Sam Merwin

“ Eve had a sensitivity of feature that was a sounding board for her emotions. Coulter paused against the garage door and thought about her. With the knowledge of twenty years he knew now that what Eve had, or had had twenty years ago, was the basis of beauty, the inner intangible which stamps a woman a woman above other women....
What in hell has happened to me, is happening to me? Coulter felt the chill of the evening wind stab deep into his bones. Then he looked down at his vanished embonpoint and patted with his gloves the flat hardness that had replaced it. ”

“ And behind the man-made city, its incredible soaring half-ruined spires and obelisks cutting a jagged rampart across half the sky, lay the once-vast Martian metropolis. Crystaline minarets, revealing materials and a beauty of design unknown as yet to Earthmen, reflected the rays of the distant sun in prismatic showers of color, coruscating, almost blinding, yet so weird and beautiful that they brought tears to Lynne's eyes.
I'm glad you can capture their beauty. Rolf's thought shared the excitement of her own. So many of us see nothing but ruin. ”

“ Should the governors of Mars, whose responsibilities lie at least as much in the economic improvement of their own world as in inter-world harmony, permit their planet to receive goods which retard that economic development so that it becomes a race to maintain current unsatisfactory standards, merely because certain computers on Earth are fed false facts to permit continuation of some illogical form of government or social system—or should the governors of Mars permit their planet to suffer because of computer illogic in the name of a highly doubtful status quo on the parent planet? ”

“ Justin, born and bred in rawer if no more bustling Midwestern surroundings, had felt a powerful tie with the old thus standing alongside the new, a strong déjà vu, from his first glimpse, more than twenty years before as a Harvard freshman. This, he had known instinctively, was home for him. He had made it his home ever since.
The sense of the past was strong upon him this evening—perhaps, he thought wryly, more strong than was proper for an executive vice-president of the Ninth National Bank. As he scaled the slope of Park Street on Beacon Hill he felt like a man born out of his proper time. ”

“ With the book clutched under his left elbow, Nelson followed Admiral Kirkham up through a bewildering series of corridors and companionways to an armored gallery high on the conning tower of the battleship. He stayed close to his host as suggested by the latter.
The Englishman's eyes widened at the spectacle that greeted him. From where he stood he had a view of the entire immense foredeck with its huge rocket launchers and tier upon tier of lesser weapons. Like a great steel monster it cut through the dark waters at incredible speed. ”

“ Bezdek, I am sure through no fault of your own. But the people of my planet feel very strongly about this matter and I must get some satisfaction for them."
"So help me," said the mogul, his thin face purple with anger, "if this is a gag I'll see you jailed for it! And before you're jailed you're going to have a very unpleas—"
"No, Mr. Bezdek—Mr. Dorwin—this is not a joke. We of Mars are proud of our culture, our civilization. We do not like being portrayed as evil and ridiculous creatures. We're not like those filthy Venerians. We Martians have a great self-respect." ”

“ Bliss felt the premature old age that had been crowding upon him of late fall away like the wool of a sheep at shearing. Here, at last, was hope—real hope. After almost two and a half centuries of non-communication, the men of the infant planet had returned to the aid of the aging planet. For, once they saw the condition of Earth, and understood it, there could be no question of anything else.
Mars, during the years of space-flight from Earth, had been the outlet for the mother planet's ablest, toughest, brightest, most aggressive young men and women. ”

“ He looked down with regret at his slim young body, so unexpectedly regained—and thought of the heavier, older less vibrant body that lay waiting for him five miles away. Then swiftly, silently, he tiptoed into the hall, donned coat and hat and gloves, slipped through the front door and bolted for the Pontiac.
He drove like a madman over the icy roads through the dark. Somehow he sensed he would have to get beyond the reach of the machine before Eve grew impatient and came downstairs and found him gone. ”

“ Find me any saner men."
"Who are these strangers of whom ye speak?" asked Deborah.
The men ignored her. Ortine said, "In the case of each there were extenuating circumstances...."
"And," said Justin, "I can name you some sane men who, for one reason or another, failed—which can only be called a blessing to mankind. Rokh-ud-Din, the last emir of the Assassins, for instance—or Lucullus or Louis Fourteenth or Bismarck or Robespierre. Now certainly no saner, less imaginative, more honorable man than Robespierre ever lived. Yet he virtually destroyed a great revolution by his very sanity." ”

“ Lynne felt a wave of delight at her discovery, realised it was more a result of her not having been inhibited by the traditions of Martian conditioning than through any genius of her own. For an instant she let down the bars of her mind—and the invaders, hovering unseen about her in the tower-room, came swarming in for their third and fiercest attack. They knew she had guessed their nature, were determined to prevent Lynne from making the discovery clear to other humans. ”

“ Eudalia took him to the nursery. He was irritated now in another, angrier way. The infants, protected by cellophane-like coverlets, were asleep.
"They never cry," the thin woman told him. "But they grow—God, how they grow!"
"Good," said Tennant, fighting down his anger. He kissed her, held her close, although neither of them felt desire at the moment. Their captors had seen to that; it wasn't Eudalia's turn. Tennant said, "I wish I could do something about this. I hate seeing Dana so bitter and Olga so scared. It isn't their fault." ”

