by Don Wilcox
“He’s going to take notes.” . . . “How’s this for headlines? University Professor Glorifies Carnival’s Venus Man.” . . . “Why not make it Crackpot Professor?” . . . “How’s this? Tax Dollars Support Sensation Seeking Ethnologist.” . . . “For his daughter’s sake I hate to do it. The minute we build a fire under him he’s on a toboggan.”. . . “Hell, it’s a story—a mine of ’em—rich in political smear—” Overpowering anger swept through me.
I lifted Windy’s megaphone and sent a whisper to his ear as he entered the pen to make his announcement. He nodded and went into his phonographic roar. I controlled myself, listened.
“. . . And here he stands, ladies and gentlemen, ready to demonstrate the physical prowess of the Earths sister planet by wrestling a chimpanzee—no, not a gorilla, because he put the only available gorilla out of commission last week—but the strongest and toughest chimp this side of the Rockies—and wrestle him, mind you, with one hand tied behind his back . . .”
Above the cheering I could imagine a trembling of earth beneath my feet as of an invisible something of great weight being dropped—my speech. But now I was glad. Yes, this would do.
With one hand tied behind me I wrestled the capricious chimp. Together we gave the funniest and most exciting match of our teamed career. I kept it going until everyone was splitting sides with laughter—everyone but Professor Neff and poor Pauline!
The professor thrust his notebook in his pocket and walked out. Pauline, on the verge of crying, followed him. That gave me an electric shudder that almost paralyzed me, for I knew she would never have any faith in a venusian again. I kept going, somehow, and finally I locked the chimp in a corner and held him there long enough to cock an ear toward the three reporters.
“. . . join you birds around the bonfire . . . burn up those no-good headlines. . . You won’t catch Neff falling for any cheap hoax . . .”
Then I knew everything was all right—for Pauline and her father. As for me—well, it didn’t make any difference.
Late that night I looked at the planet Venus through the carnival telescope and came to a decision. Homesickness did it.
CHAPTER IX
Whom to Kidnap?
Whom to take with me? I knew only a few well enough to justify their consideration: the carnival people—Windy and the big boss and the Polish acrobats and a few other staunch friends; and my mountain friends—Prentice, John Vonada, Pauline and her father. Beyond these, my prospects could be counted on the fingers of one hand.
My choice may not have been a perfect one. In four years I may not have been treated to a perfectly balanced view of the Earth world.
I might have chosen Lieutenant John Vonada. Venus couldn’t ask for a finer specimen of Earth’s manhood, a master of skills and daring. But the Earth needed John too much at this time. He couldn’t be spared.
Nor could I take his sweetheart. She was his great reason for fighting. Together they were a unit of the Earth’s truest happiness, which I hadn’t the heart to break.
But there was Paline’s father, a man of great learning, who would have much of interest to give my people. I pondered this matter for a long time. The choice wasn’t right. Somehow Professor Neff’s understanding of his own world had been too much pared down by rules of logic and sliced into statistical tables.
Frank Prentice? A wonderful fellow. But how would he thrive if he were uprooted from his own solid and substantial mountain doorstep? What but punishment would it be to surround him with millions of people imbued with the doctrines of pluuvonng?
Thus by a process of elimination my choice was made.
That night I awakened Windy McKean and asked him if he’d like to ramble up the mountain and have a look at my hidden ship.
There were some taverns along the way, and it was high noon the next day when we reached the black fiber ladder. I followed him up to the shelf.
“I see you got stout and busted your ladder on that last step,” said Windy as he crawled over the edge of rock.
“I don’t remember breaking it,” I said. But there was no denying that the fiber had been broken and tied together at the last crossrope. A chill struck my spine. “The ship—is it there?”
I leaped onto the shelf, raced past Windy, threw aside the first screen of boughs.
“Must be something holding all those limbs up,” said Windy. “But I’ll still be surprised if you’ve got a ship. Well, blow me down. Live and learn.”
I tossed the screens of boughs aside, and the familiar metallic gleam met my eyes. There she stood in all her glory, ready to take my passenger and me—but someone else was there!
“Hello, George. We’re waiting for you. Hope you don’t mind.”
It was Frank Prentice. He stepped around the nose of the ship and came toward me. Somehow I wasn’t surprised, at least not shocked. Somehow
I wanted him to know—to see for himself this space conqueror that I had kept secret from him.
It was good to see that old friendly smile again. “Frank, how did you know to come here? When did you what I intended to—”
But now I was surprised, for with him came Pauline and her father, and the doctor who had once bandaged my arm, and two state policemen in blue uniforms, and a newsman with a camera. They swarmed around like a surprise birthday party.
“A whole carnival crowd,” Windy muttered. “And me with not even a bag of popcorn to sell.”
I must have been unconsciously retreating toward the ladder, for in the confusion of this moment I remember that Pauline came running toward me, beckoning with both hands and calling to me not to leave.
“We have big news for you, George. We’ve all had a share in it—Uncle Frank and Dad and all the rest. I think you’ll like it.”
“I think I know,” I murmured with not much of my deep voice coming through. “You’re going to send me to an institution?”
