January 1, 2026 • 27 mins
https://www.solgoodmedia.com - Listen to hundreds of audiobooks, thousands of short stories, and ambient sounds all ad free! "Mind Webs Daily" rekindles the charm of old time radio with a daily infusion of psychological and speculative tales. Each day offers a unique journey into the enigmatic and often eerie realms of the human mind, reminiscent of classic radio storytelling but with a contemporary flair. Perfect for daily listeners who appreciate a blend of nostalgia and modern narrative depth.
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Speaker 1 (00:39):
Mind. Welcome to a half hour of mid Way short
stories from the world.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Quite a little fiction.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Thetory on mindwebs this time comes from the book Future Corruption,
a collection of stories edited by Roger Elwood. This one
is titled Paxton's World. It's by Bill Pronzini. Paxton hated science.
He hated spatial technology in exobiology, and astrophysics, in robology,
(01:39):
and all the other ologies in physics and dynamics. He
hated the scientists, those who probe and experiment and create
with blind and human fervor, Like a horde of Frankenstein's.
He thought science was a curse rather than a servant
of mankind. He thought it was the direct cause of
the personalization and the humanization, that it was responsible for
(02:01):
the death of individual freedom. He was a self admitted anachronism,
a throwback to that ancient time when man could walk
completely free in his natural habitat and there was no science,
and the making and the governing of his personal destiny
was in his hands and his mind alone. He longed
for that ancient time, or a place where in his
(02:22):
time he could be completely free of the bondage of science.
But on the massively overpopulated, technologically oriented Earth of the
twenty second century, there was no such place. Perhaps there
were such places in that vast part of the universe
known as the Uncharted Territories, well beyond the last current
outpost of science, the Asteroid mining Belt, and yet to
(02:46):
get there, an individual was forced to utilize one of
the new roboships powered by the Chong Frangzette subspatial drive,
and Paxton hated science. At first, he refused to compromise.
He was a very rich man. His father had been
one of the pioneers in robology, and it willed a
considerable fortune to his son. Just another bitter pill Paxton
(03:07):
had been forced to swallow. He could afford to live
an utter seclusion, save for an occasional visit from a
pleasure made in the basement of a two hundred story
building in the city state of New York. He ate
natural foods, which were in limited supply and enormously expensive.
He collected real books, very old and very fragile, and
various forms of ancient art. He painted pictures and created
(03:31):
montages and sculpted statues that no one ever saw. And
he was miserable because even though he could not see it.
Science was all around him. Life in Paxton's thirty third
year became totally unbearable. He knew then that he had
to compromise, that he had to seek out a new,
dawning world where his science did not exist, and where
(03:54):
the freedom he craved for would thus be his. Once
having made his decision, he acted swiftly. He purchased one
of the single passenger roboships, liquidating most of his assets
in order to meet the exorbitant price of the craft.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
He ordered it filled with as much natural.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Food as it would hold, as well as three hundreds
of his favorite real books and several of his most
treasured pieces of ancient art, nothing more. In less than
two weeks, the ship had been programmed according to his
explicit instructions, and all other preparations had been completed. On
a yellow, gray morning in the spring of twenty one
(04:30):
thirty four, Paxton walked six miles to the city State's spaceport, entered.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
His craft, and, as far as the planet Earth.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Was concerned, vanished forever. The first eighteen months were good.
The ship did all the necessary work, followed its programmed course, perfectly,
recycled oxygen and all waste material manufactured drinking water from
outside moisture, and Paxton sat and red or peered through
the view screen at the endless kaleidoscopic wonders of space.
(05:03):
Only the knowledge that he was still immediately surrounded by
science prevented him from complete happiness for the first time.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
In his life.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
The ship reached the asteroid mining belt and went beyond
where few ships and few men had ever ventured, and
that was when things began to go wrong. Paxton's supply
of natural foods ran out, and he was forced to
subsist on neutral capsules dispensed by the robo control. A
flash fire caused by a minor short circuit and quickly
(05:34):
but not quickly enough extinguished by the ship, destroyed all
three hundred of his books in most of his treasured art.
Time began then to pass slowly for Paxton. There was
nothing to do except to sit at the view screen,
and while this was still enjoyable, he felt a growing impatience.
When would the ship find in the world, When would
(05:55):
they land and be able to step forever from the
suffocating belly of another twelve months vanished. During that time,
the ship located and scanned and rejected several planets. The
view screen would show packs in the new system, a
new world, and he would grow excited. Then the infallible
(06:16):
instruments of the robo control would indifferently inform him that
the planets were all uninhabitable ice worlds and sea worlds,
and dead worlds, worlds with poisonous atmospheres, worlds with a
mean surface temperature that was too high or too low,
worlds with infertile soil and inedible plant life, worlds with
a high danger factor from this or that type of
(06:37):
living organism. Twelve months became twenty four, and then thirty six.
