William Shakespeare - "Der Kaufmann von Venedig"

Paul W. Fairman - "Ten From Infinity"

William Henry Gladstone - "The Hawarden Visitors' Hand Book"

Harriet E. Paine (AKA E. Chester} - "Girls and Women"

Annual Bibliography of Commonwealth Literature 2007
This paper argues that discourses of love in Ghanaian market literature for youth offer a view into complex negotiations of agency and empowerment. Drawing on Deborah Durham's notion of youth as "social `shifters'" and Francis Nyamnjoh's conception of the "interconnectedness" of agency, I take Ghanaian market literature as one specific case of how African literature for youth foregrounds questions of continuity and change as African societies enter into increasingly complex global relations. In this literature for youth, received notions of love, often constructed out of impressions from American pop and hip hop music, carry new notions of agency that compete with existing "domesticated" forms. Authors like Ike Tandoh and Evelyn Tay employ discourses of love to offer youth alternative avenues for empowerment in a context of socio-economic disenfranchizement. In a creative process of "straddling", this writing both reveals and reproduces the contradictions that obtain in youth configurations of agency.

Spacehounds of IPC

E >> Edward Elmer Smith >> Spacehounds of IPC




"There's all the dope I can give you. Figure it out, and don't come at
all until you can come loaded for bear; they're bad medicine. Call us
occasionally, to keep us informed as to when to expect you, but don't
call too often. We don't want them locating you, and if they should
locate us through your ray or ours, it would be just too bad. So-long.
Stevens and Newton."

Nadia had insisted upon staying up and had been brewing pot after pot
of her substitutes for coffee while he sat at the key; and it was
almost daylight when he finally shut off the power and arose, his
right arm practically paralyzed from the unaccustomed strain of hours
of telegraphing.

"Well, sweetheart, that's that!" he exclaimed in relief. "Brandon and
Westfall are on the job. Nothing to do now but wait, and study up on our
own account on those Jovians' rays. This has been one long day for us,
though, little ace, and I suggest that we sleep for about a week!"




CHAPTER VIII

Callisto to the Rescue


All humanity of Callisto, the fourth major satellite of Jupiter,
had for many years been waging a desperate and apparently hopeless
defense against invading hordes of six-limbed beings. Every city and
town had long since been reduced to level fields of lava by the rays
of the invaders. Every building and every trace of human civilization
had long since disappeared from the surface of the satellite. Far
below the surface lay the city of Zbardk, the largest of the few
remaining strongholds of the human race. At one portal of the city a
torpedo-shaped, stubby-winged rocket plane rested in the carriage of a
catapult. Near it the captain addressed briefly the six men normally
composing his crew.

"Men, you already know that our cruise today is not an ordinary patrol.
We are to go to One, there to destroy a base of the hexans. We have
perhaps one chance in ten thousand of returning. Therefore I am taking
only one man--barely enough to operate the plane. Volunteers step one
pace forward."

The six stepped forward as one man, and a smile came over the worn
face of their leader as he watched them draw lots for the privilege of
accompanying him to probable death. The two men entered the body of the
torpedo, sealed the openings and waited.

"Free exits?" snapped the Captain of the Portal, and twelve keen-eyed
observers studied minutely screens and instrument panels connected to
the powerful automatic lookout stations beneath the rims of the widely
separated volcanic craters from which their craft could issue into
Callisto's somber night.

"No hexan radiation can be detected from Exit Eight," came the report.
The Captain of the Portal raised an arm in warning, threw in the guides,
and the two passengers were hurled violently backward, deep into their
cushioned seats, as the catapult shot their plane down the runway. As
the catapult's force was spent automatic trips upon the undercarriage
actuated the propelling rockets and mile after mile, with rapidly
mounting velocity, the plane sped through the tube. As the exit was
approached, the tunnel described a long vertical curve, so that when the
opening into the shaft of the crater was reached and the undercarriage
was automatically detached, the vessel was projected almost vertically
upward. Such was its velocity and so powerful was the liquid propellant
of its rocket motors, that the eye could not follow the flight of the
warship as it tore through the thin layer of the atmosphere and hurled
itself out into the depths of space.

"Did we get away?" asked the captain, hands upon his controls and eyes
upon his moving chart of space.

"I believe so, sir," answered the other officer, at the screens of the
six periscopic devices which covered the full sphere of vision. "No
reports from the rim, and all screens blank." Once more a vessel had
issued from the jealously secret city of Zbardk without betraying its
existence to the hated and feared hexans.

