Latest / 3 Science Fiction Stories by Frank Herbert / Sentimentalists - Murray Leinster

Transcript

Sentimentalists - Murray Leinster · 3 Science Fiction Stories by Frank Herbert

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Part one of the Sentimentalists. This is the LibriVox recording.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: information nor to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: by Phil Shinever. The Sentimentalists by Murray Leinster. This story
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: was first published in Galaxy Science Fiction April nineteen fifty three.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Part one. Rod Empiscus and not Liichtha were on their honeymoon,
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: and consequently they were sentimental. To be sure, it would
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: not have been easy for humans to imagine sentiment as
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: existing between them. Humans would hardly associate tenderness with glances
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: cast from sets of sixteen eyes mounted on jointed eye stalks,
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: nor link languorous thrills with a koy mingling of positronic
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: repulsion blasts, even when the emission of roositron blasts from
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: beneath one's mantle was one's normal personal mode of locomotion.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: And when two creatures like Radampiscus and Notolichtha stood on
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: what might be roughly described as their heads and twined
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: their eyestalks together so that they gazed fondly at each
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: other with all sixteen eyes at once, humans would not
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: have thought of it as the equivalent of a loving kiss.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Humans would have screamed and run if they were not
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: paralyzed by the mere sight of such individuals. Nevertheless, they
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: were a very happy pair, and they were very sentimental,
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: and it was probably a good thing considered from all ankles.
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: They were still newlyweds on their wedding tour. They had
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: been married only seventy five years before. When they passed
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: by the sun, the humans called setis Gamma, Radampiscus noted
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: its peculiarity. He was anxious, of course, for their honeymoon
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: to be memorable in every possible way, so he pointed
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: it out to not Liktha and explained what was shortly
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: to be expected. She listened with a bride's wrapped admiration
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: of her new husband's wisdom. Perceiving his scientific interest, she
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: suggested Charlie that they stop and watch. Radampiscus scanned the area.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: There were planets inner ones, and then a group of
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: gas giants, and then a very cozy series of three
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: outer planets with surface temperatures ranging from three to seven
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: degrees kelvin. They changed course and landed on the ninth planet,
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: out where the landscape was delightful rad Empiscus unlembered his
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: traveling kit and prepared a bower. Nitrogen snow rose and
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: swirled and consolidated as he definitely shifted force pencils. When
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the tumult subsided, there was a snug if from cottage
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: for the two of them to dwell in while they
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: waited for Setagamma to accomplish its purpose. Noo Lichtha cried
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: out softly when she entered the bower. She was fascinated
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: by its completeness. There was even running liquid hydrogen from
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: a little rill nearby and over the doorway. As an
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: artistic and appropriate touch, rad Empiscus had put his own
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: and notolichthus initials picked out in amber chlorine crystals and
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: intertwined within the symbol, which to them meant a heart.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: No A Lichtha embraced him fondly for his thoughtfulness. Of course,
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: no human would have recognized it as an embrace, but
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: that did not matter. Happily, Then they settled down to
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: observe the phenomenon that setis Gamma would presently display. They
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: scanned the gas giant planets together, and then the inner ones.
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: On the second planet out from the Sun, they perceived
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: small biped animals busily engaged in works of primitive civilization.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: Node Lika was charmed. She asked eager questions, and Radimpiscus
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: searched his memory and told her that the creatures were
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: not well known, but had been observed before. Limited in
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: every way by their physical constitution, they had actually achieved
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: a form of space travel by means of crude vehicles,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: he believed. He said that the name they called themselves
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: was men. The sun rose slowly in the east, and
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: lorn Simpson swore patiently as he tried for the eighteenth
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: time to get the generator back again in a fashion
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: to make it work. His tractor waited in the nearby field.
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: The fields waited over in Cetopolus, the scales and store
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: sheds waited, and somewhere there was doubtless a cargo ship
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: wait looking for a spacecram to summon it to setus
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: Gamma two for a load of though our leaves, and
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: of course people everywhere waited for than our leaves A
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: milligram a day kept old age away, which was not
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: an advertising slogan but sound practical geriatric science. But than
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: our leaves would only grow on setus Gamma too, and
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: the law said that all habitable planets had to be
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: open for colonization and land could not be withheld from market.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: There was too much population back on Earth anyhow. Therefore,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: the Setis Gamma Trading Company couldn't make a planet wide
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: plantation and keep Thanar as a monopoly, but could only
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: run its own plantation for research and instruction purposes for
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: new colonists. Colonists had to be admitted to the planet,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: and they had to be sold old land. But there
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: are ways of getting around every law. Lawn Simpson swore
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the diesel of his tractor ran a generator. The generator
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: ran the motors in the tractor's catawheels, But this was
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: the sixth time in a month that the generator had
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: broken down, and generators do not break down. Lawn put
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: it together for the eighteenth time this breakdown, and it
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: still wouldn't work. There was nothing detectably wrong with it,
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: but he couldn't make it work. Seething, he walked back
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: to his neat prefabricated house. He picked up the beam phone.
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Even Cathy's voice at the exchange in Cetopolus could not
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: soothe him. He was so furious Kathy, give me Carson,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: and don't listen, he said tensely. He heard clickings on
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: the two way beam. My generator's gone, he said sourly.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: When Carson answered, I've repaired it twice this week. It
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: looks like it was built to stop working. What is
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: this all about anyhow? The representative of the setiscoma trading
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: company sounded bored. Do you want a new generator sent out?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: He asked, without interest? Your crop credits still all right?
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: If the fields are in good shape. I want machinery
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: that works. Lon Simpson snapped, I want machinery that doesn't
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: have to be bought four times over a growing season,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: and I want it at a decent price. Look, those
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: generators come out from Earth. There's freight on them. There's
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: freight on everything that comes out from Earth. You people
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: come to a developed planet, You buy your land, your machinery,
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: your house, and you get instruction in agriculture. Do you
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: want the company to tuck you in bed at night? Besides?
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Do you want a new generator or not? How much,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: demanded Lawn. When Carson told him, he hit the ceiling.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: It's robbery. What'll I have left of my crop if
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: I buy that. Carson's voice was still bored. If you
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: buy it and your crops up to standard, you'll owe
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: the crop plus three hundred credits, but we'll stake you
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: to the next drowing season. And if I don't demanded lawn,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: suppose I don't give you all my work for nothing
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: and wind up in debt by contract. Carson told him,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: We've got the right to finish cultivating your crop and
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: charge you for the work because we've advanced you credit
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: on it. Then we'll attach your land and house for
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: the balance to and you get no more credit at
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: the company stores, and passage off this planet has to
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: be paid for in cash. He yawned. Don't answer now,
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: he said, without interest. Call me back when you calm down,
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you'd only have to apologize. Lon Simpson heard the click
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: as he began to describe heatedly what was in his mind.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: He said it anyhow. Then Cathy's voice came from the exchange.
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: She sounded shocked, but sympathetic. Lawn please, He swallowed a
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: particularly inventive description of the manners, morals, and ancestry of
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: all the directors and employees of the Setisgama Trading Company.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Then he said still fuming. I told you not to
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: listen his wrongs overcame him again. It's robbery, it's pe andage.
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: They've got every credit I had. They've got three quarters
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: of the value of my crop charged up for replacements
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: of the lousy machinery they sold me. And now, while
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: in the growing season in debt, how am I going
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: to ask you to marry me? Not over a beam phone,
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: I hope, said Kathy. He was abruptly sunk in gloom.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: That was a slip, he admitted. I was going to
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: wait until I got paid for my crop. It looked good.
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: Now wait a minute, lon, Cathy said. There was silence.
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: She gave somebody else a connection. The phone beams from
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: the colony forms all went to Setopolis, and Kathy was
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: one of the two operators there. If for when the
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: company got prosperous enough, there would be a regular intercommunication system,
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: so it was said. Meanwhile, Lawn had a suspicion that
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: there might be another reason for the antiquated central station.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Kathy said brightly, yes, Lawn, I'll come into town tonight,
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: he said darkly. Date, yes, stammered Kathy. Oh yes. He
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: and went back out to the field and the tractor.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: He began to think sorrowly of a large number of
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: things all at once. There was a law to encourage
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: people to leave Earth for colonies on suitable planets. There
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: was even governmental help for people who didn't have funds
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of their own. But if a man wanted to make
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: something of himself, he preferred to use his own money
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: and pick his own planet and choose his own way
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: of life. Lawn Simpson had bought four hectares of land
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: on Setis Gama II. He'd paid his passage out. He'd
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: given five hundred credits a month for an instruction course
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: on the company's plantation, during which time he labored faithfully
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: to grow, harvest, and cure than or leaves for the
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: company's profit. Then he'd bought farm machinery from the company
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: and a house, and very painstakingly had set out to
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: be a colonist on his own. Just about that time,
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Kathy had arrived on a company ship and taken up
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: her duties as beam phone operator at Cetopolis. It was
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: a new colony with not more than five thousand humans
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: or the whole planet, all of them concentrated near the
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: one small town with its plank sidewalks and prefabricated buildings.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: Lawn Simpson met Kathy and his labors on his thunder
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: form acquired a new energy and purpose. Botti was up
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: against a shrewd organization. His inordinately expensive form machinery broke down.
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: He repaired it. After a time, it could not be
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: repaired any longer, and he had to buy more Before
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: the than or leaves were half grown. He owed more
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: than half his prospective crop for machinery replacements. Now he
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: could see the method perfectly. The company imported all machinery
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: it made that machinery in its own factories, machinery that
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: we designed to break down. So this year, even if
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: nothing else happened, Lawn would wind up owing more for
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: the machinery replacements than the crop would bring. It was
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: not likely that nothing else would happen. Next season, he
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: would start off in debt instead of all clear, and
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: if the same thing happened, he would owe all his
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: crop and be six thousand credits behind by harvest. After
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: next his farm and house could be foreclosed for debt,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: and he could either try to work for other colonists
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: who were in the process of going through the same
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: Ringer themselves or hire out as a farm hand on
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: the company's plantation. He would never be able to save
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: spacefare away from the planet. He would be very much
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: worse off than the assisted immigrants to other planets who
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: had not invested all they owned in land, in machinery
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: and agricultural instructions. And there was Kathie. She owed for
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: her passage. It would be years before she could pay
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: that back. If ever, she couldn't live in the farmhand barracks.
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: They might as well give up thinking about each other.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: It was a system, beautifully legal, absolutely air tight, not
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: a thing wrong with it. The company had a monopoly
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: on Fennor despite the law. It had all the cultivated
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: land on setiskama I under its control, and its labor
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: problem was solved. Its laborers first paid something like sixteen
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: thousand credits head for the privilege of trying to form
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: independently for a year or two, and then became farmhands
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: for the company at a bare subsistence wage. Lon Simpson
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: was in the grip of that system. He had taken
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the generator report and put it back together eighteen times.
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: There was nothing thing visibly wrong with it. It had
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: been designed to break down with nothing visibly wrong with it.
