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Collected Short Fiction
Rosel George Brown
(custom book cover)
Jerry eBooks
Title Page
About George Rosel Brown
Bibliography
Short Fiction Bibliography: chronological
Short Fiction Bibliography: alphabetical
Fiction Series
1958
FROM AN UNSEEN CENSOR
1959
VIRGIN GROUND
HAIR-RAISING ADVENTURE
LOST IN TRANSLATION
CAR POOL
SAVE YOU CONFEDERATE MONEY, BOYS
FLOWER ARRANGEMENT
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
1960
A LITTLE HUMAN CONTACT
DAVID’S DADDY
STEP IV
THERE’S ALWAYS A WAY
JUST A SUGGESTION
1961
OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS
VISITING PROFESSOR
THE ULTIMATE SIN
1962
AND A TOOTH
FRUITING BODY
1964
THE ARTIST
1966
EARTHBLOOD (Part One)
EARTHBLOOD (Part Two)
EARTHBLOOD (Part Three)
EARTHBLOOD (Conclusion)
George Rosel Brown was born on March 15, 1926 in New Orleans, Louisiana. She graduated from Sophie Newcomb College, where she majored in Greek, and at the University of Minnesota where she received her M.A. in Greek. After completing her education, she worked as a Louisiana social worker and as a teacher. She married W. Burlie Brown, a history professor at Tulane University. The couple had two children. Brown was a voracious reader and enjoyed sewing as a hobby.
Brown’s first story, “From an Unseen Censor”, was published in the September 1958 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. In 1959, she was nominated for the Hugo Award for best new author, but her career was cut short when she died of lymphoma at the age of 41 in 1967.
Brown’s works were mainly written in the late 1950s to the mid-1960s and generally were favorably received by critics and readers. Her main novels are Sibyl Sue Blue, and its sequel, The Waters of Centaurus, which chronicle the life of Sybil Sue Blue, a female detective.
Several of Brown’s books were dedicated to her husband. The Waters of Centaurus was published after her death, and was copyrighted by her husband in 1970. She also collaborated on the novel Earthblood with Keith Laumer.
The fourth Nebula Award Anthology contains an obituary written by Daniel F. Galouye; and Anne McCaffrey dedicated her 1970 anthology Alchemy & Academe to Brown, along with several other people. Brown and McCaffrey had met at a Milford Writer’s Workshop.
Rosel George Brown died on November 26, 1967 in New Orleans, Louisiana.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Novels
Sibyl Sue Blue (1966)
Earthblood (1966)
The Waters of Centaurus (1970)
Serial
Earthblood, If, April-July 1966
Chapbooks
Step IV (2010)
From An Unseen Censor (2016)
Collections
A Handful of Time (1963)
Earthblood and Other Stories (2008)
SHORT FICTION BIBLIOGRAPHY
CHRONOLOGICAL
1958
From an Unseen Censor, Galaxy Science Fiction, September 1958
1959
Virgin Ground, If, February 1959
Hair-Raising Adventure, Star Science Fiction Stories No. 5, May 1959
Lost in Translation, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1959
Car Pool, If, July 1959
Save Your Confederate Money, Boys, Fantastic Universe, November 1959
Flower Arrangement, Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1959
Signs of the Times, Amazing Stories, December 1959
1960
A Little Human Contact, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1960
David’s Daddy, Fantastic, June 1960
Step IV, Amazing Stories, June 1960
There’s Always a Way, Fantastic, July 1960
Just a Suggestion, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1960
1961
Of All Possible Worlds, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1961
Visiting Professor, Fantastic, February 1961
The Ultimate Sin, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1961
1962
and a tooth, Fantastic, August 1962
Fruiting Body, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1962
1963
Smith’s Revenge, A Handful of Time, 1963
The Devaluation of the Symbol, A Handful of Time, 1963
1964
The Artist, Amazing Stories, May 1964
1966
Earthblood (Part One), If, April 1966
Earthblood (Part Two), If, May 1966
Earthblood (Part Three), If, June 1966
Earthblood (Conclusion), If, July 1966
SHORT FICTION BIBLIOGRAPHY
ALPHABETICAL
A
A Little Human Contact, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, April 1960
And a Tooth, Fantastic, August 1962
The Artist, Amazing Stories, May 1964
C
Car Pool, If, July 1959
D
David’s Daddy, Fantastic, June 1960
The Devaluation of the Symbol, A Handful of Time, 1963
E
Earthblood (Part One), If, April 1966
Earthblood (Part Two), If, May 1966
Earthblood (Part Three), If, June 1966
Earthblood (Conclusion), If, July 1966
F
Flower Arrangement, Galaxy Science Fiction, December 1959
From an Unseen Censor, Galaxy Science Fiction, September 1958
Fruiting Body, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1962
H
Hair-Raising Adventure, Star Science Fiction Stories No. 5, May 1959
J
Just a Suggestion, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, August 1960
L
Lost in Translation, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, May 1959
O
Of All Possible Worlds, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, February 1961
S
Save Your Confederate Money, Boys, Fantastic Universe, November 1959
Signs of the Times, Amazing Stories, December 1959
Smith’s Revenge, A Handful of Time, 1963
Step IV, Amazing Stories, June 1960
T
There’s Always a Way, Fantastic, July 1960
U
The Ultimate Sin, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, October 1961
V
Virgin Ground, If, February 1959
Visiting Professor, Fantastic, February 1961
FICTION SERIES
Sibyl Sue Blue
Sibyl Sue Blue (1966)
The Waters of Centaurus (1970)
1958
FROM AN UNSEEN CENSOR
You can’t beat my Uncle Isadore—he’s dead but he’s quick—yet that is just what he was daring me to try and do!
