“Your goodness will not be forgotten,” he said. “Take them all. For me they have no value.”
A small, slit-like opening opened along his middle and a handful of small dried berries that looked like raisins, except for their brilliant reddish color, tumbled out on the counter. The slit continued to widen until a large pouch like that of a kangaroo was exposed and Sammy placed the bag of candy inside it.
The little Martian was half way through an elaborate expression of thanks when he was suddenly interrupted by a tapping sound from the front window. Both he and Sammy turned to see what was happening. Their responses to what they saw were rather different.
In spite of the turned up collar of his trench coat and the pulled down brim of his slouch hat, Sammy was able to identify the man outside as Suggs, the Anti-Martian League agent. He was holding a bird cage in one hand and when he saw them looking at him he held it up so they could see what was inside.
Hanging almost motionless on two pairs of tiny fan-like wrings was a tiny reptile with a long jeweled beak and glittering scales that sent flashes of sunlight into the store, Sammy stared at it with a sudden lump in his throat. He had never seen anything so beautiful in his whole life.
Wetzle was staring too, but not in admiration.
“Make him take it away, egg-mother, or something terrible will happen!”
And just then something did. Suggs turned the cage so that the little flying reptile could look in the window. When it saw Wetzle it let out a sudden sharp scream of rage and threw itself against the bars with a violent beating of wings, a long dagger-Uke tongue darting In and out of its beak. The Martian let out a squawk of hysterical fright and flattened down on top of the showcase like a semi-collapsed football. Simultaneously a ring of tiny hose-like members erected themselves through his fur and shot a fine spray up into the air. Since Sammy was only two feet away, he got the full and immediate benefit of it.
The stench was horrible, so horrible as to make the protective scent employed by skunks seem to be attar of roses in comparison, and so strong that for a moment Sammy was too stunned to react to it. When he finally did he staggered back drunkenly, clapping both hands over nose and mouth in a vain effort to keep it out. His stomach heaved once, and then twice, and he made a sudden dive for the back room and made the nearest window.
Unheeded, the man in the trench coat climbed into a car that was parked nearby, placed the cage on the seat beside him, and drove slowly away, a satisfied smile on his ugly face.
TEN MINUTES later Sammy staggered back into the front of the store and collapsed into an old wicker chair he kept behind the counter. He’d finally adjusted to the stench to the point where each breath didn’t threaten immediate nausea but he was barely able to hold his own.
“What happened, Wetzle,” he gasped.
The little Martian hadn’t moved. He still crouched on top of the showcase, trembling half in fright and half in mortification.
“The dwirtle, the thing in the cage, made me do it,” he said miserably.
“But it wasn’t hurting you!”
“Martian people have what you call built-in defendable mechanism,” explained Wetzle in a quavering voice. “When dwirtle is commencing hunger dance the squirters goes psssst for life-saving. This dwirtle is killer bird, most dangerous thing on Mars. It stabs with tongue and is murder. Only spray from head things can drive it away. If I could have made control, it would not have happened, but head things are not part of thinker, they go off by themselves when dwirtles come,” He let out the Martian equivalent of a lugubrious sigh. “But though unwilling, I have brought upon my friends fwentok great sorrow and for this I must make expiation. I now turn off my breathers.”
The three air sacks that were spaced equidistantly around Wetzle’s body stopped their pulsing and in a matter of seconds a glaze began to steal over his eyes.
When Sammy realized what was happening, he let out a horrified yell.
“For Pete’s sake, Wetzle, don’t! I got enough troubles without having suicides in my shop yet.”
The little Martian didn’t seem to hear. The light of life had almost flickered out when Sammy grabbed him and started to shake him violently.
“Listen, dumpkof. To die isn’t helping things, it will only make matters worse for me. Your—your death will be on my fwentok. That did it. Wetzle gave a sudden gasp and his air sacks began to pump convulsively.
“Now look,” said Sammy sternly. “It wasn’t your fault, you couldn’t help it. You just sit there and don’t do nothing while I try and figure out some way to get rid of this stink.”
The first and obvious thing to do was to open the front door and air the shop out. This he did and turned on the large overhead fan to speed things up a bit.
As the Martian protective odor billowed out into the street, there were immediate violent protests from the neighbors. O’Reilly came charging over from the furniture store next door to see what was the matter, only to skid to a halt when the full force of the stench hit his nostrils.
“Hey, Rosen!” he shouted after he had retreated to a safe distance, “What’s going on over there? You got my store stunk up so bad that all my customers are running out!”
Sammy hesitated, looked at Wetzle who was still hunched up miserably on the counter, and came to a sudden decision. The Martians were having a tough enough time of it as it was. Something like this was all that was needed to tip the scales against them completely, Sammy had known what it was like to be the underdog and in spite of what had happened he felt a flush of sympathy for the unhappy little Martian.
“It’s nothing, O’Reilly,” he yelled. “I’m making a little experiment and it’s not going just like the book says. A couple more minutes and I’ll have everything under control.”
“You’d better be quick about it,” replied the other angrily, “or you’re going to have a nice law suit on your hands.”