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: If he couldn't repair it, though he was out fifteen
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: hundred credits, his investment was wiped out, and all his
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: hopes were gone. He took the generator report for the
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: nineteenth time. He wondered grimly how the company's designers made
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: generators so cleverly that they would stop working, so that
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: even the trouble with them couldn't be figured out. It
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: was a very ingenious system. Out on the ninth planet,
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: Rodempiscus explained the situation to his bride as they waited
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: for the interesting astronomical phenomenon. They were quite cozy waiting.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: Their bower was simple, of course, frozen nitrogen walls and
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: windows of the faint bluish tint of oxygen ice. Rod
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Empiscus had grown some cyanogen flower crystals to make the
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: place home like, and there was now a lovely reflection
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: pool in which liquid hydrogen reflected the stars setis Gamma.
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: The local sun seemed hardly more than a very bright
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: and very near star. It was four light hours away
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: and glimmered over the landscape and made everything quite charming.
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: Not a lichtha, naturally, would not enter the minds of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: the male bipeds on the inner planet. Modesty forbade such
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: a thing, as of course, the conscientiousness of a brand
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: new husband limited Radimpiscus to the thoughts of the males
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: among the bipeds. But Notolichtha was distressed when Radimpiscus told
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: her of what was occurring among the bipeds. He guided
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: her thoughts to Kathy in the beam phone exchange at Cetopoulos.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: But it is terrible, said Notolichtha, in distress. When she
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: had absorbed Kathy's maiden meditations, she did not actually speak
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: in words, and said on waves there is no air
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: worth mentioning at seven degrees kelvin. It's all frozen. A
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: little helium hangs around, perhaps nothing else. The word for
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: communication is not exactly the word for speech, but it
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: will do, Nodolichtha said. They love each other in a
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: cute way. They are like like we were, Radimpiscus. Rad
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: Empiscus played a positron beam upon her in feigned indignation.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: If that beam had hit a human, the human would
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: have curled up in a scorched smoking heap. But noo
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: Lichtha bridled right Empiscus. She protested fondly stop tickling me,
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: But can't you do something for them? They are so
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: cute and Radimpiscus gallantly sent his thoughts back to the
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: second planet, where a biped grimly labored over a primitive device.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: Lawn Simpson, staring at the disassembled generator, suddenly blinked. The
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: grimness went out of his expression. He stared. An idea
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: had occurred to him. He went over it in his mind.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: He blew out his breath in a long whistle. Then,
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: very painstakingly, he did four or five things that completely
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: ruined the generator for the extremely modest trade and allowances
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: he could have gotten for it at the company store.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: He worked absorbedly for perhaps twenty minutes, his eyes intent.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: At the end of that time, he had threads of
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: unwound secondary wire stretched back and forth across a forked
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: stick of to hillweed, and two small pieces of sheet
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: iron twisted together in an extremely improbable manner. He connected
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: the ends of the secondary wire to contacts and his tractor.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: He climbed into the tractor seat. He threw over the control.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: The tractor lurched into motion. The diesel wasn't running, but
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the tractor rolled comfortably as Lawn drove it, the individual
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: motors and the separate cattawheels. Drawing power from a mere
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: maze of wires across a forked stick plus two pieces
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: of sheet iron, there was plenty of power. Lawn drove
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the tractor the rest of the morning and all afternoon
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: with a very peculiar expression on his face. He understood
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: what he had done. Now that he had done it,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: it seemed the most obvious of expedients. He felt inclined
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: to be incredulous that nobody had ever happened to think
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: of this particular device before, But they very plainly hadn't.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: It was a source of all the electric power anybody
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: could possibly want. The voltage would depend on the number
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: of turns of copper wire around a suitably forked stick.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: The amperage would be whatever that voltage could put through
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: whatever was hooked to it. He no longer needed a
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: new generator for his tractor. He had one. He didn't
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: even need a diesel with adequate power. He'd been having
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: to nurse the diesel along too lately. Lawn Simpson ran
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: his tractor late into the twilight. He cultivated all the
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: ground that urgently needed cultivation, and at least one field
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: he hadn't hoped to get to before next week, But
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: his expression was amazed. It is a very peculiar sensation
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: to discover that one is a genius. That night in Cetopolis,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: he told Kathy all about it. It was a very
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: warm night, an unusually warm night. They walked along the
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: plank sidewalks of the little frontier town as a new
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: colony sat as Gamatu was a frontier and lawn talked extravagantly.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: He had meant to explain painfully to Kathy that there
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: there was no use in their being romantic about each other.
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: He'd expected to have to tell her bitterly that he
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: was doomed to spend the rest of his life adding
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: to the profit of a Setis Gamma Trading Company, with
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: all the laws of the human race holding him in peonage.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: He thought of some very elegant descriptions of the sort
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: of people who worked out the system in force on
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: Setis Gama iiO, but he didn't. As they strolled under
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: the shiver trees that lined the small town's highways and
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: smell the channel bushes beyond the town's limit, and listen
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: to the thin violin strains of what should have been
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: night birds, they weren't. The singers were furry instead of feathered,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and they slept in burrows during the day. As they
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: walked with linked fingers in the warm and starlit night
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: Lan told Kathy about his invention. He explained in detail
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: just why wires wound in just that fashion and combined
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: with bits of sheet iron twisted in just those shapes,
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: would produce power for free and forever. He explained how
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: it had to be so he marveled that nobody had
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: ever thought of it before. He explained it so that
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: Kathy could almost understand it. It's wonderful, she said, wistfully.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: They'll run spaceships on your invention, won't they long and
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: cities and everything. I guess you'll be very rich for
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: inventing it. He stopped sharp and stared at her. He
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: hadn't thought that far ahead, then, he said blankly. But
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: I'll have to get back to Earth to patent it,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: and I haven't got the money to pay one fare,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: let alone too two, asked Kathy hopefully. Why too, You're
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: going to marry me, aren't you? He demanded. I sort
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: of hope that was all settled. Kathy stamped her foot.
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: Hadn't you heard, she asked, indignantly, that such things aren't
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: taken for granted, especially when two people are walking in
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the starlight and are supposed to be thrilled. It isn't settled,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: not until after you've kissed me, anyhow, He remedied his error.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: End Part one, Part two of The Sentimentalists by Murray Leinster.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: Thisly revox recording is in the public domain. Part two.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Out on the ninth planet, very far away, no to
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: Licktha blushed slightly. As a bride, she was in that
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: deliciously embarrassing state of becoming accustomed to discussions which would
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: previously have been unconventional. They are so quaint. Then she
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: hesitated and said, awkwardly, the idea of putting their their
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: lips together as a sign of affection. Rdampiscus was amused,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: as a bridegroom may be, by the delightful innocences of
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: a new wife. He evinced his amusement in a manner
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: no human being could conceivably have recognized as the tender laugh.
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: It was little goose, he said, fondly. Of course, instead
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: of a fowl, he thought of a creature that had
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: thirty four legs and scales instead of feathers, and was
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: otherwise thoroughly ungoose, like little goose. They do that because
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: they can't do this. And he twined his eyestalks sentimentally
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: about hers. Days passed on Setagama two. Lon Simpson cultivated
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: his on or feels, but he began to worry. His
• 24:47
  Speaker 1: new power source was more than a repair for a
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: broken down tractor. It was valuable. It was riches He
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: had in it, one of those basic, overwhelmingly important discoveries
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: by which human beings have climbed up from the status
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: of intelligent earth bound creatures to galactic colonists. And a
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: lot of good it had done them. It was a
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: basic principle for power supply that would relieve mankind permanently
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: of the burden of fuels. The number of planets available
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: for colonization would be multiplied, The cost of every object
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: made by human beings would be reduced by the previous
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: cost of power. The price of hall age from one
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: planet to another would be reduced to a fraction. Every
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: member of the human race would become richer as a
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: result of the gadget now attached to lawn Simpson's tractor.
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: He was entitled to royalties on the wealth he was
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: to distribute.
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: But.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: He was a thunar former on Setis Gamatu. His crop
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: was mortgaged. He could not possibly hope to raise enough
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: money to get back to Earth to arrange for the
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: marketing of his invention. Especially, he could not conceivably raise
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: money enough to take Kathy with him. He had riches,
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: but they weren't available, and something else might happen to
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: ruin him At any time. Something else did. The freezer
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: element of his deep freeze locker broke down. He didn't
• 26:20
  Speaker 1: notice it. He had a small kitchen locker in which
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: food for week to week use was stored. He didn't
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: know anything about the deep freeze unit that held a whole, growing,
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: seasoned supply of food. The food in it all imported
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: from Earth and very expensive, thawed, fermented, spoiled, developed evil
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: smelling gases, and waited for an appropriate moment to reveal
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: itself as a catastrophe. There were other things to worry
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: about at the time. A glacier up at Setaskamatoo's polar
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: region began to retreat instead of growing as was normal
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: for the season. There was a remark solar prominence of
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: three days duration swinging around the equator of the local sun.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: There was a meeting of directors of the Setisgama Trading Company,
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: at which one of the directors pointed out that the
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: normal curve of increase for profits was beginning to flatten
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: out and something had to be done to improve the
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: financial position of the company. Ugly Sun's spots appeared on
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: the northern hemisphere of Setis Gamma. If there had been
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: any astronomers on the job, there would have been as
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: much excitement as a four alarm fire, but there were
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: no astronomers. The greatest agitation on the second planet of
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: Setis kama iiO was felt by Lawn Simpson. Cathy had
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: made friends with a married woman colonist who would chaperon
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: her on a visit to Lawn's form, and was coming
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: out to visit and see the place that was to
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: be the scene of the ineffable, unparalleled happiness she and
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: Lawn would know after they were married. She came, she saw,
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: she was captivated. Lawn blissfully opened the door of the
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: house she was to share. He had spent the better
• 28:09
  Speaker 1: part of two days cleaning up so it would be
• 28:12
  Speaker 1: fit for her to look at. Kathy entered, there was
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: a dull, booming noise, a hissing, and a bubbling, and
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: then a rank stench swept through the house and strangled them.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: The boom, of course, was the bursting open of the
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: deep freeze locker from the pressure of accumulated gases within it.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: The smell was that of the deep freeze contents ten
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: days thought out without Lawn knowing it. There are very
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: few smells much worse than frozen fish gone very very
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: bad in a hot climate. If there are worse smells,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: they come from once frozen eggs bursting from their shells
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: when pressure outside them is relieved. In this case, trimmings
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: were added by fermenting strawberries, moldy meat, and badly decayed vegetables,
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: all triumphantly making themselves known. At the same instant. Kathy
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: gasped and choked. Lawn got her out of doors, gasping himself.
