PukeOnABook

FOR DOROTHY AND CLARE. Formatted from a scan. TOMORROW, THE STARS A Berkley Book / published by arrangement with Doubleday & Company, Inc. Printing History Doubleday edition published 1952 Berkley edition / June 1967 Sixteenth printing / September 1981 All rights reserved. Copyright (c) 1952 by Doubleday and Company, Inc. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission. For information address: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 245 Park Avenue, New York, New York 10017. ISBN: 0-425-05357-1 A BERKLEY BOOK TM 757,375 Berkley Books are published by Berkley Publishing Corporation, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016. Printed in the United States of America Contents: I'M SCARED. By Jack Finney. THE SILLY SEASON. By C. M. KORNBLUTH. THE REPORT ON THE BARNHOUSE EFFECT. By KURT VONNEGUT, JUNIOR. THE TOURIST TRADE. By Bob TUCKER. RAINMAKER. By JOHN REESE. ABSALOM. BY HENRY KUTTNER. THE MONSTER. By LESTER DEL REY. JAY SCORE. By Eric Frank Russell. BETELGEUSE BRIDGE. By William TENN. SURVIVAL SHIP. By Judith Merril. KEYHOLE. By Murray Leinster. MISBEGOTTEN MISSIONARY. By Isaac Asimov. THE SACK. By William Morrison. POOR SUPERMAN. By Fritz Leiber. PREFACE. The first science-fiction anthology merited a reader's examination as something new; the nineteenth (or fiftieth; the number changes rapidly) cannot plead that justification and needs a reason for being other than the well-known hunger of writers, editors, and publishers. The purpose of this book is to give you pleasure. The stories have been selected to entertain, and within the very broad category of "speculative fiction," no other criterion has been used. Our intention has been to bring together good stories, ones which give pleasure on rereading and which have not previously been available in book form. These stories may possibly instruct, mystify, elevate, or inspire; if so, consider such to be bonuses not covered by the purchase price; our single motive is to entertain you. Science fiction has only recently become popular and is not yet fully respectable. Until the end of World War Two it was, in the opinion of most critics, by definition "trash" and so convicted without a hearing. The scientific marvels of World War Two, radar, atom bombs, giant rockets, and the rather spectacular success of science-fiction writers in predicting these things combined to cause a widespread postwar interest in speculative fiction, stories about the future, which in time forced the professional critics to notice this stepchild of literature. And yet one may pause to wonder why the stepchild was so completely ignored before the war. Quite aside from the pulp specialty magazines, many worthwhile, deeply thoughtful novels of this genre were available to the critics before World War Two, for example, S. Fowler Wright's monumental The World Below, or Olaf Stapledon's philosophical novels of the future of our race. And many of the standard literary lions had ventured at least one science fiction novel. Why should so much of J. B. Priestley's reputation rest on Angel Pavement while The Doomsday Men is almost unheard of? Why was there a rage for The Green Hat while Michael Arlen's Man's Mortality made hardly a ripple? The four authors cited cannot possibly be accused of being semiliterate hacks suited only to publication on pulpwood paper and catering to that portion of the public which moves its lips while reading. Why were their serious works in speculative fiction ignored? I'll chance a guess. The story about the future never has fitted comfortably into the implicitly defined limits of serious literature. In the prose field, literature, in the stuffy and respectable sense usually meant either the historical novel or certain rather pedestrian types of the contemporary novel. One gathers the impression that it helps for the author to be dead or to have had the good judgment to write his story first in a language less well known than English, but these are not indispensable requirements. Rather ponderous length seems to be part of the unspoken definition, extensive research should be either self-evident or claimed, and dialogue is usually sparse and not too sprightly. A clearly stated regional scene is a help too, especially if it is back country. Such a novel the literary critic can take in his stride, read in one evening, and compose his review while shaving. It either does or does not come up to his standards and he knows why. Either way, it is an accepted type and a serious piece of work. Science fiction does not fit into this frame; it's a much more exotic art. The critic may find himself shying away from this literary freak. He can judge quickly whether or not it is grammatical and readable, but what about the content? A man who has applied himself seriously to the field of English literature may not have had time to be well-read in geology, nuclear physics, rocket engineering, astrophysics, genetics, cosmogony, cybernetics, chemistry, biophysics, and electronics. Can he afford to recommend this item as a serious and worthwhile work? Does the author know what he is talking about, or is the rude fellow pulling one's leg? Perhaps his "science" is of the Sunday-supplement variety, in which case one would not wish to recommend it. But how is one to know? The dilemma is quite real, for there are many stories around which bear the same close superficial resemblance to honest science fiction that a lead quarter does to a product of the Denver mint. The critic is hardly to be blamed if he chooses to pass up extravagant stories of the future in favor of the tried and true. Science fiction is even less prepared to compete for attention in the most modern of the ultra-literary school. Science-fiction heroes are almost always likable, rarely psychotic, the mad scientist has had his day, and they almost never fall in love with their sisters or their fathers' wives or mistresses. The writers of science fiction without exception favor clear, lucid, grammatical sentences; I do not guarantee against an occasional split infinitive, but they never write in a Joycean or neo-Freudian mishmash. As you can see, the fiction of the future is much too old-fashioned to win even a passing nod from the avant-garde school critics. Perhaps it is just as well. Let me add that the skilled practitioners, no other sort are represented in this volume, have learned not to lard their stories with obscure and polysyllabic technical terms and have learned how to define in context such few special terms as may be indispensable to following the story. They have even given up the long-cherished practice of assigning to natives of other planets names consisting mainly of throat-rasping gutturals. I must admit that sparsely dressed and exceedingly nubile young ladies still appear on the covers of some of the specialist magazines, but they are rarely to be found now in the stories inside those same magazines; their persistence on the covers is simply a part of the same phenomenon to be found in cigarette, automobile, and deodorant ads. Literature or not, science fiction is here to stay; it will not be crowded out even by the new Plunging-Neckline school of the historical novel, nor by the four-letter-word school of the contemporary novel. Youths who build hot-rods are not dismayed by spaceships; in their adult years they will build such ships. In the meantime they will read stories of interplanetary travel, and they are being joined by their entire families. The future rushes at us apace, faster than sound, approaching the speed of light; the healthy-minded are aware of our headlong plunge into a strange and different, possibly terrifying, future and see nothing improper in speculating about the shape of tomorrow. Science fiction is sometimes miscalled "escape literature," a mistake arising from a profound misconception of its nature and caused by identifying it with fantasy. Science fiction and fantasy are as different as Karl Marx and Groucho Marx. Fantasy is constructed either by denying the real world in toto or at least by making a prime basis of the story one or more admittedly false premise, fairies, talking mules, trips through a looking glass, vampires, seacoast Bohemia, Mickey Mouse. But science fiction, no matter how fantastic its content may seem, always accepts all of the real world and the entire body of human knowledge about the real world as the framework for the fictional speculation. Since the field of human knowledge concerning the real world, its natural laws, events, and phenomena, is much too large for any one brain, every science-fiction author is bound to make some slips, but here it is the intention that counts: the author's purpose is not to escape from reality but to explore seriously the complex and amazing manifold of possibilities which lie unrevealed in the future of our race, to explore them in the light of what we do know now. If such is escape literature, then so is an insurance policy. There is only one story here. “I'm Scared," by Jack Finney, which could possibly be called "escape literature", but it provides no escape for the reader. Better skip it. All of the stories herein are honest science fiction, but there is another type of story masquerading as science fiction which circulates like the lead quarters mentioned earlier. Call it "pseudo-scientific fantasy." The writers thereof are either too ignorant or too careless to do the painstaking work required to produce honest speculation. Much of it gets printed, unfortunately, since all editors cannot be expected to be erudite in all fields of knowledge. Nor do you find it only in the pulp magazines with the pretty bare-skinned ladies and the bugeyed monsters on the covers; it is as likely to pop up in the most respected slick-paper magazines or between the boards of dignified tradebook houses. Such stories may be rife with spaceships, ray guns, and mutant monsters, but they are marked by a crude disregard for established fact. However, knowledge of the world about us and of the scientific facts which describe its functioning is rather widespread these days; the effect of such barbarisms on the reader who does happen to know that the facts are being manhandled is much like that which would arise from the reading of a "historical" novel which asserted that Henry the eighth was the son of Queen Elizabeth, or a war story in which the writer was under the impression that corporals were senior to master sergeants. It is to be hoped that, as the public increases in sophistication in these matters, such writers will find it necessary to go back to working for a living. In the meantime, such slips as you may find in this book are the honest mistakes of honest workmen; I think I can vouch that such errors as exist do not invalidate the stories in which they appear. Science fiction is not fantasy, but it can certainly be fantastic, and be assured that the more fantastic it is, the more wild, the more extravagant it sounds, it is that much more likely to be a reasonably correct extrapolation of what our real future will be. Regard the difference between the 1900 horse-and-buggy and the 1950 faster-than-sound plane. Our fictional prophecies almost certainly err on the side of conservatism. In this book you will find stories of space travel (of course!), a gambol in the fourth dimension, telekinesis, robots, intelligent plants, strange nonhuman creatures from the other side of the galaxy, and invasions from Mars. The Wonderful Land of Oz has not more to offer, and none of it is fantasy. Did I hear someone describe robots as fantasy? I myself find humanoid robots hard to believe in, but who am I to set my prejudices against the facts? I put it to you that a B-36 in flight is a fair example of a robot activated by a controlling human brain. I submit further that it is a longer step from the covered wagon to the B36 than it is from present cybernetic machines to Doctor Asimov's "positronic robots." But can a machine have consciousness, life, volition? We don't know, because we do not as yet know what any of those things are. Meanwhile, robotics is a legitimate field for speculation. Time travel? We don't understand the nature of time; it is much too early to say that time travel is impossible. Telekinesis? Refer to the abstruse reports pouring out of Duke University and elsewhere, then resolve never again to bet on dice. The control of mass by the human mind is as factually established as yesterday's sunrise. Tomorrow's sunrise is, of course, only a high probability. For the impact that telekinesis may have on your grandchildren, or on you, see "The Barnhouse Effect" herewith. Space travel? Go down to White Sands, watch them throw one of the big ones away, and be convinced. Space travel is about to move from speculative fiction to contemporary fiction and news story, and some of us are a wee bit wistful about it. How can we dream up wonderful new Martians when the National Geographic starts running photographs of real ones? One story is included here almost as a period piece. “Rainmaker." When first published shortly after World War Two this piece was science fiction; now the commercial trade of rainmaking has reached the point where lawsuits dealing with it clutter the courts. Technology has overtaken prophecy. But a good story is not ruined thereby; "Rainmaker" is still fun to read. Besides, it is clinching demonstration of the vast difference between pseudo-scientific fantasy and the real article. But it is the fact that "Rainmaker" was and remains a pleasure to read that controlled its inclusion here; we the editors are strongly convinced that science-fiction pieces should be stories, warm and human, not thinly disguised engineering reports. On that note this essay will close in order that you may get on with the real purpose of this book, the reading of stories about people who might be your grandchildren, facing new problems in this wildly fantastic universe. Each story has been read and reread by each of five editors, and enjoyed each time; we expect that you will enjoy them too. My thanks to the other four, Truman Talley, Judith Merril, Fred Pohl, and Walter Bradbury. ROBERT “A.” HEINLEIN. Colorado Springs. I'M SCARED. By Jack Finney. I'm very badly scared, not so much for myself, I'm a gray-haired man of sixty-six, after all, but for you and everyone else who has not yet lived out his life. For I believe that certain dangerous things have recently begun to happen in the world. They are noticed here and there, idly discussed, then dismissed and forgotten. Yet I am convinced that unless these occurrences are recognized for what they are, the world will be plunged into a nightmare. Judge for yourself. One evening last winter I came home from a chess club to which I belong. I'm a widower; I live alone in a small but comfortable three-room apartment overlooking Fifth Avenue. It was still fairly early, and I switched on a lamp beside my leather easy chair, picked up a murder mystery I'd been reading, and turned on the radio; I did not, I'm sorry to say, notice which station it was tuned to. The tubes warmed, and the music of an accordion, faint at first, then louder, came from the loud-speaker. Since it was good music for reading, I adjusted the volume control and began to read. Now I want to be absolutely factual and accurate about this, and I do not claim that I paid close attention to the radio. But I do know that presently the music stopped and an audience applauded. Then a man's voice, chuckling and pleased with the applause, said. ”All right, all right," but the applause continued for several more seconds. During that time the voice once more chuckled appreciatively, then firmly repeated. ”All right," and the applause died down. "That was Alec Somebody-or-other," the radio voice said, and I went back to my book. But I soon became aware of this middle-aged voice again; perhaps a change of tone as he turned to a new subject caught my attention. "And now, Miss Ruth Greeley," he was saying. ”of Trenton, New Jersey. Miss Greeley is a pianist; that right?" A girl's voice, timid and barely audible, said. ”That's right, Major Bowes." The man's voice, and now I recognized his familiar singsong delivery, said. ”And what are you going to play?" The girl replied. “La Paloma.” The man repeated it after her, as an announcement: "'La Paloma.'" There was a pause, then an introductory chord sounded from a piano, and I resumed my reading. As the girl played, I was half aware that her style was mechanical, her rhythm defective; perhaps she was nervous. Then my attention was fully aroused once more by a gong which sounded suddenly. For a few notes more the girl continued to play falteringly, not sure what to do. The gong sounded jarringly again, the playing abruptly stopped and there was a restless murmur from the audience. "All right, all right," said the familiar voice, and I realized I'd been expecting this, knowing it would say just that. The audience quieted, and the voice began. ”Now.” The radio went dead. For the smallest fraction of a second no sound issued from it but its own mechanical hum. Then a completely different program came from the loudspeaker; the recorded voices of Bing Crosby and his son were singing the concluding bars of "Sam's Song," a favorite of mine. So I returned once more to my reading, wondering vaguely what had happened to the other program, but not actually thinking about it until I finished my book and began to get ready for bed. Then, undressing in my bedroom, I remembered that Major Bowes was dead. Years had passed, half a decade, since that dry chuckle and familiar. ”All right, all right," had been heard in the nation's living rooms. Well, what does one do when the apparently impossible occurs? It simply made a good story to tell friends, and more than once I was asked if I'd recently heard Moran and Mack, a pair of radio comedians popular some twenty-five years ago, or Floyd Gibbons, an old-time news broadcaster. And there were other joking references to my crystal radio set. But one man, this was at a lodge meeting the following Thursday, listened to my story with utter seriousness, and when I had finished he told me a queer little story of his own. He is a thoughtful, intelligent man, and as I listened I was not frightened, but puzzled at what seemed to be a connecting link, a common denominator, between this story and the odd behavior of my radio. Since I am retired and have plenty of time, I took the trouble, the following day, of making a two-hour train trip to Connecticut in order to verify the story firsthand. I took detailed notes, and the story appears in my files now as follows: Case 2. Louis Trachnor, coal and wood dealer, R F D 1, Danbury, Connecticut, aged fifty-four. On July 20, 1950, Mister Trachnor told me, he walked out on the front porch of his house about six o'clock in the morning. Running from the eaves of his house to the floor of the porch was a streak of gray paint, still damp. "It was about the width of an eight-inch brush," Mister Trachnor told me, ”and it looked like hell, because the house was white. I figured some kids did it in the night for a joke, but if they did, they had to get a ladder up to the eaves and you wouldn't figure they'd go to that much trouble. It wasn't smeared, either; it was a careful job, a nice even stripe straight down the front of the house." Mister Trachnor got a ladder and cleaned off the gray paint with turpentine. In October of that same year Mister Trachnor painted his house. "The white hadn't held up so good, so I painted it gray. I got to the front last and finished about five one Saturday afternoon. Next morning when I came out I saw a streak of white right down the front of the house. I figured it was the damn kids again, because it was the same place as before. But when I looked close, I saw it wasn't new paint; it was the old white I'd painted over. Somebody had done a nice careful job of cleaning off the new paint in a long stripe about eight inches wide right down from the eaves! Now who the hell would go to that trouble? I just can't figure it out." Do you see the link between this story and mine? Suppose for a moment that something had happened, on each occasion, to disturb briefly the orderly progress of time. That seemed to have happened in my case; for a matter of some seconds I apparently heard a radio broadcast that had been made years before. Suppose, then, that no one had touched Mister Trachnor's house but himself; that he had painted his house in October, but that through some fantastic mix-up in time, a portion of that paint appeared on his house the previous summer. Since he had cleaned the paint off at that time, a broad strip of new gray paint was missing after he painted his house in the fall. I would be lying, however, if I said I really believed this. It was merely an intriguing speculation, and I told both these little stories to friends, simply as curious anecdotes. I am a sociable person, see a good many people, and occasionally I heard other odd stories in response to mine. Someone would nod and say,” Reminds me of something I heard recently.” and I would have one more to add to my collection. A man on Long Island received a telephone call from his sister in New York one Friday evening. She insists that she did not make this call until the following Monday, three days later. At the Forty-fifth Street branch of the Chase National Bank, I was shown a check deposited the day before it was written. A letter was delivered on East Sixty-eighth Street in New York City, just seventeen minutes after it was dropped into a mailbox on the main street of Green River, Wyoming. And so on, and so on; my stories were now in demand at parties, and I told myself that collecting and verifying them was a hobby. But the day I heard Julia Eisenberg's story, I knew it was no longer that. Case 17. Julia Eisenberg, office worker, New York City, aged thirty-one. Miss Eisenberg lives in a small walk-up apartment in Greenwich Village. I talked to her there after a chess-club friend who lives in her neighborhood had repeated to me a somewhat garbled version of her story, which was told to him by the doorman of the building he lives in. In October 1947, about eleven at night, Miss Eisenberg left her apartment to walk to the drugstore for toothpaste. On her way back, not far from her apartment, a large black-and-white dog ran up to her and put his front paws on her chest. "I made the mistake of petting him," Miss Eisenberg told me,” and from then on he simply wouldn't leave. When I went into the lobby of my building, I actually had to push him away to get the door closed. I felt sorry for him, poor hound, and a little guilty, because he was still sitting at the door an hour later when I looked out my front window." This dog remained in the neighborhood for three days, discovering and greeting Miss Eisenberg with wild affection each time she appeared on the street. "When I'd get on the bus in the morning to go to work, he'd sit on the curb looking after me in the most mournful way, poor thing. I wanted to take him in, but I knew he'd never go home then, and I was afraid whoever owned him would be sorry to lose him. No one in the neighborhood knew whom he belonged to, and finally he disappeared." Two years later a friend gave Miss Eisenberg a three-week-old puppy. "My apartment is really too small for a dog, but he was such a darling I couldn't resist. Well, he grew up into a nice big dog who ate more than I did." Since the neighborhood was quiet, and the dog well behaved, Miss Eisenberg usually unleashed him when she walked him at night, for he never strayed far. "One night, I'd last seen him sniffing around in the dark a few doors down, I called to him and he didn't come back. And he never did; I never saw him again. "Now our street is a solid wall of brownstone buildings on both sides, with locked doors and no areaways. He couldn't have disappeared like that, he just couldn't. But he did." Miss Eisenberg hunted for her dog for many days afterward, inquired of neighbors, put ads in the papers, but she never found him. "Then one night I was getting ready for bed; I happened to glance out the front window down at the street, and suddenly I remembered something I'd forgotten all about. I remembered the dog I'd chased away over two years before." Miss Eisenberg looked at me for a moment, then she said flatly. “It was the same dog. If you own a dog you know him, you can't be mistaken, and I tell you it was the same dog. Whether it makes sense or not, my dog was lost, I chased him away, two years before he was born." She began to cry silently, the tears running down her face. "Maybe you think I'm crazy, or a little lonely and overly sentimental about a dog. But you're wrong." She brushed at her tears with a handkerchief. "I'm a well-balanced person, as much as anyone is these days, at least, and I tell you I know what happened." It was at that moment, sitting in Miss Eisenberg's neat, shabby living room, that I realized fully that the consequences of these odd little incidents could be something more than merely intriguing; that they might, quite possibly, be tragic. It was in that moment that I began to be afraid. I have spent the last eleven months discovering and tracking down these strange occurrences, and I am astonished and frightened at how many there are. I am astonished and frightened at how much more frequently they are happening now, and, I hardly know how to express this, at their increasing power to tear human lives tragically apart. This is an example, selected almost at random, of the increasing strength of, whatever it is that is happening in the world. Case 34. Paul V. Kerch, accountant, the Bronx, aged thirty-one. On a bright clear Sunday afternoon, I met an unsmiling family of three at their Bronx apartment: Mister Kerch, a chunky, darkly good-looking young man; his wife, a pleasant-faced dark haired woman in her late twenties, whose attractiveness was marred by circles under her eyes; and their son, a nice-looking boy of six or seven. After introductions, the boy was sent to his room at the back of the house to play. "All right," Mister Kerch said wearily then, and walked toward a bookcase.” let's get at it. You said on the phone that you know the story in general." It was half a question, half a statement. "Yes," I said. He took a book from the top shelf and removed some photographs from it. "There are the pictures." He sat down on the davenport beside me, with the photographs in his hand. "I own a pretty good camera. I'm a fair amateur photographer, and I have a darkroom setup in the kitchen; do my own developing. Two weeks ago we went down to Central Park." His voice was a tired monotone, as though this was a story he'd repeated many times, aloud and in his own mind. "It was nice, like today, and the, kid's grandmothers have been pestering us for pictures, so I took a whole roll of film, pictures of all of us. My camera can be set up and focused and it will snap the picture automatically a few seconds later, giving me time to get around in front of it and get in the picture myself." There was a tired, hopeless look in his eyes as he handed me all but one of the photographs. "These are the first ones I took," he said. The photographs were all fairly large, perhaps seven by three and a half inches, and I examined them closely. They were ordinary enough, very sharp and detailed, and each showed the family of three in various smiling poses. Mister Kerch wore a light business suit, his wife had on a dark dress and a cloth coat, and the boy wore a dark suit with knee-length pants. In the background stood a tree with bare branches. I glanced up at Mister Kerch, signifying that I had finished my study of the photographs. "The last picture," he said, holding it in his hand ready to give to me.” I took exactly like the others. We agreed on the pose, I set the camera, walked around in front, and joined my family. Monday night I developed the whole roll. This is what came out on the last negative." He handed me the photograph. For an instant it seemed to me like merely one more photograph in the group; then I saw the difference. Mister Kerch looked much the same, bareheaded and grinning broadly, but he wore an entirely different suit. The boy, standing beside him, wore long pants, and a good three inches taller, obviously older, but equally obviously the same boy. The woman was an entirely different person. Dressed smartly, her light hair catching the sun, she was very pretty and attractive. She was smiling into the camera and holding Mister Kerch's hand. I looked up at him. "Who is this?" Wearily, Mister Kerch shook his head. "I don't know," he said suddenly, then exploded: "I don't know! I've never seen her in my life!" He turned to look at his wife, but she would not return his glance, and he turned back to me, shrugging. "Well, there you have it," he said. "The whole story." And he stood up, thrusting both hands into his trouser pockets, and began to pace about the room, glancing often at his wife, talking to her actually, though he addressed his words to me. "So who is she? How could the camera have snapped that picture? I've never seen that woman in my life!" I glanced at the photograph again, then bent closer. "The trees here are in full bloom," I said. Behind the solemn-faced boy, the grinning man and smiling woman, the trees of Central Park were in full summer leaf. Mister Kerch nodded. "I know," he said bitterly. "And you know what she says?" he burst out, glaring at his wife. "She says that is my wife in the photograph, my new wife a couple of years from now! God!" He snapped both hands down on his head. "The ideas a woman can get!" "What do you mean?" I glanced at Missus. Kerch, but she ignored me, remaining silent, her lips tight. Kerch shrugged hopelessly. "She says that photograph shows how things will be a couple of years from now. She'll be dead or", he hesitated, then said the word bitterly.” divorced, and I'll have our son and be married to the woman in the picture." We both looked at Missus. Kerch, waiting until she was obliged to speak. "Well, if it isn't so," she said, shrugging a shoulder.” then tell me what that picture does mean." Neither of us could answer that, and a few minutes later I left. There was nothing much I could say to the Kerches; certainly I couldn't mention my conviction that, whatever the explanation of the last photograph, their married life was over. Case 72. Lieutenant Alfred Eichler, New York Police Department, aged thirty-three. In the late evening of January 9, 1951, two policemen found a revolver lying just off a gravel path near an East Side entrance to Central Park. The gun was examined for fingerprints at the police laboratory and several were found. One bullet had been fired from the revolver and the police fired another which was studied and classified by a ballistics expert. The fingerprints were checked and found in police files; they were those of a minor hoodlum with a record of assault. A routine order to pick him up was sent out. A detective called at the rooming house where he was known to live, but he was out, and since no unsolved shootings had occurred recently, no intensive search for him was made that night. The following evening a man was shot and killed in Central Park with the same gun. This was proved ballistically past all question of error. It was soon learned that the murdered man had been quarreling with a friend in a nearby tavern. The two men, both drunk, had left the tavern together. And the second man was the hoodlum whose gun had been found the previous night, and which was still locked in a police safe. As Lieutenant Eichler said to me. “It's impossible that the dead man was killed with that same gun, but he was. Don't ask me how, though, and if anybody thinks we'd go into court with a case like that, they're crazy.” Case 111. Captain Hubert V Rihm, New York Police Department, retired, aged sixty-six. I met Captain Rihm by appointment one morning in Stuyvesant Park, a patch of greenery, wood benches, and asphalt surrounded by the city, on lower Second Avenue. "You want to hear about the Fentz case, do you?" he said, after we had introduced ourselves and found an empty bench. "All right, I'll tell you. I don't like to talk about it, it bothers me, but I'd like to see what you think." He was a big, rather heavy man, with a red, tough face, and he wore an old police jacket and uniform cap with the insignia removed. "I was up at City Mortuary," he began as I took out my notebook and pencil,” at Bellevue, about twelve one night, drinking coffee with one of the interns. This was in June of 1950, just before I retired, and I was in Missing Persons. They brought this guy in and he was a funny-looking character. Had a beard. A young guy, maybe thirty, but he wore regular mutton chop whiskers, and his clothes were funny-looking. Now I was thirty years on the force and I've seen a lot of queer guys killed on the streets. We found an Arab once, in full regalia, and it took us a week to find out who he was. So it wasn't just the way the guy looked that bothered me; it was the stuff we found in his pockets." Captain Rihm turned on the bench to see if he'd caught my interest, then continued. "There was about a dollar in change in the dead guy's pocket, and one of the boys picked up a nickel and showed it to me. Now you've seen plenty of nickels, the new ones with Jefferson's picture, the buffalo nickels they made before that, and once in a while you still even see the old Liberty-head nickels; they quit making them before the first world war. But this one was even older than that. It had a shield on the front, a United States shield, and a big five on the back; I used to see that kind when I was a boy. And the funny thing was, that old nickel looked new; what coin dealers call 'mint condition,' like it was made the day before yesterday. The date on that nickel was 1876, and there wasn't a coin in his pocket dated any later." Captain Rihm looked at me questioningly. "Well," I said glancing up from my notebook,” that could happen." "Sure it could," he answered in a satisfied tone,” but all the pennies he had were Indian-head pennies. Now when did you see one of them last? There was even a silver three-cent piece; looked like an old-style dime, only smaller. And the bills in his wallet, every one of them, were old-time bills, the big kind." Captain Rihm leaned forward and spat on the patch, a needle jet of tobacco juice and an expression of a policeman's annoyed contempt for anything deviating from an orderly norm. "Over seventy bucks in cash, and not a federal reserve note in the lot. There were two yellow-back tens. Remember them? They were payable in gold. The rest were old national-banknotes; you remember them too. Issued direct by local banks, personally signed by the bank president; that kind used to be counterfeited a lot. "Well," Captain Rihm continued, leaning back on the bench and crossing his knees.”there was a bill in his pocket from a livery stable on Lexington Avenue; three dollars for feeding and stabling his horse and washing a carriage. There was a brass slug in his pocket good for a five-cent beer at some saloon. There was a letter postmarked Philadelphia, June 1876, with an old-style two-cent stamp, and a bunch of cards in his wallet. The cards had his name and address on them, and so did the letter." "Oh," I said, a little surprised,” you identified him right away, then?" "Sure. Rudolph Fentz, some address on Fifth Avenue, I forget the exact number, in New York City. No problem at all." Captain Rihm leaned forward and spat again. "Only that address wasn't a residence. It's a store, and it has been for years, and nobody there ever heard of any Rudolph Fentz, and there's no such name in the phone book either. Nobody ever called or made any inquiries about the guy, and Washington didn't have his prints. There was a tailor's name in his coat, a lower Broadway address, but nobody there ever heard of this tailor." "What was so strange about his clothes?" The captain said,” Well, did you ever know anyone who wore a pair of pants with big black-and-white checks, cut very narrow, no cuffs, and pressed without a crease?" I had to think for a moment. "Yes," I said then,” my father, when he was a very young man, before he was married; I've seen old photographs." "Sure," said Captain Rihm,”and he probably wore a short sort of cutaway coat with two cloth-covered buttons at the back, a vest with lapels, a tall silk hat, a big, black oversize bow tie on a turned-up stiff collar, and button shoes." "That's how this man was dressed?" "Like seventy-five years ago! And him no more than thirty years old. There was a label in his hat, a Twenty-third Street hat store that went out of business around the turn of the century. Now what do you make out of a thing like that?" "Well," I said carefully,” there's nothing much you can make of it. Apparently someone went to a lot of trouble to dress up in an antique style, the coins and bills I assume he could buy at a coin dealer's, and then he got himself killed in a traffic accident." "Got himself killed is right. Eleven-fifteen at night in Times Square, the theaters letting out, busiest time and place in the world, and this guy shows up in the middle of the street, gawking and looking around at the cars and up at the signs like he'd never seen them before. The cop on duty noticed him, so you can see how he must have been acting. The lights change, the traffic starts up, with him in the middle of the street, and instead of waiting, the damn fool, he turns and tries to make it back to the sidewalk. A cab got him and he was dead when he hit." For a moment Captain Rihm sat chewing his tobacco and staring angrily at a young woman pushing a baby carriage, though I'm sure he didn't see her. The young mother looked at him in surprise as she passed, and the captain continued: "Nothing you can make out of a thing like that. We found out nothing. I started checking through our file of old phone books, just as routine, but without much hope, because they only go back so far. But in the 1939 summer edition I found a Rudolph Fentz, Junioir, somewhere on East Fifty-second Street. He'd moved away in forty two, though, the building super told me, and was a man in his sixties besides, retired from business; used to work in a bank a few blocks away, the super thought. I found the bank where he'd worked, and they told me he'd retired in forty, and had been dead for five years; his widow was living in Florida with a sister. "I wrote to the widow, but there was only one thing she could tell us, and that was no good. I never even reported it, not officially, anyway. Her husband's father had disappeared when her husband was a boy maybe two years old. He went out for a walk around ten one night, his wife thought cigar smoke smelled up the curtains, so he used to take a little stroll before he went to bed, and smoke a cigar, and he didn't come back, and was never seen or heard of again. The family spent a good deal of money trying to locate him, but they never did. This was in the middle 1870s some time; the old lady wasn't sure of the exact date. Her husband hadn't ever said too much about it. "And that's all," said Captain Rihm. "Once I put in one of my afternoons off hunting through a bunch of old police records. And I finally found the Missing Persons file for 1876, and Rudolph Fentz was listed, all right. There wasn't much of a description, and no fingerprints, of course. I'd give a year of my life, even now, and maybe sleep better nights, if they'd had his fingerprints. He was listed as twenty-nine years old, wearing full muttonchop whiskers, a tall silk hat, dark coat and checked pants. That's about all it said. Didn't say what kind of tie or vest or if his shoes were the button kind. His name was Rudolph Fentz and he lived at this address on Fifth Avenue; it must have been a residence then. Final disposition of case: not located. "Now, I hate that case," Captain Rihm said quietly. "I hate it and I wish I'd never heard of it. What do you think?" he demanded suddenly, angrily. "You think this guy walked off into thin air in 1876, and showed up again in 1950?" I shrugged noncommittally, and the captain took it to mean no "No, of course not," he said. "Of course not, but give me some other explanation." I could go on. I could give you several hundred such cases. A sixteen-year-old girl walked out of her bedroom one morning, carrying her clothes in her hand because they were too big for her and she was quite obviously eleven years old again. And there are other occurrences too horrible for print. All of them have happened in the New York City area alone, all within the last few years; and I suspect thousands more have occurred, and are occurring, all over the world. I could go on, but the point is this: What is happening, and why? I believe that I know. Haven't you noticed, too, on the part of nearly everyone you know, a growing rebellion against the present? And an increasing longing for the past? I have. Never before in all my long life have I heard so many people wish that they lived "at the turn of the century," or "when life was simpler," or "worth living," or "when you could bring children into the world and count on the future," or simply "in the good old days." People didn't talk that way when I was young! The present was a glorious time! But they talk that way now. For the first time in man's history, man is desperate to escape the present. Our newsstands are jammed with escape literature, the very name of which is significant. Entire magazines are devoted to fantastic stories of escape, to other times, past and future, to other worlds and planets, escape to anywhere but here and now. Even our larger magazines, book publishers, and Hollywood are beginning to meet the rising demand for this kind of escape. Yes, there is a craving in the world like a thirst, a terrible mass pressure that you can almost feel, of millions of minds struggling against the barriers of time. I am utterly convinced that this terrible mass pressure of millions of minds is already, slightly but definitely, affecting time itself. In the moments when this happens, when the almost universal longing to escape is greatest, my incidents occur. Man is disturbing the clock of time, and I am afraid it will break. When it does, I leave to your imagination the last few hours of madness that will be left to us; all the countless moments that now make up our lives suddenly ripped apart and chaotically tangled in time. Well, I have lived most of my life; I can be robbed of only a few more years. But it seems too bad, this universal craving to escape what could be a rich, productive, happy world. We live on a planet well able to provide a decent life for every soul on it, which is all ninety-nine of a hundred human beings ask. Why in the world can't we have it? THE SILLY SEASON. By C. M. KORNBLUTH. It was a hot summer afternoon in the Omaha bureau of the World Wireless Press Service, and the control bureau in New York kept nagging me for copy. But since it was a hot summer afternoon, there was no copy. A wrapup of local baseball had cleared about an hour ago, and that was that. Nothing but baseball happens in the summer. During the dog days, politicians are in the Maine woods fishing and boozing, burglars are too tired to burgle, and wives think it over and decide not to decapitate their husbands. I pawed through some press releases. One sloppy stencil-duplicated sheet began: "Did you know that the lemonade way to summer comfort and health has been endorsed by leading physiotherapists from Maine to California? The Federated Lemon-Growers Association revealed today that a survey of 2,500 physiotherapists in 57 cities of more than 25,000 population disclosed that 87 percent of them drink lemonade at least once a day between June and September, and that another 72 percent not only drink the cooling and healthful beverage but actually prescribe it.” Another note tapped out on the news circuit printer from New York: "960M-HW kicker? ND SNST-NY." That was New York saying they needed a bright and sparkling little news item immediately,” soonest." I went to the eastbound printer and punched out: "96NY-UPCMNG FU MINS-OM." The lemonade handout was hopeless; I dug into the stack again. The State University summer course was inviting the governor to attend its summer conference on aims and approaches his adult secondary education. The Agricultural College wanted me to warn farmers that white-skinned hogs should be kept from the direct rays of the summer sun. The manager of a fifth-rate local pug sent a write up of his boy and a couple of working press passes to his next bout in the Omaha Arena. The Schwartz and White Bandage Company contributed a glossy eight-by-ten of a blonde in a bathing suit improvised from two S. and W. Redi-Dressings. Accompanying text: "Pert starlet Miff McCoy is ready for any seaside emergency. That's not only a darling swim suit she has on, its two standard all-purpose Redi-Dressing bandages made by the Schwartz and White Bandage Company of Omaha. If a broken rib results from too-strenuous beach athletics, Miff's dress can supply the dressing." Yeah. The rest of the stack wasn't even that good. I dumped them all in the circular file, and began to wrack my brains in spite of the heat. I'd have to fake one, I decided. Unfortunately, there had been no big running silly season story so far this summer, no flying saucers, or monsters in the Florida Everglades, or chloroform bandits terrifying the city. If there had, I could have hopped on and faked a "with." As it was, I'd have to fake a "lead," which is harder and riskier. The flying saucers? I couldn't revive them; they'd been forgotten for years, except by newsmen. The giant turtle of Lake Huron had been quiet for years, too. If I started a chloroform bandit scare, every old maid in the state would back me up by swearing she heard the bandit trying to break in and smelled chloroform, but the cops wouldn't like it. Strange messages from space received at the State University's radar lab? That might do it. I put a sheet of copy paper in the typewriter and sat, glaring at it and hating the silly season. There was a slight reprieve, the Western Union tie-line printer by the desk dinged at me and its sickly-yellow bulb lit up. I tapped out: "WW GA PLS," and the machine began to eject yellow, gummed tape which told me this: "wu co62-dpr collect, fort Hicks arkansas August twenty second 105p, world wireless omaha, town marshal pinkney crawles died mysterious circumstances fish tripping ozark hamlet rush city today. rushers phoned hicksers 'burned death shining domes appeared yesterweek.' jeeping body hicksward. queried rush constable p.c. allenby learning 'seven glassy domes each housesize clearing mile south town. rushers untouched, unapproached. crawles warned but touched and died burns.' note desk, rush fonecall 1.85. shall i upfollow?, benson, fishtripping rushers hicksers yesterweek jeeping hicksward house size 1.85 428p clear" It was just what the doctor ordered. I typed an acknowledgment for the message and pounded out a story, fast. I punched it and started the tape wiggling through the eastbound transmitter before New York could send any more irked notes. The news circuit printer from New York clucked and began relaying my story immediately: "ww72 (kicker) fort hicks, Arkansas, august 22, (ww), mysterious death today struck down a law enforcement officer in a tiny ozark mountain hamlet. Marshal pinkney crawles of fort hicks, Arkansas, died of burns while on a fishing trip to the little village of rush city. Terrified natives of rush city blamed the tragedy on what they called 'shining domes.' they said the so-called domes appeared in a clearing last week one mile south of town. There are seven of the mysterious objects, each one the size of a house. The inhabitants of rush city did not dare approach them. they warned the visiting marshal crawles, but he did not heed their warning. Rush city's constable p.c. allenby was a witness to the tragedy. Said he: "There isn't much to tell. Marshal crawles just walked up to one of the domes and put his hand on it. there was a big plash, and when I could see again, he was burned to death.'Cconstable Allenby is returning the body of marshal crawles to fort hicks. 602 p 220 m." That, I thought, should hold them for a while. I remembered Benson's "note desk" and put through a long distance call to Fort Hicks, person to person. The Omaha operator asked for Fort Hicks information, but there wasn't any. The Fort Hicks operator asked whom she wanted. Omaha finally admitted that we wanted to talk to Mister Edwin C. Benson. Fort Hicks figured out loud and then decided that Ed was probably at the police station if he hadn't gone home for supper yet. She connected us with the police station, and I got Benson. He had a pleasant voice, not particularly backwoods Arkansas. I gave him some of the old oil about a fine dispatch, and a good, conscientious job, and so on. He took it with plenty of dry reserve, which was odd. Our rural stringers always ate that kind of stuff up. Where, I asked him, was he from? "Fort Hicks," he told me,” but I've moved around. I did the courthouse beat in Little Rock.” I nearly laughed out loud at that, but the laugh died out as he went on. ”Rewrite for the A.P. in New Orleans, not to be bureau chief there but I didn't like wire service work. Got an opening on the Chicago Tribune desk. That didn't last, they sent me to head up their Washington bureau. There I switched to the New York Tunes. They made me a war correspondent and I got hurt, back to Fort Hicks. I do some magazine writing now. Did you want a follow-up on the Rush City story?" "Sure," I told him weakly. "Give it a real ride, use your own judgment. Do you think it's a fake?" "I saw Pink's body a little while ago at the undertaker's parlor, and I had a talk with Allenby, from Rush City. Pink got burned all right, and Allenby didn't make his story up. Maybe somebody else did, he's pretty dumb, but as far as I can tell, this is the real thing. I'll keep the copy coming. Don't forget about that dollar eighty-five phone call, will you?" I told him I wouldn't, and hung up. Mister Edwin C. Benson had handed me quite a jolt. I wondered how badly he had been hurt, that he had been forced to abandon a brilliant news career and bury himself in the Ozarks. Then there came a call from God, the board chairman of World Wireless. He was fishing in Canada, as all good board chairmen do during the silly season, but he had caught a news broadcast which used my Rush City story. He had a mobile phone in his trailer, and it was but the work of a moment to ring Omaha and louse up my carefully planned vacation schedules and rotation of night shifts. He wanted me to go down to Rush City and cover the story personally. I said yes and began trying to round up the rest of the staff. My night editor was sobered up by his wife and delivered to the bureau in fair shape. A telegrapher on vacation was reached at his summer resort and talked into checking out. I got a taxi company on the phone and told them to have a cross-country cab on the roof in an hour. I specified their best driver, and told them to give him maps of Arkansas. Meanwhile, two "with domes" dispatches arrived from Benson and got moved on the wire. I monitored a couple of newscasts; the second one carried a story by another wire service on the domes, a pickup of our stuff, but they'd have their own men on the scene fast enough. I filled in the night editor, and went up to the roof for the cab. The driver took off in the teeth of a gathering thunderstorm. We had to rise above it, and by the time we could get down to sight-pilotage altitude, we were lost. We circled most of the night until the driver picked up a beacon he had on his charts at about 3:30 a.m. We landed at Fort Hicks as day was breaking, not on speaking terms. Fort Hicks' field clerk told me where Benson lived, and I walked there. It was a white, frame house. A quiet, middle-aged woman let me in. She was his widowed sister, Missus. McHenry. She got me some coffee and told me she had been up all night waiting for Edwin to come back from Rush City. He had started out about 8:00 p.m., and it was only a two-hour trip by car. She was worried. I tried to pump her about her brother, but she'd only say that he was the bright one of the family. She didn't want to talk about his work as war correspondent. She did show me some of his magazine stuff, boy-and-girl stories in national weeklies. He seemed to sell one every couple of months. We had arrived at a conversational stalemate when her brother walked in, and I discovered why his news career had been interrupted. He was blind. Aside from a long, puckered brown scar that ran from his left temple back over his ear and onto the nape of his neck, he was a pleasant-looking fellow in his mid-forties. "Who is it, Vera?" he asked. "It's Mister Williams, the gentleman who called you from Omaha today, I mean yesterday." "How do you do, Williams. Don't get up," he added, hearing, I suppose, the chair squeak as I leaned forward to rise. "You were so long, Edwin," his sister said with relief and reproach. "That young jackass Howie, my chauffeur for the night.” he added an aside to me,” got lost going there and coming back. But I did spend more time than I'd planned at Rush City." He sat down, facing me. "Williams, there is some difference of opinion about the shining domes. The Rush City people say that they exist, and I say they don't." His sister brought him a cup of coffee. "What happened, exactly?" I asked. "That Allenby took me and a few other hardy citizens to see them. They told me just what they looked like. Seven hemispheres in a big clearing, glassy, looming up like houses, reflecting the gleam of the headlights. But they weren't there. Not to me, and not to any blind man. I know when I'm standing in front of a house or anything else that big. I can feel a little tension on the skin of my face. It works unconsciously, but the mechanism is thoroughly understood. "The blind get, because they have to, an aural picture of the world. We hear a little hiss of air that means we're at the corner of a building, we hear and feel big, turbulent air currents that mean we're coming to a busy street. Some of the boys can thread their way through an obstacle course and never touch a single obstruction. I'm not that good, maybe because I haven't been blind as long as they have, but by hell, I know when there are seven objects the size of houses in front of me, and there just were no such things in the clearing at Rush City." "Well," I shrugged,” there goes a fine piece of silly-season journalism. What kind of a gag are the Rush City people trying to pull, and why?" "No kind of gag. My driver saw the domes, too, and don't forget the late marshal. Pink not only saw them but touched them. All I know is that people see them and I don't. If they exist, they have a kind of existence like nothing else I've ever met." "I'll go up there myself," I decided. "Best thing," said Benson. "I don't know what to make of it. You can take our car." He gave me directions and I gave him a schedule of deadlines. We wanted the coroner's verdict, due today, an eyewitness story, his driver would do for that, some background stuff on the area and a few statements from local officials. I took his car and got to Rush City in two hours. It was an un-painted collection of dog-trot homes, set down in the big pine forest that covers all that rolling Ozark country. There was a general store that had the place's only phone. I suspected it had been kept busy by the wire services and a few enterprising newspapers. A state trooper in a flashy uniform was lounging against a fly-specked tobacco counter when I got there. "I'm Sam Williams, from World Wireless," I said. "You come to have a look at the domes?" "World Wireless broke that story, didn't they?" he asked me, with a look I couldn't figure out. "We did. Our Fort Hicks stringer wired it to us." The phone rang, and the trooper answered it. It seemed to have been a call to the Governor's office he had placed. "No, sir," he said over the phone. "No, sir. They're all sticking to the story, but I didn't see anything. I mean, they don't see them anymore, but they say they were there, and now they aren't any more." A couple more "No, sirs" and he hung up. "When did that happen?" I asked. "About a half-hour ago. I just came from there on my bike to report." The phone rang again, and I grabbed it. It was Benson, asking for me. I told him to phone a flash and bulletin to Omaha on the disappearance and then took off to find Constable Allenby. He was a stage Reuben with a nickel-plated badge and a six-shooter. He cheerfully climbed into the car and guided me to the clearing. There was a definite little path worn between Rush City and the clearing by now, but there was a disappointment at the end of it. The clearing was empty. A few small boys sticking carefully to its fringes told wildly contradictory stories about the disappearance of the domes, and I jotted down some kind of dispatch out of the most spectacular versions. I remember it involved flashes of blue fire and a smell like Sulphur candles. That was all there was to it. I drove Allenby back. By then a mobile unit from a TV network had arrived. I said hello, waited for an A.P. man to finish a dispatch on the phone, and then dictated my lead direct to Omaha. The hamlet was beginning to fill up with newsmen from the wire services, the big papers, the radio and TV nets and the newsreels. Much good they'd get out of it. The story was over, I thought. I had some coffee at the general store's two-table restaurant corner and drove back to Fort Hicks. Benson was tirelessly interviewing by phone and firing off copy to Omaha. I told him he could begin to ease off, thanked him for his fine work, paid him for his gas, said goodbye and picked up my taxi at the field. Quite a bill for waiting had been run up. I listened to the radio as we were flying back to Omaha, and wasn't at all surprised. After baseball, the shining domes were the top news. Shining domes had been seen in twelve states. Some vibrated with a strange sound. They came in all colors and sizes. One had strange writing on it. One was transparent, and there were big green men and women inside. I caught a women's mid-morning quiz show, and the M.C. kept gagging about the domes. One crack I remember was a switch on the "pointed-head" joke. He made it "dome-shaped head," and the ladies in the audience laughed until they nearly burst. We stopped in Little Rock for gas, and I picked up a couple of afternoon papers. The domes got banner heads on both of them. One carried the World Wireless lead? And had slapped in the bulletin on the disappearance of the domes. The other paper wasn't a World Wireless client, but between its other services and "special correspondents", phone calls to the general store at Rush City, it had kept practically abreast of us. Both papers had shining dome cartoons on their editorial pages, hastily drawn and slapped in. One paper, anti-administration, showed the President cautiously reaching out a finger to touch the dome of the Capitol, which was rendered as a shining dome and labeled: "shining dome of congressional immunity to executive dictatorship." A little man labeled "Mister and Missus. Plain, Self-Respecting Citizens of The United States of America" was in one corner of the cartoon saying: "CAREFUL, MISTER PRESIDENT! REMEMBER WHAT HAPPENED TO PINKNEY CRAWLES!!" The other paper, pro-administration, showed a shining dome that had the President's face. A band of fat little men in Prince Albert coats, string ties, and broad-brimmed hats labeled "congressional smear artists and Hatchet-Men" were creeping up on the dome with the President's face, their hands reached out as if to strangle. Above the cartoon a cutline said: "WHO'S GOING TO GET HURT?" We landed at Omaha, and I checked into the office. Things were clicking right along. The clients were happily gobbling up our dome copy and sending wires asking for more. I dug into the morgue for the "Flying Disc" folder, and the "Huron Turtle" and the "Bayou Vampire" and a few others even further back. I spread out the old clippings and tried to shuffle and arrange them into some kind of underlying sense. I picked up the latest dispatch to come out of the tie-line printer from Western Union. It was from our man in Owosso, Michigan, and told how Missus. Lettie Overholtzer, age 61, saw a shining dome in her own kitchen at midnight. It grew like a soap bubble until it was as big as her refrigerator, and then disappeared. I went over to the desk man and told him: "Let's have a down hold on stuff like Lettie Overholtzer. We can move a sprinkling of it, but I don't want to run this into the ground. Those things might turn up again, and then we wouldn't have any room left to play around with them. We'll have everybody's credulity used up." He looked mildly surprised. "You mean," he asked,” there really was something there?" "I don't know. Maybe. I didn't see anything myself, and the only man down there I trust can't make up his mind. Anyhow, hold it down as far as the clients let us." I went home to get some sleep. When I went back to work, I found the clients hadn't let us work the down hold after all. Nobody at the other wire services seemed to believe seriously that there had been anything out of the ordinary at Rush City, so they merrily pumped out solemn stories like the Lettie Overholtzer item, and wire photo maps of locations where domes were reported, and tabulations of number of domes reported. We had to string along. Our Washington bureau badgered the Pentagon and the A.E.C. into issuing statements, and there was a race between a Navy and an Air Force investigating mission to see who could get to Rush City first. After they got there, there was a race to see who could get the first report out. The Air Force won that contest. Before the week was out, "Domies" had appeared. They were hats for juveniles, shining-dome skull caps molded from a transparent plastic. We ha

Superman Issue one. Action Comics, June 1938, a Puke (TM) Comic

Presented with the minimum level of censoring, Playboy Issue one 1953. 2023 marks the 70th anniversary of the launch of Playboy, with is a suitably random reason for this video.

