The Radio Man—An Earthman on Venus (2024)

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Radio Man, by Ralph Milne FarleyThis eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and mostother parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictionswhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms ofthe Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you'll haveto check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.Title: The Radio Man An Earthman on VenusAuthor: Ralph Milne FarleyRelease Date: May 27, 2016 [EBook #52167]Language: EnglishCharacter set encoding: UTF-8*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RADIO MAN ***Produced by Stephen Hutcheson, Dave Morgan and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

High Adventure and Strange Romance on a World of Mystery

When Myles Cabot accidentally transmittedhimself to the planet Venus, he foundhimself naked and bewildered on a mysteryworld where every unguarded minutemight mean a horrible death.

Man-eating plants, tiger-sized spiders, anddictatorial ant-men kept Myles on the rununtil he discovered the secret of the land—thathumanity was a slave-race and thatthe monster ants were the real rulers ofthe world!

But Cabot was resourceful, and when hisnew found love, the Kewpie-doll princessLilla, called for help, the ant-men learnedwhat an angry Earthman can do.

AN EARTHMAN ON VENUS is a science-fictionadventure packed with theexcitement of an Edgar Rice Burroughs,and the science-vision of an H. G. Wells.You won’t be able to put it down onceyou start it.

{Originally titled “THE RADIO MAN”}

by
RALPH MILNE FARLEY

AVON PUBLISHING CO., INC.
119 West 57th Street, New York 19, N. Y.
Published by Arrangement with the Author

On the planet VENUS you will meet—
THIS EARTHMAN

MYLES CABOT, a good-looking young Boston radio experimenter, who accidentally broadcast himself bodily to another world.

THESE GIANT ANTS

QUEEN FORMIS, a twelve-foot-high monster, who ruled a world from an egg-laying couch, and could conceive of no mercy for her human slaves.
DOGGO, who became Myles Cabot’s friend through a curious accident and who first showed Myles the ropes on that queer planet.
SATAN, who was given that name by Myles for the unpleasant reason that he deserved it—and who lived up to it.

THESE VENUSIAN PEOPLE

PRINCESS LILLA, the lovely girl with the Kewpie wings, who held the key to the throne of Venus and the key to Myles’ heart simultaneously.
YURI, the suave scoundrel who wouldn’t hesitate to sell out his whole race to get Lilla’s hand by force.
TORON, who tipped Myles off to Lilla’s private intentions in order to save himself from slavery.
BTHUH, the beautiful lady who conspired to win Myles for herself, though she had to help his deadliest enemies to do it.

The Radio Man. Copyright, 1924 and 1939, by FrankA. Munsey Company. Copyright, 1948, by Ralph MilneFarley.

Avon Reprint Edition

An Earthman on Venus. Copyright, 1950, by AvonPublishing Co., Inc.

PRINTED IN U.S.A.

1 The Message in the Meteor 3
2 Stranded in Space 8
3 Out of the Frying Pan 16
4 Go to the Ant, Thou Sluggard 22
5 A Vision 30
6 Radio Plays its Part 37
7 A Hunting Trip 48
8 The Conspiracy 56
9 The Rescue 63
10 Before Queen Formis 73
11 The Valley of the Shadow of Death 81
12 A Victim of Yuri 89
13 Kidnaped 96
14 In Disgrace 104
15 A New Game 110
16 Cabot Tells the World 119

1
the message in the meteor

Never had I been so frightened in all my life!It was a warm evening late in August, andI was sitting on the kitchen steps of myChappaquiddick Island farmhouse, discussing the drought withone of the farm hands. Suddenly there appeared in the sky overour heads a flaming fiery mass, rushing straight downward towardus.

“Here’s where a shooting star gets me,” I thought, as I instinctivelyducked my head, just as though such a feeble moveas ducking one’s head could afford any possible protection fromthe flaming terror. The next instant there came a dull crash,followed by silence, which in turn was broken by the hired mandryly remarking: “I reckon she struck over to Cow Hill.” CowHill was the slight elevation just back of our farmhouse.

So the meteor hadn’t been aimed exactly at me, after all.

If that thing had hit me, some one else would be giving to theworld this story.

We did nothing further about the meteor that night, beingpretty well shaken up by the occurrence. But next morning, assoon as the chores were done, the hired man and I hastened tothe top of Cow Hill to look for signs of last night’s fiery visitor.

And, sure enough, there were plenty of signs. Every spear ofgrass was singed from the top of the hill; the big rock on thesummit showed marks of a collision; and several splinters ofsome black igneous material were lying strewed around. Leadingfrom the big rock there ran down the steep side of the hilla gradually deepening furrow, ending in a sort of caved-in hole.

We could not let slip such a good opportunity to get somenewspaper publicity for our farm. And so on the followingFriday a full account of the meteoric visitation appeared in theVineyard Gazette, with the result that quite a number of summerfolks walked across the island from the bathing beach tolook at the hole.

And there was another result, for early the following weekI received a letter from Professor Gerrish, of the Harvard Observatory,stating that he had read about the meteor in thepaper, and requesting that I send him a small piece—or, ifpossible, the whole meteor—by express, collect, for purposes ofanalysis.

Anything for dear old Harvard! Unfortunately all the blacksplinters had been carried away by tourists. So I set the mento work digging out the main body. Quite a hole was dug beforewe came to the meteor, a black pear-shaped object about the sizeof a barrel. With rock tongs, chains and my pair of Percherons,we dragged this out onto the level. I had hoped that it wouldbe small enough so that I could send the whole thing up toHarvard and perhaps have it set up in front of the AgassizMuseum, marked with a bronze plate bearing my name; but itssize precluded this.

My wife, who was present when we hauled it out, remarked:“It looks just like a huge black teardrop or raindrop.”

And sure enough it did. But why not? If raindrops take ona streamline form in falling, why might not a more solid meteordo so as well? But I had never heard of one doing so before.This new idea prompted me to take careful measurements andto submit them to Professor O. D. Kellogg, of the Harvardmathematics department, who was summering at West Chopnear by. He reported to me that the form was as perfectlystreamlined as it was possible to conceive, but that my surmiseas to how it had become so was absurd.

While making these measurements I was attracted by anotherfeature of the meteor. At one place on the side, doubtless whereit had struck the big rock, the black coating had been chippedaway, disclosing a surface of yellow metal underneath. Alsothere was to be seen in this metal an absolutely straight crack,extending as far as the metal was exposed, in a sidewise direction.

At the time the crack did not attract me so much as the metal.I vaguely wondered if it might not be gold. But, being remindedof Professor Gerrish’s request for a sample of the meteor, I hadone of the men start chiseling off some pieces.

The natural spot to begin was alongside of the place wherethe covering was already chipped. It was hard work, but finallyhe removed several pieces, and then we noticed that the crackcontinued around the waist of the meteor as far as had beenchipped. This crack, from its absolute regularity, gave every indicationof being man-made.

Our curiosity was aroused. Why the regularity of this crack?How far did it go? Could it possibly extend clear way around?Was it really a threaded joint? And if so, how could such aphenomenon occur on a meteorite dropped from the sky?

Forgotten was the second crop mowing we had planned to dothat day. Hastily summoning the rest of the help, we set to workwith cold chisels and sledges, to remove the black coating in acircle around the middle of the huge teardrop. It was a longand tedious task, for the black substance was harder than anythingI had ever chipped before. We broke several drills anddented the yellow metal unmercifully, but not so much butwhat we could see that the threaded crack did actually persist.

The dinner hour passed, and still we worked, unmindful ofthe appeals of our womenfolk, who finally abandoned us withmuch shrugging of shoulders.

It was nearly night when we completed the chipping andapplied two chain wrenches to try and screw the thing apart.But, after all our efforts, it would not budge. Just as we wereabout to drop the wrenches and start to chisel through the metalsome one suggested that we try to unscrew it as a left-handedscrew. Happy thought! For, in spite of all the dents which wehad made, the two ends at last gradually untwisted.

What warrant did we have to suppose that there was anythinginside it? I must confess, now it is all over, that we wentthrough this whole day’s performance in a sort of feverishtrance, with no definite notion of what we were doing, or why;and yet impelled by a crazy fixed idea that we were on theverge of a great discovery.

And at last our efforts had met with success, and the hugeteardrop lay before us in two neatly threaded parts. The insidewas hollow and was entirely filled with something tightlyswathed in silver colored felt tape.

Breathless, we unwound over three hundred feet of this silvertape, and finally came to a gold cylinder about the size andshape of a gingersnap tin—that is to say, a foot long and threeinches in diameter—chased all around with peculiar arabesquecharacters. By this time Mrs. Farley and my mother-in-law andthe hired girl had joined us, attracted by the shouts which wegave when the teardrop had come apart.

One end of the cylinder easily unscrewed—also with a left-handedthread—and I drew forth a manuscript, plainly writtenin the English language, on some tissue-thin substance likeparchment.

Everyone clustered around me, as I turned to the end to seewho it was from, and read with astonishment the followingsignature: “Myles S. Cabot.”

But this name meant nothing to anyone present except myself.

I heard one of the hands remark to another:

“’Twarn’t no shootin’ star at all. Nothin’ but some friend ofthe boss shootin’ a letter to him out of one of these here long-rangeguns.”

“Maybe so,” said I to myself.

But Mrs. Farley was quivering with excitement.

“You must tell me all about it, Ralph,” said she. “Who canbe sending you a message inside a meteor, I wonder?”

My reply was merely: “I think that there is a clipping in oneof my scrapbooks up in the attic which will answer that question.”

There was! I found the scrapbook in a chest under the eaves,but did not open it until after chores and supper, during whichmeal I kept a provoking silence on the subject of our discovery.

When the dishes were finally all cleared away, I opened thebook on the table and read to the assembled household the followingfour-year-old clipping from the Boston Post.

CITIZEN DISAPPEARS
Prominent Clubman Vanishes from Beacon Street Home
Myles S. Cabot of 162 Beacon Street, disappeared from his bachelorquarters late yesterday afternoon, under very mysterious circ*mstances.
He had been working all day in his radio laboratory on the top floorof his house, and had refused to come down for lunch. When called todinner, he made no reply: so his butler finally decided to break down thedoor, which was locked.
The laboratory was found to be empty. All the windows were closedand locked, and the key was on the inside of the door. In a heap on thefloor lay a peculiar collection of objects, consisting of Mr. Cabot’s watchand chain, pocket knife, signet ring, cuff links and tie pin, some coins, ametal belt buckle, two sets of garter snaps, some safety pins, a gold penpoint, a pen clip, a silver pencil, some steel buttons, and several miscellaneousbits of metal. There was a smell in the air like one notices in electricpower houses. The fuses on the laboratory power line were all blown out.
The butler immediately phoned to police headquarters, and DetectiveFlynn was dispatched to the scene. He questioned all the servants thoroughly,and confirmed the foregoing facts.
The police are working on the case.
WAS PROMINENT RADIO ENTHUSIAST
Myles S. Cabot, whose mysterious disappearance yesterday has shockedBoston society, was the only son of the late Alden Cabot. His mother wasa Sears of Southboro.
The younger Cabot since his graduation from Harvard had devoted himselfto electrical experimenting. Although prominent in the social life ofthe city, and an active member of the Union, University, New York Yacht,and Middlesex Hunt Clubs, he nevertheless had found time to invent noveland useful radio devices, among the best known of which is the IndestructoVacuum Tube.
He had established at his Beacon Street residence one of the best equippedradio laboratories in the city.
His most recent experiment, according to professional friends, had beenwith television.
Mr. Cabot substituted two circuits for the usual television circuit, onecontrolling the vertical lines of his sending and receiving screens, and theother the horizontal, thus enabling him to enlarge his screen considerably,and also to present a continuous picture instead of one made up of dots.The effect of perspective he obtained by adding a third circuit.
The details of this invention had not been given out by Mr. Cabot priorto his disappearance.
His nearest relatives are cousins.

The last was a particularly gentle touch, it seemed to me.Well, his cousins hadn’t yet inherited his property, althoughthey had tried mighty hard; and perhaps this mysterious messagefrom the void would prevent them from ever doing so. Ihoped that this would be the case, for I liked Myles, and hadnever liked those cousins of his.

Myles had been a classmate of mine at Harvard, though laterour paths drifted apart, his leading into Back Bay society andradio, and mine leading into the quiet pastoral life of a farmon Chappaquiddick Island off the coast of Massachusetts. Ihad heard little of him until I read the shocking account of hissudden disappearance.

The police had turned up no further clues, and the matterhad quickly faded from the public sight. I had kept the Postclipping as a memento of my old college chum.

I was anxious to learn what had become of him these fouryears. So I opened the manuscript and proceeded to read aloud.

In the following chapters I shall give the story contained inthat manuscript—a story so weird, and yet so convincinglysimple, that it cannot fail to interest all those who knew MylesCabot. It completely clears up the mystery surrounding his disappearance.Of course, there will be some who will refuse tobelieve that this story is the truth. But those of his classmatesand friends who knew him well will find herein unmistakableinternal evidence of Myles Cabot’s hand in this narrative conveyedto me in the golden heart of a meteorite.

2
stranded in space

Thus wrote Myles Cabot:

My chief line of work, since graduatingfrom Harvard, was on the subject of television.By simultaneously using three sending sets and threereceiving sets, each corresponding to one of the three dimensions,any object which I placed within the framework of mytransmitter could be seen within the framework of my receiver,just as though it stood there itself.

All that prevented the object from actually being made tostand there was the quite sufficient fact that no one had yet,so far as I was then aware, invented a means for dissolvingmatter into its well-known radiations, and then converting theseradiations back into matter again.

But at just this time, by a remarkable coincidence, there cameinto my hands a copy of an unpublished paper on this subjectby Rene Flambeau.

The prior experiments of De Gersdorff are well known; hehad succeeded by means of radio waves, in isolating and distinguishingthe electro-magnetic constituents of all the differentchemical elements. Flambeau went one step further, and wasable to transmit small formless quantities of matter itself, althoughfor some reason certain metals, but not their salts, appearedto absorb the electrical energy employed by him, andthus be immune to transportation.

As I could already transmit a three-dimensional picture of anobject, and as Flambeau had been able to transmit formlessmatter, then by combining our devices in a single apparatus Ifound I could transmit physical objects unchanged in form.

But this apparatus produced one unexpected phenomenon—namely,that whenever I employed excessive power, my sendingset would transmit objects placed slightly outside its normalrange, and certain small quantities thereof would turn up inother portions of my laboratory than within my receiving set.

To test this phenomenon further, I secured some high voltageequipment and arranged with the Edison Company for its use.

On the afternoon when the installation was completed, Istarted to place a small blue china vase in position to send it.Something must have become short-circuited, for there came ablinding flash, and I knew no more.

How long the unconsciousness lasted, I have no means oftelling. I was a long time regaining my senses, but when I hadfinally and fully recovered I found myself lying on a sandybeach, beside a calm and placid lake, and holding in my handthe small blue vase.

The atmosphere was warm, moist and fragrant, like that ofa hothouse, and the lap-lapping of the waves gave forth sucha pleasing musical sound that I lay where I was and dozed offand on, even after I had recovered consciousness.

I seemed to sense, rather than really to see, my surroundings.The sand was very white. The sky was completely overcloudedat a far height, and yet the clouds shone with such a silveryradiance that the day was as bright as any which I had everseen with full sunlight on earth, but with a difference, for herethe light diffused from all quarters, giving the shadowless effectwhich one always notes in a photographer’s studio.

To my right lay the lake, reflecting the silvery color of thesky. Before me stretched the beach, unbroken save for an occasionalpiece of driftwood. To my left was the upland, coveredwith a thicket of what at first appeared to be dead trees, buton closer scrutiny were seen to be some gigantic species of thewell-known branched gray lichen with red tips, which I used tofind on rocks and sticks in the woods as a child.

No birds were flying overhead, I suppose because there wereno birds to fly. I fell to wondering, vaguely and pleasantly,where I was and how I got there; but for the moment I remaineda victim of complete amnesia.

Suddenly, however, my ears were jarred by a familiar sound.At once my senses cleared and I listened intently to the distantpurring of a motor. Yes, there could be no mistake—an airplanewas approaching. Now I could see it, a speck in the sky, fardown the beach.

Nearer and nearer it came.

I sprang to my feet, and to my intense surprise found thatthe effort threw me quite a distance into the air. Instantly thethought flashed through my mind: “I must be on Mars!” Butno, for my weight was not nearly enough lighter than myearthly weight to justify such a conclusion.

For some reason my belt buckle and most of the buttonswhich held my clothes together were missing, so that my clothingcame to pieces as I arose, and I had to shed it rapidly inorder to avoid impeding my movements. I wondered at thecause of this.

But my speculations were cut short by the alighting of theairplane a hundred yards down the beach. It seemed to landvertically, rather than run along the ground, but I could not besure at that distance. What was my horror when out of it clamberednot men but ants! Ants, six-footed and six feet high.Huge ants, four of them, running toward me over the glisteningsands.

Gone was all my languor as I seized a piece of driftwood andprepared to defend myself as well as I could. The increase inmy jumping ability, although slight, coupled with an addedbuoyancy, might enable me to prolong the unequal encounter.

The ants came slowly forward, four abreast, like a cavalryformation, while I awaited their onslaught, grasping the stick ofdriftwood firmly in my hand. When nearly upon me they executedright-by-troopers and started circling in an ever-narrowingcircle.

Suddenly the ants wheeled and converged from all fourpoints of the compass, clicking their mandibles savagely as theycame. The whole movement had been executed with uncannyprecision, without a single word of communication between thestrange black creatures; in fact, without a single sound exceptthe clicking of their mandibles and a slight rattling of theirjoints. How like a naval attack by a fleet of old-fashioned Fordcars, I thought.

When within about ten feet of me, they made a concertedrush; but I leaped to one side, at the same time giving one ofmy antagonists a crack with my club as they crashed together inthe center. This denouement seemed to confuse them, for theyslowly extricated themselves from their tangle and withdrewfor a short distance, where they again formed and stood glaringat me for a few minutes, clicking their jaws angrily.

Then they rushed again, this time in close formation, butagain I jumped to one side, dealing another blow with my club.Whereupon the fighting became disorganized, the ants makingindividual rushes, and I leaping and whacking as best I could.

I scored several dents in the armor of my opponents, andfinally succeeded by a lucky stroke in beheading one of them.But at this the other three came on with renewed vigor. Althougheach ant wore some sort of green weapon slung in aholster at its side, they fought only with their mandibles.

The slight difference in gravity from that to which I hadbeen accustomed finally proved my undoing; for, although itincreased my agility, it also rendered me a bit less sure on myfeet, and this was enhanced by the rapid disintegration of thesoles of my shoes. The result was that, at last I slipped and fell,and was immediately set upon and pinned down by my enemies.One of the ants at once deliberately nipped me in the sidewith his huge mandibles. An excruciating pain shot throughmy entire body; and then, for the second time that day, I lostconsciousness.

When I came to, I found myself lying in the co*ckpit of anairplane, speeding through the sky. One of my ant captors wasstanding on a slight incline at the bow of the ship, operatingthe control levers with his front feet; and the other two werewatching the scenery. The dead ant was nowhere to be seen.No one was paying any attention to me.

I was not bound, and yet I was unable to move. My senseswere unusually keen, and yet my body was completely paralyzed.I had no idea as to what sort of country we were flying over,for I could not raise my head above the edge of the co*ckpit. Ididn’t know where I was going, but I certainly was on my wayall right. And not so all right, at that.

Overhead was the same silvery glare, without a patch of bluesky. No sound came from my sinister, indifferent captors. Theonly noise was the throbbing of the motors.

As to the time of day, or how long I had been on board, Ihad no idea; and what was more, I didn’t particularly care.Rather a pleasant sort of a jag, if it were not for the intense painof lickering-up.

After a while the pleasant sensation wore off, and my throatbegan to feel dry. I tried to call to the ants, but of course couldnot, because of the paralysis; and finally desisted even the attempt,when I remembered that the ants were speechless andhence probably unable to hear.

By a coincidence, however, one of the creatures seemed tosense my needs, and brought me some water in a bowl, gentlyholding up my head with one of his forepaws so that I coulddrink. This action touched my heart, and also filled me withhope that the ants might not turn out to be such bad captorsafter all.

Then I fell to studying them. First of all, I noticed that eachant carried on the back of his thorax a line of peculiar whitecharacters, somewhat like shorthand writing; and below it severalrows of similar writing, only smaller in size.

The peculiar green-colored weapon, slung in a holster on theright-hand side of each ant, I had already noticed during thefight. But, apart from the white marks and the green weapons,my captors were absolutely naked; and so far as I could seethey were exactly like the ordinary black ants to which I hadbeen accustomed on earth, only of course magnified to an enormoussize.

I studied the faces which the ants now occasionally turnedtoward me. These faces were sinister and terrifying. They recalledto my memory the fright which I had once had when, asa child, I attended an entomological movie and was suddenlyconfronted with a close-up of the head of some common insect.

But the ant who had brought me the water had a human lookwhich relieved him of much of his terrible grimness. In fact,he struck me as vaguely familiar. Ah! Now I had it! A certainstolidity of movement, amounting almost to a mannerism, remindedme of one of my Harvard classmates, a homely good-heartedboy whom we had all known by the nickname of“Doggo.” And so, from then on, I instinctively thought of thatparticular ant as named Doggo.

Then, for the first time, it struck me as strange that theseants, instead of scuttling aimlessly over the ground, or havingwings of their own to fly with, as in the mating season on earth,were utilizing a carefully and scientifically built airplane, apparentlyof their own make. And it struck me as even morestrange that I had not wondered about this before.

But then the events of that day had occurred with such startlingrapidity—from the flash in my Beacon Street laboratory,through my awakening beside that strange lake, the approachof the airplane, my fight with the ants, and my second lapsefrom consciousness, down to my present predicament—that Iwas to be excused for not considering any particular phase ofmy adventures as being more extraordinary than any other.

Now, however, that I had had time to draw my breath andcollect my thoughts, it dawned on me with more and moreforce that here I was, apparently on some strange planet ofwhich the ruling race, apparently of human or superhumanintelligence, were not men. And they were not even some othermammal, but were insects—ants, to be more specific. For all thatI knew, I was the only mammal—or perhaps even the onlyvertebrate—on this entire planet.

Then I remembered a remark by Professor Parker in Zoology1 in my freshman year at Harvard: “The two peaks of development,in the chain of evolution from the amoeba upward, arethe order of hymenoptera (bees, wasps and ants) among insects,and the order of primates (men and monkeys) among mammals.In any other world it is probable that evolution wouldproduce a ruling race, in much the same way that man has beenproduced upon the earth; and it is a toss-up whether this rulingrace would develop along the lines of the hymenoptera, or in aform similar to the mammals; but one or the other seems inevitable.”

“Well,” said I to myself, “old Parker is certainly vindicated,at least with respect to one planet.”

Thus I mused, as the airplane sped along. Then the purr ofthe motors lulled me to sleep, and for the third time that day Ibecame unconscious.

When I awoke the sky was losing its luminous silver quality.On one side it was faintly pink, and on the other the silver colormerged into a duller gray. The airship still sped along.

Doggo brought me another bowl of water, and I found, tomy joy, that I could now lift my head enough to drink withoutany further assistance than to have Doggo hold the bowl. At thissign of recovery, one of the other ants advanced menacingly asif to bite me again. But Doggo jumped between us, and aftermuch snapping of mandibles and quivering of antennae by both,the other ant desisted.

This event decided me that Doggo was a friend worth cultivating,but I was at a loss how to make advances which wouldbe understood. Finally, however, I determined to attempt strokingthe huge ant in a way which I had found to be very effectivein making friends with animals.

Accordingly, when Doggo came near enough, by a great effortI overcame my paralysis sufficiently to reach up and touchhim on the side of his head just behind one of his great jaws.Apparently this pleased the ant, for he submitted to the caress,and finally lifted me to a sitting position, so that the pattingcould be continued with greater ease.

I later learned that this patting, to which I had resorted purelyby accident, is a universal custom of this planet, correspondingto shaking hands on earth, and signifying greetings, friendship,farewell, bargain binding, and the like.

The other ant-man occasionally would advance menacinglytoward me with his head lowered, but each time Doggo wouldstep between us, and lower his own head and agitate his antennae,at which the other would desist. I nicknamed the otherSatan, because of his diabolical actions.

In my new sitting position I was now able to see over theside of the airship. We were passing above gray woods, withoccasional silver-green fields, in which were grazing some sortof pale green animals, too far below to be easily distinguishable.Through the woods and fields ran what appeared to be roads,but as nothing was moving on them, I could not tell for sure.

Suddenly my attention was distracted from the view by thefrantic action of the ant-man who was steering the ship. Heseemed to be having difficulty with his controls. And then, soquickly that it gave us no warning, the ship reared up in theair and made a complete loop. That is, I merely suppose it madea complete one, for when the loop was half done, I dropped outand fell like a plummet.

I remember a momentary exultation at being free from mycaptors, and a certain spiteful joy at the thought that I shouldundoubtedly be dashed to pieces and thus rob them of theirprey. Then I had just begun to wonder whether I shouldn’tprefer captivity to death, when I struck—

And was not dashed to pieces.

I still lived, for I had been thrown slantwise into a net ofsome sort, and was now swaying gently back and forth like aslowing pendulum. Hooray! I was both free and safe.

But my joy was short lived, for I soon discovered that thefine silken strands of the net were covered with a substancelike sticky fly paper, which held me firmly. The more I struggled,the more I drew other strands of the net toward me toentangle me. At last I paused for breath, and then the truthdawned on me: I was caught in a gigantic spider web! Andsure enough, there came the spider toward me from one cornerof the web.

He wasn’t a very large spider. That is to say, judging by thesize of my previous captors, I should have expected that thespiders of this world would be as big as the Eiffel Tower. Hewas quite large enough however, having a body about the sizeof my own, and legs fully ten feet long. I call him a “spider,”for that is the earth word which comes closest to describing him.

With great assiduity he began wrapping me up into a cocoon,a process which he seemed to enjoy much more than I. But itdid me no good to struggle, for any part of me which showedany indications of moving was immediately pinioned with afresh strand of rope.

At last the job was finished, and I was completely envelopedwith a layer of thick coarse sticky silk cloth, translucent but nottransparent.

3
out of the frying pan

When I had dropped from the airplane intothe spider web, the time had been nearlyevening. All night, off and on, I struggled,but to no avail. Finally, shortly after daylight, something startledme by falling—plop—into the net close beside me. Anothervictim, thought I. Well, at least I should have company.

But this other creature was not any more inclined to take itscaptivity calmly than I had been. It thrashed and struggledviolently, until finally it tore a rent in the upper end of myshroud, so that I could see out.

My companion in misery was an orange-and-black-striped beeabout the size of a horse. He was buzzing frantically and slashingabout with his sting, while the spider hopped around himwith great agility, dodging the thrusts of the sting, and applyinga strand of silk here and there, whenever an opportunity offered.Thus gradually the bee’s freedom of motion became less andless, as strand after strand were added to his bonds.

