 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Kim Cutler. Missing Link by Frank Herbert. The Romantics used to say that the eyes were the windows of the soul. A good alien zoologist might not put it quite so poetically, but he can, if he's sharp, read a lot in the look of an eye. We ought to scrape this planet clean of every living thing on it. Matterdumbo Stetson, Section Chief of Investigation and Adjustment. Stetson paced Lind and control bridge of his scout cruiser. His footsteps graded on a floor that was the rear wall of the bridge during flight. But now the ship rested on its tail fins, all four hundred glistening red and black meters of it. The open ports of the bridge looked out on the jungle roof of Gyneth III, some one hundred fifty meters below. A butter-yellow sun hung above the horizon, perhaps an hour from setting. Clean as an egg, he barked. He paused in his round of the bridge. Glared out the starboard port, spat into the fire-blackened circle that the cruiser's jets had burned from the jungle. The IA Section Chief was dark-haired, gangling with large head and big features. He stood in his customary slouch, a stance not improved by the sack-like patched blue fatigues. Although on this present operation he raided the flag of a division admiral, his fatigues carried no insignia. There was a general unkempt, straggling look about him. Louis Orrn, Jr. IA fieldman with a maiden diploma, stood at the opposite port, studying the jungle horizon. Now and then he glanced at the bridge control console, the chronometer above it, the big trans-light map of their position tilted from the opposite bulkhead. A heavy planet native he felt vaguely uneasy on this Jina III, with its gravity of only seven-eighths Terran standard. The surgical scars on his neck where the micro-communications equipment had been inserted itched maddeningly. He scratched. Ha! said Stetson, politicians! A thin black insect with shell-like wings flew in Orrn's port, settled in his close-cropped red hair. Orrn pulled the insect gently from his hair, released it. Again it tried to land in his hair. He ducked. It flew across the bridge, out the port beside Stetson. There's a thick muscled no-fat look to Orrn, but something about his blocky off-centered features suggested a clown. I'm getting tired of waiting, he said. You're tired. Ha! A breeze rippled the tops of the green ocean below them. Here and there red and purple flowers jetted from the verter, bending and nodding like an attentive audience. Just look at that blasted jungle, barked Stetson. Them and their stupid orders. A call bell tinkled on the bridge control console. The red light above the speaker grid began blinking. Stetson shot an angry glance at it. Yeah, how? Okay, Stets, orders just came through. We use Plan C. Comgo says to brief the fieldman and jet out of here. Did you ask them about using another fieldman? Orrn looked up attentively. The speaker said yes. They said we have to use Orrn because of the records on the Delphinus. Well then, will they give us more time to brief him? Negative, it's crash priority. Comgo expects to blast the planet anyway. Stetson glared at the grid. Those fat-headed, lard-bottom, pig-brained politicians. He took too deep breaths. Subsided. Okay. Tell them we'll comply. One more thing, Stet. What now? I've got to confirm contact. Instantly Stetson was poised on the balls of his feet alert. Where? About ten kilometers out. Section AAB6. How many? A mob? You want I should count them. No. What are they doing? Making a B-line for us. You better get a move on. Okay. Keep us posted. Right. Stetson looked across at his junior fieldman. Orrn, if you decide you want out of this assignment you just say the word. I owe back you to the Hilt. Why should I want out of my first field assignment? Listen and find out. Stetson crossed over to a tilt-locker behind the big trans-line map. Hald out a white-cover-all uniform with gold insignia. Tossed it to Orrn. Get into these while I brief you on the map. But this is an R and R unit. Began Orrn. Get that uniform on your ugly frame. Yes, sir. Admiral Stetson, sir. Right away, sir. But I thought I was through with the old rediscovery and re-education when you drafted me off the hammel into the IA. Sir. He began changing from the IA blue to the R and R white. Almost as an afterthought he said, sir. A wolfish grin cracked Stetson's big features. I'm so happy you have the proper attitude of subservience toward authority. Orrn zipped up the cover-all uniform. Oh yes, sir. Sir. Okay, Orrn, pay attention. Stetson gestured at the map with its green superimposed grid squares. Here we are. Here's that city we flew over on our way down. You will head for it as soon as we drop you. The place is big enough that if you hold a course roughly northeast, you can't miss it. Where, again, the call bell rang. What's it this time, Hal, Bart Stetson? They've changed to plan HSTET new orders cut. Five days? That's all they can give us. Comgo says he can't keep the information out of High Commissioner Bull One's hands any longer than that. It's five days for sure, then. Is this the usual R and R foul-up? Asked Orrn. Stetson nodded. Thanks to Bull One and company, we're just one jump ahead of catastrophe. But they still pumped the bourgeois into the rah-rah boys back at dear old Uniglactica. You're making light of my revered alma mater, said Orrn. He struck a pose. We must reunite the lost planets with our centers of culture and industry and take up the glorious, onward march of mankind that was so brutally. Can it! Snap Stetson. We both know we're going to rediscover one planet too many someday. Rim war all over again. But this is a different breed of fish. It's not. Repeat. Not. A rediscovery. Orrn sobered. Alien? Yes. A-L-I-E-N. A never-before-contacted culture. That language you were force-fed on the way over? That's an alien language. It's not complete. All we have off the minis. And we excluded data on the natives because we've been hoping to dump this project and nobody the wiser. Holy mazu. 26 days ago an I.A. search-chip came through here. Had routine mini sneaker. Look at the place. When he combed in his net of sneakers to check the tapes and films. Lo and behold he had a little stranger. One of theirs. No. It was a mini off the Delphinus rediscovery. The Delphinus has been unreported for 18 standard months. Did it crack up here? We don't know. If it did we haven't been able to spot it. She was supposed to be way off in the Balandine system by now. But we've something else on our minds. It's the one item that makes me want to blot out this place and run home with my tail between my legs. Weevah. Again the call bell chimed. Now what? Roared Stetson into the speaker. I've got a mini over that mobstet. They're talking about us. It's a definite raiding party. What armament? Too gloomy in that jungle to be sure. The infra beams out on this mini. Looks like hard pellet rifles of some kind might even be off the Delphinus. Can you get closer? Wouldn't do any good. No light down there. And they're moving up fast. Keep an eye on them but don't ignore the other sectors said Stetson. You think I was born yesterday? Marked the voice from the grid. The contact broke off with an angry sound. One thing I like about the IA said Stetson. It collects such even tempered types. He looked at the white uniform on-worn. He wiped a hand across his mouth as though he tasted something dirty. Why am I wearing this thing? Ask Orn. Disguise. But there's no moustache. Stetson smiled without humor. That's one of IA's answers to those fat keystered politicians. We're setting up our own search system to find the planets before they do. We managed to put spies in key places at R&R. Any touchy planets our spies report. We divert the files. Then what? Then we look into them with bright boys like you disguised as R&R fieldmen. Goodie, goodie. And what happens if R&R stumbles on to me while I'm down there playing patty cake? We disown you. But you said an IA ship found this joint. It did. And then one of our spies in R&R intercepted a routine request for an agent instructor to be assigned here with full equipment. Request signed by a first contact officer named a distant of the Delphinus. But the Del- Yeah. Missing. The request was a forgery. Now you see why I'm mostly for rubbing out this place. Who dare forge such a thing unless he knew for sure that the original F.C. officer was missing. Or dead. What the jumped up mazu are we doing here stat? Askorn. Alien calls for full contact team with all that. It calls for one planet buster bomb. Buster in five days. Unless you give them a white bill in the meantime. High Commissioner Bull one will have word of this planet by then. If Jina 3 still exists in five days. Can't you imagine the fun the politicians? Mama Mia. We want this planet cleared for contact or dead before then. I don't like this stat. You don't like it. Look said Orn. There must be another way. Why when we teamed up with the Alleranoids. We gained 500 years in the physical sciences alone. Not to mention the. The Alleranoids didn't knock over one of our survey ships first. What if the Delphinus just crashed here. And the locals picked up the pieces. That's what you're going in to find out Orn. But answer me this. If they do have the Delphinus. How long before a tool using race could be a threat to the galaxy. I saw that city they built Stett. They could be dug in within six months. And there'd be no. Yeah. Orn shook his head. Think of it. Two civilizations that matured along different lines. Think of all the different ways we'd approach the same problems. The lever that it give us for. Sound like a unilateral lecture. Are you through marching arm and arm into the misty future. Orn took a breath. Why is a freshman like me being tossed into this dish. You'd still be on the Delphinus master list as an R&R field man. That's important if you're masquerading. Am I the only one. I know I'm a recent convert but. You want out. I didn't say that. I just want to know why I'm. Because the big domes fed a set of requirements into their iron monsters. Your card popped out. They were looking for somebody capable. Dependable. And expendable. Hey. That's why I'm down here briefing you. Instead of sitting back on a flagship. I got you into the IA. Now you listen carefully. You push the panic button on this one without cause. I will personally flay you alive. We both know the advantages of an alien contact. But if you get into a hot spot and call for help. I'll dive this cruiser into that city to get you out. Orn swallowed. Thanks dad. I'm. We're going to take up a tide orbit. Out beyond us will be five transports full of IA marines. And a class nine monitor with one planet buster. You're calling the shots. God help you. First we want to know if they have the dofinis. And if so where it is. Next we want to know. Just how war like these goons are. Can we control them if they're blood thirsty. What's their potential in five days. Not a second more. What do we know about them. Not much. They look something like an ancient Terran chimpanzee. Only with blue fur. Faces hairless. Pink skinned. Stetson snapped a switch. The trans light map became a screen with a figure frozen on it. Like that. This is life size. Looks like the missing link they've always hunted for said Orn. Yeah. But you've got a different kind of missing link. Vertical slip. Vertical slip. Huckles in their eyes said Orn. He studied the figure. It had been caught from the front by a mini sneaker camera. About five feet tall. The stance was slightly bent forward. Long arms. Two vertical nose slits. A flat lipless mouth. Receiving chin. Four fingered hands. It were a wide belt from which dangled neat pouches and what look like tools. Although their use was obscure. There appeared to be the tip of a