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Three Science Fiction Stories by Fritz Leiber - Fritz Leiber · Non-Fiction Library

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Moon is Green by Fritz Liber. This is a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: For more information or a volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Recording by Phil Shinevert three by Fritz Liber The Moon
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: is Green. Anybody who wanted to escape death could by
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: paying a very simple price, denial of life. Effie, what
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the devil are you up to? Her husband's voice, chopping
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: through her mood of terrified rapture, made her heart jump
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: like a startled cat. Yet by some miracle of feminine
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: self control, her body did not show a tremor.
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: God, she thought, he mustn't see it. It's so beautiful,
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: and he always kills beauty. I'm just looking at the moon,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: she said, listlessly. It's green.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: Mustn't, mustn't see it, And now, with luck, he wouldn't.
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: For the face as if it also heard, and since
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: the menace in the voice was moving back from the
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: windows glow into the outside dark, but slowly, reluctantly and
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: still fawn like, pleading, cajoling, tempting, and incredibly beautiful, close
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: the shutters that want you, little fool, and come away
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: from the window green as a beer bottle. She went on, dreamily,
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: green as emeralds, green as leaves with sunshine striking through them,
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: and green grass to lie on. She couldn't help saying
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: those last words. They were her token to the face.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Even though it couldn't hear Effie, she knew what that
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: last tone meant. Wearily, she swung shut the ponderous led
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: in her shutters and drove home the heavy bolts that
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: hurt her fingers. It always did. But he mustn't know that.
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: You know that those shutters are not to be touched,
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: not for five more years at least. I only wanted
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: to look at the moon, she said, turning around. And
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: then it was all gone, the face, the night, the moon,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: the magic, and she was back in the grubby, stale
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: little hole, facing an angry, stale little man. It was
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: then that the eternal thud of the air conditioning fans
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: and the crackle of the electric grostatic precipitators that sipped
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: out the dust reached her consciousness again, like the bite
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: of a dentist's drill. Only wanted to look at the moon,
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: He mimicked her in falsetto. Only wanted to die like
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: a little fool and make me that much more ashamed
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: of you. Then his voice went gruff and professional. Here
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: count yourself. She silently took the Geiger counter he held
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: at armslength, waited until it settled down to a steady ticking,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: slower than a clock, due only to cosmic rays and
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: indicating nothing dangerous, and then began to comb her body
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: with the instrument, hurst her head and shoulders, then out
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: along her arms, and back along their underside. There was
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: something oddly voluptuous about her movements, although her features were
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: gray and sagging. The ticking did not change its tempo
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: until she came to her waist. Then it suddenly spurted,
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: cooking faster and faster. Her husband gave an excited grunt,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: took a quick step forward, froze. She goggled for a
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: moment in fear, then grinned foolishly, dug in the pocket
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: of her grimy apron, and guiltily pulled out a wristwatch.
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: He grabbed it as it dangled from her fingers, saw
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: that it had a radium dial. Cursed. Heaved it up
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: as if to smash it on the floor, but instead
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: put it carefully on the table. You imbecile, You incredible imbecile,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: he softly chanted to himself through clenched teeth, with eyes
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  Speaker 1: half closed. She shrugged faintly, put the Geiger counter on
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: the table, and stood there slumped. He waited until the
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: chanting had soothed his anger before speaking again. He said quietly,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: I do suppose you still realize the sort of world
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: you're living in. She nodded slowly, staring at nothingness. Oh,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: she realized all right, realized only too well. It was
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: the world that hadn't realized. The world had gone on
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: stock piling hydrogen bombs, the world that had put those
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: bombs in cobalt shells, although it had promised it wouldn't,
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: because cobalt made them much more terrible and cost no more.
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  Speaker 1: The world that had started throwing those bombs, always telling
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: itself that it hadn't thrown enough of them yet to
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  Speaker 1: make the air really dangerous with the deadly radioactive dust
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: that came from the cobalt thrown them, and kept on
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: throwing until the danger point where air and ground would
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: become fatal to all human life was approached. Then, for
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: about a month, the two great enemy groups had hesitated,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: and then, unknown to the other, had decided it could
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: risk one last gigantic and decisive attack without exceeding the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: danger point. It had been planned to strip off the
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: cobalt cases, but some one forgot, and then there wasn't time. Besides,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: the military scientists of each group were confident that the
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: lands of the other had got the most dust. The
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: two attacks came within an hour of each other. After that,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the fury, the fury of doomed men who think only
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  Speaker 1: of taking with them as many as possible of the enemy,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: and in this case they hoped all. The fury of
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: suicides who know they had botched up life for good.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: The fury of cock sure men who realize they have
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  Speaker 1: been outsmarted by fail the enemy and themselves, and know
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  Speaker 1: that they will never be able to improvise a defense
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: when arranged before the high court of history, and whose
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: unadmitted hope is that there will be no high court
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: of history left to arraign them. More cobalt bombs were
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: dropped during the Fury than in all the preceding years
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of the war. After the Fury, the terror men and women,
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: with death sifting into their bones through their nostrils and skin,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: fighting for bare survival under a dust hazed sky that
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: played fantastic tricks with the light of sun and moon,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Like the dust from Caatoa that drifted around the world
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: for years. Cities, countryside and air were alike poisoned alive
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  Speaker 1: with deadly radiation. The only realistic chance for continued existence
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: was to retire for the five or ten years the
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  Speaker 1: radiation would remain deadly to some well sealed and radiation
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: shielded place that must be copiously supplied with food, water, power,
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: and means of air conditioning. Such places were prepared by
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: the far seeing, seized by the stronger, defended by them
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  Speaker 1: in turns against the desperate hordes of the dying, until
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: there were no more of those. After that, only the waiting,
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: the enduring, a mole's existence without beauty or tenderness, but
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  Speaker 1: with fear and guilt as constant companions, never to see
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: the sun, to walk among the trees, or even to
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: know if there were still trees. Oh, yes, she realized
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: what the world was like. You understand too. I suppose
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: that we were allowed to reach claimed this ground level
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: apartment only because the committee believed us to be responsible people,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: and because I've been making a damn good showing lately, Yes, Hank,
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  Speaker 1: I thought you were eager for privacy. You want to
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: go back to the basement tenements. God, no, anything rather
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: than that fetid huddling, that shameless communal sprawl. And yet
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: was this so much better? The nearness to the surface
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: was meaningless, It only tantalized, and the privacy magnified. Hank.
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: She shook her head dutifully and said, no, Hank, then
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: why aren't you careful? I've told you a million times, Effie.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: That glass is no protection against the dust that's outside
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: the window. The lead shutter must never be touched. If
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: you make one single slip like that and gets around,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the committee will send us back to the lower levels
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: without blinking an eye, and they'll think twice before trusting
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: me with any important jobs. I'm sorry, Hank. Sorry, what's
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the good of being sorry? The only thing that counts
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: us never to make a slip. Why the devil do
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: you do such things, Effie? What drives you to it?
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: She swallowed. It's just that it's so dreadful being cooped
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: up like this, she said, hesitatingly, shut away from the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: sky and the sun. I'm just hungry for a little beauty.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: And do you Suppose I'm not, he demanded. Don't you
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  Speaker 1: suppose I want to get outside too and be carefree
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  Speaker 1: and have a good time. But I'm not so damn
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  Speaker 1: selfish about it. I want my children to enjoy the sun,
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  Speaker 1: and my children's children. Don't you see that that's the
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: all important thing, and that we have to behave like
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  Speaker 1: mature adults and make sacrifices for it. Yes, hank, he
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: surveyed her slumped figure, her lined and listless face. You're
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: a fine one to talk about hunger for beauty, he
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  Speaker 1: told her. Then his voice grew softer and more deliberate.
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  Speaker 1: You haven't forgotten, have you, EFFI that until last month
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  Speaker 1: the committee was so concerned about your sterility that they
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  Speaker 1: were about to enter my name on the list of
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  Speaker 1: those waiting to be a lot of a free woman
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  Speaker 1: very high on the list too. She could nod even
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: at that one, but not while looking at him. She
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: turned away. She knew very well that the committee was
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: justified in worrying about the birthrate. When the community finally
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  Speaker 1: moved back to the surface again, each additional healthy young
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  Speaker 1: person would be an asset not only in the struggle
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: for bare survival, but in their resumed war against communism,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: which some of the committee members still counted on. It
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: was natural that they should view a sterile woman with disfavor,
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  Speaker 1: not only because of the waste of her husband's germ plasm,
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  Speaker 1: but because sterility might indicate that she had suffered more
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  Speaker 1: than the average from radiation. In that case, if she
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  Speaker 1: did bear children later on, they would be more apt
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  Speaker 1: to carry a defective heredity, producing an undue number of
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  Speaker 1: monsters and freaks in future generations, and so contaminating the race.
