[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
our civilization in the first place? Wasn't its example what had stimulated the rise of the lunatic Caliphist
ideology in the Middle East?
I now know better than to expect reasonableness its; human affairs.
Contrary to popular impression, the threat didn't appear suddenly. A few men warned against it from
a the beginning. They pointed out how the Johnnies had become dominant in the politics of more than one
nation, which thereupon stopped being especially friendly to us, and how in spite of this they were making
converts throughout America. But most of us hardly listened. We were too busy repairing war dam-age,
public and personal. We considered those who sounded the alarm to be reactionaries and would-be
tyrants (which some, perhaps, were). The Johannine theology might be nuts, we said, but didn't the First
Amendment guarantee its right to be preached? The Petrine churches might be in trouble, but wasn't that
their problem? And really, in our scientific day and age, to talk about subtle, pervasive dangers in a
religious -philosophical system...a system which emphasized peacefulness almost as strongly as the
Quakers, which exalted the commandment to love thy neighbor above every other-well, it just might be
that our materialis-tic secular society and our ritualistic faiths would be-nefit from a touch of what the
Johnnies advocated.
So the movement and its influence grew. And then the activist phase began: and somehow orderly
dem-onstrations were oftener and oftener turning into riots, and wildcat strikes were becoming more and
more common over issues that made less and less sense, and student agitation was paralyzing campus
after campus, and person after otherwise intelligent person was talk-ing about the need to tear down a
hopelessly corrupt order of things so that the Paradise of Love could be built on the ruins...and the
majority of us, that eternal majority which wants nothing except to be left alone to cultivate its individual
gardens, wondered how the country could have started to disintegrate overnight.
Brother, it did not happen overnight. Not even over Walpurgis Night.
XX
I CAME HOME early that June day. Our street was quiet, walled in between big old elms, lawns,
and houses basking in sunlight. The few broomsticks in view were ridden by local women, carrying
groceries in the saddlebags and an infant or two strapped in the kiddie seat. This was a district populated
chiefly by young men on the way up. Such tend to have pretty wives, and in warm weather these tend to
wear shorts and halters. The scenery lightened my mood no end.
I'd been full of anger when I left the turbulence around the plant. But here was peace. My roof was in
sight. Ginny and Val were beneath it. Barney and I had a plan for dealing with our troubles, come this
eventide. The prospect of action cheered me. Mean while, I was home!
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I passed into the open garage, dismounted, and racked my Chevvy alongside Ginny's Volksbesen.
As came out again, aimed at the front door, a cannonball whizzed through the air and hit me. "Daddy!
Daddy!"
I hugged my offspring close, curly yellow hair, enormous blue eyes, the whole works. She was
wearing her cherub suit, and I had to be careful not to break the wings. Before, when she flew, it had
been at the end of a tether secured to a post, and under Ginny's eye. What the deuce was she doing
free?
Oh. Svartalf zoomed around the corner of the house on a whisk broom. His back was arched, his tail
was raised, and he used bad language. Evidently Ginny had gotten him to supervise. He could control the
chit fairly well, no doubt, keep her in the yard and out of trouble...until she saw Daddy arrive.
"Okay!" I laughed. "Enough. Let's go in and say boo to Mother."
"Wide piggyback?"
For Val's birthday last fall I'd gotten the stuff for an expensive spell and had Ginny change me. The
kid was used to playing with me in my wolf form, I'd thought; but how about a piggyback ride, the pig
being fat and white and spotted with flowers? The local small fry were still talking about it. "Sorry, no," I
had to tell her. "After that performance of yours, you get the Air Force treatment." And I carried her by
her ankles, squealing and wiggling, while I sang,
"Up in the air, junior birdman,
Up in the air, upside down -- "
Ginny came into the living room, from the work-room, as we did. Looking behind her, I saw why
she'd deputized the supervision of Val's flytime. Washday. A three-year-old goes through a lot of clothes,
and we couldn't afford self-cleaning fabrics. She had to ani-mate each garment singly, and make sure
they didn't tie themselves in knots or something while they soaped and rinsed and marched around to dry
off and so forth. And, since a parade like that is irresistible to a child, she had to get Val elsewhere.
