by Don Wilcox
“Let George do it,” Prentice would say, smiling. Volunteering continually, I soon acquired the name of George. And thus I began to make a place for myself. My muscles hardened, my lungs adjusted to the light air, I grew accustomed to the hot blasts of sunshine unfiltered by clouds.
Prentice’s life was simple. As compared to some of the others of his village he was somewhat slow of speech, inclined toward reading and thinking more than talking. He was something of a recluse from the society of the miners and their families, although he was always a patient listener when they came to talk out their troubles, and they valued his quiet judgments.
Only on dance nights would Frank Prentice cast off his reserved and philosophic nature. He would put away his pipe, don his best clothes, carefully trim the thin line of gray hairs on his upper lip. “The house is yours, George,” he would say, striding off toward the shabby little town hall. On his return he would quickly retire to his books, his first love; yet it was plain that his spirit had been quickened by the evening’s festivities.
A cave-in occurred in one of the mines one morning, and the miners who weren’t caught worked like fury to rescue the ones who were. I learned a lot about the Earth from that deal. I learned that the old whiskered parson, who preached all those terrifying sermons about the eternal hell that awaited such sinful liquor addicts as Jason Radmolder, was ready to grab a pick and shovel and work all night long to save Jason from suffering an unnecessary hour of hell in the mine.
I learned that the same rough and ready fighter named Bull Scroggins, who had threatened Jason Radmolder with a meat cleaver only a week before, was willing to sweat blood to keep that same Jason from suffocating in a clogged tunnel. And there were others like Bull and the parson. No matter how hard-boiled they may have talked about each other, you could see that they were really brothers in the face of hard luck.
I came out of that deal a sort of hero. It seems that my stocky muscles were unusually strong, and my endurance good. The minute Frank Prentice beard the alarm he yelled to me to gather up some digging tools, and away we went.
“Here’s my hired man!” he yelled to the mine owner. “Just put him to work. He’s good for your toughest job.”
I raced along the sloping shaft in the wake of the lanterns. The mine owner pointed to the heap of rocks and dirt where the other men were prying at a broken beam. I was short enough to get my shoulder under that beam. A stream of dirt poured down my neck. The beam began to give.
“Hold it! Get that pole under, quick, men! Now—together. Look out for the rocks!” The mine owner shouted directions so fast I couldn’t see all that happened. But the beam was coming up slowly, and I didn’t mind a few splinters in my shoulder as long as it was going in the right direction. The men heaped rocks under that beam, then we grabbed the shovels and made the dirt fly.
Another beam to lift and to brace; more debris to clear; another beam, and another—
Hours may have been consumed in that furious action, but no one counted them. Every minute was so intense, charged with an Earth drama of life and death. Every minute was a proof of the high regard of man for man—of owner for worker—of parson for sinner—of free men for trapped men.
And I wondered, through it all, if it was not also a historic event that proved the mutual respect between men of the Earth and men of Venus.
But no one knew. What would they have thought if they had known? I wondered.
The voice of the foreman sounded through the last barrier of loose earth and stones. He and the others were back there, alive, calling for us to hurry, crying for air.
“On this rock, George!” the mine owner shouted. “Help him here, men. Get a hitch on it, there. Heave, heave! Make it come . . . No, try it again. Together, now. Look out!”
The stone came like a stubborn tooth.
A shower of debris ripped down over my left arm. But the job was done. The gasps of “Thank God!”
“Air! Air!”
“Take it easy—hold everything—stay where you are till you get your breath!” and all the other confusing shouts from both sides of the barrier assured me that the crisis was over.
Then, they tell me, I fainted dead away from loss of blood. That left arm called for some hasty first aid. And after that they carried me out.
CHAPTER II
More Than Meets the Eye
“You’ll pull through all right,” Frank Prentice was saying to me when I first came back to consciousness. “You’re a pretty useful fellow, George. If you don’t have anywhere else to go, you’d better spend the winter right here with me.”
The doctor was working over me, putting some neat patches on my arm. I closed my eyes. Not because of the pain so much as the doctor’s puzzled gaze. I was something new to him.
“I guess he’s going back to sleep,” Prentice said.
“The best thing for him,” said the doctor. Then in a low voice that wasn’t intended for my ears, “Where did you say he came from?”
“He just strayed in from nowhere. I first saw him up above Magnolia Gulch. He seemed to be living there in a camp all alone. He couldn’t talk. He had trouble explaining anything to me, even through the simplest signs. For example, it didn’t mean anything to him, at first, when I beckoned to him. Or when I offered my hand.”
“He’s definitely abnormal,” the doctor said. “Physically he’s unlike any other human freak I ever saw.”
Some of these words were only meaningless sounds to my ears, but I tucked them away in my growing storehouse of sounds, determined to find out in time what they meant.
Prentice told the doctor all about the strange foods which I had offered him in our first meetings. This disturbed the doctor more than ever. How could I have found my way into these mountains, bearing fruits from some foreign land—fruits that were still fresh?
