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• ISBN-10 : 9781337102124
• ISBN-13 : 978-1337102124
Table contents:
CHAPTER 1: An Introduction to Visual Studio 2017 and Visual Basic
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Computer Programming Terminology?
F-2 The Programmer’s Job
F-3 The Visual Basic Programming Language?
F-4 The Visual Studio IDE?
F-5 Assigning Names to Objects
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Start and Configure Visual Studio Community 2017
A-2 Create a Windows Forms Application?
A-3 Manage the Windows in the IDE
A-4 Change a Form File’s Name
A-5 Change the Properties of a Form
The Name Property
The Font Property
The MaximizeBox, StartPosition, and Text Properties
A-6 Save a Solution
A-7 Close and Open a Solution
A-8 Add a Control to a Form
A-9 Use the Format Menu?
A-10 Lock the Controls on the Form??
A-11 Start and End an Application?
A-12 Enter Code and Comments in the Code Editor Window
The Me.Close() Statement
Assignment Statements and Comments
A-13 Print an Application’s Code and Interface
A-14 Exit Visual Studio and Run an Executable File
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 2: Planning Applications and Designing Interfaces
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Planning a Windows Forms Application
F-2 Windows Standards for Interfaces
Guidelines for Identifying Labels and Buttons
Guidelines for Including Graphics
Guidelines for Selecting Fonts
Guidelines for Using Color
F-3 Access Keys
F-4 Tab Order
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Create a Planning Chart for a Windows Forms Application
A-2 Design an Interface Using the Windows Standards
A-3 Add a Label Control to the Form
A-4 Add a Text Box to the Form
A-5 Set the Tab Order
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 3: Coding with Variables, Named Constants, and Calculations
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Pseudocode and Flowcharts
F-2 Main Memory of a Computer
F-3 Variables
Selecting an Appropriate Data Type
Selecting an Appropriate Name
Examples of Variable Declaration Statements
F-4 TryParse Method
F-5 Arithmetic Expressions
F-6 Assigning a Value to an Existing Variable
F-7 ToString Method
F-8 Option Statements
F-9 Named Constants
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Determine a Memory Location’s Scope and Lifetime
A-2 Use Procedure-Level Variables
A-3 Use Procedure-Level Named Constants
A-4 Use a Class-Level Variable
A-5 Use a Static Variable
A-6 Use a Class-Level Named Constant
A-7 Professionalize Your Application’s Interface
Coding the TextChanged Event Procedure
Coding the Enter Event Procedure
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 4: The Selection Structure
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Selection Structures
F-2 If…Then…Else Statement
F-3 Comparison Operators
Comparison Operator Example: Total Due Application
Comparison Operator Example: Net Income/Loss Application
F-4 Logical Operators
Logical Operator Example: Gross Pay Calculator Application
F-5 Summary of Operators
F-6 String Comparisons
String Comparison Example: Shipping Application
F-7 Nested Selection Structures
F-8 Multiple-Alternative Selection Structures
F-9 Select Case Statement
Specifying a Range of Values in a Case Clause
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Add a Check Box to a Form
A-2 Code an Interface That Contains Check Boxes
CheckBox’s CheckedChanged Event
A-3 Add a Radio Button to a Form
A-4 Code an Interface That Contains Radio Buttons
RadioButton’s CheckedChanged Event
Using the Select Case Statement with Radio Buttons
A-5 Group Objects Using a Group Box Control
A-6 Professionalize Your Application’s Interface
Coding a Text Box’s KeyPress Event Procedure
A-7 Professionalize Your Code Using Arithmetic Assignment Operators
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 5: The Repetition Structure
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Repetition Structures
F-2 Do…Loop Statement (Pretest Loop)
F-3 String Concatenation
F-4 Infinite Loops
F-5 Do…Loop Statement (Posttest Loop)
F-6 Counters and Accumulators
F-7 For…Next Statement
Comparing the For…Next and Do…Loop Statements
Flowcharting a For…Next Loop
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Use a Loop, a Counter, and an Accumulator
A Different Version of the Projected Sales Application
A-2 Add a List Box to a Form
Using the String Collection Editor to Add Items to a List Box
The Sorted Property
The SelectedItem and SelectedIndex Properties
The SelectedValueChanged and SelectedIndexChanged Events
A-3 Use the Methods and a Property of the Items Collection
Count Property
Clearing the Items from a List Box
A-4 Calculate a Periodic Payment
ListBox, Loop, and Financial.Pmt Example: Monthly Payment Application
A-5 Nest Repetition Structures
Nested Repetition Structure Example: Savings Account Application
A Caution About Real Numbers
A-6 Professionalize Your Application’s Interface
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 6: Sub and Function Procedures
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Event-Handling Sub Procedures
F-2 Independent Sub Procedures
No Parameters/Arguments Example: History Grade Application
F-3 Passing Information to a Procedure
Passing Variables by Value Example: Gross Pay Application
Passing Variables by Reference Example: Concert Tickets Application
F-4 Rounding Numbers
F-5 Function Procedures
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Add a Combo Box to the Form
A-2 Add Items to a Combo Box and Select a Default Item
A-3 Code a Combo Box’s KeyPress Event Procedure
