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Mr. Zytztz Goes to Mars · Mr. Zytztz Goes to Mars

• 0:00
  Chapter one, Men Without Standing. Commander Pickens stared at Cadet Heli across his
• 0:07
  desk. His face was smiling, but his eyes were like blue ice.
• 0:13
  We are a legion of the condemned, the commander said. Cadet Heeli answered,
• 0:19
  yes, sir, Pickins leaned forward. The Rocket Service is a dumping
• 0:24
  ground for men who get taken off active duty. There are no criminals or
• 0:28
  no goods that kind never have gotten into the Air Marines. But these are
• 0:33
  men who, for one reason or another, have hit bad luck. It
• 0:38
  isn't their fault, but the tradition of the International Air Marines is that no
• 0:42
  officer ever loses a ship except by enemy action. Yes, sir, he's
• 0:48
  bumped back to his cadet rating, which is no rating at all. He's
• 0:53
  not an officer and he's not an enlisted man. He can never win a
• 0:57
  commission again as long as he lives. Calling him a cadet is just a
• 1:02
  way of labeling him a failure. You know that, don't you, Yes,
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  sir, they are miscarriages like me. Pickens's blue eyes had lights in
• 1:11
  their depths. Now he was a man of a little under average height,
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  middle aged, solidly built, smooth faced and half bald. We come out
• 1:22
  here to work it out secretly. Every one of us hopes that he will
• 1:26
  break the iron bound tradition. We don't generally admit it, and we know
• 1:30
  that nobody ever has broken it. We have our lives to lose in the
• 1:34
  rocket service and nothing to gain, not even our former ranks. So long
• 1:40
  as we live, we'll officially be branded Cadets and will get cadet pay.
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  The rules say that no man needs more than one chance. You see,
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  don't you, Cadet Heely, that there is no use even hoping, yes,
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  sir, that there's no use risking our lives trying to fly to the
• 2:00
  moon and back. Pickens insisted, yes, sir, Commander. Pickens leaned
• 2:06
  forward. Now his eyes were intense. Then you understand this from the start,
• 2:14
  Cadet, heey, we're going to Mars. Healy opened his eyes and
• 2:20
  looked straight at Pickens for the first time. You almost make me feel that
• 2:25
  we are going to Mars, he said slowly. There are two hundred of
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  us out here who have that one idea. Healey was awed a little at
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  the intensity of the commander. Things were turning out as Healey had expected.
• 2:42
  When the gyro Pickup had met him in warm Sutter and flown him across the
• 2:46
  desert northwest of Rawlins. He had thought vaguely that the rocket base would be
• 2:51
  a bunch of zombies, but now as he looked at Commander Pickens, he
• 2:55
  was impressed with the feeling that they were very much alive, and more than
• 3:00
  that that perhaps he himself was alive once more. Pickens had been telling him
• 3:06
  there wasn't a chance to break through the two hundred year old regulations of the
• 3:08
  Air Marines, but now in spite of that, Healey began to wonder how
• 3:14
  the Marines could ignore the men who should make the first flight to Mars.
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  We make our own ranks out here, Pickens said. They're unofficial, of
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  course, But since you were in the top ten of the class of twenty
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  one seventeen, I am promoting you to junior lieutenant. Thank you, sir.
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  Now, then Pickens picked up a heavy file folder. You are a
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  Heey. For five straight generations, the Heeyes have furnished admirals in the International
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  Air Marines, and you expected to be the sixth. He did not wait
• 3:49
  for an answer, but you picked an unfortunate subject for your thesis. And
• 3:53
  so you were graduated as a cadet only. Yes, sir, Pickens looked
• 4:00
  at him keenly. I suppose your father couldn't even attend the exercises. Regulations
• 4:06
  would prohibit an admiral shaking hands with a graduated candet. That is right,
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  Sir Pickens looked at him steadily. Then his voice went soft. We are
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  going to Mars, lieutenant, and we'll see if the air Marines can ignore
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  that. The brass hats think they buried us out here. Twenty two ships
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  have left this base in the hundred and fifty years since it was established in
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  nineteen sixty. None has ever come back and landed safely. They've crashed,
• 4:36
  blown up, or disappeared in the void. No men on any one of
• 4:41
  the twenty two has lived to return to Earth. But we are going to
• 4:46
  Mars. There was defiance in his voice and deadly determination in his blue eyes.
• 4:54
  Heally straightened his eyes opened a little. Yes, sir, I'm in
• 4:59
  favor of that. Sir. Now, then said Pickens, I'm interested in
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  this paper that got you in bad at school. Healy began to look alert.
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  Yes, sir, it was about Atlantis and the Muria. I know
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  anything but original. You reviewed some evidence that has been common property for thousands
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  of years, tending to show that some heavy, runaway body passed close to
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  the Earth around the year nine thousand BC and caused upheavals which left both Atlantis
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  and the Muria at the bottoms of their respective oceans. Yes, sir,
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  for the first time a lightness of tone came into heey's voice. But when
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  the paper reached Senator Rominus P. Philippuster, Chairman of the Military Affairs Committee,
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  there was even a greater upheaval. Pickens chuckled. I can well imagine
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  he looked off into space. Old Senator Stevens was quite a patron of research.
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  He sponsored the government submarine expedition to Atlantis, and I guess he put
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  a good deal of his personal fortune into it. But along came a Philipuster.
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  Young and ambitious, Stevens was known as a hard nut to crack,
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  but Philipster picked the most likely weak spot and conducted an economy campaign. He
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  ridiculed Stephens for spending money on a world of fantasy, and one night,
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  in a speech, made the remark that there was not an Atlantis and never
• 6:30
  had been one, and anybody who doubted that could go look for themselves.
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  He was probably just trying to be funny, but it caught on. Philipuster
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  became known as the man who proved Atlantis was a myth, and he was
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  elected. He probably wished sometimes he hadn't made that crack, but he couldn't
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  back down because the party wouldn't let him. Then you came along and threw
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  it in his face. The party leaders were indignant and demanded that Philipuster do
• 7:00
  something. So you were chosen for the sacrifice. Is that about it?
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  It seems that way, sir, Heally said morosely. Pickens's face was grim
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  when he uttered the next words. A man should always be careful what he
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  says, even in the heat of argument, because there always is a chance
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  that somebody will believe him. He looked keenly at Healey. The worst of
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  it is, any of us may do the same thing as Philip Uster when
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  he least expects it. Not, I, sir, said Healey, earnestly.
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  I've learned my lesson. I'll never make an idle remark that might hurt
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  somebody else. Well, let's hope so. By the way, your paper
• 7:46
  offered considerable proof that the Lemurians so called possessed the secret of counteracting gravity.
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  Yes, sir, Pickens eyed him. If we had that secret here,
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  Lieutenant, what a time saver it would be. Heey's eyes began to glow.
• 8:05
  You're right, sir, I hadn't really connected it up. Rocket travel
• 8:09
  would be a cinch, wouldn't it. We'd go to Mars fast. Pickens
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  nodded. I wondered just why Philipuster had you sent here? He said?
• 8:22
  Is he deliberately putting you in a place where you can fight back? Heally
• 8:26
  looked at Pickens. The older man was not bitter or cynical as he might
• 8:31
  have been. He was fighting back. Yes, he was a rebel with
• 8:35
  bared teeth, but he wasn't fighting Philippuster or even the big brass in the
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  Air Marines. His fight was with the hide bound customs of the Marines.
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  Healey, too, began to see, beyond any doubt that the only hope
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  of beating down the two hundred year old tradition was to do something extraordinary,
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  something constructive, and something which the whole world would talk about and would respect.
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  Yes, sir, he said, and his voice for the first time
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  was vibrant with hope, perhaps he is, when do we start from Mars,
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  Sir? But there followed three years of hard work before they could get
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  started. Commander Pickens knew his business. He was thorough, and he was
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  a driver and a leader. Young Lieutenant Healey found that out very soon,
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  and he also discovered that every man on the base was fighting for the right
• 9:31
  to go up with Pickens and the ship. The World Council allotted them plenty
• 9:35
  of money in the interest of research. Pickens hired cowboys from the ranches,
• 9:41
  miners from the mountains, and farmers from the dry land of Wyoming to do
• 9:45
  the manual labor while they the two hundred former officers and Healey, who never
• 9:50
  had been an officer, worked day and night and in between times. They
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  got the ship ready. It was a big one, close to eight hundred
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  feet long, and they had built it in an enormous launching rack out in
• 10:03
  the middle of the desert, where it wouldn't hurt anybody if it exploded.
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  Atomic power had not been adapted for air travel. Propulsion was from the conventional
• 10:13
  rocket type engines, but with improved nozzles and new nitrogen based fuel that had
• 10:18
  more wallop than nitroglycerin ever produced. Threaded through all their work, Heey saw
• 10:26
  was the secret hope of each man that if they were successful, they would
• 10:30
  break down the steel bound tradition of the air Marines. Perhaps others beside Heey
• 10:35
  had fathers in the service, Heeley didn't know. None of them ever talked
• 10:39
  about it. They only worked as for the ship. They knew they could
• 10:46
  get off the ground, and they knew they could pass critical speed. It
• 10:50
  was getting back to Earth alive that was the problem. End of chapter one,
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  Chapter two, Venture into Space. It was not until twenty one twenty
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  that they loaded material for the take off. The two hundred former officers of
• 11:09
  the finest military organization on Earth climbed up the ladder. Heally was with Pickens
• 11:13
  in the control room. He heard the commander give the order to seal the
• 11:18
  hatches, and then he realized that the depressed feeling he had was due to
• 11:22
  the fact that there had been no word from his father, not even good
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  wishes. He hadn't heard from the admiral since graduation day, and it hurt.
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  Of course, the old gentleman was saving trouble for both of them by
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  forgetting their relationship, but it hurt, and the lieutenant knew that it probably
• 11:41
  hurt the Admiral a lot more than it did him. They got into the
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  air, but that wasn't anything unusual, remember, Pickens said grimly to Healy.
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  Where the seventeen to get safely off the ground. All this fire and
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  thunder is just as dangerous as it looks, Yes, sir, said hely.
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  But in his heart was a song, a virile song of spaceways and
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  man and the stars, such a song as a new men would sing for
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  a billion years. They had christened her Phoebus, the Sun God, and
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  she lived up to her name. Within eight hours they were spotting a landing
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  place on the Moon. In another hour they were sitting down. The Phoebus
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  handled like a dream. She snuggled down on the bare volcanic rock, and
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  Commander Pickens calmly wrote a message for the radio officer to transmit to Earth.
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  Phoebus reached port according to orders, all hands safe, and he added two
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  words that were grimly remindful of the fate of former ships. Ship intact.
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  Yes, Pickens looked calm enough, thought Healy, Except for his eyes.
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  The rest of his face was bland, unemotional, but the eyes had a
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  fierce, eager fire in their blue depths, Lieutenant, he said, and
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  he could not keep the jubilance out of his voice. We are here,
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  then, he said, proudly, Lieutenant, you will take a party of
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  six men and plant the World Council flag. With nervous fingers, heally fastened
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  up his bulky pressure suit, led his men into the airlock, marched up
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  an outcropping of granite, with the feel of the moon substance under his feet,
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  put the flag pole into a crack and wedged it there with loose rocks.
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  While the honor guards stood at attention, He stepped back and saluted the
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  flag. Then they went to the phoebus. The entire ship's company stood at
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  attention when Hey marched in from the airlock, and he could read on every
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  face the thrill of knowing that they were a non terrestrial soil. In a
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  lot of faces, too, mostly those of the younger men, he saw
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  the hope that had been with them all from the start, that this was
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  it, that the Air Marine couldn't ignore them any longer. Two hours later,
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  Heally took out the rock at Gyro Runabout and investigated the three wrecks of
• 14:09
  previous flights. The bodies had mummified from the lack of air and moisture.
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  They gathered the ship's logs from two of the wrecks. The other ship had
• 14:18
  exploded and burned, or rather it had fused. It was one solid mass
• 14:22
  of metal, like ice cream melted down in the sun. They took out
• 14:28
  all the bodies they could recover for burial back on Earth. They left a
• 14:33
  cache of supplies for future travelers. They gathered information. They painted an enormous
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  aluminum cross on the rock that the one hundred inch scopes back on Earth could
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  see, so that even the most skeptical of their critics back home would be
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  unable to deny that pick and ship had landed. At the very last,
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  Heally painted a small face making a long nose that he said judiciously ought to
• 15:00
  give the scientists at the four hundred inch bowl on Acanagua something to think about.
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  All the while, Commander Pickens sat inside the phoebus with a grim look
• 15:09
  on his face and a far away light in his blue eyes. They made
• 15:13
  ready to take off, and Healy said, sir, aren't you going to
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  put foot on the moon? Pickens turned to him with a look almost to
• 15:22
  fanaticism. The Moon is small stuff. I don't step out of the ship
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  on another planet until we get to Mars. They took off. It was
• 15:33
  a little rough getting into the air. The phoebus stern dragged a little on
• 15:37
  the upthrust and opened a few seams against the ridge where the flag was planted.
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  But the flag wasn't disturbed, and they welded up the cracks on the
• 15:45
  way back behind closed bulkheads. Eight hours after takeoff, they were settling down
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  again over the Wyoming desert. Again. They landed safely, and this time
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  the whole world was there to meet them. The whole world, that is,
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  except the International Air Marines. If there was an officer of the Marines
• 16:06
  present, he must have been masquerading as a sage brush. But there were
• 16:10
  three hundred thousand insane civilians out on the desert and almost that many reporters,
• 16:15
  and to reporters who hadn't had a real news story since the atomic bomb back
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  in nineteen forty five. This was a video scanner's dream. Well, they
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  had gone to the Moon, and they had come back. They were summoned
• 16:29
  by the President, they got medals, Congress voted them the pay of their
• 16:33
  inactive statuses and raised everybody's rank. They got everything except what they most wanted.
• 16:41
  Apparently the big brass in the Air Marines didn't watch the video reports.
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  Lieutenant Healy and the rest of the two hundred were disappointed and discouraged. All
• 16:51
  but commander now Captain Pickens. No, he said, I didn't think a
• 16:57
  little trip to the moon would change anything, but wait till we come back
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  from Mars. Heally looked thoughtfully at the captain for the first time, he
• 17:07
  realized that Pickens too had his heart set on reinstatement. But Pickens was more
• 17:12
  practical than the rest of them. He had been a captain in the Air
• 17:17
  Marines. He knew how tough they were to crack. They went back to
• 17:22
  work. Captain Pickens paid no attention to anything but the phoebus. The gleam
• 17:26
  would come in his blue eyes and his jaws would clench, and he would
• 17:30
  say, we are going to Mars, and everybody knew they were. They
• 17:36
  made several trips to the Moon in the next two years, acquiring information and
• 17:41
  experience and dexterity in handling the phoebus. They received an assignment of five hundred
• 17:47
  sailor technicians through the Bureau of Meteorology to help build a bigger ship, and
• 17:51
  the keel was laid, but Captain Pickens couldn't wait for the bigger ship.
