https://eykd.net/ Recent content on Thrilling Science Fiction by David Eyk Hugo -- gohugo.io en-us Worlds Enough Studios Fri, 25 May 2018 13:50:26 -0700 https://eykd.net/blog/effective-self-editing/ Sun, 08 May 2022 18:30:56 -0800 https://eykd.net/blog/effective-self-editing/ We were talking on the #PulpRev Discord recently about the problems that authors face with editing: Writing and editing are two separate skills. Writers may also be good editors, but it’s not guaranteed. It’s a big ask to solicit free editing advice from friends and acquaintances. Editing is long, hard, tedious work, and editing a friend’s manuscript risks burning the relationship. Professional editors are expensive. Self-editing is difficult even for an accomplished editor because of the author’s familiarity with the manuscript. https://eykd.net/blog/pulp-on-pulp/ Tue, 19 Jan 2021 11:11:39 -0800 https://eykd.net/blog/pulp-on-pulp/ Did your writing teachers set you up for failure? I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately on how we’re taught to write in school. I took every creative writing courses that was offered in the schools I attended. I learned a ton, and got a lot of good practice in. But I also learned a lot of things that I ended up having to unlearn later. The Creative Writing track in most schools is a funnel to MFA degree programs, where students and professors write stories to try and impress each other. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/1/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/1/ The Plutonian Terror (1933) By Jack Williamson First published in Weird Tales, October 1933 The strange, dead silence of the ether was the first grim hint of unconceived catastrophe. Back to Earth the first explorers of space were slanting, returning from a perilous year on the barren moon, eager to feel again the poignant joys of human intercourse. Through the transparent ports of the Cosmobile’s steel-domed bridge, the two first adventurers of the void scanned with proud joy their native planet. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/10/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/10/ His body was still stiff with the icy, numbing deadness in which the soundless music had left him. And the stalking, mechanical, half-transparent men were near. He staggered toward the nearer tank, grasping the heavy revolver by the barrel. He stumbled against the side of the tank, hammered desperately upon it with the gun. Apparently it was glass, but very thick and tough. White cracks radiated from the points of impact, but it did not shatter. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/11/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/11/ Once again, and slowly, they crossed the circular plain that must have been the site of the planet’s last city. Ellis whispered as they walked across it: “That brain must have been alive when this city was inhabited. It was that old. It clung to an unnatural existence after its world and its kind were dead, gathering evil power of science, until it was able to reach across space with that music. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/12/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/12/ The Cosmobile lifted above the ghostly blue radiance of the pit, and came once more into the clean light of the stars. A bright yellow point, the sun shone across the void, warm and welcoming. Ellis and Keening remained together upon the bridge until the course was set, until the grim and cragged desolation of the black planet had dropped for ever behind. “We are left alone, of all humanity,” Keening whispered solemnly. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/2/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/2/ Mutely wondering, troubled perhaps with some faint icy premonition of the unnamed horror that had ridden into their lives upon the cube, the two of them stood in the control room, beneath the curve of the Cosmobile’s steel hull, gazing after the mysterious object through the small, steel-shuttered ports of laminated glass. Ellis Drew. Robust, red-headed giant, with the big hands and the heavy jaw of a fighting-man. The dynamic, irresistible energy of his large-boned, steel-sinewed body was reflected in his piercingly blue, wide-set eyes. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/3/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/3/ The Cosmobile settled softly into the tangled shrubbery of the wide, Spanish-style patio of Doctor Fredric Durand’s stuccoed dwelling, secluded in the foothills of the lovely Santa Clara valley. Ellis’s heart was leaping. Many times, in the long year of exploration upon the lifeless moon, he had lived over this moment when he should see Tempest again. For in the loneliness of space he had seen life more clearly; he realized that women—or one woman—had gained a place in his being that could not be denied her. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/4/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/4/ Back in the steel ball of the Cosmobile, they floated slowly above the farms and orchards of the lovely Santa Clara valley. Fruit was unpicked, crops untended. Strangely lonely was the countryside, and they saw no human being. In minutes they were above the roofs of San Jose. Below, the streets were empty. The sphere settled into a deserted thoroughfare. Once more they lowered the metal ladder, and descended. The midday sun beat down upon dusty asphalt. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/5/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/5/ Ellis and Keening went back aboard the iron globe, and drifted above the dead fleet upon the bay. Derelicts of many nations. Ferries of Charon abandoned on the Styx. Over Alameda they flew—and it was mortally quiet as San Jose and San Francisco had been. And then over Oakland. The streets of half that little city were black with motionless, crowded cars. Its railway tracks were lined unendingly with rolling stock. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/6/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/6/ The steel ball rose in the dawn, and crossed the bay again, to empty Market Street. For a week they were busy there. Canned food they discovered in abundance. In a machine shop, Ellis found cylinders of compressed oxygen. Keening visited a hardware store, and brought back sporting-rifles, revolvers, and ammunition. But they did not often separate. They were held together by instinctive dread of the lonely, lifeless Earth. Ellis had intended to find some small dynamo-generator, which he could run to re-charge the batteries of the, ether-ship. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/7/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/7/ The voyage was done. A black landscape, beneath the Cosmobile, expanded into frozen, starlit desolation. Perilously, the iron ball settled upon a ragged ebon crag. All about, in pallid star-shine, tumbled bleak and elemental wilderness of barren stone. Dark planet. Livid, jagged mountains leaping with savage teeth at cruel, starjeweled sky. Titanic peaks, gigantic buttresses of dark rock, cleft with colossal canyons that were wells of ominous obscurity. Jet, Cyclopean ranges, plunging into gigantic gorges. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/8/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/8/ They had gone perhaps a hundred yards, when Keening voiced through his bandages a muted, whispering scream. With an icy, shaking hand, he grasped Ellis Drew’s arm, and pointed. Then both men dropped to their knees, and began to fire. It is significant of their instinctive horror of the approaching things that they shot at once, without question or hesitation. The little group of beings that came running toward them along the bottom of the ravine, between frowning walls of blue-shining stone, wore the shape of men. https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/9/ Mon, 26 Oct 2020 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/williamson-terror/9/ Free of the dread, hypnotic music, Ellis was yet strangely paralyzed. His body stood erect, stiff and oddly tingling. If took all the power of his will to turn his head, to survey this weird space into which the vibration had swept them. The place was titanic. Not less than two thousand feet across could the circular floor have been; the dome was fully half that high. Resting in the middle of the floor, and surrounded by colossal mechanisms, was a red, pulsating mountain. https://eykd.net/blog/write-a-salable-story-today/ Sat, 18 Jul 2020 14:24:38 -0700 https://eykd.net/blog/write-a-salable-story-today/ Would you believe you could write a salable short story today? Ad links! (Learn more) You could have five or more in a week, if you put your mind to it. You don’t have to be a good writer, you just need a little guidance. With a solid plan, it will only take you a few hours to write a short story. Once you’ve written it, you can edit and revise it, polish it until it shines. https://eykd.net/scrivener/ Sat, 30 May 2020 08:28:43 -0700 https://eykd.net/scrivener/ Tools are important, right? You could use a screwdriver to pound a nail in, but you’d be happier using a hammer. On the other hand, tools aren’t all that important when you’re first getting started. The Cadillac of hammers. Guess how much it costs! (Yes, that's an ad link! 😆) When you’re first learning to pound in a nail, a dollar store hammer will do just as well as a hand-crafted, imported Dalluge 16 oz. https://eykd.net/blog/time-timer/ Wed, 29 Apr 2020 20:50:21 -0700 https://eykd.net/blog/time-timer/ Do you write? Do you do timed writes? You should. I’ll tell you how. But first let me tell you my story. I recently determined to develop a rock-solid foundational writing habit for myself. Every morning, I write for at least five minutes. I don’t have to write any longer than that, but I have to put in those five minutes. It’s non-negotiable. I started out using a timer app. Depending on my volume settings, the alarm would startle me, or I couldn’t hear it at all. https://eykd.net/home-gym/bench-press/ Mon, 16 Mar 2020 06:19:40 -0700 https://eykd.net/home-gym/bench-press/ The Bench Press Ad links! (Learn more) This is an upper-body free-weight exercise that engages your upper front torso and arms. The authors of Body by Science ← ad link (?) recommend this exercise as the fourth of their Big 5 base workout program. With all the exercises in the Big 5, always use slow (slooow), smooth, controlled motions. Form’s really important on this one, especially as you enter into heavier weights. https://eykd.net/home-gym/barbell-row/ Mon, 16 Mar 2020 06:19:40 -0700 https://eykd.net/home-gym/barbell-row/ The Bent-over Barbell Row Ad links! (Learn more) This is an upper-body free-weight exercise that engages your entire torso and arms. The authors of Body by Science ← ad link (?) recommend this exercise as the first of their Big 5 base workout program. With all the exercises in the Big 5, always use slow (slooow), smooth, controlled motions. If you’re not sure how to perform the barbell row, here are some tips on form: https://eykd.net/home-gym/free-weights/ Mon, 16 Mar 2020 06:19:40 -0700 https://eykd.net/home-gym/free-weights/ The Big 5 Ad links! (Learn more) In their seminal book, Body by Science ← ad link (?), bodybuilder John Little and fitness medicine expert Dr. Doug McGuff outline a basic strength training program they dub “the mutual fund of exercises”: a solid, reliable base of five exercises that any healthy individual can perform and receive beneficial results. Although it’s simple, the program works for beginners and experts alike and is backed by both experience and documented studies. https://eykd.net/home-gym/dead-lift/ Mon, 16 Mar 2020 06:19:40 -0700 https://eykd.net/home-gym/dead-lift/ The Dead Lift Ad links! (Learn more) This is a free-weight exercise that engages your entire body, especially your legs. The authors of Body by Science ← ad link (?) recommend this exercise as the third of their Big 5 base workout program. With all the exercises in the Big 5, always use slow (slooow), smooth, controlled motions. Form’s really important on this one. If you’re not sure how to perform the dead lift, here are some tips: https://eykd.net/home-gym/squat/ Mon, 16 Mar 2020 06:19:40 -0700 https://eykd.net/home-gym/squat/ The Squat Ad links! (Learn more) This is a free-weight exercise that engages your entire body, especially your legs. The authors of Body by Science ← ad link (?) recommend this exercise as the fifth of their Big 5 base workout program. With all the exercises in the Big 5, always use slow (slooow), smooth, controlled motions. Form’s really important on this one, especially as you enter into heavier weights. https://eykd.net/home-gym/standing-overhead-press/ Mon, 16 Mar 2020 06:19:40 -0700 https://eykd.net/home-gym/standing-overhead-press/ The Standing Overhead Press Ad links! (Learn more) This is a free-weight exercise that engages your entire body, but especially our upper torso and arms. The authors of Body by Science ← ad link (?) recommend this exercise as the second of their Big 5 base workout program. With all the exercises in the Big 5, always use slow (slooow), smooth, controlled motions. If you’re not sure how to perform the standing overhead press, here are some tips on form: https://eykd.net/poetry/against-such-things/ Tue, 25 Feb 2020 06:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/poetry/against-such-things/ On Generations I’ve been hearing a lot of talk about generations on various Twitters and blogs. Thought-provoking stuff. Being a member of Generation Y myself—that is, too young to be Generation X, too old to be a Millenial—the last generation to remember a time before the Internet and the mobile phone, I feel the tug of complacent nostalgia. I’ve been through the disillusionment, I’ve been tempted by the cynicism, and I’ve questioned the judgement of those who came before me. https://eykd.net/blog/writing-faster/ Thu, 08 Aug 2019 06:00:04 -0700 https://eykd.net/blog/writing-faster/ Ad links! (Learn more) I just finished reading “How to Write Fast” by Sean Platt and Neeve Silver, from the Sterling & Stone writing studio. This was a slim yet inspiring book. It reads quickly and delivers an effective payload. I’ve struggled with writing consistently, and when I do write, it feels so slow! This was the right book at the right time for me. One note on “writing fast”: the authors make it clear that they don’t feel any need to sacrifice quality for speed, yet their claimed rates are mind-boggling: 1 million words per year, or more! https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/10/ There is a kind of a fog over everything after that. But I do remember it was very busy for a while. When the fog lifted a bit I realized I was the only one still standing. Or leaning rather. It was a good thing the wall was there. Ned came in through the street door carrying a very bashed-looking Brooklyn Eddie. I hoped I had done all that. Eddie’s wrists were fastened together with cuffs. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/11/ When I pulled my thoughts together the answer was obvious. Too obvious. I made as long a job as I could of reloading my gun. “Refill your handcuff box, Ned. We are going out.” Like a good cop he asked no questions. I locked the outside door when we left and gave him the key. “Here. There’s a good chance you will be the only one left to use this before the day is over. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/12/ It was a very busy day. Things have quieted down a good deal since then. Billy is out of the hospital and wearing my old sergeant’s stripes. Even Fats is back, though he is sober once in a while now and has trouble looking me in the eye. We don’t have much to do because in addition to being a quiet town this is now an honest one. Ned is on foot patrol nights and in charge of the lab and files days. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/2/ I flipped through the book, wondering. One thing I never have had much to do with is robots, so I know just as much about them as any Joe in the street. Probably less. The book was filled with pages of fine print, fancy mathematics, wiring diagrams and charts in nine colors and that kind of thing. It needed close attention. Which attention I was not prepared to give at the time. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/3/ I went back to the blotter. Five drunks in the tank, an average night’s haul. While I wrote them up Fats dragged in the sixth one. “Locked himself in the ladies' john at the spaceport and resisting arrest,” he reported. “D and D. Throw him in with the rest.” Fats steered his limp victim across the floor, matching him step for dragging step. I always marveled at the way Fats took care of drunks, since he usually had more under his belt than they had. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/4/ It was around nine at night and the Chief was just going home when the call came in. He took it, listened for a moment, then hung up. “Greenback’s liquor store. He got held up again. Says to come at once.” “That’s a change. Usually we don’t hear about it until a month later. What’s he paying protection money for if China Joe ain’t protecting? What’s the rush now?” The Chief chewed his loose lip for a while, finally and painfully reached a decision. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/5/ I never heard the rest of it because I was out the door and into the car. There were a hundred things that could happen if Ned got there before me. Guns could go off, people hurt, lots of things. And the police would be to blame for it all—sending a tin robot to do a cop’s job. Maybe the Chief had ordered Ned there, but clearly as if the words were painted on the windshield of the car, I knew I would be dragged into it. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/6/ The Chief was still sitting there with that bloodless look when we marched in. I didn’t believe it could be done, but he went two shades whiter. “You made the pinch,” he whispered. Before I could straighten him out a second and more awful idea hit him. He grabbed a handful of shirt on the first torpedo and poked his face down. “You with China Joe,” he snarled. The punk made the error of trying to be cute so the Chief let him have one on the head with the open hand that set his eyes rolling like marbles. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/7/ “Yeah, China Joe.” I thought it was an echo at first, then realized that someone had eased in the door behind me. Something called Alex. Six feet of bone, muscle and trouble. China Joe’s right hand man. He imitated a smile at the Chief who sank a bit lower in his chair. “China Joe wants you should tell him why you got smart cops going around and putting the arm on people and letting them shoot up good liquor. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/8/ The Chief was beyond caring at this point. He didn’t blink an eye when I took Fats' badge off the desk. I don’t know why I did it, perhaps I thought it was only fair. Ned had started all the trouble and I was just angry enough to want him on the spot when it was finished. There were two rings on his chest plate, and I was not surprised when the badge pin fitted them neatly. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-harrison/9/ China Joe was angry, and with a reason. “That’s the thing … that big-mouthed tin radio set over there. We heard about it and we’re taking care of it!” The mob jumped aside then or hit the deck and I saw there was a guy kneeling in the door with a rocket launcher. Shaped anti-tank charges, no doubt. That was my last thought as the thing let go with a “whoosh. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/1/ Arm of the Law (1958) by Harry Harrison Transcriber’s Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe August 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors have been corrected without note. It was a big, coffin-shaped plywood box that looked like it weighed a ton. This brawny type just dumped it through the door of the police station and started away. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/10/ There is a kind of a fog over everything after that. But I do remember it was very busy for a while. When the fog lifted a bit I realized I was the only one still standing. Or leaning rather. It was a good thing the wall was there. Ned came in through the street door carrying a very bashed-looking Brooklyn Eddie. I hoped I had done all that. Eddie’s wrists were fastened together with cuffs. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/11/ When I pulled my thoughts together the answer was obvious. Too obvious. I made as long a job as I could of reloading my gun. “Refill your handcuff box, Ned. We are going out.” Like a good cop he asked no questions. I locked the outside door when we left and gave him the key. “Here. There’s a good chance you will be the only one left to use this before the day is over. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/12/ It was a very busy day. Things have quieted down a good deal since then. Billy is out of the hospital and wearing my old sergeant’s stripes. Even Fats is back, though he is sober once in a while now and has trouble looking me in the eye. We don’t have much to do because in addition to being a quiet town this is now an honest one. Ned is on foot patrol nights and in charge of the lab and files days. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/2/ I flipped through the book, wondering. One thing I never have had much to do with is robots, so I know just as much about them as any Joe in the street. Probably less. The book was filled with pages of fine print, fancy mathematics, wiring diagrams and charts in nine colors and that kind of thing. It needed close attention. Which attention I was not prepared to give at the time. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/3/ I went back to the blotter. Five drunks in the tank, an average night’s haul. While I wrote them up Fats dragged in the sixth one. “Locked himself in the ladies' john at the spaceport and resisting arrest,” he reported. “D and D. Throw him in with the rest.” Fats steered his limp victim across the floor, matching him step for dragging step. I always marveled at the way Fats took care of drunks, since he usually had more under his belt than they had. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/4/ It was around nine at night and the Chief was just going home when the call came in. He took it, listened for a moment, then hung up. “Greenback’s liquor store. He got held up again. Says to come at once.” “That’s a change. Usually we don’t hear about it until a month later. What’s he paying protection money for if China Joe ain’t protecting? What’s the rush now?” The Chief chewed his loose lip for a while, finally and painfully reached a decision. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/5/ I never heard the rest of it because I was out the door and into the car. There were a hundred things that could happen if Ned got there before me. Guns could go off, people hurt, lots of things. And the police would be to blame for it all—sending a tin robot to do a cop’s job. Maybe the Chief had ordered Ned there, but clearly as if the words were painted on the windshield of the car, I knew I would be dragged into it. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/6/ The Chief was still sitting there with that bloodless look when we marched in. I didn’t believe it could be done, but he went two shades whiter. “You made the pinch,” he whispered. Before I could straighten him out a second and more awful idea hit him. He grabbed a handful of shirt on the first torpedo and poked his face down. “You with China Joe,” he snarled. The punk made the error of trying to be cute so the Chief let him have one on the head with the open hand that set his eyes rolling like marbles. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/7/ “Yeah, China Joe.” I thought it was an echo at first, then realized that someone had eased in the door behind me. Something called Alex. Six feet of bone, muscle and trouble. China Joe’s right hand man. He imitated a smile at the Chief who sank a bit lower in his chair. “China Joe wants you should tell him why you got smart cops going around and putting the arm on people and letting them shoot up good liquor. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/8/ The Chief was beyond caring at this point. He didn’t blink an eye when I took Fats' badge off the desk. I don’t know why I did it, perhaps I thought it was only fair. Ned had started all the trouble and I was just angry enough to want him on the spot when it was finished. There were two rings on his chest plate, and I was not surprised when the badge pin fitted them neatly. https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/harrison-arm/9/ China Joe was angry, and with a reason. “That’s the thing … that big-mouthed tin radio set over there. We heard about it and we’re taking care of it!” The mob jumped aside then or hit the deck and I saw there was a guy kneeling in the door with a rocket launcher. Shaped anti-tank charges, no doubt. That was my last thought as the thing let go with a “whoosh. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/1/ Arson Plus (1923) Dashiell Hammett Jim Tarr picked up the cigar I rolled across his desk, looked at the band, bit off an end, and reached for a match. “Three for a buck,” he said. “You must want me to break a couple of laws for you this time.” I had been doing business with this fat sheriff of Sacramento County for four or five years — ever since I came to the Continental Detective Agency’s San Francisco office — and I had never known him to miss an opening for a sour crack; but it didn’t mean anything. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/10/ The reply to my Seattle telegram was waiting for me at the Continental Detective Agency when I arrived. MRS EDWARD COMERFORD RENTED APARTMENT AT ADDRESS YOU GAVE ON MAY TWENTY-FIVE. GAVE IT UP JUNE 6. TRUNKS TO SAN FRANCISCO SAME DAY CHECK NUMBERS ON FOUR FIVE TWO FIVE EIGHT SEVEN AND EIGHT AND NINE. Tracing baggage is no trick at all, if you have the dates and check numbers to start with — as many a bird who is wearing somewhat similar numbers on his chest and back, because he overlooked that detail when making his getaway, can tell you — and twenty-five minutes in a baggage-room at the Ferry and half an hour in the office of a transfer company gave me my answer. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/11/ It was O’Hara from police headquarters. We turned the apartment upside down and inside out, but didn’t find anything of importance except the will she had told me about, dated July eighth, and her uncle’s life-insurance policies. They were all dated between May fifteenth and June tenth, and added up to a little more than $200,000. I spent an hour grilling the maid after O’Hara had taken Evelyn Trowbridge away, but she didn’t know any more than I did. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/12/ McClump and I held a conference on the fly, and then I got a car from the nearest garage and headed for Tavender. We made time going out, and got there before the general store had closed for the night. The stuttering Philo separated himself from the two men with whom he had been talking, and followed me to the rear of the store. “Do you keep an itemized list of the laundry you handle? https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/13/ “Because he was — Thornburgh.” He didn’t say anything for about five minutes. Then: “I reckon that’s right. How’d you know it?” We were sitting beside the wreckage now, waiting for the police that we had sent our commandeered chauffeur to phone for. “He had to be,” I said, “when you think it all over. Funny we didn’t hit on it before! All that stuff we were told about Thornburgh had a fishy sound. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/2/ We found the Coonses in their room at the hotel on I Street. Mr. Coons was a small-boned, plump man with the smooth, meaningless face and the suavity of the typical male house-servant. His wife was a tall, stringy woman, perhaps five years older than her husband — say, forty — with a mouth and chin that seemed shaped for gossiping. But he did all the talking, while she nodded her agreement to every second or third word. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/3/ He told us that the Coonses had come into his office on June second, looking for work; and had given Mrs. Edward Comerford, 45 Woodmansee Terrace, Seattle, Washington, as reference. In reply to a letter — he always checked up the references of servants — Mrs. Comerford had written that the Coonses had been in her employ for a number of years, and had been “extremely satisfactory in every respect.” On June thirteenth, Thornburgh had telephoned the bureau, asking that a man and his wife be sent out to keep house for him, and Allis sent out two couples he had listed. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/4/ After luncheon, McClump and I called on Howard Henderson — the man who had seen the fire while driving home from Wayton. He had an office in the Empire Building, with his name and the title Northern California Agent for Krispy Korn Krumbs on the door. He was a big, careless-looking man of forty-five or so, with the professionally jovial smile that belongs to the traveling salesman. He had been in Wayton on business the day of the fire, he said, and had stayed there until rather late, going to dinner and afterward playing pool with a grocer named Hammersmith — one of his customers. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/5/ An enterprising incendiary couldn’t have found a lovelier spot in which to turn himself loose, if he looked the whole county over. Tree-topped hills hid it from the rest of the world, on three sides; while away from the fourth, an uninhabited plain rolled down to the river. The county road that passed the front gate was shunned by automobiles, so McClump said, in favor of the state highway to the north. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/6/ Tavender turned out to be a crossroads settlement of a general store and post office, a garage, a church, and six dwellings, about two miles from Thornburgh’s place. McClump knew the storekeeper and postmaster, a scrawny little man named Philo, who stuttered moistly. “I n-n-never s-saw Th-thornburgh,” he said, “and I n-n-never had any m-mail for him. C-coons”-it sounded like one of these things butterflies come out of-“used to c-come in once a week to-to order groceries — they d-didn’t have a phone. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/7/ From Tavender we drove over to Wayton. Luce’s description had fit Henderson all right, but while we were at it, we thought we might as well check up to make sure that he had been coming from Wayton. We spent exactly twenty-five minutes in Wayton; ten of them finding Hammersmith, the grocer with whom Henderson had said he dined and played pool; five minutes finding the proprietor of the pool room; and ten verifying Henderson’s story… . https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/8/ Next morning, at the address McClump had given me — a rather elaborate apartment building on California Street — I had to wait three-quarters of an hour for Mrs. Evelyn Trowbridge to dress. If I had been younger, or a social caller, I suppose I’d have felt amply rewarded when she finally came in — a tall, slender woman of less than thirty; in some sort of clinging black affair; with a lot of black hair over a very white face, strikingly set off by a small red mouth and big hazel eyes. https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/hammett-arson/9/ From Mrs. Trowbridge’s apartment I went to the Francisco Hotel. Thornburgh had been registered there from May tenth to June thirteenth, and hadn’t attracted much attention. He had been a tall, broad-shouldered, erect man of about fifty, with rather long brown hair brushed straight back; a short, pointed brown beard, and a healthy, ruddy complexion — grave, quiet, punctilious in dress and manner; his hours had been regular and he had had no visitors that any of the hotel employees remembered. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/1/ Asteroid of Fear By Raymond Z. Gallun [Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories March 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The space ship landed briefly, and John Endlich lifted the huge Asteroids Homesteaders Office box, which contained everything from a prefabricated house to toothbrushes for his family, down from the hold-port without help or visible effort. