The Planet of the Blind

by Paul Corey

  She was so nice about it that I hated to object. “But I can see no such line.”

  She held my fingers over the centre of one of the plaques. “The vibration. Don’t you sense it?”

  All I felt was her firm grip and from her fingers came a tingling that went through me like a gentle electric current. “No,” I said, and hated myself for saying it.

  Zinzer was mumbling. “See. See. Meaningless. A stupid language.”

  “Score fifty,” said Mun.

  “But he was guessing,” objected Zinzer.

  “A guess is an indication of a certain amount of intelligence,” said Doctor Rhoa. “When we test our cows, they may blunder an answer, but they never guess.”

  FOURTEEN

  My confidence was beginning to slip. Vibrations.

  Hah. Yet I felt certain that Ello was not in this conspiracy against me.

  “Let’s get on with it,” I said.

  “The next test is in the Number field. Your ability to do simple arithmetic.”

  This time Ello sat in a chair opposite me at the table.

  “I will give you three columns of figures that have already been totalled. You are to tell me which is correct and which is incorrect,” she said.

  She held something that looked like a piece of microfilm and apparently read from it: “Seventeen, eighty-four, twenty-nine. Total, one hundred forty. Thirty-five, twenty-eight, eighty-one. Total, one hundred twenty-four. Sixty-three, seventeen, eighty-nine. Total one hundred sixty-nine.”

  I’ve always had a pretty good head for figures. Although I couldn’t see these columns written down, Ello read them slowly and I checked the totals.

  “The first two are wrong. The last one is correct.”

  “Score one hundred,” said Mun.

  “None of our animals have ever been able to do that well, gentlemen,” said Doctor Rhoa.

  He seemed really pleased about it, I thought. Perhaps it was because I was bearing out his daughter’s argument that I wasn’t just an ordinary animal.

  There wasn’t a sound from Zinzer this time.

  This had been a ridiculously simple test, but the result made me feel a little better. Then I became conscious of the smooth calf of Ello’s bare leg against mine. I didn’t move. Was this a game?

  I felt my face getting hot. I hoped these heat-sensitive Grendans wouldn’t pick up the increased temperature.

  The expression on Ello’s eyeless face was more blank than usual.

  “Our next test,” said Doctor Rhoa, “Will be the nose—” He changed over to a buzz.

  “Olfactory, Father.”

  “Olfactory comprehension. We will give you three basic smells to identify. Ready?”

  “Ready.”

  Ello produced three flasks—plastic, I assumed-squeeze bottles. Our legs were still pressed together. My entire leg felt hot. Through the transparent table I could see it as a rosy glow.

  “All right. Number one.”

  She squeezed a whiff at me from one of the flasks. It was slightly sourish, tingling my nose. I couldn’t place it. There was a slight suggestion of salt,

  “Sea water,” I said but with doubt.

  The leg pressure eased a little.

  “Two.”

  A whiff from another container. This had a volcanic smell.

  “Sulphur.” The leg pressure almost vanished. Great Galaxy! Was I supposed to cut my guesses finer than that?

  “Three.”

  This whiff seemed to clear my head a little. But it was almost odourless—a slight chlorine smell, perhaps. Then I had it. “Ozone.”

  Ello’s leg caressed mine again. Through the table top I could see it, long and slender and strong. I acknowledged the pressure this time.

  “Score thirty-three and one third,” said Mun.

  I knew I hadn’t done any better than that, but the flat statement of the score irked me.

  “Well, which one did I get right?”

  “The last one,” said Mun. “First was perspiration. The second, mercaptan, C2H5SH.”

  “And he didn’t even know sweat,” sneered Zinzer. “You would think that someone from the animal planet would know that smell at least.”

  I half turned to glare at him. My leg moved and felt cold. But Ello resumed the contact, pressing closer.

  Doctor Rhoa said, “Our next test will be taste differentiation. Make the preparations, Ello.”

