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Short Science Fiction Collection 005-Various · Short Science Fiction Collection

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: To be Are not to be by Kurt Vonnegut Junior.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Got a problem, just pick up
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the phone. It solved them all in all the same way.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: To be are not to be by Kurt Vonnegut Junior.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Everything was perfectly swell. There were no prisons, no slums,
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no war. All
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: diseases were conquered, so was old age. Death barring accidents
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: was an adventure for volunteers. The population of the United
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: States was stabilized at forty million souls. One bright morning
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: in the Chicago lying in hospital, a man named Edward K.
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Whaling Junior waited for his wife to give birth. He
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: was the only man waiting. Not many people were born
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: in a day any more. Wheeling was fifty six, a
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: mere stripling in a population whose average age was one
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: hundred and twenty nine. X rays had revealed that his
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: wife was going to have triplets. The children would be
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: his first young Wheeling was hunched in his chair, his
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: head in his hands, he was so rumpled, so still,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and colorless as to be virtually invisible. His camouflage was perfect,
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: since the waiting room had a disorderly and demoralized air too,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: chairs and ashtrays had been moved away from the walls.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: The floor was paved with spattered drop cloths. The room
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: was being redecorated. It was being redecorated as a memorial
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: to a man who had volunteered to die. A sardonic
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: old man about two hundred years old us that on
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: a step ladder painting a mural he did not like.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: Back in the days when people aged visibly, his age
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: would have been guessed at thirty five or so. Aging
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: had touched him that much before the cure for aging
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: was found. The mural he worked on depicted a very
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: neat garden. Men and women in white doctors and nurses,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: turned the soil, planted seedlings, sprayed bugs, spread fertilizer. Men
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: and women in purple uniforms pulled up weeds, cut down
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: plants that were old and sickly, raked leaves, carried refuse
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: to trash burners. Never, never, never, not, even in medieval
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: Holland or Old Japan, had a garden been more formal,
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: been better tended. Every plant had all the loam, light, water, air,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: and nourishment it could use. A hospital Orderly came down
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: the corridor, singing under his breath a popular song.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: If you don't like my kisses, honey, here's what I
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: will do. I'll go see a girl in purple kiss
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: this sad world too, lou If you don't want my lovin',
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: why should I take up all this space. I'll get
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: off this old planet. Let some sweet baby have my please.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: The Orderly looked in at the mural, and the muralist
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: looks so real, he said, I can practically imagine I'm
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: standing in the middle of it. What makes you think
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: you're not in it, said the painter. He gave a
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: satiric smile. It's called the happy Garden of life. You
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: know that's good of doctor Hits, said the Orderly. He
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: was referring to one of the male figures in white,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: whose head was a portrait of doctor Benjamin Hits, the
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: hospital's chief obstetrician. Hits was a blindingly handsome man. Lots
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: of faces still to fill in, said the Orderly. He
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: meant that the faces of many of the figures and
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: the mural were still blank. All blanks were to be
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: filled in with portraits of important people on either the
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: hospital staff or from the Chicago office of the Federal
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Bureau of Termination. Must be nice to be able to
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: paint pictures that look like something, said the orderly. The
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: painter's face curdled with scorn. You think I'm proud of
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: this daub, he said. You think this is my idea
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: of what life really looks like. What's your idea of
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: what life looks like? Said the orderly. The painter gestured
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: at a foul dropcloth. There's a good picture of it,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: he said. Frame that and you'll have a picture a
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: damned sight more honest than this one. You're a gloomy
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: old duck, aren't you, said the orderly. Is that a crime?
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Said the painter. You orderly shrug if you don't like it. Here, grandpa,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: he said, And he finished the thought with a trick
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: telephone number that people who didn't want to live any
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: more were supposed to call. The zero and the telephone
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: number he pronounced not the number was to be are
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: not to be? It was the telephone number of an
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: institution whose fanciful sobriquets included automat Birdland, cannery, catbox, Delauser,
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: easy Go, goodbye mother, happy hooligan, kiss me quick, lucky Pierre,
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: sheep dip wearing blender, weep no more? And why worry
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: to be? Your not to be was the telephone number
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: of the municipal gas chambers of the Federal Bureau of Termination.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: The painter thumbed his nose at the Orderly. When I
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: decide it's time to go, he said, it won't be
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: at the sheep dip A do it yourself for eh,
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: said the orderly, messy business Grandpa, Why don't you have
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: a little consideration for the people who have to clean
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: up after you? The painter expressed with an obscenity his
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: lack of concern for the tribulations of his survivors. The
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: world could do with a good deal more mess if
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: you ask me, he said. The Orderly laughed and moved
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: on wailing. The waiting father mumbled something without raising his head,
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: and then he fell silent again. A course for mintal
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: strode into the waiting room on spike heels. Her shoes, stockings,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: trench coat, bag, and overseas cap were all purple. The
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: purple the painter called the color of grapes on judgment Day.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: The medallion on her purple musette bag was the seal
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: of the Service Division of the Federal Bureau of Termination.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: An eagle perched on a turnstile. The woman had a
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: lot of facial hair an unmistakable mustache. In fact, a
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: curious thing about gas chamber hostesses was that, no matter
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: how lovely and feminine they were when recruited, they all
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: sprouted mustaches within five years or so. Is this where
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: I'm supposed to come? She said to the painter. A
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: lot would depend on what your business was. He said,
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: you aren't about to have a baby, are you. They
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: tell me I was supposed to pose for some picture.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: She said, My name's Leora Duncan. She waited, and you
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: dunk people? He said, what she said, skip it? He
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: said that sure is a beautiful picture. She said, looks
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: just like heaven as something or something, said the painter.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: He took a list of names from his smock pocket. Duncan,
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: dunkin Duncan, he said, scanning the list. Yes, here you are.
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: You're entitled to be immortalized. See any faceless body here
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: you'd like me to stick your head on. We've got
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: a few choice ones left. She studied the murabliquely gee,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: she said, they're all the same to me. I don't
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: know anything about art. A body's a body, eh, he said, alrighty,
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: as a matter of fine art, I'll recommend this body here.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: He indicated a faceless figure of a woman who was
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: carrying dried stalks to a trash burner. Well, said Leora Duncan.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: That's more the disposal people, isn't it. I mean, I'm
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: in service. I don't do any disposing. The painter clapped
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: his hands and mocked a light. You say you don't
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: know anything about art, and then you prove in the
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: next breath that you know more about it than I do.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Of course, the ship carrier is wrong for a hostess,
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: A snipper, a pruner, that's more your line. He pointed
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: to a figure in purple who was sawing a dead
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: branch from an apple tree. How about her? He said,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: you like her at all? Gosh, she said, and she
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: blushed and became humble. That that puts me right next
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to doctor Hits. That upsets you, he said, good gravy. No,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: she said, it's it's just such an honor. Ah, you
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: admire him, eh, he said, Who doesn't admire him? She said,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: worshiping the portrait of doctor Hits. It was a portrait
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: of a tanned, white haired omnipotent zeus two hundred and
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: forty years old. Who doesn't admire him? She said? Again?
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: He was responsible for setting up the very first gas
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: chamber in Chicago. Nothing would please me more, said the painter,
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: than to put you next to him for all time,
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: sawing off a limb that strike. She was appropriate. That
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: is kind of like what I do, she said. She
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: was demure about what she did. What she did was
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: make people comfortable while she killed them. And while Youora
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Duncan was posing for her portrait. Into the waiting room
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: bounded doctor Hits himself. He was seven feet tall, and
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: he boomed with importance, accomplishments, and the joy of living well,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: Miss Duncan, Miss Duncan, he said, And he made a joke,
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: what are you doing here? This isn't where the people leave,
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: this is where they come in. We're going to be
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: in the same picture together, she said, shyly, good, said
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: doctor Hitz heartily, And say, isn't that some picture? I
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: sure am honored to be in it with you, she said.
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: Let me tell you, he said, I'm honored to be
• 9:51
  Speaker 1: in it with you. Without women like you, this wonderful
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: world we've got wouldn't be possible. He saluted her and
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: moved towards the door that left to the delivery rooms.
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: Guess what was just born, he said, I can't. She said, triplets.
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: He said triplets. She said. She was exclaiming over the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: legal implications of triplets. The law said that no newborn
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: child could survive unless the parents of the child could
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: find someone who would volunteer to die triplets if they
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: were all to live, called for three volunteers. Did the
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: parents have three volunteers, said Leora Duncan. Last I heard,
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: said doctor Hitz. They had one and were trying to
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: scrape another two up. I don't think they made it,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: she said. Nobody made three appointments with us. Nothing but
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: singles going through today unless somebody called in after I left.
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: What's the name Wailing? Said the waiting father, sitting up,
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: red eyed and frowsy. Edward K. Whaling Junior is the
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: name of the happy father to be. He raised his
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: right hand, looked at a spot on the Wall gave
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: a hoarsely wretched chuckle present he said, Oh, mister Whaling,
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: said doctor Hins. I didn't see you, the invisible man,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: said Whaling. They just phoned me that your triplets have
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: been born, said doctor Hits. They're all fine, and so's
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: the mother. I'm on my way in to see them now, hooray,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: said Whaling emptily. You don't sound very happy, said doctor Hits.
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: What man in my shoes wouldn't be happy, said Whaling.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: He gestured with his hands to symbolize carefree simplicity. All
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: I have to do is pick out which one of
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: the triplets is going to live, then deliver my material
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: grandfather to the happy hooligan, and come back here with
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: a receipt. Doctor Hits became rather severe with Whaling towered
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: over him. You don't believe in population controlled, mister Whaling,
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: he said, I think it's perfectly keen, said Whaling totly.
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: Would you like to go back to the good old
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: days when the population of the earth was twenty billion
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: about to become forty billion, then eighty billion, then one
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: hundred and sixty billion. Do you know what a druplet is,
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: mister Whaling, said doctor Hits. Nope, said Whaling sulkily. A drooplet.
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: Mister Whaling is one of the little knobs, one of
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: the little pulpy grains of a BlackBerry, said doctor Hits.
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: Without population control, human beings would now be packed on
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the surface of this old planet like drouplets on a BlackBerry.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Think of it. Whaling continued to stare at the same
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: spot on the wall. In the year two thousand, said
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: doctor Hits, Before scientists stepped in and laid down the law,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: there wasn't even enough drinking water to go around, and
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: nothing to eat but seaweed. And still people insisted on
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: their right to reproduce like jack rabbits, and their right,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: if possible, to live forever. I want those kids, said
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: Whaling quietly. I want all three of them. Of course
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: you do, said doctor Hits. That's only human. I don't
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: want my grandfather to die, either, said Whaling. Nobody's really
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: happy about taking a close relative to the cat box,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: said doctor Hits gently sympathetically. I wish people wouldn't call
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: it that, said Leora Duncan. What, said doctor Hits. I
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: wish people wouldn't call it the cat box and things
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: like that. She said, it gives people the wrong impression.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: You're absolutely right, said Doctor Hits Forgive me, he corrected himself,
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: gave the municipal gas Chambers their official title, a title
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: no one ever used in conversation. I should have said
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: ethical suicide Studios. He said. That sounds so much better,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: said Leora Duncan. This child of yours, whichever one you
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: decide to keep, mister Whaling, said Doctor Hits. He or
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: she is going to live on a happy, roomy, clean,
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: rich planet, thanks to population control, in a garden like
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: that mural there. He shook his head. Two centuries ago,
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: when I was a young man, it was a hell
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: that nobody thought could last another twenty years. Now, centuries
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: of peace and plenty stretched before us, as far as
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the imagination cares to travel. He smiled luminously. The smile
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: faded as he saw that Whaling had just drawn a revolver.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Whaling shot Doctor Hits dead. There's room for one, a great,
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: big one, he said, and then he shot Leora Duncan.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: It's only death, he said to her as she fell. There,
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: room for two, and then he shot himself, making room
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: for all three of his children. Nobody came running nobody
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: seemingly heard the shots. The painter sat on the top
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: of his step ladder, looking down reflectively on the sorry scene.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: The painter pondered the mournful puzzle of life, demanding to
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: be born, and once born, demanding to be fruitful, to multiply,
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: and to live as long as possible, to do all
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: that on a very small planet that would have to
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: last forever. All the answers that the painter could think
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: of were grim, even grimmer surely than a catbox a
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: happy hul an easy go. He thought of war, He
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: thought of plague, He thought of starvation. He knew that
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: he would never paint again. He let his paint brush
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: fall to the drop closs below, and then he decided
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: he had had about enough of life in the happy
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: garden of life too, and he came slowly down from
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: the ladder. He took Whaling's pistol, really intending to shoot himself,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: but he didn't have the nerve. And then he saw
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: the telephone booths in the corner of the room. He
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: went to it, dialed the well remembered number two b R.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: Not to be Federal Bureau of Termination, said the very
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: warm voice of a hostess. How soon could I get
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: an appointment, he asked, speaking very carefully. We could probably
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: fit you in late this afternoon, sir, she said, It
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: might even be earlier if we get a cancelation. All right,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: said the painter. Fit me in if you please, and
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: he gave her his name, spelling it out. Thank you, sir,
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: said the hostess. Your city, Thanks you, country, thanks you,
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: your planet, thanks you. But the deepest thanks of all
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: is from future generations. The end of to be are
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: not to be? By Kurt Vonnegut Junior, read by Brian
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: Who's April two thousand and eight, Circus.
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: visit LibriVox dot org. Circus by Alan Edward Nors. Just suppose,
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: said Morgan, that I did believe you. Just for argument.
• 16:46
  Speaker 3: He glanced up at the man across the restaurant table.
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: Where would we go from here? The man shifted uneasily
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: in his seat. He was silent, staring down at his plate.
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: Not a strange look, looking, man, Morgan thought, rather ordinary.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: In fact, a plain face knows a little too long fingers,
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: A little too dainty, a suit that doesn't seem quite
• 17:11
  Speaker 3: to fit, but all in all a perfectly ordinary looking man.
• 17:16
  Speaker 3: Maybe too ordinary, Morgan thought. Finally, the man looked up.
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: His eyes were dark, with a hunted look in their
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: depths that chilled Morgan a little. Where do we go?
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: I don't know. I've tried to think it out and
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: I get nowhere. But you've got to believe me, Morgan.
• 17:34
  Speaker 3: I'm lost, I mean it, if I can't get help,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I don't know where it's going to end. I'll tell
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: you where it's going to end, said Morgan. It's going
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: to end in a hospital, a mental hospital. They'll lock
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: you up, and they'll lose the key somewhere. He poured
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: himself another cup of coffee and sipped it scalding hot,
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: and that, he added, will be that. The place was
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: dark and almost empty. Overhead, a rotary fan swished patiently.
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: The man across from Morgan ran a hand through his
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: dark hair. There must be some other way, he said,
• 18:12
  Speaker 3: There has to be. All right, let's start from the
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: beginning again, Morgan said, Maybe we can pin down something
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: a little better. You say your name is Parks, right.
• 18:25
  Speaker 3: The man nodded, Jefferson Haldeman Parks, if that helps any
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Haldeman was my mother's maiden name. All right, and you
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: got into town on Friday, right, Parks nodded, fine, Now
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: go through the whole story again. What happened first? The
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: man thought for a minute, as I said, First, there
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: was a fall about twenty feet. I didn't break any bones,
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: but I was shaken up and limping. The fall was
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: near the highway going to the George Washington Bridge. I
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: got over to the highway and tried to flag down
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: a ride. How did you feel, I mean, was there
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: anything strange that you noticed? Strange? Park's eye widened. I
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: I was speechless at first. I hadn't noticed too much.
• 19:17
  Speaker 3: I was concerned with the fall and whether I was
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: hurt or not. I didn't really think about much else
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: until I hobbled up to that highway and saw those
• 19:26
  Speaker 3: cars coming. Then I could hardly believe my eyes. I
• 19:30
  Speaker 3: thought I was crazy, but a car stopped and asked
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: me if I was going into the city, and I
• 19:36
  Speaker 3: knew I wasn't crazy. Morgan's mouth took on a grim line.
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: You understood the language. Oh yes, I don't see how
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: I could have, but I did. We talked all the
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: way into New York. Nothing very important, but we understood
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: each other. His speech had an odd sound, but Morgan nodded,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: I know, I noticed. What did you do when you
• 20:00
  Speaker 3: got to New York? Well, obviously I needed money. I
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: had gold coin. There had been no way of knowing
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: if it would be useful, but I'd taken it on chance.
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: I tried to use it at a newsstand first, and
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: the man wouldn't touch it. Asked me if I thought
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: I was the US Treasury or something. When he saw
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: I was serious, he sent me to a money lender,
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: a hawk shop, I think he called it. So I've
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: found the place. Let me see the coins. Parks dropped
• 20:28
  Speaker 3: two small gold discs on the table. They were perfectly
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: smooth and perfectly round, tapered by ware to a thin,
• 20:36
  Speaker 3: blunt edge. There was no design on them and no printing.
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: Morgan looked up at the man, sharply, what did you
• 20:44
  Speaker 3: get for these? Park shrugged too little. I suspect two
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: dollars for the small one, five for the larger. You
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: should have gone to a bank. I know that now,
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: I didn't. Then, naturally, I assumed that with everything else
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: so similar, principles of business would also be similar. Morgan
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: sighed and leaned back in his chair. Well, then, what
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: Parks poured some more coffee. His face was very pale,
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: Morgan thought, and his hands trembled as he raised the
• 21:16
  Speaker 3: cup to his lips. Fright, maybe it's hard to tell.
• 21:21
  Speaker 3: The man put down the cup and rubbed his forehead
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: with the back of his hand. First I went to
• 21:26
  Speaker 3: the mayor's office, he said. I kept trying to think
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: what anyone at home would do in my place. That
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: seemed a good bet. I asked a policeman where it was,
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: and then I went there. But you didn't get to
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: see him.
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: No.
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: I saw a secretary. She said the mayor was in
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: conference and that I would have to have an appointment.
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: She let me speak to another man, one of the
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: mayor's assistants, and you told him no, I wanted to
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: see the mayor himself. I thought that was the best
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: thing to do. I waited for a couple of hours
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: until another assistant came along and told me flatly that
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: the mayor wouldn't see me unless I stated my business first.
