I could only alone on the Bloodsucker (the Ty-
let the ship travel on its own ranni have the most annoying cus-
course." tom of naming their ships
"But you couldn't very well do unpleasantly, though I suppose it's
that,could you?" Biron asked. He good psychology) and watched it
wondered if Gillbret were invent- happen. I ivatcbed it make the
ing this, either out of simple ro- Jumps without a hand on the con-
mantic imaginings or for some se- trols."
own.
verely practical reason of his "And you mean to say that this
"What about the Jumps through ship can do that, too?"
hyperspace? You must have man- "I don't know. I wouldn't be
aged those, or you wouldn't be surprised."
here."
"A Tyranni ship," said Gillbret, BIRON turned to the control
"once the controls are properly set, board. There were still dozens
will make any number of Jumps of contacts he had not determined
quite automatically." the slightest use for. Well, later!
Biron stared his disbelief. Did He turned to Gillbret again.
Gillbret him for a fool?
take "And the ship took you home?"
"You're making that up," he said. "No, it didn't. When that meteor
"I am not. It's one of the damned wove its pattern through the con-
military advances which won their trol room, it didn't leave the board
wars for them. They didn't defeat untouched. would have been a
It
fifty planetary systems, outnumber- most amusing coincidence if it had.

ing Tyrann by hundreds of times Dials were smashed, the casing
in population and resources, just battered and dented. There was no
by playing mumbledy-peg, you way of telling how the previous set-
know. Sure, they tackled us one at ting of the controls had been
a time, and utilized our traitors very altered, but it must have been
TYRANN 129
somehow, because it never took me "Because they knew the ship I
back to Rhodia. was in was a Tyranni vessel. They
"Eventually, of course, it began knew that by sight, and almost
deceleration, and I knew the trip blasted it before I could convince
was theoretically over. I couldn't them I was the only one on board
tell where I was, but I managed to alive."
maneuver the visiplate so that I Biron put his large hands on his
could tell there was a planet close knees and kneaded them. "Now
enough to show a disc in the ship hold on and pull back. I don't un-
telescope. It was blind luck, because derstand this. If they knew it was a
the disc was increasing in size. The Tyranni vessel and intending blast-
ship was heading for the planet. ing it, isn't that the best proof that
"Oh, not directly. That would be the world was not in the Nebular
too impossible to hope for. If I had Kingdoms? Anywhere in the Gal-
just drifted, the ship would have axy but there."
missed the planet by a million miles, "No, by the Galaxy." Gillbret's
at least, but at that distance I could eyes were shining, and his voice
use ordinary etheric radio. I knew climbed in enthusiasm. "It was in
how to do that. It was after this the Kingdoms. They took me to the
was all over that I began educating surface and what a world it was!
myself in electronics. I made up my There were men there from all over
mind that I would never be quite so the Kingdoms. I could tell by the
helpless again. Being helpless is accents. And they had no fear of
one of the things that isn't alto- the Tyranni. The place was an
gether amusing." arsenal. You couldn't tell from
space. It might externally have been
B IRON the radio."

prompted, "So you used
"Exactly, and they came and got

a rundown- farming world, but the
real life of the planet was under-
ground. Somewhere in the King-
me." doms, my boy, someivbere, there is
"Who?" that planet still and it is not afraid
"The men of the planet. It was of the Tyranni and it is going to
inhabited." destroy the Tyranni as it would
"Well, the luck piles up. What have destroyed the ship I was on
planet was it?" then, if the crew men had been
"I don't know." still alive."
"You mean they didn't tell you?" Biron felt his heart bound.
"Amusing, isn't it? They didn't. For a moment, he wanted des-
But it was somewhere among the perately to believe.
Nebular Kingdoms!" After all, maybe.
"How did you know that?" Maybe

CHAPTER XI tories in which some sort of metal-
work was going on. The ships that
And Maybe Not! had captured me were certainly like
none I've ever heard about.
BIRON said, "How did you "It was all so apparent fo me at
learn all this about its being the time that I have never ques-
an arsenal? How long did you stay? tioned it in the years since. I think
What did you see?" of it as my and
'rebellion world,'
Gillbret grew impatient. "It I know that someday swarms of
wasn't exactly what I saw at all. ships will leaveit to attack the Ty-
They didn't conduct me on any ranni, and that the subject worlds
tours, or anything like that." He will be called upon to rally round
forced himself to relax. "Well, the rebel leaders. From year to year
look, this is what happened. By the I've waited for happen. Each
it to
time they got me off the ship, I new year I've thought to myself:
was in more or less of a bad state. This may be the one. And each
I had been too frightened to eat time, I half hoped it wouldn't be,
much (it's a terrible thing, being because I was longing to get away
marooned in space) and I must first, to join them so that I might
have looked worse than I really be part of the great attack. I didn't
was. want' them to start without me."
"I identified myself, more or less, He laughed shakily. "I suppose
and they took me
underground. it would have amused most people
With the ship, of course. I suppose to know what was going on in my
they were more interested in the mind. In my mind. Nobody thought

ship than in myself. It gave them a much of me, you know." ,
chance to study Tyranni spatio-en- Biron said, happened

"All this
gineering. They took me to what over twenty years ago, and they
must have been a hospital." haven't attacked? There's been no
"But what did you see, uncle?" sign of them? No strange ships
have been reported? No incidents?
asked Artemisia.
Biron interrupted, "Hasn't he And you still think —
ever told you this before?" Gillbret fired at him, "Yes, I do.
Artemisia said, "No." Twenty years isn't too long to or-
And Gillbret added, "I've never ganize a rebellion against a planet
told anyone till now. I was taken that rules fifty systems. I was there
to a hospital, as I said. I passed re- just at the beginning of the rebel-
search laboratories in that hospital lion. I know that, too. Slowly, since
thatmust have been better than any- then, the}- must have been honey-
thing we have on Rhodia. On the combing the planet with their un-
way to the hospital I passed fac- derground preparations, developing
TYRANN 131
newer ships and weapons, training found out then. They knew I was
more men, organizing the attack. Gillbret oth Hinriad. There was
"It's only in the video-thrillers enough identification on the ship,
that men spring to arms at a mo- even if I hadn't told them myself,
ment's notice, that a new weapon is which I had. They knew that if I
needed one day, invented the next, didn't return to Rhodia there would
mass-produced the third and used be a full-scale search that would
the fourth. These things take time, not readily come to a halt.
Biron, and the men of the 'rebel- "They couldn't risk such a
lion world' must know they will search, so they had to see to it that
have to be completely ready before I was returned to Rhodia. And
beginning. They won't be able to that's where they took me."
strike twice. "What?" cried Biron. "But that
"And what do you call 'inci- must have been an even greater
dents?' Tyranni ships have disap- risk. How did they do that?"
peared and never been found. Space "I don't know." Gillbret passed
is big, you might say, and they his thin fingers through his gray-
might simply be lost, but what if ing hair, and his eyes seemed to be
they were captured by the rebels? probing uselessly into tlie backward
^There was the case of the Tireless stretches of his memory. "They
two years back. It reported a anesthetized me, I suppose. That
strange object close enough to part all blanks out. Past a certain
stimulate the massometer, and then point there is nothing. I can only
was never heard of again. It could remember that I opened my eyes
have been a meteor, but was it?" and was back in the Bloodsucker. I
"The search lasted months. They was in space, just off Rhodia."
never found it. / think the rebels "The two dead crewmen were
have it. The Tireless was a new still attached by the tow magnets?
ship, an experimental model. It They hadn't been removed on the

would be just what they would 'rebellion world?' " asked Biron.
want." "They were still there."
"Was there any evidence at all
BIRON said, "Once having to indicate that you had been on
"
landed there, why didn't you the 'rebellion world?'
stay?" "None, except for what I remem-
"Don't you suppose I wanted to? bered."
I had no chance. I listened to them "How did you know you were
when they thought I was uncon- oft Rhodia?"
scious, and I learned a bit more "I didn't. I knew I was near a
then. They were just starting at that planet; the massometer said so. I
time. They couldn't afford to be used the radio again, and this time

it was Rhodian ships that came for had heard the name some time
me. I told my story to the Tyran- back, it seemed to him, but he had
nian Commissioner of that day, forgotten the connection. "Why
with appropriate modifications. I he?"
made no mention of the 'rebellion "Lingane was the last Kingdom
world,' of course. And I said the captured by the Tyranni. It is not,
meteor had hit just after the last shall we say, as pacified as the rest.
Jump. I didn't want them to think Doesn't that make sense?"