Paxton sat before the view screen in a state of agitation,
staring out at an empty space which was no longer absorbing.
There were few suns and few planets. Now there was
(06:57):
little to see except deep and deeper black. Seven years
eight nine, the ship built to withstand all external forces,
built to function indefinitely continue to follow its programmed search pattern.
(07:19):
Paxton had been alone in space ten and one half
years when the ship found in the world a tiny planet,
the smallest in the four planet system, revolving about a
single pale sun habitable planet. The instruments reported very like Earth,
breatheable atmosphere, edible vegetation, drinkable water, and both animal life
(07:43):
II factor null DE factor null and.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Intelligent life I factor one point.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Seven primitive de factor negligible. In the gold warmth of
an early morning, the ship set down on a meadow
not far from a high snow capped mountain and not
far from a mud hutted native village, and Paxton, free
at last, and of course quite insane, stepped out upon
(08:09):
his world. Several hundred naked inhabitants came to meet him.
They were surprisingly humanoid in appearance, hairless, dusky.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Purplish brown color, eyes, a peculiar shade.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Of silver, males with extremely long, very thin penises and
no visible testicles, females with angular breasts and greatly distended vava.
They exhibited neither fear nor hostility. Conversely, their attitude was
one of great excitement of instant worship. Paxton studied them
(08:45):
with his burning eyes, unmoving, listening to them speak. Their
language was a soft, liquid whisper, one which human vocal
cords would be able to duplicate. Finally, he turned and
re entered the belly of science for the life last time,
bringing out with him the portable dialectic converter, which was
part of the ship's complement.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Then he shed his freight clothing and went with the
natives to their village, where the.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Converter easily translated the liquid whispers into English and vice versa.
The planet was called cane Iran, but was soon to
be in every respect Paxton's world. The natives brought him food,
the tender flesh of the native marade that roamed the
(09:31):
continent in small herds and was not dissimilar in appearance
to the extinct Earth bison, dark gray vegetables, tasting faintly
like potato, sweet pink fruit, reminiscent of nothing on Earth,
and they immediately began to construct a great hut for
his dwelling place. The females came to him with rapid willingness,
and although actual copulation was difficult, if not impossible, they
(09:53):
gave him pleasure in divergent ways. Runners went to summon
all other tribes on the small continent, the only inhabited
one on the planet, the other two being densely forested
and void of marad. While with the help of the
dialectic converter, Paxton learned to speak the native language swiftly
and fluently. When all the natives had assembled, some three
(10:16):
thousand of them, Paxton stood on the platform of rocks
and spoke to them. They listened raptly and prepared to
obey without question. A god is always obeyed without question.
Destroy the ship in which I came, he said to them,
Smash it with rocks, take it apart, piece by piece,
(10:37):
burn the pieces in a great fire. Take all other equipment,
including the language machine, and treat it in the same manner.
When the metals cool, take it to the nearest lake,
and hide its ugliness forever beneath the surface of the water.
And this would be done. Science is evil, Paxton said
to them. You do not know science, and you never shall.
(11:00):
On this world there will be no science, and there
would be none. A being must walk completely free in
his natural habitat, Paxton said to them. A being must
make and govern his personal destiny with his hands and
his mind alone. He must be free, and to be free,
(11:23):
he must essentially be alone. Villages are the forerunners of cities,
and cities are test tubes of science, and science is bondage. Therefore,
all villages are evil and must be abolished. From this
day forward, each male and each female, and each child
above the age of eight years shall live alone and free,
(11:43):
and make his own destiny. And it was done. The
natives finished building the great hut for Paxton, and the
ones now living alone near by brought him food each morning.
Different females visited him each night.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Sometimes he would in or by the hot thinking of.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Science and hating it. Sometimes he would walk alone to
the high mountain and stand at its crest with his
face uplifted to the sun warm sky, and laugh until
his stomach ached. Sometimes he would swim great distances in
the placid blue sea surrounding the continent, or in the
rivers and lakes which dotted it. Sometimes he would run
(12:23):
through the tall grasses, singing joyously. And sometimes on the
nights when the heavens were very dark, when the blackness
was deep and impenetrable, he would tremble and scream and
scream and scream, But when the first light came, he
would be tranquil again, and all would be well on
(12:43):
Paxton's world. On a morning in the third year following
his arrival, Paxston awoke and was filled with the great
insights he had escaped science, he had forever destroyed it.
