An Earthman on Venus (Originally titled "The Radio Man"), Ralph Milne Farley [romance novel chinese novels txt] 📗
- Author: Ralph Milne Farley
Book online «An Earthman on Venus (Originally titled "The Radio Man"), Ralph Milne Farley [romance novel chinese novels txt] 📗». Author Ralph Milne Farley
Then the professors withdrew, after promising to assist in trying to obtain my transfer.
While waiting for the decision of the Council of Twelve, time would have hung heavy on my hands if Doggo had not thoughtfully procured for me a book entitled “Electricity for the Newly Hatched.” Of course I needed no instruction in elementary electricity, nor even in advanced electricity, but I did need an introduction to the technical terms and electrical symbols of the ant language. And this the book gave me.
The council were a long time in deciding, for many important matters were pending, and my petition had to await its regular turn. At last, however, Doggo brought me the joyful news that my transfer to the University of Mooni had been approved, and that he was to be permitted to accompany me.
I saw the beautiful girl only once more before my departure. She came to my courtyard to pick flowers, as she had regularly done before the fatal day of our meeting. But this time she noticed my presence at the window, and hastily left the garden with her head tossed high and a disdainful sneer on her lips.
This made me more determined than ever to make good in my new venture.
The day of departure finally arrived, and Doggo and I prepared to make the trip. I took Tabby, while Doggo took a strange animal of a sort I had never seen before. I had never known that Doggo had a pet, but have since learned that an excess of pets is one of the worst vices of the Formians. In fact, one of their professors who has devoted his life to the subject, reports that the Formians possess some fifteen hundred species of domesticated animals, many of which do not exist at all in a wild state, and most of which have absolutely no practical use.
Doggo’s little beast was a mathlab, closely resembling a rabbit in size and appearance, except that it had antennae instead of ears, and had brick-red fur. These creatures are very docile and affectionate, but breed rapidly, and thus are not so expensive nor so much esteemed as some of the rarer varieties of beetle such as Tabby.
A closely related animal, slightly larger, black in color, and not so tame, is kept for its flesh, and also for its eggs, which are a staple article of Porovian diet. In their wild state both species are preyed upon by a fierce carnivore named the woofus, so that their great fecundity is all that saves them from absolute extinction.
Mooni lies about one hundred stads east of Wautoosa, the city where I had been residing. The journey was made in a kerkool, a two-wheeled automobile, whose balance is maintained by a pair of rapidly rotating gyroscopes, driven by the same motor which propels the vehicle. The fuel, as I later learned, is a synthetic liquid resembling alcohol, and supposed to be extremely poisonous.
There were no seats, for ant-men do not sit down, but a chair for me had thoughtfully been added to the equipment. The chauffeur, or kerko as they call him, wore goggles very much like those used on the earth, and similar pairs were provided for Doggo and me.
The trip was easily and pleasantly made in about one Porovian hour.
The way lay through rolling fields, where grazed herds of green cows guarded by huge spiders; and through fragrant woods, where I saw many strange animals, taken unawares by the swift approach of our kerkool. Many questions were on the tip of my pencil, but conversation was difficult, for the motion of the kerkool jiggled my pad.
At Mooni there was a large crowd of ant-men awaiting our arrival, and mingled with them were many Cupians, the first that I had seen other than the girl at Wautoosa. They were a handsome race, and I began to wonder what chance I could possibly have in competition with them as an aspirant for the hand of one of their women, even if I were to shave, grow wings and antennae, and cut off my ears. Their complexions ranged from pink-and-white to tan; and their hair, sometimes close and sometimes curly, ran through all the colors of human hair.
The ant professor of electricity met us at the city gate, and introduced me to the crowd with a few inaudible remarks, which were received in silence. Then he showed me to my quarters, where I had a chance to wash up, put on a clean toga, and take a much-needed rest.
That evening a dinner was given in my honor at a large banquet hall. At the head table stood the president of the ant university, the committee of four ant-men who had examined me so often, the ant professor of electricity, a visiting Cupian professor, Doggo, and myself. At the other tables stood other and lesser members of the faculty, and students both Cupian and Formian.
I was the cynosure of all eyes, and—so Doggo informed me in writing—the subject of most of the speeches. I had to take his word for it that there were speeches; for, so far as I could tell, not a word was said. I could not even watch the speaker rise and give his talk, for all were already standing.
Altogether it was a very dull occasion for me, in spite of my being the lion of the evening. Besides, I was eager to be done with the preliminaries, and get busy with my real work.
The food was plenteous and varied. Among the dishes which I remember were a highly seasoned stew of the red lobster-like parasite which afflicts the aphids, minced wild mathlab with mathlab egg sauce, and something resembling mushrooms, only not so rich.
Several of the Cupian maidens in the audience made eyes at me. Not that they thought me prepossessing with my big black beard, but rather in much the same spirit that would induce an earth maiden to flirt with a gorilla in a cage, just to see what effect it would have on the beast. It had absolutely no effect on me, for the picture of the girl at Wautoosa was ever present in my mind.