A-4 Create an Event-Handling Sub Procedure
A-5 Calculate Federal Withholding Tax
A-6 Invoke an Independent Sub Procedure and a Function
A-7 Create an Independent Sub Procedure
A-8 Create a Function
A-9 Validate an Application’s Code
A-10 Professionalize Your Application’s Interface
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 7: String Manipulation
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Length Property
The Product ID Application
F-2 Insert Method
F-3 PadLeft and PadRight Methods
The Net Pay Application
F-4 Contains and IndexOf Methods
The City and State Application
F-5 Substring Method
The Rearrange Name Application
F-6 Character Array
The First Name Application
F-7 Remove Method
F-8 Trim, TrimStart, and TrimEnd Methods
The Tax Calculator Application
F-9 Replace Method
F-10 Like Operator
Inventory Application
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Code the Check Digit Application
A-2 Code the Password Application
A-3 Generate Random Integers
A-4 Code the Guess a Letter Application
Use the Enabled Property and Focus Method
A-5 Code the Guess the Word Game Application
Coding the btnNewWord_Click Procedure
Coding the btnTryLetter_Click Procedure
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 8: Arrays
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Arrays
F-2 Declaring One-Dimensional Arrays
Storing Data in a One-Dimensional Array
Determining the Number of Elements in a One-Dimensional Array
Determining the Highest Subscript in a One-Dimensional Array
Traversing a One-Dimensional Array
F-3 For Each...Next Statement
F-4 Calculating the Average Array Value
F-5 Finding the Highest Array Value
F-6 Sorting a One-Dimensional Array
F-7 Two-Dimensional Arrays
Declaring a Two-Dimensional Array
Storing Data in a Two-Dimensional Array
Determining the Highest Subscript in a Two-Dimensional Array
Traversing a Two-Dimensional Array
Totaling the Values Stored in a Two-Dimensional Array
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Associate an Array with a Collection
A-2 Create Accumulator and Counter Arrays
A-3 Create Parallel One-Dimensional Arrays
A-4 Search a Two-Dimensional Array
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 9: Sequential Access Files and Menus
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Sequential Access Files
F-2 Sequential Access Output Files
Output File Example: Game Show Application
F-3 Sequential Access Input Files
ReadToEnd Method Example: Game Show Application
ReadLine Method Example: Game Show Application
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Add a Menu to a Form
GUI Guidelines for Menus
Menu Example: Continents Application
A-2 Code the Items on a Menu
A-3 Modify a Menu
A-4 Accumulate the Values Stored in a File
A-5 Sort the Data Contained in a File
A-6 Professionalize Your Application’s Interface
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 10: Classes and Objects
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Object-Oriented Programming
F-2 Creating a Class
F-3 Instantiating an Object
F-4 Attributes Section of a Class
Attributes Section Example: Franklin Decks Application
F-5 Behaviors Section of a Class
Constructors
Methods Other than Constructors
Behaviors Section Example: Franklin Decks Application
Using the Rectangle Class: Franklin Decks Application
F-6 Adding a Parameterized Constructor to a Class
F-7 Reusing a Class
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Use a ReadOnly Property
A-2 Create Auto-Implemented Properties
A-3 Overload Methods
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 11: SQL Server Databases
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Basic Database Terminology
F-2 Creating a SQL Server Database
F-3 Adding a Table to a Database
F-4 Adding Records to a Table
F-5 Data Source Configuration Wizard
F-6 Binding the Objects in a Dataset
Having the Computer Create a Bound Control
F-7 DataGridView Control
F-8 Copy to Output Directory Property
F-9 Try...Catch Statement
F-10 Two-Table Databases
Relating the Tables
Creating a Database Query
Displaying the Query Information
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Create a Data Form
A-2 Bind Field Objects to Existing Controls
A-3 Perform Calculations on the Fields in a Dataset
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 12: Database Queries with SQL
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 SELECT Statement
F-2 Creating a Query
F-3 Parameter Queries
F-4 Saving a Query
F-5 Invoking a Query from Code
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Add a Calculated Field to a Dataset
A-2 Use the SQL Aggregate Functions
A-3 Professionalize Your Application’s Interface
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
CHAPTER 13: Web Site Applications
FOCUS ON THE CONCEPTS LESSON
F-1 Basic Web Terminology
F-2 Creating a Web Site Application
F-3 Starting a Web Application
F-4 Modifying the Site.master Page
F-5 Personalizing the Default.aspx Page
F-6 Personalizing the About.aspx Page
F-7 Testing with Different Browsers
F-8 Closing and Opening a Web Site Application
Apply the Concepts Lesson
A-1 Repurpose an Existing Web Page
A-2 Add a Table and Controls to a Web Page
A-3 Code a Control on a Web Page
A-4 Use a Validation Control
Summary
Key Terms
Review Questions
Exercises
APPENDIX A: GUI Design Guidelines
APPENDIX B: Additional Topics
APPENDIX C: Finding and Fixing Program Errors
APPENDIX D: Visual Basic 2017 Cheat Sheet
APPENDIX E: Case Projects
Index
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with gray and his ashen face became furrowed with wrinkles. Horror-
ridden years, swiftly heaped upon him.
