Brian Aldiss - The Complete Short Stories - The 1950s

The Friday Project An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB

www.harpercollins.co.uk

This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013

Copyright © Brian Aldiss 2013

Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013

Brian Aldiss asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

FIRST EDITION

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007482085

Ebook Edition © August 2013 ISBN: 9780007482092

Version: 2014-10-03

We are indebted to the following individuals who provided rare source materials: Jim Linwood, Richard Fidczuk and Phil Stephensen-Payne.

Title Page The Complete Short Stories: The 1950s BY BRIAN ALDISS

Copyright The Friday Project An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 77–85 Fulham Palace Road Hammersmith, London W6 8JB www.harpercollins.co.uk This ebook first published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013 Copyright © Brian Aldiss 2013 Cover design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2013 Brian Aldiss asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. FIRST EDITION A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library. This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins. Source ISBN: 9780007482085 Ebook Edition © August 2013 ISBN: 9780007482092 Version: 2014-10-03

Dedication We are indebted to the following individuals who provided rare source materials: Jim Linwood, Richard Fidczuk and Phil Stephensen-Payne.

A Book in Time

Criminal Record

Breathing Space

The Great Time Hiccup

Not for an Age

Our Kind of Knowledge

Outside

Panel Game

Pogsmith

Conviction

Dumb Show

The Failed Men

Non-Stop

Psyclops

T

There is a Tide

Tradesman’s Exit

With Esmond in Mind

The Flowers of the Forest

Gesture of Farewell

The Ice Mass Cometh

Let’s Be Frank

No Gimmick

The War Millennia

The Sterile Millennia

The Dark Millennia

The Ultimate Millennia

The Shubshub Race

Supercity

Judas Danced

Ten-Storey Jigsaw

The Pit My Parish

Blighted Profile

Who Can Replace A Man?

The Carp That Once …

Carrion Country

Equator

Fourth Factor

The Megalopolis Millennia

The Star Millennia

The Mutant Millennia

The New Father Christmas

Ninian’s Experiences

Poor Little Warrior!

Sector Diamond

Sight of a Silhouette

They Shall Inherit

Are You An Android?

The Arm

The Bomb-Proof Bomb

Fortune’s Fool

Intangibles, Inc.

Sector Yellow

The Lieutenant

The Other One

Safety Valve

The Towers of San Ampa

Three’s a Cloud

About the Author Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Also by Brian Aldiss

About the Publisher

I was browsing in Albert’s, down Cecil Court, when I saw another customer slipping books under his coat. Indignation high, I made a grab at him, but he had seen my glance and was out of the shop before you could say ‘Limited signed edition’.

I followed hot-foot (crepes always do that to me). Luckily, he did not run far. He had something that looked to my wild glance like a car, hidden behind a pile of crates in a hotel yard. As I jumped on to the running board, I realised it was a queer make. It had no steering wheel, no driving wheels. A publisher ? The wild thought flashed through my head, and then my quarry at the dashboard flipped a lever …

London was gone! At least, the old one had disappeared. It simply blurred and vanished, and a new one of smooth stone and metal took its place. We seemed not to have moved. I was bowled over; indeed, when the fugitive opened his door, I was knocked over.

‘Never impede a passing time machine,’ he said, helping me up.

‘Time machine?’ I queried. Could that really be the hideous explanation of the strangeness around about me?

‘What year is this?’ I asked.

‘2054,’ he said.

‘You’re sure your watch isn’t fast?’

‘Look friend, I’ve got no time for jokes. I’ve got just an hour off duty to snatch some lunch, and then I must be back into the past again. Goodbye.’

By the time I had come out of the nearest thing a non-yogi gets to a trance, he had gone. I was stranded a century into the future! To think that a love of law and order should result in this, when I had only meant to pop out of the bank for five minutes. And what would they say there if I did not return? ‘He said he’d be back in no time.’ How right they were!

Abruptly my misery vanished. My time traveller had said he was coming back in an hour! Then I was saved – I had an hour, just an hour, to look around in. Immediately I was filled with a thousand curiosities, but I knew there was time to gratify only one.

What to do? Go to the bank and check if I ever got on to the board? Slip into the nearest library and look up racing records, so that I could be sure of winning the 1954–64 Derbys? Have a peep into the Tate and see if anyone ever got round to enjoying Picasso? Or just stand and talk to someone, anyone, in the street, and see what changes, if any, human nature had undergone?