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  In twenty one, twenty two, they took off for Mars. Pickens had
• 18:00
  called to Heely the night before. You're a marine in every sense of the
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  word. Hey, I'm making you lieutenant commander. You will continue to be
• 18:10
  my adjutant. Thank you, sir. I've put it on the video so
• 18:15
  your father will see it, Pickens said, suddenly, soft voiced. I
• 18:21
  know he'd like to know heey was startled. Did you know him, Sir,
• 18:26
  Pickens's jawl clenched. I skippered a cruiser under your dad. He's a
• 18:32
  million percent. He fought for me all the way through, and he used
• 18:37
  to dream of the time when you would have a ship of your own.
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  Commander, Yes, sir, hey whispered. It was hard to talk past
• 18:45
  the lump in his throat. It was a smooth trip, almost monotonous.
• 18:52
  Nine days later they brought the phoebus down on the red Alkali of Mars.
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  It was afternoon and the sun was overhead, clear and distinct, but its
• 19:00
  light was pretty feeble. Heey was trembling with excitement, but trembling inwardly.
• 19:07
  He kept his face calm as he looked around him, and he knew that
• 19:11
  every man of the two hundred, even though they were hardened spacemen by now
• 19:15
  felt just as he did. The officers on the bridge looked at Pickens.
• 19:19
  The captain took a deep breath and said to Heley, Commander, the lock
• 19:25
  will not be opened until morning. The chemists and biologists and so on must
• 19:30
  have time for their tests. This isn't the moon, you know. He
• 19:34
  looked piercingly at Heey. Heey nodded, no, sir, it isn't.
• 19:41
  That last line of Pickens expressed the feelings of all Healy knew, although nobody
• 19:47
  commented the moon seemed like small time stuff. Now the Moon was really a
• 19:52
  part of Earth, but Mars Mars was a real planet in its own right,
• 19:57
  not a satellite of Earth. Now they were really interplanetary travelers, and
• 20:03
  it was a little frightening. There were issues of rum that night, a
• 20:08
  hangover from the old British Navy, and each officer on the captain's staff killed
• 20:12
  a pint of the best Scotch, and nobody slept. Everybody pretended to have
• 20:18
  too much to do. By daylight, every man who could get near a
• 20:22
  quartz porthole was trying to see outside. And the old man they had assumed
• 20:27
  the prerogative of referring to Pickens behind his back with that respectful term of disrespect.
• 20:33
  The old man was staring at the ground glass screen of his video commander.
• 20:40
  He said to Hely, what do you make of this? Heely stared
• 20:45
  and frowned. Yesterday there had been nothing but red Alkali. This morning,
• 20:52
  the big ship was surrounded by hundreds of what looked like giant sentry plants.
• 20:56
  They were as tall as a man, and their leaves were waving ceaselessly.
• 21:03
  I don't know, sir, Healey said in a moment, but it doesn't
• 21:07
  look any too dangerous. After some discussion in a staff meeting, Pickens ordered
• 21:12
  the airlock opened and Heally was set out with a landing party in pressure suits
• 21:17
  to set up the first World Council flag on a strange planet. When they
• 21:22
  got outside, they were completely ringed in by sentry plants. Heely was too
• 21:26
  scared to be thrilled. He didn't see how the sentry. Plants could harm
• 21:30
  him unless they were poisonous. But this was a strange land, a different
• 21:36
  world, and it didn't resemble the moon at all. But Healy didn't want
• 21:41
  to let the men see he was scared. He said business like. We'll
• 21:45
  find an opening here and go through these plants and set up the flag up
• 21:48
  far enough away so it won't be scorched by the rocket blast. They approached
• 21:55
  the wall of plants warily. Some of them were taller than he y.
• 21:59
  He looked for a break in their ranks. It would simplify things if they
• 22:03
  would move, he thought, and at that moment a path formed unexpectedly before
• 22:10
  him. The plants moved back on each side and left a path for them.
• 22:18
  End of Chapter two, Chapter three, moving plants gingerly, the party
• 22:25
  went out a couple of hundred yards, with Heeley walking confidently so the men
• 22:30
  wouldn't guess how he felt. After all, he was only twenty six,
• 22:33
  and he wore commander stripes, even if they were unofficial. A seaman with
• 22:38
  a sledge drove an iron stake into the hard dirt. They raised the flag
• 22:42
  and presented arms. Then they marched immediately back to the phoebus as before,
• 22:48
  the plants opened a path for them. Heeley drew a deep breath of relief,
• 22:52
  but he felt uneasy and stayed on the ground until the other men were
• 22:56
  inside. He was ten feet from the Jacob's ladder and just ready to follow
• 23:02
  the men inside when he heard a soft shuffling and looked around to see the
• 23:06
  plants crowding in on him. It was eerie. The long leaves waved and
• 23:11
  danced, and a noise came from all of them that sounded like the wind
• 23:15
  sighing through the pine trees. Commander Heathy was terrified. He took a step
• 23:22
  backward, and one giant of a plant, nine feet tall, slithered over
• 23:26
  the alkali and came to a stop in front of him, between him and
• 23:30
  the ladder. Its leaves were gesticulating, and that odd rustling noise came from
• 23:34
  it in a broken stream, with brakes and pauses and variations that made it
• 23:40
  seem almost like a person talking. Healy had a sudden nightmare vision of being
• 23:45
  captured by creatures that were not even of the earth. He ducked under a
• 23:49
  waving leaf and ran for the ladder. He shot up it and snatched it
• 23:53
  up after him. And slammed the hatch. Five minutes later, still trembling,
• 24:00
  he reported to the staff he was quite aware that for a moment he
• 24:04
  had lost his head. He had run, and he wondered what the old
• 24:10
  man thought now that he faced the captain. He thought it would have been
• 24:15
  better to be a captive of Mars than to have the old man think he
• 24:18
  was a coward. But Pickins merely looked at him casually. Quite a sensation,
• 24:26
  isn't it, Commander, being on a strange planet, he observed.
• 24:30
  Healy breathed easier and began to get control of himself. Now that the old
• 24:36
  man had forgiven him, he was able to compose himself. The old man
• 24:40
  was the first to cross examine him. Then the ship's biologist took over.
• 24:45
  The biologist asked questions about the plants. I am trying to decide whether they
• 24:51
  should be classified as human, he explained to the old man. They're unquestionably
• 24:56
  mobile and probably sentient. Somehow, the word human struck heey wrong. He
• 25:03
  was a commander in the Rocket Service, and could he let it be said
• 25:07
  that he had run from anything human? He spoke up fast. They couldn't
• 25:12
  be human, he said, They haven't got eyes. The old man stared
• 25:18
  at heely. Probably the biologist had his own definition of human, but he
• 25:23
  didn't get a chance to say anything. This was a brand new experience for
• 25:29
  earth people, and since there was no precedent, the old man made his
• 25:33
  own president right on the spot. I think the commander is right, he
• 25:38
  said slowly. I don't think a creature would be human unless it had eyes.
• 25:45
  And there it stuck. They didn't have eyes, so they weren't human.
• 25:52
  During the next two weeks, the phoebus set out exploring parties. The
• 25:56
  geologist located some promising deposits of plutonium, but there was no sign of life
• 26:00
  anywhere except the sentry plants, who were at once labeled Martians. Captain Pickens
• 26:07
  himself finally left the phoebus to feel the earth of another planet. He tried
• 26:12
  to pick up a handful, but it was caked and hard. The entire
• 26:17
  crew was under strict orders from the World Council to cause no harm to any
• 26:21
  living creature, and especially not to bring back any specimens of living creatures or
• 26:26
  plants. Any man who would have tried to touch one of the Martians would
• 26:30
  have been court martialed. A young Ensign Marvin Brown complained to Heally that they
• 26:37
  were in port and the old man wouldn't even let him get a telephone number.
• 26:41
  Never mind, said Heally, It's a big universe. The Martians always
• 26:48
  crowded up and tried to get into the ship when the lock was opened.
• 26:52
  The tallest one, the one that had frightened Heaey the first morning, was
• 26:56
  especially persistent, and that annoyed Heey. The tall sentry plant shuffled about the
• 27:02
  ship all day long. The earth men couldn't find out where he went.
• 27:04
  At night, but they disappeared, making that odd rustling noise, until finally
• 27:11
  ensoon Brown called him mister Zitzitz, and from then on his name was Zitzitz.
• 27:18
  To keep from frying the Martians in the rocket blast, the phoebus left
• 27:22
  one night at midnight while the Martians were out in the desert. Mister Zitzitz
• 27:27
  will be lonesome when he comes back in the morning and finds us gone,
• 27:32
  the old man said thoughtfully over a sky chart. The comment struck Healey as
• 27:37
  wrong. He wondered if he were getting touchy. He can't be lonesome,
• 27:41
  sir, He hasn't got eyes. What has that got to do? With
• 27:47
  it. That annoyed Healey still more. The old man had upheld his definition
• 27:52
  the first day. If he hasn't got eyes, he can't be human,
• 27:57
  and if he isn't human, he can't be lonesome, heally said defiantly.
• 28:03
  The old man looked at him and said, hum. It took them eleven
• 28:08
  days to make the trip back, but they were busy every minute. They
• 28:14
  had made exhaustive notes and had taken thousands of pictures with X ray, infrared,
• 28:18
  gamma blue, beta yellow, and with every known filter and device,
• 28:22
  and several hundred reels of microfilm. They had air samples, tons of geological
• 28:27
  specimens, core drillings, temperature records, humidity readings, radiation records, and
• 28:33
  cosmic ray counts. The biologist had accumulated an astonishing massive data for a man
• 28:40
  who had not been allowed to touch the subject, and he and the botanist
• 28:44
  section were busy together. The WC radio that they had prepared a base for
• 28:49
  the phoebus at Havana because table Rock was too far out in the wilderness.
• 28:55
  They estimated that millions of people would be wherever the phoebus might land, and
• 28:59
  to avoid a major disaster, they had to keep the crowds in a populated
• 29:03
  center where they could be handled. When the Phoebus reached Earth, the reception
• 29:07
  was tremendous. The ship landed at the new spaceport that had been made over
• 29:12
  from an old trans Atlantic airfield near the world capital, and the video said
• 29:18
  that fifteen million persons were in the streets when the men of the Phoebus marched
• 29:22
  to the Assembly hall. But of the fifteen million, not one was an
• 29:26
  officer of the International Air Marines. It was something of a blow to healing
• 29:32
  to realize that the Air Marines were still ignoring them. Captain Pickens noticed it
• 29:37
  too, and the old gleam came in his eye that meant we aren't licked
• 29:41
  yet. We'll go to Andromeda and back if we have to. He formally
• 29:47
  presented his report, which included all the written material and physical evidence from Mars
• 29:52
  twelve thousand pounds of reports and photographs alone. Thirty two scientists and their staffs
• 29:59
  had done a lot speculating. Then the Council President informed them that every man
• 30:04
  on the Phoebus had been raised two grades. Unofficially, of course, he
• 30:07
  hastened to add, but they had also in view of facing unknown dangers,
• 30:12
  et cetera, et cetera, been granted a lifetime allowance of full pay at
• 30:17
  the rate of their new respective ranks, without regard to any subsequent circumstances.
• 30:23
  They've been mighty swell, Admiral Pickens said, when he and Captain Healey went
• 30:27
  to their suite in the International Hotel. Yes, Sir, Heally was glum.
• 30:33
  Pickens glanced at him. But the truth is, Captain, there isn't
• 30:38
  a man of the entire crew. They wouldn't give it all back for a
• 30:41
  welcome home from the one place on Earth where they didn't get it. It's
• 30:48
  hard for me to understand, Healey said, and a little bitterness crept into
• 30:52
  his voice before he could stop it. Why can't they loosen up? Pickens
• 30:57
  nodded, there was a hard glitter in his eyes. Is getting a little
• 31:03
  hard even for me to swallow, the old man said, I guess there's
• 31:07
  nobody funnier than people unless it zits. It's is. Heally felt a retort
• 31:14
  on the tip of his tongue, but he suppressed it. Sometimes, he
• 31:18
  said, for two cents, I'd throw it all over and organize my own
• 31:22
  air service. You'd better raise your price. The old man said wisely,
• 31:29
  because in spite of its stuffiness, and its rigid discipline, and its unbending
• 31:33
  traditions, I suppose one might, in honesty say, possibly because of those
• 31:38
  things, the International Air Marines is still the most glorious and the most exclusive
• 31:44
  military organization ever on Earth. You should know you would have been the sixth
• 31:49
  Admiral heey. The old man studied him for a moment. You're still hoping,
• 31:56
  he said, so do we all. But it's getting slimmer every time
• 32:00
  we cross an orbit. I'm beginning to understand now what I should have seen
• 32:05
  long ago. The Air Marines won't risk giving approval for a flash in the
• 32:09
  pan. Maybe if we stick at it all our lives. He didn't finish.
• 32:17
  The next night, Captain Healey was having a relaxing drink in the patio
• 32:22
  Minus's braid. Because the pariahs of the Marines did not wear their stripes in
• 32:25
  public, a very large man came by and dropped into the seat across the
• 32:30
  table. Well, he said, between hicks, one or what the Air
• 32:37
  Marines think now that the poor cadets have swiped their glory pariahs of the spaceways.
• 32:44
  That's a good one. Parias of the spaceways make air Marines look shick.
• 32:50
  Captain Healy rose to his feet and stood solidly in his blue green uniform
• 32:53
  minus stripes, minus decorations, minus everything but the solid gold buttons of the
• 33:00
  Air Marines. Sir, you are drunk, he said. You don't know
• 33:05
  what you're saying. The big Man got to his feet and he was ahead,
• 33:09
  taller than Healley and twice as broad. Astonishingly enough, he didn't wobble
• 33:15
  when he stood. Look, mister, he put a massive forefinger on Heley's
• 33:21
  chest, and if Heally hadn't been braced, he would have been pushed over.
• 33:25
  You've been handed a dirty deal by the Air Marines, and I,
• 33:29
  for one am glad you showed him up the dirty he did not finish.
• 33:36
  Healey stepped back, calculated the range and the resistance, and let the big
• 33:39
  Man have one on the button. It was a very solid punch, so
• 33:44
  solid, in fact, that the Big Man relaxed at full length on the
• 33:47
  floor. He insulted the Marines, Healy said, ruefully when Pickens bailed him
• 33:54
  out that evening. Can't they understand We're not sore at the Marines. We're
• 34:00
  trying to get back in the Marines Pickens's side. People probably lack understanding more
• 34:07
  than anybody, he said, end of Chapter three, Chapter four, Mister
• 34:16
  Zitzitz comes aboard. A week later, the World Council organized an Interplanetary Bureau,
• 34:23
  and one of its subdivisions was the Classification Section. The old Man was
• 34:29
  asked for a recommendation for membership in that section, and he recommended Healey.
