Reginald Bretnor: Maybe Just a Little One

Maximus Everett, who taught physics at Woodrow Wilson Union High School for nearly twenty years, was the first man to accomplish nuclear fission in his basement.

It really wasn't much of a basement either. Along one side was the workbench, littered with tools and wire and dusty old books. On the other side was an empty birdcage and a utility sink with a dripping faucet. A couple of shabby trunks stood in a corner next to a broken lawnmower, and some baled magazines the Red Cross people had forgotten to call for were piled up behind the cyclotron.

The final result of his scientific labors pleased Everett. After observing it quietly for a while, he went upstairs to the kitchen, where his wife was making chopped-olive-and-egg sandwiches. He sat down on a stool, wiped his long bald forehead, and remarked that it certainly was hot in the basement. Without turning around, his wife assured him that this was not abnormal. "Here in Arizona," she observed, "right near the border, it's always hot in summer."

Everett did not dispute the point. "Oh, it's not only that," he told her. "I've just been working pretty hard. It's been a tough job." He leaned back with a little sigh of satisfaction. "I've invented atomic power, hon."

"So that's what you've been doing," said Mrs. Everett. "I thought you were still working on your perpetual motion machine." She cut the last sandwich diagonally in half, put some sliced pickle on the platter, and turned around, smoothing her ample apron. Then suddenly she looked accusingly at her husband. "Why, that's ridiculous!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean, you invented it? How about Hiroshima?"

"That was different," said Everett simply. "That was just a big bang. Anybody can invent that kind."

Reginald Bretnor: Cat

I had no premonition of disaster when Smithby married Cynthia Carmichael and took her off on his sabbatical. No inner voice whispered its awful warning in my ear when it was rumored that he was spending his year of leave in research of a strangely private nature. Even as his department head, how could I know that he was bringing Cat into the world?

His year drew to a close, my own sabbatical began, and off I went -- intending, after three therapeutic months in sunny Italy, to seek the scholarly seclusion of Scotland's National Library for the remainder of my time. But it was not to be. Scarcely a week after I arrived in Edinburgh, the letter came.

Did I say "letter"? There was no letter in the grimy envelope which had followed my wandering path from Naples north. It contained only a brief note and an enormous clipping from some cheap green newspaper.

I glanced at the curt message:

Dear Christopher,

Smithby has betrayed our tradition and our trust. Your entire department is in turmoil. Three of us have already tendered our resignations.

Witherspoon

For one dreadful moment, I closed my eyes; and Smithby's face, a pallid mask of modest erudition, appeared before me. Then, with trembling fingers, I opened up the clipping:

WIFE'S LOVE PROMPTS SCIENCE TRIUMPH!

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