Project Gutenberg 2016-08-14 Public domain in the USA. 138 De Ford, Miriam Allen 1888 1975 Ford, Miriam Allen de DeFord, Miriam Allen Pederson, John Where the Phph Pebbles Go Produced from Worlds of Tomorrow April 1963 Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net "Where the Phph Pebbles Go" by Miriam Allen De Ford is a science fiction short story published in the early 1960s. The narrative explores an alien world where two species interact, focusing particularly on a game called "phph," which involves throwing pebbles at a distant target. The underlying themes touch upon issues of intelligence, civilization, and the potential consequences of unintentionally contacting other life forms in the universe. The story revolves around two phph players, Gral and Hodnuth, who engage in a game watched by both their own people and the subservient Ground Dwellers. The excitement escalates when a revered Thinker, the intellectual elite of their society, attends the phph match, leading to unforeseen circumstances. As the plot unfolds, the Thinkers reveal they have been receiving peculiar signals from outside their world, prompting concerns about the existence of intelligent life elsewhere. The story delves into the implications of their phph game, where some pebbles may escape their planet and reach other civilizations, leading to a plan to create artificial pebbles to mislead any potential extraterrestrial observers. Ultimately, the narrative blends elements of humor and social commentary, highlighting the peculiar dynamics between the characters and their societies. (This is an automatically generated summary.) Reading ease score: 71.0 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read. en Science fiction Short stories PS Text Browsing: Literature Browsing: Science-Fiction & Fantasy Browsing: Fiction Category: Short Stories Category: Science-Fiction & Fantasy 52834 2025-06-21T07:02:47.029884 text/html 29130 2024-10-23T00:58:54 text/html 115862 2025-06-21T07:02:48.932870 application/epub+zip 114690 2025-06-21T07:02:47.438855 application/epub+zip 85766 2025-06-21T07:02:47.211867 application/epub+zip 151681 2025-06-21T07:02:50.316908 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 145183 2025-06-21T07:02:48.711859 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 113794 2022-09-24T01:07:18.502893 application/x-mobipocket-ebook 46284 2023-09-23T03:34:00.536382 text/plain 26435 2024-10-23T00:58:54 text/plain; charset=us-ascii 16327 2025-06-21T07:02:50.466853 application/rdf+xml 24675 2025-06-21T07:02:47.291874 image/jpeg 4061 2025-06-21T07:02:47.249871 image/jpeg 105486 2025-06-21T07:02:47.038889 application/octet-stream application/zip Archives containing the RDF files for *all* our books can be downloaded at https://book.klll.cc/wiki/Gutenberg:Feeds#The_Complete_Project_Gutenberg_Catalog en.wikipedia