Science Fiction
Once upon a time in Colorado lived a man named Abednego Danner and his wife, Matilda. Abednego Danner was a professor of biology in a small college in the town of Indian Creek. He was a spindling wisp of a man, with a nature drawn well into itself by the assaults of the world...
Once upon a time in Colorado lived a man named Abednego Danner and his wife, Matilda. Abednego Danner was a professor of biology in a small college in the town of Indian Creek....
2. Part 2Mrs. Nolan, the nearest neighbour, wife of Professor Nolan and mother of four children, was delighted. This particular Christmas was going to be a day of some excitement. She pr...
3. Part 3That, in itself, was a stroke of genius. The blacksmith whipped grown boys in the high school for their misdeeds. To send a six-year-old child was crushing. But Hugo had risen a...
4. Part 4His adolescence, his emotions, were no different from those of any young man of his age and character. If his ultimate ambitions followed another trajectory, he postponed the ev...
5. Part 5Hugo knew he had not been answered. He felt, too, that he would never in his life give away his secret. The defences surrounding it had been too immutably fixed. His joy at know...
6. Part 6In the arena it was dazzling. A bank of noisy people rose on all sides of him. Hugo walked down the aisle and clambered into the ring. Ole was one of the largest men he had ever...
7. Part 7"See the fat woman, see Esmerelda, the beautiful fat woman, she weighs six hundred pounds, she's had a dozen lovers, she's the fattest woman in the world, a sensation, dressed i...
8. Part 8Mitchel raised himself on his elbows and turned his water-coloured eyes on the populous beach. "Well--well--let's see. You could, of course, be a strong man and amuse people--wh...
9. Part 9There was time for nothing more. Lefty called Jerry's signal, and Jerry failed. The other team took the ball, rushed it twice, and kicked back into the Webster territory. Again...
10. Part 10They had a brace of drinks, two more and two more. All about them was bedlam, as if the emotions of man had suddenly been let loose to sweep him off his feet. Grief, joy, rage,...
11. Part 11"He is not humble, at least, gentlemen." Laughter. The colonel fixed Hugo with his eye. "Then, my good fellow, if you are so strong, if you can run so swiftly and carry such bur...
12. Part 12Hugo reread the letter and stood awhile with wistful eyes. He remembered Shayne's Aunt Emma, Shayne's bitter calumniation of his family. Well, they had not understood him and he...
13. Part 13Hugo wrote to his family that the war was ended, that he was well, that he expected to see them some time in the near future. The ship that carried him reached the end of the bl...
14. Part 14Another arrival, who carried a small satchel, talked with her in an undertone and then took off his coat. He went first to a telephone on the wall and said: "Gi' me the inside o...
15. Part 15That was one thing that would make the tribulation in her eyes. Hugo wished that he could have met these two people on a different basis, so that he could have learned the truth...
16. Part 16"I saved a man pinned under a wagon. I saved a man from a shark. I pulled open a safe in which a man was smothering. Many things like that. Then--there was the war."
17. Part 17Hugo tried to lead him back to the topic that interested both of them so acutely. Skorvsky shrugged. "You are polite--or else you are curious. I know you--an American business m...
18. Part 18One day, when the high mountains loomed into view, Hugo caught his first glimpse of Uctotol, the Sacred City. A creeper on the hillside fell before his machete, then another--a...