Editor’s Preface. In Robert “A.” Heinlein’s Stranger in a Strange Land there is a story about a Martian artist so focused on his work that he fails to notice his own death, and completes the piece anyway. To Martians, who don’t go anywhere when they die but simply become Old Ones, the burning question was: should this work be judged by the standards used for art by the living, or for art by the dead? A similar situation occurs here for one of the first times on this planet. This book is a posthumous collaboration, begun when one of its collaborators was seven, and completed when the other was seventeen-years-dead. Spider Robinson discusses this at length in his Afterword, but a brief explanation at the start may help readers to better appreciate what they’re reading, and to decide by what standards they should evaluate it. After the passing of Robert Heinlein’s widow, Virginia, in 2003, his archivist, biographer discovered a detailed outline and notes for a novel the Grand Master had plotted in 1955, but had never gotten around to writing, tentatively titled The Stars Are a Clock. Heinlein’s estate executor and literary agent decided the book deserved to be written and read, and agreed that Spider Robinson was the only logical choice to complete it. First called “the new Robert Heinlein” by the New York Times Book Review in 1982, Robinson has been linked with him in the reviews of most of his own thirty-two award-winning books. The two were close friends. Spider penned a famous essay demolishing his mentor’s detractors called “Rah, Rah, R.A.H.!” and contributed the introduction to Heinlein’s recently-discovered 1939 first book, For Us, the Living. It was a pairing as fortuitous as McCartney and Lennon. You are about to read something genuinely unique and quite special: a classic novel fifty years in the making, conceived in the Golden Age of SF by its first Grand Master, and completed in the Age of Cyberspace by one of his greatest students. Variable Star is Robert “A.” Heinlein’s only collaborative novel, and we believe he would be as proud of it as Spider Robinson is, and as we at Tor are to publish it. Cordwainer Lo Brutto, Senior Editor. One. For it was in the golden prime. Of good Harun Alrashid. Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Recollections of the Arabian Nights. I thought I wanted to get married in the worst way. Then that’s pretty much what I was offered, so I ended up going trillions of kilometers out of my way instead. A great many trillions of kilometers, and quite a few years, which turns out to be much the greater distance. It began this way: Jinny Hamilton and I were dancing. This was something of an accomplishment for me, in and of itself, I was born on Ganymede, and I had only been Earthside a few years, then. If you’ve never experienced three times the gravity you consider normal, imagine doing your favorite dance, with somebody your own weight sitting on each of your shoulders, on a pedestal a few meters above concrete. Broken bones, torn ligaments, and concussions are hazards you simply learn to accept. But some people play water polo, voluntarily. Jinny and I had been going out together for most of a year, and dancing was one of her favorite recreations, so by now I had not only made myself learn how to dance, I’d actually become halfway decent at it. Enough to dimly understand how someone with muscles of steel and infinite wind might consider it fun, anyway. But that night was something else. Part of it was the setting, I guess. Your prom is supposed to be a magical time. It was still quite early in the evening, but the Hotel Vancouver ballroom was appropriately decorated and lit, and the band was excellent, especially the singer. Jinny was both the most beautiful and the most interesting person I had ever met. She and I were both finally done with Fermi Junior College, in Surrey, British Columbia. Class of 2286 (Restored Gregorian), huzzah, go, Leptons! In the fall we’d be going off to university together at Stony Brook, on the opposite coast of North America, if my scholarship came through, anyway, and in the meantime we were young, healthy, and hetero. The song being played was one I liked a lot, an ancient old ballad called “On the Road to the Stars,” that always brought a lump to my throat because it was one of my father’s favorites. It’s the reason we came from the mud, don’t you know cause we wanted to climb to the stars, In our flesh and our bone and our blood we all know we were meant to return to the stars, Ask anyone which way is God, and you know he will probably point to the stars. None of that explained the way Jinny danced that night. I knew her as a good dancer, but that night it was almost as if she were possessed by the ghost of Gillis. It wasn’t even just her own dancing, though that was inspired. She did some moves that startled me, phrases so impressive she started to draw attention even on a crowded dance floor. Couples around us kept dancing, but began watching her. Her long red hair swirled through the room like the cape of an inspired toreador, and for a while I could only follow like a mesmerized bull. But then her eyes met mine, and flashed, and the next thing I knew I was attempting a combination I had never even thought of before; one that I knew as I began, was way beyond my abilities, and I nailed it. She sent me a grin that felt like it started a sunburn and offered me an intriguing move, and I thought of something to do with it, and she lobbed it back with a twist, and we got through five fairly complex phrases without a train wreck and out the of her side as smoothly as if we’d been rehearsing for weeks. Some people had stopped dancing to watch, now. On the way to the stars every molecule in you was born in the heart of a star. On the way to the stars, in the dead of the night they’re the light that’ll show where you are yes they are from so far In the back of my head were a few half-formed, half-baked layman’s ideas for dance steps that I wasn’t even sure were physically possible in a one gee field. I’d never had the nerve to actually try any of them with a partner, in any gravity; I really hate looking ridiculous. But Jinny lifted an eyebrow, what have you got?, and before I knew it I was trying one, even though there was no way she could know what her response was supposed to be. Only she did, somehow, and made it, or rather, an improved variation of what I’d thought of, and not only was the result successful enough to draw applause, by luck it happened to offer a perfect lead-in to another of my ideas, which also turned out to work, and suggested something to her, We flew. We’ll be through if the day ever comes when we no longer yearn to return to the stars. I can’t prove it’s so, but I’m certain: I know that our ancestors came from the stars. It would not be so lonely to die if I knew I had died on the way to the stars. Talking about dance is as silly as dancing about architecture. I don’t know how to convey exactly how we danced that night, or what was so remarkable about it. I can barely manage to believe we did it. Just let it stand that we deserved the applause we received when the music finally ended and we went into our closing clinch. It was probably the first time since I’d come to Terra that I didn’t feel heavy and weak and fragile. I felt strong, graceful, manly. “After dancing like that, Stinky, a couple really ought to get married,” Jinny said about two hundred millimeters below my ear. I felt fourteen. “Damn it, Jinny.” I said, and pulled away from her. I reached down for her hands, trying to make it into a dance move, but she eluded me. Instead she curtsied, blew me a kiss, turned on her heel, and left at high speed, to spirited applause. It increased when I ran after her. Jinny was 178 centimeters tall, not especially tall for a Terran, and I was a Ganymedean beanpole two full meters high, so her legs were considerably shorter than mine. But they were also adapted from birth to a one-gee field, to sports in a one-gee field. I didn’t catch up with her until we’d reached the parking lot, and then only because she decided to let me. So we’d each had time to work on our lines. Ginny went with, “Joel Johnston, if you don’t want to marry me.” “Jinny, you know perfectly well I’m going to marry you,” “In five more frimpin’ years! My God, Stinky, I’ll be an old, old woman by then.” “Skinny, you’ll never be an old woman,” I said, and that shut her up for a second. Every so often a good one comes to me like that. Not often enough. “Look, don’t be like this. I can’t marry you right now. You know I can’t.” “I don’t know anything of the sort. I know you won’t. But I see nothing preventing you. You don’t even have to worry about parental consent.” “What does that have to do with it? Neither do you. And we wouldn’t let parental disapproval stand in our way if we did want to get married.” “You see? I was right, you don’t want to!” I was becoming alarmed. I had always thought of Jinny as unusually rational, for a girl. Could this be one of those hormonal storms I had read about? I hoped not, all authorities seemed to agree the only thing a man could do in such weather was lash himself to the mast and pray. I made a last stubborn attempt to pour logic on the troubled waters. “Jinny, please, be reasonable! I am not going to let you marry a dole bludger. Not even if he’s me.” “But.” “I intend to be a composer. You know that. That means it’s going to take me at least a few years to even start to get established. You knew that when we started dating. If, I say ‘if,’ all those bullocks I sacrificed to Zeus pay off and I actually win a Kallikanzaros Scholarship, it will be my great privilege to spend the next four years living on dishrag soup and scraped fridge, too poor to support a cat. If, and I say ‘if,’ I am as smart as I think I am, and luckier than I usually am, I’ll come out the other end with credentials that might, in only another year or two, leave me in a position to offer you something more than half of a motel cubicle. Meanwhile, you have your own scholarships and your law degree to worry about, so that once my music starts making serious money, nobody will weasel it away from us.” “Stinky, do you think I care about money?” She said that last word as if it were a synonym for stale excrement. I sighed. Definitely a hormonal storm. “Reboot and start over. What is the purpose of getting married?” “What a romantic question!” She turned away and quested for her car. I didn’t move. “Quit dodging, I’m serious. Why don’t we just live together if we want to be romantic? What is marriage for?” The car told her she was heading the wrong way; she reversed direction and came back past me toward its voice and pulsing beacon. “Babies, obviously.” I followed her. “Bingo. Marriage is for making jolly babies, raising them up into successful predators, and then admiring them until they’re old enough to reward you with grandchildren to spoil.” She’d acquired the car by now. She safed and unlocked it. “My baby-making equipment is at its peak right now,” she said, and got in the car. “It’s going to start declining any minute.” She closed, but did not slam, the door. I got in my side and strapped in. “And the decline will take decades to become significant,” I pointed out logically “Your baby-making gear may be at its hypothetical optimum efficiency today, but my baby- raising equipment isn’t even operational yet.” “So what?” “Jinny, are you seriously proposing that we raise a child as extraordinary and gifted as ours on credit?” We both shared a most uncommon aversion to being in debt. Orphans spend too much of their childhood in debt to others, debt that cannot be repaid. “Nobody seems to be seriously proposing around here,” she said bitterly. Hormonal hurricane, maybe. A long time ago they used to name all hurricanes after women. On Ganymede, we still named all ground-quakes after them. “Look.” She interrupted, “Silver: my home, no hurry.” The car said, “Yes, Jinny,” and came alive, preparing for takeoff. I wondered as always why she’d named her car that, if you were going to pick an element, I thought, why not hydrogen? I failed to notice the slight change in address protocol. Despite our low priority, we didn’t have to wait long, since nobody else had left the prom yet and the system was between rush hours; Silver rose nearly at once and entered the system with minimal huhu. That early in the evening, most of the traffic was still in the other direction, into Greater Vancouver. Once our speed steadied, Jinny opaqued the windows, swiveled her seat to face me, and folded her arms. I’m sure it was quite coincidental that this drew my attention to the area immediately above them. I believe in the Tooth Fairy, too. “Pardon me for interrupting you,” she said. She looked awfully good. Her prom dress was more of a spell than a garment. The soft warm interior lighting was very good to her. Of course, it was her car. That was the hell of it. I wanted to marry her at least as much as she wanted to marry me. Just looking at her made my breath catch in my throat. I wished with all my heart, and not for the first time, that we lived back when unmarried people could live together openly. They said a stable society was impossible, back then. But even if they were right, what’s so great about a stable society? My pop used to say, “Joel, never pass up a chance to shut up.” Well, some men learn by listening, some read, some observe and analyze, and some of us just have to pee on the electric fence. “Jinny, you know I’m a backward colonial when it comes to debt.” “And you know I feel the same way about it that you do!” I blinked. “That’s true. We’ve talked about it. I don’t care what anybody says; becoming the indentured servant of something as compassionate and merciful as a bank or credit union simply isn’t rational.” “Absolutely.” I spread my hands. “What am I missing? Raising a child takes money, packets and crates of the stuff. I haven’t got it. I can’t earn it. I won’t borrow it. And I’m too chicken to steal it.” She broke eye contact. “Those aren’t the only ways to get it,” she muttered. Silver gave its vector-change warning peep, slowed slightly, and kinked left to follow the Second Narrows Bridge across Burrard Inlet. “So? I suppose I could go to Vegas and turn a two-credit bit into a megasolar at the roulette wheel.” “Blackjack,” she said. “The other games are for suckers.” “My tenants back home on the Rock might strike ice. In the next ten minutes I could get an idea for a faster-than-light star drive that can be demonstrated without capital. I can always stand at stud, but that would kick me up a couple of tax brackets. Nothing else comes to mind.” She said nothing, very loudly. Silver peeped, turned left again, and increased speed, heading for the coast. “Look, Spice,” I said, “you know I don’t share contemporary Terran prejudices any more than you do, I don’t insist that I be the one to support us. But somebody has to. If you can find a part-time job for either of us that pays well enough to support a family, we’ll get married tomorrow.” No response. We both knew the suggestion was rhetorical. Two full-time jobs would barely support a growing family in the present economy. “Come on,” I said, “we already had this conversation once. Remember? That night on Luckout Hill?” The official name is Lookout Hill, because it looks out over the ocean, but it’s such a romantic spot, many a young man has indeed lucked out there. Not me, unfortunately “We said.” “I remember what we said!” Well, then, maybe I didn’t. To settle it, I summoned that conversation up in my mind, or at least fast-forwarded through the storyboard version in the master index. And partway through, I began to grow excited. There was indeed one contingency we had discussed that night on Luckout Hill, one that I hadn’t really thought of again, since I couldn’t really picture Jinny opting for it. I wasn’t sure she was suggesting it now, but if she wasn’t, I would. “See here, Skinny, you really want to change your name from Hamilton to Johnston right away? Then let’s do it tomorrow morning, and ship out on the Sheffield!” Her jaw dropped; I pressed on. “If we’re going to start our marriage broke, then let’s do it somewhere where being broke isn’t a handicap, or even a stigma, out there around a new star, on some new world eighty light-years away, not here on Terra. What do you say? You say you’re an old-fashioned girl, will you homestead with me?” A look passed across her face I’d seen only once before, on Aunt Tula’s face, when they told me my father was gone. Sadness unspeakable. “I can’t, Joel.” How had I screwed up so badly? “Sure you could.” “No, I can’t.” She swiveled away from me. The sorrow on her face upset me so much, I shut up and began replaying everything since our dance, trying to locate the point at which my orbit had begun to decay. Outside the car, kilometers flicked by unseen. On the third pass, I finally remembered a technique that had worked for me more than once with women in the past: quit analyzing every word I’d said and instead, consider words I had not said. Light began to dawn, or at least a milder darkness. I swiveled her seat back to face me, and sought her eyes. They were huge. I dove right in. “Jinny, listen to me. I want to marry you. I ache to marry you. You’re the one. Not since that first moment when I caught you looking at me have I ever doubted for an instant that you are my other half, the person I want to spend the rest of my life with. Okay?” “Oh.” Her voice was barely audible. “You give me what I need, and you need what I can give. I want the whole deal, just like you’ve told me you want it, old-fashioned death do us part, better or worse monogamy, like my parents. None of this term marriage business, no prenup nonsense, fifty-fifty, mine is thine, down the line, and I don’t care if we live to be a hundred. I want to marry you so bad, my teeth hurt. So bad my hair hurts. If you would come with me, I would be happy to walk to Bootes, carrying you on my back, towing a suitcase. My eyeballs keep drying out every time I look at you. Then when you’re out of their field of vision, they start to tear up.” Her eyes started to tear up. “Oh, Joel, you do want to marry me.” Her smile was glorious. “Of course I do, Skinny you ninny. How could you not know that?” “So it’s just.” “Just a matter of financing. Nothing else. We’ll get married the day we can afford to.” I loosened my seat belt, so I’d be ready for the embrace I was sure was coming. Her smile got even wider. Then it fell apart, and she turned away, but not before I could see she was crying. What the hell had I said now? Of course, that’s the one question you mustn’t ask. Bad enough to make a woman cry; to not even know how you managed it is despicable, but no matter how carefully I reviewed the last few sentences I’d spoken, in my opinion they neither said anything nor failed to say anything that constituted a reason to cry. Silver slowed slightly, signaling that we were crossing the Georgia Strait. We’d be at Jinny’s little apartment on Lasqueti Island, soon. I didn’t know what to apologize for. But then, did I need to? “Jinny, I’m sorry. I really.” She spoke up at once, cutting me off. “Joel, suppose you knew for sure you had your scholarship in the bag? The whole ride?” She swiveled her seat halfway back around, not quite enough to be facing me, but enough so that I was clearly in her peripheral vision. I frowned, puzzled by the non sequitur. “What, have you heard something?” As far as I knew, the decisions wouldn’t even be made for another few weeks. “Damn it, Stinky, I’m just saying: Suppose you knew for a fact that you’re among this year’s Kallikanzaros winners.” “Well, that’d be great. Right?” She turned the rest of the way back around, so that she could glare at me more effectively “I’m asking you: If that happened, how would it affect your marriage plans?” “Oh.” I still didn’t see where she was going with this. “Uh, it’d take a lot of the pressure off. We’d know for sure that we’re going to be able to get married in as little as four years. Well, nothing’s for sure, but we’d be a whole lot more.” I trailed off because I could see what I was saying wasn’t what she wanted to hear. I had to shift my weight slightly as Silver went into a wide right turn. I didn’t have a clue what she did want to hear, and her face wasn’t giving me enough clues. Maybe I ought to- Wide right turn? I cleared my side window. Sure enough, we were heading north; almost due north, it looked like. But that was wrong: we couldn’t be that far south of Lasqueti. “Jinny, I.” She was sobbing outright, now. Oh, God. As calmly as I could, I said, “Honey, you’re going to have to take manual control: Silver has gone insane.” She waved no-no and kept sobbing. For a second I nearly panicked, thinking, I don’t know what I was thinking. “Jinny, what’s wrong?” Her weeping intensified “Oh, Jo-ho-ho-ho.” I unbuckled, leaned in, and held her. “Damn it, talk to me! Whatever it is, we’ll fix it, I know we will. Just tell me.” “Oh, God, I-hi-hi’m sorry, I screwed it all up-hup-hup-hup.” She clutched me back fiercely. I was alarmed. I’d seen Jinny cry. This was hooting with sorrow, rocking with grief. Something was seriously wrong. “Whatever it is, it’s okay, you hear me? Whatever it is.” She writhed in my arms. “Joel, I lie-hi-hi-hi-hied, I’m so stu-hoohupid.” Ice formed on the floor of my heart. I did not break our embrace, but I felt an impulse to, and I’m sure she felt it kinesthetically. She cried twice as hard. Well, much harder. It took her several minutes to get back under control. During those minutes, I didn’t breathe or think or move or digest food or do anything at all except wait to learn what my Jinny had lied about. Then, when she took in a deep breath and pulled away from my arms, suddenly I didn’t want to know. So I thought of a different question she could answer instead. “Where are we going?” Her eyes began to slide away from mine, then came back and locked. “To my home.” This time I caught the subtle change. Usually the instruction she gave Silver was “my place .” “So? And it’s north?” She nodded. “How far?” “Silver: step on it,” she said. The car acknowledged. Then to me, as Silver faced our chairs forward and pressed us back into them with acceleration, she said, “About twenty minutes, now.” I consulted a mental map and glanced out the window, with difficulty, as we were now pulling serious gees. Jinny’s car was exceedingly well loved, but nonetheless it was just short of an antique. There was simply no way it could go anywhere near this fast. I made myself breathe slowly. This just kept getting better and better. Twenty minutes north of Lasqueti at this speed would, it seemed to me, put us smack in the middle of a glacier somewhere, just below the border with Yukon Province. I was dressed for a ballroom, didn’t have so much as a toothbrush. Not that it mattered, because we were doing at least four times the provincial exurban speed limit; long before we reached that glacier the Mounties (local cops) were going to cut our power and set us down to await the Proctors, probably in raw forest. Unless, of course, Silver tore himself apart first, traveling at four times the best speed he’d been capable of the day he left the factory. Less than half an hour before, I’d been as perfectly happy as I’d ever been in my life, dancing with my Jinny. I opaqued my window, surrendered to the gee forces, and stared straight ahead at nothing. To my intense annoyance, she let me. Life is going to continue to suck until somebody finds the Undo key. Two. Howe’er it be, it seems to me ‘Tis only noble to be good. Kind hearts are more than coronets, And simple faith than Norman blood. Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Lady Clara Vere de Vere. The engine did not explode. It didn’t even sound any louder than usual. The Mounties somehow failed to notice us blazing across their radar, or to log any complaints about shattered windows; we crossed the province unmolested. For most of the trip we were above atmosphere, so high that the horizon showed a distinct curve, we pretty much had to be at that speed, I think, but if the Peace Forces satellites noticed us, they kept it to themselves. Nineteen minutes later, the car finished decelerating, came to a dead stop, and went into hover mode, glowing softly from the heat of our passage and reentry into atmosphere. “Wait,” Jinny said, whether to Silver or to me, I was unsure. I glanced at her, then turned to my side window once again and looked down. Sure enough, what lay some three thousand meters below us was a nearly featureless glacier. There was a big rill to the east, and a shadowy crevasse almost directly below that was much smaller, but still large enough to conceal several dozen cars the size of Silver. I looked back to Jinny. She was staring straight ahead at the windshield, which was still opaque. Keeping my mouth shut was easy this time. I not only didn’t know how I felt, I didn’t even know what I felt it about. I couldn’t have been more clueless if I’d had my head in a sack. Anything I said was likely to sound stupid in retrospect, and there are few things I hate more. “I rehearsed this a hundred times,” she said finally. “Now I’ve screwed it up completely.” I suspected this was true, but kept my mouth shut. She swiveled my way and unbuckled her crash harness, though we were still three klicks above hard ice. It gave her enough freedom of movement to lean forward and take one of my hands in both of hers. I noted absently that the skin of her palm was remarkably hot. “Have you ever heard of Harun al-Rashid?” she asked me. “Plays defense for the Tachyons?” “Close,” she said. “You’re only off by, let me see, a little more than a millennium and a half. Fifteen hundred and some years.” “But he does play defense.” “Stinky, please shut up! He was a rich kid, from a powerful military family in ancient Persia. His father was a Caliph, roughly equivalent to premier of a province today, a man so tough he invaded the Eastern Roman Empire, which was then ruled by the Empress Irene.” “You’re making this up,” I charged. Her eyes flashed. “I said ‘please,’ Joel.” I drew an invisible zipper across my lips. “Harun became Caliph himself in the year 786.” Over a thousand years before man could even travel anywhere. “He was probably as wealthy and powerful as anybody in living memory had ever been. Yet somehow, he was not an ignorant idiot.” “Amazing,” I said, trying to be helpful. Go try to be helpful to a woman who’s talking. “He had the odd idea it was important to know what his people were really thinking and feeling about things,” she went on as if I had not spoken. “He wanted more than just the sanitized, politically safe version they would give to him or to anyone he could send to talk to them. He understood that his wealth and power distorted just about everything in his relations with others, made it difficult if not impossible for truth to pass between them. You can see how that would be, right?” “Sure. Everybody lies to the boss.” “Yes!” Finally, I’d gotten one right. “Then one day he overheard one of his generals say that nobody knows a city as well as an enemy spy. It gave him an idea. “That night he disguised himself as a beggar, sneaked out of his palace alone, and wandered the streets of Baghdad, a spy in his own capital. Everywhere he went, he listened to conversations, and sometimes he asked innocent questions, and because he was thought a beggar, no one bothered to lie to him. He got drunk on it. He started to do it whenever he could sneak away.” Her eyes were locked on mine, now. It was important that I get this. “Do you see, Joel? For the first time in his life Harun got an accurate picture of what the common people honestly thought, more than just what they thought, he experienced firsthand what life was really like for them, came to understand the things they didn’t even think about because they simply assumed them, and their perspective informed and improved his own thinking from then on. He became one of the most beloved rulers in history, his name means Aaron the Just, and how many rulers do you suppose have ever been called that? One time fifteen thousand men followed him into battle against one hundred twenty-five thousand, and whipped them, left forty thousand legionaries dead on the ground and the rest running for their lives. He lived to a ripe old age, and when he died the whole Muslim world mourned. Okay?” I was nodding. I understood every word she said. I had no idea what she was driving at. She took a deep breath. “Okay. Now, imagine you’re a young Persian girl in Baghdad. I see your mouth opening, and so help me God, if a wisecrack should come out of it, that’s better. You’re a poor-but-decent young Persian girl, working hard at some menial trade, struggling to better yourself, and so is.” A strange alto voice suddenly spoke, seemingly from the empty space between Jinny and me, just a little too loudly. I was so startled I nearly jumped out of my seat. “Your vehicle’s hull temperature has dropped sufficiently to permit safe debarking now, Miss Jinny.” If I was startled, Jinny was furious. I could tell because her face became utterly smooth, and her voice became softer in pitch and tone and slower in speed as she said, “There are only four letters in the word wait, Smithers. There seems little room for ambiguity.” “I’m sorry, Miss Jinny,” Smithers said at once, and although there was no noticeable cessation of any background hiss or power hum, somehow he was gone. “And so,” she went on before I could ask who Smithers was, “is your boyfriend, call him Jelal. The two of you are very much in love, and want to get married, but you just don’t have the means. And then one day.” “Wait,” I said, “I think I see where this is going, sort of. One day the beggar who lives next door comes over, right, and it turns out he’s incredibly rich and he says he’s been eavesdropping and he understands our problem and he offers Jelal a.” I stopped talking. The penny had just dropped. All of sudden, I actually did see where this was going, at least in general terms. “Oh, my, God.” I breathed. “I’ve got it just backward, don’t I?” Her eyes told me I was right. “There wasn’t any other way, do you see? Once I met you as Jinny Hamilton, I couldn’t tell you. And anyway, the whole point was to.” “You’re Harun al-Rashid!” “Well, his granddaughter,” she said miserably. I was stunned. “You’re rich.” She nodded sadly. “Very.” Tumblers began to click into place. I tried to think it through. “You’re not even an orphan, are you?” Headshake. “I couldn’t let anyone at Fermi meet my parents. They’re, pretty well known. Hiring a pair of Potemkin parents for social purposes seemed grotesque.” “And you came to Fermi, instead of Lawrence Campbell or one of the other top prep schools, so you could, what? See how the other half lives?” “Well, in part.” I was ranging back through my memories, adding things up with the benefit of hindsight, understanding little things that had puzzled me. Silver’s previously unsuspected power. Jinny’s extraordinary confidence and poise, so unexpected in an orphan. How, whenever someone brought up one of the really fabulous vacation destinations, Tuva, or the Ice Caves of Queen Maud Land in the Antarctic, or Harriman City on Luna, Jinny always seemed to have seen a good documentary about it recently. The way, when we ate pistachios, she always threw away the ones that were any trouble at all to open, I became aware that Jinny was absolutely still and silent, studying my face intently for clues to what I was thinking. It seemed like a good idea; maybe I should get a mirror and try it. I thought about banging my head against the dashboard to reboot my brain. Instead I looked at her and spread my hands. “I’m going to need some time to process this,” I admitted. “Of course,” she said at once. “Sleep on it. There’s no hurry. Tomorrow I’ll introduce you to my real father. And meantime I’ll answer any questions you have, no more evasions, no more white lies.” I didn’t feel as though I knew enough to formulate a coherent question yet. No, wait, I did have one, purely for form’s sake; I didn’t see how the answer could help me. Still, “What is it really?” She blinked. “Crave pardon?” “You said, ‘Once I met you as Jinny Hamilton.’ So that’s not your real name. Okay, I’ll bite. What is?” “Oh, dear,” she said. ” ‘Jinny Oh.’ Chinese, dear?” Not amused. “Joel.” “Come on, how bad could it be? Look, let’s meet for the first time all over again. Hi there, I’m Joel Johnston, of Ganymede. And you are?” She stared at me, blank-faced, for so long I actually began to wonder whether she was going to tell me. I couldn’t recall ever seeing her hesitate about anything before, much less this long. One of the many things I liked about her was that she always knew what she wanted to be doing next. Finally she closed her eyes, took in a long breath, released it, squared her shoulders and opened her eyes and looked me right in the eye. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mister Johnston. I’m Jinny Conrad.” For a second or two nothing happened. Then my eyebrows and my pulse both rose sharply. It couldn’t be. “Not.” “Of Conrad,” she confirmed. It couldn’t be. “It’s true,” she said. “My father is Albert Conrad. Richard Conrad’s third son.” “You’re Jinnia Conrad of Conrad,” I said. She nodded once. I didn’t quite faint, but it was good that I was sitting down, and strapped in. My head drained like a sink; all the blood and most of the brain matter dropped at once to my feet. Very rich, she’d said. Yeah, and the Milky Way is rather roomy! The Conrad industrial, informational empire was larger than the Rothschild family, the Hanseatic League, Kinetic Sciences Interplanetary, and Rolls- Daiwoo combined, and only slightly smaller than the Solar System. Nothing like it could have existed before the advent of space travel, and perhaps it became inevitable in the first minute of Year One, as Leslie LeCroix was still shutting down the Pioneer‘s engine on the virgin surface of Luna. The Conrads were a 150-year dynasty, every member of whom wielded wealth, power, and influence comparable to that of the Hudson’s Bay Company or Harriman Enterprises in their day. Their combined interests ranged from the scientific outpost on Mercury, to Oort Cloud harvest, to interstellar exploration as far as sixty-five light-years away. At that time there were well over a dozen starships either outgoing or incoming, and eight had already returned safely (out of a hoped-for eighteen), five of them bearing the riches of Croesus in one form or another. Three of those big winners had been Conrad ships. She gave me a minute, well, some indeterminate period. Finally she said, “Look, I have to land, now. Smithers wasn’t completely out of line to remind me. We, don’t like to hover, here. It’s just a bit conspicuous.” “Okay,” I said, to be saying something. “Where’s here?” “In a minute. Silver: I relieve you.” “Yes, Jinny.” She took the stick and we dropped three thousand meters rapidly enough to give me heart palpitations. Which nearly became cardiac arrest when the ground came rushing up, and she failed to decelerate hard enough to stop in time! We were going to crash, , right through the imaginary glacier, , and into a deep valley, its floor lush and green and inviting and, best of all, still hundreds of meters below us. She landed us, without a bump, in a small clearing that from the air had looked indistinguishable from dozens of others, to me at least. But the moment she shut down, hoses and cables sprouted from the forest floor and began nurturing Silver. Ahead of us was a huge boulder, the size of a truck; as I watched, a large doorway appeared in it, facing us. “We’re here,” she said. “I ask again: Where is here?” She shook her head. “It isn’t.” “Isn’t what?” “Isn’t anywhere.” I turned my head just enough to be looking at her out of the corner of my eye. “Here isn’t anywhere.” “Right.” I closed my eyes. If I had just stayed back home on the farm, by now I might have been making enough of a crop to afford a hired man. That would have freed me up to do some courting, in a frontier society with considerably looser rules about premarital experimentation than contemporary Terra. But I knew for a fact there was no one remotely like Jinny anywhere on Ganymede. Had known it for a fact, that is, even before learning that she was more well off than the Secretary General. No, I couldn’t take that in just yet. “I really, really wish I could think of something more intelligent to say than, ‘What do you mean, “here isn’t anywhere”?’ ” She shrugged. “You tell me. If a place does not appear on any map, anywhere, if it doesn’t show in even the finest-grain satellite photos, if no wires or roads or paths run to it, no government takes mail to it or taxes from it, and nobody is from there, in what sense does it exist? There is no here. Just us.” “Here.” “Exactly.” I nodded and dismissed the matter. “And this is your home?” “One of them.” I nodded. “And your apartment on Lasqueti, of course. It must be weird having two homes.” She didn’t say a word or move a muscle. I turned to look at her. “More than two?” Silence. Stillness. “How many homes do you have, Jinny?” In a very small voice, she said, “Eight. Not counting the Lasqueti place.” “So?” “But three of them are off-planet!” “Naturally,” I agreed. “One winters in space.” “Oh, Joel, don’t be that way.” “Okay. Let’s go in.” She looked distressed. “Uh, if you are going to be that way, maybe it might he better to do it out here, before we go in.” I nodded again. Mister Agreeable. “Sure. That makes sense. Okay.” Then, big: “How could you do this to me, Jinny?” She didn’t flinch or cringe or duck. “Think it through, Joel. Sleep on it. Tomorrow morning, you tell me: How could I have not done it?” I began an angry retort, and swallowed it. I had to admit I had not begun to think this thing through yet, and Dad always drilled into me that the time to open your mouth came after that. Besides, I already had a glimmering of what she meant. I filled my lungs, emptied them slowly and fully, and said, “You’re right. Okay I’m prepared to be polite, now. Let’s go inside.” “You won’t have to be,” she said. “I promise you won’t see any family at all until tomorrow morning. I made them guarantee that. This is our Prom Night.” I frowned. “I wish I had an overnight bag. Change of socks, fresh shirt, my razor.” “Don’t worry about it,” she said, and unlocked the doors. I let it go. Probably the contents of the slop chest here were finer than anything I owned. “All right. Invite me up to your place.” “Down, actually.” We opened our doors and got out. The roof of imaginary glacier did not exist from its underside; the moon and stars shone unimpeded overhead, a neat trick. But this was definitely not a natural ecology. The air was skin temperature, with an occasional breeze just slightly warmer. It smelled of dirt and green growing things, with just a little ozone tingle as if it had rained recently, though it had not. The loamy earth beneath my feet was rich, almost quivering with life; any farmer I knew back on Ganymede would have desperately envied it. Acres of it, at least a meter deep: wild, uncultivated, supporting nothing but trees, scrub, and inedible berries. Just lying there. Conspicuous non consumption. Start getting used to it, old son. I thought of saying something, but I knew Jinny would never understand. It’s funny: the very word “Terra” means “dirt”, and not one hungry terrestrial in a thousand has a clue how important, how precious it is. I shook my head. The door in that huge rock ahead of the car was indeed an elevator. Back when I was four I’d been in an elevator that nice. In Stockholm, when Dad came Earthside to pick up the Nobel. Like that one, this elevator had a live human operator, of advanced age and singular ugliness, who made it a point of pride to remain unaware of our existence: he happened to be leaving as we stepped in, and took us down a good fifty meters with him. The car descended with unhurried elegance. It gave me time to think about the kind of people who would live deep underground, in a place that did not exist, and still feel the need to pull the sky over them like a blanket. “Paranoid” didn’t seem to cover it. By happy chance the operator decided to pause and check the operation of the doors just as he was passing the floor we wanted; so intent was his inspection, we were able to escape unnoticed. This left us in a kind of reception room, so lavish as to remind me of the lobby of that hotel back in Stockholm. The carpet was grass. But I didn’t get time to study the room; nearly at once I felt a tugging and turned to see a man older and uglier than the elevator operator trying to take my cloak. With some misgivings I let him have it, and that seemed to have been a mistake, for he simply handed it off to a small boy who suddenly appeared in my peripheral vision, and then literally threw himself at my feet and began loosening my shoes. I, reacted. If we’d been under normal gravity, on Ganymede or Mars, I think I’d have kicked his teeth in; as it was he went sprawling. But he took a shoe with him as he went, a trick I admired as much as I resented it. Jinny giggled. I recovered, removed the other shoe myself with as much dignity as I could muster, and handed it to him as he approached again. He reunited it with its twin, bowed deeply, and backed away. I turned to Jinny and forgot whatever I’d been about to say. Her own cloak and shoes had been magicked away by tall elves, and she looked, how do girls do that, anyway? One minute just be there, and the next, be there. They can do it without moving a muscle, somehow. “Good evening, Miss Jinny,” said a baritone voice from across the room. “Welcome home.” Standing just inside a door I had failed to notice was a man nearly as tall as me with a shaved head, wearing a suit that cost more than my tuition at Fermi Junior. Like us, and the various elves I’d seen, he wore no shoes. Presumably they would cobble us all new ones in the night. “Thank you, Smithers. This is, damn. Excuse me.” She lifted her phone-finger to her ear, listened for a few moments, frowned, said “Yes,” and broke the connection. “I’ve got to go, for just a few minutes. Get Joel situated, would you please, Smithers? I’m sorry, Joel, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” “Okay.” She was gone. Somehow he was at my side, without having covered the intervening distance. “Good evening, Mister Johnston. I’m Alex Rennick, master of the house at present. Welcome to the North Keep. Let me show you to your room, first, and then perhaps I can give you the ten-credit tour.” His eyes were gray, almost mauve. His head wasn’t shaved, it was depilated. Despite his height, a dozen subconscious cues told me he was earthborn. He was fit, and had an air of great competence and great confidence. I’m pretty good at guessing ages, given that everybody looks alike now, and I couldn’t pin him down any closer than the thirty-to-sixty zone. I found it interesting that he knew my last name without having been given it. “Thank you, Mister Rennick. You are most kind. Please call me Joel.” “And I am Alex. Will you come this way, Joel?” I thought of an ancient joke, put it out of my mind, and followed him from the room. As I did I promised myself, solemnly, that no matter what wonders I was shown here, I would not boggle. No matter how staggeringly opulent the place proved to be, I would not let it make me feel inferior. My father had been a Nobel laureate, and my mother a great composer, how many of these people could say as much? “Do you have any questions to start?” he asked as we went. “Yes, Alex,” I said, memorizing the route we were taking. “Why does Jinny call you Smithers?” “I have no idea.” His tone was absolutely neutral, but somehow I knew I’d touched a sore spot. Either it bothered him not to know, or the answer was humiliating. “Ah,” I said, lowering my pitch. “To drive you crazy, then.” I was curious to see how he’d respond to an invitation to a jocular, between-us-men discussion of his mistress, whom I personally knew to be a handful and a half. He sidestepped effortlessly. “That would be redundant, I’m afraid.” “Have you worked here long?” “Yes.” I see. “How many people live here in, the North Keep, you said?” “The number varies.” His stinginess with information was beginning to mildly irritate me. “No doubt. But surely as master of the house you know its current value.” I halfway expected him to say “Yes, I do,” and clam up. But he wasn’t that kind of childish. Instead he used jujitsu. “There are eighty-four persons resident in the North Keep at the moment. By midnight the number will be ninety-two, and shortly before breakfast time tomorrow it is expected to drop back to eighty-nine.” “Ah.” I hesitated in phrasing my next question. “And how many of those are employees?” “All but four. Five tomorrow.” Yipes! Yes, Conrads lived here, all right. “Here we are.” He stopped before a door that looked no different from any of several dozen we’d passed along the way, and tapped the button which on Terra is for some reason always called a knob. The door dilated to reveal a room full of thick pink smoke. At least it looked like smoke, and behaved like it, roiling and billowing, with the single exception that it declined to spill out of the open door into the corridor. I reminded myself I’d promised myself not to boggle, and with only what I hoped was an imperceptible hesitation, I walked right into the pink smoke, came out the other side, and boggled. Worse; I actually yelped. I was on Ganymede. Look, I admit I’m a hick. But I had experienced Sim walls by that point in my life, even if I couldn’t afford them yet. Even good ones didn’t really fool you; you could tell they were not real, just rectangular windows into worlds that you never really forgot were virtual. I’d even experienced six-wall Sim, 360-degree surround, and even then you had to voluntarily cooperate with the illusion for it to work: it never quite got the rounding correction perfect at the corners. But it was pretty good. This was real. I was back home on Ganymede, so convincingly that for just a startled moment, two-thirds of my weight seemed to leave me. I realized with astonishment that the air even smelled like Ganymede air, tasted like it, different from terrestrial air in ways subtle but unmistakable. I was standing in the middle of a newly made field, the soil only just coming to life. Beneath my feet, earthworms were shaking off the grogginess of cold sleep and beginning to realize they weren’t on Terra anymore. On the edge of the field, fifteen or twenty meters away, was a new-built farmhouse, smoke spiraling from its chimney. Try and build a fire anywhere else on Terra and they’d fine you the equivalent of two months’ tuition, for a first offense. Until today, I hadn’t seen a square meter of naked soil since I’d landed on its namesake. I felt my eyes begin to sting and water, and with no further warning a tidal wave of homesickness broke over me. I spun around in time to see Rennick come through the doorway. From this side too it looked like it was full of pink smoke. But it was no longer a door in anything: it just stood by itself in the middle of the field, a rectangle of pink smoke without any wall to be a hole in. I turned my back on hole and house master alike. “Miss Jinny thought you’d find this congenial,” he said from just behind me. I nodded. “Follow me please.” That didn’t require an answer either. We walked to the farmhouse and went inside. “The ‘fresher and entertainment center are in the obvious places. You’ll find clothing in that closet, Unlimited Access at that desk. If you want anything, anything whatsoever, state your wishes to the house server. His name is Leo.” I had the homesickness under control now, enough that I trusted myself to speak at least. “Leo is listening at all times?” “Leo listens at all times,” he agreed. “But he cannot hear anything unless he is addressed. Your privacy and security as a guest are unconditionally guaranteed.” “Of course,” I said as if I believed him. I idly opened the closet he’d indicated, and found all my own clothing. Boggle. On closer inspection it proved to be copies of nearly every piece of clothing I owned, all the ones Jinny had seen. They were not quite identical copies. For one thing, in nearly every case the quality of the copy was slightly better than that of the original. Suddenly I felt vastly tired. I didn’t feel like boggling anymore, or struggling not to. “Mister Rennick, Alex, I thank you for your offer of a tour of the North Keep, but I believe I will pass, at least for tonight.” “Certainly, Joel. If there’s nothing further I can do for you now, I’ll leave you to rest.” “I’m fine. Thank you.” “Good night.” He left. I watched through a window as he walked across the field and through the pink smoke of the door-without-a-wall. I looked around the “farmhouse,” then back out the window at a sky with two moons, and thought about bursting into tears, but I decided I was too manly “Leo?” “Yes, Mister Johnston?” “Can I get a cup of coffee?” “On the desk, sir.” I blinked, looked, a steaming cup of coffee sat on the desk beside me. It hadn’t been there a moment ago, but I hadn’t noticed it arrive. Without a word I picked it up and tried it. The superbness of the coffee was no surprise at all. The perfect drinking temperature was only a mild one. But the cream and two sugars. “Did Jinny tell you how I like my coffee, Leo?” “Miss Jinny has told me many things about you, Mister Johnston.” “Call me Joel.” “Yes, Mister Joel.” I opened my mouth, then closed it. There must be something sillier than arguing with software, but I can’t think offhand what it would be. I sat down on a rocking chair that creaked authentically, put my feet up on a hassock, and began to dismiss Leo from my mind, to prepare for the upcoming conversation with Jinny. Then a thought occurred. Carefully not addressing him by name I asked, “How long do you keep listening after I stop speaking, before you conclude I’m done and stop listening again?” Answer came there none. Which answered me: somewhere between five and ten seconds. Useful datum. “Leo?” “Yes, Mister Joel?” “Can you let me know just before Miss Jinny arrives here?” “No,” she said from the doorway. “He can’t.” We were both tired, and both emotionally upset. But we both knew there was more to be said before we could sleep. I took my feet down off the hassock, and she came and sat before me on it, and took both my hands in hers. “No more ducking and weaving. Spell it out for me,” I said. “In words of one sound bit, what’s the deal?” She was through dodging. “I’m proposing marriage, Joel. Just as we’ve discussed: lifetime, exclusive, old-fashioned matrimony. And I’m offering to support us, uh, at least until you get your degree and start to become established as a composer and start earning. I can afford it. I’m quite sure you’ll get that Kallikanzaros Scholarship, but if you don’t, it won’t matter. And best of all, we can start our first baby right away, tomorrow night, if you want.” “Huh? Skinny, what about your degree, your career?” “My second career, you mean. It’ll keep. I’ve always known what my first career has to be.” She tightened her grip on my hands and leaned slightly closer. “Stinky, maybe now you’ll understand why I’ve been so.” She blushed suddenly. “So frimpin’ stingy. So square, even for a Terran girl. Why I don’t park, or pet, or sneak out after curfew, and why our clinches never got out of hand, or even into it, so to speak. I think you know I haven’t wanted to be that way. But I had no choice. It may be all right for some other girls to bend the rules and take risks, but me, I’ve had it beaten into my head since I was three that I have responsibilities.” “The family name.” “The family name my left foot! The family genes. Stinky, I’m a female human animal; my number one job is to get married and make babies. And because I’m who I am, a member of a powerful dynasty, it makes all the difference in the world what baby I have, and who its father is.” She let go of my hands and sat up straight. “You’re it. This is not a snap decision.” It began to dawn on me that I was not merely being offered acceptance into the fringes of the Conrad family. I was being asked to father its heirs. On Ganymede I’d grown up seeing stud bulls brought in and put to work. They were always treated with great care and respect, very well fed, and certainly got all the healthy exercise a male animal could possibly want. Their DNA was vastly more successful than that of most other bulls, and their own lives vastly longer. Nobody made jokes about them in their hearing. But I couldn’t recall one who had looked very happy about the business. “Don’t look so worried, Stinky. It’s going to work out fine. You do want to marry me, we settled that, right?” I opened my mouth, realized I was harpooned, and closed it again. I had stated that only money prevented me from proposing; I didn’t have a leg to stand on. Nevertheless I found myself on my feet and being embraced. I had to admit it was a very nice embrace, warm and close and fragrant. “Then it’s all really very simple. All you need is a nice long chat with Gran’ther Richard. You’ll love him, really. And I know he’ll love you.” I stiffened in her arms, and fought with the impulse to faint. Good old Grandpa Richard. Known to the rest of the Solar System as Conrad of Conrad. The patriarch. The Chairman. I’d heard he had broken premiers. But perhaps the most awesome thing about his wealth was that, when I thought about it, I didn’t actually know a single fact about him, save his name and exalted position. I’d never read an article about him, or viewed a bio, or even seen a picture of his face. For all I knew he had taken my cloak when I arrived. Harun el-Hatchek. She released me and stepped back. “You’ll see him first thing tomorrow. He’ll explain things. And then afterward you and I will have breakfast together and start to make some plans. Good night, Stinky.” We parted without a kiss. She didn’t offer, and I didn’t try. I was starting to feel resentment at having been played for so long, and also I flatly did not believe there were no cameras on us. After she was gone, I thought about firing up that Universal Access Rennick-Smithers had mentioned, and researching the size and scope of the Conrad empire. But I knew if I did so here, now, on this computer system, Gran’ther Richard would know about it. It just smelled ripe to me. Milady brings home a handsome hick, and the first thing he does is start pricing the furniture. The thought made my cheeks burn. Instead I used that UA to google around until I had figured out the “Smithers” gag. It turned out to be just as well Rennick didn’t know the reference, if in fact he really didn’t. Jinny was comparing him to an ancient cartoon character who was a cringing bootlicker, a toady, a completely repressed monosexual, and an unrequited lover. I wondered how much of that was accurate and how much libel. And just how far the analogy was meant to go: Smithers’s employer in the cartoon, a Mister Burns, was vastly rich, impossibly old, and in every imaginable way a monster. Did he represent Jinny’s grandfather? Or father? Well, I would find out in the morning. Or maybe I would get lucky and be struck by a meteorite first. The bed turned out to be just like mine back at the dorm, except the mattress was better, the sheets were infinitely softer and lighter, and the pillow was gooshier. Was I hallucinating, or did the pillowcase really smell faintly of Jinny’s shampoo? It certainly did put a different perspective on things. It might be nice to smell that on my pillow every night from now on. And every morning. If in fact I was really smelling it now. While I was wondering, I fell asleep. Three. Joel. It’s time to wake up, dear.” Yes, that was definitely her hair I smelled. I had heard Jinny say just those words, in much that low throaty tone of voice, at the start of more than one pleasant dream. It was a novel experience to hear them at the end of one. Now if only everything else would continue to unfold as it usually did in the dream. I opened my eyes and she was not there. The scent was either vestigial or imagined. Drat. “You really need to wake up now, Joel,” she murmured insistently from somewhere nearby “Okay,” I said. “Wake up, Joel. It’s time t.” I sat up, and she chopped off in midword. She wasn’t there. Anywhere. I wake up hard. I had to sit there, lot a few seconds before I had it worked out. The speaker was not Jinny but Leo the AI server, perfectly imitating her voice while acting as an alarm clock. Doing the job well, too: I could fool my own alarm at the dorm by simply telling it I was getting up. Leo was programmed to accept nothing less than verticality as proof of compliance. Why did I need to get up now? I could tell I had not had eight hours’ sleep. I had graduated, for Pete’s sake, what was so urgent? It all came back to me at once. Oh, yes. That’s right. Today I was going to have a personal interview with one of the most powerful men in the Solar System. Had I supposed it would be scheduled for my convenience? A man like Conrad of Conrad would doubtless want to dispose of matters as trivial as meeting his grandchild’s fiance as early as possible in the business day “How soon am I expected?” I asked. “In half an hour, Mister Joel,” Leo said in his own voice. “How do I get breakfast?” “I can take your order, sir.” I started to say scrambled on toast, bucket of black coffee, liter of OJ. Then I thought to myself, this morning you are going to have a personal interview with one of the most powerful men in the Solar System. “Eggs Benedict, home fries, Tanzanian coffee, French Press, please, two sugars and eighteen percent cream, keep it coming, and squeeze a dozen oranges.” Leo returned the serve. “Very good, Mister Joel. Do you prefer peaberry or the normal bean?” “The peaberry, I think,” I managed. There was a scratching sound at the door. It opened, and a servant entered, pushing a tray ahead of him at shoulder height with two fingers. He was easily as old and as ugly as the servants I’d seen the night before, but nowhere near as surly. Maybe day shift was better. “What’s that?” I asked. He steered the tray to a table near the bed, and somehow persuaded it to sit down. “Eggs Benedict, potatoes, coffee, fresh orange juice, and this morning’s news, sir,” he said, pointing to each item as he named it. Nothing in his manner suggested that only an idiot would need these things named. I promised myself that just as soon as I had the time, I would wonder, very hard, about how any of those items could have been produced instantly, much less all of them at once. But meanwhile, there was no sense pretending they had not caught me by surprise. “If I’d known how fast the service is here, I’d have asked them to wait ten minutes, while I used the ‘fresher,” I said with a rueful grin. He turned to the tray, made some sort of mystic gesture. The food became obscured by a hemisphere of, well, it looked like shimmery air. “Take as long as you like, sir. Everything will be the same temperature and consistency when you get back out.” Oh. Of course. I wondered how the hell I would get the air to stop shimmering, but I was determined not to ask. I’d figure it out somehow “Just reach right through it, whenever you’re ready, sir,” he volunteered. “That collapses the field.” I opened my mouth to ask what kind of field, how was it generated, what were its properties, and stifled myself. There would be time for that later. “What is your name?” “Nakamura, sir.” “Thank you, Mister Nakamura. You’re very kind.” “You’re welcome, sir. And thank you.” Somehow he was gone instantly, without hurrying. I started to get out of bed, and the damned thing helped me. The part right under my knees dropped away, and the part under my butt rose, and I was on my feet. I reacted pretty much as if I’d been goosed, the physical sensations were not dissimilar. I said the word “Whoa!” louder and an octave higher than I might have wished, leaped forward a meter or so, and spun around to glare accusingly at the bed. “Is something wrong, Mister Joel?” Leo asked. I took a deep breath. And then another. “Not yet,” I stated cautiously. On the way to the ‘fresher, I passed close to the tray of food. I could see a cup of coffee in there, and wanted it so badly it brought tears to my eyes. But I knew if I “collapsed the field” now, I probably wouldn’t be able to re-create it again. And besides, there was the question of making room for the coffee. So okay, I would hurry and be out of the ‘fresher in five minutes instead of ten. I stepped in. On Ganymede we’re more reticent about such matters than Terrans, for complex sociocultural reasons I’d be perfectly happy to explain any time you have an hour to kill listening to a guy who doesn’t know what the hell he’s talking about. So I’ll just say that this ‘fresher was about ten times better equipped and programmed than I had ever imagined possible, and let it go at that. It was more like fifteen minutes before I was able to make myself end the sybaritic cycle. When I came out, my clothes were gone. I remarked on this, as casually as I could manage. Leo explained that they had been taken away for laundering. He invited me to wear any of the fakes in the closet that pleased me, and assured me, unnecessarily, that they would all fit me perfectly. I was not at all happy about this, but I could see my wallet, phone, and keys on the bedside table, so I postponed the matter until after coffee. By the end of the first cup, I had no strong objection to anything short of disembowelment or denial of a second cup. If you are ever given the choice, insist on the peaberry. Trust me. When I was ready to dress, I automatically reached for the copy of my best suit, comforting myself as best I could with the guess that this version of it, at least, would be freshly cleaned, and would not be worn nearly through in spots. But as I took it from the closet, I noticed an item hanging just behind it that certainly was not a copy of any garment I owned. It was a J. L. Fong suit. Top of the line, of the latest cut and style. In a color, I noticed, that would complement Jinny’s hair. It was worth more than my entire wardrobe, more than my passage to Earth had cost. The tights were just a bit daring, but I decided I had the calves to carry them off. I was unsurprised to find suitable underwear and other necessary accessories in drawers, tucked in among my own trash. The moment I put it on, that suit became an old, familiar, and valued friend, and I became taller and wider across the shoulders. It could not have fit better if it had been made on my body. It knew things about me I wouldn’t learn for years yet, and approved of them all. Wearing a suit like that, you could break up a knife fight with an admonishment, secure a million-dollar loan without being troubled for a signature, walk away from a crime scene, or obtain illicit drugs on credit. I examined the effect in the ‘fresher room mirror, and decided that on me, it looked good. Perhaps, I felt, I could even survive an interview with Conrad of Conrad without soiling it

"One must remember that culture in its higher forms is a delicate plant which depends on a complicated set of conditions and is wont to flourish only in a few places at any given time." THE WORLD AS I SEE IT. Albert Einstein. Only individuals have a sense of responsibility. Nietzsche. The Meaning of Life. What is the meaning of human life, or of organic life altogether? To answer this question at all implies a religion. Is there any sense then, you ask, in putting it? I answer, the man who regards his own life and that of his fellow-creatures as meaningless is not merely unfortunate but almost disqualified for life. The World as I see it. What an extraordinary situation is that of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he feels it. But from the point of view of daily life, without going deeper, we exist for our fellow-men, in the first place for those on whose smiles and welfare all our happiness depends, and next for all those unknown to us personally with whose destinies we are bound up by the tie of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life depend on the labours of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving. I am strongly drawn to the simple life and am often oppressed by the feeling that I am engrossing an unnecessary amount of the labour of my fellow-men. I regard class differences as contrary to justice and, in the last resort, based on force. I also consider that plain living is good for everybody, physically and mentally. In human freedom in the philosophical sense I am definitely a disbeliever. Everybody acts not only under external compulsion but also in accordance with inner necessity. Schopenhauer's saying, that "a man can do as he will, but not will as he will," has been an inspiration to me since my youth up, and a continual consolation and unfailing well-spring of patience in the face of the hardships of life, my own and others'. This feeling mercifully mitigates the sense of responsibility which so easily becomes paralysing, and it prevents us from taking ourselves and other people too seriously; it conduces to a view of life in which humour, above all, has its due place. To inquire after the meaning or object of one's own existence or of creation generally has always seemed to me absurd from an objective point of view. And yet everybody has certain ideals which determine the direction of his endeavours and his judgments. In this sense I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves, such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine. The ideals which have lighted me on my way and time after time given me new courage to face life cheerfully, have been Truth, Goodness, and Beauty. Without the sense of fellowship with men of like mind, of preoccupation with the objective, the eternally unattainable in the field of art and scientific research, life would have seemed to me empty. The ordinary objects of human endeavour, property, outward success, luxury, have always seemed to me contemptible. My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced freedom from the need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I gang my own gait and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties I have never lost an obstinate sense of detachment, of the need for solitude, a feeling which increases with the years. One is sharply conscious, yet without regret, of the limits to the possibility of mutual understanding and sympathy with one's fellow-creatures. Such a person no doubt loses something in the way of geniality and light-heartedness; on the other hand, he is largely independent of the opinions, habits, and judgments of his fellows and avoids the temptation to take his stand on such insecure foundations. My political ideal is that of democracy. Let every man be respected as an individual and no man idolized. It is an irony of fate that I myself have been the recipient of excessive admiration and respect from my fellows through no fault, and no merit, of my own. The cause of this may well be the desire, unattainable for many, to understand the one or two ideas to which I have with my feeble powers attained through ceaseless struggle. I am quite aware that it is necessary for the success of any complex undertaking that one man should do the thinking and directing and in general bear the responsibility. But the led must not be compelled, they must be able to choose their leader. An autocratic system of coercion, in my opinion, soon degenerates. For force always attracts men of low morality, and I believe it to be an invariable rule that tyrants of genius are succeeded by scoundrels. For this reason I have always been passionately opposed to systems such as we see in Italy and Russia to-day. The thing that has brought discredit upon the prevailing form of democracy in Europe to-day is not to be laid to the door of the democratic idea as such, but to lack of stability on the part of the heads of governments and to the impersonal character of the electoral system. I believe that in this respect the United States of America have found the right way. They have a responsible President who is elected for a sufficiently long period and has sufficient powers to be really responsible. On the other hand, what I value in our political system is the more extensive provision that it makes for the individual in case of illness or need. The really valuable thing in the pageant of human life seems to me not the State but the creative, sentient individual, the personality; it alone creates the noble and the sublime, while the herd as such remains dull in thought and dull in feeling. This topic brings me to that worst outcrop of the herd nature, the military system, which I abhor. That a man can take pleasure in marching in formation to the strains of a band is enough to make me despise him. He has only been given his big brain by mistake; a backbone was all he needed. This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism by order, senseless violence, and all the pestilent nonsense that does by the name of patriotism, how I hate them! War seems to me a mean, contemptible thing: I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business. And yet so high, in spite of everything, is my opinion of the human race that I believe this bogey would have disappeared long ago, had the sound sense of the nations not been systematically corrupted by commercial and political interests acting through the schools and the Press. The fairest thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the fundamental emotion which stands at the cradle of true art and true science. He who knows it not and can no longer wonder, no longer feel amazement, is as good as dead, a snuffed-out candle. It was the experience of mystery, even if mixed with fear, that engendered religion. A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms, it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude; in this sense, and in this alone, I am a deeply religious man. I cannot conceive of a God who rewards and punishes his creatures, or has a will of the type of which we are conscious in ourselves. An individual who should survive his physical death is also beyond my comprehension, nor do I wish it otherwise; such notions are for the fears or absurd egoism of feeble souls. Enough for me the mystery of the eternity of life, and the inkling of the marvellous structure of reality, together with the single-hearted endeavour to comprehend a portion, be it never so tiny, of the reason that manifests itself in nature. Academic chairs are many, but wise and noble teachers are few; lecture-rooms are numerous and large, but the number of young people who genuinely thirst after truth and justice is small. Nature scatters her common wares with a lavish hand, but the choice sort she produces but seldom. We all know that, so why complain? Was it not ever thus and will it not ever thus remain? Certainly, and one must take what Nature gives as one finds it. But there is also such a thing as a spirit of the times, an attitude of mind characteristic of a particular generation, which is passed on from individual to individual and gives a society its particular tone. Each of us has to do his little bit towards transforming this spirit of the times. Compare the spirit which animated the youth in our universities a hundred years ago with that prevailing to-day. They had faith in the amelioration of human society, respect for every honest opinion, the tolerance for which our classics had lived and fought. In those days men strove for a larger political unity, which at that time was called Germany. It was the students and the teachers at the universities who kept these ideals alive. To-day also there is an urge towards social progress, towards tolerance and freedom of thought, towards a larger political unity, which we to-day call Europe. But the students at our universities have ceased as completely as their teachers to enshrine the hopes and ideals of the nation. Anyone who looks at our times coolly and dispassionately must admit this. Good and Evil. It is right in principle that those should be the best loved who have contributed most to the elevation of the human race and human life. But, if one goes on to ask who they are, one finds oneself in no inconsiderable difficulties. In the case of political, and even of religious, leaders, it is often very doubtful whether they have done more good or harm. Hence I most seriously believe that one does people the best service by giving them some elevating work to do and thus indirectly elevating them. This applies most of all to the great artist, but also in a lesser degree to the scientist. To be sure, it is not the fruits of scientific research that elevate a man and enrich his nature, but the urge to understand, the intellectual work, creative or receptive. It would surely be absurd to judge the value of the Talmud, for instance, by its intellectual fruits. The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which he has attained to liberation from the self. Society and Personality. When we survey our lives and endeavors we soon observe that almost the whole of our actions and desires are bound up with the existence of other human beings. We see that our whole nature resembles that of the social animals. We eat food that others have grown, wear clothes that others have made, live in houses that others have built. The greater part of our knowledge and beliefs has been communicated to us by other people through the medium of a language which others have created. Without language our mental capacities would be poor indeed, comparable to those of the higher animals; we have, therefore, to admit that we owe our principal advantage over the beasts to the fact of living in human society. The individual, if left alone from birth would remain primitive and beast-like in his thoughts and feelings to a degree that we can hardly conceive. The individual is what he is and has the significance that he has not so much in virtue of his individuality, but rather as a member of a great human society, which directs his material and spiritual existence from the cradle to the grave. A man's value to the community depends primarily on how far his feelings, thoughts, and actions are directed towards promoting the good of his fellows. We call him good or bad according to how he stands in this matter. It looks at first sight as if our estimate of a man depended entirely on his social qualities. And yet such an attitude would be wrong. It is clear that all the valuable things, material, spiritual, and moral, which we receive from society can be traced back through countless generations to certain creative individuals. The use of fire, the cultivation of edible plants, the steam engine, each was discovered by one man. Only the individual can think, and thereby create new values for society, nay, even set up new moral standards to which the life of the community conforms. Without creative, independently thinking and judging personalities the upward development of society is as unthinkable as the development of the individual personality without the nourishing soil of the community. The health of society thus depends quite as much on the independence of the individuals composing it as on their close political cohesion. It has been said very justly that Greco-Europeo-American culture as a whole, and in particular its brilliant flowering in the Italian Renaissance, which put an end to the stagnation of medieval Europe, is based on the liberation and comparative isolation of the individual. Let us now consider the times in which we live. How does society fare, how the individual? The population of the civilized countries is extremely dense as compared with former times; Europe to-day contains about three times as many people as it did a hundred years ago. But the number of great men has decreased out of all proportion. Only a few individuals are known to the masses as personalities, through their creative achievements. Organization has to some extent taken the place of the great man, particularly in the technical sphere, but also to a very perceptible extent in the scientific. The lack of outstanding figures is particularly striking in the domain of art. Painting and music have definitely degenerated and largely lost their popular appeal. In politics not only are leaders lacking, but the independence of spent and the sense of justice of the citizen have to a great extent declined. The democratic, parliamentarian regime, which is based on such independence, has in many places been shaken, dictatorships have sprung up and are tolerated, because men's sense of the dignity and the rights of the individual is no longer strong enough. In two weeks the sheep-like masses can be worked up by the newspapers into such a state of excited fury that the men are prepared to put on uniform and kill and be billed, for the sake of the worthless aims of a few interested parties. Compulsory military service seems to me the most disgraceful symptom of that deficiency in personal dignity from which civilized mankind is suffering to-day. No wonder there is no lack of prophets who prophesy the early eclipse of our civilization. I am not one of these pessimists; I believe that better times are coming. Let me shortly state my reasons for such confidence. In my opinion, the present symptoms of decadence are explained by the fact that the development of industry and machinery has made the struggle for existence very much more severe, greatly to the detriment of the free development of the individual. But the development of machinery means that less and less work is needed from the individual for the satisfaction of the community's needs. A planned division of labor is becoming more and more of a crying necessity, and this division will lead to the material security of the individual. This security and the spare time and energy which the individual will have at his command can be made to further his development. In this way the community may regain its health, and we will hope that future historians will explain the morbid symptoms of present-day society as the childhood ailments of an aspiring humanity, due entirely to the excessive speed at which civilization was advancing. Of Wealth. I am absolutely convinced that no wealth in the world can help humanity forward, even in the hands of the most devoted worker in this cause. The example of great and pure characters is the only thing that can produce fine ideas and noble deeds. Money only appeals to selfishness and always tempts its owners irresistibly to abuse it. Can anyone imagine Moses, Jesus, or Gandhi armed with the money-bags of Carnegie? Education and Educators. A letter. Dear Miss, I have read about sixteen pages of your manuscript and it made me smile. It is clever, well observed, honest, it stands on its own feet up to a point, and yet it is so typically feminine, by which I mean derivative and vitiated by personal rancor. I suffered exactly the same treatment at the hands of my teachers, who disliked me for my independence and passed me over when they wanted assistants, I must admit that I was somewhat less of a model student than you. But it would not have been worth my while to write anything about my school life, still less would I have liked to be responsible for anyone's printing or actually reading it. Besides, one always cuts a poor figure if one complains about others who are struggling for their place in the sun too after their own fashion. Therefore pocket your temperament and keep your manuscript for your sons and daughters, in order that they may derive consolation from it and, not give a damn for what their teachers tell them or think of them. Incidentally I am only coming to Princeton to research, not to teach. There is too much education altogether, especially in American schools. The only rational way of educating is to be an example, of what to avoid, if one can't be the other sort. With best wishes. Paradise Lost. As late as the seventeenth century the savants and artists of all Europe were so closely united by the bond of a common ideal that co-operation between them was scarcely affected by political events. This unity was further strengthened by the general use of the Latin language. To-day we look back at this state of affairs as at a lost paradise. The passions of nationalism have destroyed this community of the intellect, and the Latin language, which once united the whole world, is dead. The men of learning have become the chief mouthpieces of national tradition and lost their sense of an intellectual commonwealth. Nowadays we are faced with the curious fact that the politicians, the practical men of affairs, have become the exponents of international ideas. It is they who have created the League of Nations. Religion and Science. Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of felt needs and the assuagement of pain. One has to keep this constantly in mind if one wishes to understand spiritual movements and their development. Feeling and desire are the motive forces behind all human endeavor and human creation, in however exalted a guise the latter may present itself to us. Now what are the feelings and needs that have led men to religious thought and belief in the widest sense of the words? A little consideration will suffice to show us that the most varying emotions preside over the birth of religious thought and experience. With primitive man it is above all fear that evokes religious notions, fear of hunger, wild beasts, sickness, death. Since at this stage of existence understanding of causal connections is usually poorly developed, the human mind creates for itself more or less analogous beings on whose wills and actions these fearful happenings depend. One's object now is to secure the favor of these beings by carrying out actions and offering sacrifices which, according to the tradition handed down from generation to generation, propitiate them or make them well disposed towards a mortal. I am speaking now of the religion of fear. This, though not created, is in an important degree stabilized by the formation of a special priestly caste which sets up as a mediator between the people and the beings they fear, and erects a hegemony on this basis. In many cases the leader or ruler whose position depends on other factors, or a privileged class, combines priestly functions with its secular authority in order to make the latter more secure; or the political rulers and the priestly caste make common cause in their own interests. The social feelings are another source of the crystallization of religion. Fathers and mothers and the leaders of larger human communities are mortal and fallible. The desire for guidance, love, and support prompts men to form the social or moral conception of God. This is the God of Providence who protects, disposes, rewards, and punishes, the God who, according to the width of the believer's outlook, loves and cherishes the life of the tribe or of the human race, or even life as such, the comforter in sorrow and unsatisfied longing, who preserves the souls of the dead. This is the social or moral conception of God. The Jewish scriptures admirably illustrate the development from the religion of fear to moral religion, which is continued in the New Testament. The religions of all civilized peoples, especially the peoples of the Orient, are primarily moral religions. The development from a religion of fear to moral religion is a great step in a nation's life. That primitive religions are based entirely on fear and the religions of civilized peoples purely on morality is a prejudice against which we must be on our guard. The truth is that they are all intermediate types, with this reservation, that on the higher levels of social life the religion of morality predominates. Common to all these types is the anthropomorphic character of their conception of God. Only individuals of exceptional endowments and exceptionally high-minded communities, as a general rule, get in any real sense beyond this level. But there is a third state of religious experience which belongs to all of them, even though it is rarely found in a pure form, and which I will call cosmic religious feeling. It is very difficult to explain this feeling to anyone who is entirely without it, especially as there is no anthropomorphic conception of God corresponding to it. The individual feels the nothingness of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvellous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. He looks upon individual existence as a sort of prison and wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear in earlier stages of development, for example, in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learnt from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer especially, contains a much stronger element of it. The religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man's image; so that there can be no Church whose central teachings are based on it. Hence it is precisely among the heretics of every age that we find men who were filled with the highest kind of religious feeling and were in many cases regarded by their contemporaries as Atheists, sometimes also as saints. Looked at in this light, men like Democritus, Francis of Assisi, and Spinoza are closely akin to one another. How can cosmic religious feeling be communicated from one person to another, if it can give rise to no definite notion of a God and no theology? In my view, it is the most important function of art and science to awaken this feeling and keep it alive in those who are capable of it. We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events, that is, if he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it goes through. Hence science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment and hope of reward after death. It is therefore easy to see why the Churches have always fought science and persecuted its devotees. On the other hand, I maintain that cosmic religious feeling is the strongest and noblest incitement to scientific research. Only those who realize the immense efforts and, above all, the devotion which pioneer work in theoretical science demands, can grasp the strength of the emotion out of which alone such work, remote as it is from the immediate realities of life, can issue. What a deep conviction of the rationality of the universe and what a yearning to understand, were it but a feeble reflection of the mind revealed in this world, Kepler and Newton must have had to enable them to spend years of solitary labor in disentangling the principles of celestial mechanics! Those whose acquaintance with scientific research is derived chiefly from its practical results easily develop a completely false notion of the mentality of the men who, surrounded by a skeptical world, have shown the way to those like-minded with themselves, scattered through the earth and the centuries. Only one who has devoted his life to similar ends can have a vivid realization of what has inspired these men and given them the strength to remain true to their purpose in spite of countless failures. It is cosmic religious feeling that gives a man strength of this sort. A contemporary has said, not unjustly, that in this materialistic age of ours the serious scientific workers are the only profoundly religious people. The Religiousness of Science. You will hardly find one among the profounder sort of scientific minds without a peculiar religious feeling of his own. But it is different from the religion of the naive man. For the latter God is a being from whose care one hopes to benefit and whose punishment one fears; a sublimation of a feeling similar to that of a child for its father, a being to whom one stands to some extent in a personal relation, however deeply it may be tinged with awe. But the scientist is possessed by the sense of universal causation. The future, to him, is every whit as necessary and determined as the past. There is nothing divine about morality, it is a purely human affair. His religious feeling takes the form of a rapturous amazement at the harmony of natural law, which reveals an intelligence of such superiority that, compared with it, all the systematic thinking and acting of human beings is an utterly insignificant reflection. This feeling is the guiding principle of his life and work, in so far as he succeeds in keeping himself from the shackles of selfish desire. It is beyond question closely akin to that which has possessed the religious geniuses of all ages. The Plight of Science. The German-speaking countries are menaced by a danger to which those in the know are in duty bound to call attention in the most emphatic terms. The economic stress which political events bring in their train does not hit everybody equally hard. Among the hardest hit are the institutions and individuals whose material existence depends directly on the State. To this category belong the scientific institutions and workers on whose work not merely the well-being of science but also the position occupied by Germany and Austria in the scale of culture very largely depends. To grasp the full gravity of the situation it is necessary to bear in mind the following consideration. In times of crisis people are generally blind to everything outside their immediate necessities. For work which is directly productive of material wealth they will pay. But science, if it is to flourish, must have no practical end in view. As a general rule, the knowledge and the methods which it creates only subserve practical ends indirectly and, in many cases, not till after the lapse of several generations. Neglect of science leads to a subsequent dearth of intellectual workers able, in virtue of their independent outlook and judgment, to blaze new trails for industry or adapt themselves to new situations. Where scientific enquiry is stunted the intellectual life of the nation dries up, which means the withering of many possibilities of future development. This is what we have to prevent. Now that the State has been weakened as a result of nonpolitical causes, it is up to the economically stronger members of the community to come to the rescue directly, and prevent the decay of scientific life. Far-sighted men with a clear understanding of the situation have set up institutions by which scientific work of every sort is to be kept going in Germany and Austria. Help to make these efforts a real success. In my teaching work I see with admiration that economic troubles have not yet succeeded in stifling the will and the enthusiasm for scientific research. Far from it! Indeed, it looks as if our disasters had actually quickened the devotion to non-material goods. Everywhere people are working with burning enthusiasm in the most difficult circumstances. See to it that the will-power and the talents of the youth of to-day do not perish to the grievous hurt of the community as a whole. Interviewers. To be called to account publicly for everything one has said, even in jest, an excess of high spirits, or momentary anger, fatal as it must be in the end, is yet up to a point reasonable and natural. But to be called to account publicly for what others have said in one's name, when one cannot defend oneself, is indeed a sad predicament. "But who suffers such a dreadful fate?" you will ask. Well, everyone who is of sufficient interest to the public to be pursued by interviewers. You smile incredulously, but I have had plenty of direct experience and will tell you about it. Imagine the following situation. One morning a reporter comes to you and asks you in a friendly way to tell him something about your friend N. At first you no doubt feel something approaching indignation at such a proposal. But you soon discover that there is no escape. If you refuse to say anything, the man writes: "I asked one of N's supposedly best friends about him. But he prudently avoided my questions. This in itself enables the reader to draw the inevitable conclusions." There is, therefore, no escape, and you give the following information: "Mister N is a cheerful, straightforward man, much liked by all his friends. He can find a bright side to any situation. His enterprise and industry know no bounds; his job takes up his entire energies. He is devoted to his family and lays everything he possesses at his wife's feet." Now for the reporter's version: "Mister N takes nothing very seriously and has a gift for making himself liked, particularly as he carefully cultivates a hearty and ingratiating manner. He is so completely a slave to his job that he has no time for the considerations of any non-personal subject or for any mental activity outside it. He spoils his wife unbelievably and is utterly under her thumb." A real reporter would make it much more spicy, but I expect this will be enough for you and your friend N. He reads this, and some more like it, in the paper next morning, and his rage against you knows no bounds, however cheerful and benevolent his natural disposition may be. The injury done to him gives you untold pain, especially as you are really fond of him. What's your next step, my friend? If you know, tell me quickly, so that I may adopt your method with all speed. Thanks to America. Mister Mayor, Ladies, and Gentlemen, The splendid reception which you have accorded to me to-day puts me to the blush in so far as it is meant for me personally, but it gives me all the more pleasure in so far as it is meant for me as a representative of pure science. For this gathering is an outward and visible sign that the world is no longer prone to regard material power and wealth as the highest goods. It is gratifying that men should feel an urge to proclaim this in an official way. In the wonderful two months which I have been privileged to spend in your midst in this fortunate land, I have had many opportunities of observing what a high value men of action and of practical life attach to the efforts of science; a good few of them have placed a considerable proportion of their fortunes and their energies at the service of scientific enterprises and thereby contributed to the prosperity and prestige of this country. I cannot let this occasion pass without referring in a spirit of thankfulness to the fact that American patronage of science is not limited by national frontiers. Scientific enterprises all over the civilized world rejoice in the liberal support of American institutions and individuals, a fact which is, I am sure, a source of pride and gratification to all of you. These tokens of an international way of thinking and feeling are particularly welcome; for the world is to-day more than ever in need of international thinking and feeling by its leading nations and personalities, if it is to progress towards a better and more worthy future. I may be permitted to express the hope that this internationalism of the American nation, which proceeds from a high sense of responsibility, will very soon extend itself to the sphere of politics. For without the active co-operation of the great country of the United States in the business of regulating international relations, all efforts directed towards this important end are bound to remain more or less ineffectual. I thank you most heartily for this magnificent reception and, in particular, the men of learning in this country for the cordial and friendly welcome I have received from them. I shall always look back on these two months with pleasure and gratitude. The University Course at Davos. Senalores boni viri, senatus autem bestia. So a friend of mine, a Swiss professor, once wrote in his irritable way to a university faculty which had annoyed him. Communities tend to be less guided than individuals by conscience and a sense of responsibility. What a fruitful source of suffering to mankind this fact is! It is the cause of wars and every kind of oppression, which fill the earth with pain, sighs, and bitterness. And yet nothing truly valuable can be achieved except by the unselfish co-operation of many individuals. Hence the man of good will is never happier than when some communal enterprise is afoot and is launched at the cost of heavy sacrifices, with the single object of promoting life and culture. Such pure joy was mine when I heard about the university courses at Davos. A work of rescue is being carried out there, with intelligence and a wise moderation, which is based on a grave need, though it may not be a need that is immediately obvious to everyone. Many a young man goes to this valley with his hopes fixed on the healing power of its sunny mountains and regains his bodily health. But thus withdrawn for long periods from the will-hardening discipline of normal work and a prey to morbid reflection on his physical condition, he easily loses the power of mental effort and the sense of being able to hold his own in the struggle for existence. He becomes a sort of hot-house plant and, when his body is cured, often finds it difficult to get back to normal life. Interruption of intellectual training in the formative period of youth is very apt to leave a gap which can hardly be filled later. Yet, as a general rule, intellectual work in moderation, so far from retarding cure, indirectly helps it forward, just as moderate physical work does. It is in this knowledge that the university courses are being instituted, with the object not merely of preparing these young people for a profession but of stimulating them to intellectual activity as such. They are to provide work, training, and hygiene in the sphere of the mind. Let us not forget that this enterprise is admirably calculated to establish such relations between members of different nations as are favorable to the growth of a common European feeling. The effects of the new institution in this direction are likely to be all the more advantageous from the fact that the circumstances of its birth rule out every sort of political purpose. The best way to serve the cause of internationalism is by co-operating in some life-giving work. From all these points of view I rejoice that the energy and intelligence of the founders of the university courses at Davos have already attained such a measure of success that the enterprise has outgrown the troubles of infancy. May it prosper, enriching the inner lives of numbers of admirable human beings and rescuing many from the poverty of sanatorium life! Congratulations to a Critic. To see with one's own eyes, to feel and judge without succumbing to the suggestive power of the fashion of the day, to be able to express what one has seen and felt in a snappy sentence or even in a cunningly wrought word, is that not glorious? Is it not a proper subject for congratulation? Some Notes on my American Impressions. I must redeem my promise to say something about my impressions of this country. That is not altogether easy for me. For it is not easy to take up the attitude of an impartial observer when one is received with such kindness and undeserved respect as I have been in America. First of all let me say something on this head. The cult of individual personalities is always, in my view, unjustified. To be sure, nature distributes her gifts variously among her children. But there are plenty of the well-endowed ones too, thank God, and I am firmly convinced that most of them live quiet, unregarded lives. It strikes me as unfair, and even in bad taste, to select a few of them fur boundless admiration, attributing superhuman powers of mind and character to them. This has been my fate, and the contrast between the popular estimate of my powers and achievements and the reality is simply grotesque. The consciousness of this extraordinary state of affairs would be unbearable but for one great consoling thought: it is a welcome symptom in an age which is commonly denounced as materialistic, that it makes heroes of men whose ambitions lie wholly in the intellectual and moral sphere. This proves that knowledge and justice are ranked above wealth and power by a large section of the human race. My experience teaches me that this idealistic outlook is particularly prevalent in America, which is usually decried as a particularly materialistic country. After this digression I come to my proper theme, in the hope that no more weight will be attached to my modest remarks than they deserve. What first strikes the visitor with amazement is the superiority of this country in matters of technics and organization. Objects of everyday use are more solid than in Europe, houses infinitely more convenient in arrangement. Everything is designed to save human labor. Labor is expensive, because the country is sparsely inhabited in comparison with its natural resources. The high price of labour was the stimulus which evoked the marvelous development of technical devices and methods of work. The opposite extreme is illustrated by over-populated China or India, where the low price of labour has stood in the way of the development of machinery. Europe is half-way between the two. Once the machine is sufficiently highly developed it becomes cheaper in the end than the cheapest labour. Let the Fascists in Europe, who desire on narrow-minded political grounds to see their own particular countries more densely populated, take heed of this. The anxious care with which the United States keep out foreign goods by means of prohibitive tariffs certainly contrasts oddly with this notion. But an innocent visitor must not be expected to rack his brains too much, and, when all is said and done, it is not absolutely certain that every question admits of a rational answer. The second thing that strikes a visitor is the joyous, positive attitude to life. The smile on the faces of the people in photographs is symbolical of one of the American's greatest assets. He is friendly, confident, optimistic, and, without envy. The European finds intercourse with Americans easy and agreeable. Compared with the American, the European is more critical, more self-conscious, less goodhearted and helpful, more isolated, more fastidious in his amusements and his reading, generally more or less of a pessimist. Great importance attaches to the material comforts of life, and peace, freedom from care, security are all sacrificed to them. The American lives for ambition, the future, more than the European. Life for him is always becoming, never being. In this respect he is even further removed from the Russian and the Asiatic than the European is. But there is another respect in which he resembles the Asiatic more than the European does: he is lest of an individualist than the European, that is, from the psychological, not the economic, point of view. More emphasis is laid on the "we" than the "I." As a natural corollary of this, custom and convention are very powerful, and there is much more uniformity both in outlook on life and in moral and æsthetic ideas among Americans than among Europeans. This fact is chiefly responsible for America's economic superiority over Europe. Co-operation and the division of labor are carried through more easily and with less friction than in Europe, whether in the factory or the university or in private good works. This social sense may be partly due to the English tradition. In apparent contradiction to this stands the fact that the activities of the State are comparatively restricted as compared with Europe. The European is surprised to find the telegraph, the telephone, the railways, and the schools predominantly in private hands. The more social attitude of the individual, which I mentioned just now, makes this possible here. Another consequence of this attitude is that the extremely unequal distribution of property leads to no intolerable hardships. The social conscience of the rich man is much more highly developed than in Europe. He considers himself obliged as a matter of course to place a large portion of his wealth, and often of his own energies too, at the disposal of the community, and public opinion, that all-powerful force, imperiously demands it of him. Hence the most important cultural functions can be left to private enterprise, and the part played by the State in this country is, comparatively, a very restricted one. The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition laws. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this. There is also another way in which Prohibition, in my opinion, has led to the enfeeblement of the State. The public-house is a place which gives people a chance to exchange views and ideas on public affairs. As far as I can see, people here have no chance of doing this, the result being that the Press, which is mostly controlled by definite interests, has an excessive influence over public opinion. The over-estimation of money is still greater in this country than in Europe, but appears to me to be on the decrease. It is at last beginning to be realized that great wealth is not necessary for a happy and satisfactory life. As regards artistic matters, I have been genuinely impressed by the good taste displayed in the modern buildings and in articles of common use; on the other hand, the visual arts and music have little place in the life of the nation as compared with Europe. I have a warm admiration for the achievements of American institutes of scientific research. We are unjust in attempting to ascribe the increasing superiority of American research-work exclusively to superior wealth; zeal, patience, a spirit of comradeship, and a talent for co-operation play an important part in its successes. One more observation to finish up with. The United States is the most powerful technically advanced country in the world to-day. Its influence on the shaping of international relations is absolutely incalculable. But America is a large country and its people have so far not shown much interest in great international problems, among which the problem of disarmament occupies first place today. This must be changed, if only in the essential interests of the Americans. The last war has shown that there are no longer any barriers between the continents and that the destinies of all countries are closely interwoven. The people of this country must realize that they have a great responsibility in the sphere of international politics. The part of passive spectator is unworthy of this country and is bound in the end to lead to disaster all round. Reply to the Women of America. An American Women's League felt called upon to protest against Einstein's visit to their country. They received the following answer. Never yet have I experienced from the fair sex such energetic rejection of all advances; or, if I have, never from so many at once. But are they not quite right, these watchful citizenesses? Why should one open one's doors to a person who devours hard-boiled capitalists with as much appetite and gusto as the Cretan Minotaur in days gone by devoured luscious Greek maidens, and on top of that is low-down enough to reject every sort of war, except the unavoidable war with one's own wife? Therefore give heed to your clever and patriotic women-folk and remember that the Capitol of mighty Rome was once saved by the cackling of its faithful geese. Politics and Pacifism. Peace. The importance of securing international peace was recognized by the really great men of former generations. But the technical advances of our times have turned this ethical postulate into a matter of life and death for civilized mankind to-day, and made the taking of an active part in the solution of the problem of peace a moral duty which no conscientious man can shirk. One has to realize that the powerful industrial groups concerned in the manufacture of arms are doing their best in all countries to prevent the peaceful settlement of international disputes, and that rulers can achieve this great end only if they are sure of the vigorous support of the majority of their peoples. In these days of democratic government the fate of the nations hangs on themselves; each individual must always bear that in mind. The Pacifist Problem. Ladies and Gentlemen, I am very glad of this opportunity of saying a few words to you about the problem of pacifism. The course of events in the last few years has once more shown us how little we are justified in leaving the struggle against armaments and against the war spirit to the Governments. On the other hand, the formation of large organizations with a large membership can of itself bring us very little nearer to our goal. In my opinion, the best method in this case is the violent one of conscientious objection, with the aid of organizations for giving moral and material support to the courageous conscientious objectors in each country. In this way we may succeed in making the problem of pacifism an acute one, a real struggle which attracts forceful natures. It is an illegal struggle, but a struggle for people's real rights against their governments in so far as the latter demand criminal acts of the citizen. Many who think themselves good pacifists will jib at this out-and-out pacifism, on patriotic grounds. Such people are not to be relied on in the hour of crisis, as the World War amply proved. I am most grateful to you for according me an opportunity to give you my views in person. Address to the Students' Disarmament Meeting. Preceding generations have presented us, in a highly developed science and mechanical knowledge, with a most valuable gift which carries with it possibilities of making our life free and beautiful such as no previous generation has enjoyed. But this gift also brings with it dangers to our existence as great as any that have ever threatened it. The destiny of civilized humanity depends more than ever on the moral forces it is capable of generating. Hence the task that confronts our age is certainly no easier than the tasks our immediate predecessors successfully performed. The foodstuffs and other goods which the world needs can be produced in far fewer hours of work than formerly. But this has made the problem of the division of labor and the distribution of the goods produced far more difficult. We all feel that the free play of economic forces, the unregulated and unrestrained pursuit of wealth and power by the individual, no longer leads automatically to a tolerable solution of these problems. Production, labor, and distribution need to be organized on a definite plan, in order to prevent valuable productive energies from being thrown away and sections of the population from becoming impoverished and relapsing into savagery. If unrestricted sacro egoismo leads to disastrous consequences in economic life, it is a still worse guide in international relations. The development of mechanical methods of warfare is such that human life will become intolerable if people do not before long discover a way of preventing war. The importance of this object is only equaled by the inadequacy of the attempts hitherto made to attain it. People seek to minimize the danger by limitation of armaments and restrictive rules for the conduct of war. But war is not like a parlour-game in which the players loyally stick to the rules. Where life and death are at stake, rules and obligations go by the board. Only the absolute repudiation of all war is of any use here. The creation of an international court of arbitration is not enough. There must be treaties guaranteeing that the decisions of this court shall be made effective by all the nations acting in concert. Without such a guarantee the nations will never have the courage to disarm seriously. Suppose, for example, that the American, English, German, and French Governments insisted on the Japanese Government's putting an immediate stop to their warlike operations in China, under pain of a complete economic boycott. Do you suppose that any Japanese Government would be found ready to take the responsibility of plunging its country into such a perilous adventure? Then why is it not done? Why must every individual and every nation tremble for their existence? Because each seeks his own wretched momentary advantage and refuses to subordinate it to the welfare and prosperity of the community. That is why I began by telling you that the fate of the human race was more than ever dependent on its moral strength to-day. The way to a joyful and happy state is through renunciation and self-limitation everywhere. Where can the strength for such a process come from? Only from those who have had the chance in their early years to fortify their minds and broaden their outlook through study. Thus we of the older generation look to you and hope that you will strive with all your might to achieve what was denied to us. To Sigmund Freud. Dear Professor Freud, It is admirable the way the longing to perceive the truth has overcome every other desire in you. You have shown with irresistible clearness how inseparably the combative and destructive instincts are bound up with the amative and vital ones in the human psyche. At the same time a deep yearning for that great consummation, the internal and external liberation of mankind from war, shines out from the ruthless logic of your expositions. This has been the declared aim of all those who have been honoured as moral and spiritual leaders beyond the limits of their own time and country without exception, from Jesus Christ to Goethe and Kant. Is it not significant that such men have been universally accepted as leaders, in spite of the fact that their efforts to mold the course of human affairs were attended with but small success? I am convinced that the great men, those whose achievements, even though in a restricted sphere, set them above their fellows, are animated to an overwhelming extent by the same ideals. But they have little influence on the course of political events. It almost looks as if this domain, on which the fate of nations depends, had inevitably to be given over to violence and irresponsibility. Political leaders or governments owe their position partly to force and partly to popular election. They cannot be regarded as representative of the best elements, morally and intellectually, in their respective nations. The intellectual elite have no direct influence on the history of nations in these days; their lack of cohesion prevents them from taking a direct part in the solution of contemporary problems. Don't you think that a change might be brought about in this respect by a free association of people whose work and achievements up to date constitute a guarantee of their ability and purity of aim? This international association, whose members would need to keep in touch with each other by a constant interchange of opinions, might, by defining its attitude in the Press, responsibility always resting with the signatories on any given occasion, acquire a considerable and salutary moral influence over the settlement of political questions. Such an association would, of course, be a prey to all the ills which so often lead to degeneration in learned societies, dangers which are inseparably bound up with the imperfection of human nature. But should not an effort in this direction be risked in spite of this? I look upon the attempt as nothing less than an imperative duty. If an intellectual association of standing, such as I have described, could be formed, it would no doubt have to try to mobilize the religious organizations for the fight against war. It would give countenance to many whose good intentions are paralyzed to-day by a melancholy resignation. Finally, I believe that an association formed of persons such as I have described, each highly esteemed in his own line, would be just the thing to give valuable moral support to those elements in the League of Nations which are really working for the great object for which that institution exists. I had rather put these proposals to you than to anyone else in the world, because you are least of all men the dupe of your desires and because your critical judgment is supported by a most earnest sense of responsibility. Compulsory Service. From a letter. Instead of permission being given to Germany to introduce compulsory service it ought to be taken away from everybody else: in future none but mercenary armies should be permitted, the size and equipment of which should be discussed at Geneva. This would be better for France than to have to permit compulsory service in Germany. The fatal psychological effect of the military education of the people and the violation of the individual's rights which it involves would thus be avoided. Moreover, it would be much easier for two countries which had agreed to compulsory arbitration for the settlement of all disputes arising out of their mutual relations to combine their military establishments of mercenaries into a single organization with a mixed staff. This would mean a financial relief and increased security for both of them. Such a process of amalgamation might extend to larger and larger combinations, and finally lead to an "international police," which would be bound gradually to degenerate as international security increased. Will you discuss this proposal with our friends by way of setting the ball rolling? Of course I do not in the least insist on this particular proposal. But I do think it essential that we should come forward with a positive programme; a merely negative policy is unlikely to produce any practical results. Germany and France. Mutual trust and co-operation between France and Germany can come about only if the French demand for security against military attack is satisfied. But should France frame demands in accordance with this, such a step would certainly be taken very ill in Germany. A procedure something like the following seems, however, to be possible. Let the German Government of its own free will propose to the French that they should jointly make representations to the League of Nations that it should suggest to all member States to bind themselves to the following:, (1) To submit to every decision of the international court of arbitration. (2) To proceed with all its economic and military force, in concert with the other members of the League, against any State which breaks the peace or resists an international decision made in the interests of world peace. Arbitration. Systematic disarmament within a short period. This is possible only in combination with the guarantee of all for the security of each separate nation, based on a permanent court of arbitration independent of governments. Unconditional obligation of all countries not merely to accept the decisions of the court of arbitration but also to give effect to them. Separate courts of arbitration for Europe with Africa, America, and Asia, Australia to be apportioned to one of these. A joint court of arbitration for questions involving issues that cannot be settled within the limits of any one of these three regions. The International of Science. At a sitting of the Academy during the War, at the time when national and political infatuation had reached its height, Emil Fischer spoke the following emphatic words: "It's no use, Gentlemen, science is and remains international." The really great scientists have always known this and felt it passionately, even though in times of political confusion they may have remained isolated among their colleagues of inferior caliber. In every camp during the War this mass of voters betrayed their sacred trust. The international society of the academies was broken up. Congresses were and still are held from which colleagues from ex-enemy countries are excluded. Political considerations, advanced with much solemnity, prevent the triumph of purely objective ways of thinking without which our great aims must necessarily be frustrated. What can right-minded people, people who are proof against the emotional temptations of the moment, do to repair the damage? With the majority of intellectual workers still so excited, truly international congresses on the grand scale cannot yet be held. The psychological obstacles to the restoration of the international associations of scientific workers are still too formidable to be overcome by the minority whose ideas and feelings are of a more comprehensive kind. These last can aid in the great work of restoring the international societies to health by keeping in close touch with like-minded people all over the world and resolutely championing the international cause in their own spheres. Success on a large scale will take time, but it will undoubtedly come. I cannot let this opportunity pass without paying a tribute to the way in which the desire to preserve the confraternity of the intellect has remained alive through all these difficult years in the breasts of a large number of our English colleagues especially. The disposition of the individual is everywhere better than the official pronouncements. Right-minded people should bear this in mind and not allow themselves to be misled and get angry: senatores boni viri, senatus autem bestia. If I am full of confident hope concerning the progress of international organization in general, that feeling is based not so much on my confidence in the intelligence and high-mindedness of my fellows, but rather on the irresistible pressure of economic developments. And since these depend largely on the work even of reactionary scientists, they too will help to create the international organization against their wills. The Institute for Intellectual Co-operation. During this year the leading politicians of Europe have for the first time drawn the logical conclusion from the truth that our portion of the globe can only regain its prosperity if the underground struggle between the traditional political units ceases. The political organization of Europe must be strengthened, and a gradual attempt made to abolish tariff barriers. This great end cannot be achieved by treaties alone. People's minds must, above all, be prepared for it. We must try gradually to awaken in them a sense of solidarity which does not, as hitherto, stop at frontiers. It is with this in mind that the League of Nations has created the Commission de cooperation intellectuelle. This Commission is to be an absolutely international and entirely nonpolitical authority, whose business it is to put the intellectuals of all the nations, who were isolated by the war, into touch with each other. It is a difficult task; for it has, alas, to be admitted that, at least in the countries with which I am most closely acquainted, the artists and men of learning are governed by narrowly nationalist feelings to a far greater extent than the men of affairs. Hitherto this Commission has met twice a year. To make its efforts more effective, the French Government has decided to create and maintain a permanent Institute for intellectual co-operation, which is just now to be opened. It is a generous act on the part of the French nation and deserves the thanks of all. It is an easy and grateful task to rejoice and praise and say nothing about the things one regrets or disapproves of. But honesty alone can help our work forward, so I will not shrink from combining criticism with this greeting to the new-born child. I have daily occasion for observing that the greatest obstacle which the work of our Commission has to encounter is the lack of confidence in its political impartiality. Everything must be done to strengthen that confidence and everything avoided that might harm it. When, therefore, the French Government sets up and maintains an Institute out of public funds in Paris as a permanent organ of the Commission, with a Frenchman as its Director, the outside observer can hardly avoid the impression that French influence predominates in the Commission. This impression is further strengthened by the fact that so far a Frenchman has also been chairman of the Commission itself. Although the individuals in question are men of the highest reputation, liked and respected everywhere, nevertheless the impression remains. Dixi et salvavi animam naeam. I hope with all my heart that the new Institute, by constant interaction with the Commission, will succeed in promoting their common ends and winning the confidence and recognition of intellectual workers all over the world. The Question of Disarmament. The greatest obstacle to the success of the disarmament plan was the fact tha people in general left out of account the chief difficulties of the problem. Most objects are gained by gradual steps: for example, the supersession of absolute monarchy by democracy. Here, however, we are concerned with an objective which cannot be reached step by step. As long as the possibility of war remains, nations will insist on being as perfectly prepared militarily as they can, in order to emerge triumphant from the next war. It will also be impossible to avoid educating the youth in warlike traditions and cultivating narrow national vanity joined to the glorification of the warlike spirit, as long as people have to be prepared for occasions when such a spirit will be needed in the citizens for the purpose of war. To arm is to give one's voice and make one's preparations not for peace but for war. Therefore people will not disarm step by step; they will disarm at one blow or not at all. The accomplishment of such a far-reaching change in the life of nations presupposes a mighty moral effort, a deliberate departure from deeply ingrained tradition. Anyone who is not prepared to make the fate of his country in case of a dispute depend entirely on the decisions of an international court of arbitration, and to enter into a treaty to this effect without reserve, is not really resolved to avoid war. It is a case of all or nothing. It is undeniable that previous attempts to ensure p