Iknew that a Tyrannian ship could "As far as it goes. But how far
make the Jumps automatically." is that?"
"Do you think the 'rebellion "If you want another reason,
world' found out that little fact? there is your father."
Did you tell them?" "My father?" For a moment,
"I didn't tell them. I had no Biron forgot that his father was
chance. I wasn't there long enough. dead. He saw him standing before
Conscious, that is. But I don't know his mind's eyes, large and alive,
how long I was unconscious and but then he remembered and there
what they managed to find out for was that same cold wrench inside
themselves." Tiim. "How does my father come
Biron stared at the visiplate. into this?"
Judging from the rigidity of the "He was at court six months ago.
picture it presented, the ship they I gained certain notions as to what
were on might have been nailed in he wanted. Some of his talks with
space.The Remorseless was travel- my cousin, Hinrik, I overheard."
ing at the rate of ten thousand miles "Oh, uncle," said Artemisia, im-
an hour, but that was nothing to patiently.
the immense distances of space. The "My dear?"
stars were hard, bright and mo- "You had no right to eavesdrop
tionless. They had a hypnotic qual- on father's private discussions."
ity about them.
He said, "Then where are we GILLBRET shrugged. "Of
going? I take it you still don't know course not, but it was amusing,
where the "rebellion world' is?" and useful as well."
"I don't. B.ut I have an idea who Biron interrupted, "Now wait.
would be in charge. I am almost You say it was six months ago that
sure I know who would be in my father was at Rhodia?" He felt
charge." Gillbret was eager about excitement mount.
it. "Yes."
"Who?" "Tell me. While there, did he
"The Autarch of Lingane." have access to the Director's collec-
"Lingane?" Biron frowned. He tion of Primitivism? You told me
TYRANN 133
once that the Director had a large But Gillbret could only shake his
library of matters concerning head.
Earth." Biron said, "Well, continue with
imagine so. The library is
"I your story."
quite famous and it is usually made "They spoke of the Autarch of
available to distinguished visitors, Lingane, your father and my
if they're interested. They usually cousin," Gillbret said. "Despite
aren't, but your father was. Yes, I your father's cautious phraseology,
remember that very well. He spent Biron, it was obvious that the Au-
nearly a day there." tarch was the organizer of the con-
That checked. It had been half spiracy.
a year ago that his father had first "And then," he hesitated, "there
asked his help. Biron said, "You was a mission from Lingane and the
yourself know the library well, I Autarch himself was at its head.
imagine." I —
I told
"
him of the 'rebellion
"Of course." world.'
"Is there anything in the library "You said a while ago you told
that would suggest that there ex-^ nobody," Biron objected.
ists a document on Earth of great "Except the Autarch. I bad to
military value?" know the truth."
Gillbret was blank of face; ob- "What did he tell you?"
viously, blank of mind. "Practically nothing. But. then,
Biron said, "Somewhere in the he had to be cautious, too. Could
last centuries of prehistoric Earth he trust me? I might have been
there must have been such a docu- working for the Tyranni. How
ment. I can only tell you that my could he know ? But he didn't close
father thought it to be the most the door altogether. It's our only
valuable single item in the Galaxy, lead."
and the deadliest. I was to have "Is it?" Biron said. "Then we'll
gotten it for him, but I left Earth go to Lingane. One place, I sup-
before I and in any case," his
could, pose, is like another."
voice faltered, "he died too soon." Mention of his father had de-
But Gillbret was still blank. "I pressed him, and, for the moment,
don't know what you're talking nothing mattered much. Let it be
about." Lingane.
"My father mentioned it to me
first six months ago. have He must LET it be Lingane! That was
learned of it in the library on easy to say. But how does one
Rhodia. If you've been through it go about pointing the ship at a tiny
yourself, can't you tell me what it speck of light thirty-five light years
was he must have learned?" away? Two hundred trillion miles.

A two with seventeen zeroes after tion of the ship's own position. One
it. At ten thousand miles an hour, could calculate the distance from
(current cruising speed of the Re- Rhodia by the reading of the mass-
morseless) it would take well over ometer, or, more correctly, the
two million years to get there. distance from Rhodia's sun, since
Biron leafed through the "Stand- this far out in space the sun's gravi-
ard Galactic Ephemeris" with tational field drowned out that of
something like despair. Tens of any of its planets. The direction
thousands of stars were listed in they were traveling along with ref-
detail,with their positions crammed erence to the Galactic Baseline was
into three figures. There were hun- more difficult to determine. Biron
dreds, of pages of these figures, had to locate two known stars other
symbolized by the Greek letters than Rhodia's sun. From their ap-
rho, theta, and phi. parent positions and the known dis-
Rho was the distance from the tance from Rhodia's sun, he could
Galactic Center in parsecs; theta, plot their actual position.
the angular separation, along the It was roughly done, but, he felt
plane of the Galactic Lens from the sure, accurately enough. Knowing
Standard Galactic Baseline (the his own position and that of Lin-
line, that is, which connects the gane's sun, It was only a matter of
Galactic Center and the sun of the adjusting the controls for the
planet Earth); phi, the angular proper direction and strength of the
separation from the Baseline in the hyperatomic thrust.
plane perpendicular to that of the Biron felt lonely and tense. Not
Galactic Lens, the two latter meas- frightened. He rejected the word.
urements being expressed in rad- But tense, definitely. He was de-
ians. Given those three figures, one liberately calculating the elements
could locate any star accurately in of the Jump for six hours later. He
all the vast immensity of space. wanted plenty of time to check his
figures. And perhaps there might
THAT is, on a given date. In ad- be the chance for a nap. He had
on
dition to the star's position dragged the bedding out of the
the day which all the data
for cabin and it was ready for him.
were calculated, one had to know The other two were, presumably,
the star's proper motion, both sleeping in the cabin. He told him-
speed and direction. It was a small self that that was a good thing and
correction, comparatively, but nec- that he wanted nobody around both-

essary. A million miles is virtually ering him, yet when he heard the
nothing compared with stellar dis- small sound of bare feet outside, he
tances, but a long way with a ship. looked up with involuntary eager-
There was, of course, the ques- ness.
TYRANN 135
"Hello," he said. "Why aren't He wanted to say no, not at all,
you sleeping?" but it didn't come out that way. He

Artemisia stood in the doorway, smiled sheepishly and said, "Sort
hesitating. She said, in a small of."
voice, "Do you mind if I come in? Oddly enough, that comforted
Will I be bothering you?" her. She knelt down on the floor
"Itdepends on what you do." beside him, and looked at the thick
do the right things."
"I'll try to volumes opened before him and at
She seemed too humble, Biron the sheets of calculations.
thought suspiciously, and then the "They had all these books here?"
reason for it came out. "You bet. They couldn't pilot a
"I'm awfully frightened," she ship without them."
said. "Aren't you?" "And you understand all that?"