Dorothy covered her face with her hands. But Norman couldn't tear
his eyes from the luminous screen. The film had been cut to speed it
up. Johnny had hacked five slits in the glass now. His fingers and
thumbs were ragged stumps as he hung on the splintered glass, ten
feet up the blood-smeared wall. And in his terrible fascination,
Norman saw that Johnny's hands healed almost as fast as they were
torn. As the dry flesh of age withered his face, as he sacrificed his
hands in a mad struggle to escape the invisible terror in Vulcan's
sunlight.
Norman slammed his fists against the locked door. "Sade! You scum
of the universe!" But there was no answer as his eyes were drawn
back to the screen to see Johnny's fingerless paws grasp the rim of
his prison. A wrinkled, animal-like thing, eyes yellowed and wild, he
drew up his gnarled legs and fell over the glass wall into the gravel
on the other side. Half crawling, half running, he disappeared quickly
into the trees.
As though a prolonged roar of sound had suddenly ceased, the panel
darkened, leaving only Dorothy's muffled sobs.
But in Norman's brain was a numb hate that froze his reason. He
didn't hear the door open behind him.
"Interesting, wasn't it?" It was Sade's voice. "But in a moment an
even more interesting experiment will take place in my laboratory."
Norman turned slowly. Swart and the two patrolmen stood with the
fat man at the door. Norman took one quick step forward. His right
hand shot out. His fingers sank like spikes into the flabby skin of
Sade's throat. Another split second and Norman's fingers would have
met behind the Mercurian's windpipe and ripped it out, but in that
split second the patrolmen were on him. Then he was on the floor,
fighting silently in the blackness of his fury. A heavy boot caught him
behind the left ear and the blackness engulfed him completely.
III
Battered and bruised, he found himself on his feet when he came to.
Sade stood in the door, his good hand fingering the blue welts on his
throat. His shirt was in shreds, exposing the white blob of flesh that
was his body and the helpless sausage-end stump that was his right
arm.
"If I could get my hands on you—" Norman whispered.
"You won't again," Sade said hoarsely. "You're in my hands now. And
within the hour I shall have two of them. With them I shall keep you
alive forever while you die a thousand deaths. I hold the key to life
and death, on Vulcan...." He whirled again and left, followed by his
henchmen and the door locked again behind them.
The silky zhak-skin rug was worn with Norman's pacing when he
heard the key click in the lock again. The door opened to Keren
Vaun. Ghostly beautiful against the soft light outside, her starry
loveliness meant nothing to Norman. He sprang to the door and
covered her scarlet lips with one hand, closed the door quickly. "Tell
me how to get to Sade," he demanded, "or I'll wring your neck right
here!"
Keren remained rigid until he loosened his grasp. Then: "Shut up,"
she whispered. "I came to help you escape." She didn't look at
Dorothy. "I came to help you on one condition. That you take me
with you—alone."
Norman hesitated three heart beats. "Let's go," he said. He heard
Dorothy gasp behind him but he didn't even look back as Keren
opened the door, finger to her lips, and led him out.
Locking the door behind her, she led him down a dim, white-floored
corridor. Norman walked carefully, the baggy suit rustling as he
moved. Keren halted before a door at the side of the passage.
Glancing up and down the vacant hall, she opened the door quickly
and went in. Norman followed.
The room was bare with another closed door on the other side. "You
don't need that space suit," Keren ordered. "Take it off." Norman
peeled the suit off obediently. It was no time for questions. "When I
jabbed you with that hypo before Sade found us, it immunized you.
It's a vaccination Sade discovered; we're all protected here."
As Norman marveled at this strange woman, understanding now that
fact of his own salvation from the powers of Vulcan, she motioned
toward the door opposite the one through which they had entered
the room. "Sade's—John Gordon's cruiser is outside where we left it,
about a hundred yards from this door. It's unguarded but there's a
guard in the tower. He'll shoot when he sees you so you must get to
the ship quickly. The cruiser's guns are loaded. If you make it, take
off and blast this building. I'll run for the woods." Keren's heavy-
lashed eyes met his. "When they are dead, Vulcan will be ours."
Norman smiled. "What if I don't come back? What if I pull out and
radio Earth for help?"
Keren returned his smile, her eyes like a moonless night. "If you
don't come back, I'll kill the Earth girl inside." She threw back her
head, hair swirling at her pale throat like the flow of black oil. "Now
kiss me—and go."
It was a choice; Keren's life or Dorothy's. If he got the ship and
Keren ran for the woods, his guns would have to find her before
they turned on the house. Then he could bargain with Sade by radio.
"I'll owe you a thousand kisses," he said, opened the door, and
darted out into the sunlight. Then it was raining red heat as liquid
fire spurted around his pounding legs.
A bare twenty yards ahead, the cruiser waited, glinting silver in the
sun. His pants leg caught fire and he could feel its blistering heat,
fanned by the wind, as he streaked across the gravel.
