 The 4D Doodler by Graf Waldyer. Do you believe, Professor Galt, that this four-dimensional plane contains life, intelligent life? At the question, Galt laughed shortly. You have been reading pseudoscience, Dr. Pilbot. He tweeted. I realize that as a psychiatrist you are interested in minds, in living beings rather than in dimensional planes, but I fear you will find no minds to study in the fourth dimension. There aren't any there. Professor Galt paused, peering from beneath bushy white brows out over the laboratory. To his nearsighted eyes, the blurred figure of Harper, his young assistant, seemed busily at work over his mathematical charts. Galt hoped sourly that the young man was actually working and not just drawing more of his absurd, senseless designs amidst the mathematical computations. Your proof, Dr. Pilbot broke into his thoughts insistently, is purely negative, Professor. How can you know there are no beings in the fourth dimension unless you actually enter this realm to see for yourself? Professor Galt stared at the fat, puffy face of his visitor and snorted loudly. I am afraid, Pilbot, you do not comprehend the impossibility of such a passage. We cannot possibly break from the confines of our three-dimensional world. Here, let me explain by a simple illustration. Galt took up a book, held it so that a shadow fell onto the surface of the desk. That shadow, he said, is two-dimensional, has length and breadth, but no thickness. Now, in order to enter the third dimension, our plane, the shadow would have to bulge out in some way into the dimension of thickness, an obvious impossibility. Similarly, we cannot enter the fourth dimension. Do you see? No, retorted Pilbot with some heat. In the first place we are not two-dimensional shadows. And why? What is the matter? Professor Galt's lanky form had stiffened, his nearsighted eyes glaring out over the laboratory to the rear of Pilbot. The psychiatrist wheeled around following his host's gaze. It was Harper. That young man's antics drew an amazed grunt from Pilbot. He was describing peculiar motions in the air with his pencil. Circles, whirls, angles, abrupt jabs forward. He bent over the paper on the desk, made a few sweeps of the pencil, then the pencil rose again into the air to describe more erratic motions. Harper himself seemed in a trance. Suddenly Pilbot gave a stifled gasp. It seemed to him that Harper's arm vanished at the elbow as it stabbed forward, then reappeared. Once again the phenomenon happened. Pilbot blinked rapidly, rubbed his eyes. It must have been an illusion, he decided. It was too unlikely. Harper! Galt's voice was like the snapping of a steel trap. Startled, Harper came too with a jerk. Seeing he was being watched, he flushed readily, then bent over his charts again. An apologetic murmur floated from his desk. What was he doing? Pilbot asked puzzedly. Doodling! Galt spat out the word disgustedly. Doodling! echoed the psychiatrist. Why, that is a slang term we use in psychiatry to describe the absent-minded scrawls and designs people make while their attention is elsewhere occupied. An overflow of the unconscious mind, we call it. Many famous people are doodlers. Their doodles often are a sign of special ability. Exactly, snapped Galt. It shows a special ability to waste time, and Harper has become worse since I hired him to do some of my mathematical work. Some influence in this laboratory, I blush to confess, seems to bring it on. Four-dimensional doodling, we call it, because as you saw he doesn't confine it to the surface of the paper. Pilbot looked startled. By Jove, he cried, I believe you've hit on something new to psychiatry. This young man may have some unknown faculty of mind, an instinctive perception of the fourth dimension. Just as some people have an unerring sense of direction, so perhaps Harper has a sense of—of a fourth direction, the fourth dimension. I should like to examine some of his doodles. Harper looked up in alarm as his crusty-tempered employer appeared, followed by the stout figure of Pilbot. He rose and stood aside unassumingly as Pilbot bent over the scrolls on his charts, clucking, interestingly. Harper flicked a worried glance over to the corner. He hoped they wouldn't notice his stress-analyzing clay model standing there. It looked like a futurist's nightmare with angles, curves, and knobs stuck out at all angles. Professor Galt might not understand. For one of his retiring temperament, Harper was aiming high. There was a standing award of $50,000 for the lucky mathematician who would solve the mystery of the stress barrier encountered by skyscrapers as they were built up toward the 150-story mark. At this height, they encountered stress and strains which mathematical computations and engineering designs had been unable to solve. Harper believed the stress barrier was due to an undetected space bending close to the Earth's surface, a bending of space greater than ever provided for in the prediction of Einstein. And if he was right and could win that award, then there might be wedding bells and a little bungalow with Judith. Harper's greatest fear was that he would do something to annoy Galt into firing him, thus depriving him of the privilege of using the mathematical charts and computing machines available in the laboratory. Right now he hoped Galt wouldn't notice that statue in the corner. What's that? Harper's heart leaped. The professor was glaring at the statue as though it were something the cat brought in. Pilbott looked up from examination of the doodles and followed Galt over to the futuristic statuary. As Galt made strangled noises, Pilbott stared interestingly. Why, it's like some of the designs in his doodling, he exclaimed. And made with some of my best modeling clay for reproducing geometric solids, rasped Galt. He wheeled upon Harper. Get that thing out of here. I won't stand for such rot in this laboratory. Throw it into the hall for the janitor. Yes, sir," said Harper, gulping. He took hold of the statue, pulled at it. It won't budge, he exclaimed amazingly. It won't move. It's not that heavy, is it? demanded the professor. No, about thirty pounds, but it won't move. Galt took hold of one of the angles of the thing, jerked at it savagely. He gave it up with an oath, returned to Harper's desk muttering. Harper suddenly noticed the top portion of the statue. It didn't seem to be all there. He was positive there had been another section on top, shooting off at an angle, representing a problem in tangential stress. What had happened to that top section? He would figure that out later when the occasion was more propitious. Right now he realized that only the presence of Dr. Pilbott prevented Galt from firing him. He cast an apprehensive glance toward his employer. With trepidation he saw Galt reach for something projecting from behind a bench. Galt pulled it out, held it dangling before him. A strangled exclamation of wrath came from him. His long nose pointed accusingly toward Harper like a finger pointing out a criminal. I was afraid of that, he graded. Cutting paper dolls! Galt was holding up a large paper cut out of a human figure. A long, rangy man. This is the last straw Galt went on his voice rising. I have stood enough. It—it wasn't me, sir. Harper cried quickly with visions of his job and fifty thousand dollars vanishing. It was your ten-year-old nephew Rudolph when he was here yesterday. He cut it out, said it looked like—like his uncle. Harper stopped as Galt seemed about to explode. Then the mathematician subsided. A malicious expression crept over his face. Hmm! he said. Might be just what I need to explain things to Dr. Pilbot. I shall take this matter before the psychiatric society, Pilbot was saying excitedly. Undoubtedly you have some strange faculty and instinctive perception of four-dimensional laws. What was that, Professor? I said if you will step over to this desk I will explain to you in elementary terms. Very elementary and easy to understand. Why you will never be able to study four-dimensional beings, if any exist. Galt's voice was tinged with sarcasm. Pilbot came over, followed by Harper, who was interested in any explanations about the fourth dimension, even elementary ones. Galt, with a glint in his eye, pressed the paper figure flatly on the surface of Harper's desk. This paper man, we will say, represents a two-dimensional creature. We lay him flatly against the desk which represents his world. Flatland, we mathematicians call it. Mr. Flatlander can't see into our world. He can see only along the flat plain of his own world. To see us, for instance, he would have to look up, which is the third dimension, a direction inconceivable to him. Now, Doctor, are you beginning to understand why we can never see four-dimensional beings? Pilbot frowned thoughtfully, then looked up. And what about the viewpoint of the four-dimensioners, themselves? What would prevent them from seeing us? Harper hardly heard the professor's snort of disgust. This two-dimensional cut-out in Flatland fascinated him. An idea occurred to him. Now, just supposing the— As Galt and Pilbot argued, Harper grasped the paper cut-out and bent it, jackknifed it, creasing it firmly in the middle. Then he raised the upper half so that it rose vertically from the desk, while the lower half was still pressed flatly against the desk surface. Now, he murmured to himself, the Flatlander would appear to his fellows to have vanished from the waist-up, because from the waist-up he is bent into the third dimension, so far as they are concerned. At the wavering scream Harper looked up quickly. Pilbot was staring frozenly in front of him toward the floor. Harper followed his glance and saw it. Professor Galt had vanished from the waist-up. His lower body still stood before Pilbot, swaying slightly, but the upper body was unconditionally missing. From the large feet planted solidly on the floor, long legs rose majestically, terminating in slim angular hips, and from thence vanished abruptly into nothingness. It was as though the upper body had been sheared away, neatly and precisely, at the waist. Pilbot stared from the visible portion of Galt to a slack-jawed Harper and back again, sweat splashing from his puffy face. Why, why really, my dear fellow! he quavered, addressing the half-figure. This, this is a bit rude of you vanishing in the midst of my sentence. I, I, I trust you will, uh, return at once. Then, as the full import of the phenomenon penetrated to his understanding, his eyes became glazed and he backed away. The portion of Professor Galt addressed failed to give any indication it had heard the remonstrance. Slowly the legs began to feel their way, like a blind man, about the floor. Harper stared wildly, white showing around his pale blue irises. No, he bleated. The Professor didn't do it himself. I caused it to happen. I bent the paper cut out and, and something saw me do it and imitated me by bending the Professor into the fourth dimension. Harper moaned faintly, wringing his hands. Pilbot at the moment got little satisfaction