"Not all that. I wish I did. I "But what would happen if you
hope I understand enough. We'll were wrong?"
have to Jump to Lingane, you "We could re-enter space too
know." close to Lingane's sun."
"Is that hard to do?" She considered that, then said,
"No, not if you know the fig- "You have no idea how much better
ures, which are all here, and have I feel."
the controls which are all there, and "After what I've just said?"
if you have experience, which I "Of course. In my bunk, I simply
haven't. For instance, it should be felt helpless and lost, with so much
done in several Jumps, but I'm go- emptiness in all directions. Now I
ing to try it in one because there'll know going somewhere

that we're
be less chance of trouble, even and that the emptiness is under our
though it means a waste of energy." control."
He shouldn't tell was her; there "I don't know about its being
no point in telling her; it would be. under our control," Biron said
cowardly to frighten her; and she'd doubtfully.
be hard to handle if she got really She stopped him. "It is. I know
frightened, panicky frightened. He you can handle the ship."
kept telling himself all that and it And Biron decided that maybe
did no good. He wanted to share it he "might at that.
with somebody. He wanted part of
it off his own mind. ARTEMISIA had tucked her
He "There are some things
said, under her and sat facing
legs
I should know that I don't. Things him. She said, "You know, I had
like the mass-density between here an awfully queer sensation in the
and Lingane affect the course of bunk, almost as if I were floating. »
the Jump, because that mass density That was one of the things that
is what controls the curvature of frightened me. Every time I'd turn,
this part of the universe. The I'd give a queer little jump into the
'Ephemeris' — that's this big book air and then flop back slowly as if
here —mentions the curvature cor- there were springs in the air hold-
rections thatmust be made in cer- ing me back."
tain standardJumps and from that "You were sleeping in a top
you're supposed to be able to cal- bunk?"
culate out your own particular cor- "Yes. The bottom ones give me
rections. But then if you happen to claustrophobia, with another mat-
have a super-giant star within ten tress only six inches over my
light years, all bets are off. I'm not head."
even sure if I used the computer Biron laughed. "Then that ex-
correctly." plains it. The ship's gravitational
TYRANN 137
force is toward its base,
directed The silence had lasted a little too
and you move away from
falls off as long. He said, hurriedly, "You
it. In the top bunk, you were prob- don't travel very much, do you? I
ably twenty or thirty pounds lighter mean, you were on a liner only
than on the floor. Were you ever once?"
on a passenger liner? A really big
one?" SHE nodded. "Once too often.
"Once. When father and I visit- If we hadn't gone to Tyrann,
ed Tyrann last year." that filthy chamberlain wouldn't
"Well, on the liners they have have seen me and — I don't want to
the gravitation in all parts of the talk about that."
ship directed toward the outer hull, Biron let it go. He said, "Is that
so that the long axis of the ship is usual? I mean, not traveling?"
always 'up,' no matter where you "I'm afraid so. Father is always
are. That's why the motors of one hopping around on state visits,
of those big ships are always lined opening agricultural expositions,
up in a cylinder running right along dedicating buildings. He usually
the long axis. No gravity there." just makes some speech that Ara-
"It must take an awful lot of tap writes for him. As for the rest
power to keep an artificial gravity of us, however, the more we stay
going." in the palace, the better the Tyranni
"Enough to power a small like Poor Gillbret! The one and
it.
town." only time he left Rhodia was to
"There isn't any danger of our attend the Khan's coronation as

running short of fuel, is there?" father's representative. They've
"Don't worry about that. Ships never let him get into a ship again."
are fueled by the total conversion Her eyes were downcast and,
of mass to energy. Fuel is the last absently, she pleated the material
thing we'll run out of. The outer of Biron's sleeve where it ended at
hull will wear away first." the wrist. She said, "Biron."
She was facing him. (He noted "Yes —Arta?" He stumbled a
that her face had been cleaned of bit, but it came out.
its makeup and wondered how that "Do you think Uncle Gil's story
had been done; probably with a can be true?"
handkerchief and as little of the "I don't know."
drinking water as she could man- "Do you suppose it could be his
age. She didn't suffer as a result, imagination? He's been brooding
for her clear white skin was the about the Tyranni for years, and
more startlingly perfect against the he's never been able to do any-
black of her hair and eyes. Her eyes thing, of course, except to rig up
were very warm, thought Biron. spy beams, which is only childish,

and he knows it. He may have built pass out the door. "The food con-
himself a daydream and, over the centrate tastes very nice after you
years, gradually come to believe in get used to it. Thank you for get-
it. I know him, you see." ting it."
"It's possible, but let's follow it Somehow that, rather than the
up a little. We can travel to Lin- kisses, was the treaty of peace be-
gane, anyway." tween them.
They were closer to one another.
He could have
touched her, held her in his arms,
reached out and WHEN Gillbret
control room, hours later, he
entered the
kissed her. showed no surprise at finding Biron

And
he did so. and Artemisia lost in a foolish kind
It was a complete non sequitur. of conversation. He made no re-
Nothing, it seemed to Biron, had marks about the fact that Biron's
led to it. One moment they were arm was about his niece's waist.
discussing Jumps and gravity and He asked, "When are we Jump-
Gillbret, and the next she was soft ing, Biron?"
and silky in his arms and soft and "In half an hour," said Biron.
silky on his lips. The half -hour passed; the con-
His first impulse was to say he trols were set; conversation lan-
was sorry, to go through all the guished and died.
silly motions of apology, but when At zero time, Biron drew a deep
he drew away, and would have breath and yanked a lever the full
spoken, she still made no attempt length of from left to right.
its arc,
at escape but rested her head in the It was not had been aboard
as it
crook of his left arm. Her eyes re- the liner. The Remorseless was
mained closed. smaller and the Jump was conse-
So he said nothing at all and quently less smooth. Biron stag-
kissed her again, slowly and thor- gered and for a split-second things
oughly. wavered.
was the best thing he could
It And then they were smooth and
have done, and at the time he knew solid again.
it. '
. The stars in the visiplate had

Finally, she said, a bit dreamily, changed. Biron rotated the ship so
"Aren't you hungry? I'll bring you that the star-field lifted, each star
some of the concentrate and warm moving in a stately arc. One star
it for you. Then, if you want to appeared finally, brilliantly white
sleep, I can keep an eye on things and more than a point. It was a
for you. And —
and I'd better put tiny sphere, a burning speck of
on more of my clothes." sand. Biron caught it, steadied the
She turned as she was about to ship before it was lost again, and
TYRANN 139
turned the telescope upon it, recess that narrowed gently toward
throwing in the spectroscopic at- it. Itwas extremely clear, immense-
tachment. ly thick and precisely curved, not
,
He turned again to the "Ephe- so much a window as a lens, funnel-

meris," and checked under the col- ing the light inward from all di-
umn headed "Spectral Characteris- rections, so that, looking outward,

tics." Then he got out of the pilot's one eyed a miniature panorama.
chair and said, "It's still too far. When the position of the sun
I'll have to nudge up to it. But made the lenslike windows a focus
anyway, that's Lingane right for impossible heat and light, they
ahead." were blanked out automatically,
was the first Jump he had ever
It rather than opened; rendered
made, and it was successful. opaque by a shift in the polariza-
tion characteristics of the glass.
CHAPTER XII And certainly the theory that a
planet's architecture is the reflec-
The Autarch Comes tion of a planet's place in the Gal-

axy would seem to be borne out
THE
dered
Autarch of Lingane pon-
the matter, but his cool,
by Lingane and its windows.
Like the windows, Lingane was
well-trained features scarcely creased commanded a panoramic
small, yet
under the strain of thought. view. was a "planet-state" in a
It
"And you waited forty-eight Galaxy, which, at the time, had

hours to me," he accused.
tell passed beyond that stage of eco-
Rizzett said boldly, "There was nomic and political development.
no reason to tell you earlier. If we Where most political units were
bombarded you with all matters, conglomerations of stellar systems,
life would be a burden to you. We Lingane remained what it had been
tell you now, because we still make for centuries; a single inhabited
nothing of it. It is queer, and in world. This did not prevent it from
our position, we can afford nothing being wealthy. In fact, it was al-
queer." most inconceivable that . Lingane
"Repeat this business. Let me could be anything else.
hear it again." It is difficult to tell in advance
The Autarch threw a leg upon when a world is so located that
the flaring window-sill and looked many Jump-routes may use it as a
outward thoughtfully. The window pivotal intermediate point; or even
itself represented perhaps the must use it in the interests of op-
greatest single oddity of Linganian timal economy. A great deal de-
architecture. It was moderate in size pends on the pattern of develop-
and set at the end of a five-foot ment of that region of space. There

