The Almost Complete Short Fiction

by Don Wilcox

  “Have you read the radiogram?” Katherine asked.

  He unfolded the yellow paper. It was a hundred-word message from President Waterfield.

  “. . . Sorry to report that we are losing our fight against the Interplanetary Control measure . . . doubt that we can really votes enough to offset the strength of Mercury Ambassador . . . Therefore advise that you inform our Mogo guest of our situation and accept any assistance he offers. His help in construction of buildings, bridges, railroads, airfields, etc., will be of inestimable value . . . Glad he can be with us through this crisis, thanks to your foresight. Sincerely, President Waterfield.”

  “Thanks to my foresight, he says!” Paul Keller said. “That’s a laugh!”

  Katherine said, “And that phrase, ‘Accept any assistance the Mogo offers’—I like that!”

  She nestled down in the chair with him, and waited for him to tell her the coffee was just right. He drank it absent-mindedly.

  “I can’t understand Gret-O-Gret’s choosing such a fellow as Faz-O-Faz. Things are getting worse instead of better. It will take the city ten years just to pay for broken window glass.”

  “The New Earth can’t afford it. Paul,” Katherine said. “Just when we’re getting well started, rebuilding and planning and saving for next year. Any new damages today?”

  “Six freight cars.”

  “Wheat?”

  “Wheat and oats.”

  “Any signs that he’s beginning to ‘feel his oats,’ as they say?”

  “Not yet. He hasn’t moved. He just lies there against the warm cliff in the sun, eating and sleeping, drinking out of the river.”

  “He’ll move off to another location one of these days.”

  “I hope so! That’s what worries the committee. They still don’t mind our having a Mogo giant for a guest if we could only make him respond with a few ordinary courtesies. We’ve already spent hours discussing ways to get him to move.”

  “Just so he doesn’t move onto the city instead of away from it. Lots of people say they haven’t slept a wink since he came. Even if he didn’t mean any harm, he could crush a whole suburb with one false motion of his elbow.”

  “He’s playing havoc with our food situation,” Keller confessed. “We’re having to route the grains away from him. Still, we provide him with a few box cars each day. If he reached down for his meal and picked up nothing but empty cars, who knows, he might tear up the tracks.”

  “What about his space ship?” Katherine asked. “Did he bring along his own supply of food concentrates?”

  We doubt it. Helicopters have made the rounds of the ship several times, trying to get a line on what it contains. No one has been able to break in, but the appearances are that Faz-O-Faz made the trip without adequate preparation.”

  “I don’t understand it,” Katherine said. “You’d have thought Gret-O-Gret would have taken great care to put your invitation in the hands of the right friend. If this fellow weren’t so everlastingly lazy, you know, he could make himself mighty popular.”

  “Especially with this threat from the Interplanetary Conclave coming up! You know, our New Earth may be hard pressed to show that we’re making any progress whatever, under the present conditions.”

  “Progress! We’re backsliding. Our building program is at a standstill. Our food reserves have almost run out. And all those factories we were planning—what happened to them?”

  “Faz-O-Faz is sitting on the sites,” Paul Keller said.

  “He’s a dope.”

  “Careful. You’re talking about our guest.”

  “He’s a dope. The New Earth has got to move him off his reservation somehow, Paul. By now everyone knows he’s a mistake, whether we admit it or not. By the way, what’s happened to the Mogo Tower?”

  “No work had been done on it lately,” Paul admitted. “The fact is, Faz-O-Faz took a fancy to the brass figure of Gret-O-Gret over the entrance.”

  “Damage it?”

  “Just removed it from the building, is all. The whole facade is ruined.” Katherine idly picked up the radiogram and read it through again, shaking her head. “Paul, if they should get together and pass this measure, our New Earth would have to prove we’re building up rapidly. The way they’ve set up the measure, actually a colony of Wingmen might make a better showing than the New Earth.”