UNCLE Isadore’s ship wasn’t in bad shape, at first glance. But a second look showed the combustion chamber was crumpled to pieces and the jets were fused into the rocks,
making a smooth depression.
The ship had tilted into a horizontal position, nestling in the hollow its last blasts had made. Dust had sifted in around it, piling over the almost invisible seam of the port and filming the whole ship.
We circled around the ship. It was all closed and sealed, blind as a bullet.
“Okay,” Rene said. “He’s dead. My regrets.” He coughed the word out as though it were something he had swallowed by accident.
“But how do you know?” I asked. “He might be in there.”
“That port hasn’t been opened for months. Maybe years. I told you the converter wouldn’t last more than a month in dock. He couldn’t live locked up in there without air and water. Let’s go.” My guide had no further interest in the ship. He hadn’t even looked to see what the planet was like.
I stood shivering in my warm clothes. The ship seemed to radiate a chill. I looked around at the lumpy, unimaginative landscape of Alvarla. There was nothing in sight but a scraggly, dun heather sprouting here and there in the rocks and dust, and making hirsute patches on the low hills.
I had some wild idea, I think, that Uncle Izzy might come sauntering nonchalantly over the hills, one hand in the pocket of a grilch-down jacket and the other holding a Martian cigarene. And he would have on his face that look which makes everything he says seem cynical and slightly clever even if it isn’t.
“The scenery is dull,” he might say, “but it makes a nice back-drop for you.” Something like that, leaving the impression he’d illuminated a side of your character for you to figure out later on.
NOTHING of the kind happened, of course. I just got colder standing there.
“All right,” Rene said. “We’ve had a moment of silence. Now let’s go.”
“I—there’s something wrong,” I told him. “Let’s go in and see the—the body.”
“We can’t go in. That ship’s sealed from the inside. You think they make those things so any painted alien can open the door and shoot in poisoned arrows? Believe me, he has to be inside if those outside ports are sealed. And he has to be dead because that port hasn’t been opened in months. Look at the dust! It’s a fourth of the way up the port.”
Rene lumbered over to it and blew away some of the lighter dust higher up.
“See that?” he asked.
“No.”
He groaned. “Well, you’ll have to take my word for it. It’s a raindrop. Almost four months old. A very light rain. You could see the faint, crusted outline of the drop if you knew how to look.”
“I believe you,” I said. “I hired you because you know which side of the trees the moss grows on and things like that. Still . . .”
Rene was beginning to stomp around impatiently. “Still what?”
“It just isn’t like Uncle Isadore.” I was trying to search out, myself, what it was that struck me as incongruous. “It’s out of character.”
“It’s out of character for anybody to die,” Rene said. “But I’ve seen a lot of them dead.”
“I mean at least he would have died outside.”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake! Why outside? You think he took rat poison?”
I went around to the other side of the spaceship, mostly to get away from Rene for a moment. I’m only a studs and neck clasp man and Rene had twenty years’ experience on alien planets. So he was right, of course, about the evidence. There was no getting around it. Still . . .
I circled back around to where Rene was smoking his first cigarette since we left Earth. His face was a mask of sunbaked wrinkles pointing down to the cigarette smack in the middle of his mouth.
“Uncle Izzy wouldn’t die like an ordinary mortal,” I said. “He’d have a brass band. Or we’d find his body lying in a bed of roses with a big lily in his hand. Or he might even disappear into thin air. But not this.” I waved a hand toward the dead ship.
“Look,” Rene said. “My job was to find your Uncle Isadore. I’ve found him. We can’t get inside that ship with anything short of a matter reducer, which I don’t happen to have along since they weigh several tons. You’ll have to take my word for it that his body’s in there. Now let’s go home.” He managed to talk without moving the cigarette at all.
“YOU said a week,” I reminded Rene.
“I said if I didn’t find him in a week, then he wasn’t there. I’ve found him. I’m sorry if he was your favorite uncle or something.”
“As a matter of fact, I never liked him. He was—frivolous. He never had a job. He thought life was a big game.”
“Then how come he got so rich?”
“He always won.”
