 Special Delivery by Damon Knight 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 Greg Marguerite Special Delivery by Damon Knight All Len had to hear was the old gag. We've never lost a father yet. His child was not even born and it was thoroughly unbearable. Len and Moira Connington lived in a rented cottage with a small yard, a smaller garden, and too many fir trees. The lawn which Len seldom had time to mow was full of weeds and the garden was overgrown with blackberry brambles. The house itself was clean and smelled better than most city apartments and Moira kept geraniums in the windows. However, it was dark on account of the furs. Approaching the door one late spring afternoon, Len tripped on an unnoticed flagstone and scattered examination papers all the way to the porch. When he picked himself up, Moira was giggling in the doorway. That was funny. The hell it was, said Len. I banged my nose. He picked up his chemistry bee papers in a stiff silence. A red drop fell on the last one. Damn it! Moira held the screen door for him, looking contrite and faintly surprised. She followed him into the bathroom. Len, I didn't mean to laugh. Does it hurt much? No, said Len, staring fiercely at his scraped nose in the mirror. It was throbbing like a gong. That's good. It was the funniest thing. I mean, funny peculiar, she clarified hastily. Len stared at her. The whites of her eyes were showing. Is there anything to matter with you? He demanded. I don't know, she said on a rising note. Nothing like that ever happened to me before. I didn't think it was funny at all. I was worried about you and I didn't know I was going to laugh. She laughed again, a trifle nervously. Maybe I'm cracking up. Moira was a dark-haired young woman with a placidly friendly disposition. Len had met her in his senior year at Columbia with, looking at it impartially, which Len seldom did, regrettable results. At present in her seventh month she was shaped like a rather bosomy, cuppy doll. Emotional upsets, he remembered, may occur frequently during this period. He leaned to get past her belly and kissed her forgivingly. You're probably tired. Go sit down, I'll get you some coffee. Except Moira had never had any hysterics till now. Or morning sickness, either. She burped instead. And anyhow, was there anything in the literature about fits of giggling? After supper he marked seventeen sets of papers disultrally in red pencil, then got up to look for the baby book. There were four dog-eared, paper-bound volumes with smiling infant's faces on the covers, but the one he wanted wasn't there. He looked behind the bookcase and on the wicker table beside it. Moira. Hmm? Where the devil is the other baby book? I've got it. Len went and looked over her shoulder. She was staring at a drawing of a fetus lying in a sort of upside-down yoga position inside a cross-sectioned woman's body. That's what he looks like, she said. Mama. The diagram was of a fetus at term. What was that about your mother? Len asked puzzled. Don't be silly, she said abstractedly. He waited, but she didn't look up or turn the page. After a while he went back to his work. He watched her. Eventually she leaped through to the back of the book, read a few pages, and put it down. She lighted a cigarette and immediately put it out again. She fetched up a belch. That was a good one, said Len admiringly. Moira's side. Feeling tense, Len picked up his coffee cup and started toward the kitchen. He halted beside Moira's chair. On the side table was her after-dinner cup, still full of coffee. Black, scummed with oil droplets, stone cold. Didn't you want your coffee? He asked solicitously. She looked at the cup. I did, but she paused and shook her head, looking perplexed. Well, do you want another cup now? Yes, please. No. Len, who had begun a step, rocked back on his heels. Which, damn it! Her face got all swollen. Oh, Len, I'm so mixed up, she said, and began to tremble. Len felt part of his irritation spilling over into protectiveness. What you need, he said firmly, is a drink. He climbed a step ladder to get at the top cabinet shelf, which cashed their liquor when they had any. Small upstate towns and their school boards being what they were, this was one of many necessary financial precautions. Inspecting the doleful few fingers of whiskey in the bottle, Len swore under his breath. They couldn't afford a decent supply of booze or new clothes for moira. The original idea had been for Len to teach for a year, while they saved enough money so that he could go back for his master's degree. More lately, this, proving unlikely, they had merely been trying to put aside enough for summer school, and even that was beginning to look like the wildest optimism. High school teachers without seniority weren't supposed to be married, or graduate physics students for that matter. He mixed two stiff highballs and carried them back into the living room. Here you are, Skull. Ah, she said appreciatively, that tastes... She set the glass down and stared at it with her mouth half open. What's the matter now? No. She turned her head carefully as if she were afraid it would come off. Len, I don't know. Mama. That's the second time you've said that. What is this all? Said what? Mama, look, kid, if you were... I didn't. She appeared a little feverish. You sure did, said Len reasonably, once when you were looking at the baby book, and then again just now after you said, uh, to the highball, speaking of which. Mama drank milk. Said Moira, speaking with exaggerated clarity. Moira hated milk. Len swallowed half his highball, turned and went silently into the kitchen. When he came back with the milk, Moira looked at it as if it contained a snake. Len, I didn't say that. Okay. I didn't, I didn't say Mama and I didn't say that about the milk. Her voice quavered and I didn't laugh at you when you fell down. Len tried to be patient. It was somebody else. It was. She looked down at her kingdom covered bulge. You won't believe me. Put your hand there. No, a little lower. Under the cloth her flesh was warm and solid against his palm. Kicks, he inquired. Not yet. Now, she said in a strained voice. You in there, if you want your milk, kick three times. Len opened his mouth and shut it again. Under his hand were three explicit kicks, one after the other. Moira closed her eyes, held her breath, and drank the milk down in one long horrid gulp. Once in a great while, Moira read, cell cleavage will not have followed the ordinary pattern that produces a normal baby. In these rare cases, some parts of the body will develop excessively, while others do not develop at all. This disorderly cell growth, which is strikingly similar to the wild cell growth that we know as cancer, her shoulders moved convulsively in a shutter. Why do you keep reading that stuff, if it makes you feel that way? I have to, she said absently. She picked up another book from the stack. There's a page missing. Len attacked the last of his medium-boiled egg in a noncommittal manner. It's a wonder it held together this long, he said, which was perfectly just. The book had had something spilled on it, partially dissolving the glue, and was in an advanced state of anarchy. However, the fact was that Len had torn out the page in question four nights ago after reading it carefully. The topic was psychoses in pregnancy. Moira had now decided that the baby was male, that his name was Leonardo, not referring to Len, but to Da Vinci, that he had informed her of these things along with a good many others, that he was keeping her from her favorite foods and making her eat things she detested, like liver and tripe, and that she had to read books of his choice all day long in order to keep him from kicking. It was miserably hot, with commencement only two weeks away Len's students were torpid and galvanic by turns. Then there was the