Frank Banta

“ I've been robbing him by shutting him up here."
"Jean, look at Droozle," the girl exclaimed, pointing. "He has stopped in the middle of a page and is starting on a fresh one."
Droozle wrote, "Please not out into the wind and the rain. Please not into the roaring, brawling taverns where life thrives in all its abundance. I loathe shudder and tilt."
"Loathing is no reason to turn away from reality, Droozle," admonished the artist. "Things are not nearly so bad as they used to be anyway. In all justice, shudder and tilt requires far less body-English than its ancestor, rock and roll." ”

“ Droozle wrote poetically, "Is there Joy or any other good thing in Abnegation? Is there Beauty in Sacrifice? What Handsome purpose do these serve a being in his race with Time? His Days will soon be spent and they will come no more; thus my Criterion: Is This the most Joy gathering, Awareness touching, Beauty sensing act of which he is capable? None other is worthy of his time!"
"Men are not so selfish," objected Jean.
"I am not a man," wrote Droozle simply.
Jean turned staunchly to the girl. ”

“ It is fundamental that if you are to write serious literature, you must rub your nose against the realities of life."
Droozle wriggled unhappily for a moment. Finally he wrote, "Actually my writing may not be as serious as the title implies. Misunderstandings conceivably arise over titles. Instead of The Rise and Fall of the Western Plainsman, how about changing it to Those Lowdown Scaly Rustlers?"
"That's really getting down to earth," cried Jean, concealing his elation. "But if you aren't going to write serious literature, who will I get to go on my painting trips with me?" ”

“ They've been around too many years to whip in one day."
"Perhaps shall require two days then," said Five-gun Charles DeCrabbe graciously. "But doubt it. Tell me what you know of them."
"Very well," assented the older man. "Perhaps the best place to begin is with their name. When we first occupied this planet, a bare twenty years ago, we called them wolfhawk-whirlybirds and tigerhawk-whirlybirds because they preyed on vicious animals. The whirlybirds were our best friends in those days. The only trouble is that they ran out of tigers and wolves to eat." ”

“ He decided, "I had better take time off from pretzin hunting today so I can be handy to help you with your getaway, if need arises."
"Oh, the dragon never bothers us," Bliss said uneasily.
"He has gotten close enough to burn up several of our pretzin patches, though. He may get to this cabin some day."
"He doesn't mean any harm," defended Bliss. "I'm sure he wouldn't want to eat us. They are known to be strictly vegetarians."
"No, he won't eat us. He'll cook us, unless we can run away fast enough—but he'll never eat us." ”

“ What else do you need?"
"Yeah!" agreed the judge, outraged.
"We need some plain, old-fashioned evidence of a crime," answered the juryman, unperturbed.
"Old-fashioned?" The fuming prosecutor rejected the heresy, pushing it away from him with both hands. "This is all unscientific now," he warned. "The Very Complicated Monstrous Proximilator machine—especially the new model with the forty-three meters which replaces the old thirty-nine meter machine—is the ne plus ultra of justice!"
"Oh, no, it isn't," dissented the foreman. "Did your evidence place the deadly weapon in the defendant's hand? ”

“ Yes, our sportsmen tried to shoot down the whirlybirds. No luck, of course. Imagine the problems you have when one of these forty-foot balls of commotion comes at you: You try to aim but you can't hold your arm still because of the swirling wind they raise; and then the dust clouds thicken and you're firing wildly, and you can't begin to tell which is body and which is feathers anyway."
"Very well," accepted Charles DeCrabbe mercifully. "You've made attempt. ”

“ Judy fumed, glaring balefully at the snake. But Droozle wrote serenely on, his ruby eyes glowing enigmatically.
Jean interposed magnanimously, "I see now that I have been inexcusably selfish with Droozle. I've kept him cooped up here, not wanting to bother with him while I was out on my painting trips. True, he was busy writing. But most of his knowledge of Earth has come from books; he can't write classics about living things unless he sees living things." ”