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: Of course she understood it. She could hardly remember the
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  Speaker 1: time when she didn't years ago, centuries. There wasn't much
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: difference in a place where time was endless. His lecture finished,
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: her husband smiled and grew almost cheerful. Now that you're
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  Speaker 1: going to have a child, that's all in the background again.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: Do you know, Effie, that when I first came in,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: I had some very good news for you. I'm to
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  Speaker 1: become a member of the Junior Committee, and the announcement
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: will be made at the banquet tonight. He cut short
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  Speaker 1: her numbed congratulations. So brighten up and put on your
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  Speaker 1: best dress. I want the other juniors to see what
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: a handsome wife the new member has got he paused. Well,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: gotta move on, she spoke with difficulty, still looking at him.
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: I'm terribly sorry, Hank, but you'll have to go alone.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: I'm not well. He straightened up with an indignant jerk.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: There you go again, First that infantile, inexcusable business of
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: the shutters, and now this no feeling for my reputation
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  Speaker 1: at all. Oh be ridiculous, Effie. You're coming terribly sorry,
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: she repeated blindly. But I really can't. I'd just be sick.
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  Speaker 1: I wouldn't make you proud of me at all. Of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: course you won't, he retorted sharply. As it is, I
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: have to spend half my energy running around making excuses
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  Speaker 1: for you. Why you're so odd, why you always seem
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: to be ailing, why you're always stupid and snobbish and
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: say the wrong thing. But tonight's really important, Effie. It
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: will cause a lot of bad comment if the new
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: member's wife isn't present, you know how, just a hint
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: of sickness starts the old radiation disease rumor going. You've
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: got to come, Effie, She shook her head helplessly. Oh,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: for heaven's sake, come on, he shouted, advancing on her.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: This is just a silly mood. As soon as you
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: get going, you'll snap out of it. There's nothing really
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: wrong with you at all. He put his hand on
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: her shoulder to turn her around, and at his touch
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: her face suddenly grew so desperate and gray that for
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: a moment he was alarmed in spite of himself. Really,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: he asked, almost with a note of concern. She nodded miserably. Humph.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: He stepped back and strode about irresolutely. Well, of course,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: if that's the way it is, he checked himself, and
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: a sad smile crossed his face. So you don't care
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: enough about your old husband's success to make one supreme
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: effort in spite of feeling bad again, the helpless headshake.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: I just can't go out to night under any circumstances,
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: and her gaze stole toward the lead shutters. He was
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: about to say something when he caught the direction of
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: her gaze. His eyebrows jumped for seconds. He stared at
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: her incredulously, as if some completely new and almost un
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: unbelievable possibility had popped into his mind. The look of
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: incredulity slowly faded to be replaced by a harder, more
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: calculating expression. But when he spoke again, his voice was
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: shockingly bright and kind. Well, it can't be helped naturally,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: and I certainly wouldn't want you to go if you
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: weren't able to enjoy it. So you hop right into
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: bed and get a good rest. I'll run over to
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: the men's dorm to freshen up. No, really, I don't
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: want you to have to make any effort at all. Incidentally,
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: Jim Barnes isn't going to be able to come to
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: the banquet either, chut of the old flu, he tells me,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: of all things. He watched her closely as he mentioned
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: the other man's name, but she didn't react noticeably. In fact,
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: she hardly seemed to be hearing his chatter. I got
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: a bit sharp with you. I'm afraid, effie, he continued contritely.
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry about that. I was excited about my new job,
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: and I guess that was why things upset me. Make
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: me feel let down when I found you weren't feeling
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: as good as I was. Selfish of me. Now you
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: get into bed right away and get well. Don't worry
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: about me a bit. I know you'd come if you
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: possibly could, and I know you'll be thinking about me. Well,
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: I must be off now. He started toward her as
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: if to embrace her, then seemed to think better of it.
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: He turned back to the doorway and said, emphasizing the words,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: you'll be completely alone for the next four hours. He
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: waited for her nod, then bounced out. She stood still
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: until his footsteps died away. Then she straightened up, walked
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: over to where he'd put down the wrist watch, picked
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: it up and smashed it hard on the floor. The
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: crystal shattered, the case flew apart, and something went zing.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: She stood there, breathing heavily. Slowly, her sagged features lifted,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: formed themselves into the beginning of a smile. She stole
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: another look at the shutters. The smile became more definite.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: She felt her hair wet her fingers and ran them
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: along her hairline and back over her ears. After wiping
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: her hands on her apron, she took it off. She
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: straightened her dress, lifted her head with a little flourish,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: and stepped smartly toward the window. Then her face went
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: miserable again, and her step slowed. No, it couldn't be,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and it won't be, she told herself. It had been
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: just an illusion, a silly, romantic dream that she is
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: somehow projected out of her beauty starved mind and given
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: a moment's false reality. There couldn't be anything alive outside.
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: There hadn't been for two whole years, and if there
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: conceivably were, it would be something altogether horrible. She remembered
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: some of the Pariah's hairless, witless creatures with radiation whilts
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: crawling over their bodies like worms, who had come begging
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: for succor during the last months of the terror and
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: been shot down. How they must have hated the people
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: in refuges. But even as she was thinking these things,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: her fingers were caressing the bolts, gingerly, drawing them, and
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: she was opening the shutters gently, apprehensively. No, there couldn't
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: be anything outside, she assured herself, wryly, peering out into
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: the green night. Even her fears had been groundless. But
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: the face came floating up toward the window. She started
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: back in terror, then checked herself, for the face wasn't
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: horrible at all, only very thin, with full lips and
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: large eyes and a thin, proud nose like a jutting
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: beak of a bird, and no radiation welch or scars. More,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: the skin olive in the tempered moonlight, it looked, in fact,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: just as it had when she had seen it the
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: first time. For a long moment, the face stared deep,
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: deep into her brain. Then the full lips smiled, and
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: a half clenched, thin fingered hand materialized itself from the
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: green darkness and rapped twice on the grimy pane. Her
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: heart pounding, she furiously worked the little crank that opened
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: the window. It came unstuck from the frame with the
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: tiny explosion of dust and a zing like that of
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: the watch, only louder. A moment later, it swung open wide,
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: and a puff of incredibly fresh air caressed her face
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: and the inside of her nostrils, stinging her eyes with
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: unanticipated tears. The man outside balanced on the sill, crouching
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: like a fawn, head high, one elbow on knee. He
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: was dressed in scarred snug trousers and in old sweater.
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: Is it tears I get for a welcome, he mocked
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: her gently in a musical voice. Or are those only
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: to greet God's own breath? The air? He swung down inside,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: and now she could see he was tall. Turning, he
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: snapped his fingers and called Humpuss. A black cat with
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: a twisted stump of a tail and feet like small
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: boxing gloves and ears almost as big as a rabbits
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: hopped clumsily in view. He lifted it down, gave it
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: a pet, Then, nodding familiarly to Effie, he unstrapped a
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: little pack from his back and laid it on the table.
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: She couldn't move. She even found it hard to breathe
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: the window she finally managed to get out. He looked
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: at her inquiringly, caught the direction of her stabbing finger.
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: Moving without haste, he went over and closed it carelessly.
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: The shutters too, she told him, but he ignored that.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Looking around. It's a snug enough place you and your
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: man have, he commented. Or is it that this is
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: a free love town or a harem spot or just
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: a military post? He checked her before she could answer.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: But let's not be talking about such things now. Soon enough,
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I'll be scared to death for both of us. Best
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: enjoy the kick of meating, which is always good for
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: twenty minutes at the least, he smiled at her rather shyly.
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: Have you food good, then bring it? She set cold
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: meat and some precious canned bread before him, and had
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: water heating for coffee. Before he fell to he shredded
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: a chunk of meat and put it on the floor
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: for the cat, which left off its sniffing inspection of
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: the walls and ran up eagerly mewing. Then the man
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: began to eat, chewing each mouthful slowly and appreciatively. From
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: across the table, Effie watched him, drinking in his every
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: deft movement, his every cryptic quirk of expression. She attended
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: to making the coffee, but that took only a moment.
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: Finally she could contain herself no longer. What's it like
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: up there, she asked, breathlessly, outside I mean He looked
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: at her oddly for quite a space. Finally he said, flatly, Oh,
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: it's a wonderland, for sure, more amazing than you tombed
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: folk could ever imagine, a veritable fairy land, and he
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: quickly went on eating. No, but really, she pressed, noting
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: her eagerness, He smiled, and his eyes filled with playful tenderness.