matter of his contract for next year, and the possible opening at Oster High, which would mean more money than the parent-teachers thing tonight at which Superintendent Greer and his wife would be regally present. Moira was knee-deep in volume one of Der Untergang des Abelandes, moving her lips and occasional gutter all escaped her. Len cleared his throat. Moi und Oster des Tragaschan. What in God's name does he mean by that? What, Len? He made an irritated noise. Why not try the English edition? Leo wants to learn German. What were you going to say? Len closed his eyes for a moment. About this PTA business, you sure you want to go? Well, of course it's pretty important, isn't it, unless you think I look too sloppy. No, no, damn it, but are you feeling up to it? There were faint violet crescents under Moira's eyes. She had been sleeping badly. Sure, she said. All right, then you'll go see the doctor tomorrow? I said I would. And you won't say anything about Leo to Mrs. Greer or anybody? She looked slightly embarrassed. Not till he's born, I think, don't you? It would be an awfully hard thing to prove. Even you wouldn't have believed me if you hadn't felt him kick. The experiment had not been repeated, though Len had asked often enough. All little Leo had wanted, Moira said, was to establish communication with his mother. He didn't seem to be interested in Len at all. Too young, she explained. And still Len recalled the frogs his biology class had dissected last semester. One of them had had two hearts. This disorderly cell growth, like a cancer, unpredictable, extra fingers or toes or a double dose of cortex? And I'll burp like a lady, if at all. Moira assured him cheerfully as they got ready to leave. The room was empty except for the ladies of the committee, two nervously smiling male teachers and the impressive bulk of Superintendent Greer when the Conningtons arrived. Card table legs shrieked on the bare floor. The air was heavy with wood polish and musk. Greer advanced, beaming fixedly. Well, isn't this nice? How are you young folks this warm evening? Oh, we thought we'd be here earlier, Mr. Greer, said Moira with pretty vexation. She looked surprisingly schoolgirlish and chic. The lump that was Leo was partly noticeable, unless you caught her in profile. I'll go right now and help the ladies. There must be something I can still do. No, now we won't hear of it. But I'll tell you what you can do. You can go right over there and say hello to Mrs. Greer. I know she's dying to sit down and have a good chat with you. Go ahead now. Don't worry about this husband of yours. I'll take care of him. Moira receded into a scattering of small shrieks of pleasure, at least half of them arcing across a gap of mutual dislike. Greer exhibiting perfect dentures exhaled Listerine. His pink skin looked not only scrubbed, but disinfected. His gold-rimmed glasses belonged in an optometrist's window, and his tropical suit had obviously come straight from the cleaners. It was impossible to think of Greer unshaven, Greer smoking a cigar, Greer with a smudge of axle grease on his forehead, or Greer making love to his wife. Well, sir, this weather, when I think of what this valley was like 20 years ago, at today's prices? Len listened with growing admiration, putting in comments where required. He had never realized before that there were so many absolutely neutral topics of conversation. A few more people straggled in, raising the room temperature about half a degree per capita. Greer did not perspire. He merely glowed. Across the room, Moira was now seated chumily with Mrs. Greer, a large bosomed woman in an outrageously unfashionable hat. Moira appeared to be telling a joke. Len knew perfectly well that it was a clean one, but he listened tensely all the same until he heard Mrs. Greer yell with laughter. Her voice carried well. Oh, that's priceless. Oh, dear, I only hope I can remember it. Len had resolutely not been thinking of ways to turn the conversation toward the Oaster vacancy. He stiffened again when he realized that Greer had abruptly begun to talk shop. His heart began pounding absurdly. Greer was asking highly pertinent questions in a good humored but businesslike way, drawing Len out and not even bothering to be the slightest bit Machiavellian about it. Len answered candidly, except when he was certain that he knew what the superintendent wanted to hear. Then he lied like a trojan. Mrs. Greer had conjured up a premature pot of tea, and oblivious of the stairs of the thirsty teacher's presence, she and Moira were hogging it heads together as if they were plotting the overthrow of the Republic or exchanging recipes. Greer listened attentively to Len's final reply, which was delivered with as pious an air as if Len had been a Boy Scout swearing on the manual. But since the question had been, do you plan to make teaching your career? There was not a word of truth in it. He then inspected his paunch and assumed a mild theatrical frown. Len, with that social sixth sense which is unmistakable when it operates, knew that his next words were going to be, you may have heard that Oaster High will be needing a new science teacher next fall. At this point Moira made a noise like a seal. The ensuing silence was broken a moment later by a hearty scream followed instantly by a clatter and a bone-shaking thud. Mrs. Greer was sitting on the floor, legs sprawled, hat over her eye. She appeared to be attempting to perform some sort of excessively pagan dance. It was Leo, Moira incoherently told Len at home. You know she's English. She said, of course a cup of tea wouldn't hurt me, and she insisted I go ahead and drink it while it was hot, and I couldn't. No, no, wait, said Len in a controlled fury. What? So I drank some, and Leo kicked up and made me burp the burp I was saving up, and—oh, lord. Then he kicked the tea cup out of my hand into her lap, and I wish I was dead. On the following day Len took Moira to the doctor's office, where they read dog-eared copies of The Rotarian and Field and Stream for an hour. Dr. Berry was a round little man with soulful eyes in a twenty-four-hour bedside manner. On the walls of his office, where it is customary for doctors to hang all sorts of diplomas and certificates of membership, Berry had only three. The rest of the space was filled with enlarged, colored photographs of beautiful, beautiful children. When Len followed Moira determinately into the consulting room, Berry looked mildly shocked for a moment. Then apparently decided to carry on as if nothing otra had happened. You could not say that he spoke or even whispered. He rustled. Now Mrs. Connington were looking just fine today. How have we been feeling? Just fine. My husband thinks I'm insane. That's good. Well, that's a funny thing for him to think, isn't it? Berry glanced at the wall midway between himself and Len, then shuffled some file cards rather nervously. Now, have we had any soreness in our stomach? Yes, he's been kicking me black and blue. Berry misinterpreted Moira's brooding glance at Len and his eyebrows twitched involuntarily. The baby, said Len, the baby kicks her. Berry coughed. Any headaches, dizziness, vomiting, swelling in our legs or ankles? No. Alrighty, now let's just find out how much we've gained, and then we'll get up on the examination table. Berry drew the sheet down over Moira's abdomen as if it were an exceptionally fragile egg. He probed delicately with his fat fingertips, then used the stethoscope. Those x-rays, said Len, have they come back yet? Mm-hmm, said Berry. Yes, they have. He moved the stethoscope and listened again. Did they show anything unusual? Len asked. Berry's eyebrows twitched a polite question. We've been having a little argument, Moira said in a strained voice, about whether this is an ordinary baby or not. Berry took the stethoscope tubes away from his