Rogue in Space - Fredric Brown(1), ebook, Temp
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{\rtf0\mac\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0 \fnil Times New Roman;}}{\stylesheet{\s1 \ql \f0 \fs28 Normal;}{\s2 \sbasedon1 \qc \f0 \fs28 \b Header;}{\s3 \sbasedon1 \qc \sa 120 \f0 \fs24 Footer;}}{\info{\title Rogue in Space}{\author Fredric Brown}{\nofpages116}{\nofwords56102}{\nofchars246877}}\margl1440 \margr1440 \margt1080 \margb1080 \deftab2880 \ftnbj\sectd \sbknone \headery0 \footery0{\footer \pard \s3 \qc \sa120 \plain \fs24 \chpgn \par\par}\pard \s1 \qc \f0 \plain\fs28 \par\par\s2 \fs72 \i\b ROGUE IN SPACE\b0\i0\par\fs28 \parby\par\par\fs72 Fredric Brown\fs28 \par\s1\par\par\par\parVersion 1.1\par\parScanned and proofed by the_youngus\par\s1 \li0 \fi720 \ql \par\page\par\par\s2 \li0 \fi0 \qc \b ABOUT THE AUTHOR\b0\par\s1 \li0 \fi720 \ql \parFREDRIC BROWN was born in Cincinnati in 1906, and was educatedin the public schools of that city, and at Hanover College. Amonghis numerous successful novels are: \i The Screaming Mimi\i0 , \i The FarCry\i0 and \i Night of the Jabberwock\i0 . He is also well known for hisshort story collections, among them \i Nightmares and Geezenstacks\i0and \i Space on My Hands\i0 . He died in 1972 in Tucson, Arizona, wherehis wife, Elizabeth, still lives.\par\page\par\par\s2 \li0 \fi0 \qc \b CHAPTER ONE\b0\par\s1 \li0 \fi720 \ql \parCALL HIM by no name, for he had no name. He did not know themeaning of name, or of any other word. He had no language, forhe had never come into contact with any other living being inthe billions of light-years of space that he had traversed fromthe far rim of the galaxy, in the billions of years that it hadtaken him to make that journey. For all he knew or had ever knownhe was the only living being in the universe.\parHe had not been born, for there was no other like him. He wasa piece of rock a little over a mile in diameter, floating freein space. There are myriads of such small worlds but they aredead rock, inanimate matter. He was aware, and an entity. Anaccidental combination of atoms into molecules had made him aliving being. To our present knowledge such an accident has happenedonly twice in infinity and eternity; the other such event tookplace in the primeval ooze of Earth, where carbon atoms formedsentient life that multiplied and evolved.\parSpores from Earth had drifted across space and had seeded thetwo planets nearest to it, Mars and Venus, and when a millionyears later man had landed on those planets he found vegetablelife waiting for him there, but that vegetable life, althoughit had evolved quite differently from vegetable life as man knewit, had still originated on Earth. Nowhere but on earth had lifeoriginated to evolve and multiply.\parThe entity from the far side of the galaxy did not multiply.He remained unique and alone. Nor did he evolve except in thesense that his awareness and his knowledge grew. Without sensoryorgans, he learned to perceive the universe about him. Withoutlanguage, he learned to understand its principles and its mechanicsand how to make use of them to move through space freely, andto do many other things.\parCall him a thinking rock, a sentient planetoid.\parCall him a rogue, in the biological sense of the word rogue: anaccidental variation.\parCall him a rogue in space.\parHe roamed space but he did not search for other life, other consciousness,for he had long since assumed that none existed.\parHe was not lonely, for he had no concept of loneliness. He hadno concept of good and evil, for a lone being can know neither;morality arises only in our attitude toward others. He had noconcept of emotion, unless a desire to increase awareness andknowledge (we call it curiosity) can be called an emotion.\parNow, after billions of years \endash\endash but neither young nor old \endash\endashhe found himself nearing a small yellow sun that had nine planetscircling about it.\parThere are many such.\par\page\par\par\s2 \li0 \fi0 \qc \b CHAPTER TWO\b0\par\s1 \li0 \fi720 \ql \parCALL HIM Crag; it was the name he was using and it will serveas well as any name. He was a smuggler and a thief and a killer.He'd been a spaceman once and had a metal hand to show for it.That, and a taste for exotic liquors and a strong aversion forwork. Work would have been futile for him in any case; he wouldhave had to work a week, at anything but crime, to buy a singlebinge on even the cheapest of the nepenthes that alone made lifeworth living. He knew good from evil but cared not a grain ofMartian sand for either of them. He was not lonely for he hadmade himself self-sufficient by hating everyone.