Mind Webs - Look Homeward Spaceman

0:00This week at Vons and Albertsons, USDA Choice Tri-Tip Rose untrimmed are 599 per pound, limit 4 rows with membership wear applicable, and medium ripe hassovacados are 99 cents each, with membership wear applicable, plus Kellogg cereals 8.8 to 16.1 ounces, selected varieties, or peppered farm goldfish, 5.9 to 8 ounces, are 199 each when you buy three, limit 3 offers with membership wear applicable, visit Vons or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Hey it's Kelly Rowland, you may not know this, but I have eczema, so I get how it can still your time. But why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about eczema? Eczema, lubricismab LBKZ, a 250 milligram per 2 milliliter injection, is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older, who weigh at least 88 pounds for 40 kilograms, with moderate to severe eczema. Also called a topic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin, or topicals, or who cannot use topical therapies.

1:02Eczema can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to eczema. A allergic reaction can occur that can be severe. Eye problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have newer worsening eye problems, you should not receive a live vaccine when treated with eczema. Before starting eczema, tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection, paid partnership with Lilly. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about eczema and visit eczema.com, or call 1-800-LilyRX or 1-800-545-5979. This week at Vons and Albertsons, USDA choice tri-tip roast untrimmed are 599 per pound, limit four roasts with membership wear applicable, and medium-ripe hassovacados are 99 cents each, with membership wear applicable. Plus Kellogg cereals 8.8 to 16.1 ounces, selected varieties, or peppered farm goldfish 5.9 to 8 ounces are 1.99 each when you buy three. Limit three offers with membership wear applicable. Visit vons or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save.

2:49The mind web story this time is Look Homeward Space Man by Robert Silverberg, copyright 1957 by Amazing magazine. I guess this is the street, Paul thought. I'm back. It annoyed him that after six years in space, he was no longer quite sure where his home was. But this was the street, all right? The memories game flooding back, he remembered the houses of model colored stone, a cracked and narrowed sidewalk, and a scraggly sicklemore tree that marked his home. A pretty girl came around the corner, she was wearing softly glowing translucent slacks, and with her was a big old Dalmatian at the end of a radio leash. Right, Paul? He wondered how she knew him. She didn't look like much past 17, and so she could have only

3:52been 11 or so when he had gone away. Yet she recognized him at once. He frowned and reached back into his memory. The Dalmatian might be the old Riley Don't. And then the girl would be Nancy Riley. Paul approached his house and noted with amusement that the old woman who lived next door was still rocking on her porch looking placidly out at nothing particular. Hello Paul. Nice weather, isn't it? He did not even remember her name, but she knew him. Something was crazy here. How and all his memories escaped him. He mounted the familiar steps. He shuffled his feet on the door mat as he had been taught to do long years before, and straightening his hair, squaring his shoulders, clearing his throat, he rang the bell and waited.

4:52He heard the sound of someone coming to open the door. Would it be his mother or his brother? He wondered probably his brother, Jim. Mother most likely wasn't getting around too much anymore. Once more he practiced the firm handshake he had been preparing for his brother. I'll grab a little Jim by the hand and squeeze till he elves. Who's there? Called a masculine voice. Well, I mean, Paul had come back for a frillow. Slowly the door opened. Horrorsdrecking Paul stared at the man who had opened the door, and the man inside calmly returned the glance. They stood there frozen looking at each other. Paul was looking at himself. Not quite himself he decided once the initial shock had worn off.

5:54It was a younger version of himself at the door, with narrower shoulders of paler face. Paul was proud of his heavy space tan. The livid white scar across Paul's forehead did not mark the brow of the other man. He was shorter, softer looking. Who are you? Said the man inside the door. I could ask you the same question. He started to move inside the house, but the other Paul moved the door closed and entered to an imperceptible gesture. I'm Paul Robinson. Paul said. I used to live here. I've been in space six years, but now I'm home. Suppose you tell me now just what the hell is going on here pardon me. The other Paul said, I am Paul Robinson, and I've never been away at all. Now please go away before you disturb my mother.

