Fredric Brown

“ Blake sighed deeply. "I knew it, I knew it," he said. "There was something wrong with this trip from the start. Charlie pops off the first day with a yarn that should have been worked up to gradually. And now you say—Or is there something wrong with my sense of earring?"
I chuckled. "Not a thing, Skipper."
Charlie said, "I've heard of men biting dogs, but earrings wearing people is a new one. Hank, I hate to say it—but just consider it said." ”

“ And there was an almost sudden edge, beyond which the blades thinned out quickly to barrenness.
And the sound—it was like the sound of the surf, but it was continuous. It was more like the rustle of dry leaves, but there were no dry leaves to rustle.
Mr. Smith took a step toward the sound and looked down. More grass bent, and fell, and vanished, even as he looked. Beyond the moving edge of devastation was a brown floor of the moving bodies of kifs.
Row after row, orderly rank after orderly rank, marching resistlessly onward. Billions of kifs, an army of kifs, eating their way across the night. ”

“ And Earth would, Mars hoped, teach them something even more valuable to Mars: how, by science and technology—which it was too late for Mars to develop now, even if they had the type of minds which would enable them to develop these things—to restore and rehabilitate a dying planet, so that an otherwise dying race might live and multiply again. ”

“ Damn Dolly Mason, he thought. Was she going to be out all evening, just when he needed to see her? The more he thought about it the surer he felt that Dolly was his only good chance to borrow money in any sizable chunk this evening. And also that she'd give it to him if he could connect with her. He'd ask for a hundred; surely she'd have at least half that much on hand. It made sense, that short story he'd read once; the Frenchman knew what he was talking about. A wife will turn you down when a mistress won't. A wife has got you hooked, and knows it; a mistress is more understanding. ”

“ We shall kill them and then we shall go and smash the other dome so all the Earthmen there will die too.
If more Earthmen ever come to punish us, we can live and hide in the hills where they'll never find us. And if they try to build more domes here we'll smash them. We want no more to do with Earth.
This is our planet and we want no aliens. ”

“ There isn't much room to stretch in an asteroid tug and my hand hit against the pistol resting in the clips on the wall. I said, "What's the pistol for, Blake?"
He shrugged. "Rules. Has to be one hand weapon on every space-craft. Heaven knows why, on an asteroid ship. Unless the council thinks some day an asteroid may get mad at us when we tow it out of orbit so it cracks up another. Say, did I ever tell you about the time we had a little twenty-ton rock in tow and—"
"Shut up Blake," Charlie said. "He's just getting to those damn earrings." ”

“ There is nothing to fear, but much to explain. Much that you must understand before the time lock opens that door. Much that you must accept and—obey.
"You have already guessed that you are in the future—in what, to you, seems to be the future. The clothes and the room must have told you that. I planned it that way so the shock would not be too sudden, so you would realize it over the course of several minutes rather than read it here—and quite probably disbelieve what you read.
"The 'closet' from which you have just stepped is, as you have by now realized, a time machine. ”

“ I don't want you to die, and if you should die I don't want ten grand out of it." But she'd had an answer for that. Women always have an answer.
"Ray, darling," she'd said, "I'd agree with you if this were just an insurance policy—but it isn't. It's a ten-year endowment policy, and that's a way of saving. A good way. I've carried it for over four years now and in less than another six years we'll have ten thousand dollars in cash. Won't that be nice?"
"Yeah, but it's a long time away—and those are damn high premiums. Why short ourselves now to have money when we're old? ”

“ Its air will be your air; its food plants your food. Its extremes of temperature will be easy for you to endure and its median temperatures pleasant to you. Already, because of the five years we spent in space under gradually decreased gravitational pull, the gravity of Mars seems normal to you.
"It will be your planet, to live on and to populate. You are the children of Earth but you are the first Martians." ”

