Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    The Fire and the Sword
    The Fire and the Sword
    The Fire and the Sword
    Ebook44 pages38 minutes

    The Fire and the Sword

    By Frank Robinson

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Nothing could have seemed pleasanter than that peaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidal man driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherJovian Press
    Release dateJan 21, 2017
    ISBN9781537817408
    The Fire and the Sword

    Read more from Frank Robinson

    Related to The Fire and the Sword

    Related ebooks

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Everything Happens SOMEWHERE

      Jun 15, 2020

      Everything, even thought, takes place somewhere. When remembering ordinary happenings and previous conversations, most people automatically recall where they took place and at what time. If not, they may ponder, “Now, where was I?” For more important

      8 min read

    • Article

      Frank’s Fable

      Mar 18, 2021

      Frank’s Fable
      4 min read

    • Article

      THE FIRST FIVE PAGES: KJ Maitland

      Apr 1, 2021

      Writing historical crime thrillers often feels like one of those crazy circus acts where you have to stand on the backs of two galloping horses, with one foot on each, trying to keep your balance. One of the horses is the historical facts, the other

      6 min read

    • Article

      Cruel Means, Bitter Ends

      Nov 10, 2021

      “In order for this speech to mean anything to me, I’ll need to dispense with the usual demagoguery and, instead, make an attempt at honesty. With this in mind, there is one thing I have to make clear. I’m not in this race to serve your interests, but

      12 min read

    • Article

      Commonplace Book

      Sep 1, 2021

      If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied. —Rudyard Kipling, “Epitaphs of the War,” The Years Between, 1919 She consulted me, a glance, and said: “I think not anything off the wagon. It arrives too quickly. Let’s have somethi

      4 min read

    • Article

      Excerpts From The Works Of The 2024 Whiting Award Winners

      Apr 10, 2024

      The 2024 Whiting Award winners were announced Wednesday night. Below are excerpts from their work.

      19 min read

    • Article

      Rent Arlington Hall’s Brain: The implant would make him a brilliant pianist for 24 hours.

      Jan 15, 2015

      Eight Hours To Go Thorne hesitated. The clinic’s storefront consisted of a glass elevator that went only down. Below the earth, into the unknown. A sign on its door read in elegant silver script: “Rent a Brain Today, Genius Guaranteed.” Thorne could

      14 min read

    • Article

      ‘I Made The Daily Mail Incredibly Angry’: Stars Share Their Doctor Who Moments – Part Five

      Nov 24, 2023

      When I met producer Verity Lambert 60 years ago, she offered me what seemed a juicy guest role in The Web Planet. “Hilio,” she explained, “is a prince of the Menoptera tribe, the Hamlet of his planet.” “Count me in,” I enthused. “Would you like to se

      3 min read

    • Article

      Letters

      Apr 21, 2022

      CONTACT US BY POST: PO BOX 1200, WHITSTABLE CT1 9RH, OR E-MAIL SIEVEKING@FORTEANTIMES.COM PLEASE PROVIDE US WITH YOUR POSTAL ADDRESS As an FT reader and occasional correspondent of some 30 odd years, I enjoy the magazine as much as ever, but I did un

      11 min read

    • Article

      A Year in Reading: Iľja Rákoš

      Dec 12, 2021

      As long as there are authors, translators, publishers large or small committed to the deliberate word deliberately committed to the page, and so many who still need those words on pages, legal or illegal, right, left, or center, we’ll find our feet a

      8 min read

    • Article

      ‘I’ve Never Forgotten It’: The Very Best (and Very Worst) TV Endings Of All Time

      Feb 7, 2023

      Warning: contains spoilers. Blackadder Goes ForthThe final three minutes of Blackadder is so exquisitely played, so at odds with the extreme silliness of the rest of the series – and so very sad. There they stand – Blackadder, Baldrick, George and po

      11 min read

    • Article

      The Panopticon: John Updike’s Apartment Stories

      Mar 9, 2018

      Has there, in American letters, at least, ever been a better noticer than John Updike?  By “noticer,” I don’t mean “writer of detail,” exactly.  There are many writers whose use of detail I find more narratively effective:  Saul Bellow, Joan Didion,

      5 min read

    • Article

      We Need To CHANGE

      Feb 6, 2020

      We Need To CHANGE
      2 min read

    • Article

      Reader's Letter

      May 31, 2023

      SIR: I was astonished to read (Spring issue) that Hunter Davies believes he may be the only person left in the UK who has milk delivered in glass bottles every morning. Oop ’ere in t’north, we have milk delivered in this way. We also have Ringtons Te

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Mysterious Wind

      Aug 5, 2020

      The Mysterious Wind
      3 min read

    • Article

      Ready, Set, Let go!

      May 15, 2019

      Ready, Set, Let go!
      11 min read

    • Article

      Perfect Prose II

      May 15, 2020

      Perfect Prose II
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Wimple Plan

      Dec 11, 2020

      A Wimple Plan
      3 min read

    • Article

      Death

      Mar 1, 2020

      Kids already asleep, the grownups sit out on the deck,a few empty cans, an open bottle of wine on the table, I’m sure, and stacked paper plates with half-eaten buns and dirty napkins.From my backyard next door, I can hear them, the living, chatting.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Quotients

      May 7, 2020

      Quotients
      8 min read

    • Article

      Paddy's Last Lines

      Apr 3, 2024

      Eighty years ago, on 26th April 1944, the writer Patrick Leigh Fermor (1915-2011) led the daring raid to kidnap General Kreipe, the officer leading the German forces in occupied Crete. I am afraid that, nearly 70 years later, I think it was me what d

      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for The Fire and the Sword

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      The Fire and the Sword - Frank Robinson

      THE FIRE AND THE SWORD

      ..................

      Frank Robinson

      JOVIAN PRESS

      Thank you for reading. If you enjoy this book, please leave a review or connect with the author.

      All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

      Copyright © 2017 by Frank Robinson

      Interior design by Pronoun

      Distribution by Pronoun

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      THE FIRE and THE SWORD

      THE FIRE AND THE SWORD

      ..................

      Why do people commit suicide?

      Templin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better than to face the dull monotony of the stars for days on end.

      Oh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve an ambition, failure to live up to one’s own ideals. Weltschmerz, perhaps.

      He could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke at the neon No Smoking sign, which winked on and off in mechanical disapproval.

      He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride because, at one time or another, they had had to.

      It was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.

      Only Pendleton wasn’t the type. He was the kind who have everything to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clichés always come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the status of a breakfast food testimonial.

      The soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin. Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was out.

      Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.

      And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.

      He shouldn’t get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class reunion? And

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1