The Menace From Earth ssc Read Online Free Page B

But the sea serpent on Ventura Beach was real; he had seen it. The troglodyte in Tennessee he was not in a position to verify.
    Thirty-one domestic air crashes the last week in July ... was it sabotage? Or was it a sagging curve on a chart? And that neo-polio epidemic that skipped from Seattle to New York? Time for a big epidemic? Breen's chart said it was. But how about B.W.? Could a chart know that a Slav biochemist would perfect an efficient virus-and-vector at the right time? Nonsense!
    But the curves, if they meant anything at all, included "free will"; they averaged in all the individual "wills" of a statistical universe — and came out as a smooth function, Every morning three million "free wills" flowed toward the center of the New York megapolis; every evening they flowed out again — all by "free will," and on a smooth and predictable curve.
    Ask a lemming! Ask all the lemmings, dead and alive — let them take a vote on it! Breen tossed his notebook aside and called Meade, "Is this my favorite statistic?"
    "Potty! I was thinking about you."
    "Naturally. This is your night off."
    "Yes, but another reason, too. Potiphar, have you ever taken a look at the Great Pyramid?"
    "I haven't even been to Niagara Falls. I'm looking for a rich woman, so I can travel."
    "Yes, yes, I'll let you know when I get my first million, but —"
    "That's the first time you've proposed to me this week."
    "Shut up. Have you ever looked into the prophecies they found inside the pyramid?"
    "Huh? Look, Meade, that's in the same class with astrology — strictly for squirrels. Grow up."
    "Yes, of course. But Potty, I thought you were interested in anything odd. This is odd."
    "Oh. Sorry. If it's 'silly season' stuff, let's see it."
    "All right. Am I cooking for you tonight?"
    "It's Wednesday, isn't it?"
    "How soon?"
    He glanced at his watch. "Pick you up in eleven minutes." He felt his whiskers. "No, twelve and a half."
    "I'll be ready. Mrs. Megeath says that these regular dates mean that you are going to marry me."
    "Pay no attention to her. She's just a statistic. And I'm a wild datum."
    "Oh, well, I've got two hundred and forty-seven dollars toward that million. 'Bye!"
    Meade's prize was the usual Rosicrucian come-on, elaborately printed, and including a photograph (retouched, he was sure) of the much disputed line on the corridor wall which was alleged to prophesy, by its various discontinuities, the entire future. This one had an unusual time scale but the major events were all marked on it — the fall of Rome, the Norman Invasion, the Discovery of America, Napoleon, the World Wars.
    What made it interesting was that it suddenly stopped — now.
    "What about it. Potty?"
    "I guess the stonecutter got tired. Or got fired. Or they got a new head priest with new ideas." He tucked it into his desk. "Thanks. I'll think about how to list it." But he got it out again, applied dividers and a magnifying glass. "It says here," he announced, "that the end comes late in August — unless that's a fly speck."
    "Morning or afternoon? I have to know how to dress."
    "Shoes will be worn. All God's chilluns got shoes." He put it away.
    She was quiet for a moment, then said, "Potty, isn't it about time to jump?"
    "Huh? Girl, don't let that thing affect you! That's 'silly season' stuff."
    "Yes. But take a look at your chart."
    Nevertheless he took the next afternoon off, spent it in the reference room of the main library, confirmed his opinion of soothsayers. Nostradamus was pretentiously silly, Mother Shippey was worse. In any of them you could find what you looked for.
    He did find one item in Nostradamus that he liked: "The Oriental shall come forth from his seat ... he shall pass through the sky, through the waters and the snow, and he shall strike each one with his weapon."
    That sounded like what the Department of Defense expected the commies to try to do to the Western Allies. But it was also a description of every invasion that had come out of the