Double Star. Robert Anson Heinlein. Chapter One. If a man walks in dressed like a hick and acting as if he owned the place, he’s a spaceman. It is a logical necessity. His profession makes him feel like boss of all creation; when he sets foot dirtside he is slumming among the peasants. As for his sartorial inelegance, a man who is in uniform nine tenths of the time and is more used to deep space than to civilization can hardly be expected to know how to dress properly. He is a sucker for the alleged tailors who swarm around every spaceport peddling “ground outfits.” I could see that this big-boned fellow had been dressed by Omar the Tentmaker-padded shoulders that were too big to start with, shorts cut so that they crawled up his hairy thighs as he sat down, a ruffled chemise that might have looked well on a cow. But I kept my opinion to myself and bought him a drink with my last half-Imperial, considering it an investment, spacemen being the way they are about money. “Hot jets!” I said as we touched glasses. He gave me a quick glance. That was my initial mistake in dealing with Dak Broadbent. Instead of answering, “Clear space!” or, “Safe grounding!” as he should have, he looked me over and said softly, “A nice sentiment, but to the wrong man. I’ve never been out.” That was another good place to keep my mouth shut. Spacemen did not often come to the bar of Casa Manana; it was not their Sort of hotel and it’s miles from the port. When one shows up in ground clothes, seeks a dark corner of the bar, and objects to being called a spaceman, that’s his business. I had picked that spot myself so that I could see without being seen-I owed a little money here and there at the time, nothing important but embarrassing. I should have assumed that he had his reasons, too, and respected them. But my vocal cords lived their own life, wild and free. “Don’t give me that, shipmate,” I replied. “If you’re a ground hog, I’m Mayor of Tycho City. I’ll wager you’ve done more drinking on Mars,” I added, noticing the cautious way he lifted his glass, a dead giveaway of low-gravity habits, “than you’ve ever done on Earth.” “Keep your voice down!” he cut in without moving his lips. “What makes you sure that I am a voyageur? You don’t know me.” “Sorry,” I said. “You can be anything you like. But I’ve got eyes. You gave yourself away the minute you walked in.” He said something under his breath. “How?” “Don’t let it worry you. I doubt if anyone else noticed. But I see things other people don’t see.” I handed him my card, a little smugly perhaps. There is only one Lorenzo Smythe, the One-Man Stock Company. Yes, I’m “The Great Lorenzo.” Stereo, canned opera, legit “Pantomimist and Mimicry Artist Extraordinary.” He read my card and dropped it into a sleeve pocket-which annoyed me; those cards had cost me money-genuine imitation hand engraving. “I see your point,” he said quietly, “but what was wrong with the way I behaved?” “I’ll show you,” I said. “I’ll walk to the door like a ground hog and come back the way you walk. Watch.” I did so, making the trip back in a slightly exaggerated version of his walk to allow for his untrained eye-feet sliding softly along the floor as if it were deck plates, weight carried forward and balanced from the hips, hands a trifle forward and clear of the body, ready to grasp. There are a dozen other details which can’t be set down in words; the point is you have to be a spaceman when you do it, with a spaceman’s alert body and unconscious balance-you have to live it. A city man blunders along on smooth floors all his life, steady floors with Earth-normal gravity, and will trip over a cigarette paper, like as not. Not so a spaceman. “See what I mean?” I asked, slipping back into my seat. “I’m afraid I do,” he admitted sourly. “Did I walk like that?” “Yes.” “Hum, Maybe I should take lessons from you.” “You could do worse,” I admitted. He sat there looking me over, then started to speak-changed his mind and wiggled a finger at the bartender to refill our glasses. When the drinks came, he paid for them, drank his, and slid out of his seat all in one smooth motion. “Wait for me,” he said quietly. With a drink he had bought sitting in front of me I could not refuse. Nor did I want to; he interested me. I liked him, even on ten minutes’ acquaintance; he was the sort of big ugly handsome galoot that women go for and men take orders from. He threaded his way gracefully through the room and passed a table of four Martians near the door. I didn’t like Martians. I did not fancy having a thing that looks like a tree trunk topped off by a sun helmet claiming the privileges of a man. I did not like the way they grew pseudo limbs; it reminded me of snakes crawling out of their holes. I did not like the fact that they could look all directions at once without turning their heads-if they had had heads, which of course they don’t. And I could not stand their smell! Nobody could accuse me of race prejudice. I didn’t care what a man’s color, race, or religion was. But men were men, whereas Martians were things. They weren’t even animals to my way of thinking. I’d rather have had a wart hog around me any day. Permitting them in restaurants and bars used by men struck me as outrageous. But there was the Treaty, of course, so what could I do? These four had not been there when I came in, or I would have whiffed them. For that matter, they certainly could not have been there a few moments earlier when I had walked to the door and back. Now there they were, standing on their pedestals around a table, pretending to be people. I had not even heard the air conditioning speed up. The free drink in front of me did not attract me; I simply wanted my host to come back so that I could leave politely. It suddenly occurred to me that he had glanced over that way just before he had left so hastily and I wondered if the Martians had anything to do with it. I looked over at them, trying to see if they were paying attention to our table-but how could you tell what a Martian was looking at or what it was thinking? That was another thing I didn’t like about them. I sat there for several minutes fiddling with my drink and wondering what had happened to my spaceman friend. I had hoped that his hospitality might extend to dinner and, if we became sufficiently simpatico, possibly even to a small temporary loan. My other prospects were, I admit it! Slender. The last two times I had tried to call my agent his auto secretary had simply recorded the message, and unless I deposited coins in the door, my room would not open to me that night , That was how low my fortunes had ebbed: reduced to sleeping in a coin operated cubicle. In the midst of my melancholy ponderings a waiter touched me on the elbow. “Call for you, sir.” “Eh? Very well, friend, will you fetch an instrument to the table?” “Sorry, sir, but I can’t transfer it. Booth 12 in the lobby.” “Oh. Thank you,” I answered, making it as warm as possible since I was unable to tip him. I swung wide around the Martians as I went Out. I soon saw why the call had not been brought to the table; Number 12 was a maximum-security booth, sight, sound, and scramble. The tank showed no image and did not clear even after the door locked behind me. It remained milky until I sat down and placed my face within pickup, then the opalescent clouds melted away and I found myself looking at my spaceman friend. “Sorry to walk out on you,” he said quickly, “but I was in a hurry. I want you to come at once to Room 2106 of the Eisenhower.” He offered no explanation. The Eisenhower is just as unlikely a hotel for spacemen as Casa Manana. I could smell trouble. You don’t pick up a stranger in a bar and then insist that he come to a hotel room-well, not one of the same sex, at least. “Why?” I asked. The spaceman got that look peculiar to men who are used to being obeyed without question; I studied it with professional interest-it’s not the same as anger; it is more like a thundercloud just before a storm. Then he got himself in hand and answered quietly, “Lorenzo, there is no time to explain. Are you open to a job?” “Do you mean a professional engagement?” I answered slowly. For a horrid instant I suspected that he was offering me, Well, you know-a job. Thus far I had kept my professional pride intact, despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. “Oh, professional, of course!” he answered quickly. “This requires the best actor we can get.” I did not let my relief show in my face. It was true that I was ready for any professional work. I would gladly have played the balcony in Romeo and Juliet-but it does not do to be eager. “What is the nature of the engagement?” I asked. “My calendar is rather full.” He brushed it aside. “I can’t explain over the phone. Perhaps you don’t know it, but any scrambler circuit can be unscrambled, with the proper equipment. Shag over here fast!” He was eager; therefore I could afford not to be eager. “Now really,” I protested, “what do you think I am? A bellman? Or an untried juvenile anxious for the privilege of carrying a spear? I am Lorenzo!” I threw up my chin and looked offended. “What is your offer?” “Uh, Damn it, I can’t go into it over the phone. How much do you get?” “Eh? You are asking my professional salary?” “Yes, yes!” “For a single appearance? Or by the week? Or an option contract?” “Never mind. What do you get by the day?” “My minimum fee for a one-evening date is one hundred Imperials.” This was simple truth. Oh, I have been coerced at times into paying some scandalous kickbacks, but the voucher never read less than my proper fee. A man has his standards. I’d rather starve. “Very well,” he answered quickly, “one hundred Imperials in cash, laid in your hand the minute you show up here. But hurry!” “Eh?” I realized with sudden dismay that I could as easily have said two hundred, or even two fifty. “But I have not agreed to accept the engagement.” “Never mind that! We’ll talk it over when you get here. The hundred is yours even if you turn us down. If you accept-well, call it bonus, over and above your salary. Now will you sign off and get over here?” I bowed. “Certainly, sir. Have patience.” Fortunately the Eisenhower is not too far from the Casa, for I did not even have a minimum for tube fare. However, although the art of strolling is almost lost, I savor it-and it gave me time to collect my thoughts. I was no fool; I was aware that when another man is too anxious to force money on one, it is time to examine the cards, for there is almost certainly something illegal, or dangerous, or both, involved in the matter. I was not unduly fussy about legality qua legality; I agreed with the Bard that the Law is often an idiot. But in the main I had stayed on the right side of the Street. But presently I realized that I had insufficient facts, so I put it out of my mind, threw my cape over my right shoulder, and strode along, enjoying the mild autumn weather and the rich and varied odors of the metropolis. On arrival I decided to forego the main entrance and took a bounce tube from the sub-basement to the twenty-first floor, I having at the time a vague feeling that this was not the place to let my public recognize me. My voyageur friend let me in. “You took long enough,” he snapped. “Indeed?” I let it go at that and looked around me. It was an expensive suite, as I had expected, but it was littered and there were at least a dozen used glasses and as many coffee cups scattered here and there; it took no skill to see that I was merely the latest of many visitors. Sprawled on a couch, scowling at me, was another man, whom I tabbed tentatively as a spaceman. I glanced inquiringly but no introduction was offered. “Well, you’re here, at least. Let’s get down to business.” “Surely. Which brings to mind,” I added, “there was mention of a bonus, or retainer.” “Oh, yes.” He turned to the man on the couch. “Jock, pay him.” “For what?” “Pay him!” I now knew which one was boss-although, as I was to learn, there was usually little doubt when Dak Broadbent was in a room. The other fellow stood up quickly, still scowling, and counted Out to me a fifty and five tens. I tucked it away casually without checking it and said, “I am at your disposal, gentlemen.” The big man chewed his lip. “First, I want your solemn oath not even to talk in your sleep about this job.” “If my simple word is not good, is my oath better?” I glanced at the smaller man, slouched again on the couch. “I don’t believe we have met. I am Lorenzo.” He glanced at me, looked away. My barroom acquaintance said hastily, “Names don’t matter in this.” “No? Before my revered father died he made me promise him three things: first, never to mix whisky with anything but water; second, always to ignore anonymous letters; and lastly, never to talk with a stranger who refuses to give his name. Good day, sirs.” I turned toward the door, their hundred Imperials warm in my pocket. “Hold it!” I paused. He went on, “You are perfectly right. My name is.” “Skipper!” “Stow it, Jock. I’m Dak Broadbent; that’s Jacques Dubois glaring at us. We’re both voyageurs-master pilots, all classes, any acceleration.” I bowed. “Lorenzo Smythe,” I said modestly, “jongleur and artist-care of The Lambs Club.” I made a mental note to pay my dues. “Good. Jock, try smiling for a change. Lorenzo, you agree to keep our business secret?” “Under the rose. This is a discussion between gentlemen.” “Whether you take the job or not?” “Whether we reach agreement or not. I am human, but, short of illegal methods of questioning, your confidences are sale with me.” “I am well aware of what neodexocaine will do to a man’s forebrain, Lorenzo. We don’t expect the impossible.” “Dak,” Dubois said urgently, “this is a mistake. We should at least.” “Shut up, Jock. I want no hypnotists around at this point. Lorenzo, we want you to do an impersonation job. It has to be so perfect that no one. I mean no one will ever know it took place. Can you do that sort of a job?” I frowned. “The first question is not ‘Can I?’ but ‘Will I?’ What are the circumstances?” “Uh, we’ll go into details later. Roughly, it is the ordinary doubling job for a well-known public figure. The difference is that the impersonation will have to be so perfect as to fool people who know him well and must see him close up. It won’t be just reviewing a parade from a grandstand, or pinning medals on girl scouts.” He looked at me shrewdly. “It will take a real artist.” “No,” I said at once. “Huh? You don’t know anything about the job yet. If your conscience is bothering you, let me assure you that you will not be working against the interests of the man you will impersonate nor against anyone’s legitimate interests. This is a job that really needs to be done.” “No” “Well, for Pete’s sake, why? You don’t even know how much we will pay.” “Pay is no object,” I said firmly. “I am an actor, not a double.” “I don’t understand you. There are lots of actors picking up spare money making public appearances for celebrities.” “I regard them as prostitutes, not colleagues. Let me make myself clear. Does an author respect a ghost writer? Would you respect a painter who allowed another man to sign his work for money? Possibly the spirit of the artist is foreign to you, sir, yet perhaps I may put it in terms germane to your own profession. Would you, simply for money, be content to pilot a ship while some other man, not possessing your high art, wore the uniform, received the credit, was publicly acclaimed as the Master? Would you?” Dubois snorted. “How much money?” Broadbent frowned at him. “I think I understand your objection.” “To the artist, sir, kudos comes first. Money is merely the mundane means whereby he is enabled to create his art.” “Hum, All right, so you won’t do it just for money. Would you do it for other reasons? If you felt that it had to be done and you were the only one who could do it successfully?” “I concede the possibility; I cannot imagine the circumstances.” “You won’t have to imagine them; we’ll explain them to you.” Dubois jumped up off the couch. “Now see here, Dak, you can’t.” “Cut it, Jock! He has to know.” “He doesn’t have to know now-and here. And you haven’t any right to jeopardize everybody else by telling him. You don’t know a thing about him.” “It’s a calculated risk.” Broadbent turned back to me. Dubois grabbed his arm, swung him around. “Calculated risk be damned! Dak, I’ve strung along with you in the past, but this time before I’ll let you shoot off your face, well, one or the other of us isn’t going to be in any shape to talk.” Broadbent looked startled, then grinned coldly down at Dubois. “Think you’re up to it, Jock old son?” Dubois glared up at him, did not flinch. Broadbent was a head taller and outweighed him by twenty kilos. I found myself for the first time liking Dubois; I am always touched by the gallant audacity of a kitten, the fighting heart of a bantam cock, or the willingness of a little mart to die in his tracks rather than knuckle under, And, while I did not expect Broadbent to kill him, I did think that I was about to see Dubois used as a dust rag. I had no thought of interfering. Every man is entitled to elect the time and manner of his own destruction. I could see tension grow. Then suddenly Broadbent laughed and clapped Dubois on the shoulder. “Good for you, Jock!” He turned to me and said quietly, “Will you excuse us a few moments? My friend and I must make heap big smoke.” The suite was equipped with a hush corner, enclosing the autograph and the phone. Broadbent took Dubois by the arm and led him over there; they stood and talked urgently. Sometimes such facilities in public places like hotels are not all that they might be; the sound waves fail to cancel out completely. But the Eisenhower is a luxury house and in this case, at least, the equipment worked perfectly; I could see their lips move but I could hear no sound. But I could indeed see their lips move. Broadbent’s face was toward me and Dubois I could glimpse in a wall mirror. When I was performing in my famous mentalist act, I found out why my father had beaten my tail until I learned the silent language of lips, in my mentalist act I always performed in a brightly lighted hail and made use of spectacles which-but never mind; I could read lips. Dubois was saying: “Dak, you bloody, stupid, unprintable, illegal and highly improbable obscenity, do you want us both to wind up counting rocks on Titan? This conceited pipsqueak will spill his guts.” I almost missed Broadbent’s answer. Conceited indeed! Aside from a cold appreciation of my own genius I felt that I was a modest man. Broadbent: “Doesn’t matter if the game is crooked when it’s the only game in town. Jock, there is nobody else we can use.” Dubois: “All right, then get Doc Scortia over here, hypnotize him, and shoot him the happy juice. But don’t tell him the score, not until he’s conditioned, not while we are still on dirt.” Broadbent: “Uh, Scortia himself told me that we could not depend on hypno and drugs, not for the performance we need. We’ve got to have his co-operation, his intelligent co-operation.” Dubois snorted. “What intelligence? Look at him. Ever see a rooster strutting through a barnyard? Sure, he’s the right size and shape and his skull looks a good bit like the Chief-but there is nothing behind it. He’ll lose his nerve, blow his top, and give the whole thing away. He can’t play the part-he’s just a ham actor!” If the immortal Caruso had been charged with singing off key, he could not have been more affronted than I. But I trust I justified my claim to the mantle of Burbage and Booth at that moment; I went on buffing my nails and ignored it-merely noting that I would someday make friend Dubois both laugh and cry within the span of twenty seconds. I waited a few moments more, then stood up and approached the hush corner. When they saw that I intended to enter it, they both shut up. I said quietly, “Never mind, gentlemen, I have changed my mind.” Dubois looked relieved. “You don’t want the job.” “I mean that I accept the engagement. You need not make explanations. I have been assured by friend Broadbent that the work is such as not to trouble my conscience-and I trust him. He has assured rue that he needs an actor. But the business affairs of the producer are not my concern. I accept.” Dubois looked angry, but shut up. I expected Broadbent to look pleased and relieved; instead he looked worried. “All right,” he agreed, “let’s get on with it. Lorenzo, I don’t know exactly how long we will need you. No more than a few days, I’m certain-and you will be on display only an hour or so once or twice in that time.” “That does not matter as long as I have time to study the role, the impersonation. But approximately how many days will you need me? I should notify my agent.” “Oh no! Don’t do that.” “Well-how long? As much as a week?” “It will be less than that-or we’re sunk.” “Never mind. Will a hundred Imperials a day suit you?” I hesitated, recalling how easily he had met my minimum just to interview me-and decided this was a time to be gracious. I waved it aside. “Let’s not speak of such things. No doubt you will present me with an honorarium consonant with the worth of my performance.” “All right, all right.” Broadbent turned away impatiently. “Jock, call the field. Then call Langston and tell him we’re starting Plan Mardi Gras. Synchronize with him. Lorenzo,” He motioned for me to follow and strode into the bath. He opened a small case and demanded, “Can you do anything with this junk?” “Junk” it was-the sort of overpriced and unprofessional makeup kit that is sold over the counter to stage-struck youngsters. I stared at it with mild disgust. “Do I understand, sir, that you expect me to start an impersonation now? Without time for study?” “Huh? No, no, no! I want you to change your face-on the outside chance that someone might recognize you as we leave here. That’s possible, isn’t it?” I answered stiffly that being recognized in public was a burden that all celebrities were forced to carry. I did not add that it was certain that countless people would recognize The Great Lorenzo in any public place. “Okay. So change your phiz so it’s not yours.” He left abruptly. I sighed and looked over the child’s toys he had handed me, no doubt thinking they were the working tools of my profession, grease paints suitable for clowns, reeking spirit gum, crepe hair which seemed to have been raveled from Aunt Maggie’s parlor carpet. Not an ounce of Silicoflesh, no electric brushes, no modern amenities of any sort. But a true artist can do wonders with a burnt match, or oddments such as one might find in a kitchen, and his own genius. I arranged the lights and let myself fall into creative reverie. There are several ways to keep a well-known face from being recognized. The simplest is misdirection. Place a man in uniform and his face is not likely to be noticed-do you recall the face of the last policeman you encountered? Could you identify him if you saw him next in mufti? On the same principle is the attention getting special feature. Equip a man with an enormous nose, disfigured perhaps with acne rosacea; the vulgar will stare in fascination at the nose itself, the polite will turn away-but neither will see the face. I decided against this primitive maneuver because I judged that my employer wished me not to be noticed at all rather than remembered for an odd feature without being recognized. This is much more difficult; anyone can be conspicuous but it takes real skill not to be noticed. I needed a face as commonplace, as impossible to remember as the true face of the immortal Alec Guinness. Unfortunately my aristocratic features are entirely too distinguished, too handsome-a regrettable handicap for a character actor. As my father used to say, “Larry, you are too damned pretty! If you don’t get off your lazy duff and learn the business, you are going to spend fifteen years as a juvenile, under the mistaken impression that you are an actor-then wind up selling candy in the lobby. ‘Stupid’ and ‘pretty’ are the two worst vices in show business-and you’re both.” Then he would take off his belt and stimulate my brain. Father was a practical psychologist and believed that warming the glutei maximi with a strap drew excess blood away from a boy’s brain. While the theory may have been shaky, the results justified the method; by the time I was fifteen I could stand on my head on a slack wire and quote page after page of Shakespeare and Shaw-or steal a scene simply by lighting a cigarette. I was deep in the mood of creation when Broadbent stuck his face in. “Good grief!” he snapped. “Haven’t you done anything yet?” I stared coldly. “I assumed that you wanted my best creative work-which cannot be hurried. Would you expect a cordon bleu to compound a new sauce on the back of a galloping horse?” “Horses be damned!” He glanced at his watch finger. “You have six more minutes. If you can’t do anything in that length of time, we’ll just have to take our chances.” Well! Of course I prefer to have plenty of time-but I had understudied my father in his quick-change creation, The Assassination of Huey Long, fifteen parts in seven minutes-and had once played it in nine seconds less time than he did. “Stay where you are!” I snapped back at him. “I’ll be with you at once.” I then put on “Benny Grey,” the colorless handy man who does the murders in The House with No Doors-two quick strokes to put dispirited lines into my cheeks from nose to mouth corners, a mere suggestion of bags under my eyes, and Factor’s Number five sallow over all, taking not more than twenty seconds for everything. I could have done it in my sleep; House ran on boards for ninety-two performances before they recorded it. Then I faced Broadbent and he gasped. “Good God! I don’t believe it.” I stayed in “Benny Grey” and did not smile acknowledgment. What Broadbent could not realize was that the grease paint really was not necessary. It makes it easier, of course, but I had used a touch of it primarily because he expected it; being one of the yokels, he naturally assumed that make-up consisted of paint and powder. He continued to stare at me. “Look here,” he said in a hushed voice, “could you do something like that for me? In a hurry?” I was about to say no when I realized that it presented an interesting professional challenge, I had been tempted to say that if my father had started in on him at five he might be ready now to sell cotton candy at a punkin’ doin’s, but I thought better of it. “You simply want to be sure that you will not be recognized?” I asked. “Yes, yes! Can you paint me up, or give me a false nose, or something?” I shook my head. “No matter what we did with make-up, it would simply make you look like a child dressed up for Trick or Treat. You can’t act and you can never learn, at your age. We won’t touch your face.” “Huh? But with this beak on me.” “Attend me. Anything I could do to that lordly nose would just call attention to it, I assure you. Would it suffice if an acquaintance looked at you and said, ‘Say, that big fellow reminds me of Dak Broadbent. It’s not Dak, of course, but looks a little like him.’ Eh?” “Huh? I suppose so. As long as he was sure it wasn’t me. I’m supposed to be on, Well, I’m not supposed to be on Earth just now.” “He’ll be quite sure it is not you, because we’ll change your walk. That’s the most distinctive thing about you. If your walk is wrong, it cannot possibly be you-so it must be some other big boned, broad-shouldered man who looks a bit like you.” “Okay, show me how to walk.” “No, you could never learn it. I’ll force you to walk the way I want you to.” “How?” “We’ll put a handful of pebbles or the equivalent in the toes of your boots. That will force you back on your heels and make you stand up straight. It will be impossible for you to sneak along in that cat footed spaceman’s crouch. Maybe slap some tape across your shoulder blades to remind you to keep your shoulders back, too. That will do it.” “You think they won’t recognize me just because I’ll walk differently?” “Certain. An acquaintance won’t know why he is sure it is not you, but the very fact that the conviction is subconscious and unanalyzed will put it beyond reach of doubt. Oh, I’ll do a little something to your face, just to make you feel easier-but it isn’t necessary.” We went back into the living room of the suite. I was still being “Benny Grey” of course; once I put on a role it takes a conscious effort of will to go back to being myself. Dubois was busy at the phone; he looked up, saw me, and his jaw dropped. He hurried out of the hush locus and demanded, “Who’s he? And where’s that actor fellow?” After his first glance at me, he had looked away and not bothered to look back, “Benny Grey” is such a tired, negligible little guy that there is no point in looking at him. “What actor fellow?” I answered in Benny’s flat, colorless tones. It brought Dubois’ eyes back to me. He looked at me, started to look away, his eyes snapped back, then he looked at my clothes. Broadbent guffawed and clapped him on the shoulder. “And you said he couldn’t act!” He added sharply, “Did you get them all, Jock?” “Yes.” Dubois looked back at me, looked perplexed, and looked away. “Okay. We’ve got to be out of here in four minutes. Let’s see how fast you can get me fixed up, Lorenzo.” Dak had one boot off, his blouse off, and his chemise pulled up so that I could tape his shoulders when the light over the door came on and the buzzer sounded. He froze. “Jock? We expecting anybody?” “Probably Langston. He said he was going to try to get over here before we left.” Dubois started for the door. “It might not be him. It might be.” I did not get to hear Broadbent say who he thought it might be as Dubois dilated the door. Framed in the doorway, looking like a nightmare toadstool, was a Martian. For an agony-stretched second I could see nothing but the Martian. I did not see the human standing behind him, nor did I notice the life wand tile Martian cradled in his pseudo limb. Then the Martian flowed inside, the man with him stepped in behind him, and the door relaxed. The Martian squeaked, “Good afternoon, gentlemen. Going somewhere?” I was frozen, dazed, by acute xenophobia. Dak was handicapped by disarranged clothing. But little Jock Dubois acted with a simple heroism that made him my beloved brother even as he died, He flung himself at that life wand. Right at it-he made no attempt to evade it. He must have been dead, a hole burned through his belly you could poke a fist through, before he hit the floor. But he hung on and the pseudo limb stretched like taffy-then snapped, broken off a few inches from the monster’s neck, and poor Jock still had the life wand cradled in his dead arms. The human who had followed that stinking, reeking thing into the room had to step to one side before he could get in a shot and he made a mistake. He should have shot Dak first, then me. Instead he wasted his first one on Jock and he never got a second one, as Dak shot him neatly in the face. I had not even known Dak was armed. Deprived of his weapon, the Martian did not attempt to escape. Dak bounced to his feet, slid up to him, and said, “Ah, Rrringriil. I see you.” “I see you, Captain Dak Broadbent,” the Martian squeaked, then added, “you will tell my nest?” “I will tell your nest, Rrringriil.” “I thank you, Captain Dak Broadbent.” Dak reached out a long bony finger and poked it into the eye nearest him, shoving it on home until his knuckles were jammed against the brain case. He pulled it out and his finger was slimed with green ichor. The creature’s pseudo limbs crawled back into its trunk in reflex spasm but the dead thing continued to stand firm on its base. Dak hurried into the bath; I heard him washing his hands. I stayed where I was, almost as frozen by shock as the late Rrringriil. Dak came out, wiping his hands on his shirt, and said, “We’ll have to clean this up. There isn’t much time.” He could have been speaking of a spilled drink. I tried to make clear in one jumbled sentence that I wanted no part of it, that we ought to call the cops, that I wanted to get away from there before the cops came, that he knew what he could do with his crazy impersonation job, and that I planned to sprout wings and fly out the window, flak brushed it all aside. “Don’t jitter, Lorenzo. We’re on minus minutes now. Help me get the bodies into the bathroom.” “Huh? Good God, man! Let’s just lock up and run for it. Maybe they will never connect us with it.” “Probably they wouldn’t,” he agreed, “since neither one of us is supposed to be here. But they would be able to see that Rrringriil had killed Jock-and we can’t have that. Not now we can’t.” “Huh?” “We can’t afford a news story about a Martian killing a human. So shut up and help me.” I shut up and helped him. It steadied me to recall that “Benny Grey” had been the worst of sadistic psychopaths, who had enjoyed dismembering his victims. I let “Benny Grey” drag the two human bodies into the bath while Dak took the life wand and sliced Rrringriil into pieces small enough to handle. He was careful to make the first cut below the brain case so the job was not messy, but I could not help him with it, it seemed to me that a dead Martian stank even worse than a live one. The oubliette was concealed in a panel in the bath just beyond the bidet; if it had not been marked with the usual radiation trefoil it would have been hard to find. After we had shoved the chunks of Rrringriil down it (I managed to get my spunk up enough to help), Dak tackled the messier problem of butchering and draining the human corpses, using the wand and, of course, working in the bath tub. It is amazing how much blood a man holds. We kept the water running the whole time; nevertheless, it was bad. But when Dak had to tackle the remains of poor little Jock, he just wasn’t up to it. His eyes flooded with tears, blinding him, so I elbowed him aside before he sliced off his own fingers and let “Benny Grey” take over. When I had finished and there was nothing left to show that there had ever been two other men and a monster in the suite, I sluiced out the tub carefully and stood up. Dak was in the doorway, looking as calm as ever. “I’ve made sure the floor is tidy,” he announced. “I suppose a criminologist with proper equipment could reconstruct it-but we are counting on no one ever suspecting. So let’s get out of here. We’ve got to gain almost twelve minutes somehow. Come on!” I was beyond asking where or why. “All right. Let’s fix your boots.” He shook his head. “It would slow me up. Right now speed is more essential than not being recognized.” “I am in your hands.” I followed him to the door; he stopped and said, “There may be others around. If so, shoot first-there’s nothing else you can do.” He had the life wand in his hand, with his cloak drawn over it. “Martians?” “Or men. Or both.” “Dak? Was Rrringriil one of those four at the Manana bar?” “Certainly. Why do you think I went around Robinson’s barn to get you out of there and over here? They either tailed you, as we did, or they tailed me. Didn’t you recognize him?” “Heavens, no! Those monsters all look alike to me.” “And they say we all look alike. The four were Rrringriil, his conjugate-brother Rrringlath, and two others from his nest, of divergent lines. But shut up. If you see a Martian, shoot. You have the other gun?” “Uh, yes. Look, Dak, I don’t know what this is all about. But as long as those beasts are against you, I’m with you. I despise Martians.” He looked shocked. “You don’t know what you are saying. We’re not fighting Martians; those four are renegades.” “Huh?” “There are lots of good Martians-almost all of them. Shucks, even Rrringriil wasn’t a bad sort in most ways-I’ve had many a fine chess game with him.” “What? In that case, I’m.” “Stow it. You’re in too deep to back out. Now quick-march, straight to the bounce tube. I’ll cover our rear.” I shut up. I was in much too deep-that was unarguable. We hit the sub-basement and went at once to the express tubes. A two-passenger capsule was just emptying; Dak shoved me in so quickly that I did not see him set the control combination. But I was hardly surprised when the pressure let up from my chest and I saw the sign blinking: JEFFERSON SKYPORT. ALL OUT. Nor did I care what station it was as long as it was as far as possible from Hotel Eisenhower. The few minutes we had been crammed in the vactube had been long enough for me to devise a plan-sketchy, tentative, and subject to change without notice, as the fine print always says, but a plan. It could be stated in two words: Get lost! Only that morning I would have found the plan very difficult to execute; in our culture a man with no money at all is baby-helpless. But with a hundred slugs in my pocket I could go far and fast. I felt no obligation to Dak Broadbent. For reasons of his own, not my reasons! He had almost got me killed, then had crowded me into covering up a crime, made rue a fugitive from justice. But we had evaded the police, temporarily at least, and now, simply by shaking off Broadbent, I could forget the whole thing, shelve it as a bad dream. It seemed most unlikely that I could be connected with the affair even if it were discovered-fortunately a gentleman always wears gloves, and I had had mine off only to put on makeup and later during that ghastly house cleaning. Aside from the warm burst of adolescent heroics I had felt when I thought Dak was fighting Martians I had no interest in his schemes-and even that sympathy had shut off when I found that he liked Martians in general. His impersonation job I would not now touch with the proverbial eleven-foot pole. To hell with Broadbent! All I wanted out of life was money enough to keep body and soul together and a chance to practice my art; cops-androbbers nonsense did not interest me-poor theater at best. Jefferson Port seemed handmade to carry out my scheme. Crowded and confused, with express tubes spiderwebbing from it, in it, if Dak took his eyes off me for half a second I would be halfway to Omaha. I would lie low a few weeks, then get in touch with my agent and find out if any inquiries had been made about me. Dak saw to it that we climbed out of the capsule together, else I would have slammed it shut and gone elsewhere at once. I pretended not to notice and stuck close as a puppy to him as we went up the belt to the main hall just under the surface, coming out between the Pan-Am desk and American Skylines. Dak straight across the waiting-room floor toward Diana, Ltd., and I surmised that he was going to buy tickets for the Moon shuttle, how he planned to get me aboard without passport or vaccination certificate I could not guess but I knew that be was resourceful. I decided that I would fade into the furniture while he bad his wallet out; when a man counts money there are at least a few seconds when his eyes and attention are fully occupied. But we went right on past the Diana desk and through an archway marked Private Berths. The passageway beyond was not crowded and the walls were blank; I realized with dismay that I had let slip my best chance, back there in the busy main hail. I held back. “Dak? Are we making a jump?” “Of course.” “Dak, you’re crazy. I’ve got no papers, I don’t even have a tourist card for the Moon.” “You won’t need them.” “Huh? They’ll stop me at ‘Emigration.’ Then a big, beefy cop will start asking questions.” A hand about the size of a cat closed on my upper arm. “Let’s not waste time. Why should you go through ‘Emigration,’ when officially you aren’t leaving? And why should I, when officially I never arrived? Quick-march, old son.” I am well muscled and not small, but I felt as if a traffic robot were pulling me out of a danger zone. I saw a sign reading MEN and I made a desperate attempt to break it up. “Dak, half a minute, please. Got to see a man about the plumbing.” He grinned at me. “Oh, yes? You went just before we left the hotel.” He did not slow up or let go of me. “Kidney trouble.” “Lorenzo old son, I smell a case of cold feet. Tell you what I’ll do. See that cop up ahead?” At the end of the corridor, in the private berths station, a defender of the peace was resting his big feet by leaning over a counter. “I find I have a sudden attack of conscience. I feel a need to confess-about how you killed a visiting Martian and two local citizens-about how you held a gun on me and forced me to help you dispose of the bodies. About.” “You’re crazy!” “Almost out of my mind with anguish and remorse, shipmate.” “But-you’ve got nothing on me.” “So? I think my story will sound more convincing than yours. I know what it is all about and you don’t. I know all about you and you know nothing about me. For example he mentioned a couple of details in my past that I would have sworn were buried and forgotten. All right, so I did have a couple of routines useful for stag shows that are not for the family trade-a man has to eat. But that matter about Bebe; that was hardly fair, for I certainly had not known that she was underage. As for that hotel bill, while it is true that bilking an “innkeeper” in Miami Beach carries much the same punishment as armed robbery elsewhere, it is a very provincial attitude-I would have paid if I had had the money. As for that unfortunate incident in Seattle-well, what I am trying to say is that Dak did know an amazing amount about my background but he had the wrong slant on most of it. Still. “So,” he continued, “let’s walk right up to yon gendarme and make a clean breast of it. I’ll lay you seven to two as to which one of us is out on bail first.” So we marched up to the cop and on past him. He was talking to a female clerk back of the railing and neither one of them looked up. Dak took out two tickets reading: GATE PASS. MAINTENANCE PERMIT. Berth K-l27, and stuck them into the monitor. The machine scanned them, a transparency directed us to take an upper-level car, code King 127; the gate let us through and locked behind us as a recorded voice said, “Watch your step, please, and heed radiation warnings. The Terminal Company is not responsible for accidents beyond the gate.” Dak punched an entirely different code in the little car; it wheeled around, picked a track, and we took off out under the field. It did not matter to me. I was beyond caring. When we stepped out of the little car it went back where it came from. In front of me was a ladder disappearing into the steel ceiling above. Dak nudged me. “Up you go.” There was a scuttle hole at the top and on it a sign: RADIATION HAZARD-Optimax 13 Seconds. The figures had been chalked in. I stopped. I have no special interest in offspring but I am no fool. Dak grinned and said, “Got your lead britches on? Open it, go through at once and straight up the ladder into the ship. If you don’t stop to scratch, you’ll make it with at least three seconds to spare.” I believe I made it with five seconds to spare. I was out in the sunlight for about ten feet, then I was inside a long tube in the ship. I used about every third rung. The rocket ship was apparently small. At least the control room was quite cramped; I never got a look at the outside. The only other spaceships I had ever been in were the Moon shuttles Evangeline and her sister ship the Gabriel, that being the year in which I had incautiously accepted a lunar engagement on a co-op basis-our impresario had had a notion that a juggling, tightrope, and acrobatic routine would go well in the one-sixth gee of the Moon, which was correct as far as it went, but he had not allowed rehearsal time for us to get used to low gravity. I had to take advantage of the Distressed Travelers Act to get back and I had lost my wardrobe. There were two men in the control room; one was lying in one of three acceleration couches fiddling with dials, the other was making obscure motions with a screw driver. The one in the couch glanced at me, said nothing. The other one turned, looked worried, then said past me, “What happened to Jock?” Dak almost levitated out of the hatch behind me. “No time!” he snapped. “Have you compensated for his mass?” “Red, is she taped? Tower?” The man in the couch answered lazily, “I’ve been recomputing every two minutes. You’re clear with the tower. Minus forty-, uh, seven seconds.” “Out of that bunk! Scram! I’m going to catch that tick!” Red moved lazily out of the couch as Dak got in. The other man shoved me into the copilot’s couch and strapped a safety belt across my chest. He turned and dropped down the escape tube. Red followed him, then stopped with his head and shoulders out. “Tickets, please!” he said cheerfully. “Oh, cripes!” Dak loosened a safety belt, reached for a pocket, got out the two field passes we had used to sneak aboard, and shoved them at him. “Thanks,” Red answered. “See you in church. Hot jets, and so forth.” He disappeared with leisurely swiftness; I heard the air lock close and my eardrums popped. Dak did not answer his farewell; his eyes were busy on the computer dials and he made some minor adjustment. “Twenty-one seconds,” he said to me. “There’ll be no rundown. Be sure your arms are inside and that you are relaxed. The first step is going to be a honey.” I did as I was told, then waited for hours in that curtain-going-up tension. Finally I said, “Dak?” “Shut up!” “Just one thing: where are we going?” “Mars.” I saw his thumb jab at a red button and I blacked out. Chapter Two. What is so funny about a man being dropsick? Those dolts with cast-iron stomachs always laugh-I’ll bet they would laugh if Grandma broke both legs. I was spacesick, of course, as soon as the rocket ship quit blasting and went into free fall. I came out of it fairly quickly as my stomach was practically empty-I’d eaten nothing since breakfast, and was simply wanly miserable the remaining eternity of that awful trip. It took us an hour and forty-three minutes to make rendezvous, which is roughly equal to a thousand years in purgatory to a ground hog like myself. I’ll say this for Dak, though: he did not laugh. Dak was a professional and he treated my normal reaction with the impersonal good manners of a ifight nurse-not like those flat-headed, loudvoiced jackasses you’ll find on the passenger list of a Moon shuttle. If I had my way, those healthy self-panickers would be spaced in mid-orbit and allowed to laugh themselves to death in vacuum. Despite the turmoil in my mind and the thousand questions I wanted to ask we had almost made rendezvous with a torchship, which was in parking orbit around Earth, before I could stir up interest in anything. I suspect that if one were to inform a victim of spacesickness that he was to be shot at sunrise his own answer would be, “Yes? Would you hand me that sack, please?” But I finally recovered to the point where instead of wanting very badly to die the scale had tipped so that I had a flickering, halfhearted interest in continuing to live. Dak was busy most of the time at the ship’s communicator, apparently talking on a very tight beam for his hands constantly nursed the directional control like a gunner laying a gun under difficulties. I could not hear what he said, or even read his lips, as he had his face pushed into the nimble box. I assumed that he was talking to the long-jump ship we were to meet. But when he pushed the communicator aside and lit a cigarette I repressed the stomach retch that the mere sight of tobacco smoke had inspired and said, “Dak, isn’t it about time you told me the score?” “Plenty of time for that on our way to Mars.” “Huh? Damn your arrogant ways,” I protested feebly. “I don’t want to go to Mars. I would never have considered your crazy offer if I had known it was on Mars.” “Suit yourself. You don’t have to go.” “Eh?” “The air lock is right behind you. Get out and walk. Mind you close the door.” I did not answer the ridiculous suggestion. He went on, “But if you can’t breathe space the easiest thing to do is to go to Mars, and I’ll see that you get back. The Can Do-that’s this bucket-is about to rendezvous with the Go For Broke, which is a high-gee torchship. About seventeen seconds and a gnat’s wink after we make contact the Go For Broke will torch for Mars-for we’ve got to be there by Wednesday.” I answered with the petulant stubbornness of a sick man. “I’m not going to Mars. I’m going to stay right in this ship. Somebody has to take it back and land it on Earth. You can’t fool me.” “True,” Broadbent agreed. “But you won’t be in it. The three blokes who are supposed to be in this ship-according to the records back at Jefferson Field-are in the Go For Broke right now. This is a three-man ship, as you’ve noticed. I’m afraid you will find them stuffy about giving up a place to you. And besides, how would you get back through ‘Immigration’?” “I don’t care! I’d be back on ground.” “And in jail, charged with everything from illegal entry to mopery and dopery in the spaceways. At the very least they would be sure that you were smuggling and they would take you to some quiet back room and run a needle in past your eyeball and find out just what you were up to. They would know what questions to ask and you wouldn’t be able to keep from answering. But you wouldn’t be able to implicate me, for good old Dak Broadhent hasn’t been back to Earth in quite a spell and has unimpeachable witnesses to prove it.” I thought about it sickly, both from fear and the continuing effects of spacesickness. “So you would tip off the police? You dirty, slimy.” I broke off for lack of an adequately insulting noun. “Oh no! Look, old son, I might twist your arm a bit and let you think that I would cry copper-but I never would. But Rrringriil’s conjugate-brother Rrringlath certainly knows that old ‘Grill’ went in that door and failed to come out. He will tip off the noises. Conjugate-brother is a relationship so close that we will never understand it, since we don’t reproduce by fission.” I didn’t care whether Martians reproduced like rabbits or the stork brought them in a little black bag. The way he told it I could never go back to Earth, and I said so. He shook his head. “Not at all. Leave it to me and we will slide you back in as neatly as we slid you out. Eventually you will walk off that field or some other field with a gate pass which shows that you are a mechanic who has been making some last-minute adjustment-and you’ll have greasy coveralls and a tool kit to back it up. Surely an actor of your skill can play the part of a mechanic for a few minutes?” “Eh? Why, certainly! But.” “There you are! You stick with ol’ Doc Dak; he’ll take care of you. We shuffled eight guild brothers in this current caper to get me on Earth and both of us off; we can do it again. But you would not stand a chance without voyageurs to help you.” He grinned. “Every voyageur is a free trader at heart. The art of smuggling being what it is, we are all of us always ready to help out one another in a little innocent deception of the port guards. But a person outside the lodge does not ordinarily get such co-operation.” I tried to steady my stomach and think about it. “Dak, is this a smuggling deal? Because.“ “Oh no! Except that we are smuggling you.” “I was going to say that I don’t regard smuggling as a crime.” “Who does? Except those who make money off the rest of us by limiting trade. But this is a straight impersonation job, Lorenzo, and you are the man for it. It wasn’t an accident that I ran across you in the bar; there had been a tail on you for two days. As soon as I hit dirt I went where you were.” He frowned. “I wish I could be sure our honorable antagonists had been following me, and not you.” “Why?” “If they were following me they were trying to find out what I was after-which is okay, as the lines were already drawn; we knew we were mutual enemies. But if they were following you, then they knew what I was after-an actor who could play the role.” “But how could they know that? Unless you told them?” “Lorenzo, this thing is big, much bigger than you imagine. I don’t see it all myself-and the less you know about it until you must, the better off you are. But I can tell you this: a set of personal characteristics was fed into the big computer at the System Census Bureau at The Hague and the machine compared them with the personal characteristics of every male professional actor alive. It was done as discreetly as possible but somebody might have guessed-and talked. The specifications amounted to identification both of the principal and the actor who could double for him, since the job had to be perfect.” “Oh. And the machine told you that I was the man for it?” “Yes. You-and one other.” This was another good place for me to keep my mouth shut. But I could not have done so if my life had depended on it-which in a way it did. I just had to know who the other actor was who was considered competent to play a role which called for my unique talents. “This other one? Who is he?” Dak looked me over; I could see him hesitate. “Hum-fellow by the name of Orson Trowbridge. Know him?” “That ham!” For a moment I was so furious that I forgot my nausea. “So? I hear that he is a very good actor.” I simply could not help being indignant at the idea that anyone should even think about that oaf Trowbridge for a role for which I was being considered. “That arm-waver! That wordmouther!” I stopped, realizing that it was more dignified to ignore such colleagues-if the word fits. But that popinjay was so conceited that, well, if the role called for him to kiss a lady’s hand, Trowbridge would fake it by kissing his own thumb instead. A narcissist, a poseur, a double fake-how could such a man live a role? Yet such is the injustice of fortune that his sawings and rantings had paid him well while real artists went hungry. “Dak, I simply cannot see why you considered him for it.” “Well, we didn’t want him; he is tied up with some long-term contract that would make his absence conspicuous and awkward. It was lucky for us that you were-uh, ‘at liberty.’ As soon as you agreed to the job I had Jock send word to call off the team that was trying to arrange a deal with Trowbridge.” “I should think so!” “But-see here, Lorenzo, I’m going to lay it on the line. While you were busy whooping your cookies after Brennschluss I called the Go For Broke and told them to pass the word down to get busy on Trowbridge again.” “What?” “You asked for it, shipmate. See here, a man in my racket contracts to herd a heap to Ganymede, that means he will pilot that pot to Ganymede or die trying. He doesn’t get fainthearted and try to welsh while the ship is being loaded. You told me you would take this job-no ‘ifs’ or ‘ands’ or ‘buts’-you took the job. A few minutes later there is a fracas; you lose your nerve. Later you try to run out on me at the field. Only ten minutes ago you were screaming to be taken back dirtside. Maybe you are a better actor than Trowbridge. I wouldn’t know. But I know we need a man who can be depended on not to lose his nerve when the time comes. I understand that Trowbridge is that sort of bloke. So if we can get him, we’ll use him instead, pay you off and tell you nothing and ship you back. Understand?” Too well I understood. Dak did not use the word-I doubt if he would have understood it-but he was telling me that I was not a trouper. The bitter part about it was that he was justified. I could not be angry; I could only be ashamed. I had been an idiot to accept the contract without knowing more about it-but I had agreed to play the role, without conditions or escape clauses. Now I was trying to back out, like a rank amateur with stage fright. “The show must go on” is the oldest tenet of show business. Perhaps it has no philosophical verity, but the things men live by are rarely subject to logical proof. My father had believed it-I had seen him play two acts with a burst appendix and then take his bows before he had let them rush him to a hospital. I could see his face now, looking at me with the contempt of a trouper for a so-called actor who would let an audience down. “Dak,” I said humbly, “I am very sorry. I was wrong.” He looked at me sharply. “You’ll do the job?” “Yes.” I meant it sincerely. Then I suddenly remembered a factor which could make the part as impossible for me as the role of Snow White in The Seven Dwarfs. “That is-well, I want to. But.” “But what?” he said scornfully. “More of your damned temperament?” “No, no! But you said we were going to Mars. Dak, am I going to be expected to do this impersonation with Martians around me?” “Eh? Of course. How else on Mars?” “Uh, But, Dak, I can’t stand Martians! They give me the heebie jeebies. I wouldn’t want to-I would try not to-but I might fall right out of the characterization.” “Oh. If that is all that is worrying you, forget it.” “Huh? But I can’t forget it. I can’t help it. I.” “I said, ‘Forget it.’ Old son, we knew you were a peasant in such matters-we know all about you. Lorenzo, your fear of Martians is as childish and irrational as a fear of spiders or snakes. But we had anticipated it and it will be taken care of. So forget it.” “Well-all right.” I was not much reassured, but he had flicked me where it hurt. “Peasant”, why, “peasants” were the audience! So I shut up. Dak pulled the communicator to him, did not bother to silence his message with the rumble box: “Dandelion to Tumbleweed, cancel Plan Inkblot. We will complete Mardi Gras.” “Dak?” I said as he signed off. “Later,” he answered. “I’m about to match orbits. The contact may be a little rough, as I am not going to waste time worrying about chuck holes. So pipe down and hang on.” And it was rough. By the time we were in the torchship I was glad to be comfortably back in free fall again; surge nausea is even worse than everyday dropsickness. But we did not stay in free fall more than five minutes; the three men who were to go back in the Can Do were crowding into the transfer lock even as Dak and I floated into the torchship. The next few moments were extremely confused. I suppose I am a ground hog at heart for I disorient very easily when I can’t tell the floor from the ceiling. Someone called out, “Where is he?” Dak replied, “Here)” The same voice replied, “Him?” as if he could not believe his eyes. “Yes, yes!” Dak answered. “He’s got make-up on. Never mind, it’s all right. Help me get him into the cider press.” A hand grabbed my arm, towed me along a narrow passage and into a compartment. Against one bulkhead and flat to it were two bunks, or “cider presses,” the bathtub-shaped, hydraulic, pressure-distribution tanks used for high acceleration in torchships. I had never seen one before but we had used quite convincing mock-up’s in the space opus The Earth Raiders. There was a stenciled sign on the bulkhead behind the bunks: WARRING!!! Do Not Take More than Three Gravities without a Gee Suit. By Order of, I rotated slowly out of range of vision before I could finish reading it and someone shoved me into one cider press. Dak and the other men were hurriedly strapping me against it when a horn somewhere near by broke into a horrid hooting. It continued for several seconds, then a voice replaced it: “Red warning! Two gravities! Three minutes! Red warning! Two gravities! Three minutes!” Then the hooting started again. Through the racket I heard Dak ask urgently, “Is the projector all set? The tapes ready?” “Sure, sure!” “Got the hypo?” Dak squirmed around in the air and said to me, “Look, shipmate, we’re going to give you a shot. It’s all right. Part of it is Nullgrav, the rest is a stimulant-for you are going to have to stay awake and study your lines. It will make your eyeballs feel hot at first and it may make you itch, but it won’t hurt you.” “Wait, Dak, I.” “No time! I’ve got to smoke this scrap heap!” He twisted and was out the door before I could protest. The second man pushed up my left sleeve, held an injection gun against the skin, and I had received the dose before I knew it. Then he was gone. The hooting gave way to: “Red waning! Two gravities! Two minutes!” I tried to look around but the drug made me even more confused. My eyeballs did feel hot and my teeth as well and I began to feel an almost intolerable itching along my spine-but the safety straps kept me from reaching the tortured area-and perhaps kept me from breaking an arm at acceleration. The hooting stopped again and this time Dak’s self-confident baritone boomed out, “Last red warning! Two gravities! One minute! Knock off those pinochle games and spread your fat carcasses-we’re goin’ to smoke!” The hooting was replaced this time by a recording of Arkezian’s Ad Astra, opus 61 in C major. It was the controversial London Symphony version with the 14-cycle “scare” notes buried in the timpani. Battered, bewildered, and doped as I was, they seemed to have no effect on me-you can’t wet a river. A mermaid came in the door. No scaly tail, surely, but a mermaid is what she looked like. When my eyes refocused I saw that it was a very likely looking and adequately mammalian young woman in singlet and shorts, swimming along head first in a way that made clear that free fall was no novelty to her. She glanced at me without smiling, placed herself against the other cider press, and took hold of the hand grips-she did not bother with safety belts. The music hit the rolling finale and I felt myself grow very heavy. Two gravities is not bad, not when you are floating in a liquid bed. The skin over the top of the cider press pushed up around me, supporting me inch by inch; I simply felt heavy and found it hard to breathe. You hear these stories about pilots torching at ten gravities and ruining themselves and I have no doubt that they are true-but two gravities, taken in the cider press, simply makes one feel languid, unable to move. It was some time before I realized that the horn in the ceiling was speaking to me. “Lorenzo! How are you doing, shipmate?” “All right.” The effort made me gasp. “How long do we have to put up with this?” “About two days.” I must have moaned, for Dak laughed at me. “Quit belly aching, chum! My first trip to Mars took thirty-seven weeks, every minute of it free fall in an elliptical orbit. You’re taking the luxury route, at a mere double gee for a couple of days-with a one-gee rest at turnover, I might add. We ought to charge you for it.” I started to tell him what I thought of his humor in scathing green-room idiom, then recalled that there was a lady present. My father had taught me that a woman will forgive any action, up to and including assault with violence, but is easily insulted by language; the lovelier half of our race is symbol-oriented, very strange, in view of their extreme practicality. In any case, I have never let a taboo word pass my lips when it might offend the ears of a lady since the time I last received the back of my father’s hard hand full on my mouth, Father could have given Professor Pavlov pointers in reflex conditioning. But Dak was speaking ag

Rahan. Episode Forty Three. The Island of the lost Clan. Rahan had believed that he would reach the shore he glimpsed, despite the storm. But a fantastic gust broke the mast of his skiff, placing on him the large sewn skins which served as his sail! Entangled in these skins, he was swallowed up by a wave, and dragged into the glaucous depths. Unable to escape from this strange cocoon, he felt himself being carried away by the waves. He felt as if his lungs were bursting and lost consciousness. Page Two: When he recovered his spirits he was lying on a beach. Kneeling on his chest, a young woman pulled him aside and folded his arms. Rahan did not imagine that the territory of shadows was like this! The ocean had calmed down and the sun shone in the blue sky. You are not in the territory of shadows. But on the island of the lost clan! When the great wave threw you back on the shore, wrapped in these skins, Orooa wanted to save you. She did what her people do when a fisherman sinks into the great river and swallows too much water! Rahan was amazed. Even Crao the wise was unaware of this secret! Rahan thanks Orooa for giving him back his life! He wants to know your brothers! The beautiful face darkened. The leaders will not accept Rahan into the clan! Ooh! Quickly! Let's run away, let's run away! Page Three: A hideous beast, the likes of which the son of Crao had never seen before, had burst out of the ground and was crawling towards them. Orooa dragged Rahan onto a rock. The giant crab waved its monstrous claws trying to grab their legs. The "Craaks" are the clan's most formidable enemies! They hide under rocks or sand and cut off the limbs of our careless fishers! Rahan knew that his knife would not pierce the monster's shell. But he smiled. Crao taught Rahan that there is no invulnerable enemy! Orooa, amazed, saw him lifting a heavy rock Page Four: It was dropped on the crab. The shell burst. The pincers stopped moving. Our fishermen have never had this idea to destroy the big "Craaks". They only run away from them! Rahan was already jumping from his refuge. With his knife he cut tendons, detaching the inside part of the large pincers. However, your people could obtain wonderful weapons! Look, Orroa. Polished and sharp like Rahan's knife. Yes, this is a nice weapon! A weapon? What is a weapon? The question stunned the son of fierce ages. A weapon? A weapon. But it is an object that allows the hunter to kill game, to bring food back to his clan! Wild meat? What do you mean? Our clan lives only on fish and birds. When it can capture them! Orooa pointed to the flock which circled over the high ridges of the island. Page Five: They walked along the shore for a long time, until they reached the entrance to a deep cavern. Men emerged, agitated and hostile. These are my brothers. Where does this man come from Orooa? The Great River threw him back onto our island. I saved him and he saved me from a “Craak”! Good spirits sent him to us, Arturk! Rahan seems to know things that. Were known by the fathers of the fathers of our fathers! Orooa no longer has her sanity! She should know that the clan can barely find enough food to survive! Rahan would be too many among us! Let him be thrown back into the great river! Some men threw themselves at the son of Crao. But they were so weak that he pushed them back without difficulty. Clamors arose! Page Six: Rahan is not the enemy of “Those-Who-Walk-Upright”! He will not steal your food! He will leave your island. If you give him time to rebuild a raft that will take him across the great river! Arturk and Traor must leave this to Rahan! The two chiefs consulted each other for a moment, then. Since Orooa wants it, Artuk and I will grant you this deadline! But you will have to live far from the clan! When the sun has risen as many times as. The fingers of my hand. If you do not flee our island, we will kill you! A new clamor arose when the son of wild ages, using a branch, leapt onto a high rock. Orooa observed him, admiring and thoughtful. Orooa thought to herself that it is said that our hunters were as agile and as strong as Rahan, a long time ago, a long, long time ago! Page Seven: Rahan quickly discovered the trees with which he could build a new skiff. The menace of the two leaders did not worry him. Because he knew that the men of the clan, exhausted by hunger and ignorant of the use of weapons, could do nothing against him. But if he wasn't worried, he was sad. These unfortunate people live worse than animals! Ah! If Rahan could teach them what he knows! Crack! From the first day, the son of Crao dragged several trunks to the shore. He was going to doze off when. Rahan! Rahan! Arturk is going to die! The “Long-Armed-Monster” will drag him into the “Territory of Shadows”! Only Rahan can try to save him! Page Eight: Rahan had never run so fast. He saw, not far from the shore, the man struggling between the tentacles of an octopus! This one disappeared with its prey at the moment when the son of fierce ages dived. If Rahan saves Arturk, he will gain the clan's trust! He had already triumphed over one of these disgusting beasts. And knew their weak point. Avoiding the snake arms with their formidable suction cups, he was able to reach the vital place. The ivory knife plunged into it and plunged into it again, several times in a row. The monster vomited its ink which blackened the waves. Its tentacles waved limply and Rahan was able to snatch Arturk from them. Page Nine: While the octopus, struck dead, sank into the depths, he brought the leader back to the surface. And. A moment later a man revived Arturk, as the son of Crao had been himself by Orooa. How strange it is Orooa. My brothers know how to restore life, but they know nothing about what allows a clan to survive! How did they come to this lost island? We almost forgot about it! Our fathers' fathers were once driven from their land by mountain fire. They fled across the great river, but had to face its wrath. This lasted for days and days. More than half of the surviving clan reached this shore! Page Ten: We sometimes talk about the happy times of yesteryear. But the clan no longer dares to venture on the great river. But why do you have two chiefs?! Arturk, whom you saved, is the best fisherman. We made him the “Chief of Fish”! Alas! Despite his courage and speed he brings back very few fish! These are so fast! As for Traor, he's the "Chief of the Birds"! He alone is capable of waiting for a bird with a stone. But this too is very rare and. We sometimes go for long days without eating! Why fish by hand, why hunt with stones when, "Those-who-walk-upright" know so many traps?? Rahan could teach your clan a lot! Page Eleven: Arturk and Traor were conversing a few steps away. If the first was now favorable to the son of Crao, the Second maintained his decision. Rahan saved you from the "Long-armed Beast" To bring discord between us! He wants to become the leader of our clan! When the sun has risen four times if he has not fled the shore, Traor will kill him with his own hands! The son of fierce ages smiled. He could have easily defeated Traor. But an idea came to him. It is you who will soon ask Rahan to stay among you!! The clan can only live on fish and birds. But it doesn't capture enough!! Rahan left but he did not continue that day with the construction of his skiff. Page Twelve: Despite her orders, Orooa that evening risked reaching him. What are you doing? Rahan once imagined a fish trap. He will prove to your people that we can capture them without risk! The son of Crao cleverly fixed thorns on a long, thin vine. And. When he had garnished these with the shellfish meat from the rocks, he cast his line into the waves. Orooa, stunned, soon saw the vine relax, and Rahan's wrist come alive with sudden jerks. Orooa will bring home more fish than Arturk would catch in ten days! A moment later, the moon shone on a string of large wriggling fish! They are yours Orooa! You can teach your brothers this trap! Page Thirteen: How can Rahan perform so many miracles? Is it thanks to this magic necklace? Rahan does not perform miracles. And the claws of his necklace represent the qualities that those of "Those-who-walk-upright" should have. Courage, Kindness, Loyalty. Rahan tries to be faithful to Crao, who gave him this necklace! Shortly after, Rahan heard the playful clamor that greeted Orra's return to her people. He dozed happily between the trunks of the unfinished skiff. He was about to fall asleep when a disturbing noise startled him. Oh!! A “Craak”! The enormous crab was crawling towards the trunks, waving its monstrous claws. The son of Crao instinctively threw his knife. Page Fourteen: But the ivory weapon, ricocheting off the shell, bounced away. The horrible pincers were seeking and searching for the man. Bloff! No! Rahan will not go to the “territory of shadows”! Crack! Suddenly Rahan lifted up a trunk. The bark cracked under the claws which closed on it. Ra-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha! The “Craaks” are the stupidest monsters Rahan knows! In fact, the Giant Crab dragged the trunk back towards the sea where it soon disappeared. After retrieving his cutlass he son of Crao climbed into a tree, where no one would come to disturb his sleep. He thought for a long time about the Orooa clan before falling asleep If Rahan had the trust of Arturk and Traor, he would build a very large raft! He would take the clan to a land where they would live more happily! Page Fifteen: He was awakened by the shrill cries of large birds. As if to greet the rising sun, white gulls and black cormorants hover above the island A few seagulls landed on a rock and it was then that he caught a glimpse of Traor, lying in ambush in the thickets. The chief of the birds was on the lookout, Rahan thought. Amused, the son of fierce ages observed the man. He saw him throw a stone. But it barely missed his goal. The panicked birds flew away in a flock. Traor is not too clumsy. But his clan will not eat birds today! He will have to be content with the fish that Rahan caught yesterday! By saving Arturk, you gained the esteem of part of the clan. But you will never have Traor's! “Never” is a word that a wise hunter should not utter! Page Sixteen: But, Traor will not return empty-handed to his family! Look! As a great cormorant landed not far from them. The ivory knife, thrown with astonishing skill, buried itself in the body of the bird. Traor can see that Rahan is also not too clumsy! The bird is yours! One moment later. Rahan is too proud. No! Rahan would only be proud if he brought back enough birds to feed the whole clan! If you were capable of such a thing, traor would forget everything he thinks of you! Seizing the cormorant, Traor disappeared rapidly. Orooa sprang out of the thicket almost immediately. I heard everything! Traor is a mistrustful leader, but he is loyal! Page Seventeen: He believes Rahan. But how could Rahan catch enough birds to feed our entire clan! This is impossible! The son of Crao reflected while observing the seagulls returning to the rock. And, as always, an association of ideas took place in his mind. He suddenly remembered the storm. The great web of skins fell on him, enveloping him in a trap, which hindered his movements. Rahan has found it! He knows how to capture birds without approaching them! Without scaring them away! Orooa must have thought he was losing his mind because she suddenly fled. Rahan rushed towards the shore where he had abandoned his skins and his fish trap. Page Eighteen: He returned to the rock of seagulls. Shortly after, the clan alerted by Orooa, saw all of his actions. He was seen cutting and tying branches. Then, stretching the large sewn skins over these. Another branch maintained this curious trap. He tied a long vine to this support and left some fish that he had found on the rock. He went to lie in ambush in the thickets. A flock of screaming seagulls descended almost immediately, fighting over the fish. The attentive clan observed everything. Pulling on the vine, the son of Crao removed the support. And his trap suddenly fell on the Birds! Ra-ha-ha! Page Nineteen: And although a few of these did escape, almost all of them remained captive under the heavy skins! Enthusiastic cries arose. And the clan emerged with Arturk and Traor at the head. Rahan did not lie! He can catch more fish than Arturk and catch more birds than Traor! Rahan alone could feed the whole clan! We ask him to stay among us, to teach us his marvelous secrets! Once again, the son of Crao had managed to gain the trust of "Those-who-walk-upright". Arturk and Traor are good chiefs! Let them stay that way! But Rahan thinks that they should dare to abandon this land where the "Craaks" and the "Long-armed Monsters" roam! Page Twenty: There are, beyond the great river, territories where we live not only on fish and birds! On earth were all “Those-who-walk-upright” live happily! As the days pass, the son of Crao convinced the clan of the lost island. Orooa was his main ally. Look! My brothers follow your advice! Rahan had taught the men how to put the logs together, and on the shore a large skiff was taking shape. We are only three times the fingers of both hands. This raft will support us! And, one morning, the raft reached the open sea. Men saw this island disappear where, since their fathers' fathers' fathers died and failed, they had lived so miserably. The grand river was certainly immense. But Rahan knew that he always ended up discovering a new land! And if the son of Crao smiles at Orooa, it is because in this struggle for life, he never lost confidence. Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html