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: I mean it on my oath, he assured her. You
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: think the bombs and the dust made only death and ugliness.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: Oh that was true at first, But then, just as
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: the doctor's foretold, they changed the life in the seeds
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: and loins that were brave enough to stay wonders bloomed
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: and walked. He broke off suddenly and asked, do any
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: of you ever adventure outside? A few of the men
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: are allowed to, she told him, for short trips in
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: special protective suits to hunt for canned food and fuels
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: and batteries and things like that. Ay, and those blind
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: souled slugs would never see anything but what they're looking for,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: he said, nodding bitterly. They'd never see the garden were
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: a dozen buds blossom where one did before, and the
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: flowers have petals a yard across, with stingless bees big
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: as sparrows gently supping their nectar. House Cats grown spotted
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: and huge as leopards, not little runts like Joe Lewis
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: here stalked through those gardens. But they're gentle beasts, no
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: more harmful than the rainbow scale snakes that glide around
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: their paws. For the dust burned all the murder out
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: of them as it burned itself out. Now I've even
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: made up a little poem about that it starts fire
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: can hurt me our water or the weight of earth.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: But the dust is my friend. Oh yes, And then
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: the robins like cockatoos and squirrels, like princesses ermine, all
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: under a treasure chest of sun and moon and stars,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: that the dust's magic powder changes from ruby to emerald
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: and sapphire and amethyst and back again. Oh, and then
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: the New Children. You're telling the truth, she interrupted him,
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: her eyes brimming with tears. You're not making it up.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I am not, he assured her solemnly. And if you
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: could catch a glimpse of one of the New Children,
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: you never doubt me again. They have long limbs as
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: brown as this coffee would be if it had lots
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: of fresh cream in it, and smiling, delicate faces, and
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: the whitest teeth and the finest hair. They're so nimble
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: that I, a sprightly man and somewhat enlivened by the dust,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: feel like a cripple beside them, and their thoughts dance
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: like flames and make me feel a very imbecile. Of course,
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: they have seven fingers on each hand and eight toes
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: on each foot. But they're the more beautiful for that.
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: They have large pointed ears that the sun shines through.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: They play in the garden all day long, slipping among
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: the great leaves and blooms, so swift that you can
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: hardly see them unless one chooses to stand still and
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: look at you. For that matter, you have to look
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: a bit hard for all these things I'm telling you.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: But is it true? She pleaded? Every word of it,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: he said, looking straight into her eyes. He put down
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: his knife and fork. What's your name, he asked, softly,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: mins Patrick, Effie, she told him. He shook his head.
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: That can't be, he said. Then his face brightened. Euphemia,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: he exclaimed. That's what Effie is short for. Your name
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: is Euphemia. As he said that, looking at her, she
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: suddenly felt beautiful. He got up and came around the
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: table and stretched out his hand toward her. Euphemia, he began, yes,
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: she answered, huskily, shrieking from him a little, but looking
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: of sideways and very flushed. Don't either of you move,
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: Hank said. The voice was flat and nasal because Hank
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: was wearing a nose respirator that was just long enough
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: to suggest an elephant's trunk in his right hand with
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: a large blue, black automatic pistol. They turned their faces
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: to him. Patrick's was abruptly alert, shifty, but Effie's was
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: still smiling tenderly, as if Hank could not break the
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: spell of the magic garden and should be pitied for
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: not knowing about it. You, little Hank began with an
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: almost gleeful fury, calling her several shameful names. He spoke
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: in short phrases, closing tight his unmasked mouth between them
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: while he sucked in breath through the respirator. His voice
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: rose in a crescendo, and not with a man of
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: the community, but a pariah. A pariah. I hardly know
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: what you're thinking, man, but you're quite wrong. Patrick took
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: the opportunity to put in, hurriedly, conciliatingly. I just happened
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: to be coming by, hungry to night day, lonely tramp,
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: and knocked at the window. Your wife was a bit
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: foolish and let kind heartedness get the better of prudence.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Don't think you've pulled the wall over my eyes, evvy,
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: Hank went on with a screechy laugh, disregarding the other
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: man completely. Don't think I don't know why you're suddenly
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: going to have a child after four long years. At
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: that moment, the cat came nosing up to his feet.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: Patrick watched him narrowly, shifting his weight forward a little,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: but Hank only kicked the animal aside without taking his
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: eyes off them. Even that business of carrying the wrist
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: watch in your pocket instead of on your arm, He
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: went on with channeled hysteria, a neat bit of camouflage, yeavy,
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: very neat, and telling me it was my child, when
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: all the while you've been seeing him for months. Man,
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: you're mad, I've not touched her, Patrick denied, hotly, though
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: still calculatingly and risk They stepped forward, stopping when the
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: gun instantly swung his way, pretending you were going to
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: give me a healthy child, Hank raved on, when all
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: the while you knew it would be either in body
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: or germ play a thing like that. He waved his
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: gun at the malformed cat, which had leaped to the
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: top of the table and was eating the remains of
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: Patrick's food, though its watchful green eyes were fixed on Hank.
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: I should shoot him down, Hank yelled between sobbing, chest
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: racking inhalations through the mask. I should kill him this instant,
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: for the contaminated praah. He is all this. While Effie
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: had not ceased to smile compassionately. Now she stood up
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: without haste and went to Patrick's side, disregarding his warning
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: apprehensive glance. She put her arm lightly around him and
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: faced her husband. Then you'd be killing the bringer of
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: the best news we've ever had, she said, and her
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: voice was like a flood of some warm, sweet liquor
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: in that musty hate charge room. Oh Hank, forget your silly,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: wrong jealousy and listen to me. Patrick, here has something
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: wonderful to tell us. Hank stared at her for once
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: he screamed no reply. It was obvious that he was
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: seeing for the first time how beautiful she had become,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and that the realization jolted him terribly. What do you mean,
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: he finally asked, unevenly, almost fearfully. I mean that we
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: no longer need to fear the dust, she said, and
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: now her smile was radiant. It never really did hurt
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: people the way the doctor said it would. Remember how
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: it was with me, Hank, the exposure I had and
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: recovered from. Although the doctor said, I wouldn't at first,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: and without even losing my hair, Hank, those who are
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: brave enough to stay outside, and who weren't killed by
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: ten error in suggestion and panic, they adapted to the dust.
• 33:05
  Speaker 1: They changed, but they changed for the better. Everything, Effie,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: he told you lies, Hank interrupted, but still in that
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: same agitated, broken voice, cowed by her beauty, Everything that
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: grew or moved was purified, she went on, ringingly. You
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: men going outside have never seen it because you've never
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: had eyes for it. You've been blinded to beauty, to
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: life itself. And now all the power in the dust
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: has gone and faded anyway, burned itself out. That's true,
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: isn't it. She smiled at Patrick for confirmation. His face
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: was strangely veiled, as if he were calculating obscure changes.
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: He might have given a little nod at any rate.
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: Effie assumed that he did, for she turned back to
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: her husband. You see, Hank, we can all go out now.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: We need never fear the dust again. Patrick is a
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: living proof of that, she continued, triumphantly, standing straighter, holding
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: him a little tighter. Look at him, not a scar
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: or a sign. And he's been out in the dust
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: for years? How could he be this way? If the
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: dust hurt the brave? Oh, believe me, Hank, believe what
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: you see, test it if you want test Patrick here, Effie,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: you're all mixed up. You don't know, Hank faltered, but
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: without conviction of any sort. Just test him, Effie repeated,
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: with utter confidence, ignoring not even noticing Patrick's warning nudge.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: All right, Hank mumbled. He looked at the stranger. Dully,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: can you count? He asked. Patrick's face was a complete enigma.
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: Then he suddenly spoke, and his voice was like a
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: fencero's foil light, bright alert, constantly playing, yet utterly on guard.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: Can I count? Do you take me for a complete simpleton? Man?
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: Of course I can count? Then count yourself, Hank said,
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: barely indicating the table. Count myself, should I? The other
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: retorted with a quick, facetious laugh. Is this a kinder
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Gordon bod? If you want me to, I'm willing. His
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: voice was rapid. I've two arms, two legs, that's a four,
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: and ten fingers and ten toes. You'll take my word
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: for them. That's twenty four ahead twenty five, and two
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: eyes and a nose and a mouth with this I mean,
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Hank said. Heavily advanced to the table, picked up the
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Geiger counter, switched it on, and handed it across the
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: table to the other man. But while it was still
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: an storms length from Patrick, the clicks began to mount furiously,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: until they were like the chatter of a pigmy machine gun.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: Abruptly the clicks slowed, but that was only the counter
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: shifting to a new scaling circuit in which every click
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: stood for five hundred and twelve of the old ones.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: With those horrid, rattling little volleys. Fear cascaded into the
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: room and filled it, smashing like so much colored glass
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: all the bright barriers of words Effie had raised against it.
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: For no dreams can stand against the Geiger Counter, the
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: twentieth century's mouthpiece of ultimate truth. It was as if
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: the dust and all the terrors of the dust had
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: incarnated themselves in one dread invading shape that said, in
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: words stronger than audible speech. Those were illusions. Whistles in
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: the darky is reality, the dreary, pitiless reality of the
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: burrowing years. Hank scuttled back to the wall. Through chattering teeth,
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: he babbled enough radioactives kill a thousand men, freak, a freak.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: In his agitation, he forgot for a moment to inhale
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: through the respirator. Even Effie, taken off guard, all the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: fears that had been drilled into her, twanging like piano wires,
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: shrank from the skeletal seeming shape beside her, held herself
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: to it only by desperation. Patrick did it for her.
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: He disengaged her arm and stepped briskly away. Then he
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: whirled on them, smiling sardonically, and started to speak, but
• 37:50
  Speaker 1: instead looked with distaste at the chattering Geiger counter he
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: held between fingers and thumb. Have we listened to this
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: racket long enough? He asked, Without waiting for an answer,
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: he put down the instrument on the table. The cat
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: hurried over to it curiously, and the clicks began again
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: to mount to a minor crescendo. Effie lunged for it frantically.