tail protruding from behind one of the squat legs. Behind the creature towered the fairy spires of the city they'd observed from the air. Tails asked Orn. Yeah. There are boreal. Not a road on the whole planet we can find. But there are lots of vine lanes through the jungles. And since face-hardened match that with the city's advanced as that one. Slave culture? Probably. How many cities have they? We found two. This one and another one on the other side of the planet. But the other one's a ruin. A ruin? Why? You tell us. Lots of mysteries here. What's the planet like? Mostly jungle. There are polar oceans, lakes and rivers. One low mountain chain follows the equatorial belt about two-thirds around the planet. But only two cities. Are you sure? Reasonably so. It'd be pretty hard to miss something the size of that thing we flew over. It must be fifty kilometers long and at least ten wide. Swarming with these creatures too. We've got a zone count. Estimate the places the city's population at over thirty million. Wheeeeeeww. Those are tall buildings too. We don't know much about this place orn. And unless you bring them into the fold there'll be nothing but ashes for our archaeologists to pick over. Seems a dirty shame. I agree, but the call bell jangled. Stetson's voice sounded tired. Yeah, how? That mob's only about five kilometers outstead. We've got Orn's gear outside on the disguised air sled. We'll be right down. Why a disguised sled? Asked Orn. If they think it's a ground buggy, they might get careless when you most need an advantage. We could always scoop you out of the air, you know. What are my chances on this one, Stetson? Stetson's shrugged. I'm afraid they're slim. These goons probably have the Delphinus. And they want you just long enough to get your equipment and everything you know. Ruff-a-zaddy. According to our best guess, if you're not out in five days we blast. Orn cleared his throat. Want out? Asked Stetson. No. Use the back door, rural son. Always leave yourself a way out. Now let's check that equipment the surgeons put in your net. Stetson put a hand to his throat. His mouth remained closed, but there was a surf hissing voice in Orn's ears. You read me? Sure I can. No hissed the voice, touched the mic contact. Keep your mouth closed. Just use your speaking muscles without speaking. Orn obeyed. Okay, said Stetson, you come in loud and clear. I ought to, I'm right on top of you. There'll be a relay ship over you all the time, said Stetson. Now, when you're not touching that mic contact, this rig? I'll feed us what you say, and everything that goes on around you too. We'll monitor everything. Got that? Yes. Stetson held out his right hand. Good luck. I meant that about diving in for you. Just say the word. I know the word too, said Orn. I'll hope. Gray mud floor and gloomy aisles between monstrous bluish tree trunks. That was the jungle. Only the barest weak glimmering of sunlight penetrated to the mud. The disguise sled, its paragraph units turned off, lurched and skidded around buttress roots. Its headlights swung in wild arcs across the trunks and down the mud. Aerial creepers, great looping vines of them, swung down from the towering forest ceiling. A steady drip of condensation spattered the windshield, forcing Orn to use the wipers. In the bucket seat of the sleds cab, Orn fought the controls. He was plagued by the vague slow-motion floating sensation that a heavy planet native always feels in lighter gravity. It gave him an unhappy stomach. Things skipped through the air around the lurching vehicle, flitting and darting things. Insects came in twin cones, siphoned toward the headlights. There was an endless, chittering, whistling, talk, talk, talking in the gloom beyond the lights. Stetson's voice hissed suddenly through the surgically implanted speaker. How's it look? Alien, any sign of that mob? Negative. OK, we're taking off. Behind Orn there came a deep rumbling roar that receded as a scout cruiser climbed its jets. All other sounds hung suspended in the after-silence, then resumed. The strongest first, and then the weakest. A heavy object suddenly arced through the headlights, swinging on a vine. It disappeared behind a tree. Another. Another. Ghostly shadows with mine pendulums on both sides. Something banged down heavily onto the hood of the sled. Orn braked to a creaking stop that shifted the load behind him, found himself staring through the windshield at a native of Jaina III. This native crouched on the hood, with a Mark 20 exploding pellet rifle in his right hand directed at Orn's head. In the abrupt shock of meeting, Orn recognized the weapon. Standard issue to the marine guards on all Orn R survey ships. The native appeared the twin of the one Orn had seen on the trans light screen. The forefingered hand looked extremely capable around the stock of the Mark 20. Slowly Orn put a hand to his throat, pressed the contact button. He moved his speaking muscles. Just made contact with the mob. One on the hood now has one of our Mark 20 rifles aimed at my head. The surf hissing of Stetson's voice came through the hidden speaker. Want us to come back? Negative. Stand by. He looks cautious rather than hostile. Orn held up his right hand, palm out. He had a second thought. Held up his left hand too. Universal symbol of peaceful intentions. Empty hands. The gun muzzle lowered slightly. Orn called into his mind the language that had been hypno-forced into him. Ochiro? No. That meant the people. Ah! And he had the heavy fricative greeting sound. Froor-ree-grotsy! He said. The natives shifted to the left, answered in pure unaccented high galactese. Who are you? Orn fought down a sudden panic. The lipless mouth had looked so odd, forming the familiar words. Stetson's voice hissed. Is that the natives speaking... Galactese? Orn touched his throat. You heard him. He dropped his hand, said, I am Lewis Orn of rediscovery and reeducation. I was sent here at the request of the first contact officer on the Delphinus rediscovery. Where is your ship? Demanded the gynein. It put me down and left. Why? It was behind schedule for another appointment. Out of the corners of his eyes, Orn saw more shadows dropping to the mud around him. The sled shifted as someone climbed onto the load behind the cab. The someone scuttled agilely for a moment. The natives climbed down to the cab's side step, opened the door. The rifle was held at the ready. Again the lipless mouth formed galactese words. What do you carry in this vehicle? The equipment every R&R fieldman uses to help the people of a rediscovered planet improve themselves. Orn nodded at the rifle. Would you mind pointing that weapon some other direction? It makes me nervous. The gun-muscle remained unwaveringly on Orn's middle, the natives' mouth open revealing long canines. Do we not look strange to you? I take it there's been a heavy mutational variation in the humanoid norm on this planet, said Orn. What is it? Hard radiation? No answer. It doesn't really make any difference, of course, said Orn. I'm here to help you. I am Tanube, high-path chief of the Grazi, said the native. I decide who is to help. Orn swallowed. Where do you go? demanded Tanube. I was hoping to go to your city. Is it permitted? A long pause while the vertical slip-pupils of Tanube's eyes expanded and contracted. It is permitted. Stetson's voice came through the hidden speaker. Oh, bets off. We're coming in after you. That mark twenty is a final straw. It means they have the Delphinus for sure. Orn touched his throat. No, give me a little more time. Why? I have a hunch about these creatures. What is it? No time now, trust me. Another long pause in which Orn and Tanube continued to study each other. Presently Stetson said, Okay, go ahead as planned, but find out where the Delphinus is. If we get that back, we'd pull their teeth. Why do you keep touching your throat, demanded Tanube? I'm nervous, said Orn. Guns always make me nervous. The muzzle lowered slightly. Shall we continue on to your city? Asked Orn. He wet his lips with his tongue. The cab light on Tanube's face was giving the gin an eerie, sinister look. We can go soon, said Tanube. Will you join me inside here? Asked Orn. There's a passenger seat right behind me. Tanube's eyes moved. Cat-like. Right. Left. Yes. We embarked in order to the jungle gloom, then climbed in behind Orn. When do we go? Asked Orn. The great sun will be down soon, said Tanube. We can continue as soon as Chirana Chiruso rises. Chirana Chiruso. Our satellite, our moon, said Tanube. It's a beautiful word, said Orn. Chirana Chiruso. In our tongue it means the limb of victory, said Tanube. By its light we will continue. Orn turned. Look back at Tanube. Do you mean to tell me that you can see by what light gets down here through those trees? Can you not see? Asked Tanube. Not without the headlights. Our eyes differ, said Tanube. He bent toward Orn, peered. The vertical slit pupils of his eyes expanded and contracted. You are the same as the others. Oh, on the defineus? Pause. Yes. Presently a greater gloom came over the jungle, bringing a sudden stillness to the wildlife. There was a chittering commotion from the natives in the trees around the sled. Tanube shifted behind Orn. We may go now, he said, slowly, to stay behind my scouts. Right. Orn eased the sled forward around an obstructing route. Silence, while they crawled ahead. Around them shapes flung themselves from vine to vine. I admired your city from the air, said Orn. It is very beautiful. Yes, said Tanube. Why did you land so far from it? We didn't want to come down where we might destroy anything. There is nothing to destroy in the jungle, said Tanube. Why did you have such a big city? asked Orn. Silence. I said, why do you? You are ignorant of our ways, said Tanube. Therefore I forgive you. The city is for our race. We must breed and be born in the sunlight. Once, long ago, we used crude platforms on the tops of trees. Now only the wild ones do this. Stetson's voice hissed in Orn's ears. That's always touchy. These creatures are our viparous. Sex glands are apparently hidden in that long fur behind where their chins ought to be. Who controls the breeding sites controls our world, said Tanube. Once there was another city, we destroyed it. Are there many wild ones, asked Orn? Fewer each year, said Tanube. That's how they get their slaves. His stetson. You speak excellent galactese, said Orn. The high-path chief commanded the best teacher, said Tanube. Do you too know many things, Orn? That is why I was sent here, said Orn. Are there many planets to teach? Asked Tanube. Very many, said Orn. Your city. I saw very tall buildings. Of what do you build them? In your tongue, glass, said Tanube. The engineers of the Delphinus said it was impossible. As you saw, they were wrong. A glass-blowing culture, hissed Stetson. That'd explain a lot of things. Slowly the disguised sleds crept through the jungle. Once a scout swooped down into the headlights and waved. Orn stopped on Tanube's order, and they waited almost ten minutes before proceeding. Wild ones, asked Orn, perhaps, said Tanube. A glowing of many lights grew visible through the giant tree-trucks. It grew brighter as the sled crept through the last of the jungle, emerged in cleared land at the edge of the city. Orn stared upward in awe. The city fluted and spiraled into the moonlit sky. It was a fragile-appearing lacerary of bridges, winking dots of light. The bridges wove back and forth from building to building until the entire visible network appeared to be one gigantic, do-glittering web. All that was glass, murmured Orn. What's happening, hissed Stetson. Orn touched his throat contact. We're just into the city clearing proceeding toward the nearest building. This is far enough, said Tanube. Orn stopped the sled. In the moonlight he could