7:00You order mother. Look, I don't know what kind of joke this is, but I've had enough of it. Now get out of the way. He started to push his way past the other Paul into the house. A gently kid, said a voice from within, Paul stopped. This was a voice he did recognize. I don't make a scene. Jim. And he turned anxious to be near someone he knew. So far, this innocent return to his home, it held more terrors than his entire tour of space. Paul rushed to greet his older brother, but Jim dodged around him and went to the other Paul. With a swift sudden motion, Jim touched his hand to the other Paul's back. And the other Paul stiffened in midstrived. A robot. A robot copy of me.

8:00Yes, said Jim going to Paul for the first time. Paul looked at his older brother. The older brother he had grown up with, worshipped, fought with, finally left behind when the call to space came. He seized Jim's hand and shook hard, till Jim cried Uncle. And it last. Paul relaxed his grip. At last, as long last, I made you yell Uncle Jim. Jim shrugged. Now younger generation always wins eventually Paul. I'm afraid space is made a man out of you. How long are you going to be home? I've got a two day leave. A couple days and we ship out again on the module run. Jim was no longer the powerful giant of Paul's memories. He had become stooped in six years, so he was no longer tall as Paul and his forehead was higher. And there was a loneliness in his eyes that hit Paul hard. Jim had wanted so badly to go to space,

9:05but they had long before it decided that only one of them could go, so their mother wouldn't be left alone. Everyone had thought it would be Jim to go, but Jim had waited for Paul to grow up so they could take the test together. And by then Jim's reflexes weren't what they had once been in Paul and easily outscored him. Jim had stayed here with his mother. Just the two of them in the old and dingy house with a 20th century furniture and the old style appliances and the ancient sycamore tree. While Paul had been to the NAB, porcelain, and a myriad other bright stars, the years had been hard on Jim. I'm having a friend drop into Marlford dinner before I go back to ship, Jim. Jack Fender's the fellow. He's my bunkmate on the ship, but say he turned to wear the robot with standing frozen in the shadows a word caught on its plastic lips. Tell me Jim, what that thing is doing here?

10:08It was a nightmare to find myself answering the door. Well I bought him right after you left, Paul. It was pretty rough for a while, mother mistraterably the first week. She became ill, worrying about you. But there was nothing about that in her letters. Oh, of course not. We'd never tell you. I wrote a lot of those letters myself, Paul. She was so sick that the doctors told me she wouldn't live unless you came back from space immediately. I didn't dare ask you to come back. I couldn't do that to my own brother, and so I had the robot double made. I told her that you were back. That your flight had been called off or something like that, and she accepted it. Paul sank into one of the deep soft chairs and stared at the motionless replica of himself next to his brother. So all these years, she's thought that I was right here, and that's why Nancy Riley said hello to me,

11:13and the old woman next door talked about the weather. Now what happened? Jim, Jim, who was back at the door? He better come down here, mother. I've got a surprise for you. Why do you go into do, Jim? Suppose she asks me something. I don't know. Shouldn't we hide the robot? No. No, this is the only way, Paul. I want her to see both of you together, so I can tell her the truth after all these years of pretending. She's well now. She can take it. But what happens after I go back? Will she still be willing to accept the robot? I know what I'm doing. Here she is. Paul looked up as his mother appeared. Hello, mother. He faced her. Glad to see her again. She didn't look much older. She'd hardly changed at all. Well, I'm home. She looked at him, studying the white scar on his forehead, he suspected, and then

12:16looked at the robot and then back at him and finally a Jim. Jim, who is this? This is Paul, mother. He's been in space for six years. I, well, I bought this robot right after he left, so you wouldn't miss him too much. The shadows of the old house seemed to wrap around the three of them bleakly. Is this true, Paul? Yes, mother. He walked around the room getting familiar with the old things, with the smell of home and the warmth of home. You mean that you have coaxed me, Jim? Mom, it was necessary. Well, you did the right thing. It's good to have you back. Even if I've had you all along, you look wonderful, except for this. Yeah. I got the space cross for that. Native's on the neb. They resisted our attempts to trade and we showed them. You were in a fight, Paul?

