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The Leech By: Robert Sheckley (1928-2005) |
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the
Leech By PHILLIPS BARBEE
A visitor should be fed, but
this one could eat you out of
house and home ... literally!
The leech was waiting for food. For millennia it had been drifting
across the vast emptiness of space. Without consciousness, it had spent
the countless centuries in the void between the stars. It was unaware
when it finally reached a sun. Life giving radiation flared around the
hard, dry spore. Gravitation tugged at it. A planet claimed it, with other stellar debris, and the leech fell,
still dead seeming within its tough spore case. One speck of dust among many, the winds blew it around the Earth, played
with it, and let it fall. On the ground, it began to stir. Nourishment soaked in, permeating the
spore case. It grew and fed. Frank Conners came up on the porch and coughed twice. "Say, pardon me,
Professor," he said. The long, pale man didn't stir from the sagging couch. His horn rimmed
glasses were perched on his forehead, and he was snoring very gently. "I'm awful sorry to disturb you," Conners said, pushing back his
battered felt hat. "I know it's your restin' week and all, but there's
something damned funny in the ditch." The pale man's left eyebrow twitched, but he showed no other sign of
having heard. Frank Conners coughed again, holding his spade in one purple veined
hand. "Didja hear me, Professor?" "Of course I heard you," Micheals said in a muffled voice, his eyes
still closed. "You found a pixie." "A what?" Conners asked, squinting at Micheals. "A little man in a green suit. Feed him milk, Conners." "No, sir. I think it's a rock." Micheals opened one eye and focused it in Conners' general direction. "I'm awfully sorry about it," Conners said. Professor Micheals' resting
week was a ten year old custom, and his only eccentricity. All winter
Micheals taught anthropology, worked on half a dozen committees, dabbled
in physics and chemistry, and still found time to write a book a year.
When summer came, he was tired. Arriving at his worked out New York State farm, it was his invariable
rule to do absolutely nothing for a week. He hired Frank Conners to cook
for that week and generally make himself useful, while Professor
Micheals slept. During the second week, Micheals would wander around, look at the trees
and fish. By the third week he would be getting a tan, reading,
repairing the sheds and climbing mountains. At the end of four weeks, he
could hardly wait to get back to the city. But the resting week was sacred. "I really wouldn't bother you for anything small," Conners said
apologetically. "But that damned rock melted two inches off my spade." Micheals opened both eyes and sat up. Conners held out the spade. The
rounded end was sheared cleanly off. Micheals swung himself off the
couch and slipped his feet into battered moccasins. "Let's see this wonder," he said. The object was lying in the ditch at the end of the front lawn, three
feet from the main road. It was round, about the size of a truck tire,
and solid throughout. It was about an inch thick, as far as he could
tell, grayish black and intricately veined. "Don't touch it," Conners warned. "I'm not going to. Let me have your spade." Micheals took the spade and
prodded the object experimentally. It was completely unyielding. He held
the spade to the surface for a moment, then withdrew it. Another inch
was gone. Micheals frowned, and pushed his glasses tighter against his nose. He
held the spade against the rock with one hand, the other held close to
the surface. More of the spade disappeared. "Doesn't seem to be generating heat," he said to Conners. "Did you
notice any the first time?" Conners shook his head. Micheals picked up a clod of dirt and tossed it on the object. The dirt
dissolved quickly, leaving no trace on the gray black surface. A large
stone followed the dirt, and disappeared in the same way... Continue reading book >>
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Literature |
Science |
Short stories |
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