by Vern Fearing
Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the OnlineDistributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Amazing Stories Oct.-Nov. 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
THE SLOTHS
OF
KRUVNY
BY VERN FEARING
Illustrator: Henry Sharp
_This world we live in is a pretty grim place. It's tough to make a living. At any moment we may get blown up, down or sideways by the atom bomb. The day after tomorrow may never come, and on top of all this, TV commercials are getting worse and worse. It seems that our only salvation is a sense of humor, so we give you "The Sloths ..." a very unserious yarn._
* * * * *
Bradley Broadshoulders--friends called him "Brad", or "Broad", or"Shoulders"--stood grim-lipped, as is the custom of spacemen, andwaited for the Commander to speak fateful words. He was an obeseyouth, fully five feet tall, without a shred of muscle, but he worethe green tunic of the Galaxy Patrol proudly, and his handsome, bonyhead boasted a tidy crop of Venusian fungus. His gleaming eyesgleamed.
"Brad, We Are In A Tough Fix!" the Commander said suddenly. His namewas Metternich, known also as Foxey Gran'pa; he had spoken in capitalsall over Europe and continued the practice since. "We Are Up AgainstIt!" he went on. "The Fate Of The World May Be At Stake!"
"What's wrong, chief?" asked Brad, jauntily.
"Plenty!" roared Metternich. "Nobody's Attacking The Earth--That'sWhat's Wrong! Nobody Is Out To Conquer The Universe! How Come, May IAsk?"
Brad gulped. Could he believe his ears? No one attacking good, kind,old Earth? Was there nothing in which a man could pin his faith, letalone his ears? Were they, indeed, _his_ ears?
He turned to his best friend, Ugh, who stood beside him. Would hestand behind him? Did he realize they were on the verge of A Mission?Ugh was a _pastiche_, or _intermezzo_--a cross between a Martian and aTexan--as loathsome and stupid a combination as one could wish. Why hewas Brad's best friend was a mystery. Squarely, he met Brad's gaze,which left him an eye to spare. It winked, and Brad shuddered.
It was an omen....
"I Want To Know Why!" the Commander shouted. "You Have Your SecretOrders! Off With You!"
A really fat omen.
The good ship, _Lox Wing_, was almost ready to go. She was a fine,spaceworthy craft, Brad knew; just the same, it _was_ disconcerting tosee rats deserting her by the thousands. Not that he missed them; somewere sure to return as soon as Ugh appeared on the scene; he seemed tofascinate them.
Just then, the rats paused. Sure enough, Ugh was coming. He wasreeling. He had apparently made the rounds, as is the custom ofspacemen, swilling vast quantities of airplane dope, and he was highas a kite. Brad glommed him glumly in the gloaming, with more than aglimmer of gloomy foreboding. It was wrong, he thought, all wrong. Ifonly it hadn't been too late to turn back. But it wasn't. They hadn'teven started yet. If anything, it was too early. There was no way out.He entered the spaceship with a Si. Si, whose whole name was SilasMariner, shook his hand weakly, muttered: "Remember the _Albatross_!"and tottered out.
It was an omen....
Presently, Brad and Ugh were blasting off. As the cigar-shaped vesselrose to the starry void, spacemen, their visages lined and tanned likecigars, held their cigars aloft in silent salute and gently flickedtheir ashes, while softly, a cigar band played "_Maracas, Why You NoLove Me No More?_"
Two days out, Brad summoned Ugh. "How fast are we going?"
"Oh, say ... 30,000 miles an hour?"
Brad calculated rapidly and put down his abacus. "At this rate it'lltake us 14 years just to get out of our own lousy solar system!" hebarked. "Faster!"
Ugh said Yes, Sir, and vice versa. Then he upped the speed to 186,000miles per second and came back and shyly told Brad.
Brad said "Bah! We'll be 70 years reaching the Big Dipper! Faster!"
"But _nothing_ can't _go_ any faster!" protested Ugh. "According toEinstein--"
"To hell with Einstein!" roared Brad. "Is he paying your salary?"