• 34:34
  It's mostly an honor more than anything else. But at the first meeting Healey
• 34:39
  was elected chairman, and then he suddenly discovered that the Classification Section had the
• 34:45
  task of determining whether non terrestrial beings were anthropomorphic or in other words, human.
• 34:52
  They had Healey on the spot. He couldn't back down, so he
• 34:55
  suggested that no being should be called human unless it had AYE, and that
• 35:00
  rule passed unanimously. Next day he read that the Ethics section, to forestall
• 35:07
  trouble, had passed a rule that no non terrestrial creature of any sort might
• 35:12
  be made the subject of a post mortem examination for the next fifty years.
• 35:17
  Apparently, the entire population of the Earth was extremely conscious of the danger of
• 35:22
  offending unknown creatures that pressure was brought everywhere to provide a setup of laws that
• 35:28
  would absolutely preclude injury or offense to the Martians or any other inhabitant of a
• 35:34
  non terrestrial planet. Senator Philippuster announced that he had received four tons of telegrams
• 35:39
  on the subject, which, after being duly counted, were carefully burned.
• 35:45
  I shall support protection for all non Earth creatures, he announced, at least
• 35:51
  until we learn more of their background. In other words, Healey commented,
• 35:57
  until he knows just how far he can safely go. Oh. The World
• 36:01
  Council then commissioned the Phoebus to bring back three Martians on the next trip,
• 36:06
  provided they were entirely willing to come. The sentry plants were waiting for them
• 36:12
  the morning after the phoebus landed. The biologists and his staff spent two weeks
• 36:16
  investigating their lives, but they did not find out much. Squads were detailed
• 36:22
  to watch them. They followed the Martians at night when the sentry plants went
• 36:27
  off into the desert, but the plants didn't go anywhere. In particular,
• 36:31
  they went out into the desert and curled up, like honest to goodness sentry
• 36:36
  plants into little balls as protection against the cold. Apparently, but apparently they
• 36:40
  did not sleep. The squads could not get any closer to them than they
• 36:45
  could during the day without the plant's leave starting to wave, and that peculiar
• 36:50
  rustling noise arising from somewhere in them. At the end of the two weeks,
• 36:55
  he concluded they were harmless, and that was about all. No earth
• 37:00
  man ever saw a Martian eat, or sleep or open its eyes. Finally,
• 37:06
  the biologist and the botanists got together and decided to surround them with everything
• 37:09
  the foebus had to offer in the way of artificial food, which was considerable.
• 37:15
  They even had artificial puffed wheat for breakfast. Then the old man said
• 37:20
  to Heley, get us three of them. Healey went outside in his pressure
• 37:24
  suit. It was just before sundown, and mister Zitzitts and his fellows were
• 37:30
  all there in their eternal ranks about the ship, as if they were waiting
• 37:35
  for something. Healey thought, almost as if they had been waiting for a
• 37:38
  long time, as if they knew they would get what they were waiting for
• 37:43
  by the power of sheer patience, patience that might stretch into thousands of years.
• 37:51
  Captain Healey stood there in front of mister Zitzets for a moment and mister
• 37:54
  Zitzetz began to move and to whisper, almost as if he knew they wanted
• 37:59
  him, and he was eager to go. Healey started up the Jacob's ladder.
• 38:05
  Mister Zitzitz, as always, plodded toward the ladder, but this time
• 38:09
  Healey waited. When he reached the outer part of the airlock, mister Zitzitz's
• 38:14
  nine feet of waving leaves reached the ladder. Mister Zitzitz did not hesitate.
• 38:20
  He started up, and Healey could have sworn there was eagerness in the way
• 38:23
  the leaves wrapped their ends around the rungs of the ladder. By that time,
• 38:29
  the whole desert full of Zitzitzes was weaving toward the ladder. Heathy was
• 38:34
  a little scared, but this time he knew what he was going to do.
• 38:37
  He let two more of them get on the ladder, and then he
• 38:40
  signaled for a quick pull away. He had been a little worried that the
• 38:45
  Zitzitzes would get frightened and perhaps drop off, but if they weren't at ease,
• 38:51
  he couldn't tell it. The only reaction he got was that the Zizitss
• 38:54
  left on the ground acted as if they were disappointed. Their leaves drew a
• 39:00
  little when the latter got beyond their reach, and they stopped hundreds of them
• 39:04
  in one motion. How they knew the latter was up was a mystery.
• 39:09
  When the three were in, Healey ordered the airlocks sealed and escorted the Martians
• 39:14
  to their special room. Mister Zitzus's leaves were moving everywhere, softly, touching
• 39:19
  strange articles and strange materials, or Helly supposed they were strange to him,
• 39:23
  because, after all, mister zitzitz had lived on Mars all his life,
• 39:28
  and they didn't have anything like steel or brass or polished mahogany on Mars.
• 39:34
  They had nothing there but alkali and rocks and plutonium and Zitzitzes. Healey left
• 39:39
  them to be on the bridge at the takeoff. The phoebus was in the
• 39:44
  air as soon as the other Zizitzes went back to the desert, and then
• 39:46
  the old man turned to Healey, Captain, bring in mister Zitzits, Yes,
• 39:53
  Sir. Healey drew a deep breath and went to the special room.
• 39:58
  He opened the door, ginger. They had a big box of Mars desert
• 40:02
  in one half of the room, but the three Zitzitzes were huddled together in
• 40:07
  the porthole, watching the stars, and they were intent about it, Healey
• 40:10
  thought, as no plant would ever be. Heally didn't exactly know how to
• 40:16
  get mister Zitziz to the Admiral without taking the other two. But as he
• 40:21
  opened the door, he expected to say something calculated to be funny, like
• 40:24
  all right, you ate plants, get rolling. But mister Zitziz turned toward
• 40:30
  him. That is, mister Zitziz revolved in a half circle, and Healey
• 40:35
  had the queerest feeling that mister Zitzitz was watching him. Healey looked hard,
• 40:40
  but evidently there were no eyes, Sir, said Healey. The Admiral wishes
• 40:46
  to see you, only you, he said. Of course. Hitley did
• 40:52
  not expect them to understand. He just didn't know what else to do,
• 40:55
  and maybe if he went through the words his motions are something would give the
• 41:00
  general idea. Well, they understood so well that it scared Healy half to
• 41:07
  death. Mister Zitziz started to shuffle toward him. The other two did not
• 41:12
  move. Healey wiped the sweat from his forehead and turned and led the way
• 41:16
  down the corridor to the bridge. Mister Zitzitz followed, bending and weaving considerably
• 41:22
  to keep his leaves from scraping against the ceiling. He stood patiently in the
• 41:28
  center of the room and face the admiral. That gave Heli a start.
• 41:32
  How did mister Zitzez know which was the ranking officer? Nobody had said a
• 41:37
  word. How did he know that there was anybody in the room. How
• 41:42
  did he even know this was the room? Maybe it was an accident.
• 41:47
  Presently everybody was walking around him, looking him over and talking about him in
• 41:52
  a way that would have been very impolite if he had been human. But
• 41:55
  mister Zitzuz stood very calm and patient on his stalk, and did not even
• 42:00
  resist when the botanists felt of his leaves once in a while, after somebody
• 42:06
  made a remark that strange rustling would come from mister Zitzits, almost as if
• 42:10
  he were trying to answer. Well, they got back to Earth in fourteen
• 42:15
  days. They delivered the three Zitzitzes to the World Council, which during their
• 42:20
  absence had been renamed the Interworld Council, and already the videocasters called it the
• 42:25
  IWC. There was a great banquet at which the three Zitzitzes were treated as
• 42:31
  formerly as if they were diplomats from a powerful nation. They were at the
• 42:37
  banquet table, but they stood, they didn't sit. They listened to the
• 42:42
  speeches, or at least they were quiet during the talking, even when old
• 42:46
  Senator Philippuster rolled sonorous phrases like the dawn of a new era in interplanetary good
• 42:53
  will off his tongue for two hours and a half in his official capacity of
• 42:58
  US Delegate at Large to the IWC. But after this Senator sat down,
• 43:04
  and everybody was thinking, thank goodness, mister Zitzs's top leaves dipped toward the
• 43:08
  floor and he made those rustling noises. The Zitzitz's were exhibited in New York,
• 43:15
  London, Moscow, Sydney, San Francisco. But after three months they
• 43:20
  didn't look very good. They seemed to be wilting a little. Their leaves
• 43:24
  didn't look as fresh and green as they had, and they drooped more and
• 43:28
  more as they went along. Captain Heaty was in charge of them, and
• 43:34
  he saw that they were surrounded with every condition they had known on Mars,
• 43:37
  even to a vacuum chamber with air of exactly the same proportions as that on
• 43:42
  Mars and at the same pressure and humidity, and with the same variations of
• 43:45
  temperature, but it didn't help. The only thing he could figure was that
• 43:51
  they were lonesome, so he persuaded the IWC that they should be taken back
• 43:55
  to Mars. On that trip, they were the freedom of the ship,
• 44:00
  and it did not take long to discover that they were born space travelers.
• 44:06
  Mister Zitziz stayed on the bridge with Hevie a good deal, and when Lieutenant
• 44:10
  Brown, the navigator, was off duty, mister Zitziz would study the stars
• 44:15
  for hours, and presently his leafense would delicately touch the controls as if he
• 44:20
  were suggesting a change in course, and confounded all, Healey told the old
• 44:25
  man, he's always right when Brown checks on us. Ether travel in those
• 44:31
  days was very much dependent on navigation, for machinery had not yet been developed
• 44:37
  to allow for all the forces exerted by the various gravitational pulls, the solar
• 44:42
  drift, centrifugal inertia, strange magnetic currents, velocity trajectory, planetary orbits,
• 44:47
  and the still unexplained ether drift. Or rather, the machinery could be made
• 44:53
  all right, but one ship couldn't carry it. Whether mister Zitzitz could see
• 45:00
  or not, he knew how to reach Mars, even though by that time
• 45:04
  the red planet was much farther away and it took over a month to get
• 45:07
  there. Mister Zitzitts would hover over the video screen for hours, and then
• 45:13
  he would go to one of the portholes and stand for hours more, facing
• 45:16
  the constellation Viva at about fifty degrees minus declination. Sometimes he varied this by
• 45:23
  standing at the sky chart and flipping its heavy linen pages with the tips of
• 45:28
  his leaves. Captain Healey let him strictly alone, at first watching him,
• 45:32
  but presently not bothering to do that. Mister Zitzitz learned what a pencil was
• 45:38
  for, and he would find a scratch pad and make notes for calculations,
• 45:44
  consisting mostly of various arrangements of dots and straight lines. Apparently this was for
• 45:50
  his amusement only, for he would always crumple the sheets and toss them into
• 45:53
  the waste basket. And whether he could see or not, he had an
• 45:58
  excellent sense of person reception, for he never missed the basket. Captain Healey
• 46:04
  envied his accuracy, but Healy discovered one thing. The Zitzitzes were not artisans.
• 46:12
  One day, mister Zitzitz was using a mechanical pencil and it ran out
• 46:15
  of lead, and he worked at it for an hour without discovering what was
• 46:20
  wrong or even how to take it apart. He just stood there, turning
• 46:23
  it over with the tips of his leaves and examining it, aimlessly, touching
• 46:28
  it here and there, or pulling on it gently, but obviously as helpless
• 46:31
  as a baby. He finally gave it to Healey to fix, and the
• 46:36
  captain decided mister z wouldn't be much good on an atomic toaster. It was
• 46:42
  when Healey gave the pencil back to him with a new lead that he discovered
• 46:45
  mister Zitzitz could talk. A rustling came from somewhere within his leaves, and
• 46:51
  it said thank you, very clearly. Healey had become so used to him
• 46:58
  that he said you're welcome before he realized what had happened, and then stared
• 47:02
  at the plant with his eyes wide open and blurted out, you can talk.
• 47:08
  Mister Zitzus's leaves nodded rather complacently, Heley thought, and the rustling came
• 47:14
  again, and Heathy distinguished more words. They sounded like, I'm glad you
• 47:20
  understand our renunciation isn't very good, but I will try to do better.
• 47:27
  Heley's mouth was open. Yes, mister Zitzuz could talk. His words were
• 47:32
  accompanied by that rustling that made the sound fuzzy and not too distinct. But
• 47:37
  by listening carefully as one would when hearing a foreigner speak an unfamiliar language,
• 47:42
  one could understand. Heley was quite unable to see where the sound originated.
• 47:47
  But the thing that dumbfounded him was that, without coaching or teaching, mister
• 47:52
  Zitziz had learned to speak the so called English language with grammatical perfection in a
• 47:57
  few months, and not just stock phrases either like give me a ham on
• 48:01
  rye, or how about a shot in the arm, buddy, to sweep
• 48:05
  the cobwebs out of my brain, but abstract concepts. My enunciation isn't very
• 48:13
  good, mister Zitzitz had said, end of chapter four. Chapter five.
• 48:22
  For the sake of harmony, Healy took a walk. He went down to
• 48:28
  the bar for a slug of tequila. The bartender mixed him a couple of
• 48:31
  atomic busters, and he took a fresh grip on himself and went back to
• 48:35
  the bridge. He told the old man about it. But Pickens wasn't so
• 48:39
  young anymore. He refused to be startled by anything. Lieutenant Brown, who
• 48:45
  had been Ensign Brown, was elated. Maybe, he said, while mister
• 48:51
  Zitzitz was standing before a porthole across the room, maybe our vegetarian friend could
• 48:57
  dig up some numbers for me when we get to Mars. Mister Zitzt's revolved
• 49:01
  half way on his stalk. The Lieutenant's mouth opened a full six inches.
• 49:07
  Mister Zitziz's leaves dipped gently and lifted in what seemed very much like a smile.
• 49:15
  Yes, Lieutenant, he said, in his fuzzy voice, I know
• 49:19
  some very hot numbers back home. Then his leave seemed to droop for an
• 49:24
  instant, as if he were sad, and he turned back to the porthole
• 49:28
  and faced the Constellation Vila. Brown swallowed, and Healy said dryly, down
• 49:35
  the haltier left, Lieutenant, and tell Joe to put them on my bill.
• 49:39
  Brown stared at him and then said, yes, Sir, saluted stiffly,
• 49:45
  and went out almost on the double. A soft rustling came from mister
• 49:50
  Zitzets. Impetuous, isn't he? He said, without turning around. He's
• 49:58
  just learned, Healy said that his mother in law is an angel. Sorry,
• 50:04
  murmured mister Zitzitz, and then he turned to Healy hesitantly. Don't you
• 50:09
  think those religious concepts are a little outmoded? What could you do with a
• 50:15
  precocious four year old who would insist on exposing the fallacies of the stork story?
