July.　Heat.　In the city, they are synonymous, they are identical, they mean one and the same thing. In the 87th Precinct, they strut the streets with a vengeance, these twin bitches who wear their bleached blond hair and their bright-red lipstick slashes, who sway on glittering rhinestone slippers, who flaunt their saffron silk. Heat and July, they are identical twins who were born to make you suffer.　The air is tangible. You can reach out to touch it. It is sticky and clinging, you can wrap it around you like a viscous overcoat. The asphalt in the gutters has turned to gum, and your heels 　

I stood in line, as patient as the other taxpayers, my filled out forms and my cash gripped body in my hand. Cash, money, the old fashioned green folding stuff. A local custom that I intended to make expensive to the local customers. I was scratching under the artificial beard, which itched abominably, when the man before me stepped out of the way and I was at the window. My finger stuck in the glue and I had a job freeing it without pulling the beard off as well."e, e, pass it over," the aging, hatchet-faced, bitter and shrewish female official said, hand extended impatiently."On the contrar　

　　　　I was following Derry Welfram at a prudent fifty paces when he stumbled, fell face down on the wet tarmac and lay still. I stopped, watching, as nearer hands stretched to help him up, and saw the doubt, the apprehension, the shock flower in the opening mouths of the faces around him. The word that formed in consequence in my own brain was violent, of four letters and unexpressed.　　Derry Welfram lay face down, unmoving, while the fourteen runners for the three-thirty race at York stalked closely past him, the damp jockeys looking down and back with muted curiosity, minds on the business ah　

　　William Blake　　　　"Nature does not premeditate; she does not use mathematics; she does not deliberately produce whole patterns, she lets whole patterns produce themselves. Nature does what nature demands; she is beyond blame and responsibility."　　Peter S. StevensPatterns in NatureOne　　Sunday, November 23　　Paradise, Pennsylvania　　3:00 a.m.　　　　The thing Boonie loved most about dumping off Black Bridge was how altogether goddam convenient it was. Take, for example, the traveling time. Even with miniature minefields of ice booby-trapping the backroads of Hellam, he figured ten minutes tops in th　

　I GO TO STYLES　　THE intense interest aroused in the public by what was known at the time as ``The Styles Case' has now somewhat subsided. Nevertheless, in view of the world-wide notoriety which attended it, I have been asked, both by my friend Poirot and the family themselves, to write an account of the whole story. This, we trust, will effectually silence the sensational rumours which still persist.　I will therefore briefly set down the circumstances which led to my being connected with the affair.　I had been invalided home from the Front; and, after spending some months in a rather depres　

　I found what follows lying on my desk one morning.　As you will see, it appears to be the first-person story of a young woman, evidently beautiful and not unskilled in the arts of love.　According to her story, she appears to have been involved, both perilously and romantically, with the same James Bond whose secret-service exploits I myself have written from time to time.　With the manuscript was a note signed "Vivienne Michel," assuring me that what she had written was purest truth and from the depths of her heart.　I was much interested in this view of James Bond, through the wrong end of the　

　　　　I HAD BEEN making the rounds of the Sacrifice Poles the day we heard my brother had escaped. I already knew something was going to happen; the Factory told me.　　　　At the north end of the island, near the tumbled remains of the slip where the handle of the rusty winch still creaks in an easterly wind, I had two Poles on the far face of the last dune. One of the Poles held a rat head with two dragonflies, the other a seagull and two mice. I was just sticking one of the mouse heads back on when the birds went up into the evening air, kaw-calling and screaming, wheeling over the path through 　

To Carolyn Conger"What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world."ALBERT EINSTEIN"Deep in the chaotic regime, slight changes in structure almost always cause vast changes in behavior. plex controllable behavior seems precluded."STUART KAUFFMAN"Sequelae are inherently unpredictable."IAN MALCOLMIntroduction:"Extinction at the K-T Boundary"The late twentieth century has witnessed a remarkable growth in scientific interest in the subject of extinction.It is hardly a new subject - Baron Georges Cuvier had first demonstrated that species became extinct back in 1　

　　And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,　　And the dry stone no sound of water. Only　　There is shadow under this red rock,　　(e in under the shadow of this red rock),　　And I will show you something different from either　　Your shadow in the morning striding behind you　　Or your shadow at evening rising to meet you;　　I will show you fear in a handful of dust.　　-T. S. ELIOT "The Waste Land"　　　　If there pushed any ragged thistle-stalk　　Above its mates, the head was chopped; the bents　　Were jealous else. What made those holes and rents...　

