The Project Gutenberg EBook of Disowned, by Victor Endersby

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Title: Disowned

Author: Victor Endersby

Release Date: July 12, 2009 [EBook #29384]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories September 1932.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

[Illustration: "_Wonderful! The World's Unparalleled
Upside-Down Man_!"]

Disowned

By Victor Endersby

* * * * *

[Sidenote: The tragic misadventure of a man to whom the sky became an
appalling abyss, drawing him ever upward.]

The sky sagged downward, bellying blackly with a sudden summer rain,
giving me a vision of catching my train in sodden clothing after the
short-cut across the fields, which I was taking in company with my
brother Tristan and his fiancee.

The sullen atmosphere ripped apart with an electric glare; our ears
quivered to the throbbing sky, while huge drops, jarred loose from the
air by the thunder-impact, splattered sluggishly, heavily, about us.
Little breezes swept out from the storm center, lifting the undersides
of the long grass leaves to view in waves of lighter green. I
complained peevishly.

"Ah, mop up!" said Tristan. "You've plenty of time, and there's the
big oak! It's as dry under there as a cave!"

"I think that'll be fun!" twittered Alice. "To wait out a
thunder-storm under a tree!"

"Under a tree?" I said. "Hardly! I'm not hankering to furnish myself
as an exhibit on the physiological effects of a lightning stroke--no,
sir!"

"Rats!" said Tristan. "All that's a fairy-tale--trees being dangerous
in a thunder-storm!"

* * * * *

The rain now beat through our thin summer clothing, as Tristan seized
Alice's hand and towed her toward the spreadin