• 50:22
  That's what Heley did with mister Zitzitz. Nothing. Look, he said,
• 50:28
  I'm sorry about that. I was just trying to be funny. Mister
• 50:32
  Zitzuz's leaves were still for an instant, and then they moved sharply and they
• 50:37
  crackled for all the world like laughter. Oh I think you're very funny,
• 50:45
  he said softly. Heally took a deep breath and went over to write up
• 50:50
  the orders of the day. He looked up once to see Pickens watching him,
• 50:53
  and the admiral kept his face straight, except for a crinkle at the
• 50:58
  corner of his mouth. They landed on Mars that night. Mister Zitzitz said
• 51:05
  he and his companions would like to be allowed to leave ship at once,
• 51:09
  so they opened the lock and let them go. Mister Zitzit's promise to be
• 51:14
  back in the morning. But it wasn't until Heally saw him and his two
• 51:19
  companions shuffle across the red Alkali in the glare of the landing lights that he
• 51:23
  realized how very tired and shrunken they were. Mister Zitzitz wasn't over eight feet
• 51:29
  tall. But the next morning they were back. Mister Zitzitz climbed the ladder
• 51:35
  and rapped on the air locked door, and Healey led him in. Healey
• 51:38
  was astonished when he saw him. Mister Zitzitz was fresh and green and well
• 51:45
  plump. He sensed Healey's astonishment apparently because he said, Ah, the desert
• 51:52
  air is wonderful, my friend, especially at night. He answered only vaguely.
• 51:58
  When Healey tried to find out what had made the change, and Hee
• 52:01
  was forced to the conclusion that it was the quiet and solitude and so on,
• 52:07
  In other words, the psychological effect of the surroundings. That of course,
• 52:13
  assumed that mister Zitzitz had a mind like a human's. Mister Zitzitz asked
• 52:19
  to see the old man. Some of my fellows, he said, would
• 52:24
  like to work on your ship. The old man was stunned. Work they
• 52:32
  will work well for you. Mister zitzitz promised. The old man sputtered,
• 52:39
  well, Nell's bells, I don't need any helpers. I what do you
• 52:45
  think, Captain? Heally hesitated, Then he said, what do you think,
• 52:52
  Lieutenant Brown? Sir? Said the lieutenant, speaking only to Helely,
• 52:59
  I say a little fraternization would be conducive to better inter terrestrial relations. Healey
• 53:06
  turned back to the old man with a perfectly dead pan, Sir, he
• 53:10
  said, I say a little fraternization will be conducive to better inter terrestrial relations.
• 53:19
  The old man glared at them both, and then at mister Zitzit's.
• 53:22
  Mister Zitzes's leaves were quivering gently. We'll take six of them, the old
• 53:29
  man sputtered. But you'll be held responsible, yes, sir, mister Zitziz
• 53:36
  said promptly, and we shall receive the usual rates of pay, I suppose.
• 53:42
  The old man's eyes narrowed. Yes, he said thoughtfully, at least
• 53:47
  on this first trip. After that it will be up to the IWC.
• 53:53
  Thank you, sir. One leaf raised and dipped in a salute in mister
• 53:59
  Zitzt's shouffled out fast. The old man growled at Healey. For a plant
• 54:05
  that isn't human. Your Martian friend learns fast. Healey winced he had already
• 54:12
  done a lot of thinking about that. The Zitzes made perfect workmen. They
• 54:17
  were competent, strong, and tireless. But some things they couldn't do.
• 54:23
  They had to have help for even a simple repair job. But otherwise they
• 54:28
  had good brains. They followed orders even better than the robots back on Earth.
• 54:35
  On the trip home, Healey discovered how they had learned the language.
• 54:39
  They in effect read the minds of men. When a man spoke, they
• 54:45
  got the mental picture from his mind. Heaty remembered some of the choice remarks
• 54:50
  he had made in mister Zitzis's hearing before he had any idea about their understanding,
• 54:55
  and it was to be conservative. Disquieting, he remembered when he had
• 55:00
  first denied them the right to be classified as humans, and when they reached
• 55:06
  Havana again, he called a meeting of the Classification Section and proposed that the
• 55:10
  Martians be reclassified, but the other members voted him down, quoting his own
• 55:16
  law, they must have eyes. Healey offered an amendment to repeal that law,
• 55:23
  but he found out that the bigger an organization is the more ponderous it
• 55:28
  is. The section rejected his amendment coldly, and there was nothing else he
• 55:34
  could do but go down to the bar and initiate an extended research into the
• 55:37
  efficacy of atomic busters. He would have given his unofficial rank in the Rocket
• 55:44
  Service to correct the injustice he had done to the Zitsises. In the next
• 55:50
  few years, a good many Zitziss worked on spaceships, of which there got
• 55:53
  to be quite a number. The only catch with the Zittises was that they
• 55:59
  had go back to Mars every six months or so to refresh themselves. Otherwise
• 56:05
  they were perfect workmen. They never caused any trouble, and they were never
• 56:08
  ill. One summer, the Phoebus was making a trajectory shot over the sun
• 56:15
  when Healy spoke to the old man about the Zittuses. There is no doubt
• 56:21
  in my mind that they are human, he said. A human being has
• 56:24
  to have a soul, doesn't it. The old man looked at him sharply.
• 56:30
  That is not the same definition you offered a few years back. Healey
• 56:35
  blushed, No, sir, I was wrong, and I'm sorry. They
• 56:39
  have souls all right, any kind of creature that loves the ether as the
• 56:45
  Martians do. He simply has to have a soul. The old man nodded,
• 56:52
  I think you're right. No matter what else a man may be,
• 56:55
  if he hasn't got that spark inside of him, space travel will give him
• 57:00
  the wiggles. The Zitzises had that spark, Heally knew from the way they
• 57:07
  had taken to it. From the first Healey could not escape the impression that
• 57:10
  they must have had indelible memories of days in the dim past when perhaps their
• 57:15
  forefathers had traveled in space. It's funny, Lieutenant Brown said, one day,
• 57:22
  you think they've been so long on Mars they'd have taken root. But
• 57:27
  they don't even get spasic the first time they fly. There are a lot
• 57:32
  of things about them that I don't understand, Healey said. In twenty one,
• 57:38
  twenty five, the IWC ordered a census of the Martians. There were
• 57:44
  exactly seven hundred and seventy seven. There were oddly enough, no young ones.
• 57:51
  All were adults. In another five years, every single Zitzit's had a
• 57:57
  rating of seamen first class. Only one had advanced beyond that. Because space
• 58:02
  travel very quickly had developed the most rigid caste system of all history. It
• 58:07
  was an anomaly being as it was developed within the ranks of men who themselves
• 58:13
  were discriminated against by the air Marines, or perhaps was because of that.
• 58:19
  At any rate, space sailors and space officers were exclusive far past anything the
• 58:23
  air Marines could offer. Perhaps it was because of the glamor lent by the
• 58:29
  proximity of sudden death. But no earth man would take orders from a non
• 58:32
  human. The one who had gone beyond seamen was mister Zitzitz, who had
• 58:39
  been made a Chief Bosun's mate, and that promotion had precipitated a riot and
• 58:45
  near mutiny on the crack passenger run de Luna. By intercession of Admiral Pickens,
• 58:51
  mister Zitzittz was not demoted, but his authority was rigidly limited to martians.
• 58:58
  No one had any complaint whatever against mister Zitzits except that he was a
• 59:01
  century plant. And presently there was an IWC rule pass that no earthman could
• 59:07
  be put under the supervision of anybody but an earthman. That made it official,
• 59:15
  But the Zitzies took it and minded their own business and did their work.
• 59:20
  Mister Zitzitz asked Healey what to do with his pay. The captain suggested
• 59:24
  he opened a savings account in the Interplanetary National Bank. The next time Heale
• 59:30
  dropped into the bank, the cashier astonished him with the information that every one
• 59:35
  of the seven hundred and seventy seven Zitzizes had ordered their pay deposited in mister
• 59:39
  Zitzis's account. In the year twenty one thirty, the regular census was taken
• 59:47
  and it showed seven hundred and seventy seven martians, no young ones, all
• 59:52
  adults, no deaths, no berths. Healey could have asked mister Zitzius about
• 1:00:00
  that, but somehow he never quite had the nerve. That was odd too,
• 1:00:06
  because Healy gave mister Zitzuts duties that kept him on the bridge most of
• 1:00:09
  the time, and Healey asked him practically everything and always got an answer.
• 1:00:15
  There were no evasions, but there were a few personal subjects on which the
• 1:00:21
  captain would think of talking to him, and he would turn to him to
• 1:00:23
  speak, and something would stop him somehow or other. Mister Zitzets emanated quiet
• 1:00:30
  reserve that no sensitive men would try to penetrate under ordinary circumstances. Then Pickens
• 1:00:37
  retired. He wasn't an old man, and he had had a complete osterhus
• 1:00:44
  rejuvenation and was good for sixty years more. But he was a defeated man.
• 1:00:50
  A dogged look was in his eyes when he told he Lee, I
• 1:00:53
  thought we'll be recognized by the air Marines when we went to Mars. But
• 1:00:58
  it's no go. I'm giving up. I guess there's nobody more hard headed
• 1:01:04
  than people. Healey and the rest of the Pariahs had given up too by
• 1:01:09
  now, but no one but Admiral Pickens would admit it. They just didn't
• 1:01:15
  think much about it anymore. End of Chapter five, Chapter six, Wall
• 1:01:23
  of Prejudice. Finally, Heally was promoted to rear admiral and put in charge
• 1:01:30
  of the expedition to Jupiter. They built a newer and bigger ship, and
• 1:01:35
  Senator Philippuster's niece Clarissa, christened it the Twinkling Star, with a bottle of
• 1:01:39
  champagne that made Commander Brown Heally's ajunet now lick his lips. They made a
• 1:01:45
  couple of shakedown cruises to Luna and then provision for the trip to Jupiter.
• 1:01:51
  Healy asked mister Zitzis to act as his escort or valet, as they had
• 1:01:54
  said back in the nineteen hundreds, and they set off one night in a
• 1:01:59
  blast of green rocket flames that must have lighted up the entire island of Cuba.
• 1:02:05
  Everything went according to plan. Jupiter turned out to be a pretty solid
• 1:02:08
  planet with a terrific gravity that was going to strain the Twinkling Star's power plant
• 1:02:13
  to get away, but the methane gas and so on was in clouds hundreds
• 1:02:17
  of miles above the surface, and they landed nicely and planted the IWC flag
• 1:02:22
  in the name of God, the IWC and Senator Philippuster. They did some
• 1:02:29
  exploring and located ores, and lots of them, including sources for both amoricium
• 1:02:35
  and curium numbers ninety five and ninety six in the periodic table. But there
• 1:02:39
  was no living creatures or growing things of any kind, and Healy was relieved
• 1:02:45
  that there would be no necessity of deciding whether anybody was human or unhuman.
• 1:02:50
  After three weeks, he called in the two scout boats and took off with
• 1:02:53
  considerable groaning of the power units. After they passed critical velocity, they east
• 1:03:00
  upon the pounding of the engines and relaxed. Commander Brown and mister Zitzitz and
• 1:03:05
  Admiral Heeley were in the control room well, mister Zitzutz heely said, glad
• 1:03:10
  that the strain was over. What are you going to do now? Mister
• 1:03:15
  Zitzitz revolved on his stalk where he had been watching the constellation villa. His
• 1:03:21
  leaves were rather still. I'm going to apply for reclassification, he said,
• 1:03:28
  when we get back. Heally frowned and tried to think of something to say.
• 1:03:34
  Yes, mister Zitzitz went on in his fuzzy voice. I know you
• 1:03:38
  have tried, but perhaps if they hear me, well, I don't think
• 1:03:44
  they will turn me down. Why do you want to be reclassified, Heally
• 1:03:49
  asked, you hold a bosun's grade already. Healey could have bit his tongue
• 1:03:54
  when mister Zitzitz answered, I want an officer's ticket. Heally stared at him,
• 1:04:00
  and Commander Brown looked at Healey and nodded as if to say why not.
• 1:04:05
  And Healey thought, yes, why not? But Healey jumbled those thoughts
• 1:04:12
  hurriedly, for he had learned how to scramble his mental waves so mister Zitzetz
• 1:04:16
  wouldn't understand them. He looked at Brown, and Brown was doing the same
• 1:04:21
  thing. Whenever Commander Brown made those faces, he was engaged in some pretty
• 1:04:27
  heavy cerebrating. When they got back to Havana, Healy skipped the ceremonies.
• 1:04:33
  It was old stuff by then. He sent Commander Brown as a stand in,
• 1:04:38
  and thereby earned his undying wrath for Senator Philippuster was just back from a
• 1:04:43
  month's vacation at Space Travel Ink's Lunar Vacation Ground. Hey went with mister Zitzitz
• 1:04:49
  to the offices of a classification section. Heey turned in his resignation and mister
• 1:04:56
  Zitztz applied for reclassification as the original of the eyes rule. Healey argued its
• 1:05:01
  lack of ground. He cited his long acquaintance with mister Zitzitz. He made
• 1:05:06
  him perform all sorts of mental feats that involved perception that could not be construed
• 1:05:12
  as anything but seeing. He indulged in the only real oratory of his life.
• 1:05:18
  But the bearded members of the section were anything but vacillating. We cannot
• 1:05:24
  see any eyes, the chairman said, so it is fair to conclude that
• 1:05:30
  he has no eyes in the human sense of the word. They voted Healey
• 1:05:34
  down unanimously. The chairman asked Helely into his office to look over some matters
• 1:05:41
  that had come up during Healey's absence on Jupiter, and when they were inside
• 1:05:45
  alone with mister Zitsett's waiting patiently in the reception room, the chairman turned to
• 1:05:50
  Healey. Look, Admiral, we respect your opinion and all that, but
• 1:05:56
  don't you see the ah fellow. If he wished the fellow just isn't human,
• 1:06:02
  it wouldn't do you know, after all, they're only plants. We
• 1:06:06
  must preserve the superiority of the human race. Heally looked at him hard.
• 1:06:14
  What superiority? He said, and turned on his heel. He and mister
• 1:06:19
  Zitzitz went back to quarters, and Heally said, I'm really sorry, mister
• 1:06:24
  Zitzitz. It was my fault in the very first. Forget it, mister
• 1:06:30
  Zitztz murmured softly, like a breeze through the palm trees. But there isn't
• 1:06:35
  any reason. Perhaps there is. They have little to go on but past
• 1:06:41
  experience, and they yes, they're thick from the collar bone on up.