• 22:07
  Speaker 3: He drew in a deep breath, so I stated it,
• 22:12
  Speaker 3: and then I was gently but firmly ushered back into
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: the street again. They didn't believe you, said Morgan, not
• 22:20
  Speaker 3: for a minute. They laughed in my face. Morgan nodded,
• 22:25
  Speaker 3: I'm beginning to get the pattern. So what did you
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: do next?
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: Next?
• 22:30
  Speaker 3: I tried the police. I got the same treatment there,
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: only they weren't so gentle. They wouldn't listen either. They
• 22:36
  Speaker 3: muttered something about cranks and their crazy notions, and when
• 22:39
  Speaker 3: they asked me where I lived, they thought I was
• 22:42
  Speaker 3: what did they call it? A wise guy told me
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: to get out and not come back with any more
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: wild stories. I see, said Morgan. Jefferson Parks finished his
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: last bite of pie and pushed the plate away. By
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: then I didn't know quite what to do. I'd been
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: prepared for almost anything excepting this. It was frightening. I
• 23:05
  Speaker 3: tried to rationalize it, and then I quit trying. It
• 23:08
  Speaker 3: wasn't that I attracted attention or anything like that. Quite
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: the contrary. Nobody even looked at me unless I said
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: something to them. I began to look for things that
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: were different, things that I could show them and say, see,
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: this proves I'm telling the truth. Look at it. He
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: looked up helplessly, and what did you find nothing? Oh,
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: little things, insignificant little things. Your calendars, for instance, Naturally,
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: I couldn't understand your frame of reference, and the coinage
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: you stamp your coins we don't and cigarettes, we don't
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: have any such thing as tobacco. The man gave a
• 23:49
  Speaker 3: short laugh. And you're house dogs. We have little animals
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: that look more like rabbits than poodles. But there was
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: nothing any more significant than that, Absolutely nothing except yourself.
• 24:03
  Speaker 3: Morgan said, ah, yes, I thought that one over carefully.
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: I looked for differences, obvious ones. I couldn't find any.
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: You can see that just looking at me. So I
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: searched for more subtle things, skin texture, fingerprints, bone structure,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: body proportion. I still couldn't find anything. Then I went
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: to a doctor. Morgan's eyebrows lifted, good, he said, Park
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: shrugged tiredly. Not really. He examined me. He practically took
• 24:34
  Speaker 3: me apart. I carefully refrained from saying anything about who
• 24:38
  Speaker 3: I was or where I came from, just said I
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: wanted a complete physical examination and let him go to it.
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: He was thorough, and when he finished, he patted me
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: on the back and said, Park's you've got nothing to
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: worry about. You're as fine strapping a specimen of a
• 24:54
  Speaker 3: healthy human being as I've ever seen. And that was
• 24:59
  Speaker 3: the Parks laughed bitterly. I guess I was supposed to
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: be happy with the verdict, and instead I was ready
• 25:06
  Speaker 3: to knocking down. It was idiotic, It defied reason. It
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: was infuriating. Morgan nodded sourly. Because you're not a human being,
• 25:17
  Speaker 3: he said, that's right, I'm not a human being at all.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: How did you happen to pick this planet or this sun,
• 25:26
  Speaker 3: Morgan asked curiously. There must have been a million others
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: to choose from. Parks unbuttoned his collar and rubbed his
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: stubble chin unhappily. I didn't make the choice. Neither did
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: anyone else. Travel by warp is a little different from
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: travel by the rocket you fiction writers make so much
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: of With a rocket vehicle, you pick your destination, you
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: make your calculations, and off you go. The warp is blind,
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: flying strictly blind. We send an unmanned scanner ahead. It
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: probes around more or less, hit or miss, until it
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: locates something somewhere that looks habitable. When it spots a
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: likely looking place, we keep a tight beam on it
• 26:08
  Speaker 3: and send through a man's scalp. He grinned sourly like me.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: If it looks good to the scout, he signals back,
• 26:16
  Speaker 3: and they leave the warp anchored for a sort of
• 26:18
  Speaker 3: permanent gateway until we can get a transport beam built.
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: But we can't control the directional and dimensional scope of
• 26:26
  Speaker 3: the warp. There are an infinity of ways it can
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: go until we have a guide beam transmitting from the
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: other side. Then we can just scan a segment of
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: space with the warp and the scanner picks up the beam.
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: He shook his head wearily. We're new at it, Morgan.
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: We've only tried a few dozen runs. We're not too
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: far ahead of you in technology. We've been using rocket
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: vehicles just like yours for over a century. That's fine
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: for a solar system, but it's not much good for
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: the stars. When the warp principle was discovered, it looked
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: like the ants, Sir, But something went wrong. The scanner
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: picked up this planet, and I was coming through, and
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: then something blue. Next thing I knew, I was falling.
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: When I tried to make contact again, the scanner was gone.
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: And you found things here the same as back home,
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: said Morgan, the same. Your planet min are practically twins,
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: similar cities, similar technology, everything. The people are the same,
• 27:27
  Speaker 3: with precisely the same anatomy and physiology, the same sort
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: of laws, the same institutions, even compatible languages. Can't you
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: see the importance of it? This planet is on the
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: other side of the universe from mind, with the first
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: intelligent life we've yet encountered anywhere. But when I try
• 27:46
  Speaker 3: to tell your people that I'm a native of another
• 27:48
  Speaker 3: star system, they won't believe me. Why should, they asked Morgan,
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: You look like a human being, You talk like one,
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: you eat like one, you act like one. What you're
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: asking them to believe is utterly incredible. But it's true,
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: Morgan shrugged. So it's true. I won't argue with you.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: But as I asked before, even if I did believe you,
• 28:11
  Speaker 3: what do you expect me to do about it? Why
• 28:14
  Speaker 3: pick me of all people you've seen? There was a
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: desperate light in Park's eyes. I was tired, tired of
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: being laughed at, tired of having people looking at me
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: as though I'd lost my wits. When I tried to
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: tell him the truth. You were here, you were alone.
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: So I started talking and then I've found out you
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: wrote stories. He looked up eagerly. I've got to get back, Morgan, somehow.
• 28:38
  Speaker 3: My life is there, my family, and think what it
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: would mean to both our worlds contact with another human race,
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: combine our knowledges, our technologies, and we could explore the galaxy.
• 28:49
  Speaker 3: He leaned forward his thin face and tints. I need
• 28:53
  Speaker 3: money and I need help. I know some of the
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: mathematics of the war principle. I know some of the designs,
• 29:00
  Speaker 3: the power and wiring principles. You have engineers and physicists, technologists.
• 29:06
  Speaker 3: They could fill in what I don't know and build
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: a guide beam. But they won't do it if they
• 29:10
  Speaker 3: don't believe me. Your government won't listen to me. They
• 29:13
  Speaker 3: won't appropriate any money, of course they won't. They've got
• 29:18
  Speaker 3: a war or two on their hands. They have public
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: welfare and atomic bombs and rockets to the moon to
• 29:24
  Speaker 3: sink their money into. Morgan stared at the man. But
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: what can I do? You can write, That's what you
• 29:32
  Speaker 3: can do. You can tell the world about me. You
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: can tell exactly what has happened. I know how public
• 29:37
  Speaker 3: interest can be aroused in my world. It must be
• 29:40
  Speaker 3: the same in yours. Morgan didn't move, He just stared.
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: How many people have you talked to?
• 29:49
  Speaker 5: He asked?
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: A dozen, a hundred, maybe a thousand, And how many
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: believed you? None? You mean, nobody would believe you, not
• 30:02
  Speaker 3: one soul until I talk to you. And then Morgan
• 30:07
  Speaker 3: was laughing, laughing bitterly, tears rolling down his cheeks. And
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: I'm the one man who couldn't help you if my
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: life depended upon it. He gasped. You believe me, Morgan
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: nodded sadly. I believe you.
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: Yes.
• 30:27
  Speaker 3: I think your warp brought you through to a parallel
• 30:30
  Speaker 3: universe of your own planet, not to another star. But
• 30:34
  Speaker 3: I think you're telling the truth. Then you can help me.
• 30:38
  Speaker 3: I'm afraid not. Why not, because I'd be worse than
• 30:44
  Speaker 3: no help at all. Jefferson Parks gripped the table, his
• 30:49
  Speaker 3: knuckles white. Why, he cried hoarsely. If you believe me,
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: why can't you help me? Morgan pointed to the magazine
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: lying on the table. I write, yes, he said, sadly.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: Ever read stories like this before Parks picked up the
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: magazine glanced at the bright cover. I barely looked at it.
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: You should look more closely. I have a story in
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: this issue. The readers thought it was very interesting. Morgan grinned,
• 31:20
  Speaker 3: go ahead, look at it. The Stranger from the Stars
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: leaped through the magazine, stopped at a page that carried
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: Roger Morgan's name. His eyes caught the first paragraph, and
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: he turned white. He set the magazine down with a
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: trembling hand. I see, he said, and the life was
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: gone out of his voice. He spread the pages viciously
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: read the lines again. The paragraph said, Just suppose, said Martin,
• 31:50
  Speaker 3: that I did believe you. Just for argument, He glanced
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: up at the man across the table. Where do we
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: go from here? End of Circus? By Allan Edward North.
• 32:12
  Speaker 6: Crossroads of Destiny. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox
• 32:16
  Speaker 6: recordings are in the public domain. For more information or
• 32:19
  Speaker 6: to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Alexetalander Davis, California.
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: Crossroads of Destiny by H. Beam Piper. I still add
• 32:31
  Speaker 6: the dollar bill. It's in my box at the bank,
• 32:33
  Speaker 6: and I think that's where it will stay. I simply
• 32:35
  Speaker 6: won't destroy it, but I can think of nobody to
• 32:37
  Speaker 6: whom might be willing to show it. Certainly nobody at
• 32:40
  Speaker 6: the college, my history department colleagues, least of all merely
• 32:43
  Speaker 6: to tell the story would brand me irredeemably as a crackpot.
• 32:46
  Speaker 6: But crack box are tolerated even on college faculties. It's
• 32:50
  Speaker 6: only when they began producing physical evidence that they get
• 32:52
  Speaker 6: themselves actively resented. When I went into the club car
• 32:56
  Speaker 6: for the nightcap before going back to my compartment to
• 32:58
  Speaker 6: turn in, there were five men there sitting together. One
• 33:02
  Speaker 6: was an army officer with the insignia and badges of
• 33:04
  Speaker 6: a staff intelligence colonel. Next to him was a man
• 33:07
  Speaker 6: of about my own age, with sandy hair and a
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: bony Scottish looking face, who sat staring silently into a
• 33:12
  Speaker 6: high ball which he held in both hands. Across the aisle,
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: an elderly man who could have been a lawyer or
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: a banker, was smoking a cigar over a glass of port,
• 33:21
  Speaker 6: and beside him sat a plump and slightly too well
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: groomed individual who had a tall, colorless drink probalygient and tonic.
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: The fifth man, separated from him by a vacant chair,
• 33:30
  Speaker 6: seemed to be dividing his attention between a book on
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: his lap and the conversation in which he was taking
• 33:35
  Speaker 6: no part. I sat down beside the sandy haired man
• 33:38
  Speaker 6: as I did so, and rang for the waiter. The
• 33:39
  Speaker 6: colonel was saying, no, that wouldn't. I can think of
• 33:42
  Speaker 6: a better one. Suppose you have Columbus get his ships
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: from Henry the seventh of England and sail under the
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: English instead of the Spanish flag. You know, he did
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: try to get English backing before he went to Spain,
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: but King Henry turned him down. That could be changed.
• 33:55
  Speaker 6: I pricked up my ears. The period from fourteen ninety
• 33:58
  Speaker 6: two to the Revolution is my special field of American history,
• 34:01
  Speaker 6: and I knew at once the enormous difference that would
• 34:04
  Speaker 6: have made. It was a moment later that I realized
• 34:06
  Speaker 6: how oddly the colonel had expressed the idea, and by
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: that time the plump man was speaking, Yes, that would work.
• 34:12
  Speaker 6: He agreed. Those kings made decisions most of the time
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: on whether or not they had a hangover, or what
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: some court favorite thought. He got out a notebook and
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: pen and scribbled briefly, I'll hand that to the planning
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: staff when I get to New York. That's Henry the seventh,
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: not Henry the eighth. Right, we'll fix it so the
• 34:27
  Speaker 6: Columbus will catch him when he's in a good humor.
• 34:29
  Speaker 6: That was too much. I turned to the man beside me.
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: What goes on? I asked? Has somebody invented a time machine?
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: He looked up from the drink he was contemplating and
• 34:37
  Speaker 6: gave me a grin. Sounds like it, doesn't it? Why no,
• 34:41
  Speaker 6: our friend here is getting up a television program. Tell
• 34:43
  Speaker 6: the gentleman about it. He urgers the plump man across
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: the aisle. The waiter arrived at that moment. The plump man,
• 34:49
  Speaker 6: who seemed to need little urging, waited until I had
• 34:51
  Speaker 6: ordered a drink, and then began telling me what a
• 34:53
  Speaker 6: positively sensational idea it was.
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: Well.
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: Calling at cross Roads of Destiny, he said, it'll be
• 34:59
  Speaker 6: a series, one a half hour show a week. In
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: each episode, we'll take some historic event and show how
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: history could have been changed if something had happened differently.
• 35:07
  Speaker 6: We'll dramatize the event up to that point, just as
• 35:09
  Speaker 6: it really happened. And then a commentary voice comes on
• 35:12
  Speaker 6: and announces that this is the cross roads of destiny,
• 35:15
  Speaker 6: this is where history could have been completely changed. Then
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: he gets a resume of what really did happen. And
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: then he says, but suppose so and so had done
• 35:23
  Speaker 6: this and that instead of such and such. Then we
• 35:25
  Speaker 6: pick up the dramatization at that point, only we show
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: it the way it might have happened, Like this thing
• 35:30
  Speaker 6: about Columbus. We'll show how it could have happened. And
• 35:32
  Speaker 6: then with Columbus wading ashore with his forward in one
• 35:35
  Speaker 6: hand and a flag in the other, just like the painting,
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: only it'll be the English flag, and Columbus will shout,
• 35:41
  Speaker 6: I take possession of this new land in the name
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: of His Majesty Henry the seventh of England. He brandished
• 35:47
  Speaker 6: his drink to the visible consternation of the elderly man
• 35:49
  Speaker 6: beside him, And then the sailors will all saying God
• 35:52
  Speaker 6: Save the King, which wasn't read until about eight seventeen
• 35:55
  Speaker 6: forty five. I couldn't help mentioning, huh. The plump man
• 35:58
  Speaker 6: looks startled. Are you sure? Then he decided that I
• 36:01
  Speaker 6: was and shrugged, Well, they can all shout God save
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: King Henry or Saint George for England or something. Then
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: at the end we introduced the program guest, some history
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: expert a real name, and he tells how he thinks
• 36:12
  Speaker 6: history would have been changed if it had happened that way.
• 36:15
  Speaker 6: The conservatively dressed gentlemans beside him wanted to know how
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: long he expected to keep the show running. The cross
• 36:20
  Speaker 6: was to give out before long, he added, The sponsor
• 36:23
  Speaker 6: will give out first, I said, history is just one
• 36:25
  Speaker 6: damn cross rose after another. I mentioned in passing that
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: I taught the subject. Why since the beginning of the century,
• 36:31
  Speaker 6: we've had enough of them to keep the show running
• 36:32
  Speaker 6: for a year. We have about twenty already written and
• 36:35
  Speaker 6: ready to produce, the plump man said comfortably, and ideas
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: for twice as many that the planning staff is working
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: on now. The elderly man accepted that and took another
• 36:43
  Speaker 6: cautious sip of wine. What I wonder, though, is whether
• 36:46
  Speaker 6: you can really say that history can be changed? Well,
• 36:49
  Speaker 6: of course, the television man was taken aback. One always
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: seems to be when a basic assumption is questioned. Of course,
• 36:55
  Speaker 6: we only know what really did happen. But it stands
• 36:57
  Speaker 6: to reason if something had happened differently, the results were
• 37:00
  Speaker 6: have been different, doesn't it. But it seems to me
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: that everything would work out the same in the long run.
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: There'd be some differences of the time, but over the years,
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: wouldn't they all cancel out? No, No, monsieur. The man
• 37:09
  Speaker 6: with the book, who had been outside the conversation until now,
• 37:12
  Speaker 6: told him, moent earnestly, make no mistake. Easterly can be change.
• 37:16
  Speaker 6: I looked at him curiously. The accent sounded French, but
• 37:19
  Speaker 6: it wasn't quite right. He was some kind of a foreigner,
• 37:22
  Speaker 6: though I'd swear that he'd never bought the clothes he
• 37:24
  Speaker 6: was wearing in this country, the way the suit fitted,
• 37:26
  Speaker 6: and the cut of it, and the shirt collar and
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: the necktie. The book he was reading was Languere's Social
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: History of the American People. No one of my favorites,
• 37:33
  Speaker 6: a bit too much on the doctrinaire side. But what
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: a bookshop clerk would give a foreigner looking for something
• 37:39
  Speaker 6: to explain America? What do you think, professor? The plump
• 37:41
  Speaker 6: man was asking me. It would work out the other way.
• 37:44
  Speaker 6: The differences wouldn't cancel out. They'd accumulate, say something happened
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: a century ago to throw a presidential election. The other way,
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: you'd get different people at the head of the government,
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: opposite lines of policy taken, and eventually we'd be getting
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: into different wars with different enemies at different times, and
• 37:58
  Speaker 6: different batches of young men killed before they could marry
• 38:01
  Speaker 6: and have families, different people being born or not being born.
