Issue 01 # Sept 1949 by Fantasy; Science Fiction

Author:Fantasy; Science Fiction
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-05-16T05:42:49+00:00

“On the way home from school I noticed a small speck in the sky. It grew larger and larger. It turned out to be an invasion fleet from Mars. They had supersonic jet ships and were armed with cosmic-destructo rays. I had to save our Earth people and I fought them all off single-handed. I guess I got banged up a little, but that’s nothing. You should see that stupid Charlie Keller from down the street — he turned traitor and fought with the Martians.”

from The Saturday Review of Literature

Here is a story of the distant scientific future — but it is not science fiction. In fact, like Huxley’s Brave New World or Leiber’s Gather, Darkness, it might best be described as anti-science fiction. Miss McClintic has already delighted connoisseurs with her imaginative verse in the Atlantic; her first published story brings to the fantasy field a welcome new talent, wedding the subtlety of a poet to the ingenuity of a story-teller.

In the Days of Our Fathers

by Winona McClintic

Melph, although an atavistically sensitive child, had had an average childhood. Her parents, thinking she would outgrow this sensitivity, said nothing about it to the Instructors. However, they managed to keep her at house two years longer than the siblings. She was the youngest in the house and the group decided that this caused her backwardness. She was fond of the lyrics that the house-assistant sang to her. The siblings would go to sleep immediately they heard them, but Melph stayed awake listening, and afterward would sing them to herself in bed. Her favorite was the ageless one:

Einstein, Einstein, Make a diagram For Baby to blueprint When he is a man.

Make a new milk-well Of radiated foam For Baby to drink When his plane comes home.

Melph’s life was calm and pleasant, in spite of the Preliminary Training which she had to endure like everyone else. During the long, warm days she was taken to the oceanside by the house-assistant, to play in the quiet waters and run along the sand. Many times she would be found meditating and staring over the ocean, thinking long, long thoughts, as her sire put it.

The house was a comparatively new one, having been built in the last five hundred years, but there was a locked attic with small round windows, where Melph wished she could go. She had asked her parents many times but was never given permission. Then after a silence on the subject for two years she asked again, and watched her parents sharply to learn what mystery was there.

“No, child,” said her sire, “and you must not ask again.” He turned to her dam and said, “She takes after your brother Bisec.” And because they were well-mated Dam said only, “Poor Bisec! Hush, Sire.”

“Is that Uncle Bisec who Passed Beyond before I was conceived?” asked Melph.

“Yes, child,” answered Dam. “Run out into the sunshine.”

Melph went out but she said to herself, “If I am like Uncle Bisec and his mystery is hidden in the attic, I must find the key by stealth, and thus understand myself by applied parallel.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.