• 1:06:47
  Mister Zitzuz turned to him, and there was the hint of a chuckle in
• 1:06:50
  his words. Let's not be insubordinate, Admiral, he said gently, there
• 1:06:58
  are a few of us who don't sometime make a mistake that inadvertently causes trouble
• 1:07:01
  for others. The human organism is so complex and so primitive. Really,
• 1:07:08
  things are done or said where the motivation is not what it seems. A
• 1:07:13
  tiny bit of anger or fear creeps in, perhaps fear of losing one's standing
• 1:07:18
  in the eyes of others, and the act is performed or the words are
• 1:07:23
  spoken without a great deal of logic. Heally stared at him. On second
• 1:07:30
  thought, he said, soberly, perhaps it is an injustice to try to
• 1:07:34
  classify you as human. A year later, Admiral Heey, on an extension
• 1:07:41
  of his unofficial leave from the Space Marines, was reassigned to Space Travel Ink
• 1:07:45
  to command their new and still bigger ship, the Crack Passenger and Perishable Goods
• 1:07:50
  Liner Clarissa. Yes, that was in honor of Philippuster's niece, and was
• 1:07:56
  Captain Brown. They had all been promoted again. Ever, An annoyed when
• 1:08:00
  he saw her desecrate the Second Battle of Champagne in less than two years.
• 1:08:05
  If she was forty years younger, he grumbled, I'd take her out and
• 1:08:10
  let her find out how much better that stuff works on porcelain plates than it
• 1:08:14
  does on beryllium plates. Healey was now a full admiral and a wealthy man.
• 1:08:19
  At forty two. He could retire in twenty years more on full pay,
• 1:08:25
  and he would then be only sixty two, and in the very prime
• 1:08:28
  of life. He could buy a country estate on Acanagua and devote his time
• 1:08:32
  to checking Captain Brown's telephone numbers. In twenty one forty, the IWC census
• 1:08:39
  showed Martians seven hundred and seventy seven. Some persons were very curious about that,
• 1:08:46
  but the Martians didn't talk. The one man who could have found out,
• 1:08:50
  Admiral Heey, saw no reason for prying into the affairs of the Zitzises
• 1:08:56
  anyway, mister Zitzitz wasn't on the Jupiter run, for in those days the
• 1:09:00
  trip was too long for him. A couple of years later, Heey met
• 1:09:05
  mister Zitzitz shuffling out of the Port Captain's office at Havanaport. Heally wished mister
• 1:09:11
  Zitziz had possessed a face, because mister Zitzutz would have been grinning all over.
• 1:09:16
  His leaves were waving and bending and almost dancing in the sunlight. One
• 1:09:20
  of the leafens was curled around a small book admiral, he purred, congratulate
• 1:09:29
  me. I have just received my coveted officer's license. Healey looked, and
• 1:09:35
  sure enough, mister Zitzitz had a third mate's ticket. How he done it,
• 1:09:40
  Healey didn't know, but probably he had pestered the board until they decided
• 1:09:45
  to put him through. And if Heally knew, those face seemed old examiners,
• 1:09:48
  they must have given him everything in the book. Mister Zitziz had his
• 1:09:54
  ticket, and Healey guessed the examiners figured they were through with him. Why
• 1:10:00
  did you want a ticket so much, he asked. You're making a lot
• 1:10:02
  of money and you don't need any. But mister Zitziz was exuberant. Someday,
• 1:10:10
  when I get my master's ticket, I'll have a ship of my own.
• 1:10:15
  I couldn't command my own ship now without breaking the regulations, you know.
• 1:10:20
  Healey was not surprised to see mister Zitziz down at the spaceport a few
• 1:10:25
  days later, shuffling along the corridors watching the ships come in, hoping each
• 1:10:30
  time that here was the one where he would get a third mate's berth so
• 1:10:32
  he could start working up. But it was hopeless, and Healey knew it
• 1:10:39
  mister Zitzitz had been labeled not human and nobody was going to hire him as
• 1:10:43
  a third mate. They didn't dare to their crews would have jumped ship.
• 1:10:49
  Three months later, Healey dropped him off at Mars on the way to Jupiter.
• 1:10:54
  Mister Zitziz was pretty wilted and limp looking, but he said, thanks,
• 1:10:59
  Admiral, see you in Havana. On the way back to Earth.
• 1:11:03
  A shuttle boat met them out from Mars and mister Zitzix came through the airlock.
• 1:11:10
  I have just talked to mister Morgan, who represents ether Fleet, Inc.
• 1:11:14
  He said, happily. He has practically promised me a berth if I
• 1:11:18
  can get a master's certificate. Healey gasped, a master certificate. Yes,
• 1:11:27
  mister Zitzits purred proudly. He said, all their mates hold master's certificates,
• 1:11:32
  so I am going back to Havana. He didn't actually promise you, though,
• 1:11:39
  did he No, sir, but that was the implication. Heally thought
• 1:11:45
  that over for a while. Morgan had given mister Zitzitz the brush off with
• 1:11:48
  that phony story about all his mates holding master certificates. But why had mister
• 1:11:55
  Zitziz read his mind and known that. One day, Heey asked him,
• 1:12:00
  don't you still read minds? Mister Zitzitz. Oh no, Zitziz said pleasantly.
• 1:12:06
  I quit that years ago because it embarrassed so many persons. When they
• 1:12:12
  later discovered I could do it. Heally sat in on the examination. That
• 1:12:17
  board of gray haired men were grouped around mister Zitzuts like hawks around a day
• 1:12:23
  old chick. Healey took one look and he knew mister Zitzitz would not pass
• 1:12:28
  this time. They asked mister Zitzis about his ether time, and he produced
• 1:12:32
  a sheaf of discharge slips that would have made most captains envious. Then they
• 1:12:38
  began to throw questions at him, questions that came like red hot rocket jets.
• 1:12:43
  They set him adrift in the asteroid belt. They fused his rear jets.
• 1:12:47
  They burned out his front jets. They choked up his instruments with ether
• 1:12:51
  dust. They put his chief engineer in bed with space vertigo. They threw
• 1:12:56
  out his navigation officer and gave him a black spot over the entire star system.
• 1:13:00
  They eclipsed the Sun. They punctured his hull with meteorites. But mister
• 1:13:06
  Zitzitz wasn't perturbed. He stood there on a stalk in the center of the
• 1:13:12
  room and listened attentively and courteously to each question, and gave the answers in
• 1:13:16
  his soft, unruffled voice. He sent a man outside to burn off the
• 1:13:21
  fused portions of his rear jets. He took what was left of the front
• 1:13:26
  jets and welded them together. He sent the first mate to the engine room.
• 1:13:30
  He navigated by watching the stars, and when they covered the stars,
• 1:13:33
  he proved to the board that he could draw a line within thirty minutes of
• 1:13:38
  true north, or within thirty minutes of any given right ascension, without instruments
• 1:13:42
  of any kind. That was magnificent. Mister Zitzitz had what might be called
• 1:13:48
  absolute orientation. They even put him in a seamless room and revolved and rolled
• 1:13:54
  him, and each time his sense of direction performed more accurately than any earth
• 1:13:59
  compass, because it was built inside of him, and it was right.
• 1:14:04
  He had them on all counts. The one thing they could have stuck him
• 1:14:08
  on, the actual details of repairing a piece of machinery they didn't ask about.
• 1:14:13
  He got his ticket. He got it and set off for the administration
• 1:14:16
  building as fast as he could shuffle the precious book clutched firmly in his leaf
• 1:14:21
  ends. No, he didn't get a ship. He offered to take a
• 1:14:27
  third mate's berth, but they said they didn't have anything open. He wound
• 1:14:31
  up working for passage to Mars end of chapter six, Chapter seven, filipusters
• 1:14:41
  belong outside. Several months later, Heally heard on the video that his father,
• 1:14:47
  Admiral Heey of the Stratosphere Fleet, had retired. It puzzled Heely because
• 1:14:54
  his father was not an old man and it wasn't like the Heelys to retire
• 1:14:58
  so early. Healy saw Pickens on his next landing, and Pickens gave him
• 1:15:02
  the story. Your father has tried for years to soften up the Air Marines
• 1:15:09
  so that you and all of the men who distinguished themselves in the Rocket Service
• 1:15:13
  could be restored to active status in the Marines. But they stalled him by
• 1:15:17
  saying that he, as an active officer, could not in good taste ask
• 1:15:21
  for anything of that sort. So he has retired and he is devoting the
• 1:15:27
  rest of his life to bring about a revision of the regulations. It could
• 1:15:32
  be Admiral that he is very proud of you, Pickens said the last words,
• 1:15:39
  very softly. Yes, Heally was thoughtful he'd like to see his father.
• 1:15:45
  He hadn't seen him since twenty one sixteen. But if the old Admiral
• 1:15:50
  didn't have any better luck with the Air Marines Board on Discipline than Heally had
• 1:15:56
  had with the Classification Section, it would be wasted time. Hete saw mister
• 1:16:01
  Zitzits many times in the next several years. Everyone in the space lanes knew
• 1:16:06
  the Martian. He would ship out as a seaman or sometimes as Bosun's mate,
• 1:16:12
  with a crew of Martians, and when he reached port, whether it
• 1:16:15
  was on Mars or Luna or Jupiter or Eo or Callisto or Ganymede, he
• 1:16:20
  would make the rounds, carrying his master's license hopefully with him. But getting
• 1:16:26
  nowhere it hurt heely, and the ironic twist of the whole thing cost him
• 1:16:30
  a good many restless nights. Then, men in the Rocket Service, themselves
• 1:16:35
  outcasts of the Air Marines, had tried long and vainly to be recognized,
• 1:16:42
  failing they formed their own rigid cast. And now mister Zitzitz was battering his
• 1:16:47
  head against the same stone wall of indifference, because he Healey, who had
• 1:16:53
  been one of the most ardent in trying to re establish himself in the air.
• 1:16:56
  Marines had damned the Zitzis the first day he had seen them. It
• 1:17:00
  caused Heath a lot of serious thought and a lot of self reproach. As
• 1:17:05
  a matter of fact, he would have done anything within his power to make
• 1:17:10
  things right for mister Zitzits. But the wool he himself had created was as
• 1:17:15
  stony as the one that had created him. He was arguing one day with
• 1:17:19
  the port captain on Luna, who had been first made on the old Phoebus.
• 1:17:25
  Finally, the port captain said, I can't give him a ship.
• 1:17:29
  Healy, you know that he's a martian, Well said Hethy, stubbornly.
• 1:17:35
  What's wrong with being a martian? The captain exploded, You know as well
• 1:17:41
  as I do that he isn't human, You said yourself the first time you
• 1:17:45
  saw him. In twenty one fifty, the census showed martians seven hundred and
• 1:17:51
  seventy seven, all adults. It was odd, didn't they ever die?
• 1:18:00
  Some years later, mister Zitzuz came back on the Clarissa again as escort for
• 1:18:04
  Heey. One night, he was standing at a porthole watching villa. When
• 1:18:09
  he said, Admiral, why don't they give me a berth? Heally thought
• 1:18:15
  it over. He decided it was time to tell him it isn't any compliment
• 1:18:21
  what we facetiously call humanity. But it's time you should know so you won't
• 1:18:26
  keep batting your brains out. Yes, mister Zitzit said quietly, they won't
• 1:18:33
  give you a berth because you're a martian. Healey said flatly. I don't
• 1:18:40
  understand, mister Zitzit said slowly, and Heley knew he would never understand.
• 1:18:46
  It wasn't mister Zitzuz's code. He didn't realize how small earthmen could be.
• 1:18:54
  Well, it's like this. Any earth man is afraid of anything or anybody
• 1:18:59
  that he thinks might outdo him physically, mentally, emotionally, artistically, or
• 1:19:03
  what have you. He resents it, and as long as he can hold
• 1:19:09
  the other person down, he's likely to. The Zitzitzs are the best people
• 1:19:14
  in my book, Healy went on warmly. But that just makes it tougher
• 1:19:17
  on you among those who don't know you. If you weren't so intelligent and
• 1:19:21
  unassuming and so temperamentally perfect, maybe earth men would like you the way it
• 1:19:28
  is you haven't got a chance. Mister Zitzitz absorbed all that in silence.
• 1:19:35
  Finally, Heally said, as a clincher, you may as well give it
• 1:19:40
  up. You'll never get a ship. He studied him then, and again
• 1:19:45
  he caught the strong feeling of that tremendous, illimitable patience that would conquer anything.
• 1:19:53
  Heally did not retire. In twenty one fifty eight, atomic engines came
• 1:19:57
  out in a form adaptable to spaceships. Space Travel Ink built a new ship
• 1:20:02
  called the Filipuster, and to Captain Brown's great disgust, the Senator's niece splashed
• 1:20:08
  a third bottle of champagne on its magnificent burnished hull. They talked Healey into
• 1:20:14
  staying on. It wasn't the money that influenced him, but the fact that
• 1:20:18
  there was nothing else for him to do. He had seen Admiral Pickens from
• 1:20:23
  time to time, and there was no denying that Pickens was lonely. He
• 1:20:28
  had plenty of friends, yes, but he couldn't go down to the Officers
• 1:20:30
  Club and swap stories with the air Marines. So Healey stayed on. It
• 1:20:38
  was about this time that the Air Marines became the Space Marines. The new
• 1:20:44
  atomic engines required comparatively nothing in the way of fuel. Where previously ninety percent
• 1:20:49
  of a ship's load capacity had been used for fuel, Now a few thousand
• 1:20:55
  pounds of plutonium or a few hundred pounds of americum from Jupiter could drive the
• 1:21:00
  Philippuster almost as far as a catboat could sail under the breeze. From the
• 1:21:03
  senator's speeches, space travel Ink thoughtfully doubled Heathy's pay because by now he was
• 1:21:11
  an institution. He told Brown, the act of being the first man to
• 1:21:15
  step on Martian soil had given him more eminence than he could have earned in
• 1:21:20
  a thousand years. Sometimes after that he would see mister Zitzitz shuffling in or
• 1:21:27
  out of a port captain's office, or around the administration building at Havanaport,
• 1:21:31
  carrying his worn master's ticket in a leaf tip. Sometimes he would look haggard
• 1:21:36
  and limp, but always he seemed to hope Healey would have bought him a
• 1:21:43
  ship and given it to him, but he knew mister Zitzitz would refuse it.
• 1:21:47
  He wanted, well, what did he want? Anyway? He wanted
• 1:21:51
  to be the master of his own ship, and he had to earn that
• 1:21:56
  himself. In twenty one one sixty the census showed no change in the Martians.
