home, known affectionately as "Old John" ... to the android showroom where they had seen the one that Dad said looked like Mother....
He jolted suddenly, sickeningly awake. Suppose, his mind whispered treacherously, suppose that Dad had ordered one to take Mom’s place ... not on Mars, but here while she returned to Mars with him. Suppose that instead of Mom he discovered one of those Things ... or even worse, suppose he went on from day to day not even knowing....
It was a bad five minutes; he was wet with perspiration when he lay back on his pillows, a shaky smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He had a secret defense against the Terror. He giggled a little at the thought of what Aunt Bee would say if she knew.
And what had brought him back from the edge of hysteria was the triumphant knowledge that with the abnormally acute hearing bred in the thin atmosphere of Mars, no robot ever created could hide from him the infinitesimal ticking of the electronic relays that gave it life. Secure at last, his overstrung nerves relaxed and he slid gratefully over the edge of sleep.
He woke abruptly, groping after some vaguely remembered sound. A soft clicking of heels down the hall.... Of course, his mother back from the Spaceport! Now she would be stopping at his door to see if he were asleep. He lay silently; through his eyelashes he could see her outlined in the soft light from the hall. She was coming in to see if he was tucked in. In a moment he would jump up and startle her with a hug, as she leaned over him. In a moment....
Screaming desperately, he was out of bed, backing heedlessly across the room. He was still screaming as the low sill of the open window caught him behind the knees and toppled him thirty stories to the street.
Alone in the silent room, Helen Benton stood dazed, staring blindly at the empty window.
Tommy’s parting gift from his father slid from her hand and lay on the carpet, still ticking gently.
It was 9:23 on Mars.
Gorgono and Slith
by Ray Bradbury
"Let us, by all means, be lucid," said Gorgono to Slith. Slith fluttered his reptile tongue and turned his morbid eyes to me. "Yes," he said, "let us, certainly be lucid, Bradbury. From now on use a contents page in Futuria Fantasia." And he spanked his tail slickly on my typewriter.
I don’t mind Slith so much, he’s only a little anachronistic reptile, a descendent of happier days in dinosaurial dawndom. I never feared Slith. But Gorgono!
Gorgono pierced me with his slanting green, clear eyes, heavy-lidded, extending one claw and attempting to keep it from shaking while his pointed ears stood up straight. A moment before he had been hunting fleas in the fertile hair that clothed his muscular limbs, but now he was serious; so very serious it frightened me.
And when the thunder-voiced, evil-eyed, shaggy haired and monstrous Gorgono reclined on the shelf over my head, saliva drooling with silent precision from his pendulous lips, and gave orders I hastened to obey them. Gorgono was the voice of the critics—the ogre of opinion, the harsh guttural commandment of style and fashion. And now Gorgono had grumbled, "Number your pages from now on, MISTER Bradbury or else YOUR number’ll be up. Why, Gad, man, the last issue of Futuria Fantasia I didn’t know if I was coming or going, the way you heiroglyphed the sheets. And I might add, you’re going to use even margins from here on in."
"Okay, okay, okay," I said, slinking with flushed visage behind my stencils. "But from now on Futuria Fantasia will be ten cents straight an issue. Ten cents straight."
"Agreed," snapped Gorgono, "if you are neater. But you must be new, neotiric, different." Then I flashed them the newly processed cover done by Bok. "Gods!" bellowed Gorgono. "That is stupendous! A fine beginning, mortal, a very fine beginning!" Slith agreed by pounding vigorously on the table with his scaly rump.
"And wait until you read Monroe’s yarn," I jubilantly exclaimed. "It’s not science-fiction, but it’s certainly a fine bit of story."
"Yes," said Gorgono, "this issue looks much better. Glad to see you’ve added two new authors, Damon Knight and Joe Kelleam from Astounding. I’ll have to remind the fans to send in their dimes for this issue and perhaps support you a little more than they have with letters. But we’ll see about that." He got up, stretched, yawned, and vanished in a belching ball of flame.
"Yes," said Slith, "we’ll see!" And he too vanished with a sharp pop. All was quiet. I went back to my stencils and my opium.
The Eyes Have It
by Philip K. Dick
A little whimsy, now and then, makes for good balance. Theoretically, you could find this type of humor anywhere. But only a topflight science-fictionist, we thought, could have written this story, in just this way….
It was quite by accident I discovered this incredible invasion of Earth by lifeforms from another planet. As yet, I haven’t done anything about it; I can’t think of anything to do. I wrote to the Government, and they sent back a pamphlet on the repair and maintenance of frame houses. Anyhow, the whole thing is known; I’m not the first to discover it. Maybe it’s even under control.
I was sitting in my easy-chair, idly turning the pages of a paperbacked book someone had left on the bus, when I came across the reference that first put me on the trail. For a moment I didn’t respond. It took some time for the full import to sink in. After I’d comprehended, it seemed odd I hadn’t noticed it right away.
The reference was clearly to a nonhuman species of incredible properties, not indigenous to Earth. A species, I hasten to point out, customarily masquerading as ordinary human beings. Their disguise, however, became transparent in the face of the following observations by the author. It was at once obvious the author knew everything. Knew everything?—?and was taking it in his stride. The line (and I tremble remembering it even now) read:
… his eyes slowly roved about the room.
Vague chills assailed me. I tried to picture the eyes. Did they roll like dimes? The passage indicated not; they seemed to move through the air, not over the surface. Rather rapidly, apparently. No one in the story was surprised. That’s what tipped me off. No sign of amazement at such an outrageous thing. Later the matter was amplified.
… his eyes moved from person to person.
There it was in a nutshell. The eyes had clearly come apart from the rest of him and were on their own. My heart pounded and my breath choked in my windpipe. I had stumbled on an accidental mention of a totally unfamiliar race. Obviously non-Terrestrial. Yet, to the characters in the book, it was perfectly natural?—?which suggested they belonged to the same species.
And the author? A slow suspicion burned in my mind. The author was taking it rather too easily in his stride. Evidently, he felt this was quite a usual thing. He made absolutely no attempt to conceal this knowledge. The story continued:
… presently his eyes fastened on Julia.
Julia, being a lady, had at least the breeding to feel indignant. She is described as blushing and knitting her brows angrily. At this, I sighed with relief. They weren’t all non-Terrestrials. The narrative continues:
… slowly, calmly, his eyes examined every inch of her.
Great