• 38:05
  Speaker 6: That would mean different ideas good or bad, being advanced,
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: different books written, different inventions, and different social and economic
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: problems as a consequence. Look, he's only giving himself a century,
• 38:14
  Speaker 6: the colonel added. Think of the changes of this thing
• 38:17
  Speaker 6: we were discussing Columbus sailing under the English flag had happened,
• 38:20
  Speaker 6: Or suppose leif Ericsson had been able to plant a
• 38:22
  Speaker 6: permanent colony in America in the eleventh century, or if
• 38:25
  Speaker 6: the Saracens had won the Battle of Tours. Try to
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: imagine the world to day if any of those things
• 38:30
  Speaker 6: had happened. One thing, you can be sure of. Any
• 38:32
  Speaker 6: areas you make in trying to imagine such a world
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: will be on the side of over conservatism. The sandy
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: haired man beside me, who had been using his high
• 38:40
  Speaker 6: ball for a crystal ball, must have glimpsed at what
• 38:42
  Speaker 6: he was looking for. He finished the drink, set the
• 38:45
  Speaker 6: empty glass on the stand tray beside him, and reached
• 38:47
  Speaker 6: back to push the button. I don't think He realized
• 38:50
  Speaker 6: just how good an idea you have here? He told
• 38:52
  Speaker 6: the plump Man abruptly. If you did, you wouldn't ruin
• 38:55
  Speaker 6: it with such timid and unimaginative treatment. I thought he'd
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: been staying out of the conversation because it was over
• 39:00
  Speaker 6: his head. Instead, he'd been taking the plump Man's idea apart,
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: examining all the pieces and considering what was wrong with
• 39:06
  Speaker 6: it and how it could be improved. The plump Man
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: looked startled and then angry. Timid and imaginative if were
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: the last things he'd expected his idea to be called.
• 39:15
  Speaker 6: Then he became uneasy. Maybe this fellow was a typical
• 39:17
  Speaker 6: representative of his lord or master. The face lips of
• 39:20
  Speaker 6: abstraction called the public. What do you mean? He asked,
• 39:23
  Speaker 6: misplaced emphasis. You shouldn't emphasize the event that could have
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: changed history. You should emphasize the changes that could have
• 39:29
  Speaker 6: been made. You're going to end this show you were
• 39:31
  Speaker 6: talking about with a shot of Columbus wading up to
• 39:33
  Speaker 6: the beach with an English flag, aren't you. Well, that's
• 39:36
  Speaker 6: the logical ending, that's the logical beginning. The sandy haired
• 39:39
  Speaker 6: man contradicted, And after that, your guest historian comes on.
• 39:42
  Speaker 6: How much time would he be allowed? Well, maybe three
• 39:45
  Speaker 6: or four minutes. We can't cut the dramatization too short,
• 39:48
  Speaker 6: and I'll have to explain a couple of times, and
• 39:50
  Speaker 6: in words of one syllable, that what we have seen
• 39:52
  Speaker 6: didn't really happen, because if he doesn't, the next morning,
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: half the twelve year old kids in the country will
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: be were rushing wild eyed into school to slip the
• 39:59
  Speaker 6: teacher the real inside about the discovery of America. By
• 40:02
  Speaker 6: the time he gets that done, he'll be able to
• 40:04
  Speaker 6: mumble a couple of generalities about vast and calculable effects,
• 40:08
  Speaker 6: and that it will be time to tell the public
• 40:09
  Speaker 6: about widgets, the really saved cigarettes. All filt are absolutely
• 40:13
  Speaker 6: free from tobacco. The waiter arrived at this point, and
• 40:16
  Speaker 6: the sandy head man ordered another Rye high ball. I
• 40:19
  Speaker 6: decided to have another bourbon on the rocks, and the
• 40:21
  Speaker 6: TV impresario said gin and tonic absently and went into
• 40:24
  Speaker 6: a reverie, which lasted until the drinks arrived. Then he
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: came awake again. I see what you mean, he said.
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: Most of the audience would wonder what difference it would
• 40:32
  Speaker 6: have made when Columbus would have gotten his ships as
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: long as he got them in America got discovered, I
• 40:37
  Speaker 6: could see what have made a hell of a big difference.
• 40:39
  Speaker 6: But how could it be handled any other way? How
• 40:41
  Speaker 6: could you figure out just what the difference would have been? Well,
• 40:44
  Speaker 6: you need a man who'd know the historical background, and
• 40:46
  Speaker 6: you need a man with a powerful creative imagination who's
• 40:49
  Speaker 6: used to using it inside rigorously defined limits. Don't try
• 40:52
  Speaker 6: to get them both in one A collaboration would really
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: be better. Then you work from the known situation in
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: Europe and in America in fourteen ninety two and decide
• 41:00
  Speaker 6: on the immediate effects, and from that you have to
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: carry it along, step by step down to the present.
• 41:05
  Speaker 6: It be a lot of hard and very exacting work,
• 41:08
  Speaker 6: but the result would be worth it. He took a
• 41:10
  Speaker 6: sip from his glass and added, Remember, you don't have
• 41:12
  Speaker 6: to prove that the world to day would be the
• 41:14
  Speaker 6: way you set it up. All you have to do
• 41:16
  Speaker 6: is make sure that nobody else will be able to
• 41:17
  Speaker 6: prove that it wouldn't. Well, how can you present that
• 41:21
  Speaker 6: as a play with fictional characters in a plot time
• 41:24
  Speaker 6: the present, under the change conditions the plot, the reason
• 41:27
  Speaker 6: the coward conquers his fear and becomes a hero. The
• 41:30
  Speaker 6: obstacle to the boy marrying the girl, the reason the
• 41:32
  Speaker 6: innocent man is being persecuted. We'll have to go out
• 41:35
  Speaker 6: of this imaginary world you've constructed and being possible in
• 41:38
  Speaker 6: our weird world. As long as you stick to that,
• 41:40
  Speaker 6: you'll be all right. Sure, I get that. The plump
• 41:43
  Speaker 6: Man was excited again. He was about half sold on
• 41:45
  Speaker 6: the idea. But how will we get the audience to
• 41:47
  Speaker 6: accept it. We'll asking them to start with an assumption
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: they know isn't true. Maybe it is in another time dimension,
• 41:53
  Speaker 6: the colonel suggested. You can't prove it isn't. For that matter,
• 41:56
  Speaker 6: you can't prove there aren't other time dimensions. Ha, that's it.
• 41:59
  Speaker 6: The sandy hair Man exclaimed, world of alternate probability. That
• 42:03
  Speaker 6: takes care of that. He drank about a third of
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: his high ball and sat gazing into the rest of
• 42:07
  Speaker 6: it in an almost yogat trance. The pump Man looked
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: at the colonel embafflement. Maybe this alternate probability time dimension
• 42:14
  Speaker 6: stuff means something to you, he said, be damned if
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: it does to me. Well, as far as we know,
• 42:18
  Speaker 6: we live in a four dimensional universe, the colonel started.
• 42:21
  Speaker 6: The elderly man across from him grown fourth dimension. Good,
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: gott A were going to talk about that. It isn't
• 42:26
  Speaker 6: anything to be scared of. You carry an instrument from
• 42:29
  Speaker 6: measuring in the fourth dimension all the time, a watch.
• 42:31
  Speaker 6: You mean it's just time, But that isn't We know
• 42:34
  Speaker 6: of three dimensions of space, the colonel told him, gesturing
• 42:37
  Speaker 6: to indicate them. We can use them for coordinates to
• 42:39
  Speaker 6: locate things, but we also locate things in time. I
• 42:42
  Speaker 6: wouldn't like to ride on a train or a plane
• 42:44
  Speaker 6: if we didn't. Well, let's call the time. We know
• 42:47
  Speaker 6: the time. Your watch registers time A. Now suppose the
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: entire infinite extent of time A is only an instant
• 42:53
  Speaker 6: in another dimension of time, which we'll call time B.
• 42:56
  Speaker 6: The next instant of time B is also the entire
• 42:58
  Speaker 6: extent of time A, the next, and the next as
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: in time A, different things are happening at different instances,
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: and one of these instants of time B. One of
• 43:06
  Speaker 6: the things that is happening is that King Henry the
• 43:08
  Speaker 6: seventh of England is furnishing ships to Christopher Columbus. The
• 43:12
  Speaker 6: man with the odd close was getting excited again. This
• 43:15
  Speaker 6: are you say this alternate probability? It is a ziri
• 43:20
  Speaker 6: generally accepted in Zis country. Got it, the sandy hand
• 43:24
  Speaker 6: man said. Before anybody could answer, he set his drink
• 43:27
  Speaker 6: on the shand tray and took a big jackknife out
• 43:29
  Speaker 6: of his pocket, holding it unopened in his hand. How's
• 43:32
  Speaker 6: this sound, he asked, and hit the edge of the
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: tray with the back of the knife. Bong, Crossroads of destiny,
• 43:39
  Speaker 6: he intoned, and hit the edge of the tray again. Bong.
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: This is the year nineteen fifty nine, but not the
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: nineteen fifty nine of our world, For we are in
• 43:48
  Speaker 6: a world of alternate probability, and in another dimension of time,
• 43:51
  Speaker 6: a world parallel to and coexistent with, but separate from
• 43:55
  Speaker 6: our own, in which history has been completely altered by
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: a single momentous event. He shifted back to his normal voice.
• 44:01
  Speaker 6: Not bad, Only twenty five seconds, the plump man said,
• 44:04
  Speaker 6: looking up from his wristwatch. And a trained announcer could
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: maybe shave five seconds off that. Yes, something like that,
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: And at the end we'll have another thirty seconds, and
• 44:12
  Speaker 6: we can do it without the guest. But zis all
• 44:14
  Speaker 6: dinner probability in another dimension. The stranger was insisting, is
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: this a conceipt original? Wid you? He asked the colonel. Oh, No,
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: that idea has been around for a long time. I
• 44:27
  Speaker 6: never heard of it before. Now, the elderly man said,
• 44:29
  Speaker 6: as though that completely demolished it. Zen, it is genuinely
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: accept by ZID scientists. No, the Sandy had men relieved
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: the colonel. There's absolutely no evidence to support it. And
• 44:41
  Speaker 6: scientists don't accept unsupported assumptions unless they need them to
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: explain something, and they don't need this assumption for anything. Well,
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: it would come in handy to make some of these
• 44:49
  Speaker 6: reports a freak phenomena, like mysterious appearances and disappearances, or
• 44:53
  Speaker 6: flying object things, or reportive falls of non meteoric matter.
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: Theoretically respectable reports like that usually get the ignore and
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: forget treatment. Now, Zen, you believe that Zi's ozer world
• 45:05
  Speaker 6: of the alternate probability ze exist. No, I don't disbelieve
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: it either. I have no reason to one way or another.
• 45:13
  Speaker 6: He studied his drink for a moment and lowered the
• 45:15
  Speaker 6: level in the glass slightly. I've said that once in
• 45:17
  Speaker 6: a while things get reported to look as though such
• 45:19
  Speaker 6: other worlds, and another time to mention may exist. There
• 45:22
  Speaker 6: have been whole books published by people who collect stories
• 45:25
  Speaker 6: like that. I must say that academic science isn't very
• 45:28
  Speaker 6: hospitable to them. You mean zing's sometimes how you say,
• 45:32
  Speaker 6: leak in from one of Z's azer worlds. Z has
• 45:36
  Speaker 6: been known to happen, things have been said to have happened.
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: That might, if true, be a case of things leaking
• 45:41
  Speaker 6: through from another time world. The sandy unhanded man corrected,
• 45:45
  Speaker 6: or leaking away to another time world. He mentioned a
• 45:47
  Speaker 6: few of the most famous cases of unexplained mysteries, the
• 45:51
  Speaker 6: English diplomat and Prussia, who vanished in plain sight of
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: a number of people, the ship found completely deserted by
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: her crew. The life puts all in place stories like that.
• 46:00
  Speaker 6: And then there's this rash of alleged sightings of unidentified
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: flying objects. I'd sooner believe that they came from another
• 46:05
  Speaker 6: dimension than from another planet. But as far as I know,
• 46:08
  Speaker 6: nobody seriously advanced the other time to mention theory to
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: explain them. I think the idea is familiar enough though,
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: that we could use it as an explanation or suit
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: explanation for the program. The television man said. Fact is
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: we aren't married to this cross Roads title, yet we
• 46:22
  Speaker 6: could just as easily call it fifth dimension. That would
• 46:26
  Speaker 6: lead the public to expect something out of the normal
• 46:28
  Speaker 6: before the show started. That got the conversation back on
• 46:31
  Speaker 6: to the show, and we talked for some time about it,
• 46:33
  Speaker 6: each of us suggesting possibilities. The stranger even suggested one
• 46:37
  Speaker 6: that the Civil War had started during the Jackson administration.
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: Fortunately nobody else noticed that. Finally, a porter came through
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: and inquired if any of us were getting off at Harrisburg,
• 46:46
  Speaker 6: saying that they would be getting on in in five minutes.
• 46:49
  Speaker 6: The stranger finished his drink hastily and got up, saying
• 46:52
  Speaker 6: that he would have to get his luggage. He told
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: us how much he had enjoyed the conversation, and then
• 46:56
  Speaker 6: followed the porter toward the rear of the train. After
• 46:58
  Speaker 6: he had gone out, the TV man chuckled, Was that
• 47:01
  Speaker 6: one an oddball? He exclaimed, Why the hell do you
• 47:04
  Speaker 6: suppose he got that suit? It was a tailored suit,
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: the colonel said, a very good one, and I can't
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: think of any country in the world in which they
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: cut suits just like that. And did you catch his accent?
• 47:13
  Speaker 6: Phony The television man pronounced the French accent of a
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: Greek waiter and a fake French restaurant in the Bronx.
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: Not quite. The pronunciation was all right for French accent,
• 47:23
  Speaker 6: but the cadence, the way the word sounds were strung together,
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: was German. The elderly man looked at the colonel keenly.
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: I see your intelligence, he mentioned. Think he might be
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: somebody up your alley, Colonel. The colonel shook his head.
• 47:35
  Speaker 6: I doubt it. There are agents of unfriendly powers in
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: this country, a lot of them, I'm sorry to have
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: to say. But they don't speak accented English, and they
• 47:42
  Speaker 6: don't dress eccentrically. You know there's an enemy agent in
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: a crowd. Pick out the most normally American type in sight,
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: and you usually won't have to look further. A trained
• 47:50
  Speaker 6: ground to a stop. A young couple with hand luggage
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: came in and sat at one end of the car,
• 47:55
  Speaker 6: waiting until other accommodations could be found for them. After
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: a while it started again. I downed over my drink
• 48:01
  Speaker 6: and then got up and excused myself, saying that I
• 48:03
  Speaker 6: wanted to turn in early. In the next car behind,
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: I met the porter who had come in just before
• 48:08
  Speaker 6: the stop, he looked worried, and after a moment's hesitation,
• 48:11
  Speaker 6: he spoke to me, pardon, sir, the men in the
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: club car who got off at Harrisburg? Did you know him?
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: Never saw him before? Why he tipped me with the
• 48:19
  Speaker 6: dollar bill when he got off. Later I looked closely
• 48:21
  Speaker 6: at it. I do not like it. He showed it
• 48:23
  Speaker 6: to me, and I didn't blame him. It was marked
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: one dollar and the United States of America. But outside that,
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: there wasn't a thing right about it. One side was gray,
• 48:31
  Speaker 6: all right, but the other side was green. The picture
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: wasn't the right one, and there were a lot of
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: other things about it, some of them absolutely ludicrous. It
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: wasn't counterfeit. It wasn't even an imitation of the United
• 48:41
  Speaker 6: States Bill. And then it hit me like a bullet
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: in the chest. Not a bill of our United States.
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: No wonder he had been so interested in whether I
• 48:49
  Speaker 6: signed as accepted the theory of other time dimensions and
• 48:52
  Speaker 6: other worlds of alternate probability. On an impulse, I got
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: out two ones and gave them to the porter, perfectly
• 48:57
  Speaker 6: good United States Bank gold certificates. You'd better let me
• 49:00
  Speaker 6: keep this, I said, trying to make it sound the
• 49:02
  Speaker 6: way he'd think if federal agent would say it. He
• 49:04
  Speaker 6: took the bills smiling, and I folded his bill and
• 49:06
  Speaker 6: put it into my vest pocket. Thank you, sir, he said,
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: I have no wish to keep it. Some part of
• 49:11
  Speaker 6: my mind below the level consciousness must have taken over
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: and guided me back to the right car and compartment.
• 49:16
  Speaker 6: I didn't realize where I was going till I put
• 49:18
  Speaker 6: on the light and recognized my own luggage. Then I
• 49:21
  Speaker 6: sat down, as dizzy as though the two drinks I
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: had had had been a dozen. For a moment, I
• 49:26
  Speaker 6: was tempted to rush back to the club car and
• 49:28
  Speaker 6: show the thing to the Colonel and the sandy haired man.
• 49:30
  Speaker 6: On second thought, I decided against that. The next thing
• 49:33
  Speaker 6: I vanished from my mind was the adjective incredible. I
• 49:36
  Speaker 6: had to credit it. I had the proof in my
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: vest pocket. The coincidence arising from our topic of conversation
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: didn't bother me too much either. It was the topic
• 49:44
  Speaker 6: which had drawn him into it, And as the sandy
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: haired man had pointed out, we know nothing one way
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: or another about these other worlds. We certainly don't know
• 49:52
  Speaker 6: what barriers separate them from our own, or how often
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: those barriers may fail. I might have thought more about
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: it if i'd been in physical science.
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: I wasn't.
• 50:00
  Speaker 6: I was in American history. So what I'd thought about
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: was what sort of a country that other United States
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: must be, and what its history must have been. The
• 50:07
  Speaker 6: man's costume was basically the same as ours, same general style,
• 50:10
  Speaker 6: but many little differences of fashion. I had the impression
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: that it was a costume of a less formal and
• 50:15
  Speaker 6: conservative society than ours, and a more casual way of life.
• 50:18
  Speaker 6: It could be the sort of costume into which ours
• 50:20
  Speaker 6: would evolve in another thirty or so years. There was
• 50:23
  Speaker 6: another odd thing. I'd noticed him looking curiously at both
• 50:26
  Speaker 6: the waiter and the porter, as though something about then
• 50:28
  Speaker 6: surprised him. The only thing they had in common was
• 50:31
  Speaker 6: their race, the same as every other passenger car attendant,
• 50:33
  Speaker 6: but he wasn't used to seeing Chinese working in railway cars.
• 50:37
  Speaker 6: And there had been that remark about the Civil War
• 50:39
  Speaker 6: and the Jackson administration. I wondered what Jackson had been
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: talking about. Not Andrew Jackson, the Tennessee militia general who
• 50:46
  Speaker 6: got us into war with Spain in eighteen ten, I hoped,
• 50:48
  Speaker 6: and the civil war that abottled me completely. I wonder
• 50:51
  Speaker 6: if it had been a class war or a sectional conflict.