13:24Yes, mother. It was as if you had been in a schoolboy tussle, not a struggle with aliens half a sky away. As he stood there, the memory came flooding vividly back. He was in the midst of a sweeping field of bright red vegetation with sweat pouring off his back and making his uniform cling. The hot rays of the neb came down. He was standing alone, watching the wierry green man advance. His heart was pounding, but he was unafraid. It was his guard duty and he was going to stand it. Behind him was the gleaming bulk of the great ship and its sleeping crew. The nebians came closer. Get back. It cried roughly. They ignored him. They were thin, humanoid men with long, grotesque skulls and deep-set terrifying eyes. They came closer. Paul drew his gun and gestured

14:24with it. Then suddenly one of them leaped and Paul felt the nauseous alien smell near him and then around him. He jabbed upward with a gun fired and shoved. The corpse fell backward. And then they were all around him kicking, scratching, screaming furiously and Paul shouldered his way through them and took up his stand at the base of a towering gruelot tree, started firing into the gibbering horde. They dropped, but still kept coming. Then the ammunition was gone and more than the nebians kept pouring from the forest, laying by him viciously with his gunbots he crushed skulls and smashed alien faces with savage glee. They swarmed up and around him and he felt a claw rip across his forehead. Blood strewn down into his eyes and he was blind, but through the haze he could see his coupmates coming at last to his rescue.

15:25When it was over, he was a hero and he hadn't been afraid. Not half as afraid as he was back on earth in his own home were no reason that he could discern. As sinister atmosphere hung over the house and it worried Paul. He didn't like it. The situation made him uncomfortable. He sat down on the staircase next to his mother, poking one long leg over the other and pulling up the shiny space grays. I have a two day leave. Oh fine Paul. Oh good to have you even for a little while. Come on you must be hungry. You know Paul, all these years I love that machine like it was my own son. I never knew the difference. Science is a wonderful thing isn't it? Where are you going when you ship out tomorrow? Sirius first, by over drive and then the porcelain and back to the neb

16:32for a little cleanup action and then I'm a ridel for a while. Hey it's Kelly Rowland. You may not know this, but I have eczema, so I get how it can still your time. But why let eczema take over when you can talk to your doctor about ebglyss. ebglyss, lubricizmablbkz, a 250mg per 2ml injection is a prescription medicine used to treat adults and children 12 years of age and older, who weigh at least 88 pounds or 40 kilograms with moderate to severe eczema. Also called a topic dermatitis that is not well controlled with prescription therapies used on the skin or topicals or who cannot use topical therapies. ebglyss can be used with or without topical corticosteroids. Don't use if you are allergic to ebglyss. Allergic reactions can occur that can be severe. I problems can occur. Tell your doctor if you have newer worsening eye problems. You should not receive a live vaccine when treated with ebglyss. Before starting ebglyss tell your doctor if you have a parasitic infection. Paid partnership with Lili. Respect your time. Ask your doctor about ebglyss and visit ebglyss.com

17:32or call 1-800-LiliRx or 1-800-545-5979. This week at Vons and Albertsons, USDA choice tri-tip roast untrimmed are 599 per pound. Limit 4 roasts with membership wear applicable and medium-ripe hassovacados are 99 cents each with membership or applicable. Plus Kellogg cereals 8.8 to 16.1 ounces, selected varieties, or peppered farm goldfish 5.9 to 8 ounces are 1.99 each when you buy three. Limit 3 offers with membership or applicable. Visit Vons or Albertsons.com for more deals and ways to save. Are you tired of confusing bait and switch pricing on GLP ones? Then visit HappyGLP.com where it's always 99 dollars a month. At HappyGLP, whether you're brand new or renewing, it's 99 dollars every time. No teaser price, no switch up. Getting started this fast, convenient, and happens virtually with a licensed provider. Check it out for yourself at HappyGLP.com. Compound

18:32preventations are not FDA approved. A legibility required and determined by a licensed provider. Individual results may vary. See website for details. Having a bunk made a mine here for dinner tomorrow before we go back, you'll tell you about the name. Paul. Yes, mother. Paul, do you have to go back to space? What? I mean it, Paul. When you leave tomorrow, I'll have only the robot again. I know he's not real. Anyway, he'll only be half of my son. I don't want the little boy always. I want the man who's been to space. Stay here with us. I'll fix up your room the way you used to have it. All your books, your records, the desk arranged the old way, even that luminous bed spread that you liked. Fixed here this space ought to be enough. All glared angrily at his brother. Why did Jim have to tell her the truth? Why not keep up the pretense? I want you to give up space. I don't want a robot

