Read Expanded Universe for Free Online

in view of his uncertain prospects as a refugee, but they had enjoyed no luxuries for years back there —he did not think of it as his home country—and it was justified this once.
    He enquired at the office of the hospital for his second patient. The clerk looked puzzled. "But he is not here."
    "Not here?"
    "Why, no. He was moved at the same time as His Excellency—back to your country."
    Lans did not argue. The trick was obvious; it was too late to do anything for poor Samuel. He thanked his God that he had had the foresight to place himself and his family beyond the reach of such brutal injustice before operating. He thanked the clerk and left.
    * * *
    The Leader recovered consciousness at last. His brain was confused—then he recalled the events before he had gone to sleep. The operation!—it must be over! And he was alive! He had never admitted to anyone how terribly frightened he had been at the prospect. But he had lived—he had lived!
    He groped around for the bell cord, and, failing to find it, gradually forced his eyes to focus on the room. What outrageous nonsense was this? This was no sort of a room for the Leader to convalesce in. He took in the dirty white-washed ceiling, and the bare wooden floor with distaste. And the bed! It was no more than a cot!
    He shouted. Someone came in, a man wearing the uniform of a trooper in his favorite corps. He started to give him the tongue-lashing of his life, before having him arrested. But he was cut short.
    "Cut out that racket, you unholy pig!"
    At first he was too astounded to answer, then he shrieked, "Stand at attention when you address your Leader! Salute!"
    The man looked dumbfounded, then guffawed. "Like this, maybe?" He stepped to the side of the cot, struck a pose with his right arm raised in salute. He carried a rubber truncheon in it. "Hail to the Leader!" he shouted, and brought his arm down smartly. The truncheon crashed into the Leader's cheekbone.
    Another trooper came in to see what the noise was while the first was still laughing at his witticism. "What's up, Jon? Say, you'd better not handle that monkey too rough—he's still carried on the hospital list." He glanced casually at the Leader's bloody face.
    "Him? Didn't you know?" He pulled him to one side and whispered.
    The second's eyes widened; he grinned. "So? They don't want him to get well, eh? Well, I could use some exercise this morning—"
    "Let's get Fats," the other suggested. "He always has such amusing ideas."
    "Good idea." He stepped to the door, and bellowed, "Hey, Fats!"
    They didn't really start in on him until Fats was there to help.
     

BLOWUPS HAPPEN
FOREWORD
     
LIFE-LINE, MISFIT, LET THERE BE LIGHT, ELSEWHEN, PIED PIPER, IF THIS GOES ON—, REQUIEM, THE ROADS MUST ROLL, COVENTRY, BLOWUPS HAPPEN—for eleven months, mid March 1939 through mid February 1940, I wrote every day . . . and that ended my bondage; BLOWUPS HAPPEN paid off the last of that pesky mortgage—eight years ahead of time.

BLOWUPS HAPPEN was the first of my stories to be published in hard covers, in Groff Conklin's first anthology, The Best of Science Fiction, 1946. In the meantime there had been World War II, Hiroshima, The Smyth Report—so I went over my 1940 manuscript most carefully, correcting some figures I had merely guessed at in early 1940.

This week I have compared the two versions, 1940 and 1946, word by word—there isn't a dime's worth of difference between them . . . and I now see, as a result of the enormous increase in the art in 33 years, more errors in the '46 version than I spotted in the '40 version when I checked it in '46.

I do not intend ever again to try to update a story to make it fit new art. Such updating can't save a poor story and isn't necessary for a good story. All of H. G. Wells' SF stories are hopelessly dated . . . and they remain the best, the most gripping science fiction stories to be found anywhere. My Beyond This Horizon (1941) states that H. sapiens has