Art - Pavel Oliva

 Art - Pavel Oliva

Photospace

Menhirs of Immortality

Gate to Ether

Lab Robbery

The Cube

Tarox's Car

Come Into My Parlor by Charles E. Fritch

 

Come Into My Parlor

by Charles E. Fritch

I found Johnny a few blocks from our hotel in a little bar that was nearly deserted. He was sitting alone at a table in a dark corner, staring morosely at nothing in particular, his hand limp around an almost-empty glass. He seemed perfectly sober, though his eyes stared glassily ahead.

I sat down beside him. "What do you say we go back to the hotel, Johnny? Tomorrow's another slave day."

His eyes shifted to me and then back to nothing. I wondered if he had actually seen me.

"We can talk about it over some coffee and a bit to eat." I suggested, placing my hand on his arm.

"Go to hell," he said quietly and shook me loose. He lifted his glass, drained the last few drops. He held the empty glass to the light, then set it down, regretfully. "But first buy me a drink."

"You'd better go home," I said. "You've had enough."

He laughed harshly. "Look who's giving me orders. I know things about this cock-eyed old world you never had nightmares about, and you're ordering me around! Bossy newspapermen! Go to hell, then; I'll get my own drink."

He rose unsteadily and managed his way to the bar. He came back with the glass full.

"You still here. I thought I told you--"

"You'd better lay off that stuff," I said quietly. "You're not used to it."

"Boy, oh boy, you're just full of orders today, aren't you? Charlie Bennet, boy crusader! Well, I've got something you can crusade about. Anything else you'd like?"

"That's enough for now."

"You're damn right it is. Now get the hell out of here and leave me alone. Can't you see I'm brooding over the fate of the world?"

"What are you so mad about?"

He looked annoyed, and a little startled. "Brother, if you only knew –"

He raised his glass, and then stopped and set it on the table. "Wait a minute. Maybe I ought to tell you. Maybe I ought to let the two of us worry about it, instead of just me. Maybe you should print it in that newspaper of yours."

"I'm willing to listen, anyway."

"Sure! Why not? I'm just beginning to experience that rosy sensation, that warm feeling of camaraderie they keep stoppered up in bottles. It's the only place on this planet you can find it."

"Don't be cynical."

"Maybe I should bust out laughing. The whole thing's really funny; it's the funniest thing I've ever heard."

"We'd better go."

"Sure, let's go. But first – you want to see something really funny? Here."

* * * * *

He took a pair of glasses from his pocket and handed them to me. They seemed like ordinary shell-rimmed glasses, though the lenses were tinted a slight blue.

"Put them on," he prompted. "Go ahead."

"Where'd you get these?"

"Made 'em," he said. "My job is optical research, remember. I was fooling around in the lab with some invisible light experiments. The right combination of lenses and coatings – and whammo! This." He took a drink. "I should have been a lawyer or a plumber or something." He grunted. "Or even a newspaperman!"

"What are they supposed to do-see in the dark?"

He laughed humorlessly. "That'd be a boon for a reporter, wouldn't it? No, my friend, much worse than that. Try them on. Go ahead."

I did. "Well?"

"Notice anything peculiar?"

"The coating makes everything here seem bluish – maybe even unearthly, if that's what you want – but –"

"C'mon outside, then," he said. This time he took my arm and steered me from the bar. I was glad of the opportunity to get him into the night air.

"Look at the sky," he directed. "See anything unusual?" He stood waiting, expectant.

"I see stars," I said. "Nothing unusual about that, is there?"

"Stars! Only stars?" His voice had lost its tinge of sarcasm. His fingers were tight on my arm. "Look, across the sky, see those luminous bands? All across the sky. Like a giant spider web."

I looked again. After awhile, I said, "Sorry, Johnny, but there aren't any luminous bands, spider webs or otherwise. I think we'd better get to the room. A good night's rest –"

"Wait a minute," he cried suddenly, his face pale. "You think I'm drunk – or worse. I tell you there is something up there. Shining streamers crisscrossing the sky, like – like –"

"There's nothing, Johnny. Only stars."

