Fantastic Stories Presents the Fantastic Universe Super Pack #3 - Fredric Brown Positronic Super Pack Series

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proboscises, while already a third pair of limbs had commenced growing from his furred-over abdomen.

      This was not a wolf-like form, he was assuming, Ambrose suddenly realized in terror. But if it was not lupine, what was it? Had he misread the incantation? Had he mispronounced a simple word?

      The weird crawling form into which he had metamorphosed was now hardly an inch higher than the surface of the floor. But Ambrose’s eyes had bulged into great many-faceted orbs capable of seeing objects with greater clarity than ever. Inches away from him, he made out the segment of scroll he had discarded after reading aloud from it. Crawling over to it, he perused the beginning words of the spell.

      And it suddenly dawned on him (while what passed for a heart and ventricles within his pulpy form began simulating horror) that the ancient monk of centuries ago who had first copied the incantation must have been as careless of spelling as he. For the charm obviously did not convert its user into a werewolf, but rather some other animal . . .

      Dredging up all the miserable Latin he knew, Ambrose fished for some word similar to lupinus.

      And suddenly he had it!

      Pulicus! That was the word the sloppy copyist of yesteryear had wrongly transcribed.

      From the word pulex, meaning “flea.”

      Not how to become a wolf-like man, but a flea-like man—that was what the formula had described.

      Ambrose, the flea, braced himself. Gathering his powerful legs under him, he leaped in soaring flight to land upon the object of hatred—the giant Brother Lorenzo, who towered so high above him.

      But the gentle and considerate Brother Lorenzo, who probably would not have hurt hair nor hide of any other creature on Earth—even he knew full well that there is only one thing you can do to discourage a flea.

      Swat!

      The Hoofer

      by Walter M. Miller, Jr.

       A wayfarer’s return from a far country to his wife and family may be a shining experience, a kind of second honeymoon. Or it may be so shadowed by Time’s relentless tyranny that the changes which have occurred in his absence can lead only to tragedy and despair. This rarely discerning, warmly human story by a brilliant newcomer to the science fantasy field is told with no pulling of punches, and its adroit unfolding will astound you.

       A space rover has no business with a family. But what can a man in the full vigor of youth do—if his heart cries out for a home?

      They all knew he was a spacer because of the white goggle marks on his sun-scorched face, and so they tolerated him and helped him. They even made allowances for him when he staggered and fell in the aisle of the bus while pursuing the harassed little housewife from seat to seat and cajoling her to sit and talk with him.

      Having fallen, he decided to sleep in the aisle. Two men helped him to the back of the bus, dumped him on the rear seat, and tucked his gin bottle safely out of sight. After all, he had not seen Earth for nine months, and judging by the crusted matter about his eyelids, he couldn’t have seen it too well now, even if he had been sober. Glare-blindness, gravity-legs, and agoraphobia were excuses for a lot of things, when a man was just back from Big Bottomless. And who could blame a man for acting strangely?

      Minutes later, he was back up the aisle and swaying giddily over the little housewife. “How!” he said. “Me Chief Broken Wing. You wanta Indian wrestle?”

      The girl, who sat nervously staring at him, smiled wanly, and shook her head.

      “Quiet li’l pigeon, aren’tcha?” he burbled affectionately, crashing into the seat beside her.

      The two men slid out of their seats, and a hand clamped his shoulder. “Come on, Broken Wing, let’s go back to bed.”

      “My name’s Hogey,” he said. “Big Hogey Parker. I was just kidding about being a Indian.”

      “Yeah. Come on, let’s go have a drink.” They got him on his feet, and led him stumbling back down the aisle.

      “My ma was half Cherokee, see? That’s how come I said it. You wanta hear a war whoop? Real stuff.”

      “Never mind.”

      He cupped his hands to his mouth and favored them with a blood-curdling proof of his ancestry, while the female passengers stirred restlessly and hunched in their seats. The driver stopped the bus and went back to warn him against any further display. The driver flashed a deputy’s badge and threatened to turn him over to a constable.

      “I gotta get home,” Big Hogey told him. “I got me a son now, that’s why. You know? A little baby pigeon of a son. Haven’t seen him yet.”

      “Will you just sit still and be quiet then, eh?”

      Big Hogey nodded emphatically. “Shorry, officer, I didn’t mean to make any trouble.”

      When the bus started again, he fell on his side and lay still. He made retching sounds for a time, then rested, snoring softly. The bus driver woke him again at Caine’s junction, retrieved his gin bottle from behind the seat, and helped him down the aisle and out of the bus.

      Big Hogey stumbled about for a moment, then sat down hard in the gravel at the shoulder of the road. The driver paused with one foot on the step, looking around. There was not even a store at the road junction, but only a freight building next to the railroad track, a couple of farmhouses at the edge of a side-road, and, just across the way, a deserted filling station with a sagging roof. The land was Great Plains country, treeless, barren, and rolling.

      Big Hogey got up and staggered around in front of the bus, clutching at it for support, losing his duffle bag.

      “Hey, watch the traffic!” The driver warned. With a surge of unwelcome compassion he trotted around after his troublesome passenger, taking his arm as he sagged again. “You crossing?”

      “Yah,” Hogey muttered. “Lemme alone, I’m okay.”

      The driver started across the highway with him. The traffic was sparse, but fast and dangerous in the central ninety-mile lane.

      “I’m okay,” Hogey kept protesting. “I’m a tumbler, ya know? Gravity’s got me. Damn gravity. I’m not used to gravity, ya know? I used to be a tumbler—huk!—only now I gotta be a hoofer. ‘Count of li’l Hogey. You know about li’l Hogey?”

      “Yeah. Your son. Come on.”

      “Say, you gotta son? I bet you gotta son.”

      “Two kids,” said the driver, catching Hogey’s bag as it slipped from his shoulder. “Both girls.”

      “Say, you oughta be home with them kids. Man oughta stick with his family. You oughta get another job.” Hogey eyed him owlishly, waggled a moralistic finger, skidded on the gravel as they stepped onto the opposite shoulder, and sprawled again.

      The driver blew a weary breath, looked down at him, and shook his head. Maybe it’d be kinder to find a constable after all. This guy could get himself killed, wandering around loose.

      “Somebody supposed to meet you?” he asked, squinting around at the dusty hills.

      “Huk!—who, me?” Hogey giggled, belched, and shook his head. “Nope. Nobody knows I’m coming. S’prise. I’m supposed to be here a week ago.” He looked up at the driver with a pained expression. “Week late, ya know? Marie’s gonna be sore—woo-hoo!—is she gonna be sore!” He waggled his head severely at the ground.

      “Which way are you going?” the driver grunted impatiently.

      Hogey pointed down the side-road that led back into the hills. “Marie’s pop’s place. You know where? ‘Bout three miles from here. Gotta walk, I guess.”

      “Don’t,”

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