The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Short Life, by Francis Donovan

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Title: The Short Life

Author: Francis Donovan

Release Date: December 20, 2007 [EBook #23928]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

THE SHORT LIFE

_The Alien had to choose--and fast--a living entity to act through.
He chose ... but he made one error...._

BY FRANCIS DONOVAN

Illustrated by Rogers

I

An embryo stirred very slightly in the warm, dark womb that held it.
Chemical stimuli and minute pulses of energy that were forming the
complex proteins faltered. A catalyst failed briefly in its task, then
resumed, but the damage had been done. A vital circuit remained
incomplete, a neural path blocked. Time passed....

* * * * *

An embryo gathered in a metal womb, controlled potential building to
titanic birth. A thread of wire melted under a breath of energy and
a tiny, glowing light winked out. A rodentlike maintenance robot,
scurrying to an unimportant repair task, saw no warning signal and
crossed a control panel from behind at the moment that a relay closed
automatically. Obliterated, the robot only briefly interfered with the
proper functioning of the machine, but the damage had been done. For
a split second at a critical moment, a mighty engine reacted out of
control. Time passed....

* * * * *

An embryo jerked convulsively under a frightful onslaught, strained for
life in a crowded womb while the mother's convulsions threatened it with
death. The convulsions passed, the mother lived, the womb emptied, but
the damage had been done, a record had been cut. Time passed....

II

There are logical limits for any pretense--limits beyond which the
pretense becomes demonstrably absurd. Mother-love enabled the woman
Helen Douglas to evade logic up to and beyond the point of absurdity,
but even mother-love is not proof against the turmoil of the
subconscious. A survival factor pried