Short Fiction Robert Sheckley (best romantic books to read TXT) š
- Author: Robert Sheckley
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Landing on the Earth should have killed him, for the air itself was poisoned. He hadnāt caredā āand he had lived. He seemed to be immune to the various kinds of germs and radiations, or perhaps that was part of his new power. He certainly had encountered enough of both, skipping around the world in his ship, from the ruins of one city to another, across blasted valleys and plains, scorched mountains. He had found no life, but he did discover something.
He could create. He realized the power on his third day on Earth. Wistfully, he had wished for a tree in the midst of the melted rock and metal; a tree had appeared. The rest of the day he experimented, and found that he could create anything that he had ever seen or heard about.
Things he knew best, he could create best. Things he knew just from books or conversationā āpalaces, for exampleā ātended to be lopsided and uncertain, although he could make them nearly perfect by laboring mentally over the details. Everything he created was three-dimensional. Even food tasted like food and seemed to nourish him. He could forget all about one of his creations, go to sleep, and it would still be there when he awakened. He could also uncreate. A single concentrated thought and the thing he had made would vanish. The larger the thing, the longer it took to uncreate.
Things he hadnāt madeā āvalleys and mountainsā āhe could uncreate, too, but it took longer. It seemed as though matter was easier to handle once he had shaped it. He could make birds and small animals, or things that looked like birds and small animals.
He had never tried to make a human being.
He wasnāt a scientist; he had been a space-pilot. He had a vague concept of atomic theory and practically no idea of genetics. He thought that some change must have taken place in his germ-plasm, or in his brain, or perhaps in the Earth. The āwhyā of it all didnāt especially bother him. It was a fact and he accepted it.
He stared at the monument again. Something about it bothered him.
Of course, he could have created it, but he didnāt know if the things he made would endure after his death. They seemed stable enough, but they might dissolve with his own dissolution. Therefore he compromised. He created a chisel and mallet, but selected a granite wall that he hadnāt made. He cut the letters into the inside of the wall of the cave so they would be safe from the elements, working many hours at a stretch, sleeping and eating beside the wall.
From the mouth of the cave, he could see his ship, perched on a level plain of scorched ground. He was in no rush to get back to it. In six days the inscription was done, cut deeply and eternally into the rock.
The thought that had been bothering him as he stared at the gray granite finally came to the surface. The only people who would come to read it would be visitors from the stars. How would they decipher it? He stared at the inscription angrily. He should have written it in symbols. But what kind of symbols? Mathematics? Of course, but what would that tell them about Man? And what made him think they would discover the cave anyway? There was no use for an inscription when Manās entire history was written over the face of the planet, scorched into the crust for anyone to see. He cursed his stupidity for wasting six days working at the useless inscription. He was about to uncreate it when he turned his head, hearing footsteps at the mouth of the cave.
He almost fell off the chair getting to his feet.
A girl was standing there. He blinked rapidly, and she was still there, a tall, dark-haired girl dressed in a torn, dirty one-piece coverall.
āHi,ā she said, and walked into the cave. āI heard your hammer from the valley.ā
Automatically, he offered her his chair and created another for himself. She tested it gingerly before she sat down.
āI saw you do it,ā she said, ābut I still donāt believe it. Mirrors?ā
āNo,ā he muttered uncertainly. āI create. That is, I have the power toā āwait a minute! How did you get here?ā While he was demanding to know, he was considering and rejecting possibilities. Hidden in a cave? On a mountain top? No, there would be only one possible way.ā āā ā¦
āI was in your ship, pal.ā She leaned back in the chair and clasped her hands around one knee. āWhen you loaded up that cruiser, I figured you were going to beat it. I was getting tired of setting fuses eighteen hours a day, so I stowed away. Anybody else alive?ā
āNo. Why didnāt I see you, then?ā He stared at the ragged, beautiful girl, and a vague thought crossed his mind. He reached out and touched her arm. She didnāt draw back, but her pretty face grew annoyed.
āIām real,ā she said bluntly. āYou must have seen me at the base. Remember?ā
He tried to think back to the time when there had been a baseā ācenturies ago, it seemed. There had been a dark-haired girl there, one who had never given him a tumble.
āI think I froze to death,ā she was saying. āOr into coma, anyhow, a few hours after your ship took off. Lousy heating system you have in that crate!ā She shivered reminiscently.
āWould have used up too much oxygen,ā he explained. āJust kept the pilotās compartment heated and aired. Used a suit to drag supplies forward when I needed them.ā
āIām glad you didnāt see me,ā she laughed. āI must have looked like the devil, all covered with frost and killed, I bet. Some sleeping beauty I probably made! Well, I froze. When you opened all the compartments, I revived. Thatās the whole story. Guess it took a few days. How come you didnāt see me?ā
āI suppose I never looked back there,ā he admitted. āQuick enough,
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