An Earthman on Venus (Originally titled "The Radio Man"), Ralph Milne Farley [romance novel chinese novels txt] 📗
- Author: Ralph Milne Farley
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Kew, so I later gathered from the book, was a renegade Cupian, who had always greatly admired the conquerors, and had even gone so far as to assist them in their conquest.
“The ant-men,” Doggo went on, “took over all the territory to the south of the pale, and prospered greatly. We were naturally a more industrious race than the sport-loving Cupians, and now had in addition the services of slaves, for by the terms of the Treaty of Mooni, every male Cupian upon coming of age has to labor for two years in Formia.
“There have followed nearly five hundred years of peace, a peace of force, it is true, and yet a peace under which both countries had enjoyed prosperity; in recognition of which fact the anniversary of the signing of the treaty is annually celebrated throughout the continent.
“The present reigning monarch of Cupia is Kew the Twelfth, the first after a long line of docile kings to give us any trouble in the enforcement of the treaty; but even he keeps within the law.
“The statutes of Cupia are enacted by a popular Assembly, while those of Formia are promulgated by an appointive Council of Twelve; but the laws of both countries must receive the approval of the Queen of Formia.”
Such were the salient features of the recent history of Poros.
Every day I watched for the fair Cupian at the appointed hour. I learned to know her every feature and every curve of her supple girlish body. I noted that her eyes were azure blue. I noticed the dainty way in which the tip of her little pink tongue just touched each edible red twig knob which she placed between her lips, and many another individual mannerism.
A great many beautiful girls have I met in the course of my brief existence. Boston society need yield the palm to none on this score. Yet I had gone to all the teas and dinners and dances perfunctorily, merely because it was done; and had always regarded women as an awful bore.
How few women are interested in radio engineering, for instance, or even have a sympathetic feeling for it!
But now all was changed, and I didn’t in the least care whether or not this girl was interested in radio engineering, or what she was interested in; provided I could eventually interest her in me. For I longed for human companionship.
Of course on days when tropical thunderstorms swept the city, as happened frequently, I did not expect her. But on such days I missed this, my one contact with humanity, and felt vaguely uneasy.
Yet I did not fully realize how much even these daily visits of hers to my garden had come to mean to me, until one perfectly pleasant day, when the Cupian girl failed to show up at the expected hour.
I waited and waited, and fretted and fretted, but still she did not come. Doggo was unable to offer any consolation, and my lessons went very badly.
The next day the committee of four made one of their visits of inspection. I had now progressed far enough in my mastery of their language so that Doggo was able to explain to me the reason for the existence of this committee.
“These four,” wrote he, “are the professors of biology, anatomy, agriculture, and eugenics from the University of Mooni, the center of education of all Poros. Immediately upon your capture, this committee was speedily dispatched by the university authorities to make a thorough study of you. They were to determine whether you are a Cupian or some new and strange kind of beast, and whether your particular breed could be put to any good use.”
“How interesting,” I wrote on my pad. “And have they reached any conclusions?”
“It is for them to question you,” he replied. “Come, I will write down, for you to answer, the things they wish to know.”
So then, through the medium of Doggo’s pad, they questioned me at length about myself, the earth, how I had come to Poros, and my progress since landing. But their procedure mystified me. How did Doggo know what they wanted him to say? Was he a mind reader?
When they had asked me all they cared, they gathered together in a corner, apparently holding an inaudible conference on the results.
It was evident that there was something of great moment in the air.
And so there was, for presently they withdrew and returned with the young girl, the girl whose presence on this planet had inspired me to master at last the ant language!
Eagerly I sprang forward with my stylus and paper, anxious to start a conversation with this fair creature. And then I was halted by the sight of her face.
To my dying day nothing can ever wipe from my memory the deeply engraved picture of the look of absolute horror and loathing which she gave me, as she recoiled from the contamination of my presence. Then she fainted dead away, and was carried out by the four professors.
Oh, how I longed for her, the one human-like creature that I had seen on Poros, and yet what an impassable gulf separated us! The gulf between the understandings and mentalities and means of communication of two distinct worlds! I was determined, nevertheless, to see her again. But how? That was the question!
6radio plays its part
I have already told you how dismayed I was at the horror displayed by the pretty Cupian when she was led into my presence. It is neither flattering nor reassuring to have a lady register fear and disgust upon seeing you for the first time. It is even worse if the lady happens to be the most divinely beautiful creature you have ever seen; and still more unbearable if she happens to furnish the one human touch on an entire planet.
Yet, was she to be blamed?
I was heavily bearded, whereas male Cupians, so Doggo said, wore their hair on the top half of their heads only. I had peculiar mushroomy growths—my ears—on the sides of my face. I had one finger too few on each hand, and one toe too few on each foot. And I was devoid of antennae.