• 50:54
  Speaker 6: We'd had plenty of the latter during our first century,
• 50:56
  Speaker 6: but all of them had been settled peacefully and constitutionally.
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: While some of the things he'd read in Lingworre's social
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: history would be surprises for him too. And then I
• 51:05
  Speaker 6: took the bill out for another examination. It must have
• 51:07
  Speaker 6: gotten mixed with his spendable money. It was about the
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: size of ours, and I wondered how he had acquired
• 51:12
  Speaker 6: enough of our money to pay his train fare. Maybe
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: he'd had a diamond and sold it, or maybe he'd
• 51:17
  Speaker 6: had a gun and held somebody up. If he had,
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: I didn't know that I blamed him under the circumstances.
• 51:22
  Speaker 6: I had an idea that he had some realization of
• 51:24
  Speaker 6: what had happened to him. The book and the fake
• 51:27
  Speaker 6: accent to cover any mistakes he might make while I
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: wished him luck. And then I unfolded the dollar bill
• 51:32
  Speaker 6: and looked at it again. In the first place, it
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: had been issued by the United States to part in
• 51:36
  Speaker 6: a treasury itself, not the United States Bank or one
• 51:39
  Speaker 6: of the state banks. I'd have to think over the
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: implications of that carefully. In the second place, it was
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: a silver certificate. Why in this other United States silver
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: must be an acceptable monetary medal, maybe equally so with gold,
• 51:51
  Speaker 6: though I could hardly believe that. Then he looked at
• 51:53
  Speaker 6: the picture on the gray abverse side and had to
• 51:55
  Speaker 6: strain my eyes on the frying print under it to
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: identify it. It was Washington, all right, but a much
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: older Washington than any of the pictures of him I
• 52:02
  Speaker 6: had ever seen. Then I realized that I knew just
• 52:05
  Speaker 6: where the cross roads of destiny for his world of
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: mine had been, as every school child among us knows.
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: General George Washington was shot dead at the Battle of
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: Germantown in seventeen seventy seven by an English or rather
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: Scottish officer, Patrick Ferguson, the Saint Patrick Ferguson, who embedded
• 52:20
  Speaker 6: the breech loading rifle that smashed Napoleon's armies. Washington today
• 52:24
  Speaker 6: is one of our lesser national heroes because he was
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: our first military commander in chief. But in other world
• 52:30
  Speaker 6: he must have survived to lead our armies to victory
• 52:32
  Speaker 6: and become our first president, as was the case for
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: the man who took his place when he was killed.
• 52:37
  Speaker 6: I folded the bill and put it away carefully among
• 52:39
  Speaker 6: my identification cards, where it wouldn't a second time get
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: mixed with the money I spent. And as I did,
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: I wondered what sort of a president George Washington had made,
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: and what part in the history of that other United
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: States have been played by the man whose picture appears
• 52:52
  Speaker 6: on our dollar bills. General and President Benedict Arnold. End
• 52:57
  Speaker 6: of cross Roads of Destiny by Hbeampiper recorded by Alextelander, Davis, California,
• 53:05
  Speaker 6: www dot Alextalander dot com.
• 53:19
  Speaker 5: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 53:23
  Speaker 5: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 53:27
  Speaker 5: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Eleanormatheson Egocentric Orbit by
• 53:36
  Speaker 5: John Corey. Near the end of his fiftieth orbit, as
• 53:40
  Speaker 5: Greenland slipped by noiselessly below, he made the routine measurements
• 53:44
  Speaker 5: that tested the operation of his space capsule and checked
• 53:47
  Speaker 5: the automatic instruments which would transmit their stored data back
• 53:50
  Speaker 5: to Earth on his next passover control. Everything normal. All
• 53:55
  Speaker 5: mechanical devices were operating perfectly. This information didn't surprise in fact,
• 54:01
  Speaker 5: he really didn't even think about it. The previous orbits
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: and the long simulated flights on Earth during training had
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: made such checks for routine and perfect results expected. The
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: capsules were developed by exhaustive testing both on the ground
• 54:17
  Speaker 5: and as empty satellites before entrusting them to carry animals
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: and then the first human. He returned to contemplation of
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: the panorama passing below and above, although, as he noted idly,
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: above and below had lost some of their usual meaning,
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: since his capsule, like all heavenly bodies, was stable in
• 54:36
  Speaker 5: position with respect to the entire universe, and thanks to
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: Sir Isaac Newton and his laws, never changed. The Earth
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: and the stars alternated over his head during each orbit
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: up now meant whatever was in the direction of his head.
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: He remembered that even during his initial orbit, when the
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: Earth first appeared overhead, he accepted the fact as normal.
• 54:57
  Speaker 5: He wondered if the other two had accepted it as easily,
• 55:01
  Speaker 5: for there had been two men hurled into orbit before
• 55:04
  Speaker 5: he ventured into space, two others who had also passed
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: the rigorous three year training period and were selected on
• 55:10
  Speaker 5: the basis of overall performance to precede him. He had
• 55:14
  Speaker 5: known them both well, and wondered again what had happened
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: on their flights. Of course, they had both returned, depending
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: upon what your definition of return was. The capsules in
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: which they had ventured beyond Earth had returned them living,
• 55:27
  Speaker 5: but this was to be expected, for even the considerable
• 55:30
  Speaker 5: hazards of descent through the atmosphere and the terrible heating
• 55:32
  Speaker 5: which occurred were successfully surmounted by the capsule. Naturally, it
• 55:37
  Speaker 5: had not been expected that the satellites would have to
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: be brought down by command from the ground, but this
• 55:42
  Speaker 5: too was part of the careful planning. Radio control of
• 55:45
  Speaker 5: the retro rockets that moved the satellite out of orbit
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: by reducing its velocity. Of course, ground control was to
• 55:51
  Speaker 5: be used only if the astronaut failed to ignite the
• 55:53
  Speaker 5: retro rockets himself. He remembered everyone's surprise and relief when
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: the first capsule was recovered in its eyes found to
• 56:00
  Speaker 5: be alive. They had assumed that, in spite of all precautions,
• 56:04
  Speaker 5: he was dead because he had not fired the rockets
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: on his fiftieth orbit, and it was necessary to bring
• 56:09
  Speaker 5: him down on the sixty fifth. Recovery Alive only partially
• 56:13
  Speaker 5: solved the mystery for the rescuers and all others were
• 56:16
  Speaker 5: met by a haughty, stony silence from the occupant. Batteries
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: of test confirmed in early diagnosis complete and other withdrawal
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: absolute refusal to communicate. Therapy was unsuccessful. The second attempt
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: was similar in most respects, except that command return was
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: made on the thirty first orbit after the astronaut's failure
• 56:38
  Speaker 5: to deorbit at the end of the thirtieth. His incoherent
• 56:41
  Speaker 5: babble of moons, stars and worlds was no more helpful
• 56:44
  Speaker 5: than the first test. After test confirmed that no obvious
• 56:49
  Speaker 5: organic damage had been incurred by exposure outside of Earth's
• 56:52
  Speaker 5: protective atmosphere, Biopsy of even selected brain tissues seemed to
• 56:56
  Speaker 5: show that microscopic cellular changes due to prolonged weightleftlessness or
• 57:00
  Speaker 5: primary cosmic rave bombardment, which had been suggested by some authorities,
• 57:04
  Speaker 5: were unimportant. Somewhat reluctantly, it was decided to repeat the
• 57:09
  Speaker 5: experiment a third time. The launching was uneventful. He was
• 57:14
  Speaker 5: sent into space with the precision he expected. The experience
• 57:18
  Speaker 5: was exhilarating, and although he had anticipated each event in advance,
• 57:22
  Speaker 5: he could not possibly have foreseen the overpowering feeling that
• 57:26
  Speaker 5: came over him. Weightlessness he had experienced for brief periods
• 57:30
  Speaker 5: during training, but nothing could match the heavy impression of
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: continuous freedom from gravity. Earth passing overhead was also to
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: be expected from the simple laws of celestial mechanics, but
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: his feeling as he watched it now was inexpressible. It
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: occurred to him that perhaps this was indeed why he
• 57:47
  Speaker 5: was here, because he could appreciate such experience as best
• 57:51
  Speaker 5: he had been told. The stars would be bright, unblinking,
• 57:54
  Speaker 5: and an infinitude and extent, but could mere descriptions or
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: photographs convey the true seeing. On his twenty first orbit,
• 58:02
  Speaker 5: he completed his overseeing the entire surface of the planet
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: in daylight. He had seen more of the Earth than
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: any one able to tell about it, but only he
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: had the true feeling of it. The continents were clearly visible,
• 58:15
  Speaker 5: as were the oceans in both polar ice caps. The
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: shapes were familiar, but only in a remote way. A
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: vague indistinctness born of distance served to modify the outlines,
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: and he alone was seeing and understanding. On the dark
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: side of the planet, large cities were marked by indistinct
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: light areas which paled to insignificance compared to the stars
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: and his son. He speculated about the others who had
• 58:39
  Speaker 5: only briefly experienced these sights. Undoubtedly they weren't as capable
• 58:44
  Speaker 5: of fully grasping or appreciating any of these things as
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: he was. It was quite clear that no one else
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: but he could encompass the towering feeling of power and
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: importance generated by being alone in the universe. At the
• 58:58
  Speaker 5: end of the twenty fifth orbit, he disabled the radio
• 59:01
  Speaker 5: control of the retro rockets and sat back with satisfaction
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: to await the next circuit of his Earth around him.
• 59:08
  Speaker 5: End of egocentric Orbit by John Corey.
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: A Matter of Magnitude. This is a LibriVox recording. All
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information
• 59:26
  Speaker 3: or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. A matter
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: of Magnitude by al Sevcik. When you're commanding a spaceship
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: over a mile long and armed to the teeth, you
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: don't exactly expect to be told to get the hell out.
• 59:46
  Speaker 3: The ship for reasons that had to do with the
• 59:48
  Speaker 3: politics of appropriations, was named Senator Joseph L. Holloway. But
• 59:53
  Speaker 3: the press and the public called her Big Joe. Her
• 59:56
  Speaker 3: captain six star Admiral Heselton thought of her as great
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: Big Joe and never fully got over being awestruck at
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: the size of his command. She's a mighty big ship, Rogers,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: he said proudly to the navigator, ignoring the latter's rather
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: vacant stare and fixed smile. More than a mile long
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 3: and wider than hell. He waved his hands expansively. She's
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 3: never touched down on Earth, you know, never will. Too
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 3: big for that. They built her on the Moon, the
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 3: cost well. Swiveling his chair round, Hesselton slowly surveyed the
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 3: ship's control room with a small, satisfied smile, the two
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 3: pilots sitting far forward, almost hidden by their banks of instruments,
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 3: the radar operators idly watching their scopes, the three flight
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: engineers sitting intently at their enormous control consoles, and just
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 3: behind the radio shack, it's closed door undoubtedly hiding a
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: game of cards for weeks now, as Big Joe moved
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: across the galaxy's uncharted fringe, the radio bands had been
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: completely dead, except of course, for the usual star static
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 3: hissing and burbling in the background. Turning back again to
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: his navigator, Heselton smiled modestly and noted that Big Joe
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 3: was undisputedly the largest, most powerful, most feared, and most
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 3: effective spaceship in the known universe. As always, Rogers noted agreement.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 3: The fact that he'd heard it a hundred times didn't
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: make it any less true. Big Joe, armed with every
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: weapon known to Terran technology, was literally the battleship to
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 3: end all battleships. Ending battleships and battles was in fact
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 3: her job, and she did it well. For the first time,
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 3: the galaxy was at peace. With a relaxed sigh, Heselton
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 3: leaned back to gaze at the stars and contemplate the
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: vastness of the universe, compared to which even Big Joe
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: was an insignificant dot. Well, said Rogers. Time for another
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 3: course check. I'll they jump back, barely avoiding the worried
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: lieutenant to explode it upon them. From the radio shack
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: a signal, Sir, damned close on the VHF band. Their
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: transmission is completely overriding the background noise. He waved excitedly
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: to someone in the radio shack, and an overhead speaker
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 3: came to life, emitting a distinct clacking, grunting sound. It's
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 3: audio of some sort, sir, But there's a lot more
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 3: to the signal than that. In one motion, Heselton's chair
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 3: snapped forward, his right fist hit the red emergency alert
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 3: button on his desk, and his left snapped on the
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: ship's intercom. Lights dimmed. Momentarily, his powerful emergency drive unit
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: snapped into action, and the ship echoed with the sound
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: of two thousand men running to battle stations. Bridge to radar, report,
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: radar to bridge. All clear. Heselton stared incredulously at the intercom.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 3: What radar to bridge repeating all clear, Admiral, We've got
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: two men on every scope. There's nothing anywhere. A new
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: voice cut in on the speaker radio track to bridge. Frowning,
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: Heselton answered, Bridge, come in radio track. We're listening, sir.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker 3: The crisp voice of the radio track Section commander had
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 3: an excited tinge, sir. Doppler calculations show that the source
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: of those signals is slowing down somewhere to our right.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 3: It's acting like a space ship, sir, that's coming to
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 3: a halt. The Admiral locked eyes with rogers for a second,
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 3: then shrugged, slow the ship and circle right radio track.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: Can you keep me posted on the object's position? No,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: can do, sir. Doppler effect can't be used on a
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: slow moving source. It's still off to our right. But
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: that's the best I can say, sir. Another voice chimed in.
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: This is fire control. We've got our directional antennas on
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: the thing. It's either directly right or directly left of
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: the ship, matching speed with us exactly either to our
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: right or left. That's the best. Yes, we can do, sir,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: without radar help, Admiral, Sir, the lieutenant who had first
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 3: reported the signal came running back. Judging from the frequency
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: and strength, we think it's probably less than one hundred
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 3: miles away, less than a Of course, we can't be positive, sir.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 3: Heselton whirled back to the intercom radar. That thing is
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: practically on our necks. What the hell's the matter with
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 3: that equipment? The radar commander's voice showed distinct signs of strain.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: Can't help it, Admiral. The equipment is working perfectly. We've
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: tried the complete range of frequencies. Twenty five different sets
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 3: are in operation. We're going blind looking. There is absolutely nothing,
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: nothing at all. For a moment, the bridge was silent,
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 3: except for the clacking grunting from the overhead speaker, which,
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: if anything, sounded louder than before. It's TV, Sir, the
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: radio lieutenant came running in again. We've unscrambled the image here.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: The communication screen on Heselton's desk glowed for a moment,
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: then flashed into life. The figure was clearly alien, though
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: startlingly humanoid, at least from the waist up, which was
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 3: all that showed in the screen. A large mouth and
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 3: slightly bulging eyes gave it a somewhat jovial froglike demeanor.
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: Seated at a desk similar to Heselton's, wearing a gaudy
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 3: uniform profusely strewn with a variety of insignia, it was
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 3: obviously Heselton's counterpart, the commander of an alien vessel. Mmm,
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 3: looks like we've contacted a new race. Let's return the call, Lieutenant.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: A tiny red light glowed beneath a miniature camera on
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: Heselton's desk, and almost at once, the alien's face registered
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: obvious satisfaction. It waved a six fingered hand in an
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: unorthodox but friendly greeting. Heselton waved back. The alien, then
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: pointed to his mouth, made several clacking, grunting sounds, and
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 3: moved a hand on a desk. The scene switched to
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: another alien city in front of what looked like a
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 3: blackboard with a piece of chalk in his hand. The
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: meaning was clear, Lieutenant, have this transmission switch to the
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 3: linguistic section. Maybe those guys can work out some sort
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: of language. The screen blanked out. Heselton leaned back, tense,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 3: obviously worried. Hesitantly, he reached out and touched a button
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 3: on the intercom. Astronomy Professor, there's a ship right next
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 3: door somewhere that should stand out like King Kong in
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 3: a kindergarten. I know, Admiral, I've been listening to the intercom.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: Our optical equipment isn't designed for close range work, but
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: we've been doing the best we can. Tried everything from
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: infrared through ultraviolet. If there is a ship out there,
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: I'm afraid it's invisible. Beads of sweat sprinkled Heselton's forehead.
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: This is bad, Rogers, mighty bad. Nervously, he walked across
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 3: to the right of the bridge and stood hands clasped
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 3: behind his back, staring blankly out at blackness and the
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: scattered stars. I know there's a ship out there, and
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 3: I know that a ship simply can't be invisible, not
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: to radar and optics. What makes you sure there's only one? Sir?
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: Heselton cracked his fists together. My god, Rogers, you're right,
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: there might be. The intercom clacked again. This is fire
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: control again, sir. I think we've got something on the
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: radiation detectors. Good work. What did you find? Slight radioactivity
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 3: typical of interstellar drive mechanisms somewhere off to our right.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 3: Can't tell exactly where, though. How far away is it?
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know, Sir. Heselton's hands dropped to his sides. Thanks,
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: he said, for the help. His nest TV flashed into
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 3: life with a picture of the smiling alien commander. This
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: is the linguistic section, Admiral. The aliens understand a fairly
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 3: common galactic symbology. I believe we can translate simple messages
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: for you. Now ask him where the hell he is?
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: Heselton snapped, without thinking, then instantly regretted it as the
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: The alien's face showed unmistakable surprise. The alien's smile grew
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: into an almost unbelievable grin. He turned sideways to speak
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 3: to someone out of sight of the camera, and suddenly
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 3: burst into a series of roaring cackles. He's laughing, sir,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: the translator commented, unnecessarily, the joke was strictly with the aliens.
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: Heselton's face whitened in quick realization. Rogers, they didn't know
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 3: that we can't see them. Look, sir. The navigator pointed
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 3: to the TV screen, and a brilliantly clear image of
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: Big Joe shimmered against the galaxy lit by millions of stars.
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: Every missile port, even the military numerals along her nose
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: were clearly visible. And they're rubbing it in, Rogers, showing
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 3: us what we look like to them. Heselton's face was chalk.
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 3: They could blast Big Joe apart, piece by piece. The
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 3: most powerful ship in the galaxy, maybe, said Rogers, the
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 3: second most powerful. Without answering, Heselton turned and looked out
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: again at empty space and millions of steady, unwinking stars.
