ANOTHER MAN'S POISON
by Paul Stewart
“Starting accelerator circuits. All personnel please leave the test area.”
Under the command of a heavy metallic voice, dozens of figures, clad in shiny coveralls, darted and disappeared into various recesses in the walls of the circular room. A many-toned hum climbed up and up the scale. The air was rich with energy. Unseen eyes focused on an object raised on a pedestal in the middle of the floor; a simple black cube exactly one rand in weight and one and one-half sions in length on each side. The air about the cube began to glow and ionize. As the whine neared the ultrasonic threshold, the pedestal became lost to sight within a cloud of vapor.
Suddenly a hammer came down on the world. With a massive roar the tiny cloud collapsed upon itself and was gone. A much larger cloud simultaneously billowed into existence near the domed ceiling and unceremoniously released a shower of rocks and dirt upon the empty pedestal below.
Silver figures raced into the chamber and milled and fussed over the scattered debris, symbol of the very first interdLmensional tele- portation in the recorded nistory of the planet Llaro.
It had been known for :ome time that other iimensions existed. A clue to their access was fforded by certain ,nomalies in the hearts rf stars which seemed to ass much more than they hould. The result was :hat the stars either collapsed upon themselves or swelled and exploded leaving a massive gravity rink in their place.
'nis collection of odd- ities, upon closer inspection, was finally cxplained by their being
focal,points of galactic {'
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electromagnetic waves. 50 the theories went from there. ,
And it had worked! A
gring of mighty electro-
magnets could produce the necessary “hole” through
7 which the interdimensional
game of “put-and-take” could be played.
Plans were already in the works for a manned capsule which could with- stand the forces of magnetic stress.
However, it was to be proven again that greed and promise of rewarding adventure could corrupt even the sturdiest and most patient of scientific minds. These two particular examples of corruption, Aloc and‘ Evid, knew too well the fates of those who developed Such marvels. They would,be relegated to a cozy spot on the Science Council and a fat pension. But this bordered on anonymity compared to the rewards of the relatively mindless clods whose sole functionr it would be to ride the. capsule into the new dimension, collect a few things as could trained dogs, and return. Even the problem of return was no more a chore to them than that of assembling a nursery puzzle. The prefabricated units of the electromagnet would be sent with the ship. Zap! Instant heroes!
Well not this time.
Aloc and Evid would be the first to build and the first to ride. Traitorous as it was, they knew themselves to be in no‘ danger. After all, who would shoot world-wide heroes? And geniuses at that? ~
So it was that late into the night two silver figures passed through the guard stations into the circular chamber. Having pre-set the controls of the magnetic field generators, the two renegade scientists sealed themselves inside the tall rod-shaped craft perched'
STEPSON
by Judy Whitehead
I sit, listening to the children playing in the barn on a Sunday afternoon. i can hear them all laughing . » and that gives me real pleasure, because today for the first time Matthew came
to stay. i like him.
to stay.
He's tall and gangling,
arms and legs too long to cope with, trying
so hard to be a man.
So he swigs beer from a bottle, and spills it
down his T-shirt,
\
tries political jokes then fluffs the final time. ’
He resents me, I understand that.
He is only fourteen, I am almost forty; i am the new Wife.
the son,
he is
I should try not to worry as i sit listening to
the children
but i want him to accept me, and I don't
know what to say.
fi\,
pedestal in the centre of the floor. '
The preliminaries were attended to. The two scientists took a last‘ i look about the room through their view holes, shot a wild glance at one another, grinned, and threw the final switches.
The hum rose fast. The room outside became lost behind a wall of bluish mist all about them. The cabin bristled with static charge despite the shields.
A thousand hammers came down on the world and all was dark.
Aloc and Evid awoke to a multitude of brightly flashing controls and the sounds of alarms. Their ship swam and tossed in- what their sensors told them was a dark hot sea of hydrochloric acid....
Joe Bronowski looked around the construction site, sweating profusely He was searching for the nearest toilet trailer.
He was feeling very, very ill. Racing for the ,distant white door, discarding his hard hat
and grabbing at his belt, he belched and bloated with the worst attack of gas he hadgever experienced Minutes later, feeling / some relief and minus a stomach-full of trouble, Joe was approached by one of his co-workers.
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You looked mighty green,
for a while there.” “Can't understand it,”
raSped Joe, working his
Ithroat with his hand.
“Never been that sick before. Came on real fast. And it hurt like hell
V when it came up, too.
Felt like I was tossin' up~steel!”
'Madda ya think brought it on?“ prompted the other. '
“Dunno. I felt fine all day. Strange thing.”
"Not.as strange as what I saw about a week and a' half ago," added a third worker coming up to the ' pair and leaning on his' shovel. "l was sittin" near the foundation there» eating lunch when a little ness of dirt disappeared: not an inch away from my foot. Damnedest thing I ever saw.”
Somewhere in the sewerf system of Metro Toronto float the minute corpses
of two brilliant scientists, driven t0' disaster by their over- powering greed. ' ‘ Somewhere in another dimension, on a planet called Claro, frantic rescue workers struggle to free survivors from the wreckage of the Science and Technology Station #37, completely buried under a monolithic mass of semi-digested I tuna fish sandwiches,
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