\parEspecially now, because they had him. And of all places herein Albuquerque, the center of the Federation and the toughestspot on five planets to beat a rap. Albuquerque, where justicewas more crooked than crime, where a criminal didn't have a chanceunless he belonged to the machine. Independent operators werenot wanted and did not last long. He should never have come here,but he'd been tipped to a sure thing and had taken a chance.He knew now that the tipster had been part of the machine andthat the tip had been a trap to entice him here. He hadn't evenhad time to case the job he'd come here to do \endash\endash if such ajob had existed at all except in the tipster's imagination. He'dbeen picked up leaving the airport and searched. Almost an ounceof \i nephthin\i0 had been found in his pocket, and it had reallybeen there, concealed in the false bottom of a pack of cigarettes.The cigarettes had been given him by the talkative cigarettesalesman who had sat next to him on the plane, as a free sampleof a new brand his company was introducing. \i Nephthin\i0 wasbad stuff; possession of it, however acquired, was a psychableoffense. It had been a perfect frame. They had him cold.\parThere was only one question left, and that was whether they'dgive him twenty in the penal colony on bleak Callisto or whetherthey'd send him to the psycher.\parHe sat on the cot in his cell and wondered which would happen.It made a big difference. Life in the penal colony might turnout to be better than no life at all and there would always bethe chance, however slender, of escape. But the thought of thepsycher was intolerable. Before he'd let them send him to thepsycher, he decided, he'd kill himself or get himself killed tryingto escape.\parDeath was something you could look in the face and laugh at.But not the psycher. Not the way Crag looked at it. The electricchair of a few centuries before merely killed you; the psycherdid something much worse than that. It \i adjusted\i0 you, unlessit drove you crazy. Statistically, one time out of nine it droveyou stark mad, and for this reason it was used only in extremecases, for crimes that would have been punishable by death backin the days of capital punishment. And even for such crimes,including \i nephthin\i0 possession, it was not mandatory; thejudge chose between it and the alternative maximum sentence oftwenty years on Callisto. Crag shuddered at the thought thatif the psycher ever were perfected, if that one chance out ofnine of being lucky were eliminated, it would probably be mademandatory for much lesser crimes.\parWhen the psycher worked, it made you normal. It made you normalby removing from your mind all the memories and experiences whichhad led you into aberration from the norm. \i All\i0 your memoriesand experiences, the good ones as well as the bad.\parAfter the psycher, you started from scratch as far as personalitywas concerned. You remembered your skills; you knew how to talkand feed yourself, and if you'd known how to use a slide ruleor play a flute you still knew how to use a slide rule or playa flute.\parBut you didn't remember your name unless they told you. And youdidn't remember the time you were tortured for three days andtwo nights on Venus before the rest of the crew found you andtook you away from the animated vegetables who didn't like meatin any form and particularly in human form. You didn't rememberthe time you were spacemad or the time you had to go nine dayswithout water. You didn't remember anything that had ever happenedto you.\parYou started from scratch, a different person.\parAnd while Crag could face dying, he could not and would not facethe thought of his body walking around afterwards, animated bya well-adjusted stranger whose very guts he would hate. If necessaryhe'd kill that well-adjusted stranger by killing, before the strangercould take it over, the body which the stranger would make doand think things that Crag would never do or think.\parHe knew that he could do it, but it would not be easy; the weaponhe carried was better adapted to killing others than to suicide.It takes a lot of courage to kill oneself with a bludgeon.\parEven so efficient a bludgeon as Crag's metal left hand. Lookingat that hand, no one had ever guessed that it weighed twelve poundsinstead of a few ounces. Since the metal was flesh colored, onehad to look closely to see that it was an artificial hand at all.If one did notice, since all artificial members had for overa century been made of duralloy, one assumed that Crag's handwas similarly made. Duralloy is a fraction of the weight of magnesium,not much heavier than balsa wood. And Crag's hand \i was\i0duralloy on the outside, but it was reinforced with steel andheavily weighted with lead. Not a hand you'd want to be slappedin the face with, even lightly. But long practice and con... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