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: She switched it off darted back. That's right, Patrick said,
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: with another chilling smile. You do well to cringe, for
• 38:28
  Speaker 1: I'm death itself. Even in death, I could kill you
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: like a snake. And with that his voice took on
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: the tones of a circus barker. Yes, I'm a freak,
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: as the gentleman so wisely said. That's what one doctor
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: who dared talk with me for a minute told me
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: before he kicked me out. He couldn't tell me why,
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: But somehow the dust doesn't kill me. Besides, I'm a freak,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: you see, just like the men who ate nails and
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: walked on fire and ate arsenic and sucked themselves through
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: with pins. Step right up, ladies and gentlemen, only not
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: too close, and examined the man. That dust can't harm
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Repassini's child brought up to date his embrace death. And now,
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: he said, breathing heavily, I'll get out and leave you
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: in your damned lead cave. He started toward the window.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Hank's gun followed him, shakingly. Wait, Effie called, in an
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: agonized voice. He obeyed, She continued, falteringly, when we were
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: together earlier, you didn't act as if when we were
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: together earlier, I wanted what I wanted. He snarled at her.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: You don't suppose I'm a bloody saint, do you? And
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: and all the beautiful things you told me that he
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: said cruelly is just a line I've found that women
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: fall far. They're all so bored and so star for beauty,
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: as they generally put it, even the garden. Her question
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: was barely audible through the sobs that threatened to suffocate her.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: He looked at her, and perhaps his expression softened a trifle.
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: What's outside, he said, flatly, is just a little worse
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: than either of you can imagine. He tapped his temple.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: The garden's all here. You've killed it, she wept. You've
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: killed it in me. You've both killed everything that's beautiful.
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: But you're worse, she screamed at Patrick, because he only
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: killed beauty once, but you brought it to life just
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: so you can kill it again. Oh I can't stand it.
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: I won't stand it, and she began to scream. Patrick
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: started to art her, but she broke off and whirled
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: away from him to the window, her eyes crazy. You've
• 41:16
  Speaker 1: been lying to us, she cried. The garden's there. I
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: know it is, but you don't want to share it
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: with anyone. No, no, Euphemia, Patrick protested anxiously, it's hell
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: out there. Believe me, I wouldn't lie to you about it.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't lie to me, she mocked, Are you afraid? Too.
• 41:40
  Speaker 1: With a sudden pull, she jerked open the window and
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: stood before the blank, green tinged oblong of darkness that
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: seemed to press into the room like a menacing heavy
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: wind urged curtain. At that, Tank cried out as shocked,
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: pleading heavy. She ignored him. I can't be cooped up
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: here any longer, she said, and I won't now that
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: I know. I'm going to the garden. Both men sprang
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: at her, but they were too late. She leaped lightly
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: to the sill, and by the time they had flung
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: themselves against it, her footsteps were already hurrying off into
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: the darkness. Effie, come back, come back, Hank shouted after her, desperately,
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: no longer thinking to cringe from the man beside him
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: or how the gun was pointed. I love you, Effie,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: come back, Patrick added his voice. Come back, Euphemia, You'll
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: be safe if you come back right away, come back
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: to your home. No answer to that at all. They
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: both strained their eyes through the greenish murk. They could
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: barely make out a shadowy figure about half a block
• 42:56
  Speaker 1: down the near black canyon of the dismal, dust blown street,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: into which the greenish moonlight hardly reached. It seemed to
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: them that the figure was scooping something up from the
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: pavement and letting it sift down along its arms and
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: over its bosom. Go out and get her, man, Patrick
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: urged the other for if I go out for her,
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: I warn you I won't bring her back. She said
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: something about having stood the dust better than most, and
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: that's enough for me. But Hank, chained by his painfully
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: learned habits and by something else, could not move. And
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: then a ghostly voice came whispering down the street, chanting,
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: fire can hurt me. Our water are the weight of
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: the earth, But the dust is my friend. Patrick spared
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: the other man one more look, then, without a word,
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: he vaulted up and ran off. Hank stood there after
• 43:59
  Speaker 1: perhaps half a minute. He remembered to close his mouth
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: when he inhaled. Finally, he was sure the street was empty.
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: As he started to close the window, there was a
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: little mer He picked up the cat and gently put
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: it outside. Then he did close the window and the
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: shutters and bolted them, and took up the Geiger counter
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: and mechanically began to count himself. End of the Moon
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: is Green by Fritz liber This recording by Phil shinevert
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: bread overhead by Fritz Liver. This LibriVox recording is in
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: the public domain as a blisteringly hot but guaranteed weather
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: controlled future. Summer day dawned on the Mississippi Valley, the
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: walking mills of puffy products spiked loaf in one operation,
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: began to tread delicately on their centipee legs across the
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: wheat fields of Kansas. The walking mills resembled fat metal serpents,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: rather larger than those Chinese paper dragons animated by files
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: of men in procession. Sensory robot devices in their noses
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: informed them that the waiting week had reached ripe perfection.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: As they advanced, their heads swung lazily from side to side,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: very much like snakes gobbling the yellow grain in their throats.
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: It was threshed, the chaff, bundled and burked aside for
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: pickup by the crawl trucks of a chemical corporation. The
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: kernels quick dried and blown along into the mighty chests
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: of the machines. There, the tireless mills ground the kernels
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: to flour, which was instantly sifted. The brand being packaged
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: and dropped like the chaff for pickup. A cluster of tanks,
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: which gave the metal serpents a decidedly humpbacked appearance. Added water, shortening, salt,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: and other ingredients, some named and some knot. The dough
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: was at the same time infused with gas from a
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: tank conspicuously labeled carbon dioxide. No yeast creatures in ure bread,
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: thus instantly risen. The dough was clipped into loaves and
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: shot into radionic ovens, forming the mid sections of the
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: metal serpents. There the bread was baked in a matter
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: of seconds, a fierce heat front, browning the crusts and
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: the piping hot loaves sealed in transparent plastic bearing the
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: proud puffy loaf emblem. Two cherubs circling a floating loaf
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: and injected into the delivery platform. At each serpent's rear
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: end wear a cluster of pickup machines, like hungry piglets,
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: snatched at the loaves with hygienic claws. A few loaves
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: would be hurried off for the day's consumption, the majority
• 47:22
  Speaker 1: stored for a winter in strategically located mammoth deep freezes.
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: But now behold a wonder As the loaves began to
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: appear on the delivery platform of the first walking mill
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: to get into action. They did not linger on the
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: conveyor belt, but rose gently into the air and slowly
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: traveled off down wind across the hot rippling fields. The
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: robot claws of the pickup machines clutched in vain, and,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: not noticing the difference, proceeded carefully to stack emptiness tier
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: by One errant loaf, rising more sluggishly than its fellows,
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: was snagged by a thrusting claw. The machine paused, clumsily
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: wiped off the injured loaf, set it aside, where it
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: bobbed on one corner, unable to take off again, and
• 48:17
  Speaker 1: went back to the work of storing nothingness. A flock
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: of crows rose from the trees of a nearby shelter belt.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: As the flight of loaves approached, the crows swooped to investigate,
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: and then suddenly scattered, screeching in panic. The helicopter of
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: a hangoverish Sunday traveler bound for a Wichita shied very
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: similarly from the brown flyers and did not return for
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: a second look. A black haired housewife spied them over
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: her Backpence crossed herself and grabbed her walkie talkie from
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: the laundry basket. Seconds later, the yawning correspondent of a
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: regional newspaper was jotting down the lead of a humor
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: news story, which, recalling the old flying saucer scares, stated
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: that now apparently bread was to be included in the
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: mad aerial tea party. The congregation of an open walled
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: country church, standing up to recite the most familiar of
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: Christian prayers, had just reached the petition for daily sustenance
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: when a sub flight of the lows, either forced down
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: by a vagrant wind or lacking the natural buoyancy of
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: the rest, came coasting silently as the sunbeams between the
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: graceful pillars at the altar end of the building. Meanwhile,
• 49:39
  Speaker 1: the main flight, now augmented by other bread flocks from
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: scores and hundreds of walking mills that had started to
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: work a little later, mounted slowly and majestically into the
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: cirrus flecked upper air, where a steady wind was blowing
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: strongly toward the east, about one thousand miles farther on
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: in that direction, where a cluster of stratosphere tickling towers
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: mark the location of the metropolis of New New York.