  Her father stood at the end of the table with his arms folded, his mouth set in a slight scowl. I was glad he didn’t have eyes to see what went on beneath that table. Then the frightening thought came: maybe he knew anyhow.

  Ello took four small bottles from the table drawer and arranged them in front of her. She opened one and carefully wiped the mouth of it with a piece of fabric. She offered me the bottle and the touch of her leg seemed suddenly neutral.

  “Take a sip and tell us what it is,” she said.

  I sipped. “Sour.”

  “Sour?”

  “Yes, sour. Acid.”

  Zinzer made a sniffing sound which I knew was meant for me and not the stuff on the table.

  That was sour, dammit. Acid, vinegar. What more did they want? The chemical content maybe?

  Ello passed me the second bottle. I sipped. It had a definite salty taste. I said so. “Salt, saltiness.”

  Again the sniff from Zinzer.

  The third bottle was bitter. “Bitter,” I said, and knew the fourth would be sweet. And it was and I said so. I realised that I had lost contact with Ello beneath the table.

  “Score zero,” said Mun.

  “What do you mean?” I yelled. “Those tastes were sour, salt, bitter and sweet—in that order too. It’s the same sensation we get on Earth.”

  “The language on the animal planet is anything but precise,” said Zinzer with heavy sarcasm.

  “You are basically correct,” said Rhoa. “Sour, salt, bitter, sweet—basic taste sensations. But our lowest animals can tell us that. Intelligence requires distinctions. The first was acetic acid; second, chlorine; third, trisodium phosphate; fourth, lead acetate.”

  I was about to protest this type of test. It wasn’t made for me. I had eyes to read labels with . . .

  Zinzer said, “Besides naming those taste sensations, even a middle-score Grendan can name the percentage of solution.”

  Anger choked me for a moment. All right, so Grendans have tongues with built-in chemistry sets. But what do they know about the beauty of the sun and sky, and the stars at night? Or their green fields and forests? They can’t appreciate the beauty of their blue misted mountains.

  “The next test will be audio comprehension.”

  I knew what that would be before Ello even produced the set of four buttons. When the sounds came, I guessed: 10,000 decibels, 13,000, 15,000, 17,000. I couldn’t even hear the last one. There must have been a sound because I saw her press the fourth button.

  The score was zero again. And Ello had drawn her feet back under her chair.

  “One more,” said Doctor Rhoa, “tactile comprehension.”

  He sounded disappointed in my showing. Maybe he didn’t want Ello to lose her argument and it looked as if she had.

  Well I figured I would show them this time. They couldn’t be too tricky with something I could see touch me.

  Ello pressed an eating tool against my forearm.

  “Spoon, or fork, or knife, whichever you choose to call it. It’s a tool to eat with.”

  She hesitated before resuming and buzzed with the other three. They buzzed back and she next pressed the index finger of her right hand on my arm.

  I named it, including arm and hand. She brushed me with a feather and a piece of fabric and I described them.

  “Score one hundred,” said Mun and sounded happy about it. Maybe he was on my side too.

  “That was a good one,” said Dr. Rhoa.

  They buzzed among themselves for a few moments.

  Mun came out of the buzz first and addressed me. “Your
score so far is only twenty percentiles above our brightest animal, and twenty percentiles short of our lowest normal Grendan. But the results are strangely uneven. However, we have one final test. I believe, in Earth language, it is called a ‘maze’.”

  FIFTEEN

  The idea of taking a maze test seemed insulting. On Earth we give such tests only to small animals. Then I remembered that here I am an animal.

  “Very well,” I said.

  Ello stood up. “Follow me, please.”

  We went out through the rear of the Science Building to an area cluttered with carts and tools and discarded equipment. In the midst of this jumble was a structure that looked to be about thirty feet on a side and eight feet high. This was the maze.

  Like all other buildings on Grenda the walls were transparent. Although my vision was distorted somewhat by imperfect transparency, I could see right through and out the far side. I almost laughed. This would be easy.