Here he, in essence, originated complete freedom. He had an essence,
(13:05):
originated a new world. Thus he was a god. The
natives were his children, his disciples, and he he was God,
benign and wise, and most importantly creative. He had always
been creative as a man, and his man he had
loved the beauty of simple art. Now, as a god,
(13:30):
he must direct the creation of simple art. Here art
unlike any other, new and exciting and basic, and therefore
teach his children to love its beauty. Excited, he sought
out one of the nearest natives and said to him,
it is true you are free, but even a free
being must obey God's benevolent will. It is my will
(13:53):
that you are at my direction to create simple art,
and thereby learn to love its beauty. To begin, you
will construct a curving walls highs your waist and twenty
times the length of your body, of flat red stones.
The native began to construct the wall. Paxton went to
(14:15):
each of the other natives in turn, each male and
female and child, and said to them what he had
said to the first. Then he issued to each a
command for the composition of widely diversified forms. Fabricate a
square tower five times as high as your body of
blue and silver stones fell six trees, cut them into
(14:36):
round blocks, and with the blocks, construct a path from
the doorway of your hut to a seventh tree. Seek
out and kill ten marad. When you have eaten the
flesh of each animal, arrange its bones in the shape
of suns and mountains and huts, and venuses and breasts,
and so on. When he had spoken to each of
(14:57):
the natives, Paxton returned to his own dwelling. He rested
there for one month, taking pleasure each night from one
or more of the females. Then he left again to
examine progress. The results pleased him. Each native was performing
his task exactly as directed. When he neared the completion
of his journey across the continents, he began to sense
(15:20):
a certain tremendous esthetic quality to the whole, though lacking
and unity, lacking in theme, and all at once, he
recognized the possibilities for the ultimates. In simple artistic symmetry,
a magnificent tapestry woven of thousands of separate threads, an
entire continent reshaped and remolded into a single work of
(15:43):
new art. A massive excitement seized Paxton, and he knew
instantly that he must dedicate the balance of his life
to the tapestry, that only through its creation and its
perfection would his children truly learned to love the beauty
of simple art. Axton told himself he must not rush
(16:03):
into the project, for there were many things to be considered.
Once more, he returned to his huts and meditated for
several days, visualizing the contours of the continents and mentally
constructing the tapestry. During his three years in this world,
he had seen several monuments erected by this generation of
(16:23):
natives and prior ones to their God to him. In
the past, these constructions had not intruded on his consciousness.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But now now in the bright clear light.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Of his ardor, he saw them, and they were artless
and offensive. They must be destroyed completely, as he had
destroyed the thing of science in which he had arrived.
Artifacts belonging to past generations in the native burial grounds
would have to be altered according to careful specifications so
that they would fit harmoniously into the overall pattern. If
they could not be altered, they too would be obliterated.
(16:58):
The excitement became a raging inferno inside Paxton. He was
ready to begin, and he went forth yet again. Among
the natives. Some were commanded to destroy the old monuments.
They no longer pleased him. Paxton said they had no
place in the creation of a single, unified work of art,
the great monument to his glory, which all would join
(17:19):
in originating. Others were given commands for new towers and walls,
and hundreds of other forms. Still others were ordered to
reshape such existing objects as the burial grounds. Paxton from
then on roamed the continent, tirelessly, examining completed threads, issuing
instructions for new ones. Time had no meaning for him.
(17:43):
There was only the tapestry, and ten years passed as
if they were ten days.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
The tapestry had begun to take shape.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Although it was by no means nearing completion, and by
no means as perfect as he had visualized it. He
continued to travel month after month, ordering something at it
or subtracted here, something altered or entirely reconstructed there. Another
ten years vanished, and Paxton was an old man, nearing
seventy and still unpleased. The tapestry was not yet perfect,
(18:17):
perhaps would never be perfect, but though work would continue,
it must continue as long as he remained unsatisfied. One
night at his hut, during an infrequent period of rest,
Paxton was visited by two females, but for the first
time in two and a half decades, there was no pleasure.
(18:39):
This angered him. He chased the females away, and another came,
and there was still no pleasure. He grew angrier. At
the end of seven successive nights, with thirty different females,
there was still no pleasure, and his anger then turned
to wrath. On the morning of the eighth day, Paxton
(18:59):
left him huts and set out across the continents. To
each of the males, he said, I am a benevolent god,
but I have been offended, and you must all suffer
the consequences. The females no longer give me pleasure. Therefore
they can and must no longer give you pleasure. You
will mate with them no more. The males nodded obediently,
(19:25):
and to the females Paxton said, you no longer give
me pleasure. This is a sacrilege and must be punished.