Then he saw it too late. A sheen of crimson in the air. Streaks of red,
painted on nothing. Johnny's blood! Flame from the guns behind him
sizzled on the invisible glass as Norman, unable to check the piston
power of his legs, crashed into the invisible wall of what had been
Johnny's prison. His forehead hit the glass with a hollow ring.
Clutching the wall with both hands, he slid down to the gravel and
into darkness for his second failure that afternoon.
Roughly, they dragged him back to the house. But he wasn't out.
Through the searing pain in his head he had fought back to
consciousness as the patrolmen touched him. His mind limped
through the pain, trying to figure out what to do now as they
dragged him into the big front room and dropped him on the floor.
"Imbeciles! Careless fools!"
The voice opened Norman's eyes, banished the throbbing in his head
as he struggled to his feet. But the two patrolmen locked his arms
behind him.
"How did he get out!" The fat man glared from Norman to the
patrolmen. Swart stood beside him.
"There were only two keys to that room," Swart suggested.
Sade's florid face paled, then his button eyes flickered with the cold
cruelty of a wild animal. "Find Keren," he said softly. "Bring her to
my laboratory."
Rick's eyes showed helpless fury as his arms tightened in the
patrolmen's grasp. "Keren had nothing to do with it," he said. "I
picked the lock."
Sade reached out and slapped his face repeatedly with his open
palm. Hands clamped behind him, Norman took it, barely feeling the
stinging blows, their impact light under the impact of what he saw.
"Yes! It's real!" Sade halted his slapping and, laughing like a fiend,
rolled up his sleeves. He held his hands up close before Norman's
eyes. Norman shuddered, staring at Sade's right hand. Slightly
smaller, ghastly white but firm, where the stump of Sade's right arm
had been was now flesh. Blood coursed through the bulging veins, a
pale hand extended pudgy fingers.
Sade howled with laughter as Norman drew back from the thing as
from a snake. "It's real!" Sade shouted, gleefully. "Flesh and blood! I
have two hands now!" Exultantly, he held his clenched fists before
Norman's white face. "In these hands I shall hold the pulse of the
universe, to let it throb or halt at my will. I shall be neither king nor
dictator—I shall be a god! The power of life and death in the
universe is mine!"
Lifting his gaze from the hands, Norman met the fat man's eyes
coldly. "How'd you do this, Sade?"
Sade's laughter dwindled to a greasy smile. "After seeing what the
power of Vulcan did to your friend, perhaps it is fitting that you
should see this power in reverse." He nodded at the patrolmen.
"Bring him along."
In an arm-lock on both sides, Norman was dragged down the same
corridor where he had followed Keren in his futile attempt to escape.
They halted at a door at its far end. Sade opened the door and
Norman was shoved in.
The place was white-walled and bare, like a hospital room but
without the usual furniture. On a four-legged platform in the center
of the room lay a large porcelain cylinder, like a chamber used for
sterilizing surgical instruments, but the surface of the cylinder was
smooth, without gadgets, only a heavily bolted cap at one end. Sade
patted the cylinder as a sculptor might admire the work of his chisel.
"This holds what John Gordon sought and what you seek now to
save his life," he smirked. "This container holds fluid from Vulcan's
Fountains of Youth!"
Standing before the cylinder, Norman's mind's eye searched the
situation for some chance of escape. Here was what he had come so
far to obtain and he was powerless to take it. But perhaps it wasn't
time; there was much he needed to know.
"Vulcan's power is a radiation," Sade said, "but not from the Sun. It's
a liquid under the ground, like Earthian oil—a radioactive element
such as science has only found traces of in the cosmic rays. More
powerful than radium, it exudes an exciter to growth—a living force."
"How'd you discover it without being affected by it?" Norman asked.
"Your friend Gordon was the guinea pig," the Mercurian said.
Norman kept still. "After we took him and his cruiser when he
entered the Protection Zone, we came here immediately. Working in
space suits until my technicians on Mercury discovered an
immunization, we brought Vulcan's strange liquid in like an oil
gusher. The effect of the pure liquid is instantaneous; its effects on
the surface of the ground outside are greatly diluted. While we built
this house round the well, we watched Vulcan's milder effects on
your friend in the glass cage."
Norman's jaw paled, but he kept his head. "How did Johnny get off
the planet after he escaped?"
"Fool!" Sade laughed. "He didn't escape. We could stay and watch
him every minute—that's why we left the automatic camera to
record his reactions. He did contrive to get out of the cage but when
we found him in the jungle we simply took him off the planet and
dropped him in space in a life boat where he'd be picked up." Sade
laughed again. "Did you think I didn't know he built two ships with
counteractives! John Gordon's return was merely a message to you
—to come here in that other ship. Now we have the only
counteractives in existence. Vulcan is an utterly impregnable
fortress. No army in the universe can interrupt my plans."
Norman realized that everything Sade said was true. No power could
approach Vulcan without a counteractive. "What are your plans,
Sade?"
