LEASE TO DOOMSDAY By LEE ARCHER - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/27392/pg27392-images.html

 The twins were a rare team indeed. They wanted to build a printing plant on a garbage dump. When Muldoon asked them why, their answer was entirely logical:

"Because we live here."

DIVINITY BY WILLIAM MORRISON - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/22623/pg22623-images.html

 Bradley seemed to have escaped regeneration. Now he had only death to worry about.

DEATH OF A MUTANT By CHARLES V. De VET - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/73431/pg73431-images.html

 

The Sense of Wonder By MILTON LESSER - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51296/pg51296-images.html

 When nobody aboard ship remembers where it's

going, how can they tell when it has arrived?

Through the Gates of the Silver Key By H. P. LOVECRAFT and E. HOFFMANN PRICE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/71167/pg71167-images.html

 

There Is A Reaper ... By Charles V. De Vet - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/29954/pg29954-images.html

 Doctors had given him just one month to live. A month to wonder, what comes afterward? There was one way to find out—ask a dead man!

THINK YOURSELF TO DEATH By C. H. THAMES - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32827/pg32827-images.html

 

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GROWING UP ON BIG MUDDY By CHARLES V. DE VET - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51398/pg51398-images.html

 

The Addicts By WILLIAM MORRISON - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51240/pg51240-images.html

 

The Celestial Blueprint By Philip José Farmer - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/73314/pg73314-images.html

 

No star's land By William Morrison - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/73357/pg73357-images.html

 

THE UNTOUCHABLE ADOLESCENTS By ELLIS HART - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/73433/pg73433-images.html

 The aliens wouldn't accept help, though their world was

about to explode. They were adolescents. Adolescence is
the time when you aren't smart enough to ask for help....

date of publication 2083 A.D. By William Morrison - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/72497/pg72497-images.html

 Lending libraries have been known to make

mistakes—but never one so potentially explosive
as the time they sent Carrie the wrong volume.

HOME IS WHERE YOU LEFT IT By ADAM CHASE - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32890/pg32890-images.html

YOUTH by ISAAC ASIMOV - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/31547/pg31547-images.html

Red and Slim found the two strange little animals the morning after they heard the thunder sounds. They knew that they could never show their new pets to their parents.

 Tell me," said the Industrialist, "what do these friends from space want in return?"

The Astronomer hesitated. He said, "I will be truthful with you. They come from a denser planet. Ours is richer in the lighter atoms."

"They want magnesium? Aluminum?"

"No, sir. Carbon and hydrogen. They want coal and oil."

"Really?

The Belt By Wallace West - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70647/pg70647-images.html

 

WOMAN'S TOUCH By EVELYN E. SMITH - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/73385/pg73385-images.html

 

A Thought for Tomorrow By ROBERT E. GILBERT - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32238/pg32238-images.html

 

Of All Possible Worlds By WILLIAM TENN - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/50948/pg50948-images.html

 This machine, the pride and the hope of 2089, was something almost outside his powers of comprehension. But Max Alben knew how to run it, and he knew, roughly, what it was supposed to accomplish. He knew also that this was the first backward journey of any great duration and, being scientifically unpredictable, might well be the death of him.

And if that had not been discovered, the ruling powers of Earth, more than a century later, would never have plucked Max Alben out of an obscure civil-service job as a relief guard at the North American Chicken Reservation to his present heroic and remunerative eminence. He would still be patrolling the barbed wire that surrounded the three white leghorn hens and two roosters—about one-sixth of the known livestock wealth of the Western Hemisphere—thoroughly content with the half-pail of dried apricots he received each and every payday.

Into the fourth dimension by Ray Cummings - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/73382/pg73382-images.html

 Are there other worlds existing side by side with ours,

yet unseen and unsuspected? Here is the incredible
tale of three who went through the wall that bars the
way to this shadowy realm and found a strange land,
a stranger people, and a fantastic enemy.

The first of the "ghosts" made its appearance in February of 1946. It was seen just after nightfall near the bank of a little stream known as Otter Creek, a few miles from Rutland, Vermont. There are willows along the creek-bank at this point. Heavy snow was on the ground. A farmer's wife saw the ghost standing beside the trunk of a tree. The evening was rather dark. Clouds obscured the stars and the moon. A shaft of yellow light from the farmhouse windows came out over the snow; but the ghost was in a patch of deep shadow. It seemed to be the figure of a man standing with folded arms, a shoulder against the tree-trunk. It was white and shimmering; it glowed; its outlines were wavy and blurred. The farmer's wife screamed and rushed back into the house.

