Latest / Famous Sci-Fi Stories Collection / 17 - The Sloths of Kruvny

Transcript

17 - The Sloths of Kruvny · Famous Sci-Fi Stories Collection

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: The Sloths of Krevney by Verne Fearing. This is a
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: The Sloths of Krevney by Verne Fearing. This world we
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: live in is a pretty green place. It's stuff to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: make a living. At any moment we may get blown up,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: down or sideways by the atom bomb. The day after
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: tomorrow may never come. And on top of all this,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: TIV commercials are getting worse and worse. It seems that
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: our only salvation is a sense of humor. So we
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: give you the sloths. A very unseerious yarn, broadly broad shoulders.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Friends called him bread or broad or shoulders, stood grim lipped,
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: as is the custom of spacemen, and waited for the
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: com under to speak fateful words. He was an Abees youth,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: fully five feet all without a shred of muscle, But
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: he wore the green tunic of the galaxy patrol proudly,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: and his handsome bony head boasted a tidy crop of
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: Venusian fangus. His gleaming eyes gleamed brad. We are in
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: a tough fix, the commander said suddenly. His name was Metternich,
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: known also as Foxy Grumpa. He had spoken in capitals
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: all over Europe and continued the practice. Since we are
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: up against it, he went on, the fate of the
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: world may be at stake. What's wrong, chief, asked Brad jauntily,
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: plenty wrote Metternich, nobody's attacking the earth. That's what's wrong.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Nobody is out to conquer the universe. How come, may
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: I ask? Brad gulped Could he believe his ears? No
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: one at attacking good kind old earth? Was there nothing
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: in which a man could pin his faith, let alone
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: his ears? Were they indeed his ears? He turned to
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: his best friend, Ughugh, who stood beside him. Would he
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: stand behind him? Did she realize they were on the
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: verge of an emission? Ughugh was a pastiche or in Tormezzo,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: a cross between a Martian and a Texan, as loathsome
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: and stupid a combination as one could wish. Why he
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: was Brad's best friend was a mystery. Squarely, he met
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: Brad's gaze, which left him an eye to spair. It
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: winked and Brad shuddered. It was an omen. I want
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: to know why. The commander shouted, you have your secret
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: orders off with you, a really fat omen. The good
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: ship Lock's Wink was almost ready to go. She was
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a fine, spaceworthy craft. Brad knew just the same. It
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: was disconcerting to see rats deserting her by the thousands,
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: not that he missed them. Some were shorter return As
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: soon as Ug appeared on the scene, he seemed to
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: fascinate them. Just then the rats paused. Sure enough, Ugu
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: was coming. He was reeling. He had apparently made the rounds,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: as is the custom of spacemen, swilling vast quantities of
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: airplane dope, and he was high as a kite. Brad
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: glumped him glumly in the gloaming, with more than a
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: glimmer of gloomy foreboding. It was wrong, he thought, all wrong.
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: If only it hadn't been too late to turn back.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't. They hadn't even started yet. If anything,
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: it was too early. There was no way out. He
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: entered the spaceship with a sigh, ci whose whole name
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: was Silas Mariner shook his hand weakly, muttered remember the albatrows,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: and tottered out it was an omen. Presently, Brad and
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: Ook were blasting off as a cigar shaped vessel rose
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: to the starry, void spacemen, their visages lined and taunt
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: like cigars, held their cigars aloft in silent salute, and
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: gently flicked their ashes while softly a cigar band played maracas,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: Why you no love me no more? Two days out?
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: Brad salmon, oough, how fast are we going? Oh? Say,
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: thirty thousand miles an hour? Brad calculated rapidly and put
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: down his abacus. At this rate, it'll take us fourteen
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: years just to get out of our own lousy solar system.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: He barked faster. Uk said yes, sir, and vice versa.
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Then he upped the speed to one hundred and eighty
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: six thousand miles per second, and came back and shyly
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: told Brad. Brad said, bah, we'll be seventy years reaching
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: the Big Dipper faster. But nothing can go any faster,
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Prot said, uugh, according to Einstein, To hell with Einstein
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: wrote Brad, is he paying your salary? So they went faster.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: The sheep sped onward unless it was upward to fulfill
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: its mission. Again and again, Brad found himself wondering where
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: he was going. The mission was real stiff. He knew
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: only that, since there was practically no life anywhere in
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: the Solar System except for good kind, old Earth, Earth
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: had seen to that anyone attacking Earth or not doing so,
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: was obviously somewhere in outer space. But here the trail
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: ended courage, he told himself, courage. After all, was he
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: not the grandson of Pierre Fromage, inventor of the rubber
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: band motor. With a start, he realized he was not.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: His own heritage, while covered with peculiar glory, was a
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: more tragic one. The spaceman's heritage. The broad Shoulders were brave,
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: but things happened to them. Grandfather, a traffic officer, had
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: chased a comet for speeding and had unfortunately overtaken it.