The fat man held up his new right arm, his small eyes glowing. "My
technicians obtained for me the hand-bud of an unborn child. It was
embedded in the stump of my right arm." He stared at his hand
stretched its white fingers, his thick lips smiling. "With but a brief
exposure of my arm to a spray of Vulcan's liquid in full strength, I
grew the hand of a thirty-year-old man!" He banged the cylinder
with his fist. "What would happen if I sprayed this life-death fluid in
a city street! It can be placed in a shell and fired from a gun. I have
here a Force that can cause the most horrible of wounds—quick
decay. It can utterly destroy or immediately heal. How I use this
power depends upon how quickly the governments of the universe
submit to my wishes in a new stellar order."
But Norman had a question stronger than his hopelessness at what
he'd just heard. "Could this liquid help John Gordon now?"
Instead of replying, Sade smiled. He stepped over to one of the
room's blank walls and pressed a small button. A wide panel slid
back revealing several tiers of wire cages containing monkeys,
rabbits, and white rats. Sade scooped a plump slick rat out of its
cage and and closed the panel again. Walking back to the cylinder,
he slapped the helpless creature's head against his wrist and
stunned it. Then, drawing a flat shelf from the cylinder's platform, he
dropped the unconscious rat on it and threw the heavy bolts on the
cylinder's cap.
The silver dagger sank into Sade's chest just over his heart. The fat
man staggered back. But before he could fall, Swart acted, as quick
as a ferret, clipped Keren's chin, and as she crumpled silently to the
floor, he caught the gasping Mercurian and eased him down.
From Sade's chest blood spurted higher than the dagger's hilt as
Swart yanked one of the hoses from the cylinder and directed its
crimson spray on Sade's wound. Slowly, Swart drew out the dagger's
sticky blade in the spray. When the dagger was out of Sade's chest
there was no visible sign of a wound. Sade opened his eyes and
looked up at them.
"What shall I do with her?" Swart said.
Sade got to his feet. He stood there, panting a moment. "The rope,"
he said. Swart pushed a wall button, extracted a length of cord from
a panel compartment and returned. "Tie her to the cylinder," Sade
hissed, "and tie the nozzle of the hose in her hair."
In a moment, the unconscious Keren was hanging by her backward-
bent arms from the cylinder. The cord was tight from her wrists,
around the cylinder and under to her slim ankles. In her hair was
fixed the slowly oozing hose. A rivulet of red trickled down her
smooth cheek.
"What about these two?" Swart said, motioning toward Norman and
Dorothy.
"While we go to repair the new counteractive ship which Mr. Norman
so kindly brought us," Sade said, "we can leave him and his girl in
the glass cage."
As they were marched across the field, Norman remembered
Johnny's face on the hospital pillow—tragic, old. Now, in the green
beauty of this time-thundering world, this same fate reached for
them as it was caressing Keren's cheek in the white-walled room in
the tower. Norman put his arm around Dorothy's shoulder.
She drew away. "You deserted me for Keren once. Worry about her
now, not me."
Swart grinned. "You can argue that out while you grow old
together," he said. The patrolman who had come out with them
picked up a metal ladder beside the invisible wall and leaned it
against the rim of the glass. Then, smiling, he walked back and
grabbed the collar of Dorothy's coveralls. "We sealed up the chinks
to keep 'em from pulling the same trick Gordon did but hadn't we
better strip 'em to make sure?"
Norman's fists tightened but he felt the barrel of Swart's pistol dig
into his side. Then, on a quick thought, he drew a half-empty pack
of cigarettes from his pocket. "Leave her alone, Swart. We haven't
anything to escape with. Take these cigarettes for our clothes."
The dark man's hand snatched them greedily. "I don't know why I
don't take both." But he stepped away from the ladder and waved
his pistol at them. "All right. Get in there. In ten seconds I'm
shooting."
IV
The glass was thick, perfectly clear. Only its glimmer in the sun said
they were imprisoned. Beyond the field, the ever dying and growing
jungle undulated like a green sea. Just outside the glass, the ladder
lay on the gravel where the patrolman had dropped it—within arm's
reach and it might as well have been light years away.
"Look!" Dorothy cried. "The scratch on my finger's already healed."
She held up her finger and there was no mark on it. Vulcan's power
was working, building a life then to tear it down. Each soul-wringing
second created beauty, clear blue-eyed, honey-haired beauty—to
transform it as swiftly into ugliness....
It was the first time in Norman's eventful life that he had ever stared
defeat in the face. He had met death before and he had been in
some pretty tight spots but always there had been some way out.
Not here. There was no possible way to climb a twenty-foot wall of
perpendicular oil-slick glass.
"I'm afraid I've failed you, Dorothy," he said. In his mind now was
only the thought of something he must not do. He couldn't allow her
to go through the horror he had seen on Johnny's gray face. After
two hours, when he saw the first gray hair—he looked down at his
hands. They were his only weapons against a longer torture. Could
he kill Dorothy with his own hands...?
"Well," Dorothy broke in on his thoughts. "Sade wins; and when we
go, the whole universe is next." Her voice was a full octave lower
than Norman had first heard it when she appeared at his galley door.
Norman walked over and stood before her. "Whatever happens," he
said, "I want you to know this—that I've fallen in love with you.