For a time the terrific rocket motors continued the deafening roar of
their continuous explosions, then, the desired velocity having been
attained, they were cut out and for hours the good ship "Bzark" hurtled
on through the void at an enormous but constant speed toward the distant
world of One, which it was destined never to reach.

"Captain Czuv! Hexan radiation, coordinates twenty two, fourteen, area
six!" cried the observer, and the commander swung his own telescopic
finder into the indicated region. His hands played over course and
distance plotters for a brief minute, and he stared at his results in
astonishment.

"I never heard of a hexan traveling that way before," he frowned.
"Constant negative acceleration and in a straight line. He must think
that we have been cleared out of the ether. Almost parallel to us and
not much faster--even at this long range, it is an easy kill unless
he starts dodging, as usual."

As he spoke, he snapped a switch and from a port under the starboard
wing there shot out into space a small package of concentrated
destruction--a rocket-propelled, radio-controlled torpedo. The rockets
of the tiny missile were flaming, but that flame was visible only from
the rear and no radio beam was upon it. Czuv had given it precisely the
direction and acceleration necessary to make it meet the hexan sphere
in central impact, provided that sphere maintained its course and
acceleration unchanged.

"Shall I direct the torpedo in the case the hexan shifts?" asked the
officer.

"I think not. They can, of course, detect any wave at almost any
distance, and at the first sign of radioactivity they would locate and
destroy the bomb. They also, in all probability, would destroy us. I
would not hesitate to attack them on that account alone, but we must
remember that we are upon a more important mission than attacking one
hexan ship. We are far out of range of their electro-magnetic detectors,
and our torpedo will have such a velocity that they will have no time to
protect themselves against it after detection. Unless they shift in the
next few seconds, they are lost. This is the most perfect shot I ever
had at one of them, but one shot is all I dare risk--we must not betray
ourselves."

* * * * *

Course, lookout, and rank forgotten, the little crew of two stared
into the narrow field of vision, set at its maximum magnification. The
instruments showed that the enemy vessel was staying upon its original
course. Very soon the torpedo came within range of the detectors of the
hexans. But as Captain Czuv had foretold, the detection was a fraction
of a second too late, rapidly as their screens responded, and the two
men of Zbardk uttered together a short, fierce cry of joy as a brilliant
flash of light announced the annihilation of the hexan vessel.

"But hold!" The observer stared into his screen. "Upon that same line,
but now at constant velocity, there is still a very faint radiation,
of a pattern I have never seen before."

"I think ... I believe ..." the captain was studying the pattern,
puzzled. "It must be low frequency, low-tension electricity, which is
never used, so far as I know. It may be some new engine of destruction,
which the hexan was towing at such a distance that the explosion of our
torpedo did not destroy it. Since there are no signs of hexan activity
and since it will not take much fuel, we shall investigate that
radiation."

Tail and port-side rockets burst into roaring activity and soon the
plane was cautiously approaching the mass of wreckage, which had been
the IPV _Arcturus_.

"Human beings, although of some foreign species!" exclaimed the captain,
as his vision-ray swept through the undamaged upper portion of the great
liner and came to rest upon Captain King at his desk.

Although the upper ultra-lights of the Terrestrial vessel had been
cut away by the hexan plane of force, jury lights had been rigged,
and the two commanders were soon trying to communicate with each
other. Intelligible conversation was, of course, impossible, but King
soon realized that the visitors were not enemies. At their pantomimed
suggestion he put on a space-suit and wafted himself over to the airlock
of the Callistonian warplane. Inside the central compartment, the
strangers placed over his helmet a heavily wired harness, and he found
himself instantly in full mental communication with the Callistonian
commander. For several minutes they stood silent, exchanging thoughts
with a rapidity impossible in any language; then, dressed in
space-suits, both leaped lightly across the narrow gap into the still
open outer lock of the terrestrial liner. King watched Czuv narrowly
after the pressure began to collapse his suit, but the stranger made
no sign of distress. He had been right in his assurance that the extra
pressure would scarcely inconvenience him. King tore off his helmet,
issued a brief order, and soon every speaker in the _Arcturus_
announced:

"All passengers and all members of the crew except lookouts on duty will
assemble immediately in Saloon Three to discuss a possible immediate
rescue."

