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"OK! We roll!"
The people of Earth responded to the Wanderer catastrophes as necessity constrained them, or did not constrain theency hospitals and airlift terrew in Putnam and Dutchess Counties and across the river in the southern reaches of the Catskills
In Chicago a few people walked down to Lake Michigan to marvel mildly at the four-foot tide, and to tell each other they&039;d never known there&039;d always been a three-inch one They briefly lifted their eyes to watch a string of light planes flying east fros Field to join in so the Outer Drive unheedingly, about as heavy as any other day
In Siberia tidal waters invading an atoreat fizzle-explosion which scattered deadly fallout on trudging refugees
Fro canoes took off on enforced voyages of discovery, echoing those of their adventurous forefathers
Wolf Loner sailed confidently on toward Boston by dead reckoning He wondered placidly ice last night the h the clouds with a faint violet tinge
The "Prince Charles" hugged the Brazilian coast as it atonored the warnings of Captain Sithwise to side around the bolt surveyed northern Europe from five hundred miles up It was sunlit and clear, except that a hite cloudbank was creeping across the Atlantic toward Ireland
I as the page of an atlas when you study it, and dull gray except where the sun ht in the Dover Strait corner
The British Isles, the southern half of Scandinavia, and North Geres placed to the left, the right, and below
Scotland and Norway looked about as they should, but the pendant of southern Sweden was laced by the encroaching gray of the Baltic
Below a skeletal Dene of the blade faced south, lay across the Netherlands and northern Gerht, Oh well, this isn&039;t the first tiray-laced, too, and so bite out of the east coast The Thaht to be able to pop out the correct answer at once, but geography had never been his strong point Why didn&039;t Tigerishka look into his unconsciousto where she was serenely grooue
Paul&039;s accusations and her fierce reactions to them had ended in pure anticli claws, turned her back on him, and spent the next hour at the control panel, so the silver excrescences but un a new series of maneuvers and observations
Midway she had broken off to release him, without comment, from his last ankle fetter and the sanitary connections Then she had explained to hiain, the basic rules forthe Waste and Food Panels Finally she had gone back to her business, leaving Paul with the feeling of being an interloper in a very fancy office He had hurriedly eaten athem down in plain water, almost like so many pills They still sat heavy in his sto at first, then had swiftly groearisoo around the world in Southern California and of Don the other side of the earth on the crushed moon - or escaped froination was tired out
He pulled his attention back to the observations with an effort - away fro herself and back to the live atlas outspread below the saucer&039;s transparent floor with its scattered invisible handholds through two of which he now had a toe and finger hooked
Lets see, that bite in Englandthey called the Wash, which was connected with so bad &039;bout your planet, Paul?" Tigerishka called over to hied and shook his head "It&039;s too big," he said "I&039;ve lostoff and drifting slowly toward hi bad &039;bout so nearer you," she told hiriirl, really"
"Then you feeling bad &039;bout nearest thing of all: you-self," Tigerishka infor her drift beside him She laid a velvet paw on his bare shoulder "Poor Paul," she purred "All rily twisted his shoulder away fro air toward her with a short sweep of his hands to keep a few inches back "Don&039;t treat rily "Don&039;t treat rinned at hi back across her violet cheeks, the black pupils of her eyes shrinking to pinpoints, and she pointed a violet-gray foreclaw at his heart and said: "Bang!"
After a erishka, I guess I have to be some sort of lower animal to you, but in that case look intowith me Why am I so mixed up?"
The pupils of her eyes expanded to stars - black spidery stars in a violet sky
"Why, Paul," she said gravely, "ever since you forced - pri universe inside - it has no longer been a sio deep into yourto ask your perathered some notions about you, and if you want I will tell them to you"
He nodded "Go on"
"Paul," she said, "you resent being treated like a pet, yet that is how you treat the people around you You stand back and watch their antics with tolerant understanding and you nurse and guard and cajole the ones you love: Margo, Don, your mother, several others You call this friendship, but it&039;s nurse A decent cat wouldn&039;t do it to her own kittens
"You stand back and watch yourselfyou and in the third self watching the second, and so on Look!" She switched the s to ht eye and his own stacked reflections and soes of the first six of the the one in front I know - all intelligent ani But you live too much in the reflections, Paul Best to live mostly in front of the e comes Don&039;t live in Watcher Number Six!
