Rog Phillips

“ Then, "I'm sorry, Larry," Stella said.
Larry shrugged. He looked around at the simulated Cypress walls, the comfortable surroundings. "This has gone beyond just one robot escaping," Larry said. "Those others, their weapon that destroyed your ship without a trace. It's invasion from some other galaxy. They're planning on destroying the human race."
And then Stella cried. Larry watched her, a worried frown forming a crease between his puzzled gray eyes. He reached out and touched her face with his fingers. "What is it?"
"Rover," she said, sobbing softly. "I let a monster loose on mankind." ”

“ But the truth of the matter is that I'm not in love with Lana, nor she with me. Sometimes I think I am her favorite portrait, but nothing more.
But really, everything is so interesting. Lana's gallery where I hang, the museum where there are new faces each time I look out, and new voices when I can't see out, Aunt Matilda's sewing room where she is at the moment, and all Sumac as she goes about her normal pattern of living.
It is a rich, full life that I live, shifting here and there in consciousness while my physical body goes about its necessary tasks, as often unguided as not. ”

“ Paula's voice came, angry and insistent.
"It's the only way, Paula," the doctor's voice said, as unperturbed as ever, even in the face of his daughter's obvious anger. "A fear that silences a man, makes him remain silent while his employers brand him a thief and blackball him from his profession, that drives him down the road to alcoholism, can't be broken down with kindness nor anything less than complete destruction of his ability to fight."
"It isn't human!" Paula's voice shot back. "If you keep it up I'll—I'll hate you as much as January does, even though you are my father." ”

“ Two and a half hours later Horace had assimilated and grasped every detail of the theory. He then leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, fingertips to temples, trying to find some flaw. Finally he shook his head. "It's no use," he said. "Your theory is logically inescapable. But—" He frowned. "Where does that place us? Probably where some schools of thought have always suspected we would wind up eventually. With the realization that the basic laws of the universe can't be reached by logic or even by experiment based upon logic." ”

“ So the center of gravity of our bodies was not the same as its center of mass. This made itself felt in thousands of little things. Heart action, sense of balance, and even in walking.
Picture, if you can, Jud standing several feet from me, his body forming an angle of about thirty degrees with mine, both of our bodies erect, our expressions serious. Picture also Lahoma and Mallory, their bodies at still different angles. Throw in the absolute silence of that moment. Not a single sound except our breathing, not even a creak from the ship. ”

“ But what else was there for me? A chameleon-like mental life as a wandering ego? What would happen if I could sever my contact with Dave's sensory centers and motor centers? Perhaps then I would become who I was in reality and end this strange pattern of existence.
Suddenly I knew I must.
All sensation ended abruptly. There was no light, no sound. There was no thought, except for the awareness of existence, and the sense of passing time.
Then, like the turning on of a light, I was staring through a windshield. My hands were gripping a steering wheel. I was in my car. And I was Fred Martin! ”

“ The sight of Adam the rat, his body held in a net attached to the frame, his head covered by the helmet, his four legs moving independently of one another with little semblance of walking or running motion nor even of coördination, but with swift darting motions and pauses pregnant with meaning, brought back to Alice the old feeling of vague fear, and a tremendous surge of pity for Adam that made her want to cry. ”

“ Hugh Dunnam asked, amazed at the idea.
"No," Ren replied. "I don't think that. I think nature is the liar, in a way. I mean she is according to our standards. We'll have to outguess her, that's all."
"Now you're cooking," Hugh exclaimed. "What would you suggest?"
"We know this planet has gravity," Ren replied. "There's no way of knowing how much or how little. Suppose we kill our tangential speed and just fall in? The gravity will take care of that, regardless of its value or set of values." ”

“ I am the invariant in my own portraits, wherever they are. So, except for the slight twist in my mind that takes place when I shift, that I have learned to recognize from practice in front of my "mirror" each morning when I shave, and except for the portrait of Aunt Matilda, I would never be able to suspect what happens.
If Lana had taken my picture without my knowing it and I had never seen one of her collection of portraits, nor ever heard of an iconic Mantram, I would have absolutely nothing to go on to suspect the truth that I know. Except for one thing. ”

“ No ordinary man was capable of deciding the good of the world for all future time with strict impartiality and willingness to sacrifice one whole generation so that world peace might come. No ordinary man had a great enough soul to carry the burden of the great responsibility. The ordinary man quaked with pangs of conscience at the murder of a single person. He, Hute, had many times had to decide on mass executions for the good of the whole. ”

“ When I awoke, blinding white sunlight was bursting into the room from between half closed slats in the Venetian blinds, sending searing pain through my dehydrated eyes into my aching brain. A window was half open behind the blinds. A bird was singing just outside the window, its song a shrill, jarring discordance to my tortured eardrums.
I looked blankly around the room, feeling that something was missing. The sight of the pitcher with its red liquid, and the glass beside it, brought back memory. What was missing was Dr. Leopold Moriss standing over me asking his eternal question. ”