“ There was no threat, for him, in that throbbing that was like the beating of the jungle's heart.
Mr. Smith knew that, for although his choice of destinations had been a hasty choice, yet there had been time for him to read the available reports. The natives were harmless and friendly. A Terran missionary had lived among them some time ago—before the outbreak of the war. They were a simple, weak race. They seldom went far from their villages; the space-radar operator who had once occupied the shack reported that he had never seen one of them. ”

“ George watched until it had swung shut behind her. Then he pushed his own door partly shut again and went back to the desk. This time he started typing.
Now, and for the first time in my life, at least since late adolescence, I am in love, deeply in love, and with a woman with whom I have not had an affair and with whom I don't want or intend to have an affair, even if I could. At least I have found the right woman for me and I want everything or nothing. I want to marry the girl.
There is a fly in the ointment; the fly is the husband she already has. ”

“ He fell, as a dead man falls. But when they turned him over in the dust, they saw that his chest still rose and fell in labored breathing.
And then came Alwa, the aged chieftain, and Nrana, his son. Alwa gave quick, excited orders. Two of the men carried Mr. Smith into the chief's hut, and the wives of the chief and the chief's son took over the Earthling's care, and rubbed him with a soothing and healing salve.
But for days and nights he lay without moving and without speaking or opening his eyes, and they did not know whether he would live or die. ”

“ The room was a bedroom and Joe Amico was lying on the bed but on top of the covers and fully dressed. Ray had never seen him otherwise; like many small men Joe prided himself on being dapper. Even on the hottest days of summer he always wore a suit coat over a white shirt and a necktie and the shirt was always so fresh and clean that Ray thought he must change shirts at least twice a day and possibly oftener. The bed was a big one and Joe was so small that he looked almost like a doll lying there on it. ”

“ Blake said, "Sit down, Charlie. Don't you know when you're being ribbed? But—uh—better keep the gun, just the same."
Charlie kept the gun all right, and turned it around to point at me. He said, "I'm making a damn fool out of myself all right, but—Hank, roll up your sleeves." ”

“ This is Mars, the planet on which you will spend the rest of your lives. You are Martians, the first Martians. You have lived five years on Earth and another five in space. Now you will spend ten years, until you are adults, in this dome, although toward the end of that time you will be allowed to spend increasingly long periods outdoors. ”

“ Nights he walked the beach, and that night was one of the noisy nights. There were high-flying, high-whining jet-craft up there in the moonlight sky and their shadows dappled the black water of the sea. The planes, the rockets, the jet-craft, they were what had ravaged his cities, had turned his railroads into twisted steel, had dropped their H-Bombs on his most vital factories. ”

“ Mack Irby stopped his two-finger typing and leaned back in the creaky swivel chair to light himself a cigarette. This was the only part of his job that he really hated, making reports. He'd rather tail a wife for her husband or a husband twelve hours straight than spend the half hour writing up a report on the activities of the suspected spouse. Whenever possible he talked a client into settling for verbal reports, but it wasn't always possible to get a client to agree to that. Some of them insisted on having words on paper for their money. ”

“ Perhaps as his body heals, his words will be beautiful words as were the words of the Father-of-Us who, in the Terran tongue, taught us of the gods and their good."
So they cared for him well, and his wounds healed, and the day came when he opened his eyes and saw the handsome blue-complexioned face of Nrana sitting there beside him, and Nrana said softly, "Good day, Mr. Man of Earth. You feel better, no?" ”

“ Big Bill jerked the wallet out of his hand and tossed it to Amico, who held it in his hand, tapping a corner of it on his knee, not as yet opening it.
He said, "How many bets in here besides Connolly's?"
"None, Joe. Honest to God. I've never—"
"Shut up. You stink, Ray-boy. Chuck Connolly didn't call me up to change his bet; I wouldn't of even known about it if you hadn't told me. Sam Washburn called me, Sam the waiter at Feratti's. I eat there often and know him; he almost always takes a buck bet instead of a tip, and sometimes adds cash of his own. ”