Philip Dick - The Science Fiction Anthology

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This collection brings together some of the most incredible sci-fi stories ever told in one convenient, high-quality, Kindle volume!
This book now contains several HTML tables of contents that will make reading a real pleasure!
The Sentimentalists, by Murray Leinster
The Girls from Earth, by Frank Robinson
The Death Traps of FX-31, by Sewell Wright
Song in a minor key, by C.L. Moore
Sentry of the Sky, by Evelyn E. Smith
Meeting of the Minds, by Robert Sheckley
Junior, by Robert Abernathy
Death Wish, by Ned Lang
Dead World, by Jack Douglas
Cost of Living, by Robert Sheckley
Aloys, by R.A. Lafferty
With These Hands, by C.M. Kornbluth
What is POSAT?, by Phyllis Sterling-Smith
A Little Journey, by Ray Bradbury
Hunt the Hunter, by Kris Neville
Citizen Jell, by Michael Shaara
Operation Distress, by Lester Del Rey
Syndrome Johnny, by Charles Dye
Psychotennis, anyone?, by Lloyd Williams
Prime Difference, by Alan Nourse
Doorstep, by Keith Laumer
The Drug, by C.C. MacApp
An Elephant For the Prinkip, by L.J. Stecher
License to Steal, by Louis Newman
The Last Letter, by Fritz Lieber
The Stuff, by Henry Slesar
The Celestial Hammerlock, by Donald Colvin
Always A Qurono, by Jim Harmon
Jamieson, by Bill Doede
A Fall of Glass, by Stanley Lee
Shatter the Wall, by Sydney Van Scyoc
Transfer Point, by Anthony Boucher
Thy Name Is Woman, by Kenneth O'Hara
Twelve Times Zero, by Howard Browne
All Day Wednesday, by Richard Olin
Blind Spot, by Bascom Jones
Double Take, by Richard Wilson
Field Trip, by Gene Hunter
Larson's Luck, by Gerald Vance
Navy Day, by Harry Harrison
One Martian Afternoon, by Tom Leahy
Planet of Dreams, by James McKimmey
Prelude To Space, by Robert Haseltine
Pythias, by Frederik Pohl
Show Business, by Boyd Ellanby
Slaves of Mercury, by Nat Schachner
Sound of Terror, by Don Berry
The Big Tomorrow, by Paul Lohrman
The Four-Faced Visitors of…Ezekiel, by Arthur Orton
The Happy Man, by Gerald Page
The Last Supper, by T.D. Hamm
The One and the Many, by Milton Lesser
The Other Likeness, by James Schmitz
The Outbreak of Peace, by H.B. Fyfe
The Skull, by Philip K. Dick
The Smiler, by Albert Hernhunter
The Unthinking Destroyer, by Roger Phillips
Two Timer, by Frederic Brown
Vital Ingredient, by Charles De Vet
Weak on Square Roots, by Russell Burton
With a Vengeance, by J.B. Woodley
Zero Hour, by Alexander Blade
The Great Nebraska Sea, by Allan Danzig
The Valor of Cappen Varra, by Poul Anderson
A Bad Day for Vermin, by Keith Laumer
Hall of Mirrors, by Frederic Brown
Common Denominator, by John MacDonald
Doctor, by Murray Leinster
The Nothing Equation, by Tom Godwin
The Last Evolution, by John Campbell
A Hitch in Space, by Fritz Leiber
On the Fourth Planet, by J.F. Bone
Flight From Tomorrow, by H. Beam Piper
Card Trick, by Walter Bupp
The K-Factor, by Harry Harrison
The Lani People, by J. F. Bone
Advanced Chemistry, by Jack Huekels
Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas, by R. A. Lafferty
Keep Out, by Frederic Brown
All Cats are Gray, by Andre Norton
A Problem in Communication, by Miles J. Breuer
The Terrible Tentacles of L-472, by Sewell Peaslee Wright
Marooned Under the Sea, by Paul Ernst
The Murder Machine, by Hugh B. Cave
The Attack from Space, by Captain S. P. Meek
The Knights of Arthur, by Frederik Pohl
And All the Earth a Grave, by C.C. MacApp
Citadel, by Algis Budrys
Micro-Man, by Weaver Wright
....

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“Careful, boy,” warned Teagle. “There’s a dame present.”

For fifteen seconds Grant’s eyes were locked with Slag’s. He looked into their red-rimmed hatred, fought to see the depths of the man. Then, just before the other turned away, an unreasoning, unexpected emotion surged in Grant. It swept over and left him shaken, all in that instant.

The emotion was fear.

Out on the court it was anger he felt, anger at Slag, who stood opposite and bowed to the noisy throng, anger at Teagle, who chanted insults until ordered behind the second’s shield, at the spectators, packing the Colliseum in hopes of seeing a player maimed or killed—and Bee Anthony, even at Bee.

She had defied him, bribed her way in to act as his second, and had slipped behind the shield at his side of the court. In front of those jeering faces, it was out of the question to make her leave.

There was a roar as the ball dropped from the referee’s overhead bubble. Grant left it to Slag, let the man shoot crudely several times, and fought to calm himself. The shots were forceful, but easily stopped and returned. It was like Tony’s match, almost too slow at first. Until the players became absorbed, it was hopeless to attempt any kind of hypnotic effects with the ball.

Slag swung the sphere into rapid circles about the court. The crowd watched silently, as if impressed by the player’s control. To Grant it was absurd—he knew that any trained child could execute the movements. And yet, Tony must have felt so, too. But that was before—

The ball dropped on him like a hawk, and he almost laughed. To give the gasping crowd a thrill, he barely deflected the shot, and feigned amazement. Slag retrieved control.