• 1:22:03
  In twenty one sixty one, the Space Marines converted all their drives to
• 1:22:08
  atomics. Even the old Phoebus, now an antiquated tub used mostly for patrols
• 1:22:14
  to the Moon and back, was equipped with brand new late type atomics that
• 1:22:17
  very nearly jerked her stanchions loose the first time they tried her out. So
• 1:22:24
  it went until twenty one seventy. Healey had an Ostrajas and was beginning to
• 1:22:29
  think seriously of retiring. Captain Brown ran the Filipuster, and Healey used to
• 1:22:34
  josh him whenever he showed signs of taking his duties too seriously. Sometime I
• 1:22:41
  want to borrow the telephone of those three redheads you know back on Earth,
• 1:22:45
  Hee would say to Brown. The Philipuster was a big ship. They had
• 1:22:50
  a crew of nearly two thousand and on their quarterly trip in the fall of
• 1:22:56
  twenty one seventy, shortly after the census turned up the customary arth of berths
• 1:23:00
  among the Martians, Healy had aboard some fifty Zititzes as crew members. They
• 1:23:06
  made much faster trips with the atomic drive, and so the Zittizes could stand
• 1:23:12
  the jaunt to Jupiter without any trouble. One night, they called at night
• 1:23:16
  because the ship's chronometer showed past twenty one hundred, although it was always dark
• 1:23:21
  in the ether. One night, mister Zitzitz was standing at a porthole,
• 1:23:26
  looking in the usual direction of the sky. Heey was sitting back in his
• 1:23:30
  padded chair, smoking a good cigar, and Captain Brown was glancing over the
• 1:23:34
  reports prepared by his staff. A rustling came from mister Zitzitts as he said,
• 1:23:42
  do you know, Admiral, that in two years the law against post
• 1:23:45
  mortem examinations of non terrestrial creatures will expire? Heally stared at him. Mister
• 1:23:54
  Zitzitz was not yet past dartling him well, Healy said, finally, maybe
• 1:24:00
  it would be a good thing. Maybe a post mortem would show that you
• 1:24:04
  have eyes, and then you will be reclassified as humans. Mister Zitzets answered
• 1:24:11
  slowly, Yes, a post mortem would reveal eyes of a kind that would
• 1:24:16
  startle earth people. But before one holds a post mortem, one must have
• 1:24:23
  a body. Oh sure, he said, but some day a martian will
• 1:24:29
  die. Deliberately, mister Zitzets turned clear around. We never die, he
• 1:24:36
  said quietly. Hely grabbed at his cigar as it fell out of his open
• 1:24:43
  mouth. Captain Brown stared at mister Zitzuts. No, said, mister Zitzitts.
• 1:24:49
  For practical purposes, we do not die. Our span of life is
• 1:24:56
  very long. Eleven thousand years is nothing to us. Eleven thousand years.
• 1:25:04
  Healy frowned. That figure struck a chord somewhere in his mind, but he
• 1:25:10
  couldn't bring it to light. Healy looked hard at mister Zitzitt's. Is that
• 1:25:15
  why there are always seven hundred and seventy seven martians? The leaves nodded yes.
• 1:25:24
  But I am afraid after the law becomes inoperative there will be accidents and
• 1:25:30
  Martians will be killed. Captain Brown rubbed his chin. I don't believe you
• 1:25:36
  trust us, mister Zitzits, he said gently. Mister Zitzet seemed to sigh.
• 1:25:45
  Humans are ruled so much by emotion, and so often those emotions are
• 1:25:49
  obscure. He observed. I guess you're right, said Brown. They aren't
• 1:25:57
  all as obvious as Senator Philipuster erm ahem. There was a tremendous snort behind
• 1:26:04
  Heely, and a great clearing of a throat. Heey spun around in his
• 1:26:10
  chair and his mouth dropped open again. Senator Philipuster, I didn't know you
• 1:26:15
  were on board, just traveling ahem, incognito as it were. Don't like
• 1:26:23
  to attract so much attention, you know, I can well imagine, said
• 1:26:28
  Captain Brown, and heally thought he detected a slight note of dryness. I
• 1:26:33
  ahem. The senator's bushy eyebrows raised toward mister zitzit's this fellow. He isn't
• 1:26:42
  an officer, is he? He holds a master's ticket, Healey said sharply.
• 1:26:48
  But surely he's not an officer in the employee of mine of space travel
• 1:26:54
  ink. No he is not, Heey said, And ahem. Isn't there
• 1:27:00
  a ruling that none but officers are allowed to loiter on the bridge? There
• 1:27:06
  is, Healey said, and glared at him. Then ahem, Well,
• 1:27:14
  that rule, Healey said, firmly applies to civilians as well. The senator
• 1:27:19
  blinked, you impertinent, young whipper snapper, How old are you, nighty
• 1:27:27
  last may? Why am I'm old enough to be your grandfather? I'm a
• 1:27:33
  hundred and thirty two. Healy got up from his chair, Nevertheless, Senator,
• 1:27:41
  the rule says no loitering. As you pointed out, heally ushered him
• 1:27:46
  to the door. End of Chapter seven, Chapter eight, Derelict in Space.
• 1:27:57
  When the door was closed, with the Senator on the other side,
• 1:28:00
  Captain Brown walked gravely up to Healey and made motions of pinning something on the
• 1:28:04
  lapel of his uniform. Your metal admiral, he said. Mister Zitzet started
• 1:28:12
  to shuffle out. No, heally said, don't go sit down or stand
• 1:28:17
  up. Hang it, stand here while we talk over the price of old
• 1:28:20
  ivory. Mister Zitzitz hesitated, Then he seemed to smile, and he moved
• 1:28:27
  back to the porthole. Now you're senator there. He's not at all an
• 1:28:32
  obscure person. He is ruled by comparatively uncomplicated motives, and the first ten
• 1:28:40
  of which Captain Brown said, assiduously, in order of importance, are get
• 1:28:45
  the dough. Mister Zitzet seemed to go through the motions of a frown.
• 1:28:50
  I don't wish to be a skeptic, Captain. But unidentified object on the
• 1:28:56
  port bowser came the voice of the lookout. In the of the filipuster.
• 1:29:01
  A red light flashed Captain Brown sprang to the video screen. Heey watched at
• 1:29:06
  his side. I don't make it out, Sir, said Brown. Mister
• 1:29:12
  Zitz's was still at the porthole. It's a ship, he said softly.
• 1:29:17
  They watched. The lookout's voice came again. Unidentified object appeared to be an
• 1:29:24
  abandoned ship. Sir he sang. Give position. Heey snapped asimuth three hundred
• 1:29:30
  and fifty three degrees, ascension five degrees plus distance about three thousand miles,
• 1:29:38
  plane of travel approximately zero with this ship's course angle of orbit. A pause
• 1:29:45
  estimated at four degrees from the forward extension of this ship's course. Velocity another
• 1:29:51
  pause difficult to determine, but not great. Direction of velocity into the angle.
• 1:29:59
  Brown realized, we'll miss easily unless the velocity turns out to be more
• 1:30:03
  than expected. Watch it, Healey ordered the lookout. Abandoned ship, believed
• 1:30:11
  to be the IWC Explorer Phoebus, sang the lookout. Healey's eyes popped wide
• 1:30:16
  open. He stared at Brown. What's the dope here? What happened to
• 1:30:23
  the Phoebus? Brown foamed through the status reports. Mister Zitzitz has shuffled over
• 1:30:29
  toward them. Here said Brown, looking up. Phoebus condemned two days ago
• 1:30:35
  and set adrift with a cargo of high explosive Latest report is that the ship
• 1:30:41
  was not destroyed, but only damaged. The toe ship Rameses is on the
• 1:30:45
  way to drag her from the space lanes until further disposal is ordered. Mister
• 1:30:50
  Zitziit spoke, and for the first time in all the fifty years Heey had
• 1:30:55
  known him, there was sharpness in his voice. How is she class,
• 1:31:00
  he asked Brown. Derelict temporarily, mister Zitzet's wheeled to Healey. Derelict.
• 1:31:08
  He rustled, and it had a throaty sound. She's a derelict. I
• 1:31:14
  claim her as salvage with you too, as witnesses. Mister Zitzis was all
• 1:31:18
  business. That is the law, isn't it. Healey stared at him.
• 1:31:25
  Well, yes, will you give me permission to take all the martians aboard
• 1:31:30
  your ship to man the phoebus. Well, sure we can get along,
• 1:31:34
  but then put us off, please, Admiral, mister Zitzit said eagerly.
• 1:31:41
  Well now, look, Healey was frowning hard. Captain Brown moved to the
• 1:31:45
  speaker and looked at Healey. Healey sighed and nodded reverse fields and prepared to
• 1:31:53
  execute three sixty right hand turn to full stop. Brown ordered. Mister Zitzits
• 1:31:59
  was positive, beaming. Thank you, sir, he said warmly. A
• 1:32:04
  leaf raised in salute, and then he revolved and shuffled off down the corridor
• 1:32:09
  at high speed. Bells began to jingle and whistles to blow, and signs
• 1:32:14
  appeared in the corridor on ground glass screens. Quiet, please, there is
• 1:32:18
  no danger. It was no small feat to stop a big ship in the
• 1:32:24
  ether, especially on such abrupt notice, as Space Traveling claimed. It cost
• 1:32:29
  them in the neighborhood of forty thousand dollars to make a stop like that,
• 1:32:32
  in fuel wasted and damaged to furnishings. There was one consolation voiced by Captain
• 1:32:39
  Brown as he braced himself. Maybe Senator Philippuster will fall and sprain his voice
• 1:32:44
  box. That comes under the head of wishful thinking. Heally observed. They
• 1:32:50
  stopped. Heey himself took mister Zitzitz and his fifty or so fellow Martians aboard
• 1:32:56
  the derelict. She was in pretty bad shape. In the afterhole, a
• 1:33:00
  gap as big as a railway locomotive showed in her hull. Things had been
• 1:33:04
  shaken up pretty badly. The pumping system was severely damaged and the oxygen pipes
• 1:33:11
  destroyed, controls beaten up, audio and video screens dead, but the atomic
• 1:33:15
  engines, for some reason, were not injured. Well, mister zitzitz,
• 1:33:20
  it can be done, Healy said, after an inspection. It can be
• 1:33:26
  fixed up, and it'll be your ship. But do you think you fellows
• 1:33:29
  can do it? You're not very handy at things like that. Want me
• 1:33:33
  to send you some help, No, mister Zitzit said decisively. Heally knew
• 1:33:40
  what he was thinking. If they took an earth man with them, the
• 1:33:44
  earth man would have an equal share in the salvage, and mister Zitzt's wanted
• 1:33:47
  the ship for him and his race alone. Healy said, okay, good
• 1:33:54
  luck and went on back to the filipuster. But he was very thoughtful.
• 1:34:00
  The Senator asked several times on the way to Jupiter for an audience, but
• 1:34:02
  Heally had no intention of explaining why they had stopped at the height of trajectory,
• 1:34:08
  and so he evaded him. They made their call at Jove and delivered
• 1:34:13
  three hundred passengers, mostly employees of Adam Power Ink to work in the americium
• 1:34:17
  mines and a couple of hundred thousand tons of food and supplies, and took
• 1:34:23
  on a load of passengers, going back to Earth for a rest three months.
• 1:34:27
  Work on Jupiter, with its high gravity and artificial air, required a
• 1:34:30
  man to rest three months on Earth before he could go back. The filipuster
• 1:34:36
  picked up nearly one hundred tons of pure amoricium and some plutonium which had been
• 1:34:41
  produced as a byproduct. Healey did not know what they would do with all
• 1:34:46
  the amorsium, because they claimed the new atomic engines attained ninety percent efficiency from
• 1:34:51
  atomic fission, and Healey knew that they could fly the filipuster to Jupiter and
• 1:34:57
  back on no more amorsium than and a strong man could carry on his back.
• 1:35:02
  On the way to Earth, Captain Brown said, do you suppose we
• 1:35:06
  might go anywhere near the phoebus? Sir, we ought to, Healey growled,
• 1:35:13
  you've been resetting the course every night to try to meet it. Captain
• 1:35:16
  Brown turned a delicate shade of pea green. Sorry, sir, he said,
• 1:35:23
  skip it. Just be sure you don't lose them. Captain Brown was
• 1:35:28
  a good navigator. Eighty days later, the lookout saying, unidentified object on
• 1:35:32
  the starboard bow ser asimuth four degrees, ascension two degrees plus distance ten thousand
• 1:35:40
  miles. Heally was amused when a minute later the lookout called the phoebus name.
• 1:35:46
  Apparently the lookout too had been expecting to cd her. The filipuster was
• 1:35:51
  already reversing fields. They stopped and tied the phoebus onto them, and Admiral
• 1:35:56
  Heey and Captain Brown went aboard. The Martians were glad to see them,
• 1:36:01
  mister Zitzits especially. They crowded around close, and mister Zitzitz offered the tip
• 1:36:06
  of one of his leaves, and Healey shook it firmly. How's it going,
• 1:36:11
  asked Heey, you look a little droopy. Very nicely, said mister
• 1:36:16
  Zitzits, very nicely. Healey looked things over. They had patched up the
• 1:36:23
  oxygen system. They had juice in the batteries. They had tried to weld
• 1:36:27
  some plates over the big hole in the afterhold, but they hadn't been able
• 1:36:30
  to make the patch stick, and so they had sealed the bulkhead doors and
• 1:36:34
  were using only the forward two thirds of the ship. They had tried to
• 1:36:39
  repair the pumping system, but the main pump was jimmied up and needed some
• 1:36:43
  pretty careful lathe work. Healey could see they had been trying to cut some
• 1:36:47
  bushings for it, but they all looked like scrap. The lathes that had
• 1:36:51
  been left on the phoebus were relics anyway. Healey looked at mister Zitzuts again,
• 1:36:59
  you're withered as the del He said, why don't you give this up
• 1:37:02
  and go back to Mars. You'll cave in if you don't. Mister Zizitz
• 1:37:08
  faced Hey for a moment, then he seemed to come to a decision.
• 1:37:13
  He led them into the control room and they sat down while he paced the
• 1:37:15
  floor, shuffling back and forth on his stock. You two men, he
• 1:37:21
  said, presently, looking at Heey and Brown, have always been friendly to
• 1:37:27
  us, and you two have done more to help us than all the others
• 1:37:30
  put together. So I suppose I may as well be frank with you.
• 1:37:36
  You think we're crazy for wanting a ship so much? He paused. Then
• 1:37:42
  a sound like a sigh came from him. Well, I'll let you decide
• 1:37:45
  for yourself. We've never told the whole story because Earth people are well.
• 1:37:55
  He searched for a delicate word unpredictable. Healey nodded grimly. Mister Zitzitch shuffled
• 1:38:02
  over to a porthole and looked out toward the constellation Villa. Then he turned
• 1:38:08
  towards heely and brown. But one of his long leaves pointed through the porthole.