But the spider, getting bolder as his captive’s struggles diminished,finally misjudged one thrust; and the imprisoned bee,putting all his effort into the stroke, drove his sting home. Thespider toppled from the web, and the fight was unexpectedlyat an end.

And now the bee and I were free, if we only could get free.Of the two of us, I had the easier task, for my cocoon had driedduring the night and was now no longer sticky. But it was stillvery tough.

Slowly, inch by inch, biting, clawing, tearing, I graduallyenlarged the hole near my head, until finally I was able to stepout and jump to the ground, which was about ten feet away, adrop equivalent to a little less than eight feet on the earth, notmuch difference, it is true, but every little bit helped.

I now decided to assist my rescuer, the bee, to escape. A rashdecision, one would say, and yet the bee seemed to realize thatI was helping him, for not once did he strike at me. Picking upa tree branch, I hacked at the cords which bound him, untilfinally he was able to fly away, trailing a large section of theweb after him.

As he left, I noticed that one of his hind legs was gone fromthe knee down, and that he bore a peculiar scarlike mark onthe under side of his abdomen. I should know him, if ever Iwere to meet him again.

The web had been stretched between two large gray leaflesstrees of the sort I had observed near the beach, but without thered tips to the branches. Nearby was a wood of similar butslightly smaller trees, bordering on a field of thickly mattedsilver-green grass, very similar in color. In this field were grazinga herd of pale green insects a little larger than sheep, withlong trailing antennae.

These creatures swayed from side to side, lifting first onefoot after another as they munched the matted grass. On thesides of some of them clung one or more bright red parasites,resembling lobsters in size and appearance; but their greenhosts did not seem to mind or even notice them. Nor did theynotice me, for that matter, as I passed between them across thefield.

On the further side of the field was a road, built of concrete,resembling in every way such concrete roads as we have onthe earth; and along it I set out, whither I knew not.

Now, I had had nothing to eat since I found myself on thesandy beach the previous morning. Also I had fought two battleson an empty stomach. The day was hot and moist, my feet werebare—as was the rest of me—and I felt discouraged and depressed.Still, I trudged along.

“Can it be true,” said I, “that only yesterday I rejoiced atfreedom from the ant-men?”

Now I was alone and lost—lost on a strange planet. Oh, howI longed for the sight of my late captors. Better even captivitythan this!

For a while the road ran between silver-green fields; thenentered a wood. On the gaunt gray trees hung a tangle oftropical vines, and between the trees grew some kind of smallshrub with large heart-shaped leaves, on each leaf of whichthere sat motionless one or more purple grasshoppers aboutfour inches in length.

In the distance I occasionally caught sight of some strangesort of bird—as I thought—flitting in tandem pairs from treeto tree. A multitude of tiny lizards, resembling miniature kangaroos,hopped about on the concrete and by the side of the road.

For a while the strange fauna and flora stimulated my curiosityand kept my mind off my troubles; but then I rapidly lostinterest in everything. My stomach gnawed. My knees wobbled.My mind began to cloud. And from that time on, I wanderedas in a dream, for I know not how many hours.

I vaguely remember falling on the roadway, and then crawlingalong for a while. Silly thoughts obsessed my brain, such aswondering whether my tail light was lit, and what made theweather so foggy. Finally I collapsed utterly, and had juststrength enough to drag myself off the concrete lest I be runover by some passing car.

As I lay there in the bushes by the side of the road, there cameto my nostrils a smell which partially revived me—a smellseemingly of griddle cakes and maple syrup. Opening my eyesagain and following my nose, I discovered that this pleasantodor emanated from a large bowl-shaped leaf only a few feetaway.

Upon dragging myself toward it, I discovered that in thebottom of the bowl there was a brown mass, looking very muchlike a stack of wheats, covered with some sticky substance. Butunfortunately this delectable dish was quite obscured by littlehopping lizards, now much bemired and hopping no more.

So I reached out my hand to brush them away, and instantlythe leaf closed upon my arm like a steel trap.

My brain cleared at once, and I began a frantic struggle toextricate my hand; but it was too late, for with a gentle massagingmotion the plant commenced to swallow my arm.

Inch by inch my arm descended into that rapacious maw. Itwas the steady slowness of the procedure that was so nerve-wracking,for without a pause my arm disappeared at a rate ofabout an inch a minute.

I braced my feet against the plant and pulled, but this cutoff the circulation in my arm. Then I wiggled my fingers rapidlyso as to keep my hand from going to sleep, whereupon theplant swallowed all the faster.

The mouth of the plant had closed very much like a clamshell, so, just before my shoulder disappeared, I braced my bodycrosswise of the jaws, in the hope that this maneuver wouldprevent the swallowing process from proceeding any further.

But the plant merely opened its flexible lips, and closed themthe other way, taking a firm grip on my chest, and just missinggetting hold of my right ear. I craned my neck as far as Icould to the left, and shrieked aloud with terror.

Was it for this that I had escaped the ant-men and the spider—tobe eaten alive by a plant?

The soft jaws now fastened on the back of my head andbegan gently drawing that in, too. At last only my nose wasfree. In a minute that, too, would be enveloped, then strangulationand death.

At this moment something fell upon me, and I felt the plantquiver and shake. The swallowing ceased. Then the soft lipswere torn away from one side of my head, and I heard afamiliar rattling sound.

A few seconds later the plant went limp, releasing my arm,and I lay upon my back, free once more, gazing upward intothe eyes of my old friend and captor.

“Doggo, Doggo!” I cried with joy, but he did not seem tohear me. Nevertheless he picked me up gently in his mandiblesand trotted off with me down the road.

After about a quarter of a mile, we turned aside into a field,and there was Satan, the other ant-man, standing beside acrumpled airship and the dead body of its pilot. Satan did notseem overjoyed to see me, but Doggo rummaged through thewreckage and finally produced a bowl, into which he put somewater and some medicine, which revived me greatly. Then helaid me on a pile of grass, covered me with leaves and stoodguard over me as the pink twilight deepened and the night fell.

As it began to grow dark I could hear an occasional tinkle likethe sound of a Japanese wind bell, first on one side and thenon another. This music gradually increased, until it assumedthe volume of a fairy orchestra. I had never heard such daintybewitching tunefulness in my entire life. Many weeks later Ilearned that this was the song of the large purple grasshoppers Ihad seen; but even the knowledge of its source has never robbedthe sound of its sweet mystery for me.

The fading silver radiance of the sky shed a moonlike lightover all below. A faint breeze sprang up, gently fanning themoist fragrant hot-house air against my cheeks. The foliagearound us waved like a sea of silver grain. And the tune of thatelfin melody quickly lulled me into a soft and dreamless sleep,secure in the confidence that a faithful friend was watching near.

The next morning I was awakened by Doggo stripping offmy leafy coverlet. Satan was not to be seen, but grazing nearus were some more of those peculiar large green insects, withlong trailing antennae, which I had seen in my flight from thespider web.

As I sat up, Doggo presented me with a bowl of pale greenliquid. But I was at a loss to know what to do with it. WasI supposed to wash in it, or drink it, or to rub it in my hair?

My friend solved the question by lifting it to my mouth. SoI drank, and found the taste sweetish and agreeable.

All morning we stayed by the wrecked machine, apparentlywaiting for something. Satan did not show up. Around noon,Doggo took the bowl and approached one of the green beastsgrazing near. I followed with interest.

Two horns projected upwardly from the tail of the beast, oneof which Doggo proceeded to stroke with his paw; and to mysurprise, a green liquid spouted from the animal, quickly fillingthe bowl. So that is where my breakfast had come from! Greenmilk from green cows! Strange! And yet how much morelogical than on earth, where a red cow eats green grass undera blue sky and produces white milk, from which we get yellowbutter.

Shortly after lunch I heard the hum of a motor, and presentlySatan landed near us with a new plane. This strange plane ofthe ant-men stopped abruptly, hovered for a moment, and thensettled just where it was, like a helicopter.

Doggo carried me aboard, and we started, Satan at the leversand Doggo standing guard over me. But whether this was toprotect me from Satan, or to keep me from falling out again,I could not say.

We cruised along for several hours over much the same sortof country as I had seen before, except that we crossed severalrivers, and once a small lake.

At last the ship hovered and landed on top of what seemedto be a helter-skelter pile of exaggerated toy building blocks,exactly in keeping with the size of the ants. As far as the eyecould see on all sides, these blocks were heaped. They resembleda group of Pueblo Indian dwellings.

Doggo and the fierce ant-man whom I called Satan nowpicked me up in their jaws, the former gently and the latternot so gently, and carried me out of the airplane and down aninclined runway into the interior of the edifice. The passagewas long, narrow, dark and winding, but presently we emergedinto a room about thirty feet square by ten feet high, lightedby narrow windows opening toward the western sky. That is,I call it “western,” for it was in this direction that the sky turnedpink at eventide.

In this room I was laid on the floor. The unpleasant ant-mandeparted, and Doggo placed himself on guard in the doorway.

Presently two strange ant-men entered, carrying a couch,which they set down in one corner of the room. Then theywalked several times around me, viewing me from all sideswith evident interest, until, at a stiffening and quivering ofDoggo’s antennae, they hurriedly left the room. I noticed thatDoggo no longer carried the green weapon, which seemedstrange, as he was evidently on guard.

Then I fell to wondering about the couch. It was a simpleaffair, and yet quite evidently intended for a bed. Upholsteredwith some kind of dark blue cloth, at that!

“What need have ants of a bed?” I mused. “Certainly theycannot lie down; and, even if they could, such a couch as thiswould be of little use to one of them, for this is only a man-sizecouch, whereas these ants are about ten feet in length!”

My perplexity was tinged with a hope that there might behuman beings here.

My perplexity and my hope were both increased by the returnof one of the ants who had brought the couch, this time bearinga sleeveless shirt or toga of white matted material, like very thinsilk felt, reaching about to my knees, with a Grecian wave designin light blue around the bottom edge and around the neckand armholes. But what increased my perplexity still further,and at the same time destroyed most of my hope, was the presenceof two vertical slits, with the same blue trimming, in theupper part of the back.

The two ant-men watched with great interest while I put thistoga on, and were evidently pleased to find that I knew how todo so. The messenger ant then withdrew, and presently returnedwith a bowl of green milk, which I drank as usual.

By this time it had become quite dark outside, but the roomstill remained light, due to two long glass bulbs, set in the ceiling,and containing some sort of incandescent substance. Atthat time I little guessed what a part those bulbs would cometo play in my life! They resembled the fluorescent lamps familiaron earth.

These lamps showed that the inhabitants of this planet werewell advanced in electrical engineering. Was it not strange,then, that they had not developed radio and communicatedwith the earth? And yet not so strange, either, when one considersthat they had no sense of hearing.

Dismissing these thoughts from my mind, I lay down on thecouch. Then Doggo was relieved as sentinel by a new ant-man,who carefully and inquisitively inspected me, but from a safedistance. This guard, too, was without any green weapon.

Finally the two lights went out, and I slept, my last thoughtsbeing to wonder what was in store for me, and what was thesignificance of the couch and the strange blue-and-white articleof clothing.

4
go to the ant, thou sluggard

As I slowly awakened the next morning, Ivaguely remembered a terrible nightmareof the night before.

But no, it was no dream, for I opened my eyes upon the sameplain concrete room with its slit windows. I was lying on thesame couch. The same strange ant-man was standing guard atthe door. During the night some one had placed over me ablanket of some sort of light fleecy wool felt.

As I lay in bed I studied the walls of the room and noticed,what I had not seen before, three dials sunk in the oppositewall close to the ceiling. Each dial had twelve numbers or lettersaround the edge, and also a single pointer. The pointer ofthe right dial was slowly revolving left-handedly; the pointerof the middle dial was turning even more slowly; while that ofthe left dial appeared motionless. Absent-mindedly I started totime the right-hand pointer.

“One chimpanzee. Two chimpanzee. Three chimpanzee,” Icounted in sing-song; that being a formula which I had beentaught as a child, to count the time between a lightning flashand the resulting thunder, in order to estimate the distance ofthe stroke.

For, if carefully done, each chimpanzee equaled one second oftime, and each second meant one quarter-mile of distance. Ofcourse the real object of the game was to distract the child’smind from his fear of the lightning.

I now found that it took about fifty chimpanzees for the rightpointer to move one of the twelve graduations. This fact Iverified by several trials.

I fell to wondering what the device was for.

It looked and acted like a gas meter or electric meter.

Then I dismissed the meter from my mind, and consideredmy predicament. For some reason I thought of my father, AldenCabot, now many years dead. The old man had been a sternpuritanical character, abhorring sloth and frivolity.

How often had I heard him rebuke some act of laziness withhis favorite Biblical quotation: “Go to the ant, thou sluggard;consider her ways and be wise.”

“Wouldn’t father be pleased,” thought I, “for I have certainlygone to the ant, all right! But now the big question is how toget away from them.”

By this time the sentinel noticed that I was awake, and immediatelybrought me my breakfast, consisting of a bowl of thesweet green liquid and a bowl of dark reddish-brown paste,about the consistency of mashed beans, and having a rich flavornot unlike beef gravy.

After breakfast Doggo took his turn as guard. I patted hishead, and then went over to the windows to see the view, if any.

The windows overlooked a courtyard completely enclosed bypiled-up Puéblo buildings. In the yard was a fountain, surroundedby beds of plants quite unlike any that I had ever seenbefore. The prevailing color of the foliage was gray and silvergreen. Many of the twigs bore knobs of red or purple, and afew of the plants had brilliantly colored blue and yellow flowerssomewhat similar to those of dandelions.

For a long time I aimlessly gazed upon this beautiful garden.The warm moist fragrant atmosphere was not conducive tohurry or to excitement. But finally even the beauties of the viewpalled upon me, and I returned to the blue couch.

Just then Doggo ushered into the room, with great deference,four ant-men slightly smaller than himself, but more refinedlooking than he, if one can appreciate such differences amongants. That is, they were more slender and delicate, like machinesbuilt for precision rather than for strength.

They evidently were a bit afraid of me, for after eyeing mefurtively from the door they appeared to confer with Doggo,though not an audible word passed between them. To assurethem that I was perfectly harmless, Doggo walked over to meand permitted himself to be patted; after which the committeedrew near and inspected me carefully, agitating their antennaeat each newly discovered peculiarity.

They appeared chiefly perplexed by my forehead and my back,to examine which, they lifted up my toga. They counted myfingers several times, and then counted my toes.

But the thing about me which amazed them the most was myears. These they studied for a long time, with much inaudibleconsultation, as I judged by the motions of their antennae.

Finally they took their departure, and Doggo came to mebristling with excitement, and apparently having much importantinformation to impart; but, alas, he did not know my language,and he had no language at all. I patted him again, butthis time it did not soothe him, for he broke away from meimpatiently and returned to his station by the door.

Left to myself, I fell to studying the meter again, watchingthe counter-clockwise rotation of its hands. Even the left pointerhad moved a bit since early morning.

Now I noticed, what I might have surmised on the analogy ofan earthly gas meter, that each graduation of the central dialrepresented one complete revolution of the pointer on its right;and this principle presumably extended to the dial on its left.Then I counted chimpanzees again, and found that the righthand pointer was still rotating counterclockwise at the rate ofabout fifty chimpanzees per graduation. Counterclockwise!Why, perhaps this machine was a clock!

I made a hasty mental calculation: “One graduation equalsfifty seconds. Twelve graduations—one complete rotation—equalsix hundred seconds—ten minutes. Thus one graduation ofthe middle dial represents ten minutes, and its complete circuit,represents two hours. By the same token, a complete circuit ofthe left dial would represent twenty-four hours—one day!”

My guess was apparently correct.

At that time it did not occur to me as strange that a day onthis planet should be twenty-four hours as on earth.

The figure to the left of the top of each dial was a singlehorizontal line, presumably standing for unity; for a single line,either horizontal or vertical, is the almost universal symbol forunity.

“Then,” said I, “the next figures must be two, the next figurethree, and so on around to twelve. Eureka! I can now count upto twelve with these creatures; thus establishing, in writing atleast, the beginning of a possible basis of communication.”

Eager to test my newfound knowledge, I beckoned to Doggo.He came to my side.

Scratching the ant figure five upon the floor with a smallpebble which I found in a corner—for I could not reach thedials to point to their figures—I held up five fingers. The effectwas electrical. Greatly excited, Doggo rushed to the door. But,pausing on the threshold, he returned; held up three legs, lookingat me almost beseechingly, as I thought; and, when I wrotean ant figure three on the floor, his joy knew no bounds. Hepatted me on the side of my head for a moment, to show hisappreciation, and then rushed once more from the room.

And now, for the first time, I was left unguarded, but I hadno thought of escape; in the first place, because it would beunfair to my friend; and in the second place because escapemerely from the room would be useless.

Presently Doggo returned with the committee of four, andput me through my paces. He would hold up a certain numberof legs, and I would scratch the corresponding character uponthe pavement. Finally, as a crowning stunt, I wrote down fiveand six, pointed to them, and then wrote down eleven. Thecommittee were much impressed.

Then Doggo had me put on and take off my toga for them.Evidently he was trying to convince them I was a reasoninghuman being like themselves, though what the disrobing performancehad to do with it I could not see for the life of me.

At last the committee left, and after that a very nice luncheonwas served; more green milk, some baked cakes and honey.Real honest to goodness honey, like we have on earth. You can’tappreciate how these little touches of similarity to good old terrafirma appealed to me, thoroughly homesick after three wholedays’ absence.

After luncheon, Doggo brought me a pad of paper and apointed stick like a skewer, with its tip incased in some lead-likemetal. This stick could thus be used as a pencil. He himselfwas similarly equipped, except that his pencil had a strapfor attachment to his left front claw. The difference betweenthe two pencils attracted my attention and excited my wonder,but I could not account for it.

Instruction began at once. I would point to some object;Doggo would make marks on his pad; and then I would copythem on mine, adding the name in English. These additionspuzzled and annoyed my instructor; but I persisted, for otherwiseI might forget the meaning of his scratch marks.

When a vocabulary of about twenty concrete nouns had beenaccumulated, Doggo took away my sheet, and then pointed tothe articles in turn, while I wrote down their ant names, as wellas I could remember them. Fortunately I have a good visualmemory, for I was no more able to invent sounds for the antwords, than I would have been able to read aloud a Chineselaundry ticket.

After several hours of this absorbing sport, Doggo produceda book! With rare presence of mind, I figured that as ant-menwrote with their left hands and had counterclockwise clocks,their books would probably begin at the wrong end; so accordinglyI opened at the back. And, sure enough, the last page wasnumbered one. This proof of my intelligence pleased my instructorgreatly.

On page one was a picture of an ant-man. Under it wasprinted the word which Doggo had given me as equivalent tohimself. Next came the same word, followed by a strange word.Then these two words were repeated, followed by two others.

Reasoning by the analogy of my primary school days at home,I decided that these words were: “Ant-man. An ant-man. Thisis an ant-man.” But I was wrong, for on this basis, the next linemade no sense; for, reading from right to left the next linewould be: “An ant-man is this.”

Oh, I had it! “Ant-man. The ant-man. I see the ant-man.The ant-man sees me.” To test it, I wrote down the word for“I,” and pointed to myself. Doggo, who had been watching meintently as I studied the page, now showed unmistakable signsof pleasure at this evidence of my intelligence; and, departing,soon returned with a large furry beetlelike creature about twofeet square, called a “buntlote”—so I learned later—which heset on the floor before me with every expectation of extremegratitude on my part. I tried to appear grateful; but could notfigure out what I was supposed to do with the beast!

The buntlote, however, had much more definite views on thesubject, for he ambled over to me and patted me on the sidewith one of his front paws. I looked inquiringly at Doggo, whoindicated that I was supposed to feed the buntlote with someof the remains of my luncheon, which was still on the couch.

The buntlote, after satisfying his hunger, curled up in a cornerand went to sleep, whereupon I returned to my studies.Evidently ant-men kept pets the same as humans; but whetherthis buntlote was supposed to be a dog, or a cat, or what, I didnot know.

Doggo then taught me how to write “buntlote,” and thewords for food, mouth, and eat—my first verb, by the way—andso on.

By supper time I was in a position to carry on a very elementaryconversation with my instructor, but only by pad and pencil,of course, for not a word nor a sound had I ever heard himutter.

And since their speech was not articulate, their written languagecould not, of course, be phonetic. It must be ideographic,like the Chinese. The fact that each word consisted in but asingle character lent color to this surmise.

And yet I noticed that all of the characters which I had sofar learned could be decomposed into distinguishable parts, andthat there were only about thirty of these parts in the aggregate.This fact certainly pointed to a phonetic alphabet of thirtysounds, for it was inconceivable that these highly cultivated animalspossessed only thirty ideas. And yet how could an unspokenlanguage be phonetic? I gave up the puzzle.

Supper came, the lights went on, and my buntlote uncurledand ambled over to be fed. I decided to regard him as a cat, andso named him Tabby.

At this meal Doggo joined me, and as we ate, my attentionwas again attracted to the white marks on his back, which tomy surprise I now noticed were exactly like those on the clock.They must be his license number: “334-2-18.”

If the large figures represented his license number, I thought,what did the small figures stand for? The license numbers of thecars he had run into, perhaps? I little guessed how near thiscame to being the truth.

That night I went to bed well satisfied with my progress. But,alas, although Doggo proved to be an indefatigable teacher, Idid not get on so well during the succeeding days.

But I did make progress in one thing however; namely, inacquiring a beard. Although facilities for washing and bathingwere provided in a little alcove off my room, and although afresh toga was forthcoming from time to time, yet my captorsdid not furnish either a razor or a mirror. Of course ants havenothing to shave, and they cannot be blamed for not caring tolook at themselves in the glass. I tried my best to explain toDoggo what I wanted, but it was no use.

If this manuscript is ever discovered, let the reader try tofigure out how to explain by sign language to a person who hasnever seen either a razor or a looking glass, that you want them.

When the beard got well under way, the committee of fourwere recalled to view it. They were even more impressed withmy beard than they had been with my ears, and made frequentvisits to take notes on its growth.

This convinced me that they had never before seen any men,or at least any unneat ones, and so my hope for human companionshipreceived another blow. Yet if there were no men onthis planet, how account for the fact that when I drew a sketchof a table and a chair these were at once forthcoming, togetherwith a written name for each?

Of course all my time was not spent in lessons. Sometimes Iplayed with Tabby and sometimes I took long walks. GraduallyI became more of a guest than a prisoner or even a curiosity,and so I was given the run of the entire city, which was builtas one large connected house; a veritable jumble of rooms, passageways,ramps and courtyards.

But this freedom nearly proved my undoing.

One day when I had strolled unusually far from my ownquarters, I met my old enemy, Satan, in one of the courtyards.Instinctively I shrank back, but he gave every indication ofwishing to be friendly, even to the extent of turning his headon one side to be patted. Distasteful as the act was to me, Idecided that discretion was the better part of valor, and sopatted him gingerly.

Apparently as a reward for this service, he beckoned me tofollow him. And so I did, through many a winding corridor.Our way finally led to the outskirts of the city, to a gratingguarded by a sentinel, whom Satan promptly relieved. Whenthe old guard had gone, Satan, to my great surprise, opened thegate and motioned me to step out.

This was indeed a favor, for, although I had been able to getplenty of fresh air in the courtyard flower gardens and on theroofs, yet I had felt cramped and restrained, and had longedfor the freedom of a run in the open fields. So, patting himagain, to show my gratitude, I rushed out and turned severalhandsprings for joy on the silver sward.

As I regained my feet, what should I see to my dismay buta squad of ant-men issuing from the gate and rushing toward meat full speed, with Satan at their head, his savage jaws snappingwith hate. I stood astounded for a moment, and then turnedand fled.

At an earthly speed of running a man would have little hopeof distancing one of these creatures, but the added buoyancyof this strange planet gave me a slight advantage over them,until I had the misfortune to stub my toe on something and fall.Whereupon the pack closed over me.

The fall stunned me, and as my brain darkened, I felt thesharp mandibles of my enemy fasten upon my throat.

5
a vision

The full measure of Satan’s perfidy was nowevident. Under the guise of pretendedfriendship he had lured me to the city gateand had persuaded me to step outside. Then hastily calling adetachment of the guard, he had informed them that I hadescaped. He had led them in pursuit of me, and my flight hadfurnished sufficient verification of his accusation.

So now, I was entirely in his power. He was free to kill mewithout fear of the consequences, for the whole squad wouldback up his story that I had fled and that he had been forcedto slay me for the purpose of preventing my escape.

Why he did not bite me at once and end my life I do notknow. Perhaps he wished first to gloat over me. At any rate,after I came out of my daze, he loosened his hold on my throatand, planting his front feet upon my prostrate body, threw hishead aloft, as if singing a paean of victory, although of courseno sound came.

Then suddenly he sprang away from me entirely. And nowI discovered the meaning and use of the peculiar green weaponswhich every ant-man carried slung in a holster at his side whenout of doors. These supposed weapons were nothing more norless than green umbrellas which Satan and the others were nowhastily putting up in very evident terror.

Sitting up weakly, I tried to figure out what had so frightenedthem as to cause them to desist abruptly from their attackon me. But I could discern nothing except a patch of sunlight,the very first I had seen, by the way, since my advent on theplanet. My late antagonists were apparently watching this—tome—very pleasant sight, with every indication of extremefear. Looking above, I saw a small bit of blue sky.

The patch of sunlight passed close by me and proceeded towarda small herd of green cows who were grazing near by.And, as it passed among them, the shifting of their feet stopped,and every cow on whom the light had rested shuddered, wiltedand dropped in evident agony upon the ground.

Then I realized that this planet must be very close to thecenter of the solar system, and protected from the intense heatof the sun only by the dense, silvery clouds which surroundedit. I was now nearly certain, as I had surmised before from theprevailing silver-gray and the gravity slightly less than that onearth, that this must be the planet Venus.

I was still gazing abstractedly at the stricken cows in thewake of the solar heat, when I was rudely called to my sensesby the ant pack closing over me once more. And once again themandibles of Satan fastened on my throat.

But the best laid plans of mice and men—and even ant-men—gangaft aglee. With all his clever scheming, Satan had madeone fatal mistake: he had reckoned without the faithful Doggo.As Satan’s jaws were about to pierce my jugular, again hedropped me, and stood at attention, as if in response to a peremptorycommand from a military superior. I looked up andsaw that the rest of the guard were also standing at attention,while rapidly approaching up from the city gate came my oldfriend, Doggo, with antennae erect and quivering. Once morehe had saved my life.

How I regretted the blows which I had struck him in thefight at the beach on my first day upon this planet, and howglad I was that his had not been the head which I had severedin that spirited encounter.

Presently, as if in response to another command, Satan slunkaway, and the squad of ant soldiers returned to the city, whileDoggo came and stood solicitously at my side. When I hadrested sufficiently I rose to my feet, and together we returnedto my quarters.

It was time for my lesson, but I was in no mood for study,so I gloomily pushed the books and papers to one side andwent and stood by one of the windows, gazing aimlessly at thebeautiful garden below.

It is always darkest before dawn. As I stood there at thewindow, with my spirits at a low ebb, there came to my eyesa vision which changed the entire course of my life.

