TALES FROM THE WHITE HART
As found in the omnibus Across The Sea Of Stars
There is a book collection containing stories from the White Hart, though at the moment I do not know if it contains the same stories appearing here. I do have the book somewhere, and will endevour to find out.
Our introduction to the White Hart and Harry Purvis. When one of the members gets loud, somebody else remarks that he wished there was a way to shut the man up. Harry uses the opportunity to tell the story of the Fenton Silencer. Fenton was a lab assisstant at a Biophysics lab who one day created a device to cancel out sound. But poor Fenton was weak on theory. Instead of destroying energy created by sound (and by the canceling of sound), it must be stored somewhere. What would happen if the Silencer was used in a place where there is alot of sound? Well, Fenton was to find out the hard way.
-ARMAMENTS RACE-
Solly Blumberg, one of Harry's friends from Hollywood, is visiting England. Actually, he is on the run. Seems Solly was a special effects man, who until recently was working on a serial called "Captain Zoom". His biggest headache was that every time he came up with a new ray gun for the show, the director needed something better for the next one. Unfortunately for Solly, his last creation was a little too realistic. Good thing he was away the day they used it during the shoot. And now Solly can't return home, seems the FBI, the Pentagon, and the Atomic Energy Commission all want to speak with him.
-THE PACIFIST-
Harry is reminded of Project Clausewitz, an effort by the U.S. government to use a computer to plan and conduct war. They didn't count on the genius behind the construction of such a computer to despise the military man in charge so much that he makes the computer useless for military purposes. Ask it a math problem, you get a straight forward answer. Ask it a military question, and you get back insults at the expense of General Smith. The title, in case you were wondering, does not refer to the programmer, but to the computer itself.
-THE NEXT TENANTS-
My favorite of the bunch, this tale is of a scientest studying termites. By using miniature camaras, he is able to study them inside their mounds on a tropical island. Seems they are very adept at manipulating their environment and so he introduces a miniature lever and the sledge to their world. He finds that not only do they learn to use these, they learn to duplicate them. Now, he has plans to introduce them to something even more useful. Fire. Who can say what his experiments will lead to? Especially should mankind destroy itself with its newfound nuclear technology.
-THE RELUCTANT ORCHID-
A diminutive and meek man has only his flowers for company. Them and a large, overbearing aunt who comes to visit him once a week. He soon comes to hate her, since she is more a man than he will ever be. Then one day he discovers an orchid that grows to massive height. Oh, yeah, and it likes meat. As time goes on, he develops a plan. To lure his aunt into the greenhouse. Close enough to the orchid. Only things don't quite work out the way he hopes. Seems the orchid is a coward, and also that his aunt has taken a liking to the plant.