  Keller knew only too well. That was the trick of the percentage basis. A New Earth city of two thousand homes couldn’t expect to build another thousand in a year, to report a fifty percent gain. But a wingman community of ten jungle huts might build another ten in a week—and thus be able to report a hundred percent gain. The cards were neatly stacked against the New Earth.

  “Not that we wouldn’t be glad to build at many times our present rate. Think of it, Katherine, if we had someone like Gret-O-Gret here to help us—”

  “What we have is Faz-O-Faz,” Katherine said. “There’s a world of difference.”

  “Faz-O-Faz!”

  “You’ve tried to talk with him?”

  “Till I’m black in the face.”

  “What does he say?”

  “He yawns.”

  The automatic bell sounded for another radiogram, and a moment later

  Paul and Katherine knew what the New Earth must soon know. The Mercury Ambassador’s measure had been passed by the Interplanetary Conclave.

  CHAPTER XXVII

  Many black days followed for the New Earth. The fine enthusiasm that had once prevailed across the land was quenched in a storm of descending doom. People met in little groups, ostensibly to try to find their way out of their growing difficulties; but more often than not they only increased their apprehensions.

  Nobody whistled the song “We’ve Got a Great Big Brother in Mogo Land.”

  Nobody wrote letters of praise to the newspapers concerning the officials of the New Earth government, lauding their wisdom and their foresight in making friends with the giants of a far-off world.

  It was to the credit of President Waterfield and Captain Keller that the whole New Earth did not stir up a popular revolt. The few such tendencies were talked down by the people themselves.

  “We know Captain Keller and President Waterfield,” they said, in effect, “and we haven’t forgot how they brought us through bad times before. We’ll not be deceived into misjudging their motives. We’ll stick by them.”

  Captain Keller wished President Waterfield would return from Venus to handle the crisis personally. But in the President’s absence, Keller did what he thought best. He called for mass meetings in every town for the purpose of discussing remedies for the impending catastrophe.

  All persons were urged to present their ideas, in speeches or in writing. Every citizen of the New Earth must know that he had a voice.

  Plans for dealing with the big sleeping brute from Mogo rolled in by the thousands.

  Plans for meeting the emergency created by the new Conclave law were also offered.

  The Mogo Emergency plans ranged from complete kindness to swift and final destruction. “Keep talking to him.”

  “Explain in words of one syllable that he is making himself unpleasant. In time he’ll understand.”

  “Send back to the Mogo System and ask Gret-O-Gret what to do.”

  “Coax him away from the Venus capitol with food . . . Plant a trail of his favorite delicacies. He’ll follow . . . Then keep feeding him at a safe distance . . .”

  Those were some of the milder proposals. At the other extreme were proposals to poison him. to bind him with steel cables and move him across the continent to the ocean and dump him in (the engineers who had calculated his weight and size smiled at the impossibility of such a feat)—and proposals to give him a thoroughgoing atom-bomb treatment.

  Captain Keller issued a public statement: “We urge you not to submit plans involving personal harm to Faz-O-Faz. As all of us know’, he himself could work unspeakable damage to our civilization if he were inclined to be malicious. He is not
malicious. He does not intentionally destroy or harm us. The worst we can say about him is that he is inclined to be indolent and thoughtless, in the best tradition of a guest who makes himself comfortable a wav from home. Accordingly, we must use no destructive tactics. We must rely upon the weapons of a good host—diplomacy and tact. We must treat him as a guest who fails to take a hint. We must use our wits to the utmost.”

  As to the other group of plans which the public submitted—those dealing with the problem of the

  Conclave Act—they likewise ranged from the soft answers of soft-hearted men to the bristling proposals of violence from men of anger.

  “If the Interplanetary Conclave, in its wisdom, has asked us to prove our right to exist, let us redouble our efforts toward efficient living. Let us build more diligently. educate our children more earnestly, and pray more fervently.”

  This answer, signed by a group of sincere professional men, found its contrast in the statement submitted by officers of the Guard.

