"But _nothing_ can't _go_ any faster!" protested Ugh. "According to
Einstein--"
"To hell with Einstein!" roared Brad. "Is he paying your salary?"
So they went faster.
The ship sped onward--unless it was upward--to fulfill its Mission.
Again and again Brad found himself wondering where he was going. The
Mission was a real stiff. He knew only that since there was
practically no life anywhere in the solar system, except for good,
kind, old Earth--Earth had seen to that--anyone attacking Earth--or
not doing so--was obviously somewhere in outer space! But here the
trail ended.
Courage, he told himself, courage! After all, was he not the grandson
of Pierre Fromage, inventor of the rubberband motor? With a start, he
realized he was not.
His own heritage, while covered with peculiar glory, was a more tragic
one--the spacemen's heritage. The Broadshoulders were brave, but
things happened to them. His grandfather, a traffic officer, had
chased a comet for speeding, and had, unfortunately, overtaken it. His
father had been spared the fire, but one day, aboard his spaceship,
someone spilled a glass of water. The gravity was off at the time, and
the water just hung there in mid-air until Brad's father walked into
it and drowned.
What would be his own end, he wondered? What other way was there to
die? Just then, through the bulkhead, he could hear Ugh swinging in
his hammock, playing the violin. He wondered if the rats were dancing,
like the last time he'd surprised him. Another thought was on the way,
something about rats and a new way to die, but Brad was already
asleep, mercifully having a nightmare.
* * * * *
It was morning of the fifth day when the _Emergency Alarm_ (E-A) was
suddenly activated! Instantly, a host of automatic devices went off.
One turned on the fan, another blew the fuses, a third made the beds.
Bells clanged and bugles sounded every call from _Battle Stations_
(B-S) to _Abandon Ship_ (J-r). Brad and Ugh slept through it all.
Nothing was wrong, except with the _Emergency Alarm_ (E-A). It wore
itself out and the eventful voyage continued.
Brad woke on the ninth day. The 2-day pill he'd taken on the third day
had evidently done its work well. He was rested, he felt optimistic
again. When he looked out the porthole, he could see plenty of space
for improvement.
--But what was _that_?
There, half obscured in a tumbling, swirling mass of misty gray
clouds, he could make out something white! He pressed his nose against
the porthole and strained his eyes. It gave him the feeling of peering
into a Bendix, as is the custom of spacemen. His mouth went damp-dry.
This was it--whatever it was!
"Ugh!" he shouted, all agog. "Ugh! Ugh!"
Ugh dashed in, wheeling a large kaleidoscope. Expertly, they read the
directions and trained it on the mysterious formation. The Indicator
turned pale.
"By the ring-tailed dog star of Sirius!" barked Brad. "Why, it's
nothing more than an enormous gallstone, revolving in space!"
"This is Sirius!" barked Ugh.
"That's what _I_ barked!" snapped Brad. "And don't ask me _whose_ it
is! It's big enough to support life, that's the main issue! Prepare to
land!"
A strange, yet resplendent, civilization, thought Brad, looking out at
a sunlit landscape, or gallscape, of molten gold. The houses, stylish
igloos and mosques, were sturdily constructed of 3-ply cardboard and
driftwood. Before each house, mysteriously, stood a Berber pole of
solid peppermint.
Brad and Ugh bounded out of their ship. The two bounders stood there,
encased in heat-resistant pyrex pants, expecting the natives to make
things hot for them. Dumbfounded at the delay, they waited for the
attack to commence. It did not.
"I never!" said Brad, presently. "If we needed proof, we've got it!
Such a display of indolence is testimony enough that these people are
responsible for not attacking Earth! We shall have to use stratemegy!"
Swiftly, he took off his pants, revealing underneath the red flannel
costume of a 17th century French courtier, complete with powdered wig
and Falstaff. Ugh ran up a flag emblazoned with the legend: _Diplomacy
And Agriculture_, then planted beans all around the ship, while Brad
postured and danced the minuet.
The clever scheme worked beautifully. Soon an old man began circling
them on a bicycle, keeping a safe distance. Clearly, he was someone of
importance, for his long white beard was carefully braided and coiled
in a delivery basket on the handlebars. Furthermore, he wore a glowing
circlet on his forehead--so that Brad knew he was able to read their
minds--if they had any.
"How about throwing us a couple circlets?" Brad cried.
Instead, the old man, who was hard of hearing, flung them a couple
cutlets, which worked even better, and had protein besides.
Thus fortified, they were escorted to the palace.
* * * * *
Some moments earlier, Brad had learned first, that Kruvny was the name
of this unusual culture, and second, that the High Kruv himself,
attended by all his nobles, would see him. Brad had then entered the
Kruv Chamber, or Trapeze Room, and he had learned nothing since. It
was all true, he told himself. The High Kruv _was_ hanging by his toes
from a trapeze, and so were all his nobles. The only difference was
that the High Kruv's trapeze was more ornate than the rest. Yes, said
Brad to himself, it was all true; he had been shaking and punching his
head, and nothing had changed.
"I come," he said, "from a far away land--"
"Shad-dap!" cried the Kruv. "Who cares?"
At this, the old man, who was still on his bicycle, whispered to Brad.
"They've all got headaches," he nodded, stroking his beard
sagebrushly. "It's all part of a great cosmic error--a tragedy played
among the spiral nebulae, to the hollow ringing laughter of the gods!
You see, we Sloths are only half the population of Kruvny," he went
on. "On the other side of our world live the Sidemen, or Sad Sax.
Legend has it that eons ago, the Sidemen were mistakenly delivered a
cargo of saxophones, from Saks Fifth Avenue." The old man's voice was
hushed as he added, "They have been practicing ever since."
"I see," said Brad. "And that accounts for the headaches here?"
"Small wonder," said the old man. "I bless the day I went deaf."
"But why do they do it?" asked Brad.
"The Sidemen? They're tryin' to drive us off'n the ranch--the planet,
I mean. Yuh see, they claim they _made_ this whole durned gallstone
theirselves!"
"_Made_ it?" asked Brad, dully.
"Uh-huh." The old man spat Mercurian tobacco juice. "Just like on
Earth, where myriad minute oceanic organisms pile their skeletons to
form coral islands. Yuh see, the Sidemen eat radishes--love 'em, in
fact--but it gives 'em gallstones. They claim this whole world is the
collected gallstones of their ancestors." The old man wiped Mercurian
tobacco juice from his beard and shoes. "Kind of a hard claim to
beat," he opined.
"I see," said Brad. "That explains the misty swirling clouds all
around this planet, and why it's seldom visible. You follow me?"
"Yep," said the old man. "It's gas. Them radishes'll turn on you every
time!"
Suddenly the High Kruv began to sob. "Now you see, don't you, why we
haven't attacked Earth? A body can't keep his mind on anything around
here! I asked for a few secret weapons, and what did I get?" He was
blubbering now. "Oh, I tried, I tried! Appropriations and all that;
you may be sure we lined our pockets--but after years of stalling,
they showed up with two weapons they swore were terrible enough to put
an end to war. One of them was a water pistol."
"I see," said Brad. "And the other?"
"A ray gun."