  I wondered about the size. It was bigger than anything we had on Earth. Did Grendan scientists test each other in such a maze? Or did they test large animals like cows in it?

  “You enter here,” Ello said. The wall split and I stepped through. “We will meet you on the far side.” The wall closed.

  I watched her join her father and the other two scientists and start around to the exit she had indicated.

  It would surprise them, I told myself, if I got through the maze and met them when they rounded the far corner. I thought I saw a passage and started towards it only to smack hard into the transparent surface.

  The blow stunned me. I’d better be a little more careful. I extended both hands and began feeling my way. Finding an opening, I moved through it. As long as there was emptiness in front of me I advanced. When my hands struck a solid surface I began feeling for an opening again.

  My idea that this test was going to be a cinch soon vanished. A maze with transparent walls gave no more advantage to a sighted person than to an unsighted person. It would have made no difference at all to me if it had been the blackest night instead of broad daylight.

  I could see Ello and the others walking along the north side of the maze. It would be the north side on Earth, that is. I could see them buzzing together. Just ahead of them was the end of the line for me.

  My hand struck another wall. I changed directions and kept on going. By this time I was feeling about frantically with both hands. Then I found myself in a cul de sac against the south wall.

  I panicked. I began running, if a person can be said to run in such a confining space. I pressed my hands against a wall and slid along it. I turned when it turned but I always pushed ahead desperately. In spite of these walls that almost seamed not to exist I experienced the terror of claustrophobia.

  Sweat poured off me. I was panting like a distance runner at the tape. My eyes must have been staring wildly. Once I came out very close to the exit. Only a thin, transparent wall stood between me and the end of the test. I beat on that surface and yelled, “Let me out of here!”

  Oh, they heard me all right. But they did nothing. It looked to me as if Ello were arguing with her father and the others. She probably felt sorry for a poor dumb animal.

  I swung away from that wall and continued rushing ahead. In a little while I was back where I came in.

  I stopped. That was it. I had been behaving just like a stupid animal. I rested, getting my breath. Here was a situation that called for an intelligent approach. All right, let’s have it.

  When I started again it was with a plan. This time I kept my right hand against the wall on my right. I used my left hand as a probe in front of me. I hurried a little, but I was no longer driven by fear.

  Several times I discovered that I was circling back on my course. I retraced the corridor to the place where I had begun the return. Then, instead of turning, I continued straight until my left hand struck a new wall. There I made a left turn, placing my right hand on this wall and pushing on again.

  At last I reached the end. Ello and the three scientists were just beyond the transparent surface.

  The wall was split and I was out.

  “Made it,” I said with a feeble effort at nonchalance.

  “Congratulations,” sneered Zinzer. “Only slightly better than one of our animals.”

  Doctor Mun fingered the piece of plastic material on which he had been keeping notes. “Your score, Doctor Stone, is considerably below that of the lowest normal Grendan. I am puzzled. How did the people on your planet advance themselves to space travel if yours is representative intelligence?”

  He was sincere. He just couldn’t reconcile my low score with my arrival from outer space.

  “Look,” I said, and I didn’t give a damn that the word “look” could mean nothing to these blind characters. “On Earth, I am the Director of TERRA-TESTING. I devise all the tests for the people on my world.

  “These tests you have for touch, taste, smell, hearing, cannot test my intelligence. That would require a test for my special sensory field. Sight. How can you test for sight? How can you test for the light of the sun? And darkness at night and stars? And green hills and fields and the many beautiful colours of your world and mine? You can’t test me for all those sensations. You are blind.” They buzzed furiously for a moment, Zinzer louder than all of them.

  Mun said, “You are talking about your orbs? Am I right?”

  “Right.”

  “On Earth,” said Doctor Rhoa, “do you change tests to fit the special sensory fields of your various subjects?”

  “My tests test the sensory fields of my subjects.”

  “But you do not change them to include special fields which you do not understand?”