You will not mate with the males. From this day forward,
there will be no more mating, and there will be
no more children. The females nodded obediently, and there was
(19:46):
no more mating, and there were no more children. Paxton
continued to direct work on the tapestry for another four years. Then,
on a night of deep and impenetrable blackness, the black,
the black, he stood, screaming and trembling, but before the
(20:07):
first light came, he fell down and was silent. Hours
passed and he could not stand again. He could not move.
The realization came that he was dying. The knowledge filled
in with a great sadness. The tapestry was still not complete.
There was so much more to be done, but he
(20:30):
was not afraid. One of the natives came to them
with food, and Paxton instructed him to summon all males
and females and children on the continent. The male left immediately.
Paxton waited, and his people began to arrive, but less
than half had come. When he knew that he could
(20:51):
wait no longer, with great effort, he raised his head
and let his voice ring loud and clear. I must leave,
leave you now in the physical sense, but I will
always be here I will always be watching you and
what you do. You must never disobey any of my commandments.
(21:12):
You must continue the great work I have assigned you
to the best of your abilities. And finally, when all
are assembled, you must take my husk to the high
mountain and lay it there beneath the snows, where the
free winds blow. The natives, weeping, said that it would
be done, and Paxton died, and it was done. Each
(21:40):
and every one of the natives remembered the last words
of God and heeded them well. They continued his great
work to the best of their abilities. They lived alone,
they did not mate, They broke none of his commandments.
Ninety one years later, one hundred and twenty years after
the coming of God, the last of them died and
(22:02):
the race was extinct. The second Earthship did not reach
Paxton's world until sixty two additional years had passed. It
was an explorer equipped with a new and ultra sophisticated
Golshevsky drive. It was one of a team of ships
engaged in the task of extending the boundaries of the frontier.
(22:26):
The population of the universe was expanding at a staggering rate,
and there was always a need for fresh inhabitable planets. Too.
There was a constant necessity for a wide variety of
significant natural resources. And so this ship came and found
the planet to be capable of sustaining human life, and
landed in a metal not far from the high mountain.
(22:50):
Among the disembarking members of its crew were the captain,
which spent thirty long years in space, and a young
exoethnologist exobiologists, part of whose job it was to investigate
any extinct civilization so as to determine if its extinction
had been caused or precipitated by some factor that might
ultimately prove harmful to colonists. The ship was there for
(23:15):
one full week while the exoithnologists and others of the
crew toured the continent. On the seventh day, the young
man would turn to the ship and went in to
see the captain in his private quarters and said, the
race in once in the habit of this world not
so long ago, defires all laws of probability. My god,
their civilization was utterly incredible. Well what do you mean,
(23:37):
the captain asked. The race was a primitive one, As
I told you initially, that much was simple to determine.
But even in the most primitive of alien societies, there's
a purpose and apparent evolution, a pattern, you know, however intrinsic.
Yet here there's nothing of the kind. Everything's a monstrous,
crazy quill, contradiction built upon contradiction. Nothing makes sense, absolutely
(23:59):
nothing at all. That has to be the reason the
race died out. Oh, we can't find any specific evidence
among all this chaos, but that's not the point. The point, captain,
is that the race Damag should never have evolved in
the first place. Oh. You've come across a great many
strange things out here, of course, but each and every
one of them has a clear scientific explanation. Captain, when
(24:22):
we get back to base two, I intend to request
intensive scientific research. There's a logical answer to this enigmas.
There is to all enigmas, and you can be certain
that the combined efforts of science will succeed in solving it.
But the exoithnologist was wrong. The combined efforts of science
never did Somewhere, perhaps Paxton has enjoyed a fine laugh,
(24:50):
but the irony is double edged, far sharper on one
side than on the other, and he would not have
laughed for Long, which is now called Lucas I, was
discovered by mineralogists who contain the richest deposits ever found
of valerium and fissionable boreum, two elements vital to the
manufacture of the Woshevski drive. Scientists are already calling Lucas
(25:15):
One the singularly most important world in the galaxy for
the continued advancement of spatial exploration. In addition, has been
cleared for colonization, and the first mass of colonists is
already beginning together. Advanced robo crews are on their way
to commence massive mining operations, to prepare the land for
the construction of cities and laboratories and robo factories, and
(25:37):
to erect a modern spaceport in the shadow of the
High Mountain. Oblivious to all mortal beings and all manner
of gods, inelectable science marches on. The story this time
(26:22):
was called Paxton's World, written by Bill Pronzini. It appears
in the book edited by Roger Elwood called Future Corruption.