The Big-City. Diminished by distance it seemed indeed as though a thousand varying-sized soap bubbles, smoke-filled, lay piled together. And the whole flattened, queerly unnatural like a picture with a wrong perspective.

The globes were scattered about; but as we approached I saw open spaces twisting among them like tortuous streets. Horizontal streets; and vertical streets as well. Abruptly I realized that this realm was not cast like my own upon a single plane. On earth we move chiefly in a world of two dimensions—only in the air or water do we have the freedom of three. Here, the vertical and the horizontal seemed no different.

PROJECT HUSH By WILLIAM TENN - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32654/pg32654-images.html

 The biggest job in history and it had to be done with complete secrecy. It was—which was just the trouble!

finders keepers By Milton Lesser - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/72504/pg72504-images.html

 The names of those congenital skeptics who insist that time-travel is impossible, even in theory, are Legion. Nor is their stand difficult to comprehend. They say that no man or woman has yet traveled backward to meet a younger him or herself face to face. They say this is immutable paradox. And by way of clincher they add a query as to why, if time-travel is to come, has it never happened? Why haven't we recorded instances of visitations from the future?

However, those in favor of time-travel have answers ready and waiting. These optimists (?) use the parallel universe theory to meet the first question. Such return, they claim, would immediately cause a forking of the Earthways, leaving our version of the world untrodden by time-traveling feet. As to the clincher, they counter-question with a How do we know we haven't had such visitors? Time-travel, when it comes, will come in a far-distant future. At such a distance the mere six thousand years of recorded human history is a mere fly-speck on the annals of Earth. So why should this tiny dot in the continuum have been favored?

OUT OF NOWHERE By E. A. GROSSER - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/73156/pg73156-images.html

 

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 again and again

THE MEN IN THE WALLS By WILLIAM TENN - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/51122/pg51122-images.html

 The world was divided between the Men and the

Monsters—but which were Monsters and which were Men?

Mankind consisted of 128 people.

What the hell's the matter with you, Roy?" Thomas was asking behind him. "Fighting a duel with an initiate? Where's your band spirit? That's all we need these days, to be cut down from six effectives to five. Save your spear for Strangers, or—if you feel very brave—for Monsters. But don't show a point in our band's burrow if you know what's good for you, hear me?

On the little hillock known as the Royal Mound, lolled Franklin the Father of Many Thieves, Chieftain of all Mankind. He alone of the cluster of warriors displayed heaviness of belly and flabbiness of arm—for he alone had the privilege of a sedentary life. Beside the sternly muscled band leaders who formed his immediate background, he looked almost womanly; and yet one of his many titles was simply The Man.

Yes, unquestionably The Man of Mankind was Franklin the Father of Many Thieves. You could tell it from the hushed, respectful attitudes of the subordinate warriors who stood at a distance from the mound. You could tell it from the rippling interest of the women as they stood on the other side of the great burrow, drawn up in the ranks of the Female Society. You could tell it from the nervousness and scorn with which the women were watched by their leader, Ottilie, the Chieftain's First Wife. And finally, you could tell it from the faces of the children, standing in a distant, disorganized bunch. A clear majority of their faces bore an unmistakable resemblance to Franklin's.

Did that hurt?" he was being asked by Rita, the old crone of a Record-Keeper. There was a solicitous smile on her forty-year-old face, but he knew it was a fake. A woman as old as that no longer felt sorry for anybody. She had too many aches and pains and things generally wrong with her to worry about other people's troubles.

There are three reasons why we cannot ever use Alien-Science," he recited, holding up his hand with the thumb and little finger closed. "Alien-Science is non-human, Alien-Science is inhuman, Alien-Science is anti-human. First, since it is non-human," he closed his forefinger, "we cannot use it because we can never understand it. And because it is inhuman, we would never want to use it even if we could understand it. And because it is anti-human and can only be used to hurt and damage Mankind, we would not be able to use it so long as we remain human ourselves. Alien-Science is the opposite of Ancestor-Science in every way, ugly instead of beautiful, hurtful instead of helpful. When we die, Alien-Science would not bring us to the world of our ancestors, but to another world full of Monsters."

Now, however, there was only one small part of Mankind that concerned Eric. Himself. His future. He waited, growing more and more tense as the power hum from the machine increased in pitch. And suddenly there was a grunt of awe from the entire burrow of people as a vision was thrown upon the wall.

He hadn't drawn a blank. That was the most important thing. He had been given an authentic ancestral vision.