Nonetheless, I wondered if she wasn't being a tad reckless, puffing her familiar in charge. Hitherto,
she'd done the laundry when Val was asleep. Svartalf had often shown himself to be reliable in the clutch.
But for all the paranatural force in him, he remained a big black tomcat, which meant he was not
especially de-pendable in dull everyday matters...Then I thought, What the blazes, since Ginny stopped
being a practic-ing witch, the poor beast hasn't had much excitement; he hasn't even got left a dog or
another cat in the whole neighborhood that dares fight him; this assign-ment was probably welcome;
Ginny always knows what she's doing; and --
" -- and I'm an idiot for just standing here gawping," I said, and gathered her in. She was dressed like
the other wives I'd seen, but if she'd been out there too I wouldn't have seen them.
She responded. She knew how.
"What's a Nidiot?" Val asked from the floor. She pondered the matter. "Well, Daddy's a good
Nidiot."
Svartalf switched his tail and looked skeptical.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I relaxed my hold on Ginny a trifle. She ran her fingers through my hair. "Wow, she murmured. "What
brought that on, tiger?"
"Daddy's a woof," Val corrected her.
"You can call me tiger today," I said, feeling happier by the minute.
Ginny leered. "Okay, pussycat."
"Wait a bit -- "
She shrugged. The red tresses moved along her shoulders. "Well, if you insist, okay, Lame Thief of,
the Waingunga."
Val regarded us sternly. "When you fwoo wif you's heads," she directed, "put 'em outside to melt."
The logic of this, and the business of getting the cherub rig off her, took time to unravel. Not until oor
offspring was bottoms up on the living-room floor, watching cartoons on the crystal ball, and I was in the
kitchen watching Ginny start supper, did we get the chance to talk.
"How come you're home so early?" she asked.
"How'd you like to reactivate the old outfit to-night?" I replied.
"Which?"
"Matuchek and Graylock -- no, Matuchek and Matu-chek -- Troubleshooters Extraordinary, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
zanotowane.pl doc.pisz.pl pdf.pisz.pl akte20.pev.pl
our civilization in the first place? Wasn't its example what had stimulated the rise of the lunatic Caliphist
ideology in the Middle East?
I now know better than to expect reasonableness its; human affairs.
Contrary to popular impression, the threat didn't appear suddenly. A few men warned against it from
a the beginning. They pointed out how the Johnnies had become dominant in the politics of more than one
nation, which thereupon stopped being especially friendly to us, and how in spite of this they were making
converts throughout America. But most of us hardly listened. We were too busy repairing war dam-age,
public and personal. We considered those who sounded the alarm to be reactionaries and would-be
tyrants (which some, perhaps, were). The Johannine theology might be nuts, we said, but didn't the First
Amendment guarantee its right to be preached? The Petrine churches might be in trouble, but wasn't that
their problem? And really, in our scientific day and age, to talk about subtle, pervasive dangers in a
religious -philosophical system...a system which emphasized peacefulness almost as strongly as the
Quakers, which exalted the commandment to love thy neighbor above every other-well, it just might be
that our materialis-tic secular society and our ritualistic faiths would be-nefit from a touch of what the
Johnnies advocated.
So the movement and its influence grew. And then the activist phase began: and somehow orderly
dem-onstrations were oftener and oftener turning into riots, and wildcat strikes were becoming more and
more common over issues that made less and less sense, and student agitation was paralyzing campus
after campus, and person after otherwise intelligent person was talk-ing about the need to tear down a
hopelessly corrupt order of things so that the Paradise of Love could be built on the ruins...and the
majority of us, that eternal majority which wants nothing except to be left alone to cultivate its individual
gardens, wondered how the country could have started to disintegrate overnight.
Brother, it did not happen overnight. Not even over Walpurgis Night.
XX
I CAME HOME early that June day. Our street was quiet, walled in between big old elms, lawns,
and houses basking in sunlight. The few broomsticks in view were ridden by local women, carrying
groceries in the saddlebags and an infant or two strapped in the kiddie seat. This was a district populated
chiefly by young men on the way up. Such tend to have pretty wives, and in warm weather these tend to
wear shorts and halters. The scenery lightened my mood no end.