is the question of the distribution ordinates don't matter. They've
of the naturally habitable planets; been watched ever since. The point
the order in which they are colon- is that even then, the Tyranni
ized and developed; the types of cruiser was in an orbit about the
economy they possess. planet."
Lingane discovered its own "As though it had no intention
values early, which was the great of landing, but rather was waiting
turning-point of its history. Next for something."
to the actual possession of a strate- "Yes."
gic position, the capacity to appre- "No way of telling how long
ciate and exploit that position is they'd been waiting?"
most important. Lingane had pro- - "Impossible, I'm afraid. They
ceeded to occupy small planetoids were sighted by no one else. We
with neither resources nor capacity checked thoroughly."
for supporting an independent "Very well," said the Autarch.
population, choosing them only be- "We'll abandon that for the mo-
cause they would help maintain ment. They stopped the mail ship;
Lingane's trade monopoly. They which is, of course, interference
built servicing stations on those with the mails and a violation of
rocks. All that ships could need, our Articles of Association with
from hyperatomic replacements to Tyrann."
new book-reels, could be found "I doubt that they were Tyranni.
there. The stations grew to huge Their unsure actions are more those
trading posts. From all the Nebu- of outlaws; of prisoners in flight."
lar Kingdoms, fur, minerals, grain, "You mean the men on the Ty-
beef, timber poured in; from the ranni cruiser? It may be what they
Inner Kingdoms, machinery, ap- want us to believe, of course. At
pliances, medicinals, finished prod- any rate, their only overt action
ucts of all sorts. was to ask that a message be de-
So that, windows, Lin-
like its livered directly to me."
gane's minuteness looked out on all "Directly to the Autarch."
the Galaxy. It was a planet alone; "Nothing else?"
but it did well. "Nothing else."
"They at no time entered the
THE the
Autarch said turning from
window, "Start with the
mail ship?"
"All communication was by visi-
mail ship, Rizzett. Where did plate. The mail capsule was shot
they meet this cruiser in the first across two miles of empty space
place?" and caught by ship's net."
"Les« than one hundred thousand "Was it vision communication
miles off Lingane. The exact co- or sound only?"
TYRANN 141
"Full vision. That's the point. power, had been fought to a stand-
The speaker was described by sev- still. They had not been defeated,
eral as being a young man of 'aris- but they hadbeen stopped. The
tocratic bearing,' whatever that shock, even of that, had been per-
means." manent. Not a planet had been con-
quered by the Tyranni since the
THE Autarch's fist clenched year they had attacked Lingane.
slowly. "And no photo-impres- Other planets of the Nebular
sion was taken of the face? That Kingdoms were outright vassals of
was a mistake." the Tyranni. Lingane, however,
"Unfortunately there was no was an Associated State, theoretic-
reason -for the mail captain to have ally the equal "Ally" of Tyrann,
anticipated the importance of doing with its rights guarded by the Arti-
so. any importance exists. Does
If cles of Association.
all thismean anything to you, sir?" The Autarch was not fooled by
The Autarch did not answer the the situation. The chauvinistic of
question. "And this is the mes- the planet might allow themselves
sage?" the luxury of considering them-
"Exactly. A .tremendous message selves free, but the Autarch knew
of one word that we were supposed that the Tyranni danger had been
to bring directly to you; a thing held at arm's-length this past gen-
we did not do, of course. It might eration. Only that far. No farther.
have been a fission capsule, for in- And now it might be moving in
stance. Men have been killed that quickly for the final, long-delayed
way before." bear hug. Certainly, he had given
"Yes, and Autarchs too," said it the opportunity it was waiting
the Autarch. "Just the word 'Gill- for. The organization he had built
"
bret.' One
word, 'Gillbret.' up, ineffectual though it was, was
The Autarch maintained his in- sufficientgrounds for punitive ac-

different calm, but a lack of cer- tion of any type the Tyranni might
tainty was gathering and he did not care to undertake. Legally, Lingane
like to experience a lack of cer- would be in the wrong.
tainty. He liked nothing which Was the cruiser the first reaching
made him aware of limitations. An out for the final bear hug?
Autarch should have no limitations, The Autarch said, "Has a guard
and on Lingane he had none that been placed on that ship?"
natural law did not impose. "I said they were watched. Two
Under the Autarchy, Lingane in- of our
—
" he smiled one-sidedly
creased its wealth and strength. "freighters keep in massometer
Even the Tyranni, attacking thirty range."
years earlier at the height of their "What do you make of it?"

"I don't know. The only Gill r And he was the Autarch, after
bret I know whose name by itself all. Rizzett's face fell and he said,
would mean anything is Gillbret "As you please, sir."
oth Hinriad of Rhodia. Have you
had dealings with him?" ABOARD the Remorseless, the
The Autarch said, "I saw him on wait was proving increasingly
my last visit to Rhodia." unpleasant. For two days, they
"You told him nothing, of hadn't budged from their orbit.
course." Gillbret watched the controls with
"Of course." relentless concentration. His voice
Rizzett's eyes narrowed. "I had an edge to it.'
thought there might have been a "Wouldn't you say they were
on your part;
certain lack of caution moving?"
that the Tyranni had been the recip- Biron looked up briefly. He was
ients of an equal lack of caution on shaving, and handling the Tyranni
the part of this Gillbret— the Hin- erosive-spray with finicky care.
riads are notable weaklings these "No," he said, "they're not mov-
days —and that this now was a de- ing. Why should they? They're
vice to trap you into final self- watching us, and they'll keep on
betrayal." watching us."
"I doubt it. It comes at a queer He concentrated upon the diffi-
time, this business. I have been cult area of the upper lip, frown-
away from Lingane for a year or ing impatiently as he felt the
more. I arrived last week and I slightly sour taste of the spray
shall leave in a matter of days upon his tongue. A
Tyrannian
again. A message such as this could handle the spray with a grace
reaches me just when I am in a po- that was almost poetic. It was un-
sition to be reached." doubtedly the quickest and closest
"You don't think it is a coinci- non-permanent shaving method in
dence?" existence, in the hands of an expert.
"I don't believe in coincidence. In essence, it was an extremely fine
And there is one way in which all air-blown abrasive that scoured off
this would not be coincidence. I the hairs without harming the skin.
will therefore visit that ship. Certainly the skin felt nothing more
Alone." than the gentle pressure of what
"Impossible, sir." was
Rizzett might have been an air-stream.
startled. He had a uneven
small, Biron was surveying his face in
scar just above his right temple and the mirror, wondering how he
it showed suddenly red. would look in sideburns down to
"You forbid me?" asked the Au- the angle of the jaw, when Arte-
tarch, drily. misia said from the doorway, "I
TYRANN 143
thought you were .going to sleep." As near as I can tell, it's 5,000 miles
"I did," he said. "Then I woke off, 46 degrees rho and
about
up." 192 degrees from the ship-planet
He looked at her and smiled. line, "if I've got the clockwise
She patted his cheek, then and counterclockwise conventions
stroked it gently with her fingers, straight. If I haven't, the figures
"It's smooth. You look about eigh- are, respectively, 314 and 168 de-
teen." grees."
He carried her hand to his lips. He paused to take another read-
"Don't let that fool you." ing. "I think they're approaching.
It's a small ship. Do you think you
HE said, "They're still watch- can get in touch with them, Gill-
s ing?" bret?"
"Still watching. Isn't it annoy- "I can try."
ing? These damned dull interludes "All right. No vision. Let's
that give you time to sit and leave it at sound, till we get some
worry." notion of what's coming."
"I don't find this interlude at all It was amazing to watch Gillbret
dull." at the controls of the etheric radio.
"You're talking about other as- He was obviously the possessor of
pects of it now, Arta." a native talent. Contacting an iso-
She said, "Why don't we cross lated point in space with a tight
them up and land on Lingane?" radio-beam remains, after all, a task
"We've thought of it. I don't in which the ship's control panel
think we're ready for that kind of information can participate only
risk. We can afford to wait till the slightly. He had a notion of the
water-supply gets a bit lower." distance of the ship which might be
Gillbret said loudly, "I tell you off by a hundred miles plus-or-
they are moving." minus. He had two angles, either
Biron crossed over to the control or both of which might easily be
panel and considered the massome- wrong by five or six degrees in any
ter readings. direction.
He looked at Gillbret and said, This volume of about ten
left a
"You may be right." million miles within which
cubic
He pecked away at the calculator the ship might be. The rest was
for a moment or two and stared at left to the human operator, and a
its dials. radio beam which was a probing
"No, the two ships haven't finger not half a mile in cross-sec-
moved relative to us, Gillbret. tion at the widest point of its re-
What's changed the massometer is ceivable range. was said that a
It
that a third ship has Joined them. skilled operator could tell by the