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: It was not difficult to deduce what had happened. He
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: opened the house windows from the outside so the smell
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: would go away, but he knew despair. I can't show
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: you the house, Kathy, he said numbly, my locker went
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: bad and all the food followed suit. Lawn wailed, Kathy,
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: it's terrible. How will you eat? Lawn began to realize
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: that the matter was more serious than the loss of
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: an opportunity for a sentimental inspection of the house he
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: had dreamed splendidly of late. He didn't quite know how
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: he was going to manage it, but since his tractor
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: was working magnificently, he had come to picture himself and
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: Kathy in the role of successful colonists, zestfully growing thun
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: or leaves for the increasing multitudes of people who needed
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: a melogram a day. He'd reverted to the pictured dreams
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: in the Setiskama Trading Company's advertisements. He day dreamed of
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: himself and Kathy as growing with the colony, thriving as
• 30:20
  Speaker 1: it throve, and ultimately becoming moderately rich in children and grandchildren. Anyhow,
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: with life stretching out before them in a sort of
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: rosy glow. He negligently assumed that somehow they would also
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: be rich from the royalties of his invention. But now
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: he came down to reality. His house was uninhabitable for
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: the time being. He could continue to cultivate his fields,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: but he wouldn't be able to eat the local plant
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: life was not suitable for human digestion. He had to
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: live on food imported from Earth. Now he had to
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: buy a new stock from the company, and it would
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: bankrupt him with an invention worth more probably than the
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: Setis Gamma Company itself if he could realize on it.
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: He was still broke. His crop was mortgaged. If Carson
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: learned about his substitute for a generator, the company would
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: immediately clamp down to get it away from him. He
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: took Kathy back to Cetopolis. He feverishly appealed to other colonists.
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: He couldn't tell them about his generator's substitute. If they
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: knew about it in time, Carson would know if they
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: used it. Carson would eventually get hold of a specimen
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: to send back to Earth for pirating by the Setis
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: Gamma Trading Company. All Lon could do was tried desperately
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: to arrange to borrow food to live on until his
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: crop came in, though even then he wouldn't be in
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: any admirable situation. He couldn't borrow food in quantity. Other
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: colonists had trouble too, They'd give him a meal, yes,
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: but they couldn't refill his freezer without emptying their own,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: which would compel them to buy more, which would be
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: charged against their crops, which would simply hasten the day
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: when they would become day laborers on the company's thanarfarm.
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: Ln had about two days food in the kitchen locker.
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: He determined to stretch it to four. Then he'd have
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: to buy more with each meal. Then his hopes of
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: freedom and prosperity and Kathy grew less. Of course, he
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: could starve. Rot Episcus was enormously and pleasantly interested in
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: what went on in Satagama's photosphere from the ninth planet.
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: He scanned the prominences with enthusiasm, making notes. Not a
• 32:48
  Speaker 1: Liktha tried to take a proper, rifly interest in her
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: husband's hobby, but she could not keep it up indefinitely.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: She busied herself with her housekeeping. She fashioned a carpet
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: of tufted methane fibers and put up curtains at the windows.
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: She enlarged the garden rod Empiscus had made, adding borders
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: of crystallized ammonia and a sort of walkway with a
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: hedge of monoclinic sulfur, which glittered beautifully in the starlight.
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: She knew that this was only a temporary dwelling, but
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: she wanted rod Empiscus to realize that she could make
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: any place a comfortable home. He remained absorbed in the
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: phenomena of the local sun. One great prominence, after five
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: days of spectacular existence, divided into two, which naturally moved
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: apart and stationed themselves at opposite sides of the Sun's equator.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: They continued to rotate with the sun itself, giving very
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: much the effect of an incipient pinwheel. Two other minor
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: prominences came into being midway between them. Rod Empiscus watched
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: in fascination. Not a lika came and reposed beside him
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: on a slope of volcanic slag. She waited for him
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: to notice her. She would not let herself be sensitive
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: about his interest in his hobby, of course, but she
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: could not really find it absorbing for herself. A trifle wistfully,
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: she sent her thoughts to the female bipad on the
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: second planet. After a while, she said, in distress, Radimpiscus, Oh,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: they are so unhappy. Radimpiscus gallantly turned his attention from
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: the happenings on the sun. What's that, darling look, said
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Nolichtha platently. They are so much in love Radimpiscus, and
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: they can't marry because he hasn't anything edible to share
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: with her. Radimpiscus scanned. He was an ardent and sentimental husband.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: If his new little wife was distressed about anything at all,
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: Radimpiscus was splendidly ready to do something about it. Lon
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: Simpson looked at his kitchen locker. The big deep frieze
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: was prepared now once the season eight truck came out
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: from Setopolis and filled it. The food was costly. A
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: seasoned supply was kept in deep freeze. Once in one
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: or two weeks one refilled the kitchen locker. It was
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: best to leave the deep freeze locker closed as much
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: as possible. But now the big Deep frieze was empty.
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: He cleaned out the ghastly mess in it, and he
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: had it running again, but he had nothing to put
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: in it. To have it refilled would put him hopelessly
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: at the company's mercy, but there was nothing else to do. Bitterly,
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: he called the Trading company office, and Carson answered this
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: is Simpson. Lon told him how much the price for
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: a generator, said, Carson, board is the same as before.
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: Do you want it sent out? No, my food locker
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: broke down my food store. I need more. I'll figure it,
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: reply Carson over the bean phone. He didn't seem interested.
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: After a moment, he said indifferently, fifteen hundred credits for
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: standard rations to crop time. Then you'll need more. It's robbery,
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: raged lone. I can't expect more than four thousand credits
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: on my crop. You've got three thousand charged against me now,
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: Carson yawned.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: True, a new generator, fifteen hundred, new food supplies fifteen hundred.
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: If your crop turns out all right, you'll start the
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: new season with two thousand credits charged up as a
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: loan against your land. Lon Simpson strangled on his fury.
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: You'll take my leaves and I'll still owe you then
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: credit for seed and food and if I need to
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: buy more machinery.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: You own my form and crop next crop time. Even
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: if my crop is good, your damn company will own
• 37:02
  Speaker 1: my farm. That's your lookout, Carson said, without emotion, being
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: a than our farmer was your idea, not mine. Shall
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: I send out the food. Lawn, Simpson bellowed into the
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: beam phone. He heard clicking, then Cathy's voice. It was
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: at once reproachful and sympathetic. Lawn, please, but Laan couldn't
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: talk to her. He panted at her and hung up.
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: It is essential to a young man in love that
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: he shine somehow in the eyes of the girl he
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: cares for. Lawn was not shining. He was appearing as
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: the galaxy's prize sap. He'd invested a sizeable fortune in
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: his form. He was a good farmer, hard working and
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: skilled in the matter of repairing generators. He'd proved to
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: be a genius. But he was at the mercy of
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: the settist god company's representative. He was already in debt.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: If he wanted to go on eating, he'd go deeper.
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: If he were careful and industrious and thrifty, the trading
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: company would take his crop in form in six more
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: months and then give him a job at day labor wages.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: He went grimly to the kitchen of his home. He
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: looked at the trivial amount of food remaining. He was hungry.
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: He could eat it all right now if he did. Then,
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: staring at the food in the kitchen locker. He blinked.
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: An idea had occurred to him. He was blankly astonished
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: at it. He went over and over it in his mind.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: His expression became dubiously skeptical, and then skeptically amazed. But
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: his eyes remained intent as he thought, presently, looking very skeptical. Indeed,
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: he went out of the house and unwound more copper
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: wire from the remnant of the disassembled generator. It came
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: back to the kitchen. He took an emptied tin can
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: and cut it in a distinctly peculiar manner. The cuts
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: he made were asymmetrical. When he had finished, he looked
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: at it doubtfully. A long time later, he had made
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: a new gadget. It consisted of two open coils, one
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: quite large and one quite small. Their resemblance to each
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: other was plain, but they did not at all resemble
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: any other coils that had been made for any other
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: purpose whatsoever. If they looked like anything, it were the
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: mobiles that some sculptors once insisted were art. Lawn stared
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: at his work with an air of helplessness. Then he
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: went out again. He returned with a forked stick that
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: had proved to be a generator. He connected the wires
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: from that improbable contrivance to the coils of the new
• 39:56
  Speaker 1: and still more unlikely device. The eccentrically cut tin can
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: was in the middle between them. There was a humming sound.
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: Lawn went out a third time and came back with
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: a mass of shrubbery. He packed it in the large coil.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: He muttered to himself, I'm out of my head, I'm crazy.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: But then he went to the kitchen locker. He put
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: a small packet of frozen green peas in the tin
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: can between the two coils. The humming sound increased. After
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: a moment, there was another parcel of green peas, not frozen,
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: in the small coil. Lawn took it out. The device
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: hummed more loudly again. Immediately there was another parcel of
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: green peas and the small coil. He took them out.
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: When he had six parcels of green peas instead of one,
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: the mass of foliage and the large coil collapsed abruptly.
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: Lawn disconnected the wires and removed the debris. The native
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: foliage looked shrunken, somehow dried out. Lawn tossed it through
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: the window. He put a parcel of unfrozen green peas
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: on to cook, and sat down and held his head
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: in his hands. He knew what had happened. He knew
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: how the local flora on Cetis gamma ii naturally contained
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: the same chemical elements as the green peas imported from Earth.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: Those elements were combined in chemical compounds similar, if not identical,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: to those of the earth vegetation. The new gadget simply
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: converted the compounds in the large coil to match those
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: in the sample in the tin can, and assemble them
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: in the small coil according to the physical structure of
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: the sample, in this case, as green peas. The device
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: would take any approximate compound from the large coil and
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: reassemble it suitably modified as per sample in the small coil.
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: It would work not only for green peas, but for roots, bark, herbs, berries, blossoms,
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: and flowers. It would even work for a than or leaves.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: When that last fact occurred to him, Lon Simpson went
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: quietly loony, trying to figure out how he had come
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: to think of such a thing. He was definitely crocked,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: because he picked up the beam phone and told Kathy
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: all about it. And he was not looney because he
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: told Kathy, but because he forgot his earlier suspicions of
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: why there was a central station for beam phones in
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: Sentopolis instead of a modern direct communication system. In fact,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: he forgot the system in operation on Cetis gamma Io,
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: the Company system. It had been designed to put colonists
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: through the ringer and deposit them in its own form,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: to be day laborers forever, with due regard to human law.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: But it was a very efficient system. It took care
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: of strokes of genius too. That night, Carson, listening boredly
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: to the record of all the conversations over the beam
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: foam during the day, heard what Lon had told Kathy.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: He didn't believe it, of course, but he made a
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: memo to look into it. Radumpiscus stretched himself out on
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: the ninth planet. The weather was slightly warmer, almost six
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: degrees calvin two hundred and sixty odd degrees centigrade below zero,
• 43:26
  Speaker 1: and he was inclined to be lazy, but he was
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: very handsome in noo Lichtha's eyes. He was seventy or
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: more feet from his foremost eye stalk to the tip
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: of his least Crimson appendage, and he fluoressed beautifully in
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: the starlight. He was a very gallant young bridegroom when
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: he saw Nodolich thought, looking at him admiringly, he said,
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: with his customary tenderness, it was fatiguing to make him
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: go through it, darling, but since she wished it, it
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: is done. He now has food to share with the female.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: And you're handsome too, radempiscus, not Althka said irrelevantly. She felt,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: as brides sometimes do on their honeymoons. She was quite
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: sure that she had not only the bravest and handsomest
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: of husbands, but the most thoughtful and considerate. Presently, with
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: their eye stalks intertwined, he asked softly, are you weary
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: of this place? Darling? I would like to watch the
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: rest of this rather rare phenomenon, but if you're not interested,
• 44:30
  Speaker 1: we can go on, and truly I won't mind. Of course,
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: we'll stay protested. Nodalichtha, I want to do anything you
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: want to. I'm perfectly happy just being with you, and
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: unquestionably she was end of Part two, Part three of
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: the Sentimentalists by Murray Leinster. This leevery vox recording is
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: in the domain Part three. Carson, though bored, was a
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: bit upset by the recorded conversation he'd listened to. Lon
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: Simpson had been almost incoherent, but he'd obviously mean Kathy
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: to take him seriously, and there were some things to
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: back it up. He'd reported his generator hopelessly useless and
• 45:24
  Speaker 1: hadn't bought a new one. He'd reported all his food
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: spoiled and hadn't bought more. Carson thought it over carefully.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: The crop inspection helicopter reported Simpson's fields in much better
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: shape than average, so his tractor was obviously working. Carson
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: asked casual, deadpan questions of other colonists who came into
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: the company's store. Most of them were harried, sullen, and bitter.