see armed ginins all around. The butchers' pedestal of one of the buildings loomed directly ahead. It looked taller than had the scout cruiser in its jungle-landing circle. Tanube leaned closer to Orn's shoulder. We have not deceived you, have we, Orn? Huh? What do you mean? You have recognized that we are not mutated members of your race. Orn swallowed. Into his ears came Stetson's voice. Better admit it. That's true, said Orn. I like you, Orn, said Tanube. You shall be one of my slaves. You will teach me many things. How did you capture the Delphinus? Asked Orn. You know that too? You have one of the rifles, said Orn. Your race is no match for us, Orn. In cunning, in strength, in prowess of the mind, your ship landed to repair its tubes, very inferior ceramics in those tubes. Orn turned, looked at Tanube in the dim glow of the cablight. Have you heard about the IA, Tanube? IA? What is that? There was a wary tenseness in the ginins' figure. His mouth opened to reveal the long canines. You took the Delphinus by treachery, asked Orn. They were simple fools, said Tanube. We are smaller, thus they thought us weaker. The Mark Twenties muzzle came round to center on Orn's stomach. You have not answered my question. What is the IA? I am of the IA, said Orn. Where have you hidden the Delphinus? In the place that suits us best, said Tanube. In all our history there has never been a better place. What do you plan to do with it, asked Orn? Within a year we will have a copy with our own improvements. After that you intend to start a war? Ask Orn. In the jungle the strong slay the weak, until only the strong remain, said Tanube. And then the strong prey upon each other, asked Orn. That is a quibble for women, said Tanube. It's too bad you feel that way, said Orn. When two cultures meet like this they tend to help each other. What have you done with the crew of the Delphinus? They are slaves, said Tanube, those who still live. Some resisted, others objected to teaching us what we want to know. He waved his gun muzzle. You will not be that foolish, will you, Orn? No need to be, said Orn. I have another little lesson to teach you. I already know where you've hidden the Delphinus. Go boy, his studson, where is it? Impossible, barked Tanube. It's on your moon, said Orn, dark side. It's on a mountain, on the dark side of your moon. Tanube's eyes dilated, contracted. You read minds? The I.A. has no need to read minds, said Orn. We rely on superior mental prowess. The Marines are on their way, his studson, we're coming in to get you. I'm going to want to know how you guess that one. You are a weak fool like the others, gritted Tanube. It's too bad if you formed your opinion of us by observing only the low grades of the iron are, said Orn. Easy boy, his studson, don't pick a fight with him now. Remember, this race is arboreal. You're probably strong as an ape. I could kill you where you sit, gritted Tanube. You write, finish for your entire planet if you do, said Orn. I'm not alone. There are others listening to every word we say. There's a ship overhead that could split open your planet with one bomb, wash it with molten rock. It would run like the glass you use for your buildings. You are lying. We'll make you an offer, said Orn. We don't really want to exterminate you. We'll give you limited membership in the Galactic Federation until you prove your no menace to us. Keep talking, his studson, keep him interested. You dare insult me, growled Tanube? You'd better believe me, said Orn. We, studson's voice interrupted him. Got it, Orn. They caught the Delphinus on the ground right where you said it'd be. Blew the tubes off it. Marine's now mopping up. It's like this, said Orn. We already have recaptured the Delphinus. Tanube's eyes went instinctively skyward. Except for the captured armament you still hold, you obviously don't have the weapons to meet us, continued Orn. Otherwise you wouldn't be carrying that rifle off the Delphinus. If you speak the truth, then we shall die bravely, said Tanube. No need for you to die, said Orn. Better to die than be slaves, said Tanube. We don't need that, Orn. We, I cannot take the chance that you are lying, said Tanube. I must kill you now. Orn's foot rested on the air-sled control-pedal. He depressed it. Instantly the sleds shot skyward, heavy Gs pressing them down into the seats. The gun in Tanube's hand was slammed into his lap. He struggled to raise it. To Orn the weight was still only about twice that of his home planet of Charjon. He reached over, took the rifle, found the safety belts bound Tanube with him, then he eased off the acceleration. We don't need slaves, said Orn. We have machines to do our work. We'll send experts in here, teach you people how to exploit your planet, how to build good transportation facilities, how to show you how to mine your minerals, how to, and what do we do in return? Whispered Tanube. You could start by teaching us how you make superior glass, said Orn. I certainly hope you see things our way. We really don't want to have to come down here and clean you out. It'd be a shame to have to blast that city into little pieces. Tanube wilted. Presently he said, Send me back. I will discuss this with our council. He stared at Orn. You IAs are too strong. We did not know. In the ward room of Stetson's scout cruiser the lights were low. The leather chair is comfortable. The green beige table set with a decanter of ho-car brandy and two glasses. Orn lifted his glass, sipped the liquor, smacked his lips. For a while there I thought I'd never be tasting anything like this again. Stetson took his own glass. Comgo heard the whole thing over the general monitor net, he said. Do you know you've been breveted to the senior field band? Ah, they've already recognized my sterling worth, said Orn. The wolfish grin took over Stetson's big features. Senior field men last about half as long as juniors, he said. Mortality is terrific. I might have known, said Orn. He took another sip of the brandy. Stetson flicked on the switch of the recorder beside him. Okay, you can go ahead any time. Where do you want me to start? First, how'd you spot right away where they'd hidden the Delfinas? Easy. Tanube's word for his people was gratsy. Most races call themselves something meaning the people. But in his tongue that's ochero. Gratsy wasn't on the translated list. I started working on it. The most likely answer was that it had been adopted from another language and meant enemy. And that told you where the Delfinas was? No, but it fitted my hunch about these ginins. I'd kind of felt from the first minute of meeting them that they had a culture like the Indians of ancient terror. Why? They came in like a primitive raiding party. The leader dropped right onto the hood of my sled and acted bravery no less, counting two, you see. I guess so. Then he said he was high-path chief. That wasn't on the language list, either. But it was easy, raider chief. There's a word in almost every language and history that means raider and drives from word for road, path, or highway. High wayman, said Stetson. Raid itself, said Orn, an ancient Terran language corruption of road. Yeah, yeah, but where's all this translation griff put? Don't be impatient. Glass-blowing culture meant they were just out of the primitive stage that we could control. Next, he said, their moon was Chirana Charuso, translated as the limb of victory. After that it just fell into place. How? The vertical-slip pupils of their eyes. Doesn't that mean anything to you? Maybe. What's it mean to you? Night-hunting predator accustomed to dropping upon its victims from above. No other type of creature ever has had the vertical-slip. And Tanube said himself that the Delphinus was hidden in the best place in all their history. History? That'd be a high place. Dark likewise. There go a high place on the dark side of their moon. I'm a pai-eyed greepess, whispered Stetson. Arngrind said, you probably are, sir, the end. This has been a LibriVox recording. Our LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This reading by Kim Cutler. Please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Jerome Lawson. January 2008. The Quantum Jump by Robert Wicks. Captain Brandon was a pioneer. He explored the far reaches of space and reported back on how things were out there. So it was pretty disquieting to find out that the far reaches of space knew more about what went on at home than he did. Brandon was looking at the Milky Way. Through his perma-glass canopy he could see it trailing across the black velvet of space like a white bridle veil. Below his SC-9B scout ship stretched the red dust deserts of Sirius III illuminated by the thin light of two ice moons. He looked at the Milky Way. He looked at it as a man looks at a flickering fireplace and thinks of other things. He thought of the sun, 52 trillion miles away, a pinpoint of light lost in the dazzle of the Milky Way. The Earth a speck of dust in orbit, just as this planet was to its master, Sirius. Nine light years away. Of course, 13 years had passed on Earth since they had left because the trip took four years by RT, relative time. But even four years is a long time to be shut up in Astral One with five other men, especially when one of them was the Imperious Colonel Towers. A quantum jump. That's the way to beat the Reds, the Colonel had said a thousand times. His well-worn expression had nothing to do with quantum mechanics, the actual change in atomic configuration due to the application of sufficient energy. Rather, it was a slang expression, referring to a major advance in interplanetary travel due to a maximum scientific and technological effort. Let him have Mars and Venus, the Colonel would say. Let him have the whole solar system. We'll make a quantum jump, leapfrog ahead of him. We'll be the first men to set foot on the planet of another solar system. Four years had gone by in the ship, 13 years on Earth, four years of Colonel Towers. Military discipline grew more strict each day. Space does funny things to some men. The we'll be the first men had turned into I'll be the first man. But it was Captain Brandon who drew the assignment of scouting Sirius III for a suitable landing place for Astro, of sampling its atmosphere and observing meteorological conditions. Even as Brandon climbed into the scout ship, Towers had cautioned him. Remember, your assignment is to locate a firm landing site with ample protection from the elements. Under no circumstances are you to land yourself. Has that clearly understood? Brandon nodded, was launched, and now is cruising 100,000 feet above the alien planet. Brandon tilted the ship up on one wing and glanced down at the brick red expansive desert. Tiny red mists marked dust storms. Certainly this was no place to set down the full weight of Astro, nor to protect the crew and equipment from abrasive dust. He righted the ship. Far on the horizon was a bank of atmospheric clouds. Perhaps conditions were more promising there. He shoved the power setting to 90%. A fire warning indicator light blinked on. Instantly Brandon's eyes were on the instrument panel. The tailpipe temperature seemed all right and could be a false indication. He eased back on the power setting. Maybe the light would go out. But it didn't. Instead he felt the surging rumble deep in the bowels of the ship. Luminous needles danced and a second red light flashed on. He snapped the video switch and depressed the mic button. Astro won this is Brandon. Over. A steady crackling sound filled his earphones. A grid of light and shadow fluttered on the screen. A thought entered his mind. Maybe he had put too much planet curvature between Astro and himself. Astro won this is Brandon. Come in please. A series of muffled explosions rocked the ship. He chopped the power back all the way and