from this demonstration of his point about four-dimensional life. He glanced fearfully at the half-figure. You, you, you mean to say, he quelled, that we are under scrutiny by some being of the fourth dimension? That's it, replied Harper with a winny. I, I know it. I can feel it. It can feel it. It became aware of our three-dimensional life in some way and its attention is now concentrated on the laboratory. He wrung his hands. I just know something else terrible is going to happen. He backed away quickly as the occupied pair of pants moved toward him. His retreat was halted by his desk, upon which reposed two large California oranges, an inevitable accompaniment to Harper's lunch. To him, orange juice was a potent, revivifying drink. Now he automatically reached for one of the oranges as a more hearty individual might reach for a whiskey and soda in a moment of mental shock. His eyes wide on the shuffling approach of Galt's underpinnings, Harper nervously dug sharp fingernails into the orange, tore off large chunks of skin. A sudden blur seen from the corner of his eyes pulled his gaze back to the desk. The other orange had vanished. It dropped to the floor before Harper, but now it was a squashy mess, the inside standing out like petals, the juice running from it. The other orange slipped from Harper's nervous fingers, rolled along the desktop. Harper pounced on the squashy thing on the floor, feverishly pushed back the projecting insides, closely examined it. He looked up wide-eyed at Pilbot. Turned inside out, he gasped torsely, without breaking its skin. Pilbot's expression indicated that the scientific attitude was slowly replacing his former fright. He snapped his fingers. Imitation again, he said, half to himself. He looked at Harper. When you bent the paper figure, this four-dimensional entity imitated your action by bending the professor. Now as you started to peel the orange, your action was again imitated, in a four-dimensional manner, by this entity turning the other orange inside out. His voice dropped as he muttered. Imitativeness, the mark of a mind of low evolutionary order, or of— His words faded off, his expression thoughtful. More white showed around Harper's eyes. You mean I'm being specially watched by this being? That he—it—imitates everything I do? That's it, clipped Pilbot. Because you possess this strange perception of its realm, the being has been especially attracted to you. Imitates whatever you do. But in a four-dimensional manner, a being of inexplicable powers and prerogatives with weird power over matter, but with a mentality that is either very primitive or— Harper leaped into the air with a yell as Professor Galt's abbreviated body sidled up to him from behind. As he leaped, the inside out orange flew out of his grasp. I just know, he quavered, that Professor Galt wants me to do something. He's probably barking orders at me from the other dimension. Oh, dear, I've dropped the orange on the Professor's—where his stomach should be. The squashy orange had landed on the area of Galt that was the line of demarcation between his visible and invisible portions— the area that his stomach would occupy normally. It rested there in plain sight of the two startled men. I—I'd better remove it, said Harper weakly. He moved with a dreadful compulsion toward the swaying half-figure, one slender hand extended tremblingly toward the inverted orange. Abruptly the orange vanished. Harper halted like he'd run into a brick wall, staring blankly ahead. He put his hands to his stomach moaning faintly. What's the matter, cried Pilbot? The orange—it's—it's in my stomach! See, what did I tell you, exalted Pilbot? Another act of imitativeness. It saw you drop the orange on Galt's—where his stomach should be—and imitated by putting the orange in your stomach. It proves I'm right about the being. With a loud belch, Pilbot broke off. He stared blankly at Harper, then his hand slowly came up to clutch at his stomach. Harper looked quickly at the desktop. The other orange, he gasped. It's gone into my stomach, groaned Pilbot. Be—be careful what you do, my God. Don't do anything. Don't even think. This—this four-dimensional creature will surely imitate whatever you do in some weird manner. Rubbing his stomach, Pilbot glanced about at the various articles of furniture. He blanched. I wouldn't want any of that stuff inside me, he yammered. Harper flicked a despairing glance at the half-body, now gliding along in the vicinity of the paper cutout. We—we must do something to get the professor back, he said waredly. He thought incongruously of a restaurant where he used to order lemon pie and invariably get apple. Finally he found that he could get lemon by ordering peach. Now the problem was, what did he have to order to get his employer extricated from being stuck between dimensions, like a pig under a fence? Anything he did would be imitated in a manner that might prove tragic. The upright portion of the cutout was leaning over backward, the head drooping down like a wilted flower as the tension at the crease slowly lessened. Gathering together what resolution he could, Harper determined to take the bull by the horns. He would get the professor returned by pressing the upper portion of the cutout flatly onto the desk surface. With trembling hands he pressed down on it, then sprang back with a muffled yell. Three feet above the half-body the professor's head had flashed into visibility. You only pressed the head onto the desk, said Pilbot disgustedly, so the being only impressed Gault's head back into the laboratory. Now press down the rest of the body. The professor's head suspended above the body, glared about, affixed Harper with a smoldering glance. The mouth moved rapidly, but no words came out. Professor, I can't hear you, whimpered Harper. Your lungs and vocal cords are in the other dimension. Here I'll have you completely returned. He reached a hand toward the cutout, the torso of which still bulged upward from the desk. Gault's head wagged in vigorous negation of Harper's contemplated act. His mouth moved in what, if audible, would have been clipped burning accents. Harper drew back his hand as if he had touched a red-hot poker. The professor doesn't want me to touch the cutout, he said helplessly. Gault's head hovered over the cutout like a gaunt moon. It swooped down toward the paper figure, seeming to be studying its position on the desk closely. Pilbot watched him for a sign of his intention or wishes. Harper wandered distractedly over toward the high wall bench. He had it. He would distract the attention of the entity from Gault by making another cutout. He would then experiment with that second one without endangering Gault. He'd be careful not to make this one thin and tall so as not to resemble the professor in outline. Perhaps with it he could trick the entity into releasing the missing part of Gault's body. He scraped in the bench drawer for the scissors and started to shear through a large stiff piece of paper. A moment later he looked up as Pilbot walked over. Gault has some reason for not wanting his silhouette touched, he said. Can't quite make out his lip movements, but he seems afraid some permanent mark may be left on him by his return. He wants time to figure out, why, what are you doing? I've made another cutout for experiment, explained Harper, and this one doesn't look like the professor. Isn't tall and thin, see? He lifted the second cutout from the flat surface of the bench, held it suspended before him. This one is short and fat. Harper halted abruptly, the breath whooshing from his lungs. There was no use talking to thin air. Pilbot had been whisked into nothingness. Where the portly figure of the eminent psychiatrist had stood was now nothing, not even a half-man. Too late Harper realized that when he had lifted the paper figure from the surface of the bench the entity had imitated him by lifting Pilbot into the fourth dimension. Belatedly he knew that the cutout which he held dangling resembled Pilbot in outline. Harper dashed back and forth in little rushes, carrying the paper figure. He dared not put it down for fear of seeing some segment of Pilbot flash back. He did not know what to do with it. Finally he compromised by suspending it to a low-hanging chandelier where it dangled swaying in the slight air currents. Galt was watching his assistant's antics with a bleak expression that changed to sardonic satisfaction as he realized Pilbot was in a predicament like his. Only more so. Abruptly he frowned, staring ahead and Harper guessed that Pilbot had located Galt's torso in the other realm was nudging him to indicate the fact. Suddenly Harper knew that he himself must enter this fourth dimensional realm. That strange instinct told him the solution to everything was there. Somewhat as a woman's intuition impels her to act in a certain way without knowing why. How to get there? Another paper cutout? He glanced toward the professor, the occupied trousers, and swimming above it the man's head. The head was watching him, the expression savage. No, there must be no more cutouts, Harper decided, while the four-dimensional entity distinguished between the outlines of a thin silhouette and a fat one, something in between like Harper's form would be testing it too far. He, Harper, would take the place of his own cutout. Galt's head reared up, glared fixedly at his assistant as the young man swung his legs onto the desk, then lay down flat. A moment later he lay there, in flat land, then leap to his feet. It was as though he had leaped into a different world. He was no longer in the laboratory. He wasn't on any floor at all. As far as he could make out, his feet rested on nothing, and yet there was some sort of tension under him, like the surface tension of water. He was, he suddenly knew it, standing on a segment of warped space. There was a spatial strain here that acted as a solid beneath him. Harper looked up, that is, overhead. There was nothing there but vast stretches of emptiness at first. Then he saw that this emptiness was lined and laced with filmy striations like cellophane. They bore a strange resemblance to his doodlings, as though that strange faculty of his enabled him to somehow perceive this place of the fourth dimension. And instinctively Harper knew that these lacings were the boundaries of a vast enclosure, a four-dimensional enclosure, the walls of which consisted of joined and meshed spacewarps. Abruptly he became aware of movement. He became aware of solidity there, above him, and the solidity was in motion. Harper knew he was gazing upon a being of the fourth dimension, doubtless the entity that had caused the phenomena in the laboratory, which had snatched him into the fourth dimension, and was even now observing him with its four-dimensional sight. There was a shape above him that strained his eyes, gave hint of form just beyond his comprehension. Harper hardly noticed that Pilbott was beside him, shaking him. He had suddenly grasped a fundamental law of spatial stresses, and he whipped out