Altogether I must have looked like a strange and ferocious wild beast, all the more repulsive because of its resemblance to a Cupian being. And if I had then known what I do now as to the reason why she had been brought to my quarters, I should have been even more sympathetic with her viewpoint.
But, although her horror was entirely justified, this fact in no way mitigated my chagrin. With great care I drafted a letter of apology which I sent to her by Doggo, only to have her return it unopened, with the statement that Cupian ladies had nothing to do with the lower beasts.
Oh, if I could only talk, if she could only hear my words, I felt sure that I could break down her hostility. How did these creatures communicate, anyhow? They undoubtedly had some means, for had I not seen Doggo halt Satan when the latter had been about to kill me? And had I not seen Doggo place on paper the questions which the four professors had wished to ask of me?
And then I remembered the speculations of some earth scientists, which had been running in the newspapers shortly before my departure from that sphere. The opinion had been expressed that insects communicate by very short length radio waves. I had made a note to investigate this subject later, but at that time I had been too engrossed with my machine for the transmission of matter to be able to give the question of insect speech more than a mere passing thought. It had not crossed my mind again until, immediately after my sad meeting with the beautiful Cupian, I was racking my brains for some means of talking with her.
Radio! The very thing!
How strange that I, a radio engineer, whose life was the capture and subjugation of the Hertzian wave, should have missed this solution for so long!
The solution certainly was plausible: If fireflies can produce a ninety-five per cent efficient light, and if electric eels can generate a current sufficient to kill a horse, why should not an insect be able to send out and receive radio messages over short distances? If animals can create light and electricity in their bodies, why can they not create radio? Perhaps Doggo could enlighten me.
“Doggo,” wrote I, only I called him by his number, 334-2-18, instead of Doggo, “can ant-men and Cupians communicate in any way other than writing?”
“Of course they can,” he replied. “They use their antennae to talk and to hear.”
Or “to send and to receive”; I don’t know just which way to translate the words which he used, but I caught his meaning.
“In my world,” I wrote, “people send with their mouths, and receive with their ears. Let me show you how.”
So speaking a few words aloud, I wrote on my pad: “That constitutes our kind of sending.”
But he shook his head, for he hadn’t received a single word.
He then sent, and of course this time it was I who failed to receive. But at least we had made a beginning in interplanetary communication, for we had each tried to communicate. Was it not strange that all this time, while I had been accusing the inhabitants of this planet of deafness and dumbness, they had been making the same accusation against me?
At this moment the electric lights went on, and they gave me an inspiration.
Pointing at them, I wrote: “Where are those things made? Is there a department at the university devoted to that subject?”
He answered: “There is a department of electricity at Mooni, with an electrical factory attached to the department.”
“That,” I said, “was my line of work on earth. Do you suppose that you could take me to Mooni? If you could, I believe that I can construct electrical antennae which will turn your kind of message into my kind, and vice versa, thus enabling us actually to talk together.”
“I doubt very much,” he replied, “whether anything you do will ever enable you to talk or to hear, for you have no antennae. Of course no one can either talk or hear without antennae. But there will certainly be no harm in giving you a chance to try.”
So a petition was drawn up and signed by Doggo and me, humbly begging the Council of Twelve to assent to my transfer. In due course of time, the professor of anatomy—of the four professors who had so often examined me—visited us again, bringing with him a new ant-man, the professor of electricity. They were both very skeptical of my theories, but were glad to assist in obtaining my transfer, as that would give them better facilities for studying me, and also an opportunity to exhibit me to the students.
There seemed to be some doubt, however, as to the advisability of taking me away from the beautiful girl. But the reason for this I could not guess at that time, as I was sure that the farther away I was, the better it would certainly suit her.
Before the two ant professors left, I wrote for them the still unanswered question: “What conclusions have been reached as to the sort of animal I am?”
They replied: “The majority opinion is that you must have come from some other continent overseas. The presence of the boiling ocean, which entirely surrounds continental Poros, has prevented us Porovians from ever exploring the rest of our world. And even the airplanes do not dare penetrate the steam clouds which overhang the sea.
“But there is a tradition that a strange race, something like the Cupians, live beyond the waves. You must be one of that race, since it is inconceivable that you could have come from another planet.
“A minority, however, are of the opinion that passage across the boiling seas is just as absurd, no more and no less, than a trip through interplanetary space, and this minority are inclined to give credence to the theory that you come from Minos, the planet next further from the sun.”
In other words, the Earth.
All this conversation was in writing, of course, and was very slow and tedious. From their statements I gathered that the professor of anatomy was one of the minority; so I gave him some evidence to support his point of view.
“Things weigh more where I come from,” wrote I, “and in my world a year consists of 265 days.”
This was, of course, in duodecimal notation. The 265 in Porovian notation means (2 × 144) plus (6 × 12) plus 5, which equals 365 in earth notation. Because of the twelve fingers, the Cupians count in twelves, and the Formians have adopted the same system.
My statements about the earth impressed him greatly, and confirmed his belief that
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