I took the glasses off. He made a quick grab for them and somehow they fell to the pavement and shattered.

For a moment, Johnny stared at the glittering fragments, his jaws working. "You've broken them," he accused finally, his eyes filled more with sudden despair than hatred. "It took weeks to build them."

"It was an accident," I told him. "But it's just as well they are broken. I tell you, Johnny, there's nothing unusual in the sky. Nothing at all. Spider webs! Next you'll be seeing pink elephants."

Johnny stood in the cool night and stared at the sky. "They're up there, I tell you. They're up there, and I want to know why. And there's one thing I want to know more than anything else; suppose they're really spider webs--" His face was deathly white. "Are there spiders?"

He stared at me insanely in the darkness. "Do you realize what that would mean, Charlie? Giant spiders, invisible, roaming across the Earth!" His fingers were digging into my arm again.

"Johnny, come out of it," I snapped, shaking him. "There is no web in the sky, you hear me? And there aren't any spiders, either. It's just some crazy figment of your imagination. That's all."

"But just suppose there are," he persisted, a little wildly.

"Maybe – maybe it's not just the glasses. Maybe it's partly me, too; maybe I'm the only one who can see them; maybe that's why you didn't see the web. Maybe –"

"Johnny, be sensible! If there were such monsters roaming around, don't you think they'd have been discovered by now?"

"I don't know," he said, helplessly. "I don't know, and it's driving me crazy. You've probably wondered why I haven't slept very well for the past couple of weeks; well, that's the reason. I didn't want to say anything. I hardly dared put the glasses on, I was so afraid. Not of being thought crazy, but – but afraid of what they might do if they knew they were discovered."

"Look, Johnny. Even supposing you might be right, why wouldn't they show themselves? Why just stay up in the sky in a large web?"

"Maybe they're sizing us up," Johnny said, trembling but not with cold. "After all, we've got a few weapons, too. Maybe a machine gun or an atomic bomb can hurt them, as well as humans."

"Unless they're here for some good?" I suggested.

Johnny laughed. "Spiders? Maybe they're hungry – and they think we're a bunch of flies down here. That's more likely."

"Isn't this – rather fantastic?"

"Of course it is. Why do you suppose I've been keeping quiet about it for the past two weeks? Why do you suppose I'm out trying to get drunk?" He added disgustedly: "I can't even do that."

"C'mon," I said, "let's go to the room and we'll have some coffee. We can talk about it there."

"Sure," he said, and his voice was suddenly subdued. "Sure, why not?"

We went to the hotel room and I made some coffee, being careful to slip enough sleeping tablets in Johnny's cup. In a few minutes he was sprawled across the bed.

I went to the window and looked at the glowing beads of traffic below. I looked at the sky – at the stars. Spiders in the sky; what a story that would make. The editor'd slap me in the booby hatch if I ever handed in a who-what-when-where like that.

When I left for work the next morning, Johnny was still snoozing. Let him sleep it off. Do him good. He'd been working too hard at the lab, anyhow.

I couldn't get back to the hotel room that morning, though I wanted to see if Johnny was okay. I was pretty busy writing a human interest yarn kidding the pants off some astronomer's notion that light waves coming from certain portions of the sky were being deflected or refracted slightly for no discernible reason.

The amount of difference was microscopic, and I wrote it up to emphasize its ridiculous splitting of hairs and the fact that you can't take some of these crackpots seriously. Here the world is on the verge of coming apart at the seams, and they worry about wayward light rays.

During the afternoon, I managed to drop into the hotel to see if Johnny had slept off the liquor and the sleeping tablets. He had, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed, looking grim – and a little perplexed.

"How ya feeling, Johnny?" I said.

"Great," he said, though he didn't sound it. "Things seem a lot clearer this morning."

"Good. I thought they would. You know, you really had me going last night. I thought you meant all that stuff, but I guess imagination and a few beers can do a lot."

"Cut the kidding," he said grimly.

"What?"

"I said, cut it. I'm not in the mood."

"Now what's the matter?"

"This," he said. He held up a pair of glasses, twins to those destroyed.

"But – how could you have made another set? You haven't been near the lab today."