• 1:38:14
  We came from there eleven thousand years ago, he said. Heey was
• 1:38:19
  not surprised. He had expected some such thing. That is, you mean
• 1:38:25
  your forefathers, No, said mister Zitzitz, his leaves rustling. I mean
• 1:38:31
  we the seven hundred and seventy seven of us who are still alive. Heey
• 1:38:38
  blinked. That's right, heally said. You told me before that you live
• 1:38:44
  a long time, but you wouldn't if you were kept away from Mars all
• 1:38:47
  the time. Zitzitz answered, I don't know. I only know that so
• 1:38:55
  much contact with humans wearies us with its forgive me, with its pettiness and
• 1:39:00
  selfishness. We can't endure it without a pause. You've been alone here on
• 1:39:08
  the phoebus. Mister Zitzus looked embarrassed. I hesitate to say this, but
• 1:39:15
  humans leave their mark on everything they associate with. A small amount of their
• 1:39:19
  dominant emotions is absorbed even by metal and so on. Then when you get
• 1:39:27
  to Mars, you don't do anything mysterious at all, said he You just
• 1:39:31
  go out into the desert and rest. Wonderful relaxation, said mister Zitzitz.
• 1:39:39
  That's all we did for eleven thousand years on Mars, and you don't have
• 1:39:45
  to eat. Practically speaking, no, we can get along very nicely for
• 1:39:49
  a hundred years or so of active life, just absorbing what energy we need
• 1:39:55
  from the sunlight and the air. Of course, the way we were living
• 1:39:59
  on Mars before the Phoebus came, we could live forever. What planet did
• 1:40:04
  you come from, Healey asked, looking through the porthole, The fourteenth planet
• 1:40:11
  of what you know as the star gem of Alorum. It's a great deal
• 1:40:15
  like your Earth, physically speaking, why in heck did you leave? Asked
• 1:40:21
  Brown to hunt up some new telephone numbers. Mister Zitzes's leaves rustled softly,
• 1:40:29
  as if he was smiling. Not exactly. Our Scientific Council heard rumors from
• 1:40:34
  the expiration committee of a planet in the system of py Centaurus that Earth people
• 1:40:41
  were developing a highly organized social and political system with a complex arrangement of strata
• 1:40:46
  in regard to persons themselves. You mean class distinction, Healey said dryly,
• 1:40:55
  Yes, that's about it. Well, you see, on our planet we
• 1:41:00
  never had been inclined to differences in position. We are not a highly organized
• 1:41:05
  people. In fact, there never has been any need for organization at all.
• 1:41:12
  Our physical wants are almost nil, so there has been no incentive for
• 1:41:15
  one to get ahead of the others. But our Progress Committee wanted to become
• 1:41:20
  familiar with Earth's system, because we work on the theory that everything of that
• 1:41:26
  sort has advantages. So seven hundred and seventy seven of us were sent on
• 1:41:32
  a rocket ship, which we bought from the robots of the eighteenth Planet,
• 1:41:36
  to investigate Earth's social system. Wait a minute, said Healy, sitting up.
• 1:41:44
  Did you say eleven thousand years ago? Mister Zitzitz nodded. We landed
• 1:41:50
  on Earth and found a rather highly developed civilization that is compared to what you
• 1:41:57
  have now. Of course, because I have no other standard, we became
• 1:42:01
  acquainted. One second said hey, sharply, what part of Earth did you
• 1:42:08
  visit? There were only two continents that interested us, one and what is
• 1:42:15
  now approximately the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, and the other in what is
• 1:42:19
  now the Southwest Pacific. Hey jumped up, You don't say Atlantis and Lemuria.
• 1:42:29
  That's what I argued in my thesis fifty years ago. That's what got
• 1:42:32
  me kicked out of active duty in the Air Marines. That's what made me
• 1:42:36
  an outcast. Those are the two continents that Senator Philippuster maintained were nothing but
• 1:42:43
  myths. They were quite real. Then, said mister Zitzitz. Well,
• 1:42:48
  I'll just be plain scuttled end of chapter eight, Chapter nine. Friends,
• 1:42:58
  Indeed, eyes flashing with eagerness, heally sat down again because he was weak
• 1:43:04
  from excitement. After all these years, his graduation thesis had been vindicated by
• 1:43:11
  mister Zitzitz. There was only a chain of islands where your eastern mountains are
• 1:43:16
  in North America, and there were some primitive peoples in Egypt and southeastern Europe,
• 1:43:23
  Mister Zitzits went on. But the peoples of Atlantis and the Muria,
• 1:43:28
  who had some interchange and seemed to have developed concurrently, had quite a modern
• 1:43:32
  civilization. They had extensive family relationships, marriage, religion, and so on.
• 1:43:40
  But the thing that interested us most was the eminence given to persons of
• 1:43:45
  education on the one hand, and persons who in one way or another,
• 1:43:49
  had accumulated more possessions than they needed for their personal use. That hasn't changed.
• 1:43:56
  Captain Brown observed, how long did you stay there? Almost a year?
• 1:44:02
  The so called rulers took us in charge and just about convinced us that
• 1:44:06
  their system was a good one and that we could profit by adaptation of it,
• 1:44:12
  what you sometimes call California Chamber of Commerce tactics, I believe. Admiral
• 1:44:18
  Heey leaned forward. Tell me just one thing, mister Sitzits. Did they
• 1:44:24
  really have this secret of counteracting gravity? Oh? Yes they did. Their
• 1:44:29
  methods of propulsion were crude compared to yours, but they had discovered how to
• 1:44:33
  control gravity very completely. Do you have that secret? Hely and Brown both
• 1:44:41
  held their breaths for the answer. Well, no, I don't, but
• 1:44:45
  I think I know where it is, mister Zitzit, said slowly. Can
• 1:44:50
  you get it for me? Asked Hely, Yes, I think so.
• 1:44:56
  Healey relaxed his fingers, drumming on the chair arm. Go on, he
• 1:45:00
  said, how did you get stranded on Mars? You had a ship.
• 1:45:05
  I'm getting to that we weren't satisfied with what we had seen on Earth.
• 1:45:12
  Something seemed, as you say, phony, So we decided to get away
• 1:45:16
  from the nervousness of Earth and think it over. We left, but a
• 1:45:20
  stowaway from the Lamourriane, turned up almost as soon as we were off the
• 1:45:25
  ground. He had been working in the factory where they made their crude aircraft.
• 1:45:30
  He was very excited. He told us we hadn't gotten the true picture
• 1:45:35
  at all, that there were ten unhappy and underprivileged persons to every one of
• 1:45:41
  the class. We had known that the ruling class had deliberately misinformed us and
• 1:45:45
  kept us from seeing the truth. He was perhaps a little fanatical, but
• 1:45:51
  he impressed us. We started to take him back to Earth because obviously he
• 1:45:57
  couldn't go to Vila with us. That excited him. He seized our controls.
• 1:46:02
  We operated on a beam that focused on the gravitational power of a body
• 1:46:06
  and either attracted or repelled. He tried to do both at once, and
• 1:46:12
  the controls went completely haywire pardon my Earth's slang, quite all right, heat
• 1:46:17
  He breathed, his eyes fixed on mister Zitzits. We swung into an orbit
• 1:46:24
  around Earth. We tried various things to get away, and we aren't very
• 1:46:30
  handy at such things, you know, we somehow got our beam focused on
• 1:46:34
  Earth, with all other gravitational influences nullified, and we circled Earth that terrific
• 1:46:40
  speed. With our centrifugal inertia counteracting the attractional force of a beam focused on
• 1:46:45
  Earth. We had to go faster and faster, and after a few days
• 1:46:50
  we approached the speed of light that gave us tremendous mass and pulled the Earth
• 1:46:57
  a little out of its regular orbit. We were circling Earth across the poles,
• 1:47:01
  and presently the continent now known as America was pulled up out of the
• 1:47:05
  ocean bed by our masts, and the two continents of le Muria and Atlantis
• 1:47:11
  were completely inundated by the tidal waves, and both continents disappeared under the water.
• 1:47:17
  Heley took a deep breath. So that's the story, he said.
• 1:47:23
  At last, yes, said Brown, But how can you prove it?
• 1:47:29
  At this, mister Zitzes's leaves perked up. Oh, I can prove it,
• 1:47:33
  he said. We broke loose from Earth and finally landed on Mars.
• 1:47:40
  The Stowway spent all his time until he died from lack of nourishment, writing
• 1:47:44
  the records of le Muria. He told all he knew about their science,
• 1:47:47
  including the secret of counteracting gravity. Great sea of fire, said Captain Brown,
• 1:47:56
  and Admiral Heey's eyes were gleaming with a strange fire that had not been
• 1:48:00
  there for many years. Brown looked at him. But would even that be
• 1:48:05
  enough to swing the space marines, He asked Healy. Heathe's eyes narrowed.
• 1:48:11
  It had better be with the heat I could put on Senator Philipuster and through
• 1:48:15
  him on the board of Discipline. Philipuster is one of the biggest shots in
• 1:48:19
  the world. Now you know, yes, he nodded with sudden conviction.
• 1:48:25
  We can swing it. Captain he looked up suddenly. Who has this manuscript?
• 1:48:30
  He asked, mister Zitzits. It's in the Lemurian's grave. Back on
• 1:48:34
  Mars, Hee was on his feet, his eyes blazing. Now, oh,
• 1:48:41
  brother, he murmured, over and over, things are going to pop
• 1:48:45
  now presently. He turned to mister Zitzits. So you crash landed on Mars,
• 1:48:51
  and you, fellows couldn't fix up the ship because you're not so handy
• 1:48:55
  with tools, and the Lemurian didn't live long enough. That's a the story
• 1:49:00
  the ship rusted in spite of all we could do, and gradually disintegrated,
• 1:49:08
  and you've been waiting ever since to hitch a ride home, said Brown.
• 1:49:13
  What else was there to do, asked mister Zitzuts. I suppose that you've
• 1:49:17
  made up your mind about class distinctions by now, Heey said a little assiduously.
• 1:49:24
  Mister Zitzuts was slow in replying. I think, he said finally,
• 1:49:30
  that it is still short of perfection. Healy snorted. Brown said, thoughtfully,
• 1:49:38
  I can understand all this stuff about lemuria and anti gravity and so on.
• 1:49:42
  That's plain enough. But what I can't understand is you've had eleven thousand
• 1:49:47
  years with nothing to do. But wait, why didn't you ever have any
• 1:49:51
  offspring on Mars? Heeley imagined. Mister Zitzuts was smiling softly to himself,
• 1:49:59
  because we're all males, Our wives and sweethearts are all back home in the
• 1:50:04
  Velorian system. Brown gulped and stared at hey. Well, no wonder they
• 1:50:11
  want a ship, he said, after eleven thousand years on Mars, I'd
• 1:50:15
  want to get back home and raise some little zitzies as myself. Heally could
• 1:50:20
  not speak for a few minutes, So that was why they wanted a ship
• 1:50:26
  to go home home to wives and sweethearts and children and families, Home home
• 1:50:31
  to a place that was very much like Earth. After eleven thousand years of
• 1:50:35
  patient waiting on the red Alkali of Mars. How tremendously glad they must have
• 1:50:42
  been to see the Phoebus when she came down the first time. How they
• 1:50:45
  must have felt when Healey slammed the airlock hatch on mister Zitziz's face. Healy
• 1:50:51
  stood up. I'm sold, he said, quietly. I'll see that you
• 1:50:57
  get her in, Captain Brown. Yes, sir, mister Zitzetz was murmuring
• 1:51:01
  softly. I shall be very grateful. Captain Brown. Send me some equipment
• 1:51:10
  over from the filipuster. One complete machine shop, a small forge, a
• 1:51:14
  plastic press, steel and brass stock, food and water. Make up a
• 1:51:18
  list, everything you can think of. Send us all you can find in
• 1:51:23
  the filipuster, and as soon as you reach Havanaport, ship the rest to
• 1:51:27
  Mars, and include ten tons of amorsium that will be enough to take us
• 1:51:32
  to take them to the edge of the universe and back. Brown swallowed ten
• 1:51:38
  tons, sir. That stuff is worth roughly a million dollars a ton,
• 1:51:43
  I've got three million dollars put away here. I'll give you a letter to
• 1:51:46
  my attorneys. Maybe, mister Zitzitz interrupted softly. Wee Jitzitz's have several million
• 1:51:55
  dollars. It is magnificent of you to do this for us, but let
• 1:52:00
  us expend our common funds first. Yeah, Heey growled. I guess you'll
• 1:52:05
  have to do that, and we'll still be short a few million dollars.
• 1:52:10
  But get it shipped anyway, Captain, my credit ought to be worth something.
• 1:52:15
  I'm willing to lend you what I have, but that isn't very much,
• 1:52:18
  said Brown. And Atomic Power Rink will take a mortgage on your soul
• 1:52:24
  for the balance. Don't worry me with details, said Heey. Get the
• 1:52:28
  stuff, yes, sir. Captain Brown took the letter from Healey and won
• 1:52:32
  from mister Zitzitz, and went back through the airlocks. Presently, the equipment
• 1:52:38
  began to stream across the gangplanks. Everything went well until the ten tons of
• 1:52:43
  amoricium began to come over in small black boxes that held twenty five pounds each.
• 1:52:48
  Heely was a little surprised to see it, for he had figured it
• 1:52:53
  would be necessary for Captain Brown to do so fast finagling on Earth to get
• 1:52:56
  that. But apparently Brown was taking things into his own hands. On the
• 1:53:00
  theory that possession is pretty good title end of chapter nine. Chapter ten,
• 1:53:10
  Mister Zitzitz goes to Mars. Brown was moving pretty fast, but Senator Philippuster
• 1:53:16
  moved almost as fast, in no time at all. He came stamping aboard,
• 1:53:20
  not so impressive in a spacesuit and oxygen mask. I'll have you know,
• 1:53:26
  sir, you can't tamper with private property this way, he snorted,
• 1:53:30
  after he got off his oxygen masks with jerky fingers. I'll have you know
• 1:53:35
  that I am master of the Filipuster and all aboard her. Heally told him.
• 1:53:41
  I deemed this fuel necessary to save this crew of Martians from disaster.
• 1:53:45
  There he felt better. He already had cleared Brown. The Senator sputtered,
• 1:53:53
  but the Martians came from our own ship. Perhaps they did, But mister
• 1:53:59
  Zitzitz here claimed the phoebus as salvage before witnesses. The senator exploded, his
• 1:54:05
  face was red. But ten tons of amerisium it will be paid for,
• 1:54:12
  Heeley said, it's outrageous. They don't need that much to get to Mars.
• 1:54:18
  I deem it necessary for their salvage operations. Mister Zitziz shuffled up.