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: His mind formed the image of a huge ethereal spaceship,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 3: missile ports open weapons aimed directly at Big Joe. The
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: speaker interrupted his nightmare. This is fire control, Admiral, with
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 3: your permission, I'll scatter a few sea bombs. Heselton leaped
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: for the microphone. Are you out of your mind? We
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: haven't the slightest idea of the forces that guy has.
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: We might be in the center of a whole blooming fleet, ever,
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 3: think of that. The alien's face, still smirking, appeared again
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 3: on the screen. He says, said the interpreter that he
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 3: finds the presence of our armed ship very annoying. Heselton
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: knew what he had to do. Tell him, he said,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 3: swallowing hard, that we apologize. This part of the galaxy
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 3: is strange to us. He says, he is contemplating blasting
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 3: us out of the sky. Heselton said nothing, but he
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 3: longed to reach out and throttle the grinning alien face. However,
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: the interpreter continued, He will let us go safely if
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 3: we leave immediately. He says, to send an unarmed diplomatic
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 3: vessel next time, and maybe his people will talk to us.
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 3: Thank him for his kindness. Heselton's jaws clenched so tightly
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 3: they ached, He says, said the interpreter, to get the
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: hell out the grinning face snapped off the screen, but
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: the cackling laughter continued to reverberate in the control room
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: until the radio shack finally turned off the receiver. Reverse course,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: the Admiral ordered quietly maximum drive. A thousand missile launchers
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: designed to disintegrate solar systems were deactivated. Hundreds of gyros
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: swung the mile long ship in for end and stabilized
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: her on a reverse course. Drive units build enough to
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: power several major cities wind into operation, and I grabbed
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: generators with the strength to shift small planets, counterbalanced the
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 3: external acceleration, and the ship moved away with a speed
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: approaching that of light. Well, muttered Heselton. That's the very
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: first time Big Joe has ever had to retreat, as
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: if it were his own personal failure. He walked slowly
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: across the control room and down the corridor towards his cabin.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: Admiral lost in thought, Heselton barely heard the call Admiral look.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 3: Pausing at the door to his cabin, Heselton turned to
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: face the ship's chief astronomer, running up, waving two large photographs.
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: Look Sir. The professor gasped for breath. We thought this
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: was a spot on the negative, but one of the
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: men got curious and enlarged it about a hundred times.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 3: He held up one of the photos. It showed a small,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: fuzzy but unmistakable spaceship. Wonder we couldn't spot it with
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: our instruments. Hasselton snatched it out of his hand. I
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: see what you mean. This ship must have been thousands
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: of miles, the professor shook his head, No, sir. As
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: a matter of fact, it was quite close by. But
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: we figure that the total length that the alien ship
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: was roughly an inch and a half and of a
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: matter of magnitude by al Sevcik.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 4: Quiet Please, by Kevin Scott. This is a LibriVox recording.
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 4: All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 4: information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 4: by Jerome Lawson, March two thousand and eight. Quiet Please,
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 4: by Kevin Scott. Proverbs knew what he wanted, peace and quiet.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 4: He was willing to scream his head off for it.
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 4: The big man eased the piano off his back and
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 4: stood looking at Groverbs. He ain't gonna like it here.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 4: He mopped his face. Boy will I ever be glad
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 4: to get off this cock eyed planet? Groverbs pushed his spectacles, sniffed,
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 4: and said quite. The big man said, ain't no native
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 4: here over three feet tall, And they got some crazy
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 4: kind of communication. They don't talk. Groverbs said, quiet, huh, percisely,
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 4: why I am here, said Groverbs, sniffing again. Loath conversation?
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 4: Oh well, he left alone. Groverbs surveyed his realm. The
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 4: house was the shell of what had formerly been a
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 4: little people apartment building. Ceilings, floors, and walls had been
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 4: removed to form one large room. The tiny doors and
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 4: windows had been sealed, and a single window and door
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: had been and cut into the shell for Groverb's use.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 4: Crude but serviceable. Groverbs walked to the window and looked
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 4: down the slope. Little people buildings dotted the landscape, and
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: the people themselves scurried silently about. Yes, thought Groverbs, it
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 4: would do nicely. He had brought an adequate food tablet supply,
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 4: he would finish without the distraction of voices, his beautiful concerto.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 4: He would return to Earth, famous and happy. Armed with
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: paper and pencils, he went to the piano, having decided
• 1:14:31
  Speaker 4: to enlarge upon the theme in the second movement. His
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 4: mind knew exactly how the passage should run, and he
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 4: swiftly covered the paper with sharp, angular notes. Then he
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 4: triumphantly lifted his hands and began to play what he
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 4: had written. He jerked back from the keyboard, his hair
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 4: on end, his teeth on edge, his ears screaming with
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 4: the massive sounds he had produced. He looked at his hands,
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: peered at the score, adjusted his spectacles, and tried again.
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 4: I'm tired, he thought, recoiling in horror from the racket.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 4: A flat tablet and a natlore remedy the situation. When
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 4: he awoke, Groverbs walked to the window, refreshed. A violet
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 4: glow had replaced the harsh yellow light of the day.
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 4: At the foot of the slope. The little people dashed
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 4: to and fro, but no voice broke the peaceful quiet
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 4: of the evening. With a sigh of satisfaction, Groverbs went
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 4: to the piano. Gently. He struck the keys. Blatant, jumbled
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 4: noise filled the room. Breathing hard, Groverbs rose and gingerly
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 4: lifted the spinnet's lid. No nothing amissed there. Good felts,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 4: free hammers, solid sounding board must be out of tune.
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 4: Groverbs closed the lid, sat down, and struck a single note.
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 4: A clear tone, sang out. He moved chromatically up and
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 4: down the scale. Definitely not out of tune. He shifted
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 4: the score, glanced uneasily at the keys, and began to
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 4: play discord. Immediately pierced his ear drums. He clapped his
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 4: hands over his ears and leaped wildly from the piano bench.
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 4: The trip, he decided, frantically, it must have effected my hearing.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 4: He flung himself from the house and down the slope.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 4: The little people scattered, staring. He charged into the administration
• 1:16:15
  Speaker 4: building and clutched the lapels of a uniformed official, a doctor.
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 4: He gasped, now this minute. The official raised his eyebrows
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 4: and removed Proverb's hands with distaste. It's a little late
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 4: in the day, he drawled, but maybe the dark up
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 4: on the top floor. Proverbs flew up the stairs and
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 4: into the doctor's office. The doctor's face lit up. A patient,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 4: he exclaimed capital what seemed to be the trouble, food poisoning,
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 4: jorinate the food here, garbage appendix, heart attack, Stop talking,
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 4: you idiot, it's my ears. Obviously disappointed, The doctor nevertheless
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: poked and peered at Groverb's ears. No, he said, finally
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 4: I tried rifle big yes, but nothing wrong with him. Yushuh,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 4: absolutely a pity. I'm getting a bed rusty. With a groan,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 4: Groverbs staggered out of the building, back through town and
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 4: up the slope to his house. Seating himself firmly on
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 4: the bench, he began to play. He shuddered. The noise
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 4: was abominable. Suddenly his door burst open and a crowd
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 4: of little people rushed in. They pulled him off the
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 4: bench and slapped angrily at his hands. Then with cutters
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 4: they attacked the piano. Ya stop that, Groverb screeched, what
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 4: do you think you're doing. The little people pushed and
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 4: dragged him out of the house, down the slope, through
• 1:17:40
  Speaker 4: the town and into the launching bowl at the space strip.
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 4: The launching agent took one look and yelled, get the
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 4: interpreter on the double. The interpreter ran up and whipped
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 4: something from his pocket. It looked like a miniature piano skeleton.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 4: He tripped a hammer. There was a faint tinkle. Instantly,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: one of the little people puced a single miniature hammer
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 4: and tapped it rapidly against his skull. The interpreter tripped
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 4: another hammer. A second little one responded. Suddenly, one of
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 4: the little people ran over and tripped all the interpreter's
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 4: hammer simultaneously. The little people winced. Oh well, it's there, plenet.
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 4: He hustled groverbs out to a freight ship that was warming.
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: Up for takeoff.
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 4: Is everyone insane? Groverbs cropd not meant to know what
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 4: this is all about. The interpreter shoved Groverbs into the ship.
• 1:18:32
  Speaker 4: They say you talk too much, he yelled as he
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 4: slammed the door. End of quiet please by Kevin Scott.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 4: Recording by Jerome Lawson, March two thousand and eight.
• 1:18:52
  Speaker 3: Summit. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings during
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 3: the public domain. More information or to volunteer, please visit
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: LibriVox dot org. Summit by Mack Reynolds. Almost anything, if
• 1:19:10
  Speaker 3: it goes on long enough, can be reduced to first
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: a routine and then to a tradition. At that point
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: it is obviously necessary. Two king sized bands blared martial music,
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 3: the Internacional and the Star Spangled Banner, each seemingly trying
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: to drown the other in a guttr dahmerung of acoustics.
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 3: Two lines of troops, surfacely differing in uniforms and in weapons,
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 3: but basically so very much the same, so evenly matched,
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 3: came to attention. A thousand hands slapped one thousand submachine
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: gun stocks. Marshall Vladimir Ignatov strode stiff kneed down the
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: long march, the stride of a man for years used
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: to calvary boots. He was flanked by frozen visaged subordinates,
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: but none so cold a face as he himself. At
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: the entrance to the conference hall, he stopped, turned and waited.
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: At the end of the corridor of troops, a car stopped,
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 3: and several figures emerged, most of them in civilian dress,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 3: several bearing briefcases. They, in their turn ran the gauntlet.
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: At therefore walked James Warren don Levy, sprightly, his eyes
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: darting here and there, politician like a half smile on
• 1:20:39
  Speaker 3: his face, as though afraid he might forget to greet
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 3: a voter he knew, or was supposed to know. His
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: hand was out before that of Vladimir Ignatov's, Your excellency,
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 3: he said. Ignotov shook hands stiffly dropped that of the others.
• 1:20:56
  Speaker 3: As soon as protocol would permit, the field Marshal indicated
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 3: at the door of the conference room, there is little
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 3: reason to waste time, mister President, exactly. Don Leavy snapped
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 3: the door closed behind them, and the two men, one
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 3: uniformed and be meddled, the other, Natalie, attired in his
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: business suit, turned to each other. Nice to see you again, Vovo.
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 3: How's Olga and the baby? The soldier grinned back in response.
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: Two babies. Now, you don't keep up on the real news, Jim,
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: how's Martha? They shook hands. Not so good, Jim said, scowling.
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: I'm worried it's that new cancer. As soon as we
• 1:21:35
  Speaker 3: conquer one type two. More rear up. How are you
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 3: people doing on cancer research? Vovo was stripping off his tunic.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 3: He hung it over the back of one of the chairs,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 3: began to unbutton his high tight military collar. I'm really
• 1:21:49
  Speaker 3: not up on a Jim, but I think that's one
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 3: field where you can trust anything we know to be
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 3: in the regular scientific journals. Are people exchanged with yours.
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 3: I'll make some inquiries when I get back home, though,
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: you never know this new strain. I guess you'd call
• 1:22:04
  Speaker 3: it might be one that we're up on and you're not. Yeah,
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 3: said Jim. Thanks a lot. He crossed to the small
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 3: portable bar. How about a drink whiskey, vodka, rum, and
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: there's ice. Vovo slumped into one of the heavy chairs
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 3: that were arranged around the table. He grimaced, No vodka,
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: I don't feel patriotic today. How about one of those
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 3: long cold drinks with the kola stuff cubilibra, Jim said,
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: coming up, Look, would you rather speak Russian? Nos Vovo said,
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: My English is getting rusty. I need the practice. Jim
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: brought the glasses over and put them on the table.
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: He began stripping off his own coat and loosening his tie. God,
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: I'm tired, he said. This sort of thing wears me down.
• 1:22:51
  Speaker 3: Vovos sipped his drink. Now there's as good a thing
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: to discuss as any in the way of killing time.
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: The truth. Now, Jim, do you really believe in a god?
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: After all that's happened to this human race of ours?
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: Do you really believe in define guidance? He twisted his
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 3: mouth sarcastically. The other relaxed. I don't know, he said,
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: I suppose so I was raised in a family that
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: believed in God, just as I suppose you were raised
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 3: in one that didn't. He lifted his shoulders slightly in
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: a shrug. Neither of us seems to be particularly brilliant
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: in establishing a position of our own, Vovo snorted. Never
• 1:23:32
  Speaker 3: thought of it that way, he admitted. We're usually contemptuous
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: of anyone still holding to the old beliefs. There aren't
• 1:23:40
  Speaker 3: many left or the new people, admit, I understand, Voval
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: shook his heavy head. No, not really, mostly crackpots. Have
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: you ever noticed how it is the nonconformists in any
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 3: society that are usually crackpots. The people on your side
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 3: that belonging to our organizeations are usually on the wild
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 3: eyed and uncombed hair side, I admit it. On the
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: other hand, the people and ours citizenry who subscribe to
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: your system, your religion. That sort of thing our crackpots too,
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 3: applies to religion as well as politics. An atheist in
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: your country is a nonconformist in mind. A Christian is
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 3: both crackpots. Jim laughed and took a sip of his drink.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: Voval yawned and said, how long are we going to
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 3: be in here. I don't know, Jim said, up to us,
• 1:24:32
  Speaker 3: I suppose, yes, how about another drink? I'll make it.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 3: How much of that coal of stuff do you put in?
• 1:24:40
  Speaker 3: Jim tolding and while the other was on his feet
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: mixing the drinks, said, you figure on sticking to the
• 1:24:46
  Speaker 3: same line this year? Have to? Vovo said, over his shoulder,
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 3: what's the alternative? I don't know. We're building up to
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 3: a whale of a depression as it is, even with
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 3: half the economy running full blast producing d defence materials.
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 3: Vovo chuckled, defense materials. I wonder if ever, in the
• 1:25:06
  Speaker 3: history of a human race anyone ever admitted to producing
• 1:25:10
  Speaker 3: offense materials. Well, you call it the same thing. All
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: your military equipment is for defense, and of course, according
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 3: to your press, all of ours is for offense. Of course,
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: Bobo said. He brought the glasses back and handed one
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: to the other. He slumped back into his chair again,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 3: loosened two buttons of his trousers. Jim Bobo said, why
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 3: don't you divert more of your economy to public works,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 3: better roads, reforestation, dams, that sort of thing. Jim said, wearily,
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 3: you're a better economist than that. Didn't your boy Marx,
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 3: or was it Ingles write a small book on the subject.
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 3: We're already overproducing, turning out more products than we can sell.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: I wasn't talking about your government building new steel mills,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 3: but dams, roads, that sort of thing. You could plow
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 3: billions into such items and get some real use out
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 3: of them. We both know that our weapons will never
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 3: be used. They can't be. Jim ticked them off on
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: his fingers. We're already producing more farm products than we
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 3: know what to do with. If we build more dams,
• 1:26:18
  Speaker 3: it'll open up new farm lands and increase the glut.
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: If we build more and better roads, it'll improve transportation,
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: which will mean fewer men will be able to move
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 3: greater tonnage and throw transportation employees into the unemployed. If
• 1:26:33
  Speaker 3: we go all out on reforestation, it'll eventually bring down
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 3: the price of lumber, and the lumber people are howling already. Now,
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 3: he shook his head. There's just one really fool proof
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 3: way of disposing of surpluses and using up labor power,
• 1:26:49
  Speaker 3: and that's war, hot or cold. Bobo shrugged. I suppose
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 3: so it amounts to building pyramids, of course, Jim twisted
• 1:27:01
  Speaker 3: his mouth sourly. And since we're asking questions about each
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 3: other's way alive, when is your state going to begin
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 3: to wither away? How was that? Vovo asked, According to
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 3: your sainted founder, once you people came to power, the
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: state was going to wither away. Class rule would be
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 3: over and utopia would be on hand. That was a
• 1:27:26
  Speaker 3: long time ago, and your state is stronger than ours,
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: Vovo snorted, How can we wither away the state as
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 3: long as we're threatened by capitalist aggression, Jim said, ha
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 3: Wvovo went on, you know better than that, Jim. The
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 3: only way my organization can keep in power is by
• 1:27:49
  Speaker 3: continually beating the drums, keeping our people stirred up to
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 3: greater and greater sacrifices, by using you as a threat
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 3: than the old Roman have some sort of maxim to
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: the effect that when you're threatened with unease at home,
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: stir up trouble abroad, you're being even more frank than usual.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: Jim said, But that's one of the pleasures of these
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 3: get togethers. Neither of us resorts to hypocrisy. But you
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 3: can't keep up these tensions forever. You mean, we can't
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 3: keep up these tensions forever, Jim. And when they end, well, personally,
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 3: I can't see my organization going out without a bloodbath.
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 3: He grimaced sourly. And since I'd probably be one of
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: the first to be bathed, I'd like to postpone the time.
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: It's like having a tiger by the tail, Jim. We
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 3: can't let go happily. I don't feel in the same spot,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: Jim said. He got up and went to the picture
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: window that took up one entire wall. It faced out
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: over a mountain vista. He looked soberly into the sky.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 3: Voval joined him, glass in hand. Possibly your position isn't
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 3: exactly the same as ours, but there'll be some awfully
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 3: great changes. If that military bast economy of yours suddenly
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 3: had peace thrust upon it, you'd have a depression such
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 3: as you've never dreamed of. Let's face reality, Jim, neither
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: of us can afford peace. Well, we've both known that
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 3: for a long time. They both considered somberly the planet
• 1:29:34
  Speaker 3: Earth blazing away a small sun there in the sky.
• 1:29:41
  Speaker 3: Jim said, I sometimes think that the race would have
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 3: been better off when Man was colonizing Venus and Mars,
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 3: if it had been a joint enterprise, rather than you
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 3: people doing one and we doing the other. If it
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 3: had all been in the hands of that organization, the
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 3: United Nations, Voval supplied, then, when bomb Day hit, perhaps
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 3: these new worlds could have gone on to well better things. Perhaps,
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 3: Voval shrugged. I've often wondered how bomb Day started. Who
• 1:30:18
  Speaker 3: struck the spark? Happily there were enough colonists on both
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 3: planets to start the race all over again. Jim said,
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: what difference does it make who struck the spark? None?