"When I first discovered this web business, I made two pair of glasses. I figured two people could do something about it a whole lot easier than just one. But I was afraid to let anyone in on it. I thought maybe I was batty."

"So?"

"I made this pair for you. For you, Charlie, so you could write the stuff up in your paper to let people know. That's a laugh, isn't it?"

"Say – that's swell. But –"

"Stand back!" Johnny cried suddenly, as I started to move toward him. He snatched a gun from beneath a pillow and waved it threateningly. "Know what I was doing this afternoon before you came in?"

"Johnny, this is crazy! Put down that gun and listen to reason."

"I had the glasses on," he continued, "and I was looking out the window here. I'm getting real brave – even in broad daylight – but there comes a time when you just don't care. I saw spiders in the streets. Huge spiders walking along the streets, mingling with human beings. And get this, Charlie – when I took the glasses off, they were like human beings. Like humans, you understand. You know what that means? They're in disguise all around us!"

"That's not true, Johnny," I insisted. "There are no webs in the sky. There are no spiders. It's your imagination. The strain. Working in the lab –"

"No," he cried, and the gun never wavered. "You know what else I saw? A few minutes ago. I was looking down into the street, and a spider got out of a car just in front of the hotel here and started coming in. I took off the glasses to see if it might be someone I knew."

He began to laugh hysterically. "You know who it was, Charlie –"

I leaped forward, trying to knock the gun down. But Johnny's hand came up, and the gun jumped, spurting noise and flame. The bullet slammed into my body.

Desperately, I drove forward. My arms went around him. The gun went off again, before I could prevent it. A furrow of pain shot across my stomach, and I shrieked out in sudden anguish.

"Johnny, Johnny. Stop it. Stop!"

I struck his hand. The gun clattered to the floor. He was struggling frantically, striking out against me with doubled fists. His shirt was splattered with my blood. He gasped, clearing his lungs for a scream.

There was nothing else I could do. The life was draining from me.

I held his arms and legs together and tried not to look into the terrified expression crossing his face. I held him tightly while he squirmed in helpless frustration.

And with my two remaining arms I strangled him!

You can check out Charles E. Fritch’s wikipedia page here.

This story is taken from Project Gutenberg. The etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures Magazine February 1953. For legal reasons the following statement must be included: (This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org).

Spaceman's Luck by George O. Smith

 

Spaceman's Luck

by George O. Smith

A flare of light arced upwards and moments later the shattering report dinned in the ears of the crowd, rolling across the field like thunder. The noise covered the sharply indrawn breath of ten thousand people. A sonorous voice amplified a millionfold announced: "X Minus Fifteen Minutes!"

There was a second or two of absolute silence and then the waiting crowd let out its breath all at once in an audible sigh. They wiped their glasses nervously, or poised their binoculars, or scratched their heads for the last nervous time, hoping that they would not sneeze at the improper second and so miss the takeoff; it would be over just about that quickly.

Out across the field, the focus of ten thousand pairs of eyes, stood the Lady Luna. She looked small from the crowd, but the three men who stood at one tail-fin were dwarfed by her size.

"This is about it, Gordon," said the oldest of the lot.

Gordon Holt nodded. "I've about five minutes yet," he said nervously.

The middle-aged man said, "Time for a last cigarette, Gordon."

Holt shook his head. "Not after training to do without for six months. Save it until I come back."

Doctor Walsch nodded. "That's good sense, Gordon. We'll be waiting for you. How do you feel?"

"Fine. Just a bit jumpy."

"You ought to feel as fit as a Guarnerius. You've been trained and you're trim and fit. I doubt that you'll ever feel any better in your life than you do right now."

General Towne nodded. "Don't forget the honor, either," he said. "The excitement should give your high feelings another lift. Imagine being the first man to ever set foot on the soil of another world."

"It's a bit of a sterile world, I'm told. Not much more honor than the first man to put his sandal on the top of Pike's Peak. They sell postcards there, now."

"Too bad we've named all the visible Lunar Craters," said General Towne. "Seems to me that some signal honor--well, anyway, Gordon, we'll name a big one on the other side after you."

