Walter J. Sheldon

“ I've run into believers before who could see the little people. It happens every so often, though not as frequently as it did a century ago. But knowing a spaceship at first glance! Well, I must confess that does astonish me."
"And why wouldn't I know a spaceship when I see one?" I said. "It just so happens I'm a doctor of science."
"A doctor of science, now," said Keech.
"Invited by the American government to work on the first moon rocket here at the nuclear propulsion center. Since it's no secret I can advise you of it."
"A scientist, is it," said Keech. ”

“ Untz, “In Hollywood everything is relatives, believe me.”
“No, no—I wasn’t referring to nepotism,” said Harold. “I was thinking that you and many others, of course, prefer musicals. But there are vast other groups who prefer westerns, detectives, comedies or what have you. One man’s meat is another’s poison.
“But nourishment stays the same in principle. The artistic demands still hold and a good picture is a picture, whatever its field. Now, if you, as a producer, can shift to the other fellow’s viewpoint—find out why the thing that terrifies you amuses him—or vice versa.” ”

“ It was the voice that always came, low, intense, seductive, the sound of your hand on silk ... and to a citizen of Northem, a conformist, it was shocking. I was a conformist then; I was still one that morning.
I awoke. The glowlight was on, slowly increasing. I was in my living machine in Center Four, where I belonged, and all the familiar things were about me, reality was back, but I was breathing very hard. ”

“ Tanter beamed happily to himself as he recalled the words of an old directive The Computer itself had issued in the matter of public thought control. When a brain is faced with two absolutely equal alternatives complete breakdown invariably results.
Mr. Tanter kept smiling and rocked back and forth on his feet as Krayton had done. Before nightfall The Computer would be a useless and overheated mass of plastic and metal! ”

“ I hate all efficiency and common sense and hate.
It suddenly came to me that I didn't care whether I was in Southem or Northem, or which of them ruled the world.
I lay there.
And presently a key-box hummed and I didn't even look that way. The stink of my own burning flesh still clung to my nostrils, the dull pain was still with me, but I didn't care. It was too much. When horror becomes too great, it stops being horror. The mind is smart. It doesn't believe; it doesn't register. The curve of sensation flattens out, stops, almost. ”

“ Untz to Harold Potter, “my right eye for some really horrible monsters.” He gestured at the world in general. “Think of it, Harold. We got atom bombs and B-29’s, both vitamins and airplanes, and stuff to cure you of everything from broken legs to dropsy. A whole world of modern science—but nobody can make a fake monster. It looks anything but fake and wouldn’t scare an eleven-year-old boy.” ”

“ If you go into the future—or talk to the future—the future affects the change, through you. In other words, if you can't go back into the past, neither can people from the future. And it's inconceivable that such a thing wouldn't make changes. Maybe only small ones, but they'd multiply in time. 'Thou canst not change a flower, without troubling of a star.' That's Francis Thompson. You step on one spider today, and you affect the evolution of spiders, the ecology of all other things in the distant future. By a simple act like that you could destroy or create a whole species to come. ”

“ Before the conversation was half over he'd start spouting about the destiny of Earthmen and the general inferiority of all other creatures and so on. It sounded like hogwash to Pell. He wondered how such an attitude could survive in a scientific age.
Nor would a Supremist be essentially a moron or a neurotic; they were found in all walks of life, at all educational and emotional levels. Rysland told how he had questioned a few, trying to discover when, where and how they joined the movement: Apparently there was nothing to join, at least to hear them tell it. ”

“ Now it was a place I came to when I had a problem to thrash out. That morning I had been trying to work out an equation to give the coefficient of discharge for the matter in combustion. You may call it gas, if you wish, for we treated it like gas at the center for convenience—as it came from the rocket tubes in our engine.
Without this coefficient to give us control, we would have lacked a workable equation when we set about putting the first moon rocket around those extraordinary engines of ours, which were still in the undeveloped blueprint stage. ”

“ OUR NEW TYRANT—THE COMPUTER. The article complained that some of the new labor and food regulations were the result of conscious reasoning on the part of The Computer. Devices to build the Computer bigger and bigger and bigger at the expense of ordinary workers. You know the sort of thing."
"But it is true that the living standard is going down all the time, isn't it?" asked Mr. Tanter, keeping his ephemeral smile. "What about those three thousand starvation deaths up in Hydroburgh?"
Krayton waved an impatient hand. "There will always be problems like that here and there." ”

“ We picked our people carefully. We picked doctors and hydroponic experts and chemists and rocket pilots—and we picked you because of your knowledge of space drive theory. Someday we'll go on to the stars; someday you'll help us do that. Anyway, all these people we have picked—or most of them—are joining us on Mars. There's where mankind will begin again while Northem and Southem sit upon earth and glare at each other across the equator and wait for war."
"But Mars—there's an equator there, too."
She laughed. "Northem and Southem prisoners there mingle all the time. ”

