by Don Wilcox
Anna nestled in George’s arms and remained curiously quiet while the three wingmen talked excitedly about the well-planned escape. The part that hadn’t been planned was Anna’s arrival on the roof. The rest had been routine—two wingmen faking a fight through the bars, the cries of wingmen from all sides, and the inevitable showerbath from a fire hose which they knew the custodian would turn on the fighters while wingmen on the outside broke through the bars of Gray Boy’s cell. Anna’s chant had sounded just before time for the signal. Fortunately some winged friend had flown the message to Purple Wings in the nick of time.
“But when you started to walk the roof, Anna,” Green Flash recalled, “I was sure the man with the gun would shoot first and ask questions afterward. We were all lucky we didn’t get winged. Right, Gray Boy?” Gray Boy showed a boyish grin, shrugging his shoulders.
“We come good,” he said, using the simple words he knew. Then as if to show off his familiarity with the language of his caretakers, he said, still grinning, “Shut up, you damn idiot, or I’ll singe your wings.” Purple Wings hastily apologized for him. “It’s just a hospital expression the inmates pick up. He doesn’t know how it sounds to us.”
Anna was hardly listening. She was studying the guileless countenance of her husband so curiously that he said, “Whatsa matter, dear? Something wrong?”
Anna’s answer sounded like a judge summing up the evidence before the hanging.
“What a fake you are, George Hurley! Here I thought you were either dead or dying, and you aren’t even sick. I thought you were lost, and I find you in the hands of the best friends in the world. I thought you were at least out of touch with current events and here I see you even have a radio. All the comfort of home! Now where did you get the radio?”
“One of Green Flash’s friend picked it up for me the day after they dragged me up here. By the way,” George said, “I caught a newscast just before you came in. President Waterfield has issued a public SOS for the assistant ambassador to report at the New Earth embassy right away. It didn’t, give the assistant ambassador’s name, but if any of you happen to know who it is—”
“George, I hate to leave you here in this cave. Can you get back to the Venus Capitol by yourself?”
“Huh? Where are you going in such a hurry?”
“If these friends will fly me to a taxi, I’m going to the Embassy,” Anna said. “Duty calls.”
CHAPTER XVIII
Anna pinched herself while she waited for the elevator, and again before entering the Embassy reception room on the eleventh floor. “Is this me or not me?” she whispered to herself.
The receptionist ushered her into the private sanctum of President Waterfield, who embraced her warmly and led her by the picture window.
“Breakfast and coffee will be right in,” he said. “I know this is unusual, calling for you so early in the morning. But things are happening fast, and we must get our plans together at once. There’ll be a big battle over there beginning this morning.”
He was looking across at the Conclave Hall where representatives from many planets were holding their series of meetings.
I’ll need time to dress and make up, Anna thought. “I suppose you want me to cast a vote or something.”
“I want you to make a speech,” President Waterfield said.
Anna felt herself grow pale. The pink light of the morning sun didn’t help at all. She glanced at herself in a mirror and saw that she was chalk-white. She thought of Georgie, Junior back on the Earth and wondered if he didn’t need her.
“Isn’t there a ship leaving for the Earth—”
But President Waterfield wasn’t listening. He was already in full swing of his diplomatic battle.
“News travels fast, Anna. Fortunately I’ve learned about a measure that the Ambassador of Mercury is going to present today. It may be perfectly fair and honest, but I’m anxious to be ready.”
All at once a flash of light crossed through Anna’s whirling mind and she said, “Whatever it is, I’m against it.” Waterfield stared at her. “Not so hasty, please. I haven’t even told you what it is.”
“I’m against it. Do I get a vote?”
“Certainly not. But you get to make a speech.”
“I’ll make it,” Anna said. “I’ll have it ready in an hour.” She started toward the door.
“Wait, Anna! I haven’t even told you what the Mercury official is up to. It may not be so bad.”
