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by
Stanley Wiedbottom
and
Joe Kennedy
(A Note of Explanation: This story was written more years ago than we wish to remember - for the Ann-ish of Cosmic Dust, I imagine ... anyway it didn't come out so we're presenting for the first time (I hope) the great tale of adventure which was believed lost to the eyes of fankind ...... Ed.)
ABOUT THE AUTHORS ...
Mr Wiedbottom, as you no doubt know, is one of the biggest men in fandom. He has written many books most of which are now in the hands of collectors ... Kennedy is some obscure fan from New Jersey. He is believed to have had some connection with the now defunct TTTT.
The Story
Clinton MacFurson beamed with pride as he stepped into the bar. He was dressed in a flashy new suit that bespoke his newly acquired fortune. "Scotch and soda," he told the bar-tender. Then he turned and searched the faces of the crowd for someone he knew. He grinned as he recognized Harry Bemly, an old college friend.
"Hi ya, Harry," he called. Hearing his name, Harry turned to the bar.
"Clint! You old sonofagun! How are ya?" With rapid steps he pushed thru the crowd. They shook hands heartily, grins splitting their faces. The bartender brought the drink and MacFurson ordered another for Harryl.
"Boy, yer sure lookin' good," said Harry. "Hear ya struck it rich. Who was it? An uncle?"
MacFurson shook his head. "Nope! My aunt. Left me a cupla million. Com'on. We gotta celebrate an' this is no place to do it."
They left the bar and walked down the street. Suddenly MacFurson stopped. "Hey! Whadda we walking for? I'm rich now!" So saying, he hailed a taxi, and giving the driver the address of the 49 Club, he settled back and enjoyed a cigar.
"Here we are, Mister," the taxi driver interrupted their conversation. MacFurson tipped him and they strolled leisurely into the club.
"Order all ya want, Harry," said Clint. "We can eat our fill tonite." And eat they did. Two hours and seven servings later two groaning but smiling men made their way into the street. A taxi took them to MacFurson's home. Harry Bemly hardly recognized it.
"Boy! You've sure fixed this place up. Yeah man!!!"
"Well, why not?" queried MacFurson. "I'm rich, ain't I?"
"You sure must be," was all Harry could say.
All the old furnishings were gone and some of the most expensive substituted. The walls were newly painted, in fact, everything was new.
"Have a seat, Harry." MacFurson motioned to a chair. "I got something to show ya."
"Yeah, Wot?"
"Wait. I'll get it." MacFurson disappeared thru a door. A minute later he returned with a queer looking contraption in his arms. "This!" he said triumphantly.
"That?"
"This!"
"Uh, wot is it?" Harry was stupified.
"Why, it's a ultra-beam deflector. Don'tcha recognize it?"
"Frankly, no. You wouldn't object by any chance, to my asking wot's it do?"
"Not at all, Harry, not at all. But I'm surprised that you don't see its purpose."
"Uh yes," said Harry, "I guess I'm just stupid."
"I guess you are," grinned MacFurson.
"Look, I still wanna see wot's it do. Ya gonna show me or not?" asked Harry good-naturedly.
"Okay, just hold yer horses. Here ... gimme a hand."
Harry crossed the room to where MacFurson was and helped him set up the apparatus.
"Looks like a lotta junk to me." scoffed Harry. MacFurson just grinned and went about his work with Harry getting in the way trying to help.
"Here, hold this a minit. There, now we're all set."
"Wot ever it is it won't work, I'll bet."
"Whadda ya mean 'wot ever it is'? I told you it was an ultra-beam deflector. Com're. Stand over here. There. Now be still and I'll show ya." Clint moved to the machine and his hands darted over the various controls. As his fingers touched the activating stud Harry Bemly began to glow. He started to utter a startled exclamation but before the sound reached his lips he was ... gone! Then from the next room came a shout. The door burst open and in strode Harry, his face a mixture of surprise and anger. "Hey, Wassa idea? You think yer funny?"