listened intently. Mayday! Mayday! Astro this is Brandon! Mayday! A faint voice sputtered in his ear. The face of Reinhardt, the radio man, appeared before him. Brandon this is Astro 1. What is your position? Over. Brandon's voice sounded strange and distant as he talked to his oxygen mask. Heading 180. Approximately 600 miles from you. Altitude 100,000 feet. What is the nature of your trouble, Brandon? Before Brandon could answer, the face of Colonel Tower appeared beside the radio man's. Brandon, what are you trying to pull? Engine trouble, sir. Losing altitude fast. Do you know the nature of the trouble? Negative. Money thrown in a compressor blade. Got a fire indication, then a compressor surge. Chopped off the power. Tower's frowned. Why didn't you use straight rocket power? Well, sir? Never mind now. You may have encountered oxygen or hydrogen-rich atmosphere. Melted your compressor blades. Try an air start on straight rocket. I want that ship back, Brandon. Repeat. I want that ship back. I may be able to write it down. Get on the deck intact. Try an air start, Brandon. Towers lean forward. His eyes fixed on Brandon. I don't want you to set foot on that planet. Get me? But there wasn't time to try anything. The cabin was filling the fumes. Brandon looked down. A fringe of blue flame crept along between the floor and the bottom of the pilot's capsule. A cold ache filled the cavity of his stomach. Too late. I'm on fire. Capsuling out. Repeat. Capsuling out. Brandon! The colonel's glaring face flicked off as Brandon pushed the pre-ejection lever into the locked position, severing all connections between the ship and the pilot's capsule. Brandon had a strange, detached feeling as he pushed the ejection button. There was an explosion and the pilot's capsule shot up like a wet bar of soap squeezed out of a giant's hand. The ship turned into a torch and sank beneath him. Brandon closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them, he was staring at the Milky Way. Then the desert as he tumbled over and over. He talked to the Milky Way. Ten seconds. He should wait at least ten seconds before releasing a drogue chute so he'll clear the ship. Then he spoke to the desert. And maybe another ten to give the capsule time to slow down. He counted, then pulled the chute release. Nylon streamed out behind him and snapped open with a tremendous jar. A moment later, bundles of metal revins floated out and billowed into a giant umbrella. The last thing he remembered was the taste of blood on his lips. When Brandon opened his eyes, he was staring at the silvery disks of the twin moons. They were high in the sky, obscuring the center of the Milky Way. Funny he should be lying on his back looking at the sky, he thought. Then he remembered. The capsule was on its back and Brandon was still strapped securely to the seat. His whole body ached. Tendons had been pulled, muscles strained from the force of the ejection. His oxygen mask was still in place, but his helmet hung partly loose. He adjusted it automatically, then unbuckled the seat straps. He took a deep breath. Under the oxygen mask he was aware of dried blood clotted in his nostrils, caked around the corners of his lips. With an effort he sat up on the back seat and looked through the permaglass. A tangle of cord stretched out to the nylon of the main chute draped over a dust dune. Beyond it he could see the gleaming metal ribbons of the drogue chute. Ahead of him, behind some low hills, he could see a dull red glow. The ship, he thought, Astro may already be hovering over it. He dragged the survival kit from behind the seat and pulled out some rations, a first aid kit, finally a teletaki. Raising the antenna, he plugged in the mic cord from his mask and held down the teletaki with his thumb. Astro won, this is Brandon, come in. As he talked, a picture flickered on the screen. It was the radio room on Astro won. Colonel Towers was pacing back and forth in front of the radio man. Shall we keep trying to raise him? He heard Reinhardt ask. Full stunt, Towers sputtered. Know what I think? I think he went down deliberately. Just to be the first human being to walk on the ground of a planet of another solar system. Astro, this is Brandon, come in, please. Towers continued to pace and talk. He did it to spite me. But we can't raise him, sir, the radio operator said. Maybe he didn't get out of it alive. Colonel Towers, can't you hear me? Brandon yelled into his oxygen mask. He got out all right, the Colonel said. He was just stalling to make it look good. We aren't going to give up the search, are we, sir? Asked the radio man. It would serve his soul right. The Colonel stopped pacing and faced the radio man. Keep trying to raise him, Reinhardt. I'm going to bring him down to 40,000 feet and search the area where he went down. It's a waste of rocket fuel too long around in the atmosphere. He muttered, disappearing through a bulkhead door. Wait, Colonel Towers! Brandon called, but he knew it was of no use. Obviously he could pick up Astro, but they could neither see nor hear him. Captain Brandon, this is Astro calling, over. The radio man repeated the phrase a dozen times, and each time Brandon acknowledged, swore and acknowledged again. Finally in desperation, he switched off the telotalky. He snapped open the back of the unit and studied a maze of transistors, resistors and capacitors. If there was something wrong it was subtle, like a burned-out resistor or a shorted condenser. Whatever it was, it was beyond emergency repair. He dropped the telotalky behind the seat and examined the gauge on his oxygen mask. There was enough to last the night, but not much more. He sat down in the capsule to think. The first thing they had located is the burning ship, he decided. Then they would probably start searching in ever-widening circles. But would they see him in the faint light of the ice moons? He looked back at the nylon chute again. Another thought ran through his mind. Suppose they don't spot me in the dark. When the sun, serious I mean, comes up, there's a good chance they'll spot the parachute and search for me. He slid the canopy open and looked down at the red soil of Sirius III. He hesitated for a moment, then swung his feet over the side and dropped to the ground. At least to have that satisfaction, he said, grinning under his oxygen mask. Very much aware of gravity after years of weightlessness, he walked to the canopy of the chute and spread it out on the flat ground in a full circle. It billowed in the wind. He searched around, found some glassy black rocks, and anchored down the chute. Then he looked to the orange glow that marked the funeral pyre of the ship. He had a decision to make. Stay here with the capsule or head for the fire. Couldn't be more than a thousand yards away, he decided. Charging a walk around oxygen bottle, he transferred his oxygen hose to it. He snapped a survival kit to his belt and picked up the telitaki. The ship was more than a thousand yards away. The first mile was across flat desert. He picked his way cautiously, his boots churning up clouds of powdery dust. He remembered the Russian reports of the weirdered and deadly creatures they had encountered in the Martian deserts. But aside from a few gray patches of brush, there seemed to be no signs of life. After all, he thought, the earth held no life for the better part of its existence. And towers had selected this planet because it bore relatively the same relationship to the brighter, hotter, serious, as did the earth to the sun. While farther away, it should have approximately the same conditions as did the earth. And it had seas. Not as large as on earth, but seas nevertheless. Yet there was a fallacy in this argument. Presumably all of the stars in the outer arms of the Milky Way and their planets were about the same age. With similar conditions as the earth, life must have been born and walked out of the seas of serious three just as it did on earth. Something scurried into a wisp of brush, as if to bear out Brandon's realization. He froze, his eyes on the brush, his hand reaching for his hydrostatic shark pistol. He could hear nothing but the wind hollowing his ears. He stood for a long moment, then cautiously skirted the brush and continued on toward the burning ship. There was an odd clicking sound, and he stopped. It sounded again. Brandon realized he was perspiring despite the chill of the desert night. Again he moved on, the sound fading in the distance behind him. The next mile brought him to a great sheet of ancient lava laid bare by the elements. He climbed to the top. The fire still seemed to be about a thousand yards ahead, beyond a ridge of low hills. A distant flare lit up the sky ahead of him. It glowed for a few moments, then died. They found the ship, he thought. After four years, I had completely forgotten about the store of photo flash flares. He watched for a while but saw no more flares. Finally he scrambled down the other side of the lava sheet and continued on toward the wreck, moving slowly but steadily. The third mile brought him to the scene of the crash. A smoking cylinder of fused metal lay in a gully. Parts were strewn along the bottom. A wing, untouched by the fire, was leaning tip down against the edge of another lava sheet some distance away. He sat down. Another flare flashed in the sky behind him, silhouetting a row of grotesque trees. I'm over here you fools, he thought. He watched until the flare flickered out, then turned his head back toward the remains of the ship. There wasn't much of a glow to it now. It would be hard to see unless Astro was right on top of it. He raised the antenna on the telotalki and snapped it on. The screen glowed into life. Towers was stepping through the bulkhead door into the radio room, just like a television play in its summits, Brandon thought. Scene two coming up. No sign of him at the scene of the crash, Towers told Reinhardt. If he got out, observed Reinhardt, he could be a hundred miles away or more. If he got out, Towers said in a tone that irritated Brandon. I got out, Brandon said, and right now I'm walking around in your precious planet like a boy scout. Curse this telotalki. I give a year's pay if you could see me now, Towers. We may yet spot the escape capsule, Reinhardt was saying. We're still continuing to search, put in Towers, but I don't mind telling you I'm not wasting much more fuel. The radio operator started to say something, hesitated, and finally settled for... Yes, sir. Brandon's warrant snapped off the set. He looked at his walk-around bottle. Can't stay here any longer, he muttered. He couldn't find the capsule. He walked three, perhaps four miles. He stopped and blotted his moist brow with his sleeve. He wasn't going to find it. Before him stretched an endless carpet of red dust. The light from the two moons was growing dim, as each settled towards different horizons. He sat down. A cloud of powdery dust settled over his legs. The lightness in his head told him that his oxygen was running out. The weakness in his muscles reminded him that it had been a long time since he had walked into planet's gravity. A distant flare lit up the horizon. He choked off a sob and beat his fist in the red dust. A wave of nausea swept over him. Bitter stomach juices welled up in his throat, but he swallowed them down again. Desperately he turned on the teletalki. Astro, this is Brandon, he said. Brandon, this is Astro, Reinhardt said. Brandon's body tensed. Thank God I finally got through to you. Listen Reinhardt, I must be about three. Brandon, this is Astro, said Reinhardt in a monotone. He said it again and again and again. Brandon fell back on the ground. His breathing was short, strained. His face was bathed in perspiration. The oxygen, he realized, was giving out. What are the odds that the air of