ears. He gazed at Moira like an anxious spaniel. Now, let's not worry about that. We're going to have a perfectly healthy, wonderful baby, and if anybody tells us differently, why we'll just tell them to go jump in the lake, won't we? The baby is absolutely normal, Len said in a marked manner. Absolutely. Berry applied the stethoscope again, his face blanched. What's the matter? Len asked after a moment. The doctor's gaze was fixed and glassy. Vagitus uterinus. Berry muttered. He pulled the stethoscope off abruptly and stared at it. No, of course it couldn't be. Now, isn't that a nuisance? We seem to be picking up a radio broadcast with our little stethoscope here. I'll just go and get another instrument. Moira and Len exchanged glances. Moira's was almost excessively bland. Berry confidently came in with a new stethoscope, put the diaphragm against Moira's belly, listened for an instant, and twitched once all over, as if his mainspring had snapped. Visibly jangling, he stepped away from the table. His jaw worked several times before any sound came out. Excuse me, he said, and walked out in an uneven line. Len snatched up the instrument he had dropped. Like a bell ringing under water, muffled but clear, a tiny voice was shouting. You bladder-headed pill pusher! You bedside vacuum! You fifth-rate tree surgeon! You inflated! A pause. Is that you, Connington? Get off the line! I haven't finished with Dr. Bedpan yet. Moira smiled like a Buddha-shaped bomb. Well, she said. We've got to think. Len kept saying over and over. Moira was combing her hair, snapping the comb smartly at the end of each stroke. I've had plenty of time to think ever since it happened. When you catch up, Len flung his tie at the carved wooden pineapple on the corner of the footboard. Moi, be reasonable! The chances against the kid kicking three times in any one-minute period are only about one in a hundred. The chances against anything like... Moira grunted and stiffened for a moment. Then she cocked her head to one side with a listening expression, a new mannerism of hers that was beginning to send intangible snakes crawling up Len's spine. What now? He asked sharply. He says to keep our voices down. He's thinking. Len's fingers clenched convulsively, and a button flew off his shirt, shaking. He pulled his arms out of the sleeves and dropped the shirt on the floor. Look, I just want to get this straight. When he talks to you, you don't hear him shouting all the way up past your liver and lights. What? You know perfectly well. He reads my mind. That isn't the same as Len took a deep breath. Let's not get off on that. What I want to know is what is it like? Do you seem to hear a real voice or do you just know what he's telling you without knowing how you know? Moira put the comb down in order to think better. It isn't like hearing a voice. You never confuse one with the other. It's more... The nearest I can come to it is it's like remembering a voice except that you don't know what's coming. Len picked his tie off the floor and abstractedly began nodding it on his bare chest. And he sees what you see, he knows what you're thinking he can hear when people talk to you. Of course. This is tremendous. Len began to blunder around the bedroom, not looking at where he was going. They thought Macaulay was a genius. This kid isn't even born. I heard him. He was cussing Barry out like Monty Woolly. He had me reading the man who came to dinner two days ago. Len made his way around a small bedside table by trial and error. That's another thing. How much could you say about his personality? I mean, does he seem to know what he's doing or is he just striking out wildly in all directions? He paused. Are you sure he's really conscious at all? Moira began. That's silly and stopped. Defined consciousness, she said doubtfully. All right, what I really mean, why am I wearing this necktie? He ripped it off and threw it over a lampshade. What I mean, are you sure you're really conscious? Okay, you make joke. I laugh, ha ha. What I'm trying to ask is, have you seen any evidence of creative thought, organized thought, or is he just integrating along the lines of instinctive responses? Do you? I know what you mean. Shut up a minute. I don't know. I mean, is he awake or asleep and dreaming about us like the Red King? I don't know. And if that's it, what'll happen when he wakes up? Moira took off her robe, folded it neatly and maneuvered herself between the sheets. Come to bed. Len got one sock off before another thought struck him. He reads your mind. Can he read other peoples? He looked appalled. Can he read mine? He doesn't, whether it's because he can't. I don't know. I think he just doesn't care. Len pulled the other sock halfway down and left it there. In a stiffer tone, he said, one of the things he doesn't care about is whether I have a job. No, he thought it was funny. I wanted to sink through the floor, but I had all I could do to keep from laughing when she fell down. Len, what are we going to do? He swiveled around and looked at her. Look, he said, I didn't mean to sound that gloomy. We'll do something. We'll fix it. Really? I hope so. No. Careful of his elbows and knees, Len climbed into the bed beside her. Okay, now? Mmm. Ugh. Moira tried to sit up suddenly and almost made it. She wound up propped on one elbow and said indignantly, Oh, no. Len stared at her in the dimness. What? She grunted again. Len, get up. All right. Len, hurry. Len fought his way convulsively past the treacherous sheet and staggered up, goose pimpled and tense. What's wrong? You'll have to sleep on the couch. The sheets are in the bottom. On the couch? Are you crazy? I can't help it, she said in a small faint voice. Please don't, let's argue. You'll just have to. Why? We can't sleep in the same bed, she wailed. He says it's, oh, unhygienic. Len's contract was not renewed. He got a job waiting on tables in a resort hotel, an occupation which pays more money than teaching future citizens the rudiments of three basic sciences, a but for which Len had no aptitude. He lasted three days at it. He was then idle for a week and a half until his four years of college physics earned him employment as a clerk in an electrical shop. His employer was a cheerfully aggressive man who assured Len that there were great opportunities in radio and television, and firmly believed that the atom bomb tests were causing all the bad weather. Moira in her eighth month walked to the county library every day and trundled a load of books home in the perambulator. Little Leo it appeared was working his way simultaneously through biology, astrophysics, phrenology, chemical engineering, architecture, Christian science, psychosomatic medicine, marine law, business management, yoga, crystallography, metaphysics and modern literature. His domination of Moira's life remained absolute and his experiments with her regimen continued. One week she ate nothing but nuts and fruit washed down with distilled water. The next she was on a diet of porterhouse steak, dandelion greens, and had a call. With the coming of full summer, fortunately few of the high school staff were in evidence. Len met Dr. Berry once on the street. Berry started, twitched, and walked off rapidly in an entirely new direction. The diabolical event was due on or about July 29th. Len crossed off each day on their wall calendar with an empathetic black grease pencil. It would, he supposed, be an uncomfortable thing at best to be the parent of a super prodigy. Leo would no doubt be dictator of the world by the time he was fifteen unless he would be assassinated first, but almost anything would be a fair price for getting Leo out of his maternal fortress. Then there was the day that Len came home to find Moira weeping over the typewriter with a half-inch stack of manuscript beside her. It isn't anything, I'm just tired. He