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 3: I suppose Fovo began to button his collar, readjust his clothes. Well,
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 3: shall we emerge and let the quaking multitudes know that
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 3: once again we've made a shaky agreement, one that will
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 3: last until the next summit meeting. End of summit, my
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 3: mac Reynolds.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 4: Then Touchable by Stephen A callis Junior. This is a
• 1:31:04
  Speaker 4: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 4: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 4: Recording by Jerome Lawson, March two thousand and eight. The
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 4: Untouchable by Stephen A callis Junior. You can see it,
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 4: you can watch it, but mustn't touch, And what could
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 4: possibly be more frustrating when you need most violently to
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 4: get your hands on it for just one second? The
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 4: man finally entered the office of General George Carver's. As
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 4: the door closed behind him, he saw the General, who
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 4: sprang from his chair to greet him. Max, you finally
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 4: came got it as soon as I could. A wager
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 4: half my time was taken up by the security checkpoints.
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 4: They're certainly isolated in here. All of that agreed, the
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 4: General have a seed, won't you? He asked, indicating a chair.
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 4: His friends sank into it gratefully. Now, what's this vital
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 4: problem you called me about? You weren't too specific, no,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 4: said Garvers. I wasn't. This is a security matter, after
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 4: a fashion. It's vitally important that we get technical help
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 4: on this thing. And since you and I are friends,
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 4: I was asked to call you in. Well, I'm afraid
• 1:32:24
  Speaker 4: I'll have to make a story of it. Quite all
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 4: right by me. But don't mind if I interject a
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 4: question now, and then mind if I smoke? Go right ahead,
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 4: said Garvers, fumbling out a lighter. Just don't spilashers on
• 1:32:37
  Speaker 4: the rug. This all began on the third of May.
• 1:32:41
  Speaker 4: I was working here on some top security stuff I
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 4: had suddenly got the feeling of being watched. I know
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 4: it seems silly, what with all the checkpoints that a
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 4: potential spy would have to go through to get here,
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 4: but that's just how I felt. Several times I glanced
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 4: around the office, but of course it was empty. Then
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 4: I began to think that it was my nerves. He
• 1:33:01
  Speaker 4: always were a bit of a hypochondriac, observed his friend
• 1:33:05
  Speaker 4: be that as it may, continued Garfers. It was the
• 1:33:08
  Speaker 4: only explanation I had at the time. Either someone was
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 4: watching me, which seemed impossible, or I was beginning to
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 4: crack under the strain. Well, I put my papers away
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 4: and try to take a short break. I was reaching
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 4: into my drawer where I keep magazines, when so help me,
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 4: a man stepped out of the wall into my office.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 4: What it seems as if you just said a guy
• 1:33:29
  Speaker 4: stepped out of the wall, That's just what I did say.
• 1:33:33
  Speaker 4: It sounds crazy, but let me finish, will you. I'm
• 1:33:36
  Speaker 4: not kidding, and I'll show you a proof later if necessary. Anyway,
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 4: this bird stepped straight out of the wall, as if
• 1:33:43
  Speaker 4: it had been a waterfall or something. But the wall
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 4: itself was undamaged. The only proof I had that he
• 1:33:49
  Speaker 4: had actually done it was the fact that he was
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 4: in my office, But that was proof enough to put
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 4: it mildly. I was thunderstruck. After jumping to my feet,
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 4: I could only stand there like an idiot. I was
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 4: so shaken that I couldn't speak a word. But he
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 4: spoke first, General Garver's. He asked, just as if he
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 4: had run into me at a cocktail party or on
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 4: the street. I told him he was correct, and asked
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 4: him who he was, and what he wanted and how
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 4: he got into my office. He identified himself as a
• 1:34:17
  Speaker 4: Henry Bush and explained that he was acting in behalf
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 4: of a good friend of his, the late doctor Hymen Duval.
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 4: You ever heard of Duval? Max his friend twisted his
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 4: face and thought, he can't say that I have off hand,
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 4: but the name seems to ring a bell somewhere. Well. Anyway,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 4: He said that Duval had perfected an invention of great
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 4: national importance shortly before his death, and asked Bush to
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 4: deliver it to the government if anything should happen to him.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 4: Then Duval died suddenly of a heart attack, And what
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 4: was this? Invention. Isn't it obvious a machine that would
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 4: enable a man to walk through walls? And Bush has
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 4: no idea how the thing works other than the general
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 4: explanation that Duval gave him. And Bush was poles apart.
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 4: F from Duval, they were friends from college, but not
• 1:35:03
  Speaker 4: because of professional interests. It seems they were both double
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 4: crossed by the same girl. Deval was a brilliant but
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 4: obscure nuclear and radiation physicist. He was one of those
• 1:35:13
  Speaker 4: once in a lifetime fellows.
• 1:35:14
  Speaker 2: Like Tesla.
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 4: He was so shy that he didn't bring himself to
• 1:35:17
  Speaker 4: anybody's attention, save for a few papers he published in
• 1:35:20
  Speaker 4: the smaller Physical Society's magazines. It was only because he
• 1:35:24
  Speaker 4: had inherited a considerable amount of money that he could
• 1:35:27
  Speaker 4: do any research whatsoever. Hum I seem to remember a
• 1:35:31
  Speaker 4: paper about wave propagation in one of the quarterlies, quite unorthodox,
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 4: as I recall said Max could be. But anyway about Bush.
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 4: Bush majored in psychology at college, but took special courses
• 1:35:45
  Speaker 4: after he graduated and took a master's in English. He's
• 1:35:48
  Speaker 4: written two novels and three collections of poems under various
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 4: pen names. At the time of Duval's death, he was
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 4: working on the libretto of an opera. He has no
• 1:35:56
  Speaker 4: technical training, unless you want to count a year of
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 4: high school generals science. So it wasn't too much help
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 4: in explaining our Devol's instrument works. And just to make
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 4: matters more juicy, Devall kept no notes. He had total
• 1:36:08
  Speaker 4: recall and a childlike fear of putting anything into writing
• 1:36:11
  Speaker 4: that had not been experimentally verified. And this machine, how's
• 1:36:16
  Speaker 4: it supposed to work? Garvers got up and began to pace.
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 4: According to Bush, Duvol devised the instrument after stumbling into
• 1:36:25
  Speaker 4: an entirely new branch of physics. This device of Duvol's
• 1:36:29
  Speaker 4: is a special case of a new theory of matter
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 4: and energy. Matter is made up of subnuclear particles electrons, protons,
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 4: and the like. However, Devol said that these particles are
• 1:36:39
  Speaker 4: in turn made up of much smaller particles grouped together
• 1:36:42
  Speaker 4: in aggregate clouds. The size ratio of these particles to
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 4: protons is something like the ratio of an individual proton
• 1:36:48
  Speaker 4: to a large star. They seemed to be composed of
• 1:36:51
  Speaker 4: tiny clots of energy from a fantastically complex energy system
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 4: in which electromagnetism was but a small part Each energy
• 1:36:59
  Speaker 4: segment is represented by a different facet of each particle,
• 1:37:02
  Speaker 4: and the arrangement of the individual particles to each other
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 4: determines what superparticle they'll form, such as an electron. Deval
• 1:37:09
  Speaker 4: called these subparticles. Lems Bush says that he was told
• 1:37:13
  Speaker 4: that a field of a special nature could be generated
• 1:37:16
  Speaker 4: so as to make the individual lembs of the particle
• 1:37:18
  Speaker 4: of matter rotated in a special way that would introduce
• 1:37:21
  Speaker 4: a polarization field, as Devau called it. This field seems
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 4: to be connected somehow with gravity, but Bush doesn't know how.
• 1:37:29
  Speaker 4: The upshot is that matter in the initial presence of
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 4: the field is affected so that it's able to pass
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 4: through ordinary matter. Hold on interrupted max. If a device
• 1:37:38
  Speaker 4: can do that, then the user would immediately fall toward
• 1:37:41
  Speaker 4: the center of the Earth. Just you hold on, You
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 4: didn't let me finish. A single plane of atoms at
• 1:37:47
  Speaker 4: the base of the treated object is the point of contact.
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 4: It remains partially unaffected because it is the closest to
• 1:37:53
  Speaker 4: the gravitat static field center, which I guess is the
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 4: Earth's center of attraction. This plane of semi tree atoms
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 4: can be forced through an object if it's moved horizontally,
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 4: but its untreated aspect prevents the subject wearing the device
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 4: from falling through the floor. Bush demonstrated this device to me,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 4: turning it on and strolling to various objects in the room.
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 4: Think of it, No soldiers could be killed or held prisoner,
• 1:38:16
  Speaker 4: and no hang on objected, Max, let's not run away
• 1:38:20
  Speaker 4: with ourselves. He may have perfected a device that would
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 4: enable a soldier to avoid capture, but there would certainly
• 1:38:26
  Speaker 4: be other ways to kill him, them by bullets. Let's
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 4: see now, suppose that the enemy shot a flamethrower at him.
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 4: The materials might pass through him, but he would be
• 1:38:34
  Speaker 4: cooked anyway, or poison gas hum. As far as gas goes,
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 4: I suppose a gas mask would be necessary. Bush doesn't
• 1:38:42
  Speaker 4: know about the breathing mechanism, except that he had to
• 1:38:45
  Speaker 4: dig breaths. But as far as fire or radiation goes,
• 1:38:48
  Speaker 4: the mass protected. If the radiation is either harmful by
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 4: nature or by amount, the field merely reflects it. It's
• 1:38:55
  Speaker 4: something called the limicked stress of the field that causes
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 4: the phenomenon. As we need your help, Max scratched his
• 1:39:03
  Speaker 4: head thoughtfully. I don't understand Garver's looked pained when Bush
• 1:39:08
  Speaker 4: had finished his demonstration, He carelessly tossed the device on
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 4: my desk. The thing skidded and hit my paper weight,
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 4: so that the switch was thrown on again. So now
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 4: the device in my desk are both untouchable. Go over
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 4: to the desk and try to touch it, said Garvers dryly.
• 1:39:23
  Speaker 4: His friend got up and ambled over to the desk.
• 1:39:26
  Speaker 4: There he saw a small black box resting near a
• 1:39:28
  Speaker 4: paper weight. Its toggle switch was at the on position,
• 1:39:32
  Speaker 4: and it was lying on its side. He tried to
• 1:39:34
  Speaker 4: pick the box up, but his hand slid effortlessly through it,
• 1:39:38
  Speaker 4: as if it were so much air. Well, Max said,
• 1:39:42
  Speaker 4: He passed his hand through the desk again. Well, will
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 4: are you sure Bush told you everything? Bush? He honestly
• 1:39:50
  Speaker 4: wants to help. When we have taken him through the
• 1:39:52
  Speaker 4: mill pentethal scope, lamine and the like, hypnotism in the polygraph,
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 4: we've dug that man deeper than we've ever dug anybody before.
• 1:40:02
  Speaker 4: And now have you conducted any experiments of your own?
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 4: Certainly that's what's so frustrating. We tried to X ray
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 4: the thing and we didn't get a thing. We've bombarded
• 1:40:11
  Speaker 4: it with every radiation we could think of. From radio
• 1:40:14
  Speaker 4: to gamma, and it just reflected them. We can detect
• 1:40:16
  Speaker 4: no radiation coming out of it. Magnetic fields don't affect it,
• 1:40:20
  Speaker 4: nor to heat, and cold nuclear particles are ignored by it.
• 1:40:24
  Speaker 4: It just sits there, thumbing its nose at us, and
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 4: we can't even wait for it to run down. According
• 1:40:29
  Speaker 4: to Bush, the power requirements of the thing are funny,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 4: and once the field is established, it takes no additional
• 1:40:34
  Speaker 4: energy to maintain it, and the collapsing power remains indefinitely
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 4: until it's time to turn the machine off. But it's
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 4: unreachable by any means we have. It's pure frustration. There's
• 1:40:45
  Speaker 4: no way we can analyze it until we can handle it,
• 1:40:47
  Speaker 4: and there's no way we can handle it until we
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 4: can turn it off, And there's no way we can
• 1:40:51
  Speaker 4: turn it off until we've analyzed it. If it were alive,
• 1:40:54
  Speaker 4: I think that it was laughing at us. Do you
• 1:40:57
  Speaker 4: have any ideas, asked Garverz. Hopefully nothing that would help
• 1:41:01
  Speaker 4: a solution at present, said Max. But do you remember
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 4: the legend of King Tantalus slightly? What about it? Well,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 4: if he were here, said Max, thoughtfully, he'd sympathize end
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 4: of the untouchable by Stephen A. Callis Junior recording by
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 4: Jerome Lawson, March two thousand eight.
• 1:41:34
  Speaker 7: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 7: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
• 1:41:43
  Speaker 7: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by John Larmer. The Yillian
• 1:41:50
  Speaker 7: Way by Keith Lomer. The ceremonious protocol of the Yels
• 1:41:55
  Speaker 7: was impressive, colorful, and in the long run, deadly. Art
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 7: One James Retief, Vice Consul and third Secretary in the
• 1:42:05
  Speaker 7: Diplomatic Corps, followed the senior members of the terrestrial mission
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 7: across the tarmac and into the gloom of the reception building.
• 1:42:12
  Speaker 7: The gray skinned Yull guide, who had met the arriving
• 1:42:15
  Speaker 7: embassy at the foot of the ramp, hurried away. The councilor,
• 1:42:19
  Speaker 7: two first secretaries, and the senior attaches gathered around their ambassador,
• 1:42:24
  Speaker 7: their ornate uniforms bright in the vast, dun colored room.
• 1:42:30
  Speaker 7: Ten minutes passed. Ratif strolled across to the nearest door
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 7: and looked through the glass panel at the room beyond.
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 7: Several dozen yull lounged in deep couches, sipping lavender drinks
• 1:42:42
  Speaker 7: from slender glass tubes. Black tunic servants moved about inconspicuously
• 1:42:47
  Speaker 7: offering trays. A party of brightly dressed yull moved toward
• 1:42:52
  Speaker 7: the entrance doors. One of the party, a tall male,
• 1:42:56
  Speaker 7: made to step before another, who raised a hand languidly
• 1:43:00
  Speaker 7: fist clenched. The first Yule stepped back and placed his
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 7: hands on top of his head. Both yule were smiling
• 1:43:07
  Speaker 7: and chatting as they passed through the doors. Ratiff turned
• 1:43:11
  Speaker 7: away to rejoin the terrestrial delegation waiting beside a mound
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 7: of crates made of rough greenish wood stacked on the
• 1:43:18
  Speaker 7: bare concrete floor. As Ratief came up, Ambassador Spradley glanced
• 1:43:23
  Speaker 7: at his finger watch and spoke to the man beside him, Ben,
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 7: are you quite certain our arrival time? Was made clear?
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 7: Second Secretary Magnon nodded emphatically. I stressed the point, mister Ambassador.
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 7: I communicated with mister Takai Kai just before the lighter
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 7: broke orbit. No specifically, I hope you didn't appear truculent,
• 1:43:42
  Speaker 7: mister Magnan. The Ambassador said sharply, No, indeed, mister Ambassador,
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 7: I'm merely you're sure there's no VIP room here The
• 1:43:50
  Speaker 7: Ambassador glanced around the cavernous room, curious. Not even chairs
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 7: have been provided if you'd care to sit on one
• 1:43:58
  Speaker 7: of these crates, certainly not. The Ambassador looked at his
• 1:44:01
  Speaker 7: watch again and cleared his throat. I may as well
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 7: make use of these few moments to outline our approach
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 7: to the more junior members of the staff. It's vital
• 1:44:10
  Speaker 7: that the entire mission work in harmony in the presentation
• 1:44:13
  Speaker 7: of the image, We Terrestrials are a kindly, peace loving race.
• 1:44:18
  Speaker 7: The Ambassador smiled in a kindly peace loving way. We
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 7: seek only a reasonable division of spheres of the influence
• 1:44:26
  Speaker 7: with the yield. He spread his hands, looking reasonable. We
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 7: are a people of high culture, ethical sincere. The smile
• 1:44:36
  Speaker 7: was replaced abruptly by pursed lips. We'll start by asking
• 1:44:41
  Speaker 7: for the entire Serenian system and settle for half. We'll
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 7: establish a foothold on all the choicer worlds, and with
• 1:44:48
  Speaker 7: shrewd handling, in a century, will be in a position
• 1:44:51
  Speaker 7: to assert a wider claim. The ambassador glanced around. If
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 7: there are no questions, ratief stepped forward. It's my understanding,
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 7: mister Ambassador, that we hold the prior claim to the
• 1:45:04
  Speaker 7: Sirenian system. Did I understand your excellency to say that
• 1:45:09
  Speaker 7: we are ready to concede half of it to the
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 7: Yell without a struggle. Ambassador Spradley looked up at Retif, blinking.
• 1:45:17
  Speaker 7: The younger man loomed over him. Beside him, Magnum cleared
• 1:45:21
  Speaker 7: his throat in the silence last Consul Ratif merely means
• 1:45:25
  Speaker 7: I can interpret mister Ratif's remark, The ambassador snapped. He
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 7: assumed a fatherly expression. Young man, you're new to the service.
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 7: You haven't yet learned the team play, the give and
• 1:45:37
  Speaker 7: take of diplomacy. I shall expect you to observe closely
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 7: the work of the experienced negotiators of the mission. You
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 7: must learn the importance of subtlety, Mister Ambassador Magnum said,
• 1:45:50
  Speaker 7: I think the reception committee is arriving. He pointed. Half
• 1:45:54
  Speaker 7: a dozen tall, short necked yell were entering through a
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 7: side door. The leading yell has ad as another stepped
• 1:46:01
  Speaker 7: in his path. He raised a fist, and the other
• 1:46:04
  Speaker 7: moved aside, touching the top of his head perfunctorily with
• 1:46:07
  Speaker 7: both hands. The group started across the room toward the terrestrials.
• 1:46:12
  Speaker 7: Ratif watched as A slender alien came forward and spoke
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 7: passable Terran in a reedy voice. I am petoy, come
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 7: this way. He turned, and the group moved toward the door,
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 7: the ambassador leading. As he reached for the door, the
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 7: interpreter darted ahead and shouldered him aside. The other yell
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 7: stopped waiting. The ambassador almost glared, and then remembered the image.