THE MARK OF DEATH　　THE MOUNTAIN LIMITED was clicking slowly over the rails that trail through the highest and wildest land in America-the western slope of the Rockies.　　Speed was cut down as the big special labored toward the highest point on its line-nearly seven thousand feet above sea level.　　Midnight had struck.　　Outside, the gloomy mountains hung over the track; seemed about to close in on it, and wipe out the train and all its passengers.　　Within the club car of the train, only a handful of men remained in the fortable chairs.　　All of these were dozing away, with the exception of one　

-from mentaries on the Karaethon CycleSereine dar Shamelle MotaraCounsel-Sister to aelle,High Queen of Jaramide(circa 325 AB, the Third Age)Chapter 1(Serpent and Wheel)Seeds of ShadowThe Wheel of Time turns, and Ages e and pass, leaving memories that bee legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth es again. In. one Age, called the Third Age by some, an Age yet to e, an Age long past, a wind rose on the great plain called the Caralain Grass. The wind was not the beginning. There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of 　

　　THE WAVES TURNED VICIOUS AND WORSENED WITH EVERY rush of wind. The calm weather of the morning transformed from Dr. Jekyll into a vehement Mr. Hyde by late evening. Whitecaps on the crests of towering waves were lashed into sheets of spray. The violent water and black clouds merged under the onslaught of a driving snowstorm. It was impossible to tell where water ended and sky began. As the passenger liner Princess Dou Wan fought through waves that rose like mountains before spilling over the ship, the men on board were unaware of the imminent disaster that was only minutes away. The crazed　

　CROOKS IN AMBUSH　IT was gala night in the city of Westford. Streets were strung with brilliant lines of colored electric lights. Store fronts were illuminated, throwing their brightness upon festooned posts and displaying the elaborate decorations of their own windows. Tourists, driving through the main streets, gained the impressions that this city of two hundred thousand was engaged in celebration.　As the boosters phrased it, Westford was a "live town" that was definitely "on the map"; the city attracted visitors from every town within a hundred miles. Business was booming in Westford; it 　

　　　On August 23, the day before the hurricane struck, Max and Bonnie Lamb awoke early, made love twice and rode the shuttle bus to Disney World. That evening they returned to the Peabody Hotel, showered separately, switched on the cable news and saw that the storm was heading directly for the southeastern tip of Florida. The TV weatherman warned that it was the fiercest in many years.　　Max Lamb sat at the foot of the bed and gazed at the color radar image-a ragged flame-colored sphere, spinning counterclockwise toward the coast. He said, "Jesus, look at that."　　A hurricane, Bonnie Lamb though　

　　THE SUMERIANS　　　　Three thousand years before the birth of Christ, the first real moves towards civilisation emerged from southern Mesopotamia, around the lower reaches of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Because the land was between two rivers-Sumer-the people there were called Sumerians.　　Their ethnic origins have never been explained.　　This race of people made three important contributions towards our advancement-four if you count the establishment of firmly governed munities.　　The first two were these: The measurement of time in hours, days and months; and astrology, the study of the sta　

　Winters on Ballybran were generally mild, so the fury of the first spring storms as they howled across the land was ever unexpected. This first one of the new season swept ferociously across the Milekey Ranges, bearing before its westward course the fleeing sleds of crystal singers like so much jetsam. Those laggard singers who had tarried too long at their claims were barely able to hold their bucking sleds on course as they bolted for the safety of the Heptite Guild plex.　Inside the gigantic Hangar, its baffles raised against the mach winds, ordered confusion reigned. Crystal singers lurch