Sirius III is breathable? He wondered. One in a hundred? The planet has water and both animal and plant life. Certainly it has sufficient gravity to hold its oxygen. But what other elements? Noxious gases might be present. Maybe the odds are closer to one in fifty, he decided. But there's no gamble when you have nothing to lose, he told the Milky Way. Ripping off his oxygen mask, he took a deep breath of the alien atmosphere. The dust choked him. His ears rang. Black spots danced before his eyes, then melted into solid blackness. Brandon could hear Tower's voice in a vortex of darkness. Let's face it, Brandon is dead. Must have burned with the ship. At least that's the way the report will read. Get me, Reinhardt. Yes, sir. That disembodied voice of Reinhardt replied quietly. I'm going to set her down on a solid piece of ground near one of the oceans. There was a pause and Brandon could almost see Colonel Tower is drawing up to his full height. I'm going to be the first man to set foot on a planet of another solar system. Know what that means, Reinhardt? A quantum jump, sir? Right. Leapfrogging ahead of the Reds. Wait till they read the name Colonel John Tower's. Maybe General John Tower's. General? Brandon opened his eyes. Sirius was turning the sky to gray, trimming a few scattered clouds with gold. As he stared at the sky, Sirius rose with a brassy glare. Near it he could see its white hot dwarf star companion. It was going to be a real scorcher, he decided, worse than any desert on earth. He sat up stiffly. On the teletalky screen, Reinhardt, alone in the radio room, was calling quietly for Brandon. The bulkhead door swung open and Tower's poked his head through. Knock that off, said Tower sternly, and take your landing station. As Reinhardt rose to his feet, Brandon reached over and turned off the set. Brandon took a deep breath. His head spun and for the first time he realized that he was still alive. He gazed across the shimmering desert to a ridge of scrubby hills. Blue mountains rose up behind them. Great flows of black lava had rolled down onto the desert floor at some distant time. They were spotted with clumps of gray grass, even as was the desert. The hills were studded with weird trees standing stiff, branches outstretched, like an army of scarecrows. The air of Serious Three was doing strange things to him. Two of the trees seemed to be moving. He swayed and sat heavily. As he watched through a haze of red dust whipped up by the morning breeze, the two trees came closer, turned into men wearing desert uniforms, and leaned over him. Are you okay, one of them asked? Brandon said nothing. We saw you from our observation station over on the hill, said the other, pointing. They helped Brandon to his feet and gave him a swig of cool, sweet water from a canteen. I'm Captain Brandon of the Astral One. Astral One? The man removed his pith helmet to wipe his brow, and Brandon noticed the gleaming U.S. insignia on the front of the helmet. Astral One left Earth 13 years ago, the man said. Only four years by RT, Brandon said. The man smiled and put his helmet back on his head. A lot of things have happened since you left. There was a war which we won, and I guess you guys were almost forgotten. And there was a lot of technological development. You mean you had a quantum jump? Asked Brandon, parroting Colonel Tower's favorite expression. Odd you would know that, replied the second man. It was through quantum mechanics that we learned to approximate the speed of light. Well nine years pass on Earth when we make the trip, our RT is mere moments. Good Lord, Brandon said. You must have passed us up. Been on this planet for nearly a year, the first man said. Got bent on dozens of planetary systems throughout the Milky Way. One ship went a thousand light years out. By the time they come back, civilization on Earth will be two thousand years older. Have you got a telotalki? Brandon asked. Sure, said the first man, producing a set one-third the size of Brandon's. Could you tune it to twenty-eight point six microcycles? Sure, the man said again. He turned a dial with his thumb and handed the unit to Brandon. Brandon depressed the top button. A crystal clear image of Colonel Tower's putting the final touches on his full dress uniform appeared on the screen. This is a historic occasion, Colonel Tower's was announcing to his crew. Open the hatch and, right hard, be sure to stand by with the motion picture camera. Excuse me, Colonel Tower's, said Brandon quietly. Tower swung around and looked at Brandon. The Colonel's face paled. I have something to tell you, said Brandon grinning, about the quantum jump. End of The Quantum Jump by Robert Wicks. Recording by Jerome Lawson. January 2008. The Repairman. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Rowdy Delaney. Idaho, USA. The Repairman. By Harry Harrison. Being an interstellar troubleshooter wouldn't be so bad, if I could shoot the trouble. The old man had that look of intense glee on his face that meant someone was in for a very rough time. Since we were alone, it took no great feat of intelligence to figure it would be me. I talked first, bold attack being the best defense and so forth. I quit. Don't bother telling me what a dirty job you have cooked up because I already quit and you don't want to reveal company secrets to me. The grin was even wider now, and he actually chortled as he thumbed a button on his console. A thick legal document slid out of the delivery slot on his desk. This is your contract, he said. It tells how and when you will work. A steel and vanadium bound contract that you couldn't crack with a molecular disrupter. I leaned forward quickly, grabbed it, and threw it into the air with a single motion. Before it could fall, I had my solar out, and with a wide-angle shot, burned the contract to ashes. The old man pressed the button again, and another contract slid out on his desk. If possible, the smile was still wider now. I should have said a duplicate of your contract, like this one here. He made a quick note on his secretary plate. You collected thirteen credits from your salary for the cost of the duplicate, as well as a one hundred credit fine for firing a solar inside a building. I slumped, defeated, waiting for the blow to land. The old man fondled my contract. According to this contract, you can't quit, ever. Therefore I have a little job I know you'll enjoy. Repair job. The Centuri beacon has shut down. It's a Mark III beacon. What kind of beacon, I ask him? I have repaired hyperspace beacons from one arm of the galaxy to the other, and I was sure I had worked on every type or model made. But I had never heard of this kind. Mark III, the old man repeated, practically chortling. I never heard of it either until records dug up the specs. They found them buried in the back of the oldest warehouse. This was the earliest type of beacon ever built, by earth, no less. Considering its location on one of the Proxima Centuri planets, it might as well have been the first beacon. I looked at the blueprints he handed me, and felt my eyes glaze with horror. It's a monstrosity. It looks more like a distillery than a beacon, must be at least a few hundred meters high. I'm a repairman, not an archeologist. This pile of junk is over two thousand years old. Just forget about it, and build a new one. The old man leaned over his desk, breathing into my face. It would take a year to install a new beacon, besides being too expensive, and this relic is on one of the main routes. We have ships making fifteen light-year detours now. He leaned back, wiped his hands on his handkerchief, and gave me Lecture 44 on company duty and my troubles. The department is officially called Maintenance and Repair, and it really should be called troubleshooting. Hyperspace beacons are to last forever, or damn close to it. When one of them breaks down, it is never an accident, and repairing the thing is never a matter of just plugging in a new part. He was telling me, the guy who did the job, while he sat back on his fat paycheck in an air-conditioned office, he rambled on. How I wish that were all it took, I would have a fleet of partships and junior mechanics to install them. But it's not like that at all. I have a fleet of expensive ships that are equipped to do almost anything, manned by a bunch of irresponsibles like you. I nodded moodily at his pointing finger. How I wish I could fire you all. Combination space jockeys, mechanics, engineers, soldiers, con men, and everything else it takes to do the repairs. I have to browbeat, bribe, blackmail, and bulldoze you thugs into doing a simple job. If you think you're fed up, just think how I feel. But the ships must go through. The beacons must operate. I recognized this deathless line as the curtain speech and crawled to my feet. He threw the Mark III file at me and went back to scratching in his papers. Just as I reached the door, he looked up and impaled me on his finger again. And don't get any fancy ideas about jumping your contract. We can attach that bank account of yours on all Gaul II long before you can draw the money out. I smiled a little weakly, I'm afraid, as if I had never meant to keep that account a secret. His spies were getting more efficient every day. Walking down the hall, I tried to figure a way to transfer the money without his catching on, and knew at the same time he was figuring a way to outfigure me. It was all very depressing, so I stopped for a drink and then went to the spaceport. By the time the ship was serviced, I had a course charted. The nearest beacon to the broken-down Proxima Centuri beacon was on one of the planets of Betas or Sinus, and I headed there first, a short trip of only about nine days in hyperspace. To understand the importance of the beacons, you have to understand hyperspace. Not that people do, but it is easy enough to understand that in this non-space the regular rules don't apply. Speed and measurements are a matter of relationship, not constant facts like the fixed universe. The first ships to enter hyperspace had no place to go, and no way even to tell if they had moved. The beacons solved that problem and opened the entire universe. They are built on planets and generate tremendous amounts of power. This power is turned into radiation that is punched through into hyperspace. Every beacon has a code signal as part of its radiation and represents a measurable point in hyperspace. Triangulation and quadrature of the beacon works for navigation, only it follows its own rules. The rules are complex and variable, but they are still rules that a navigator can follow. For a hyperspace jump, you need at least four beacons for an accurate fix. For long jumps, navigators use as many as seven or eight. So every beacon is important and every one has to keep operating. That is where I and the other troubleshooters come in. We travel in well-stocked ships that carry a little bit of everything. Only one man to a ship, because that is all it takes to operate the overly efficient repair machinery. Due to the very nature of our job, we spend most of our time just rocketing through normal space. After all, when a beacon breaks down, how do you find it? Not through hyperspace. All you can do is approach as close as you can by using other beacons. Then finish the trip in normal space. This can take months and often does. This job didn't turn out quite that bad. I zeroed in on Beta-Sercenas beacon and ran a complicated eight-point problem through the navigator, using every beacon I could get an accurate fix on. The computer gave me a course with an estimated point of arrival, as well as a built-in safety factor I never could eliminate from the machine. I would much rather take a chance of breaking through near some star than spend time just barreling through normal space. But apparently