"Scattergood's does it again!" a voice blared, as the picture projected on the wall showed people coming from all directions, wearing the strange body wrappings of the ancestors. They rushed, men, women, children, from the four corners of the glittering screen to some strange structure in the center and disappeared into its entrance. More and more poured in, more and more kept materializing at the edges and scrambling toward the structure in the center.

"Scattergood's does it again!" the vision yelled out at them. "The sale of sales! The value of values! Only at Scattergood's three stores tomorrow. Binoculars, tape recorders, cameras, all at tremendous reductions, many below cost. Value, value, value!"

Now the vision showed only objects. Strange, unfamiliar objects such as the ancestors used. And as each object appeared, the voice recited a charm over it. Powerful and ancient magic this, the forgotten lore of Ancestor-Science.

"Krafft-Yahrmann Exposure Meters, the best there is, you've heard about them and now you can buy them, the light meter that's an eye-opener, a price to fit every pocketbook, eight dollars and ninety-five cents, tomorrow at Scattergood's, absolutely only one to a customer.

"Kyoto Automatic Eight-Millimeter Movie Cameras with an f 1.4 lens and an electric eye that does all the focusing and gives you a perfect exposure every single time. As low as three dollars a week. The supply is limited, so hurry, hurry, hurry!"

Only Ottilie could read a vision, only short, squat, imperious Ottilie. The Chieftain's First Wife was her title of honor and her latest title, but long before she had acquired that, long before even she had become Head of the Female Society, she had been Ottilie the Augur, Ottilie the Omen-Teller, Ottilie who could walk in her mind from the homey burrow of the present into the dark, labyrinthine corridors of the future, Ottilie who could read signs, Ottilie who could announce portents.

---

It was as Ottilie the Augur that she could pick out the one new-born babe in a litter of three that had to be destroyed because, in some way or other, it would one day bring death to its people. It was as Ottilie the Augur that, upon the death of the old chief, she had chosen Franklin the Father of Many Thieves to take over the leadership of Mankind since he stimulated the most propitious omens. In everything she had been right. And now, once again it was as Ottilie the Augur that she threw her arms over her head and twisted and swayed and moaned as she sought deep inside herself for the meaning of Eric's vision, it was as Ottilie the Augur and not as Ottilie the Chieftain's First Wife, for that she had been only since Franklin had ascended the Throne Mound.

They would have litter after litter, he and Harriet, large litters, ample litters, four, five, even six at a time. People would forget he'd ever been the product of a singleton birth. Other women, mates of other warriors, would wriggle to attract his attention as they now wriggled when they caught the eye of Franklin the Father of Many Thieves. He would make the litters fathered by Franklin look puny in comparison, he would prove that the best hope for Mankind's increase lay in his loins and his loins alone. And when the time came to select another chief...

His uncle laughed. "It's no different from Ottilie the Omen-Teller making a deal with Franklin to have a vision showing him as the new chief. He gets to be chief, she becomes the Chieftain's First Wife and automatically takes over the Female Society. Religion and politics, they're always mixed up together these days, Eric. We're not living in the old times any more when Ancestor-science was real and holy and it worked."

Trading with them—well, you traded with them. Mankind needed spear-points and sturdy spear-shafts, knapsacks and loin-straps, canteens and cooking vessels. You needed these articles and got them in exchange for heavy backloads of shapeless, unprocessed stuff freshly stolen. Mating with them—well, of course you mated with them. One was always on the lookout for extra women who could add to the knowledge and technical abilities of Mankind. But these women became a well-adjusted part of Mankind once they were stolen, just as Mankind's women were complete outsiders and Strangers the moment they had been carried off by a foreign raiding party. And fighting with them, warring with them—next to stealing from the Monsters, that was the sweetest, most exciting part of a warrior's existence.

You traded with Strangers, coldly, suspiciously, always alert for a better bargain; you stole Stranger women whenever you could, gleefully, proudly, because that diminished them and increased the numbers and well-being of Mankind; and you fought Stranger men whenever there was more to be gained that way than by simple trading—and periodically they came upon you as you lay in your burrow unawares and fought you.

But otherwise, for all normal social purposes, they were taboo. Almost as taboo and not-to-be-related-to as the Monsters on the other side of Mankind's burrows. When you came upon an individual Stranger wandering apart from his people, you killed him quickly and casually.

You certainly didn't ask him for advice on your Theft.

It was like one of the roaches in the storage burrow declaring war on a cook who came in to make the evening meal for Mankind. The cook would roar with laughter at such a thought. Who knew what went on in the mind of a roach—and who cared? Yet the roach would enjoy two special advantages. He had once and for all stopped crawling greedily and aimlessly with his own kind; and the enemy he had selected could regard him with nothing more than heavy oblivious contempt. If he could ever for a moment find one usable weapon and one vital area on which that weapon could be used....

