"But"—with a sigh—"I shall take the risks. My greatest fear is that I may not find it possible to return to Sonko-Huara. Conditions on Suari may preclude the possibility of my reversing the process by which I leave here and reappear on Suari. Naturally I shall take my instruments with me, but atmospheric, electrical, gravitational—a thousand conditions—may interfere with their proper operation on that planet. However, we have-no reason to think that such conditions are not very similar to our own. The examinations and tests we have been able to make convince us of that. So, my friends and fellow Sonko-Huarans, tomorrow at the time of Kora-Ma, when Suari is nearest to us in its orbit, I shall cause myself to vanish. I may never return or again I may reappear among you at any time. But if I do not, my loss will amount to little, whereas if I do, I shall have learned the truth of our neighboring planet"
Kespi had kept his word. In sight of all, at the hour of Kora-Ma, he had bade the public farewell and, an instant later, he and his compact instruments had vanished before their eyes.
And now, three Chukitis after that dramatic disappearance, Kespi-Nanay had returned! Micchu-Tay had been the first to see him. The old fellow had been inspecting the local vitamin plant near Ir-Chu when a slight sound had attracted him, and wheeling about, he saw Kespi-Nanay standing almost by his side. But as fear, fright, superstition and the sensation of being startled had, ages before, been lost to the Sonko-Huarans, Micchu-Tay had merely expressed mild astonishment, and instantly had sent the news flying throughout the planet by means of the thought disseminator, which he, like everyone else, carried always with him.
Yes, Kespi-Nanay had unquestionably returned. He had altered in no way, and he declared that he had been on Suari for three Chukitis; moreover he would publicly relate all his experiences in the Muru-Ti, so that all the inhabitants of the planet might, if they so desired, both see and hear him, for the Muru-Ti or public auditorium was equipped with the vision-disseminators as well as the audio-extensors that rendered him both visible and audible to all on the planet, who cared to adjust their instruments for the purpose.
CHAPTER II
First Impressions
Never in the historic eras of Sonko-Huara had there been greater, more wide-spread interest and expectation than were caused by Kespi-Nanay's announcement. At last, after ages of surmises, of studies, of deductions, none of which had answered the puzzle, the truth of Suari and its denizens would be learned. No one doubted for a moment that Kespi had actually visited the other planet. His demonstrations, three years earlier, had removed all doubts as to his claim, and while everyone had long since come to the conclusion that he had either failed to materialize on Suari or, having materialized thereon, had been destroyed or had been unable to return, the fact that he had returned convinced them that his amazing undertaking had been a complete success.
A universal holiday had been announced, to continue until Kespi had completed his narrative. But this was really superfluous, for no one would have attended to his or her duties anyway and, moreover, the Apus and Amautus, even the Tarancas, could be counted on to be present to hear and see the returned interplanetary wanderer, and without them the public would have been as helpless and as futile in accomplishment as an ant without its antennae.
Hence practically every being on Sonko-Huara gave undivided attention to Kespi-Nanay when he entered the great auditorium of Muru-Ti and, seating himself between the Amautu-Ka and the Apu-Inki, proceeded to tell his fellow Sonko-Huarans of his amazing and almost incredible discoveries and experiences on Suari. And often, as he spoke, his listeners unconsciously and involuntarily glanced, half-fearfully, at the great golden hemisphere of Suari in the sky, as if actually expecting to see some of the strange beings or marvelous sights that Kespi-Nanay was describing. "As you all know," he began, "I caused my material body, together with my instruments, to be disintegrated here three Chukitis ago. Of that disruption of my protonic and electronic component parts, or of my instantaneous flight through space I have no recollections. I have a dim memory, like that of an evasive dream, of strange sensations, of whirling madly like a bit of dust. But my next actual concrete sensation, after I turned on my disintegrating and projecting device, was one of standing in a strange place. I felt so natural, so precisely as if nothing had happened that, for a fleeting moment, I feared nothing had happened, that my experiment had failed. But a glance at my surroundings reassured me, Nothing was familiar. Never had I imagined such a spot. I was standing on a far-reaching area of rocky sand. Above me was the blue sky, and across it stretched masses of the same white vapor we have seen so often about Suari. Also, there in the sky, was Quilla, but appearing very small and far away.
"On one side rose high, bare mountains, on the other the plain stretched to the horizon, and within a short distance of where I stood I saw an amazing sight. There, staring at me, curiously but apparently unafraid, and not even surprised, were a number of the inhabitants of the land. Never had I seen such impossible creatures. No Sonko-Huaran imagination could have conceived of such beings, and even if I describe them to you, my friends, you cannot picture them to yourselves. They were brown or black, shaggy-skinned and stood on four legs. Their necks were long, thin and bore elongated heads with immense ears and large dark eyes. They appeared intelligent, and judging that they must be more intelligent than we of Sonko-Huara had thought, I addressed them. They evidently heard my words, for they moved their ears, but they made no reply. Of course I was not surprised. I had hardly expected that the Suarians would understand our language. So I made signals, but the Suarians showed no signs of understanding.
