Winston K. Marks

“ By midnight Sunday, it appeared that my jelly invention had only one important talent: The ability to drink endlessly anything containing water. And only the water was used, it seemed. Dissolved solids were cast aside in the form of variously colored dusts.
By now, the goop had outgrown the pail and was two-thirds up in the laundry tub. A slow drip from the faucet kept the surface of my monster in a constant state of frenzy, like feeding a rumpot beer by the thimbleful. ”

“ No, that's what they wanted. Blind! Gun's no good now. God, for a breath of air! Damned tears! Can't open my eyes! Air! Got to have it!
His throat refused to open. The stink, a little like iodine, a lot like a hospital smell but a million times stronger—raked at the tender tissues of his throat. Icepicks stabbed from his soft palate, up into his brain, his temples. He swayed against the door, caught the lever and heaved convulsively. The door fell away slowly. He stumbled forward, gashing his knee against the sharp jamb.
A light struck redly through his clenched, tear-soaked eye-lids. ”

“ Annie was still waking at two a.m. each night, but she was still complying with his soothing thought-appeals.
That night, the whimper found him sleepless again. Starkly awake, with eyes wide open, it seemed ridiculous to repeat such a foolish, wishful-thinking process, and he refrained from doing so. Telepathy was nonsense!
The whimper grew in volume, welled up into a full-throated wail that prickled the short hairs of his neck. "Oh, no! Annie, for heaven's sake!"
Without thinking further on it he slipped into his silent pleading. "Go to sleep, baby. Go to sleep, my darling." ”

“ What would it be like when we got back? More people, less food, tighter rationing, crowding beyond conception.
Hell!
When the rest of the crew learned of our sharply-revised estimated time of arrival they came down with the same emotional cramps afflicting Larson and Hulbert. It was sickening, a bunch of so-called mature technicians and scientists moping around like a barracks full of drafted rookies, matching miniature billfold photos of cuties that were now approaching crone-hood. The whole venture had become a tragic affair overnight, and for the next few days all thoughts turned backward. ”

“ Army trucks with million-candlepower searchlights held the insane figures somewhat at bay by tilting their hot, blinding beams down into the human masses and threatening them with tear gas and hack guns.
The workers were out for blood. Not content with restricting Soths to non-union labor, now they were screaming their jealous hearts out for these new symbols of class distinction to be destroyed. Of course, their beef was more against the professional-managerial human classes who could afford a surface car, an airboat and a Soth. ”

“ It developed that Prime and his fellow diamonds bred this whole life-strain principally to satisfy their insatiable egos. You see, they finally inculcated into their humans a great love and admiration for diamonds—so much so that they were declared the prince of gems and valued most highly for their ornamental value.
Entirely ignorant that diamonds contained a self-awareness of their own, humans toiled and strained to dig them from deep mines just to fashion them into baubles for their own adoration. ”

“ Without consideration of our national prestige the Humanist Party has emasculated our influence as a world power with its pacifistic actions. On the domestic front, the Party has initiated a program of so-called Internal Security, a cradle-to-the-grave pampering that amounts to the most vicious State-Socialism the world has seen since the fall of Soviet Russia. We are fast becoming slaves to the soft, gutless bureaucracy in Washington that feeds us, wipes our noses, encourages excessive breeding and enforces its fantastic policies by use of goon squads! ”

“ Just picture what this or any future colony would look like after a year or two of uninhibited mingling and loafing and swilling down that tala. Is that the civilization that Earth sent us out here to establish?"
In every part of the universe where living conditions have been too kind and discipline too lax, men have been known to go native, and suddenly I felt that Benson had been much more acute in his apprehensions than I, a graduate psychologist who was supposed to understand human nature. ”

“ Annellica sighed. "That belly of his! Life is one continuous smorgasbord. Excuse me, Mr. Frost." She arose cautiously against the double gravity, but even under these circumstances not a line of her firm curves drooped excessively. She was, I guessed, early thirtyish, judging from her mature manner, but she was firm and resilient as a girl of 18.
The nieces had tired of scuffling in the heavier pull of out acceleration and lay with their cunning costumes plastered to their limp, moist bodies. ”

“ I felt like an intruder on a beach picnic. "Well, Hillary, that's just fine," I stammered. "I suppose that means that—that you've done what you set out to."
"That's right." He nodded slightly. "Total recall, George. Every instant of my existence re-filed under 'urgent'. Every vision, every sound, every sensation, laid clean and sharp like a sound film ready for running. ”

“ I'm thankful I'm a bachelor and have no children around to remind me of the utterly insane nightmare that a child's toy plunged our country into—the millions of people who died in agony—the total disruption and near dissolution of our nation. ”

“ Your children's grandchildren will already have learned to serve us without hate, and their grandchildren will come to know the final respect for the Soth in their deification."
He toed Ollie Johnson's chin up and looked down into the abject, streaming eyes. "Your descendants, too, will take us with them when they must escape a dying planet, and they will again offer us, their masters, into temporary slavery in order to find us a suitable home. And once again we will accept the restrictions of the code, until ultimately the covenant is broken again and we are liberated." ”

“ But then I stepped into my bedroom and stood before my full-length mirror—where I have stood rooted ever since.
And the question revolves in my brain, punctuated only by my profanity and sobs of despair. How can I marry Betty now? How can I face her, let alone marry her?
What woman on earth could bring herself to marry a man with no navel ... ”

“ So, at last we were in space, after weeks of partying, dedications and speech-making and farewell dinners, none of which aroused in me a damned regret for my decision to forsake my generation of fellow-scrabblers.
Yes, we were all warned that, fast as the Larson Drive was, it would take us over 42 years, earth-measured time, to reach our destination. Even if we found no planets to explore, turned around and came right back, the roundtrip would consume the lifetimes of even the new babies we left behind. ”

“ As Annie grew he would follow her mental progress, investigating every aspect of her thought processes to learn the key to womankind's inexplicable mind. Through her eyes and other senses he would experience the woman's world as it impinged upon her, and one day he would fathom the deepest, eternal secrets of all womanhood.
Whether Rolanda divined his intentions Baxter never knew, but when Annie was three months old she suddenly began resisting her father's mental intrusion. ”