For, crossing the courtyard below me, was what seemed tobe a human being! Here at last was some one for me to talk to!

But was it a human being, after all? He, or she, or it, stoppedjust in front of my window, and began daintily to pluck abouquet of flowers, so that I had ample opportunity to studythe creature. It wore a blue and white toga, similar to the onewhich the ant-man had furnished me. And now I saw the reasonfor the slits in the back, for through them protruded a pairof tiny rudimentary butterfly wings of iridescent pearly hue.

The complexion of this dainty creature was a softer pink andwhite than ever I had seen on any baby. Its hair was closelycropped and curly and brilliantly golden. But the most attractivething about it was the graceful way in which it swayed andpirouetted, as if before a mirror there unless in its own imagination.This pirouetting led me to suppose that the creaturewhether human or not, was probably feminine.

Is there any more beautiful sight in the world, or in any worldfor that matter, than a beautiful girl admiring herself and preeningherself, and acting altogether natural and girlish, when shethinks that she is alone and unobserved?

But was this a girl? She was pretty enough to be an angel,or a fairy, and the little wings suggested something along thatline.

Then I began to notice certain other things about her whichpuzzled me. In the first place, she had an extra little finger oneach hand, and six toes on each of her bare little feet, yet thisfact did not in the least detract from their dainty slimness.Then, too, there projected from her forehead two tiny antennae,such as one sees on pictures of elves. Also she apparently hadno ears. Anyhow, the lack of ears was hardly noticeable, thoughthe absence of the little pink tip just barely showing below theedge of short hair, did give a slightly unfinished look to thatpart of her head.

Antennae and wings! This must be either a fairy, or somenew and beautiful kind of creature.

She bore such a close resemblance to a human being, that mylonely spirit was cheered by the thought that at last there wasa possibility of speech and human companionship on this planet.

So intent had I been on drinking in this vision of beautybelow my window that I had not noticed Doggo approach meand place himself at my side. I was terribly fearful lest the girlshould go away without my finding out who she was and howI might see her again. So, forgetting my manners and even thefact that she was of an unknown race, I plucked up sufficientcourage to address her.

“My dear young lady,” I began; but I got no further, forwithout noticing me in the least, she picked up her flowers andleft the courtyard. Then I turned, and there was Doggo standingbeside me. So he, too, had seen the fairy!

Seizing my pad and paper I wrote: “What is that?”

And he replied: “It is a Cupian.”

“Are there many Cupians?” I wrote.

“Yes,” he answered.

“Am I a Cupian?” I asked.

His answer: “We do not know. It puzzles us.”

That afternoon I made more progress with my studies thanI had made in weeks. For now I was no longer fitting myselfmerely for a bare existence in an ant civilization; but ratherI was preparing for communication with—and I hoped, lifeamong—creatures closely resembling my own kind.

The beautiful Cupian was evidently, like the ant-men, devoidof hearing. Apparently she lived here in the ant city, and soundoubtedly understood the ant language.

But to make sure, I asked Doggo on my pad: “Do Cupiansread and write this kind of writing?”

And he answered: “Yes.”

At this I certainly did tackle my work with a vim. It wasclear now that if I wished to communicate with her, I mustperfect myself in the written language of the ants; and so Iset myself assiduously to the task.

Every day at about the same hour she came and picked theblue and yellow flowers and the red and purple twig knobsof the garden below my window. And every day I sat in thewindow and watched her, and racked my brains for some tactfulway in which to attract her attention.

Of course I raised the question with Doggo, but he kept puttingme off by saying, in substance: “It is not yet time.”

This I took to mean that I could not yet write fluently enoughto converse with her, and so I redoubled my efforts at mystudies.

So rapid was my progress now, under the spur of my desirefor human companionship, that within a very few days I wasable to graduate from my primers and read real books.

One of the first real books which they brought me was ahistory of their world; and this interested me greatly, as it furnisheda setting for the experiences which shortly were to crowdupon me. The book confirmed my theory that this world wasthe silver planet, Venus.

Finally I reached a point where my interest was such that Icould not wait to wade further through the voluminous pages;so, taking my pad and pencil I asked Doggo: “Tell me brieflyabout the more recent events on Poros.” For so they called theplanet, though of course, I did not yet know the sound of thisword, nor even whether it had a sound. “Tell me more particularlyabout the great war.”

“Well,” he replied, also in writing, of course, “A little overfive hundred years ago the entire inhabited part of the planetPoros, that is to say the continent which is surrounded by theboiling sea, was divided up into twenty or more warring kingdomsof Cupians and one small queendom of ant-men, namelyFormia.

“The Formians, who were possessed of all the virtues, becamemore and more vexed with the increasing degeneracy oftheir neighbors, until, for purely altruistic reasons, the Formiansbegan a conquest to extend their culture.

“When the first convenient excuse offered, we declared waron one of the Cupian nations, which we proceeded to attackthrough the territory of a neutral state.”

“But wasn’t this wrong?” I interjected.

He admitted: “I suppose that you are right and that it reallywas a violation of all treaties and of the solemn customs of theplanet. But it was all in a noble cause.

6
radio plays its part

I have already told you how dismayed I wasat the horror displayed by the pretty Cupianwhen she was led into my presence. It isneither flattering nor reassuring to have a lady register fear anddisgust upon seeing you for the first time. It is even worse ifthe lady happens to be the most divinely beautiful creature youhave ever seen; and still more unbearable if she happens tofurnish the one human touch on an entire planet.

Yet, was she to be blamed?

I was heavily bearded, whereas male Cupians, so Doggo said,wore their hair on the top half of their heads only. I had peculiarmushroomy growths—my ears—on the sides of my face.I had one finger too few on each hand, and one toe too few oneach foot. And I was devoid of antennae.

Altogether I must have looked like a strange and ferociouswild beast, all the more repulsive because of its resemblance toa Cupian being. And if I had then known what I do now as tothe reason why she had been brought to my quarters, I shouldhave been even more sympathetic with her viewpoint.

But, although her horror was entirely justified, this fact in noway mitigated my chagrin. With great care I drafted a letterof apology which I sent to her by Doggo, only to have herreturn it unopened, with the statement that Cupian ladies hadnothing to do with the lower beasts.

Oh, if I could only talk, if she could only hear my words, Ifelt sure that I could break down her hostility. How did thesecreatures communicate, anyhow? They undoubtedly had somemeans, for had I not seen Doggo halt Satan when the latter hadbeen about to kill me? And had I not seen Doggo place onpaper the questions which the four professors had wished toask of me?

And then I remembered the speculations of some earth scientists,which had been running in the newspapers shortly beforemy departure from that sphere. The opinion had been expressedthat insects communicate by very short length radiowaves. I had made a note to investigate this subject later, butat that time I had been too engrossed with my machine for thetransmission of matter to be able to give the question of insectspeech more than a mere passing thought. It had not crossedmy mind again until, immediately after my sad meeting withthe beautiful Cupian, I was racking my brains for some meansof talking with her.

Radio! The very thing!

How strange that I, a radio engineer, whose life was thecapture and subjugation of the Hertzian wave, should havemissed this solution for so long!

The solution certainly was plausible: If fireflies can producea ninety-five per cent efficient light, and if electric eels cangenerate a current sufficient to kill a horse, why should not aninsect be able to send out and receive radio messages over shortdistances? If animals can create light and electricity in theirbodies, why can they not create radio? Perhaps Doggo couldenlighten me.

“Doggo,” wrote I, only I called him by his number, 334-2-18,instead of Doggo, “can ant-men and Cupians communicate inany way other than writing?”

“Of course they can,” he replied. “They use their antennaeto talk and to hear.”

Or “to send and to receive”; I don’t know just which way totranslate the words which he used, but I caught his meaning.

“In my world,” I wrote, “people send with their mouths, andreceive with their ears. Let me show you how.”

So speaking a few words aloud, I wrote on my pad: “Thatconstitutes our kind of sending.”

But he shook his head, for he hadn’t received a single word.

He then sent, and of course this time it was I who failed toreceive. But at least we had made a beginning in interplanetarycommunication, for we had each tried to communicate. Wasit not strange that all this time, while I had been accusing theinhabitants of this planet of deafness and dumbness, they hadbeen making the same accusation against me?

At this moment the electric lights went on, and they gaveme an inspiration.

Pointing at them, I wrote: “Where are those things made?Is there a department at the university devoted to that subject?”

He answered: “There is a department of electricity at Mooni,with an electrical factory attached to the department.”

“That,” I said, “was my line of work on earth. Do you supposethat you could take me to Mooni? If you could, I believethat I can construct electrical antennae which will turn yourkind of message into my kind, and vice versa, thus enabling usactually to talk together.”

“I doubt very much,” he replied, “whether anything you dowill ever enable you to talk or to hear, for you have no antennae.Of course no one can either talk or hear without antennae. Butthere will certainly be no harm in giving you a chance to try.”

So a petition was drawn up and signed by Doggo and me,humbly begging the Council of Twelve to assent to my transfer.In due course of time, the professor of anatomy—of the fourprofessors who had so often examined me—visited us again,bringing with him a new ant-man, the professor of electricity.They were both very skeptical of my theories, but were gladto assist in obtaining my transfer, as that would give thembetter facilities for studying me, and also an opportunity toexhibit me to the students.

There seemed to be some doubt, however, as to the advisabilityof taking me away from the beautiful girl. But the reasonfor this I could not guess at that time, as I was sure that thefarther away I was, the better it would certainly suit her.

Before the two ant professors left, I wrote for them the stillunanswered question: “What conclusions have been reached asto the sort of animal I am?”

They replied: “The majority opinion is that you must havecome from some other continent overseas. The presence of theboiling ocean, which entirely surrounds continental Poros, hasprevented us Porovians from ever exploring the rest of ourworld. And even the airplanes do not dare penetrate the steamclouds which overhang the sea.

“But there is a tradition that a strange race, something likethe Cupians, live beyond the waves. You must be one of thatrace, since it is inconceivable that you could have come fromanother planet.

“A minority, however, are of the opinion that passage acrossthe boiling seas is just as absurd, no more and no less, than atrip through interplanetary space, and this minority are inclinedto give credence to the theory that you come from Minos, theplanet next further from the sun.”

In other words, the Earth.

All this conversation was in writing, of course, and was veryslow and tedious. From their statements I gathered that theprofessor of anatomy was one of the minority; so I gave himsome evidence to support his point of view.

“Things weigh more where I come from,” wrote I, “and inmy world a year consists of 265 days.”

This was, of course, in duodecimal notation. The 265 in Poroviannotation means (2 × 144) plus (6 × 12) plus 5, whichequals 365 in earth notation. Because of the twelve fingers, theCupians count in twelves, and the Formians have adopted thesame system.

My statements about the earth impressed him greatly, andconfirmed his belief that I was a Minorian.

Then the professors withdrew, after promising to assist intrying to obtain my transfer.

While waiting for the decision of the Council of Twelve,time would have hung heavy on my hands if Doggo had notthoughtfully procured for me a book entitled “Electricity forthe Newly Hatched.” Of course I needed no instruction in elementaryelectricity, nor even in advanced electricity, but I didneed an introduction to the technical terms and electrical symbolsof the ant language. And this the book gave me.

The council were a long time in deciding, for many importantmatters were pending, and my petition had to await itsregular turn. At last, however, Doggo brought me the joyfulnews that my transfer to the University of Mooni had beenapproved, and that he was to be permitted to accompany me.

I saw the beautiful girl only once more before my departure.She came to my courtyard to pick flowers, as she had regularlydone before the fatal day of our meeting. But this time shenoticed my presence at the window, and hastily left the gardenwith her head tossed high and a disdainful sneer on her lips.

This made me more determined than ever to make good inmy new venture.

The day of departure finally arrived, and Doggo and I preparedto make the trip. I took Tabby, while Doggo took astrange animal of a sort I had never seen before. I had neverknown that Doggo had a pet, but have since learned that anexcess of pets is one of the worst vices of the Formians. In fact,one of their professors who has devoted his life to the subject,reports that the Formians possess some fifteen hundred speciesof domesticated animals, many of which do not exist at all ina wild state, and most of which have absolutely no practical use.

Doggo’s little beast was a mathlab, closely resembling a rabbitin size and appearance, except that it had antennae instead ofears, and had brick-red fur. These creatures are very docile andaffectionate, but breed rapidly, and thus are not so expensivenor so much esteemed as some of the rarer varieties of beetlesuch as Tabby.

A closely related animal, slightly larger, black in color, andnot so tame, is kept for its flesh, and also for its eggs, which area staple article of Porovian diet. In their wild state both speciesare preyed upon by a fierce carnivore named the woofus, sothat their great fecundity is all that saves them from absoluteextinction.

Mooni lies about one hundred stads east of Wautoosa, thecity where I had been residing. The journey was made in akerkool, a two-wheeled automobile, whose balance is maintainedby a pair of rapidly rotating gyroscopes, driven by the samemotor which propels the vehicle. The fuel, as I later learned,is a synthetic liquid resembling alcohol, and supposed to beextremely poisonous.

There were no seats, for ant-men do not sit down, but achair for me had thoughtfully been added to the equipment.The chauffeur, or kerko as they call him, wore goggles verymuch like those used on the earth, and similar pairs were providedfor Doggo and me.

The trip was easily and pleasantly made in about one Porovianhour.

The way lay through rolling fields, where grazed herds ofgreen cows guarded by huge spiders; and through fragrantwoods, where I saw many strange animals, taken unawares bythe swift approach of our kerkool. Many questions were on thetip of my pencil, but conversation was difficult, for the motionof the kerkool jiggled my pad.

At Mooni there was a large crowd of ant-men awaiting ourarrival, and mingled with them were many Cupians, the firstthat I had seen other than the girl at Wautoosa. They were ahandsome race, and I began to wonder what chance I couldpossibly have in competition with them as an aspirant for thehand of one of their women, even if I were to shave, growwings and antennae, and cut off my ears. Their complexionsranged from pink-and-white to tan; and their hair, sometimesclose and sometimes curly, ran through all the colors of humanhair.

The ant professor of electricity met us at the city gate, andintroduced me to the crowd with a few inaudible remarks,which were received in silence. Then he showed me to myquarters, where I had a chance to wash up, put on a clean toga,and take a much-needed rest.

That evening a dinner was given in my honor at a largebanquet hall. At the head table stood the president of the antuniversity, the committee of four ant-men who had examinedme so often, the ant professor of electricity, a visiting Cupianprofessor, Doggo, and myself. At the other tables stood otherand lesser members of the faculty, and students both Cupianand Formian.

I was the cynosure of all eyes, and—so Doggo informed mein writing—the subject of most of the speeches. I had to takehis word for it that there were speeches; for, so far as I couldtell, not a word was said. I could not even watch the speakerrise and give his talk, for all were already standing.

Altogether it was a very dull occasion for me, in spite of mybeing the lion of the evening. Besides, I was eager to be donewith the preliminaries, and get busy with my real work.

The food was plenteous and varied. Among the dishes whichI remember were a highly seasoned stew of the red lobster-likeparasite which afflicts the aphids, minced wild mathlab withmathlab egg sauce, and something resembling mushrooms, onlynot so rich.

Several of the Cupian maidens in the audience made eyes atme. Not that they thought me prepossessing with my big blackbeard, but rather in much the same spirit that would inducean earth maiden to flirt with a gorilla in a cage, just to see whateffect it would have on the beast. It had absolutely no effect onme, for the picture of the girl at Wautoosa was ever present inmy mind.

So I was glad when the banquet was over and I could go tomy room, and my bed, and pleasant dreams in which a Cupiandamsel and I walked hand in hand through a roseate future.

No guard was placed over me at Mooni, but Doggo sharedmy room.

The next morning I was inducted into the laboratory. Thecritical point of my career had arrived. Was I to succeed andbecome a nine days’ wonder and perhaps distinguish myselfsufficiently to find favor in the eyes of the beautiful girl at Wautoosa,or was I to fail and return discredited? Heaven onlyknew; but time would tell.

The ant superintendent of the laboratory assigned me abench, a kit of tools, and two Cupian slaves as assistants. Hewas most deferential and did all that he could to help me, butmy handicaps were many. I was not versed in their electricalmachinery. I was unaccustomed to their tools, which looked forall the world as though they had been copied from the monstrositieswhich appear weekly in the Official Gazette of theUnited States Patent Office. All my conversations with eithersuperiors or subordinates had to be carried on in writing, in astrange language, which I had only just recently and just barelymastered.

But, worst of all, most of my time had to be devoted to appearingbefore classes as a horrible example of what nature cando in an off moment, to being examined both physically andin writing by committees of scientists, to entertainments stagedin my honor, and sight-seeing about the city.

My hosts were determined to do everything in their powerto make me enjoy my visit; when if they had but known it, myonly desire was to devote myself to my self-appointed task, sothat I could speedily return to Wautoosa, which held all thatwas dear to me on this planet.

From time to time I would inquire about her of Doggo, andhe would assure me that she was due to stay indefinitely atWautoosa, and would certainly be there upon my return.

In spite of vexatious interruptions, my work gradually progressed.I found that although all electric current on Poros isderived from dynamos of a multisolenoidal oscillating type, andalthough batteries are unknown, yet the Porovians do possessefficient storage batteries, in which a very large amount of currentcan be stored in a very small space. These I used for my Abatteries.

For my B and C batteries I constructed dry cells, to theamazement of my associates, who could not figure out wherethe current came from. Even though my main experiment failed,this feat of plucking electricity out of nowhere, as it were, wouldmake my fame secure on Poros.

The sight-seeing trips included the various factories, eachunder the control of the appropriate university department. Forthe Formians are well skilled in all the arts, although the finework has to be done by Cupian slaves, whose fingers are moreefficient than the claws of the ant-men. Only practical arts areemployed in Formia, although the Cupians go in for painting,sculpture, architecture, et cetera.

I slung the three batteries on a belt about my waist. This beltalso carried a tube and my tuning apparatus, of a particularlyselective type which I had designed on earth, and for which Inow have a United States patent pending, unless my patent attorneyshave abandoned it through want of word from me.

I now adapted this design to an unusually short wave length,in order to comply with what I remembered to be the speculationsof earth scientists on the method of insect communication.My tubes were of the Indestructo type invented by me on earth,or they never could have withstood my subsequent adventures.

From a skull cap I suspended two earphones and a microphone,and on top of the cap I mounted a small pancake coil.The microphone gave me more trouble than any other part ofthe set, as carbon of the exact sort required seemed hard to geton Poros. But finally, after testing several hundred other materials,I hit upon a very common light silvery metal which didjust as well. This metal I am unable to identify, but I think thatit is one of the platinum group, more probably osmium.

I spent four months of earth time in the laboratories ofMooni, growing more and more homesick for Wautoosa. If ithad not been for the consoling assurances of the faithful Doggo,I do not believe that I could have stood it, so many were theinterruptions to my work.

Of all the diversions offered me, only one interested me atall, and that was the Zoo, or gr-ool—i.e., animal place—as theytermed it. And the most amusing part of the gr-ool was themonkey house. Of course there are no monkeys on Poros, butI refer to this place as a monkey house, because that is what itwould correspond to on earth.

Here were kept specimens of all the wild species of antknown on the planet. Except in size and color, I could discoverno features which would distinguish any of them from the ant-men.

One day, seeing my interest, Doggo wrote down for me:

“Some of the species are very intelligent, so much so thatthey were formerly bred in large quantities for slaves, before thetreaty of Mooni supplied Formia with a superior substitute.”

“Did it ever occur to anyone,” I asked, “that these creaturesmight be either immature or degenerate Formians?”

He was horrified.

“These wild ants,” he explained, “are the basis of one of thegreat intellectual disputes of this planet—namely, as to whetheror not we are merely a superior species of ants, or whether weare an entirely distinct type of being, specially created, and not apart of the animal kingdom at all.

“Most of the university men hold that we are related to thesebrutes, and this is likewise the more modern view. But fortunatelythere is an influential body of opinion, high in the politicsof this country, which considers that such a view is too degradingto admit of acceptance. And accordingly the Council ofTwelve is even now seriously considering a law intended toprohibit the teaching of this dangerous doctrine.”

“How about the Cupians?” I asked. “Have they any suchevolutionary problem?”

“No,” he wrote, “fortunately for them, they have no problemof evolution, for they are the only non-egg-laying creatures onPoros, and so do not regard themselves even as mammals.”

Whereat I wondered to myself whether it was not probablethat it was this distinctiveness of the Cupians which had inspiredthe jealous Formians to deny their own obvious kinship to theants.

In addition to the gr-ool I frequently visited the stuffed specimensin the museum of their Department of Biology.

The absence of any birds either here or at the gr-ool, perplexedme, until I reflected that birds are merely a specialized form offlying lizards on my own earth, and that their occurrence evenon earth was merely a not-to-have-been-expected accident. Creaturessimilar to pterodactyls were among the extinct species onexhibit at Mooni, but birds had never been known on Poros,although I could have sworn to having seen some sort of smallbird flitting in tandem pairs in the woods on my second day onthe planet.

But to get back to radio. By the way, that is how I alwaysfelt during my trips to the gr-ool and my other diversions: oh,to get back to radio!

One of the Cupian slaves who was assisting me turned outto be Prince Toron, second nephew of King Kew XII. Toron’solder brother, Yuri, was the crown prince, as the king was awidower and childless, except for a daughter, Lilla. Toron’sterm of slavery was nearly completed, and he was anxious toreturn to Cupia; where a day’s work was only two parths, orPorovian hours, instead of five as prevailed here.

Think of the degradation of having a prince of the royalhouse of Cupia held as a slave in the factories of an alien race!Think of the further degradation involved in the fact that noone saw anything improper in the situation! They even celebratedannually, as Peace Day, the anniversary of the treatywhich had imposed this indignity upon them.

“Toron,” I wrote one day, “would not war be infinitely betterthan such a peace?”

“Yes,” he admitted, “there is some sentiment among theyounger men of my country against the rule of the ant-men,but the ant-men are all-powerful and promptly suppress treasonwith an iron hand. So I am afraid that our cause is hopeless.”

As the time for the completion of my experiment drew near,I thought of my massive beard, and I decided that it must beremoved before I again faced the beautiful girl at Wautoosa.Also my hair needed attention. Cupian hair does not have to becut and does not grow at all on the face, which must be a greatconvenience to them.

With the aid of Toron and a pair of wire clippers, I managedto trim my hair to a respectable state, leaving long locks, howeverto obscure my ears. I also clipped my beard as close aspossible and then finished the job with a sharp laboratory knifeof the sort of copper commonly—but erroneously—called “tempered”on earth, and some lubricating grease.

And behold, with the minor exception of wings, fingers, toesand antennae, I was as presentable appearing a Cupian as anyone would wish to see. Thereafter I kept the knife, and shaveddaily, later making myself real soap for the purpose.

The change in my appearance resulted in more delay, forI was immediately exhibited to all the classes again and wasforced to write a long essay on haircuts and shaving as practicedupon my own planet, Minos.

Interest in me had lagged somewhat, and I had been givenmore time with my work, but now interest revived again andinterrupted me considerably.

Nevertheless, my apparatus was at last completed and I wasready for the test. The next day my work was to be inspectedby a committee of ant scientists, so with trembling fingers Iadjusted the controls and bade Toron speak to me.

The result was—silence!

7
a hunting trip

My radio set was a failure! I could not hearToron, and he could not hear me. All mylabor of four months in the laboratories ofMooni had gone to waste.

Perhaps the Porovian scientists were right, and the earthscientists were wrong, and insects did not communicate by radiowaves after all. Yet I was unwilling to give up.

So I begged Toron to talk in as many different ways as hecould, and at last was rewarded by a slight squeak in my earphones.Then I myself tried, talking now loud, now soft,now high, now low, until at last, when I yelled at a particularlyhigh pitch, Toron reported that he too had heard. The earthscientists were vindicated! Communication was established!

The sounds had been received and sent at the very shortestwave length within the powers of my apparatus, so I now determinedto reduce that wave length still further.

Late into the night I worked frantically; and Toron, catchingsome of my contagious enthusiasm, worked with me.

At first I experimented with various sizes and shapes of coilantennae, but I was confronted with weak signals of shortwave length. Any change in my apparatus which reduced mywave length also reduced my receptivity; and any change whichincreased my receptivity likewise increased my wave length. SoI was between the devil and the deep sea. Finally I tried condenserantennae without plates; two rods. And then we wererewarded by speech, clear, distinct and unmistakable.

We ceased our work, exhausted. But before turning in forthe night, Toron taught me how to say in Porovian languagethe following sentence: “The planet Minos sends to the planetPoros, and informs Poros that Minos was right. Communicationbetween Porovians is electrical.”

I told him that my name was Myles S. Cabot, a fact whichI had previously had no means of imparting to any one. Thenwe separated for the night.

The next morning the committee were astounded at my success.Although I was most anxious to get back to Wautoosa atonce, the committee insisted on my remaining and demonstratingmy apparatus, and this took several weeks more.

But at last I was permitted to return.

On my arrival I was informed that the girl was still there, soat once I requested an interview. At first she refused to receiveme, but Doggo, who acted as go-between, finally succeeded inarousing her interest by hinting to her that the scientists atMooni had discovered that I was really a Cupian after all. Anda very handsome one at that, now that they had succeeded incompletely removing my former deformities. So at last shereluctantly consented. Apparently she had heard no news ofthe great doings at Mooni.

I planned for this meeting with even more care and applicationthan I had spent upon my radio apparatus. Everything thatDoggo and I were to say and do was carefully rehearsed. Myspeeches, of course, had to be learned by rote, for I had as yetno opportunity to study the spoken language of Poros.

We built a head frame of heavy wire concealed in my hair,and arranged the phones so that they would lie unobservedunder the locks which covered my ears. The batteries, tubes,tuning-apparatus and one rod were on my back, carried by abelt and hidden beneath my toga. The other rod and a dummymate to it were affixed to my forehead and camouflaged toresemble Cupian antennae. My small microphone was locatedbetween my collar bones, where the front edge of my toga justconcealed it. Of course, I could have mounted both of my realrods on my forehead, but that would have reduced the capacityenough so as to have increased my wave length out of therequired range. Hence the seemingly unnecessary complicationof my arrangement.

The need for tuning-apparatus requires some explanation.Porovians tune for the slight difference in individual wavelength, by moving their antennae; but this, of course, was notpracticable to me, so I employed for this purpose a microscopicallysmall variable condenser on my belt.

To complete my disguise we even went to the extent offastening artificial wings to my back, so that, except for theslight peculiarity of my hands and feet, I looked and soundedlike a real Cupian.

Then we were ushered into the presence of the lady. She wasa beautiful and regal figure, as she sat poised upon a richlyupholstered dais, garbed in the Grecian simplicity of the Cupiannational costume. In her arms snuggled a pet mathlab, whichI noted with a twinge of jealousy.

She was unmistakably taken aback by the change in my appearance,and only a hasty glance at my hands and feet convincedher that she was not being made the victim of a practicaljoke. But she quickly recovered her dignity, and frigidly awaitedour advances.

Doggo opened the conversation.