“ Next, a towering black-metal giant filling three walls of a cubical room twenty metres in each dimension, came the final synthesizer, which coordinated the findings of the preliminary synthesizers and fed them into Giac itself.
The master machine was the least imposing of all. It stood like an alabaster stele in the center of an immense chamber arranged like a theater-in-the-round. But du Fresne, peering through his strawberry spectacles, said gloatingly, "Don't be deceived by the size, ladies and gentlemen. All but what you see of Giac is underground. ”

“ He said, "Of course I remember, darling. If I'm a little slow on the uptake it's because I've had a lot of things happen to me all at once."
"The old Banning Coulter would never have understood," she said, giving him a quick hug before standing clear of him. Her eyes were shining like star sapphires. "Banning, you've grown up!"
"People do," he said drily. There was an odd sort of tension between them as they stood there, knowing what was to happen between them. Eve took a deep unsteady breath and the rise and fall of her angora sweater made his arms itch to pull her close. ”

“ Truly, Bliss thought, he belonged to a remarkable species. Man had conquered his environment, he had even, within the limits of the Solar System, conquered space. He had planted, and successfully, his own kind on a neighboring planet and made it grow. But man had never, at least on his home planet, conquered himself.
Overpopulation had long since ceased to be a problem—the atomic wars had seen to that. But, thanks to the miracles of science—atomics and automation—man had quickly rebuilt the world into a Garden of Eden with up-to-date plumbing. ”

“ As he sat there he seemed to shrivel and dissolve like one of the towers of Newark for whose destruction he had been responsible. He said, "You are not fit to hold your post—a trifler, a jester, a player of games." He was speaking directly to Rutherford. "Any System which places a man like you on top deserves the purge it was going to get. And then would come the chance to rebuild...."
"Why, you!" cried Commodore Willis, pinioning Mahmoud's arms as the latter pulled a ray-inducer from beneath his jacket. A flurry of expertly-planted fists reduced the murderer to unconsciousness. ”

“ The gladiators and courtesans alone seemed to find joy in living. Lindsay, who had seldom been unhappy in his active existence, felt his sympathies and heart go out to them. He followed the progress of a tiny Oriental model whose face was alive with good-humor as she swept past his table, her exquisite figure stressed by a glittering jeweled sheathe.
"You really should wear glasses—or else learn not to stare," said Maria, appearing from nowhere and sitting down at the table. ”

“ Tennant could have him killed now, have him flayed and decapitated as other male victims had been. Opal might even give him the hide as a reward after it was treated. Some Oriental potentate, Tennant reflected, might relish having his wife's lover as a rug on his living room floor. Tennant preferred the less operatic revenge of leaving Cass and Agatha alive to suffer.
He teleported farther into the trees, closer to the gateway, plotting carefully his next moves. Cass was crashing along, cursing in frustration.
"Stand still, damn you! You shift around like a ghost!" ”

“ Justin asked him.
"Because of the risk," replied Ortine. "Suppose, as a man, I were killed accidentally or murdered. Suppose, as a woman, I conceived again—I can assure you my desires in such matters are perhaps even stronger than those of your species.
"Each such accident—and in the early days I had my share—is weakening. I have only so much life force and no means of replenishing that which is spent—not in this universe. Hence I have had to indulge in what you might term economy of forces."
"Playing the devil...." Justin reminded him. ”

“ A mighty flat-decked vessel with a huge superstructure stood into the wind as Admiral Kirkham had predicted. From her deck, a small machine rose, dipped below the level of her towering square bow and then rose through the air with incredible speed. Another, another and another appeared, to vanish in the clouded heavens above.
"A lot of good they'll do," someone muttered close beside him. "The yellowbellies won't send over bombers and trying to stop their guided missiles with planes is like trying to stop a leak with tissue paper."
Nelson smiled faintly to himself. ”

“ The Barkutburg leader was almost physically sick at Revere's departure. Her thoughts of love, of desolation, were so strong that Lynne found herself sharing them, even though she had seen her twin but a scant few minutes since attaining an age of reason.
Yet there were strength and determination and a strong sense of duty holding Lao Mei-O'Connell to her important tasks of seeing that her share of reclaiming a planet continued. The frail-looking Martian woman was, Lynne realised, a person of vast character. ”

“ He was young again—and he almost ran the Pontiac into a ditch at the side of the road....
If it was a dream, he decided, it was a dream he was going to enjoy. He recalled what Shaw had said about youth being such a wonderful thing it was a pity to waste it on children. And he knew that he, at any rate, was no child, whatever the body that had so miraculously been restored to him.
The unhappy Pontiac cleared another hilltop and Lincolnville lay stretched out before Coulter, naked and exposed, stripped of its summer foliage. ”

“ Only what had been the waste areas—Antarctica, the Gobi, Australia, Patagonia and the Sahara-Arabia districts—could still support even the strange sorts of human life that remained.
And the forty millions still alive were restless, frightened, paranoiac. Each believed his own group was being systematically exterminated in favor of some other. None had yet faced the fact that humanity, for all practical purposes, was already dead on Earth. ”