This is Michael Hanson speaking technical production for mindwebs by
Steve Gordon and Leslie Hilsenhoff. Mind Webbs is produced at
WHA Radio and Madison. The service of the University of
(26:44):
Wisconsin Extensions as chartistic
Mind. Welcome to a half hour of mid Way short
stories from the world.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Quite a little fiction.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
Thetory on mindwebs this time comes from the book Future Corruption,
a collection of stories edited by Roger Elwood. This one
is titled Paxton's World. It's by Bill Pronzini. Paxton hated science.
He hated spatial technology in exobiology, and astrophysics, in robology,
(01:39):
and all the other ologies in physics and dynamics. He
hated the scientists, those who probe and experiment and create
with blind and human fervor, Like a horde of Frankenstein's.
He thought science was a curse rather than a servant
of mankind. He thought it was the direct cause of
the personalization and the humanization, that it was responsible for
(02:01):
the death of individual freedom. He was a self admitted anachronism,
a throwback to that ancient time when man could walk
completely free in his natural habitat and there was no science,
and the making and the governing of his personal destiny
was in his hands and his mind alone. He longed
for that ancient time, or a place where in his
(02:22):
time he could be completely free of the bondage of science.
But on the massively overpopulated, technologically oriented Earth of the
twenty second century, there was no such place. Perhaps there
were such places in that vast part of the universe
known as the Uncharted Territories, well beyond the last current
outpost of science, the Asteroid mining Belt, and yet to
(02:46):
get there, an individual was forced to utilize one of
the new roboships powered by the Chong Frangzette subspatial drive,
and Paxton hated science. At first, he refused to compromise.
He was a very rich man. His father had been
one of the pioneers in robology, and it willed a
considerable fortune to his son. Just another bitter pill Paxton
(03:07):
had been forced to swallow. He could afford to live
an utter seclusion, save for an occasional visit from a
pleasure made in the basement of a two hundred story
building in the city state of New York. He ate
natural foods, which were in limited supply and enormously expensive.
He collected real books, very old and very fragile, and
various forms of ancient art. He painted pictures and created
(03:31):
montages and sculpted statues that no one ever saw. And
he was miserable because even though he could not see it.
Science was all around him. Life in Paxton's thirty third
year became totally unbearable. He knew then that he had
to compromise, that he had to seek out a new,
dawning world where his science did not exist, and where
(03:54):
the freedom he craved for would thus be his. Once
having made his decision, he acted swiftly. He purchased one
of the single passenger roboships, liquidating most of his assets
in order to meet the exorbitant price of the craft.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
He ordered it filled with as much natural.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
Food as it would hold, as well as three hundreds
of his favorite real books and several of his most
treasured pieces of ancient art, nothing more. In less than
two weeks, the ship had been programmed according to his
explicit instructions, and all other preparations had been completed. On
a yellow, gray morning in the spring of twenty one
(04:30):
thirty four, Paxton walked six miles to the city State's spaceport, entered.
Speaker 2 (04:35):
His craft, and, as far as the planet Earth.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
Was concerned, vanished forever. The first eighteen months were good.
The ship did all the necessary work, followed its programmed course, perfectly,
recycled oxygen and all waste material manufactured drinking water from
outside moisture, and Paxton sat and red or peered through
the view screen at the endless kaleidoscopic wonders of space.
(05:03):
Only the knowledge that he was still immediately surrounded by
science prevented him from complete happiness for the first time.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
In his life.
Speaker 1 (05:13):
The ship reached the asteroid mining belt and went beyond
where few ships and few men had ever ventured, and
that was when things began to go wrong. Paxton's supply
of natural foods ran out, and he was forced to
subsist on neutral capsules dispensed by the robo control. A
flash fire caused by a minor short circuit and quickly
(05:34):
but not quickly enough extinguished by the ship, destroyed all
three hundred of his books in most of his treasured art.
Time began then to pass slowly for Paxton. There was
nothing to do except to sit at the view screen,
and while this was still enjoyable, he felt a growing impatience.
When would the ship find in the world, When would
(05:55):
they land and be able to step forever from the
suffocating belly of another twelve months vanished. During that time,
the ship located and scanned and rejected several planets. The
view screen would show packs in the new system, a
new world, and he would grow excited. Then the infallible
(06:16):
instruments of the robo control would indifferently inform him that
the planets were all uninhabitable ice worlds and sea worlds,
and dead worlds, worlds with poisonous atmospheres, worlds with a
mean surface temperature that was too high or too low,
worlds with infertile soil and inedible plant life, worlds with
a high danger factor from this or that type of
(06:37):
living organism. Twelve months became twenty four, and then thirty six.
Paxton sat before the view screen in a state of agitation,
staring out at an empty space which was no longer absorbing.