Beneath the sudden amusement, Grant was uneasy. Slag had never won a real victory—never dazed or hypnotized an opponent before striking. All his triumphs rested on single, smashing thrusts. How was it possible? With such clumsy control, the professional could never set up a victory—yet the record stood. Grant could not fathom the problem. If the match went on forever, he could see no way for Slag to drop him. And if he quickly whirled Slag into dazed defeat, the real mystery might never be solved. His opponent would merely have suffered defeat in a match not even recognized by the Commission.

Now he could guess why Tony had played carelessly. It was not only victory that was sought. He had deluded himself in accepting such an irresponsible way out. The whole affair depressed him, knotted itself into mind-snaring tangles. The ball blurred again and he hardly cared, only ducking to let it splat against the shield behind him. A spurt of rage sent the sphere spinning back at Slag, but the other diverted it easily into a screen-hugging orbit.

Tony, Slag, Woods and Teagle—they seemed to merge confusedly in his mind. They stood, each in turn, at the door of an iron-barred cell. For Grant, there was no way out. Win or lose, live or die, he was doomed. The light dimmed in the cell. Just for an instant Bee appeared, her hair throwing off sparks of brilliance. She, too, faded out. Neither Bee the child, whom he did not love, nor Bee the woman, who did not love him, could save him. Before him gaped the bottomless pit of shame and penance. He had unloosed a monster on the world. He had to pay for that.

But first Grant had another debt to pay. He tried to throw off the depression, imagining as he did so a sob of joy in the disembodied Bee. He wrested the sweeping ball from Slag, even from the opposite end of the court. He spun it in wild orbits and compensated for the other’s furious thrusts. Faster and faster he circled it. Slag’s mind could not keep up the pace. The even swings acquired a jogging pattern, edged farther out—to within ten feet of Slag. A quick break lanced behind the man, out again, and then the sphere fell into helical loops, thrice differentiated by harmonic variations, and swept wide around the court.

Somehow Slag’s distress gave Grant no pleasure. Defeat seemed to face him everywhere; he read it in his opponent’s twisted features, even in the futile effort to withdraw attention from the ball. It’s no good , he thought. I have failed all along.

Savagely he worked the sphere. He would do it quickly. There was no use expecting Tony’s fate. The ball darted again for Slag and this time there could be no interference. It became pure mathematics, the motion, complicated far beyond Tony’s simple corondo , a flashing three-dimensional blur of color. He could not keep it up. The concentration brought an invading blackness to his mind. Somewhere there was a dull roar, and he felt as if his own mind were cracking. His nerves quivered to put an end to it, to touch Slag with the ball. Slowly, cautiously, he brought the sphere down....

Slag was not there!

He gaped. His eyes suddenly found the crumpled heap across the court, and relief swept ever him. The man was beaten, in a state of collapse, and there was nothing more Grant could do.

“Grant!” Bee screamed. “Oh, no! Grant darling, look up!”

Her radiance was almost blinding. He half-twisted to reach her, and then his eyes caught it—the ugly sheen of the fast-growing ball. Desperately he turned, and it shifted in unison. Then she shrieked once more, despairingly, and he threw himself flat, arms outstretched, toward her.

The ball’s speed was so great that it shattered to pieces against the shield behind him.

From back of the barrier ran Bee. She crouched beside him, and her enveloping warmth lifted the evil spell from his mind. The loud confusion of the crowd burst upon him, he saw the referee’s swiftly lowering bubble. He was in control of himself, thanks to Bee’s interference, and could act on the knowledge so dangerously gained.

“The murderer!” Grant pulled Bee up with him. “We’ve got him!”

Opposite them, Slag still lay on the court.

“I don’t see how he did it,” Grant said bewilderedly.

“Not Slag— him !” She pointed out the small, running figure.

Teagle battered vainly at a gate. The still-active screen held him back, and the man’s face was a despairing white grimace. Then Grant was upon him, and took him by the throat.

Woods paced the dressing room, still confused. “I begin to see,” he said, “but what can I do with the two of them?”

“Stop worrying.” Grant was curt. “You can do nothing. The law will take Teagle, and without him Slag is just another bum.”

“He never knew,” marveled Bee. “Slag never knew how he won.”

“I am to blame.” Grant thought of the surging fear Teagle had directed in him at Slag’s hotel. “I should have known that telepsychical phenomena could be used as a weapon. The man is a freak. He couldn’t influence the ball, but communicated overpowering emotion—without even seeing his subjects—from behind his shield. The victims committed suicide, just as I nearly did before Bee....”

“What did you feel—a so-called called death wish?” asked Woods. “No matter. Not seeing Slag collapse, he overplayed his hand.”

“Slag’s being unconscious merely provided an anti-climax,” said Grant. “There was a more important factor added this time. And if you don’t mind, Woods, I have an apology to make in private to my one and only second.”

“Not just the only one, darling,” said Bee. “But your permanent, till-death-do-us-part second! Right?”

“Right!” Grant said.

“That’s the only thing tonight,” said Woods, “of which I officially approve.”

Prime Difference, by Alan Nourse

I suppose that every guy reaches a point once in his lifetime when he gets one hundred and forty per cent fed up with his wife.

Understand now—I’ve got nothing against marriage or any thing like that. Marriage is great. It’s a good old red-blooded American Institution. Except that it’s got one defect in it big enough to throw a cat through, especially when you happen to be married to a woman like Marge—

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