a pad and pencil, began scribbling down the mathematical formula of these laws. He began to see now why skyscrapers encountered the stress barrier at a certain height. He understood it just as a person of innate musical ability, hearing music for the first time would understand the laws of that music. Look out! It's moving, descending! Pilbott was yelling into his ear. It's about to act. Became act of the moment you got here. How did you induce it to bring you here? Huh? Harper looked up from his scribbling. Oh! Harper explained quickly how he had induced the being to act on himself. That's it! cried Pilbott hoarsely. You switched the pattern of imitation on it, tricked it into bringing you here. That's what made it angry. Angry? Harper almost dropped his pad, clutched at Pilbott, as there was a sudden upheaval of the invisible tension surface on which they stood. A violent shake sprawled them on the ground, and now Harper saw the torso of Galt a few feet away, apparently hovering above the surface. Yes! Angry! Pilbott was pale. As long as you merely gave it something to imitate, it was pacified. But now it recognizes opposition, an effort to outwit it due to your switching the pattern of imitation. Its condition is dangerous. Its bound to react violently. We have to get out of here. You must know some way. Harper again scribbled some figures on his pad. As soon as I've worked out this formula... Pilbott shook him frantically. Can't you understand this creature is a mental patient of a violent type? We're in a fourth dimensional insane asylum. Pilbott gazed upward fearfully at the descending mass. The pattern of its action fits perfectly, he went on. Some violent type of insanity combined with delusions of grandeur. Any slightest opposition will cause a spasm of fury. It recognizes such opposition in the way you tricked it into bringing you here. At first I thought it was a primitive mentality, but now I know it is a highly evolved but insane creature. Thinks it's Napoleon. Once to conquer the three-dimensional plane, which its attention has been attracted to in some way. Harper looked up in surprise. Does it know about Napoleon? Of course not, you fool! screamed Pilbott. It has the Napoleonic complex. It identifies itself with some greater conqueror of its own realm. And now it's on the rampage. We have to get out of here. He clutched at Harper as another upheaval of the surface threw them down. Rising Harper put away his pad. His calculations were complete. He could now show engineers how to build high buildings, taking advantage of space stress instead of trying to fight the stress. For the first time the danger of their positions seemed to penetrate to his consciousness. He looked about and his eyes rested on a strange familiar projection rising from the invisible floor a few feet away. It was the section of his clay statue that had vanished. Vanished because its peculiar shape had somehow caused it to be warped into the fourth dimension. Why hadn't he been able to move it? Professor Galt moved about freely. He and Pilbott went over to it, tried to move it. A slight filmy web-work around the projection caught Harper's eye. Now he knew. The being had somehow affixed it to the spot as a landmark so it could locate the laboratory. It must have been this projection that had first attracted the being's attention to the three-dimensional world. Since ordinarily it would never have noticed the presence of three-dimensional life any more than humans would notice the presence of two-dimensional life if such existed. Harper looked up at a bleak from Pilbott. Above them was a sudden furious play of lights and shades. Vast masses seemed shifting in crazy juxtapositions, now descending rapidly toward them. Quick! Harper now fully aroused gasp to Pilbott. Climb down this projection. Climb down it? Yes, there is a fluid condition of space where it penetrates between the two planes. By hugging its contours you will emerge into the laboratory. I hope. Pilbott glanced overhead nervously. Then experimentally slid a foot down the projection. The foot vanished. With a cry of relief Pilbott lowered himself until only head and shoulders were visible. Then that too vanished. Harper looked up. Some monstrous suggestion of form was almost upon him. He grasped the projection and just as his head sank out of sight the form seemed to smash down on him. Pilbott helped Harper to his feet from where he had sprawled at the base of the statue on the laboratory floor. Quick! he gasped. The creature will be infuriated now by our escape from its realm. A maniacal spasm is sure to follow. We must get Galt back in some way then leave the laboratory. Even as they dashed over toward the abbreviated form of Galt the laboratory shook. Invisible strains seemed to be bulging the walls inward. Harper rushed to the desk upon which still reposed the cutout. The section between neck and waist still arched off the surface. As Harper reached toward the cutout to press it flat Galt's eyes widened. His mouth opened in a soundless shout of opposition. Harper hesitated. Never mind him, Yammered Pilbott, press the figure flat. Harper pressed it flat. For an instant the laboratory stopped its ominous vibration. Then the figure of Galt flew through the air, came up against a wall. But it was his complete figure. More signs of violence cried Pilbott, but that action won't appease it. We must get out of here. Even as he spoke there was a thunderous crackling and roaring. Harper felt himself flying about and for an instant of awful vertigo he did not know up from down. Forces seemed to be tearing at him. He felt as though he were a piece of iron being attracted simultaneously in several directions by powerful electromagnets. There was a flare of colored lights, a deafening detonation, and he felt himself knocked breathless against a wall. He picked himself up, looked around. On one side of him was the familiar south wall of the laboratory. To the north, east and west was open air. He was standing on a section of laboratory flooring that jutted out over empty space from the wall. His desk was a few feet away, right at the edge of the jutting floor. Galt and Pilbott were picking themselves up to one side of the desk. The pair looked over the edge of the floor, then recoiled, frenziedly hugging the flooring under them. Harper crawled over, looked over the edge, quickly backed away. Several hundred feet below the traffic of the city roared. Galt went over to the door in one wall, opened it, then stepped back quickly, his face pale. The laboratory has been turned inside out, he shouted. We are on the outside. We must get away from here, squalled Pilbott. Another spasm of this creature will precipitate us into the street. Galt forgot his apprehensions long enough to freeze Harper with a glance. This is all you're doing, he bawled. You, with your absurd doodling which attracted the attention of some being of the fourth dimension. In his anger he overlooked the fact that he was contradicting his formerly held opinion. The laboratory wrecked, he continued. And that isn't all. He stalked up to the cringing Harper, thrust his face toward him. Do you know he yelled why I didn't want to be returned hastily? Why I didn't want you to bring me back by flattening out the paper cutout? You dolt, did you ever try to get a crease out of a piece of paper? I don't understand, murmured Harper. That paper doll was creased, wasn't it? Shouted Galt. Once a piece of paper is creased, he resumed heatedly. It can't be perfectly flattened out again. At the crease a thin cross-section continues to bulge. Into the third dimension in the case of that paper cutout. Into the fourth dimension in my case. I'm creased too. At the line where I was bent into the fourth dimension. Surely you aren't blind. Harper staggered back as he saw it. A thin horizontal line of light shining through Galt's body across his waistline through clothes and all. I shall have to go through life this way, Galt snarled, due to your imbecilic doodling, your meddling with what you don't understand. Go about constantly with that slit of daylight showing through me. You're fired. Gentlemen, cried Pilbot, the entity. We must get away. Another spasm will surely follow. Harper didn't think so. A few feet away he had noticed something, his statue lying on its side. It was all there, including the portion that had been in the fourth dimension. The entity's landmark was gone. Harper didn't believe it would locate this particular area of the third dimension again. The scream of a fire siren rose up to them. As a ladder scraped over the projecting floor, Harper fondly felt the pad in his pocket with the formula on it. He wasn't worried now about having been fired. He was seeing visions of a small cottage with Judith. Of course, he would have to be careful in the future with his doodling. He could not again risk attracting the attention of some four-dimensional being, not with Judith to think about. The Carnival by Catherine MacLean, a.k.a. G.A. Morris The being stood around my bed in air suits like ski suits, with globes over their heads like upside-down fish-balls. It was all like a masquerade with odd costumes and funny masks. I know that the masks are their faces, but I argue with them and find I think as if I'm arguing with humans behind the masks. They're people. I recognize people and whether I'm going to like this person or that person by something in the way they move and how they get excited when they talk, and I know that I like these people in a motherly sort of way. You have to feel motherly toward them, I guess. They all remind me of Ronnie, a medical student I knew once. He was small and round and eager. You had to like him, but you couldn't take him very seriously. He was a pacifist. He wrote poetry and pulled it out to read aloud at ill-time moments, and he stuttered when he talked too fast. They're like that, all fright and gentleness. I am not the only survivor, they have explained that, but I am the first they found and the least damaged, the one they have chosen to represent the human race to them. They stand around my bed and answer questions and are nice to me when I argue with them. All in a group they look halfway between a delegation of nations and an ark, one of each big and small, thick and thin, forearms or wings or shapes and colors in fur and skin and feathers. I can picture them in their UN of the universe making speeches in their different languages, listening patiently without understanding each other's different problems, boring each other, and being too polite to yawn. They're polite, so polite, I almost feel they're afraid of me and I want to reassure them. But I talk as if I were angry I can't help it, because if things had only been a little different. Why couldn't you have come sooner? Why couldn't you have tried to stop it before it happened or at least come sooner afterward? If they had come sooner to where the workers of the Nevada Powerpile starved slowly behind their protecting walls of lead, if they had looked sooner for survivors