So they went faster.
The ship sped onward--unless it was upward--to fulfill its Mission.Again and again Brad found himself wondering where he was going. TheMission was a real stiff. He knew only that since there waspractically no life anywhere in the solar system, except for good,kind, old Earth--Earth had seen to that--anyone attacking Earth--ornot doing so--was obviously somewhere in outer space! But here thetrail ended.
Courage, he told himself, courage! After all, was he not the grandsonof Pierre Fromage, inventor of the rubberband motor? With a start, herealized he was not.
His own heritage, while covered with peculiar glory, was a more tragicone--the spacemen's heritage. The Broadshoulders were brave, butthings happened to them. His grandfather, a traffic officer, hadchased a comet for speeding, and had, unfortunately, overtaken it. Hisfather had been spared the fire, but one day, aboard his spaceship,someone spilled a glass of water. The gravity was off at the time, andthe water just hung there in mid-air until Brad's father walked intoit and drowned.
What would be his own end, he wondered? What other way was there todie? Just then, through the bulkhead, he could hear Ugh swinging inhis hammock, playing the violin. He wondered if the rats were dancing,like the last time he'd surprised him. Another thought was on the way,something about rats and a new way to die, but Brad was alreadyasleep, mercifully having a nightmare.
* * * * *
It was morning of the fifth day when the _Emergency Alarm_ (E-A) wassuddenly activated! Instantly, a host of automatic devices went off.One turned on the fan, another blew the fuses, a third made the beds.Bells clanged and bugles sounded every call from _Battle Stations_(B-S) to _Abandon Ship_ (J-r). Brad and Ugh slept through it all.Nothing was wrong, except with the _Emergency Alarm_ (E-A). It woreitself out and the eventful voyage continued.
Brad woke on the ninth day. The 2-day pill he'd taken on the third dayhad evidently done its work well. He was rested, he felt optimisticagain. When he looked out the porthole, he could see plenty of spacefor improvement.
--But what was _that_?
There, half obscured in a tumbling, swirling mass of misty grayclouds, he could make out something white! He pressed his nose againstthe porthole and strained his eyes. It gave him the feeling of peeringinto a Bendix, as is the custom of spacemen. His mouth went damp-dry.This was it--whatever it was!
"Ugh!" he shouted, all agog. "Ugh! Ugh!"
Ugh dashed in, wheeling a large kaleidoscope. Expertly, they read thedirections and trained it on the mysterious formation. The Indicatorturned pale.
"By the ring-tailed dog star of Sirius!" barked Brad. "Why, it'snothing more than an enormous gallstone, revolving in space!"
"This is Sirius!" barked Ugh.
"That's what _I_ barked!" snapped Brad. "And don't ask me _whose_ itis! It's big enough to support life, that's the main issue! Prepare toland!"
A strange, yet resplendent, civilization, thought Brad, looking out ata sunlit landscape, or gallscape, of molten gold. The houses, stylishigloos and mosques, were sturdily constructed of 3-ply cardboard anddriftwood. Before each house, mysteriously, stood a Berber pole ofsolid peppermint.
Brad and Ugh bounded out of their ship. The two bounders stood there,encased in heat-resistant pyrex pants, expecting the natives to makethings hot for them. Dumbfounded at the delay, they waited for thea
ttack to commence. It did not.
"I never!" said Brad, presently. "If we needed proof, we've got it!Such a display of indolence is testimony enough that these people areresponsible for not attacking Earth! We shall have to use stratemegy!"
Swiftly, he took off his pants, revealing underneath the red flannelcostume of a 17th century French courtier, complete with powdered wigand Falstaff. Ugh ran up a flag emblazoned with the legend: _DiplomacyAnd Agriculture_, then planted beans all around the ship, while Bradpostured and danced the minuet.
The clever scheme worked beautifully. Soon an old man began circlingthem on a bicycle, keeping a safe distance. Clearly, he was someone ofimportance, for his long white beard was carefully braided and coiledin a delivery basket on the handlebars. Furthermore, he wore a glowingcirclet
