: Spacerogue by Silverberg Robert Emshwiller Ed Illustrator - Science fiction; Revenge Fiction; Life on other planets Fiction

@FreeBooksMon 08 Apr, 2024

Posted in: #FreeBooks #FreeBooksIndia #FreeBooksApp #gg

Vote Up Vote Down

Illustrator: Ed Emshwiller

Release date: November 26, 2023

Original publication: New York, NY: Royal Publications, Inc, 1958

SPACEROGUE

Illustrated by ED EMSH

They were selling a proteus in the public auctionplace at Borlaam, when the stranger wandered by. The stranger's name was Barr Herndon, and he was a tall man, with a proud, lonely face. It was not the face he had been born with, though his own had been equally proud, equally lonely.

He shouldered his way through the crowd. It was a warm and muggy day and a number of idling passersby had stopped to watch the auction. The auctioneer was an Agozlid, squat and bull-voiced, and he held the squirming proteus at arm's length, squeezing it to make it perform.

"Observe, ladies and gentlemen--observe the shapes, the multitude of strange and exciting forms!"

The proteus now had the shape of an eight-limbed star, blue-green at its core, fiery red in each limb. Under the auctioneer's merciless prodding it began to change, slowly, as its molecules lost their hold on one another and sought a new conformation.

A snake, a tree, a hooded deathworm--

The Agozlid grinned triumphantly at the crowd, baring fifty inch-long yellow teeth. "What am I bid?" he demanded in the guttural Borlaamese language. "Who wants this creature from another sun's world?"

Free books android app tbrJar TBR JAR Read Free books online gutenberg

Login to post a comment!