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: A tender scene was being enacted in the pressurized penthouse
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: managerial suite of Puffy Products. Mcgera winterly secretary in chief
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: to the managerial Board and referred to by her underlings
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: as the blonde Icicle, was dealing with the advances of
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Roger Racehorse Snedden, Assistant Secretary to the Board and often
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: indistinguishable from any passing office boy. Why don't you jump
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: out the window, Roger, remembering to shut the airlock after you.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: The golden glaciers set in tones, not unkind. When are
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: your high strung thoroughbred nerves going to accept the fact
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: that I would never consider marriage with a business inferior
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: You have about as much chance as a starving Craney
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: and coolock. Now that moscows clapped on the interdict, Roger's
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: voice was calm, although his eyes were feverishly bright as
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: he replied, A lot of things are going to be
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: different around here, Meg, as soon as the board is
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: forced to admit that only my quick thinking made it
• 51:20
  Speaker 1: possible to bring the name of Puffy Loaf in front
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: of the whole world. Puffy Loaf could do with a
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: little of that the business girl observed judiciously the way
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: sales have been plummeting, it won't be long before the
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: government deeds our desks to the managers of fairy Bread
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: and asks us to take the big jump. But just
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: where does your quick thinking come into this, mister Sneddin.
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: You can't be referring to the helium that was Rose
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Thinker's brain wave. She studied him suspiciously. You've birthed another
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: promotional bumble, Roger. I can see it in your eyes.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: I only hope it's not as big one as when
• 52:06
  Speaker 1: you put the Martian ambassador on three D and he
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: thanked you profusely for the gross of puffy loaves, assuring
• 52:13
  Speaker 1: you that he'd never slept on a softer mattress in
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: all his life on two planets. Listen to me, Meg, today, Yes, today,
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: you're going to see the board eating out of my hand. Ah.
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: I guarantee you won't have any fingers left. You're bold
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: enough now, But when mister Gryce and those two big
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: machines come through that door, now wait a minute, Meg, hush,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: they're coming now. Roger leaped three feet in the air,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: but managed to land without a sound, and edged toward
• 52:50
  Speaker 1: his stool through the dilating iris of the door strode
• 52:54
  Speaker 1: Phineas T. Gryce. Flanked by Rose Thinker and Tin Fullilosopher,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: the man approached the conference table in the center of
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: the room with measured pace and gravely expressionless face. The
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: rose tinted machine on his left did a couple of
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: impulsive purouets on the way and twittered a greeting to
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: Meg and Roger. The other machine quietly took the third
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: of the high seats and lifted a claw at Meg,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: who now occupied a stool twice the height of Roger's.
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: Miss Winterley, please our theme. The blonde icicle's face thawed
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: into a little girl's smile, and she chanted. Bubblingly made
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: up of tiny whe ten motes and reinforced with sturdy oats,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: rises through the air and floats the brand on which
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: a'll terra dotes. Thank you, Miss Winterley, said Tin Philosopher,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: though a purely figurative statement that bid about rising through
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: the air always gets me here. He wrapped his midsection,
• 54:02
  Speaker 1: which gave off a high musical clang. Ladies, He inclined
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: his photo cells toward Rose Thinker and Meg and gentlemen.
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: This is a historic occasion in Old Puppy's long history,
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: the inauguration of the helium filled loaf so light it
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: almost floats away, in which that inert and heavenly aspiring
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: gas replaces old fashioned carbon dioxide. Later there will be
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: kudos for Rose Thinker, whose bright relays genius sparked the idea,
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: and also for Roger Snedden, who took care of the details.
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: By the by race horse. That was a brilliant piece
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: of work, getting the helium out of the government. They've
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: been pretty stuppy lately about their monopoly. But first I
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: want to throw wide the casement in your minds that
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: opens on the long view of things. Rose Thinker spun
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: twice on her chair and opened her photo cells wide.
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: Tin philosopher coughed to limber up the diaphragm of his speaker,
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: and continued. Ever since the first cave wife boasted to
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: her next din neighbor about the superior paleness and fluffiness
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: of her tortillas, mankind has sought lighter, whiter bread. Indeed,
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: thinkers wiser than myself have equated the whold upward course
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: of culture with this poignant quest. Yeast was a wonderful
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: discovery for its primitive day. Sifting the brand and wheat
• 55:47
  Speaker 1: germ from the flower was an even more important advance.
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: Early bleaching and preserving chemicals played their humble parts. For
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: a while. Barbarous fat tists, blind to the deeply spiritual
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: nature of bread, which is recognized by all great religions,
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: held back our march toward perfection with their hair splitting
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: insistence on vite to men content of the wheat germ.
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: But their case collapsed when tasteless, colorless substitutes were triumphantly
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: synthesized and introduced into the loaf, which for flawless purity,
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: unequaled airiness, and sheer intangible goodness was rapidly becoming mankind's
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: supreme gustatory experience. I wonder what they stop tastes like rose,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: thinkers set out of a clear sky. I wonder what
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: tastes like ten philosopher echoed, dreamily, recovering himself. He continued. Then,
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: early in the twenty first century came the epochal researches
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: of Everett Whitehead, puffy loaf chemist, culminating in his paper
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: the Structural Bubble in Cereal Masses and making possible the
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: baking of air tight bread twenty times stronger for its
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: weight than steel, and of a lightness that would have
• 57:22
  Speaker 1: been incredible even to the advanced chemist bakers of the
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: twentieth century, a lightness so great that, besides forming the
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: backbone of our own promotion, it has forever since been
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: capitalized on by our conscienceless competitors of fairy bread, with
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: their enduring slogan it makes ghost toast. That's abute, all right,
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: that ecto dough blurb. Rose thinker admitted logging her photo cells. Sadly,
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: Wait a sec, how about they'll be bred overhead when
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: you're dead, it is, said Phineas T. Grice wrinkled his
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: nostrils at the pink machine as if he smelled her
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: insulation smoldering. He said, mildly, a somewhat unhappy jingle, Rose,
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: referring as it does to the end of the customer
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: as consumer. Moreover, we shouldn't overplay the figurative rises through
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: the air angle. What inspired you, she shrugged. I don't know, Oh,
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: yes I do. I was remembering one of the worker's
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: songs we machines used to chant during the big strike.
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: Work and pray, live on Hey you'll get pie in
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: the sky when you die. It's a lie. I don't
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: know why we chanted it, she added. We didn't want
• 59:00
  Speaker 1: Hi or Hey for that matter. And machines don't pray
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: except Tibetan prayer, wheels phineas T. Grice shook his head.
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Labor relations are another topic we should stay far away from. However,
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: dear Rose, I'm glad you keep trying to outjingle those
• 59:19
  Speaker 1: dirty crooks at fairy bread, he scowled, turning back his
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: attention to Tin Philosopher. I get wapping mad old machine
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: whenever I hear that other slogan of theirs, the discriminatory
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: one untouched by robot claws, just because they employ a
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: few filthy androids in their factories. Tin Philosopher lifted one
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: of his own sets of bright talons. Thanks PG. But
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: to continue my historical resume, the next great advance in
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: the baking art was the substitution of pure carbon dioxide
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 1: removed from coal smoke for the gas generated by yeast
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: organisms in dwelling in the dough and later killed by
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: the heat of baking, their corpuses remaining in C. Two.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: But even purified carbon dioxide is itself a rather repugnant gas,
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: a product of metabolism, whether fast or slow, and forever
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: associated with those life processes which are obnoxious to the fastidious.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: Here the machine shuddered with delicate clinkings. Therefore, we of
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: puffy loaf are taking today what may be the ultimate
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: step toward purity. We are aerrating our loaves with the
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: noble gas helium, an element which remains virginal in the
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: face of all chemical temptations, and whose slim molecules are
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: eleven times lighter than obese carbon dioxide. Yes, noble, uncontaminable helium, which,
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: if it be a kind of ash, is yet the
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: ash only of a radioactive burning accomplished or initiated directly
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: on the Sun, a safe ninety three million miles from
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: this planet. Let's have a cheer for the helium loaf.
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: Without changing expression, Phineas T. Grice wrapped the table thrice
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: in solemn applause, while the others bowed their heads. Thanks.
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: Gp Pt then said, and now for the moment of truth,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: Miss Winterly, how is the helium loaf selling? The business
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: girl clapped on a pair of earphones and whispered into
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: a lapel mic her grays grew abstracted as she mentally
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: translated flurries of brief squawks in two coherent messages. Suddenly,
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: a single vertical furrow creased her matchlessly smooth row. It isn't,
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: mister Gryce, she gasped in horror. Fairy Bread is out
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: selling puffy loaves by an infinity factor. So far this morning,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: there has not been one single delivery of puffy loaves
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: to any sales spot. Complaints about non delivery are pouring
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: in from both walking stores and sessile shops. Mister Snetton
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: Gryce barked what bugs in the new helium process might
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: account for this delay. Roger was on his feet, looking bewildered.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: I can't imagine, sir, unless, just possibly, there's been some
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: unforeseeable difficulty involving the new metal foil rappers. Metal foil wrappers.
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: Were you responsible for the os Yes, sir. A last
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: minute recalculations showed that the extra lightness of the new
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: loaf might be great enough to cause drifts during stackage
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: drafts and stores might topple sales pyramids. Metal foil rappers,
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: by their added weight, took care of the difficulty, and
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: you ordered them without consulting the board. Yes, sir, there
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: was hardly time. And why you fool I noticed that
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: order for metal foil rappers, assumed it was some sub
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: secretary's mistake and canceled it last night. Roger Steedton turned pale.