He hefted his two special advantages grimly. Then Eric the Only, the Eye, the Outlaw, Eric the Self-Aware Individual Man, stepped through the doorway into Monster territory.

World Without Glamor By Milton Lesser - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/64965/pg64965-images.html

 Colonists on Talbor had little time for

anything but work, which was bad for morale. So
Earth sent a special ship—with a unique cargo.

DEADLY CITY By Ivar Jorgenson - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32705/pg32705-images.html

 You're all alone in a deserted city. You walk down an empty street, yearning for the sight of one living face—one moving figure. Then you see a man on a corner and you know your terror has only begun.

She raised her eyes until they were staring into their own images in the glass and she spoke aloud in a low, wondering voice. She said, "Who the hell am I, anyway? Who am I? A body named Linda—that's who I am. No—that's what I am. A body's not a who—it's a what. One hundred and fourteen pounds of well-built blond body called Linda—model 1931—no fender dents—nice paint job. Come in and drive me away. Price tag—"

THE GOLDEN AMAZONS OF VENUS By JOHN MURRAY REYNOLDS - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/32544/pg32544-images.html

 

Battleground By Lester del Rey - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/73313/pg73313-images.html

 We know that the human race must

struggle to survive—and that
on the outcome may hang disaster.
But just how wide is Armageddon?

ARBITER a novelet by SAM MERWIN, JR. - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70173/pg70173-images.html

 Now, in 2073 Mars, according to the most recent census, has a population of two hundred forty-six million, Ganymede five and a half, the other satellites a total of less than two. Yet Earth is self-sufficient with a population exceeding six billions. Do I hear rightly when you talk of lebensraum?"

Earth staples as kumquat juice, plankton steaks, hashed-brown plantains and grilled shark's tongues.

THE BIG TRIP UP YONDER By KURT VONNEGUT, JR. - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/30240/pg30240-images.html

 

TYRANTS OF TIME By Milton Lesser - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/66330/pg66330-images.html

 Do dictators rise to power by accident? What

if their ascendency is planned throughout history
by men of the future who play with time as if it
were a toy. And what if 1955 is their key year....

Dorlup puffed like a blowfish out of water, lighting a big cigar. "Used to be that way. But time's become the universal solvent. Business, pleasure, anything—all else is a dull routine. If the solidios don't turn to time, they'll go out of business in a couple of years."

You're being melodramatic. I happen to know your territory is the 20th century; perhaps that's responsible for the way you talk. Couldn't be better for my purposes, you know. The Age of Atoms and Intrigue. Can't you see it now, in lights, glaring across a million solidio screens? Atoms and Intrigue, The Life and Adventures of Tedor Barwan, Time Agent. How about ten thousand? Wait, don't answer. What do you know about the year 1955?"

Mulid Ruscar wore a modern robe over his quaint 18th century sleeping gown. His sandals could have been ancient Greek. The cigarette he smoked probably originated in the 20th century, clearly the smokingest of all centuries. 

There is no crime worse than time-tinkering. We are a people depending on time. Ours is a civilization which exists in time. Many of our workers actually commute daily to past ages. Others live and work in the past entirely, paying their taxes and visiting here occasionally. We depend on the past for virtually all of our natural resources.

Why was Dorlup so interested in 1955, the year time-travel shunned like the plague. Not out of direct choice: after all its advance billing, 1955 would draw a horde of curiosity seekers if nothing else. But for some reason, no time-traveler could penetrate the year. It was the one profound, inexplicable mystery of time-traveling, and coming at the peak of the 20th century cold war, it left a lot of questions unanswered. It presented two mysteries then. First, why couldn't time machinery operate there? Second, what had happened in that crucial year? Tedor wondered what Laniq Hadrien knew about it.

Moments later, Tedor was ushered into a plush office which borrowed its furnishings from half a dozen civilizations. Most of the furniture was what the 20th century called Swedish modern, but the carpeting was authentic 10th century Persian, the drapes came from someplace in the Orient about five hundred years later, the pictures on the wall were replicas of drawings found in caves in southern France. The net result was garish but impressive.

The non-temps, Tedor knew, were a growing cult which insisted time-travel was an evil both from the point of view of the ages visited and of the age doing the visiting. They had gathered considerable data to prove their point, and although Tedor never looked into it thoroughly, some said they put up a convincing though completely impractical argument.

