He climbed a stepladder to get at the top cabinet shelf which cached their liquor when they had any. Small upstate towns and their school boards being what they were, this was one of many necessary financial precautions. Inspecting the doleful few fingers of whisky in the bottle, Len swore under his breath. They couldn't afford a decent supply of booze or new clothes for Moira. The original idea had been for Len to teach for a year while they saved enough money so that he could go back for his master's degree. More lately, this proving unlikely, they had merely been trying to put aside enough for summer school, and even that was beginning to look like the wildest optimism. High-school teachers without seniority weren't supposed to be married. Or graduate physics students, for that matter. He mixed two stiff highballs and carried them back into the living room. "Here you are. Skoal." "Ah," she said appreciatively. "That tastes--Ugh." She set the glass down and stared at it with her mouth half open. "What's the matter now?" She turned her head carefully, as if she were afraid it would come off. "Len, I don't know. Mama." "That's the second time you've said that. What is this all--" "Said what?" "Mama. Look, kid, if you're--" "I didn't." She appeared a little feverish. "Sure you did," said Len reasonably. "Once when you were looking at the baby book, and then again just now, after you said ugh to the highball. Speaking of which--"

Author Biography

Damon Francis Knight (1922 - 2002) was an American science fiction author, editor and critic. He is the author of "To Serve Man," a 1950 short story adapted for The Twilight Zone. He was married to fellow writer Kate Wilhelm. Knight's first professional sale was a cartoon drawing to a science-fiction magazine, Amazing Stories. His first story, "The Itching Hour," appeared in the Summer 1940 number of Futuria Fantasia, edited and published by Ray Bradbury. "Resilience" followed in the February 1941 number of Stirring Science Stories, edited by Donald Wolheim. An editorial error made the latter story's ending incomprehensible; it was reprinted in a 1978 magazine in four pages with a two-page introduction by Knight. At the time of his first story sale, he was living in New York, and was a member of the Futurians. One of his short stories describes paranormal disruption of a science fiction fan group and contains cameo appearances of various Futurians and others under thinly-disguised names, for instance, non-Futurian SF writer H. Beam Piper is identified as "H. Dreyne Fifer." Knight's forte was the short story; he is widely acknowledged as having been a master of the genre. To the general public, he is best known as the author of "To Serve Man," a 1950 short story adapted for The Twilight Zone. It won a 50-year Retro Hugo in 2001 as the best short story of 1950. Knight also became well known as a science fiction critic, a career which began when he wrote in 1945 that A. E. van Vogt "is not a giant as often maintained. He's only a pygmy who has learned to operate an overgrown typewriter." He ceased reviewing when Fantasy & Science Fiction refused to publish a review.