Science Fiction
Ed Dukas was writing letters. Someone or something was also writing--unseen but at his elbow. It was perhaps fifteen minutes before he noticed. Conspicuous at the center of the next blank sheet of paper he reached for, part of a word was already inscribed:
Ed Dukas was writing letters. Someone or something was also writing--unseen but at his elbow. It was perhaps fifteen minutes before he noticed. Conspicuous at the center of the...
2. Part 2Eddie's mom kept saying things, and it was all something like a formula that had been learned, a rote, a parroted incantation: "You're right, Eddie. We've got to think before we...
3. Part 3Prell's look of concern deepened. His thin face was touched by a fleeting tenderness and worry. Part of it was surely for his sister. Then, mostly to himself, he muttered, "Ther...
4. Part 4"Been around these times three months. Scared stiff at first. Thought I was addled. Know somethin'? I can remember all the way back to 1870. It's a fake, sure. No, they didn't m...
5. Part 5Granger's voice was always gentle. Yet to his listeners it suggested dark, lonesome places where there is danger. Which was true. For now other killings had started. Familiar hu...
6. Part 6Ed put out the light in his cell, but as he crept into his cot, he held a bit of paper from his coat pocket in one hand. He left his fountain pen open, on top of his clothes. Fo...
7. Part 7They located an eighteen-inch cleft at the rock's base. Edging into it, they found an irregular stone pivoted on steel hinges. To their touch, it closed behind them, and bolts c...
8. Part 8He alighted near Ed and Barbara and wrung their hands cordially. Then words spilled out of him excitedly: "Ed. Barbara. We've got to hurry. But first we should put our minds str...
9. Part 9"Yes," Prell replied. "A crevice leading out to the face of the rock formation. Feel the draft of Martian night air? It would smother and freeze you if you were as you were born...
10. Part 10Was her gaiety just bravado, or was she as cool as she seemed? Ed hoped that she was cool. Tugging at the linten line that joined them, Ed drew himself close to her.
11. Part 11Ed got out of Loman's oxygen helmet the way he had entered. Les Payten, a dazed Atlas, was stumbling around. Ed felt cut off from his old friend by a strange, great distance. Bu...
12. Part 12Finally Ed felt the rumble of his chuckle. "You mean I'm one of your 'reasonable' variety," he said. "Meantime you smash my stuff, eh, little bug in the air! I ought to get damn...
13. Part 13At last the ship quivered slightly. In contact with the heat of fusion of hydrogen and lithium to form the gaseous stellar ash called helium, any material rocket chamber would h...