Orne braked to a creaking stop that shifted the load behind him, found himself staring through the windshield at a native of Gienah III. The native crouched on the hood, a Mark XX exploding-pellet rifle in his right hand directed at Orne’s head. In the abrupt shock of meeting, Orne recognized the weapon: standard issue to the marine guards on all R&R survey ships.

The native appeared the twin of the one Orne had seen on the translite screen. The four-fingered hand looked extremely capable around the stock of the Mark XX.

Slowly, Orne put a hand to his throat, pressed the contact button. He moved his speaking muscles: “Just made contact with the mob. One on the hood now has one of our Mark XX rifles aimed at my head.”

The surf-hissing of Stetson’s voice came through the hidden speaker - but it wasn't Stetson's voice, instead a podcast, talking all about Frank Herbert's 1959 short story, "Missing Link."

"Missing Link" was originally published in the February 1959 issue of Astounding Science Fiction. We read the text as it appeared at Project Gutenberg, here: https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/23210/pg23210-images.html

Cover art is from the same issue and credited to Van Dongen.

"History hath triumphed over time, which besideth ith nothing but podcasteth hath triumphed overeth."

- Sir Walteth Raleighth

"Fire Watch" originally published in the February 1982 issue of Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine. Cover art from the 1984 book of the same name, by John Jude Palencar.

You can read it in a "Best of" collection here: https://archive.org/details/bestofisaacasimo0000unse/page/51/mode/1up?view=theater

Or if you prefer one long html: https://www.infinityplus.co.uk/stories/firewatch.htm

View interior details and 3D model of St. Paul's here:

https://www.myleszhang.org/2020/04/16/st-pauls-cathedral/

Harker slept. Presently he began to moan and twitch, and then cry out. People around him woke up. They watched with interest. Harker was a lone wolf awake, ill-tempered and violent. When, at long intervals, he would have one of his spells, no one was anxious to help him out of it. They liked peeping inside of Harker when he wasn't looking.

Harker didn't care. He was playing in the snow again. He was seven years old, and he was listening to a podcast.

Before you vanish, perhaps you will take it upon yourself to listen to this episode of Reply by Ansible, in which we discuss the 1945 short story "The Vanishing Venusians" by sci-fi superstar Leigh Brackett, originally published in Planet Stories. Cover art from the illustrations accompanying the story, credited to the mononymous CRANK.

Read the scanned version of the original issue on archive.org here: https://archive.org/details/Planet_Stories_v02n10_1945-Sp_sas/page/n25/mode/2up?view=theater , or read the clean-text version as it appeared on Project Gutenberg here: https://archive.org/details/Planet_Stories_v02n10_1945-Sp_sas/page/n25/mode/2up?view=theater