There were few suns and few planets. Now there was
(06:57):
little to see except deep and deeper black. Seven years
eight nine, the ship built to withstand all external forces,
built to function indefinitely continue to follow its programmed search pattern.
(07:19):
Paxton had been alone in space ten and one half
years when the ship found in the world a tiny planet,
the smallest in the four planet system, revolving about a
single pale sun habitable planet. The instruments reported very like Earth,
breatheable atmosphere, edible vegetation, drinkable water, and both animal life
(07:43):
II factor null DE factor null and.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Intelligent life I factor one point.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
Seven primitive de factor negligible. In the gold warmth of
an early morning, the ship set down on a meadow
not far from a high snow capped mountain and not
far from a mud hutted native village, and Paxton, free
at last, and of course quite insane, stepped out upon
(08:09):
his world. Several hundred naked inhabitants came to meet him.
They were surprisingly humanoid in appearance, hairless, dusky.
Speaker 2 (08:20):
Purplish brown color, eyes, a peculiar shade.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Of silver, males with extremely long, very thin penises and
no visible testicles, females with angular breasts and greatly distended vava.
They exhibited neither fear nor hostility. Conversely, their attitude was
one of great excitement of instant worship. Paxton studied them
(08:45):
with his burning eyes, unmoving, listening to them speak. Their
language was a soft, liquid whisper, one which human vocal
cords would be able to duplicate. Finally, he turned and
re entered the belly of science for the life last time,
bringing out with him the portable dialectic converter, which was
part of the ship's complement.
Speaker 2 (09:06):
Then he shed his freight clothing and went with the
natives to their village, where the.
Speaker 1 (09:09):
Converter easily translated the liquid whispers into English and vice versa.
The planet was called cane Iran, but was soon to
be in every respect Paxton's world. The natives brought him food,
the tender flesh of the native marade that roamed the
(09:31):
continent in small herds and was not dissimilar in appearance
to the extinct Earth bison, dark gray vegetables, tasting faintly
like potato, sweet pink fruit, reminiscent of nothing on Earth,
and they immediately began to construct a great hut for
his dwelling place. The females came to him with rapid willingness,
and although actual copulation was difficult, if not impossible, they
(09:53):
gave him pleasure in divergent ways. Runners went to summon
all other tribes on the small continent, the only inhabited
one on the planet, the other two being densely forested
and void of marad. While with the help of the
dialectic converter, Paxton learned to speak the native language swiftly
and fluently. When all the natives had assembled, some three
(10:16):
thousand of them, Paxton stood on the platform of rocks
and spoke to them. They listened raptly and prepared to
obey without question. A god is always obeyed without question.
Destroy the ship in which I came, he said to them,
Smash it with rocks, take it apart, piece by piece,
(10:37):
burn the pieces in a great fire. Take all other equipment,
including the language machine, and treat it in the same manner.
When the metals cool, take it to the nearest lake,
and hide its ugliness forever beneath the surface of the water.
And this would be done. Science is evil, Paxton said
to them. You do not know science, and you never shall.
(11:00):
On this world there will be no science, and there
would be none. A being must walk completely free in
his natural habitat, Paxton said to them. A being must
make and govern his personal destiny with his hands and
his mind alone. He must be free, and to be free,
(11:23):
he must essentially be alone. Villages are the forerunners of cities,
and cities are test tubes of science, and science is bondage. Therefore,
all villages are evil and must be abolished. From this
day forward, each male and each female, and each child
above the age of eight years shall live alone and free,
(11:43):
and make his own destiny. And it was done. The
natives finished building the great hut for Paxton, and the
ones now living alone near by brought him food each morning.
Different females visited him each night.
Speaker 2 (11:59):
Sometimes he would in or by the hot thinking of.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Science and hating it. Sometimes he would walk alone to
the high mountain and stand at its crest with his
face uplifted to the sun warm sky, and laugh until
his stomach ached. Sometimes he would swim great distances in
the placid blue sea surrounding the continent, or in the
rivers and lakes which dotted it. Sometimes he would run
(12:23):
through the tall grasses, singing joyously. And sometimes on the
nights when the heavens were very dark, when the blackness
was deep and impenetrable, he would tremble and scream and
scream and scream, But when the first light came, he
would be tranquil again, and all would be well on
(12:43):
Paxton's world. On a morning in the third year following
his arrival, Paxston awoke and was filled with the great
insights he had escaped science, he had forever destroyed it.
