Part 2 (1/2)
His runty thick brown fingers, curved of claw, tightened around her naked pink shoulders so that her eyes smiled and her pouty sweet lips writhed.
”What's the tear drops for, man of s.p.a.ce? What are they, tears for me, 'cause you know I ain't going with you? You got the face of a crazy. This dance is over. You used your thirty. I go find another man.”
”You ain't got time to find another man,” he moaned, letting the tears squeeze out. ”They pulled that lever! that lever! The war's gonna be over! Earth's gonna blow! I'm getting off! The war's gonna be over! Earth's gonna blow! I'm getting off!
”You got to go with me, young pink thing. I ain't no human, you know, one-fifth of me ain't, and there ain't n.o.body like me on Earth, and that's the reason I know! know! Coming with me? How's about it, you gonna keep that pink skin? You won't regret it. I'm nice, you'll like me, and there ain't no time for me to find another squud. Give up!” Coming with me? How's about it, you gonna keep that pink skin? You won't regret it. I'm nice, you'll like me, and there ain't no time for me to find another squud. Give up!”
But no approach would work. She slid away still pink, and he watched her float in the reduced field toward a group of watching couples, who smiled at what seemed a familiar scene. Chug pulled his s.h.i.+ny black and green 2nd Repellor Corps uniform jacket down around his trim hips, and kicked himself smartly by habit toward the floating bar.
Lights glinted in racing rippling patterns off gla.s.ses and goblets as the bar whirled around him in an improvised dance-step which enticed the numb Captain Ratch Chug into an allemande left. He stopped that, and ordered two drinks. The tomatoed bartender paid him, but Chug left the cards hanging, and drank fast. Then he began to cry in earnest, his thin pocked brown face worked, and his teeth began chattering; and his nose twitched as the ends of his whiskery mustache vibrated. He left the great room, and went toward the s.p.a.ceport about three miles up.
”I'm gonna be dancing and watching Earth in the mirror when she blows,” vowed Chug, staring at his swollen eyes and vexed lips. ”When the first alphas and gammas. .h.i.t, I'm gonna be doing a Hopi rain jig. Or the Lambeth Walk. Maybe the Bunny Hop! That's what I think of you, ol' Earth. So give me another drink.”
He had reduced his speed to just below a light. His fast track from Earth was a dotted line as the s.h.i.+p sewed itself in and out of s.p.a.ce. Earthlight soon would catch up with him. He drank the drinks the tomatoed equipment dutifully prepared. Wowie, he thought, dreaming. That ching-maya was a wappo! But how about the Irish Lilt? Particularly when you got a tomato knows how to manufacture good Irish whipskey-let's try again, ol' man of s.p.a.ce, Irich whiskey. About that time, he saw old Earth blow. Captain Ratch Chug, late of the late 2nd Repellor Corps, saw it blow in the pick-up mirror. He cried horribly, in spite of the fact he didn't give a d.a.m.n. Also, he didn't dance. And he told the tomato to quit making those stupid drinks. And he turned off the mirror, thinking of the young pink thing.
She wasn't very pink.
Her fault.
Captain Ratch Chug made a correction in his flight to Zephyrus, setting his effective speed at one and one-half times the speed of light, this being commensurate with his fuel supply.
Chug would arrive on Zephyrus how many years before the wave-front of fractured light arrived from Earth? Interesting question.
Just before he went into his long sleep, Chug lay weeping alcoholically on his pallet. Suddenly he shouted at the winding tubes of freezing gel advancing toward him, ”What the h.e.l.l! There's other planets, and other women to play with! And that's what I'm gonna be doing a good long time before I break the news to them Zephrans. I tell you, this is a sad business. I feel like h.e.l.l!”
Zephyrus was named after the gentle and lovable G.o.d of the south wind, because it was the only human-populated planet south of the ecliptic plane.
Earth was on the outs with Zephyrus-had been for one hundred and three years. No Earth s.h.i.+p climbing the thready beams of s.p.a.ce had pulled itself to Zephyrus in all that time. Furthermore, Earth had disrupted its communicator systems, making it a radio-hole in the sky so far as Zephyrus was concerned, and had departed with all its high-speed s.h.i.+ps and the secrets of manufacturing same. Zephyrus was isolated!
Why was this? Simple. Make up all the fancy political and socio-economic reasons you want to, it all boils down to the prime fact that Earth people, every man, woman, and child of them, were mean, sneaky, commercial, undernourished and puny, and pleasure-loving. Not fun-loving-pleasure-loving. The Zephrans were n.o.ble, generous, tall, G.o.dly, and wors.h.i.+pful of the Mother Planet. Naturally they were an affront to the worthless, degraded Earthlings, so the Earthlings snubbed them out of practical existence. This was not a kind thing to do, but that was old Earth for you.
The sight of an Earth s.h.i.+p coming to the Zephran skies woke up the whole planet. It was as if every person on that planet bloomed, turning his petals toward the vast surprise. Not that they were flower-people, don't get me wrong; they were as human as you or I-or as human as we used to be; (but that's another story.) ”Hail Zephrans,” said Chug weakly as the last remnants of the preserving gel slid away. ”I bring you greetings from the home planet. As the solely const.i.tuted representative of Earth-” But he hadn't meant to say that. He was still drunk, his alcoholic state having been preserved intact by the process. He arose staggering.
