Genre Science Fiction. Page - 20

same day another important personage fell into the hands of the Southerners. This was no other than Gideon Spilen, a reporter for the New York Herald, who had been ordered to follow the changes of the war in the midst of the Northern armies.

Gideon Spilett was one of that race of indomitable English or American chroniclers, like Stanley and others, who stop at nothing to obtain exact information, and transmit it to their journal in the shortest possible time. The newspapers of the Union, such as the New York Herald, are genuine powers, and their reporters are men to be reckoned with. Gideon Spilett ranked among the first of those reporters: a man of great merit, energetic, prompt and ready for anything, full of ideas, having traveled over the whole world, soldier and artist, enthusiastic in council, resolute in action, caring neither for trouble, fatigue, nor danger, when in pursuit of information, for himself first, and then for his journal, a perfect treasury of knowledge on all sorts of curious subj

o recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other men upon Mars, perhaps inferior to themselves and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Yet across the gulf of space, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded this earth with envious eyes, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us. And early in the twentieth century came the great disillusionment.

The planet Mars, I scarcely need remind the reader, revolves about the sun at a mean distance of 140,000,000 miles, and the light and heat it receives from the sun is barely half of that received by this world. It must be, if the nebular hypothesis has any truth, older than our world; and long before this earth ceased to be molten, life upon its surface must have begun its course. The fact that it is scarcely one seventh of the volume of the earth must have accelerated its cooling to the temperature a

"Very useful things indeed they are, sir," said Mrs. Hall.

"And I'm very naturally anxious to get on with my inquiries."

"Of course, sir."

"My reason for coming to Iping," he proceeded, with a certain deliberation of manner, "was ... a desire for solitude. I do not wish to be disturbed in my work. In addition to my work, an accident--"

"I thought as much," said Mrs. Hall to herself.

"--necessitates a certain retirement. My eyes--are sometimes so weak and painful that I have to shut myself up in the dark for hours together. Lock myself up. Sometimes--now and then. Not at present, certainly. At such times the slightest disturbance, the entry of a stranger into the room, is a source of excruciating annoyance to me--it is well these things should be understood."

"Certainly, sir," said Mrs. Hall. "And if I might make so bold as to ask--"

"That I think, is all," said the stranger, with that quietly irresistible

thought of it. It'splain enough, and helps the paradox delightfully. We cannot seeit, nor can we appreciate this machine, any more than we can thespoke of a wheel spinning, or a bullet flying through the air.If it is travelling through time fifty times or a hundred timesfaster than we are, if it gets through a minute while we getthrough a second, the impression it creates will of course beonly one-fiftieth or one-hundredth of what it would make if itwere not travelling in time. That's plain enough.' He passedhis hand through the space in which the machine had been. `Yousee?' he said, laughing.

We sat and stared at the vacant table for a minute or so. Thenthe Time Traveller asked us what we thought of it all.

`It sounds plausible enough to-night,' said the Medical Man;'but wait until to-morrow. Wait for the common sense of themorning.'

`Would you like to see the Time Machine itself?' asked the TimeTraveller. And therewith, taking the lamp in his hand, he ledthe way down

was warmly discussed, which procured it a high reputation. It rallied round it a certain number of partisans. The solution it proposed gave, at least, full liberty to the imagination. The human mind delights in grand conceptions of supernatural beings. And the sea is precisely their best vehicle, the only medium through which these giants (against which terrestrial animals, such as elephants or rhinoceroses, are as nothing) can be produced or developed.

The industrial and commercial papers treated the question chiefly from this point of view. The Shipping and Mercantile Gazette, the Lloyd's List, the Packet-Boat, and the Maritime and Colonial Review, all papers devoted to insurance companies which threatened to raise their rates of premium, were unanimous on this point. Public opinion had been pronounced. The United States were the first in the field; and in New York they made preparations for an expedition destined to pursue this narwhal. A frigate of great speed, the Abraham Lincoln, was put in comm

When the skies are filled with UFO's, no one knows what to do. Only certain people are aware of them, while the rest of the public is unaware of theim...

In a world with genetically modified organisms and socially programmed humans, one company is trying to bring natural goodness to the masses.

