“One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it.”
-Anton Chekhov, November 1,1889.
Mindwebs – The Gun Without A Bang
By Robert Sheckley; Read by Michael Hanson
1 |MP3| – Approx. 19 Minutes [UNABRIDGED with a musical bed]
Broadcaster: WHA Radio (Madison, WI)
Broadcast: August 4, 1982
Provider: Archive.org
Alfred Dixon is a weapons expert assigned to test, in hostile alien jungle conditions, a new deadly disintegration pistol. The thing kills alright, but there’s one thing it doesn’t do. It won’t report. First published in Galaxy Science Fiction, June 1958.
Posted by Jesse Willis
This… is just about my favorite S-F short story in a life that started reading the pulps in the middle fifties.
This reminds one of the coronavirus. No indication by sight nor sound that infection is in progress until days later. There is no warning at all which makes me fearful for trusting children running into a relative’s embrace. And ‘brave hearts’ that do not believe in social distancing.
A very good story for our time.
I got scolded by a parking garage attendant today: I couldn’t reach the intercom button at the gated entrance so I used a notebook to press the button. There was no beep, no sound at all not even the white noise like a keyed radio. After a few seconds; considering I may not have pressed it fully; I tried again. The audibly irritated attendant bleated, “Don’t keep pressing the button, I have other tasks I’m doing too!”
The jury shuttle driver commented the attendant grouched at him too. It reminded me of Sheckley’s Gun without a Bang I read 45 years ago as an adolescent. I haven’t read it since but the concept learned stuck with me. I’m 56 now.