The subject being one of paramount interest, it was a matter of minutes
until the full complement of two hundred men and women were in the main
saloon, clinging to hastily rigged hand lines, closely packed before the
raised platform upon which were King and Czuv, wired together with the
peculiar Callistonian harness. To most of the passengers, familiar with
the humanity of three planets, the appearance of the stranger brought
no surprise; but many of them stared in undisguised amazement at his
childish body, his pale, almost colorless skin, his small, weak legs and
arms, and his massive head.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Captain King opened the meeting. "I introduce to
you Captain Czuv, of the scout cruiser _Bzarvk_, of the only human race
now living upon the fourth large satellite of Jupiter, which satellite
we know as Callisto. I am avoiding their own names as much as possible,
because they are almost unpronounceable in English or Interplanetarian.
This device that you see connecting us is a Callistonian thought
transformer, by means of which any two intelligent beings can converse
without language. Our situation is peculiar, and in order that you may
understand fully what lies ahead of us, the captain will now speak to
you, through me--that is, what follows will be spoken by Captain Czuv,
of the _Bzarvk_, but he will be using my vocal organs."

"Friends from distant Tellus," King's voice went on, almost without a
break, "I greet you. I am glad, for your sake as well as our own, that
your vessel was able to destroy the hexan ship holding you captive, and
whose crew would have killed you all as soon as they had landed your
vessel and had read your minds. I regret bitterly that we can do so
little for you, for only the representatives of a human civilization
being exterminated by a race of highly intelligent monsters can fully
realize how desirable it is for all the various races of humanity to
assist and support each other. In order that you may understand the
situation, it is necessary that I delve at some length into ancient
history, but we have ample time. In about ..." he broke off, realizing
that the two races had no thought in common in the measure of time.

"One-half time of rotation of Great Planet upon axis?" flashed from
Czuv's brain, and "About five hours," King's mind flashed back.

"It will be about five hours before any steps can be taken, so that I
feel justified in using a brief period for explanation. In the evolution
of the various forms of life upon Callisto, two genera developed
intelligence far ahead of all others. One genus was the human, as you
and I; the other the hexan. This creature, happily unknown to you of the
planets nearer our common sun, is the product of an entirely different
evolution. It is a six-limbed animal, with a brain equal to our own--one
perhaps in some ways superior to our own. They have nothing in common
with humanity, however; they have few of our traits and fewer of our
mental processes. Even we who have fought them so long can scarcely
comprehend the chambers of horror that are their minds. Even were I able
to paint a sufficiently vivid picture with words, you of Earth could not
begin to understand their utter ruthlessness and inhumanity, even among
themselves. You would believe that I was lying, or that my viewpoint was
warped. I can say only that I hope most sincerely that none of you will
ever get better acquainted with them."

* * * * *

"Ages ago, then, the human and the hexan developed upon all four of the
major satellites of the Great Planet, which you know as Jupiter, and
upon the north polar region of Jupiter itself. By what means the two
races came into being upon worlds so widely separated in space we know
not--we only know it to be the fact. Human life, however, could not long
endure upon Jupiter. The various human races, after many attempts to
meet conditions of life there by variations in type fell before the
hexans; who, although very small in size upon the planet, thrived there
amazingly. Upon the three outer satellites humanity triumphed, and many
hundreds of cycles ago the hexans of those satellites were wiped out,
save for an occasional tribe of savages of low intelligence who lived in
various undesirable portions of the three worlds. For ages then there
was peace upon Callisto. Here is the picture at that time--upon Jupiter
the hexans; upon Io hexans and humans, waging a ceaseless and relentless
war of mutual extermination; upon the three outer satellites humanity in
undisturbed and unthreatened peace. Five worlds, each ignorant of life
upon any other.

"As I have said, the hexans of Jupiter were, and are, diabolically
intelligent. Driven probably by their desire to see what lay beyond
their atmosphere of eternal cloud, to the penetration of which their
eyesight was attuned, they developed the space-ship; and effected a
safe landing, first upon the barren, airless moonlet nearest them, and
then upon fruitful Io. There they made common cause with the hexans
against the humans, and in space of time Ionian humanity ceased to exist.
Much traffic and interbreeding followed between the hexans of Jupiter
and those of Io, resulting in time in a race intermediate in size
between the parent stocks and equally at home in the widely variant air
pressures and gravities of planet and satellite. Soon their astronomical
instruments revealed the cities of Europa to their gaze, and as soon
as they discovered that the civilization of Europa was human, they
destroyed it utterly, with the insatiable blood lust that is their
heritage.

