August 1999: THE EARTH MEN
Whoever was knocking at the door didn't want to stop. Mrs.
Ttt threw the door open. "Well?"
"You speak _English!_" The man standing there was
astounded.
"I speak what I speak," she said.
"It's wonderful _English!_" The man was in uniform. There
were three men with him, in a great hurry, all smiling, all
dirty.
"What do you want?" demanded Mrs. Ttt.
"You are a _Martian!_" The man smiled. "The word is not
familiar to you, certainly. It's an Earth expression." He
nodded at his then. "We are from Earth. I'm Captain Williams.
We've landed on Mars within the hour. Here we are, the _Second_
Expedition! There was a First Expedition, but we don't know
what happened to it. But here we are, anyway. And you are
the first Martian we've met!"
"Martian?" Her eyebrows went up.
"What I mean to say is, you live on the fourth planet from
the sun. Correct?"
"Elementary," she snapped, eyeing them.
"And we"--he pressed his chubby pink hand to his chest--
"we are from Earth. Right, men?"
"Right, sir!" A chorus.
"This is the planet Tyrr," she said, "if you want to use
the proper name."
"Tyrr, Tyrr." The captain laughed exhaustedly. "What a
_fine_ name! But, my good woman, how is it you speak such
perfect English?"
"I'm not speaking, I'm thinking," she said. "Telepathy!
Good day!" And she slammed the door.
A moment later there was that dreadful man knocking again.
She whipped the door open. "What now?" she wondered.
The man was still there, trying to smile, looking
bewildered. He put out his hands. "I don't think you
_understand_--"
"What?" she snapped.
The man gazed at her in surprise. "We're from _Earth!_"
"I haven't time," she said. "I've a lot of cooking today
and there's cleaning and sewing and all. You evidently wish
to see Mr. Ttt; he's upstairs in his study."
"Yes," said the Earth Man confusedly, blinking. "By all
means, let us see Mr. Ttt."
"He's busy." She slammed the door again.
This time the knock on the door was most impertinently
loud.
"See here!" cried the man when the door was thrust open
again. He jumped in as if to surprise her. "This is no way
to treat visitors!"
"All over my clean floor!" she cried. "Mud! Get out! If
you come in my house, wash your boots first."
The man looked in dismay at his muddy boots, "This," he
said, "is no time for trivialities. I think," he said, "we
should be celebrating." He looked at her for a long time,
as if looking might make her understand.
"If you've made my crystal buns fall in the oven," she
exclaimed, "I'll hit you with a piece of wood!" She peered
into a little hot oven. She came back, red, steamy-faced.
Her eyes were sharp yellow, her skin was soft brown, she was
thin and quick as an insect. Her voice was metallic and sharp.
"Wait here. I'll see if I can let you have a moment with Mr.
Ttt. What was your business?"
The man swore luridly, as if she'd hit his hand with a
hammer. "Tell him we're from Earth and it's never been done
before!"
"What hasn't?" She put her brown hand up. "Never mind.
I'll be back."
The sound of her feet fluttered through the stone house.
Outside, the immense blue Martian sky was hot and still
as a warm deep sea water. The Martian desert lay broiling
like a prehistoric mud pot, waves of heat rising and
shimmering. There was a small rocket ship reclining upon a
hilltop nearby. Large footprints came from the rocket to the
door of this stone house.
Now there was a sound of quarreling voices upstairs. The
men within the door stared at one another, shifting on their
boots, twiddling their fingers, and holding onto their hip
belts. A man's voice shouted upstairs. The woman's voice
replied. After fifteen minutes the Earth men began walking
in and out the kitchen door, with nothing to do.
"Cigarette?" said one of the men.
Somebody got out a pack and they lit up. They puffed slow
streams of pale white smoke. They adjusted their uniforms,
fixed their collars. The voices upstairs continued to mutter
and chant. The leader of the men looked at his watch.
"Twenty-five minutes," he said. "I wonder what they're
up to up there." He went to a window and looked out.