• 45:51
  Speaker 1: They were unanimously aware of the ringer they were being
• 45:55
  Speaker 1: put through. They knew what the company was doing to them,
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: and they hated Carson because he represented it. But they
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: did answer Carson's casual questions about lawn Simpson. Yes, he
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: tried to borrow food from them, No, they couldn't lend
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: it to him. Yes, he was still eating. In fact,
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: he was offering to swap food. He was short on
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: fruit and long on frozen green peas. Then he was
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: long on fruit and frozen green peas and short on
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: frozen sweet corn and strawberries. No, he didn't want to
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: trade on a big scale. One package of frozen strawberries
• 46:30
  Speaker 1: was all he wanted. He gave six packages of frozen
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: piece for it. He gave six packages of frozen strawberries
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: for one packet of frozen sweet corn. He swapped a
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: dozen parcels of sweet corn for one of a filet
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: of flounder, two dozen filets of flounder for cigarettes, and
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: fifty cartons of cigarettes for a frozen roast of beef.
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: It didn't make sense unless the conversation on the beam
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: phone was right. If what Lawn had told Kathy was true,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: he'd have his frozen food lock or filled up again
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: by now. He had some sort of device which converted
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: the indigestible local flora and fauna into digestible Earth products.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: To suspect such a thing was preposterous, but Carson suspected
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: everyone and everything. As representative of the company, Carson naturally
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: did its dirty work. New Colonists has bought forms from
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: the Central Office on Earth and happily took ship to
• 47:32
  Speaker 1: setis Gamatu. Then Carson put them through their instruction course,
• 47:36
  Speaker 1: outfitted them to try forming on their own, and saw
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: to it that they went bankrupt and either starved or
• 47:43
  Speaker 1: took jobs as farmhands for the company that wages, assuring
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: that they could never take ship away again. It was
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: a nasty job, and Carson did it very well because
• 47:56
  Speaker 1: he loved it. While he still debated Lawn's insane boasts
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: to Kathy over the beam phone system, he prepared to
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: take over the form of another colonist's. That man had
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: been deeper in debt than Lawn, and he'd been less
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: skilled at repairs, so it was time to gather him in.
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: Carson called him to Satopolis to tell him that the
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: company regretfully could not extend further credit. Would have to
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: take back his form house and remaining food stores and
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: finish the cultivation of his thunar leaf crop. To repay
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: yourself for the trouble. The colonists, however, said, briefly, go
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: to hell. He started to leave Carson's air cooled office.
• 48:39
  Speaker 1: Carson said mildly, you're broke. You'll want a job when
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: you haven't got a form you can't afford to tell
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: me to go to hell. You can't take my form
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: unless my feels are neglected, the colonists said comfortably they aren't,
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: and my than or leaf crop is going to be
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: a bumper one. I'll pay off all I owe, and
• 49:02
  Speaker 1: we colonists are planning to start a trading company of
• 49:04
  Speaker 1: our own to bring in good machinery and deal fairly.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: Courson smiled coldly. You forget something, he said, as representative
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: of the trading company, I can call on you to
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: pay up all your debts at once. If I have
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: reason to think you intend to try to evade payment.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: I do think so, I call on you for immediate
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: payment in full. Pay up please. This was an especially
• 49:35
  Speaker 1: neat paragraph in the fine print of the colonist's contract
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: with the company. Anytime a colonist got obstinate, he could
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: be required to pay all he owed on the dot,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: and if he had enough to pay, he wouldn't owe.
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: So the trading company could ruin anybody. But this colonists
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: merely grinned by law. He observed. You have to accept
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: thanar leaves as legal tender at five credits a kilo,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: send out a truck for your payment. I've got six
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: tons in my barn all ready to turn in. He
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: made a most indecorous gesture and walked out. A moment later,
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: he put his head back in. I forgot, he commented, politely.
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: You said, I couldn't afford to tell you to go
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: to hell With six tons of thanar leaves on hand.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: I'm telling you to. He added several other things, compared
• 50:33
  Speaker 1: to which telling Carson to go to hell was the
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: height of courtesy. He went away. Carson went a little pale.
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: It occurred to him that this colonist was a close
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: neighbor of Lawn Simpson. Maybe Lawn had gotten tired of
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: converting to hillweed and shival leaves into green peas and asparagus,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: and had gotten to work turning out than are. Carson
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: went to Lawn's form. It was a very bad road,
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: and any four wheel vehicle would have shaken itself to pieces.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: On the way. The guyrocar merely jolted Carson severely. The
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: jolting kept him from noticing how hot the weather was.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: It was really extraordinarily hot, and Carson suffered more because
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: he spent most of his time in an air conditioned office.
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: But for the same reason, he did not suspect anything abnormal.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: When he reached Lawn's farm, he noticed that the Thunora
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: leaves were growing admirably. For a moment, sweating as he was,
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: he was reminded of tobacco plants growing on Maryland hillsides.
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: The heat and the bluish green color of the plants
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: seemed very familiar. But then a cadiagle ran hastily up
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: a tree out on a branch and launched its Crimison
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: fury self into mid air. That broke the spell of
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: supposedly familiar things. Carson turned his guyrocar in At Lawn
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: Simpson's house, there were half a dozen other colonists around.
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: Two of them drove up with farm trucks loaded with
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: mixed foliage. They had pulled up, cut off, and dragged
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: down just about anything they grew, and loaded their truck
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: with it. Two other colonists were loading another cart with
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: than or leaves, neatly bundled and ready for the warehouse.
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: They regarded Carson with pleased eyes. Carson spoke severely to Cathy,
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: what are you doing here? You're supposed to be on
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: duty at the beam phone exchange. You can be discharged.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: Lon Simpson said negligently. I'm paying her passage. By law,
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: anybody can pay the passage of any woman if she
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: intends to marry him, and then her contract with the
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: company is ended. They had rules like that in ancient
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: days only they used to pay in tobacco instead of
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: than or leaves. Carson gulped. But how will you pay
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: her fare, he asked sternly. You're in debt to the
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: company yourself. Lon Simpson jerked his thumb toward his born.
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: Carson turned and looked. It was a nice looking born.
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: The aluminum sighting set it off against a backing of
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: shiver trees the hill and giant skeatded growth. Carson's eyes
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: bugged out. Lawn's born was packed so tightly with fun
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: our leaves that they bowled out the doors. I need
• 53:23
  Speaker 1: to turn some of that stuff in, anyhow, said Lawn pleasantly.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: I haven't got storage space for it. By law, you
• 53:30
  Speaker 1: have to buy at five credits a kilo. I wish
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: you'd send out and get some. I'd like to build
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: off some credit. Think I'll take a trip back to Earth.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: At this moment, there was a very peculiar wave of heat.
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: It was not violent, but the temperature went up about
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: four degrees suddenly, as if somebody had turned on a
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: room heater, but still nobody looked up at the sun.
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: Rattled Carson demanded furiously if Lawn had converted other local
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: foliage into than our leaves, as he'd made his green
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: peas and other stuffed. He told Kathy about on the
• 54:06
  Speaker 1: beam phone. Lawn tensed and observed to the other colonists
• 54:11
  Speaker 1: that evidently all beam phones played into recorders. The atmosphere
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: became unfriendly. Carsen got more rattled still, he began to
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: wave his arms and sputter. Lawn Simpson treated him gently.
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: He took him into the house to watch the converter
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: at work. One of the colonists kept its large coil
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: suitably stuffed with a sordid foliage. There was a hand
• 54:36
  Speaker 1: of cured early best quality than our leaves in an
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: erratically cut tin can. Duplicates of that hand of best
• 54:44
  Speaker 1: quality thenor were appearing in the small coil as fast
• 54:48
  Speaker 1: as they were removed, and fresh foliage was being heaped
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: into the large coil. We expect, said Lawn happily to
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: have a bumper crop of the best grade of fenour
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: this year. It looks like every colonist on the planet
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: will be able to pay off his debt to the
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: company and have credit left over. We'll be sending a
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: committee back to Earth to collect our credits there and
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: organize an independent co operative trading company that will bring
• 55:14
  Speaker 1: out decent machinery and be a competitive buying agency for
• 55:18
  Speaker 1: than Are. I'm sure the company will be glad to
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: see us all so prosperous. It was stifling hot by now,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: but nobody noticed. The colonists were much too interested in
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: seeing Carson go visibly to pieces before them. He was
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: one of those people who seem to have been developed
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: by an all wise providence expressly to be underlings for
• 55:41
  Speaker 1: certain types of large corporations. Their single purpose in life
• 55:45
  Speaker 1: is to impress their superiors in the corporation that hires them.
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: But now Carson saw his usefulness ended through his failure
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: in some fashion, the company's monopoly on than Or leaves
• 55:59
  Speaker 1: and its beautiful system of recruiting labor were ruined. He
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: would be discharged and probably blacklisted. If he had looked
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: up toward the western sky, squinted a little, engaged directly
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: at the local sun, he would have seen that his
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: private troubles were of no importance at all, but he didn't.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: He went staggering to his gyro car and headed back
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: for Setopolis. It was a tiny town with plank streets,
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: a beam phone exchange, and its warehouses over by the spaceport.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: It was merely a crude and rather ugly little settlement
• 56:38
  Speaker 1: on a newly colonized planet. But it had been the
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: center of an admirable system by which the Settis Gama
• 56:45
  Speaker 1: Trading Company got magnificently rich and dispensed on our leaves
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: a milligram a day, kept old age away throughout all
• 56:54
  Speaker 1: humanity at the very top price. The traffic would bear,
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: and the system was shaken now, and Carson would be
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: blamed for it. Behind him, the colonists rejoiced as hugely
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: as Carson suffered, but none of them got the proper perspective,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: because none of them looked at the sun. About four
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: o'clock in the afternoon, it got suddenly hotter again, as
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: abruptly as before, it stayed hotter. Something made Kathy look up.