19:38substitute anymore. I want my son. You can't ask that of me, mom. It's my life out there. I can't give it up now and time myself down on earth. I've left earth for good. Stay here with me, Paul. Not even for you. It's not fair of you to ask me to give up something like that, his spaces, everything to me. But you like it here, Paul? You forget space in a month? I wish I hadn't come home at all. He walked to the window. The sun was just beginning to drop in the sky and the distant spaceport was painted a doll orange by the dying day. He looked at the silver red ships with her noses pointed to the skies. Why do you want to tie me down? I don't want you to suffer, but... I know, I know. It's the same old story you've always been selfish, Paul.

20:41You've let your brother make every sacrifice for you and you've never really shown any gratitude. You never want to do obey me, either. My wish is to meant nothing to you. He looked from one figure to the other in English. Why were they torturing him? Why had this whole homecoming been such a nightmare? I can't let you do this to me. Paul walked toward the door and quickly strode through passing the unconcerned robot slamming the door hard. He reached the porch, paused, stared bitterly at the quiet small town streets wondering why they were doing this to him. It was harder to fight your mother than a whole world full of greened inebrians. If I had known this would happen, Paul, I'd forget it, Jim. I didn't know, skip it, Jim. I know why

21:41you didn't. You want me to stay here so you can go away somewhere, don't you? You're afraid to leave mother alone with robot sons. You want to trap me into taking your place here. No game, Jim. You've chosen your lot and you've got it for keeps. That's not it at all. You don't understand, Paul. I don't want to leave home. I can't leave. I found myself hand in foot. I've lived here all my life. This house is like a shell to me by now. I'm 35, Paul. I'm setting my ways. Well, I can't break out. I can't tell you how much everything in this house means to me, Paul, mother, the books, the furniture, even the robot. I can't tell you. Mrs. Robinson had made a lavish breakfast. All the things she remembered, Paul loved, but the eight in Stony Silence. Paul kept his eyes on his plate and she brought him the food without saying anything. abruptly he got up and went to his old room.

22:44He wandered around in it, getting acquainted again with the things he had loved years before playing one of his favorite records, sitting in his favorite chair. Then he came back down. Oh, mother, why don't you have an electronic duster? Excuse me something to do when I'm bored. A time as your bunk mate getting here. Fender? Oh, wow. I don't really know. He was in Will Matt visiting his family and he will probably get through here pretty soon. Blast off is tomorrow morning at eight and we have to be on board ship tonight at 22 sharp. That means that you have to leave here about half past 20 to get the space board on time, doesn't it? My room look look wonderful, mom. There's just a way it always did. Thought you'd like it. Do you sleep well? Oh, the best. Nothing like sleeping at home after six years of spaceship cuts. No, no. Nothing like it. They were silent. The doorbell finally ended the silence when it had

23:52grown almost too tight to bear. Paul opened the door and Jack Fender burst through. He was a short wirey man smiling broadly with thin space-tanned features and a keen point of nose. He wore a pair of rumpled space graves. You must be Mrs. Robinson Gunners how are we talking about you? Gunner? Yeah, didn't he tell you that's what we named him after the denab business. He didn't tell us much about the nab. Fender glanced at Jim. Oh, hi, you must be Gunner's brother Jim. The one who taught him how to use a gun. That's right. Paul Frond. You mean he didn't tell you about the nab? The first man in our ship to win a spacecraft and he didn't tell you why when those denabins came out of sea held him off single-handed with two handguns till his ammo ran out and then he then he used the guns as clubs till we got out to help him. Well, you didn't tell me Paul.