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: His father had been spared the fire, but one day
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: aboard his spaceships, someone spilt a glass of water. The
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: gravity was offered, the time and the water just to
• 6:17
  Speaker 1: hang there in mid air until Brad's father walked into
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: it and drowned. What would be his own end? He wondered,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: what other way was there to die? Just then, through
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: the buckhead, he could hear oak swinging in his hammock
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: playing the violin. He wondered if the rats were dancing
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: like the last time he had surprised him. Another thought
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: was on the way, something about rats and a new
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: way to die. But Brad was already asleep, mercifully having
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: a nightmare. It was morning of the fifth day when
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: the Emergency Alarm E A was suddenly activated. Instantly, a
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: host of automatic devices went off. One turned on the fan,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: another blew the fuses. A third made the beds. Bells clanked,
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: and bugles sounded. Every call from battle stations b s
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: to abandoned ship. J R. Brod and Oough slept through
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: it all. Nothing was wrong except with the Emergency Alarm
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: e A. It wore itself out and the eventful voyage continued.
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: Brad walke on the ninth day. The two day bill
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: he had taken on the third day had evidently done
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: its work well. He was rested. He felt optimistic again.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: When he looked at the porthole, he could see plenty
• 7:35
  Speaker 1: of space for improvement. But what was that there? Half
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: obscured in a tumbling, swirling mass of misty gray clouds,
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: he could make out something white. He pressed his nose
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: against the porthole and strained his eyes. It gave him
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: the feeling of peering into a bendix, as is the
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: custom of spacemen. His mouth went dumb dry. This was it,
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: whatever it was? Oough, he shouted, all agog ugh ughugh
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: uugh dashed in, wheeling a large kaleidoscope. Expertly, they read
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: the directions and trained it on the mysterious formation. The
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: indicator turned pale by the ring tailed dug star of Sirius,
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: barked Brad. Why it's nothing more than an enormous gallstone
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: revolving in space. This is serious, barked uugh. That's what
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: I barked, snapped Brad. And don't ask me whose it is.
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: It's big enough to support life, that's the main issue.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Prepare to land a strange yet resplendid civilization, thought Brad,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: looking out at a sunlit sundscape or goldscape of molten gold.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: The houses, stylish igloos and mosques were sturdily constructed of
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: three ply cardboard and driftwood. Before each house mysteriously stood
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: a berber pole of solid peppermint. Broad and o uugh
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: bounded out of their ship. The two boundaries stood there,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: encased in heat resistant pyrate expands, expecting the natives to
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: make things hot for them. Dam Founded at the delay
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: they waited for the attactic ammends it did not, I never,
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: said Brad. Presently, if we needn't prove we've got it,
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: such a display of indolence is testimony enough that these
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: people are responsible for not attacking Earth. We shall have
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: to use stratemitgy. Swiftly, he took off his pants, revealing
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: underneath the red flannel costume of a seventeenth century French courtier,
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: complete with thuddered wig and fold stuff. Oug ran up
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: a flag emblazoned with the legend Diplomacy and Agriculture, then
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: planted beans all around the sheep, while Bread postured and
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: danced the minuet. The clever scheme worked beautifully. Soon an
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: old man began circling them on a bicycle, keeping a
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: safe distance. Clearly he was someone of importance, for his
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: long white beard was carefully braided and coiled in a
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: delivery basket on the handlebars. Furthermore, he wore a glowing
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: circlet on his forehead, so that Brad knew he was
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: able to read their minds if they had any how
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: about throwing us a couple circlet, Brad cried. Instead, the
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: old man, who was hard of hearing, flung them a
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: couple cutlet, which worked even better and had prott in besides.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Thus fortified, they were escorted to the palace. Some moments earlier,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Brad had learned first that Krufney was the name of
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: this unusual culture, and second that the High Crew, himself,
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: attended by all his nobles, would see him. Brad had
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: then entered the crow chamber, wore trapeze room, and he
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: had learned nothing since it was all true, he told himself.
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: The High Crew was hanging by his stoes from a trapeze,
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: and so were all his nobles. The only difference was
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: that the High Crew's trapez was more ornate than the rest. Yes,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: said Brad to himself. It was all true. He had
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: been shaking and punching his head and nothing had changed.
• 11:13
  Speaker 1: I come, he said, from a far away land. Shut up,
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: cried the crow, who cares at this. The old man,
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: who was still on his bicycle, whispered to Brad, they've
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: all got headaches. He nodded, stroking his beard sage brushly.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: It's all part of a great cosmic error, A tragedy
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: played among the spiral nebulae, to the hollow, ringing laughter
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: of the gods. You see, we sloths are only half
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: the population of Cruvney, he went on. On the other
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: side of our world live the Sidemen or sad Sacks.