“It’s bad,” Anna said. “He got his ideas from Madam Zukor.” President Waterfield drank his coffee black while listening to Anna’s account of her recent activities. He gave a deep painful sigh and drank more black coffee.
Finally he said, “Anna, they may worry us, but they’re not going to hurt us.”
“Are you sure? Madam Zukor doesn’t mean to stop until she wins. She’ll try every way short of war to win the Earth for herself. Did I say short of war? I wonder!”
“No, Anna. They can’t hurt us. We have a great big brother—a guest from Mogo. And, fortunately, he has at last settled down for a friendly visit. I received the news this morning.”
CHAPTER XIX
The New Earth capitol was in its glory at last. The great breathless number-one news event of this bright Saturday morning was that at last the visiting Mogo giant had parked his space ship exactly where he was supposed to park it, and now the mile-high door was open, in the side of the ship: the giant was looking out—in short, Mr. Mogo was expected to emerge at any moment.
It was high time for the New Earth to roll out the red carpet and receive this great big brother with open arms.
Captain Keller mounted the reviewing stand at Cliff Park, high above the river valley. A half dozen city dignitaries surrounded him. The band played its brassiest marches, and the gay crowds shouted and waved banners.
It was ten o’clock in the morning, under the full blaze of the summer sun, when the long-delayed official reception became a fact. Out of the vast ship stepped the Mogo giant.
He was a tower of flamboyant colors. His outfit might have been pieced together of many chance garments, as if he had picked up whatever he could lay hands on before hastily boarding for the trip. He stood gazing down at the cheering throngs. Plainly he was fascinated.
“Welcome, friend of Gret-O-Gret!” Captain Keller called through the amplifiers.
The giant grinned. He glanced around at the city, at the distant hills, at the river valley that stretched away from Cliff Park. His feet were planted solidly on the clearing adjoining the river, where factories were some day to be built. The whole wide countryside must have been visible to him as he towered there, farms and forests and mountains hundreds of miles around. But he bent his massive head and shoulders toward the crowd that was welcoming him. In his big orange eyes shone a weird light of fascination.
Captain Keller prompted the newscasters who were narrating the event into the microphones. Loud-speakers directed the interest of the crowd.
“The banner you see the giant holding,” came the announcer’s voice, “is a sixty-foot canvas calling card. This is the giant’s official ticket to the Earth. This canvas was given to the leader Gret-O-Gret by Captain Keller on his recent expedition to Mogo.”
The crowds cheered.
Later, when Captain Keller made a few remarks, he again referred to the official invitation.
There was deep emotion in his voice as he spoke the name of Gret-O-Gret.
“. . . this official document which you See the giant now holding in his hands, ladies and gentlemen, is our guarantee, and our bond—our certificate of faith. It is our guarantee that the New Earth shall not fail to be a good host—that we shall extend our unfailing hospitality to this friend of our great good brother, Gret-O-Gret!”
Paul Keller’s arms, lifted up toward the huge figure towering toward the sky, would appear in all the afternoon newspapers, and would go down in the annals of New Earth history. Interplanetary good will had surely reached a new high!
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br /> The waves of applause, however weak they might sound to the giant through the amplifiers, were the stoutest token the crowd could muster to express the New Earth’s intent to be the perfect host.
The giant was surely understanding. At least he was still beaming down at them with the curious light in his eyes. He bent closer, and the flowing many-colored garments reflected their warm glow of colored light over all of Cliff Park. Streams of dust sifted down from his collar as he bowed—and the bright cloud of dust hung in the sunshine like a steamy wreath.
“And now,” Paul Keller said, “I shall speak to our guest in his own Mogo language. I shall ask him to tell us his name,”
Keller’s Mogo words sounded through the amplifiers. He waited for the giant to make a response. The crowd waited. Keller repeated his Mogo question. “Friend of Gret-O-Gret, please tell us your name.”
The answer boomed down like a ripping of the skies, like a collision of electric storms, like thunder shaking the universe.