North American Aviation B 45 Tornado. By Kev Darling. WARPAINT SERIES Number 118. Above: North American NRB-45C, 0 dash 80017, nineteen fifty-seven. Note addition of externally fitted air brakes and green and white shamrock marking on crew access door. Below: Assigned to the eighty fourth BS and forty seventh BG at RAF Sculthorpe, B 45 “A-5-NA”, 47 dash 030, flew from Britain from nineteen fifty-two till nineteen fifty-eight when it was withdrawn. North American B and RB-45 Tornado Colour Schemes. BY RICHARD J. CARUANA. Top: North American XB 45 Tornado, serial 45 dash 59479. Natural metal overall with Dark Olive Green anti-dazzle panels nose and engine cowlings. All lettering in black. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings. North American logo on nose in black over a white disc. Note smaller door size and wing pitot. Middle: North American B 45A-1-NA Tornado, 47 dash 014, early production aircraft. Natural metal overall with Dark Olive Green anti-dazzle panels nose and engine cowlings. All lettering in black. Note fully glazed bubble canopy. Code BH 104 repeated in black below port wing. Below: North American B-45A-5-NA Tornado, 47 dash 063, Air Force Air Test Center, based at Ladd AFB (Alaska), nineteen forty-eight to 50. Natural metal overall with Dark Olive Green anti-dazzle panels nose, engine cowlings and front section of nose framing. Insignia Red tail section. All lettering in black. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings. USAF in black above starboard and below port wings. AFATC badge on fuselage partly covered by the engine pods in the profile. North American Aviation B 45 Tornado. By Kev Darling. Pictured over mountainous terrain is the second XB-45. During many of its test flights the crew was limited to three as the tail gun position was normally unoccupied. With the final collapse of Japanese resistance in nineteen forty-five the United States Army Air Force was faced with the dilemma of creating a new long range bomber force. Two of the primary machines, the Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress and the Consolidated B-24 Liberator, were already out of production and would be quickly removed from the front-line inventory. This left the Boeing B-29 Superfortress as the primary long range bomber although it was already obvious that the days of the piston powered military aircraft were passing, even so two final efforts were made to use this form of powerplant, namely the Boeing B-50 and the Convair B-36. Both types were capable of carrying the emerging crop of nuclear weapons and the British designed Gland Slam bomb. Neither of these options would make them more effective. The answer was the jet engine and swept wings, both of which came to the attention of the USAAF from intelligence gathered in Nazi Germany during nineteen forty-three. While production of under-contract conventional aircraft continued unabated, Air Material Command instigated the development of new aircraft designs and the jet engines to power them, the latter progressing under the aegis of General Electric with the programme designations of MX-414 and MX-702 which eventually appeared as the J35 and J47 respectively. The airframe side of the equation began in nineteen forty-four when AMC contacted the primary aircraft manufacturers in the United States calling for designs using jet engines, and where possible swept wings, with a weight between 80,000 and 200,000 pounds. Four manufacturers responded, North American with the XB-45, Convair with the XB-46, Boeing with the XB-47 and Martin with the XB-48. Although all four would be offered development contracts it would be North American and Boeing who would succeed in producing aircraft that would enter operational service. The USAAF had intended to schedule a formal competition between the various contractors working on projects, although in nineteen forty-six the AAF decided to forgo the usual competition process deciding instead to sift through the provided documentation and mock-ups to select two for continued development and, hopefully, production. This selection process resulted in the Boeing and North American designs being chosen although by this time both were regarded as medium bombers. As requirements changed the B-47 remained as a medium bomber while the B-45 was redesignated as a light bomber. As a backup both the XB-46 and XB-48 were built and extensively tested although neither would progress past the prototype stage. North American’s answer was the Model 130 that was covered by Contract letter AC-5126 issued to the company on 8 September nineteen forty-four, covering the construction of three prototypes designated XB-45. As design work progressed the contract was altered slightly so that the third machine became the YB-45, the tactical bomber prototype. In order that the B-45 could enter service within a reasonable time scale North American put forward a design that drew much of its inspiration from its previous wartime designs to which were added four jet engines, paired and carried in pods under the wings, plus a bombing radar in the nose, although the wings showed much refinement using an NACA 66-215 aerofoil section at the root which tapered out to NACA 66-212 at the tip. On the Right: This slightly different view of the second XB-45, 45 dash 59480, reveals the different skin panel tones on the unpainted airframe, it also sports the more up-to-date star and bar markings. Right Middle: Seen just prior to its maiden flight is XB-45 45 dash 59479 sitting on the Inglewood flightline. This model had the shorter tailplane that would prove troublesome during early flight trials. Below: This raised view of the XB-45 shows clearly the antiglare areas painted forward of the canopy and the inner faces of the engine nacelles. Also visible are the coverings outboard of the nacelles that reveal the outer wing panel attachment points. All photo credits USAF via DRJ. On 2 August nineteen forty-six the AMC endorsed the immediate production of the B-45 followed by the negotiation and signature of Contract AC-15569 that called for an initial batch of 96 B-45A’s, North American Model N-147, plus a flying static test machine, NA Model N-130, all for a fixed cost of 73.9 million dollars. On 17 March nineteen forty-seven, the first XB-45 made its maiden flight piloted by company test pilot George Krebs. During the one hour flight from Muroc Army Airfield, California, the aircraft was flown under stringent speed restrictions as the main landing gear doors would not close properly when the undercarriage was retracted. This problem might have been avoided by installing better landing gear up-locks, however this time consuming installation was postponed as North American did not wish to delay the XB-45’s flight. Even with this restriction the XB-45’s demonstration was impressive. As a result of this successful first flight Air Materiel Command put forward an extensive test program for the three experimental airframes, each to be instrumented for a particular phase of the development and trials programme. The test programme was hit by the crash of the first aircraft on 28 June nineteen forty-nine from Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, that killed two of the company test pilots. This accident was attributed to an engine explosion that caused extensive damage to the tailplane, this in turn causing major structural failure of that section, and as this was prior to the fitment of ejection seats the flight crew had no chance of escape. North American B-45A-5-NA Tornado, 47 dash 082, Eighty-fourth Bomber Squadron, forty-seventh Bomber Group USAF, nineteen fifty-two. Natural metal overall with Dark Olive Green anti-dazzle panels nose and engine cowlings. Red trim, outlined in black on nose and vertical tail surfaces. All lettering in black; note ’7082’ is carried in black below US script on fin, covered by the tailplane. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings; ‘USAF’ in black above starboard and below port wing. Unit badge on a black disk on nose. North American B-45A-5-NA Tornado, 47 dash 065, Eighty-fifth Bomber Squadron, forty-seventh Bomber Group USAF, nineteen fifty-two. Natural metal overall with Dark Olive Green anti-dazzle panels nose and engine cowlings. Yellow trim, outlined in black on nose and vertical tail surfaces. All lettering in black; note ’7065’ is carried in black below US script on fin, covered by the tailplane. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings; ‘USAF’ in black above starboard and below port wing. Unit badge on a black disk on nose. North American B-45A-5-NA Tornado, 47 dash 087, Eighty-fourth Bomber Squadron, forty-seventh Bomber Group USAF, Sculthorpe, nineteen fifty-two. Natural metal overall with Dark Olive Green antidazzle panels nose, engine cowlings and cockpit frame. Blue trim, outlined in black on nose and vertical tail surfaces. All lettering in black; note ’7057’ is carried in black below US script on fin, covered by the tailplane. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings; ‘USAF’ in black above starboard and below port wing. Unit badge on a black disk on nose. Note unusual position of USAF legend on nose. Right: Captured on an early test flight is the first XB-45. In this view the original bombardier glassed area has been replaced by a solid covering with the frames painted in. Also visible are the wingtip mounted pitot probes used to calibrate the aircraft’s primary airspeed indication system. Right Middle: Seen just after touch-down is 45-59479 landing at Muroc Dry Lake airfield. In this view the main undercarriage doors are still extended as they had a secondary role as drag inducers; they would be closed by the pilot just prior to engine shutdown. Below: With its nose glass house restored the first prototype undergoes refuelling outside the flight preparation hangar. Also in this view is a fire engine just in case of an incident. All photo credits USAF via DRJ. As might be expected, the crash of the first XB-45 resulted in a thorough investigation, the primary testing being undertaken in a wind tunnel that confirmed that the aircraft had insufficient tailplane area. The lack of ejection seats in these early machines had drastically reduced the pilot’s chances of survival. In response ejection seats were installed in the other prototypes, followed by an advanced ejection system being developed for the forthcoming production aircraft. In addition future B-45’s would be equipped with wind deflectors installed forward of the escape doors from which the other two crew members, the bombardier-navigator and tail gunner, would have to bail out of in case of an emergency. The aircraft’s tailplane area was also increased with an increase in span from 36 feet to almost 43 feet. Although the loss of the aircraft was tragic, the flight testing of the remaining XB-45’s continued. Pilots from the Air Force took a minimal part in the initial flight tests, during which they flew approximately 19 hours, while in contrast the contractor’s crews logged more than 165 flight hours on the two remaining aircraft during 131 flights, after which the Air Force took delivery of the aircraft. Right: This rear view of the XB-45 prototype shows the fairing over the rear gun turret position plus the location of the tail bumper. Also clearly visible is the gunner’s access door. Centre right: Another view of the XB-45 prototype complete with the solid nose canopy and extra wingtip pitot heads. This portrait was taken during the aircraft’s early flight trials at Muroc. Bottom right: With its gear down and locked 45 dash 59479 poses for the camera. In this view the split bomb bays are clearly shown, note the difference in size. Bottom Left: With a Fordson tractor on one end of the towbar the XB-45 is towed out of its hangar for a day’s flying. By this time the proper three-framed glass house has been installed although the extra pitot heads still remain. The Air Force accepted the second XB-45, 45-59480, on 30 July nineteen forty-eight, followed by the YB-45, 45-59481, on 31 August. The acceptance of both aircraft was conditional as the cabin pressurisation and air conditioning systems in both machines were incomplete, although these deficiencies were rectified later. Once North American had completed the installation of the pressurisation and conditioning systems of the XB-45 further flight trials were undertaken by air force crews who flew a total of 181 hours in the remaining XB-45 between August nineteen forty-eight and June nineteen forty-nine, when a landing accident damaged the aircraft beyond economical repair. The remaining YB-45 had limited testing value at that time due to an initial shortage of government furnished equipment. Even so the Air Force undertook a further 82 hours of flying time after which an air force flight test crew delivered the aircraft to Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio, where the outstanding government furnished equipment was installed for bombing trials at Muroc AFB, California. Unfortunately due to excessive maintenance needs the YB-45 undertook only one test flight between 3 August and 18 November nineteen forty-nine, to evaluate the long awaited government furnished components. At the completion of its systems and bombing trials the aircraft was used for high speed parachute drops that began in Novembernineteen forty-nine. These were completed by 15 May nineteen fifty after which it was transferred to Air Training Command to serve as a ground trainer. With the completion of the flight testing programme North American began production of the aircraft intended for service use. Even before the first Bombardment Wing was established doubts were being expressed about the type’s capability as early as June nineteen forty-eight following a meeting held in the office of General Hoyt S. Vandenberg, Air Force Chief of Staff who had assumed office on 30 April, the purpose of which was to ascertain the B-45’s value to the Air Force and its future use within the service. It was decided at that meeting that no further contracts beyond the initial one would be countenanced and that production would continue as planned up to the one hundred and ninteenth airframe, and that the funds already made available for a further contract would be used for another purpose, although this decision was later rescinded. Top Right: Seen later in its test career is the XB-45 prototype. In this view the aircraft has been fitted with a tail gun turret although in this case the aircraft is undertaking JATO rocket testing complete with fire and thunder. Center Right: This side-on view of the XB-45 prototype shows the clean lines of the Tornado. The type’s main failing was the underpowered engines. Below: Surrounded by various light aircraft is the first XB-45, at this point the aircraft still requires its anti-glare paint applying to the nose and the nacelles. All photo credits USAF from DRJ. A second contract had been issued in February nineteen forty-seven which covered further production, while a third contract was placed in June nineteen forty-eight although by this time the USAF had little desire for further aircraft, thus this tranche was later cancelled. The use of the B-45 came under investigation by the Aircraft and Weapons Board who would hold a series of conferences at which some board members suggesting that elimination of the co-pilot position and the AN, ARC 18 liaison set installed in that position plus the tail bumper would reduce the aircraft’s empty weight by 700 pounds. Also causing confusion was the attitude of the Air Staff who were under the impression that Tactical Air Command did not consider the B-45 suitable for bombing operations, however Colonel William W Momyer, who represented TAC at these conferences, refuted this suggestion as this conclusion was probably based on previous studies by the command on the aircraft’s excessive take-off distance, although North American and the engine manufacturers were working hard to counter this deficiency. In August nineteen forty-eight, 190 B-45’s were tentatively contracted for production, however the programme’s future was still uncertain. Top: Seen undergoing final construction are the second and third prototypes, just visible in right of this view is the already completed first aircraft. Bottom: The sort of take-off test crews like to undertake when showing off, the low altitude, gear and flaps up spirited departure prior to dramatic power-on climb. All Photo Credits USAF via DRJ. In order to justify the already issued contracts Headquarters USAF inquired whether TAC required a bomber type reconnaissance aircraft for long range duties and would a version of the B-45 fulfil their needs. The answer from Tactical Air Command was delivered quickly as they did need a reconnaissance aircraft although a reconnaissance version of the B-45 would not fulfil its requirements. The command also believed that the USAF would gain greater knowledge of jet bomber operations by equipping two bomber wings with the B-45 in order to determine the tactics and limitations of the type. However the merits of these recommendations were academic as budgetary restrictions altered all future planning. The axe that slashed the fiscal year nineteen forty-nine defense expenditures did not leave the B-45 programme completely unscathed. The initial plan for the B-45 Tornado force had called for five light bomb groups and three light tactical reconnaissance squadrons that were included in the USAF goal of seventy combat wings, an unrealistic requirement as the United States was in transition from a wartime footing to that of peace. Although the formation of the Eastern Block was giving rise to concern, the reduced USAF procurement programme was dictated by continued financial restrictions, this being reinforced by President Truman’s budget shrinkage for fiscal year nineteen fifty. The reduced B-45 programme called for only one light bomb wing plus one night tactical reconnaissance squadron, although this meant that the procurement of aircraft had to be scaled down or that a substantial number of the aircraft would have to be placed in storage upon acceptance from the factory. Neither solution was appealing, however the Aircraft and Weapons Board decided to cancel 51 of the 190 aircraft on order. The result was that 100 million dollars would be released for other crucial programmes therefore only sufficient B-45’s would be procured to equip one light bomb group, a single tactical reconnaissance squadron, plus a much needed high speed tow target squadron. In addition there would be extra B-45’s available to take care of attrition throughout the aircraft’s service life. Five light bomb wings were included in the 70-wing force planned by the Air Force, however rejigging of the available forces to meet the reduced 48-wing target meant that the composition and deployment imposed by current funding limitations covered the formation of one light bomb wing. This wing would be allocated to the Far East Air Forces (FEAF) and would be fully equipped with B-45’s. The equipment and training path chosen by USAF was to inactivate the forty seventh Wing at Barksdale and to replace the Douglas B-26’s of FEAF’s third Light Bomb wing based at Yokota Air Base in Japan with the B-45. Maintenance personnel of the forty-seventh would also be transferred to Yokota so that FEAF would benefit from the B-45 knowledge gained by the aircraft’s first recipient. Above: Captured on an early test flight is the second XB-45 and the first XP-86 prototype. The latter went on to achieve worldwide fame while the former nearly slipped into obscurity, even though it was the first USAF jet bomber to enter service. Left: Giving its max, the prototype XB-45 blasts off from the Inglewood runway. With all four engines operating at full power, well for Allisons anyway, and two JATO pods blasting away, the bomber will reach high altitude in no time at all. Photo credits USAF via DRJ. The spanner in the works of this plan was that the B-45’s could not carry sufficient fuel to fly to Hawaii, and equipping the aircraft with additional fuel tanks, a feature intended for later build B-45 models, was at the time impossible. The B-45A-1’s powered by J35 engines had a ferry range of 2,120 miles and a take-off weight of 86,341 pounds that included 5,800 gallons of internal fuel. Almost half of the fuel was contained in two 1,200 gallon bomb bay tanks and no additional fuel space was available. The following B-45-5’s powered by J47 engines had a similar take-off weight and a negligible range increase of 30 nautical miles. As both versions were limited by range problems, other solutions were investigated. The first and only other alternative investigated was to move the required aircraft by sea, however a minimum of ten feet would have to have been removed from each of the aircraft’s wings, not a wise choice. Other forms of other sea transportation were also investigated although all research into the transport question came to a halt. In early nineteen forty-nine, the Deputy Chief of Staff for Air Materiel Command stated that the overseas deployment of B-45’s was currently out of the question for the time being as well as the immediate future. To begin with the B-45’s were not fully operational as they had no fire control or bombing equipment and the aircraft lacked a suitable bombsight, although one was undergoing development. Structural weaknesses including cracked forgings in the primary structure had been uncovered in some of the few B-45’s already flying. Until corrected these deficiencies precluded any deployment abroad. Air Materiel Command (AMC) also reported that the new J47 engine due to equip most of the B-45’s was suffering from serious problems. The engine had to be inspected thoroughly after seven and a half hours of flying time. If they were found to be serviceable the aircraft could only be flown for an additional seven and a half hours before requiring a complete overhaul. Lack of funding prevented the purchase of sufficient spare engines to ensure that the B-45’s could be kept flying if deployed overseas. AMC also anticipated difficulties in keeping those aircraft that remained in America flying even if they were close to the depots where the engines had to be inspected and overhauled. AMC also postulated that the home based B-45’s would need 900 spare engines to undertake a reasonable flying programme although none of these were available. Left: The second XB-45 prototype, was similar to the first aircraft. In this view the bomb bay doors are open and reveal that the doors are constructed in two sections, the inner fitting inside the outer when fully open. Below: This nose-on view of the prototype XB-45 shows that it is equipped with two pitot tubes, one per wing. Connected to separate calibration units the systems plus a chase plane would ensure that the production aircraft pitot systems would work accurately. Photo credits USAF via DRJ. Adding to the shortage problem was that North American F-86 Sabres had first priority for the J47. The AMC report went on to say that the situation would be little altered until jet engines could be used for almost 100 hours between overhauls. This restriction meant that no jet aircraft could be stationed outside of America for at least another year. It was not only the engines that were giving cause for concern, other systems installed in the B-45 were also causing problems. Travelling at high speeds affected the Gyrosyn flux magnetic compass and the E-4 automatic pilot when the aircraft’s bomb bay doors were open, while the emergency braking system, served by the aircraft’s main hydraulic system, was proving unreliable in operation. Also affected were the bomb racks whose mountings were poorly designed as the bomb shackles became unlocked during violent manoeuvres. The B-45’s airspeed indicator was also proving inaccurate while the aircraft’s fuel pressure gauges were both difficult to read due to needle flicker and were thus erratic. The powerplants were also posing a significant safety hazard as during start-up they often flamed out due to an imbalance in the fuel, air aspirator system that sometimes failed to work correctly. The temperature reading systems fitted to the engine jet pipes were incorrectly calibrated and thus failed to indicate the temperatures in the jet pipes while flying at high altitudes. The aircraft’s avionics were also creating serviceability problems in the early aircraft, these centring around the AN, APQ-24 bombing and navigation radar system although few B-45’s were fitted with this system. Malfunctioning of the pressurization and conditioning system also limited the altitude at which the APQ-24’s receiver and transmitter units could operate without failing due to overheating. Allied to this was the signal modulator unit that was not pressurized thus it too limited the APQ-24 capability. Additionally the mounting location of the radar scanner had an adverse affect on the coverage of targets especially when the aircraft was operating above an altitude of 40,000 feet. Coupled to the system unit problems were the ergonomics of the bombardier, navigator’s position as he had to attempt to manipulate two mileage control plots onto the radar screen although these were placed to the right and just behind his back. The layout of the B-45’s radar system was no better from a maintenance point of view. The USAF was still afflicted by a lack of sufficiently qualified personnel to maintain and repair the radar system thus it took up to eight hours just to remove and replace the APQ-24’s modulator unit, this being the system’s primary troublesome component. Adding to the dismal maintenance problem were shortages of spare parts, special tools, and ground handling equipment as well as engine hoists, power units, and engine stands. Right: This is the third Tornado prototype, seen sitting on the flight line with its main undercarriage doors down. Unlike the first prototype this machine featured the extended tailplane which improved the type’s stability. Below right: The final B-45 prototype, was retained for trials purposes for which purpose it was subject to the various modification programmes applied to the operational fleet. Below: This overview of the second prototype shows clearly the extended tailplane span. In common with the other prototypes the aircraft retains a fighter type pilot’s canopy and the three-frame nose glazing. The Nuclear Tornado. Prior to nineteen forty-nine the USAF had never seriously considered the tactical employment of nuclear weapons apart from their use for strategic air warfare. Allied to this was that early nuclear weapons were costly and given the difficulty in producing fissionable material would remain few in number for many years. The change to this policy was the development and large quantity production of small tactical nuclear weapons, thus the USAF earmarked such weapons again for strategic use only, especially as warheads for proposed guided missiles. Although the Air Staff seemed happy with this strategy the Weapons Systems Evaluation Group conducted a study on the use of the nuclear weapon on tactical targets, including the effect of such a weapon on such targets as troops, aircraft, and ships massed for offensive operations plus naval bases, airfields, naval task forces, and heavily fortified positions. The study was concluded in November nineteen forty-nine and found that tactical nuclear bombs would be effective on all targets. While of an informal nature, the Weapon Systems Evaluation Group’s study was noted by the Air Staff although no action was taken until mid-nineteen fifty, when the outbreak of the Korean War underlined the weakness of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces should the Russians ever decide to seize the opportunity to attack Europe. These realisation forced events to move rapidly. Overall command and responsibility for these weapons would remain under the control of Strategic Air Command, however the use of nuclear weapons would become Air Force-wide. Top: North American B-45A-5-NA Tornado, 47-057, eighty-sixth Bomber Squadron, forty-seventh Bomber Group USAF, nineteen-fifty-two. Natural metal overall with Dark Olive Green anti-dazzle panels nose and engine cowlings. Red trim, outlined in black on nose and vertical tail surfaces. All lettering in black; note ’7057’ is carried in black below US script on fin, covered by the tailplane. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings; ‘USAF’ in black above starboard and below port wing. Unit badge on a black disk on nose. Middle: North American B-45A-5-NA Tornado, 47-055, eighty-sixth Bomber Squadron, forty-seventh Bomber Group, England, nineteen-fifty-two. Natural metal overall with Dark Olive Green anti-dazzle panel, canopy frame and engine cowlings. Blue trim, outlined in black on nose and vertical tail surfaces. All lettering in black. Note ’7055’ is carried in black below US script on fin, covered by the tailplane. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings; ‘USAF’ in black above starboard and below port wing. Unit badge on a black disk on nose. Bottom: North American B-45A-5-NA Tornado, 47-039, Eighty-fifth Bomber Squadron, forty-seventh Bomber Group, nineteen-fifty-three. Natural metal overall with Dark Olive Green anti-dazzle panels nose and engine cowlings. Yellow trim to nose and vertical tail surfaces, outlined in black. All lettering in black. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings; USAF in black below port wing. Unit badge below cockpit. Above: The North American flight line could be a busy place as this view shows. Here B-45A 47-062 sits alongside an F-86 from the same manufacturer while other B-45’s undergo pre-flight checks. The nearest machine has flap set-up gauges on its upper wing. Center: The second production aircraft. It was retained for trials use, mainly at Wright-Patterson AFB. Bottom: Complete with large buzz numbers under the wings 47-011 undertakes a pre-delivery flight. The aircraft served with the forty-seventh Bomb Wing before being retired for spares recovery purposes. Of note is the four-digit tail number as used by all the operational aircraft. All photo credits USAF via DRJ. In support of this policy change the Air Staff, on 14 November Nineteen fifty, directed TAC to develop tactics and techniques for the use of nuclear weapons in tactical air operations. Tactical Air Command had originally been part of the Continental Air Command when the USAAF became USAF in Nineteen forty-eight, although it gained major command status in December Nineteen fifty. The directive received a further push in January Nineteen fifty-one when an Air Staff programme was outlined to ensure that TAC would become nuclear capable as soon as possible. The B-45 would be at the forefront of the new plan as the aircraft also became the first light bomber fitted for nuclear weapons delivery. Turning the TAC nuclear capability into a reality was the secrecy surrounding the production of the first weapons that created difficulties for both the aircraft manufacturer and the AAF. Due to the dissemination of incorrect information the B-45 could not have been used as a nuclear weapons carrier without major internal modifications to the bomb bay as the main spar that travelled across the aircraft’s bomb bay limited the size of weapon that could be carried. Right: The different metal colors of the B-45 are revealed in this overview of 47-011. Unlike later build machines this aircraft retained the fighter type canopy fitted to the prototypes plus the original three-frame nose glazing. Center: Another view of an early production machine, this time 47-014. In this view the aircraft has its bomb bay doors fully open. Just visible is the fuel dump vent just aft of the tail bumper. Below: Prior to entering service with the forty seventh Bomb Group B-45A-NA-5 47-025 was used to clear the type for conventional weapons usage. Here clutches of 500 pound bombs depart the rear bomb bay although some reports state that the type was unstable during bomb drops. All photo credits USAF via DRJ. Making the task of Tactical Air Command more difficult was the decision to extend the use of nuclear weapons to all combat forces, thus the B-45’s acquired by TAC would no longer remain under direct control. This also meant that TAC would have too few aircraft to develop tactical operational techniques with the new weaponry. Further complications arose when the smaller, safer and lighter nuclear bombs entered the stockpile earlier than expected, again intensive secrecy had accompanied the new developments. These changes meant that the B-45 would be unable to carry any of the new weapons without first undergoing further extensive modification to carry them. In December Nineteen fifty some sixty B-45’s were earmarked for nuclear weapons delivery duty, this consisting of three squadrons of 16 aircraft each, plus 12 attrition machines. This total would be reduced to forty aircraft in mid Nineteen fifty-one although it was increased again in mid Nineteen fifty-two, when fifteen other B-45’s were added to the special modification programme. The Air Staff directed AMC to modify a first lot of 9 aircraft to carry the small bombs for which designs were then available. This initial project would allow for suitability tests by the Special Weapons Command that was established in December Nineteen forty-nine, later re-designated Air Force Special Weapons Center being assigned to Air Research and Development Command in April Nineteen fifty-two. However the diversion of these aircraft meant that TAC had fewer test aircraft to undertake its new tasks. To speed up the development programme five of the nine aircraft would be equipped with the AN-APQ-24 bombing and navigation system while the remaining four would be fitted with the AN-APN-3 Shoran navigation and bombing system, plus the visual Norden M9C bombsight. North American would bring the nine aircraft up to the required special weapons configuration for a total cost of 512,000 dollars. Above: Seen lifting off under full power is B-45A 47-026 complete with a solid nose and a fully framed canopy. By this time the buzz number under the wing had been replaced by USAF titling. Center: With NAA engineers attending to some final details RB-45C 48-011 would be cleared for service use with the Nineteenth SRS. Bottom: The third prototype was used for numerous system trials prior to the B-45 entering service with the USAF. In this view the aircraft has both its nose gear doors open plus the main gear doors. By mid Nineteen fifty-one the programme for operational use of the B-45 in possible nuclear operations was finally established. The aircraft involved in this programme were code-named Backbreaker and included, in addition to the B-45 light bombers, 100 Republic F-84 Thunderjet fighter bombers. As the availability of modified B-45’s increased the programme’s status was accelerated so that it became second only to a concurrent and closely related modification program involving various SAC bombers. In August Nineteen fifty-one the programme received further impetus as the Air Staff confirmed that nuclear capable modified B-45’s, equipment, and allied support would be supplied to enable units of the forty-seventh Bombardment Wing in the United Kingdom to achieve a proposed operational nuclear capability by April Nineteen fifty-two. In addition to the first batch of nine aircraft, the programme would be extended to cover a further 32 B-45’s, the latter modification programmes cost being set at 4 million dollars. One B-45A was destroyed by fire in February Nineteen fifty-two and not replaced thus reducing the available total from 41 to 40 aircraft. Of the 4 million dollars allocated to the project some of the funds were diverted from other Tactical Air Command projects that were later cancelled. The Air Staff requested that sixteen of the aircraft be ready by 15 February Nineteen fifty-two, while the remainder should be available by 1 April. The modifications applied to those airframes chosen for the Backbreaker programme required extensive reworking. Equipment had to be installed in the aircraft for carrying three different types of nuclear weapons which in turn necessitated some structural modifications to the bomb bay. Special carrying cradles were provided for each type of weapon while special hoisting equipment was required for loading each type into the Backbreaker B-45’s. To support the delivery of each weapon a large amount of advanced electronics equipment had to be installed, replacing the standard equipment, while further modifications added new defensive systems and extra fuel tanks to the airframe. North American and the Air Materiel Command’s San Bernardino Air Materiel Area, in San Bernardino, California, shared the modification responsibilities for the B-45 Backbreaker program. In early Nineteen fifty-two the nine B-45’s, already modified to a limited Backbreaker configuration by AMC and North American, were returned by TAC to San Bernardino for completion of the modifications, thus bringing them up to the same standard as the main tranche. Reworking of the other 32 B-45As, later reduced by one after an accident, also took place at the San Bernardino Air Materiel Area during the first three months of Nineteen fifty-two with North American being responsible for furnishing all necessary modification kits. Fortunately good co-operation between the AMC, North American and equipment subcontractors meant that the entire modification programme was completed without significant delays. Much of the electronic and support components required for the Backbreaker configuration were of a new and advanced design and were in very short supply. Right: By the time B-45C 48-005 rolled off the production line the nose canopy was fitted with four frames as standard. Here 48-005 awaits its next flight at Edwards AFB. Below: Never used by the USAF this machine, 47-014, was used for experimental purposes for which it was designated EB-45A. Not often seen is the nose entrance ladder used by the pilots and the bombardier-navigator to enter the aircraft. The requirement for the AN-APQ-24 radar for the B-45 placed it in direct competition with Strategic Air Command programmes. As delivered the replacement radars were not configured for the delivery of nuclear weapons so those few available AN-APQ-24 sets had to be modified to the new configuration. SHORAN units were also in short supply so a quantity had to be diverted from Far East Air Force’s and Tactical Air Command’s B-26 upgrade programme. Other challenges facing those undertaking the Backbreaker programme centered around shortages of minor equipment items that were required to integrate some of the aircraft’s systems. Some of the new equipment could not be installed before connectors were manufactured whilst other much needed components simply did not exist. One of the major omissions was the bomb scoring unit which consisted of a series of switches and relays that controlled the release of specific weapons in concert with the radar bombing system. As no such device existed each unit had to be manufactured at AMA San Bernardino. The Air Materiel Area also made parts for the A-6 chaff dispenser including a removable chute for easier maintenance. North American also manufactured special fuel flow totalizers for the fuel system in order to control the rate and amount of fuel supplied to the engines; this unit also assisted in the supply of correct contents gauging to the crew whilst maintaining a balanced fuel feed. North American was also responsible for the manufacture of special equipment to integrate AN-APG-30 radar with the rest of the Backbreaker B-45’s tail defense system The Fletcher Aviation Corporation of Pasadena, California, was responsible for the production of the extra fuel tanks while AMC’s Middletown Air Materiel Area in Middletown, Ohio manufactured the special slings that were required to carry some of the new weapons. While the Backbreaker modifications were extensive the AMC and the manufacturers also had to cope with various existing engine problems which needed curing as the bomber modification would be useless without them. A report by the General Electric Company field representative advising the forty-seventh Bombardment Group throughout most of Nineteen fifty-one indicated that the J47’s powering the Backbreaker aircraft would share some of the flaws of the type’s previous power plants. The J47’s available at that time suffered from turbine failures similar to those that had afflicted the earlier Allison built J35’s. Also subject to failure were the turbine tail cones that fractured when the J47 overheated. Flight stresses also caused oil leaks that meant that the engines had to be removed for repairs and ground test runs, all of which required a lot of man-hours to rectify. While the USAF did not expect any new engine to be problem free from the outset, the urgency surrounding the Backbreaker modification programme made these difficulties more significant. In July Nineteen fifty-two the Air Force decided to increase the number of nuclear capable B-45 aircraft by a further fifteen aircraft. The proposed configuration was that of the Backbreaker aircraft plus improvements based on experience and in-service modifications. The primary updates covered the Backbreaker aircraft’s tail defense system and the fuel flow totalizer that had been manufactured for the first 40 Backbreaker B-45’s, although they had not been installed due to production delays. Another important change required relocation of the carrier supports required by a specific type of nuclear weapon be moved into the forward bomb bay thus allowing for the installation of a 1,200 gallon fuel tank in the rear bay. The fitment of this extra fuel tank would give the aircraft a useful increase in range of approximately 300 nautical miles. By September Nineteen fifty-two after a design conference with North American the USAF decided on the improved Backbreaker configuration and established a programme for procurement and installation of the necessary modification kits. The Air Force then allocated 2.2 million dollars for modification of the fifteen additional B-45’s plus a further 3 million for retrofit of the first 40 Backbreaker aircraft. The primary depot allocated to this task was the San Bernardino Air Materiel Area who would undertake the new modifications and would also be responsible for the provision of all necessary kits for the Backbreaker retrofit, although these would be done in the field by unit engineers. Initially it was thought that the modification programme would proceed on time as it involved less work than the original Backbreaker modification. However the programme was subject to slippage as during the second half of Nineteen fifty-two the Air Materiel Command was in the process of transferring certain responsibilities from its headquarters to the various air materiel areas. Page 16: Above: B-45A-5-NA 47-021 was bailed to NACA straight from the manufacturers. Its career was short, the aircraft crashing a few months later in August Nineteen fifty-two. Center: B-45C Tornado 48-002 would never enter front line service with the USAF being retained as a testbed by the manufacturers. Re-designated as the EB-45C the aircraft was lost in Nineteen fifty after suffering structural failure. Below: B-45A-5 47-039 was operated by the forty-seventh Bomb Group and would be lost in a crash in August Nineteen fifty-three. Of note is the crew access ladder and the outward opening door, the prototype doors opened inwards. This resulted in delays in processing engineering data and purchase requests, which in turn delayed the manufacture of the field modification kits and their delivery by North American. Further difficulties occurred at North American as the contractor was no longer tooled for constructing the B-45 and was working to capacity on other products. As a result of these deficiencies, modification kit deliveries did not begin until July Nineteen fifty-three thus pushing installation back four months. In September Nineteen fifty-three the USAF added a further three B-45’s to the modification programme, however as two of the original conversion batch aircraft had been retired and one had crashed the total still remained at fifteen. Completion of the conversion programme was delayed until March Nineteen fifty-four as later build machines were slotted into the programme to compensate for a lack of available B-45As. While the Backbreaker modifications and retrofits enabled the B-45’s to handle several types of the smaller nuclear weapons, the modified aircraft were unable to carry and deliver the special weapons needed for the tactical interdiction mission, so in Nineteen fifty-three, due to the increasing availability of nuclear weapons, the USAF thought of transferring this responsibility from SAC to TAC. In the event the situation remained unchanged as neither command had the type of aircraft available to carry out the task until the Douglas B-66 Destroyer became available. The “N-A-A” B-45 Tornado described. The North American B-45 ”A-1”, “A-5” and C models of the Tornado were described as land based, four-engine jet propelled bombers that were designed to operate at high speeds and at high altitudes. The aircraft was tasked with the tactical bombing of both land and sea targets. Should the B-45 be required to undertake longer range attacks extra fuel capacity could be installed in the bomb bay, while the B-45C could be fitted with external wingtip tanks. The basic crew consisted of a pilot, co-pilot, who also acted as the radio operator, bombardier-navigator and the tail gunner. The two pilots were mounted on ejection seats while the other crew members bailed out through hatches in the nose and tail, both being provided with wind deflectors. The crew’s duties saw the pilot in the forward seat under the canopy having all the controls to hand to fly the aircraft while the co-pilot acted mainly as the radio operator, although his position was equipped with basic flight controls, basic engine controls, elevator trim controls and the emergency braking system although no controls were provided for the fuel and hydraulic systems nor for the undercarriage, flaps, aileron and rudder trim tabs. The fuselage of the B-45 was constructed in three sections, the major section stretching from the pilot’s front bulkhead to the rear fin post, aft of which was the gunner’s compartment. This section consisted of seven primary frames supported in turn by further, lighter frames, these being riveted to load bearing longerons and stringers all being covered by alloy skinning. Right: Seen soon after rollout is the XB-45 prototype being worked on by NAA flight test engineers. In this view the fighter type pilot’s canopy is clearly visible as is the original bombardier’s troublesome glass-covered nose section. Due to manufacturing problems many of the operational systems were missing from this aircraft. Below: This underside view of 45-59479 clearly shows the panel lines and the flight control surfaces. Note the different metal colors. Photo Credits: USAF via DRJ. Across the bomb bay was the main spar, with secondary spars fore and aft. Forward of the pilot’s front bulkhead was a separate nose section that housed the bombardier-navigator under whom was carried the radar scanner. Over the upper section was extensive framing that carried the glazing that illuminated the compartment. Attached to the rear of the main fuselage was the final section which housed the gunner’s compartment and his weaponry. All crew areas were pressurized and fitted with air conditioning systems. Unlike earlier bombers, access between the fore and aft compartments was only possible when the aircraft was depressurised, the bomb doors were shut and the bay was empty. The wings were constructed around a primary main spar with secondary spars carried fore and aft. Wing shape was provided by nose ribs, interspar ribs, many with cutouts for the fuel tanks, with stressed skinning overall. Extra strengthening was provided at the nacelle mountings for the engines and on the main spar at the main undercarriage mounting points. The wings were attached to the fuselage spar sections using bolts fitted both vertically and horizontally. On the wing trailing edge were carried the flap sections, these being mounted either side of the engine nacelles, while the outer section of each wing was the mounting point for the aileron. The flap sections and ailerons were constructed around a single spar that had nose ribs forward and further ribs aft forming a distinct taper, all were alloy skinned. The tailplanes were of twin-spar construction and were similar in construction to the wings; at their trailing edge were the elevators that were similar in construction to the ailerons. The fin and rudder were similar in construction to the other flight surfaces, and all were fitted with trim tabs. The flight control surfaces were conventional in nature although all surfaces were fitted with hydraulic power boosters. The ailerons and elevators were controlled using a control wheel that incorporated a push-to-talk radio button, the auto pilot release, the nose wheel steering trigger switch and the elevator trim control switch. For access to the rudder pedals and other equipment the pilot’s control wheel column could be disengaged using a release catch. The co-pilot’s control wheel was similarly equipped with switches and could also be folded away as could the rudder pedals. To stop the control surfaces moving in an uncontrolled manner the flight control system was fitted with a locking unit in the cockpit although it could not be engaged while the hydraulic booster units were shut down. The trim tabs fitted to the flight control surfaces were electrically powered, being positioned using the single control stick mounted at the pilot’s position. The elevator and rudder boosts were powered by a pair of electrically powered hydraulic pumps, both pumps were used to drive the elevators while the rudder used only a single pump. In the first batch of aircraft, low speed handling control was courtesy of a bungee providing an elevator down-force. In normal flight the bungee force was cancelled out by use of the trim tabs. In the B-45 “A-5” and the B-45C the low speed handling was managed by the downward cant of the jet pipes and spring tabs on the elevators. Instead of using electrically driven pumps the aileron boost system used pressure derived from the engine driven pumps drawn from Numbers one and three engines, however on the later build machines the hydraulic pumps from the other two engines were used to drive the surfaces. Above: B-45C 48-001 was retained by North American for trials use although it was later lost in an accident. Left: Destined to serve with the manufacturers amongst other users for trials work, RB-45C 48-037 was finally retired to Norton AFB in December Nineteen fifty-seven. Aileron boost became effective as soon as the engines started, however should any of the engines powering the aileron boost system undergo a power change or be shut down for any reason there was a corresponding increase in aileron forces. During normal flight enough hydraulic power was available to keep the aileron boost powered up when the engine was windmilling, however once speed dropped to 140 mph or lower the bypass valve in the windmilling engine’s hydraulic system switched into the open position, making the system inoperative. When this happened the aileron forces became heavier as control had reverted to fully manual. Also driven by the hydraulic system were the wing flaps that consisted of four separate sections, located between the fuselage and the engine nacelles and between the nacelles and the ailerons. Selectable flap positions were available between fully up and fully down at forty degrees. Intermediate positions could be selected by the use of the selector lever in the pilot’s cockpit. Power for the flaps was supplied by the engine driven pumps. Emergency flap could be lowered using the emergency lowering system which diverted flow from the emergency pump to the flaps. Only the down selection was available using this system, no up selection was possible. Hydraulics also powered the undercarriage system, the main undercarriage units retracted inwards towards the wing roots while the nose wheel assembly retracted aft into its bay. As the main gear retracted into the bays the wheel brakes came on automatically to stop the wheels spinning. The nose wheel unit also incorporated a steering unit that also acted as an anti shimmy unit when disengaged. The B-45 was also fitted with a hydraulically driven tail skid which automatically extended and retracted in sequence with the undercarriage. During approach the main undercarriage fairing doors remained open to increase drag for deceleration during landing. Should the undercarriage selector be placed in the down position during landing the main gear doors would close automatically on touchdown, however should further drag be needed during the landing roll the selector had to be left in the neutral position although it had to be returned to down prior to engine shut-down. In common with many aircraft the B-45 would normally be fitted with ground locks and a safety cover over the selector to prevent inadvertent retraction. Indication of the undercarriage position was courtesy of a light sequence, thus green indicated fully down and locked, red indicated unlocked while amber indicated that the gear was in transit. Should there be a failure in the hydraulic system the undercarriage could be lowered using the emergency system. This was activated using a hand pump located behind the bombardier’s position. The initial cycles released the undercarriage gear and door uplocks, after free falling the legs were pumped into the locked position. In the later build aircraft the hand pump was replaced by two switches located close to the forward bomb bay bulkhead in the rear of the pilot’s cockpit. Selection of door open and gear down would see the locks disconnected mechanically after which the undercarriage dropped down into the locked position. Other hydraulic units driven by the aircraft’s systems included the nose wheel steering unit that would only operate when the nose wheels were on the ground and the shock absorber jack was compressed. When operated by the pilot using the switch on the control wheel, this allowed the pilot to move the unit 45 degrees either side of the centreline. For ground movement the steering unit and antishimmy unit could be disconnected by removing a pin thus ensuring these units were undamaged during ground movements. The aircraft’s brakes were controlled using the toe pedals on the rudder pedals. Top: North American B-45C-1-N-A Tornado, 48-001, retained by North American for trials. Black anti-dazzlepanels nose and engine cowlings. All lettering in black. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings. USAF in black above starboard and below port wings. Center: North American B-45C-1-NA Tornado, 48-010, Eighty-fifth Bomber Squadron, forty-seventh Bomber Group USAF, Nineteen fifty-two. Natural metal overall with black anti-dazzle panels nose and engine cowlings. Yellow trim, outlined in black on nose and vertical tail surfaces. All lettering in black; note 7065 is carried in black below US script on fin, covered by the tailplane. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings; USAF in black above starboard and below port wing. Unit badge on a black disk on nose. Preserved at Wright Patterson Air Force Base Museum. Bottom: North American B-45A-1-NA Tornado, 47-0008 bailed to North American as a test aircraft. Natural metal overall with Dark Olive Green TT-C-595 3406 anti-dazzle panels nose and engine cowlings. Black wing, tailplane, and engine air intakes leading edges; black lettering. Red bands around fuselage, vertical tail surfaces, and wing and tailplane undersides. National markings on fuselage sides, above port and below starboard wings. USAF in black above starboard and below port wings. Shown as in September 1981 at China Lake for restoration for Castle Air Museum. Top: Bailed to Northrop Aircraft as an EDB-45C 48-005 was used as a drone control test aircraft on behalf of the USAF. Note the lack of wingtip tanks and the cone over the tail gun turret position. Bottom: Photographed while still based at Langley AFB is this group of B-45’s belonging to the forty-seventh BW. In this view the rear gunner’s position is clearly shown. Visible is the remotely operated gun turret, minus guns, plus the sighting mechanism in its clear dome. Also shown are the rear escape hatch and deflector panels. For emergency use there were emergency levers at both pilot’s positions and that at the pilot’s position could be used as a parking brake. The bomber versions of the B-45 were fitted with two different types of engine, the Dash One was powered by four Allison J35 engines mounted in pairs under each wing. Two variants were used, these being the J35-A-9 and the J35-A-11. The subsequent Dash Five and B-45C were powered by either the J47-GE-7, 13 or the J47-GE-9, 15 all of which were manufactured by General Electric. Each Allison power plant was provided with a pressure type oil system that contained 12.7 gallons of usable fluid. Monitoring of tank contents was via gauges mounted on the pilot’s panel. The oil system provided for the GE engines was similar in operation although the tank content was reduced to 6.7 gallons of usable fluid. The B-45 could be fitted with external tanks mounted under the engine nacelles containing water methanol and injection of this mix into the engines could be used to improve take-off performance. To use the water injection system the flaps needed to be set to 20 degrees while the trim tabs had to be set at zero. The fuel system installed in the B-45 consisted of eight fuel tanks made up of 22 cells interconnected to make up the groups. Each wing group under normal circumstances fed the engines on that side of the aircraft although in an emergency a fuel system cross feed line could be opened to supply fuel to the engines on the opposite wing. When the jettisonable wing tanks, each holding 1,250 US gallons, were installed they were referred to as Number four fuel tank. Under normal circumstances each tank fed the relevant pair of engines although should one become inoperative the remaining tank could be switched to feed all four engines. Unlike the main system the wingtip tanks had no gauging, however each had an empty light that illuminated when their contents had been used. All fuel tanks were fitted with booster pumps as were the bomb bay tanks when fitted. When a single tank was fitted in the bomb bay both fuselage pumps were connected to the tank although when two tanks were installed only one pump was fitted to each tank. As these pumps had a greater output than the wing tank pumps the bomb bay tanks had to be used first. Should circumstances warrant it the bomb bay tanks and or bombs could be jettisoned using the salvo panel located at the pilot’s position. However there were provisos to this instruction as the 310 US gallon tanks could not be jettisoned when the aft bomb bay shackles, Type D-7, for the 2,000 and 4,000 pound bombs were fitted. The B-45 was also capable of carrying a 1,200 US gallon tank in the bomb bay but the pilot was warned not to open the bay doors as damage could occur to the tank, although the pilot was allowed to open them when the tank was full or it required jettisoning. If fitted the wingtip tanks could also be jettisoned using the controls located at the pilots’ stations either by using a mechanical release or the salvo panel. Refuelling the B-45 was through a single pressurized refuel point located on the left hand side of the fuselage aft and below the trailing edge of the wing. The B-45 electrical system fitted to the earlier build machines used four engine driven 28 volt DC generators which acted as combination generators and starter units. Once the engines were running the 115 volt “A-C” alternators fitted to Numbers one and three engines were available for use via a selector switch in the cockpit. The electrical system provided power to the lights, booster pumps, engine starters, fuel shut-off valves, armament and communications equipment, bombing system, camera, automatic pilot, nose wheel steering, trim tabs, rudder-elevator boost, ATO ignition units, air conditioning, pressurization, emergency hydraulic pump, fire detectors and extinguisher, escape deflector flaps plus electrical instrumentation and transmitters. On later build aircraft electrical supplies also controlled the sequence valves for the landing gear doors plus the inverters for the operation of the automatic pilot, radar equipment and drift meter. The alternators in all versions operated the radar equipment, heaters for windscreen anti-icing, defrosting and surface control boost systems. The aircraft was well equipped with both interior and external lighting. The latter included the navigation lights that could be used for signal purposes; when the tip tanks were fitted they had navigation lights fitted as the wing lights were obscured. Fuselage identification lights were also fitted above and below, these too could be used for signaling. Formation lights were also installed for the rare occasions when this was practiced, other external lights included a landing light mounted in the front of the left engine nacelle, and a taxi light was mounted on the left hand undercarriage leg. The internal lighting in the aircraft included lighting for all the panels at the crew stations, lights in the passage way alongside the pilots towards the nose compartment, while in the bomb bay and unpressurised compartments there were lights to assist the ground crew in their maintenance tasks. A further light was installed in the nose wheel bay, visible through a window at floor level in the pilot’s compartment, used to check the position of the leg. Above: The fate of many an NAA Tornado, to lie battered and abused on the side of an airfield somewhere while fire and rescue crews practiced their arts. This particular aircraft is 47-056 late of the forty-seventh BW. Photo Credit: Trevor Jones. Bottom Left: RB-45C 48-012 is seen here undergoing preparation for flight prior to being delivered to the USAF. In service the aircraft flew from Alconbury on reconnaissance duties before ending its days as a rescue trainer in France. Photo Credit: USAF via DRJ. Avionics. One of the major avionics systems fitted to the B-45 was the auto pilot, the Type E-4, managed by a stowable control panel at the pilot’s position. The auto pilot could be used in conjunction with the automatic approach equipment, this being the airborne part of the instrument landing system. On the later build aircraft the auto pilot could also be engaged with the radar navigation system through a steering connector in the bombardier’s compartment, when engaged it allowed the bombardier to steer the aircraft on its bombing run. The main limitation to the auto pilot was that it could only be engaged when in level flight as engagement in a turn would cause the aircraft to divert off course. When the auto pilot was engaged the side stick controller could be used to fly the aircraft. The auto pilot could also be managed under barometric control for height maintenance although this could not be used unless the elevator servo was engaged. The B-45 was also fitted with an automatic approach control system that allowed the pilot to follow the radio beams generated by the localized approach glide path generator. To engage the approach control the auto pilot needed to be disengaged while the controller needed to be selected to either localizer or approach. As the aircraft intercepted the localizer beam it would turn to follow the beam down

Rahan. Episode Forty two. The Demon of the Swamp. Hum! Could you not point Rahan in another direction!? The ivory knife came to rest, its blade pointed towards the disturbing marshes. The son of Crao growled. He spun his weapon but the blade, once again, pointed to the murky expanse. It is good! Since you insist! Rahan will obey! Shortly after, on a crude skiff, the son of fierce ages went to meet his destiny. Page Two: He braced himself against his gaff and the raft bent the reeds, from which screaming birds flew. Still vapors floated on the muddy waters which were suddenly stirred up with strange swirls. And Rahan almost screamed in fear. Rahan dreams! Only in dreams do real demons arise! Emerging from the river a fantastic beast was silhouetted in the mist. The waves that shook the skiff told the son of Crao that it was neither a dream nor a hallucination. And his instinct told him to stop moving and make no sounds. He approaches! The time has come for Rahan to rejoin Crao! Inert as a dead man, he saw the long neck bend. The hideous mouth parted as it plunged towards the raft. Rahan will join “The Territory of the Shadows”! Page Three: This mouth scented for a moment the man holding his breath and, disdaining him. Closed on a huge clump of reeds! New eddies rocked the skiff. And the monster disappeared, as if stuck in the swamps. The little iguanas which besieged the raft seemed ridiculous to the son of Crao. Who easily pushed them away with his gaff. Rahan's ruse succeeded! The “Long-necked Beast” is not interested in dead prey! The skiff glided towards the other bank, scaring away the toads lurking on the giant lily pads. Page Four: The son of Crao was wrong to think that he was out of danger. Barely had he jumped onto the soft earth, than the bushes closed in around him! Rahan was confused. Then these bushes fell, unmasking hunters. How dare “Fire-Hair” violate the territory of “Kariak-the-demon”!! The circle of flint points was impassable. "Firehair's” name is Rahan! Rahan did not come to you as an enemy! Goading the captive with their spears, the hunters were already pushing him into the thickets. “Ourk-has-only-one-arm” will decide Rahan’s fate! Rahan should not have obeyed his knife! A village appeared. The son of fierce ages immediately noticed the bamboo cages lined up under the foliage. Page Five: As he was thinking about his weapon, a man with an amputated forearm came to tear it from the lizard sheath. You will not need this knife anymore! It now belongs to Ourk! The hunters told how they had seen the monster of the swamp spare Rahan. “Kariak-the-demon” was not as generous with Ourk! The chief of the clan shook his stump with rage. We will see if "Kariak" will still spare you! Lock him up!! The cage closed on the son of Crao. Rahan is not a beast! Release him!! Release him!! Your cries are no use, brother! “Ourk-only-has-one-arm” has decided that you will be delivered to the Demon. And you will be sooner or later!! What? Who are you? Page Six: The young woman locked in the adjoining cage gave a sad smile. I am Onoo, a girl from the two hills clan. But the swamp men captured me, like all those in these cages! And like them I am waiting to be offered as food to “Kariak-the-demon”! But why, Onoo? Rahan wants to know! Rahan learned how Ourk, once upon a time, had his arm cut off by the swamp monster. Since that day he lived in terror of "Kariak". Ourk could have taken his people to another territory. But he fears that "Kariak" will find them and decimate the entire clan! Sometimes long days go by without the demon appearing. But as soon as he emerges from his mud lair, Ourk orders that a captive be delivered to him! Page Seven: Ourk thinks that these offerings appease the anger of "Kariak"! “Only one arm” is foolish! Besides, Rahan thinks that "Kariak" does not feed on flesh, but on grasses and reeds! Rahan is right. “Kariak” does not devour “Those-who-walk-upright”. But he kills them by crushing their limbs! Oh listen. Clamors rose from the shore of the marsh. Two hunters appeared. “Kariak” Rumbles, Ourk! His fury is great! Deliver the girl from “Two-Hills” to him!! An instant later. The men of the Marshes are cowards! They would rather sacrifice a young woman to the demon than fight him! Let go of Onoo! Take Rahan in her place! While the captive was being dragged away, Ourk approached. Would Rahan be keen to join the "Territory of Shadows"? Let him be patient! His turn will come!! Page Eight: The clan leader said no more. Grabbing his arm, the son of Crao grabbed him, and pinned him to the bamboo door. Oh! And recovered his ivory knife. Rahan could take the life of "one-armed". But Rahan is not a coward! Now that he had Ourk, he cut the vines and emerged from his cage. The hunters who rushed did not dare to intervene. Give Rahan a torch and a spear! Otherwise! The leader was suffocating under the relentless grip. Obey. To. “Fire Hair”. Let him run away. Rahan does not want to run away! Rahan wants to save the girl from “Two Hills”! The son of fierce ages threw Ourk at the feet of his men, seizing the spear and the torch that had been placed near him. Page Nine: As he rushed towards the Marshes, Ourk held back his clan. Let him! "Kariak" will take care of him! Rahan quickly saw Onoo, on a raft. Her wrists shackled, she screamed in fear. Do not move, Onoo! The demon disdains that which does not move!! But it was too late! The monstrous head of the “Beast-with-long-neck” emerged from the mud. Onoo's cries of terror redoubled. Waving his torch and his spear, the son of Crao went towards “Kariak-the-demon”! The fearful maw plunged towards him. But immediately backed away. The enormous neck bent once again and suddenly straightened up. And Rahan understood. “Kariak” is afraid of fire! Page Ten: From the bank, Ourk and his men witnessed the astonishing scene. Rahan resolutely faced the monster and it retreated and retreated. Ra-ha-ha! The clamor of the son of fierce ages rolled over the marshes when the monster. Still retreating into the darkness, forced himself under the mud. A moment later the ivory blade released Onoo. Onoo owes her life to Rahan-the-Brave! Let us flee Rahan! Let us flee this cursed territory! No! “Ourk-has-only-one-arm” holds other captives in his cages who, like Onoo, will be delivered to "Kariak"! Rahan will not flee without having delivered them! Rahan is brave, and also generous! It is only faithful to the memory of Crao! And Crao taught him to love “Those-Who-Walk-Upright”! Page Eleven: We thought "Firehair" would run away. The hunters had returned to the village. An admiring murmur arose when Rahan and Onoo appeared. Ourk gave a pout of spite. The feat that the son of Crao had accomplished before the eyes of his men could not undermine his prestige as a leader. If Ourk still had his two arms! He would challenge “Firehair”! You hear Brothers! Ourk Would Face "Firehair" If he had both arms! Since Ourk wants a fight, he will get it! With a slight smile, the son of Crao drew his ivory cutlass. He threw the weapon at the feet of the hunters. Clonk! Oonoo had a shiver of worry when. And, Rahan, like Ourk, will only fight with one arm! Let your men tie this one to him. Page Twelve: Two Hunters firmly restrained, behind his back, the right arm of their companion. So the fight will be fair Ourk! The swamp clan circled around the two adversaries. Onoo remained anxious. If Rahan is defeated Ourk will be merciless! In their cages all the captives longed, without daring to hope, for the victory of the unknown "One-with-Fire-Hair". And the fight began. Ourk threw himself fiercely on the son of Crao. He had two advantages over this one. Besides the habit of his amputation. His long stump facilitated certain moves, which his opponent was not permitted. Ha-ha-ha! Ourk will strike you down! Page Thirteen: Ten times the two men rolled to the ground and ten times they got up again. Covered in sweat and dust, they panted. "Fire Hair" Should not have taken on this challenge! Ourk wants to end it! Ourk rushed forward angrily with his head down. Rahan made an incredible leap and his legs encircled the leader's neck, brutally stopping the latter's assault. Argh! It was impossible for Ourk, pinned to the ground, to free himself from this hold. In this straitjacket of muscles and nerves it was enough. Rahan also wants to end it! Do you recognize yourself as defeated!? Yes, Yes Ooh! “Fire-hair” has triumphed! As is the custom of the clan, "Fire-hair” has the right to take the life of Ourk! It belongs to him! Page Fourteen: Yes. Rahan has the right to kill you! A hunter held out the weapon which the son of Crao grabbed fiercely! But Rahan only takes the lives of “Those Who Walk Upright” when they threaten his own! Get up Ourk! Rahan spares you! But he demands that your captives be released! The son of fierce ages cut the vine that hindered his arm. No one opposed him when an instant later he cut down the lines that bound the doors of bamboo. You are free brothers! The girl from “Two-hills” watched excitedly as the men burst out of the cages. Thanks to Rahan they will not perish in the mouth of Kariak-the-demon! Rahan is Happy? Not yet Onoo! Not yet! Page Fifteen: The Ourk clan will always live in fear of the "Long-necked Beast"! Rahan will only be happy when the Marshes are rid of "Kariak"! “One-armed” had heard. Ourk respects your audacity, “Firehair”. But you should know that Kariak is invulnerable! No danger is forever insurmountable! No enemy is forever invulnerable! And Rahan alone was able to push back “Kariak-the-demon” Think of what a whole clan could do, united and strong! A clan whose men have driven fear from their heads and their hearts! All together we can face killing “Kariak”! We will follow Rahan! The ex-captives approved the son of Crao, though Ourk protested Page Sixteen: Evil spirits inhabit the body of "Kayak-the-demon" and. Evil spirits do not exist! “Kariak” is just a beast of flesh and blood! We will kill her! “Fire-hair” is free to send to death those he has delivered! But Ourk will not launch his brothers into this senseless hunt! Later. "Those-from-the-Swamp" will not help you. Why risk your life for them? Rahan said that "Kariak" was vulnerable, he must be able to prove it! There will not be enough of us to pin down "Kariak"! He meditated thus when. “Fire Hair” has awakened the courage that was slumbering in us! Page Seventeen: All the torches of the clan light the path that will lead us to the “Territory of Shadows”! Rahan was filled with joy. “Ourk-has-only-one-arm” running followed by his hunters. Ourk has thought deeply! He does not want his family to name him "Ourk-the-coward"! Ourk will lead the hunt at your side! His Arm can still strike true and hard! A glimmer of worry remained in the chef's eyes. And the son of Crao felt moved. He loved that “Those who walk upright” could conquer their fear. If “Fire-hair” must die, Ourk will die with him! From then on the animation redoubled. The hunters cleared deep thickets. Rafts that for moons they had no longer dared to put in the water. And the flotilla spread out over the black waters of the marshes. Each skiff carried two men. One brandished a torch, the other a bundle of spears. Page Eighteen: The “Long-necked Beast” suddenly emerged from its mud kingdom, immense, and terrible! Rahan and Ourk screamed at the same time! Strike! Strike! Hard! Twenty spears punctured the sides of the monster whose gigantic tail whipped the mud. The menacing mouth plunged towards the rafts, but retreated before the waving torches! Twenty other spears and twenty more were thrown, piercing the neck and the chest. Take this torch, “Fire-hair”! Ourk owes a debt to “Kariak”! Page Nineteen: Ourk was no longer afraid. His single arm projected with force and precision the spears handed to him by the son of Crao. Die demon, die! And suddenly, Rahan's clamor erupted. His life escaping through a hundred wounds, "Kariak" slowly sank into the mud. Ra-ha-ha! A few swirls shook the skiffs again and the monster disappeared forever. His blood reddened the surface of the water all the way to the bank. The "Long-neck Beast" will no longer terrorize the swamp clan! We owe you a lot, “Fire-hair”. You gave us an example of courage! That night was a great night. Delivered from the nightmare, the hunters celebrated the son of Crao. Ourk has guessed what would please Rahan the most!! Page Twenty: “Ourk-has-only-one-arm” grabbed a torch. A moment later, all the bamboo cages were on fire! Never again will we imprison “Those-who-walk-upright” in cages! If Rahan is happy, he can stay with us! Yes, the son of wild ages was happy. But he could not attach himself to this clan or to any other. Rahan promised Onoo to take her home! When he left the territory the calm waters of the swamp were still red, but it was nothing more than the blaze of the sun. The son of Crao, for once, did not entrust his destiny to his ivory knife. He had a specific goal. To protect Onoo throughout the long road that would lead them to the “Two Hills”. Page Twenty-One: This protection proved necessary. Fear not, Onoo! Rahan does not fear the “Pumas” After the fantastic confrontation with the "Marsh Demon". The fight with the puma seemed almost like a game to him! He easily triumphed over the beast. Ra-ha-ha! The sun was setting when the village of the “Two-Hills” clan appeared in the distance. Go and rejoin yours, Onoo! Rahan is happy to have met you! Why do you not stay with us Rahan? We could live together, you and I, and have children. It is impossible, Onoo. Rahan still has too many territories to discover. Too many things to learn. One day, maybe, Rahan will come back one day, one day. To hide his emotion from Onoo, The son of Crao shortened the farewell. Page Twenty-Two: Rahan cannot attach himself to a clan. Not yet! One day, no doubt, like the other hunters. He will have a companion who will give him “Little men”. But later! Later! The discovery of a pheasant carcass reminded him that he had not eaten anything for a long time. Hum. Not a strip of flesh left! More than bones and feathers! These feathers gave him the idea of making a bow and arrows. This work kept him busy until nightfall. Yes, one day Rahan will take a companion. But his life is too adventurous at the moment! At daybreak, he set off again. He was crossing a clearing, when. Oh, at last! Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html

A Study on Quantum Radar Technology Developments and Design Consideration for its Integration. Manoj Mathews. Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, New Jersey, USA. Abstract. This paper presents a study on quantum radar technology developments, design Consideration for its integration, and the quantum radar cross section (QRCS) based on quantum electrodynamics and interferometric considerations. Quantum radar systems supported by quantum measurement can fulfill not only conventional target detection and recognition tasks but are also capable of detecting and identifying RF stealth platforms and weapons systems. The development of radar technology is of the utmost importance in many avenues of research. The concept of a quantum radar has been proposed which utilizes quantum states of photons to establish information on a target at a distance. A photon, or a little cluster of photons, is distributed towards the target. The photons are absorbed and re-emitted from the target and into the receiver. The measurement process may be executed in two alternative ways. One can perform an interferometric measurement, or phase measurement, on the photon, or one can simply count the number of photons that return. The first method is named Interferometric Quantum Radar, and the latter method is termed Quantum Illumination. For either of those methods, one can use stationary quantum states of photons or use entangled states. It has been shown that entangled states provide the most effective possible improvement in resolution, achieving close to the ideal case. The benefit of using quantum states is that they exhibit extra degrees of correlation to obtain information compared to classical methods. These extra correlations, called quantum correlations, serve to improve the resolution and signal to noise (SNR) that may be achieved within the radar system. To obtain information, a relation study is done between the two photons. In order to beat the diffraction limit, coherent state quantum radar depends on the use of coherent state photons and a quantum detection scheme. This paper also reviews the principles of design and operation of applied quantum trends. One. INTRODUCTION. Quantum radar could be a new exemplar that exploits quantum phenomena to improve the resolution of a radar system, making it more sensitive than its classical counterpart. There are two emerging methods to accomplish this, and every method has its own unique characteristics. Quantum phenomena, such as quantum entanglement, as a kind of natural resource, have been widely used in quantum computation and quantum communication. It provides a solid material basis for the advancement of the science of quantum knowledge. Quantum metrology makes use of quantum phenomena to improve measurement sensitivity. Theoretical research shows that quantum measurements can break through the normal quantum limits and calculate supersensitivity. Quantum information technology will become the key to improving the efficiency of sensor systems in the near future. Radar systems Based on quantum measurement are not only able to perform conventional target detection and recognition but also able to accomplish the detection and identification of RF stealth platform and weapons systems. Due to the clear connection between entangled photons, any attempt to deceive quantum radar would be exposed. On the other hand, stealth aircraft can be tracked at great distances due to the supersensitivity of quantum measurement, and even for stealth aircraft such as the F-22 and B-2, the detection range could be reached at several hundred to several thousand kilometers. Quantum radars will lead to a new technology revolution in electronic warfare just like the RF stealth technology did in the past 20 years. In addition to military applications, quantum measurement technology can be widely used in interplanetary defense and space exploration. TWO. QUANTUM RADAR THEORY. “A.” The Fundamental Limits of Quantum Radar. Quantum radar can be defined as a type of stand-off measuring device that uses microwave photons, optical photons, and quantum phenomena to enhance the efficiency of target detection and recognition. The biggest advantage of quantum radars over traditional classical radars is inherited from the nature of entanglement states used in the transmitting signals. Examples of this kind are interferometric quantum radars and radars with quantum illumination. The so-called quantum entanglement refers to the strong correlations between quantum systems which are non-classical and non-local. Theoretically, no matter how far the gap divides, including one on the planet and the other on the edge of the Milky Way, the peculiar bond between two intertwined states exists. For example, when one of them is manipulated, and measured, the other changes to the corresponding state immediately. The correlation between the entangled states can’t be explained classically and therefore Einstein called it a kind of ‘Spooky Action at a Distance’. In any event, most detection strategies are based on the exact same principle: perform collective measurements after highly correlated states have been injected into the system. Such is the case with the interferometric quantum radar that crosses the Heisenberg limit by using strongly entangled states. Many improved imaging developments have been made possible by recent innovations in quantum mechanics. Entangled photon-number (NOON) states have allowed Heisenberg-limited phase measurement and led to the development of radar systems with quantum-enhanced resolution. The fundamental limit given by Heisenberg’s principle based on Noon states phase measurement is as below, equation one Delta psi is greater than or equal to one over N. Where delta psi represent the phase fluctuation, N is the entangled photons in the quantum system, means taking the average. The Heisenberg limit does not depend on measurement strategy and it is unavoidable. At the same time the sensitivity of most modern sensors is bounded by the standard quantum limit, meaning the Shot noise limit. In the case of standard quantum limit the phase measurement resolution is as below. Delta psi is greater than or equal to one over the square root of N. The Super-sensitivity Regime is called a regimen of variables for which the sensitivity of a sensor exceeds the value imposed by the normal quantum limit, and the sensor is said to be Supersensitive. It should be remembered that the metrology of the Heisenberg limit is still very difficult to achieve in a functional framework. There is a wide range of variables at these high accuracy scales that have major contributions and should not be ignored, such as thermal noise, platform vibrations, imperfect alignment of optical elements, and so on. What is more exciting about quantum radar is that every third party except for the radar transmitter and receiver will not accurately copy or secretly change the quantum states due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle and the strong global association between entangled states. Also, the most sophisticated stealth aircraft such as B-2 and F-22 have nowhere to hide under the surveillance of quantum radar systems, invalidating any existing jamming and deception approach to quantum radars. B. Standoff Quantum Sensor Classification. Standoff quantum sensing architectures can be classified according to the type of quantum phenomena exploited by the system. The three basic categories are the following: Type 1: The quantum sensor transmits un-entangled quantum states of light. Type 2: The quantum sensor transmits classical states of light, but uses quantum photo-sensors to boost its performance. Type 3: The quantum sensor transmits quantum signal states of light that are entangled with quantum ancilla states of light kept at the transmitter. The principal examples of quantum radar systems are the single photon quantum radar and the entangled photon quantum radar. These are Type-1 and Type-3 sensors, respectively. On the other hand, quantum LADAR is an example of a Type-2 sensor. C. Single-Photon Quantum Radar. Quantum radar can be divided into two specific groups according to the signals emitted by transmitters: One. Quantum radars that use un-entangled signals. Two. Quantum radars using entangled photons. Single-photon quantum radars, in Figure one, are Type-1 sensors. These systems work in a manner close to that of a classical radar. Its transmitter generates signal pulses contain a single photon (by single it means in an average way) and sends pulses towards a target. And its receiver attempts to collect the reflected photons and detects photon-counting. A radar is not a true quantum radar if it utilizes the quantum phenomenon purely with a single photon. But the unintended benefit of single-photon quantum radar is that if low photon number pulses are used for target detection, the radar cross section is larger. That is to say, the target appears to look bigger when using single-photon pulses than using classical light beams. D. Entangled-Photon Quantum Radar. Through the use of entangled states of light, the greatest advantage of quantum radars is obtained. These are Type-3 sensors. As shown in Figure 2, an entangled pair of photons is generated. One photon is sent to the target and the other is retained in the radar device. The outgoing photon is reflected by the target and subsequently received by the radar. To improve detection efficiency, the correlations embedded in the entangled states are exploited. Interferometric Quantum Radar and Quantum Illumination are examples of such devices. E. Interferometric Quantum Radar. In an interferometric quantum radar, as shown in Figure two, an entangled pair of photons is generated. One of these is sent towards the target and the other one is held inside of the radar receiver. Very quickly, the photon sent out is reflected back and is received by the radar. Then the correlations embedded in the entangled states are exploited to increase detection performance. Type-2 quantum radars are interferometric quantum radars and quantum illumination. An interferometric quantum radar makes phase measurements by interferometers like Mach-Zender interferometers, see Figure three. The input light field in a Mach-Zender interferometer is separated by a beam splitter into two distinct paths and recombined by another beam splitter. The phase divergence between the two paths containing the target distance information is then calculated by balanced detection of the two signals. Figure four shows an entangled pair of photons is produced; one photon is kept within the sensor while the other is emitted towards a region of space. In the system, an entangled pair of photons are created. The signal and the idler, or ancilla, photons are known to them. Inside the device, the idler photon is held while the signal photon is sent to a potential target via a medium. With a certain probability, the signal photon may, or may not encounter the target. If the target is not encountered by the signal photon, it will continue to spread in space. All measurements performed by the detector would be of noise photons in such a situation. On the other hand, if the target is present and the signal photon is received by the detector, then it will be detected with a certain probability. In a context, because of the quantum correlations due to the entanglement, the signal photon is ”tagged” and it would thus be ”easier” to correctly classify it as a signal photon rather than misidentify it as a noise photon. F. Quantum Radar Based on Quantum Illumination. The setup of the Quantum Illumination Radar is similar to the one discussed above for interferometric quantum radar, but it has a different detection strategy. One does not conduct phase measurements in the case of quantum illumination, but simple photon detection counts are adequate. Assume that a quantum illumination device is used for illuminating a target. The goal is to detect the presence of the target even in a noisy and lossy environment. And again, entanglement increases the sensitivity, but in a different way, of the detection system. Seth Lloyd at MIT first discovered quantum illumination in 2008. It is a revolutionary photonic stand-off quantum sensing technology that enhances the sensitivity of detection in noisy and lossy environments. Target illumination using entangled light can provide substantial enhancements over un-entangled light for detecting and imaging in the presence of a high level of noise and loss. The definition of quantum illumination may be clarified by a photo-taking analogy. Imagine a camera with a flashlight able to emit entangled light to take photos, and only part of these entangled photons are emitted to illuminate targets. In order to filter the noise photons that would lack correlated twins and thus significantly improve the sensitivity of imaging, the sensor compares the reflected photons with those kept within the camera. This will make it possible for radars to recognize the subtle evidence of objects usually obscured by noise. Research shows that quantum lighting with m bits of entanglements will in theory increase the efficient signal-to-noise ratio by a factor of 2 m for photon detection, an exponential improvement over un-entangled lighting. The progress continues even when the noise is so great that the detector does not withstand any entanglement. That is another unexpected advantage of quantum illumination. Quite interestingly, only in a noisy and lossy setting is the enhancement supplied by quantum illumination using entangled photons observed. Quantum illumination can be used for ranging and imaging purposes and is not limited to any specific frequency. Here a beam splitter is the element under consideration. The beam splitter will reflect a portion of the light emitted by the associated source, and the task is to detect this under the dominant thermal noise, thus discriminating against the presence of the target. Three. QUANTUM RADAR PHYSICAL REALIZATION. “A.” Entanglement Generators. The generation and detection of entangled photons are the key elements to realize quantum radar. Currently, standard parametric down-conversion (SPDC) is the most widely known technique to generate entangled photons in the visible frequency. The recent entanglement generation technique uses a non-linear crystal, Barium Boron Oxide-BBO, that splits an incoming photon into two entangled photons both in a lower frequency. One of the out-coming photons, called signal photon, is used for transmitting and the other out-coming photon, called idle photon, is kept locally and used for detection. Usually, the outcoming photons are generated as polarization entangled. None of the polarization of photons is calculated before a measurement takes place. If one photon is measured as horizontal polarization and the quantum state of the other, without further measurement, one automatically switches to vertical polarization. But the SPDC method does not work to produce microwave photons that have been commonly used in classical radar, missile guidance, navigation, environment monitoring, ground monitoring, and airport traffic control. Entangled photons could be produced at a visible frequency by the use of semiconductor nanostructures. A related intraband transfer of conduction band electrons could also produce entangled photons in the X-band in quantum dots. Photon assisted tunneling experiments have shown that these transitions are coupled to microwave photons. As a result, from spontaneous downward transitions between single-particle levels in a quantum dot, microwave photons are produced. B. Photon Detectors. In the field of photon detection, there is a similar disparity between the visible and X-band frequency regimes. Both interferometric measurement and photon counting in the visible and near-visible regimes are well developed during the research work of quantum key distribution (QKD), quantum communications, and quantum computing. But none of the techniques mentioned involves operation in the X-band. Therefore there are lots of theoretical and experimental challenges in the design and development of single photon detectors in the microwave regime. To detect single photons in the microwave regime, a novel sensing technique has recently been suggested. This detector resembles photographic film in the sense that once a photon has been absorbed by the meta-material, the device is changed into a stable and mesoscopic distinguishable state. Its limited operating bandwidth is one possible issue with the proposed design. Another potential concern is that there will be incoming photons that will not be counted if the decay process takes place. However, recent experiments appear to suggest that this process happens at a rate of a few mega Hertz, and therefore it will affect long-wave packets. Whether this problem may pose a significant limitation to the use of these instruments for quantum radar applications in the X-band remains to be seen. Four. SCHEME FOR ENTANGLED PHOTON QUANTUM RADAR. This section discusses a design scheme proposed by Bassyouni for an entangled quantum radar. There have been a few different schemes suggested, but they are all quite similar. The block diagram for the entanglement radar scheme is shown in Figure Six. The suggested method for entangled photon production is that of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC). A signal photon and an idler photon are produced by the SPDC process, which is both entangled. The signal photon beam is sent towards the target via an antenna. The idler photon beam, which is used to detect the quantum state, is sent directly into the idler detector array. The idler detector output appears simultaneously and waits in the memory until the returned signal is processed in the receiver and detected in the signal detector array as soon as the transmitted signal reaches the target. To process the target parameters, the signal and idler detector outputs are added to the coincidence estimator and signal processing modules. To calculate more than one parameter for a given state, the signal is split into multiple signals through a beam splitter array. Each signal is then sent into a detector that is designed to detect certain properties of the signal. This is shown in Figure 4. Only one quantum state can pass through one of the many beam splitting paths. But on the theory of sending out multiple entangled photons, the entanglement radar works. They will randomly go through various paths of the beam splitter array upon receipt of these photons, and finally, all paths will be taken. It is necessary to note that because the SPDC process emits optical photons, this particular design is confined to the optical regime. However, if the SPDC process is replaced with a process of microwave photon generation, the same design may be implemented. A spontaneous parametric down-conversion of the photon source is (SPDC).The signal photon passes out of the antenna and is sent into the receiver by the idler photon, where it is retained until the return signal arrives. Then the two photons are sent into the coincidence estimator and data is collected from the data received. Detector arrays are used for the purpose of obtaining target parameter information. Through a beam splitter, the echo signal is split into multiple separate signals. From here to ascertain data, each split signal will go into a different measurement unit. Five. DEVELOPMENT OF QUANTUM RADAR. The concept of using the method of quantum detection to enhance target detection sensitivity appeared very early on. As early as 1991, the U.S. navy proposed a quantum detector patent exploit to increase the sensitivity of conventional radars. This patent proposed the use of tunable Rydberg detectors to improve the detection sensitivity to the quantum level of classic radar systems. The patent says that the transmitter sends classical pulses, but from today’s point of view, it is not a proper quantum radar device. In 1991, the E91 quantum key distribution protocol introduced the use of quantum entangled states as signal sources. Then as a sort of mystical natural resource, quantum entanglement started to attract the broad attention of scientists. For the last 20 years, systematic research and the use of quantum entanglements have contributed to a fundamental shift in information science. A few years later, quantum entanglement was proposed to be used to break through the normal measurement quantum limits and hit the degree of supersensitivity measurement. And quantum entanglement has also been used to improve imaging resolution. In 2005, Lockheed Martin Corporation suggested a quantum radar device based on a multi-particle source of quantum entanglement. The radar signal is composed of several entangled particles with varying frequencies in this scheme. And the radar transceiver is capable of somehow manipulating any frequency. Relatively short wavelengths of entangled particles strive to achieve high-resolution imaging, whereas longer wavelengths of entangled particles aim to achieve long-range target detection. The key benefit of this quantum radar theory is that it resolves the contradiction between resolution and detection range in conventional radars and makes radar systems capable of seeing clearly and far at the same time. Another type of quantum radar scheme based on quantum illumination was developed shortly after the grant of this U.S. patent in 2008 and submitted to the United States Patent Office in 2009. In 2012, this quantum illumination radar patent was issued. To date, not only does quantum radar remain a theoretical proposition, but it has also been adopted in laboratories for preliminary implementation. The first quantum radar demonstration in the laboratory that confirmed the anti-stealth capability of quantum radar was performed by Boyd and his research group. They constructed an imaging device that uses the location or time-of-fight information of a photon to image an object while using the polarization of the photon for protection. This technique helps the radar to produce an image that is safe from an attack in which the imaged object intercepts and resends modified information to the imaging photons. The delicate quantum state of the imaging photons must be disrupted by the target, thereby producing statistical errors that expose its behavior. In 2008, Lloyd suggested the theoretical possibility of quantum illumination imaging in a high-level noise context, but it is difficult to evaluate because of the fragility of entanglement. It is hard to test the idea. Lloyd’s proposal was experimentally demonstrated by Marco Genovese, a physicist at the National Institute for Metrological Research in Turin, Italy, and his colleagues, based on photon-number correlations in the laboratory. This will make it possible for sensors to distinguish the subtle evidence of objects currently hidden by noise. There are also other quantum radar systems in the theory stage and waiting for further experimental verifications. Six. QUANTUM RADAR CROSS SECTION. In reality, targets will present complicated geometries that will represent a complex pattern of incoming photons. The radar cross section sigma C is used within the realm of classical radar theory to assess the “radar visibility” of a particular target. As quantum radars emit a handful of photons at that time, photon-atom scattering procedures controlled by the laws of quantum electrodynamics define the radar-target interaction in this regime. As such, using the same sigma C to describe the visibility of a target illuminated by a quantum radar is theoretically inconsistent. As a result, to objectively calculate the ”quantum radar visibility” of a specified target, the concept of a quantum radar cross section sigma Q needs to be established. That is, in the scenario where the targets are not perfectly reflective objects and the radar signal is made of a handful of photons, we need to describe sigma Q to evaluate the performance of quantum radars. One. Desired properties of the quantum radar cross section sigma Q. The basic properties that are desired in a conceptually robust definition of sigma Q. In simple analogy to the classical radar cross section, the quantum radar cross section should have these properties: Operational Meaning: The reason to define sigma Q in the first place is to have an objective measure of the quantum radar visibility of a target. Energy Conservation: As with sigma C, sigma Q should entail energy conservation in the optical regime when absorption effects are ignored. Strong Dependencies: Similarly, to sigma C, it is desirable that sigma Q strongly depends on properties of the target: geometry, absolute and relative size, shape and orientation, as well as its composition, or material properties. Weak Dependencies: In the same manner, it is desired that sigma Q is approximately independent of the properties of the radar system. That is, sigma Q should depend very weakly on the strength, architecture, physical implementation, and range of the radar system. Multi-platform Comparison: To better understand the advantages and disadvantages of quantum radars, it would be desirable to be able to directly compare sigma C and sigma Q. Asymptotic Behavior: In the large photon limit, the quantum realm gives way to classical physics and sigma Q should be proportional to sigma C. Or, equation three, in the limit as n goes to infinity, where infinity is taken with a grain of salt, sigma q is proportional to sigma classical. B. Quantum Radar Equation. It is reasonable to define sigma Q in analogy to sigma C as equation four. Sigma quantum is the limit as R goes to infinity of four pi R squared times: I s (Of x s, x d, and t), over I, and I of (X s, t). Which is a function of the Intensity of the scattered signal received I s, and the illumination signal I i. And if we assume energy conservation in the optical regime, it is possible to approximate sigma Q for a mono static quantum radar with equation five: Sigma Q is around four pi R squared times perpendicular Area times a function of the scattered and illumination signal. Where the expectation value at the receiver of the scattered intensity is taken. Unfortunately, for the analytic analysis of quantum radar, this “simplified” expression for sigma Q remains problematic. In general, to elucidate the behavior of the quantum radar cross section, numerical methods have to be used. Based on the definition of the quantum radar cross section, equation four can be re-written simply as equation six: Sigma Q equals the limit as R goes to infinity of four pi r squared Is over I i. Using the expressions for the intensities we get in the large R limit, equations seven to nine in the text. The above expression resembles the classical radar equation making replacements, equations ten and eleven. P Q at the receiver equals scattered intensity, I s times the Area of the receiver “A.” r. Then the quantum radar equation is, equation twelve. P Q r equals P q t times “A.” r sigma c, over sixteen pi squared R to the fourth. Seven. ANALYSIS OF THE QUANTUM RADAR CROSS SECTION. “A.” Sigma Q for Rectangular Targets. Figure eight shows a flat rectangular plate of Area equal to “A” times “B” in the XY plane, therefore observed at its principal angles. “A perp.”, the projected cross sectional area of the target which is a function of theta i and phi i, changes based upon the viewing angle. For flat objects, the projected cross sectional area should be zero at the extreme angles, looking from a side view, meaning when theta equals pi over two and attains a maximum when looking at normal incidence, meaning when sigma C equals zero pi. Therefore: “A” theta equals “A” perp times the absolute value of cosine theta. With “A” per is the perpendicular cross sectional area, and theta varies between minus pi over two and pi over two. The absolute value ensures that the projected area is always positive. The quantum radar cross section sigma Q is inversely proportional to the square of the wavelength, as given in Equation seventeen. When we directly compare the equations of the CRCS and the QRCS, we can determine why the QRCS provides a side lobe enhancement over the CRCS. The CRCS expression is given by, equation eighteen. The plots of these two equations for a plate size of four lambda times four lambda is shown in Figure ten. We see that the two equations are very similar. From Equations (17) and (18), we note that the QRCS equation contains an absolute cosine theta term, while the CRCS equation contains a cosine squared theta term. This term is the origin of the QRCS sidelobe advantage can be observed by comparing plots of the two cosine functions in Figure eleven. In the QRCS, it is obvious to see that the term absolute cosine theta emerges from the equation for the projected cross sectional area “A” perp. This projected area term originates from integrating the incident expected intensity over the surface of the target during the derivation of the QRCS equation. The QRCS manifests itself as a result of quantum interference from the atoms on the surface of the target which, like the infinitesimal currents on the target, scatter isotropically. The difference here is that the atoms that make up the target are not vector quantities and do not need to be decomposed into components for the integration. The result is one single surface integral instead of multiple surface integrals over the different component interactions. The difference between the cosine and cosine squared term can be explained in a more physical manner, which provides additional insights. Physically, the infinitesimal currents induced on the target during classical scattering act as small antennas, which then radiate and sum together in a particular direction. In the quantum case, the target response is from many isolated atomic transition events, which produce wave functions for a photon, which then sum together in a particular direction. Eight. Conclusion. Quantum radar is a promising technology that will have a powerful effect on civilian and military environments. Although quantum sensing technology isn’t as mature as quantum cryptography or quantum communications, it’s not as challenging as quantum computations. In General quantum radars have already got their basic feasibility within the aspects of theory and realization, and there seems no insolvable scientific obstacle against it for the instant. In contrast to its classical radar equivalent, Quantum radar offers the simplest way to significantly increase the resolution. The power to trace aircraft and weapons is additionally included within the case of entanglement radar. Due to many problems, entanglement radar is sort of a bit out of control. One major issue is that the undeniable fact that within the microwave regime, a reliable and stable single entangled photon transmitter has yet to be produced. All previously proposed models had a photon source coming from random methods of parametric down-conversion. Research work shows that the larger the value of QRCS is, the more powerful is the scattering capacity for the incident photons; accordingly, a better detection performance can be obtained between quantum radar and targets. Additional problems of target scattering characteristics, such as how to obtain more information about the target by identifying the states of photons must be solved.