of the dust with which the nations of the world had slain each other, George Craig would be alive. He died before they came. He was my co-worker, and I loved him. We had gone down together, passing door by door the automatic safeguards of the plant which was supposed to protect the people on the outside from the radioactive danger from the inside, but the danger of a failure of politics was far more real than the danger of failure in the science of the Powerpile, and that had not been calculated by the builders. We were far underground when the first radioactivity in the air outside had shut all the heavy lead shielded automatic doors between us and the outside. We were safe, and we starved there. Why didn't you come sooner? I wonder if they know or guess how I feel. My question's not questions, but I have to ask them. He's dead. I don't mean to reproach them. They look well-meaning and kindly, but I feel as if somehow, knowing why it happened, could make it stop, could let me turn the clock back and make it happen differently. If I could have signalled them so that they would have come just a little sooner. They look at one another, turning their funny-face heads uneasily, moving back and forth, but no one will answer. The world is dead. George is dead. That thin, pathetic creature with the bones showing through his skin that he was when we sat still at the last, with our hands touching, thinking there were people outside who'd forgotten us, hoping they would remember. We didn't guess that the world was dead, blanketed in radiating dust outside. Politics had killed it. These beings around me, they had been watching, seeing what was going to happen to our world, listening to our radios from their small settlements on the other planets of the solar system. They had seen the doom of war coming. They represented stellar civilizations of great power and technology, and with populations that would have made ours seem a small village, they were stronger than we were, and yet they had done nothing. Why didn't you stop us? You could have stopped us. A rapidly one who is closer than the others backs away, gesturing politely that he is giving room for someone else to speak, but he looks guilty and will not look at me with his big round eyes. I still feel weak and dizzy. It's hard to think, but I feel as if they're hiding a secret. A dough-like one hesitates and comes closer to my bed. We discussed it. We voted. It talks through a microphone in its helmet with the soft, lisping accent that I think comes from the shape of its mouth. It has a muzzle and very soft, dainty, long nibbling lips like a deer that nibbles on twigs and buds. We were afraid, as one who looks like a bear. To us the future was very terrible, says one who looks as if it might have descended from some sort of large bird like a penguin. So much your weapons were very terrible. Now they all talk at once, crowding about my bed, apologizing. So much killing it hurt to know about, but your people didn't seem to mind. We were afraid. And in your fiction, the dough-like one lisped, I saw plays from your amusement machines which said that the discovery of beings in space would save you from war. Not because you would let us bring friendship and teach peace, but because the human race would unite in hatred of the outsiders. They would forget their hatred of each other only in a new and terrible war with us. His voice breaks in a squeak and it turns its face away from me. You were about to come out into space. We were wondering how to hide. That is a quick talking one, as small as a child. He looks as if he might have descended from a bat, grey silk and fur on his pointed face, big night-seeing eyes and big sensitive ears with a humped shape on the back of his air-suit which might be folded wings. We were trying to conceal where we had built so that humans would not guess we were near and look for us. They are ashamed of their fear, for because of it they broke all the kindly laws of their civilisations, restrained all the pity and gentleness I see in them, and let us destroy ourselves. I am beginning to feel more awake and to see more clearly, and I am beginning to feel sorry for them, for I can see why they are afraid. They are herbivores. I remember the meaning of shapes. In the paths of evolution there are grass-eaters and berry-eaters and root-diggers. Each has its functional shape of face and neck, and its wide startled-looking eyes to see and run away from the hunters. In all their racial history they have never killed to eat. They have been killed and eaten or run away, and they evolved to intelligence by selection. Those lived who succeeded in running away from carnivores like lions, hawks, and men. I look up and they turn their eyes and heads in quick embarrassed motion, not meeting my eye. The rabid one is nearest and I reach out to touch him, pleased because I am growing strong enough now to move my arms. He looks at me and I ask the question, Are there any carnivores, flesh-eaters among you? He hesitates, moving his lips as if searching for tactful words. We have never found any that are civilised. We have frequently found them in caves and tents fighting each other. Sometimes we find them fighting each other with the ruins of cities around them, but they're always savages. The bear-like one said heavily, It might be that carnivores evolve more rapidly and tend to ward intelligence more often, for we find radioactive planets without life, and places like the place you call your asteroid belt where a planet should be, but there are only scattered fragments of planet, that look as if a planet had been blown apart. We think that usually, he looked at me uncertainly, beginning to fumble the words, We think. Yours is the only carnivorous race we have found that was civilised, that had a science and was going to come out into space. The doe-like one interrupted softly. We were afraid. They seem to be apologising. The rabid one, who seems to be chosen as the leader in speaking to me, says, We will give you anything you want, anything we're able to give you. They mean it. We survivors will be privileged people with a key to all the cities, everything free. Their sincerity is wonderful, but puzzling. Are they trying to atone for the thing they feel was a crime, that they allowed humanity to murder itself and lost to the galaxy the richness of a race? Is this why they're so generous? Perhaps then they will help the race to get started again. The records are not lost. The few survivors can eventually repopulate Earth. Under the tutelage of these peaceful races, without the stress of division into nations, we will flower as a race. No children of mine to the furthest descendant will ever make war again. This much of a lesson we have learned. These timid beings do not realise how much humanity has wanted peace. They do not know how reluctantly we were forced and trapped by old institutions and warped tangles of politics to which we could see no answer. We're not naturally savage. We're not savage when approached as individuals. Perhaps they know this, but are afraid anyhow. Instinctive fear rising up from the blood of their hunted frightened forebears. The human race will be a good partner to these races. Even recovering from starvation as I am, I can feel in myself an energy they do not have. The savage in me and my race is a creative thing for in those who have been educated as I was it is a controlled savagery which attacks and destroys only problems and obstacles never people. Any human raised outside of the political traditions that the race inherited from its blood-stained childhood would be as friendly and ready for friendship as I am toward these beings. I could never hurt these pleasant overgrown bunnies and squirrels. We will do everything we can to make up for— We will try to help, says the bunny, stumbling over the English, but civilized and cordial and kind. I sit up suddenly, reaching out impulsively to shake his hand. Suddenly frightened he leaps back. All of them step back, glancing behind them as though making sure of the avenue of escape. Their big luminous eyes widen and glance rapidly from me to the doors, frightened. They must think I'm about to leap out of bed and pounce on them and eat them. I am about to laugh and reassure them about to say that all I want from them is friendship when I feel a twinge in my abdomen from the sudden motion. I touch it with one hand under the bed-clothes. There is the scar of an incision there, almost healed, an operation. The weakness I'm recovering from is more than the weakness of starvation. For only half a second that I do not understand, then I see why they looked ashamed. They voted the murder of a race. All the human survivors found have been made sterile. There will be no more humans after we die. I am frozen, one hand still extended to grasp the hand of the Rabbity One. My eye still searching his expression, reassuring words still half-formed. There will be time for anger or grief later. For now in this instant I can understand. They are probably quite right. We were carnivores. I know, because at this moment of hatred, I could kill them all. End of the Carnivore Homesick. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tabithat. Homesick. By Lynn Venable. Frankston pushed listlessly at a red checker with his right forefinger. He knew the move would cost him a man, but he lacked enough interest in the game to plot out a safe move. His opponent, James, jumped the red disc with a black king and removed it from the board. Gregory, across the room, flicked rapidly through the pages of a magazine, too rapidly to be reading anything or even looking at the pictures. Ross lay quietly on his bunk, staring out of the view-port. The four were strangely alike in appearance, nearly the same age, the age where grey hairs finally outnumber black or baldness takes over. The age when the expanding waistline has begun to sag tiredly when robust middle age begins the slow accelerating decline towards senility. A strange group to find aboard a spaceship, but then the Columbus was a very strange ship. Boltered twits out a hull, just under the view-ports were wooden boxes full of red geraniums and ivy-warm tenuous green fronds over the gleaming hull that had withstood the bombardment of pinpoint meteors and turned away the deadly cosmic rays. Frankston glanced at his wrist-chrono. It was one minute to six. In about a minute, he thought, Ross will say something about going out to water his geraniums. The wrist-chrono ticked fifty-nine times. I think I'll go out and water my geraniums, said Ross. No one glanced up. Then Gregory threw his magazine on the floor. Ross got up and walked, limping slightly to a wall-locker. He pulled out the heavy ungainly spacesuit in the big metal bulb of a head-piece. He carried them to his bunk and laid them carefully down. Will somebody please help me on with my suit, he asked. For one more long moment no one moved. Then James got up and began to help Ross fit his legs into the suit. Ross had arthritis, not badly, but