Bagombo Snuff Box Read Online Free PDF

know,” said Groszinger.
    “That’ll kill him, won’t it?”
    “He has controls for gliding her in, once he hits the atmosphere.”
    “If he wants to.”
    “That’s right—if he wants to. They’ll get him out of his
orbit and back to the atmosphere under rocket power. After that, it’ll be up to
him to take over and make the landing.”
    They fell silent. The only sound in the room was the muted
jamming signal in the loudspeaker.
    “He don’t want to live, you know that?” said the radio
operator suddenly. “Would you want to?”
    “Guess that’s something you don’t know until you come up
against it,” said Groszinger. He was trying to imagine the world of the future—a
world in constant touch with the spirits, the living inseparable from the dead.
It was bound to come. Other men, probing into space, were certain to find out.
Would it make life heaven or hell? Every bum and genius, criminal and hero,
average man and madman, now and forever part of humanity— advising, squabbling,
conniving, placating . . .
    The radio operator looked furtively toward the door. “Want to
hear him again?”
    Groszinger shook his head. “Everybody’s listening to that frequency
now. We’d all be in a nice mess if you stopped jamming.” He didn’t want to hear
more. He was baffled, miserable. Would Death unmasked drive men to suicide, or
bring new hope? he was asking himself. Would the living desert their leaders
and turn to the dead for guidance? To Caesar. . . Charlemagne ... Peter the
Great.. . Napoleon ... Bismarck .. . Lincoln .. . Roosevelt? To Jesus Christ?
Were the dead wiser than—
    Before Groszinger could stop him, the sergeant switched off
the oscillator that was jamming the frequency.
    Major Rice’s voice came through instantly, high and giddy. “.
. . thousands of them, thousands of them, all around me, standing on nothing,
shimmering like northern lights—beautiful, curving off in space, all around the
earth like a glowing fog. I can see them, do you hear? I can see them now. I
can see Margaret. She’s waving and smiling, misty, heavenly, beautiful. If only
you could see it, if—”
    The radio operator flicked on the jamming signal. There was
a footfall in the hallway.
    General Dane stalked into the radio room, studying his
watch. “In five minutes they’ll start him down,” he said. He plunged his hands
deep into his pockets and slouched dejectedly. “We failed this time. Next time,
by God, we’ll make it. The next man who goes up will know what he’s up against—he’ll
be ready to take it.”
    He put his hand on Groszinger’s shoulder. “The most
important job you’ll ever have to do, my friend, is to keep your mouth shut
about those spirits out there, do you understand? We don’t want the enemy to
know we’ve had a ship out there, and we don’t want them to know what they’ll
come across if they try it. The security of this country depends on that being
our secret. Do I make myself clear?”
    “Yes, sir,” said Groszinger, grateful to have no choice but
to be quiet. He didn’t want to be the one to tell the world. He wished he had
had nothing to do with sending Rice out into space. What discovery of the dead
would do to humanity he didn’t know, but the impact would be terrific. Now,
like the rest, he would have to wait for the next wild twist of history.
    The General looked at his watch again. “They’re bringing him
down,” he said.
    At 1:39 p.m., on Friday, July 28th, the British liner
Capricorn, two hundred eighty miles out of New York City, bound for Liverpool,
radioed that an unidentified object had crashed into the sea, sending up a
towering geyser on the horizon to starboard of the ship. Several passengers
were said to have seen something glinting as the thing fell from the sky. Upon
reaching the scene of the crash, the Capricorn reported finding dead and
stunned fish on the surface, and turbulent water, but no wreckage.
    Newspapers suggested that the Capricorn had