“To one of the world’s greatest,” said Frank, smiling. “To the nation’s capital at Washington. You have an appointment with the Secretary of State. He wishes to meet the Ambassador from Venus.”
For a second time on the Earth I came very near to fainting. Windy had something in a bottle that he poured on a handkerchief to cool my face. Shortly after that I heard him mutter some derogatory remarks about the highbrow society of Washington. No, thanks, he wouldn’t care for the space ship ride with us to meet the Secretary of State. He climbed down the ladder and was gone.
The Washington welcome was all that any ambassador from any planet in the universe could ask for. All at once the invitations were pouring in from all sides. The newspapers were screaming their sensational headlines, and the pictures of the Secretary of State and I were everywhere. It was uncanny. The whole world seemed suddenly electrified by the fact that I had cruised through space from Venus to the Earth—the very fact that I had been telling people for months and months! It had filtered through, at last. Once the scientists had feasted their eyes upon my ship (through the courtesy of Frank Prentice) they had wasted not a minute in putting me over with Washington!
Of the hundreds of photographs that came out of two busy weeks of welcome, my three favorites were, first, the one of Pauline and Prentice standing in amazement behind a table heaped high with mail and telegrams; second, the picture of Windy McKean standing out in front of my carnival tent looking up at the incredible art, trying to convince himself that he had known all along; and third, the photo that I’ve just received by radio of the Secretary of State and myself, snapped as we were stepping aboard for a bit of joyride.
Well, people of America, please don’t be angry. Any good Washington official deserves a little relaxation now and then. And this secretary was such a congenial gentleman that all at once it came to me that here was the very man to extend official greetings to Venus.
So we’re merrily on our way. And if you’ll forgive me for this act of kidnapping, we’ll come back again some day.
That growl you hear is the secretary. This escapade wasn�
��t his idea, and he’s trying to tell me it’s unconstitutional. But he’ll be all right as soon as he gets to Venus and tries our osserfeli steaks—unrationed!
THE SERPENT HAS FIVE FANGS
First published in Fantastic Adventures, December 1945
Here, high in the hills, were weird men of magic—and also a strange serpent that had five fangs, each of which could sting!
CHAPTER I
I slew this wandering medicine man in self-defense. If Sandra and I could have dodged his arrows, he might have lived. But the mountain path was narrow. We were caught in the line of death!
It all happened so quickly. We came upon him unexpectedly. He was alone—a picturesque figure in black plumes, mask, animal skins as brown as his body, and white bone ornaments. He had stopped by the path to rest. At the sight of us he leaped to his feet.
“He’s scared, too, John,” Sandra said. “Maybe you can soothe him.”
“Maybe,” I said, “if he doesn’t start soothing us with those deadly arrows.” I started toward him. I didn’t realize, then, that he was a man of magic. And of course he didn’t know what we were; no such creatures as Americans had ever crossed his path before.
His wits failed him. Instead of attacking us with magic, he grabbed his bow. I kept moving toward him. I was about twenty yards away, when—
Zing! . . . Zing! . . . Zing!
The arrows came thick and fast. We jumped for the cover of tree trunks.
Zing! A wisp of Sandra’s dark red hair jumped. She stifled a scream. And that was when I lost my temper and opened up with my pistol.
I fired three shots to make the ground jump before his feet. Meaningless to him. He didn’t know enough to take warning. I had to give him the real McCoy. Straight at his body.
Crack!
One of the rib ornaments of his breastplate popped, into two dangling halves. Red blood oozed from between them. His bow slipped from his hands. The released arrow slithered harmlessly along the ground. He fell forward, yelping, staggering like a wounded antelope. Kerthump! As he rolled to the edge of the path, Death rolled with him.
“Clean through the heart!” Sandra ran forward and tackled him by the knees before he could tumble down the steep embankment of green jungle. “I’ve got him, John. Look out for the blood.”
“Nice tackle, partner.” I plugged the bullet hole with something from the first aid kit. I tried not to appear excited. Actually my heart was knocking. I picked him up in my arms.
“What are you going to do with him, John?”
“Remove him from this path,” I said. “This is a heavy-duty highway for these parts. The next man who comes this way might be a cousin to this old boy. And then what happens to our plan to make the Wednesday Clipper?”
Sandra kicked dust over the blood that was spilt on the path. Then, catching up with me, she took a curious interest in the costume of my victim.
“When I get back home,” she said, “that native dance ensemble I traded for is going to make a hit with our friends. Now if you had some native clothes too—”
“Keep a sharp lookout,” I said. “I thought I heard some voices down that valley.”
“If you weren’t so dignified,” said Sandra, “I know a way that we could by-pass all those dangerous Kazzwarts between here and the coast that Parroko was telling us about.”
“What’s your scheme?”
“I dress in my, savage dance clothes, and you put on this man’s skins and feathers. We could move past the village incognito.”
“With our white arms and knees? You’re being funny.”
“We could stain ourselves with wild grapes, and nobody could tell from a distance . . .”