enough so that he needed a little help climbing into a spacesuit. James pulled the heavy folds of the suit up around Ross's body and held it while Ross extended his arms into the sleeve sections. His hands in the heavy gauntlets were too unwieldy to do the front fastenings and he stood silently while James did it for him. Ross lifted the helmet, staring at it as a cripple might regard a wheelchair which he loathed but was wholly dependent upon. Then he fitted the helmet over his head and James fastened it down and lifted the oxygen tank to his back. Ready? asked James. The bulbous headpiece inclined in an odd. James walked to a panel and threw a switch marked in a lock. A round aperture slid silently open. Ross stepped through it and the door shut behind him as James threw the switch back to its original position. Opposite the switch marked out a lock, a signal glowed redly and James threw another switch. A moment later the signal flickered out. Frankston with a violent gesture swept the checkerboard clean. Red and black men clattered to the floor rolling and spinning. Nobody picked them up. What does he do it for? demanded Frankston in a tight voice. What does he get out of those stinking geraniums he can't touch or smell? Shut up! said Gregory. James looked up sharply. Curtness was unusual for Gregory, a bad sign. Frankston was the one he'd been watching, the one who'd shown signs of cracking, but after so long even a psycho expert's opinion might be haywire who was the yardstick, who was normal? Geraniums don't smell much anyway, added Gregory in a more conciliatory tone. Yeah, agreed Frankston, I'd forgotten that, but why does he torture himself like this and us too? Because that's what he wanted to do, answered James. Sure, agreed Gregory, the whole trip, the last twenty years of it anyhow, all he could talk about was how when he got back to earth he was going to buy a little place in the country and raise flowers. Now we're back, muttered Frankston with the terrible bitterness, he's raising flowers, but not in any little place in the country. Gregory continued almost dreamily. Remember the last night out? We were all gathered around the view-screen and there was earth getting bigger and greener and closer all the time. Remember what it felt like to be going back after thirty years? Thirty years cooped up in this ship, grumbled Frankston, all our twenties and thirties and forties. But we were coming home. There was a rapt expression on Gregory's lined and weathered face. We were looking forward to the twenty or maybe thirty good years we had left, talking about what we'd do, where we'd live, wondering what had changed on earth. At least we had that last night out. All the data was stashed away in the micro-files, all the data about planets with air we couldn't breathe and food we couldn't eat. We were going home, home to big, friendly, green earth. Frankston's face suddenly crumpled as though he were about to weep and he cradled his head against his arms. God, do we have to go over it all again, not again to-night? Leave him alone, ordered James with an inflection of command in his voice. Go to the other section of the ship if you don't want to listen. He has to keep going over it, just like Ross has to keep watering his geraniums. Frankston remained motionless and Gregory looked gratefully at James. James was the steady one. It was easier for him because he understood. Gregory's face became more and more animated as he lost himself living again his recollections. The day we blasted in, the crowds, thousands of people all there to see us come in. We were proud. Of course we thought we were the first to learn just like we'd been the first to go out. Those cheers coming from thousands of people at once. For us, Ross, Lieutenant Ross was the first one out of the lock. We'd decided on that. He'd been in command for almost ten years ever since Commander Stevens died. You remember Stevens, don't you? He took over when we lost Captain Willers. Well, anyway, Ross out first, and then you, James, and you, Frankston, and then Trippet, and me last, because you were all specialists and I was just a crewman. The crewman, I should say, the only one left. Ross hesitated and almost stumbled when he stepped out and began pouring from his eyes, but I thought, well, you know, coming home after thirty years and all that. But when I stepped out of the lock, my eyes stung like fire and a thousand needles seemed to jab at my skin. And then the President himself stepped forward with the flowers. That's where the real trouble began with the flowers. I remember Ross stretching out his arms to take the bouquet like a mother reaching for a baby, and suddenly he dropped them and gasping for breath, and the President reached out to help him asking him over and over what was wrong. It was the same with all of us and we turned and staggered back to the ship closing the lock behind us. It was bad then. God, I'll never forget it. The five of us moaning in agony, gasping for breath, our eyes all swollen shut and the itching, that itching, Gregory shuddered. Even the emotionally disciplined James teeth and felt his scalp crawl at the memory of that horror. He glanced toward the viewport as though to cleanse his mind of the memory. He could see Ross out there among the geraniums moving slowly and painfully in his heavy space suit. Occupational therapy. Ross watered flowers and Gregory talked and Frankston was bitter and himself, observation maybe. Gregory's voice began again and then they were pounding on the lock begging us to let the doctor in all rolling and thrashing with the itching, burning, sneezing, and finally James got himself under control enough to open the locks and let them in. Then came the tests, allergy tests, remember those? They'd cut a little row of scratches in your arm. Each man instinctively glanced at his forearm, saw neat rows of tiny pink scars, row on row. Then they'd put a little powder in each cut and each kind of powder was an extract of some common substance we might be allergic to. The charts they made were full of peas, pea for positive, long columns of big red peas, all pollen, dust, wool, nylon, cotton, fish, meat, fruit, vegetables, grain, milk, whiskey, cigarettes, dogs, cats, everything. And wasn't it funny about us being allergic to women's face powder? Ha! we were allergic to women from their nylon hose to their face powder. Thirty years of breathing purified, sterilized, filtered air, thirty years of drinking distilled water and swallowing synthetic food tablets had changed us. The only things we weren't allergic to were the metal and plastic synthetics of our ship, this ship. We're allergic to earth. That's funny, isn't it? Gregory began to rock back and forth, laughing the thin high laugh of hysteria. James silently walked to a water hydrant and filled a plastic cup. He brought Gregory a small white pill. He wouldn't take this with the rest of his at supper. You'd better take it now. You need it. Gregory nodded bleakly, sobering at once and swallowed the pellet. He made a face after the water. Distilled, he spat, distilled, no flavor, no life, like us, distilled. If only we could have blasted off again! Frankston's voice came muffled through his hands. It wouldn't have made any difference where, anywhere or nowhere. No, our fine ship is obsolete much too old. They have the space-drive now. Men don't make thirty-year junkets into space and come back allergic to earth. They go out and in a month or two they're back with their hair still black and their eyes still bright and their uniforms still fit. A month or two is all. Those crowds that cheered us they were proud of us and sorry for us because we'd been out thirty years and they never expected us back at all. But it was inconvenient for Spaceport. Peter sarcasm tinged his voice. They actually had to postpone the regular monthly trans-galactic run to let us in with this big clumsy hulk. Why didn't we ever see any of the new ships either going out or coming back? asked Gregory. Frankston shook his head. You don't see a ship when it's in space-drive. It's out of normal space-time dimensions. We had a smattering of the theory at Cadet School. Anyway, if one did flash into normal space-time say, for instance, coming in for a landing, the probability of us being at the same place at the same time was almost nil. Two ships passing in the night as the old saying goes. Gregory nodded. I guess Trippett was the lucky one. You didn't see Trippett die, replied James. What was it? asked Frankston. What killed Trippett? So quickly, too, he was only outside a few minutes like the rest of us and eight hours later he was dead. We couldn't be sure, answered James, some virus, the countless varieties. People live in a contaminated atmosphere all their lives, build up resistance to them. Sometimes a particularly virulent strain will produce an epidemic, but most people, if they're affected, will have a mild case of whatever it is and recover. But after thirty years in space, thirty years of breathing perfectly pure uncontaminated air, Trippett had no antibodies in his bloodstream. The virus hit and he died. But why didn't the rest of us get it? asked Gregory. We were lucky. Viruses are like that. Those people talked about building a home for us, muttered Frankston. Why didn't they? It wouldn't have been any different, answered James gently. It would have been the same, almost an exact duplicate of the ship, everything but the rockets. Same metal and plastic and filtered air and food. It couldn't have had wool rugs or down pillows or smiling wives or fresh air or eggs for breakfast. It would have been just like this. So since the ship was obsolete they gave it to us, and a plot of ground to anchor it too, and we're home. They did the best they could for us, the very best they could. But I feel stifled, shut in. The ship is large, Frankston. We all crowd into this section because without each other we'd go mad. James kicked the edge of the magazine on the floor. Thank God we're not allergic to decontaminated paper, they're still reading. We're getting old, said Gregory. Someday one of us will be here alone. God help him, then, answered James with more emotion than was usual for him. During the latter part of the conversation the little red signal had been flashing persistently. Finally James saw it. Ross was in the outer lock. James threw the decontaminator switch and the signal winked out. Every trace of dust and pollen would have to be removed from Ross's suit before he could come inside the ship. Just like on an alien planet, commented Gregory. Isn't that what this is to us? An alien planet, asked Frankston, and neither of the other men dared answer his bitter question. A few minutes later Ross was back in the cabin and James helped him out of his space suit. How the geraniums Ross, asked Gregory. Fine, said Ross enthusiastically. They're doing just fine. He walked over to his bunk and lay down on his side so he could see out of the view-port. There would be an hour left before darkness fell, an hour to watch the geraniums. They were tall and red and swayed slightly in the evening breeze. End of Homesick by Lynn Vannable. Longevity. 