Free The Devil's Mirror by Ray Russell

Earth, settling it down to the landing-pad careful and gentle, like a mama robin dropping a precious egg in her nest. I’m so close now I can see them, I can see it all. The Hags flying—Vanya’s and mine. The big shots—ours and theirs, military and civilian. There’s the President, by God, just like they promised, there he is, The Man himself, waiting to pin a medal on me. And there’s the Premier. And there’s the band playing, those shiny butterscotch trumpets and trombones and tubas polished like rows and rows of yellow mirrors—I can’t hear what they’re playing, but I’ll give you odds it’s that same tune we sang down home a long time ago when I was in the children’s choir and the church put on this oratorio thing by Handel or whoever. I remember it real good—
See, the conquering hero comes!
    Sound the trumpets, beat the drums ...
    Yes, I’ll just bet that’s what they’re playing down there. Well, you keep on sounding those trumpets and beating those drums, because I’m coming, all right. And you’re not going to like it one little bit. I suppose the story will go out that this bucket went out of control, but that will be a lie because I’ve got it in complete control. It’s doing everything I want it to do, this baby, this precision instrument. Of course, maybe some smart reporter will search the wreckage and find this tape and break the real story. That’d be nice. But, either way, you folks down there are in for the surprise of your lives. All you generals and senators and public relations sharpies, and you too, Mr President and Mr Premier.
    I do worry a little about one thing Vanya said. ‘You are not rational,’ he said, and, you know, he may have been right. Maybe the slide-rule brigade did make an honest mistake. Or maybe there was a slow leak in the fuel line, nobody’s fault, and we lost some that way. If so, I suppose you could say what I’m about to do is pretty rotten. But is it really? Does it really matter if I’m right or wrong in this one particular case? Look at it this way... if I’m wrong about this, if I’m ‘not rational’, if I’m crazy as a bedbug, then let’s just say I’m getting back for a whole mess of shoving around that the big brass types have been dishing out in one way or another for a long time... hell, just say I’m getting back for a lot of folks in, oh, there’s plenty to choose from, the Novgorod Massacre, the Black Hole of Calcutta, the Hungarian Revolution, Vietnam, Dresden, Hiroshima, Babi Yar, the Niseis in Double-U Double-U Two, you pick it, all those folks sautéed in a big frying pan by Ivan the Terrible, roasted by napalm, char-broiled by incendiary bombs... or old Grissom and the other guys who had to bake because some brass had to make a little more profit with cheap-ass wiring. If I’m rights of course, so much, the better, but even if I’m wrong I’m settling a whole lot of old scores.
    Well, here we go, time to set ’er down...
    Vanya, old buddy, I’m sorry about what I did to you, but it was the only way I could be sure of getting back here and doing what I knew I had to do. Sorry about all the reporters and boys in the band, too—that’s right, play your hearts out, you cats—
Myrtle-wreaths and roses twine
    To deck the hero’s brow divine .
    Like I say, sorry about you boys, but you’ll just have to take your chances. Because, man o man, when I tilt this bucket and turn these vernier rockets or that pretty flag-draped platform where all those big shots are standing, all kinds of flaming hell are going to bust loose. I’m making for damn sure that this particular conquering hero goes out in a blaze of glory, and I’m taking as many of you with me as I can. Hold on to your hats, you son of a bitches, here corns John Henry!

Xong of Xuxan
    i learned a thorny language of the dead; attacked and kicked and pounded on my brain with book and tape; a word, another word, until i knew the ancient wizard-way to freeze my