Explore "The Hellflower" by George O. Smith on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Farradyne felt a muscle-loosening tingle of fear. His thinking mechanism stopped functioning. His mind buzzed with a frenetic insistence that he say something, but being so completely unprepared he could not say anything. And he dimly knew that his long speechlessness was as damning as any story he could have prepared after such a pause. Perhaps he would have been stunned short this way even if he had concocted some story on the offhand chance that someday the question might come up. But it had come like this, from an unexpected quarter and he was both shocked and unprepared.
Then it occurred to him that he need not say anything. The die had been cast and he stood accused, twice; once by the Niles Family and once by his own shocked reaction. He must act for the next moment, because the passed moment was irreparable. Farradyne laughed at his own simplicity -- a brief scornful bark.