"Ha ha! Boy! I wish you could see your face! Oh, ho ho!!"
"Cut it out 'fore I bash you one," stormed Harry. Then quieting down, "Say wot's that thing anyhow?"
"I tole you. It's a ultra-beam deflector. I don't know exactly how it works. I just put it together according to some plans an old feller sold me. All I know is that it deflects wot ever it's directed at. Just like it deflected you into the other room."
"Just like that, eh? Hmmmmmm. Ya know, ya got something here."
"That's wot I been tellin' ya Stoop. It's hot stuff!"
"Ya ain't told me no such thing. All ya said is 'watch'."
"All right. Let's don't argue. The fact is remaining that we've, ya notice I said we, got something here. Yeah, I'm cuttin' ya in. We been pals a long time an' I want cha to share muh fortune with me. Now lissen; here's what we're gonna do ..."
-------------
On Mars things were running peacefully. That is until one day when the Minister of Police came running into the throne room of Emperor Schmoor Poorr III, his tendrils quivering.
"Yer Madjesty! Yer Madjesty! Two monsters are running loose around the Royal Park! Queer looking things with two legs! Two legs you hear? TWO LEGS!!!"
Emperor Schmoor-poorr III looked over the rims of his five-lens spectacles at the trembling minister.
"Two legs?" he asked, "Come now, Bromo-Tal, don't be preposterous. Who ever heard of a being, even a beast, with two legs? Humm?" and so saying he coiled his 15 legs in a more comfortable position. "Calm down now and tell me just what they look like."
"Well, yer Madjesty, as I sed, they have two legs on which they walk. And instead of tenacles they have strange two-jointed limbs ... and a head with only two eyes and a queer opening in the face under two sort of slits in a protruding piece of flesh." He concluded with a sigh, tendrils twitching.
"Hummm. Strange indeed. And you say they are loose in the Royal Park? Hummm. Well, you must capture them at once." As the words faded from the Emperor's antenna Bromo-Tal shakily left the room.
Soon he re-entered and approached Schmoor-poorr III. "It is done, yer Madjesty. They are in the royal cage. Wot shall I do with them?"
"Bring the cage to me. I wish to see these strange monsters."
In the royal cage the "strange monsters" were talking.
"Ya mean ta stand there and tell me ya can unnerstand wot they're sayin'?" Harry's voice was strongly weighed with doubt.
"Sure."
"How?"
"With this. MacFerson indicated a small box. "It's plans came along with the plans for the ultra-beam deflector. It's a speech interpreter. The fella gave it to me in case I went to a foreign country."
"But I ain't heard 'em say anything yet."
"Stoop! They don't 'say' anything. They communicate with brain waves. Didn't cha see them antenna?"
"Issat wot they're for?" asked Harry.
"Sure, Wot'd ya think?"
"I thot they were for decoration, mebbe ..."
"Stupid. I ... wait! They're sendin' again. We're to be taken ta see the Emperor ... er at least for him to see us. I thot that would happen."
Five Martian guards took hold of the cage and rolled it into the throne room. As the ponderous cage rolled along the carpeted floor the Emperor was momentarily impressed by the thot that he was losing his sanity. Yet ... oh, blast it all! Two-legged beings were an utter impossibility. Long years (on Mars the term is dfroghua) ago the great scientist Klar-Agon had conclusively proven that any form of Martian life other than the familiar 15-leg species was sheerly incredible ... why the natural forces that rule supreme would never, no, never allow such a thing.
And yet the creatures in the cage were definitely an unmistakably bi-peds. Emperor Schmoor-poorr III could not do anything but take the evidence of his five good eyes for granted.
"Fugroorobliaag," he ordered to the liqour-bearer standing by his side.
The liqour-bearer immediately handed him a serving of a vile-tasting amber fluid of undenyable potency. The perspiring monarch downed the tumbler, groaned and ordered another.
Harry observed the process with interest. "Hey," he commented, licking his lips, "I wish they'd pass that stuff around to their guests."
