by Earl
Grins answered me. And then murmurs arose.
“It talks, fellows.”
“Up from the canals!”
“Is that thing alive?”
One of the boys stepped forward. He was about sixteen, with blue eyes that were mocking.
“I’m Tom Blaine, senior classman. Tel! me, sir, is it true that Mars is inhabited?”
It was rather a cruel reception, though merely another prank. I waved my two tentacles in distress for a moment, hardly knowing what to do or say next.
“Boys! Gentlemen!”
A grown man with gray hair came hurrying up from one of the buildings. The boys parted to let him through. He extended a hand to me, introducing himself.
“Robert Graham, Dean of Caslon. You’re Professor Mun Zeerohs, of course.” He turned, facing the group reprovingly. “This is your new instructor, gentlemen. He will teach interplanetary history and the Martian language.”
A groan went up. I knew why, of course. The Martian tongue has two case endings to every one in Latin.
“Now, gentlemen, this is for your own good,” Dean Graham continued sternly. “Remember your manners. I’m sure you’ll like our new professor—”
“I’m Sure we won’t!” It was Tom Blaine again. Behind him, an air of hostility replaced the less worrisome mockery. “We’ve never had a Martian teacher before, and we don’t want one!”
“Don’t want one?” The dean, was more aghast than I.
“My father says Martians are cowards,” Tom Blaine continued loudly, “He ought to know. He’s in the Space Patrol. He says that in the War, the Martians captured Earthmen and cut them to pieces slowly. First their hands, then—”
“Nonsense!” Dean Graham snapped. “Besides, the War is over. Martians are in the Space Patrol, too. Now no more argument. Go to your dormitory. Professor Zeerohs will begin conducting class tomorrow morning. Oscar, take the professor’s bag to his quarters.”
OSCAR, the school’s menial robot, obediently stalked forward and picked up the bag. Somehow, I felt almost a warm tide of friendship for the robot. In his mechanical, rudimentary reflex mind, it was all the same to him—Martian or Earthman. He made no discrimination against me, as these human boys did.
As Oscar turned, Tom Blaine stood as though to block the way. Having his orders, the robot brushed past him. A metal elbow accidentally jabbed the boy in the ribs. Deciding against grabbing the bag away from steel fingers, Tom Blaine picked up a stone and flung it clanging against the robot’s metal body. Another dent was added to the many I could see over Oscar’s shiny form.
The rebellion was over—for the time being.
I realized that the boys were still hostile as I followed the dean to his rooms. My shoulders seemed to droop a little more.
“Don’t mind them,” the dean was saying apologetically. “They’re usually outspoken at that age. They’ve never had a Martian teacher before, you see.”
“Why have you engaged one for the first time?” I asked.
Graham answered half patronizingly, half respectfully.
“Many other schools have tried Martian teachers, and found them highly satisfactory.” He didn’t think it necessary to add, “And cheaper.”
I sighed. Times had been hard on Mars lately, with so many dust storms raging up and down the canal regions, withering the crops. This post on Earth, though at a meager salary, was better than utter poverty. I was old and could live cheaply. Quite a few Martians had been drifting to Earth, since the War. By nature, we are docile, industrious, intelligent, and make dependable teachers, engineers, chemists, artists.
“They always haze the new teachers,” Dean Graham said, smiling uneasily. “Your first class is at nine o’clock tomorrow morning. Interplanetary History.”
Freshened after a night’s sleep, I entered the class room with enthusiasm for my new job, A hundred cold, unfriendly eyes watched me with terrifying intensity.
“Good morning,” I greeted as warmly as I could.
“Good morning, Professor Zero!” a chorus bellowed back, startling me.
So the hazing campaign was still on. No, I wouldn’t correct them. After all, even the Martian children I had taught had invariably tagged me with that name.
I glanced around the room, approving its high windows and controlled sunlight. My eyes came to rest on the blackboard behind me. A chalk drawing occupied its space. It depicted, with some skill, a Martian crouching behind an Earthman. Both were members of the Space Patrol and apparently were battling some space desperado. It was young Tom Blaine’s work, no doubt. His father claimed all Martians to be cowards and weaklings.