"We've got our hands full with Hadrien and his followers, just as you have," said the Director. "You can't argue with their figures, but sometimes figures don't tell the entire story. Ten years ago, the non-temps will tell you, the population of Earth was one billion, far smaller than it was in the past because of a sensible policy of eugenics. Today the population is somewhat short of a billion, they say, and the census verifies it.

"Ten years ago, they continue, a quarter of a million people commuted into time daily to work in the various ages, sleeping here but working and vacationing else-when. Today the figure has grown to three quarters of a billion, and it's still increasing.

"And seventy-five million people have vanished into the past. They simply preferred the past ages and broke all relations with the present. But that's the problem of you Agents, not us."

The non-temps say this is a dangerous trend. They further maintain it is our own fault. We provide no real culture of our own, no sense of belonging. We gear everything to the past ages, converting our own world to a sort of administration center and nothing more. We work in the past, receive our raw materials in the past; our art forms more and more are concerned with other times, other places. We do nothing to encourage living in our own century."

---

Tedor frowned. "In a way, it's hard to argue with that."

"Precisely. They're leaving out one important fact, however: ours is a civilization which exists not along the usual spatial lines but a civilization which exists in time. That is a whole new concept, Tedor—something unique in the history of the world. If, for example, our ancestors had found life and conditions capable of supporting life on the planets of this solar system, we doubtless would have spread out to the planets and so geared our culture in that direction. No one would have complained. But the planets are sterile, and while we could mine them for minerals, the transportation cost is prohibitive. Instead, we have turned in an entirely new—and unexpected—direction.

"If you searched every inch of the Earth today from Baffin Island to the Antarctic continent, you would find no natural deposits of coal and oil. Silver is almost gone. Gold has vanished. The list is much larger, but you get the idea. With space travel fruitless, time alone can keep mankind going. If that is an evil, then so is the act of the first caveman who crawled from his cave to discover fire.

"Naturally, one doesn't steer civilization in a completely new direction and achieve perfection overnight. Perhaps we are attacking the problem incorrectly. The non-temps think so

The fat solidio writer whirled at the sound of the woman's voice, then groaned. Beti Sparr, a starlet who had been featured tragically (not in the story but in the gross profit which was nil, Dorlup thought bitterly) pushed her way through the crowd toward him. Beti wore a costume of the day and wore it well. She had blond hair and looks and a figure. If only she could act, thought Dorlup.

Many hundreds of miles distant, in an unimportant place called Afghanistan, Domique Hadrien waited impatiently and with growing alarm for word from his daughter. He had chosen Afghanistan precisely for its unimportance. Although he knew Laniq was a capable girl, their adversaries were shrewd, merciless men possessed of a megalomania which would readily lead to acts of violence. Domique Hadrien decided to wait one day longer and then send his most experienced time-traveler after Laniq.

Tedor thanked him and set off at a fast pace down one of the mean streets radiating from the gate. He reached the Agora merely by following the crowds and wended his way through the crowded marketplace with the shouts of the fish, bread, wine and honey-mongers on all sides of him.

The tradesmen jockeyed their pushcarts around for more advantageous positions; the slaves ran nimbly about the Agora on nameless errands; the gentlemen of leisure, garbed in embroidered tunics and mantles of white, red, purple and black, sauntered without hurry under the shade of the adjacent stoas, servants following behind them or preceding them like schools of pilot fish.

It was a hot day, the bright sun scorching everything and engendering an odor in the fish-carts which made the fish-mongers decidedly unpopular. Twice Tedor spotted Laniq ahead of him in tunic and mantle but with her hair free, snapping pictures with her camera, but each time the crowds swirled in ahead of him and he lost her.

O.T.A.N. 75 YEARS READY FOR WAR - NEXT : THE GERMAN ARMY RISES AGAIN

THE HIGH ONES By POUL ANDERSON - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/71883/pg71883-images.html

 Furthermore, I have had combat experience in suppressing the Brazilian capitalist uprising.

NOTE FOR A TIME CAPSULE By EDWARD WELLEN - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/71869/pg71869-images.html

 

TIME GRABBER By Gordon R. Dickson - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/65977/pg65977-images.html

 It seemed to be logical research, switching

sixteen Romans from the 1st Century to the 27th—for
study.... But who was going to take their place?

The MOBIUS TRAIL a novelet by GEORGE O. SMITH - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70227/pg70227-images.html

 So far—and yet so futile. It was, he thought, like having a brand new telephone on a world where there were no other subscribers. He could reach out for the world but the world could not answer.

AND THERE WAS LIGHT By Lester del Rey - https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/70364/pg70364-images.html