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Thunk! went the minute hand of the clock. A deft movement of the second tentacle had snatched an earring off Monicas lobe. It vanished in a bubble of acid. The earring pleased the creature as an oysterette might please a guest at an informal dinner. It wanted more. The tentacle gyrated gluttonously. Nor anyone elses. The first Sam was built in 1949. As a maker of prosthetic devices-—artificial arms and legs—Sierra Engineering saw the need for an instrumented human-like shape for rocket-sled speed tests. Private Richard Starbuck, formerly a star forward on the Center High basketball team, looked at his watch and wondered, as he waited, if being shot in the gut would be anything like cutting your head on the pavement. It was funny he should have thought of that now. He hadnt thought of the Martins for months. He wondered if they would be watching. He wondered, if they did, if they would recognize the sixteen-year-old boy who had bled on their living room couch four years ago. He wondered if he recognized that sixteen-year-old boy himself.* * * * It knew how to add and multiply, but it had forgotten what a field was, and what commutivity was. If entropy and time wreaked harm on matter, they did worse by this race. It wasnt interested in expeditions though the fiber bundles; rather it wanted to count apples. GEORGE MACBETH It was still light outside, and enough light came through the window above my head for me to read by. I was just reaching for a fresh cigarette, when I looked up and saw it on the foot of my bed. The edge of my hand was touching the golf club, and with a single motion I swept the club over and down, struck it a savage and accurate blow, and killed it. That was what I referred to before. Whatever kind of a man I am, I react as a man does. I think that any man, black, white or yellow, in China, Africa or Russia, would have done the same thing. Of course, all that (except the physics lessons and conclusions about God) is just theplot. The book is built out of forty-onechapters, some containing a eulogy, critique, polemic, or outright backstab, aimed at Jarrys associates and enemies, and other prominent figures of the time; and each is a separate entity, containing a discourse or comment or allegory on art, science, politics, religion, metaphysics, literature . . . and, of course, Pataphysics (which isthe science). The nights unexpected events aboard theCaptain Weber and a scant few hours of restless sleep combined to put Quincannon in a foul humor come morning. Awake at dawn, he dressed straightaway and left the cabin. The day was dull gray with swarming clouds, the wind blustery and cold again— weather that worked to his advantage, for it allowed him to once more hide most of his bearded face with his high-wrapped muffler and low-pulled cap. Warm beverages and bakery goods were available in the Social Hall, where only a handful of other early risers had gathered, none of them his quarry or her guest. He drank as much coffee as he could hold, then went out on deck and occupied himself in alternately pacing and standing at the starboard rail astern in a pretense of watching their course past long stretches of broad, yellowish farmland and banks thickly grown with willows, tangles of wild grape, and mistletoe-festooned cottonwoods. And I knew what that meant. Oh, Im keeping my eyes open. But this really is amazing; I read yourExploration of Space when it came out back in, ah— To see the next-of-kin of an officer of mine. Ians voice, when he spoke at last, was almost mild compared to the rest of his appearance. It was a deep, calm voice, but lightless—like a voice that had long forgotten the need to be angry or threatening. Only . . . there was something sad about it, Tyburn thought. Cliff wondered how many people were listening to this call, either on the Moon, the Earth or the relay satellites. It was hard to talk for the last time to your loved ones, not knowing how many eavesdroppers there might be. But as soon as he began to speak, no one else existed but Myra and himself. But then he saw something that had not been there before the trouble-making penny. Attached to the original hut were two unusually large, very luxurious rooms, or almost rooms. Add ceilings and finish the walls properly and nobody could take them for anything but rooms. They were most emphatically not banks, because though moneys had been deposited in them these moneys were not for withdrawing. The walls could certainly be finished in the right manner. There would be no withdrawals from this gone-out-of-business bank. Weisbaum looked around and spotted one of the regular jeep drivers standing at the foot of the tower.Mahoney, he yelled. “Get in your jeep and go back and get the old man. Tell him hes gotta see Cromwell shoot. You can tell him what happened.” I have never sprung such abstractions asDignity upon the boy. What good are such absolutes on a mountainside? If there is Dignity in grubbing out weeds and planting beans, those pursuits must be more dignified than something, because, like all words, it is a meaningless wisp of lint once removed from its relativistic fabric. The word does not exist until he invents it himself. The hoe and the rocky soil or the nutrient enema and the electronic ecstasy: He must judge for himself. That is why I have brought him here. I told you before to watch your language, mister. And keep your voice down, too, or out you go. I frowned. "Nickname?".