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: There was a thin cloud overhead, just the right thickness
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: to act something like a piece of smoke glass. She
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: could look directly at the sun through it. Examine the
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: disc with her naked eye, but it wasn't a disc
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: any longer. Tatis Gama was a bulging, irregularly shaped thing
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: twice this normal size. As she looked, it grew larger.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Still out on the ninth planet, rad Empiscus was absorbed
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: in his contemplation of Cetisgama. With nothing to interfere with
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: his scanning, he could follow the developments perfectly. There had
• 58:02
  Speaker 1: been first one gigantic prominence, then two, which separated to
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: opposite sides of its equator. Then two other prominences began
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: to grow between them. For two full days, the new
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: prominences grew and then split, so that the Sun came
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: to have the appearance of a ball of fire surrounded
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: by a ring of blue white incandescence. Then came instability, flamegeisers,
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: spouting hundreds of thousands of miles into emptiness seas. To
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: keep their formation, they turned north and south from the
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: equatorial line. The outline of the sun became irregular. It
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: ceased to be round in profile, and even the appearance
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: of a ring around it vanished. It looked though this
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: would never have occurred to Rhdimpiscus, very much like a
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: fiercely glowing gigantic potato. Its evolution of heat went up
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: incredibly it might, which more than doubled its rate of radiation.
• 59:03
  Speaker 1: Radimpiscus watched each detail of the flare up with fascinated attention.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Not a Lithka dutifully watched with him, but she could
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: not maintain her interest in so purely scientific a phenomenon.
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: When a thin streamer of pure blue white jetted upward
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: from the Sun's pole, attaining a speed of six hundred
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: and ninety two miles per second, Radimpiscus turned to her
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: with enthusiasm, exactly in the pattern of a flare up
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: according to to Hawkas's theory. He exclaimed, I have always
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: thought he was more nearly right than the modernists. Radiation
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: pressure can build up in a closed system, such as
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: in the interior of a sun. It can equal the
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: gravitational constant, and obviously it would break loose at the pole.
• 59:50
  Speaker 1: Then he saw that Nodo lichthus manner was one of distress.
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: He was instantly concerned. What's the matter, darling, he asked anxiously.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: I didn't mean to neglect you, my precious one. Not
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 1: a Lictha did something that would have scared a human
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: being out of a year's growth, but it was actually
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: the equivalent of an unhappy, stifled sob I am a beast,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 1: said Radimpiscus penitently. I've kept you here in boredom while
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: I enjoyed myself watching this sundew tricks. I'm truly sorry.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: Not a lichtha. We will go at once. I shouldn't
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 1: have asked you to, But not a Lichtha, said unhappily.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 1: It isn't you, Rod Empiscus, it's me. While you've been
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 1: watching the star, I've amused myself watching those quaint little
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: creatures on the second planet. I've thought of them as
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: well as pets. I've grown fond of them. It was
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: absurd of me. Oh, but it is wonderful of you,
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: said rod Empiscus tenderly. I love you all the more
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: for it, my darling. But why are you unhappy about them?
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: I made sure they had food and energy. They're going
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 1: to be burned up, wailed no liquor. And they're so cute, right,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: and Piscus blinked his eyes, all sixteen of them. Then
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: he said self accusingly, my dear, I should have thought
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 1: of that. Of course, this is only a flare up, Darling.
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: Then he made an impatient gesture, I see you would
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: rather think of them as happy in their little way
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: than as burnt to tiny crisps. He considered scanning the
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 1: second planet with the normal anxiety of a bridegroom to
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 1: do anything that would remove a cloud from his bride's
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: lovely sixteen eyes. Night fell on Satopolis, and with it
• 1:01:39
  Speaker 1: came some slight alleviation of the dreadfulness that had begun
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: that afternoon. The air was furnace like in heat and dryness.
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: There was the smell of smoke everywhere. The stars were
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: faint and red and ominous seen through the smoke that
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: overlay everything. So far to be sure breathing was passed.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: It was even possible to be comfortable in an air
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: conditioned room. But this was only the beginning. Lown and
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: Kathy sat together on the porch of his house after sundown.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 1: The other colonists had gone away to their own homes.
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: When the crack of doom has visibly begun, men do
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: queer things in Cetopolis. Some undoubtedly got drunk or tried to,
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: but there were farmers who would spend this last night
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: looking at their drooping crops, trying to persuade themselves that
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: if Satagama only went back to normal before sunrise, the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 1: crops might yet be saved, but none of them expected it.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: Off to the south, there was an angry, reddish glare
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: in the sky that was vegetation on the desert there burning.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: It grew thick as jungle in the rainy season, and
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: dried out to pure desiccation in dry weather. It had
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: caught fire of itself from the sun's glare in late afternoon.
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 1: Eight clouds of acrid smoke rose from it to the stars.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: Beyond the horizon. To the west, there was destruction. Lawn
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: and Cathy sat close together. She hadn't even asked to
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: be taken back to Cytopolis, as convention would have required.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: The Sun was getting hotter still while it sank below
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 1: the horizon, It was expanding in fits and starts, as
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 1: new writhing spouts of stuff from its interior burst the
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: bonds of gravity, blazing magma lung upward in an unthinkable eruption.
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: The sun had been three times normal size when it set.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Lawn was no astronomer, but plainly the end of life
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: on the inner planets of setis Gamma was at hand.
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 1: Gamma might, he considered, be in the process of becoming
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 1: a nova. Certainly beyond the horizon there was even more
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: terrible heat than had struck the human colony before sundown.
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: Even if the sun did not explode, even if it
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: was only as fiercely blazing as at its setting, they
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: would die within hours after sunrise. If it increased in
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 1: brightness by daybreak, its first rays would be death itself.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: When dawn came, the very first direct beams was set
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: the shiver trees alight on the hilltops, and as it rose,
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: the fires would go down into the valleys. This house
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: would smoke and writhe and melt. The air would become flame,
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: and the planet's surface would glow red hot as it
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: turned into the sunshine. It's going to be all right, Lawn,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 1: Cathy said, unconvincedly. It's just something happening that'll be over
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: in a little while. But in case it isn't, we
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 1: might as well be together, don't you think so. Lawn
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: put his arm comfortingly around her. He felt a very
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: strong impact to lie. He could pretend to vast wisdom
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: and tell her the son's behavior was this or that,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: and never lasted more than a few hours, but she'd
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: know he lied. They could spend their last hours trying
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: to deceive each other out of pure affection, but they
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: know it was deceit, don't you think so, insisted Kathy faintly.
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 1: He said gently, no, Kathy, and neither do you. This
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: is the finish. It would have been a lot nicer
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: to go on living, the two of us. We'd have
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: had long, long years to be together. We'd have had kids,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: and they'd have grown up, and we'd have had a
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: lot of things. But now I'm afraid we won't. He
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: tried to smile at her, but it hurt. He thought
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 1: passionately that he would gladly submit himself to be burned
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: in the slowest and most excruciating manner, if only she
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: could be saved from it. But he couldn't do anything.
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: Kathy gulped. I'm afraid so too, Lawn, she said, in
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: a small voice. But it's nice we met each other anyhow,
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: now we know we love each other. I don't like
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: the idea of dying, but I'm glad we knew we
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: loved each other before it happened. Lawn's hands clenched fiercely.
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: Then the rage went away. He said, almost humorously, Carson,
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: he's back in Sytopolis. I wonder how he feels he
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 1: has no better chance than anybody else. Maybe he sent
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: off spacecrams, but no ship could possibly get here in time.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: Kathy shivered a little. Let's not think about him, just
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: about us. We haven't much time. And just then, very strangely,
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: an idea came to lawn Simpson. He tensed. After a moment,
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: he said, and a very queer voice, this isn't a nova.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: It's a flare up. The sun isn't exploding. It's just
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: too hot, too big for the temperature inside it. And
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: it's a closed system, so radiation pressure has been building up.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: Now it's got to be released, so it will spout
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: geysers of its own substance, fail go out over hundreds
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: of thousands of miles, but in a couple of weeks
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 1: it will be back nearly to normal. He suddenly knew
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 1: that he knew why it was, so he could have
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: explained it completely and precisely, but he didn't know how
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: he knew. The items that added together were themselves so
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: self evident that he didn't even wonder how he knew them.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: They had to be so into Part three, Part four
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 1: of The Sentimentalists by Murray Leinster. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Part four. Kathy said, muffledly, her
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 1: face against his shoulder. But we won't be alive in
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 1: a couple of weeks, Lawn, we can't live long past daybreak.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: He did not answer. There were more ideas coming into
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: his mind. He didn't know where they came from. But
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: again they were such self evident, unquestionable facts that he
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: did not wonder about them. He simply paid tints desperately
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: concentrated attention as they formed themselves. We may live, he said, shakedly.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: There's an ionosphere up at the top of the atmosphere here,
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: just like there is on Earth. It's made by the
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: sunlight ionizing the thin air. The stronger sunlight will multiply
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 1: the ionization. There'll be an actually conducting layer of air. Yes,
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: the air will become a conductor up there. He wet
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: his lips. If I make a gadget to short circuit
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: that conducting layer to the ground here when radiation photons
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: penetrate a transparent conductor, but there aren't any transparent conductors.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: The photons will follow the three finger rule. They'll move
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: at right angles to their former course. He swallowed, Then
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: he got up very quietly. He put her aside. He
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 1: went to his tool shed. He climbed to the roof
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: of the barn, now filled with thun or leaves. He
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: swung his axe. The barn was roofed with aluminum over
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: milliable plastic. The useful property of millieable plastic is that
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: it does not yield to steady pressure, but does yield
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: to shock. It will stay in shape indefinitely under a load,
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 1: but one can tap it e easily into any form
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 1: one desires. Lawn swung his axe head down. Presently, He
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 1: asked Kathy to climb up a ladder and hold a
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 1: lantern for him. He didn't need light for the rough work.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: The burning desert vegetation gave enough for that. But when
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: one wants to make a parabolic reflector by tapping with
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: an axe, one kneeds light for the finer parts of
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: the job. In Cytopolus, Carson agitatedly put his records on
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: tape and sent it all off by spacecram. He previously
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: reported on Lawn Simpson, but now he knew that he
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: was going to die, and he followed his instinct to
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: transmit all his quite useless records in order that his
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: superiors might realize he had been an admirable employee. It
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: did not occur to him that his superiors might be
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 1: trying frantically to break his sending me to demand that
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 1: he find out how Lawn Simpson made his power gadget
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 1: and how he converted vegetation before it was too late.
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: They didn't succeed in breaking his beam because Carson kept
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 1: it busy. He was true to type elsewhere other men
• 1:11:12
  Speaker 1: were true to type two. The human population on Cetis
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: Gamatu was very small. There were less than five thousand
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: people on the planet, all within one hundred miles of Cetopolis,
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 1: and all now on the night side. The rest of
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: the planet's land masses scorched and shriveled and burst into
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: flame where the sun struck them. The few small oceans
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: heated and their surfaces even boiled, but nobody saw it.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: The local fauna and flora died over the space of continents,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: but in the human settlement area people acted according to
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: their individual natures. Some few ran amok and tried to
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: destroy everything including themselves, before the blazing sun could return
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: to do it. More sat in stun silence, waiting for doom.
