An Earthman on Venus (Originally titled "The Radio Man") by Ralph Milne Farley (phonics readers TXT) ๐
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- Author: Ralph Milne Farley
Read book online ยซAn Earthman on Venus (Originally titled "The Radio Man") by Ralph Milne Farley (phonics readers TXT) ๐ยป. Author - Ralph Milne Farley
The absence of any birds either here or at the gr-ool, perplexed me, until I reflected that birds are merely a specialized form of flying lizards on my own earth, and that their occurrence even on earth was merely a not-to-have-been-expected accident. Creatures similar to pterodactyls were among the extinct species on exhibit at Mooni, but birds had never been known on Poros, although I could have sworn to having seen some sort of small bird flitting in tandem pairs in the woods on my second day on the planet.
But to get back to radio. By the way, that is how I always felt during my trips to the gr-ool and my other diversions: oh, to get back to radio!
One of the Cupian slaves who was assisting me turned out to be Prince Toron, second nephew of King Kew XII. Toronโs older brother, Yuri, was the crown prince, as the king was a widower and childless, except for a daughter, Lilla. Toronโs term of slavery was nearly completed, and he was anxious to return to Cupia; where a dayโs work was only two parths, or Porovian hours, instead of five as prevailed here.
Think of the degradation of having a prince of the royal house of Cupia held as a slave in the factories of an alien race! Think of the further degradation involved in the fact that no one saw anything improper in the situation! They even celebrated annually, as Peace Day, the anniversary of the treaty which had imposed this indignity upon them.
โToron,โ I wrote one day, โwould not war be infinitely better than such a peace?โ
โYes,โ he admitted, โthere is some sentiment among the younger men of my country against the rule of the ant-men, but the ant-men are all-powerful and promptly suppress treason with an iron hand. So I am afraid that our cause is hopeless.โ
As the time for the completion of my experiment drew near, I thought of my massive beard, and I decided that it must be removed before I again faced the beautiful girl at Wautoosa. Also my hair needed attention. Cupian hair does not have to be cut and does not grow at all on the face, which must be a great convenience to them.
With the aid of Toron and a pair of wire clippers, I managed to trim my hair to a respectable state, leaving long locks, however to obscure my ears. I also clipped my beard as close as possible and then finished the job with a sharp laboratory knife of the sort of copper commonlyโbut erroneouslyโcalled โtemperedโ on earth, and some lubricating grease.
And behold, with the minor exception of wings, fingers, toes and antennae, I was as presentable appearing a Cupian as any one would wish to see. Thereafter I kept the knife, and shaved daily, later making myself real soap for the purpose.
The change in my appearance resulted in more delay, for I was immediately exhibited to all the classes again and was forced to write a long essay on haircuts and shaving as practiced upon my own planet, Minos.
Interest in me had lagged somewhat, and I had been given more time with my work, but now interest revived again and interrupted me considerably.
Nevertheless, my apparatus was at last completed and I was ready for the test. The next day my work was to be inspected by a committee of ant scientists, so with trembling fingers I adjusted the controls and bade Toron speak to me.
The result wasโsilence!
a hunting trip
My radio set was a failure! I could not hear Toron, and he could not hear me. All my labor of four months in the laboratories of Mooni had gone to waste.
Perhaps the Porovian scientists were right, and the earth scientists were wrong, and insects did not communicate by radio waves after all. Yet I was unwilling to give up.
So I begged Toron to talk in as many different ways as he could, and at last was rewarded by a slight squeak in my earphones. Then I myself tried, talking now loud, now soft, now high, now low, until at last, when I yelled at a particularly high pitch, Toron reported that he too had heard. The earth scientists were vindicated! Communication was established!
The sounds had been received and sent at the very shortest wave length within the powers of my apparatus, so I now determined to reduce that wave length still further.
Late into the night I worked frantically; and Toron, catching some of my contagious enthusiasm, worked with me.
At first I experimented with various sizes and shapes of coil antennae, but I was confronted with weak signals of short wave length. Any change in my apparatus which reduced my wave length also reduced my receptivity; and any change which increased my receptivity likewise increased my wave length. So I was between the devil and the deep sea. Finally I tried condenser antennae without plates; two rods. And then we were rewarded by speech, clear, distinct and unmistakable.
We ceased our work, exhausted. But before turning in for the night, Toron taught me how to say in Porovian language the following sentence: โThe planet Minos sends to the planet Poros, and informs Poros that Minos was right. Communication between Porovians is electrical.โ
I told him that my name was Myles S. Cabot, a fact which I had previously had no means of imparting to any one. Then we separated for the night.
The next morning the committee were astounded at my success. Although I was most anxious to get back to Wautoosa at once, the committee insisted on my remaining and demonstrating my apparatus, and this took several weeks more.
But at last I was permitted to return.
On my arrival I was informed that the girl was still there, so at once I requested an interview. At first she refused to receive me, but Doggo, who acted as go-between, finally succeeded in arousing her interest by hinting to her that the scientists at Mooni had discovered that I was really a Cupian after all. And a very handsome one at that, now that they had succeeded in completely removing my former deformities. So at last she reluctantly consented. Apparently she had heard no news of the great doings at Mooni.