started this after lunch. Look! Len turned the face down sheaf the right way up. Droning, abraising, the demiurge. Higher begrims the tail. Eyes undotted, grueling, and looking, turns off. Alarm, seizes clothes, stewed beardly a wretch. Pants, therefore, shoes weep. Ponds, let the pants take air of them souls. The first three sheets were all like that. The fourth was a perfectly good Petrarchian sonnet, reviling the current administration and the political party of which Len was a registration-day member. The fifth was hand-lettered in the Cyrillic alphabet and illustrated with geometric diagrams. Len put it down and stared shakily at Moira. No. Go on, she said. Read the rest. The sixth and seventh were obscene limericks, and the eighth, ninth, and so on to the end of the stack were what looked like the first chapters of a rattling good historical adventure novel. Its chief characters were Cyrus the Great, his jaunty, bosomed daughter Lygia, of whom Len had never previously heard, and a one-armed Greco-mead adventurer named Xanthes. There were also courtesans, spies, apparitions, scullery slaves, oracles, cutthroats, lepers, priests, and men-at-arms in magnificent profusion. He's decided, said Moira, what he wants to be when he's born. Leo refused to be bothered with mundane details. When there were eighty pages of the manuscript, it was Moira who invented a title and byline for it. The Virgin of Persepolis, by Leon Len, and mailed it off to a literary agent in New York. His response a week later was cautiously enthusiastic. He asked for an outline of the remainder of the novel. Moira replied that this was impossible, trying to sound as unworldly and impenetrably artistic as she could. She enclosed the thirty odd pages Leo had turned out through her in the meantime. Nothing was heard from the agent for two weeks. At the end of this time, Moira received an astonishing document exquisitely printed and bound in imitation leather. Thirty-two pages including the index containing three times as many clauses as a lease. This turned out to be a book contract. With it came the agent's check for nine hundred dollars. Len tilted his ma-pandle against the wall and straightened carefully, conscious of every individual gritty muscle in his bag. How did women do housework every day, seven days a week, fifty-two goddamn weeks a year? It was a little cooler now that the sun was down and he was working strip to the shorts and bath slippers, but he might as well have been wearing an overcoat in a Turkish bath. The faint whisper of Moira's monstrous new electrical typewriter stopped, leaving a fainter hum. Len went into the living room and sagged on one arm of a chair. Moira gleaming sweatily in a floured housecoat was lighting a cigarette. How's it going? he asked, hoping for an answer. He hadn't always received one. She switched off the machine wearily. Page 289. Zamfies killed an axonander. Thought he would. How about Ganesh and Zeusius? I don't know, she frowned. I can't figure it out. You know who it was that raped Marianne in the garden? No. Who? Ganesh. You're kidding. Nope. She pointed to the stack of TypeScript. See for yourself. Len didn't move. But Ganesh was in Lydia buying back the sapphire he didn't return till... I know, I know, but he wasn't. That was Zeusius in a putty nose with his beard died. It's all perfectly logical the way Leo explains it. Zeusius overheard Ganesh talking to the three Mongols. You remember? Ganesh thought there was somebody behind the curtain, only that was when they heard Lygia scream, and while their backs were turned. All right, but for God's sake, this fouls everything up. If Ganesh never went to Lydia, then he couldn't have had anything to do with his tempering Cyrus's armor. And Zeusius couldn't either because... It's exasperating, I know. He's going to pull another rabbit out of the hat and clear everything up, but I don't see how. Len brooded. It beats me. It had to be either Ganesh or Zeusius, or Philomenes, though that doesn't seem possible. Look, dammit, if Zeusius knew about the sapphire all the time that rules out Philomenes once and for all, unless... No. I forgot about that business in the temple. Um, do you think Leo really knows what he's doing? I'm certain. Lately I've been able to tell what he's thinking even when he isn't talking to me. I mean, just generally, like when he's puzzling over something or when he's feeling mean. It's going to be something brilliant and he knows what it is, but he won't tell me. We'll just have to wait. I guess so. Len stood up grunting. You want me to see if there's anything in the pot? Please. Len wandered into the kitchen, turned the flame on under the Sylex, stared briefly at the dishes waiting in the sink and wandered out again. Since the onslaught of the novel, Leo had relinquished his interest in Moira's diet, and she had been living on coffee. Small blessings. Moira was leaning back with her eyes closed, looking very tired. How's the money? She asked without moving. Lousy. We're down to twenty-one bucks. She raised her head and opened her eyes wide. We couldn't be, Len. How could anybody go through nine hundred dollars that fast? Typewriter. Then the dictaphone that Leo thought he wanted till about half an hour after it was paid for. We spent less than fifty on ourselves, I think. Rent. Groceries. It goes when there isn't any coming in. She sighed. I thought it would last longer. So did I. If he doesn't finish this thing in a few days, I'll have to go look for work again. Oh. That isn't so good. How am I going to take care of the house and do Leo's writing for him? I know, but... All right. If it works out fine. If it doesn't, he must be near the end by now. She stubbed out her cigarette abruptly and sat up, hands over the keyboard. He's getting ready again. See about that coffee. Will you? I'm half dead. Len poured two cups and carried them in. Moira was still sitting poised in front of the typewriter with a curious half-formed expression on her face. Abruptly the carriage whipped over, muttered to itself briefly and thumped the paper up twice. Then it stopped. Moira's eyes got bigger and rounder. What's the matter? said Len. He looked over her shoulder. The last line on the page read, To be continued in our next. Moira's hands curled into small helpless fists. After a moment she turned off the machine. What? said Len incredulously. To be continued, what kind of talk is that? He says he's bored with the novel. Moira replied dully. He says he knows the ending, so it's artistically complete. It doesn't matter whether anybody else thinks so or not. She paused. But he says that isn't the real reason. Well... He's got two reasons. One is that he doesn't want to finish the book till he's certain he'll have complete control of the money it earns. Yes, said Len, swallowing a lump of anger. That makes a certain amount of sense. It's his book if he once guarantees. You haven't heard the other one. All right, let's have it. He wants to teach us, so we'll never forget who the boss is in this family. Len, I'm awfully tired. Moira complained piteously late that night. Let's just go over it once more. There has to be some way. He still isn't talking to you? I haven't felt anything from him for the last twenty minutes. I think he's asleep. All right, let's suppose he isn't going to listen to reason. I think we'd better. Len made an incoherent noise. Well, okay. I still don't see why we can't write the last chapter ourselves. It'd only be a few pages. Go ahead and try. Not me. You've done a little writing. Damned good, too, and if you're so sure all the clues are there. Look, if you say you can't do it all right, we'll hire somebody, a professional writer. It happens all the time. Thorn Smith's last novel. It wasn't Thorn Smith's, and it wasn't a novel, she said dogmatically. But it's solved. What one writer