The giant pronounced his name, and followed it with a long loud laugh, and when he was through, the echoes were still rocking back and forth through the valley. The crowd was temporarily panicked. The shock of the big voice had terrified many, who started to run in all directions, falling over each other. Clashing glass from the nearest building added to the frenzy. Most of the windows of the nearest factory had been shattered.
Paul Keller called for order. There was no cause for alarm, he declared. The Earth people must learn to expect a few surprises.
“The giant has told us his name is Faz-O-Faz. Let us do everything in our power to make Faz-O-Faz comfortable. Perhaps he is already hungry. We’ll see. The committee has prepared a breakfast for him. Let us now serve him his first meal on the Earth.”
The activity had been prepared well in advance. Rapidly, ten dump trucks, tilled with loaves of bread, backed into position at the edge of the cliff and dumped their contents into a wide chute that had been constructed for serving meals to a giant.
At the foot of the chute was a receptacle that resembled a wooden salad bowl. Built on a framework of steel at a cost of two hundred thousand dollars, it was as large as an ocean-going vessel, and as sturdy. The shipbuilders had given it a fine finish. Its wooden surface gleamed like the well-polished decks of an ocean liner.
The ten truck loads of bread swished down the chute into the bowl, and the crowds squealed with delight.
No one had ever seen such a magnificent bowl of bread before in the history of the solar system.
“The giant’s dish has now been filled,” Captain Keller called. “I shall now explain to the giant in Mogo—”
Explanations were not necessary. The giant Faz-O-Faz was apparently quick to get the idea. He reached down and picked up the bowl. He straightened, put the bowl to his lips and unceremoniously dumped the contents into his mouth.
Then he tossed the bowl aside, and it fell in a field six miles away.
CHAPTER XX
From the looks of the giant Faz-O-Faz, no one could be sure that his appetite had been entirely satisfied. Murmurings on the speakers’ platform from the several dignitaries changed the remainder of the program. These men of prominence had each expected to deliver a brief speech of welcome. Now they were more concerned with making sure the giant had plenty of food. Keller ordered the trucks to load up with more bread and bring it on, but fast.
Within the next thirty minutes the city’s entire bread supply was poured into the chute. There was no longer a bowl to catch it, but the giant Faz-O-Faz proved to have willing hands for the occasion. When the bread was all gone, his hands were still there, cupped under the chute, waiting for the rest of his breakfast.
Someone suggested that lie might be willing to eat a few sacks of flour, while the bakeries were catching up.
“We’ll try straight wheat,” Keller directed. Whereupon, several truckloads of grain were carted in to fill the waiting giant’s hands.
Faz-O-Faz welcomed the wheat, and munched contentedly.
“There, it looks as if we’ve found the answer to the food problem,” Keller declared to his committee. “But we’re going to have to do some figuring on this matter.”
“It will take a whole year to raise another wheat crop,” one of the key committeemen reminded.
“I appreciate that fact, Sanderson,” Keller said. “And that’s only one item. We’ll have to do some estimating”
“And what about that food bowl?” Sanderson asked. “We invested two hundred thousand dollars in that bowl.”
Captain Keller mopped the perspiration from his forehead. He knew that Sanderson was deeply worried over the events of the morning, and Sanderson’s worries were contagious. A bright-eyed little man with plenty of bounce, he was generally levelheaded in spite of his explosive manner. This morning he had remained remarkably calm through the giant’s orgy of eating, and the Captain knew that his dignity and patience had been an important factor in holding the welcoming ceremony together.
“We’ll drive out and take a look at that bowl,” Keller said. “Perhaps it won’t be damaged beyond use. At any rate, our guest seems to be comfortable and happy over his reception.”
Yes, Faz-O-Faz was at peace with the world. He had finished eating and murmured contentedly a few words that may have been his acknowledgment—the nearest thing to a thank you that the crowd was to hear. He sat on the low, flat industrial land below the, park, and rested one hand on the ridge. The people had backed away, by this time, seeing from his actions that he wanted to lounge down for more comfort.