"Hot day," said one of the men.
"Yeah," said someone else in the slow warm time of early
afternoon. The voices had faded to a murmur and were now silent.
There was not a sound in the house. All the men could hear
was their own breathing.
An hour of silence passed. "I hope we didn't cause any
trouble," said the captain. He went and peered into the living
room.
Mrs. Ttt was there, watering some flowers that grew in
the center of the room.
"I knew I had forgotten something," she said when she saw
the captain. She walked out to the kitchen. "I'm sorry." She
handed him a slip of paper. "Mr. Ttt is much too busy." She
turned to her cooking. "Anyway, it's not Mr. Ttt you want
to see; it's Mr. Aaa. Take that paper over to the next farm,
by the blue canal, and Mr. Aaa'll advise you about whatever
it is you want to know."
"We don't want to know anything," objected the captain,
pouting out his thick lips. "We already _know_ it."
"You have the paper, what more do you want?" she asked
him straight off. And she would say no more.
"Well," said the captain, reluctant to go. He stood as
if waiting for something. He looked like a child staring at
an empty Christmas tree. "Well," he said again. "Come on,
men."
The four men stepped out into the hot silent day.
Half an hour. later, Mr. Aaa, seated in his library sipping
a bit of electric fire from a metal cup, heard the voices
outside in the stone causeway. He leaned over the window sill
and gazed at the four uniformed men who squinted up at him.
"Are you Mr. Aaa?" they called.
"I am."
"Mr. Ttt sent us to see you!" shouted the captain.
"Why did he do that?" asked Mr. Aaa.
"He was busy!"
"Well, that's a shame," said Mr. Ass sarcastically. "Does
he think I have nothing else to do but entertain people he's
too busy to bother with?"
"That's not the important thing, sir," shouted the
captain.
"Well, it is to me. I have much reading to do. Mr. Ttt
is inconsiderate. This is not the first time he has been this
thoughtless of me. Stop waving your hands, sir, until I finish.
And pay attention. People usually listen to me when I talk.
And you'll listen courteously or I won't talk at all."
Uneasily the four men in the court shifted and opened their
mouths, and once the captain, the veins on his face bulging,
showed a few little tears in his eyes.
"Now," lectured Mr. Aaa, "do you think it fair of Mr. Ttt
to be so ill-mannered?"
The four men gazed up through the heat. The captain said,
"We're from Earth!"
"I think it very ungentlemanly of him," brooded Mr. Aaa.
"A _rocket_ ship. We came in it. Over there!"
"Not the first time Ttt's been unreasonable, you know."
"All the way from Earth."
"Why, for half a mind, I'd call him up and tell him off."
"Just the four of us; myself and these three men, my crew."
"I'll call him up, yes, that's what I'll do!"
"Earth. Rocket. Men. Trip. Space."
"Call him and give him a good lashing!" cried Mr. Aaa.
He vanished like a puppet from a stage. For a minute there
were angry voices back and forth over some weird mechanism
or other. Below, the captain and his crew glanced longingly
back at their pretty rocket ship lying on the hillside, so
sweet and lovely and fine.
Mr. Aaa jerked up in the window, wildly triumphant
"Challenged him to a duel, by the gods! A duel!"
"Mr. Aaa--" the captain started all over again, quietly.
"I'll shoot him dead, do you hear!"
"Mr. Aaa, I'd like to _tell_ you. We came sixty million
miles."
Mr. Aaa regarded the captain for the first time. "Where'd
you say you were from?"
The captain flashed a white smile. Aside to his men he
withpered, "_Now_ we're getting someplace!" To Mr. Aaa he
called, "We traveled sixty million miles. From Earth!"
Mr. Aaa yawned. "That's only _fifty_ million miles this
time of year." He picked up a frightful-looking weapon. "Well,
I have to go now. Just take that silly note, though I don't
know what good it'll do you, and go over that hill into the
little town of Iopr and tell Mr. Iii all about it. _He's_
the man you want to see. Not Mr. Ttt, he's an idiot; I'm going
to kill him. Not me, because you're not in my line of work."