“ There was no sense in cheating him out of the gold to boot, for leprechauns are most clever in matters of this sort and he would have had it back soon enough—or else made it a burden in some way.
Indeed, I had done a piece of work greatly to my advantage, and also to the advantage of humankind, and when a man can do the first and include the second as a fortunate byproduct it is a most happy accident.
For if I had shown the little people how to make a spaceship they would have left our world. And this world, as long as it lasts—what would it be in that event? ”

“ The fact is, Pell, people simply don't know what's good for them. Look at the blunderers and even downright crooks who are elected to World Government. Never the best brains, never the best talents. When a really able man gets into a position of leadership it's an accident—a fluke. ”

“ The little man's voice was dry as lava ash, dry as the wastes between and beyond the cities. Tanter, was the name he'd given—Mr. Tanter. His contact lenses were so thick they made his eyes seem to bulge grotesquely. ”

“ Larkin narrowed one eye. "Pell, who do you think you're fooling?"
"Fooling?"
"You heard me. I know damn well you wanted to take a vacation on the moon. But we have a little job for you that holds you up, and what do you do? The next best thing, eh? You see to it that the job takes you to the moon."
"Now, Chief, it wasn't that at all...."
"The devil it wasn't. Now, listen to me, Pell. You pack your bags and get right back to World City. The next rocket you can get. You understand?"
Before he answered the question he looked at Ciel. She was staring at him quietly. ”

“ Phone, desk, dial, M-1—or whatever the Army calls it."
This time his voice went off like a small bomb. "The Army?" he said.
"Sure," I said. "What's the matter with the Army?"
And thought: Navy or Air Force type, no doubt. Our allies. Have to put up with them in the Pentagon. Have to put up with a lot of things—even being Colonel Lawrence Boggs didn't save you from a snafu dialling system. I thought: somebody is out to needle armchair colonels this week. I'll play around with it for a while, maybe find out who's got the sense of humor.
The voice said, "Look here, are you joking with me?" ”

“ It rained several times, but Keech and his people made a canopy of boughs and leaves and I was comfortable enough. Every once in a while someone from the town or the center itself would pass by, and stop to watch me. But of course they wouldn't see the leprechauns or anything the leprechauns had made, not being believers.
I would halt work, pass the time of day, and then, in subtle fashion, send the intruder on his way. Keech and the little people just stood by and grinned all the while.
At the end of sixteen days I had the entire problem all but whipped. It is not difficult to understand why. ”

“ In fact, it had been tactfully suggested to Agent Richard Pell that he might use the computers a little more himself instead of relying on hunches as he so often did. "Investigation's a cold science, not a fancy art," Chief Larkin was fond of saying to the group—with his eyes on Pell.
Well, whoever it was, Pell was definitely through. No time-wasting conversation for him! He was ready for six glorious weeks of saved-up vacation time. He and Ciel, early tomorrow, would grab a rocket for one of the Moon resorts, and there they'd just loaf and relax and pay attention to each other. ”

“ Harold raised his eyebrows. “Just what, Dr. Mildume, do you propose to give us for ten thousand dollars?”
“Beasts,” said Mildume. “Real monsters.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Harold. He began to work out strategies in his mind. Maybe he could casually walk over to the phone and pick it up quickly and call the studio police. Maybe he could get the jump on this madman before he pulled a knife. The thing to do was to humor him meanwhile....
Dr. Mildume said, “I will not deal with underlings. I demand to see Mr. Untz himself.”
“Well,” said Harold, “you understand that Mr. Untz is a busy man. ”

“ The natural voice is different than approved standard, isn't it? Listen. Do you remember this?" The head cocked to one side and a crisp, formal voice came out. "Information you desire is in Bank 29."
"Lara!" I said. I pushed toward her, but the webbing held me back.
"Yes. It's I. And we're together now and we'll have a long, long time to find out about each other. It's ten weeks to Mars."
I ran my hand over my forehead. "I don't get it. I don't get any of it. Your voice—I mean your real voice, not the standard one—I dreamed about it, and—"
"I know." I could see her nod. ”

“ I said finally, "you're the G.L.E. on this future science stuff—"
"The what?"
"Greatest Living Expert. Latest Pentagonese. Tell me, what do you think of the possibility of ever being in touch with the future?"
"You mean time travel?"
"I guess that's what you'd call it."
"Time travel is nonsense," he said. "A logical absurdity. By definition, time is a series of infinitesimally small moments in succession. Once a point in time is established, it can't be changed, any more than energy can be destroyed." ”