24:55I didn't want to upset you. You mean you didn't know your son was a hero? Well, hell, Gunner you weren't so modest on ship every time we jacked but you told that story from one end of space to the other Paul. I don't think you ever even took the metal off. How bet you took showers with that thing pinned to your skin. You're so proud of it. So here I hear a Paul. It didn't say much about it. Paul deliberately ignored his brother's question and turned the fender. How's your family jack? Well, it's not much of it. You know, just my aunt and my kid brother but my brother just passed his number one. You'll be shipping up for his son Tari next month. My aunt's going to be all alone then. It's rough when you have someone in space like that and you're all alone at home like my aunt except for cats that is. She's got two big persons. They're going to be like children for now that my brother's leaving. Say Mrs. Robinson, why don't you ring up my aunt and get together

25:59sometime. I think you like her. Here's a number of Mrs. Grace Spanner over in Wilmet. Call her up sometime. She loves having gas and she loves having Gunner's mother especially. Thank you Jack. I will get in touch with her but you must be awfully hungry Jack. Let's have dinner now and talk to each other. Yeah, be fine. You know, I've been hearing about your cooking all the way from the net back. After the meal with the sun well below the horizon, Fender stood up, stretched and tentatively and said, well, I hate to rush off like this but I got another stop before I get back to the ship. Thanks a lot for everything Mrs. Robinson. I sure intend to take you up on that repeat invitation next time we're down earth. So long Jim. Then he turned the pole. Well, guess I'll be seeing you at 22 more chip Gunner. See you then. No, you won't. What? You're not

27:04transferring are you? No, I'm pensioning out. I decided to stay here at home Jack. I've had my playing in space and now I'm going to settle down. Well, you got to be kidding. You're not going back? No. Yes, said Jim. Yes, it's all a little joke. You see Paul just wanted to see what your reaction would be. He told me about this before he's going. He kicked Paul in the legs or a viciously heart and Paul barely managed to conceal a wince. You flick the glance at Jim. Jim was shaking his head in the way of Paul understood. Yeah, just just a little joke. Of course I'm going back but I'm willing to stay. He taught. Of course you're going back. He rose never quit today.

28:10You'll have to finish the job under nab and then stop by here for another couple of meals and I'll be waiting. Now, if that is start packing your things, you wouldn't want to be late for blast off. Some up came in the ships and the far off spaceport gleaned bright against the cloudless blue sky. Mrs. Robinson stared through the open window, squinting a little because the spaceport was so far away and hard to see in the morning light. She turned Jim for standing behind her. She looked past him at the empty apartment at Paul's deserted room with the pajamas lying crumpled on the bed. Oh, a little gamey over. I'm glad. I'm glad too, Jim said. It was interesting watching Paul react. His face dropped a mile when his double answered the door

29:16but he's not the same old selfish Paul anymore. He's grown up. I thought he was at first but he met it when he said he was quitting. He had me worried for a minute. Suppose he had kept to it and actually stayed here with us. Well, it would have complicated things terribly. It would have destroyed our nice routine completely. Oh, well, suppose we go downstairs and get the poor robot working again. You'll be off his death after two days of being shut off. They went downstairs, mother and son. Jim took out the key and activated the pole robot. The robot finished the word he had to say and stretched his limbs. There. Now the family is complete again. It's good to be moving

30:17said the Paul robot. You'd better renew my charge to Jim. I'll be running down any day now. He opened the panel in her back and touched the key to the charging stud. There you are. Enough energy to keep you going for weeks, mother. Thank you. He put his arms around his mother and his brother. Now we can get back into our regular family routine again until the next time Paul has a furlough. And then we can play the game again. He looked at the Paul robot and the mother robot and at the cozy four walls it bounded his little world. It was good to have the mother and brother and the whole he loved all the rest of his life. He smiled warmly and thought of poor Paul fighting for his life on those hot uncomfortable planets.

31:23Jim drew them closer to him. I can't tell you how much you mean to me. Both of you.

32:26You You have heard Look Homeward Space Man, a story by Robert Silverberg, copyright 1957 by Amazing magazine. I'm Michael Hanson. Reading with me was J. Fitz, technical operation for this program by Mike Burns. Mind webs is a production of WHA radio Madison. It's Paul in America. Make it count at the Ram Drive-In to Fall sales event. Make it powerful with our strongest Ram 1500 ever. Make it move with the Ram Heavy Duty with an available Cummins diesel and make it go the distance with a 10 year or 100,000 mile powertrain limited warranty.

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