Clifford Simak - A Death in the House - And Other Stories

“So little Mary Holland is thrown into the past, makes herself a bundle, endows Coon Creek Institute—”

“More than that,” he said. “There was the initial endowment, of course, the one that got us started. And then, about fifteen years ago, about the time the time-engine business started, there was a supplementary endowment that had been in escrow in a New York bank for years, pegged to be paid off at a given time. A rather handsome sum. This time there was a name—a certain Genevieve Lansing. From the little I could find she had been an eccentric old character who was an accomplished pianist, although she never played in public. And the thing that made her so eccentric was that at a time when no one else ever even thought about it, she was utterly convinced that some day man would go out to the stars.”

I said nothing for a long time and neither did he. He got up and brought a bottle from the bar and splashed some more liquor in our glasses.

Finally I stirred in my chair. “She knew,” I said. “She knew you’d need that supplementary endowment to develop a spaceship and spaceport facilities.”

“That’s what we used it for,” he said. “We named the ship the Genevieve Lansing . I ached to call it the Mary Holland , but I didn’t dare.”

I finished off my liquor and put the glass down on a table. “I wonder, Kirby,” I said, “if you’d put me up for a day or two. Until I can get my feet under me. I don’t quite feel up to walking out immediately.”

“We couldn’t let you go in any case,” said Kirby. “We can’t have you turning up. Remember, you and Mary Holland ran off together fifteen years ago.”

“But I can’t just stay here. I’ll take a different name if you think I should. At this late date, no one would recognize me.”

“Charley,” he said, “you wouldn’t just be staying here. There’s work for you to do. You may be the one man alive who can do the job that’s waiting.”

“I can’t imagine…”

“I told you we can build time engines. We can use them to go out to the stars. But we don’t know why they work. We don’t know the principle. That’s an intolerable situation. The job’s less than half done, there’s still a lot to do.”

I got out of the chair slowly. “Coon Creek,” I said. “Tied forever to Coon Creek.”

He held out his hand to me. “Charley,” he said, “we’re glad to have you home.”

And standing there, shaking hands with him, I reminded myself it need not be Coon Creek forever. One of these days I might be going to the stars.

During his fifty-five-year career, CLIFFORD D. SIMAK produced some of the most iconic science fiction stories ever written. Born in 1904 on a farm in southwestern Wisconsin, Simak got a job at a small-town newspaper in 1929 and eventually became news editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune , writing fiction in his spare time.

Simak was best known for the book City , a reaction to the horrors of World War II, and for his novel Way Station . In 1953 City was awarded the International Fantasy Award, and in following years, Simak won three Hugo Awards and a Nebula Award. In 1977 he became the third Grand Master of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, and before his death in 1988, he was named one of three inaugural winners of the Horror Writers Association’s Bram Stoker Award for Lifetime Achievement.

DAVID W. WIXON was a close friend of Clifford D. Simak’s. As Simak’s health declined, Wixon, already familiar with science fiction publishing, began more and more to handle such things as his friend’s business correspondence and contract matters. Named literary executor of the estate after Simak’s death, Wixon began a long-term project to secure the rights to all of Simak’s stories and find a way to make them available to readers who, given the fifty-five-year span of Simak’s writing career, might never have gotten the chance to enjoy all of his short fiction. Along the way, Wixon also read the author’s surviving journals and rejected manuscripts, which made him uniquely able to provide Simak’s readers with interesting and thought-provoking commentary that sheds new light on the work and thought of a great writer.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

These are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2016 the Estate of Clifford D. Simak”

All stories reprinted by permission of the Estate of Clifford D. Simak.

“Operation Stinky” © 1957 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation. © 1985 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, v. 13, no. 6, April, 1957.

“Green Thumb” © 1954 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. © 1982 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, v. 8, no. 4, July, 1954.

“When It’s Hangnoose Time in Hell” © 1946 by Popular Publications, Inc. © 1974 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in .44 Western Magazine, v. 14, no. 2, April, 1946.

“The Sitters” © 1958 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. © 1986 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, v. 15, no. 6, April, 1958.

“Tools” © 1942 by Street and Smith Publications, Inc. © 1970 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, v. 29, no. 5, July, 1942.

“Target Generation” © 1953 by Gernsback Publications, Inc., under the title “Spacebred Generations”; © 1981 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Science-Fiction Plus, v. 1, no. 5, Aug., 1953.

“War Is Personal” © 1944 by Nedor Publishing Co. © 1972 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Army-Navy Flying Stories, v. 4, no. 3, Winter (January), 1945.

“Nine Lives” © 1957 by American Short Stories Corp. © 1985 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Short Stories Magazine, v. 219, no. 6, December, 1957.

“A Death in the House” © 1959 by Galaxy Publishing Corp. © 1987 by Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in Galaxy Science Fiction, v. 18, no. 1, Oct., 1959.

“The Birch Clump Cylinder” © 1974 by Random House, Inc. © 2002 by the Estate of Clifford D. Simak. Originally published in original anthology Stellar 1, ed. by Judy-Lynn del Rey.

Introduction © 2016 by David W. Wixon

Cover design by Jason Gabbert

978-1-5040-3734-1

Published in 2016 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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THE COMPLETE SHORT FICTION OF CLIFFORD D. SIMAK

FROM OPEN ROAD MEDIA