I planned for this meeting with even more care and application than I had spent upon my radio apparatus. Everything that Doggo and I were to say and do was carefully rehearsed. My speeches, of course, had to be learned by rote, for I had as yet no opportunity to study the spoken language of Poros.
We built a head frame of heavy wire concealed in my hair, and arranged the phones so that they would lie unobserved under the locks which covered my ears. The batteries, tubes, tuning-apparatus and one rod were on my back, carried by a belt and hidden beneath my toga. The other rod and a dummy mate to it were affixed to my forehead and camouflaged to resemble Cupian antennae. My small microphone was located between my collar bones, where the front edge of my toga just concealed it. Of course, I could have mounted both of my real rods on my forehead, but that would have reduced the capacity enough so as to have increased my wave length out of the required range. Hence the seemingly unnecessary complication of my arrangement.
The need for tuning-apparatus requires some explanation. Porovians tune for the slight difference in individual wave length, by moving their antennae; but this, of course, was not practicable to me, so I employed for this purpose a microscopically small variable condenser on my belt.
To complete my disguise we even went to the extent of fastening artificial wings to my back, so that, except for the slight peculiarity of my hands and feet, I looked and sounded like a real Cupian.
Then we were ushered into the presence of the lady. She was a beautiful and regal figure, as she sat poised upon a richly upholstered dais, garbed in the Grecian simplicity of the Cupian national costume. In her arms snuggled a pet mathlab, which I noted with a twinge of jealousy.
She was unmistakably taken aback by the change in my appearance, and only a hasty glance at my hands and feet convinced her that she was not being made the victim of a practical joke. But she quickly recovered her dignity, and frigidly awaited our advances.
Doggo opened the conversation.
โGracious lady,โ he said, โMyles Cabot and I pay our most humble respects. As you can see, he is now a full-fledged Cupian, with the minor exception of fingers and toes. The object of this interview is that he may reassure you, and apologize for the fright which he caused you when last you two met.โ
I then stepped forward. In spite of my transformation she cringed a bit, I must admit. Evidently she still remembered my horrible beard, for she kept studying my face inquiringly.
I spoke my memorized piece, as follows: โGracious lady, I am your everlasting slave, from whom you need fear no harm.โ
And then she spoke! The sweetest, most tinkling, silvery voice that I have ever heard. Somehow I had known that her voice must be like that. Of course, I did not yet understand the spoken language of this planet; but I stood enchanted.
Doggo afterwards wrote out for me the substance of her remarks, which were that she was thrown in contact with me against her will, but that if I comported myself circumspectly she would condescend to tolerate my acquaintance, or words to that effect. Never once did her cold manner relax, and yet I fancied the merest twinkle of interest in her heaven-blue eyes.
We withdrew, fully satisfied that an opening had been made.
Doggo at once wanted to report the occurrence to headquarters, whereas I insisted that the affair concerned no one but myself.
โWhy should headquarters care?โ I asked.
His reply astounded me. It took paper and pencil and a great deal of explaining before I finally grasped the horrible fact that the Cupian girl had been brought to Wautoosa so that the Formians might breed us like cattle, in an attempt to perpetuate my peculiar species. No wonder that she still revolted from me, in spite of my more presentable appearance.
โTeach me to talk,โ I pleaded on paper, โin order that I may explain to her that she has nothing to fear from me, and that I will guard her honor with my life.โ
Doggo could not understand my sentiments, but he had enough friendship for me so that he respected them on my account. Accordingly he set to work instructing me, chiefly by making me read aloud and take dictation. The language turned out to be phonetic, after all. In fact, it is very like Pitman shorthand, although not quite so compact.
As I already knew the written language pretty thoroughly, I made rapid progress in the radiated language, so that in a very few weeks I became really proficient. Now I learned the names โCupianโ and โFormianโ and a great many other words which I have used earlier in this narrative, although only their written forms were known to me at that time.
I was now able to write my name phonetically. Heretofore I had used for my name the plural of the character for their unit of measure, stad, a poor pun for Myles.
Every few days I saw the lady briefly. At first our conversations were very formal, consisting on my part almost entirely of set speeches committed to memory. But gradually as I mastered the language I became able to understand her and to improvise a bit.
One afternoon, about fifty days after my return from Mooni, I said to Doggo, doubtless apropos of something that was in my lesson:
โTell me, have you any name of your own? I have called you Doggo right along, and you havenโt seemed to mind it; so it has never occurred to me before to ask your real name.โ
โNo,โ he replied, โI have no name. That is why I felt highly honored when you called me one. Cupians have names, but we Formians, except in the case of our Queen Formis, have merely numbers. These numbers are in three parts, the first part representing the year of hatching, the second the month of hatching, and the third the serial registration number of the individual. Thus my number โ344-2-18โ means that I was the twentieth Formian hatched in the second month of the four hundred and eighty-fourth year following the Great Peace.โ
Let me explain here, that a year on Poros is made up of twenty months of twelve days each. A day is twelve parths, or about twenty-two and a half earth hours; so that a parth is about one hour and fifty-two and a half minutes of earth time.
I would have asked him then what was the meaning of the other and smaller numbers on his back, but I was more interested in
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