O’Reilly wasn’t the only one who was objecting. As the stench spread up and down the street, more and more stores were involuntarily evacuated and more and more voices joined the angry chorus demanding that Sammy do something, and do it right away.
Sammy tried. He tried everything in his stock of pharmaceuticals without success and at last was reduced to the patent deodorants he carried in stock. He tried every last stick, tube, and jar but nothing did any good.
He was just moving toward the door to confess defeat and ask for suggestions when he heard the moan of a police siren coming down the street. Seconds later a squad-car came to a screeching stop right in front of the store. Two policemen came tumbling out, only to stumble to a stop and wilt as the odor hit them. Gagging and holding their noses, they scrambled back into their car and backed away until they found a spot where the stench was semi-bearable.
The driver cranked down his window a cautious half inch and shouted a stem warning to the effect that if Sammy didn’t do something about the disturbance he was causing, he was going to find himself in serious trouble.
“There’s nothing I can do,” shouted Sammy. “I’ve tried everything!”
“Then you’d better try something else,” snapped the driver. “You’re maintaining a public nuisance and if it ain’t abated within five minutes, I’m going to haul you in.”
The ultimatum was greeted by a ragged cheer from the householders who had fled the flats above the stores on each side of Sammy’s establishment. Only one tenant still remained in her quarters, a retired burlesque queen who was in the midst of a prolonged and severe attack of rose fever. Even her swollen nostrils, however, were able to pick up enough of the scent to cause her to lean out her third story window and shriek somewhat dated but nevertheless effective obscenities.
With Wetzle looking on helplessly, Sammy made one last desperate attempt at new deodorant combinations, but nothing had any effect on the horrible miasma that poured forth from the store. When five minutes by the store clock had passed, he appeared in front of his store, head hanging and feet dragging, to
surrender himself to the law.
Though innocent, Sammy was a law abiding citizen. It wasn’t his fault that he wasn’t taken into custody. But he had been thoroughly saturated by Wetzle’s protective spray and the passing of time hadn’t diminished its potency. As a result, wherever he went he was protected by an invisible barrier.
He was only half way to the squadcar when it suddenly darted away in reverse. For two blocks he followed it with the spectators retreating sullenly in front of him, but every time he got within a hundred yards, there would be a sudden whine of gears and the car would roar back to a safe distance.
The two policemen tried every way they could think of to take possession of their prisoner; they even broke out gas masks but even these didn’t help. At last they gave up and drove away to place the case in the hands of higher authorities, leaving Sammy to trudge back down the street to his little drugstore. One hour later the Army announced that they were moving in.
WHEN SAMMY reached his store the telephone was ringing violently. Wearily he lifted it to his ear.
“Mr. Rosen? . . . This is Mr. Reynolds of the Anti-Martian League.”
Sammy started to explode.
“Look, Rosen,” the voice continued. “Do you or do you not want to get rid of that stink?”
Sammy suddenly stopped shouting. “Sure I do,” he said. “So what?”
“So we can clear the whole thing up in a matter of seconds if you’ll just cooperate.”
“Every time somebody starts talking cooperation, I get more troubles,” said Sammy bitterly. “The neighbors want I should cooperate by moving away. The city wants I should cooperate by going to jail as a public nuisance. So what is it you’re wanting?”
“A simple statement to the press,” said the voice smoothly. “All you have to do is to inform the papers who is really responsible for what happened. You might suggest in addition that the Martian was behaving in a disorderly fashion and that when you asked him to leave he responded with an unprovoked gas attack.”
“If there’s going to be any telling,” said Sammy angrily, “it’s going to be about that bird.”
“What bird?”
“Don’t play dumb. The bird that muscleman of yours held up to the window.”
“Now, now,” said the voice reprovingly. “You don’t actually believe that anybody is going to accept such a fantastic story as that, do you? A bird indeed! And anyhow, we have a dozen reliable witnesses who can testify that our Mr. Suggs was in Flatbush playing canasta with an aged aunt at the time in question.
“You’re an intelligent man, Mr. Rosen. Use that intelligence. One little statement from you and we’ll start decontamination at once. And what’s more, we’ll still hold open the offer that was made to you earlier.”
“What’s perfume got to do with being Anti-Martian?” demanded Sammy. “There’s something fishy going on.”
“The House of Arnett is just one of the many progressive firms who recognize the Martian danger to the terrestrial way of life,” said Reynolds smoothly, in fact a shade too smoothly.
Sammy didn’t answer. He just hung up again.
MR. WETZLE,” said Sammy at last, “just sitting here staring at each other ain’t doing either of us any good. We got to think our way out.” He picked up one of the red berries from the little pile on top of the counter and looked at it reflectively.
“These things, do your people have any use for them?”
“No, egg-mother,” said the little Martian. “Sometimes the dwirtle are eating them, but they are not proper food for Marslings.”
Sammy got up from his wicker chair and began to pace the floor. He’d never tried to play detective before and he didn’t quite know how to go about it.
“This company,” he said finally, “how does it work?”
“Isn’t much work,” said Wetzle. “Is just giving little bits of machinery for big bags of berries. The company has a concession for the whole north part that says no other Earthman can come in, but they have only one station.”