Robert “A.” Heinlein. FOR US THE LIVING ROBERT A. HEINLEIN. From Grandmaster Robert “A.” Heinlein comes a long-lost first novel, written in 1939 and never before published, introducing ideas and themes that would shape his career and define the genre that is synonymous with his name. JULY 12, 1939. Perry Nelson is driving along the palisades when suddenly another vehicle swerves into his lane, a tire blows out, and his car careens off the road and over a bluff. The last thing he sees before his head connects with the boulders below is a girl in a green bathing suit, prancing along the shore. When he wakes, the girl in green is a woman dressed in furs and the sun-drenched shore has transformed into snowcapped mountains. The woman, Diana, rescues Perry from the bitter cold and takes him inside her home to rest and recuperate. Later they debate the cause of the accident, for Diana is unfamiliar with the concept of a tire blowout and Perry cannot comprehend snowfall in mid-July. Then Diana shares with him a vital piece of information: The date is now January 7. The year, 2086. When his shock subsides, Perry begins an exhaustive study of global evolution over the past 150 years. He learns, among other things, that a United Europe was formed and led by Edward, Duke of Windsor; former New York City mayor LaGuardia served two terms as president of the United States; the military draft was completely reconceived; banks became publicly owned and operated; and in the year 2003, two helicopters destroyed the island of Manhattan in a galvanizing act of war. This education in the ways of the modern world emboldens Perry to assimilate to life in the twenty-first century. But education brings with it inescapable truths, the economic and legal systems, the government, and even the dynamic between men and women remain alien to Perry, the customs of the new day continually testing his mental and emotional resolve. Yet it is precisely his knowledge of a bygone era that will serve Perry best, as the man from 1939 seems destined to lead his newfound peers even further into the future than they could have imagined. A classic example of the future history that Robert Heinlein popularized during his career, For Us, The Living marks both the beginning and the end of an extraordinary arc of political, social, and literary crusading that comprises his legacy. Heinlein could not have known in 1939 how the world would change over the course of one and a half centuries, but we have our own true world history to compare with his brilliant imaginings, rendering For Us, The Living not merely a novel, but a time capsule view into our past, our present, and perhaps our future. The novel is presented here with an introduction by acclaimed science fiction writer Spider Robinson and an afterward by Professor Robert James of the Heinlein Society. SPIDER ROBINSON was born in New York and holds a bachelor’s degree in English from the State University of New York. He has won three Hugo Awards, a Nebula Award, and the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, among many others. Spider lives with his wife, Jeanne, in British Columbia, where they raise and exhibit hopes. ROBERT JAMES received his doctorate from UCLA in 1995. A veteran teacher, he lives in Los Angeles, California, with his two children and enough books to keep all three of them happy. He has published a number of articles on Robert Heinlein. If you are a fan of Robert Heinlein’s work, join the Heinlein Society at Heinlein society dot org. FOR US, THE LIVING A Comedy of Customs By Robert “A.” Heinlein With an Introduction by SPIDER ROBINSON and an Afterward by ROBERT JAMES, PH.D. SCRIBNER New York London Toronto Sydney Singapore SCRIBNER 1230 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020. Copyright (c) 2004 by The Robert A. and Virginia Heinlein Trust Introduction copyright (c) 2004 by Spider Robinson Afterward copyright (c) 2004 by Robert James, Ph.D. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Scribner and design are trademarks of Macmillan Library Reference USA, Inc., used under license by Simon and Schuster, the publisher of this work. For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon and Schuster Special Sales: 1-800-456-6798 or business@simonandschuster.com. DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING. Text set in Janson Manufactured in the United States of America 13579 108642 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Heinlein, Robert A. (Robert Anson), date. For us, the living: a comedy of customs. by Robert A. Heinlein. p. cm. 1. Traffic accident victims, Fiction. 2. Twenty-first century, Fiction. 3. Time travel, Fiction. I. Title. PS3515.E288F67 2004 813’.54, dc22 2003065682 ISBN 0-7432-5998-X for Heinlein’s Children “It is for us, the living, rather, to be dedicated to the unfinished work that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, ” Lincoln at Gettysburg. Editor’s note. This novel was written by Robert Heinlein between 1938 and 1939 and was never edited while Heinlein was alive. While the novel is presented in its original form, minor editorial changes have been made for clarity and style. INTRODUCTION RAH DNA. “Any map of the world that does not include Utopia is not even worth glancing at.” Oscar Wilde. Most authorities are calling this book Robert “A.” Heinlein’s first novel. I avoid arguing with authorities, it’s usually simpler to shoot them, but I think it is something far more important than that, myself, and infinitely more interesting. But my disagreement is respectful, and I’m not prepared to dispute the point with sidearms, or even ripe fruit. Robert himself called For Us, The Living a novel, repudiating that label only once that I know of, in private correspondence, and the book clearly has at least as much right to be called a novel as, say, H. G. Wells’s When the Sleeper Wakes (Robert’s favorite novel, he once told me) or The Shape of Things to Come. But no more right. And those two volumes are from the last stage of Wells’s illustrious career, at the point when, in Theodore Sturgeon’s memorable phrase, the master had “sold his birthright for a pot of message.” They are not the books to give to a reader unfamiliar with H. G. Wells, and this is not the book to give to the hypothetical blind Martian hermit unfamiliar with Robert A. Heinlein’s work. Like the Wells titles, or Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward, this book is essentially a series of Utopian lectures, whose fictional component is a lovely but thin and translucent negligee, only half-concealing an urgent desire to seduce. At age thirty-two, Robert was already trying to save the world, and perfectly aware that the world was largely disinclined to be saved. If this were really a novel in the same sense as any of Robert’s other long works, one would be forced to call at least its fictional aspect deficient, for many of its characters, quite uncharacteristically, achieve little depth and behave oddly. Even in his most exotic settings, Robert’s characters, even, or perhaps especially, his aliens, were always, always real. And in real life, the standard response to a man who tells you he was born 150 years ago in a different body is not, we may as well admit, simply to nod and begin explaining to him how keen everything is nowadays, as do all the people that Perry Nelson meets in 2086. If one supposes, however, that none of these characters was ever intended, or needed, to be any more real than their colleague Mister A Square of Flatland, then one cannot help but be struck by how surprisingly much humanity, personality, and appeal they do manage to acquire for us, without ever shirking their lecturing duties. There is no question that by book’s end, Perry and his Diana are as real and alive as any other Heinlein couple, if more lightly sketched. Nonetheless, I submit that there was never a day in his life when Robert Anson Heinlein the fiction writer would have written a two-page footnote, and certainly not to introduce character development. To me, that detail alone is sufficient proof that he simply was not thinking in story terms when he sat down to compose For Us, The Living. That is why I say that it is so immensely much more than just his first novel. It is all of them, dormant. It seems clear to me, as he himself admitted, that Robert began this book with the perfectly honorable artistic intention of lying through his teeth: of disguising a series of lectures as fiction, purely in order to bring them to the attention of those who, finding the implication of their own imperfection upsetting, would not knowingly consent to be lectured. He succeeded brilliantly; one may agree or disagree with any of the theories and ideas he puts forth here, but one will most certainly and emphatically do one or the other: I defy anyone to lose interest in the middle of the argument, this despite the extreme complexity and, in some cases, sheer profundity of the ideas discussed. Perry is easily as good at his job as Mister A Square, and does it at much greater length and (ahem) depth. As thinly fictionalized lecture series, the book failed, for much the same reasons Robert himself had failed of election the previous year: in 1939, most of his ideas were, one is quite unsurprised to learn, wildly ahead of their time, radical, and opposed by powerful societal institutions. Nonetheless, though unpublishable then, its completion was an event of almost inexpressible importance in twentieth century English letters. Because here, I think, is what happened: On some unknown day in the first four months of 1939, Robert Anson Heinlein sat looking gloomily at a carbon of the manuscript that had just been rejected a second time and found himself thinking back over the whole long, painful period of its creation, the endless hours hunched over a typewriter, staring at a blank piece of paper until beads of blood formed on his forehead. And as he did so, two revelations came to him, in this order: First, he realized, with surprise and warm pleasure, that the most enjoyable, almost effortless part of the entire experience had not been the world-saving he’d set out to accomplish, not the logical theories, mathematical proofs, or clever arguments of which he was so proud , but the storytelling part, that he had intended only as a come-on for the crowd. All at once, I think, it came to him that the lecturer must remain standing in the square, on a rickety soapbox, and speak at the top of his lungs, and be heckled by boobs , but the storyteller sits in cross-legged comfort in the shade, and his listeners crowd round to hear him whisper, offering beer for his sore throat. And when he is done, they give him money, without him even asking. Second, he looked back over the lengthy and detailed imaginary future he had just thrown together as a set decoration, and saw the ideas stacked all round its empty stage , and realized it offered him a canvas so broad that, given enough time, he might contrive to spend all the rest of his working days in the sheer joy of telling stories, creating friends and heroes out of nothing, leaping across galaxies and inside hearts, and still end up putting across every insight and opinion he felt the world needed to hear. In that moment, he understood for the first time that he wanted to be a storyteller. That he wanted to be a science fiction writer. No, I’m wrong: he realized that he was a science fiction writer, and accepted his doom. In the terminology of Roger Zelazny’s immortal novel Lord of Light, he took on his Aspect, and raised up his Attribute, and was born a god. In that moment, he ceased being Bob Heinlein, shipwrecked sailor and unemployed engineer, and became RAH, the Dean of Modern Science Fiction, the Man Who Sold The Moon, Lazarus Long, who cannot die. In my dreams, I can almost imagine what it must have felt like. When he was good and ready, he announced the news to the rest of us, by sitting down in April and producing, first crack out of the box, one of the most unforgettable pieces of short fiction in the English language, “Lifeline.” Two years later, he was the Pro Writer Guest of Honor at Denvention, the Third World Science Fiction Convention in Denver, and everyone in that banquet hall already knew he owned the field. Five months after he gave his famous Guest of Honor speech on time-binding, “The Discovery of the Future,” Japan blindsided Pearl Harbor. But once that pesky distraction had been dispensed with, Robert turned his attention to the wow-science fiction literary world, and conquered that, too, with an ease, elegance, and speed that Hitler and Tojo could have learned from. But everything began on that unknown day or night sometime in early 1939, when Robert had his own personal equivalent of the blinding flash in which Nikola Tesla suddenly saw in his head a complete 3-D working model of the first-ever AC electric motor, correctly tuned and broken in, ready to be manufactured without delay for testing. The seeds of many of Robert’s major novels are clearly visible, here, needing only room and time to grow. The essential core of his entire career is implicit as DNA code buried in the pages of For Us, The Living: it constitutes an overflowing treasure chest of themes, ideas, theories, concepts, characters, and preoccupations he would draw on again and again for the next half century to inform his stories. Time travel; multiple identity; transcendence of physical death; personal privacy; personal liberty; personal and political pragmatism; using good technology for personal hedonistic comfort; balancing of privilege and responsibility; the arts, and especially new future artforms like dance in variable gravity; the metric system; rolling roads; then-unconventional loathing of racism, sexism, and anti-Semitism; Alfred Korzybski’s general semantics; alternate histories; the nature of sexual love; alternatives to monogamy and conventional marriage; spirituality; the pseudospirituality of the loathsome Nehemiah Cheney, excuse me, Scudder; The Crazy Years; space travel, the Moon, and Diaspora to the stars , it’s all here, nascent, in thumbnail view. So is that splendid, unmistakable voice. Robert’s ideas and opinions certainly evolved over time, particularly after he met his last wife, and this book is far from his last word on Utopia. But the differences themselves are fascinating and illuminating to any serious student of his work. It’s clear that, from the moment it finally dawned on him he was a storyteller, all Robert Heinlein really needed to produce that towering body of work that changed the world and put footprints on the Moon was time, typing paper, Virginia Gerstenfeld Heinlein, and a series of publishers’ royalty checks sufficient to keep them both smiling. He may not have consciously known, himself, just where his work would take him, in anything like the kind of detail this book prefigures. I rather hope not. But the work already knew. And now, thanks to Robert James, may he be as lucky in love as Lazarus, for as Long! And thanks to Michael Hunter, Eleanor Wood, and Sarah Knight, we all do. We are deeply in their debt. This may not (or may, I repeat: I won’t argue) be a novel in the classic sense, but to me it’s something more interesting. It’s a career in a box , a freeze-dried feast, a lifetime, latent in a raindrop , a lifework seed, waiting to be watered by our tears and laughter, RAH’s literary DNA, or half of it, at any rate. It’s worth remembering that this is one of the very few examples we’ll ever see of the writing of one of the century’s great lovers, the man who literally defined the word, love: the condition in which the welfare and happiness of another become essential to your own, before he met the love of his life. The difference is palpable; I’m not trying to offer a Zen koan when I say that it is in her very absence in this book that Ginny is perhaps even more present than in any other. One senses him yearning for her, straining to imagine her. The Portuguese word for “the presence of absence,” saudade, is the heart of fado, reading this book was an emotional as well as intellectual experience for me, is all I’m trying to say: I kept hearing Django play a bittersweet guitar as I turned the pages. To read this book is to know both Robert Heinlein and the late Virginia Heinlein much better, and that is something I’ve wanted to do all my adult life. Fate has brought an unexpected gift from beyond the grave, for us, the living. Spider Robinson Bowen Island, British Columbia 5 September 2003. Spider robinson dot com. FOR US, THE LIVING. Chapter One. “Look out!” The cry broke involuntarily from Perry Nelson’s lips as he twisted the steering wheel. But the driver of the green sedan either did not hear him or did not act. The next few seconds of action floated through his mind like slow motion. He saw the left front wheel of the green car float past his own, then the right wheel of his car crawled over the guard rail, his car slid after it and hung poised on the edge of the palisade. He stared over the hood and saw facing him the beach a hundred and thirty feet below. A blonde girl in a green bathing suit was catching a beach ball. She had jumped in the air to do it, both arms outstretched, one leg pointed. She was very graceful. Beyond her a wave broke on the sand. The crest hung and dripped whipped cream. He glanced back at the girl. She was still catching the beach ball. As she settled back on her feet, he drifted clear of the car and turned in the air away from her. Facing him were the rocks at the foot of the bluff. They approached as he watched them, separated and became individuals. One rock selected him and came straight toward him. It was a handsome rock, flat on one side and brilliant while in the sunshine. A sharp edge faced him and grew and grew and grew until it encompassed the whole world. Perry got up, shook his head, and blinked his eyes. Then he recalled the last few seconds with startling clarity and threw up his hands in convulsive reflex. But the rock was not in front of his face. There was nothing in front of his face but whirling snowflakes. The beach was gone and the bluff and the rest of his world. Nothing but snow and wind surrounded him, wind that cut through his light clothing. A gnawing pain in the midriff resolved into acute hunger. “Hell!” said Perry. Hell. Yes, hell it must be, cold instead of hot. He commenced to walk but his legs were weak under him and a giddiness assailed him. He staggered a few steps and fell on his face. He attempted to rise, but was too weak and decided to rest a moment. He lay still, trying not to think, but his confused brain still struggled with the problem. He was beginning to feel warmer when he found a solution. Of course! The girl in the green bathing suit caught him and threw him into the snow bank, soft snow bank, nice warm snow bank, nice, warm, “Get up” the girl in the green bathing suit was shaking him. “Get up! Hear me? Get up!” What did she want, to hell with games, just because she wanted to play games was no reason to slap a fellow’s face. He struggled to his knees, then fell heavily. The figure beside him slapped him again and nagged him until he rose to his knees, then steadied him and helped him to his feet. “Easy now. One arm over my shoulders. It’s not far.” “I’m all right.” “Don’t be a fool. Lean on me.” He looked down at the face of his companion and tried to focus his eyes. It was the girl in the green bathing suit, but what in hell was she doing dressed up like Admiral Byrd? Complete to the parka. But his tired brain refused to worry and he focused all of his attention on putting one icy leaden foot in front of another. “Mind the steps. Easy. Now hold still.” The girl sang one clear note and a door opened in front of them. He stumbled inside and the door closed. She guided him to a couch, made him lie down, and slipped away. Presently she returned with a cup of liquid. “Here. Drink this.” He reached for it, but his numbed fingers refused to grasp, and he spilled a little. She took the cup, lifted his head with her free arm, and held it to his lips. He drank slowly. It was warm and spicy. He fell asleep watching her anxious face. He awoke slowly, becoming aware of a deep sense of comfort and well-being almost before he was aware of his own ego. He lay on his back on a cushion as soft as a feather bed. A light cover was over him and as he stretched he became aware that he was ‘sleeping raw’. He opened his eyes. He was alone in a room of ample proportions possibly thirty feet long and oval in shape. Opposite him was a fireplace of quaint but pleasing pattern. It consisted of a vertical hyperboloid, like half a sugar loaf some ten feet high, which sprang out from the wall. In the base a mighty yawning mouth had been carved out, the floor of which was level and perhaps ten inches above the floor of the room. The roof of the mouth was another hyperboloid, hollow and eccentric to the first. On the floor of this gargantuan gape a coal fire crackled cheerfully and threw its reflections around the room. The room appeared almost bare of furniture except for the couch which ran two thirds of the way around the wall. He turned his head at a slight noise and saw her coming in the door. She smiled and hurried to him. “Oh, so you are awake. How do you feel?” One hand sought his pulse. “I feel grand.” “Hungry?” “I could eat a horse.” She giggled. “Sorry, no horses. I’ll soon have something better for you. But you mustn’t eat too much at first.” She straightened up. “Let me get out of these furs.” She walked away while fumbling with a zipper at her throat. The furs were all one garment which slipped off her shoulders and fell to the floor. Perry felt a shock like an icy shower and then a warm tingle. The fur coverall was her only garment and she emerged as naked as a dryad. But she took no note of it, simply picked up the coverall and glided to a cupboard, which opened as she approached, and hung it up. Then she proceeded to a section of the wall covered with a mural of Demeter holding a horn of plenty. It slid up, exposing an incomprehensible aggregation of valves, doors, and shiny gadgets. She kept very busy for some ten minutes, humming as she worked. Perry watched her in fascination. His amazement gave way to hearty appreciation for she was young, nubile, and in every way desirable. Her quick movements were graceful and in some way very cheerful and reassuring. Her humming stopped. “There!” she exclaimed, “All ready, if the invalid is ready to eat.” She picked up a laden tray and walked toward the far end of the room. The mural slid back into place and the shiny gadgets were gone. She set the tray on the couch, then pulled a countersunk handle. The handle came out in her hand, dragging with it a shelf perhaps two feet wide and four long. She turned back towards Perry and called, “Come, eat while it’s hot.” Perry started to get up, then stopped. She noticed his hesitation and a troubled look clouded her face. “What is the matter? Are you still too weak?” “No” “Sprain anything?” “No” “Then come, please. Whatever is the matter?” “Well, I, uh, you, see I,” How the hell do you tell a pretty girl who is naked as a jaybird that you can’t eat with her because you are naked too? Especially when she doesn’t seem to know what modesty is? She bent over him with obvious concern. Oh, the hell with it, said Perry to himself, and climbed out of bed. He swayed a little. “Shall I help you?” “No, thanks. I’m OK.” They sat down on opposite sides of the shelf table. She touched a button and a large section of the wall beside them slid up, exposing through glass a magnificent view. Across a canyon tall pines marched up a rugged mountainside. Up the canyon to the right some seven or eight hundred yards a waterfall hung a curtain of gauze in the breeze. Then Perry looked down, down a direct drop from the window. Vertigo shook him and again he hung poised on the palisade and stared over the hood of his car at the beach. He heard himself cry out. In an instant her arms were about him, consoling him. He steadied himself. “I’m all right,” he muttered, “But please close the shutters.” She neither argued nor answered, but closed them at once. “Now can you eat?” “Yes, I think so.” “Then do so and we will talk later.” They ate in silence. He examined his food with interest. A clear soup; some jelly with a meaty flavor; a glass of milk; light rolls spread with sweet butter; and several kinds of fruit, oranges, sugar-sweet and large as grapefruit, with a skin that peeled easily like a tangerine, some yellow fruit that he did not recognize, and black-flecked bananas. The dishes were light as paper but covered with a hard shiny lacquer. The fork and spoon were of the same material. Finally he dropped the last piece of rind and ate the last crumb of roll. She had finished first and had been leaning on her elbows, watching him. “Feel better?” “Immensely.” She transferred the dishes to the tray, walked over to the fireplace, dumped the load on the fire, and returned the tray to its rack among the shiny gadgets. (Demeter swung obligingly out of the way.) When she returned, she shoved the shelf-table back in its slot and extended a slender white tube. “Smoke?” “Thanks.” It was about four inches long and looked like some Russian atrocity. Probably scented, he thought. He inhaled gingerly, then drew one to the bottom of his lungs. Honest Virginia tobacco. The only thing in the house that seemed absolutely homey and normal. She inhaled deeply and then spoke. “Now then, who are you and how did you get onto this mountainside? And first, your name?” “Perry. What’s yours?” “Perry? A nice name. Mine’s Diana.” “Diana? I should think so. Perfect.” “I’m a little too cursive for Diana,” she patted her thigh, “but I’m glad you like it. Now how did you get lost out in that storm yesterday without proper clothes and no food?” “I don’t know.” “You don’t know?” “No, you see, it was this way. I was driving down the palisade when a car tried to pass a truck on a hill coming towards me. I swung out to miss it and my right front wheel jumped the curb and over I went, car and all, the last I remember was staring down at the beach as I fell, until I woke up in the snow storm.” “That’s all you remember?” “Yes, and then you helping me, of course. Only I thought it was a girl in a green bathing suit.” “In a what?” “In a green bathing suit.” “Oh.” She thought for a moment. “What did you say made you go over the palisade?” “I had a blowout, I guess, when my wheel hit the curb.” “What’s a blowout?” He stared at her. “I mean that my tire blew out, when it struck the curb.” “But why would it blow out?” “Listen, do you drive a car?” “Well, no” “Well, if a pneumatic rubber tire strikes a sharp edge when you are going pretty fast, it’s likely to explode, blowout. In that case anything can happen. In my case I went over the edge.” She looked frightened, and her eyes grew wide. Perry added, “Don’t take it so hard. I’m not hurt.” “Perry, when did this happen?” “Happen? Why, yester, No, maybe.” “No, Perry, the date, the date!” “July twelfth. That reminds me, does it often snow here.” “What year, Perry?” “What year? Why, this year!” “What year, Perry, tell me the number.” “Don’t you know? Nineteen-thirty-nine.” “Nineteen-thirty-nine.” She repeated the words slowly. “Nineteen-thirty-nine. But what the devil is wrong?” She stood up and paced nervously back and forth, then stopped and faced him. “Perry, prepare yourself for a shock.” “OK, shoot.” “Perry, you told me that yesterday was July twelfth, nineteen-thirty-nine.” “Yes.” “Well, today is January seventh, twenty-eighty-six.” Chapter Two. Perry sat very still for a long moment. “Say that again.” “Today is January seventh, twenty-eighty-six.” “January, seventh, twenty, eighty, six, It can’t be, I’m dreaming, pretty soon I’ll wake up.” He looked up at her. “Then you’re not real after all. Just a dream. Just a dream.” He put his head in his hands and stared down at the floor. He was recalled to his surroundings by a touch on his arm. “Look at me, Perry. Take my hand.” She grasped his hand and squeezed it. “There. Am I real? Perry, you must realize it. I don’t know who you are or what strange thing happened to you but here you are in my house in January twenty-eighty-six. And everything is going to be all right.” She placed a hand under his chin and turned his face up to hers. “Everything is going to be all right. Place that in your mind.” He stared at her with the frightened eyes of a man who fears he is going crazy. “Now calm yourself and tell me about it. Why do you think that yesterday you were in nineteen-thirty-nine?” “Well, I was, I tell you, It had to be nineteen-thirty-nine, because it was, it couldn’t be anything else.” “Hum, That’s no help. Tell me about yourself. Your full name, where you live, where you were born, what you do and so forth.” “Well, my name is Perry Vance Nelson. I was born in Girard, Kansas in nineteen-fourteen. I’m a ballistics engineer and a pilot. You see I’m an officer in the navy. Up until today I was on duty at Coronado, California. Yesterday, or whenever it was, I was driving from Los Angeles to San Diego on my way back from a weekend when this guy in the green sedan crowds me and I crack up on the beach.” She smoked and considered this. “That’s clear enough. Except of course that it would make you one hundred and seventy-two years old and doesn’t explain how you got here. Perry, You don’t look that old.” “Well, what’s the answer?” “I don’t know. Did you ever hear of schizophrenia, Perry?” “Schizophrenia? Split personality.” He considered, then exploded. “Nuts! If I’m crazy it’s only in this dream. I tell you I am Perry Nelson. I don’t know anything about twenty-eighty-six and I know all about nineteen-thirty-nine.” “That gives me a notion. I want to ask you some questions. Who was president in nineteen-thirty-nine?” “Franklin Roosevelt.” “How many states in the union?” “Forty-eight.” “How many terms did La Guardia serve?” “How many? He was in his second term.” “But you just told me that Roosevelt was president.” “Sure. Sure. Roosevelt was president. La Guardia was Mayor of New York.” “Oh.” “Why did you ask that? Did La Guardia become president?” “Yes. Two terms. Who were the most popular television actors in nineteen-thirty-nine?” “Why, there weren’t any. Television wasn’t yet available. But listen, you are quizzing me about nineteen-thirty-nine. How do I know it’s twenty-eighty-six?” “Come here, Perry.” She walked over the wall beside the fireplace and another section of the wall slid out of view. Disconcerting, thought Perry, everything slips and slides, Several rows of books were exposed. She handed him a slim volume. Perry read Astronomical Almanac and Ephemerides 2086. Then she dug out an old volume whose pages were brown with age. She opened it and pointed to the title page: The Galleon of God, Sinclair Lewis, first printing, 1947. “Convinced?” “I guess I’ll have to be, Oh, God!” he threw his cigarette in the fire and paced nervously up and down. Presently he stopped. “Look, is there any liquor here? Could I have a drink?” “A drink, of what?” “Whiskey, brandy, rum. Anything with a jolt in it.” “I think I can take care of you.” She disturbed Demeter again and returned presently holding a square bottle filled with an amber liquid. She poured him three fingers in a cup and added a small yellow pill. “What’s that?” “Jamaica rum surrogate and a mild sedative. Help yourself. I’ve got an idea.” She left him and went to the far end of the room where she seated herself on the couch and pulled out a small panel set in the wall. It appeared to be the front of a drawer. She lifted up a screen approximately a foot square and pressed a series of buttons below. Then she spoke: “Los Angeles Archives? Diana 160-398-400-48A speaking. I request search of Los Angeles and Coronado newspapers of July 12, 1939 for report of automobile accident involving Perry Nelson, naval officer. Expedited rate authorized. Bonus on thirty minutes. Report back. Thank you, clearing line.” She left the drawer out and returned to Perry. “We will have to wait a while. Do you mind if I open the view now?” “Not at all. I’d like to see it.” They seated themselves at the west end of the room where they had eaten and the shutters peeled back. It was late afternoon and the sun was nearing the shoulder of the mountain. Snow lay in the canyon and the thin amber sunlight streamed through the pines. They sat quietly and smoked. Diana poured herself a cup of surrogate, and sipped it. Presently a green light flashed from the open drawer and a single deep gong note sounded. Diana pressed a button nearby and spoke, “Diana 400-48 answering.” “Archives reporting. Positive. Disposition request.” “Tele-vue-stat Reno station with tube delivery, destination G610L-400-48, expedite rate throughout, bonus on ten minutes. Thank you. Clearing.” “You mentioned Reno. Are we near there?” “Yes, we are about thirty kilometers south of Lake Tahoe.” “Tell me, is Reno still a divorce mill?” “A divorce mill? Oh, no, Reno is not, as you call it, a divorce mill. There are no such things as divorces anymore.” “There aren’t? What do a man and his wife do if they can’t get along together?” “They don’t live together.” “Rather awkward in case one of them should fall in love again, isn’t it?” “No, you see, Good heavens, Perry, what a lot there is to teach you. I don’t know where to start. However, I’ll just plunge in and try to answer your questions. In the first place, there isn’t any legal contract to be broken, not in your sense of the word. There are domestic contracts but they don’t involve marriage in the religious or sexual aspects. And any of these contracts can be dealt with like any other secular contract.” “But doesn’t that make a rather confusing situation, homes broken up, children around loose, what about children? Who supports them?” “Why they support themselves on their heritage.” “On their heritage? They can’t all be heirs.” “But they are, Oh, it’s too confusing. I’ll have to get some histories for you and a code of customs. These things are all bound up in major changes in the economic and social structure. Let me ask you a question. In your day what was marriage?” “Well, it was a civil contract between a man and a woman usually sealed by a religious ceremony.” “And what did this contract stipulate?” “It stipulated a lot of things not specifically mentioned, but under it the two lived together, she worked for him, more or less, and he supported her financially. They slept together and neither one was supposed to have love affairs with anybody else. If they had children they supported them until they were grown up.” “And what were the objects of this arrangement?” “Well, principally for the benefit of the children, I guess. The children were protected and given a name. Also women were protected and supported and looked out for when they were bearing children.” “And what did the man get out of it.” “He got, well, a family and home life, and someone to do his cooking, and a thousand other little services, and if you will pardon me mentioning it, he had a woman to sleep with any time he needed one.” “Let’s take the last first; was she necessarily the woman he wanted to ‘sleep’ with as you so quaintly put it?” “Yes, I suppose so, else he probably wouldn’t have asked her to marry him. No, by God, I know that is not true. It may be true when they first marry, but I know damn well that most married men see women every day that they would rather have than their own wives. I’ve watched ‘em in every port.” “How about yourself. Perry?” “Me? I’m not, I wasn’t married.” “Didn’t you ever see a woman you wanted to enjoy physically?” “Of course. Many of them.” “Then why didn’t you marry?” “Oh, I don’t know. I guess I didn’t want to be tied down.” “If a man didn’t have children to support and a wife to support would he be tied down by marriage?” “Why yes, in a way. She would expect him to do everything with her and would raise Cain if he stepped out with other women and would expect him to entertain her sisters and her cousins and her aunts, and would be sore if he had to work on their anniversary.” “Good Lord! What a picture you paint. I don’t understand all of your expressions but it sounds unbearable.” “Of course not all women are like that, some of them are good sports, man to man, but you can’t tell when you marry them.” “It sounds from your description as if men had nothing to gain by marriage but an available mistress. And tell me, weren’t there women for hire then at a lower cost than supporting one woman for life?” “Oh yes, certainly. But they weren’t satisfactory to most men. You see, a man doesn’t like to feel that a woman goes to bed with him just for the money in his pocket.” “But you just said that women married to be supported.” “That’s not quite what I meant. Or that’s not all, at least not usually. Anyhow it’s different. Besides men don’t always play the game. You see a man marries partially to have exclusive right to a woman’s attention, especially her body. But lots of them carry it to extremes. Marriage is no excuse for a man to slap his wife’s face for dancing twice with another man, as I’ve seen happen.” “But why should a man want to have exclusive possession of a woman?” “Well, he just naturally does. It’s in his nature. Besides a man wants to be sure his children aren’t bastards.” “We are no longer so sure, Perry, that such traits are ‘nature’ as you call them. And bastard is an obsolete term.” At this moment an amber light flashed at the other end of the room. Diana arose and returned shortly with a roll of papers. “They have arrived. Here, look.” She unrolled them and spread them on the shelf-table. Perry saw that they were photostatic copies of pages of the Los Angeles Times, Harold-Express, and Daily News for July 13, 1939. She pointed to a headline: NAVAL FLIER KILLED IN CAR CRASH. Torrey Pines, California July 12. Lieutenant Perry V Nelson, Navy pilot of Coronado, was killed today when he lost control of the car he was driving and plunged over the palisade here to his death on the rock below. Lieut. Nelson jumped or was thrown clear of the car but landed head first in a pile of loose rock at the foot of the cliff, splitting his skull. Death was instantaneous. Miss Diana Burwood of Pasadena was bathing on the beach below and narrowly escaped injury. She attempted to give first aid, then scaled the bluff and reported the accident with aid of a passing motorist. There were similar stories in the other papers. The Daily News included a column cut of Perry in uniform. Diana examined this with interest. “The story checks perfectly, Perry. This is just a fair likeness of you, however.” Perry glanced at it. “I should say that it wasn’t bad, considering the limitations of a half-tone reproduction.” “The surprising thing is that it looks like you at all.” “Why do you say that, Diana? Don’t you believe me?” His hurt showed plainly in his face. “Oh, no, no, I believe that you are telling the literal truth, insofar as you know it. But think, Perry. The head that was photographed to take this picture has, if this newspaper account is true, been dust for more than a century.” Perry stared at her and a look of horror crept into his eyes. He closed his eyes and clasped his head between his palms. He remained thus, face averted and body tensed for several minutes until he felt a gentle touch on his hair. Diana bent over him, pity and compassion in her eyes. “Perry, please. Listen to me. I didn’t mean to distress you. I wouldn’t hurt you intentionally. I want to be your friend if you will let me.” Gently she removed his hands from his temples. “It is a strange and marvelous thing that has happened to you, Perry, and I don’t understand it at all. In some ways it is horrible and certainly terrifying. But it could be much worse, much worse. This is not a bad world in which you have landed. I think it is a rather kindly world. I like it and I am sure it must be better than being crushed and broken at the foot of the palisades. Please, Perry, I’d like to help you.” He patted her hand. “You’re a good kid, Dian’, I’ll be all right. It’s the shock more than anything. The realization that all that world I know is dead and gone. I knew it of course when you told me what year it was, but I didn’t realize it until you pointed out to me that I’m dead, too, or at least that my body died.” He jumped to his feet. “But say! If my body is dead, where in God’s name did I get this!”, and he slapped his side. “I don’t know, Perry, but I have an idea.” “What is it?” “Not just yet. But we can start a little action toward finding out. Come with me.” She opened out the drawer containing the communication instrument, and pushed one button. A pretty red-headed girl appeared on the screen and smiled. Diana spoke. “Reno, please relay Washington, Bureau of records, Identification Sector.” “Check, Diana.” The red head faded out. “Does she know you?” “Probably recognized me. You will understand.” Shortly another face appeared, that of an iron grey studious man. Diana spoke. “Identification requested.” “Which one of you?” “Him.” “Check. Take position.” The face turned away and a camera-like apparatus appeared. “Put up your right hand, Perry,” whispered Diana. Perry did so. The grey haired man re-appeared. “Listen, how can I analyze if you don’t hold position? Haven’t you ever used a phone before?” “I, I guess not.” Perry looked confused. The slight irritation vanished from the man’s voice. “What’s the trouble, friend? Lost your continuity?” “I guess you’d call it that.” “That’s different. I’ll fix you up in no time. Then you’ll probably have no trouble to orient. Now do just as I tell you. Right hand, palm toward me about twenty centimeters from the screen. Down a little. Now just a hair closer. Your palm is tilted. Get it parallel to the screen. There. Hold it steady.” A soft shirring and a click. “That’s all. Do you want a full dossier or just name and number?” Diana cut in. “Brief of dossier, please, with last entry in full. Televuestat Reno station, tube delivery G610L-400-48, expedited rate.” “Charge to him when I get his number?” “No, to me, Diana, 160-398-400-48A.” “Oh! I thought I recognized you.” “This is private action.” Diana’s voice was cool and crisp. The man looked indignant, then his face became impassive. “Madam, I am an official clerk of the Bureau of Records. I thoroughly understand the spheres of public and private action, and my oath and charge.” Diana melted at once. “I’m sorry. I truly am. Please forgive me.” He relaxed and smiled. “Of course, Miss Diana. You probably have to insist on the spheres. But, if you will permit, it would be an honor to provide this service for you.” “No, please, make the routine charge. But may I do you some service?” She inclined her head. The clerk bowed in return. “A picture perhaps?” “If madam permits.” “My latest stereo. Face or full?” He bowed without speaking. “I’ll send both. They shall cross your brief in the tubes.” “You are very kind.” “Thank you. Clearing.” The screen went blank. “Well, Perry, we’ll know soon. But I must get the poor chap his pictures. I didn’t mean to offend him, but he was too touchy.” She returned in a moment with two thin sheets and started to roll them up. Noticing Perry’s interest, she paused. “Would you care to see them?” “Yes, of course.” The first picture was Diana’s face in natural colors with a half smile warming it. But Perry was startled almost into dropping it. For the portrait was completely stereoscopic. It was as if he were looking through a window of cellophane at Diana herself posed stationary three feet back of the frame. “How in the world are these done?” “I’m neither an optics student nor a photographer, but I know the picture really does have some depth to it. It’s a colloid about a half centimeter thick. It is done with two cameras, so it works only on one axis. Turn it around sideways.” He did so. The picture went perfectly flat although remaining a fine photograph. “Now tilt it about forty-five degrees.” He did so and had the upsetting sensation of watching Diana’s beautiful features melt and run until no picture was visible, but just an iridescence like oil on water. “You have to look at it along the right axis and within a narrow view angle, but when you do the two images blend in the stereo illusion. The brain inter rets the confused double image given by two separated eyes as depth and by duplicating that confusion, they achieve the illusion.” Perry stared at the picture a moment more and tilted and twisted it. Diana watched with interest and sympathetic amusement. “May I see the other picture?” “Here it is.” Perry glanced at it, then swallowed. He had grown accustomed to Diana’s nudity, more or less, and had been too much occupied mentally to think much about it, but nevertheless he had been aware of it in one corner of his mind all the time. Still, he was startled to discover that the second picture portrayed all of Diana in her own sweet simplicity, nothing more, and that it was as amazingly lifelike as the first, real enough to pinch. He swallowed again. “You intend to send this, er, uh, these pictures to a man you’ve just met on the phone.” “Oh, yes, he wants them and I can afford it. And I was a bit rude. Of course some people would think it a bit brash for me to give him anything as intimate as a facial portrait but I don’t mind.” “But, uh.” “Yes, Perry?” “Oh, well, nothing I guess. Never mind.” Chapter Three. Later while Diana monkeyed with the gadgets in the Demeter niche, the green light and gong note announced a tube delivery. “Get it, will you, Perry?” she called. “I’ve got both hands full.” Perry puzzled with the controls, then found a small lever that opened the receptacle. He brought over the roll to Diana. “Read it aloud, Perry, while I finish dinner.” He unrolled it and first noticed a picture of a young man who resembled his own memory of himself. He commenced to read. “Gordon 932-016-755-82A, Genes class JM, born 2057 July 7. Qualified and matriculated Arlington Health School 2075, transferred (approved) Adler Memorial Institute of Psychology 2077. Selected for research when Extra-sensory station was established by Master Fifield in 2080. Author of A Study of Deviant Data in Extra-Sensory Perception. Co-author (with Pandit Kalimohan Chandra Roy) of Proteus: a History of the Ego. Address Sanctuary (F-2), California. Unofficially reported in voluntary cororal abdication in 2083 August and transferred at the request of Sanctuary Council to inactive status 2085 August, body to remain in Sanctuary. Credit account on transfer to inactive 11,018 dollars and thirty two cents, less depreciation 9,803 dollars and nine cents, credit account re-entered with service deduction 9,802 dollars and nine cents less 500 dollars credit convenience book 9,302 dollars, and nine cents, enclosed.” Attached to the end of the roll was a small wallet or notebook. Inside Perry found that the leaves were money, conventional money, differing only slightly in size and design from money in 1939. In the back of the book was a pad of blank credit drafts, a check book. “What do I do with this stuff, Diana?” “Do with it? Anything you like, use it, spend it, live on it.” “But it doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to this fellow Gordon something-or-other.” “You are Gordon 755-82.” “Me? The hell I am.” “You are, though. The Bureau of Records has already acknowledged it and has your account re-entered. You have the body listed as 932-016-755-82A. You can use any name you like, Perry, or Gordon, or George Washington, and the Bureau will gladly note the change in the record, but that number goes with that body and that credit account and they won’t change it. Of course you don’t have to spend it but if you don’t, nobody will, and it will just get bigger.” “Can’t I give it away?” “Certainly, but not to Gordon.” Perry scratched his head. “No, I guess not. Say, what is this voluntary abdication stuff?” “I’m not able to give a scientific account of it, but so far as anyone else is concerned it amounts to suicide by willing not to live.” “Then Gordon is dead?” “No, not according to the ideas of the people who monkey with these things. He simply was not interested in living here and chose to live elsewhere.” “How come his body is here okay?” “According to this report Gordon’s body, this body,” She pinched his cheeks. “, has been lying quietly in a state of arrested animation in the Sanctuary on the other side of this mountain. And so the mystery is partially cleared up.” His wrinkled brow showed no satisfaction. “Yes, I suppose so. But each mystery is explained with another mystery.” “There is just one mystery left that worries me, Perry, and that is why in the world you didn’t break a leg and maybe your brand-new neck in getting over here. But I’m glad you didn’t.” “So am I. Lord!” “But now I must get to work.” She stacked the supper dishes as she spoke. “What work?” “My paid work. I am not one of the ascetic souls that are content with their heritage checks. I’ve got to have money for ribbons and geegaws.” “What do you do?” “I’m a tele-vue actress, Perry. I dance and sing a little, and occasionally take part in stories.” “Are you about to rehearse?” “No, I go on the waves in about twenty minutes.” “Goodness, the studio must be close by or you’ll be late.” “Oh, no, it will be picked up from here. But you will have to be a good boy and sit still and not ask questions for a while or I shall be late. Come. Sit over here. Now face the receiver so.” Another section of the wall flew up and Perry faced a flat screen. “There you can see the whole performance and watch me dance directly too.” She opened the communicator drawer and raised the small screen. A rather homely debonair young man appeared. He wore a helmet with bulges over his ears. A cigarette drooped from one corner of his sardonic mouth. “Hi, Dian’.” “Hello, Larry. Where j’a get the circles under your eyes?” “That from you, and you so huffy about the private sphere of action. I had a blonde paint ‘em on.” “She got the left one crooked.” “Cut out the arcing and get down to work, wench. Got your setup made?” “Yeah.” “OK, testing.” Lights sprang out from the near end of the room. Diana walked to the center of the room, turned around twice, and walked back and forth and up and down, then returned to the communicator. “OK, Larry?” “There’s a halo in the lower left and it’s not in my side, I don’t believe.” “I’ll take a look.” She returned with the tube that had contained the Gordon dossier in her hand. “Gone now, Larry?” “Yeah, what was it?” “This.” She held up the tube. “Just like a female. Can’t integrate. Sloppy minds, unable to, ” “Larry, one more crack out of you and I’ll report you for atavism, probably Neanderthal.” “Cool down, small one. You have a super-magnificent brain. I love you for your intellect. Time’s running short. Want some music?” “Give it a blast. Okay, turn it off.” “What are you giving the mob tonight, Dian’?” “Highbrow stuff. Watch it, you might get an idea.” He glanced down at his controls. “Take your place, kid. I’m clearing.” Diana went quickly to the middle of the room and the lights went out. The larger screen facing Perry came suddenly to life. Facing him in stereo and color was a brisk young man, who bowed and smiled and commenced to speak: “Friends, we are again in the studios of the Magic Car et in the tower of the Edison Memorial overlooking Lake Michigan. We bring you tonight your favorite inter reter of the modern theme in dance, lovely Diana, who will present another stanza in the Poem of Life.” The colors on the screen melted together, then faded to a light blue and a single high clear crystal note impinged on Perry’s ears. The note trembled, then pursued a minor melody. Perry felt a mood of sadness and nostalgia creep over him. Gradually the orchestra picked up the theme and embroidered it while on the screen the colors shifted, blended, and ranged in patterns. Finally the colors faded and the screen went dark as the harmony wafted out of the music leaving a violin alone carrying the theme in the darkness. A dim finger of light appeared and picked out a small figure far back. The figure was prone, limp, helpless. The music conveyed a feeling of pain and despair and over powering fatigue. But another theme encouraged, called for effort, and the figure stirred gently. Perry glanced over his shoulder and had to exert self-control to refrain from going to the poor forlorn creature’s assistance. Diana needed help, his heart told him, go to her! But he sat quietly and watched and listened. Perry knew little about dancing and nothing about it as a high art. Ballroom dancing for himself and tap dancing to watch were about his level. He watched with intent appreciation the graceful, apparently effortless movements of the girl, without any realization of the training, study and genius that had gone before. But gradually he realized that he was being told a story of the human spirit, a story of courage, and hope, and love overcoming despair and physical hurt. He came to with a start when the dance ended leaving Diana with arms flung out, face to the sky, eyes shining, and smiling in joy as a single bright warm light poured over her face and breast. He felt happier than he had since his arrival, happy and relieved. The screen went dark, then the ubiquitous young man re-appeared. Diana cut him off before he spoke, switched on the room lights and turned to Perry. He was surprised to see that she appeared shy and fussed. “Did you like it, Perry?” “Like it? Diana, you were glorious, incredible. I, I can’t express it.” “I’m glad. “And now I’m going to eat and we can visit some more.” “But you just had dinner.” “You didn’t watch me closely. I don’t eat much before dancing. But now watch, I’ll probably get it down on the floor and worry it like an animal. Are you hungry?” “No, not yet.” “Could you drink a cup of chocolate?” “Yes, thanks.” A few minutes later they were seated on the couch, Diana with her legs curled up under her, a cup of chocolate in one hand, an enormous sandwich in the other. She ate busily and greedily. Perry was amused to think that this hungry little girl was that unearthly glorious creature of a few minutes before. She finished, hiccoughed, looked surprised and murmured, “Excuse me,” then wiped up with one finger a blob of mayonnaise which had dropped on her tummy and transferred it to her mouth. “Now, Perry, let’s take stock. Where are we?” “Damned if I know. I know where I am and when I am and you tell me that I know who I am. Gordon zip, zip, zip and six zeros, but I might as well be a day old baby as for knowing what to do about it.” “Not so bad as that, Perry. In addition to an identity you have acquired a nice credit account, not large but adequate and your heritage check will keep you going, too.” “What is this heritage check business?” “Let’s not go into that now. When you study the economic system you’ll understand. Right now it means a hundred and fifty dollars, more or less, every month. You could live comfortably on two-thirds of that, if you wanted to. What I wanted to talk about was the ‘what to do about it’ aspect.” “Where do we start?” “I can’t decide what you are to do about anything, but it seems to me that the very first thing to do is to bring you up to date so that you will fit in twenty-eighty-six. It is a rather different world. You must learn a lot of new customs and a century-and-a-half of history and a number of new techniques and so forth. When you are up to date, you can decide for yourself what you want to do, and then you can do anything you want.” “It sounds to me as if I’d be too old to want to do anything by that time.” “No, I don’t think so. You can start right away. I’ve got a number of ideas. In the first place, while I haven’t very many useful books in this house, I do have a pretty fair history of the United States and a short world history. Yes, and a dictionary and a fairly recent encyclopedia. Oh and I nearly forgot, an abridged code of customs that I had when I was a kid. Then I am going to call Berkeley and ask for a group of records on a number of subjects that you can play on the televue whenever you like. That will really be your most beneficial and easiest way to learn in a hurry.” “How does it work?” “It’s very simple. You saw my act in the televue tonight. Well, it’s just as easy to put a record on it and see and hear anything that you want to that has ever been recorded. If you wanted to, you could see President Berzowski open Congress in 2001 January. Or if you like, you could see any of my dances from records.” “I’ll do that first. To hell with history!” “You’ll do nothing of the sort. You will study until you are oriented. If you want to see me dance, I’ll dance for you.” “OK, right now.” She stuck out her tongue at him. “Be serious. Besides the records, I’ll think over who among my friends can help and I’ll get them to come talk with you and explain the things that I can’t.” “Why do you take all this trouble about me, Dian’?” “Why, anybody would, Perry. You were sick and cold and needed help.” “Yes, but now you undertake to educate me and set me on my feet.” “Well, I want to do it. Won’t you let me?” “Well, maybe. But look here, oughtn’t I to get out of your house and find some other place to stay?” “Why, Perry? You’re welcome here. Aren’t you comfortable?” “Oh, of course. But how about your reputation? What will people say?” “I don’t see how it could affect my reputation; you don’t dance. And what does it matter what people think, all they could think is that we were companions, if they bothered to think about it at all. Besides very few people except my friends will know. It is strictly in the private sphere of action. The custom is quite clear.” “What custom?” “Why, the custom which says that what people do out of public service or private employment is private as long as it doesn’t violate the other customs. Where people go, what they eat, or drink, or wear, or how they entertain themselves, or who they love, or how they play are strictly in the private sphere. So one must not print anything about it or broadcast it, or speak about it in a public place, without specific permission.” “Paging Walter Winchell! What in the world is in your newspapers?” “Lots of things. Political news and ships’ movements and public events and announcements of amusements and most anything about public officials, though their private sphere is much narrower. It’s an exception in the custom. And new creations in clothing and architecture and food and new scientific discoveries and lists of new televue records and broadcasts, and new commercial projects. Who’s Walter Winchell?” “Walter Winchell, why he was a, Dian’, I don’t think you will believe it but he made a lot of money talking almost entirely about things in what you call the private sphere of action.” She wrinkled her nose. “How disgusting!” “People ate it up. But look, how about your friends? Won’t they think it strange?” “Why should they? It isn’t strange. I’ve entertained lots of them.” “But we aren’t chaperoned.” “What’s ‘chaperoned’? Is it something like married?” “Oh Lord, I give up. Listen, Dian’, just pretend like we never said anything about it. I’ll be most happy to stay if you want me to.” “Didn’t I say I did?” They were interrupted by the appearance of a large grey cat who walked out to the middle of the floor, calmly took possession, sat down, curled his tail carefully around him, and mewed loudly. He had only one ear and looked like a hard case. Diana gave him a stern look. “Where have you been? Do you think this is any time to come home?” The cat mewed again. “Oh, so you’ll be fed now? So this is just the place where they keep the fish?” The cat walked over, jumped on the couch, and commenced bumping his head against Diana’s side while buzzing loudly. “All right. All right. Come along. Show me where it is.” He jumped down and trotted quickly over toward Demeter, tail straight as a smoke column on a calm day, then sat and looked up expectantly. He mewed again. “Don’t be impatient.” Diana held a dish of sardines in the air. “Show me where to put it.” The cat trotted over in front of the fire. “All right. Now are you satisfied?” The cat did not answer, being already busy with the fish. Diana returned to the couch and reached for a cigarette. “That’s Captain Kidd. He’s an old pirate with no manners and no morals. He owns this place.” “So I gathered. How did he get in?” “He let himself in. He has a little door of his own that opens up when he mews.” “For Heaven’s sakes! Is that standard equipment for cats these days?” “Oh no, it’s just a toy. He can’t let himself in my door. It opens only to my voice. But I made a record of the mew he used to let me know he wanted to come in the house and sent it to be analyzed and a lock set to it. Now that lock opens his own little door. I suppose that doors that open to a voice are somewhat marvelous to you, Perry?” “Well, yes and no, we had such things but they weren’t commercially in use. I’ve seen them work. In fact I believe that I could design one if I had to.” Her eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Really? I had no idea that technical advance was so marked in your day.” “We had a fairly involved technical culture, but unfortunately most of it wasn’t used. People couldn’t afford to pay for the things that the engineers could build, especially luxuries like automatic doors and television and such.” “Television isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity. How else could one keep in touch? Why I would be helpless without it.” “Yes, no doubt you feel that way about it. People were beginning to say that about the telephone in my day. But the fact remains while we knew how to accomplish pretty fair television we didn’t because there was no market. People couldn’t afford it.” “I don’t see why not.” “I don’t know how to tell you. Perhaps I don’t see either, except in some way I can’t explain. But we did have a lot of unused or only partially used mechanical and technical knowledge. The application of any advance in invention or art was limited by whether or not there were people willing and able to pay for it. I served for a couple of years in one of the big aircraft carriers. There were boys in her, enlisted men, who used the most amazing technical devices, mechanical brains that could solve the most involved ballistic problems, problems in calculus using a round dozen variables, problems that would have taken an experienced mathematician days to solve. The machine solved them in a split second and applied the solutions, yet more than half of those boys came from homes that didn’t have bathtubs or central heating.” “How awful! How in the world could they stay clean and healthy in such houses?” “They couldn’t. I don’t suppose that I can make you realize just what the conditions were in which a lot of peopl

The Worlds of Robert “A.” Heinlein, Copyright 1966, Contents. Introduction: PANDORA’S BOX. Copyright 1952. FREE MEN, First time in print, BLOWUPS HAPPEN. Copyright 1940. SEARCHLIGHT. Copyright 1962. LIFE-LINE Copyright 1939. SOLUTION UNSATISFACTORY. Copyright 1940. INTRODUCTION: PANDORA’S BOX. ONCE OPENED, the Box could never be closed. But after the myriad swarming Troubles came Hope. Science fiction is not prophecy. It often reads as if it were prophecy; indeed the practitioners of this odd genre (pun intentional I won’t do it again) of fiction usually strive hard to make their stones sound as if they were true pictures of the future. Prophecies. Prophesying is what the weatherman does, the race track tipster, the stock market adviser, the fortune-teller who reads palms or gazes into a crystal. Each one is predicting the future sometimes exactly, sometimes in vague, veiled, or ambiguous language, sometimes simply with a claim of statistical probability, but always with a claim seriously made of disclosing some piece of the future. This is not at all what a science fiction author does. Science fiction is almost always laid in the future or at least in a fictional possible-future and is almost invariably deeply concerned with the shape of that future. But the method is not prediction; it is usually extrapolation and, or speculation. Indeed the author is not required to (and usually does not) regard the fictional “future” he has chosen to write about as being the events most likely to come to pass; his purpose may have nothing to do with the probability that these storied events may happen. “Extrapolation” means much the same in fiction writing as it does in mathematics: exploring a trend. It means continuing a curve, a path, a trend into the future, by extending its present direction and continuing the shape it has displayed in its past performance, meaning, if it is a sine curve in the past, you extrapolate it as a sine curve in the future, not as an hyperbola, nor a Witch of Agnesi and most certainly not as a tangent straight line. “Speculation” has far more elbowroom than extrapolation; it starts with a “What if?” and the new factor thrown in by the what-if may be both wildly improbable and so revolutionary in effect as to throw a sine-curve trend (or a yeast-growth trend, or any trend) into something unrecognizably different. What if little green men land on the White House lawn and invite us to join a Galactic union? or big green men land and enslave us and eat us? What if we solve the problem of immortality? What if New York City really does go dry? And not just the present fiddlin’ shortage tackled by fiddlin’ quarter-measures can you imagine a man being lynched for wasting an ice cube? Try Frank Herbert’s Dune World saga, which is not I judge prophecy in any sense, but is powerful, convincing, and most ingenious speculation. Living, as I do, in a state which has just two sorts of water, too little and too much we just finished seven years of drought with seven inches of rain in two hours, and one was about as disastrous as the other I find a horrid fascination in Dune World, in Charles Einstein’s The Day New York Went Dry, and in stories about Biblical-size floods such as S Fowler Wright’s Deluge. Most science fiction stories use both extrapolation and speculation. Consider “Blowups Happen,” elsewhere in this volume. It was written in 1939, updated very slightly for book publication just after World War II by inserting some words such as “Manhattan Project and “Hiroshima,” but not rewritten, and is one of a group of stories published under the pretentious collective title of The History of the Future (!) which certainly sounds like prophecy. I disclaim any intention of prophesying; I wrote that story for the sole purpose of making money to pay off a mortgage and with the single intention of entertaining the reader. As prophecy the story falls flat on its silly face any tenderfoot Scout can pick it to pieces but I think it is still entertaining as a story, else it would not be here; I have a business reputation to protect and wish to continue making money. Nor am I ashamed of this motivation. Very little of the great literature of our heritage arose solely from a wish to “create art”; most writing, both great and not-so-great, has as its proximate cause a need for money combined with an aversion to, or an inability to perform, hard writing offers a legal and reasonably honest way out of this dilemma. A science fiction author may have, and often does have, other motivations in addition to pursuit of profit. He may wish to create “art for art’s sake,” he may want to warn the world against a course he feels to be disastrous (Orwell’s 1984, Huxley’s Brave New World but please note that each is intensely entertaining, and that each made stacks of money), he may wish to urge the human race toward a course which he considers desirable (Bellamy’s Looking Backwards, Wells’ Men Like Gods), he may wish to instruct, or uplift, or even to dazzle. But the science fiction writer any fiction writer must keep entertainment consciously in mind as his prime purpose, or he may find himself back dragging that old cotton sack. If he succeeds in this purpose, his story is likely to remain gripping entertainment long years after it has turned out to be false “prophecy.” H G Wells is perhaps the greatest science fiction author of all time and his greatest science fiction stories were written around sixty years ago, under the whip. Bedfast with consumption, unable to hold a job, flat broke, paying alimony he had to make money somehow, and writing was the heaviest work he could manage. He was clearly aware, see his autobiography, that to stay alive he must be entertaining. The result was a flood of some of the most brilliant speculative stories about the future ever written. As prophecy they are all hopelessly dated, which matters not at all; they are as spellbinding now as they were in the Gay ‘Nineties and the Mauve Decade. Try to lay hands on his The Sleeper Awakes. The gadgetry in it is ingenious and all wrong. The projected future in it is brilliant and did not happen. All of which does not sully the story; it is a great story of love and sacrifice and blood-chilling adventure set in a matrix of mind-stretching speculation about the nature of Man and his Destiny. I read it first forty-five years ago, plus perhaps a dozen times since, and still reread it whenever I get to feeling uncertain about just how one does go about the unlikely process of writing fiction for entertainment of strangers and again finding myself caught up in the sheer excitement of Wells’ story. “Solution Unsatisfactory” herein is a consciously Wellsian story. No, no, I’m not claiming that it is of H G Wells’ quality its quality is for you to judge, not me. But it was written by the method which Wells spelled out for the speculative story: Take one, just one, basic new assumption, then examine all its consequences but express those consequences in terms of human beings. The assumption I chose was the “Absolute Weapon”; the speculation concerns what changes this forces on mankind. But the “history” the story describes simply did not happen. However the problems discussed in this story are as fresh today, the issues just as poignant, for the grim reason that we have not reached even an “unsatisfactory” solution to the problem of the Absolute Weapon; we have reached no solution. In the twenty-five years that have passed since I wrote that story the world situation has grown much worse. Instead of one Absolute Weapon there are now at least five distinct types an “Absolute Weapon” being defined as one against which there is no effective defense and which kills indiscriminately over a very wide area. The earliest of the five types, the A-bomb, is now known to be possessed by at least five nations, at least twenty-five other nations have the potential to build them in the next few years. But there is a possible sixth type. Earlier this year I attended a seminar at one of the nation’s new think-factories. One of the questions discussed was whether or not a “Doomsday Bomb” could be built a single weapon which would destroy all life of all sorts on this planet; one weapon, not an all-out nuclear holocaust involving hundreds or thousands of ICBMs. No, this was to be a world-wrecker of the sort Doctor E E Smith used to use in his interstellar sagas back in the days when S-F magazines had bug-eyed monsters on the cover and were considered lowbrow, childish, fantastic. The conclusions reached were: Could the Doomsday Machine be built? Yes, no question about it. What would it cost? Quite cheap. A seventh type hardly seems necessary. And that makes the grimness of “Solution Unsatisfactory” seem more like an Oz book in which the most harrowing adventures always turn out happily. “Searchlight” is almost pure extrapolation, almost no speculation. The gadgets in it are either hardware on the shelf, or hardware which will soon be on the shelf because nothing is involved but straight-forward engineering development. “Life-Line” (my first story) is its opposite, a story which is sheer speculation and either impossible or very highly improbable, as the What-If postulate will never be solved I think. I hope. But the two stories are much alike in that neither depends on when it was written nor when it is read. Both are independent of any particular shape to history; they are timeless. “Free Men” is another timeless story. As told, it looks like another “after the blowup” story but it is not. Although the place is nominally the United States and the time (as shown by the gadgetry) is set in the not-distant future, simply by changing names of persons and places and by inserting other weapons and other gadgets this story could be any country and any time in the past or future or could even be on another planet and concern a non-human race. But the story does apply here-and-now, so I told it that way. “Pandora’s Box” was the original title of an article researched and written in 1949 for publication in 1950, the end of the half-century. Inscrutable are the ways of editors: it appeared with the title ‘Where To?’ and purported to be a non-fiction prophecy concerning the year 2000 A.D. as seen from 1950. I agree that a science fiction writer should avoid marihuana, prophecy, and time payments but I was tempted by a soft rustle. Our present editor decided to use this article, but suggested that it should be updated. Authors who wish to stay in the business listen most carefully to editors’ suggestions, even when they think an editor has been out in the sun without a hat; I agreed. And reread “Where To” and discovered that our editor was undeniably correct; it needed updating. At least. But at last I decided not to try to conceal my bloopers. Below is reproduced, unchanged, my predictions of fifteen years back. But here and there through the article I have inserted signs for footnotes like this: (z) and these will be found at the end of the 1950 article, calling attention to bloopers and then forthrightly excusing myself by rationalizing how anyone, even Nostradamus, would have made the same mistake, hedging my bets, in other cases, or chucking in brand-new predictions and carefully laying them farther in the future than I am likely to live, and, in some cases, crowing loudly about successful predictions. So. WHERE TO? And Why We Didn’t Get There. Most science fiction consists of big-muscled stories about adventures in space, atomic wars, invasions by extra-terrestrials, and such. All very well but now we will take time out for a look at ordinary home life half a century hence. Except for tea leaves and other magical means, the only way to guess at the future is by examining the present in the light of the past. Let’s go back half a century and visit your grandmother before we attempt to visit your grandchildren. 1900: Mister McKinley is President and the airplane has not yet been invented. Let’s knock on the door of that house with the gingerbread, the stained glass, and the cupola. The lady of the house answers. You recognize her your own grandmother, Missus Middleclass. She is almost as plump as you remember her, for she “put on some good, healthy flesh” after she married. She welcomes you and offers coffee cake, fresh from her modern kitchen (running water from a hand pump; the best coal range Pittsburgh ever produced). Everything about her house is modern hand-painted china, souvenirs from the Columbian Exposition, beaded portieres, shining baseburner stoves, gas lights, a telephone on the wall. There is no bathroom, but she and Mr. Middleclass are thinking of putting one in. Mr. Middleclass’s mother calls this nonsense, but your grandmother keeps up with the times. She is an advocate of clothing reform, wears only one petticoat, bathes twice a week, and her corsets are guaranteed rust proof. She has been known to defend female suffrage but not in the presence of Mr. Middleclass. Nevertheless, you find difficulty in talking with her. Let’s jump back to the present and try again. The automatic elevator takes us to the ninth floor, and we pick out a door by its number, that being the only way to distinguish it. “Don’t bother to ring,” you say? What? It’s your door and you know exactly what lies beyond it Very well, let’s move a half century into the future and try another middle class home. It’s a suburban home not two hundred miles from the city. You pick out your destination from the air while the cab is landing you a cluster of hemispheres which makes you think of the houses Dorothy found in Oz You set the cab to return to its hangar and go into the entrance hall. You neither knock, nor ring. The screen has warned them before you touched down on the landing flat and the autobutler’s transparency is shining with: PLEASE RECORD A MESSAGE. Before you can address the microphone a voice calls out, “Oh, it’s you! Come in, come in.” There is a short wait, as your hostess is not at the door. The autobutler flashed your face to the patio where she was reading and sunning herself and has relayed her voice back to you. She pauses at the door, looks at you through one-way glass, and frowns slightly, she knows your old-fashioned disapproval of casual nakedness. Her kindness causes her to disobey the family psychiatrist; she grabs a robe and covers herself before signaling the door to open. The psychiatrist was right; you have thus been classed with strangers, tradespeople, and others who are not family intimates. But you must swallow your annoyance; you cannot object to her wearing clothes when you have sniffed at her for not doing so. There is no reason why she should wear clothes at home. The house is clean not somewhat clean, but clean and comfortable. The floor is warm to bare feet; there are no unpleasant drafts, no cold walls. All dust is precipitated from the air entering this house. All textures, of floors, of couch, of chair, are comfortable to bare skin. Sterilizing ultra-violet light floods each room whenever it is unoccupied, and, several times a day, a “whirlwind” blows house-created dust from all surfaces and whisks it out. These auto services are unobtrusive because automatic cut-off switches prevent them from occurring whenever a mass in a room is radiating at blood temperature. Such a house can become untidy, but not dirty. Five minutes of straightening, a few swipes at children’s fingermarks, and her day’s housekeeping is done. Oftener than sheets were changed in Mr. McKinley’s day, this housewife rolls out a fresh layer of sheeting on each sitting surface and stuffs the discard down the oubliette. This is easy; there is a year’s supply on a roll concealed in each chair or couch. The tissue sticks by pressure until pulled loose and does not obscure the pattern and color. You go into the family room, sit down, and remark on the lovely day. “Isn’t it?” she answers. “Come sunbathe with me.” The sunny patio gives excuse for bare skin by anyone’s standards; thankfully she throws off the robe and stretches out on a couch. You hesitate a moment. After all, she is your own grandchild, so why not? You undress quickly, since you left your outer wrap and shoes at the door (only barbarians wear street shoes in a house) and what remains is easily discarded. Your grandparents had to get used to a mid-century beach. It was no easier for them. On the other hand, their bodies were wrinkled and old, whereas yours is not. The triumphs of endocrinology, of cosmetics, of plastic surgery, of figure control in every way are such that a woman need not change markedly from maturity until old age. A woman can keep her body as firm and slender as she wishes and most of them so wish. This has produced a paradox: the United States has the highest percentage of old people in all its two and a quarter centuries, yet it seems to have a larger proportion of handsome young women than ever before. “Don’t whistle, son! That’s your grandmother.” This garden is half sunbathing patio, complete with shrubs and flowers, lawn and couches, and half swimming pool. The day, though sunny, is quite cold but not in the garden, nor is the pool chill. The garden appears to be outdoors, but is not; it is covered by a bubble of transparent plastic, blown and cured on the spot. You are inside the bubble; the sun is outside; you cannot see the plastic. She invites you to lunch; you protest. “Nonsense!” she answers, “I like to cook.” Into the house she goes. You think of following, but it is deliciously warm in the March sunshine and you are feeling relaxed to be away from the city. You locate a switch on the side of the couch, set it for gentle massage, and let the couch knead your troubles away. The couch notes your heart rate and breathing; as they slow, so does it. As you fall asleep it stops. Meanwhile your hostess has been “slaving away over a hot stove.” To be precise, she has allowed a menu selector to pick out an 800-calory, 4-ration-point luncheon. It is a random choice gadget, somewhat like a slot machine, which has in it the running inventory of her larder and which will keep hunting until it turns up a balanced meal. Some housewives claim that it takes the art out of cookery, but our hostess is one of many who have accepted it thankfully as an endless source of new menus. Its choice is limited today as it has been three months since she has done grocery shopping. She rejects several menus; the selector continues patiently to turn up combinations until she finally accepts one based around fish disguised as lamb chops. Your hostess takes the selected items from shelves or the freezer. All are prepared; some are pre-cooked. Those still to be cooked she puts into her well, her “processing equipment,” though she calls it a “stove.” Part of it traces its ancestry to diathermy equipment; another feature is derived from metal enameling processes. She sets up cycles, punches buttons, and must wait two or three minutes for the meal to cook. She spends the time checking her ration accounts. Despite her complicated kitchen, she doesn’t eat as well as her great grandmother did too many people and too few acres. Never mind; the tray she carries out to the patio is well laden and beautiful. You are both willing to nap again when it is empty. You wake to find that she has burned the dishes and is recovering from her “exertions” in her refresher. Feeling hot and sweaty from your nap you decide to use it when she comes out. There is a wide choice offered by the ‘fresher, but you limit yourself to a warm shower growing gradually cooler, followed by warm air drying, a short massage, spraying with scent, and dusting with powder. Such a simple routine is an insult to a talented machine. Your host arrives home as you come out; he has taken a holiday from his engineering job and has had the two boys down at the beach. He kisses his wife, shouts, “Hi, Duchess!” at you, and turns to the video, setting it to hunt and sample the newscasts it has stored that day. His wife sends the boys in to ‘fresh themselves, then says, “Have a nice day, dear?” He answers, “The traffic was terrible. Had to make the last hundred miles on automatic. Anything on the phone for me?” “Weren’t you on relay?” “Didn’t set it. Didn’t want to be bothered.” He steps to the house phone, plays back his calls, finds nothing he cares to bother with but the machine goes ahead and prints one message; he pulls it out and tears it off. “What is it?” his wife asks. “Telestat from Luna City from Aunt Jane.” “What does she say?” “Nothing much. According to her, the Moon is a great place and she wants us to come visit her.” “Not likely!” his wife answers. “Imagine being shut up in an air-conditioned cave.” “When you are Aunt Jane’s age, my honey lamb, and as frail as she is, with a bad heart thrown in, you’ll go to the Moon and like it. Low gravity is not to be sneezed at Auntie will probably live to be a hundred and twenty, heart trouble and all.” “Would you go to the Moon?” she asks. “If I needed to and could afford it.” He turns to you. “Right?” You consider your answer. Life still looks good to you and stairways are beginning to be difficult. Low gravity is attractive, even though it means living out your days at the Geriatrics Foundation on the Moon. “It might be fun to visit,” you answer. “One wouldn’t have to stay.” Hospitals for old people on the Moon? Lets not be silly. Or is it silly? Might it not be a logical and necessary outcome of our world today? Space travel we will have, not fifty years from now, but much sooner. It’s breathing down our necks. As for geriatrics on the Moon, for most of us no price is too high and no amount of trouble is too great to extend the years of our lives. It is possible that low gravity, one sixth, on the Moon, may not lengthen lives; nevertheless it may we don’t know yet and it will most certainly add greatly to comfort on reaching that inevitable age when the burden of dragging around one’s body is almost too much, or when we would otherwise resort to an oxygen tent to lessen the work of a worn-out heart. By the rules of prophecy, such a prediction is probable, rather than impossible. But the items and gadgets suggested above are examples of timid prophecy. What are the rules of prophecy, if any? Look at the graph shown here. The solid curve is what has been going on this past century. It represents many things use of power, speed of transport, numbers of scientific and technical workers, advances in communication, average miles traveled per person per year, advances in mathematics, the rising curve of knowledge. Call it the curve of human achievement. What is the correct way to project this curve into the future? Despite everything, there is a stubborn “common sense” tendency to project it along dotted line number one like the patent office official of a hundred years back who quit his job “because everything had already been invented.” Even those who don’t expect a slowing up at once, tend to expect us to reach a point of diminishing returns, dotted line number two. Very daring minds are willing to predict that we will continue our present rate of progress, dotted line number three-a tangent. But the proper way to project the curve is dotted line number four for there is no reason, mathematical, scientific, or historical, to expect that curve to flatten out, or to reach a point of diminishing returns, or simply to go on as a tangent. The correct projection, by all facts known today, is for the curve to go on up indefinitely with increasing steepness. The timid little predictions earlier in this article actually belong to curve one, or, at most, to curve two. You can count on the changes in the next fifty years at least eight times as great as the changes of the past fifty years. The Age of Science has not yet opened. AXIOM: A “nine-days’ wonder” is taken as a matter of course on the tenth day. AXIOM: A “common sense” prediction is sure to err on the side of timidity. AXIOM: The more extravagant a prediction sounds the more likely it is to come true. So let’s have a few free-swinging predictions about the future. Some will be wrong but cautious predictions are sure to be wrong. 1. Interplanetary travel is waiting at your front door C.O.D. It’s yours when you pay for it. “a.” 2. Contraception and control of disease is revising relations between sexes to an extent that will change our entire social and economic structure. (b) 5. The most important military fact of this century is that there is no way to repel an attack from outer space. (c) 4. It is utterly impossible that the United States will start a “preventive war.” We will fight when attacked, either directly or in a territory we have guaranteed to defend. (d) 5. In fifteen years the housing shortage will be solved by a “breakthrough” into new technology which will make every house now standing as obsolete as privies. (e) 6. We’ll all be getting a little hungry by and by. 7. The cult of the phony in art will disappear. So-called “modern art” will be discussed only by psychiatrists. 8. Freud will be classed as a pre-scientific, intuitive pioneer and psychoanalysis will be replaced by a growing, changing “operational psychology” based on measurement and prediction. 9. Cancer, the common cold, and tooth decay will all be conquered; the revolutionary new problem in medical research will be to accomplish “regeneration,” meaning, to enable a man to grow a new leg, rather than fit him with an artificial limb. (f) 10. By the end of this century mankind will have explored this solar system, and the first ship intended to reach the nearest star will be a-building. (g) 11. Your personal telephone will be small enough to carry in your handbag. Your house telephone will record messages, answer simple queries, and transmit vision. 12. Intelligent life will be found on Mars. (h) 13. A thousand miles an hour at a cent a mile will be commonplace; short hauls will be made in evacuated subways at extreme speeds. (i) 14. A major objective of applied physics will be to control gravity. ( j ) 15. We will not achieve a “world state” in the predictable future. Nevertheless, Communism will vanish from this planet. (k) 16. Increasing mobility will disenfranchise a majority of the population. About 1990 a constitutional amendment will do away with state lines while retaining the semblance. 17. All aircraft will be controlled by a giant radar net run on a continent-wide basis by a multiple electronic “brain.” 18. Fish and yeast will become our principal sources of proteins. Beef will be a luxury; lamb and mutton will disappear. (l) 19. Mankind will not destroy itself, nor will “civilization” be destroyed. (m) Here are things we won’t get soon, if ever: Travel through time. Travel faster than the speed of light “Radio” transmission of matter. Manlike robots with manlike reactions. Laboratory creation of life. Real understanding of what “thought” is and how it is related to matter. Scientific proof of personal survival after death. Nor a permanent end to war. (I don’t like that prediction any better than you do.) Prediction of gadgets is a parlor trick anyone can learn; but only a fool would attempt to predict details of future history (except as fiction, so labeled); there are too many unknowns and no techniques for integrating them even if they were known. Even to make predictions about overall trends in technology is now most difficult. In fields where before World War II there was one man working in public, there are now ten, or a hundred, working in secret. There may be six men in the country who have a clear picture of what is going on in science today. There may not be even one. This is in itself a trend. Many leading scientists consider it a factor as disabling as the nonsense of Lysenkoism is to Russian technology. Nevertheless there are clear-cut trends which are certain to make this coming era enormously more productive and interesting than the frantic one we have just passed through. Among them are: Cybernetics: The study of communication and control of mechanisms and organisms. This includes the wonderful field of mechanical and electronic “brains” but is not limited to it. These “brains” are a factor in themselves that will speed up technical progress the way a war does. Semantics: A field which seems concerned only with definitions of words. It is not; it is a frontal attack on epistemology that is to say, how we know what we know, a subject formerly belonging to long-haired philosophers. New tools of mathematics and log, such as calculus of statement, Boolean logic, morphological analysis, generalized symbology, newly invented mathematics of every sort there is not space even to name these enormous fields, but they offer us hope in every other field medicine, social relations, biology, economics, anything. Biochemistry: Research into the nature of protoplasm, into enzyme chemistry, viruses, etc., give hope not only that we may conquer disease, but that we may someday understand the mechanisms of life itself. Through this, and with the aid of cybernetic machines and radioactive isotopes, we may eventually acquire a rigor of chemistry. Chemistry is not a discipline today; it is a jungle. We know that chemical behavior depends on the number of orbital electrons in an atom and that physical and chemical properties follow the pattern called the Periodic Table. We don’t know much else, save by cut-and-try, despite the great size and importance of the chemical industry. When chemistry becomes a discipline, mathematical chemists will design new materials, predict their properties, and tell engineers how to make them without ever entering a laboratory. We’ve got a long way to go on that one! Nucleonics: We have yet to find out what makes the atom tick. Atomic power? Yes, we’ll have it, in convenient packages when we understand the nucleus. The field of radioisotopes alone is larger than was the entire known body of science in 1900. Before we are through with these problems, we may find out how the universe is shaped and why. Not to mention enormous unknown vistas best represented by? Some physicists are now using two time scales, the T-scale, and the tau-scale. Three billion years on one scale can equal an incredibly split second on the other scale and yet both apply to you and your kitchen stove. Of such anarchy is our present state in physics. For such reasons we must insist that the Age of Science has not yet opened. The greatest crisis facing us is not Russia, not the Atom bomb, not corruption in government, not encroaching hunger, nor the morals of young. It is a crisis in the organization and accessibility of human knowledge. We own an enormous “encyclopedia” which isn’t even arranged alphabetically. Our “file cards” are spilled on the floor, nor were they ever in order. The answers we want may be buried somewhere in the heap, but it might take a lifetime to locate two already known facts, place them side by side and derive a third fact, the one we urgently need. Call it the Crisis of the Librarian. We need a new “specialist who is not a specialist, but a synthesist. (n) We need a new science to be the perfect secretary to all other sciences. But we are not likely to get either one in a hurry and we have a powerful lot of grief before us in the meantime. Fortune-tellers can always be sure of repeat customers by predicting what the customer wants to hear, it matters not whether the prediction comes true. Contrariwise, the weatherman is often blamed for bad weather. Brace yourself. In 1900 the cloud on the horizon was no bigger than a man’s hand but what lay ahead was the Panic of 1907, World War One, the panic following it, the Depression, Fascism, World War Two, the Atom Bomb, and Red Russia. Today the clouds obscure the sky, and the wind that overturns the world is sighing in the distance. The period immediately ahead will be the roughest, cruelest one in the long, hard history of mankind. It will probably include the worst World War of them all. It might even end with a war with Mars, God save the mark! Even if we are spared that fantastic possibility, it is certain that there will be no security anywhere, save what you dig out of your own inner spirit. But what of that picture we drew of domestic luxury and tranquillity for Missus Middleclass, style 2000 A.D.? She lived through it. She survived. Our prospects need not dismay you, not if you or your kin were at Bloody Nose Ridge, at Gettysburg or trudged across the Plains. You and I are here because we carry the genes of uncountable ancestors who fought and won against death in all its forms. We’re tough. We’ll survive. Most of us. We’ve lasted through the preliminary bouts; the main event is coming up. But it’s not for sissies. The Last thing to come fluttering out of Pandora’s box was Hope without which men die. The gathering wind will not destroy everything, nor will the Age of Science change everything. Long after the first star ship leaves for parts unknown, there will still be outhouses in upstate New York, there will still be steers in Texas, and no doubt the English will still stop for tea. Afterthoughts, fifteen years later. (a) And now we are paying for it and the cost is high. But, for reasons understandable only to bureaucrats, we have almost halted development of a nuclear-powered spacecraft when success was in sight. Never mind; if we don’t, another country will. By the end of this century space travel will be cheap. (b) This trend is so much more evident now than it was fifteen years ago that I am tempted to call it a fulfilled prophecy. Vast changes in sex relations are evident all around us with the oldsters calling it “moral decay” and the youngsters ignoring them and taking it for granted. Surface signs: books such as “Sex and the Single Girl” are smash hits; the formerly-taboo four-letter words are now seen both in novels and popular magazines; the neologism “swinger” has come into the language; courts are conceding that nudity and semi-nudity are now parts of the mores. But the end is not yet; this revolution will go much farther and is now barely started. The most difficult speculation for a science fiction writer to undertake is to imagine correctly the secondary implications of a new factor. Many people correctly anticipated the coming of the horseless carriage; some were bold enough to predict that everyone would use them and the horse would virtually disappear. But I know of no writer, fiction or non-fiction, who saw ahead of time the vast change in the courting and mating habits of Americans which would result primarily from the automobile a change which the diaphragm and the oral contraceptive merely confirmed. So far as I know, no one even dreamed of the change in sex habits the automobile would set off. There is some new gadget in existence today which will prove to be equally revolutionary in some other way equally unexpected. You and I both know of this gadget, by name and by function but we don’t know which one it is nor what its unexpected effect will be. This is why science fiction is not prophecy and why fictional speculation can be so much fun both to read and to write. (c) I flatly stand by this one. True, we are now working on Nike-Zeus and Nike-X and related systems and plan to spend billions on such systems and we know that others are doing the same thing. True, it is possible to hit an object in orbit or trajectory. Nevertheless this prediction is as safe as predicting tomorrow’s sunrise. Anti-aircraft fire never stopped air attacks; it simply made them expensive. The disadvantage in being at the bottom of a deep “gravity well” is very great; gravity gauge will be as crucial in the coming years as wind gauge was in the days when sailing ships controlled empires. The nation that controls the Moon will control the Earth but no one seems willing these days to speak that nasty fact out loud. (d) Since 1950 we have done so in several theaters and are doing so as this is written, in Viet Nam. “Preventive” or “pre-emptive” war seems as unlikely as ever, no matter who is in the White House. Here is a new prediction: World War Three, as a major, all-out war, will not take place at least until 1980 and could easily hold off until 2000. This is a very happy prediction compared with the situation in 1950, as those years of grace may turn up basic factors which (hopefully!) might postpone disaster still longer. We were much closer to ultimate disaster around 1955 than we are today much closer indeed than we were at the time of the Cuban Confrontation in 1962. But the public never knew it. All in all, things look pretty good for survival, for the time being and that is as good a break as our ancestors ever had. It was far more dangerous to live in London in 1664 to 5 than it is to live in a city threatened by H-bombs today. (e) Here I fell flat on my face. There has been no breakthrough in housing, nor is any now in prospect instead the ancient, wasteful methods of building are now being confirmed by public subsidies. The degree of our backwardness in this field is hard to grasp; we have never seen a modern house. Think what an automobile would be if each one were custom-built from materials fetched to your home what would it look like, what would it do, and how much would it cost. But don’t set the cost lower than 100,000 dollars, nor the speed higher than 10 miles per hour, if you want to be realistic about the centuries of difference between the housing industry and the automotive industry. I underestimated, through wishful thinking, the power of human stupidity, a fault fatal to prophecy. (f) In the meantime spectacular progress has been made in organ transplants and the problem of regeneration is related to this one. Biochemistry and genetics have made a spectacular breakthrough in “cracking the genetic code.” It is a tiny crack, however, with a long way to go before we will have the human chromosomes charted and still longer before we will be able to “tailor” human beings by gene manipulation. The possibility is there but not by year 2000. This is probably just as well. If we aren’t bright enough to build decent houses, are we bright enough to play God with the architecture of human beings? (g) Our editor suggested that I had been too optimistic on this one but I still stand by it. It is still thirty-five years to the end of the century. For perspective, look back thirty-five years to 1930 the American Rocket Society had not yet been founded then. Another curve, similar to the one herewith in shape but derived entirely from speed of transportation, extrapolates to show faster-than-light travel by year 2000. I guess I’m chicken, for I am not predicting FTL ships by then, if ever. But the prediction still stands without hedging. (h) Predicting intelligent life on Mars looks pretty silly after those dismal photographs. But I shan’t withdraw it until Mars has been thoroughly explored. As yet we really have no idea and no data as to just how ubiquitous and vaned life may be in this galaxy; it is conceivable that life as we don’t know it can evolve on any sort of a planet, and nothing in our present knowledge of chemistry rules this out. All the talk has been about life-as-we-know-it-which means terrestrial conditions. But if you feel that this shows in me a childish reluctance to give up thoats and zitidars and beautiful Martian princesses until forced to, I won’t argue with you I’ll just wait. (i) I must hedge number thirteen; the “cent” I meant was scaled by the 1950 dollar. But our currency has been going through a long steady inflation, and no nation in history has ever gone as far as we have along this route without reaching the explosive phase of inflation. Ten-dollar hamburgers? Brother, we are headed for the hundred-dollar hamburger for the barter-only hamburger. But this is only an inconvenience rather than a disaster as long as there is plenty of hamburger. (j) This prediction stands. But today physics is in a tremendous state of flux with new data piling up faster than it can be digested; it is anybody’s guess as to where we are headed, but the wilder you guess, the more likely you are to hit it lucky. With “elementary particles” of nuclear physics now totaling about half the number we used to use to list the “immutable” chemical elements, a spectator needs a program just to keep track of the players. At the other end of the scale, “quasars” quasi-stellar bodies have come along; radio astronomy is now bigger than telescopic astronomy used to be; and we have redrawn our picture of the universe several times, each time enlarging it and making it more complex I haven’t seen this week’s theory yet, which is well, as it would be out of date before this gets into print. Plasma physics was barely started in 1950; the same for solid-state physics. This is the Golden Age of physics and it’s an anarchy. (k) I stand flatly behind prediction number fifteen. (I) I’ll hedge number eighteen just a little. Hunger is not now a problem in the USA and need not be in the year 2000 but hunger as a world problem and problem for us if we were conquered, a distinct possibility by 2000. Between our present status and that of subjugation lies a whole spectrum of political and economic possible shapes to the future under which we would share the worldwide hunger to a greater or lesser extent. And the problem grows. We can expect to have to feed around half a billion Americans circa year 2000-our present huge surpluses would then represent acute shortages even if we never shipped a ton of wheat to India. (m) I stand by prediction number nineteen. I see no reason to change any of the negative predictions which follow the numbered affirmative ones. They are all conceivably possible; they are all wildly unlikely by year 2000. Some of them are debatable if the terms are defined to suit the affirmative side definitions of “life” and “manlike,” for example. Let it stand that I am not talking about an amino acid in one case, nor a machine that plays chess in the other. (n) Today the forerunners of these synthesists are already at work in many places. Their titles may be anything; their degrees may be in anything or they may have no degrees. Today they are called “operations researchers,” or sometimes “systems development engineers,” or other interim tags. But they are all interdisciplinary people, generalists, not specialists the new Renaissance Man. The very explosion of data which forced most scholars to specialize very narrowly created the necessity which evoked this new non-specialist. So far, this “unspecialty” is in its infancy; its methodology is inchoate, the results are sometimes trivial, and no one knows how to train to become such a man. But the results are often spectacularly brilliant, too this new man may yet save all of us. I’m an optimist. I have great confidence in Homo Sapiens. We have rough times ahead but when didn’t we? Things have always been “tough all over.” H-bombs, Communism, race riots, water shortage, all nasty problems. But not basic problems, merely current ones. We have three basic and continuing problems: The problem of population explosion; the problem of data explosion; and the problem of government. Population problems have a horrid way of solving themselves when they are not solved rationally; the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse are always saddled up and ready to ride. The data explosion is now being solved, mostly by cybernetics’ and electronics’ men rather than by librarians and if the solutions are less than perfect, at least they are better than what Grandpa had to work with. The problem of government has not been solved either by the ‘Western Democracies” or the “Peoples’ Democracies,” as of now. Anyone who thinks the people of the United States have solved the problem of government is using too short a time scale. The peoples of the world are now engaged in a long, long struggle with no end in sight, testing whether one concept works better than another; in that conflict millions have already died and it is possible that hundreds of millions will die in it before year 2000. But not all. I hold both opinions and preferences as to the outcome. But my personal preference for a maximum of looseness is irrelevant; what we are experiencing is an evolutionary process in which personal preference matters, at most, only statistically. Biologists, ecologists in particular are working around to the idea that natural selection and survival of the fittest is a notion that applies more to groups and how they are structured than it does to individuals. The present problem will solve itself in the cold terms of revolutionary survival, and in the course of it both sides will make changes in group structure. The system that survives might be called “Communism” or it might be called “Democracy” (the latter is my guess) but one thing we can be certain of: it will not resemble very closely what either Marx or Jefferson had in mind. Or it might be called by some equally inappropriate neologism; political tags are rarely logical. For Man is rarely logical. But I have great confidence in Man, based on his past record. He is mean, ornery, cantankerous, illogical, emotional and amazingly hard to kill. Religious leaders have faith in the spiritual redemption of Man; humanist leaders subscribe to a belief in the perfectibility of Man through his own efforts; but I am not discussing either of these two viewpoints. My confidence in our species lies in its past history and is founded quite as much on Man’s so-called vices as on his so-called virtues. When the chips are down, quarrelsomeness and selfishness can be as useful to the survival of the human race as is altruism, and pig-headedness can be a trait superior to sweet reasonableness. If this were not true, these “vices” would have died out through the early deaths of their hosts, at least a half million years back. I have a deep and abiding confidence in Man as he is, imperfect and often unlovable, plus still greater confidence in his potential. No matter how tough things are, Man copes. He comes up with adequate answers from illogical reasons. But the answers work. Last to come out of Pandora’s Box was a gleaming, beautiful thing eternal Hope.