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 1: You canceled it? He quavered, and told them to go
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: back to the lighter plastic wrappers. Of course, just what
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: is behind all this, mister Steddon? What recalculations were you
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: trusting when our physicists had demonstrated months ago that the
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: helium lope was safely stackable in light airs and gentle
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 1: breezes winds up to Beaufort's scale three. Why should a
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: change from heavier to lighter wrappers result in complete nondelivery.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Roger Snedden's paleness became tinged with an interesting green. He
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: cleared his throat and made strange gulping noises. Ten philosopher's
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: photo cells focused on him, calmly rose thinkers with unfeigned excitement. P. T.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: Gryce's frown grew blacker by the moment, while mcgirder Winterley's
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 1: venus mask showed an odd dawning of dismay and awe
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: she was getting new squawks in her earphones are Roger
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: said in winning tones, Well, you see, the fact is
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 1: that I howled it. Meg interrupted crisply Triple Urgent from
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: Public Relation Safety Division, Tulsa, Topeka. Arrow Express makes emergency
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: landing after being buffeted in encounter with vast flight of
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: objects first described as brown birds, although no failures reported
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: in airways electronic anti bird fences. After grounding safely near Emporia,
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: no fatalities. Pilot's windshield found thinly plastered with soft white
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: and brown material. Emblems on plastic wrappers embedded in material
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: identify it incontroversibly as an undetermined number of puffy loaves
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: cruising at three thousand feet. Eyes and photo cells turned
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 1: inquisitorially upon roger snetting. He went from green to puffy
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: loaf white and blurted, all right, I did it, but
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: it was the only way out. Yesterday morning, due to
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: the Ukrainian crisis, the government stopped sales in deliveries of
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: all strategic stockpiled materials, including helium gas. Puppy's new program
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: of advertising and promotion based on the Lighter Loaf was
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: already rolling. There was only one thing to do there
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: being only one other gas comparable in lightness to helium.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: I diverted the necessary quantity of hydrogen gas from the
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: hydrogenated oil section of our magna margarine division and substituted
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: it for the helium. You substituted hydrogen for the helium.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: Phineas t. Grice faltered in low mechanical tones, taking four
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: steps backward. Hydrogen is twice as light as helium. Tin,
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: Philosopher remarked, judiciously and many times cheaper. Did you know that,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: Roger countered feebly. Yes, I substituted hydrogen. The metal foil
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: wrapping would have added just enough weight to conteract the
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: greater buoyancy of the highydrig loaf. But so when this
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: morning's loafs began to arrive on the delivery platforms of
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: the walking mills, ten Philosopher left the remark unfinished exactly
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: Roger agreed dismally. Let me ask you, mister Snedden Gryce interjected,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: still in low tones, if you expected people to jump
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: to the kitchen ceiling for the puppy loaf after taking
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: off the metal wrapper, or reach for the sky if
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: they happened to unwrap the stuff outdoors, mister Gryce, Roger said, reproachfully,
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 1: you have often assured me that what people do with
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: puppy loaf after they buy it is no concern of ours.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: I seem to recall. Rose Thinker chirped somewhat unkindly that
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: Dictum was created to answer inquiries. After Roger put the
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: famous sculptures in Miniature Artists on three D and he
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 1: testified that he always molded his first attempts from puffybread
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: one jumbo loaf, squeezing down to approximately the size of
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: a peanut. Her photo cells dimmed and brightened. Oh boy, hydrogen.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: The loas unwrapped after a while, In spite of the
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: crust seal, a little oxygen diffuses in an explosive mixture.
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: Housewife in curlers and kimono pops a couple of slices
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: in the toaster boom. The three human beings in the
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: room winced tin philosopher kicked her under the table while observing.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: So you see, Roger, that the non delivery of the
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: hydrogen loaf carries some consolations. And I must confess that
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: one aspect of the affair gives me great satisfaction, not
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: as a boy. Remember, but as a private machine, you
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: have at last made a reality of the rises through
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 1: the air, part of puffy Bread's theme. They can't ever
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: take that away from you. By now half the inhabitants
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: of the Great Plains must have observed our flying loaves
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: rising high bineast Grace shot a frightened look at the
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: west windows and found his full voice. Stop the mills,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: he roared at Meg Winterly, who nodded and whispered urgently
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: into her mic. A sensible suggestion, tin philosopher said, but
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: it comes a trifle late in the day. If the
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: mills are still walking and grinding, Approximately seven billion puffy
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: loaves are at this moment cruising eastward over Middle America.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: Remember that a six months supply for a deep freeze
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: is involved, and that the current consumption of bread, due
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: to its matchless airiness, is eight and one half loaves
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: per person per day. Phineas T. Grice carefully inserted both
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: hands into his scanty hair, Feeling for a good grip.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: He leaned menacingly toward Roger, who chin resting on the table,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: regarded him apathetically. Hold it. Meg called sharply. Flock of
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: multiple urgents coming in news lays on information bureaus swamped
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: with flying bread inquiries, arrow express lines, clear our airways
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: or face lawsuit US Army. Why do Low's flame when
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: hit by incendiary bullets? US customs? Get bread intended for export,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: get export license, or face prosecution. Russian consulate in Chicago
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: advise on destination of bread lift and some Kansas church
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: is accusing us of a hoax, inciting to blasphemy or
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: faking miracles. I don't know why the business girl tore
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: off her headphones, Roger snettin. She cried with a hysteria
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: that would have dumbfounded her underlings. You brought the name
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: of puffy Loaf in front of the whole world, all right,
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: Now do something about the situation. Roger nodded obediently, but
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 1: his pallor increased the shade, the pupils of his eyes
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: disappeared under upper lids, and his head burrowed beneath his forearms.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, rose thinker called gaily to tin philosopher, This
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: looks like the start of a real crisis session. Did
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: you remember to bring spare batteries? Meanwhile, the monstrous flight
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 1: of puffy lows filling Bitwestern skies, as no small flier
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 1: had since the days of the passenger pigeon, soared steadily onward.
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 1: Private flyers approached the brown and glistening bread front and curiosity,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: and dipped back in awe. Arrow express lines organized sightseeing
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: flights along the flanks. Planes of the government Forestry and
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: Agricultural Services, and copters bearing the populoaf emblem hovered on
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: the fringes, watching developments and waiting for orders. A squadron
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 1: of supersonic fighters hung menacingly above. The behavior of birds
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: varied considerably. Most flat or gave the loaves a wide berth,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 1: but some boulder species, discovering the minimal nutritive nature of
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: the translucent brown objects, attacked them furiously with beaks and claws.
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: Hydrogen diffusing slowly through the crusts, had now distended most
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: of the sealed plastic wrappers into little balloons, which ruptured
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: when pierced with disconcerting pups below. Neck craning citizens crowded
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: streets and back yards, cranks and cultists had a field day,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: while local and national governments raged indiscriminately at puffy loaf
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: end at each other. Rumors that a fusion weapon would
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: be exploded in the midst of the Flying Bread, drew
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: angry protests from conservationists and a flood of telefax pamphlets
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: titled h loaf or h bomb. Stockholm sent a mystifying
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: note of praise to the United Nations Food Organization Delhi,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: issued numerous denials of a millet blight that no one
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: had heard of until that moment, and reaffirmed India's ability
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: to feed her population with no outside help except the usual.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: Radio Moscow that the Kremlin would brook no interference in
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: its treatment of the Ukrainians jokingly referred to the Flying
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: Bread as a force perpetrated by mad internationalists inhabiting Cloud
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: Cuckoo Land, added contradictory references to airborne bread booby trapped
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: by capitalist gangsters, and then fell moodily silent on the
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: whole topic. Radio Venus reported to its winged audience that
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: Earth's inhabitants were establishing food depots in the upper air
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: reparatory to taking a permanent aerial residence such as we
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: have always enjoyed On Venus. New New York made feverish
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: preparations for the passage of the Flying Bread. Tickets for
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 1: sightseeing space and skyscrapers were sold at high prices. Cold
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: meats and potted spreads were hawked to viewers with the
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: assurance that they would be able to snag the bread
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: out of the air and enjoy a historic sandwich. Phineas T. Grice,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: escaping from his own managerial suite, ranged about the city,
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: demanding general cooperation in the stretching of great nets between
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: the skyscrapers to trap the arrant loaves. He was captured
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: by Tin Philosopher, escaped again and was found posted with
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: oxygen mask and submachine gun on the topmost spire of
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: Puppy Loaf Tower, apparently determined to shoot down the loaves
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: as they appeared, and before they involved his company in
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: more trouble with customs and the State Department. Recaptured by
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: Tin Philosopher, who suffered only minor bullet holes, he was
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: given a series of mild electro shocks and returned to
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 1: the conference table calm and clear headed as ever, But
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: the bread flight, swinging away from a hurricane moving up
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: the Atlantic coast, crossed. They clouded in Bason by night
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: and disappeared into a high Atlantic overcast, also thereby evating
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: a local storm generated by the weather Department in a
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: last minute effort to bring down or at least disperse
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: the h loaves. Warnings and counter warnings by communists and
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 1: capitalist governments seriously interfered with military trailing of the flight
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 1: during this period, and it was actually lost in touch
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 1: with for several days. At scattered points, seagulls were observed
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: fighting over individual loaves floating down from the gray roof.