Tech knows this, too. They had a safety factor built into the computer so you can't end up inside a star, no matter how hard you tried. I'm sure there was no humanness in this decision. They just didn't want to lose the ship. It was a 24-hour jump, ships time, and I came through in the middle of nowhere. The robot analyzer chuckled to itself and scanned all the stars, comparing them to a spectra of Proxima Centuri. It finally rang a bell and blinked a light. I peeped through the eyepiece. A fast reading with the photo-cell gave me the apparent magnitude and a comparison with its absolute magnitude showed its distance. Not as bad as I had thought. A six-week run, give or take a few days. After feeding a course into the robot pilot, I strapped into the accelerator tank and went to sleep. The time went fast. I rebuilt my camera for about the 20th time and just about finished a correspondence course on nucleonics. Most repairmen take these courses. Besides, they're always coming in handy. The company grades your pay by the number of specialties you can handle. All this with some oil painting and free fall workouts in the gym past the time. I was asleep when the alarm went off that announced planetary distance. Planet 2, where the beacon was situated according to the old charts, was a mushy-looking, wet kind of globe. I tried to make sense out of the ancient directions and finally located the right area. Staying outside the atmosphere, I sent a flying eye down to look things over. In this business, you learn early when and where to risk your own skin. The eye would be good enough for the preliminary survey. The old boys had enough brains to choose a traceable site for the beacon, equidistant on a line between two of the most prominent mountain peaks. I located the peaks easily enough and started the eye out from the first peak and kept it on a course directly towards the second. There was a nose and tail radar in the eye that fed their signals into a scope as an amplitude curve. When the two peaks coincided, I spun the eye controls and dived the thing down. I cut out the radar and cut the nose orthocon and sat back to watch the beacon appear on the screen. The image blinked, focused, and a great damn pyramid swam into view. I cursed and wheeled the eye in circles, scanning the surrounding country. It was flat, marshy bottom land without a bump. The only thing in a ten-mile circle was this pyramid and that definitely wasn't my beacon. Or wasn't it? I dived the eye lower. The pyramid was a crude-looking thing of undressed stone without carvings or decorations. There was a shimmer of light from the top and I took a closer look at it. On the peak of the pyramid was a hollow basin filled with water. When I saw that, something clicked in my mind. Locking the eye in a circular course, I dug through the mark three plans, and there it was. The beacon had a precipitating field and a basin on top of it for water. This was used to cool the reactor that powered the monstrosity. If the water was still there, the beacon was still there, inside the pyramid. The natives, who, of course, weren't ever mentioned by the idiots who directed the thing, had built a nice, heavy, thick stone pyramid around the beacon. I took another look at the screen and realized that I had locked the eye into a circular orbit about twenty feet above the pyramid. The summit of the stone pile was now covered with lizards of some type, apparently the local life-form. They had what looked like throwing-sticks and arbalasts and were trying to shoot down the eye, a cloud of arrows and rocks flying in every direction. I pulled the eye straight up and away and threw in the control circuit that would return it automatically to the ship. Then I went to the galley for a long, strong drink. My beacon was not only locked inside a mountain of handmade stone, but I had managed to irritate the things who had built the pyramid. A great beginning for a job and one clearly designed to drive a stronger man than me to the bottle. Normally a repairman stays away from native cultures. They are poison. Anthropologists may not mind being dissected for their science, but a repairman wants to make no sacrifices of any kind for his job. For this reason, most beacons are built on uninhabitable planets. If a beacon has to go on a planet with a culture, it is usually built in some inaccessible place. Why this beacon was built within reach of the local claws I had yet to find out. But that would come in time. The first thing to do was make contact. To make contact you have to know the local language. And for that I had long before worked out a system that was foolproof. I had a pry eye of my own construction. It looked like a piece of rock about a foot long. Once on the ground it would never be noticed though it was a little disconcerting to see it float by. I located a lizard town about a thousand kilometers from the pyramid and dropped the eye. It swished down and landed at night in the bank of a local mud wallow. This was a favorite spot that drew a good crowd during the day. In the morning, when the first wallowers arrived, I flipped on the recorder. After about five of the local days I had a sea of native conversation in the memory bank of the machine translator and tagged a few expressions. This is fairly easy to do when you have a machine memory to work with. The lizard gargled at another one and the second one turned around. I tagged this expression with a phrase hey George and waited my chance to use it. Later the same day I caught one of them alone and shouted hey George at him. It gurgled out through the speaker in the local tongue and he turned around. When you get enough reference phrases like this in the memory bank the MT brain takes over and starts filling in the missing pieces. When he could give a running translation of any conversation I heard I figured it was time to make contact. I found him easily enough. He was the Centaurian version of a goat boy. He herded a particularly loathsome form of local life in the swamps outside the town. I had one of the working eyes dig a cave in an outcropping of rock and wait for him. When he passed next day I whispered into the mic say, ìGrandson, this is your grandfatherís spirit speaking from paradise. This fitted in with what I could make out of the local religion.î Goat boy stopped as if heíd been shot. Before he could move I pushed a switch and a handful of local currency wampum type shells rolled out of the cave and landed at his feet. Here is some money from paradise because you have been a good boy. Not really from paradise I lifted it from the treasury here. Come back to Marle, and we will talk some more." I called after the fleeing figure. I was pleased to notice that he took the cash before taking off. After that, Grandpa and Paradise had many heart-to-heart talks with grandson, who found the heavenly loot more than he could resist. Grandpa had been out of touch with things since his death, and Goat-Boy happily filled him in. I learned all I needed to know of the history, past, and recent, and it wasn't nice. In addition to the Pyramid being around the Beacon, there was a nice little religious war going on around the Pyramid. It all began with the land-bridge. Apparently the local lizards had been living in the swamps when the Beacon was built, but the builders didn't think much of them. They were a low type and confined to a distant continent. The idea that the race would develop and might reach this continent never occurred to the Beacon mechanics. Which is, of course, what happened. A little geology turnover, a swampy land-bridge formed in the right spot, and the lizards began to wander up the Beacon Valley and found religion. A shiny metal temple, out of which poured a constant stream of magic water, the reactor cooling water pumped down from the atmosphere condenser on the roof. The radioactivity in the water didn't hurt the natives. It caused mutations that bred true. A city was built around the temple, and through the centuries the Pyramid was put up around the Beacon. A special branch of the priesthood served the temple. All went well until one of the priests violated the temple and destroyed the holy waters. There had been a revolt, strife, murder, and destruction since then. But still the holy waters would not flow. Now armed mobs fought around the temple each day, and a new band of priests guarded the sacred font. And I had to walk into the middle of that mess and repair the thing. It would have been easy enough if we were allowed a little mayhem. I could have had a lizard-fry, fixed the Beacon, and taken off. Only native life-forms were quite well protected. There were spy-cells on my ship, all of which I hadn't found, that would cheerfully rat on me when I got back. Diplomacy was called for. I sighed and dragged out the plastic flesh-equipment. Working from 3D snaps of grandson, I modeled a passable reptile head over my own features. It was a little short in the jaw, me not having one of their toothy mandibles, but it was all right. I didn't have to look exactly like them, just something close, to soothe the native mind. It's logical. If I were an ignorant Aberringenie of earth, and I ran into a spicken, who looks like a two-foot gob of dried shellock, I would immediately leave the scene. However, if the spicken was wearing a suit of plastic flesh that looked remotely humanoid, I would at least stay and talk to him. That is what I was aiming to do with the Centaurians. When the head was done, I peeled it off and attached it to an attractive suit of green plastic, complete with tail. I was really glad they had tails. Lizards don't wear clothes, and I wanted to take along a lot of electronic equipment. I built the tail over a metal frame that anchored around my waist. Then I filled the frame with all the equipment I would need and began to wire the suit. When it was done, I tried it on in front of a full-length mirror. It was horrible, but effective. The tail dragged me down in the rear, and gave me a duck-waddle, but that only helped the resemblance. That night I took the ship down into the hills nearest the pyramid, an out-of-the-way dry spot where the amphibious natives would never go. A little before dawn, the eye hooked onto my shoulders and we sailed straight up. We hovered above the temple at about two thousand meters, until it was light, and then dropped straight down. It must have been a grand sight. The eye was camouflaged to look like a flying lizard, sort of a cardboard pterodactyl, and the slowly flapping wings obviously had nothing to do with our flight. But it was impressive enough for the natives. The first one that spotted me screamed and dropped over on his back. The others came running. They milled and mobbed and piled on top of one another, and by that time I had landed in the plaza fronting the temple. The priesthood arrived. I folded my arms in a regal stance. "'Greetings, O noble servers of the great God,' I said. Of course I didn't say it out loud, just whispered loud enough for the throat-mike to catch. This was radioed back to the M.T., and the translation shot back to a speaker in my jaws. The natives chomped and rattled, and the translation rolled out almost instantly. I had the volume turned up, and the whole square echoed. Some of the more credulous natives prostrated themselves, and others fled screaming. One doubtful type raised a spear, but no one else tried that after the pterodactyl eye picked him up and dropped him in the swamp. The priests were a hard-headed lot, and weren't buying any lizards in a poke. They just stood and muttered. I had to take the offensive again. "'Begone, O faithful steed,' I said to the eye, and pressed the control in my palm at the same time. It took off, straight up a bit faster than I wanted. Little pieces of wind-torn plastic rained