"Line of work, line of work!" bleated the captain. "Do
you have to be in a certain line of work to welcome Earth
men!"
"Don't be silly, everyone knows _that!_" Mr. Aaa rushed
downstairs. "Good-by!" And down the causeway he raced, like
a pair of wild calipers.
The four travelers stood shocked. Finally the captain
said, "We'll find someone yet who'll listen to us."
"Maybe we could go out and come in again," said one of
the men in a dreary voice. "Maybe we should take off and land
again. Give them time to organize a party."
"That might be a good idea," murmured the tired captain.
The little town was full of people drifting in and out
of doors, saying hello to one another, wearing golden masks
and blue masks and crimson masks for pleasant variety, masks
with silver lips and bronze eyebrows, masks that smiled or
masks that frowned, according to the owners' dispositions.
The four men, wet from their long walk, paused and asked
a little girl where Mr. Iii's house was.
"There." The child nodded her head.
The captain got eagerly, carefully down on one knee,
looking into her sweet young face. "Little girl, I want to
talk to you."
He seated her on his knee and folded her small brown hands
neatly in his own big ones, as if ready for a bed-time story
which he was shaping in his mind slowly and with a great
patient happiness in details.
"Well, here's how it is, little girl. Six months ago
another rocket came to Mars. There was a man named York in
it, and his assistant. Whatever happened to them, we don't
know. Maybe they crashed. They came in a rocket. So did we.
You should see it! A _big_ rocket! So we're the _Second_
Expedition, following up the First! And we came all the way
from Earth. . . ."
The little girl disengaged one hand without thinking
about it, and clapped an expressionless golden mask over her
face, Then she pulled forth a golden spider toy and dropped
it to the ground while the captain talked on. The toy spider
climbed back up to her knee obediently, while she speculated
upon it coolly through the slits of her emotionless mask and
the captain shook her gently and urged his story upon her.
"We're Earth Men," he said. "Do you believe me?"
"Yes." The little girl peeped at the way she was wiggling
her toes in the dust.
"Fine." The captain pinched her arm, a little bit with
joviality, a little bit with meanness to get her to look at
him. "We built our own rocket ship. Do you believe _that?_"
The little girl dug in her nose with a finger. "Yes."
"And--take your finger out of your nose, little girl--_I_
am the captain, and--"
"Never before in history has anybody come across space
in a big rocket ship," recited the little creature, eyes shut.
"Wonderful! How did you know?"
"Oh, telepathy." She wiped a casual finger on her knee.
"Well, aren't you just _ever_ so excited?" cried the
captain. "Aren't you glad?"
"You just better go see Mr. Iii right away." She dropped
her toy to the ground. "Mr. Iii will like talking to you."
She ran off, with the toy spider scuttling obediently after
her.
The captain squatted there looking after her with his hand
out. His eyes were watery in his head. He looked at his empty
hands. His mouth hung open: The other three men stood with
their shadows under them. They spat on the stone street. . . .
Mr. Iii answered his door. He was on his way to a lecture,
but he had a minute, if they would hurry inside and tell him
what they desired. . . .
"A little attention," said the captain, red-eyed and
tired. "We're from Earth, we have a rocket, there are four
of us, crew and captain, we're exhausted, we're hungry, we'd
like a place to sleep. We'd like someone to give us the key
to the city or something like that, and we'd like somebody
to shake our hands and say 'Hooray' and say 'Congratulations,
old man!' That about sums it up."
Mr. Iii was a tall, vaporous, thin man with thick blind
blue crystals over his yellowish eyes. He bent over his desk
and brooded upon some papers, glancing now and again with
extreme penetration at his guests.
"Well, I haven't the forms with me here, I don't _think_."
He rummaged through the desk drawers. "Now, where _did_ I
put the forms?" He mused. "Somewhere. Somewhere. Oh, _here_
we are! Now!" He handed the papers over crisply. "You'll have
to sign these papers, of course."
