A snarl of disgust, a toggle switch snapped, a flickering teevie
screen. Wonderful pickup these days. News of the World brought to you
by Atomics International, the fuel to power the Starship--the
President returned to Washington today after three-week vacation
conference in Calcutta with Chinese and Indian dignitaries--full
accord and a cordial ending to the meeting--American medical supplies
to be made available--and on the home front, appropriations renewed
for Antarctica Project, to bring solar energy into every home, Aviado
was quoted as saying--huge Abolitionist rally last night in New
Chicago as John 'Moses' Tyndall returned to that city to celebrate
the fifteenth birthday of the movement that started there back in
2119--no violence reported as Tyndall lashed out at Senator Daniel
Fowler's universal rejuvenation program--twenty-five hour work week
hailed by Senator Rinehart of Alaska as a great progressive step for
the American people--Senator Rinehart, chairman of the policy-making
Criterion Committee held forth hope last night that rejuvenation
techniques may increase the number of candidates to six hundred a year
within five years--and now, news from the entertainment world--
Going down, then, into flurries of Northern snow, peering out at the
whiter gloom below, a long stretch of white with blobs of black on
either side, resolving into snow-laden black pines, a long flat
lake-top of ice and snow. Taxi-ing down, engines roaring, sucking up
snow into steam in the orange afterblast. And ahead, up from the lake,
a black blot of a house, with orange window lights reflecting warmth
and cheer against the wilderness outside--
Then Dwight McKenzie, peering out into the gloom, eyes widening in
recognition, little mean eyes with streaks of fear through them,
widening and then smiling, pumping his hand. "Dan! My god, I couldn't
_imagine_--hardly ever see anybody up here, you know. Come in, come
in, you must be half frozen. What's happened? Something torn loose
down in Washington?" And more questions, fast, tumbling over each
other, no answers wanted, talky-talk questions to cover surprise and
fear and the one large question of why Dan Fowler should be dropping
down out of the sky on _him_, which question he didn't think he wanted
answered just yet--
* * * * *
A huge, rugged room, blazing fire in a mammoth fireplace at the end,
moose heads, a rug of thick black bear hide. "Like to come up here a
day or two ahead of the party, you know," McKenzie was saying. "Does a
man good to commune with his soul once in a while. Do you like to
hunt? You should join us, Dan. Libby and Donaldson will be up tomorrow
with a couple of guides. We could find you an extra gun. They say
hunting should be good this year--"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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