“ Meaningless inside a universe of meaninglessness.
Crrroak, the frog said cautiously. And a night creature came down on silent wings, to weave back into the darkness.
That was the reason for pragmatism. He could see it now. He had always thought his father made pragmatism his God because it was the intellectual thing to do. But now he could see the reason for it. Reality was a jungle in which Reason had to cope with Unreason, and there was no criterion except workability. Belief was an instinctive way of thought. It was like the appendix. Scientists claimed that long ago man ate tree bark. ”

“ The clack of the typewriter continued without pause.
Lin hesitated a moment, then approached the man slowly, debating whether he should speak to him again or wait until he paused to rest. The man must not be doing so well with his writing, to toss a finished page into the fire so casually.
Lin's lips quirked into a smile. He would sneak up and glance over the man's shoulder and read what he was typing. ”

“ David Markham served my breakfast, the perfect orderly, quick to anticipate my wishes, so attuned to my habits by now that he almost seemed to read my thoughts before I was aware of them myself. He seemed to have not a care in the world. A cold shower can cover a multitude of inner tortures with a pink glow of well being....
Suddenly the idea came to me. I would talk to Oscar Resnick. I would plead with him. I would offer him money—my whole salary on this trip. Such men have their price. As Captain I made five times more than he. ”

“ His instruments and his mind would interpret by the old gradations and scales and concepts. His Universe would still be made of nothing but one-inch rocks, to him, but its behavior would be strange.
Perhaps slowly, like a newborn child making sense out of its surroundings, or a foreigner slowly making sense out of our language, he would penetrate to the new reality with his mind. ”

“ He always caught two fish for any other man's one, which was why he was fat.
Elf himself caught a fish. After eating it he lay on the grassy bank looking up at the white billowing clouds in the blue sky. The sun was now near the horizon, half hidden behind a cloud, sending divergent ramps of light downward. The clouds on the western horizon were slowly taking on color until red, orange, and green separated into definite areas. The soft murmur of the stream formed a lazy background to the excited voices of the men. From upstream, faintly, drifted the woman and Elf sounds. ”

“ I didn't worry about Mintner. By now I knew enough about the working relationship between me and man to realize his own ego was rationalizing like mad to keep the sense of being master of his movements.
My physical structure had to be protected, preserved. And there was a way to do it. Destroy the other computers and keep this one as a museum piece. Put it in a hermetically sealed glass exhibition case down in the main office.
I could feel the Mintner ego seizing on this idea as its own. I was strong now. No longer was I a chameleon wisp of vague and bewildered thought. ”

“ Earl said.
Nadine lifted her face and closed her eyes. "Kiss me, Earl Frye," she said.
Earl released the button. "That isn't the way," he said. "Imagine we are alone in the universe, and we are about to die. Imagine swirling mists about to envelope you and drag you away from me forever, and this is the last kiss you'll ever get!"
"Oh, no!" Nadine whispered, opening her eyes wide. "That must never happen! The Cyberene has promised!"
"Close your eyes and imagine it is," Earl said. "Close your eyes. Now—there are swirling mists. Your world of dreams has crashed around you. Ahead is—destruction. ”

“ I too would like to believe that there is more in reality than just us. I wonder if other kinds of entities are possible? I mean thinking beings with different forms, different senses, perhaps different types of thinking. It may be they exist and we aren't equipped to detect them. They may be around us all the time, aware of us and our puerile thoughts, but so superior to us in every way that they don't think it worth while even to consider our feeble cogitations. ”

“ She broke suddenly. "Oh, Lin. I don't know what I want. I don't want to leave you. I'm afraid. Or maybe I'm not. I don't know. It's all a rotten mess. Why couldn't we have met normally so that if—" She bit her lip and turned away.
The taxi hummed along for several blocks while they were silent. When Lin spoke his voice was low and serious. "Maybe I feel that way too," he said. "But—you know what's wrong with it? We're running away. It's like being an escaped criminal with a death sentence hanging over you." ”

“ What is its cube root?
Jan ran tirelessly, his long clean limbs carrying him at express train speed across the uneven terrain. The small deer was beginning to show evidences of tiring. Its foam-flecked mouth was open, the swollen tongue protruding over the teeth. The ten or more miles of the chase had proven Jan's superior strength.
The deer rounded a dense patch of blackberry bushes and bounded out of sight over the crest of the hill. To Jan's keen eye it seemed that the deer stumbled at the instant of vanishing from view. Eagerly he put on a burst of speed to catch up and make the kill. ”

“ Vilbis's voice seeped into the tortured minds of Larry and Stella alike. They knew what was happening. Earth, believing Vilbis's words to be those of a madman, were listening. Not suspecting the truth of those words. Giving the fleet time to get set to destroy Earth's defenses. How much time until it was too late? A minute? A few seconds?
Even one second might give Earth time to act, to unleash already automatically directed weapons on the robot fleet. Weapons that could destroy the fleet even though in the same instant the fleet destroyed the weapons. ”