Half an hour before, while she had been engrossed in the current soap opera and Harry Junior was screaming in his crib, Melinda would naturally have slammed the front door in the little man's face. However, when the bell rang, she was wearing her new Chinese red housecoat, had just lustered her nails to a blinding scarlet, and Harry Junior was sleeping like an angel. Yawning, Melinda answered the door and the little man said, beaming, "Excellent... more...

hen he was nine, Vogel almost killed another boy who inadvertently scattered his half-completed jigsaw puzzle. At sixteen, he discovered the mysteries of the Danish Gambit, and cried. At twenty-two, he crouched in a foxhole on Okinawa, oblivious to the death bursting about him, squinting in a painful ecstasy at the tattered fragment of newspaper on his knee. His sergeant screamed in agony, then died at his elbow. Vogel's face lit up. "Slay," he... more...

I wish Max would treat me like a woman. An hour ago, at dinner, John Armitage proposed a toast, especially for my benefit. He loves to play the gallant. Big man, silver mane, very blue eyes, a porcelain smile. The head of WSC, the perfect example of the politician-scientist. "To the colony," he announced, raising his glass. "May Epsilon love them and keep them. May it only be transmittal trouble." "Amen," Max said. We drank. Taylor... more...