Leslie Waltham

“ It was definite. "It's more than that. You've been a rocket man all your life. You don't get nervous any more."
His fingers twisted the glass. Something else twisted his voice. "There are things in it that might make a man nervous, Mary. Black winds. Burning worlds. Holes in space waiting for him. You think it might be that, Mary?"
"No."
"But this is Alpha Centauri. This is faster-than-light." He bowed. "This is when baby-God Hastings tests his brain child ... when the electron lightscope goes to bat. You think it might be that, Mary?" ”

“ She what?"
"She took him inside and shut the door."
Heaped silence greeted the words. Men turned quietly and gazed at their wives, their eyes asking a question for the bewildered, the undecided.
"John Hastings, we have checked thoroughly. Your wife did spend the night of the fifteenth in the vacant house of which you speak. She spent the night, however, alone. Her graphs show no disturbances, no emotional exhilaration. You are perpetrating an untruth." ”

“ It is unfortunate that we can show no evidence of what reached John Hastings' eye as he looked into the electron-lightscope. Mechanical tabulations cannot be transmitted to our screen, since its envisioning powers are limited to the sensory memory patterns of the brain. We must therefore go to the defendant himself for further evidence. ”

“ The screen misted, and the veils swirled.
"March eleventh ... on a ship ... a glazed splinter in blackness...."
The curtains quivered.
"Men gather tight against the void ... a clarinet wails ... there is the smell of sweat...."
Kitson and Holmes were doing a dance. They had their breechskins rolled over their knees, and four grapefruit tied to their fronts.
"Take it off ... take it off ... take it off!" The men rode a ground swell of tinny music. Rhythm stamped out in the pattern of magnetic boots fought with the sucking sound of beer cans. The air curled with smoke. ”

“ Rockets hummed.
"There's no use asking any more questions Angus. The time for questions is past. This is exams."
"That's what I mean, John. Remarks like that. You've gotten to be a man who talks to himself." ”

“ Placing it over the defendant's head they allowed it to fall to his shoulders.
"Are you ready, John Hastings?"
"Yes." It seemed he was already gone from the place.
"Then concentrate. Remember. Permit your mind to have freedom." The voice washed over him in waves. "It is a day in December ... the fourteenth.... Take my words and let them carry you...."
The screen above the defendant's head began to cloud and draw in.
"It is cold outside ... the snow is falling. There is a warm room. A fire is burning...." ”

“ Envy, hate, avarice and kindred responses were virtually non-existent. Every citizen had a crude type of emotiograph attached to his person, which was examined periodically by the Eye. If any deviation from the norm was observed, the accused was called up for questioning.
"In the absence of actual crime, any emotion which might have precipitated crime was considered unlawful, and men were tried for too much anger, or too little pity. The only purpose of a trial was to ascertain whether sufficient provocation could be established to warrant a given reaction. ”

“ Prominent among the guests was Mrs. Mary A. Hastings, wife of Captain John Hastings who is making history in his FTL flight to Alpha Centauri. Captain Hastings will test his invention, the electron-lightscope, from our neighboring sun. It is reliably reported that the lightscope will revolutionize astral observation, in that it will replace the telescope, and will bring distant galaxies to within a few hundred feet of the earth.
"Mrs. Hastings, smartly gowned, was seated next to Co-ordinator Charles Lathrop, who had—"
Someone jostled into the machine. ”

“ Dollar signs, probably. Fred Kitson, of the horny palms, chief mechanic on the Darkness. All men who, because they had once reached out and touched hands with John Hastings, were now called to judge him. ”