After he had finished chewing, he cast his eyes about over the city. From a sitting position, he towered above it at an elevation of perhaps two thousand feet. He committed a slight act of damage, then, before anyone could warn him it wasn’t the proper thing for a guest to do. He picked the slender steeple off the top of a church and used it to pick his teeth.
He tossed it into the river when he was through, and crouched down closer to the surface of the earth, spreading an arm over Cliff Park upon which to lay his head. The speaker’s platform upon which Captain Keller and the welcoming officials had stood a few minutes before was now rolled to splinters under the weight of the giant’s reclining shoulder.
He blinked his big orange-colored eyes a few times, then closed them contentedly and fell asleep. At the sound of his first deep sonorous snore more than two hundred windows were shattered.
CHAPTER XXI
“Do you think we’ve made a good first impression on him?” Sanderson asked as the helicopter party swung over the river toward the field where the salad bowl had landed.
“I’m deeply concerned about the first impression he has made upon us,” said Captain Keller very seriously.
“Oh! Listen to our Captain Keller, our famed friend of the Mogos.”
“Yes, I’m serious, gentlemen,” Keller said. “It’s too bad that Gret-O-Gret couldn’t have explained more about us to this friend before sending him. I don’t wish to be quoted, but I feel deeply disappointed over the giant’s conduct.”
“Well!” Jay Sanderson appeared to be suffering from a not too mild shock. “I was under the impression, Captain Keller, that we were welcoming a guest, not a menace. I had complete faith that you yourself would be able to keep this gentleman from Mogo under control. Are we to understand from your remarks that this morning’s demonstration of greed and waste was not what you expected?”
“It was not,” Keller said. “This guest is going to have to be handled. He’s nothing like Gret-O-Gret, from his first sample of his manners.” Then Keller realized that he might be doing the Mogo an injustice, judging on such little evidence. “However, gentlemen, we must face him with the same kindly hospitality we would offer Gret-O-Gret himself. In the long run, I’m sure it will pay.”
“In the meantime, it’s going to cost like hell,” Sanderson said bluntly. “We’d just as well make up our minds to that.”
“Have you figured yet how many million bushels
of wheat he’ll eat in a year?” someone asked.
“Oh, we can’t think of feeding him regularly,” Keller said quickly. “I’m sure he must have his own food supply in the ship. Gret-O-Gret would have prepared him at least to that extent. I’ll have a committee look into the ship at first opportunity.”
They landed the copter near the fallen salad bowl and for the next two hours they walked around it, discussing the prospect of undoing the damage. An engineer in the party estimated that twenty thousand dollars would put the property back in shape. It was badly wrecked but not beyond repair.
Sanderson spluttered, but he said, “Captain, that’s a lot of money—however, I’ll see that the committee swings it—”
“Let’s hold off, Sanderson,” Keller said. “Give me time to talk with this Mogo.”
“It’s a tough question, Captain,” Sanderson said for the twentieth time. “Five hundred years from now our descendants may very well thank us for having the foresight to build strong ties with the Mogo world—who knows. A few million dollars spent to make this giant happy could turn out to be the wisest investment of the age.”
Keller thanked the sharp-eyed little business man for his loyalty and far-sightedness—qualities he valued as a New Earth leader. In his own mind, Keller was asking questions. Would the visit from this Mogo ever prove to be worth the cost, after such a bad beginning? But of this Keller was sure, he would personally need the loyalty of men like Sanderson and the committee to see him through to the best answers.
They reentered the jet-copter and lifted. Across toward the city they could see that their guest was still resting, sprawled along the side of the river, with one foot resting on the wreckage of the Athletic Club’s new luxury yacht.
The giant was napping, but not too soundly. Now and then his orange eyes would wink open and closed, as he shuffled for a more comfortable position.
