The Reproductive System (Gollancz SF Library) by John Sladek Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: John Sladek
knives of pretty women’s scorn. Cal was in no condition to do anything like rational thinking. For if he had been, there was one question he surely would have asked himself :
How was it a system as intelligent, as adaptable, as clever at self-protection as this one was supposed to be had given up almost without a fight?
THE BOXES THAT ATE ALTOONA
‘I have taught my gears to talk
Nicky-nicky Poop, tic-toc.’
L OUIS S ACCHETTI (attrib.)
‘Of Altoona, Nevada, lying quite near Parsnip Peak (8,905 ft.) and not far from Railroad Valley, where no railroads run, I sing,’ wrote Mary Junes Beele on her husband’s L. C. Smith typewriter. Below it, she typed asterisks : a row of posies. The swollen belly of her thumb pressed the space bar.
From the next room came the clanking of a hand press. Editor Barthemo Beele was running off the second edition of the
Altoona Weekly Truth, His hand
, she thought,
that rocks the cradle
… Mary cursed the paper and she cursed the paper’s editor, her husband of one week.
The keys of the typewriter, she saw, were like black cough drops. Black cough drops were not to be had in Altoona. One of the typewriter’s keys had broken one of Mary’s nails. She began to chew it off, cursing everything she could think of—especially cursing Altoona. If that sailor did not take her away soon, she was going to die of this town. As she bit into another nail spitefully, contrary Mary cursed her rotten luck.
Altoona, too, had an unlucky history. In 1903, it had been the sole supplier of reuttite to the entire Western Hemisphere. Reuttite was of course that metal which made the best, most brilliant, longest-lasting gas mantles. There was no other known use for reuttite.
On Park Avenue in Altoona, the magnates of four different railroads had made their homes beside those of dozens of mine-owners and speculators. They’d built great white carpentered castles, gothic dreams in scrollwork and gingerbread, with bow windows, mullions, heart-shaped arches, wandering ivy and brave towers. The earth was shot through with old mine
tunnels, so that now most of these heavy homes had sunk into it. Park Avenue was mainly a row of rusty fences and weedy lots. Occasionally one might glimpse through the hollyhocks a tower, its conical hat askew.
Only two of these curios still stood firm. Both were grey, trailing the dirty lace of their porches, swaybacked, pot-bellied and senile. One of them, after its ruined owner had flung himself in front of one of his own trains, had been converted into a warehouse. It now held all the reuttite mantles produced between 1904 and 1929—nearly all the reuttite there was, and representing 25 years of attempts to find some use for it other than gas mantles.
The other house was still, as it had always been, the Smilax house. Phineas Smilax, the first and only president of the Gardnerville, Fernley and New York Railway (‘Route of Reuttite’), had invested heavily in the mineral. He had hoped that, as he and Altoona grew richer, the line would actually extend as far east as New York City.
Phineas began building his railroad line in 1885. The work progressed slowly, and this was in part due to certain peculiarities in his hiring policies. Orders existed to fire any man caught beating a horse, drowning a kitten, or tying a can to a dog’s tail. He further refused the coolie labour his competitors relied upon, preferring instead bible students, who sang, at his request, hymns while they worked. His favourite hymn was
The Celestial Railroad
. Despite his paying them the then-lavish wage of one dollar an hour, the students were so poorly suited to this work that progress was measured at first in feet per month, then in inches. By 1913, his empire stretched from Altoona to Warm Springs, a fifty-eight-mile vista of sagebrush which he inspected daily in his private car.
This car was the only luxury Phineas permitted himself, for he believed in moderation in all things.
How was it a system as intelligent, as adaptable, as clever at self-protection as this one was supposed to be had given up almost without a fight?
THE BOXES THAT ATE ALTOONA
‘I have taught my gears to talk
Nicky-nicky Poop, tic-toc.’
L OUIS S ACCHETTI (attrib.)
‘Of Altoona, Nevada, lying quite near Parsnip Peak (8,905 ft.) and not far from Railroad Valley, where no railroads run, I sing,’ wrote Mary Junes Beele on her husband’s L. C. Smith typewriter. Below it, she typed asterisks : a row of posies. The swollen belly of her thumb pressed the space bar.
From the next room came the clanking of a hand press. Editor Barthemo Beele was running off the second edition of the
Altoona Weekly Truth, His hand
, she thought,
that rocks the cradle
… Mary cursed the paper and she cursed the paper’s editor, her husband of one week.
The keys of the typewriter, she saw, were like black cough drops. Black cough drops were not to be had in Altoona. One of the typewriter’s keys had broken one of Mary’s nails. She began to chew it off, cursing everything she could think of—especially cursing Altoona. If that sailor did not take her away soon, she was going to die of this town. As she bit into another nail spitefully, contrary Mary cursed her rotten luck.
Altoona, too, had an unlucky history. In 1903, it had been the sole supplier of reuttite to the entire Western Hemisphere. Reuttite was of course that metal which made the best, most brilliant, longest-lasting gas mantles. There was no other known use for reuttite.
On Park Avenue in Altoona, the magnates of four different railroads had made their homes beside those of dozens of mine-owners and speculators. They’d built great white carpentered castles, gothic dreams in scrollwork and gingerbread, with bow windows, mullions, heart-shaped arches, wandering ivy and brave towers. The earth was shot through with old mine
tunnels, so that now most of these heavy homes had sunk into it. Park Avenue was mainly a row of rusty fences and weedy lots. Occasionally one might glimpse through the hollyhocks a tower, its conical hat askew.
Only two of these curios still stood firm. Both were grey, trailing the dirty lace of their porches, swaybacked, pot-bellied and senile. One of them, after its ruined owner had flung himself in front of one of his own trains, had been converted into a warehouse. It now held all the reuttite mantles produced between 1904 and 1929—nearly all the reuttite there was, and representing 25 years of attempts to find some use for it other than gas mantles.
The other house was still, as it had always been, the Smilax house. Phineas Smilax, the first and only president of the Gardnerville, Fernley and New York Railway (‘Route of Reuttite’), had invested heavily in the mineral. He had hoped that, as he and Altoona grew richer, the line would actually extend as far east as New York City.
Phineas began building his railroad line in 1885. The work progressed slowly, and this was in part due to certain peculiarities in his hiring policies. Orders existed to fire any man caught beating a horse, drowning a kitten, or tying a can to a dog’s tail. He further refused the coolie labour his competitors relied upon, preferring instead bible students, who sang, at his request, hymns while they worked. His favourite hymn was
The Celestial Railroad
. Despite his paying them the then-lavish wage of one dollar an hour, the students were so poorly suited to this work that progress was measured at first in feet per month, then in inches. By 1913, his empire stretched from Altoona to Warm Springs, a fifty-eight-mile vista of sagebrush which he inspected daily in his private car.
This car was the only luxury Phineas permitted himself, for he believed in moderation in all things.
Similar Books
Screw the Universe
Stephen Schwegler, Eirik Gumeny
Deep Black
Stephen Coonts; Jim Defelice
Sinful Suspense Box Set
Tess Oliver
Night's Landing
Carla Neggers
Unexpected
Marie Tuhart
Safe Word
Teresa Mummert
The Last Best Place
John Demont