“Gracious lady,” he said, “Myles Cabot and I pay our mosthumble respects. As you can see, he is now a full-fledged Cupian,with the minor exception of fingers and toes. The object of thisinterview is that he may reassure you, and apologize for thefright which he caused you when last you two met.”

I then stepped forward. In spite of my transformation shecringed a bit, I must admit. Evidently she still remembered myhorrible beard, for she kept studying my face inquiringly.

I spoke my memorized piece, as follows: “Gracious lady, Iam your everlasting slave, from whom you need fear no harm.”

And then she spoke! The sweetest, most tinkling, silvery voicethat I have ever heard. Somehow I had known that her voicemust be like that. Of course, I did not yet understand thespoken language of this planet; but I stood enchanted.

Doggo afterwards wrote out for me the substance of herremarks, which were that she was thrown in contact with meagainst her will, but that if I comported myself circ*mspectlyshe would condescend to tolerate my acquaintance, or words tothat effect. Never once did her cold manner relax, and yet Ifancied the merest twinkle of interest in her heaven-blue eyes.

We withdrew, fully satisfied that an opening had been made.

Doggo at once wanted to report the occurrence to headquarters,whereas I insisted that the affair concerned no onebut myself.

“Why should headquarters care?” I asked.

His reply astounded me. It took paper and pencil and agreat deal of explaining before I finally grasped the horriblefact that the Cupian girl had been brought to Wautoosa so thatthe Formians might breed us like cattle, in an attempt to perpetuatemy peculiar species. No wonder that she still revoltedfrom me, in spite of my more presentable appearance.

“Teach me to talk,” I pleaded on paper, “in order that I mayexplain to her that she has nothing to fear from me, and that Iwill guard her honor with my life.”

Doggo could not understand my sentiments, but he hadenough friendship for me so that he respected them on myaccount. Accordingly he set to work instructing me, chiefly bymaking me read aloud and take dictation. The language turnedout to be phonetic, after all. In fact, it is very like Pitman shorthand,although not quite so compact.

As I already knew the written language pretty thoroughly, Imade rapid progress in the radiated language, so that in a veryfew weeks I became really proficient. Now I learned the names“Cupian” and “Formian” and a great many other words whichI have used earlier in this narrative, although only their writtenforms were known to me at that time.

I was now able to write my name phonetically. HeretoforeI had used for my name the plural of the character for their unitof measure, stad, a poor pun for Myles.

Every few days I saw the lady briefly. At first our conversationswere very formal, consisting on my part almost entirelyof set speeches committed to memory. But gradually as I masteredthe language I became able to understand her and toimprovise a bit.

One afternoon, about fifty days after my return from Mooni,I said to Doggo, doubtless apropos of something that was in mylesson:

“Tell me, have you any name of your own? I have calledyou Doggo right along, and you haven’t seemed to mind it; soit has never occurred to me before to ask your real name.”

“No,” he replied, “I have no name. That is why I felt highlyhonored when you called me one. Cupians have names, butwe Formians, except in the case of our Queen Formis, havemerely numbers. These numbers are in three parts, the firstpart representing the year of hatching, the second the monthof hatching, and the third the serial registration number of theindividual. Thus my number ‘344-2-18’ means that I was thetwentieth Formian hatched in the second month of the fourhundred and eighty-fourth year following the Great Peace.”

Let me explain here, that a year on Poros is made up oftwenty months of twelve days each. A day is twelve parths,or about twenty-two and a half earth hours; so that a parth isabout one hour and fifty-two and a half minutes of earth time.

I would have asked him then what was the meaning of theother and smaller numbers on his back, but I was more interestedin learning about the beautiful lady. It was strange thatI had never asked her name of either herself or Doggo. But Ihad always called her “gracious lady,” with never a thought ofany further title.

Now I inquired: “If Cupians have names, what then is thename of the gracious lady?”

At this question Doggo’s antennae quivered with suppressedexcitement.

“Never ask that question again of any one,” he adjured me.“Do not even ask the lady herself. There are reasons of stateagainst your being told.”

To relieve this strained situation, I changed the subject, saying:“Oh, by the way, it has occurred to me to ask the causeof the accident to our airplane on the day of my capture.”

Whereat Doggo, mollified, explaining as follows: “Our airplanesare stabilized entirely by gyroscopes.”

I interjected: “On my planet, Minos, we depend upon theshape and design of the wings.”

“Be that as it may,” Doggo continued, “we use gyroscopes.On the particular occasion in question the gyroscopes brokedown, thus crippling the plane as completely as if it had lost awing, and so bringing it to the ground.”

As we were on the subject, I asked: “What is the reason forthe peculiar shape of your flying-machines?” For I had noticedthat they were built with long flexible tails, so that the generalappearance was that of a dragon fly.

“Oh,” Doggo explained, “the tail is the fighting element ofa Porovian airship. The green cows, whose milk furnishes suchan important part of the diet of us Formians, are preyed uponby the enormous bees, such as the one who fell into the samespider-web with you shortly after your arrival on this planet.These bees are chiefly noted for their honey and for the peculiarshrill noise which they radiate, on which account they are called‘whistling bees.’

“Airplanes exist for the sole purpose of combating thesepredatory creatures. By one of the terms of the treaty of Mooni,the Cupians are not allowed to possess planes, and accordinglyall of the policing of the air has to be done by the ImperialAir Navy of the Formians. This city, Wautoosa, where we arenow staying, is the barracks for the air navy, and contains nothingelse, which accounts for the absence of visiting Cupians here.I am a high ranking naval officer, an eklat, whereas the oneyou call ‘Satan’ is only a pootah.”

Thus explained Doggo. I gathered that the ranks of eklat andpootah correspond respectively to commander, and lieutenantjunior grade, on earth.

I having done my share to relieve the tension caused by myasking of Doggo the name of the Cupian girl, he now in turninvited me to go on a bee hunt, which I accepted purely forpoliteness’ sake, as I did not care to travel far from the lady.But perhaps such a diversion would be just as well, until I hadmade more progress in mastering the spoken language.

So, about a week after the conversation above related, I embarkedwith two young officers for a part of the country whereit had been reported that several bees were preying upon theflocks. Doggo remained behind at Wautoosa, because of certainimportant military duties.

The trip took almost an entire day, and we put up for thenight at a small farming village. The farmer ants displayed atrue rustic interest in my peculiarities, which the two youngbar-pootahs, or ensigns, took great pleasure in showing off. Myfame had evidently reached this community, but with it a mythto the effect that my electrical antennae could discharge notonly speech, but also death-dealing lightning at will.

I treasured this piece of information—it might come in handysome time.

Early the next morning we started forth to the field wherethe most recent bovicides had taken place, and concealed ourplane in some woods by the edge of the field. We had notlong to wait, for soon we were rewarded by a whistling sound,at which we sailed out to meet the enemy.

“The nations’ airy navies grappling in the central blue,” ofwhich Tennyson sings, can’t hold a candle to a battle betweenan ant flyer and a whistling bee.

At the start we circled each other, each looking for an opening,and each trying to get on the back of the other. In thisgame the airplane had a certain advantage, for it was providedwith grappling hooks both above and below, and could workits tail either up or down to strike at its antagonist. Whereasthe bee, of course, had legs only on the bottom side, and couldbend his sting only downward. Thus even if the bee shouldalight on the top of the plane, the fight would still remainfairly even. But if the plane should alight on top of the bee,it would be all over for the poor bee.

In addition, the plane had its fuel tank and its control leverslocated way to the front, as far as possible out of reach of thesting of the bee. But the bee had the advantage of unified control;that is to say, one of the ant ensigns flew the machine, whilethe other manipulated the fighting tail; whereas the bee controlledboth his sting and his wings with a single brain.

Round and round we circled, first the plane on top and thenthe bee. The two young ant-men were accomplished flyers, sothat loop-the-loops, tail-spins, direct drops and other maneuverswere possible, and it took all of these expedients to elude ourantagonist. But at last the bee made some slight misplay, andinstantly we were upon his back with the grappling hooks sunkin his sides and in a moment our fighting tail was driven homeand the battle was over. The grappling hooks were then released,and the carcass cast to the ground.

Upon our alighting shortly thereafter, one of the ant-menexclaimed: “We certainly are in luck, for there is the bee’s honeypot!”

And sure enough, there in front of us was a silk lined openingin the ground, more than a yard in diameter. And now Ilearned whence came the honey which the Formians had frequentlyserved me. For it seems that these huge bees, as largeas horses, burrow into the ground to the depth of ten or twelvefeet, line the hole with silk of their own spinning, and thenuse it as a reservoir for their most excellent honey. This, in spiteof their carnivorous proclivities, is almost identical to the honeymade by bees on earth.

One of the bar-pootahs now uncoiled a long hose from theairship and stuck the end into the honey reservoir, while theother started up the motor; and soon we were filling one ofour spare tanks with the luscious syrup, of which there wereabout one hundred gallons in the hole.

But we had made one mistake, for this was not the hole ofour late victim. It belonged instead to another bee, who suddenlyappeared angrily on the scene. If we had not been warnedby his whistling, we should have been out of luck; and as itwas, we barely had time to scramble aboard and rise from theground before he was upon us.

Then began a repetition of our former fight, but with a difference,as we soon noticed, for this bee was a master of aerialtactics. Once, when we were nearly upon his back, he dartedahead, and then rose and halted, so that we nearly drove ourship onto the point of his sting. But fortunately, our pilot caughtthe idea of the maneuver almost before it was executed, andquickly threw us into a left-handed spiral, thus not only escapingthe deadly sting, but also giving the bee a bad bruise with oneof our wings as we shot by.

A move like this would, of course, be rendered entirely impossibleby the steadying influence of the gyroscopes, were itnot for the fact that the control apparatus is so arranged that thegyroscopes maintain their position, while the whole rest of themachine spirals around them.

For a while thereafter we had the advantage, and finally by aclever shift descended squarely upon the back of the bee. But,just as our hooks were about to take hold, the bee again dartedforward and looped in front of us, turning over at the sametime, so that he was right side up above us. Then, as we passedunder him, he dropped upon the front of our machine out ofreach of our tail.

“My, but that was a well executed move!” one of the bar-pootahsexclaimed. “I never saw a whistling bee do that before.”

Airmen are ever appreciative of a clever opponent, on Porosas on Earth, and even in defeat. These were the last words myfriend ever spoke, for at that moment he was impaled by theenemy. The next stroke punctured the fuel tank, the other ant-manjumped, and the plane crashed to earth, pinning me beneath it.

I lay stunned for a few moments, and then the angry beebunted the wreck to one side, pulled me from beneath it, andbrandished his sting above me, preparatory to driving it into myvitals.

8
the conspiracy

Just as the sting was about to pierce mybreast I recognized the bee. It was the sameone which had been my companion in thespider web, and which I had rescued. There was the leg-stumpand the scarred abdomen. What irony of fate that this beeshould have now returned to kill me!

“Don’t!” I shrieked aloud. “Was it for this that I saved youfrom the spider?”

And it almost seemed as though he heard me and understoodme, for he stayed his rapier in mid air. Then he recognizedme, too. At least he must have done so, for in no other way canI explain his sudden clemency. Instead of finishing his stroke,the bee withdrew his sting, gazed intently on me for severalseconds, and then flew heavily away.

Once more my life was saved!

When I had recovered my breath, I struggled weakly to myfeet and looked about me. The plane was a hopeless wreck.The impaled bar-pootah was still in his place at the levers. Theone who had jumped was lying crushed and silent near by. Iwas alone in a small open spot in the woods.

After ascertaining that the crushed ant-man was beyond allhelp, I started off in as nearly a straight direction as I could,lining up first one pair of trees and then another in order tokeep from traveling in a circle. The absence of any direct sunlightmade orientation very difficult, for without any shadowsto judge by it was impossible to tell north from south or eastfrom west.

Again, as on my second day on this planet, I noticed thepeculiar fauna of the woods, and especially the strange birdswhich seemed to fly in tandem pairs. Finally, as I passed througha small clearing, a pair flew near me, and to my surprise I foundthat it was not a pair at all, but rather a single animal. In factit was not a bird at all, but rather a reptile of some sort, resemblinga lizard with a wing where each leg should be—a veritableflying snake about three feet long.

As this peculiar winged creature fluttered near and saw me,it uttered a shrill squeak and rushed at my head. The squeakwas answered in various directions, and almost immediatelyseveral more flying snakes began to converge upon me from allsides. Luckily for me there was a stout stick lying close at hand,and seizing this I began to defend myself.

More and more of the strange aerial snakes arrived, andsoon I was surrounded by a swarm of them, all striving to strikeat my head, regardless of my frantic attempts to beat them off.

I was rapidly tiring from my efforts, when a diversion offered,in the form of a new enemy—a lavender colored hairless cat-likebeast about the size of a large dog—which bounded intothe clearing with a blood-curdling scream.

Forgotten were the flying snakes, as I clambered into a tree,just barely in time to escape this new onslaught. And forgotten,apparently, was I by them. For they scattered to the four windsof heaven, leaving me alone with the purple beast, which pacedscreaming beneath my tree. I felt perfectly safe where I sat, forthe creature did not appear to be a climber, but its hideoushowls were most annoying until I noticed that the noise cameentirely from my headset. So I switched off the current, andinstantly all was silence.

But even the silence and the comparative safety of the treewere not particularly pleasant. The beast was anything butpretty, resembling a mountain lion except that it was lavendercolored and hairless, with antennae and webbed feet.

So this was the woofus, of which I had heard so much, themost dreaded carnivore of all Poros! One of these, it was said,was easily a match for three or four ant-men; so what chancehad I, perched in my tree, if my captor chose to hang arounduntil hunger and thirst should force me to descend?

But this question never was answered; for, luckily for me,something else presently attracted the attention of the woofus,and it trotted off into the woods. I switched on my radio, andheard its screams gradually fade away in the distance.

When all was silent again I descended, and picked up theline of trees which I had been following when I entered theclearing. Soon I came to another clearing. There in the centerlay a crippled airplane and beside it the dead body of a hugeant. It was my own plane. I had traveled in a circle, after all.

In despair I sat down on the side of the airship. How was Iever to get out of this woods?

And then the fading daylight gave me a clue. To one sidethe silver gray of the sky was darkening, while to the other itwas assuming a pinkish hue. I could now tell east from west,and if I hurried, and if the way was not too far, I could followa straight line out of the wood while it was still light. So off Iset, due west toward the pink of the unseen setting sun. Justas the pink light finally died out before me and all became jetblack on every hand, I reached a concrete road at last and satdown exhausted on its edge.

I must have slept; for the next thing that I knew I was floodedby a bright light, and then a kerkool stopped beside me, andI was hailed by a cheery “Yahoo!”

The driver was a lone ant-man.

I struggled sleepily to my feet.

“Yahoo!” I said. “Whither?”

“To Wautoosa,” he replied. “Can I accommodate you?”

“You certainly can,” said I, “for I am from Wautoosa myself,and have just been in an airplane wreck, which killed both mycompanions, two bar-pootahs of the Imperial Air Navy.”

“Crawl in, then,” said he.

So I accepted his invitation and promptly fell sound asleepagain in the bottom of the kerkool, where my new host had thedecency to let me lie undisturbed.

In the morning we stopped at a roadside tavern, where I wasawakened for breakfast. The driver of the kerkool was a richfarmer ant on the way to Wautoosa on government businessfrom one of the southern provinces. He had heard of me, andwas very much interested in my recent adventures; and I inturn was glad to find that I could talk with him quite fluently.We spent the morning chatting pleasantly as we rode along; andstopped for lunch at another tavern, where we ate a particularlydelectable mess of fried mashed purple grasshoppers, servedwith honey.

In the afternoon conversation lagged a bit; and finally, tokill time, my host undertook to teach me how to drive the kerkool.The control was not unlike that of an earth automobile, soI caught on readily enough, and in fact drove the machine forthe last hour or so, and into Wautoosa, which we reached justbefore supper-time.

There I bade farewell to the ant and proceeded at once toheadquarters to report the loss of the plane to the winko, oradmiral of the entire air navy. Then I returned to my quarters,where I bathed and changed, and had supper with Doggo, towhom I related the sad fate of his friends.

Tabby was there and was glad to see me. But I should notsay “see,” for these pet buntlotes of the ants are totally blind,being guided entirely by their sense of smell, which is verykeen. They smell with their antennae, as well as hear, these twosenses being commingled in much the same way as we aretaught on earth to regard the two components of radio waves:namely, electrostatic and electromagnetic.

But enough of Tabby’s methods of perception; Doggo informedme to my joy that the Cupian lady had been moved toquarters adjoining my own; and had expressed herself as nolonger unfriendly toward me.

The next morning I called upon her.

I had now made sufficient progress with the spoken language,so that we were able to chat quite pleasantly together. She hadme tell my entire adventures since my arrival on the planet,and punctuated my narrative with many pretty “ohs” and “ahs”at the various points at which my life was endangered and thenspared. We parted very good friends, it seemed to me. At leastshe no longer regarded me as a repulsive wild beast, which wassome consolation and encouragement.

In the succeeding days we became better and better acquainted,she telling me a great deal about her planet, and I in turn tellingher about my life on earth. But I—warned by Doggo—neveronce suggested that she tell me who she was; and she on herpart showed no inclination to do so.

Doggo, at my insistence, made no report to headquarters thather hostility to me had ceased.

Frequently she and I dined together. Our favorite dish was astew of alta, the mushroomlike plant which the ant-men cultivateunderground on beds of chopped tartan leaves. The secretof growing this plant had been carefully guarded by the Formiansand has never been learned by the Cupians. It tastes muchlike chestnuts, only not so rich, and forms the chief part of antdiet, much like rice among the Japanese.

All this time I had seen nothing of my old enemy Satan; infact, I had seen nothing of him since he had tried to kill memany months ago. I had dismissed him from my mind, and sowas much surprised when one day he swaggered into my quartersin a particularly truculent mood. Doggo was with me at thetime, and bristled up at the other’s approach. It was plain thatthe two did not care for each other.

“How is your pet mathlab from the planet Minos?” sneeredSatan.

Now, to call a person a “mathlab” is one of the worst insultsthat can be offered on the planet Poros. It is as bad as to call aman a skunk, a sandless puppy, and a cur all at once in theUnited States, or a chameau in France. And although the insultwas directed at me, yet it was spoken to my friend Doggo andit was he who had been really insulted.

Doggo kept his temper admirably, but answered the sneerwith another sneer: “You forget yourself to speak so to a superiorofficer. My only explanation is that you have been chewingsome saffra root.”

The saffra is a peculiar narcotic plant which is cultivated onPoros both for its anesthetic qualities and also for use in muchthe same way as alcohol is employed on earth. So that Doggohad virtually accused Satan of being drunk, which was botha charitable way of explaining Satan’s insubordinate languageand a deadly insult in itself.

Satan clicked his jaws in rage, and hurled at Doggo thewords: “I’ll get your number.”

To which Doggo calmly replied: “I’ll get yours.”

And to my surprise, the two rushed at each other and startedfighting.

Never before having seen a duel between two ant-men, I didnot then know how common duels are, nor that they transcendall rank. The proper formality for challenging to a duel is tosay, as Satan had, “I’ll get your number,” and the proper formalityfor accepting the challenge is to speak as Doggo hadspoken.

The battle was a sort of combined wrestling bout and fencingmatch, the two huge creatures tumbling over and over on thefloor, each trying to get his mandibles at the other’s neck andeach parrying with his own mandibles the thrusts of the other.

Finally, to my horror, Satan slipped by Doggo’s guard andfastened his jaws on Doggo’s throat. He could easily and instantlyhave severed Doggo’s head, but he apparently preferredto hold him for a moment and gloat over his victim, and thisdelay gave me the opportunity to come out of my coma, seizea chair, and rush to Doggo’s rescue.

But, to my surprise, it was Doggo himself who ordered meback.

“This is a duel to the death,” he said, “and it is not etiquettefor any one to interfere.”

Satan turned his horrid eyes to me and remarked:

“Wait a few minutes until I finish your friend, and I will getyour number, too.”

“Go to it!” I replied in English, not then knowing the correctformalities, but being perfectly willing to try my chances againwith my old enemy.

“What was that peculiar remark?” asked Satan. “Mathlablanguage? Or perchance the way that half-wits talk on Minos?”

Keeping my temper, I answered: “What I said was for you tocome and get my number if you can.”

This diversion proved unfortunate for Satan. He should havesevered Doggo’s head while he had him in his power; for, whilehis attention was distracted by his conversation with me, Doggosuddenly wrenched loose and with a snap rolled Satan’s headupon the floor.

Then Doggo shook himself, went to the door, and calledfor assistance; and shortly three ant soldiers entered, two ofwhom removed the dead body, and the third of whom broughta paint pot and brush, with which he proceeded to paint onDoggo’s back, under Doggo’s own number and the string ofsmaller ones, the number which had been Satan’s in life.

So this was the meaning of the small numbers and also ofthe formal words used in challenging and accepting the challengeto a duel; Doggo had got Satan’s number in truth. Andnow, so far as I knew, I had no enemy on all Poros.

A few days later, in one of the corridors, I ran across thefirst male Cupian whom I had ever seen at Wautoosa. He waseven handsomer than the Cupians whom I had met at the Universityof Mooni. In fact, he was the most handsome Cupianman that I have ever seen, either before or since. He had curlychestnut hair, a straight nose, and regal features and bearing.

But he seemed furtive and in a great hurry. Dragging meinto a near-by room, he closed the curtains.

“Place your antennae close to mine,” he cautioned, “andradiate very softly. This is a matter of life and death to onewho is very dear to both of us.”

“The beautiful Cupian?” I gasped.

“The very same,” he replied. “The Princess Lilla, daughter ofKing Kew of Cupia, illegally detained as a prisoner by theFormians.”

So that was why her identity was sealed!

“And who are you?” I asked.

“I am her unhappy cousin, Yuri, next in succession to thethrone of Cupia,” he answered.

Yes, I had heard of him from his younger brother, PrinceToron, who had been my assistant in the laboratories of Mooni.

Yuri continued: “I have long loved the beautiful princess,but she ignored me. And so, blinded to all sense of right andwrong by my passion, I arranged with the Department ofEugenics at Mooni to have her kidnaped into Formia, for thepurpose of forcing her to marry me and thus inaugurate a strainof perfect Cupians.”

I knew, from Toron, of Yuri’s great influence among the ant-men,due to his being the leader of the court party in Cupiawho believed in the most abject adherence to the treaty ofMooni. And I could well believe that a splendid race wouldspring from this pair, the two most perfect specimens of allCupia.

Yuri went on with his tale: “All of Cupia was turned upsidedown searching for the princess, but of course no searchingby Cupians was possible in Formia, and the authorities of thelatter country gave out no intimation that they knew the whereaboutsof the princess. My implication in Lilla’s kidnaping wasunknown to her; and so, on meeting me here at Wautoosa, shehailed me as a possible rescuer.”

I could restrain my indignation no longer.

“What duplicity!” I shouted. “I am tempted to try to get yournumber.”

But Yuri held up a restraining hand.

“Quiet, for Lilla’s sake!” he implored. “I do not blame you,for I am deserving of censure. But hear me out. Hear how Iplan, with your aid, to atone for my crimes.

“Just as my suit was progressing admirably, you—MylesCabot—arrived on this planet, and the plans of the Departmentof Eugenics abruptly changed from merely mating the two mostbeautiful Cupians to a really much more interesting experimentwith a strange new breed.”

I shuddered, and Yuri smiled.

He went on: “At first I was jealous of you, and quite naturallyso. Satan was a particularly loyal henchman of mine, and it wasmy influence that fostered and perpetuated his original hostilitytoward you. But now Satan is dead, so let the past stay gone.I no longer bear you any ill will, for I have seen that the PrincessLilla is even more averse to the stranger from Minos thanshe ever was to her devoted cousin. So now I am willing to takea chance on you as a rival, and enlist your support and assistancein my efforts to rescue our beloved princess from theFormians, and return her to her own country.”

All this he hurriedly told me in the room into which he haddragged me. Of course I was horrified at the part which hehad played; but, appreciating his change of heart, I assured himthat I was willing to help him rescue the Princess.

Then he outlined his plans.

9
the rescue

The idea was for Yuri to return to Cupia, asthat would make the ant-men less suspicious.Ever since the Department of Eugenicshad changed their plans with respect to the princess,Yuri had been carefully watched for fear that he would do theobvious thing and try to return her to Cupia. In fact, althoughhe had made up his mind many days ago to enlist my support,yet he had been so closely shadowed that it was only now thathe had been able to make my acquaintance and snatch a fewhurried words with me. And even now every moment that wespent together rendered the danger of our detection just so muchmore imminent.

“On my return to Cupia,” he said, “I shall wait at the ThirdGate, where the guard will be duly bribed to let you throughif you should succeed in reaching it. Of course, the Formianswill trust Lilla much more freely with Myles Cabot than theywould with Prince Yuri, due to their intense desire to perpetuatethe race of Minos, so you will have plenty of opportunity toconvey these plans to Lilla and to arrange for her flight.

“All the details have been carefully thought out. I will leavemy kerkool behind at the kerkool-ool at Wautoosa for you touse.

“One of the city gates opens directly from the kerkool-ool ontothe main traveled highway, and the guard there is a henchmanof mine, who has already been instructed to let you pass. I haveeven had the forethought to prepare a forged passport whichwill get you and Lilla safely by ant-men who might see fitto stop you and question you on the road.”

I assented to all these arrangements. How glad I was of anopportunity to be of service to Lilla! Yuri might be willing totake a chance with me as a rival, based on the well-known factthat the princess had greeted me with horror at our first meetingand had with difficulty been induced to associate with me evenafter my triumphant return from Mooni with my means forradio communication. But Yuri did not know how splendidlywe had been getting along together during the past few sangths,and I thought it just as well not to tell him. Here was a chanceto do a favor for Princess Lilla and at the same time free myselffrom my ant captors.

So I assured Yuri that I would cooperate to the utmost.

We patted each other’s cheeks to bind the bargain; and then,he first and I a few minutes later, sneaked out of the room, withouteither of us being observed.

I hastened to the quarters of the princess and told her theentire plan, to which she gladly agreed.

A few nights later it was an easy matter for Lilla and me tomeet by prearrangement at the city kerkool-ool. With my falseantennae and artificial wings, I looked very much like a Cupianas it was; and, with the addition of automobile goggles, whichthe kerkool-oolo (garage-keeper) supplied me, I would havebeen willing to challenge anyone to tell me from the genuinearticle.

Yuri’s kerkool was very similar to the ant-man’s kerkool inwhich I had returned from my ill-fated bee hunt, but it wassmaller and provided with seats very much like those of anearthly automobile. This was a great relief, as it was very tiringto drive a kerkool standing up, as is the habit among the ant-men.

We settled ourselves in the car, thanked the attendant, andsoon were on the open road headed for the Cupian boundaryand freedom.