  “We defy the Interplanetary Con-, clave or any other darned gang to tell us we don’t own the Earth. We’re here firstest and we’re going to be here lastest, and there’s no force in the whole damned sky big enough to chase us off. If they think so, let them try.”

  Jay Sanderson was waiting for Captain Keller when he came home after a late night of parleying with committees. Keller entered the living room to find him sitting by a lighted candle.

  “My apologies for not calling for an appointment, Captain. The power’s off, all over this end of town. Your good wife invited me in and lighted up for me with an old-fashioned candle. I guess you knew about the lines being broken.”

  “They’re working on it,” Keller said. “Luckily, no one was hurt. It happened when Faz-O-Faz reached into a warehouse basement. He has a mania for barrels, you know, and that’s what he was breaking open—barrels of pickles—barrels of salt—even kegs of nails. He didn’t eat the nails, at least. But he kept tearing open the basement and his fingers went on back and broke into the utilities tunnel.”

  “All in the day’s work, I suppose,” Sanderson said, and then he exploded with, “No, by God, it isn’t. Captain. We’ll never get used to living like this and by God I came here to tell you it’s got to stop.”

  “Well, Sanderson—”

  “Either you’re going to put an end to this damnable terror—you and Waterfield—or by the heavens I’ll open a revolt against both of you. The way things are going, Keller, we’ll be bowing down to Madam Zukor and company in a few more weeks. You and President Waterfield had better act fast. We’ve been back of you, you know that damn well. But I’m not the man to stand by and see our New Earth go to pot.”

  “Give us a little more time, Sanderson.”

  “You’ve had time enough. I could have been rallying all the angry people up and down the streets to march on you in a mob. I didn’t do it. I’ve come to you instead.”

  “Give us a little more time. You’ve no idea how I’m trying to hold all the forces together, and how much Waterfield is doing on Venus. They have our fate in their hands, up there in the Conclave.”

  “And the Mogo giant has us in his hands too, damn it. Look, here we sit by candlelight. Lights and communication knocked out. Food shortage. Schools afraid to open for fear the kids might all get stepped on at once. Railroad service tied up. Bridges out. Trucks running around in crazy detours trying to keep out of reach—all for what? For a lazy Mogo guest that lies in the sun, and eats and sleeps and snores till the city can’t hear itself think. Which do we move, Keller, the giant or the city?”

  “I wish I could make contact with Lieutenant Hurley,” Keller said.

  “Not too loud,” his wife warned. She had just succeeded in tucking little Georgie. Junior away for the night. “He keeps asking for his daddy and his mamma.”

  “They both gone?” Sanderson asked.

  “Both were last seen on Venus—on errands related to the big trouble. They both disappeared one day. Waterfield keeps ordering the Venus constabulary to trace them. But you know the Venus police.” Keller paused, realizing that Sanderson was looking through him, seeing him as a leader made helpless by circumstances outside his control. Could Sanderson do better? Keller repeated, “Give us a little more time, Sanderson.”

  “A little more time,” Sanderson said.

  CHAPTER XXVIII

  The Mogo committee checked over its books and discovered that there was still a balance of six hundred dollars and sixty-six cents.

  “Money left over from the reception fund,” the treasurer explained. “What are we going to do with it?”

  “Blow it,” someone suggested. “Offer it as a prize for anyone that can make our Mogo guest blow town.”

  That was it. The radios and newspapers carried the announcement as a public service. “MAKE THE MOGO LEAVE TOWN. AND WIN $600.66!!!”

  Somehow the sporting angle helped to lift the spirits, which had hit a new low the previous week. Captain Keller hailed the contest as a proof that the New Earth people would never be beaten by anything—large or small.

  Every evening after the giant had grown comfortable from his day’s eating and his afternoon nap, the crowds would gather at the safe side of the park, and listen to any person bold enough to try his arts of persuasion.

  Unfortunately, Paul Keller had to rule out most of the would-be contestants because their methods called for violence. Or because the task would be too expensive.