starts, another can finish. Nobody ever finished the mystery of Edwin Drude. Oh, hell. Len, it's impossible. It is. Let me finish. If you're thinking we could have somebody rewrite the last part Leo did. Yeah, I just thought of that. Even that wouldn't do any good. You'd have to go all the way back almost to page one. It would be another story when you got through. Let's go to bed. Moi, do you remember when we used to worry about the Law of Opposites? The Law of Opposites, when we used to be afraid the kid would turn out to be a pick-and-shovel man with a pointy head. He turned. Moira was standing with one hand on her belly and the other behind her back. She looked as if she were about to start practicing a low bow, and doubted she could make it. What's the matter now? He asked. Pain in the small of my back. Bad one? No. Belly hurt too? She frowned. Don't be foolish. I'm feeling for the contraction. There it comes. The—but you just said the small of your back. Where do you think labor pains usually start? The pains were coming at 20-minute intervals, and the taxi had not arrived. Moira was packed and ready. Len was trying to set her a good example by remaining calm. He strolled over to the wall calendar, gazed at it in an offhand manner, and turned away. Len, I know it's only the 15th of July, she said impatiently. Huh? I didn't say anything about that. You said it seven times. Sit down. You're making me nervous. Len perched on the corner of the table, folded his arms, and immediately got up to look out the window. On the way back he circled the table in an aimless way, picked up a bottle of ink, and shook it to see if the cap was on tight. Stumbled over a waist-basket, carefully upended it, and sat down with an air of Isige-suie, Isige-reste. Nothing to worry about, he said firmly. Women have kids all the time. True. What for? he demanded violently. Moira grinned at him, then winced slightly and looked at the clock. Eighteen minutes this time. They're getting closer. When she relaxed, Len put a cigarette in his mouth and lighted it in only two tries. How's Leo taking it? Isn't saying. He feels—she concentrated. Apprehensive. He tells me he's feeling strange, and he doesn't like it. I don't think he's entirely awake. Funny. I'm glad this is happening now, Len announced. So am I, but— Look, said Len, moving energetically to the arm of the chair. We've always had it pretty good, haven't we? Not that it hasn't been tough at times, but you know. I know. Well, that's the way it'll be again. Once this is over, I don't care how much of a super brain he is. Once he's born, you know what I mean. The only reason he's had the edge on us all this time is he could get at us, and we couldn't get at him. If he's got the mind of an adult, he can learn to act like one. It's that simple. Moira hesitated. You can't take him out to the woodshed. He's going to be a helpless baby, physically, like anybody else's. He has to be taken care of. All right. There are plenty of other ways. If he behaves, he gets read to. Things like that. That's right, but there's one other thing I thought of. You remember when you said, suppose he's asleep and dreaming, and what happens if he wakes up? Yeah. That reminds me of something else, or maybe it's the same thing. Did you know that a fetus in the womb only gets about half the amount of oxygen in his blood that he'll have when he starts to breathe? Len looked thoughtful. I forgot. Well, that's just one more thing Leo does that babies aren't supposed to. Use as much energy as he does, you mean. What I'm getting at is it can't be because he's getting more than the normal amount of oxygen, can it? I mean, he's the prodigy, not me. He must be using it more efficiently. And if that's it, what will happen when he gets twice as much? They had prepared and disinfected her along with other indignities. And now she could see herself in the reflector of the big delivery table light, the image clear and bright like everything else, but very hallowed and swimmy and looking like a bad statue of Sita. She had no idea how long she had been there. That was the dope, probably. But she was getting pretty tired. Bear down, said the staff doctor kindly, and before she could answer the pain came up like violins, and she had to gulp at the tingly coldness of laughing gas. When the mask was lifted, she said, I am bearing down. But the doctor had gone back to work and wasn't listening. Anyhow, she had Leo. How are you feeling? His answer was muddled because of the anesthetic. But she didn't really need it. Her perception of him was clear darkness and pressure, impatience, a slow satanic anger, and something else. Uncertainty? Dread? Two or three more ought to do it. Bear down. Fear, unmistakable now, and a desperate determination. Doctor, he doesn't want to be born. Seems that way sometimes, doesn't it? Now bear down, good and hard. Tell him, stop, blurred. Too dangerous. Stop, I feel, stop, I don't stop. What, Leo, what? Bear down, the doctor said abstractedly. Faintly, like a voice under water, gasping before it drowns. Hurry, I hate you. Tell him, sealed incubator, tenth oxygen, nine tenths inert gases. Hurry, hurry, hurry. An incubator, she panted. He'll need an incubator to live, won't he? Not this baby, a fine, normal, healthy one. He's idiot-lying, stupid fool. Need incubator, tenth oxygen to tenth. Hurry, before it's— The pressure abruptly ceased. Leo was born. The doctor was holding him up by his heels, red, wrinkled, puny. But the voice was still there, very small, very far away. Too late, same as death. Then a hint of the old, cold arrogance. Now you'll never know who killed Cyrus. The doctor slapped him smartly on the minuscule behind. The wisened malevolent face writhed open, but it was only the angry squall of an ordinary infant that came out. Leo was gone, like a light turned off beneath the measureless ocean. Moira raised her head weakly. Give him one for me, she said. End of Special Delivery by Damon Knight. The Stroke of the Sun by Arthur C. Clark 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 Greg Marguerite The Stroke of the Sun by Arthur C. Clark Kill the umpire. The audience cried. And why shouldn't they? He was on the ball, wasn't he? Someone else should be telling this story. Someone who understands the funny kind of football they play down in South America. Back in Moscow, Idaho, we grab the ball and run with it. In the small but prosperous republic, which I'll call Perivia, they kick it around with their feet. And that is nothing to what they do to the umpire. One of the first things I learned when I got to Perivia after various distressing adventures in the less democratic parts of South America was that last year's match had been lost owing to the navish dishonesty of the referee. He had it seemed penalized most of the players on the team, disallowing a goal and generally made sure that the best side wouldn't win. This diatribe made me quite homesick, but remembering where I was, I merely commented, you should have paid him more money. We did, was the bitter reply, but the Panagoreans got at him later. Too bad, I answered. It's hard nowadays to find an honest man who stays bought. The customs inspector, who'd just taken my last hundred dollar bill, had the grace to blush beneath his stubble as he waved me across the border. The next few weeks were tough, but presently I was back in what I prefer to call the agricultural machinery business. The last thing I had time to bother about was football. I knew that my expensive imports were going to be used at any moment and wanted to make sure that this time my profits went with me when I left the country. Even so, I could hardly ignore the excitement as the day for the return match drew nearer. For one thing it interfered with business. I'd go to a conference arranged with great difficulty and expense at a