• 1:46:40
  Speaker 7: He smiled and beckoned the yell ahead. They milled uncertainly,
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 7: muttering in the native tongue, then passed through the door.
• 1:46:48
  Speaker 7: The Terran party followed, give a great deal to know
• 1:46:52
  Speaker 7: what they're saying. Ratif overheard as he came up. Our
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 7: interpreter has forged to the van. The ambassador said, I
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 7: can only soume he'll appear when needed. A pity we
• 1:47:03
  Speaker 7: have to rely on a native interpreter, some one said,
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 7: Had I known we meet this rather uncouth reception, the
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 7: ambassador said, stiffly, I would have audited the language personally,
• 1:47:15
  Speaker 7: of course, during the voyage out. Oh, no criticism intended,
• 1:47:19
  Speaker 7: of course, mister ambassador. Heavens Magnan put in. Who would
• 1:47:24
  Speaker 7: a thought? Ratif moved up behind the ambassador. Mister ambassador,
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 7: he said, I later, young man, the ambassador snapped. He
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 7: beckoned to the first counselor, and the two moved off,
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 7: heads together. Outside. A bluish sun gleamed in a dark sky.
• 1:47:42
  Speaker 7: Ratiff watched his breath form a frosty cloud in the
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 7: chill air, A broad, doughnut wheeled vehicle was drawn up
• 1:47:48
  Speaker 7: to the platform. The yield gestured the Terran party to
• 1:47:52
  Speaker 7: the gaping door at the rear, then stood back waiting.
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 7: Ratif looked curiously at the gray painted van. The legend
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 7: written on its side in alien symbols seemed to read eggnog.
• 1:48:07
  Speaker 7: The Ambassador entered the vehicle, the other terrestrials following. It
• 1:48:11
  Speaker 7: was as bare of seats as the terminal building. What
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 7: appeared to be a defunct electronic chassis lay in the
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 7: center of the floor. Retif glanced back. The yell were
• 1:48:23
  Speaker 7: talking excitedly. None of them entered the car. The door
• 1:48:27
  Speaker 7: was closed and the Terrans braced themselves under the low roof.
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 7: As the engine started up with a whine of worn turbos,
• 1:48:35
  Speaker 7: the van moved off. It was an uncomfortable ride. Ratif
• 1:48:40
  Speaker 7: put out an arm as the vehicle rounded a corner,
• 1:48:42
  Speaker 7: just catching the ambassador as he staggered off balance. The
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 7: ambassador glared at him, settled his heavy try corner hat,
• 1:48:51
  Speaker 7: and stood stiffly until the car lurched again. Ratif stooped,
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 7: attempting to see out through the single dusty window. They
• 1:49:00
  Speaker 7: seemed to be in a wide street lined with low buildings.
• 1:49:04
  Speaker 7: They passed through a massive gait up a ramp and stopped.
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 7: The door opened. Ratif looked out at a blank gray
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 7: facade broken by tiny windows at irregular intervals. A scarlet
• 1:49:17
  Speaker 7: vehicle was drawn up ahead the ill reception committee. Emerging
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 7: from it through its wide windows, Ratif saw a rich
• 1:49:25
  Speaker 7: upholstery and caught a glimpse of glasses clamped to a
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 7: tiny bar ptoy. The ill interpreter came forward, gestured to
• 1:49:34
  Speaker 7: a small door. Magnen opened it, waiting for the ambassador.
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 7: As he stepped to it, a yell thrust himself ahead
• 1:49:43
  Speaker 7: and hesitated. Ambassador Spradley drew himself up, glaring. Then he
• 1:49:48
  Speaker 7: twisted his mouth into a frozen smile and stepped aside.
• 1:49:52
  Speaker 7: The yell looked at each other, then filed through the door.
• 1:49:58
  Speaker 7: Ratif was the last to enter. As he stepped inside,
• 1:50:01
  Speaker 7: a black clad servant slipped past him, pulled the lid
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 7: from a large box by the door, and dropped in
• 1:50:07
  Speaker 7: a paper tray heaped with refuse. There were alien symbols
• 1:50:11
  Speaker 7: in flaking paint on the box. They seemed Ratif noticed
• 1:50:16
  Speaker 7: to spell eggnog Part two. The shrill pipes and whining
• 1:50:22
  Speaker 7: reeds had been warming up for an hour when Rotief
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 7: emerged from his cubicle and descended the stairs into the
• 1:50:28
  Speaker 7: banquet hall. Standing by the open doors, he lit a
• 1:50:31
  Speaker 7: slender cigar and watched through narrowed eyes as obsequious servants
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 7: in black flitted along the low, wide corridor, carrying laden
• 1:50:40
  Speaker 7: trays into the broad room, arranging settings on a great
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 7: four sided table, forming a hollow square that almost filled
• 1:50:48
  Speaker 7: the room. Rich brocades were spread across the center of
• 1:50:52
  Speaker 7: the side nearest the door, flanked by heavily decorated white cloths.
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 7: Beyond plain white extended to the side where metal dishes
• 1:51:01
  Speaker 7: were arranged on the bare tabletop. A richly dressed yell approached,
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 7: stepped aside to allow a servant to pass, and entered
• 1:51:10
  Speaker 7: the room. Ratiff turned at the sound of terran voices
• 1:51:15
  Speaker 7: behind him. The ambassador came up, trailed by two diplomats.
• 1:51:20
  Speaker 7: He glanced at Ratif, adjusted his ruff and looked into
• 1:51:23
  Speaker 7: the banquet hall. Apparently we're to be kept waiting again,
• 1:51:28
  Speaker 7: he muttered, after having been informed at the outset that
• 1:51:32
  Speaker 7: the Yell have no intention of yielding an inch. One
• 1:51:34
  Speaker 7: almost wonders, mister, Ambassador Ratief said, have you noticed, however,
• 1:51:41
  Speaker 7: Ambassador Spradley said, eyeing Ratif, A seasoned diplomatist mustn't take
• 1:51:46
  Speaker 7: these little snubs in stride in the end, Ah there, Magnan.
• 1:51:52
  Speaker 7: He turned away talking somewhere, a gong clanged. In a moment,
• 1:51:58
  Speaker 7: the corridor was filled with chattering yull, who moved past
• 1:52:01
  Speaker 7: the group of terrestrials into the banquet hall. Patoy, the
• 1:52:05
  Speaker 7: Yell interpreter, came up and raised a hand. Wait here.
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 7: More yull filed into the dining room to take their places.
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 7: A pair of helmeted guards approached, waving the terrestrials back.
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 7: An immense gray jowled yull waddled to the doors and
• 1:52:23
  Speaker 7: passed through, followed by more guards. The Chief of State
• 1:52:28
  Speaker 7: Retief heard Magnan say, the Admiral for Cow Cow Cow,
• 1:52:34
  Speaker 7: I have yet to present my credentials, Ambassadors Bradley said,
• 1:52:39
  Speaker 7: one expects some latitude in the observances of protocol, but
• 1:52:42
  Speaker 7: I confess, he wagged his head. The ill interpreter spoke up.
• 1:52:47
  Speaker 7: You now will hie on your intestines and creep too
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 7: festive boards there he pointed across the room in testines ambassadors.
• 1:53:00
  Speaker 7: Spradley looked about wildly. Mister Petoy means our stomachs. I
• 1:53:04
  Speaker 7: wouldn't wonder, Magnan said. He just wants us to lie
• 1:53:08
  Speaker 7: down and crawl to our seats. Mister ambassador, what the
• 1:53:12
  Speaker 7: devil are you grinning at?
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 4: You idiot?
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 7: The ambassador snapped. Magnin's face fell. Spradley glanced down at
• 1:53:20
  Speaker 7: the metals across his paunch. This is I've never homage
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 7: to gods, The interpreter said, Oh, oh, religion. Someone said, well,
• 1:53:34
  Speaker 7: if it's a matter of religious beliefs, the ambassador looked
• 1:53:38
  Speaker 7: dubiously around. Golly, it's only a couple of hundred feet,
• 1:53:43
  Speaker 7: Magnan offered her. Tief stepped up to Petoy, His excellency,
• 1:53:49
  Speaker 7: the terrestrial Ambassador will not crawl, he said, clearly, here,
• 1:53:55
  Speaker 7: young man, I said nothing, not too crawl. The interpreter
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 7: wore an unreadable yell expression. It is against our religion,
• 1:54:04
  Speaker 7: Ratief said. Against we are votaries of the snake Goddess.
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 7: Ratif said, it is a sacrilege to kroll. He brushed
• 1:54:15
  Speaker 7: past the interpreter and marched toward the distant table. The
• 1:54:19
  Speaker 7: others followed, puffing. The ambassador came to Ratif's side as
• 1:54:24
  Speaker 7: they approached a dozen empty stools on the far side
• 1:54:27
  Speaker 7: of the square, opposite the brocaded position of the admirable
• 1:54:31
  Speaker 7: Fecow Cow Cow. Mister Ratif, kindly see me after this affair,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 7: he hissed. In the meantime, I hope you will restrain
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 7: any further rash impulses. Let me remind you I am
• 1:54:44
  Speaker 7: the chief of mission here. Magnin came up from behind.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 7: Let me have my congratulations, Ratif. He said, that was
• 1:54:52
  Speaker 7: fast thinking. Are you out of your mind? Magnon? The
• 1:54:56
  Speaker 7: ambassador barked, I am extremely displeased. Oh why, Magden stuttered,
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 7: ay s I was speaking sarcastically, of course, mister ambassador.
• 1:55:07
  Speaker 7: Didn't you notice the kind of shocked little gasp I
• 1:55:09
  Speaker 7: gave when he did it? The terrestrials took their places
• 1:55:14
  Speaker 7: or teeth at the end. The table before them was
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 7: of bare green wood with an array of shallow pewter dishes.
• 1:55:22
  Speaker 7: Some of the yell at the table were in plain gray,
• 1:55:25
  Speaker 7: others in black. All eyed them silently. There was a
• 1:55:29
  Speaker 7: constant stir among them, as one or another rose and disappeared,
• 1:55:33
  Speaker 7: and others sat down. The pipes and reeds were shrilling furiously,
• 1:55:38
  Speaker 7: and the suscerration of Yillian conversation from the other tables
• 1:55:41
  Speaker 7: rose ever higher in competition. A tall yell in black
• 1:55:46
  Speaker 7: was at the ambassador's side. Now the nearby yell fell
• 1:55:50
  Speaker 7: silent as he began lading a whitish soup into the
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 7: largest of the bulls before the terrestrial envoy. The interpreter
• 1:55:57
  Speaker 7: hovered watching. That's quite enough, Ambassadors, Bradley said. As the
• 1:56:02
  Speaker 7: bowl overflowed, the yell servant rolled his eyes dribbled more
• 1:56:07
  Speaker 7: of the soup into the bowl. Kindly serve the other
• 1:56:11
  Speaker 7: members of my staff, the ambassador said. The interpreter said
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 7: something in a low voice. The servant moved hesitantly to
• 1:56:18
  Speaker 7: the next stool and ladled more soup. Ratif watched, listening
• 1:56:23
  Speaker 7: to the whispers around him. The yell at the table
• 1:56:26
  Speaker 7: were craning now to watch the soup. Ladler was ladling rapidly,
• 1:56:30
  Speaker 7: rolling his eyes sideways. He came to Ratif reached out
• 1:56:34
  Speaker 7: with the full ladle for the bull. No, Ratief said.
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 7: The ladler hesitated none for me, Ratief said. The interpreter
• 1:56:45
  Speaker 7: came up and motioned to the servant, who reached again,
• 1:56:47
  Speaker 7: ladle brimming. I don't like it, Ratif said, his voice
• 1:56:53
  Speaker 7: distinct in the sudden hush. He stared at the interpreter,
• 1:56:56
  Speaker 7: who stared back, then waved the servant away. Mister Ritif,
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 7: a voice hissed. Ratif looked down the table. The ambassador
• 1:57:07
  Speaker 7: was leaning forward, glaring at him, his face a mottled crimson.
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 7: I'm warning you, mister Ratif, he said, hoarsely. I've eaten
• 1:57:17
  Speaker 7: sheep's eyes in sedan cassway and Burma hundred year cougn
• 1:57:22
  Speaker 7: mars and everything else that have been placed before me
• 1:57:25
  Speaker 7: in the course of my diplomatic career, and by the
• 1:57:27
  Speaker 7: holy relics of Saint Ignat's. You'll do the same. He
• 1:57:31
  Speaker 7: snatched up a spoon like utensil and difted into his bowl.
• 1:57:36
  Speaker 7: Don't eat that, mister, ambassador, Ratief said. The ambassador stared
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 7: eyes wide. He opened his mouth, guided the spoon toward it.
• 1:57:46
  Speaker 7: Ratif stood, gripped the table under its edge and heaved
• 1:57:50
  Speaker 7: the immense wooden slab rose and tilted dishes. Sliding it
• 1:57:54
  Speaker 7: crashed to the floor with a ponderous slam. Whitish soup
• 1:57:58
  Speaker 7: splattered across the torazzo. A couple of odd bulls rolled
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 7: across the room. Cries rang out from the yell, mingling
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 7: with a strangled yell from Ambassador Spradley. Ratif walked past
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 7: the wild eyed members of the mission to the sputtering chief.
• 1:58:14
  Speaker 7: Mister Ambassador. He said, I'd like you like I'll break you,
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 7: you young hoodlum. Do you realize please? The interpreter stood
• 1:58:24
  Speaker 7: at Ratif's side. My apologies, Ambassador Spradley said, mopping his forehead,
• 1:58:29
  Speaker 7: My profound apologies. Be quiet. Ratief said, what what? Don't apologize?
• 1:58:37
  Speaker 7: Ratief said. Petoy was beckoning, please, I'll come. Ratief turned
• 1:58:45
  Speaker 7: and followed him. The portion of the table they were
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 7: ushered to was covered with an embroidered white cloth set
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 7: with thin porcelain dishes. The yell, already seated there, rose
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 7: amid babbling and moved down the table clad yell at
• 1:59:01
  Speaker 7: the end of the table closed ranks to fill the
• 1:59:03
  Speaker 7: vacant seats. Ratif sat down and found Magnin at his side.
• 1:59:07
  Speaker 7: What's going on here, the second secretary said angrily. They
• 1:59:11
  Speaker 7: were giving us dog food. Ratif said, I overheard a yiell.
• 1:59:16
  Speaker 7: They seated us at the bottom of the servant's table.
• 1:59:19
  Speaker 7: You mean you know their language? I learned it on
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 7: the way out enough at least. The music burst out
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 7: with a clangorous fanfare, and a throng of jugglers, dancers
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 7: and acrobats poured into the center of the hollow square,
• 1:59:32
  Speaker 7: frantically juggling, dancing, and back flipping. Black clad servants swarm
• 1:59:38
  Speaker 7: suddenly heaping mounds of fragrant food on the plates of
• 1:59:42
  Speaker 7: Yill and terrestrials alike, pouring a pale purple liquor into
• 1:59:46
  Speaker 7: slender glasses. Ratif sampled the ill food. It was delicious.
• 1:59:52
  Speaker 7: Conversation was impossible in the din. He watched the gaudy
• 1:59:56
  Speaker 7: display and ate heartily. Part three. Retiff leaned back, grateful
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 7: for the lull and the music. The last of the
• 2:00:04
  Speaker 7: dishes were whisked away and more glasses filled. The exhausted
• 2:00:08
  Speaker 7: entertainers stopped to pick up the thick square coins. The
• 2:00:11
  Speaker 7: diners threw. Retif sighed it had been a rare feast. Retif,
• 2:00:18
  Speaker 7: Magnan said, in the comparative quiet, what were you saying
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 7: about dog food? As the music came up, Ratif looked
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 7: at him. Haven't you noticed a pattern, mister Magnan, the
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 7: series of deliberate affronts. Deliberate at front's just a minute, Retief.
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 7: They're uncouth, yes, crowding into doorways and that sort of thing.
• 2:00:39
  Speaker 7: He looked at Retiff uncertainly. They herded us into a
• 2:00:44
  Speaker 7: baggage warehouse at the terminal. They hold us here in
• 2:00:47
  Speaker 7: a garbage truck. Garbage truck only symbolic, of course. They
• 2:00:53
  Speaker 7: ushered us in the tradesman's entrance and assigned us cubicles
• 2:00:57
  Speaker 7: in the servants wing. Then we were seated with the
• 2:01:00
  Speaker 7: cooly class sweepers at the bottom of the table. You
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 7: must be I mean, we're the terrestrial delegation. Surely these
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 7: yiel must realize our power precisely, mister Magnan. But with
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 7: a clang of symbols, the musicians launched a renewed assault.
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 7: Six tall helmeted yells, sprang into the center of the floor,
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 7: and pared off in a wild performance. Half dance half combat.
• 2:01:27
  Speaker 7: Magnan pulled at Ratif's arm, his mouth moving. Ratief shook
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 7: his head. No one could talk against a yull orchestra
• 2:01:35
  Speaker 7: in full cry. He sampled a bright red wine and
• 2:01:39
  Speaker 7: watched the show. There was a flurry of action, and
• 2:01:42
  Speaker 7: two of the dancers stumbled and collapsed, their partner opponents
• 2:01:46
  Speaker 7: whirling away off to pair off again, described the elaborate
• 2:01:50
  Speaker 7: pre combat ritual and abruptly set to dulled sabers clashing,
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 7: and two more yel were down stunned. It was a
• 2:01:58
  Speaker 7: violent dance. Tieth watched the drink forgotten. The last two
• 2:02:03
  Speaker 7: yull approached and retreated, whirled, bobbed and spun fainted and postured,
• 2:02:09
  Speaker 7: and on the instant clashed, straining chest to chest, then
• 2:02:13
  Speaker 7: broke apart, heavy weapons, chopping, parrying. As the music mounted
• 2:02:17
  Speaker 7: to a frenzy evenly matched. The two hacked, thrust blow
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 7: for blow across the floor, then back defense forgotten, slugging
• 2:02:26
  Speaker 7: it out, and then one was slipping, going down helmet awry,
• 2:02:32
  Speaker 7: the other a giant, muscular yell spun away, whirled in
• 2:02:36
  Speaker 7: a mad skirl of pipes as coins showered and then
• 2:02:39
  Speaker 7: froze before a gaudy table, raised the saber and slammed
• 2:02:43
  Speaker 7: it down in a resounding blow across the gay cloth
• 2:02:46
  Speaker 7: before a lace of bow bedecked yell. In the same
• 2:02:50
  Speaker 7: instant that the music stopped in utter silence. The dancer
• 2:02:55
  Speaker 7: fighter stared across the table at the seated yell with
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 7: a shout. The yull leaped up, raised a clenched fist.