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 Bologna Times. Longevity by Therese Wenzher. A morality tale. 1960s style. Legend had it that many thousands of years ago right after the great horror, the whole continent of the West had slowly sunk beneath the West water and that once every century it arose during a full moon. Still, Captain Henrich clung to the hope that the legend would not be born out of truth. Perhaps the West continent still existed. Perhaps dairy-hope was civilization. The crew of the Semelunis thought him quite mad. After all, hadn't the East and South continents been completely annihilated from the great sky fires and wasn't it said that they had suffered but a fraction of what the West continent had endured? The Semelunis anchored at the mouth of a great river. The months of fear and doubt were at end. Here at last was the West continent. A small party of scouts was sent ashore with many cautions to be alert for luminescent areas which meant certain death for those who remained too long in its vicinity. Armed with bow and arrow the party made its way slowly up the great river. Nowhere was to be seen the color green, only dull browns and grays and no signs of life save for an occasional patch on a rock. After several days of rowing the food and water supply was almost half depleted and still no evidence of either past or present habitation. It was time to turn back to travel all the weary months across the West water the journey all in vain. What a small reward for such an arduous trip just proof of the existence of a barren land mass and useless. On the second day of the return to the Sumilunis the scouting party decided to stop and investigate a huge opening in the Rocky Mountainside how suspiciously regular and even it looked particularly in comparison to the rest of the countryside which was jagged and chaotic they entered the cave apprehensively but all was darkness and quiet still the regularity of the cave walls led them on some creature, man or otherwise must have planned and built this but to what end? Now the cave divided into three forks the torches gave only a hint of the immensity of the chambers that lay at the end of each they selected the center chamber approaching cautiously breath caught in awe and excitement the torches reflected on a dull black surface which was divided into many many little squares the sameness of them stretched for uncountable yards and all directions what were these ungodly looking edifices the black surface was cold and smooth to the touch and quite regular except for a strange little hole at the bottom of each square and a curious row of pictures along the top they would copy these strange pictures perhaps back home there would be a scholar who would understand the meaning behind these last remains of the people of the west continent the leader took out his slate and painstakingly copied safeguard your valuables at Allegheny mountain vaults number four five four four three five six seven eight two and of Longevity by Therese Wender LOST IN THE FUTURE this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org LOST IN THE FUTURE by John Victor Peterson they had discovered a new planet but its people did not see them until after they had traveled on Albrecht and I went down in a shuttle ship leaving this delatomic orbited pole to pole 2,000 miles above Alpha Centauri's second planet while we took an atmosphere brushing approach which wouldn't burn off the shuttle's skin we went as swiftly as we could a week before we had completed man's first trip through hyperspace now making the first landing on an inhabited planet of another sun all the preliminary investigations had been made via electron spectroscopes and electron telescopes from the delatomic we knew that the atmosphere was breathable and were reasonably certain that the peoples of the world into whose atmosphere we were dropping were at peace we went unarmed just the two of us it might not be wise to go in force but we were silent and I know that Harry Albrecht was as perplexed as I was over the fact that our all wave receivers failed to pick up any signs of radio communication whatever we had assumed that we would pick up signals of some type as soon as we had passed down through the unfamiliar planet's ionosphere the scattered arrangement of the towering cities appeared to call for radio communications the hundreds of atmosphere ships and some of airways between the cities seemed to indicate the existence of electronic navigational and landing aids but perhaps the signals were all tightly beamed we would know when we came lower we dropped into the airway levels and still our receivers failed to pick up a signal of any sort not even a whisper of static and strangely our radar scopes failed to record even a blip from their atmosphere ships I guess it's our equipment Harry I said it just doesn't seem to function in this atmosphere we'll have to put Edwards to work on it when we get back upstairs we spotted an airport on the outskirts of a large city the runways were laid out with the precision of Earth's finest I put our ship's nose eastward on a runway and took it down fast through a lull in the atmosphere ship traffic as we went down I saw a tiny building spotted on the field which surely housed electronic equipment but our receivers remained silent I taxied the shuttle up to an unloading ramp before the airport's terminal building and I killed the drive Harry I said if it weren't that their ships are so outlandishly stubby and their buildings so outflung we might well be on Earth I agree Captain strange though that they're not mobbing us they couldn't take this delta wing job for one of their ships it was strange I looked up at the observation ramp's occupants people who except for their bizarre dress might well be of Earth and saw no curiosity in the eyes that sometimes swept across our position be that as it may Harry we certainly should cause a stir in these pressure suits let's go we walked up to a dower looking individual at a counter at the ramp's end clearing my throat I said rather innately hello but what does one say to an extra solarium I realized then that my voice seemed thunderous that the only other sounds came from a distance city's noise the atmosphere ships engines on the horizon the Centaurian ignored us I looked at the atmosphere ships in the clear blue sky at the Centaurians on the ramp who appeared to be conversing and there was no sound from those planes no sound from the people it's impossible Harry said the atmosphere's nearly Earth normal it should be well damn it it is as sound conductive we're talking aren't we I looked up at the Centaurians again they were looking excitedly westward some turned to companions mouths opened and closed to form words we could not hear wide eyes lowered following something I could not see sick inside I turned to Albrecht and read confirmation in his drawn blanched face captain he said I suspected that we might find something like this when we first came out of hyperspace and the big sleep the recorder showed we'd exceeded light speed in normal spacetime just after the transition Einstein theorized that time would not pass as swiftly to those approaching light speed we could safely exceed that speed in hyperspace but should never have done so in normal spacetime beyond light speed time must conversely accelerate these people haven't seen us yet they certainly just observed our landing as we suspected they probably do have speech and radio but we can't pick up either we're seconds ahead of them in time and we can't pick up from the past sounds of nearby origin or nearby signals radiated at light speed they'll see and hear us soon but we'll never receive an answer from them our questions will come to them in their future but we can never pick answers from their past let's go Harry I said quickly where? he asked where can we ever go that will be an improvement over this he was resigned back into space I said back to circle this system at near light speed the computer should be able to determine how long and how slow we'll have to fly to cancel this out if not we are truly and forever lost end of lost in the future by John Victor Peterson man made 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 Bologna Times Man Made by Albert R. Teichner a story that comes to grips with an age-old question what is soul and where and postulates an age-new answer if I listed every trouble I've accumulated in a mere two hundred odd years you might be inclined to laugh when a tale of woe piles up too many details it looks ridiculous, unreal so here at the outset I want to say my life has not been a tragic one whose life is in this day of advanced techniques and universal goodwill but that on the contrary I have enjoyed this earth and solar system and all the abundant interests that has offered me if lying here beneath these great lights I could only be as sure of joy in the future my name is Treb Holly as far back as I can remember in my childhood I was always interested in astronautics from the age of ten I specialized in that subject never for a moment regretting the choice when I was still a child of twenty-four I took part in the ninth Jupiter expedition and after that there were many more I had a precocious marriage at thirty and my boys Robert and Neil were born within a few years after Marla and I wed it was fortunate that I fought for government permission that early after the accident despite my high rating I would have been denied the rare privilege of parenthood that accident the first one took place was fifty on planet twelve of the centauri system I was attacked by a sixth limb primate and was badly mangled on the left side before breaking list to destroy it surgical core operated within an hour although they did an excellent prosthetic job after removing my left leg and arm the substituted limbs had their limitations while they permitted me to do all my jobs phantom pain was a constant problem there were new methods of prosthesis to eliminate this weird effect but these were only available back on the home planets I had to wait one year for this release meanwhile I had plenty of time to contemplate my mysterious affliction the mystery of it was so great that I had little chance to notice how painful it actually was there is enough strangeness with absolute certainty that a limb exists where actually there is nothing but the strangeness is compounded when you look down and discover that not only is the leg gone but that another mechanical one has taken its place doctor erics who had performed the operation said this difficulty would ultimately prove a blessing but I often had my doubts he was right upon my return to earth but I had no idea what the limitations took place those giving me plastic limbs that would become living parts of my organic structure the same outward push of the brain and nervous system that had created