MY leathery face showed little of my feelings as I erased the humiliating sketch. Ignoring the snickers behind me, I grasped two pieces of chalk in both tentacles, writing with one and listing dates with the other.
1945—Discovery of anti-grav force, on Earth
1955—First space flight
1978—Earthmen claim all planets
1992—Pioneer-wave to Mars
2011—Rebellion and war
2019—Mars wins freedom
2040—Earth-Mars relations friendly today
“Interplanetary History,” I began my lecture, “centers about these dates and events. Not till Nineteen fifty-five were Earth people assured that intelligent beings had built the mysterious canals of Mars. Nor were we Martians positive till then that the so-called Winking Lights of your cities at night denoted the handiwork of thinking creatures.
The exploring Earthmen of the last century found only the Martians equal to them in intelligence. Earth has its great cities, and Mars has its great canal-system, built ten thousand Martian years ago. Civilization began on Mars fifty centuries previous to that, before the first glimmering of it on Earth—”
“See, fellows?” Tom Blaine interrupted loudly. “I told you all they like to do is rub that in.” He became mockingly polite. “Please, sir, may I ask why you brilliant Martians had to wait for Earthmen to open up space travel?”
I was shocked, but managed to answer patiently.
“We ran out of metal deposits for building, keeping our canals in repair. Our history has been a constant struggle against the danger of extinction. In fact, when Earth pioneers migrated in Nineteen ninety-two, it was just in time to patch up the canals and stave off a tremendous famine for Mars.”
“And that was the appreciation Earth got,” the boy charged bitterly. “Rebellion!”
“You forget that the Earth pioneers on Mars started the rebellion against taxation, and fought side by side with us—”
“They were traitors,” he stated bluntly.
I hurdled the point, and continued the lecture.
“Mars won its independence after a nine-year struggle—”
Again I was interrupted.
“Not won. Earth granted independence, though it could have won easily.”
“At any rate,” I resumed quietly, “Earth and Mars today, in Twenty-forty, are amicable, and have forgotten that episode.”
“We haven’t forgotten!” Tom Blaine cried angrily. “Every true Earthman despises Martians.”
He sat down amidst a murmur of defiant approval from the others. I knew my tentacles hung limply. How aggressive and intolerant Earth people were! It accounted for their domination of the Solar System. A vigorous, pushing race, they sneered at the Martian ideals of peaceful culture. Their pirates, legal and otherwise, still roamed the spaceways for loot.
YOUNG Tom Blaine was representative of the race. He was determined to make things so miserable here for me that I would quit He was the leader of the upper-class boys. Strange, that Earthpeople always follow one who is not wise, but merely compelling. There would have to be a test of authority, I told myself with a sinking heart.
“I am the teacher,” I reminded him. “You are the pupil, Mr. Blaine.”
“Oh, yes, sir,” he retorted in false humility. “But you’d better teach history right, Professor Nothing, or not at all!”
I hastily switched to the Martian language.
“The Martian language as is well known, is today the official language of science and trade,” I went on guardedly. “Through long usage, the tongue has become perfected. Official Earth English is comparatively cumbersome. For instance, the series of words meaning exaggerated size—big, large, great, huge, enormous, mighty, cyclopean, gargantuan. Is ‘big’ more than ‘large’, or less? You cannot tell. In Martian, there is one root, with a definite progression of size suffixes.”
I wrote on the blackboard.
bol, bola, boli, bolo, bolu—bolas, bolis, bolos, bolus—bolasa, bolisi, boloso, bolusu
“Martian is a scientific language, you see.”
“Bragging again,” sneered a voice.
An eraser sailed toward me just as I turned from the board. It struck full in my face in a cloud of chalk-dust. As if at a signal, a barrage of erasers flew at me. They had been sneaked previously from the boards around the classroom. I stood helplessly, desperately warding off the missile with my tentacles. The boys were yelling and hooting, excited by the sport.
