Robert E. Gilbert

“ What are you talking about, Henry? That's no way to talk to a fellow that saved your life. If it hadn't been for me, you'd still be falling. You were slower than the sweeper. I saved your life!"
Henry blushed in sudden shame and released Ranjit's arm. "Why, why, I—I guess you did!" he stammered.
Henry lived in an era that had been preceded by wars which destroyed more than half the people of Earth. It was a time of rigidly controlled population, highly specialized training, and constantly increasing life expectancy. Each human life was considered a distinct and invaluable thing. ”

“ Pink and rose clouds drifted through a brightening sky as the Honeychile Bakery truck careened along a narrow road badly in need of rock and grading. From the road, the truck rattled into a rutted track through dewy woods and skidded swaying to a stop at the side of a long, low, grassy hill.
The tall creature dressed in black, red-spotted fur stepped from the cab. An opening appeared in the hillside. Four machines—dull metal eggs balancing on single tractor treads—rolled silently through the opening. Jointed steel arms darted from recesses in the eggs. One machine opened the truck doors. ”

“ He would have to project himself to another place, one that did not seem like a vague dream.
Potts saw that his bath would come next. Danny Harris stood in the spray and stared stupidly at the tile floor. Potts looked at Joe. A wide smile that revealed two gold teeth creased the burly attendant's face. Hairy hands turned off the needle shower, twisted two more knobs, and picked up the twin hoses. Joe stood like the villain in a Western movie, blazing away with two guns, and shot thin powerful streams of water against Harris's spine. ”

“ Charge!" Moe completely circled the killer, who retired in disgust when another lancer rode into the ring. "Stick him good!" Fergus directed.
The pike pointed at the great muscles of Moe's back, as the bull charged. Moe's head twisted in a blur of violence. Teeth clamped on the shaft behind the point. Too surprised to let go, the lancer followed his weapon from the saddle. He released his hold when Moe walked on him.
Like some fantastic dog stealing a fresh bone, the bull trotted around the ring, tail high and pike in mouth. The crowd laughed. Wild-eyed men carried out the trampled lancer. ”

“ I warily neared the heaving mountain of flesh, uncertain of the dynamite's power, but calculating that two detonations near the creature's head would be enough.
Opening his one good eye, the Hog looked at me. His tusks grated together. Weak noises came from his mouth. "Uhdoo nuut keel!"
Sixday evening, I had been momentarily convinced that the Hog could speak, but had found it hard to accept that faculty in a swinish animal without grasping organs. However, appearance did not always indicate intellectual ability, and the Hog's skull contained ample space for a large brain. ”

“ Stonecypher dropped the saw—he had been clearing away a beech limb the storm left in the abandoned paddock—and strolled to greet Ringmaster A. Oswell.
"Stonecypher!" the ringmaster announced. "That storm almost caught us!" Oswell's stainless steel teeth clacked, and the breezes trailing the thunderclouds ballooned his orange silk kimono. "I never liked these butterfliers. They're too slow, and that swooping motion! Five hundred miles per hour may seem fast to a man your age; but in my day, back before petroleum was classified as armament, we had jets! Real speed!" ”

“ To either side, the billions of tiny moons blended with distance to form a solid, glaring white band. Henry bent his knees and dived into space.
Holding his body stiff with a practiced rigidity, and cautiously moving arms and legs to check any tendency to tumble, Henry glided above the Rings. Turning his head, he saw exhaust spurt from the collection of spherical cabins, tanks, and motors that was the spaceship; and the craft moved from his line of sight, leaving him alone.
Henry drifted above a flat surface more than sixty-six thousand kilometers wide. ”

“ Rasmussen turned to us, leaving the tractor to find its own way along the twisting road. He said, "No need to discuss customs with the alien!"
"Watch it!" I yelled.
Rasmussen rotated and steered the tractor away from a jumble of boulders. I perspired against the wind of our motion. Toal said, "Children can choose to be deported! Their parents advise them! The parents can be sterilized and stay here, or they can become aliens and be deported with the child! Must not have other children if one is suspected of being a Farmer! ”

“ Patrolman Whedbee stood by the back of the truck. Chief Grindstaff placed a device like an atomizer under Whedbee's nose and released the spray.
Miss Betsy Tapp awoke after not more than one hour of fitful sleep. The door to the garage apartment shook under the tattoo of a heavy fist. Miss Tapp's heart thudded somewhere inside her thirty-eight-inch bosom. She lay rigid in darkness penetrated only by the glimmer of a distant street light. ”

“ Furthermore, Potts was no aviator. Success, if any, lay in the future. The future was yet to come, and Potts could mold events to his liking. Or perhaps he could move his body in space, instead of time. He could think himself out of the hospital.
"Orville Potts, get those clothes off!" Wilhart ordered. Potts slowly removed his faded garments. He took his place at the end of the line of naked men leading to the needle shower.
Joe stood in all his glory at what Potts called the P. T. machine. The apparatus was a marble box with rows of knobs and gauges and a pair of rubber hoses on the top. ”