"Also, you think other people sae froot watchers too, watching just them
"Also, love yourself&039;bout you," she finished, dropping wholly back into ht-reflexes pretty poor Likewise dance Likewise sex Not &039;nough practice That&039;s all"
"I know you&039;re right," Paul said haltingly in a sh thinking &039;bout self! Look! See one our big saucers save one your towns"
Ceiling and floor were transparent again They were descending at a rapid slant toward a dark branchwork ed with a pale checkerboardoutward toward a circular brown rih above the center of the circles hung a golden and violet saucer which he judged had to be huge froer - it was streets And the squares were blocks of buildings
The brown rings were hu driven out of the city
He recognized, fros of Elektrosila and the Institute of Energetics, the blue-green of the Kirov Theater, the Square of the Decembrists The branchwork must be the strearad
"See? We save your beloved cities," Tigerishka said co saucer move only water Very smart machine"
Suddenly the saucer dipped so close he saw the cobblestones, a rayed bodies of a woed over the out of the dirty foa your millions - and if the rescue isn&039;t worse than the disaster! Tigerishka, how could you bring yourself to wreck our world just to get fuel a little faster? What frightened you into it?"
She hissed: "Stay off that subject, Paul!"
Richard Hillary li swiftly - a diland Paul had been viewing, but a living, breathing, frightenedprofusely; the sun beat in his face He was panting and at every other step he winced
The pedestrian equivalent of a fast car on a big highway, Richard had outdistanced the pack behind but yet had not caught up with the pack ahead, if there was one The last signpost he had seen had pointed, quite appropriately, he was certain, to "Lower Slaughter"
Squinting ahead, he could see that after soh, forest-capped hill
But, looking behind, his sun-dazzled eyes could see only a crazy scattering of sheets and serpents of water
The fattest serpent was the road he was traveling, and now it suddenly began to fill where he was, bri over from the ditch to the left Hardly an inch, yet it unnerved hi barley, a bit higher than the road anddirectly toward the hilltop He cli of the barbed wire, and set on again through the swishing green With a startling sudden beat of wings, a crow e with hoarse disapproval Although Richard&039;s legs were cra now, he increased his pace
He heard a rumble of low, distant thunder Only this was the sort of thunder that doesn&039;t die away ets louder, louder, louder Richard didn&039;t think he could do it, but he began to run, run at his top speed uphill There was a rush of rabbits fro forli walls The thunder became that of a dozen express trains At one moment there was yellow foa, dust-raising surge would cut him off
Yet he did et quite that far, and the thundering began slowly to fade
As he swayed there panting, his lower chest feeling as if it had been kicked, there stepped out of the trees just ahead a straight-backed, sun
"Stand, sir!" this apparition cried, directing the weapon at Richard "Or I&039;ll fire"
The apparition was dressed in brown gaiters, gray knickerbockers, and a lilac pullover His narrorinkled, watery-eyed face was set in lines of grimmest disapproval
Richard stood, if only because he was so utterly and painfully winded The thundering died away completely as the turbid water leveled a little way down the hill
"Speak up!" the apparition cried "What lets you think you have the right to trample etting sorave smile and said: "It wasn&039;t deliberate on lowing froold threads in her bikini, peered down over the balustrade and called back a running co alreenish cigar Occasionally he frowned A notebook stood open at two blank pages beside the coffee cup
Sally called, "The water&039;s ten stories higher than last time The roofs are packed with people and there&039;s two or three at everyI can see Soes We&039;re lucky our skyscraper had a fire and the elevator&039;s stuck So his fist - why h dive - ouch, bellywhopper! The current&039;s fierce - it&039;s pushing a police launch backwards You there, quit pointin&039; your cane atand a crack and the tubular chroth Sally flipped her hands off it as if she&039;d been stung and turned around
"Sonantly
"Move back, baby," Jake instructed her "People are always jealous of the guy at the top Or the gal"