"Shaddup," said MacFurson, "Y'know, to them we're nothing but monsters. Peculiar alien monsters. To them we seem strange ... yeah, it's a funny sort of thing ..."
Harry snorted. "The critter on that throne -- well, I wouldn't call him Dorothy Lamour."
Regaining a shread of his lost dignity with the aid of fugroorobliaag, the Emperor rose unsteadily to his feet, all fifteen of them.
"Hrrrumph," he cleared his trachea.
Harry snorted. MacFurson remained silent.
"What manner of strange curiosity have we before us?" wheezed the emperor. "Can it be some native life of Mars as yet unknown to the tireless men of research who make Martian science the greatest in the universe?"
His words were clearly intelligible to the Earthlings. "What good's that thing of yours if we can't talk back to them guys?" hissed Harry angrily.
"You mean the speech interpreter?" asked MacFurson.
"Yeah."
"But we can talk back to 'em."
"How?"
"Simple, Stoop. They're not actually speaking. As I tole ya before they're merely using brain-waves."
"Go on."
"Sure. So all we hafta do is twist this handle down another notch and we raise our own brain-waves to the plane of that energy they're usin'. In other words, er rather thots, we can talk to 'em."
"G'wan. Yer kiddin'."
"Nope."
"Then lemme try it. Lemme see if I kin talk to 'em." Harry looked dubious.
"Okay then," returned Clint, "I'm adjusting this thing so that you can talk to them. Here goes. There ... now go on, talk."
"Martians are stupid," Harry bellowed, "just a bunch of panty waists. Fifteen legged spiders. That's all they are. A bunch of brainless apes."
The courtroom was in an uproar. Shouts arose of "Kill the intruders" ... "Daring to insult the sacred Martian culture" ... "The beautiful Martian fifteen legged body" ... "Puny bi-peds" ... "How can they stand on their silly little legs?" ... "Insult us, will they?" ... "Are we gonna let 'em get away with that?" ... "We'll show 'm" ... "Cast 'em into space" ... "That'll fix 'em!"
"Gaw," whispered Harry, "Did I do that?"
"Ouch," MacFurson groaned. He ran his fingers thru his hair. "You ....." His remark ended in a hopeless sputter. "Can't ya have some sense once in a while?"
Two revolutions of Mars passed. Harry and Clint found themselves strapped firmly upon the outer shell of a large rocket. A robed and wigged Martian was droning out in a flat voice ... "...And since the prescribed method of Martian law, instituted by the all-wise and knowing Ghloc-quertfdg IV½ is unanimously stated by the consulars as being; the convicted parties shall be shot into outer space by means of rocket where they shall meet doom by freezing cold, lack of air, and similar conditions as solemnly stated and reverently determined in part 54689¾ , sector ghy-1-xyb-cubed__and may almighty Glopp have mercy upon their unfortunate suols ..."
"Damn it," said Harry.
"Shaddap," said MacFurson.
Glumly they watched the fuse of the rocket grow uncomfortably short. Abruptly it was no more. There was a great cry of approval from the assembled Martians as the projectile was hurled skyward with enormous velocity.
Harry and Clint were conscious of great speed. The rocket revolved. They noted that they were growing dizzy. The surrounding air became colder. And colder.
"Ulp," gulped Harry.
They soon found difficulty in breathing. The rocket was reaching the last atmospheric region of the red planet and icy gales whizzed about. The rocket's passengers found themselves becoming coated with sub-zeroic ice.
"I have an invention that can create artificial heat, air, and water ..." gasped MacFurson. "I got it from the same place that the ultra-beam deflector and the speech interpreter came from ..."
"Great!" cried Harry with relief. "Where is it?"
"In the place where the other stuff came from," said MacFurson.
That was the last thing Harry knew before the rocket broke the last trailing bonds of gravity and plunged into outer space.
THE END
Data entry by Judy Bemis
Updated July 16, 2001. If you have a comment about these web pages please send a note to the Fanac Webmaster. Thank you.