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: Legend has it that eons ago the Sidemen were mistakenly
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: delivered a cargo of saxophones from Sachs Fifth Avenue. The
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: old man, his voice was hushed as he added. They
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: have been practicing ever scenes I see, said Brad, And
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: that account for the headaches here, small wonder, said the
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: old man. Ah bless the day I went deaf. But
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: why do they do it, asked Brad. The Sidemen. They're
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: trying to drive us off on the ranch the planet.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, you see, they claim they made this hole
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: down Goldstone themselves made it, asked Brad. Stolly. Uh huh.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: The old man's but mercurian tobacco juice, just like on Earth,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: where myriad minute oceanic organisms pile their skeletons to form
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: coral islands. You see, the sidemen eat ruddishes, love em,
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: in fact, but it gives them gallstones. They claim this
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: whole world is the collected gallstones of their ancestors. The
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: old man wiped mercurian tobacco juice from his beard and shoes.
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: Kind of a claim to beat, he opined. I see,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: said Brad. That explains the misty's willing clouds all round
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: this planet, and why it's seldom visible. You follow me, yep,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: said the old man. It's gas. Then raddishes'll turn on
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: you every time. Suddenly the high craw begun to sob.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Now you see, don't you why we haven't attacked Earth?
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: A bad it can't keep his mind and anything around here.
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I asked for a few secret weapons, and what did
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: I get? He was blubbering. Now, Oh, I tried, I
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: tried appropriations and all that. You may be sure we'll
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: lined our pockets. But after years of stalling, they showed
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: up with two weapons they swore were terrible enough to
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: put an end to war. One of them was a
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: water pistol, I see, said Brad, and the other a
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: ray gan. Brad's eyes brightened. A ray gun. May I
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: see how it works? Indeed you may. A platoon of
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: maroon dragoons dragged in a queer apparatus. It looked like
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: a medieval cannon with a Victorian phonograph speaker flaring from
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: its business end. The dragoons ranged around the weapon, keeping
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: their backs to it. One of them clutched the firing lanyard.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: There was a pause, a brittle silence, then the lanyard snapped.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Ray shouted the ray gun. What was that? Asked Brad.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: Twice more, the lanyard snapped, The ray gun boomed Ray. Ray.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: You mean all it does is shot, ray, asked Brad.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Well it can also shout, max, said the old man. Fearful,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: ain't it? Yes, said Brad. He took a piece of
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: old parchment from a breast pocket. This, he stated, is
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: the original deed to Manhattan, not as here on the
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: bottom where it says twenty four dollars. I'm signing it
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: over to you, he signed with a flourish Now you
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: have a legal claim, a crusade and a nice piece
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: of property. Go get it. But the headaches, cried the
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: old man. Cool man, cool, said Brad. I'll mix a bromo.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: Is it habit forming? Cried the high croove. Not a bit,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: said Brad, mixing it simply take one an hour forever,
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: and now I must bid you for a while. Wait,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: cried the crow. Don't you want to take my lovely
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: dature back with you? Brad looked at her. She was lovely.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: She had scales, but she was lovely. She had magnificent
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: blonde hair, some of it almost an inch long, none
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: of it on her head. But she was lovely, well,
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: said Brad, hesitatingly. He had his eyes glued on her.
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: When he took them off, they made a noise like
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: vacuum cups flop. Your mother won't like her, whispered Ogg. Well,
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: said Brad. He could feel duty tagging inside. Not for him,
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: the pipe and slippers. He was one of Spaceway's men.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: He would go the spacemen's way off into waymen's space. Waymen,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: not women, he told himself sternly. The call of the ether,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: the vacuous void, the black velvet wastes, the outspread cloak
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: of the universe, tripping with star dust, the undreamt of galaxies.
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: These were the things by which he lived, Well, said Brad.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Come on, said Ughugh, who'll only fight over her? Slowly
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: they bounded back to their spaceship. The ship sped backward,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: headed for Earth. It was days before the mistake was discovered,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: and this alone spared their lives for had they completed
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: their journey on schedule. But why be morbid? The fact
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: is the earth blew up. What a sight, the whole
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: thing whirling one minute like the globe in Miss Foggerty's
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: geography supply closet. The next minute whermo Gee, said Oak soberly.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: Guess we're liking her, well, said Brad. She hadn't said
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: anything else for days, but he didn't seem well at all. Funny,
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: he thought, they promise you if you go on working,
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: work hard, and don't fool around, don't ask questions, just
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: do your job, everything'll come your way. The next thing,
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: they're all dead and there is nobody to complain to you.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: Even was it selfish to think of one's career at
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: a time like this, No, he told himself. It was
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: all he knew. The patrol was all that muttered. He
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: did some rapid calculations. They were far off the interplanetary
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: travel lanes. Their fuel supply was done to a single
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: kind of kerosene. Food for perhaps two days remained as
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: he listened to Uk tuning his violin scarcely audible over
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: the squeakings and squealings that filled the space ship. He
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: realized that the only solution, the only thing that could
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: save them or the future of earthmen, was for a
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: shipload of beautiful dames to rescue them within the next
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: thirty six hours. He figured the odds against this to
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: be fifty billion to one, but Brad had fought big
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: odds before Grim lipped. He shaved and of the sloths
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: of Crveny by ver and fearing