You're the bravest woman I've ever known and the most beautiful.
That combination usually doesn't go together."
She looked up at him with very blue and serious eyes. "I've been in
love with you for a long time," she said. "Ever since I first saw your
picture in the paper. That's why I came with you."
Her words were cut off by Norman's lips. Then quickly he left her
and walked back to the glass, staring out at the wind-whipped
jungle. Why wait? Why go through this torture any longer? Get it
over with now!
"Gods of the universe, forgive me," he whispered and turned to take
her throat in his hands.
Light flashed across his face. It was Dorothy's mirror. She held it,
smoothing her sun-burnished hair. A thought burst into his
consciousness like a butterfly from a cocoon.
He jumped over and snatched the mirror from her hand, ripped his
watch from his wrist and flipped off the crystal with his thumbnail,
letting the watch drop to the ground.
"What're you doing!"
He didn't bother to answer. His pulse was liquid fire as he held the
watch crystal close to the glass wall with one hand and focused the
rays of the sun into it with the mirror. A thin curl of smoke rose from
the jungle across the field. Then where the smoke had been an
orange flame licked up from the dry grass. He dropped the mirror
and the watch crystal and grabbed Dorothy close to him in the
center of their prison, holding her tightly.
"Why! Why!"
"You'll see!"
Lashed by the wind, the fire spread like a flood. A blast of smoke
engulfed the glass obscuring their view with its swirling whiteness.
Then bits of flaming ashes dotted the smoke as the flames found
new fuel in the rotted trees. Standing there, holding Dorothy in his
arms, Norman saw the glass around them slowly darken. Quickly, as
the wind brought the increasing heat upon them, the glass turned
black and all he could see was the wild smoke rolling across the hole
at the top of their stifling cage. He felt Dorothy coughing. Heat
swam in the blackness about them.
Then almost as suddenly as it had begun, the wind swept the smoke
away and Norman tore himself away from Dorothy and sprang to the
glass wall. Without waiting till the glass lightened, he ran his hand
across its blistering surface. When the thermal quality of the glass
permitted the passage of light and the sight of the smoldering forest
across the field, Norman was half way up the slick side, climbing like
a ladder the bulging ridges that encircled the glass at its invisible
seams.
As Dorothy stared at him, unbelieving, he vaulted over the rim and
jolted with stinging feet to the hot gravel outside. The metal ladder
was like a live coal in his hands but he barely felt it as he threw it
against the wall and ran up it like a squirrel. Sitting on the cooling
rim, he drew the ladder up after him and dropped it inside for
Dorothy.
Soon they were streaking across the steaming gravel toward the
house, Dorothy's hair streaming in the smoky wind.
Norman burst into the big front room with Dorothy behind him. Their
running feet were loud in the silent house as they sped down the
corridor, Norman dreading what he would find tied to the cylinder
where they had left Keren. "You don't want to see this," he said,
halting at the closed door. "Try these other doors and find a gun.
Sade may be back any moment!"
Dorothy obediently turned away as he went in and the sight that
met his eyes was to figure in many a future nightmare. Half way
between the door and the cylinder, Keren lay on the floor, more like
some hideous reptile than a human being, staring up at him, her
eyes two black holes, hate alive in them, the only life in what was
left of her face.
Norman stepped over and picked her up, his fingers recoiling from
the touch of leathern skin and bone. Her luxurious hair had vanished
leaving a skull, cracked skin tight across her cheek bones. The rope
that had held her to the cylinder had slipped from her shrunken
wrists and how she had crawled this far, Norman couldn't tell.
He carried her to the cylinder, opened the heavy cap and drew out
the small hose that Sade had used to restore to youth the white rat.
Quickly, he sprayed the pink liquid upon her face and body—a
treatment that was to rewrite all of medical science. Her cheeks
swelled again to the form of a living face and like a trick of
superimposed motion picture work, before his eyes Keren's skeletal
structure became covered again with firm, rounded flesh, and on her
head wispy black threads appeared and extended again into a silken
sable mass.
To save the spark of life that remained with Johnny, Norman knew
he had to get this material back to Earth now; which meant a finish
fight for a space ship. "Are you strong enough now? We've got to
ambush Sade."
It was an effort for Keren to reorganize her forgotten coordinations
which enabled her to speak. Her lips moved soundlessly as he
carried her to the door and down the passage. He explained quickly
how he and Dorothy had escaped.
"There are guns in the tower," she managed to whisper as they
entered the front room.
Dorothy stood at the door with two jet rifles, peering out at the still
deserted field. "I found these in their bedroom," she said, handing
Norman one of the guns. "Is she all right? I thought—"
Norman told her what he had done to revive Keren. "But here's what
we do," he said, lowering Keren to a sofa. "Sade will see the empty
cage and know there's something wrong when he comes in to land.
He will probably attack the house. We've got to get back in the cage.
Keren can vaccinate you," he nodded to Dorothy, allaying her
hesitation. "When they land, I'll jump out and take care of as many
as I can. Keren can get the rest from the tower."