Thus far our plans had been carried out like clockwork, andyet this fact made it seem all the more likely that there wastrouble ahead. I was filled with suspense and excitement; andevidently my companion was under much the same strain, forshe clung to my left arm with both her little hands. I couldfeel her heart beating heavily and rapidly against my side, andevery now and then she would shiver, although the night waswarm. I longed to draw her to me and comfort her, but thekerkool demanded all my attention; and besides she was aprincess of the royal house of Cupia, and I—why, I was probablymerely an educated animal.

Yet her intimate presence thrilled me, and her confiding trustgave me courage to face any dangers. No longer was she thehaughty regal princess; she was now merely a very frightenedlittle girl; and, manlike, I gloried in my protective strength.

It was a long time since I had taken an automobile ride witha girl. The night was warm and moist and fragrant, as are allnights of Poros. I had not been a drinking man on earth, andon the planet Venus I have never chewed the saffra root, butI can never wish for a more intoxicating and exhilarating experiencethan that ride through the warm fragrant velvet blacknessof the Porovian night, with my princess snuggled close atmy side.

There wasn’t much opportunity for conversation, however, forI was such a novice with these machines that I had to keeppretty much of my entire attention on the control levers and onthe road ahead.

All went nicely until at a turn of the road I saw a Formianstanding ahead of me, holding up one paw as the signal for usto stop. So I halted the kerkool.

“Who are you?” he asked.

But I had already prepared the replies to such an expectedcatechism, and so answered readily enough: “We are Jodek andJanek, students at the University of Mooni, now bound for theRoyal University of Cupia.”

Jodek and Janek being two very common names on Poros,like Smith and Jones on the earth.

“This road does not run from Mooni,” said the sentinel, “butrather from Wautoosa; and I well know that there are noCupians at Wautoosa.”

“Then that very piece of knowledge of yours,” I countered,“should convince you that we are not from Wautoosa. As amatter of fact, we are from Saltona”—which was the name ofthe farming village where I had hunted the whistling bees—“wherewe were sent by the university authorities to study a newbreed of green cows which has been produced there. We leftSaltona early this morning and came through Wautoosa aboutan hour ago. See, here is our pass.”

And I showed him an official Formian pass signed by oneof the Council of Twelve, and authorizing Jodek and Janek,with one kerkool and their baggage to leave the country by theThird Gate.

So far as I could see, there was not the slightest flaw in mystory, nor even anything to arouse his suspicion. But evidentlythe ant-man thought differently, for he proceeded to questionme in detail.

“Whose kerkool is that?”

This was a question which I had not expected. It suddenlyoccurred to me that, as this was Yuri’s kerkool, it might bearsome identifying royal insignia which I had not noticed. Andyet it would probably be unwise to admit that it was his, forsuch an admission might suggest to an intelligent sleuth houndsuch as my inquisitor seemed to be, that my companion mightbe the Princess Lilla.

What seemed a happy inspiration came to my mind, and Ianswered: “This kerkool belongs to Prince Toron of Cupia, nowassigned to the same department in which we have been studyingat Mooni.”

“And what department may that be?”

“Agriculture, of course.”

“Is that how you came to be studying the cows?”

“Yes.”

I heard Lilla gasp, and felt her hands tighten convulsivelyon my arm. Evidently I had made some misplay.

Several more questions he asked, at which I got more andmore rattled.

Then abruptly he said: “There is something wrong here. Forsome unaccountable reason I suspected you from the first, andevidently my suspicions were correct. Your passport is invalid.It is dated three days ago and purports to be signed by No.340-7-11. Yet he ceased to be a member of the Imperial Councilover a sangth ago. Then this is not the kerkool to which I havebeen accustomed as Prince Toron’s. You see, I am recentlyfrom Mooni myself. Prince Toron is assigned to the electrical,and not the agricultural, department; and, anyhow, they don’tteach about cows under the head of agriculture. Accordinglyyour entire story breaks down, and I shall be compelled to holdyou until I can notify my superiors. You see—”

I saw all right. And I didn’t intend to permit him to finishhis harangue. So while his attention was still directed upon hisown good opinion of himself as a detective, I threw the car intofull speed ahead, thus putting an end to the sentry’s conversation.In fact, it nearly put an end to the sentry himself. But,instead of having sense enough to run him down, I instinctivelysteered around him.

Of course, he immediately gave the alarm, and soon Lillainformed me that she could see the lights of a pursuing kerkoolbehind us on the road.

Then I began to have difficulty with the controls of the car.It started to wabble uncertainly, although it did not decrease itsspeed.

“Do you understand these machines?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied, “I frequently have driven one.”

“What seems to be the matter with it now?”

She thought a moment intently, and then answered: “It seemsto me that the gyroscopes are slowing down. If this be so, wemust come to a stop directly, or the kerkool will overturn.”

I decided to take her advice; and so, stopping the kerkoolas quickly as possible, we each seized a small spotlight withwhich the car was equipped, and struck off into the dense woodsthat lined the road.

A few moments later I heard the pursuing car crash intoour deserted one. I had hoped that my maneuver might effectivelywreck our pursuers, but apparently it did not do so, forsoon I heard the sounds of ant-men following us through thewood.

As we were not using our lights, they could not follow usby sight, and, as we were not talking, they could not follow usby sound, for of course they could hear nothing but radiationsfrom our antennae, regardless of how we crashed through theunderbrush. Luckily I thought of this and so did not waste anytime in trying to be noiseless.

The sound of the ant-men grew fainter and fainter behindus, until suddenly we stumbled into a network of ropes. Itwas an old and stale spider’s web. Immediately a bright ideaoccurred to me, and flashing on my light, I hunted for, andfound, the spider’s cave; and into it I led the princess.

The tunnel of the spider was about four feet in diameter. Icrawled ahead on my hands and knees, and the princess followedme.

“They’ll never think to look for us in a deserted spider nest,”said I in a low voice, and was just about to add some morereassuring words when Lilla broke in with “Quick, Mylesthere’s something following us!”

“Get behind me,” I cautioned as I hurriedly wheeled andcrawled past her.

True! Something was following us down the passage. Iswitched on my flash-light, and found myself face to face witha huge spider. So the nest had not been deserted after all!

The spider steadily approached. I held my ground, and Lillacowered behind me. One touch of his horrid spit meant certaindeath, as I well knew, and yet how could I combat him? Atleast, I could die fighting.

And when he had killed us both, there was the satisfactionof knowing that Yuri would never learn what had become of usand would always picture us together somewhere, safe from hisclutches. And who knows but perhaps he would be right, ifGod provided the same heaven for both Cupians and earth folk.

All these thoughts ran through my head in much less timethan it takes to set them down. And then I prepared to defendmyself, or rather to defend the beautiful creature who dependedupon me.

I had no weapon. I did not even have anything to use for aweapon, except the folding umbrella which hung at my side.

These umbrellas are of a very light but strong construction.The ribs and handle are made of alloy steel of a great springiness.The covering is remarkable opaque silk cloth. When openthey are about four feet in diameter and closely resembled anordinary parasol such as we have on earth. But when closed theyare scarcely larger than a rolled-up copy of a magazine.

Accordingly, in the folded condition in which it hung at myside, it was not likely to prove of much value for defensivepurposes; so I endeavored to extend it to its full length, andhad to open it first in order to do so. The opened umbrellaentirely filled the tunnel, with its point toward the spider andits handle toward me. In an instant I realized that I had effectivelyblocked the way against my adversary.

The umbrella, although not much good as a sword, mightprove quite valuable as a shield.

And so it turned out. The spider hurled himself against it,rending the silk cover, but driving the ends of the ribs firmlyinto the walls of the passageway. The spring steel provedstrong enough to withstand his onslaught, so Lilla and I withdrewout of reach of his legs and waited further developments.

We had not long to wait, for soon we heard the radiations ofant-men outside the entrance.

“They must have gone in here,” said one, “for it is here thatI saw their lights flash and heard the scream.”

A light appeared at the opening, and I could see that thespider had turned around and was now facing the other way.

Evidently our pursuers could see this, too, for one of themremarked, “The spider has got them cooped in there. Come,you keep his attention diverted while we go around behind anddig them out.”

I seized Lilla by the hand.

“Come on,” I whispered, “I don’t know where this tunnelleads to, but let us at least go down it as far as possible, andperhaps barricade ourselves with your umbrella at the bottom.”

So we resumed our crawl. The way seemed endless; but thefurther we went the more my spirits brightened.

“Princess,” I said, “it is very likely that they will miss thetunnel in their digging. Or, if they find it, they will have thespider to cope with, for he seems to be a wild species, and notthe domestic kind which the Formians keep to guard their herdsof aphids. Or, if they get by the spider, they may hesitate tocrawl through a dark tunnel. Come on!”

The air smelled stale and musty, but at last, to our surprise,began to get fresh again. And then the ground felt rough undermy knees. A twig snapped, and I found that I could stand erect.We were out in the woods again! And no Formian pursuerswithin sight or earshot.

Close beside the exit was a thicket of tartan bushes, thatplant with the large heart-shaped leaf so beloved of the purplegrasshoppers.

“The safest place for us,” I whispered, “will be right hereby the mouth of the tunnel. If they follow us through theywill never think to look for us close at hand, and the thicknessof the foliage will prevent their discovering us accidentally.”

So together we plunged into the center of this bower ofhearts. Then we lay down and listened.

Presently we heard voices at the mouth of the tunnel, andI heard the crashing of the ants in the underbrush, but so thickwas our leafy covering that we could not catch even a glimmerof their spotlights.

Their voices became fainter and fainter in the distance, andat last we knew we were safe, at least for this night. But, astheir conversation died away, another sound came to our antennae:the distant howl of a woofus, answered from anotherquarter by the cry of his mate. Lilla shuddered at my side aswe listened to this new menace grow nearer and nearer.

But at last this, too, died away; and when my straining earscould no longer catch the slightest sound of it I was surprisedto find that I was holding the princess clasped tightly in bothmy arms.

She, too, noticed where she was, and yet made no effort todraw away.

“I was so frightened, Myles,” said she softly. “You will takecare of me, won’t you, dear?”

For answer I held her close. She heaved a little sigh, and likea tired baby nestled down to sleep in my arms.

And thus, all through the perfumed tropical night, I heldand watched over the beautiful creature who had made life onPoros mean more to me than it had ever meant on earth.

“Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,” I thought, “for she is theprincess royal of all Cupia; and you, for all that the professorshave decided, may not be even human!”

The fairy orchestra of the wood grasshoppers played its sweetestwind-bell tunes, which earthly ears alone could hear. Delicatefragrances crept in on an occasional breeze. The night wasvelvet soft. And in my arms lay sweetly breathing, in perfectpeace and trust, the dearest being any world could hold.

Thus we lay in our bower of leafy hearts, until the invisiblesun rose over Poros the next morning. When Lilla finallyawakened it was with the sweet dewey smile of a little child.

I kissed her lightly on the cheek, and she smiled again andsaid: “You are very good to me, Myles Cabot; better than Ideserve, who treated you so.”

“It is morning, my princess,” said I, “and we must be on ourway.”

She gave a slight shudder. “That is so,” she regally replied.“I am a princess.”

The spell was broken, and we arose, and set out togetherthrough the wood, traveling due west, for we had left the roadon the east side the night before. In this way I hoped to reachthe road again and continue along it to the border. We wereable to tell the points of the compass in the early morning light,owing to the pinkness of the eastern sky and the darkness of thewestern.

Reaching the road in safety, we set out northward along it, Iblessing my sense of hearing which enabled me to keep a keenear out for approaching kerkools, each one of which we dodgedby hiding in the woods at the side of the road.

In this manner, we kept on without further adventure forthe entire day, slaking our thirst at an occasional brook, andstaving off hunger by means of certain edible plants with whichthe princess was well acquainted.

At last, on topping a slight rise, we saw before us a longwall stretching away out of sight in the distance to both rightand left.

“Is this the pale of which I had heard so much?” I asked.

“It is,” Lilla replied, “and beyond it lies Cupia, and safety.Look! Directly before us at the foot of the hill is the ThirdGate.”

With a cry of joy, we rushed down the hill, hand in handtogether. Sure enough, there stood Yuri talking with the Cupiansentinel. Just beyond the gate stood a kerkool.

Yuri greeted the princess respectfully and assisted her into thecar, the sentinel offering no objection.

But as I sought to follow her, the sentinel stepped before meand drew a short broadsword, which he held menacingly inhis hand.

“Yuri,” I called, “this guard won’t let me pass. Please tellhim that it is all right.”

Yuri turned around in his seat in the car, and gradually amocking smile spread over his features. Then he spoke to thesentinel.

“I don’t know the fellow,” he declared. “Probably he is anescaped Cupian slave. You had better arrest him.”

The princess shrieked, Yuri’s car shot ahead, and they disappearednorthward, leaving me staring after them with mouthagape.

Perhaps I could have argued it out, or even fought it out withmy bare hands, with the Cupian sentinel; but at that minutea Formian sentinel emerged from the guardhouse at the gate,to take his tour of duty. Together the pair seized and shackledme, and placed me in a cell.

Thus, just as my hopes had been highest, they were dashedto the ground. Here was I, alone, in chains, still in Formia,awaiting transportation to the south again; while my beloved,free, was speeding northward with my deceitful rival!

10
before Queen Formis

And so, while my princess was borne northwardby her cousin and lover, Prince Yuri,I was led southward in chains, a prisonercharged with high treason against the Ant Empire. Yuri hadtricked me, and had used me as a cat’s-paw to rescue his sweetheartfrom her captors. But if I had not been so blindly in love,I should have seen through him, and could have married Lillaat peace under Formian auspices.

Yet, somehow, I did not feel sorry for what I had done. Ihad set Lilla free. I had won her love and trust for one night,and I was prepared to pay the penalty. In fact, I was glad topay the penalty, for I realized that marriage between her, aprincess, and me, a commoner, would of course never have beenpossible.

Back in my old room again in Wautoosa! It seemed likehome, somehow; and yet how different from before, for nowI was no longer a guest, but a prisoner.

Tabby, my pet buntlote, was glad to smell me again; and myconscience gave me a twinge for having so unceremoniouslyleft her behind. Yet if I had taken her with me, what wouldhave become of her in the wreck of the kerkool and the flightthrough the spider’s tunnel?

Doggo was overwhelmed with grief at the jam I was in; andhe was reproachful, too.

“Why did you do it?” he would ask again and again; and,in spite of my repeated and detailed explanations, would reiterate:“Why did you do it, when all was going so well here?”

Guards were placed over me again, as on my first arrival onthe planet. But this time, instead of being high ranking officerssuch as Doggo, they were mere common soldier ants, whojested coarsely at me and without sympathy.

I complained to Doggo, and he promptly put a stop to theirtormenting; and, when they found that I was still in the goodgraces of one of their eklats, they became on the surface quitedeferential, although they continued to annoy me in manypetty and underhanded ways.

Doggo spent a great deal of his time with me, and kept meposted on the latest news from Kuana, the capital of Cupia. Infact, he even dispatched one of his bar-pootahs to ascertain forme just how the princess fared.

Report had it that the princess was almost constantly in thecompany of Prince Yuri, and that he was hailed as a popularhero for having rescued her. That she seemed unaccountablysad—which item cheered me. That the king was momentarilyexpected to announce her betrothal to Prince Yuri—which itemdid not cheer me. That an influential faction, headed by PrinceToron, insisted upon an explanation being demanded fromQueen Formis because of the detention of Princess Lilla by theant-men. And that only the new popularity of Prince Yuri wasable to control this movement of his younger brother.

Oh, what a fool I had been not to have told Lilla that Yurihad been responsible for her imprisonment at Wautoosa! Now,of course, she believed him a hero, rather than the scoundrel hewas. But how could he satisfactorily explain to her his repudiationof me?

No, if she retained the slightest friendly feeling for me, shecould not regard him as anything other than a double-crossingcrook. And did not the reports state that she seemed sad? Whyelse than either because of my fate or because she did not lookforward with pleasure to a union with Yuri? But if the latter,then why did she associate with him? It must be that he washolding over her head a threat of some sort. My poor princessof the butterfly wings and graceful antennae!

I tried to get word to her, but Doggo informed me thatcriminals were not allowed the privilege of letter-writing.

My interest was so centered in the beautiful Lilla that it neveroccurred to me to inquire as to my own fate, but Doggo insistedon bringing it to my attention. He had obtained his own assignmentas my defense counsel, and so it was up to him to discusswith me the coming trial.

I was accused of high treason against the empire, in that Ihad assisted in the escape of a Cupian slave, had uttered aforged pass, had obstructed the highway, had nearly run downa pinqui, and had—presumably—slandered the Formians to amember of the royal house of Cupia.

Doggo said that I clearly had no defense, as all the items,except the slander, were easily provable; but that he shouldattempt to argue that the accusations were void for inconsistency,due to the fact that the same person was described in themas being both a slave and royalty. So far as I was concerned,this line of defense seemed absolute bunk, but no more so thanmany equally silly sounding legal rules on earth.

The trial was to take place at the Imperial City before QueenFormis and the Council of Twelve, for apparently I had committeda most important and serious crime. In case of conviction,which seemed certain, Her Majesty would have the choiceof two punishments. First, laying eggs in me, Or secondly,casting me into “The Valley of the Howling Rocks.” Bothsounded very interesting and were reserved for the worst criminals.

All of the ant-men of the entire nation of Formia are raisedfrom eggs laid by the ruling monarch. The vocation of anygiven ant-man is determined long before he is hatched, or evenbefore his egg is laid.

From an elaborate system of records, kept in the ImperialCity, the Council of Twelve is able to determine, as to eachbatch of eggs, whether it should produce professors, farmers,laborers, officers, soldiers, servants, or what; and the eggs areaccordingly laid in appropriate food. Sort of “tell me what youeat, and I will tell you what you are.”

The young ants, when fully grown and in the cocoon stage,are transported by truckloads to the part of the empire wherethey are to be trained and where their life is to be spent. Thusthe pupae for soldiers and officers are sent to Wautoosa, forinstance.

Not only is occupation determined in advance, but so also,to a large extent, is sex. Thus only enough males are producedto supply the queen’s harem, the rest of the royal offspringbeing sexless females. Whenever a queen dies, the council immediatelychooses several likely larvae and changes their foodso as to produce fully developed females; the first of these toreach maturity being queen, and the rest being killed.

The food chosen for the production of the higher classes ofant-men consists of condemned criminals. This was where Icame in.

At this point in the explanation an idea occurred to me.

“Do you really mean to say, Doggo,” I gasped, “that you area lady and not a man—that the whole nation of Formians arefemales?”

“Yes,” he replied, “and furthermore the more highly developedof us occasionally lay eggs, though of course we never tryto hatch them, for that would be even worse a treason than theone with which you are charged. I myself even have laid eggs,but it is generally supposed that such eggs would not hatch.”

I could hardly believe it. A nation of Amazons! I could nothelp continuing to regard them as males.

But to go on with the alternative penalties. I have describedthe egg-laying. The other penalty, namely the Valley of theHowling Rocks, supplied a most diabolical form of punishment.This valley extends about a mile along the international boundaryline, so that the pale stops at one end and begins again atthe other. Its sides are steep and unscalable, and into it arecast the worst criminals of both countries. Some undeterminednatural cause within the valley sets up such a terrific din thatthe victims are driven crazy and perish because of the sound.

I thought that I should prefer any noise, however awful, tothe alternative of having eggs laid in me; but Doggo assuredme that the valley was by far the worse of the two. However,my wishes finally prevailed, and Doggo promised to try andsecure the valley punishment, in event of a conviction.

In due course the time arrived for the trial, and I was ledin chains to the Imperial City. Doggo accompanied me, andbrought along Tabby, too, to console me. For some reason Icould not get at all excited over the performance, it seemedso absurdly like the trial of “Alice in Wonderland.” As sheis reported to have exclaimed, “Why, you’re nothing but apack of cards!” so I was often tempted to exclaim, “Why, you’renothing but a nest of ants!”

As a matter of fact, I was much more interested in how myprincess was getting on than I was in my own impending fate.

On the day of the trial I was led into the awful presence ofQueen Formis. She stood nearly twice the size of any otherFormian, and her dignity was enhanced by a raised platformsurmounted by a scarlet canopy, which set off the perfect proportionsof her jet-black body.

Grouped on each side of her stood six ant-men, whose refinedand intelligent appearance made even my professional friendsof the University of Mooni look like common worker ants bycomparison.

Ant messengers hurried to and fro, doing the bidding of thedread thirteen; while several large clumsy ants, of a type whichI had never seen before, wandered aimlessly about the chamber.

“The Royal Husbands,” Doggo informed me.

So these were the drones of Formia. They were very stupidlooking fellows, who appeared to be accorded great privilegesbut no deference.

My jailers led me to the foot of the throne, where, underinstructions from Doggo, I made a low obeisance to the Queen.Then I was locked into a wicker cage at one side, and the trialbegan.

First, one of the council read the accusation, and then thewitnesses were called, each being permitted to tell his story inhis own way, and not being subjected to cross-examination byDoggo; though any member of the court could ask him questions.On the whole, the procedure seemed much fairer than atrial on earth. For the evident object here was to ascertain thewhole truth, unhampered by rules of evidence, rather than toafford a sparring match between rival attorneys.

The keeper of the kerkool-ool at Wautoosa testified in substanceas follows: “The prisoner came at me unawares, overcameme, and trussed me up in a corner, where it took me aparth and a half to escape from my bonds. While I lay bound,Cabot stole Prince Yuri’s car. I saw no one with Cabot, andin fact did not see Cabot take the car, but I judged that he tookit, for later I found it gone.”

“I object!” I cried.

“Keep quiet!” Doggo growled.

No one else paid any attention to my interruption.

The witness continued: “Immediately upon getting loose Inotified the winko.”

One of the winko’s attendants then took the stand and corroboratedhim in this. It was a well-framed-up story, and Ihad no inclination to get the keeper of the kerkool-ool intotrouble by disputing it.

The traffic sentinel ant gave an exact and straightforwardaccount of how he had stopped us and had trapped me intomany damaging statements. Also how I had tried to run himdown with kerkool, which was not exactly the truth; butdoubtless it had seemed that way to him. Then he producedthe forged pass, which was handed around and carefully inspectedby the council.

Several ant-men then testified as to their pursuit of us, includingthe wrecking of their own car by means of ours. Theyhad tried to dig into the tunnel and had failed, so they killedthe spider with a long pole. They had confidently expected tofind us behind the umbrella. Never before having seen adouble-ended spider cave, they had not scattered through thewoods to cut off our retreat.

Even so, they could not account for our escape, especiallyas they had kept the road from there to the border constantlypatrolled by kerkools from that time on until my arrest at theThird Gate. You see, they had slipped up by not realizing thatI possessed the sense of hearing, which had enabled me toavoid the patrols.

The Cupian sentinel at the Third Gate had claimed his officialprivilege of refusing to testify, but the ant sentinel quotedhis Cupian colleague as saying that he had let the PrincessLilla pass through because he had no authority over membersof the royal family, but had duly arrested me as required bylaw. No mention was made of Prince Yuri’s presence at thegate to “rescue” her from me.

I tried to get Doggo to object on the ground of hearsay,for this was the first and only attempt by the prosecution atidentifying my companion in flight, and hence was most damaging;but Doggo replied that hearsay testimony was perfectlyallowable on Poros, unless one could impeach either the absentor the present witness. How much more sensible than the rulein America.

Then I was called upon.

“Do I have to take the stand?” I asked.

“No,” answered Doggo, “but if you don’t your silence willbe used against you.”

Again a more sensible rule than that which prevails inAmerica; only all these Formian improvements over Americancriminal practice were decidedly to my own disadvantage.

I was just about to tell how Yuri had planned Lilla’s rescuewith me when something stayed me. I wish now that it hadnot, for to have told the truth at this time would have preventeda tragedy which later occurred! But my New Englandspirit of fair play deterred me, and I decided to settle with Yurimyself and personally; though how I ever hoped to escapefrom the ants, in order to do so, I did not stop to consider.

So I spoke as follows: “Everything testified so far is thetruth. But I wish to ask Your Majesty, in all respect, just whatjustification had Formia to detain the Princess of Cupia as aslave? You should have treated her as visiting royalty; andin that capacity she had a perfect right to command my assistance,and I had a perfect right to obey. Let me tell the rulersof Formia that—”

But I got no further, for the queen thundered: “Stop! Ifind the prisoner guilty by his own admission. Further evidenceis superfluous, and I shall proceed to sentence. Has any oneany suggestions to make on this subject?”

Whereupon my old friend the Professor of Anatomy steppedforward. Doggo had evidently primed him to do me a goodturn, for he said:

“The prisoner is neither a Cupian nor a Formian, nor is itapparent just what sort of animal he is. He seems to be areasoning species, and so can be tried for a crime and accordedthe same privileges of trial as in the case of a member of eitherof the two recognized reasoning species of this planet. But, ashe is an unknown type of creature, it is extremely likely that hisflesh would prove harmful to the royal babies. Accordingly,for the good of the Empire, I advise that Your Majesty imposethe more severe of the alternative sentences, namely, the Valleyof the Howling Rocks.”

As no one else present had any suggestion to make, QueenFormis and the council conferred together for a few moments,and then the sentence was announced. As I hoped, it was theValley. The professor had done well!

Convicted criminals on Poros are not kept in suspense dayafter day, as on earth. We started for the Valley the very nextmorning. Apparently an execution is an important state occasionon this planet, for a long line of kerkools trailed out ofthe Imperial City, carrying the queen, several of the council,and some lesser dignitaries, as well as Doggo, Tabby, myself,and my guards.

Doggo was deeply touched by grief. But, for myself, I wasstill unable to get up any very great excitement over the affair.Perhaps I am a fatalist, but I could not believe that I was reallygoing to die. It all seemed like a dream from which I wassoon about to awake. And even if I should appear to die onthis planet, was it not likely that I would awake on the earthagain in my Boston laboratory, and thus put an end to a veryinteresting set of imaginary adventures?

But at this thought a pang stabbed my heart, and I resolvedthat I had rather actually die than have it turn out that mymeeting with the Princess Lilla had not been a fact.

The authorities permitted me to write her a note of farewell,and Doggo guaranteed to deliver it personally, thus assuringthat it would get past Yuri. Into this letter I crowded all mypent-up love, and urged her to feel no regrets at my havingbeen sacrificed in her behalf, as that sacrifice was gladly andhappily given.

Then I patted my little pet Tabby farewell, turned her overto Doggo’s care, and was led by my executioners to the edgeof the abyss. It was a harmless enough looking gulch, but thescores of human skeletons and ant shells, scattered about thebottom, bore mute witness to its dread possibilities.

And witness, not mute, was borne by the volume of noisewhich rolled up over the edge of the valley. I had thought thatI had heard the limit of stupendous sound when years ago Istood at the brink of the Niagara, but the roar which arosefrom the Valley of the Howling Rocks dwarfed even Niagaraby comparison.

And into this chaos infernal I was about to be lowered. Itwas of course impossible to hear spoken farewells, so I pattedthe side of Doggo’s head good-by, at which last demonstrationhe turned away broken-hearted. But the others seemed to bethoroughly enjoying the spectacle. Then my shackles wereremoved, so as to give free play to my amusing antics duringthe torture, a strong rope was placed under my arms, and I waslowered into the pit.