"They appeared peaceful and quite harmless, so cautiously I approached them. I was quite close to them when they turned abruptly and moved off. Evidently they were suspicious of me, and desiring to let them know I intended no harm, I spoke again. This time they turned about and took a few steps in my direction. I was delighted. I felt that they must understand my tones, even if not the meaning of my words.
"Then a most amazing thing happened. Another creature appeared from behind a rock. He was much smaller than the first inhabitants and he stood upon two legs! Ah, I know you will find it hard to credit that statement, but it is the truth. And you can find it no more difficult to believe, as I tell it, than I found it, as I saw it. A living intelligent being on two feet like a bird, and other living intelligent beings on four feet! Obviously we had never guessed the truth, Suari was inhabited by two forms of beings, and I wondered if it could be possible both were the same species—if one were male, the other female or if one was the young of the other. But the two-legged creature differed in every respect from those of four legs. He, too, I noticed, possessed four limbs but he stood on but two and used the other two for grasping objects, as we use our members, whereas the creatures on four legs possessed no limbs for grasping.
Moreover, the two-legged being was red in color, his skin appeared to hang in loose folds from his neck, and yet his limbs were of a different brown color and of a distinct texture. Neither was his neck long nor his head elongated. On the contrary, he had scarcely any neck. His head was round but rose to a point at the top; his ears were deformed until they were scarcely more than orifices; he had no horns; his eyes were but two in number, and in the front of his head; the rear portion being covered with a rough wool or fur; and his mouth showed no tusks.
"He stared at me for a space and then spoke, and to my astonishment I found I could comprehend his words, even though they were different from our own. I gathered that he asked who I was and whence I came. So I replied that my name was Kespi-Nanay and that I came from Sonko-Huara. His mouth widened in a most remarkable manner; he appeared to understand. But all this time I was filled with astonishment. He did not appear to be terrified or even amazed at my appearance, as I had expected he would be at seeing for the first time a visitor from another sphere. Surely, I thought, my form—I glanced down at myself and gasped in utter amazement. I was not myself. I had but two legs, two arms! Half-fear fully I
raised my hand to my head. My horns had vanished, my soft pendant ears had disappeared, my magnificent tusks no longer protruded from my lips, my tentacular antennae were missing! Fur, not scales, covered my head, my ears were mere holes; in short I was the exact counterpart of the two-legged creature before me. I was dumbfounded. I felt as if in a dream. Then suddenly, I understood. The constituent electrons of my being, when reassembled with my protons upon Suari, had produced my material body in the form of a Suarian.
"It was a contingency I had not foreseen; yet, now I considered it, it seemed perfectly natural. The conditions of Suari that had resulted in the molding of such puny, underdeveloped, physically imperfect beings as the creature before me (and myself) controlled the combining of the electrons and forced them to produce Suarian forms. No doubt, I decided, were a Suarian to be transported to Sonko-Huara by the methods I had used, he would be materialized in the form of a Sonko-Huaran. But I was thankful that I had assumed the form of the two-legged inhabitant rather than that of the beings with four legs, who—though they appeared far more intelligent—seemed dumb, for as yet they had uttered no sound. I was astonished also that I could converse with the strange creature of the two legs. For a space I thought that possibly the same laws and conditions that had so altered my body to a Suarian form had affected my mind and my speech to a similar extent. But no, the words the other being used were so familiar, so nearly identical with those of my own tongue, I cast aside that theory. By some amazing coincidence, or for some unknown reason which I might yet discover, there was a very close relationship between the two languages.
“But my speculations on such matters were interrupted by the appearance of two more beings. One was precisely like the first two-legged being, the other was quite different. The head was similar, but the colors of the strangely loose skin were brilliant and the creature appeared to have no legs, the body extending in a solid mass to within a short distance of the ground. This was the more remarkable as the being possessed feet that appeared to move back and forth under the solid body in a most amazing manner. It was not until much later that I learned that this being was the female of the others and that it actually possessed legs, which were concealed by artificial layers of skin that the Suarians call ‘clothes.' In fact, I found to my astonishment that all the loose, bright-colored coverings I had seen were artificial and that the true skin fitted the body closely and was very smooth, soft and pleasing in shade, although, as I shall explain, the tint ranged from a very dark, blackish-brown to almost pure white, a truly remarkable condition. It was also, I learned, considered very wrong and a proof of barbarism to appear without the artificial skin over one's body, and the beings I first met, stared at me and uttered strange sounds with their mouths widely open, because I was not provided with such coverings. Presently, however, the creature, who, I found later was the female spoke to one of the others who pulled a portion of the coverings from his own person and placed it over me. The others added more pieces until I was covered similarly to themselves. To me these things were most uncomfortable, feeling very rough and irritating to my body, and I would have liked to have cast them off. But I wished to remain on friendly terms with the strange beings and (at the time) thinking it was perhaps a rite or ceremony indicative of friendship, I bore the discomfort. Why these beings of Suari should have developed such habits is beyond me. Their bodies, ugly and deformed as they were, were far more symmetrical and admirable without the artificial coverings, but I was not so much surprised when, later, I found that some such protection was required for the creatures' bodies, their skins being most tender and easily injured, not being guarded like our own by strong scales that are replaced by new growths when injured. In fact, injuries which we would consider slight often caused the total disability or death of these Suarians, for they are so low in the scale of nature and so primitive in their development, that they cannot replace even a lost appendage or limb with new growths like ourselves. Moreover, although the variations in their climate are not as great as on Sonko-Huara, yet as these miserable beings do not alter their natural bodies to suit conditions, but remain always the same, they are, perforce, compelled to adapt themselves to the weather by varying the artificial skins or 'clothing’.