"There's a glass cutter in the store room," Keren said, nodding her
approval of the plan. Her cheeks were white as paper but she got up
and walked unsteadily from the room.
"The liquid brought her back from the grave," Norman whispered to
Dorothy, watching Keren walk up the hall.
The next second was a lifetime. Then suddenly he was on his feet.
He whirled, ducked out through the hole in the glass. The guns in
his hands were spitting their red streams, before his eyes found the
men before him, and he played the guns like two garden hoses,
spraying death. The two patrolmen fell, charred and black. But the
two groups had ruined his ambush. Swart sprang aside, behind the
glass wall as the flame streaked past him. Norman saw Sade
standing in the door of the ship, staring at the wild scene. The door
was slammed shut as Norman's guns splattered the hull with fire.
Then the fight was between him and Swart alone.
On the opposite sides of the ring of glass, Dorothy standing there
horrified between them, it was one of the strangest situations in
Norman's experience. The glass was impervious to jet fire. Dorothy
was perfectly safe. But as Norman moved around the wall to get a
shot at Swart, the dark little man also moved, keeping the arc of
glass between them. It couldn't continue. A sudden sheet of flame
rushed past one side of the glass, Sade firing from the ship. Swart
was not slow to take advantage of the opportunity. Quickly he slid
around the wall to corner Norman against Sade's fire.
Norman stood waiting, rifles poised to blast Swart's gun barrel as it
nosed past the curve of glass. But Swart was no fool. He was playing
for time. Norman heard the throbbing as Sade started his rockets.
Sade was moving the ship to trap him between their guns.
Norman started to jump back through the hole in the glass. But that
would be suicide; while Swart guarded the door, Sade could pick
them off from above in the ship. Then an idea whispered in
Norman's mind. If he could lure Swart from the protection of the
glass into Keren's sights in the the tower—if he could trust Keren—
but there was nothing else to do. He ducked into the enclosure
beside Dorothy.
Swart laughed. Norman could hear it inside the glass. Quickly, Swart
stepped to the edge of the hole, his pistol covering their exit, smiling
at them through the wall. "You ain't very bright, Norman." It was the
last breath that ever passed his lips, for a long, thin line of flame
suddenly stretched from the tower to the small of his back. Swart
dropped without a sound, surprise on his dead face.
But Sade's ship was already in the air.
"He'll come and strafe us!" Norman shouted to Dorothy above the
roar of the rockets. He took her hand, dragged her out of the cage
past Swart's body. They had to get to the cruiser; their only hope
was a fight with Sade in the air. But the sound of Sade's rockets
stopped Norman in his tracks as he started to dash for the cruiser.
Sade's ship was skimming the field, twenty feet off the ground, his
rockets sputtering like a gasoline engine with a broken piston.
The ship was headed directly toward the house, apparently unable
to rise. Then Norman saw what had happened. Keren's rifle had hit
the rise rocket tube. The heavily repaired solder work had burned
through. Unable to gain altitude, the ship hurtled into the house like
a freight plane gone wild. The plastic walls ripped like tinfoil as the
ship's heavy nose plowed into the building just below the tower.
There was no explosion. The impact killed the rockets. Dust plumed
up like a geyser, disappeared swiftly in the wind, leaving the ship
hanging there tail out, stuck in the building like an arrow.
Norman and Dorothy were at the door before the debris stopped
falling. The front room was choked with dust and bits of torn plastic
rained from the ceiling as they ran down the shadowy corridor. The
door leading to the tower stairs hung on its hinges, admitting a
beam of sunlight from the demolished upper story. They ran up the
broken stairs, swaying precariously. The cracked hull of the ship lay
in the debris of what remained of the tower. The wall had been
sheared off level with the floor on one side and swaying out from
the foundation below a misty rainbow sparkled its colors in the
sunlight, hissing softly as the red fluid escaped from a pipe hidden in
the wreckage. Sade's well around which the house was built had
split in the crash.
Leaving Dorothy at the top of the stairs, Norman climbed over the
chunks of plastic into the tower room. Then he realized his
foolhardiness. Too late. A chill tingled the back of his neck as he saw
the ship's port hanging open.
He heard Dorothy's warning cry behind him as he turned around
slowly.
Sade's grimy bulk stood beside a chunk of plastic at the edge of the
littered floor. The sunlight glistened on the pistol in his hand, as it
squirted a stream of red flame upon the barrel of Norman's rifle. The
gun dropped from Norman's blistered fingers.
"You thought you could escape what Vulcan and I can do," Sade
said. "None can escape us, for Vulcan and I control the universe
from now on." He pointed his pistol to the floor at Norman's feet and
pulled the trigger. Norman stepped back as the flame licked up
around his shoes. "Keep walking until you fall into that rainbow
down there!"
"Wait, Sade!" Norman stepped back again as the line of fire followed
him. "There's no time for this. That pipe's going to burst wide open
any moment!" He shifted from one foot to another, the soles of his
shoes burning.
"Jump," Sade said quietly. He raised the gun higher.
Norman retreated another step. Two feet lay between him and the
edge of the sheared wall, the end of the floor, and then the misty
lethal colors hissing ten feet below.
