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The Wanderer Fritz Leiber 55100K 2023-09-02

"I&039;ll sign it for you, Doddsy," Doc called cheerfully "Only, coy war"

Ann giggled "I like Mr Brecht, Mo clothes smiled down at her faintly

"That&039;s what I like to hear," Doc called "Keep on propagandizing your uide her to his car, but then so made him stop and look up at the Wanderer The purple-bordered yellow figure had rotated completely into vie and stood out sharply, thick at the base, thinner and sharply bent at the top It teased Paul&039;s iination

The Wanderer

Clarence Dodd - or the Little Man, as Paul still called hinarok&039;s leash to Doc andcriss-cross lines to show the purple He labeled it "After One Hour"

One of the cars, a red sedan, backed and took off, far ahead of any of the others

From ahead the thin woman called: "Please help us, sonarok whimpered Miaow hissed

Suddenly Paul realized what the yellow figure re on its great thick hind legs His skin prickled Then he was tre in his body

When Paul was a little boy, he had liked to stand on the , a cushioned, solid seat for three hanging fro by chains at the four corners It had see feat of equilibriuain, for the ground under his feet ently but solidly with a ponderous muffled thud, a few inches back, a few inches forward, and then back again, and he aying his body to keep balanced, just as he&039;d used to do on the swing

Over inarticulate exclamations and calls, Hunter shouted with strident anxiety: "Co to Paul Miaow, squeezed between the The brown cliff appeared to swell; cracks opened in it all over; and then it sank, slowly, it looked, but with shuddering sledge strokes at the end Gravel pattered A grain stung Paul&039;s cheek There was a puff of gritty air Suddenly the s

"Coht!"

But Paul first looked upward again at the uprearing yellow figure on the purple orb now perceptibly nearer the moon

Tyrannosaurus Rex!

Pershino Square is a block of little fountains and neatly e and atons read "Su credito es bueno" ht the winos and weirdies and anonymous wayfarers who, next to the furred squirrels and feathered pigeons, are the Square&039;sto observe than the beards of Second Coesticulations of threadbare lecturers

Tonight the inhabitants of Pershing Square spilled into Olive Street at the corner of Fifth, where a bronze statue of Beethoven broodingly faces the Biltmore Hotel, Bunker Hill, and the Baptist Auditorium which serves as one of the city&039;s chief theaters Their lifted faces were bright with Wanderer-light as they silently stared south at the e rereat brow and hair-mop as he peered down at his half-buttoned vest whitened with pigeon droppings

There was a momentary intensification of the awed silence, then a faint distant roaring A wotoward thereat waves crested with yellow and violet foareat black waves that had traveled all the twentyBeach Freeways

Then they saw that the waves were not black water but cold black asphalt, that the street itself was surging as great earthquake shocks traveled north along it In the next instant the roaring became that of a hundred jets, and the asphalt waves tossed the watchers and broke up the walls of the buildings around them in a stone and concrete surf

For a second an infinitely sinister violet light flashed froiant metal Beethoven, as he slowly toppled over backwards

The saucer students had trouble enough coping with the results of the fringe reverberation of the big Los Angeles-Long Beach quake After the thin wo, half pulled out of their light entoe of the landfall, a hurried count showed three others still , ht-bladed shovels that the Little Man had produced froon, which was solidly buried only as far as the rear wheels and its top dented in only about a foot Then someone remembered the red sedan that had left ahead of the rest; and someone else, that it had been the one in which the three ht their breath, Paul, whose convertible was hopelessly buried, explained his connection with the Moon Project and his intention ofTwo, and he offered to take anyone along with hiuards - their obvious distress in any case ensuring adestion, but it was opposed by a thick-ar a leather windbreaker and named Rivis, who had a very low opinion of all ree of helpfulness to be expected of them - and whose car had only its radiator and front wheels dirt-encumbered Rivis, who also had four cute kids, a swell little wife, and an hysterical mother-in-law - all of the out and getting home

Rivis was seconded by the owners of the htly buried vehicles The truck&039;s people, a triray slacks and sweaters, were particularly insistent on getting out quickly

There followed a progressivelysuch points as: Would the Pacific Coast Highway be traffic-jammed and/or quake-blocked? Was Paul what he clai out? (Rivis proved soot only the howlingest static) Was Wanda&039;s heart attack genuine? Finally, weren&039;t the panelists and their dubious new friends a bunch of oyster-brained intellectuals scared of getting a few blisters on their hands?

In the end, half the saucer students, htly buried, stuck with Rivis and the Hixons and, in a burst of hard feelings, even refused to promise to care for the fat woman who had had the heart attack until Paul could send a balloon-tired sand jeep fro Two to pick her up

The other half set off for the beach gate

Don Guiller like a planet, for it and its glaring iua below had followed hi position - except that it was nearer the western horizon andwhat looked like a golden cock crowing to wake Simon Bolivar I once played in Le Coq d&039;Or, didn&039;t I? the lonely bomb-raider asked hilare had turned pinkish here and there along the western horizon; he didn&039;t knohy Skirting the long ridgy island of Ohts at Alta Gracia than you&039;d ever expect afterape or diving into churches, he supposed

Suddenly red glare and rocks erupted froht he&039;d dropped a bomb he didn&039;t know about Then he realized it had to be one of Oo He banked east - get away, get away frolares - why, the whole Pacific Coast must be in eruption, from the Gulf of Fonseca to the Gulf of Nicoya

Don Merriaed beetle, pushed hinesiupole and sahere the Hut should be, a raalled chas down its farther lip

One of the ships was gone with the Hut, one was lying on its side across the chas up like the legs of a dead chicken, while he&039;d al it

They called the little as" because - Dufresne had first thought of it - they suggested the witch&039;s hut on legs that figures in a couple of popular bits of classical Russian ht on those legs It was rumored that the Soviet -hut co verticalthe last Baba Yaga step about on its plate-shod legs as it rocked this way and that One of the shoes was only a yard from the chasm and as Don watched, it tramped six inches closer

Don carefully pushed hiht have taken off in the ht be alive or dead in the ship across the chasulf Don took a couple of quick ones hirabbed the last rung of the ladder that hung down fros

He chinned himself and climbed toward the hatch, set ominously between the five trua rocked Don told hiravity a little,its steps a little shorter