“Not this time, brother! But if he’s not your favorite uncle, why all this concern? You can take my word for it he’s dead and you’ve done your duty.”
“There are two things that bother me. One is curiosity. I just don’t believe Uncle Izzy died in an ordinary fashion locked up in a spaceship. You don’t know him, so you wouldn’t understand. The other thing I’m concerned about is—well, his will.”
Rene barked a couple of times. I had learned this indicated laughter. “I figured what you were really after was his money.”
Under my yellow overskin, I could feel myself coloring. That wasn’t at all the point. I’d mortgaged Mother’s bonds to finance this trip, confident that Uncle Izzy would make it good when we found him. If I couldn’t get Mother’s bonds out of hock, she’d have to live out her life in a Comfort Park. I shuddered at the thought. Uncle Isadore must have known that when he radared for help. He must have provided some way . . .
“You said a week and we’re staying a week,” I told Rene as authoritatively as I could manage. “You haven’t actually showed me Uncle Izzy’s—er—corpus delicti, so I have you on a legal technicality.” I didn’t know whether or not this was true, but it sounded good.
“All right, we’ll stay.” Rene spat the sentence out onto the ground. “But if you think I’m going to do any more looking, take another guess.”
He tramped back into his own ship, leaving the outside port and the pressure chamber open.
If only Uncle Izzy had done that!
I went over his ship inch by inch, feeling with my hands, to be sure there was no extra door that might be opened. Rene would have laughed, but I was beginning to build up antibodies against Rene’s laughter.
I got the bottom part of the ship dusted off and found nothing.
I pushed open the door of Rene’s ship and asked him for a ladder.
“You’ll have to pay for it,” he warned. “Once it’s open, I can’t carry it in my ship and I’ll have to get another.”
“Okay, okay! I’ll pay for it.”
HE handed me a synthetic affair that looked like a meshed rope, wound tight, about the size of a Venusian cigar.
“This is a ladder?” I asked incredulously, but he had shut the door in my face.
I slipped the cellophane off and unrolled it. It seemed to unroll endlessly. When it was ten feet long and four feet wide, I stopped unrolling. Sure enough, it hardened into a ladder in about ten minutes. It was so strong I couldn’t begin to bend it over my knee.
I set it against the side of the ship and began to investigate the view ports. The first two were sealed tight as a drum.
The third slipped off in my hands and clattered over the side of the ship onto the rocks.
I was almost afraid to look through the “glass” beneath. I needn’t have been. I could see absolutely nothing. It was space-black inside.
I went back to Rene’s ship for a flashlight. He was unimpressed by my discovery.
“Even if you could break the glass, which you can’t,” he said, “you still couldn’t get through that little porthole. Here’s the flash. You won’t be able to see anything.”
He came with me this time. Not because he was interested, but because he wanted another cigarette and never smoked in the ship.
He was right. I couldn’t see a darned thing in the ship with the flashlight. But I found something
—a little lead object that looked like a coin. It had rolled into a corner of the port.
Now I don’t like adventure. I don’t like strange planets. All I’ve ever asked of life was my little four-by-six cubby in the Brooklyn Bloc and my job. A job I know inside out. It’s a comfortable, happy, harmless way to live and I test 10:9 on job adjustment.
All the same, it was a thrill to discover a clue that Rene would have thrown away if he’d been the one looking.
I tossed it casually in the air and showed it to Rene.
“Know what that is?” I asked.
“Slug for a halfdec slot machine?”
“Nope. Know what I can do with it?”
He didn’t say.
“I’m going to open Uncle Izzy’s ship from the inside.”
RENE lighted a fresh cigarette from the old one and let the smoke out of his nose. It gave rather the impression of a bull resting between picadors.
“Can you show me, on the outside, approximately where the button is that you push on the inside to unseal the ship?” I inquired casually.
“I can show you exactly.”
He pointed to a spot next to the entrance port. I wet my finger and made a mark in the dust so I could get it just right. Then I found a sharp stone and cut around the edges of the lead. As I slipped off the back half of the coinlike affair, I clapped it over the finger mark.
The entrance port swung open.
If I’d had a feather, I would have taken great pleasure in knocking Rene over with it.
“It’d be worth a million dollars,” he breathed, “to know how you did that.”
“Oh, a lot less than that,” I said airily.
“Well? Explain!”
“Uncle Isadore had it set up,” I told him, using the same patiently impatient tone he used on me. “He knew I’d recognize that lead coin. There was a cuff link in it.”
“A cuff link!”
“A studs and neck clasp man has to know about cuff links, too. This happens to be an expensive cuff link, but worth only about a year’s salary, not a million dollars. They’re held together by a jazzed-up electromagnetic force rather than by a clasp. This force is so strong it would take a derrick to pull them apart. The idea is to keep you from losing one. If you drop it to the floor, you just wave the mate around a little and it pops up through the air.”
Collected Short Fiction (Jerry eBooks) Page 1