safe hotel and half of the time everyone would be talking about football. Gentlemen, I protest. Our next consignment of rotary drills is being unloaded tomorrow and unless we get that permit from the Minister of Agriculture, some busy body may open the cases and then... Don't worry, my boy. General Sierra or Colonel Pedro would answer airily. That's already been taken care of. Leave it to the army. I knew better than to retort which army. And for the next ten minutes I'd have to listen to arguments about football tactics and the best way of dealing with recalcitrant referees. It was then that Don Hernando Diaz's name came up for the first time. I knew of him as one of the country's leading industrialists, but he had an equal reputation as playboy, racing car driver, and scientific dilettante. It surprised me to learn that he was one of us, for he was also a favorite of President Ruiz. Naturally, I'd never met him. He had to be very particular about his friends and there were few people who cared to meet me unless they had to. I suspected that something was happening when I took my place in the football stadium on that memorable day. If you think I had no wish to be there, you are quite correct. But Colonel Pedro had given me a ticket and it was unhealthy to hurt his feelings by not using it. There had been a slight delay in admitting the spectators. The police had done their best, but it takes time to search a hundred thousand people for concealed firearms. The visiting team had insisted on this, to the great indignation of the locals. The protests faded swiftly enough, however, as the artillery accumulated at the checkpoints. Then a sweating band played the two national anthems. The teams were presented to El Presidente and his lady, and the cardinal blessed everybody. While we were waiting, I examined the program, a beautifully produced affair that had been given to me by the lieutenant. It was tabloid-sized, printed on art paper, and bound in metal foil that cleaned like silver. You could see your face in it, and I noticed a number of ladies using it to make last-minute repairs and adjustments. I also noticed that this special victory souvenir issue had been paid for by an impressive list of subscribers headed by Don Hernando, who had himself, it seemed, presented 50,000 free copies to our gallant fighting men. If this was a bid for popularity, it seemed a rather naive one, and surely President Ruiz wouldn't let half his army be bottled up in the stadium for the best part of an afternoon. These reflections were interrupted by the roar of the enormous crowd as the play started. For the first ten minutes it was a pretty open game, and I don't think there were more than three fights. The Peruvians just missed one goal. The ball was headed out so neatly that the frantic applause from the Pangorian supporters, who had a special police guard and a fortified section of the stadium all to themselves, went quite unboomed. I began to feel disappointed. Why, if you changed the shape of the ball, this might be a good-natured Idaho game. There was no real work for the Red Cross until nearly half-time when three Peruvians and two Panigoreans, or it may have been the other way around, fused together in a magnificent melee from which only one survivor emerged under his own power. The casualties were carted off amid such pandemonium, and there was a short break while replacements were brought up. This started the first major incident. The Peruvians complained that the other sides wounded were shamming so that fresh reserves could be poured in. But the referee was adamant. The new men came on, and the background noise dropped to just below the threshold of pain as the game resumed. The Panigoreans promptly scored, and though none of my neighbors actually committed suicide, several seemed close to it. The transfusion of new blood had apparently pepped up the visitors, and things looked bad for the home team. Their opponents were passing the ball with such skill that the Peruvian defenses were as porous as a sieve. At this rate, I told myself the Refkin afford to be honest. His side will win anyway, and to give him his due I'd see no sign of any obvious bias so far. I didn't have long to wait. A last-minute rally by the home team blocked a threatened attack on their goal and a mighty kick by one of the defenders sent the ball rocketing toward the other end of the field. Before it had reached the apex of its flight, the piercing shriek of the referee's whistle brought the game to a halt. There was a brief consultation between Ref and Captains. The crowd was roaring its disapproval. What's happening now? I asked, plaintively. The Ref says our man was off sides. But how can he be? He's on top of his own goal. Shush! said the Lieutenant, obviously unwilling to waste time enlightening my ignorance. I don't shush easily, but this time I let it go and tried to work things out for myself. It seemed that the Ref had awarded the Panagorians a free kick at our goal, and I couldn't understand the way everybody felt about it. The ball soared through the air in a beautiful parabola, nicked the post, and canoned in. A mighty roar of anguish rose from the crowd, then died abruptly to a silence that was even more impressive. It was as if a great animal had been wounded, and was biding the time for its revenge. Despite the heat pouring down from the not far from vertical sun, I felt a sudden chill as if a cold wind had swept past me. Not for all the wealth of the Incans would I have changed places with the man sweating out there on the field in his bulletproof vest. We were two down, but there was still hope. A lot could happen before the end of the game. The Peruvians were on their metal now, playing with almost demonic intensity, like men who had accepted a challenge and were going to show that they could beat it. The new spirit paid off promptly. The home team scored one impeccable goal within a couple of minutes, and the crowd went wild with joy. By this time I was shouting like everyone else and telling that referee things I didn't know I could say in Spanish. It was one to two now, and a hundred thousand people were praying and cursing for the goal that would bring us level again. It came just after half time. The ball had been passed to one of our forwards. He ran about fifty feet with it, evaded a couple of the defenders with some neat footwork, and kicked it cleanly into the goal. It had scarcely dropped down from the net when that whistle blew again. Now what? I wondered. He can't disallow that. But he did. The ball, it seemed, had been handled. I've got pretty good eyes, and I never saw it, so I cannot honestly say that I blame anyone for what happened next. The police managed to keep the crowd off the field, though it was touching go for a minute. The two teams drew apart, leaving the center of the pitch bare except for the stubbornly defined figure of the referee. He was probably wondering how he could make his escape from the stadium, and was consoling himself with the thought that when this game was over he could retire for good. The thin high bugle call took everyone completely by surprise. Everyone, that is, except the fifty thousand well-trained men who had been waiting for it with mounting impatience. The whole arena became instantly silent, so silent that I could hear the noise of the traffic outside the stadium. A second time that bugle sounded, and all the vast acreage of faces opposite me vanished in a blinding sea of fire. I cried out and covered my eyes. For one horrified moment I thought of atomic bombs and braced myself uselessly for the blast. But there was no concussion. Only that flickering vial of flame that beat even through my closed eyelids for long seconds then vanished as swiftly as it had come when the bugle blared out for the third and last time. Everything was just as