• 1:54:25
  The Senator was swelling. Mister Zitziz as captain of the phoebus. Now,
• 1:54:30
  Healey said pointedly. The Senator glared and turned purple. I'll have your ticket
• 1:54:36
  for this, you whipper snapper. He barked at Healey and stamped back across
• 1:54:41
  the gangplank. The filipuster pulled away in charge of Captain Brown and Admiral Heeley
• 1:54:46
  rolled up his sleeves and went to work on the phoebus. At ninety,
• 1:54:50
  he wasn't ancient, but he wasn't as young as he had been, and
• 1:54:55
  he was soft. Nevertheless, he worked long, long hours showing the Zitzitzs
• 1:55:00
  how to fix things. When his muscles got stiff, he worked to limber
• 1:55:05
  them. He got the pumps going. He himself went outside in a spacesuit
• 1:55:11
  and welded up the hull. They tore out the damaged partitions. They replaced
• 1:55:16
  pipes for water and compressed air, and Healy tested and checked the communications.
• 1:55:23
  The Zizitzes worked tirelessly. They could do things if some one would show them
• 1:55:28
  how. And one day, three months later they turned on the power and
• 1:55:31
  straightened the Phoebus out of her lazy end over and floating, and took off
• 1:55:35
  for Mars. They reached the Red planet in six weeks and landed at the
• 1:55:40
  spaceport. Captain Brown was already there with a load of supplies he brought himself
• 1:55:45
  on a special trip. He told Healey the money situation wasn't too good.
• 1:55:51
  Adam Power Ink wasn't sticking out its neck yet by refusing delivery, but they
• 1:55:56
  were firm in asking full payment for the Amerisium. It worried Healey a little.
• 1:56:01
  That is, he worried for fear that Adam Power Ink would attach the
• 1:56:05
  phoebus before they could get started for Gamma Valorum, but he didn't say anything
• 1:56:11
  about it to mister Zitzitz. He went ahead and turned the phoebus over to
• 1:56:15
  a repair crew at Space Travel Ink spaceport so the phoebus could be made really
• 1:56:20
  ship shape. That would cost money too, but the Zititzz couldn't start a
• 1:56:26
  sixty year trip in a ruptured duck. Then Healey set about getting legal title
• 1:56:30
  to the phoebus in the name of mister Zitzits. As soon as the repair
• 1:56:35
  work was finished, Healey started loading operations. It would take about three days
• 1:56:41
  to get the phoebus loaded with trucks running in and out of her hole like
• 1:56:45
  yellow ants, so he'd he turned the job over to Captain Brown, who
• 1:56:48
  was waiting for orders while he and mister Zitziz took a trip into the desert
• 1:56:53
  to find the Limurian's grave. That was no trouble. The Zititus had buried
• 1:56:59
  the Lemurian in a solid rock cavern and then had cemented it so it was
• 1:57:02
  air tight. A couple of sticks of dynamite opened it. When the dust
• 1:57:08
  cleared out, Helia and mister Zizits went inside. They found the body,
• 1:57:14
  or what was left of it, a faint white outline of a skeleton formed
• 1:57:17
  in bone dust on the rocky floor. They also found the lead casket that
• 1:57:23
  the Zizzies had sealed shut in. It was a manuscript written in ink on
• 1:57:27
  fine parchment, some two hundred pages. But Healy shook his head when he
• 1:57:31
  saw the writing. It was faint but still legible. But Heally said,
• 1:57:38
  that's almost identical with Mayan hieroglyphics. But it doesn't do us any good because
• 1:57:44
  nobody has ever been able to decipher Mayan. They're probably the same language.
• 1:57:49
  Mister Zitzits waggled his leaves. That needn't bother you. I can remember enough
• 1:57:56
  of Lamurian writing to compile a key. In fact, if you'll give me
• 1:58:00
  a stenographer who can understand my speech, I think I could translate this for
• 1:58:05
  you in a couple of days, roughly at least. Healey stared at him.
• 1:58:12
  You're a wonder if you can do that. When they got back to
• 1:58:15
  the spaceport, Brown was worried. A man came in the liner from Earth
• 1:58:19
  looking for mister Zitzuits. He appeared to be a process server. Healey looked
• 1:58:26
  haggard. He mustn't find Zitzits. Keep him away. Tell him mister Zitzis
• 1:58:31
  has gone to Pluto to sell toothbrushes to earthworms. Tell him anything, and
• 1:58:36
  whip up this loading. How much longer? Brown shook his head. Two
• 1:58:42
  days more. Anyway, I'm afraid there's a load of stuff, sir.
• 1:58:47
  So heey isolated mister Zitzits in an office at the back of a drug store
• 1:58:50
  under the spaceport with a stenographer who had enough imagination to understand the Zitzits language,
• 1:58:58
  while he himself went to push the loading. But next morning mister Zitziz
• 1:59:02
  sent word for Heey to come. When Healy got there, mister Zitzis handed
• 1:59:06
  him ninety pages of tellerwritten copy. Heaty was amazed, but he was not
• 1:59:12
  surprised. He leafed through the manuscript, and when he found the section on
• 1:59:16
  anti gravity, he uttered a yell. What this won't do to people like
• 1:59:21
  Senator Philipuster, he said, and chuckled, Simple too, don't you think,
• 1:59:29
  asked mister Zitzitz. Healy clucked his tongue. Far easier than atomic power,
• 1:59:35
  and you can see that it will have to work. It's really nothing
• 1:59:40
  but an electronic adaptation of an old type of video circuit. What it does
• 1:59:45
  is get inside of gravitational power instead of trying to fight it. Heally left
• 1:59:51
  mister Zitzitz in hiding while he went to the video office and transmitted a long
• 1:59:56
  message to the Discipline Board, including the information on anti gravity, and asked
• 2:00:01
  them formally to investigate his claim that this was a genuine L. Murray in
• 2:00:05
  manuscript. That was enough. The Discipline Board knew the angles they would get
• 2:00:12
  the picture but fast. Two days later, from over the desert came the
• 2:00:17
  Zitzitzes seven hundred and seventy six of them streaming into the phoebus to go back
• 2:00:23
  home. They counted them seven times to be sure, because there wouldn't be
• 2:00:28
  any refunds on that trip. They had just finished the seventh count when Healey
• 2:00:32
  turned around to face a man in a brown suit. Mister zitzits here yet?
• 2:00:39
  No, Heally said grimly, he isn't here. Well, I suppose
• 2:00:45
  he will be pretty soon. Looks like you're getting ready to take off,
• 2:00:49
  Heally growled in his throat. He wondered how this fellow would like to take
• 2:00:54
  a long, one way trip, but he knew mister Zizitts would never prove
• 2:00:59
  violence if he knew about it. They warmed up the engine, with the
• 2:01:03
  brown suited man standing fast in the control room, although Healey did his best
• 2:01:08
  to walk all over him every time he turned around. Finally, Heally went
• 2:01:13
  outside and got Brown. Bring mister Zitzitz, he said grimly. I may
• 2:01:18
  have to give this bird a tap on the jaw and take him with us,
• 2:01:23
  But get mister Zitzitz. The phoebus is ready to roll, Yes,
• 2:01:28
  sir, said mister Brown, with alacrity. He skunk Heey said softly,
• 2:01:33
  you'd like to see some violence could be Brown said Healley went back to the
• 2:01:42
  ship. Now there was a messenger in a blue suit waiting for him.
• 2:01:46
  Sign here, Admiral, he said, heey signed. He tore open the
• 2:01:50
  envelope with nervous fingers and read the single sheet. John Healey, Care Spaceport,
• 2:01:57
  Mars half investigated claim aim of le Murray in manuscript Electronics Experts Verify Gravitational
• 2:02:03
  Synchronizer. This board considers your claim established on recommendation of Senator Philip Uster.
• 2:02:11
  You are hereby restored to active duty in the International Space Marines with the rank
• 2:02:15
  of Admiral. Report for duty with Stratosphere Fleet within thirty days. Jennings,
• 2:02:21
  Captain is m Secretary of Board of Discipline. Heey blinked. He read it
• 2:02:29
  again. Then he drew a tremendous breath, and his chest began to fill
• 2:02:33
  with the feeling that he had hungered for since twenty one seventeen. He was
• 2:02:39
  an admiral in the Space Marines, the sixth Admiral. Heey. The goodness
• 2:02:45
  of the feeling flowed over him like the morning sun, and he wanted to
• 2:02:48
  shout it to all of Mars. But the brown suited man was waiting on
• 2:02:53
  the bridge. Healey looked through the port and he saw mister Zitzitz shuffling rapidly
• 2:02:58
  up the gangplank. Heally looked at the brown suited man and drew back his
• 2:03:01
  fist. It was ironic that his first act as an admiral in the Space
• 2:03:06
  Marines would be an act of lawlessness that would damn the memory of Heathy's forever.
• 2:03:13
  The brown suited man turned his chin in exactly the right spot. He
• 2:03:17
  looked puzzled at Heathy's drawn back arm. There was a shout from the airlock.
• 2:03:24
  Captain Brown rushed in, waving a message. They restored me to active
• 2:03:29
  duty, he shouted. They're restoring everybody who was in the Rocket Service at
• 2:03:32
  the time we first landed on Mars. He read from the message for meritorious
• 2:03:39
  service in advancing the cause of science. He pounded Heally on the back.
• 2:03:44
  I'm a full fledged captain in the Space Marines. Healy straightened and glowered at
• 2:03:49
  him. I am your admiral, he said stiffly. Brown gulped. Then
• 2:03:56
  he straightened and saluted, yes, sir, Sorry sir, and besides,
• 2:04:00
  said Hely, you blame you'er knock me over. He grinned and put out
• 2:04:05
  his hand shake. Captain mister Zitzis was shuffling excitedly in the control room.
• 2:04:14
  He was waving some papers too. They've just handed me a receipt for all
• 2:04:18
  supplies and all work done on the phoebus. What does this mean, mister
• 2:04:24
  Zitzitz asked the man in the brown suit, and shoved an official looking paper
• 2:04:29
  at him. Healy took the papers from mister Zitzitz and scanned them. Hoy
• 2:04:34
  jumping. He stopped. He was too much for him. Senator Philippuster,
• 2:04:42
  he said, finally to Brown has personally paid or guaranteed all bills incident to
• 2:04:46
  the outfitting of the phoebus for the trip to Gama of Alorum. Brown stared
• 2:04:53
  in his mouth dropped open. Well, I'll be scuppered, he said slowly.
• 2:05:00
  The man in the brown suit was already gone. Admiral heeey I s
• 2:05:03
  M. Looked at Captain Brown, I s M. And blinked his eyes
• 2:05:08
  and shook his head. Brown took the paper served on mister Zitzits. I'll
• 2:05:14
  have these canceled. Mister Zitzitz came up softly. I'm very glad for both
• 2:05:19
  of you, gentlemen. Thanks they said, mister Zitzius's leaves were waving and
• 2:05:27
  dancing. You've been more than kind, Admiral. Thank you very much for
• 2:05:31
  everything, and that is very small. Thanks skip it, Healey said gruffly.
• 2:05:40
  One of mister Zitziz's leaf tips took Captain Brown's hand. You, Captain,
• 2:05:45
  have done more than your part, much more. That's okay, Brown
• 2:05:50
  said casually, and Healey knew he was embarrassed. Brown turned and said to
• 2:05:57
  Healey, let's be going, sir. Heally held out his hand to Brown.
• 2:06:02
  The Captain took it before he realized what he was doing. Then he
• 2:06:05
  laughed. Brown said, see you at the Spaceport bar tonight. No,
• 2:06:13
  Captain, I guess not, Heally answered. He turned to the desk and
• 2:06:16
  wrote something on a sheet of paper. He handed it to Brown. There
• 2:06:21
  was a puzzled frown around the Captain's eyes. What's this? Healey swallowed hard.
• 2:06:30
  That, Captain, is my resignation from the Space Marines. Brown's eyes
• 2:06:35
  popped open. What the devil are you saying? Are you crazy, sir?
• 2:06:42
  I'm going with mister Zitzit's Healy said. Brown reached blindly for a place
• 2:06:46
  to sit. He sat down and began to mutter and shake his head as
• 2:06:50
  if to clear away the cobwebs. They've got to have somebody, said Heey
• 2:06:57
  doggedly. If anything should go long on the trip, they'd be utterly lost.
• 2:07:01
  They can't make things or repair things. The Phoebus is an old ship.
• 2:07:08
  There'll be lots of little things go wrong. They've got to have me,
• 2:07:12
  don't you see? His tone was almost pleading. Brown looked at him.
• 2:07:17
  Healey knew that Brown was thinking of that day when they had planted the
• 2:07:20
  flag on Mars and Heey had slammed the airlock door in mister Zitzu's face.
• 2:07:27
  Brown stood up. He took the resignation in his hand, snapped to attention,
• 2:07:31
  saluted smartly. He started to speak, but there seemed to be something
• 2:07:35
  wrong with his throat. He wheeled and marched stiffly into the airlock. Mister
• 2:07:43
  zitzitz seemed to be studying Healey. You may do this if you wish,
• 2:07:47
  Admiral, but it really is not necessary. You know, mighty well it's
• 2:07:53
  necessary, Healey said. Besides, maybe I can pick up a few phone
• 2:07:59
  numbers when we get da villa. Mister Zitzis's leaves rustled softly. You will
• 2:08:05
  be an old man when we reach home. You'll never live to get back
• 2:08:09
  to Earth. Close the hatches. HELI ordered, prepared to take off.
• 2:08:16
  It's a long trip. Mister Zitzitz hesitated, then one leaf raised in a
• 2:08:22
  regal salute. They lifted her off the concrete. She slanted up and up
• 2:08:28
  and up at tremendous speed, and then, free of Mars gravitational influence,
• 2:08:33
  curved downward into the sixty year trajectory that would bring them to Gamma Valorum in
• 2:08:37
  the southern Skies. The next day they were out far past Uranus and still
• 2:08:45
  accelerating at a constant two gravities. Two faint messages came on the videophone.
• 2:08:50
  One said, congratulations Admiral and best wishes. I guess there's nobody funnier than
• 2:08:58
  people take admiral Ism retired. The other said John Healey admiral Ism retired,
• 2:09:09
  congratulations on becoming the sixth Admiral. I wish I could have shaken your hand,
• 2:09:15
  but you know what is best. Good luck from your dad, Mark
• 2:09:18
  Healey, admiral Ism retired. Healey looked up. Mister Zitzitz was on the
• 2:09:26
  bridge. He was facing Villa. His leaves were rustling gently. He was
• 2:09:33
  going home, and from the way he was staring through the porthole, Healey
• 2:09:37
  knew his eyes were open. Healey softly folded the last message and put it
• 2:09:43
  carefully in his breast pocket. He walked over and stood beside mister Zitzitz and
• 2:09:48
  looked toward Villa. Heley's eyes were open, too, but they were wet.
• 2:09:56
  End of chapter ten. The end of Mister Zitzets Goes to Mars by Noel Loomis