down. While the crowd was ogling this ascent, I walked through the temple doors. "'I would talk with you, O noble priests,' I said. Before they could think up a good answer, I was inside. The temple was a small one built against the base of the pyramid. I hoped I wasn't breaking too many taboos by going in. I wasn't stopped, so it looked all right. The temple was a single room, with a murky-looking pool at one end. Sloshing in the pool was an ancient reptile, who clearly was one of the leaders. I waddled toward him, and he gave me a cold and fishy eye, then growled something. The M.T. whispered in my ear, just what in the name of the thirteenth sin are you, and what are you doing here? I drew up my scaly figure in a noble gesture, and pointed toward the ceiling. I come from your ancestors to help you. I am here to restore the holy waters. This raised a buzz of conversation behind me, but got no rise out of the chief. He sank slowly into the water until only his eyes were showing. I could almost hear the wheels turning behind that moss-covered forehead. Then he lunged up, and pointed a dripping finger at me. You are a liar. You are no ancestor of ours. We will— Stop! I thundered, before he got so far in that he couldn't back out. I said your ancestor sent me as emissary. I am not one of your ancestors. Do not try to harm me, or the wrath of those who have passed on will turn against you. When I said this, I turned to jab a claw at the other priests, using the motion to cover my flicking a coin-grenade toward them. It blew a nice hole in the floor, with a great show of noise and smoke. The first lizard knew I was talking since then, and immediately called a meeting of the shamans. It, of course, took place in the public bathtub, and I had to join them there. We jawed, and gurgled for about an hour, and settled all the major points. I found out that they were new priests. The previous ones had all been boiled for letting the holy waters cease. They found out I was there only to help them restore the flow of the waters. They bought this, tentatively, and we all heaved out of the tub, and trickled muddy paths across the floor. There was a bolted and guarded door that led into the pyramid proper. While it was being opened, the first lizard turned to me. Undoubtedly, you know the rule, he said. Because the old priest did pry and peer, it was ruled, henceforth, that only the blind could enter the holy of holies. I'd swear he was smiling, if thirty teeth peeking out of what looked like a crack in an old suitcase could be called smiling. He was also signalling to an under-priest who carried a brazer of charcoal complete with red-hot irons. All I could do was stand and watch as he stirred up the coals, pulled out the readiest iron, and turned toward me. He was just drawing a bead on my right eye when my brain got back in gear. Of course, I said, blinding is only right, but in my case you will have to blind me after I leave the holy of holies, not now. I need my eyes to see and mend the fount of holy waters. Once the waters flow again, I will laugh as I hurl myself on the burning iron. He took a good thirty seconds to think this over, and had to agree with me. The local torturers sniffed a bit, and threw a little more charcoal on the fire. The gate crashed open, and I stalked through, then it banged behind me, and I was alone in the dark. But not for long. There was a shuffling nearby, and I took a chance and turned on my flash. Three priests were groping towards me. Their eye-sockets read pits of burned flesh. They knew what I wanted, and led the way without a word. A crumbling and cracked stairway brought us up to the solid metal doorway labeled in archaic script, Mark III Beacon, authorized personnel only. The trusting builders counted on the sign to do the whole job, for there wasn't a trace of a lock on the door. One lizard merely turned the handle, and we were inside the Beacon. I unzipped the front of my camouflage suit, and pulled out the blueprints. With the faithful priests stumbling around me, I located the control room and turned on the lights. There was a residue of charge in the emergency batteries, just enough to give a dim light. The meters and indicators looked to be in good shape, if anything unexpectedly bright from constant polishing. I checked the readings carefully, and found just what I suspected. One of the eager lizards had managed to open a circuit box, and had polished the switches inside. While doing this he had thrown one of the switches, and that had caused the trouble. Rather that had started the trouble. It wasn't going to be ended by just reversing the water-valve switch. The valve was supposed to be used only for repairs, after the pile was damped. When the water was cut off with the pile in operation, it had started to overheat, and the automatic safeties had dumped the charge down the pit. I could start the water again easily enough, but there was no fuel left in the reactor. I wasn't going to play with the fuel problem at all. It would be far easier to install a new power plant. I had one in the ship that was about a tenth the size of the ancient bucket of bolts, and produced at least four times the power. Before I sent for it, I checked over the rest of the beacon. In two thousand years there should be some sign of wear. The old boys had built well. I'll give them credit for that. Ninety percent of the machinery had no moving parts, and had suffered no wear whatever. Other parts they had beefed up, figuring they would wear, but slowly. The water-fed pipe from the roof, for example. The pipe walls were at least three meters thick, and the pipe opening itself no bigger than my head. There were some things I could do, though, and I made a list of parts. The parts, the new power plant, and a few odds and ends were shooted into a neat pile on the ship. I checked all the parts by screen before they were loaded in a metal crate. In the darkest hour before dawn, the heavy-duty eye dropped the crate outside the temple, and darted away without being seen. I watched the priests through the pry-eye while they tried to open it. When they had given up, I boomed orders at them through the speaker in the crate. They spent most of the day sweating the heavy box up through the narrow temple stairs, and I enjoyed a good sleep. It was resting inside the beacon door when I woke up. The repairs didn't take long, though there was plenty of groaning from the blind lizards when they heard me ripping the wall open to get at the power-leagues. I even hooked a gadget to the water pipe so their holy waters would have the usual refreshing radioactivity when they started flowing again. The moment this was all finished, I did the job they were waiting for. I threw the switch that started the water flowing again. There were a few minutes while the water began to gurgle down through the dry pipe. Then a roar came from outside the pyramid that must have shaken its stone walls. Shaking my hands over my head, I went down for the eye-burning ceremony. The blind lizards were waiting for me by the door and looked even unhappier than usual. When I tried the door, I found out why. It was bolted and barred from the other side. It has been decided, a lizard said, that you should remain here for ever and tend the holy waters. We will stay with you and serve your every need. A delightful prospect, an eternity in a locked beacon with three blind lizards. In spite of their hospitality I couldn't accept. What? You dare interfere with the messenger of your ancestors? I had the speaker on full volume, and the vibration almost shook my head off. The lizards cringed, and I set my solar for narrow beam, and ran it around the door-jam. There was a great crunching, and banging from the junk piled against it, and then the door swung free. I threw it open. Before they could protest, I had pushed the priests out through it. The rest of their clan showed up at the foot of the stairs, and made a great ruckus while I finished welding the door shut. Running through the crowd I faced the first lizard in his tub. He sank slowly beneath the surface. What a lack of courtesy, I shouted. He made little bubbles in the water. The ancestors are annoyed, and have decided to forbid entrance to the inner temple for ever. Though out of kindness, they will let the waters flow. Now I must return, on with the ceremony. The torture master was too frightened to move, so I grabbed out his hot iron. A touch on the side of my face dropped a steel plate over my eyes, under the plastic skin. I jammed the iron hard into my phony eye sockets, and the plastic gave off an authentic odor. A cry went up from the crowd as I dropped the iron and staggered in blind circles. I must admit it went off pretty well. Before they could get any more bright ideas, I threw the switch, and my plastic pterodactyl sailed through the door. I couldn't see it, of course, but I knew it had arrived when the grapples in the claws latched on to the steel plates on my shoulders. I had got turned around after the eye-burning, and my flying beast hooked on to me backward. I admit to sail out bravely, blind eyes facing into the sunset. Instead I faced the crowd as I soared away, so I made the most of a bad situation, and threw them a snappy military salute. Then I was out in the fresh air and away. When I lifted the plate and poked holes in the seared plastic, I could see the pyramid growing smaller behind me, water gushing out of the base, and a happy crowd of reptiles sporting in its radioactive rush. I counted off on my talons to see if I had forgotten anything. One, the beacon was repaired. Two, the door was sealed, so there would be no more sabotage, accidental, or deliberate. Three, the priests should be satisfied. The water was running again. My eyes had been duly burned out. And they were back in business, which added up to four, the fact that they would probably let another repairman in, under the same conditions, if the beacon conked out again. At least I had done nothing, like butchering a few of them that would make them antagonistic toward future ancestral messengers. I stripped off my tattered lizard suit back in the ship, very glad that it would be some other repairman who'd get the job. End of The Repairman by Harry Harrison. Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas, by R. A. Lafferty. Monroe shouldn't have been employed as a census taker. He wasn't qualified. He couldn't read a map. He didn't know what a map was. He only grinned when they told him that north was at the top. He knew better. But he did write a nice round hand, like a boy's hand. He knew Spanish and enough English. For the sector that was assigned to him, he would not need a map. He knew it better than anyone else. Certainly better than any map maker. Besides, he was poor and needed the money. They instructed him and sent him out. Or they thought they had instructed him. They couldn't be sure. Count everyone? All right. Fill in everyone? I need more papers. We will give you more if you need more. But there aren't so many in your sector. Lots of them. Loveos, Dionys, Soros, even people. Only the people, Manuel. Do not take the animals. How would you write up the animals? They have no names. Oh yes, all have names. Might as well take them all. Only people, Manuel. Moulos? No. Conels? No, Manuel. No, only the people. No trouble. Might as well take them all. Only people. God, give me strength. Only people, Manuel. How about little people? Children? Yes. That has been explained to you. Little people, not children. Little people. If they are people, take them. How big they have to be. It doesn't make any difference how big they are. If they are people, take them. That is where the damage was done. The official had given a snap judgment and it led to disaster. It was not his fault. The instructions are not clear. Nowhere in all the verbiage does it say how big they have to be to be counted as people. Manuel took Muller and went to work. His sector was the Santa Magdalena, a scrap of bald-headed and desolate mountains, steep but not high, and so tired in the afternoons that it was said that the old lava sometimes began to writhe and flow again from the sun's heat alone. In the center valley, there were 5,000 acres of slag and vitrified rock from some forgotten old blast that had melted the hills and destroyed their mantle, reducing all to a terrible flatness. This was called Sodom. It was strewn with low-lying ghosts as off people and objects, formed when the granite bubbled like water. Away from the dead center, the ravines were body deep in Chaparral and the hillsides stood gray-green with old cactus. The stunted trees were lower than the giant bushes and yuka. Manuel went with Muller, a round, easy man and a sparse, gaunt mule. Muller was a mule, but there were other inhabitants of the Santa Magdalena of a genus less certain. Yet even about Muller, there was an oddity in her ancestry. Her paternal grandfather had been a goat. Manuel had once told Mr. Marshall about this, but Mr. Marshall had not accepted it. She is a mule, therefore her father was a jack. Therefore his father was also a jack, a donkey. It could not be any other way. Manuel often wondered about that, for he had raised the whole strain of animals and he remembered who had been with whom. A donkey, a jack, two feet tall and with a beard and horns. I always thought that he was a goat. Manuel and Muller stopped at noon on Lost Soul Creek. There would be no travel in the hot afternoon, but Manuel had a job to do and he did it. He took the forms from one of the packs that he had unslunged from Muller and counted out nine of them. He wrote down all the data of nine people. He knew all there was to know about them, their nativities and their antecedents. He knew that there were only nine regular people in the 900 square miles of the Santa Magdalena. But he was systematic, so he checked the list over again and again. There seemed to be somebody missing. Oh yes, himself. He got another form and filled out all the data on himself. Now in one way of looking at it, his part of the census was finished. If only he had looked at it that way, he would have saved worry and trouble for everyone and also 10,000 lives. But the instructions they had given him were ambiguous and for all that they had tried to make them clear. So very early the next morning he rose and cooked beans and said, might as well take them all. He called Muller from the thorn patch where she was grazing, gave her salt and loaded her again. Then they went to take the rest of the census, but in fear. There was a clear duty to get the job done, but there was also a dread of it that his superiors did not understand. There was reason also why Muller was loaded so she could hardly walk with packs of census forms. Manuel prayed out loud as they climbed the purgatorial scarf above Lost Souls Creek. Ruega per Nostros Pecadores Aura, the very gorgeous Durangri and Stark in the early morning. Yen la hora de Nostro Mote. Three days later an incredible dwarf staggered into the outskirts of High Plains, Texas, followed by a dying wolf-sized animal that did not look like a wolf. A lady called the police to save the pair from rock throwing kids who might have killed them and the two as yet unclassified things were taken to the station house. The dwarf was three foot high, a skeleton stretched over with brown burnt leather. The other was an un-canine looking dog-sized beast so full of burrs and thorns that it might have been a porcupine. It was a nightmare replica of a shrunken mule. The midget was mad, the animal had more presence of mind. She lay down quietly and died, which was the best she could do, considering the state that she was in. Who is Sensor's Chief now? Ask the mad midget. Is Mr. Marshall's boy the Sensor's Chief? Mr. Marshall is, yes, who are you? How do you know Marshall? And what is that which you are pulling out of your pants? If they are pants. Sensor's List, names of everybody in the Santa Magdalena, I had to steal it. It looks like microfilm. The writing is so small and the roll goes on and on. There must be a million names here. Little bit more, little bit more. I get two bits a name. They got Marshall there. He was very busy, but he came. He had been given a deadline by the mayor and the citizens group. He had to produce a population of 10,000 people for High Plains, Texas. And this was difficult for there weren't that many people in the town. He had been working hard on it, though, but he came when the police called him. You, Marshall's little boy, you look just like your father, said the midget. That voice, I should know that voice even if it's cracked pieces. That has to be Manuel's voice. Sure I'm Manuel, just like I left 35 years ago. You can't be Manuel. Shrunk three feet and 200 pounds and aged a million. You look here at my census slip. It says I'm Manuel. And here are nine more of the regular people and one million of the little people. I couldn't get them on the right forms, though. I had to steal their list. You can't be Manuel, said Marshall. He can't be Manuel, said the big policemen and the little policemen. Maybe not then, the dwarf conceded. I thought I was, but I wasn't sure. Who am I then? Let's look at the other papers and see which one I am. No, you can't be any of them either, Manuel. And you surely can't be Manuel. Give him a name anyhow and get him counted. We've got to get to that 10,000 mark. Tell us what happened, Manuel. If you are, which you aren't, but tell us. After I counted the regular people, I went to count the little people. I took a spade and spaded off the top of their town to get in. But they put an encounter on me and made me and Mula run a treadmill for 35 years. Where was this? At the little people town, Norbert de Ney. But after 35 years, the encounter wore off and Mula and I stole the list of names and ran away. But where did you really get this list of so many names written so small? Suffering saddle sores. Marshall, don't ask the little bug so many questions. You've got a million names in your hand. Certify them, send them in. There's enough of us here right now. We declare that place unannexed forthwith. This will make High Plains the biggest town in the whole state of Texas. So Marshall certified them and sent them into Washington. This gave High Plains the largest percentage increase of any city in the nation, but it was challenged. There were some sore heads in Houston who said that it wasn't possible. They said High Plains had nowhere near that many people and there must have been a miscount. And in the days that the argument was going on, they cleaned up in Fed Manuel, if it were he, and tried to get from him a cognitive story. How do you know it was 35 years you were on the treadmill, Manuel? Well, it seemed like 35 years. It could have only been about three days. Then how come I'm so old? We don't know that, Manuel. We sure don't know that. How big were these people? Who knows? A finger long, maybe two? And what is their town? It is an old prairie dog town that they fixed up. You have to dig down with a spade to get to the streets. Maybe they were really all prairie dogs, Manuel. Maybe the head got you and you only dreamed that they were little people. Prairie dogs can't write as good as on that list. Prairie dogs can't write hardly at all. That's true. The list is hard to explain. And such odd names on it, too. Where is Muller? I don't see Muller since I came back. Muller just lay down and died, Manuel. Gave me the slip. Why didn't I think of that? Well, I'll do it, too. I'm too worn out for anything else. Before you do, Manuel, just a couple of last questions. Make them real fast, then. I'm on my way. Did you know these little people were there before? Oh, sure. They're a long time. Did anybody else ever see them? Oh, sure. Everybody in the Santa Magdalena see them. Eight, nine people see them. And Manuel, how do we get to the place? Can you show us on a map? Manuel made a grimace and died quietly as Muller had done. He didn't understand those maps at all and took the easy way out. They buried him, not knowing for sure whether he was Manuel come back or what he was. There wasn't much of him to bury. It was the same night, very late, and after he had been asleep, that Marshall was awakened by the ring of an authoritative voice. He was being harangued by a four-inch tall man on his bedside table, a man of dominating presence and acid voice. Come out of that cot, you clown. Give me your name and station. I'm Marshall and I suspect that you are a late pig sandwich, or caused by one. I should eat so late. Say, sir, when you reply to me, I am no pig sandwich and I do not commonly call on fools. Get on your feet, you clod. And, wonderingly, Marshall did. I want the list that was stolen. Don't gape, get it. What list? Don't stall, don't stutter. Give me our tax list that was stolen. It isn't words that I want from you. Listen, you cicada. I'll take you and you will not. You will notice that you are paralyzed from neck down. I suspect that you were always so from there up. Where is the list? Sent it to Washington. You bug-eyed beamoth. Do you realise what a trip that will be? You grandfather of inanities. It will be a pleasure to destroy you. I don't know what you are or if you are really. I don't believe that you even belong on the world. Not belong on the world. We own the world. We can show written title to the world. Can you? I doubt it. Where did you get the title? None of your business, I'd rather not say. Oh well, we got it from the promoter of sorts. A con man, really. I'll have to admit that we were taken, but we were in a spot and needed a world. He said that the larger bifurcates were too stupid to be a nuisance. We should have known that the stupider a creature, the more of a nuisance it is. I had about decided the same thing about the smaller a creature. We may have to fumigate that old mountain mess. Oh, you can't harm us. We're too powerful. But we can obliterate you in an instant. Ha! Say, ha, sir, when you address me, do you know the place in the mountain that is called Sodom? I know the place. It was caused by a large meteor. It was caused by one of these. What he held up was the size of a grain of sand. Marshall could not see it in detail. There was another city of you bug-eyed beasts there, said the small martinet. You wouldn't know about it. It's been a few hundred years. We decided it was too close. Now I have decided that you are too close. A thing that size couldn't crack a walnut. You floundering fop. It will blast this town flat. What will happen to you? Nothing. I don't even blink for things like that. How do you trigger it off? You gaping goof. I don't have time to explain that to you. I have to get to Washington. It may be that Marshall did not believe himself quite awake. He certainly did not take the threat seriously enough, for the little man did trigger it off. When the final count was in, high plains did not have the highest percentage gaining population in the nation. Actually, it showed the sharpest decline from 7,313 to nothing. They were going to make a forest preserve out of the place, except that it has no trees worthy of the name. Now it is proposed to make it the Sodom and Gomorrah State Park, from the two mysterious scenes of desolation there, just seven miles apart. It is an interesting place, as wild a region as you will ever find. And it is recommended for the man who has seen everything. End of Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas, by R.A. Lafferty. Read by Lucy LaFarro, New South Wales, Australia, January 27, 2008. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org.