"Do we have to go through all this rigmarole?"
Mr. Iii gave him a thick glassy look. "You say you're from
Earth, don't you? Well, then there's nothing for it but you
sign."
The captain wrote his name. "Do you want my crew to sign
also?"
Mr. Iii looked at the captain, looked at the three others,
and burst into a shout of derision. "_Them_ sign! Ho! How
marvelous! Them, oh, _them_ sign!" Tears sprang from his eyes.
He slapped his knee and bent to let his laughter jerk out
of his gaping mouth. He held himself up with the desk. "_Them_
sign!"
The four men scowled. "What's funny?"
"Them sign!" sighed Mr. Iii, weak with hilarity. "So very
funny. I'll have to tell Mr. Xxx about this!" He examined
the filled-out form, still laughing. "Everything seems to
be in order." He nodded. "Even the agreement for euthanasia
if final decision on such a step is necessary." He chuckled.
"Agreement for _what?_"
"Don't talk. I have something for you. Here. Take this
key."
The captain flushed. "It's a great honor."
"Not the key to the city, you fool!" snapped Mr. Iii. "Just
a key to the House. Go down that corridor, unlock the big
door, and go inside and shut the door tight. You can spend
the night there. In the morning I'll send Mr. Xxx to see you."
Dubiously the captain took the key in hand. He stood
looking at the floor. His men did not move. They seemed to
be emptied of all their blood and their rocket fever. They
were drained dry.
"What is it? What's wrong?" inquired Mr. Iii. "What are
you waiting for? What do you want?" He came and peered up
into the captain's face, stooping. "Out with it, you!"
"I don't suppose you could even--" suggested the captain.
"I mean, that is, try to, or think about . . ." He hesitated.
"We've worked hard, we've come a long way, and maybe you could
just shake our hands and say 'Well done!' do you--think?"
His voice faded.
Mr. Iii stuck out his hand stiffly. "Congratulations!"
He smiled a cold smile. "Congratulations." He turned away.
"I must go now. Use that key."
Without noticing them again, as if they had melted down
through the floor, Mr. Iii moved about the room packing a
little manuscript case with papers. He was in the room another
five minutes but never again addressed the solemn quartet
that stood with heads down, their heavy legs sagging, the
light dwindling from their eyes. When Mr. Iii went out the
door he was busy looking at his fingernails. . . .
They straggled along the corridor in the dull, silent
afternoon light. They came to a large burnished silver door,
and the silver key opened it. They entered, shut the door,
and turned.
They were in a vast sunlit hall. Men and woman sat at tables
and stood in conversing groups. At the sound of the door they
regarded the four uniformed men.
One Martian stepped forward, bowing. "I am Mr. Uuu," he
said.
"And I am Captain Jonathan Williams, of New York City,
on Earth," said the captain without emphasis.
Immediately the hall exploded!
The rafters trembled with shouts and cries. The people,
rushing forward, waved and shrieked happily, knocking down
tables, swarming, rollicking, seizing the four Earth Men,
lifting them swiftly to their shoulders. They charged about
the hall six times, six times making a full and wonderful
circuit of the room, jumping, bounding, singing.
The Earth Men were so stunned that they rode the toppling
shoulders for a full minute before they began to laugh and
shout at each other:
"Hey! This is more _like_ it!"
"This is the life! Boy! Yay! Yow! Whoopee!"
They winked tremendously at each other. They flung up
their hands to clap the air. "Hey!"
"Hooray!" said the crowd.
They set the Earth Men on a table. The shouting died.
The captain almost broke into tears. "Thank you. It's good,
it's good."
"Tell us about yourselves," suggested Mr. Uuu.
The captain cleared his throat.
The audience ohed and ahed as the captain talked. He
introduced his crew; each made a small speech and was
embarrassed by the thunderous applause.
Mr. Uuu dapped the captain's shoulder, "It's good to see
another man from Earth. I am from Earth also."