“ Dipping water from a nearby pond with a bucket, Pole had, after fifty-three fast buckets, a blackened ruin of what had formerly been their rude jungle cabin.
Pole moved a new, nearly finished split-pole settee he had been working on back in the jungle to their front porch. As they seated themselves, he complacently surveyed the slits burned between the charred boards of the walls and roof. "The roof will leak a mite when it rains, but it will let in lots of light," he observed optimistically.
"There's nothing like lots of light," Bliss agreed. ”

“ But how about snakes that can jump ten feet and wrap around your throat?"
"I read that wrong," she amended. "All lizards and snakes. And only $1.19."
"I'm glad," said Pole, choking up.
"The Division Chief has been thinking of us," said Bliss, wiping away a tear.
"He knows we field personnel have our problems."
"He knew just what we needed," lauded Bliss.
Pole looked up from the canister as he heard a sound. "And here comes the dragon back! Our lizard repellent arrived just in the nick of time!" ”

“ Then he folded his arms and waited until all the forty-three meters ceased their dancing and went back to zero. That done, he turned to the jury.
"In this machine rests the proof of the crime charged against the defendant," he said dramatically, patting the smooth gray side of the machine. "This machine will tell you all you need to know about the murder. Oh, to be sure, I shall show you the corpus delicti presently; but why and how this crime was committed shall be revealed only by this machine's stimulation of the deceased's brain. She will herself relate who her killer was!" ”

“ Every day I wrote with him, first in red, and then in ochre to give him a rest. He seemed to love to write more than to sketch. He would jump into my hand with tail happily pointed downward as I sat down to my writing desk. And when I later saw his dark green stripes turning pastel and knew that anemia was imminent, and started to lay him down for a earned rest, he would stiffen himself as if to say, 'Oh, come, come! ”

“ You will bless me, once you get accustomed to the realities of life—see if you don't. Heigh-ho the wind and the rain!"
The snake shuddered.
"Careful, you'll centrifuge," Judy warned.
Jean added reflectively, studying the ceiling, "Day by day, month by month, year by year, the reality of everyday existence etches deeply into our consciousness, if we will but have the fortitude to expose ourselves to it."
Droozle unavoidably centrifuged this time, but did manage, with laborious lateral movements, to mix the hemoglobin back with the plasma again. ”

“ The nerve of those people wanting to do something that's not in the Manual!"
"People like us wrote the Manual, John," the Chief added with simple modesty. "That is why it is so good, good, good."
"I know," said John, accepting the weight. Then he complained bitterly, "Wanting to build a new house! They are supposed to do personal stuff at night, or when it's raining."
The Chief allowed his rage to climb. "They've got nothing to do but go out into the jungle and pick a little old bale of pretzins every day, but do you think they are going to do it? No. They want me to go and do it for them!" ”

“ Bagged them."
"Just like that!" said the youngster. "You just get up close enough for those peoplehawks to grab you and then you bagged them."
"Only possible way is my way," clipped DeCrabbe immovably.
"Its eyes couldn't be buried deeply in feathers if they were to be of use." ”

“ Attendants pushing an ambulance cot wheeled what was left of murdered Fannie Bork into the center of the courtroom. The body was covered with a white sheet, except for the long, slim feet which were sticking out. ”

“ We will not lie to that snake!"
Judy dropped the idea. "I've just now thought of another one. Here's an ultimatum we could give him and mean it, too. No more writing until we reach an agreement, or we will take away all his writing paper and reading matter for good!"
"I'd thought of doing that," Jean conceded. "But isn't that a monstrous way to treat a literary genius?"
"Not at all!" she protested. "By taking on a work that will require more time than his lifetime, he is defeating himself."
"There's that way of looking at it," agreed the artist. "All right, Droozle," he called. ”

“ From the way they attack—"
"Most important," interrupted Five-gun. "Give to me in detail."
"They prefer to attack strollers, although they have attacked on city streets when there is little traffic. They fly with amazing speed, considering they are an untidy ball forty feet in diameter, and they are on top of their victims before the unlucky ones are aware of the menace. Blowing their victims down with a rush of air from their feathers, they grab them up by the heels, carry them high aloft and drop them on piles of rock outside of town."
"They are downdraft-peoplehawk-whirlybirds then?" ”