"Jean Marie Stine - Future Eves" - читать интересную книгу автора (Stine Jean Marie)

themselves. It was then as easy for us to switch the zones of force upon them,
subjugate them more securely and with the annihilator beam to disintegrate
completely every ship and man into nothingness! Thousands upon thousands died
that day and Gola was indeed revenged.
Thus, my daughters, ended the second invasion of Gola.
Oh yes, more came from their planet to discover what had happened to their ships
and their men, but we of Gola no longer hesitated, and they no sooner appeared
beneath the mists than they too were annihilated until at last Detaxal gave up the
thought of conquering our cloud-laden world. Perhaps in the future they will attempt
it again, but we are always in readiness for them now, and our men тАУ well, they are
still the same ineffectual weaklings, my daughters...




DELILAH
By Margaretta W. Rea
(Amazing Stories, January 1933)


I.


AN "OH," half cry, half moan, came from the studio.
Miss Wormersley's spoon paused above her grapefruit. A second cry, more
piercing, rose slowly, then fell and died tremblingly away.
A full minute of intense silence followed. Then Miss Wormersley rose calmly and
left the room, her younger companion hurrying after her.
On the threshold of the studio they stopped. Before his big canvas stood the elder
woman's nephew, rubbing his eyes as though he would brush away some terrible
sight. Two big white spaces glared from the center of the canvas, but the rest
appeared, to be finished. The artist's agonized gaze clung to the figure of a wolf in
the lower left-hand corner. He stepped nearer, and reaching out a trembling hand
touched the wolf's head. Instantly he drew back, and the same long cry of pain
broke from him again.
The paint was wet.
The, young girl who had followed Miss Wormersley pushed into the room and
hurried to the artist's side.
"What is it, Bert? What is the matter, dear?"
The artist clutched her to him roughly.
"My picture," he moaned, "my picture. Somebody else has been painting my
picture."
"Is that all?" The intense relief in the tone showed that Miss Wormersley had feared
something worse.
"Nonsense," she said, laying a firm hand on her nephew's shoulder, "you did it
yourself last night. I tell you, Bertram, if you don't learn to take your work more
calmly, you'll land in the Insane Asylum and cheat poor Minna here out of a
husband. Why, Minna and I know you were here in this very room all last evening.
You've worked yourself up to such a pitch of nervous excitement you don't know
what you do. How could anyone have gotten in here. I lookedтАУ"Minna's extended