"How was that again?"
"There are many of us here from Earth."
"You? From Earth?" The captain stared. "But is that
possible? Did you come by rocket? Has space travel been going
on for centuries?" His voice was disappointed. "What--what
country are you from?"
"Tuiereol. I came by the spirit of my body, years ago."
"Tuiereol." The captain mouthed the word. "I don't know
that country. What's this about spirit of body?"
"And Miss Rrr over here, she's from Earth, too, _aren't_
you, Miss Rrr?"
Miss Rrr nodded and laughed strangely.
"And so is Mr. Www and Mr. Qqq and Mr. Vvv!"
"I'm from Jupiter," declared one man, preening himself.
"I'm from Saturn," said another, eyes glinting slyly.
"Jupiter, Saturn," murmured the captain, blinking.
It was very quiet now; the people stood around and sat
at the tables which were strangely empty for banquet tables.
Their yellow eyes were glowing, and there were dark shadows
under their cheekbones. The captain noticed for the first
time that there were no windows; the light seemed to permeate
the walls. There was only one door. The captain winced. "This
is confusing. Where on Earth is this Tuiereol? Is it near
America?"
"What is America?"
"You never heard of America! You say you're from Earth
and yet you don't know!"
Mr. Uuu drew himself up angrily. "Earth is a place of seas
and nothing but seas. There is no land. I am from Earth, and
know."
"Wait a minute." The captain sat back. "You look like a
regular Martian. Yellow eyes. Brown skin."
"Earth is a place of all _jungle_," said Miss Rrr proudly.
"I'm from Orri, on Earth, a civilization built of silver!"
Now the captain turned his head from and then to Mr. Uuu
and then to Mr. Www and Mr. Zzz and Mr. Nnn and Mr. Hhh and
Mr. Bbb. He saw their yellow eyes waxing and waning in the
light, focusing and unfocusing. He began to shiver. Finally
he turned to his men and regarded them somberly.
"Do you realize what this is?"
"What, sir?"
"This is no celebration," replied the captain tiredly.
"This is no banquet. These aren't government representatives.
This is no surprise party. Look at their eyes. Listen to them!"
Nobody breathed. There was only a soft white move of eyes
in the close room.
"Now I understand"--the captain's voice was far away--
"why everyone gave us notes and passed us on, one from the
other, until we met Mr. Iii, who sent us down a corridor with
a key to open a door and shut a door. And here we are . . ."
"Where are we, sir?"
The captain exhaled. "In an insane asylum."
It was night. The large hall lay quiet and dimly
illuminated by hidden light sources in the transparent walls.
The four Earth Men sat around a wooden table, their bleak
heads bent over their whispers. On the floors, men and women
lay huddled. There were little stirs in the dark corners,
solitary men or women gesturing their hands. Every half-hour
one of the captain's men would try the silver door and return
to the table. "Nothing doing, sir. We're locked in proper."
"They think we're really insane, sir?"
"Quite. That's why there was no hullabaloo to welcome us.
They merely tolerated what, to them, must be a constantly
recurring psychotic condition." He gestured at the dark
sleeping shapes all about them. "Paranoids, every single one!
What a welcome they gave us! For a moment there"--a little
fire rose and died in his eyes--"I thought we were getting
our true reception. All the yelling and singing and speeches.
Pretty nice, wasn't it--while it lasted?"
"How long will they keep us here, sir?"
"Until we prove we're not psychotics."
"That should be easy."
"I _hope_ so."
"You don't sound very certain, sir."
"I'm not. Look in that corner."
A man squatted alone in darkness. Out of his mouth issued
a blue flame which turned into the round shape of a small
naked woman. It flourished on the air softly in vapors of
cobalt light, whispering and sighing.
The captain nodded at another corner. A woman stood there,
changing. First she was embedded in a crystal pillar, then
she melted into a golden statue, finally a staff of polished
cedar, and back to a woman.
All through the midnight hall people were juggling thin
violet flames, shifting, changing, for nighttime was the time
of change and affliction.