  That reminded me of something Talcott Jones had once said to me. “Sir, how can your tests get at that intelligence in a man that knows the secrets of a persimmon? You cannot test for that because you do not know the secrets of a persimmon.”

  The truth bludgeoned me. On this blind planet I was a moron because my testers couldn’t see. On Earth, Talcott Jones was a moron because my tests could not test him. How could I test a man who knows the secrets of a persimmon? Even if that was only a figure of speech, how could I test a man for the meaning of it?

  I am a reasonable and honest person. Once I understand the truth and logic of something I am willing to accept it, even if it hurts.

  There was no doubt in my mind now that I had wronged Talcott Jones. But I realised something far worse. How many young people on Earth had been deprived of education and forced into the life of menial, unrewarding labour because my tests failed to cover their special sensory fields?

  I had committed a great wrong and I didn’t know how to undo it. How could I make tests for something I didn’t know was there? But somehow I must right that wrong. At the moment, it seemed to me, there was only one thing to do. Get back to Earth as soon as possible.

  “Well, gentlemen,” I said. “You’ve had your tests. You have some idea about me, and I have a definite idea about you. I have learned a great deal here on your planet. But I have important work to do on Earth. Now I demand to be allowed to return to my ship and to leave your planet.”

  “On Grenda, an animal cannot demand,” said Mun. He wasn’t nasty about it. He said it almost as if he questioned, doubted, wondered.

  Zinzer began buzzing like a trapped hornet. When he came out of it he pointed at me. “I will use his animal’s language so that he will know what I say. He has invaded our privacy in a scandalous way. He must be sent to one of our animal refuges at once.”

  Ello stood a little apart, head bowed in thought. Her father began buzzing, then changed over to Earth talk. “There is nothing so insulting about an animal being called ‘doctor’. After all, Doctor Zinzer, you have a flyzex in your office that you call—” He spun out a buzz, then came back. “So, Doctor Stone is still Doctor Stone. We will have him returned to his quarters for the present.”

  Whatever a flyzex was, I interpreted this exchange t
o mean that on Grenda as on Earth the word “doctor” could be applied to a pet. Pet indeed. Where did that leave me?

  Ello raised her head and she was smiling. Eyes or no eyes, she was a lovely person.

  SIXTEEN

  Two Grendans appeared then, brutish-looking fellows in tan pyjamas—campus guards apparently. There was something peculiar about their looks. On their foreheads was just the faintest vestige of eyebrows.

  While my mind was puzzling this, I felt the cord again. This time through my guts. It was benign, but persuasive in a soft sort of way. I walked between my guards to my quarters in the Annex. After the wall snapped shut on me, they took up positions outside.

  I flung myself down on the couch.

  They had me trapped—spacerover grounded, distress signal blocked. Apparently I was safe enough. However, if that hot-head Zinzer got some crazy notion that I was a threat to the Grendan-Way-of-Life I might be in for real trouble. I didn’t relish the idea of being turned loose to fend for myself among a collection of their wild animals.

  I pushed myself up on one elbow and looked through the walls and saw the three scientists and Ello over in the lab. Doctor Rhoa was sitting at his desk, while Mun sat on a table. Zinzer paced the floor.

  Ello seemed to be arguing something with them. It looked from where I was as if she were appealing to her father.

  Then while I watched, she turned and split out of the lab. My breath tightened in my throat. Down the corridor she came, out of the Science Building, across to the Annex and to my room. She buzzed at the guards and split right on in.

  “I’m sorry for you, Doctor Stone.”

  I got to my feet quickly. My legs seemed weak. Her voice had a marvelous husky quality that did something to me. If she only had eyes . . .

  “I have always been fond of animals,” she said. “They are my life interest. Zinzer insists that you be sent to our animal refuge. He feels that because you are a little more intelligent than our animals your potential ability to invade our privacy is that much greater. You will—to use your own terms—see so much more and believe so much that is false.”