With this suggestion, my adventurous young wife gave me a quick smile, a mixture of challenge and mischief. I could just see her telling our college friends all about it. If she realized the seriousness of the thing I had done, she didn’t show it. But there’s nothing faint-hearted about Sandra. If there had been, we’d never have brought ourselves to this jungle—against the advice of a prominent ethnologist who happens to be her father.
“Do you have the recordings?” I called to her as I led the way up the slope that overhung the path.
“I’ve got everything,” she said. “Where you lead, I follow. But whither bound, my one-notch hero?”
“We’re going up into the thicket long enough to remove this bird’s Sunday suit. I’m going to make a change.”
“Me too?”
“You too. And we’ll give ourselves a couple coats of grape-stain—if you’ll promise not to mistake me for our friend Parroko.”
“Parroko was handsome,” Sandra cracked. “You’ll just be John to me.”
“Just John, the dignified director of musical research, among the primitives,” I sighed.
“No,” Sandra straightened with a hint of serious pride. “John with the nerve to shoot when the arrows start flying. John with one notch in his gun. John that will be a hero when he gets back—”
“Go gather some grapes, Sandra. We’ve no time to lose.”
I removed the white mask from the dead native’s face and proceeded to undress him. His costume was something, all right. The sort of thing museums go in for.
I wished we might have collected his bows and arrows while we were at it. But our job was to travel light. In the past five hours of swift hiking we’d had to cast off all the surplus baggage; for we were returning by a shortcut.
Our interest in primitive music had brought us to this bit of South Pacific jungle. Now, after three days in a bamboo village to the east of this mountain pass, we were returning with nothing but the priceless treasure we had come for: twenty-five recordings. Two-stringed lutes, weird voices, unbelievable rhythms, and the strangest harmonies from five-holed flutes—these would find their way into the Library of Congress, we hoped.
A delayed boat had abbreviated our visit. As a result we had done a hit and run. We had hit up a friendship with the east villages long enough to get our recordings. We had run as soon as some of the deadly Hazzwarts, from this side of the mountain, had appeared on the scene to make trouble for the east villagers.
Zooming west, then, we were taking our chances. No guide would have advised this shortcut. Parroko, the one friendly Hazzwart we had contacted, told us it was risky. But we knew there was no other way to make the clipper port by Wednesday, two days hence.
Our recording equipment? We had had to walk off from it—hundreds of dollars worth of it. But this compact package of discs was the thing. To get back with it I would even throw away my clothes, don a native costume, and paint my skin with grape juice.
Sandra came running back to me with a few bunches of grapes in her hands.
“Natives coming up from the valley, John. You don’t suppose they heard your shots?”
“It’s possible.”
“You don’t think they saw us?
They’re only a half mile—”
“We’d better hurry—wait! Load up everything and we’ll move farther on.
Away from the path—”
“To the grapes—I saw some up the slope—this way.”
We left the naked corpse in the thicket. With every effort to leave no foottracks, we clambered upward over rocks and roots to a place out of sight of the path, where the wild grapes were plentiful.
“Aren’t you going to change, Sandra?”
For a moment she didn’t answer. She was examining the white mask and the black plumed headdress. A look of alarm lighted her face. She took a pamphlet from her pocket—something her father had written about the manners, customs, and language of this section of the world.
“John!”
“What’s the matter?”
“This man you’ve killed.”
“What about him?”
“I think he’s a Kisqv.”
“Weil, whatever he is, he’ll stay dead.”
“But he’s a Kisqv, John, a Kisqv!”
CHAPTER II
I Turn “Kisqv.”
It seemed to me I had read about it somewhere. Maybe in one of Sandra’s father’s books on ethnology. The word had a familiar ring—no, not ring. You can’s make a word like “Kisqv” ring. My interest in music and musical words is probably the very reason I hadn’t remembered this word.
“What, my dear, is a Kisqv?” I had trouble saying it. You have to say “Kiss” and sneeze like a baby kitten at the same time.
“A Kisqv is a wandering medicine man. He moves from one Hazzwart tribe to another and everyone honors him. He always has a wonderful reputation for magic.”
“Do they honor him for the magic—or the reputation?”
“That’s beside the point, my dear. You know you can’t discredit magic if the whole tribe believes in it . . . Oh, John!”
Sandra looked a bit terrified, arid yet a little proud, as I dressed myself in these spectacular garments. The, breeches were complete with pockets and belts for weapons. The furry anklets tickled my shins halfway to my knees. I fastened the broken parts of the ribbed ornaments and hung the weight over my chest, though I must say I didn’t feel much safer from arrows than before.
Before donning the mask and the headdress, I went to work applying grape coloring to the exposed parts of my body.
Again we could hear the voices of the chattering Hazzwarts, somewhat nearer than before, and we suddenly remembered the Kisqv’s bow and the arrow or two that had been left in the path. Sandra said she would run down and get them while there was still time.
“Take my pistol,” I insisted. “And hurry.”
This white goatskin mask I placed over my face was an evil smelling thing, but comfortably soft against my face; the cord around the back of my head was a perfect fit. My Caucasian features were thus well concealed. So was my short, crisp blonde hair, as soon as I donned the black plumes. What a curious warmth from the colored band of this headdress as I snugged it down over my forehead.