“ Nina asked.
"Nothing, nothing at all," he replied. "Merely a man going out of his mind."
"It will never miss you," she replied brightly. But her brightness became a bit strained as the day wore on. The trip, for Lindsay, was sheer nightmare. No sane man can wag his tail, he kept thinking.
Even such fugitive grasping at Logical straws vanished when he saw the immense squat mass of Giac, rising like a steel-and-concrete toad from the wastes of the California desert. ”

“ There was a rueful twist to Ortine's half-smile. "I am not, in any real way, possessed of what you would term supernatural equipment. What may look like magic to you is nothing more than a demonstration of the realities of my own universe."
"But...?" said Justin.
"But"—Ortine grimaced—"I have no actual control over the minds or bodies of human beings. Not on their own world at any rate. Incidentally I have no control over your mind here on Belvoir, though actually, while here, you are in my type of space rather than your own. ”

“ Janet regarded her narrowly, shook her head. "Hasn't anything ever touched you, Lynne?" she asked. "Haven't you ever wanted Ray or anyone as I want him? Haven't you ever hated anyone as I'm beginning to hate you? Haven't you ever been human?"
"Jan!" Lynne was shocked, then vaguely frightened. "I don't know—I guess maybe not," she said. "But Jan, I can't help it. That's the way I am."
Janet sighed and said, "In that case I'm sorry for you." She changed the subject quickly as Ray came wandering in, gave Lynne an unhappy look, then crossed the room and turned on the vidarscreen. ”

“ I've felt myself drying up day by day, week by week, year by year. When I've sought love I've merely defiled myself. You taught me passion, Banning, then destroyed my capacity to enjoy it with anyone but you. You destroyed me and never even knew it."
"You could have gone out into the world," he said with a trace of contempt. "Other girls have."
"Other girls are not me," Eve replied steadily. "Other girls don't give themselves to a man as completely as I gave myself to you."
"What can I do now?" Coulter asked, running a hand through his newly crew-cut hair. ”

“ His senses hyper-acute, he heard the slap of brine against the waterline, its rhythm never twice the same, yet never varied, so that a man could pick out the difference. He watched idly as the swaying cabin lamp made the shadow of the bottle on the table dance a minuet.
All around him was the wakeful dormancy of a mighty ship asleep—as other ships lay in similar unreal quiescence fore and aft, ships whose commanders were bound by oath to obey his every whim, bound by oath and the fealty his reputation inspired. ”

“ For a Christ without his martyrdom would no longer be a Christ."
"I had no idea you'd be shocked," said Ortine, puzzled.
"I'm not shocked," replied Justin. "What has me baffled, Ortine, is your true purpose. You say that the salvation of our world rests upon elimination of all but those you choose to call sane men—the dull plodding fellows who never upset applecarts. Are you sure that these human vegetables are the ones to make a world worth living in?"
"Possibly not," said Ortine, unabashed. "But they will at least make a world in which people can live. ”

“ With his arm steadying her Lynne stepped out onto the escaramp platform, a couple of hundred meters above the flat blast-scarred surface of the field. A thin chill wind cut her face, a wind from out of a sky darker than that of Earth.
Her first reaction was of gauntness, of barrenness beyond anything she had known on her home planet. The grounds around the Sahara brain-center in which she had served her apprenticeship had been lush with tropical growths—and even the desert around them had been warm. ”

“ It took a few minutes to get the Pontiac warmed up but once out of the driveway Coulter knew the way to Eve Lawton's house as if he had been there last night, not two decades earlier. The small cold winter moon cast its frigid light over an intimate little group of apple tapioca clouds and made the snow-clad fields a dark grey beneath the black evergreens that backed the fields beside the road. ”

“ He rose then, adapting his motions to the roll of the Atlantic beneath his ship like the veteran sailor he was. A short, angular, indomitable figure, he strode across his cabin to the admiral's walk aft. He was an admiral, was he not? Who had a better right to use it?
The sky was cloudy above the restless black velvet of the sea, and the shipboard sounds were clearer. Somewhere below one horizon lay the coast of Spain and the port of Cadiz where he had suffered the anguish of a shattered elbow. ”

“ Justin told him calmly.
"You're risking the person you love most," said Ortine.
"Not yet," replied Justin. "And here's something else that has me stopped—if you're so anxious to save our planet from its so-called ruin, why are you taking the very steps that will lead to its speedy destruction?"
"Consider," said Ortine, regaining his self control, "if my plan is followed your planet will suffer a certain retrogression, of course. Now think what such a retrogression will mean—it will mean no A-bomb, no airplanes, none of the modern destructive machinery. ”

“ Tony Willis asked politely.
"Nothing—my clout slipped," she replied, embarrassed.
Lynne was taken to a gaunt office whose chief piece of furniture was an immense Martian globe, upon which all the chief Martian cities, all the human settlements, all the communications posts were marked. She began to understand, from looking at it, how very different conditions upon the red planet were from the Earth norm.
The home planet, heavily over-populated, was skilfully disguised to appear roomy. Virtually every inch of its land surface was devoted to giving crowded humanity the illusion of privacy. ”