feel of the controls how closely the telescope, Gillbret had shouted in
beam missed the target. Scientific- delight, "That's the Autarch's
ally, that theory is nonsense, of yacht," and his face wrinkled into
course, but it often seemed that no a grin. "It's his private yacht. I'm
other explanation was possible. sure of it. I told you that the bare
In less than ten minutes, the ac- mention of my name was the surest
tivity gauge of the radio was jump- way to get his attention."
ing and the Remorseless was both There was the period of decelera-
sending and receiving. tion and adjustment of velocity on
In another ten minutes, Biron the part of the Linganian ship, un-
could lean back and say, "They're til it hung motionless in the 'plate.
going to send a man aboard." A thin voice came from the re-
"Ought we to let them?" asked ceiver: "Ready for boarding?"
Artemisia. "Ready!" said Biron. "One per-
"Why not? One man? We're son only."
armed." "One person," came the re-
"But if we let their ship get too sponse.
close?" It was like a snake uncoiling, the
"We're a Tyrannian cruiser, Arta. metal-mesh rope looping outward

We've got three to five times their from the Linganian ship, shooting
power, even if they are the best war- at them harpoon-fashion. Its thick-
ship Lingane had. They're not al- ness expanded in the visiplate and
lowed too much by their precious the magnetized cylinder that ended
Articles of Association, and we've it approached and grew in size. As
got five high-caliber blasters." it grew closer, it edged toward rim
Artemisia said, "Do you know of the cone of vision, then veered
how Tyranni blasters? I
to use the off completely.
didn't know you did." The sound of its contact was
Biron hated to turn the admira- hollow and reverberant. The mag-
tion off, but he said, "Unfortunate- netized weight was anchored, and
ly, I don't. At least, not yet. But the line was a spider-thread that did
then the Linganian ship won't not sag in a normal weighted curve
know that, you see." but retained whatever kinks and
loops it had possessed at the mo-
HALF an hour later, the visi- ment of contact. These moved
plate showed a visible ship. slowly forward as units under the
It was a stubby little craft, fitted influence of inertia.
with two sets of four fins as though Easily and carefully, the Lingan-
it were frequently called upon to ian ship edged away and the line
double for stratospheric flight. straightened. It hung there then,
At its first appearance in the taut and fine, thinning into space
TYRANN 145
until it was an almost invisible the initial impulse of the snapping
thing, glittering with incredible line —with nothing, neither friction
daintiness in the light of Lingane's nor obstruction, to stop him this
sun. side of eternity.
Biron threw in the telescopic at- The approaching Linganian
tachment, which bloated the ship moved on confidently and quickly.
monstrously in the field of vision, When he came closer it was easy
so that one could see the origin of it was not a simple hand
to see that
the half-mile length of connecting over hand procedure. Each time the
line,and the little figure that was forward hand flexed, pulling him
beginning to swing hand over hand on, he would let go and float on-
along it. ward some dozen feet before his
was not the usual form of
It other hand reached forward for a
boarding. Ordinarily, two ships new hold.
would maneuver to near-contact, so It was a brachiation through
that extensible airlocks could meet space. The spaceman was a gleam-
and merge under intense magnetic ing metal gibbon.
fields. A tunnel through space
would thus connect the ships and ARTEMISIA asked, "'What if
a man could travel from one to the he misses?"

other with no further protection "He looks too expert to do that,"
than he needed to wear aboard ship. said Biron, "but if he does, he'd
Naturally, this form of boarding still shine in the sun. We'd pick
required mutual trust. him up again."
By space-line, one was dependent The Linganian was close now.
upon his spacesuit. The approaching He had passed out of the field of
Linganian was bloated in his; a fat the visiplate. In another five sec-
thing of air-extended metal mesh, onds, there was the clatter of gaunt-
the joints of which required no leted feet on the ship's hull.
. small muscular effort to work. Even Biron yanked the lever that lit
at the distance at which he was, the signals which outlined the ship's
Biron could see his arms flex with airlock. A moment later, in answer
a snap as the joint gave and came to an imperative series of raps, the
to rest in a new groove. outer door was opened. There was
And the mutual velocities of the a thump just beyond a blank sec-
two ships had to be carefully ad- tion of the pilot room's wall. The
justed. An inadvertent acceleration outer door closed; the section of
on the part of either would tear the wall slid away; and a man stepped
line loose and send the traveler through.
tumbling through space under the His suit frosted over instantly,
easy grip of the faraway sun and of blanking the thick glass of his hel-

met and turning him into a mound did not expect to see you quite so
of white. The air grew cold. Biron soon, Farrill," he said.
elevated the heaters and the renew- "Or at all, perhaps?" asked
ing gush that entered was warm Biron, acidly.
and dry. For a moment, the frost "One never knows," agreed the
on the suit held its own, then be- Autarch."Of course, with a mes-
gan to thin and dissolve into a dew. sage that read only 'Gillbret;' with
The Linganian's blunt metal fin- the knowledge that Gillbret could
gers were fumbling at the clasps of not pilot a spaceship; with the fur-
the helmet as though he were im- ther knowledge that I had myself
patient with his snowy blindness: sent a young man to Rhodia who
It lifted off as a unit, the thick, soft could pilot a spaceship and who
insulation inside rumpling his hair was quite capable of stealing a Ty-
as it passed. rannian cruiser in his desperation
Gillbret exclaimed, "Your Excel- to escape; and with the final knowl-
lency!" In glad triumph, he said, edge that one of the men on the
"Biron, it is the Autarch himself." cruiser was' reported to be young
But Biron, in a voice that strug- and of aristocratic bearing; the con-
gled vainly against stupefaction, clusion was obvious. I am not sur-
could only gasp, "Jonti!" prised to see you."
"I think you are," said Biron. "I
CHAPTER XIII think you're as surprised as hell to
see me. As an assassin, you should
The Autarch Remains be. Do
you think I am worse at de-
duction than you are?"
THE Autarch gently appropriated

toed the suit "I think very highly of you."
The Autarch was completely un-
to one side and
the larger of the padded chairs. perturbed, and Biron felt awkward
He said, "I haven't had that sort and stupid in his resentment. He
of exercise in quite a while. But turned furiously to the others.
they say it never leaves you once "This man is Sander Jonti; the
you've learned, and, apparently, it Sander Jonti I've told you of. He
hasn't in my case. Hello, Farrill. may be the Autarch of Lingane be-
My lord Gillbret, good day. And sides, or fifty Autarchs. It makes
this, if I remember, is the Direc- no difference. To me he is Sander
tor's daughter, the lady Artemisia." Jonti."
He Artemisia said, "He man
fully
placed a long cigaret care-
between his lips and brought who
— is the
it to life with a single intake of Gillbret put a thin and shaking

breath. The scented tobacco filled hand to his brow. "Control your-
the air with its pleasant odor. "I self, Biron. Are you mad?"
TYRANN 147
"This is the man! I am not not miss it? Who
blasted my door
mad!" shouted Biron. He checked in so that I might leave the room
himself with an effort. "All right. before I found out that the bomb
There's no point yelling, I suppose. was only a dud after all ? You must
Get off my ship, Jonti. That's said have enjoyed yourself that night,
quietly enough. Get off my ship." Jonti."
"My dear Farrill, for what Biron waited for effect, but the
reason?" Autarch merely nodded in polite
Gillbret made incoherent sounds interest. Biron felt the fury mount.
in his throat, but Biron pushed him It was like punching pillows, whip-
aside roughly and faced the seated ping water, kicking air.
Autarch. "You made one mistake,
Jonti. Just
in advance that
one.
when I got
You couldn't tell
out of
HE SAID harshly,
was to be executed. I would
"My father
my dormitory room back on Earth, have learned of it soon enough. I