Here he, in essence, originated complete freedom. He had an essence,
(13:05):
originated a new world. Thus he was a god. The
natives were his children, his disciples, and he he was God,
benign and wise, and most importantly creative. He had always
been creative as a man, and his man he had
loved the beauty of simple art. Now, as a god,
(13:30):
he must direct the creation of simple art. Here art
unlike any other, new and exciting and basic, and therefore
teach his children to love its beauty. Excited, he sought
out one of the nearest natives and said to him,
it is true you are free, but even a free
being must obey God's benevolent will. It is my will
(13:53):
that you are at my direction to create simple art,
and thereby learn to love its beauty. To begin, you
will construct a curving walls highs your waist and twenty
times the length of your body, of flat red stones.
The native began to construct the wall. Paxton went to
(14:15):
each of the other natives in turn, each male and
female and child, and said to them what he had
said to the first. Then he issued to each a
command for the composition of widely diversified forms. Fabricate a
square tower five times as high as your body of
blue and silver stones fell six trees, cut them into
(14:36):
round blocks, and with the blocks, construct a path from
the doorway of your hut to a seventh tree. Seek
out and kill ten marad. When you have eaten the
flesh of each animal, arrange its bones in the shape
of suns and mountains and huts, and venuses and breasts,
and so on. When he had spoken to each of
(14:57):
the natives, Paxton returned to his own dwelling. He rested
there for one month, taking pleasure each night from one
or more of the females. Then he left again to
examine progress. The results pleased him. Each native was performing
his task exactly as directed. When he neared the completion
of his journey across the continents, he began to sense
(15:20):
a certain tremendous esthetic quality to the whole, though lacking
and unity, lacking in theme, and all at once, he
recognized the possibilities for the ultimates. In simple artistic symmetry,
a magnificent tapestry woven of thousands of separate threads, an
entire continent reshaped and remolded into a single work of
(15:43):
new art. A massive excitement seized Paxton, and he knew
instantly that he must dedicate the balance of his life
to the tapestry, that only through its creation and its
perfection would his children truly learned to love the beauty
of simple art. Axton told himself he must not rush
(16:03):
into the project, for there were many things to be considered.
Once more, he returned to his huts and meditated for
several days, visualizing the contours of the continents and mentally
constructing the tapestry. During his three years in this world,
he had seen several monuments erected by this generation of
(16:23):
natives and prior ones to their God to him. In
the past, these constructions had not intruded on his consciousness.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
But now now in the bright clear light.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Of his ardor, he saw them, and they were artless
and offensive. They must be destroyed completely, as he had
destroyed the thing of science in which he had arrived.
Artifacts belonging to past generations in the native burial grounds
would have to be altered according to careful specifications so
that they would fit harmoniously into the overall pattern. If
they could not be altered, they too would be obliterated.
(16:58):
The excitement became a raging inferno inside Paxton. He was
ready to begin, and he went forth yet again. Among
the natives. Some were commanded to destroy the old monuments.
They no longer pleased him. Paxton said they had no
place in the creation of a single, unified work of art,
the great monument to his glory, which all would join
(17:19):
in originating. Others were given commands for new towers and walls,
and hundreds of other forms. Still others were ordered to
reshape such existing objects as the burial grounds. Paxton from
then on roamed the continent, tirelessly, examining completed threads, issuing
instructions for new ones. Time had no meaning for him.
(17:43):
There was only the tapestry, and ten years passed as
if they were ten days.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
The tapestry had begun to take shape.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Although it was by no means nearing completion, and by
no means as perfect as he had visualized it. He
continued to travel month after month, ordering something at it
or subtracted here, something altered or entirely reconstructed there. Another
ten years vanished, and Paxton was an old man, nearing
seventy and still unpleased. The tapestry was not yet perfect,
(18:17):
perhaps would never be perfect, but though work would continue,
it must continue as long as he remained unsatisfied. One
night at his hut, during an infrequent period of rest,
Paxton was visited by two females, but for the first
time in two and a half decades, there was no pleasure.
(18:39):
This angered him. He chased the females away, and another came,
and there was still no pleasure. He grew angrier. At
the end of seven successive nights, with thirty different females,
there was still no pleasure, and his anger then turned
to wrath. On the morning of the eighth day, Paxton
(18:59):
left him huts and set out across the continents. To
each of the males, he said, I am a benevolent god,
but I have been offended, and you must all suffer
the consequences. The females no longer give me pleasure. Therefore
they can and must no longer give you pleasure. You
will mate with them no more. The males nodded obediently,
(19:25):
and to the females Paxton said, you no longer give
me pleasure. This is a sacrilege and must be punished.