A pleasant voice now said: ”We hear you, Earthman. We'll get your s.h.i.+p docked in-oh, say an hour; so why not lie down again and sleep it off?”
”What?”
Chug felt his back arching.
He felt curling sensations in his fingernails.
”Look,” he said. ”Whoever you-”
”You're drunk, son,” interrupted the pleasant voice. ”But that's all right. That's just between you and me. And we aren't going to tell anybody, are we? Of course not, old chap, old buddy.”
”Whyn't you talk Englis.h.!.+ Englis.h.!.+” Chug spat. ”You got a h.e.l.l of a accent.” He weaved under the bright lights in his cabin filled with a ghastly surprise. First, there was that arching of his spine, and the feeling of claws on the ends of his fingers. He'd overcome that! He had, had! But now it was back, the first time somebody caught him at a disadvantage. Second, here was this supposedly wors.h.i.+pful Zephran, who wasn't wors.h.i.+pful at all, but was blowing a distinct north wind.
”You ain't no Zephran!”
”But also I ain't no Earthling,” the other said. ”Please listen, my dear man. I'm entrusted with the task of bringing your s.h.i.+p in. It is not my purpose to spoil your little game.”
”WHAT GAME? What the h.e.l.l game you talking about?” There it was again-and Chug almost wept-the feeling of long eye-teeth, of lips drawn back; d.a.m.n d.a.m.n d.a.m.n.
”Oh my.” The other sighed and rolled his eyes; it was a gesture that had to be there. ”Look, son. Do it my my way. Get yourself sobered up and cleaned up. Look smart! Back straight! Shoes s.h.i.+ned! Hup!” way. Get yourself sobered up and cleaned up. Look smart! Back straight! Shoes s.h.i.+ned! Hup!”
”Oh-h-h-h-h,” groaned Chug, sagging to a seat droop-shouldered.
”Be not alarmed, dear boy. Zephran society is eagerly awaiting you. My, what a treasure you will be to the wors.h.i.+pful elders and teeming teenagers of Zephyrus who even now are a.s.sembling to welcome you!
”One hour.”
The blankness following this gave ample indication that communication had been cut off.
One hundred top-ranking Zephrans variously stood or sat in the great auditorium of the floating winged palace of the mayor of the city of Matchley. Chug, having been transported in style from his s.h.i.+p on, naturally, a winged green horse, stood facing them. Thin television screens, also equipped with wings, dipped and dived by the hundreds through the air and each screen was packed with intent teenage faces.
Captain Ratch Chug, late of the 2nd Repellor Corps, was a triumph! He looked splendid. Where else in the universe could you find anybody wearing a uniform these days, and particularly a uniform edged and pinked in gold and red, and with moppish epaulets that as they swung seemed to beat out a martial air? Nowhere but on someone from Earth, because that was the only place anybody had wars.
Chug was striking a pose. Something was humming away inside him, the product of a vast, antic.i.p.atory content. He stood gracefully with one polished boot stiffly ahead of the other one. He twirled and twirled his dandy whiskery waxed mustache. His eyes glittered and appraised and swept the murmuring crowds of notables, as well as the clouds of bewinged thin television screens bursting with the excited faces of wors.h.i.+ping Zephran teenagers. He felt fine for now, having overcome for the moment his terrible grief over the blow-up of Mother Earth, and he was determined to bask in the glowing wors.h.i.+p these Zephrans radiated.
He already had been asked some questions, all about Earth.
”Wars? Wars? Nope, ain't no more wars on Earth,” Chug answered truthfully.
”This is splendid,” he was told.
(Everybody on the planet was listening to this conversation, except that it was the gort season, and therefore a hundred thousand Zephrans were out hunting gorts. These gorts-however, that is not a part of this story.) ”What can you tell us in general terms about the possible future relations of Earth and Zephyrus?”
”The relations will be the very best,” Chug a.s.sured them. Ya d.a.m.n betcha: No Earth.
”Is it perhaps true that you, acting for Earth, will return to us the secret of faster-than-light s.h.i.+ps?”
A question to flutter the heart. Avowed Chug, crossing a finger, ”I aim to give it to ya!”
”Is it perhaps true that our s.h.i.+ps will then be allowed in Earth's skies?”
”Better not make it for a couple Zephran years!” Chug said, hastily computing. ”And approach kinda slow in case there's some kind of-er-flare-up!”
”Then our age-old offense against the Mother World has been forgiven?”
”Ain't n.o.body holding a thing against ya!”
His questioner, an elderly and most handsome man who was in the position of mayor of the welcoming city of Matchley, said apologetically, ”If you will speak more slowly. The refinements of the mother tongue have been lost to us.”
While he talked, while he equivocated, the contented purring in Chug stopped. In fact, his purr-engine had been running down for some time. Because there was someone in this room who made his fur-what the h.e.l.l!-who made his skin crawl. He knew who it was: the non-Zephran who had brought his s.h.i.+p in and who had made unkind remarks that no Zephran would make to a wors.h.i.+ped Earthling. Where was he, who was he?