I would leave my wristwatch inside. would have gone to Nephelos, or
You see, my wristwatch strap hap- not gone. I would have followed
pened to be a radiation indicator." my own good sense in the matter,
The Autarch blew a smoke ring confronted the Tyranni openly or
and smiled pleasantly. not as I decided. I would have
Biron said, "And that strap known my chances. I would have
never turned blue, Jonti. There was been prepared for eventualities.
no radiation bomb in my room that "But you wanted me to go to •
night. There was only a deliberate- Rhodia; to see Hinrik. But, ordi-
ly planted dud If you deny it, you
! narily, you couldn't expect me to
are a liar, Jonti, or Autarch, or do what you wanted. I wasn't like-
whatever you call yourself. ly to go to you for advice. Unless,
"What is more, you planted that that is, you. could stage an approp-
dud. You knocked me out with riate situation. You did!
Hypnite and arranged the rest of "I thought was being bombed
I
that night's comedy. It makes quite and I could think of no reason.

obvious sense, you know. If I had You could. You seemed to have
been left to myself, I would have saved my life. You seemed to know
slept through the night, and would everything; what I ought to do
never have known that anything next, for instance. I was off-bal-
was out of the way. So who rang ance, confused. I followed your ad-
me on the visiphone until he was vice."
sure I had awakened —
awakened, Biron ran out of breath and
that is, to discover the bomb, which waited for an answer. There was
had been deliberately placed near none. He shouted, "You didn't ex-
a radiation counter so that I could plain that the ship on which I left

Earth was a Rhodian ship and that need you if the Tyranni home fleet
you had seen to it that the captain were closing in right now and you
had been informed of my true iden- could blast them out of space for
tity. You didn't you explain that me."
intended me to be in the hands of "Farrill," said Jonti, "you are
the Tyranni the instant I landed on talking and acting like an adoles-
Rhodia. Do you deny that?" cent. I've let you have your say.
There was a long pause. Jonti May I have mine?"
stubbed out his cigaret. "No, I see no reason to listen."
Gillbret chafed one hand in the "Do you see one now?"
other. "Biron, you are being Artemisia screamed. Biron made
lous. The Autarch wouldn't
— ridicu-
one movement, then stopped. Red
Then Jonti looked up and said with frustration, he remained poised
quietly, "But the Autarch would. and helpless.
I admit it all. You are quite right, Jonti said, "I do take certain
Biron, and I congratulate you on precautions. I am sorry to be so
your penetration. The bomb was crude as to use a weapon as a
a dud planted by myself and I sent threat. But I imagine it will help
you to Rhodia with the intention of me force you to hear me."
having you arrested by the Ty- The weapon he held was a pock-
ranni." et-blaster. was not designed to
It
Biron's face cleared. Some of the pain or stun. It was the lethal
futility of anger vanished. He said, model.
"Some day, Jonti, I will settle that
matter. At the moment, it seems you JONTI said, "For years, I have
are Autarch of Lingane with three been organizing Lingane
ships waiting for you out there. against the Tyranni. Do you know
That hampers me a bit more than I what that means? It has not been
would like. However, the Remorse- easy. It has been almost impossible.
less is my ship. I am its pilot. Put The Inner Kingdoms will offer no
on your suit and get out. The space- help; we'veknown that from long
line, is still in place." experience. There is no salvation
"It is not your ship. You are a for the Nebular Kingdoms, except
pirate, not a pilot." from themselves. But to convince
"Possession is all the law here. our native leaders of this is no
You have five minutes to get into friendly game. Your father was ac-
your suit." tive in the matter and was killed.
"Let's avoid dramatics. We need Not a friendly game at all. Re-

one another and I have no intention member that.
of leaving." "And your father's capture was a
"I don't need you. I wouldn't crisis to us. It was life and horrible
TYRANN 149
death to us. He was in our inner
circles and the Tyranni were ob-
viously not far behind us. They
had to be thrown off-stride. To do
so, I could scarcely temper my deal-
ings with honor and integrity. They
fry no eggs.
"I couldn't come to you and say,
we've got to put the Ty-
'Farrill,
ranni on a false scent. You're the

son of the Rancher and therefore
suspicious. Get out there and be
friendly with Hinrik of Rhodia so
that the Tyranni may look in the
wrong Lead them away
direction.
from Lingane. It may be danger-
ous; you may lose your life, but
the ideals for which your father
died come first.'
"Maybe you would have done
it, but I couldn't afford to experi-
ment. maneuvered you into doing
I
it without your knowledge. It was
hard; I'll grant you. Still, I had no

choice. I thought you might not
survive; I tell you that frankly. But
you were expendable; and I tell
you that frankly. As it turned out, "But with your father
then,
you did survive, and I am pleased you 'became dangerous.
arrested,
with that. You would be an object of prime
"And there was one more thing,
a matter of a document
— suspicion to the Tyranni;
could not allow the document to
and we
Biron said, "What document?" fall into your possession, since it

"You jump quickly. I said your would then almost inevitably fall
father was working for me, so I into theirs. We had to get you off
know what he knew. You were to Earth before you could complete
obtain that document and you were your mission. You see, it all hangs
a good choice, at first. You were together."
on Earth legitimately. You were "Then you have it now?" asked
young and not likely to be suspect- Biron.
ed. I say, at first! The Autarch said, "No, I have

not. A document which might have But the smile had little of real
been the right one has been miss- amusement in it.
ing from Earth for years. If it is "Are you through with your ex-
the right one, I don't know who planation now?"
has it. May I put away the blaster "Quite through."
now? It grows heavy." "Then," said Biron, "get off the
ship."
BIRON said, "Put it away." Gillbret said, "Now wait, Biron.
The Autarch did so. He There's more than private anger to
said, "What has your father told be considered here. There's Arte-
you about the document?" misia and myself, too, you know.
"Nothing that you don't know, We have something to say. 'As far
since he worked for you." as I'm concerned, what the Autarch
The Autarch smiled. "Quite so!" says makes sense. I'll remind you
TYRANN 151
that on Rhodia I saved your life, feel the stinging of self-pity inside
so I thinkmy views are to be con- himself.
sidered." The Autarch said, "Well, Far-
"All right. You.saved my life," rill?"
shouted Biron. He pointed a finger And Gillbret said, "Well,

towards the airlock. "Go with him, Biron ?"
then. Go on. You get out of here, Biron turned to Artemisia.
too. You wanted to find the Au- "What do you think?"
tarch. There he is I agreed to pilot
!
you to him and my responsibility ARTEMISIA said, calmly, "I

is over. Don't try to tell me what think he has three ships out
to do." there, and is Autarch of Lingane,
He turned to Artemisia, some of besides. I think you really
don't
his anger still brimming over. "And have a choice."
what about you ? You saved my life, The Autarch looked at her, and
too. Everyone went around saving he nodded his admiration. "You
my life. Do you want to go with are an intelligent girl, my Lady. It
him, too?" is good that such a mind should
She said, quietly, "Don't put be in such a pleasant exterior." For

words into my mouth, Biron. If I a measurable moment, his eyes lin-
wanted to go with him, I'd certainly gered.
say so." said, "What's the deal?"
Biron
"Don't feel any obligations. You "Lend me the use of your names
can leave any time." and your abilities, and I will take
She looked hurt and he turned you to what my lord Gillbret called
"
away. As usual, some cooler part of the 'Rebellion World.'
himself knew he was acting
that Biron said, sourly, "You think
childishly. He had
been made to there is' one?"
look foolish by Jonti and he was And Gillbret said, simultaneous-
helpless in the face of the resent- ly, "Then it is yours."
ment he felt. And besides, why The Autarch smiled. "I think
should they all take so calmly the there is a world such as my lord
thesis that was perfectly right to
it described, but it is not minei"
have Biron Farrill thrown to the "It's not yours?" exclaimed Gill-
Tyranni, like a bone to the dogs, in bret, stunned.
order to keep them off Jonti's neck ? "Does that matter; if I can find
Damn it, what did they think he it?"
was? "How?" demanded Biron.
He thought of the dud bomb, The Autarch said, "It is not as
the Rhodian liner, the Tyranni, the difficult asyou might think. If we
wild night on Rhodia, and he could accept the story as it has been told

us, we must believe that there ex- "Why there?" said Biron. "It is
ists a world in rebellion against the a matter of little importance, but I

