Richard Wilson

“ The barn door which had been a rickety wooden slab from the outside was a gleaming sheet of metal from the inside. It glided silently shut and left no joint or seam to show where there had been an opening.
"Out," said Naomi.
As they left the car, a flexible metal arm snaked from one of the smooth walls, attached itself to the front bumper of the vehicle, and whisked it into a cubicle which opened to receive it and closed behind it.
A power-driven wheelchair sped up to them. Sitting in it was a fat man of middle age, with pendulous jowls and a totally bald head. ”

“ It takes so much film to provide all the plot choices that they can't make them very long.
"Well, Hafitz blasts me and misses," Mac went on, "—or blasts you and misses, to keep it in your viewpoint. When you jump back, you set off a bunch of controls. That was the control room, too, not just the communications room. Well, those controls you lean back against take the ship out of automatic pilot and send it into some wild acrobatics and that's why Hafitz misses. Also it knocks him out of the wheelchair so he's helpless and you get his gun. ”

“ They're not from Earth, obviously. And the best scientific minds go still further—they're not even from our solar system. Whoever they are, it's clear that they don't want us to build a way-station in space."
"Those spaceships started buzzing around right after our first Moon trip," the general said. "This is the first time they've become really troublesome—now that we've got the Moon under control and are ready to build the way-station so we can get to Mars." ”

“ The multifilm has broken and, because of the complexity of the vikie process, it will be impossible to splice it without returning it to the laboratory.
"Ushers are at the exits with passes good for any future performance. Those of you who prefer can exchange them at the box office for a full refund of your admission price."
Paul Asher unstrapped the wired canvas band from across his chest. He put the selectorscope spectacles into the pouch on the arm of the seat and walked out of the R.K.O. Vicarion into High Street and around the corner to where his car was parked. ”

“ The men's conversation was audible.
"Messages have been coming in from all over Europe," the colonel was saying. "Here's the way it reconstructs:
"Our agent was en route to the rendezvous when he was intercepted by Naomi. That's the only name we have for her. She's a spy. She's worked for half a dozen countries and her present employer could be any one of them. They were spotted as they crossed the frontier between Italy and France. Their car went into a barn and we thought we had them. But the barn turned out to be a spaceship in disguise. It took off."
So I'm their agent, Paul Asher thought. ”

“ One of the instruments was a color vision screen, tuned in to a room in which there was a mahogany desk, at which was seated a man in uniform. Behind him was a map of the United States.
The man in uniform was a major general in the Air Force. ”