"Magicians, sorcerers," whispered one of the Earth Men.
"No, hallucination. They pass their insanity over into
us so that we see their hallucinations too. Telepathy.
Autosuggestion and telepathy."
"Is that what worries you, sir?"
"Yes. If hallucinations can appear this 'real' to us, to
anyone, if hallucinations are catching and almost believable,
it's no wonder they mistook us for psychotics. If that man
can produce little blue fire women and that woman there melt
into a pillar, how natural if normal Martians think _we_
produce our rocket ship with _our_ minds."
"Oh," said his men in the shadows.
Around them, in the vast hall, flames leaped blue, flared,
evaporated. Little demons of red sand ran between the teeth
of sleeping men. Women became oily snakes. There was a smell
of reptiles and animals.
In the morning everyone stood around looking fresh, happy,
and normal. There were no flames or demons in the room. The
captain and his men waited by the silver door, hoping it would
open.
Mr. Xxx arrived after about four hours. They had a
suspicion that he had waited outside the door, peering in
at them for at least three hours before he stepped in, beckoned,
and led them to his small office.
He was a jovial, smiling man, if one could believe the
mask he wore, for upon it was painted not one smile, but three.
Behind it, his voice was the voice of a not so smiling
psychologist. "What seems to be the trouble?"
"You think we're insane, and we're not," said the captain.
"Contrarily, I do not think _all_ of you are insane." The
psychologist pointed a little wand at the captain. "No. Just
_you_, sir. The others are secondary hallucinations."
The captain slapped his knee, "So _that's_ it! That's why
Mr. Iii laughed when I suggested my men sign the papers too!"
"Yes, Mr. Iii told me." The psychologist laughed out of
the carved, smiling mouth. "A good joke. Where was I?
Secondary hallucinations, yes. Women come to me with snakes
crawling from their ears. When I cure them, the snakes
vanish."
"We'll be glad to be cured. Go right ahead."
Mr. Xxx seemed surprised. "Unusual. Not many people want
to be cured. The cure is drastic, you know."
"Cure ahead! I'm confident you'll find we're all sane."
"Let me check your papers to be sure they're in order for
a 'cure.'" He checked a file. "Yes. You know, such cases as
yours need special 'curing.' The people in that hall are
simpler forms. But once you've gone this far, I must point
out, with primary, secondary, auditory, olfactory, and
labial hallucinations, as well as tactile and optical
fantasies, it is pretty bad business. We have to resort to
euthanasia."
The captain leaped up with a roar. "Look here, we've stood
quite enough! Test us, tap our knees, check our hearts,
exercise us, ask questions!"
"You are free to speak."
The captain raved for an hour. The psychologist listened.
"Incredible," he mused. "Most detailed dream fantasy I've
ever heard."
"God damn it, we'll show you the rocket ship!" screamed
the captain.
"I'd like to see it. Can you manifest it in this room?"
"Oh, certainly. It's in that file of yours, under R."
Mr. Xxx peered seriously into his file. He went "Tsk" and
shut the file solemnly. "Why did you tell me to look? The
rocket isn't there."
"Of course not, you idiot! I was joking. Does an insane
man joke?"
"You find some odd senses of humor. Now, take me out to
your rocket. I wish to see it."
It was noon. The day was very hot when they reached the
rocket.
"So." The psychologist walked up to the ship and tapped
it. It gonged softly. "May I go inside?" he asked slyly.
"You may."
Mr. Xxx stepped in and was gone for a long time.
"Of all the silly, exasperating things." The captain
chewed a cigar as he waited. "For two cents I'd go back home
and tell people not to bother with Mars. What a suspicious
bunch of louts."
"I gather that a good number of their population are insane,
sir. That seems to be their main reason for doubting."
"Nevertheless, this is all so damned irritating."
The psychologist emerged from the ship after half an hour
of prowling, tapping, listening, smelling, tasting.
"_Now_ do you believe!" shouted the captain, as if he were
deaf.
