The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Classic Stories Read Online Free PDF Page A

overturned chairs, searched under the carpets, behind pictures, in the walls, and they found nothing.
    “You see, I was telling the truth,” Benton smiled, as they returned to the living room.
    “You could have hidden it outside someplace,” the Member shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, however.”
    The Controller stepped forward.
    “Stability is like a gyroscope,” he said. “It is difficult to turn from its course, but once started it can hardly be stopped. We do not feel that you yourself have the strength to turn that gyroscope, but there may be others who can. That remains to be seen. We are going to leave now, and you will be allowed to end your own life, or wait here for the Cart. We are giving you the choice. You will be watched, of course, and I trust that you will make no attempt to flee. If so, then it will mean your immediate destruction. Stability must be maintained, at any cost.”
    Benton watched them, and then laid the globe on the table. The Members looked at it with interest.
    “A paperweight,” Benton said. “Interesting, don’t you think?” The Members lost interest. They began to prepare to leave. But the Controller examined the globe, holding it up to the light.
    “A model of a city, eh?” he said. “Such fine detail.” Benton watched him.
    “Why, it seems amazing that a person could ever carve so well,” the Controller continued. “What city is it? It looks like an ancient one such as Tyre or Babylon, or perhaps one far in the future. You know, it reminds me of an old legend.”
    He looked at Benton intently as he went on.
    “The legend says that once there was a very evil city, it was so evil that God made it small and shut it up in a glass, and left a watcher of some sort to see that no one came along and released the city by smashing the glass. It is supposed to have been lying for eternity, waiting to escape.
    “And this is perhaps the model of it.” the Controller continued.
    “Come on!” the First Member called at the door. “We must be going; there are lots of things left to do tonight.”
    The Controller turned quickly to the Members. “Wait!” he said. “Don’t leave.”
    He crossed the room to them, still holding the globe in his hand. “This would be a very poor time to leave,” he said, and Benton saw that while his face had lost most of its color, the mouth was set in firm lines. The Controller suddenly turned again to Benton.
    “Trip through time; city in a glass globe! Does that mean anything?” The two Council Members looked puzzled and blank. “An ignorant man crosses time and returns with a strange glass,” the Controller said. “Odd thing to bring out of time, don’t you think?” Suddenly the First Member’s face blanched white. “Good God in Heaven!” he whispered. “The accursed city! That globe?” He stared at the round ball in disbelief. The Controller looked at Benton with an amused glance.
    “Odd, how stupid we may be for a time, isn’t it?” he said. “But eventually we wake up. Don’t touch it!”
    Benton slowly stepped back, his hands shaking.
    “Well?” he demanded. The globe was angry at being in the Controller’s hand. It began to buzz, and vibrations crept down the Controller’s arm. He felt them, and took a firmer grip on the globe.
    “I think it wants me to break it,” he said, “it wants me to smash it on the floor so that it can get out.” He watched the tiny spires and building tops in the murky mistiness of the globe, so tiny that he could cover them all with his fingers.
    Benton dived. He came straight and sure, the way he had flown so many times in the air. Now every minute that he had hurtled about the warm blackness of the atmosphere of the City of Lightness came back to help him. The Controller, who had always been too busy with his work, always too piled up ahead to enjoy the airsports that the City was so proud of, went down at once. The globe bounced out of his hands and rolled across the room. Benton