Samurai and Other Stories Read Online Free PDF

seaboard covering most of New York and New Jersey.
    Flocks of birds cawed and fluttered.
    The plasma ate them.
    Three passenger jets inward bound from Europe passed overhead at thirty thousand feet.
    The plasma threw up tendrils and ate them.
    The bomber carrying the nuke came in at over a thousand miles per hour.
    The plasma ate it.  
    The nuke exploded creating a fireball of white heat and radiation at more than a million degrees centigrade.
    The plasma ate it, surged, and headed for Canada.

    *     *     *

    The president of the European Union got involved an hour later. Assembled in his room were the heads of the UK, France and Germany. The president of Russia was on a TV screen, linked in by satellite.
    “So what is it doing now?” the president of the EU asked.
    “Still growing,” the Russian president answered. “And still feeding.” He was white as a sheet, and visibly trembling.
    “How many casualties?” the president whispered.
    “Too many to count,” the prime minister of the UK said. “It has covered most of North America and is heading south and east fast... and we don’t know if anybody is still alive anywhere. It will be here in minutes.”
    “We only have one option,” the president said. `We hit it with every missile NATO and Russia have, and hope for the best. And somebody close that window!”  
    Outside, the crazed fluting of Rickman’s plasma filled the air.

    *     *     *

    Over a thousand nuclear weapons were launched in the next fifteen minutes... enough firepower to start, or finish, a global war, enough mega-tonnage to destroy every city on the planet.
    The plasma ate them all and surged.

    *     *     *

    The last human beings on the planet got involved an hour later. Assembled in a lab at the South Pole were scientists from the US, Brazil, France and Germany.
    “So what is it doing now?” the Brazilian asked.
    “Still growing,” the head scientist answered. “And still feeding.” He was white as a sheet, and visibly trembling.
    “Is there anybody left?” someone whispered.
    “I doubt it,” the Frenchman said. “The last we heard it had covered the rest of the planet and was heading south fast.”
    “We only have one option,” the head scientist said. “We keep quiet, and hope it passes.”  
    The crazed fluting of Rickman’s plasma filled the air.
    The scientists sat in silence, barely breathing.
    Their generator kicked in noisily.
    The plasma surged.

 
     
     
     
    HOME IS THE SAILOR

    I smoked too many cigarettes, sipped too much Highland Park and let Bessie Smith tell me just how bad men were. For once thin afternoon sun shone on Glasgow; the last traces of winter just a distant memory. Old Joe started up “Just One Cornetto” in the shop downstairs. I didn’t have a case, and I didn’t care.
    It was Easter weekend, and all was right with the world.
    I should have known it was too good to last.
    I heard him coming up the stairs. Sherlock Holmes could have told you his height, weight, shoe-size and nationality from the noise he made. All I knew was that he was either ill or very old; he’d taken the stairs like he was climbing a mountain with a Sherpa on his back.
    He rapped on the outside door.  
    Shave and a haircut, two bits.
    “Come in. Adams Massage Services is open for business.”
    At first I thought it was someone wandering in off the street. He was unkempt, unshaven, eyes red and bleary. He wore an old brown wool suit over a long, out of shape cardigan and his hair stood out from his scalp in strange clumps. I’ve rarely seen a man more in need of a drink.
    Or a meal.
    He was so thin as to be almost skeletal, the skin on his face stretched tight across his cheeks. I was worried that if I made him smile his face might split open like an over-ripe fruit.
    “Are you Adams?” he said as he came in. He turned out to be younger than I’d first taken him for, somewhere in his fifties at a guess, but his mileage was much higher. “Jim at