The psychologist shut his eyes and scratched his nose.
"This is the most incredible example of sensual hallucination
and hypnotic suggestion I've ever encountered. I went through
your 'rocket,' as you call it." He tapped the hull. "I hear
it. Auditory fantasy." He drew a breath. "I smell it.
Olfactory hallucination, induced by sensual telepathy." He
kissed the ship. "I taste it. Labial fantasy!"
He shook the captain's hand. "May I congratulate you? You
are a psychotic genius! You have done a most complete job!
The task of projecting your psychotic image life into the
mind of another via telepathy and keeping the hallucinations
from becoming sensually weaker is almost impossible. Those
people in the House usually concentrate on visuals or, at
the most, visuals and auditory fantasies combined. You have
balanced the whole conglomeration! Your insanity is
beautifully complete!"
"My insanity." The captain was pale.
"Yes, yes, what a lovely insanity. Metal, rubber,
gravitizers, foods, clothing, fuel, weapons, ladders, nuts,
bolts, spoons. Ten thousand separate items I checked on your
vessel. Never have I seen such a complexity. There were even
shadows under the bunks and under _everything!_ Such
concentration of will! And everything, no matter how or when
tested, had a smell, a solidity, a taste, a sound! Let me
embrace you!"
He stood back at last. "I'll write this into my greatest
monograph! I'll speak of it at the Martian Academy next month!
_Look_ at you! Why, you've even changed your eye color from
yellow to blue, your skin to pink from brown. And those clothes,
and your hands having five fingers instead of six! Biological
metamorphosis through psychological imbalance! And your
three friends.--"
He took out a little gun. "Incurable, of course. You poor,
wonderful man. You will be happier dead. Have you any last
words?"
"Stop, for God's sake! Don't shoot!"
"You sad creature. I shall put you out of this misery which
has driven you to imagine this rocket and these three men.
It will be most engrossing to watch your friends and your
rocket vanish once I have killed you. I will write a neat
paper on the dissolvement of neurotic images from what I
perceive here today."
"I'm from Earth! My name is Jonathan Williams, and
these--"
"Yes, I know," soothed Mr. Xxx, and fired his gun.
The captain fell with a bullet in his heart. The other
three men screamed.
Mr. Xxx stared at them. "You continue to exist? This is
superb! Hallucinations with time and spatial persistence!"
He pointed the gun at them. "Well, I'll scare you into
dissolving."
"No!" cried the three men,
"An auditory appeal, even with the patient dead,"
observed Mr. Xxx as he shot the three men down.
They lay on the sand, intact, not moving.
He kicked them. Then he rapped on the ship.
"_It_ persists! _They_ persist!" He fired his gun again
and again at the bodies. Then he stood back. The smiling mask
dropped from his face.
Slowly the little psychologist's face changed. His jaw
sagged. The gun dropped from his fingers. His eyes were dull
and vacant He put his hands up and turned in a blind cirde.
He fumbled at the bodies, saliva filling his mouth.
"Hallucinations," he mumbled frantically. "Taste. Sight.
Smell. Sound. Feeling." He waved his hands. His eyes bulged.
His mouth began to give off a faint froth.
"Go away!" he shouted at the bodies. "Go away!" he screamed
at the ship. He examined his trembling hands. "Contaminated,"
he whispered wildly. "Carried over into me. Telepathy.
Hypnosis. Now _I'm_ insane, Now _I'm_ contaminated.
Hallucinations in all their sensual forms." He stopped and
searched around with his numb hands for the gun. "Only one
cure. Only one way to make them go away, vanish."
A shot rang out, Mr. Xxx fell.
The four bodies lay in the sun. Mr. Xxx lay where he fell.
The rocket reclined on the little sunny hill and didn't
vanish.
When the town people found the rocket at sunset they
wondered what it was. Nobody knew, so it was sold to a junkman
and hauled off to be broken up for scrap metal.
That night it rained all night. The next day was fair and
warm.