So I was glad when the banquet was over and I could go to my room, and my bed, and pleasant dreams in which a Cupian damsel and I walked hand in hand through a roseate future.
No guard was placed over me at Mooni, but Doggo shared my room.
The next morning I was inducted into the laboratory. The critical point of my career had arrived. Was I to succeed and become a nine days’ wonder and perhaps distinguish myself sufficiently to find favor in the eyes of the beautiful girl at Wautoosa, or was I to fail and return discredited? Heaven only knew; but time would tell.
The ant superintendent of the laboratory assigned me a bench, a kit of tools, and two Cupian slaves as assistants. He was most deferential and did all that he could to help me, but my handicaps were many. I was not versed in their electrical machinery. I was unaccustomed to their tools, which looked for all the world as though they had been copied from the monstrosities which appear weekly in the Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office. All my conversations with either superiors or subordinates had to be carried on in writing, in a strange language, which I had only just recently and just barely mastered.
But, worst of all, most of my time had to be devoted to appearing before classes as a horrible example of what nature can do in an off moment, to being examined both physically and in writing by committees of scientists, to entertainments staged in my honor, and sight-seeing about the city.
My hosts were determined to do everything in their power to make me enjoy my visit; when if they had but known it, my only desire was to devote myself to my self-appointed task, so that I could speedily return to Wautoosa, which held all that was dear to me on this planet.
From time to time I would inquire about her of Doggo, and he would assure me that she was due to stay indefinitely at Wautoosa, and would certainly be there upon my return.
In spite of vexatious interruptions, my work gradually progressed. I found that although all electric current on Poros is derived from dynamos of a multisolenoidal oscillating type, and although batteries are unknown, yet the Porovians do possess efficient storage batteries, in which a very large amount of current can be stored in a very small space. These I used for my A batteries.
For my B and C batteries I constructed dry cells, to the amazement of my associates, who could not figure out where the current came from. Even though my main experiment failed, this feat of plucking electricity out of nowhere, as it were, would make my fame secure on Poros.
The sight-seeing trips included the various factories, each under the control of the appropriate university department. For the Formians are well skilled in all the arts, although the fine work has to be done by Cupian slaves, whose fingers are more efficient than the claws of the ant-men. Only practical arts are employed in Formia, although the Cupians go in for painting, sculpture, architecture, et cetera.
I slung the three batteries on a belt about my waist. This belt also carried a tube and my tuning apparatus, of a particularly selective type which I had designed on earth, and for which I now have a United States patent pending, unless my patent attorneys have abandoned it through want of word from me.
I now adapted this design to an unusually short wave length, in order to comply with what I remembered to be the speculations of earth scientists on the method of insect communication. My tubes were of the Indestructo type invented by me on earth, or they never could have withstood my subsequent adventures.
From a skull cap I suspended two earphones and a microphone, and on top of the cap I mounted a small pancake coil. The microphone gave me more trouble than any other part of the set, as carbon of the exact sort required seemed hard to get on Poros. But finally, after testing several hundred other materials, I hit upon a very common light silvery metal which did just as well. This metal I am unable to identify, but I think that it is one of the platinum group, more probably osmium.
I spent four months of earth time in the laboratories of Mooni, growing more and more homesick for Wautoosa. If it had not been for the consoling assurances of the faithful Doggo, I do not believe that I could have stood it, so many were the interruptions to my work.
Of all the diversions offered me, only one interested me at all, and that was the Zoo, or gr-ool—i.e., animal place—as they termed it. And the most amusing part of the gr-ool was the monkey house. Of course there are no monkeys on Poros, but I refer to this place as a monkey house, because that is what it would correspond to on earth.
Here were kept specimens of all the wild species of ant known on the planet. Except in size and color, I could discover no features which would distinguish any of them from the ant-men.
One day, seeing my interest, Doggo wrote down for me:
“Some of the species are very intelligent, so much so that they were formerly bred in large quantities for slaves, before the treaty of Mooni supplied Formia with a superior substitute.”
“Did it ever occur to anyone,” I asked, “that these creatures might be either immature or degenerate Formians?”
He was horrified.
“These wild ants,” he explained, “are the basis of one of the great intellectual disputes of this planet—namely, as to whether or not we are merely a superior species of ants, or whether we are an entirely distinct type of being, specially created, and not a part of the animal kingdom at all.
“Most of the university men hold that we are related to these brutes, and this is likewise the more modern view. But fortunately there is an influential body of opinion, high in the politics of this country, which considers that such a view is too degrading to admit of acceptance. And accordingly the Council of Twelve is even now seriously considering a law intended to prohibit the teaching of this dangerous doctrine.”
“How about the Cupians?” I asked. “Have they any such evolutionary problem?”
“No,” he wrote, “fortunately for them, they have no problem of evolution, for they are the only non-egg-laying creatures on Poros, and so do not regard themselves even as mammals.”
Whereat I wondered to myself whether it was not probable that it was this distinctiveness of the Cupians which had inspired the jealous Formians to deny their own obvious kinship to the ants.
In addition to the gr-ool I frequently visited the stuffed specimens in
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