Useful modern form
For the last two weeks he had beenen fête. It took him the better part of three days to compile a sketchy but useful dossier. He accomplished this by checking public records, bribing a minor official of his acquaintance in the police departments records department, and putting the word out to Ezra Bluefield, who still knew everything that went on in the Barbary Coast even though he no longer owned the infamous Terrific Street deadfall called the Scarlet Lady, and to others in the coterie of informants he had cultivated; by dispatchingChauncey Philpotts, one of the agency’s part-time employees, to cautiously interview the other performers and staff of the Gaiety Theater; and, once Quincannon learned that his quarry had spent several months performing in Sacramento before moving to San Francisco, by sending a wire requesting information to a fellow private detective in the capital city. "Whats with this cruddy beast?" Jay said, licking his fingertip. "All right, Con. But its not what you think. I didnt throw the tournament. And Gadsen didn't throw the allowance. We didn't discuss it at all. I admit I let him win that game, but there wasn't any deal. It would have to occur to him, with no help from me, that there was something he owed me. He could have done it either way, and I'd have had no kick. Maybe he'd have given the allowance anyhow. In fact, for all you know, maybe he allowed the case despite the game, and not because of it." BEN IRWIN:The Day the Weapons Worked, Nug, Sept. The fourth switch had its glowing name now: stars. As he entered the corridor below the stage shortly before eight-twenty, Mangon could hear the sounds of the audience arriving and making their way to their seats. The studio was almost full, a hubbub of well-heeled chatter. Lights flashed on and off in the corridor, and oblique atmospheric shifts cut through the air as the players on the stage tuned their instruments. Something flies (or flew, or will fly—he is a little confused on this point) toward him, from the far right where the stars still shine. It is not a bird and it is unlike any aircraft on earth, for the aerodynamics are wrong. Wings so wide and so fragile would be useless, would melt and tear away in any of earths atmosphere but the outer fringes. He sees then (because he prefers to see it so) that it is the kid’s model, or part of it, and for a toy, it does very well indeed. The explanation worked around the muscles of his face. "The lizards, the segment worms, the plants, worts, all their cycles were completely circular. They were born, grew up, reproduced, maybe took care of the kids a while, then died. Their only function was reproduction. Thats a pretty awful picture." He made an unintelligible face. Then, when I handed him the package, he was sure the card was in it. But it wasnt, went on Ian. He saw his only choice was to give me a situation where I might feel it was safe to admit having the card and the knowledge. He had to know about that, because Brian had called his bluff by going out and risking his neck after getting the card. The fact Brian was tried and executed later made no difference to Kenebuck. That was a matter of law—something apart from hoodlum guts, or lack of guts. If no one knew that Brian was braver than his older brother, that was all right; but if I knew, he could only save face under his own standards by killing me.” In the bathroom he plugged in his electric razor and examined his beard in the mirror. He was about to begin shaving when his razor spoke to him. useful modern form I started writing about eleven years ago, and my first published story won a Best First Story award in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine.Ive had fifteen (I think) stories published altogether—about three-quarters of my total output—most of them in British magazines and three in F&SF.I’m probably the slowest and least prolific writer working in any field, the chief reason being that I find it such darned hard graft. I love it, but it beats the stuffing out of me, which is why, questions of quality apart, I could never attempt it as a full-time career. . . . Please be civil, said the razor. Im trying to do you a service.” So turbulent evening settled on Jason Briar, Monica Ploy, the old stone castle, the ocean, the beach, the road, the guards, and the little shack. #5:At any given time recording devices fix the nature of absolute need and dictate the use of total weapons—like this: Take two opposed pressure groups. Record the most violent and threatening statements of group one with regard to group two. Record the answer and take it back to group one—backand forth between opposed pressure groups. This process is known as feed back. You can see it operating in any barroom quarrel—in any quarrel for that matter. Manipulated on a global scale feeds back nuclear war . . . Biev ignored the others statement. If there was no one here, ever, then a being could have made the tracks to the site and left. Only if there never had been a prisoner here. Gargarin didn’t have to answer. “But,” said Biev, as if further trying to confirm fact, “we know he was here. In these four theorems of logic, none can apply. Do you see that, Gargarin, none can apply!” Patrick no longer knew exactly what he meant by this routine, which he had started some years before, when he was the newest chemical patent attorney with Hope Chemicals. He had first been a chemist, but not a very good one, and then, after he and Lilas had got married, he had gone to law school at night. After he got his LLB he had discovered, with more fatalism than dismay, that he was not a very good lawyer, either. Yet, all was by no means lost. He was accepted by Hopes Patent Department. And not just barely accepted; he was accepted as an excellent chemical patent attorney. He found this incredible, but he did not fight it. And finally, he deliberately masked his supposed deficiencies; when he was in the company of chemists, he spoke as a lawyer, and when with lawyers, he was a chemist. And when with the chemical patent lawyers, he didnt mind being just a fifty-fifty chemist-lawyer. They had his problem, too, It was like group therapy. Patent lawyers had a profound sympathy for each other. Then he speaks, cries out: then with joy he takes his triumph at the other side of death, as one takes a great fish, as one completes a skilled and mighty task, rebalances at the end of some great daring leap; and as he used to saywe shot a fish he uses no “I”: Um-m-m, Hitchcock muttered. Tell me, Mr. Reese— what is it like to be the undisputed monarch of an entire solar system?”.