“One thing more,” said Sammy, trying to conceal the growing excitement in his voice. “These dwirtles can they eat anything else?”
“All kinds of things,” said Wetzle. “But best of all they like Mars peoples like me.”
Sammy’s face fell. “That was a blind alley. I thought for a moment that maybe the company was raising them for something or other and buying berries for feed.”
“I think not,” volunteered the little Martian. “There are some dwirtles at the trading station but not lots. They are kept in cages like the small yellow birds you have on earth. The chief trading man is a lover of dwirtles. We are many times asking for him not to keep them in the trading sheds so as not to give us bad frights when we bring in berries, but he is a terrible man. He stands and makes laughter when the dwirtles start their dance and we fall down in fright and our sprayers go off.”
“He must not be able to smell so good,” said Sammy. “Begging your pardon, Mr. Wetzle, but a stink like you let out ain’t no cause for laughter.”
“He’s not hi the trading shed. He stands behind a big glass window and talks to us through a radio thing.”
Sammy sat and thought about that for a while and then shook his head in a bewildered fashion.
“I don’t get it,” he said dolefully, “I just don’t get it.” He looked down at the little red cherry he held in his hand and then hit into it cautiously. It had a harsh bitter flavor that made him spit in distaste and throw the rest of the berry across the room. The bitter taste remained and caused his mouth to pucker slightly. He went hack and rinsed his mouth out with water but that didn’t do any good either.
“I know one thing that will kill it,” he said. “And I need a drink anyway.” Out of habit he looked around cautiously and then pulled a bottle of vodka out of a cabinet where he had it safely hidden from Sarah.
“Here’s mud in your eyes,” he said and took down a thimblefull. The results were so pleasing that he took another.
And then something happened.
He sniffed. And then sniffed again. Against the swirling overtones of the pervading stench, something else was coming through.
“Do you smell something, Wetzle?” he asked.
“Regretful, egg-mother,” said the little green fur ball, “But Martian peoples have no smellers.”
“That makes sense,” said Sammy, and sniffed again. It was definitely stronger now, a sharp masculine fragrance like nothing he’d ever smelled before. It seemed to have a definite source but for a moment he couldn’t locate it. When he did he was thunderstruck. It was coming from his own mouth.
It took him a couple of hours of trial and error before he got what he wanted, but Sammy hadn’t passed third on the state pharmaceutical boards for nothing. First there was careful grinding of the berries with a mortar and pestal, then maceration in a solution which contained the same enzymes as normal saliva, and then finally reaction with a concentrated solution of ethyl alcohol.
“We’ve got it, Wetzle,” he said quietly, holding up a beaker of a pale pink solution. “We’ve got it at last!”
“Got what,” asked the little Martian in bewilderment.
“The reason for both our troubles,” tie said as he began to sprinkle the liquid around the store.
“Think about it. Go ask yourself why a big outfit like the AntiMartian League should be set up just to make you unhappy enough to go back home.”
As he talked the solution evaporated. As it did and came in contact with the tiny droplets of the Martian’s defensive liquid that hung suspended in the air and coated all the exposed surfaces in the store, an intricate chemical transformation took place. In a matter of seconds the horrible stench had disappeared, leaving in its place a strange exciting fragrance that grew stronger and stronger until at last, much as he enjoyed it, Sammy’s head started reeling and he felt an urgent desire for fresh air. Rushing to the door, he threw it open and stood in the entrance inhaling deep breaths of tainted ai
r which automatically became perfumed as they touched his lips.
At each end of the street there was a fire line, and behind the ropes stood his erstwhile neighbors. When they saw him they started in howling again, and in spite of the half-hearted efforts of the police, bottles, rocks, and sundry blunt objects began to fly through the air in his direction. Momentarily, that is, for as the new scent spread out through his door and down the street, a change came over the crowd. The shouting subsided to a puzzled muttering, and then as the odor became stronger, part of the populace began to react in a decidedly abnormal manner.
The first to break through the ropes was the retired burlesque queen.
“I gotta be loved!” she whooped, and dodging through the police cordon came polling down the street toward Sammy. The other females in the crowd weren’t long in following suit and Sammy saw a deluge of women of all shapes and ages come screaming toward him from both directions, each chanting her own variation of the mating call. Almost too late he scooted back into the store, slamming down the heavy grill work that protected windows and door as he did so.
“That’s potent stuff,” he wheezed as he collapsed into his old wicker chair. “I can see now why so much pressure was put on to run you off the planet.”
Wetzle gave the triple twitch that was the standard Martian gesture of bewilderment.
“In this small head is confused thinking, egg-mother,” he said. “Would you be so kindly as to make clarifications?”
“Later. Right now I got to figure some way to clear the air. My wife Sarah ain’t going to like this sudden popularity of mine.”
The clearing was relatively simple. After a few minutes of tinkering Sammy made the pleasant discovery that the new scent was susceptible to several of the standard deodorants and before long both the store and its owner had lost the provocative fragrance that had been causing chaos in the street outside.
“And now,” said Sammy with a heartfelt sigh of relief, “I think maybe we can talk a little business.”
They did.
Collected Fiction Page 23