"But to return to the strange beings I first met. Having been covered with the objects, as I have stated, and thus made to appear even more like the three creatures, they seemed to be more friendly, and one of them did a most astounding thing. He produced a peculiar object which he inserted in his mouth. Then, to my unbounded astonishment, he magically caused fire to spring into being in his hand, and placing the flame against the object in his mouth, he breathed in the fire and emitted smoke from his nostrils. Never would I have believed such a feat possible had I not witnessed it with my own eyes, yet the others appeared not to be surprised. In fact they also produced their own fire-machines and soon all three were breathing fire. I noticed, however, that the four-legged beings did not do so, which convinced me that they were the superior beings and that the others were probably servants or inferiors. Yet this thought troubled me, for in that case I had been reformed on Suari not as the superior but as the inferior type, which would indicate that the Sonko-Huarans were inferior to the Suarians. But I had little time to dwell on this, for one of the two-legged creatures was offering me a fire-machine. I drew back in horror at the thought of breathing flame, but the being appeared so perturbed by my act that, feeling I must use every care to retain their friendship if I were to learn all I desired of their ways, I summoned all my courage and placed the machine in my lips. To my surprise there was no fire nor heat, and though I carefully breathed in smoke, the sensation was not unpleasant, although it caused me to cough and choke somewhat. Obviously, I concluded, this breathing of smoke was a ceremony, perhaps indicative of friendship, for presently the three laid aside their machines, as I did mine, without as far as I could determine having accomplished anything. But, I thought, if this strange custom is universal among the Suarians (as I found later it was) and if the planet was thickly inhabited, it explained the masses of vapor that hung above Suari's surface and had so greatly puzzled us of Sonko-Huara.
"Having ended the smoke ceremony, the three rose from where they had been seated, and inviting me to accompany them, they moved forward. To my amazement, the four-legged beasts moved with them. In fact, the two-legged creatures appeared to command the obedience of the superior four-legged creatures, and though the latter were far larger and stronger than those with two legs, they made no resistance, even when the others struck them with rods to urge them onwards. And now my mind was quite upset, for here was proof that those I had mistaken for inferior beings were the superior inhabitants of Suari. However, it made me feel a bit easier, for it proved that the form I had assumed was that of the superior beings.
"Presently we approached some great masses of stone that were in ruins, but which it was evident had been erected by living beings, and I stopped and stared with incredulous eyes, for upon one of the stones was carved the figure of a Sonko-Huaran! It was quite unmistakable. The numerous appendages and tentacles, the horns, tusks, lobe-like ears, even the scales and other details were distinct. What did it mean? Were there beings like ourselves upon Suari—perhaps the rulers of the planet!
"I turned to one of the two-legged creatures and asked him. For a moment he seemed puzzled. Then he replied that the figure on the stone had been there always, that in past ages it had been adored by his ancestors and regarded as a god. I asked him if similar beings lived near and at that he and his companions made strange bellowing sounds and their mouths opened until their short useless teeth were exposed, and they said there were no such creatures in existence, even if there ever had been in the past. I told them they were quite wrong; that upon my planet all beings were of that sort and that I myself was the same when on Sonko-Huara. They regarded me with most peculiar expressions, obviously with unbelief, and presently again gave way to their strange sounds, which I may as well explain we
re their indications of derision and hilarity. Evidently they thought my words were a great joke.
"AS we continued on our way, my mind was busy wondering: if there were no Sonko-Huarans on Suari, how could the inhabitants ages before have been familiar with the appearance of our race? Then I recalled the ancient legend of our people, wherein it is told a great Apu named Pakak produced magic, and to escape his enemies, flew with his followers from Sonko-Huara and vanished forever. Was it not possible that there was truth in the tale and that Pakak and his fellows might have reached Suari? I do not know, but throughout the portion of Suari where first I arrived I found many images and statues of the Sonko-Huaran forms, and in the traditions of the people, there was a being they called Pachak. But I had so many other strange and astonishing things to interest me that I gave little thought to such speculations. We soon came to a deep valley and there the brown earth was hidden under rich green, and water flowed in canals as it does on Sonko-Huara. But the canals were tiny affairs and the green was, as we have long ago surmised, the color of the vegetation of Suari. In the valley also, was the collection of structures wherein the Suarians dwelt, for incredible as it may seem, these beings dwell in cubicles closely placed in groups and herd together like swarms of insects. Their strange reasons for so doing I learned later and I will leave the explanation until I speak of the larger groups of structures that I visited subsequently.
A Visit to Sauri Page 2