Virtual Unrealities, The Short Fiction of Alfred Bester Read Online Free PDF Page B

delay, Carpenter Those patients are returning to this world less and less frequently. We’ve got to get at that secret before they disappear forever. Send a poet to Ward T.”
    Carpenter snapped up his intercom. “Send me a poet,” he said.
    He waited, and waited … and waited … while America sorted feverishly through its two hundred and ninety millions of hardened and sharpened experts, its specialized tools to defend the American Dream of Beauty and Poetry and the Better Things in Life. He waited for them to find a poet, not understanding the endless delay, the fruitless search; not understanding why Bradley Scrim laughed and laughed and laughed at this final, fatal disappearance.

ODDY AND ID
     
    T his is the story of a monster.
    They named him Odysseus Gaul in honor of Papa’s favorite hero, and over Mama’s desperate objections; but he was known as Oddy from the age of one.
    The first year of life is an egotistic craving for warmth and security. Oddy was not likely to have much of that when he was born, for Papa’s real estate business was bankrupt, and Mama was thinking of divorce. But an unexpected decision by United Radiation to build a plant in the town made Papa wealthy, and Mama fell in love with him all over again. So Oddy had warmth and security.
    The second year of life is a timid exploration. Oddy crawled and explored. When he reached for the crimson coils inside the nonobjective fireplace, an unexpected short circuit saved him from a burn. When he fell out the third-floor window, it was into the grass-filled hopper of the Mechano-Gardener. When he teased the Phoebus Cat, it slipped as it snapped at his face, and the brilliant fangs clicked harmlessly over his ear.
    “Animals love Oddy,” Mama said. “They only pretend to bite.”
    Oddy wanted to be loved, so everybody loved Oddy. He was petted, pampered and spoiled through preschool age. Shopkeepers presented him with largess, and acquaintances showered him with gifts. Of sodas, candy, tarts, chrystons, bobble-trucks, freezies, and various other comestibles. Oddy consumed enough for an entire kindergarten. He was never sick.
    “Takes after his father,” Papa said. “Good stock.”
    Family legends grew about Oddy’s luck… . How a perfect stranger mistook him for his own child just as Oddy was about to amble into the Electronic Circus, and delayed him long enough to save him from the disastrous explosion of ’98… . How a forgotten library book rescued him from the Rocket Crash of ’99… . How a multitude of odd incidents saved him from a multitude of assorted catastrophes. No one realized he was a monster … yet.
    At eighteen, he was a nice-looking boy with seal-brown hair, warm brown eyes, and a wide grin that showed even white teeth. He was strong, healthy, intelligent. He was completely uninhibited in his quiet, relaxed way. He had charm. He was happy. So far, his monstrous evil had only affected the little Town Unit where he was born and raised.
    He came to Harvard from a Progressive School, so when one of his many new friends popped into the dormitory room and said: “Hey Oddy, come down to the Quad and kick a ball around,” Oddy answered: “I don’t know how, Ben.”
    “Don’t know how?” Ben tucked the football under his arm and dragged Oddy with him. “Where you been, laddie?”
    “They didn’t think much of football back home,” Oddy grinned. “Said it was old-fashioned. We were strictly Huxley-Hob.”
    “Huxley-Hob! That’s for eggheads,” Ben said. “Football is still the big game. You want to be famous? You got to be on that gridiron on TV every Saturday.”
    “So I’ve noticed, Ben. Show me.”
    Ben showed Oddy, carefully and with patience. Oddy took the lesson seriously and industriously. His third punt was caught by a freakish gust of wind, traveled seventy yards through the air, and burst through the third-floor window of Proctor Charley (Gravy-Train) Stuart. Stuart took one look at the window and had