Attelus and Kalakor didn't bother with stealth or subtlety, and the Space Marine led the way as they stepped out of the corridor and onto the hangar's catwalk. Instantly las and solid shots rained against Kalakor's power armour, and Kalakor raised his bolter and replied in kind. Attelus slipped past Kalakor and, in a split second, took in his surroundings. The docking bay was now crawling with dozens of cultists and guardsmen. Two huge, hunched, horned daemons were amongst them, standing head and shoulders taller than any of the Resurrected. Grinning, Attelus smashed aside a few shots and vaulted over the handrail. His sword sliced through one unlucky cultist from head to the groin as he was in mid-fall. Attelus landed into a kneel then lunged across six metres to cut through the chest of a guardsman as he was raising his lasgun. The throne agent whipped out his foot in a hook kick which sent the corpse's upper half flying and spinning, then smashing into the skull of a charging cultist who collapsed and crashed into a guardsman beside him. He laughed and dashed aside a withering hail of shots that followed him as he continued to sprint. A cultist stepped into his path; a chainsword held ready. Attelus slid into a kneel, and the chainsword swing, which was meant to tear through his torso, passed over his head. Attelus gutted the cultist with a horizontal cut, darted onto the screaming cultist's flank, then onward, so the rounds raining in his wake tore the heretic to shreds. He charged for the enemy flank, a Marangerian trooper roared at Attelus, stabbing with a bayonet. Attelus sidestepped, then bisected the Maragerian's skull with a downward, diagonal stroke. A cultist let out an enraged screech and came at Attelus, but before Attelus could counter the cultist's stabbing combat blade, the bastard's head exploded in a haze of red and sent spinning back, the neck spewing out a thick tendril of blood. Attelus back-pedalled a Velrosian sergeant's whirling chainsword, then his sword parried through a swinging lasgun. Attelus sent a side-kick that bashed in the last guardsman's face. Attelus' backswing then opened the sergeant's throat. He carried his slash into a 180-degree arc that sliced through the elbows of a cultist as he was in the midst of a wild overhead chop. A thrusting bayonet made Attelus duck, then as the enemy guardsman was about to swing out the butt of his lasgun Attelus kicked him under the jaw with his boot knife; Attelus pulled his foot out and kicked the man back into his ally. Attelus blocked a slashing axe, then weaved beneath another cutting chainsword. He then impaled the axe-wielding cultist through the skull, pulled out his blade, then sliced straight diagonally from the shoulder to hip of the guardswoman sergeant with the chainsword. A split second later, one of the daemons burst through its Resurrected allies; it snarled and, with a sword as long as it was tall, smashed out a downward, diagonal strike. Attelus danced back of it, then ducked its huge reverse swing. The second daemon pushed past the first's left and swung down vertically. Attelus dashed out of its path, and the black, hazed with blood-red blade hit the deck with a deafening clang and smashed in some of the steel. "Get out of the way," Kalakor said over the vox, and Attelus started darting toward the stairs. Two frag grenades clanged at the daemons' clawed feet and exploded. It sent them and the six nearest Resurrected flying. Attelus sprinted up the stairs while drawing his autopistol from its chest holster and stood beside Kalakor. "You are a fool," said the Raven Guard as he fired bolter round after bolter into the enemy horde, which seemed to grow and grow. "Why did you abandon cover and an elevated position?" Attelus took cover behind the marine and added his piddling fire to Kalakor's roaring deluge. "Mostly out of fun," said Attelus. "And a little so I can be a distraction for you to be able to kill as many of the enemy as possible." Kalakor sighed. "You aim for the mortals; I will take care of the Bloodletters." "Bloodletters?" said Attelus while sending a cultist cracking, bouncing down the stairs with around to the chest. "Is that what they're called?" With incredible speed, Kalakor ejected his empty clip and reloaded. "You are a part of the Inquisition, but you do not know what those daemons are named?" Attelus shrugged as he darted back from a brief fusillade. "We're Ordo Hereticus; the daemonic isn't our speciality. I do know that they are in the service of the blood god, though." "But you still ally with Xenos, despite the fact that you are not Ordo Xenos, but the alien is not your speciality, either." Attelus said nothing, just cut down a guardsman as he was starting to advance up the stairs. His vox bead beeped. "We're about to enter the city," said Darrance. "Get ready for-" "Yes, yes," said Attelus. "Evasive manoeuvres, we know." "Hold on to me," said Kalakor as he magneti

The few survivors of the planet Zegandaria embark on a long journey to the cold and bleak satellite Charon, which lies in the solar system. In an attempt to escape the sinister secret of computer demon viruses buried deep beneath the surface of Zegandaria in a special sarcophagus they believe is sealed for all time. On the small space colony of Semrik Sin, which bears the name of one of the veterans of the City of Light, they find peace for a time, but it in turn does not last too long. Mysterious murders committed by the so-called Invisibles mark a dark series of secrets that is marked with more and more blood. After the murder of his best friend Jake, Jervond Om San convinces a small group of adventurers to embark on a sinister expedition to the so-called Dead City, located in the sinister Mordor Macula, where Jervond and his companions' ideas of reality will be upended. The group discovers the Voargis buried beneath the ice, and Jessica Edwater sacrifices herself to not only save the life of her beloved, but to help him see the truth of the nature of things. As time passes, Jervond slowly realizes that the darkness comes from his own soul, and the Light creatures that appear to him reveal all to him. Seraija Gul San's heir faces a difficult choice, but he accepts his fate with dignity.

When a remorseful serial killer learns of a prototype time machine, he travels back in time to prevent the crimes of his past and rid the world of the monster he would become.