GANGWAY FOR HOMER By GEORGE R. HAHN Illustrated by John Forte C'mon out of the shadows, Homer. Here's one who claims you as his patron. Unstring your lyre, mighty bard and sing the epic of Achilles Maravain, who can't be hurt by bullets, bombs, or blasters, and whose touch brings instant death! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Science Fiction Quarterly Spring 1942. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] His name was really John Smith. Incredibly enough, it had always been John Smith. As far back as people in his circle and neighborhood could remember, it had been John Smith--and they could remember back all the way to when he had been a mere tottering tot--to the swaddling clothes days. He was what might be called a medium man. His height was medium. His middle-age was medium. His hair, eyes, and nose were medium. Unpretentious he looked and adequate. He fulfilled his name, which, as we mentioned above, was John Smith--not Achilles Maravain. Yet she persisted in calling him Achilles Maravain. She declaimed; she cried out; she excited herself and all present--all to the effect that John Smith was Achilles Maravain. Everybody paid her the best of attention, although they couldn't believe her. Everybody regarded her with interest. She had a wild, pale, exotic-looking face, a figure it would be indelicate to remark upon, and legs that were crystallized ecstasy. They listened to her words; they gazed upon her. The Los Angeles Forum of Camera Arts gazed to satiety on face and figure and legs and sighed en masse. Insanely gay sighs, sighed they. She was desirable and moreover she had interrupted President Soupy's discussion of "Repentance," a camera study in monotone by Pierre de la Bardier. Had you ever listened to President Soupy remarking that such and such was "taken on a Zeiss Super Iconta B with Metchnormatic Ultra-Lite film at an exposure of f5.6 with diaphragm--, etc.," you too would have been gay--aye, insanely gay--to have had him interrupted by a luscious looking pair of legs like that. Thus, everybody was happy. The LAFCA was happy; the lost-looking scientist with the galvanometer and other trivia was happy, and the three dapper young men were happy. Even John Smith was happy. His happiness was obvious in the reluctance with which he took his departure, in his formality. He rose from his seat and said to the three dapper young men, of the hard, virtuous faces, "The Federal Bureau of Investigation, I presume?" "Right," crisply, youngishly. "John Smith, alias Achilles Maravain, you are under arrest on charges of murder, seditious conduct, and high treason against the government of the United States. Will you come along quietly?"