Tyranni. We must believe that it is met you there and I am curious."
located somewhere in the Nebular "There's no mystery to it. I left
Sector and that, in twenty years, it Lingane originally on my own busi-
has remained undiscovered by the ness. The exact nature is of no im-
Tyranni. If such a situation is to portance.. About six months ago, I
remain possible, there is only one visited Rhodia. My agent, Wide-
place in the Sector where such a mos — your father, Biron —had been
planet can exist." unsuccessful in his negotiations
"And where is that?" with the Director, whom we had
"You do not find the solution hoped to swing to our side. I tried
obvious? Doesn't it seem inevitable to improve matters and failed, since
that world could exist only
the Hinrik, with apologies to the lady,
within the Nebula itself?" is not the type of material for our
"Inside the Nebula!" sort of work."
Gillbret said, "Great Galaxy, of
, course!" "TTEAR, hear," said Biron.
And moment, the solution
at the -LJ. The
Autarch continued,
did indeed seem obvious and ines- "But I did meet Gillbret, as he may
capable. have told you. So I went to Earth,
Artemisia asked, timidly, "Can because Earth is the original home
people live on worlds inside the of humanity. It was from Earth that
Nebula?" most of the original explorations
"Why not?" said the Autarch. of the Galaxy set out. It is upon
"Don't mistake the Nebula. It is a Earth that most of the records ex-
dark mist in space, but it is not a ist. The Horsehead Nebula was ex-
poison gas. It is an incredibly at- plored quite thoroughly; at least, it

tenuated mass of sodium, potas- was passed through a number of
sium, and calcium atoms that times. It was never settled, since
absorb and obscure the light of the the difficulties of traveling through
stars within it, and, of course, those a volume of space where stellar ob-
on the side directly opposite the servations could not be made were
observer. Otherwise, it isjiarmless, too great. The explorations them-
and, in the direct neighborhood of selves, however, were all I needed.
a star, virtually undetectable. "Now listen carefully. The Ty-
"I apologize if I seem pedantic, ranni ship upon which my lord
but I have spent the last several Gillbret was marooned was struck
months at the University of Earth by a meteor after its first jump. As-
collecting astronomical data on the suming that the trip from Tyrann
Nebula." to Rhodia was along the usual trade
TYRANN 153
route (and there is no reason to tension of the Horsehead Nebula.
suppose anything else) the point Some six thousand square degrees
in space at which the ship left its of the sphere's surface, one-fourth
route is established. It would of the total surface, lie in the Ne-
scarcely have traveled more than bula. It remains, therefore, only to
half a million miles in ordinary find a star lying within the Nebula
space between the first two Jumps. and within one million miles or so
We can consider such a length as of the imaginary surface we are dis-
a point in space. cussing. You will remember that
"It is possible to make another when Gillbret's ship came to rest,
assumption. In damaging the con- it was within reach of a star.
trol panels, was quite possible

it "Now how many stars within the
that the meteor might have altered Nebula do you suppose we can find
the direction of the Jumps, since that close to the sphere's surface?
that woidd require only an inter- Remember there are one hundred
ference with the motion of the billion radiating stars in the Gal-
ship's gyroscope. This would be axy."
difficult, but not impossible. To
change the power of the hyper- BIRON found himself absorbed
atomic thrusts, however, would re- in the matter against his will.
quire complete smashing of the "Hundreds, I suppose."
engines, which, of course, were not "Five!" replied the Autarch.
touched by the meteor. "Just five. Don't be fooled by the
"With unchanged power of one hundred billion figure. The gal-
thrust, the length of the four re- axy is about seven trillion cubic
maining Jumps would not be light years in volume, so that there
changed, nor, for that matter, are seventy cubic light years per
would their relative directions. It staron the average. It is a pity that
would be analogous to having a I do not know which of those five
long, crooked wire bent at a single have habitable planets; we might

point in an unknown direction reduce the number of possibles to
through an unknown angle. The one. Unfortunately, the early ex-
final position of the ship would lie plorers had no time for detailed
somewhere on the surface of an observations. They plotted the po-
imaginary sphere, the center of sitions of the stars, the proper mo-
which would be that point in space tions, and the spectral types."
where the meteor struck, and the "So that on one of those five
radius of which would be the vec- stellar systems," said Biron, "is lo-
"
tor sum of the remaining Jumps. cated the 'rebellion world?'
"I plotted such a sphere, and "Only that conclusion would fit
that surface intersects a thick ex- the facts we know."

"Assuming Gil's story can be "It is a Tyrannian warship. We
accepted." would be wrong in abandoning it."
"I make that assumption." "As a Tyrannian warship, it
"My story is true," interrupte4 would be dangerously conspicuous."
Gillbret intensely. "I swear it." "Not in the Nebula. I'm sorry,
"I am
about to leave," said the Jonti. I'm joining you out of ex-
Autarch, "to investigate each of the pediency. I can be frank, too. I
five worlds. My motives in doing want to find the 'rebellion world.'

As Autarch of Lin-
so are obvious. But there's no friendship between
gane 1 can take an equal part in us. I stay at my own controls."
their efforts." "Biron," said Artemisia, gently,
"And with two Hinriads and a "the ship is too small for three."
Widemos on your side, your bid "As it stands, yes, Arta. But it
for an equal part, and, presumably, can be fitted with a trailer. Jonti
a strong and secure position in the knows that as well as I do. We'd
new, free worlds to come, would have all the space we needed, then,
be so much the better," said Biron. and still be masters at our own con-
"Your cynicism doesn't disturb trols. And it would effectively dis-
me, Farrill. The answer is obvious- guise the nature of the ship."
ly yes. If there is to be a successful The Autarch considered. "If
rebellion, it would, again obviously, there is to be neither friendship nor
be desirable to have your fist on trust, Farrill, I must protect my-
the winning side." self. You may have your own ship
"Otherwise some successful pri- and a trailer to boot, outfitted as
vateer or rebel captain might be you may wish. But I must have
rewarded with the Autarchy of Lin- some guarantee for your proper be-
gane." havior. The lady Artemisia, at least,
"Or the Ranchy of Widemos." must come with me."
"And if the rebellion is not suc- "No/" said Biron.
cessful?" The Autarch lifted his eyebrows.
"There will be time to judge "No? Let the lady speak." He
when we find what we look for." turned toward Artemisia, and his
nostrils flared slightly. "I dare say
IRON
B "Good
you.
!
said slowly, "I'll
Then suppose we make

go with you would find the situation very
comfortable,
"You, at
my
least,
Lady."
would not find
arrangements for your transfer it comfortable, my Lord. Be as-
from this ship." sured of that," she retorted. "I shall
"Why that?" remain here."
"It would be better for you. This "I think you might reconsider
ship is a toy." if—
TYRANN 155
"I think not," interrupted Biron. brethad folded into the pilot's seat,
"The lady Artemisia has made her his facescrewed up as though he
choice." were going to burst into tears. The
"And you back her choice?" limp straps of the pilot's stress-
"Entirely. All three of us will absorbing outfit dangled about him
remain on the Remorseless. There and increased the lugubrious effect.
will be no compromise on that." Biron, paper-white, fists clenched,
"You choose your company faced the Autarch. Artemisia, her
oddly." thin nostrils flaring, kept her eyes
"Do I?" not on the Autarch, but on Biron.
"I think so." The Autarch The radio signaled, the soft click-
seemed idly absorbed in his finger- ings crashing with the effect of cym-
nails. "You seem so annoyed with bals in the small pilot room.
me because I deceived you and Gillbret jerked upright, then
placed your life in danger. It is whirled on the seat.
strange then, is it not, that you The Autarch said lazily, "I'm
should seem on such friendly terms afraid we've been more talkative
with the daughter of a man such as than I'd anticipated. I told Rizzett
Hinrik, who in deception is certain- to come get me if I had not re-
ly my master." turned in an hour."