• 2:03:03
  Speaker 7: The dancer bowed his head, spread his hands on his helmet.
• 2:03:07
  Speaker 7: Ratif took a deep gulp of pale yellow liqueur and
• 2:03:11
  Speaker 7: leaned forward to watch the beribboned yell, waved a hand negligently,
• 2:03:16
  Speaker 7: spilled a handful of coins across the table, and sat down.
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 7: The challenger spun away in a screeching shrill of music.
• 2:03:25
  Speaker 7: Ratif caught his eye for an instant as he passed,
• 2:03:28
  Speaker 7: and then the dancer stood rigid before the brocaded table,
• 2:03:32
  Speaker 7: and the music stopped off short as the saber slammed
• 2:03:35
  Speaker 7: down before a heavy yull in ornate metallic coils. The
• 2:03:40
  Speaker 7: challenged yull rose and raised a fist. The other ducked
• 2:03:44
  Speaker 7: his head, put his hands on his helmet, coins rolled,
• 2:03:47
  Speaker 7: and the dancer moved on. Twice more, the dancer struck
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 7: the table in a ritualistic challenge, exchanged gestures, bent his
• 2:03:57
  Speaker 7: neck and passed on. He circled the rod floor, saber
• 2:04:01
  Speaker 7: twirling arms darting in an intricate symbolism. The orchestra blared shrilly,
• 2:04:07
  Speaker 7: unmuffled now by the surf roar of conversation. The yell,
• 2:04:11
  Speaker 7: Ratif noticed, suddenly were sitting silent watching. The dancer was
• 2:04:16
  Speaker 7: closer now, and then he was before Retif poised towering
• 2:04:21
  Speaker 7: saber above his head. The music cut, and in the
• 2:04:25
  Speaker 7: startling instantaneous silence, the heavy saber whipped over and down
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 7: with an explosive concussion that set dishes dancing on the
• 2:04:33
  Speaker 7: table top. The Yiel's eyes held on Ratif's. In the silence,
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 7: Magnan tittered drunkenly. Ratif pushed back his stool. Steady, my boy,
• 2:04:44
  Speaker 7: Ambassador Spradley called, Ratif stood the yell, topping his six
• 2:04:49
  Speaker 7: foot three by an inch. In a motion almost too
• 2:04:52
  Speaker 7: quick to follow, Ratif reached for the saber, twitched it
• 2:04:56
  Speaker 7: from the yul's grip, swung it in a whistling cut.
• 2:04:59
  Speaker 7: The a yell ducked sprang back, snatched up a saber
• 2:05:03
  Speaker 7: dropped by another dancer. Someone stopped a madman. Spradley howled.
• 2:05:10
  Speaker 7: Ratiff leaped across the table, sending fragile dishes spinning. The
• 2:05:15
  Speaker 7: other danced back, and only then did the orchestra spring
• 2:05:18
  Speaker 7: to life with a screech and a mad tattoo of
• 2:05:21
  Speaker 7: high pitched drums. Making no attempt to follow the weaving
• 2:05:25
  Speaker 7: pattern of the yell Ballero, Ratif pressed the other, fending
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 7: off vicious cuts with the blunt weapon. Chopping back relentlessly,
• 2:05:33
  Speaker 7: left hand on hip, Ratif matched blow for blow, driving
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 7: the other back abruptly. The yell abandoned the double roll,
• 2:05:42
  Speaker 7: dancing forgotten. He settled down in earnest cutting, thrusting, parrying,
• 2:05:47
  Speaker 7: and now the two stood toe to toe, sabers clashing
• 2:05:50
  Speaker 7: in a lightning exchange. The yell gave a step two,
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 7: then rallied, drove Retief back back, and they ill stumbled.
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 7: His saber clattered, and Retief dropped his point as the
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 7: other wavered past him and crashed to the floor. The
• 2:06:08
  Speaker 7: orchestra fell silent in a descending wail of reeds. Ratif
• 2:06:13
  Speaker 7: drew a deep breath and wiped his forehead. Come back here,
• 2:06:17
  Speaker 7: you young fool, Spradley called hoarsely. Ratif hefted the saber,
• 2:06:23
  Speaker 7: turned eyed the brocade draped table. He started across the floor.
• 2:06:28
  Speaker 7: The yell sat as If paralyzed Ratif. No Spradley yelped.
• 2:06:36
  Speaker 7: Ratief walked directly to the Admirable Fa Cow Cow Cow stopped,
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 7: raised the saber. Not the chief of State. Someone in
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 7: the terrestrial mission groaned. Retief whipped the saber down the
• 2:06:49
  Speaker 7: dull blades, split the cloth and cloved the hardwood table.
• 2:06:53
  Speaker 7: There was utter silence. The Admirable for Cow cow Cow
• 2:06:57
  Speaker 7: rose seven feet of a beast's gray yell, broad face
• 2:07:02
  Speaker 7: expressionless to any terran eyes. He raised a fist like
• 2:07:06
  Speaker 7: a jewel studded ham. Ratif stood brigid for a long moment,
• 2:07:12
  Speaker 7: then gracefully he inclined his head, placed his fingertips on
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 7: his temples. Behind him. There was a clatter as Ambassador
• 2:07:20
  Speaker 7: Spradley collapsed. Then the Admirable the cow cow Cow cried
• 2:07:26
  Speaker 7: out and reached across the table to embrace the terrestrial
• 2:07:29
  Speaker 7: and the orchestra went mad. Gray hands helped Ratif across
• 2:07:34
  Speaker 7: the table. Stools were pushed aside to make room at
• 2:07:37
  Speaker 7: the cow cow Cow's side. Ratif sat took a tall
• 2:07:41
  Speaker 7: flagon of coal black brandy pressed on him by his neighbor,
• 2:07:45
  Speaker 7: clashed glasses with the Admirable and drank part four. Ratief
• 2:07:52
  Speaker 7: turned at the touch on his shoulder. The ambassador wonts
• 2:07:56
  Speaker 7: to speak to you, Ratif, Magnan said. Ratif looked crossed
• 2:08:00
  Speaker 7: where Ambassador Spradley sat glowering behind a plain tablecloth. Under
• 2:08:05
  Speaker 7: the circumstances, Ratief said, you'd better ask him to come
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 7: over here. Ambassador Magnin's voice cracked. Never mind a protocol,
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 7: Ratief said, the situation is still delicate. Magnin went away.
• 2:08:21
  Speaker 7: The feast ends for cow cow Cow said, now you
• 2:08:25
  Speaker 7: and I, Ratif must straddle the council's stool. I'll be honored,
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 7: Admirable Ratief said, I must inform my colleagues. Colleagues for
• 2:08:37
  Speaker 7: cow cow Cow said it is for chiefs to parley,
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 7: who shall speak for a king while he yet has
• 2:08:45
  Speaker 7: tongue for talk. The Yale weigh is wise, Ratief said.
• 2:08:51
  Speaker 7: The cow cow Cow emptied a squat tumbler of pink beer.
• 2:08:55
  Speaker 7: I will treat with you, Raetif, as viceroy as you say.
• 2:09:01
  Speaker 7: Your king is old, and the space between worlds is far,
• 2:09:05
  Speaker 7: but there shall be no scheming underlings privy to our dealings.
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 7: He grinned a yell grin. Afterwards we shall carouse, Ratief.
• 2:09:17
  Speaker 7: The council's stool is hard and awaiting handmaidens delectable. This
• 2:09:22
  Speaker 7: makes for quick agreement, Ratief smiled. The king is wise,
• 2:09:28
  Speaker 7: of course, a being prefers wenches of his own kind.
• 2:09:33
  Speaker 7: The caw caw cow, said, he belched. The Ministry of
• 2:09:38
  Speaker 7: Culture has imported several terry excuse me, Ratief, terrestrial joy
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 7: girls said to be top notch specimens. At least they
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 7: have very fat what you may call its. The King
• 2:09:52
  Speaker 7: is most considerate, Ratief said, let us to it, then,
• 2:09:57
  Speaker 7: Ratif I'm a hazard of ling, went one of your
• 2:10:01
  Speaker 7: terry's myself, I fancy an occasional perversion for cow Cow
• 2:10:07
  Speaker 7: Cow dug an elbow into Ratief's side and bellowed with laughter.
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 7: Ambassador Spradley hurried to intercept Ratief as he crossed to
• 2:10:15
  Speaker 7: the door at for cow cow Cow's side. Rachief, kindly,
• 2:10:20
  Speaker 7: excuse yourself. I wish a word with you. His voice
• 2:10:24
  Speaker 7: was icy. Magnan stood behind him, goggling, mister ambassador, forgive
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 7: my apparent rudeness, Ratief said, I don't have time to
• 2:10:34
  Speaker 7: explain now rudeness. Spradley barked, don't have time, eh, let
• 2:10:40
  Speaker 7: me tell you lower your voice, mister ambassador, Ratief said.
• 2:10:45
  Speaker 7: Spradley quivered, mouth open, speechless. If you sit down and
• 2:10:50
  Speaker 7: wait quietly, Ratief said, I think you think. Spradley spluttered silence,
• 2:10:58
  Speaker 7: Retief said. Spradley looked up at Ratief's face. He stared
• 2:11:02
  Speaker 7: for a moment into Ratiff's gray eyes, closed his mouth
• 2:11:05
  Speaker 7: and swallowed the yields. Seem to have gotten the impression.
• 2:11:09
  Speaker 7: I'm in charge, Ratief said, we'll have to keep it up.
• 2:11:13
  Speaker 7: But but Spradley stuttered. Then he straightened. That is the
• 2:11:18
  Speaker 7: last straw, he whispered hoarsely. I am the Terrestrial Ambassador
• 2:11:23
  Speaker 7: Extraordinary and Minister Planet Potentiary. Magnan has told me that
• 2:11:28
  Speaker 7: we've been studiedly, insulted, repeatedly since the moment of our arrival,
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 7: kept waiting in baggage rooms, transported in refuse lories, heard
• 2:11:37
  Speaker 7: it about with servants offered swill at the table. Now,
• 2:11:42
  Speaker 7: I am my senior staff are left cooling our heels
• 2:11:45
  Speaker 7: without so much as an audience, while this multiple cowperson
• 2:11:50
  Speaker 7: hobnobs with with Spradley's voice broke. I may have been
• 2:11:56
  Speaker 7: a trifle hasty, Ratief, in attempting to restrain you. Bla
• 2:12:00
  Speaker 7: the native gods and dump in the banquet table are
• 2:12:02
  Speaker 7: rather extreme measures, but your resentment was perhaps partially justified.
• 2:12:08
  Speaker 7: I am prepared to be lenient with you. He fixed
• 2:12:11
  Speaker 7: a choleric eye on Ratif. I am walking out of
• 2:12:15
  Speaker 7: this meeting, mister Ratif. I'll take no more of these
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 7: deliberate personal That's enough, Ratief snapped. You're keeping the king waiting.
• 2:12:24
  Speaker 7: Get back to your chair and sit there until I
• 2:12:27
  Speaker 7: come back. Magnon found his voice. What are you going
• 2:12:31
  Speaker 7: to do, Ratif, I'm going to handle the negotiations, Ratief said.
• 2:12:37
  Speaker 7: He handed Magnan his empty glass. Now go sit down
• 2:12:41
  Speaker 7: and work on the image at his desk in the
• 2:12:46
  Speaker 7: VIP suite aboard the orbiting Corps vessel. Ambassador Spradley pursed
• 2:12:51
  Speaker 7: his lips and looked severely at Vice Consul Ratif. Further,
• 2:12:56
  Speaker 7: he said, you have displayed a complete lack of understanding
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 7: of core discipline, the respect do a senior agent, and
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 7: even the basic courtesies. Your aggravated displays of temper ill
• 2:13:08
  Speaker 7: timed outbursts of violence and almost incredible arrogance in the
• 2:13:12
  Speaker 7: assumption of authority make your further retention as an officer
• 2:13:16
  Speaker 7: agent of the Diplomatic Core impossible. It will therefore be
• 2:13:20
  Speaker 7: my unhappy duty to recommend your immediate There is a
• 2:13:25
  Speaker 7: muted buzz from the communicator. The ambassador cleared his throat
• 2:13:29
  Speaker 7: well a signal from Sector HQ. Mister Ambassador, A voice said,
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 7: well read it. S Bradley snapped, skip the preliminaries. Congratulations
• 2:13:42
  Speaker 7: on the unprecedented success of your mission. The articles of
• 2:13:45
  Speaker 7: agreement transmitted by you embody a most favorable resolution of
• 2:13:49
  Speaker 7: the difficult Sirhenian situation, and you will form the basis
• 2:13:53
  Speaker 7: of continued amicable relations between the terrestrial states and the
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 7: Ill Empire. To you and your staff, full credit is
• 2:14:01
  Speaker 7: due for a job well done, signed Deputy Assistant Secretary,
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 7: Spradley cut off the voice impatiently. He shuffled papers, eyed
• 2:14:10
  Speaker 7: ratif sharply. Superficially. Of course, an uninitiated observer might leap
• 2:14:16
  Speaker 7: to the conclusion that the results that were produced in
• 2:14:20
  Speaker 7: spite of these irregularities justify the latter. The ambassadors smiled
• 2:14:26
  Speaker 7: a sad wise smile. This is far from the case,
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 7: he said. I the communicator burped softly. Confound it, Spradley muttered, Yes,
• 2:14:38
  Speaker 7: mister Takai Kai has arrived. The voice said, shall I
• 2:14:42
  Speaker 7: send him in at once? Spradley glanced at Ratif only
• 2:14:46
  Speaker 7: a two syllable men. But I shall attempt to correct
• 2:14:49
  Speaker 7: these false impressions and make some amends. The two terrestrials
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 7: waited silently until the ill protocol chief tapped at the door.
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 7: I hope, the ambassador said that you will resist the
• 2:15:03
  Speaker 7: impulse to take advantage of your unusual position. He looked
• 2:15:07
  Speaker 7: at the door. Come in to Kai. Kai stepped into
• 2:15:11
  Speaker 7: the room, glanced at Spradley, turned to greet Ratif in
• 2:15:15
  Speaker 7: voluble yell. He rounded the desk to the ambassador's chair,
• 2:15:20
  Speaker 7: motioned him from it, and sat down. I have a
• 2:15:24
  Speaker 7: surprise for you, Ratif, he said in Tarin, I myself
• 2:15:29
  Speaker 7: have made use of the teaching machine you so kindly
• 2:15:32
  Speaker 7: lent us. That's fine. To Kai Kai, Ratif said, I'm
• 2:15:38
  Speaker 7: sure mister Spradley will be interested in hearing what we
• 2:15:41
  Speaker 7: have to say. Never mind, the yul said, I am
• 2:15:46
  Speaker 7: here only socially. He looked round the room so plainly
• 2:15:51
  Speaker 7: you decorate your chamber, but it has a certain austere charm.
• 2:15:58
  Speaker 7: He laughed a yell, laugh, Oh, you are as strange breed,
• 2:16:03
  Speaker 7: you terrestrials. You surprised us. All you know, one hears
• 2:16:08
  Speaker 7: such outlandish stories. I tell you in confidence, we had
• 2:16:13
  Speaker 7: expected you to be over pushes, pushovers, Spradley said, tonelessly,
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 7: such restraint. What pleasure you gave to those of us
• 2:16:25
  Speaker 7: like myself, of course, who appreciated your grasp of protocol,
• 2:16:30
  Speaker 7: such finesse, How subtly you appeared to ignore each overture,
• 2:16:36
  Speaker 7: while neatly avoiding actual contamination. I can tell you there
• 2:16:42
  Speaker 7: were those who thought, poor fools, that you had no
• 2:16:46
  Speaker 7: grasp of etiquette. How gratified we were, we professionals who
• 2:16:52
  Speaker 7: could appreciate your virtuosity. When you placed matters on a
• 2:16:56
  Speaker 7: comfortable basis by spurning the cat's meat, it was sheer pleasure.
• 2:17:02
  Speaker 7: Then waiting to see what form your compliment would take,
• 2:17:07
  Speaker 7: the yell offered orange cigars and stuffed one in his nostril.
• 2:17:13
  Speaker 7: I confess even I had not hoped that you would
• 2:17:17
  Speaker 7: honor our admirable so signally. Oh, it is a pleasure
• 2:17:22
  Speaker 7: to deal with fellow professionals who understand the meaning of protocol.
• 2:17:28
  Speaker 7: Ambassador Spradley made a choking sound. This fellow has caught
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 7: a chill. To Kai Kai said, He eyed Spradly dubiously.
• 2:17:39
  Speaker 7: Step back, my man, I am highly susceptible. There is
• 2:17:44
  Speaker 7: one bit of business I shall take pleasure in attending
• 2:17:47
  Speaker 7: to my dear Ratif to Kai Kai went on. He
• 2:17:51
  Speaker 7: drew a large paper from his reticule. The Admirable is
• 2:17:55
  Speaker 7: determined that none other than yourself shall be accredited here.
• 2:18:00
  Speaker 7: I have here my government's executor confirming you as terrestrial
• 2:18:05
  Speaker 7: Consul General to Yil. We shall look forward to your
• 2:18:09
  Speaker 7: prompt return. Ratif looked at Spradly. I'm sure the Korps
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 7: will agree, he said. Then I shall be going to
• 2:18:18
  Speaker 7: Kai Kai said. He stood up. Hurry back to us.
• 2:18:22
  Speaker 7: Ratif there is much that I would show you of Yil,
• 2:18:26
  Speaker 7: I'll hurry, Ratief said, and with a yell wink together
• 2:18:32
  Speaker 7: we shall see many high and splendid things. End of
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 7: the Yilian Way by Keith Lomer, recording by John Larmer