The pandemonium abruptly stopped as Oscar stumped into the room. His mechanical eyes took in the scene without emotion. One belated eraser flew toward him. His steel arm reflexively raised, caught it, then hurled it back with stunning force. To a robot, anything that came toward it must be returned, unless otherwise commanded. Tom Blaine yelped as the eraser bounced off his forehead.
“Dean Graham,” said Oscar like a phonograph, “wants to know if everything is going along smoothly.”
I could see the boys hold their breaths. Oscar went the rounds daily, asking that routine question in all the classes. If this disturbance were reported, the boys would lose an afternoon of freedom.
“Everything is well,” I murmured, though for a moment I was sadly tempted to take revenge. “You may go, Oscar.”
With a click of internal relays, the robot left impassively. He had seen or heard nothing, without being otherwise commanded.
“Afraid to report it, eh?” Tom Blaine jeered. “I told you Martians are yellow!”
It was more than gravity now that made my shoulders sag. I dreaded the days that must follow.
EVEN outside the classroom, I was hounded. I can use only that word. Tom Blaine thought of the diabolical trick of deliberately spilling a glass of water before my eyes.
“Don’t—don’t!” I instinctively groaned, clutching at the glass.
“What’s the matter, Professor?” he asked blandly. “This is nothing but water.”
“It’s sacrilege—”
I stopped there. They wouldn’t understand. How horrible to see water spill to the ground in utter waste! For ten thousand years, on Mars, that precious fluid has been the object of our greatest ingenuity. It hurt to see it wantonly flung away, as they might flinch if blood were shed uselessly before them.
As I stumbled away from their laughter, I heard Tom Blaine confide to his cohorts:
“I got the idea last night, looking in his room. He was playing with a bowl of water. Running it through his fingers, like a miser. I’ve got another idea, fellows. Follow me to the kitchen.
I wasn’t aware till half through the solitary evening meal in my rooms that the food tasted odd. It was salty! The boys had stolen into the kitchen and salted my special saltless foods. My stomach revolted against the alien condiment. Mars’ seas, from which our life originated long ago, held no sodium chloride, only magnesium chloride, with which all Martian food is “salted”. I went to bed, groaning with a severe headache and upset stomach from an outraged metabolism. Worse, it rained that night. I tried to shut my ears to that pattering sound. Millions of gallons of water were going to waste, while millions of Martians on my home world, were painfully hoarding water for their thirsty crops.
The pains eased before morning. What torment would Tom Blaine and his relentless pack think of next? The answer came when I found my spectacles missing. My eyes were almost blinded that day, more from glare than senile failing of vision. They watered and blinked in light that was fifty per cent stronger than on more remote Mars.
“Lower the blinds, Oscar,” I ordered the robot when he appeared as usual.
“But, Professor,” Tom Blaine protested, jumping up as though waiting for the moment, “think of our eyes. We can’t read our lessons in the dark.”
“Never mind, Oscar,” I said wearily. The robot stood for a moment, relays clashing at the reversed orders. When he finally left, he seemed to shrug at the strange doings of his masters, Earthmen and Martians alike.
“Have you any idea where my glasses are, Mr. Blaine?” I asked in direct appeal. I tried not to sound timid.
“No, of course not,” he retorted virtuously.
I nodded to myself and reached for the lower left-hand drawer of my desk, then changed my mind.
“Will you all help me look for them?” I pleaded.
THEY ransacked the desk with deliberate brutality.
“Why, here they are, Professor!” Tom held them up from the lower left-hand drawer in mock triumph. I put them on with trembling hands.
“How careless of me to leave them here yesterday.” I smiled. “One must have a sense of humor about these things. Now we will decline the verb krun, to move.”
I went on as though nothing had happened, but my whole head ached from hours of straining my eyes against the cruel glare.
That night, utterly exhausted, I went to bed only to find my anti-gravity unit jammed, obviously by human-hands. One of my few pleasures was the ability to sink into restful slumber in the low-gravity field, after suffering the tug of Earth gravity at my vitals all day. Earthmen on Jupiter know how agonizing it becomes.
