6/15/2023 0 Comments Broken age golden eggBrains they were, armored in a substance indestructible by anything less powerful than the heat of the mightiest of suns or by the supercosmic forces each could unleash at will.īut there was no will. Everything was done for them automatically each was self-sufficient and uncooperative. The beings could move as and if they wished, through air or time or space. What was unnecessary was discarded, and what could be conceivably desirable was attained, until all that was left was a few thousand glittering golden ovoids, supermental casings, functionally streamlined, beautiful and bored. The refinement went on endlessly, as occasional flashes of initiative appeared down through the ages. It was a mighty race, a powerful race, a most highly civilized race, and-a sterile race. And as the death of an inhabitant became more rare, rarer still became the advent of new life. Limbs were not and wasted away from long-lived, lazy bodies, and were replaced, redesigned, or forgotten. There were therefore no frontiers, no goals, no incentives, and eventually no possible achievements, save one-the race itself, and the changes possible to it. There was no struggle and no discomfort and no disease. For many aeons there were members set apart to care for the machines, but in time they died out, for they were no longer needed. Their sciences fed them, and controlled the etheric currents that gave them comfort, and carried them from place to place, and taught them, and cared for them in every way. He spoke little of his planet because he hated it. His planet had an atmosphere and a great civilization and science beyond humanity’s most profound visions. Though we can never know where his world lay in space, we know that it was in a system of two mighty suns, one blue and one yellow. He had lived so long on that world that even he could not remember what he had been before his science changed his race. He left his world so long before he came to earth that even he did not know how long he had been in space. WHEN time itself was half its present age, and at an unthinkable distance, and in an unknowable dimension born. But don’t be perfect!"Īn e-book of this most thought-provoking little fable is available for downloading below. Be a little stupid all the time and very stupid once in a while. – "A woman can’t possibly love a man unless he’s part dope. – “I found it possible to change his attitude toward work, but to change his diction was beyond even me.” Would-bes and has-beens are known as outrages. – He was the "rage," which is a term used in polite society to describe current successes. When she was not all mouth she was all ears. I’m goin’ to Springfield, I’ll get a job or somethin’, boss!" The words burned his mouth as he said them, but this was an emergency and he had to say something. "Gee, boss, I wasn’t doin’ nothin’, honest I wasn’t. "Ho-o-o-o-owe-e-e-e!" he howled, trying sustained tones from low to high pitch. Ra," he said, testing the possibilities of linguals, gutturals, sibilants, palatals, labials, singly and in combination. "A-a-a-gh-ha-agh!" He listened to himself, enchanted by this new way of expressing himself. He was thinking of the sheriff’s remark that next time he was run in the sheriff would pin a murder on him if he had to kill one of his deputies to do it. – “I got to find me another town," he decided. – “When he reached her he found her jumping up and down and clapping her hands and gurgling, "I told you so! I told you so!" which is the most annoying thing any woman can say to any man". Campbell, editor of the leading s-f magazine of the time, Astounding Science-Fiction), in spite of its mainstream s-f character.Įxamples of the literary qualities of this quite exceptional text are the following gems (and there are others!): This clever, amusing, quite timeless little masterpiece was sort of hidden away from mainstream currents from the start, appearing in the August 1941 issue of the short-lived (1939-1943) fantasy magazine Unknown (edited by the celebrated John W. This quite wonderful exploration of man-woman relationships by an enormously superior being from another dimension of space-time will for sure have you chuckling and nodding in agreement throughout, and admiring the skill and talent of Theodore Sturgeon in his initial and possibly most creative period in the early forties, just before taking a break of several years before embarking on other s-f directions.
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