Even as I passed over the edge, my thoughts consisted chieflyin wondering, not what fate was in store for me, but ratherwhat it was that made the noise. Always I shall remain aninquisitive scientist, I suppose.

The noise became unbearable. Looking upward as the ropesspun me around, I saw the horrid face of the ant queen,leering over the edge. She lifted up a paw. To my surprise, theFormians who held the ropes began to raise me again. A reprieve?Life again on the planet Poros, with a possible chanceof seeing my princess once more?

No—merely a respite! Or, rather, a cat-and-mouse gamewhich they were playing with me.

Several times more I was lowered into the pit, was held thereuntil I could scarcely bear the noise, and then was hauled upagain for a brief breathing space. But finally my feet were permittedto touch the bottom, and the rope was pulled frombeneath my arms.

That awful noise—I cannot describe the agony of it! MadlyI dashed back and forth, trying to avoid it; but there was noescape.

“Lilla! Lilla!” I shrieked in agony, but the terrific din kepteven me from hearing my own words.

I stumbled on a boulder—and, falling, struck my headagainst a sharp rock.

Then blessed oblivion!

11
the valley of the shadow of death

Driven crazy by the awful noise, I hadfinally fallen, as many a victim of the Valleyof the Howling Rocks had done before.In falling I had knocked my head against a stone and hadbecome unconscious.

At last I gradually came to; and the first thing that I noticed,and that brought me out of my stupor with a jerk, wasthe fact that absolute silence reigned.

I sat up and looked around. Yes, I was still in the samevalley, surrounded by whitened bones and rusted carapaces.But the oppressive din had ceased. Had the death-dealing howlsbeen purely an artificial creation, and had they been turned offat my supposed decease?

My late executioners had gone, so I was free to escape, ifescape were possible. But first I wished to find out why thenoise had stopped. Ever the incorrigible scientist! So I aroseto my feet, and instantly noticed that my headset was off, andwas trailing on the ground. It must have been knocked offwhen my head struck the rock.

I was just about to replace the phones over my ears, whenI heard a roar proceeding from them. And then I realizedthat the awful sound for which the valley was famous was notsound at all, but consisted merely in radiations of some sort,which had been caught and translated into sound by my radioapparatus. There were some advantages, after all, in mypossessing a different kind of sense of hearing from that prevalenton Poros.

So I switched off my current, and then replaced my headset.The next problem was to get out of the valley. Not being confusedby the howling roar, I had an advantage over the manyvictims who had preceded me. Undoubtedly it was this quitenatural confusion which had rendered it impossible for victimsin the past to climb the walls, and so had given these wallstheir undeserved reputation for unscalability. Even as it was,quite a while elapsed before I found sufficient crevices convenientlyplaced, so that I could make my way to the top.

Finally I stood at the rim, a free man!

And then I voluntarily went back down again into that valleyof death. Why? Because, being primarily an inquisitivescientist, I wanted to procure samples of the howling rocks,for purposes of analysis if ever I should be in a laboratoryagain. So I collected several different kinds of fragments anddid them up in a knotted corner of my toga.

Once more I scaled the steep walls, and stood again at therim. I was free! No one would ever look for me, as I wasofficially dead. I could pass as a Cupian, for my disguise wasstill intact, and I had freshly shaved that morning so as tomake a presentable corpse.

Life on Poros was ahead of me, and Poros held the PrincessLilla!

The only fly in the ointment was that I had lost my sense ofdirection, and so did not know whether I now stood on theFormian or on the Cupian side of the pale. Accordingly, Iproceeded with caution. After skirting the Valley of the HowlingRocks, I followed the pale, hoping to come at last to somegate which would furnish a clue as to which side I was on.

A strong wind was blowing, as is usual on Poros, and Iknew that of course it blew toward the sea. But, as I did notknow whether the sea lay east or west from here, the wind wasof no assistance in enabling me to orient myself.

The pale was a thirty-foot sheer wall of glazed concrete,running in practically a geodesic line across the country, sometimesthrough woods and sometimes through green fields.

Where it ran through the woods, the trees and bushes alongit—at least on the side which I was on—had been cut awayfor quite a wide swath, evidently for the purpose of preventingany one from using them to surmount the walls.

As I could see no one on top of the wall in either direction,I followed this cleared space, which made traveling considerablyeasier. There was no fear of detection except when Ipassed through open fields, but I had to do this quite frequently.

One field contained a herd of the milk-giving aphids, whichI had nicknamed “green cows.” Their presence convinced methat I must still be in Formia, until I reflected that I did notknow but that the Cupians also raised them.

At last I came to a road which ran along by the pale for away and then curved off again. Down this road I walked untilI saw ahead of me, where the road topped a slight rise, twoant-men coming toward me. Instantly I concealed myself in atartan bush at one side.

Soon I heard their approach; and, suddenly noticing that Icould not hear their voices, I switched on my apparatus, whichhad been disconnected ever since I had replaced my headset inthe Valley of the Howling Rocks. Thanks to my Indestructotube, the apparatus was still intact.

And now a strange low growl almost drowned out whatthey were saying, so that with difficulty I distinguished the followingwords: “I could swear that I saw a Cupian approachingon the road ahead of us; but now he is nowhere to be seen.”

Then the other said: “Never mind what you saw. Do youhear what I hear? We had better be on our guard, for itsounds like the roar of some absolutely new and strange animal.”

“It sounds to me,” replied the other, “more like the awfulvalley, only much softer. It seems to come from this tartanbush. Shall we investigate?”

As he mentioned the valley, I instantly realized what was thecause of the trouble. The radioactive fragments tied up in thecorner of my toga had revealed my presence. If I wanted toescape, I would have to leave my precious samples behind.With a sigh I undid the knot, dropped the pieces on theground, and dashed through the back of the bush, just as theant-men broke in through the front of it. It was lucky for methat my pursuers had no ordinary sense of hearing, or theywould have heard my departure.

Safe in another bush, I listened to their amazed remarks atfinding the stones. But, after puzzling and debating for sometime, they finally resumed their journey.

I was about to return for my specimens, when I reflected thatthey might attract other attention, and might even serve as aclue to suggest that I was a convict, escaped from the awfulvalley, so I reluctantly left them lying where they were.

Instead of continuing along the road, however, I now retracedmy steps to the wall, for the presence of the ant-men hadmade me certain that I was still in Formia, and hence it becamenecessary for me to find some place where I could getthrough to the other side. Accordingly, I proceeded along besidethe wall.

The day was warm and moist, as are all days on Poros, butas I went on the weather got hotter, damper and more oppressive.Finally the sky began to turn dark.

“Aha!” said I. “Now it is evening, and I shall be able to getmy bearings by the pink light in the west.”

But no pink light appeared on any hand. Never before hadI seen a night descend like this upon this planet. Then witha crash the sky was split in two by a living flame, and thestorm broke in all its fury.

The roar of the thunder was like a continuous artillery barrage.Spiral vorticles of wind hurled the rain in my face andnearly twisted me off my feet, as I anchored myself to a treetrunk to withstand its fury.

But fortunately the storm was as brief as it was severe, andsoon I was again pressing on beneath silver skies.

In spite of the storm, the weather kept on getting more andmore oppressive, until, on cresting a hill, I saw before me thecause of all the trouble. About two stads ahead there rose asolid wall of vapor, stretching away to the horizon on eachside and to the silver clouds above, and giving forth such anintense heat in my direction that I could scarcely bear it. Everynow and then a few drops of scalding water would fall on mefrom above.

This must be the Boiling Sea, of which I had heard so muchand which surrounds all continental Poros. It was an impressivesight.

The pale ended only about a stad ahead, and yet for the lifeof me I could not summon up courage enough to try and passaround its end. In fact, I could not conceive how the wall evercould have been built even that far, in the face of that terrificheat.

Later I learned that it had been built little by little behind ahuge screen of woven fire-worm fur, and only during off-shorebreezes at that.

Well, there was nothing for me to do but turn around andretrace my steps, back to the Valley of the Howling Rocks andbeyond, in search for an opening through the wall.

I was well beyond the Valley when my earthly ears caughtthe sound of an approaching kerkool, and as the road was fortunatelypassing through the woods at the time, I hid myselfin a convenient tartan bush.

But this time I displaced one of the huge leaves sufficientlyso that, with one eye, I could cover the road. What was myjoy to note, as the car passed, that it was of Cupian make andheld Cupians!

When the kerkool was safely out of sight and hearing, Iresumed my march, and soon came in view of a city of a typeso different from any which I had previously seen on Porosthat it might well have belonged to another world.

I sat down in a hillside pasture beside the road, amidstgently grazing aphids, and gazed upon the beautiful sight. Thecity was set upon a rounded hill. On the very summit stooda group of monumental white buildings, ornamented withdomes, minarets and stately columns. From this group down tothe foot of the hill and across the plain toward where I satthere stretched a plaza of well kept silver sward, flanked bywalks and ornamental trees.

The road ran square to the nearer edge of this park, whereit forked abruptly and skirted both sides of the lawn. Flankingthis divided road, and extending around the base of the hill,stood a multitude of houses; gray concrete or stucco, with highpitched red tile roofs. Nothing more different from the antcities to which I was accustomed could be imagined.

That I was at last in Cupia, the country of my princess, therecould now be no question. And, as if to resolve my last possibledoubt, night now fell, and the pink sky on my left assured methat I was, in truth, north of the pale and that the hated countryof my captivity lay far behind me.

As the silver gray faded overhead, I realized that I had hadnothing to eat since a condemned man’s conventional heartymeal early that morning. So, utilizing the few remaining minutesof daylight, I fashioned a tartan leaf into a rude cup andfilled it with green milk from the contented cows.

Then, laying my weary body upon the ground and coveringmyself with tartan leaves, I turned in for the night and sleptthe healthy sleep of utter exhaustion.

The next morning I awakened greatly refreshed, and afterbreakfasting from the friendly aphids, set off to enter thebeautiful city.

I was badly in need of a shave and my toga was mussed andsoiled. But my disguise was still intact, and without too muchscrutiny I might still pass as a Cupian. Yet I did not dare askwhere I was, not knowing what the Cupian customs might bewith regard to strangers.

My first desire was to procure a shaving knife and a cleantoga, but I had no idea how to go about it. In Formia therehad been no shops; everything necessary had simply been“issued,” as in the army, but without even the need of signinga receipt. But quite likely the Cupian custom was different.

Then, too, I wanted lodgings and a job, but did not knowhow to go about this either.

Fortunately, however, I overheard a conversation betweentwo Cupians which gave me a clue as to how to proceed.

“Yahoo, Jodek,” one of them hailed the other. “How is itthat you are in Kuana today?”

My heart gave a bound. Kuana, the capital city of Cupia,and home of my princess! Fate was indeed repaying me wellfor all the hard knocks it had given me.

The one addressed as Jodek answered: “I have walked infrom Ktuth to register for a job here in Kuana. Can you directme to the Ministry of Work?”

And the two friends walked away, chatting together, whilethe germ of an idea sprouted in my mind. I too would be fromKtuth, looking for a job.

Occasionally I passed some very officious looking personarmed with a short broadsword.

I assumed these were pinquis, or Porovian policemen.

Finally, when I felt sure that Jodek had had plenty of timein which to report, I approached one of these policemen, toldhim that I was from Ktuth, and asked him the way to theMinistry of Work.

“Too bad about all the trouble at Ktuth, isn’t it?” said he.I assented vaguely.

“Do you think that it was the fault of Count Kamel?” hecontinued.

He was getting entirely too garrulous and was likely at anymoment to trap me into some damaging slip. I was just aboutto reply irrelevantly that Duke Lucky Strike was entirely toblame, when whom should I see walking down the street butmy enemy and betrayer Yuri! And at that instant he too sawme!

Let me digress for a moment. I find that in writing downthis account of my adventures I frequently use earth words insteadof the more exact Porovian synonym. Thus I have justsaid “count” and “duke,” although these words are not strictlyaccurate. I might have said “barsarkar” and “sarkar” instead;but I believe that a clearer impression will be created on myreaders—if this manuscript ever reaches the Earth—by occasionallyusing Earth words where this does not involve toogreat a stretch in their meaning.

Well, as I was saying: Here, to my surprise and horror, camethe last person on Poros whom I desired to see, namely PrinceYuri. Each of us was equally astonished to see the other, butYuri was the first to recover his presence of mind.

“Pinqui,” he shouted peremptorily to the Cupian policeman,“arrest that man and take him to the mang-ool. I myself willanswer to the mango. And tell the mango that I forbid conversationwith the prisoner.”

Then, turning to me with a smile, Yuri remarked:

“Welcome to Kuana, my friend. You are as welcome here asa spot of sunlight, and have just as bad a habit of turning up.The last I heard of you, you were condemned to death. Howyou escaped from the ant-men I know not, but perhaps youwill find that Cupian justice is surer than Formian.”

Then to the officer, as I started to reply. “Pinqui, if he saysa word to me, to you, or to any one, strike him on the antennae!I have spoken.”

And he strode majestically away, as the pinqui seized meroughly by the arm and led me to the mang-ool, or jail, of thecity of Kuana.

At the mang-ool the pinqui turned me over to the mango, towhom he repeated Yuri’s message, whereupon I noticed apeculiar vindictive expression creep across the jailer’s face.

Then I was led to a cell and locked in. Once more I was outof luck. A few minutes ago I had been free, and full of joyat finding myself in the city of my princess; now I was in thetoils again, and—what was worse—in the power of the manwho was my deadly rival for Lilla’s love, and who for aughtthat I knew, was already betrothed to her.

At all events, he was, the most powerful single individual inall Cupia, next to his uncle the king.

I was certainly in a jam! And, to make matters worse, myjailer evidently had a thoroughly vicious personality.

12
a victim of Yuri

But the malevolence of the jailer was notdirected against me, for as he turned away,after locking me in my cell, he softly radiatedthe joyous information; “Any one who is an enemy ofPrince Yuri has nothing to fear from Poblath.”

Then he was gone. Evidently, in spite of Yuri’s popularity,there were some Cupians who saw through him. And Poblath,the mango, must be one of these. Shortly afterwards he returnedwith food, and spoke softly as he placed it before me.

“‘Walls have antennae,’” he quoted, “so I will not radiateloudly to you. Be discreet. Do nothing to anger Yuri. Bideyour time. And if I can be of any particular service, let meknow. ‘Common enmity maketh close friends.’”

Evidently Poblath was greatly given to Porovian proverbs.About one parth (i.e., Porovian hour) later the mangobrought Prince Yuri to my cell. Yuri had come to gloat overme and to give in my presence his directions for my discomfiture.

“Poblath,” he declared, “this man Cabot is a dangerous criminal.The charges against him are so serious that I must laythem in person before King Kew. Cabot is a deaf-mute, bornwithout antennae; but he has concocted, with diabolical cleverness,some artificial electrical antennae. No one is to be permittedto talk with him; and, to make sure of this, I nowcommand you to take from him his apparatus.”

My jaw dropped with horror at the thought; but the jailerquickly came to my rescue.

“Oh, sire,” he said, “the ancient law! I will see that nocommunication is had with him, but the ancient law prohibitsdepriving any person of his antennae.”

Yuri replied: “This is not a person; it is an animal. Andfurthermore, his apparatus is not antennae, strictly speaking.”

Poblath was equal to the occasion. “The ancient law appliesequally to animals, as you well know, my prince. And, as forhis antennae, they are antennae to me, unless King Kew rulesotherwise.”

“Leave his antennae, then,” snapped Yuri, “and remove hisbelt.”

But Poblath was obdurate, and stood upon his rights. “Ifhis belt serves his antennae, I demand a kingly ruling. I havespoken.”

Yuri scowled.

“A ruling you shall have,” he gritted, as he turned away.“Meanwhile, keep the prisoner by himself.”

“Your will is law,” Poblath answered, with mock meekness.

So at last I had a friend in Cupia. When the mango returnedto bring me my supper I determined to take him into my confidence.

“Poblath,” I said, as a feeler, “who rescued the Princess Lillafrom the Formians?”

“It was Prince Yuri,” he replied. “It is the one decent actof his life, though his beautiful cousin does not seem to beparticularly grateful to him for it.”

“Then she is not yet betrothed to him?” I asked.

“Not yet, nor ever!” was the emphatic answer.

“Poblath,” I declared, “Yuri did not rescue the princess. Idid it. Can you get word to her that I am here?”

“By the blue-horned woofus!” he ejacul*ted. “Can I? Justwatch me!”

“If you straighten this out,” I said, “I shall be most eternallygrateful.”

At which the mango quoted sententiously. “‘He who expectsgratitude hath not conferred a favor.’” Then he hurriedaway.

Late that evening he returned to my cell with a most exquisitespecimen of Cupian femininity, whom he introduced asBthuh, maid in waiting to Princess Lilla.

If Lilla was all that was desirable in a blonde, Bthuh wasall that was desirable in a brunette; full lips, clear olive skin,dark languorous eyes, a seductive form. A chestnut baby-doll,with smoldering southern passion underneath. She was a redrose, overripe. Although my allegiance never wavered for aninstant from the lovely Lilla, yet I must confess that the presenceof this exotic beauty strangely stirred me. And she smiledat me, as though she thought me not half bad, either.

Then she spoke: “I am betrothed to Poblath, althoughsecretly because my rank of sarkari (duch*ess) should preventan alliance with a commoner. That brink, Yuri, (this was aparticularly choice epithet to apply to Yuri, for “brink” is thename of the little hopping lizard that infests the concrete roads)—thatbrink has been trying to make love to me, though in amost unflattering way, in spite of my rank. His standing issuch that I dare not oppose him openly; but Poblath and I arefriends of yours, since you are an enemy of our enemy. Youmay tell us your story without fear.”

So I told them in detail my entire adventures on this planet,from my finding myself beside the silver lake on the day ofthe explosion in my Boston laboratory, down to date, omittingof course the more intimate passages between myself and thePrincess Lilla. When I finished, I could see that I was assuredof their cooperation; not only because of our common hatredof Prince Yuri, but also because of the merits of my own case.

“The next step,” Poblath announced, “is for Bthuh to tellher mistress that you are here. Once the princess knows this,we can be sure that she will confide in Bthuh, and thus wecan learn definitely where matters stand.”

Then the two lovers withdrew, leaving me to spend a farhappier night than I had had any reason to expect.

The next day passed uneventfully. Evidently Yuri was havingsome difficulty in getting his desired ruling from the kingrelative to my antennae.

Nightfall again brought with it the dark and beautiful Bthuh,to her tryst with the mango, Poblath. And Bthuh brought newsof the princess, who sent word to be of good cheer, for herfather, the king, was to inspect the Kuana jail on the morrow.

Just what good this would do me I could not see; but I tookLilla’s word for it that this was good tidings.

Preparatory to the visit, I obtained materials from Poblathand shaved.

On the next day, the third day of my imprisonment, KewXII, King of Cupia, attended by his suite, inspected the Kuanajail, and in due course was conducted to my cell. The king wasa broad shouldered, narrow hipped, athletic figure, lookinglike a well preserved earth-man of about fifty years of age. Hiscomplexion was bronzed, his nose slightly aquiline, and hishair iron gray, short and furry. His eyes were black and piercing,and his mouth and jaw firm. Justice, but not mercy, satupon his kingly brow.

He and I studied each other calmly for a few moments. Andthen I lost my calm, for in the royal suite stood my princess!I was about to cry out to her when her expression stayed me;so instead I merely acknowledged her presence with a bow,and said: “My life is, as ever, at the service of the PrincessLilla.”

Whereat the king turned to his daughter and asked: “Whois this man who seems to know you, and who claims the honorof being a servitor of the royal house?”

But before she could answer, one of the suite stepped forwardand declared: “I know the prisoner, sire, and he is noneother than Myles Cabot, a great scientist from the planet Minos,recently feasted and honored at the University of Formia.Surely his imprisonment must be a mistake.”

My new defender was the Cupian professor who had stoodat the head table at the banquet in my honor my first night inMooni.

“Then,” declared the king, “this must be the Cabot of whomPrince Yuri spoke, urging us to consent that he be deprived ofhis artificial antennae. A great scientist he must be to havedesigned such an apparatus; but Yuri assures us that he islikewise a great criminal and a dangerous enemy of the Kewdynasty, of which facts Yuri has promised us full particularsshortly. Speak, man, and tell us your version of your crimes.”

I hesitated, but the princess answered my unspoken thought:“My good fellow, you need not fear to tell everything to myfather, the king.”

So I told. I told the whole story of my life on Poros, omittingnothing except my love for the Princess Lilla. It was nearly awhole parth in the telling, and all those present hung on everyword.

When I was done, the king, amazed, turned to his daughterand inquired: “Can this be true? Is the crown prince such ascoundrel that he would abduct the princess royal, and thenfalsely claim the credit for her rescue?”

To which Lilla replied: “I know nothing of Prince Yuri’scomplicity in my abduction, though it seems to fit in with hisother acts. But I do know that he has claimed undeservedcredit, which is an unforgivable breach of the Cupian ethics offair play.”

The king called to one of his courtiers: “Go, forthwith, andorder the prince to repair immediately to our quarters. Weshall sift this matter to the bottom. And”—turning on me—“ifyour story proves false, it will go hard with you; but ifyour story proves to be true, it will go hard with Prince Yuri.”

And he swept from my presence, followed by his suite. Andlast of all by the Princess Lilla, who turned and smiled sweetlyon me, just as she was leaving.

No further word came from the palace all that day, butlate that afternoon Prince Yuri visited the jail with a numberof his courtiers. He was furiously angry. Poblath was withhim, endeavoring to calm him down and to divert him fromseeing me, but Yuri was insistent.

As the door of my cell was flung open, the prince startedto abuse me.

“How dare you malign a member of the ruling house?” hethundered. “How dare you lie, and involve the Princess Lillain your lies? I have a mind to kill you on the spot, and thusrid the planet of your foul presence.”

And he would have gone on if I had not had a suddeninspiration.

“Yuri,” said I, “you woofus, brink, mathlab! I’ll—get—yournumber!”

The effect was electrical. The prince’s face went white withrage. Then he calmed, and a smile overspread his face.

“Pardon me, sir, but I’ll get yours,” he replied with a lowbow.

Poblath interjected: “You poor fool, Cabot! Prince Yuri isthe best duelist in all Cupia.”

“‘A brink may hop once too often beneath the kerkool,’” Iquoted. “But come, I see that we do not rush at each otheras they do in Formia. What are supposed to be the formalitieshere?”

“You will learn soon enough,” Yuri growled, scowling ominously.

But Poblath more kindly explained: “Each of you choosesan attendant, and then the attendants tie you together, and youkill with knives.”

This reminded me of Mark Twain’s “Gatling guns at fifteenpaces.” I chose Poblath, and Yuri chose one of his own suite.A peculiar harness was then produced, consisting of a doublebelt. One half of this was buckled around Yuri’s waist; butwhen they came to buckle me into the other half, my radioapparatus, which was concealed beneath my toga, furnished anobstacle, and so there was nothing for me to do but take it off.This, of course, would render me entirely deaf during the fight,which fact might prove somewhat disadvantageous.

But before they took away my hearing they explained fullyto me just how the duel would be conducted. And I cautionedPoblath to keep a firm hold of my apparatus and not let itget into the hands of any of Yuri’s henchmen even for an instant.

“Otherwise,” I said, “the ancient law might easily becomeviolated.”

Then I shed my antennae, and stood once more, an earth-man,ready to battle for my existence against the inhabitants ofPoros.

We were belted together, face to face, waist touching waist.Each of us held a short sharp dagger in his left hand—Cupiansbeing a left-handed race—while the right hand of each of usseized the left wrist of his opponent. The idea was for me totry and stab Yuri to death before he could stab me, and viceversa.

Yuri had the advantage on the offensive, for he held hisdagger in his strong hand, whereas I held mine in my weak.But conversely, I had the advantage on the defensive, for it wasmy strongest hand which warded him off.

No spoken signal could be given, because of my receivingset being off. So Poblath held up his hand and both of uswatched it. Then when he let it fall we started to wrestle.

Yuri might be the most perfect physical specimen in allCupia, but I was from a planet where the greater attraction ofgravity necessitated a greater strength on the average. However,I soon perceived that these Porovian duels are not to be wonby strength alone. There were tricks and feints by which one’sopponent could be tired out. And I was a mere novice, whileYuri was regarded as the most expert duelist on all Poros.

We tumbled and rolled about the floor, with first his knifeand then mine near its mark. At last we both struggled to ourfeet again and swayed back and forth for a moment.

And then, gradually, Yuri’s dagger began to descend. Strainas I would, I could not stay its slow and steady progress towardmy heart. A gleam of exultation filled the eye of my opponent.The point of his knife pricked my breast, and began to enter. Ina few seconds it would be over and I should fall a victim toan alien race.

A strange train of ideas ran through my affrighted mind:“Alien race. Japanese. Jiujitsu. The very thing! The ulnarnerve!”

Suddenly shifting my grip on his wrist, I forced my thumbinto the sensitive spot; and instantly his knife, about to piercemy heart, dropped instead from his nerveless fingers and clatteredharmlessly to the floor.

And now what was the etiquette of the situation?

I turned my glance from Yuri’s eyes to those of Poblath andsaw the latter frantically motioning me to kill. To kill! Nothingwould give me greater pleasure.

But as I returned to the task, I noted the Princess Lilla standingin the crowd, with a look of terror on her face. Her appealingeyes showed that she was speaking to me, probably urgingme to spare the prince.

So she cared for the scoundrel after all!

In disgust, I threw my own knife into a corner, and signaledto Poblath to remove the belts. He did so, reproachfully, andthen handed me my receiving set.

Something prompted me to put it on in haste, and it is wellthat I did so, for as I snapped the ear phones in place, I heardYuri shout: “Quick, two of you cover Cabot and the mango.”

Instantly each of us was forced to the wall with a sharp broadswordat our breast; while Yuri seized the princess, and surroundedby the rest of his suite, made a hasty exit from thecell room.

13
kidnaped

As Yuri surrounded by his bodyguard,dragged Princess Lilla from the room, Ihad an inspiration; I remembered thesuperstitious legend about me, which prevailed among thefarmer ants of Formia.

“Halt!” I shouted. “My electrical antennae can kill as wellas radiate speech. Let no man move a foot, if he would escapethe lightnings of heaven, which I have power to loose uponyou.”

The whole party stopped dead in their tracks and watchedme, fascinated.

“Drop your points!” I ordered the two who guarded Poblathand me. “Quick, before I blast you!”

They obeyed, and I walked fearlessly across the room.

“Let one man stir, and you all die,” I continued as I pushedbetween the guards and wrenched the princess from her cousin’snerveless arms. “Now, out of here, all of you!”

In sheer relief, like men awakened from a trance, they boltedthrough the door.

“Fine work,” Poblath remarked, himself greatly relieved, “butyou should have detained them all as prisoners.”

“Good riddance of bad rubbish,” I replied, “and besides, whoknows how soon one of them might have moved, and not havebeen blasted, and thus have spoiled my entire bluff?”

The princess clung to my arms. Then, raising her eyes tomine with a smile, she said: “Again, you have saved me, MylesCabot, and again I am yours.”