"Iknow Hinrik. Your opinions The visual screen was alive now
of him change nothing." with Rizzett's grizzled head.
"You know everything about Gillbret said to the Autarch, "He
Hinrik?" would like to speak to you." He
know enough."
"I made room.
"Do you know that he killed The Autarch rose from his chair
your father?" The Autarch's finger and advanced so that his own head
stabbed toward Artemisia. "Do you was within the zone of visual trans-
know that the girl you are so deep- mission.
ly concerned to keep under your He said, "I am perfectly safe,
protection is the daughter of your Rizzett."
father's murderer?" The other's question was heard
clearly. "Who are the crew mem-
CHAPTER XIV bers on the cruiser, sir?"
And Biron stood next to the Au-
The Autarch Leaves tarch, suddenly. "I am Rancher of
Widemos," he said, proudly.
THE tableau remained unbroken Rizzett smiled gladly and broad-
for a moment. The Autarch lit ly. A hand appeared on the screen
another cigaret. He was quite re- in sharp salute. "Greetings, sir."

laxed, his face untroubled. Gill- The Autarch interrupted, "I will

be returning soon with a young your own inferences. First, the
lady. Prepare to maneuver for con- Rancher of Widemos visited Hin-
tact airlocks." iHe broke the visual rik six months ago. I've said that
connection between the two ships. already. I can add here that he was
He turned to Biron. "I assured somewhat over-enthusiastic in his
them it was you on board ship. efforts, or perhaps he overestimated
There was some objection to my Hinrik's discretion. At any rate, he
coming here alone otherwise. Your talked more than he should have.
father was extremely popular with My lord Gillbret can verify that."
my men." Gillbretnodded miserably. He
"Which is why you can use my faced who had turned
Artemisia,
name." to him with moist and angry eyes.
The Autarch shrugged. "I'm sorry, Arta, but it's true. I've
told you this. It was from Widemos
BIRON said, "It is all you can that I heard about the Autarch."
use. Your last statement to The Autarch said, "And it was
your officer was inaccurate." fortunate for myself that my Lord
"In what way?" had developed such long mechani-
"Artemisia oth Hinriad stays cal ears with which to sate his live-
with me." ly curiosity concerning the Direc-
"After what have told you?"
I tor's meetingsof state. I was
Biron said sharply, "You have warned of the danger, quite un-
told me nothing. You have made wittingly, by Gillbret when he first
a bare, statement, but I am not like- approached me. I left as soon as I
ly to take your unsupported word could, but the damage, of course,

for anything. I tell you this with- had been done.
out any attempt at tact. I hope you "Now, to our knowledge, it was
understand me." Widemos's only slip, and Hinrik,
"Is your knowledge of Hinrik certainly, has no enviable reputa-
such that my statement seems im- tion as a man of any great inde-
plausible toyou?" pendence and courage. Your father,
Biron was staggered. Visibly and Farrill, was arrested within half a
apparently, the remark had struck year. If not through Hinrik,
home. He made no answer. then how?"
Artemisia said, "I say it's not so. "In our business, we take our
Do you have proof?" chances, Farrill, but he was warned.
"No direct proof, of course. I After that, he made no contact,
was not present at any conferences however indirect, with any of us,
between your father and the Ty- and destroyed whatever proof of
ranni. But I can present certain' connection with us he had. Some
known facts and allow you to make among us believed that he should
TYRANN 157
leave the Sector, or, at the very pany you and that you will give us
least, go into hiding. He refused needed supplies. That is enough.
to do either. Granting that all you have just said
"I think I can understand why. is true, it is still beside the point.
To alter his way of life would The crimes of the Director of Rho-
prove the truth of what the Ty- dia do not involve his daughter.
ranni must have learned, endan- Artemisia oth Hinriad
here stays
gered the entire movement. He with me, provided she agrees."
decided to risk his own life only. "I do," said Artemisia.
He remained in the open. "Good. I think that covers every-
"For nearly half a year, the Ty- thing. I warn you, by the way. You
ranni waited for a betraying ges- are armed; so am I. Your ships are
ture. They are patient, the Tyranni. fighters, perhaps; mine is a Tyran-
None came, so that when they nian cruiser."
could wait no longer, they found "Don't be silly, Farrill. My in-
nothing in their het but him." tentions are quite friendly. You
"It's a lie!" cried Artemisia. "It's wish to keep the girl here? So be
all a lie. It's a smug, sanctimoni- it. May I leave by contact airlock?"
ous, lying story with no truth in Biron nodded. "We will trust
it! you said were true, they
If all you that far."
would be watching you, too. You
would be in danger yourself."
"My Lady, I do not waste my
THE two ships maneuvered
closer, until the flexible airlock
time. I have already tried to do extensions pouted outward toward
what I could toward discrediting one another. Carefully, they edged
your father as a source of informa- about, seeking the perfect fit.
tion. I think I have succeeded some- The airlock extensions reached

what. The Tyranni will wonder if out, hovered on the brink of insta-
they ought to listen further to a bility and then, with a noiseless jar,
man whose daughter and cousin the vibrations of which hummed its
are obvious traitors. And then way into the pilot room, settled
again, if they are still disposed to into place, clamps automatically
believe him, why, I am on the point locking in position. An airtight seal
of vanishing into the Nebula where had been formed.
they will not find me. I should Biron drew the back of his hand
think my actions tend to prove my slowly across his forehead and some
story rather than otherwise." of the tension oozed out of him.
Biron drew a deep breath and "There it is," he said. . .
said, "Let us consider the interview The Autarch lifted his spacesuit.
at an end, Jonti. We have agreed There was still a thin film of mois-
to the extent that we will accom- ture-under it.

"Thanks," he said, pleasantly. no need. I know it. I won't hold
"An officer of mine will be right you to anything."

back. You will arrange the details "No. Oh, no!" She caught his
of the supplies necessary with him." arm and placed her cheek against
The Autarch left. his hard shoulder. She was speak-
ing rapidly. "That's not it at all. It
BIRON said, "Take care of doesn't matter about Hinriad and

Jonti's officer for me for a Wi demos at all. I — I love you,
while, will you, Gil? When he Biron."
comes in, break the airlock contact. Her eyes went up, meeting his.
All you'll have to do is remove the "I think you love me, too. I think
magnetic field. This is the photonic you would admit it if you could
switch you'll flash." forget I were a Hinriad. Maybe you
He turned and stepped out of will now that I've said it first. You
the pilot room. Right now, he told Autarch you would not
the
needed time for himself. Time to hold my father's deeds against me.
think, mostly. Don't hold his rank against me,
But there was the hurried foot- either."
step behind, him, and the soft voice. Her arms were around his neck
He stopped. now. Biron could feel the softness
"Biron," said Artemisia, "I want of her breasts against him and the
to speak to you." warmth of her breath on his lips.
He faced her. "Later, if you don't Slowly his own hands went up and
mind, Area." gently grasped her forearms. As
She was looking up at him, in- gently, he disengaged her arms.
tently. "No, now." He said, "I am not quits with
Her arms were poised as though the Hinriads, my Lady."
she would have liked to embrace She was startled. "You told the
him, but was not sure of her recep- Autarch
—
tions. She said, "You didn't believe He looked away. "Sorry, Arta.
what he said about my father." Don't go by what I told the Au-
"It has no bearing," said Biron. tarch."
"Biron," she began. It was hard She wanted to cry out that it
for her to say it. "I know that part wasn't true, that her father had not
of what has been going on between done this thing, that in any case
us has been because we've been But he turned into the cabin and
alone and together and in danger, left her standing in the corridor,
but
— " She stopped again. her eyes filling with hurt and
Biron said, "If you're trying to shame.
say you're a Hinriad, Arta, there's —ISAAC ASIMOV
Concluded Next Month
TYRANN 159
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Editor H, L GOLD CONTENTS

GENE MARTINAT by Ray Bradbury 4

reda. All rights, including EDITORIAL PAGE

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