“All I know,” said Prentice, “is that he is an excellent worker. He’s quick to learn. If he did come from some foreign land, at least he doesn’t show any intention of going back.”
“You’d better get rid of him,” said the doctor.
“Why?”
“He’s probably dangerous. He may have come here for a purpose. He may not be as simple minded as you think.”
“You heard how he rescued those trapped miners, doctor,” said Prentice.
“Next,” said the doctor, “I’ll expect to hear how he murdered a schoolteacher named Prentice in the dead of night—”
“S-s-s-sh.” Prentice didn’t like such talk. He explained his own theory about me. He didn’t think I was an abnormal specimen, mentally speaking. A foreigner—undoubtedly. The chances were that I had been dropped from some passing plane. Planes were falling into the hands of lots of far-off tribes these days. Wasn’t it conceivable that the Hottentots or some primitive society had decided to explore other parts of the Earth, and had dropped off one of their delegates here in the Rocky Mountains?”
“He doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to a Hottentot,” said the doctor. “He doesn’t resemble anything. I’ve got a book at home with all the races of the world pictured in it. He isn’t there.”
“Bring your book over some time, doctor,” said Prentice, unruffled but thoroughly stubborn. “If George isn’t in it, you’d better add a new chapter to your book. Take his picture, listen to his language—”
“What language?”
“Oh, he has one, all right, all his own.”
The doctor came down to me and ruffled my head of purple hair. “How you feeling, George? Want to wake up?”
I opened my eyes. I reached for a comb and straightened the lines of my hair from right to left. To ruffle my hair is to offend and insult the sacred and solemn part of my nature.
“He’s sensitive about his hair,” Prentice said. “I wouldn’t do that—”
The doctor repeated his gesture of ruffling me. He did it, laughing. And I slapped him. Hard across his cheek I struck with my good right hand. Without thinking—slap!—what an awful thing
to do!
The blow jolted him. The face wasn’t pleasant to look at, drawn in pained surprise and anger. Instantly I was sorry. But the right words to tell him just weren’t ready. Instead of words, I shook my head, as if to say, “No, no, I didn’t mean it.” Then I slapped myself quick and hard, three times, still shaking my head.
Anger faded from the doctor’s eyes and he stared at me, fascinated.
“There’s more here than meets the eye, Prentice,” he said quietly. “This man may be mad, but I’m not so sure. If he had the means to communicate his thoughts to us—”
I understood this, and I began nodding my head. “Yes, yes,” I said. “When I can talk more, then I tell you more—when you—when you listen more.”
The doctor rubbed his cheek and managed to smile a little. He asked me a question cautiously, picking up the comb as he spoke. “George, may I comb your hair—the same way you combed it?”
“Yes, please,” I said.
He did it, and I smiled and nodded. “That is right,” I said.
“Why? Why must the hair be combed that way?”
“Because—pluuvonng!”
“Pluuvonng? He glanced at my fingers, my stocky shoulders, and again at my purple hair. “Pluuvonng? I never heard of it.”
He had me repeat the word several times, and he jotted some letters down in a notebook. He turned to Prentice. “Well, this beats me. I’m going right into the university and scan all the latest literature on ethnology. You’ve got something here, but I’m damned if I know what it is. As you say, he’s very undertsanding and cooperative. It seems as if he’s just coming into the first light of knowledge, without any sort of background to make things easier. But he’s learning fast.”
“You’ve changed your mind, then,” Prentice said in an undertone, “about his being dangerous?”
“Well, I wouldn’t rub his hair the wrong way,” said the doctor.
CHAPTER III
Scientists Baffled
It was always eager for Frank Prentice to explain the meanings of pictures and printed matter that came to him in the mail. It was marvelous how much he gathered from daily newspapers about happenings all over the Earth.
Little by little the social and political systems of this new world began to take shape in my mind. Such words as president and congress and prime minister and dictator began to take on the weighted meanings for me that they conveyed to everyone else.
A newspaper photograph of two very dignified looking gentlemen shaking hands in front of a huge white-columned building took my eye.
“Who are they?” I asked.
“This one is the Secretary of State,” said Prentice. “He is extending an official welcome to a new ambassador from a foreign country. You see, when the Secretary of State welcomes an ambassador, that is the official welcome from all of America.”
“You are part of America,” I said. “And so is the mine owner. And the parson, and the doctor, and Jason Radmolder and Bull Scroggins—”
“And a hundred and thirty or forty million more,” said Prentice. “That’s the point. We can’t all have the privilege of shaking hands with a new ambassador, so we elect a president, and he appoints the proper men to handle such jobs. He appointed this Secretary of State to represent Americans in this capacity, you see. Or do you?”
“He is the one to say hello to men from other lands,” I said.
“That’s it in a nutshell.”
“I would like to say hello to the Secretary of State,” I said.
Frank Prentice smiled. “You’re an innocent sort of fellow, aren’t you. No, don’t ask me what I mean by innocent. We’ve had enough questions for today. Just take my word for it, getting an interview with the Secretary of State is pretty complicated.”