phantom pain now made what was artificial seem real not only did my own blood course through the protoplastic but I could feel it doing so the adjustment took less than a week the time was already past when protoplast patients were looked upon as something mildly freakish and to be pitied artificial noses, ears and limbs were becoming quite common whether there was some justification for the earlier reaction of pity however still remains to be seen my career resumed and I was accepted for the next Centauri expedition without any questions being asked as a matter of fact planning center preferred people in my condition protoplast limbs were more durable than the real no, let us say the original thing at home and at the beach no one bothered to notice my reconstructed arm and leg they looked too natural for the idea to occur to people who did not know me and Marla treated the whole thing like a big joke she used to tell me and the kids wanted to know when they could have second matter limbs of their own life was good to me the one year periods away from home passed quickly and the five year layoffs on earth permitted me to devote myself to my hobbies music and mathematics without taking any time away from my family eventually of course my condition became an extremely common one who is there today among my readers who has all the parts with which he was born if any such person passed the childhood 60 years dead he would be the freak then at 90 new difficulties arose a new Centaurian sub-virus attacked my chest marrow as is still true in this infection the virus proved to be ineradicable my ribs weren't though and a protoplast casing exactly like the thoracic cavity was substituted it was discovered that the infection had spread to my right radius and ulna so here too a simple substitution was made of course such a radical infection meant my circulatory system was contaminated and synthetically created living hemoplast was pumped in as soon as all the blood was removed this did attract attention at the time the procedure was still new and some medical people warned it would not take they were right only to this extent the old cardio arterial organs occasionally hunted into defective feedback that required systole diastole adjustments protoplastic circulatory substitutes corrected the deficiency and just to avoid the slight possibility of further complications the venous system was also replaced since the change over there hasn't been the least trouble in that sector by then Marla had a perfect artificial ear and both of my sons had lost their congenitally diseased livers there was nothing extraordinary about our family only in my case were replacements somewhat about the world average I am proud to say that I was among the first thousand who made the pioneer voyage on hyperdrive to the star group beyond Centaurus we returned in triumph with our fantastic but true tales of the organic planet Vita and the contemplative humanoids of Nerva who will consciousness into subjectively grasping the life and beauty of the subatomic space the knowledge we brought back assured that the fatal disease could never again attack man though they lived to aleph null on the second voyage Marla, Robert and Neil went with me this took a little political wrangling but it was worth throwing my merit around to see them benefit from Nerva discoveries even before the rest of humanity planetary council agreed my services entitled me to this special consideration truly I could feel among the blessed then I volunteered for the small expeditionary force to the 38th moon that the Nervans themselves refused to visit they tried to dissuade us but being of a much younger species we were less plagued by caution and went anyway the mountains of this little moon are up to 15 miles high causing a state of instability that is chronic walking down those alabaster valleys was a more awesome experience than any galactic fista I have ever encountered our aesthetic sense proves stronger than common sense alertness and seven of us were buried in a rock slide fortunately the great rocks formed a cavern above us after two days we were rescued the others suffered such minor injuries that they were repaired before a craft landed on Nerva I though unconscious and feverish was in serious condition from skin abrasions and a comminuted cranium Dr. Erick's made the only possible prognosis my skull had to be removed and a completely new proto-skin had to be supplied also when I came out of coma Marla was standing at my bedside smiling down at me do you feel darling, I mean do you feel the way you did I was puzzled sure, I'm Treb Holley I'm your husband and I remember an awful fall of rocks but now I feel exactly the way I always have I did not even realize that further substitutions had been made and did not believe them when they told me about it now I was an object of curiosity upon our return to earth the news plastics held me as one of the most highly reintegrated individuals anywhere in all the teeming domain of men there were only 700 who had gone through as many substitutions as I had where, they philosophize in passing would a man cease to be a man in the sequence of substitutions philosophy had never been an important preoccupation of mine it was the only discipline no further ahead in its really essential questions than the Greeks of 4,000 years ago oh, certainly there had been lots of technical improvements that were fascinating but these were peripheral points the basic issues could not be experimentally tested so they had to remain on the level of accepted or rejected axioms I wasn't about to devote much time to them when the whole fascinating field of atomic mirror numbers was just opening up certainly not because a few sensational journalists were toying with dead-end notions for that matter the news plastics weren't either and quickly went back to the regular mathematical reportage they do so well a few decades later, however I wasn't so cocksure the old Centauran virus had reappeared in my brain of all places and I started to have a peculiar feeling about where the endpoint in all this reintegrating routine would lie not that the brain operation was a risk thousands of people had already gone through it and the substitute organisms had made no fundamental change in them it didn't in my case either but now I was more second matter than any man in history it's the old question of Achilles' ship told me never heard of it, I said it's a parable trap about concretized forms of continuum in its discrete aspects I see the theoretical question but what has Achilles' ship to do with it he furrowed his protoplast brow that looked as youthful as it had a century ago this ship consisted of several hundred planks most of them forming a hull some in the form of benches and oars and a main mast it served its primitive purpose well but eventually sprang a leak some of the hull planks had to be replaced after which it was as good as new another year of hard use brought further hull troubles and some more planks were removed for new ones then the mass collapsed and a new one was put in after that the ship was in such good shape that it could outrace most of those just off the ways I had an uneasy feeling about where this parable was leading us but my mind shied away from the essential point and Erex went relentlessly on as the years passed more repairs were made first a new set of oars then some more planks still newer oars still more planks eventually Achilles an unthinking man of action who still tried to be aware of what happened to the instruments of action he needed most realized that not one splinter of the original ship remained was this then a new ship at first he was inclined to say yes but this only evoked the further question when had it become the new ship was it when the last plank was replaced or when half had been his confidently stated answer collapsed yet how could he say it was the old ship when everything about it was a substitution the question was too much for him when he came to Athens he turned the problem over to the Wisemen of that city refusing ever to think about it again my mind was now in turmoil what I demanded what did they decide Erex frowned nothing they could not answer the question every available answer was equally right and proved every other right answer wrong as you know philosophy does not progress in its essentials it merely continues to clarify what the problems are I prefer to die next time I shouted I want to be a live human being or a dead one not a machine maybe you won't be a machine nothing exactly like this has happened before to a living organic being I knew I had to be on my guard what peculiar scheme was afoot you're trying to say something's still wrong with me it isn't true I feel as well as I ever have your feeling is a dangerous illusion his face was spaced thus gray and I realize with horror that he meant all of it I had to tell you the parable and show the possible alternatives clearly treb you're riddled with centurion Z virus unless we remove almost all the remaining first growth organisms you will be dead within six months I didn't care anymore whether he meant it or not the idea was too ridiculous death is too rare and anachronistic a phenomenon today you're the one who needs treatment doctor overwork study one idea on the brain too much resigned he shrugged his shoulders all the first matter should be removed except for the spinal cord and the vertebrae you'd still have that very kind of you I said and walked away determined to have no more of his lectures now or in the future Marla wanted to know why I seem so jumpy seems is just the word I snapped never felt better in my life that's just what I mean she said jumpy I let her have the last word but determined to be calmer from then on I was and as the weeks passed the mask I put on sank deeper and deeper until that was the way I really felt when you can face death serenely you will not have to face it that is what one of our leading philosophers has said I was living this truth my work on infinite series went more smoothly and swiftly than any mathematical research I had engaged in before and my senses responded to living with greater zest than ever five months later while walking through a hydroponic park I felt the first awful tremor through my body it was as if the earth beneath my feet were shaking like that awful afternoon on Nerva's moon but no rocks fell from the sky and other strollers moved across my vision as if the world of five minutes ago had not collapsed the horror was only inside me I went to another doctor and asked for stabilizing perhaps you need a checkup he suggested that was the last thing I wanted he too shrugged resentedly and made out my prescription for the harmless drug after that the hammer of pain did not strike again but often I could feel it brush by me each time myself administered dosage had to be increased eventually my equations stopped tying together in my mind I would stare at the calculation sheets for hours at a time asking myself why X could not be