it had been before except for one minor item. Where the referee had been standing there was a small smoldering heap from which a thin column of smoke curled up into the still air. What in Heaven's name had happened? I turned to my companion, who was as shaken as I was. Madre de Dios! I heard him mutter. I never knew it would do that. He was staring not at the small funeral down there on the field, but at the handsome souvenir program spread across his knees, and then, in a flash of incredulous comprehension, I understood. Seldom, do we realize just how much energy there is in sunlight? I've since looked it up, and the experts say that more than a horsepower hits every square yard of the earth. Those fifty thousand well-trained fans with their tinfoil reflectors had intercepted most of the heat falling on one side of that enormous stadium, and aimed it all in one direction. Even allowing for the programs that weren't tilted accurately, the late ref must have absorbed the heat of about a thousand electric fires. He couldn't have felt much. It was as if he had been dropped into a blast furnace. I doubt if even the ingenious Don Hernando realized exactly what would happen when he had talked his trusting friend, President Riaz, into lending him the necessary manpower. The well-drilled fans had been told that the ref would merely be dazzled out of action for the game. But I'm sure that no one had any regrets. They play football for keeps in Purivia. Likewise, politics. While the game was continuing to its now predictable and beneath the benign gaze of a new and understandably docile referee, my friends were hard at work. When our victorious team had marched off the field, the final score was 14-2. Everything had been settled. There had been practically no shooting, and as the president emerged from the stadium, he was politely informed that a seat had been reserved for him on the morning flight to Mexico City. As General Sierra remarked to me when I boarded the same plane as his late chief, we let the army win the football match, and while it was busy, we won the country. So everybody's happy. Though I was too polite to voice any doubts, I could not help thinking that this was a rather shortsighted attitude. Several million Panagoreans were very unhappy indeed, and sooner or later there would be a day of reckoning. I suspect that it's not far away. Last week a friend of mine, who is one of the world's top experts in our specialized field, indiscreetly blurted out one of his problems to me. Joe? he said. Why the devil should anyone want me to build a guided missile that can fit inside a football? End of The Stroke of the Sun by Arthur C. Clark. The Atomic Bomb meant to most people the end. To Henry Bemis it meant something far different, a thing to appreciate and enjoy. For a long time Henry Bemis had had an ambition to read a book, not just the title or the preface or a page somewhere in the middle. He wanted to read the whole thing all the way through from beginning to end. A simple ambition, perhaps, but in the cluttered life of Henry Bemis and impossibility. Henry had no time of his own. There was his wife, Agnes, who owned that part of it that his employer, Mr. Carsville, did not buy. Henry was allowed enough to get to and from work, that in itself being quite a concession on Agnes's part. Also nature had conspired against Henry by handing him with a pair of hopelessly myopic eyes. Poor Henry literally couldn't see his hand in front of his face. For a while when he was very young his parents had thought him an idiot. When they realized it was his eyes they got glasses for him. He was never quite able to catch up. There was never enough time. It looked as though Henry's ambition would never be realized. Then something happened which changed all that. Henry was down in the vault of the East Side Bank in trust when it happened. He had stolen a few moments from the duties of his teller's cage to try to read a few pages of the magazine he had bought that morning. He'd made an excuse to Mr. Carsville about needing bills in large denominations for a certain customer, and then safe inside the dim recesses of the vault he had pulled from inside his coat the pocket-sized magazine. He had just started a picture article cheerfully entitled, The New Weapons and What They'll Do to You. When all the noise in the world crashed in upon his eardrums it seemed to be inside of him and outside of him all at once. Then the concrete floor was rising up at him and the ceiling came slanting down toward him and for a fleeting second Henry thought of a story he had started to read once called The Pit and the Pendulum. He regretted in that insane moment that he had never had time to finish that story to see how it came out. Then all was darkness and quiet and unconsciousness. When Henry came to he knew that something was desperately wrong with the east side bank and trust. The heavy steel door of the vault was buckled and twisted and the floor tilted up at a dizzy angle while the ceiling dipped crazily toward it. Henry gingerly got to his feet moving arms and legs experimentally. Assured that nothing was broken he tenderly raised a hand to his eyes. His precious glasses were intact. Thank God! He would never have been able to find his way out of the shattered vault without them. He made a mental note to write Dr. Torrance to have a spare pair made and mailed to him, blasted nuisance not having his prescription on file locally, but Henry trusted no one but Dr. Torrance to grind those thick lenses into his own complicated prescription. Henry removed the heavy glasses from his face. Instantly the room dissolved into a neutral blur. Henry saw a pink splash that he knew was his hand and a white blob come up to meet the pink as he withdrew his pocket handkerchief and carefully dusted the lenses. As he replaced the glasses they slipped down on the bridge of his nose a little. He had been meaning to have them tightened for some time. He suddenly realized without the radiation actually entering his conscious thoughts that something momentous had happened, something worse than the boiler blowing up, something worse than the gas main exploding, something worse than anything that had ever happened before. He felt that way because it was so quiet. There was no wine of sirens, no shouting, no running, just an ominous and all pervading silence. Henry walked across the slanting floor. Slipping and stumbling on the uneven surface he made his way to the elevator. The car lay crumpled at the foot of the shaft like a discarded accordion. There was something inside of it that Henry could not look at, something that had once been a person, or perhaps several people. It was impossible to tell now. Feeling sick Henry staggered toward the stairway. The steps were still there, but so jumbled and piled back upon one another that it was more like climbing the side of a mountain than mounting a stairway. It was quiet in the huge chamber that had been the lobby of the bank. It looked strangely cheerful with the sunlight shining through the girders where the ceiling had fallen. The dappled sunlight glinted across the silent lobby, and everywhere there were huddled lumps of unpleasantness that made Henry sick as he tried not to look at them. Mr. Carsville, he called, it was very quiet. Something had to be done, of course. This was terrible, right in the middle of a Monday too. Mr. Carsville would know what to do. He called again, more loudly, and his voice cracked hoarsely. Mr. Carsville! And then he saw an arm and shoulder extending out from under a huge fallen block of marble ceiling. In the buttonhole was the white carnation Mr. Carsville had worn to work that morning, and on the third finger of that hand was a massive signet ring also belonging to Mr. Carsville. Numbly Henry realized that the rest of Mr. Carsville was under that