I waited until Prentice had finished his paper before I pursued the topic. Then—
“What sort of man is the Secretary of State? Is he kind, like you? Or noisy, like Bull Scroggins? Or a drunk, like Jason Radmolder? Or smart, like the doctor?”
“He’s as smart as a whip,” said Prentice. “Politics may come and go, but you’ll find right down through our American history that the secretaries of state are always men of high intelligence and good judgment. It’s true that not everyone in America will always agree with them in their opinions. But people sometimes forget that a Secretary of State has to spread his good will among a lot of countries.”
“If some new country appears, will he have any good will left for it?”
“That’s a strange question,” said Prentice. “Before any new country pops into existence, it’s the Secretary of State’s business to know what’s popping.”
That clinched it for me. I didn’t tell Prentice so, but I knew from that moment on that the Secretary of State was the man I should see. He would want to know that Venus was popping out toward her sister planet, and that I was the first pop.
But the more I learned and observed, the more I was convinced that Prentice was right, it wouldn’t be easy. Unless I were well prepared in my new ability to use Earth words, I might fail in my very first courtesies, and then America would not like Venus.
If I didn’t confide my secret plans to Prentice it was because I felt that he didn’t quite understand me. He was sympathetic in his way, and I needed every ounce of that sympathy in this tough job of getting my bearings.
But it was my misfortune to have a physical appearance very different from his own. However handsome I might be considered back in Venus, I was to him a grotesque figure with orange cheeks and pointed ears, stocky stature, purple hair, and six-fingered hands. These characteristics colored his opinion of me much more than he realized.
He began to think of me as a creature of some mysterious misfortune. All the doctor’s speculations about my belonging to some African or East Indies race didn’t eradicate Prentice’s stubborn conviction. Sometimes I would overhear him stating his beliefs to allay the curiosity of a friend.
“He must have had a streak of genius in him, the way he’s learning. But I tell you, he started from scratch the day I found him. We’ll probably never know what hard luck retarded him. And of course you never know—he might forget everything all at once some day. But I’m betting on him.”
This bet was sometimes a bit amusing to me. It would have amazed many of the most important citizens back in Venus to know that I, the man they had honored with the chance to make this historic visit, should be made the beneficiary of an experiment in social salvaging.
But no better fortune could have befallen me than to have a patient and generous teacher like Prentice gamble his hours on the hope that I would eventually make good.
I was much more disturbed over my relations with the doctor. My suspicions grew that he was gathering up trouble for me, even though his intentions might be good.
The next time he returned to bandage my arm, he brought a girl and two strange men along. The girl I had seen before. She was his assistant, not with medicine but with pencils and a notebook.
The doctor asked me many questions. The girl seemed to be writing down the whole conversation. It made me very cautious about saying anything, especially if I was not sure of my words. My growing reticence made the doctor’s eyes narrow.
“We’ll have to discount part of what he says,” the doctor instructed. “You can see he has a very primitive mind. Notice how distorted his ideas of distance are.” The doctor turned to me. “Now, George, you have told us that you came from a long, long way off. Do you see that little village down in the valley?”
“I see it,” I replied.
“Did you come from that far?”
“Many times farther.”
“A hundred times as far?” asked the doctor. “Or a thousand times as far?”
“Easily a million,” I said.
The doctor and his secretary exchanged amused smiles, and let it go at that.
Meanwhile, the two strange men set up little dark boxes on tripods and surprised me with some flashes of light
. At this time I didn’t know about photographs.
Not long after this day, however, I was startled to see my own picture in a section of the Sunday newspaper. Many of the people in the mining village called that day or the next to ask Prentice if he had seen it.
There I was, all decked out in bright colors. The picture showed me naked to the waist, just as I had been when the doctor last examined me. The orange of my face was well marked. The bronze of my throat and chest and arms shone like metal. My sharp pointed teeth had been colored yellow to make them more conspicuous. My purple hair was in its brightest glory.
“Why am I in the paper?” I said, as soon as I could capture my breath from the shock.
“Lots of people will be interested,” said Prentice.
“Will the Secretary of State see me?” I said.
“Ha,” said Prentice dryly. “I doubt if he has time to read the Sunday supplements.”
“What do the words say?” I had the uncomfortable feeling, in watching the expressions of the villagers who came by to discuss the matter, that that newspaper article didn’t do me any great honor, “Go ahead and read the words to me, Frank.”
“You wouldn’t like them,” he said. “I don’t like them. I doubt if the doctor himself will feel so hot about this job. They’ve exaggerated his statements.”
“What does it say about me?”
“It says that you’re a human puzzle that baffles the scientists. They don’t know what you are. They think you should be in some institution for observation.”
“If I were in an institution,” I said, “would I get to see the Secretary of State?”
“Not in the sort of institution they’re talking about. It would be more like a prison, I’m afraid. They raise a lot of questions about you. Some scientists doubt whether any theories of mutations or sports could possibly account for you.”