Rahan. Episode Forty One. The Clay Cliff. The rain flowed inside the cave and the son of Crao, drawing furrows within the ground, amused himself channeling these rivulets. Rahan can direct the water wherever he wants! The storm ceased as suddenly as it had broken out and the sun returned, setting the distant red mountains ablaze. The son of wild ages walked for a long time before arriving in sight of a river. As he was covered in mud he wanted to bathe. Page Two: A moment later he made a strange discovery. Jars and earthenware dishes of all kinds were lying at the bottom of the river! Rahan knew that certain clans had the art of fashioning such objects. But why had these been abandoned at the river? Rahan must be very close to a village. Rahan wants to know! Shortly after, he discovered a curious landscape. The shore crossed an immense plateau. Men were busy near the fire which surrounded a large pit. Others were on the lookout near a staircase cut into the side of the earthen cliff. Page Three: These watchers suddenly let out a cry and the whole clan, panicked, took refuge in the cave. Gramh arrives! Gramh arrives! Rahan glimpsed in the plain, a group of hunters heading towards the valley. The “Cliff Clan” seems to fear the Forest Clan! Shortly after the hunters climbed the clay stairs. Their leader rested on the plateau. Show yourself, Tabara! Do not stay down like a coward! A man, undoubtedly the leader of the cliff clan, came out of the cave, carrying a large jar. Tabara, fearful, came to place the offering at the feet of Gramh. We can only offer you this jar, Gramh! Just one jar! You will not mock us for long Tabara! Page Four: And if tomorrow we don't have ten similar jars. Woe to yours! Smash! To destroy an object that required days of work in this way, you must be a hunter without brains! Oh! Who are you? Tabara stepped back, surprised and worried. Gramh growled in fury. I am Rahan, the son of Crao. And Rahan despises the savagery of your kind! I will break your skull like I broke this jar! He launched himself, axe high. But his attack was immediately stopped. Gramh is very vain! Crack! The two men rolled on the ground very close to the large pit where the fire was crackling. Gaining the upper hand, Rahan suddenly snatched his opponent's ax. Page Five: It is Rahan who could break your skull! But Rahan does not like to steal the life of "Those-Who-Walk-Upright"! The axe fluttered into the blaze. But you follow the path of this weapon if your hunters make one more move. Gramh's men had raised their spears. But their leader was at the mercy of the son of fierce ages. Go back down to the plain! Return to your people! Obey, and Rahan will spare Gramh! Rahan only released Gramh when the hunters were far into the wilderness. You humiliated Gramh! But Gramh will take revenge! A little later. Rahan was courageous in taking the side of our clan. But I fear Gramh will take cruel revenge against Rahan and against us. Page Six: Tabara explained how, thanks to the red earth, his people had become masters in the art of pottery. The ancients taught us how to use fire to. Harden earth objects. Rahan finally understood the role of this pit surrounded by the blaze. But why is the cliff clan abandoning these wonderful objects? At the river? Tabara gave a hint of sadness and his gaze became distant. We are not abandoning them. We hide them! Otherwise the Gramh horde would steal them from us! Argh! Things have changed a lot since this brute became leader of the “Clan below”! Tabara recalled the happy times when the two clans lived in peace. At that time “Those below” brought us meat. And we gave them in exchange the objects they needed. Page Seven: But Gramh came! He always demands earthen objects, but he never brings more meat! It was his hunters who dug a path in the cliff. This makes it easy for them to hoist themselves onto the plateau. Whereas, without this path, they would have to go around the mountain for days! Since Gramh is disloyal, why do you not destroy this path? Tabara has thought about it! But he knows that Gramh's anger would be terrible! And Tabara does not want to sacrifice his own! Tabara is a wise leader. But Gramh abuses his wisdom. Rahan does not like it! The son of Crao was moved and observed these men and women who were modeling the clay. He guessed they were defenseless against the robust hunters of Gramh. Page Eight: Rahan hates seeing “Those-Who-Walk-Upright” clash! But he knows that if you give in to fear, Gramh will demand even more objects. Always more objects! Tabara knows this too! But what can he do? Only one thing will prove to “Those Below” that the cliff clan does not fear them! Gramh broke a magnificent jar. He should pay for this stupid act! The men of the clan nodded silently but their eyes still expressed doubt and fear. But the son of Crao was able to convince himself because, that night. Fear nothing Tabara! Everything will be fine! Rahan and Tabara arrived at the bottom of the clay staircase. This is the first time in many moons that a man of our clan has dared to tread on the territory of “Those Below”. Page Nine: Perhaps Tabara should not have listened to Rahan! It is madness to go and challenge Gramh in his camp! From the top of the Cliff, the two men could be observed running towards the forest. The sense of smell of the son of the wild-ages was such that it only took him a moment to orient himself. This way Tabara! Gramh and his hunters are grilling meat! Indeed, a little later. Today Gramh met “The Fire-Haired Enemy” on the terrace! But tomorrow Gramh will take revenge! We will climb the cliff and we will kill Tabara and ten of his men! Rahan and Tabara were crawling in the brush around the fire. Look! This is their game reserve! In an enclosure made of trunks were herded enormous wild boars. The smile of the son of Crao shone. We will prove to Gramh that we are not afraid of him! Page Ten: A moment later he cut the vines holding the trunks. Back Tabara! Backward! The wild boars rushed towards the breach while the hunters, alerted by the noises, came running. The “Two-tooths” are running away! Gramh and his men were unable to stop the pack, which disappeared into the forest. An entire hunting season lost! But how did the “Two-Tooths” escape? A distant voice answered Gramh. For many moons you have tormented the clan of the cliff, Gramh! But this night is the last of your reign! What we have just done is just the beginning! We will retaliate for every one of your bad deeds from now on! Page Eleven: Gramh had recognized the voice. The “Enemy-with-fire-Hair”! He dared to come and challenge us in the forest! Woe to him! Gramh replied. It has been twice that you have opposed us “Man-From-Elsewhere”! Next time, you will go to the “Territory of Shadows”! Rahan and Tabara do not hear. Already far away, they were about to leave the forest when. A “Two-Teeth”! A large boar charged them. Don't move, Tabara. Rahan knows how to defeat the "Two-Tooths"! Worried and yet admiring, the leader of the cliff clan saw his companion stand in front of the beast which was bearing down on him, head down. Page Twelve: Ra-ha-ha! At the moment he was about to be knocked down, Rahan jumped. The blade of his knife disappeared into the boar's spine! The two teeth collapsed like lightning. Ah if my brothers had the audacity and agility of Rahan, we would hunt ourselves! We would no longer be at the mercy of Gramh! Rahan will teach your people to hunt! In the meantime, let's bring them back this "Two Teeth"! But it belongs to Gramh! The jar that Gramh stupidly broke belonged to Tabara! That Jar was worth a “Two Teeth” do you not think? Rahan is right! The beast was heavy. The two men had great difficulty dragging her to the foot of the clay cliff. Cries of joy and amazement greeted their return. Page Thirteen: The boar was hoisted up using strong lines. This is how we mounted the game and brought down the objects. When peace reigned between our clan and that of the hunters! A little later. You have seen that it is possible to resist Gramh! You must prove to this savage that you do not fear him! Hum. We don't know how to fight any more than we know how to hunt! What will we do when Gramh attacks us? Because you have heard: his clan will come. And tomorrow kill ten of ours! When Tabara and his men took refuge in their cave. The son of Crao gazed for a long time at the cliff lit by the moon. They are right! They do not know how to hunt or fight! And Rahan will not be able to face Gramh's hunters alone! Page Fourteen: The cliff clan could abandon this territory. But where would they find the “land-to-make-objects”? No, running away is not a solution! We must at all costs make the hunters below listen to reason! The son of Crao was meditating and his gaze wandered over the plain. On the staircase carved in the clay, on the river. And suddenly his face relaxed. Rahan knows how to repel hunters! He saw himself again, having fun digging furrows which channeled the small rivulets of water. Rahan can direct the water wherever he wants! A moment later, he entrusted his project to Tabara. But where do you come from to have such curious, wonderful ideas!? Page Fifteen: Rahan just observes nature. He remembers what he sees and it is often very useful to him! Tabara was already giving orders to his men. Who immediately set to work. Shortly after, a strange effervescence reigned over the clay cliff. A trench was dug which, starting from the staircase, was to reach the river. Gramh and his hunters always arrive at sunrise! We will not have time to finish the "Water Path"! As the darkness slowly dissipated, Tabara's men redoubled their ardor. They were digging very close to the river, When. Here they are! “Those from below” had just appeared on the plain. There were dozens of them. At their head walked the leader. Gramh the savage! Page Sixteen: The hunters arrived at the foot of the cliff just as the sun was rising over the forest. Gramh was the first to start climbing the dirt steps. Back Gramh! There is still time to avoid combat! Ha-ha-ha! Would the enemy-from-elsewhere be afraid? Gramh was still going up, followed by his men. Do not expect to be able to oppose my vengeance, "Fire-hair"! Hunters protected the ascension of Their Leader. Rahan had to throw himself back to avoid their arrows. And Gramh, ax in hand, hoisted himself onto the clay plateau! I promised to send you to the “Shadow Territory”, “Fire-hair”! I will keep my Word! Page Seventeen: Like the day before, Gramh threw himself at Rahan and, like the day before, both men rolled on the ground. And it was at this moment that a clamor rang out. The water from the river was rushing into the trench! The flood rushed towards the stairs, breaking over the clay! The hunters, surprised, clung to each other. But it was impossible for them to resist this torrent of water! Argh! Argh! Unable to hold on to the clay steps which had become sticky. They were falling in clusters into the void! And it was on such viscous ground that the melee between Rahan and Gramh continued. To me hunters! To me! What are you waiting for? Page Eighteen: Absorbed in combat, Gramh had not yet realized that he was the only one who had hoisted himself onto the plateau! Your men can do nothing more for you! The most daring tried to climb again. But the steps slipped beneath them and the downpour threw them off balance. Argh! We will never climb the cliff! It would take us days to get around the mountain and rescue Gramh! Do you think Gramh wants your help? Things were much better before he became our leader! Gramh! And while doubt seeped into the minds of the hunters, the melee between Rahan and Gramh continued. Page Nineteen: The son of Crao had just disarmed his adversary. But both were rolling into the trench. Although the water was shallow, its current was strong. And it carried the fighters towards the abyss. You will die with me “Fire-hair”! No! Rahan will not go to the territory of shadows! Savagely, the son of fierce ages plunged his knife into the soft earth. The ivory weapon slowed down the slide for an instant. But Gramh gripped Rahan's ankle fiercely. Gramh wants this! Rahan's foot extended, hitting his adversary's jaw, who let go. Page Twenty: Ra-ha-ha! Unable to hold on to the viscous clay, Gramh slipped into the trench, and disappeared into the void. A moment later, his men observed his dislocated corpse at the foot of the hill. No vengeful cries arose. These men, curiously enough, seemed relieved by the outcome of this fight. Gramh-the-savage is no more! But your clan remains! I am sure that peace will return between you and those on the cliff! “Those-from-below” and “Those-from-the-cliff” will, as before, loyally exchange their game and their objects. Happiness will return to this land. The mixed clamors of the two clans filled Rahan's heart with joy. The son of Crao felt very proud to have, once again, brought harmony between "Those-who-walk-Upright”, his brothers! Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html

ASSIGNMENT IN ETERNITY. 1953 by Robert “A.” Heinlein. Renewed 1981 by Robert “A.” Heinlein. Contents: 1. Gulf. 2. Elsewhen. 3. Lost Legacy. 4. Jerry Was a Man. GULF. THE FIRST-QUARTER ROCKET from Moonbase put him down at Pied-a-Terre. The name he was traveling under began-by foresight-with the letter “A”; he was through port inspection and into the shuttle tube to the city ahead of the throng. Once in the tube car he went to the men’s washroom and locked himself in. Quickly he buckled on the safety belt he found there, snapped its hooks to the wall fixtures, and leaned over awkwardly to remove a razor from his bag. The surge caught him in that position; despite the safety belt he bumped his head-and swore. He straightened up and plugged in the razor. His moustache vanished; he shortened his sideburns, trimmed the corners of his eyebrows, and brushed them up. He towelled his hair vigorously to remove the oil that had sleeked it down, combed it loosely into a wavy mane. The car was now riding in a smooth, unaccelerated 300 miles per hour; he let himself out of the safety belt without unhooking it from the walls and, working very rapidly, peeled off his moonsuit, took from his bag and put on a tweedy casual outfit suited to outdoors on Earth and quite unsuited to Moon Colony’s air-conditioned corridors. His slippers he replaced with walking shoes from the bag; he stood up. Joel Abner, commercial traveler, had disappeared; in his place was Captain Joseph Gilead, explorer, lecturer, and writer. Of both names he was the sole user; neither was his birth name. He slashed the moonsuit to ribbons and flushed it down the water closet, added “Joel Abner’s” identification card; then peeled a plastic skin off his travel bag and let the bits follow the rest. The bag was now pearl grey and rough, instead of dark brown and smooth. The slippers bothered him; he was afraid they might stop up the car’s plumbing. He contented himself with burying them in the waste receptacle. The acceleration warning sounded as he was doing this; he barely had time to get back into the belt. But, as the car plunged into the solenoid field and surged to a stop, nothing remained of Joel Abner but some unmarked underclothing, very ordinary toilet articles, and nearly two dozen spools of microfilm equally appropriate, until examined, to a commercial traveler or a lecturer-writer. He planned not to let them be examined as long as he was alive. He waited in the washroom until he was sure of being last man out of the car, then went forward in to the next car, left by its exit, and headed for the lift to the ground level. “New Age Hotel, sir,” a voice pleaded near his ear. He felt a hand fumbling at the grip of his travel bag. He repressed a reflex to defend the bag and looked the speaker over. At first glance he seemed an under-sized adolescent in a smart uniform and a pillbox cap. Further inspection showed premature wrinkles and the features of a man at least forty. The eyes were glazed. A pituitary case, he thought to himself, and on the hop as well. “New Age Hotel,” the runner repeated. “Best mechanos in town, chief. There’s a discount if you’re just down from the moon.” Captain Gilead, when in town as Captain Gilead, always stayed at the old Savoy. But the notion of going to the New Age appealed to him; in that in credibly huge, busy, and ultramodern hostelry he might remain unnoticed until he had had time to do what had to be done. He disliked mightily the idea of letting go his bag. Nevertheless it would be out of character not to let the runner carry the bag; it would call attention to himself, and the bag. He decided that this unhealthy runt could not outrun him even if he himself were on crutches; it would suffice to keep an eye on the bag. “Lead on, comrade,” he answered heartily, surrendering the bag. There had been no hesitation at all; he had let go the bag even as the hotel runner reached for it. “Okay, chief.” The runner was first man into an empty lift; he went to the back of the car and set the bag down beside him. Gilead placed himself so that his foot rested firmly against his bag and faced forward as other travelers crowded in. The car started. The lift was jammed; Gilead was subjected to body pressures on every side-but he noticed an additional, unusual, and uncalled-for pressure behind him. His right hand moved suddenly and clamped down on a skinny wrist and a hand clutching something. Gilead made no further movement, nor did the owner of the hand attempt to draw away or make any objection. They remained so until the car reached the surface. When the passengers had spilled out he reached behind him with his left hand, recovered his bag and dragged the wrist and its owner out of the car. It was, of course, the runner; the object in his fist was Gilead’s wallet. “You durn near lost that. Chief,” the runner announced with no show of embarrassment. “It was falling out of your pocket.” Gilead liberated the wallet and stuffed it into an inner pocket. “Fell right through the zipper,” he answered cheerfully. “Well, let’s find a cop.” The runt tried to pull away, “You got nothing on me!” Gilead considered the defense. In truth, he had nothing. His wallet was already out of sight. As to witnesses, the other lift passengers were already gone-nor had they seen anything. The lift itself was automatic. He was simply a man in the odd position of detaining another citizen by the wrist. And Gilead himself did not want to talk to the police. He let go that wrist. “On your way, comrade. We’ll call it quits.” The runner did not move. “How about my tip?” Gilead was beginning to like this rascal. Locating a loose half credit in his change pocket he flipped it at the runner, who grabbed it out of the air but still didn’t leave. “I’ll take your bag now. Gimme.” “No, thanks, chum. I can find your delightful inn without further help. One side, please.” “Oh, yeah? How about my commission? I gotta carry your bag, else how they gonna know I brung you in? Gimme.” Gilead was delighted with the creature’s unabashed insistence. He found a two-credit piece and passed it over. “There’s your cumshaw. Now beat it, before I kick your tail up around your shoulders.” “You and who else?” Gilead chuckled and moved away down the concourse toward the station entrance to the New Age Hotel. His subconscious sentries informed him immediately that the runner had not gone back toward the lift as expected, but was keeping abreast him in the crowd. He considered this. The runner might very well be what he appeared to be, common city riffraff who combined casual thievery with his overt occupation. On the other hand. He decided to unload. He stepped suddenly off the sidewalk into the entrance of a drugstore and stopped Just inside the door to buy a newspaper. While his copy was being printed, he scooped up, apparently as an afterthought, three standard pneumo mailing tubes. As he paid for them he palmed a pad of gummed address labels. A glance at the mirrored wall showed him that his shadow had hesitated outside but was still watching him. Gilead went on back to the shop’s soda fountain and slipped into an unoccupied booth. Although the floor show was going on-a remarkably shapely ecdysiast was working down toward her last string of beads-he drew the booth’s curtain. Shortly the call light over the booth flashed discreetly; he called, “Come in!” A pretty and very young waitress came inside the curtain. Her plastic costume covered without concealing. She glanced around. “Lonely?” “No, thanks, I’m tired.” “How about a redhead, then? Real cute.” “I really am tired. Bring me two bottles of beer, unopened, and some pretzels.” “Suit yourself, sport.” She left. With speed he opened the travel bag, selected nine spools of microfilm, and loaded them into the three mailing tubes, the tubes being of the common three-spool size. Gilead then took the filched pad of address labels, addressed the top one to “Raymond Calhoun, P. 0. Box 1060, Chicago” and commenced to draw with great care in the rectangle reserved for electric eye sorter. The address he shaped in arbitrary symbols was intended not to be read, but to be scanned automatically. The hand-written address was merely a precaution, in case a robot sorter should reject his hand-drawn symbols as being imperfect and thereby turn the tube over to a human postal clerk for readdressing. He worked fast, but with the care of an engraver. The waitress returned before he had finished. The call light warned him; he covered the label with his elbow and kept it covered. She glanced at the mailing tubes as she put down the beer and a bowl of pretzels. “Want me to mail those?” He had another instant of split-second indecision. When he had stepped out of the tube car he had been reasonably sure, first, that the persona of Joel Abner, commercial traveler, had not been penetrated, and, second, that the transition from Abner to Gilead had been accomplished without arousing suspicion. The pocket-picking episode had not alarmed him, but had caused him to reclassify those two propositions from calculated certainties to unproved variables. He had proceeded to test them at once; they were now calculated certainties again-of the opposite sort. Ever since he had spotted his erstwhile porter, the New Age runner, as standing outside this same drugstore his subconscious had been clanging like a burglar alarm. It was clear not only that he had been spotted but that they were organized with a completeness and shrewdness he had not believed possible. But it was mathematically probable to the point of certainty that they were not operating through this girl. They had no way of knowing that he would choose to turn aside into this particular drugstore. That she could be used by them he was sure, and she had been out of sight since his first contact with her. But she was clearly not bright enough, despite her alley cat sophistication, to be approached, subverted, instructed and indoctrinated to the point where she could seize an unexpected opportunity, all in a space of time merely adequate to fetch two bottles of beer. No, this girl was simply after a tip. Therefore she was safe. But her costume offered no possibility of concealing three mailing tubes, nor would she be safe crossing the concourse to the post office. He had no wish that she be found tomorrow morning dead in a ditch. “No,” he answered immediately. “I have to pass the post office anyway. But it was a kind thought. Here.” He gave her a half credit. “Thanks.” She waited and stared meaningfully at the beer. He fumbled again in his change pocket, found only a few bits, reached for his wallet and took out a five-pluton note. ‘Take it out of this.” She handed him back three singles and some change. He pushed the change toward her, then waited, frozen, while she picked it up and left. Only then did he hold the wallet closer to his eyes. It was not his wallet. He should have noticed it before, he told himself. Even though there had been only a second from the time he had taken it from?’ the runner’s clutched fingers until he had concealed it in a front pocket, he should have known it-known it and forced the runner to disgorge, even if he had had to skin him alive. But why was he sure that it was not his wallet? It was the proper size and shape, the proper weight and feel-real ostrich skin in these days of synthetics. There was the weathered ink stain which had resulted from carrying a leaky stylus in the same pocket. There was a V-shaped scratch on the front which had happened so long ago he did not recall the circumstances. Yet it was not his wallet. He opened it again. There was the proper amount of money, there were what seemed to be his Explorers’ Club card and his other identity cards, there was a dog-eared flat-photo of a mare he had once owned. Yet the more the evidence showed that it was his, the more certain he became that it was not his. These things were forgeries; they did not feel right. There was one way to find out. He flipped a switch provided by a thoughtful management; the booth; became dark. He took out his penknife and carefully slit a seam back of the billfold pocket. He dipped a finger into a secret pocket thus disclosed and felt around; the space was empty-nor in this case had the duplication of his own wallet been quite perfect; the space should have been lined, but his fingers encountered rough leather. He switched the light back on, put the wallet away, and resumed his interrupted drawing. The loss of the card which should have been in the concealed pocket was annoying, certainly awkward, and conceivably disastrous, but he did not judge that the information on it was jeopardized by the loss of the wallet. The card was quite featureless unless examined by black light; if exposed to visible light-by someone taking the real wallet apart, for example-it had the disconcerting quality of bursting explosively into flame. He continued to work, his mind busy with the wider problem of why they had taken so much trouble to try to keep him from knowing that his wallet was being stolen, and the still wider and more disconcerting question of why they had bothered with his wallet. Finished, he stuffed the remainder of the pad of address labels into a crack between cushions in the booth, palmed the label he had prepared, picked up the bag and the three mailing tubes. One tube he kept separate from the others by a finger. No attack would take place, he judged, in the drug store. The crowded concourse between himself and the post office he would ordinarily have considered equally safe-but not today. A large crowd of people, he knew, are equal to so many trees as witnesses if the dice were loaded with any sort of a diversion. He slanted across the bordering slidewalk and headed directly across the middle toward the post office, keeping as far from other people as he could manage. He had become aware of two men converging on him when the expected diversion took place. It was a blinding light and a loud explosion, followed by screams and startled shouts. The source of the explosion he could imagine; the screams and shouts were doubtless furnished free by the public. Being braced, not for this, but for anything, he refrained even from turning his head. The two men closed rapidly, as on cue. Most creatures and almost all humans fight only when pushed. This can lose them decisive advantage. The two men made no aggressive move of any sort, other than to come close to Gilead-nor did they ever attack. Gilead kicked the first of them in the knee cap, using the side of his foot, a much more certain stroke than with the toe. He swung with his travel bag against the other at the same time, not hurting him but bothering him, spoiling his timing. Gilead followed it with a heavy kick to the man’s stomach. The man whose knee cap he had ruined was on the pavement, but still active-reaching for something, a gun or a knife. Gilead kicked him in the head and stepped over him, continued toward the post office. Slow march-slow march all the way! He must not give the appearance of running away; he must be the perfect respectable citizen, going about his lawful occasions. The post office came close, and still no tap on the shoulder, no denouncing shout, no hurrying footsteps. He reached the post office, was inside. The opposition’s diversion had worked, perfectly, but for Gilead, not for them, there was a short queue at the addressing machine. Gilead joined it, took out his stylus and wrote addresses on the tubes while standing. A man joined the queue almost at once. Gilead made no effort to keep him from seeing what address he was writing; it was “Captain Joseph Gilead, the Explorers’ Club, New York.” When it came his turn to use the symbol printing machine he still made no effort to conceal what keys he was punching, and the symbol address matched the address he had written on each tube. He worked somewhat awkwardly as the previously prepared gummed label was still concealed in his left palm. He went from the addressing machine to the mailing receivers; the man who had been behind him in line followed him without pretending to address anything. Thwonk! And the first tube was away with a muted implosion of compressed air. Thwonk! again and the second was gone, and at the same time Gilead grasped the last one in his left hand, sticking the gummed label down firmly over the address he had just printed on it. Without looking at it he made sure by touch that it was in place, all corners sealed, then, thwonk! It joined its mates. Gilead turned suddenly and trod heavily on the feet of the man crowded close behind him. “Wups! Pardon me,” he said happily and turned away. He was feeling very cheerful; not only had he turned his dangerous charge over into the care of a mindless, utterly reliable, automatic machine which could not be coerced, bribed, drugged, nor subverted by any other means and in whose complexities the tube would be perfectly hidden until it reached a destination known only to Gilead, but also he had just stepped on the corns of one of the opposition. On the steps of the post office he paused beside a policeman who was picking his teeth and staring out at a cluster of people and an ambulance in the middle of the concourse. “What’s up?” Gilead demanded. The cop shifted his toothpick. “First some damn fool sets off fireworks,” he answered, “then two guys get in a fight and blame near ruin each other.” “My goodness!” Gilead commented and set off diagonally toward the New Age Hotel. He looked around for his pick-pocket friend in the lobby, did not see him. Gilead strongly doubted if the runt were on the hotel’s staff. He signed in as Captain Gilead, ordered a suite appropriate to the persona he was wearing, and let himself be conducted to the lift. Gilead encountered the runner coming down just as he and his bellman were about to go up. “Hi, Shorty!” he called out while deciding not to eat anything in this hotel. “How’s business?” The runt looked startled, then passed him without answering, his eyes blank. It was not likely, Gilead considered, that the runt would be used after being detected; therefore some sort of drop box, call station, or headquarters of the opposition was actually inside the hotel. Very well, that would save everybody a lot of useless commuting, and there would be fun for all! In the meantime he wanted a bath. In his suite he tipped the bellman who continued to linger. “Want some company?” “No, thanks, I’m a hermit.” “Try this then.” The bellman inserted Gilead’s room key in the stereo panel, fiddled with the controls, the entire wall lighted up and faded away. A svelte blonde creature, backed by a chorus line, seemed about to leap into Gilead’s lap. “That’s not a tape,” the bellman went on, “that’s a live transmission direct from the Tivoli. We got the best equipment in town.” “So you have,” Gilead agreed, and pulled out his key. The picture blanked; the music stopped. “But I want a bath, so get out-now that you’ve spent four credits of my money.” The bellman shrugged and left. Gilead threw off his clothes and stepped into the ‘fresher. Twenty minutes later, shaved from ear to toe, scrubbed, soaked, sprayed, pummeled, rubbed, scented, powdered, and feeling ten years younger, he stepped out. His clothes were gone. His bag was still there; he looked it over. It seemed okay, itself and contents. There were the proper number of microfilm spools-not that it mattered. Only three of the spools mattered and they were already in the mail. The rest were just shrubbery, copies of his own public lectures. Nevertheless he examined one of them, unspooling a few frames. It was one of his own lectures all right-but not one he had had with him. It was one of his published transcriptions, available in any large book store. “Pixies everywhere,” he remarked and put it back. Such attention to detail was admirable. “Room service!” The service panel lighted up. “Yes, sir?” “My clothes are missing. Chase ‘em up for me.” “The valet has them, sir.” “I didn’t order valet service. Get ‘em back.” The girl’s voice and face were replaced, after a slight delay, by those of a man. “It is not necessary to order valet service here, sir. ‘A New Age guest receives the best.’ “ “Okay, get ‘em back-chop, chop! I’ve got a date with the Queen of Sheba.” “Very good, sir.” The image faded. With wry humor he reviewed his situation. He had already made the possibly fatal error of underestimating his opponent through, he now knew, visualizing that opponent in the unimpressive person of “the runt.” Thus he had allowed himself to be diverted; he should have gone anywhere rather than to the New Age, even to the old Savoy, although that hotel, being a known stamping ground of Captain Gilead, was probably as thoroughly booby-trapped by now as this palatial dive. He must not assume that he had more than a few more minutes to live. Therefore he must use those few minutes to tell his boss the destination of the three important spools of microfilm. Thereafter, if he still were alive, he must replenish his cash to give him facilities for action-the amount of money in “his” wallet, even if it were returned, was useless for any major action. Thirdly, he must report in, close the present assignment, and be assigned to his present antagonists as a case in themselves, quite aside from the matter of the microfilm. Not that he intended to drop Runt and Company even if not assigned to them. True artists were scarce-nailing him down by such a simple device as stealing his pants! He loved them for it and wanted to see more of them, as violently as possible. Even as the image on the room service panel faded he was punching the scrambled keys on the room’s communicator desk. It was possible-certain, that the scramble code he used would be repeated elsewhere in the hotel and the supposed privacy attained by scrambling thereby breached at once. This did not matter; he would have his boss disconnect and call back with a different scramble from the other end. To be sure, the call code of the station to which he was reporting would thereby be breached, but it was more than worthwhile to expend and discard one relay station to get this message through. Scramble pattern set up, he coded-not New Washington, but the relay station he had selected. A girl’s face showed on the screen. “New Age service, sir, Were you scrambling?” “Yes.” “I am veree sorree, sir. The scrambling circuits are being repaired, I can scramble for you from the main board.” “No, thanks, I’ll call in clear.” “I yam ve-ree sor-ree, sir.” There was one clear-code he could use-to be used only for crash priority. This was crash priority. Very well- He punched the keys again without scrambling and waited. The same girl’s face appeared presently. “I am verree soiree, sir; that code does not reply. May I help you?” “You might send up a carrier pigeon.” He cleared the board. The cold breath on the back of his neck was stronger now; he decided to do what he could to make it awkward to kill him just yet. He reached back into his mind and coded in clear the Star-Times. No answer. He tried the Clarion-again no answer. No point in beating his head against it; they did not intend to let him talk outside to anyone. He rang for a bellman, sat down in an easy chair, switched it to “shallow massage,” and luxuriated happily in the chair’s tender embrace. No doubt about it; the New Age did have the best mechanos in town-his bath had been wonderful; this chair was superb. Both the recent austerities of Moon Colony and the probability that this would be his last massage added to his pleasure. The door dilated and a bellman came in-about his own size, Gilead noted. The man’s eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch on seeing Gilead’s oyster-naked condition. “You want company?” Gilead stood up and moved toward him. “No, dearie,” he said grinning, “I want you”, at which he sank three stiffened fingers in the man’s solar plexus. As the man grunted and went down Gilead chopped him in the side of the neck with the edge of his hand. The shoulders of the jacket were too narrow and the shoes too large; nevertheless two minutes later “Captain Gilead” had followed “Joel Abner” to oblivion and Joe, temporary and free-lance bellman, let himself out of the room. He regretted not being able to leave a tip with his predecessor. He sauntered past the passengers lifts, firmly misdirected a guest who had stopped him, and found the service elevator. By it was a door to the “quick drop.” He opened it, reached out and grasped a waiting pulley belt, and, without stopping to belt himself into it, contenting himself with hanging on, he stepped off the edge. In less time than it would have taken him to parachute the drop he was picking himself up off the cushions in the hotel basement and reflecting that lunar gravitation surely played hob with a man’s leg muscles. He left the drop room and started out in an arbitrary direction, but walking as if he were on business and belonged where he was-any exit would do and he would find one eventually. He wandered in and out of the enormous pantry, then found the freight door through which the pantry was supplied. When he was thirty feet from it, it closed and an alarm sounded. He turned back. He encountered two policemen in one of the many corridors under the giant hotel and attempted to brush on past them. One of them stared at him, then caught his arm. “Captain Gilead.” Gilead tried to squirm away, but without showing any skill in the attempt. “What’s the idea?” “You are Captain Gilead.” “And you’re my Aunt Sadie. Let go of my arm, copper.” The policeman fumbled in his pocket with his other hand, pulled out a notebook, Gilead noted that the other officer had moved a safe ten feet away and had a Markheim gun trained on him. “You, Captain Gilead,” the first officer droned, “are charged on a sworn complaint with offering a counterfeit five-pluton note at or about thirteen hours this date at the Grand Concourse drugstore in this city. You are cautioned to come peacefully and are advised that you need not speak at this time. Come along.” The charge might or might not have something to it, thought Gilead; he had not examined closely the money in the substituted wallet. He did not mind being booked, now that the microfilm was out of his possession; to be in an ordinary police station with nothing more sinister to cope with than crooked cops and dumb desk sergeants would be easy street compared with Runt and Company searching for him. On the other hand the situation was too pat, unless the police had arrived close on his heels and found the stripped bellman, gotten his story and started searching. The second policeman kept his distance and did not lower the Markheim gun. That made other consideration academic. “Okay, I’ll go,” he protested. “You don’t have to twist my arm that way. They went up to the weather level and out to the street, and not once did the second cop drop his guard. Gilead relaxed and waited. A police car was balanced at the curb. Gilead stopped. “I’ll walk,” he said. “The nearest station is just around the corner. I want to be booked in my own precinct.” He felt a teeth-chattering chill as the blast from the Markheim hit him; he pitched forward on his face. He was coming to, but still could not coordinate, as they lifted him out of the car. By the time he found himself being half-carried, half-marched down a long corridor he was almost himself again, but with a gap in his memory. He was shoved through a door which clanged behind him. He steadied himself and looked around. “Greetings, friend,” a resonant voice called out. “Drag up a chair by the fire.” Gilead blinked, deliberately slowed himself down, and breathed deeply. His healthy body was fighting off the effects of the Markheim bolt; he was almost himself. The room was a cell, old-fashioned, almost primitive. The front of the cell and the door were steel bars; the walls were concrete. Its only furniture, a long wooden bench, was occupied by the man who had spoken. He was fiftyish, of ponderous frame, heavy features set in a shrewd, good-natured expression. He was lying back on the bench, head pillowed on his hands, in animal ease. Gilead had seen him before. “Hello, Doctor Baldwin.” The man sat up with a flowing economy of motion that moved his bulk as little as possible. “I’m not Doctor Baldwin-I’m not Doctor anything, though my name is Baldwin.” He stared at Gilead. “But I know you. Seen some of your lectures,” Gilead cocked an eyebrow. “A man would seem naked around the Association of Theoretical Physicists without a doctor’s degree, and you were at their last meeting.” Baldwin chuckled boomingly. “That accounts for it-that has to be my cousin on my father’s side, Hartley M.-stuffy citizen Hartley. I’ll have to try to take the curse off the family name, now that I’ve met you. Captain.” He stuck out a huge hand. “Gregory Baldwin, ‘Kettle Belly’ to my friends. New and used helicopters is as close as I come to theoretical physics. ‘Kettle Belly Baldwin, King of the Kopters’-you must have seen my advertising.” “Now that you mention it, I have.” Baldwin pulled out a card. “Here. If you ever need one, I’ll give you a ten percent off for knowing old Hartley, Matter of fact, I can do right well by you in a year-old Curtiss, a family car without a mark on it.” Gilead accepted the card and sat down. “Not at the moment, thanks. You seem to have an odd sort of office, Mister Baldwin.” Baldwin chuckled again. “In the course of a long life these things happen. Captain. I won’t ask you why you are here or what you are doing in that monkey suit. Call me Kettle Belly.” “Okay.” Gilead got up and went to the door. Opposite the cell was a blank wall; there was no one in sight. He whistled and shouted-no answer. “What’s itching you, Captain?” Baldwin asked gently. Gilead turned. His cellmate had dealt a solitaire hand on the bench and was calmly playing. “I’ve got to raise the turnkey and send for a lawyer.” “Don’t fret about it. Let’s play some cards.” He reached in a pocket. “I’ve got a second deck; how about some Russian bank?” “No, thanks. I’ve got to get out of here.” He shouted again-still no answer. “Don’t waste your lung power. Captain,” Baldwin advised him. “They’ll come when it suits them and not a second before. I know. Come play with me; it passes the time.” Baldwin appeared to be shuffling the two decks; Gilead could see that he was actually stacking the cards. The deception amused him; he decided to play-since the truth of Baldwin’s advice was so evident. “If you don’t like Russian bank,” Kettle Belly went on, “here is a game I learned as a kid.” He paused and stared into Gilead’s eyes. “It’s instructive as well as entertaining, yet it’s simple, once you catch on to it.” He started dealing out the cards. “It makes a better game with two decks, because the black cards don’t mean anything. Just the twenty-six red cards in each deck count-with the heart suit coming first. Each card scores according to its position in that sequence, the ace of hearts is one and the king of hearts counts thirteen; the ace of diamonds is next at fourteen and so on. Savvy?” “Yes” “And the blacks don’t count. They’re blanks, spaces. Ready to play?” “What are the rules?” “We’ll deal out one hand for free; you’ll learn faster as you see it. Then, when you’ve caught on, I’ll play you for a half interest in the atomics trust-or ten bits in cash.” He resumed dealing, laying the cards out rapidly in columns, five to a row. He paused, finished. “It’s my deal, so it’s your count. See what you get.” It was evident that Baldwin’s stacking had brought the red cards into groups, yet there was no evident advantage to it, nor was the count especially high, nor low. Gilead stared at it, trying to figure out the man’s game. The cheating, as cheating seemed too bold to be probable. Suddenly the cards jumped at him, arranged themselves in a meaningful array. He read: “X”THEY CAN “X-X” “X, X, X” SEE HEAR “X” US “X, X” The fact that there were only two fives-of-hearts available had affected the spelling but the meaning was clear. Gilead reached for the cards. “I’ll try one. I can beat that score.” He dipped into the tips belonging to the suit’s owner. “Ten bits it is.” Baldwin covered it. Gilead shuffled, making even less attempt to cover up than had Baldwin. He dealt: WHATS Five X YOUR GAME “X” Five X. Baldwin shoved the money toward him and anted again. “Okay, my turn for revenge.” He laid out: “X, X” I’M “X, X” ON “X, X” YOUR “X” Five X SIDE. “I win again,” Gilead announced gleefully. “Ante up.” He grabbed the cards and manipulated them: YEAH X, Five X PROVE “X, X” IT, X Five X Baldwin counted and said, “You’re too smart for me. Gimme the cards.” He produced another ten-bit piece and dealt again: “X, X” I’L X HELP X YOU X, GET, X OUT, X, X. “I should have cut the cards,” Gilead complained, pushing the money over. “Let’s double the bets.” Baldwin grunted and Gilead dealt again: “X” NUTS IM Triple X SAFER “X, X” IN “X, X” GAOL. “I broke your luck,” Baldwin gloated. “We’ll double it again?” X U X R, “X, X” NUTS. THIS X NO Triple X, JAIL. The deal shifted: KEEP X, X TALKING Six X, BUD, X. Baldwin answered: THIS Six X, X, NEW AGE “X, X, X” HOTEL. As he stacked the cards again Gilead considered these new factors. He was prepared to believe that he was hidden somewhere in the New Age Hotel; in fact the counterproposition that his opponents had permitted two ordinary cops to take him away to a normal city jail was most unlikely-unless they had the jail as fully under control as they quite evidently had the hotel. Nevertheless the point was not proven. As for Baldwin, he might be on Gilead’s side; more probably he was planted as an agent provocateur-or he might be working for himself. The permutations added up to six situations, only one of which made it desirable to accept Baldwin’s offer for help in a Jail break-said situation being the least likely of the six. Nevertheless, though he considered Baldwin a liar, net, he tentatively decided to accept. A static situation brought him no advantage; a dynamic situation-any dynamic situation-he might turn to his advantage. But more data were needed. “These cards are sticky as candy,” he complained. “You letting your money ride?” “Suits.” Gilead dealt again: Five X, WHY “X, X” AM Six X, I X HERE. “You have the damnedest luck,” Baldwin commented: FILMS ESCAP BFORE “X” U, triple X, KRACK Gilead swept up the cards, was about to “shuffle,” when Baldwin said, “Oh-oh, school’s out.” Footsteps could be heard in the passage. “Good luck, boy,” Baldwin added. Baldwin knew about the films, but had not used any of the dozen ways to identify himself as part of Gilead’s own organization. Therefore he was planted by the opposition, or he was a third factor. More important, the fact that Baldwin knew about the films proved his assertion that this was not a jail. It followed with bitter certainty that he, Gilead. stood no computable chance of getting out alive. The footsteps approaching the cell could be ticking off the last seconds of his life. He knew now that he should have found means to report the destination of the films before going to the New Age. But Humpty Dumpty was off the wall, entropy always increases-but the films must be delivered. The footsteps were quite close. Baldwin might get out alive. But who was Baldwin? All the while he was “shuffling” the cards. The action was not final; he had only to give them one true shuffle to destroy the message being set up in them. A spider settled from the ceiling, landed on the other man’s hand. Baldwin, instead of knocking it off and crushing it, most carefully reached his arm out toward the wall and encouraged it to lower itself to the floor. “Better stay out of the way, shorty,” he said gently, “or one of the big boys is likely to step on you.” The incident, small as it was, determined Gilead’s decision, and with it, the fate of a planet. He stood up and handed the stacked deck to Baldwin. “I owe you exactly ten-sixty,” he said carefully. “Be sure to remember it-I’ll see who our visitors are.” The footsteps had stopped outside the cell door. There were two of then, dressed neither as police nor as guards; the masquerade was over. One stood well back, covering the maneuver with a Markheim, the other unlocked the door. “Back against the wall, Fatso,” he ordered. “Gilead, out you come. And take it easy, or after we freeze you, I’ll knock out your teeth just for fun.” Baldwin shuffled back against the wall; Gilead came out slowly. He watched for any opening but the leader backed away from him without once getting between him and the man with the Markheim. “Ahead of us and take it slow,” he was ordered. He complied, helpless under the precautions, unable to run, unable to fight. Baldwin went back to the bench when they had gone. He dealt out the cards as if playing solitaire, swept them up again, and continued to deal himself solitaire hands. Presently he “shuffled” the cards back to the exact order Gilead had left them in and pocketed them. The message had read; X TELL X FBS X PO BOX DEBT XXX CHI. His two guards marched Gilead into a room and locked the door behind him, leaving themselves outside. He found himself in a large window overlooking the city and a reach of the river; balancing it on the left hung a solid portraying a lunar landscape in convincing color and depth. In front of him was a rich but not ostentatious executive desk. The lower part of his mind took in these details; his attention could be centered only on the person who sat at that desk. She was old but not senile, frail but not helpless. Her eyes were very much alive, her expression serene. Her translucent, well-groomed hands were busy with a frame of embroidery. On the desk in front of her were two pneumo mailing tubes, a pair of slippers, and some tattered, soiled remnants of cloth and plastic. She looked up. “How do you do. Captain Gilead?” she said in a thin, sweet soprano suitable for singing hymns. Gilead bowed. “Well, thank you, and you, Missus Keithley?” “You know me, I see.” “Madame would be famous if only for her charities.” “You are kind. Captain, I will not waste your time. I had hoped that we could release you without fuss, but.” She indicated the two tubes in front of her. “You can see for yourself that we must deal with you further.” “So?” “Come, now. Captain. You mailed three tubes. These two are only dummies, and the third did not reach its apparent destination. It is possible that it was badly addressed and has been rejected by the sorting machines. If so, we shall have it in due course. But it seems much more likely that you found some way to change its address-likely to the point of pragmatic certainty.” “Or possibly I corrupted your servant.” She shook her head slightly. “We examined him quite thoroughly before.” “Before he died?” “Please, Captain, let’s not change the subject. I must know where you sent that other tube. You cannot be hypnotized by ordinary means; you have an acquired immunity to hypnotic drugs. Your tolerance for pain extends beyond the threshold of unconsciousness. All of these things have already been proved, else you would not be in the job you are in; I shall not put either of us to the inconvenience of proving them again. Yet I must have that tube. What is your price?” “You assume that I have a price.” She smiled. “If the old saw has any exceptions, history does not record them. Be reasonable, Captain. Despite your admitted immunity to ordinary forms of examination, there are ways of breaking down-of changing-a man’s character so that he becomes really quite pliant under examination, ways that we learned from the commissars. But those ways take time and a woman my age has no time to waste.” Gilead lied convincingly, “It’s not your age, ma’am; it is the fact that you know that you must obtain that tube at once or you will never get it.” He was hoping-more than that, he was wishing-that Baldwin would have sense enough to examine the cards for one last message, and act on it. If Baldwin failed and he, Gilead, died, the tube would eventually come to rest in a dead-letter office and would in time be destroyed. “You are probably right. Nevertheless, Captain, I will go ahead with the Mindszenty technique if you insist upon it. What do you say to ten million plutonium credits?” Gilead believed her first statement. He reviewed in his mind the means by which a man bound hand and foot, or worse, could kill himself unassisted. “Ten million plutons and a knife ‘in my back?” he answered. “Let’s be practical.” “Convincing assurance would be given before you need talk.” “Even so, it is not my price. After all, you are worth at least five hundred million plutons.” She leaned forward. “I like you. Captain. You are a man of strength. I am an old woman, without heirs. Suppose you became my partner, and my successor?” “Pie in the sky,” “No, no! I mean it. My age and sex do not permit me actively to serve myself; I must rely on others. Captain, I am very tired of inefficient tools, of men who can let things be spirited away right from under their noses. Imagine!” She made a little gesture of exasperation, clutching her hand into a claw. “You and I could go far. Captain. I need you.” “But I do not need you, madame. And I won’t have you.” She made no answer, but touched a control on her desk. A door on the left dilated; two men and a girl came in. The girl Gilead recognized as the waitress from the Grand Concourse Drug Store. They had stripped her bare, which seemed to him an unnecessary indignity since her working uniform could not possibly have concealed a weapon. The girl, once inside, promptly blew her top, protesting, screaming, using language unusual to her age and sex, an hysterical, thalamic outburst of volcanic proportions. “Quiet, child!” The girl stopped in midstream, looked with surprise at Missus Keithley, and shut up. Nor did she start again, but stood there, looking even younger than she was and somewhat aware of and put off stride by her nakedness. She was covered now with goose flesh, one tear cut a white line down her dust-smeared face, stopped at her lip. She licked at it and sniffled. “You were out of observation once. Captain,” Missus Keithley went on, “during which time this person saw you twice. Therefore we will examine her.” Gilead shook his head. “She knows no more than a goldfish. But go ahead-five minutes of hypno will convince you.’ “Oh, no. Captain! Hypno is sometimes fallible; if she is a member of your bureau, it is certain to be fallible.” She signalled to one of the men attending the girl; he went to a cupboard and opened it. “I am old-fashioned,” the old woman went on. “I trust simple mechanical means much more than I do the cleverest of clinical procedures.” Gilead saw the implements that the man was removing from cupboard and started forward. “Stop that!” he commanded. “You can’t do that.” He bumped his nose quite hard. The man paid him no attention. Missus Keithley said, “Forgive me, Captain. I should have told you that this room is not one room, but two. The partition is merely glass, but very special glass-I use the room for difficult interviews. There is no need to hurt yourself by trying to reach us.” “Just a moment!” “Yes, Captain?” “Your time is already running out. Let the girl and me go free now. You are aware that there are several hundred men searching this city for me even now, and that they will not stop until they have taken it apart panel by panel.” “I think not. A man answering your description to the last factor caught the South Africa rocket twenty minutes after you registered at the New Age hotel. He was carrying your very own identifications. He will not reach South Africa, but the manner of his disappearance will point to desertion rather than accident or suicide.” Gilead dropped the matter. “What do you plan to gain by abusing this child? You have all she knows; certainly you do not believe that we could afford to trust in such as she?” Missus Keithley pursed her lips. “Frankly, I do not expect to learn anything from her. I may learn something from you.” “I see.” The leader of the two men looked questioningly at his mistress; she motioned him to go ahead. The girl stared blankly at him, plainly unaware of the uses of the equipment he had gotten out. He and his partner got busy. Shortly the girl screamed, continued to scream for a few moments in a high ululation. Then it stopped as she fainted. They roused her and stood her up again. She stood, swaying and staring stupidly at her poor hands, forever damaged even for the futile purposes to which she had been capable of putting them. Blood spread down her wrists and dripped on a plastic tarpaulin, placed there earlier by the second of the two men. Gilead did nothing and said nothing. Knowing as he did that the tube he was protecting contained matters measured in millions of lives, the problem of the girl, as a problem, did not even arise. It disturbed a deep and very ancient part of his brain, but almost automatically he cut that part off and lived for the time in his forebrain. Consciously he memorized the faces, skulls, and figures of the two men and filed the data under “personal.” Thereafter he unobtrusively gave his attention to the scene out the window. He had been noting it all through the interview but he wanted to give it explicit thought. He recast what he saw in terms of what it would look like had be been able to look squarely out the window and decided that he was on the ninety-first floor of the New Age hotel and approximately one hundred and thirty meters from the north end. He filed this under “professional.” When the girl died, Missus Keithley left the room without speaking to him. The men gathered up what was left in the tarpaulin and followed her. Presently the two guards returned and, using the same fool-proof methods, took him back to his cell. As soon as the guards had gone and Kettle Belly was free to leave his position against the wall he came forward and pounded Gilead on the shoulders. “Hi, boy! I’m sure glad to see you-I was scared I would never lay eyes on you again. How was it? Pretty rough?” “No, they didn’t hurt me; they just asked some questions.” “You’re lucky. Some of those crazy damn cops play mean when they get you alone in a back room. Did they let you call your lawyer?” “No.” “Then they ain’t through with you. You want to watch it, kid.” Gilead sat down on the bench. “The hell with them. Want to play some more cards?” “Don’t mind if I do. I feel lucky.” Baldwin pulled out the double deck, riffled through it. Gilead took them and did the same. Good! They were in the order he had left them in. He ran his thumb across the edges again-yes, even the black nulls were unchanged in sequence; apparently Kettle Belly had simply stuck them in his pocket without examining them, without suspecting that a last message had been written in to them. He felt sure that Baldwin would not have left the message set up if he had read it. Since he found himself still alive, he was much relieved to think this. He gave the cards one true shuffle, then started stacking them. His first lay-out read: Five-X, ESCAP “X, X” AT Six X, ONCE. “Gotcha that time!” Baldwin crowed. “Ante up.” DID “X, X, X” YOU Nine-XCRACK. “Let it ride,” announced Gilead and took the deal; “X, X” NO, X BUT, Six X LETS “X, X” GO. X. “You’re too damned lucky to live,” complained Baldwin. “Look-we’ll leave the bets doubled and double the lay-out. I want a fair chance to get my money back.” His next lay-out read: XX-T-H-N-X, T-H-N-X, T-H-N-X NEED Five X, ALIVE Five X PLAY X, “X, X, X” UP. “Didn’t do you much good, did it?” Gilead commented, took the cards and started arranging them. “There’s something mighty funny about a man that wins all the time,” Baldwin grumbled. He watched Gilead narrowly. Suddenly his hand shot out, grabbed Gilead’s wrist. “I thought so,” he yelled. “A goddam card sharp.” Gilead shook his hand off. “Why, you obscene fat slug!” “Caught you! Caught you?” Kettle Belly reclaimed his hold, grabbed the other wrist as well. They struggled and rolled to the floor. Gilead discovered two things: this awkward, bulky man was an artist at every form of dirty fighting and he could simulate it convincingly without damaging his partner. His nerve holds were an inch off the nerve; his kneeings were to thigh muscle rather than to the crotch. Baldwin tried for a chancery strangle; Gilead let him take it. The big man settled the flat of his forearm against the point of Gilead’s chin rather than against his Adam’s apple and proceeded to “strangle” him. There were running footsteps in the corridor. Gilead caught a glimpse of the guards as they reached the door. They stopped momentarily; the bell of the Markheim was too big to use through the steel grating, the charge would be screened and grounded. Apparently they did not have pacifier bombs with them, for they hesitated. Then the leader quickly unlocked the door, while the man with the Markheim dropped back to the cover position. Baldwin ignored them, while continuing his stream of profanity and abuse at Gilead. He let the first man almost reach them before he suddenly said in Gilead’s ear, “Close your eyes!” At which he broke just as suddenly. Gilead sensed an incredibly dazzling flash of light even through his eyelids. Almost on top of it he heard a muffled crack; he opened his eyes and saw that the first man was down, his head twisted at a grotesque angle. The man with the Markheim was shaking his head; the muzzle of his weapon weaved around. Baldwin was charging him in a waddle, back and knees bent until he was hardly three feet tall. The blinded guard could hear him, let fly a charge in the direction of the noise; it passed over Baldwin. Baldwin was on him; the two went down. There was another cracking noise of ruptured bone and another dead man. Baldwin stood up, grasping the Markheim, keeping it pointed down the corridor. “How are your eyes, kid?” he called out anxiously. “They’re all right.” “Then come take this chiller.” Gilead moved up, took the Markheim. Baldwin ran to the dead end of the corridor where a window looked out over the city. The window did not open; there was no “copter step” beyond it. It was merely a straight drop. He came running back. Gilead was shuffling possibilities in his mind. Events had moved by Baldwin’s plan, not by his. As a result of his visit to Missus Keithley’s “interview room” he was oriented in space. The corridor ahead and a turn to the left should bring him to the quick-drop shaft. Once in the basement and armed with a Markheim, he felt sure that he could fight his way out-with Baldwin in trail if the man would follow. If not, well, there was too much at stake. Baldwin was into the cell and out again almost at once. “Come along!” Gilead snapped. A head showed at the bend in the corridor; he let fly at it and the owner of the head passed out on the floor. “Out of my way, kid!” Baldwin answered. He was carrying the heavy bench on which they had “played” cards. He started up the corridor with it, toward the sealed window, gaining speed remarkably as he went. His makeshift battering ram struck the window heavily. The plastic bulged, ruptured, and snapped like a soap bubble. The bench went on through, disappeared from sight, while Baldwin teetered on hands and knees, a thousand feet of nothingness under his chin. “Kid!” he yelled. “Close in! Fall back!” Gilead backed towards him, firing twice more as he did so. He still did not see how Baldwin planned to get out but the big man had demonstrated that he had resourcefulness, and resources. Baldwin was whistling through his fingers and waving. In violation of all city traffic rules a helicopter separated itself from the late afternoon throng, cut through a lane, and approached the window. It hovered just far enough away to keep from fouling its blades. The driver opened the door, a line snaked across and Kettle Belly caught it. With great speed he made it fast to the window’s polarizer knob, then grabbed the Markheim. “You first,” he snapped. “Hurry!” Gilead dropped to his knees and grasped the line; the driver immediately increased his tip speed and tilted his rotor; the line tautened. Gilead let it take his weight, then swarmed across it. The driver gave him a hand up while controlling his craft like a high school horse with his other hand. The ‘copter bucked; Gilead turned and saw Baldwin coming across, a fat spider on a web. As he himself helped the big man in, the driver reached down and cut the line. The ship bucked again and slid away. There were already men standing in the broken window. “Get lost, Steve!” Baldwin ordered. The driver gave his tip jets another notch and tilted the rotor still more; the ‘copter swooped away. He eased it into the traffic stream and inquired, “Where to?” “Set her for home, and tell the other boys to go home, too. No-you’ve got your hands full; I’ll tell them!” Baldwin crowded up into the other pilot’s seat, slipped on phones and settled a quiet-mike over his mouth. The driver adjusted his car to the traffic, set up a combination on his pilot, then settled back and opened a picture magazine. Shortly Baldwin took off the phones and came back to the passenger compartment. ‘Takes a lot of ‘copters to be sure you have one cruising by when you need it,” he said conversationally. “Fortunately, I’ve got a lot of ‘em. Oh, by the way, this is Steve Halliday. Steve, meet Joe-Joe, what is your last name?” “Greene,” answered Gilead. “Howdy,” said the driver and let his eyes go back to his magazine. Gilead considered the situation. He was not sure that it had been improved. Kettle Belly, whatever he was, was more than a used ‘copter dealer, and he knew about the films. This boy Steve looked like a harmless young extrovert but, then. Kettle Belly himself looked like a lunk. He considered trying to overpower both of them, remembered Kettle Belly’s virtuosity in rough-and-tumble fighting, and decided against it. Perhaps Kettle Belly really was on his side, completely and utterly. He heard rumors that the Department used more than one echelon of operatives and he had no way of being sure that he himself was at the top level. “Kettle Belly,” he went on, “could you set me down at the airport first? I’m in one hell of a hurry.” Baldwin looked him over. “Sure, if you say so. But I thought you would want to swap those duds? You’re as conspicuous as a preacher at a stag party. And how are you fixed for cash?” With his fingers Gilead counted the change that had come with the suit. A man without cash had one arm in a sling. “How long would it take?” “Ten minutes extra, maybe.” Gilead thought again about Kettle Belly’s fighting ability and decided that there was no way for a fish in water to get any wetter. “Okay.” He settled back and relaxed completely. Presently he turned again to Baldwin. “By the way, how did you manage to sneak in that dazzle bomb?” Kettle Belly chuckled. “I’m a large man, Joe; there’s an awful lot of me to search.” He laughed again. “You’d be amazed at where I had that hidden.” Gilead changed the subject. “How did you happen to be there in the first place?” Baldwin sobered. “That’s a long and complicated story. Come back some day when you’re not in such a rush and I’ll tell you all about it.” “I’ll do that-soon.” “Good. Maybe I can sell you that used Curtiss at the same time.” The pilot alarm sounded; the driver put down his magazine and settled the craft on the roof of Baldwin’s establishment. Baldwin was as good as his word. He took Gilead to his office, sent for clothes-which showed up with great speed, and handed Gilead a wad of bills suitable to stuff a pillow. “You can mail it back,” he said. “I’ll bring it back in person,” promised Gilead. “Good. Be careful out on the street. Some of our friends are sure to be around.” “I’ll be careful.” He left, as casually as if he had called there on business, but feeling less sure of himself than usual. Baldwin himself remained a mystery and, in his business, Gilead could not afford mysteries. There was a public phone booth in the lobby of Baldwin’s building. Gilead went in, scrambled, then coded a different relay station from the one he had attempted to use before. He gave his booth’s code and instructed the operator to scramble back. In a matter of minutes he was talking to his chief in New Washington. “Joe! Where the hell have you been?” “Later, boss-get this.” In departmental oral code as an added precaution, he told his chief that the films were in post office box 1060, Chicago, and insisted that they be picked up by a major force at once. His chief turned away from the view plate, then returned, “Okay, it’s done. Now what happened to you?” “Later, boss, later. I think I’ve got some friends outside who are anxious to rassle with me. Keep me here and I may get a hole in my head.” “Okay-but head right back here. I want a full report; I’ll wait here for you.” “Right.” He switched off. He left the booth light-heartedly, with the feeling of satisfaction that comes from a hard job successfully finished. He rather hoped that some of his “friends’ would show up; he felt like kicking somebody who needed kicking. But they disappointed him. He boarded the transcontinental rocket without alarms and slept all the way to New Washington. He reached the Federal Bureau of Security by one of many concealed routes and went to his boss’s office. After scan and voice check he was let in. Bonn looked up and scowled. Gilead ignored the expression; Bonn usually scowled. “Agent Joseph Briggs, three-four-oh-nine-seven-two, reporting back from assignment, sir,” he said evenly. Bonn switched a desk control to “recording” and another to “covert,” “You are, eh? Why, thumb fingered idiot! How do you dare to show your face around here?” “Easy now, boss-what’s the trouble?” Bonn famed incoherently for a time, then said, “Briggs, twelve star men covered that pickup, and the box was empty. Post office box ten-sixty, Chicago, indeed! Where are those films? Was it a coverup? Have you got them with you?” Gilead-Briggs restrained his surprise. “No. I mailed them at the Grand Concourse post office to the address you just named.” He added, “The machine may have kicked them out; I was forced to letter by hand the machine symbols.” Bonn looked suddenly hopeful. He touched another control and said, “Carruthers, On that Briggs matter: Check the rejection stations for that routing.” He thought and then added, “Then try a rejection sequence on the assumption that the first symbol was acceptable to the machine but mistaken. Also for each of the other symbols; run them simultaneously, crash priority for all agents and staff. After that try combinations of symbols taken two at a time, then three at a time, and so on.” He switched off. ‘The total of that series you just set up is every postal address in the continent,” Briggs suggested mildly. “It can’t be done.” “It’s got to be done! Man, have you any idea of the importance of those films you were guarding?” “Yes. The director at Moon Base told me what I was carrying.” “You don t act as if you did. You’ve lost the most valuable thing this or any other government can possess-the absolute weapon. Yet you stand there blinking at me as if you had mislaid a pack of cigarettes.” “Weapon?” objected Briggs. “I wouldn’t call the nova effect that, unless you class suicide as a weapon. And I don’t concede that I’ve lost it. As an agent acting alone and charged primarily with keeping it out of die hands of others, I used the best means available in an emergency to protect it. That is well within the limits of my authority. I was spotted, by some means.” “You shouldn’t have been spotted!” “Granted. But I was. I was unsupported and my estimate of the situation did not include a probability of staying alive. Therefore I had to protect my charge by some means which did not depend on my staying alive.” “But you did stay alive-you’re here.” “Not my doing nor yours, I assure you. I should have been covered. It was your order, you will remember, that I act alone.” Bonn looked sullen. “That was necessary.” “So? In any case, I don’t see what all the shouting is about. Either the films show up, or they are lost and will be destroyed as unclaimed mail. So I go back to the Moon and get another set of prints.” Bonn chewed his lip. “You can’t do that.” “Why not?” Bonn hesitated a long time. “There were just two sets. You had the originals, which were to be placed in a vault in the Archives, and the others were to be destroyed at once when the originals were known to be secure.” “Yes? What’s the hitch?” “You don’t see the importance of the procedure. Every working paper, every file, every record was destroyed when these films were made. Every technician, every assistant, received hypno. The intention was not only to protect the results of the research but to wipe out the very fact that the research had taken place. There aren’t a dozen people in the system who even know of the existence of the nova effect.” Briggs had his own opinions on this point, based on recent experience, but he kept still about them. Bonn went on, “The Secretary has been after me steadily to let him know when the originals were secured. He has been quite insistent, quite critical. When you called in, I told him that the films were safe and that he would have them in a few minutes.” “Well?” “Don’t you see, you fool-he gave the order at once to destroy the other copies.” Briggs whistled. “Jumped the gun, didn’t he?” “That’s not the way he’ll figure it-mind you, the President was pressuring him. He’ll say that I jumped the gun.” “And so you did.” “No, you jumped the gun. You told me the films were in that box.” “Hardly. I said I had sent them there.” “No, you didn’t.” “Get out the tape and play it back.” “There is no tape-by the President’s own order no records are kept on this operation.” “So? Then why are you recording now?” “Because,” Bonn answered sharply, “someone is going to pay for this and it is not going to be me.” “Meaning,” Briggs said slowly, “that it is going to be me.” “I didn’t say that. It might be the Secretary.” “If his head rolls, so will yours. No, both of you are figuring on using me. Before you plan on that, hadn’t you better hear my report? It might affect your plans. I’ve got news for you, boss.” Bonn drummed the desk. “Go ahead. It had better be good.” In a passionless monotone Briggs recited all events as recorded by sharp memory from receipt of the films on the Moon to the present moment. Bonn listened impatiently. Finished, Briggs waited. Bonn got up and strode around the room. Finally he stopped and said. “Briggs, I never heard such a fantastic pack of lies in my life. A fat man who plays cards! A wallet that wasn’t your wallet-your clothes stolen! And Missus Keithley-Missus Keithley! Don’t you know that she is one of the strongest supporters of the Administration?” Briggs said nothing. Bonn went on, “Now I’ll tell you what actually did happen. Up to the time you grounded at Pied-a-Terre your report is correct, but.” “How do you know?” “Because you were covered, naturally. You don’t think I would trust this to one man, do you?” “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have hollered for help and saved all this.” Bonn brushed it aside. “You engaged a runner, dismissed him, went in that drugstore, came out and went to the post office. There was no fight in the concourse for the simple reason that n

AdS/CFT Duality User Guide, by Makoto Natsuume A Puke(TM) Audiobook https://arxiv.org/abs/1409.3575

Edition 1.0 © 2022 World Economic Forum All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system. World Economic Forum 91-93 route de la Capite CH-1223 Cologny/Geneva Switzerland Tel.: +41 (0)22 869 1212 Fax: +41 (0)22 786 2744 mail: contact@weforum.org www.weforum.org Print ISBN: 978-2-940631-30-8 ePub ISBN: 978-2-940631-31-5 About the assholes. Professor Klaus Schwab, born 1938, Ravensburg, Germany, is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. In 1971, he published Modern Enterprise Management in Mechanical Engineering. He argues in that book that a company must serve not only shareholders but all stakeholders to achieve long-term growth and prosperity. To promote the stakeholder concept, he founded the World Economic Forum the same year. Professor Schwab holds doctorates in Economics fromt the University of Fribourg, and in Engineering, from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and obtained a master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1972, in addition to his leadership role at the Forum, he became a professor at the University of Geneva. He has since received numerous international and national honours, including 17 honorary doctorates. His latest books are The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016), a worldwide bestseller translated into 30 languages, and Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (2018). Thierry Malleret, born in 1961, in the slums of Europe known as Paris, France, is the Managing Partner of the Monthly Barometer, a succinct predictive analysis provided to private investors, global CEOs and opinion and decision-makers. His professional experience includes founding the Global Risks Network at the World Economic Forum and heading its Programme team. Malleret was indoctrinated at the Sorbonne and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and at St Antony’s College, Oxford. He holds master’s degrees in Economics and History, and a PhD in Economics. His career spans investment banking, think tanks, academia and government (with a three-year spell in the prime minister’s office in Paris). He has written several business and academic books and has published four novels. He lives in Chamonix, France, with his wife Mary Anne. Yak, Yak, Yak for a few hundred pages. Five. Annex, Other Assholes, vital in the production of the Great Narrative. List of foremost global thinkers and opinion-makers who contributed to The Great Narrative project. •Anita Allen-Castellitto, Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and Professor of Philosophy; Vice-Provost (2013-2020), University of Pennsylvania, USA •Margaret Chan, Founding Dean, Tsinghua Vanke School of Public Health, People’s Republic of China; Emeritus Director-General, World Health Organization •Hela Cheikhrouhou, Vice-President, Middle East and North Africa, International Finance Corporation, USA •Patricia Churchland, Professor, Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego, USA •Diane Coyle, Bennett Professor of Public Policy, University of Cambridge, UK •Jennifer Doudna, Professor of Chemistry and of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of California, Berkeley, USA •Niall Ferguson, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University, USA •Rana Foroohar, Global Business Columnist and Associate Editor, Financial Times, USA •Mohammad Al Gergawi, Minister of Cabinet Affairs, UAE •Marina Gorbis, Executive Director, Institute for the Future, USA •Leonid Grinin, Senior Research Professor, HSE University, Russian Federation •Anton Grinin, Research Fellow, Moscow State University, Russian Federation •David Grinspoon, Astrobiologist, USA •John Hagel, Author, USA •Graham Harman, Professor of Philosophy, Southern California Institute of Architecture, USA •Rebecca Henderson, John and Natty McArthur University Professor, Harvard University, USA •Michio Kaku, Professor, City University of New York, USA •David Krakauer, President and William H. Miller Professor of Complex Systems, Santa Fe Institute, USA •Justin Lin Yifu, Dean, Institute of New Structural Economics, Peking University, Hong Kong SAR •Lu Zhi, Executive Director, Centre for Nature and Society, Peking University, People’s Republic of China •Mariana Mazzucato, Professor, University College London, UK •Jamie Metzl, Founder and Chair, OneShared.World, USA •Branko Milanovic, Visiting Presidential Professor, Graduate Center, City University of New York, USA •Dambisa Moyo, Global Economist, Co-Principal, Versaca Investments, USA •Jun Murai, Distinguished Professor, Keio University, Japan •Moisés Naím, Distinguished Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, USA •Chandran Nair, Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Global Institute for Tomorrow, Hong Kong SAR •Martin O’Neill, Professor of Political Philosophy, University of York, UK •Megan Palmer, Executive Director, Bio Policy & Leadership Initiatives, Department of Bioengineering, Stanford, USA •Minxin Pei, Tom and Margot Pritzker ‘72 Professor of Government, Claremont McKenna College, USA •Carlota Perez, Honorary Professor, Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, University College London, UK •Raghuram Rajan, Katherine Dusak Miller Distinguished Service Professor of Finance, University of Chicago Booth School of Business, USA •Johan Rockstrom, Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany •Sadhguru, Founder, Isha Foundation, India •Landry Signé, Managing Director and Professor, Thunderbird School of Global Management; Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development Program and Africa Growth Initiative, Brookings Institution, USA •David Sinclair, Director, International Longevity Centre, UK •Peter Singer, Professor of Bioethics, Princeton University, USA •Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, Professor, Columbia University, USA •John Steele, Publisher and Editorial Director, Nautilus, USA •Helen Steward, Professor of Philosophy of Mind and Action, University of Leeds, UK •Ilona Szabó de Carvalho, Co-Founder and President, Igarape Institute, Brazil •Amie Thomasson, Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, Dartmouth College, USA •Ari Waldman, Professor of Law and Computer Science, Northeastern University, USA •Wang Yi, Vice-President, Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences; Vice-Chair, National Expert Panel on Climate Change, People’s Republic of China •Amy Webb, Chief Executive Officer, Future Today Institute; Professor of Strategic Foresight, NYU Stern School of Business, USA •Xue Lan, Dean, Schwarzman College, Tsinghua University, People’s Republic of China •Shu Yamaguchi, Author and Public Speaker, Japan •Shinya Yamanaka, Director and Professor, Center for iPS Cell Research and Application, Kyoto University, Japan •Amy Zalman, Adjunct Professor, Georgetown University, USA