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{\rtf0\mac\deff0{\fonttbl{\f0 \fnil Times New Roman;}}{\stylesheet{\s1 \ql \f0 \fs28 Normal;}{\s2 \sbasedon1 \qc \f0 \fs28 \b Header;}{\s3 \sbasedon1 \qc \sa 120 \f0 \fs24 Footer;}}{\info{\title Rogue in Space}{\author Fredric Brown}{\nofpages116}{\nofwords56102}{\nofchars246877}}\margl1440 \margr1440 \margt1080 \margb1080 \deftab2880 \ftnbj\sectd \sbknone \headery0 \footery0{\footer \pard \s3 \qc \sa120 \plain \fs24 \chpgn \par\par}\pard \s1 \qc \f0 \plain\fs28 \par\par\s2 \fs72 \i\b ROGUE IN SPACE\b0\i0\par\fs28 \parby\par\par\fs72 Fredric Brown\fs28 \par\s1\par\par\par\parVersion 1.1\par\parScanned and proofed by the_youngus\par\s1 \li0 \fi720 \ql \par\page\par\par\s2 \li0 \fi0 \qc \b ABOUT THE AUTHOR\b0\par\s1 \li0 \fi720 \ql \parFREDRIC BROWN was born in Cincinnati in 1906, and was educatedin the public schools of that city, and at Hanover College. Amonghis numerous successful novels are: \i The Screaming Mimi\i0 , \i The FarCry\i0 and \i Night of the Jabberwock\i0 . He is also well known for hisshort story collections, among them \i Nightmares and Geezenstacks\i0and \i Space on My Hands\i0 . He died in 1972 in Tucson, Arizona, wherehis wife, Elizabeth, still lives.\par\page\par\par\s2 \li0 \fi0 \qc \b CHAPTER ONE\b0\par\s1 \li0 \fi720 \ql \parCALL HIM by no name, for he had no name. He did not know themeaning of name, or of any other word. He had no language, forhe had never come into contact with any other living being inthe billions of light-years of space that he had traversed fromthe far rim of the galaxy, in the billions of years that it hadtaken him to make that journey. For all he knew or had ever knownhe was the only living being in the universe.\parHe had not been born, for there was no other like him. He wasa piece of rock a little over a mile in diameter, floating freein space. There are myriads of such small worlds but they aredead rock, inanimate matter. He was aware, and an entity. Anaccidental combination of atoms into molecules had made him aliving being. To our present knowledge such an accident has happenedonly twice in infinity and eternity; the other such event tookplace in the primeval ooze of Earth, where carbon atoms formedsentient life that multiplied and evolved.\parSpores from Earth had drifted across space and had seeded thetwo planets nearest to it, Mars and Venus, and when a millionyears later man had landed on those planets he found vegetablelife waiting for him there, but that vegetable life, althoughit had evolved quite differently from vegetable life as man knewit, had still originated on Earth. Nowhere but on earth had lifeoriginated to evolve and multiply.\parThe entity from the far side of the galaxy did not multiply.He remained unique and alone. Nor did he evolve except in thesense that his awareness and his knowledge grew. Without sensoryorgans, he learned to perceive the universe about him. Withoutlanguage, he learned to understand its principles and its mechanicsand how to make use of them to move through space freely, andto do many other things.\parCall him a thinking rock, a sentient planetoid.\parCall him a rogue, in the biological sense of the word rogue: anaccidental variation.\parCall him a rogue in space.\parHe roamed space but he did not search for other life, other consciousness,for he had long since assumed that none existed.\parHe was not lonely, for he had no concept of loneliness. He hadno concept of good and evil, for a lone being can know neither;morality arises only in our attitude toward others. He had noconcept of emotion, unless a desire to increase awareness andknowledge (we call it curiosity) can be called an emotion.\parNow, after billions of years \endash\endash but neither young nor old \endash\endashhe found himself nearing a small yellow sun that had nine planetscircling about it.\parThere are many such.\par\page\par\par\s2 \li0 \fi0 \qc \b CHAPTER TWO\b0\par\s1 \li0 \fi720 \ql \parCALL HIM Crag; it was the name he was using and it will serveas well as any name. He was a smuggler and a thief and a killer.He'd been a spaceman once and had a metal hand to show for it.That, and a taste for exotic liquors and a strong aversion forwork. Work would have been futile for him in any case; he wouldhave had to work a week, at anything but crime, to buy a singlebinge on even the cheapest of the nepenthes that alone made lifeworth living. He knew good from evil but cared not a grain ofMartian sand for either of them. He was not lonely for he hadmade himself self-sufficient by hating everyone.