A young man came into an ornate restaurant at eight o’clock in London.
He was alone, but two places had been laid at the table which was reserved for him. He had chosen the dinner very carefully, by letter a week before.
Read MoreThe older man sat down on the grassy bank on the hill overlooking the orchard. The autumn sun was bright but the humidity was low and there was a breeze.
The younger man sprawled next to him.
“Cigarette?” he asked.
“Thanks,” said Roger Boynton. He looked across the valley, past the apple trees, to the fine white-columned house on the hill beyond. He smiled reminiscently. “A friend of mine once owned that house. A fellow commissioner in World Government. He and I used to sit on this very hill, sometimes. We’d munch on an apple or two that we’d picked on our way through the orchard. Winesaps, they’re called.”
“You were telling me about the colonizing,” said Allister gently, after a pause.
Read MoreBENEATH him the clovered hill-slope was warm in the sun. Northwest Smith moved his shoulders against the earth and closed his eyes, breathing so deeply that the gun holstered upon his chest drew tight against its strap as he drank the fragrance of Earth and clover warm in the sun. Here in the hollow of the hills, willow-shaded, pillowed upon clover and the lap of Earth, he let his breath run out in a long sigh and drew one palm across the grass in a caress like a lover’s.
Read MoreIn the valley of Nis the accursed waning moon shines thinly, tearing a path for its light with feeble horns through the lethal foliage of a great upas-tree. And within the depths of the valley, where the light reaches not, move forms not meet to be beheld. Rank is the herbage on each slope, where evil vines and creeping plants crawl amidst the stones of ruined palaces, twining tightly about broken columns and strange monoliths, and heaving up marble pavements laid by forgotten hands. And in trees that grow gigantic in crumbling courtyards leap little apes, while in and out of deep treasure-vaults writhe poison serpents and scaly things without a name.
Read More“THE FIRST time machine, gentlemen,” Professor Johnson proudly informed his two colleagues. “True, it is a small-scale experimental model. It will operate only on objects weighing less than three pounds, five ounces and for distances into the past and future of twelve minutes or less. But it works.”
The small-scale model looked like a small scale—a postage scale—except for two dials in the part under the platform.
Professor Johnson held up a small metal cube. “Our experimental object,” he said, “is a brass cube weighing one pound, two point three ounces. First, I shall send it five minutes into the future.”
Read MoreWhat they called me, that was what started it. I’m as good an American as the next fellow, and maybe a little bit better than men like that, big men drinking in a bar who can’t find anything better to do than to spit on a man and call him Mex. As if a Mexican is something to hide or to be ashamed of. We have our own heroes and our own strength and we don’t have to bend down to men like that, or any other men. But when they called me that I saw red and called them names back.
“Mex kid,” one of the men said, a big red-haired bully with his sleeves rolled back and muscles like ropes on the big hairy arms. “Snot-nosed little Mex brat.”
Read MoreBefore Williams went into the future he bought a camera and a tape recording-machine and learned shorthand. That night, when all was ready, we made coffee and put out brandy and glasses against his return.
“Good-bye,” I said. “Don’t stay too long.”
“I won’t,” he answered.
I watched him carefully, and he hardly flickered. He must have made a perfect landing on the very second he had taken off from. He seemed not a day older; we had expected he might spend several years away.
“Well?”
“Well,” said he, “let’s have some coffee.”
I poured it out, hardly able to contain my impatience. As I gave it to him I said again, “Well?”
“Well, the thing is, I can’t remember.”
“Can’t remember? Not a thing?”
He thought for a moment and answered sadly, “Not a thing.”
“But your notes? The camera? The recording-machine?”
The notebook was empty, the indicator of the camera rested at “1” where we had set it, the tape was not even loaded into the recording-machine.
“But good heavens,” I protested, “why? How did it happen? Can you remember nothing at all?”
“I can remember only one thing.”
“What was that?”
“I was shown everything, and I was given the choice whether I should remember it or not after I got back.”
“And you chose not to? But what an extraordinary thing to—”
“Isn’t it?” he said. “One can’t help wondering why.”
W. Hilton Young (1923-2009) was a British writer and politician and the 2nd Baron Kennet. His short story, “The Choice”, was first published in the March 1952 issue of Punch.
There was no question that Montie Stein had, through clever fraud, stolen better than $100,000. There was also no question that he was apprehended one day after the statute of limitations had expired.
It was his manner of avoiding arrest during that interval that brought on the epoch-making case of the State of New York v. Montgomery Harlow Stein, with all its consequences. It introduced law to the fourth dimension.
For, you see, after having committed the fraud and possessed himself of the hundred grand plus, Stein had calmly entered a time machine, of which he was in illegal possession, and set the controls for seven years and one day in the future.
Read MoreMy dear son:—
The doctors have left and I am told that in a few hours I shall die. In my lifetime the world has progressed from the chaotic turmoil of the early Atomic era to the peacefulness and tranquility of our present age, and I die content.
For ten years I have instructed you in all that you will need for the future. One final lesson remains to be taught.
Read MoreDun was a hard little city, proud and harsh; but impregnable because it was built upon a high rock. The host of the Visigoths had besieged it for months in vain. Then came a fugitive from the city, at midnight, to the tent of Alaric, the Chief of the besiegers.
The man was haggard and torn. His eyes were wild, his hands trembling. The Chief held and steadied him with a look.
“Who are you?” he asked. “Your name, the purpose that brings you here?”
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Cyborg Ink 