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/10/ He was like an ant-swarm, rebuilding a trampled nest—oblivious to the certainty of its being trampled again. First he scrambled and leaped around, collecting his scattered and damaged gear. He found that his main atomic battery—so necessary to all that he had to do—was damaged and unworkable. And he had no hope that he could repair it. But this didn’t stop his feverish activity. Now he started unrolling great bolts of a transparent, wire-strengthened plastic. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/11/ It was sealed, and apparently self-contained. Nothing could have damaged it very much, in the frigid stillness of millions of years. Its secrets were hidden within it. But they could not be too unfamiliar. And its presence was logical. A small, compact power unit. Nervously, he turned a little wheel. A faint vibration was transmitted to his gloved hand. And the globe in the ceiling began to glow. He shut the thing off again. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/12/ He awoke to blink at blazing sunshine. Then his whole body became clammy with perspiration, as he thought of his lapse from responsibility; glancing over, he saw that Rose was sleeping as soundly as the kids. His wide eyes searched for the disaster that he knew he’d find…. But the wide roof was all the way up, now—intact. It made a great, squarish bubble, the skin of which was specially treated to stop the hard and dangerous part of the ultra-violet rays of the sun, and also the lethal portion of the cosmic rays. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/13/ It was a mad day of toil. The hours were pitifully short. They couldn’t be stretched to cover more than a fraction of all the work that Endlich wanted to get done. But the low gravity reduced the problem of heavy lifting to almost zero, at least. And he did get the house assembled—so that Rose and the kids and he could sleep inside its sealed doors. Sealed, that is, if Neely or somebody didn’t use a blaster or an explosive cap or bullet—in an orgy of perverted humor…. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/14/ As it turned out, the Endlichs had a reprieve of two months and fourteen days, almost to the hour and figured on a strictly Earth-time scale. For what it was worth, they accomplished a great deal. In their great plastic greenhouse, supported like a colossal bubble by the humid, artificially-warmed air inside it, long troughs were filled with pebbles and hydroponic solution. And therein tomatoes were planted, and lettuce, radishes, corn, onions, melons—just about everything in the vegetable line. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/15/ Sure. Life got to be fairly okay, in spite of hard work. The Endlichs had conquered the awful stillness with life-sounds. Growing plants kept the air in their greenhouse fresh and breathable by photosynthesis. John Endlich did a lot of grinning and whistling. His temper never flared once. Deep down in him there was only a brooding certainty that the calm couldn’t last. For, from all reports, trouble seethed at the mining camp. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/16/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/16/ He didn’t have to wait at all for results. Bloodshot eyes, some of them belonging to men who had been as gentle as lambs in their ordinary lives on Earth, turned swiftly alert. Bristly faces showed swift changes of expression: surprise, interest, greed for possession—but most of all, aggressive and Satanic humor. “Jeez—tamadas!” somebody growled, amazed. Under the circumstances, to be aware of opportunity was to act. Big paws, some bare and calloused, some in the gloves of space suits, reached out, grabbed. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/17/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/17/ The whole crowd in the bar broke into coarse shouts and laughs and comments. “… We ain’t good neighbors—neglecting our social duties. Let’s pay ‘em a visit…. Pun’kins! What else you got besides tamadas? Let’s go on a picnic!… Hell with the Boss Man!… Yah-h-h—We need some diversion…. I’m not goin’ on shift…. Come on, everybody! There’s gonna be a fight—a moider!… Hell with the Boss Man….” Like the flicker of flame flashing through dry gunpowder, you could feel the excitement spread. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/18/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/18/ It was a wild journey—for, to fly straight in a frictionless vacuum, any missile must be very well balanced; and the inertia and the slight but unwieldy weight of Neely’s bulk disturbed such balance in his own jet-equipped space suit. The journey was made, then, not in a smooth arc, but in a series of erratic waverings. But what Endlich lacked in precise direction, he made up in sheer reckless, dread-driven speed. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/19/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/19/ John Endlich felt mightily an old yearning—that of a fundamentally peaceful man for a way to oppose and win against brutal, overpowering odds without using either serious violence or the even more futile course of supine submission. Here on Vesta, this had been the issue he had faced all along. In many ages and many nations—and probably on many planets throughout the universe—others had faced it before him. To his straining and tortured mind the trite and somewhat mocking answers came: Psychology. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/2/ Under the barrage John Endlich’s last shreds of common-sense were all but blotted out by the red murk of fury. He was small and broad—a stolid-looking thirty-two years old. But now his round and usually placid face was as red as a fiery moon, and his underlip curled in a snarl. He might have taken the savage ribbing more calmly. But there was too much grim fact behind what these asteroid miners said. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/20/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/20/ Endlich took Neely and the loaded basket close to the transparent side of the greenhouse, nearest the approaching roughnecks. There he removed Neely’s oxygen helmet, hoping that, maybe, this might deter his friends a little from rupturing the plastic of the huge bubble and letting the air out. It was a feeble safeguard, for, in all probability, in case of such rupture, Neely would be rescued from death by smothering and cold and the boiling of his blood, simply by having his helmet slammed back on again. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/21/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/21/ After the fifteenth tomato, he burped and balked. “That’s enough kiddin' around, Pun’kin-head,” he growled. “Get away with your damned garden truck! I should be beatin' you to a grease-spot right this minute! Why—I—” Then Neely tried to lunge for the blaster. As Endlich squeezed the trigger, he turned the weapon aside a trifle, so that the beam of energy flicked past Neely’s ear and splashed garden soil that turned incandescent, instantly. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/22/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/22/ For a little while then, he had to be hard. He thrust another tomato toward Neely, at the same time directing a thin stream from the blaster just past the big nose. Neely ate six more tomatoes with a will, his eyes popping, sweat streaming down his forehead. Endlich’s next blaster-stream barely missed Neely’s booted toe. The persuasive shot was worth fifty-five more dollars in garden fruit consumed. The crowd gave with mock cheers and bravos, and demanded more action. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/23/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/23/ A week of Vestal days later, in the afternoon, Rose and the kids came to John Endlich, who was toiling over his cucumbers. “Their name is Harper, Pop!” Bubs shouted. “And they’ve got three children!” Evelyn added. John Endlich, straightened, shaking a kink out of his tired back. “Who?” he questioned. “The people who are going to be our new neighbors, Johnny,” Rose said happily. “We just picked up the news on the radio—from their ship, which is approaching from space right now! https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/3/ After that, all space was still—electrified. The icy stars gleamed in the black sky. The shrunken sun looked on. And John Endlich saw beyond his own murder. To the thought of his kids—and his wife—left alone out here, hundreds of millions of miles from Earth, and real law and order—with these lugs. These guys who had been starved emotionally, and warped inside by raw space. Coldness crawled into John Endlich’s guts, and seemed to twist steel hooks there, making him sick. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/4/ All members of the Endlich family had been looking around them at the weird Vestal landscape. Through John Endlich’s mind again there flashed a picture of what this asteroid was like. At the Asteroids Homesteaders' School in Chicago, where his dependents and he had been given several weeks of orientation instruction, suitable to their separate needs, he had been shown diagrams and photographs of Vesta. Later, he had of course seen it from space. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/5/ The kids continued to jabber—more excitedly now than before. “Pop! Mom!” Bubs urged. “Let’s go look inside them buildings! Maybe the things are still there! The people, I mean. All black and dried up, like the one in the showcase at school; four tentacles they had instead of arms and legs, the teacher said!” “Sure! Let’s go!” Evelyn joined in. “I’m not scared to!” Yeah, kids' tastes could be pretty gruesome. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/6/ Inside his space suit, he had begun to sweat furiously. And it was more because of the tension of his nerves than because of the vigor with which he plied his pinchbar, doing the first task which had to be done. Steel ribbons were snapped, nails were yanked silently from the great box, boards were jerked loose. In another minute John Endlich and his wife were setting up an airtight tent, which, when the time came, could be inflated from compressed-air bottles. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/7/ John Endlich considered setting up floodlights, and working on through the hours of darkness. But such lights would be a dangerous beacon for prowlers; and when you were inside their area of illumination, it was difficult to see into the gloom beyond. Still, one did not know if the mask of darkness did not afford a greater invitation to those with evil intent. For a long moment, Endlich was in an agony of indecision. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/8/ John Endlich scrambled to action. He slammed and sealed the face-windows of the helmets of the members of his family, to protect them from suffocation. He did the same for himself, and then unzipped the tent-flap. He darted out with the outrushing air. This was a moment with murder poised in every tattered fragment of it. John Endlich knew. Murder was engrained in his own taut-drawn nerves, that raged to destroy the trespassers whose pranks had passed the level of practical humor, and become, by the tampering with vital necessities, an attack on life itself. https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/gallun-asteroid/9/ Neely and his companions hadn’t attempted to move out of the way of the explosion. They only rolled with its force, protected by their space suits. Endlich rolled, too, helplessly, clutching his pistol and rifle: still, by some superhuman effort, he managed to regain his feet before the far more practiced Neely, who was hampered, no doubt, by a few too many drinks, had even stopped rolling. But when Neely got up, he had drawn his blaster, a useful tool of his trade, but a hellish weapon, too, at short range. https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/1/ Duel on Syrtis by Poul Anderson Transcriber’s Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories March 1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. The night whispered the message. Over the many miles of loneliness it was borne, carried on the wind, rustled by the half-sentient lichens and the dwarfed trees, murmured from one to another of the little creatures that huddled under crags, in caves, by shadowy dunes. https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/10/ Riordan was too tired to sleep well. He had lain awake for a long time, thinking, and that is not good for a man alone in the Martian hills. So now the rockhound was dead too. It didn’t matter, the owlie wouldn’t escape. But somehow the incident brought home to him the immensity and the age and the loneliness of the desert. It whispered to him. The brush rustled and something wailed in darkness and the wind blew with a wild mournful sound over faintly starlit cliffs, and it was as if they all somehow had voice, as if the whole world muttered and threatened him in the night. https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/11/ Riordan heard the roar and saw the barrel peel open like a rotten banana. He wasn’t hurt, but as he staggered back from the shock Kreega lunged at him. The Martian was four feet tall, and skinny and weaponless, but he hit the Earthling like a small tornado. His legs wrapped around the man’s waist and his hands got to work on the airhose. Riordan went down under the impact. He snarled, tigerishly, and fastened his hands on the Martian’s narrow throat. https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/2/ It had started a few days before, in the private office of the trader Wisby. “I came to Mars,” said Riordan, “to get me an owlie.” Wisby had learned the value of a poker face. He peered across the rim of his glass at the other man, estimating him. Even in God-forsaken holes like Port Armstrong one had heard of Riordan. Heir to a million-dollar shipping firm which he himself had pyramided into a System-wide monster, he was equally well known as a big game hunter. https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/3/ They haggled for a while before settling on a figure. Riordan had brought guns and a small rocketboat, but Wisby would have to supply radioactive material, a “hawk,” and a rockhound. Then he had to be paid for the risk of legal action, though that was small. The final price came high. “Now, where do I get my Martian?” inquired Riordan. He gestured at the two in the street. “Catch one of them and release him in the desert? https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/4/ The man had a bird and a rockhound. That was bad. Without them, Kreega could lose himself in the labyrinth of caves and canyons and scrubby thickets—but the hound could follow his scent and the bird could spot him from above. To make matters worse, the man had landed near Kreega’s tower. The weapons were all there—now he was cut off, unarmed and alone save for what feeble help the desert life could give. https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/5/ Riordan sprayed the heavy-metal isotope in a ten-mile circle around the old tower. He did that by night, just in case patrol craft might be snooping around. But once he had landed, he was safe—he could always claim to be peacefully exploring, hunting leapers or some such thing. The radioactive had a half-life of about four days, which meant that it would be unsafe to approach for some three weeks—two at the minimum. https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/6/ Breath sobbed in Kreega’s lungs, hard and quick and raw. His legs felt weak and heavy, and the thudding of his heart seemed to shake his whole body. Still he ran, while the frightful clamor rose behind him and the padding of feet grew ever nearer. Leaping, twisting, bounding from crag to crag, sliding down shaly ravines and slipping through clumps of trees, Kreega fled. The hound was behind him and the hawk soaring overhead. https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/7/ Riordan was tired with the long chase and the niggling insufficiency of his oxygen supply. He wanted a smoke and hot food, and neither was to be had. Oh, well, he’d appreciate the luxuries of life all the more when he got home—with the Martian’s skin. He grinned as he made camp. The little fellow was a worthwhile quarry, that was for damn sure. He’d held out for two days now, in a little ten-mile circle of ground, and he’d even killed the hawk. https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/8/ He woke in the short gray dawn, made a quick breakfast, and whistled his hound to heel. His nostrils dilated with excitement, a high keen drunkenness that sang wonderfully within him. Today—maybe today! They had to take a roundabout way down into the canyon and the hound cast about for an hour before he picked up the scent. Then the deep-voiced cry rose again and they were off—more slowly now, for it was a cruel stony trail. https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/anderson-duel/9/ Kreega lay in the shadow of a tall rock and shuddered with weariness. Beyond the shade, the sunlight danced in what to him was a blinding, intolerable dazzle, hot and cruel and life-hungry, hard and bright as the metal of the conquerors. It had been a mistake to spend priceless hours when he might have been resting working on that trap. It hadn’t worked, and he might have known that it wouldn’t. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/1/ In the Orbit of Saturn By R. F. Starzl The Celestia, gliding through space toward Titan, major satellite of Saturn, faltered in her course. Her passengers, mostly mining engineers and their wives, stockholders, and a sprinkling of visitors, were aware of a cessation of the heavens' apparent gyrations, due to the halting of the ship’s rotation on its axis. At the same time the ship’s fictitious gravity, engendered by the centrifugal force of its rotation, ceased, so that passengers, most of whom were assembled in the main salon, which occupied the entire midship section, drifted away from the curved floor, whose contour followed that of the outer skin, to flounder in helpless confusion. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/10/ The guard on the platform, seeing the trend of the battle, shouted hoarsely up the well, and in a few minutes four men, hard-bitten, villainous looking fellows, tumbled down the ladder and joyously joined in the fray. It was then only a matter of seconds before Quirl lay on the floor-plates, battered and bleeding, but still feebly fighting, while Gore sat astride him, seeking with vicious fingers for Quirl’s eyes. At the same time his men were kicking at the helpless man’s body wherever they could reach him. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/11/ The mate was wiping the blood off his face with a rag. “I tried to call yer,” the guard whined. “That tears it!” Gore exclaimed fiercely, bursting into a string of abuse. But one of his henchmen nudged him. “Keep yer tongue in yer face, Gore, till the time comes.” Gore said nothing, but glared savagely at the prisoners. “Get the buckets and mops!” he snarled at his men, and they fled precipitately. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/12/ That voice, so incisive and clear, was a woman’s. Gore found himself looking into the little twin funnels of his own ray projector. They were filled with a milky light, and the odor of ozone was strong. The girl had only to press the trigger and a powerful current would leap along the path of those ionizing beams. And Gore would murder no more. Stupidly, he let Sorko slide to the floor, where the poor fellow recovered sufficiently from his paralyzing fright and his fall to scuttle away. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/13/ Memory returned to Quirl with the realization that he was lying on a metal bunk in an outside stateroom, where he could see the orderly procession of the stars through the floor ports as the ship rotated. His body was racked with pain, and his head seemed enormous. His sensation, he discovered, was due to a thick swathing of bandages. As he stirred something moved in an adjoining bunk, and Dr. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/14/ Strom’s stern face relaxed in a smile. It was a strange smile, inscrutably melancholy. It revealed, beneath the hardness of a warrior, something else; the idealism of a poet. When he spoke again it was with a strange gentleness: “To attain one’s end, one must make use of many means, and sometimes to disguise one’s purpose. For instance, it is perfectly proper for an officer of the I.F.P. to disguise himself like a son of the idle rich in order to lay the infamous ‘Scourge’ by the heels, isn’t it? https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/15/ Quirl thought rapidly. Strom was right. The I.F.P. had developed a new ray that was far superior to the ionizer ray, for the latter required an atmosphere of some kind for its operation, while the new one would work equally well in a vacuum. “I never heard of any,” he lied stubbornly. “Anyway, what do you want a ray for? Your guns, with no gravity to interfere and no air to stop the bullets, have just about unlimited range, haven’t they? https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/16/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/16/ “Picture that, lad. That rusty, dead old cylinder, coursing around and around the sun, and inside, sitting on his bales and boxes, a young man like you. A young man in the pride and prime of his life, expiating the treason that had betrayed him. Day after day, through the thick ports, I saw the same changeless scene. And every two years, when I drew near the Earth, I watched the beautiful green ball of it, with what bitter longings! https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/17/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/17/ Strom, or Burroughs, made no attempt to conceal his disappointment. The recital of his wrongs had brought out the bitter lines of his face, and the weariness of one who plays his game alone and can call no one friend. “I should have known better,” he said quietly. “There was none more loyal to the I.F.P. than I—when I still belonged to it. Yet, I thought if I laid all my cards before you—You realize what this means? https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/18/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/18/ Quirl was willing to compromise to the extent of not revealing anything to the other passengers, for the privilege of being kept in the prison hold rather than in solitary confinement. Here he would be under the vigilant eye of a guard, with possibly less chance of effecting an escape in some way, but he felt a great desire to be near the girl Lenore, and to know that she was safe and in good spirits. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/19/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/19/ She came to him often, after that, to sit quietly by his side, and to bring his food to him from the big community bowl which even the most fastidious of the prisoners had come to look forward to. She told of her life as the daughter of a capitalist who owned large mine holdings on Titan. It would be about time for the Celestia to reach Titan, and her non-arrival would be causing anxiety to Lenore’s father awaiting her there. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/2/ Of all the passengers, none understood the situation as well as Quirl Finner. In imagination he followed the desperate struggle that was going on out there, for the men who were selling their lives were his companions in arms, the ship’s guard of the redoubtable I.F.P., the Interplanetary Flying Police who carried the law of white men to the outermost orbit of the solar system. Quirl bristled, but he maintained his pose of indifference—of the sightseeing passenger who depended blindly on the ship’s crew for his own safety. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/20/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/20/ One day he seemed overcome by great weakness. Staggering, he held his hand to his sweat-dewed forehead. Erratically he waltzed across the floor, to crumple in a heap where Quirl and the girl were sitting. Moved by compassion, Lenore composed his body in a more comfortable position, and with a bit of handkerchief moistened the pirate’s wrinkled, old-young face with some of Quirl’s drinking water. The guard looked on indifferently. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/21/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/21/ “I ain’t as bad as I’m makin' out,” Sorko whispered. “Got to do it to tell you this, ‘cause you was square with me. Gore is fixin’ to have a mut’ny. Kill captain, kill all these dubs here—this guy of yourn, too. He wants to take you for his—” the weazened little face twisted in unwonted shy delicacy—“take you for him, pretty lady. I don’t want him to. I’m not—a—bad feller—” https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/22/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/22/ His hopes high all at once, Quirl sought the compact little lock in the small of his back. It took a long time to get the key in, and then it would not turn. It had been unskillfully made, and was probably not a true reproduction. Nevertheless, by constant effort, he succeeded at last in turning it, and was rewarded by hearing a faint click. He tested the hoop, felt it slip, and knew that at any time he chose he could free himself. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/23/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/23/ The flaw of this plan was that Quirl himself would still be under practical sentence of death. Strom would not let his gratitude carry him so far as to release a man who knew as much as Quirl did, and who would not promise to keep his secrets. The preferable, though far more dangerous course was to strike before the mutineers could. Quirl knew something about the structure of the ship. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/24/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/24/ The dreamer had awakened, still gasping in the grip of fear, and other disturbed sleepers were grumbling. “Better go easy, you fools,” the pirate warned them. “Yer just in luck that I didn’t let loose a couple bolts on ye. Got a good notion to do it, anyway.” He played the dangerous little spots of light around, amused as the prisoners scrambled for safety, but with no real intention of releasing the deadly electric charge along the paths provided for it. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/25/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/25/ Opportunity came at that moment. A crack of light appeared along the passage. A door was opening there. A moment later a head and shoulders showed. Someone was climbing up. Swiftly the officer ran to the place. The pirate did not even suspect anything wrong until he felt the spots of milky light on his face. He showed his terror plainly. “Get up!” Quirl hissed. The man obeyed with alacrity. Quirl glanced down. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/26/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/26/ He was then the only living person in the room, in which two generators hummed softly. Connected to them was a bank of U-shaped tubes, each as tall as a man, which were filled with silent livid fire. Quirl picked up a wrench and started hammering at the thick tubes until the glass cracked. Each time he was engulfed by a wave of heat, and the tube became black. The great generators idled and automatically came to a stop. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/27/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/27/ Like an infuriated bull Captain Strom charged them, a riot club in each hand. He could have killed them all with a ray, but he chose to vent in physical action his consuming anger at their treachery, which he had in some way anticipated. Three or four went sprawling under his mighty blows. The others sought shelter behind tables and chests, and began stabbing at him with their electroguns. Electricity crackled, and the air became pungent with ozone. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/28/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/28/ Running with remarkable speed, the mate carried his prize toward the after end of the tube. A hatch stood open there, and he dropped through, slamming it after him. Quirl picked up a bar that someone had dropped. It was but a matter of moments to break the lock and pull open the hatch. The hold was lighted, and empty. In its middle, holding the helpless Lenore, stood Gore, the electrogun in his hand covering the platform. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/29/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/29/ Quirl had time to jump after him, knocking the wind out of Gore before he could rise. Lenore picked up Gore’s weapon, but dared not use it for fear of injuring her lover. As the two fighting men circled warily, seeking openings in this battle that must be fatal to one of them, they did not see the slight, shadowy figure that dropped down to them. There was a flash, and Gore slumped, a knife in his back. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/3/ They had been in the prison hold of the pirate ship for five days, terrestrial time. This was nothing like the spacious quarters they had occupied before. A cross-section of their prison would have looked like a wedge with a quarter circle for its blunt end. The curved wall of the great cylindrical projectile, nearly a hundred feet in diameter, was their floor, on which they could walk like flies on the inside of a wheel rim. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/4/ It was not. It was Moby Gore, the huge and overbearing first mate of the pirates on his daily mission of inspection and prisoner baiting. Quirl crept further into his corner. It would be fatal to his plan for him to attract the attention of this petty tyrant. It was hard enough to keep away from him—to crush back the almost overwhelming desire to fly at him, fists hammering. Gore came down the ladder deliberately, pausing on the lower steps to look around with his little, pig’s eyes. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/5/ Carelessly Gore passed among the prisoners. Here and there he halted, snatching some article of finery or inconspicuous bit of jewelry that he had overlooked before. They shrank from him, only too glad to see him pass on to the next unfortunate. “You, there!” Gore rasped, indicating Quirl with his stubby forefinger. “Come on out o' there, you!” Quirl hoped that the brutal mate would not hear the thudding of his beating heart, or that if he did, he would take it for fear. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/6/ As Quirl’s mind slowly cleared he congratulated himself for his repression. During his struggle with Gore his hand had come in contact with the butt of the mate’s electrogun. He could easily have pulled it out of its holster and turned it against its owner. But this hasty action would not only have assured his own death, but would have destroyed the only chance the I.F.P. had of learning “The Scourge’s” secrets. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/7/ But the ripping of fabric did not come. Instead there was a sharp crack, and Gore, too surprised even to move, stared at the little man who had hit him. Again crack! The impact of fist on jaw. The blow was too weak to hurt this toughened veteran of countless battles. But slowly a tide of dull red welled up over the bull neck, turning the blue-black jowls to purple, and the walls echoed to Gore’s roar of anger. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/8/ He pursued her as she ran, bowling over or trampling on the fear-stricken prisoners as they tried to scramble out of his way, men and women alike. But she made up in agility what she lacked in strength, lifting up the hem of her robe so that her legs twinkled bare, ducking under Gore’s outstretched arms, or leaping over the fallen form of some stumbling, panic-stricken unfortunate. Only in her eyes was there a true picture of her terror. https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/starzl-orbit/9/ To Quirl, coolly poised, the picture of Gore did not inspire terror. In the passengers, it did. They saw a brutal giant, gorilla-like, and roaring like a beast, charging at a half-naked youth apparently only half his size. It seemed that those tremendous arms must break him at the first touch. But the grasping hands slipped off the lithe body as if it were oiled, leaving only angry red welts along Quirl’s ribs. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/1/ Lake of the Gone Forever By Leigh Brackett Chapter 1: Landing on Iskar In his cabin aboard the spaceship Rohan, Rand Conway slept—and dreamed. He stood in a narrow valley. On both sides the cliffs of ice rose up, sheer and high and infinitely beautiful out of the powdery snow. The darkling air was full of whirling motes of frost, like the dust of diamonds, and overhead the shining pinnacles stood clear against a sky of deepest indigo, spangled with great stars. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/10/ That name stung Conway’s nerves like a whiplash. He was afraid he had betrayed himself but if he started no one seemed to notice. The faces of Esmond and Rohan were honestly blank. “The Lake of the Gone Forever,” Esmond repeated. “What is that?” “Let there be an end to talk,” said Krah. He turned and spoke to the girl in his own tongue and Conway caught the name Ciel. She rose obediently and began to serve the men, bringing the food on platters of thin carved stone. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/11/ Krah’s son held the girl fast. He seemed to be lecturing her, more in sorrow than in anger, and then, deliberately and without heat, he began to beat her. Ciel bore it without a whimper but her eyes glazed and her face was furious. Conway stepped silently out into the hall. The man’s back was turned, but Ciel saw him. He indicated in pantomime what she should do and she caught the idea at once—or perhaps only the courage to do it. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/12/ Chapter V: Warrior of lskar Conway went, taking Marcia with him. Rohan came out at once but Esmond was sleeping like the dead. Apparently he had worked for hours by the light of the stone lamp, making notes on the people of lskar. Conway wondered, as he shook him awake, whether any of that data was going to get safely back to Earth. He knew, as certainly as he knew his own name, that their stay here was ended and he did not like the look in Krah’s eyes. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/13/ He forced himself to stand still for a moment and think. He forced his heart to stop pounding and his hands to stop shaking. He could not force either his elation or his fear to leave him. His way was clear now, at least for the moment. Why was it clear? Why had Krah gone away and taken his sons with him? The wind swooped and screamed, lifting the curtains of hide, scattering snow on the floor. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/14/ Chapter VI: Echoes of a Dream The city was alive and vocal with the storm. The narrow streets shouted with it, the icy turrets of the houses quivered and rang. No snow was falling but the thick brown whiteness drove and leaped and whirled, carried across half of Iskar in the rush of the wind. Above the tumult the stars burned clear and steady in the sky. The cold bit deep into Conway’s flesh, iron barbs reaching for his heart. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/15/ And in that private world of his it did not seem strange nor unfitting that Ciel’s voice should cry out thinly against the wind, that he should turn to see her clambering after him, nimblefooted, reckless with haste. She reached him, spent with running. “Krah,” she gasped. “He go ahead with four. One follow. I see. I follow too.” She made a quick, sharp gesture that took in the whole valley. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/16/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/16/ Chapter VII: Black Lake It was black, that Lake. Utterly black and very still, lying in its ragged cradle of rock under the arching roof where, finally, the mountains met. A strange quality of blackness, Conway thought, and shuddered deeply with the hand of nightmare still upon him. He stared into it, and suddenly, as though he had always known, he realized that the lake was like the pupil of a living eye, having no light of its own but receiving into itself all light, all impression. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/17/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/17/ Rand Conway watched, step by step, the disintegration of a man’s soul. And it was easy for him to understand, since his own life had been ruled by that same consuming greed. Conna came again and again to the Lake, alone. It seemed to hold a terrible fascination for him. After all he was a prospector, with no goal before him for many years but the making of a big strike. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/18/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/18/ The surface of the Lake was as it had been, dark and still. Rand Conway went slowly to his knees. He felt dully as though he had been ill for a long time. All the strength was gone out of him. He stayed there on the icy rock, motionless and silent, beyond feeling, beyond thought. He was only dimly aware that Ciel knelt beside him, that he was still clinging to her hand. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/2/ Conway started up, his face swiftly losing its brooding look. That wasn’t just an echo of his dream. Someone was shouting the name outside his cabin door. “Conway! Rand Conway! We’ve sighted Iskar!” Of course! Why else would the jets be thundering? He had been half asleep still, not to know it at once. He sprang up and crossed the dimly-lighted cabin, a tall man, very lean and hard, yet with a certain odd grace about him, a certain beauty in the modeling of his bones. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/3/ Esmond had pressed forward in the cramped space, staring raptly out at the distant glittering of silver light that was Iskar. “I wonder what they’re like?” he said as he had said a million times before. Marcia smiled. “You’ll soon know,” she answered. “It is odd,” said Rohan, “that your father didn’t tell more about the people of Iskar, Conway. His notes were strangely fragmentary—almost as though he had written much more and then destroyed it. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/4/ Chapter II: The White City The spaceship lay like a vast black whale, stranded on a spotless floe. Behind it the ice-wall rose, its upper spires carved by the wind into delicate fantastic shapes. Spreading away from it to the short curve of the horizon was a sloping plain of snow, broken here and there by gleaming tors. In the distance other ranges lifted sharply against the deep dark blue of the sky. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/5/ Frazer nodded. The crew had come tumbling out and were rollicking like schoolboys in the snow, glad to be released from the long confinement of the voyage. The Second Officer and the engineer were coming up and Frazer went to meet them. The Second turned back to round up his men. The sledges came presently out of the cargo hatch. There were three of the light plastic hulls—two to carry the exploring party, one to be left with the ship in case of emergency. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/6/ In a fever of impatience he waited while the men climbed out, shouldering the Samson guns. They left two to guard the sledges and went on, scrambling in single file over the tumbled rocks. The wind howled between the mountain walls so that the air was blind with snow. There was no sight of the city. Conway was in the lead. He was like a man driven by fiends. Where the others slipped and stumbled he went over the rough ground like a cat, swift and sure-footed even among the deceptive drifts. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/7/ Chapter III: The Fear Conway’s blood leaped hot within him. The pipes set him mad and he flung up his arm and shouted at the men, a long hail. He could see them clearly now. They were tall lean men with bodies tough as rawhide and strong bone in their faces and eyes like the eyes of eagles. They wore the white furs of beasts kilted about them, thrown loosely over their naked shoulders, and they were bareheaded and careless of the cold. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/8/ He unbuckled his gun belt and tossed it, holster and all, to a man on the wall. It was a gesture and no more because he had hidden a small anaesthetic needle-gun under his coverall in case of need—but it would look good to the Iskarians. “I’d do the same if I were you,” he said to the others. “Also, I would send the men back. They’re not going to do us any good inside the wall and they might do us harm. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brackett-lake/9/ Chapter IV: “Go Ask of Her…” It seemed like centuries to Conway, but it could not have been so long in actual time before Krah stopped beside a doorway and pulled aside the curtain of skins that covered it. “Enter,” he said and the Earthmen filed through, leaving the guard outside, except for five who followed the old man. “My sons,” said Krah. All grown men, far older than Conway, and scarred, tough-handed warriors. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/1/ Lost Paradise (1936) C. L. Moore Across the table-top Yarol the Venusian reached a swift hand that closed on Northwest Smith’s wrist heavily. “Look!” he said in a low voice. Smith’s no-colored eyes turned leisurely in the direction of the little Venusian’s almost imperceptible nod. The panorama that stretched out under his casual gaze would have caught at a newcomer’s breath with its very magnitude, but to Smith the sight was an old story. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/10/ “Yes, but what is it? What is the Secret?” The soft eyes turned to him compassionately. “Yes—you must be told. There is no escape for you now. How you learned that name by which you invoked me I cannot guess, but I know that you did not learn much more, or you would never have used the power of it to ask me this question. It is—unfortunate—for us all that I can answer you—that I am one of the few who know. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/11/ “Look,” he said again. Smith’s eyes sought the shining redness of the spilled liquid. There was a darkness in it through which pale shadows moved so strangely that he bent closer to see, for nothing near them could possibly have cast such reflections. He was conscious that Yarol too was leaning to look, but after that he was conscious of nothing but the red darkness of the pool stirred with pale flickerings, and his eyes were plunging so deeply into its secretness that he could not stir a muscle, and the table and the terrace and the whole great teeming city of steel about him was a mist that faded into oblivion. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/12/ “Well, this was ordained. Do not struggle against it—it is the pattern into which our lives are woven, and from our births we three moved forward to this moment around a table, together. Now watch, and listen—and learn. “In the fourth dimension, which is time, man can travel only with the flow of its stream. In the other three he can move freely at will, but in time he must submit to the forward motion which is all he knows. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/13/ “A catastrophe drove us out of that land—a catastrophe that no one understands. Legend says that our gods were angered and forsook us. What actually happened no one seems to know. But we mourn still for the lovely world of Seles where we were born. It was—but look, you shall see.” The voice had been a low rising and falling of undernotes upon a sea of darkness; but now Smith, all his consciousness still centered upon the reflecting pool of hypnotic red, was aware of a stirring and a subtle motion deep down in its darkness. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/14/ Slowly, slowly it rose. The ivory rooftops of Baloise the Beautiful took that great soft glimmering light and turned it into pearly gleaming, and the whole night was miraculous with the wonder of rising Earth. On the hillside Smith was motionless while the vast bright globe swung clear of the roofs and floated free at last in the pale light of the Moon. He had seen this sight before, from a dead and barren satellite, but never the exquisite luminance of Earth through the vapors of Moon-air that veiled the vast globe in a shimmer of enchantment as it swung mistily through the dusk, all its silvery continents faintly flushed with green, the translucent wonder of its seas shining jewel-dear, jewel-pale, colored like opals in the lucid tranquillity of the Earth-bright dark. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/15/ But there was little time for wonder and speculation now. He was watching the loveliness of Baloise floating nearer and nearer through the dusk that seemed aswim with a radiance so softly real that it was like walking through darkly shining water. He was testing just how much latitude this new experience allowed him. He could see what his host saw, and he began to realize now that the man’s other senses were open to his perception too. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/16/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/16/ Slowly, moving in the shadow of his own dark terror, the man went down the hill. The ivory wall that circled Baloise rose over him, a low wall with a crest fretted into a band of lacy carving upon whose convolutions the lucent Earthlight lay like silver. Under a pointed arch he walked, still moving with that slow, resolute step as if he approached something dreadful from which there was no escape. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/17/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/17/ She lifted her head as the grille-gate opened, and swayed to her feet in a motion so unearthly light that she scarcely seemed to touch the grass as she moved forward, a creature of pale enchantment in an enchanted Moon-garden. The man crossed the grass to her reluctantly, and Smith was aware in him of a dread and a soul-deep aching that choked up in his throat until he could scarcely speak. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/18/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/18/ She sobbed once more, a deep ache of pure pain, and then stood back in his arms and nodded, shaking back the silver hair. “I know,” she said. “I know.” She lifted her head and looked up toward Earth’s great haloed mystery swimming through veils of colored enchantment above them. The light of it glistened in the tears on her face. “Almost,” she said, “I wish we two had gone—there.” https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/19/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/19/ He went down the narrow way into the open street again, under the glory of risen Earth. The beauty of the eons-dead Baloise he walked through ached like a dull pain in his heart beneath the sharper anguish of that farewell. The salt of the girl’s tears was still on his lips, and it seemed to him that not even the death he went to could give him ease from the pain of the moments he had just passed through. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/2/ “I’ll bet you the next drinks,” murmured Yarol, his wise black eyes twinkling under long lashes, “that you can’t guess what race that little fellow’s from, or where it originated.” “The next drinks are on me anyhow,” grinned Smith. “No, I can’t guess. Does it matter?” “Oh—curious, that’s all. I’ve seen a member of that race only once before in my life, and I’ll bet you never saw one. And yet it’s an Earth race, perhaps the very oldest. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/20/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/20/ Under the shadow of it the man paused. He looked back lingeringly upon the pearly pallor of Baloise. Over the domed and pinnacled roofs the great pale light of Earth brooded. Earth itself, swimming in seas of opalescent atmosphere, all its continents silver-green, all its seas colored like veiled jewels, glowed down upon him for the last time. The full tide of his love for Baloise, of his love for the lost girl in the garden, of his love for the whole green, sweet satellite he lived on came choking up in his throat, and his heart was near to bursting with the sweet fullness of the life he must leave. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/21/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/21/ In the silence after his voice ceased, the wall of beating flame flickered once again, like a heart’s beat, and then rolled back on both sides like curtains. Beyond the back-drawn flame a high-roofed hollow in the mist loomed dimly. It had no more tangibility than the mist itself, the inside of a sphere of dim clarity. And in that mist-walled hollow three gods sat. Sat? They crouched, dreadfully, hungrily, with such a bestial ravening in their poise that only gods could maintain the awful dignity which veiled them with terror despite the ugly humped hunger of their posture. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/22/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/22/ “What mortal dares enter our immortal Presence?” “One whose god-appointed cycle is complete,” gasped the prostrate man, his voice coming in little puffs as if he had been running hard. “One who fulfills his share of his race’s debt to the Three who are One.” The voice of the One had been a voice full, complete, an individual speaking. Now out of the dim hollow where the three crouched a thin, flickering voice, like hot flame, less than full, less than complete, came quavering. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/23/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/23/ Again the prostrate man shuddered, deep and coldly, acknowledging the ritual truth. And a third voice quavered out of that misty hollow with a flame’s flickering hunger in its sound, “Be it remembered that all who come to pay the race’s debt and buy anew our favor that their world may live, must come to us willingly, with no resistance against our divine hunger—must surrender without struggle. And be it remembered that if so much as one man alone dares resist our will, then in that instant is our power withdrawn, and all our anger called down upon the world of Seles. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/24/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/24/ “Come you willingly into our Presence?” From the prone man’s hidden face a voice choked, “Willingly—that Seles may live.” And the voice of the One pulsed through the flame-washed dimness so deeply that the ears did not hear, and only the beat of the Moon-man’s heart, the throbbing of his blood, caught the low thunder of the gods’ command, “Then come!” He stirred. Very slowly he got to his feet. He faced the three. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/25/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/25/ He did not fight it. He could not. It was too tremendous. But he did not yield. One small conscious entity in an infinity of pure hunger, while sucking emptiness raved around him, he was stubborn and unwavering. The hunger of the Three must never before have known anything but acquiescence to the debt man owed them, and now fury roared through the vacuum of their hunger more terribly than any mortal mind could combat. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/26/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/26/ Others, adventuring through the past, must too have met this peril, must have succumbed to it in the weakness of their inborn love for the green Moon-world. But he had no such weakness. Nothing was so important as life—his own life, here and now. He would not surrender. Deep down under the veneer of his civilized self lay a bed-rock of pure savage power that nothing on any world he knew had ever tested beyond its strength. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/27/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/27/ One last furnace-blast of white-hot hunger raved around Smith’s stubbornness. But whatever vampirish things they were, spawned in what unknown, eons-forgotten place, the Three who were One had not the power to break down that last rock-steady savagery in which all that was Smith rooted deep. And at last, in one final burst of typhoon-fury, which roared about him in tornado-blasts of hunger and defeat, the vacuum ceased to be. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/28/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/28/ And then—disaster. In a stunned, remote way Smith was aware of a high, ear-splitting wail that grew louder, louder—intolerably louder until his very brain could no longer endure the agony of its sound. And over Baloise, over Seles and all who dwelt thereon, a darkness began to fall. High-swimming Earth shimmered through gathering dark, and from the rolling green hills and verdant meadows and silver seas of Seles the atmosphere ripped away. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/29/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/29/ He opened his eyes, and startlingly, New York’s steel towers were all about him, the hum of traffic in his ears. Irresistibly his eyes sought the sky, where a moment before, so it seemed to him, the great bright globe of pearly Earth hung luminous. And then, realization coming back slowly, he lowered his eyes and met across the table the wide, haunted stare of the little priest of the Moon-people. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/3/ But the summons was never given. For just then, around the corner of the railing which separated the little enclosure of tables from the street running along the edge of the terrace came a flash of red that caught Yarol’s eye abruptly. It was the little white-haired man, hugging his squarish parcel and walking timorously, as if he were not accustomed to thronged streets and terraces a thousand feet high in steel-shimmering air. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/30/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/30/ His Moon-white hands groped blindly over the table, found the square package that had cost him so dear a price. He stumbled to his feet. Smith rose too, actuated by some inarticulate emotion he could not have named. But the Moon-priest shook his head. “No,” he said, as if in answer to some question of his own mind, “you are not to blame for what happened so many eons ago—and yet in the last few minutes. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/31/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/31/ For the breath of an instant almost too brief to register on his brain, death brushed him hungrily. But in that instant as the threatening hands swung up there was a burst of blue-white flame behind the priest’s back, the familiar crackle of a gun. The little man’s face turned livid with pain for an instant, and then peace in a great gush of calmness washed across it, blanking the anguished dark eyes. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/4/ Stark terror was livid on the little man’s face as he stared wildly around. And in the first desperate glance his eyes encountered the two men at the table watching him with absorbing interest. Across the rail his gaze met theirs in a passion of entreaty. There was something about the attitude of them, their worn spaceman’s leather and faces stamped with the indefinable seal of lives lived dangerously, which must have told him in that desperate glimpse that perhaps help lay here. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/5/ “Yes, I swear. Now go!” With no further words Yarol vaulted the rail and plunged into the crowd in the wake of the vanishing thief. The little man stared after him for an instant, then came slowly around to the gate in the railing and threaded the empty tables to Smith’s. He sank into the chair Yarol had left and buried his silkily silver head in hands that shook. Smith regarded him impassively. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/6/ The minutes went by slowly. It must have been all of a quarter of an hour before Smith heard a step behind him and knew by the light which dazzled across the face of the man opposite that Yarol had returned. The little Venusian pulled up a chair and sank into it silently, grinning and laying on the table a flat, squarish package. The stranger pounced upon it with a little, inarticulate cry, running anxious hands over the brown paper in which it was wrapped, testing the brown seals which splotched the side where the edges of the covering came together. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/7/ “I might have known that,” he said quietly, in his soft, low voice that held a taint of some alien inflection of speech beneath its careful English. “Have you any conception of what it is you ask?” “A little.” Yarol’s voice was sobering under the graveness of the other’s tones. “I—I knew one of your race once—one of the Seles—and learned just enough to make me want very badly the whole Secret. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/8/ Smith hesitated for an instant, weighing that nameless unease against his own curiosity. Despite himself he felt curiously impelled to know the answer to Yarol’s question, though he sensed more surely as he thought it over a queer, quiet threat behind the little stranger’s calmness. He nodded shortly and scowled at Yarol. Without further ado the man crossed his arms on the table over his precious parcel, leaned forward and began to speak in his soft, slow voice. https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/moore-lost/9/ “Our race has such a legend. There is a faculty—a sense—that we have lost through the countless eons since at our peak and origin we possessed it. With us ‘peak’ and ‘origin’ are synonymous; for, like no other race in existence, our most ancient legends begin in a golden age of the infinitely long past. Beyond that they do not go. We have no stories among us of any crude beginnings, like other races. https://eykd.net/about/page-10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/about/page-10/ Part of me is still back there, basking in the sun beside Lake Superior, resting in the beauty of God’s creation. And another part of me remains up on that railroad trestle, flashlight swinging, all of my being focused entirely on placing one foot after another. Wondering what’s going to happen next. https://eykd.net/about/page-11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/about/page-11/ That’s why I love stories. I want to know what happens next. I love a story that keeps me guessing until the final resolution. I love a story that pulls me out of the dullness of daily life and shows me vivid wonders and ghastly horrors in sharp contrast. I particularly love a story that speculates: what’s going to happen next? Next year? Next decade? Next century? Next millennium? And what about after that? https://eykd.net/about/page-02/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/about/page-02/ At around 6am the busses pulled off to the side of an empty stretch of highway deep in the woods. They hustled us off the bus and into the early morning drizzle. Groggy and squinting in the morning light, I lugged my suitcase over a ditch and up onto a grassy hill above a clearing. A fellow with a gray beard met us all out there. He introduced himself as the program director. https://eykd.net/about/page-03/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/about/page-03/ On the second day of hiking, we knew we had a problem. Luke had asthma and struggled under the weight of the pack. We’d barely covered half our distance before we had to make camp. Next morning, Boone woke us early and outlined the new plan. Luke couldn’t continue. Boone would hike out to the road with Luke carrying a light pack, make a phone call to arrange a pick-up, then hike back and meet us a few miles up the trail. https://eykd.net/about/page-04/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/about/page-04/ One foot in front of the other. One foot in front of its brother. There was no trail, just a compass to keep our bearings among the trees. And then the trees broke and we hit the pipeline. We knew where we were! Roughly. We headed north along the pipeline. At this point, we’d probably been hiking for eight hours or so. We’d run out of water in the swamp, so Chris had broken out the iodine pills and we were drinking handkerchief-filtered swamp water. https://eykd.net/about/page-05/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/about/page-05/ Hours passed. We came to a wide, dark river. Our campsite was on the other side. Peter again consulted with Boone and Chris. There were two bridges near us. The closest was a railroad trestle. About a half a mile on, we could see the headlights of cars on the highway crossing. Would there be enough of a shoulder on the highway bridge to cross safely? Nobody knew. Finally, Boone made the call. https://eykd.net/about/page-06/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/about/page-06/ I imagined losing my balance, or stumbling and missing the next tie. Would I break a leg? Would I fall into the river? Or what if a train came? I imagined the sound of the horn, the light of the engine coming around the bend across the river. I imagined how I would take my pack off and throw it into the river, then jump after it. How deep was the water? https://eykd.net/about/page-07/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/about/page-07/ And there I was, out of high school, legally an adult, and everything had been stripped away from me. All the comforts of home and family. Most of the accoutrements of civilization, save a change of clothes and a toothbrush. I didn’t know where I was. I didn’t know what time it was. It was dark. I couldn’t see. All my strength was gone. Everything in my life had been sharpened down to this one point: one foot placed carefully in front of the other, guided by the faint but necessary light of a swinging flashlight. https://eykd.net/about/page-08/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/about/page-08/ Reader, the train never came. None of us missed a step. Nobody stumbled and fell. We crossed the river and found our campsite a few hundred yards away from the tracks. Even with my pack off I was staggering on my feet while gathering firewood. Boone told us later that after that one long day we’d made camp around 1am and eaten dinner around 2am. That night I slept like a dead man. https://eykd.net/about/page-09/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/about/page-09/ After a few days more of much easier hiking, we met up with Luke again and hiked the last few miles in the rain to Lake Superior. A storm was raging over the lake. The waves were crashing on the beach, and I was sure we’d taken a wrong turn somewhere and hit the Pacific Ocean instead. The next day, the sun came out and the lake was peaceful and still. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/1/ Parasite Planet (1935) by Stanley G. Weinbaum I Luckily for “Ham” Hammond it was mid-winter when the mudspout came. Mid-winter, that is, in the Venusian sense, which is nothing at all like the conception of the season generally entertained on Earth, except possibly, by dwellers in the hotter regions of the Amazon basin, or the Congo. They, perhaps, might form a vague mental picture of winter on Venus by visualizing their hottest summer days, multiplying the heat, discomfort and unpleasant denizens of the jungle by ten or twelve. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/10/ Ham trudged along, keeping always to the clearings about the Jack Ketch trees, since these vegetable omnivores kept other life beyond the reach of their greedy nooses. Elsewhere progress was impossible, for the Venusian jungle presented such a terrific tangle of writhing and struggling forms that one could move only by cutting the way, step by step, with infinite labor. Even then there was the danger of Heaven only knew what fanged and venomous creatures whose teeth might pierce the protective membrane of transkin, and a crack in that meant death. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/11/ II An hour later, weary and thoroughly soaked in perspiration, Ham found a Friendly tree, so named by the explorer Burlingame because it is one of the few organisms on Venus sluggish enough to permit one to rest in its branches. So Ham climbed it, found the most comfortable position available, and slept as best he could. It was five hours by his wrist watch before he awoke, and the tendrils and little sucking cups of the Friendly tree were fastened all over his transkin. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/12/ The thing rolled by with a sucking and gulping sound. Behind it opened the passage it had cleared; creepers, snake vines, Jack Ketch trees— everything had been swept away down to the humid earth itself, where already the molds were springing up on the slime of the doughpot’s trail. The alley led nearly in the direction Ham wanted to travel; he seized the opportunity and strode briskly along, with a wary eye, nevertheless, on the ominous walls of jungle. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/13/ “Murra,” he said. The language of the natives of the equatorial regions of the Hotlands is a queer one. It has, perhaps, two hundred words, but when a trader has learned those two hundred, his knowledge of the tongue is but little greater than the man who knows none at all. The words are generalized, and each sound has anywhere from a dozen to a hundred meanings. Murra, for instance, is a word of greeting; it may mean something much like “hello,” or “good morning. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/14/ But this one accepted the intended sense. “Murra,” he responded, pausing. “Usk?” That was, among other things, “Who are you?” or “Where did you come from?” or “Where are you bound?” Ham chose the latter sense. He pointed off into the dim west, then raised his hand in an arc to indicate the mountains. “Erotia,” he said. That had but one meaning, at least. The native considered this in silence. At last he grunted and volunteered some information. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/15/ Curky meant, together with twenty other senses, trader. It was the word usually applied to humans, and Ham felt a pleasant anticipation in the prospect of human company. It had been six months since he had heard a human voice other than that on the tiny radio now sunk with his shack. True enough, five miles along the doughpot’s trail Ham emerged suddenly in an area where there had been a recent mudspout. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/16/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/16/ Ham stood puzzled. At last he kicked and tramped a clear space before the door, sat down against it, and fell to snapping away the numerous and loathsome little creatures that swarmed over his transkin. He waited. It wasn’t half an hour before he saw the trader plowing through the clearing—a short, slim fellow; the transkin shaded his face, but Ham could make out large, shadowed eyes. He stood up. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/17/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/17/ Ham’s jaw set stubbornly behind his mask. “Rights or none,” he said, “I’m entitled to the consideration of the frontier code. I want a breath of air and a chance to wipe my face, and also a chance to eat. If you open that door I’m coming in after you.” An automatic flashed into view. “Do, and you’ll feed the molds.” Ham, like all Venusian traders, was of necessity bold, resourceful, and what is called in the States “hard-boiled. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/18/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/18/ He had both wrists now; the fellow seemed curiously delicate. After a moment he nodded, and Ham released one hand. The door opened, and he followed the other in. Again, unheard-of magnificence. Solid chairs, a sturdy table, even books, carefully preserved, no doubt, by lycopodium against the ravenous molds that sometimes entered Hotland shacks in spite of screen filters and automatic spray. An automatic spray was going now to destroy any spores that might have entered with the opening door. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/19/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/19/ He tried again. “What’s your name?” The cool voice sounded: “Burlingame. Pat Burlingame.” Ham laughed. “Patrick Burlingame is dead, my friend. I knew him.” No answer. “And if you don’t want to tell your name, at least you needn’t insult the memory of a brave man and a great explorer.” “Thank you.” The voice was sardonic. “He was my father.” “Another lie. He had no son. He had only a—” Ham paused abruptly; a feeling of consternation swept over him. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/2/ But such seasons! In the winter the temperature drops sometimes to a humid but bearable ninety, but, two weeks later, a hundred and forty is a cool day near the torrid edge of the zone. And always, winter and summer, the intermittent rains drip sullenly down to be absorbed by the spongy soil and given back again as sticky, unpleasant, unhealthy steam. And that, the vast amount of moisture on Venus, was the greatest surprise of the first human visitors; the clouds had been seen, of course, but the spectroscope denied the presence of water, naturally, since it was analyzing light reflected from the upper cloud surfaces, fifty miles above the planet’s face. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/20/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/20/ Instantly Patricia snatched an automatic from the table drawer. “You’re going, indeed, Mr. Hamilton Hammond,” she said coolly. “But you’re leaving your xixtchil with me. It’s crown property; you’ve stolen it from British territory, and I’m confiscating it.” He stared. “Look here!” he blazed suddenly. “I’ve risked all I have for that xixtchil. If I lose it I’m ruined—busted. I’m not giving it up!” “But you are.” He dropped his mask and sat down. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/21/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/21/ Her gray eyes bored silently into his blue ones. The gun held steadily on his heart, but spat no bullet. It was a deadlock. At last the girl said, “You win, poacher.” She slapped the gun into her empty holster. “Get out, then.” “Gladly!” he snapped. He rose, fingered his visor, then dropped it again at a sudden startled scream from the girl. He whirled, suspecting a trick, but she was staring out of the window with wide, apprehensive eyes. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/22/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/22/ She paused; Ham thought she paled a little behind her mask. “Due when?” “Why—it just came two days ago. I’d forgotten.” “I see. And you think you’ll just stick around for a month waiting for it. Is that it?” Patricia stared at him defiantly. “Do you know,” he resumed, “what you’d be in a month? It’s ten days to summer and look at your shack.” He gestured at the walls, where brown and rusty patches were forming; at his motion a piece the size of a saucer tumbled in with a crackle. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/23/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/23/ III. Patricia walked silently out of the door and turned west toward the Cool Country. Ham hesitated a moment, then followed. He couldn’t permit the girl to attempt that journey alone; since she ignored his presence, he simply trailed a few steps behind her, plodding grimly and angrily along. For three hours or more they trudged through the endless daylight, dodging the thrusts of the Jack Ketch trees, but mostly following the still fairly open trail of the first doughpot. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/24/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/24/ An hour later the mudspout caught them. Without warning, watery muck boiled up around their feet, and the vegetation swayed wildly. Hastily, they strapped on their mudshoes, while the heavier plants sank with sullen gurgles around them. Again Ham marveled at the girl’s skill; Patricia slipped away across the unstable surface with a speed he could not match, and he shuffled far behind. Suddenly he saw her stop. That was dangerous in a mudspout; only an emergency could explain it. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/25/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/25/ A hundred yards brought firm footing. He sat her down and unstrapped her mudshoes. “Thank you,” she said coolly. “That was brave.” “You’re welcome,” he returned dryly. “I suppose this will end any idea of your traveling alone. Without both mudshoes, the next spout will be the last for you. Do we walk together now?” Her voice chilled. “I can make a substitute shoe from tree skin.” “Not even a native could walk on tree skin. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/26/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/26/ None too soon! The false Friendly tree had lashed down with a terrible stroke that missed his face by inches. It was no Friendly tree at all, but an imitator, luring prey within reach by its apparent harmlessness, then striking with knife-sharp spikes. Ham gasped. “What is it? I never saw one of those before.” “A Pharisee! It just looks like a Friendly tree.” She took out her automatic and sent a bullet into the black, pulsing trunk. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/27/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/27/ Once they encountered a uniped, that queer, kangaroolike creature that leaps, crashing through the jungle on a single mighty leg, and trusts to its ten-foot beak to spear its prey. When Ham missed his first shot, the girl brought it down in mid-leap to thresh into the avid clutches of the Jack Ketch trees and the merciless molds. On another occasion, Patricia had both feet caught in a Jack Ketch noose that lay for some unknown cause on the ground. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/28/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/28/ Ham woke first. For a while he gazed silently across at the girl, smiling at the way the branches of the tree had encircled her like affectionate arms. They were merely hungry, of course, but it looked like tenderness. His smile turned a little sad as he realized that the Cool Country meant parting, unless he could discourage that insane determination of hers to cross the Greater Eternities. He sighed, and reached for his pack slung on a branch between them, and suddenly a bellow of rage and astonishment broke from him. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/29/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/29/ Rage actually made him tremble. He glared at her; the light struck through the translucent transkin, outlining her body and slim rounded legs in shadow. “I ought to kill you!” he muttered tensely. His hand twitched, and the girl laughed softly. With a groan of desperation, he slung his pack over his shoulders and dropped to the ground. “I hope—I hope you die in the mountains,” he said grimly, and stalked away toward the west. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/3/ There is no way of predicting these catastrophes; only on the rare outcroppings of bed rock is a structure safe, and so all permanent human settlements cluster about the mountains. Sam Hammond was a trader. He was one of those adventurous individuals who always appear on the frontiers and fringes of habitable regions. Most of these fall into two classes; they are either reckless daredevils pursuing danger, or outcasts, criminal or otherwise, pursuing either solitude or forgetfulness. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/30/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/30/ He had one near catastrophe at the rim of the tableland. It was while he edged through a Jack Ketch clearing; suddenly there was a heave of white corruption, and tree and jungle wall disappeared in the mass of a gigantic doughpot. He was cornered between the monster and an impenetrable tangle of vegetation, so he did the only thing left to do. He snatched his flame-pistol and sent a terrific, roaring blast into the horror, a blast that incinerated tons of pasty filth and left a few small fragments crawling and feeding on the debris. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/31/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/31/ Ahead, visible as a curtain of shadow, lay the night edge of the twilight zone, and Ham could see the incessant lightnings that flashed forever in this region of endless storms. It was here that the ice barrier crossed the ranges of the Mountains of Eternity, and the cold underwind, thrust up by the mighty range, met the warm upper winds in a struggle that was one continuous storm, such a storm as only Venus could provide. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/32/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/32/ Ham saw her glancing anxiously around. “Ham!” she snouted again—not Yankee or poacher, but “Ham!” He kept a sullen silence; again she called. He could see her bronzed and piquant features now; she had dropped her transkin hood. She called again; with a despondent little shrug, she turned south along the divide, and he watched her go in grim silence. When the forest hid her from view, he descended and turned slowly north. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/33/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/33/ Trailing the girl was easy here for one trained in the Hotlands. The vegetation was slow to mend itself, here in the Cool Country, and now again he found imprints of her feet, or broken twigs to mark her path. He found the place where she had crossed the river through tree branches, and he found a place where she had paused to eat. But he saw that she was gaining on him; her skill and speed outmatched his, and the trail grew steadily older. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/34/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/34/ Here again it grew difficult to trail, since Patricia scrambled often over bare rock. But little by little the signs grew fresher; once again his greater strength began to tell. And then he glimpsed her, at the base of a colossal escarpment split by a narrow, tree-filled canyon. She was peering first at the mighty precipice, then at the cleft, obviously wondering whether it offered a means of scaling the barrier, or whether it was necessary to circle the obstacle. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/35/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/35/ The eagerness vanished. “Indeed, poacher? My father crossed here. I can, too.” “Your father crossed in midsummer, didn’t he? And midsummer’s to-day. You can’t make Madman’s Pass in less than five days, a hundred and twenty hours, and by then it will be nearly winter, and this longitude will be close to the storm line. You’re a fool.” She flushed. “The pass is high enough to be in the upper winds. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/36/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/36/ A crashing and gurgling interrupted her, and she screamed as a gigantic doughpot burst into view, a colossus that filled the canyon from wall to wall to a six-foot height as it surged toward them. The horrors were rarer in the Cool Country, but larger, since the abundance of food in the Hotlands kept subdividing them. But this one was a giant, a behemoth, tons and tons of nauseous, ill-smelling corruption heaving up the narrow way. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/37/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/37/ The two paused in the shadow. “Now what?” muttered Ham. A fair shot at the mass was impossible because of the angle; a blast would destroy only the portion it could reach. Patricia leaped upward, catching a snaky shrub on the wall, so placed that it received a faint ray of light. She tossed it against the pulsing mass; the whole doughpot lunged forward a foot or two. “Lure it in,” she suggested. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/38/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/38/ Patricia produced one, he took it, and then stared at it in dismay. The barrels of her Enfield-made weapon were far too small for his American pistol stock! He groaned. “Of all the idiots!” he burst out. “Idiots!” she flared. “Because you Yankees use trench mortars for your barrels?” “I meant myself. I should have guessed this.” He shrugged. “Well, we have our choice now of waiting here for the doughpot to eat himself, or trying to find some other way out of this trap. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/39/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/39/ “I don’t like this,” said Ham. “The pass is cutting closer and closer to the dark. Do you realize no one knows what’s in the dark parts of the Mountains of Eternity?” Patricia laughed; the sound was ghostly. “What danger could there be? Anyway, we still have our automatics.” “There’s no way up here,” Ham grumbled. “Let’s turn back.” Patricia faced him. “Frightened, Yankee?” Her voice dropped. “The natives say these mountains are haunted,” she went on mockingly. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/4/ He had never really expected the mudspout. Of course it was an ever- present danger, but when, staring idly through the window of his shack over the writhing and steaming Venusian plain, he had seen the sudden boiling pools erupting all around, it had come as a shocking surprise. For a moment he was paralyzed; then he sprang into immediate and frantic action. He pulled on his enveloping suit of rubberlike transkin; he strapped the great bowls of mudshoes to his feet; he tied the precious bag of spore-pods to his shoulders, packed some food, and then burst into the open. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/40/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/40/ She paled; it was Patricia who was frightened now. They stared apprehensively up at the rock walls where strange shadows flickered and shifted. “What—what was it?” she whispered. And then: “Ham! Did you see that?” Ham had seen it. A wild shape had flung itself across the strip of sky, leaping from cliff to cliff far above them. And again came a peal of hooting that sounded like laughter, while shadowy forms moved, flylike, on the sheer walls. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/41/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/41/ A score of pods were popping. A figure flitted silently far up on the wall of rock. Ham watched its progress, then aimed his automatic and fired. There was a shrill, rasping scream, answered by a chorus of dissonant ululations, and something as large as a man whirled down to crash not ten feet from him. The thing was hideous. Ham stared appalled at a creature not unlike a native, three-eyed, two-handed, four-legged, but the hands, though two-fingered like the Hotlanders', were not pincerlike, but white and clawed. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/42/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/42/ At the crash of the shot, the shower of pods had ceased, and a chorus of laughing hoots ensued. Ham seized the respite to pull the girl’s transkin over her face; she had collapsed with it only half on. Then a sharp crack sounded, and a stone rebounded to strike his arm. Others pattered around him, whining past, swift as bullets. Black figures flickered in great leaps against the sky, and their fierce laughter sounded mockingly. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/43/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/43/ Ham reached the bend. Far up on the west wall glowed cloudy sunlight, and his weird pursuers flung themselves to the dark side. They couldn’t stand daylight, and that gave him some assistance; by creeping very close to the eastern wall he was partially shielded. Ahead was the other bend, blocked by the doughpot. As he neared it, he turned suddenly sick. Three of the creatures were grouped against the mass of white, eating—actually eating! https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/44/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/44/ Stones cracked about him once more. Step by step he edged along the way, poised just over the doomed doughpot. Death below and death above! And little by little he rounded the bend; above him both walls glowed in sunlight, and they were safe. At least, he was safe. The girl might be already dead, he thought frantically, as he slipped and slid through the slime of the doughpot’s passage. Out on the daylit slope he tore the mask from her face and gazed on white, marble-cold features. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/45/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/45/ “What?” “Yes. I—of course I didn’t throw it to the molds. It’s yours by rights, Ham. Lots of British traders go into the American Hotlands. I just slit the pouch and hid it here in my pack. The molds on the ground were only some twigs I threw there to—to make it look real.” “But—but—why?” The flush deepened. “I wanted to punish you,” Patricia whispered, “for being so—so cold and distant. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/5/ So Ham started off over the boiling swamp, walking with the peculiar sliding motion he had learned by much practice, never raising the mudshoes above the surface, but sliding them along, careful that no mud topped the curving rim. It was a tiresome motion, but absolutely necessary. He slid along as if on snowshoes, bearing west because that was the direction of the dark side, and if he had to walk to safety, he might as well do it in coolness. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/6/ Breathing them wasn’t even a necessary requirement; once he’d come upon a trader’s body with the molds springing from his flesh. The poor fellow had somehow torn a rip in his transkin suit, and that was enough. The situation made eating and drinking in the open a problem on Venus; one had to wait until a rain had precipitated the spores, when it was safe for half an hour or so. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/7/ All life on Venus is more or less parasitic. Even the plants that draw their nourishment directly from soil and air have also the ability to absorb and digest—and, often enough, to trap—animal food. So fierce is the competition on that humid strip of land between the fire and the ice that one who has never seen it must fail even to imagine it. The animal kingdom wars incessantly on itself and the plant world; the vegetable kingdom retaliates, and frequently outdoes the other in the production of monstrous predatory horrors that one would even hesitate to call plant life. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/8/ “Horrible place!” Ham muttered, kicked a writhing mass of nameless little vermin from his path. He mused; his shack had been situated rather nearer the hot edge of the twilight zone; it was a trifle over two hundred and fifty miles to the shadow line, though of course that varied with the libration. But one couldn’t approach the line too closely, anyway, because of the fierce, almost inconceivable, storms that raged where the hot upper winds encountered the icy blasts of the night side, giving rise to the birth throes of the ice barrier. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-parasite/9/ Well, that meant about two hundred miles. No reason why he couldn’t make it; he was armed with both automatic and flame-pistol, and water was no problem, if carefully boiled. Under pressure of necessity, one could even eat Venusian life—but it required hunger and thorough cooking and a sturdy stomach. It wasn’t the taste so much as the appearance, or so he’d been told. He grimaced; beyond doubt he’d be driven to find out for himself, since his canned food couldn’t possibly last out the trip. https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/1/ Poltarnees, Beholder of Ocean (1910) by Lord Dunsany Toldees, Mondath, Arizim, these are the Inner Lands, the lands whose sentinels upon their borders do not behold the sea. Beyond them to the east there lies a desert, for ever untroubled by man: all yellow it is, and spotted with shadows of stones, and Death is in it, like a leopard lying in the sun. To the south they are bounded by magic, to the west by a mountain, and to the north by the voice and anger of the Polar wind. https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/2/ From these three little kingdoms that are named the Inner Lands the young men stole constantly away. One by one they went, and no one knew why they went save that they had a longing to behold the Sea. Of this longing they spoke little, but a young man would become silent for a few days, and then, one morning very early, he would slip away and slowly climb Poltarnee’s difficult slope, and having attained the top pass over and never return. https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/3/ Now the king of Arizim had a daughter who played with the wild wood flowers, and with the fountains in her father’s court, and with the little blue heaven-birds that came to her doorway in the winter to shelter from the snow. And she was more beautiful than the wild wood flowers, or than all the fountains in her father’s court, or than the blue heaven-birds in their full winter plumage when they shelter from the snow. https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/4/ And the season of the orchard-bloom appeared. One night the King of Arizim called his daughter forth on his outer balcony of marble. And the moon was rising huge and round and holy over dark woods, and all the fountains were singing to the night. And the moon touched the marble palace gables, and they glowed in the land. And the moon touched the heads of all the fountains, and the grey columns broke into fairy lights. https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/5/ Yet one more trial they made of Hilnaric’s beauty, for they watched her on the terraces at sunset ere yet the petals of the orchards had fallen, and all along the edge of neighbouring woods the rhododendron was blooming with the azalea. And the sun went down under craggy Poltarnees, and the sea-mist poured over his summit inland. And the marble temples stood up clear in the evening, but films of twilight were drawn between the mountain and the city. https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/6/ The next day Athelvok came to the palace of Arizim with the morning, over the fields to the East and out of the country of Toldees, and Hilnaric came out along her balcony and met him on the terraces. And she asked him if he had ever slain a gariach, and he said that he had slain three, and then he told her how he had killed his first down by the pool in the wood. https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/7/ But he, repeating the oath that he had sworn, set out, looking often backwards until the slope became to step and his face was set to the rock. It was in the morning that he started, and he climbed all the day with little rest, where every foot-hole was smooth with many feet. Before he reached the top the sun disappeared from him, and darker and darker grew the Inner Lands. https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/dunsany-poltarnees/8/ An easy slope of loose rock went from the top of Poltarnees to the shore of the Sea. For a long while Athelvok stood there regretfully, knowing that there had come something into his soul that no one in the Inner Lands could understand, where the thoughts of their minds had gone no farther than the three little kingdoms. Then, looking long upon the wandering ships, and the marvelous merchandise from alien lands, and the unknown colour that wreathed the brows of the Sea, he turned his face to the darkness and the Inner Lands. https://eykd.net/pcrc/bonus-library/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/bonus-library/ All ebooks are free, courtesy of the Standard Ebooks Project. Science Fiction Fantasy Weird Mystery Humor Science Fiction Armageddon 2419 A.D. (1928) by Philip Francis Nowland. Mysteriously transported to a far-future America conquered by the Han Empire, Buck Rogers is swept up in a rebellion led by rival American gangs. Stand by for Mars! (1952) by Carey Rockwell. Young Tom Corbett dreams of becoming a Space Cadet on his way to joining the Solar Guard. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/1/ The Golgotha Dancers (1937) by Manly Wade Wellman [Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales October 1937. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I had come to the Art Museum to see the special show of Goya prints, but that particular gallery was so crowded that I could hardly get in, much less see or savor anything; wherefore I walked out again. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/2/ “Hold on, there!” came a sharp challenge from the stairs behind and below me. “What are you doing? And what’s that picture doing?” I started so that I almost lost my footing and fell upon the speaker—one of the Museum guards. He was a slight old fellow and his thin hair was gray, but he advanced upon me with all the righteous, angry pluck of a beefy policeman. His attitude surprised and nettled me. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/3/ It was not until I had paid off my taxi and lugged the unwieldy parallelogram of canvas and wood upstairs to my bachelor apartment that I bothered to wonder if it might be valuable. I never did find out, but from the first I was deeply impressed. Hung over my own fireplace, it looked as large and living as a scene glimpsed through a window or, perhaps, on a stage in a theater. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/4/ Something held me tight by the wrist. … chevronRight icon                             https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/5/ In my first half-moment of wakefulness I was aware that the room was filled with the pink dancers of the picture, in nimble, fierce-happy motion. They were man-size, too, or nearly so, visible in the dark with the dim radiance of fox-fire. On the small scale of the painting they had seemed no more than babyishly plump; now they were gross, like huge erect toads. And, as I awakened fully, they were closing in, a menacing ring of them, around my bed. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/6/ I saw and sensed all this, as I say, in a single moment. With the sensing came the realization of peril, so great that I did not stop to wonder at the uncanniness of my visitors. I tried frantically to jerk loose. For the moment I did not succeed and as I thrashed about, throwing my body nearly across the bed, a second dancer dashed in from the left. It seized and clamped my other arm. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/7/ Somebody was knocking outside, and with trembling fingers I turned the knob of the door. In came a tall, slender girl with a blue lounging-robe caught hurriedly around her. Her bright hair was disordered as though she had just sprung from her bed. “Is someone sick?” she asked in a breathless voice. “I live down the hall—I heard cries.” Her round blue eyes were studying my face, which must have been ghastly pale. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/8/ It was a good dinner. Afterward we went to an amusing motion picture, with Charles Butterworth in it as I remember. After bidding her good-night, I went to my own place. Undressed and in bed, I lay awake. My late morning slumber made my eyes slow to close. Thus it was that I heard the faint shuffle of feet and, sitting up against my pillows, saw the glowing silhouettes of the Golgotha dancers. https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/example-wellman/9/ This time the dancers did not retreat or vanish; they lurked in the comparative gloom of the entry, jigging and trembling as if mustering their powers and resolutions for another rush at us. “You see,” I chattered out to her, “it wasn’t a nightmare.” She spoke, not in reply, but as if to herself. “They have no faces,” she whispered. “No faces!” In the half-light that was diffused upon them from our lamp they presented the featurelessness of so many huge gingerbread boys, covered with pink icing. https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/1/ The Golgotha Dancers (1937) by Manly Wade Wellman [Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Weird Tales October 1937. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] I had come to the Art Museum to see the special show of Goya prints, but that particular gallery was so crowded that I could hardly get in, much less see or savor anything; wherefore I walked out again. https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/2/ “Hold on, there!” came a sharp challenge from the stairs behind and below me. “What are you doing? And what’s that picture doing?” I started so that I almost lost my footing and fell upon the speaker—one of the Museum guards. He was a slight old fellow and his thin hair was gray, but he advanced upon me with all the righteous, angry pluck of a beefy policeman. His attitude surprised and nettled me. https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/3/ It was not until I had paid off my taxi and lugged the unwieldy parallelogram of canvas and wood upstairs to my bachelor apartment that I bothered to wonder if it might be valuable. I never did find out, but from the first I was deeply impressed. Hung over my own fireplace, it looked as large and living as a scene glimpsed through a window or, perhaps, on a stage in a theater. https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/4/ Something held me tight by the wrist. chevronRight icon                             https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/5/ In my first half-moment of wakefulness I was aware that the room was filled with the pink dancers of the picture, in nimble, fierce-happy motion. They were man-size, too, or nearly so, visible in the dark with the dim radiance of fox-fire. On the small scale of the painting they had seemed no more than babyishly plump; now they were gross, like huge erect toads. And, as I awakened fully, they were closing in, a menacing ring of them, around my bed. https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/6/ I saw and sensed all this, as I say, in a single moment. With the sensing came the realization of peril, so great that I did not stop to wonder at the uncanniness of my visitors. I tried frantically to jerk loose. For the moment I did not succeed and as I thrashed about, throwing my body nearly across the bed, a second dancer dashed in from the left. It seized and clamped my other arm. https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/7/ Somebody was knocking outside, and with trembling fingers I turned the knob of the door. In came a tall, slender girl with a blue lounging-robe caught hurriedly around her. Her bright hair was disordered as though she had just sprung from her bed. “Is someone sick?” she asked in a breathless voice. “I live down the hall—I heard cries.” Her round blue eyes were studying my face, which must have been ghastly pale. https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/8/ It was a good dinner. Afterward we went to an amusing motion picture, with Charles Butterworth in it as I remember. After bidding her good-night, I went to my own place. Undressed and in bed, I lay awake. My late morning slumber made my eyes slow to close. Thus it was that I heard the faint shuffle of feet and, sitting up against my pillows, saw the glowing silhouettes of the Golgotha dancers. https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/wellman-golgotha/9/ This time the dancers did not retreat or vanish; they lurked in the comparative gloom of the entry, jigging and trembling as if mustering their powers and resolutions for another rush at us. “You see,” I chattered out to her, “it wasn’t a nightmare.” She spoke, not in reply, but as if to herself. “They have no faces,” she whispered. “No faces!” In the half-light that was diffused upon them from our lamp they presented the featurelessness of so many huge gingerbread boys, covered with pink icing. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/1/ The Immortals of Mercury (1932) By Clark Ashton Smith I Cliff Howard’s first sensation, as he came back to consciousness, was one of well-nigh insufferable heat. It seemed to beat upon him from all sides in a furnace-like blast and to lie upon his face, limbs and body with the heaviness of molten metal. Then, before he had opened his eyes, he became aware of the furious light that smote upon his lids, turning them to a flame-red curtain. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/10/ The voice ended on a high, harsh note, and the listening Mercutians made a queer gesture with their heads and hands, as if to indicate submission to a superior will “Our temporal ruler and chief scientist, Ounavodo,” said Agvur, “has just spoken from his hall in the lower levels. After hours of deliberation, he has reached a decision regarding your fate. In a sense, I regret the decision, which seems a trifle harsh to me; but the mandates of the Shol, as we call our ancient ruler, are to be obeyed without question. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/11/ “Both, for their perfection, require a seventh ingredient—a small admixture of living, protoplasmic matter, added to the molten metal in the furnace. Only thus—for a reason that is still mysterious to our savants—can the mouffa acquire its full power of insulation against the deadly solar rays. “The mouffa used in comparatively heavy sheets for cavern- lining needs only the substance of inferior life-forms, such as the grokos, the half-animal savages of the twilight zone, and various creatures which we catch or breed in our underworld tunnels But the higher grade of mouffa, employed in light, flexible sheets for suiting, requires the protoplasm of superior life. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/12/ He made no reply to the Mercutian. He felt his helplessness in the hands of an alien, extra-human race, equipped, it would seem, with scientific knowledge and power to which humanity had not yet attained. Thinking with desperate quickness, he decided that it would be better to pretend resignation to the will of his captors. His hand stole instinctively to the pocket in which he had carried the little tonanite pistol with its twelve charges of deadly heat-producing explosive; and he was dismayed, though hardly surprised, to find that the weapon was gone. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/13/ Now, for the first time, Howard saw the singular object which the Oumnis were facing. Apparently it was some sort of rootless plant-growth, with a swollen, yellowish bole or body like that of barrel-cactus. From this body, tall as a man, leafless branches of vivid arsenic green, fringed with a white hispidity, trailed in limp, sinuous masses on the cavern-floor. Agvur spoke in a piercing whisper: “The plant is called the Roccalim, and we employ it to choose, from a given quota, the person who shall be cast into the furnace of molten mouffa. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/14/ About twenty of the white Immortals had undergone this ordeal, when Howard’s turn came. Resolutely, with a sense of unreality and grotesquery rather than actual danger, he stepped forward and began his circuit of the living plant. The Oumnis looked on like alabaster Statues; and all was utterly still and silent, except for a muffled, mysterious throbbing. as of underworld machinery at a distance. Howard moved on in an arc, watching the green branches with a growing tenseness. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/15/ III In mingled horror and dumbfoundment, Howard was taken through an opposite entrance of the Roccalim’s cavern and along a sort of hall which appeared to run parallel with the one in which the incline had ended. Agvur walked at his side; and the Oumni guards were grouped before and behind him. He surmised that the glittering, hollow tubes they carried were weapons of some novel type. As they went on, the mysterious throbbing noise drew steadily nearer Howard saw that the far end of the corridor was illumined with a fiery red light. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/16/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/16/ Howard felt an almost overpowering heat when he stood on the upper platform; and the red glare blinded him. The furnace itself, he now saw, was a circular crater, fifteen feet across, in the black stone. It was filled nearly to the rim with the molten metal, which eddied with a slow maelstrom-like movement, agitated by some unknown means, and glowing unbearably. The black stone must have been a non-conductor of heat, for it was cool beneath Howard’s bare soles. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/17/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/17/ “The narcotic acts, immediately,” said Agvur, as if in reassurance. Giving a quick, unobtrusive glance about him, Howard accepted the bowl and raised it to his lips. The narcotic was odorless as well as colorless, and had the consistency of a thick, sluggish oil. “Be quick,” admonished Agvur. “The slab responds to a timing mechanism; and already it starts to move.” Howard saw that the slab was gliding slowly, bearing him as on a great protruding tongue toward the furnace. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/18/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/18/ His captors had followed him to the platform-edge; and facing them as he slid, the earth-man saw two of the Immortals aim their weapons at him. From the hollow tubes, there issued glowing balls of yellow fire which came flying toward Howard. One of them fell short, striking the side of the great pipe, and causing it to melt away like so much solder. He saw the dripping of the molten metal as he ducked to avoid the second ball. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/19/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/19/ Now he had gained the corridor beyond the exit. He meant to retrace the route by which he had come with Agvur, if possible. But as he neared the door through which he had seen the watcher of the darkening globe, and the light-controlling mechanisms, he perceived that a number of Mercutians, armed with fire-tubes, were coming to intercept his flight in the corridor. Doubtless they had been summoned through some sort of telaudition by the furnace-tenders. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/2/ He recalled the ramble he had taken, alone, amid the weird and scrubby jungles of the twilight zone of Mercury—that narrow belt, warm and vaporous, lying beneath the broiling deserts on which an enormous sun glares perpetually, and the heaped and mountainous glaciers of the planet’s nightward side. He had not gone far from the rocket-ship—a mile at most, toward the sulphurous, fuming afterglow of the sun, now wholly hidden by the planet’s libration. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/20/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/20/ IV Standing uncertain and bewildered, the earth-man heard a low moaning from the injured Mercutian, and a loud wail of consternation from the corridor without, where the two groups of his pursurers had found themselves overtaken by darkness. The wailing ceased abruptly; and except for the moaning near at hand, which still went on, there was absolute silence. Howard realized that he no longer heard the mutter of the strange engines in the furnace-room. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/21/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/21/ Lifting his bar, he rushed upon the shadows, striking blow after blow, and stumbling over the bodies that fell before his onslaught. There were shrill cries about him, and he broke from chill, mouffa-sheathed fingers that sought to clutch him in the gloom. Then, somehow, he had broken through, and was in the corridor. The glimmering, he saw, came from the cavern of machines, where the hidden furnace still burned. Into the dying glow that lit the entrance, there came hurrying figures, each of which appeared to have an enormous Cyclopean eye of icy green. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/22/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/22/ The mass of python-like branches lay inert beneath him, without a quiver of animation. Doubtless, in the absense of light, the queer, semi-animal growth was torpid. Pulling himself from the spiny couch on which he had fallen, Howard looked back and perceived the thronging of green lights, cold and malignant as the eyes of boreal dragons. His pursuers were entering the cavern, and would overtake him in a few instants. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/23/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/23/ Going on, with the lights moving steadily before him, he started up the interminable incline which led—perhaps—to freedom. The tunnel was deserted, except for the hunters and their human quarry; and it seemed as if the multitude of Oumnis seen by Howard on his arrival with Agvur had all retired with the falling of darkness. Perhaps they had to for the usual three-hour term of night and repose. The light-bearers appeared to disregard all the side passages that ran from the main tunnel. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/24/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/24/ Hour after hour he went on, through a cycle of sunless night. He lost the sense of time, and his movements became a sort of automation. His limbs were numb and dead, and it was only his relentless will that lived and drove him on. Almost, at times, he forgot where he was going—forget everything but the blind, primitive impulse of flight. He was a nameless thing, fleeing from anonymous terror. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/25/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/25/ V Mile after mile of that monotone of gloom. Then, with a start of bewilderment, the earth-man realized that the four lights in front had all disappeared. Looking back, he saw that the lamps which followed him had similarly vanished. About, before and behind there was nothing but a solid, tomb-like wall of darkness. Howard felt a strange disconcertment, together with the leaden, crushing return of his weariness. He went on with doubtful, slackening steps, following the right hand wall with cautious fingers. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/26/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/26/ The draft in his face grew stronger, with a smell of water. Presently the blindfold darkness before him melted into a chill, bluish glimmering, which revealed the rugate walls and boulder-fanged roof of the natural passage he was following. He came out in a huge, chamber-like cave of some marble-pallid stone with twisted columnar forms. The glimmering, he saw, was a kind of phosphorescence emitted by certain vegetable growths, probably of a thallophytic nature, which rose in thick clusters from the floor, attaining the height of a tall man. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/27/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/27/ The node must have contained a narcotic principle; for almost immediately he was overpowered by an insuperable drowsiness. He fell back and lay where he had fallen, in a deep sodden sopor without dreams, for a length of time which, as far as he could know, might have been the interim of death between two lives. He awoke with violent nausea, a racking headache, and a feeling of hopeless, irredeemable confusion. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/28/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/28/ VI He awoke with renewed physical strength, but with nerves and mind that were still partially shattered by his experiences. Like a savage who awakens in some primordial cave, he felt the irrational terror of darkness and mystery. His memories were dazed and broken, and he could recall the Oumnis only as a vague an almost supernatural source of fear, from which he had fled. The fungus-bough, which had served him in lieu of a torch or lantern, was lying beside him in the darkness. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/29/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/29/ Smitten with hideous terror, howling and gibbering like a caveman, he lifted the metal rod, which his clutching fingers had somehow retained, and struck frantically at the awful head into whose mouth he was being drawn by inches. The blows made little or no impression on the great rubbery mass; and soon he was waist-deep in the monstrous maw. In his dire need, a trace of reasoning-power returned to him; and using the rod like a rapier he thrust it into the immense, glaring eye, burying it to his hand, and probably penetrating whatever rudimentary semblance of brain the animal possessed. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/3/ They were gnarled and dwarfish creatures, who walked partially erect at most times; but ran upon all fours when frightened. The earth-men had named them the Dlukus, because of the clucking sounds resembling this word which they often made. Their skins were heavily scaled, like those of reptiles; and their small, protruding eyes appeared to be covered at all times with a sort of thin film. Anything ghastlier or more repulsive than these beings could hardly have been found on the inner planets. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/30/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/30/ He dropped his luminous torch and concealed himself behind one of the dolomitic formations. From his hiding-place, he saw the passing of two of the Immortals, clad in silvery mouffa, who descended the scarp and vanished in the craggy gulfs below. Whether or not they were hunting for him, he could not know; but when they had gone from sight, he resumed his climb, hurrying at breakneck speed and feeling that he must get as far away as possible from the bearers of those icy green lights. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/31/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/31/ After he had gone for perhaps a mile, the floor became perfectly level, but the hall itself started to turn in a sort of arc. He was unable to see very far ahead. Then, so abruptly that he could not check his headlong flight, he came in view of three Oumnis, clothed in metal, who were all standing with their backs to him. A boat-vehicle was near at hand. One of the Immortals was tugging at a huge, capstan-like bar that protruded from the wall of the passage; and as if in response to the bar, a sort of gleaming metal valve was descending slowly from the roof. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/32/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/32/ Struggling to rise, he found himself impeded and held back. He was in utter darkness now; but getting to his knees and groping about, he determined the cause of his retardation. The fallen valve had caught the loose elongated heel of the mouffa on his right foot. He had all the sensations of a trapped animal as he sought to wrench himself free. The tough mouffa held, weighed down by the enormous valve; and it seemed that there was no escape. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/33/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/33/ The passage steepened and the air took on a terrible frigidity. There was no sign of pursuit from the Oumnis; but fearing they would raise the valve and follow him, the earth-man hastened on. He was puzzled by the growing Arctic cold, but the suppositional reason seemed to elude him. His naked limbs and torso were studded with goose-flesh; and he began to shiver with violent ague, in spite of the high speed at which he ran and climbed. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/4/ Then, with a start of horror, he recognized it. He was bound, Mazeppa-like, to the back of one of those salamandrine monsters to which the earth-scientists had given the name of “heat-lizards.” These creatures were large crocodiles, but possessed longer legs than any terrestrial saurian. Their thick hides were apparently, to an amazing extent, non-conductors of heat, and served to insulate them against temperatures that would have parboiled any other known form of life. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/5/ Howard’s brain seemed to broil in his head, and his blood was a fiery torrent in his roasted body. He fought for breath—and every breath seared his lungs. The vapors eddied about him in deepening swirls, and he heard a muffled roaring whose cause he could not determine. He became aware that the heat-lizard had paused; and moving his head a little, saw that it was standing on the rocky verge of a great gulf, into which the waters fell to an unknown depth, amid curtains of steam. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/6/ II Howard awoke under circumstances that were novel and inexplicable. Instantly, with great clearness, he remembered all that had occurred prior to his final lapse, but could find no clue to his present situation. He was lying on his back in a green radiance—a soft and soothing light that reminded him of the verdant green and emerald seawater of the far-off Earth. The light was all about him, it seemed to flow beneath and above him, laying his body with cool ripples that left a sense of supreme well-being. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/7/ Abruptly, at his feet, the end of the vault seemed to disappear in a white glory like pure sunlight. Long, sinuous, six-fingered hands reached out from the glory, grasped him about the ankles, and drew him gently from the green-lit space in which he floated. Weight seemed to return to him as his limbs and body entered the dazzling whiteness; and a moment later, he found himself standing erect in a large chamber, lined with some sort of pale, shimmering metal. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/8/ “Where am I? And who are you?” cried Howard. “You are in the interior of Mercury,” said the being. “I am Agvur, a savant, and a high noble of the ruling race of this world.” He went on in a tone of half-disdainful explanation, as if lecturing to a child: “We call ourselves the Oumnis; and we are an old people, wise and erudite in all the secrets of nature. To protect ourselves from the intense radiations of the sun, which of course are more powerful on Mercury than on the further planets, we dwell in caverns lined with a metallic substance of our own composition. https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/smith-immortals/9/ “How far am I from the rocket-ship?” asked Howard. “I trust you can help me to get back.” “You are now a full mile beneath the surface of Mercury,” said Agvur, “and the part of the twilight zone in which your vessel lies is about five miles away and could readily be reached by an incline leading upward to a small exit in a natural cavern within sight of the ship. https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/1/ The Jupiter Weapon By Charles L. Fontenay Transcriber’s Note: This e-text was produced from Amazing Science Fiction Stories March 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U. S. copyright on this publication was renewed. Trella feared she was in for trouble even before Motwick’s head dropped forward on his arms in a drunken stupor. The two evil-looking men at the table nearby had been watching her surreptitiously, and now they shifted restlessly in their chairs. https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/10/ She was sure that Blessing was wrong, that Quest, whether man or android, intended no harm to him. Surely, Quest would have said something of such bitterness during their long time together on Ganymede and aspace, since he did not know of Trella’s connection with Blessing. But, since this was to be the atmosphere of Blessing’s house, she was glad that he decided to assign her to take the Mansard papers to the New York laboratory. https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/2/ The dark man was at her heels. In desperation, she dodged around the short man and took refuge behind him. Her protector was obviously unwilling, but the dark man, faced with his massiveness, took no chances. He stopped and shouted: “Kregg!” The other man at the table arose, ponderously, and lumbered toward them. He was immense, at least six and a half feet tall, with a brutal, vacant face. Evading her attempts to stay behind him, the squat man began to move down the bar away from the approaching Kregg. https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/3/ The gravity of Ganymede was hardly more than that of Earth’s moon, but the way the man picked up the limp Motwick with one hand and tossed him over a shoulder was startling: as though he lifted a feather pillow. He followed Trella out the door of the Golden Satellite and fell in step beside her. Immediately she was grateful for his presence. The dimly lighted street was not crowded, but she didn’t like the looks of the men she saw. https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/4/ They had reached the more brightly lighted section of the city now. Trella could get a cab from here, but the Stellar Hotel wasn’t far. They walked on. Trella had the desk clerk call a cab to deliver the unconscious Motwick to his home. She and Quest had a late sandwich in the coffee shop. “I landed here only a week ago,” he told her, his eyes frankly admiring her honey-colored hair and comely face. https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/5/ Motwick was an irresponsible playboy whom Trella had known briefly on Earth, and Trella was glad to dispense with his company for the remaining three weeks before the spaceship blasted off. She found herself enjoying the steadier companionship of Quest. As a matter of fact, she found herself enjoying his companionship more than she intended to. She found herself falling in love with him. Now this did not suit her at all. https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/6/ The actual cutting instrument of the surgiscope was an ion stream. By operating a tool in the three-dimensional screen, corresponding movements were made by the ion stream on the object under the microscope. The principle was the same as that used in operation of remote control “hands” in atomic laboratories to handle hot material, and with the surgiscope very delicate operations could be performed at the cellular level. Dr. Mansard and his wife had disappeared into the turbulent atmosphere of Jupiter just after his invention of the surgiscope, and it had been developed by Dom Blessing. https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/7/ At midtrip, Trella made a rueful confession to Jakdane. “It seems I was taking unnecessary precautions when I asked you to be a chaperon,” she said. “I kept waiting for Quest to do something, and when he didn’t I told him I loved him.” “What did he say?” “It’s very peculiar,” she said unhappily. “He said he can’t love me. He said he wants to love me and he feels that he should, but there’s something in him that refuses to permit it. https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/8/ When they had Asrange in irons, Jakdane turned to Quest, who was now sitting unhappily at the table. “Take it easy,” he advised. “I’ll wake the psychosurgeon and have him look you over. Just stay there.” Quest shook his head. “Don’t bother him,” he said. “It’s nothing but a few bruises.” “Bruises? Man, that club could have broken your skull! Or a couple of ribs, at the very least.” “I’m all right,” insisted Quest; and when the skeptical Jakdane insisted on examining him carefully, he had to admit it. https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/fontenay-jupiter/9/ Trella did not want to believe Jakdane was right, but his reasoning was unassailable. Looking upon Quest as an android, many things were explained: his great strength, his short, broad build, his immunity to injury, his refusal to defend himself against a human, his inability to return Trella’s love for him. It was not inconceivable that she should have unknowingly fallen in love with an android. Humans could love androids, with real affection, even knowing that they were artificial. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/1/ The Laughter of Slim Malone (1919) by Max Brand Time has little to do with reputation in the far West, and accordingly the name of Slim Malone grew old in the region of Appleton, and yet the owner of the name was still young. Appleton was somewhat of a misnomer, for the region had never known anything save imported apples or any other sort of fruit since the time of its birth into the history of whisky and revolvers. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/10/ It should have been the signal for a day’s carousal, and the good citizens of Appleton were no wise averse. They desired to hear the voice of their new sheriff in friendly converse. They desired to see him in that most amiable of all poses, his foot on the rail and his hand on the bar. They wanted to look him over and size him up just as a boy wishes to fondle his first gun. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/11/ “Tell the new sheriff,” he called, as he sat easily in the saddle, “that I’ve heard of him, and that I’ll organize a little party for him as soon as possible so that we can get better acquainted. Tell him that the one thing he lacks to make him a good fighting man is a sense of humor.” Lefty Cornwall heard this message in silence the while he spat with vicious precision into a distant spittoon. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/12/ “An' what might all this here gang be for?” inquired Lefty mildly. “We’re the posse, waitin' to be sworn in,” announced one of the men. “Swearin' in takes a terrible lot of time,” said Lefty, “an' besides, I don’t know how it’s done. I don’t want no posse, as I said before. I wouldn’t know how to handle it. Anyway, twenty men on horseback make enough noise to scare away a whole gang of bandits. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/13/ There was not much bluff about Lefty Cornwall, as the curious-minded had frequently discovered in the past, but as he swung into the narrow throat of Eagle Head Cañon, he began to realize that he might have gone too far. While he was in the town it had been easy enough to make ringing speeches. Now that the evening began to come clown by lazy, cool degrees a certain diffidence grew in him. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/14/ It was complete night before he reached the upper end of Eagle Head Cañon, and he was weary from the stumbling gait of his horse over the rocks. Moreover, the mountain night air was cold—very cold to Lefty. He wanted desperately to turn back, but he had not the heart to face the inquiries which would meet him at the town, and the covert smiles which would welcome the hero returning empty handed, the man who needed no posse. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/15/ In his excitement he sprang upright and stared. At once the light disappeared. Lefty began to feel ghostly. His senses had never played him such tricks before. He leaned over and commenced work on the stone again, but as he did so his eye caught the same glint of light. There was no possible mistake about it this time. He remained bent over and stared at it until he was certain that he saw a yellow spot of light, a long, thin ray which pointed out to him like a finger through the shadows. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/16/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/16/ At first he saw no other occupant of the place, but by moving his eye to one side of the aperture he managed to get a glimpse of the bandit himself. There was no question about his identity. From the descriptions which he had heard while in Appleton he knew him at once, the expressionless gray eyes, and the thin, refined face with an almost Greek modeling about its lower part. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/17/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/17/ “Hands up!” said Lefty softly. Even then, with his head on his man, he did not feel entirely sure of himself. It seemed that this could not be true. Opportunity had favored him too much. There must still be some turn of the game. The meaningless gray eyes raised calmly from the book. It seemed to Lefty that a yellow glint came into them for a moment like the light that comes into an animal’s eyes when it is angered, but the next moment it was gone, and he could not be sure that it had come there at all. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/18/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/18/ “Your end of this here party is all over, my beauty,” said Lefty grimly, “except that the boys at Appleton may give you a little impromptu reception when we hit town. They seem to be rather strong on celebrations.” “So I “understand,” smiled Slim Malone. “I have no doubt they will be glad to see me.” “Ain’t no doubt in the world,” grinned Lefty, warming to the perfect calm of this man. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/19/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/19/ “It’s a good move, pal,” he said, shaking his head with admiration, “an' I know that you’re hard put to it or you wouldn’t try such an old dodge on me. It’s a good move, but down in Texas the booze stunt is so old that they’ve almost forgotten it—not quite!” “Ah,” said Malone, with a little sigh of regret, “then I suppose we shall have to ride out in the night without a nip. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/2/ It was then that Slim Malone appeared. It was said that he had first come upon the scene as the owner of the Red River strike, which was finally owned by Sandy Gleason. It was further rumored that Sandy had beaten Slim Malone out of the claim by a very shady deal at cards; but Sandy refused to discuss the matter, and Slim Malone was rarely within vocal range, so the matter had never been sifted. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/20/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/20/ “If you sure want a drink before we start, go ahead,” said Lefty. “The bottle and a glass is over there in that little dugout on the wall,” pointed Malone. In the little open hutch on the wall the sheriff perceived a tall bottle which shimmered pleasantly in the torch-light. “Go ahead,” said the sheriff, “I reckon you know I’m watchin' all the time.” “Surely,” said Malone pleasantly. “I know you’re on your job all the time. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/21/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/21/ Lefty tightened his grip on the gun as Malone reached deeper into the hutch, but he straightened again, and appeared carrying a large concert banjo." “That fellow had taste,” he continued, crossing the room and laying down the banjo carelessly on the chair: “just run your eyes over that banjo.” “Some banjo, all right,” said the sheriff, “but hurry up with your drink. Malone. We’ve got to be on our way. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/22/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/22/ “I reckon,” he said hesitatingly, “that you might pour me just a drop.” It seemed to him that as he spoke the yellow glint came into the eyes of Malone again, but a moment later it was gone, and he decided that the change had been merely a shadow from the wavering torch-light. He took the glass which Malone extended to him under the cover of the pointed gun and raised it slowly to his lips. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/23/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/23/ He was, as he said, a fairly good judge, and he was delighted with the rich barytone which rang through the cave. After a time, as the whisky and the music melted into his mood, he began to call for old favorites, darky ballads, and last of all, for the sentimental ditties which have always charmed the heart of the rough men of the West: “Annie Laurie,” “Old Black Joe,” “Ben Bolt,” “Silver Threads Among the Gold. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/24/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/24/ The music stopped. Malone had stooped over the table with the speed of a bird picking up a grain of wheat, and with the same movement he whirled and fired. The gun spun from the hand of the sheriff and he stood staring into eyes which now beyond all doubt flared with a yellow animal fire. “Now put your hands behind your back after you’ve thrown those bracelets to me,” said Malone. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/3/ The first effort was an impromptu organization of half a dozen angered miners who rode into the Weston Hills. They found fresh hoof-prints after an hour of riding, and went on greatly encouraged, with the pistols loosened in their holsters. After some hours of hard travel they came upon a white horse in the midst of a hollow, and then spread into a circle and approached cautiously. But not cautiously enough. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/4/ Then the new mayor came to Appleton. He owned three claims on Askwarthy Gulch, and he ran on the double platform of no license for the Appleton saloons and the end of Slim Malone. The women used their influence because of the first clause in his platform, and the men voted for him because of the second. His name was Orval Kendricks, but that didn’t count. What mattered was his red hair and the statements of his platform. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/5/ The fame of Lefty had begun in Texas when he mortally wounded one greaser and crippled two others in a saloon fight. Since then it had increased and spread until he was a household word even farther north than Appleton. He came from that sun-burned southland where a man’s prowess was gaged by his speed and dexterity with his “irons,” and even on that northern plateau of Appleton men knew that to cross Lefty Cornwall was death or murderous mutilation. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/6/ Appleton decreed the day of the arrival of the new sheriff a festival occasion. The farmers from the adjoining table-land drove into town, the miners from the three valleys rode down. And when the stage arrived from Concord the incipient sheriff dismounted in the midst of a huge crowd, and cheers which shook the sign-board of Sandy Orton’s saloon. Now the mayor of Appleton had declared deathless war against the saloons in his platform, but since his election he had been strangely silent upon the liquor question. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/7/ “Fellow citizens,'” began the mayor, raising a large freckled hand for silence. A hush fell upon the assemblage. “Boys,” continued the mayor, after a proper silence reigned, “I haven’t got much to say.” “Here’s to you!” yelled a voice. “I hate a guy that’s noisy.” The mayor frowned and waved a commanding hand for silence. “I spotted you, Pete Bartlett,” he called. “If you don’t like silence you must hate yourself. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/8/ He paused and frowned the audience into a state of suspense. “There is only one answer to this gunfighter, and that answer stands at my right hand,” bellowed the mayor, when he judged that the silence had sunk into his hearers sufficiently. “The name of the answer is Lefty Cornwall!” The following burst of applause brought a momentary blush into even Lefty’s cheek. At the reiterated demands for a speech he hitched at his revolver in its skeleton holster, removed his sombrero, and mopped his forehead with a ponderous hand. https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/brand-laughter/9/ He hitched his holster a little forward again as he spoke and a deep silence fell upon the crowd. “Fellow citizens,” he continued, spitting liberally over the side of the bar, “whatever gun-play is carried on around here in the future is to be done strictly by me, and all you men can consider yourselves under warning to leave your shootin'-irons at home, unless you want to use them to dig premature graves. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/1/ The Monsters of Neptune (1930) By Henrik Dahl Juve J.P. Manson, president of the Consolidated Interplanetary Transport Co., was agitated and he expressed it as becomes a gentleman of refinement—he frowned and he blew smoke at his mahogany desk. His ancestors had been pioneers in space travel and they had left him with one of the leading interplanetary freight and passenger lines. Manson himself was a pioneer in that he was the first of his family to abandon the hard and rough life of a pioneer and sit back to an easy life of social prestige and enjoyment. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/10/ Another Human! With his great thumbless hands he tore the carcass open and took out the heart which he held up for all to see. Again he went through some meaningless ceremonies, seized the little red-tipped wand and went toward the edge of the grotto through the wide lane that opened for him. He set the light where he had found it and disappeared into one of the tunnels, carrying his extra heart with him. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/11/ Chapter V The Escape Dana and Dutch crept around the side of the building and waited. They saw the end of the pole protrude from the side and held their breaths. Gradually the strain came on and one of the logs moved ever so little. Again the man pried and the log moved a little more. Once more he pried, a little harder this time. The log moved slightly and then suddenly fell out of the wall and to the ground with a crash of underbrush. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/12/ The Chase “Let us hear some more about the monsters,” said Dana. “The more we know the easier it’ll be to combat them. What about that red light? It puzzled me.” “That red light is a puzzle. I have studied about it for days at a time. I fancy that it is a crystal which becomes fluorescent when the violet light shines upon it and glows with an induced light that is red. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/13/ Toward the Space Ship For days in this dayless land they crept through the tunneled jungle. Occasionally they heard searchers and were forced to abandon the tunnel and hide in the tangled vines. They were near the edge of the clearing after one of Dutch’s “sleeps” when Dana picked up one of the scales which had dropped in the path. It was about ten inches in diameter and over two inches thick. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/14/ Trapped! They looked at the object silhouetted against the leaden sky. Faintly they heard a blood-chilling bellow and saw the statue move. As they watched other figures joined it until there were perhaps seventy-five. They could hear the bellowing voices and then the rattle of scales as the band started in their direction. They saw others coming out of the jungle and taking up the pursuit. “Now we’ll have to run! https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/15/ Saved by Red With a savage jerk Dana pulled Dutch around and out of his openmouthed fascination. “Quick!” he shouted. “Shave off some of the edge of these scales—start a fire.” With trembling hands they opened their pocket knives and cut little shavings from the thin edges of several scales. These they heaped up and Dutch took out his waterproof match box. His fingers shook as he struck a match and held it under the shavings. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/16/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/16/ When Dutch returned his eyes blazed with a new light. He had lost his almost bovine contentment in the realization of new power. “Say, Dana,” he said smiling, “are you going to establish a post in this planet?” “Yes. I feel now that I am justified in taking whatever money and power may come to me since I shall revolutionize power and transportation on the earth. As soon as I get back to earth I’ll begin on a new and greater organization. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/2/ A Startling Announcement Manson sagged in his chair. “I have been afraid of it. I have been afraid that you were a throwback, a pioneer, an explorer. I have tried to guard you against the spirit of your ancestors just to keep you out of danger. But I’ll keep you out of danger in spite of yourself,” he said with unusual bitterness. “I’ll not let you go!” “You’d rather have me sit around here and die of overeating,” Dana retorted sarcastically. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/3/ Chapter II Through the Clouds The newspapers were dumbfounded when they learned of Dana’s proposed exploration. Terriana was repentant. But in the face of a thousand warnings and pleadings Dana went about his preparations calmly yet persistently. He had advertised for men to accompany him but only one agreed to go. He was “Dutch” Hoss, a stolid, blocky man serving a life sentence in the penitentiary. He was not criminally minded but had made the mistake of hitting too hard a man with a weak heart. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/4/ A Strange Land Dana banged the door shut and again took the controls. They flew along at a three hundred-foot level searching for a suitable place to land. After traveling for perhaps fifty miles over the impenetrable jungle, Dutch, who was on the lookout, spied a rocky opening where there was no vegetation other than a few serpentine vines. “There’s a place,” he called. “Swing over a few points to the left—there. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/5/ The Great Menace They ran down the hill and around through the draws. As they drew nearer the ship the thumps became louder. There was a metallic sound intermingled. They rounded the last hill and came in sight of their ship. They stared at it aghast and dismayed. It was battered almost beyond recognition! Cautiously they advanced up the hill, over the snakelike vines and through the pale grass. Dana carried the machine gun in readiness and advanced ahead of Dutch. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/6/ Chapter III Into the Jungle! The monster stopped abruptly with a terrible shriek of pain and surprise. It halted, emitted another deafening bellow that reverberated among the hills and then pitched to the ground with a thud that fairly shook the rocks. He lay there threshing about, kicking rocks and boulders in every direction. Trembling and weak the two stared at their dead foe. Dutch lapsed into profanity but Dana merely stared. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/7/ What Now? The last of the stragglers rattled by and the procession lost itself in the depths of the jungle. While they recovered their breaths they listened to the sound of the monsters as it grew fainter in the distance. Dutch shoved some vines out of his way and lay down flat on his back. He wiped the perspiration from his face with the back of his hand and proceeded to roll a smoke. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/8/ Chapter IV The Grotto of the Beasts Hour after hour they traveled through the mud-splashed tunnel. There were many criss-crossed paths but they had no difficulty in following the herd for the path they had used was newly churned and the sides of the tunnel were dripping with ocher mud. At last they heard faintly the sound of rattling scales and the bellowing of voices far in the distance. They advanced more cautiously now for they were afraid of ambush or an outpost. https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/juve-monsters/9/ The Mystery of the Light They watched the thunderous dance for two hours when there was a sudden change in the rhythm of the drums. The dance speeded up and then the entire herd broke into line and filed away through an opening in the wall while another troop of dancers came into the grotto and resumed the bacchanalian contortions. “Looks like only part of ’em chased us,” Dutch shouted above the din. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/1/ The Pit of the Serpent (1929) Robert E. Howard The minute I stepped ashore from the Sea Girl, merchantman, I had a hunch that there would be trouble. This hunch was caused by seeing some of the crew of the Dauntless. The men on the Dauntless have disliked the Sea Girl’s crew ever since our skipper took their captain to a cleaning on the wharfs of Zanzibar–them being narrow-minded that way. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/10/ “And,” said I, as we leaned upon the bar to which we had made our mutual and unspoke agreement, “ends our romance, and the glory road leads only to disappointment and hokum.” “Women,” said Bat gloomily, “are the bunk.” “Listen,” said I, remembering something, “how about that two hundred you owe me?” “What for?” “For knockin' you cold.” “Steve,” said Bat, laying his hand on my shoulder in brotherly fashion, “you know I been intendin' to pay you that all along. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/2/ Me and this girl, whose name is Raquel La Costa, her being Spanish that way, are sitting peacefully at a table and I am just beginning to get started good telling her how her eyes are like dark pools of night (pretty hot, that one; I got it offa Mushy Hansen, who is all poetical like), when I notice her looking over my shoulder at somebody. This irritates me slightly, but I ignore it, and having forgotten what I was saying, my mind being slightly hazy for some reason, I continue: https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/3/ And with that she turned back and walked away. At the same time, up came an oily-looking fellow, rubbing his hands together. I mistrust a bird what goes around rubbing his hands together like he was in a state of perpetual self-satisfaction. “Now, now, boys,” said this bezark, “le’s do this right! You boys wanta fight. Tut! Tut! Too bad, too bad! But if you gotta fight, le’s do it right, that’s what I say! https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/4/ At last we stopped at a large building some distance outside the city, which looked more like an ex-palace than anything else. All the crowd alighted, and I done likewise, though I was completely mystified. There was no other houses near, trees grew dense on all sides, the house itself was dark and gloomy-looking. All together I did not like the looks of things but would not let on, with Bat Slade gazing at me in his supercilious way. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/5/ The confidence with which the dip said that last gave me cold shivers. “And who will he bet on?” I asked. “Slade, of course. Ain’t he the pit champion?” While I was considering this cheering piece of information, Bat Slade yelled at me from the other end of the pit: “Hey, you blankey dash-dot-blank, ain’t you ready yet?” He was in his socks, shoes and underpants, and no gloves on his hands. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/6/ Now, understand, this was a very different fight from any I ever engaged in. It combined the viciousness of a rough-and-tumble with that of a legitimate ring bout. No room for any footwork, concrete to land on if you went down, the uncertain flare of the lights which was hung on the ceiling over us, and the feeling of being crowded for space, to say nothing of thinking about all the snakes which had fought there. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/7/ At this moment the gong sounded and I rushed for the other end of the pit, with the worthy intention of effacing Slade from the face of the earth. But, as usual, I underestimated the force of my rush and the length of the pit. There didn’t seem to be room enough for Slade to get out of my way, but he solved this problem by dropping on his knees, and allowing me to fall over him, which I did. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/8/ The fourth! Slade came up weakened, but with fire in his eye. I was all right, but my legs wouldn’t work like they should. Slade was in far better condition. Seeing this, or probably feeling that he was weakening, he threw caution to the winds and rushed in to slug with me. The crowd went crazy. Left-right-left-right! I was taking four to one, but mine carried the most steam. It couldn’t last long at this rate. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-pit/9/ Let’s pass over the immediate events. I don’t remember much about them anyhow. I slept until the middle of the next afternoon, and I know the only thing that dragged me out of the bed where the dip had dumped me was the knowledge that the Sea Girl sailed that night and that Raquel La Costa probably would be waiting for the victor–me. Outside the joint where I first met her, who should I come upon but Bat Slade! https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/1/ The Planet of Doubt (1935) By Stanley G. Weinbaum First published in Astounding Stories, October 1935 Hamilton Hammond started nervously as the voice of Cullen, the expedition’s chemist, sounded from his station aft. “I see something!” he called. Ham bent over the floor port, staring into the eternal green-gray fog that blankets Uranus. He glanced hastily at the dial of the electric plumb; fifty- five feet, it said with an air of positiveness, but that was a lie, for it had registered that same figure for a hundred and sixty miles of creeping descent. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/10/ He peered into the gray dimness. Nothing at all—or was there something? A shadow—but what here could cause a shad-ow, here in this sunless region of fog? A condensation of mist, that was all. But it moved; mist can’t move without the thrust of wind, and here there was no wind. He strained his eyes in an effort to pierce the obscurity. He saw—or he imagined it—a vast, looming figure, or a dozen figures. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/11/ He wasn’t at all sure, but he reaffirmed it. “Of course I am. I’ll tell you an easy way to prove it, too. We’ll turn the infra-red camera on them, and that’ll bring out enough detail to judge by.” “I’d be afraid to look at the plates,” said the girl, shivering as she peered apprehensively at the vague horrors in the fog. “Suppose—suppose they do show those faces. What will you say then? https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/12/ Utter silence. The rustles and murmurings were gone—and so were the fog-shapes. Blinking into the mist, they saw only the sullen grayness of the eternal cloud itself, and they heard no sound but their own tense breathing and the faint after-ring of their eardrums from the concussion. “They’re gone!” the girl gasped. “Sure. Just what I said. Illusions!” “Illusions don’t run away from gunshots,” retorted Patricia, her courage revived instantly with the vanishing of the fog shapes. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/13/ Pat sprang erect. Ham tugged the wire in instant reply, and muttered, “We’d better go back. Harbord and Cullen must have seen something. It’s probably the same sort of things we saw, but we’d better go back.” They began to retrace their steps, the thousand feet of wire humming softly as it wound back on the spring drum at Ham’s waist. Other than that and the crunch of their steps on the gravel, there was silence, and the fog was merely a featureless dome of faintly greenish grayness. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/14/ Ham was ready. His automatic roared its muffled blast, and roared again. The attacker seemed to telescope in upon itself and rolled aside, and behind it appeared a creature identical in all respects—the same featureless black circle, the same quivering disc. But a high, piercing whine of pain slipped like a sharp knife through the fog. This was a danger Patricia could understand. There was no fear about her now; she had faced too many outlandish creatures on the Hotlands frontiers of Venus, or in the mysterious wilds of the Mountains of Eternity. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/15/ There was a great, roaring light. A flame pistol! Dim in the fog were the figures of Harbord and Cullen, tracing their way along the wire, and before him were writhing segments of the blasted monster. What remained of the creature had had enough punishment, apparently, for it veered to the left and went thundering away into the mist, now no more than ten segments long. And all around the group, just beyond visibility, the fog shapes gestured and grimaced and gibbered, and then they too vanished. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/16/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/16/ “That’s the reason I’m being careful about you,” he grinned. “I’m afraid I would be without a biologist. But what’s your idea concerning that series of detachable worms out there?” “Just that. It’s a multiple animal. Did you ever hear of Henri Fabre?” “Not that I remember.” “Well, he was a great French naturalist of about two centuries ago. Among other things, he studied some interesting little insects called processionary caterpillars, who spin themselves a cozy nest of silk and march out of it every night to feed. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/17/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/17/ She shuddered. “Not much,” she confessed. “I think there’s a relationship between them and these others, though.” “Why?” “Because they came streaming by us just before the attack. They might simply have been running away from the multiple creature, but in that case they ought to have scattered. They didn’t; they came rushing by in two distinct streams, and not only that, but all during the fight they were flickering and shimmering in the background. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/18/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/18/ However, they weren’t shadows. Some hours later Cullen reported that the fog around the Gaea was full of shifting, skittering shapes, and he trundled the long-wave camera from port to port. Handicapped by the argon-laden air with its absorption spectrum that filtered out long rays, the infra-red plates were nevertheless more sensitive than the human eye, though perhaps less responsive to detail. But a photographic plate is not amenable to suggestion; it never colors what it sees by the tint of past experience; it records coldly and unemotionally the exact pattern of the light rays that strike it. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/19/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/19/ Ham had no ready reply, for it was quite true. Despite her youth, Patricia, born on Venus and educated in Paris, was admittedly preeminent in her field. Nor, in all fairness to the backers of the expedition, could he handicap her in her work. After all, not even the government-financed Smithsonian could afford to spend somewhat over two million dollars without getting fair return for its money. Sending a rocket out into the depths where Uranus plowed its lonely orbit was a project so expensive that in simple justice the expedition had to do its utmost, especially since forty long years would elapse before there would be another opportunity to visit the doubtful planet. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/2/ “For you,” grunted the astrogator. “You’re in command now. I command until we sight the surface, and we’ve just done that.” “By golly, that’s right!” exclaimed Ham in a satisfied voice. On his last expedition, that to the night side of Venus, he had been technically under Patricia’s orders, and the reversal pleased him. “And now,” he said severely, “if the biologist will kindly step aside—” Patricia sniffed. “So you can pilot us, I suppose. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/20/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/20/ Apparently Ham’s fears concerning Patricia were ill-founded on all counts. The days passed uneventfully; Cullen analyzed and filed his samples, and took innumerable tests of the greenish Uranian atmosphere; Ham checked and rechecked his standard weights, and in spare moments examined the reaction motor on which the Gaea and their lives depended; and Patricia collected and classified her specimens without the least untoward incident. Harbord, of course, had nothing to do until the rocket plunged once more into the vastness of space, so he served as cook and general utility man—an easy enough task consisting largely of opening cans and disposing of the debris. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/21/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/21/ He was in a desperate quandary. After another pause he fired his revolver into the air, all ten shots at brief intervals. He waited, then fired another clip without response from the passive, leaden-hued fog. He swore bitterly at the girl’s foolhardiness, at his own helplessness, and at the grimacing fog shapes. He had to do something. Go back to the Gaea and set Harbord and Cullen searching. That wasted precious time; every moment Patricia might be wandering blindly away. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/22/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/22/ In the end it was the very weakness of the lost that saved him. After hours of hopeless plunging through the mist, he tripped—actually tripped—over the wire. He had circled. Cullen and Harbord loomed suddenly beside him, joined by a silken rope. He gasped. “Have you—have you—” “No,” said Harbord gloomily, his lined visage looking bleak and worn. “But we will. We will.” “Say,” said Cullen, “why don’t you go aboard and rest up? https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/23/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/23/ The hours dropped slowly into eternity. Saturn was pulling steadily ahead of the misty planet, bound placidly for their next meeting forty years in the future. Harbord said not a word concerning the passing of time; it was Ham who broached the subject. “Look here,” he said as the Gaea slanted down to a new position. “Time’s short. I don’t want you two marooned here, and if we don’t find Pat in this area, I want you and Cullen to leave. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/24/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/24/ They moved cautiously into the mist. Something—something was stirring there. They crept quietly on, fifty feet, sixty. And suddenly Ham realized that he saw a chain of the multiple creatures—a vast chain, apparently, for it was still passing before them. In utter despondency he stopped, staring hopelessly ahead; then, very slowly, he turned back toward the wire. A sound—a sharp sound—froze him. It sounded like a cough! He whirled back. Regardless of the dangerous file close be-fore him, he shouted. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/25/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/25/ He crawled to the shoulders of the two. From that height it might be possible to leap the creatures. It had to be possible. He made it, though it left Cullen and Harbord groaning from the thrust of his hundred and eighty pounds, Uranus weight. He spent only a moment holding Patricia to him; the menace of those circling monsters was too imminent. He flung an end of the rope to the two beyond the circle. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/26/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/26/ Uranus was a banded green globe behind the flare of the afterjets, and Saturn a brilliant blue star to the left of a tiny, very fierce sun. Patricia, her cough already improved in the conditioned air of the Gaea, lay passively in a pivot chair and smiled at Ham. “You see,” she said, “after I cast off the rope—Wait! Don’t lecture me again about that!—I stepped just the merest few paces into the fog, and then, after all, the plants I had seen turned out to be the same old zigzag ones I named Cryptogami Urani, so I started back and you were gone. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/27/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/27/ “Well,” she resumed placidly, “there I was. I could have shot a break in the circle, of course, but that would have brought an attack, and besides, I hadn’t the least idea where the Gaea was. So I sat there, and I sat a week or ten days or a month—” “Forty hours.” “And the fog shapes kept rustling over the file of sausage creatures, and they kept flickering and rustling and whispering until I thought I’d go mad. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/3/ “Nope,” he grinned. “I have my reasons. I’m trying to save whatever time I can, because our stay here is limited if we don’t want to be marooned for forty years until the next conjunction.” “But why southeast?” “I’ll tell you. Did you ever look at a globe of the Earth, Pat? Then maybe you’ve noticed that all continents, all large islands, and all important peninsulas are narrowed to points toward the south. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/4/ Somewhat less than an hour later the Gaea was again descending gingerly and hesitatingly. At 85 cm. of air pressure Ham had the rocket slowed almost to a complete stop, and thereafter it dropped on the cushioning blast of the underjets at a speed of inches per minute. When the barometer read 85.8 cm., Cullen’s voice sounded from the stern, where the port was less obscured by the jets them-selves. “Something below! https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/5/ But not for long. “Well,” she observed finally, “it looks just like London to me. Same sort of weather we had last time we were there. I think I’ll step outside and look for Piccadilly.” “You won’t go out yet,” snapped Ham. “I want an atmospheric test first.” “For what? Young and his men breathed this air. I suppose you’re going to say that that was forty-five thousand miles away, but even a biologist knows that the law of diffusion of gases would keep a planet from having one sort of air at one pole and another at the opposite. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/6/ With a muttered imprecation, Ham spun around. It was true. The outer door of the air lock was open, and a lazy wisp of fog drifted in, scarcely moving in the utterly stagnant Uranian air. “The crazy little—Here! Give me that!” He seized a belt with twin holsters, holding a standard automatic as well as a terribly destructive flame pistol. He whipped it around him, seized another bundle, and plunged into the eternal mists of Uranus. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/7/ He disregarded her sniff of disapproval, and set about unwrapping the bundle he had brought. He produced an American flag, and proceeded to dig a depression in the gravel, planted the staff in it and said formally, “I take possession of this land in the name of the United States of America.” “All fifty feet of it?” murmured Patricia, but softly, for, after all, despite her flippant manner, she was loyal to the country of her husband. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/8/ Ham walked slowly forward, examining the pebbled, lifeless terrain where now and then a pool of condensed moisture showed dull, and very occasionally, he came upon one of the zigzag weeds like the one Pat had dropped near the rocket. Apparently rain was unknown on windless Uranus, and the surface moisture followed an endless cycle of condensation in the cool air and evaporation on the warm ground. Ham came to a spot where boiling mud seemed to be welling up from below, and steamy plumes whirled up to lose themselves in the fog—evidence of the vast internal heat that warmed the planet. https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/weinbaum-doubt/9/ “I don’t know. Shapes in the mist. Great moving things with faces. Gargoyles—devils—nightmares!” She shuddered, then calmed once more. “I was bending over a little pool out there, examining a biopod, and everything was quiet—sort of deadly quiet. And then a shadow passed in the pool—a reflection of something over me—and I looked up and saw nothing. But then I began to hear rustles and murmurs and noises like muffled voices and I began to see the fog shapes—horrible shapes—all around me. https://eykd.net/pcrc/signup/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/signup/ Fast-paced, attention-grabbing stories. Join the Pulp Classics Reading Club and receive an exciting classic story in your inbox each week. Short. Action-packed. No fluff, no filler, just the best. Sign Up Name Email Join the club! chevronRight icon I don't send spam. Unsubscribe at any time. https://eykd.net/pcrc/vol2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/vol2/ Fast-paced, attention-grabbing stories. You've read Volume 1. Are you ready for Volume 2? Join the Pulp Classics Reading Club and receive an exciting classic story in your inbox each week. Short. Action-packed. No fluff, no filler, just the best. Sign Up Name Email Join the club! chevronRight icon I don't send spam. Unsubscribe at any time. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/1/ The Shadow out of Time (1936) by H. P. Lovecraft Chapter 1 After twenty-two years of nightmare and terror, saved only by a desperate conviction of the mythical source of certain impressions, I am unwilling to vouch for the truth of that which I think I found in Western Australia on the night of 17-18 July 1935. There is reason to hope that my experience was wholly or partly an hallucination—for which, indeed, abundant causes existed. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/10/ Chapter 2 My reabsorption into normal life was a painful and difficult process. The loss of over five years creates more complications than can be imagined, and in my case there were countless matters to be adjusted. What I heard of my actions since 1908 astonished and disturbed me, but I tried to view the matter as philosophically as I could. At last, regaining custody of my second son, Wingate, I settled down with him in the Crane Street house and endeavoured to resume my teaching—my old professorship having been kindly offered me by the college. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/11/ But the dreams and disturbed feelings gained on me, so that I had to drop my regular work in 1915. Certainly the impressions were taking an annoying shape—giving me the persistent notion that my amnesia had formed some unholy sort of exchange; that the secondary personality had indeed had suffered displacement. Thus I was driven to vague and frightful speculations concerning the whereabouts of my true self during the years that another had held my body. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/12/ The essence was always the same—a person of keen thoughtfulness seized a strange secondary life and leading for a greater or lesser period an utterly alien existence typified at first by vocal and bodily awkwardness, and later by a wholesale acquisition of scientific, historic, artistic, and anthropologic knowledge; an acquisition carried on with feverish zest and with a wholly abnormal absorptive power. Then a sudden return of rightful consciousness, intermittently plagued ever after with vague unplaceable dreams suggesting fragments of some hideous memory elaborately blotted out. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/13/ They did not call the condition true insanity, but classed it rather among neurotic disorders. My course in trying to track down and analyze it, instead of vainly seeking to dismiss or forget it, they heartily endorsed as correct according to the best psychological principles. I especially valued the advice of such physicians as had studied me during my possession by the other personality. My first disturbances were not visual at all, but concerned the more abstract matters which I have mentioned. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/14/ The glimpses themselves were at first merely strange rather than horrible. I would seem to be in an enormous vaulted chamber whose lofty stone groinings were well-nigh lost in the shadows overhead. In whatever time or place the scene might be, the principle of the arch was known as fully and used as extensively as by the Romans. There were colossal, round windows and high, arched doors, and pedestals or tables each as tall as the height of an ordinary room. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/15/ I seemed to be a prisoner, and horror hung broodingly over everything I saw. I felt that the mocking curvilinear hieroglyphs on the walls would blast my soul with their message were I not guarded by a merciful ignorance. Still later my dreams included vistas from the great round windows, and from the titanic flat roof, with its curious gardens, wide barren area, and high, scalloped parapet of stone, to which the topmost of the inclined planes led. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/16/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/16/ The omnipresent gardens were almost terrifying in their strangeness, with bizarre and unfamiliar forms of vegetation nodding over broad paths lined with curiously carven monoliths. Abnormally vast fern-like growths predominated—some green, and some of a ghastly, fungoid pallor. Among them rose great spectral things resembling calamites, whose bamboo-like trunks towered to fabulous heights. Then there were tufted forms like fabulous cycads, and grotesque dark-green shrubs and trees of coniferous aspect. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/17/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/17/ By the autumn of 1914 I began to have infrequent dreams of strange floatings over the city and through the regions around it. I saw interminable roads through forests of fearsome growths with mottled, fluted, and banded trunks, and past other cities as strange as the one which persistently haunted me. I saw monstrous constructions of black or iridescent tone in glades and clearings where perpetual twilight reigned, and traversed long causeways over swamps so dark that I could tell but little of their moist, towering vegetation. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/18/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/18/ Chapter 3 As I have said, it was not immediately that these wild visions began to hold their terrifying quality. Certainly, many persons have dreamed intrinsically stranger things—things compounded of unrelated scraps of daily life, pictures, and reading, and arranged in fantastically novel forms by the unchecked caprices of sleep. For some time I accepted the visions as natural, even though I had never before been an extravagant dreamer. Many of the vague anomalies, I argued, must have come from trivial sources too numerous to track down; while others seemed to reflect a common text book knowledge of the plants and other conditions of the primitive world of a hundred and fifty million years ago—the world of the Permian or Triassic age. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/19/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/19/ I studied psychology systematically, and under the prevailing stimulus my son Wingate did the same—his studies leading eventually to his present professorship. In 1917 and 1918 I took special courses at Miskatonic. Meanwhile, my examination of medical, historical, and anthropological records became indefatigable, involving travels to distant libraries, and finally including even a reading of the hideous books of forbidden elder lore in which my secondary personality had been so disturbingly interested. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/2/ When I came upon the horror I was alone—and I have up to now told no one about it. I could not stop the others from digging in its direction, but chance and the shifting sand have so far saved them from finding it. Now I must formulate some definite statement—not only for the sake of my own mental balance, but to warn such others as may read it seriously. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/20/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/20/ Cases of amnesia no doubt created the general myth pattern—but afterward the fanciful accretions of the myths must have reacted on amnesia sufferers and coloured their pseudo-memories. I myself had read and heard all the early tales during my memory lapse—my quest had amply proved that. Was it not natural, then, for my subsequent dreams and emotional impressions to become coloured and moulded by what my memory subtly held over from my secondary state? https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/21/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/21/ Some had come down from the stars; a few were as old as the cosmos itself, others had arisen swiftly from terrene germs as far behind the first germs of our life-cycle as those germs are behind ourselves. Spans of thousands of millions of years, and linkages to other galaxies and universes, were freely spoken of. Indeed, there was no such thing as time in its humanly accepted sense. But most of the tales and impressions concerned a relatively late race, of a queer and intricate shape, resembling no life-form known to science, which had lived till only fifty million years before the advent of man. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/22/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/22/ In the latter case the course was easier and more material. With suitable mechanical aid a mind would project itself forward in time, feeling its dim, extra-sensory way till it approached the desired period. Then, after preliminary trials, it would seize on the best discoverable representative of the highest of that period’s life-forms. It would enter the organism’s brain and set up therein its own vibrations, while the displaced mind would strike back to the period of the displacer, remaining in the latter’s body till a reverse process was set up. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/23/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/23/ When the captive mind’s amazement and resentment had worn off, and when—assuming that it came from a body vastly different from the Great Race’s—it had lost its horror at its unfamiliar temporary form, it was permitted to study its new environment and experience a wonder and wisdom approximating that of its displacer. With suitable precautions, and in exchange for suitable services, it was allowed to rove all over the habitable world in titan airships or on the huge boatlike atomic-engined vehicles which traversed the great roads, and to delve freely into the libraries containing the records of the planet’s past and future. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/24/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/24/ It may be added that there was one special type of captive whose privileges were far greater than those of the majority. These were the dying permanent exiles, whose bodies in the future had been seized by keen-minded members of the Great Race who, faced with death, sought to escape mental extinction. Such melancholy exiles were not as common as might be expected, since the longevity of the Great Race lessened its love of life—especially among those superior minds capable of projection. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/25/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/25/ When a captive mind of alien origin was returned to its own body in the future, it was purged by an intricate mechanical hypnosis of all it had learned in the Great Race’s age—this because of certain troublesome consequences inherent in the general carrying forward of knowledge in large quantities. The few existing instances of clear transmission had caused, and would cause at known future times, great disasters. And it was largely in consequence of two cases of this kind—said the old myths—that mankind had learned what it had concerning the Great Race. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/26/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/26/ The beings of a dying elder world, wise with the ultimate secrets, had looked ahead for a new world and species wherein they might have long life; and had sent their minds en masse into that future race best adapted to house them—the cone-shaped beings that peopled our earth a billion years ago. Thus the Great Race came to be, while the myriad minds sent backward were left to die in the horror of strange shapes. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/27/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/27/ Then, when their memory returned, they reversed the associative process and thought of themselves as the former captive minds instead of as the displacers. Hence the dreams and pseudo-memories following the conventional myth pattern. Despite the seeming cumbrousness of these explanations, they came finally to supersede all others in my mind—largely because of the greater weakness of any rival theory. And a substantial number of eminent psychologists and anthropologists gradually agreed with me. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/28/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/28/ Chapter 4 I continued, however, to keep a careful record of the outré dreams which crowded upon me so thickly and vividly. Such a record, I argued, was of genuine value as a psychological document. The glimpses still seemed damnably like memories, though I fought off this impression with a goodly measure of success. In writing, I treated the phantasmata as things seen; but at all other times I brushed them aside like any gossamer illusions of the night. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/29/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/29/ I saw tremendously tessellated pools, and rooms of curious and inexplicable utensils of myriad sorts. Then there were colossal caverns of intricate machinery whose outlines and purpose were wholly strange to me, and whose sound manifested itself only after many years of dreaming. I may here remark that sight and sound are the only senses I have ever exercised in the visionary world. The real horror began in May, 1915, when I first saw the living things. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/3/ It was on Thursday, 14 May 1908, that the queer amnesia came. The thing was quite sudden, though later I realized that certain brief, glimmering visions of several hours previous—chaotic visions which disturbed me greatly because they were so unprecedented—must have formed premonitory symptoms. My head was aching, and I had a singular feeling—altogether new to me—that some one else was trying to get possession of my thoughts. The collapse occurred about 10. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/30/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/30/ Their actions, though harmless, horrified me even more than their appearance—for it is not wholesome to watch monstrous objects doing what one had known only human beings to do. These objects moved intelligently about the great rooms, getting books from the shelves and taking them to the great tables, or vice versa, and sometimes writing diligently with a peculiar rod gripped in the greenish head tentacles. The huge nippers were used in carrying books and in conversation-speech consisting of a kind of clicking and scraping. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/31/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/31/ Afterward I saw them everywhere; swarming in all the great chambers and corridors, tending monstrous machines in vaulted crypts, and racing along the vast roads in gigantic, boat-shaped cars. I ceased to be afraid of them, for they seemed to form supremely natural parts of their environment. Individual differences amongst them began to be manifest, and a few appeared to be under some kind of restraint. These latter, though shewing no physical variation, had a diversity of gestures and habits which marked them off not only from the majority, but very largely from one another. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/32/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/32/ For a while my chief concern during dreams was to avoid looking down at myself, and I recall how grateful I was for the total absence of large mirrors in the strange rooms. I was mightily troubled by the fact that I always saw the great tables—whose height could not be under ten feet—from a level not below that of their surfaces. And then the morbid temptation to look down at myself became greater and greater, till one night I could not resist it. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/33/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/33/ I learned of chapters in human history whose existence no scholar of today has ever suspected. Most of these writings were in the language of the hieroglyphs; which I studied in a queer way with the aid of droning machines, and which was evidently an agglutinative speech with root systems utterly unlike any found in human languages. Other volumes were in other unknown tongues learned in the same queer way. A very few were in languages I knew. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/34/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/34/ There was a mind from the planet we know as Venus, which would live incalculable epochs to come, and one from an outer moon of Jupiter six million years in the past. Of earthly minds there were some from the winged, star-headed, half-vegetable race of palaeogean Antarctica; one from the reptile people of fabled Valusia; three from the furry pre-human Hyperborean worshippers of Tsathoggua; one from the wholly abominable Tcho-Tchos; two from the arachnid denizens of earth’s last age; five from the hardy coleopterous species immediately following mankind, to which the Great Race was some day to transfer its keenest minds en masse in the face of horrible peril; and several from different branches of humanity. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/35/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/35/ I awaked each morning in a fever, sometimes frantically trying to verify or discredit such information as fell within the range of modern human knowledge. Traditional facts took on new and doubtful aspects, and I marvelled at the dream-fancy which could invent such surprising addenda to history and science. I shivered at the mysteries the past may conceal, and trembled at the menaces the future may bring forth. What was hinted in the speech of post-human entities of the fate of mankind produced such an effect on me that I will not set it down here. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/36/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/36/ But none of the dreams ever gave me a full picture of daily life. All were the merest misty, disconnected fragments, and it is certain that these fragments were not unfolded in their rightful sequence. I have, for example, a very imperfect idea of my own living arrangements in the dream-world; though I seem to have possessed a great stone room of my own. My restrictions as a prisoner gradually disappeared, so that some of the visions included vivid travels over the mighty jungle roads, sojourns in strange cities, and explorations of some of the vast, dark, windowless ruins from which the Great Race shrank in curious fear. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/37/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/37/ The ground and swamps were constantly alive with snakes, lizards, and crocodiles while insects buzzed incessantly among the lush vegetation. And far out at sea, unspied and unknown monsters spouted mountainous columns of foam into the vaporous sky. Once I was taken under the ocean in a gigantic submarine vessel with searchlights, and glimpsed some living horrors of awesome magnitude. I saw also the ruins of incredible sunken cities, and the wealth of crinoid, brachiopod, coral, and ichthyic life which everywhere abounded. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/38/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/38/ This fear of the basalt ruins and trap-doors was largely a matter of unspoken suggestion—or, at most, of furtive quasi-whispers. Everything specific which bore on it was significantly absent from such books as were on the common shelves. It was the one subject lying altogether under a taboo among the Great Race, and seemed to be connected alike with horrible bygone struggles, and with that future peril which would some day force the race to send its keener minds ahead en masse in time. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/39/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/39/ When these things had come to the earth they had built mighty basalt cities of windowless towers, and had preyed horribly upon the beings they found. Thus it was when the minds of the Great Race sped across the void from that obscure, trans-galactic world known in the disturbing and debatable Eltdown Shards as Yith. The newcomers, with the instruments they created, had found it easy to subdue the predatory entities and drive them down to those caverns of inner earth which they had already joined to their abodes and begun to inhabit. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/4/ It is, of course, from others that I have learned what followed. I showed no sign of consciousness for sixteen and a half hours though removed to my home at 27 Crane Street, and given the best of medical attention. At 3 A.M. 15 May my eyes opened and I began to speak, but before long the doctor and my family were thoroughly frightened by the trend of my expression and language. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/40/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/40/ The irruptions of the elder things must have been shocking beyond all description, since they had permanently coloured the psychology of the Great Race. Such was the fixed mood of horror that the very aspect of the creatures was left unmentioned. At no time was I able to gain a clear hint of what they looked like. There were veiled suggestions of a monstrous plasticity, and of temporary lapses of visibility, while other fragmentary whispers referred to their control and military use of great winds. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/41/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/41/ Chapter 5 That is the world of which my dreams brought me dim, scattered echoes every night. I cannot hope to give any true idea of the horror and dread contained in such echoes, for it was upon a wholly intangible quality—the sharp sense of pseudo-memory—that such feelings mainly depended. As I have said, my studies gradually gave me a defence against these feelings in the form of rational psychological explanations; and this saving influence was augmented by the subtle touch of accustomedness which comes with the passage of time. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/42/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/42/ I was, for a time, almost stunned and incredulous; for although I had often thought that some basis of fact must underlie certain phases of the legends which had coloured my dreams, I was none the less unprepared for anything like a tangible survival from a lost world remote beyond all imagination. Most devastating of all were the photographs—for here, in cold, incontrovertible realism, there stood out against a background of sand certain worn-down, water-ridged, storm-weathered blocks of stone whose slightly convex tops and slightly concave bottoms told their own story. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/43/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/43/ Of the immediate aftermath of this letter, much can be learned from the press. My good fortune in securing the backing of Miskatonic University was great, and both Mr. Mackenzie and Dr. Boyle proved invaluable in arranging matters at the Australian end. We were not too specific with the public about our objects, since the whole matter would have lent itself unpleasantly to sensational and jocose treatment by the cheaper newspapers. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/44/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/44/ He had tractors waiting at Pilbarra, and we chartered a tramp steamer sufficiently small to get up the river to that point. We were prepared to excavate in the most careful and scientific fashion, sifting every particle of sand, and disturbing nothing which might seem to be in or near its original situation. Sailing from Boston aboard the wheezy Lexington on March 28, 1935, we had a leisurely trip across the Atlantic and Mediterranean, through the Suez Canal, down the Red Sea, and across the Indian Ocean to our goal. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/45/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/45/ The deeper—and the farther north and east—we dug, the more blocks we found; though we still failed to discover any trace of arrangement among them. Professor Dyer was appalled at the measureless age of the fragments, and Freeborn found traces of symbols which fitted darkly into certain Papuan and Polynesian legends of infinite antiquity. The condition and scattering of the blocks told mutely of vertiginous cycles of time and geologic upheavals of cosmic savagery. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/46/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/46/ I tried all sorts of psychological expedients to get these notions out of my head, but met with no success. Sleeplessness also gained upon me, but I almost welcomed this because of the resultant shortening of my dream-periods. I acquired the habit of taking long, lone walks in the desert late at night—usually to the north or northeast, whither the sum of my strange new impulses seemed subtly to pull me. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/47/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/47/ Wandering somewhat beyond my usual limits, I came upon a great stone which seemed to differ markedly from any we had yet encountered. It was almost wholly covered, but I stooped and cleared away the sand with my hands, later studying the object carefully and supplementing the moonlight with my electric torch. Unlike the other very large rocks, this one was perfectly square-cut, with no convex or concave surface. It seemed, too, to be of a dark basaltic substance, wholly dissimilar to the granite and sandstone and occasional concrete of the now familiar fragments. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/48/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/48/ Chapter 6 I come now to the crucial and most difficult part of my narrative—all the more difficult because I cannot be quite certain of its reality. At times I feel uncomfortably sure that I was not dreaming or deluded; and it is this feeling in view of the stupendous implications which the objective truth of my experience would raise—which impels me to make this record. My son—a trained psychologist with the fullest and most sympathetic knowledge of my whole case—shall be the primary judge of what I have to tell. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/49/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/49/ About 3:30 a.m. a violent wind blew up, waking everyone in camp and felling three of the tents. The sky was unclouded, and the desert still blazed with that leprous moonlight. As the party saw to the tents my absence was noted, but in view of my previous walks this circumstance gave no one alarm. And yet, as many as three men—all Australians—seemed to feel something sinister in the air. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/5/ At the same time they noticed that I had an inexplicable command of many almost unknown sorts of knowledge—a command which I seemed to wish to hide rather than display. I would inadvertently refer, with casual assurance, to specific events in dim ages outside of the range of accepted history—passing off such references as a jest when I saw the surprise they created. And I had a way of speaking of the future which two or three times caused actual fright. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/50/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/50/ But there was no sleep for me. My psychological state was very extraordinary—different from anything I had previously suffered. After a time I insisted upon talking—nervously and elaborately explaining my condition. I told them I had become fatigued, and had lain down in the sand for a nap. There had, I said, been dreams even more frightful than usual—and when I was awaked by the sudden high wind my overwrought nerves had snapped. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/51/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/51/ If, I reflected, the thing I had seen was still visible, I might decide to attempt a specific warning even at the cost of ridicule. It was just conceivable that the miners who knew the local folklore might back me up. Humouring me, my son made the survey that very afternoon, flying over all the terrain my walk could possibly have covered. Yet nothing of what I had found remained in sight. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/52/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/52/ The incalculable age and brooding horror of this monstrous waste began to oppress me as never before, and I could not keep from thinking of my maddening dreams, of the frightful legends which lay behind them, and of the present fears of natives and miners concerning the desert and its carven stones. And yet I plodded on as if to some eldritch rendezvous—more and more assailed by bewildering fancies, compulsions, and pseudo-memories. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/53/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/53/ Again there were only the desert and the evil moon and the shards of an unguessed past. I drew close and paused, and cast the added light of my electric torch over the tumbled pile. A hillock had blown away, leaving a low, irregularly round mass of megaliths and smaller fragments some forty feet across and from two to eight feet high. From the very outset I realized that there was some utterly unprecedented quality about those stones. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/54/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/54/ I started violently as these conceptions occurred to me, for there was more in them than the blocks themselves had supplied. How did I know that this level should have been far underground? How did I know that the plane leading upward should have been behind me? How did I know that the long subterrene passage to the Square of Pillars ought to lie on the left one level above me? https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/55/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/55/ It was only for a moment that I hesitated, for more than curiosity and scientific zeal was driving me on and working against my growing fear. I seemed to move almost automatically, as if in the clutch of some compelling fate. Pocketing my torch, and struggling with a strength that I had not thought I possessed, I wrenched aside first one titan fragment of stone and then another, till there welled up a strong draught whose dampness contrasted oddly with the desert’s dry air. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/56/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/56/ I kept no track of time during my downward scramble. So seething with baffling hints and images was my mind that all objective matters seemed withdrawn into incalculable distances. Physical sensation was dead, and even fear remained as a wraith-like, inactive gargoyle leering impotently at me. Eventually, I reached a level floor strewn with fallen blocks, shapeless fragments of stone, and sand and detritus of every kind. On either side—perhaps thirty feet apart—rose massive walls culminating in huge groinings. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/57/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/57/ But it was the carvings themselves that excited me most. Despite their time-crumbled state, they were relatively easy to trace at close range; and the complete, intimate familiarity of every detail almost stunned my imagination. That the major attributes of this hoary masonry should be familiar, was not beyond normal credibility. Powerfully impressing the weavers of certain myths, they had become embodied in a stream of cryptic lore which, somehow, coming to my notice during the amnesic period, had evoked vivid images in my subconscious mind. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/58/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/58/ The particular structure I was in was known to me. Known, too, was its place in that terrible elder city of dreams. That I could visit unerringly any point in that structure or in that city which had escaped the changes and devastations of uncounted ages, I realized with hideous and instinctive certainty. What in heaven’s name could all this mean? How had I come to know what I knew? And what awful reality could lie behind those antique tales of the beings who had dwelt in this labyrinth of primordial stone? https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/59/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/59/ Had I come upon a whole buried world of unholy archaism? Could I still find the house of the writing master, and the tower where S’gg’ha, the captive mind from the star-headed vegetable carnivores of Antarctica, had chiselled certain pictures on the blank spaces of the walls? Would the passage at the second level down, to the hall of the alien minds, be still unchoked and traversable? In that hall the captive mind of an incredible entity—a half-plastic denizen of the hollow interior of an unknown trans-Plutonian planet eighteen million years in the future—had kept a certain thing which it had modelled from clay. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/6/ My own family formed no exception. From the moment of my strange waking my wife had regarded me with extreme horror and loathing, vowing that I was some utter alien usurping the body of her husband. In 1910 she obtained a legal divorce, nor would she ever consent to see me even after my return to normality in 1913. These feelings were shared by my elder son and my small daughter, neither of whom I have ever seen since. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/60/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/60/ Chapter 7 From that point forward my impressions are scarcely to be relied on—indeed, I still possess a final, desperate hope that they all form parts of some daemonic dream or illusion born of delirium. A fever raged in my brain, and everything came to me through a kind of haze—sometimes only intermittently. The rays of my torch shot feebly into the engulfing blackness, bringing phantasmal flashes of hideously familiar walls and carvings, all blighted with the decay of ages. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/61/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/61/ It cost me a terrible effort to vault that yawning chasm, since the littered floor prevented a running start—but madness drove me on. I chose a place close to the left-hand wall—where the rift was least wide and the landing-spot reasonably clear of dangerous debris—and after one frantic moment reached the other side in safety. At last, gaining the lower level, I stumbled on past the archway of the room of machines, within which were fantastic ruins of metal, half buried beneath fallen vaulting. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/62/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/62/ I shook violently, and felt a curious surge of retarding weakness, as I steered a hurried and reluctant course through the crypt of one of those great windowless, ruined towers whose alien, basalt masonry bespoke a whispered and horrible origin. This primal vault was round and fully two hundred feet across, with nothing carved upon the dark-hued stonework. The floor was here free from anything save dust and sand, and I could see the apertures leading upward and downward. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/63/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/63/ It was sheer madness that impelled and guided me—if, indeed, my whole underground adventure was not—as I hope—a hellish delusion or phase of dreaming. But I did make—or dream that I made—a passage that I could squirm through. As I wiggled over the mound of debris—my torch, switched continuously on, thrust deeply in my mouth—I felt myself torn by the fantastic stalactites of the jagged floor above me. I was now close to the great underground archival structure which seemed to form my goal. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/64/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/64/ I was past being astonished by the familiarity of what I saw. On every hand the great hieroglyphed metal shelf-doors loomed monstrously; some yet in place, others sprung open, and still others bent and buckled under bygone geological stresses not quite strong enough to shatter the titan masonry. Here and there a dust-covered heap beneath a gaping, empty shelf seemed to indicate where cases had been shaken down by earth tremors. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/65/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/65/ As I ceased poring over this incredible document I saw that the light of my torch was beginning to fail, hence quickly inserted the extra battery I always had with me. Then, armed with the stronger radiance, I resumed my feverish racing through unending tangles of aisles and corridors—recognising now and then some familiar shelf, and vaguely annoyed by the acoustic conditions which made my footfalls echo incongruously in these catacombs. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/66/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/66/ Dream or not, I had once known and still knew. How any dream—or scrap of unconsciously absorbed legend—could have taught me a detail so minute, so intricate, and so complex, I did not attempt to explain to myself. I was beyond all coherent thought. For was not this whole experience—this shocking familiarity with a set of unknown ruins, and this monstrously exact identity of everything before me with what only dreams and scraps of myth could have suggested—a horror beyond all reason? https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/67/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/67/ I felt a current of cool, damp air as I had felt there, and wished that my course led in another direction. Why I had to take the particular course I was taking, I did not know. When I came to the space I saw that the trap-door yawned widely open. Ahead, the shelves began again, and I glimpsed on the floor before one of them a heap very thinly covered with dust, where a number of cases had recently fallen. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/68/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/68/ Not the heap, but something about the dust of the level floor was troubling me. In the light of my torch it seemed as if that dust were not as even as it ought to be—there were places where it looked thinner, as if it had been disturbed not many months before. I could not be sure, for even the apparently thinner places were dusty enough; yet a certain suspicion of regularity in the fancied unevenness was highly disquieting. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/69/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/69/ Chapter 8 That my strange sense of compulsion was deep and overwhelming is shewn by its conquest of my fear. No rational motive could have drawn me on after that hideous suspicion of prints and the creeping dream-memories it excited. Yet my right hand, even as it shook with fright, still twitched rhythmically in its eagerness to turn a lock it hoped to find. Before I knew it I was past the heap of lately fallen cases and running on tiptoe through aisles of utterly unbroken dust toward a point which I seemed to know morbidly, horribly well. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/7/ In 1909 I spent a month in the Himalayas, and in 1911 roused much attention through a camel trip into the unknown deserts of Arabia. What happened on those journeys I have never been able to learn. During the summer of 1912 I chartered a ship and sailed in the Arctic, north of Spitzbergen, afterward showing signs of disappointment. Later in that year I spent weeks—alone beyond the limits of previous or subsequent exploration in the vast limestone cavern systems of western Virginia—black labyrinths so complex that no retracing of my steps could even be considered. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/70/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/70/ Even as I thought these things I had taken the torch in my mouth and begun to climb. The projecting locks were poor supports; but, as I had expected, the opened shelf helped greatly. I used both the swinging door and the edge of the aperture itself in my ascent, and managed to avoid any loud creaking. Balanced on the upper edge of the door, and leaning far to my right, I could just reach the lock I sought. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/71/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/71/ Kneeling in the gritty dust, I swung the case around and rested it in front of me. My hands shook, and I dreaded to draw out the book within almost as much as I longed—and felt compelled—to do so. It had very gradually become clear to me what I ought to find, and this realisation nearly paralysed my faculties. If the thing were there—and if I were not dreaming—the implications would be quite beyond the power of the human spirit to bear. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/72/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/72/ I looked for an instant, then collapsed. Clenching my teeth, however, I kept silent. I sank wholly to the floor and put a hand to my forehead amidst the engulfing blackness. What I dreaded and expected was there. Either I was dreaming, or time and space had become a mockery. I must be dreaming—but I would test the horror by carrying this thing back and shewing it to my son if it were indeed a reality. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/73/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/73/ Torch in hand, and with the ominous case under one arm, I eventually found myself tiptoeing in a kind of silent panic past the draught-giving abyss and those lurking suggestions of prints. I lessened my precautions as I climbed up the endless inclines, but could not shake off a shadow of apprehension which I had not felt on the downward journey. I dreaded having to repass through the black basalt crypt that was older than the city itself, where cold draughts welled up from unguarded depths. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/74/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/74/ The din was my undoing. For, falsely or not, I thought I heard it answered in a terrible way from spaces far behind me. I thought I heard a shrill, whistling sound, like nothing else on earth, and beyond any adequate verbal description. If so, what followed has a grim irony—since, save for the panic of this thing, the second thing might never have happened. As it was, my frenzy was absolute and unrelieved. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/75/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/75/ Then, just as I approached that primal basalt crypt I had so dreaded, utter madness came. For as the echoes of the avalanche died down, there became audible a repetition of that frightful alien whistling I thought I had heard before. This time there was no doubt about it—and what was worse, it came from a point not behind but ahead of me. Probably I shrieked aloud then. I have a dim picture of myself as flying through the hellish basalt vault of the elder things, and hearing that damnable alien sound piping up from the open, unguarded door of limitless nether blacknesses. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/76/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/76/ I knew, of course, that I had the four-foot cleft to re-cross, yet was too racked by other fears to realise the full horror until I came almost upon it. On my descent, the leap across had been easy—but could I clear the gap as readily when going uphill, and hampered by fright, exhaustion, the weight of the metal case, and the anomalous backward tug of that daemon wind? I thought of these things at the last moment, and thought also of the nameless entities which might be lurking in the black abysses below the chasm. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/77/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/77/ This is the end of my experience, so far as I can recall. Any further impressions belong wholly to the domain of phantasmagoria delirium. Dream, madness, and memory merged wildly together in a series of fantastic, fragmentary delusions which can have no relation to anything real. There was a hideous fall through incalculable leagues of viscous, sentient darkness, and a babel of noises utterly alien to all that we know of the earth and its organic life. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/78/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/78/ I was clawing prone through the sands of the Australian desert, and around me shrieked such a tumult of wind as I had never before known on our planet’s surface. My clothing was in rags, and my whole body was a mass of bruises and scratches. Full consciousness returned very slowly, and at no time could I tell just where delirious dream left off and true memory began. There had seemed to be a mound of titan blocks, an abyss beneath it, a monstrous revelation from the past, and a nightmare horror at the end—but how much of this was real? https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/79/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/79/ I do not know. If that abyss and what I held were real, there is no hope. Then, all too truly, there lies upon this world of man a mocking and incredible shadow out of time. But, mercifully, there is no proof that these things are other than fresh phases of my myth-born dreams. I did not bring back the metal case that would have been a proof, and so far those subterrene corridors have not been found. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/8/ About the middle of August I returned to Arkham and re-opened my long-closed house in Crane Street. Here I installed a mechanism of the most curious aspect, constructed piecemeal by different makers of scientific apparatus in Europe and America, and guarded carefully from the sight of any one intelligent enough to analyse it. Those who did see it—a workman, a servant, and the new housekeeper—say that it was a queer mixture of rods, wheels, and mirrors, though only about two feet tall, one foot wide, and one foot thick. https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/lovecraft-shadow/9/ When the doctor reached my house he found me unconscious in the sitting room—in an easy-chair with a table drawn up before it. On the polished top were scratches showing where some heavy object had rested. The queer machine was gone, nor was anything afterward heard of it. Undoubtedly the dark, lean foreigner had taken it away. In the library grate were abundant ashes, evidently left from the burning of the every remaining scrap of paper on which I had written since the advent of the amnesia. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/1/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/1/ The Tower of the Elephant (1933) Robert E. Howard Chapter I Torches flared murkily on the revels in the Maul, where the thieves of the east held carnival by night. In the Maul they could carouse and roar as they liked, for honest people shunned the quarters, and watchmen, well paid with stained coins, did not interfere with their sport. Along the crooked, unpaved streets with their heaps of refuse and sloppy puddles, drunken roisterers staggered, roaring. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/10/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/10/ Then began a desperate game, the wits and quickness of the man matched against the fiendish craft and speed of the giant spider. It no longer scuttled across the floor in a direct charge, or swung its body through the air at him. It raced about the ceiling and the walls, seeking to snare him in the long loops of sticky gray web­strands, which it flung with a devilish accuracy. These strands were thick as ropes, and Conan knew that once they were coiled about him, his desperate strength would not be enough to tear him free before the monster struck. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/11/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/11/ Chapter III Cautiously he pressed against the ivory door and it swung silently inward. On the shimmering threshold Conan stared like a wolf in strange surroundings, ready to fight or flee on the instant. He was looking into a large chamber with a domed golden ceiling; the walls were of green jade, the floor of ivory, partly covered by thick rugs. Smoke and exotic scent of incense floated up from a brazier on a golden tripod, and behind it sat an idol on a sort of marble couch. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/12/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/12/ That he did not instantly explode in a burst of murderous frenzy is a fact that measures his horror, which paralyzed him where he stood. A civilized man in his position would have sought doubtful refuge in the conclusion that he was insane; it did not occur to the Cimmerian to doubt his senses. He knew he was face to face with a demon of the Elder World, and the realization robbed him of all his faculties except sight. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/13/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/13/ Uncertainly Conan approached, and Yag-kosha, or Yogah, as if sensing his uncertainty, indicated where he should strike. Conan set his teeth and drove the sword deep. Blood streamed over the blade and his hand, and the monster started convulsively, then lay back quite still. Sure that life had fled, at least life as he understood it, Conan set to work on his grisly task and quickly brought forth something that he felt must be the strange being’s heart, though it differed curiously from any he had ever seen. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/14/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/14/ He closed the ivory door behind him and without hesitation descended the silver steps. It did not occur to him to ignore the instructions given him. He halted at an ebony door, in the center of which was a grinning silver skull, and pushed it open. He looked into a chamber of ebony and jet, and saw, on a black silken couch, a tall, spare form reclining. Yara the priest and sorcerer lay before him, his eyes open and dilated with the fumes of the yellow lotus, far-staring, as if fixed on gulfs and nighted abysses beyond human ken. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/15/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/15/ The Cimmerian turned and fled from the chamber, down the silver stairs. So mazed was he that it did not occur to him to escape from the tower by the way he had entered it. Down that winding, shadowy silver well he ran, and came into a large chamber at the foot of the gleaming stairs. There he halted for an instant; he had come into the room of the soldiers. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/2/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/2/ A touch on his tunic sleeve made him turn his head, scowling at the interruption. He saw a tall, strongly made youth standing beside him. This person was as much out of place in that den as a gray wolf among mangy rats of the gutters. His cheap tunic could not conceal the hard, rangy lines of his powerful frame, the broad heavy shoulders, the massive chest, lean waist, and heavy arms. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/3/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/3/ Chapter II The lurid lights and drunken revelry fell away behind the Cimmerian. He had discarded his torn tunic, and walked through the night naked except for a loin-cloth and his high-strapped sandals. He moved with the supple ease of a great tiger, his steely muscles rippling under his brown skin. He had entered the part of the city reserved for the temples. On all sides of him they glittered white in the starlight—snowy marble pillars and golden domes and silver arches, shrines of Zamora’s myriad strange gods. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/4/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/4/ Straining his eyes in the gloom, he saw a hint of motion through the shrubs near the wall. Thither he glided, gripping his sword. He made no more noise than a panther stealing through the night, yet the man he was stalking heard. The Cimmerian had a dim glimpse of a huge bulk close to the wall, felt relief that it was at least human; then the fellow wheeled quickly with a gasp that sounded like panic, made the first motion of a forward plunge, hands clutching, then recoiled as the Cimmerian’s blade caught the starlight. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/5/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/5/ “Follow me,” whispered Taurus, “keep behind me, as you value your life.” Taking what looked like a copper tube from his girdle, the Nemedian dropped lightly to the sward inside the wall. Conan was close behind him, sword ready, but Taurus pushed him back, close to the wall, and showed no inclination to advance, himself. His whole attitude was of tense expectancy, and his gaze, like Conan’s, was fixed on the shadowy mass of shrubbery a few yards away. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/6/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/6/ It was Conan’s savage instinct which made him wheel suddenly; for the death that was upon them made no sound. A fleeting glimpse showed the Cimmerian the giant tawny shape, rearing upright against the stars, towering over him for the death-stroke. No civilized man could have moved half so quickly as the barbarian moved. His sword flashed frostily in the starlight with every ounce of desperate nerve and thew behind it, and man and beast went down together. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/7/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/7/ Up and up they went, silently, the lights of the city spreading out further and further to their sight as they climbed, the stars above them more and more dimmed by the glitter of the jewels along the rim. Now Taurus reached up a hand and gripped the rim itself, pulling himself up and over. Conan paused a moment on the very edge, fascinated by the great frosty jewels whose gleams dazzled his eyes—diamonds, rubies, emeralds, sapphires, turquoises, moonstones, set thick as stars in the shimmering silver. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/8/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/8/ The Cimmerian leaped forward, electrified—the gleaming door swung open and Taurus stood framed in the cold blaze behind him. He swayed and his lips parted, but only a dry rattle burst from his throat. Catching at the golden door for support, he lurched out upon the roof, then fell headlong, clutching at his throat. The door swung to behind him. Conan, crouching like a panther at bay, saw nothing in the room behind the stricken Nemedian, in the brief instant the door was partly open—unless it was not a trick of the light which made it seem as if a shadow darted across the gleaming floor. https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/9/ Tue, 14 May 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/pcrc/howard-tower/9/ Closing the door behind him, the Cimmerian advanced into the chamber. His bare feet made no sound on the crystal floor. There were no chairs or tables in the chamber, only three or four silken couches, embroidered with gold and worked in strange serpentine designs, and several silver-bound mahogany chests. Some were sealed with heavy golden locks; others lay open, their carven lids thrown back, revealing heaps of jewels in a careless riot of splendor to the Cimmerian’s astounded eyes. https://eykd.net/books/return-of-the-exile/ Wed, 06 Mar 2019 06:30:00 -0700 https://eykd.net/books/return-of-the-exile/ Book 1 of the thrilling new space opera, Salvage of Empire! Ever since the Emperor disappeared, Director Kolteo Ais has been the top man in the Galactic Empire. Now he has a problem: his brother-in-law has returned from self-imposed exile, bringing with him a secret that will destroy Kolteo and tear apart the Empire. Can Kolteo save his Empire? Can he even save his marriage? Read a sample for free. https://eykd.net/colophon/return-of-the-exile/the-story/ Wed, 13 Feb 2019 03:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/colophon/return-of-the-exile/the-story/ In my new book, Return of the Exile, first in the Salvage of Empire series, the main character, Director Kolteo Ais, has a terrible secret. It says as much on the cover blurb. If his secret is revealed, it will destroy everything he’s worked for: his place in the ruling council for the Galactic Empire, the Empire itself, and even his marriage. Even worse? His brother-in-law knows his secret now. And he’s returning from his self-imposed exile with every intention of thoroughly destroying Kolteo. https://eykd.net/colophon/return-of-the-exile/the-book/ Wed, 13 Feb 2019 02:00:00 -0800 https://eykd.net/colophon/return-of-the-exile/the-book/ In my new book, Return of the Exile, first in the Salvage of Empire series, the main character, Director Kolteo Ais, has a terrible secret. You’ll learn what it is in the first 3,000 words. The next 30,000 words get even more interesting. Why? You’ll have to read it and find out! The Face of the Words This wouldn’t be a colophon if we didn’t talk about fonts, or as typesetters will tell you, typefaces. https://eykd.net/blog/advice-to-a-new-author/ Mon, 14 Jan 2019 00:01:00 -0700 https://eykd.net/blog/advice-to-a-new-author/ A friend of mine is looking to get into creative writing, and asked me today to recommend some books. By the time I’d finished collecting thoughts and links, I realized I had the makings of a great blog post. My email to him follows: The first and most important thing I would recommend is to write. Use what follows to guide your writing, but you can only learn to write by writing. https://eykd.net/blog/indie-publishing-isnt-independent/ Tue, 23 Oct 2018 01:00:00 -0700 https://eykd.net/blog/indie-publishing-isnt-independent/ A funny thing happened on the way to the indie publishing revolution. We stormed the Bastille and threw off the oppressive aristocracy of Traditional Publishing. We mastered EPUB and MOBI. But somehow, we found ourselves saddled by a self-crowned Emperor Amazon. Under the Emperor, we’ve won a lot of battles, it’s true, and it has been glorious. We all laugh at those silly aristocrats complaining that their $15.99 ebooks don’t sell. https://eykd.net/blog/long-slow-ramp-of-death/ Sat, 14 Jul 2018 05:59:24 -0700 https://eykd.net/blog/long-slow-ramp-of-death/ It’s been about two weeks since I announced that I was taking my first step on my journey to $10k of revenue per month as a self-published author. It’s been four weeks since I released the first episode of my epic galactic empire space opera serial, Salvage of Empire. My fiction mailing list has grown by 100%, my Road to $10k list by 200%. Impressive, no? Are you still impressed when I say each list started with one subscriber (myself), and I now have two and three subscribers, respectively? https://eykd.net/blog/road-to-10k/ Mon, 25 Jun 2018 07:00:00 -0700 https://eykd.net/blog/road-to-10k/ As a completely unknown author with no big connections and no following (and no income), the problem of becoming a known author with connections and a following (not to mention a steady income) looms over me. So many of the success stories out there seem to boil down to just-so, “and then I got lucky” stories. Well, I’ve come to understand that luck is mostly a matter of managing you opportunities well. https://eykd.net/subscribe/road-to-10k/ Wed, 13 Jun 2018 15:02:44 -0700 https://eykd.net/subscribe/road-to-10k/ I’m on the road from $0 to $10k/mo. as a self-published author. Follow along and let’s see what happens! #mc_embed_signup{width:100%;} /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. We recommend moving this block and the preceding CSS link to the HEAD of your HTML file. */ Want me to keep you updated on my progress? https://eykd.net/subscribe/publishing-thank-you/ Wed, 13 Jun 2018 15:02:44 -0700 https://eykd.net/subscribe/publishing-thank-you/ You’re subscribed! Thank you, and I’ll make sure to make this well worth your while. https://eykd.net/subscribe/salvage-thank-you/ Wed, 13 Jun 2018 15:02:44 -0700 https://eykd.net/subscribe/salvage-thank-you/ You’re subscribed! Thank you, and I’ll make sure to make this well worth your while. https://eykd.net/pcrc/welcome-to-the-club/ Wed, 13 Jun 2018 15:02:44 -0700 https://eykd.net/pcrc/welcome-to-the-club/ You’re in! Here’s what you should do next: Check your email to confirm your membership. It shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to arrive. If you don’t see it, check your Spam folder or your Promotions tab, just in case. To ensure that my emails always get through to you, whitelist my email address: . (Detailed instructions here.) Want even more? Tweet this to gain access to the Pulp Classics Reading Club Library: https://eykd.net/pne/thank-you/ Wed, 13 Jun 2018 15:02:44 -0700 https://eykd.net/pne/thank-you/ You’re in! Here’s what you should do next: Check your email to confirm your membership. It shouldn’t take more than a minute or two to arrive. If you don’t see it, check your Spam folder or your Promotions tab, just in case. To ensure that my emails always get through to you, please take a moment to whitelist my email address: . (Detailed instructions here.) Make a commitment. https://eykd.net/pne/writing-tools-confirmation/ Wed, 13 Jun 2018 15:02:44 -0700 https://eykd.net/pne/writing-tools-confirmation/ OK, you convinced me. :) I’ll be sending you some information about the writing tools I use shortly. Make sure you don’t get distracted though!