You will not mate with the males. From this day forward,
there will be no more mating, and there will be
no more children. The females nodded obediently, and there was
(19:46):
no more mating, and there were no more children. Paxton
continued to direct work on the tapestry for another four years. Then,
on a night of deep and impenetrable blackness, the black,
the black, he stood, screaming and trembling, but before the
(20:07):
first light came, he fell down and was silent. Hours
passed and he could not stand again. He could not move.
The realization came that he was dying. The knowledge filled
in with a great sadness. The tapestry was still not complete.
There was so much more to be done, but he
(20:30):
was not afraid. One of the natives came to them
with food, and Paxton instructed him to summon all males
and females and children on the continent. The male left immediately.
Paxton waited, and his people began to arrive, but less
than half had come. When he knew that he could
(20:51):
wait no longer, with great effort, he raised his head
and let his voice ring loud and clear. I must leave,
leave you now in the physical sense, but I will
always be here I will always be watching you and
what you do. You must never disobey any of my commandments.
(21:12):
You must continue the great work I have assigned you
to the best of your abilities. And finally, when all
are assembled, you must take my husk to the high
mountain and lay it there beneath the snows, where the
free winds blow. The natives, weeping, said that it would
be done, and Paxton died, and it was done. Each
(21:40):
and every one of the natives remembered the last words
of God and heeded them well. They continued his great
work to the best of their abilities. They lived alone,
they did not mate, They broke none of his commandments.
Ninety one years later, one hundred and twenty years after
the coming of God, the last of them died and
(22:02):
the race was extinct. The second Earthship did not reach
Paxton's world until sixty two additional years had passed. It
was an explorer equipped with a new and ultra sophisticated
Golshevsky drive. It was one of a team of ships
engaged in the task of extending the boundaries of the frontier.
(22:26):
The population of the universe was expanding at a staggering rate,
and there was always a need for fresh inhabitable planets. Too.
There was a constant necessity for a wide variety of
significant natural resources. And so this ship came and found
the planet to be capable of sustaining human life, and
landed in a metal not far from the high mountain.
(22:50):
Among the disembarking members of its crew were the captain,
which spent thirty long years in space, and a young
exoethnologist exobiologists, part of whose job it was to investigate
any extinct civilization so as to determine if its extinction
had been caused or precipitated by some factor that might
ultimately prove harmful to colonists. The ship was there for
(23:15):
one full week while the exoithnologists and others of the
crew toured the continent. On the seventh day, the young
man would turn to the ship and went in to
see the captain in his private quarters and said, the
race in once in the habit of this world not
so long ago, defires all laws of probability. My god,
their civilization was utterly incredible. Well what do you mean,
(23:37):
the captain asked. The race was a primitive one, As
I told you initially, that much was simple to determine.
But even in the most primitive of alien societies, there's
a purpose and apparent evolution, a pattern, you know, however intrinsic.
Yet here there's nothing of the kind. Everything's a monstrous,
crazy quill, contradiction built upon contradiction. Nothing makes sense, absolutely
(23:59):
nothing at all. That has to be the reason the
race died out. Oh, we can't find any specific evidence
among all this chaos, but that's not the point. The point, captain,
is that the race Damag should never have evolved in
the first place. Oh. You've come across a great many
strange things out here, of course, but each and every
one of them has a clear scientific explanation. Captain, when
(24:22):
we get back to base two, I intend to request
intensive scientific research. There's a logical answer to this enigmas.
There is to all enigmas, and you can be certain
that the combined efforts of science will succeed in solving it.
But the exoithnologist was wrong. The combined efforts of science
never did Somewhere, perhaps Paxton has enjoyed a fine laugh,
(24:50):
but the irony is double edged, far sharper on one
side than on the other, and he would not have
laughed for Long, which is now called Lucas I, was
discovered by mineralogists who contain the richest deposits ever found
of valerium and fissionable boreum, two elements vital to the
manufacture of the Woshevski drive. Scientists are already calling Lucas
(25:15):
One the singularly most important world in the galaxy for
the continued advancement of spatial exploration. In addition, has been
cleared for colonization, and the first mass of colonists is
already beginning together. Advanced robo crews are on their way
to commence massive mining operations, to prepare the land for
the construction of cities and laboratories and robo factories, and
(25:37):
to erect a modern spaceport in the shadow of the
High Mountain. Oblivious to all mortal beings and all manner
of gods, inelectable science marches on. The story this time
(26:22):
was called Paxton's World, written by Bill Pronzini. It appears
in the book edited by Roger Elwood called Future Corruption.
This is Michael Hanson speaking technical production for mindwebs by
Steve Gordon and Leslie Hilsenhoff. Mind Webbs is produced at
WHA Radio and Madison. The service of the University of
(26:44):
Wisconsin Extensions as chartistic
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