Copyright 1959 BY ROBERT A. HEINLEIN. FIRST SIGNET PRINTING, April, 1962. The Year of the Jackpot. Galaxy Publishing Corp. 1952. By His Bootstraps. Street & Smith Publications, Inc. 1941. Columbus Was a Dope. Better Publications, Inc. 1947. The Menace from Earth. Fantasy House, Inc. 1957. Sky Lift. Greenleaf Publishing Co. 1953. Goldfish Bowl. Street & Smith Publications, Inc. 1942. Project Nightmare. Ziff-Davis Publishing Co. 1953. Water Is for Washing. Popular Publications, Inc. 1947. The Year of the Jackpot. BY ROBERT A. HEINLEIN. At first Potiphar Breen did not notice the girl who was undressing. She was standing at a bus stop only ten feet away. He was indoors but that would not have kept him from noticing; he was seated in a drugstore booth adjacent to the bus stop; there was nothing between Potiphar and the young lady but plate glass and an occasional pedestrian. Nevertheless he did not look up when she began to peel. Propped up in front of him was a Los Angeles Times; beside it, still unopened, were the Herald-Express and the Daily News. He was scanning the newspaper carefully but the headline stories got only a passing glance. He noted the maximum and minimum temperatures in Brownsville, Texas and entered them in a neat black notebook; he did the same with the closing prices of three blue chips and two dogs on the New York Exchange, as well as the total number of shares. He then began a rapid sifting of minor news stories, from time to time entering briefs of them in his little book; the items he recorded seemed randomly unrelated, among them a publicity release in which Miss National Cottage Cheese Week announced that she intended to marry and have twelve children by a man who could prove that he had been a life-long vegetarian, a circumstantial but wildly unlikely flying saucer report, and a call for prayers for rain throughout Southern California. Potiphar had just written down the names and addresses of three residents of Watts, California who had been miraculously healed at a tent meeting of the God-is-AII First Truth Brethren by the Reverend Dickie Bottomley, the eight-year-old evangelist, and was preparing to tackle the Herald-Express, when he glanced over his reading glasses and saw the amateur ecdysiast on the street comer outside. He stood up, placed his glasses in their case, folded the newspapers and put them carefully in his right coat pocket, counted out the exact amount of his check and added twenty-five cents. He then took his raincoat from a hook, placed it over his arm, and went outside. By now the girl was practically down to the buff. It seemed to Potiphar Breen that she had quite a lot of buff. Nevertheless she had not pulled much of a house. The corner newsboy had stopped hawking his disasters and was grinning at her, and a mixed pair of transvestites who were apparently waiting for the bus had their eyes on her. None of the passers-by stopped. They glanced at her, then with the self-conscious indifference to the unusual of the true Southern Californian, they went on their various ways. The transvestites were frankly staring. The male member of the team wore a frilly feminine blouse but his skirt was a conservative Scottish kilt, his female companion wore a business suit and Homburg hat; she stared with lively interest. As Breen approached the girl hung a scrap of nylon on the bus stop bench, then reached for her shoes. A police officer, looking hot and unhappy, crossed with the lights and came up to them. “Okay,” he said in a tired voice, “that’ll be all, lady. Get them duds back on and clear out of here.” The female transvestite took a cigar out of her mouth. “Just,” she said, “what business is it of yours, officer?” The cop turned to her. “Keep out of this!” He ran his eyes over her get up, that of her companion. “I ought to run both of you in, too.” The transvestite raised her eyebrows. “Arrest us for being clothed, arrest her for not being. I think I’m going to like this.” She turned to the girl, who was standing still and saying nothing, as if she were puzzled by what was going on. “I’m a lawyer, dear.” She pulled a card from her vest pocket. “If this uniformed Neanderthal persists in annoying you, I’ll be delighted to handle him.” The man in the kilt said, “Grace! Please!” She shook him off. “Quiet, Norman, this is our business.” She went on to the policeman, “Well? Call the wagon. In the meantime my client will answer no questions.” The official looked unhappy enough to cry and his face was getting dangerously red. Breen quietly stepped forward and slipped his raincoat around the shoulders of the girl. She looked startled and spoke for the first time. “Uh, thanks.” She pulled the coat about her, cape fashion. The female attorney glanced at Breen then back to the cop. “Well, officer? Ready to arrest us?” He shoved his face close to hers. “I ain’t going to give you the satisfaction!” He sighed and added, “Thanks, Mister Breen, you know this lady?” “I’ll take care of her. You can forget it, Kawonski.” “I sure hope so. If she’s with you, I’ll do just that. But get her out of here, Mister Breen, please!” The lawyer interrupted. “Just a moment, you’re interfering with my client.” Kawonski said, “Shut up, you! You heard Mister Breen, she’s with him. Right, Mister Breen?” “Well yes. I’m a friend. I’ll take care of her.” The transvestite said suspiciously, “I didn’t hear her say that.” Her companion said, “Grace, please! There’s our bus.” “And I didn’t hear her say she was your client,” the cop retorted. “You look like a.” His words were drowned out by the bus’s brakes, “And besides that, if you don’t climb on that bus and get off my territory, I’ll, I’ll.” “You’ll what?” “Grace! We’ll miss our bus.” “Just a moment, Norman. Dear, is this man really a friend of yours? Are you with him?” The girl looked uncertainly at Breen, then said in a low voice, “Uh, yes. That’s right.” “Well.” The lawyer’s companion pulled at her arm. She shoved her card into Breen’s hand and got on the bus; it pulled away. Breen pocketed the card. Kawonski wiped his forehead. “Why did you do it, lady?” he said peevishly. The girl looked puzzled. “I, I don’t know.” “You hear that, Mister Breen? That’s what they all say. And if you pull ‘em in, there’s six more the next day. The Chief said.” He sighed. “The Chief said well, if I had arrested her like that female shyster wanted me to. I’d be out at a hundred and ninety-sixth and Ploughed Ground tomorrow morning, thinking about retirement. So get her out of here, will you?” The girl said, “But.” “No ‘buts,’ lady. Just be glad a real gentleman like Mister Breen is willing to help you.” He gathered up her clothes, handed them to her. When she reached for them she again exposed an uncustomary amount of skin; Kawonski hastily gave them to Breen instead, who crowded them into his coat pockets. She let Breen lead her to where his car was parked, got in and tucked the raincoat around her so that she was rather more dressed than a girl usually is. She looked at him. She saw a medium-sized and undistinguished man who was slipping down the wrong side of thirty-five and looked older. His eyes had that mild and slightly naked look of the habitual spectacles wearer who is not at the moment with glasses; his hair was gray at the temples and thin on top. His herringbone suit, black shoes, white shirt, and neat tie smacked more of the East than of California. He saw a face which he classified as “pretty” and “wholesome” rather than “beautiful” and “glamorous,” It was topped by a healthy mop of light brown hair. He set her age at twenty-five, give or take eighteen months. He smiled gently, climbed in without speaking and started his car. He turned up Doheny Drive and east on Sunset. Near La Cienega he slowed down. “Feeling better?” “Uh, I guess so. Mr., ’Breen’?” “Call me Potiphar. What’s your name? Don’t tell me if you don’t want to,” “Me? I’m, I’m Meade Barstow.” “Thank you, Meade. Where do you want to go? Home?” “I suppose so. I, Oh my no! I can’t go home like this.” She clutched the coat tightly to her. “Parents?” “No. My landlady. She’d be shocked to death.” “Where, then?” She thought. “Maybe we could stop at a filling station and I could sneak into the ladies’ room.” “Hum, maybe. See here, Meade, my house is six blocks from here and has a garage entrance. You could get inside without being seen.” He looked at her. She stared back. “Potiphar you don’t look like a wolf?” “Oh, but I am! The worst sort.” He whistled and gnashed his teeth. “See? But Wednesday is my day off from it.” She looked at him and dimpled. “Oh, well! I’d rather wrestle with you than with Missus Megeath. Let’s go.” He turned up into the hills. His bachelor diggings were one of the many little frame houses clinging like fungus to the brown slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains. The garage was notched into this hill; the house sat on it. He drove in, cut the ignition, and led her up a teetery inside stairway into the living room. “In there,” he said, pointing. “Help yourself.” He pulled her clothes out of his coat pockets and handed them to her. She blushed and took them, disappeared into his bed- room. He heard her turn the key in the lock. He settled down in his easy chair, took out his notebook, and opened the Herald-Express. He was finishing the Daily News and had added several notes to his collection when she came out. Her hair was neatly rolled; her face was restored; she had brushed most of the wrinkles out of her skirt. Her sweater was neither too tight nor deep cut, but it was pleasantly filled. She reminded him of well water and farm breakfasts. He took his raincoat from her, hung it up, and said, “Sit down, Meade.” She said uncertainly, “I had better go.” “Go if you must, but I had hoped to talk with you.” “Well.” She sat down on the edge of his couch and looked around. The room was small but as neat as his necktie, clean as his collar. The fireplace was swept; the floor was bare and polished. Books crowded bookshelves in every possible space. One corner was filled by an elderly flat-top desk; the papers on it were neatly in order. Near it, on its own stand, was a small electric calculator. To her right, French windows gave out on a tiny porch over the garage. Beyond it she could see the sprawling city; a few neon signs were already blinking. She sat back a little. “This is a nice room, Potiphar. It looks like you.” “I take that as a compliment. Thank you.” She did not answer; he went on, “Would you like a drink?” “Oh, would I!” She shivered. “I guess I’ve got the jitters.” He got up. “Not surprising. What’ll it be?” She took Scotch and water, no ice; he was a Bourbon-and-ginger-ale man. She had soaked up half her highball in silence, then put it down, squared her shoulders and said, “Potiphar?” “Yes, Meade?” “Look, if you brought me here to make a pass, I wish you’d go ahead and make it. It won’t do you a bit of good, but it makes me nervous to wait for it.” He said nothing and did not change his expression. She went on uneasily, “Not that I’d blame you for trying, under the circumstances. And I am grateful. But, well it’s just that I don’t.” He came over and took both her hands. “My dear, I haven’t the slightest thought of making a pass at you. Nor need you feel grateful. I butted in because I was interested in your case.” “My case? Are you a doctor? A psychiatrist?” He shook his head. “I’m a mathematician. A statistician, to be precise.” “Hub? I don’t get it.” “Don’t worry about it. But I would like to ask some questions. May I?” “Uh, sure, sure! I owe you that much, and then some.” “You owe me nothing. Want your drink sweetened?” She gulped it and handed him her glass, then followed him out into the kitchen. He did an exact job of measuring and gave it back. “Now tell me why you took your clothes off?” She frowned. “I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know. I guess I just went crazy.” She added round-eyed, “But I don’t feel crazy. Could I go off my rocker and not know it?” “You’re not crazy, not more so than the rest of us,” he amended. “Tell me, where did you see someone else do this?” “Huh? But I never have.” “Where did you read about it?” “But I haven’t. Wait a minute, those people up in Canada. Dooka-somethings.” “Doukhobors. That’s all? No bareskin swimming parties? No strip poker?” She shook her head. “No. You may not believe it but I was the kind of a little girl who undressed under her nightie.” She colored and added, “I still do, unless I remember to tell myself it’s silly.” “I believe it. No news stories?” “No. Yes, there was too! About two weeks ago, I think it was. Some girl in a theater, in the audience, I mean. But I thought it was just publicity. You know the stunts they pull here.” He shook his head. “It wasn’t. February 3rd, the Grand Theater, Missus Alvin Copley. Charges dismissed.” “Huh? How did you know?” “Excuse me.” He went to his desk, dialed the City News Bureau. “Alf? This is Pot Breen. They still sitting on that story? Yes, yes, the Gypsy Rose file. Any new ones today?” He waited; Meade thought that she could make out swearing. “Take it easy, Alf, this hot weather can’t last forever. Nine, eh? Well, add another, Santa Monica Boulevard, late this afternoon. No arrest.” He added, “Nope, nobody got her name, a middle-aged woman with a cast in one eye. I happened to see it, who, me? Why would I want to get mixed up? But it’s rounding up into a very, very interesting picture.” He put the phone down. Meade said, “Cast in one eye, indeed!” “Shall I call him back and give him your name?” “Oh, no!” “Very well. Now, Meade, we seemed to have located the point of contagion in your case, Missus Copley. What I’d like to know next is how you felt, what you were thinking about, when you did it?” She was frowning intently. “Wait a minute, Potiphar, do I understand that nine other girls have pulled the stunt I pulled?” “Oh, no, nine others today. You are.” He paused briefly. “, the three hundred and nineteenth case in Los Angeles county since the first of the year. I don’t have figures on the rest of the country, but the suggestion to clamp down on the stories came from the eastern news services when the papers here put our first cases on the wire. That proves that it’s a problem elsewhere, too.” “You mean that women all over the country are peeling off their clothes in public? Why, how shocking!” He said nothing. She blushed again and insisted, “Well, it is shocking, even if it was me, this time.” “No, Meade. One case is shocking; over three hundred makes it scientifically interesting. That’s why I want to know how it felt. Tell me about it.” “But, All right, I’ll try. I told you I don’t know why I did it; I still don’t. I.” “You remember it?” “Oh, yes! I remember getting up off the bench and pulling up my sweater. I remember unzipping my skirt. I remember thinking I would have to hurry as I could see my bus stopped two blocks down the street. I remember how good it felt when I finally, uh.” She paused and looked puzzled. “But I still don’t know why.” “What were you thinking about just before you stood up?” “I don’t remember.” “Visualize the street. What was passing by? Where were your hands? Were your legs crossed or uncrossed? Was there anybody near you? What were you thinking about?” “Uh, nobody was on the bench with me. I had my hands in my lap. Those characters in the mixed-up clothes were standing near by, but I wasn’t paying attention. I wasn’t thinking much except that my feet hurt and I wanted to get home-and how unbearably hot and sultry it was. Then.” Her eyes became distant, “, suddenly I knew what I had to do and it was very urgent that I do it. So I stood up and I, and I.” Her voice became shrill. “Take it easy!” he said. “Don’t do it again.” “Huh? Why, Mister Breen! I wouldn’t do anything like that.” “Of course not. Then what?” “Why, you put your raincoat around me and you know the rest.” She faced him. “Say, Potiphar, what were you doing with a raincoat? It hasn’t rained in weeks, this is the driest, hottest rainy season in years.” “In sixty-eight years, to be exact.” “Huh?” “I carry a raincoat anyhow. Uh, just a notion of mine, but I feel that when it does rain, it’s going to rain awfully hard.” He added, “Forty days and forty nights, maybe.” She decided that he was being humorous and laughed. He went on, “Can you remember how you got the idea?” She swirled her glass and thought. “I simply don’t know.” He nodded. “That’s what I expected.” “I don’t understand you, unless you think I’m crazy. Do you?” “No. I think you had to do it and could not help it and don’t know why and can’t know why.” “But you know.” She said it accusingly. “Maybe. At least I have some figures. Ever take any interest in statistics, Meade?” She shook her head. “Figures confuse me. Never mind statistics, I want to know why I did what I did!” He looked at her very soberly. “I think we’re lemmings, Meade.” She looked puzzled, then horrified. “You mean those little furry mouselike creatures? The ones that.” “Yes. The ones that periodically make a death migration, until millions, hundreds of millions of them drown themselves in the sea. Ask a lemming why he does it. If you could get him to slow up his rush toward death, even money says he would rationalize his answer as well as any college graduate. But he does it because he has to, and so do we.” “That’s a horrid idea, Potiphar.” “Maybe. Come here, Meade. I’ll show you figures that confuse me, too.” He went to his desk and opened a drawer, took out a packet of cards. “Here’s one. Two weeks ago a man sues an entire state legislature for alienation of his wife’s affection, and the judge lets the suit be tried. Or this one, a patent application for a device to lay the globe over on its side and warm up the arctic regions. Patent denied, but the inventor took in over three hundred thousand dollars in down payments on South Pole real estate before the postal authorities stepped in. Now he’s fighting the case and it looks as if he might win. And here, prominent bishop proposes applied courses in the so-called facts of life in high schools.” He put the card away hastily. “Here’s a dilly: a bill introduced in the Alabama lower house to repeal the laws of atomic energy, not the present statutes, but the natural laws concerning nuclear physics; the wording makes that plain.” He shrugged. “How silly can you get?” “They’re crazy.” “No, Meade. One such is crazy; a lot of them is a lemming death march. No, don’t object, I’ve plotted them on a curve. The last time we had anything like this was the so-called Era of Wonderful Nonsense. But this one is much worse.” He delved into a lower drawer, hauled out a graph. “The amplitude is more than twice as great and we haven’t reached peak. What the peak will be I don’t dare guess three separate rhythms, reinforcing.” She peered at the curves. “You mean that the laddy with the artic real estate deal is somewhere on this line?” “He adds to it. And back here on the last crest are the flag- pole sitters and the goldfish swallowers and the Ponzi hoax and the marathon dancers and the man who pushed a peanut up Pikes Peak with his nose. You’re on the new crest, or you will be when I add you in.” She made a face. “I don’t like it.” “Neither do I. But it’s as clear as a bank statement. This year the human race is letting down its hair, flipping its lip with a finger, and saying, ‘Wubba, wubba, wubba.”’ She shivered. “Do you suppose I could have another drink? Then I’ll go.” “I have a better idea. I owe you a dinner for answering questions. Pick a place and we’ll have a cocktail before.” She chewed her lip. “You don’t owe me anything. And I don’t feel up to facing a restaurant crowd. I might, I might.” “No, you wouldn’t,” he said sharply. “It doesn’t hit twice.” “You’re sure? Anyhow, I don’t want to face a crowd.” She glanced at his kitchen door. “Have you anything to eat in there? I can cook.” “Urn, breakfast things. And there’s a pound of ground round in the freezer compartment and some rolls. I sometimes make hamburgers when I don’t want to go out.” She headed for the kitchen. “Drunk or sober, fully dressed or, or naked, I can cook. You’ll see.” He did see. Open-faced sandwiches with the meat married to toasted buns and the flavor garnished rather than suppressed by scraped Bermuda onion and thin-sliced dill, a salad made from things she had scrounged out of his refrigerator, potatoes crisp but not vulcanized. They ate it on the tiny balcony, sopping it down with cold beer. He sighed and wiped his mouth. “Yes, Meade, you can cook.” “Someday I’ll arrive with proper materials and pay you back. Then I’ll prove it.” “You’ve already proved it. Nevertheless I accept. But I tell you three times, you owe me nothing.” “No? If you hadn’t been a Boy Scout, I’d be in jail.” Breen shook his head. “The police have orders to keep it quiet at all costs, to keep it from growing. You saw that. And, my dear, you weren’t a person to me at the time. I didn’t even see your face; I.” “You saw plenty else!” “Truthfully, I didn’t look. You were just a, a statistic.” She toyed with her knife and said slowly, “I’m not sure, but I think I’ve just been insulted. In all the twenty-five years that I’ve fought men off, more or less successfully, I’ve been called a lot of names, but a ‘statistic’, why I ought to take your slide rule and beat you to death with it.” “My dear young lady.” “I’m not a lady, that’s for sure. But I’m not a statistic.” “My dear Meade, then. I wanted to tell you, before you did anything hasty, that in college I wrestled varsity middleweight.” She grinned and dimpled. “That’s more the talk a girl likes to hear. I was beginning to be afraid you had been assembled in an adding machine factory. Potty, you’re rather a dear.” “If that is a diminutive of my given name, I like it. But if it refers to my waist line, I resent it.” She reached across and patted his stomach. “I like your waist line; lean and hungry men are difficult. If I were cooking for you regularly, I’d really pad it.” “Is that a proposal?” “Let it lie, let it lie, Potty, do you really think the whole country is losing its buttons?” He sobered at once. “It’s worse than that.” “Huh?” “Come inside. I’ll show you.” They gathered up dishes and dumped them in the sink, Breen talking all the while. “As a kid I was fascinated by numbers. Numbers are pretty things and they combine in such interesting configurations. I took my degree in math, of course, and got a job as a junior actuary with Midwestern Mutual, the insurance outfit. That was fun, no way on earth to tell when a particular man is going to die, but an absolute certainty that so many men of a certain age group would die before a certain date. The curves were so lovely, and they always worked out. Always. You didn’t have to know why; you could predict with dead certainty and never know why. The equations worked; the curves were right. “I was interested in astronomy too; it was the one science where individual figures worked out neatly, completely, and accurately, down to the last decimal point the instruments were good for. Compared with astronomy the other sciences were mere carpentry and kitchen chemistry. “I found there were nooks and crannies in astronomy where individual numbers won’t do, where you have to go over to statistics, and I became even more interested. I joined the Variable Star Association and I might have gone into astronomy professionally, instead of what I’m in now, business consultation, if I hadn’t gotten interested in something else.” ‘“Business consultation’?” repeated Meade. “Income tax work?” “Oh, no, that’s too elementary. I’m the numbers boy for a firm of industrial engineers. I can tell a rancher exactly how many of his Hereford bull calves will be sterile. Or I tell a motion picture producer how much rain insurance to carry on location. Or maybe how big a company in a particular line must be to carry its own risk in industrial accidents. And I’m right, I’m always right.” “Wait a minute. Seems to me a big company would have to have insurance.” “Contrariwise. A really big corporation begins to resemble a statistical universe.” “Huh?” “Never mind. I got interested in something else, cycles. Cycles are everything, Meade. And everywhere. The tides. The seasons. Wars. Love. Everybody knows that in the spring the young man’s fancy lightly turns to what the girls never stopped thinking about, but did you know that it runs in an eighteen-year-plus cycle as well? And that a girl born at the wrong swing of the curve doesn’t stand nearly as good a chance as her older or younger sister?” “What? Is that why I’m a doddering old maid?” “You’re twenty-five?” He pondered. “Maybe, but your chances are picking up again; the curve is swinging up. Anyhow, remember you are just one statistic; the curve applies to the group. Some girls get married every year anyhow.” “Don’t call me a statistic.” “Sorry. And marriages match up with acreage planted to wheat, with wheat cresting ahead. You could almost say that planting wheat makes people get married.” “Sounds silly.” “It is silly. The whole notion of cause-and-effect is probably superstition. But the same cycle shows a peak in house building right after a peak in marriages, every time.” “Now that makes sense.” “Does it? How many newlyweds do you know who can afford to build a house? You might as well blame it on wheat acreage. We don’t know why; it just is.” “Sun spots, maybe?” “You can correlate sun spots with stock prices, or Columbia River salmon, or women’s skirts. And you are just as much justified in blaming short skirts for sun spots as you are in blaming sun spots for salmon. We don’t know. But the curves go on just the same.” “But there has to be some reason behind it.” “Does there? That’s mere assumption. A fact has no ‘why.’ There it stands, self demonstrating. Why did you take your clothes off today?” She frowned. “That’s not fair.” “Maybe not. But I want to show you why I’m worried.” He went into the bedroom, came out with a large roll of tracing paper. “We’ll spread it on the floor. Here they are, all of them. The 54-year cycle, see the Civil War there? See how it matches in? The 18 and 1/3 year cycle, the 9-plus cycle, the 41-month shorty, the three rhythms of sunspots, everything, all combined in one grand chart. Mississippi River floods, fur catches in Canada, stock market prices, marriages, epidemics, freight-car loadings, bank clearings, locust plagues, divorces, tree growth, wars, rainfall, earth magnetism, building construction patents applied for, murders, you name it; I’ve got it there.” She stared at the bewildering array of wavy lines. “But, Potty, what does it mean?” “It means that these things all happen, in regular rhythm, whether we like it or not. It means that when skirts are due to go up, all the stylists in Paris can’t make ‘em go down. It means that when prices are going down, all the controls and supports and government planning can’t make ‘em go up.” He pointed to a curve. “Take a look at the grocery ads. Then turn to the financial page and read how the Big Brains try to double-talk their way out of it. It means that when an epidemic is due, it happens, despite all the public health efforts. It means we’re lemmings.” She pulled her lip. “I don’t like it. 1 am the master of my fate,’ and so forth. I’ve got free will, Potty. I know I have, I can feel it.” “I imagine every little neutron in an atom bomb feels the same way. He can go spung! or he can sit still, just as he pleases. But statistical mechanics work out anyhow. And the bomb goes off, which is what I’m leading up to. See anything odd there, Meade?” She studied the chart, trying not to let the curving lines confuse her. “They sort of bunch up over at the right end.” “You’re dern tootin’ they do! See that dotted vertical line? That’s right now, and things are bad enough. But take a look at that solid vertical; that’s about six months from now and that’s when we get it. Look at the cycles, the long ones, the short ones, all of them. Every single last one of them reaches either a trough or a crest exactly on, or almost on, that line.” “That’s bad?” “What do you think? Three of the big ones troughed in 1929 and the depression almost ruined us, even with the big 54-year cycle supporting things. Now we’ve got the big one troughing, and the few crests are not things that help. I mean to say, tent caterpillars and influenza don’t do us any good, Meade, if statistics mean anything, this tired old planet hasn’t seen a jackpot like this since Eve went into the apple business. I’m scared.” She searched his face. “Potty, you’re not simply having fun with me? You know I can’t check up on you.” “I wish to heaven I were. No, Meade, I can’t fool about numbers; I wouldn’t know how. This is it. The Year of the Jackpot.” She was very silent as he drove her home. As they approached West Los Angeles, she said, “Potty?” “Yes, Meade?” “What do we do about it?” “What do you do about a hurricane? You pull in your ears. What can you do about an atom bomb? You try to out-guess it, not be there when it goes off. What else can you do?” “Oh.” She was silent for a few moments, then added, “Potty? Will you tell me which way to jump?” “Hub? Oh, sure! If I can figure it out.” He took her to her door, turned to go. She said, “Potty!” He faced her. “Yes, Meade?” She grabbed his head, shook it, then kissed him fiercely on the mouth. “There, is that just a statistic?” “Uh, no.” “It had better not be,” she said dangerously. “Potty, I think I’m going to have to change your curve.” Chapter Two. “RUSSIANS REJECT UN NOTE” “MISSOURI FLOOD DAMAGE EXCEEDS 1951 RECORD” “MISSISSIPPI MESSIAH DEFIES COURT” “NUDIST CONVENTION STORMS BAILEY’S BEACH” “BRITISH-IRAN TALKS STILL DEAD-LOCKED” “FASTER-THAN-LIGHT WEAPON PROMISED” “TYPHOON DOUBLING BACK ON MANILA” “MARRIAGE SOLEMNIZED ON FLOOR OF HUDSON, New York, 13 July, In a specially-constructed diving suit built for two, Merydith Smithe, cafe society headline girl, and Prince Augie Schleswieg of New York and the Riviera were united today by Bishop Dalton in a service televised with the aid of the Navy’s ultra-new.” As the Year of the Jackpot progressed Breen took melancholy pleasure in adding to the data which proved that the curve was sagging as predicted. The undeclared World War continued its bloody, blundering way at half a dozen spots around a tortured globe. Breen did not chart it; the headlines were there for anyone to read. He concentrated on the odd facts in the other pages of the papers, facts which, taken singly, meant nothing, but taken together showed a disastrous trend. He listed stock market prices, rainfall, wheat futures, but it was the “silly season” items which fascinated him. To be sure, some humans were always doing silly things, but at what point had prime dam foolishness become commonplace? When, for example, had the zombie-like professional models become accepted ideals of American womanhood? What were the gradations between National Cancer Week and National Athlete’s Foot Week? On what day had the American people finally taken leave of horse sense? Take transvestitism, male-and-female dress customs were arbitrary, but they had seemed to be deeply rooted in the culture. When did the breakdown start? With Marlene Dietrich’s tailored suits? By the late forties there was no “male” article of clothing that a woman could not wear in public, but when had men started to slip over the line? Should he count the psychological cripples who had made the word “drag” a byword in Greenwich Village and Hollywood long before this outbreak? Or were they “wild shots” not belonging on the curve? Did it start with some unknown normal man attending a masquerade and there discovering that skirts actually were more comfortable and practical than trousers? Or had it started with the resurgence of Scottish nationalism reflected in the wearing of kilts by many Scottish-Americans? Ask a lemming to state his motives! The outcome was in front of him, a news story. Transvestitism by draft-dodgers had at last resulted in a mass arrest in Chicago which was to have ended in a giant joint trial, only to have the deputy prosecutor show up in a pinafore and defy the judge to submit to an examination to determine the judge’s true sex. The judge suffered a stroke and died and the trial was postponed, postponed forever in Breen’s opinion; he doubted that this particular blue law would ever again be enforced. Or the laws about indecent exposure, for that matter. The attempt to limit the Gypsy-Rose syndrome by ignoring it had taken the starch out of enforcement; now here was a report about the All Souls Community Church of Springfield: the pastor had reinstituted ceremonial nudity. Probably the first time this thousand years, Breen thought, aside from some screwball cults in Los Angeles. The reverend gentleman claimed that the ceremony was identical with the “dance of the high priestess” in the ancient temple of Kamak. Could be, but Breen had private information that the “priestess” had been working the burlesque and nightclub circuit before her present engagement. In any case the holy leader was packing them in and had not been arrested. Two weeks later a hundred and nine churches in thirty-three states offered equivalent attractions. Breen entered them on his curves. This queasy oddity seemed to him to have no relation to the startling rise in the dissident evangelical cults throughout the country. These churches were sincere, earnest and poor, but growing, ever since the War. Now they were multiplying like yeast. It seemed a statistical cinch that the United States was about to become godstruck again. He correlated it with Transcendentalism and the trek of the Latter Day Saints, hum, yes, it fitted. And the curve was pushing toward a crest. Billions in war bonds were now falling due; wartime marriages were reflected in the swollen peak of the Los Angeles school population. The Colorado River was at a record low and the towers in Lake Mead stood high out of the water. But the Angelenos committed slow suicide by watering lawns as usual. The Metropolitan Water District commissioners tried to stop it, it fell between the stools of the police powers of fifty “sovereign” cities. The taps remained open, trickling away the life blood of the desert paradise. The four regular party conventions, Dixiecrats, Regular Republicans, the other Regular Republicans, and the Democrats, attracted scant attention, as the Know-Nothings had not yet met. The fact that the “American Rally,” as the Know-Nothings preferred to be called, claimed not to be a party but an educational society did not detract from their strength. But what was their strength? Their beginnings had been so obscure that Breen had had to go back and dig into the December 1951 files, but he had been approached twice this very week to join them, right inside his own office, once by his boss, once by the janitor. He hadn’t been able to chart the Know-Nothings. They gave him chills in his spine. He kept column-inches on them, found that their publicity was shrinking while their numbers were obviously zooming. Krakatau blew up on July eighteenth. It provided the first important transpacific TV-cast; its effect on sunsets, on solar constant, on mean temperature, and on rainfall would not be felt until later in the year. The San Andreas fault, its stresses unrelieved since the Long Beach disaster of 1933, continued to build up imbalance, an unhealed wound running the full length of the West Coast. Pelee and Etna erupted; Mauna Loa was still quiet. Flying saucers seemed to be landing daily in every state. No one had exhibited one on the ground, or had the Department of Defense sat on them? Breen was unsatisfied with the off the record reports he had been able to get; the alcoholic content of some of them had been high. But the sea serpent on Ventura Beach was real; he had seen it. The troglodyte in Tennessee he was not in a position to verify. Thirty-one domestic air crashes the last week in July, was it sabotage? Or was it a sagging curve on a chart? And that neo-polio epidemic that skipped from Seattle to New York? Time for a big epidemic? Breen’s chart said it was. But how about B.W.? Could a chart know that a Slav biochemist would perfect an efficient virus-and-vector at the right time? Nonsense! But the curves, if they meant anything at all, included “free will”; they averaged in all the individual “wills” of a statistical universe, and came out as a smooth function, Every morning three million “free wills” flowed toward the center of the New York megapolis; every evening they flowed out again, all by “free will,” and on a smooth and predictable curve. Ask a lemming! Ask all the lemmings, dead and alive, let them take a vote on it! Breen tossed his notebook aside and called Meade, “Is this my favorite statistic?” “Potty! I was thinking about you.” “Naturally. This is your night off.” “Yes, but another reason, too. Potiphar, have you ever taken a look at the Great Pyramid?” “I haven’t even been to Niagara Falls. I’m looking for a rich woman, so I can travel.” “Yes, yes, I’ll let you know when I get my first million, but.” “That’s the first time you’ve proposed to me this week.” “Shut up. Have you ever looked into the prophecies they found inside the pyramid?” “Huh? Look, Meade, that’s in the same class with astrology, strictly for squirrels. Grow up.” “Yes, of course. But Potty, I thought you were interested in anything odd. This is odd.” “Oh. Sorry. If it’s ‘silly season’ stuff, let’s see it.” “All right. Am I cooking for you tonight?” “It’s Wednesday, isn’t it?” “How soon?” He glanced at his watch. “Pick you up in eleven minutes.” He felt his whiskers. “No, twelve and a half.” “I’ll be ready. Missus Megeath says that these regular dates mean that you are going to marry me.” “Pay no attention to her. She’s just a statistic. And I’m a wild datum.” “Oh, well, I’ve got two hundred and forty-seven dollars toward that million. ‘Bye!” Meade’s prize was the usual Rosicrucian come-on, elaborately printed, and including a photograph (retouched, he was sure) of the much disputed line on the corridor wall which was alleged to prophesy, by its various discontinuities, the entire future. This one had an unusual time scale but the major events were all marked on it, the fall of Rome, the Norman Invasion, the Discovery of America, Napoleon, the World Wars. What made it interesting was that it suddenly stopped, now. “What about it. Potty?” “I guess the stonecutter got tired. Or got fired. Or they got a new head priest with new ideas.” He tucked it into his desk. “Thanks. I’ll think about how to list it.” But he got it out again, applied dividers and a magnifying glass. “It says here,” he announced, “that the end comes late in August, unless that’s a fly speck.” “Morning or afternoon? I have to know how to dress.” “Shoes will be worn. All God’s chilluns got shoes.” He put it away. She was quiet for a moment, then said, “Potty, isn’t it about time to jump?” “Huh? Girl, don’t let that thing affect you! That’s ‘silly season’ stuff.” “Yes. But take a look at your chart.” Nevertheless he took the next afternoon off, spent it in the reference room of the main library, confirmed his opinion of soothsayers. Nostradamus was pretentiously silly, Mother Shippey was worse. In any of them you could find what you looked for. He did find one item in Nostradamus that he liked: “The Oriental shall come forth from his seat, he shall pass through the sky, through the waters and the snow, and he shall strike each one with his weapon.” That sounded like what the Department of Defense expected the commies to try to do to the Western Allies. But it was also a description of every invasion that had come out of the “heartland” in the memory of mankind. Nuts! When he got home he found himself taking down his father’s Bible and turning to Revelations. He could not find anything that he could understand but he got fascinated by the recurring use of precise numbers. Presently he thumbed through the Book at random; his eye lit on: “Boast not thyself of tomorrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” He put the Book away, feeling humbled but not cheered. The rains started the next morning. The Master Plumbers elected Miss Star Morning “Miss Sanitary Engineering” on the same day that the morticians designated her as “The Body I would Like Best to Prepare,” and her option was dropped by Fragrant Features. Congress voted one dollar thirty seven cents to compensate Thomas Jefferson Meeks for losses incurred while an emergency postman for the Christmas rush of 1936, approved the appointment of five lieutenant generals and one ambassador and adjourned in eight minutes. The fire extinguishers in a Midwest orphanage turned out to be filled with air. The chancellor of the leading football institution sponsored a fund to send peace messages and vitamins to the Politburo. The stock market slumped nineteen points and the tickers ran two hours late. Wichita, Kansas, remained flooded while Phoenix, Arizona, cut off drinking water to areas outside city limits. And Potiphar Breen found that he had left his raincoat at Meade Barstow’s rooming house. He phoned her landlady, but Missus Megeath turned him over to Meade. “What are you doing home on a Friday?” he demanded. “The theater manager laid me off. Now you’ll have to marry me.” “You can’t afford me. Meade, seriously, baby, what happened?” “I was ready to leave the dump anyway. For the last six weeks the popcorn machine has been carrying the place. Today I sat through I Was A Teen-Age Beatnik twice. Nothing to do.” “I’ll be along.” “Eleven minutes?” “It’s raining. Twenty, with luck.” It was more nearly sixty. Santa Monica Boulevard was a navigable stream; Sunset Boulevard was a subway jam. When he tried to ford the streams leading to Missus Megeath’s house, he found that changing tires with the wheel wedged against a storm drain presented problems. “Potty! You look like a drowned rat.” “I’ll live,” But presently he found himself wrapped in a blanket robe belonging to the late Mister Megeath and sipping hot cocoa while Missus Megeath dried his clothing in the kitchen. “Meade, I’m ‘at liberty,’ too.” “Hub? You quit your job?” “Not exactly. Old Man Wiley and I have been having differences of opinion about my answers for months, too much ‘Jackpot factor’ in the figures I give him to turn over to clients. Not that I call it that, but he has felt that I was unduly pessimistic.” “But you were right!” “Since when has being right endeared a man to his boss? But that wasn’t why he fired me; that was just the excuse. He wants a man willing to back up the Know-Nothing program with scientific double-talk. And I wouldn’t join.” He went to the window. “It’s raining harder.” “But they haven’t got any program.” “I know that.” “Potty, you should have joined. It doesn’t mean anything, I joined three months ago.” “The hell you did!” She shrugged. “You pay your dollar and you turn up for two meetings and they leave you alone. It kept my job for another three months. What of it?” “Uh, well, I’m sorry you did it; that’s all. Forget it. Meade, the water is over the curbs out there.” “You had better stay here overnight.” “Hum, I don’t like to leave ‘Entropy’ parked out in this stuff all night. Meade?” “Yes, Potty?” “We’re both out of jobs. How would you like to duck north into the Mojave and find a dry spot?” “I’d love it. But look, Potty, is this a proposal, or just a proposition?” “Don’t pull that ‘either-or’ stuff on me. It’s just a suggestion for a vacation. Do you want to take a chaperone?” “No.” “Then pack a bag.” “Right away. But look, Potiphar, pack a bag how? Are you trying to tell me it’s time to jump?” He faced her, then looked back at the window. “I don’t know,” he said slowly, “but this rain might go on quite a while. Don’t take anything you don’t have to have, but don’t leave anything behind you can’t get along without.” He repossessed his clothing from Missus Megeath while Meade was upstairs, She came down dressed in slacks and carrying two large bags; under one arm was a battered and rakish Teddy bear. “This is Winnie.” “Winnie the Pooh?” “No, Winnie Churchill. When I feel bad he promises me ‘blood, toil, tears, and sweat’; then I feel better. You said to bring anything I couldn’t do without?” She looked at him anxiously. “Right.” He took the bags. Missus Megeath had seemed satisfied with his explanation that they were going to visit his (mythical) aunt in Bakersfield before looking for jobs; nevertheless she embarrassed him by kissing him good-by and telling him to “take care of my little girl.” Santa Monica Boulevard was blocked off from use. While stalled in traffic in Beverly Hills he fiddled with the car radio, getting squawks and crackling noises, then finally one station nearby: “, in effect,” a harsh, high, staccato voice was saying, “the Kremlin has given us till sundown to get out of town. This is your New York Reporter, who thinks that in days like these every American must personally keep his powder dry. And now for a word from.” Breen switched it off and glanced at her face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “They’ve been talking that way for years,” “You think they are bluffing?” “I didn’t say that. I said, ‘don’t worry.’ “ But his own packing, with her help, was clearly on a “Survival Kit” basis, canned goods, all his warm clothing, a sporting rifle he had not fired in over two years, a first-aid kit and the contents of his medicine chest. He dumped the stuff from his desk into a carton, shoved it into the back seat along with cans and books and coats and covered the plunder with all the blankets in the house. They went back up the rickety stairs for a last check. “Potty, where’s your chart?” “Rolled up on the back seat shelf. I guess that’s all, hey, wait a minute!” He went to a shelf over his desk and began taking down small, sober-looking magazines. “I dern near left behind my file of The Western Astronomer and of the Proceedings of the Variable Star Association.” “Why take them?” “Huh? I must be nearly a year behind on both of them. Now maybe I’ll have time to read.” “Hum, Potty, watching you read professional journals is not my notion of a vacation.” “Quiet, woman! You took Winnie; I take these.” She shut up and helped him. He cast a longing eye at his electric calculator but decided it was too much like the White Knight’s mouse trap. He could get by with his slide rule. As the car splashed out into the street she said, “Potty, how are you fixed for cash?” “Huh? Okay, I guess.” “I mean, leaving while the banks are closed and everything.” She held up her purse. “Here’s my bank. It isn’t much, but we can use it.” He smiled and patted her knee. “Stout fellow! I’m sitting on my bank; I started turning everything to cash about the first of the year.” “Oh. I closed out my bank account right after we met.” “You did? You must have taken my maunderings seriously.” “I always take you seriously.” Mint Canyon was a five-mile-an-hour nightmare, with visibility limited to the tail lights of the truck ahead. When they stopped for coffee at Halfway, they confirmed what seemed evident: Cajon Pass was closed and long-haul traffic for Route 66 was being detoured through the secondary pass. At long, long last they reached the Victorville cut-off and lost some of the traffic, a good thing, as the windshield wiper on his side had quit working and they were driving by the committee system. Just short of Lancaster she said suddenly, “Potty, is this buggy equipped with a snorkel?” “Nope.” “Then we had better stop. But I see a light off the road.” The light was an auto court. Meade settled the matter of economy versus convention by signing the book herself; they were placed in one cabin. He saw that it had twin beds and let the matter ride. Meade went to bed with her Teddy bear without even asking to be kissed goodnight. It was already gray, wet dawn. They got up in the late afternoon and decided to stay over one more night, then push north toward Bakersfield. A high pressure area was alleged to be moving south, crowding the warm, wet mass that smothered Southern California. They wanted to get into it. Breen had the wiper repaired and bought two new tires to replace his ruined spare, added some camping items to his cargo, and bought for Meade a .32 automatic, a lady’s social-purposes gun; he gave it to her somewhat sheepishly. “What’s this for?” “Well, you’re carrying quite a bit of cash.” “Oh. I thought maybe I was to use it to fight you off.” “Now, Meade.” “Never mind. Thanks, Potty.” They had finished supper and were packing the car with their afternoon’s purchases when the quake struck. Five inches of rain in twenty-four hours, more than three billion tons of mass suddenly loaded on a fault already overstrained, all cut loose in one subsonic, stomach-twisting rumble. Meade sat down on the wet ground very suddenly; Breen stayed upright by dancing like a logroller. When the ground quieted down somewhat, thirty seconds later, he helped her up. “You all right?” “My slacks are soaked.” She added pettishly, “But, Potty, it never quakes in wet weather. Never.” “It did this time.” “But.” “Keep quiet, can’t you?” He opened the car door and switched on the radio, waited impatiently for it to warm up. Shortly he was searching the entire dial. “Not a confounded Los Angeles station on the air!” “Maybe the shock busted one of your tubes?” “Pipe down.” He passed a squeal and dialed back to it: “Your Sunshine Station in Riverside, California. Keep tuned to this station for the latest developments. It is as of now impossible to tell the size of the disaster. The Colorado River aqueduct is broken; nothing is known of the extent of the damage nor how long it will take to repair it. So far as we know the Owens River Valley aqueduct may be intact, but all persons in the Los Angeles area are advised to conserve water. My personal advice is to stick your washtubs out into this rain; it can’t last forever. If we had time, we’d play Cool Water, just to give you the idea. I now read from the standard disaster instructions, quote: ‘Boil all water. Remain quietly in your homes and do not panic. Stay off the highways. Cooperate with the police and render, ’ Joe! Joe! Catch that phone! ‘, render aid where necessary. Do not use the telephone except for, ’ Flash! An unconfirmed report from Long Beach states that the Wilmington and San Pedro waterfront is under five feet of water. I re- peat, this is unconfirmed. Here’s a message from the commanding general, March Field: ‘official, all military personnel will report.” Breen switched it off. “Get in the car.” “Where are we going?” “North.” “We’ve paid for the cabin. Should we.” “Get in!” He stopped in the town, managed to buy six five-gallon-tins and a jeep tank. He filled them with gasoline and packed them with blankets in the back seat, topping off the mess with a dozen cans of oil. Then they were rolling. “What are we doing, Potiphar?” “I want to get west on the valley highway.” “Any particular place west?” “I think so. We’ll see. You work the radio, but keep an eye on the road, too. That gas back there makes me nervous.” Through the town of Mojave and northwest on 466 into the Tehachapi Mountains, Reception was poor in the pass but what Meade could pick up confirmed the first impression, worse than the quake of ‘06, worse than San Francisco, Managua, and Long Beach taken together. When they got down out of the mountains it was clearing locally; a few stars appeared. Breen swung left off the highway and ducked south of Bakersfield by the county road, reached the Route 99 superhighway just south of Greenfield. It was, as he had feared, already jammed with refugees; he was forced to go along with the flow for a couple of miles before he could cut west at Greenfield to- ward Taft. They stopped on the western outskirts of the town and ate at an all-night truckers’ joint. They were about to climb back into the car when there was suddenly “sunrise” due south. The rosy light swelled almost instantaneously, filled the sky, and died; where it had been a red and purple pillar of cloud was mounting, mountings spreading to a mushroom top. Breen stared at it, glanced at his watch, then said harshly, “Get in the car.” “Potty, that was, that was.” “That was, that used to be, Los Angeles. Get in the car!” He simply drove for several minutes. Meade seemed to be in a state of shock, unable to speak. When the sound reached them he again glanced at his watch. “Six minutes and “nineteen seconds. That’s about right.” “Potty, we should have brought Missus Megeath.” “How was I to know?” he said angrily. “Anyhow, you can’t transplant an old tree. If she got it, she never knew it.” “Oh, I hope so!” “Forget it; straighten out and fly right. We’re going to have all we can do to take care of ourselves. Take the flashlight and check the map. I want to turn north at Taft and over toward the coast.” “Yes, Potiphar.” “And try the radio.” She quieted down and did as she was told. The radio gave nothing, not even the Riverside station; the whole broadcast range was covered by a curious static, like rain on a window. He slowed down as they approached Taft, let her spot the turn north onto the state road, and turned into it. Almost at once a figure jumped out into the road in front of them, waved his arms violently. Breen tromped on the brake. The man came up on the left side of the car, rapped on the window; Breen ran the glass down. Then he stared stupidly at the gun in the man’s left hand. “Out of the car,” the stranger said sharply. “I’ve got to have it.” He reached inside with his right hand, groped for the door lever. Meade reached across Breen, stuck her little lady’s gun in the man’s face, pulled the trigger. Breen could feel the flash on his own face, never noticed the report. The man looked puzzled, with a neat, not-yet-bloody hole in his upper lip, then slowly sagged away from the car. “Drive on!” Meade said in a high voice. Breen caught his breath. “Good girl.” “Drive on! Get rolling!” They followed the state road through Los Padres National Forest, stopping once to fill the tank from their cans. They turned off onto a dirt road. Meade kept trying the radio, got San Francisco once but it was too jammed with static to read. Then she got Salt Lake City, faint but clear: “, since there are no reports of anything passing our radar screen the Kansas City bomb must be assumed to have been planted rather than delivered. This is a tentative theory but.” They passed into a deep cut and lost the rest. When the squawk box again came to life it was a new voice: “Conelrad,” said a crisp voice, “coming to you over the combined networks. The rumor that Los Angeles has been hit by an atom bomb is totally unfounded. It is true that the western metropolis has suffered a severe earthquake shock but that is all. Government officials and the Red Cross are on the spot to care for the victims, but, and I repeat, there has been no atomic bombing. So relax and stay in your homes. Such wild rumors can damage the United States quite as much as enemy’s bombs. Stay off the highways and listen for.” Breen snapped it off. “Somebody,” he said bitterly, “has again decided that ‘Mama knows best.’ They won’t tell us any bad news.” “Potiphar,” Meade said sharply, “that was an atom bomb, wasn’t it?” “It was. And now we don’t know whether it was just Los Angeles, and Kansas City, or all the big cities in the country. All we know is that they are lying to us.” “Maybe I can get another station?” “The hell with it.” He concentrated on driving. The road was very bad. As it began to get light she said, “Potty, do you know where we’re going? Are we just keeping out of cities?” “I think I do. If I’m not lost.” He stared around them. “Nope, it’s all right. See that hill up forward with the triple gendarmes on its profile?” “Gendarmes?” “Big rock pillars. That’s a sure landmark. I’m looking for a private road now. It leads to a hunting lodge belonging to two of my friends, an old ranch house actually, but as a ranch it didn’t pay.” “Oh. They won’t mind us using it?” He shrugged. “If they show up, we’ll ask them. If they show up. They lived in Los Angeles, Meade.” “Oh. Yes, I guess so.” The private road had once been a poor grade of wagon trail; now it was almost impassable. But they finally topped a hogback from which they could see almost to the Pacific, then dropped down into a sheltered bowl where the cabin was. “All out, girl. End of the line.” Meade sighed. “It looks heavenly.” “Think you can rustle breakfast while I unload? There’s probably wood in the shed. Or can you manage a wood range?” “Just try me.” Two hours later Breen was standing on the hogback, smoking a cigarette, and staring off down to the west. He wondered if that was a mushroom cloud up San Francisco way? Probably his imagination, he decided, in view of the distance. Certainly there was nothing to be seen to the south. Meade came out of the cabin. “Potty!” “Up here.” She joined him, took his hand, and smiled, then snitched his cigarette and took a deep drag. She expelled it and said, “I know it’s sinful of me, but I feel more peaceful than I have in months and months.” “I know.” “Did you see the canned goods in that pantry? We could pull through a hard winter here.” “We might have to.” “I suppose. I wish we had a cow.” “What would you do with a cow?” “I used to milk four cows before I caught the school bus, every morning. I can butcher a hog, too.” “I’ll try to find one.” “You do and I’II manage to smoke it.” She yawned. “I’m suddenly terribly sleepy.” “So am I. And small wonder.” “Let’s go to bed.” “Uh, yes. Meade?” “Yes, Potty?” “We may be here quite a while. You know that, don’t you?” “Yes, Potty.” “In fact it might be smart to stay put until those curves all start turning up again. They will, you know.” “Yes. I had figured that out.” He hesitated, then went on, “Meade, will you marry me?” “Yes.” She moved up to him. After a time he pushed her gently away and said, “My dear, my very dear, uh, we could drive down and find a minister in some little town?” She looked at him steadily. “That wouldn’t be very bright, would it? I mean, nobody knows we’re here and that’s the way we want it. And besides, your car might not make it back up that road.” “No, it wouldn’t be very bright. But I want to do the right thing.” “It’s all right. Potty. It’s all right.” “Well, then, kneel down here with me. Well say them together.” “Yes, Potiphar.” She knelt and he took her hand. He closed his eyes and prayed wordlessly. When he opened them he said, “What’s the matter?” “Uh, the gravel hurts my knees.” “Well stand up, then.” “No. Look, Potty, why don’t we just go in the house and say them there?” “Hub? Hells bells, woman, we might forget to say them entirely. Now repeat after me: I, Potiphar, take thee, Meade.” “Yes, Potiphar. I, Meade, take thee, Potiphar.” Chapter Three. “OFFICIAL: STATIONS WITHIN RANGE RELAY TWICE. EXECUTIVE BULLETIN NUMBER NINE, ROAD LAWS PREVIOUSLY PUBLISHED HAVE BEEN IGNORED IN MANY INSTANCES. PATBOLS ARE ORDERED TO SHOOT WITHOUT WARNING AND PROVOST MARSHALS ABE DIBECTED TO USE DEATH PENALTY FOR UNAUTHORIZED POSSESSION OF GASOLINE. B.W. AND RADIATION QUARANTINE REGULATIONS PREVIOUSLY ISSUED WILL BE RIGIDLY ENFORCED. LONG LIVE THE UNITED STATES! HARLEY J. NEAL, LIEUTENANT GENERAL, ACTING CHIEF OF GOVERNMENT. ALL STATIONS RELAY TWICE.” “THIS IS THE FREE RADIO AMERICA RELAY NETWOBK. PASS THIS ALONG, BOYS! GOVERNOR BRANDLEY WAS SWORN IN TODAY AS PRESIDENT BY ACTING CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS UNDER THE RULE-OF-SUCCESSION. THE PRESIDENT NAMED THOMAS DEWEY AS SECRETARY OF STATE AND PAUL DOUGLAS AS SECRETARY OF DEFENSE. HIS SECOND OFFICIAL ACT WAS TO STRIP THE RENEGADE NEAL OF RANK AND TO DIRECT HIS ARREST BY ANY CITIZEN OR OFFICIAL. MORE LATER. PASS THE WORD ALONG. “HELLO, CQ, CQ, CQ. THIS IS W5KMR, FREEPORT, QRR, QRR! ANYBODY READ ME? ANYBODY? WE’RE DYING LIKE FLIES DOWN HERE. WHAT’S HAPPENED? STARTS WITH FEVER AND A BURNING THIRST BUT YOU CAN’T SWALLOW. WE NEED HELP. ANYBODY BEAD ME? HELLO, CQ 75, CQ 75 THIS IS W5 KILO METRO ROMEO CALLING QRR AND CQ 75. BY FOR SOMEBODY. ANYBODY!!!” “THIS IS THE LORD’S TIME, SPONSORED BY SWAN’S ELIXIR, THE TONIC THAT MAKES WAITING FOR THE KINGDOM OF GOD WORTHWHILE. YOU ARE ABOUT TO HEAR A MESSAGE OF CHEER FROM JUDGE BROOMFIELD, ANOINTED VICAR OF THE KINGDOM ON EARTH. BUT FIRST A BULLETIN: SEND YOUR CONTRIBUTIONS TO ‘MESSIAH,’ CLINT, TEXAS. DON’T TRY TO MAIL THEM: SEND THEM BY A KINGDOM MESSENGER OR BY SOME PILGRIM JOURNEYING THIS WAY. AND NOW THE TABERNACLE CHOIR FOLLOWED BY THE VOICE OF THE VICAR ON EARTH.” “THE FIRST SYMPTOM IS LITTLE RED SPOTS IN THE ARMPITS. THEY ITCH. PUT ‘EM TO BED AT ONCE AND KEEP ‘EM COVERED UP WARM. THEN GO SCRUB YOURSELF AND WEAR A MASK: WE DON’T KNOW YET HOW YOU CATCH IT. PASS IT ALONG, ED.” “NO NEW LANDINGS REPORTED ANYWHERE ON THIS CONTINENT. THE PARATROOPERS WHO ESCAPED THE ORIGINAL SLAUGHTER ARE THOUGHT TO BE HIDING OUT IN THE POCONOS. SHOOT, BUT BE CAREFUL; IT MIGHT BE AUNT TESSIE. OFF AND CLEAR, UNTIL NOON TOMORROW.” The curves were turning up again. There was no longer doubt in Breen’s mind about that. It might not even be necessary to stay up here in the Sierra Madres through the winter, though he rather thought they would. He had picked their spot to keep them west of the fallout; it would be silly to be mowed down by the tail of a dying epidemic, or be shot by a nervous vigilante, when a few months’ wait would take care of everything. Besides, lie had chopped all that firewood. He looked at his calloused hands, he had done all that work and, by George, he was going to enjoy the benefits! He was headed out to the hogback to wait for sunset and do an hour’s reading; he glanced at his car as he passed it, thinking that he would like to try the radio. He suppressed the yen; two thirds of his reserve gasoline was gone already just from keeping the battery charged for the radio, and here it was only December. He really ought to cut it down to twice a week. But it meant a lot to catch the noon bulletin of Free America and then twiddle the dial a few minutes to see what else he could pick up. But for the past three days Free America had not been on the air, solar static maybe, or perhaps just a power failure. But that rumor that President Brandley had been assassinated, while it hadn’t come from the Free radio, and it hadn’t been denied by them, either, which was a good sign. Still, it worried him. And that other story that lost Atlantis had pushed up during the quake period and that the Azores were now a little continent, almost certainly a hang-over of the “silly season” but it would be nice to hear a follow-up. Rather sheepishly he let

Rahan. Episode Forty. The last man. When a crash of broken branches sounded behind him, the son of Crao. Did not even have time to reach for his ivory knife. The powerful arm of the gorilla surrounded him, taking his breath away. He felt himself pressed against the hairy chest by the second arm. The great “Four Hands” wants to suffocate Rahan. He, he. He tried to loosen this vice of muscles, but in vain! Everything suddenly became blurry around him and he lost consciousness. Page Two: When he regained his senses, he was lying on a fork of an enormous tree. The gorilla watched him with his cruel little eyes. Rahan has not joined the territory of shadows. Why did the “Four Hands” spare him? But maybe he thinks Rahan is dead?! The son of Crao remained motionless, feigning death. He held his knife against his hip, but he knew that this weapon was useless to him. A fight on this tree would have been fatal to him. He kept his eyes half closed. But what is he doing? Rahan's hair seems to fascinate him! The gorilla had approached. His fingers felt the long blonde hair. He grunted, as if to express his discontent! Page Three: The disturbing hairy hand lingered for a moment on the necklace of claws. And Rahan thought it was going to close on his throat. But it did not happen. The gorilla leapt onto another branch and disappeared, growling into the thick foliage. It is strange, thought Rahan! The "Four Hands" reacts as if he were deceived by the enemy! The danger appeared to be averted, and so the son of Crao let himself slide along the vines. He blamed himself, the experienced hunter, for having allowed himself to be surprised in this way. But perhaps it is better this way. The “Four Hands” is a formidable adversary, and Rahan might have succumbed in a fight. But. But. Would Rahan become cowardly!? Disquieted, he felt a claw on his necklace. The one that symbolized “Courage”. Page Four: Then his fingers brushed against that of "Wisdom", and he felt reassured. No! Rahan acted wisely! What's the point of fighting when fighting is not essential! He had been wandering since dawn in this unknown territory, and the fire of thirst was eating away at him. So he joyfully rushed towards a spring that he had glimpsed. It was perhaps because he immersed his head entirely in the clear, cool water that he did not hear the most curious, the most unusual of the clans, spreading out behind him! Stand “Man from elsewhere!” The water from our spring does not flow to refresh the enemy's throat! After a brief moment of astonishment, the son of Crao smiled. So! Very harsh words in the mouth of a little man! Page Five: The oldest of the children who looked at him must not have seen the “season-of-green-leaves” more than three times the fingers of the hand. If you refuse to flee, we will force you to! These children were not armed, but there were many of them. They rushed forward, howling like a pack of young wolves! The son of Crao was assailed by the wave. Arms encircled his legs, hands of others clung to his wrists, others to his hair, and others to his neck. He almost disappeared under the multitude! I am Rahan! And Rahan means no harm to “Those-who-walk-upright”, especially when they are your age! The pack moved away, and Rahan was only held on the ground by a few adolescents, although he could certainly have freed himself. But his curiosity was too strong! Page Six: Rahan surrenders to the little men! We are no longer “Little men!” We are the “Clan of the Abyss”. We are the masters of this entire territory! The child spoke with the pride of a horde leader! More intrigued than worried, the son of Crao allowed himself to be dragged away. They don't even think of disarming Rahan! They are only too happy to bring a captive back to their fathers! He could not have known that a man, hidden in the foliage, was observing every move of the young clan. A village appeared, which seemed deserted. The huts stood near a chasm. In the distance was a wide river. The men probably have not returned from hunting! But where are their women? Page Seven: Rahan's surprise grew even more when groups of people burst out of the huts. Little girls! They cheered the return of their young companions. Where are your fathers? And your mothers? Where are the old ones? The looks became even more hostile. If Rahan speaks the same language as "the man of the forest", we will throw him into the abyss! The man from the forest? Quiet Rahan! You should be the one answering the clan's questions! Such is the order of Trah! This resolute adolescent seemed to be the leader of this horde of children. A moment later they gathered in a circle around the son of Crao. And questions came from all sides. Where do you come from? Where were you going? Where do yours hide? Page Eight: The youngest approached the captive and fearfully felt his muscular legs. They are curious like all young humans! And Rahan does not have much to fear from them! But to know their secret, he must earn their respect and trust! Rahan will tell you everything about him. But, first, he wants to greet your chief! Oh! Grasping Trah, the son of Crao held him high above the ground. Rahan greets the chasm clan, and its great leader Trah! This demonstration of force was interrupted by screams of fear Trah! Trah! Kocik has fallen into the big flow! The great flow carries him away! Page Nine: Trah! Trah! Don't let me be devoured by the great flood! Forgetting the captive, the horde of children rushed towards the river, in whose eddies one of their own was struggling. The clan of the abyss remained frozen on the shore. So you do not know "Crawling on water"!? Rahan will bring back Kocik!? The man does not have any common sense! How can he dare to do such a thing? A hundred statues watched Rahan dive, and swim towards Kocik, who was being dragged along by a current. The son of the fierce ages disappeared under the water, following the child who was sinking! Rahan must save him! He must! He must! A clamor arose when he appeared on the surface, supporting Kocik! Rahan is a human fish! The legged snake will devour them both! Page Ten: If Rahan were alone, he would not fear you, “Skin-of-Wood”! Rahan had seen the large crocodile which emerged from the reeds and swam towards him. Many times he had triumphed over similar saurians. But this time, the gesticulating child made the confrontation impossible! Should he abandon Kocik to save himself? The thought made him ashamed. Nothing is lost, Kocik! But you have to trust Rahan! You have to believe Rahan! Do not move! Look at the sky and do not move! The great flood will not eat you! Rahan swears! From the shore, the young clan of the chasm witnessed the miracle. Kocik, stiff as a log, floated on the surface! And now, “Skin-of-Wood”, prepare to die! Page Eleven: The son of Crao knew about the stupidity of saurians. He dove at the very moment when the fearsome jaws opened. And the ivory knife disemboweled the monster, whose blood reddened the waters for an instant. Ra-ha-ha! When he returned to the surface the current carried the still motionless Kocik. Very good Kocik! Very Good! You will soon know how to “Crawl on water” as well as Rahan! From a distance, the man en-ambush in the foliage saw Rahan bringing the child back to the bank. He then observed the village. Where there were a few kids left, the youngest of the clan. Tarouk must take advantage of this opportunity! Page Twelve: However. Rahan saved Kocik from the “Great Flood” and kill the "Legged Snake"! Is Rahan a god? No. Rahan is just a simple hunter. Screams suddenly rose from the village. Tarouk! Let go had to wait until we moved away to attack our younger brothers! Indeed, a moment later. Tarouk has come! He kidnapped Timaa! He ran away that way! Onto the hunt brothers! I hope that this time we can Kill Tarouk!! The children armed themselves with stones and sticks. One moment Trah. Who is this Tarouk? It is time to tell Rahan the truth. Tarouk is the man-of-the-forest we were telling you about! For moons and moons, there has been a war between Tarouk and the Clan of the Abyss! We often track him down, but each time he escapes us! Page Thirteen: Tarouk sometimes captures one of ours and keeps him prisoner for a whole day, to say strange things to him. But why this war between Tarouk and you? I do not know! It has always been like this and it will be like this until we have killed Tarouk! The son of the wild ages was very intrigued. Rahan knows how to be quieter than a snake. He will find Tarouk and bring back Timma to you, like he brought you Kocik! In fact, Rahan very quickly found the traces of the kidnapper. Crawling like a feline among the bushes, he heard a voice. The man of the forest! When Tarouk, crouching near his young captive, sensed the danger it was too late. Rahan was jumping on him! Ra-ha-ha! Page Fourteen: “Tarouk-the-coward” prefers to kidnap children rather than fight a man! Tarouk in fact did not resist and allowed himself to be pinned to the ground! I do not want any harm to these children! Let me go and I will explain. A moment later, Crao's son would hear the strangest of stories. I am Tarouk The last man of the abyss clan! The season of green leaves has come back many times. Since that cursed day when the great flood came out of its lair to devour our village! It was terrible! To save our children, we hoisted them onto the rock overlooking the chasm. They were saved, but the horde was entirely decimated by the great flood! Page Fifteen: I was able to grab onto a tree and was carried away by the flood, which threw me into a chasm of water! My head must have hit a rock! Because when I came back from the territory of shadows I didn't remember anything! Not the horde! Nor from the anger of the great flood! I was Tarouk, the only survivor of the horde! From then on I lived like a beast in the forest. Many seasons passed before my memory came back to me. When I remembered, I only had one desire left. To find my village, and see if our children had survived, and to help them. I finally found the village, the children were safe and they had grown up. I was happy. I hoped to make them brave and loyal hunters, like their fathers were. Page Sixteen: Alas! The children had reconstituted the clan and they chased me away! I believe that the oldest remember the anger of the great flood. And they think that that day their parents abandoned them! This is why they hate all adults! This is why they are hunting me. While I do everything to help them! They sometimes discover a dead animal in the forest. They don't know that it was Tarouk who killed it so that they would not go hungry! And I often have to face the "Four-Hands", who gets too close to the village! The son of Crao listened to the man, the last man, and was heavy with emotion. I sometimes kidnap one of them to explain the truth to him. Alas! All my efforts are in vain! Tarouk had freed young Timaa who ran away as fast as his legs allowed! Page Seventeen: This little one also thinks I am lying! And it will always be like this! Kids will always hate me! No! Rahan has earned their trust! He will explain everything to them and they will believe him! Come on brother! Come! As he followed Tarouk, the son of fierce ages realized that the man looked like him. Same size. Same blonde hair. Almost identical necklace, if it had not been for the shells. He suddenly understood why the gorilla had attacked him, then spared him. By attacking Rahan the “Four Hands” believed he was taking revenge on Tarouk! Shouts of fear came to them as they came into sight of the village. All the children had taken refuge in the huts and, near the abyss, the gorilla was violently hammering his chest. Never had a “Four-Hands” dared to risk getting so close! Here is Tarouk's opportunity to prove to the children that he is part of their clan! Page Eighteen: No Tarouk! The children need you! You are the one who knows the origins of their clan! It is you who can make men out of them! You have to stay alive for this! Rahan no longer has a clan or a horde! It is up to him to face the "Four Hands"! The son of Crao was already rushing forward, knife in hand. It was, on the edge of the abyss, a terrifying fight. The children, coming out of the huts, cheered every feint of Rahan. They no longer even cared about Tarouk, who was waiting for the opportunity to intervene. The ivory blade suddenly plunged into the hairy chest. But the Gorilla, struck dead, grabbed Rahan's wrist before toppling into. The void. And Rahan, the son of fierce ages, was in turn dragged towards the abyss! Page Nineteen: Rahan is lost! He will join the "Territory-of-shadows" with you "Four-Hands"! The Gorilla, tense in agony, did not let go of his grip! Rahan felt the ground slip beneath him. He saw the bottomless pit into which he would be dragged. Adieu Brothers! And that was when two firm human hands closed around his ankles! Hands that held onto his life! Courage brother! If you have to die, we die together! But it was Tarouk who came stumbling to his aid. And the weight of the Gorilla was such that it dragged down the two men, who nothing could save! Trah, the young leader, had turned pale. Rahan sacrificed himself for the clan! And Tarouk sacrifices himself for Rahan! The clan must save the two! Page Twenty: The multitude of children rushed forward and grabbed the legs of the one they had always hated. And the chain became strong and beautiful. Rahan thought his arm was going to be torn off. But the gorilla finally let go. And as he spun in the void, Rahan felt himself being pulled upwards. He saw Tarouk smiling at him fraternally. The children, still out of breath, observed the two men with admiration and respect. The "War" is over between you and the man-of-the-forest! You will remain united as we were to save Rahan! Rahan will teach you many things. But first of all, he will tell you the story of Tarouk-the-Brave, who never abandoned the clan, which is also his! Before the attentive circle, the son of Crao began the story of the last man of the clan of the abyss. He knew he would be believed. He knew that tomorrow Tarouk would make his children Brave and loyal hunters. Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html

