Image of the Gods - Alan E. Nourse, ebook, Temp, pobierz pdf

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Image of the Gods
Nourse, Alan
Published:
1963
Type(s):
Short Fiction, Science Fiction
Source:
http://gutenberg.org
1
About Nourse:
Alan Nourse was born August 11, 1928 to Benjamin and Grace (Ogg)
Nourse in Des Moines, Iowa. He attended high school in Long Island,
New York. He served in the U.S. Navy after World War II. He earned a
Bachelor of Science degree in 1951 from Rutgers University, New Brun-
swick, New Jersey. He married Ann Morton on June 11, 1952 in Lynden,
New Jersey. He received a Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) degree in 1955
from the University of Pennsylvania. He served his one year internship
at Virginia Mason Hospital in Seattle, Washington. He practiced medi-
cine in North Bend, Washington from 1958 to 1963 and also pursued his
writing career.
He had helped pay for his medical education by writing science fiction
for magazines. After retiring from medicine, he continued writing. His
regular column in Good Housekeeping magazine earned him the nick-
name "Family Doctor".
He was a friend of fellow author Avram Davidson. Robert A. Heinlein
dedicated his 1964 novel Farnham's Freehold to Nourse.
His novel The Bladerunner lent its name to the Blade Runner movie,
but no other aspects of its plot or characters, which were taken from
Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? In the late 1970s
an attempt to adapt The Bladerunner for the screen was made, with Beat
Generation author William S. Burroughs commissioned to write a story
treatment; no film was ever developed but the story treatment was later
published as the novella, Blade Runner (a movie).
His pen names included "Al Edwards" and "Doctor X".
He died on July 19, 1992 in Thorp, Washington.
Some confusion arose among science fiction readers who knew that
Andre Norton used the pen name "Andrew North" at about the same
time. They mistakenly assumed "Alan Nourse" to be another Norton pen
name.
Source: Wikipedia
Also available on Feedbooks for Nourse:
•
(1959)
•
(1958)
•
(1963)
•
(1954)
•
(1963)
2
•
(1963)
•
(1963)
•
(1963)
•
(1963)
•
(1956)
Copyright:
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3
It was nearly winter when the ship arrived. Pete Farnam never knew if
the timing had been planned that way or not. It might have been coincid-
ence that it came just when the colony was predicting its first real bump-
er crop of all time. When it was all over, Pete and Mario and the rest
tried to figure it out, but none of them ever knew for sure just
what
had
happened back on Earth, or
when
it had actually happened. There was
too little information to go on, and practically none that they could trust.
All Pete Farnam really knew, that day, was that this was the wrong year
for a ship from Earth to land on Baron IV.
Pete was out on the plantation when it landed. As usual, his sprayer
had gotten clogged; tarring should have been started earlier, before it got
so cold that the stuff clung to the nozzle and hardened before the spray
could settle into the dusty soil. The summer past had been the colony's
finest in the fourteen years he'd been there, a warm, still summer with
plenty of rain to keep the dirt down and let the
taaro
get well rooted and
grow up tall and gray against the purple sky. But now the
taaro
was har-
vested. It was waiting, compressed and crated, ready for shipment, and
the heavy black clouds were scudding nervously across the sky, faster
with every passing day. Two days ago Pete had asked Mario to see about
firing up the little furnaces the Dusties had built to help them fight the
winter. All that remained now was tarring the fields, and then buckling
down beneath the wind shields before the first winter storms struck.
Pete was trying to get the nozzle of the tar sprayer cleaned out when
Mario's jeep came roaring down the rutted road from the village in a
cloud of dust. In the back seat a couple of Dusties were bouncing up and
down like happy five-year-olds. The brakes squealed and Mario bel-
lowed at him from the road. "Pete! The ship's in! Better get hopping!"
Pete nodded and started to close up the sprayer. One of the Dusties
tumbled out of the jeep and scampered across the field to give him a
hand. It was an inexpert hand to say the least, but the Dusties seemed so
proud of the little they were able to learn about mechanized farming that
nobody had the heart to shoo them away. Pete watched the fuzzy brown
creature get its paws thoroughly gummed up with tar before he pulled
him loose and sent him back to the jeep with a whack on the backside.
He finished the job himself, grabbed his coat from the back of the spray-
er, and pulled himself into the front seat of the jeep.
Mario started the little car back down the road. The young colonist's
face was coated with dust, emphasizing the lines of worry around his
eyes. "I don't like it, Pete. There isn't any ship due this year."
4
"When did it land?"
"About twenty minutes ago. Won't be cool for a while yet."
Pete laughed. "Maybe Old Schooner is just getting lonesome to swap
tall stories with us. Maybe he's even bringing us a locker of T-bones.
Who knows?"
"Maybe," said Mario without conviction.
Pete looked at him, and shrugged. "Why complain if they're early?
Maybe they've found some new way to keep our fields from blowing
away on us every winter." He stared across at the heavy windbreaks
between the fields—long, ragged structures built in hope of outwitting
the vicious winds that howled across the land during the long winter.
Pete picked bits of tar from his beard, and wiped the dirt from his fore-
head with the back of his hand. "This tarring is mean," he said wearily.
"Glad to take a break."
"Maybe Cap Schooner will know something about the rumors we've
been hearing," Mario said gloomily.
Pete looked at him sharply. "About Earth?"
Mario nodded. "Schooner's a pretty good guy, I guess. I mean, he'd tell
us if anything was
really
wrong back home, wouldn't he?"
Pete nodded, and snapped his fingers. One of the Dusties hopped over
into his lap and began gawking happily at the broad fields as the jeep
jogged along. Pete stroked the creature's soft brown fur with his tar-
caked fingers. "Maybe someday these little guys will show us where
they
go for the winter," he said. "They must have it down to a science."
Somehow the idea was funny, and both men roared. If the Dusties had
anything
down to a science, nobody knew what. Mario grinned and
tweaked the creature's tail. "They sure do beat the winter, though," he
said.
"So do we. Only we have to do it the human way. These fellas grew up
in the climate." Pete lapsed into silence as the village came into view. The
ship had landed quite a way out, resting on its skids on the long shallow
groove the colonists had bulldozed out for it years before, the first year
they had arrived on Baron IV. Slowly Pete turned Mario's words over in
his mind, allowing himself to worry a little. There
had
been rumors of
trouble back on Earth, persistent rumors he had taken care to soft-pedal,
as mayor of the colony. There were other things, too, like the old news-
papers and magazines that had been brought in by the lad from Baron II,
and the rare radio message they could pick up through their atmospheric
5
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