climbed into it. I had retired at eleven o’clock, gone up to the mountain and back again all in the space of an hour! Impossible! It had been a dream.
In the bathroom I checked to see if my feet were dirty. They were dean. My hair was normally untidy, my pajamas were not unduly wrinkled, but on the back of the top, just below the collar, was a smear that looked like a grass stain.
It was only after I went back to bed to calmly think it over that I realized how tired I was. Instead of arriving at profound and meaningful conclusions regarding my recent experience, I fell dead asleep.
In the morning a violent thunderstorm awakened me. That and the racket someone was making at the front door. Sargoth and I arrived at the same time to open it. There stood my father with a look of bewilderment on his face as rain fell to soak his already wet head.
Having found me sound asleep earlier, he had eaten alone in preparation for going to the office. No sooner had he reached the train station in front of the house than the sky turned dark and a deluge dropped from it. Not only that, streets and basements within a four-square-mile area were flooded.
Something had gone wrong with my experiment. Instead of my antenna capturing the light and sounds of a storm miles away, it had interfered with the weather shield orbiting five thousand miles skyward.
Later I said to Sargoth, “They’re accusing me because they need someone to blame.”
“And because you’re probably guilty.”
“But how is it possible? How could my antenna affect a satellite?”
“You’ll have to describe its properties more fully to me. Perhaps you included some material of your father’s that you didn’t understand.”
“Of course I didn’t.”
Meanwhile I was forced to climb upon the roof in view of the entire neighborhood who, in my opinion, were more interested in the rain than in me. The police came by to ask me to put a stop to the storm. I explained that clouds had to be given time to drift away on their own.
Father went on to his office, leaving me to face up to the opposition by myself. Old man Terris watched me through the process of antenna-removing, remarking now and then that dangerous inventors and disrespectful kids should be isolated from civilized communities. Personally I believed he loved the feel of the warm rain pelting him and I interpreted as one of regret his expression when the sky eventually cleared.
I was down in the lab when Willmett came by to tell me he had made his decision to become a drell.
“It’s too soon,” I said. “You haven’t given it enough thought.”
“All my life is enough time.”
“Your judgment is affected by dope.”
“If it is, they’ll discover it when they give me a physical. I hear they’re very exacting.” He was by far too cheerful for a man who had made up his mind to become a brain encased in a glass body. I suspected that bourbon or weed was the root cause of his amiability, or at least I hoped so.
Willmett was a dark-haired, rangy person near to my own height, with a slightly decadent outlook and a dependent personality. Whatever there was that one could become addicted to, my friend endeavored to search it out. When we were younger I had tried to keep him away from alcohol and dope but that was before I learned I was wasting my time. Some things are meant to be just as some people are destined only to learn by their own bitter experience.
It angered me to think that cults such as the drells were allowed to exist in an intelligent society. How dare one person tell another that it was all right for him to give up his all to the butcher’s block?
“You’re crazy,” I said to Willmett. “I’m not going with you.”
“Sure you are. Don’t I know how curious you are about everything? I doubt if I could keep you away.”
“Sometimes my esthetic and righteous senses drown out my curiosity.”
“Come on, now, it isn’t as bad as all that. You’ve lived half your life
In the bathroom I checked to see if my feet were dirty. They were dean. My hair was normally untidy, my pajamas were not unduly wrinkled, but on the back of the top, just below the collar, was a smear that looked like a grass stain.
It was only after I went back to bed to calmly think it over that I realized how tired I was. Instead of arriving at profound and meaningful conclusions regarding my recent experience, I fell dead asleep.
In the morning a violent thunderstorm awakened me. That and the racket someone was making at the front door. Sargoth and I arrived at the same time to open it. There stood my father with a look of bewilderment on his face as rain fell to soak his already wet head.
Having found me sound asleep earlier, he had eaten alone in preparation for going to the office. No sooner had he reached the train station in front of the house than the sky turned dark and a deluge dropped from it. Not only that, streets and basements within a four-square-mile area were flooded.
Something had gone wrong with my experiment. Instead of my antenna capturing the light and sounds of a storm miles away, it had interfered with the weather shield orbiting five thousand miles skyward.
Later I said to Sargoth, “They’re accusing me because they need someone to blame.”
“And because you’re probably guilty.”
“But how is it possible? How could my antenna affect a satellite?”
“You’ll have to describe its properties more fully to me. Perhaps you included some material of your father’s that you didn’t understand.”
“Of course I didn’t.”
Meanwhile I was forced to climb upon the roof in view of the entire neighborhood who, in my opinion, were more interested in the rain than in me. The police came by to ask me to put a stop to the storm. I explained that clouds had to be given time to drift away on their own.
Father went on to his office, leaving me to face up to the opposition by myself. Old man Terris watched me through the process of antenna-removing, remarking now and then that dangerous inventors and disrespectful kids should be isolated from civilized communities. Personally I believed he loved the feel of the warm rain pelting him and I interpreted as one of regret his expression when the sky eventually cleared.
I was down in the lab when Willmett came by to tell me he had made his decision to become a drell.
“It’s too soon,” I said. “You haven’t given it enough thought.”
“All my life is enough time.”
“Your judgment is affected by dope.”
“If it is, they’ll discover it when they give me a physical. I hear they’re very exacting.” He was by far too cheerful for a man who had made up his mind to become a brain encased in a glass body. I suspected that bourbon or weed was the root cause of his amiability, or at least I hoped so.
Willmett was a dark-haired, rangy person near to my own height, with a slightly decadent outlook and a dependent personality. Whatever there was that one could become addicted to, my friend endeavored to search it out. When we were younger I had tried to keep him away from alcohol and dope but that was before I learned I was wasting my time. Some things are meant to be just as some people are destined only to learn by their own bitter experience.
It angered me to think that cults such as the drells were allowed to exist in an intelligent society. How dare one person tell another that it was all right for him to give up his all to the butcher’s block?
“You’re crazy,” I said to Willmett. “I’m not going with you.”
“Sure you are. Don’t I know how curious you are about everything? I doubt if I could keep you away.”
“Sometimes my esthetic and righteous senses drown out my curiosity.”
“Come on, now, it isn’t as bad as all that. You’ve lived half your life
Similar Books
Random Victim
Michael A. Black
The White Voyage
John Christopher
Grave Intentions
Lori Sjoberg
The Tainted City
Courtney Schafer
The Delicate Matter of Lady Blayne
Natasha Blackthorne
The Passover Murder
Lee Harris
Yours for the Taking
Robin Kaye
Cooking for Picasso
Camille Aubray
Crash Deluxe
Marianne de Pierres
Falling for Owen
Jennifer Ryan