I passed a sleepless night, panting and aching under what grew to be the pressure of a mountain. How could I go on against such heartlessness? Tom Blaine and his friends were ruthlessly determined to drive out their despised Martian teacher. If I complained to Dean Graham, it would be an admission of cowardice. I didn’t want to betray my race. But I was miserably aware that I had not a single friend in the academy.
Oscar appeared in the morning, with a message from Dean Graham. The mechanical servant waited patiently to be told to go. When I swayed a little, he caught me. His reflexes had been patterned not to let things fall.
“Thank you, Oscar.” I found my hand on the robot’s shiny hard shoulder. It was comfortingly firm. “You’re my only friend, Oscar. At least, you’re not my enemy. But what am I saying? You’re only a machine. You may go, Oscar.”
The message read:
Today and tomorrow, are examination days. Use the enclosed forms. At three o’clock today, all classes will foe excused to the Television Auditorium.
The examinations were routine. Despite my unrested body and mind, I felt an uplift of spirit. My class would do well. I had managed, even against hostility, to impart a sound understanding of Interplanetary History and the Martian language.
I looked, almost proudly over the bowed,” laboring heads. Suddenly I stiffened.
“Mr. Henderson,” I said gently, “I wouldn’t try that if I were you.”
The boy flushed, hastily crammed into his pockets the notes he had been copying from. Then he gaped up in amazement. Tom Blaine, at the desk beside him, also looked up startled. The question was plain in his eyes. How could I know that Henderson was cheating, when even Tom, sitting next to him hadn’t suspected?
“You forget,” I explained hesitantly, “that Martians use telepathy at will.”
Tom Blaine stared, his mouth hanging open. Then he jumped up.
“Are we going to stand for that? Spying on us, even in our minds—” He gasped at a sudden thought. “You knew all the time about the glasses. You didn’t expose me.” He flushed, but in anger rather than embarrassment. “You made a fool of me!”
“One must have a sense of humor about those things,” I said lamely.
The rest of the examination period passed in brist
ling silence. More than ever, now, they were hostile to me. More than ever would they show their antagonism. How could I ever hope to win them, if patience was taken for cowardice, understanding for malice, and telepathy for deliberate spying?
Why had I ever left Mars, to come to this alien, heart-breaking world?
AT three o’clock, examinations were over for that day. The class filed to the Television Auditorium.
A giant screen in the darkened room displayed a drama on Venus, then news-flashes from around the system. An asteroid, scene of the latest radium rush. Ganymede, with its talking plant show. Titan’s periodic meteor shower from the rings of Saturn. A cold, dark scene on Pluto, where a great telescope was being built for interstellar observations. Finally Mars, and a file of Earthmen and Martians climbing into a sleek Space Patrol ship.
“The Patrol ship Greyhound,” inform the announcer, “is being dispatched-after pirates. Captain Henry Blaine is determined to blast them, or not come back.”
“My father,” Tom Blaine said proudly to his classmates.
“My son,” I murmured, leaning forward to watch the last of the Martians vanish within.
When the armed ship leaped into space, the television broadcast was over.
There were no more classes that day. I dragged across the campus toward the haven of my rooms, for I needed rest and quiet.
A shriek tore from my throat the instant I saw it. A horrible, wriggling snake lay in my path! It was only a small, harmless garden snake, my reason told me. But a million years of instinct yelled danger, death! I stumbled and fell, trying to run against gravity that froze my muscles. I shrank from the squirming horror as it stopped and defiantly darted out its forked tongue.
The outside world burst into my conscienceness with a thunderclap of laughter. Tom Blaine was holding up the wriggling snake. Once the first shock was over, I managed to keep my nerves in check.
“It’s only a garter snake,” he mocked. “Sorry it frightened you.”
But what would they say if a hungry, clawing tiger suddenly appeared before them? How would they fed? I left without a word, painfully compelling my trembling limbs to move.