"It –"

A siren wailed and Holt jumped. "That's it," he said.

"Good luck, Gordon," said the general, wringing the spaceman's hand. The doctor clapped Gordon on the back as he turned away.

Doctor and general got into the waiting jeep, and the driver turned and called, "Don't take any wooden moonbeams up there, Holt!"

Holt shrugged noncommittally and climbed the ramp into the spacelock. He sneered at the crowd beyond closing spacelock.

"Wooden moonbeams?" he said aloud. "Oh brother!"

He went to the control chamber of the Lady Luna and ran through his checklist almost mechanically. He waited almost breathlessly until the radio barked the word that told him to hit the ignition switch, and when it came he hit it with a vigor and enjoyed the crushing sensation that followed. The thunder from below was music in his ears; now he was on his way and they wouldn't call him back.

Holt was no mere glory machine. Not for him was the simple honor. He had it planned, had it planned from the moment he was selected.

For Holt, the honor of setting the first foot on another world was a flat and tasteless award. It would last only until someone else did something slightly better. What could he get out of driving a space rocket to Luna? Not a hell of a lot. He was not headed for an adventure and he knew it; with everything precalculated, including the risk, what adventure could he have? To land and collect a quart of pumice and a pound of rock and maybe a shiny stone. Look for lichen or moss. Listen to the Geiger.

This sort of dry action would sell no books, collect no royalties, make no moving pictures, bring in no dough.

Gordon took a deep breath as soon as the motor cut off. He was on his way and he knew how to handle everything from here on in.

He had seen enough of human nature to foresee it all. A slight mishap and a call for help would start it. A landing just hard enough to bend the control vanes or to plug up the rocket exhaust. Maybe to dinge up the spacecraft enough to make it unspaceworthy. Then –

The cry for help and the whole world crying in return that a Human Being was marooned out there, helpless and alone.

They'd come.

They'd turn handsprings to get out there. Time and money would be tossed down the drain, and men would strive and women would cry, and the news would be filled with daily columns of how the rescue was progressing.

Drop a man in the ocean and the navies of every country go out and comb the sea to find him. Put a cat on the telephone pole and three hundred people struggle to get the animal down. Drop a child in a well and the countryside turns out en masse to help.

Well, maroon a man on the moon and watch 'em struggle.

He had air for ninety days and food and water and just about anything a man would need. He could sit it out and he knew it. And he knew that there was a second rocket that could be put in space within a couple of months. Sixty days he'd sit it out and then –

It would be the story of his life, the tale of his rescue, the bright lights and the personal appearances. Radio and television and endorsing this junk and that googoo. Women and liquor and money.

* * * * *

He came down in the Crater Plato, tail first but far too fast. The tailfins crumpled and the sifting pumice drove up into the exhaust and packed like cement. A seam whistled far below to let out some air from a sealed compartment, cracked in the bump.

The crash staggered him a bit, but all he suffered was a nosebleed and a set of sprained chest muscles. He sat up and looked around.

The radio. He snapped it on and called: "Lady Luna Gordon Holt reporting. Made a crash landing. May be dangerous. Will check and call at 0300."

He eyed the radio thoughtfully; it only took about three seconds for an answer, but in that time Gordon considered smashing the radio in the middle of the next broadcast and then discarded the idea because it might lead people to think that he, too, had been smashed. Gordon wanted to be rescued, not given a hero's brief hail and farewell.

"Calling Lady Luna. Holt! Are you all right? Explain!"

"I am all right. I am not hurt. Crash landing rather rough but nothing broken. No air leakage, nothing completely ruined that I can tell. Landed as per program in the dead center of Plato, but a little too hard."

That ought to do it. Let 'em get excited slowly. They'll forget me less slowly.

"Lady Luna what happened?" They were worried.

"I don't know. I have a hunch that the pumice does not provide a true ground-plane for the radar. We landed as though the ground were about thirty feet below the surface."

* * * * *

That sounds logical. Such things are entirely possible, I'm told. Powdery, filmy stuff with no water shouldn't have a firm ground-plane.