I'd been full of anger when I left the turbulence around the plant. But here was peace. My roof was in
sight. Ginny and Val were beneath it. Barney and I had a plan for dealing with our troubles, come this
eventide. The prospect of action cheered me. Mean while, I was home!
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I passed into the open garage, dismounted, and racked my Chevvy alongside Ginny's Volksbesen.
As came out again, aimed at the front door, a cannonball whizzed through the air and hit me. "Daddy!
Daddy!"
I hugged my offspring close, curly yellow hair, enormous blue eyes, the whole works. She was
wearing her cherub suit, and I had to be careful not to break the wings. Before, when she flew, it had
been at the end of a tether secured to a post, and under Ginny's eye. What the deuce was she doing
free?
Oh. Svartalf zoomed around the corner of the house on a whisk broom. His back was arched, his tail
was raised, and he used bad language. Evidently Ginny had gotten him to supervise. He could control the
chit fairly well, no doubt, keep her in the yard and out of trouble...until she saw Daddy arrive.
"Okay!" I laughed. "Enough. Let's go in and say boo to Mother."
"Wide piggyback?"
For Val's birthday last fall I'd gotten the stuff for an expensive spell and had Ginny change me. The
kid was used to playing with me in my wolf form, I'd thought; but how about a piggyback ride, the pig
being fat and white and spotted with flowers? The local small fry were still talking about it. "Sorry, no," I
had to tell her. "After that performance of yours, you get the Air Force treatment." And I carried her by
her ankles, squealing and wiggling, while I sang,
"Up in the air, junior birdman,
Up in the air, upside down -- "
Ginny came into the living room, from the work-room, as we did. Looking behind her, I saw why
she'd deputized the supervision of Val's flytime. Washday. A three-year-old goes through a lot of clothes,
and we couldn't afford self-cleaning fabrics. She had to ani-mate each garment singly, and make sure
they didn't tie themselves in knots or something while they soaped and rinsed and marched around to dry
off and so forth. And, since a parade like that is irresistible to a child, she had to get Val elsewhere.
Nonetheless, I wondered if she wasn't being a tad reckless, puffing her familiar in charge. Hitherto,
she'd done the laundry when Val was asleep. Svartalf had often shown himself to be reliable in the clutch.
But for all the paranatural force in him, he remained a big black tomcat, which meant he was not
especially de-pendable in dull everyday matters...Then I thought, What the blazes, since Ginny stopped
being a practic-ing witch, the poor beast hasn't had much excitement; he hasn't even got left a dog or
another cat in the whole neighborhood that dares fight him; this assign-ment was probably welcome;
Ginny always knows what she's doing; and --
" -- and I'm an idiot for just standing here gawping," I said, and gathered her in. She was dressed like
the other wives I'd seen, but if she'd been out there too I wouldn't have seen them.
She responded. She knew how.
"What's a Nidiot?" Val asked from the floor. She pondered the matter. "Well, Daddy's a good
Nidiot."
Svartalf switched his tail and looked skeptical.
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
I relaxed my hold on Ginny a trifle. She ran her fingers through my hair. "Wow, she murmured. "What
brought that on, tiger?"
"Daddy's a woof," Val corrected her.
"You can call me tiger today," I said, feeling happier by the minute.
Ginny leered. "Okay, pussycat."
"Wait a bit -- "
She shrugged. The red tresses moved along her shoulders. "Well, if you insist, okay, Lame Thief of,
the Waingunga."
Val regarded us sternly. "When you fwoo wif you's heads," she directed, "put 'em outside to melt."
The logic of this, and the business of getting the cherub rig off her, took time to unravel. Not until oor
offspring was bottoms up on the living-room floor, watching cartoons on the crystal ball, and I was in the
kitchen watching Ginny start supper, did we get the chance to talk.
"How come you're home so early?" she asked.
"How'd you like to reactivate the old outfit to-night?" I replied.
"Which?"
"Matuchek and Graylock -- no, Matuchek and Matu-chek -- Troubleshooters Extraordinary, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]