here or integral operation there the truth could not be avoided my mind could no longer grasp truth I went in grudging defeat to Eric's you have to when I said and described my experiences some things are inevitable he nodded solemnly and some are not this may solve all your problems not all I hoped allowed Marla went with me to hospital she realized the danger I was in but put the best possible face on it her courage and support made all the difference and I went into the second matter chamber ready for whatever fate awaited me nothing happened I came out of the chamber all protoplast except for the spinal zone yet I was still treb holly as the coma faded away the last equation faded in completely meaningful and soon followed by all the leads I could handle for the next few years psychophysiology was in an uproar over my success man can now be all protoplast some said others as vehemently insisted some tiny but tangible chromosome organ link to the past must remain for my part it all sounded very academic I was well again there was one unhappy moment when I applied for the new Centauri expedition too much of a risk the consulting board told me not that you aren't in perfect condition but there are unknown untested factors and out in space they might mind you we just say might disadvantageous they all looked embarrassed off me preferring to concentrate on the metals lined up across the table that were to be my consolation prize I was disconsolate at first and would look longingly up at the stars which were now perhaps forever beyond my reach but my sons were going out there and for some inexplicable reason that gave me great solace then too earth was still young and beautiful and so was Marla I still had the full capacity to enjoy these blessings not for long when we saw the boys off to Centauri I had a dizzy spell and only with the greatest effort hid my distress until the long train of ships had risen out of sight then I lay down in the visitor's lounge from where I could not be moved for several hours great waves of pain flashed up and down my spine the images were being released within me the rest of my body stood up well to this assault but every few seconds I had the eerie sensation that I was back in my old body a ghostly superimposition on the living protoplast as the spinal cord projected its agony outward finally this pain subsided succeeded by a black numbness I was carried on gravitational cushions to Eric's it had to be he sighed I didn't have the heart to tell you after the last operation the sub-virus is attacking the inter-non-seal neurons I knew what that meant but was past caring we're not immortal not yet I said I'm ready for the end we can still try he said I struggled to laugh but even gave up that little gesture another operation no, it can't make any difference it might, we don't know how could it suppose, Treb, just suppose you do come out of it all right you'd be the first man to be completely of second matter Eric's it can't work forget it I won't forget it, you said we're not immortal but, Treb your survival would be another step in that direction the soul's immortality has to be taken on faith now if it's taken at all you could be the first scientific proof that the developing soul has the momentum to carry past the body in which it grows at the least you would represent a step in the direction of soul freed from matter I could take no more of such talk go ahead, I said do what you want, I give my consent the last few days have been the most hectic of my life dozens of great physicians flown in from every sector of the solar system have examined me I'm leaving my body to science I told one particularly prodding group but you're not giving it a chance to die it is easy for me to die now when you have truly resigned yourself to death nothing in life can disturb you I have at long last that completely stoical moment that is why I have recorded this history with as much objectivity as continuing vitality can permit the operating theatre was crowded for my final performance and several tri-D video cameras stared down at me pupils, lights and lenses all came to a glittering focus on me I slowly closed my eyes to blot the hypnotic horror out but when I opened them everything was still there as before then Eric's head growing as he inspected my face more closely covered everything else up when are you going to begin I demanded we have finished he answered in awe that verged upon reverence you are the new Adam there was a mounting burst of applause as the viewers learned what I had said my mind was working more clearly than it had in a long time and with all the wisdom of hindsight I wondered how anyone could have ever doubted the outcome we had known all along that every bit of atomic matter in each cell is replaced many times in one lifetime electron by electron without the cells overall form disappearing now by equally gradual steps it had happened in the vaster arena of Newtonian living matter I sat up slowly looking with renewed wonder on everything from the magnetic screw in the light above my head to the nail on the wriggling toe of my left foot I was more than a Kelly's ship I was a living being at whose center lay a still yet turning point that could neither be new nor old but only immortal end of Man Made by Albert R. Teichner The Mathematicians this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org The Mathematicians we gave this story to a very competent and very pretty gal artist we said read this carefully dream on it and come up with an illustration a week later she returned with a finished drawing the hero she said we did a double take hey that's not the hero she looked us straight in the eye can you prove it she had us we couldn't and she left hardly to go home and cook dinner for her family and what were they having frog legs, what else they were in the garden now Zoe said Xenia Hawkins to her nine year old daughter quit fluttering around and Papa will tell you a story Zoe settled down in the hammock a true story true story Papa it all happened exactly like I'm going to tell you said Drake Hawkins pinching Zoe's rosy cheek now two thousand and eleven years ago in 1985 figuring by the earthly calendar of that time tribe of beans from the dog star Sirius invaded the earth what did these beans look like father like humans in many many respects they each had two arms two legs and all the other organs and humans are endowed with wasn't there any difference at all between the star beans and the humans Papa there was the newcomers each and all had a pair of wings covered with green feathers growing from their shoulders in long purple tails how many of these beans were there father exactly three million and forty one male adults and three female adults these creatures first appeared on earth on the island of Sardinia five weeks time they were the masters of the entire globe didn't the earthlings fight back Papa the humans warred against the invaders using bullets ordinary bombs super atom bombs and gases what were those things like father oh they've passed out of existence long ago ammunition they were called the humans fought each other with such things and not with ideas like we do now father no with guns just like I told you but the invaders were immune to the ammunition what does it immune mean proof against harm then humans tried germs and bacteria against the star beans what were those things tiny tiny bugs that the humans tried to inject into the bodies of the invaders to make them sicken and die but the bugs had no effect at all on the star beans go on papa these beans overran all earth go on from there you must know these newcomers were vastly more intelligent than earthlings in fact the invaders were the greatest mathematicians in the system what's the system what does mathematician mean the milky way a mathematician is one who is good at figuring weighing measuring clever with numbers then father the invaders killed off all the earthlings not all they killed many but many others were enslaved just as the humans had used horses and cattle the newcomers so used the humans they made workers out of some others they slaughtered for food papa what sort of language did these star beans talk very simple language but the humans were never able to master it so though the invaders being so much smarter mastered all the languages of the globe what did the earthlings call the invaders father anvils half angels half doubles then papa everything was peaceful on earth until after the anvils enslaved the humans for a little while then some of the most daring of the humans led by a man named no all escaped into the interior of greenland this no all was a psychiatrist the foremost on earth what's a psychiatrist a dealer in ideas then he was very rich he'd been the richest human on earth after some profound thought no all figured a way to rid the earth of the anvils half papa he perfected a method called the no all hues elinski technique of imbuing these anvils a bit above the child's understanding drink what does imbuing mean no mama said so i understand what papa explained made them aware of so no all continued drink filled the anvils with human feelings such as love hate and ambition jealousy malice fear shame and so on very soon the anvils were acting like humans and in ten days terrible civil wars wiped out the anvil's population by two thirds then papa the anvils finally killed off each other almost until among them a being named zalabar full of saintliness and persuasion preached the brotherhood of all anvils the invaders quickly converted quit their quarrels and earthlings were even more enslaved oh papa weren't no all and his followers in greenland awfully sad the way things had turned out for a while then no all came up with the final payoff is that slang papa payoff yes the kudigross the ace in the hole that he'd saved if all else failed i understand papa the idea that would out trump anything the other side had to offer what was it father what did they have no all imbued the anvils with nostalgia what is nostalgia homesickness oh papa wasn't no all smart that meant the anvils were all filled with desire to fly back to the star from where they had started exactly so one day all the anvils an immense army flapping their great green wings assembled in the black hills of north america and at a given signal they all rose up from earth and all the humans chanted glory glory the day of our deliverance so then father all the anvils flew away from earth not all there were two child anvils one male and one female aged two years who had been born on earth and they started off with all the other anvils and flew up into the sky but when they reached the upper limits of the stratosphere they hesitated turned tail and fluttered back to earth where they'd been born their names were zizzo and zizza what happened to zizzo and zizza papa well like all the anvils they were great mathematicians so they multiplied oh papa left zoey flapping her wings excitedly that was a very nice story end of the mathematician by Arthur Feldman