"Lady Luna inspect your damage and report as planned at 0300."

Holt checked his air first. Plenty of it. Not a bit gone. Water next and food next. He checked the hull as well as he could from the inside and then went out in his space suit to view the damage.

He had done an admirable job. The tail fins were bent messily and the hull was crumpled a bit just above the place where the rocket motor ended. If this ship took off –

"Lady Luna calling home. Reporting as per plan. Hull bent, tail fins ruined. Crater filled with powdery pumice and I feel that the exhaust is packed. Shall I try a blast to clear it?"

While he waited for the answer Gordon found a bit of wire and shorted the battery for a second. He had to fade out slowly enough to fool them completely.

"Lady Luna, do not try a clearing blast. You'll explode. Wait for instructions."

"Will do. Will do."

He shorted the battery a couple more times and watched the voltmeter drop.

"Lady Luna can you dig down to the exhaust port?"

"Will try. Note battery dropping. Nothing else in danger. Food, water, air all okay. Hull sound but battery dropping."

* * * * *

Seconds went on and Holt could see the resources of the entire world collecting to prepare the First Spacewreck Rescue. Complete with video, reporters, clergymen, politicians, and humanity waiting.

"Lady Luna repeat. You are fading."

Holt repeated, insisting that he was all right. "I can stick it out. I can stick it out."

He watched the radio battery fade.

Let it fade. He could stand the silence for two months until rescue came.

* * * * *

A billion people listened to his voice die away. And when their radio networks went dead, they raced to their telephones and clogged the land wires demanding that something had to be done.

Congressmen gave speeches and clergymen spoke and doctors gave opinions and scientists differed. A government seldom known for its cooperation announced that its new atomic-powered rocket was about to effect the rescue single-handedly. But the atomic part blew up in front of the video cameras and took some of the landscape with it. The Council of the United Nations called a meeting. The newspapers and networks covered everything.

A man known for his brilliance came on the air.

"The batteries of the Lady Luna have run down," he said. "We must get there in less than ten days."

They tried to do it.

A second rocket exploded in France.

A third blew up in Germany.

The fourth would not be ready for space for sixty days.

That was seventy long days after Holt's landing.

Without a miracle, Holt would be dead, even if the experts were wrong.

Protestants prayed, Catholics crossed themselves, and Mohammedans called it kismet and let it go at that. A scientist suggested that since there was no habitable planet in the solar system and that mankind could never reach the stars, there was small point in this effort to make space travel pay off. An economist computed the sum of money shelled out already and called it damned foolishness. A Senator Maculay suggested that taxes could be lowered if such expenditures were cut out.

And ten days after the accident there was a world-wide prayer said for Gordon Holt.

* * * * *

The other rocket at White Sands grew cobwebs in its empty fuel tanks.

And the Lady Luna slipped into the dark of the moon. It grew colder and colder as time went on. …

This story is taken from Project Gutenberg. The etext was produced from Science Fiction Adventures Magazine February 1953. For legal reasons the following statement must be included: (This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org).

Bookspot - Behind Blue Eyes by Anna Mocikat

 Bookspot - Behind Blue Eyes by Anna Mocikat

Since it was released two years ago, this new cyberpunk has been growing in popularity on the undergraound scene. With all the makings of a classic, if you're into the genre, Behind Blue Eyes ticks all the right boxes.

In a future world ruled by warring mega-corporations, cyborg Nephilim believed she was fighting a righteous cause.

As a powerful, cybernetically enhanced elite soldier her job is to do all the dirty work for the mega-corporation she belongs to. She and her elite cyborg squad are deployed on the most dangerous missions – to protect Olympias from threats outside and inside at any cost.

One day, a malfunction in her implants separates her from the all-controlling grid. For the first time in her life, Nephilim is free.

She learns that everything she has believed in all her life is a lie and decides to defend her newfound freedom.

But Metatron, the leader of her unit, has very special plans for her future and won’t let her get away.

Soon, Nephilim finds herself hunted by the killer squads she once belonged to. She’s the best of them but will her skills be enough to survive?

Blade Runner meets John Wick with a badass female lead!