Heinlein, Robert A – Expanded Universe

forced his eyes to focus on the room. What outrageous nonsense was this? This was no

sort of a room for the Leader to convalesce in. He took in the dirty white-washed

ceiling, and the bare wooden floor with distaste. And the bed! It was no more than a

cot!

He shouted. Someone came in, a man wearing the uniform of a trooper in his

favorite corps. He started to give him the tongue-lashing of his life, before having

him arrested. But he was cut short.

“Cut out that racket, you unholy pig!”

At first he was too astounded to At first he was too astounded to

answer, then he shrieked, “Stand at attention when you address your Leader! Salute!”

The man looked dumbfounded, then guffawed. “Like this, maybe?” He stepped to the

side of the cot, struck a pose with his right arm raised in salute. He carried a

rubber truncheon in it. “Hail to the Leader!” he shouted, and brought his arm down

smartly. The truncheon crashed into the Leader’s cheekbone. Another trooper came in

to see what the noise was while the first was still laughing at his witticism.

“What’s up, Jon? Say, you’d better not handle that monkey too rough-he’s still

carried on the hospital list.” He glanced casually at the Leader’s bloody face.

“Him? Didn’t you know?” He pulled him to one side and whispered.

The second’s eyes widened; he grinned. “So? They don’t want him to get well,

eh? Well, I could use some exercise this morning-”

“Let’s get Fats,” the other suggested. “He always has such amusing ideas.”

“Good idea.” He stepped to the door, and bellowed, “Hey, Fats!”

They didn’t really start in on him until Fats was there to help.

FOREWORD

LiFE-LINE, MISFIT, LET THERE BE LIGHT, ELSE WHEN, PIED PIPER, IF THiS GOES

ON-, REQUIEM, THE ROADS MUST ROLL, COVENTRY, BLOWUPS HAPPEN-for eleven months, mid

March 1939 through mid February 1940, I wrote every day.. and that ended my bondage;

BLOWUPS HAPPEN paid off the last of that pesky n’tortgage-eight years ahead of time.

BLOWUPS HAPPEN was the first of my stories to be published in hard covers,

in Groff Conklin’s first anthology, THE BEST OF SCIENCE FICTION, 1946. In the

meantime there had been World War II, Hiroshima, The Smyth Report-so I went over my

1940 manuscript most carefully, correcting some figures I had merely guessed at in

early 1940.

This week I have compared the two versions, 1940 and 1946, word by

word-there isn’t a dime’s worth of difference between them. . . and I now see, as a

result of the enormous increase in the art in 33 years, more errors in the ’46

version than I spotted in the ’40 version when I checked it in ’46.

I do not intend ever again to try to update a story to make it fit new art.

Such updating can’t save a poor story and isn’t necessary for a good story. All of

H. G. Wells’ SF stories are hopelessly dated. . . and they remain the best, the most

gripping science fiction stories to be found anywhere. My BEYOND THIS HORIZON (1941)

states that H. sapiens has forty-eight chromosomes, a “fact” that “everybody knew”

in 1941. Now “everybody knows” that the “correct” number is forty-sLx. 1 shan’t

change it.

The version of BLOWUPS HAPPEN here following is exactly, word for word, the

way it was first written in February 1940.

Blowups Happen

“PUT down that wrench!”

The man addressed turned slowly around and faced the speaker. His expression

was hidden by a grotesque helmet, part of a heavy, lead-and-cadmium armor which

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shielded his entire body, but the tone of voice in which he answered showed nervous

exasperation.

“What the hell’s eating on you, doc?” He made no move to replace the tool in

question.

They faced each other like two helmeted, arrayed fencers, watching for an

opening. The first speaker’s voice came from behind his mask a shade higher in key

and more peremptory in tone. “You heard me, Harper. Put down that wrench at once,

and come away from that ‘trigger’. Erickson!”

A third armored figure came from the far end of the control room. “What ‘cha