\parEspecially now, because they had him. And of all places herein Albuquerque, the center of the Federation and the toughestspot on five planets to beat a rap. Albuquerque, where justicewas more crooked than crime, where a criminal didn't have a chanceunless he belonged to the machine. Independent operators werenot wanted and did not last long. He should never have come here,but he'd been tipped to a sure thing and had taken a chance.He knew now that the tipster had been part of the machine andthat the tip had been a trap to entice him here. He hadn't evenhad time to case the job he'd come here to do \endash\endash if such ajob had existed at all except in the tipster's imagination. He'dbeen picked up leaving the airport and searched. Almost an ounceof \i nephthin\i0 had been found in his pocket, and it had reallybeen there, concealed in the false bottom of a pack of cigarettes.The cigarettes had been given him by the talkative cigarettesalesman who had sat next to him on the plane, as a free sampleof a new brand his company was introducing. \i Nephthin\i0 wasbad stuff; possession of it, however acquired, was a psychableoffense. It had been a perfect frame. They had him cold.\parThere was only one question left, and that was whether they'dgive him twenty in the penal colony on bleak Callisto or whetherthey'd send him to the psycher.\parHe sat on the cot in his cell and wondered which would happen.It made a big difference. Life in the penal colony might turnout to be better than no life at all and there would always bethe chance, however slender, of escape. But the thought of thepsycher was intolerable. Before he'd let them send him to thepsycher, he decided, he'd kill himself or get himself killed tryingto escape.\parDeath was something you could look in the face and laugh at.But not the psycher. Not the way Crag looked at it. The electricchair of a few centuries before merely killed you; the psycherdid something much worse than that. It \i adjusted\i0 you, unlessit drove you crazy. Statistically, one time out of nine it droveyou stark mad, and for this reason it was used only in extremecases, for crimes that would have been punishable by death backin the days of capital punishment. And even for such crimes,including \i nephthin\i0 possession, it was not mandatory; thejudge chose between it and the alternative maximum sentence oftwenty years on Callisto. Crag shuddered at the thought thatif the psycher ever were perfected, if that one chance out ofnine of being lucky were eliminated, it would probably be mademandatory for much lesser crimes.\parWhen the psycher worked, it made you normal. It made you normalby removing from your mind all the memories and experiences whichhad led you into aberration from the norm. \i All\i0 your memoriesand experiences, the good ones as well as the bad.\parAfter the psycher, you started from scratch as far as personalitywas concerned. You remembered your skills; you knew how to talkand feed yourself, and if you'd known how to use a slide ruleor play a flute you still knew how to use a slide rule or playa flute.\parBut you didn't remember your name unless they told you. And youdidn't remember the time you were tortured for three days andtwo nights on Venus before the rest of the crew found you andtook you away from the animated vegetables who didn't like meatin any form and particularly in human form. You didn't rememberthe time you were spacemad or the time you had to go nine dayswithout water. You didn't remember anything that had ever happenedto you.\parYou started from scratch, a different person.\parAnd while Crag could face dying, he could not and would not facethe thought of his body walking around afterwards, animated bya well-adjusted stranger whose very guts he would hate. If necessaryhe'd kill that well-adjusted stranger by killing, before the strangercould take it over, the body which the stranger would make doand think things that Crag would never do or think.\parHe knew that he could do it, but it would not be easy; the weaponhe carried was better adapted to killing others than to suicide.It takes a lot of courage to kill oneself with a bludgeon.\parEven so efficient a bludgeon as Crag's metal left hand. Lookingat that hand, no one had ever guessed that it weighed twelve poundsinstead of a few ounces. Since the metal was flesh colored, onehad to look closely to see that it was an artificial hand at all.If one did notice, since all artificial members had for overa century been made of duralloy, one assumed that Crag's handwas similarly made. Duralloy is a fraction of the weight of magnesium,not much heavier than balsa wood. And Crag's hand \i was\i0duralloy on the outside, but it was reinforced with steel andheavily weighted with lead. Not a hand you'd want to be slappedin the face with, even lightly. But long practice and con... [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]