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: A few dug desperately trying to excavate caves or pits
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 1: in which they or their wives or children could be safe,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: but lawn pounded at his barn roof. He made a
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: roughly parabolic mirror some three yards across. He stripped off
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: aluminum sighting and made a connection with the ground. He
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: poured water around that connection. He built a crude, multiply
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 1: twisted device of copper wire and put it in the
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 1: focus of the parabolic mirror. He looked up at the sky.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: The stars seemed dimmer. He took the copper thing away,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: and they brightened a little. He carefully adjusted it until
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: the stars were at their dimmest. He descended to the
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 1: ground again. He felt an odd incredulity about what he'd done.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: He didn't doubt that it would work, he was simply
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: unable to understand how he thought of it. There, Darling,
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: your pets are quite safe, rad Empiscus said, pleasedly. Noo
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: Lichtha scanned the second planet. It was apparently coated with
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: a metallic covering, but it was not quite like metal.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: It was misty, like an unsubstantial barrier to light and
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: to noto lithus penetrating thoughts. I had your male pet,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: Radmpiscus explained tenderly set up a powerbeam link to the
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: ionosphere with several times the usual degree of ionization. Because
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: of the flaring sun, the grounded ionosphere became a rinthax
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: screen about the planet. The more active the Sun, the
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: more dense the screen. They'll have light to see by
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 1: when their side of the planet is toward the Sun,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: but no harmful radiation can get down to them, and
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: the screen will fade away as the Sun goes back
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: to its normal state. Nodo Lictha rejoiced. Then she was
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 1: a little distressed. But now I can't watch them, she pouted.
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: Rad Empiscus watched her gravely. She said ruefully, I see right, Empiscus,
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: you spoiled me. But if I can't watch them for
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: the time being, I won't have anything to occupy me. Darling,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: rad Empiscus, you must talk to me sometimes, he talked
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: to her absorbidly. He seemed to think, however, that discussion
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: of the local soda phenomenon was conversation with feminine guile.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: She pretended to be satisfied, but presently she went back
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: to her housekeeping. She began to dream of their life
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: when they had returned home, and of the residents they
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 1: would inhabit there. Presently she was planning the parties she
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: would give as a young matron, with canopazes of krypton
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: snow and xenon ice, with sprinklings of lovely red nickel
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: bromide crystals for a garnish. The sun rose again, and
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: they lived. It was as if the sun were covered
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: with a thick cloud bank, which absorbed the monstrous radiation
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: of a sun now four times its previous diameter and
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: madly changing shape like a monstrous ameba aflame. In time,
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: the sun set, it rose again it's set, and such
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: as Gamatu remained a living planet instead of being a
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: scorched cinder. When four days had gone by and nobody died,
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: the colonists decided that they might actually keep on living.
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: They had at first no especially logical foundation for their belief,
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: but Cathy boasted, and she boasted in Stopolis. Since they
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: were going to keep on living, the conventions required that
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: she returned to the planets. One human settlement and her
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 1: duties as a beam phone operator. It wasn't proper for
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: her to stay on chaperone so long as she and
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 1: Lawn weren't married. Yet, she had no difficulty with Carson.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: He didn't refer to her desertion. Carson had his own troubles.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: Now that he had decided that he would live, his
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: problems multiplied. The colonist's barns were filled to capacity with
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: on our leaves, which would pay off their debts to
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: the company. He began to worry about that lost without
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: the constant directors from the company, he had his technicians
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: step up the power in the settlement transmitter. He knew
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: that the screen Lawn had put up with stop ordinary
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 1: spacecram transmission. Even with a tight beam, he could broadcast
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: and receive only at night when the screen was thinnest.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 1: Even so, he had to search out holes in the screen.
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: The system didn't work perfectly. It wasn't two way at
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 1: all until the company stepped up the power in its
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: own transmitter. But spacecrams started to get through again. Parson
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: smiled in relief. He began to regain some of his old,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: arrogantly bored manner. Now that the company's guiding hand was
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: once more with him. Nothing seemed as bad as it
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: had been. He was able to report that something had
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: happened to save the colony from extinction, and that Lawn
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 1: Simpson had probably done it. In return, he got a
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: spacecram demanding full particulars and precise information on the devices
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 1: he had reported Lawn Simpson to have made. Humbly, Carson
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: obeyed his corporation. He pumped Kathy, which was not difficult
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: because she was bursting with pride in Lawn. She confirmed
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: in detail the rumor that Lawn was somehow responsible for
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: the protective screen that was keeping everybody alive. Carson sent
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: the information by spacecram. He was informed that a special
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: company ship was heading for Setisgama II at full speed.
• 1:17:59
  Speaker 1: Carson wid take orders from its skipper when it arrived. Meanwhile,
• 1:18:03
  Speaker 1: he would buy than our relief if absolutely necessary, but
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: stall as long as possible. The legal staff of the
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: trading company was working on the problem of adapting the
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: system to get the new surplus supplies of than Or
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: without letting anybody get anything in particular for it. He
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: would keep secret the coming of the special ship, which
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: was actually the space yacht of a member of the
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: board of directors, and he would display great friendliness toward
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: Lawn Simpson. The last was the difficult part, because Lawn
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 1: Simpson was becoming difficult. With the sun writhing as if
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: in agony overhead, seen dimly through a permanent blessed mistiness,
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: and changing shape from hour to hour, Lawn Simpson had
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: discovered something new to get mad about. Lawn had felt
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: definitely on top of the world. He had solved the
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: problem of clearing his debts and get credit sufficient for
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: two passages back to Earth. With money there to take
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: care of getting rich on his inventions, there was no
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: reason to delay marriage. He wanted to get married, and
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 1: through a deplorable oversight, there had been no method devised
• 1:19:16
  Speaker 1: by which a legal marriage ceremony could be performed on
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 1: Setis Gama III. It was one of those accidental omissions
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 1: which would presently be rectified. But the legal minds who
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 1: set up the system for the planet had been thinking
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: of money, not marriages. They hadn't envisioned connubial bliss as
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: a service the company should provide, and Lawn was raising kine.
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 1: His barn was literally bursting with than oral leaves, and
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: he was filling up his attic extra bedroom, living quarters
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: and kitchen with more. He was rich. He wanted to
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: get married, and it wasn't possible. Lawn was in a
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 1: posi position to raise much more cane than ordinary. He'd
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: made an amicable bargain with his fellow colonists. Theyde brought
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 1: truckloads of miscellaneous foliage to be put into his vegetation converter,
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: and he converted it all into than oral leaves. The
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: product was split two ways. Everybody was happy, except Carson,
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: because every colonist had already acquired enough thun or relief
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: to pay himself out of debt and was working on
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: extra capital. If this kept up, the galactic market would
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: be broken. Carson had nightmares about that. So the Sun
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: went through convolutions and emptiness, and nobody on its second
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 1: planet paid any attention at all. After about a week,
• 1:20:47
  Speaker 1: it occasionally subsided. When that happened, the ionization of the
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 1: planet's upper atmosphere lessened, the radiation screen grew thinner, and
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: a larger proportion of light reached the surface. When the
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: Sun flared higher, the shield automatically grew thicker, an astronomical
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: phenomena which should have destroyed. Our life on the inner
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: planets came to be taken for granted, but events on
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: the second planet were not without consequences elsewhere. The board
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: of directors of the Setisgama Trading Company simultaneously jittered and
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 1: beamed with anticipation. If Lawn could convert one form of
• 1:21:28
  Speaker 1: vegetable product into another, then the company's monopoly of Fanar
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: would vanish as soon as he got loose with his device.
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, if the company could get that
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: device for its very own, Fanner had a practically unlimited market.
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: Every year, a new age group of the population needed
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 1: a milligram ay day to keep old age away. But
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: besides that, there was martian Zus fiber, which couldn't be
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: marketed because there wasn't enough of it, but would easily
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: fetch a thousand credits a quilo if Lawn's gadget could
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 1: produce it from samples. There was that Octoran sices dust,
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: the pollen of an inordinately rare plant on Octorus four,
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 1: which could be sold at more than its weight in
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: diamonds for perfume, and the directors of the company shivered
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: over what might happen and gloated over what could so
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: they kept their fingers crossed while the space yacht of
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 1: one of their numbers sped towards Setis Gamatu, manned by
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: very trustworthy men who would carry out their instructions with
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: care and vigor and no nonsense about it. Lawn Simpson
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 1: worked with his neighbors converting all sorts of vegetable debris.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: The fact that some of it was scorched did not
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 1: seem to matter into thun or relief, which was sound
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 1: legal tender on that particular planet. From time to time
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: he went to Cetopolis. He talked sentimentally and yearningly to Kathy,
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: and then he went to Carson's office and raised the
• 1:23:06
  Speaker 1: very devil because there was as yet no arrangement by
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 1: which he and Kathy could enter into the state of
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: holy matrimony. Rodempiscus looked over his notes and was very
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: well pleased. He explained to Notolichtha that from now on
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: the return of Setisgama to its normal condition would be
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: a cut in dried affair. He would like to stay
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: and watch it, but the important phenomena for all over now.
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: He said solicitously that if she wanted to go on
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: completing their nuptial journey. She might be anxious to see
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: her family and friends. She might be lonely. Nodolichthus smiled
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: at him. The process would have been horrifying to a
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: human who watched, But Rhadompiscus smile back, lonely, asked Nodalichtha,
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: carly with you, Rodampiscus. He impulsively twined his eye stalks
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: about hers. A little later, he was saying, tenderly, Then
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: I'll just finish my observations, darling, and we'll go on.
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: Since you don't mind waiting, I'd like to see my
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: pets again, said no Litha, nestling comfortably against him. Together
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 1: they scanned the second planet, but their thoughts could not
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: penetrate its renfact screen. They saw the space yacht flash
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 1: up to it. Rodampiscus inspected the minds of the biped
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: inside it. Nodo Lichtha, of course, modestly, refrained from entering
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: the minds of male creatures other than her husband. Peculiar,
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: commented Rhodampiscus. Very peculiar. If I were a sociologist, I
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: might find it less baffling. But they must have a
• 1:24:58
  Speaker 1: very queer sort of social system. They actually intend to
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: harm your pets, not Olitha, because the male now knows
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: how to supply them all with food and energy. Isn't
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: that strange? I wish the rinthect screen did not block
• 1:25:13
  Speaker 1: off scanning, but it will fade presently. You will keep
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 1: the others from harming my pets, said Nodalitha, confidently. Do
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: you know, Darling, I think I must be quite the
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 1: luckiest person in the galaxy to be married to you.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: The space yacht landed at the field outside Cetopolus. Inhabitants
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 1: of the tiny town flocked to the field to see
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: new faces. They were disappointed. One man came out and
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 1: the airlock closed. No visitors. The skipper went into Carson's office.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: He closed the door firmly behind him. He had very
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: beady eyes and a very hard boiled expression. He looked
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: at Carson with open contempt, and Carson felt that it
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: was because Carson did the company's dirty work with figures
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: and due regard for law and order, instead of frankly
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: and violently and without chilly shellying this lawn. Simpson's got
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: those gadgets, say, asked the skipper, Why, yes, said Carson, unhappily,
• 1:26:22
  Speaker 1: he's very popular with the moment. He made something on
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 1: his barn roof that kept the sun from burning us
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: all to death. You know that still keeps us from
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: burning to death for that matter. So we take it
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: away or smash it, observed the skipper. So we take
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: it away or smash it, observe the skipper. We don't
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: have to worry about anybody saying nasty things about us afterwards. Yeah,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: Carson swallowed. Everybody die if you smash the gadget, he admitted.