  The old carnival man, ushered to the stage by a popular circus couple. Mamma Mountain and Papa Mouse, expounded what many thought a brilliant idea. The carnival man had been a fire eater in his day. He believed that if he demonstrated before the giant, the giant in turn might be persuaded to put a red-hot steel girder to his tongue—but Keller’s committee were afraid of the results.

  A young student engineer suggested damming the river so that the giant would find himself sitting in a lake. The expense of the project and the time element made it impractical.

  The boldest of orators were stubbornly determined to move Faz-O-Faz by sheer persuasion—appealing to his reason or threatening him with the dire effects of bringing the city to economic ruin.

  To these orators, Paul Keller gave his full cooperation, standing by the mikes, interpreting in his limited Mogo vocabulary the best of the contestants’ arguments. The Mogo words made some impression, no doubt about it. The giant would occasionally blink his orange eyes with mild interest, and once, it was declared by many, he smiled—languidly. But more often than not, he would give his shaggy head a shake, as if to say, “Don’t bother me,” and, mumbling a few incomprehensible words, would allow his eyes to close for the night.

  “We’d just as well equip another expedition for Mogo land,” one of the committee remarked after six days of failure. “There’s no other way.”

  “One week—that’s what we promised the public. The contest still has another day.”

  “And if no one wins?”

  “Give the money to the orator who made the giant smile.”

  “That’s all we can do.”

  So it was agreed that the contest would continue until midnight the following night.

  CHAPTER XXIX

  At dawn space flivver sailed in and landed, and the city was awakened to the news that George and Anna Hurley had returned, safe and sound.

  They might have spent the next twenty-four hours talking to the wide-eyed reporters, explaining a few of the things that had happened to them. But George Hurley left most of the talking to Anna, who knew all the shortcuts. He took one look around the city and asked. “What the devil?”

  “If you have any ideas for moving that giant out of town, bring them on,” Paul Keller said. “As you see, we’re beat!”

  “Have you whispered into the old boy’s ears in his own language?” Hurley asked.

  “Everything but. We’ve doubled the volume on the amplifiers, and we’ve lectured him till there’s nothing more to tell him. If he had any
conscience, he’d be ashamed to accept another free meal. But look at him!”

  The giant hand had just spread its shadow over the railway tracks, and up went a string of cars, leaking a cloud of grain over the west end of the city.

  “I’ll wait till he’s through eating,” Hurley said. “Then I’ll climb into his ear and take a loud-speaker with me.”

  In midafternoon, just as Faz-O-Faz was easing into his nap, they lowered George Hurley from a helicopter, and he swung into the mammoth ear on the left side of the giant’s head. For the next half hour he shouted himself hoarse, with the loud speaker going full blast. But all he got for an answer was an occasional snore. He nestled down in a nest of hairs within the folds of the ear, and waited for Faz-O-Faz to finish his nap.

  Anna, meanwhile, was making headlines with her excited account of goings-on in Venus and, later, in Banrab, Africa.

  “. . . They’d killed poor little Limpy Lady . . . shot her through the heart . . . We found out later. Poppendorf did it. You remember Poppendorf—always quick that way—tryin” to make Madam Zukor believe he was a ready hero . . . Then I found that George had given the Zukor stooges the slip and had taxied back to Conclave Hall to find poor little me. Me, I was already gone, looking for him. But we all three got together at the space port—Big Boy and Purple Wings and me—and we didn’t even take time to call the Embassy, Big Boy was so worried about Green Flash. We darted right straight for the Earth, and believe it or not we were there waiting, hiding in the edge of the jungle, when Madam Zukor’s shipload of new wingmen came in for a landing.”

  “And Madam Zukor was with them?” a reporter asked.

  “Goodness, no. She wouldn’t take the chance. Besides, she had another date with the Mercury Ambassador, to make sure he’d go on backing his plan through the Conclave. In fact, she’d had just enough tangles with the law by this time so that she was already packing up for a trip to Mercury. And with that ugly Ambassador! I’d think she’d rather go to prison.”