“And I am always yours, my princess,” I replied.

She stamped her foot. Then said sadly: “Ever you remindme that I am a princess. And as a princess I must demand morerespect from you, Myles Cabot.”

Gently I released her, and she lingeringly departed, leavingme alone with Poblath. I felt let down and futile, the victimof an anticlimax. What next?

And then ensued a period of waiting. Days passed, and Istill remained an inmate of the Kuana jail. No word fromPrincess Lilla. No word from King Kew. No word of PrinceYuri, although rumor had it that he had fled into Formia, fearingthe wrath of the king.

I heard that a group of the younger politicians in the popularassembly, headed by Prince Toron, had suggested to the kingthat he demand an apology from Queen Formis for the firstabduction of the princess, and that he demand extradition ofYuri on the charge of attempting the second.

But King Kew was in a ticklish position, being the ruler ofa subject race, and holding his position merely by grace ofFormis, whom he hated, as she well knew. If he were topresent any such demand as this, the least that he could expectwould be an immediate counterdemand for my surrender. Formismight demand his abdication in favor of Yuri. Even warmight result, which the Cupians were unarmed to resist. Thiswould mean tons of explosives dropped upon Kuana fromFormian airplanes, thousands of Cupians ground between fiercemandibles, and then another treaty more degrading even thanthat of Mooni.

So King Kew resorted to diplomacy, rather than to ultimatums;and finally reached a tacit understanding, whereby QueenFormis disclaimed responsibility for the kidnaping and made agift to the Princess Lilla, and whereby Prince Yuri was permittedto remain undisturbed in Formia, and I in Cupia.

Upon the consummation of the agreement between the twocountries, I was let out of prison and conducted to the royalpalace, where I was received in honor by the king and princess.The palace was one of the monumental white buildings on thebrow of the hill around which the city of Kuana is built, therest of the group being the university.

Lilla greeted me cordially as an old friend; but of course inthe presence of the king neither of us dared show any strongersentiments.

King Kew patted me warmly on the cheek.

“Well done, Myles Cabot!” he declared. “We welcome toKuana the scientist of Minos. Formis, by her treachery, has lostyour great abilities, and Cupia is the gainer thereby. The oldhag may gnash her mandibles in vain, but—”

“Father, father,” the princess interjected remonstratingly, “dobe careful! Remember that you occupy your throne merely bythe grace of the conquerors.”

“And by the disgrace of my ancestors,” he added grimacing.

“But father,” she continued, “‘walls have antennae.’ Evennow, word of your utterances may be on the way to the ImperialCity.” And she laid, her golden curly head beguilinglyon his broad shoulder.

Somewhat mollified, the king murmured, “I know. I know.And I must be careful. But the enslavement of my people irksme, even though I spring from a line of eleven servile kings.Would that there were some way of striking off the yoke andridding the face of Poros of these beasts with human minds andwoofus hearts!”

“Spoken like a king!” I cried. “Know then, King Kew andPrincess Lilla, that if ever such a day comes, Myles Cabot canbe counted on to fight in the vanguard of the army of liberation.”

“Brave words,” Lilla replied in a subdued tone, “but foolishas well. We are only brinks; Formis is a woofus, and it isfutile to struggle against fate.”

She sighed.

Kew sat down heavily on his throne and put his head in hishands. I considered it tactful to withdraw.

Quarters were found for me near by the palace and the Ministryof Work assigned me, for my two parths a day, to the machineshop of the Department of Mechanics at the University.Tickets were issued to me as an advance on my pay, and thisenabled me to make many necessary purchases from the governmentshops, to replace the articles borrowed during my incarcerationin the mangool, and to buy presents for Poblath andhis fiancee. Among my purchases was the most elaborate andexpensive silk toga which I could obtain in the city, so as toenhance my standing and dignity at court functions.

A few days after my release the king honored me with aninvitation to dinner with him and the princess alone; and thiswas followed, within a few days, by a banquet to some of theleading nobles—sarkars and barsarkars—and professors of theUniversity—babbuhs.

On this latter occasion I met the Cupian professor who hadstood at the head table at the banquet at Mooni, and who hadlater identified and befriended me at the Kuana jail. He wasHah Babbuh, Professor of Mechanics, head of the departmentto which I was attached.

He now sat at my right, and we speedily became great friends,a fact which was shortly to play an important part in my lifeand in the history of the whole planet.

It was on his recommendation that I had been assigned tohis department by the Minister of Work.

Time sped rapidly during the succeeding days. My duties,which consisted in machine design, were interesting, though abit out of my line. Of the twelve parths which make up aPorovian day, about four were required for sleep, and only twofor work, thus leaving six, the equivalent of nearly twelve earthhours, for meals and recreation.

Recreation is the chief vocation of Cupia, and is conductedunder the direction of the Minister of Play, who is the mostimportant member of the king’s cabinet.

I was duly assigned to a “hundred” (i.e. athletic club) consistingof one hundred and forty-seven members, under theleadership of an elective pootah, assisted by two bar-pootahs.The hundreds are grouped together by twelves, into thousands,each led by an elective eklat; and so the grouping continues onthe analogy of the defunct armies of the Cupian nations whichexisted prior to the great war of the Formian conquest. As Ihave already intimated, a similar organization obtains in theimperial air navy of the ant-men.

The games are mostly athletic in their nature, consisting inrunning, jumping, throwing stones at a mark, strap-duelingwith blunt knives dipped in pitch, wrestling et cetera. Sonsnormally enter their father’s hundred as soon as there is avacancy, and wives and daughters are organized into auxiliaryhundreds. Teams, representing each hundred, compete annuallywithin their thousand, the winning teams compete within theirregiment, and so on up. Badges are awarded to the final winners,and a special prize to the hundred whose members capturethe most badges. Then there is competitive marching in complicatedevolutions in squads of twelve, conducted by eachhundred as a whole.

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This organized recreation is entirely optional, except as to themarching, which in my hundred occurred only twice a sangth,i.e., every sixty days; so I had plenty of time to spend as I sawfit. I made frequent visits to the Department of Electricity, andbecame quite intimate with its professor, Oya Buh.

I also became acquainted with Ja Babbuh, Professor of Mathematics.

The observatory fascinated me. Never for a moment is thehuge telescope, with its revolving cylinder of mercury, leftunguarded. Here sits constantly Buh Tedn, or one of his assistants,while four students scan the sky for an occasional rift inthe clouds. This vigil, maintained throughout the ages, and asimilar vigil at Mooni, have resulted in a knowledge of spacecomparable with ours, in spite of the clouds which envelopPoros. The Porovians have long been of the opinion that bothMars and the Earth are inhabited, but that the other planetsare not.

Constant demands were made on me to lecture before thestudents, and to submit to physical examinations; but, as allthis came during my work time, it did not interfere with myrecreation.

The wing of the palace devoted to Lilla and her attendants,lay near to my quarters and not far from the machine shop, andcould be reached by an outside door without passing throughthe rest of the palace. Thither I came as a frequent visitor, byinvitation of the princess. In fact, to be perfectly frank, I spentnearly my entire spare time there.

She had an unquenchable sunny disposition, and a keensense of humor. She had no particular accomplishments, andyet possessed that trait, often overlooked and yet more valuablethan any mere parlor tricks, of tactfulness, sympathy, ability tosmooth over the rough places of life, and to enrich with herpersonality every gathering which she favored with her presence.

I certainly was on the top of the world—or rather of theplanet Poros—and to make my contentment complete my oldant friend Doggo was detailed as attache of the Formian ambassador,and brought with him my pet buntlote and Lilla’spet mathlab, which we had left behind in Wautoosa.

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Meanwhile my scientific attainments were attracting considerableattention, until finally Lilla informed me that her fatherhad reached the conclusion that these attainments would furnishan excuse for elevating me to the lesser nobility. The realbasis for my elevation was of course my rescue of the princess,but the king had not dared to give this reason, for fear ofoffending the sensibilities of Queen Formis.

In due course of time my promotion occurred, and I becamea barsarkar, entitled to wear a red circle over where my heartought to be, i.e., on the right side of my toga.

Lilla gave a special dinner to celebrate this, and invited Bthuhand Poblath. In fact, she was always getting up special occasionson one pretext or another, for she was very fond of devisingnew ways of cooking alta and mathlab and the red lobsterlikeaphid-parasite, and of trying these dishes on her friends.

We played at a four-handed game resembling checkers, and apleasant time was had by all. After the game we sat on a littleveranda in the warm soft evening air, two pairs of lovers blissfullyhappy.

Doggo had not been invited. He would not have fitted in.Being a sexless female, what could he know of love? And then,too, I had begun to learn that, except in educational circles,where “science knows no national boundaries,” there was verylittle fraternizing between the Cupians and their conquerors.The social barrier between Doggo and me, which resembledthe pale between our two countries, was the only drawback toan otherwise idyllic life.

But as Poblath would say: “The cloudiest day may have itssunshine,” meaning just the opposite to our “every cloud has itssilver lining.” For one day I received a letter from King Kewannouncing, as a special mark of his favor, my betrothal to—theduch*ess Bthuh!

Horrified, I rushed to the apartments of my Princess, andobtained entrance. She, too, had heard the news, and was intears.

“My rank or not, Bthuh or no Bthuh, you are mine, mine!”she sobbed as she clung to me, while I covered her with kisses.“If it were not for Yuri and your criminal record, we couldflee into Formia; but here in Cupia my father is supreme. Ifyou were still a commoner, you could marry or not as youchose, within your own class; but as a barsarkar you mustmarry as the king directs.”

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“Isn’t there anything we can do about it?” I demanded.

“Nothing,” she replied. “A princess cannot marry lowerthan a full sarkar, which is a rank that you can attain only byperforming some distinguished service for your country. Ouronly hope lies in accepting fate for the present, and in strivingto get you a sarkarship before the wedding. And think of poorBthuh! This will be as much of a blow to her and to Poblathas it is to us.”

But, to our surprise and consternation, Bthuh took the newsvery philosophically.

“The king’s will be done,” she said with a pretty little poutand shrug. “Myles Cabot is not a bad match after all; and,if rank prevents him from having the princess and prevents mefrom having the mango, why not solace ourselves with eachother?”

And she glanced shyly up at me.

But somehow the idea did not appeal to me at all.

I must have looked at Bthuh with much the same expressionof horror as the princess had worn the day of our first meetingat Wautoosa when I was still an unkempt earth man, for Bthuhlaughed and said: “Come, come, Myles, do not look thus. AmI so horrible that you cannot learn to love me, even to pleaseour gracious king?”

“Bthuh! Stop that foolishness at once!” ordered Lilla. “Youmake me sick.”

But Bthuh insolently replied: “Cannot I flirt with my ownbetrothed, O princess?” She left the room, smiling.

“She is merely trying to hide a broken heart,” I apologized.

Whereat Lilla wheeled on me furiously and said: “Don’tyou dare stand up for that creature!”

So I desisted.

I certainly was in a fix! Engaged to girl whom I didn’t love,but who had apparently determined to put up with me.Estranged from the girl whom I did love. Forced to play falsewith the first man who had befriended me in Cupia. And noway out in sight. What was I to do?

I thought of renouncing my rank. But this, I found, wasimpossible; and, besides, such a step would put the princesseven further out of my reach.

Bthuh bore up nobly; much too nobly, in fact.

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Poblath sent me a brief note reading: “I expected no gratitude,but I did expect a square deal,” and then refused to receiveme when I hastened to the mang-ool to explain.

I took Hah Babbuh into my confidence, but he had no suggestionto offer, for I had as yet done nothing to deserve asarkarship.

As time passed I saw less and less of Lilla and more andmore of Bthuh, but I managed to keep from being left alonewith the latter.

The date of our wedding was set, and drew nearer andnearer. We were to be married in state by the king himself. Icould not help admitting that my bride was an exquisite creature.But I did not, could not, love her; though, if I had nevermet the Princess Lilla, I could doubtless have lived very happilywith Bthuh. But how can the eagle’s lover mate with aparakeet?

At last the eve of my wedding arrived. After supper Idragged my footsteps to the quarters of the princess, to spendwith her the last few parths which I should ever be free tospend, for on the morrow I was to become a married man.Bthuh, my affianced bride, met me, and the princess was nowhereto be seen.

“Oh Cabot, Cabot,” entreated Bthuh as she seized my handsand gazed into my eyes. “Cannot you bow to the inevitable?Is life with me such a horrible fate? I can be very sweet if youwill but let me try. You have never once kissed me yet. Is thatthe way to treat your betrothed? Kiss me, Cabot, kiss me, kissme, kiss me!”

And, still holding me with her amber eyes, she slid her handsup my arms and drew her fragrant presence close to me.

But I broke away abruptly from her spell and demanded:“Where is my princess? Surely you will not rob me of my lastfew hours of freedom.”

Bthuh shrugged her pretty shoulders. “Your princess, it isalways your princess! Well, what should I care? For tomorrowyou are mine, wholly mine, and even a princess will not piratethe husband of a sarkari. Find her yourself and gather flowerswhile it yet is day.” And with another shrug she left the salon.

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“Tomorrow? Why, tomorrow I may be myself with yesterday’sseven thousand years,” I quoted softly as I pulled the signalcord for the maid.

The maid informed me that her mistress had not been seensince early morning. It was not like Lilla thus to leave herwhereabouts unknown for such a long time. So I rushed outinto the streets and began to make inquiries.

If I had been less agitated I suppose that I would have beenmore systematic; but as it was, I soon learned from a pinquithat the princess had been seen walking southward over theplaza shortly before noon. So I hastened down to the plaza andstarted questioning people.

At last my search was rewarded, for several people reportedthat they had seen a woman apparently much agitated, pickedup by an ant-man and carried southward. So hiring a kerkoolat the nearest garage, I started in pursuit.

A few stads outside the city I came upon an ant kerkoollying beside the road. Gyroscope trouble, evidently. I parkedmy car and got out to investigate.

As I was standing there gazing at the fallen kerkool, abandage was suddenly thrown about my eyes from behind.Then I smelled the pungent anaesthetic fumes of decoction ofsaffra root, and my struggles ceased.

14
in disgrace

I awakened to find myself lying bound in awood. The time was apparently the nextmorning. My first thought was to worryabout Lilla. My next was to wonder who was to blame for myseizure. Yuri, undoubtedly.

But, if so, had he not misplayed? If he had let me alone, Ishould by this time be marrying the Sarkari Bthuh; and, oncemarried to her, I could no longer interfere between Lilla andYuri. Lilla might even consent to marry the prince out ofpique.

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My thoughts were interrupted by the return of my captor,who proved to be an ant-man, numbered 356-1-400. He was ayoung ant, and bore no duel numbers. I started to speak, but hewarned me to be silent; to make sure of my obedience, he bitme savagely. Once more, as on my first day on this planet, Iexperienced intense pain, followed by oblivion, and then consciousparalysis.

When I awoke paralyzed, I found that my captor was carryingme. The fact that he was an ant-man confirmed my suspicionsof Yuri. But the fact that he was carrying me furtivelythrough the woods, instead of on the main highway, convincedme that I was still in Cupia.

My bonds were still on, but had become very loose. ImmediatelyI decided that my one chance of escape lay in concealingmy recovery from the paralysis, when this recovery shouldoccur. So I awaited my opportunity.

Thus we proceeded for about a parth and a half, when suddenlymy captor halted and pricked up his antennae. I toolistened. Directly ahead of us there came a long-drawn howl,the call of a woofus. Nearer came the sound.

We were in a field at the time, and I could see that the ant-manwas looking around for a likely tree, in which to takerefuge. But the bordering woods were all scrub, with not asingle sizable tree in sight, so my captor laid me down andadvanced toward the sound of the oncoming woofus, evidentlydetermined to bluff it out and attack before being attacked.

Then the purple terror bounded into the open. One lone ant-manis no match for a woofus. Though my captor foughtbravely, he was slowly driven back, contesting every parastadof the way. When the two were nearly upon me, I realized thatmy languor was gone. I undid my bonds. I stood erect. Then Ifound a heavy stick.

My captor was entirely engrossed in his conflict. Now wasmy chance to crush him with my club, and then escape whilethe woofus devoured his remains. Fate was indeed kind tome once more. So I crept stealthily forward, and then broughtmy club down with a crash on the head of—

The woofus. For my sense of fair play, my sporting sense,had abruptly changed my mind, and I had rescued the underdog,instead of killing him. Now I was again his captive, undoubtedlydestined this time to have eggs laid in me by QueenFormis.

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The ant-man stood for a moment astounded, and thenwheeled around. I still held my club. There was now no reasonwhy I should not kill him too, if I could. But he did notcharge.

Instead he said: “Let us not fight. You have saved my life,and so I owe you yours. ‘A life for a life.’ No one shall eversay that 356-1-400 is ungrateful. Go in peace. Look, a mistapproaches. My excuse shall be that I lost you in the fog. Ifyou too are grateful, you will tell the same story.”

Then the fog, a frequent phenomenon of Poros, closed uponme, and I saw my captor no more. I lay down, covered myselfwith tartan leaves to keep off the wet, and waited for the fogto lift.

And the next thing I knew, it was morning.

In spite of my long fast—since supper two days ago—I feltrefreshed by my sleep, and at once set out through the woodsin as nearly a straight line as I could, in the hope of strikinga road. The straight line was easy, as the eastern sky was stillfaintly pink; and likewise it was easy to head north along theroad, when I finally reached one. But when at last I came to acity, it turned out to be Ktuth rather than Kuana.

Before seeking food or anything else, except a much-neededdrink of water, I found a pinqui and asked him if he had heardany recent news from Kuana, relative to the disappearance ofthe princess.

“News from Kuana? Disappearance?” he repeated in surprise.“Surely not. The princess has been here safe and soundfor two days, and left only a few paraparths ago by the Kuanaroad!”

So I had just missed her! If I had entered the city a bit later,I should have passed her on the road!

My tickets were not sufficient to hire a kerkool; and besidesnow that I knew Lilla was safe, I was in no hurry to faceBthuh, whom I had left waiting at the joining-stand, as it were.So, after breakfast, I set out on foot for Kuana, thirty stadsaway, carrying some lunch.

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Around noon, when I had just eaten my lunch on a stoneby the side of the road, a kerkool passed me, headed for Kuana.I hailed its single occupant, and was given a lift the rest of theway. He turned out to be the Chief of Pinquis of Ktuth, boundfor a conference with the mango of Kuana. I welcomed thechance to get inside the Kuana jail, face to face with my oldfriend Poblath, for this opportunity would enable me to givehim my long-deferred explanation of my relations—or ratherlack of relations—with his Bthuh.

It was three days since I had shaved, and I must have presentedan uncanny sight. In fact, the Chief had intimated asmuch, as I got aboard his kerkool. So, when Poblath saw me,his jaw dropped, and he seemed convulsed with fear.

“Go away, dead man,” he begged. “I confess it all. I didhire the ant-man to assassinate you. But, now that you havemy confession, return in peace to the land beneath the boilingseas, and leave me alone!”

So that was why I had been kidnaped. Well, at least it letYuri out of being an absolute fool.

“Poblath, old friend,” I replied, “I am not dead. The ant-manlost me in the fog. And I have returned, not to curse you,but rather to thank you, for you have saved me from an unwishedmarriage.”

And then I got across the explanation, which he had so longdenied me. When I had finished, there was no longer anydoubt in Poblath’s mind that I was still his friend; and hewarmly patted my jaw, the conventional Porovian token offriendship.

But I fancied that his sweetheart, Bthuh, would not be soeasy to appease.

From the jail I went to my rooms for a shave and a cleantoga, and then repaired to the garage where I had rented thekerkool, my intention being to try and arrange to pay for theloss on the installment plan.

But to my surprise, the kerkooloolo informed me that mykerkool had been found, with its gyros still running, standingbeside the wrecked ant-car, and had been brought back toKuana intact, so that all I owed was an extra day’s rent, forwhich he would gladly trust me until next ticket-day.

On returning again to my rooms, I found a messenger witha peremptory summons to attend the king forthwith, in spiteof the fact that it was now nearly time for the evening meal.Evidently, old Kew had heard of my return.

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He had! When I entered the audience chamber, I enteredthe presence of an awful wrath. Kew was seated on his royalcouch, and standing beside him was a she-woofus named Bthuh.Never before had I so stirred a woman’s rage, and I hope neverto do so again.

The king demanded an explanation, which I gave readilyenough, but which did not convince him in the least.

“Cabot Barsarkar,” he spoke, “I do not believe you. Concernfor the safety of the princess is very commendable. But, if itwere that which actuated you, you would have inquired firstfrom me, and would have learned that she had left a note withme, giving word of her departure for Ktuth.

“No, you took the absence of the princess as a mere convenientexcuse to desert your bride at the joining-stand, unmindfulof the high honor which I was conferring on you ingiving the hand of a sarkari to you, lately a commoner, nay,even a beast from another world. Whether or not she will stillhave you, is for the lady to say; but, as for me, you have greatlyincurred the royal displeasure, and I am almost minded torevoke your rank. You came to us from among those accursedFormians, under whose thraldom I am chafing. Verily, I believethe ancient proverb: ‘No good cometh out of Formia.’Go! I have spoken.”

“But I have not spoken,” interjected Bthuh, ever the disrespectful.“Know, base earth-thing, that no one can injure thepride of Bthuh with impunity. You who could have given meyour love, or even merely your hand, and have received in returna love, the passion of which is unequaled on this planet,chose instead to mete out to me, who am your social superior,the worst insult which a man can give to a woman.

“I condescend to link myself with a commoner, and for rewardam treated as dirt, am ground under heel like a brink.Never can you wipe out this insult. Never shall I reconsidermy present determination not to marry you.”

“For this relief, much thanks,” said I to myself.

“But you still have me to cope with,” she continued, “youbrink! Mathlab! Earth-man!”

A particularly delicate touch, putting “earth-man” as theclimax of a list of distasteful creatures!

“Bthuh will have her revenge,” she concluded, “never fear.Now I have spoken.”

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I drew a long breath, as one who has just finished receivinga flogging. So that was over. (The lady is now a very goodfriend of mine, and begs me to tone down this transcription ofher tirade. But why not tell the story just as it happened?)

As I respectfully withdrew from the audience chamber, anattendant softly radiated into my antennae that the princessdesired to see me at once in her apartments. More trouble!

But I was wrong, for Lilla received me most tenderly andgraciously. Supper was laid for two. I took her in my arms.

At last we seated ourselves side by side on a couch by thetable, and the meal was served.

“I was unable to bear your marriage to another,” she explained,“especially as you did not seem to be trying to do anythingabout it.”

“But how can a mathlab struggle in the jaws of a woofus?”I interjected, quoting one of Poblath’s proverbs.

Lilla smiled indulgently, and continued her story. “Therewas no one here whom I could trust, so I finally called uponDoggo. He met me on the outskirts of the city, and carried meto Ktuth in his kerkool; then returned to Kuana, to try anddevise with you some means of escaping from Bthuh. But hiskerkool broke down en route, and he had to continue on foot;and, by the time that he reached the city, you had disappeared.When you failed to show up for the wedding, Bthuh actedlike one drunk with saffra-root, and has continued so ever since.Doggo sent word to me at Ktuth, and I returned.”

Then I told her my adventures, she sympathizing tenderlywith my misfortunes, and thrilling at my conquest of thewoofus.

“Now that Poblath is our friend again, we have little to fearfrom Bthuh,” she said. “Bthuh is a mad little wanton, and willcool off if let alone. But Poblath, for all his philosophy, is acommoner, and so was to have been expected to misunderstandthe situation.”

I wanted to say that Lilla herself had entertained exactly thesame misunderstanding as Poblath, but instead I merely remarked,“I too am a commoner, Lilla dearest.”

“You are not!” she indignantly replied, “you are a barsarkar,and have the heart of a king. Could the Princess Lilla love acommoner?”

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“The Princess Lilla once spent a whole night in the arms ofa commoner,” I remonstrated.

“And was just as safe and free from insult as she wouldhave been in the arms of her mother,” she added. “But Yuribelieved otherwise, or said that he did; and threatened that,unless I would by my silence assent to his version of my rescue,he would tell the king, who would have believed the worstand would have cast me out. So, as long as I thought that youwere hopelessly doomed, I held my peace. But I was very sad.”

After the meal, Lilla and I sat for a long time together onher little balcony, discussing plans.

“I shall marry you,” assented my princess, “even if we haveto flee together to islands beyond the boiling seas.”

That was all very well, but quite impractical. The boilingseas were impassable—unapproachable even. Formia was barredto us by my criminal record, and by the presence and influencethere of Yuri. Cupia was barred to us by the wrath of KingKew, due to my treatment of his favorite. And Formia andCupia constituted the entire world. For us to hide disguisedwas impossible, because of my own earth-born deformities.

So, although I gloried in Lilla’s love, my joy was soberedby a realization that marriage between us was impossible.

And what about the situation when King Kew should die,and Prince Yuri should succeed to the crown? We had that tolook forward to.

15
a new game

But with Lilla’s love and trust, I could notdespair. As I kissed her good night, withher warm throbbing girlish body held fastin my arms, a single star shone down upon us for an instant,through a rift in the circumambient clouds. Was it my ownplanet, the earth? I wondered.

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During the succeeding days I saw much of Lilla and nothingof Bthuh. And ever I racked my brains for an idea whichwould point the way out of my difficulties. My only hope wasto perform such a distinguished service for my adopted countrythat the king would relent, would forgive me, and would promoteme to the rank of sarkar.

The most distinguished service which a Cupian can renderis to invent a new and popular game, so I set about to do somethingin that line. And at last the idea came, a whiz of anidea! As Hah Babbuh, head of the Department of Mechanics,had advised me to seek this means of distinction, so it was tohim that I first confided my plans.

At my request, Prince Toron, who had aided me so efficientlyin devising my radio set in the laboratories of Mooni, was detailedto assist me in this new endeavor. He and a young draftsmanand a young chemist set to work with me to build thenew game.

And what was this new game? Target shooting with armyrifles. Explosives were already known on Poros, being usedfor blasting and for airplane bombs. With the aid of the youngchemist, I adapted these explosives to be sufficiently slowburning to drive a rifle-bullet without injuring the gun.

In a surprisingly short time we had turned out a crude riflewhich would actually shoot. The heads of the Mathematicsand Astronomy Departments, Ja Babbuh and Buh Tedn, werethen let in on the secret, for the purpose of computing trajectoriesand designing the sights and wind leaf, which they didby an adaption of the principles employed in computing theorbits of celestial bodies.

A hundred and forty-seven rifles were then turned out andpresented to my athletic club.

My club tried out the rifles; and, when at last they began toget bull’s-eyes, they went wild over the new sport. The kingheard, and relented sufficiently to send for me and complimentme.

After being thoroughly tried out in my hundred, rifle shootingwas next introduced into the clubs to which my threeassistants belonged, and became popular there, as well. Theidea spread, and soon all the clubs throughout the kingdomwere clamoring for guns. The mechanical laboratory at Kuanawas made over into a huge arsenal, and the chemical laboratoryinto a huge munitions factory, while the athletic clubs ofKuana and the vicinity detailed some of their members to workovertime in my two plants. The Cupians will always workovertime in the cause of play.