https://readcomiconline.li/Comic/Batman-1940

Puke on a Plate, Or Puke on a Book? I don't know where to puke. Edition 1.0 © 2020 World Economic Forum All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system. World Economic Forum 91, 93 route de la Capite CH, 1223 Cologny/Geneva Switzerland Tel.: +41 (0)22 869 1212 Fax +41 (0)22 786 2744 mail: contact@weforum.org www.weforum.org ISBN 978, 2, 940631, 11, 7 Preface: About Covid, 19: The Great Reset. Since it made its entry on the world stage, COVID, 19 has dramatically torn up the existing script of how to govern countries, live with others and take part in the global economy. Written by World Economic Forum Founder Klaus Schwab and Monthly Barometer author Thierry Malleret, COVID, 19: The Great Reset considers its far, reaching and dramatic implications on tomorrow’s world. The book’s main objective is to help understand what’s coming in a multitude of domains. Published in July 2020, in the midst of the crisis and when further waves of infection may still arise, it is a hybrid between a contemporary essay and an academic snapshot of a crucial moment in history. It includes theory and practical examples but is chiefly explanatory, containing many conjectures and ideas about what the post, pandemic world might, and perhaps should, look like. The book has three main chapters, offering a panoramic overview of the future landscape. The first assesses what the impact of the pandemic will be on five key macro categories: the economic, societal, geopolitical, environmental and technological factors. The second considers the effects in micro terms, on specific industries and companies. The third hypothesizes about the nature of the possible consequences at the individual level. In early July 2020, we are at a crossroads, the authors of COVID 19: The Great Reset argue. One path will take us to a better world: more inclusive, more equitable and more respectful of Mother Nature. The other will take us to a world that resembles the one we just left behind, but worse and constantly dogged by nasty surprises. We must therefore get it right. The looming challenges could be more consequential than we have until now chosen to imagine, but our capacity to reset could also be greater than we had previously dared to hope. About the authors. Professor Klaus Schwab Born 1938, Ravensburg, Germany, is the Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum. In 1971, he published Modern Enterprise Management in Mechanical Engineering. He argues in that book that a company must serve not only shareholders but all stakeholders to achieve long, term growth and prosperity. To promote the stakeholder concept, he founded the World Economic Forum the same year. Professor Schwab holds doctorates in Economics, University of Fribourg, and in Engineering, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and obtained a master’s degree in Public Administration (MPA) from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. In 1972, in addition to his leadership role at the Forum, he became a professor at the University of Geneva. He has since received numerous international and national honours, including 17 honorary doctorates. His latest books are The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2016), a worldwide bestseller translated into 30 languages, and Shaping the Future of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (2018). Thierry Malleret, Born 1961, Paris, France, is the Managing Partner of the Monthly Barometer, a succinct predictive analysis provided to private investors, global CEOs and opinion, and decision, makers. His professional experience includes founding the Global Risk Network at the World Economic Forum and heading its Programme team. Malleret was educated at the Sorbonne and the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris, and at St Antony's College, Oxford. He holds master’s degrees in Economics and History, and a PhD in Economics. His career spans investment banking, think tanks, academia and government, with a three, year spell in the prime minister's office in Paris. He has written several business and academic books and has published four novels. He lives in Chamonix, France, with his wife Mary Anne. INTRODUCTION. The worldwide crisis triggered by the coronavirus pandemic has no parallel in modern history. We cannot be accused of hyperbole when we say it is plunging our world in its entirety and each of us individually into the most challenging times we’ve faced in generations. It is our defining moment, we will be dealing with its fallout for years, and many things will change forever. It is bringing economic disruption of monumental proportions, creating a dangerous and volatile period on multiple fronts, politically, socially, geopolitically, raising deep concerns about the environment and also extending the reach (pernicious or otherwise) of technology into our lives. No industry or business will be spared from the impact of these changes. Millions of companies risk disappearing and many industries face an uncertain future; a few will thrive. On an individual basis, for many, life as they’ve always known it is unravelling at alarming speed. But deep, existential crises also favour introspection and can harbour the potential for transformation. The fault lines of the world, most notably social divides, lack of fairness, absence of cooperation, failure of global governance and leadership, now lie exposed as never before, and people feel the time for reinvention has come. A new world will emerge, the contours of which are for us to both imagine and to draw. At the time of writing (June 2020), the pandemic continues to worsen globally. Many of us are pondering when things will return to normal. The short response is: never. Nothing will ever return to the “broken” sense of normalcy that prevailed prior to the crisis because the coronavirus pandemic marks a fundamental inflection point in our global trajectory. Some analysts call it a major bifurcation, others refer to a deep crisis of “biblical” proportions, but the essence remains the same: the world as we knew it in the early months of 2020 is no more, dissolved in the context of the pandemic. Radical changes of such consequence are coming that some pundits have referred to a “before coronavirus” (BC) and “after coronavirus” (AC) era. We will continue to be surprised by both the rapidity and unexpected nature of these changes, as they conflate with each other, they will provoke second, third, fourth, and more, order consequences, cascading effects and unforeseen outcomes. In so doing, they will shape a “new normal” radically different from the one we will be progressively leaving behind. Many of our beliefs and assumptions about what the world could or should look like will be shattered in the process. However, broad and radical pronouncements (like “everything will change”) and an all, or, nothing, black, and, white analysis should be deployed with great care. Of course, reality will be much more nuanced. By itself, the pandemic may not completely transform the world, but it is likely to accelerate many of the changes that were already taking place before it erupted, which will in turn set in motion other changes. The only certainty: the changes won’t be linear and sharp discontinuities will prevail. COVID, 19: The Great Reset is an attempt to identify and shed light on the changes ahead, and to make a modest contribution in terms of delineating what their more desirable and sustainable form might resemble. Let’s begin by putting things into perspective: human beings have been around for about 200,000 years, the oldest bacteria for billions of years and viruses for at least 300 million years. This means that, most likely, pandemics have always existed and been an integral part of human history since people started travelling around; over the past 2000 years they have been the rule, not the exception. Because of their inherently disruptive nature, epidemics throughout history have proven to be a force for lasting and often radical change: sparking riots, causing population clashes and military defeats, but also triggering innovations, redrawing national boundaries and often paving the way for revolutions. Outbreaks forced empires to change course, like the Byzantine Empire when struck by the Plague of Justinian in 541 to 542, and some even to disappear altogether, when Aztec and Inca emperors died with most of their subjects from European germs. Also, authoritative measures to attempt to contain them have always been part of the policy arsenal. Thus, there is nothing new about the confinement and lockdowns imposed upon much of the world to manage COVID, 19. They have been common practice for centuries. The earliest forms of confinement came with the quarantines instituted in an effort to contain the Black Death that between 1347 and 1351 killed about a third of all Europeans. Coming from the word quaranta (which means “forty” in Italian), the idea of confining people for 40 days originated without the authorities really understanding what they wanted to contain, but the measures were one of the first forms of “institutionalized public health” that helped legitimatize the “accretion of power” by the modern state. The period of 40 days has no medical foundation; it was chosen for symbolic and religious reasons: both the Old and New Testaments often refer to the number 40 in the context of purification, in particular the 40 days of Lent and the 40 days of flood in Genesis. The spread of infectious diseases has a unique ability to fuel fear, anxiety and mass hysteria. In so doing, as we have seen, it also challenges our social cohesion and collective capacity to manage a crisis. Epidemics are by nature divisive and traumatizing. What we are fighting against is invisible; our family, friends and neighbours may all become sources of infection; those everyday rituals that we cherish, like meeting a friend in a public place, may become a vehicle for transmission; and the authorities that try to keep us safe by enforcing confinement measures are often perceived as agents of oppression. Throughout history, the important and recurring pattern has been to search for scapegoats and place the blame firmly on the outsider. In medieval Europe, the Jews were almost always among the victims of the most notorious pogroms provoked by the plague. One tragic example illustrates this point: in 1349, two years after the Black Death had started to rove across the continent, in Strasbourg on Valentine’s day, Jews, who’d been accused of spreading the plague by polluting the wells of the city, were asked to convert. About 1,000 refused and were burned alive. During that same year, Jewish communities in other European cities were wiped out, forcing them to massively migrate to the eastern part of Europe (in Poland and Russia), permanently altering the demography of the continent in the process. What is true for European anti, Semitism also applies to the rise of the absolutist state, the gradual retreat of the church and many other historical events that can be attributed in no small measure to pandemics. The changes were so diverse and widespread that it led to “the end of an age of submission”, bringing feudalism and serfdom to an end and ushering in the era of Enlightenment. Put simply: “The Black Death may have been the unrecognized beginning of modern man.” If such profound social, political and economic changes could be provoked by the plague in the medieval world, could the COVID, 19 pandemic mark the onset of a similar turning point with long, lasting and dramatic consequences for our world today? Unlike certain past epidemics, COVID, 19 doesn’t pose a new existential threat. It will not result in unforeseen mass famines or major military defeats and regime changes. Whole populations will neither be exterminated nor displaced as a result of the pandemic. However, this does not equate to a reassuring analysis. In reality, the pandemic is dramatically exacerbating pre, existing dangers that we’ve failed to confront adequately for too long. It will also accelerate disturbing trends that have been building up over a prolonged period of time. To begin elaborating a meaningful response, we need a conceptual framework (or a simple mental map) to help us reflect on what’s coming and to guide us in making sense of it. Insights offered by history can be particularly helpful. This is why we so often search for a reassuring “mental anchor” that can serve as a benchmark when we are forced to ask ourselves tough questions about what will change and to what extent. In doing so, we look for precedents, with questions such as: Is the pandemic like the Spanish flu of 1918, estimated to have killed more than 50 million people worldwide in three successive waves? Could it look like the Great Depression that started in 1929? Is there any resemblance with the psychological shock inflicted by 9, 11? Are there similarities with what happened with SARS in 2003 and H1N1 in 2009, albeit on a different scale? Could it be like the great financial crisis of 2008, but much bigger? The correct, albeit unwelcome, answer to all of these is: no! None fits the reach and pattern of the human suffering and economic destruction caused by the current pandemic. The economic fallout in particular bears no resemblance to any crisis in modern history. As pointed out by many heads of state and government in the midst of the pandemic, we are at war, but with an enemy that is invisible, and of course metaphorically: “If what we are going through can indeed be called a war, it is certainly not a typical one. After all, today’s enemy is shared by all of humankind”. That said, World War Two could even so be one of the most relevant mental anchors in the effort to assess what’s coming next. World War Two was the quintessential transformational war, triggering not only fundamental changes to the global order and the global economy, but also entailing radical shifts in social attitudes and beliefs that eventually paved the way for radically new policies and social contract provisions, like women joining the workforce before becoming voters. There are obviously fundamental dissimilarities between a pandemic and a war, that we will consider in some detail in the following pages, but the magnitude of their transformative power is comparable. Both have the potential to be a transformative crisis of previously unimaginable proportions. However, we must beware of superficial analogies. Even in the worst, case horrendous scenario, COVID, 19 will kill far fewer people than the Great Plagues, including the Black Deaths, or World War Two did. Furthermore, today’s economy bears no resemblance to those of past centuries that relied on manual labour and farmland or heavy industry. In today’s highly interconnected and interdependent world, however, the impact of the pandemic will go well beyond the (already staggering) statistics relating “simply” to death, unemployment and bankruptcies. COVID, 19: The Great Reset is written and published in the midst of a crisis whose consequences will unfold over many years to come. Little wonder that we all feel somewhat bewildered, a sentiment so very understandable when an extreme shock strikes, bringing with it the disquieting certainty that its outcomes will be both unexpected and unusual. This strangeness is well captured by Albert Camus in his 1947 novel The Plague: “Yet all these changes were, in one sense, so fantastic and had been made so precipitately that it wasn’t easy to regard them as likely to have any permanence.” Now that the unthinkable is upon us, what will happen next, in the immediate aftermath of the pandemic and then in the foreseeable future? It is of course much too early to tell with any reasonable accuracy what COVID, 19 will entail in terms of “momentous” changes, but the objective of this book is to offer some coherent and conceptually sound guidelines about what might lie ahead, and to do so in the most comprehensive manner possible. Our aim is to help our readers grasp the multifaceted dimension of the changes that are coming. At the very least, as we will argue, the pandemic will accelerate systemic changes that were already apparent prior to the crisis: the partial retreat from globalization, the growing decoupling between the US and China, the acceleration of automation, concerns about heightened surveillance, the growing appeal of well, being policies, rising nationalism and the subsequent fear of immigration, the growing power of tech, the necessity for firms to have an even stronger online presence, among many others. But it could go beyond a mere acceleration by altering things that previously seemed unchangeable. It might thus provoke changes that would have seemed inconceivable before the pandemic struck, such as new forms of monetary policy like helicopter money (already a given), the reconsideration or recalibration of some of our social priorities and an augmented search for the common good as a policy objective, the notion of fairness acquiring political potency, radical welfare and taxation measures, and drastic geopolitical realignments. The broader point is this: the possibilities for change and the resulting new order are now unlimited and only bound by our imagination, for better or for worse. Societies could be poised to become either more egalitarian or more authoritarian, or geared towards more solidarity or more individualism, favouring the interests of the few or the many; economies, when they recover, could take the path of more inclusivity and be more attuned to the needs of our global commons, or they could return to functioning as they did before. You get the point: we should take advantage of this unprecedented opportunity to reimagine our world, in a bid to make it a better and more resilient one as it emerges on the other side of this crisis. We are conscious that attempting to cover the scope and breadth of all the issues addressed in this book is an enormous task that may not even be possible. The subject and all the uncertainties attached to it are gargantuan and could have filled the pages of a publication five times the size of this one. But our objective was to write a relatively concise and simple book to help the reader understand what’s coming in a multitude of domains. To interrupt the flow of the text as little as possible, the reference information appears at the end of the book and direct attributions have been minimized. Published in the midst of the crisis and when further waves of infection are expected, it will continuously evolve to consider the changing nature of the subject matter. Future editions will be updated in view of new findings, the latest research, revised policy measures and ongoing feedback from readers. This volume is a hybrid between a light academic book and an essay. It includes theory and practical examples but is chiefly explanatory, containing many conjectures and ideas about what the post, pandemic world might, and perhaps should, look like. It offers neither simple generalizations nor recommendations for a world moving to a new normal, but we trust it will be useful. This book is structured around three main chapters, offering a panoramic overview of the future landscape. The first assesses what the impact of the pandemic will be on five key macro categories: the economic, societal, geopolitical, environmental and technological factors. The second considers the effects in micro terms, on specific industries and companies. The third hypothesizes about the nature of the possible consequences at the individual level. One. MACRO RESET. The first leg of our journey progresses across five macro categories that offer a comprehensive analytical framework to understand what’s going on in today’s world and how this might evolve. For ease of reading, we travel thematically through each separately. In reality, they are interdependent, which is where we begin: our brains make us think in linear terms, but the world that surrounds us is non, linear, that is to say: complex, adaptive, fast, paced and ambiguous. 1.1. Conceptual framework , Three defining characteristics of today’s world The macro reset will occur in the context of the three prevailing secular forces that shape our world today: interdependence, velocity and complexity. This trio exerts its force, to a lesser or greater degree, on us all, whoever or wherever we may be. 1.1.1. Interdependence. If just one word had to distil the essence of the Twenty-first century, it would have to be “interdependence”. A byproduct of globalization and technological progress, it can essentially be defined as the dynamic of reciprocal dependence among the elements that compose a system. The fact that globalization and technological progress have advanced so much over the past few decades has prompted some pundits to declare that the world is now “hyper, connected”, a variant of interdependence on steroids! What does this interdependence mean in practice? Simply that the world is “concatenated”: linked together. In the early 2010s, Kishore Mahbubani, an academic and former diplomat from Singapore, captured this reality with a boat metaphor: “The 7 billion people who inhabit planet earth no longer live in more than one hundred separate boats countries. Instead, they all live in 193 separate cabins on the same boat.” In his own words, this is one of the greatest transformations ever. In 2020, he pursued this metaphor further in the context of the pandemic by writing: “If we 7.5 billion people are now stuck together on a virus, infected cruise ship, does it make sense to clean and scrub only our personal cabins while ignoring the corridors and air wells outside, through which the virus travels? The answer is clearly: no. Yet, this is what we have been doing. Since we are now in the same boat, humanity has to take care of the global boat as a whole”. An interdependent world is a world of deep systemic connectivity, in which all risks affect each other through a web of complex interactions. In such conditions, the assertion that an economic risk will be confined to the economic sphere or that an environmental risk won’t have repercussions on risks of a different nature, economic, geopolitical and so on, is no longer tenable. We can all think of economic risks turning into political ones, like a sharp rise in unemployment leading to pockets of social unrest, or of technological risks mutating into societal ones, such as the issue of tracing the pandemic on mobile phones provoking a societal backlash. When considered in isolation, individual risks, whether economic, geopolitical, societal or environmental in character, give the false impression that they can be contained or mitigated; in real life, systemic connectivity shows this to be an artificial construct. In an interdependent world, risks amplify each other and, in so doing, have cascading effects. That is why isolation or containment cannot rhyme with interdependence and interconnectedness. The chart in the text, extracted from the World Economic Forum Global Risks Report 2020, makes this plain. It illustrates the interconnected nature of the risks we collectively face; each individual risk always conflates with those from its own macro category but also with the individual risks from the other macro categories (economic risks appear in blue, geopolitical in orange, societal in red, environmental in green and technological in purple). In this manner, each individual risk harbours the potential to create ricochet effects by provoking other risks. As the chart makes clear, an “infectious diseases” risk is bound to have a direct effect on “global governance failure”, “social instability”, “unemployment”, “fiscal crises” and “involuntary migration” (to name just a few). Each of these in turn will influence other individual risks, meaning that the individual risk from which the chain of effects started (in this particular case “infectious diseases”) ends up amplifying many other risks not only in its own macro category (societal risks), but also in the other four macro categories. This displays the phenomenon of contagion by systemic connectivity. In the following sub, chapters, we explore what the pandemic risk might entail from an economic, societal, geopolitical, environmental and technological perspective. Interdependence has an important conceptual effect: it invalidates “silo thinking”. Since conflation and systemic connectivity are what ultimately matter, addressing a problem or assessing an issue or a risk in isolation from the others is senseless and futile. In the past, this “silo thinking” partly explains why so many economists failed to predict the credit crisis (in 2008) and why so few political scientists saw the Arab Spring coming (in 2011). Today, the problem is the same with the pandemic. Epidemiologists, public, health specialists, economists, social scientists and all the other scientists and specialists who are in the business of helping decision, makers understand what lies ahead find it difficult (and sometimes impossible) to cross the boundaries of their own discipline. That is why addressing complex trade, offs, such as containing the progression of the pandemic versus reopening the economy, is so fiendishly difficult. Understandably, most experts end up being segregated into increasingly narrow fields. Therefore, they lack the enlarged view necessary to connect the many different dots that provide the more complete picture the decision, makers desperately need. 1.1.2. Velocity. The above firmly points the finger at technological progress and globalization as the primary “culprits” responsible for greater interdependence. In addition, they have created such a culture of immediacy that it’s not an exaggeration to claim that, in today’s world, everything moves much faster than before. If just one thing were to be singled out to explain this astonishing increase in velocity, it would undoubtedly be the internet. More than half (52 percent) of the world’s population is now online, compared to less than 8 percent 20 years ago; in 2019, more than 1.5 billion smartphones, a symbol and vector of velocity that allows us to be reached anywhere and at any time, were sold around the world. The internet of things (IoT) now connects 22 billion devices in real time, ranging from cars to hospital beds, electric grids and water station pumps, to kitchen ovens and agricultural irrigation systems. This number is expected to reach 50 billion or more in 2030. Other explanations for the rise in velocity point to the “scarcity” element: as societies get richer, time becomes more valuable and is therefore perceived as evermore scarce. This may explain studies showing that people in wealthy cities always walk faster than in poor cities , they have no time to lose! No matter what the causal explanation is, the endgame of all this is clear: as consumers and producers, spouses and parents, leaders and followers, we are all being subjected to constant, albeit discontinuous, rapid change. We can see velocity everywhere; whether it’s a crisis, social discontent, technological developments and adoption, geopolitical upheaval, the financial markets and, of course, the manifestation of infectious diseases , everything now runs on fast, forward. As a result, we operate in a real, time society, with the nagging feeling that the pace of life is ever increasing. This new culture of immediacy, obsessed with speed, is apparent in all aspects of our lives, from “just, in, time” supply chains to “high, frequency” trading, from speed dating to fast food. It is so pervasive that some pundits call this new phenomenon the “dictatorship of urgency”. It can indeed take extreme forms. Research performed by scientists at Microsoft shows, for example, that being slower by no more than 250 milliseconds (a quarter of a second) is enough for a website to lose hits to its “faster” competitors! The all, embracing result is that the shelf life of a policy, a product or an idea, and the life cycle of a decision, maker or a project, are contracting sharply and often unpredictably. Nothing illustrated this more vividly than the breakneck speed with which COVID, 19 progressed in March 2020. In less than a month, from the maelstrom provoked by the staggering speed at which the pandemic engulfed most of the world, a whole new era seemed to emerge. The beginning of the outbreak was thought to have taken place in China sometime earlier, but the exponential global progression of the pandemic took many decision, makers and a majority of the public by surprise because we generally find it cognitively hard to grasp the significance of exponential growth. Consider the following in terms of “days for doubling”: if a pandemic grows at 30 percent a day (as COVID, 19 did around mid, March for some of the worst affected countries), registered cases (or deaths) will double in a little more than two days. If it grows at 20 percent, it will take between four and five days; and if it grows at 10 percent, it will take just more than a week. Expressed differently: at the global level, it took COVID, 19 three months to reach 100,000 cases, 12 days to double to 200,000 cases, four days to reach 300,000 cases, and then 400,000 and 500,000 cases were reached in two days each. These numbers make our heads spin, extreme velocity in action! Exponential growth is so baffling to our cognitive functions that we often deal with it by developing exponential “myopia”, thinking of it as nothing more than “very fast”. In a famous experiment conducted in 1975, two psychologists found that when we have to predict an exponential process, we often underestimate it by factor of 10. Understanding this growth dynamic and the power of exponentials clarifies why velocity is such an issue and why the speed of intervention to curb the rate of growth is so crucial. Ernest Hemingway understood this. In his novel The Sun Also Rises, two characters have the following conversation: “How did you go bankrupt?" Bill asked. “Two ways,” Mike said. “Gradually, then suddenly.” The same tends to happen for big systemic shifts and disruption in general: things tend to change gradually at first and then all at once. Expect the same for the macro reset. Not only does velocity take extreme forms, but it can also engender perverse effects. “Impatience”, for example, is one, the effects of which can be seen similarly in the behaviour of participants in the financial markets (with new research suggesting that momentum trading, based on velocity, leads stock prices to deviate persistently from their fundamental value or “correct” price) and in that of voters in an election. The latter will have a critical relevance in the post, pandemic era. Governments, by necessity, take a while to make decisions and implement them: they are obliged to consider many different constituency groups and competing interests, balance domestic concerns with external considerations and secure legislative approval, before putting into motion the bureaucratic machinery to action all these decisions. By contrast, voters expect almost immediate policy results and improvements, which, when they don’t arrive fast enough, lead to almost instantaneous disappointment. This problem of asynchronicity between two different groups (policy, makers and the public) whose time horizon differs so markedly will be acute and very difficult to manage in the context of the pandemic. The velocity of the shock and (the depth) of the pain it has inflicted will not and cannot be matched with equal velocity on the policy side. Velocity also led many observers to establish a false equivalence by comparing seasonal flu with COVID, 19. This comparison, made again and again in the early months of the pandemic, was misleading and conceptually erroneous. Let’s take the example of the US to hammer out the point and better grasp the role played by velocity in all of this. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), between 39 and 56 million Americans contracted the flu during the 2019, 2020 winter season, with between 24,000 and 62,000 deaths. By contrast, and according to Johns Hopkins University, on 24 June 2020, more than 2.3 million were diagnosed with COVID, 19 and almost 121,000 people had died. But the comparison stops there; it is meaningless for two reasons: 1) the flu numbers correspond to the estimated total flu burden while the COVID, 19 figures are confirmed cases; and 2) the seasonal flu cascades in “gentle” waves over a period of (up to six) months in an even pattern while the COVID, 19 virus spreads like a tsunami in a hotspot pattern (in a handful of cities and regions where it concentrates) and, in doing so, can overwhelm and jam healthcare capacities, monopolizing hospitals to the detriment of non, COVID, 19 patients. The second reason , the velocity with which the COVID, 19 pandemic surges and the suddenness with which clusters emerge , makes all the difference and renders the comparison with the flu irrelevant. Velocity lies at the root of the first and second reasons: in a vast majority of countries, the speed with which the epidemic progressed made it impossible to have sufficient testing capabilities, and it then overwhelmed many national health systems equipped to deal with a predictable, recurrent and rather slow seasonal flu but not with a “superfast” pandemic. Another important and far, reaching consequence of velocity is that decision, makers have more information and more analysis than ever before, but less time to decide. For politicians and business leaders, the need to gain a strategic perspective collides ever, more frequently with the day, to, day pressures of immediate decisions, particularly obvious in the context of the pandemic, and reinforced by complexity, as we see in the next section. 1.1.3. Complexity In its simplest possible form, complexity can be defined as what we don’t understand or find difficult to understand. As for a complex system, the psychologist Herbert Simon defined it as “one made up of a large number of parts that interact in a nonsimple way”. Complex systems are often characterized by an absence of visible causal links between their elements, which makes them virtually impossible to predict. Deep in ourselves, we sense that the more complex a system is, the greater the likelihood that something might go wrong and that an accident or an aberration might occur and propagate. Complexity can roughly be measured by three factors: “1) the amount of information content or the number of components in a system; 2) the interconnectedness , defined as the dynamic of reciprocal responsiveness , between these pieces of information or components; and 3) the effect of non, linearity (non, linear elements are often called ‘tipping points’). Non, linearity is a key feature of complexity because it means that a change in just one component of a system can lead to a surprising and disproportionate effect elsewhere.” It is for this reason that pandemic models so often yield wide ranges of outcomes: a difference of assumption regarding just one component of the model can dramatically affect the end result. When one hears about “black swans”, “known unknowns” or “butterfly effects”, non, linearity is at work; it thus comes as no surprise that we often associate world complexity with “surprises”, “turbulence” and “uncertainty”. For example, in 2008, how many “experts” anticipated that mortgage, backed securities originating in the United States would cripple banks around the world and ultimately bring the global financial system to the verge of collapse? And in the early weeks of 2020, how many decision, makers foresaw the extent to which a possible pandemic would wreak havoc on some of the most sophisticated health systems in the world and would inflict such major damage to the global economy? A pandemic is a complex adaptive system comprising many different components or pieces of information (as diverse as biology or psychology), whose behaviour is influenced by such variables as the role of companies, economic policies, government intervention, healthcare politics or national governance. For this reason, it can and should be viewed as a “living network” that adapts to changing conditions , not something set in stone, but a system of interactions that is both complex and adaptive. It is complex because it represents a “cat’s cradle” of interdependence and interconnections from which it stems, and adaptive in the sense that its “behaviour” is driven by interactions between nodes (the organizations, the people , us!) that can become confused and “unruly” in times of stress (Will we adjust to the norms of confinement? Will a majority of us , or not , abide by the rules? etc.). The management (the containment, in this particular case) of a complex adaptive system requires continuous real, time but ever, changing collaboration between a vast array of disciplines, and between different fields within these disciplines. Just to provide a broad and oversimplified example, the containment of the coronavirus pandemic will necessitate a global surveillance network capable of identifying new outbreaks as soon as they arise, laboratories in multiple locations around the world that can rapidly analyse new viral strains and develop effective treatments, large IT infrastructures so that communities can prepare and react effectively, appropriate and coordinated policy mechanisms to efficiently implement the decisions once they are made, and so on. The important point is this: each separate activity by itself is necessary to address the pandemic but is insufficient if not considered in conjunction with the others. It follows that this complex adaptive system is greater than the sum of its parts. Its effectiveness depends on how well it works as a whole, and it is only as strong as its weakest link. Many pundits have mischaracterized the COVID, 19 pandemic as a black, swan event simply because it exhibits all the characteristics of a complex adaptive system. But in reality it is a white, swan event, something explicitly presented as such by Nassim Taleb in The Black Swan published in 2007: something that would eventually take place with a great deal of certainty. Indeed! For years, international organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO), institutions like the World Economic Forum and the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI , launched at the Annual Meeting 2017 in Davos), and individuals like Bill Gates have been warning us about the next pandemic risk, even specifying that it: 1) would emerge in a highly populated place where economic development forces people and wildlife together; 2) would spread quickly and silently by exploiting networks of human travel and trade; and 3) would reach multiple countries by thwarting containment. As we will see in the following chapters, properly characterizing the pandemic and understanding its characteristics are vital because they were what underpinned the differences in terms of preparedness. Many Asian countries reacted quickly because they were prepared logistically and organizationally (due to SARS) and thus were able to lessen the impact of the pandemic. By contrast, many Western countries were unprepared and were ravaged by the pandemic, it is no coincidence that they are the ones in which the false notion of a black, swan event circulated the most. However, we can confidently assert that the pandemic (a high probability, high consequences white, swan event) will provoke many black, swan events through second, , third, , fourth, and more, order effects. It is hard, if not impossible, to foresee what might happen at the end of the chain when multiple, order effects and their ensuing cascades of consequences have occurred after unemployment spikes, companies go bust and some countries are teetering on the verge of collapse. None of these are unpredictable per se, but it is their propensity to create perfect storms when they conflate with other risks that will take us by surprise. To sum up, the pandemic is not a black, swan event, but some of its consequences will be. The fundamental point here is this: complexity creates limits to our knowledge and understanding of things; it might thus be that today’s increasing complexity literally overwhelms the capabilities of politicians in particular, and decision, makers in general, to make well informed decisions. A theoretical physicist turned head of state (President Armen Sarkissian of Armenia) made this point when he coined the expression “quantum politics”, outlining how the classical world of post, Newtonian physics, linear, predictable and to some extent even deterministic , had given way to the quantum world: highly interconnected and uncertain, incredibly complex and also changing depending on the position of the observer. This expression recalls quantum physics, which explains how everything works and is “the best description we have of the nature of the particles that make up matter and the forces with which they interact.” The COVID, 19 pandemic has laid bare this quantum world. 1.2. Economic reset 1.2.1. The economics of COVID-19 Our contemporary economy differs radically from that of previous centuries. Compared to the past, it is infinitely more interconnected, intricate and complex. It is characterized by a world population that has grown exponentially, by airplanes that connect any point anywhere to another somewhere else in just a few hours, resulting in more than a billion of us crossing a border each year, by humans encroaching on nature and the habitats of wildlife, by ubiquitous, sprawling megacities that are home to millions of people living cheek by jowl (often without adequate sanitation and medical care). Measured against the landscape of just a few decades ago, let alone centuries ago, today’s economy is simply unrecognizable. Notwithstanding, some of the economic lessons to be gleaned from historical pandemics are still valid today to help grasp what lies ahead. The global economic catastrophe that we are now confronting is the deepest recorded since 1945; in terms of its sheer speed, it is unparalleled in history. Although it does not rival the calamities and the absolute economic desperation that societies endured in the past, there are some telling characteristics that are hauntingly similar. When in 1665, over the space of 18 months, the last bubonic plague had eradicated a quarter of London’s population, Daniel Defoe wrote in A Journal of the Plague Year (published in 1722): “All trades being stopped, employment ceased: the labour, and by that the bread, of the poor were cut off; and at first indeed the cries of the poor were most lamentable to hear , thousands of them having stayed in London till nothing but desperation sent them away, death overtook them on the road, and they served for no better than the messengers of death.” Defoe’s book is full of anecdotes that resonate with today’s situation, telling us how the rich were escaping to the country, “taking death with them”, and observing how the poor were much more exposed to the outbreak, or describing how “quacks and mountebanks” sold false cures. What the history of previous epidemics shows again and again is how pandemics exploit trade routes and the clash that exists between the interests of public health and those of economics (something that constitutes an economic “aberration” as we will see in just a few pages). As the historian Simon Schama describes: In the midst of calamity, economics was always at loggerheads with the interests of public health. Even though, until there was an understanding of germ-borne diseases, the plague was mostly attributed to ‘foul air’ and noxious vapours said to arise from stagnant or polluted marshes, there was nonetheless a sense that the very commercial arteries that had generated prosperity were now transformed into vectors of poison. But when quarantines were proposed or imposed (, ), those who stood to lose most, merchants and in some places artisans and workers, from the stoppage of markets, fairs and trade, put up stiff resistance. Must the economy die so that it could be resurrected in robust good health? Yes, said the guardians of public health, who became part of urban life in Europe from the 15th century onwards. History shows that epidemics have been the great resetter of countries’ economy and social fabric. Why should it be different with COVID-19? A seminal paper on the long-term economic consequences of major pandemics throughout history shows that significant macroeconomic after-effects can persist for as long as 40 years, substantially depressing real rates of return. This is in contrast to wars that have the opposite effect: they destroy capital while pandemics do not, wars trigger higher real interest rates, implying greater economic activity, while pandemics trigger lower real rates, implying sluggish economic activity. In addition, consumers tend to react to the shock by increasing their savings, either because of new precautionary concerns, or simply to replace the wealth lost during the epidemic. On the labour side, there will be gains at the expense of capital since real wages tend to rise after pandemics. As far back as the Black Death that ravaged Europe from 1347 to 1351 (and that suppressed 40 percent of Europe’s population in just a few years), workers discovered for the first time in their life that the power to change things was in their hands. Barely a year after the epidemic had subsided, textile workers in Saint-Omer (a small city in northern France) demanded and received successive wage rises. Two years later, many workers’ guilds negotiated shorter hours and higher pay, sometimes as much as a third more than their pre-plague level. Similar but less extreme examples of other pandemics point to the same conclusion: labour gains in power to the detriment of capital. Nowadays, this phenomenon may be exacerbated by the ageing of much of the population around the world (Africa and India are notable exceptions), but such a scenario today risks being radically altered by the rise of automation, an issue to which we will return in section 1.6. Unlike previous pandemics, it is far from certain that the COVID-19 crisis will tip the balance in favour of labour and against capital. For political and social reasons, it could, but technology changes the mix. 1.2.1.1. Uncertainty. The high degree of ongoing uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 makes it incredibly difficult to precisely assess the risk it poses. As with all new risks that are agents of fear, this creates a lot of social anxiety that impacts economic behaviour. An overwhelming consensus has emerged within the global scientific community that Jin Qi (one of China’s leading scientists) had it right when he said in April 2020: “This is very likely to be an epidemic that co-exists with humans for a long time, becomes seasonal and is sustained within human bodies.” Ever since the pandemic started, we have been bombarded daily with a relentless stream of data but, in June 2020, roughly half a year after the beginning of the outbreak, our knowledge is still very patchy and as a result we still don’t really know just how dangerous COVID-19 is. Despite the deluge of scientific papers published on the coronavirus, its infection fatality rate, meaning the number of COVID-19 cases, measured or not, that result in death) remains a matter of debate (around 0.4 percent-0.5 percent and possibly up to 1 percent). The ratio of undetected to confirmed cases, the rate of transmissions from asymptomatic individuals, the seasonality effect, the length of the incubation period, the national infection rates , progress in terms of understanding each of these is being made, but they and many other elements remain “known unknowns” to a large extent. For policy-makers and public officials, this prevailing level of uncertainty makes it very difficult to devise the right public-health strategy and the concomitant economic strategy. This should not come as a surprise. Anne Rimoin, a professor of epidemiology at UCLA, confesses: “This is a novel virus, new to humanity, and nobody knows what will happen.” Such circumstances require a good dose of humility because, in the words of Peter Piot (one of the world’s leading virologists): “The more we learn about the coronavirus, the more questions arise.” COVID-19 is a master of disguise that manifests itself with protean symptoms that are confounding the medical community. It is first and foremost a respiratory disease but, for a small but sizeable number of patients, symptoms range from cardiac inflammation and digestive problems to kidney infection, blood clots and meningitis. In addition, many people who recover are left with chronic kidney and heart problems, as well as lasting neurological effects. In the face of uncertainty, it makes sense to resort to scenarios to get a better sense of what lies ahead. With the pandemic, it is well understood that a wide range of potential outcomes is possible, subject to unforeseen events and random occurrences, but three plausible scenarios stand out. Each may help to delineate the contours of what the next two years could be like. These three plausible scenarios are all based on the core assumption that the pandemic could go on affecting us until 2022; thus they can help us to reflect upon what lies ahead. In the first scenario, the initial wave that began in March 2020 is followed by a series of smaller waves that occur through mid-2020 and then over a one- to two-year period, gradually diminishing in 2021, like “peaks and valleys”. The occurrence and amplitude of these peaks and valleys vary geographically and depend on the specific mitigation measures that are implemented. In the second scenario, the first wave is followed by a larger wave that takes place in the third or fourth quarter of 2020, and one or several smaller subsequent waves in 2021, like during the 1918 to 1919 Spanish flu pandemic. This scenario requires the reimplementation of mitigation measures around the fourth quarter of 2020 to contain the spread of infection and to prevent healthcare systems from being overwhelmed. In the third scenario, not seen with past influenza pandemics but possible for COVID-19, a “slow burn” of ongoing transmission and case occurrence follow the first wave of 2020, but without a clear wave pattern, just with smaller ups and downs. Like for the other scenarios, this pattern varies geographically and is to a certain extent determined by the nature of the earlier mitigation measures put into place in each particular country or region. Cases of infection and deaths continue to occur, but do not require the reinstitution of mitigation measures. A large number of scientists seem to agree with the framework offered by these three scenarios. Whichever of the three the pandemic follows, they all mean, as the authors explicitly state, that policy-makers must be prepared to deal with “at least another 18 to 24 months of significant COVID-19 activity, with hotspots popping up periodically in diverse geographic areas”. As we will argue next, a full-fledged economic recovery cannot take place until the virus is defeated or behind us. 1.2.1.2. The economic fallacy of sacrificing a few lives to save growth. Throughout the pandemic, there has been a perennial debate about “saving lives versus saving the economy”, lives versus livelihoods. This is a false trade-off. From an economic standpoint, the myth of having to choose between public health and a hit to GDP growth can easily be debunked. Leaving aside the (not insignificant) ethical issue of whether sacrificing some lives to save the economy is a social Darwinian proposition (or not), deciding not to save lives will not improve economic welfare. The reasons are twofold: 1. On the supply side, if prematurely loosening the various restrictions and the rules of social distancing result in an acceleration of infection (which almost all scientists believe it would), more employees and workers would become infected and more businesses would just stop functioning. After the onset of the pandemic in 2020, the validity of this argument was proven on several occasions. They ranged from factories that had to stop operating because too many workers had fallen ill (primarily the case for work environments that forced physical proximity between workers, like in meat-processing facilities) to naval ships stranded because too many crew members had been infected, thus preventing the vessel from operating normally. An additional factor that negatively affects the supply of labour is that, around the world, there were repeated instances of workers refusing to return to work for fear of becoming infected. In many large companies, employees who felt vulnerable to the disease generated a wave of activism, including work stoppages. 2. On the demand side, the argument boils down to the most basic, and yet fundamental, determinant of economic activity: sentiments. Because consumer sentiments are what really drive economies, a return to any kind of “normal” will only happen when and not before confidence returns. Individuals’ perceptions of safety drive consumer and business decisions, which means that sustained economic improvement is contingent upon two things: the confidence that the pandemic is behind us, without which people will not consume and invest, and the proof that the virus is defeated globally, without which people will not be able to feel safe first locally and subsequently further afield. The logical conclusion of these two points is this: governments must do whatever it takes and spend whatever it costs in the interests of our health and our collective wealth for the economy to recover sustainably. As both an economist and public-health specialist put it: “Only saving lives will save livelihoods”, making it clear that only policy measures that place people’s health at their core will enable an economic recovery, adding: “If governments fail to save lives, people afraid of the virus will not resume shopping, traveling, or dining out. This will hinder economic recovery, lockdown or no lockdown.” Only future data and subsequent analysis will provide incontrovertible proof that the trade-off between health and the economy does not exist. That said, some US data collected in the early phases of reopening in some states showed a drop in spending and working even before the lockdown. Once people began to worry about the pandemic, they effectively started to “shut down” the economy, even before the government had officially asked them to do so. A similar phenomenon took place after some American states decided to (partially) reopen: consumption remained subdued. This proves the point that economic life cannot be activated by fiat, but it also illustrates the predicament that most decision-makers experienced when having to decide whether to reopen or not. The economic and societal damage of a lockdown is glaringly obvious to everybody, while success in terms of containing the outbreak and preventing deaths, a prerequisite for a successful opening , is more or less invisible. There is no public celebration when a coronavirus case or death doesn’t happen, leading to the public-health policy paradox that “when you do it right, nothing happens”. This is why delaying the lockdown or opening too early was always such a strong policy temptation. However, several studies have since shown how such a temptation carried considerable risk. Two, in particular, coming to similar conclusions with different methodologies, modelled what could have happened without lockdown. According to one conducted by Imperial College London, wide-scale rigorous lockdowns imposed in March 2020 averted 3.1 million deaths in 11 European countries (including the UK, Spain, Italy, France and Germany). The other, led by the University of California, Berkeley, concluded that 530 million total infections, corresponding to 62 million confirmed cases, were averted in six countries (China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France and the US) by the confinement measures that each had put into place. The simple conclusion: in countries afflicted with registered COVID-19 cases that, at the peak, were roughly doubling every two days, governments had no reasonable alternative but to impose rigorous lockdowns. Pretending otherwise is to ignore the power of exponential growth and the considerable damage it can inflict through a pandemic. Because of the extreme velocity of the COVID-19 progression, the timing and forcefulness of the intervention were of the essence. 1.2.2. Growth and employment. Before March 2020, never had the world economy come to such an abrupt and brutal stop; never before had anyone alive experienced an economic collapse so dramatic and drastic both in its nature and pace. The shock that the pandemic has inflicted on the global economy has been more severe and has occurred much faster than anything else in recorded economic history. Even in the Great Depression in the early 1930s and the Global Financial Crisis in 2008, it took several years for GDP to contract by 10 percent or more and for unemployment to soar above 10 percent. With the pandemic, disaster-like macroeconomic outcomes, in particular exploding unemployment levels and plunging GDP growth, happened in March 2020 over the course of just three weeks. COVID-19 inflicted a crisis of both supply and demand that led to the deepest dive on record for the global economy for over 100 years. As the economist Kenneth Rogoff warned: “Everything depends on how long it lasts, but if this goes on for a long time, it’s certainly going to be the mother of all financial crises.” The length and acuteness of the downturn, and its subsequent hit to growth and employment, depend on three things: 1) the duration and severity of the outbreak; 2) each country’s success at containing the pandemic and mitigating its effects; and 3) the cohesiveness of each society in dealing with the post-confinement measures and the various opening strategies. At the time of writing (end of June 2020), all three aspects remain unknown. Renewed waves of outbreaks (big and small) are occurring, countries’ success at containing the outbreak can either last or suddenly be reversed by new waves, and societies’ cohesion can be challenged by renewed economic and social pain. 1.2.2.1. Economic growth. At different moments between February and May 2020, in a bid to contain the pandemic, governments worldwide made the deliberate decision to shut down much of their respective economies. This unprecedented course of events has brought with it a fundamental shift in the way the world economy operates, marked by an abrupt and unsolicited return to a form of relative autarky, with every nation trying to move towards certain forms of self-sufficiency, and a reduction in national and global output. The impact of these decisions seemed all the more dramatic because they concerned first and foremost service industries, a sector traditionally more immune than other industries (like construction or manufacturing) to the cyclical swings of economic growth. Consequently, the service sector that represents by far the largest component of economic activity in any developed economy (about 70 percent of GDP and more than 80 percent of employment in the US) was hit the hardest by the pandemic. It also suffered from another distinctive characteristics: contrary to manufacturing or agriculture, lost revenues in services are gone forever. They cannot be deferred because service companies don’t hold inventories or stock raw materials. Several months into the pandemic, it looks like even a semblance of a return to “business as usual” for most service companies is inconceivable as long as COVID-19 remains a threat to our health. This in turn suggests that a full return to “normal” cannot be envisaged before a vaccine is available. When might that be? According to most experts, it is unlikely to be before the first quarter of 2021 at the earliest. In mid-June 2020, already more than 135 trials were under way, proceeding at a remarkable pace considering that in the past it could take up to 10 years to develop a vaccine (five in the case of Ebola), so the reason is not science, but production. Manufacturing billions of doses constitutes the real challenge that will require a massive expansion and diversion of existing capacity. The next hurdle is the political challenge of vaccinating enough people worldwide (we are collectively as strong as the weakest link) with a high enough compliance rate despite the rise of anti-vaxxers. During the intervening months, the economy will not operate at full capacity: a country-dependent phenomenon dubbed the 80 percent economy. Companies in sectors as varied as travel, hospitality, retail or sports and events will face the following triple whammy: 1) fewer customers (who will respond to uncertainty by becoming more risk-averse); 2) those who consume will spend less on average (because of precautionary savings); and 3) transaction costs will be higher (serving one customer will cost more because of physical-distancing and sanitation measures). Taking into account the criticality of services for GDP growth (the richer the country, the greater the importance of services for growth), this new reality of a 80 percent economy begs the question of whether successive possible shutdowns of business activity in the service sector will have lasting effects on the broader economy through bankruptcies and losses of employment, which in turn begs the question of whether these possible lasting effects could be followed by a collapse in demand as people lose their income and their confidence in the future. Such a scenario will almost inevitably lead to a collapse in investment among business and a surge in precautionary saving among consumers, with fallout in the entire global economy through capital flight, the rapid and uncertain movement of large amounts of money out of a country, which tends to exacerbate economic crises. According to the OECD, the immediate yearly impact of the economy having been “switched-off” could be a reduction in GDP in the G7 countries of between 20 percent and 30 percent. But again, this estimate depends on the outbreak’s duration and severity in each country: the longer lockdowns last, the greater the structural damage they inflict by leaving permanent scars in the economy through job losses, bankruptcies and capital spending cancellations. As a rule of thumb, every month that large parts of an economy remain closed, annual growth might fall by a further 2 percentage points. But as we would expect, the relationship between the duration of restrictive measures and the corresponding impact on GDP is not linear. The Dutch central planning bureau found that every additional month of containment results in a greater, non-proportional deterioration of economic activity. According to the model, a full month of economic “hibernation” would result in a loss of 1.2 percent in Dutch growth in 2020, while three months would cause a 5 percent loss. For the regions and countries that have already exited lockdowns, it is too early to tell how GDP growth will evolve. At the end of June 2020, some V-shaped data (like the eurozone Purchasing Manufacturing Indices - PMI) and a bit of anecdotal evidence generated a stronger-than-expected rebound narrative, but we should not get carried away for two reasons: 1. The marked improvement in PMI in the eurozone and the US does not mean that these economies have turned the corner. It simply indicates that business activity has improved compared to previous months, which is natural since a significant pickup in activity should follow the period of inactivity caused by rigorous lockdowns. 2. In terms of future growth, one of the most meaningful indicators to watch is the savings rate. In April (admittedly during the lockdown), the US personal savings rate climbed to 33 percent while, in the eurozone, the household savings rate (calculated differently than the US personal savings rate) rose to 19 percent. They will both significantly drop as the economies reopen, but probably not enough to prevent these rates from remaining at historically elevated levels. In its “World Economic Outlook Update” published in June 2020, the International Monetary Fund (I

Rahan. The son of the ferocious ages. Episode Thirty Eight. The Sign of Fear. The man who was armed with the solid stick could easily have broken the skull of the reptile that threatened him. But he remained motionless, as if petrified with fear. But strike, brother! What are you waiting for to break the neck of this snake!? The passive attitude of the hunter amazed the son of Crao. But it was then that he noticed, on the forehead of the unknown, the sign with which certain clans mark the fearful and the cowardly. Rahan understands! He will kill it for you!! Page Two: The ivory cutlass flew to the reptile that was ready to uncoil. The body was slender but Rahan's skill was such. That the blade pierced it right through! All you have to do is finish it! I hope you will have the courage. The stranger decided to strike, breaking the snake's head. Maha thanks you for coming to his aide! As Rahan retrieved his weapon, the man was again seized with fear made a fleeing movement. Do not be afraid, Maha! Rahan never attacks "Those-who-walk-upright", when they are not quarreling with him! And I do not think Maha would quarrel with him, would he? Page Three: Maha never fights, he never kills. Maha was driven from his clan after being branded with the mark of infamy. Ever since Maha has been afraid. Fear of wild animals and darkness. Fear of enemies and fire in the sky. Maha has always fled from danger! The son of Crao felt more pity than contempt for this man who had thus confessed his weakness. All "Those-who-walk-upright" have, at least once in their life, experienced fear. But fear is something to fight! Does Maha want to pass the night with Rahan? Maha accepts. Especially since he knows. That this forest haunted by the "Kayaks", formidable hunters who cut off the hands of all those who violate their territory! Page Four: The two men dozed off by the dying fire. Rahan, as usual, had his knife within reach. Before falling asleep, a curious idea occurred to him. Maha thinks he is too scared! He should get that idea out of his head!! Maha discreetly observed Rahan, who had just fallen asleep. He also observed the ivory knife. With such a weapon, Would Maha perhaps be less afraid? When the son of Crao awoke. Maha had disappeared. And his knife as well! Maha has betrayed Raha's trust! But Rahan will find him! Indeed, he quickly found the traces of the fugitive. These followed a huge fault, as deep as it was steep. Page Five: And suddenly, he discovered the man, a few steps from a tree. Maha was training to throw his knife. He wants to imitate Rahan! Amused, the son of Crao remained in ambush. The clumsily projected knife struck the trunk indifferently. And suddenly it was a tragedy! The knife, missing the trunk, continued its flight and slid over the rock, and disappeared into the crack which seemed to be bottomless! Rahan thought his heart stopped beating. Then anger made him spring from the thickets. That knife has saved Rahan's life a hundred times over! It is his only treasure!! Maha panicked and did not have time to flee. He was violently thrown to the ground. Maha deserves to join the cutlass! Page Six: The man screamed in fright when the son of the fierce ages snatched him from the ground. No, No! Have pity, he screamed! And carried him to the crevasse. Rahan, on the edge of the abyss, hesitated. He always hesitated to take the life of "Those-who-walk-upright". Rahan should, you! He, He, He cannot! He freed Maha, who was stupefied by this clemency. Rahan has let you live, but you will help him find his knife!! The idea he had had the day before came back to him. You will drink the "Potion of Bravery" and you will no longer know fear! The “Potion of Bravery”? It is a secret revealed to me by Crao, my father. Rahan was already breaking one of these "Fruits of wood" whose flavor he had once discovered. Page Seven: Then in the coconut, he crushed berries picked from surrounding shrubs. This beverage chases away fear and restores courage! Rahan has already drunk this potion of bravery? He drinks it every day! Leading by example, Rahan took a sip of the thick mixture. Maha, convinced, eagerly swallowed the rest of the drink. From now on, you will be able to face the most fearsome of the "Doyaks"! But why would Maha face a "Doyak"? Because Rahan will tie vines to himself to descend into this fault. And a "Doyak" might come up and cut through those vines. But Maha will stay there to stop it, to allow Rahan to descend into the Chasm! Page Eight: No one has ever trusted Maha like this! You have already saved Maha's life. Maha will protect yours!! Soon after, Maha was admiring the skill with which the son of Crao tied together the long vines torn from the trees. Rahan knows how to do everything! No, he knows a lot of things, but he would like to know more! He would like to have as many ideas in his head as there are leaves in these trees! The vine was tied to a trunk and thrown into the void. And the son of the fierce ages slid down the wall. This one was so smooth that, if the vine were to give way, it would be impossible for him to get out of this abyss! Rahan's life will hang on this line, brother! Page Nine: Rahan was playing a dangerous game. He had invented this so-called secret "Potion of Bravery" to restore Maha's confidence. But would not this one, at the slightest danger, be oppressed by his fear? Would he not abandon the creeper he was keeping? As he continued his descent a swarm of bats rose from the shadows and circled around him. But the man who violated their lair worried these beasts, who disappeared without daring to attack him. Sometimes, high above, Rahan glimpsed the bust of Maha who addressed him with signs of friendship. He remains! He is not giving up on Rahan! Page Ten: Although very deep, this fault was wide enough for daylight to enter. The descent was exhausting and the son of Crao sometimes clung to a knot in the vine to catch his breath. Rahan may find his knife, but he will never have enough strength to come back up. Screams suddenly rang out, dampened by the distance. What is happening up there? The “Doyaks”? Two "Doyaks" had just emerged from the bushes. They laughed and pointed with contempt to the man with the forehead marked with the "sign of fear". How dare a coward venture into Doyak territory!? No doubt you have lost your way! Page Eleven: What are you doing near this vine? Who were you waving at a moment ago? The "Doyak" hunter approached, threateningly. Your hands will adorn the entrance to my hut!! Again, Maha experienced fear. But he hesitated. Should he flee, as he had always done? Or should he face these savage "Hand Cutters" and keep the promise made to Rahan? Who meanwhile approached the bottom and had a shudder of repugnance, as under him spread out a thick carpet of cobwebs. These webs were intertwined, and overlapped in many layers that the dust of time had made opaque and disturbing. Page Twelve: However, at the edge of the rift, Maha felt overwhelmed by an unknown feeling. Maha is not afraid of the "Dayaks!" Step back!! Step back!! The two hunters rushed forward laughing. And Maha did not have time to oppose one who cut the vine with an ax! The son of fierce ages fell suddenly on the repulsive carpet, and burst it with his weight. And his limbs were entangled in the threads. He found himself under the webs that wove a gray sky above him. Oh! The knife! The ivory weapon, held up by a thick canvas, was there! He only had to jump to grab it! Page Thirteen: The polished handle he gripped gave him a moment's confidence. But the canvas roof began to vibrate. And he understood that the mistress of this kingdom was about to arise. And the giant tarantula did indeed appear, horribly hairy, and bigger than those sea turtles he had once encountered. The son of fierce ages knew this monster was terribly venomous. Rahan must not let him approach! He must flee! He thought for a moment of throwing his knife. But, if he did not reach a vital organ, he would be at the mercy of the monster. Severing the threads that hindered his escape, he therefore rushed under the cobwebs, towards the glimpses of daylight. Page Fourteen: He finally saw the sky again, but the tarantula did not abandon its prey! The melee would be fatal to Rahan! He would be struck down by your venom! Argh! Suddenly a scream rang out and Rahan saw a man's body spinning in the air. A long spear accompanied the hunter in his fall. Maha did not abandon me! He fights up there! The "Doyak" had just crashed on the rocks. And the son of Crao, rushing to his spear, was already facing the giant spider. Rahan can now kill you without approaching you! The hairy legs waved and the tarantula rushed towards the man! Page Fifteen: The tip of the spear disappeared entirely between the monster's two eyes. But as the latter was still moving, Rahan struck again, even more violently. Ra-ha-ha! And the cry of victory of the son of the wild ages thundered in the fault, and rose towards the sky. Rahan has found his knife. Rahan has triumphed over this horrible beast. But Rahan is still a prisoner in this fissure!! Climbing this polished granite wall was indeed unthinkable! And the long creeper, whose fall had dislocated the tarantula's kingdom, was of no use to him! Page Sixteen: Only Maha can still save Rahan, by throwing him a new vine, thought Rahan! But Maha may have fled! Or maybe he was killed by “Doyaks” like this! Rahan was there in his thoughts when. Courage, Rahan! You will soon be out! Of this cursed fissure!! Maha! And no sooner had the echo carried away Maha's voice than a long vine whipped the wall of the vault and unrolled at his feet. Thankyou Maha! Thankyou Brother! Yes, by betting on the confidence of the man struck with the mark of infamy, Rahan had played a risky game. Page Seventeen: But he was happy just to have taken the chance. He started climbing. The son of Crao was agile and his muscles strong. But he knew he would have to make a tremendous effort to pull himself up more than a hundred meters! A few bats returned, more menacing than before. And it was then that he felt himself hoisted up without making any effort! What is going on up there thought Rahan? Maha is not strong enough to lift Rahan up so!? All he had to do now was use his legs to make the climb easier! The edge of the fault was soon very close. Page Eighteen: When he approached the edge, the sight left him speechless. Several "Doyak" hunters were hauling at the vine that passed around a tree. A few steps away, Maha had knocked down and was threatening another "Doyak" with an ax. Rahan was right! The "Potion of Bravery” has made Maha a Brave Man! Maha explained how, assailed by the chief and his "Doyaks", he had thrown one of them into the fault. Argh! And how he had succeeded in mastering the second! Ouch! When the clan that followed them arrived, this one was at my mercy! In threatening their leader with death I forced the "Doyaks” to obey me!! Page Nineteen: They are the ones who tied the vines and pulled Rahan out of the abyss! Maha’s eyes had a new look, a look from which fear had disappeared! What are we going to do with these men, Rahan? Let them return to their village! But let them know from now on that the sign of fear means nothing! Maha has just proved that this brand has no meaning! This stupid rite only humiliates the one on whom it is inflicted! Rahan and Maha kept the chief for a while longer until the Doyaks had gone very far into the forest, then they freed him. Go! Go! And tell everywhere and to everyone that a man marked with the sign of fear has dictated his law to a clan of "Doyaks"! Page Twenty: The setting sun was still blazing above the mountains. Maha will never have to be ashamed of that scar again! But he will have to drink the potion of bravery every day! Ha-ha-ha-ha, Rahan roared in laughter! The potion does not exist! It was just the juice of some wild berries! Rahan imagined this ruse to give you confidence! Or rather, for you to recover confidence in yourself! The Ruse succeeded, because of great courage. A courage that you found in yourself! Join your clan and approach your brothers without shame! Maha's gaze had become calm like that of a sage, clear like that of a hunter. The sun was still shining on the scar, but Maha smiled proudly. And the son of fierce ages felt very happy. Because that was how Rahan liked to see his brothers. "Those-who-walk-upright", smiling! Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html

Rahan. Episode Thirty Nine. The Bonds of Truth. In these wild times, each clan fiercely guarded its hunting territory. So the son of Crao was not surprised to be intercepted by three men. What he was surprised by was the point of their arrows, as fine and polished as his ivory cutlass The man with the fire-hair is going to die! The arrows flew away, and stuck at the same time in the trunk, behind which Rahan had thrown himself. Chtok! Chtok! Chtok! Page Two: The hunters did not have time to redraw their bows, before he disappeared into the thick refuge of the foliage. I am Rahan, the son of Crao! And Rahan is not the enemy of the men of the valley!! An arrow mewed in the foliage. Another lifted the bark from the branch where he was standing. Rahan had seen it clearly. These points are cut from a “Two Tooth” ivory! The growl of a puma, behind him, made him forget the first danger. You do not want to share your lair with Rahan! Thus, two perils threatened the son of fierce ages. Before him, the hunters saw the feline who was about to pounce. The ivory knife springs from its sheath. Page Three: The men, lowering their bows, observed the fight. They laughed when Rahan, losing his balance, grabbed a branch. Ha-ha-ha! The one with “Fire-Hair” is not very agile! They did not know that it was only a feint, and now Rahan was now under the puma, his ivory blade cut through the beast. Ra-ha-ha! But he had not foreseen that the heavy beast, struck dead, would fall on him and drag him down as he fell. His head hit the ground. And he remained motionless. An arrow rose up, pointed at his chest. No! Not yet! Rahan needs to tell us where his weapon came from! The intrigued hunters observed the knife. Only those who know the "Valley of Two Teeth" would possess a weapon like this! Page Four: When the son of Crao recovered his senses, he was shackled on a sort of travois. You want to kill Rahan. Why are you sparing him? Because your cutlass intrigues us! We want to know how you discovered “The Valley of the Two Teeth!” We also need to know if you revealed the secret to other hunters! Your words are too mysterious! Rahan has never seen this valley you speak of! This knife has always belonged to him! He already had it when he was just a little man. Only the sorcerer can tell the clan if you are telling the truth! A curious village had just appeared. In front of each hut and there was a mammoth tusk! Page Five: On the hill overlooking this village stood, intertwined, two front tusks belonging to a mastodon of exceptional size. Where can this clan get so much ivory? The son of Crao noticed a group of women polishing arrowheads. The sorcerer who was approaching wore horns and his necklaces was also loaded with ivory trinkets. Our hunters told Nara how they had captured Fire hair Rahan. This knife proves. That you discovered the secret of our clan!! The son of Crao repeated that he had stolen the ivory cutlass, long ago, from the leader of a horde who wanted to end his life. Page Six: This horde knew, like your clan, the use that can be made of the tusks of the "Two-tooth" by "Those-who-walk-upright"! Naara must believe Rahan! The sorcerer and the chief consulted each other. They seemed more incredulous than hostile to the captive. The “Links-of-Truth” Will Tell If Rahan Is Deceiving Us! Naara approached his hut in front of which vines hung. He chose the finest. The hunter who does not lie has a light body! Rahan will hang at the great gate of the valley until sunrise! If these links remain until the day it is because Rahan will have told the truth! He will then be free to leave our territory! Page Seven: But if the bonds break it is because Rahan's body is too heavy with lies!! We will then hunt him down to send him to the “Territory of Shadows”! Naara the sorcerer had launched his verdict with vigor but without rage or hatred. The son of Crao was pushed towards the portal without brutality. Straw bracelets were even woven around his wrists to protect him from the bite of the lines. Then they abandoned him hanging from the tusks which dominated the village on one side and an immense valley on the other. And it was then that he thought he was living a nightmare. On dozens of arrowheads, as far as his sight was, there were interspersed "Two-teeth" skeletons!! Page Eight: He remembered the superstitions of some hunters, saying that "Two-Tooths" who were mortally wounded or too old found themselves in their own "Territory of Shadows". And Rahan has today before his eyes what he believed to be a legend! But Rahan now knows where Naara's clan gets the ivory and why he wants to keep the location of the valley a secret! The vines tightened on the straw bracelets, but did not cause him any pain. But they are so fine! Too thin!! If these fragile bonds gave way, he would be hunted down by the clan and put to death. If they resisted he would be free! Page Nine: A Strange situation. The son of Crao had often been strangled by enemies. But never before had he wished for his bonds to resist!! The links of truth! What a stupid spell! If Naara-the-sorcerer invented it, he deserved to suffer it himself! Perhaps to show the fairness of the ordeal, Rahan had been left his ivory cutlass. Similarly, his arms remained free. But he knew too well that his weight, sooner or later, would break the bonds. So he avoided any movement that would have caused their rupture. At the bottom of the hill he observed the great portal where the captive was hung. Maybe he told the truth Naara!? The links of truth will decide at sunrise! Page Ten: The sun dipped over the valley, glowing red on the bones bristling with long tusks. If Rahan's body remained frozen, his spirit did not. A few links will break, and the clan will set out in pursuit of Rahan! Rahan will therefore only have "The Valley of Two Teeth" as his escape route! Perhaps the night will come to his aid. If these links last until the night. Ouch! Crack! Some fibers had just broken!! And the others broke one by one! The clan that was waiting for its fall would soon climb the hill to take down “Fire-Hair-the-Liar”! Page Eleven: Rahan wants to live! The ties must hold at least until the night! The son of fierce ages had just had an idea. His hands clung to the "Links of Truth", and he twisted his fingers over the breaks that were about to occur. The straw bracelets he wore no longer protected him, and the pain was excruciating. Certainly, the fine vines could still break above his fingers but he had bought some time! Precious time, since the sky was quickly darkening. Another moment and Rahan will be able to drop and flee! The “Links of Truth” still stand! Rahan told the truth! We will find out in the morning! Naara the sorcerer, disappointed, rushed into his hut. Page Twelve: Night came, almost total. From the village, the clan can no longer see the great portal! Rahan can go free! Freeing his aching fingers, the son of Crao released the links. And a moment later, he was in the darkness. He was going down the slope leading to the valley of the “Two-Teeth”. And what he had feared happened. The wind suddenly chased away the clouds, unmasking the moon! A clamor reached him. Look! The links are broken! Rahan lied! If, like most clans, that of Naara fears darkness, they will only track down Rahan at dawn! But Rahan must run, run! The son of fierce ages leaped between the bones piled up before him. Page Thirteen: He bypassed immense tusks or enormous rib cages, sometimes stumbling against the vines that crisscrossed the mammoths. However. The “Links of Truth” have denounced Rahan’s perfidy! On the hunt, brothers! Death To the liar! So the son of Crao was wrong, who supposed that this clan feared the night! Behind their leader and Naara-the-sorcerer, the hunters rushed towards the great portal. Rahan caught a glimpse of them, slipping nimbly between the bones. The “Two-teeth” valley is their territory! They will quickly find Rahan! He huddled behind a strange refuge of dislocated vertebrae. If Rahan moves, they will see him immediately! Page Fourteen: The hunters had spread out and were methodically exploring every shadowy corner. Rahan the liar knows how to hide! But we will find him! The son of Crao would certainly have been discovered if an unexpected event had not come to his aid. Oh! Luck is with Rahan! With long, painful trumpeting sounds, a large mammoth appeared at the bottom of the valley. Painfully making its way through the carcasses, this solitary male came to die where those of his species had died. Page Fifteen: Abandoning the manhunt, the hunters rushed towards the dying mastodon. This is even more ivory for their clan, and meat for many moons! Overcome by countless spear blows, the “Two-teeth” collapsed. A clamor of joy rose up in the valley. They no longer think about Rahan! Rahan can flee! The son of fierce ages was wrong once again. Leaving their clan to take care of carving up the enormous beast, the chief and Naara the sorcerer continued their search. The day will come soon! “Fire-hair” will not escape us! For a long time, Rahan slipped between the carcasses. The first lights of dawn were iridescent in the ridges of the valley. Page Sixteen: Exhausted by this long race, he took refuge inside a thorax. The clan is far away and Rahan is safe in this cage of bones! For the third time, the son of Crao made a mistake. He was going to doze off when. You are caught, "Fire-hair"! The “Links of Truth” have never deceived the Clan! Ohh! The leader stood at the entrance to the thorax, the sorcerer at the "Exit"! Rahan was indeed trapped! Since the links were broken, Rahan lied! So he must die! The Chief bent his bow. And the ivory-tipped arrow flew towards the son of fierce ages, entrapped by the bone bars of the cage. Page Seventeen: Instinctively, Rahan had protected his face and heart. And the arrow ended stuck in the thick straw bracelet!! Zlac! The leader did not have time to grab another arrow. The vertebra thrown by the son of Crao hit him right in the forehead! Ah! Naara the sorcerer took a step, a fine ivory weapon in his hand. Rahan hates killing "Those-who-walk-upright” but. When he has been forced to do it, he always triumphed! Drop that weapon, Naara! Let go of it if you value your life! The Sorcerer felt that he would not emerge victorious from single combat against this strong adversary. He wanted to flee. Page Eighteen: But in three leaps, the son of fierce ages caught up with him. Not so fast, wizard! Do not kill me! Do not kill me! Rahan will not kill you! But he is going to prove to you how stupid this "Links of Truth" test that you imposed on him is! While holding Naara, whom he had disarmed, Rahan cut off some fine vines. Do you say that the body of the man who never lies is light? We will see! When the clan chief came back to his senses, the sun was bathing the valley of the “Two teeth”. “Fire Hair” is missing! But oh! The hunters who were running joyfully after putting down the mammoth, stopped, looking the same way. Naara! Page Nineteen: Their sorcerer was suspended in the void, between two sides of the upper thorax, exactly as the man with the fiery hair had been at the great portal!! His voice reached them and they saw him on the slope of the valley, out of range of arrows. Do not release Naara, brothers!! If he never tells lies, the "Links of Truth" should hold him up until the sun goes down! Naara was pale. A vine suddenly gave way! Noo! No! Do not believe this! The second vine immediately broke and the sorcerer rolled on the bones. The leader and his men took a step back. Page Twenty: Rahan's ironic voice flowed through the valley. Naara's body must be very heavy with lies! He is forcing you to choose another wizard! Or deprive yourself of a wizard, which would be even better! Rahan hopes you understand that the "Links of Truth" test is stupid and cruel! “Those-who-walk-upright” must think before deciding that one of their number lied! They must provide proof! Naara, ashamed, came and threw his sorcerer's attributes at the chief's feet. Naara sincerely believed he had gifts. He was wrong! He only asks for one favor. To stay in the clan as a simple hunter! From the top of the ridge, the son of Crao saw this scene, in which he rejoiced. He contemplated the fantastic valley of the "Two-teeth" for a moment longer, then he headed off in the direction of the sun, where it was lingering, on other horizons. Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html

DESCRIPTION: The Matrix Comics is a collection of short comic book stories set in the fictional universe of the Matrix series, originally released as webcomics on the series' official website from 1999 to 2004. Most of the stories were published in two volumes (printed in 2003 and 2004 respectively) by the Wachowski Brothers' company Burlyman Entertainment, along with three never released online. The comics' editor was Spencer Lamm. The Wachowski Brothers, the creators of the Matrix series, contributed one script to the project, "Bits and Pieces of Information", aspects of which were later included in the Animatrix short animated film "The Second Renaissance". This is the complete set of The Matrix web comics series 1 (Out of 3 total) collected from The Matrix website before it was closed down. [Team Nanban][TPB] http://www.facebook.com/pages/Team-Nanban-TPB/316529071742589

https://arxiv.org/pdf/1501.00007.pdf

Rahan. Episode Thirty Seven. The lagoon of dread. Hardly had the flamingos caught a glimpse of the man than they flew away en masse. Their cloud was reflected in the waters of the lagoon, pink like a cloud at sunset. The son of Crao, who had never seen birds of this color before, followed them for a moment in the sun. Then his gaze returned to this islet, which was in the heart of the lagoon and intrigued him so much. The wooden giant represents without doubt a god! Page Two: The large idol carved in a tree seemed to watch over and protect the lagoon. From the shore, Rahan could hardly make out the details. Rahan wants to know! He wants to know! He divined the sharks under the green waters. But his curiosity prevailed. He knew from experience that "Those-who-crawl-on-the-water" were rarely attacked when they kicked their legs very quickly. His hands and feet vigorously created a furrow of foam. And the sharks that escorted him for a moment, indeed, did not dare to approach it. He was a hundred fathoms from the island when. Something came up from the depths that hit his belly. A yellowish thing. Like a monster without head or tail! Page Three: He leaned back and. Ha-ha-ha! Rahan was afraid of a bamboo! The "Thing" that had just surfaced was just a huge piece of bamboo! Bamboos do not grow at the bottom of water! And this one was cut by men! Here and there traces of ax blows were visible. The son of Crao's curiosity grew again. He swooped into the depths of the lagoon, scattering a shoal of multicolored fish. And Suddenly. Oh! These unfortunates were condemned to a terrible death! Skeletons lay between the seaweed, others were stretched out in the hollow of bamboos weighted down with large stones. Page Four: Further on, two half shells of bamboo were still held together by a vine. Rahan understands! All these men were locked in similar trunks. But time and water wear out the vines! And the lids of these cages rise to the surface! This is what just happened to Rahan! The men of these shores must be very cruel to send their enemies to the "Territory of Shadows" in this way! Overwhelmed by his macabre discovery, the son of Crao returned to the surface and a large shark appeared. The shark, this time, was not worried by foam and noisy eddies! He was in his silent kingdom! Page Five: Knowing that the monster would grab his legs if he reached the surface immediately, Rahan stretched out. He knew too that the shark had to turn around to seize its prey. Clutching his ivory knife, he watched for this moment. And. Rahan's claw is as fearsome as your teeth! The blade opened the white belly of the great shark. Whose convulsions immediately resulted in an effluvia of blood. The son of the fierce ages regained the surface. Ra-ha-ha! He had waited so long for his breath that the first breath of fresh air seeped like fire into his lungs. Page Six: A moment later, he climbed onto the island. The great idol, who held a spear to his measure, seemed to observe him like an intruder. Rahan knows that "Those-who-walk-upright" sometimes represent the gods they worship. What god do you embody, wooden man? Oh! Wood Skins! The son of Crao was not alone on the island! Crocodiles were crawling heavily towards him! Lend your lance to Rahan, man of wood! Resting on sculpted hands, the spear was long and heavy. Back, “Skin-of-wood”! Search for some other prey than Rahan! The flint penetrated the scaly side of one of the saurian. Page Seven: Then Rahan knocked again. The flanks. The gaping jaws. The flanks again. Armed with the long spear, he pushed the beasts back into the lagoon. Ra-ha-ha! His cry of victory thundered when the saurians, unable to approach him, abandoned the islet. Rahan thanks you, wooden man! He respectfully rested the long spear on the sculpted hands when. Shouts resounded on the other side of the lagoon! "Those-who-walk-upright" do not seem to appreciate the arrival of Rahan on their territory! In the distance, on the shore, men shouted. The enemy has just profaned the god "Kaha"!! Sacrilege! Sacrilege! Page Eight: Sacrilege! Profaner! Sacrilege! The cries ran over the lagoon, reaching the son of Crao. Who suddenly saw a surprising thing. The men were pushing boats into the water. Boats like he had never seen. They were made of huge bamboo split in two, like the aquatic sarcophagi he had discovered. The hard walls of the flutes formed the bow and stern of the skiffs. Sacrilege! Profanation! From all sides boats were approaching. Surrounding on the islet the defiler of the god "Kaha"! I am Rahan! The son of Crao, he shouted! Rahan is not an enemy! Page Nine: Capture him alive! Kahouli will decide his fate! The men did not throw the bone harpoons they wielded. But Rahan plunged between two boats, and their hands tried to seize him. No! You will not capture Rahan! A boat rolled over on itself, and threw its occupants into the water. And Rahan was already swimming towards the shore, faster than he had ever done. He outpaced the flotilla that had chased him. And he rushed on the beach, towards the nearby forest. Rahan does not want to be sent to the "Kingdom of the Dead" in a bamboo cage! Page Ten: He heard the clamors redouble behind him, and he plunged under the strangest cover that there was. Everywhere, gigantic bamboos rise towards the sky. It is this forest that provides the lagoon clan with boats and cages! The more the son of Crao fled, the more he felt overcome by a malaise. All these bamboos looked alike and, without reference points, he had the sensation of going around in circles. And indeed, suddenly. Our forest has its secrets that "Rahan-the-sacrilegious" ignores!! He has retraced his steps! The men of the lagoon were surging from all sides. In front. Behind. On his sides! Page Eleven: We saw you take the weapon of the god "Kaha"! Kahouli will say that she hardly deserves this desecration! All resistance was useless. The circle of bone harpoons closed on the son of Crao. Who, shortly after, was taken to a village whose huts, too, were made of bamboo. The nearby lagoon scintillated under the setting lights. We bring you "Rahan-the-sacrilegious", Kahouli! We caught him desecrating the islet of "Kaha"! The leader of the lagoon clan wore a white beard. Rahan thought he saw his father "Crao-the-wise" again. Rahan has done nothing profane! Rahan respects the customs of his brothers! Page Twelve: The men murmured, hostile. But Kahouli nodded slowly. Yet you have dared to set foot on the islet of "Kaha"! It is true. But if Rahan was a profaner, "Kaha" would not have allowed him to take his spear to hunt the “Skins of Wood"! And also Rahan returned his spear to "Kaha"! Look at it! The great idol in the distance seemed to watch over the glowing expanse of the lagoon. Kahouli still nodded. I believe you. If you had the spirit of evil in your head, "Kaha" would have punished you himself! Yes I believe you! The murmurs ceased, and the chief addressed the clan. Rahan is not an enemy! Give him food and drink! Let him be admitted as a brother! Page Thirteen: The son of the fierce ages knew, in this village, a night as he loved them. A night of friendship. A brotherly night. He who knew a thousand things had to recount many adventures before daring to ask the question that haunted him. Rahan would like to know who are these men lying at the bottom of the lagoon, in the bamboo cages? Kahouli's response stunned him. They are the best of ours! Our clan respects courage and "Kaha" is the god of bravery. This is why we entrust to the waters of the lagoon those who have died following a courageous act. "Kaha" watches over their last sleep! Rahan, who had dreamed of horrible torture. Apparently, on the contrary, the bamboo sarcophagi were immersed with the bravest, most respected hunters of the clan! Page Fourteen: Dawn was breaking over the lagoon when cries of terror threw the men out of the huts. A few children appeared, chased by a huge buffalo. Lay down! Down! Quickly! And don't move!! The children obeyed and the horned monster, disdaining these suddenly motionless prey, charged the nearest standing group. Old Kahouli, who was bravely trying to intervene, was thrown against a hut. Everyone down! Lay down! Everyone! The son of Crao knew the reactions of "Longhorns". Indifference for the inert hunter, fury against the one that moved! Page Fifteen: It was a strange sight. The big buffalo, irritated, went from one group to another. He charged with low horns as soon as one of the men lying down made a move! And it lasted. And Continued. The son of the fierce ages, exasperated, watched the comings and goings of the buffalo. It is high time to end it, "Long Horns"!! He suddenly straightened up, cutlass in hand! Ra-ha-ha! Man and beast charged each other. The sun reflected the same burst of fire on the brandished blade and the lowered horns. Page Sixteen: The shock was terrifying. Rahan felt his cutlass plunge into his chest at the same time as he felt his chest crack. He rolled on the ground while the monster continued his path for an instant. To go on to collapse at the other end of the village. Rahan has killed the "Longhorn"! Rahan is the bravest of the Brave! Kahouli- the-chef brandished the precious ivory knife. Rahan gave his life to save ours! The son of Crao lay in the bright sun. And they spoke of him like those who are on their way to reach the "Territory-of-Shadows". Rahan deserves the eternal protection of "Kaha"! Page Seventeen: Some men were already bringing a bamboo sarcophagus respectfully. Others brought heavy stones. A moment later, Rahan was lying in the boat. Like all proud and brave hunters. He will go to the "Territory-of-shadows" with his weapon!! Kahouli solemnly placed the ivory knife on the son of Crao's chest. The sarcophagus was closed with a strap of strong creepers. Immerse it with our brothers!! May "Kaha" watch over him until the end of time! The sun haloed the head of the god "Kaha" when the skiffs carrying the bamboo coffin arrived in the middle of the lagoon. Page Eighteen: As soon as the sarcophagus was submerged, the water seeped between the disjointed bamboos. And Rahan came to his senses! A thin streak of light, but darkness. A shaft of light, piercing the darkness. He could not move. Where was he? He felt a slight shock when the coffin hit the bottom, in the middle of the Aquatic Graveyard. In a flash he realized. They, they believed Rahan dead! They honor me as a brave man! But Rahan is still alive!! Rahan does not want to die! The son of Crao, suffocating, flexed his muscles to free himself. And that was when he felt, on his stomach, his ivory knife!! Page Nineteen: Chlak! Chlack! There was only one thought left. The line of light. The daylight. Life! Slipped between the bamboos, the ivory blade cut a vine. The "Sarcophagus" half-opened. Letting in more light, more daylight. The knife cut again. The lid of the coffin, released, rose to the surface. The son of Crao on the threshold of unconsciousness, accompanied it towards the day, towards life. Ra-ha-ha! It was not his cry of victory that he uttered, but the astonished gasp of one who would return from the other world. Exhausted, he saw the god "Kaha". Whose calm gaze fixed the "Lagoon-of-the-Brave." He heard the cries of joy rising from the shore. Page Twenty: Rahan returns from the "Territory-of-Shadows"! It is a miracle of "Kaha" brothers! Throughout his youthful adventure, the son of fierce ages had encountered hordes who worshiped the sun or the moon. Others would worship the gods of the wind. Rain clouds or thunder. He, Rahan respected these beliefs. But he believed even more in "Those-who-walk-upright", of men, his brothers. That was why he let himself be brought back to the shore where the clan cheered for him. The dying sun struck the wooden eyelid of the great idol. One would have thought, at that moment, that "Kaha", the god of the lagoon of the brave, had given conspiratorial wink to the son of the fierce ages. Index: https://rumble.com/v3486cm-rahan-index-of-episodes-by-roger-lecureux..html