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: But all the than our plants in existence would be
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: burned up too. That'd be no more than are The
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: company wouldn't like that. The skipper waved his hand. How
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: do I get the Simpson on my ship? Take a
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: bunch of my men and go grab him? W What
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 1: are you going to do with him? Don't you worry,
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: said the skipper comfortingly. We know how to handle it.
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 1: He knows how to make some things the bosses want
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: to know how to make. Once I get him on
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: the ship, he'll tell we got ways. Do I take
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: some men and grab him or will you get him
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: on board? Peaceable? There? Ah, Carson licked his lips. He
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 1: wants to get married. There's no provision in the legal
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: code for it as yet, it was overlooked. But I
• 1:27:46
  Speaker 1: can tell him that as ship captain, you, the skipper nodded,
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 1: matter of factly. Right. You get him and the girl
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 1: on board, and I've got some orders for you. Gather
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: a plenty of fan our seed, get some starting trays
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: with young plants in them. I'll come back in a
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: couple of days and take you and them on board.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: The stuff this guy is God is too good. Understand No,
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 1: I'm afraid I don't I get this guy to tell
• 1:28:19
  Speaker 1: us how to make his gadgets, the skipper explained contemptuously.
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 1: We make sure he tells us, right, to be extra sure,
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: we leave the gadgets he's gotten made and working back
• 1:28:31
  Speaker 1: here where he can't get to him and spoil him.
• 1:28:35
  Speaker 1: But when we know all he knows and what he
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: only guesses to, and my tame scientists have made the
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: same kind of gadgets and they work, why we come
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: back and pick you up and the than our seed
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: and the young growing plants. Then we get the gadgets
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: this guy made here and we head back for Earth.
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: But if you take the gadget that keeps us off
• 1:29:01
  Speaker 1: from being burned up. Carson said, agitatedly, if you do,
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: everybody here, won't that be too bad? The skipper said ironically,
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: But you won't be here, You'll be on the yacht.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: Don't worry. Now, go fix it for the girl and
• 1:29:19
  Speaker 1: him to walk into our parlor. Carson's hands shook as
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 1: he reached for the beam phone. His voice was not
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: quite normal as he explained to Kathy and the exchange
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: that the skipper of the space yacht had the legal
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 1: power to perform marriage ceremonies in space, and Carson, as
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: a gesture of friendship to one of the most prominent colonists,
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: had asked if the captain would oblige Kathy and Lawn.
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: The captain had agreed if they made haste, he would
• 1:29:50
  Speaker 1: take them out in space and marry them. The skipper
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: of the space yacht regarded him with undisguised scorn when
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: he hung up the phone and mopped his face. Pretty girl, eh,
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: he asked contemptuously, And you don't have the nerve to
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: grab her for yourself. He did not wait for an answer.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: I look her over. You get the stuff ready for
• 1:30:12
  Speaker 1: when I come back in a couple of days. But
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: when you release them, Carson said shakily, they'll report. The
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: skipper looked at Carson without any expression at all, then
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: he went out. Carson felt sick, but he was a
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: very loyal employee of the Setis Gamba Trading Company. From
• 1:30:37
  Speaker 1: the windows of his air conditioned office, he watched Lorn
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: Simpson Greek Kathy on his arrival in Sinopolis. He saw
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: Kathy put a sprig of channel blossoms on the lapel
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: of her very best suit in lieu of a bridle bouquet,
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 1: and he watched them go with shining faces toward the airport.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: He didn't try to stop them. Later he heard the
• 1:31:02
  Speaker 1: space yacht take off end. Part four, Part five of
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: The Sentimentalists by Maury Leinster. This LibriVox recording is in
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: the public domain. Part five. Notolichtha prepared to share the
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: thoughts and the happiness of the female biped whose emotions
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 1: were familiar, since Notolichtha was so recently a bride herself.
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: Rodempiscus was making notes, but he gallantly ceased when Noolichtha
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: called to him. They sat then before their crude but
• 1:31:42
  Speaker 1: comfortable bower on the ninth planet, all set to share
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: the quaint rejoicing of the creatures of which Nodolichtha had
• 1:31:48
  Speaker 1: grown fond. Noolichtha penetrated the thoughts of the female in
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: pleased anticipation. Rodempiscus scanned the mind of the male, and
• 1:31:58
  Speaker 1: his expression changed. He shifted his thoughts to another and
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: another of the bipeds in the ship's company. He spoke
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 1: with some distaste. The ones you consider your pets not
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: a Lichtha, are amiable enough. But the others, he frowned, Really, darling,
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: if you went into their minds, you'd be most displeased.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: They are quite repulsive. Let's forget about them and start
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: for home. If you really care for pets, weave much
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: more suitable creatures there. Not a Lichtha, pouted ran Empiscus.
• 1:32:34
  Speaker 1: Let's just watch their marriage ceremony. It is so cute
• 1:32:38
  Speaker 1: to think of little creatures like that loving each other
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: and marrying. Radimpiscus withdrew his thought from the space yacht
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: and looked about the charming rural retreat he and Notoliza
• 1:32:50
  Speaker 1: had occupied. It's nitrogen snow walls glittered in the starlight,
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: the garden of cyanogen flowers, and the border of ammonia
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 1: dirystals on the walkway of monoclinic sulfur, and the reflecting
• 1:33:04
  Speaker 1: pools of liquid hydrogen heat installed in an odd half hour.
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 1: These were simple, but they were delightful. The crudity of
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: the space shot, with its metal walls so curiously covered
• 1:33:17
  Speaker 1: over with the coating of lead oxide in hardened oil,
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: and the vegetable gum flooring. Rd Empiscus did not like
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: the surroundings men made for themselves in space. Very well, darling,
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: he said, resignedly. We'll watch and then we'll take off
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: for home. I'm anxious to see what the modernists have
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: to say when I show them my notes on this
• 1:33:39
  Speaker 1: flare up. And of course, he added, with grave humor,
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: you want to show your family that I haven't ill
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: treated you. He was the barest trace, impatient, but noelicous
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: thoughts were on the female bipad in the spaceship. Her
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: expression was distressed. Rudum pissol goose, she said, angrily. The
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: other bipeds are being unkind to my pets. Do something
• 1:34:06
  Speaker 1: I don't like them. A sailor in a soiled uniform
• 1:34:10
  Speaker 1: led them into the space yacht's saloon. The airlock clanged shut,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: and the yacht swared for the skies. The sailor vanished.
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: Nobody else came near. Then Lown stiffened, he got the
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: flavor of his surroundings. He had Kathy with him. On
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: her account, his flesh crawled suddenly. This was a space yacht,
• 1:34:35
  Speaker 1: but of a very special kind. It was a pleasure ship.
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: The decorations were subtly disgusting. There were pictures on the walls,
• 1:34:45
  Speaker 1: and at first glance they were pretty enough, but on
• 1:34:49
  Speaker 1: second glance they were disquieting, and when carefully examined, they
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: were elaborately and elusively monstrous. This was the yacht of
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: someone on denying that anything could be more desirable than pleasure,
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 1: and who took his pleasure in a most unattractive fashion.
• 1:35:08
  Speaker 1: Lawn grasped this much, and it occurred to him that
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: the crew of such a yacht would be chosen for
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 1: its willingness to cooperate in its owner's enterprises. And Lawn
• 1:35:19
  Speaker 1: went somewhat pale, for Kathy was with him. The ship
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: went up and up, with the dark shutters over the ports,
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: showing that it was in sunshine fierce enough to be
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 1: dangerous on unshielded flesh presently, there was the feel of maneuvering.
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: After a time, the shutters flipped open and stars were visible.
• 1:35:43
  Speaker 1: Lawn went quickly to a port and looked out the
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: great black mass of the night's side of Satisgama Tu
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: filled half the firmament. It blotted out the sun. The
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: space shot might be two or three thousand miles up
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: and in the planet's umbra. It shot, which was not
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: necessary for a space wetting or for anything involving a
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: reasonably brief stay in the excessive heat set. As Gama
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 1: gave off, there were clankings. A door opened. The skipper
• 1:36:14
  Speaker 1: came in, and Kathy smiled at him because she didn't
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 1: realize Lan's fierce apprehension. Four other men followed, all in
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: soiled and untidy space yacht uniforms, then two other men
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: in more ordinary clothing. Their expressions were distinctly uneasy. The
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: four sailors walked matter of factly over to Lawn and
• 1:36:34
  Speaker 1: grabbed at him. They should have taken him completely by surprise,
• 1:36:38
  Speaker 1: but he had been warned just enough to explode into battle.
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: It was a very pretty fight. For a time. Lawn
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: kept three of them busy. One snarled with a wrenched wrist,
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: another spat blood and teeth, and a third had a
• 1:36:53
  Speaker 1: closed eye before the fourth swung a chair. Then Lin
• 1:36:57
  Speaker 1: hit something with his head the deck, but he didn't
• 1:37:01
  Speaker 1: know it. When he came to, he was hobbled. He
• 1:37:06
  Speaker 1: was not bound, so he couldn't move, but his hands
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 1: were handcuffed together with six inches of chain between for play.
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 1: His ankles were similarly restricted. He could move, but he
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: could not fight. Blood was trickling down his temple, and
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 1: somebody was holding his head up. The skipper said, impatiently,
• 1:37:26
  Speaker 1: all right, stand back. Lawn's head was released. The skipper
• 1:37:32
  Speaker 1: jerked a thumb, men went out. Lawn looked about desperately
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: for Kathy. She was there, dead white and terrified, but
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 1: apparently unharmed. She stared at Lawn in wordless pleading. You're
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: a suspicious guy, aren't you, asked the skipper sardonically. Somebody
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 1: lays a finger on you and you start fighting. But
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: you've got the idea. I'll say it plain so we
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: can get your lawn. Simpson Carson down on the planet
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: reported some nice news about you. You made a gadget
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: that converts any sort of leaf to than ar. Maybe
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: it turns stuff to other stuff too, He paused, we
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: want to know how to make gadgets like that. You're
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: gonna draw plans and explain the theory. I got guys
• 1:38:25
  Speaker 1: here to listen. We're gonna make one from your plans
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: and explanations, and it had better work. See Garson sent
• 1:38:36
  Speaker 1: for you to do this, Lon Simpson said thickly he did.
• 1:38:40
  Speaker 1: The company wants it. They'll use it to make Zus fiber.