"In the meantime the human civilizations of Ganymede and Callisto had
also developed instruments of power. Observing the cities upon the other
satellites, many scientists studied intensively the problem of space
navigation, and finally there was some commerce between the two outer
satellites at favorable times. Finally, vessels were also sent to Io
and to Europa, but none of them returned. Knowing then what to expect,
Ganymede and Callisto joined forces and prepared for war. But our
science, so long attuned to the arts of peace, had fallen behind
lamentably in the devising of more and ever more deadly instruments
of destruction. Ganymede fell, and in her fall we read our own doom.
Abandoning our cities, we built anew underground. Profiting from lessons
learned full bloodily upon Ganymede, we resolved to prolong the
existence of the human race as long as possible.

"The hexans were, and are masters of the physical science. They
command the spectrum in a way undreamed of. Their detectors reveal
etheric disturbances at unbelievable distances, and they have at their
beck and call forces of staggering magnitude. Therefore in our cities
is no electricity save that which is wired, shielded, and grounded;
no broadcast radio; no source whatever of etheric disturbances save
light--and our walls are fields of force which we believe to be
impenetrable to any searching frequency capable of being generated.
Now I am able to picture to you the present.

"We are the last representatives of the human race in the Jovian
planetary system. Our every trace upon the surface has been obliterated.
We are hiding in our holes in the ground, coming out at night by stealth
so that our burrows shall not be revealed to the hexans. We are fighting
for time in which our scientists may learn the secrets of power--and
fearing, each new day, that the enemy may have so perfected their
systems of rays that they will be able to detect us and destroy us, even
in our underground and heavily shielded retreats, by means of forces
even more incomprehensible than those they are now employing.

"Therefore, friends, you see how little we are able to do for you, we
a race fighting for our very existence and doomed to extinction save
for a miracle. We cannot take you to Callisto, for it is besieged by the
hexans and the driving forces of your lifeboats, practically broadcast
as they are, would be detected and we should all be destroyed long
before we could reach safety. Captain King and I have pondered long and
have been able to see only one course of action. We are drifting at
constant velocity, using no power, and with all save the most vitally
necessary machinery at rest. Thus only may we hope to avoid detection
during the next two hours.

"Our present course will take us very close to Europa, which the hexans
believe to be like Ganymede, entirely devoid of civilized life. Its
original humanity was totally destroyed, and all its civilized hexans
are finding shelter from our torpedoes upon Jupiter until we of Callisto
shall likewise have been annihilated. The temperature of Europa will
suit you. Its atmosphere, while less dense than that to which you are
accustomed, will adequately support your life. If we are not detected
in the course of the next few hours we can probably land upon Europa in
safety, since its neighborhood is guarded but loosely. In fact, we have
a city there, as yet unsuspected by the hexans, in which our scientists
will continue to labor after Callisto's civilization shall have
disappeared. We think that it will be safe to use your power for the
short time necessary to effect a landing. We shall land in a cavern,
in a crater already in communication with our city. In that cavern,
instructed and aided by some of us, you will build a rocket vessel--no
rays can be used because of the hexans--in which you will be able to
travel to a region close enough to your earth so that you can call for
help. You will not be able to carry enough fuel to land there--in fact,
nearly all the journey will have to be made without power, traveling
freely in a highly elongated orbit around the sun--but if you escape the
hexans, you should be able to reach home safely, in time. It is for the
consideration of this plan that this meeting has been called."

* * * * *

"Just one question," Breckenridge spoke. "The hexans are intelligent.
Why are they leaving Europa and Ganymede so unguarded that human beings
can move back there and that we can land there, all undetected?"

