Adult & continuing education
As I dictate this, Im sitting here below the ancient battlements of Fort Frederick, watching the moon come up over the Indian Ocean. If everything goes well, this will serve as the opening of the book that Joe has been badgering me to write. If it doesn’t—then hello, Joe, I’m talking toyou now. Please edit this for publication in any way you think fit, and my apologies to you and Lev for not giving all the facts before; now you’ll understand why. The door was still locked, but John had been there in her absence. He hadnt stayed long, however, and he hadn’t taken the Featherstone file with him when he left. Instead he’d transferred it from his desk to hers and placed a note in his crabbed hand on top of it. Now, now, said one of the androids. It had the same voice as the therapist. Things are okay.” Impatiently, she said,About him making a Contact with you. He called me up at two a.m. and told me the whole story. I wanted to throw the phone out the window, but I hung on and got your name out of him, and some of your address, and the rest from the phone book. Because I wouldnt want anybody to have Mack wished on him. Not anybody. So you see . . . he said. Just sensible precautions. Theres no trick to it. You’re a military man—and what’s that mean? Superior strength. Superior tactics. That’s all. So I outpower your strength, outnumber you, make your tactics useless—and what are you? Nothing.” He put his glass carefully aside on the table with the decanter. “But I’m not Brian. I’m not afraid of you. I could do without these things if I wanted to.” adult & continuing education I wont say tears came to my eyes— I knew just how far he would go to help. I said goodbye to him and Braun led me up the marble steps. The place was crowded with neat soldiery. We were joined by the hotel manager and two coppers. We went up to the top storey and I was shown my suite. Three rooms and a bathroom. Quite a nice little shack, although somewhat Teutonically furnished. It was elegant, but there was the smell of loot about it. You kept wondering which bit of furniture covered the bloodstains where theyd bayonetted the Countess and her kids one morning. The sergeant shook his head. My new bubble had a top hole too and I went through it the same way I had the last. The next five bubbles were just the same too. I told myself that my routine was getting to be like that of a circus acrobat—except who stages shows inside black solidity?—except the gods maybe with the dreams they send us. The lava should be transparent, so the rim-wall peaks could admire. adult & continuing education The added years of service were so many added tails to the cat repeatedly laid on my back. I cant see his face now; I never can. In the same Show magazine interview quoted earlier (and well worth reading in its entirety if you can get hold of a back issue), Ray Bradbury answered this question with: adult & continuing education "It wants food," Monica said. "You could take bets on that." "Word follows word, darling. Word follows word. You know about Monnie and Jay in seclusion?" Thats Guttenberg, said Harrison. He’s eighty.” Instead, he became homesick. "Oh its a people eater all right." Hes a fat toad of a boy. I could break him in half and maybe I will one day soon. Outside the singing stopped and someone shouted a word. One native boy raised his arms and hunted back and forth along the pit edge. He went close and recoiled again..