• 1:38:44
  Speaker 1: And she says dust and stuff like that, maybe dream
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 1: dust too, and so on. The point is, you're gonna
• 1:38:52
  Speaker 1: tell us how to make those gadgets. How about it.
• 1:38:57
  Speaker 1: Lawn licked his lips, he said slowly. I think there's
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 1: more go on. You made another gadget, said the skipper,
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: with relish, that turns out power without fuel. The company
• 1:39:13
  Speaker 1: wants that too. Baselines will pay for it, cities will
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: pay for it. It ought to be a pretty nice thing.
• 1:39:21
  Speaker 1: You're going to make plans and explanations of how that works,
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: and we're gonna make sure you're right that clear. Will
• 1:39:29
  Speaker 1: you let us go when I've told you, ln asked bitterly,
• 1:39:33
  Speaker 1: Not without one more gadget? The skipper added, amiably, you
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 1: made something that put a screen around the planet Yonder
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: so it didn't get burned up. It ought to be useful.
• 1:39:45
  Speaker 1: The company will put one around Mercury, convenient for mining operations,
• 1:39:49
  Speaker 1: one around that planet that's too close to sirious. Oh,
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 1: there's plenty of places that'll be useful. So you'll get
• 1:39:56
  Speaker 1: set to draw up the plans for that too, and
• 1:40:00
  Speaker 1: deplanations of how it works. Then we'll talk about letting
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: you go. Law knew that he wouldn't be let go
• 1:40:07
  Speaker 1: in any case, not after he told them what was wanted,
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: Not by men who'd work on a pleasure craft like this,
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 1: not with Kathy a prisoner with him. But he might
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: as well get all the cards down. And if I
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: won't tell you what you want to know, he asked,
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: the Skipperom shrugged his shoulders. You were knocked out for
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 1: a while, he said, without heat, while we were waiting
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: for you to come too, we told her. He jerked
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: his stomach. Kathy, what would happen to her if you
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: weren't obliging? We told her plenty. She knows we mean it.
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 1: We won't hurt you until we've finished with her, So
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: you'd better get set to talk. I'll let her see
• 1:40:53
  Speaker 1: if she can persuade you peaceable. I'll give her ten minutes.
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: He went out the door click shut behind him, and
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 1: Lawn knew that this was the finish. He looked at
• 1:41:05
  Speaker 1: Kathy's dazed, horror filled eyes. He knew this wasn't a bluff.
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: He was up against the same system that had brought
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: colonists to Setagama two. The brains that had planned that
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: system had planned this. They'd gotten completely qualified men to
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: do their dirty work. In both cases, Lon Darling, please
• 1:41:27
  Speaker 1: kill me, Cathy said in a hoarse whisper. He looked
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: at her in astonishment. Please kill me, repeated Kathy desperately.
• 1:41:37
  Speaker 1: They they can't ever dare let us go on after
• 1:41:41
  Speaker 1: what they've told me. They've got to kill us both.
• 1:41:45
  Speaker 1: But Lon Darling, please kill me first. An idea came
• 1:41:51
  Speaker 1: into Lahan's mind. He serrated worriedly. He knew that he
• 1:41:56
  Speaker 1: would have to tell what he knew, and then he
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: would be killed. The Setiskama Trading Company wanted his inventions,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: and it would need him dead after it had them.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: The idea was hopeless, but he had to try it.
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: They knew he'd made gadgets which did remarkable things. If
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 1: he made something now and persuaded them that it was
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: a weapon, His flesh crawled with horror, not for himself,
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: but for Kathy. He fumbled in his pockets, a pocket knife,
• 1:42:28
  Speaker 1: a key chain, string. His face was completely gray. He
• 1:42:33
  Speaker 1: ripped an upholstered seat. There were karl springs under the fomite.
• 1:42:38
  Speaker 1: He pulled away a piece of decorative molding. He knew
• 1:42:41
  Speaker 1: it wouldn't work, but there wasn't anything else to do.
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: His hands moved awkwardly with the handcuffs so limiting their movements.
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: Time passed. He had something finished. It was a bit
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: of wood with a coral spring from the chair, with
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: his keychain wrapped around it and his pocket knife set
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: in it so that the blade would seemed to make
• 1:43:03
  Speaker 1: a contact, but it would achieve nothing whatever. Cathy stared
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: at him. Her eyes were desperate, but she believed she'd
• 1:43:12
  Speaker 1: seen three equally improbable devices perform wonders while Lawn made
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 1: something that looked like the nightmare of an ultimist sculpture.
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: She watched in terrified hope. He had it in his
• 1:43:26
  Speaker 1: hand when the door opened again and the skipper came
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: back into the saloon. He said, prosaically shall I call
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: in the scientists GUIs to listen, or the persuader guys
• 1:43:37
  Speaker 1: to work on her. Neither. I've made another gadget, Laan said,
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: from a dry throat. It will kill you. It'll kill
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: everybody on the ship. From here, you're going to put
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 1: us back down on the planet below. The skipper did
• 1:43:54
  Speaker 1: not look at the gadget, but at Lawn's face. Then
• 1:43:57
  Speaker 1: he called the four men of the crew, and the
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: two uneasy scientists came in. We got to persuade, the
• 1:44:05
  Speaker 1: skipper said, sardonically. He just told me he's made a
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: new gadget that'll kill us all. He moved unhurriedly toward Lawn.
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: Law knew that his bluff was no good. If the
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: thing had actually been a weapon, he'd have been confident
• 1:44:19
  Speaker 1: and assured. He didn't feel that way, but he raised
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: the thing menacingly as the skipper approached. The skipper took
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: it away, laughing, we'll tie him in a chair and
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: get to work on her. When he's ready to talk,
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: we'll stop. He looked at the object in his hands.
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: It was ridiculous to look at. It was as absurd
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: as the device that extracted power from matter stresses and
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: the machine that converted one kind of vegetation into another.
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: And the apparatus partly born roof that had short circuited
• 1:44:53
  Speaker 1: the ion a sphere of Seti Kama two to the
• 1:44:56
  Speaker 1: planet's solid surface. It looked very foolish. Indeed, the skipper
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: was amused. Look out, you, fellows, he said, humorously, it's
• 1:45:07
  Speaker 1: gonna kill you. He crooked his finger and the knife
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: blade made a contact. He swept it in mocked menace
• 1:45:14
  Speaker 1: about the saloon. The four crew members and the two
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: scientists went stiff. He gaped at them, then turned the
• 1:45:22
  Speaker 1: device to stare at it incredulously. He came within its range.
• 1:45:28
  Speaker 1: He stiffened off balance. He fell on the device, breaking
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: its gem crack fastenings and the contact, which transmitted nothing
• 1:45:36
  Speaker 1: that Lon Simpson could imagine coming out of it. The
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: others fell one by one with peculiarly solid impacts. Their
• 1:45:46
  Speaker 1: flesh was incredibly hard. It was as solid in fact
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 1: as so much mahogany. Noa Likah said warmly, you're a
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: darling rad empiscus. It was outrageous of those nasty creatures
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: to intend to harm my pets. I'm glad you attended
• 1:46:03
  Speaker 1: to them and I'm glad you're pleased, my dear, rad
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 1: Empiscus said pleasantly. Now shall we set out for home?
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 1: Notolithka looked about the cozy landscape of the ninth planet
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: of Setisgama. There were jagged peaks of frozen air and
• 1:46:20
  Speaker 1: mountain ranges of water solidified ten thousand eons ago. There
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: were frost trees of nitrogen, the elaborate crystal formations of oregon.
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: And here a wide sweep of oxygen crystal sward, with
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: tiny peeping wild crystals of deep blue cyanogen, seeming to
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: grow more thickly by the brook of liquid hydrogen. And
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: there was their bower, primitive, but the scene of a
• 1:46:46
  Speaker 1: true honeymoon idol. I almost hate to go home, rad Empiscus,
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: Notolythkus said, We've been so happy here. Will you remember
• 1:46:58
  Speaker 1: it for always? Naturally, said Radimpiscus, I'm glad you've been happy.
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: Notolithkus snuggled up to him and twined. I stalked with him, darling,
• 1:47:09
  Speaker 1: she said softly, you've been wonderful, and I've been spoiled
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 1: and you've let me be. But I'm going to be
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: a very dutiful wife from now on. Radimpiscus, Only it
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: has been fun having you be so nice to me.
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: It's been fun for me too, replied Radimpiscus gallantly. Notolithka
• 1:47:31
  Speaker 1: took a last glance around, and each of her sixteen
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: eyes glowed sentimentally. Then she scanned the for distant spaceship
• 1:47:39
  Speaker 1: and the shadow of the second planet from the now
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 1: subsiding sun. My pets, she said tenderly. But Radimpiscus, what
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 1: are they doing. They've discovered that the crew of their vehicle,
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 1: they call it a space yacht, are dead, that they're
• 1:47:56
  Speaker 1: only in suspended animation, and they've decided in some money
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: that they'd better take them back to Earth to be revived.
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: How nice I knew there were sweet little creatures, red
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: Empiscus hesitated a moment from the male's mind, I gather
• 1:48:14
  Speaker 1: as something else, since the crew of this space shacht
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: was incapacitated and they were not employed on it, He
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: and your female will bring it safely to port, and
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: I gather that they have a claim of great reward. Ah.
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: It is something they call salvage. He plans to use
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: it to secure other rewards, he calls pattens, and they
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: expect to live happily ever after, and cried Noolichtha gleefully
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 1: from the female's mind. I know that she is very
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: proud of him, because she doesn't know that you designed
• 1:48:48
  Speaker 1: all the instruments he made, Darling. She's speaking to him now,
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 1: telling him she loves him very dearly. Then Noto Lichtha
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: blushed a little because in a far away space, Kathy
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: had kissed Lawn Simpson. The process seemed highly indecorous to
• 1:49:06
  Speaker 1: Noto Liichtha. So recently a bride, yes, said Rodempiscus dryly.
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: He is returning the compliment. It is quin to think
• 1:49:15
  Speaker 1: of such small creatures. Ha, no A Lichtha, you should
• 1:49:20
  Speaker 1: be pleased again. He is telling her that they will
• 1:49:22
  Speaker 1: be married when they reach Earth, and that she shall
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 1: have a white dress and a veil and a train.
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: But I'm afraid that we cannot follow to witness the ceremony.
• 1:49:35
  Speaker 1: Their tentacles linked and their positron blasts mingling, the two
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: of them soared up from the surface of the ninth
• 1:49:42
  Speaker 1: planet of Setiskama. They swept away, headed for their home
• 1:49:47
  Speaker 1: at the extreme outer tip of the most four flung
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: arm of the spiral outposts of the galaxy. But still
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: said noo Liichtha as they swept through emptiness at a
• 1:49:59
  Speaker 1: speed unit imaginable to humans. You're wonderfully cute, yes, darling.
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: Ralempiscus agreed, unwilling to start an argument so soon after
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: the wedding, but not as cute as you. In Port five,
• 1:50:17
  Speaker 1: End of the Sentimentalists by Murray Leinster. This book recorded
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 1: in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,