block of marble. Henry felt a pang of real sorrow. Mr. Carsville was gone, and so was the rest of the staff. Mr. Wilkinson, and Mr. Emery, and Mr. Prithard, and the same with Pete and Ralph and Jenkins and Hunter, and Pat, the guard, and Willie, the doorman. There was no way to say what was to be done about the Eastside Bank and Trust, except Henry Bemis, and Henry wasn't worried about the bank. There was something he wanted to do. He climbed carefully over piles of fallen masonry. Once he stepped down into something that crunched and squashed beneath his feet, and he set his teeth on edge to keep from retching. The street was not much different from the inside, bright sunlight, and so much concrete to crawl over, but the unpleasantness was much, much worse. Everywhere there were strange, motionless lumps that Henry could not look at. Suddenly he remembered Agnes. He should be trying to get to Agnes, shouldn't he? He remembered a poster he had seen that said, in event of emergency, do not use the telephone. Your loved ones are as safe as you. He wondered about Agnes. He looked at the smashed automobiles, some with their four wheels pointing skyward like the stiffened legs of dead animals. He couldn't get to Agnes now anyway. If she was safe, then she was safe. Otherwise, of course, Henry knew Agnes wasn't safe. He had a feeling that there wasn't anyone safe for a long, long way, maybe not in the whole state, or the whole country, or the whole world. No, that was a thought Henry didn't want to think. He forced it from his mind and turned his thoughts back to Agnes. She had been a pretty good wife, now that it was all said and done. It wasn't exactly her fault if people didn't have time to read nowadays. It was just that there was the house, and the bank, and the yard. There were the Joneses for Bridge, and the Graces for Canasta, and charades with the Bryant's, and the television. The television Agnes loved to watch, but would never watch alone. He never had time to read even a newspaper. He started thinking about last night that business about the newspaper. Henry had settled into his chair. Quietly, afraid that a creaking spring might call to Agnes's attention the fact that he was momentarily unoccupied. He had unfolded the newspaper slowly and carefully. The sharp crackle of the paper would have been a clarion called Agnes. He had glanced at the headlines of the first page. Collapse of conference imminent. He didn't have time to read the article. He turned to the second page. Salon predicts war only days away. He flipped through the pages faster, reading brief snatches here and there, afraid to spend too much time on any one item. On a back page was a brief article entitled Prehistoric Artifacts Unearthed in Yucatan. Henry smiled to himself and carefully folded the sheet of paper into fourths. That would be interesting. He would read all of it. Then it came Agnes's voice. Henry! And then she was upon him. She lightly flicked the paper out of his hands and into the fireplace. He saw the flames lick up and curl possessively around the unread article. Agnes continued, Henry! Tonight is the Jones's bridge night. They'll be here in 30 minutes, and I'm not trust yet, and here you are reading. She had emphasized the last word as though it were an unclean act. Hurry and shave! You know how smooth Jasper Jones's chin always looks, and then straighten up this room. She glanced regretfully toward the fireplace. Oh, dear, that paper! Oh, the television schedule! Oh, well, after the Jones's leave there won't be time for anything but the late, late movie. And don't just sit there, Henry! Hurry! Henry was hurrying now but hurrying too much. He cut his leg on a twisted piece of metal that had once been an automobile fender. He thought about things like lockjaw and gangrene, and his hand trembled as he tied his pocket handkerchief around the wound. In his mind he saw the fire again, licking across the face of last night's newspaper. He thought that now he would have time to read all the newspapers he wanted to, only now there wouldn't be any more. That heap of rubble across the street had been the Gazette building. It was terrible to think there would never be another up-to-date newspaper. Agnes would have been very upset. No television schedule. But then, of course, no television. He wanted to laugh, but he didn't. That wouldn't have been fitting, not at all. He could see the building he was looking for now, but the silhouette was strangely changed. The great circular dome was now a ragged semi-circle, half of it gone, and one of the great wings of the building had fallen in upon itself. A sudden panic gripped Henry Bemis. What if they were all ruined, destroyed, every one of them? What if there wasn't a single one left? Tears of helplessness welled in his eyes as he painfully fought his way over and through the twisted fragments of the city. He thought of the building when it had been whole. He remembered the many nights he had paused outside its wide and welcoming doors. He thought of the warm nights when the doors had been thrown open and he could see the people inside, see them sitting at the plain wooden tables with the stacks of books beside them. He used to think then what a wonderful thing a public library was, a place where anybody, anybody at all, could go in and read. He had been tempted to enter many times. He had watched the people through the open doors, the men in greasy work clothes who sat near the door night after night, laboriously studying a technical journal, perhaps difficult for him but promising a brighter future. There had been an aged scholarly gentleman who sat on the other side of the door, leisurely paging, moving his lips a little as he did so, a man having little time left but rich in time because he could do with it as he chose. Henry had never gone in. He had started up the steps once, got almost to the door but then he remembered Agnes, her questions and shouting and he had turned away. He was going in now, though, almost crawling, his breath coming and stabbing gasps, his hands torn and bleeding. His trouser leg was sticky red where the wound in his leg had soaked through the handkerchief. It was throbbing badly but Henry didn't care. He had reached his destination. Part of the inscription was still there over the now doorless entrance. P-U-B, blank C, L-I-B-R, blank. The rest had been torn away. The place was in shambles. The shelves were overturned, broken, smashed, tilted. Their precious contents spilled in disorder upon the floor. A lot of the books, Henry noted gleefully, were still intact, still whole, still readable. He was literally knee-deep in them. He wallowed in books. He picked one up. The title was, Collected Works of William Shakespeare. Yes, he must read that some time. He laid it aside carefully. He picked up another, Spinoza. He tossed it away, seized another, and another, and still another. Which to read first there were so many. He had been conducting himself a little like a starving man in a delicatessen, grabbing a little of this and a little of that in a frenzy of enjoyment. But now he studied away. From the pile about him he selected one volume, sat comfortably down on an overturned shelf, and opened the book. Henry Bemis smiled. There was the rumble of complaining stone, minute in comparison with the epic complaints following the fall of the bomb. This one occurred under one corner of the shelf, upon which Henry sat. The shelf moved, threw him off balance. The glasses slipped from his nose and fell with a tinkle. He bent down, clawing blindly, and found, finally, their smashed remains. A minor, indirect destruction stemming from the sudden, wholesale smashing of a city, but the only one that greatly interested Henry Bemis. He stared down at the blurred page before him. He began to cry. End of TIME ENOUGH AT LAST by Lynn Venable