Yes, Earth may be a sort of fenced-off area, so far as otherintelligent races of the galaxy are concerned. But not for thegrandiose reasons that some have imagined....
STAIRWAY TO THE STARS
By Larry Shaw
It was a stairway leading down, but it also led out intospace—indirectly. And the situation had the aspects of a burlesqueon Grand Hotel, but....
John Andrew Farmer scowled at the octopus that sprawled on hisliving-room couch, rubbed his stubbly jaw with a stubby fist, and said,“I love you.”
Farmer was uncomfortable. He was almost always uncomfortable, forvarious reasons; though it rarely if ever occurred to him, as heconsidered each individual irritant, that this was his normal state ofexistence. Right now he was acutely conscious of how ridiculous it mustlook for him to be making love to an octopus, but he was even moreconscious of the very real pains of unrequited love.
It wasn’t even a respectable, ordinary-looking octopus. To beaccurate, it would have to be called a nonapus; each of the ninetentacles had a lobsterish claw at its tip, and there were various otherunusual appendages. It would be hard enough to explain an earthlyoctopus in his living-room if the necessity arose, Farmer reflected forthe teenteenth time—but how in the name of Neptune could he everexplain this?
It had all started with Judge Ray. Ray had not been a real judge,obviously, but had used the title in lieu of any other first name. Thatwas the first of the inexplicable things; Farmer would have expected theodd little old man to call himself a professor of something or other.But Ray insisted on Judge.
Ray had come to the office of the Stein, Fine, Bryans Publishing Co.,where Farmer was working as an assistant editor, and announced that hewas about to write the greatest book [71]of the age. And yes, he wanted anadvance against royalties—it didn’t have to be large; Ray livedsimply—to tide him over while doing the actual writing, whichshouldn’t take more than a very few weeks.
Now, Farmer wasn’t much of an editor, even as editors go. The oneuseful quality he had was a homespun, ingratiating air which put nervousyoung geniuses at their ease, so that they could give a reasonablycoherent verbal picture of what their books were about. This often savedStein, Fine & Bryans a lot of reading of unpublishable manuscripts. Atleast, that had been the theory when they gave Farmer the job; as itworked out, John Andrew was a person who found it virtually impossibleto say “no”; he generally took the manuscripts in hand and,when he couldn’t stick some other member of the firm with thetask, read them himself until the wee hours.
Farmer was not able to say no to Ray, but even he looked dubious at thesmall gray fellow’s voluble outpouring of pseudo-scientificjargon. Ray, made sensitive by years of open skepticism on the part ofmany listeners, caught the look and insisted on a demonstration of hisfabulous invention.
So the oddly assorted pair—quick, foxlike little Ray and big, awkward,uncomfortable Farmer—sputtered out into Long Island Sound in anindescribable old motor launch, and the adventure was on.
Finally