"I will answer that question myself," replied King. "Captain Czuv did
not quite do justice to his own people. It is true that they are being
conquered, but for every human life that is taken, a thousand hexans
die, and for every human ship that is lost, twenty hexan vessels are
annihilated in return. While the hexans are masters of rays, the
humans are equally masters of explosives and of mechanisms. They can
hit a perfect score upon any target in free space whose course and
acceleration can be determined, at any range up to five thousand
kilometers, and they have explosives thousands of times as powerful as
any known to us. Ray screens are effective only against rays, and the
hexans cannot destroy anything they cannot see before it strikes them.
So it is that all the hexan vessels except those necessary to protect
their own strongholds, are being concentrated against Callisto. They
cannot spare vessels to guard uselessly the abandoned satellites.
Because of the enormously high gravity of Jupiter the hexans there are
safe from human attack save for ineffectual long-range bombardment, but
Io is being attacked constantly and it is probable that in a few more
years Io also will be an abandoned world. Some of you may have received
the impressions that the hexans are to triumph immediately, but such an
idea is wrong. The humans can, and will, hold out for a hundred years or
more unless the enemy perfects a destructive ray of the type referred
to. Even then, I think that our human cousins will hold out a long time.
They are able men, fighters all, and their underground cities are
beautifully protected."

There was little argument. Most of the auditors could understand that
the suggested course was the best one possible. The remainder were
so stunned by the unbelievable events of the attack that they had no
initiative, but were willing to follow wherever the more valiant spirits
led. It was decided that no attempt should be made to salvage any
portion of the _Arcturus_, since any such attempt would be fraught with
danger and since the wreckage would be of little value. The new vessel
was to be rocket driven and was to be built of Callistonian alloys.
Personal belongings were moved into lifeboats, doors were closed, and
there ensued a painful period of waiting and suspense.

The stated hour was reached without event--no hexan scout had come
close enough to them to detect the low-tension radiation of the vital
machinery of the _Arcturus_, cut as it was to the irreducible minimum
and quite effectively grounded as it was by the enormous mass of her
shielding armor. At a signal from Captain Czuv the pilot of each
lifeboat shot his tiny craft out into space and took his allotted place
in the formation following closely behind the _Bzarvk_, flying toward
Europa, now so large in the field of vision that she resembled more a
world than a moon. Captain King, in the Callistonian vessel, transmitted
to Breckenridge the route and flight data given him by the navigator of
the winged craft. The chief pilot, flying "point," in turn relayed more
detailed instructions to the less experienced pilots of the other
lifeboats.

Soon the surface of Europa lay beneath them; a rugged, cratered, and
torn topography of mighty ranges of volcanic mountains. Most of the
craters were cold and lifeless; but here and there a plume of smoke
and steam betrayed the presence of vast, quiescent forces. Straight
down one of those gigantic lifeless shafts the fleet of space craft
dropped--straight down a full two miles before the landing signal was
given. At the bottom of the shaft a section of the rocky wall swung
aside, revealing the yawning black mouth of a horizontal tunnel. At
intervals upon its roof there winked into being almost invisible points
of light. Along that line of lights the lifeboats felt their way, coming
finally into a huge cavern, against one sheer metal wall of which they
parked in an orderly row. Roll was called, and the terrestrials walked,
as well as they could in the feeble gravity of the satellite, across the
vast chamber and into a conveyance somewhat resembling a railway coach,
which darted away as soon as the doors were shut. For hundreds of miles
that strange tunnel extended, and as the car shot along door after door
of natural rock opened before it, and closed as soon as it had sped
through. In spite of the high velocity of the vehicle, it required
almost two hours to complete the journey. Finally, however, it slowed
to a halt and the Terrestrial visitors disembarked at a portal of the
European city of the Callistonians.

"Attention!" barked Captain King. "The name of this city, as nearly as
I can come to it in English, is _WRUZK_. 'Roosk' comes fairly close to
it and is easier to pronounce. We must finish our trip in small cars,
holding ten persons each. We shall assemble again in the building in
which we have been assigned quarters. The driver of each car will lead
his passengers to the council room in which we shall meet."

"Oh, what's the use--this is horrible, horrible--we might as well die!"
a nervous woman shrieked, and fainted.

"Such a feeling is, perhaps, natural," King went on, after the woman had
been revived and quiet had been restored, "but please control it as much
as possible. We are alive and well, and will be able to return to Tellus
eventually. Please remember that these people are putting themselves
to much trouble and inconvenience to help us, desperate as their own
situation is, and conduct yourselves accordingly."

The rebuke had its effect, and with no further protest the company
boarded the small cars, which shot through an opening in the wall and
into a street of that strange subterranean city. Breckenridge, in the
last car to leave the portal, studied his surroundings with interest as
his conveyance darted through the gateway. More or less a fatalist by
nature and an adventurer, of course, since no other type existed among
the older spacehounds of the IPC, he was intensely interested in every
new phase of their experience, and was no whit dismayed or frightened.

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