“ Vicenzo and Aziz, waving their arms, leaned at an increasingly acute angle. Their boots broke from the magnetic deck. They fell slowly, accelerating at about two meters per second, and dropped into the netted wall which had become the floor.
Henry dangled below what was now the ceiling. Objects fell from the net beside him. Tools, machine parts, books, and canned food slowly showered down on Vicenzo and Aziz, who thrashed and swore in the growing junk heap.
"We're deceleratin'!" Aziz yelled. "That old man really is gonna kill us! We'll crash on Saturn!" ”

“ The fat man squeaked and waved. Moe's charge embodied the genuine fighting rage of a maddened bull. The scarlet door closed behind him.
Stonecypher, with fists bloody and a heap of unconscious fear-crazed spectators piled before him, sat down. "Well, Moe," he whispered, "I reckon you got even for a few of the bulls that's been tortured to death to amuse a bunch of nuts. Maybe it wasn't the right way to do it. I don't know. If I'd only had the gun—"
Catriona turned a white mask of a face up to Stonecypher. "They killed him, in theah?"
"Sure. Bullfightin' never was a sport. The bull can't win. ”

“ Hundreds of toothies squeaked around the shed at the edge of the spacefield.
Eijkman climbed the chain ladder into the shuttle. As the four men and women helped their children climb, I looked into Toal's blue eyes and said, "Uh, Toal—I mean, Betty. I've rather enjoyed Planet Maggie, in spite of a lot of things. I admire you, Toal. That is, I've never seen another woman quite like you. Your bravery and, uh, all that. What I'm trying to say is, well, you're a hunter, and it looks as if I'll keep on being a hunter. You don't know anyone in the Explored Galaxy. ”

“ Then the attendant turned off the shower and sluiced the patient with powerful streams of water from the hoses.
The routine seemed senseless and innocent enough, but Potts had heard whispered conversations in the night that filled him with horror. The P. T. machine, rumor said, was actually an instrument of torture and death. The water pressure could be increased to two thousand pounds, enough to push out a man's eyes or break his bones. Instead of water, the hoses could spit fire like a flamethrower. Acid could spray from the shower. ”

“ Men sprawled gored, crushed, and dead across the sand. A section of the blood-specked barrier leaned splintered and cracked, almost touching the concrete wall. Unharmed, Fergus stood on one side of the battleground, Illard on the other.
Fergus reached over the wooden fence for red flag and sword. Turning his back on the heaving Moe, who stood but ten feet behind, the killer faced the quaking flesh that was Ringmaster Oswell, high up in the official box. The killer's voice shook, but the bitter satire came through the sound of departing boats and aircraft. ”

“ Fire shot past Henry's gyrating figure. A thin cable followed the small rocket. Henry's flailing arms struck the cable, and his gauntleted hands gripped the strands. He pulled back the spent rocket, and the missile's magnetic head clanked against his spacesuit. The lifeline reeled him toward the station. ”

“ Bean threw down his pencil, caught his falling glasses, drew a handkerchief from his breast pocket, and polished them.
"Too deep for you, Doc?" Potts inquired. "Well, just assume that my brain is a more powerful generator and transformer than any you ever saw. I've developed it by memorizing, remembering, visualizing, working problems in my head, and so on. I've been trying to make my brain take complete control of my body. The body is composed of atoms, and the atoms are electrical charges, protons and electrons. Therefore, you're nothing but electricity in the shape of a man. ”

“ His back was at least four meters above the road.
The Hog had only one glinting red eye. The other side of his head contained a ghastly socket. Half of one ear was missing, and his lower left tusk was broken. The bizarrely upswept, upper left tusk was twice the length of the right. Reddish bristles grew, like weeds among rocks, between the bony plates covering his creased hide. With snout touching the ground, he stood on cloven hoofs too small for his oily, swelling body. A stifling stench emanated from him. He moved.
"Run!" I barked. Pellets swished from the hisser's barrel. ”

“ A red electric truck crawled up the steep road hewn from the slope of the gap formed by Dolan Branch. When the truck had crossed the bridge below the buttressed dam, Stonecypher spoke to the fat and sweltering man seated beside the driver. "I'm M. Stonecypher. Proud for you to visit my farm. Dinner's ready up at the house."
"No, no time," smiled the fat man, displaying stainless steel teeth. "Only time to see the bull. I thought we weren't going to make that grade! Why don't those scientists develop synthetic elements, so that we can have atomic power again? ”

“ Lawrence D. Bean.
Dr. Bean, a thin bald man, sat behind a maple desk and peered at Potts over spectacles attached to a black ribbon. Joe shut the door and leaned against it.
"I've been hearing things about you, Orville," Dr. Bean said. "We'll have a little examination. Now, hold your right arm out straight, close your eyes, and touch the end of your nose with your index finger."
"Can't we do without the foolishness?" Potts asked. He sank into the chair beside the doctor's desk and gently rubbed his bruised arm. ”