Dorothy scrambled over the plastic wreckage and threw herself at
Sade, but the flat of his palm met her face and hurled her aside. The
line of fire moved to Norman's toes again, and he stepped back his
last step. Like a cobra wavering before its prey, the flame swept
back and forth across the floor, inches from Norman's toes,
scorching the floor under his feet. He glanced down at the crimson
mist, leaping like a fountain under the splinters of plastic jutting out
over it. Then he realized that fate had given him his chance—for a
price.
He had come to Vulcan to find something to save Johnny's life. In
the tank in the cruiser out on the field was the fluid that could do
that. On the broken wall below him, just over the fountain of death,
a piece of the wreckage jutted outward two feet—he could leap to
that, swing clear of the mist and reach the ship and be free. He
could save Johnny—by leaving Dorothy behind.
There could be no compromise. He had no doubt that Sade would
kill her the instant he realized the trick.
Norman glanced back into Sade's triumphant smile. Suddenly he
returned the smile and laughed out loud. "When'd you take your last
vaccination, Sade!" he laughed. "Did you know your hair had turned
white?"
Sade held his smile as steady as his gun. "I'm not leaving you and
look for a mirror," he said. "No tricks will save you this time. Those
shots are good for 24 hours."
"Not with all this raw stuff in the air," Norman laughed. "Look how
your hands have withered."
"What matter," Sade said, "my Fountain of Youth can restore me
again." But his smile loosened, and quick as light his glance dropped
to his hands. Norman's knees straightened like steel springs. The
length of flame seared his hip as he sprang. Then his fist piled into
Sade's heavy jaw.
The gun flew out and down into the mist. Sade hit the floor rolling
and struggled to his feet as Norman was on him like a hurricane. He
crossed jabs into his face with both fists then stepped back and
swung a long arc that crushed the big man's nose. Sade stumbled
backward, screamed, arms flailing the air wildly, and fell backward
off the edge of the floor.
Norman stepped over and looked down. Deep in the eery rainbow
mist that swirled around him, Sade scrambled to his feet and looked
around frantically, confused with the colors. His hair turned snow
white, his round cheeks tightened across the bones of his face and
his big belly vanished in his baggy clothes. He held his hands up
before his face and forgot Norman to stare at his skeleton-like
fingers. Then, his hands still raised before his eyes, he sank to the
ground as his legs collapsed. The shoes fell off his bony feet as he
lay there writhing.
Norman shook his head, rubbed his eyes. Sade wasn't writhing. It
was the wind rustling his clothes.
Norman found Dorothy's sunlit head pressed against his shoulder as
she cried like a baby. He touched her hair gently, then turned to the
wreckage of the tower.
A moment's search in the debris disclosed Keren's broken form. He
lifted her dead weight in his arms and with Dorothy behind him went
quickly down the stairs. In the front room, he laid Keren on the sofa
and, risking one moment more, jerked a tapestry from the wall and
gently covered her body. Then they ran out of the house and across
the field to the cruiser.
As he helped Dorothy through the port he heard a cyclone roar from
the house. He shoved Dorothy in, jumped in after her and slammed
the door. Through the glass, they watched the house fly to pieces
like a bursting bomb as a giant flower of red spouted high over the
field. Then, where the house had been, stood a wavering red
column, feet thick, towering above the green jungle. It sprayed
down upon the cruiser like a scarlet rain.
They stared at the vivid scene until the red film covered the cabin
windows. Then Norman thumped the tank around the cabin wall,
heard its dull fullness, and walked into the pilot room and sat down
at the controls. "There's plenty in the tank for Johnny," he said, "and
there's plenty on Vulcan for the Universe."
"What shall we name it?" Dorothy said.
As they soared away from the planet and their increasing speed
washed the red film from the glass. Norman looked at the dwindling
green globe that was Vulcan and lived again, swiftly, all that had
happened there. And strangely, now that it was over, one phrase
whispered in his mind. I'll owe you a thousand kisses....
"Let's name it 'Kerine,'" he said. "We owe her more than we can ever
repay."
The word "Kerine" was being shouted in every street and across
every backyard fence in the universe two days later and it was a
tense moment outside a closed white door in a hospital in New York
City. Although the surgery was on the fifteenth floor, Norman and
Dorothy could hear the clamor in the street below as thousands
halted traffic for blocks around and the policemen stood by with
folded arms, smiling. Downstairs, the lobby was packed with
photographers and reporters, waiting.
As the white door opened, Norman and Dorothy jumped to their
feet. Norman could hear his heart thumping above the noise from
the street as he looked down at the sheet-covered stretcher the
nurses rolled out the door. As the stretcher rolled into the hall, the
face appeared and deep within his pounding heart, Norman yelled
his joy. Johnny's face was pale and thin, as if recently recovered
from a long illness, but it was Johnny's face, his barber-shy black
hair tousled on his forehead.
"Hello, chum," Johnny said. "The doc told me all about it." Then he
glanced at Dorothy. "So that's her."
"She's got exclusive rights to the story," Norman grinned.
"I can't wait to get back in a full dress suit," Johnny said. "For the
wedding."
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