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: That was all. A mood of spirituality, strongly tinged with humor,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: seized the people of the world. Ministers sermonized about the bread,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: variously interpreting it as a call to charity, a warning
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: against gluttony, a parable of the efanescence of all earthly things,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: and a divine joke. Husbands and wives, facing each other
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: across their walls of breakfast toast, burst into laughter. The
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: mere sight of a loaf of bread anywhere was enough
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: to evoke the faws, an obscure sect having as part
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: of its creed the injunction don't take yourself so damn seriously.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: One new adherence the bread flight, rising above an Atlantic
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: storm widely reported to have destroyed, it passed unobserved across
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: a foggy England and rose out of the overcast only
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: over Mattel, Europa. The lows had at last reached their
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: maximum altitude. The sun's rays beat through the rarefied air
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: on the distended plastic wrappers, increasing still further the pressure
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 1: of the confined hydrogen. They burst by the millions and
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: tens of millions. A high flying Bulgarian evangelist who had
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: happened to mistake the up lever for the east lever
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: in the cockpit of his flyer, and who was the
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: sole witness of the event afterward, described it as the
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: foaming of a sea of diamonds, the crackle of God's knuckles.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: By the millions and tens of millions, the loaves coasted
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: down into the starving Ukraine. Shaken by a week of
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: humor that threatened to invade even its own grim precincts,
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: the Kremlin made a sudden about base. A new policy
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 1: was instituted of communal ownership of the produce of communal farms.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: The teams of hunger fighters and caravans of trucks loaded
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: with pumpernickel were dispatched into the Ukraine. World distribution was
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: given to a series of photographs showing peasants queuing up
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 1: to trade scavenged puppy loafs for traditional black bread, recently
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 1: a rated itself, but still extra solid by comparison, the
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: rate of exchange demanded by Moscow teams being twenty puppy
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: loaves to one of pumpernickel. Another series of photographs picturing
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 1: chubby worker's children being blown to bits by booby trapped
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 1: bread was quietly destroyed. Congratulatory notes were exchanged by various
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: national governments and world organizations, including the Brotherhood of Free
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: Business Machines. The Great Bread Flight was over, though for
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: several weeks afterwards, scattered falls of loaves occurred, giving rise
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: to a new folklore of manna among lonely Arabian tribesmen,
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 1: and in one well authenticated instance in Tibet, sustaining life
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 1: in a party of mountaineers cut off by a snowslide.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: Back in New New York, the managerial board of Puffy
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 1: Products slumped in utter collapse around the conference table. The
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: long crisis session at last ended. Empty coffee cartoons were
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: scattered around the chairs of the three humans, dead batteries
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 1: around those of the two machines. For a while, there
• 1:20:05
  Speaker 1: was no movement whatsoever then Roger Snedden reached out wearily
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: for the earphones where Maghera Winterly had hurled him down,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: adjusted them to his head, pushed a button and listened apathetically.
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: After a bit his gaze brightened. He pushed more buttons
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: and listened more eagerly. Soon he was sitting tensely upright
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: on his stool, eyes bright and lower face, all a smile,
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 1: muttering tense comments and questions into the lapel mike torn
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 1: from Meg's fair neck. The others reviving watched him, at
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: first dully, then with quickening interest, especially when he jerked
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: off the earphones with a happy shout and sprang to
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 1: his feet. Listen to this, he cried in a ringing voice.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: As a result of the world wide publicity, puffy loaves
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 1: are out selling fairries. We bred three to one, and
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: that's just the old carbon dioxide stock from our freezers.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: It's all most exhausted. But the government, now that the
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: Ukrainian crisis is over, has taken the ban off helium
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: and will also sell us stockpiled wheat if we need it.
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: We can have our walking mills burrowing into the wheat
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: caves in a matter of hours. But that isn't all.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 1: The far greater demand everywhere is for puffy loaves that
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: will actually float. Public Relations Child lace On Division reports
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 1: that the kiddies are making their mothers lives miserable about it.
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: If only we can figure out some way to make
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: hydrogen non explosive, or the helium loaf float just a little,
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: I'm sure we can take care of that quite handily.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: Ten philosopher interrupted briskly. Puffy loaf has kept it a
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: corporation secret. Even you've never been told about it. But
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: just before he went crazy, Everett Whitehead discovered a way
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: to make bread using only half as much flour as
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: we do in the present loaf. Using this secret technique,
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: which we've been saving for just such an emergency, it
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: will be possible to bake a helium loaf as buoyant
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: in every respect as the hydrogen loaf. Good Roger cried.
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: We'll tether them on strings and sell them like balloons.
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 1: No mother child shopping team will leave the store without
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: a cluster. Buying bread balloons will be the big event
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: of the day for kiddies. You'll make the carry home
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 1: shopping load lighter. Two. I'll issue orders at once, he
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: broke off, looking at phineas d Grice said with quiet assurance,
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 1: excuse me, sir, if I seem to be taking too
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: much upon myself, not at all, Sun go straight ahead,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: the great manager said approvingly. You're he laughed, in anticipation
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: of getting off, a memorable remark, rising to the challenging situation,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: like a genuine puppy loaf. Mcgera Winterley looked from the
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: older man to the younger. Then in a single leap,
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: she was upon Roger, her arms wrapped tightly around him.
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: My sweet little ever victorious self propelled monkey wrench, she
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: crooned in his ear. Roger looked fatuously over her soft
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: shoulder at tin philosopher, who, as if moved by some
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: similar feeling, reached over and touched claws with rose. Thinker. This, however,
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: was what he telegraphed silently to his fellow machine across
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: the circuit. So completed, good old Rosie. That makes another
• 1:23:50
  Speaker 1: victory for robot engineered world unity. Though you almost gave
• 1:23:55
  Speaker 1: us away at the start with that bread overhead jingle.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 1: We've struck another blow against the next world war, in which,
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: as we know only too well, we machines would suffer
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: the most. Now, if we can only arraign, say a
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: fur famine in Alaska and a migration of long haired
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: Siberian lemmings across Burying straits, we'd have to swing the
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: Japanese current up there, so would be warm enough with
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 1: the little fellows. Anyhow, Rosie, with a spot of help
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: from the Brotherhood, those humans will paint themselves into the
• 1:24:30
  Speaker 1: peace corner. Yet meanwhile, he and Rose Thinker quietly watched
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: the blonde icicle melt end of bread overhead by Fritz Leiber.
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: This story recorded by Phil Shinevert. What's he doing in there?
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 1: By Fritz Leiber. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 1:25:07
  Speaker 1: The Professor was congratulating Earth's first visitor from another planet
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: on his wisdom in getting in touch with a cultural
• 1:25:15
  Speaker 1: anthropologist before contacting any other scientists or governments God forbid,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: and in learning English from radio and TV before landing
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: from his arbit parked rocket. When the Martians stood up
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: and said hesitantly, excuse me, please, but where is it?
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: That baffled the Professor, and the Martians seemed to grow anxious.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: At least his long mouth curved upward, and he had
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: earlier explained that curling downward was his smile, and he repeated, please,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: where is it? He was surprisingly humanoid in most respects,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: but his complexion was textured so like the rich, dark
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: armchair he'd just been occupying that the professor's pin striped
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 1: gray suit, which he had eagerly consented to wear, seemed
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: an arbitrary interruption between him and the chair, a sort
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: of Mother Hubbard dress on a phantom conjured from its leather.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 1: The professor's wife, always a perceptive hostess, came to her
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: husband's rescue by saying, with equal rapidity, top of the stairs,
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: into the hall, last door. The Martian's mouth curled happily downward,
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 1: and he said thank you very much, and was off
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 1: comprehension burst on the professor. He caught up with his
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: guest at the foot of the stairs. Here, I'll show
• 1:26:47
  Speaker 1: you the way, he said, No, I confined it MYSELFE
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: thank you, the martian assured him. Something rather final in
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: the martian's tone made the professor desist, and after watching
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: his visitor sway up the stairs with an almost hypnotic,
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: softly jogging movement, he rejoined his wife in the study,
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: saying wonderingly, who would have thought it by George function
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 1: taboos as strict as our own. I'm glad some of
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: your professional visitors maintain em, his wife said darkly. But
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: this one's from Mars, Darling, And to find out he's
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: well similar in an aspect of his life is as
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: thrilling as the discovery that water is burned hydrogen. When
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: I think of the day not far distant, when I'll
• 1:27:40
  Speaker 1: put his entries in the cross cultural index. He was
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: still rhapsodizing when the professor's little son raced in pop
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: the Martian's gone to the bathroom. Hush, dear manners. Now
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: it's perfectly natural, darling, that the boy should notice and
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: be excited. Yes, the Martian's not very different from us. Oh, certainly,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: the professor's wife said, with a trace of bitterness. I
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: don't imagine his turquoise complexion will cause any comment at
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: all when you bring him to a faculty reception. They'll
• 1:28:16
  Speaker 1: just figure he had a hard night and that he
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: got that baby elephant nose sniffing around for assistant professorships. Really, Darling,
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: he probably thinks of our noses as disagreeably amputated and
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: paralyzed well, anyway, Pop, he's in the bathroom. I followed
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: him when he squiggled upstairs. Now, son, you shouldn't have
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 1: done that. He's on a strange planet and it might
• 1:28:41
  Speaker 1: make him nervous if he thought he was being spied on.