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Target practice soon became the national sport of Cupia. Thecraze even reached such dimensions that Queen Formis finallydispatched a special mission to Kuana to study the movementand report whether it could not be put to some practical use.The report of that mission is now one of my most treasuredpossessions, and a framed reproduction of their conclusions nowhangs upon my office wall.

The ant mission concluded, and so reported to their queen,that the new game had absolutely no practical application, butthat if it kept the crazy Cupians quiet and took their mindsoff their troubles, it might prove a valuable contribution towardsimplifying the enforcement of the treaty of Mooni. And so,indeed, it seemed. Toron neglected politics to become a proficientshot, and his anti-Formian movement rapidly subsided.All of which was exactly as I had planned.

The collapse of the Toron movement so pleased the exiledPrince Yuri that he sent a special ambassador to his brother,offering to assist in introducing the new sport to the Cupiansat Mooni. But “I fear the Greeks even when ferrying doughnuts,”as we used to say at Harvard. So Yuri’s kind offer wasdeclined. We did, however, present a sample rifle and someof our powder to the authorities of the Imperial University ofthe ant-men at their request, for we could not very well refuse.

Finally King Kew himself condescended to sit in at theconferences between Hah Babbuh, Bub Tedn, Ja Babbuh,Toron, and myself. He had been brooding a good deal recentlyon the indignities inflicted on his people by Queen Formis,with whom he had had several disputes lately; and the committee-workseemed to divert and cheer him up greatly. Butstill I was not made a sarkar, although I learned from Lillathat Hah Babbuh had urged this on the king. The influenceof Bthuh Sarkari was still too strong. In fact, it was rumoredthat she now aspired to make herself Queen of Cupia.

Well, I did not mind. Better even one of her sons on thethrone than Yuri!

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Having got the new game well under way, I next turned tomy old love, radio. First I obtained some stones from theHowling Valley, which was easy, because of my deafness toradio-waves; but I was unable to put them to any practical use.Then I devised a simple wave trap for absorbing the ordinarycarrying waves of Porovian speech. Also I arranged a variablecondenser, which could so alter the capacity of the Cupian antennaethat selective sending and reception were possible.

These two devices were combined in a small box whichcould easily be carried on a man’s head and be coupled to hisantennae. My third invention on these lines was a broadcastingset, whereby the normal Cupian sending range of four parastads—aboutfifty yards—was increased to half a stad—abouthalf a mile.

And now, in my frantic quest for a sarkarship, I introduceda still further new game, namely marching evolutions on anextended scale. Strictly speaking, this was really an adaptationof an old game, rather than the creation of a new, for marchingformations had always been popular in Cupia; but mythree new radio devices made it possible to perform theseevolutions by twelves of thousands.

We tried it out in our own twelve thousand. The commanderbroadcast his orders to the selectively tuned headsets of theeklats, and they in turn to the pootahs, each of whom thendirected his hundred at ordinary wave length. The regimentalevolutions went through like clockwork, and this idea spreadto the other twelve thousands of the country.

But still I was not made a sarkar.

I then turned my attention to the construction of two hugeengines, one of which we mounted on a kerkool and one on aconcrete base in the courtyard of the university machine shop.The purpose of these engines was for the present kept secret.But I had a feeling that they would win me the sarkarship, evenif everything else failed.

As a result of my inventions, King Kew sufficiently unbentto invite me to occupy the reviewing stand with him on PeaceDay, when the annual athletic prize-giving was to take place.This was a signal honor which even sarkars might envy, but itwas not a sarkarship.

114

The morning of the five hundredth anniversary of the Peaceof Mooni—three hundred and fifty-eight in Porovian notation—dawnedclear and dazzling. By 460 o’clock—9:00 o’clock inearth time—the whole plaza and the fields beyond werejammed with marching clubs.

The Minister of Play, who stood with me on the reviewingplatform at the crest of University Hill—along with the restof the cabinet, Prince Toron, and a few leading nobles andprofessors—sadly remarked that he was afraid the maneuverswould have to be given up.

I replied with a smile that I guessed not; though he wasunable to figure out how evolutions could be possible with thathuge crowd.

Pistol shooting had recently been introduced as a tentativesubject for next year’s games, and our committee of five allwore revolvers strapped to our sides, as a special badge inrecognition of our responsibility for the gala occasion.

The housetops and roads were crowded with Cupian femininity.All was ready for the grand opening. I adjusted thecontrols of the big sending set, and dispatched Poblath, whohad been detailed as my aide for the day, to inform the kingthat the time had arrived for his address.

As King Kew XII stepped up on the stand, at just 500 o’clock—10:00in earth time—practically the entire male populationof Cupia gave him the United States Army present arms inabsolute unison. It was an inspiring sight.

I noticed that the king seemed extremely pale and nervous,but I did not give this much thought at the time.

Then I yielded the sending set to him, and he began hisspeech of welcome, a very different speech from what had beenexpected, but one which will go down in history, and whichevery Cupian school boy throughout the ages will commit tomemory, as American boys do the Gettysburg Address.

Thus spoke King Kew: “Three hundred and fifty-eight yearsago today our forefathers submitted to the indignities of thetreaty of Mooni, and the stigma of that infamous treaty attachedto the Kew dynasty, which was then founded. Fortwelve generations, Cupia has been under the dominion of arace of animals—animals possessed of human intelligence, itis true, but still merely lower animals.

115

“Now the parth of our deliverance is at hand. Those rifleswhich you hold were designed not for play, but rather for thekilling of Formians. The bullets which have been issued toyou this day contain the highest explosive known to Porovianscience. With these weapons you are invincible. Today, withyour support, Cupia will become free, and the Kew Dynastywill wipe out forever the stigma of its birth.

“Are you men or slaves? If you be slaves, you will bow toFormis, your sons and descendants forever will wearily serveout their time in her workshops, she will have veto power overall your laws, your present king will give his body as food forher maggots, and your future kings will cower before her. Butif you be men, you will today offer up your lives for your country,that Cupia may at last be free!”

A murmur, as of an angry sea, arose from the crowd andsmote upon my antennae. The sporting nature of the propositionappealed to them fully as much as any sentiments ofpatriotism.

The king turned to me. I saluted. And, in front of that hugeassemblage, he pinned upon my breast the long-forgotten insigniaof field marshal of the armies of a nation. SimultaneouslyPrince Toron and the three professors displayed theinsignia of general. Hah Babbuh stepped to my side as my chiefof staff, while the other three donned their selective tuners anddescended from the platform to take command of their severalcorps. The stage was all set for the final denouement.

The king spoke again: “Let all Cupians who are willing todie for king and country raise their hands aloft.”

Up shot every hand on the hill and plain below.

I seized the phones and shouted: “Then forward into antland, for Cupia, King Kew, and Princess Lilla!”

“For Cupia, King Kew, and Princess Lilla!” shouted myarmy in reply and the march toward Formia began.

But some Cupian had betrayed us, for at this instant thereappeared, at the crest of the hill overlooking the city, a hordeof ant-men, who debouched in perfect order on the fields beyondthe plain. Thank God that they had not arrived beforethe king’s speech!

116

But even as it was, things were bad enough; our advancecompanies recoiled in terror before the black assault. Fivehundred years of servile peace are not well calculated to developa nation of fighters. I saw Toron frantically trying torally his troops, but in vain. It had been easy enough to planto attack the ant-men, but five hundred years of submission hadbred a tradition of Formian omnipotence, and this tradition atonce revived when the Formians appeared.

I gazed with horror at the scene. Here were thousands uponthousands of presumably intelligent human beings, armed withthe most powerful weapons which modern science could produce,and yet retreating in superstitious fear before a handfulof unarmed ants. Had the high resolves of a few paraparths agodegenerated to this?

Why didn’t my men use their rifles? Let them fire a fewshots, and they would realize their power.

So seizing the phones again I tuned them to Toron’s wavelength,and radiated: “For God’s sake stop! Never mind yourwhole army. Just hold two or three men. Get them to use theirrifles on the enemy. Use your own pistol, too.”

Toron did not know who God was, but he sensed the agonyof my appeal, and he gathered the idea. Seizing the nearestCupian by the shoulder, he swung him around, at the sametime discharging his own revolver. An ant-man exploded.

The Cupian, fascinated, fired his own rifle with equal success.Then, at Toron’s peremptory command, a few more of his menhalted long enough to try their rifles on the enemy.

At each shot, one Formian exploded. The effect was splendid.Our men stopped, formed ranks again, opened fire, and advancedonce more toward Formia. The tradition of Formianinvincibility was destroyed forever.

Messengers now came with word that hundreds of kerkoolswere bringing up ant reenforcements over all the roads leadingfrom the border. But what could jaws avail them against dumdumbullets?

I learned later that the ants had attacked certain outlyingtowns of our country earlier in the day, expecting to makeeasy work of them, and to wreak a vengeance on the unprotectedinhabitants. But our casualties there had been surprisinglylight. In the village of Beem, in the Okarze Mountains,rocks were used on the attackers, and the chance remark, “Finetarget practice!” had suggested to some bright local mind theuse of rifles, with which the ant-men had been repulsed withease. At Bartlap, one of the enemy had indiscreetly mentionedthat rifles were the cause of the war, and immediately rifles wereeffectively produced. In most of the other instances the Formianshad been recalled to reenforce the attack on Kuana.

117

Now a new development occurred, for a fleet of airships appearedon the horizon, and presently high explosive bombsbegan dropping with frightful havoc among my astoundedtroops, who once more broke and ran. In a few paraparths theplanes would be over the city.

I dispatched Poblath on the run to the university, and soonmy human sense of hearing was rewarded by a sharp crack-crack-crackfrom the Mechanics Building.

The first plane toppled and fell. The second. And then thethird. The others, sensing a power beyond their ability tocombat, wheeled and withdrew. Our armies reformed andonce more advanced toward Formia. The first of my hugesecret machines, an anti-aircraft gun, had spoken.

Soon messengers brought word that intense fighting was inprogress for the possession of the Third Gate. Of course itwould be many days before our forces could reach the westerntwo gates, but the bulk of the populations of both countrieslived near the Third Gate, due to the mountainous nature ofthe country to the west.

Then came news that the Formians at the Third Gate hadbeen flanked by some of our men who had surmounted thepale with scaling ladders. The Third Gate fell into the handsof Cupia. Our victorious armies were on enemy soil.

It was war to the hilt! And the fact that the Formians hadinvaded and attacked first, satisfied the sporting sense of all Cupia.

A special detachment of Mooni-trained aviators and mechanicshad gone at once to the three planes as soon as we had shot themdown, and now one of them arose into the air fully repaired.

The moment had arrived for the final master stroke in thenew Cupian national game—war. For the second huge machinein the courtyard of the Department of Mechanics was a sixteeninch barbette coast artillery rifle, which had been trained uponthe Imperial City of the ant queen, by exact elevation andazimuth, carefully computed by Buh Tedn.

118

The huge gun boomed forth. Again and again it boomed, asour spotting plane reported for adjustment of fire. Finally,just at nightfall, the signal came to cease firing. The ImperialCity, from which Queen Formis had been directing her troops,had been totally destroyed, and with it presumably the queenand her friend and ally, the renegade Yuri.

Our armies still pressed forward into Formia, protected fromair attack by the three repaired planes and by the anti-aircraftgun, which had been sent forward by kerkool. I was jubilant.But not so, apparently, King Kew.

“What is the matter, sir?” I asked. “Why do you look sosad on this glorious day of deliverance? Are you thinking ofour poor boys who have fallen?”

“No,” he replied, “I did not dare tell you before, for fearthat your well known impetuosity would disrupt our plans.But now you can know. The Princess Lilla has been missingsince morning. The fact that all of her clothes are intact, excepther sleeping robe, leads me to think that she must have beenkidnaped during the night.”

“My God!” I ejacul*ted in English. Then turning the commandover to Hah Babbuh, and instructing him to move hisheadquarters to the Third Gate in the morning, I hastened tothe apartments of my sweetheart.

Bthuh met me there in tears and said: “My princess is dead!My princess is dead! Last night, through connivance with me,Prince Yuri drugged her with saffra root and spirited her awayto the Imperial City of Formia. I knew all your plans, exceptthe purposes of your two huge cannons, or I should have warnedYuri of those, too. I thought merely to spoil your victory and sogain my revenge. The old king, too, had spurned my amorousadvances, and so I declared war on Cupia. But Cupia has wonin spite of me, and as a punishment for my guilt my belovedmistress has been killed.”

There could be no doubt of it. Every living thing in thecity of the queen had been destroyed. My victory was turned toashes. In despair I sank upon a couch.

But comforting arms stole around my shoulders, and a softvoice spoke in my antennae: “Cabot, can you ever forgive me? Ilove you so that I would willingly give back to you your princess,just to make you happy. But, alas, she is lost to us forever.Cannot we solace ourselves with love for each other? Cabot,Cabot, I love you so, my dear.”

And her fragrant, voluptuous, intoxicating presence wrappeditself around my tired body and despondent soul.

119

16
Cabot tells the world

There on the same couch on which I hadoften caressed the Princess, I held in myarms her betrayer, the lovely Bthuh. So soondoes love forget.

So soon love does not forget! Casting aside the seductivebetrayer of my princess, I sprang to my feet, resolving never togive up hope until I actually saw Lilla’s dead body, and eventhen to remain true to her in death. Bthuh’s last chance hadcome and gone. She had played her last card and lost.

Although it was now night, I at once called my aide, and summoneda squad out of my own hundred, which had been retainedas the king’s bodyguard. Then, requisitioning a fleet ofkerkools, we set out for the Imperial City, leaving Poblath withhis former love, Bthuh.

“Tame her if you can, and good luck to you,” was my partingadmonition.

The trip was made in record time. By the light of our flashlamps we found that the ruins were guarded by several hundredant-men; so we sent for reenforcements to be furnished in themorning, and then we bivouacked for the night, taking turnskeeping awake and sniping at the enemy whenever they showeda light or came within the beams of ours.

Early in the morning, a company of Cupians reported to me,and we at once began the assault of the ruins, carrying ourobjective with but little difficulty.

Then came the individual fighting in the corridors, and inthis the ant-men were not at so great a disadvantage. Theyambushed our soldiers. They pushed rocks on them from above.And, all in all, they made away with nearly half our force, beforethe remaining handful of defenders broke and fled fromthe city.

Our survivors were put to work exploring. The mangled bodyof Queen Formis was hailed with joy, but no signs were discoveredof either Yuri or Lilla, although occasionally we wouldcome upon an enemy straggler and kill him.

120

Finally on rounding a turn, whom should I meet face to facebut the ant-man who had let me go after I had rescued himfrom the woofus. I recognized him at once.

“Yahoo! Number 356-1-400,” I hailed him, “a life for alife.”

“Nay,” he replied, “for you owe me nothing on that score.But if you will spare me, I will repay you well.”

“Your life is already yours,” I said.

“Then,” said he, “I will lead you to the princess.”

I could have embraced the uncouth creature for joy. But,suspecting a trap, I gathered nearly a squad of my soldiersbefore following the ant-man. He led us into the subterraneandepths of the city. Several times we had to remove fallen fragmentswhich barred our way, and once had to wait until explosivescould be obtained to blast a passage. But at last wecame within sight of an undamaged dungeon, where Lilla laychained, alive and well.

Yet even as we hailed her through a crack in the debris, wesaw two ant-men enter the dungeon through another passage,unchain the princess, and carry her away.

Quick as a flash I remembered my revolver, and opened firethrough the crack, blasting one of her abductors. But as Idrew a bead on the other, my weapon was knocked from myhand. Turning angrily. I beheld our guide standing over me.

“I fulfilled my bargain,” he said, “when I showed you theprincess. Now I owe you no more. Those Formians are myfellow countrymen, and I have saved one of them, at least, fromthe horrible death.”

“And lost me my princess,” I shouted angrily.

We were now surrounded by my squad with drawn rifles,but they did not dare fire, for fear of hitting me. I was at themercy of our guide. He had too much respect for the dum-dumbullets, however, and was easily hauled off of me and placedunder arrest.

My men then proceeded to hack their way into the dungeon,and we at once followed the trail of the princess. This was noteasy, for the city was a total wreck. A hundred ways presentedthemselves, through which her captor might have crawled. Sowe withdrew and threw a cordon around the entire city, dispatchinga few searching parties again into the interior. Thiswas made possible by additional reenforcements from headquarters.

121

As luck would have it, the ant-man finally made his appearance,with Lilla held tightly in his jaws, at the very point in theline of sentries where I happened to be. Instantly a dozen riflescovered him.

But he radiated the peremptory command: “Stop! Put downyour rifles.”

“Put them down!” I ordered.

“Now,” he continued, “if a rifle is raised again, I bite, andthe princess dies. She lives only on condition that I am givensafe passage, with her as my prisoner. Once within our linesshe will be treated well, for she will prove a valuable hostageto support the demands of Formis for a return to power.”

“Formis is dead,” I objected.

“One Formis is dead,” he replied. “But there are alwaysmaggots which we can fatten to make a new queen.”

At this point Lilla interjected faintly: “Bite, oh Formian,for I would die, rather than betray my country.”

But I said: “You may proceed. Not a rifle will be raisedagainst you, for the princess must be saved.”

Nothing however had been said about revolvers, and evidentlythe ant-man was unacquainted with that weapon. As hepassed through our lines, keeping a careful watch on the riflesof our sentries, I fired my revolver from the hip and the antdropped dead. A moment later Lilla was clasped safely in myarms.

Tenderly we greeted each other. She was parched and hungry,and our first task was to give her food and drink, which wereeasily found among the ruins.

Then came explanations. She had awakened to find herselfin the dungeon about noon of the day before. Yuri had informedher that the Cupian attack had been met and stopped, and thatairplanes were about to destroy Kuana. Then he had been hurriedlycalled away, and she had seen no one since. She couldhardly believe us when we told her that the attack had beena success, that Queen Formis was dead, and that the power ofFormia was broken forever.

122

When she had rested, I at once sent her home under guard ina kerkool, and myself proceeded to headquarters to learn howthe war was progressing. Much as I longed to accompany her,my first duty was to my adopted country.

To Number 356-1-400, before leaving, I gratefully offeredan honorable freedom in Cupia, but he scornfully replied thathe would rather die fighting for his own country. I respectedhis attitude, and so gave him a safe-conduct through our linesto rejoin his own troops. Later in the war his number wasreported to me as being among the casualties.

At headquarters I found Hah Babbuh in fine spirits. Thepower of Formia was broken indeed!

Wautoosa had fallen into our hands and, with it, a numberof planes, which thus were added to our steadily growing air-force.Kerkools were patrolling all the roads, shooting ant-menat sight.

Hah was particularly jubilant over what had happened atMooni. Early on Peace Day, the Cupian students had somehowreceived word of what was afoot. Joining with the slaves, theyhad slightly outnumbered the ant-men there present and hadcaptured the University after a fierce struggle, thus preventingthe ant-men from removing or destroying the priceless gemsof knowledge stored there. When our vanguard arrived, ourstudents were already in control.

In the days that followed, our advance progressed. City aftercity fell into our hands, in sufficient numbers and containingsufficient supplies, so that we did not have to give any thoughtto the quartering or feeding of our men. All that was necessarywas a steady stream of ammunition proceeding from Kuana toour outposts.

I had given strict orders that Doggo and Yuri were to betaken alive, the former because I wished to spare him as afriend, the latter because I looked forward with extreme pleasureto seeing him executed for treason. But neither was captured.The numbers of all dead ant-men were taken and turned in,but Doggo’s number was not among them. And to this day Ido not know what became of him or of Yuri.

It was my ambition to exterminate the entire race of ant-menfrom the face of Poros, with the single exception of my friendDoggo. But this wish was not to be gratified. For, as the Formiansretreated southward, our lines of communication becamemore and more extended, and our troops more and more undisciplined.

123

Gradually the Formians obtained rifles, particularly from thetwo cities which they had bombed. Then they made a stand andsent out snipers, and this netted them more rifles.

Our people began to grumble. The widows and orphans ofthe slain did not appreciate the honor which had been thrustupon them. The sport-loving Cupians in the field chafed undermilitary restraint, and demanded to be returned home to theirgames. And a considerable number of the populace were evenheard to say that two years slavery to Formia was far betterthan a life-long slavery in the army of a military dictator—meaningthe four or five weeks since the war had started.

So, reluctantly, King Kew concluded a new peace with whatwas left of Formia. A new pale was set up far to the south of theold. Formia had to bear the entire cost of the war. Ant-menwere forbidden to carry arms or to enter Cupia, and all theirairships were confiscated. The Kings of Cupia reserved a vetopower over Formian laws forever. But King Kew wisely decidednot to demoralize Cupia by the introduction of Formianslaves.

Our University set up a branch at Mooni, in order that theglamour of that name might not be lost. Our bravest soldiersand our war widows, were rewarded by grants of land and ofcity residences in the captured territory, which almost completelyalleviated the popular discontent.

Not until the treaty was concluded did I return from thefield. The papers were signed in the same hall at Mooni whichhad witnessed the degradation of Cupia five hundred yearsago; for “defeat is bitterest at the scene of a former victory,”as Poblath remarked. And on the occasion of the present treaty,Kew, surrounded by his generals and in the presence of thesignatories, was crowned King of all Poros. This idea, by theway, was due to Poblath, the philosopher, and it won him abarsarkarship, which came in very handy.

There was much decorating with medals and handing out ofpromotions. Needless to state, the King made me a sarkar; andthe Assembly, not to be outdone, voted to make me a winko,or field marshal, for life!

124

Now marriage was possible between Lilla and me. And alsobetween Bthuh and Poblath, for Bthuh had proven to be a goodsport and had finally accepted him; and as Lilla had prophesied,Bthuh settled down and became a most quiet and domestic wife.

The proudest and happiest moment of my entire life waswhen, upon the joining-stand of Kuana in the presence of theassembled multitude, King Kew pronounced the words whichmade Lilla my wife.

We spent our honeymoon camping out on a most beautifulrocky island in the middle of Lake Luno, which nestled in thehills and surrounded by deep woods, about a thousand stads tothe northward of Kuana. I had discovered the place by accident,while on an airplane trip to an isolated mountain communityimmediately after the war, for the purpose of conferring decorationson the first company which had stood its ground againstthe onslaught of the ant-men.

The walls of the island rise sheer some nine parastads from thewater’s edge, save where in one spot a sloping lawn runs througha cleft in the rocks down to a sandy beach. The interior of theisland slopes gently from the cliffs down from all sides to alittle pond in the center, and is about equally divided betweenlawn and stately grove. Here Lilla and I plan to build.

Here we spent many golden days, swimming and fishing andclimbing, but mostly just looking into each other’s eyes.

At our first dip in the water, I was horribly embarrassed.In the first place, I had to shed my headset, which always putsme at a disadvantage. And, in the second place, my wingscame unstuck and fell off, and my matted hair exposed myears, so that I stood before her an earth-man, with all my horribleearthly deformities. Yet, still she loved me.

Our honeymoon was idyllic and ideal. But all good thingsmust end, and we finally had to return to the city to take upmy duties, for added to my honors was a place in the RoyalCabinet as Minister of Play, the former incumbent having diedduring my absence.

125

I have various projects in hand for my adopted country.Already a network of radio stations is going up throughout theland. A systematic extermination of the whistling bee is underway by means of anti-aircraft artillery. Various earth devices arebeing tested out in our laboratories as fast as I can recall themto memory. And I have resumed, but with great precautions,my experiments on the wireless transmission of matter, in whichwork Toron is assisting.

Lilla and I occupy her old suite in the palace, and entertainconstantly; among our most frequent guests are my old friendPoblath and his completely tamed wife.

But often I wonder what has become of Doggo and Yuri. Inspite of present prosperity, Cupia is not safe, if the renegadeprince still lives on the planet. But I hope that Doggo survives,and that we shall meet again.

Fate now seems to be through with its hard knocks. Buthappy as I am, I occasionally wonder what is going on in dearold Boston, whether America’s World War allies ever repaidthe billions which they borrowed, whether our country joinedthe League of Nations in time to save the world from a secondWorld War, etc., etc. And I have a yearning to write home.

Of course, the obvious step for me was to attempt communicationby radio, so I built a particularly powerful sending setwith long wave length. But the lack of any reply convinced methat my signals were not being received on earth.

So recently I got together my old committee of five: HahBabbuh, Buh Tedn, Ja Babbuh, Toron and myself; and togetherwe designed a super gun and a streamline projectile, and computedthe necessary powder-charge and principles of aiming, sothat we could shoot the projectile to the earth.

Then I prepared this manuscript in quadruplicate, with threeof which copies I shall try to reach the world. For this purpose,each copy will be placed in a gold cylinder and be swathed inthe fur of the fire-worm, that peculiar creature which dares tolive almost at the edge of the boiling seas, because its mattedfur is the most perfect insulator against heat known on Poros.

The swathed cylinder will then be packed into the interiorof the projectile, and a covering put on, especially calculated toresist the devouring heat of passage through the atmosphere ofthe two planets. The projectile will be weighed, its center ofgravity will be determined, and its moments of inertia will betested, the firing data being corrected accordingly. It will beplaced in the gun.

Then, at exactly the appointed time, the gun will be discharged,and may God speed my message on its way to you, myearth-brethren.The EndMyles S. Cabot.

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THE LOST SCIENTIST AND THE KEWPIE-DOLL PRINCESS

The planet Venus is many millions of miles awayfrom us, but for Myles Cabot of Boston it was toodangerously close! For a queer radio accident transmittedthe young scientist instantaneously to thatmystery world—unarmed, naked, and with nomeans to get home!

But Myles Cabot was an ingenious young man andwhen he got over his shock at finding himself ina world inhabited by eagle-sized bees, six-foot-highants, and blood-thirsty flowers, he set out tocarve himself a kingdom of his own.

There were people on that world, Kewpie-doll menand women, who seemed to be deaf and dumb—untilhe learned the odd secret of their bodies.These people were slaves of the all-powerful ants,and Myles Cabot realized that until he had overthrowntheir monster masters, there could be nosafety for himself.

AN EARTHMAN ON VENUS is exciting adventure,a science-fiction thrill-o-minute novel by the well-knownfantasy writer Ralph Milne Farley.

Printed in the U. S. A.

Transcriber’s Notes

Copyright notice provided as in the original—this e-text is public domain in the country of publication.
Generated a Table of Contents based on the original chapter headings.
Silently corrected palpable typos; left non-standard spellings and dialect unchanged.
In the text versions, delimited italics text in _underscores_ (the HTML version reproduces the font form of the printed book.)

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The Radio Man—An Earthman on Venus (2024)

High Adventure and Strange Romance on a World of Mystery

contents

1the message in the meteor

2stranded in space

3out of the frying pan

4go to the ant, thou sluggard

5a vision

6radio plays its part

7a hunting trip

8the conspiracy

9the rescue

10before Queen Formis

11the valley of the shadow of death

12a victim of Yuri

13kidnaped

14in disgrace

15a new game

16Cabot tells the world

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