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: We must show him every courtesy by George. I can't
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: wait to discuss these things with Ackerley rams Bottom when
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: I think of how much more this encounter has to
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: give the anthropologist than even the physicist or astronomer. He
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: was still going strong on his second rhapsody when he
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: was interrupted by another high speed entrance. It was the
• 1:29:10
  Speaker 1: professor's Coltish daughter. Mom. Pop, The Martians hush, dear, we know.
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: The professor's Coltish daughter regained her adolescent poise, which was considerable.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: Well he's still in there, she said, I just tried
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: the door and it was locked. I'm glad it was,
• 1:29:31
  Speaker 1: the professor said, while his wife added, yes, you can't
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: be sure what and she caught herself. Really, dear, that
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: was very bad manners. I thought he'd come downstairs long ago,
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: her daughter explained, He's been in there an awful long time.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: It must have been half an hour ago that I
• 1:29:51
  Speaker 1: saw him gyre and gimbal upstairs in that real going
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: way he has. With Nosy here following him, The professor's
• 1:29:59
  Speaker 1: Coltish was currently soaking up both jive and alice. When
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: the Professor checked his wristwatch, his expression grew troubled. By George,
• 1:30:11
  Speaker 1: he is taking his time, though, of course we don't
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 1: know how much time Martians, I wonder I've listened for
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: a while. Pop, his son volunteered. He was running the
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: water a lot running the water.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: Eh.
• 1:30:27
  Speaker 1: We know Morris is a water starved planet. I suppose
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: that in the presence of unlimited water he might be
• 1:30:34
  Speaker 1: seized by a kind of madness. But he seemed so
• 1:30:38
  Speaker 1: well adjusted. Then his wife spoke, voicing all their thoughts.
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: Her outlook on life gave her a naturally suppulchral voice.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: What's he doing in there? Twenty minutes and at least
• 1:30:54
  Speaker 1: as many fantastic suggestions later, the professor glanced again at
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 1: his watch and nerved himself for action. Motioning his family aside,
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 1: he mounted the stairs and tiptoed down the hall. He
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 1: paused only once to shake his head and mutter under
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: his breath. By George, I wish I had Finchurch arevan Guttschalk.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: Here there a shade better than I am on intercultural contacts,
• 1:31:21
  Speaker 1: especially taboo breaking in the fronts. His family followed him
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: at a short distance. The professor stopped in front of
• 1:31:29
  Speaker 1: the bathroom door. Everything was quiet as death. He listened
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: for a minute and then rapped, measuredly, studying his hand
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: by clutching its wrist with the other. There was a
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: faint splashing, but no other sound. Another minute passed. The
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: professor rapped again. Now there was no response at all.
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: He very gingerly tried the knob. The door was still locked.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 1: When he had retreated to the stairs, it was the
• 1:32:03
  Speaker 1: professor's wife who once more voiced their thoughts. This time
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: her voice carried overtones of supernatural horror. What's he doing
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: in there? He may be dead or dying. The professor's
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: coldish daughter suggested briskly, maybe we ought to call the
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: fire department, like they did for old Mistress Frisbee. The
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 1: professor winced, I'm afraid you haven't visualized the complications, dear,
• 1:32:30
  Speaker 1: he said gently. No one but ourselves knows that the
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: Martian is on Earth, or has even the slightest inkling
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: that interplanetary travel has been achieved. Whatever we do, it
• 1:32:43
  Speaker 1: will have to be on our own. But to break
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: in on a creature engaged in well, we don't know
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: what primal private activity is against all anthropological practice. Still dying,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: the primal activity is, daughter said crisply So's ritual bathing
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 1: before mass murder. His wife added, please, still, as I
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: was about to say, we do have the moral duty
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: to succor him. As you all too reasonably suggest, he
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 1: has been incapacitated by a germ or virus, or more
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: likely by some simple environmental factors such as Earth's greater gravity.
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: Tell you what, Pop, I can look in the bathroom
• 1:33:26
  Speaker 1: window and see what he's doing. All I have to
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 1: do is crawl out my bedroom window in a long
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: the gutter a little ways. It's safe as houses. The
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 1: professor's question, beginning with son, how do you know died unmuttered,
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 1: and he refused to notice the words his daughter was
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: voicing silently at her brother. He glanced at his wife's
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: sardonically composed face, thought once more of the fire department,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: and of other and larger and even more jealous or
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: would it be skeptical room and agencies, and clutched at
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: the straw offered him. Ten minutes later, he was quite
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: unnecessarily assisting his son back through the bedroom window. Gee, Pop,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: I couldn't see a sign of him. That's why I
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: took so long. Hey, Pop, do look so scared. He's
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: in there, sure enough. It's just that the bathtub's under
• 1:34:22
  Speaker 1: the window and you have to get real close up
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: to see into it. The Martians taking a bath. He
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: got it full up and just the end of his
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: little old snozzle sticking out your suit. Pop was hanging
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: on the door. The one word the professor's wife spoke
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: was like a death knell drowned. No, ma, I don't
• 1:34:46
  Speaker 1: think so. His schnozzle was opening and closing regularlike. Maybe
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: he's a shape changer, the professor's coltish daughter said, in
• 1:34:55
  Speaker 1: a burst of evil fantasy. Maybe he softens in water
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: and thin ends out after a while until he's like
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: an eel, and then he'll go exploring through the sewer pipes.
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't it be funny if he went under the street
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: and knocked on the stopper from underneath and crawled into
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: the bathtub with President Rexford, our Missr's President Rexford, or
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 1: maybe right into the middle of one of Jamie Rexford's
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: Oh I'm so sexy bubble baths, please. The professor put
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: his hand to his eyebrow and kept it there, cuddling
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: the elbow in his other hand. Well have you thought
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: of something, the professor's wife asked him, after a bit.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: What are you going to do? The professor dropped his
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: hand and blinked his eyes hard and took a deep breath.
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: Telegraph Finchurff and ankrily Ramsbottom and then break in, he said,
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: in a resigned voice, into which, nevertheless a note of
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 1: hope seemed also to have come first. However, I'm going
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: to until morning. And he sat down cross legged in
• 1:36:03
  Speaker 1: the hall, a few yards from the bathroom door, and
• 1:36:06
  Speaker 1: folded his arms. So the long vigil commenced. The professor's
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: family shared it, and he offered no objection. Other and
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: sterner men, he told himself, might claim to be able
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: successfully to order their children to go to bed when
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 1: there was a martian locked in the bathroom, but he
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: would like to see them face with the situation. Finally,
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: dawn began to seep from the bedrooms. When the bulb
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: in the hall had grown quite dim, the professor unfolded
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: his arms. Just then there was a loud splashing in
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: the bathroom. The professor's family looked toward the door. The
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: splashing stopped, and they heard the martian moving around. Then
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: the door opened and the martian appeared in the professor's
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: gray pin shripe suit. His mouth curled sharply downward in
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: a broad alien smile as he saw the professor. Good morning,
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: the martian said, happily. I never slept better in my life,
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: even in my own little whit bed back on Mars.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: He looked around more closely, and his mouth straightened. But
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: why did you all sleep, he asked. Don't tell me
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: you stayed dry all night. You didn't give up your
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: only bed to me. His mouth curled upward in misery.
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 3: Oh, dear, he said, I'm afraid I made a mistake somehow,
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 3: Yet I don't understand how. Before I studied you, I
• 1:37:45
  Speaker 3: didn't know what your sleeping habits would be. But that
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 3: question was answered for me. In fact, it looked sorry,
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 3: assuringly homelike when I saw those great TV scenes of
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 3: your female ready for sleep in the little tubs. Of course,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 3: on Moore's only the fortunate can always be sure of
• 1:38:08
  Speaker 3: sleeping wet.
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: But here, with your.
• 1:38:11
  Speaker 3: Abundance of water, I thought there would be wet beds
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 3: for all.
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: He paused.
• 1:38:18
  Speaker 3: It's true I hit some doubts last night, wondering if
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 3: I had used to write words and oil ha.
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 4: But then you wrapped good night to me. I splashed
• 1:38:31
  Speaker 4: the set them back at you, and want to sleep
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 4: in a wink. But I'm afraid that somewhere I've blundered.
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: And no, no, dear Chap, the professor managed to say
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: he had been waving his hand in a gentle circle
• 1:38:47
  Speaker 1: for some time in token that he wanted to interrupt.
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: Everything is quite all right. It's true we stayed up
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: all night, but please consider that as a watch and
• 1:38:59
  Speaker 1: honor guard by George, which we kept to indicate our esteem.
• 1:39:05
  Speaker 1: And of what's he doing in there? By Fritz Leiber.
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: This story was recorded by Phil Shinever